Trickster Drift

by Eden Robinson

  “Bye.”

  Jared went to Mave’s room. The new armoire dominated an entire wall, but all her clothes were hidden and the room looked calm and organized. You couldn’t even tell where Justice had chopped it up to fit it up the stairwell. Jared turned on his aunt’s printer. The password was the same for the printer as it was for her router. He made a copy of his old restraining order against David that Sophia had couriered to him. He could probably get away with a peace bond. David would contest it, though, and shit would get real. The alternatives were more Facebook drama or his mother—one being kind of useless results-wise and the other holding the possibility of him being charged as an accessory to murder. He folded the copy of the restraining order and stuffed it in his back pocket. If someone found him in a ditch, it would at least point in David’s direction.

  Dent slouched in the recliner, moving reluctantly when Jared asked for help with his physics homework. The lesson was easier this time and Jared felt better once he finished his homework. Dent floated back to the TV afterwards. The ghost tutoring was weird. Of course it was weird. His mom’s stories of the dead all ended with souls being eaten or curses that enslaved you. But he couldn’t afford a living tutor and Dent seemed content with their arrangement. Jared wrapped the breakfast bars in parchment paper and put them in the fridge.

  He needed to do something about David, but he didn’t know what. He sucked at fisticuffs. And David never fought fair anyway. He was a sneak-attack kind of guy, as with the truck in the alley. He’d lay low until Jared forgot he existed and then show up again. It bothered him, the waiting. He couldn’t control what David was going to do.

  The deep unease settled in his guts, like a smoke detector going off in a distant room. David had picked Jared as a target. David was escalating. Jared sat at the table and considered his options, tumbling them over in his head like worry stones.

  Well, chasing his mental tail wasn’t doing him any good. Time for a meeting.

  * * *

  —

  Jared was trying to decide if he’d stay and sit through another meeting or if he wanted to go back to the apartment and study some more, when someone nudged him. He turned to see the girl with blond hair with purple tips, wearing a blue T-shirt and black cargo shorts.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” Jared said.

  “Where’s your cousin?”

  “Dunno.” Lex, Jared remembered.

  “You wanna get a coffee?” Lex said.

  “Sure,” Jared said.

  Lex lived in an older apartment building. Her bed was a lumpy futon mattress on the floor. She had a red sleeping bag and no sheets. Her Batman lamp figurine had fruity scratch-and-sniff stickers on his feet and butt. She brought him a mug of coffee, black because she’d run out of sugar and milk. She scrolled through her phone and plopped it on an ancient, well-loved red Beats pill speaker. After a single guitar exploded into many, the vocals were scream-y and tortured.

  “ ‘Tears Don’t Fall,’ ” Jared said. “Me and Mom used to play Halo after I got home from school and she’d sing along every time this came on. Wow, that brings me back.”

  Lex said, “Fucking sellouts. Jesus, now I have to delete every single Bullets for My Valentine song from my library.”

  “It was a pretty cool game.”

  “Fuck nuggets.” She reached up and flipped through her playlist. Guitars rose and fell like someone struggling to get off the floor and sliding back down. The intro went on and on. “Destruction Unit. Were they ever in your lame-ass games?”

  “No,” Jared said.

  “Good.”

  Jared watched her take off her shirt. She flung it towards her laundry basket and flopped beside him, naked from the waist up. Her breasts looked like they would fit in his mouth and he really, really wanted to see if they would. She touched his crotch, cupped him.

  He traced an old scar up her arm and then put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her in for a kiss. She felt up his ass. The kiss went on until she tilted her head up, sighing as he slid his hands down. He thought they were going to jerk each other off, but she unbuttoned his jeans.

  The last time he’d been laid had been—what? God. God, her skin, her mouth travelling down, warm. She reached under the mattress and pulled up a condom. Holy fuck, he thought when she tried to help out, holding his cock. He surged, her fingers, her breasts, and he came, urgently, instantly, like a kid jerking off for the first time, and Lex swore. Her Batman lamp had a clumpy spray of semen across the black lampshade. He felt himself going bright red and they both collapsed back to the futon, panting.

