Born With a Tooth

by Joseph Boyden

  As if I were being tested at the wake by Satan himself, in walks Legless Joe, straight up to Mary, blurting that he will drum at Linda’s funeral. I scolded him and squeezed Mary’s hand hard, trying to give her the strength to deny this man. Thankfully she would not answer him, would not even look at him. If only he knew the pain he were causing. If only he knew.

  SEPTEMBER 12

  Tragedy upon tragedy. On the very night of the wake, Mary’s youngest son, Crow, apparently set a friend’s house on fire, nearly killing three youngsters as well as himself. I did not find this out until yesterday morning. The house was still smoking, a charred pile of wood, at noon yesterday. By all accounts, this was no accident. Crow — or Francis, as his mother calls him (Crow must be his Indian name) — poured gasoline throughout the house and set it on fire. There is some question as to whether he too was trying to kill himself. His friend dragged him out just in time, but he suffered severe smoke inhalation and is in the tiny reserve hospital until he is well enough to be flown south for trial and incarceration. These people are so illequipped to deal with things.

  I’ve been working on my homily for the mass. It is important, possibly the most important of my life. On my next report to the archdiocese, I want to be able to say that attendance is up and the Cree people of Sharpening Teeth Reserve are making great progress in their pursuit of Jesus’ teachings. Tonight at the dinner table, in my excitement with my new mission, I was foolish enough to bring it up with Sister Jane and Sister Marie that this was going to be a very special sermon, and I tried to make light of the fact that it was a difficult chore trying to keep old pagan ways from slipping in through the church doors.

  “Well, Father Jimmy,” Sister Jane immediately piped up, “the best way to drive the rest of our congregation out is to browbeat them about the spirituality of their fathers and grandfathers, to go on about how it’s so wrong.”

  “Well, it isn’t Catholic doctrine. It is animism,” I answered, “and that’s akin to worshipping false gods.”

  “Do you want to know what I think is the trouble with the youth around here?” Sister Jane asked, changing tack. Before I had a chance to answer, she continued. “They’ve been born into a situation that would be impossible for most any young person to rise above. Half this reserve doesn’t have running water in their homes! And us on the eve of a new goddamn millennium!” I’d heard Sister Jane’s rhetoric before. I was here to teach these people God’s message. The rest of it — the economic improvement, the education, the social advancement — would follow. But that was impossible to explain to Sister Jane, so I listened politely. “They’ve been given reserves and a measly handout each month and told that if they leave the reserve, the government will take even that little bit of money away. Don’t forget, Father Jimmy, that not so long ago this was a self-sufficient people. The young people around here are struggling between what once was and what’s to come, between everything that defines them as a people and how we want them to become.”

  I raised my hand to cut her off. “Sister Jane,” I spoke up. “That is all fine and good. But you seem to be losing your way. You’re not seeing the forest for the trees. Our mission is simple. We must shine God’s light upon a people who live in darkness. If their language dies, if their old ways are abandoned, if they accept the ways of the dominant culture, then this is God’s will. I’ve read nowhere in the Bible that it is all right for me to allow an influence that I deem pagan at the funeral of a young and, may I add, baptized woman.”

  Sister Jane gave a huff, stood up and left the dinner table. Sister Marie, so quiet that I’d forgotten she was present, got up as quickly as her body would allow, her eyes wide with concern, and waddled after Sister Jane, no doubt to console her.

  SEPTEMBER 13

  I witnessed quite an extraordinary event today. As I waited with Mary Cheechoo for Linda’s body to arrive in the little charter plane, people began showing up. Some walked, some who had cars drove, others pulled up on ATVs. By the time the plane landed I would estimate that pretty much all of the reserve had gathered, waiting by the portable that serves as the airport terminal, the people spilling out onto the road leading up to the airport. The chief himself pulled up in his big red pickup truck beside the plane when it taxied, and Mary left me to meet him. Her sons and brothers helped to carefully lift the casket from the belly of the plane, and eight of them placed it into the bed of the chief’s truck, all the people watching quietly.

