Living with the hawk

by Robert Currie

  The sky seemed lower now and darker, clouds moving slowly overhead, though there was no wind, the tall grass around the fence posts motionless. All we needed now was freezing rain; it’d be a perfect day for a funeral.

  When we got to Assiniboia, the church was nearly full, the pews at the back jammed with kids from school. Ivan and I squeezed into the last row. I could see a lot of people I didn’t know in the forward rows, many of them natives, a few with their hair tied in braids. Except for that and their darker skin, they looked pretty much like the rest of us. Right behind them, all crowded into the same row, were the girls from Anna’s volleyball team and Mrs. Kennedy, their coach. Mr. Teale, the principal, was in the next row, and Mr. Hilton too, the guidance counsellor. The first few rows were empty, and right in front of them was Anna’s coffin.

  I tried not to look at it, but then I saw her picture on the coffin, and a bunch of flowers. It was okay, the coffin was closed. Her school picture — the Josten’s photographer took everybody’s picture in the fall, so it was her graduation photograph, and she was never going to graduate.

  I looked down. The pew in front of me, whorled figures at rest in the grain of the wood.

  When the minister asked us all to stand, I tried not to stare toward the aisle. Two men in black suits walked slowly to the front of the church and turned around, one of them motioning to the reserved seats. They were followed by three women, also in black, two of whom were guiding an older woman who walked between them with short, precise steps. Anna’s sister and her mother, I thought, helping her grandma. Right behind them must have been her other grandparents, both of them with black, black hair, their faces looking strained and tired. Otherwise, they seemed no older than my parents. A dozen more in the procession, and then everyone was seated and the service underway.

  It was a lot like you’d expect. We sang “Amazing Grace” and “Rock of Ages,” listened to some scripture and the homily. When the minister mentioned Anna’s name though, his tone was so impersonal you had to guess he’d probably never met her. Then he asked Yvonne Big Sky to speak about her sister. Yvonne walked quickly to the lectern, pulled a paper from her pocket — she was wearing a black blazer over a white blouse, the paper in the inside pocket of the blazer — she spread the paper in front of her. She looked a bit like Anna, high cheekbones and handsome eyes, but she wasn’t as tall. The microphone attached to the lectern was above her head, and she took it in one hand and lowered it towards her mouth. I could see then that she was biting her lower lip.

  There was a long pause before she spoke.

  “My sister was a remarkable person. Even when she was a little girl, Anna had big ambitions. She said some day she was going to be a teacher. She wanted to help her people.”

  The woman’s lip was quivering, and I wondered, how can she get through this when it’s for her own sister?

  “Everybody knew Anna could be serious, but she was lots of fun too. She always liked to sing. She used to make up her own songs.” Yvonne Big Sky paused, took a deep breath. Another breath. “Not her own songs. Her own words for other people’s songs. Funny words. Once, when Mom overcooked the roast, she sang Kris Kristofferson. ‘Help me make it through the meat.’ She liked to . . . tease. She . . . she . . .” Anna’s sister closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were full of tears. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t do this.” She hurried back to the seat beside her grandma. I could hear weeping from the front of the church now where Anna’s relatives were seated, and farther back some of the girls on the school volleyball team began to cry.

  The next thing I knew, the minister was reading scripture.

  “O God, whose days are without end, and whose mercies cannot be numbered: Make us, we beseech thee, deeply sensible of the shortness and uncertainty of human life . . .”

  I’m not sure what came after that. I could hardly make out the grain in the pew in front of me.

  On the drive back to Palliser, I kept thinking that’s the way it ought to be. People crying, letting their grief show, not like when my uncle died, the whole family gritting their teeth, keeping quiet as if it was some kind of shame to cry. When I get home, I thought, I’m going down to that jail and tell Blake exactly what it was like at Anna’s funeral.

  Yeah, and there was so much more we had to talk about. I wanted to see him. Needed desperately to talk to him.

  But, as I learned when I got home, I would never have the chance.

