The Stormchasers: A Novel (35 page)

Karena’s leg jerks involuntarily under the table.

“What did you tell her?” she asks.

“That he’d been there,” Charles says absently, and then his eyes widen. He thrusts his palms out, waving them. “Oh, Jesus, no, K! I didn’t tell her what really happened, nothing like that. Goodness, no. Just that ever since I was very little I’d had this—affliction, or gift, or whatever you want to call it; that I have visions. And that this is something I accept about myself as part of who I am, a scary part sometimes, but also the best part of me because it makes me who I am, you know? It helps me understand things. Enables me to find the storms. But without getting into all that, I tell her what’s going on, honestly, which is hard for me because most of the time I keep it to myself, the world has such a misconception about it. And you know what she did?”

Karena can guess.

“She told her dad,” Charles says. “Yup. She went straight to Mr. C and told him I’d been hallucinating. Nice show of support, right? But that’s how crazy I was about this girl, K, I wasn’t thinking straight. If I had been, I would’ve known that was going to happen, because what else could I expect from a woman who wanted to be a doctor, of all things? Can you imagine?”

“Well,” Karena says cautiously, “yes, actually, and I don’t know that it necessarily sounds like a conflict of interest. In some ways it could be ideal—”

“Yeah, if you accept I have an illness, and I don’t,” Charles says. He levels a finger at her. “I’ve done a lot of research on my condition, K, not just sources from our culture but others that are older and more advanced. And I’ve spent a lot of time with the Lakota, and you know what they call a man like me, K? A man who has visions?”

“No,” says Karena.

“They call him a
wicasa wakan
,” Charles says. “A divine man. A blessed man. Sure, somebody whose soul is eroded more quickly than other people’s, especially if he uses his talents to help them. Because he can see things others can’t, and that’s a psychic burden. Still. It’s not stigmatized like it is in our culture. It’s viewed as it should be, with respect.”

“Okay,” says Karena, “I hear you, Charles. I understand—”

“You don’t, though,” Charles says. “You don’t understand what it’s like to have visions like me. Do you?”

Karena stares at her place mat. After a minute she shakes her head.

“I’m sorry, K,” says Charles. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice. It just frustrates me that otherwise we’re like one person, but that’s the one thing you don’t get. And it’s not just nature, it’s nurture. You’re a product of our culture. You’ve been brainwashed along with everyone else. Which brings me back to Situ. She was scared of me after that, asked me to see somebody—and again, I should have seen right then that she was not the woman for me, because if she were, she never would’ve forced me to go against my principles. But she did, so for that whole spring I went to a shrink in Lawrence. Sat in this office with posters that said INSPIRATION and TEAMWORK and changed them around in my mind so they said PERSPIRATION and ROADWORK, and this guy with a big mustache talked to me about bipolar this and rapid cycling that and had I ever been on lithium? He put me on four different drug cocktails, and I took it as long as I could, K. Which wasn’t that long, because as you may remember I have an unusual sensitivity to medication. I stopped taking the whatever, and finally when the guy asked me had I considered ECT, it was making quite a comeback, I got up and walked out. I went back to the motel and packed my bags and said to the siren, I’m outta here, and I left. I haven’t spoken to Situ since.”

He stops, holds up a finger, and drinks his green tea in a single long swallow.

“I have looked her up online, though,” he says. “She’s a shrink now, in Denver. Ironic, isn’t it?”

Karena nods and drinks some wine.

“I guess,” she says, watching Charles, as she has been all along. Ever since he has started talking—no, since he stepped into her house, since he followed her here, since they met in Austin—Karena has been on high alert for signs of the djinn. She has been waiting for his monologue to swerve into incoherence, to become grandiose and insulting. For his expression to shift and change, to become that dark liquid scorn she remembers so well. But she hasn’t seen the djinn, not today, not tonight, just her brother breathlessly telling a story. And Karena would know the difference, she’s quite confident she would, even after all this time. The djinn is bred into her muscle memory.

“Well,” says Charles, wiping his mouth with a napkin, “that’s it. The tragic story of my broken engagement—Jesus, come to think of it, that’s something
I
have in common with the Loaf. He told you about that, didn’t he? Except from what I heard he was the dumpee, not the dumper.”

