Jerkwater Read online

  Douglas went back to digging even though there was no real point now. At the bottom of the hill, his dad’s old tin fishing shack moaned in the wind like it was begging to be put out of its misery. But the shack would stay. Everything stayed for now. That was the unspoken agreement between Douglas and his mother: they touched nothing.

  The next day Shawna stopped by and asked if Douglas wanted to check out the new coffee shop. They’d never had a real coffee shop in Mercer before. Not unless you counted the bait shop which proudly advertised its combo deals on espresso shots and night crawlers.

  They didn’t talk much on the way there, the sun acting like a thumb flipping through the pages of trees as they drove. It was something Douglas loved about the UP, the way it could sometimes put you in a trance.

  When they entered The Fresh Pot, the first thing they noticed were the oil paintings on the walls. Not only were there no images of the standard deer, elk, or monster-sized northern pike on the wall, there wasn’t a single loon in the place either. The holiest of Mercer holies: missing.

  “What do you think?” Douglas asked as they stared at what he already considered masterpieces.

  Shawna was looking at a painting of somebody bearing an uncanny resemblance to George Bush. He was wearing a Hitler-esque mustache and had a small oil rig protruding from his pants. It was a geyser, the oil fairly leaping off the canvas.

  “Maybe nobody told her she moved to Bushville, Wisconsin,” Shawna said, still eyeing George’s fly.

  The painting beside it was of the Pope water skiing in the Wisconsin Dells with six petrified-looking altar boys. Then there was another of a futuristic McDonald’s with two drive-thrus: one for food, the other for gastric-bypass surgery. The owner was sitting behind the counter reading a copy of The New Yorker. She was skinny, her arms covered in colorful tattoos, her hair dyed a metallic red and pulled back in a bun. The t-shirt she was wearing had a drawing of the Millennium Falcon on it. Douglas figured she was in her thirties, even though she dressed a lot younger than that.

  “Did you paint these?” Douglas asked after they put their orders in.

  “Why? Do you like them?”

  “Yeah. A lot.”

  “Well, in that case, yes, I painted them.”

  Shawna stuck out her hand when Douglas went quiet and began staring at the countertop. “I’m Shawna. And this is Douglas. He’s an artist, too.”

  “Jenna,” the woman said and shook hands with both of them. She then went about making the drinks, a cloud of steam rising up so that she was forced to turn her head away. Something about it, the twist of her neck maybe, made Douglas’s stomach flutter. “I bet Douglas here is a pretty good artist. You know how I know?”

  “How?” Shawna said, taking her drink.

  “Because he doesn’t look like an artist. From my experience, that’s usually a good sign. You should bring something in some time and show me. Eventually I’ll be needing new work to put up. That is, if I don’t go out of business by then.”

  Shawna gave Douglas a little nudge when he didn’t say anything. “Yeah,” he muttered, “I’ll do that. For sure.”

  They went and sat by the front window, and almost immediately Shawna leaned over, whispered, “Did you notice the nipple rings?”

  “No.”

  “Yes, you did. You can totally see.” But when Shawna saw him turning around, she placed a hand on his arm. “Don’t look now. Do it on the way out if you have to.”

  “It must’ve hurt.”

  “I think that’s the whole point. Pleasure and pain, all that.”

  “Oh.”

  Outside, a line of cars waited at the stoplight. One of the bumper stickers read Wife and Dog Missing: Reward for Dog. “I fucking hate this jerkwater town,” Shawna said, nodding toward the car. “My favorite so far has to be Save a Walleye, Spear a Squaw.”

  The cars moved off through the intersection like a lazy herd of deer. “Yeah, I think Marty might have one of those on the back of his sled.”

  Marty had worked down at the shop with Douglas ever since high school. They’d all graduated a few years back, but so far none of them had gotten around to going to college. Which wasn’t really even much of a real possibility for Marty, not unless they had a university for fishing somewhere nearby.

  “Did I ever tell you about the time we were holding a ceremony out on the Flambeau and these people started throwing beer cans at us? They kept telling us to go home. You know what that’s like? That’s like me walking into your house and telling you to go home.”

  Douglas couldn’t help but wonder if Marty had been there. Maybe. But he couldn’t see him throwing cans. Hate in a can. That’s what people called Treaty Beer. Some local’s idea of a statement. People said it was about the fishing rights, but it wasn’t really. People caught plenty enough fish. It was because they were Indians. Simple as that. Fishing rights was just something they could cover their hate up with.

  “Mom said something about you screaming out on the island the other night. That true?”

  “It was more like howling, but, yeah, guilty.”

  “I feel like that sometimes.”

  “Because of your dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  Shawna stared at her coffee for a bit, then, watching what little traffic there was, said, “You ever get cut off by somebody and maybe you even almost go off the road because of it and then they stick their hand out the window and give you the finger right before they get off an exit? Like it’s too late to yell at them or anything because they’re already gone and you’ll never see them again?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “That’s what death can feel like. There’s no one to take it out on because they’re gone. Or in my case, they’re in prison.”

  Douglas, not sure what to say to this, mumbled, “You still thinking about vet school?”

  “I am. I actually got in believe it or not.”

