The Stone Collection

by Kateri Akiwenzi-Damm

  So anyway, here’s Jesse: six feet tall, short spiky black hair, jeans, clingy orange biking shirt, big gleaming white smile, dark smouldering eyes, luscious lips, wide shoulders, thin waist, flat Indian ass, and skin a girl just wants to dive into. And underneath those clothes, the promise of abs so defined you could scrub clothes on them.

  Here’s me: eyes popping out, heartbeat quickening, jaw dropping. Smitten.

  Okay, so I finish eating my sandwich and fries and sip the rest of my coffee while Natasha Reid, the kid who dropped out of school at 15 to have her first baby and who, at 21, is now a single mom with four of the little jam eaters, goes to get me my bill. I try to look extremely cool and calm yet thoughtful and important. Like I have very important things to do with very important people yet am grounded and humble enough to savour a simple meal at the local diner. ‘What poise!’ I wanted him to think. ‘So attractive and intelligent and obviously important!’

  Now what? I had to pay my bill and leave without seeming aloof or unapproachable. However, jumping across the table and into his lap was out of the question. Something more subtle yet just as stimulating…. I had him hooked, I could tell, but how to reel him in? Damn! Why, oh why do I merely skim through articles like “How to Hook Him and Reel Him In” when reading magazines in the checkout line at Knechtel’s? Damn! Damn! Damn! Why must I always be so distracted?

  So, there I was. Natasha brought me the bill. I stood. Still deep in thought about how to solve my dilemma, I gathered my jacket and purse then turned to go to the cash register to pay. The problem was, I was so deep in thought I knocked over my coffee cup with my purse, turned to catch it, tripped over my own feet, and fell into The Spunk’s table, knocking his half-full (see: I’m an optimist) glass of iced tea into his lap at the same time. He immediately jumped up so that when I looked up at him in that horrified and sheepish yet, I hoped, attractive way to apologize, I was staring directly at his tea-splattered crotch. Then, as the words of The Friendly Giant echoed in my head, I looked up, way up. He smiled.

  “Oh, uh, hi,” I said as cool as ever, “uh, my name is, uh… Pechi.” I stood up and stuck out my hand. At least I had the presence of mind to stand before reaching out my hand.

  He shook my hand. “Well, hi there Pechi.” He grinned. “My name’s Jesse.”

  I grinned back at him. He really was cute. Damn!

  “You know, usually when women fall for me it’s not quite so literally.”

  Oh-oh. A gorgeous guy who probably had the abs of my dreams and who teased as naturally and well as members of my own family. I knew right then and there, I was a goner. I mean, if he didn’t turn out to be one of my cousins.

  “Why do you want to know about Jesse Jones?” my mom asked in that cut-to-the-chase way that mothers have.

  “No reason.”

  “Well, there must be some reason.”

  “Nothing really.”

  “Well, a person doesn’t just wander around going, hey, who’s that person….”

  “Yeah, well….”

  “I mean, that would be quite strange if, for no reason at all, everyone walked around saying, ‘tell me about him” and “tell me about her’…”

  “Okay.”

  “…and they didn’t have any reason just, you know, like on a whim, started asking all sorts of questions…”

  “I didn’t ask all sorts…”

  “…who is he? Who are his grandparents? How old is he?…”

  “I didn’t ask….”

  “I mean, who’d have time for anything else except….”

  “All right! All right! I met him at the diner in town….”

  She kept wiping the counter and let the pause stretch and yawn into a big questioning silence.

  Sigh. “I bumped into his table and knocked his drink into his lap.”

  She gasped. “You didn’t!”

  “Yes, Mom. I did.” She stared at me with her eyes wide and mouth hanging open, hands on her cheeks, like she was imitating the figure in that painting The Howl. I wanted to wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze—tightly. “He was very nice about it.”

  “Humpff,” she said. “A lot of people would get mad about that. There they are enjoying a nice lunch and some klutz comes along and next thing they know….”

  “I’m not a klutz!”

