The Lesser Blessed

by Richard Van Camp

  “Look at me,” I said. “Look into me, just look at me.”

  She did

  and I wasn’t alone

  I wasn’t forgotten

  I wasn’t dead

  There was no small town

  There was no killing

  I wasn’t bad I was clean

  I arched so hard I thought I’d touch the back of my skull with my feet. It was like a bullet passed through me. I sank deep within myself where I was untouchable, where I was awake but sleeping. I fell so deep I was in my fingers, the filaments of my hair, and Juliet was far away pumping me, far away melting me, and I panted and lay there spent like winter coming, like fall dying.

  As I sank back, she was hugging me, panting, “Holy shit, holy shit.” And I was selfish. I lay there and breathed

  breathed

  breathed.

  She hugged me as we lay on our sides. I felt so good. So clean. She ran her fingers against me. She blew herself into my ear.

  “Your back,” she kept saying. “Larry, what happened to your back ?”

  “Shh,” I said, “come on now.”

  “Were you burned?”

  “You’ll never believe me.”

  “Come on. It’s like running your hands over a jigsaw puzzle.”

  I was quiet. I looked at her neck. I felt her breasts against my chest. They were warm, skinned doves.

  “Do you think,” I said, “that when a Russian man is inside a Russian woman, they both feel like we just did?”

  “What?” she said.

  “Well, it felt so good to be inside you,” I said, “so hot and spicy. It must feel like that for every man who’s ever been inside a woman. I bet it feels the same.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she said and tried rolling away.

  “No, Juliet. Please. I just feel so happy. This was a dream come true for me.”

  “Yeah, well, tell me what happened to your back and we’ll call it even.”

  I thought about it for a long time. I wanted to get it perfect. “I was sewn into the belly of an animal.

  She was quiet and I waited for something. She started to giggle.

  “God, you are so weird,” she said. I ran her hair through my fingers and thought of the fireweed in the ditches in spring, how good it smelled, how the colour ran off like blood on your fingers.

  “I love you, Juliet,” I said and I fell asleep.

  Where the Blue Light Falls

  When I awoke, she was crying. I sat up.

  “I’m scared,” she said, and hugged me.

  “Juliet, what are you going to do?”

  “Go to Edmonton.”

  “What about us?”

  “Larry, I wanted to do this.”

  “With me? You never even look at me.”

  “Larry,” she sniffed, “just because I’m not looking at you doesn’t mean I’m not watching you.”

  I was quiet. I held her. I looked at her. I kissed her face. She looked down. I kissed her eyelids closed.

  She put her hand between us and over her tummy.

  “I have to tell you something,” I said. “I’m not going to lie. I have to tell you. I have this God-shaped hole in my heart, and I think you do too.”

  She started to cry hard, and I could feel her hot tears fall down my chest.

  “Juliet,” I whispered, “I have to ask you. Why did you use crutches in grade eight?”

  She was quiet for a bit, thinking. “Did you believe what they said—that I had the dose?”

  “I didn’t.” It had just hit me we hadn’t used a condom. (Shit!) “But I heard what they said.”

  “Larry, don’t you get it? Every high school needs a whore: Yellow-knife, Hay River, Fort Smith. I’m Simmer’s.”

  “I don’t think you’re a whore,” I said. “I think you’re beautiful.”

  I kissed her nose, her cheeks, her forehead. I kissed everything I could reach. My hands held her ass and I squeezed.

  “I’ll tell you what really happened,” she said, “but you can’t tell anyone. Promise?”

  We shook. I wouldn’t let her hand go. “Promise.”

  “That was probably the best summer of my life,” she began. “I had it all. I was going to a lot of fun parties then. The seniors really knew how to rock. They’d party at the racetrack, the golf course, the towers. We could go for days. There was this guy from Yellowknife. A real babe. His name was Jungle, and he was a dealer. He had this car he wouldn’t let anyone drive. And this car was deadly. Class. I knew he had his eye on me, and he let me take his car out to the dump. I had it up to a hundred and twenty klicks an hour on the highway. I remember hearing those four barrels open up. We were flying, Larry, flying.”

