The Troubles of North LaPorte
Prism international Fall 2014 Vol. 53:1
In September the alternator goes on North LaPorte’s island beater. He gets a two-day suspension from school for drinking behind the gym and learns his girlfriend is seven weeks pregnant. She is only sixteen. They grew up here, chasing sea birds, plucking starfish from the water, stealing onto harbor yachts. There has never been a time that North can remember not being with Francie. But now she wants to keep the baby, and he is avoiding her like a red tide. She emerges into the teeming hallway at school, calling to him, turning heads. “At least talk to me!” She looks small and pale standing there just outside the girl’s room. North’s eyes shift to the high, prison-like windows, then, in a shot, he is off around the corner.
Like the deer on the island, Francie seems to show up everywhere. He sees her at Harmon’s Market in the frozen food section, and ducks down the cereal aisle. After he replaces the alternator in his car and is back on the road, there she is again, hitchhiking into the village. He speeds past and in the rearview mirror catches her giving him the middle finger, which is something her mother, Jean, would do. Not Francie. He wonders if the pregnancy has changed her. She’s always been so sweet. All the badness is in him and he doesn’t know how to turn it around. If he could, he’d go back to that day on Madrona Beach and use a condom.
In October North goes to school so hung over he throws up into the backseat of the superintendent's convertible as he's walking past it in the parking lot. Someone rats him out and the superintendent tells him to go home and not to bother coming back. Ever.
North doesn’t really have a place he calls home.