12. River

RIVER

When Clarry bolted to the bathroom, I wanted to shout after him in time with the music. "Stop! In the name of love!"

And that right there was when it struck me.

Like a bell.

Like a bus.

Like a bolt of fucking lightning.

"Oh my God," I whispered so softly nobody could hear me over the music. "I think I'm in love with Clarry."

Yes, I suddenly felt real love for that man, something more than just friendship.

And I needed to understand that feeling even more.

"Are you listening to me?" Roxanne's shrill, annoying voice filled the air. "Did you hear what Bea just said to me? She just said she was going to throw me out of here. Well, ain't you gonna defend my honor?"

"Oh sugar pie," said Bea, her tone as sweet as molasses. "I think River's already done his duty to his nation. As for your ‘honor,' I dare say that shriveled up and died several ‘I do's' ago."

Roxanne's mouth fell open and unfortunately, we all got a look at her colorless gum. She slapped me on the arm. "River! Are you seriously gonna let her speak to me like that."

"Did you hear how you spoke to Clarry just now?" I said through gritted teeth. "He's my best friend, Roxanne. He's been my best friend forever. You don't get to talk to him like that."

"Is he just your best friend?" taunted Roxanne. "Or is there something going on between the two of you that you're not telling us?"

I wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of a direct answer. "What business is it of yours?"

"None!" answered Bea, turning to Roxanne before she could speak. "Now why don't you play nice for once in your life and leave before you say something you'll really regret."

"If I wanna say something, I'll say it," Roxanne retorted defiantly, hands on hips. "I don't regret anything that comes out of my mouth."

"I don't think you regret anything that goes into it, either."

"Are you calling me cheap?"

"No darling. That midriff crop top you're wearing is cheap. That gluggy lipstick that smudges at the corners of your mouth is cheap. Those fake eyelashes that make it look like someone poked you in the eye with a spider are cheap. You, Roxanne, are worse than cheap. You're nasty. I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't already know, but you my dear, put the ‘skank' in ‘ho'… and if I'm not mistaken, you're somewhat proud of it."

Roxanne gasped indignantly. "Now you're calling me a skanky ho?"

"Only if the shoe fits, Skankerella."

At that moment, Clarry emerged from the bathroom and instantly paused, sensing that the scene at the bar was now in full swing.

We all caught sight of him before Roxanne hissed at me and Bea. "Fine. You think I'm nasty? You think I'm a ho? Why not add vindictive bitch to the list? "

With that she grinned, took my face in both hands and planted an angry, sloppy kiss smack on my lips.

My eyes widened as I looked over at Clarry.

Clarry stared at me, stunned.

Disoriented.

Terrified.

His gaze hit the exit and Clarry bolted for the door.

I jerked Roxanne's claws off my cheeks and yanked my head back, away from her diabolical kiss.

"Clarry! Wait!"

I broke into a sprint, thundering across the room and bursting out through the doors after him.

The light was fading as twilight set in. I saw Clarry moving with surprising speed, already running along the path into the woods. "Clarry! Stop!"

I powered after him.

My legs were longer, my body stronger. I shortened the distance between us in no time before I caught up with him, grabbing him by the arm as we both skidded off the edge of the path, pulling him up to a halt against the trunk of a large oak tree.

He was panting.

Whimpering.

Looking anywhere but at me.

"Clarry, are you okay? Look at me. Talk to me. Are you okay?"

"I… you… what… what just happened back there?"

"I don't really know. Bea and I got into a fight with Roxanne and before I knew it, she was kissing me. I didn't want her to, she just did it."

"Just like you didn't want her to hug you and squeeze you on the butt yesterday?"

I shook my head, baffled. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Yesterday. Outside Mike's. I saw you both. I saw her arms around you and her hand on your bootie-patootie. Were you about to kiss her then too?"

"What? No! I didn't kiss her yesterday, and I didn't kiss her today. She kissed me ."

He was still refusing to look at me. "It's okay if you did. If Roxanne is your girlfriend, who am I to judge, right? I just wish you'd told me."

"Clarry, stop this. Look at me." I took his chin firmly in my hand and turned his face up to mine, forcing him to look me in the eye. "Roxanne is not my girlfriend. Nobody is my girlfriend, least of all Roxanne. God she's the last person on earth I'd wanna be in a relationship with."

His breathing had gone from an out-of-control heaving to a slower, steadier shuddering. "She is?"

"Absolutely."

"Then who… who would be the first?"

"The first what?"

"Who's the first person on earth you would wanna be in a relationship with?"

The question stumped me, although I couldn't deny that it set my heart aflutter. "Clarry, where's all this coming from?"

"Nothing. Nowhere." The dusk and the flush of his cheeks turned his face pinker than usual. "It's nothing, forget I even said anything."

He pulled away from me to step back onto the path, but I snagged him by the arm again. "Clarry, stop. There's something on your mind. Talk to me. You know there's nothing you can't say to me."

"Yes there is. There's one thing."

He pulled his arm free with more strength than I was expecting, and he slipped from my grip. Hastily he strutted along the path.

