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Motorcycles & Sweetgrass

Page 22

by Drew Hayden Taylor


  “Ah, a smart-though-naive question, my young nephew,” he said, briefly adopting an elderly Chinese accent. “The entire focus of the Fish method is geared toward escape. Toward getting away. To prevent being captured or hurt.” Wayne put his jean jacket on and once more stood in front of him. “Okay, let’s have some more fun. Grab me.”

  Rushing in, he grabbed his uncle’s arms and started wrestling, but before he had a chance to do anything substantially offensive, Wayne had slipped out of his jacket by bending forward and letting it slide up his body, still in the boy’s grip, and somehow had wrapped it around Virgil’s arms several times, incapacitating him.

  Once more, Virgil was surprised and impressed. “The Fish method,” he said, with a trace of awe.

  Wayne unwrapped his jacket from around Virgil.

  “And all those broken branches on the island? That thing you do by snapping your wrist?” Virgil asked.

  “Hoof method. Quick, short movements. Incredibly powerful and effective. Like being hit with a hoof. I also try to incorporate the roles of each clan into their style. For instance, both the Crane and Loon clans are responsible for chieftainship and government. Therefore, their movements have to be respectful, decisive and considerate of both parties. The Marten clan, on the other hand, are hunters, warriors, master strategists in planning the defence of their people, so their actions are more aggressive, thought-out and effective. Like karate and kung fu, it’s more defensive than offensive. I call the whole thing Aangwaamzih.”

  “What does Ang… aang…?”

  Wayne shook his head in disappointment. “Kids and their knowledge of Anishnawbe. You should be ashamed of yourself. Aangwaamzih. It means ‘watching out for yourself.’ That’s what all martial arts pretty much try to teach you. Aangwaamzih included.”

  They both heard the patio door opening and saw Maggie come out onto the deck, drying her hands.

  “Okay, boys, hope you worked up an appetite. Dinner’s ready.”

  Wayne sniffed the air. “Ah yes, Shake ’n Bake. One of the three greatest inventions of White people. And I have indeed worked up quite the appetite.” Before entering the house, Wayne put his T-shirt back on and cleaned his feet of all grass and dirt. Maggie stepped aside as he entered the house.

  “Virgil?”

  “Be there in a second, Mom.”

  Nodding, Maggie returned to her kitchen duties, leaving Virgil alone on the back lawn, wondering about all he had just observed. He looked down and could see where his uncle’s feet had ripped up the grass, where his fingers had dug into the hard ground with surprising ease. Under the tree he saw the dislodged bark from Wayne’s dismount from the roof.

  “Aangwaamzih,” he whispered to himself. “Watching out for yourself.”

  For a little while, all worries about a certain blond man of mysterious origins were no longer at the forefront of his mind.

  Toward the end of the meal, Wayne was halfway through saying, again, “Ah, Shake ’n Bake, one of the three greatest…” before a dishtowel hit him flush in the face. Once he removed it, he found he couldn’t tell which of his relatives had tossed it; both had extremely innocent “wasn’t me” expressions on their faces. In retaliation, under the table he slipped off his shoes and pinched both mother and child with his toes, making them yelp and scurry away from the table.

  “No fair!” yelled Virgil.

  “Fairness is a relative concept, especially when it comes to relatives.”

  After dinner, the dishes were washed and put away, and the television turned on as Wayne indulged a seldom-enjoyed treat. Maggie, however, had other plans for her and Virgil.

  “Virgil, my son, let’s chat.”

  Words of such a nature, spoken by a mother he knew was angry with him, were enough to make Virgil’s recently descended testicles want to rise back up into his body. He took a seat next to her at the kitchen table.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Well, what?”

  “You know what. Skipping school yesterday? Canoeing alone across the lake. Do you know how dangerous that is? Ms. Weatherford and I had a very long chat today.”

  “It’s okay, Mom, really it is. Ms. Weatherford and I worked it out. No problem.”

  “No problem that you might be failing? I think that’s a problem.”

  Virgil, eager to placate his mother, shook his head vigorously. “Really. I have to do an essay for her. That’s all.”