  She turned and looked at me with a compassionate expression that practically screamed, ‘Ah, poor thing, she doesn’t even know she’s an uncoordinated spaz.’

  “I was trying to catch a glass that I knocked over with my purse when I was leaving and I sort of tripped and bumped into his table.”

  “That sort of thing happens to you a lot,” she said. Then without pausing she added, “Jesse Jones…let’s see, he must be about your age. You must’ve met him before. I’m sure that when you were kids you and his cousins, Jack and Cole, used to play together. Oh, yeah…he’s the little guy you were always trying to kiss.”

  “Mom!”

  “You’d chase him around the yard. He’d be yelling his bloody head off. It was so cute.”

  Did her joy in tormenting me know no bounds?

  “Sometimes Cole and Jack would hold him down for you. You could hear him yelling all the way to the Community Centre!” She paused to laugh. Jack and Cole are my cousins. So, was she saying he was or wasn’t my cousin? I had to know. Thank god for her twisted sense of humour. I made my move.

  “Jack and Cole’s cousin? Is that Denny’s son?”

  “No! No!” she snorted at me as if I was truly daft. “Denny is Margie’s brother. Well, actually half-brother. You see their father was married twice and…”

  Good. That meant he was their cousin but not mine. She blabbered on about who was related to whom and totally forgot about embarrassing me with details from my childhood Hall of Shame or with comments about my current physical coordination skills, or lack thereof.

  Yep, genealogy. Gets the Oldies every time.

  “Did you know that a woman fell 3,000 feet and survived?” Fizz asks me in total non-sequitur fashion one sunny early May afternoon.

  “What the hell are you on about?” I replied. I had just been telling him about a poem I read by Allen Ginsberg called “Gospel Noble Truths” and was looking for that book of Essential Zen I’d found in the discount bin so I could recite it for him when he left-tangented me.

  “An airline flight attendant.”

  I stare at him.

  “She was in the bathroom and the plane blew up or something and crashed and she fell 3,000 feet, hit the earth and survived.”

  “Jackshit!”

  “It’s true. I read it.”

  “So. You can’t believe everything you read, dum-dum.”

  “And this other guy fell 1,000 feet and survived.”

  “From a plane?”

  “No, the Space Shuttle. Of course a plane! I think that one’s in the Guinness Book of Records. I’m pretty sure.”

  “How can someone fall 1,000 feet and survive?” I asked rhetorically.

  Fizz pulled his lips in and concentrated.

  “Let alone THREE THOUSAND…”

  “Maybe she landed on something soft.”

  “Like what? A mountain of pillows?”

  “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “It’s sarcasm. I mean, when you’re slammed into it from 1,000 feet up how soft would anything feel?”

  “The guy who fell a thousand landed on snow.”

  “I wonder how fast they were falling when they hit the earth?”

  “At what point does a body fall upwards?”

  “What?” My brother is truly weird. Like most men.

  “Like a feather. Why do paper and feathers fall up sometimes?”

  He had me there. “I dunno. Updrafts? Wind resistance?”

  “Does your speed continue to increase as you fall, or do you reach a point where you can’t fall any faster?”

  “Oh, shut up, Fizz.” My head was starting to hurt. How fast does a human bod
y fall anyways?

  “I mean, why do some things float or fly and other things get smashed to bits?”

  The vein in my left temple was throbbing. I could feel it. Buhboom, buh-Boom, buh-BOOM…

  He looked at me rubbing my head and frowning. “Geez, you’re grouchy. Maybe you should read a poem about how to stop being such a…”

  “Hey, here it is,” I said, waving the book in front of him. After I finished the poem he was quiet for a moment.

  “Fall down, you fall down,” he said.

  I couldn’t get over it. “Really? Three thousand feet?”

  “Yep,” he said. “Fly when you fly.”

  “What are the odds?”

  “Jellyroll,” Fizz muttered. “Hey!” His face lit up. “Is there any of that cake left from last night?”

  The next time I saw Jesse I was sticking my tongue down his throat without the least concern that it could accidentally lead to us having a child who looked like an extra from the cast of Deliverance—except with dark skin. What a relief I tell you. I was free to pursue and be pursued by this man with lustful abandon.

