Jared nodded. “I hear that. I do. And, you know, thanks for the job offer. But I don’t think this is going to help my sobriety.”
Death sucker-punched him in the side. Jared folded over, grunting, and Death pulled him up by one of his ears, yanked him close and whispered: “I don’t like being played.”
Jared kicked Death’s ankle and then, while Death was hopping around, attempted to knee him in the groin. He missed and hit Death’s thigh. Death tried to punch him in the head. Jared ducked, holding his side as they both stood in the street, panting.
“Screw you,” Death said. “You and your fucked-up mom.”
“Go to hell,” Jared said.
“I was trying to help you, shithead.” Death yanked his car door open, got in and slammed it shut behind him. He rolled down the window. “Enjoy homelessness.”
Jared gave him the finger. Death squealed out of the parking spot, swerving towards him briefly before he bombed down the street.
Jared looked around to make sure no one had witnessed their dust-up. He limped to the front door and took the elevator up to his floor. He rested his head against the wall, careful not to touch his sore ear.
Not my week, Jared thought. Not my week at all.
5
When you are looking down on Vancouver from an airplane, the mountains form a half-circle around a fan of alluvial plains built up by the Fraser River, which empties into the Pacific Ocean. Bridges cross the river’s branches like dental braces. The downtown core is a cluster of skyscrapers with a hitchhiking thumb of green that is Stanley Park. The larger streets make illogical bends and turns where once-distant communities were swallowed into the growing metropolis. Smaller clusters of skyscrapers punctuate the centres of the outlying suburbs, especially where the metropolitan rail system called the SkyTrain has stations.
The indigenous people who remember Vancouver before Contact are centred on reserves dotting the outlying areas of downtown. The Xʷməθkʷəy?əm (Musqueam) live on the Musqueam Indian Reserve, located south of Marine Drive near the mouth of the Fraser River. The Skwxwú7mesh Stelmexw (Squamish People) reside on several urban reserves in the city of Vancouver, North and West Vancouver and the municipality of Squamish. The Tsleil-Waututh (People of the Inlet) live on reserves along the Burrard Inlet. Native Indians, Metis and Inuit from other nations who migrate to Vancouver for work, school or nightlife tend not to move to these reserves unless they have family connections. If they’re lucky, they find accommodation in Vancouver Native Housing or Lu’ma Native Housing, societies set up to help low-income Native people find affordable homes, either sliding-scale (you pay a percentage of your income) or market-value (you pay about the same as the equivalent non-Native unit). Most of these rental units are located in an area of Vancouver called East Vancouver.
Between downtown and a suburb called Burnaby, East Vancouver is further divided into smaller districts, the most infamous of which is the Downtown Eastside. You may remember hearing about the Downtown Eastside from news reports about Robert Pickton, the notorious serial killer, or about drug overdoses, sex-trade workers, slumlords or inner-city violence. (Surrey, another suburb of Vancouver, is collectively rolling its eyes right now. They like to say East Van is bad but it ain’t Surrey.) Being one of the less prestigious postal codes, East Van was, until the latest housing boom, one of the more affordable neighbourhoods in the city and a magnet for new immigrants, artists and leftists. Recently, it has become a hub for alternative gender activism. If you are interested in eating at restaurants where you can’t recognize the language of the menu, or you prefer your protein not to have a mother, take a walk down Commercial Drive, or the Drive as the locals call it.
What East Van lacks in swank, it makes up for in swagger. All of Vancouver is considered left coast, but within Vancouver there are conservative enclaves, solidly working-class enclaves, nouveau riche enclaves, etc., where you are expected to drive a certain kind of car or exercise in a certain brand of clothing. East Van expects you to a) have a freak flag and b) fly it proudly. Which means on any given day on the Drive there is a cultural festival, obscure sporting event celebration or political protest, which usually boils down to a parade of some sort and involves food, loud music, dancing and/or brawling.
And now we return to Jared Martin, who is still in his downtown hostel.
