American Boy (21 page)

I had seen Louisa Lindahl’s breasts, her scar, her torn underwear. I’d heard her secrets, and I knew her lies. But when I’d read her list for self-improvement, I felt as if her soul had been revealed to me. Once my eyes had traveled down that paper with its third-grade handwriting and its determined plan to advance her station in life through imitation and force of will, I felt as if I’d made Louisa Lindahl mine. No one could understand her the way I did.

“Come on,” I said, reaching a hand out to her.

She took my hand, perhaps assuming that she was going along with a joke. “Where are we going?”

“Didn’t you say you wanted to go to Denver?”

“Someday—”

“—So let’s go.”

She allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, but then she must have seen something in my eyes, something that told her how serious I was, and she tried to tug herself free of my grasp.

By then it was too late. I had a hold of her—it was my last chance, the doctor would be back any minute now, and I wasn’t letting go—

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go. I’ve still got the keys to the car. We’ll be a hundred miles from here before they even figure out what to do.”

I pulled and she pulled back. “Cut it out, Matthew. This isn’t funny.”

“I’m serious. You want to go to Denver. We can do it together.”

This was as close as I could come to a declaration of love, but Louisa wasn’t having it. “Goddamn it, Matthew! You’re hurting me!”

I released her wrist, but before she could break away from me I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her tight to my side. Louisa was not a small woman, but she couldn’t do anything to check our progress toward the cabin door.

She tried reasoning with me. “Matthew—stop. Please! We can’t do this!”

Instead of resisting, she tried collapsing through my arms. She almost succeeded in this, but I pulled her back to her feet.

The door opened, and Johnny and the cold air came in together. I was so far gone that I almost asked my friend to help by grabbing Louisa’s dress and coat. But I stopped myself, remembering that during his absence my friend had become my enemy.

“Jesus Christ, Matt—what the hell are you doing?”

There was no satisfactory way to answer his question. The doctor understood that and didn’t bother saying a word. He rushed in right behind Johnny, and used his forward momentum to put even more force into a punch that would have been plenty powerful if he’d swung flatfooted. His fist caught me just above the temple, and I was on my way down before I fully comprehended that I’d been hit. I crumbled to the floor as Dr. Dunbar shouted, “You sonofabitch! You stupid meddling sonofabitch!”

I tried to gather myself and get to my feet, but then another blow to the head knocked me back down. Had the doctor kicked me? Had Johnny? I heard the doctor say, “Out! I want him the hell out of here!”

My lips and nose went numb, and darkness crowded the edges of my vision. I was losing consciousness and I knew it. The doctor used to counsel putting your head between your knees if you believed you were going to pass out, but what was I supposed to do when I was already on the floor?

I rolled away from the most recent blow, but before I could do anything more to move out of danger, someone grabbed my feet and began dragging me toward the open door. I tried to kick free, but four hands were now gripping my ankles. Somehow I’d brought father and son together, uniting them in a single effort. Johnny had ahold of one leg and his father had the other.

My coat was open, my sweater and shirt rode up, and my stomach’s bare flesh burned as they towed me across the threadbare carpet. It was the doctor’s plain intention to throw me out in the snow, and there was nothing I could do about it.

My chin banged on the doorsill as they dragged me across it. I tried again to grab ahold of something, but I succeeded only in snapping a fingernail and abrading both palms on the frame’s rough wood.

They kept pulling until I was closer to the cars than the cabin, and then they let go—simultaneously, as if a signal had passed between father and son. Any thought I had of getting up was abruptly quelled when Dr. Dunbar pinned me in the snow by putting his foot on the back of my neck.

In the next I felt the pressure of a foot on my back, too. Because the pressure wasn’t substantial enough to be the doctor’s, the other foot had to be Johnny’s. The son imitating the father, he pressed my pelvis down as if to grind into the snow the part of me that had been responsible for sundering our friendship.

Father and son kept me down long enough for me to be reminded again as to who possessed power and weight in the world. And then they stepped off me—again, simultaneously.

Dr. Dunbar left me with parting words: “Now you stay out here. Stay out until that fucking hot blood of yours cools off, and you’re fit for human company!”

19.

