“i might just have to ask that boy out then” i said like i was that tough, that brave.
“do it!” she encouraged because she was that tough, that brave.
“should i?”
“definitely”
“really?”
“do it!”
“maybe i just will then”
“well then,” she polished off her beer with a gesture of finality. “better hurry though”
at this we both nodded our knowing little nods, knowing that these ndn men treat us like cigarettes, like beer bottles, craved, savoured, enjoyed, and tossed aside. at best, we’d get a relationship, for awhile, something intense and quick, most likely volatile, but still, in relationships, we were little more than trampolines, something good for fun, a quick boost, but eventually the nausea sets in and he is forced to make a painless though graceless dismount.
and there was me, happy in june, drinking too much and so fucking excited at the prospect of being jumped on,
just asking for it.
“got another smoke?” rita asks into the long walk night. i pull my bare hands out of my pockets for her, dig into my bag for my pack, then my lighter. of course i will do this for her.
she thinks i am a hero ’cause, a year and a half ago, i finally kicked out the baby daddy who was running around on me. i think she is a hero because she has learned how to sleep with people without letting her feelings get in the way. of course they are there, and sometime they are cumbersome, but she just doesn’t let them get in the way.
this year, she is trying to teach me how to do this.
it’s not going very well.
i am thankful for her patience. she thinks i should pay better attention.
it was a perfect little date. you’re good at first dates, aren’t you? we were both so talkative and smiley. the kind of date where opinions dance around with nervous gestures to the cloudy song of newly pumping blood.
my thunder calmed to a brisk heart beat.
and there was no move, no illicit remark, respect was our chaperone and by the time i got home, a cute little email message was waiting for me. a perfect first date.
then i called and said, fuck it come over.
of course you did.
but then you never called
only texted occasionally, sometime between midnight and three a.m, nearly every other saturday, saturdays after we had drank beer with other people, after our opinions danced with other people’s opinions, only then would you text, or i would. an exciting idea that quickly gets routine, a beautiful gesture that gets old fast.
my mistake.
you never intended for it to be beautiful.
earlier at the bar, rita was telling me how she could never imagine getting married, couldn’t see the white dress, the veil, the husband.
she said the word like it was foreign, german maybe. hus - ban - d.
i said i had the whole thing planned already, a beach, at sunset, and i will walk down to my love in a simple white dress, the beat of the big drum thumping my delicate steps in the sand. our families will all intermingle in the fading crimson sunshine, all smiling. my sons will walk with me, one on each side, all the way up to my faceless love, and my firstborn will put my shaking little hand into my forever love’s big strong brown one. and i will cry. and i will feel as if i have arrived,
“do you, louisa may, take this man?”
of course i do.
i don’t tell rita all of this though. just bits, not even the particularly cheezy bits, but still her eyes roll, her clear seeing eyes. mine blur, i know this. i know i see things in hazy pink hues, the edges smudged, the insults softened, the obvious obscured.
i would love to see the world the way rita does. the harsh brittle brutal reality of it all. the darkened grey concrete of it all. to her, it is never the picturesque romantic path in a merry little springtime. it is a dirty muck trodden gum littered downtown street that stinks like beer and piss at 3 am with few choices and oh so many needs.
and your eyes may be blurry but that doesn’t make it beautiful.
“never works out for me either” rita’s breath in the cold air. “when i ask a guy out. always gives off the wrong impression somehow”
“then why the hell did you tell me to go for it?” my hands out in the wind, exposed.
“oh c’mon, lou” she scoffs. “’s not like you were thinking about talking to the guy!”
she makes a point. it’s just not entirely true.
i did think about talking to him. i do fantasize about quick wit and spry intellectuo matches where words joust in thick air between two bodies that move like they want to fuse together. and i dream of fights that end with kisses. conversations that have to continue even after clothes are off. questions that pull me out of sleep, questions i have to ask the person lying next to me because i know he is waiting, in sleep, to answer.
but i also want to be called the next day, the morning after, or in the evening, for a quiet bedtime phone call that i can curl up to, in bed, with his voice to my ear. when i can turn out the light, and we can whisper nonsensical details about our individual days, feeling like teenagers, feeling wanted.
i am not interested in your little boy games. passive aggressive is so last year. i am not impressed by your remarkable ability to wield power over little girls. i feel bad for them. for me. for that white girl who once believed you loved her. that white girl now so wrecked and confused.
didn’t think i knew that did you? my cousin told me. how your ex came to town, how you guys were still “friends,” how she showed up at the bar looking so good for you. and how you and your friends laughed at her when her back was turned, and fed her beer and tequila when she faced you. got her drunk for fun until she spewed, first her hurt, heartbroken words that made no sense and held no weight, and then her projectile vomit all over that sticky old carpet in that slimy old bar. humiliated. for what? for loving you? for being confused by you? hell! i’ve had one hundredth of the you she has had and i’m confused. but i’m not humiliated. thank creator for small graces.
that’s all i have over that poor white girl.
other than that we’re still both rejected and bruised.
