Early on in the developing confrontation, she was consuming a bowl of soup, watching intently the latest details of the standoff, wondering and fearing where this might tragically lead, then, in the background, hidden by a dozen or so other people of Native heritage, she thought she saw a familiar face. But she couldnt be sure … it had happened too quickly. Too quickly for her to even be sure who it was. She tried, in her head, going down the list of every Native person she knew. Most of those she knew, almost all residents of Otter Lake, would support the Mohawks, but it was unlikely that they would actually relocate and participate in this historic civil disobedience.
The last person on her mental list, of course, was her ex-husband. At one level of her consciousness it made sense, it was the natural progression of his social awareness … Perhaps, Lisa theorized, the road to Oka had started with his growing belief that the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves were racist organizations. But still, another part of her found the prospect of him doing such a rash thing completely unfathomable. This was definitely not the Richard she had married. But the more Lisa thought about it, the more she became convinced that this was indeed her ex, Richard, prowling somewhere in the crowds of Oka. So convinced was she that Lisa dialled a number she hadn’t dialled in months. A number that had once connected her to another life. There was no answer. Frustrated, she tried another number, in the same area code and community. Richard’s mother answered, somewhat surprised to hear a voice she considered gone out of their lives, but polite enough to tell Lisa the news. Lisa’s fears were confirmed. Richard was indeed mingling with the Mohawks. And now her curiosity turned to concern. Yes, they were divorced and hadn’t talked in months, but she had spent eight years living with and loving the man; she knew she didn’t want to see him wounded or dead, the unfortunate victim of a police sniper’s rifle—he hadn’t yet picked his poison. Her hands clenched and her neck started to ache. What was Richard doing there?
In the past week Lisa had done everything a concerned wife—ex-wife—could and would do in a situation like this. She had tried to contact the treatment centre, which seemed to be the central headquarters of everything that was going on. No luck. Same with the band office. It seems they were a little too busy to worry about the rantings of a Caucasian ex-wife of one lone Ojibway amid several dozen, some even said a hundred or so, Native people milling about, apparently ready to explode. All her old friends back in Otter Lake were less help. They were just as surprised at Richard’s actions. And what if she was able to contact Richard: what would she say to her ex-lover?
She wasn’t sure. “Stop. Don’t do what you’re doing. It’s dangerous. Go home.” All the possible statements that came to her seemed silly. Ineffectual. Even downright melodramatic. Especially considering she was no longer really part of his life. So, seemingly impotent, she was reduced to watching television. Sometimes three or four channels at a time, trying to perfect the highest channels-per-minute ratio she could devise while slowly destroying the channel changer in her hand. She even called in sick three times that week, putting her employment at the daycare centre in danger, especially considering she’d been working there for less than a month.
Did she still love him? Was that the reason she watched the television coverage so feverishly? Possibly, even probably. Lisa had never stopped loving him, she had just stopped being in love with him. A big and distinct difference, but these things happen. She’d even read it in a newspaper article. Still, would every ex-wife spend hours, days even, watching the television in the almost hopeless attempt to catch glimpses of her one-time husband? Unlikely. Maybe different forces, other than simple concern, were at work here, ones that she refused to recognize. If he walked out of Oka today and into her new apartment, would she take him back? Improbable, even unlikely. But there was definitely something about those faint glimpses, those fleeting and maddening images of him, somewhere on the other side of the insanity.
Maybe it was her own heritage that was making itself felt. The Irish were known for their obsessive behaviour. Look at their own intense connection to the lowly potato. And summing up her life to that point, here was a woman of Irish descent eagerly watching an Aboriginal uprising on television, praying she could grab a peek of her ex-husband somewhere in the multitudes. She’d combined the two heritages and become a couch potato. Her own bizarre and dark mental comparison made her laugh out loud. Alone in her apartment. With a cold cup of tea sitting on the coffee table. Beside a second one.
Several times Lisa told herself she was being silly. Nothing she was doing was helping the situation. It was possible to go to work and get on with her life, and still care about what was happening to Richard … Richard who hated camping. Not showering on a daily basis. Confrontation. Again, she asked herself, what was Richard doing there?
And most recently, the Canadian army had been called in. Lisa wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not. Yet another potential match lit near the powder keg, or possibly the famed Canadian peacekeepers might actually be able to keep the peace. She had an uncle who had been in the army years ago, the famous Van Doos, in fact. The stories he had told Lisa about his service had been tales of valour, brotherhood, patriotism. Yet there was something definitely ominous about this development.
The army now encircled the whole community, severely restricting anybody and anything that wanted to cross yet another imaginary line imposed on the Native people by representatives of the government. And that imaginary circle kept getting smaller and smaller, gradually choking the life out of the community, like a noose. There was a palpable tension in the air, like a bad smell; a rumour that at some point, the Mohawks and their allies would try to push that line back. After all, one spokesperson said, that’s what this whole thing is about. “Being pushed beyond a reasonable limit.”
