by Dawn Dumont
In that class, Nellie was a nameless face. A faceless name. Usually she liked that but not when it didn’t work in her favour.
A group of men about her dad’s age walked into her lobby. She recognized at least one of them as the father of a girl from her high school. They glanced in her direction; she pretended that the theory of supply and demand was the most engrossing thing in the world. As their drunken, horned-up gaze passed over her, she was grateful for her oversized and chunky sweater and the swathe of pimples that made a red rainbow across her forehead.
Nellie glanced out the window. It was snowing. Maybe the roads were bad. Maybe her dad would wander in and explain that he hit the ditch and had to wait for someone to pull him out. He could be in danger. He could be dying.
Nellie went to the telephone booth and dialled — collect — because she didn’t have any change and there was no place to get change other than the bar. “Nellie,” she said sharply when the automated voice asked for her name. Let them know how angry she was and that they should fucking hurry. It made no matter; the line was busy. She hung up the phone with a loud clang.
At least someone was home. But if one of her sisters was on the phone, she could be stuck for a long time. Maybe they forgot the day. Nellie should have made sure that she talked to her mom; her mom would never forget something like Nellie’s homecoming.
Two girls walked in. Nellie recognized them immediately and stuck her nose back into her book. Julie Papequash and Theresa Crookedleg. Her age. She hadn’t hung out with them in high school, they took different classes, the ones that ended with “remedial” or “B.” And Julie was also one of those floaters, the students who started the year, then transferred to another school mid-year (usually in the city), then transferred back late in the year, usually around May or June. She could never figure that out — how the hell could you get an education if you changed schools twice a year? And they wonder why they can’t keep up!
The last time she and Julie had hung out together was in elementary school; she smiled all the time but didn’t say anything. That had suited Nellie well, she did all the talking. They had been friends until the cool Native girls took Julie and left Nellie behind.
Theresa hadn’t been Nellie’s friend either. Theresa was a square-faced girl who thought that being mean was the same thing as being confident. Nellie had watched (from a safe distance) as Theresa beat up more than one unlucky girl in the school parking lot. Then she transferred out before the school could expel her.
Expel was a funny word — it sounded like they actually catapulted students out of the school into the wild blue sky. Nellie smiled grimly thinking about how handy a catapult would be right at this moment.
“Nellie?” Julie stopped in front of her, a grin so wide that Nellie knew it was real — although she couldn’t figure out how she knew fake from real when hardly anyone smiled at her at all.
“Oh, hi. Sorry, I was reading.” Nellie held up her book as proof of her lie.
“You’re home.”
“For the winter break. Well, we call it Reading Week.”
“From university, right?”
“Yeah.” Of course! Nellie wanted to exclaim, of course I went to university! How could you not know that? And where the hell else would I have been for the past six months?
Theresa was staring over Nellie’s shoulder at the door to the bar. But Julie was one of those people who took her time no matter who was waiting. “What are you doing there — in university?”
“Pre-law.” Nellie waited for the exclamation of her amazingness.
Theresa glanced at Nellie and smacked her gum. “Yeah, I was thinking of doing that.”
“Really?” As if.
“You waiting around?” Julie asked.
“I’m not waiting, I’m doing what I want with my life.”
“I mean here.”
Nellie blushed. “Yeah. But my dad should be coming soon.”
“I think I hear Everett’s laugh!” Theresa exclaimed and hit Julie’s shoulder.
Julie rolled her eyes. “That’s not him.”
“It is!” Theresa tugged on her Julie’s arm and Julie allowed herself to be pulled along. She glanced back at Nellie, “Aren’t you coming?”
“I’m not old enough.”
Theresa snorted, “So what? We haven’t been for the last two years.”
Julie laughed as well and Nellie made that awkward sound when you wished that laughter could come out of your throat.
They walked ahead and Nellie grabbed her duffel bag, her book bag, her purse and her suitcase in one smooth movement. It was desperation that made her graceful.
As she stepped through the doorway, her eyes darted around the room. It was different than what she thought it would be — mostly smaller. The bar had a low ceiling that made it seem cave-like. Everything was brown or shades of brown. There was a stage, big enough for only the smallest of bands and a dance-floor that could fit fifteen people tops. There was a single bar and a single bartender who looked crowded in by all the liquor bottles. The place smelled like old beer and wet cigarettes — Nellie could feel her stomach flip-flopping with excitement.
Julie walked in front and Theresa and Nellie followed behind her. She meandered from table to table leaning in and saying hi, slapping hands and laughing when someone made a joke.
One of the old guys tried to pull Julie down in his lap. She slapped his hand and kept walking. The men all hooted. “Old pervs!” Julie threw over her shoulder in a laughing voice.
“Quit encouraging them,” Theresa hissed at her.
“Free drinks,” Julie mouthed back.
Gross but smart, Nellie muttered under her breath.
The waitress came; she’d been a waitress at this bar as long as Nellie could remember. Nellie used to stand at the front door of the bar and look for her dad among the tables. She remembered seeing the same wraith-thin waitress each time. She plopped three beers down on the table, not bothering to ask them for ID.
