Medicine River

by Thomas King

  “Where am I going to eat?”

  Louise was a pretty good cook. I’m not big on vegetables, but I suppose they were better for the baby. Her car was more comfortable than my truck, and it still had most of its paint. I’d been on dates where the woman used her own car. Normally, though, they always asked me if I wanted to drive.

  The movie was awful. But about halfway through, I realized that, while the audience was snorting and laughing, Louise was crying. She caught me looking and laughed and wiped her eyes and said, “It’s all right, Will. It’s just hormones. Watch the movie.”

  I had a good time. I called Louise the next week, and we began to go out regular. She told me about Harold.

  “He was real nice. But I didn’t want to get married. I think he thought when I got pregnant that I’d change my mind.”

  But most of our conversations were about babies.

  “You got to watch what you eat, get a lot of exercise. You can’t drink coffee or take any aspirin. I don’t smoke, so that’s okay. Babies are sensitive.”

  I wasn’t able to avoid Harlen for long. He came into the studio with his mouth all bent around his nose.

  “Haven’t seen you around, Will. Some of the boys on the team were asking about you.”

  “Been busy.”

  “You got to get out every so often, you know.” Harlen shifted around in the chair. “You doing anything for lunch today?”

  “No.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  “No, nothing then either.”

  “Thursday?”

  “I’m busy Thursday.”

  Harlen shifted back. “Business?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Yes.”

  Harlen stood up and smiled and shook his head.

  “You know, we’re friends, Will. If you have any questions, you just call, even in the middle of the night.”

  “Thanks, Harlen.”

  “That’s what friends do, Will. Even in the middle of the night.”

  When I saw Louise later, I told her about Harlen.

  “God, yes,” said Louise. “Betty and Doreen and Shirley are convinced we’re going to get married.”

  Louise got bigger and bigger, and I guess I began getting protective. I started opening car doors. I held her arm when we had to cross an icy street. After dinner one night, Louise took my hand and put it on her belly. “Here, Will,” she said, “you can feel her kick.”

  I was just helping, like Harlen said. I helped her watch what she ate. I even gave her a little help with some names.

  “What about Wilma?” Louise said. “I had a granny named Wilma.”

  “God, no.”

  “Jamie?”

  “No.”

  “Elizabeth?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Sarah?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Will, you’re a big help.”

  We never got around to being lovers. There didn’t seem to be the time for that. We were friends. Louise was good to be with, but there was a distance and Louise kept it. I figured it had to do with Harold.

  I was dead asleep the night Louise called.

  “Will, I need to go to the hospital. Don’t know if I can drive myself. Can you give me a ride?”

  It took the hospital over an hour to get Louise admitted. Every so often, she’d have to stop and bend over and take a deep breath. They finally got her into a room, and a doctor looked at her while I waited outside.

  “I’m only dilated four centimetres, Will. Probably won’t have the baby until morning. Thanks for the ride and all the attention. I’ll have them call you when she’s born.”

  “I got nothing better to do. Don’t mind waiting. Maybe it’s a boy, and you’ll need some more help with names.”

  “No sense, Will. It’ll be a long wait. You’ve got things to do.”

  “Maybe I’ll wait for a little while. Just in case.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  The waiting-room was small, and it didn’t have any windows. There was a big No Smoking sign stuck on the wall, and a fellow in a suit sitting on the couch smoking a cigarette. I walked over to the other couch, waved my arm around, coughed a couple of times, and stared at the sign.

  “It sure takes a long time for women to have babies,” he said. “I’ve been here three hours already.”

  “I think this is a no smoking area,” I said.

  “They just leave you sit here. The nurse came by once to say that my wife was okay. They want you to be in the delivery-room these days, but, hey, what do they expect me to do? Catch the kid, right?” The guy laughed and put the cigarette out on the floor and shook another one out of the pack. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  I said that I did, and he put the cigarette back. We sat across the room from each other and looked at the walls. Finally, he stood up and said, “Our doctor said it might be better if Karen had the baby Caesarean, but she got all upset. What’s your wife’s name?”

