Streetlights roll past the window. I know we’re in Ottawa now but I’m not sure where. The lights blur and merge. We careen around a corner. I hear a tight “Sorry” from the front. But we don’t slow down. I’m dizzy. I keep trying to hold myself down. Hold myself in place. Tell myself exactly where I am as if each detail is a nail hammering me to this place. I’m on my back in the back seat of a stranger’s car. She’s a nurse. Leather seats. Dark sedan. My head on Fritzy’s lap. Fritzy’s resting her elbow on the window with her wrist bent and her hand in front of her mouth. Her other hand is stroking my hair. So delicately. She thinks I’ll break. Everything is slipping in and out of focus. I cling to the pain because I know it’s real. And I know now something terrible has happened. Fritzy’s my cousin. We grew up together, like sisters, on the rez. I can read her face even through my swollen eyes and near-blinding pain.
My heart starts racing. Suddenly through the pain, another feeling reaches up and grabs me by the throat. For an instant, I’m terrified. I want to sit up, open the car door, and run screaming down the street.
No. No! It’s not supposed to be like this.
It’s not fair. Tears roll down my face, hot and blinding. Haven’t danced at my wedding with the love of my life yet. Haven’t had a baby or gone skinny-dipping at midnight or camped in winter under a canopy of stars. Haven’t been given flowers and chocolates on Valentine’s Day from a man whose eyes twinkle when I walk into the room. Blurry faces appear and disappear in front of me. The boy I loved in high school. Friends from the daycare program where I worked every summer while I was at Algonquin College. Wish I’d had a baby. My nieces and nephews. Married that young man who seemed “too boring” all those years ago. His face disappears. I see my parents in their garden, bending to the earth. The faces of all of the men I loved and let go fade in and out of sight. If only I could tell them what they meant to me. If only I could make it all right with each of them. I’m sorry. It was beautiful, so beautiful.
Then Fritzy’s face above me blurs and bends, wavering in and out of focus. I see her lips move and seconds later, from far far away, I hear her voice like a distorted echo travelling across mountains and fields.
I close my eyes. Live a good life.
The spikes in my head are twisting and turning like iron snakes. Horses run across my skull. Their hooves pound into my brain. I hear a drum beating. The horses dance across my head in rhythm to the sound of the drum. My teeth are rattling. There is a lake of blood in my head, filling my throat.
There is the sound of water rising.
“No! Josie, no. Hold on.” Fritzy lifts my head, staring at me, then pulling me to her chest. She yells to the women in the front. Their voices are stones hitting together underwater. “Josie,” I hear Fritzy whisper desperately in my ear, “please.”
A rattlesnake sighs.
I can barely hold on. Feel myself floating. The pain that had grounded me now sets me adrift. Streetlights fade then fill the car until all I can see is a single white light. Voices fade into the rhythm of drum and hoof beat.
The horses stomp their feet.
Mashkii-akii
WHEN JUSTIN ROOT HIT THE GROUND, HIS LEGS CRUMPLED sending him face first into the dirt. A fraction of a second later, the branch, which was still tied to the rope around his neck, smacked him in the back of the head, knocking him senseless.
When he woke, his heart was thumping in his chest like a jackhammer. He groaned. His friggin’ nose felt like it was on fire. Was it bleeding? He struggled to breathe. His ribs ached.
Awww, damn!
Justin didn’t move. He stayed sprawled against the earth, breathing in dust and the smell of his own blood, until his pulse slowed and the clouds in his head cleared.
After a while, he moved his right arm forward and wiped his hand lightly across his nose. Yep, blood. When he tried to breathe he could feel bubbles forming in his nostrils. Damn. He spit and tried to wipe the dirt from his teeth and lips. It was gritty and he’d already swallowed some. His Nokomis always said that everyone eats a pound of dirt in a lifetime. She probably didn’t mean for him to do most of it in one go. Or that the span of his lifetime would only be 14 years for that matter.
He shifted position slightly. And groaned again. He was one big pile of ache.
