The Girl Who Fell from the Sky (17 page)

Next there was the old man: a blind army vet who needed help with the yard and some things around the house. “Niggers changed everything around this neighborhood.” He couldn’t hear the black in Brick’s voice. He shared his theories about spooks with Brick for a week until Brick could take it no
longer. Then there was the piano teacher, a widow, who heard Brick play his harmonica at the bus stop and invited him home to hear her play. She played him a beautiful waltz and gestured for him to sit on the bench so she could show him. It was the first time he had played a piano and though his hands were unsteady at first, he caught on quickly. He was a natural, the woman said. They had a cozy routine after that: breakfast, a morning walk, a little gardening, to the grocery store, home to the piano—a song and a lesson, an afternoon nap and supper by six. The widow drew him into her day as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if she had been living with a sky with no sun. He was there four months when her kids got wind of him staying there and called the cops. “Little con artist” they called him and claimed Brick was trying to muscle in on their inheritance.

The list went on and on: the single mom with a six-month-old son, the retired Jewish couple with the would-be show dog, the black man with three old Chevys on cement blocks in his driveway. These people would take him in for a spell. He’d help around the house or do work in the yard—he’d do whatever he could to earn the right to another meal and a night’s sleep indoors. He drifted for months, living on the kindness of strangers. Brick was boyish despite his size, and he charmed everyone he met. But by the time he turned fifteen, things began to change. Because of his size he looked much older than he was—like a man who could be thirty. A drifter—no matter his magazine-friendly face—was likely to be a gang member, a drug dealer, something that brought trouble.

Homes were closed to him. And he became a man of his own then.

He did odd jobs here and there. Kitchen help. Moving man. Stockroom boy. Ranch hand.

At night he’d frequent the town bar, have a beer—always too much beer. But he wasn’t an alcoholic, which was what he’d told himself on the mornings he couldn’t remember how he had found himself to this or that motel or rented room.

He went through as many names as he did towns. Monkey. Slim. T.J. People were always giving him a letter for a name. In one town he was D2 for a stretch—every stranger at the bar got the name Dee—he just happened to be the second stranger to appear in one day.

Never did he think of going home. Was home still there? Was it ever?

He wondered often about his mother. Fixed in his mind, was an image of his best her. She was smiling, seated on the old green couch when it was new, still plastic-wrapped and clean, with him on her lap. He was five, maybe six. She was tickling him with the long braid she’d made of her hair, and he was tickling back. Who took that photograph? He didn’t know. But it always made him feel hopeful. There was a witness to those good days; another person who knew his mother’s best her.

Brick continued to play the harmonica, and in the bars he’d play the piano. He’d start with something rousing, a good bar song—and always, always he’d end the night with Roger’s song.

Women loved him. He was big now; he had a wide, solid back, lean through the middle, forearms strong with Indian hair, and his chest too. His teeth, an inheritance—the best legacy of years of ancestors bred in slavery, he’d say wryly—were straight and solid. God, when he smiled at the girls! And when he played his music—what they wouldn’t do—but that was not what made him play.

“I like that song,” the women would say. “The one at the end. What are the words?” There were no words. But when a girl would ask, he’d make up some lyrics. Hum. Mmmm. Hmmm. Hum. The words were sometimes just a jumble of unrelated phrases—all related to Roger’s story, the one he repeated to himself each night. Still promising himself one day he’d continue his journey. Always the reminder of the bird-boy’s face, his promise to Roger, his now missing childhood. And always the girls had questions: “How’d you end up here?” Meaning Saint Louis, Oak Falls, Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Fargo, Tucson, Sheridan, Phoenix, Banner—small town or city. “What brought you here?” I had to run from the police, age eleven—because I was wrongly accused. “Of what?” Not being able to see what was right before my eyes. And then of lying about it.

H
E ARRIVED IN
Portland about six months ago with a bad case of the shakes. Five days into his own personal detox that he rode through on a bus. In Portland he wandered around Union Station trying to get someone to help him. It wasn’t easy to get people even to look at him: a tall man, shaking, unshaven, three days past his last shower.

