Return of the Trickster

by Eden Robinson

  They sank to the floor, twined around each other. He could hear her heartbeat and she could hear his. He could see her memories, feel her shock as she opened the bedroom door to find David in Jared’s bedroom back when he was a kid and saw the things happening that Jared didn’t want to dwell on. Her hands made fists in his shirt.

  You should have killed David when you first caught him torturing your son, she was thinking. David is going to take a dirt nap. David is in your rifle sights and you are itching to send a bullet tunnelling through his brain. You want to hear him scream and then you want to end that scream.

  “I’m a Trickster,” Jared whispered.

  Abruptly, he was alone in his brain. His mother pulled back, their faces still close enough that he could see her pores, but she might as well have been on the moon. Her eyes narrowed as she processed what he’d just told her. He felt her dawning realization and the resulting fury that curdled her expression.

  “Let’s get smokes, Mags,” Richie said. He might not be the most sensitive guy on the planet, but he knew his girlfriend’s moods. Especially the dangerous ones. “Let’s go for a ride and then have a smoke. Where’s your shoes?”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Maggie said, and stomped off.

  Richie scowled at Jared then jogged after her, bending to pick up a pair of black slouchy boots on his way out.

  “My little diplomat,” Sophia said with a wry smile. “Couldn’t wait until she’d had some sleep to make that charming revelation, could you?”

  “What did you say to Maggie?” Mave said as she moved in for a careful hug.

  Jared couldn’t muster a clever comeback, struggling not to emote. Mave’s hair was usually gleaming in a careful pixie cut. She loved vintage outfits and pointy high heels. He’d never seen her with greasy hair and in sweats before. Justice, Mave’s adopted daughter, came over to touch his arm. She was wearing a shapeless black dress and sneakers, which was like seeing the Queen of England in a tank top. One of her acrylic nails was broken, marring the glittering perfection of her long hands. The two led him to the couch and then they all sat and they stared at him.

  “Maybe we should get you some outside help,” Kota said.

  “Kota,” Hank said, moving to stand over Jared, eyeballing him as though he was an unfamiliar dog that might bite. Hank, usually the scariest of his cousins, had fresh hickeys, which kind of ruined his vibe. Jared had never suspected that Neeka, Hank’s new girlfriend, was the hickey-giving type. Hank noticed Jared noticing his hickeys and scowled, his chiselled face an emoji of annoyance.

  “Listen, my couch is your couch,” Kota said. “Call me if shit goes sideways.”

  “ ’Kay,” Jared said.

  Kota mumbled his byes to everyone.

  Jared wanted his mother back. He wanted to know she was okay, but he couldn’t sense her. Everyone was still staring at him. He felt as if he should say or do something, but his mind drew a blank.

  “Jared?” Mave said. “Are you okay?”

  Her face was so familiar and yet it felt as though he was looking at her through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.

  “Never mind answering for now,” she said. “Do you want some coffee? Hank, get him some coffee.”

  “Maybe we should take him to the walk-in clinic,” Hank said. “He looks concussed.”

  “And we should document the bruises,” Justice said. “Especially the ones around his neck.”

  “Coffee,” Mave insisted. “Now.”

  Bossy, his mom had repeatedly said of her sister. But he was glad of it now that Hank had stopped standing over him and gone to bang around the kitchen searching for where the coffee beans were being stored this week. Someone turned the TV on and Jared wondered if Dent, his ghost friend, was happy stuck as he was in the dolphin universe. Sophia was sitting in Dent’s favourite recliner, where he had used to watch hours of Doctor Who. Though the apartment was full of people, the lack of his otherworldly friends—Dent, Huey the big head and the little ghost girl, Shu—made it feel wrong somehow. Hank ran the coffee grinder. Out the window, rain now fell in heavy squalls. The kettle whistled.

  “It’s going to be all right,” Sophia said.

  I killed a bunch of people who were coy wolves, Jared wanted to confess. After David tried to kill me.

  Back, way back, when he was dating Sarah, they’d gotten drunk and high and travelled to a universe only to bring back hitchhikers—men who were hominids but not human. Sophia had helped return the ape men to their home. Because Jared had already been there once, he thought of the ape men’s universe when he needed somewhere to take Georgina and her pack so they wouldn’t murder everyone in this room. That universe was where Jared had died and Georgina had brought him back to life again and again like a glitchy video game giving you free lives. Sophia would likely be mad at him when she found out what had happened in the ape men’s world, but now she reached over and tentatively touched his hand.

  “You’re safe,” she said.

  He wasn’t, though. He was dangerous to be near and a danger to himself. Sophia watched him with such sadness. He didn’t want to be the subject of her mournful eyes. “Dad’s religious now.”

  She grimaced and pulled her hand back. “Philip goes out of his way to make me regret pushing him out of my uterus.”

  “TMI, Sophia.”

  “Everyone alive, my dear, was once in a womb and slid into this world in a bloody, goopy mess.”