  ELEVEN

  My brother’s funeral was held on Friday at St. David’s Church in Palliser, my father’s church, but the Reverend Wallace Garner from St. Timothy’s on the east side of town volunteered to take the service. A lot of it was just a blur, I was still in such a shock, and I couldn’t seem to cry for my brother. Which was crazy. I felt like crying, wanted to cry. My father was on the other side of my mother, I remember that, each of us holding one of her hands as we sat in the first pew, my cousins, aunts and uncles in the rows behind us, but when the service began she removed her hands from ours, picked up the Book of Common Prayer — it was the one she’d chosen, wanting the more stately language of the past — and turned to the funeral liturgy.

  When we’d come down the aisle a few minutes earlier, the three of us walking together, supporting my mother, or so I thought — I didn’t yet know how strong she was — and leading the procession of relatives, I had glanced up from where my mother held my arm and been surprised to see that the church was full. Many of the parish congregation were there, as one might expect, and Evan Morgan, I knew I could count on him, but I also saw quite a few other kids from my grade nine classes, many more that I knew were seniors, and then, filling the better part of three rows, Coach Conley and the football team.

  Except, of course, for the three who’d been remanded to the youth facility in Regina. Everything had changed with my brother’s death.

  Vaughn Foster began to talk as soon as he learned that Blake was dead. He said he was out there with Anna Big Sky, the other car had hemmed him in, he had no idea who it was, didn’t want any part of what they might do. When he saw it was Jordan Phelps and Todd Branton, he knew it was going to be bad.

  After that, Todd Branton couldn’t wait to lay the blame on Jordan. He said it was his car, but Jordan had been driving, they’d followed the Foster car all right, but he thought they were just going to have some fun with Anna, put a scare into her, sure he’d helped Vaughn Foster hold her, but only after Jordan had grabbed her and she’d slugged him one. Then Jordan had started hitting her, hammering her in the face, and he had let her go. So had Vaughn a minute later, but Jordan kept hitting her, striking her even as she fell. They had both seized him then, but he kicked her twice while she lay on the ground. When she didn’t move, Jordan had said they were in this together, they were all guilty, they had to keep it quiet or the three of them were finished, there was a way they could show they were going to stick together, something they could do together. Todd said he didn’t want to do it, of course, but what choice did he have? Once Vaughn agreed to do it, he had to do it too.

  They were guilty, yes, but they were still alive.

  Vaughn Foster told a somewhat different story. He didn’t know what made him hold her, but she’d slugged Jordan when he reached for her. Then she’d called Jordan an asshole and he’d started hitting her. Vaughn claimed that he’d been the first to let her go, that he was the one who didn’t want to piss on the girl. It wasn’t their fault, they both agreed on that; Jordan Phelps was the one responsible and, besides, everybody was drunk.

  I still hadn’t cried for my brother. It was his funeral, sure, but I kept thinking of Anna Big Sky.

  Regaining consciousness under that chill October sky, she wonders where she is — the clothes she wears, the snow beneath her, everything soaked with urine. Somehow she climbs to her feet, her legs barely holding her weight, her eyes so swollen from the beating that she can hardly see. Pale grasses like ghosts moving slowly over the snow. Brush and deadfall, the dark shad
ows of broken maples like warnings scrawled upon the drifts, but somewhere out there, far beyond the trees, she sees a light. Shivering now, her whole body beginning to shake, she knows that distant light is the only hope she has. Her clothes already begin to stiffen with the cold.

  The bastards, the dirty bastards. Jordan Phelps wanting his revenge because Anna had the nerve to take him on and show him up for what he was. Branton along for the ride, not just to put a scare into her, but because he’d do whatever Jordan wanted, yeah, that was true, he’d follow Jordan anywhere. And Vaughn Foster, I wasn’t sure about him. He might have gone along with it, but Anna liked him, and I think he liked her too. Maybe he was just another victim. I guess I’d never know.

