BY THE TIME they unearthed the colorful stacks of paper plate holders, his mother was whipping up batter. Peter felt sick to his stomach, wanted to tell her, “Don’t make frybread,” but couldn’t, not when it would get her out of the way. The cleanup was ticking along smoothly, he and Claudia sorting bags of tchotchkes. True, seeing evidence of his mother’s obsessive, disordered mind made him feel like dying. He plunged his hands into hundreds of Neah Bay key chains, colors revealing their era of origin—first the beige and navy of the late seventies, then the fuchsia and highlighter yellow of the eighties, followed by the mauve and white nineties, which is when she seemed to have moved on to other things.
Claudia wasn’t saying much as she squatted over the piles, but he could tell she was thinking on something because her brow was furrowed, and she didn’t seem to notice the aroma drifting from between her legs, warm and pungent. To be frank, she smelled like raw clams left in the sun, but he forgave her, considering that this was their smell, and the only reason he didn’t find it familiar was that he liked to be long gone by this time after a tryst.
Peter watched Claudia sort key chains by color, plopping them into plastic grocery bags, and he didn’t bother to correct her obvious waste of time, happy to see her silky black hair fall over her cheek. From certain angles, she looked like she belonged here. If he let himself think that way, it would be something to settle down with such a pretty lady, even if she was on the skinny side. A man didn’t need much more than a truck and a woman and a place to park them both. They could buy a new house and set it down where this brokedown old trailer was, as soon as it worked out. Guilt broke in. He was daydreaming about his mother’s passing, and there she was, in the kitchen.
Luckily, Claudia didn’t seem interested in sorting the fried food baskets by color. She stacked them off to the side, the puzzled look on her face being replaced by something more, a gradual dawning he wished she would share.
“We should throw this shit away.” He kicked at a pile. She winced. “Recycle it. Donate it. Whatever. There’s nothing useful.”
“I think she was saving it for a reason.” Claudia traced the thin grid of a plastic basket designed to hold a square of paper and fries, something crispy and delicious, but which had instead for years held its dusty twin. Claudia inserted her fingers into the lattice, lifted a few from the stack, let them drop.
“I’m sure she thought so, but we know better.” Peter grabbed the bags of key chains. “It’s gotta go. This place is a firetrap. You should have seen the newspapers. The phone books! She couldn’t even move around. And it smelled! There’s no plan here.”
Claudia did not answer him. Instead, she undid the knot of another bag, pulling from it four blankets, the kind Peter remembered from every couch of his childhood but last saw at truck stops, thick velour in royal blue and crimson, covered with airbrushed wolves howling at the moon and eagles with outstretched wings. His mother’s bed had nothing but a thin duvet cover with no down comforter inside it; she didn’t like to sleep hot, she said, but it bothered him, how she stinted herself while keeping blankets for beds that had never been made, never been slept in.
She was a goner. She’d been long gone by the time he got back to her. He didn’t know what he was hoping for when he bagged this shit in grief and desperation, troubled by her repeating mind, her addiction to worthless household items, the acquisition of one, then the other, and another, never satisfied with what she had, already fixated on the one coming down the pike. Kind of like his serial fuckery, but there was no mass grave of past lovers to shame him. And yet, here was hers, disinterred.
“Let me talk to her.” Claudia wiped her palms on her knees.
“This shit has to go.”
Claudia leaned in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, where his mother had surrounded herself with a heaping bag of flour, a can of baking powder, a large cup of water and a shaker of salt. Beneath the old dish towel she used to cover the mixing bowl, batter was rising, pushing the faded gingham into a conical dome that sloped off to one side. She was about to make Indian tacos, his favorite before the night his dad died, before he smelled batter and oil and blood as one, the memory a warm penny in his mouth, always. He had never been able to eat fry-bread since, never been able to go to a powwow in some distant city when he was missing home without staggering out, tears streaming from the oil and flour smell that hovered over the fairgrounds, the stray ladies in the parking lot thinking he was just another sad drunk who shouldn’t be around children.
A shiver in his chest shuddered up to a tic in his left eyelid. He couldn’t stand a repeat of this morning’s battle. A hard-won calm kept his mom in its grip while the drugs lasted. Serene, she moved like she was in water, wading from counter to counter, humming.
Peter stepped into the damp cold, leaving the door open as he braced himself with deep gulps. The more he inhaled, the more air he wanted, his chest heaving, lungs singed by his struggle to give himself what he needed. He could not get enough, could not fill himself up, but he kept trying, bending over to prop himself against the trailer, huffing clean mist until his teeth buzzed.
Calm down, he commanded. Calm down. Trying not to hug himself in case the neighbors were watching, he boxed the air and spun a tight circle like he was exercising. Any man needed to step out sometimes. After he’d thrown enough punches to heat his cold sweat, running in place, feet thrumming like the wings of a hummingbird, he was glad to find a forsaken cigarette behind his ear and a lighter in his pocket, and that burnt taste was never so good, he took it once, twice, three times, the ember hurrying toward the filter.
