Intaglio: The Snake and the Coins (27 page)

Now she knew.

“...and I had
the dream all the time when I was a kid...” Kip gasped, his words a stream of
consciousness.  “For as long back as I can remember.... It was this dark
city and the masses of people pushing and shoving around me… and I knew I had
to leave!  Go someplace where I could breathe... Fuck!  It was awful
– I’d always be trying to wake up, but I never could!  And then the dream
would change… and there’d these missionaries…” He glanced up, face wild. 
“My mom was sent to a residential school when she was a kid, you know?  So
I KNOW the crazy shit that happened with them.  Horrible, fucked-up
stuff.  You can’t imagine it, Ava, but that happened… that HAPPENED to my
people!  Mom always thought my dreams were visions of what had happened to
our people!  But they… they never stopped!”

“A lot of kids
get nightmares, Kip,” Ava said softly, trying not to startle him. 
“Doesn’t have to mean—”

“No!” he cried,
interrupting her.  “It MEANS something!  You see, it’s the city… THAT
CITY!  I kept dreaming about these missionaries in black robes coming
after our people… I could see children running and hiding... men and women
fighting… trying to get away from these monsters...   who destroyed
the Hopi and all the other indigenous peoples...   Th- these people
who weren’t really like people at all... they were awful… like
monsters
... 
giving out smallpox infected blankets, trading for whiskey, taking our land,
killing… so much killing!”

He angrily
rubbed away tears as he struggled for breath, his body crumpled down.  Ava
watched him in unmoving horror.  She sat on the couch on the other side of
the room.  There was
no way
she was getting closer.  His
meltdown was really freaking her out and she was primed to run if she needed
to. 

Her eyes
scuttled over to the stairs, and then back to him again.

“Kip,” she said
carefully, “it’s just a painting.”

“But it’s NOT!”
he roared. 

She
jumped.   

“That place you
painted,” he shouted, pointing at the three half-draped canvases, “is EXACTLY
my dream!  Like I’ve been there a thousand times before... 
I have
been there!
  I fucking DREAMED IT ALL!”

“Okay...” she
said quietly.   

In the back of
her mind, Ava was calculating how to just leave Kip Chambers in her
studio.  She didn’t care anymore, she just needed to get the hell
away.  But Kip was talking again.

“...night after
night I’d wake up screaming... terrified that these men in black robes were
coming to kill me... I kept dreaming of millions of First Nations’ people dead;
children starving, whole tribes destroyed, sent away, starving... There was so
much pain and death.  So much fighting… but the black robes kept
coming...”

Ava frowned at
the description, unwilling to interrupt.  Kip seemed to be somewhere else
now, his eyes distant and hazy.

“...You can’t
imagine how
real
it was for me... I was terrified of the missionaries… they
were the demons of my nightmares.  Had the dream so many times that my
parents finally sent me to a doctor. He called them night terrors... prescribed
me anti-anxiety medications... had me drugged up from the time I was five until
I was fifteen...”

“Oh my god,” Ava
muttered, her hand coming up to her mouth.  “That’s fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Kip
said, “You know what the really awful part was?”

Ava waited, not
sure she wanted to hear the answer, because Kip was reacting the way
she had
reacted
to that painting in Wilkins’ class… and she didn’t
want
to
know what that meant for her.

“The worst part…
the really fucked up thing about it,” Kip said, dropping his voice to a
hoarse whisper, “is that when they drugged me up, I
still
had the dream,
Ava, only I didn’t care about anyone anymore.  It didn’t scare me as
much.  I could see it.  Could watch it all.  It came to me... as
I got older... I wasn’t scared of it
because I was one of the black robes
too....
  I just didn’t know it.” 

He took a
shuddering breath, his head dropping down, before looking back up at her. 
Tears ran down his cheeks, his eyes red and raw.

“It was
me
all along,
don’t you understand?!?  I WAS A MISSIONARY… and
then...  and then...”  His words stuttered to a stop, breathing in
gulps.

