Monkey Beach

by Eden Robinson

I was stuck inside during the most beautiful days of August. The sun was gloriously bright and warm, but the wind took the scorch out of the day, and the waves looked so inviting, I wanted to walk right down to the beach and bask in them like an otter. Cheese came by to say hi. We sat on the front porch. Pooch, he said, was unnerved by the way Mom had glared at him and was too chicken to visit. Frank was busy with Julie. Cheese told me about the soccer tournament he’d watched in Terrace and his brother’s baby girl puking all over the front seat of his mother’s new car. I would have enjoyed his visit more if my head wasn’t pounding.

  Ma-ma-oo dropped in to take me blueberry picking and Mom explained why I was grounded. Ma-ma-oo looked down at me. I steeled myself for another lecture. “Tobacco was sacred, long time ago. The smoke, it lifted prayers to the gods. These days, it’s nothing. It’s like candy, hey?”

  I said nothing.

  She patted my hand. “You come over later. Help me jar blueberries.”

  I spent an afternoon in my room. Then I went down and told Mom I was going to stop smoking.

  “Fine,” she said. “Take off. Go.”

  While I was over at Ma-ma-oo’s, Dad came home and caught Mom slurping down a large mug of coffee. He sprinted out to the porch and sucked down half a pack. They both told me separately about the moment when they looked at each other and started laughing.

  “I wanted to marry her all over again,” Dad said.

  Cheese taught me a couple of chords and I practised them on his bed while we waited for Pooch and Frank to show up. “You want a smoke?” Cheese said. “I got Export A.”

  After a tempted pause, I said, “No, thanks. I’m trying to quit.”

  “Want a beer?”

  I shook my head, flubbing the fingering again.

  “You want some pot?”

  I looked up. “I’m fine. You smoke if you want.”

  “Nah, I’m cool.”

  “Okay,” I said. He sat on the edge of the bed and watched me while I attempted some scales.

  “You want to go out with me?” he said.

  “Where?”

  “Nowhere. You know, going out. Steady. Together.”

  I burst out laughing, but stopped when he didn’t join in. “Are you serious?”

  “Why not?”

  “Cheese,” I stopped, not knowing what to say.

  “We could make out in front of Frank and Julie. You could get back at him that way, make him jealous.”

  I put the guitar down. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Everyone knows you like him.”

  “Oh, do they?”

  “When I asked him if I could go out with you, he got real quiet.”

  “You asked him before you asked me?”

  “Well,” Cheese said, finally realizing I was pissed off. “Yeah. He’s my friend. But he said I could go out with you if I wanted.”

  “Oh, how generous of him.”

  “Look, I can get you anything you want. You just have to ask and I’ll—”

  “How about shoving your head up your ass? Can you do that?”

  “What’s your problem?”

  “You, fuckwad,” I said, then marched out.

  Although I wasn’t grounded any more, I stayed in my room, not wanting to see anybody. Cheese tried to come over and I slammed the door in his face. Mom raised a questioning eyebrow but didn’t say a word. After a few days, she suggested Dad take me with him to Terrace to watch Jimmy compete. I stared out the window of the backseat the whole trip. At the pool, Dad said I could go window-shopping, but that I had to be back at 4:30 on the dot.

  Terrace is larger than the Kitimat townsite, and has two malls. Over the years, it has evolved into a crossroads and most people from the area go there to shop, so on weekends the parking lots are plugged and cars circle endlessly in search of a good spot. I considered going to a matinee, but the theatre was only showing some lame kiddie movie. I didn’t have any money, and I had no interest in window-shopping. I wandered around the strip between the malls, wondering what I should do when I saw Erica. I froze, then decided it might be good to have a spat and get it out of my system. But she was walking with her head down and didn’t see me as she went by. I noticed a car following her. A young white guy stuck his head out of the passenger’s side of the car and invited her in, they’d show her a good time. All three guys in the car were wearing black baseball caps and sunglasses even though it was cloudy. I couldn’t tell what colour their hair was, and there was mud all over their licence plates. One of them had a black mustache, but it was obviously fake. Erica turned on her heel and walked back towards me. They pulled a U-turn and the driver called out that he’d teach her how to fuck a white man.

