Monkey Beach

by Eden Robinson

  It’s a gutting knife, an old one that Uncle Geordie gave me to help carve up fish. He sharpened it himself. It has a wooden handle worn smooth with use, and a small spoon at the end, to scrape out the innards. The blade has been sharpened so many times, it’s as thin as a razor.

  I walk from my boat up the beach and into the trees. The rain is soft against my face. The grass at the edge of the shore shivers against my legs. Creaking in the light wind, the trees rise above me. The moment I step under the canopy, the world darkens.

  I tilt my head upwards. “I don’t have any meat. But I have blood.”

  I wait, but nothing answers.

  On the morning of my math final, Jimmy was sitting on the porch when I woke up. He was wearing the same clothes he’d had on the day before. I poked my head out the door. “You want a coffee?”

  He shook his head.

  Uh-oh, I thought. That was an I’ve-just-been-dumped look if I ever saw one. “What’s up?”

  “I’m going fishing,” he said.

  “Fishing?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got a job.”

  “You don’t look too happy about it,” I said, flopping down in the chair beside him. “What are you going in?”

  “What?”

  “Seiner? Gillnetter? Troller?”

  He shrugged.

  I laughed. “Jimmy, you can’t even start an outboard motor. What are you going to do?”

  “Deckhand,” he said.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said. “You’re not serious, are you?”

  “Leaving tomorrow,” he said.

  “God, Jimmy.” I was shaking my head. “It’s a tough job. Do you know what you’re getting into?”

  He finally looked at me, mouth tightening, eyes completely black. “Yes.”

  Mom was thrilled. She told me that her stint on her uncle’s boat had made her grow up, and that she was pleased to think Jimmy was following in her footsteps, earning money. She didn’t say this, but implied it—getting away from Karaoke. Dad didn’t like the idea, but he went along with it reluctantly.

  The day before Jimmy left, Karaoke came to our house. I was surprised to see her. Normally, she avoided our house unless Jimmy dragged her there. She didn’t look like she’d been getting much sleep, and I felt sorry for her when she asked if Jimmy was home.

  I said, trying to be cheerful, “He’s across with Dad buying supplies. Didn’t he tell you? He got the job,” I said.

  Her eyebrows went up. “A job.”

  “I know. It’s hard to believe he’s going fishing. He’s so spoiled, I think he’ll last a week. Thanks for putting in a good word with Josh, anyway.”

  Her eyes focused on something behind me, and I thought Mom might be coming up the stairs to check on who was visiting, but Karaoke was just staring through me.

  “Why don’t you come in?” I said. “Coffee’s hot and fresh. I made it strong. Nothing like a strong cup of coffee. I have to show Jimmy how to make it—I don’t think Josh’s a tea drinker, is he?”

  Karaoke still looked stunned. “So he’s going on Queen of the North?”

  “Of course, silly,” I said. “We know you pulled some strings. How else could Jimmy get on with your uncle?”

  Instead of answering, she turned around and walked away.

  The morning Jimmy left, he gave me a hug and said he’d call Adelaine later. We went down to have breakfast. Mom had gone all out. She’d made two stacks of pancakes, a plate of bacon, another plate of scrambled eggs, muffins and toast. Jimmy whistled.

  “Wow,” I said. “We’re going to have to roll you to the docks.”

  Josh honked his horn to collect Jimmy. He gave me a quick hug and whispered, “Tell her I love her.”

  “Tell her yourself,” I said.

  Dad carried Jimmy’s gear. Mom had her arm around my waist. Jimmy didn’t want us to see him off at the docks. It would make him look like a baby, he said.

  The sky was light grey, no stars. We stood around the porch for about five minutes. Mom and Dad hugged him again, and I wished I was in bed. He got in the car and Mom started to cry. She kissed Jimmy like she was never going to see him again. He looked embarrassed but pleased. Jimmy and Dad shook hands, then Dad slapped his shoulder.

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” Jimmy said.

  Dad nodded. “I know. Good luck.”

  Jimmy looked at me. “Be good.”

