A Deeper Love Inside (21 page)

“Okay, learning . . .,” I said.

“Thank you for the bike, NanaAnna. Riot, thank you for fixing the wheel,” I said as me and Siri were leaving.

“Thank you for the meal. You are a good little cook,” NanaAnna said.

The bike was old with a rusted fender. Colored pink with a white basket in front with plastic flowers woven on it, didn’t have a banana seat, back rack, or sissy bar.
Where will Siri sit?
I asked myself.

“I’ll run along the side,” Siri said.

I told myself I’d let her run on the side just for this time, but when
we got back, I would look for a wrench or something to knock off the basket. Then Siri could sit on the front handlebars while I pedaled.

I took the trail on NanaAnna’s property that led right to the reservation. This way I didn’t have to go on any outside streets to arrive there. I was gonna peddle up and down all the back and side reservation roads to get familiar with the place. Between the housing area of the reservation, NanaAnna’s house, the strawberry fields, and the woods, I liked the wilderness the best, especially the dollhouse. Maybe I loved the dollhouse cause it was the first safe place for us in the middle of nowhere. I never knew that “nowhere” could look so nice. I loved the stream and wondered if it led to even more water, like a pond or something. I’m not an expert swimmer, but I can swim enough to have fun and not drown. I wanted to go back to the dollhouse, but I didn’t know how to get there.

Riding with a hot summer wind blowing onto my brown skin, I felt relieved like someone had taken one of the seven bricks off of my head. First I sat. Next I stood pedaling, still holding the handlebars. Then I stood with my arms spread wide out on each side, coasting. Rocking the bike like an acrobat is something we used to do back in Brooklyn.

“School kids . . .,” Siri said. I saw them walking casually like they didn’t have no worries, no bricks on their heads, no cages for them or missing parents or sisters. I kept going, noticing them noticing me. Siri was waving at them.

“We should’ve brought some water,” Siri said.

“We’ll head back,” I told her. I was just as thirsty as her, too. “Next time we ride, we’ll fill up the backpack with water and treats. We’ll ride until we’re exhausted. Then we’ll jump off and have a picnic!” I promised Siri.

Chapter 19

She was standing outside of NanaAnna’s, by the bushes that concealed the front door of the big beautiful brick place, covered with leaves, the good-smelling, wide house, with the wooden walls and floors. Soon as she saw me riding up, she closed the book she was reading and pushed it into her back pocket.

“I was waiting for you,” Riot said.

“I’ll run in and get me and Siri some water. Then I’ll come right back out,” I said as I got off the bike and sat it on the kickstand.

“I’m going into town. I waited so I could let you know before leaving out, just like we agreed,” Riot said.

“I’m coming,” I told her.

“Not this time. I’m going on a mission,” she said.

“A mission . . .?” I repeated.

“I gotta follow up on something and check something out,” she said.

There was a pause, just me staring at her and her looking away.

“You going by the casino?” I asked her.

“We’ll talk when I get back,” she said.

“Good, cause I gotta idea, a good hustle,” I told her, thinking of the possible profit on the cigarettes.

“Me too,” she said. “NanaAnna said we only got four more days left of the strawberry picking job, and that’s it till the next crop,” Riot informed me.

The figure $270 popped in my head. That’s five days of picking at fifty-four dollars a day. That’s the minimum I would earn picking berries. But I didn’t say nothing.

“Okay, when you get into town, see if you can ask around about the mall. They must have one, like a Macy’s or something like that. Eventually, I’ll have to get a going-home outfit,” I told her.

She laughed a muffled laugh. “Okay, Santiaga,” she said.

“You gotta get used to calling me Ivory!” I reminded her.

“Yeah, well, I’m not Ebony right now,” Riot said. “I’m going into
town so I’m Rod,” she said. I looked at her. She didn’t have to tell me she was posing as a boy. I could always tell by the way she rocked her hair, and her stance.

“You really getting into this boy thing?” I said.

“This shit is serious,” Riot answered back swiftly.

“Which do you like best, being a boy or girl?” I asked.

