"Dislodged from family and self-knowledge and knowledge of your origins you become free in the most sinister way. Some call it having a restless soul. That's a phrase usually reserved for ghosts, which is pretty apt."
- Grace Krilanovich
The home-hopping Pueblo boy from New Mexico had hair black as fresh tar. When I met him he was nineteen and plain-faced but funny and full of sweet things to say. Michelle told me to keep the friendship brief, if formed at all. But as children of a found, lost, then found again land Pueblo boy and I kept each other sane, and it wasn't as brief as we thought it would be. Time didn't run normally here anyway.
We fidgeted with wild thoughts, forgot our uranium dreams in a lethargic education system and drank from dry creek beds. To pass the time we'd climb into his rusting pickup truck, Hybrid Theory blaring, and drive up and down the reservation roads with the windows down until the wind sucked out our laughter. Three hours to Albuquerque. Two hours to Canyon de Chelly in Chinle. Forty-five minutes to the Amtrak station we fantasized we'd someday use to get out of this place.
'Welcome to the rez! Shit, I need a drink.'
The roads here seemed to stretch into the sky. Sometimes you wouldn't see anything but desert until your gas tank was out. Sometimes suddenly a house was there, a weathered hogan or mobile home, like a ghost in the dark, the long dirt driveways lit by a single orange light. On nosebleed-dry days the windstorms spat dust into the windows and blew grit into the crevices of our molars. Pueblo boy drove with two hands on the steering wheel and grinned like a madman.
We drove into Gallup on Route 66, the sky black and the road a cold sword. We bought beef jerky from the 24-hour Walmart and drove back giggling and hugging ourselves from the night. At times we stopped at a mountain, a lake, at the abandoned metal finishing factory, but more often we just drove and drove and listened to whatever radio station had the best reception (likely country or honky-tonk). He told me about how his dad stayed at the casino all night, or about how there was "never any fucking thing to do around here." I listened and passed him the bottle of rum he'd found somewhere in an uncle's trailer. I told him I was sorry for his bullshit, even if I had my own heartaches and would rather be alone.
I tolerated because I knew that, like everybody else who wandered, he only sought compassion for his trouble. He dreamed, too, of finding inspiration and purpose for his ragged ways. And on the long road to such fantasies he'd found it in a person like me, who would listen endlessly to tall tales and drive on violent winds when nothing but running would do. He sought, too, in places like here, at the extremes of things, a last untamed frontier, where night coaxed confessions from mouths like magic. Here, where there could be admiration for his disorder, for his ill-explained love, for his darkness.
I was kinder back then, for I hadn't the heart to tell him the only things here were the vipers and the scorpions, the lonely people in their lonely heads. I didn't say that if he was looking to feel alive all he had to do was love and lose; no, he had but to love. This was a place where not even the stars listened, where the desert and the coyotes and the crows knew exactly who you were. You were judged not by how you intended or dreamed, but by how you fought back, how you smelled. Was that fear or valor in your sweat?
It isn't here, what you're looking for, I said, balling up a handful of sand and letting the earth seep through my fingers. I've looked, too.
Beauty didn't have to have meaning; beauty was not always beautiful. It was possible to tire of the sun. Maybe that's why I pursued the northern rains, where a grayer light heralded different shades of happiness.
His laughter was strained, and I laughed with him because I didn't know what else to do. At seventeen I was smart but incompletely present. I knew some things weren't right. I knew there would always be two.
One night, after too many hollow kisses, he told me he loved me. I laughed at this foolishness, but when I saw the hurt in his eyes I told him I loved him back, as if by saying it I could wish it true.
Maybe I was just like him after all.
Hwoarang watched me tell him about the Pueblo boy and he tilted his head back and swallowed the rest of his Coke. We were in Portland waiting for the next bus. It was raining again.
"That's it? That's your only ex besides that dude from college?" he scoffed.
"You were expecting more?"
"Well, yeah. I mean, look at you. You're a fox!"
"Watch it."
The redhead grinned, crushing the plastic bottle between his hands. "So what do you look for in a man?"
"Why are we having this conversation?"
"Because I find you terribly interesting, and I want to gradually win your heart, fuck you blind and then leave you for dead."
"Thought so," I replied, unable to hide a smile.
"Come on, Julia. But you are interesting."
Well, that's one way to describe it.