I DIDN’T BOTHER TRYING TO GET UP until I heard the door close, and I could be sure they were back inside the cabin. My clothes were wet, my face was throbbing, and I started to shiver.

But I had no intention of staying there. Nor would I howl or claw at the door. I fumbled around with my stiff, freezing fingers until I found the keys to the Valiant in my pocket. I climbed into the car, started it up, and put it into reverse. I backed into a snowdrift, but then I put the car in drive and slammed the accelerator to the floor. The tires churned and spun in the snow, but finally found their traction and I sped away from the Wagon Wheel. If I’d known the way to Denver—or to Minneapolis or Winnipeg—I might have driven in that direction. As it was, I headed back toward Willow Falls.

Sure that I would soon see the pursuing headlights of the doctor’s Chrysler in the rearview mirror, or even the flashing red lights of a county sheriff or highway patrolman, I drove as fast as I dared. Curves came up before I could slow for them, and I often veered over into the oncoming lane. I hit icy stretches of road before I could prepare for them. But as long as the highway behind me was dark, I was free, and my speed only made that state more exhilarating, though that state had to be temporary. In addition to any other offenses, I was now a car thief.

Obviously, I no longer had any hope of a life with Louisa Lindahl. But even as I admitted that to myself, I had to smile at the thought. As if I’d ever had a chance! I never would come closer to Louisa Lindahl than I had when she’d lain anesthetized on the doctor’s table. The other occasions of contact had been stolen, forced, or inconsequential. The kiss had been nothing but mockery. I’d believed that I could compete with a grown man, and a man of power and stature at that, a man of intelligence and charm and good looks. I wasn’t going to Denver with or without Louisa. I was heading back to my hometown, and once there, I’d park the Valiant right where it belonged—in the Dunbars’ driveway. Then I’d walk home in the cold once again, and climb into my own bed and wait for the punishment that was sure to come my way. The best I could wish for was that I’d fall asleep quickly, so I wouldn’t have to lie awake and think about what a self-deluding fool I’d been.

Fast in the track of these realizations came a strange sensation. A calm suffused me, and it was composed of equal parts resignation and hope. As I covered the lonely miles, hunched over the steering wheel, the feeling that came over me was similar to what I’d felt driving in the other direction, when the wind subsided and the snow faded—
maybe I’ll make it.

The car’s heater provided enough warmth to stop the rattling from the chills I’d had since being stomped into the snow. I leaned back and eased up on the gas.

That was when it happened.

The sudden deceleration might have caused the tires to lose their bite. Maybe I touched the brakes. Perhaps I hit a patch of black ice. Whatever the cause, the Valiant suddenly went out of control, revolving furiously down the highway. If another car had been coming, I’d have been helpless to prevent a collision.

Eventually the car stopped spinning, only to slide backward into a snow-filled ditch. For a moment I sat there, unable to believe my luck, and paralyzed by thoughts that canceled each other out.
You could have been killed. Now you’ll never get away.

I knew what I’d find when I climbed out of the car. A few trees stood near the road, and their remnant bur oak leaves chattered in the wind. A coil of snow tumbled across the highway. Overhead a near-full moon glowed with a pale, cold light. The stars glittered like chips of mica in a black road. Somewhere, at a distance beyond sight, a wood fire kept someone warm, and that aroma found its way to me. Exactly as I’d feared, the car was sunk in snow up to its doors. In the trunk was the shovel I’d made Johnny pack, but I had no idea where to begin, or whether it would do any good.

I gave up. Either the doctor would come along or I’d freeze, and I was so cold and tired that the first option didn’t seem so awful.

At just that moment, a car approached. I had an impulse to leap into the ditch, high-step through the snow, and hide among the trees. But I stood my ground, and the car’s headlights cast my shadow back toward Bellamy. It was an old Hudson, with piles of snow clinging improbably to its sloping lines. It stopped next to me and the Valiant, though the driver made no attempt to pull over to the side of the road. The passenger’s frost-covered window rolled down, but it was the driver who shouted out to me.

“You got trouble, ain’t you?”

“I sure do.”

“You ain’t hurt?”

“No.”

“Where you going?”

“Willow Falls.

“You’re pointed the wrong way.”

The man in the passenger seat removed his hat, as if its brim might be blocking the conversation.

