The Exile Book of Native Canadian Fiction and Drama

by Daniel David Moses

  It got dark. I practised until my legs hurt. I sat under the streetlamp, just so Dad could see me. I made as many piles of stones as I could. I watched the woodpecker for hours. I sang. I played until it was dark and I was alone.

  In the dim light I opened up the book with the picture and the story. I strained to read. It was very dark. Giving up, I tried to remember what the story was, what the words on the page had said. I tried telling the story out loud. Frustrated, I found I couldn’t remember all of the parts. I tried just making up stuff I couldn’t recall, but nothing felt quite right. Exhausted, I just waited. I had the time. There was nowhere else to go.

  I remember that night, so dark, so black, with only bright stars overhead. I remember the blinking streetlight. I remember being lonely. I remember waiting, thinking I got the day wrong. I remember being furious when I knew I hadn’t.

  I remember waiting and that Dad didn’t come. I remember wanting to forget my dad as soon as he told me his first story. I remember hoping that Dad liked mine, even if I cheated. I remember being angry, looking at my story. I remember ripping out all of the pages from the book and throwing them on the ground. I remember Mom calling to me, telling me that it was time for bed.

  What does a story matter, anyways, I thought. It’s not mine. I’ll just think of one myself. It doesn’t matter.

  Reaching for my bike, I left that empty book on the ground with the ripped out pages. Turning around, I grabbed my bike and headed on home.

  Then, I heard you.

  Hee hee hee heeeeee, you giggled. Hee hee hee heeeeee. Hee hee hee heeeeee. Hee hee hee heeeeee.

  Where did you come from? Were you listening? Were you watching? Were you here the whole time? Were you waiting for me? Were you telling this story?

  For the first time, I smelled you deeply, gagged, and choked. You appeared all of a sudden, your hair all over your body, your hunched shoulders, thick legs, shifting eyes, and that huge gaping mouth with no teeth. You were small then, not the fat slob you would become. Nevertheless, you started eating right away. It didn’t take you long to swallow half the tree.

  Are you real? I asked.

  You, of course, ignored me, leaves falling from your mouth. When I grabbed a few up off the ground, then you stared at me.

  I remember being scared. You were frightening to look at, especially the first time. I hopped on my bike and pedalled to get away, crying. You followed, and I thought you were going to kill me. You suddenly appeared in front of me and I swerved and fell, scraping my knees and breaking my glasses. It was then that I realized, for the first time, that you had powers. I left my bike and ran into my house, hoping I could escape.

  All night, you were everywhere, causing trouble. In the kitchen. In the bathroom. In my room. In my bed. Everywhere was you, your smell, your ugly face. I tried to get away. I tried to hide. I tried to run. You have been there since.

  I didn’t see Dad again, until years later, in the big room with the old man in the black robes. I couldn’t concentrate because you were there, eating the desk, playing with his wig, playing with yourself on his desk. I could barely hear that old man when he was talking to me.

  What do you want? he asked me.

  I don’t want him in my life, I said, pointing at you.

  Sole custody mother, supervised visitation rights father, the old man said.

  No, I meant him. Not you, Dad. Not you. Not you.

  My dad gave me a hug, told me he loved me, and I scarcely ever saw him again. When I did, he was tense, nervous, and sad, and even when I asked him to tell me stories, he wouldn’t. Then, he started just to phone me. Years later, he stopped coming.

  Please come back, Dad. I don’t mind waiting. I don’t care. Please, just come back.

  It was weeks later when I realized your trick. You did it, I realized. You kept my father from coming that Friday. You tricked him, and then you tricked me. You’re the one who did all of this. You wanted me all to yourself. You’re an asshole.

  And now, you play tricks on me all the time. When I draw, when I write, all I can create is you. You are all that comes out on the page. The disgusting pictures that I create are of you. You. You. You. Always you. I hate drawing, writing, living, like I hate you.

  There is no reason to look back at that time. There are no answers there. There is only now, where you are today. I have to deal with you now. Now. Now. Now. Now.

