Sufferance

by Thomas King

  “Great,” says Ada. “The big cheese don’t bother to show up, so we get the Minister of the Moment and the Property Police.”

  “The Mounties look impressive,” says Nutty.

  “Yeah,” says Ada, “if I were a piece of private property, I’d certainly feel safe.”

  Mayor Bob is hovering next to the microphone. With federal officials within spitting distance, he and Maribelle Wegman were sure to show up. The mayor welcomes the minister, even though the minister isn’t here, and begins a litany of the co-operative endeavours in which the city council and the band council have participated.

  Most of them are minor. All of them are over ten years old.

  He does not mention the town’s effort to move the reserve, nor does he touch on the band’s ongoing problem with utilities and water service. Towards the end of his address, he spreads his arms as though he’s about to embrace an old friend, and his coat flies open to reveal a beaded belt buckle. It’s a handsome thing, red, black, yellow.

  Photogenic and easily seen from a distance.

  Louis and Enola wait by the side of the council office. If Wapi is around, I don’t see him. The crows work their way across the roofs of the trailers, peer over the edge, wait to see who will go first.

  I expect it will be Ada, but it’s Roman. He comes off the drum and strides to the front of the portable podium with his arms folded across his chest.

  “We don’t have power, and we don’t have water.” His voice is clear and strong. “And we have mouldy trailers.”

  The Minister of the Moment’s name is Joan Crankton, and she has an aide. A young man whose pants look as though they have been painted on his legs, and whose job it is to hand things to his boss.

  “And that’s why we’re here,” says Crankton. She nods at Tight Pants, and he hands her a large aerosol can. “After researching the problem,” she says, raising her voice, “we believe that, in addition to proper ventilation, this is the most expedient and effective solution to the unexpected incidents of Aspergillus and Alternaria.”

  “What about Stachybotrys chartarum?” says Roman, the Latin rolling off his tongue like chocolate frosting.

  Crankton and her aide have a quick whisper.

  “This is Primo Pavella,” says Crankton. “He’s with the Ministry of Health. I’ll have him answer that question.”

  Tight Pants steps to the microphone. The crows begin dancing on the roofs. Roman doesn’t move.

  “Stachybotrys chartarum,” says Pavella, “commonly called black mould, is one of a number of mould varieties found in homes. While it is unsightly, it has not been shown to pose a substantial risk to healthy people with functioning immune systems.”

  Roman is smiling now. “So it just kills babies and old people?”

  Pavella is unfazed. “There are a great many pathogens that are of concern to the very young and the very old.”

  “I think we’ve gone off topic,” says Crankton, and she gently moves Pavella away from the microphone. “We’re here today in our capacity as official representatives of the federal government to assist with the detection and remediation of the aforementioned difficulty, and to provide a solution to the immediate problem as well as a strategy to avoid a future reoccurrence.”

  Even Mayor Bob is stunned and left speechless.

  Pavella has done this before. On cue, he goes to a table that has a cutaway model of a trailer window.

  “Imagine, if you will, a window in one of your trailers. If there is mould present, it will, in all likelihood, form along the bottom edge of the sill.”

  Pavella takes a black velvet strip out of his pocket and lays it out along the window ledge.

  “In most instances, the mould will look like this piece of black velvet. It will be soft and fuzzy. We do not advise you to remove the mould without proper respiratory equipment and training. Scraping at it could cause the spores to become airborne.”

  The gathering rumbles to life.

  “No shit!” someone yells.

  Pavella holds up a can and takes the top off. “This is Lock-Mould. It is an encasing foam that will trap and destroy mould. It’s very effective and easy to use.”

  Pavella doesn’t wait for questions. He shakes the can vigorously and then holds the nozzle to the inside edge of the mock window frame.

  “Simply depress the nozzle and run a bead of Lock-Mould so that it covers the mould.”

  Roman holds up a hand. “What about compensation?”

  Crankton smiles. “Compensation?”

  The Mounties tense, as though they expect to be hit by something unpleasant.