6
Now that Jared was paying attention, he realized that David was actually a shitty stalker, who gave a friendly wave when he was noticed, all smiles and good cheer. Or maybe that was part of the head fuck. A dare. Go ahead. Call me out. See what happens. That Saturday morning David sat in the dining room at breakfast as if he wasn’t sticking out from the backpacking crowd, as if everyone else was also in pastel crew wear, like they just got off a yacht. David chatted with his tablemates, and Jared wondered if he was actually back staying in the hostel or had just talked his way in for breakfast. It was kind of infuriating, David behaving like he was going to get away with it, like Jared was helpless.
Jared snapped a picture of David watching him. He uploaded it to Facebook and captioned it Me & my shadow. He didn’t feel comfortable going into a police station and trying to get a renewed protection order, but if David was going to be this in-your-face, Jared was going to document it. He kind of didn’t want his mom to be involved, but David had made his own bed and if he was nailed to it, it was his own damn fault. He wrote, Day 3 of being stalked by David Thompson my mom’s ex. Here he is at my hostel watching me eat breakfast. Jared added a location tag and then posted.
Holy shit!!!!! Crashpad texted him. Call cops!!!!
David reached into his pocket and brought up his phone. His smile dropped. Jared snapped another picture of David that was much less cheerful. He posted it too. David slowly got out of his chair. Jared turned on his phone’s video and filmed David walking towards him.
David stood over him. Jared waited for him to slap the phone away or hit him, but David turned, then walked out.
Jared, Sarah texted him. You have to change your privacy settings on FB. Anyone can find out where you are & what you’re doing.
Noted, he told himself, change security settings. But all the David stuff was going to be public, he decided. No hiding. No backing off. The truth and nothing but the truth, no matter how humiliating. He tried to upload the video but got the swirly of death. When everyone at the hostel was on their phone, the wi-fi speed was rotten. He’d have to find a coffee shop later.
David was parked illegally outside the hostel in a silver Lexus 570, an SUV with an expensive-looking grille. Jared took a picture of his licence plate and then of David ignoring him as he kept taking pictures. David started his car, signalled and drove off.
When Jared returned to the dining room, someone had cleared away his breakfast. He wasn’t hungry anymore anyway. He had planned on going to BCIT to see if anyone needed a roommate, but he felt too sweaty and giddy. He knew he hadn’t gotten rid of David. But he’d temporarily wiped the smug off Ol’ Dave’s face.
His cell rang. Georgina Smith, the caller ID read.
Jared listened to his phone ring and ring until it went to voice mail.
Crap, Jared thought. Crap, crap, crap.
Jared took a shower. He went to a meeting. From his dwindling supply of cash, he bought himself a ham sandwich and a root beer. He walked back to the beach and sat in the sand listening to the ocean for a long, long time, staring at his phone. High on the list of people he never wanted to talk to again was Georgina Smith. He’d first met her when he was hitchhiking back from Rupert to Kitimat. She drove up in an older burgundy Caddie and offered him a ride. He couldn’t make himself get in the car. She looked like a sweet, kindly old rez grandmother with her large, old-fashioned glasses and floral dress, but Jared could see she had a monster under her face. No one else seemed to notice. She claimed to be his aunt, Wee’git’s sister, and she’d arranged it so that she had bumped into him three or four times since then.
He regretted posti
ng now. The fleeting satisfaction was so not worth it. The sandwich was dry. By the time he drank it, the root beer was warm. He didn’t even want to listen to Georgina’s message, much less call her back. His nerves jangled when he thought of her, loud, like a smoke alarm going off. Bad juju, his mom would say. Some people radiated it.
Every time Jared saw her, he was half-convinced she was going to eat him, but instead, once, she’d taken him out for ice cream and they’d had a chat that he half-remembered. And she’d brought him to his first AA meeting. He’d been pretty hammered. Her kindness had been unexpected.
But she’d also messed with his head. She’d planted a thought during one of his French classes that he wanted pizza, and when he’d arrived at the pizza place after school, she’d been waiting for him, acting innocent. When he’d thought to himself that this was not what he’d wanted to do, her voice had been in his head, telling him it had been his own idea. No one normal did that. No one with healthy boundaries. Even his mom wouldn’t pull that shit.
