Francie's Got a Gun, page 2
He came up close to Dad and tapped him on the shoulder, leaned in. “Are you sure you should be here, amigo?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I heard Mikey’s on to you. I heard he knows what you’re selling.”
“Mikey who? Mikey my buddy, my partner, my brother? Don’t you worry about Mikey.”
The man dumped out his coffee into the dirt. “Surprised you’d come around, that’s all,” he said. He tossed the cup and it caught in the breeze and rolled away.
Uh-oh.
Dad said: “You think you know Mikey so well, Mikey sells a clean site, and when we say clean, we mean fucking pristine!” Dad put his hand on the man’s chest, and the man took a big step backward. A smile played on the man’s lips, like he didn’t know much. He didn’t know what her dad could do, Francie thought, already running, running to pick up the cup.
The cup lifted and danced, but Francie leapt and caught it. The jaws of the big digger swung over her head, and she heard the man shouting, but not Dad.
Little stones rushed down into the freshly dug hole, but she wasn’t going to slip in, she wasn’t going to fall. Dad was calling her, calm and slow: “Come on back now, Francie, there’s a girl.”
She scrambled to her feet and ran back to them, the big machine gone quiet overhead. Dad’s eyes were watering.
“Dios mío, that was too fucking close!” The man was yelling.
“Watch your language.” Dad wasn’t yelling.
“What’s your name again, kid?” The man’s voice was high, shaky.
Francie looked at Dad and he nodded, so she said, loud and clear, “Francie.”
“How old are you, Francie?”
“Ten,” she said.
“Ten. Ten. Yeah, I got a ten-year-old at home. Grade four? Grade five?”
“Grade four,” said Dad, but Francie shook her head, dropped her voice to a whisper, “Grade five,” just to put it on the record. She was looking at the field where the horse was running, up near the road again, and a truck was turning into the lane. A red pickup truck, moving slow.
Dad was patting around his jacket pocket. “While I’m here, anything I can do for you today?”
“I told you to watch your back,” the man hissed.
“If you don’t want anything, just say so.”
“I don’t want anything.” The man put his hand up over his mouth, like he was covering a cough. “Mikey’s here.”
“Mikey’s here? I didn’t see his truck.”
“Turn around.”
Dad glanced over his shoulder. “Well, speak of the devil.”
Francie saw the horse jogging along the fence at the same pace as the pickup truck. Sure enough, it was Mikey—she remembered last summer, when he’d come over to the backyard with hot dogs and buns, and Mom kept saying Dad’s accident wasn’t Mikey’s fault, nobody was blaming him. Mikey almost broke the picnic table, the whole bench swooped low under his weight, and Francie remembered he’d wiped his face with his paper napkin, till it was crumpled and sopping, and Mom gave him the whole pile. Come back any time, Mom had told him when he left, and Dad said check with him next time before passing out invitations, and why’d she say that, anyway.
“Because he’s our friend.”
“He owes me,” said Dad. You couldn’t see anything wrong with Dad’s leg when he was sitting down, just when he tried to stand up.
“Okay,” Mom had said. “If you say so.”
“Francie,” Dad said now, his eyes watering, “I need you to do something for me.”
He took her hand and opened it. “Run to the tree line and throw this away. I’ll time you.” She looked to see what it was: a plastic sandwich bag with foil packets inside.
But Mikey keeps a clean site, she thought.
“On your mark, get set, go!”
The field looked grassy and smooth, but it wasn’t. When her foot stepped in a hole, Francie crashed sideways, and hoped Dad wasn’t watching. She popped back up and kept running. Arms pumping. She felt the wind lift her hair like she was the horse, galloping. At the trees, she stopped at a wire fence, orange with rust that flaked off on her fingers. She stuffed the bag into the paper cup, crumpled it up, and threw everything over the fence.
When she turned around, Mikey’s red truck was parked beside the porta-potty, looking across the field toward her. Dad and the men looked like dollhouse people. Like she could pick them up and move them around with her fingers. But where would she put them?
