I thought the last page finished it.
Just maybe needs a little: “Thanks for reading this. The End.”
I suppose I could add my apologies for typographical mistakes and awkward sentences. Well, repetitions, yes, there must have been a lot of those, and possibly a bit of purple prose. I likely rambled. I know I ranted. I did use words—a few—that I’ll admit were unbecoming to a gentleman. I’m sorry, Mouse.
Acknowledgements? Of course, a stack of typing this substantial implies I have some debts to list. I’d like to thank my kindergarten teacher... And whoever grew the coffee beans. Anice: for getting me on board the plane. And Watikwan: for being Watikwan, for memories too precious to forget. And you. Absolutely. I thank you, my tiny toddling hero.
That’s it. I’m done. The end.
But you still stand there in my doorway strangely fascinated. I think you’re waiting for another ping.
Well?
Yes, I gather you’ll have more questions by the time you’re reading this. Someday in the future you may say, “Not yet. Where are all those paintings, Dad? I don’t remember seeing them. What happened on the all-night train ride? What made you pick my mom? What about the other one? What happened to her?”
Enough. My fingers are close to falling off all ready. I think I’ve done enough. That’s it. I’m tired.
“Da—ad. You’re deflecting again. Give. You can’t just leave me hanging after telling me all this.”
How is it you can be so cute and yet so difficult all on the same page? You’re right. Somehow you’re always right. I still don’t know exactly how that works. (Big sigh.) I can’t say no. Just let me catch my breath and get another coffee.
So where do I resume?
.
The train? There was a slight delay. The Wednesday train from Cochrane north to Moosonee slid off the tracks and onto muskeg before they got to Coral Rapids. It “bushed” according to the stationmaster, which translates into cranes and extra engines and pulling cars and freight back up to where they started—Cochrane. So, there isn’t any train going south on Thursday morning. It’s Saturday instead, July the Second, when finally, black flies feasting on my neck and arms, I climb aboard and spend a smoke-filled day with nothing but the endless flash of black spruce and 186 white mile markers sliding past my window for my entertainment. No mental lists of pros and cons appeared like magic in my brain. But surely, that is no surprise by now.
So it’s Saturday waiting in the Moosonee ONR station for the Northlander, the train from Cochrane to Toronto, I phone Suzanne.
“I’m on my way.”
“That’s good.”
“I’m taking the red-eye to Toronto and then possibly a bus tomorrow morning up to Pembroke.”
“That’s fine.”
“I might stop by and visit Juan.”
“Oh.”
“I guess that’s all.”
“I guess it is.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
“I’ll see you too.”
Short and nothing even close to sweet. The more I try to read between the lines, the less I understand it. Both voices sound flat, quiet, sad, and apprehensive. We’ve stopped pretending there’s an easy way to make things right. I’d have the time to grab a bite to eat—if my stomach weren’t in knots from worry, if my throat weren’t constricted out of fear. I think I need more time. I might be slightly unprepared to meet with her tomorrow.
At two a.m. on Sunday we rattle to a stop in North Bay and a conductor wakes me up to check my ticket, making sure I’m travelling through. The sky is black. I can tell I’m in the south already. Right now the sky in Orkney Post would still be twilit. Rosemary would be sitting at her station in the hospital, writing notes and listening for a call-bell, the sudden advent of a ragged wound, or an unexpected labour. The wait is long in North Bay; the lights in the car are too bright for sleeping. Sadly, the lights are not too bright for thinking.
South of Cochrane the track is smoother; the train speeds up. It’s getting light when we hit our only stop southbound from North Bay to Union Station: Washago. Washago? The wemistikoshowak passengers now onboard are more reserved, more focused, less friendly. The sound of families speaking English feels a little strange. I stretch my legs and find my voice enough to speak to the conductor. I want to know what’s so special about this tiny place: Washago.
“The coal tower,” he tells me. “Back when we were steam. Now, it’s just a parking lot, a place commuters to board.”
“Coal tower?”
“For loading coal fast—halfway from one big place to another. Circumstances changed but we still stop there.”
“Washago.” I say it to myself. It sounds so Cree. Maybe Watikwan will know its meaning. I’ll ask him when I see him. If...