Nellie studied Julie as she laughed, lit a smoke and took a swig of her beer. In high school, the boys fought over her. Literally. In grade ten, Clarence Simon and Grady Charles slugged it out in the parking lot because Julie didn’t know which one she liked better. The incident had left Nellie feeling envious, and contemptuous of teenage boys: clearly she doesn’t like either of you, idiots.
Nellie never thought Julie was that pretty. If I lost ten pounds I could look as good as her. And if I could get a decent perm and get contacts that didn’t hurt my eyes, and clear up my skin — then I’d be a slightly thinner, poodle-haired, squinty eyed, starving maniac.
It was hard to find a flaw on Julie’s face. Even a zit only called attention to how pretty she was.
“Are you dating Everett?” Nellie blurted out.
Julie nodded at Theresa who was now glaring at Nellie. “She’s the lucky lady.”
“Why do you want to know about Everett?” The lucky lady snarled.
“We all went to school together, remember?”
“Uh huh and you like other women’s men?”
“I was wondering what happened to him.” Nellie’s eyes flicked over Theresa’s crooked teeth. “And now I know.”
Julie looked away but Nellie could see her smile.
“I’ll tell him you were asking about him. I’m sure he’ll find that funny.”
“Good, I like to make people laugh.” Nellie could feel how close she was to getting punched in the face. She took a sip of beer in defiance of her desire to run screaming out of the building, into the snowstorm, where she would hide until she learned not to piss off people meaner and stronger than her.
Luck was in Nellie’s favour. Someone waved at Theresa and she got up to talk to them. Theresa didn’t tell them that or anything, she just got up with a bang and left. Nellie dodged a vicious swing of her purse as she went by.
“She’s interesting,” Nellie commented.
“I don’t talk about people behind their back.” J
ulie’s voice was calm.
Nellie felt her face go red. She wanted to defend herself but didn’t know what to say. Because if Julie had been into it, she would have ripped Theresa into a thousand pieces. Now she had no place to put her anxiety.
Julie took pity on her. “What’s your favourite part of university?”
Nobody had ever asked Nellie that before. She thought about it. “I guess all the choices. You can literally learn about anything. Like I could’ve taken the history of the Americas or the history of China or Africa and I was kinda freakin’ myself out because I couldn’t figure out which one I wanted. Then I waited too long and by the time I went to register only history of Europe was open. But I really like it because the class isn’t about the royalty and the lords and all that — it’s about how the regular people lived — well, they called them peasants back then — ” Nellie stopped talking like she’d been unplugged. She should know better than to talk long about stuff like picking her classes.
People’s eyes would glaze over and they got mad that she was dominating the conversation. But Julie didn’t seem mad, she seemed to be listening.
“What are you doing?” Nellie asked because she honestly wanted to know. “Weren’t you interested in hair or something?”
Julie nodded, “Yeah, I went to work in a salon in town here and turns out I’m allergic to all the chemicals. Makes my skin swell.”
“Plan B?”
“Only had the one plan.” Julie moved her body to the beat of “Copperhead Road”, a song that Nellie remembered coming from the cars in the parking lot at their school all the time. There was something about being from a fucked up place that hit a note with these people. She looked over at the dented jukebox. Someone had taken the boots to it — but it was still cranking out the tunes. Good thing. If that thing ever broke, people would have to listen to each other.
Nellie didn’t have anything to say so she sucked back her beer.
She’d never liked the taste of beer but it tasted different in a bar sitting across from someone her age. After she finished that beer, some more were ordered (they didn’t pay for those ones either). By her third, there were lots of people sitting around their table. Lots of guys. Nellie joked with them and they laughed and she felt like, wow there is nothing wrong with me.
When her mom finally showed up around midnight, Nellie was sorry to leave. She stood up and went around the table to hug Julie.
“You should come visit me in the city”, she urged Julie. “Anytime you want.”
The House
April 1993
EVERETT’S MOM HAD MENTAL problems. That’s what everyone told him. That’s why when Everett was six they moved from the city back to the rez. They moved into his uncle’s house with his wife and his two boys. Everett shared a twin mattress with his mom in the basement. It smelled weird down there — like wet blankets and spiders. (“Oh go on, spiders have no smell.” “But they do, Mom.”) Everett got used to it. Started to love it, even, because it was completely black at night and cold so she held him close and called him her “little man.”
While the ceiling above creaked with everyone walking around, his mom would tell him stories about his grandfather and his great grandfather. They were warriors and chiefs and medicine men. She told him about how his great-grandfather had his first Raindance when he was fifty years old because that was when the spirits told him to do it. She told him how everyone in the village teased him for acting like he was younger than he was. Why is an old man having his Raindance now? They asked. “He had to follow the spirits,” his mother whispered in Everett’s ear. “Everything happens when it’s supposed to.”
When he was ten years old, he came home from school and his mom was sitting in the kitchen with a knapsack beside her feet. It was a kid’s backpack and had Big Bird on the front of it. She said she would come back for him “once she got on her feet.” And he tried to think what that meant.
