HEY SEXY LITTLE BOY. I wanna scoop you in my arms and carry you to bed. ;)
The man on the screen calls himself TractorMan. I decide to ignore the cringe-worthy comment and give him a chance.
At forty, he is fourteen years older than me but age has not mattered to me in a long time. As usual for older men, he is married—to a woman—and wants to revisit an old passion.
Haven’t had it in so long, cutie, he writes.
Oh? How long?
Years. ;) You got a place we can do it?
I can host. I live in Half Lake.
Too far. I can’t drive there. :( :(
That should be the end of it. But Shannon has not messaged me for over a week. I have a feeling this time he is gone for good. And right now, it seems my hands work faster than my head.
I know a place in Geshig. If you don’t mind doing it in a car.
I prefer it!! ;) Love fucking boys in my truck.
Yet another warning sign. In theory.
I drive to a field in the south of Geshig right as the clock strikes two a.m. The leaves have already fallen, but the mix of the darkling night and densely packed trees shows nothing to anyone who might pass by. The trail is easy to miss from the road but I know this neighborhood better than any part of town.
Near the end of the trail, there is a small clearing that stops just before a steep drop and then the cold, gray shores of Lake Anders. Already parked is a big silver pickup and a dark figure, presumably my suitor and/or murderer.
When I get into the passenger seat, the overhead lights show me that he does look like the photo on his profile. Handsome, in a farmer kind of way. Black goatee and mustache littered with silver strands, beady eyes with crow’s-feet, and once he finally takes his hat off, hair thinning just above the temples.
TractorMan’s kiss is at first sloppy but slows down as he works his hands down my body.
He is taller and heavier than me, so my body is aching and possibly bruised when he stops riding me. We catch our breath for a few minutes and then he asks if I would like to join him in the bed of his truck.
“Sure?”
There are a few thick blankets in the bed that we lie on top of while we look at the late-autumn sky.
“How did you know about this place?” His breath tickles the back of my neck when he asks.
“I grew up like a mile from here. My house is still over there but we moved.”
“Did you know no one would be here?”
“No. But no one ever was before.”
“Let’s do this again. Here. Same time.”
“I really don’t mind you coming over. Don’t have to worry about anyone finding us. I mean, I’m not worried, but ya know, just in case.”
“No.” He pulls me tighter and breathes into my ear. “People know me in Half Lake. I can’t risk being seen.”
I hold in my laughter. Another man in my life afraid of being seen. It’s my curse. I used to joke that it was a curse, but now that I’ve brought a dog back to life I’m more inclined to believe in those kinds of things.
My first boyfriend, Gordon, was an older guy, just like TractorMan, but nothing held him back. He had all the confidence needed to walk in the world with another man’s hand in his and not care who saw. But it wasn’t my hand. I dated him for half a year, told no one about him, not even my mother, and eventually we broke up because of that. I didn’t want to but I did nothing to stop it from happening.
Now the only men who seem to want me are shadow men who can barely fuck with their eyes open.
Even though the night wind is cold on my exposed skin, I fall asleep wrapped in TractorMan’s arms, feeling his warm breath on my neck. There are no images in the dream, just the feeling of a man holding me. But it’s not the one in the truck. It’s Shannon. The only man I want, and he’s not even one of the four men I’ve slept with since he left me at the cabin.
TractorMan’s body shudders and we both wake up. “Fuck, what time is it?” He checks his phone and his mouth puffs out a sigh of relief. “I guess we should go.”
I leave the clearing without making any definitive plans with TractorMan. At home, I check the app. His profile has disappeared from the grid. I’m relieved, because I’m sick of finding older men who say they’re tops and then either deliver a poor, soft showing or prefer the bottom side of gay life. Good riddance, TractorMan, and good luck with your wife.
THE PHONE VIBRATES. A dead boy texts. Do you respond?
In the middle of the night, I wake to a text from the number 000-000-0000 that reads Marion. Come to the chapel.
When I wake in the morning the message is gone.
“Fine,” I groan. In the bed next to me, Basil wakes, wags his tail, and puts his front paw right in my face. I cringe as his nails scrape just beneath my eyes. I need to get them trimmed.