She was real, everyone else was pretend.
Dad and the men made a small circle that broke apart. Their shouts were faint, and travelled out of sync with their movements: first she saw the truck’s door slam, then she heard it.
Francie didn’t want to go back. She kicked through the yellow-headed weeds that grew beside the rusty fence, walking toward the field where she’d seen the horse—and there it was, moving toward her, too. A good shiver rippled up Francie’s neck. Moving as quietly as possible, she ripped up a handful of grass, and slid it through the fence. The horse’s lips brushed her open palm, and Francie felt a million feelings she wanted to feel rushing through her body, and none she didn’t want to feel. Like a million colours, a million soft threads rushing under her skin, binding her up with bravery, keeping her safe. She stepped softly beside the fence, and the horse came along with her, watchful too, moving like they were attached by an invisible cord, till Francie came closer and closer to the bare dirt of the construction site.
“Hey, Francie, honey, you okay, everything okay?” Mikey was calling to her. The horse stopped, alert. Mikey began walking toward them, and Francie could see his shoulders lifting and falling as he breathed in and out, heavily.
She knew whose side she was on. She didn’t have to tell Mikey anything.
The horse trotted in a tight circle, slashing its tail, and Francie ran, then, up the gravel laneway. She was too fast for Mikey to catch her!
Dad was ahead of them, already getting into the car. Francie climbed in and slammed the door, yanking hard on the handle to manage it.
“Where’d you put that stuff I gave you?”
“The cup?”
“And the other stuff, in the little bag.”
“I threw it away, like you said.”
“Ah.” His bad leg was trembling.
The glove compartment hung open, and Francie shut it. Dad turned the key and the engine roared.
“What’s the difference between an enemy and a friend?” Dad said.
She had to be careful with him.
He said: “When a friend stabs you in the back, it hurts more.”
She could see Mikey walking back toward his red truck, parked on the dirt beside the field.
“We won’t be coming back here again, promise you that.”
Dad cracked the window and moved the gearshift down to drive—Francie knew, because once he’d let her sit on his lap and move the gearshift, and steer. But only once. When she was little, before his leg got hurt. Before.
Francie knew, if she looked, that horse would be gone. So she didn’t look. If she didn’t look, the horse would be there forever.
* * *
—
The leaves on the bushes were slippery but sharp. It was impossible to crawl without using the hand that was holding the gun.
Throw it away! Francie thought.
But when she thought this thought, she couldn’t breathe. To breathe, she had to squeeze her eyes shut tight and forget where she was. First, she saw Alice, as if they were walking together, and then running, running like they were riding on horses, through the woods.
Alice’s horse was small, a rainbow-coloured pony, like the one on Francie’s lunch box. Francie’s horse was tall and strong, bright black tail swooshing out behind its hooves as it ran. Not an imaginary horse at all—the horse in the field, watchful and wild. No one would ever tame that horse. Except for me, thought Francie. Her eyes popped open.
If only Alice was here, then the gun might not be real. If this was a story Francie was making up, an adventure, Alice would keep her from floating away, Alice would know, Alice would catch hold of Francie’s elbow and lead them back home when the story was over.
Alone, on her own, Francie might get lost in it forever.
Alice, Dad, Mikey, Mrs. G, Grandma Irene, Mom—nobody knew where she was.
I don’t know where I am!
She slithered out of the bushes on her belly—she was through to the other side, out into the sunshine and heat. The first thing she heard was a car, coming this way. Or maybe it was a truck, a red pickup truck, but Mikey wouldn’t be driving it, Mikey was lying on the ground looking at the sky.
Don’t look! Francie jumped to her feet, her mouth shut to keep from screaming.
She felt the air move around her—whoosh—as she ran across the street, which had no sidewalks, just grass, curb, pavement, curb, grass. She wasn’t screaming, that was the sound of a horn, of tires screeching as the car swerved. Not red, black. Small. Fancy wheel rims. Dad always pointed out the fancy rims.
