Overlooked

  Overlooked

  Rose Christo

  1

  Macrocosm

  The ocean crashed in roaring, deafening waves, green sea foam splitting apart around the ship's dipping bowsprit. A hiding sun doused the clouds in hazy yellow, fat raindrops pattering the ship's top deck. The second mate climbed the ratlines roped around the foremast, shimmied up the giant, billowing white sail, and disappeared in a puff of wet mist. I thought I saw a glint of metal between his teeth, the treacherous blade of a stolen knife.

  The captain was handsome in dashing red livery. He heaved and he pulled at the ship's wheel, the wooden knobs breaking off in his hands. The ship lurched sideways, my stomach lurching with it. Ocean water sloshed over the deck's railing, splashing Mr. Morgan and his long, wild hair, and Mr. Ewing, the friendly blond Scot covered in tattoos.

  "No!" a teenage girl screamed.

  Two sailors tossed a wrapped body over the side of the ship. I heard it when the choppy waves leapt up and slapped the corpse, tugging the poor man beneath the abyss. The teenage girl looked at me, and I looked at the girl; and I knew we had to do something; I knew our captain had seen his last reign of terror.

  The girl and I raced toward the stern, salty ocean spray buffing our faces. My teeth clicked and rattled, my skin so cold the rain dried up the moment it spattered on my arms. The debonair captain whirled around and stared us down. His beautiful face twisted cruelly, menacing. The clouds above our heads tore apart in ransacked spirals.

  "Rafael," an unknown voice said behind me.

  My partner pointed a calloused finger at the vicious sea captain. "I'm taking over the ship!" she yelled.

  "Rafael," the voice said again.

  "You!" spat the captain. "A girl? What perversion!"

  "She could still kick your ass!" I rallied back at him, indignant.

  "I hold you accountable for treason," the girl said. "For the murder of Mr. Zachariah!"

  The captain laughed derisively. "Mr. Zachariah, you say! In what court have I done anything but relieve myself of unwanted property?"

  "Rafael!" the unknown voice shouted. I realized it was coming from the ocean.

  The sea level rose as high as the deck railing. My uncle floated past me on a lifeboat, bobbing turbulently with the changing tides. The rain drenched his braids a dark brown, lightning oozing through the gray clouds.

  "They didn't have lifeboats in the 1800s," I protested.

  "Rafael!" Uncle Gabriel yelled above the storm, gurgling when saltwater spilled into his mouth. "Close the book!"

  "Can't I just finish the next page?"

  Uncle Gabriel leaned sideways and closed the book for me. My head snapped up on my neck. Tidal water trickled slowly out of the doctor's office, disappearing through the cracks under the doors. I shook imaginary wetness from my hair. Uncle Gabriel spat with surprise when my side braid caught him in the face, only he did it politely, which was just about the way he did everything. He sat in the visitor's chair beside mine. He eased the book from my grasp, reading the back cover.

  " 'Murder and mutiny on the high seas,' " Uncle Gabriel quoted, whistling.

  "The ocean is awesome," I swore. "I wanna work on a ship someday."

  "Okay," Uncle Gabriel said. "Let's see if this lasts longer than the year you wanted to be a fire-eater."

  "Uncle Gabe," I said. "Do you think Mr. Zachariah's still alive?"

  "I don't know, Rafael," Uncle Gabriel said patiently. "If it ends badly, you can always go back to the beginning of the book and stop reading at the good part."

  I gave Uncle Gabriel a dark look. "That's dumb."

  "It was just a thought," Uncle Gabriel said.

  "It was a dumb thought."

  "Are you in the mood to be grounded today?"

  I mumbled an apology. I took my book back from him, squinting as I flipped through the pages.

  "Rafael," Uncle Gabriel said for the millionth time. He halted my progress, his big hand coming down on top of the book. "You realize your reading habits are the reason we're here to begin with?"

  I squinted at Uncle Gabriel. I couldn't make out the color of his eyes--brown--or the shape of his nose--broad, with a thick bridge. He even kind of looked like he had two heads, his outline blurry, indistinct.

  "I didn't do nothing wrong," I protested.

  "Reading in the dark?" Uncle Gabriel said. "With the lights out? When you're supposed to be asleep?"