  I don’t know what trick you are going to play next.

  No one knows you are here. Even in this office, when I tell people to look, they say they can’t see you. You are everywhere, I tell them. Right there, beside you.

  They say I make no sense. I should go to a doctor, they say. I have been, I respond. I have seen doctors, psychiatrists, herbalists, yoga instructors, professors, bartenders. Once a guy in a New Age bookstore told me that seeing must be a gift. I said that he was wrong and told him your hand was on his crotch.

  One time, I went to a real medicine man. He didn’t tell me where he was from. He was an Indian, though. He told me that he could do a purification for me and it would wash you away. He sang and beat a drum. He told me to dance. Then, when it was over, he asked me for fifty dollars and there you were, laughing behind him, waving your ass.

  I gave him a hundred. Keep the change, I told him.

  I turn on my computer and you are all over my keyboard. The letters are covered in slivers of your hair and drops of your saliva. When I finally wipe them clean, I open my files and they are filled with descriptions of you. I read yesterday’s reports, and they are covered with images of you laughing. My e-mails are all from you. My desktop is a photo of your huge, black mouth. You. You. You. You. Nothing else. What mean games you play on me.

  I go to the bathroom to hide in the stall. I hold the door shut, but you eventually grunt and struggle as you open it and squeeze in there with me. You poop with me, beside me, through me, all over me. Oh, the stink. Not again.

  At lunch you eat my food. You munch off of my plate, burping, farting, swallowing whole everything. As always, you grow fatter with everything you consume. I am hungry but can’t eat because being around you makes me want to get sick, so I push my tray towards you, and you swallow the orange plastic completely.

  I try to work when I get called to the boss’s office to copy down every word he says.

  Copy this down, he says. Memo. For Press Release. I Cappuccino Meaning, President and CEO of www.redman.com do hereby announce that, following the traditions of our – ahem – more cultural brethren, from now on we will have all of our encyclopaedic entries on Indian cultures free for everyone. There will be no rules, no owners, no standards. All of our existing web-pages, newspapers, picture books, and e-mails will be editable, and members of the public are now encouraged to come and add their two cents. And don’t worry, everyone will be right. We’re also going to stop publishing anything new on paper, and – as of next year – open up our new 24-hour information centre built in the style of a real-life teepee where real-life old Indians will share oral stories and laughter. We will be completely authentic and real, and all of us can do whatever we want with whatever we hear. This will be the last word I will ever speak on paper. Thank you. Oh, I mean, ho ho ho ho.

  My boss is fat, pompous and rude, but, hoping that he will promote me, I tell him he’s lost some weight. You laugh at his jokes about his wife and roll on the floor at the stupidity that is yourself. You help yourself to his cigars, swallow them, and lick the covers of his books. I see your hairs on top of his Indian Entrepreneur of the Year Award, so I know you must have done something with that. Of course, you rub the photo of his wife on your crotch. I hand him the memo, and he laughs at the pictures of you I have drawn and tells me to come back tomorrow. Then, he tears it up and throws the pieces in the air.

  Go and tell someone what I told you, my boss announces.

  No wonder I am in this dead-end job. It’s the same thing every day. I am unable to advance, to evolve, to grow, to do anything that wo
uld impress anyone. I will never get promoted.

  Getting back to my cubicle I collapse into my chair. I feel the cold plastic grooves sticking into my ass because you’ve eaten the cushion.

  I am paralyzed. It’s always the same crap. It’s killing me. You’re killing me.

  Hee hee hee heeeeee, you whisper. Hee hee hee heeeee. Hee hee hee heeeeee. Hee hee hee heeeeee.

  I finish work and run away. I take the stairs, and I hear you having behind me.

  You never run, do you. Your fat belly can’t keep up to me. I run and you are far behind. I race to the exit and feel my eyes screaming at the pain of the afternoon light, my legs throbbing at the newness of motion. I squint as I sprint through the parking lot.

  I get to my car and rip open the door. I lock it. I lock all of them. Even if I get a few second until you get here, I am safe. I am alone. I close my eyes.