“don’t worry too much about it, doll,” rita says huddled in her jacket lighting another smoke, she emerges and says, “there are plenty of people to judge you, no need to do it yourself.” she says this with a cigarette dangling off her chapped lips and the harsh north wind whipping up her thick black hair.
i smile, shrug again, feeling quiet, tired, midweek. then i stop to light another smoke for myself. i lean into a storefront window to block the wind, the neons lights are out. they sell candy bars and chinese specialty items in large bulk bins.
her words bounce around in my head, “really?” i ask.
she nods. gives me a look that is the equivalent of rolling her eyes or shaking her head, only kinder.
we are pessimistic at the best of times.
or at least i strive to be. i imagine it would be easier than living in this perpetual hope that consistently gets beaten down. i am a salmon swimming frantically upstream with a stupid look of glee on my plump, wet face even though i keep hitting rocks,
kissing frogs,
laying down with dogs.
“oh lou my girl, don’t be like that. you can still see him you know. don’t be ashamed. just know what it is!”
but i know i can’t do that.
i know i am too far gone.
always have been.
“c’mon lou, you’re dating now. you’ve got to realize it’s just a game. and really, if this guy wanted you, and turned around and said, i want to be with you, i love you, i love you, have my babies. well, then you’d be all, fuck that! challenge done! chase over! and you’d be so bored. its the hunt, doll, its the game. it’s what we want. it’s what we do.”
i nod yes like this is stoic wisdom passed down through seven generations. and flick my half smoked smoke into the str
eet, watch it get run over by a big noisy truck. we step in unison, off another curb, around another corner, like we know exactly where we are going and we’re walking so fast like we can outrun the cold. we don’t want to admit that it will be winter soon. how much we all dread the winter.
but she is right. in a way. this is what we convince ourselves. that it’s a game and we’re playing too. like we’re privy to the rules and a part of the equation.
not just ambling by, stumbling on, getting rejected over and over through no obvious fault of our own.
it’s true, i don’t want to admit it. admit that i want nothing more that to hold and be held, to have a man that i love bring me beer and flowers. to make popcorn, for him, on the stove, old fashioned-like, and lie on our sides with our feet intertwined under my ratty crocheted blanket, and fall asleep in front of a boring movie just rented for the excuse to lie around, together, doing nothing.
to feel your breath on my hair,
no! better to believe i just can’t stop myself, think i won’t ever be satisfied, better to over analyze his every move, gesture, to find meaning in his cruelty, and an answer more substantial than ‘he is just not that into me.’ i can do that, i can mull and twist together all my thoughts and then i won’t have to let him go. not yet. not just yet.
i can ramble through the way his hands held his beer and picked at the label like he was nervous too.
the pensive way he hugged me goodbye that first time, as we stood on the grass just off the bridge when i silently dared him to kiss me. but he didn’t.
i can stretch, out, these, moments, and keep them as worthy as memories that have only to warm, me, for, awhile, and then, fade,
rita wants me to be angry. maybe i will be. one day. maybe i will shout and punch and kick my way into the next ne’er do well heart i find. maybe i won’t. maybe i will be alone ’til i die and scream old lady anger out at the world behind me. and i think i will say,
damn it you’re all the fucking same aren’t you? y’all with your cheap ass air of “the stoic ndn” cologne, thinking you can have anyone anytime all the time. don’t you know that however many numbers you rack up, you’re still going to be so fucking alone. in here. ’cause you’re all too fucking arrogant to man up and just be good fucking people. faithful partners. damn you all. damn your blazing fucking arrogance thrown on like fancy clothes barely covering up your pitiful, bottomless insecurity. yeah, that’s right i can see it. we all can. that’s why we want you. that’s why we put up with you. try to take care of you ’cause y’all have that crazy kind of insecurity inside you that brings out the mamas in us. the kind of insecurity that can only come from unhappy ndn childhoods and the predictable dysfunctional family bullshit that comes with it. shit. we fall for it everytime. we give and we give and still you’re all the kind of fuckers freud would have a field day with, you and all your oedipal garbage forever treating women like disposal objects all ’cause you thought your mamas didn’t love you good enough. i feel so goddamn sorry for your mamas ’cause if i ever found out my boys were treating women like y’all do i would beat them with a stick until they learned right. damn it, we are not beer bottles. we are not cigarettes. we are queens, muthafuckers and if you are in it for anything less pure and abject adoration then you should leave us the fuck alone before you get your dicks into places they really have no business going.
yeah! that’s what i’d say, don’t let your dick write a cheque your heart can’t cash, buddy. that, or, i could just say no. but that’s not likely. i’m too...optimistic. shit. everytime. a certain grin, a certain twist of a lovely hairless forearm, crap, i forget my name, nevermind my past heartaches, headaches, tribulations, trepidations.
“why does it have to be like that? i mean fuck, i feel so...compartmentalized” i shrug, defeated, cold.
“that’s just how it is. it’s how they think. you sleep with them - you go in that box. you don’t sleep with them - you stay in the other one,” she says this with hands out, smoke burning. i can visualize the boxes in the air.