  I nodded and held her close. God, she was beautiful. I kissed her and she looked away. She kept talking.

  “One night we were partying at Kevin’s trailer. I needed a place to pass out. I couldn’t go home. So I went to bed in Kevin’s room and told Kevin to watch out for me. I passed out in that room awhile. When I woke up, I knew someone was lying behind me. I pretended to sleep. I was awake, but I kept my eyes closed. It was a man, I knew. The bed was shaking. I turned around and it was Jungle. He was jacking off, watching me. I started laughing. He looked so stupid. I don’t know why I laughed like that. I’d never seen anyone do that before. The next thing I knew, he had me by my hair and he flipped me onto the floor. I landed on my leg and we both heard something pop. I started screaming and he grabbed my throat. No one was there, anyway. They’d all gone for more booze. Jungle shook me and said if I ever told anyone about what I’d seen, he’d kill me. He said he knew someone in Yellowknife who killed people and that all it took was two thousand dollars.”

  “Holy shit.” I sat up. “What a fuckin’ idiot.”

  “So that’s why I had to use crutches.”

  “What happened to Jungle? Did someone kick the shit out of him?”

  She shook her head. “He got in his big beautiful car and took off.”

  We were quiet.

  “The sad thing is,” she said, “I would have let him.”

  “No,” I said, “no.”

  “I can still hear those four barrels opening up,” she said. “We were so free on the highway, Larry. You should have seen us. I couldn’t stop laughing.”

  I let out my breath. Juliet ran her fingers through my hair and we kissed for a while. She held me for a bit, and then firmly said, “Go.”

  “Wait,” I said.

  “Go! I mean it. I have to leave soon.”

  I got up. The furnace came on in the house and I felt the hot air from the vent above wash over me. I stood up, naked, free. I grabbed my clothes and looked at her. Her eyes went wide when she saw my scars but she said nothing. She got up off the bed. “Good-bye, Larry. Thank you for a wonderful night.”

  I waited. She left the room. I heard the shower start up and still I waited. I wanted her to come back so we could talk and kiss. I looked at the Japanese fans, and it hit me: all the wings were clipped.

  I knew she wasn’t coming back. I tried to fix the bed, but I knew she wanted me to leave. It was a moment. And I knew it was gone. I saw her hairbrush on a little table she had. It was surrounded by pink candles, a gold chain coiled around them. I picked up the brush and pulled out the longest hair I could find. I wrapped it around my finger. I kissed it. I put it between her mattress and the box spring. This way, when she died, she’d have to come back, find this one hair, remember me, remember us, remember what happened before flying back to heaven. I climbed out the window and into the snow. I could taste her kisses in my mouth and I was hollow inside. I had monkey hair, and the snow was coming down. I took a big breath and filled my lungs. I followed my fading footprints back to where Darcy had dropped me off. He wasn’t there.

  In the snow, I saw the twisted lump of the ptarmigan. I picked it up. It was frozen thick and solid.

  “Fuck,” I said. I held it close to my chest, its black glass eyes open, staring at me through snow.
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  “Rest,” I said, “rest and sleep.”

  As I started to walk, I heard Darcy’s three-wheeler nepp-nepping down the road. I ran onto the street and waved him down. My heart stopped. I could see he had a passenger.

  “Shit!” I thought, “he’s got Johnny!”

  I thought they’d jump off and hang a lickin’ on me, but the engine died and all was quiet.

  “Here it comes,” I said to myself and advanced.

  “Hey, Cheemo!” called Jazz’s voice. “How’s it going, Dogrib?”

  I didn’t answer but walked straight up to him. Darcy, pulling his helmet off, said, “Cool it.”