“Yes, Charles,” says Karena. “He told me.”

Charles shakes his head. “Poor guy. You gotta feel for him. But I’m telling you, sistah. Your taste in men . . .”

“Charles.”

“I’m just saying.”

He stands up, yawning.

“I just hit a wall,” he says. “Do you mind if I go to bed early?”

“Of course not. And you don’t need to ask. This is your house too.”

“Thanks, K,” says Charles. He cricks his neck this way and that. “You wouldn’t happen to know a good holistic chiropractor, would you?”

“Um, no,” says Karena. “But I could find one.”

“That’s okay,” Charles says. “I’ll do it.”

He comes around the table and kisses her head.

“Good night, sistah,” he says. “It’s so good to be here. We have so much to talk about . . . Love you.”

“Love you too,” Karena says. She watches him walk down the hall, turn and wave, then disappear up the steps to her room.

“W
here’d you go, Laredo?” Kevin asks.

It is Sunday evening of that week and they are lying in Kevin’s bedroom, the masculine quality of which, Karena has assured him, more than compensates for Mrs. Axlerod’s scraggly impatiens and witch ball. The apartment is a railroad flat, long and dim, its windows screened by oaks and elms so it is like being in a tree house. The woodwork is brown, the davenport and armchair are black leather. But between the initial frenzied lovemaking on the sticky, squeaky couch and the second slower one in here, Karena has wandered the rooms naked, enchanted and exclaiming. There are rocks and fossils everywhere, ammonites as refrigerator magnets, geodes on the sills. The walls are covered with old survey maps—Minnesota, the grasslands, Texas, Cherry County—and with Kevin’s photos of night lightning and supercells. In the bathroom Karena has discovered his childhood copy of
The Weather Wizard’s Cloud Book,
with
Mr. Kevin Wiebke
written in painstaking bubble cursive on the flyleaf. And above his bed is a cloud mobile, a present made for him, Kevin explains, by his graduating eighth graders of 2003. The place is a combination of bachelor pad and natural science museum.

“Hello in there,” Kevin says, tapping Karena’s forehead. “Anybody home?”

“Maybe,” says Karena. “Who wants to know?” She is lying with her head pillowed on Kevin’s stomach, smoothing its curve with a hand. Loafy, she thinks, and makes a sound between a snicker and a sigh.

“Mr. Wizard wants to know where he took you today,” says Kevin.

“First time or second?”

“Both.”

“Greedy Mr. Wizard,” Karena says. “Mmmmm . . . the first time, to the A & W.”

“I took you to a root beer stand?”

“Hey,” says Karena, pushing herself up on her elbow, “it’s one of my very favorite places. You want to hear this or not?”

Kevin pats his stomach. “Just lay your pretty little head back down there, Laredo,” he says, “that’s right, smooth those ruffled feathers. I’m with you. Frosty mug, root beer float, the business. Then where?”

“Deer Creek State Park, north side of town. Did I tell you about that place? There’s watercress in the creek, and you can actually eat it, the water’s so clean.”

“No, you didn’t tell me about that,” says Kevin, drawing Karena’s hair over his chest. “Not until just now. But that’s fine. I know you are a woman of many mysteries I must patiently reveal.”

Karena sighs. Kevin doesn’t know the half of it. He doesn’t know, nor can she ever tell him, that she lied just now, that in fact both times they made love she went not to New Heidelburg but a location she hasn’t visited for a long time: the road in Iowa. With the dead man on it. And the green tornado roving in the background.

“There’s that bad sound again,” says Kevin. “That sigh. Okay, what’s up, Laredo? I know this is new for us and everything, but I can tell there’s something else bugging you. Is it Chuck? Is he behaving himself all right?”

“He is,” Karena says. “He’s being an exemplary guest,” and it’s true. Charles has been very respectful. He makes his bed. Shops for organic local produce. Every night, he cooks.

“Wow,” says Kevin. “Can we move him over here? My bathroom needs scrubbing.”

“That’s true, Mr. Wizard,” says Karena, “I meant to mention that.”

“Watch it, mouthy,” says Kevin. “Seriously, what’s it like, having him there?”