Now he was relaxed. Now he could listen.
“Mine never turns out that stretchy.” Claudia was such a kiss ass.
His mother must be pulling the batter apart. “Never knead frybread. That’s a mistake.” There was the thump of dough falling onto a floured countertop, like the old days.
“I’ll remember that.” Claudia didn’t sound fake, like he thought she might. Maybe she could learn something. But then, “So, Maggie . . .”
He heard bubbling—his mother always dipped a wooden spoon in the oil to make sure it was hot enough—and her silence. She could wait anyone out, a trick Peter used on his bosses, who filled his lengthy pauses with chattering, depleting their own power, unused to his peculiar form of nonresponse, which could be mistaken for politeness.
Claudia cleared her throat. “So, Maggie . . . I was just thinking about the wonderful things you’ve been gathering over the years. And I can’t help but notice that a lot of them seem like gifts.”
Did she say gifts? Claudia’s voice was softer; he backed toward the door, cocking his head to one side. The first piece of frybread went into the cast iron with a frenzied rush of hot froth. The sweat that had risen and vanished from his forehead was replaced, replenished by a line of beads across his brow. Stay put. His heart was speeding. Stay put. “I’ve seen those kinds of gifts before, at that potlatch we attended on the Quileute Reservation. Remember?”
Another ball of dough sent the oil into its fury. He had to admire the sheer cussedness of women. They were squared off now, but his mother had pulled out her stoic Indian act, and was quiet.
The smell of frybread was sucking out the door and glomming onto him. His heart ricocheted around his chest, sweat running down his cheeks; his back against the wall, he slid down, covering his eyes, keeping his ear as close to the doorjamb as he could stand, turning his head every once in a while to catch a fresh breath. He heard a paper towel tear. The bubbles were still, oil dripping; he imagined the frybread being lifted onto a plate, soaking the paper. Saw blood, too, the stain spreading across his mind.
“Were you planning a party?” Claudia’s voice was sweet. “Were you planning an Indian party for Peter? Did you want to have a giveaway to pass on some things? Like maybe his Indian name, and family songs?”
He heard a creaking wheeze, shattered coughs, a suppressed wail. Peering over his right shoulder, palm pivoting on the dirty concrete, he saw the dark crown of Claudia’s head bent over his mother’s small coiled braid, saw her hands pat his mother’s heaving back, saw his mother encircle this stranger like she was a buoy, like they were saved from drowning, the two of them sobbing together—Claudia, that pantomiming cunt—the two of them sobbing together, and him outside, dying alone.
Peter covered his face, smelled Claudia on his fingers, flung them away, stomach heaving. He crawled to the edge of the concrete pad and buried his hands in the sweet loamy grass till his nails were black and dirt traced every ridge of his palms.
“Gardening?” Dave’s voice was cheerful and loud from his perch on his porch’s folding chair.
Peter willed his eyes not to spill. “Not in the mood, Dave.”
“Why don’t you come over here and tell me why you’re crawling around on the lawn?” Dave’s cackle rattled, raspy.
“I told you. I’m not in the mood!”
“Can you drive me into town?” Dave’s smile was casual, but his eyes were fixed on Peter’s face. “My grandson has the car, and I need to pick up a few things at the post office. I got a check coming.”
Peter unclenched his fists. A breeze cooled his forehead. He saw—as if for the first time—the tall cedars, how their limbs danced in the wind, how a light rain put a shine on bicycles tipped over in the long grass down the street. He did not want to accept the weight of that entire stinking trailer on his back, on his still young life, the burden of their shared past too much for anyone to bear. He’d stayed away for good reason. The shadow of his father’s death made him crazy.
Dave stepped toward him, beckoning. “Come on over here while I get myself together.”
Peter felt his legs moving, heard his loud steps through the soggy grass, his body on autopilot, thoughts dragging behind like a bunch of cans.
“Atta boy!” Dave held the door open. Dull smells—musty smoke, ripe dishes—wafted out. “I won’t be a minute.” He shuffled to the back bedroom, shouting, “I’ll take a quick piss, get my coat, and we’re off.”
Peter sat down on the couch, reminding himself not to shake hands later. He doubted Dave was a hand washer. It was clear to him that Beans was living here most of the time now. Though they hadn’t spoken, Peter saw him escorting a pudgy—pregnant?—young woman into the trailer when Dave was down having lunch at the senior center. It wasn’t for him to say anything; for all he knew, Dave agreed to it. Maybe Dave was tickled to know there was life left in this dated furniture. Something more than waiting for the end.
Peter checked his pockets, grateful he kept his wallet, keys, smokes, lighter and a knife on him at all times. He would not have to go back to that house for at least an hour. Let Claudia deal with the bullshit she’d been trolling for all along. He would have nothing to do with it. His Indian name. Please. His mother didn’t speak a word of Makah. Never had. Neither had his dad. She was turning Indian in her old age like she’d turned to the church when he was a teen, hoping something would take away the anguish. Nothing could do that but death.
