There There - Tommy Orange Page 0,41
so he could be there dancing and listening to that sound, singing right there in his ears through all those hard years they made it through. But that moment was also the first time his brothers saw him in regalia, dancing like that, they walked in on him in the middle of it, and they thought it was hilarious, they laughed and laughed but promised not to tell Opal.
As for Loother, not counting himself, he listens exclusively to three rappers: Chance the Rapper, Eminem, and Earl Sweatshirt. Loother writes and records his own raps to instrumentals he finds on YouTube and makes Orvil and Lony listen to them and agree with him about how good he is. As for Lony, they’d recently discovered what he’s into.
“You hear that?” Loother had asked one night in their room.
“Yeah. It’s, like, some kind of chorus or choir, right?” Orvil said.
“Yeah, like angels or some shit,” Loother said.
“Angels?” Orvil said.
“Yeah, like what they have them sound like.”
“What they have them sound like?”
“I mean like movies and shit,” Loother said. “Shut up. It’s still going. Listen.”
They sat for the next couple of minutes and listened to the distant sound of the symphony, of the choir coming through an inch of speaker, muted by Lony’s ears—ready to believe it was anything, anything better than the sound they had the angels make. It hit Orvil first what the sound was, and he started to say Lony’s name, but Loother got up, put a finger to his lips, then went over and gently pulled Lony’s earphones out. He put one of them close to his ear and smiled. He looked at Lony’s phone and smiled bigger and showed it to Orvil.
“Beethoven?” Orvil said.
They ride up Fourteenth toward downtown. Fourteenth takes them through downtown to East Twelfth, which gets them to the Fruitvale without a bike lane, but on a street big enough, so that even though cars get comfortable, swerve a little, and go faster on East Twelfth, it’s better than riding the gutter-edge of International Boulevard.
When they get to Fruitvale and International, they stop in the Wendy’s parking lot. Orvil and Loother take out their phones.
“Guys. Seriously? Orvil had spider legs in his leg? What the fuck?” Lony asks.
Orvil and Loother look at each other and laugh hard. Lony hardly ever curses, so when he does it’s always both super serious and funny to hear.
“C’mon,” Lony says.
“It’s real, Lony,” Orvil says.
“What does that mean, it’s real?” Lony says.
“We don’t know,” Orvil says.
“Call Grandma,” Lony says.
“And say what?” Loother says.
“Tell her,” Lony says.
“She’ll make it a big deal,” Orvil says.
“What’d the internet say?” Lony asks.
Loother just shakes his head.
“Seems Indian,” Orvil says.
“What?” Loother says.
“Spiders and shit,” Orvil says.
“Definitely Indian,” Lony says.
“Maybe you should call,” Loother says.
“Fuck,” Orvil says. “But the powwow’s tomorrow.”
“What does that have to do with it?” Loother says.
“You’re right,” Orvil says. “It’s not like she knows we’re going.”
Orvil leaves a message for his grandma when she doesn’t pick up. He tells her they got Lony’s bike, and then about the spider legs. While he leaves the message he watches Loother and Lony look at the legs together. They poke at the legs, and move the toilet paper so that the legs bend. Orvil feels a pulse in his stomach, and like something falls out of him. After he hangs up, he takes the legs, folds up the toilet paper, and stuffs it in his pocket.
* * *
—
The day of the powwow Orvil wakes up hot. He covers his face with the cold bottom of his pillow. He thinks about the powwow, then lifts the pillow and tilts his head to listen to what he thinks he hears from out in the kitchen. He wants to minimize their time with Opal before they go. He wakes his brothers up by hitting them with his pillow. They both moan and roll over, so he hits them again.
“We gotta get out without having to talk to her, she might have made us breakfast. We’ll tell her we’re not hungry.”
“But I am hungry,” Lony says.
“Don’t we wanna hear what she thinks about the spider legs?” Loother says.
“No,” Orvil says. “We don’t. Not now.”
“I really don’t think she’ll care we’re going to the powwow,” Loother says.
“Maybe,” Orvil says. “But what if she does?”
* * *
—
Orvil and his brothers ride their bikes down San Leandro Boulevard on the sidewalk in a line. At the Coliseum BART Station, they lift their bikes and carry them on their shoulders, then