  Of course, I am only playing a trick on myself.

  I drive away. You’re there. I can smell you. I can hear you struggling to breathe, and I feel the vehicle weighted down with your fat ass.

  Then, the smell of a cigarette floods my nose. How nice. Now you’re really going to kill me. How the hell did you get that?

  White tobacco fills the air, fixing the distance between you and I. I bet you knew I am allergic, you jerk. I cough and gag and swerve all over the road. For a moment, I think about driving right into the railing. Then one of us will die.

  No. I can play your game and get rid of you. Maybe that will work. I am going to hurt you, make fun of you, make your life a living hell. I am going to win.

  I rip open the back door but you are gone. Did you get out? Did you know what I was going to do? Maybe that was it. Maybe I am free. Maybe I see you, standing by the ditch, puking up the cigarette you smoked. Dammit.

  I chase after you, like you have done to me so many times. I run and run and run and run. But you’re always one step ahead, one turn, one pace, one laugh. I can’t catch you. I don’t know why I thought I could this time. It never worked before.

  I drive and you smoke again. You never learn. You cough. You eat the butts. You puke in the back seat. Oh, the smell. Again, always again.

  When I pull in the driveway, it hits me. I am home. She will help. She will know what to do. She will believe me. She will make it all better. She always does.

  You follow, panting and groaning.

  Opening the door, I feel a difference. There is no light on in the living room, no voice to announce me, no soft call of my name. There is only silence. I feel the coldness of the house – a hollow, empty absence. There is no one, no her, no centre, only spaces where there once was a something.

  No. Not today. Not now.

  I hear the microwave bell ring. You’re in the kitchen, making yourself something to eat. How insulting is that?

  I run upstairs, disbelieving the truth. I hear you behind me.

  Her clothes, her bags, her presence, gone, wiped away. Her plants, the only things we owned together, are gone too. I live with nothing but leased furniture, photographs of memories, and my old bachelor dishes. Well, unless I count you, giggling in the corner as you gnaw on your own crotch.

  I find her note, in pieces on the bedroom floor, drenched in pools of your spit. You ripped it up, you asshole. How did you get it? Where did you find it? There are some pieces missing. Did you swallow them? How do I make sense of these shards?

  Hey, you’re weren’t alone. Who was that someone else? You hurt me. This will eat me if Tell me. It’s not right. Last night proved it. I suppose you are. I keep telling myself Be honest with me. Don’t blame father. No more lies. That make deeper. tears. honesty. faced. my ego. am not your undivided attention. independent. exist. normal. perhaps alone. kharma. I think she is right. I’m leaving. I care about you so much. I alone shield and deal. But I also respect you. to cope. Whatever works. survival mechanism crazy stupid say you don’t care. Tell me this is over. mother’s cut me off. tell me love someone else. Easy? so I too want to know love where to go I want to go stop hurting. I want to stop caring but you will leave again. And I can’t forgive you now. Yes. I care about you I wish it didn’t hurt you are not alone

  Me.

  I sit on the bed and put my head in my hands. I’m defeated. You enter the bedroom, sit on the opposite side and roll in the covers. The smell of shit fills the room.

  How could I not see this coming? How could I be with her this morning? How can she be gone? How can I be alone?

  Hee hee hee heeeeee, you shit. Hee hee hee heeeee. Hee hee hee heeeeee. Hee hee hee heeeeee.

  You did, didn’t you? You watched her, wanted her, took her, and now you have me all to yourself. You knew that she was the only thing that kept you from destroying me. She made me happy and it drove you crazy. So you tricked her, just like my dad.

  I stand up and turn to you. I’m going to make you give her back to me. This time, it’s going to be different.

  Where did you go? I want to see you. I want you to feel the pain that you have created. And this time, I’m not going to stop. This time I’m going to win.

  There you are, under that pile of shit. I can see you moving. You can’t get away from me now. I want her back, and you will give her to me.