  “It’s been a while,” Jared said sheepishly.

  She punched him. “You loser. Fuck.”

  “Here,” Jared said. “I’ll bring you up to speed.”

  Lex’s roommates came home early in the morning, banged on her bedroom door and told her to turn it down. She cranked the music to deafening levels before she lowered the volume. They listened to her roommates loudly calling Lex down.

  “I wish you could screw yourself sober,” Lex said.

  “That would be a very popular programme,” Jared said.

  Jared and Lex were at the breakfast table. Her roommates ignored them—other than pointed side-eyes—while they made an omelette and argued about some soccer thing. Lex was wrapped in her sleeping bag. Jared had put his clothes back on. He borrowed her charger to check his phone.

  Gran’s in a coma, Sarah had texted him late last night. Can’t stop crying.

  Jared texted her back. Where r u?

  “Girlfriend?” Lex said, sipping her coffee.

  “What?”

  “You’ve got guilt-face.”

  “Oh, no. Yes. My ex. But we’re friends. Her gran’s dying. It’s shitty.”

  “You’re one of those,” Lex said, lighting a cigarette.

  “One of what?”

  “I like to keep things disposable,” she said.

  Jared emerged from Lex’s apartment after a night of loud death metal bands on replay, no-name instant noodle cups and screwing. She didn’t ask for his phone number. He didn’t offer it.

  He walked home. A little bruised, lots of tender spots that didn’t like being rubbed against his clothes. Pleasantly tired, ready for a day of napping. Which was pretty much the kind of hookups he’d had before Sarah, but back then he’d been either plastered or stoned.

  Sarah still hadn’t answered his text.

  Everything about this hookup had been familiar. Comfortable. He hadn’t given a rat’s ass about school or work. Ghosts. Spirits. Stalkers. And it had been easy.

  So he wasn’t sure what was bothering him now. He couldn’t pinpoint the blossoming guilt. He didn’t really want to go back to Mave’s apartment. He didn’t want to find Sarah there. Maybe he still wanted to get back with her and had just fucked up everything. No, he thought, no, he’d been on this merry-go-round so many times. Just no. He liked her gran. Mrs. Jaks was a good person. He wanted to stop feeling guilty about her dying, about not visiting her more often, about not being at the hospital right now. Sarah was a constant reminder of things he wanted to forget, human and magical. He wanted to party like a normal kid and not have his life fall apart afterwards. He wanted to not miss the one person who’d been with him through his parents’ divorce, through the horror show that had been David, and his mom nail-gunning David. Mrs. Jaks had been a homey constant, a bright spot. And now he wasn’t bothering to show up for her end.

  You have a real talent for sucking the joy out of everything, said a familiar voice in his head. You didn’t murder a hobo. You got laid. Teenagers. Yeesh.

  Piss off, Jared thought at his biological father. Stay out of my head.

  Your constant whining ruined Vancouver for me, you know that? I’m not in your head. You’re broadcasting again. This is worse than the summer you were obsessed with “The Ketchup Song.”

  Jared’s heart trip-hammered, embarrassed, thinking of everything he’d done lat
ely and hoped he hadn’t accidentally shared with Wee’git. And then he realized that he’d been five, maybe six when he’d loved that song. He could only play it when he was alone because his mom kept threatening to break his CD if he played it again.

  Wait a minute, Jared thought. Weren’t you buried somewhere when I was five? Or was that a lie too?

  I heard you through the veil, Wee’git said. That’s how annoying you were. You and your off-tune, half-remembered Spanglish singing made me want to die harder.

  Their relationship had not improved with age. Part of the problem had been that Jared hadn’t known he was talking to his biological father and not a voice in his head. So one of the least-involved fathers in the world felt free to make snarky remarks about Jared’s life from childhood to now, like it was a reality TV show he didn’t really like but was too lazy to change the channel on. The other problem was his tendency to get in the pants of Jared’s female relatives. Like his mom. And his gran. When he was wearing other people’s faces. People they loved.

  I saved your ungrateful ass, Wee’git thought at him.

  Once.

  Believe me, I won’t make that mistake again.

  Yeah, go back to ignoring me.