  Maggie eyed her son with suspicion. “An essay. One essay. That doesn’t sound so difficult.”

  “Mom, it has to be three thousand words. I don’t even know if I know three thousand words. That’s going to be tough.”

  “Uh-huh, and what does it have to be on?”

  “I don’t know. Something to do with being Native. I can pick my topic, but it has to be… What was the word she used…? In depth.”

  “When do you have to have it done?”

  “By the end of the school year.”

  “You do realize that’s in three weeks? Less than three weeks. Do you even have any idea what it might be about?”

  “No, not yet. But I’m thinking. I really am.”

  In fact he was. The whole conversation with Wayne had whetted his appetite. Wayne’s fancy martial art might just be the thing to get him out of repeating grade eight. But three thousand words… he’d have to use a lot of adjectives. “I’ll do it, Mom. I promise.”

  Maggie did not look overly convinced.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The night was dark, with the moon, just beginning to wane, hidden behind distant trees. In the last hour, out of nowhere, rain clouds had materialized along the opposite horizon. Within half an hour, the storm clouds had swallowed the moon. This was a good thing, because mischief is best done in the dark. In the deeper darkness of a nearby tree, John sat amid the branches, waiting for the city to go to sleep.

  He waited as people wound their day down and hurried home for the night. Silently, he watched a group of teenagers walk right under him, talking about an action movie they had just seen. A few minutes later, a couple, still reeking of garlic from an Italian dinner, held hands and planned for the future. At one point a stray dog approached the tree, interested in relieving himself. For no reason in particular, John growled his best wolf growl, sending the dog running and yelping into the nearby park. A little while later, he noticed a police car cruise by, and one of the officers seemed to glance directly into John’s eyes, but he was well hidden behind leaves and branches.

  Finally, the street was calm. Except for the figure of a man jumping down from the limb of a tree. Purposefully, he crossed the street, ignoring the do not cross sign, and stood in front of the museum. First, he tested the front doors, which, of course, were locked. But he had expected that. Anything else would have been too easy.

  Stepping back, he surveyed the whole exterior surface of the museum, his eyes tracing the structure and making note of where everything was. He repeated that with the other three sides, until he knew the building as well as the architect who had designed it. Barely above a whisper, the man said to himself, “Now, to work.” And with that, he smiled what some would call a mischievous smile, for he knew something most people didn’t. Museums were like icebergs. What you saw was only about ten percent of what existed.

  Somewhere in the cavernous vaults of this museum was at least ten times what was on display. That’s what he was after, because if he took something that was on display, it would be missed immediately and things could get dicey and potentially screw up his plans. But if he took something that was buried deep in a box, among a hundred other boxes, in some climate-controlled room or from the back of tray #38763-A-88C, it could be days, weeks, months, even years before somebody took inventory and noticed it missing. Yes, he’d thought this all out. It was like old times. In fact, it was like olden times. Once more, he felt he was back in the game.

  For a moment, the moon peaked out from between the clouds, as if it were signalling its approval. Then the r
ain clouds opened up, and rain began to pour, almost as if it were signalling its disapproval. Regardless, the man knew the rain would muffle sounds and wash away evidence. All was good. The elements were with him for sure.

  Maggie listened to the rain falling. Normally she loved the sound of drops hitting the roof and the trees. It was calming and peaceful. But tonight, she was distressed. Her afternoon encounter with John had left her uneasy. She had been out of the dating scene so long that she hoped and prayed it was just a normal dip in a growing relationship—if that’s what this could be called—and that it didn’t foreshadow anything more ominous. Add to that the fact her brother was once more sleeping on the couch. Why was he still here? She didn’t believe his casual answers, let alone that business about Nanabush. Smartly, they had not said anything about the topic tonight at dinner. Something was up with him and her son. So here she lay, a woman in political power but apparently having absolutely no control over what was going on in her life.