  She sets off toward the light, her feet slipping on stones and fallen branches. She stumbles, sinks to her knees, forces herself to rise again. Pushes on, through the brush and fallen trees.Branches lash across her face, cut her battered cheeks. She raises a hand before her eyes, blunders on, breath sharp in her throat.She bounces off a tree, almost goes down again, but she keeps her feet moving, keeps them under her, pushes a branch away from her face, breaks through the line of trees, and the whole prairie lies before her, snow like a frayed and dirty sheet dropped upon the stubble field. She wavers above her aching legs. The light is straight ahead, warmth and safety waiting there, but she can’t stop the shaking.

  She begins to walk again, the crust of snow clawing at her feet, trying to pull her down, but she keeps dragging one foot around, putting it in front of the other. She trips on something in the snow. Falls. Lies there a moment, the snow so soft beneath her. But there’s a light ahead somewhere; she knows she has to reach it. She gets her legs beneath her, crouches until her legs have the strength to lift her. Yes, the light is there.

  She starts off again, leaning to her right — she can’t seem to help it — the light is side-stepping away from her. She pauses, shakes her head, goes straight toward it, but it’s slipping off again. She knows she’s staggering. Stops, her body shuddering, her hands quaking at her sides. She sinks into the snow.

  “ — the kind of kid who always tried to do his best.” Coach Conley was delivering my brother’s eulogy. My parents, I suddenly noticed, were gazing at him as if every breath they took came straight from him. “Blake did not believe in giving up. I remember when he was in grade ten the Lightning football team was not the power it’s been the last two years. One Saturday afternoon, we were down by three touchdowns at halftime. The boys are all lying on the sidelines, chewing on oranges, wondering just how bad the score is going to be by the final whistle, wishing they could get it over with and go home right now, and this grade ten kid stands up, tells everybody he doesn’t know if they can win this game, but one thing he does know is that none of them are quitters, if they put their hearts back into it and all pull together, sure as shooting they can win the second half. It’s obvious the kid believes this himself, and pretty soon the other guys are starting to believe right along with him. They do outscore the other team the rest of the way, darn near pull out the victory. Because Blake Russell believed in them and in himself.”

  Coach Conley paused, gazed out above the microphone in the chancel, gazed down at us. My parents stared back at him, their faces glowing, as if they could see my brother standing there beside him.

  “Like I said, this was a kid who tried to do his best. He didn’t always succeed, but you knew he’d always try. And it’s true sometimes he made mistakes. He was human — just like the rest of us. But in all my years of coaching, I’ve seldom seen a boy with the sense of responsibility that he had.” Both my parents were crying now, but it was crazy — I was too damned rational to cry. Even then I was wondering if maybe Coach was getting kind of schmaltzy here, but the thing about it was, he pretty much had it right.

  “When Blake made a mistake,” Coach continued, “he never forgot it. That was why we picked him for quarterback even though we knew he wasn’t the best athlete on the team. He might make a mistake, throw a pass, say, when he should have grounded the ball, but he was never going to make that same mistake again. That’s a good quality all right, but I’d have to say it’s a heavy burden too. When Blake Russell did something wrong, I don’t believe he ever forgave himself.”

  There was a sudden noise, not much louder than a sigh, something like a gasp and moan combined, a stunted cry of pain. I didn’t have to look at either of my parents to know they turned toward me.

  Coach Conley was going on about the kind of student my brother was, but his words were running together now, his hands dissolving on the lectern, his face a blur, his shoulders melting down, collapsing, and mine were shaking; I was digging at my eyes, the tears streaming for my brother.

  After the relatives had all left for home, driving back to Saskatoon and Estevan, I helped my parents gather up the dishes, collect uneaten food in plastic bags and take them downstairs to the freezer. We stuffed all the dishes we could into the dishwasher, then with my mother washing, my father and I drying and putting things away, we finished off the other dishes, hardly saying a word, the washer whirring mournfully beneath the counter. I thought that if anybody got started, we might have to talk about the way my brother died, and I knew it was too soon for that. I couldn’t bear it yet. As soon as I’d set the last glass in the buffet, I went up to bed.