  The chief walked Mary to the passenger side and helped her in. If they made these arrangements earlier, I was not made aware. I hadn’t heard a word around town of this congregation. The truck then pulled away from the dirt airfield and slowly drove the road leading back to the reserve, towards Mary’s house. People fell in line behind the truck, so quietly that I could hear its tires crunching gravel, until there was the whole reserve in a procession behind it, walking one of their own back to her home. I still don’t know if this was a planned event or an impromptu gathering. I expect a full church in a couple of days.

  SEPTEMBER 14

  They say that bad luck strikes in threes. To my horror, when I opened the doors to the church this morning and walked into the sacristy, I discovered that my sanctuary had been robbed and vandalized. My vestments lay scattered about. The perpetrators had opened and drunk a case of communion wine, some bottles had been smashed, drawers had been looted and, downstairs in the basement, where they’d apparently gained entry, a window had been kicked in. The worst thing, though, was finding that a partially filled bottle of wine had been smashed in front of the altar. Whoever had done this, and I had a very good idea who, had absolutely no respect or regard for my most sacred beliefs, and that was what stung me the most. Before calling the police, I actually wept for a short time.

  “It was Legless Joe Cheechoo and his gang,” I told the band constables as soon as they arrived.

  “How do you know this, Father?” the one named Ron asked me.

  “Who else?” I asked.

  “We need evidence to make an arrest,” he answered.

  I told him to find the evidence, to dust for fingerprints, to do whatever was necessary to bring Legless Joe to justice. He explained that their hands were already full, with one officer assigned to Francis Cheechoo’s room twenty-four hours, but that they would do a thorough investigation as soon as they were able.

  I was stunned. I was angry. The thought of these strangers arriving unwelcome and unwanted, and fouling my church, was so upsetting that for a short time I contemplated whether or not I’d be in shape to go through with a funeral mass the day after tomorrow. After much soul-searching I realized that I had to do it. There was no choice. The more I turned it over in my mind today, the more I’ve been galvanized by the fact that I have been sent here for a reason, and that that reason will begin to make itself clear tomorrow, when I am offered the chance to make real headway in bringing my children back to the fold.

  SEPTEMBER 16

  Why, Lord, have You forsaken me? I am Your faithful servant. I try to serve You well. Are You angry with me because I drink? Don’t You know that You created imperfect beings? In front of my eyes I watched my congregation rebel and, dear Lord, there is nothing more painful for Your faithful servant than that.

  Oh! Maybe You are angry with me for lusting in my heart and in my mind! But, dear Lord, I never lusted with my loins.

  Is that not worth something? I came here to help these people, to shine the light of Your love upon them. Now they are cast out like sand cast to the wind.

  Did You watch from above as I explained to the congregation today Your very own message? That suicide is a mortal sin? That they are a people being pulled in two directions? That they must accept Your word or face a less than happy eternity? That Linda Cheechoo made the wrong decision and that, when a wrong decision is made, there are unfortunate consequences, purgatory first and foremost among them? Oh, Lord! I could very well have preached what so many of Your servants have preached — that th
e taking of one’s life is a mortal sin punished not by purgatory but by hell. I was trying to be easy on them! Is that where I went wrong?

  Were You watching, Lord, when that damned Joe Cheechoo carried his drum into Your church and beat it? After I’d already lost my lambs, watched them stare up at me with anger because they weren’t prepared to hear my homily that Linda Cheechoo’s act was not acceptable in Your eyes? Did you see how, when I shouted out for that devil to stop his drumming, the others rose in his defence, preventing me from throttling him? How they actually joined him in that pagan worship, their voices like the voices of devils? Did You witness all of them — the Old Man, Mary Cheechoo, the brothers and uncles and aunts of Linda Cheechoo, the relations and friends, even Sister Jane — join the congregation around that drum? And in Your own house!

  Forgive me, Lord, that I am angry with You right now. You know me better than I know myself, and so surely You know that in a few days or weeks or months, when I have had a chance to dwell in this pain, I will again be ready to preach Your word. It is in my darkest hour that I look to You to give me strength. Give me guidance. I ask You this one thing, a man holding on for his life. Tell me they are Your children.