“Do you wanna come with or no?” Basil jumps out of bed, circles around to my side, and taps his feet on the floor. Hunger. “Nah, probably not. Dogs are sacred or something. You better stay here, boy.”
The first companion to the Original Man of Ojibwe myth was a dog. Somehow that makes dogs too sacred to be at things like powwows, so I assume it’s the same for a half-Indian church.
I lay down a few of the pads I used to train him as a pup last summer and fill up his food and water dishes. I turn on the TV to some innocuous PBS show to keep some noise and images for him to focus on if he gets lonely, and then I leave.
The morning is dusted with encroaching November frost and my car takes about ten minutes to warm up and clear off. While I wait I pointlessly look at my texts and apps again for messages from him. He’s by now made it clear he doesn’t want to talk, and I’ve had the self-control for once to not blow up his phone, but the urge hasn’t gone away.
The Gizhay Manido Chapel is named after the Ojibwe phrase for the Christian God, gizhe-manidoo, instead of Gichi-Manidoo, the original Creator (or Creatrix) of our lore. When the white people arrived I assume whoever came up with gizhe-manidoo wanted to differentiate their version of God with an equivalent phrase. If I’m not mistaken it means kind or loving God, which is kind of ironic considering what the priests did to Ojibwe people.
The chapel happens to be just a block from the elementary school park where all this nonsense started. It’s a Saturday so the door is probably locked and I’m wasting my time. Still, I walk up to the front door, grab the faded gold handle, and turn.
Locked.
“Ah don’t make me break in, Kayden.” Luckily no one is around to see the exact moment I start to lose my mind. “Meet me halfway, here.”
Right after I say the words, the handle clicks and turns on its own. The door opens slowly, and at the end of the sanctuary I see a lit candle. “Thanks,” I say as I walk down between the pews. They are varnished with a wood-burned pattern of a simple leaf. Each armrest has an animal head carved into the end, and the entire vibe of the place feels like new-agey Indian ideas. A beaded floral blanket is spread above the front of the church with a large wooden crucifix hanging in the middle.
“So, I’m here,” I say when I reach the front of the room. “Where are you?”
The candle blows out, the door shuts, and in the corner of my eye I see a figure moving.
He is sitting in the front row of the pews and stands up with a heave and a sigh, as if tired and discontent with the meeting. The ghost of Kayden Kelliher walks up to me and stands mere inches away. He holds out his hand to shake but I don’t move.
“Thinking about what Carey said?” he asks. His voice is deep and flowing with the elongated sounds of the rez accent.
“Yeah. Not to trust ghosts.”
The ghost of Kayden Kelliher laughs. “Yeah, what did he call them? White people shit?”
“Yeah.”
“Ignore him. He’s just a human. Doesn’t know shit about shit. Grab a seat, let’s talk.”
Kayden sits down in the front row again and stares at the cross on the wall. I join him but keep my distance. “So how does this work? I get three questions, vague answers, and then you steal my spirit?”
“What spirit? You don’t believe in this.”
“Let’s say for now I do.”
“Then ask away. We have nothing but time.” Kayden laughs. “A dwarf spirit told me that time is all time. Do you know what that means?”
“Sounds like dime-store philosophy.”
“Nah. I think he meant time is a false idea, that there is only the present.”
“What do you think of that?”
“I’d love for it to be true if it meant I didn’t die twelve years ago.”
“Fair enough. So, I guess my first question would be, was that you inside the dead dog? Did you possess it or something?”
“Oh boy, here we go. How to explain. It wasn’t—” He puts his hand over his chest. “Me. The form you’re seeing now. It was a part of me.”
“And that part, it’s been with me for years? Because of my mother’s kiss?”
“Ha. Good guess. But no, that’s not quite it.” Kayden stands up and walks to the table. Instead of reaching through solid objects like in movies, he’s able to pick up what looks like an Ojibwe songbook with a beaded leather cover. “I’ve been clinging to your life ever since the moment I died, Marion.”
“Why me?”
“Because I wanted to think about my baby. Maya . . . her name is Maya, right?”
“You don’t know?”