“I like both,” she said, giving up a half smile. “Boys get more respect, especially from other boys. When I’m looking to make a few dollars, I can pick up an odd job faster and get paid more than a girl would get paid for doing the same thing. When I’m a boy, I can get girls to do whatever I tell em. When I’m a boy, I don’t have to worry about boys trying to fuck me,” she said. I smiled.

“At least not yet,” I told her. We both laughed. “And, you don’t seem to have no trouble getting girls to do what you want us to do. You have a whole army, the Diamond Needles, and you’re number 1,” I reminded her.

“Yeah, but damn that was a lot of work! When I’m a boy, I can just tell a girl, ‘Come here,’ and she’ll come. When I’m a girl, I got to do a lot of talking and convincing. I got to answer a slew of questions. Just like when I’m kicking it with you, Porsche. You got a million questions. If I don’t answer them right, you start to distrust me,” she said and then silence fell between us.

“That’s right,” I told her, breaking the silence. “You gotta answer them right or
I will
start to distrust you. Why did you close that book and push it into your back pocket when you saw me coming?” I asked her seriously. She pulled the book out and showed it to me. I read the title:
Four Arguments for the Legalization of Marijuana.

“Where did you get that?” I asked her.

“From NanaAnna’s library. It’s in the back room. You should check it out sometime,” she recommended. “See, the girls out here don’t care what I’m reading when I’m a boy. They just look up to me and think I’m about to be a successful businessman. But between girls, there is usually this layer of distrust. It’s hard work breaking through that and keeping girls tight and unified with one another. Porsche, me and you gotta get tighter, and more unified, okay?” she asked, her green eyes shining in the sunlight.

“Trust is feelings and actions stretched out over time. I think you
can organize plans, actions, and girls or boys, or whatever. But no one can organize feelings. They just come when they come and grow little by little. As far as me, my feelings come very slowly, but then they grow so wild like the leaves that cover this house. And they grow roots so strong like that tree right there, that probably been standing right there for more than a hundred years,” I said, without thinking.

“Porsche, you are a fucking pretty little girl,” Riot said suddenly. “And, it’s so much more than the way you look.”

She left.

“Should we get water from the stream or the faucet?” I asked Siri.

“Let’s go inside and use the faucet. I’m tired from running,” she said.

After drinking water from Siri’s palms, water that flowed from the faucet, we both lied down on our bed. Siri was curious about the sack. She began picking through it.

“Two journals, a pack of pens, pencils, cocoa butter, shea butter, three bags of almonds, three bags of raisins, peanut butter, a long heavy thick green leaf, a bag of beans, a stalk of corn, and some ‘feminine pads’?” Siri called out the names of each item. “That lady NanaAnna sure is strange,” Siri said. “Remember you gave her a list? She didn’t buy anything you asked her for.”

I looked in the bag. Siri was right. I didn’t ask for none of this stuff on my list.

“Take the envelope,” Siri said, handing me a pretty pink envelope.

I opened it. On the cover of the card was a pretty eyeball with long lashes. On the inside of the card was a handwritten letter with nicely drawn lettering. I read.

I gave my daughter Tallahee a journal to write in. She never did. I wish she had. Right before her thirteenth birthday she was killed in a car accident. If she had written in her journal before then, I would be able to hear her voice in her own words. I would know her thoughts and be able to hold on to her feelings for my lifetime. I would read and reread them every night. It would soothe me so much. Your life is an adventure and a journey. Your story may one day become the most valuable thing you have, other than your breath, body, and soul. Now, I am giving you a journal to write in. It is your choice.

“She’s nosey . . .,” Siri said. “Does she want you to write about your real life and feelings so she can read it every night? You’re not her daughter,” Siri reminded me.

“You’re right. I’m not her daughter,” I said.