  OLD MAN

  I lose my days, me. Maybe it’s that Weesageechak takes them. My great-granddaughter is dead, I know that much. Little Linda Cheechoo. Black eyes like my Minnie’s. It’s their story I need to tell.

  Weesageechak, he was out bothering me again today. He was in the form of a dog again. Bit me in the ass when I wasn’t looking. When he wasn’t looking I gave him my boot in the mouth. We’re even for now. I know that it was just a week or two ago that we all walked Linda home. It isn’t so bad, not remembering everything. As long as I remember the good things. Walking her home was a good thing on a bad day. I stood watching the plane come in. I watched it touch the earth, slide its wheels on the gravel like a goose slides its landing feet onto water. Then I watched some nephews and grandsons lift the casket from the belly of that goose and into the back of a pickup truck. The whole reserve watched with me. We walked slow behind that truck, walked Linda all the way to her home.

  The sonofabitch Weesageechak followed too. He’d shapeshifted into the form of a one-toothed mutt with dried shit hanging from the fur below his tail. He darted out in front of the pickup, made it hit the brakes hard. The casket slid a little

  off-centre. Weesageechak started yapping at it crazy, like the mange rotted his brain. He stopped when he saw me and pulled back his lips so I could see his one tooth and bleeding gums.

  Me, my fingers are all bent now and my eyes get foggy in the morning, and at night too. That trickster Weesageechak likes to bother me, likes to remind me that life is a lot of laughing, even if that laughing is all at me. Sometimes he’s a crow in the trees watching me with his black pebble eyes, cawing at me with his silly laugh when I stop on the road to catch my breath. Mostly he’s a dog, one in particular. Ugliest dog in the world. Sometimes he’s a wind and puffs up his cheeks and blows a cold breeze down my back that makes my hands shake and spill hot coffee onto my lap. I’m so old now that he is my only friend left. All the others dead. I’m not sure how old I am, me. My granddaughter, Mary, Linda’s mother, says I’m a hundred. That sounds like a good age. Nice and round for a skinny old man.

  Lots of family. So many I don’t know all my great-grandsons and granddaughters. But I knew Linda. She looked after me. I told her stories in exchange. Gave her her first pair of rain boots that she wore all through childhood.

  I had my nephew Remi drive me over to Mary’s to visit with her family. This was before they were able to fly Linda’s body home, I think. I look out the car window and think of my old life. I had lots of children. Thirteen. Twelve are still alive. My wife is dead a long time. We were happy living in the bush. Daytimes spent trapping and hunting. Nights telling stories and making babies. I’ll see her again soon.

  When I lived in the forest, everyone knew me as the man who could heal sicknesses. My wife and me would collect roots and plants, keep certain parts from different animals, dry them out and crush them up. Cured lots of people. Nobody knows that about me anymore. I protected family and friends. My daughter Minnie, my oldest, she was the only one I could not protect. When the government told me one day that they would take my children to teach them, that’s the day I began losing my power. It’s the day I gave up living in the bush to be close to my children. I’d still go out, take my children when they were not in school. But that wasn’t too often. The less I went out in the bush, the more the sonofabitch Weesageechak came to visit me. He loves it when someone catches me talking to him. People think I’m a crazy old man talking to dogs and crows. That’s OK. Maybe, if they live long enough, he will come to visit them too.

  When Remi drove me to Mary’s house, it was before Linda came home on the plane, before we walked her casket home. It was the night after Linda took her life. Mary told me her body would be home in a day or two. It’s the small things that confuse me now. I can’t keep order of all the events. Linda was down south in a school. Linda took her life. I went to her mother’s house the next day. Lots of people there. Linda came in on a plane three days later and we walked her body home. The funeral a few days after that. I think that is how it went. Me, I try to remember these things so I can tell the story proper. I think it’s Weesageechak taking my memory and shaking it up before he gives it back to me. I’ll have to scold him when I see him.

