Also Known as Rowan Pohi (5 page)

"This isn't how I pictured it. I mean, how we'd bury him."

"What's wrong now?" Marcus asked impatiently.

Poobs glanced around again. "I don't know. It's such a crappy place."

Marcus swore. "What did you expect, Arlington National Cemetery?"

"Just someplace better than this," Poobs murmured. "I mean, for me, it wouldn't matter. I honestly don't care where they bury me. But Rowan was different from us. Rowan had a chance to be somebody."

"Rowan was a figment of our imagination," Marcus shot back. "C'mon, let's finish this."

"Okay," I said. "Does anybody want to say anything?"

There was a long pause. For some fool reason a wave of sadness—the real kind—washed over me.

"He will be missed," Big Poobs finally said.

"Uh-huh," I agreed. My throat felt so tight I didn't trust myself to say more than that.

"Bye, Rowan," Big Poobs said softly.

We started to turn away, but Poobs grabbed my arm.

"No one will even know it's here," he said. "Shouldn't we mark it somehow?"

"How?"

Big Poobs crouched down. Using one of the sharp sticks, he wrote three letters in the dirt. Then he stood and flashed a narrow beam of light onto the ground.

R I P

I stood there without moving.

Rowan Ian Pohi.

Rest In Peace.

S
UPPER ON SATURDAY NIGHT WAS HOT DOGS PLUS MACARONI
and cheese. My father didn't have to work on the weekends, so we ate earlier than usual. Saturdays he usually went to a seven o'clock AA meeting.

The weather forecast called for T-storms that would bring in cooler temperatures, but the storms hadn't come. It was one of the warmest days of the summer.

"Did you buy Popsicles?" I asked my father as he was cooking.

He shook his head. "What I would really love right now is a cold beer."

That jolted me. "But you—"

"I know I can't have one." He rolled the hot dogs in the fry pan. "But that don't mean I don't want one somethin' fierce."

Doesn't mean,
I mentally corrected him, though I didn't say it out loud.

He ripped a paper towel off the roll and used it to wipe his face. "Haven't you ever wanted something real bad even though you know you can't have it?"

"Yeah," I admitted. A picture of that tall Whitestone girl flashed through my head.

"Well, all right, then." He turned off the heat under the pasta. "Tell Cody it's time to set the table."

I found Cody in his bedroom. Today the feather stuck in his hair was from a pigeon, a germ-riddled bird if ever there was one. He stood with his back to me, bending over the middle drawer of his bureau. When he heard me come in, he quickly closed the drawer.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Nothing."

That got me suspicious, but I didn't let on. "Wash your hands. You need to set the table."

Ten minutes later it was time to eat. While my father and Cody were sitting down, I slipped out of the kitchen and into Cody's bedroom. I opened the middle drawer of his bureau.

Son of a bitch, there it was.

The bear-claw Indian necklace.

The little thief.

I stormed back to the table and got in Cody's face. "Do you have something to tell me?" I demanded.

I gave him a moment to come clean, but he said nothing. From his innocent expression you would have thought he was rocking a halo instead of a pigeon feather on his head.

"What's wrong?" my father asked.

When I took the necklace out of my pocket, Cody was outraged.

"That's mine! You took it from my room!"

"You stole it!" I yelled.

"I did not!" Cody shouted back.

"He stole it from Kopsky's bead store," I explained to my father.

"Give it here," he ordered.

He fingered the necklace with his big, dark hands. Then he glanced up at me. "Didn't Grandma give him ten dollars?"

I folded my arms. "Yeah, but that necklace cost a hundred. He spent the ten on a toy tomahawk."

"Uh-uh!" Desperately, Cody shook his head.

My father gave him a level look. "Did you steal this?"

Cody's lower lip trembled. "But—"

My father cut him off in midsentence. "But nothing! You know what they do to people who steal? Huh? They put them in jail! You want to go to jail?"

Like me?
he could have added, but I guess he didn't have to.

Cody wasn't completely stupid. "They don't put little kids in jail."

"They can put you in juvenile detention." My father glared at Cody. "That's no walk in the park, mister."