He followed her to the door but he didn’t cling because he was her little man.
“When you coming home?”
“By Christmas, I promise.”
And then she kissed him on the lips and he could feel her tears on his face and he waited for her that Christmas but she never came back and his uncle made sure that he got the same number of presents as his cousins that year.
After that, Everett slept on the same mattress but his uncle helped him carry it from the basement into the boys’ room, because his uncle told him he would turn out weird if he slept in the basement by himself. His aunt used to tuck his mattress under her boys’ bunk bed when they went to school. And then when everyone was ready to go to bed, Everett would pull it out again. He learned how to go to sleep after everyone else and when his head hit the pillow he was out like a light because he knew had to be the first up in the morning or else the boys would step on him, sometimes by accident, sometimes because they thought it was funny. He learned to laugh along to everything because when you’re the extra kid you can’t make trouble.
When he got older and he found out how easy it was to get girls, he had more places to stay. He would sleep at a girlfriend’s house until her parents got sick of him hanging around and then he’d head back to his uncle’s. “Thought we lost you that time for sure,” his aunt would say.
His cousins moved out on the same day, Eric, the older one, went to BC for school and Jason joined the Army. Everett would have had the bedroom to himself but it didn’t feel right so he moved out the next day too.
He piled his stuff in the back of his pickup truck and drove to Saskatoon. He heard that was where everyone went plus it only cost one tank of gas to get there. Once he got to the city, he realized he needed a place to stay so he called a guy from the rez that he used to play hockey with. The guy told him that his old lady didn’t like people staying over and gave Everett the address of the Salvation Army: “They got food and you can sleep there for free.”
Everett parked in front and rang the doorbell. A sleepy-eyed brunette with a bossy voice opened the door and told him he could stay but to not come after curfew again.
“Got it,” Everett said with a big grin. She smiled back shyly as she handed him a pillow and a blanket. She led him to a dorm room with six sets of bunk beds. Bodies were everywhere and in the light from the hallway, Everett saw dozens of suspicious eyes on him. He threw himself onto an upper bunk and slept immediately.
Everett woke up the next morning and saw that most of the stuff he brought with him had been stolen from the back of his pickup. Like a fucking free-for-all. His mattress was still there though, looking like grey oatmeal half-filling up the truck’s box.
He went back inside and had breakfast. A skinny guy about his age told him that there was a construction site looking for young guys like him.
“I don’t know anything about construction,” Everett said in between mouthfuls of scrambled eggs and bacon and toast and hash browns.
“You just need to have hands.”
Everett asked him for the address and offered the skinny dude a ride to the site.
“Nah, I’m not working right now,” the young guy said, “I’m taking a break.” Everett noticed then how the guy’s wrist bones protruded and how his teeth had turned brown and spindly.
Everett drove to the site after breakfast. The foreman looked him over with interest. “Can you cut your hair?”
Everett’s hair was half way down his back. “Why?”
“Kinda dangerous on a site.”
“Guess so.”
Everett started that day. He carried lumber from place to place for the first part of the morning. Then they paired him with an older carpenter with wind and sun etched into his face. Mike’s handshake was fierce.
“So are you the kind of Indian that works hard or the kind that wastes my fucking time?”
“Works-hard-kind.”
“I can make you a great carpenter, is that what you want?”
Everett grinned.
Everett had neve
r liked working with his hands. He’d taken shop but almost failed. That may have also been because the shop class had a photography darkroom attached where Everett spent most of his time fooling around with girls. It was so dark in there, sometimes he forgot who he was with. Part of the game was trying to remember her name before the lights came up.
“What reserve you from?”
“Stone Man.”
Mike laughed, “That’s a helluva name for a reserve. You move off because you got tired of being stoned all the time?”
Everett shrugged.
“Where you living?”
“Salvation Army.”
“What a shithole.”
“Food’s good.”
“I got a house, lots of room. Long as you work here, you can live with me.”
Everett moved his mattress in to an empty bedroom on the second floor of Mike’s house and threw it on the middle of the floor. He piled his clothes in the corner. He sat on the mattress and stared at the window. He couldn’t see much of the city, only the sky. He could hear Mike downstairs playing on his guitar.
The sound was low and easy and Everett felt like he had a soundtrack to his life. Everett figured he would eventually get around to asking Mike to teach him how to play. But two days later, Mike went over to his ex-girlfriend’s house and shot her.
Everett was up early that morning when the police came. They knocked on the door while Everett was making toast. Mike wasn’t up yet which should have told Everett that something was wrong.
The knocking got loud and even though Everett felt weird answering someone else’s door, he walked over and let the police in.
When they asked for Michael Bennett, Everett stared at them wordlessly because he didn’t even know Mike’s full name. Plus there were more cops than he’d ever seen in his life — so he stood there with his mouth hanging open. One of them pushed him up against a wall and Everett felt metal against his skin (he wasn’t wearing a shirt). They demanded his name.
