Return of the Trickster

by Eden Robinson

  “It was a long time ago,” you said.

  “We’d like to dig for cockles,” she said. “Do we have your permission?”

  “Who’s we?” you said.

  “You don’t need to know our names,” she said.

  Your Otter Woman is dead, of course she’s dead, and she died hating you.

  A raft of otters wriggled up the shore and gathered near her, behind her. They carried human skins like deflated bull kelp bulbs. They slipped them on and you were faced with her naked family.

  “There’s some shovels in the last longhouse,” you said. “A little rusty, but they’ll work.”

  She brandished a stick instead, and deftly poked an air hole, pulling up a cockle that had snapped its white shell closed on the end of the stick. She pried the shell open and tipped the cockle down her throat.

  “Do you know what happened here?” you said. “Where did my people go?”

  “Why would you spend your time as a human if it makes you miserable?” she said, flinging the cockle shell away. “Use the body for digging and leave it.”

  What good is memory if it tortures you? What good is love if it ends?

  “Have you ever flown?” you said.

  She bent and studied the beach, testing cockle air holes. “I don’t have a bird skin. What a ridiculous way of moving through the world.”

  “My other form is a raven.”

  “I prefer Mother Ocean to the sky.” She shivered. “This human skin. So easily cold.”

  “I’ll start a fire.”

  “Don’t,” she said. “We want to eat in peace. Fire will attract wolves and other pests.”

  Her dress hinted at the firmness of her breasts, the curve of her waist. The other otters ate and left, but she seemed in no hurry to leave.

  You were looking to pass the time doing something more pleasant than brooding. “There’s other ways to stay warm.”

  She stood and met your eyes.

  Words. All these words. Her tongue held secrets. Your breath steamed like a teakettle about to whistle.

  “Can you shift into an otter form?” she said.

  “Yes,” you said.

  “Hmm,” she said, neither yes nor no, but tilted her head and studied you.

  When she wandered down the beach, you followed. She dropped her cedar dress, tucking it in the hollow of a tree before she dropped her human skin, slid away from you into the water. Pausing to look back, sleek head bobbing in the waves. Excited splashes and a jaunty slap of her tail on the surface as she dove. Catch me!

  Time doesn’t march. Time is an endless ocean. We swim through it, caught in its inescapable tide. All time that has ever existed still exists. She is there, in that distant present, weaving between the kelp trees, breaking the surface to laugh at you. Air slides like silk. The ocean is not the sky, the friction heavy, ponderous; water is a womb.

  When Captain Cook landed in a tiny cove in Nootka Sound on March 29, 1778, about 300,000 sea otters lived on the coast of British Columbia. The Cook expedition spent one month as the guests of Chief Maquinna, in Mowachaht/Muchalaht territory, trading and making connections. They left with otter pelts that they later resold in China for an exorbitant price, kicking off the fur trade that wiped out sea otter populations from Alaska to California. As many as 18,000 pelts a year were collected by trading ships. Extirpation is the dry, scientific word for the absolute destruction of a local population. A mini-extinction, if you will.

  You wanted her to live.

  You would do anything to be there, in that moment, both of you floating on your backs watching the stars. Her paw touched yours. The moment before her family came crashing through the waves in a weaving, swirling mass. Anything to have her look on you again as she did then, amused, curious.

  You brought her human skin to Jwasins. Your sister plucked three feathers from your raven body. Her price seemed small compared with saving your Otter Woman from extinction. Such a quiet spell. Once the Otter Woman put on her human skin again, she could never take it off. The last words the Otter Woman hissed at you were a curse. She passed her fury on to her children, and they to their grandchildren, and then to their great-grandchildren. The moment she turned from you freezes like a scratched DVD. You believed you were doing the right thing.

  Your son is friends with her descendants. The tall, pretty Otter Woman named Neeka is dating your son’s cousin. When Jared was missing, Neeka and Maggie sat on Mave’s balcony, heads together, plotting.

  Forgive me. Please, forgive me.