  “No shit? You going to go?”

  “Nah, I thought I’d keep working at the casino because I love watching white people throw their money away.”

  “Seriously.”

  “Yeah, probably. I still need to talk to my naan about it. She’ll have to come with me. I wouldn’t go without her.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “What about you? You going to spend your life hanging out with Marty in that grease pit?”

  “I have to take care of the shop. And my mom.”

  “Your mom can take care of herself.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Later, as they left, Douglas stole one last look at Jenna. She was like one of the paintings on the wall: something that didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the town. And he liked that. A lot.

  When he dropped Shawna back off at home, she told him about a protest they were holding outside The Wampum Shop the next day. Something to do with Treaty Beer.

  “Working,” Douglas muttered, hoping she’d leave it alone.

  “But it’s just across the street from you.”

  “We’re pretty backed up, Shawna. I mean, it’s not like I can just--”

  “Yeah,” Shawna said without letting him finish. “I get it. Not so great for business probably.”

  As she walked away, it seemed to Douglas like her voice was still hanging there in the air around him. Almost like a dark cloud. There was something new, too, in the way her mood seemed to shift in the space of a breath. It worried him. It was like being able to recognize your own darkness in another’s. Only this darkness was an entirely different species than his own. Charcoal vs. pencil. Smoke vs. fire.

  Ever since Norm died, Marty had gotten into the habit of picking up tools around the shop and sighing over them. Sometimes Douglas thought Marty missed his dad more than he did. But Douglas lived in a house full of reminders, so a hydraulic jack didn’t faze hi
m all that much these days.

  “You hear about that drunk-ass Indian?” Marty said, rolling a socket wrench in the palm of his hand. It was a Saturday. They were at the shop replacing someone’s alternator.

  “Nope.”

  “I guess one of them tried holding up the Quickie Mart with an iPhone.”

  “And?”

  “It’s just typical is all I’m saying. Bunch of freaking morons.”

  “You ever think how The Wampum Shop is run by a white woman?” Douglas said as calmly as possible. “All these tourists stopping to buy tom-toms. Or, if they’re feeling a little crazy, maybe a dream catcher or two.”

  “Hell,” Marty said, flipping the wrench end over end. “They’re free to open up their own stores and call them Whitey’s if they want.”

  Douglas was all too familiar with Marty’s take on the subject. He knew his only option, if he wanted to finish the car in any kind of peace, was to ignore him. Which he did. But, later, when he was filling out the paperwork, Marty came into the office holding a wooden statue of Don Quixote seasoned with years of grease.

  “You going to keep ol’ Don around?”

  “I don’t know,” Douglas said. “With all these drunk Indians running around, maybe we could use him to protect the shop.”

  “Very funny. Where’d Norm get him anyway?”

  “Spain, I think. He told me he got it off some street vendor.”

  “I always thought Cervantes was a type of champagne,” Marty said and placed the statue on the desk. “Anyway, I just thought you might want to take him home. Or if you didn’t, you know, maybe I could.”

  “I think Norm would have liked him to stay in the shop. I still have his fishing rod, though, if you want.”

  “No, that wouldn’t be--”

  “Marty, you know how often I fish.”

  “Yeah, angler of the frickin’ year.”

  “Exactly. I’ll bring it in one day. Meantime, why don’t you see if you can’t get those brake lines bled. After that, we can check out the protest.”

  “Pass,” he said and started to leave.

  “You know there’s a sign over the bar at Old 51 that says No Red Niggers. Still think there isn’t a problem?”

  “Oh, come off it. They lost.”

  “Lost what?”

  “The war. I suppose you think we should send Christmas cards to the Japs and Nazis, too?”

  “I didn’t know you could win a genocide.”

  “Whatever. Even your Dad used to say they should call themselves the Chippa-wah-wahs since they’re always crying about something.”

  “Just forget I asked.”

  “Consider it forgotten,” Marty said, grabbing the statue by the neck. “I’ll put the champagne back by the oil.”

  About two dozen people, all Chippewa, dressed in jeans and t-shirts, walked up and down the sidewalk outside The Wampum Shop. Shawna held a sign that read Don’t Honor The Treaty Beer!

  “Shouldn’t they be dressed up, wearing feathers or something?” Marty said, taking a pull from his Big Gulp like he was at a parade. He’d changed his mind about watching after Douglas told him he wouldn’t have to clock out.

  “How should I know?”

  “Thought you were the expert.”

  “I’m going over to say hi to Shawna.”

  “You think that’s a good idea?”

  “What? Afraid I’ll get scalped?”

  Outside The Wampum Shop, there was one of those cigar-store Indians, only now the face was covered with a blown-up photo of the Treaty Beer owner.

  “You sure you want to be here?” Shawna said, stepping out from the circle of protestors. She had something yellow and silver dangling from her ear that looked like an old fishing lure.

  “Yeah,” Douglas said, trying not to stare at her new choice of jewelry. “Why not?”

  She nodded toward Marty. “What will your friend over there think?”

  “Think? Not much fear of that happening.”