Ava felt a
sudden wave of protectiveness. 
‘He only meant well…
’ a voice
inside her whispered, but she hardly noticed.  Her thoughts were on Kip,
his dark head tipped down, strands of hair dangling into his eyes.  He
looked so lost. 

“It’s okay,
Qaletaqa,” she said, “it’s gonna be okay...” 

He stopped
talking at her words, wiping his face.

“No one calls me
that,” he said with a nervous laugh.  “Well... I guess my mom used to when
I was little, but not anymore.”

He laughed
again, a bit louder. Ava's cheeks were burning.  She wasn’t even sure
why
she’d used his full name. 

“Sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Kip
said shakily, shoving his hair roughly off his face, “you can call me that if
you want to... no one else though.”

“What does it
mean?” she asked shyly.  “Your name, I mean… I’ve read it before but never
knew.”

He smiled wanly.

“My grandmother
named me,” he said quietly.  “Qaletaqa is Hopi for guardian of the
people.”  His lips quivered, his gaze going back to the distant
wall.  “My grandmother thought she’d called a spirit into me with my
naming, but I never thought that.  More just a fucked-up kid with an
overactive imagination …” 

He chuckled
again, his  face growing calmer.  The panic seemed to recede with his
laughter, and he let his head thud back against the wall, finishing his
story. 

“Once I hit
puberty, the nightmares slowed down, until they were only once or twice a
month... and then a few times a year... and then by the time I was out of high
school they just... stopped.”  Kip nodded at Ava’s canvas.  “Until
today.”  His expression rippled, the worry returning.   
“I’m not kidding… that
means
something, Ava.”

She nodded,
wishing she knew what it was.

Ava watched as
Kip Chambers pulled himself together.   He wiped his eyes on his
sleeve, sniffling loudly, then straightened his clothing.  This done, he
cleared his throat and stood up.  Walking over to the three canvases, he
tugged at the drop cloth, hiding them from view. 

Chambers turned
around, fidgeting uncomfortably.

“I’ve... uh...
got to think about what I’m going to paint on top of those, if
anything...”  He took a slow breath, calm returned.  “It’s just kind
of... too much, you know?”

Ava nodded.
 It was like a storm had passed, leaving him ravaged and weary. 
This
Kip Chambers
she could deal with... just not the volatile one from
minutes earlier.

“I feel like
I’ve got this connection with you,” he muttered.

Ava frowned,
crossing her arms.  His words stirred something inside her.

“How so...?”

He shrugged,
shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning against the wall.  He looked
like a skate punk again, only a bit more fragile.

“You’re a
graffiti artist too,” he explained.  “I get that... And you’re nice and
funny and—”

“
I’m with
someone
,” she interrupted, voice sharp. 

Kip shook his
head (though Ava could’ve sworn she saw the hint of a smile pulling up his
mouth).

“That’s
not
what
I meant,” he said in a rush.  “I’m with someone too, actually.  Raya
Simpson isn’t
just
my agent.”  He paused, catching Ava’s eyes again.
“I’d love to see your work.”

She shifted
nervously, reaching for her leather jacket and pulling it on. 

“You’ve
seen
my work,” she said acidly, nodding to the now-hidden canvases.

“Nah...” Kip
said dropping his voice though there was no one to overhear.  “I mean the
stuff that actually
means
something to you.”  He grinned, and for a
moment he looked like the Kip Chambers she’d met at the gallery, all confidence
and laughter.  “I want to see your graffiti.”

Ava
shrugged.  This was one way to get him out of her studio, at least.

“Well...”

She glanced out
the window.  It was a deep, purplish black outside, the moon not up
yet.  The
perfect
time for illegal activities.  Kip, as a
graffiti artist, already knew what he was doing, so he would be easy to take
along. She considered taking the spray cans along, but put the thought aside
just as quickly.  (She’d already had one close call this year and didn’t
want another.)