I managed another smile, but looked away when I saw the expression on his face. It was of genuine intrigue, and I knew rare were the moments when a man like Hwoarang would lean in to listen rather than roar. Still, I told him nothing.
The next Greyhound would take us to Seattle, but that wasn't for another several hours. So, Hwoarang and I took the TriMet to the Portland Zoo to watch wolves pace lazily along the edges of their fences. The hunt had been force-fed out of them—or so I thought.
"Julia," Hwoarang murmured, his eyes widening. "Straight ahead."
I looked where the redhead pointed. The children around me gushed and squealed excitement as they watched two she-wolves, both overweight from too much lounging in manmade plain, seize one another with fang and claw. The black one had the gray wolf by the throat, and I knew she intended to kill her. Blood dripped from between her teeth and dotted the dead grass beneath her paws.
But, at the last moment, the gray wolf struggled free, her pale coat ragged and blood-soaked down her chest. She was pathetic looking, her neck missing clumps of fur and one eye half-shut from a long gash down the side of her head. But instead of baring her belly in surrender she lunged for the black creature and the duel began again.
Why they fought no one knew. They were supposed to be controlled, after all, in this zoo with glass panels and bald earth. This wasn't the bloodiest thing we'd seen this week. In our dark hearts, Hwoarang and I drew some macabre fascination from it, as if seeing violence in its purest of forms reminded us of how similar we all were in the world.
A shiver ran down my back, raised the hairs on my arms and neck. So this was what happened when you touched the untouchable.
Within minutes, the animal keepers emerged with their tranquilizer guns and soon both wolves collapsed onto the grass, their eyes glazed and breathing slowed. Hwoarang and I didn't speak though I wondered, after seeing that dark luster in his eyes, about the violence he'd left behind. I realized he'd never told me the details of what he abandoned, what spilled blood he meant to clean but never did.
On the Greyhound four hours later Hwoarang was in the middle of telling me another joke when I opened my eyes and realized I'd fallen asleep. There was the feeling of losing something irretrievable.
"How were the dreams, She-Hulk?"
"I have a headache..."
Hwoarang ruffled my hair and threw me my sweatshirt before I could slap his hand away.
"Here. The old geezer won't turn down the AC."
"Are we in Seattle yet?"
"Just rolled in, but still gotta get to the station. Maybe another half hour?"
He started talking again, but by then I'd already fallen asleep.
The last time you came to see me it was late May, planting season, when things were supposed to grow and live. Beans, squash and corn, certainly. Love, maybe. The sky was cloudless and sleeping beauty turquoise blue. The wind unyielding. The rez quiet as a rose.
One night I drove us in my mother's car to what we rez kids called the Road to Nowhere, a government-abandoned strip of asphalt that was supposed to lead to Gallup. Instead, five miles in, it turned into a gravel and dirt road that divided into someone's driveway. It's a popular drinking spot, Nowhere. At the road's end the ground is littered with tiny shards of glass. In a corner, a pile of beer bottles and a smashed TV.
But it's a better place to look at the stars and to be alone, to feel small beneath mountains and a night with eyes.
The moon was so bright I could spot the faint outlines of dimes and pennies on the concrete, which was still warm from the day's heat. Your blonde hair turned silver. You smiled and said it was like someone had torn out the sky and shoved us into space. We sat on that hot ground where things ended and stared up into infinity, eight on its side, our shoulders touching, your breath on my face.
I come to you now, unbridled and afraid. I hope you don't notice the hardness in my hands, the shadows in my eyes, not because I've changed but because this is who I've always been.
I'm sorry I couldn't save you when they hurt you.
I'm sorry the only thing you know about snow is that it falls white from the sky.
The rain was softer in Seattle. There, my beloved Starbucks, and there, still, the ocean with its gray waves. Though I was comforted with the small memories being here again set my nerves on edge. I longed, suddenly, for arid mountains and miles of sand and red rock. You couldn't hide long in such a place. In Seattle there were shadows and weeping rain, beyond it mountains of ice and spear-like waterfalls that broke flesh.
"So, who's this friend of yours?" I asked Hwoarang, trying to ignore the city's grip on my emotions.
"Nobody, just some greasy Spaniard who took my bike as collateral," the redhead spat, quickly going silent when he realized he said too much.
"I thought you said you two were buddies," I smirked. "Something go wrong in the ring?"