  Shawna, lowering both her sign and her voice, said, “The owner is kind of freaking out.” She leaned closer and went into an over-the-top Wisconsin accent. “Youz guys better get goin’ dare or I’m gonna hafta call da police now, ‘kay.”

  Douglas was about to say something about the owner, Maggie, when there was something like an explosion behind them. At first Douglas thought maybe there’d been a car accident, but then he turned and realized what had happened. For a few seconds, nobody moved, and he and Shawna just stared at the place where The Wampum Shop’s front window used to be.

  “What the hell was that?” Shawna kicked at a can of Treaty Beer foaming on the ground. “You have to be kidding me.”

  A car had driven past and was nearly out of sight. The owner was now screaming inside the shop, no doubt convinced one of the protestors was to blame. Douglas’s dad would know what to do here. He’d place a gentle hand on the right shoulder, make things dissolve without ever seeming to lift a finger. But Douglas wasn’t his father. Not even close. Unsure of what to do, he went to get a broom from the shop to help clean up. When he got back, a Mercer patrol car with a picture of a loon wearing sunglasses on its door was already parked in the street. And, to make matters worse, Marty was walking over.

  “It came from our side,” Marty said, his hands in his pockets as he stared at the can still hemorrhaging on the sidewalk.

  “You sure?” The officer nudged the can with his boot like he was checking to make sure it was dead. Officer Christopher. Somebody both Douglas and Marty had gone to high school with. He was a tool back then, too.

  “Well, I sure didn’t do it.” Marty looked over at Shawna like she’d just accused him of something. “Peyton threw it.”

  The officers gave each other a look. They knew exactly who Marty was talking about. Peyton Crane. The guy behind Treaty Beer.

  “He hucked it out his car window,” Marty said. “I saw him. Everyone did.”

  “We need to get a statement from you.”

  “No way.”

  “You just told us you saw--”

  “Sorry,” Marty mumbled, heading back to the shop. “I can’t right now.”

  When he got home, Douglas poked his head into the living room and found his mom talking to a small wooden box. He went back into the kitchen, banging around more than he needed to, and by the time he finally made his way into the living room again, his father’s urn was back on top of the TV.

  “A little early, isn’t it?” Douglas said, eyeing his mom’s drink.

  “It’s raining out. What else am I supposed to do?”

  Now that she had decided to start drinking like Norm, she made her Manhattans in the same huge tumbler he used to. They held about three of whatever a normal person would drink.

  “Hold on,” Douglas said. “I’ll have one, too.”

  Drinks in hand, they flipped between sitcoms and old movies, never staying on one channel for more than a few minutes. This was a strange, new freedom for them. Norm had been a dictator when it came to the TV. Now that he was gone, there was almost a guilty thrill in skipping past The History Channel.

  “I see you’re spending some time with Shawna,” his mom said. “That’s good.”

  “Yeah. It’s okay.”

  She took a healthy sip of her drink. “You do realize your odds of dating her are about as good as catching a Muskie.”

  “I don’t fish.”

  “All men fish.”

  “Stop.”

  “I just don’t like seeing you torture yourself, honey.”

  “I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but I’m really not interested in her. We’re just friends.”

  His mom waved her drink in the air, dismissing the subject, and they settled on an episode of Matlock. “I sure do love shrimp,” Matlock said in his rumpled white po
lyester suit and then raised his bushy eyebrows so everybody knew he’d just figured out who the murderer was. “Shrimp! That’s it!” he said, just in case they somehow missed it.

  Douglas turned the volume down. “Didn’t he, like, beat his wife or something?”

  “You’re thinking of Bing Crosby. It was his kids, I think.”

  “I bet they both did.”

  “Probably. They’re all assholes once the cameras are off. Except for Cary Grant. He was one of the good ones.”

  “To Cary Grant.”

  They toasted and watched as Matlock disappeared behind another commercial, then Douglas turned the volume up and they went back to more flipping.

  Chapter Four:

  Shawna

  Sitting on her back porch, Shawna’s entire body hummed. She felt numb, but there was also a sharpness to everything. A clarity. She used an old pair of binoculars to track when Peyton Crane’s lights went on and off, when he went fishing, when his boy was over. Tonight the lights were all on, his bulky figure passing by the window every ten minutes or so, no doubt stumbling his dumb way to the fridge for more crappy beer. It gave her hatred a target. And somehow just knowing he was in reach, that at any second she could stand up and give into everything that had been slow-cooking inside, calmed her. It was in this charged calm, watching the moths slam-dance around the porchlight, that she saw Douglas sitting out on the dock in the moonlight, plucking at the ropes on his dad’s old bait box.

  She walked down and nodding at the half-rack of Treaty Beer by his side, said, “That what I think it is?”

  “It is.” He handed her one. “Marty bought them as a joke.”

  “Hilarious.” She sat down beside him, grabbed one. “You just getting home?”

  “Yep.” Douglas reached down, trying to heft the bait box up out of the water, but it was too heavy. “It’s weird not seeing any fish in there. I bet the fish threw a party when they found out he died. When I was a kid, I’d come home after school and find maybe half-a-dozen sunfish floating in here.” He untied the ropes leashing it to the dock. “Give me a hand with this, will you?”