Karena thinks about how to explain it. On the one hand, waking up every day with Charles in her house brings a deep comfort and joy Karena hasn’t known since childhood. It’s like Christmas morning, only the present is her brother. On the other, having Charles around all the time is like hearing herself in stereo. As much of a blessing as it is to be with another person who knows her that well, it can also be tiring to have Charles finish her sentences, or to say things at the same time, or to look up and know from across the room what he’s thinking. It can be claustrophobic. And Karena knows—of course—that Charles feels the same way, as indicated by his encouraging her to come over here tonight.
Are you sure you don’t mind?
Karena asked, feeling guilty.
I feel like you just got here,
and Charles shooed her out, saying,
No, K, go get laid or something. You’re starting to get uptight, and it’s getting on my nerves.

Karena tells Kevin all of this except the conversation, and he nods, looking at the cloud mobile, which spins gently in a warm draft from somewhere.

“That’s really interesting, Laredo,” he says. “I’ve always wondered—I guess most people do—what it’s like to be a twin. Us non-twins fantasize it’s like having a best friend all the time, but I can see how you’d step on each other’s toes too. So . . . what’s it like when his mood swings? Can you feel that?”

“It’s more like I’m more attuned to Charles’s moods than anyone else,” Karena explains, “but it’s not what most people think, he cuts himself and I bleed, for instance. I don’t get agitated when he’s manic or down when he’s depressed.”

“Thank God for that,” says Kevin.

He winnows his fingers through her hair, braiding it. He has five sisters, he has told Karena, and as the youngest he was sternly instructed from a very early age in the art of hairdressing. Karena is being hypnotized by the gentle tug and pull, which she feels all through her body down to her fingertips and toes, when Kevin says, “So, Chuck’s finally found some medication he can tolerate and he’s on it? Taking it regularly?”

Karena’s eyes pop open.

“Well,” she says, “not exactly.”

Kevin’s fingers pause, then pick up again. “What does that mean,” he says, his voice neutral.

“It means no, he’s not on meds, but he seems to be doing really well,” says Karena. “I haven’t seen so much as a blink of the djinn since he got here.”

“Huh,” says Kevin. “And he told you this? That he’s not on medication? Or is it just something you suspect?”

“No, I know he’s not. He doesn’t believe in it,” Karena says. All her muscles are starting to tense, and she makes a conscious effort to relax them. “He has terrible reactions to medication, Kevin. He always has. Ever since we were kids.”

Kevin doesn’t say anything, and he continues to braid Karena’s hair, but she can feel him taking deeper breaths, his stomach rising and falling under her cheek.

“What?” she says.

“I don’t like it, Karena,” says Kevin. “I don’t like his being there with you and not being on medication.”

Karena nods.

“I know. It’s not what I would have wished for either. But you know,” she says thoughtfully, “maybe he has learned to control the disorder. He knows a tremendous amount about alternative medicine. He meditates, he doesn’t drink or smoke, he’s so careful about what he eats, he takes supplements, he sticks to a regular schedule—”

“Karena, sit up, please,” says Kevin. “So I can look at you.”

He takes her hands and they sit Indian-style facing each other, the sheet pooled in their laps.

“What you’re thinking,” he says, “Karena, it’s so dangerous. You can’t fix bipolar disorder through herbal remedies and meditation. You can help it, sure. I’m sure everything Chuck’s doing helps regulate his moods significantly. But it hasn’t gone away, honey. It’s still there, waiting to come out.”

Karena shakes her head and the braid Kevin has finished whips her neck.

“I know that, Kevin,” she says.

“I know you do,” says Kevin, “in here,” and he touches her temple. “But in here,” and he puts a finger on her heart, “I fear it’s a different story. You want it to be all okay now, just because you found him. But it’s not.”

Karena looks away, at a row of vertebrae lying on Kevin’s dresser, next to a Mason jar of old wheat pennies.

“You don’t know that,” she says. “Not for sure. Did you know you
can
cure bipolar disorder? In some cases. When it’s caught early enough. The medication corrects the brain’s chemistry, stabilizes it. Permanently, I mean.”

“I know that, Laredo,” says Kevin. “I’ve read that too. But didn’t you tell me Chuck’s never stayed on meds? Even if you did catch it early, still, he would have had to get on it and stay on it faithfully, and—”