  The room across the hall from mine was empty. It always would be now.

  Lying in bed, I felt chilly, even with a comforter pulled over my blankets. The room was somewhat brighter than usual, the blind over my desk pulled just halfway down. I stared at the ceiling, the shadow above my bed dark and ominous, shivers rocking my spine. It was nothing but the shadow of the lighting fixture, but on the stippled ceiling of my bedroom it looked like a body lying on snow. If it had begun to move, crawling, staggering to its feet, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  Anna, I thought, oh Anna, you never had a chance. Those rotten bastards never gave you a chance. You didn’t know it, Anna, but I loved you, I would have done anything — no, that was craziness. I liked her because she always spoke to me, admired her for her nerve, felt sorry for the way she’d suffered, but that was not the same as love. I hardly knew her.

  My brother was the one I loved.

  My brother who was dead, dead and gone forever.

  I hadn’t found a way to forgive him. And he couldn’t forgive himself.

  Some time later I crawled out of bed and lowered the blind to the sill. Before I pulled it down, I stared a moment at the street outside. Though the traffic had worn the snow away, the whole street shimmered, pavement transformed to ice by the spare glow of moonlight. It was the street where we used to gather after school, a whole gang of kids, choosing sides for road hockey. My brother always picked me early so I wouldn’t be the last one taken.

  “We need to talk,” my father said, coming into my room on Tuesday night. I’d gone back to school that day, was at my desk now, trying to scratch out a long enough descriptive paragraph to satisfy my English teacher.

  “I’m kind of busy writing,” I said. “Got a paragraph that’s due tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ve been standing at your door — must be nearly five minutes. Your pen hasn’t moved.”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Maybe you need a break.”

  I heard his feet pad across the floor, heard springs squeak. Knew he was sitting on the bed beside my desk. I kept my eyes on the sheet of foolscap, half a dozen lines scrawled at the top of the page.

  “Before your brother died,” he said, his voice not quite his own when he pronounced the word ‘died’, “it was obvious something had gone wrong between the two of you. You were barely talking. You’ve been in a deep funk ever since.”

  Get off my case, I thought, and suddenly I felt like hurting him. “Naturally,” I snapped. “My brother’s dead.” I felt sorry at once, turned to look at him, shaking my head, hoping he would take it for apology.

  Sitting there on my bed, the mattr
ess sunk below the level of my chair, he looked withered, older than his years.

  “I don’t want to argue with you, Blair, but I think there’s something there you need to talk about.”

  He was studying my face, and I tried not to blink.

  You really want to hear this, I thought. What your son did to Amber, I could tell you that. Really hurt you. Yeah, might as well shove a knife between your ribs.

  “What about it, Blair?”

  I shook my head. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?

  “Blair?” He wasn’t going to quit. Leaning toward me, his right hand out as if he expected me to drop an offering in it, looking so pathetic.

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay! There was something between us. I was mad as hell at him. Because of something he’d done.”

  My father didn’t look surprised — just more tired than usual — and I knew I’d gone too far already. I didn’t want this leading to the truth.

  “Don’t clam up now.”

  “It wasn’t all that serious, but . . . well, it really got to me.” He was still leaning toward me, wanting more. Not serious, hell, another bloody lie, I was through lying. I’d tell him as much as he could handle. “Blake did something that was really stupid. I promised him I’d never tell anybody.”

  “You need to tell me, Blair. For your own sake.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You do.” He stood up, stepped toward my chair. “Right now. I’m not leaving till you do.”

  “You really want to know? You’ll be sorry.” He nodded. I had to tell him, there was no other way to get him out of here. “That night Blake came home so drunk, he wasn’t the only one like that. A bunch of them were drunk, a girl too, Amber Saunders. She passed out on Fosters’ lawn, and those guys — ” My voice was shaking now. “ — it wasn’t Blake’s idea, it was Jordan Phelps’ — they all stood there and . . . they peed on her.”