Dave was taking his time. It’s not easy having an old pecker. Peter’s eyes wandered over the newest things in view. A flat screen TV took up one corner—timber money must have come in, either that or Dave’s son had coughed up some fishing cash, what with his boy crashing there—and, below it, a gaming system curled in its cords. Would a good father buy games when what his son needed was a car of his own and maybe a computer?
Peter could never spend more than ten minutes with his own kind without criticizing. That’s what his mother accused him of as a boy, when he still listened to her because he thought she had something on him. What she wanted was a pallbearer for her pain. He wasn’t having it.
“Ready?” Dave stood above him. How long had he been there?
Peter tried not to be obvious about helping Dave into the truck, but he held the door and an elbow and kept close behind him to break the fall, if it came. No busted hips on his watch. When he started the engine, a shadow flitted across his peripheral vision. His mother and Claudia, their arms around each other, standing behind the screen door. His mother’s hand was on the screen—don’t push too hard, I just replaced that, he thought—straining the mesh into black folds radiating from her small palm. Her mouth opened and closed. Was she calling to him? Their faces were swollen, watery behind the crosshatched wire, and they looked unsurprised to see him leave without saying goodbye. He’d felt that expression on his own face more times than he could count.
The truck was rocking. Dave waved with both hands, in a frenzy. “Those two are getting along. Claudia’s been coming out for a few years now. Hasn’t stopped by my place this time.” He fumbled with the seatbelt, the metal tongue missing the slot, eyes and hands moving at cross purposes. “I hear you’ve been keeping her pretty busy.”
Peter’s foot twitched off the gas. They coasted downhill.
Dave slapped the dashboard. “Say, this is a nice truck.”
The post office couldn’t come soon enough. When they got down the hill, Dave cranked down the window, leaned out and called “How’s it hanging?!” to every codger he knew.
He knew everybody. Peter arced left between the clinic and the Presbyterian Church—“the rock and the hard place,” his dad used to call them, his mom shushing him—and hung a right along the waterfront. A line of flags flapped in front of an open building, a beamed structure with a peaked roof.
“Seen the new veterans memorial?” Dave blew on his hands. “Your dad’s up there.”
“Fancy.”
“That’s where the Spanish built their fort back in the day. There’s a write-up in there. Doesn’t say we chased them off.”
“Figures.”
“Want to stop by?”
“Maybe later.” Peter sped up once the road straightened out.
“Slow down here, kid. Let me introduce you around.” There wasn’t much for Peter to do but what he was told. That’s how he ended up in front of the senior center, swarmed by elders who squeezed his forearms and patted his shoulders and haha’d in his face once he stepped out to give an old girl the hug she demanded, claiming to be his great auntie. She probably was, too. Her face sank to the bottom of a sea of wrinkles that moved when she called him handsome, pinching his biceps with her tiny hand.
If they hated him for leaving his mom, they didn’t say so. They were all long-toothed smiles and not too many questions, which he liked. More shuffled down the long wet ramp from the center’s side doors, overhung with big beams that would look at home floating in the flat gray bay. Peter wanted to tell them to go inside. It was too cold and close to Christmas for them to risk their health. He stood, grinning like an idiot.
Trucks and SUVs slowrolled the scene, drivers and passengers angled toward him, zeroing in on him and saying things he couldn’t hear. They didn’t look friendly but didn’t seem mean, either, their faces set to a weary suspicion he recognized in himself. Peter shook hands, wishing he had washed up and cleaned his nails, careful not to crush bones in his sudden eagerness to be accepted. His great auntie latched onto his arm.
“Married?”
“Not yet.” Peter was stunned by his own answer. Not yet?
“Kids?”
“No, ma’am.” None that he knew of.
“Job?”
“I’m a commercial diver. A welder. But I quit to come take care of Mom.”
A mild stream of approving murmurs gurgled around him, accompanied by bobbing crests of wispy white hair. A thin, straight-backed man stepped up. “Will you bring her down to see us? It’s been a while.”
“I’ll tell her you asked after her.”
Dave broadened his stance and lowered his head like a bear, his face not as friendly as it had been. “We best be going. We got a lot to get done, eh?”
Kissing his auntie’s hand for good measure, Peter backed toward the truck. He felt the warmth of the engine block and slid toward the cab and into the front door, making sure not to insult Dave by spotting him in front of his peers. Dave hoisted himself onto the seat and arranged his legs, pulling his knees into proper formation one at a time.
“Was that so bad?” Dave stuck a hand in front of the windshield to waggle his fingers at a guy forklifting pallets of nets by the marina.
“You got more family reunions planned before we get to the post office?”
Their eyes met. Peter’s mouth quirked. Dave laughed and waved him on. For now, that was enough.