Up Ghost River

by Edmund Metatawabin

  The next day Bill left a note on my door that he wanted to meet me one-on-one. I was already late for the AA meeting, but I stopped by his office on the way there.

  “Sorry about what happened with Trish yesterday,” he said. “There’s a lot going on. Sometimes things get out of hand.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “You didn’t fill in all of your form,” he said.

  “Which part?”

  “Question thirteen. ‘What were the triggers for you wanting to drink alcohol/use drugs?’ ”

  “It’s difficult to say,” I said.

  “Difficult how?”

  “I’m not sure which one to write down.”

  “Why don’t you write down all of them?”

  “All?” I asked hesitantly. There were some things in my past that I didn’t think I could talk about.

  He looked at me dubiously. “You know, Ed, we stress total honesty here.”

  “Yeah. I know.” I looked at him. He had the same tone as Brother Goulet when he was lecturing boys about why they deserved the electric chair, and it was making it hard to concentrate.

  “It helps with the healing process,” Bill said.

  “Healing process …” I repeated faintly.

  His eyes narrowed. “I want you to go to AA now. When you’ve finished we can talk over question thirteen.”

  I left his office and went to AA, dazed. It felt like someone else had stepped into my body and taken over. I was so confused that I got lost on the way and arrived a few minutes late. I stuck my head in the room where I thought the meeting was supposed to be, but it didn’t look right and made me feel dizzy.

  “Why did you move the chairs?” I asked. They weren’t in a circle anymore, but in rows so we were all facing the blackboard like at St. Anne’s.

  “It’s easier for the exercise,” Barb said, one hand on her hip. “Come in, you’re late.”

  The AA 12 Steps were written on the board. Barb read number three aloud: “Made a decision to surrender our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” She asked if we were ready for the Lord to take us. If we were ready to surrender to a Superior Being.

  I looked at the board, specifically the word “surrender.” Pa had talked about that word. He said the Indians had surrendered their land to the white man who had moved us to the reserves. We had surrendered our culture and our way of being so that we wouldn’t be killed and didn’t starve. And then Ma had surrendered me to Father Lavois so that I became a ward of the church-state partnership that ran the residential schools. Then I had surrendered to Mike.

  I looked back at Barb. She was dressed all in black, just like a nun’s habit. Her face shifted and I saw Sister Wesley’s face on top of her body. She was looking at me. There was vomit on the floor. She was going to make me lick it up.

  “Where are you going?” Sister Wesley asked.

  “Please!” I begged.

  “Please what?”

  “Please don’t make me, Sister!”

  “Sister?” she said.

  “Please, Sister Wesley!”

  “It’s Barb.”

  “Who?”

  “Barb.” In front of me was a forty-something woman with red hair.

  “Where am I?”

  “At the addiction centre.” I looked at her again. She was wearing the nun’s habit. Was it her or Sister Wesley? Maybe they were lying. They did that. Wanted to catch you out.

  “Please. Miss. Please. Please can I leave?”

  “What for?”

  “Please. Please … I’m … I’m going to be sick.”

  She looked at me dubiously. “Fine. Go and see Dr. Wozechowski.”

  I hurried out the door and went to the toilets. I tried to vomit for a while. Nothing came up. I washed my mouth and face, and went outside to search for the Standing Ones. Beside the centre there was a picnic table and some grass. A man was having a smoke.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said, offering me a cigarette. I looked at him. He looked too old to be at St. Anne’s.

  “Who are you?”

  “Maurice. Remember?”

  “Maurice?”

  “Yeah buddy. Maurice from Wahta Mohawk First Nation. We met a few days ago.”

  “We did?”

  He put his arm on my shoulder. “Hey brother. Come on. Calm down. Just breathe.” We stayed like that for a few minutes.

  “I know you,” I said at last.

  “You sure do.”

  “It’s Maurice, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Sorry ’bout that.”

  “It’s fine. What happened? Barb not floating your boat?”

  “Not too keen on these classroom exercises,” I replied. “They remind me of residential school.”

  “Flashbacks. We all get ’em. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “Mine are mainly at night.”

  “What happens?”

  “Oh you know,” he said. “All the people I’ve let down come back to tell me that I fucked up. How disappointed they are.”

  “How do you deal with them?”

  “I just try to let them pass. Go through me.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “I dunno. Sometimes I count.”

  “Count?”

  “Yeah. You know. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Then I imagine a big stop sign.”

  “And that works?”

  “It does for me.”

  —

  On the day before I was scheduled to leave the centre, Bill came up to me.

  “Ed,” he said. “Can I speak to you in private?”

  We walked to an empty therapy room and he shut the door.

  “Did I do something wrong?” I asked.

  “No. You were great.”

  “So why are we in here?”

  “I’m worried about you. I think you should consider staying longer.”

  “What for?”

  “Well, last week you got confused in Barb’s class and we still haven’t talked about question thirteen.”

  “I made it through,” I said.