  Thanks, Mom!

  And, oh yeah, he isn’t a pilot. But he is an outdoorsman. He’s always out there climbing up the side of a mountain, or dangling in treetops, or something. Climbing, cave diving, ridge walking, paddling, tree climbing. Partly because he loves the physical challenge and enjoys being outside, but also because he is an avid naturalist, hunter, tracker, and protector of the natural world. At first, I thought he was a thrill seeker, looking for the next adrenaline rush. But no, he’s one of the good guys.

  So, the question is, how did I get from sucking face with Jesse to camping with him?

  A series of intricate moves and maneuvers worthy of the Cirque du Soleil. Well, it actually wasn’t much of a stretch. You know, one thing led to another, hormones dived into the mix, and before I knew it we were making plans to spend a weekend up the peninsula to do some rock climbing and swimming and uh…stuff. I was hoping for a romantic weekend of mostly “stuff” with an occasional swim and hike squeezed in that we could rave about to family and friends. What? I mean, did I mention his washboard stomach? Enough said.

  Anyway, we decided we’d camp in the Hunting Grounds and hike from there to the bay or the escarpment each day. Presto magic. I found myself one clear summer morning waking to the smell of coffee brewing and eggs frying.

  Later that morning we ate cold eggs and drank coffee so strong the spoons disintegrated around the edges. After that we gathered our gear and set off for a few hours of rock climbing. Jesse talked the whole way. It was incredible. He blabbered on and on about rock-climbing etiquette, the protocols, rules, safety issues, precautions…interrupting himself every so often to point out a plant or track or scat to me. Yep, there’s nothing like a couple in love hunched over a smelly pile of fox shit to get the old juices flowing.

  In fact, Jesse talked so much I totally lost track of time and space and yelled out an order for a coffee with double cream and an apple fritter. I couldn’t help it. I was conditioned—like one of Pavlov’s mutts. Jesse stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me with one eyebrow raised. Let me tell you, it sure wasn’t easy working a Coffee Culture order into the conversation. But not being one to shrink away from a challenge I set off on a course of verbal gymnastics so impressive that if it were an Olympic event I would have taken home the gold. I mean, I don’t want to brag or anything, but I was the Nadia Comaneci of this event, except taller. So, after a series of convoluted explanations involving the racist Tim Hortons “No Drunken Indians Allowed” incident in Lethbridge, the impact of the coffee trade on the environment, globalization, multinational corporate irresponsibility, and a brief foray into the problems with GM apples, rates of lactose intolerance in First Nations people, and whether deep frying is partly to blame for rocketing rates of cancer in North America, I think I convinced him that it made perfect sense for me to blurt out “I’ll have a large coffee, double cream, and better give me an apple fritter while you’re at it.”

  Sometimes I’m so good, I scare myself!

  Trouble was I couldn’t stop thinking about that coffee and apple fritter. Jesse kept quizzing me about rock climbing but my heart wasn’t in it and neither was my brain. I kept hoping against all logic that we’d pass a coffee shop drive-thru window but apparently they hadn’t yet thought to set up portable donut shops in the middle of the bush. Not that I wouldn’t be outraged if they did. Of course I would, but my addiction was clearly clouding my judgment at that point. I hate to admit it but if there had been donut shop on our path I would’ve gotten my order and scarfed it down out back before wiping away the crumbs and starting an environmental protest out front. Call me a hypocrite but at least I know I have a problem and, if there were such a thing, I’d be attending every meeting of CCA (Coffee Culture Anonymous) in the tri-county area.

  And no, this isn’t a blatant and cynical attempt to grab some of those big corporate product placement dollars. It just happens to be an integral part of the story. After all, I’m not saying it’s either a good or bad coffee or fritter or that anyone else should try their coffee or donuts or boycott their coffee and donuts or stage interventions in Coffee Culture parking lots. I’m just acknowledging my addiction and its tragic consequences….