"Let's just look for him, okay? Then we can get outta here."
Who said anything about leaving so quickly?
Well, maybe it's for the best…
No. You need to close this.
I don't need any more trouble.
He's only alive because of me, remember?
"Ca-bull-lay-ro Row-joe," Hwoarang said slowly, his eyes on a piece of paper he held. He butchered the Spanish, but I hadn't the energy or the care to correct him.
"Look, how bout you go find this guy and I get something to eat?" I suggested, becoming impatient. "Let's meet back here in a few hours."
Hwoarang shrugged, pocketing the piece of paper. "Whatever. Just don't, you know, go berserk."
I waved him away, watched him disappear around a cluster of buildings, and then hailed a taxi when I knew I was alone.
"Seattle University, please."
Exams were in session so campus was all but empty as I dragged myself out of the cab. A few students lingered along the sidewalks, their eyes buried in memory or book before heading to libraries and lecture halls. Two men threw a football back and forth, their sweatshirts blindingly red against the gray drizzle. Seattle Redhawks.
With a tiny smile, I realized I'd traded one red bird for another.
I walked through campus with my eyes lowered, hoping I wouldn't see any familiar faces along the way. Luckily, I faced no such encounter and discovered that my feet remembered this route too well. In minutes I was in front of the apartment complex, buzzer number eight labeled with the three-letter name that told me it was still his to live in.
Do it.
Don't. You don't know what will happen.
Just press the button.
No.
Now!
"Excuse me?"
A tall blonde woman with a bag of groceries in her arms gazed down at me, her smile politely forced.
"Excuse me?" she said again, her tongue stumbling over a French accent. "I need to get through, please."
I mumbled something or other, then shuffled aside as she pressed number eight.
Eight.
"Hello?"
That voice.
"It's me," she chirped. 'Me?'
The door buzzed open and the Frenchwoman entered, easily balancing the heavy bags in her grasp. I slid in behind her, following her up the carpeted stairs to the place where another life used to exist. Everything still smelled the same—until I caught a whiff of cherry perfume. Under my skin I felt the snow becoming ice. Not now.
Forcing myself to relax, I continued to follow her, relishing her complete lack of awareness. I was behind her for two flights of stairs and down the maze-like hallways, past the laundry room and twenties and teens. So was the curse of infatuation; blind to the stalking predator, she was responsive only to the needs a beautiful man could sate. I could have pushed her down the stairs and eaten those newly bought T-bone steaks had I the motivation. Instead, I watched her hustle forward in her sickly sweet white frills, swaying her hips in rhythm to the tune she hummed.
The girl's demise became more attractive a thought when number eight opened, and she was in his arms, her lips pressed on the mouth that used to say my name. He murmured something against those lips, something about her smell.
But what was said did not matter. It was only that his eyes were still that same shade of blue.
I was a ghost lingering in lost time. I didn't feel my feet stepping closer to number eight, nor my mouth when it parted in silent awe. So when that blue gaze fell on me suddenly he must have seen only a spirit that did not belong in his world. At first there was only shock in the irises, then hardness, disbelief—
—And fear.
"Julia?"
But I was already leaping down the stairs, past the glass door, hands forced into open palms lest closed fists allowed me to become something I regretted.
"Julia!"
The heavy slap of his barefooted pursuit behind me. The smell of cherries.
But she made me faster. She made me disappear.
The night before my mother became pregnant with me my Chinese father dreamt he found a medallion under a mountain. Etched into the medallion was a two-headed snake wrapped around a sword. He told me this when I was six, when dumping rocks out of my sneakers and chasing goats took precedence over Chinese fertility dreams.
Dad was one part philosopher and two parts alcohol. He had lots of dreams, dreams where he could tell if something bad was about to happen or if someone was going to get their lucky break. He never considered himself spiritual, though, just drunk. Two years later he'd drink himself back to Guangzhou and a second wife. Maybe he ran away because he thought I was bad luck.
"Ever since you were a little girl I've sensed a darkness in you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Dad said it was bad feng shui that the foot of my bed faced the door, and that closets and drawers were so cluttered they disturbed the natural energy of everything. He told Michelle the reason why I rarely smiled was because I was born in the year of the horse, which was bad luck if you were born female. Horses were too wild, too stubborn, too hungry for freedom. They would wander and dream and would have unrealized ambitions and would never come home if unbridled. Then Mom told him he should shut up or buy us a new home, 'cause in this crooked shack, beds faced doors and color combinations were wrong, fights and fucks could be heard through the fingernail-thin walls, and horse girls, dragon girls, wolf-snake-kangaroo-dolphin girls were all equally cherished.