Drew happened to be in the bus station that day—his weekly effort to round up more folks, get the men and women off the street. He brought a bag of literature about the Salvation Army’s rehab program and a bag of fresh sandwiches.

“I can help maybe,” Drew said when he saw Brick. “Here, have a sandwich.”

“Thanks. No. I need real help.”

“Tell me, son.”

He hadn’t been a son for so long. “I gotta get this—I gotta get through this. I can’t do it any more.”

“Come with me down to the Harbor Lights Center. We can talk about how you can do this one day at a time.”

Brick knew he was too young to go to the center, so when they asked he said he was twenty-five. Brick wanted to get a fresh start—go where he could beat this thing.

He’d been at the center ever since. First as a patient—ninety days of rehab—and now as a janitor.

It was a hot summer day, and he couldn’t cool down from his steamy shower. He went to the window and opened it. The air was still, and the summer air entered the apartment in a fresh spray. Brick’s apartment window looked out onto a courtyard as it did when he was a child. Below his window was a grilling area. To the far right he could see a swing and a sandbox. He could hear the children playing tag. He wanted to be closer to their laughter. He liked having the outside sounds in.

H
E’D BEEN OUT
of breath all day since he met her at the center earlier. The fuzzy-haired girl with the blue blue eyes was now a young woman. He shouldn’t be surprised that he’d
found her. After all the years he imagined meeting her, he had not imagined this. When did he know it was her? He couldn’t be sure. He should have known as soon as he looked in her eyes, or when she mentioned Chicago. No. It was when he took her hand in his, held it to his lips, pressed his lips against her hand, and she squeezed back.

Rachel

The whole summer, the whole look of my life is starting to change.

Jesse and I go to lunch together every day. Sometimes after work we walk down the street to the bookstore and hang out at the cafe. Jesse has me reading books and writers I never thought about reading: Carlos Castaneda, Amiri Baraka, and two books on capitalism. Jesse reads on both sides of every issue.

It’s strange doing these kinds of things with a boy. I never really thought of boys as people to talk to. Jesse asks me questions about what I like and what I want in my life. And it’s like I don’t have to worry about being a girl around him.

Sometimes Brick hangs out with us too. Jesse is tutoring him for his GED. Brick never finished school but wants to start at the community college in the fall.

When Jesse and Brick talk, I can forget that Jesse’s white, and I can forget that Brick’s black. Or Brick’s something like that. I don’t ask Brick what he is. Brick is light-skinned with golden colors in his brown eyes. He could be black or Mexican or mixed like me. He’s twenty-five and maybe at that age it doesn’t matter.

When I hang out with Jesse and Brick at lunch and sometimes after work, we talk about the people who walk through Pioneer Courthouse Square or real things: like what’s happening in the world, or books, or things like that. I forget that what you are—being black or being white—matters. Jesse makes me see there’s a different way to be white. And Brick makes me see there’s a different way to be black.

But I do tease Jesse about being Norwegian. Sometimes I think he just made it up.

“My middle name’s Gustav—shouldn’t that be proof enough?” Jesse says.

“Not really,” I say.

“Okay, wait until you meet my mom. You’ll see how Norwegian I am. Just because I can’t speak it . . .” His voice trails off.

“How do you say be careful?” he says finally.

“In Norwegian? I don’t know.”

“I think something like,
Ha det bra,
” Jesse says. “My mom would always say that. Like if we were about to touch something that would burn, or we’d be running in the house and she was afraid we’d trip and fall. It was like that was the one thing she couldn’t say fast enough in English when we were little.”

“In Danish, you’d say
pas på
. My mom used to say that all the time too.”

“H
EJ
,” J
ESSE’S MOTHER
says when she greets me at the door. She’s slightly shorter than Jesse. She has curly blond hair that goes to her shoulders. She has lines that crinkle at the edges of her green eyes.

“Rachel speaks Danish, mom,” Jesse says, and gives me a poke in the side as my cue.

“
Det er godt
—” I stammer but don’t know how to finish the sentence. I was never pleased to meet someone as a kid. How do I say: “I am pleased to meet you”?

