The Smell of Other People's Houses Read online

  Everyone who lives in Birch Park has to walk by him when we leave school, which is the one equalizer among us, besides also having to find a way to stay warm. Being poor may be enough to make us all look like a bunch of mismatched, unfashionable orphans, but it isn’t enough to make us all friends.

  Ruth Lawrence and her friend Selma Flowers are walking ahead of me and Dumpling. Selma doesn’t even live in Birch Park, but she walks home with Ruth every day because her mom is a fancy-pants reporter at the paper and the overprotective type, which means Selma can’t be home alone, even at the age of sixteen. Selma’s adopted, which would be no big deal, except that she loves talking about it.

  You can tell she is not from a village. In a village, it doesn’t matter who belongs to who. There are so many kids, they just bounce from house to house. If you happen to notice that your auntie’s new baby doesn’t look anything like her husband—but more like one of the guys from upriver who comes down in the spring to fish—you just smile and pinch his chubby cheeks anyway, because who cares? It’s not Selma’s life that makes her different from us, it’s the fact that she talks about it.

  She and Ruth both wear hand-knitted scarves and bulky hats that keep falling over their eyes. There must have been a big sale on orange yarn. Every day it seems like they have one more newly knitted item that doesn’t fit. One of them is suddenly into arts and crafts.

  Dumpling thinks Ruth is all right—maybe it’s just because she’s Lily’s sister and everyone loves Lily. But if the rumor about Ruth and Ray Stevens is true, she’s definitely not very smart.

  He sat behind me in social studies all last year and kept saying things like “Does anyone else smell muktuk?” Oh, that’s original. Of course all of us smell like whale blubber. It’s such an old racist joke I can’t even give him points for trying. No matter how much I ignored him he didn’t let up. I’ve never told anyone, not even Dumpling, about the note he slid onto my desk when nobody was looking. It said, “I could do things to you with my oosik that would make your fat bubble-gum ass dance.” I had nightmares for a week about that, even though he spelled it wrong. The word for whale penis is usruk, smart-ass. How could Dumpling think Ruth is okay if she likes someone like that?

  —

  But Dumpling always takes the high road. I’m sure she and her sister, Bunny, are nice because they have such nice parents, but as a matter of survival, I don’t take people at face value. I wait. Some people may look harmless, but most are just waiting to flare up and burn you if you get too close. You can never be too careful.

  Dumpling’s dad taught her that the glass is half full; mine taught me that the glass is totally full—of whiskey. Not very many people have a father like Dumpling’s, which is too bad for the rest of us. Sometimes I pretend, just for a few minutes every night before I go to sleep, that her dad is actually my dad, too, and that’s the only time I get any sleep.

  Most people in Fairbanks just lump all native people together, like the lunch lady who asked if Dumpling and I were sisters. I wish. Never mind that our Athabascan and Inupiat ancestors fought each other—she’s Indian; I’m Eskimo. Nobody would ever confuse Lily and Bunny like that—except maybe Lily and Bunny, who are walking in front of us now in their hand-me-down snowsuits, arms linked together, their heads practically touching, talking nonstop as they trudge between mounds of dirty snow. One dishwater blond like a hawk, the other jet-black like a raven. As usual, they’re laughing their heads off about something, probably that dumb Liquid Drano commercial they’re always reciting. The rest of us remember coming to Birch Park, but Bunny and Lily were too young. They’ve been inseparable since the moment they first laid eyes on each other.

  —

  As I get up to the corner, Crazy Dancing Guy yells to me, “What didn’t you fail at today?” Then he lists off a stream of numbers like he’s a drill sergeant. “Eighteen, seven, three, forty-two, nine.”

  I ignore him. He always yells the same thing and then random numbers. Nobody knows what he’s talking about. But as I turn the corner on Second Avenue, his words curl around my head like ice fog. I failed at everything today. I failed at getting to school on time and turning in my algebra paper. I failed at keeping the nightmares at bay and not sleeping with a chair propped under the doorknob, even though nothing has happened in months and I sleep at Dumpling’s now. I failed at telling myself I would not let Crazy Dancing Guy make me count off on my fingers all the ways I failed at not failing.