  Tomorrow afternoon there was to be a press conference about the official handing over of land. The local MP, MPP, the reeve and a few other local dignitaries were to be there, smiling and placating Native and non-Native people alike about the land issue. Many felt three hundred acres was a lot of taxable land to lose to an Indian Reserve that didn’t pay any taxes. More money out of their pocket was the common people-of-pallor consensus. She hated appearing on television, felt she looked too haggard and worn, like a character from a Margaret Laurence novel. But there was no way to get out of it. Thy chief ’s job will be done.

  As a result, she was hoping for a good night’s sleep to limit the size of the bags under her eyes. After all, there were bound to be cameras of all sorts. But once more, for the hundredth time, she glanced at the clock on her night table. It read 2:33 a.m., and she wasn’t the slightest bit tired.

  Idly, she cradled a pillow and wondered if John was over at Sammy’s, lying in his bed, listening to the rain like she was. In a way, it was romantic. But just as she thought that, there was a loud crash of thunder that shook the house, and made her digital clock blink out, leaving the room in total blackness. A power failure. Wonderful. Now, in more ways than one, she was in the dark. Hopefully, things would be better in the morning.

  The loud crashing of the thunder didn’t completely wake Sammy from his usual fitful sleep. As on every other night he tossed and turned, locked in a bygone era, unable to process or cage the memories. The thunder made things worse. It reminded him of the sharp crack of a yardstick hitting a desk, then soon afterward hitting flesh. Each peel of thunder reawakened not-so-dormant memories and shoved them mercilessly into his mind. And no amount of bottles and their contents could drive away the demons; it could merely mute them for short periods of time.

  He would sweat and mumble, his fingers gripping the sheets, and he would roll over, as if trying to escape something. But he never could. Occasionally, the word “gawiin” would escape his mouth, “no” in Anishnawbe. Every night it was the same, sometimes a little better or a little worse. Sammy was a true survivor, in every sense of the word.

  For over a hundred years, scientists and science-fiction writers all over the world had debated the possibility of time travel, the ability to instantly place oneself in a different decade or century. All they had to do was come to this small house, located along a quiet country road, on an obscure Native Reserve in Ontario, and they would find evidence it was possible. It existed in the mind of a seventy-three-year-old man who, every night, was once again barely seven, or twelve, or fifteen, trying to survive in a place that had once been several hundred kilometres away and a long time ago, but now was as close as his pillow. He cried now as he had cried then.

  Time travel was not a thing of wonder, of amazement and opportunity. It was an inescapable and soul-wrenching reality: a curse. Luckily, every morning when he woke up, it was rare that he’d remember the images of the preceding night. The only evidence of his time travel were the sweat-soaked sheets, occasionally wet with urine, and his sore gums from grinding non-existent teeth. For decades those nights had caused him to grind his teeth, until there was little left and they had to be removed.

  Tonight, as the thunder and lightning tore across the spring skies, Sammy Aandeg mumbled in his sleep, “Jinibaayaan. Kanamaa ndaabiwaajigeh. Enh, kaawiin goyaksenoon sa iwh.” Loosely in English, it went something like “To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,” but there was nothing lost in the translation.

  It was done.

  All things considered, it had gone smoothly enough. No alarms had gone off, no security guards had noticed him. It has been said that in a different time and different place, John was so stealthy he could dye the quills on the back of a porcupine without the animal even knowing. On both sides of John Tanner’s Indian Chief, above the rear wheel, his saddlebags were laden with treasure of an unusual sort. Beneath his visor, he was smiling. Even the tenacity of the spring storm did little to dampen his mood. Somewhere high above him hot and cold air masses were fighting it out. Ions raced through the atmosphere. Rain poured down on the highway ahead of him.

  He throttled back on the gas, aware that the rain was impairing his vision and the water-soaked pavement might not afford his motorcycle the texture necessary to remain upright at an accelerated speed. Now, barely doing sixty kilometres an hour, he took the time to watch the lightning stretch across the morose sky. As with Sammy, the volatile elements brought back distant memories for John. Anishnawbe legends told of ancient and immense thunderbirds, their actions responsible for the kind of storm he currently found himself driving through.