  “I’m not married.”

  “Oh…right. Well, look, I’m going to walk around. Maybe grab some coffee. If the nurse comes by, tell her I’ll be back in a while. And if they want to do a Caesarean…hell…they can page me, right? Sometimes they don’t have a choice, right? I mean, they do those things all the time. I told her it would be okay.”

  The first four hours weren’t bad. Someone had left an old Nero Wolfe novel under the magazines. I had read it before, but I had forgotten who the murderer was. The guy with the cigarette never came back. After six hours, I caught one of the nurses who was coming out of the maternity area, and I asked her about Louise.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “I thought I’d wait.”

  “I’ll bet your wife would love to have you with her. There’s lots you could do.”

  “Right.”

  “Sitting in a waiting-room is a little old fashioned. Most men like to be there when their wives deliver. Is this your first?”

  “Ah…yes.”

  “She’s just down the hall, first door on the right.”

  Maternity was in the south wing of the hospital. South Wing was printed in large letters above the double doors. I stood in the hall for several minutes and thought about wandering down to say hello. One of the doors was slightly open, and I leaned against it and slid into the corridor just as another nurse came out of a room.

  “Can I help you?”

  I didn’t have time to get the lie right. “She’s just down there…Ms. Heavyman…Louise.”

  “You her husband?”

  “Sure…I’m her…a. I’m a friend…in a way….”

  “Friends of the family have to wait outside.”

  I finished the novel, sat on the couch and watched the doctors and nurses going back and forth through the doors. I don’t know what time it was when the nurse woke me.

  “Mr. Heavyman, Mr. Heavyman. Your wife has gone to delivery. Shouldn’t be too long now.” She smiled at me and shook her head and left before I had any chance to explain.

  The cafeteria was closed. I had to get my coffee from a machine. I took two sips and threw the rest away. I went back to the room and sat and waited. I began thinking about Louise, and for the first time since I had come back to Medicine River, I felt good. Clean and strong. Maybe we could give it a try with the baby and all.

  I was thinking these thoughts when Harlen and Floyd and Elwood and Jack Powless came in.

  “I told you he’d be here, Floyd,” said Harlen. “You owe me a beer.”

  Harlen and Floyd and Elwood sat down on the couch across from me. Jack took up the rest of the couch I was on.

  “What are you guys doing here?” And I tried to sound pleasant.

  “Just checking up on Louise. How’s she doing?”

  “She’s doing fine. Nurse said it would probably be eight, nine hours, yet. No sense in you guys waiting around. I’m probably going to go myself in a bit.”

  Harlen settl
ed into the couch. None of them looked like they were going anywhere.

  “Hell, Will,” said Floyd. “How’s it feel to be a father?”

  Elwood roared and pounded on Floyd’s shoulder. Jack leaned over and patted my knee. Harlen settled deeper into the couch.

  We were all sitting there in the room pretending to read, when the nurse returned.

  “Mr. Heavyman?”

  “That’s him,” says Elwood, and he dropped the magazine and put his face in his hands so the nurse couldn’t see how hard he was laughing.

  “Your wife just had a baby girl. We’ll get her cleaned up and weighed, and you can come in the nursery and see her. Your wife had a few minor complications, but she’s all right, just tired. You’ll be able to see her soon. Don’t worry, she’s fine.”

  All hell broke loose as soon as the nurse was gone. Floyd and Elwood got up and started dancing around and slapping each other on the back and coming over and shaking my hand and saying things like, “It’s a girl, Mr. Heavyman,” and “Your wife is just fine, Mr. Heavyman,” and “You can see your daughter in a little while, Mr. Heavyman.”

  Even Jack Powless, who seldom says anything, shook my hand and said that children were a wonderful blessing. For the next twenty minutes, I had to sit with four grinning assholes. I was rescued by the nurse.

  “You can see your daughter now, Mr. Heavyman.”