  At my granddaughter Mary’s house, lots of people. Much of the reserve, all of Linda’s friends. But Linda wasn’t there. Mary reminded me that they couldn’t get her body home for a day or two. So I pictured Linda in my head instead. I could still see the little girl I took out to the muskeg in autumn for the hunt, the girl I called Little Goose, the same name I called my own daughter Minnie years before that. Linda was one of the last of my relations still wanting to learn the old ways. So I taught her. She was just like Minnie.

  Mary started crying, so I reminded her of the pet goose I used to have when she was a little girl and my daughter was still alive. It was a good goose. I’d canoe up to the marshes that I knew would be busy with birds ready to fly away for the winter and my goose would swim behind me. All the other hunters figured I had some magic they didn’t know about, and some were jealous enough they threatened to eat my bird.

  I told this story and from wherever he was hiding, Weesageechak blew hot air into my stomach and I made a loud fart. I grinned and this made Mary laugh a little through her tears. I told her the rest of my story, of how I would get out decoys and when the geese swung low to investigate, I’d send my pet bird out to swim around and draw them in the rest of the way.

  Some little boys hid behind the TV listening so I took out my pretend shotgun and tracked the geese. The boys’ heads followed along the arc of mine and when my head was just slightly ahead of the geese I said, “BANG BANG!” loud enough to make the little boys jump, and everyone who listened to my story tracked the geese falling like feathered V’s to the earth where they splashed in the marsh outside Linda’s window.

  The hunting moon rose above Linda’s house, as big and orange as anyone had seen it. It would be a good night to drum and sing a mourning song but I didn’t know if anyone knew how to anymore.

  Some of Linda’s brothers got into the booze and took their long hair out of their ponytails and they grew louder. Their mother told them to go outside and the boys told her Linda was their sister they grew up with and played with and fought with and she would want them to tip a drink in her honour. Linda’s father is no longer here. Drowned a few summers ago. It was dark now and the crowd was bigger. They spilled out the front and back doors and everyone talked and some cried and some laughed for the sake of Linda.

  Before Mary left me I told her the story of my daughter Minnie, my Little Goose — how, many years ago, when my hair was still black and thick, I brought her and my pet bird to autumn camp and left them there for the day while I checked the traplines. It�
�s a story everyone has heard a hundred times from a hundred mouths, but it was good right then for Linda’s mother to know that another knew her suffering.

  “When I returned, my Minnie was gone,” I told her, holding my hands out and weighing empty air. Hours later I noticed that my bird was gone too. Both of them, gone without a trace. When the Mounties came out days later they said she was dead and drowned in the swollen river. Some older ones on the reserve still tell their grandchildren when they stray too far from home that the windigos, the forest cannibals, got her. My wife’s heart cracked from the weight of our Little Goose being gone.

  I let Mary go by telling her I had to get some fresh air. Outside I could feel Weesageechak’s eyes staring at me, but I couldn’t locate him in the crowd of people talking and gesturing and wiping eyes. I made my way over to Linda’s friends. They were the closest to her of anyone gathered there. I could tell by the way they’d separated themselves from the others, how they talked quietly and had shut themselves off. I found a seat on a snow machine waiting for winter and listened to them.

  “She was a fucking bitch,” one of the girls said. She had short hair, and a black leather jacket on. The other two girls and the two boys with them nodded angry, puffing on cigarettes.

  A second girl said, “Only a bitch doesn’t call when she’s feeling down like that.”

  “Especially when the last thing she says to you before she leaves is that she loves you like a sister,” the first one said.

  The two boys in the group stayed quiet, let the young women say what they needed to.

  “If she was a sister the bitch would have called one of us,” the first girl said. “Stupid slut.” The boys just nodded and looked at their shoes, smoking their cigarettes quickly.

  “I’d call you first if I was going to pull some shit like that, wouldn’t I, Minnie?” the second girl said, nodding to a silent third girl standing closest to the boys. “I wouldn’t go pull no shit like Linda,” she said in her sing-song way of talking. Her words made the first, tough girl begin to cry. The others didn’t know what to do.