What would Mom do?
I wondered. Immediately I knew the answer.

"We gotta go to the store so you can give it back," I told Cody. "You've got to tell Mr. Kopsky you took the necklace, and apologize."

Cody's eyes were wide with panic. "I can't go back there! He'll be so mad! He'll yell at me!"

My father swallowed a bite of macaroni. "You should've thought about that when you stole the necklace. Bobby's right. You're going back right after supper."

"No!" Cody protested.

"Be quiet," my father said sharply. "I've heard enough from you."

Cody had lost his appetite, but my father made him sit there while we finished eating. By the time we had cleaned up the kitchen it was five o'clock; on Saturdays the bead store stayed open until six. I put the necklace into a small paper bag. I found my brother in a corner of the den, trying to look invisible. Turf was curled up nearby. My father was there too, watching a TV show about bass fishing.

"C'mon," I told Cody.

"No!"

"You don't got much choice in the matter," my father said. "Get going with your brother. And put some snap in your step."

Cody started to cry. "But I don't want to go, Daddy."

My father put his big hands on Cody's shoulders. "Sometimes you just gotta face the music. You'll feel better when it's over."

"I will not," Cody whimpered, but he followed me out the door anyway.

My brother shuffled his feet, walking as slow as humanly possible all the way to Kopsky's. I felt sorry for the kid. From the tragic look on his face you would have thought he was being dragged off to the guillotine.

"I don't wanna go," he kept moaning. "He's going to be so mad at me, Bobby."

"Maybe not," I said. "He might even appreciate that you're honest enough to admit what you did."

"He will not! He's gonna yell and scream. He's probably gonna hit me!"

I shook my head. "I won't let him do that."

That brought some temporary relief to Cody's face, but a moment later he looked miserable again. He halted on the sidewalk.

"I'm not going, Bobby. I'm staying here.
You
bring it back."

By now I'd just about run out of patience. I grabbed his hand and yanked him off the spot. "You're going to that store if I have to carry you there myself."

My brother was a total wreck, tears streaming down his face, by the time we entered the bead store at five thirty. I was nervous too. Even though I'd tried to reassure Cody, I honestly didn't know how Mr. Kopsky would react. The store was practically empty when we walked in. Kopsky was standing behind the counter, per usual, a toothpick between his teeth.

I cleared my throat.

"We came here," I began, "because of, well ... it's about my little brother."

Cody had moved directly behind me. When I swung around to present my brother, Cody swung around too, hiding behind me. This happened three separate times, and it would have been funny if it wasn't so pathetic. I finally grabbed him and pulled him forward, front and center.

I handed him the paper bag. "Give it to Mr. Kopsky."

Without looking up, Cody placed the paper bag on the counter.

Mr. Kopsky picked up the bag and peered inside. He tilted it, allowing the necklace to slide into his big hands.

"He didn't pay for it," I explained.

I had a slim hope that Mr. Kopsky might nod, or show by his expression that he understood, but the look he gave Cody was a hard one. "He stole it, you mean."

Cody's eyes were fixed on the floor.

"Tell him," I urged.

My brother tried to speak, but no sound came out.

"Louder!" I ordered.

"Sorry," Cody said in a hoarse whisper. He didn't look up.

"He knows he did the wrong the thing, taking it without paying," I explained. "He—"

"You're the Steele kids, aren't you?" Kopsky said.

"Yeah."

Kopsky's upper lip curled back in a sneering smile.

"I know what your father did. I read all about him in the newspaper. Iron Steele."

I worked my jaw. "That has nothing to do with this."

"Oh, really?" Kopsky stared from Cody to me like we were repulsive things he had found stuck to the bottom of his shoe. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't call the police."

At that word Cody rocked back; I could feel his whole body trembling.

I tried to work up a smile. "He's only five," I said lamely.

Kopsky glared. "Your daddy went to prison. Now your brother admits to robbing my store. I guess it runs in the family."

That's one thing about me. Push me; fine. Push me hard; I can handle it. But push me too far—watch out.

"Go outside," I told my brother. "Wait for me."

Cody didn't need any prodding. He vanished, banging the door behind him. Then it was just Kopsky and me. The smirk on his face made me sick to my stomach.

