Birdie

by Tracey Lindberg

  And she had responded in kind. Bruising his shoulders, scraping his back. She had thought it was love and had given in to that part of herself that wanted to be hurt. And that piece of the hope of something bigger, something loving, turned into a kernel of something indescribably hard. She wonders now how desperate she must have been to accept that ugly gift and return it. To have felt aroused at the near-beating. At that moment, she began to reject and loathe that thing in her that needed to be hit, hard. And she knew within that fury that she hated him, too. For introducing it so glibly. For making her a one-time offer.

  That last night, as her legs got wobblier and her head fuzzier, she began to crave regular, to unkink herself. She undid her shirt to her navel, small brown breasts peeking out every time she almost fell off her chair. She spread her legs lasciviously on the barstool in an open invitation to all the normal men at Cowboys. The man she ended up with was surprised by her lack of responsiveness, and why not, put off by her prudishness.

  “Gimme your phone number,” she had cried in the middle of the night to the long-empty room.

  She showed up at Cowboys for the next four weekends, hoped not to see Wes, prayed that he would show up. And hated herself for needing him. Needing it. Again. Still.

  She started wearing stretchy pants again then, wears them to this day, with long sweaters and vivid tops and high heels with the skinniest of heels. It is almost too hot for her clothes in Gibsons, in a week or two she will have to think about shorts and T-shirts. Possibly, she could wear those new tops of Bernice’s if her cousin doesn’t take a liking to them. Or. Doesn’t. She walks into the heat of the bakery, muttering. “Pilsner and Cheezies. Jesus Christ.”

  She sometimes thinks that she was raised by good women and educated by less than good men. Bernice was one of those good women. She took care of Freda, made sure doors were locked, that Freda had a ride, that she got out safe. Her cousin protected Freda from the uncles. Without knowing that Freda was doubly in jeopardy, more at risk for an unkind life than even Bernice. She loves her cousin dearly for protecting her, even without knowing the uncles’ particular interest in her.

  Pausing at the doorframe, she is sure she hears that crazy fat wheezing cook in the storefront of the bakery. She looks around, sees Lola sitting in the front window, staring, and goes to look at the ovens. There are pies in the new oven and bread in the old one – it gets and stays hot faster and is better for the loaves that seem to multiply in it. There is an odd smell in the bread oven, something familiar mingles with something she recognizes but does not know well. It smells like the ceremony soup. Iskwesisihkan.* And something else. Tamarind? She doesn’t know the taste, but the smell is like something she tried at one of those Indian buffets Birdie sometimes made her go to. She goes to ask Lola about it, thinks better of it and heads up the stairs, careful not to alert her cousin to her presence. She feels guilty about her stealth. Rather, she thinks she should feel guilty about her stealth. Not wanting to face Bernice or Lola with all of this Wes around her, she hits the top of the stairs. Stops. Gathers herself and walks in to see her cousin. Valene had driven to the city hours ago, telling Lola and Freda she was “getting Birdie’s groceries.” The big woman had a list in her hand and determination in her eye as she walked out the door. Freda knew better than to say anything, but suspects the list was not her aunt’s. But Bernice’s. Which is ridiculous. But it has been a while since she believed in reason, anyhow.

  * Barley.

  Bernice is on her side, facing away from the door. Her breath is regular, but a bit ragged at the end. Freda feels something heavy in her throat and is surprised to find she is about to cry.

  Freda never cries.

  She didn’t cry when she found out she was adopted. She didn’t shed a tear when someone mean told her that she was related by awful birth to Maggie and Val. Didn’t spill a drop, not on one day, that she was a “throwaway” baby. Not one salty smattering when her uncles tried to get a hold of her. Not one piece of sadness given over to the knowledge that she was conceived by her uncle’s hideous act. Maybe she didn’t cry because tears were a currency in her life for so long that holding them back meant she was richer. Whatever the reason, looking at her biglittle cousin, the one who gave up her lifebody so Freda could have her own, she is filled with sadness and pain that she cannot pinpoint, could not describe and will not share. And there is something else. Twin sisters, remorse and regret, sitting next to the ugly cousin at the wake: responsibility.