But Georgina hadn’t hijacked him in a long while. And he couldn’t imagine her on Facebook. Maybe it was a coincidence that she’d called when she had. Curious, he dialed his voice mail.
“Jared?” Georgina’s recorded voice said. “Jared, are you there? Why can’t I hear him?”
“It went to voice mail, Gran!” some kid yelled in the background. “You’re not supposed to talk and drive!”
“Jared, I can hear you. You’re somewhere close. Call me back when you get this recording and let me know that you’re alive. Jared?” A series of clunks and then the phone squealed. “Did I break it?”
“Stop sign! Gran!”
“How do you hang it up?”
“Give it to me.”
“I can hang up a phone. I’m not an idiot.”
“No, no, not that one!”
“I don’t appreciate your tone.”
“This button! This—”
How terrified could you be of someone who didn’t know how to hang up a cellphone?
You should call her, he thought.
He was pretty sure it was his own thought. It didn’t feel like someone meddling with his mind. Letting her back in his life was a bad idea. He got stomach flutters just thinking about it.
She sounds worried, his brain told him.
She did, but he hesitated. I don’t want to call her, he thought.
You do, his brain told him.
He hit Redial and listened to the ringing, half-hoping she wouldn’t pick up.
“Hello, Mrs. Smith speaking,” Georgina said.
“Hey, it’s Jared. I’m okay.”
“For heaven’s sake, Jared,” she said. “I was starting to think this David fellow had killed you and dumped you in a ditch.”
“Sorry. It’s been crazy.”
“My grandson showed me your post on the Facebooks. You must be terrified.”
He felt a blush starting, burning his cheeks. Security settings would be changed ASAP. “Um, yeah. I’m okay.”
“Come stay with us, dear.”
“I’m in Vancouver. I’m getting ready to go to school.”
“I live in Ladner,” she said. “Didn’t I tell you that?”
“Is that close?”
“I could have sworn I told you. This is what happens when your poor old brain is five hundred years old. Are you curious at all about your father’s side of the family?”
He’d never thought of it that way before. The possibility of people who were related to him and wanted to meet him made him suddenly lonely and hopeful. Maybe he had cousins he could hang with. This is my cousin so-and-so. We’re going to hang.
“I can send someone to pick you up if you’re nervous about this David fellow,” Aunt Georgina said.
“It’s okay. He’s backed off,” Jared said. For now.
His aunt gave him careful instructions to get to her house, as if Google Maps didn’t exist.
“Just a visit, though,” Jared said. “I’m looking for a place close to my classes.”
“We’re having our Sunday barbecue,” she said. “Come and eat with us and we’ll go from there. How does that sound, dear?”
“Any time in particular?”
“No, not really. We’re not formal at all.”
“Thanks. Okay. See you tomorrow.”
“Be careful.”
“Bye.”
After he hung up, he looked up instructions for limiting the people who could see his posts to “friends.” The David post was getting a lot of comments, mostly advice on how to deal with a stalker. The people from his AA groups and old high school friends meant well, but they didn’t know David. They hadn’t had him popping up at corner stores and paper routes all through their teens, or waiting for them after school, smiling in a way that never reached his eyes.
The next day, Jared hopped a couple of buses out towards the Tsawwassen ferry terminal to the suburb called Ladner. He listened to music and stared at the traffic, carefully studying the silver minivans, especially the Lexuses. It was a long ride. Even if he wasn’t leery of her intentions and wanted to stay with her, it would be a brutal commute.
He got off at the bus stop just before the ferry terminal. He followed the streets on his list as traffic zipped by, racing to the ferries at the end of a long promenade surrounded by sparkling water. Approaching and receding vehicles hummed like angry bees. The day was hot, but the ocean breeze had a bite that made his skin prickle through the sweat. Jared squinted, wishing he’d brought sunglasses, and finally spotted the right number on a post in front of a house with patchy grass.