  "You don't know that I do that," I retorted.

  "Oh," said Uncle Gabriel, "so you think I can't hear you when you yell at the pages."

  I fumed. Not because Uncle Gabriel was wrong--'course he wasn't--but because I felt like I was being punished for something I had no control over. Once you start reading a book, how the hell are you supposed to stop? The way I figure, you're only allowed to stop if there aren't any mermaids.

  "Gives Light?" a voice said, somewhere off to my right.

  Uncle Gabe stood up, taking the book from me. "Come on, kiddo," he said. "Time to bite the bullet."

  "I don't want eyeglasses," I grumbled, standing with him.

  "Please," Uncle Gabriel said. "At the rate you're going you'll be blind before eighteen."

  He and I walked through the side door. At least Uncle Gabriel walked through the side door--I walked into it.

  "Ow," I said, staggering backwards. My sharp teeth banged together. I tasted blood in my mouth.

  "See what I mean?" Uncle Gabriel said lightly.

  Uncle Gabriel took my wrist in his hand, like I was a little kid again. I guess I felt like a little kid. He tugged me helpfully down the blurry white hallway, and we followed a woman with clipped blond hair.

  "That's a very interesting last name you've got," the woman said. "Native American?"

  Uncle Gabriel elbowed me. I started. "Uh-huh," I said.

  "Is there a story behind it?" the woman asked.

  I mumbled. "My ancestor was a candle maker."

  "That's great, hon," said the woman. "My ancestor was a miller. I'm Anne Miller, see?"

  "I've got a friend named Annie. She's awesome."

  "Very nice."

  Anne Miller led Uncle Gabe and me into a drafty room filled with plastic plants. We sat down on scratchy chairs. Anne asked me whether I'd had vision problems in the past.

  "Nothing like this," Uncle Gabriel said. "But then he hasn't always sneaked flashlights into his bedroom--"

  "She's talking to me, not you," I said brashly.

  "My mistake."

  Anne waved a ballpoint pen in front of my face; she made me follow it with my eyes. She instructed me to cover one eye, then the other, but it made no difference; within seconds I was so dizzy I fell right out of my chair.

  "Hm," Anne said. "Wait here."

  She left the room. I expected her to come back; but two minutes later a balding man came bustling in. I'd only just climbed back onto my chair when the bald guy pointed a flashlight right in my eyes.

  "Ow!" I complained. I fell again.

  Uncle Gabriel leaned all the way over the side of his seat, clapping his hand on my shoulder. "It's almost done with, kiddo. Be brave."

  He was lying. The bald guy steered us into the next room over, where he made me read rows of letters off a chart on the wall. I couldn't read the letters below the third line. He had me rest my face on this wonky gray machine with giant lenses. The machine puffed cold air into my eyes. My eyes watered so badly I thought they were going to swell shut.

  "Actually," Uncle Gabriel said at length, sounding worried, "is all this really necessary? If you're going to hurt him--"

  "I see trees," I said, fuzzy green spots shifting into focus.

  It felt like hours before Baldy sent Uncle Gabe and me into the front room of the clinic. Yeah, get this; the clinic was i
nside a shopping mall. Taipo'o are weird. One whole wall contained nothing but display racks, eyeglasses without lenses hanging off of thin hooks. A little boy with big teeth walked up and down the aisles with his mother, poking the corner of his mouth with his tongue. I shrank in my seat without meaning to; because when I see little kids, I feel kind of like a little kid myself.

  Anne Miller bent down in front of me, her hands on her knees. My head pounded with nauseating dizziness. I shut my eyes.

  "We're making up your lenses just now," Anne said. "You can go and pick out the frames you like."

  "Can't you do it for me?" I asked, feeling stupid.

  "What color do you like?" Anne asked.

  Purple, I wanted to say. "Blue," I lied.

  I heard it when Anne walked away. Uncle Gabriel kneaded my shoulders, quelling the sickness in my gut.

  "What if I look like a dumbass?" I asked.

  "How do you mean?" Uncle Gabriel asked.

  What I didn't say was: What if Sky didn't like me with glasses? I swallowed, skittish. I didn't want to believe that Sky cared so much about looks--I was pretty ugly to begin with--but I'd snap the freaking things in half if they didn't agree with him. A blind guy and a mute guy. There's one for the books.

