by Thomas King
When Charlie Looking Bear got off the phone with Alberta, he fixed himself a sandwich and sat on the balcony. Somewhere to the west, in the suburban roil of apartments, houses, motels, restaurants, churches, and car lots, was the West Edmonton Mall. Beyond that, out on the horizon piled high with deep-bellied, blue-gray clouds, was Jasper and the Rockies.
So, Alberta was sleeping with Lionel. Mr. Television. Mr. Stereo. Mr. Video Movie. The idea galled Charlie more than he would have expected. Lionel’s birthday. Hardly a major holiday. Poor Alberta. She would drive all the way to Blossom, take a good, close look at Lionel all trussed up in the ratty gold blazer that Bill Bursum made his salespeople wear, and decide that she had made a terrible mistake.
Charlie munched on his sandwich and replayed the conversation.
“Hey, nothing personal, but you’re not sleeping with the guy, are you?”
“God, Charlie.”
“I really like you.”
“And so romantic.”
Okay, so he wasn’t romantic. And he wasn’t monogamous. But he wasn’t a television salesman, either. He loved Alberta. He was reasonably sure of that. And she loved him. Lionel was simply a diversion. Like Susan had been. Or Carol. Or Laura.
Charlie respected Alberta. She was smart. She was educated. Best of all, she was employed, albeit not in a profession Charlie would have chosen for her.
“You should be in law,” Charlie had told her. “It’s where the action is.”
“You mean where the money is.”
“Same thing.”
“I like teaching.”
“Money’s better.”
“Some of my students may be dumb, but they’re not sleazy.”
“Christ, Alberta, lawyers aren’t sleazy. They’re slick. There’s a big difference.”
It was always the same argument. Always the same topic. Stands Alone v. Duplessis International Associates. The case was ten years old, had started before Charlie had even been accepted to law school. And the way things were going, it would be in the courts for another ten years.
Duplessis had hired him right out of law school. Stands Alone v. Duplessis was his first case. It was his only case. He didn’t make the decisions, of course. Those were made by big-shot corporate lawyers in Toronto or London or Zurich. He was just the front, and he knew it. After all, they hadn’t hired him because he was at the top of his class. He hadn’t been. They hired him because he was Blackfoot and Eli was Blackfoot and the combination played well in the newspapers.
“Charlie, how can you work for Duplessis? You know that the tribe isn’t going to make a cent off that dam. And what about all that waterfront property on the new lake—”
“Parliament Lake.”
“Parliament Lake. What happened to all those lots that the band was supposed to get?”
“The government made some changes.”
“That’s a new way to describe greed. You know that the tribe isn’t going to make any money off the entire deal.”
“Then some of us should, don’t you think?”
“God, Charlie.”
“Look, where’s the harm? The case will probably be in the courts long after we’re dead. I mean, the dam is there. The lake is there. You can’t just make them go away.”
The dam was there all right. Anyone who wanted to could drive along the river to the small recreation area and have lunch in the shadow of the dam. Or you could walk along the lakeshore and enjoy the panorama of water and sky. Or you could drive across the top and look down the spillway into the concrete channels that were clogged with spongy moss and small plants.
The dam was there. It just wasn’t working. The lake was there. But no one could use it.
Eli had fought Duplessis from the beginning, producing a steady stream of injunctions that Duplessis countered. After the fourth year, the company hired Crosby Johns and Sons Inc., a slick public relations firm in Toronto, to mount a publicity campaign to convince the Indians that the dam was in their best interest, a campaign that culminated with a story in Alberta Now demonstrating rather conclusively, with graphs and charts and quotes from various experts on irrigation and hydropower, that after only one year of the dam operating at full efficiency, the tribe would make in excess of two million dollars. White farmers and white business would profit, too, the article conceded, but the Indians would be the big winners.
Two days after the article appeared, Homer Little Bear called an emergency council meeting to discuss ways to spend the money. At the meeting, Homer tried to read the article out loud, but had to give up, he was laughing so hard. Someone suggested that they rename the dam the Grand Goose or the Golden Goose because of the promised fortune and because, as Sam Belly put it, that’s about all Indians ever got from the government, a goose.
“It’s nice to see a company like that lose some money.”
“Duplessis isn’t losing money, Alberta.”
“The dam is just sitting there. They can’t use it. And no one can use the lake or build on the lots until the case is settled.”
“Most of the money was put up by the province. The company gets to write the losses off their taxes.”
“That’s sick, Charlie.”
“I don’t call the shots.”
The irony, Charlie mused, was that once Duplessis started construction on the dam, nothing stopped it. Environmental concerns were cast aside. Questions about possible fault lines that ran under the dam were dismissed. Native land claims that had been in the courts for over fifty years were shelved.
“Once you start something like this,” Duplessis’s chief engineer had told an inquiry board, “you can’t stop. Too damn dangerous.”
So Duplessis built the dam. But the day after it was completed, after all the champagne, the speeches, the pictures, just as the chief engineer, the premier of the province, and the federal minister for natural resources were set to throw the switches that would open the gates for the first time and send the rushing water down the channels to where the farmers, the businessmen, and the Indians waited, Eli Stands Alone finally got an injunction that stuck.