  Freda thinks Birdie is dying. But she also knows she is cooking something up in that head of hers.

  That kid never wasted a thought, she says to herself. Stops. Because she sounds like Lola.

  acimowin

  Oh, this is a good one

  the Storyteller says,

  Slapping his hand on his thigh at the memory.

  The owl loved mice.

  She ate and ate mice until

  She couldn’t move no more and her

  Old enemy the wolf, seeing her there

  All full

  Pounced on her and ate her

  He was so full he could only

  Shake his head when the

  Crow came to peck at him.

  The owl she was dead but

  So was the wolf

  Because that crow ate at him

  Until she reached the owl and let her out.

  That’s why they say

  A bird in the belly

  Is worth two in the bush.

  Hyuh!

  11

  THE LAST TRAVEL BEFORE THE FINAL DESTINATION

  nakipayiw: s/he stops travelling, s/he stops driving

  pawatamowin

  She dreams she was home, looking at the burnt-out shell of her uncle’s place. Walking a circle around the place where her family is buried. And one time, seeing her father walk by her, glancing quickly at her like he can tell she was there, and then looking at the ground again.

  SHE LEFT THE SAN. No one tried to stop her, so she guessed it was okay.

  Eventually, she had hitched from Edmonton to Calgary. It was so close to Edmonton – but she had never been. In the end, she couldn’t stand that city. Everyone was so snooty there. Even the street women – the hookers had fur coats! That’s one story she never told anyone. She didn’t think her mom or Kohkom would like that she knew that. Bernice stayed there only two days – the place just had a feel of soon-to-be nasty. Like when Skinny Freda got drunk – she looked good and all on the outside but by the time you realize she’s gonna be trouble, it’s already too late – someone is gonna get hurt. That’s what Calgary felt like to Bernice. That and there were too many cowboys and not enough Indians. People stared at her. Her fat. Her scars (healed but angry). She thought they could smell the San on her.

  She wanted to see more people who looked like her, so she hopped in a big rig for a ride to Lethbridge. It was just a stop on the way to Waterton Park – and she wants to see the trees that the Blackfoot use in their ceremonies. It is ironic that she paid for the ceremony in ways that were unceremoniously troubling. She’s not proud of how she paid her way, but something was expected and she only had what she had. Anyway – it didn’t mean much to her – she had done worse than that before. That trucker – he was real stinky, though, smelled like ass and hair. Smart as a whip, when she tried to boost his wallet he smacked her, not so hard though, and gave her a twenty and the bottle they were drinking from. That asshole dropped her off in front of the cop shop – like she would have been able to walk with the bottle unnoticed in Lethbridge, Alberta.

  The first thing she took in about that place was the old people – lots and lots of old white people. Another thing she saw was big Indians. They’re Bloods there – really tall. She was not used to that – other than her Moshom she had never seen a tall Indian.

  Maybe they aren’t tall and just feel that way, she had thought at the time. Bush Crees – we’re usually small for hunting and running. These Bloods – some of the women are almos
t six feet! Not so friendly either – one woman looked me up and down like a white guy. No wonder the Bloods and Crees don’t get along, we are two different people.

  An old Blood couple had given her a ride to Waterton, though. They were really nice people – asking about her family and all. She hadn’t wanted to lie to them, they were so kind, so she just pretended she couldn’t hear. They talked all the way though, all about their kids and grandchildren. Just like Bernice’s Moshom and Kohkom – talk of the young ones filled the air around them. Those old Bloods lived right near the big national park – still their traditional territory, they said – so they didn’t mind taking Bernice right to the gate. It was April then so there was no one sitting at the gate and thank goodness, because she needed those twenty dollars.