  “Making it through isn’t the point. It’s about giving you the coping skills to manage outside.”

  “One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just something I learned while I was here.”

  “Look, we can’t force you to stay against your will. But the other counsellors and I have some serious concerns.”

  “About me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re just not sure you’re ready.”

  “I’m good. I really need to get back. My wife is alone with our three kids. I need to try to get my job back. Or get a new one.” I realized that Don probably didn’t want me back.

  “But if you don’t deal with things thoroughly you’ll be right back where you started. Trust me. I’ve seen this before.”

  “I know you are trying to help but I’ve learned a lot while I’m here. Coping skills. Boundaries. And I did some hard thinking about my triggers. And about being more honest. I’ve got it covered.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Okay, Ed.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Steve and I flew back to Toronto together, and he gave me a lift to Peterborough. He’d been sober for more than a month, but he said that he still got the cravings. I asked him what he was going back to.

  “Well, not much.”

  I nodded. He’d told me in rehab that he’d lost his job in sales before he’d checked himself into the clinic. Said that he wanted to get his job back and then his wife. He thought it was possible. He just had to stay clean.

  “You going to the daily meetings?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna try. You?”

  “Yeah. Ninety in ninety, right?”

  That was the magic number. Ninety meetings in ninety days. It was the mantra chanted by all our AA counsellors, th
e one that ex-addicts came and spoke to us about. It felt like a distant star, impossible to reach.

  “You gonna be okay for money?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said. Then I remembered the “absolute honesty” piece of AA and I said, “Actually, I have no idea. I’m trying not to worry about it. I just want to go to as many meetings as possible. I’m hoping to get my job back. And … if that doesn’t work, then … I don’t know. Go back home to Fort Albany, I guess.”

  “I guess.”

  He dropped me off at my house and told me to get in touch with Brian. I’d never met this guy, but apparently, he’d been through the same program, and was supposed to be my sponsor. I promised I would.

  I unlocked the door. I could see that Joan hadn’t been here much, because it was dusty. I walked down the hall to our bedroom. She still hadn’t taken all her clothes, and I went through her tops, inhaling them. The scent of laundry soap, but her smell lingering, which made me feel less alone. I walked to the kitchen table and wrote her a letter.

  “Thanks for agreeing to see me,” I said. I had rented a car and driven to Wilberforce to pick her up. It was too cold to do much of anything and besides, neither of us had any money, so we were sitting in front of Buckskin Lake looking at the snow-covered frozen water. It was the first time I had spoken to Joan since she left.

  “It was a good letter.”

  “What did you like about it?”

  “That you were honest. You did hurt me. A lot. I’m glad you owned up to it.”

  “I know it’s been hard for you.”

  She laughed. “That would be an understatement.”

  “Very hard,” I said.

  “You took me for granted.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You embarrassed me in front of my parents.”

  “Yes I did.”

  “You fooled around with that girl.”

  “Yes I did.”

  “While I’m at home, taking care of our three kids.”

  “Yes,” I said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “I was drunk and messed up.”

  “That doesn’t explain it.”

  “I know.” I told her then about being called disgusting at school. A dirty savage. Feeling ashamed of my body. About drinking to gain confidence. “I tried to be open. I tried to do the right thing. But it just never worked out.”

  “Why not, Ed?”

  “It was too hard. So I started to wear the mask.”

  “What mask?”

  “The face that everyone else wanted to see.”

  “What face does everyone want to see?”

  “Everyone wants to see something different. I felt like I had to go along with it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I didn’t want to go to St. Anne’s but I had to. It was what all the kids did. And then when I was there I felt that I had to hollow myself out. To be the face that watched but felt and said nothing.”

  “How so?” I told her then about watching Amocheesh being electrocuted.

  “God, that’s so awful.”

  “During the school holidays, when I returned home, I had to swallow my anger and pretend that nothing had happened. Pretend like I didn’t care that they just sent me back there. I felt they had betrayed me. Then …” I paused.

  “Then what, Ed?”

  “Then I was in foster care and there was no one to turn to even when …” The words “Mike raped me” resounded in my head. I blushed and they caught in my throat. I would tell her at another time. “… when bad things happened.” I paused to let the shame of the memory pass. “It made me feel alone. And I thought that feeling was going to stay with me forever. Then I met you. You made me feel that I was worth something.”

  “So why did you treat me like dirt?”

  “Because if you were cruel to me that would prove I was right all along. I would get what I thought I deserved.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Ed.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. I just thought I’d tell you, that’s all.”

  We said goodbye soon after that. She said she needed time to think.

  NINETEEN

  “How’s the recovery going?” Don asked. We were sitting in his office.

  “It’s good. My sponsor Brian has been helping me stay focused. And I’ve done lots of thinking.”

  “You know I can’t let you anywhere near the students if there’s a danger of a relapse.”

  “I know. I’m totally sober.”