  "Here you go, Rafael," Anne Miller said.

  I felt a pair of thin wires falling over my ears. I opened my eyes. The vividness of the room around me knocked the breath out of my chest. I could see the cracks in the ceiling where the tiles didn't overlap, and the porous holes in the tiles where the stucco had packed tight around air bubbles. I could see the blobby, old handprints on the storefront window to my left, the age lines on Anne Miller's face, and the thin hairs dusting the backs of my stubby knuckles. I nearly broke my neck when I turned to look at Uncle Gabe. I'd forgotten he had dimples on his cheeks, just like mine. I'd forgotten his mouth was thick and his smile was easy and his hair was a lighter color than mine, almost blond, but just as coarse, wrapped up in dozens of scruffy braids. He had a widow's peak. He wasn't a widower. English is a weird language.

  "Alright, Rafael?" Uncle Gabriel asked.

  Anne put a hand mirror in front of my face. The rectangular eyeglasses were the same shade of blue as my eyes. My square face looked even more like my father's than I remembered, framed in curtains of limp, lank black hair.

  "Hi, Dad," I whispered.

  "How much do I owe you?" Uncle Gabriel asked.

  After we'd left the eyeglass clinic Uncle Gabriel made me accompany him on a long walk to the food court. I couldn't stop staring at the sights around us: the white sun seep through the shopping mall's skylight, the hinges in the doors to the stores on our right, even the expressions on strangers' faces: the happy couples laughing, the angry ones scowling. Who decides to go to a mall angry? Maybe I stared a little too long, because this one guy in a business suit threw me a shrewd, suspicious look and crossed all the way to the other side of the floor strip. I scowled after him. Uncle Gabriel glanced at me, reproachful, but calmed me down. We sat down at a long, plastic table under a fake green awning, the smell of roasted meat and pretzels wafting on the air. I looked around timidly at the various service counters, buffed steel, and the glowing signs above them, half of which weren't even in English.

  "Is this really the first time you've been to the shopping mall?" Uncle Gabriel asked mildly.

  "Mom never took me," I said.

  I didn't see the appeal. Too many people meant too many auras. The employees behind the counters swam in lazy lights of green and brown and yellow-orange. The shopping crowds were pinpricks of blue, molten red, and the rare but startling black.

  "What do you want for lunch?" Uncle Gabriel asked.

  "Candy," I said.

  "Too bad," Uncle Gabriel said.

  He bought the both of us hot sandwiches from a German vendor. The meat tasted weirdly buttery. I spent the next ten minutes peeling the buns apart. Sky didn't eat meat. I told Uncle Gabriel as much and he said, "If Skylar jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?"

  "Why the hell would Sky jump off a bridge?"

  "Eat your sandwich, Rafael."

  I stuffed the sandwich into my mouth whole. "You should have a kid and name 'em Michael," I said, spraying crumbs on the table. "I'll have a kid and name 'em Uriel."

  "I thought you told me you wanted to name your child Luca Turilli?"

  "That's if it's a boy," I explained. "Luca Turilli's a boy's name."

  "So's Uriel," Uncle Gabriel countered.

  "Are you serious?"

  "Clean up after yourself, okay? The people who work here are paid very little for their troubles. There's no need for you to add troubles of your own."

  I wadded up napkins and wiped down the table. Uncle Gabriel smiled at me. I felt like a little kid again, but in a good way. Little kids never stop looking for their parents' approval. Once you have that approval, it's like you've won every contest you've ever entered, and even the ones you haven't.

  My brain slowed. My stomach turned. Uncle Gabriel wasn't my parent, I reminded myself. I already had two parents; it didn't matter that they weren't with me anymore.

  "Let's head back to the rez," Uncle Gabriel said pleasantly.