  Whereupon Elwood and Floyd collapsed into one another.

  “She’s a big girl,” the nurse said, “eight pounds, seven ounces.”

  They made me put on a gown before they would let me hold her. She was wrapped up in a blanket, and all you could see was her face and eyes. I thought they would be closed like puppies’ or kittens’, but they weren’t. They were open, and she was looking at me.

  “I’ll bet you have a name all picked out for her.”

  All I could see was the big sign outside the maternity ward. “Yeah,” I said, feeling really good with the baby in my arms, “we’ll probably call her South Wing.” I guess I expected the nurse to laugh, but she didn’t.

  “Is that a traditional Indian name?”

  “I was just joking.”

  “No, I think it’s a beautiful name.”

  That little girl kept looking at me, and I just sat in the rocking-chair in the nursery. I would have sat there longer, but the nurse came in to tell me that my wife was awake and wanted to see the baby.

  “Give us a second,” said the nurse, “and we’ll put her in a bassinet, and you can take her down.”

  I’d forgotten about Floyd and Elwood and Jack Powless and Harlen. As I pushed the bassinet down the hail, I looked into the waiting-room, but it was empty. South Wing was still awake and staring. I thought about Louise and her not having anyone, family angry with her, all her friends gone. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, I thought. Maybe it could work out.

  There are times when I don’t know why I bother to listen to Harlen. Louise was in 325C. So were her mother and father, two of her brothers and all of her sisters, three of her aunts, a couple of people I didn’t know, and Harlen, Floyd, Elwood, and Jack Powless, who was squeezed up against the radiator.

  “Hey, Will,” said Louise’s father, “what you doing here? Hey, you got my little granddaughter. Boy, she sure is small.”

  Louise was sitting up in bed, but she wasn’t comfortable, and she wasn’t trying to fool anyone, either.

  “Here,” said Louise’s mother, “let Louise hold the baby, and we’ll get a picture. You be fast, Carter, cause that baby needs a lot of quiet and a lot to eat. Here, Will, give her to me.”

  Carter Heavyman got his Instamatic. “Hey, Will. You should have brought one of your cameras.” He looked over at me and smiled. “Where’d you get that gown?”

  Carter took the picture, and everyone crowded around to see the baby. On the card on the bassinet, the nurse had written “South Wing Heavyman.” No one noticed me leave.

  I left the hospital, and thought I would just walk in the dark and look at the stars, but it turned out to be ten in the morning. The sun was up and hot.

  I stopped off at Woodward’s and bought a stuffed penguin for the baby. I slept the rest of the day. I took the penguin to the hospital that night.

  “Will, I’m glad you came by. That was a madhouse this morning. Mom had to drag Dad away, so I could get some rest.”

  “I got this for the baby.”

  “Her name’s Wilma, Will. She’s down at the nursery, but you can see her if you want. The nurses think you’re my husband. Where’d you get the name South Wing?”

  “It was supposed to be a joke.”

  “Dad really liked it.”

  “Wilma’s better.”

  “She’s beautiful, isn’t she, Will? As soon as we get settled, I’ll make dinner. Maybe we can go to a show, too.”

  “Sure.”

  “You understand, don’t you, Will?”

  “Sure.”

  The nursery was bright and alive with light. Some of the babies were awake and crying. A mother sat in the rocking-chair in the corner nursing her child. The plate-glass window was hard and cool, and I lay my face against it and watched South Wing sleep.

  The nurse at the desk smiled at me and came over to where I was standing. “This must be your first,” she said. “Which one is yours?”

  Harlen and the boys were at basketball practice, and Mr. and Mrs. Heavyman had probably gone back to the reserve. Louise was in her room. South Wing lay in her bassinet wrapped in a pink blanket.

  I looked down the corridor. It was clear.

  “That one,” I said.

  4

  I drove January Pretty Weasel out to the reserve for the funeral. Her arm was still in the sling, and Doc Calavano said the medication might make her drowsy. I didn’t want to go, but January was kin, and it was her husband’s funeral.

