by Dawn Dumont
The old man pulled out a rollie. “You got a light?”
Everett pulled out a lighter with Michael Jackson doing his Thriller pose on it. He’d stolen it from a drug dealer.
“What’s your name?”
“Lincoln Kaiswatim. I’m your Mushum.”
Taz was surprised how firm the old guy’s handshake was. “Call me Linc,” he said with that accent that said that Cree was his first language.
“This your first time?”
Taz nodded.
The old man explained the protocols and the general process. He said if it got too hot, they could take a break. Other than that he told them to be quiet and listen.
Taz and Everett stripped down to their shorts. They hung their towels on a tree outside. Everett crawled into the lodge first. Taz followed at a safe distance. It was dark in the room but he could see faces in there: mostly old guys, a couple guys a bit older than him and Everett and a teenage boy.
It was hot.
Definitely hotter than the guys at work had explained. Some of them went to sweats practically every weekend and so were probably used to it. Although Taz couldn’t figure out how you got used to this. He could feel his face turning red, then a shade of purple. Sweat was already dripping off his chin before an old guy started to sing.
He was the first to take a break. He crawled into the still-bright sun and it felt cool though it had to be at least thirty degrees. He was dizzy, hungry and weak. He wanted to walk to the truck and fall asleep in the box. But he had to go back in. Everett was still in there. The old guys. That fucking kid.
He wished for water. He pulled up some of the cool grass beside him and chewed on it.
It bothered Everett that he didn’t know what the songs meant. It bothered him that Taz knew and he didn’t know. Why hadn’t anyone taught him Cree, anyway? It bothered him that he didn’t feel anything. Wasn’t he supposed to feel something? Other than feeling hot? He stared across the fire at an old man. His eyes were squeezed shut as he sang. Everett wanted to reach each across and hit him. Stop singing, make this stop.
But he knew enough about ceremony that it wouldn’t stop until long after you wished it were done. He closed his eyes and tried to think of something cold. Ice. Snow. Scraping his windshield in the winter. Feeling the cold of the steering wheel sink into his wrists. He was doing well — he even felt that dull ache. Then he felt the warmth seep into it, filling it up again with this hell. How much water did he have in him? He wished he hadn’t gotten drunk the night before — wasn’t booze dehydrating? He wished he hadn’t had that coffee on the road. He wanted to run as far away from here as he could get but knew he didn’t have enough liquid in him to get him to the doorway — why did he sit so damned far from the doorway anyways? Taz had sat close and it was an easy crawl for him out the door. Everett closed his eyes again. He tried snow again but saw only hair. Long hair. He opened his eyes and stared across at the old man. The old man’s eyes were on him. Stern. Like he caught him siphoning gas from his car or something. Everett closed his eyes again. Hair again. Her face taking shape. He covered her with snow and it melted off. He stuck his teeth into his tongue. Nope. I’m not going there. Not going there. He opened his eyes, this time he stared down at his hands so that nobody’s eyes could meet his. He saw ropes in his hand. No.
There was a swing. Mary had a little lamb, my little lamb, his fleece was white as snow.
Shhhhh . . . he said. Stop singing.
His fleece was white as snow and everywhere that mommy went, her lamb was sure to go.
He felt the tears on his face and shut his eyes tight.
Back inside, Taz knew it was only a matter of time before he would have to go out again. He kept his breath shallow and listened to the songs. Better than doing nothing. The east, the west, the north, the south. Healing. Cleansing. Come inside.
It would be easier, a part of him drawled, to let the wind inside if you left the lodge door open.
He half-smiled. The effort making him sweat even more if that was possible.
Part of the deal was that you had to feel something. Something bigger than yourself. A chief told him that one day. You may not start out that way, but you will get there. And the most important thing — and he said this in a warning voice — was to keep returning to that connection.
Julie. Sometimes he could smell fresh hay in her hair and he wondered where that smell came from. How could you still smell fresh and innocent after twenty-five? He knew he smelled like the inside of a hockey bag at the end of the season. He smiled in the darkness.
And now there would be another Julie. A long-legged doe-eyed girl. Or, another him. That might be too much for his old heart.
He laughed. Sharp and loud. The old men responded by singing louder.
Afterwards they lit a fire and the old men told dirty jokes to one another. Taz laughed long and hard. He looked over at Everett expecting to see his dumbass laughing in that silent way he did. But he wasn’t laughing. His face was pale.
Taz elbowed him. “What’s up with you?”
“Hungry.”
“There’s soup.”
“Yeah.” Everett didn’t seem interested.
Taz shrugged.
One of the old guys started coughing pretty bad. Taz glanced over, it was Linc. The cough had that full sound to it like he had a lungful of something. He coughed and coughed and coughed.
“Maybe you should get him away from the fire?” Taz suggested to the people watching this.
One of the old men shook his head.
Linc caught his breath. “It’s from the lodge,” he rasped. “Whatever sickness people are carrying, it gets shared.”
Taz wondered about that because he’d never felt stronger.