  “Yeah?” I yelled out. “With what, you dickless wonder?”

  The car stopped ten feet away from me.

  “Hey, looky, looky, we got a feisty little squaw on our hands,” the driver said.

  “Looky, looky” I said. “The dickless wonder can speak. I thought guys like you just grunted.”

  “You fucking watch your mouth, cunt.”

  “Yeah, you’re so brave with a girl, aren’t you, asswipe? Can’t stand up to someone your own size, can you? Cowards like you gotta pick on girls to feel like men.”

  “Bitch,” he said. “You’re begging for it.” He opened his door and got out. It was about that time that I realized Erica had buggered off. Everyone else on the street was ignoring us. He came up to me and stared down.

  “Yeah, show me what a man you are, dickless. Come on. We’ll see how much of a man you are when they stick you in prison for assault and battery. You remember this when you’re getting it up your flat ass. We’ll see who’s the bitch then, won’t we?”

  I heard the click of the car doors as the other guys got out of the car.

  “Now we’re going to teach you a lesson,” the driver said.

  “Just grab her!” the other guy said.

  He reached down, but stopped and stared at something behind me. I skipped back. He ignored me.

  “Son,” a deep voice boomed. “You get in your car and you drive away.”

  The driver hesitated, then they all scrambled back in and squealed off. I watched them until they burned rubber around a corner and were gone. I turned and a hulking white guy with a long grizzled beard and tattoos up his bare, crossed arms shook his head at me.

  “Babydoll,” he said. “Take it from someone who knows—that temper of yours is gonna get you killed one day.”

  He turned and strolled into a tackle store. I started shaking. Erica’s older brother, J.J., came tearing around the corner then, followed by six other Haisla guys carrying crowbars and broken bottles.

  “You okay?” J.J. panted.

  I nodded.

  “That was pretty stupid.”

  I shrugged.

  They escorted me back to the pool and J.J. told Dad what had happened.

  “Oh my God,” Dad said. “Lisa—Lisa, did it occur to you to run into a store? Did it occur to you to call the police? Did you even think about running away? Do you know what they could have done to you?”

  “I don’t know why you’re mad at me.” I said. “I’m not the one who was following Erica.”

  He sat down on the bleacher and put his head in his hands. “We should have never named you after Mick.”

  It was a bump-around day with our direction depending on the weather and Ma-ma-oo’s whim. She had a hankering for halibut so away we went. There were nothing but babies splashing around the dock that early in the morning. The older kids like Erica were too cool to show up until later. The tide was low and you could see all the old tires, cans and discarded clamshells resting on the bottom. The tar-covered poles that held the docks in place were bristling with mussels and barnacles and I scraped a few off as Ma-ma-oo got the speedboat ready to leave. I was standing beside the tow ropes, ready to push off. Ma-ma-oo let me tie up when we docked. I had learned a few knots but I was slow. Since we weren’t in any rush,
Ma-ma-oo didn’t mind.

  “Jacket,” Ma-ma-oo said, throwing me my orange life preserver.

  “You’re not wearing one,” I pointed out.

  “I’m old,” she said.

  “Does that make you float better?”

  “Put it on.”

  That’s what I liked about Ma-ma-oo. Cheeky remarks didn’t bother her one bit. Her eyebrow would quirk a little, and sometimes she’d even smile, but she never got mad and sulked at you or told you to stop being a brat.

  Ma-ma-oo didn’t gun the motor so we puttered along. The day promised to be a scorcher, but out on the ocean with the spray cooling my face and the wind drying it away, the heat was bearable. I wished summer would never end. I wished I could do this all year and never have to go back to school. I wished I could pick berries and go fishing with Ma-ma-oo and spend all my days wandering.

  I saw a new black truck when I walked up our driveway. When I stepped into the living room, Josh had his arm around Trudy’s shoulders. Apparently, the honeymoon was back on. My parents were laughing and Josh was smiling but Trudy looked mildly annoyed.