Perhaps I doze. Perhaps I dream about a tower made of coal—or changing circumstances. Perhaps I marvel at the oddity of cars and roads and cows and hardwood trees. Before I know it, the lights go out and we are under cover inching toward a sheltered platform in Toronto’s Union Station. Sunday morning. Breakfast time. It’s five days since I left my home in Orkney Post. You’re not surprised that nothing’s really changed inside my head, are you? I still miss Rosemary; I’m still frightened of Suzanne. I’m in no big rush to get to Pembroke. Somewhere on the journey I decided maybe hanging out with Juan until the baby is born might be less upsetting for your mom. Yes, I really did believe that at the time. In fact, standing on the street outside the station, looking at my five large cartons of household items, my roll of paintings, and two small suitcases, I’m so tired of travelling I almost take them directly to the bus and get it over with. Close my eyes and pick a road and don’t look back. Settle my stomach, unclutter my brain, and get off the fence that I’ve been straddling for so long. It was tempting. But for your sake, I think delay might be the better course of action. I get it, Mouse. It's possible I was only putting off disaster.
.
Juan now rents the loft where he once arranged his broken bikes into a masterpiece, where Suzanne and I first lived and loved together. Sir Visa slurps his beer beside the makeshift “cooking area” and lounges in the duct taped beanbag chair while Juan and I discuss the future. For me, the loft provides a place to crash that’s hassle-free and also free of rent; as well, it offers comfort for my panic. For him, I’m the missing puzzle piece in what he thinks might be his most promising stab at glory.
“My candles, mon. Dey will blow your mind.”
“I brought some paintings, Juan. I’d value your opinion...”
“Over here. Just look at these. Let me shut the lights. You have to see them lit, see them in the dark.”
“Maybe I could leave them here somewhere, at least...”
“I have it all set up.” He waves me toward a double-row of plastic buckets filled with sand. “I’m in production, mon. But dis is just for da cash. De big idea is in here.” He taps his dreadlocks with an index finger.
“Sandcast candles, Juan? You think they’re still even cool?”
“Dis is da biggest, mon. And then like magic you appear. I need your help. You must stay da week, my friend.”
“I was planning to head up to Pembroke in the...”
“Only look. Don’t spoil de moment wit your talking.” The ceiling lights die and the glow of two-dozen candles warms the loft. It sets the mood. His voice becomes hypnotic. The grand plan is outrageous, simple and almost certainly illegal—which makes it almost too perfect to wait until the weekend. But we do.
Late Friday night I’m crouching in the dark at Hanlan’s Point on Toronto Island Park. The night is warm. A waning quarter-moon and the shimmering skyline from across the harbour give us all the light we need. To pass the time, Juan throws sticks into the lake for Sir Visa to ignore. The dog is drunk as usual and sleeping in the sand.
“It’s almost time, mon. How is our wax coming?”
I tend a large bed of coals under a motley collection of kettles and pots and saucepans
all brimming with melting paraffin. I have a long stick in one hand to stir the embers, a cold Michelob in the other. The final ferry of the night departed an hour ago for its short trip back to the city.
“They’re coming along.”
You’d think we’d be whispering, but I almost have to shout to make myself heard above the noisy chatter of what may number a hundred artists and musicians and poets who’ve gathered here to help Juan create his—happening. Whatever this is, it belongs to all of them and they are all celebrating its imminent arrival.
“Almost,” I shout.
“I’m cuttin' da wicks now,” he answers. “Den I will pass dem around.”
Somehow, as if we’ve been enchanted by spirits, no cops stop us and in the coming minutes and hours scores of shallow moulds are scooped into the damp beach sand, wax is poured and when it sets, the candles are lit. The revellers dig out their crude sand-cast torches and lift them to the dying moon, the city skyline, the night—their own sweet muses.
Yes, Mouse. The sun is peeking; good morning. Did you catch the date? It’s July the Ninth that’s dawning, my little Mouse. Happy Birthday! Your first birthday candles, cast in beach sand, illicitly reflected in Lake Ontario. Right then I have no way of knowing it. Juan hasn’t got a phone, of course. I have no desire to talk to Suzanne. I haven’t been following any moving stars across the heavens to celebrate your birth. Coincidence completely. Were this fiction, no one would believe it.
Coincidence and slow recovery from the hangover, those are the reasons that lead me to the Grey Coach downtown terminal early Monday morning. Nothing more. The paintings stay with Juan. He convinces me they all are worse than terrible and asks if he can gesso over them and use the canvas for a project forming in his dreams. I shrug; he smiles. We both reflect on candles burning on the beach. We shake hands—rather firmly, to my surprise—to seal the deal. I ship the boxes and check the luggage on the bus. It takes all day to get to Pembroke.
The answer is still no. I have no speech prepared. I have no plan. I’ve made no choices. I have no place to go if someone in authority screams, “Retreat!” I take a taxi from the bus right to your grandparent’s house and promptly ring the bell.
“You bastard! You son of a bitch!” There is murder in her mother’s eyes, but Suzanne, for reasons only she can tell you, saves my life that afternoon. She intervenes.
