Godless But Loyal To Heaven

by Richard Van Camp

  The Terminal was not a place I enjoyed going into, especially not today. Imagine walking into a nest of your worst enemies who have had the luxury of powering up for the past six months while you’ve only grown weaker.

  I know Stephanie felt bad for bringing TB my way, but I told her I needed to lose the weight. Fuck, I hate being weak.

  “Are these vitamins?” she asked me one day when she found Sfen’s meds still in the fridge. She was holding them like candy.

  “They were supposed to be,” I said. “For my brother.”

  She put them back and I made her wash her hands. It was funny. I had cleaned out just about everything but I just couldn’t bring myself to throw all of his pills away. Not yet. I’d boxed up his clothes – well, most of them, and I wore this shirt, his favourite shirt, but why couldn’t I burn those fuckin’ useless pills or his shirt or his clothes? And there was his Bible on his nightstand by his bed. I didn’t know what to do with it. The strength would leave me even just thinking about it.

  I decided to call the old man from the lounge. The bar band had taken a break before the jukebox turned on and it was quiet enough for me to dial. The old man picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Hey,” I said. “How’s baby girl?”

  “Nosy,” he said. I smiled. It was Wednesday. Stephanie’s aunt had to work on Wednesdays so we took turns looking after her if Auntie Freda’s babysitter situation fell through. “What’s going on over there?”

  “We’re visiting. How’s your friend?”

  I felt my breath leave my body with the sad news. “Didn’t make ’er.”

  “Sorry to hear that. I’ll drop some tobacco for him on his way.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I didn’t want to say it in front of Steph but I’m broke. If I find some money I’ll be home by six with grub.”

  “Ho,” he said. “We got chicken, spuds, Niblets. I think we’ll be okay. My pension cheque comes in on Friday.”

  It was Wednesday. We could stretch what we had, but I’d need a few hours to set this up. “If I’m late, don’t worry. Lester had a last request.”

  “Then that’s where you need to be,” he said. “Oh. Just wait. Someone else wants to talk.” I could hear him in the background telling Stephanie not to be so bossy.

  “Hello?”

  I tried to smile but suddenly felt so incredibly tired. “Hi, Stephanie. How are you?”

  “Do you know where my Goofy toothbrush is?”

  “Ah,” I thought. I bought Steph a toothbrush with Goofy on it. “Maybe at Sfen’s?”

  “Can you bring it if you go there?”

  “Sure.”

  “When are you coming home? I’m already done colouring your pictures.”

  “Already? Get Snowbird to draw you something.”

  “Hellooo. News flash. He’s blind?”

  “I see more than you,” I heard the old man say and they started laughing.

  “I’ll be home soon,” I said. “I have to do a favour for my friend.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “I’m afraid not, baby girl. He’s pretty sick.”

  “I’m sorry I made you sick.”

  The duo I had been sent to track walked into the bar. This was going to be easy. I could say what Lester wanted me to say and then I could go home for supper. “It’s okay. I’ll be home later. Take care of Grandpa, hey?”

  “Cuddles says hurry home so we can do the monkey dance!” She started laughing, and I could hear Snowbird telling her to help him peel potatoes. For a blind man, Snowbird was actually quite the chef.

  “Bye!” she said and hung up.

  I looked at the phone and shook my head. Cuddles says hurry home, no less…. With Stephanie came a cat. Cuddles. I’m so allergic to that cat it’s not even funny, but oh well. The monkey dance was something Stephanie started when she felt better about leaving her mom. She asked me one day to impersonate a monkey walking. Snowbird was in the next room. I don’t know… I can’t say no to her. So there I was, wiggling around the room with my arms up like an orangutan walking in circles going, “Oo Oo Oo!” and she killed herself laughing. I hadn’t heard a laugh so fun since forever so I kept doing it. Snowbird came into the room and kept asking, “What’s so funny?”