  Done.

  The drizzle sparkled as the sun broke through the clouds. Jared could see his apartment building now. He stopped in for a coffee, adding a cookie. He listened to his thoughts, wondering if Wee’git was still there.

  Stop thinking about me, his bio-dad said.

  Are you still listening in?

  I’d rather have your mother shoot my head off again than spend another second in your head.

  I can arrange that.

  I’m not the bad guy! I’m protecting you from the bad guys!

  Why?

  Silence. More silence. Someone cleared their throat and Jared realized he was holding up the line in front of the sugar-and-cream station.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  He sat on the patio and thought about his sobriety, how he’d fought for it and how close he’d come to losing it so many times. When his thoughts tried to wander over to Sarah, or David, or Lex, or the absentee father who was listening in because he happened to be close by, Jared thought about the things he wanted in life: A steady job in a town big enough to have brown people but small enough not to have too many traffic problems. Someone sober in his life who didn’t take themselves too seriously, but seriously enough. A small, easy-to-heat house with a wood stove, a vegetable plot and cold frames. Maybe kids. You know, later, when he was more grounded. A dog—a big, friendly pound mutt. A newer car for work and an older truck to bushwhack the back roads on the weekends.

  Wow, Wee’git thought. I’m out. If we never meet again, enjoy the dullest life ever.

  Buh-bye, Jared thought.

  Jared took the lid off his coffee cup to get the last dregs of caffeine to soothe his throbbing headache. The sun played hard to get. The traffic got heavier as the morning went on. He let it go. He let the bastard go. He forgave and forgot. Wee’git wasn’t renting headspace. Not in his head. His phone pinged.

  Jared, Kota texted him. U home soon?

  Ya, he texted Kota. I’m close.

  K.

  Jared crushed his coffee cup against the table and then tossed it in a trash can as he walked home. Kota was sitting with his back against Mave’s apartment door. He had his earbuds in and was moodily staring at his cell. His eyes were bright red, sleepy and puffy. He reeked of skunk. Jared waved to get his attention.

  “Mind if I hang?” Kota said, taking out his earbuds. “I’m not ready to deal with Hank and his fucking pious bullshit.”

  Jared could hear the Starr brothers trash-talking each other through Hank’s closed apartment door. “Sure. Come on in.”

  “Thanks,” Kota said. He struggled to stand, trying to push himself off the floor and falling over. Jared held out his hand and hauled him up. Kota giggled.

  Jared unlocked the door and Kota followed him down the long, shoe-filled hallway. Dent sat in the recliner. He rolled his eyes when he saw Kota.

  “What’s he doing here?” Dent said.

  “Wanna crash in my room?” Jared said to Kota. “I’ve got a shift tonight, so the bed’s up for grabs.”

  “Your room’s fucking creepy,” Kota said, flopping on the couch face first.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m not drunk,” Kota mumbled into the couch cushion. “Jus’ baked.”

  “I know. I’m going to take a shower. Need the bathroom?”

  Kota giggled again. “Yeah, go wash off your dirty weekend, Jelly Bean.”

  “You can’t just leave him here!” Dent shouted as Jared shut the bathroom door.

  After his shower, he took his dirty clothes down to the laundry room, put in some soap and then went back to the apartment and pulled out his textbooks again. Kota snored on the couch.

  Did Wee’git talk to all 533 of his kids? a part of his brain wondered.

  He wondered then what Granny Nita knew. He’d only written her a short letter to say hello, I’m okay. She seemed fairly willing to talk, but maybe not about Wee’git, Jared suspected. Wee’git had lied to him—outright lied about how long he’d been listening in on Jared’s broadcasting or thoughts or whatever they were. Why would he do that?

  “If I keep the partying to the weekends,” Kota mumbled to himself, “I can handle it.”

  Jared got up and filled the kettle. He rinsed out his aunt’s Bodum and ground some coffee beans. While he was waiting for the water to boil, Kota staggered to the bathroom.

  “Take him to a meeting!” Dent yelled.

  The lights flickered.

