* * *
Fifteen minutes late. Head down as he approaches Karen and then just sits there. No hello? she says, eyebrows raised. Hi, he mumbles. You want to give me your algebra homework? I, um, don’t have it. She presses her lips together, looks away, then back at him. Why not? He shrugs. Sorry. You just didn’t get to it or you didn’t know what you needed to do, or…? He smooths his hand against his knee. I just, uh. Didn’t. Do it. Long silence. He can feel her deciding whether to be angry or let it go, help him or not help him. He pulls out his algebra book. Thinking of what Nova said, about Peter and the others in the basement, like cockroaches, if she thought that was bad what would she think of this, a supreme waste of time, but what choice does he have. Karen leans forward, pencil lifted; they do the homework together. It takes them an entire hour. No, it’s wrong, look, check the formula, she says, and he checks it, he tries, paper worn through where he has to erase again and again. Finally he passes the paper to Karen for the last time. Hallelujah, she sighs, sitting back in her chair. Glances at the clock. Could you give me a sec? she says. I need to make a call. He shrugs. Sure. She stands, bumping her thigh into the lip of the table, looking at her phone. Goes outside for five minutes, ten, fifteen; he can see her through the window, pacing around her car before leaning against the door, head down. He waits. A child and its mother stare at him from another table, a box of broken crayons between them; he pretends not to notice. Opens a textbook at random, reads. Karen returns, tapping his shoulder with something wrapped in wax paper. Here, she says. What is it? Peanut butter sandwich. What’s in the bread? She snorts. Nothing. Wheat. He looks up at her. Xie, it’s vegan, I promise. No corn syrup, all-natural, the whole nine yards. He takes it. Thanks. They sit on the steps. He eats half of the sandwich, slow, picking out a seed from the bread to drop on the concrete for the ants. Chin on his knee. Some girls picked you up the other day. They your friends? Yeah, that’s FKK. FKK? It’s their—group name, like a thing they started. For animal rights. Ah, Karen says. Compatriots. I guess, he says, watching as the ants surround the seed. What kinds of thing does FKK do? Xie frowns, chin wrinkled against his jeans. Actions. Actions? Like, protests, or signing petitions, writing to politicians. What kind of protests? Um. Just, against factories and stuff. We did one last year. At the outlet mall. In Alliance? Yeah, that one. We downloaded these signs from the PETA website. He shakes his head, remembering. THE PRICE OF YOUR FASHION IS MURDER. Pictures of cowhides piled in leather factories, rabbits being de-furred, silkworms poured into vats of boiling water. Jo screaming through a bullhorn for ten minutes before it started to rain. They’d stood there for two hours, silent except for the occasional FUCK YOU from Jo whenever someone called them idiots or freaks or told them to go home. Xie suggested maybe no cursing. She told him to fuck off. Leni rubbed Jo’s shoulder. Jo told her to fuck off, too. Only one person, a teenage girl with a lisp, had stopped to talk. What are you guys protesting? Leni tried to answer but Jo cut in, saying, Those clothes in there, they’re made from animals killed in factories, do you get it? Not to mention sweatshop labor in third world countries where kids work twelve hours a day in shitty conditions for a dollar a day to make your sneakers. The girl looked down at her shoes. Leni said, Here, take a flyer. Trying to smile. The signs bled in the rain. Little river of dye into the gutter. They tossed everything in a dumpster behind the Gap. I thought it would feel good, you know, to do something, Xie says. Like, I thought it would feel like it mattered. But it didn’t. Karen shakes her head. That sounds kind of depressing, she says. Yeah. It was. They eat for a while in silence. Karen finishes her sandwich, rubbing peanut butter from her thumb onto the thigh of her jeans. Would you do it again? she asks. He squints. Go to a protest? No, she says, gesturing, what you did. On the farm. Xie tugs a piece of loose skin from his lip. The ants work a piece of the seed loose, carry it away. He nods. Yeah, why? You don’t think I should have? Karen shrugs. I’m not saying that, I just think it made a lot of trouble for you. Xie taking a sip of air. Face hot. At least they got to run. For a little while. Silence. Karen’s eyes on the side of his face. He pours some crumbs into the dirt beside the step. The ants make new lines. Quiet. He sniffs. Thanks for the sandwich, he says. Karen swallows. You’re welcome.