Jesse’s mom looks at Jesse and then says in English with not even a little bit of an accent, “How glad I am you brought her. Welcome and come in.”

She steers me to the dining room where the table is decorated something like Mor would decorate for a special occasion: white tea lights burning, cloth napkins, and the special blue and white china. “I’ve made a traditional Scandinavian dinner. I hope you’ll like it. It’s good to make it for someone who appreciates it.”

“Mom, you know I’m a vegetarian now. I can’t eat that meatball stuff,” Jesse says.

“I can’t wait,” I say.

The smell of familiar food fills the house. It smells like
frikadeller
or
fleskestej? Kartoffler
or
ris
? I don’t know whether I’m imagining those things, but Jesse’s mom promises she’s made a real apple cake for dessert. “Of course, it’s not like my mom’s,” she says.

“But we have lots of food. I hope you’re hungry,” she says and points at the dishes that are already on the table. “There’s red cabbage.”

“
Rødkål
,” I say translating; it’s a Danish food too.

“And potatoes.”

“
Kartoffler
.”

And then it becomes a game. Jesse’s mom points at the beans. “
Bønner
.” Beets. “
Rødbeder
.” Cucumber salad. “
Aguker salat
.”

If only I could turn the corner and find Mor right there in the kitchen. Smiling, happy. Robbie would be at the table reading his
Anders And
comic books for at least the third time. I’d sit there with him, reading my book too. Pop getting home from work would be the day’s celebration. And we’d eat.

J
ESSE GIVES ME
a tour of his house. There are five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a deck with a grill that you plug in, and a swimming pool. All the furniture looks new even though there is no plastic on it. This is what it feels like to be rich, I think. You have nice things, but you don’t worry about them.

Jesse’s dad comes home about twenty minutes later. Jesse’s sister’s going to stay at a friend’s. She doesn’t like Scandinavian food.

“Shall we sit?” Jesse’s father says, and we do.

He pours wine into the glasses already set on the table. For his wife, first; then for me and Jesse he pours more than just a taste; and then he pours a full glass for himself. “
Skål
!” he says raising his glass.

“
Skål
!” And even though I’ve never done it before, I sip my wine after I raise my glass. Just a sip. I don’t want heredity to start working on me.

“D
OESN
’
T SHE SPEAK
Danish so well?” Jesse’s mom says even though I’ve been quiet most of the meal.

“I wouldn’t know, honey. I don’t speak the language. And as I recall, neither do you,” his father says.

“I wish that I had taught the kids Norwegian. It’s impressive that she can remember a language she hardly uses. Rachel,” she says turning to me, “what’s that?” She’s pointing at a bookshelf. “Do you remember how to say that?”

“
Boghylde
.”

“And this?” She’s pointing to the table.

“
Bord
.” The faster I answer the better.

“And that?”

“
Vindue
.” Window. She doesn’t want me to speak in complete sentences.

“Amazing,” she says.

“Ma’am,” I say. “You speak really well too.”

Jesse laughs.

“I mean, you don’t seem to have an accent,” I say. “My mom did. I mean I didn’t really hear it, but other people said she did.”

“Well, in truth, I was a baby when I came to the United States, right after the war. I’m more American than Norwegian. Sometimes it feels like being Norwegian was just a part of my childhood—like my favorite overalls or buckteeth or skinned knees,” she says.

I don’t want being Danish to be something that I can put on and take off. I don’t want the Danish in me to be something time makes me leave behind.

J
ESSE DRIVES ME
home, and I try to say good night in the car. But he’s a gentleman and insists on walking me to the door. Grandma shouldn’t see me come home with a boy. I hope she’s in bed, but I can see the lights are on.

“Okay, bye,” I say to Jesse at the door.

“Bye,” he says.

“Rachel?” Grandma’s calling me. “Who’s that with you?”

“Nobody.”

“Tell him to come in.”

It’s embarrassing to say what happens next. Jesse follows me in, and we both see a tangle of naked bodies on the screen—men and women on a scratchy videotape Grandma is playing.