“I know,” I said.

“How long you been stuck?”

“Just a few minutes.”

“So you ain’t froze.”

“Not yet.”

The Hudson’s engine misfired, coughed, and threatened to die, but the driver gunned it and kept it running.

“You got money?” he asked. “We could get you out of that ditch for the right price.”

“Only a couple bucks.”

He laughed. “Then I guess that’s the right price!” The Hudson’s gears clashed, and he eased the car onto the shoulder.

In spite of the cold, the two men who climbed out of the car were in shirtsleeves. In the moonlight I could see that the passenger, a slender, stooped man, was walking slowly and grimacing as if he were in pain. But the driver was big and robust enough for both of them. He looked like a grizzly bear shaved and made to wear a T-shirt. Both men were Indians.

Like almost everyone who grew up in our corner of Minnesota in that day and age, I had been exposed to plenty of anti-Indian bigotry during my formative years. As part of this instruction in racism, we were taught to be wary and perhaps even fearful in our dealings with Indians. But even if I had taken those lessons to heart—and I hadn’t—I wouldn’t have cared that night. What could they do—rob me of the few dollars I was going to give them anyway? Steal the car that wasn’t mine? Beat me up? The side of my face was swollen from the doctor’s fist, and the small of my back ached from the pressure of his foot. I had nothing to fear from these two.

Together we walked back to inspect the Valiant. The Indians smelled of wood smoke, whiskey, and cigarettes.

“Yep,” said the bear-man. “High-centered. You’re in there good.” But this was not the expression of hopelessness it might have seemed. “You and me’ll push,” he said, “and Barney’ll drive. He’s sick, so he’s got to take it easy.”

Barney was bending over even farther.

“What’s the matter?”

“Bellyache. He’ll be off his feed for a couple days and then he’ll be fine.”

Barney obviously objected to having his condition minimized in this way. “Bellyache!” he growled. “Feels like I been gut shot!”

“You ever been?” Barney’s friend asked.

Barney said nothing.

“Then I guess you can’t say, can you?”

Then we stopped and listened. A car was approaching, the whine of its engine sounding at first like a taut wire vibrating in the wind. When I realized it was coming from Willow Falls and not Bellamy, I relaxed. Headlights swept around the curve of the highway ahead of the car, and then it appeared. The driver saw us and slowed. And then something—the depth to which the Valiant was sunk, the presence of two Indians along the road, the lateness of the hour, the quickening cold—changed the driver’s mind, and he sped up again.

Barney grunted and crossed his arms over his abdomen.

The big Indian asked me, “Got a flashlight?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know!” He found my answer hilarious, and his laugh boomed out across the dark snowy plains.

“It’s ... my mother’s car.”

That was even funnier to him. “Barney, look in his mother’s glove box and see if his mother’s got a flashlight like a mother’s supposed to have.”

By this time Barney had folded himself into the car. “Nope,” he called out. “No flashlight.”

The big Indian stepped into the ditch behind the car, and I followed. My shoes and socks were already soaked. “What the hell,” he said. “It don’t much matter. If we gotta push, we gotta push.”

“There’s a shovel in the trunk.”

“Yeah? We’ll try muscle power first.”

The snow was not as deep behind the car as it was in front. We positioned ourselves at each side of the back bumper, ready to push once Barney started the engine and put the car in gear.

“Okay,” the big Indian said to me, “get ready to step back. Barney’s going to rock it—drive, reverse, drive, reverse. Kind of like dancing.”

Barney couldn’t have heard this and no signal passed between the men, but right at that moment, as if on cue, the Valiant stuttered once, then roared to life. I was standing over the exhaust pipe, and fumes rose to my face. I placed my hands on the car’s trunk and felt its cold metal right through my gloves. I was ready to put my back into it—a chance for physical release after the frustration and humiliation of the beating at the hands of Dr. Dunbar and his son.

We pushed and pushed, but the Valiant didn’t move more than an inch or two forward. Then backward, when Barney shifted into reverse to try to find a spot where there might be a little traction. The rear wheels whined and spun in place, spitting snow up into our faces. The smell of burning rubber and automobile exhaust overpowered the odor of the big Indian’s whiskey breath.