* * *
On the way home he goes again to the broken tree, its leaves browning; detached from its crown the birch has no way to digest the light, leaving the trunk to starve. He strokes its sides. A beautiful thing, still. He lies beside the tree, head on the root, and sleeps.
* * *
When he gets home there are two backpacks in the hall, full of camping gear. I thought we could take a trip this weekend, Erik says, folding laundry at the kitchen table. To the lake. Don’t you have work? Erik shrugs. I took the weekend off. For what? Just for a change. Unless you have other plans. No, Xie says, That’s fine. Thinking of the birch, reluctant to leave the woods, he doesn’t need to go somewhere else but maybe that’s the point, Erik uneasy about all the time he spends in the same place, alone. And the lake is beautiful and he is asking you, so. You’ll go. Watching the gas gauge on the hour drive, how much burned up so you can get away from the place you came to in order to get away from somewhere else. Nice weather, his father says on the hike in. How’s school been for the girls? Good. No one bothering them? Xie shakes his head. When the police asked Xie if he’d acted alone he said yes; but Erik knew, without saying it aloud, that the girls had been there. Part of him upset, maybe, that they have escaped what Xie has not, punishment in all its forms, but it was Xie who had stopped, who had let Moore find him. They’re quiet the rest of the way. Shifting their packs. Dull crunch of leaves, heavy blue sky. A pebble in Xie’s sneaker, bruising the arch of his foot. Here okay? Erik asks. Xie looks around the clearing, small scatter of trash from the previous campers, blackened ring of stone for the fire. Xie pathologically clumsy with the tent, dropping his end or twisting it the wrong way around, stumbling over the stakes. Erik rattling the nylon. Xie, will you pay attention. Fire slow to start. Evening birds in the trees. His father carving up a piece of wood with a folding knife, thumbing off the rotten bits. What are you making. Star. Is it hard? Shrug. A little. Shavings in a tiny pile between his knees. I’ll show you how if you want. Xie snorts. I can’t even hold a wrench for two seconds without getting a blister. Erik’s small acknowledging smile. You could learn. Can you get us some more kindling? Xie drags a pile of branches to the pit. Don’t burn too many of them, it’s not that cold, he says, wiping his hands on his pants, and Erik nods, glancing up from the star. I know. Xie walks to the lake. Sore foot shoved into the weed-choked shallow. Afraid of spiders. Lie back. Nest of weeds nudging his hair. Thick gash of stars striping the sky. Lake water numbing his toes. He can smell the branches burning. Stirring the water with his foot. Voices creeping up through the weeds. Men, five or six. Boots just a few feet away, they’ve almost gone past when. Someone calls. You okay there, little man? Had a few too many? Xie says nothing. They move on. But back at the camp those same men, sitting around the fire, plaid jackets and big arms, his father holding the half-finished star. One of the men turning, So this one’s yours? Erik nods. That’s my son. Cheers, little man. Drinking from a fresh can of beer. Xie wonders what his father looks like to them, sharp cheekbones, delicate despite his height, all that lean muscle, voice still crisp with his childhood Danish. I’m going to bed, Xie says, heading for the tent. Groans from the men. Come on, sit awhile, we won’t bite. What’s your little sign on your shirt mean. It means fuck eating meat, he says, and the men explode into laughter, hooting. Dang, boy. To Erik: You got a live one there. Xie crouching into the tent, on his belly in the sleeping bag, listening. They drink and laugh and Erik laughs, too, quiet, and then they go. His father putting out the fire. Hiss of hot wood. Clatter of cans. A branch breaking in the distance.