The Flying Troutmans

eleven

IN THE WORLD OF CHILDREN, Min was a genius, she could navigate it in her sleep. She could read book after book to them, sing song after song, soothe them for hours, tenderly and humorously cajole them out of their tantrums, build cities and empires with them in the sandbox for an entire day and answer a million questions in a row without ever losing her cool. She had conceived them, given birth to them and nursed them into life. But out there, in that other world, she was continually crashing into things.

I should give her permission to kill herself, I thought. No, not permission, that’s the wrong word. I should give her my blessing. No, not even blessing. I don’t know what it would be that I’d be giving her, necessarily, by telling her she could do whatever she wanted with her life.

One day this guy came to her door and asked her if she had any money, he said his wife and kids were freezing to death somewhere, and she said oh, you know what, no, I’m so sorry. So the guy asked her if she had money in the bank. Well, yeah, she said. A bit. And then the guy said well, I’ve got my car here, and I know where there’s an ATM, why don’t we go there right now and you can get some money out of your account. Well, said Min, yeah, okay. So off they go and Min takes out sixty bucks and gives it to him and he asks her if that’s all she has and she says yeah, I’m so sorry, and he takes off, and she walks home alone through the icy streets still worrying about the guy’s wife and kids. And then she tells Cherkis about this and he tells me and asks me what the hell is wrong with that woman? He didn’t say it spitefully or angrily. He said it quietly. He shook his head. He was stumped, genuinely. He wanted to know as badly as I did.

Once, after she’d deep-sixed another one of her art projects early in its infancy, Min decided that what she really needed was religion and she started going to some church in the north end, in some dilapidated neighbourhood off Main Street.

At first it was great but then the pastor of the church told the congregation that they were going to start locking the doors of the church during the Sunday sermon because prostitutes were coming in off the street to warm up in the lobby and kids in the hood were coming in off the street to steal coats from the cloakroom.

Min was enraged. Since when does a church lock its doors, and especially to the community’s most vulnerable individuals? The next Sunday she brought a lawn chair and plunked it down by the front door, which she’d propped open with a sign that said All Are Welcome, and then, clipboard in hand, counted the number of prostitutes and street kids and other disenfranchised folks entering the church.

None! Zero. She did this Sunday after Sunday, there was no thieving going on at all, and then, when her good work was finished, she stormed the pulpit in the middle of his sermon, grabbed the mike and presented her findings to the entire assembly and said if this was Christianity she didn’t want any part of it, she’d rather sell her ass for crack.

We were making good time now, barrelling through the bodacious curves of southeastern Utah and ignoring all impending signs of trouble with the van. At least I was.

You guys happy? I said.

The kids smiled at me like I was a dog chasing my tail, sweet but stupid, and looked away.

Thebes decided that she and Logan should have Art Class in the van. She would be the teacher and he would be her star pupil. She wanted Logan to attempt, somehow, in whatever medium he chose, to render the majestic beauty of our surroundings.

Logan said he didn’t want her to impose her definition of art on him and he’d only play if he could do whatever he wanted to do.

Fine, Thebes said. What do you want to do?

Logan asked her if he could use the mannequin head she’d brought along and she reluctantly agreed. She had been saving it for something big, but fine, okay, he could have it. Logan crawled into the back with Thebes, for better access to her art supplies, and they hunkered down and got to work. It was difficult for Logan to work with the cast on, but Thebes helped him out with the finer details. They were at it for hours, it was a long class. At one point Logan asked me to pull over onto the shoulder so he could do something to the head. I wasn’t allowed to look. The final project was going to be a surprise.

By the time he finished, his teacher had fallen fast asleep. Okay, he said, here it is. I pulled over again so I could have a decent look at it.

He handed me a bloody mannequin head.

It’s called This Boy Is Obviously Dying, he said.

On the neck part of the mannequin he’d drawn little pictures of a sun, a girl, the road, a CD player and a basketball jersey.

There’s a written explanation that goes with the piece, he said. He handed me a scrap of paper.

I’m driving, I said. Read it to me.

He began: The goal of this piece was to depict a fictional young victim of typical street violence, attaching a certain level of humanity to a conventional urban casualty. To give it as realistic a feel as possible, I took the head onto the shoulder of a highway somewhere in Utah in the afternoon and beat it with a heavy metal rod for ten minutes. I then painted the head to look as though it was bleeding from all the places where it was damaged or scraped up. The images on the lower neck represent two contrasting influences on the dying kid, one material, violent and destructive, and the other loving, peaceful and uplifting. I see the presence of these two divergent influences as a fundamental conflict within everyone. A conflict this kid lost.

God, um…yeah, he did, didn’t he? I said.

Logan had also included the materials and resources he used for the project: mannequin head, acrylic paint, ballpoint pen, pencil, metal rod, highway shoulder, glue gun.

Where’d you get a metal rod? I asked him.

