Jonny Appleseed

At 18, Jonny works at a newly opened casino as a dishwasher. He admits that his primary reason for accepting the job is to find new sex work clients. There, he meets an older man with whom he drinks beer. He wakes up in the hospital, where he is told he fell through a window. He is groggy as though drugged. A nurse slips him money for a taxi, but he knows he won’t be able to find one to take him to the reservation at night, so he walks home instead. His mother finds him sleeping on the couch. The entire experience leads Jonny to an epiphany: “There are times when you have to scare yourself to find yourself” (110).

Jonny remembers telling Tias about the experience detailed in Chapter 21. They cuddle together and Jonny knows that he loves Tias.

At twelve, Jonny pretends to be a girl named Lucia to catfish Tias into a fake romance. He remembers seeing Tias wait at the fast-food restaurant for Lucia. Pretending that it's a chance encounter, he slips into Tias’s booth to chat. As they walk home together, late for dinner with their families, they are harassed for being queer by other kids. The other kids all pee on Jonny and tell Tias that he must as well. Tias relents and also pees on Jonny.

As kids, Jonny and Tias hustle Mush, the white owner of a gas station on the rez. Mush frequently gives candy out to kids. They make money from hanging out with Mush by listening to him tell stories until he passes out drunk; they then collect all of Mush's empty cans and return them for the can deposits. With the $40 or so that they receive, they purchase candy from Mush's gas station. They buy cigarettes from older kids and smoke them to give themselves a head rush.

Sometimes, Jonny’s kokum lets him and Tias stay over. They watch Boy Meets World and steal beers from the adults. They cuddle in the same bed and fall asleep.

In the present day, Jonny has just finished with his seventh camming client that day. His body is sore, especially his genitals. He considers waiting for his European clients to wake up, but instead decides to take a break and get a snack from the 7-11 convenience store. As he sits outside to eat his snack, the store manager hits him with a broom and threatens to call the police on him for loitering. Jonny sits a moment longer and then heads back to his apartment. As he sits on the stoop of his apartment building, an elderly woman threatens to call the police on him for sitting there. He flashes his keycard at her, and she slams the window shut.

He remembers a time he met a client in person for dinner. Though he found the steak and mashed potatoes underwhelming, he still planned to split the cost of the meal. Instead, he dined-and-dashed on his date, opting instead for fast food chicken.

Back at his apartment, Jonny lays down on his couch. It used to be his kokum's, and he remembers how excited she would get about wrestling matches on TV—so excited that she would take breaks doing her makeup to cheer on the wrestlers. He also remembers how the school portraits, including his own, would shake on the walls when she stomped her feet and became animated during matches. Nostalgic, Jonny calls Tias.

Jonny sneaks in through the window of Tias’s house and finds him in bed reading Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. In Tias’s room, Jonny finds a stuffed rabbit toy named Floppy Ears. Floppy Ears has been repaired multiple times—Tias explains that Floppy Ears was once torn apart by a pair of fighting ostriches. Tias and Jonny cuddle as they fall asleep.

Jonny remembers watching his kokum die in a hospital. After her death, he rubs her belly just like she had taught him to do after a death. Jonny waits to tell the nurses she has died; instead, he cuddles her body. As he lays there, he wills himself to die too. This doesn’t happen. When he hears nurses laughing in the hallway, he becomes angry that they might feel happy at such a time.

Tias sits with Jonny in his grief after his kokum’s death. Tias tells Jonny airbrushed stories about his stepfather. In turn, Jonny tells Tias about his dad, who died in a reservation fire when Jonny was a toddler. Jonny only has a few photos of his father, which he shows Tias. Jonny looks a great deal like his father, except his father has facial hair. As Jonny takes a bath, Tias plays with his hair—Jonny finds this extremely comforting.

In the book’s present, Jonny wakes up in Tias’s room, though Tias is gone. Jonny smells breakfast cooking and wonders why Tias hasn't invited him up from the basement to join in the meal with his family. Jonny sees a photo of Tias and Jordan Blackhorse together and considers stealing it. Tias has a crush on Jordan, and Jonny wonders whether Tias is thinking of her when he and Jonny have sex. Jonny leaves through the window.

In Winnipeg, Jonny befriends Jordan Blackhorse. Jordan intimidates Jonny because she's muscular and more traditional than he is. Jonny thinks that Indigenous women are often stronger and scarier than Indigenous men. When Jordan finds out that Jonny has been sexting with Tias, she beats him up. Afterwards, she takes him to McDonald’s for hamburgers; there, she pays for their meals with expired coupons.