  —

  Later, Mom comes over to Dumpling’s and says she’ll drive me to the Salvation Army to look for some new snow boots. I need to say that again: Mom says she’ll drive me to the Salvation Army to look for some new snow boots. That seems like such a small, ordinary thing, but remember I live with Dumpling now. Her father brings home moose and caribou and ptarmigan, and her mother cooks them up on top of their woodstove in these huge cast-iron pots and the whole house smells like it’s smothered in gravy. Nobody yells at each other and throws pictures that will break in their frames and then get hung right back up on the wall anyway. At Dumpling’s you don’t have to look through shattered glass to see whose face it is, looking back out, warning you that the sound of glass breaking means it’s time to hide.

  So when Mom comes over to Dumpling’s house like she’s just a friendly neighbor offering to take me to the Salvation Army, I wonder what’s up. I know Dumpling’s father does, too, but nobody is going to say anything because that’s not what we do. Dumpling’s father shrugs and fiddles with his suspenders while her mother spoons Crisco into an empty coffee can and nods at the frozen blueberries in the sink, reminding me that the akutuq, Eskimo ice cream, will be ready when I get back.

  —

  “She makes that just for you?” Mom asks as we climb into her rusty blue Chevy. I shrug and make sure to hook the bungee cord really tight. It keeps the door from swinging open on the corners. Another thing I like about being at Dumpling’s is that her mother knows my favorite dessert and goes out of her way to make it for me without drawing a lot of attention to it. Also, there are real locks on all the doors.

  I don’t say anything, and my voice would be drowned out by the sound of the Chevy’s muffler even if I did. Bunny and Lily are on the merry-go-round, spinning and laughing. They yell something in unison, and even though I can’t hear, I imagine it’s another commercial.

  As we drive away, I watch them spinning faster and faster on the merry-go-round, another gift from Catholic Charities for the poor kids of Birch Park, their arms draped over each other’s shoulders as if they are the only two people in a world they have created just for themselves. How do they do that?

  At the corner of Bartlett and Second Avenue, Crazy Dancing Guy is still doing his thing.

  Mom honks and smiles. “I love him.”

  “Mom, don’t encourage him. He looks stupid.”

  “He makes people laugh. He makes people feel good.”

  “He’s pickled,” I say before I can stop myself, and she slaps me with the back of her hand, right across my cheek. So fast I never even saw it coming.

  “You know better,” she says, lighting up her cigarette, tossing the match out the window. “You starting to think you’re better than us now, ’cause you live with rich people and eat akutuq every day?”

  I ignore that she thinks eating lard mixed with sugar and berries somehow makes you rich. But it’s really her way of saying she sees what Dumpling’s mother does for me. If I didn’t know her better, I might think it bothers her, but that would mean she cares and I don’t let myself go there. Not after all the times she just stood by and did nothing.

  I silently tick off three more things I have failed at today. Understanding my mom, remembering that we never talk about other people’s problems (or our own), and convincing Mom not to honk and wave at Crazy Dancing Guy.

  “Is he native?” I ask her, trying to make it sound like I didn’t just accuse someone’s parents of drinking so much that their kid came out fermented and w
eird, and now dances on a street corner. He doesn’t really look native, but that doesn’t mean he’s not. There’s a bunch of kids down in Caribou Flats who have bright-red hair, because they have an Athabascan mom and a Scottish dad. Now, there’s a family who knows how to laugh and drink and break a lot of furniture.

  “Nobody knows,” she says, also happy to turn the talk back to Crazy Dancing Guy. “I heard he calls himself ‘Miscellaneous.’ ”

  “That’s just weird,” I say, rubbing my cheek.

  “Come on, Dora, he’s funny. He brightens up the day when it’s so dark and cold out.”

  “He’s mental, Mom.” Unlike “pickled,” my mother seems to think “mental” is a compliment.

  “Some of my favorite people are mental.” She laughs and takes a drag on her cigarette. My mom loves to laugh, especially when nothing is funny. It’s an important trait to have around here, but I’m afraid I didn’t inherit it.