  “For the lousy trailers you gave us when you destroyed our good homes.”

  “Never had mould in my old house,” Ada shouts from her chair.

  “I’m afraid,” says Crankton, “issues such as compensation are not within my mandate.”

  Mayor Bob, who has been sitting the whole time, leaps to his feet. “What we have to remember,” he says, “is that we’re all in this together. We are all Treaty People.”

  “Some more than others,” shouts Ada.

  Roman’s face is a storm cloud. “And how are we all in this together?”

  “The thing we need to do,” says the mayor, “is try to make the best of an unwelcome situation.”

  Roman strikes his thigh with the drumstick. “That mean you’re going to hook up our power and water?”

  “Yeah,” shouts Ada. “We need clean water and electricity. We don’t need cans of whipped cream.”

  Pavella is amused. “Well,” he says, “while it does bear some resemblance to whipped cream, I can assure you, you do not want to eat it.”

  “So, it’s poisonous?” says Roman.

  The smile slides off Pavella’s face. “No, of course not.”

  “So it’s just carcinogenic.”

  “Of course it’s not carcinogenic.”

  “Then how come it smells so bad?”

  The stuff does have a distinct odour. Even the crows notice it. They step back from the edge of the roof and turn away.

  “There is some off-gassing associated with the foam,” says Pavella, “but that will dissipate quickly.”

  “That’s what they said about the trailers.” Nutty reaches Roman’s side and stands with him. “And look what that got us.”

  Crankton holds up her hands. “If you’ll form an orderly line to the left of the table, Mr. Pavella will make sure that everyone gets a can.”

  Nutty takes Roman’s hand and pulls him back into the heart of the gathering, away from trouble. Ada folds in behind them. A photographer appears out of nowhere and begins taking pictures of Crankton shaking hands with the mayor and of Pavella handing out the aerosol cans.

  Each can comes with a ministry survey that Pavella encourages everyone to fill out and return to Ottawa.

  As I start back to the school, I see them. Ash Locken and Oliver Flood. I can’t tell if they have just arrived or if they have been here all along. They stand at the edge of the powwow grounds, looking like explorers who have just stumbled upon an unexpected civilization.

  And then the drum starts up again, and the crows begin screaming.

  11

  The next day, I get to the Piggy early. Florence is sitting at one of the tables with her feet up on a chair.

  “What happened,” she says, without opening her eyes. “You forget to sleep in?”

  I set the two brownies on the counter.

  “Two?” Florence sits up. “Reggie used to do that. Whenever he messed up.”

  I find plates. Florence pads over to the espresso machine, heats the cups, grinds the beans. The sound reminds me a bit of the drummers and the crows.

  “Missed all the excitement,” she tells me. “After you left, Roman decided to experiment with that mould foam stuff.”

  Roman has not always been careful with the line between offensive behaviour and illegal behaviour. When Mayor Bob first announced his intention to talk to the department of Indian
Affairs about appropriating the Cradle River reserve and moving the families somewhere else, Roman put forward a motion before the band council calling for the town to be moved instead.

  “Sprayed it on the hood of that government car. Looked like cream frosting on a licorice cake.” Florence takes a bite of brownie. “At first, they were good sports about it.”

  Roman’s motion passed. The ensuing squabble between the band and the town was picked up by the national media, and within days, primetime news reporters with their TV trucks and canned sound bites had descended on Gleaming.

  And for the next several weeks, the air was filled with accusations, counter-accusations, threats of lawsuits, ill-advised interviews, and a great deal of inappropriate language, leaving the town and the reserve exhausted and the mayor looking the fool.

  “But then they tried to wipe it off.”

  Mayor Bob did not appreciate the notoriety or the embarrassment, and in short order, he instructed the city’s public works to terminate hydro and water to the reserve, citing health concerns and public safety issues with the old pipes and the outdated electrical service, neither of which had been replaced since the plank houses had been exchanged for the trailers.

  “It came off well enough.” Florence is laughing now. “But so did the paint.”