Well, the dam wasn’t his fault. Alberta knew that. In her heart, Charlie told himself, she knew that he was doing his job. But being right didn’t seem to be very persuasive. Maybe, Charlie thought, he should give his father’s method a try.
“If you want to get a woman interested in you,” Charlie’s father had told him, “act helpless.”
“Is that how you got Mom?”
“Absolutely.”
While she was alive, Charlie’s mother would laugh and tell his father that he had never had to act about that.
Charlie brought out his address book. The long weekend. And Alberta was actually going to Blossom. He started with the A’s.
“Hi, Jennifer.”
“Jennifer’s not here.”
“Will she be back later?”
“Is this Ted?”
It was a beautiful day. Between calls, Charlie watched the sun heading west. He worked his way through the J’s and K’s and was into the first of the L’s before he realized that he had lost his enthusiasm. Rita Luther was home, but by then Charlie was no longer interested.
“Hi, Rita.”
“Charlie?”
“Yeah. Thought I’d call and say hello.”
“Charlie Looking Bear?”
“I was thinking of calling you sometime next week. Maybe we could catch lunch. Or something.”
“You okay?”
Charlie closed the book. Apart from the mountains, which you really couldn’t see, the sky was the best part of the landscape. One of his teachers at law school had said that the sky in Alberta reminded her of an ocean.
“A deep, clear ocean,” the teacher had said, “into which you can look and see the soul of the universe.”
“Look again,” Charlie had said under his breath, but loud enough for everyone in the class to hear.
Even
the teacher had laughed.
What Charlie saw when he looked up was . . . sky, not some clever metaphor. Sky and clouds. Subtle colors. Shifting angles of light. That was it. Physics and refractions.
In the west, the cloud towers climbed high above the mountains and moved in front of the sun, momentarily capturing the light, while at the edges and along the seams, bright shafts and delicate fans burst from cover high above the prairie floor.
Charlie leaned back in his chair and stretched. Farther to the north, clusters of darker clouds drifted into the foothills. Charlie could hear the soft rumble of distant thunder, could see the low, banking mist and the sudden rains slanting onto the plains. It reminded him of movies.
Alberta and Lionel. She couldn’t be serious. Charlie picked up the phone.
“Time Air. When you fly with us, you fly on time. How may we help you?”
Charlie looked out at the clouds and the light. Yes, he could see how people might think of it as magnificent, spectacular. “Yes,” he said, turning back to the matter at hand. “When’s your next flight to Blossom?”
Lionel pulled his foot out of the puddle and shook the water out of his shoe. The old Indians watched him.
“Pretty good puddle,” said the Indian in the mask.
“Yes,” said the Indian in the Hawaiian shirt with the red palm trees. “You stepped in that pretty good.”
“Lionel,” Norma called from the car. “Mind your manners.”
Lionel put his weight on the wet shoe. It made a soft, squishy sound that was not altogether unpleasant. “Evening,” he said, looking at the four Indians. “You headed for the reserve? We can take you as far as Blossom.”
“That’s where we’re going all right,” said the Lone Ranger.“Blossom is where we want to be.”
“Come on, then,” said Norma. “Hop in.”
Lionel opened the back door for the Indians and sat on the edge of the front seat and took off his shoe. The sock was soaked. He angled the shoe and let the water collect in the heel. Lionel had remembered reading somewhere that if leather shoes get wet they have the tendency to shrink and that the best thing to do is to stuff them with newspapers.
Lionel wrung out the sock and laid it on the dash next to the piece of blue carpet.
“We got any newspaper?”
“Newspaper?” said Norma. “What do you want a newspaper for? You know when you read in the car, you get sick.”
“It’s for my shoe. To keep it from shrinking.”
Norma put the car into gear, checked her rearview mirror, stuck her arm out the window, and waved it up and down. “Put your foot back in it. Now,” she said, half turning toward the Indians, “let’s get acquainted.”
When Lionel found out that Alberta was seeing Charlie, he was confused. It didn’t make any sense. Charlie was a nice enough guy. He was good looking and he had a good job and a great car, but he was, well, sleazy. He had been sleazy as a kid and he was sleazy now. Some women probably liked sleazy, but not Alberta. She was solid and responsible. She had a good education and a good job.
“Charlie? Charlie Looking Bear?”
“I go out with you.”
“Why are you going out with Charlie?”
“I ask myself the same question about you.”
Lionel hadn’t liked the way the conversation was going, so he changed the subject. “I’ve been thinking about us.”
“And?”
“Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Us.”
Which turned out to be even a worse topic of conversation. After that, Lionel didn’t see Alberta for a month.
Norma leaned her head toward Lionel. “This is my nephew Lionel. I’m Norma.”
“Yes,” said the Lone Ranger. “I’m the Lone Ranger.”
Lionel snorted. Norma whacked him in the ribs with her free arm. “Nice to see our elders out on vacation,” she said.
“Oh, we’re not on vacation,” said Ishmael.
“No,” said Robinson Crusoe.
“We’re working,” said Hawkeye.