He recognized Aunt Georgina’s burgundy older-model Cadillac in the driveway, surrounded by battered trucks and SUVs. The only part of the main house Jared could see was the roof of dark-green shingles and a gabled window. The place was surrounded by older trailers and jury-rigged, tarp-covered walkways. The trailers were arranged as if they’d come home half-cut and plopped themselves down when they were too tired to move anymore. Jared wasn’t sure where to knock. He could hear laughter, some hip-hop beats and kids screaming.
Hello, Jared, Aunt Georgina said in his head.
Don’t do that. I don’t like it.
I know. I just wanted to tell you I’m sending my grandson, Cedar, to come get you. The Compound can be confusing.
Jared waited. He checked the bus schedule for times for the return trip. He waited. And waited some more. He wondered if he should get out while the getting was good. But then a shirtless little boy came bouncing out from one of the trailers and galloped towards him. The kid wore a pair of Iron Man shorts and sandals. He was tanned, and the tips of his dark, spiky hair were burnt lighter by the sun. His lips were ringed with either barbecue sauce or jam.
“Hey,” Jared said.
“You’re stupid-looking,” the kid said.
“I get that a lot,” Jared said.
Manners.
“Gran says you have to come.”
It’s the sugar. I apologize for Cedar.
Aunty, Jared thought at her. Please stay out of my head.
“I had to wear skin for you,” the kid said, leading him up a set of stairs then down a hallway with a flapping tarp roof and then down another set of stairs that led to an empty space with dried-out clumps of grass surrounded by walkways and trailers.
They seemed to wander around in circles for a while before they came to a backyard with a gazebo where a large propane barbecue smoked. A couple of men in golf shirts and khaki shorts stood around it, one of them wielding tongs. Georgina Smith—Jwasins, his aunt through Wee’git—was kneeling on a picnic blanket, changing a baby’s diaper. The baby in question was a frowning girl, who kicked, excited, as Aunt Georgina sang in a high, quivery voice. Cedar took off running and tackled a beach ball, bouncing to the ground and rolling around on it.
A tall, thin Native woman wrapped in a black shawl with bright-red, traditional north coast formline designs stood regally beside Aunt Georgina, posing as if she expe
cted a photographer to pop up and take her picture. She had a giant-ass raven necklace with what looked like real feathers.
“It is so good to see you, Jared,” Aunt Georgina said.
Jared watched the reptilian thing beneath her skin bare its teeth at him, snarling, like a double-exposed film under her gentle granny exterior. He shook his head, then said, “Hi, Aunty.”
She struggled to get to her feet, and Jared offered his hand to help her up. She thanked him, then picked the baby up and snuggled her close.
“I,” the tall woman said, holding her hand out, “am the daughter of the Trickster, Wee’git. The raven who brought light into the world.”
“Okay,” Jared said, shaking her hand.
“This is Lilith,” Aunt Georgina said. “She’s a healer.”
Lilith sighed. “I commune with the other side. I consider it a privilege and an honour. But you have no idea the responsibility I carry as a messenger between the worlds.”
Jared said, “That must suck.”
“Hi, Bob Yeager,” one of the khaki-shorts guys said, coming up to them, holding out his hand. “Also one of Wee’git’s offspring. I just want to know if I can get a status card. Is Wee’git Native? Does he belong to a registered band? Who do I have to blow to get a status card, haha?”
“Hi,” Jared said.
“Seriously, I want to know.”
“I really couldn’t tell you,” Jared said.
“No one has answers,” Bob said.
“The blood of gods runs in your veins,” Lilith said. “Material goods are meaningless in the face of your existential burden.”
“I got a fleet of trucks and getting a break on the taxes would be very meaningful.”
“Bob has a towing company,” Aunt Georgina said to Jared.
“Your pain is my gain,” Bob said, trying to elbow Jared in the ribs. Jared dodged him.
Aunt Georgina hefted the baby onto her shoulder and lightly tapped her back. “Jared is also one of my brother’s children—he’s your half-brother.”
Trickster Drift Page 4