“that’s stupid” i say
“tell me about it”
i wasn’t concerned with the plot, maybe i should’ve been, but it was the image that intrigued me. that loose, lackadaisical character who unravelled slowly like a smooth concise read on the back jacket of a real good looking book. only all the pages inside were blank.
its alright, i really didn’t want the story anyway. i just wanted the flower. i mean, i knew it was red, but what? a gardenia? a blossom? what shape are your pedals? what shade is your hue? are there buds in the foliage just waiting for the right tilt of sun to open? these are the things i wanted to know. they are the things you didn’t tell me. but those were the things i wanted to know.
“but i thought all ndn men u-haul it from one date to the next?”
“some do” rita nods to the night. “some are just dogs, lou, they just want to fuck anything they can.”
i sigh out loud. these things i thought i knew.
and she adds, “others date white women, then they play by white people rules”
fuck.
this is complicated.
i think i should be taking notes.
rita thinks i’ll get it one day. i really don’t think i even want to.
don’t worry. i will keep your secrets. the one that you are not really such a nice guy or a sincere person. the one that you probably drink too much. and the one that you are really a pretty smart guy, only cover it up with predictable tattoos and crude slang. i will keep it all, don’t worry. i will even keep the one where you really want to care about the world but just don’t have the time after caring about yourself so damn much. and i will especially keep close to me the secret that you are such a cuddly sleeper, how you always reached out for me with only half awake hands and held me tight enough for our skins to sink into each other, all night. and right here, i will keep the secret that you were so beautiful in the dark, when you thought no one was watching and all you had to do was rise above me with your broadly stretched body, loosened hair, and brief shine, and you couldn’t help it, couldn’t help but look at me with a question, unsure but you had to ask anyway, because even you, arrogant boy, even you don’t always have all the answers.
“do you know any?” i ask as we get near her house.
“what? ndns who aren’t arrogant?” rita snorts.
“and single?”
“single or married – no.” she didn’t even think about this.
“no?”
“no!”
“that’s sad”
“tell me about it”
i feel sorry for us. shivering down her street, not long past midnight, midweek, midlife, cinderellas with both shoes on. hands tucked deep in our jackets, shoulders bracing against the wind, forever strong and bracing against,
of all the people we knew between us, not a single worthwhile Aboriginal man, not one prince for us to look after, one who knew enough not to trust his own bullshit, one who wouldn’t be afraid to ask out loud, or answer, or follow through,
damn it was cold, barely october and time to haul it in. face another long hibernation, alone, again, under my ratty crocheted blanket, falling asleep in front of a boring movie rented just because there is nothing else to do.
but i walked my friend to her gate and give her a long warm hug under the almost full moon.
i love her that she has accepted all of this. she loves me that i haven’t.
“but i thought all ndn men u-haul it from one date to the next?”
“some do” rita nods to the night. “some are just dogs, lou, they just want to fuck anything they can.”
i sigh out loud. these things i thought i knew.
and she adds, “others date white women, then they play by white people rules”
fuck.
this is complicated.
i think should be taking notes.
rita thinks i’ll get it one day. i really don’t think i even want to.
don’t worry. i will keep your secrets. the one that you are not really such a nice guy or a sincere person. the one that you probably drink too much. and the one that you are really a pretty smart guy, only cover it up with predictable tattoos and crude slang. i will keep it all, don’t worry. i will even keep the one where you really want to care about the world but just don’t have the time after caring about yourself so damn much. and i will especially keep close to me the secret that you are such a cuddly sleeper, how you always reached out for me with only half awake hands and held me tight enough for our skins to sink into each other, all night. and right here, i will keep the secret that you were so beautiful in the dark, when you thought no one was watching and all you had to do was rise above me with your broadly stretched body, loosened hair, and brief shine, and you couldn’t help it, couldn’t help but look at me with a question, unsure but you had to ask anyway, because even you, arrogant boy, even you don’t always have all the answers.
“do you know any?” i ask as we get near her house.
“what? ndns who aren’t arrogant?” rita snorts.
“and single?”
“single or married – no.” she didn’t even think about this.
“no?”
“no!”
“that’s sad”
“tell me about it”
i feel sorry for us. shivering down her street, not long past midnight, midweek, midlife, cinderellas with both shoes on. hands tucked deep in our jackets, shoulders bracing against the wind, forever strong and bracing against,
of all the people we knew between us, not a single worthwhile Aboriginal man, not one prince for us to look after, one who knew enough not to trust his own bullshit, one who wouldn’t be afraid to ask out loud, or answer, or follow through,
damn it was cold, barely october and time to haul it in. face another long hibernation, alone, again, under my ratty crocheted blanket, falling asleep in front of a boring movie rented just because there is nothing else to do.
but i walked my friend to her gate and give her a long warm hug under the almost full moon.
i love her that she has accepted all of this. she loves me that i haven’t.
The Exile Book of Native Canadian Fiction and Drama Page 24