“Not this part of me. I can’t choose where I go, Marion. You ever see a pitch-black night with no stars? That’s kind of what it’s like to be me now, only I’m behind the sky. I see a flicker of light and I follow it, but I never stay for long.” Kayden shrugs his ghostly shoulders. “I can’t watch over her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I don’t feel a lot of sadness anymore. Just a longing to reach life again.” He takes a step toward me. “Don’t worry. I’m not trying to steal your life. I could, but I’d have done that years ago if I thought I’d enjoy the things you like, no offense.”
“None taken. I just hope you’ve enjoyed the view.”
“Can’t say I haven’t laughed a time or two . . . you fucking my old basketball coach, that was a bit of a shock.”
I don’t even know who he’s talking about, but I don’t doubt him.
“So why did you bring Basil to the red pine cabin?”
“How long has it been since a cabin was there? Since any of your family actually lived there?”
“I think it was torn down in like ’86?”
“I can’t imagine life without my family, yet here I am, without my family. My life story is the people I left behind. Including you.” He puts his hand on my shoulder. It feels just as real and tangible as if he was alive. “We are brothers, Marion. Before all this, we were. Because I held you. Do you know what the last thing that went through my mind was when I was alive? Not my mother. Not my grandfather. Not my beautiful Gertrude. Not the baby we made growing inside of her. It was you, Marion.
“When your mother brought you back to our house after you were born, I held you. The first and only baby I ever got to hold.” A silvery tear falls from his spirit eyes and drifts away before it hits the floor. “Now I feel sadness . . . I’m afraid I’ve held you back. Because I couldn’t handle leaving, I kept bringing you back here. But I think there’s something you could do to help me leave.”
“What’s that?”
Kayden Kelliher leans forward and a pair of wispy lips touches my forehead. “Let her meet her father.”
“Kayden . . . I’m sorry. I can’t do that. I love Maya too, but that is way too personal . . . And honestly, I don’t trust you. Whatever you are, wherever you came from, I don’t know what it is and I won’t be responsible for bringing that on her if this is some trick.”
He stares into my eyes and his start to glow with sparkling silver lights. A pointy-toothed smile spreads across his face. “If you do, maybe I’ll tell Gordon to visit you.”
I stand up right away but he is drifting away from me. His legs are moving as if he is walking, but his frame drifts along faster than his legs move, like the red rug has become an airport walkway. I run after him.
“Kayden? Kayden!”
He disappears into the door, and right as I shout the door opens.
Gerly and Maya walk in, hand in hand. They both stare at me with narrowed eyes. “What did you say?”
“Oh . . . Hello. What are you doing here?”
“I clean up here on Saturdays. What are you doing here?” Gerly asks. “And why did you shout ‘Kayden’?”
I have no ideas on how to explain this, so I decide honesty is the best policy.
“About that . . . Can I have a talk with you? Maybe without Maya.”
Gerly takes a breath, holds silent, and then nods. “Baby girl, will you go play at the park for a bit? Thanks, sweetie.”
Maya turns back to the front door, not taking her questioning eyes off me for a moment until the door shuts behind her.
“So, there’s more than one Kayden in the world,” Gerly says. “But I think I know which one you’re talking about.”
I sit down on the opposite side of the church this time, same row. “Ah, goddamn, where to begin . . .”
“In a church, boy.”
“Sorry.”
I start from the beginning, and unlike with Shannon I don’t preface it with any you’re not gonna believe mes or doubts about my sanity. I tell her what happened from the moment I resurrected the dog from the merry-go-round. The graveyard. The dog showing up at my mother’s house two hours away from here. The sweat lodge and the visit to the red pine cabin lot. But I leave out whatever happened there and what I saw, only that he told me to visit him here.
She is pale-faced when I finish but the color quickly returns when she starts to talk. “So, what are you thinking about all this?”
“Do you want my full truth?”
“Always.”
“I’m wondering why it doesn’t seem like you’re grieving for him. Why it feels like the town has just—forgotten him.”
She purses her lips and folds her hands in her lap. “Now it’s my turn for a long story. If you need to piss, get up and go now.”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay. I’m going to tell you about Kayden Kelliher.”