  I looked at Jazz and let him know I was ready to rock again. He glared back and smiled.

  “As if...” he said.

  “Fuck you,” I said. “I’m your fuckin dad.”

  His eyes went wide.

  “Talk to her?” Darcy said.

  “Yeah.”

  “She still wants to keep it?”

  “I guess.”

  “Well, Johnny tub-of-shit ain’t going nowhere for a while,” Jazz said. “We got him good. Didn’t we, Darce?”

  “Yeah,” Darcy said, “we got him.”

  The motor started again and Darcy put on his helmet.

  “Check out the smile on Dogrib’s face,” Jazz said. They took off, snaking down the road.

  I walked past the Pinebough and down Main Street. The snow started to fall so thick I could pet it on its way down. There weren’t any cars on the streets, and I did a little jig at the four-way intersection.

  “Fuckinrights! Fuckinrights! Fuckinrights!” I giggled, twirled and ran through the potato field. I knew I should feel bad, but I was holding a little piece of heaven in my heart.

  “This one’s for Juliet! Thank you, God! Mahsi Cho!”

  I was still carrying the ptarmigan. I stuffed it in my jacket.

  As I headed home, I saw a truck backed right up to Spruce Manor. The lights and windshield washers were on and the engine was running. Clothes were flying out one of the building windows and landing on the new snow.

  I slowed down and started to watch, and I saw Johnny trying to catch the clothes as they landed. I heard a woman’s voice yelling, “Come back! Come back! Come back!” and I could sec Donny being pulled out of the building by a tall skinny man. Donny was in his jeans and T-shirt, calling, “Johnny, we gotta go! Dad says we gotta go!”

  I ran past the truck and got close to Johnny. He turned like he was expecting to be hit. He had a black eye, and blood crusted around his nose.

  “Fuck!” he yelled.

  “The hell’s going on?”

  The clothes kept flying out the window, and the woman’s voice was crying, “That’ll teach you. That will teach you!”

  I helped him gather up his cold clothes.

  “Fuckin’ Mom’s having a conniption. Dad’s here to pickus up.”

  “You going back? To Hay River?” (Big Kahoona)

  “Going to Yellowknife.”

  “Johnny!” a voice boomed. “Get in the damn truck!”

  “Coming,” he called weakly.

  “What about Juliet?” I asked.

  He looked at me and covered his face.

  “Johnny,” I said. “What about Juliet?”

  “Jonathan Beck,” his father hollered, “get in the truck!”

  “You stupid kid!” the woman called.

  Johnny looked straight at me and said, “She fucks good, don’t she?” He smiled. “It could be your kid now.”

  I went to push him down but he caught my arms and pulled me towards him, right into the crook of his elbow. I went down. Before I could react, he sat on top of me, landing full velocity on my chest, knocking the air out of me. I huffed as all my ribs crushed. I tried to bring my thumbs up towards his eyes and throat but he put his heavy legs on me. I heard the slam of the truck door and I heard someone running towards us in the cornmeal snow. The ptarmigan in my jacket felt suddenly warm as Johnny pulled his fist back behind his skull. I heard his dad scream, “Leave him alone! We gotta go!”

  Johnny was going to bring that war hammer down and bust my nose. I knew it; he knew it. He was going to bring me to where I brought Jazz. But he couldn’t. He didn’t. He just stayed like that and looked at me.

  “I’m just a kid, Lare,” he whispered. “I want to be beautiful just a little bit longer.”

  His father dove straight into him. They started to wrestle in the snow, with his father yelling, “Fuck sakes. Let’s go!”

  Johnny cried back, “Fuck off! Let go!”

  I stayed there on the ground, looking at the night as they screamed at each other. My back was cold. The northern lights were washing the sky with green and blue hands. I just lay there and felt fucked.

  Surprisingly, Donny walked above me. He was chewing on a carrot.