According to some of the things Donnelly had told her, relations between Aboriginal people and cops were often a tempestuous affair. Years ago she thought just maybe he had been exaggerating things. And sometimes he would say things to playfully provoke her. Now she wasn’t so sure. She had seen things in recent weeks that had puzzled, then scared her. Now Lisa could only imagine what the army had brought into the whole damn thing. This was Canada, these things weren’t supposed to happen here! Tanks on streets, rows and rows of guns facing one another, barricades … She couldn’t help wondering if this would help or hurt the separatist cause currently making the rounds yet again in la belle province. It seemed everybody was angry with everybody.
Reflex action made her leg knock over one of the cold cups of tea when the phone rang. Very few people knew her new number, other than those at work. Lisa’s divorce and relocation had cost her quite a few of her and Richard’s former friends, and with the new job, and the Oka crisis, she had had precious little time to carve out a new social scene. They were running some background footage on the television, stuff she’d already seen a dozen times, and Richard wasn’t in any of the shots, so she answered the phone.
“Hello. Lisa speaking.” She thought she could hear wind in the background. Who’d be calling her from a pay phone?
“Lisa? It’s Richard.”
With those three words, her present life, her past life, and the events in a far-off small community merged within the confines of her brain with a sudden thud that racked her body. It was Richard. She recognized the voice. And he had called her. Why?
She struggled to respond, again fearful of sounding silly or confused.
“Richard … Why … What … You phoned me … ”
No luck this time.
“I called home. They said you were trying to get a hold of me. I guess you’ve heard that I’m at Kahnesatake.”
In her mind’s eye she could see him standing at a phone booth, no doubt one of those damned cigarettes in his right hand, his left cradling the phone. He sounded tired but was probably as nervous as she was. A life that was once together, then torn apart, can make small talk kind of difficult. Lisa chose her next words ca
refully.
“Richard, what are you doing there? This is so out of character for you. You might get hurt. Or worse.” She had found her phone voice again. Lisa could hear him taking a drag from the cigarette, and before he could respond, she blurted out, “And you’ve started smoking again. Do you want to kill yourself?” There was a pause, then a hearty, familiar staccato laugh. Then it occurred to her what she had said. It was her turn to laugh. They laughed together, for the first time in many months. And it felt good. The uncomfortable part of the past year seemed to drain away.
“No, I don’t want to kill myself, but thank you for asking. They’re light cigarettes. That should count for something … ” He paused, then added as an afterthought, “ … Mom.” Again she laughed, the tension of the last week easing up.
“Are you okay?”
Lisa could almost see him nodding as he responded. “Haven’t slept much in weeks. Between the helicopters, the loudspeakers and bullhorns, sirens … this is a very noisy place. I’d kill for some earplugs. I’ve had a headache since the whole thing began. But the funny thing is the trees look so quiet and calm … That’s the contradiction in this place. Could sure use some clean clothes too, but other than that, and more frequent showers … I’m surviving. Is that why you phoned?”
“No, I want to know why the hell you’re there.” Direct and to the point. “That’s a good question. Been thinking about that myself. You find you have plenty of reflecting time while looking over a barbed wire fence. And I think I’ve come up with a good answer.” For a moment the sound of his voice was drowned out by a whoosh of sound that flooded across the phone lines. It was like a gush of white noise, making her cringe. “Richard? Richard! What was that? Are you there?”
The sound quickly receded. “Yeah, sorry, that was a chopper going overhead. Occupational hazard around here. There are choppers, APCS, tanks, you wouldn’t believe the stuff that’s happening here. Your tax money at work.”
“Quit trying to be funny. There are guns pointed at you.”
“Yeah, I noticed. It’s not the Bahamas, that’s for sure. I remember the days when getting our taxes in on time was my big worry. But don’t fret about me. I’m exactly where I want to be, Lisa.”
“This has something to do with Donnelly, doesn’t it?” she asked.
Somewhere in the background, she could hear voices. Men talking. A woman nearby laughing. All that was missing was the sound of children playing and it would be like Otter Lake. But it wasn’t like Otter Lake. This was Oka, and there was a dead police officer, and several hundred guns, half of them pointed in her ex-husband’s direction.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay. That’s all. Divorce or no divorce, that’s allowed, isn’t it?” No response. “Hello, Richard … ?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Look, I can’t talk long. There’s not enough phones around here, so there’s a lineup. And we think they’re tapped anyways. Lisa, I’m here because I want to be here. I want to make a difference. Recently I’ve had trouble convincing myself that I can do that in a bank. Granted, all I’m doing here is making big pots of soup. But it’s something. It makes me feel good. And I know Donnelly would have been happy.”