  Roman might have waited to see if the band council, Indian Affairs, and the town could come up with a solution.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead, he got a pipe wrench, a hacksaw, and a pair of heavy-duty wire cutters, and proceeded to “discontinue” electrical and water service to the homes of the councillors who had voted with the mayor.

  “You know, Bob Loomis wasn’t always such a dolt.” Florence pokes at her brownie with a fork. “When Reggie was alive, he and Bob were good friends. Bob and his wife came for breakfast every Sunday. Man had a sense of humour.”

  I try to imagine Bob Loomis with a sense of humour.

  “And then he ran for mayor.” Florence shakes her head. “What is it about public office that turns decent people into political cartoons?”

  LOUIS, ENOLA, AND WAPI roll into the Piggy just before nine. Louis sets a can of the Lock-Mould on the table.

  “Going to try it on my rims,” says Louis. “See if it will take the rust off.”

  “Rust,” says Wapi.

  “Did we miss the news?” Enola asks.

  “Nope,” says Florence. “Was waiting for you guys to show up.”

  “Yesterday was pretty depressing,” says Enola. “Spray foam for mould?”

  “No way that stuff is going to work,” says Louis. “You get mould in trailers, you might as well burn them down.”

  “Burn them down,” says Wapi.

  Florence makes three macchiatos and a hot chocolate and sets them on the counter. “Okay,” she says, “news, blues, and comfortable shoes.”

  Florence begins, as she always does, on the international front. An explosion has destroyed a decommissioned weather station on an uninhabited island in the Southern Ocean between South Island, New Zealand, and Antarctica, leaving authorities baffled.

  In national news, the New Democrats win enough seats to form a minority government in British Columbia, while the Greens move ahead of both the Liberals and the Conservatives.

  “And at the local level,” says Florence, softening her voice, “today is Nutty Moosonee’s birthday.”

  “She must be closing in on one hundred,” says Enola.

  “And those who don’t stop by and wish that sweet old woman well can forget about coffee in the foreseeable future.”

  Louis taps the table. “Did anyone notice that we lost another one of our billionaires?”

  Florence nods. “Always sad when that happens.”

  “Oleg Baranov? Russian oligarch?” Louis waits to see if the name rings any bells. “He went to Paris for cosmetic surgery, and bang, before you can say rhinoplasty, he’s dead.”

  Enola snorts. “A nose job?”

  “Nose job,” says Wapi.

  “Everyone dies,” says Enola.

  “Sure,” says her father, “but this guy wasn’t supposed to die.”

  “I had an auntie who lived to be ninety-eight,” says Florence.

  “That’s genetics,” says Louis. “The super-rich tend to live longer than the rest of us, because they don’t have the same anxiety levels and because they can afford the best health care.”

  “Didn’t work out so well for Mr. Nose Job,” says Enola.

  “Nose job,” says Wapi.

  “When I was at university,” says Louis, “I had a class on the history of societal structures. You know what keeps the poor from killing the rich?”

  “The police,” says Enola. “The rich own the police.”

  “Elections,” says Louis. “They give us hope and the illusion that we have some control over our lives.”

  “Nose job,” says Wapi.

  “And yet,” says Louis, “the less democratic the nation, the safer it is for the ultra-rich.”

  I’m hoping that Florence will step in and move the discussion in another direction. Any minute now, someone is going to quote Aristotle.

  “‘Death is the solution to all problems,’” says Enola. “Joseph Stalin.”

  Louis leans back in his chair. “Why are you quoting Joseph Stalin?”

  “We could quote Freud,” says Enola. “Or Aristotle.”

  Florence sets the tarot on the counter next to me.

  “Good news,” she says. “Emma Stillday and her little girl are coming home. Ada’s over the moon.”

  I shuffle the deck and pick the Hermit, one of the Major Arcana. The card looks as though one of the Cubists, Picasso or Braque, designed the thing. Lines and slashes and geometrical shapes. In one corner is a three-headed dog, which makes no more sense than the rest of the card.