"You shouldn't talk to a little kid like that," I told him.

"How dare you lecture me!" Kopsky shouted. "Get out of my store! Get out or I will call the police!"

More than anything in the world I wanted to grab Kopsky by the shirt, pull him over the counter, and tune him up good. But that would have been disastrous. I knew that my only option was to leave. Reluctantly, I walked to the door.

"Don't you ever come back to this store!" he called after me.

I
RAN FIVE MILES THAT NIGHT. IT WAS A HAZY EVENING, BUT
even so, I could still look up from the pavement to see the White-stone buildings glowing on the hill.

Haven't you ever wanted something real bad even though you know you can't have it?

It was easy to pick out the rounded dome of the planetarium that had just been built. That, in a nutshell, showed the difference between Whitestone Prep and Riverview High School. They had just completed construction on a twenty-five-million-dollar, state-of-the-art planetarium. We couldn't even get our parking lot repaved.

Later I stuck my head back into the book I was reading,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
My favorite character was Chief Broom, the big Indian guy who never speaks to anyone in the mental hospital so people assume he's stupid. He has plenty of deep thoughts in his head, but he keeps them hidden. Everybody in the hospital thinks that Chief Broom can't talk—everybody but Randle McMurphy. Only McMurphy understands that Chief Broom isn't some kind of retard. McMurphy knows how strong the big Indian really is. He keeps encouraging him to bust out of that hospital, get away from Nurse Ratched, but Chief Broom doesn't leave. I guess he's too afraid.

I read for as long as I could, but when the words started swimming I snapped off the light and closed my eyes. Usually a long run left me so tired I'd fall asleep within minutes. But sometimes it worked in reverse. All that exercise and fresh air jacked me up like caffeine, and I'd lie in bed wide awake.

That's what happened now. I started thinking about Mom. Her cooking. The way she could take bad things and turn them into good. Like she'd take a bunch of limp vegetables and somehow whip them into an amazing stir-fry. Or if the milk in the refrigerator was sour, no problem: she'd use it to make hermit cookies with molasses and raisins.

Thinking about Mom always dredged up sadness, so I jumped from her to other people. My father. Cody. Mr. Kopsky.

I guess it runs in the family.

That smug look on his face put a bad taste in my mouth. To rinse it out, I thought about that tall blond Whitestone girl.

One person I tried
not
to think about was Rowan Pohi. Inventing him had been fun at first, but picturing his grave in that empty city lot made me feel unexpectedly sad, so I pushed him from my mind.

My thoughts circled back to
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
It hit me that Big Poobs was kind of like Chief Broom: both of them looked like big dumb guys, only they weren't. Poobs really was a smart kid, even if he didn't necessarily know it himself.

Sometimes I felt like Chief Broom too. Bottled up. Stuck with the wrong parent in a cramped apartment with a little brother who was convinced he was a full-blooded Native American. About to enter tenth grade in what was probably the worst high school in the city, or close to it. They say you're not supposed to feel sorry for yourself, but some nights I couldn't help it. I felt trapped, like one of those houseflies Turf liked to catch and hold, alive but doomed, in her mouth. I wanted to bust out too, but I didn't know how.

 

Next afternoon I met Marcus and Big Poobs at the IHOP. School would be starting in less than a week, and none of us was looking forward to it. We drank our sodas and talked about girls, movies, money, video games, then girls again.

"Think Rowan Pohi had a girlfriend?" Big Poobs asked, leaning back in the booth.

"Are you kidding?" Marcus replied. "Chicks were all over him."

"I had a dream about Rowan," Big Poobs said.

"You did?" I said.

Big Poobs nodded.

"What did he look like?" Marcus asked curiously.

"Straight brown hair," Poobs said, trying to remember. "He was taller than I expected. About six two."

For a minute, nobody said anything.

"Rowan Pohi was a freak," Marcus declared.

I shook my head. "No, he wasn't. He was like a regular kid."

"Think about it," Marcus continued. "He came into the world in a freakish way. And it was a freak illness that took him out."

I groaned. "Don't bring that up again."