  Which made me laugh. Then I started walking around him in a circle and Stephanie started following me going, “Oo Oo!” and Snowbird kept reaching out going, “Hey now. What’s so funny?”

  So every night now, we do the Monkey Dance and it’s become something we all look forward to. Snowbird just shakes his head and goes, “Boy, you guys…” but I can tell he’s smiling when we do it.

  I remembered when we went to the lake for a picnic: Stephanie, the old man and me and her auntie. We were up on a cliff, overlooking the stream. Suckers were running but I was too chicken to swim for fear one would bite me – even though they could only nibble. Stephanie swam with her aunt, and I cooked up a fine meal of hot dogs, beans and spuds. Stephanie liked eating beans cold – right from the can. Man, that was pitiful. Who likes cold beans?

  The old man and I were keeping an eye – well, I was keeping an eye, the old man was keeping an ear, let’s say – out for our girl and a wind picked up around us. It was funny because it was such a sunny day and yet this wind came up and it meant business. I had to grab some rocks to weigh down the bag of buns, plates and napkins. But there, in the wind, Snowbird and I sat in a warm spot. It was like the wind had circled around us, and couldn’t reach us.

  “You feel that?” I asked.

  Snowbird nodded and crossed his legs, sitting up with his cane. “I get my answers here.”

  He said it so fast that I froze. I looked at the old man and he was not smiling at all. He was doing that thing where he listened. You could sense it. You could feel him listening with his blood.

  That’s when Snowbird looked at me and smiled. “I can see here.”

  I got spooked, so I busied myself and got back to work cooking. Funny thing about Snowbird was he started teaching me about the Dogribs. For the first time in my life, I started to understand more and more about my inheritance as a Tlicho. I remember one night I asked him, “Snowbird?”

  “Hmm?” he turned to me.

  “Can I ask you about the old times?”

  He nodded. “What would you like to know?”

  “How did we get around?”

  “Snowshoes. Moosehide boat. Dog teams.”

  “Huh. Did we use teepees or make lean-tos?”

  “Caribou-skin teepees.”

  “Take it easy,” I said and lit a smoke. “We used teepees like the Crees?”

  “We used teepees.”

  “What did we fight with before guns?”

  “Medicine.”

  “What about guys like me, like without.…”

  “Bows, spears, knives.”

  “Knives of what?”

  “Antler.”

  “Huh. What kind of arrows did we use?”

  “Four kinds,” he said. “One for fish, one for birds, one for small game, one for big game, like moose and men.”

  “Really?” I liked this. “And what were our arrowheads made out of?”

  “Black glass.”

  “Take it easy.”

  “You take it easy,” he said.

  “Glass from where?”

  “Rock,” he said. Was there glass in rock? I had never seen any.

  I nodded. “Tell me more.” He made the motion of holding a bow on its side and firing from his hip.

  “We shot our bows sideways, from our waist. Not like the Inuit or the Chipewyan. They fired standing up, arrow by their eye.”

  “How come we fired from our hips?”

  “More accurate,” he said. “You never miss if you know what you’re doing.”

  “How
did you know you had medicine?” This was something we had never really talked about before.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I want to know, for the girl. She’s starting to ask questions.”

  He nodded and moved his fake teeth around in his mouth when he thought. “Dogribs,” he said. “By the time a baby is three, if the people thought the baby had medicine, they’d leave the baby out on the land.”

  I thought of Stephanie. “With what?”

  He looked at me. “Nothing.”

  “Why?”

  “You either walked out alive or you didn’t.” I couldn’t believe it. I knew we were tough, but not that tough.

  He nodded. “This way, when someone was known as a medicine man, they were respected. They had earned it.”

  “Did your parents do this to you?” I asked and winced.

  His body tightened and he got out his pipe. “I never knew them. They died in the sickness.”

  I reached for a smoke. Sfen told me a bit about this. “TB? Influenza?”

  “We never gave it a name. Sickness just kept coming. You had to keep moving.” I nodded.