Thebes, he said.

I put the boy’s head on the dash, facing out towards the road. There was so much blood on it and it looked so real. His hair was covered in it and it was dripping down his face. I didn’t want to look at it or touch it or attempt to understand it. Logan didn’t ask me what I thought. He seemed pretty pleased with it.

It’s great, I said. Kind of dark, but great. I like the explanation.

He told me I didn’t have to keep it on the dash if I didn’t want to. In fact, he said, we could throw it out or burn it. He was just trying to make Thebes happy.

No, no, I said. I like it up here. It makes an interesting contrast with the hearts and rainbows on the back windows. Think it’ll bring us luck?

Logan put in a CD and closed his eyes.

Are you going to sleep? I said.

No answer.

Logan?

Yeah?

Are you—?

No, I’m just thinking, he said.

About what?

He kept his eyes closed while he talked. I don’t know how to say it, really, he said.

Say what? I asked.

You know, he said, I kind of know that this whole thing wasn’t Min’s idea. He opened his eyes and looked at me and then turned around and checked to make sure that Thebes was sleeping. Then he closed them again.

Oh…yeah? Well, do you—?

And it’s cool, it’s fine, he said. I mean really.

Yeah? No, really? But do you—?

I’ll go to Twentynine Palms with you, he said, but ultimately? I’m going to do what I want to do. I can take care of myself.

Well, maybe, yeah…, I said. But you shouldn’t have to, right, that’s why—

Okay, yeah, he said. But the thing is, and don’t, like, don’t think I’m, you know, mad at you or anything, or hurt, or whatever, but the thing is, you don’t…like, you don’t want us, right? He looked at me and smiled. A genuine, beautiful smile that I think was meant to absolve me of any guilt but instead made me want to kill myself.

No way! I said. That’s not true at all! That’s completely not true. I just think that Cherkis should probably…you know…he’s your dad. He could take care of…It’s not like—

Yeah, said Logan, maybe. But does he want to? Do you know that? Is he a total dick? Is he a moron? Is he alive? You know? There are a lot of variables…

Yeah, that’s true, I said, but there are also a—

And, so, but, said Logan, what I was saying before…you know, like the bottom line or whatever…you don’t want me and Thebes. Why would you? You want to go back to Paris and do your…whatever you do, there.

No, that’s not the bottom line, Logan, it’s—

And can I just ask you something? he said.

Yeah!

Do you actually think Mom would let us go? Because, honestly? I don’t think so. She’d never—

He shook his head and his voice cracked.

Do you want to go back? I asked. Because we—

Home? he said.

Yeah, I said.

No.

The van was making mysterious noises again and Logan’s CD was skipping.

Houston, we have a problem, he said.

So, what I was doing in Paris, I said, was…trying to get away from…like, far away from…basically…my family. Not you guys, not you and Thebes, but—

Mom, said Logan.

Kind of, I said. Yeah. All of that. And everything else. But I missed you guys so—

Yeah, he said. He fiddled around with the CD player and then ran his fingers back and forth over the skeletal arm that Thebes had drawn on his cast and then rested his hand briefly on the dying boy’s head. Then he picked up the map and held it close to his face and whispered the names of his favourite sequence of towns. Monticello, Blanding, Bluff, Mexican Hat, Kayenta, Tuba City, Flagstaff.

Twentynine Palms, I said.

Twentynine Palms, yeah, he said.

How’s the wrist? I asked.

Meh, he said. I can’t feel it.

When I left for Paris, Logan was twelve and Thebes was eight. Cherkis had been AWOL for years and Min was drifting. I was at university but had missed so many classes babysitting Logan and Thebes, while Min was in meetings with the voices in her head, that I decided to drop out entirely and go to the airport and fly away.

I saw Marc for the first time at the Pompidou Centre and I stood next to him while he stared at a black painting and asked him if he had a cigarette. He had a friend who worked there and that friend took us up to the roof of the building and we sat there, smoking, and I looked out at Paris and I looked at Marc and I thought, with surprising accuracy as it turns out, okay, this will be fine for a while. He asked me my name and I told him it was Aurore, and he said ha ha, no it’s not, but if that’s what you want me to call you, I will. It was the thing I liked best about him for a long time.

Where’re we at, yo? said Thebes.

I glanced at her in the rear-view mirror and flashed her a peace sign. Her face was covered in chalk and ink and she must have slept on one of her poems because there were small letters inscribed backwards on one of her cheeks. We’re almost in Mexican Hat, I said.

Cool, cool, she said. Hey, Logan, where’s your art? Did you finish?

He pointed at the head on the dash. Thebes went quiet, staring. He passed it to her and she had a closer look.

Dude, she said. She stroked the boy’s matted hair and looked deeply into his swollen eyes. She examined the tiny sun, girl, road, CD player and basketball jersey that Logan had drawn on the boy’s neck. She read the written explanation. She handed the head back to Logan, who returned it to its place on the dash.