“Yes, Donnelly would. But you’re not Donnelly. You’re Richard. I saw what they did to that Spudwrench guy. They beat that warrior to a pulp. I saw it on television, Richard. You’re in danger. Get the hell out of there.”
Richard was silent. “I know. His real name is Randy Horne and he’s a good guy. He didn’t deserve what happened to him. None of these people do. Most of the people here are expecting to die here, Lisa. You can feel the fear here, and the anger. I can’t walk out. Yes, I’m scared. I don’t think the SQ or the army know the difference between a Mohawk and an Ojibway, and I don’t think they’d bother to ask. But that doesn’t change anything.”
Lisa was running out of arguments. Richard wasn’t listening to reason. “Richard … ”
“I don’t think I ever told you this, but a long time ago, I was supposed to be called Donnelly originally. And he was supposed to be Richard. When he was three, our parents changed his name to Donnelly.”
This definitely was news to Lisa, but she was still unsure how that fit into the whole picture of what was happening on television and in their lives. “No, I didn’t know that. But what—?”
“My parents had decided to name him Richard after my mother’s father, because he was sick and she wanted him to know, out of respect, that his name was passed down to their first-born. But, surprise, he got better, and my other grandfather started getting sick. It looked unlikely that my mother would have any more children so, boom, a decision was made to change my brother’s name to Donnelly while my father’s father was still alive, and then figure out what to do afterwards. But two months after he died, my mother got pregnant with me, and they decided to avoid all the paperwork and just name me Richard, Her father didn’t mind, as long as somebody had his name. Quite a story, huh?”
Somewhere out there in what she considered the darkness of Richard’s logic, Lisa struggled to find a light that would show her the way. But it eluded her. Instead, she grew more confused as the explanation evolved.
“Donnelly would have been here. He was a better Indian than I am.”
“It’s not a contest,” she answered harshly. She didn’t like the direction this conversation was going in.
“No, it’s not. It’s life. And life is better than death. You’re either part of the problem or part of the solution, as the saying goes.”
“And being part of the solution involves making soup and having guns pointed at you? There have got to be other solutions. There are always alternatives. Don’t let Donnelly kill you.” She was practically yelling at the television.
Again silence and the far-off sound of a police siren. “Don’t worry. He won’t. He’ll keep me alive. And … there are other reasons … ”
His continuing vagueness was upsetting her. “What kind of other reasons can justify you walking into a war zone?! There are people who care for you, you know.”
“Yes, I know. I know that very much. But I’m just way too tired to get into all this.”
“You’ve never touched a gun in your life. You haven’t even been in a fist fight since high school. There are other people who can do this! People who know how to fight for their causes. Richard … you know you’re out of place there.” Her tone softened. She really did care, it seemed, more than an ex-wife should.
Again, male voices in the background. Wind across the receiver. And finally Richard again. “Thank you. But there are things happening here that don’t involve you. If you were here, you’d understand.”
“Richard—” she began.
“Goodbye, Lisa.” And with that, he hung up. The finality of the phone click startled her. The Richard she knew was gone. All she was left with was a dial tone, and Peter Mansbridge on the television. Without thinking, she returned the phone to its base and leaned back on the couch, trying to make sense of what had just happened. There were motivations in Richard’s mind that she couldn’t fathom. And she didn’t know what to do …
Part of Lisa wanted to jump in her Passat and drive into the next province, and try to shake some sense into him, though her conscious mind told her she’d have a heck of a time making it through the police barricades. Another part of her mind wondered if she really wanted to do that, or was it just an impulsive reaction: a sense that she needed to save him, like a mother protecting a son. He did, after all, jokingly refer to her as “Mom.” Maybe she should just turn off the television and go to bed.
Nothing in the world, or at least in her world, could change what had happened, and what was happening. And as her mother used to say, “A good night’s sleep can solve a lot of problems.”
Then, just as quickly as Richard’s phone call had ended, she saw him once again. He was walking in the distance, toward the general direction of the camera. But somebody was with him, walking beside him. A woman. A Na
tive woman. And he was holding hands with her.
She used the last of the energy in the battery to turn the television off.
Other Books by Drew Hayden Taylor
Dead White Writer On the Floor
NEWS: Postcards From the Four Directions
The Berlin Blues
In a World Created By a Drunken God
400 Kilometres
The Buz’Gem Blues
The Boy in The Treehouse / Girl Who Loved Her Horses
alterNatives
The Baby Blues
Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth
About Talonbooks
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Talonbooks is a small, independent, Canadian book publishing company. We have been publishing works of the highest literary merit since the 1960s. With nearly 500 books in print, we offer drama, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction by local playwrights, poets, and authors from the mainstream and margins of Canada’s three founding nations, as well as both visible and invisible minorities within Canada’s cultural mosaic.
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Copyright © 2008 Drew Hayden Taylor
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