  15

  HAIR OF THE DOG

  Mave always kept a bottle of vodka in her freezer. It was gone. Also gone were assorted red wines and some token whites that used to be stored in the pantry. Even the bourbon-filled chocolates a grateful poet had given her for editing his chapbook that she’d forgotten in the back of her baking supplies cupboard. Gone. He wasn’t interested in going on a bender, but he did need something to cut the pain, the shakes, the cramping. Dry as the fucking Sahara. Sneaking around in the half-light of early morning, half-awake and already looking for ways not to face the world. Tippytoeing through the tulips.

  There were liquor stores all up and down Commercial Drive, the Drive, where he was currently living, at least until the coy wolves came. Mave’s apartment was filled with sleeping people. Sarah in Mave’s room, Mave in his, Justice on the couch. He’d slept in Mave’s bed too, and woke up to Sarah’s back, confused. Wondering if they’d hooked up. Sometime during the night, someone had changed him into Power Ranger pyjamas. Why? Did they think he’d be too embarrassed to go outside with them on? They didn’t understand need. Also, where did they find them in his size?

  No one was awake to stop him. He could go out and find himself a party. He’d done it before; he could do it again. He could go through their purses. He could steal some knick-knacks no one would miss and pawn them.

  Nausea. Intense, racking nausea. He went and sat on the edge of the tub, waiting for the vomit that never came. He was sweating, even though the apartment was cool.

  Things he didn’t want to remember crept back.

  Lost it, lost his lunch, so to speak, in the toilet. No organs, at least.

  He hung on the toilet seat then slid to the floor.

  Jared knew what he was in for, knew it bone deep. Couple of days of feeling as if he had the worst flu in the world, of knowing that relief was only a beer away. Then, after the withdrawal, the raw, wide-open sobriety. Feeling skinned alive, nothing but nerve ends.

  He wasn’t in it to win it. He’d stay sober long enough to make sure his mom lived, Mave lived, Sarah lived. If he could. He’d had a future, but now it was gone and all he had left was protecting the people who were still alive. He couldn’t do that from the bottom of a case of beer.

  Once it was all over, he’d obliterate himself. Drink till there was nothing left and his organs ran away to escape the sinking ship, those rats.

  Not exactly a winning strategy, as his mom would say.

  He was here to yell if anyone came near Mave. That’s it. That’s all. Over and out. Like a dog tied up in the yard. Bark, bark.

  “You okay?” Mave said from the bathroom doorway.

  He gave her two thumbs up. Tried not to be sarcastic about it. If sarcasm was a weapon that could kill people, he’d be Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, feared, rolling over everyone. But really, sarcasm was just another dysfunctional coping mechanism he’d picked up and he couldn’t get off the bathroom floor, much less contribute to a fight.

  “Want a coffee?” she said.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice raspy.

  * * *

  —

  Mave did not understand the headache he had. She kept chatting as if he could hear her through his splitting skull. Light chatter. Chit-chat. She followed him back to his bedroom. He crawled into bed and pulled the blanke
ts over his head. Eventually, she left and came back with two Tylenol and an Ativan, bugging him until he pulled the blanket down.

  “Just sleep through it,” she insisted.

  He took the two Tylenol and left the Ativan.

  “Don’t be a martyr,” she said.

  Not up to words anymore. The trick is not to replace one addiction with another. That is the trick. He’d been a party dude in his day, with access to everything he wanted through his mom and Richie. Even sex was a dim pleasure compared with being bombed, buzzed. But he still used it to avoid the work. Flight delay. Flying the friendly skies. Words. Sarcasm.

  “It’s there if you need it,” Mave said.

  * * *

  —

  Drifting, he remembered. The ocean had heaved around them, whitecaps, brisk salt air. He and his mom and dad were down the Douglas Channel one weekend, on a boat borrowed from his dad’s work buddy, a thirty-foot pleasure craft, an older model with cream-coloured fibreglass and seventies-orange seats that doubled as flotation cushions, reeking of mildew. Jared had no sea legs and spent the first bit lying on the bunk. He finally felt well enough to fish and his line tugged the second he cast it in the water. His dad reeled it in for him. A steelhead as tall as Jared, heavy, monstrous.

