Return of the Trickster

by Eden Robinson

  “Abracadabra,” he said.

  Maybe the alder bark tea was caffeinated. Maybe he couldn’t sleep because he didn’t want to dream about the coy wolves dying or Georgina watching him.

  He wondered if David was still hanging around in the shadows. His mom had been pretty fake around David, all modest and coy, not rocking the boat because they’d been flat broke and she’d been sick of being a waitress. The tips at the North Star had sucked. She’d had to peel the tobacco out of used cigarette butts to roll smokes to get her nic fix. David wanted things a certain way, and if she complied, he showered her with presents and money. Jared was not a part of David’s picture, so Jared mostly stuck to his room or hung out at his friends’ places when David came over.

  He’d trash-talked David to Nana Sophia in his messages and texts. He hadn’t mentioned his mom being rescued from the bill collectors, just the highlight reel of David wanting his vegetables steamed al dente and acting as though his mom had murdered the Pope when she didn’t get them just right. The uptick in skinless chicken breasts and fat-free dressing. The ironing that made his mom moody in a way that Jared read as homicidal. Normal men would pick up on those signals and scatter, but David was sending his own signals.

  One day after school, Jared’d showed his mom an English paper with a surprise B. His mom had kissed his cheek, ironically miming pride, then wiped her lipstick off his face, and suddenly Jared had felt himself being watched. Like when the assholes at school were sizing up the newbies. He hadn’t returned the look. Flattened his expression.

  “Imagine what kind of mark you would’ve got if you’d tried,” David had said.

  Jared had shrugged, still not looking, but from the corner of his eye, here came the shape of David. His mom announced a need for Taco Tuesday, which put David off enough that Jared could slip up to his bedroom, close the door on their arguing and toss his backpack on the floor.

  Afterwards, after everything, his bedroom no longer felt safe. His mom changed all the locks after she’d put David in the hospital and put one on his bedroom door too, but just as he started to relax a bit, he would wake up in the night and see a vision of David nail-gunned to the floor, as clear as if his mom had just pinned him there. He’d moved into the basement when it became clear that this was his new normal. That it was some bizarre PTSD hallucination, and he was close to losing it, lying in bed listening to phantom David scream. The basement had been cold and glum, but David wasn’t there, so it was worth putting up with. He’d never told anyone why he’d moved down there. Who was there to tell?

  He realized he felt watched now. His skin crept. He saw a flickering shadow from the corner of his eyes. He didn’t want to believe the thing from the wall was back, the creeping, skulking thing that seemed so interested in him, but he remembered this feeling.

  He wanted Dent back instead. He wanted Shu. Dent to make snarky comments that made severely screwy things funny and Shu to scare the ever-loving shit out of whatever was watching him. He remembered that day on the Drive when Shu taught Dent to Superman hop over cars and buses. Their excited shrieks as goofy as you could get, and Huey the flying head following in manic circles. He missed Shu’s zombie face. He missed Dent’s annoyed sighs.

  He got up off the floor. Stuffed down his urge to pace and sat on his bed. With creeps, the head fuck was their point. They couldn’t just beat the shit out of you. They had to tell you at lunchtime that they were going to make your face hamburger after school. They wanted you to stew in your dread all afternoon.

  When David was first stalking him back in Kitimat, a no-go place was the Jakses’ house. Completely ignoring the restraining order, David had come to the door just once with his expensive haircut, his tailored clothes and his fancy sunglasses and told Mrs. Jaks he was here to pick up Jared. Mrs. Jaks stood dwarfed in front of him, wearing her gardening clothes, raggy blue sweats, an orange sweatshirt and a granny kerchief. She wouldn’t let him in and wouldn’t answer him, so David had yelled for Jared to get his ass in gear or he was going to give the old woman the lesson meant for him.

  Then Mrs. Jaks had said something quietly, drawing David’s full attention in a way you never wanted.

  But he’d left. After he was gone, Jared had asked her what she’d said.

  “The truth,” Mrs. Jaks had replied.

  Jared could be cold. He had his shitty moments. But even after David broke his ribs that afternoon, before his mom came home and nailed David’s feet and the soft underflesh of his arms to Jared’s bedroom floor, Jared just wanted him gone. His mom had offered him the nail gun. Nothing in Jared wanted to take her up on that.

  The world is hard, his mom always said. You have to be harder.

  Maybe he didn’t have what it takes to survive. Maybe he had always been defective, an exploding airbag that, instead of protecting you from accidents, broke your face and sent shrapnel through your heart.

  * * *

  —

  The next morning, he and Mave sat together on the couch and it felt surreal. As though he was in a dream or a childhood memory. Mave lounged in her Canucks pyjamas and ratty plaid bathrobe, reading a book. A phone pinged a message alert and she reached into her bathrobe pocket.

  “Kota’s finishing breakfast. He wants to bring you to a meeting before he starts his shift. Are you up for another one?”

  “Sure,” Jared said.

  Mave concentrated on her phone and he could hear the ping of alerts as messages flew back and forth. “Kota’s taken a shine to you. It’s very rare.”