Dad stopped talking about feng shui after that. He started, though, to sing about shanghaiing it to China when he thought Mom wasn't listening. Godforsaken reservation!
No wonder my voice likened itself better to Diné rather than Mandarin. My mother's language always felt better in my mouth, unlike the harsh, erratic tones of my father's, which slipped and slid along my tongue like ice. The words didn't stick and neither did Dad.
That night it rained, a slow dance of a thunderstorm, the blue-silver lightning as jagged as the veins in my wrists. I watched that rare desert rain and thought about my father. I wanted to drain the alcohol from his blood and tell him I had always loved him and that even though I was part Horse I'd never just run away and never look back.
He was right, of course. I ran plenty. I felt the wind. I dreamed of road. And it was lovely.
One morning he packed up his life and told me to live as I liked.
He let the Horse free after all.
When I returned downtown it was nearing midnight. Hwoarang was pacing about a street corner with someone's cell phone pressed to his ear.
"There you are!" he cried, flinging the phone away. "Where the fuck have you been? I called the cops–and I hate cops!"
"Sorry," I replied without remorse.
The nearby bench offered more comfort than companionship did, and I closed my eyes until Hwoarang's voice faded to a dull whine. The world was a game to him. How could he dare to worry.
"That must've been one helluva meal. Where'd you go eat, China?"
"No, but my dad did."
"What?"
And that's when it happened, softly at first, and then harder and crueler until I was bent over gasping, the laughter pulled from the pit of my stomach like long hair from a bathtub drain. It hurt to breathe and my gut clenched like a fist. But I kept laughing until tears formed and fell, and then until merciful exhaustion silenced me.
Everything was gone now, even the laughter medicine.
"Let's, um, get outta here," Hwoarang said, his eyebrows lifting. "Get you some coffee."
"I don't need any," I said slowly. "I'm more…awake…than I've ever been."
I felt it like a surge of espresso through my veins, bitter at first, then slowly pleasurable as lethargy and heartbreak were deceived into pure energy. It pushed, serrated, like a blade behind my eyes. I thought of that black sea beneath the highway bridge, the waters furious tonight because of the moon's silver spell. To have such natural darkness drown me in its cold breath.
For the first time I let her keep me until sunrise. Hwoarang would not know that it should have been a different name he murmured when she let him touch her in that hotel room at 3 a.m., the hour when all dark things walked freely. In the meantime I would drift, forget momentarily, and return with a dawn stained with fading blue night. There would be only one name in my mouth, a kiss under the number eight.
I lied there afterward, my mind creating figures and shapes out of the plaster ceiling.
"You used me."
"I need coffee."
"Fine, we won't talk about it," Hwoarang chuckled, shoving day's old cold press into my hand. "But next time you need a rebound all you have to do is ask."
Feeling more guilt than embarrassment I looked away as he collected his clothes from the floor and began to dress. Was that his smell on me?
I gulped the coffee with a wince, knowing the cold bitterness would coat my tongue for the rest of the day. Ignoring the redhead's watchful eyes I slipped into the shower to wash off the feel of his hands, which clung like dust. It was the only evidence I had of last night's events; she'd had control for longer than I ever allowed her. It was a dangerous hangover, not being able to remember anything except blue eyes gazing at a vanilla blonde girl.
Gritting my teeth, I turned the water as hot as I could stand and felt the steam rise to clog my eyes and nose. All I wanted was warmth, just for a little while to silence the snow.
As I wrapped myself in a towel I heard Hwoarang's voice, insistent over the heat that still stifled my senses.
"What!" I barked.
And I looked to where he pointed, to someone standing in the doorway.
Something shifted.
"Yepa."
They say if you know a person's true name you wield power over them. Maybe he knew of such power. Or maybe the only thing that mattered was the sound of the name, how it became beautiful in his command. Summoned in neither anger nor fear, the snow woman seemed to melt, ceased to whisper.
Here, standing simply with his sun-colored hair, was the heat I craved.
"You…"
The blue eyes softened, even as they darted to the shirtless redhead behind me.
"Can I come in?"