“We going back?” Taz asked Everett — it was getting dark already. Everett looked at Linc and then shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Shouldn’t be in such a hurry,” Linc said.
“Some of us got work tomorrow.”
“Work,” Linc spit on the ground, a long brown line.
Yeah, work that pays for people like you. But he couldn’t say that. Not in a place like this. This old man was king here. Taz clenched a handful of weeds and grass in his hand. He’d felt so clean only a second before and now he felt as low as a piece of garbage. That’s how these old guys were, always pissing on the younger generation, even though they drank like pigs and beat their wives when they were younger. And now they were all holier than thou.
“Hey,” Everett’s voice was craggy, like he had a cough in it too. “Shake it off.”
“Fuck you.” Taz said. He got up from the circle. Maybe he couldn’t leave but he didn’t have to stay there. These weren’t his people, probably wasn’t even the right ceremony for him.
They slept in the back of the truck and just as the sun peeked over the horizon, Everett told Taz that he’d have to hitchhike back to Saskatoon.
“I’m headed to Crow Fair. My grandfather wants me with him.”
It took a few seconds for this to sink in. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Yeah. I mean no, I’m not kidding. I have to go.”
“You have to go right now?”
Everett nodded. His face was still. The guy was dumb as meatloaf but Taz knew once he made up his mind, the Hulk couldn’t budge him.
“You can forget about the gas money I was gonna give you.”
Everett nodded. “That’s fair.”
Half an hour later, Taz watched the truck drive down the road, two heads inside bobbing to the washboard roads. He swore at his friend and began the walk back to the city. He was a least a mile into his walk when he realized he’d forgotten to tell Everett about the baby.
911
October 2001
ALONE. MIDNIGHT. BAR.
Julie liked none of those words.
She stared at her phone and thought about the phone call she wasn’t going to make unless stuff got out of control. She was in control right now.
<
br /> I’m not cold. I’m not hungry. I’m empty.
Besides, Nellie would ask too many questions. She had already called the other one and his phone was cut off. And then there was Taz and she would never call him.
Three. How do you get to almost thirty and only have three people in the world?
I should trust more people. Put that on a tattoo. She already had a tattoo; it was a blue hummingbird on her right shoulder blade. Nellie told her they move their wings really fast. “You walk slow, you talk slow, you do everything slow. It doesn’t suit you at all. Should have got a flower or something like that.”
Julie got it because it was blue.
The bartender walked past and asked her if she needed anything, she smiled as she shook her head. She had fifteen minutes, tops, before she’d have to head back into the cold and trudge to the bus depot. Nellie once told her that her definition of poor was having to ride the bus. Julie would have to tell her that poor was riding the bus and not having enough money for a bag of chips.
Julie always hated purses. She felt weighed down by them. Now she had one more reason for hating them; purses can be easily stolen. Fortunately her ticket had been tucked into her bra, her phone in her pocket, her pills in the other.
Julie had a cousin on the north side of the city but didn’t know her number. Maybe she didn’t even live there anymore. But it was a destination. If she got there and her cousin wasn’t home, then at least that would be three hours gone. Then four more and it would be daylight and her bus would be leaving again.
I’m not hungry. I’m not cold . . . Well, I’m a bit hungry.
She pressed the numbers on her phone even though the number was saved in her speed dial. Nellie’s name popped up. She would be mad, she would judge, she would be bossy, she would be Nellie.
Most of all she would make Julie tell her everything.
When they were younger, Julie could keep her out — silence, a joke, an angry question thrown back in her face — but Nellie had learned her tricks. That was the trouble with people; they wouldn’t leave stones unturned. They flipped them over and then poked at the nasty stuff crawling around underneath. But Nellie meant well. She just couldn’t help herself.
“Stop drinking, break up with him and mean it, stop moving around, figure out what you want to do with your life.” This lecture had started a few years ago when Nellie got herself together, as she put it. Julie missed the days when they were both broke and living in a basement suite with cardboard boxes as furniture.
Now Nellie was a “success” and didn’t look at the price tags when she shopped. She had an assistant and she got impatient with service people. Her hours were scheduled from 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM but she always had time to give advice to Julie.
“I’ll help you. Whatever you want to do with your life, no matter what it is, even a housekeeper. I will help you be the best housekeeper you can be. But if you are a housekeeper then at least try to start your own housekeeping business. I read that the woman who runs Molly Maid is a millionaire.”
Julie wanted to crawl between some clean sheets and sleep a thousand years.
A man sat down next to her. Not exactly close but the bar was empty so Julie knew that meant something.
Men always sat next to her. Smiled at her with half-closed eyes. They pulled over when she was walking; they held doors for her. They stared through windows; they banged into doors. They followed her. They whispered. They catcalled. They whistled. They lied.
Julie wished she could make herself invisible. Then she could sit here or near the warm fireplace in the corner and sleep for a couple dozen hours. When she woke up, she would know what to do. She barely slept on the bus and she hadn’t slept the day before then. She probably looked like day old shit.
“Buy you a drink?”