  Hank came back and handed Jared a coffee. He asked Sophia if she wanted one and she shook her head. Justice brought out a plate of peanut butter cookies. They were the size of your palm and she’d decorated each top with a single peanut. He took one with no intention of eating it but not wanting to offend. Justice put the plate on the coffee table and Hank returned to the kitchen, where he began noisily washing the dishes. Mave sat beside Justice. Jared sipped his coffee. Hank had put in so much sugar it was all he could taste.

  A flash, a red flash like a basketball-shaped bird, and the flying head named Huey bumbled into the room like a happy bee, one side of his mouth grinning widely while the other twisted downwards in a deep frown. Jared was so relieved Huey was okay, he felt himself tearing up again. Huey settled weightlessly on Jared’s head with a couple of enthusiastic bounces, his way of saying hello.

  Mave and Justice, oblivious to Huey, chatted about the Kinder Morgan protest on Burnaby Mountain, about who had joined the camp and what they were going to need in this miserable weather. It made him feel a little better to hear his protest-minded aunt sound more like herself. Hank asked where the dishtowels were and Mave told him to let the dishes air-dry. Sophia, when Jared dared to glance at her, stared at Huey, who dropped from Jared’s head to his shoulder, hiding from her like a shy toddler.

  Sophia met Jared’s eyes.

  Mave and Justice decided they should order Chinese takeout and asked Sophia if she wanted any dish in particular.

  “Oh, anything,” Sophia said, smiling pleasantly.

  Huey bounced a few times on Jared’s shoulder then shot out of the room, through the open balcony door and upwards.

  Jared couldn’t hear Sophia in his head the way he heard his mother. But the hum inside her rose and he desperately wanted to know what she was thinking. Mave, Justice and Hank, however, were now debating which dishes to get—two vegan and one full carnivore so far—and now they asked what he wanted to eat. He blankly scanned the takeout menu Mave thrust into his hands. He remained keenly aware of Sophia, even though she was now chatting with Mave about how they were going to split the bill.

  Shortly after the takeout arrived, Sophia said she was feeling the call of her bed and phoned her driver. She came over to Jared and carefully touched his hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow, my dear.”

  Jared didn’t trust his voice, so he nodded.

  “Good night, Mave,” Sophia said.

 
“Thank you for everything, Sophia,” Mave said.

  Jared bit into a chicken ball, but it was all texture and no flavour. Plus, he wasn’t hungry. He sipped more coffee to get the mouthful down. Something was wrong with him, something new. He hadn’t eaten a full meal in days.

  Maybe it was just the shock numbing him. Delayed reaction to the weekend in a hell universe being resurrected and eaten until he was unceremoniously dumped in his old bedroom, spat out on the concrete basement floor like this bland chicken ball.

  “What’s up?” Mave said.

  “Ketchup,” he said.

  She sighed. “That’s my boy.”

  * * *

  —

  His mom wore the smoke of her two-pack-a-day Player’s Light habit like a perfume. As far back as Jared could remember, the acrid, sour, faintly sweet tobacco scent meant she was home. He opened his eyes and it was morning. He couldn’t remember falling asleep or how he’d gotten into his bed. His mom sat in the desk chair studying him, lit by the desk lamp. She was still wearing her white AC/DC T-shirt, skinny jeans and worn leather jacket. The apartment was so quiet he was reluctant to break the silence.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Is there anything more you want to tell me?”

  Oh, he wanted to lie. He wanted her to stop looking at him with suspicion. He wanted not to be having this conversation with her now, alone. But Georgina was threatening everyone he loved and his mom was the one who knew how to deal with the homicidal.

  “I shifted in the alley. After David…” Jared said, but his throat closed up. And then he forgot what he was going to say. It dropped away.

  His mom fidgeted, her leg bouncing. Jared wished he could pull out a cold case of beer and they could share it and be buds and he’d tell her all this when she was buzzed and she wouldn’t hate him, wouldn’t have trouble looking at him the way she was having now, not meeting his eyes.

  “I had a crush on Phil,” she said. “Mother didn’t want me chasing him to the All-Native but I went anyways. And then you came to me like a dream come true. Everything. Absolutely everything about you was Phil. Right down to his thoughts. You were that good.”

  She wasn’t screaming or swearing. She was cold and calm.

  “I’m Jared,” he said.

  “Was there ever a Jared?”

  “Mom, it’s me.”

  “Mother’s first child was a boy. Guess who he turned out to be. I thought I killed Wee’git, but he could have got someone to resurrect him so he could be here, pretending to be my son. Are you fucking with me? Are you Wee’git?”

  Jared couldn’t wrap his head around that level of messed-up. It explained a lot, but it meant things he couldn’t process yet.

  I’m Jared, he thought at her, inviting her to be in his mind, to see his truth. “I’m not Wee’git.”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting out of this. I really don’t.”

  I’m your son.

  She stood. “Me and Richie are going back to Winnipeg to settle some things. When I come back, you’d better be gone.” Get the fuck away from my family, Wee’git. Or I’m going to bury you so deep this time you’ll only rise with the Rapture.