“I guess I could
take you out...” she said cautiously.  “You want to go now?”

Kip
nodded. 

“Yeah,” he said,
running a hand over the back of his neck, “I need to get my mind on something
else.”  He paused, peering out the darkened window and then back at
Ava.  “Do you mind if I call  Raya?  I don’t want her worrying.”

Ava nodded,
feeling the last bit of her unease fade away.  Kip and Raya being a couple
made this a lot easier for her.  Kip picked up his cell phone and stepped
into the hall.  She could hear him mentioning her name and then
graffiti.  Ava felt herself relax, her hands unclenching.  Things
felt
normal
again.

A moment later
he stepped back in the studio.

“So, Booker,” he
said with a wink.  “You ready to show me the ropes?”

Ava grinned,
zipping up her jacket and grabbing the keys to her truck.

“Just follow my
lead.”

It was strange
going back to the train yards.  Kip chattered constantly; as he made yet
another joke, she realized that, maybe, in some other universe, she might even
be attracted to him.  He was funny and good-looking and easy to be around. 
But there was definitely no...
click
.

Not like with
Cole.

She chewed her
lower lip as she drove, a niggling sense of doubt rising inside her. 
Catching sight of the unmarked turnoff, Ava pulled hard on the wheel and headed
onto the access road.  A few minutes later, she flicked off the lights,
guiding the vehicle by memory.  Next to her, Kip squinted into the
darkness. 

“I remember
coming here in the Fall with Raya,” he said quietly. “That’s when we first saw
your work.”

Ava bit the
inside of her cheek, saying nothing.  The image of Raya Simpson in white
suit and heels climbing a chain-link fence was funnier than it ought to
be.  Ava focused on her driving instead, taking the truck up the road as
far as she dared.  With Cole, it had been great, because they’d walked his
bike almost to the fence.  With Kip, they’d have to leave her truck
further back. 

She turned off
the engine next to an industrial garbage bin that was her marker.  There
was a pathway leading to the river bottom crossing the road at this
point.  Hikers regularly walked this way, so if her truck was found, no
one would necessarily
assume
trouble.  She could, in theory, be out
for a run.

That was Ava’s
hope, at least.

Stepping out
into the cold night, she shoved her keys deep in her pocket and headed toward
the distant fence; her eyes and ears were acutely aware of her
surroundings.  Behind her Chambers got out, closing the door with a click
rather than a bang. 
‘He does have a little bit of experience with
this,’
she thought. 
‘That’ll make it easier.’ 

He jogged up
quietly, coming to walk alongside her.  He stayed silent, guarded and
alert, conscious of the sounds around them.   She was grateful not to
have to point out the obvious to him. 

In minutes
they’d reached the fence. Ava unzipped her jacket, tossing it atop the
spikes.  She climbed up and over, turning back to check on Kip.  He
was already on the other side, stepping over to hand Ava her coat and shrugging
his back on.  The speed and silence surprised her, her begrudging admiration
rising again.  Motioning Kip to follow, she set off for the train-bridge.

The thrum of
excitement pulsed along her nerves, leaving her with the breathless rush she
always associated with graffiti.  Fast cars did it for Ava too... and
motorbikes.  For a moment, the image of Cole atop his bike flashed through
her mind, his fingers in her belt loops pulling her forward to straddle his
knee.  That memory played a part in many of her fantasies.  She
smiled to herself as they finally reached their destination.

‘Wish Cole was
here...’
she thought again.

Beside her, Kip
strode up to the cement wall, his eyes following the shapes and lettering along
the vast expanse.  Ava saw that someone else had added to the piece on the
far end.  Reaching the pools of light cast from the streetlamps overhead,
she examined it.  The painting was done in jagged, hard-edged lines,
obscene phrases roiling with energy and frustration.  Ava chuckled,
recognizing the script and style immediately.