Julie hesitated. Her painkillers had that “no drink” sign next to them. But then again, she’d also been told to go home and take it easy. She nodded. The bartender was waved over. He poured the drink and Julie saw the hint of a knowing smile.
Fuck you, you don’t know.
Two drinks later, her phone began to vibrate as the buyer-of-drinks was in the middle of a story about his trip to Panama. She could barely follow why he went doing there. Fishing? That couldn’t be right, who the fuck flew someplace just to fish?
She looked down at the phone; Nellie’s name was at the top of the screen. She used to have the name saved under Bossy but had changed it when Nellie saw it there the last time they visited.
Julie excused herself. Manners, that was a bad sign. It meant that she was trying. And what are you trying to do Julie? Her voice had a singsong rhythm in her head.
She walked across the bar to the far end near the fireplace. She looked through the wall of windows as she walked; it was raining now. Why did she always leave when the weather got shitty?
Because I have no choice.
“Hi.”
There was nothing on the other end but sputtered moaning.
“What’s wrong?”
“Everett.” Nellie stumbled over the name, rolling her “r” and making his name sound kind of foreign.
“What’d he do?”
“Bwoke up with me.” More tears, more sobbing. Then hiccupy crying. Julie stared at the flames turning red, then green, then yellow. Nellie was a few months older than Julie but she always seemed so much more hopeful about dumb stuff.
“You sure this time?” Their relationship was a broken vase that Nellie kept gluing together. And then once she got it to stand, she would proclaim, “Look at it! It’s beautiful” while everyone else knew it was a fragile piece of shit.
Louder tears.
In her lifetime, Julie had only had one other crying phone call. Also Nellie. Also about Everett.
Her people never cried. Even when her grandma died, her aunt’s phone call had been short but not sweet, “Kokum’s gone. Come get your stuff.”
Julie glanced over at the guy at the bar. He was talking to the bartender.
What do I do?
“What do I do?” Nellie’s voice was still strong, meaning she hadn’t been crying for long and the booze hadn’t kicked in.
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Go to sleep. You always feel better after a good sleep.”
“I can’t sleep. There’s no way — I keep playing the conversation around in my head, it’s not working Nellie, it’ll never work. I slapped his face. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause he’ll think I’m mean and angry, one of those women who throws stuff. Guys hate that.”
Julie shrugged even though she knew Nellie couldn’t see her.
“Come over. I’ll pay your cab.”
Julie sighed — this was going to be hard. “I’m not in town.”
Nellie’s voice hardened. “Where are you?”
“Edmonton.”
“What the fuck are you doing there?”
“Just visiting.”
“When are you coming home?”
“A week.” Julie could lie because Nellie couldn’t see her face.
“A week? You’re never here for me! I’m always there when you need me! You drive me crazy with all of your moving around! This is why!”
She was gone. Julie looked at her phone like they do in the movies. She was on her way back to the bar when it rang again. She sighed and answered it.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Why did you leave? Did you have a fight with Taz? Did you break up?”
Julie used the lie she crafted on the bus ride up. “I came to visit some family. When did this all happen?”
“This afternoon. He took me on a drive with him to this old grain elevator. And he’s all like, ‘I want to show you something’ and I thought he was going to, going to, going to . . . how could I be so stupid?” She broke off to wail again. Nellie hated it when she did something stupid.
“Yeah, I
know. You guys have been together a long time. Anyone would think that.” Except anyone who knew Everett.
“Why won’t he love me?”
“He does love you but he’s an idiot.”
“But idiots get married all the time. Why can’t I have my idiot?”
“If I knew, I would tell you.”
“Men always love you. How do you do it?” This had a slight edge to it; Julie was used to that tone.
Julie looked over at the bar. The man was paying up. He looked over. She looked at the window, the rain was coming down in sheets. She looked at the bartender packing stuff up. Hotel bars always close early.
“Where are you?” Nellie’s voice was small but still bossy.
“The bus station.”
“What the fuck are you doing there? Where’s Taz?”
“At home.”
“Why didn’t he drive you?”
“He was busy.”
The man looked over.
“Look I gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
“Don’t go — I don’t want to be alone, I can’t do this.”
“I have to catch my bus.”
“Bus? Where are you going?” Nellie’s voice was razor sharp.
Careful, Julie. “I’m heading to Grande Prairie to visit my aunts.”
“I thought you didn’t get along with your aunts.”
“No, well, sometimes. It’s complicated.”
“What’s going on?”
Julie kept her tone light. “I felt like visiting family.”
“You hate your family.”
Julie laughed. “Not always.”
“Well call me as soon as you get on.”
“Okay I will.”
Julie put the phone in her pocket. The man was in the lobby now. Sort of lingering and if she rushed . . . she’d look like she was rushing . . . but he’d probably like that.
Her pocket was vibrating insistently. Julie sighed.
“What?”
“I think he’s already with someone else.”
“That’s how guys are.”
“Omigod you don’t even care!”
“Of course I care.” I’m going to sleep, sitting up in a fucking bus terminal for you.