Red Earth White Earth. Will Weaver

      “No. I’m from White Earth. Mrs. Allday is my mom’s cousin.”

      The door opened. Holding it was an Indian girl about fifteen who held her baby sister on one hip. She wore a scarlet headband, red lipstick, a peace symbol and an AIM button on her sweater. Her face was round, her skin pale brown and smooth, her teeth perfectly white and straight.

      Tom’s mouth opened as he stared at her.

      “Somebody from White Earth,” she called through the hallway toward her mother. “No suitcase.”

      Mrs. Allday came through the door from the kitchen. She was very dark and very stooped. She looked fifty but probably was about forty. She squinted. “We don’t have much room,” she began.

      “We didn’t come to stay,” Tom said quickly. “Just to give you this.” He handed over the rice.

      Mrs. Allday squinted at the package. “Mary,” she said suddenly. “Mary sent this?”

      Tom nodded.

      “Then you’re Mary’s boy?”

      Mrs. Allday laughed. Her teeth were yellowed. Some were gone. “Come in, come in,” she said, tugging Tom forward.

      Tom looked back at Guy. The Indian women stopped also to stare.

      “Who’s this behind you, Jesus?” the Indian girl said.

      “Terry—damn you, you shouldn’t say things like that!” her mother said, raising her hand as if to slap her daughter. But Terry did not flinch or even look at her mother.

      “He lives on White Earth. He’s my friend,” Tom said. “We came down here together.”

      Terry nodded. “Well, get in before somebody sees you,” Terry said to Guy. “We don’t want to give this building a bad name.”

      “You think you could do better, just try,” Mrs. Allday said immediately to her daughter. “You go out there and try find a place. You’d be back here in a day. Go ahead, just try it.”

      “Shut up,” Terry said to her mother, and began to rock the baby in her arms. “Just shut up.”

      Mrs. Allday carefully untied the string of the little package, eased open the brown paper as if to save it. “Rice—oh, oh . . . ,” she murmured. She leaned down and buried her nose in the long shiny black kernels.

      “Christ, you’d think it was Acapulco Gold or something,” Terry muttered.

      Mrs. Allday found a little kettle and began to boil water. While she waited she sifted the rice back and forth, back and forth, one hand to the other. She began to hum a low song that was half humming and half singing.

      “Oh God, not that,” Terry said. She turned on the radio. Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane came on loudly: “White Bird, sits on the win-dowsill . . .” The baby stirred, then began to cry.

      Terry jiggled the baby gently, then harder in her arms. But the baby kept crying. “Oh shit, all you do is eat,” she said. She sat down on the couch and jerked up her sweater and pushed the baby’s face against her round, brown-nippled breast. When the baby began to make sucking noises Terry looked back to Guy and Tom. To Tom she said, “You brought my mother something, so what’d you bring me?”

      Tom could only stare. “That’s your baby?” he finally blurted.

      “It’s sure not yours,” she said.

      “How . . . how old are you?” he asked.

      “Old enough, right?”

      Tom blushed; his brown cheeks turned darker.

      “I didn’t mean that . . . ,” he said. His voice trailed off.

      “I’m fourteen and a half,” she said. “Nearly fifteen.”

      Tom was silent. He looked at Guy. Then he said to her, “What about . . . school? Do you go to school?”

      “Fuck school,” she said.

      “So what are you gonna do?”

      “Live. Just like you,” she said, staring straight at Tom with angry eyes.

      Later that night Tom and Guy sat in the blue haze of the Body Shop, a nude bar just off Hennepin Avenue. They sat along the strippers’ runway and stared up at the women dancers. Or rather, Guy stared. Sometimes Tom watched the women and other times he didn’t. Sometimes he just stared into his glass.

      “Ready?” the barmaid said.

      “Pardon?” Guy said.

      “Another beer?”

      “No . . . not yet.”

      The woman made a face and turned to the next table.

      On the stage the strippers, in high heels and sheer black shorty gowns, danced one by one in the slow-turning red and blue and yellow lights. Sometimes old men laid dollar bills on the stage in front of them, then leaned forward. The dancer worked her way toward the money, danced down over it, legs spread, nipples an inch from the old men’s mouths. Then with a quick spin she was gone to the next dollar bill.

      Each girl danced three songs, then was replaced by another dancer. The third woman made Guy breathe through his cock. She was about nineteen, tall, blond, with upturned pink nipples that rode high, round breasts. Her tits hardly moved when she reached down for the old men’s money.

      “Jesus,” Guy murmured.

      Tom didn’t speak. Guy turned to look at him. The blond dancer passed before Tom and he didn’t even turn his head. He stared right through her. Stared somewhere far away. He hadn’t spoken all night.

      The dancers began a new rotation. It was late but Guy wanted to see again the blonde with the long legs and hard tits. Finally she came back onstage. She was tired this time. She stumbled. But men still laid their money on the canvas. Once she bent down for money and her right breast sprayed a tiny stream that misted pink in the light. She wiped her nipple with the back of her hand and danced on.

      “Christ, she’s got a baby too,” Guy said.

      Tom looked up suddenly. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

      Out on the street they walked in silence. It was late, after midnight. Fine, sharp snow slanted in the streetlights and fuzzed the stoplights and bar signs redder. Tom walked staring ahead.

      “What’s the matter, Turd?” Guy said. He draped his arm around Tom’s shoulders.

      Tom shook his head and kept walking. He did not shrug off Guy’s arm.

      After a block he said rapidly, “Tex—I think I got to do something. But I don’t know what it is.” He turned to Guy as if Guy had an answer.

      Guy stared. The Indian stuff. He knew Tom thought about it, but there wasn’t any answer that he knew of so he only nodded to show he understood.

      “Tex—we got to get the hell out of here,” Tom said. “That’s the first thing.”

      “Hey, relax,” Guy said, “tomorrow we’re gone.” He held Tom in a fake neck lock and pulled him along. The streetlights were fewer now, the hotel only a few blocks on. A block ahead, black against the white sidewalks, a drunk wove his way toward them.

      “Am I supposed to do something about my cousin? About her baby? About the others?” Tom murmured. “How am I supposed to know? What the hell am I supposed to do?” Tom said, louder with each word.

      “Listen,” Guy began. But at that moment the drunk blocked their path. “Shay my friends, can you spare an old fellow a dollar, huh?” the bum said. Tom squinted through the falling snow. The bum was an old Indian. He wore an army blanket cape and no hat. Snow shimmered and melted in his wet hair, ran down his face. His mouth was covered with yellow-running sores. “What shay, buddies, huh?”