“What the fuck, kid, what the actual fuck?”
But Francie was away, on the other side, veering onto the first side street she saw, a boulevard. Bright, spiky flowers in pretty pots on porch steps. Window boxes planted with geraniums. Grandma Irene’s favourite. But the flowers are poison, watch out!
Ahead, a busy street, like the one she and Alice had to cross to get to school—oh! Same street? Different spot! Big trees, four lanes of traffic, no lights here, no crossing guard. The hand with the gun was safe underneath her sparkly shirt, and Francie looked both ways this time, and when she got a break, she ran. She knew this street, she knew to turn left to go home, keep going straight to get to Alice’s house.
Everything reminded her of Dad. She kept looking for him, like she wanted to see him, like she expected him to drive up beside her (in Mikey’s red truck?) and roll down his window and say, Hop in, kid!
No! She didn’t want that.
The world closed around her like a lid snapping shut.
She could be in two places at once, here and there, and there was as vivid as here, before as vivid as now. Francie saw Dad open the bathroom door, white light shining out, it was the middle of the night, she had to pee. He was so awake, was it morning? Was Mom asleep in their bedroom, or was she at work? Dad stepped out of the bathroom and past where Francie stood in the dark hall wearing a t-shirt as a nightgown, down to her knees. He walked to the front door, wrenched it open and slammed it shut, slammed it, and it crashed and swung open, and he crashed it again, again, till it was broken. Slamming it till he was gone. His boots had left black marks on the linoleum floor in the bathroom. Mom wouldn’t like that. Mom must be at work, not here, if she was here, she would get up, she would go check on Sam, he’d started to cry, woken by the sound of the door crashing. Francie still had to pee. She felt grit under her bare feet as she moved like a sleepwalker to the broken door and saw Dad backing his car down the driveway, very fast, window rolled down even though the night air was cold. He was still wearing the blue jacket unzipped over the white t-shirt, like he’d slept in his clothes, or hadn’t slept at all. Sam was screaming. Francie had to pee. The door wouldn’t close.
Slowly, the world opened again. Slowly like a lid lifting, and Francie was out in the open, exposed, breathing the real air all around her.
She could see someone jogging after her down the sidewalk, a lady’s voice calling out, “Hey honey, is everything okay? Shouldn’t you be in school?”
Francie stopped and half turned, so the lady wouldn’t see the gun.
She felt her feet plant themselves solidly on the ground. All in one breath, she said to the lady, who’d stopped too: “It’s a half day at my school, so I’m going to my grandma’s house for the afternoon.”
“Oh good! As long as you’re okay…” The lady took one step closer.
“Thank you for asking,” said Francie, her feet holding the ground. “I’m fine.”
Francie turned and walked for a few paces, her heart beating, pounding, leaping till she couldn’t stop herself. She was running, again. This time, the rule was that if she looked back, the woman would still be there. If she didn’t, the woman would disappear. Rules were funny that way. They shifted and changed. Alice didn’t always understand. But Francie did.
She did not look back.
She had a feeling that she was going to the woods.
The quickest way to get to the woods was past Alice’s house. Straight ahead, and one more turn onto the street that had a pothole shaped like a mouth—here—cracked pavement, the sidewalks jumbled and broken. Francie slowed, turned down the little alleyway that ran in between backyards—a shortcut. She would go to the woods, she would get rid of the gun.
There was Alice’s house. The back of it. The long yard and the scraggling apple trees and the falling-down deck, and the bright-yellow siding. Francie stopped. She knew Alice would still be at school. But Sally would be home.
Sally, who didn’t believe in locks on doors.
Sally, who didn’t have a real job.
Sally, who loved birds and dogs and cats and chickens and green shoots popping out of her garden patch, even if they were just weeds. “Isn’t it WONDERFUL? Isn’t it AMAZING? Isn’t this a GIFT?” Sally loved June the best in June. She loved mornings the best in the morning. She loved bugs screeching at twilight the best at twilight. Sally loved everything the best.