  “Hey, chief,” he said, looking down, oblivious to the fighting, “Johnny kicked your ass, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “Hey,” he said. “You gonna remember me tomorrow?”

  I nodded. I was still out of breath.

  He smiled. “You gonna remember me in two weeks?”

  I nodded and felt my ribs.

  He started to laugh. “You gonna remember me in three months?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Knock knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  He kicked snow in my face. “Forgot me already, chief.”

  He walked off. I tried to sit up and spit the snow out of my mouth. I watched as Johnny was hauled off by his father. He was crying, trying to get away. His father opened the door and threw him in, then strutted over to the driver’s side and slammed the door. I saw Johnny rise for a moment and try to raise his hand in a good-bye. Donny stood up and yelled, “We’re off to Yellowknife! Sol later, chief!” The truck threw snow as it sped off down the road.

  I stood for a minute and watched the truck disappear onto the highway turnoff.

  “Sol,” I called softly after them.

  I listened, and I could hear Johnny’s mom crying from the open window.

  “Fuckin’ kids,” she kept crying. “You fuckin’ kids.”

  The dead ptarmigan had fallen out of my jacket. I picked it up and headed for where Old Man Ferguson kept his dogs.

  Me

  And with my hands, I buried the beautiful white bird as best I could. In the clearing ground where I had created the two hearts, I dug and dug until I hit the frozen earth. I placed the ptarmigan in the snow and covered her.

  I said, “Rest.”

  I said, “Sleep.”

  I said, “Die.”

  And I wept because I knew I had someone

  someone to remember my name

  someone to cry out my name

  someone to greet me naked in snow

  someone to mourn me in death

  to feel me there

  in my sacred place

  and I wept because I did not belong to anyone

  I was not owned

  not with mate

  but I smiled too knowing this because I knew my life was still unwrapped

  I would in time

  find one to call my own

  mine to disappear in

  to be ...

  Acknowledgements

  The author wishes to thank the Yellowknife Rotary Club, the Government of the Northwest Territories Student Services Department, the NWT Literacy Council, the Ontario Arts Council, Arctic College, the En’owkin Centre and the University of Victoria for their generous support.

  Mahsi

  The original music score behind “The Monkeys of India” was provided by Peter Lauterman. Mahsi Cho! Mahsi to Keith Smith for his rendition of “Child in Flames.” Mahsi to Trevor Cameron and Ryan Klaschinsky for many odd and hilarious seeds. Mahsi to Lome Simon for editing, inspiration and believing in me. I miss you. Mahsi to the Fields of the Nephilim for inspiring the novel’s title with their song “Celebrate,” off their The Nephilim album.r />
  Mahsi to Barbara Pulling, Carolyn Swayze, Roger Brunt, Dylan Vasas, Moira Jones and Alec Lyne for their hawk-eyed editing and comments, Mahsi also to Trevor Evans, Mike, Jon Liv JQ, James “Alien Autopsy” Croizier, Garth Prosper, Ms. Kelly Kitchen, Ron Klassen, Jason, Sarah Hodgkins, Junior Mercredi, Denise Williams, Clinton, Louise and Mike Spenser; also to anyone who’s ever had anything to do with p.w.K. High School and Fort Smith, NWT. Mahsi to my brothers, Roger, Johnny and Jamie, for their inspiration and humour. Mahsi to my mom. Mahsi to my father. Mahsi also to each and every member of the Dogrib Nation of the Northwest Territories for their stories and power. Mahsi to the Creator for this my breath and eyes. Mahsi. Mahsi to the children of the world for their inspiration and innocence.

  The writing here was inspired by the music and talent of The Cure, My Bloody Valentine, The Sisters of Mercy, Skinny Puppy, the T2 Soundtrack, The Smiths, The Ministry, The Cocteau Twins, Kate Bush, Slowdive, Nick Cave, Dead Can Dance, The Mission, Iron Maiden and Fields of the Nephilim. Mahsi Cho!