  —

  At the Salvation Army, we run into my mom’s friends, Paula and Annette, the loud sisters. I go to the shoe section by myself, but I can hear Mom howling with them a few aisles away, probably in the old lady pants section. The whole place smells like everyone’s mudroom in spring during break-up season, moldy and sweaty with a hint of thawing dog shit, because it’s on the bottom of every shoe.

  There are lots of big white bunny boots here, but I do not want to look like Crazy Dancing Guy, even though they are the smartest choice and the cheapest. But then I spot them: Lobbens, woolen boots from Norway that the rich white girls wear. They look like elf shoes, but I know they’re expensive and warm. Even at the Salvation Army these are ten bucks. I put them on and feel my feet slide around a bit, but with a few more pairs of socks they might work. I steer my Lobbened feet toward what sounds like moose braying, and sure enough, when Paula and Annette see me they practically pee their pants.

  “The Keebler elves called, girl. They want their boots back!” Annette falls on top of Paula, who is wearing a red and white sweater covered in snowmen and a pair of reindeer antlers. All the Christmas stuff is seventy-five percent off right now.

  I ignore Annette. “Mom, can I get these?”

  My mom clutches her stomach like she’s trying to keep her spleen from bursting.

  “They’re warm and a little big, so they’ll last a long time.”

  “Go ask George if I got any more credit,” she says, draping her arm around Paula for balance and knocking off her antlers. “If they’re so warm maybe you can walk yourself home. Oh, and tell George I need the change; we’re going to stop off at the Sno-Go for happy hour.”

  So there it is, the reason my mom offered to bring me here for boots. She didn’t have any cash for the bar.

  George winks at me out of a face that looks like a baked apple with tiny cloves for eyes. He knew my great-grandparents back in the village, he’s that old.

  “You okay, Dora? Those don’t look like your usual style.”

  “I like these, George. They’re really warm.”

  “I know, those European dog mushers have been wearing them lately in all the races. But I didn’t think you were the dog mushing type.”

  “No, I just like them. A change, you know?”

  “Does your mama know they’re ten dollars?”

  I shrug. Surely she was hoping George would give her at least seven bucks back. The Salvation Army is kind of like a neighborhood bank. You get credit for bringing in old clothes, but then if you buy at least five dollars’ worth of merchandise, you can take the rest of your balance in change.

  “Well, would you look at that,” he says, punching a few keys on his register. “Foreign merchandise is on sale today and today only. It’s your lucky day, Dora.” He winks and hands me eight bucks.

  What I like about George is this: He lets people make their own choices. He doesn’t judge anyone or try to talk me out of something that is a very bad idea. And when I come back two days later with my old sneakers on because I would rather freeze than endure another day of the rich girls at school laughing and pointing and saying I’m trying to be like them, George does not say, “No, you can’t return these European, snobby woolen boots and trade them for the bunny boots you should have bought to begin with.”

  All he says is “You’ll get a five-dollar credit on that exchange, if you want to grab some socks or something nice for yourself.” I don’t tell George that this is the Salvation Army, so finding something nice for myself is probably a long shot. Besides, my mother would absolutely know if I got cash credit and didn’t give it to her.

  When I walk back past Second Avenue in the bunny boots, all Crazy Dancing Guy says to me is, “What didn’t you fail at today? Five, four, ten, thirty-seven.” He does not stop dancing. Arms and legs flying, cars honking, him smiling and waving. He says it twice more, “Five, four, ten, thirty-seven,” so that the numbers stick in my head like a song. Just when I think he’s done he yells, “I like your boots.”

  Dumpling runs up from behind and links my arm with hers, completely ignoring Crazy Dancing Guy.

  “Hey, Dora.”

  “Hey, Dumpling.”

  She swings her braid around and smacks me in the face with the red ribbon that she wears every single day.

  “Where you off to?” she asks, looking at my boots and of course not mentioning it.

  I flash the five-dollar bill in my mittened hand and she knows that I’m on my way to the Sno-Go to give my mother her change.

  “Bunny was named for those boots,” she says.

  “What were you named for?” I ask.

