For his thirteenth birthday Doug requested that he be given no presents. The formal family gathering—it could hardly be called a birthday party—included only his best friend Jacob and the old polish couple that lived down the block in addition to his mother, father and two younger brothers. Doug had read in a large leather-bound volume that the noble Raccoon spent its entire life in service to friends and family. A scientific introduction to Raccoon, accompanied by eight pen sketches and one centerfold watercolor, preceded the biblical story of Uziah the Hitite, who, as a humble servant to all, stood in high regard with the Lord.
“I will be like Raccoon.” Doug announced over the thirteen flickering candles that adorned his birthday cake. His mother and father stood arm in arm bemused and unreadable.
In school was a young girl, a Hmong, whose anglicized name was Vickie. Her cheeks, red from the September wind, rose up around her eyes like makeup. Doug helped carry her books to and from Math and Science and helped carry her flute to Music class. During lunch he brought an extra piece of Rhubarb pie for her and accepted a spoon of her butterscotch pudding. He never told her about Sunday school or all the Jewish people he knew but every week he introduced her to another animal from his father’s big book. Sometimes he remembered passages from the books, often he invented original tales for his courageous animals, working together in families or pairs to survive and beautify the natural world.
In the world of animals love is not an option but an instinct. On weekends Doug and Jacob walked into the woods to find perfectly straight sticks. Hidden behind trees they used Jacob’s Swiss Army knife to whittle their sticks into staves, swords, javelins, atl-atles, bows and flagpoles. They dreamed of being lost, stranded at sea, without Internet or caught up in an apocalypse. Jacob’s parents were divorced but he did very well in school and had been moved up a grade twice during kindergarden, a secret he shared only with Doug. Jacob's father used to take him into the wilderness beyond the salt piles to shoot pellet guns and build military shelters with the wide low-hung spruce branches before he found another wife and moved to Seattle. With their sticks finished the two boys ran between the narrow saplings screaming and stabbing their spears at fallen leaves. Doug wanted to tell Jacob about Vickie, who danced along the shale cliffs of his memory even as he pressed the knife's blade against the wood and removed a curling strip of its flesh.
"Have you seen anything on China?" He tried to sound disinterested or at least noncommittal. They lay cooled by sweat, taking short pulls of air and feeling blood swish like surf through their bodies. Jacob rolled forward, jabbed his stick into the dirt and vaulted himself back into the upright world. Without loosing momentum he began weaving through the trees, circling Doug where he lay pressed into the soil by something more than gravity so that he regarded himself as lying vertical while Jacob and the trees stuck out from the earth-wall like on some giant carnival peg board. He lay completely still listening to the footfall. Finally Jacob lay back against the earth.
"Like read anything about it or seen on TV you mean?"
"Yeah..." Jacob was smiling but Doug refused to meet his gaze.
"Because all the Hmong kids? I have a friend who's Hmong."
"You do?" Doug forgot to mask his excitement so that the two of them were once again drinking from the same cup. They sat up together and began examining the pierced leaves bunched up at the ends of their spears.
"His name is Andrew but that's not his real name."
"I know. Their real names are in their language." Vickie had told him this. Her real name was Houa which meant cloud. She had a yellow butterfly in her hair and liked Big Macs but couldn't finish them by herself. Sometimes Doug felt like she was making fun of him but that's when he liked her the most.
"He told me China is the oldest country and there are black rivers there and little red bears with tails that live in the mountains. He draws pictures of them."
"Where does he live?"
"In one of those buildings." All the Hmong had arrived together during the summer of 1998, farther back than either boy had memory. The government built three immense cinderblocks for them beside the interstate and very few had resettled since. "I've never been there."
"Let's go there."
"Why?"
"Does he like you?" Jacob descended into himself. He lay back down and pointed his spear into the sky, re-checking its straightness. Doug had to dance to keep his own thoughts from Vickie, who had never seemed so real. She danced deeper and deeper down the more he tried to shake her. At last she redissolved into mist, hidden within and inseparable from the landscape. He wanted to be alone. Jacob had stopped breathing and held his spear perfectly straight, perpendicular to the ground, still and silent.
"Come on!" Doug pleaded. The stick fell. Jacob, still holding his breath, turned to Doug and cocked a dramatic eyebrow all in slow-time.
"When?" He asked in a restrained whisper.
"Tonight!" Jacob rolled his eyes meticulously; it was to remain a game. Doug wondered how much of this Jacob had made up. This high school Andrew and his tiny red bears couldn't possibly be real. How long had he been holding his breath, anyway? The thought seemed to strike Jacob as well: suddenly he smiled broadly and let out a long prolonged sigh.
"Meet at the library at six."
