In the light from his lamp, on a captain’s chair torn from a wrecked van, Romeo went through the contents of the bags. All he could wish for was there on paper — discarded printouts, labels, prescription script, pharmacist’s notes — that his information-bought informant had failed to shred. Within these piles, he found what drugs everybody in the entire community was on and which, for their mighty highs, could be pilfered by close relatives. It was there that Romeo found out who was going to die and who would live, who was crazier than he was, or by omission, sane and blessed with health. He kept track of his calculations on a scratch pad — drug, dosage, refill dates, how the patient should take the medicine. Though never in any case in Romeo’s file did the doctor recommend that a patient crush to powder and inhale a single medication, that was often his preferred method of delivery.
Tonight, the words palliative care appeared again. He kept anything with those words in a special paper-clipped pile. Also discarded in the bag was a bonus feature. His favorite section — the tribal newspaper’s obituary page. He matched several enticing prescriptions to one of the names, then noted the funeral would be tomorrow.
At 9:45 the next morning, Romeo stopped at the grocery, invested in a pound of stew meat, and then drove to church. He parked at the edge of the lot next to a pickup with a gas cap that could be easily pried up with a screwdriver. He sat in his car until everyone had entered the church, then quickly siphoned into his own car more than enough gas to carry him to the home of the deceased and back again. It was six miles out, and he got there within fifteen minutes.
Romeo pulled up next to the house, went right up to the front door, knocked. The big outside dogs were barking wildly, but he threw down a few bits of meat for them to argue over. The little inside dogs barked in the house entry. Nobody else answered and it was a cheap key lockset from Walmart. He pried the worn bolt gently from the frame with his flat-head screwdriver, entered, threw down a few more pieces of stew meat. The dogs wagged their tails and followed him straight to the bedroom. The TV tray table beside the bed held a few amber plastic bottles, which he examined. He took one. There was a bedside table with a half-open drawer. Bingo. Three more bottles, one entirely full. In the bathroom, he went carefully through the medicine cabinet, examining each medication with a frown. He smiled at one and shook it, pocketed three more. No need to be greedy. It was 10:30 now. He fixed the lock so it wouldn’t fall off and left. And there was still half a pound of meat in his pocket.
Back at the funeral by 10:55, he rolled the prescriptions in a plastic bag and stashed them under the backseat. The meat too. He took a small dose of Darvocet and entered the church silently. Everyone was focused up front, on the gathered pallbearers. As they carried out the body, he put his hand on his heart. To save gas, he hitched a ride to the cemetery.
After the sad burial, everybody cried in relief. Romeo rode back to the church and followed the mourners downstairs to the funeral lunch. There, he ate his fill. He drank weak coffee and talked to his relatives and their relatives. He stayed to the end of things, drank more coffee, ate sheet cake, took home leftovers stacked precariously on paper plates. He accepted with a sad little nod the program featuring the picture of a man who was smiling into the camera and holding an engraved plaque that must have honored him. Once back in his apartment, Romeo used the stiff paper to neaten and fix his first two lines.
Where to, my man? he said to the universe.
Romeo sniffed up the lines and fell back in the captain’s chair. Away he traveled safe in the backseat, comfy in the shaved gray plush. His companions, the photographs on his wall, smiled into the faces of lost photographers. Some were school photos, one was of Emmaline and her mother, his beloved teacher, Mrs. Peace. There was Landreaux and two other boys — both dead now. A smudged picture of Star hoisting a beer. Hollis, several photographs from grade school, one from high school, one of the two of them together. Romeo and Hollis. Much cherished. There was a long ago clipped yellowed newspaper wedding picture of Emmaline and someone with Landreaux’s body and a scratched-out face. Also, there were people whose names he’d forgotten. Romeo now lifted off. Floated up through the popcorn ceiling and the black mold. Up through the asphalt shingles flapping on the roof. On the other side of the reservation town his fellow traveler, Mrs. Peace, passed him in space. She laid her hand on his shoulder, the way she’d done to boys in school. He ducked, though she had never struck him. He always ducked when someone gestured too quickly. Reflex.
Hello, beauty
NOLA CAME TO weekday Mass and sat down in Father Travis’s office afterward, waiting for him. He was often detained in the hallway. Sure enough, Nola heard someone talking now. Father Travis was listening, dropping in an occasional question. The two voices were figuring out some repair detail on the basement wall. Or maybe the windows. Cold was threading in, then spring would bring seepage, mud, snakes. There had always been snakes around and sometimes inside the church. Several places in the area and on the Plains, into Manitoba, were like that. The snakes had ancient nests deep in the rocks where they massed every spring and could not be driven out.
Nola had never been afraid of snakes. She drew them to her. Here was one now — a gentle garter snake striped yellow with a red line at the mouth. Hello, beauty. The snake curved soundlessly under a shelf of books and pamphlets, then stopped, tasting the air. I might as well talk to you, thought Nola. He’s not coming and I don’t think he wants to see me. Thinks I’m weak. I’m alone with this, anyway. I don’t like where my thoughts go but I can’t argue them down all of the time, can I? Maggie will be all right, after, she’ll just flourish away. LaRose will be so relieved. Peter is becoming love-hate for me, you know? He’s getting on my last nerve. I know I shouldn’t sleep so much. Who would notice an old green chair? Snakes notice. You, or the one in my iris bed when I was putting them to sleep, the irises. When you’re thinking of not being here, everything becomes so fevered, fervent? And the sun comes in. Strikes in. To be alive for that, just to see it striking through a window in the afternoon. A warm light falling on my shoes. And the steam comes on, hissing in the pipes. That sound’s a comfort. Maybe I’m not seeing properly. No, there is not a snake underneath that shelf, it’s just a piece of dark nylon rope.
Nola!
I’m just waiting here. I thought you’d maybe have time.
Father Travis stood in the doorway. It was disturbing that she’d showed up after she’d tried to blackmail him, he thought. You’d think she’d have better sense. Meaning she might be serious about suicide. He should stop comparing normal people to lost Marines. And he should never have laughed.
I’m leaving the door open, see? Don’t pop your breast at me again, okay?
I won’t, Nola said.
How are you?
Better, not better.
Father Travis sighed and tore off a piece of paper toweling, slid it across the top of his desk. Nola reached out, caught it up, and put it to her face.
I don’t like where my thoughts go, she sorrowed.
I’ve heard everything, said Father Travis.
I thought that piece of rope underneath your shelf was a snake.
They both looked; there was nothing.
Probably there was a snake, said Father Travis. They like the steam pipes.
Of course they do. She smiled. I don’t know why I thought it was a rope.