  “Don’t fall overboard,” I said.

  “Jimmy …” Mom said.

  As the car drove away, Jimmy rolled down his window and waved. We all waved back. The crows hopped and cawed.

  I saw Karaoke in the hallway at school. I went up to her and told her Jimmy was going to call her. She shrugged. The lunchtime buzzer rang. A bunch of girls were standing by their lockers, laughing and joking. Karaoke pulled her fist back and smashed it into the nearest girl’s face. Her front teeth cracked. She screamed, holding her mouth as blood spurted from her split lips. Her friends jumped in and twisted Karaoke’s arms behind her back and held her while another girl started whacking Karaoke’s face. She grinned as if she didn’t even feel it.

  “Chick fight! Chick fight!” a guy yelled, and a crowd gathered to watch. I started to push my way to the front, but the kids around us cheered enthusiastically. Karaoke went down, kicked and pummeled by the girls until two teachers pulled them off her and took her to the hospital. I tried to catch a ride to the hospital and talk with her, but by the time I arrived, she had already been released.

  I knew he’d never forgive himself if he screwed this up, so I went into his room and started hunting for the promise ring. I was going to show it to her and say he did leave her, but he didn’t dump her—he was saving up for their wedding. I knew if she saw the ring, she’d forgive him.

  In the pocket of Jimmy’s brown leather jacket, I found an old photograph and a folded-up card. The picture was black-and-white. Josh’s head was pasted over a priest’s head and Karaoke’s was pasted over a little boy’s. I turned it over: Dear Joshua, it read. I remember every day we spent together. How are you? I miss you terribly. Please write. Your friend in Christ, Archibald.

  I asked Karaoke about it later, and she uncomfortably said it was meant as a joke, Jimmy was never supposed to find it. But she wouldn’t look at me, and she left a few minutes later. Jimmy’d picked it up the same way I had. The folded-up note card was a birth announcement. On the front, a stork carried a baby across a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. It’s a boy! was on the bottom of the card. Inside, in neat, careful handwriting it said, “Dear, dear Joshua. It was yours so I killed it.”

  The cut I make in my left hand is not deep. The skin separates and the blood wells up and spills down my palm. For a moment, there is no pain, and I wonder if I’m dreaming this, then the cut begins to burn, to sear. I hold my hand up to the trees and the blood runs under my sleeve and down my forearm. I turn around in circles, offering this to the things in the trees, waiting. When I’m about to give up and go back to my speedboat, I hear a stealthy slither.

  Remove yourself from the next sound you hear, the breathing that isn’t your own. It glides beneath the bushes like someone’s shadow, a creature with no bones, no arms or legs, a rolling, shifting worm-shaped thing that hugs the darkness. It wraps its pale body around yours and feeds. Push yourself away when your vision dims. Ignore the confused, painful contractions in your chest as your heart trip-hammers to life, struggles to pump blood. Ignore the tingling sensations and weakness in your arms and legs, which make you want to lie down and never get up.

  PART FOUR

  The Land of

  the Dead

  We were a half-hour’s snowshoe tramp from the logging road when Mick found the ugliest pine tree in creation. Snowflakes, airy and dry, hissed across the crusted, frozen ground. The tree was bent over like a hunchback, brown for the top foot or so, and dripping needles before even he touched it.

  “I like it,” Mick said.

  “
Son,” Ba-ba-oo said, slapping a friendly hand on Mick’s shoulder, “I wouldn’t even use it for kindling.”

  “What do you think?” Mick said to me.

  “Why didn’t you visit me?” I said. “Why did you stay away?”

  He kissed the top of my head. “I’m here now. And we have a tree to pick. I think this one is just dandy.” He chopped it down and threw it over his shoulder. Ba-ba-oo held my hand as we walked through the nippy air back to the truck. He sang:

  Asshole, asshole, a soldier I will be

  To piss, to piss, two pistols on my knee

  I will fight for my cunt, I will fight for my cunt,

  I will fight for my country …

  “Dad,” Mick said, wincing. “Enough, please. There’s a lady present.”