  He listened to the kettle for a moment and then filled the Bodum. His cousin returned from the bathroom with his hair combed. His eyes were still sleepy, but he’d washed his face. Jared pressed the coffee. Kota came into the kitchen, expression wary. He watched Jared as if he expected a lecture, leaning against the counter faux-casually, too posed to be natural.

  “Coffee?” Jared said.

  “Sure.”

  Jared suggested they go to the balcony. Kota hugged his mug, and stared at the newly painted patio chairs. Then he sat, and smoked and brooded, staring off into the middle distance. Jared watched the street. An hour passed, the time marked by the number of cigarettes Kota butted out in the dead planter on the table. Jared checked his phone every few minutes, but no one tried to call or text him. Or made snarky remarks in his head, pretending to be his thoughts. He asked Kota if he wanted more coffee, and then went down to the laundry room and put his clothes in the dryer. When he came back to the apartment, he started the kettle again, rinsing out the Bodum.

  Things seemed crazy right now. He could react and react and react. Or he could let go of the unfairness of his life, the looming possibility of failure. The looming death of Mrs. Jaks. His disposability to his parents. His stalker. All anyone ever had was the present. He had supper. A place to stay. A bed. A little nest egg under his mattress. A small but growing total in his savings account. He had meetings, as many as he wanted to attend.

  “Is he leaving soon?” Dent said, poking his head through the wall.

  “Probably not,” Jared said. “But no one’s going to fight you for the TV.”

  Dent floated back to the recliner. “You’re the biggest chaos magnet I’ve ever met.”

  “Wait’ll you meet my mom,” Jared said.

  26

  Early Monday morning, Jared was wired from all the coffee he’d drunk to stay awake at work, so he dragged the freshly painted cast iron patio set over to Olive’s apartment so they’d have something to sit on. Eliza’s kokum, Darlene, answered the door. She clapped her hands when she saw the chairs and table. They set them up in the living room, where there was an old-school tube TV the size of a small freezer sitting on the floor, currently tuned to The Young and the Restless. Eliza snoozed on a sleeping bag on the living room floor, arms wrapped tightly around her stuffed snowman. Shu hovered
near the ceiling, facing the wall.

  “It took seven men to get that damn TV in here,” Kokum Darlene said. “Let ’em try to steal that.”

  At lunchtime, Kokum Darlene brought him a paper grocery bag full of freshly fried bannock. Jared didn’t have the heart to tell her he couldn’t look at anything deep-fried without feeling slightly nauseous. His pores were still oozing fryer fat from his Sunday night shift.

  He took out a few pieces for Kota, who remained passed out on the couch. He put a few aside for Justice in case she dropped by. The bannock was still warm and there was still enough to feed an army, so he decided to take the rest of it over to Barbie’s place. The address she had given him led him to the basement suite of a house just a few blocks away.

  Barbie’s oldest daughter, Bernadette, was home and bored, babysitting the two younger kids, who weren’t in school yet. She talked his ear off as she brought out some maple syrup, telling him Barbie was at work at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre and her dad was driving shuttles for a TV series currently filming in Richmond. Bernadette was taking night courses to become a dental technician. She told him Pat and Sponge were tech support at a computer store. Jared was surprised. They never talked about work. He’d assumed they were still in high school. Their twin mattresses were propped up against the living room wall. The kids flopped them down and hopped on them, spreading maple syrup all over the sheets. The brothers had plastic totes beside their beds marked Robertz Clothz—touch and DIE you bratz, and Pat’s unmentionables: Open at your own RISK!!!!

  After claiming he needed to study, Jared stopped at Café Calabria and treated himself to a latte. When he checked his phone, his mom had sent him selfies with her new-found in-laws on horses, on ATVs, at the hospital. Mave had sent him pictures of her writing cabin, with its excellent view of elk and the fall forest with its gold-and-rust leaves against the dark-green spruce and pine.

  Miss you, she’d texted. Can’t wait to see you this afternoon!

  Jared squeezed in a meeting. He spotted Lex coming in and nodded hello. She sat beside him, casually, like they were strangers. Her hair was green today, spiked in uneven, short braids. She had matching eyeliner. She wore a green jersey of a sports team he didn’t recognize.