I moved to catch up with him, but he called back without even looking over his shoulder. "Don't follow me, River. Please don't. Just leave me alone. Just let me go, would you?"

There was a firmness, yet sadness, to his voice. It pulled me up. "But…"

"I said just let me go!"

I stood watching him leave, making his way farther along the forest path until soon he disappeared around a bend.

My heart slowly, surely, quietly broke.

I wondered what I'd done, what I'd said…

Until the pain of my time in the desert washed over me once more… that ache inside… regrets that I didn't do enough, or act fast enough, or fight hard enough.

I should have told Roxanne to leave us alone before she even opened her ugly mouth.

I should have exploded at her when she called him Piggy.

I should have shut her down sooner, grabbed Clarry's hand and walked away.

Yet all I had done was let him down.

I touched the key hanging around my neck. I thought it would be warm from sitting next to my skin, but strangely it felt cold to touch.

I realized if I couldn't be the guy Clarry needed me to be… if I couldn't be the one he could talk to about anything… if I couldn't defend him from the bullies and save him from the enemy and carry him to safety… then I knew for sure I'd never be the true hero everyone thought I was.

I'd never be enough.

Not for him.

Not for me.

Not for anyone.

My feet felt as heavy as my heart as I plodded into the kitchen.

Sitting at the table, my old man looked up from the mess he'd made. "Either you're home early or I've seriously lost track of time."

I looked at the scattered and scrunched pieces of paper in front of him, splodges of colored ink here and there, and the printer sitting in the middle of the table, every panel open like it was trying to spread wings and fly away from whatever experiment my father was conducting on it. "Dad, what are you doing? I said I'd look at that tomorrow."

"Well, I thought I'd save you some time and try to fix the damn thing tonight." He peered over his glasses from me to the machine, then poked at it with a screwdriver. "The ink was coming out all kinds of unexpected colors, like someone tried to jam a unicorn through the damn thing. So, I figured I'd take it apart and put it back together properly."

I sighed in frustration and pulled up the chair beside him. "Dad, printers don't need you to take them apart. Things are supposed to just click into place."

"Tell that to the ink cartridge I just tossed in the trash. Messy little fucker."

"It probably got messy because you broke it into six different pieces."

"Eight, actually."

"Here, let me look at it."

As I began figuring out how to fix my father's dodgy dismantling, he got up to put the kettle on. "Tea?"

"Sure. Why not?"

He pulled out two mismatching mugs and a tin of tea bags. "So why are you home so early?"

"It wasn't quite the evening I hoped it would be."

"What did you hope it would be?"

"I don't know. A fun night out. Couple of whiskeys. A good old catch up with my best friend. "

"What was it instead?"

"A stupid misunderstanding. Chaos. Confusion. So much confusion. Life in Mulligan's Mill used to be so simple. What happened?"

My old man poured tea and brought the two mugs to the table. "Life is never simple, no matter where you are. Not unless you work at it."

"Uh-oh," I said, rolling my eyes as I tried to force a bent panel into place. "I sense a Menominee People talk coming on."

"If you don't wanna hear it, I can go outside and tell it to the moon. She always listens to my words of wisdom."

"Is that seriously an option? Because I'll happily take some peace and quiet while I fix this thing."

"Don't be stupid, of course it's not an option. You'll sit and listen to my story like the good son you are, whether you like it or not. It'll make you a better person… someday… I hope."

A long, slow sigh escaped me. "Go on then."

"Long ago, Kiash Matchitiwuk told our people how day and night came to be…"

"Wait a minute, tell me who Kiash Matchitiwuk is again?"

"Didn't you ever listen to any of the stories I told you as a boy?"

"Sometimes. Yes. No. Not really."

" Kiash Matchitiwuk , the Ancient Ones, told our people of the time Manabush was strolling through the woods as the sun began to set…"

"Hold on. Who's Manabush again? I mean, I totally remember. But you might have to jog my memory a little."

My old man rolled his eyes. " Manabush is the Rabbit spirit."

"I knew that."

"May I continue?"

I said nothing as I jiggled a panel on the printer.

"One day as the sun began to set, Manabush noticed Saw-Whet sitting in a tree. You remember Saw-Whet ? The Owl? "

"Of course I do. Although maybe we can just call them Rabbit and Owl from now on?"

"I will. For both our sanity. Now where was I?''

"The sun was setting."

"Oh yes. As the sun began to set, Rabbit told Owl that he did not like the dark. He couldn't see a thing in the dark. He asked Owl why on earth he liked the night so much. Owl replied by saying the night was quiet and gentle, unlike the bright, busy day. Rabbit didn't appreciate Owl's response and threatened to use his magic to turn night permanently into day. Owl was equally as angry and powerful, and threatened to turn daytime into night. They decided a contest was needed to determine whether the world would forever exist in a state of day or night."

I shimmied another piece of printer into place. "Clearly neither of them won."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because we still have night and day."

"Why should that mean neither of them won? Why should it not mean both of them won?"

He had a point, which annoyed me. "Go on."