  “Club it!” his mom yelled as it thrashed on deck.

  This was the year before things fell apart. Before his dad wrecked his back in an accident and went on painkillers. Before he found Shirley and left Maggie. Before the mill closed.

  Phil bonked the steelhead with a fish club a couple of times and then cleaned it because Jared was nauseous again. His mom had been irritated that Jared wasn’t manning up.

  “You let him get away with murder,” she’d said to Phil.

  After the divorce, he’d slept in his mom’s bed when she didn’t have a boyfriend. Only now, looking back, did Jared realize what that meant: she needs people as much as he does. She hides it better. But behind closed doors, she’d spooned him on her bed well past the time they should be spooning, well past the time it was normal or healthy. Fine, it wasn’t as though she’d breast-fed him, but he hadn’t thought about what that meant until now, when Mave was constantly coming in to fuss, adjusting his blankets, bringing him water, touching his forehead. Things his mother didn’t have the patience for.

  She did kill for him. Otters, people, coy wolves. The particular way she showed love: ending people who wanted to end him.

  Logistically, he didn’t have to juice to fart, much less bring anyone else to another universe. Emotionally? Bark, bark. He was a little dog in a world of wolves. Coy wolves, angry hybrids.

  “Thanks, Mave,” he said as she brought him soup he had no intention of eating.

  Wanting her out of the room but not dead. Willing to be sober long enough to see her on her merry way before he went his.

  * * *

  —

  Kota showed up and sat on the desk chair. No smart remarks or greetings. Didn’t pull out his phone. Didn’t ask if he needed anything. Mave came in with another glass of water.

  “Can you get him to take this Ativan? He’s not listening to me.”

  “Aunt Mave,” Kota said. “That shit’s more addictive than booze.”

  “My doctor gave it to me for panic attacks. It’s just something that calms you down. It’ll help him sleep through this.”

  “How many did your doc give you?”

  “Six. I can get more.”

  “He only gave you the six because they are as addictive as hell. It’s like you’re trying to give Jared meth.”

  Silence. Then Mave frowned. “Maybe we can get him to a dry-out.”

  “He’s not that bad.”

  “He’s suffering.”

  “Mave,” Jared said. “I’m fine.”

  “See?” Kota said. “Besides, there’s waiting lists. There’s hoops to jump through. By the time he gets into rehab, he’ll be dried out and getting his next one-year chip.”

  “You aren’t fine. Maybe we should bring him to emergency.”

  “No,” Jared said.

  “Aunt Mave, give your bottle of Ativan to Justice to keep at her place. Now.”

  “But he might need it.”

  “When the cravings hit, you get tired and you get weak and you’re making it easy for him to slip.”

  “Oh,” she said, meeting Jared’s eyes.

  “Take a break,” Jared said. “Go for a walk. It’s just something I need to get through. I like it that you care. I’m just…I…need some space to feel shitty without worrying that you’re worried.”

  Mave nodded. She reached over and smoothed Jared’s blanket. “I’ll be back.”

  “Love you,” Jared said.

  “Love you more,” she said.

  Kota waited until Mave left the room before he rolled his eyes so hard Jared thought they’d disappear. Sarah came in a few minutes later.

  “Mave’s taking us out to dinner,” she said. “Want anything?”

  Jared shook his head and then added, mind to mind: Don’t leave her.

  I won’t.

  “Want anything, Kota?” Sarah said.

  “A single beef patty and a garden salad, no dressing.”

  “Got it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Later.”

  He heard Mave and Sarah laughing as they got ready. The blow-dryer whirring. Quiet music playing in Mave’s bedroom. Traffic humming outside. People on the sidewalk.