  He threw our trash in the big black bin and we left the food court. I followed Uncle Gabe through the winding mall, my shoulders slouched, my hands in my pockets. Just then I was feeling ashamed of myself, and confused; but then we stepped out the glass doors and into the sunny parking lot. The wealth of detail around me was dizzying. Every single flaw in the gray pavement, cracks and bumps and paint smears, jumped out at me like a long-lost friend. Every single parking sign was either peeling at the corners, or faded at the centers; or else they marred with bubblegum or graffiti. When I looked at the clouds they weren't just white blobs in the sky. They had outlines, wet and blue; and birds flew against them; and the birds weren't black dots, but actual birds, squiggly black wings bending and flapping in symmetry.

  "You okay?" Uncle Gabe asked, unlocking the doors to his giant black car.

  "I didn't know," was all I could say. I'd never known how much of the world I'd missed out on. I sat down on the passenger seat, pulling my door shut. The glove compartment was surrounded in creases. The windows were laminated glass on top of laminated glass. Uncle Gabriel drove down the turnpike and the cactus sprigs in the desert were dusted with hairy, green-gray tendrils. Twenty minutes later we came up on the reservation and the pine trees were flecked in thousands of dark green needles, the tips smudged together with sticky resin.

  "You really like your glasses, don't you?" Uncle Gabriel said cheerfully. He parked his car in the lot outside the fat brown hospital.

  "What if people make fun of me?" I asked.

  Uncle Gabriel glanced skeptically at me in his rear-view mirror. I guessed I saw his point. I was 6'3'', 190 pounds; not a pushover by any means. Didn't stop me from feeling small and insignificant all the time.

  "I need to see Sky," I said suddenly.

  I threw off my seatbelt. Uncle Gabriel grabbed my arm before I could lunge out the car door.

  "You need to finish your summer homework first," Uncle Gabriel said evenly. "I have it on good authority you've been shirking your science project."

  I stared at him. I fumed.

  "Homework!" Uncle Gabriel repeated, clapping his hands. "Let's go, kiddo!"

  He didn't understand, I thought, stormy and irritable. I tossed myself onto the tarmac, slapping my door shut. Now that I could see things--really­ ­see things--what I needed to see most was Sky. Sky was the best thing to look at on the entire reservation. What if I'd never really seen him in his entirety? Imagine finding out you can look at the sun without blinding yourself. Imagine you look at the sun for the very first time; and it's not a big yellow orb at all, but a giant, macrocosmic snowflake. The whole of reality, symmetrical, designed, fits inside a frozen drop of water. You can drink it in if you want to. That's what water's there for.

  "Rafael?" Uncle Gabriel asked.
br />   "Sorry," I said, shifting to attention. My imagination likes to run away with me.

  Uncle Gabriel put his big hand on my shoulder. He steered me through the reservation, down dirt roads, past pine trees, and we came up on our squat cedar house, tucked underneath the twisting arms of a giant southern oak. We went inside the hardwood sitting room and I frowned, uncertain, at the bulky, box-shaped machine sitting next to Mom's piano.

  "Are you still glowering at the computer, Rafael?" Uncle Gabriel asked.

  My frown deepened. "If that's what you call it."

  "You'd like the internet if you gave it a try," Uncle Gabriel said. "You could exchange e-mails with all your new friends."

  "How?" I asked dully.

  Uncle Gabriel sat me down in front of the computer. He turned the big box thing on and it beeped, glowing blue. I winced. He grabbed the funny-looking controller on the des, attached to a gray wire, and clicked it with his fingers. The blue screen went white.

  "Look," Uncle Gabriel said genially. "You've got your own e-mail address."

  I pushed my sliding glasses up the bridge of my nose. Yeah, that felt weird. I perused the black text littering the screen. I had three e-mails already, the first from some Pawnee guy out in Texas, if his handle was any indication.

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: (no subject)

  yaaaaaaahoo!!!!

  congrats on your rez finally steppin on into the 21st century! i found your e-mail address on y'all's tribal website, you sure that's smart?

  remember me from the hoyyoy? you and me and zander and dylan all bunked together, good times. afterward you punched dylan in the face. we're practically related now, yeah? sure you won't be minding if i call on you for some good old plains hospitality next time i'm down your way. see ya cousin!

  jerry

  "Who the hell was that?" I asked, baffled.

  "Rafael," Uncle Gabriel chided.

  Uncle Gabriel went into the kitchen to crush elderberry juice. But I didn't recognize the next e-mail's sender, either.

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]