  “Hey,” Josh said. “How’s our little Mick?”

  “Hi. Where’s Tab?”

  “Upstairs,” Mom said.

  Tab was only going to be in Kitamaat for a week, but she didn’t seem to mind. She didn’t complain about anything. She mostly stayed in my room and snuck cigarettes out my window until Mom discovered she was smoking and asked her to smoke outside. Tab nodded, said sorry and went out to the back porch afterward.

  “How come she didn’t get the lecture?” I said.

  “She’s a guest. I’m not about to tell her how to live her life.”

  “Lucky bum,” I said to Tab back in my room.

  “I wish I had your mom,” Tab said. “She’s cool.”

  “Great. Take her.”

  “You’re lucky. You’re really lucky that your dad was too young to go to rez school. And Aunt Kate too, because she was married. Just Mick and my mom went and it fucked them up,” Tab said.

  “Why?” I said. “What happened?”

  “When Ba-ba-oo was kicking Ma-ma-oo around, she sent Uncle Mick and Aunt Trudy away. Mom’s mad ’cause she thinks she picked Ba-ba-oo over them. Aunt Kate thinks Ma-ma-oo might have killed Ba-ba-oo after he got carried away.”

  The whole idea was ludicrous. I couldn’t picture Ma-ma-oo letting anyone kick her around and I certainly couldn’t see her hurting anyone.

  When I awoke early the next morning, the little man darted into my closet and stared at me until I put my bathrobe on and went downstairs to get away from him.

  Aunt Trudy was up, even though it was about four-thirty. She sat on the couch and was watching the TV with the volume turned down low. She smiled when she saw me and I went to sit beside her.

  “Morning. I heard you never wake up before noon in the summers,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  “I had a bad dream. What about you?”

  “Insomnia. Never been good at sleeping.”

  We watched TV for about a half-hour. I drowsed, leaning against the arm of the couch.

  “Lisa,” Aunt Trudy said, “you got to be more careful.”

  “About what?”

  “Those guys would have killed you.”

  “It was broad daylight,” I said. “And there were tons of witnesses. They wouldn’t have done anything.”

  “Honey,” she said, “if you were some little white girl, that would be true. But you’re a mouthy Indian, and everyone thinks we’re born sluts. Those guys would have said you were asking for it and got off scot-free.”

  “No, they wouldn’t.”

  “Facts of life, girly. There were tons of priests in the residential schools, tons of fucking matrons and helpers that ‘helped’ themselves to little kids just like you. You look at me and tell me how many of them got away scot-free.”

  I didn’t understand why she was mad at me. I didn’t understand why I was the one getting blamed for some assholes acting like assholes.

  “Lisa,” she said, “no one would have cared. You would have been hurt or dead, and no one would have given a flying fuck.” She touched my shoulder. “Except your crazy old aunt, who just about made you cry, didn’t I? I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry. I gotta mouth on me too. Never know when to keep it shut.”

  I went over to Pooch’s house and his gran answered the door. She smiled when she saw me and her gold tooth glittered when she asked if I had eaten. I said yes, but she gave me cookies anyway and sat me at the table while she went to get Pooch. His oldest brother was sleeping on the couch in front of the TV. He’d been caught doing another B & E in town and was going to be shipped down to Vancouver to go to an experimental camp for young offenders. Pooch was pretty happy about it because his brother always took his allowance. The floors were old wooden planks that squeaked when Pooch came upstairs. He sat opposite me and rubbed his eyes. “God,” he said. “What time is it?”

  “Almost four.”

  “You want to go to Cheese’s?”

  I was still mad at Cheese, but he’d already said he was sorry a couple of times and he hadn’t brought up the subject of either Frank or our dating. As Pooch and I walked over to his place, the weather was a mix of muggy sunshine and rain, as if it couldn’t decide what it wanted to do so it kept switching back and forth.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Cheese said, pushing me back outside when I knocked on the door. “You’re dripping all over the rug. Mom’s gonna throw a hairy.”

