Topping From Below (20 page)
Sometimes I think about summer and if we’ll ever go camping again. I hope we do, but if we don’t, that’s okay, too. I always liked those trips, even though Billy was a nuisance. Our trip to Flaming Gorge was typical—I go off, and he has to follow. I could hear his voice coming through the trees, a whiny voice that was trying to slow me down. Wait for me, Franny! he kept yelling. Wait for me! The path wound up into the mountains, getting narrower as it got higher. The trees thinned out, and the air smelled of dry leaves and dust. When I reached the edge of a cliff, loose rocks crumbled under my feet, and I could hear them as they fell into the canyon far below. I kept going up, following the trail, and I pushed my sleeves up to my elbows, wondering when the air had lost its chill. Then I heard Billy scream, more like a surprised shriek, and the muffled sound of falling rocks. He had probably stumbled, I thought, and I could picture him sitting in the middle of the path, sulking, his jeans scuffed at the knees, his pea-green sweatshirt plastered with dirt. Or maybe he got scared because he was alone and imagined bears were closing in on him. I hesitated, debating the pros and cons of going back. I wanted to get to the top of the mountain, but if I didn’t go back, Mom and Dad would nag at me later. Can’t you be more considerate? they would say. Be nice to him for a change—it won’t kill you to play with your little brother once in a while. Well, I know how that goes.
I went back to find Billy, taking my time, angry that he always spoiled my fun. If he couldn’t keep up with me, he should just stay behind with Mom and Dad. I heard him sobbing and saying something I couldn’t understand, and as I turned the bend, right before the cliff, I saw him sliding down where the path had given way. And the first thing I thought was this: he must have been looking at the confetti-colored mountains instead of where he was going. I started to yell at him, to tell him to watch where he was going from now on, and then it hit me: he was just about to go over the edge of the cliff. Sometime earlier he must have taken off his sweatshirt because it was tied around his waist, and his arms were scratched from the pebbles and his hands were clawing at the rocks and dirt, trying to find a hold, but he just kept crying and slipping down. I remembered screaming for my dad—Isn’t it funny how parents know which screams to ignore and which ones to answer? —and hearing him and my mom running up the path, frantic, Mom yelling our names over and over. But by the time they got there, Billy had already fallen over the edge.
The Sioux believed in spirits. Hocus-pocus, abracadabra, bugaboos, specters, whatever. Most people would be afraid of ghosts, chase them away, but not the Sioux. Ghostbusters, they weren’t. In fact, just the opposite—they wanted ghosts to pay them a visit. Friendly spirits, the Sioux believed, could help a man by giving him power. And if a man had power, he had everything: insight, peace of mind, strength to win battles, protection from diseases, and just about anything else a warrior could ever need. But if the spirits didn’t give him power, he was doomed to fail. Power was a necessity of life back then, and the way a man got it was in spirit visions, in dreams. Right before the battle at Little Bighorn, the spirits came to Sitting Bull in a dream and told him about the fall of General Custer. Soldiers will fall into your camp, the spirits told him, like grasshoppers falling from the sky. And they did.
Power is an important thing to have, especially when you’re fourteen and counting coups. I’m working on my dreams so I can have more power, but I don’t remember too many of them—just the one about the liquor store, because I’ve had it more than once and every time I get it, I wake up. I dream that I hold up a liquor store and now I have to spend the rest of my life in prison. In my cell, I’m pacing back and forth, and I’m thinking, If only I could do things over again, I wouldn’t rob that store. I want a second chance, I’m thinking, I want to do things differently. I mean, what good is the money if I can’t spend it? Then I wake up, still kind of groggy and not knowing exactly where I am, and I feel trapped, like my life is ruined just because I robbed that stupid store. I look around the room and see my jacket on the floor, a stack of Prince, Michael Jackson, and Boy George and Culture Club tapes, a Ghostbusters poster thumbtacked to the wall, and then I realize I’m in my own bed, not in jail, and I feel relieved because I got a second chance. So I’m lying there, feeling good for a while, and then I think, It doesn’t make any difference how I feel because it never really happened: it was only a dream. Well, I know why I keep dreaming about the prison—you don’t have to be a shrink to figure that one out.