  The thunderbirds, like dinosaurs, were now creatures of the past: lost long ago, with the coming of disease and famine brought by hairy strangers. Except, in today’s world dinosaurs were celebrated by palaeontologists and thunderbirds by cultural anthropologists. But John still remembered them, those magnificent creatures. Some had been his friends, others he’d battled, others he’d avoided due to personal disagreements.

  They, like the man on the motorcycle, had been born in an age when gods, monsters, humans and animals ate at the same table. Now man ate alone, while animals begged for scraps. The others were unable to survive in the new times and had disappeared into the folds of time. Who knew gods and monsters could and did fall victim to evolution?

  Again thunder boomed and lightning made the sky crackle. In the shadow of a particularly dark and large cloud, for just a moment, John could almost see the outline of a thunderbird against the sky. Then, just as quickly, it was gone. Nostalgia knotted in his belly.

  As he passed the WELCOME TO OTTER LAKE SIGN, John tried to pop a wheelie in the community’s honour. Because of the nature of Indian motorcycles—being a very heavy machine low to the ground with high gearing—popping a wheelie was notoriously difficult. For John, the impossible was always in reach, but not today.

  He increased his speed above eighty kilometres an hour. He didn’t want to miss all the fun, and there was still a lot to do.

  Fifteen minutes later, the rain was still falling, this time on the community graveyard. Tiny rivulets of water ran down the elevated mound of dirt that was Lillian Benojee’s final resting place. The bare earth had barely settled from the funeral a week ago. Surrounding her was a plethora of headstones, detailing the life and death in this community. Names like Aandeg, Kakina, Stone, Noah, Pierce, Hunter and Kokoko crowded the gently sloped field.

  The wind picked up, sending the rain slashing diagonally. Nearby, a tree rustled and bent in the wind, losing a small portion of leaves and a fair-sized branch. A rabbit, caught in the maelstrom, ran through the graveyard’s cut grass, desperately seeking shelter of some sort from the wind, rain and lightning that were playing havoc.

  Barely heard above the commotion, a motorcycle pulled up. The light at the front of the machine went dark, and the kickstand came down. The man slid down into the ditch that ran between the road and the graveyard. Climbing up the far side, he reached out his r
ight gloved hand, and then his left, and grabbed the wire fence. Then he stood there, helmet still on, not moving. The rain pelted him, and leaves, twigs and unfortunate insects eager to find shelter whizzed by or into him.

  The skies continued to open up and it seemed like the very forces of nature were fighting atop this tiny plot of land. A scant ten metres away a bolt of lightning hit a hydro pole, showering the area in sparks that were quickly doused by the torrent of rain. Wires fell, and more sparks erupted. The storm was building.

  At one point, a small chickadee, buffeted by the storm, fell to the ground, stunned. At first the man just looked at the small, still bird, lying motionless in the grass. The man knew that death was as much a part of nature as the storm he was witnessing. The potential death of such a tiny creature meant little in the overall scheme of the world. This miniature creature would die and it would not be missed. For reasons of his own, the man thought maybe this was a little unfair. Life was always preferable to an unnecessary death. He too was worried about not being missed, should he be forced to move on.

  After opening the zipper on his jacket a few inches, he gently picked up the minuscule bird in his gloved hand and placed him inside his jacket, where it was warm and dry. He zipped the jacket shut again, as the storm around him raged. Once more he gripped the fence. This storm was as good as any he’d seen in his many years. It was the earth reminding its citizens it was still the boss in the end.

  John remembered the story of it raining for forty days and forty nights, and wondered if the Ark had started off in Vancouver. Forty days of rain was nothing out in B.C. And that other guy, Jesus, who had been born and raised in the desert, John was mystified by his appeal here. To truly understand how Turtle Island and its people thought and lived, John thought, you had to know the emotions of its land. The snowstorms of the Arctic, the wind of the Prairies, the humid summers of southern Ontario were all reflected in the people. Desert was desert and there wasn’t much of it in Canada, other then two small patches in lower British Columbia and the Alberta Badlands. And of course, he’d left his mark in all three.

 

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