  “And what about you?” he asked.

  I looked up. “What about me?”

  “I heard about you for years. You’re a fighter.”

  I nodded, surprised at the old-timer. “It’s true.”

  “What are you fighting for?”

  I had never thought about it before. “I don’t know.”

  “Peace maybe.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe you’re fighting for peace.”

  “Riddles, old man. You always speak in riddles.”

  And he smiled. “I’m not the one who lights fires.”

  “What?”

  “I know your tricks. I always wanted to ask you why.” He looked at me. “The girl wants to know. She’s doing research.”

  I smiled. Snowbird was clever as a raven and ruthless as a wolverine. “My brother always told me that fire was how God cleaned.”

  Snowbird nodded. “Your brother was right. But the Dogribs have always used fire.”

  I got the tingles. “Why?”

  “Epidemics. You know, they’re settling land claims now.”

  “When was our treaty signed – 1921?”

  “Some signed under Treaty 8 in 1899. But don’t forget: Dogribs signed four treaties in 1920. We were not interested in giving up any land. We took treaty to live in peace, not surrender.”

  I joked: “Were you there?”

  He nodded. “I was.”

  “Old man, how old are you?”

  He smiled. “I can’t remember.” I believed it. There was no one left alive who could remember Snowbird as a young man. He was remembered as always being ancient.

  “The Dogrib copy of this agreement was burned when the people had to burn everything during the last epidemic. The other three copies have never been recovered.”

  “Really?” Sfen would have loved this information. I bet he could have found them all. “You say the Dogribs had to burn everything.”

  He nodded. “The people. They died so fast. You’d go on the land to trap for a few days and the people you waved goodbye to were dead when you got back. We had to burn everything.”

  I covered my eyes. Holy fuck! Maybe this was why I burned everything down. Tribal memory, I guess. “Who knows about this?”

  He shrugged. “You and me.”

  “Snowbird,” I said. “Thank you – mahsi.” He nodded and held out his hand. I shook it, gently.

  And in my dead brother’s shirt, sitting in the Spruce Lounge surrounded by bar stars and denim queens, I said another quick prayer for Lester. “Sorry, buddy,” I said. “I’m sorry you never made ’er. Say hi to my mom if you see her, too.”

  “What’ll it be, Torchy?”

  I looked and it was Thelma. Sweet and voluptuous Thelma. We used to go to school together and she had this smile on that I had never seen from her before. Well, maybe I saw it a few times.

  I shook my head. “I’ll be leaving fast.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” she said. “This one’s on me.”

  “Oh?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Yup. I see you every day when I’m having my morning coffee, piggybackin’ that girl of yours, and I think that’s just the sweetest thing. Is she your daughter?”

  “Me?” I was surprised. “Well, we adopted each other as brother and sister, but yeah…she does feel like my daughter.”

  “That’s sweet.” She leaned forward and winked. “Want your usual?”

  I smiled and my chest warmed from within. I was dying for a shot of prairie fire, but I didn’t want the girl or the old man to smell it on me. “How about a big glass of ice with some Coke and a twist of lemon?”

  “Good for you, Torchy. I’ll be right back.” I nodded and looked around. I thought of the night I somehow ended back at her place. This was about a year ago, I guess. She now owned the house I grew up in. I couldn’t believe it. There we were. And the memories started flooding back in.

  She’d done a good job with the new paint, nice pictures hung up, but you could still smell the fear, the smell of hope on fire, the fear we felt all the time growing up. I think humans give off a scent if they’ve lived in terror for years in a house that was never a home.

  She gave me a tour and showed me her clothes room. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that that was where Rob stored his guns. On a mattress. The same mattress he took me on and made me do things. It was either me or Sfen, he said. I got to choose. I let it be me out of love for my brother. Thelma showed me the basement and I could see the nail. The Nail….

  That fucker would take me and Sfen down in the basement when we were bad and he’d make us kneel on all fours and smack the back of our heads into the head of The Nail and a hot hail of blood would rain on our hands.