  “Some dish one of the priests made for my mom when she was pregnant with me, chicken and dumplings? It’s the only time my mom had chicken. She said it’s just like ptarmigan, but not as tender.”

  We laugh at the utter practicality of Dumpling’s parents, which makes me feel all warm inside until I get a whiff of something dark and smoky, like burnt toast, which I recognize as the smell of my family compared to hers. I wonder if a person can ever really shake where they come from.

  “Want me to come with you to the Sno-Go?” she asks.

  “Oh, you don’t have to. I know you can’t stand all the smoke.”

  She turns and presses her face close to mine.

  “Please don’t make me go home. Bunny and Lily are driving me mad with the TV. They don’t even watch the shows; they just wait for the commercials and then turn the volume up to about a million.”

  It’s just like Dumpling to act like I’m doing her a favor by letting her come with me to the bar. “All right, if it means so much to you,” I say. The truth is, I kind of have a soft spot for the Sno-Go, because it was there that my father lost his temper and shot up the bathroom with a rifle. And that’s why he got thrown into the slammer. He didn’t hurt anyone; he just went in there drunk and decided to remodel the bathroom with a gun. So now he’s in jail for “reckless endangerment” and I can sleep at night—more or less—as long as I’m at Dumpling’s and her dad makes sure to bolt the front door.

  —

  It’s only four p.m. but the Sno-Go is packed. I secretly love the way the cigarette smoke billows out the door and mixes with the ice fog. When we step inside, nobody knows who we are for half a second while the air settles. Then they all see us. There’s a few high-pitched whistles, lots of laughter. Dumpling’s parents never come to the bar, but my mom is here every single day with her loud-sister pals.

  “You got a credit from George,” I tell Mom, once we make our way over to where she sits with Paula and Annette. “Can Dumpling and I have a couple dollars, though, for a Dairy Queen?” She grabs the bill from my hand with a big, dimpled grin and I know it’s as good as spent.

  But I made sure to ask within hearing distance of Paula. “Wait, it’s on me, you two,” she says right on cue, whipping out her beaded wallet. Paula can be very generous after a few drinks, which makes me think she’s had an okay childhood.

  I will never touch booze and I hope to God that’s a
promise I can say I didn’t fail at.

  “Thanks, Paula,” I say as she gives me a wadded-up bunch of bills and a messy, pungent kiss on the cheek.

  Nick is behind the bar and calls us over. My mom dated Nick for a while after Dad left. I liked him more than the others. Even though he tends bar, he never came home drunk. And he’s got nice teeth, which you don’t see every day.

  “You girls wanna Ice Classic ticket? You could win thousands.”

  The Ice Classic has been going on for almost seventy years. For one buck per ticket, people guess when the ice on the river is going to go out, and if they’re right, they win a load of cash. Last year it was something crazy, like ten thousand dollars. There’s a tripod set up on the middle of the frozen river with a trip wire and a clock that stops at the exact time the ice goes out. The winner is the one closest right down to the minute. It’s hard to think about the river thawing when it’s still forty below. But when spring finally does come, it rushes in like a band of robbers. The gunshot sound of ice breaking frightens me every single year.

  “Come on, ladies, one buck. Change your lives forever. Can’t really go wrong with just one buck.”

  “That means no Dairy Queen,” whispers Dumpling.

  “No, it means no dipped cone. We can just get a plain swirl if we each use one buck here.”

  Dumpling is thinking hard about this. She loves cherry-dipped cones.

  “I think it’s a sure fail,” she says. “I mean, come on, the exact minute?”

  Crazy Dancing Guy’s voice is still spinning around in my brain. Five, four, ten, thirty-seven…

  “One ticket, Nick,” I hear myself say. I take the stub and fill in the blank. May 4, 10:37 a.m.

  We head back out into the cold, and if Dumpling is wondering what I just did, she doesn’t ask. I’m not sure I even know myself.

  “Hey, Dumpling, when Crazy Dancing Guy asks what you didn’t fail at today, what do you think of?”

  “Right now, I would say I didn’t fail at getting a cherry-dipped cone, but you did.”