  Cheese’s mom didn’t want us at her house either, so after a short stay in the porch, we were left to wandering. The sun came out, and the wind picked up. As it was a Saturday afternoon, Frank said there was going to be a party at one of the deserted houses up the hill. Until they tore it down, it was a party palace.

  “Fucking cool,” Cheese said.

  The clouds began to break apart. The tilt of the sunlight showed me it was getting late.

  Julie was already at the party and she and Frank started making out in a corner. Someone had a tinny little boom box going that squeaked if the singing got too loud. The rooms of the house were lit with flashlights and candles. I squinted to see if there was anyone I knew around. It was mostly older kids, who were busy gabbing.

  “Shit,” Pooch said, ducking behind me.

  His brother had already spotted him. He casually walked up to us and said, “Hey, little bro. You know the drill. You can walk out or get tossed out.”

  “Come on,” Pooch whined. “I’m fourteen fucking years old.”

  “Out. Now.” His brother grinned at me and lifted his hands. “You, I ain’t even touching. I heard you took on some Neo-Nazis.”

  I snorted. “Nah. Bunch of weenie assholes acting tough.”

  “That’s not fair!” Pooch said as his brother caught him by the collar. Pooch gave a halfhearted kick and then went quietly.

  I hung around, but was starting to get bored and was thinking of going home to talk to Tab. I’d been avoiding Aunt Trudy all day, but I missed Tab.

  “Hey,” Cheese said, emerging from the shadows, holding out a beer to me. “No hard feelings?”

  I didn’t really like beer, but I took a sip to show I wasn’t mad any more.

  He started complaining about his mother taking away his guitar. She’d found some pot in his room and he was supposed to be grounded, but he’d snuck out. Then he looked around and said, “Kind of a boring party.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You staying?” he said.

  “For a bit. Where …” I stopped, dizzy for a moment. I lost what I was going to say.

  “How you doing?”

  “Tired. Woke up too early, I guess.”

  “See you tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. See you.”

  He went back the way he’d come, chatting to some other people. I headed for the front door, walked down the slanted steps, holding on to the rail. I’d had a bad ear infection once, and every time I had stood up, I f
elt the way I was feeling right now.

  The long blank spots start then. Chunks of memory are gone. I have a piece of it where I’m halfway down a hill, but I can’t figure out if I wanted to go up the hill or down it. The bushes moved, and I was fuzzily alarmed. The next piece I have, I’m lying on the ground and I can’t see the sky because of the tree branches. I’m cold and someone is breathing over me. The last piece is pain between my legs, and a body on top of me, panting. We’re moving together as if we were lovers, and the rocks and twigs are digging into my back. I open my mouth and a hand covers it. I can’t see the face. It has the feeling of a dream, as if it didn’t happen to me. I remember fighting sleep, thinking I had to stay awake, but I couldn’t.

  “Lisa?” Tab whispered as I tried to sneak into my room.

  “Shh,” I said. “What time is it?”

  “Two-thirty. Don’t worry. I covered for you. Your parents think you’ve been here all night.”

  I felt my way to the bed and sat down. I heard the blankets rustle. Tab leaned in close and I flinched.

  “What happened?” she said.

  I couldn’t think of anything. I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep, but now that I was awake I felt like throwing up. My temples throbbed and my mouth was dry. I ached.

  “You got your period?” Tab said. “I’ll get you a hot-water bottle. That always helps me.”

  While she was downstairs, the little man appeared on my dresser like he used to. Tab had left the door open and by the hallway light, I could see him clearly. He dropped to the floor and stared at me. His eyes were red-brown. His eyebrows were mossy green. His face was different this time, was grey-brown and dry like cedar bark. Ants skittered between the cracks in his skin.

  “If you couldn’t stop it,” I said, “what good are you?”

  His eyes glittered as he watched me.

  “Don’t bother coming again,” I said.

  He reached out to touch my hair, just for a second, and then he was gone.

  “Lisa.”

  I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. It bounced off the mountains and echoed. The rain started again, drops that bent the leaves and needles in the trees around me. Hairs prickled my arms. I gripped my plastic bag that was filled with the clothes I’d been wearing that night.