She hands you off to me. She throws her body between her enraged mom and myself and tells me in a voice that reveals nothing at all about my present situation that they’d just arrived themselves an hour earlier from the hospital. You were early, Mouse, by nearly two weeks. Born Saturday. Everything is fine. And then she drags her mother bodily, still spitting sparks at me, down the front sidewalk and around corner on a leisurely stroll, a stroll which I believe took hours and hours.
Now here you are swaddled tightly in a receiving blanket, your face so tiny I call you Mouse the first time I whisper to you—without a thought of where it might have come from, without a clue what name your mother gave you. You are wrapped up as if Rosemary Ten Sunrises was just about to lace you in a tikinakan. And, Mouse, you terrify me. What will I do if you stop breathing? Where will I run if you become hungry or thirsty? What if you start to cry? Your grandfather doesn’t seem to be at home. I call his name softly, trying to balance between the desperate need for assistance and the terror of alarming you. I am afraid to shift you to my shoulder. I am scared to even breathe. What if my fingers cramp and I drop you? How could I protect you if the house falls down or the furnace explodes? Are there owls in Pembroke? Are there wild and starving dogs? Without a map or licence or instructions from a cat or friend or student, I am suddenly a dad.
The rest is a different story. One you mostly know—one that you can ask your mother if you don’t.
Things rarely turn out the way I think they will. I don’t know why people do the things they do? What is right? What is wrong? Do I really need to make that call? Regrets? How could I have regrets? How could I not have them? And what difference would it make today?
You wander in and out of my study thinking I’m playing some musical instrument instead of sending you a message in your future. Today you ask me about food and play, not space and time, questions I can handle. “Love” today is just a thing you get and give, not something people have to ponder carefully. Today you know me as a teacher and a husband and a dad. I wasn’t always. Once upon a time I stood on a river bank formed out of ice in Orkney Post with the wind in her long flying hair and the sound of geese in her ears, and when she said, “Get down there,” I was just some random tree to you, falling over in a muskeg so far away in a place and time you’d never hear or see it, never even imagine it. But here it is. That voice, this final ping, it is the sound wave, the song that I’ve been playing for you.
THE END
Glossary of Cree Words
api – sit
apishish -- little bit, small amount
astam -- (the command to) come
atim – dog
awas – away with you, get lost!
chiman -- boat; canoe
chiokanamoshish -- dragonfly
e-e - yes
ekwani – enough
eshkwa, peo neta - wait, wait there
ininiw – Aboriginal person ininiwak - people
kakito– (the command to) be quiet
kekwan (?)- what
kikawi -- your mother
kinipi -- (the command to) hurry up
kipichi – command to stop
mascha – go; go away
michiso – eat michiso na – do you want to eat?
mikwech - thank you
miskat - leg
minoshin -- good
mishaw - big, long
mishaw mokoman - “long knife” (American)
mokoman - knife
mona -- no, not
nikawi – my mother
nina, n' -- I
okawiya – his mother
ota -- here
peo – command to wait
peyak -- one
sakabon – goose cooked on a string over fire
shikak - skunk
tikinakan, tikinakanak-- cradle board, pl.
wachiye – greetings, hello, farewell
wahbusk - polar bear
wemistikosho, wemistikoshowak – white person, people
wapakaminikan (tea palos) – tea, flour, sugar and lard
wapikoshish -- mouse
watikwan – (?) a broken or uneven tree branch
wichiin – help me
Acknowledgments
I had help. The following people read an early version of this novel. I didn't realize until this past few months just how rough it was, how deeply in debt I am for their effort. Their comments, their encouragement, their insights all helped a great deal. I'm a lucky guy to have had such skilled and diligent beta readers. Adrienne Barrett, Camilla Hansen, Elizabeth McGlothlin, Pat and Nancy Moore, Carman Tozer, and Lesley Weston. Collectively, thank you. You did a great job; the flaws that remain belong solely to me.
I consulted Daisy Turner's Moose Factory Cree and C. Douglas Ellis's Spoken Cree, which only muddied the help provided by Wachakosh Awashish. Any discrepancies or typos are mine.
Finally, I am indebted to countless friends and former students from Fort Albany and Moose Factory who did their best to educate me. It must have been a very frustrating endeavour. They were persistent and generous. I sincerely hope my novel doesn't repay their kindness with anything short of the respect they deserve and the high regard in which I hold them.
Oh, yes. And the people who grew the coffee beans... You rock!
About the Author
Brian Reynolds was a teacher in two James Bay aboriginal communities off and on during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. He spent a number of years as a landscape and a writer of short fiction. Mouse is the first long work he's shared widely. In many ways it's an experiment as is his current adventure with running, as were
his careers in the classroom and putting coloured dots on fancy paper. He has a garden.
He'd love to hear from you (unless you're selling something.) [email protected].
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