“Working, huh?” said Lionel, and he dropped his arm to protect his side.
“That’s right,” said the Lone Ranger. “We’re trying to fix up the world.”
Norma glared at Lionel. “Sure could use it. I was just telling my nephew that the world could sure use some help.”
“That’s true,” said Hawkeye.
“But these young people just don’t listen to us.”
“Yes,” said Ishmael, “that’s true, too.”
Lionel was trying to hide his smile in his hand. “So, you’re hitchhiking to Blossom, and once you get there, you’re going to fix up the world?”
“Oh, no, grandson,” said the Lone Ranger. “It’s too big a job to fix it all at once. Even with all of us working together we can’t do it.”
“Yes,” said Robinson Crusoe, “we tried that already.”
“Things are too messed up,” said Ishmael.
“We let it go too long.”
Lionel shifted around so he could see the Indians. “So you’re going to start with Blossom and go from there?”
“Well, you have to start somewhere,” said Norma, glancing at Lionel to see if she could get at his ribs.
The Lone Ranger shook his head. “No,” he said. “That’s too big a job, too.”
“We’re not as young as we used to be,” said Hawkeye.
“And even when we were younger,” said Ishmael, “we couldn’t have done it.”
“When we were younger,” said Robinson Crusoe, “we tried. That’s how we got into this mess in the first place.”
Lionel looked at the four Indians. Now that he could see them clearly, he was surprised at how old they looked, perhaps eighty or ninety years old. Perhaps older. And there was something about them that made Lionel’s ear itch.
* * *
It was Norma who had given Lionel the key to Alberta. After Alberta disappeared for a month, his auntie took him aside and gave him a short lecture. “Babies,” she said. “That’s all you need to know.”
“What?”
“You deaf? Alberta wants children.”
“All women want babies.”
“That’s what men like to think. Makes them feel wanted. Not much good for anything else, I can tell you.”
“She’s never mentioned it to me.”
“Of course she’s never mentioned it to you. She doesn’t want to put up with a man. A woman who gets married and has a child winds up with two babies right off the bat. You get the picture?”
Lionel said he did just to keep Norma from shifting into high gear.
“You don’t get the picture at all, nephew.”
Norma took Lionel by the arm and sat him down on the couch. She pulled up a chair right in front of him, and she reached out and took his face in her hands and held it there so she could see his eyes.
“You ready?”
Lionel nodded that he was.
“First of all,” Norma said, “Alberta wants children. Most women want children. Why do you think there are so many human beings in this world? You think women are that crazy about men? You think women are that crazy about sex? Day after we find some other way to get pregnant, you guys will be as attractive as week-old fry bread.”
Lionel smiled and nodded some more. He could feel Norma’s fingernails at his ears.
“Second, stop talking about cars and other guys and sex and start talking about babies. Maybe borrow one. Got enough of them around. Tell her you can’t go out because you’re watching a baby for a friend. Invite her over. Let her hold the baby. Stuff like that.”
Lionel’s neck began to stiffen up. He wet his lips and blinked his eyes.
“Don’t go to sleep on me, nephew. We’re almost done.”
Norma let go of Lionel’s face and wiped her hands on her skirt. “Last,” she said, “don’t ask her to marry you. Don’t g
et all dressed up and take her out to a fancy dinner. Don’t get her a ring and crawl around on your knees. Don’t say squat about marriage. She’ll make up her own mind about that, and if she’s interested, she’ll let you know.”
Norma sat back and sucked on her lips. “You get all that?”
“Sure.”
Norma looked at Lionel and shook her head. “You’re my nephew, and I love you,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s going to help.”
“So,” said Lionel, “how do you figure you’re going to help?”
The Lone Ranger looked at Robinson Crusoe and Robinson Crusoe looked at Ishmael and Ishmael looked at Hawkeye and they all looked at Lionel.
“I mean, it’s a big world. And even if you split Blossom up four ways, it would be a lot of work, I guess.” Lionel could feel Norma measuring the distance to his ribs. “I mean, maybe you could use some help.”
“That’s real nice, grandson,” said the Lone Ranger. “But we made this mess and we got to clean it up.”
“But we’re going to start small,” said Ishmael.
“Real small,” said Robinson Crusoe.
“And once we get the hang of it,” said Hawkeye, “we’ll move on to bigger jobs.”
“That sounds smart,” said Norma. “Start small and work your way up.”
“So,” said Lionel, chuckling to himself and watching the prairie disappear through the rear window of the car, “where are you going to start?”
Bill Bursom stood at the far end of the store and looked back at the wall. It was magnificent, spectacular, genius. Oh, Eaton’s and the Bay had similar kinds of displays, but nothing of this size, and size, Bill reminded himself, was everything.
“What do you think, Minnie?”
Minnie Smith looked up from sorting the videos that had come in overnight.
“Ms. Smith,” Minnie corrected.
“Whatever,” said Bursum.
“Ms. Smith,” said Minnie.
Bursum stood in front of the “fantasy” section and held his arms out wide. “It’s done. What do you think?”
The far wall was filled with television sets. They ran from corner to corner and were stacked right to the ceiling, all shapes and sizes.