  The whole way there she just stared at those mountains. Coming from the north, the prettiest thing to her is the bush and the lakes; she had no idea what this bigness was. The rocks were big – bigger than anything she had ever seen. And the mountains pushed up into the sky so at some points you couldn’t even see the blue past the hulk of the mountains blocking out the sky. Her first day there she just walked and walked – she didn’t even get back into the town until nightfall because there was so much to see. She wished she had a camera because she wanted that picture – blue sky caressing mountain of stone – to always be as beautiful to her as it appeared in that moment. Sometimes when you see something every day you forget its mystery and she wanted to keep this place as hers, as it appeared that day. She started thinking about the wildflowers near her old house and how she couldn’t remember what they looked like and that hurt so she just kept walking. She knew the bears were just waking up but wasn’t scared. She made sure that she didn’t go near the medicines growing in the bush and kept mostly near the road – she heard the hum of traffic once in a while.

  She had come upon a little set of falls, fat and furious with spring runoff, and found a little rock that said “god is love” near the side of the falling water.

  In a couple of weeks, when it got really warm, no one would be able to see that little rock because of the runoff and she felt sad for herself because she was the last one to carry the message and she knew there was no love. As much as Bernice hated feeling sad and pitiful, the wave of pain came upon her so quickly that she couldn’t avoid it.

  And then the stone people had talked to her, but she was trying to forget their talk – it hurt too much to be away from home and she didn’t want to hear their tongue. She could hear the spirittalk from the rock and felt blessed that she knew the language that so many had forgotten. They told her that Maggie was gone. She didn’t listen to that news then, could not absorb the weight of the meaning, but she can still feel the full weight of all they have lost, as a family, sitting at the side of the bed, patiently waiting for her to receive it. At the time she thought the ache it caused would be too much, and that it might turn her to stone, too. She had tried to convince herself, there in the stone and sitting in the richness of the company of the stone people, that her mind was playing tricks on her. She can feel Maggie’s absence in the bakery because it wafts from her cousin and her aunt, too.

  She wishes she had all that stone around her now, wishes she had asked the stone people questions. Instead, she had soothed herself. She sang a little song, a children’s walking song, and went to a lake with no one around her for miles. She had pulled out a photocopied picture of Jesse from her bag and put it in the soil as an offering to say thanks for her journey, but with the booze in her jacket it didn’t feel quite right. She decided right then and there to get rid of it. Drinking it was hard, but she had lots of practice, so she just opened her throat and poured.

  After that she wandered around a bit before she could find the road. Around seven o’clock Bernice found the little town again – it wasn’t so difficult – you just walk downhill and eventually you come upon it.

  The next day, after her third dirty look from the park ranger, she decided to head west again and hitched a ride to Vancouver. Sometime she will write a book about that. Lola said one time that her stories could turn a whore to blushing.

  When the truck driver dropped her off at a shelter, she checked in, and felt the absence of life, of soil, of nature. As soon as she recognized the feeling, she went to the flower store on the corner. They must have thought she was crazy. Didn’t buy anything, really couldn’t afford it. She had just stood by the glass cases, never opening them, and imagined the smell. Sure, she knew it wouldn’t be the same. Still, it was comforting to think that these flowers came from fields and old kohkoms’ gardens. The self-delusion was important. She caught herself pressing her face against the glass, the humming of the flower fridge grounded her. She had to leave quickly, people were staring. After that, she couldn’t get the scent out of her head. Walking to the alley, not quite sure what she was looking for, she opened the lid of a huge blue bin. The smell of rotting and mildewing flowers took her breath away. On the tip of her tongue came a word she had never heard: death-garden.

  And then she saw it. A semi-bouquet of wilting tiger lilies. You could pick them back home. They were bountiful. People back home tried not to, though, because their smell was fresh even when they were dying – it was better to let them live. To let the smell live. Still, her momma used to let her pick them from beside the house. They would pull them out in bunches, throwing them in old Planters peanut jars and baking soda cans. It was like they had a treasure, a secret garden that no one on the outside of their home could imagine. Giddy, they would laugh and tell stories about the old days when grandmothers would swat at their kids, and smiled at the same time at their ingenuity.

  In an alley, in a coastal city, where she knew no one, she jumped in, grabbed the damp bouquet, imagining their smell and touch. Played with their parts. She put them in her jacket and crawled awkwardly out of the trash bin. Two old ladies had stared at her, like she was a maniac or something.