  “Caution, detachment from worldly things, healing, silence.” Florence shakes her head. “Looks like the cards have got your number.”

  I take a peek at the next card down. The Ten of Wands. Oppression.

  “Emma’s going to have a hard time at first,” says Florence. “Going to need some help getting settled. Daughter to look after. Place to live. Roman.”

  I look at the next card. The Ten of Swords. Ruin. I slide the deck back to Florence. Quit while I’m ahead.

  Louis and Enola have moved on to religion and the concept of everlasting life and reincarnation.

  “If you believe that there is life after death,” says Enola, “you can endure the tribulations of living.”

  “The opioid of the masses,” says Louis.

  “Now we’re quoting Marx?” says Enola.

  “Your mother believed in god,” says Louis. “Then she got cancer.”

  “Einstein suggested that religion provides an ethical framework for personal conduct.”

  “Don’t need religion to tell us what’s right and wrong,” says Florence, joining the conversation. “Can figure that out on our own.”

  I can see that the conversation is about to implode and collapse on itself. I finish my coffee, float towards the door. Florence tries to hold me in place with a glare, but she’s too late.

  “You better remember Nutty’s birthday,” she calls after me. “You don’t stop by and there’s not a brownie big enough can save you.”

  THE NEIGHBOURS are in the park. They’ve set up their daytime camp against the bandstand. The kids are busy with a pickup soccer game, while the adults relax in the sunlight.

  As I cross the park, Wes Stanford waves me over.

  “You know anything about the mayor’s plan to stick us into those trailers? Good enough for Indians, good enough for us? That about it?”

  Wes Stanford is a horse. Tall, with a long, heavy face. Hair tied back in a mane. Glasses that make his eyes seem even larger than they are.

  “Is it true they’re full of mould?”

  And the smell. Not unpleasant exactly. Unexpected. Damp and decay. As though you had gone for a ride
in a meadow on the edge of a swamp. Or slept too long in a barn.

  “What the hell,” says Stanford. “That fuck thinks we’re going to let him put our kids in a gas chamber?”

  Stanford worked the assembly line at the General Motors plant. And then it was closed and moved to Mexico.

  “We been squatting in the old box plant.”

  Out past the Petro-Can. Bambridge & Moore made cardboard boxes until one of the big outfits in the U.S. bought the company and closed the plant.

  “Lot of talk about converting B&M into low-income housing,” says Stanford. “But now the mayor wants to tear down the place and build a new community centre and hockey arena.”

  Stanford watches the children race across the grass, laughing as they go. “It’s not easy out here. Food’s tight. Autumn’s pregnant again, and Zoe rattles when she breathes. You think we like this?”

  Stanford straightens his ponytail. “But the reserve don’t want us any more than the town does.”

  I can’t think of anything to say, so I don’t.

  “Hear you’re fixing up that graveyard.” Stanford jams his hands into his pockets. “You need help, you let me know.”

  NUTTY IS SITTING in her recliner. Roman and Ada are sitting on folding chairs. There’s a chocolate cake on a dirty-white plastic table that looks as though it has been rescued from a curb. Slick is back on the garbage can. He’s looking at the cake, his head bobbing up and down, but he stays put.

  “Ada made the cake,” says Roman. “It’s pretty good.”

  “Of course it’s good,” says Ada. “I made it.”

  “Slick don’t know what to do with it,” says Nutty. Her cough doesn’t sound any better.

  “Long as he don’t crap on it,” says Ada, “he can continue to live.”

  “Mayor Bob came by earlier,” says Nutty.

  “But he didn’t come to wish Nutty a happy birthday,” says Ada. “Him and the law were looking for Roman.”

  “But they didn’t find me.”

  I imagine Roman’s new troubles have to do with the Lock-Mould and the car.

  “They’re saying I destroyed private property,” says Roman. “Are they kidding? Their foam, their car.”

  “Said he’s a menace to society,” says Ada. “No mention of the trailers or the hookups. You should have seen the mess that spray made.”