  He stared at me. “Getting sober is the easy bit. It’s staying sober that’s hard.”

  “One day at a time,” I said, repeating one of the phrases they’d taught us at AA.

  “And what are your alternative coping mechanisms? How are you going to manage under high stress without alcohol?”

  “I’m trying to let those feelings pass through me.” I told him about Maurice’s coping technique.

  “Is that working?”

  “Yes. It’s been great.”

  “Maybe this isn’t the best job for you.”

  I stared at him, feeling crushed. “What do you mean?”

  “Well … dealing with abuse. You know, that sort of stuff. It can be hard for people with … difficult pasts.” I wondered how much of my story he’d guessed.

  “It has been hard. But I think a lot of it was to do with not establishing boundaries. We learned a lot about them in AA.”

  “How so?”

  “It was hard for me to set them before. I’m much better now.”

  “I see,” he said. “How’s Joan?”

  “She’s good.” I told him about driving to Wilberforce to take care of the kids and give her a break. “I’m trying not to get my hopes up. She’s still …” My soulmate, I thought. “I still love her. But I can’t undo all I’ve done. I just have to live this day right. Be good to her today. And then we’ll see.”

  So I continued driving to Wilberforce to help take care of the kids, and after a while Joan wanted to know what compromises I was prepared to make if she agreed to move back in. I didn’t have much to offer other than my time and love: I was broke and out of work.

  Then Ma called a few weeks later, and told me that after an eight-year wait, a new house had become available in Fort Albany. She knew that there had been some kind of problem with my job, and that we’d had a hard time, and said she’d keep an eye out. If we wanted it, it could be ours. I called Joan with the news.

  “I know it’s a long shot, and I don’t deserve it, but I thought you should know.”

  “I know. Your ma called me too.” Joan and Ma had gotten closer over the years.

  “She did?”

  “Yes. She said that she would look after the kids if I wanted to go back to work.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. I’ve wanted to for some time.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “I know you didn’t know.”

  “I made a lot of mistakes.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Then we went hiking together, just the two of us. We drove up to Chemong Lake, north of Peterborough, and went bird watching. The burr oak and black ash were opening to spring, the first tender shoots of green. We saw some blue jays bouncing up on a cedar tree, singing woo-oh, woo-uh.

  “That’s funny,” Joan said. “It sounds like they’re courting, but it’s pretty early, isn’t it?” It was only April, and they didn’t usually look for mates until May.

  “Maybe they’re following my lead.”

  “You’re terrible,” she said, and mock-punched me. I felt elated. She was laughing at my jokes again.

  We were back at my parents’ house in Fort Albany, sleeping on the fold-out bed in the living room until the new place was ready. It didn’t make me or Joan happy, but to have her back in my arms, to have my family close by, well, sometimes you just have to let that other stuff go. Besides, it was only going to be temporary.

&nbs
p; I’d mentioned to Ma and Pa that I’d had some problems with drinking but had left it at that. Pa nodded and didn’t pry, and Ma just squeezed my shoulder and told me she was glad I was home. We Crees try to give people their space.

  We felt summer approaching as our time on the fold-out couch got stickier. A few weeks later, Pa and I got up before everyone else was awake. It was bath night, and in the pickup we had every type of bottle, bucket, jug and bin that we could find in the house. We needed enough water to sponge down seventeen people. We could hardly see out of that cramped truck.

  When we swung around the bend, I glimpsed my friend Kelvin standing on the riverbank, fishing. He waved. We parked in the grass and begun to unload it all. Kelvin came up to ask if we needed a hand. I nodded.

  “Thought you was at Peterborough,” he said.

  “I was.”

  “What happened?”

  “Not much. It was time to come home.”

  “Thought you wanted out of here.”

  “I did. People change,” I said.

  He nodded. “You hear about Erick?”

  “What?” I hadn’t heard anything about Erick since high school.

  “He died in a fire. In Kashechewan.”

  “Oh no. I’m so sorry.” I shook my head. He’d made it through all that at St. Anne’s, and then he was still cut down in the prime of his life. I remembered the time when he’d approached me after accepting the bread from Brother Jutras, and seeing his embarrassment. The pin game that we’d played together in St. Anne’s. Teasing me about Connie, the girl I liked in high school. He was pretty withdrawn at St. Anne’s, but he’d started to come out of his shell in high school. We hadn’t been best friends, but he’d come through for me when I needed it most. I’d hung about with him in our bedroom at the Tekaucs’ after returning from that summer with Mike Pasko. He’d asked me if there was anything wrong. I hadn’t been able to talk, so he had sat beside me, and we’d both stared at the floor. It was comforting. I knew he was trying to help in the only way he knew how. He was like that. Always saw more than he let on. And now, he was dead. It felt unfair. Like we’d been cursed. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know yet. Might be arson or an accident.” Fires were pretty common in reserves around here—a combination of bored teenagers and faulty wiring in our government-issued houses. What made it worse was that there was no fire department.