When Mom and Dad got to the cliff, Billy was already dead. I was up the path, I told them, when I heard him fall. Something I didn’t tell Mom and Dad: I let him go. When I saw him slipping, I screamed for Dad, then I got down on my stomach and went over as far as I could and grabbed Billy’s hands. The silvery medical bracelet that he always wore on his left wrist glinted in the sun. Hold on, I told him, Dad’s almost here. And for a moment everything was quiet, and I knew Billy would be okay, and I decided right then that the next time we went hiking I would let him tag along. The sun was coming over the mountains, the air was warmer, and all I had to do was hold on to him until Dad got there. I heard them pounding up the path, my mom and dad, making so much noise it seemed as if they were bringing the cavalry. Rocks rolled past my head; the ground was moving, I thought, and suddenly I realized it wasn’t the ground, it was me—we were both slipping, and I couldn’t stop it. Billy was crying again, and I knew I had to let go of one of his wrists so I could grab something, and as I did let go he gasped and flung his free arm against the soft ground, digging his fingers into the soil, the dirt breaking off into his hand in clumps. Don’t let me go, he cried, his dark hair falling over his eyes, and I wanted to calm him so I said, Don’t worry, I won’t, and I tried to act calm myself, even though inside I felt scared like never before, and outside my arm was aching and feeling like it was being pulled out of its socket, while my other hand was behind me, searching for a tree, a branch, a boulder, anything, but nothing was there. He was too heavy for me to pull up; all I could do was slide with him, and I knew we were both going over the edge and we were both going to die. So when he looked up at me, his eyes panicky and his cheeks wet with tears and smeared dirt, I opened my hand and let him go.
Visions don’t come easy. It’s not like you can sit down and say, Okay God, I’m ready, give me your best shot. Before Sitting Bull had his soldier/grasshopper vision he had to perform the Sun Dance ceremony. The Sun Dance, well, it’s a bit extreme but I guess the Sioux were living in extreme times. It goes like this: First, a warrior pierced his chest and inserted wooden skewers through the skin, then he got a long cord and tied one end to the skewer and the other end to a pole. He would lean back from the pole until the cord was tight, then lean even farther until it finally ripped his skin and the skewer fell loose. Not a pretty sight, but it worked. All that pain kind of put him in a trance so he could communicate with the spirits and see a vision. To be successful the Sioux needed power, and in order to get power they needed a vision, and if they wanted a vision they had to suffer—it’s kind of logical the way that works out, one thing just leading to another. And even though it may seem drastic today, it worked for the Sioux and it worked for Sitting Bull: Custer tried, but he never got away.
Today I got caught. They had a man staked out, watching the bikes. So I’m sitting here, holed up in the principal’s office for over an hour already, watching the white-haired secretary cut stacks of paper in half with a giant green paper cutter, the steel blade coming down with a slicing swoosh! while the principal, a pear-shaped man with fat cheeks and no hair, eyeballs me, every once in a while saying something profound like, You’re in serious trouble, young lady, and I’m thinking, What would Sitting Bull do in this situation? But before I come up with a plan, my father walks in, and he just stands there for a moment and stares at me, looking defeated and bewildered and hurt all at the same time, and it makes me forget about Sitting Bull and the Sioux, makes me want to cry to see him looking so fragile like that, as if his world had shattered into a million pieces, and I’m thinking, Maybe it’s time to come clean and tell him why I had to steal all those bikes and tell him how I let Billy go. But then he just shakes his head and squares his shoulders, doesn’t even ask me why I took the bikes, and he says, You’re going to pay for every one of those bicycles if it’s the last thing you do, and he turns away and starts talking to the principal about working out a suitable punishment and not calling the police and not suspending me because, after all, I am a straight-A student and have never been in trouble before. And all the time he’s ignoring me, like I’m not even in the room, and so right then I know that I’ve failed Sitting Bull, that my power isn’t strong enough, that I’m going to have to try even harder.