  Jared snorted. “He’s enjoying being the non-lapser.”

  “He regrets the way he treated you when he fell off the wagon himself,” Mave said.

  “We all have our shit moments.”

  “True, very true.”

  Jared thought, Now or never, and said, “Do you remember your brother?”

  After a few moments of silence, he looked over and saw Mave’s eyes glittering with unspilt tears. She’d put the phone in her lap, lips narrowed to a hard line.

  “Sorry,” Jared said.

  Jared waited as she struggled to regain her composure. He handed her a Kleenex and she wiped her eyes, blew her nose.

  “He loved the stars. He taught me the constellations. We used to camp out in the backyard in the summer.” She took another minute with the tissues, and then said, “When Dad would get mean, Wade was there. He was kind, like you. What made you bring him up?”

  “Can I share some messed-up family stuff with you?” Jared said. “Are you up for it?”

  “Always,” Mave said.

  “Phil’s not my biological dad.”

  “Get out,” Mave said.

  “When we told Sophia, I thought that was the end of our relationship.”

  “When did you tell her?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “Jesus. She’s back, though. And she’s still acting like your gran.”

  “She says she missed me.”

  “You’re missable.”

  “Phil doesn’t believe he’s not my bio dad. He thinks me and Mom are making it up, that we’re kind of batshit.”

  “You’re probably the thing in his life he’s most proud of. That’s hard to let go. Do you know who your real dad is?”

  “Wee’git,” Jared said. “And I’m a Trickster like him. I really am.”

  Mave took a long time studying her hands before she finally met his eyes. “Your mom gets these ideas. Sometimes you have to take them with a grain of salt. Sometimes they’re metaphors for what she’s going through.”

  He thought about the different ways he could prove things to Mave, like growing a few feathers. He thought about what would happen to her if she met one of the things that was angry with him. How could she defend herself against something she couldn’t see and didn’t believe existed?

  “I still think of Phil as
my dad,” Jared said, retreating. “Even if we’re not blood.”

  “He’s a good guy.”

  “He’s driving Sophia nuts. He found God and he’s been preaching at her. Shirley’s pissed too. This is not what she signed up for.”

  “Yeah, your mom wasn’t too pleased when he ‘forgave’ her.”

  “But he seems happy.”

  “Good.”

  Her poker face, the stiffening of her back, told him everything he needed to know. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been warned. He’d just gone from someone she trusted to someone she didn’t, not quite, not fully, not anymore. Someone a little more crazy in her eyes. She smiled at him, kept smiling at him, and patted his hand. She put her book down and went to the kitchen.

  “I’m going to make tea,” she called. “Do you want some?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Maybe if he’d said it better, smarter, then she would not have got that expression on her face you used on dogs you didn’t know, when you weren’t sure if they were friendly or not and you didn’t want to show fear. But it was done. He’d take Sophia up on her offer of one of her spare rooms. He called to Mave that he was going to get ready for the meeting. She said she’d take care of his breakfast dishes.

  When he left, she didn’t move in for a hug or a kiss. He didn’t die.

  * * *

  —

  After the meeting, Kota bought him a latte and a cookie. They sat on the patio. Kota smoked, irritating nearby patrons.

  “Are you going nuts?” Kota said.

  “I was always nuts,” Jared said. “I’m just low-key about it.”

  “Mave texted me that you’re having delusions of grandeur.”

  “What’s grandeur?”

  “Like you think you’re Elvis and the rest of us are your backup band.”

  Jared laughed. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “What’s Mave on about?”

  “I can see them. When I talk to people about it, they get the same look you’re giving me now.”

  “You see ghosts?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe meds will help.”

  “We have two very different realities. Mine includes ghosts. That doesn’t mean I need meds.”

  “There’s only one reality.”

  Jared sighed. “We’re going to have to agree to disagree.”

  “It’s weird.”

  “I’m a big weirdo.”

  “You’re actually pretty vanilla.”

  “FYI, words hurt.”

  “So you think you’re a mythological creature that can turn into other things.”

  “She told you that too? I’m a Trickster, yes.”

  “Show me.”

  “I’m not a dancing monkey.”

  “Bok. Bok, bok, bok.”

  Kota flapped his arms like a chicken to hammer home his point. Jared was momentarily shocked, then he was amused to see Kota doing something so uncool.

  Kota dropped his cigarette and ground it under his boot. “What’s with all the weirdness?”

  “Just thinking about things.”

  “Stop brooding and start reading your Big Book.”

  * * *

  —

  He rang the apartment buzzer and Mave eventually answered it. Jared felt heavy. Tired, but so far beyond tired—that punchy state beyond exhausted. Thoughts weren’t connecting.

  A familiar Native girl in a fringed leather jacket with painted roses walked into him as he opened the lobby door. Mallory, he remembered.

  “Whoops!” she said, taking her earbuds out. “Hey, Jared. Do you live here?”

  “Yeah,” Jared said. “I’m staying with my aunt.”

  “My cousin lives on the fourth floor. See you ’round.”

  “Later,” Jared said.