  I bet you think I won’t crawl through this pool of poop to get to you. I will. I will get you, you bastard. You think you are safe in that stink but I know it is just full of you. I know what you eat. I can handle it. I can beat you. I can dig through this shit. It’s only my world anyway.

  I will find a way to get her back once I get my hands on you.

  I take a deep breath, dive in, and wade through your powerful smell. It is thick, dark, and all over me, between my fingers and toes, grabbing me, slowing me, gripping me. Soon, I am treading in a wall of stench so much more than I thought it was. I am surrounded by it; it is everywhere. The more I flail, the more I get filled in it. I’ve run out of air. I open my mouth and try to scream but it fills so quickly I can’t even moan. I swing my arms and legs trying to get to the surface, but feel myself falling. Oh no. Down. Down. Down. Down. I try harder and harder, but I am too heavy, too slow, too old. The shit is too thick, too strong, too brown, too much. I am sinking, sinking, into the trap you set, filling me until all I can breathe is you.

  Oh my god, I’m going to die. And you’re going to live. I’ve lost. Fuck.

  And, then, I see her. I remember her. I miss her. I love her.

  In this moment, my worst, she comes back. Not in the shit, in my head – although the lines are hardly so separate anymore.

  It’s her story. My story. Our story. An important story. Oh, don’t worry, you’re there too, you asshole. It’s the story where I first realize who you are, actually. You should probably hear it while I can still tell it.

  It’s about a time with you, but it’s really about us.

  The first day, in a class at that university. A professor walking in, telling everyone to pull out a book called The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology. You sit, right behind me. For years, I try to shut you out the best I could.

  But today it’s impossible. There, on the front page, is you, laughing and pointing right at me. The trickster, that’s what the professor, the students, and the authors call you. And, from the first words out of the professor’s mouth, I can tell they’re yours. They are.

  Few myths have so wide a distribution as the one, known by the name of The Trickster, which we are presenting here. For few can we so confidently assert that they belong to the oldest expressions of mankind. Few other myths have persisted with their fundamental content unchanged. The Trickster myth is found in clearly recognizable form among the simplest aboriginal tribes and among the complex. We encounter it among the ancient Greeks, the Chinese, the Japanese and in the Semitic world. Many of the Trickster’s traits were perpetuated in the figure of the mediaeval jester, and have survived right up to the present day in the Punch-and-Judy plays and in the clown. Although repeatedly combined with other
myths and frequently drastically reorganized and reinterpreted, its basic plot seems to always to have succeeded in reasserting itself.

  I hear you snickering beside me, rolling in the aisle, holding your fat belly. You did write this, you asshole. The professor continues.

  Trickster himself, is, not infrequently, identified with specific animals, such as raven, coyote, hare, spider, but these animals are only secondarily to be equated with concrete animals. Basically he possesses no well-defined and fixed form. As he is represented in the versions of the Trickster myth we are publishing here, he is primarily an inchoate being of undetermined proportions, a figure foreshadowing the shape of man. In this version, he possesses intestines wrapped around his body, and an equally long penis, likewise wrapped around his body with his scrotum on top of it. Yet regarding his specific features we are, significantly enough, told nothing.

  Yeah, right. You wish you had a dick that long. These words are meant to confuse those who can really see you, mislead those who could help me. I know what you look like. You are this fat slob sitting behind me. The one that follows me around, like a bad nightmare that never ends. It’s like you wrote this to make sure that the truth is that no one can figure you out.

  But I know you.

  Other textbooks say basically the same, minor variations on a larger theme of nothingness. You’ve written all of them, I realize. You are everywhere. You write in different voices in different fonts in different times in different books. Still, it is your voice, playing tricks. I know that this can’t be a good thing. You are taking over.

  I first tell a study group that these are tricks played by you. I know what you really look like, I tell them. I even draw a picture of you, but they tell me that it’s just a blank page. You obviously erased the picture, I exclaim. It would be just like you to do that.

  Soon, everyone refuses to work with me.

  I had to do more. One day I raise my hand and tell the professor the same thing. That I know you. That you are there, writing on the blackboard. That the truth is that you are tricking all of us.