  Jake had shot himself. January found him in bed with his shotgun. Harlen gave me all the details.

  “Harlen, I don’t need to know everything.”

  “Sorry, Will, hard to tell half a story. RCMP wouldn’t let anyone touch a thing for two days. Made the clean-up even harder. Everything had dried, you know. Why would they do that, Will? Make it real hard for Thelma and Bertha.”

  “Evidence, I guess.”

  “You think January shot him?”

  Jake Pretty Weasel used to come out every so often and scrimmage with the team. He even went to some of the tournaments with us. He was a good player, one of those natural athletes they tell you about on television.

  “You know about these things, Will,” Harlen said. “Why’d you suppose Jake did that? Such a good friend to you and me and the rest of the boys. You know, he’d always buy the boys a beer or loan them a few dollars if they were short. Always telling a joke and laughing.”

  “That was Jake.”

  “You know, maybe he drank a little too much sometimes, but he wasn’t no drunk. Good worker, too. Had that job at Exchange Lumber for what…eight, nine years? What do you think?”

  “That was Jake.”

  “You think January shot him?”

  * * *

  —

  JAMES AND ME grew up in an apartment on Bentham Street in Calgary. Mom worked at the Bay cleaning up, and I guess we had enough money. There were other Indian families in the building, mostly mothers and children. We all spent a lot of time playing in the basement, and Henry Goodrider, who was a few years older than me and who was always doing something funny, made up a big cardboard sign that said Bentham Reserve, Indians Only. Henry didn’t mean that the white kids couldn’t play in the basement. It was just a joke, but Lena Oswald told her mother, and Mrs. Oswald came downstairs carrying a blue can with little animals painted on the sides. She put the can on the bench and took the sign off the door.

  She gathered us all together and asked us our names. Then she shook hands with us and said we should all be friends. “White people do not live on reserves,” she said. “And no matter what your colour, all
of us here are Canadians.”

  Then she opened the can and gave each of us two big chocolate chip cookies.

  It didn’t make much sense, and after Mrs. Oswald and Lena left, Henry explained that Mrs. Oswald was really very nice, that she just seemed strange because of her illness.

  * * *

  —

  JAKE BEAT UP on January. It was no secret. We played a tournament out at Gladstone Hall one year, and January and the kids came out to watch us. Jake hadn’t had a good game, had fouled out, and afterwards, January had come over to the bench and sat down beside Jake and put her arm around him to make him feel better, I guess. Jake took hold of her arm real slow and started to twist it. January, you could see that she was trying not to cry, trying to make everything look normal, like the two of them were playing. Then Jake let go the arm and hit her—right in the face with his fist. And then he got up and walked away. January’s mouth was bleeding pretty bad, and she was starting to shake. The rest of us just stood there, Harlen, and Floyd, and Leroy, and me. January tried to smile, and she waved her hand as if everything was okay.

  “Jake was always good to us.”

  “That was Jake.”

  It was the only time I ever saw Jake hit January, but Betty down at the hospital said that January was a regular in the emergency ward. Betty told January to file charges, but she never did.

  * * *

  —

  MRS. OSWALD was a tall woman with long blond hair. From behind she looked like a young girl, all slim and fragile. But when she turned, you could see her face. My mother said that the long dresses she wore were rich people’s clothes and that Mrs. Oswald probably had had lots of money, but didn’t now. People who were born rich could never learn to be poor, my mother said. It was too hard on them. They just shrivelled up from bad luck and bad times.

  When Mrs. Oswald and Lena first moved into the apartment building, Mrs. Oswald told everyone that her husband had recently passed away and that she wouldn’t be staying long, just until the estate was settled. To watch her in her long dresses, moving around the neighbourhood, perched on her toes, gesturing and calling out in her singsong voice as if she was in a movie, you’d think that she was filled up with herself. She was always laughing about something, her hands and arms constantly in motion, like a bird trying to fly.