My Name Is Not Easy: Part III

And then it's gone
and it's just us, skimming across the smooth black sea,

silent as spirits,
pitching our tent in the midnight sun and eating duck soup until

our bellies get warm and we dare to ask:
“What about that light?"

The button is red, and it doesn’t matter who presses it first, because as soon as it gets pressed, the bombs will keep flying until the whole world is blown to smithereens.

“The Eskimos already beat everybody. There’s an Ińupiaq shaman who went to the moon a long time ago.”

“Okay, so now here’s Jan’s side of the story,” Evelyn trills.

This makes me so mad, I want to walk right over there and punch him, too, but I restrain myself.

There’s a double-paged spread of Elvis Presley, big as life, swaggering across the stage in a pair of tight white pants.

I’m not wearing my glasses because I think I look more sophisticated without them, and a person with freckles needs all the sophistication she can get.

I AM A STUDENT AT SACRED HEART SCHOOL, A PAROCHIAL BOARDING SCHOOL SITUATED IN THE HEART OF ALASKA.

I AM A STUDENT AT SACRED HEART SCHOOL, A PAROCHIAL BOARDING SCHOOL SITUATED IN THE HEART OF ALASKA.

The dream ebbs away like water melting into sand, but even with his eyes wide open, Luke feels the pain.

The kind of dream that feels significant—more substantial than the army cot or the sunny window or the smell of the hair grease that Bunna is combing into his hair, like an artist applying paint to a canvas.

Suddenly something inside Luke snaps into clarity.

“Why don’t you just—” His voice rises perilously.

I liked the way those cowboys came shooting out on their bucking broncos, hanging on for dear life and never letting go, no matter what, waving and smiling at the crowd.

But Michael O’Shay was from Fairbanks, and he was under the impression that the whole state, with the possible exception of Anchorage, was just some sort of big shadow Fairbanks made.

“But where’s your family from?” he persisted.

He waved his arms off vaguely into the direction where those star hunters might have been hunting.

I don’t want nobody being sorry at me or following after me with some crap about the compassion of Christ.

Me and Bunna who were spliced together from the day he was born, sliced apart forever now.

I’m not running anymore, but my heart is banging at my ribs like a rabid fox.