Thebes, I said, are you okay? Why aren’t you talking?

I don’t know, she said. I think I might be depressed.

Logan and I both whipped our heads around to look at her and the van veered towards the dotted line. Nobody gets away with using the D word in our family without a team of trauma experts, a squad of navy SEALs, Green Berets and a HazMat crew appearing instantaneously in the midst.

Just kidding, said Thebes. Dope art, Lo. There’s nothing more I can teach you.

Thanks, T., said Logan. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me.

El Corazón, said Thebes, and tapped her chest twice with her fist.

We were driving through the Valley of the Gods, getting close to the Arizona border. Cliffs, canyons, mesas and buttes. It was hot, and the light and the shadows were spectacular and shifting and everything looked like it was on fire, red and orange and eroded and ancient and dry. Navajo territory.

Mexican Hat itself was tiny, maybe fifty people, named after a rock formation that looked like an upside-down sombrero. We stopped at a roadside stand and bought some burritos and fruit from a silent family with seventeen kids who kept popping up out of nowhere like spam, and sat on a rock overlooking the valley.

Where are the gods? asked Thebes. Salsa dribbled down her chin and onto her eggshell suit.

I can’t watch you eat, said Logan.

Nobody asked you to, said Thebes.

I was hoping we’d make it to Flagstaff, at least, before the van broke down. We had about two hundred miles to go. Troutmans, let’s move, I said. I hadn’t seen a garage or a gas station for a long time. Thebes dibsed the front seat, Logan sighed heavily, a sigh for the ages, and we all piled back into the mother ship.

And now, said Thebes, for poetry!

Noooooo, said Logan. I’m not playing.

Thebes squinted her eyes and pointed her pistol at Logan. Shit list, she said. It was the first time I’d heard her swear.

Logan put on his headphones. He’d taken off his hoodie in the heat but he pulled his T-shirt up over his face and lay down in the back seat.

Thebes put her feet up on the dash, next to the boy’s head, and turned my music down. What do you want to talk about? she asked me.

My first choice was nothing and my second choice was nothing too, there was so much that I needed to think about, but I told her we could talk about whatever she wanted to talk about.

Have you ever had one of those out-of-body experiences? she asked. Like, where you see yourself…like getting into a car or on a swing set or something like that? Like, for that split second you really believe that the person you’re seeing is actually you?

Yes, I said. I was listening hard, but to the van, trying to determine if it was still making that sound.

That’s wild, eh? she said.

Yeah, I said. It was making that sound.

When Logan and I were little, she said, we only knew one number: 911.

Well, if you’re going to know only one, I guess…, I said.

Then she told me a story. One day we were bored, so we called it eight times in a row, she said.

They had hung up every time the operators answered. But eventually the 911 people sent six cruisers to their house with lights flashing and sirens wailing. Min looked out the window and said oh, bite me hard in the ass. She asked the kids what was going on. They told her what they had done. They’ll charge us with mischief, said Min. Or neglect. Or some damn thing. (Another thing about our family, apparently, was that we were never able to define, precisely, or understand the charges being brought against us. Patterns of incomprehension.) Min ran to the kitchen, grabbed the cast-iron frying pan from the top of the microwave, plunked it on the floor and messed up her hair. The cops banged on the door and she opened it and told them, in a thick Eastern European accent, that everything was okay now, she was so sorry, she had wanted to heat up some perogies, her frying pan had fallen on her head, she had been knocked out for a minute or two, her husband was at work, her children had panicked but were self-conscious about their English and afraid to speak to the 911 operator. No, she had not been assaulted. No, they had not been broken into. She told them she loved Canada. She told them she loved horses. Thebes didn’t know why she’d said that. The cops asked the kids if they were okay. They said yeah. The cops told the kids that next time there was an emergency at home they should attempt to speak with the 911 operators, even though their English wasn’t good. They said okay. The cops left and Logan and Thebes watched them laugh all the way back to their cars.

Hmm, I said. I smiled at Thebes. Your old lady rules. So I guess you’ve stopped calling 911?

It was one of those stories that could have gone in so many different directions. Had Thebes been embarrassed when she saw the cops laughing? Stricken with the realization that the cops knew her mom was nuts, hadn’t believed a word she’d said, and thought it was hilarious? Or had she been proud of Min’s wacky resourcefulness, sure that the cops had bought it, or, even if they hadn’t bought it, had been impressed with the effort, and had gone away feeling happy. Another trippy day of serving and protecting. Was Thebes trying to tell me that Min could handle tricky situations if she needed to, that all was not lost, that she could live life on life’s terms, or was she trying to tell me that Min had seemed crazy to her for a long time?

I think we’re in Arizona, said Thebes. I liked the way she sat up in her seat then and looked around with fresh eyes, like things might be radically different now that we had crossed an invisible state line.