  “So are you certain you know how to???”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I assured him. All the while thinking ‘hmm… the apple fritters don’t have a filling, so why do the blueberry fritters have that jam filling in the centre?’

  Again, I ask, why must I get so easily distracted?

  We walked for what seemed like hours. Come to think of it, it was hours. Finally, we reached the perfect spot of the escarpment for climbing. I could tell by the angle of the sun hitting the rock face and the way Jesse stood there saying “Babe….” Actually I think what he said was: “Babe, this is the perfect spot for climbing.”

  “Hunh?” I replied. “What?”

  “Let’s climb. It looks perfect.”

  “Okay.”

  As we were preparing our gear he went on and on about the place. “Check out the slope at the bottom, then how it gently curves before going almost 90 degrees. See the small crevices and cracks? I can’t wait to get my hands in there.”

  I stared at him. Was he going to climb it or make love to it? Sometimes I really wondered about this kid. So, I responded the only way I knew how: “Ever sick!”

  He blushed. Honest. He did. Maybe he was thinking about that story I’d read to him the other night about a man and woman who have sex with a stone statue of a fertility god. Or maybe he really was secretly turned on by the idea of putting his hands into the moist, dark crevices of the rock.

  “Yeah, well…” he said in an extra husky voice, “we better get moving, Sweetie.” Then he smacked me on the ass.

  So naturally I plowed him a good one on the shoulder. “Hey! Get away from me you rock lover! Geeez!”

  Again, he blushed.

  Damn, he was cute! I swear I wanted to rip his clothes off right then and there and climb him.

  As we put on our harnesses and assorted other rock-climbing gear that I didn’t even know the purpose of, I couldn’t take my eyes off of Jesse. I was hypnotized by the way he moved, as if he was a part of the land and somehow moved in rhythm with the earth, and wind, and sun. He had a gracefulness I’d never fully appreciated until that moment.

  Then it hit me. I’d once read about a star called V838 Monocerotis that suddenly became 600,000 times brighter than the sun and for a moment was the brightest object in the Milky Way. In that instant I knew—Jesse was the most brilliant star in my universe. I was in love.

  I suppose I should’ve been paying more attention to the rock I was clinging to, to the earth below, and to the forces of gravity. But I let my mind wander for just a moment and fell into the gap. First in that sort of Zen Buddhist kind of way where your mind goes blank. I let go. Then I actually felt myself falling.

  He
y, I thought, as I felt the air rushing past.

  It was beautiful. I blossomed, throwing light echoes into the sky. Then my shoulder slammed into the earth and I blacked out. When I came to I was in Jesse’s truck. I knew it was Jesse’s truck because even as he careened along dirt roads to rush me to the hospital he had his motivational CD on. “You, yourself, are the only real obstacle keeping you from achieving all that you’ve ever dreamed of….” I groaned, but not because my body ached like it had just been slammed into the earth from 30 feet up—which it had. It was a reflex I’d developed upon hearing those damn CDs.

  “Baby,” Jesse said. “I was really scared you were in a coma or something.”

  “Shut that damn thing off!” I yelled through my swollen face.

  The rest of the drive was unusually quiet. But I reached out and managed to touch Jesse’s hand. His breath stopped and he cleared his throat. He stroked my bruised and scraped palm gently with his index finger. Then he let my hand rest on his.

  I don’t know how fast we were travelling but inside the cab it was quiet and still.

  When we got to the hospital there was a whirl of noise and activity that crashed and beeped until the cacophony seemed to meld with the rhythm of my throbbing head and ragged breathing and Jesse’s footsteps running alongside my gurney—until it all turned into a heartbeat that seemed to encompass the entire universe. Everything seemed joined by that one pulse. I felt a tear fall from my eye and my body soared through the corridors, through the emergency room doors, and out into the clear cerulean sky, soaring higher and higher until even the clouds became a distant memory.

  When I woke three days later, Jesse was sitting by the bed. He had one hand resting on my arm and with the other he was drinking a coffee, double-double no doubt.

  “Hey,” I said. My voice was hoarse and scratchy—as if I hadn’t used it in a week. Which I hadn’t.