  He watched the doors close. Sure, Indian World was small, but he didn’t think meeting up with Mallory again was an accident. He hadn’t seen anything under her skin, which was good. But he didn’t remember her from Kitimat. Hot women, in his experience, did not follow him around, flirting. They were either family or they wanted to kill him. Usually both.

  He was expecting Mave to still be weird around him and she was, waiting for him at her door with anxiety written all over her.

  “I have some bad news,” she said.

  8

  THE DEATH OF PHILIP MARTIN

  Sophia’s voice on the phone: “Stay with Mave.”

  Stay with Mave. Stay with Mave. Stay with Mave. Home invasion. Stay with Mave.

  “I want—” he said. “I need to come.”

  Sophia hung up on him.

  Noise complaints. Police arrived to find Phil’s front door kicked open. Two evening flights available. Stay with Mave.

  You think you’re Elvis and the rest of us are your backup band. Sometimes your mother gets these ideas. The world is hard.

  Philip and Shirley Martin were dead. Someone broke into their house, trashed the place and killed them both.

  Phil’s face lit from beneath by sunlight reflected off the lake. It’s always a good day for fishing. His mom hefting her rifle. Outdoors. Outdoors people. The misery of staying at the cabin on long summer days when all his friends were playing Xbox games without him, when he was missing Breaking Bad, Dexter, Lost. No Internet, no TV. Just a water-damaged collection of Archie comics and a lumpy, stinky mattress and his parents arguing about the best way to cook a rainbow trout.

  “I need you to breathe,” Mave said. “Can you do that?”

  “Dad’s dead.”

  “He is.”

  “I think it’s my fault.”

  “Breathe, Jared. It’s not remotely your fault. Okay? I’m here. I’m here. I called your mom. She’s coming.”

  “Sophia thinks it’s my…It’s me. She—”

  “Jared, breathe. She’s in shock too. She needs to take care of things. Okay? She doesn’t blame you. Do you want an Ativan? Let me get you an Ativan.”

  Mave kept her emergency cash in a hollow bust on one of the bookshelves. Jared scored three crisp hundred-dollar bills.

  Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.

  * * *

  —

  Beer’s not going to cut it, he thought. Vodka. Portable vodka. Obliterate my thoughts, please, he thought, ha ha, he thought obliterate. The first gulp like unbuckling your belt when you get home and letting everything sag free. Jared was free of the tension of being sober. Free at last, free at last.

  The searing relief of obliteration. The searing relief. His eyes watered.

  Are you ready to bring me back? Georgina said, mind to mind.

  Stuck in a boring world, she was thinking, with boring apes who wouldn’t come near you after you ate a few of their kids. Who ran away from you like you were a monster. She stared at him, through his eyes, as he stumbled towards David. When you want to obliterate yourself, find someone willing to obliterate you. He wanted to find David and suddenly he could hear him like static, growing louder if he went in the right direction.

  Think about everyone you love, Georgina said. Dying.

  Was he awake? He was sure he was awake. But he was pretty blitzed. Pretty. Hammered. Out of his head, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

  Jared, she said.

  Crossing the expanse of a park in East Vancouver. Crossing the mucky green of a waterlogged lawn, hearing the homeless man loudly toasting his friends, the man who’d bought him his giant-ass vodka in return for one for himself. Not old enough to go in the liquor store. Standing outside looking in.

  Do you think I’m playing?

  Sh-sh-sh-shuffle-ing. Every day. I’m shuf-fle-ing. Pit bull leaping through the air so happy to be free coming to rip off Jared’s face. Face. Off. Nicolas Cage when his mom thought he was hot. Her type. Ba
by Killer’s sibling getting hit by his mom’s truck. Dirty snow, grey with rock salt and red with fresh blood and bits of dog flesh.

  Imagine what mark you could’ve gotten if you’d tried. David cracking his ribs.

  I miss Baby Killer, Jared thought.

  You only had to bring me back and we could have been okay, Georgina said. I warned you and I warned you and I warned you.

  I’ll never have another dog, Jared thought. I’ll never finish school. I’ll never get married.

  You brought this on yourself.

  All his futures were ending. He was ending all his futures. Static on the line. The TV tuned to a dead channel. Sophia the thrum of the lowest note on an electric guitar. His mom the growl of a motorcycle revving. David the blank hiss of static growing louder as though someone was turning up the volume. Marco. Polo.

  David in a truck. David was in the truck he had used to try to run him over. Gravel crunching beneath his feet. Secluded parking lot. David wearing sunglasses, his mouth open as if he was singing solo in a choir, but he was screaming. The closer Jared came, the louder David screamed. Jared saw himself through David’s eyes, saw what David saw in the alley when he was trying to kill him.

  A boy with blackness under his skin. The boy who revealed his true self in the flames, a monstrous raven, the black beak emerging from his face and the horrific wings, like something prehistoric. And afterwards, the dead. The dead came for you. The dead whispered to you, wouldn’t let you sleep. They touched you and your skin went numb. The dead. The dead. After you witnessed true evil, you were marked by visions of the dead who never let you rest.