Justin exhaled through clenched teeth until his breathing slowed again. Anyway, what difference did it make? He would just stay there until his body melted into the earth. When the buzzards, worms, and creepy-crawlies were finished, that’d be it. End of story.
The sun was directly overhead now. It must be lunch time. Justin could feel beads of sweat gathering at his temples and above his upper lip. The armpits of his shirt were soaked. He was glad he wasn’t wearing shorts and a t-shirt—he’d be fried. The skin where his hair was parted was burning. Good thing he wasn’t wearing sandals. Burned feet were the worst. There was a large rope burn on his neck and every drop of sweat that ran over it stung like a thousand hornets.
Not that it mattered. What did he care? He was trying to get rid of this stupid meat suit anyway.
If not for the stupid branch snapping he’d be free of it and floating above himself like a cloud right now. He closed his eyes and imagined floating.
When he woke again, hours had passed. The sun was edging closer to the horizon. Blood had dried around his nose and across the left side of his face where it had run over his cheek and pooled. He opened his mouth wide and moved his jaw back and forth. His headache was gone and his nose had changed from a raging wildfire to a small glowing ember. His ribs sent stabbing pains into his chest and back, his ankles were probably sprained, his knees were scraped and bruised, and it all rolled together into one big throbbing ball of pain. He was used to that ball. It matched the one aching in his chest. The one that, like a windigo, grew bigger and bigger the more he fed it. He pulled the rope over his head then slowly—ever so slowly—he turned over. These bodily aches and pains are insignificant, like flies buzzing around my head, he told himself.
The sun was setting. The ground was still warm and, somehow, comforting. He would stay like this till sunrise. Then he’d find a sturdier branch and tomorrow he’d do what he’d set out to do at sunrise this morning. He stretched out on his back watching the sky turn from blue to gold to pink to grey to black.
His guts were churning. He ignored it just as he ignored the pain his fall had caused. It’s only temporary, he told himself. It’s not like I’ve never gone to sleep hungry. Or battered, bruised, and nauseated. Why should tonight be any different?
It became an obsidian night, glinting and sparkling. From his spot on the escarpment it seemed as if Justin could reach up and touch each star in the sky above him. He watched the constellations shimmer and pulse. He thought about the stories his Noko had told him about women and men who fell so deeply in love with stars they would transform into Star People to join their lovers in the sky.
No one has ever loved me that much, he thought.
As he lay there, staring at the Seven Sisters, he heard a small voice.
“Have you?” it asked.
Had he what? He was angry, daring the voice to speak again.
There was no response. Justin lay there thinking about the stars, about Noko, about tree limbs at sunrise, and about his life with all of its agony, heartache, and disappointments. Why had his mother brought that asshole into their house?
He was only six years old when Mike showed up one night for dinner. The idiot was all dressed up in a freshly pressed shirt and jeans. That should’ve told her right then. Who the hell irons their jeans anyway? When Justin opened the door Mike was standing there in his unwrinkled jeans, holding a bouquet of red carnations, and grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary. Puke.
Mike grinned all through dinner. The only time he stopped was to shovel food in his face. He even grinned when he chewed.
After dinner he made a big show of helping with dishes and giving Justin a little pocket knife. Mom didn’t wan
t him to have it, but Mike insisted.
“What? D’ya want him to be a sissy?” Then he smiled again.
It was the first time Mike said that. Over the next few months the firsts came fast and furious: the first time he screamed, the first time he pushed, the first time he hit…and there was always that sneering look at mom and those same old words.
The relentless smiles turned into a permanent sneer after Mike moved in that summer.
Didn’t Mom see the bruises? Didn’t she notice how he’d walk a Frankenstein walk so he could keep his mangled body as still as possible? Didn’t she hear him groan when a sudden movement sent shock waves of pain shooting from his jaw into his brain like nails of lightning were being hammered into his head? If Justin was even the tiniest bit a sissy, Mike made it his personal mission to beat every last ounce of it out of him.