  After they left, Kota asked if he would be okay while he smoked on the balcony. Jared nodded. Time passed. Hours or seconds. Kota returned and sat in the desk chair, not looking at him, not checking his phone, not sighing with impatience or trying to get him to eat or drink. Kota stared off as if he was in a movie and someone had given his character bad news and he was hurt but taking it bravely. A part of Jared that had been tensed eased. He could be a miserable lump without any pressure to pretend he wasn’t one.

  Eventually, Jared went to the bathroom and Kota went for another smoke while he peed. They both reassumed their positions.

  “You can dry out at my place if you want,” Kota said.

  “It’s almost over,” Jared said.

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

  “Bad habit.”

  “Yeah. They mean well.”

  “I know.”

  * * *

  —

  Day two was worse and he didn’t care if he was making anyone feel bad. He breathed and that was all anyone was going to get from him.

  * * *

  —

  On the third day of dry-out, my headache brought to me: blinding spasm flashes, throat-aching cravings and fear. In a treeeeee.

  * * *

  —

  That night, he asked for his own pyjamas back and Mave handed him an adult-sized Buzz Lightyear set, both the loose pants and top too big for him, crackling with static from the plastic they came in.

  “Seriously?” Jared said, holding the top up to his chest.

  “It’ll be easier to find you if you take off running again,” Mave said. “ ‘Yes, excuse me, have you seen a teenager, yay high, black hair, brown eyes, devastatingly handsome, Indigenous, and, oh, wearing Buzz Lightyear pyjamas?’ ”

  “Way to respect my dignity.”

  “Yay!” Mave said, clapping. “Your first sarcastic remark. You must be on the mend.”

  “Even Mom isn’t this mean.”

  “I’m ruthless,” Mave said. “Your mom is a pussycat.”

  * * *

  —

  “Crashpad says hi,” Sarah said, sitting at the desk, staring at her phone.

  “Hi to Crashpad,” Jared said.

  “He’s coming down in November to visit universities with his mom. Wants to know if he can take you out for your bi
rthday.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Jared said, his agreement automatic, the smarter part of his brain realizing that he might not make it, but no use in alarming people.

  * * *

  —

  On day five, Kota and Justice didn’t come over and Mave retreated to her room to tackle writing her novel again. Sarah’s new cellphone pinged, and after she checked her message, Jared felt a hum from her, a tightening.

  “What?” Jared said.

  “Hmm?” Sarah said, playing dumb.

  “Spit it out,” Jared said. You broadcast like me when you’re scared.

  “Your mom’s found a splinter group from the coy wolves’ compound. They’re up in Abbotsford on a farm.”

  “How many?”

  “Sixteen.” Sarah grimaced then reluctantly added, “Your mom thinks we may need help.”

  “From who?”

  Sarah stared at her phone. They both waited for another message, but none came.

  16

  THE SELF-SERVE CHECKOUT COUNTER DOES NOT JUDGE

  Jared turned the oven on. Mave had cake mixes in the cupboard and some pre-made vanilla frosting, which Mrs. Jaks had loathed. She would have wanted him to make everything from scratch, saying the quality of your ingredients means something and that cheap oils and bland sweetness make your bake generic. You might as well go buy your desserts, she would have said if she was here, a lecture she’d given him many times. When he’d started making pot cookies, he’d gone to her for advice and she’d been so pleased. They’d spent the afternoon baking batches and batches, the kitchen warm and filled with the aroma of chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven, all vanilla and sugar. Mr. Jaks had tested each batch at the kitchen table, rattling off his comments in Czech.

  Jared chose the Betty Crocker Cherry Chocolate Chip cake mix then sifted it through a metal sieve. He added an extra egg and vanilla pudding and the package of chips from the box. While the cupcakes baked, he brought out cooling racks and brought the butter out of the fridge to warm on the counter. He was rooting around when he found a jar of freeze-dried strawberries. He chopped them small, then crushed them between parchment paper. Mave didn’t have any heavy cream, but she did have a can of evaporated milk. The oven timer dinged and he brought out the cupcakes to cool. He was mixing the strawberries in with the frosting when Mave stumbled out of her bedroom in her Canucks pyjamas.