  “This from the man who taught you ‘Fuck the Oppressors’ ” Ba-ba-oo said to me, rolling his eyes.

  I laughed as Mick and Ba-ba-oo mock-wrestled, squashing the tree as they tried to pin each other to the ground. We had to start the Christmas-tree hunt all over again, but none of us minded. The sun glinted off the snow, the wind rubbed our faces red and, somewhere out there, was a tree hideous enough for Mick to bring home.

  I wake. The moss is soft and wet against my back. There is a dull, aching pain in my hand. I lift it, and the cut is raw, but has stopped bleeding, and all the blood has been licked away. Its tongue was scratchy, like a cat’s.

  “You said you would help me!” I yell, but my voice cracks, and I don’t know if they heard me, so I yell it again.

  They snigger.

  I push myself up with my right hand, cradling my left hand against my chest. The bushes rustle.

  “More,” a voice says from the shadows.

  I stand. “You tell me where Jimmy is first.”

  The waves have washed the blood from the oar tip but he can see the dents in the wood where he hit Josh—first on the hand as Josh gripped the side and screamed, trying to put one leg in the seiner as Jimmy kicked him and hit him. For what he did to Karaoke, he knew that Josh deserved to die. But he couldn’t bring himself to do anything more until the boat tilted, and finally Jimmy brought the oar down on his head. It hit Josh’s left temple and his head snapped back and God, he killed him, he hoped he killed him because the waves let Jimmy see him for the longest time as the man he’d sworn to kill drifted away, held up by his floater jacket, a bright yellow dot against the white-tipped blackness of the waves.

  As Jimmy slips off the deck and over the railing, what surprises him is how fast the seiner sinks. Something so large, he thinks, should not be able to disappear in mere minutes, but in its last moments, it rode almost level with the water, rolling sluggishly in waves. It tilts up as a wave hits it to reveal the gaping hole where Jimmy rammed the seiner into a log. Josh fought to save his Queen. And when he was distracted, Jimmy replays the moment when he pushed him, hoping to make it quick, but, God, failing.

  The life raft that Josh threw over the side in the first moments of the crash is nowhere in sight. So Jimmy aims for the shore, lifts his arms in and out of the water, executing the strokes he’s trained all his life to perfect.

  One crow caws. It is joined by another and another, until it sounds as if hundreds of crows are on the beach. My hand is numb. The thing waits in the shadows.

  “No,” I say. “No, you know what I want. That wasn’t … wasn’t what I …” Very tired. The moss looks comfortable. Rest for a few minutes. Sink to my knees. Eye level with the pale body as it rears up.

  “More.”

  “No.” Crawl through the bushes. Rocks hard on my palm. Forgot about it, until the cut begins to bleed again. Can hear it, pacing me. Eyelids so heavy.

  Startled when I break from the trees. Crows, as far as the eye can see, waiting on the beach. Crows still, as if they were statues. Then they hop out of my way to give me a path to the speedboat.

  Manage to stand. Wobble towards the speedboat. It bobs in the rising tide. Untie the rope, slow, hands are clumsy. Lose it for a moment. It’s drifting away in the tide. Water is cold as I wade in up to my waist. Should have pulled the boat to shore, then pushed off. Not thinking. Catch the rope, pull the boat towards me, but can’t quite manage to get in. Slip. Hand can’t grasp the side. Speedboat does enough of a spin to gently knock my head and push me underwater.

  The rain is warm. This strikes me as very strange. I am, on some level, aware that this should alarm me. Ma-ma-oo frowns at me. “Are you all right?”

  “Peachy keen,” I say, but it comes out as an unintelligible mumble because my mouth isn’t working.

  “Come on,” she says.

  She grabs my wrists and hauls me up. I sway. The trees blur, come back into focus, and I know something is wrong, but I can’t put my finger on what. Trees so tall. Young trees. Narrow trunks. Rain coming down on my upturned face splashes into my eyes and goes up my nose, making me sneeze. I stop moving altogether, entranced with the sensation of raindrops hitting my skin.