The stars moved closer. Damn. I was just a kid. A little boy. Why didn’t she stop him?
Mike lost his job shortly after moving in. Or rather it lost him. He just quit showing up. He’d go sit in a bar or at some greasy spoon instead. Or he’d lie on the couch all day, eating Cheetos and beef jerky and swearing at the “losers” on Maury and Judge Judy with their pathetic problems that were “their own damn fault.” After that he never worked. But he’d eat a big thick steak Justin’s mom paid for while they ate macaroni and ketchup. If Justin so much as looked at the steak, Mike would slam down his knife and fork, grab Justin by the collar, and throw him into his room for the rest of the night.
Justin began dreaming about food. Steaks and sausages, stacks of pancakes dripping with maple syrup…. Sometimes the rumbling in his gut was so bad he’d steal food from other kids’ lunches at school. And he’d eat whatever he could find. Once, when he was seven, he ate green apples until he couldn’t eat another one. He spent the rest of the night doubled over in the outhouse. After that he learned to be patient enough to wait until things ripened and to eat until the hunger left and save the rest. He tried to convince himself that the emptiness in his stomach was good, that it made him strong.
Justin felt a knot in his chest tighten. Life sucks. Why did they live there anyway? So far from everyone, never enough to eat, no one to help them…. Why? And the other kids blamed him for everything. Money missing, broken windows, graffiti on the school, crank calls—you name it, if it happened in his neighbourhood and it looked like a kid did it, Justin was blamed. Until the day a group of kids came by his house and knocked all the blooms off of all his mom’s flowers. When Mike came storming out they pointed at Justin.
“You little bastard,” Mike bellowed.
“They did it.” Justin waved his arm towards the group of kids shuffling their feet by the sidewalk. The other kids called him a liar.
“No way. Justin did it,” one of the girls said.
“Yeah,” the others chimed in, “Justin.”
Liars!
“But…I was trying to make them stop.” He knew what was coming and began edging away from Mike’s reach.
“Next time, try harder!” and with that Mike took a step forward and backhanded Justin across the face sending him reeling backwards. Justin could hear a couple of the girls gasp. They weren’t accusing him now.
“We did it,” they were saying. But Mike wouldn’t stop. Mike never stopped. Justin could hear the girls crying. Somehow, it made him feel better. They should cry. They deserved to cry for what they did. Bullies. Assholes.
“But I didn’t even do any….” Mike punched him in the side of the head. An image of two of the girls clinging to each other, their eyes wide, like doors thrown open, was the last thing Justin remembered before he blacked out.
He had a pounding headache when he woke. But he never got blamed by the kids at school for anything ever again. Even when he did do it.
It was a relief. It was almost worth the beating—that one saved him a hundred other ones. A few of the kids were even nice to him now, though he wasn’t sure if it was compassion or pity that drove them to it. Anyway, Mike still found reasons to beat on him. He left the cap off the toothpaste or he walked too loudly or there was a “tone” in his voice or he was “grinning like an idiot” or he didn’t “look happy enough.” If Mike couldn’t find a reason he invented one.
Justin stared at the night sky. The land seemed to soften beneath him, and he let himself sink into it.
“Stand up straight, my boy,” Mishom would say when he and his mom would visit Mishom and Noko at the rez. Justin walked slouched over and hunched in on himself. A habit formed from years of protecting his stomach and ribs from sudden punches and kicks. A way to make himself small and unnoticeable.
Justin shifted position on the ground. Some of it was a long time ago, but his body remembered everything.
He searched the sky for the Seven Sisters. Could he find them? He tried to imagine falling in love with one of them. As he watched them, the stars moved closer. They moved closer and closer until he could feel them dancing in his hair.
Had I? he thought, staring at the shimmering lights. He tried to think of people in his life whom he loved—really loved. He thought about his mom. Disappointment filled his lungs. He exhaled slowly. He’d been angry with her for so long now. Blaming. Resentful. His dad was only a vague shadowy figure standing in the doorway, barely remembered. Justin was only two when his dad drowned in the stormy waters out by Rabbit Island—what he felt for him was abstract and idealized. Justin had a couple of friends and there’d been a couple of girlfriends too. He liked them. But he never brought them into his world. They never saw his room. They never saw the scars or bruises. They never heard about his dreams, not even the small ones. Not any of them.
He couldn’t get the thought out of his mind….
Have I? he thought. Over and over again. Have I ever loved anyone as much as those men and women loved those stars?
He saw Nokomis and Mishomis waving from the front porch whenever he and Mom left to go back to the city. He’d kneel on the back seat and wave until long after he couldn’t see them anymore. He’d try to memorize how they stood, the expressions on their faces, the way the sun or moon lit their hair and fell across their hands as they waved. He studied the trees and rocks and clouds until even the gravel and stones at the end of the driveway faded from sight.
Justin felt a summer storm gathering in his chest. Noko and Mishomis never let him down. Except for one thing. They left him. They didn’t mean to, he knew that. If they could’ve they would’ve stayed with him. They would’ve stayed forever just for him. But still, they were gone. He was alone.
Then, for the first time since he was a little boy, Justin Root cried. After the accident that took them away, Justin was too numb and too scared to cry—especially with Mike watching him constantly, telling him real men didn’t cry and to “suck it up like a man.” To “quit acting like a snotty nosed kid.” To “stop moping around.” To “get over it.” But here, held by the earth, Justin cried. He cried with great heaving tear-filled sobs that made his ribs and heart and throat throb with a pain much deeper than that caused by his recent fall. He rolled onto his side, pressing his palm into the ground. His body shuddered and shook. Justin cried until all of the tears he’d held inside soaked into the dirt around his body. He cried until he slipped into a deep, technicolour sleep. And when he did, the earth and roots beneath him formed arms, cradling him as he dreamed.
When he woke, the sun was overhead. It was well past sunrise. Justin stretched and yawned loudly, scratching his belly and rubbing his fist into his eyes.
Then, slowly, he stretched again.
He sat up. Looked from side to side.
He breathed in and out. Then he breathed more deeply. He lightly touched his fingertips to each of his ribs. His neck. Felt the back of his head. Wiggled his ankles and toes.
He jumped up. Ran on the spot. Leaned down and touched his toes. Nothing.
With all of the subtlety of a hurricane, he realized he was as hungry. “Hungry as a horse.” Mishom
would say. And had to piss like one too.
Eggs, he thought dreamily. Pancakes, venison sausages…
It was strange how good he felt. Two days ago he’d walked and hitched all the way back to the rez so that the last thing he’d see would be this piece of sky and the last thing he’d feel would be this piece of earth. Now here he was—ready to sprint to the nearest kitchen. He had a cousin, Velma, who had a couple of little kids. She was always telling him to come to her place. “Come and stay,” she’d say, smiling a megawatt smile that would make him feel like he’d just been hugged. It was like somehow she knew. Probably Noko and Mishom had told her to watch out for him. He laughed and shook his head. From the corner of his eye, he saw it. A rust-stained patch of earth. He touched his nose.
Justin remembered being a very small boy in the bush up on the escarpment with Noko and Mishomis. Everything had the golden glow of late summer. They’d seen a similar patch of earth and Mishomis told him that when animals are injured they will lay their wounds against the earth. “For healing,” he said.
“She’s the best healer,” Noko said. “When you’re hurt, come lay your wounds against the earth.”
Justin kneeled down. He had no tobacco. So he sang a song, the most beautiful song he could sing. Shaky and tentative, newly formed, and slightly off key. Then he leaned forward and kissed the ground. “Megwetch,” he said. He looked up to the sky, “chi megwetch.” He saw the broken tree branch and the birch rising above it, stretching itself toward the sun. “Megwetch,” he said. The branch’s weakness had saved him. He wouldn’t forget.
The Stone Collection Page 6