So I reach in my pocket and play with Billy’s medical bracelet, turning it over in my palm, remembering how it snapped off his wrist before I let him go. Then I see the paper cutter on the edge of the counter, a stack of papers beside it, the secretary in the next room, drinking out of a blue coffee mug, and I think about Sioux bravery, about suffering to gain power, and while no one’s looking I walk over and put my little finger under the edge of the raised blade, then grab the handle with my other hand, ready to bring it down, thinking all along about the Sioux logic of one thing just leading to another.
Under the blanket still, I lie on the couch, not moving, Franny’s story in my hand. I close my eyes. Franny hadn’t always been plump and timid, although that’s how I remember her. I had forgotten what she’d been like before Billy died: playful, brash, gangly, and, as my father said, a bit of a tomboy. All that changed after my parents died, after Billy died.
I open my eyes when I hear M. walk into the room. I no longer have the inclination to yell at him about my forced mummification. The event seems a long time ago, and slightly unreal. He sits in an armchair next to me, crossing his legs at the knees. For a while, neither of us speak. I find comfort in his presence, which earlier had been so threatening; there is something anodyne about him now, something soothing in his soft sweatpants and the loose folds of his cable-knit sweater.
Finally, and very quietly, he says, “At first, I couldn’t understand why Franny stayed with me, considering everything I did to her, the whippings, the pain, the humiliation. She certainly didn’t stay out of enjoyment. It must be love, I told myself; it had to be love. I suppose that was my ego talking—believing she would endure anything, even acts vastly counter to her nature, to secure my love.”
He lifts his hand and points in the direction of Franny’s story. “After I read that I changed my mind. What do you think? Was she still counting coups, still trying to make up for Billy’s death? It seems likely, although I doubt if she realized it herself. She probably thought she was acting out of love. I broke up with her soon after. You see, Nora, even I can be compassionate. Her entertainment value diminished when I realized the depth of her problems. I felt a twinge of guilt using her solely for my own amusement.”
I say nothing, feeling very tired. Outside, the wind blows gently. It must be very late. “Is it all true?” I ask. “The way she tried to save Billy? And the way she cut off her finger? I remember my father calling me from Montana. He said she accidentally severed it while trying to cut papers in half.”
“That’s what Franny told your parents. They never knew the truth about her finger. They never knew the truth about Billy.”
I look down at the blanket. “But you knew,” I say. “You could’ve told her it wasn’t her fault. She was only a kid; she wasn’t strong enough to save him.”
Softly, M. says, “Don’t you think I tried? Of course I told her she wasn’t responsible, but she wouldn’t listen. Her guilt was too deep. She even felt responsible for your parents’ deaths.”
I look over at him, not understanding.
“If Billy hadn’t died, they never would’ve moved to Montana, and if they weren’t in Montana, your parents wouldn’t have died in a car accident there.”
I say nothing, thinking of the illogical thought processes that went through Franny’s mind. I could’ve helped her if I’d known the truth. I could have tried. But instead she told M. I was her sister, yet she chose to tell him. I sink farther into the couch, bringing the blanket up to my chin, feeling so very weary.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” I say out loud, but M. doesn’t reply. We both know the answer to that question.
“Sit up,” he says, coming over to me. When I lean forward he sits down on the couch, then pulls me back into his arms. I lay my head on his chest, letting him hold me, feeling the warmth and softness of his sweater. His demonstration earlier this evening does not prove to me he isn’t a killer, but I’m not afraid of him. Not now, not tonight. I just want someone to hold me.
For several weeks now, I go to M. whenever he calls. He is full of surprises, and never—ever—is he boring. When I know I’ll see him, I get a nervous knot in my stomach, part anticipation, part excitement, but mostly fear. I never know what to expect from him. One day he’ll be kind, the next day borderline sadistic, and a day later paternal. I can see why women are delighted by him. He has, as Franny wrote in her diary, a knack for endearing himself to those around him; he has a protean ability to transform himself, to become whomever you want him to be. I started out so sure of myself, confident in my ability to seduce M.—but now I wonder who is seducing whom.