"As Rabbit and Owl settled in for their contest, all the animals of the forest gathered around. The animals of the daytime rallied around Rabbit, while those who liked the night gathered around Owl. The contest was simple. Rabbit began to say the word ‘Light, light, light' over and over again, while Owl said the word, ‘Night, night, night.' The first one to say the other's word, lost the contest. And so, they continued to chant ‘Light, light, light' and ‘Night, night, night' until eventually Owl slipped up and uttered the word ‘Light'."

I looked up from the printer and glanced from my father to the window, nodding at the darkness through the slightly open curtain. "So why is it nighttime now?"

"Because despite being the winner, Rabbit saw beyond what he wanted. He saw that Owl and the other night animals needed the darkness, just as Rabbit needed the light to see. And so Manabush let both the light and the night be."

I slotted the ink cartridge into place and clicked the last printer panel shut. "And the moral of the story is…?"

"For you to figure out."

"Can't you just tell me?"

My father smirked and sipped his tea. "What would be the fun in that? But I'll give you a hint. Opposites can very well co-exist. Sometimes they can't even live without each other. But for that to happen, someone needs to lean toward the other, just a little."

As I thought about his words and rubbed at an ink smudge on my hand from the cartridge, my father stood from the table and washed his mug in the sink.

After he wiped it dry and hung the tea towel on a rack, he added, "Your mother and I used to argue a lot, but there was one thing we agreed on."

"What was that?"

"Your name. Do you know why we called you River?"

I shook my head.

"Because we wanted you to always be reminded that sometimes in life, you have to bend to get to where you need to go. Bend and you'll find your way, River."

As he shuffled past my chair, my father leaned down and kissed me on the top of the head. "Thank you for fixing the printer. I knew you could do it. You're a clever boy, you can do anything you put your mind to. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to bed. Saw-Whet isn't the only one who likes the quiet, gentle night."

I did remember some of my father's stories. Not the ones from Mamaceqtaw , our people, but the ones from my father's own boyhood.

I remembered him telling me about nights he'd spent upriver with his grandfather, fishing for trout. They'd take out a canoe, a couple of spears and a lantern, and just as the Menominee people had done for thousands of years, they'd go night fishing together, my father perched on the bow of the canoe with a lantern on the end of a stick, attracting fish for his grandfather to catch.

When I woke the next day, I heard something call to me. I don't know what it was, maybe it was the voices in my heart my old man always talked about. Whatever it was, something was tugging at me. Something was urging me to head upriver, by myself, to do some night fishing.

Mike had rostered me off for the next two days, so there was nothing stopping me from leaving the confusion of Mulligan's Mill behind for a while.

I knew my father still kept the old canoe and lantern and fishing spears in a shed out back. I'd have to dust off the cobwebs, but I was pretty certain the old boat would still float. Like my old man loved to say—they don't make 'em like they used to.

Of course, I'd need to ask my father if it was okay to borrow the canoe and the fishing equipment… oh, and the keys to his pickup too. I couldn't exactly hitch the canoe to the roof of my motorcycle.

"You're going where? To do what?" The utter surprise in my old man's voice hit a pitch I wasn't sure I'd heard before.

"Upriver. To go night fishing. And before you make a big deal of it, can you please just not make a big deal of it?"

"How can I not? You're embracing your heritage. What brought this on? Was it my story? You have to admit, it was a good story."

"No, it wasn't your story. Well, maybe just a little. I don't know what it was. I feel like I just need some time to myself… clear my head… get away from things for a day or so. So please don't… make it… a big deal."

"Why not? You're going night fishing! The Ancient Ones are looking down at you and smiling right now."

"Dad, I've been fishing before. I spent my entire childhood fishing on the river."

"Sure, with a fishing rod and a big net and a bunch of shiny metal lures manufactured in Taiwan. But you've never been night fishing the way Mamaceqtaw intended us to."

"Dad, Mamaceqtaw didn't intend for us to fish like that. They simply fished like that because that's what they had to do to survive."

"We haven't just survived. We've thrived. Mamaceqtaw have been around for ten thousand years, and we didn't need any shiny metal fishing lures from Taiwan to do it."

"Can I please just have the keys to the truck before we settle in for another story about your furry forest friends?"

"Owls have feathers, not fur."

"Yes, they do. You're correct again. Nobody is wiser than you. Now can I please have the keys?"

My old man pulled the pickup keys out of his jeans pocket and handed them to me. "Of course you can, my son. I'm very proud of you."

"Thanks, Dad."

"I'll be even prouder if you catch some damn fish."

"I'll do my best."

With that I hurried for the door before he could stop me, hearing him shout from the kitchen, "And make sure you come back with a full tank of gas. I'm not a goddamn bank, you know."

Ten minutes later I'd packed a rucksack, loaded up the truck and was driving through town with the canoe strapped to the roof and the generations-old fishing gear in back .

As I crossed over Main Street Bridge, I glanced left down Riverside Promenade.

I caught sight of the purple-and-white striped awning of the ice cream parlor.

I almost turned the wheel at the last second to see if Clarry was okay…

To apologize for whatever mess I'd made of last night…

To hold him.

But then I heard the last words he said to me echo through my head.

"Just let me go."

And so I kept on driving.