But Sally didn’t really like Francie, Francie knew.
Francie stood in the alley, looking at Alice’s house. She was so close. She could climb over the crumbling stone wall and run through the weedy grass, slide the glass door at the back of the house that opened into the mud room, the kind of room that didn’t exist in Francie’s house. Fake wood on the walls. Freezing cold in winter. An extra fridge with drawers of crunchy apples and carrots, bottles that looked like pop but were full of homemade beer, a big bowl covered with a towel that might be full of cookie dough or sauerkraut. You just never knew.
There would be a cat sleeping on the broken rocking chair in the corner. Dust from the kitty litter box, and the smell of something softly rotting, rolled under a shelf and forgotten. If you got down on your hands and knees, a layer of fur matted the pink carpet. And Sally would be singing loudly as she marched up the basement stairs with a basket of wet laundry in her arms.
Sometimes, Sally seemed like a big kid herself, hair braided into pigtails, surrounded by her pets: cats, dogs, chickens, children.
If Sally found Francie hiding in the mud room, and Francie showed her the gun, what would happen?
Would Sally find it in her to love Francie the best?
The alley was narrow and shaded, with ruts in a double track. Tiny weeds grew through the gravel. A cat hopped onto the moss-covered wall and looked at Francie, like it had been sent to give her a message. One of Sally’s cats, the black-and-orange tabby with fur that swirled across its sharp little face like a bandit’s mask—not the nice one, one of the mean ones who scratched everyone, even Alice. Possum was its name.
Francie stretched out her hand to pet its soft little head.
Slash! The paw darted out faster than a flash, and Francie stared at the back of her left hand, cut with four fresh lines. She felt nothing, and all at once the raked lines got hot, and itchy. Tiny beads of red popped onto the skin.
She was this close, and this far, from safety.
The back door was sliding open, but Francie’s feet were quicker than the rest of her, already running. She did not wait to see Diego the dog bolt across the deck and leap into the yard. She did not wait to hear him barking for Sally, who was surely coming out of the house behind him, exclaiming: What’s all this fuss, Diego? What are you trying to tell me? What do you know that I don’t?
TWO
Broken Door
Alice and Francie were climbing the tree in front of Alice’s house. Its branches hung over the sidewalk and street and its leaves were newly enormous and shady and strong and green—partway through May, and it seemed like they might stay this way forever.
Francie wasn’t talking.
Alice wanted to crush a leaf between her fingers. She could feel the feeling of the leaf mashed and torn against her skin. But that would be bad, because leaves were alive, they were life. Alice tried very hard not to step on ants, because ants were life, and she cried when her mom, Sally, swatted a housefly, because flies were life. What about grass, what about flowers picked and put into a jar, what about carrots, salad, bread? What was Alice supposed to eat? Life was very confusing.
The fat, fluttering leaf was within reach, tender and pliable, and Alice’s fingers wanted to snap it right off! Why did her fingers want to do something her heart knew was bad?—Alice thought about how her heart knew things that the rest of her did not, and she wanted to ask Francie if Francie’s heart was also full of confusing, true messages, but Francie had pulled away, into herself, one arm twisted around the tree’s trunk, her cheek pressed to the bark.
Alice touched her own cheek to the bark, but it felt too scratchy. Francie’s bare feet swung just above Alice’s head. They’d tossed their socks on the grass below and their shoes inside the house, shedding layers. Shedding school. Shedding Alice’s mom, Sally. Slipping free.
Francie was Alice’s best friend and Alice was Francie’s best friend. Both had messy hair tangled at the back, both wore jeans and t-shirts that smelled like laundry hung to dry on the line, but Alice had brownish skin and thick, wavy black hair, and Francie had pinkish skin and thin, scraggling brown hair. Dishwater blond, according to Francie’s mom, Marietta, whose hair was the exact same colour.
Francie was older than Alice by three months. This mattered to them both, but it was better not to discuss it because it would only lead to an argument.