• • •

In what felt like the middle of the night I woke up. There were piles of clothes on my bed and a few hangers poking my legs when I moved around. When I flipped over, I saw Riot asleep in her bed a few steps away. She wasn’t back when I had first fell into my sleep. It wasn’t the hangers or the weight of the clothes and shoes that woke me. It was the sound of the drums. The driving rhythm was calling me. My body heard it first, my heart and insides, and then my feet next. My toes were tapping. My mind was the last one that caught on. The beat had me going, heart racing. My feet were already moving a short way down the hall and out of the bathroom window, so as not to disturb Riot, NanaAnna, or nobody else. Outside, in the country black dark, I looked up through the trees and saw so many stars glowing. I never seen stars like that before. The moon was full and bright blue and white, lighting the dark sky like a sun. The shining stars and ferocious beat made my chest swell with feelings. I followed the sound of the drums. It wasn’t coming from the direction of the reservation housing, or from the direction of the strawberry fields. It was pulling me on a path I had not explored yet. It was light in the sky but dark on the ground. I was filled with feelings and not thinking. So fear had no space to spread out. The intensity of the drumming sound grew. I imagined that the earth beneath my feet was thumping, a rhythmic earthquake. I liked it.

My running feet paused right before a small clearing that was lit up with three torches. Below the fire sticks sat a Native drumming. His hands were moving like music. It wasn’t a familiar break beat or song he was playing. It wasn’t hip-hop. Still it had deep feeling. Siri’s humming could not compete with the thunder of his drumming. Maybe if there was a volume button somewhere or a fader, I
could equalize it like on Momma’s expensive sound system. With my clothes peeled off now, I felt the warm night breeze. Without clothes, nothing was weighing me down. My body began to heat up. It was dancing, moving only on feelings.

“There’s a girl over there sitting on the ground beside him,” Siri tried to say to me. But I let her words drift away. I was moving inside the beat where no one could reach me.

Collapsing on the ground, burning with sweat in the dark wilderness, beneath the trees that looked way larger in the deep night, I wondered if Momma could feel my heart race. I wonder if she had sent a thousand of Poppa Santiaga’s soldiers to search for me, telling them to never return until I was found. I wondered if she had a hole as wide and deep as mine on the inside, an emptiness that could only be filled by her and my true blood family relations.

Chapter 20

“Me, the raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, and bears have an agreement,” NanaAnna said as we weaved through the wilderness towards the strawberry fields once again. She was speaking to me.

“Our agreement is that I live inside the house and they live in the wild. If you leave the bathroom window open, they’ll all think I’ve changed my mind and invited them in!” she said to me. “Especially when they smell your sweet strawberry maple syrup pancakes.”

“Sorry.” I spoke that one painful word. “I didn’t mean to leave the window open. I was getting some air.”

“The front door works.” NanaAnna made her point.

“Let’s get us a dog,” Riot said. “NanaAnna, you could use three or four dogs on your property.”

“Why dogs? I have a treaty with the wolves, two rifles, two shot guns, a pistol, and a hundred knives.” She laughed some, playfully. But, I believed every one of them words.

When we reached the fields, instead of older ladies like the day before, there were bunches of school kids of different ages.

“School’s out,” NanaAnna said. “Yesterday was their last day.”

“School in July?” Riot asked.

“Native school, our cultural place for the youth,” NanaAnna explained.

It was 5:00 a.m. dark, and I was excited to see kids my age, but I had my eyes focused on picking without wasting one second. I was earning my way back to Momma, my going-home money.

On my hands and knees, with my basket at my side, I was crawling. NanaAnna and Riot had not even began yet. A small group of little kids were gathering around her. Meanwhile Riot was introducing herself as “Ebony” to some teenagers.

An hour in, and some little girl was quick picking from the row of strawberries besides me. When I took a swift glance at her, she would already be staring at me. It seemed like she was trying to keep
my same pace and work in my same section nearby. I kept it moving. She ended up being good for me. We were racing one another, actions without words, young rivals. As the sun heated up I wanted water and had some in my side pouch. I worried about how many strawberries I would miss out on if I stopped for even a moment.

A cold splash shocked me and I looked up. The young girl was standing over me, spilling her water onto my face now.

“You have to break for water,” she said.

She was tan and pretty with dark eyes and a bright smile. Her face was dirty and her hair was wrapped. We both wore T-shirts and jeans. I didn’t get red. Her icy water was already warming, then drying on my skin. “Thanks,” was all I said. I went back to picking.

Seconds later, she was one row over and back trying to catch up.

Fifty-eight baskets. I was red with myself. If I hadn’t stopped to look up, to the girl who splashed me, maybe I could’ve made sixty. My tongue was so dry, it felt glued to the top of my mouth.