  “Listen,” she says, trying to pull me along, yanking my wrist. “You have to listen.”

  “Am I dreaming?” I say.

  She picks up a piece of oxasuli. “Look. Do you understand?”

  “No,” I say.

  “You have a dangerous gift,” she says. “It’s like oxasuli. Unless you know how to use it, it will kill you.”

  “I still don’t understand,” I say.

  Something cold touches my foot, making it so numb that I gasp. I keep catching flashes of green plaid between the trees. I want to stop and see who it is, but I know this isn’t a smart thing to do when I don’t have my head together. Her face is scrunched up in worry. “When it’s time to go, you go,” she says. “Nothing you can do or say will change it. We’re where we belong, but you have to go back. Do you hear me?”

  “Jimmy?”

  “Never mind about him now. Go back. You’ve come too far into this world. Go back.”

  The trees undulate. A dark, rectangular cloud descends. I can’t catch my breath. We are floating. Her feet aren’t touching the ground. Bubbles rush upward, glimmer silver against the darkness. The flash of red is a life jacket. My exhaled breath disappears against the light coming from the surface. Underwater, Dad’s speedboat sinks in elegant slow motion. The keel scratching the bottom echoes oddly through the water. The surf rocks me, and I brush against slippery kelp leaves. I inhale. The salty taste is so strong that I gag, twist, as the water pulls me back down.

  The crows fly in circles above my head. They are silent as they swoop and dive and turn and, finally, I realize that they are dancing.

  The tide rocks the kelp beds and the long amber leaves trail gently in the jade green water. I hear the seals squeaking and chirping, but can’t see them yet. Fragmented, shivering light from the surface streams down. Jimmy stands beside me and holds his hand out for me. The moment I touch it, warmth spreads down my arms.

  He almost wrenches off my arm as he takes hold of my shoulders and shoves. As I drift upward, the seals twist around me as if they have no bones, swooping and darting through the water, coming close but not close enough to touch me. His upturned face glows in the water, pale white, then pale green, then a shrinking grey spot against the dark water, until he is swallowed.

  When I reach the surface, I can’t move my arms. I’m warm now, so it’s hard to want to move. Want to sleep. Want to drift. Rain in my eyes. Waves capping and spraying, and I can’t tell which way the shore is until I hear them singing. I spin myself around and see the bonfire.

  I want to yell for help, but nothing comes out. The seal swims beside me, splashing water in my face. This annoys me enough to make me dog-paddle away from him.

  When I get tired, a man on the beach puts one hand up to his face and his moose call pierces through the songs, the wind and the waves.

  As my feet touch the sand, I see the people around the bonfire make their way to the shoreline and watch me struggle to stay upright against the waves. I am sucked back in the surf, pushed o
ut with the fading tide.

  Someone touches my face. “Wah,” she says. “My crazy girl. Go home and make me some grandkids.”

  “Hiya, Monster,” Mick’s voice says. “Don’t listen to her. You go out there and give ’em hell. Red power!”

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. They are blurry, dark figures against the firelight. For a moment, the singing becomes clear. I can understand the words even though they are in Haisla and it’s a farewell song, they are singing about leaving and meeting again, and they turn and lift their hands. Mick breaks out of the circle and dances, squatting low, showing off.

  The beach is dark and empty. The voices are faint, but when I close my eyes I can still see the pale afterimage of Jimmy shaking his head. “Tell her.”

  Aux’gwalas, the others are singing. Take care of her yourself, wherever you’re going.

  Early evening light slants over the mountains. The sky is faded denim blue. Somewhere above my head, a raven grumbles as it hops between the branches of the tightly packed trees. The crows have disappeared. Water splashes as a seal bobs its dark head in the shallows, hunting crabs. I lie on the sand. The clamshells are hard against my back. I am no longer cold. I am so light I could just drift away. Close, very close, a b’gwus howls—not quite human, not quite wolf, but something in between. The howl echoes off the mountains. In the distance, I hear the sound of a speedboat.

  Acknowledgments

  The list of those who made Monkey Beach possible would fill another book. Here is the short version: