I sigh. Being Anishinaabe is to be surrounded by jokers. A regular laugh a minute.
Hey, says my dad.
I look at him.
If you see a cereal bowl out there bring it in. He looks at me. For the porridge tomorrow.
Okay, I say, and I sigh right at him.
Hey, says my dad.
I look at him.
Tobacco is one of the gifts from the Creator.
I hang my head. Maybe I turn red. I’m not sure if it’s noticeable but my ears and cheeks feel burning hot. How did he know? I’m thinking.
Maybe I could smell smoke on you, Dad says, which makes my forehead turn hot too. I feel like I was standing there in my underwear, and now they’ve just fallen around my ankles.
Or maybe it came to me in a dream, maybe you act like someone who’s been doing something he knows he shouldn’t, or maybe your grandpa told me….
I shift from one foot to another. I want to say, But Mishomis was smoking too! But I don’t.
Or maybe when I was walking back from cutting wood up on the bluff I saw you.
Shit, says Tony, you a jerk or what? Sits right out where anyone can see him, blowing smoke rings.
Yeah, says Jervis, you really should be more careful.
Look who’s talking, says Tony.
Leave him alone! says Kowhai. You’re such eggs.
Yeah, says Nani, grow up. He’s trying to talk to his dad.
What? says Tony. It’s true. One’s just about as smart as the other. Shit. Right out in the open where anyone can see.
That starts an even bigger argument, and soon they’re all yelling about how dumb I was. Like was I really incredibly dumb or just dumb enough to do something stupid once in a while. And they shout examples of my stupidity at each other to support their positions.
Oh, just shut up about it, would ya! I finally say. Can’t I do anything without you watching?
Hey, says my dad. And he turns and stares at me. He raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms across his puffed-out chest. He looks like a wrestler.
Jervis…Jervis and them, I say. Not you, Dad. And I pull on my gloves so fast I look like O.J. Simpson struggling to make my own gloves fit. Better get that wood, I say. My ears and cheeks are on fire.
Jervis, Tony, Kowhai, and Nani laugh all the way out to the woodpile.
Jerks.
I had a girlfriend too, says Jervis out of the blue. Then he pops a picture of her into my head so I nearly drive the truck off the road, and Jack says, and I quote, Hey, perhaps I should assume control of this vehicle.
You drive? You don’t even have a license, I say.
True. However, at least I am capable of driving straight on a straight road, he says.
I scowl at him.
Pretty, hunh? says Jervis. I don’t answer him.
Mistake. He flashes her picture in front of my eyes again for longer this time.
Geez! I yell, waving my arm in front of my face.
Hoh-laaay! says Jack, as we zigzag on and off the road. Jervis?
I pull over and let Jack drive. Take the back way, I tell him.
There’re nothing but back ways, he says.
Whatever.
He puts his pow wow CD in the stereo. I get to select the music since I’m driving he says. There’s not much I can say since I made the rule. I figured it’d be a while before he could drive, so it seemed pretty smart at the time.
Whatever.
You know, says Jack, you should do a ceremony for Jervis.
What? I say.
A cer-e-mo-neeee, he says.
I look out the window. Jervis is nattering away in my head. The truck’s kinda like this one, he says. Except bigger. And without all that rust. Faster too I bet. And the high beams both work.
What ceremony? What are you talking about?
You should go to see that old man. You should ask him about participating in it. I heard him discussing that ceremony, eh. He pauses, undoubtedly for effect, then he starts talking real slow like the old men do. He clears his throat. It was during the time of the Ground Freezing Moon, just after the new moon, during the time of…uh…when I…uhm…when I had seen 15 winters. Even Jack seems temporarily confused by that, and his eyebrows bunch up on top of his eyes.
We sit there in a stunned silence for a moment, calculating. Oh brother! I groan. You mean last week?! He ignores me.
That old man, he spoke as the sun moved across Father Sky, Jack says, and it was then I knew Jervis would like….
I can still see those headlights, Jervis is saying. Ironic, eh?
Oh, yeah, I say interrupting, isn’t it ironic! My voice fills the cab like a hundred arrows flying. Jack stares at me—he knows I hate it when he does that.
So if you know so much why doesn’t Jervis talk to you?! I growl at him.
Jack’s hands clench the steering wheel, and he stares straight ahead. His mouth is a straight line.
Yep, says Jervis, it was just like this truck.
My heart starts pounding. Beads of sweat form on my temples. It feels as if a boa constrictor is wrapped around my heart and lungs. Would you quit that! I tell him.
Sorry.
Why can’t you just tell me? I ask. It’s not like you can’t talk. You hardly ever stop! C’mon, I say. Just tell me.
When I wake up I’m standing outside in my pajamas, covered in snow.
A light goes on behind me. C’mon in, says Mom.
We were walking down a dirt road, I tell her.
Yeah, well, do it inside, she says. Where it’s warm. She puts her arm around me and guides me into the house. She tucks me into bed like I’m six years old again, and she stands there, looking at me. I look up at her, but I don’t know what to say. She turns to leave. My feet are cold, I say.
She walks over to the dresser, opens a drawer, comes back, and hands me a pair of socks my auntie knit. Big thick ones.
She watches me put them on then tucks me in again. Kisses my forehead. When she turns to leave, I clear my throat. She stops and looks at me.
Oh, I say in my deep voice. Sure is cold out, eh?
Yeah, she says.
It’s not so much the cold as the dampness, I say.
Want another blanket? she asks.
Sure, I say. In a minute she’s back with a big Pendleton blanket, medicine wheel design. She throws it over me and smiles. When she turns to leave I say, Uh…
She stops and looks at me.
Uh, I say. That crazy Jervis.
She picks up something from the dresser and walks over to the window by my bed. When she steps away, my dreamcatcher is hanging there throwing feather shadows across the bed.
Have a good sleep, Son, she says.
I stare out the window for a long time. But why? I keep asking. Why?
Maybe it’s like that movie, ya know, that one where that kid sees ghosts! says Duck.
Duck always has an answer for everything. Some theory or something. And it always ends up as a warning. That’s how he got his name. He almost ended up being called Chicken Little, except that he has that funny voice and that big ole ass that wobbles from side to side when he walks. That’s one thing about nicknames around here. Nothing is considered too private, too embarrassing, or too mean to tease you about. It’s kinda nice actually, ‘cause the names are a sort of acceptance in an Anishnaabe sort of way. Like nothing is too terrible. Got anorexia? You might get called Stick like my cousin Meredith. Real name Lucas and got three fingers burned off when you got drunk and set your house on fire? You’re Cool Hand Luke. Even Jack’s name isn’t really Jack.
Like maybe Jervis wants ya to do something for him! Ya better be careful.
Maybe, I say.
Maybe he’s lost, says Jack, and you’re the only one who can assist him in finding the way to that path, that path of stars.
Duck and I stare at him. As if he knows anything about that. Jackshit.
Maybe you got special powers for seeing ghosts, says Duck. Like The Old Lady
can read dreams, or like I know when the smelts are running, or like Jack can talk to birds.
Jack can’t talk to birds, I say, glaring at Jack.
Jack just shrugs. Just as an example, I mean. Like if he could.
Great, I say. I… I see ghosts. I whisper it like that kid in the movie.
AND talk to them, says Jack.
And talk to them. Whoopee. I’d rather be able to predict lottery numbers or know how to disappear when I’m walking in the bush like old Sasquatch.
Yeah, man, that’s cool! Remember when we went deer hunting with him, eh, Cuz? You’d look and he’d be like 20 feet behind you, and next thing he’s 10 feet ahead, and you didn’t see or hear a thing. Spooky!
All of the hunters were able to do that back in the time before the Shaaganaash, says Jack. All of the hunters for our people could walk like that.
We think about that for a while.
After a while Jack says, You could banish him.
Who? says Duck. Jervis?
I can’t, I say.
Why?
I dunno. I just can’t. Not yet.
Ya better be careful, says Duck. Maybe the way he got killed was for a good reason. Maybe he’s trying to lure you somewhere so he can take your head off!
Duck!
Slowly the story gets told.
Jervis had a girlfriend with long dark hair, big brown eyes, and soft smooth lips. He’d go visit her, and they’d walk along the road, holding hands, kicking gravel, and laughing. When she laughed he could feel a partridge beating its wings inside his chest. He’d walk for miles just to see her and miles more just to hear her laugh.
The story was like a long road, full of twists and turns, stops and starts. Some of it was well travelled, some dark and desolate. Some was familiar. Some seemed familiar, but before you knew it, you were lost, going around in circles, taken on a long detour.
One day Jervis didn’t show up for their walk.
He was angry at his girl, who knows why now, for nothing maybe, who cares, the reason doesn’t matter anymore. He was angry, and he decided to go talk to another girl, one he had just met and who didn’t have big brown eyes or a laugh that made his heart fly. Just a girl.
His girl waited and waited for him. When he didn’t show she started walking, that much we know. I can see her walking that road, her heart dragging behind her like a dying child on a travois. Yet still believing she would meet Jervis along the way. After a while she probably forgot about the child dying behind her and began to worry that Jervis had been hurt. Somewhere along the way, she must have finally realized he wasn’t coming. Jervis wasn’t coming to see her. Just after that must have been when her brother Vin met her on his way home from work. He felt sad for his sister because she was so sad. Come home, he’d said. But she wouldn’t and she cried and pushed him away. She ran down the dusty old road right into his dreams.
He tried to follow but she slipped away.
When it was getting dark and she didn’t return home Vin stopped pacing. I’ll find her, he told his mom and he took the old truck out and drove the back roads for hours. He went back home thinking she’d be there, even though his heart was sinking into a deep dark snake pit where his stomach used to be.
For a long time they didn’t find her body. Just pieces of her clothing and some blood. It was a man not an animal the old tracker told them. A man took her when she was walking.
When she was looking for Jervis.
Jervis was walking the same road when the lights bore down on him. He searched for her, though everyone had warned him to stay away. It had just been a moment of anger. Just an instant of not loving her. But she’d fallen into that moment and disappeared. Jervis walked the same lonesome road looking for her.
Though he was warned.
When the bumper folded around his body and knocked him into the sky Jervis smiled. He had seen her face in the lights, and she was smiling that special smile that was just for him. Jervis could fly.
He knew the boots that stood beside his face as he lay crumpled on the shoulder. He knew it was blame for not loving her that the boots kicked into his ribs. That it was outrage at his thoughtlessness that the pipe drummed into his skull. And the blade in his throat told him not to tell. Never to tell.
And he wouldn’t.
Except for one thing. He did love her.
Damn, Tony says. He nearly lost his head for her. Damn near cut right off.
That’s sick, says Verna.
What? says Tony. Itsa truth, ain’t it?
How do you know? I say.
Look, says Tony. He loved her, she loved him. He got blamed for what happened to her. So her brother beats him to death. Out of love for his sister. So she’s dead. He’s dead. The brother rots in jail. And Jervis is stuck here. End of story.
But what about the man, the one who took her? I say. What about the man?
That night I’m back in the shed with the truck. Then I’m outside staring at the outhouse and the stone.
When I wake up I’m sweating and crying. I knew Jervis had an ugly death. He talked about it all the time. But it took me a while to find out about his girlfriend and her brother and how love and rage and guilt and blaming had gotten so mixed up. I wake up, and I cry for them. For Jervis who made a small but terrible mistake and lost the love of his life. For his girlfriend who probably died in a hateful way at the hands of a man who’d never been caught, and all the while she knew that Jervis hadn’t come to her that day, that she would die alone in that very moment Jervis’s love was weakest. And for her brother who loved his little sister but let himself go crazy with blame and rage and despair and killed the most precious part of himself. I weep for all of them.