  “Are you scared of the basement?” he’d whisper. “Are you scared?”

  That son of a bitch. The day I found out he’d gotten Sfen, too, I waited until he got good and drunk before destroying his face and dousing him with gasoline. Sfen was the only fuckin’ thing that held me back.

  “What is it?” she said and took my hand.

  “Nothin’,” I said.

  “You’re shaking.”

  I could feel blood pooling in my hands. “Naw.”

  “I want to get to know you, Torchy.”

  “No you don’t.”

  She looked up at me. “I do.”

  “You have no idea what I am, do you?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “But I want to.” She leaned into me and I felt her heartbeat through her shirt.

  “Are you afraid of the basement?” I asked.

  “I never come down here,” she said. “I don’t like it.” I closed my eyes and I felt her hands unclench my fists.

  She rolled my shirt up so she could see the scars on my forearms. “What did these used to be?”

  “Oh now,” I said and looked away. “Let’s not talk about sad things tonight.” It took a whole night of dabbing myself with a red hot car lighter to smolder the letters outta me.

  “You don’t scare me, Torchy.” I looked at her, into her kind eyes and put my battle stance away. She took my hand and led me upstairs. I looked in my old room and it was all cleaned up. Fresh paint. I saw a braid of sweetgrass on a dresser and pictures of her folks when they were younger in the bush.

  “There was a bad spirit here,” I said. “But you and your good heart – you made it go away.”

  I looked in the bathroom. Sfen and I used to bathe in the same tub, singing together. I looked in her room and saw a queen-sized bed.

  “Come,” she said and I did. Her long hair sweeping over me. Thelma’s soft skin. All the hurt and rage I had she took away and she took al
l of me. Everything I had. And I came until there was nothing left but her fine glorious light.

  We tried a few times to make a go of it but she told me she wanted kids and ah, well, fuck. Plus, some guy kept calling the house and hanging up and she’d get a look in her eyes. That look of longing. I could tell she had someone on the side so I quit coming around. But it was good to see her. It has always amazed me how beautiful most women are without their clothes on. Like, you’d never guess by looking at them with their clothes on that they are such goddesses underneath. Dressed? They’re a six out of ten. Undressed they’re like Mama Mia! She was like that. So womanly and soft. Sometimes I can still feel her bucking in my hands.

  I looked around the Terminal but couldn’t relax. It was like Planet of the Apes in there: Chipewyan, Cree, Mountain, Slavey, Gwich’in, whites, all at their miserable worst. A couple Inuit all gave me the stink eye. That drink couldn’t come fast enough, and I couldn’t wait to seal the deal with Lester, but Charity and Vincent were sure taking their sweet-ass time. Where were they? Probably dealing in the staff room with the DJ and bouncers.

  Speaking of DJs, what the hell was the Hawkman thinking playing Madonna? I gave him a look from across the bar. He nodded and gave me the thumbs up. That was our sign. He faded Madonna and put on my personal anthem: AC/DC’s “TNT.” It started and I felt my groove.

  So Lester was gone. Fuck sakes. I had to feel good about telling the mayor off, and it was one less person on my list of people to ask forgiveness from. I don’t know, I was just thinking that now that I had Stephanie, Freda and Snowbird in my life, maybe I could put a few things right.

  I don’t know why but I was thinking about Sister Regan a lot these days. One day she marched into the room and drew a set of stairs. At the bottom were flames. At the top was the sun and angels. “For everything good you do, like praying or going for confession,” she said and tapped the board with her ruler, “you go up one stair. For everything bad you do – like lying (and she looked at me) you go down two stairs closer to hell.”

  That ended just about every childhood in the room, but for me, that was my sign. Sister Regan was the weak link in the bunch of them, so I made my move to find out the truth through her. I couldn’t bear to ask Mom anything. Sister Regan was alone in her office when I cornered her.