  He listened to her boots click against the floor as she walked out. The door banged behind her. He ached, physically, but in a different way. Then he became aware of someone watching him, a familiar presence.

  In his mind, he saw Saturn and a small moon. The irresistible song of gravity drew the moon closer and closer until it reached a point where the tidal forces became stronger than the forces that held the moon together and it ripped apart, a hot mess that couldn’t escape, even though it was obliterated, most of the pieces falling in the clouds, with the rest forming a ring, a ghostly reminder of its existence.

  I wish I’d never met your grandmother, Wee’git told Jared, mind to mind. I regret everything.

  * * *

  —

  Later that morning, Mave knocked on the open door. “Want some company?”

  “Sure,” Jared said.

  She sat beside him on the bed. “How you doing, Jelly Bean?”

  Normally he hated his childhood nickname. Today it made him fight back tears. “Kinda rough.”

  “Yeah, I heard your mom come in. What were you arguing about?”

  “She thinks I’m Wee’git.”

  “Ah. Her and Mom get these ideas. Don’t take them to heart.”

  Mave was solidly, dependably blind and deaf to anything supernatural. She thought her mom and her sister were superstitious, one of a number of reasons they’d been estranged for many years. Jared didn’t think trying to explain it all to her would make anything better. “Could I borrow your cellphone?”

  She handed it to him and he gave Phil a call to tell him he’d made it to Vancouver and was okay. Phil said he’d pray for him and that he was off to a job interview.

  “Come back any time,” Phil said.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  He handed the phone back to Mave.

  “Coffee?” she said.

  “Yes, please.”

  In the living room, Justice was asleep on the couch, her feet sticking over the arm. Mave unrolled a throw blanket and tucked it around Justice’s legs.

  Mave boiled water in a teakettle and poured it into her French press. While they waited, Mave hunted through the packed fridge and offered him a plate of cold sausages. He shook his head. She warmed some up in the microwave. They poured themselves mugs and Mave grabbed the saucer of sausages. They tiptoed past Justice on the couch and Mave opened the balcony door, shutting it carefully behind them. She sat on the red, cast iron patio chair nearest to the door and picked up the darkest sausage, finishing it in two bites then washing it down with giant glugs of coffee. Jared stepped over her legs and sat on the matching chair. A metal coffee can filled with sand and many, many cigarette butts sat on the chair between them. His mom. The smell of stale ash was a bit much, so he put it on the floor and gently pushed it with his foot to the far corner of the balcony, beneath the cast iron table that was covered in dying flower arrangements.

  The streets were livening up, the pedestrians still under bright umbrellas though the rain had lightened to a drizzle. Traffic shushed through the wet streets, water running down Graveley in grey rivulets.

  Mave reached over and put her hand on top of his. He flipped his own over and held on, balancing his coffee on his knee with his other hand.

  “I think David has my apartment keys,” he said.

  “We’ll change the locks,” Mave said. “Easily solved.”

  “Sorry for the drama.”

  “It’s not drama. It’s a grown man deciding a child is responsible for his shitty life choices. It’s him deciding that torture and murder are his right as a rich, straight, white man.”

  “Mom said the cops have my wallet. Can I ask for it back?”

  “Jared,” Mave said. “He tried to kill you. There are witnesses. There’s video.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Jared said. “He’ll make it my fault somehow. That’s what he did the last time.”

  “I won’t let that happen. Sophia won’t let that happen. His whiteness won’t exempt him from justice.”

  Mave was probably going to insist on being a character witness if the cops ever caught David and if he ever went to trial for attempted murder. Jared could just see the jury’s reaction to statements like that. She squeezed his hand. He squeezed back and let go. He was starting to think he should have stayed with his dad.

  They watched a black limo double-park in front of the apartment entrance. Sophia emerged followed by a man in a black suit carrying a pink box, who skittered after Sophia with an umbrella. Mave sighed, but quickly smiled when Sophia looked up at them and waved.

  The man ran back to the limo and hopped in, driving off. The apartment buzzer ra
ng. Jared got up to let Sophia in. Mave roused Justice from the couch and murmured something that made Justice rake her hair and check her clothes.

  Sophia was the usual vision. Her hair was finger-waved and she wore a cream pantsuit. Her lapel shone with the buttery glow of a high-carat gold brooch and her wrists with matching gold bracelets with Native eagle designs carved into them.

  She held the pink box out to him, offering a selection of gleaming Danishes. He shook his head and she blew past him into the living room.

  “Good morning,” Sophia said to Mave.

  “Good morning,” Mave said.

  “Could I have a moment alone with my grandson?”

  “Of course,” Mave said. She kissed Jared’s cheek. “Love you.”

  “We can go to my room,” Jared said. “You don’t have to leave.”

  “A little nap never hurt anyone.”

  Justice touched his hand before she followed Mave to her bedroom.

  Jared decided to get it over with. “You know I didn’t know I wasn’t your grandson.”

  Sophia waved that off with a flick of her wrist. “That’s in the past.”

  “It hurt when you left.”

  She met his eyes. “Where is this conversation going?”

  “What would make you leave again?”