When I finish I go to see my Mishomis.
Hey, says Jack. Lookit this! and he points at the television.
I walk over. It’s a cop show telling about the case of a serial killer. I can’t stand these shows, I say.
Yeah, but this one’s different, says Jack. I put some tobacco down for Jervis, like I do sometimes, and when I came in, this show was on.
Jack is so excited, he’s talking like a normal person so I stop and look. I can’t help but to watch while Jack prattles on.
The guy passed through here, like 50 years ago or something. There’s something almost…. I can’t put my finger on it, but ya gotta watch, he says.
I sit down. I can’t take my eyes off the screen. The hair on my neck is all right angles.
He killed a bunch of women all over the place, says Jack, his words tumbling over each other like rocks in an avalanche. Really sick guy. He was always travelling, a drifter they said. A loner. Then something happened to him, and he found God and became a minister or whatever, right, working with the homeless. So they never caught him till now…
What’s his name? I ask.
…he’s like 80 years old or something—killed mostly young Native women. Look, he’s got blue eyes and they said he had red hair. They say he’s part Native, his mom gave him up for adoption when he was like four years old, she was too young or something. It’s kind of sad, actually, foster homes, beaten—so he hated…
WHAT’S HIS NAME? I yell.
Geez, what a grouch! says Jack. You oughta go to a sweat or something.
JACK!
Okay, okay. His nickname was Red. Red, uh…. Geez what is his real name? Something weird. He pauses staring at the ceiling. Hmmm…. It’s, uh… Atticus….
JOHNSTONE! we both say it at the same time. Jack stops watching the TV and his head swivels towards me.
He killed Jervis’s girlfriend, I say. Jack’s mouth drops open.
But they didn’t say….
He did it. He’s the one who killed her.
We found out later that Atticus Johnstone had a massive heart attack, practically blew his heart apart. That was the day after that story aired. Died in his sleep.
That’s just the way things happen sometimes. There’s no real reason. None that you can see or make sense
of anyway. Something happens, it causes a ripple, and maybe years later that ripple hits you. Maybe one person does something and his great-great-great-great grandson feels the impact like a punch in the back of the head. Maybe someone who seems to be a total stranger gets knocked sideways. Or maybe it’s him, but lifetimes later when he’s forgotten that thing he did, and he can’t see why this bad stuff is happening to him now. But we never get away with anything even when we get away with it. We’ve just put it on credit and one day, we’ll pay. With interest on all the sorrow and fear that have accumulated.
Mom comes to my room with a cup of hot chocolate and a couple of pieces of her famous cranberry bread. She leans against the doorframe and tilts her head to the side, watching me ripping big bites of bread off and shoving them in my mouth. She grins.
Megwetch, Mom, I say, spitting little bits of bread and cranberry on my shirt. While I pick them off and pop them in my mouth she answers, ehhenh.
Seen Jervis? she asks after watching me eat for a bit.
Nah, I say between bites.
Jervis disappeared the moment I said that it was that man. I could feel it, like a cold wind. A kind of emptiness like when someone’s sitting shoulder to shoulder beside you and when they get up and leave there’s a cold space where they used to be. I kinda miss him sometimes but I feel happy ‘cause I know that he’s probably with his girl now.
You been seeing your Mishomis again, eh? Mom says.
Uh-oh, busted. I stop chewing and discreetly sniff my shirt for smoke. Well, as discreetly as I can with her standing right there looking at me.
When you were a baby, I used to wish you could’ve gotten to know him, she says.
Yeah, I say. That would’ve been cool. To have known him when he was alive.
Yeah, she says. She reaches over and moves some hair that’s hanging in front of my face. But you know him pretty well anyways.
Yeah, I say. There’re all different kinds of ways of knowing, I guess. I mean, it’s not so much about life or death, I say, it’s spirit.
The Stone Collection Page 2