  Running to the shelter, climbing up the stairs, she could hardly wait to get them in water. Her hands were shaking, she was so excited. When she opened them up and put them on the table she noticed an odour about them. She breathed in deeply, wanting to pull their soft sweet smell into her toes.

  They smelled like dirt.

  That smell now lingers in her little loft. After the shelter and after the ride to Gibsons she had lost them to the air, falling out and dropping wherever she passed, one petal at a time. The flowers are long gone and the dirt smell came back just yesterday, but Bernice knows it is there. She is less able to reconcile herself with the recent past, so that the return of the smell surprises her. Now, at Lola’s, she is able to see and begin to understand what her past has been while the musty wet smell of earth permeates the tiny rooms like music. Her senses are alive now, no matter what her makeshift family is seeing. She knows things. Feels things. Smells things. Wants to start to believe things. Hears things.

  “You were a baby,” she hears an owl cry.

  “No one deserves this,” a whisper.

  She is talking to herself.

  She does not feel mad, she left the crazy behind when she crawled into bed. She is wondering if the Creator sees her, heard her while she is in this bed, because she was questioning whether he even existed. It had come to her slowly that she has no God. It had first visited her on a Thursday night at some faux-Latino bar in the core of Gibsons’ downtown after four gins and when she was on the verge of falling in some guy’s lap (no small feat) around last call. The first and last last call.

  The thought that came to her then was that she had to take care of herself because there was no one watching out for her anymore.

  Then. On her road to Godlessness.

  She had left with Some Guy anyway. A second thought came to her that night. When you are this far from God you can be optimistic ‘cause you have nothing. She almost pondered it again on the way home in the cab but was struck with the loveliness of being alone with her thoughtlessness.

&nbs
p; When she got to Gibsons, Bernice had forced herself out every night for three weeks. If Lola noticed her haggard appearance she did not comment. This was somewhat discomfiting. She had let her hair grow wild – wild like a bush Indian, her kohkom would have laughed. Except it was short and entirely grey now. It turned overnight. No one has mentioned it, and Birdie knows they won’t. It’s understood that she has seen something. Bad. In the dark times, the Whitigo* comes. Especially when you are sleeping. She didn’t let herself sleep much those days but on the one night she did, something changed her hair.

  It didn’t seem odd to her to believe in evil and to disbelieve in benevolence. Disregard kindness. Distinctly disavow goodness. She had the faith that optimists and pessimists share – it could only get better. Also, there is a crazy tune in her head – her default category song. It sounds familiar and she thinks she may have heard it on the radio (97.2 The Fox Rocks) or on the pow wow trail. It was some drum group she vaguely remembered but could not place. But that was then, when she let the madness take the memories. Except now they seem to want back in.

  * Spirit, a sometimes bad spirit.

  “Heyaaa heyaaa.” Crescendo decrescendo. Electric and acoustic. The cadence was sensible – in that she could actually feel the music surge through her.

  Somewhere in the recesses of her recess, she knows that when she got to Gibsons she began numbing herself – and for no good reason. For a bad reason, most certainly. Now, she might know that when she started sinking it started outside of her. It was almost like feeling the ground outside of you give – like quicksand – before your insides felt the pressure and responded to the weight of the sand engulfing it. Until the outside shift resulted in the pressure on her insides, she could only feel external stimulation. Self-realization aside, it was really not that easy to live within yourself in public. And so very public.

  The second sign that she was free-falling past goodness and Godliness came to her at Lola’s birthday party. She threw the old lady a birthday party at Lou’s Blue Bayou on Highway 101. It was really an act of love/self-love because she wanted to get the old bird drunk. Getting drunk with strangers was numbing, but seeing someone she knew loaded might allow her to see the sense in sedation. Lola, decked out like the diva she is, was free-spirited and had a pink to her cheek that Bernice had never seen before. Bernice had invited all of “the girls,” Lola’s Whippet-tongued poker crew. Everyone had doted on Lola, commented on her hair – newly shorn and dyed red – and her jean jumper, a gift that Bernice had sewn for the occasion. What Bernice did not tell her: she had sewn some sage into the cuffs, women’s medicine, to keep Lola well.