Spud Sweetgrass

by Brian Doyle

  We get back on our bikes and ride to the corner of Holland and Wellington to the offices in the Holland Cross where Dink got the map and the other stuff.

  Inside, on the wall, is a huge framed-in-glass copy of the map that Dink and I have at home. I run my finger up and across the glass, tracing the route of Dumper’s grease.

  Behind us, a voice.

  “Can I help you boys?”

  I explain.

  “We know a guy who dumps a barrel of used cooking grease down a catch basin every night. We know it pollutes Westboro Beach but we can’t prove it.”

  This is a man who is so tall that he has to duck when he takes us into his office. He has a pile of bushy gray hair and his eyebrows are also gray and they move around like giant fuzzy caterpillars when he talks. His hands are as big as baseball gloves and his ears are big and pasted on like Spock’s.

  I tell him everything.

  His eyebrows are going crazy when he says, “This is a very serious charge.”

  He specially wants to know if we know where the substance is kept each day before it is illegally dumped.

  Yes, we do. In the back of a truck outside the Elmdale Tavern.

  He shuts his office door.

  He says he’s not supposed to do what he’s going to do. He seems excited, like a little kid. Dink and I are looking at each other. We’re both thinking that it’s funny, watching a big man like this squirming around, being excited like a little kid.

  He goes into a cupboard and pulls out a box. He takes out of the box a plastic pill that looks like a cod liver oil pill only about three times as big. The liquid inside is clear, like water.

  “Don’t tell anyone about this. This is a dye capsule. You drop one of these in your man’s barrel every night before he goes home to dump. One capsule per barrel. That’s all you have to do. Wait till it’s dark. Don’t get caught, don’t take any chances. Don’t tell anybody. Just walk by the truck and flip the capsule into the barrel. Has the barrel got a lid? No. Good. Just walk casually by, whistle or something, minding your own business, and flip one of these babies into his barrel. This will dissolve and it will mark the grease and everything the grease touches. This is a tracer dye. It will be red. Your man’s river of rancid grease will be red! Do this every night.”

  He was pretty excited, making a flipping move, like he was flipping a coin, when he told us to flip the capsule into the barrel.

  “Why doesn’t the grease come out the pipe?” I say. “Like it did before?”

  “We’ll have to wait for that,” he says. “We have to wait for Mother Nature,” he says.

  “Mother Nature?” says Dink.

  He takes us out of his office to the map on the wall. I trace my finger over the glass for him, showing him the route the grease is supposed to be taking.

  “Perfect,” says our man. “Your grease will come pouring out that Wavell outlet, bright red, red as blood. And then we’ll charge him!”

  Dink and I are still waiting.

  “But in the meantime,” he says, looking around like he’s telling us a secret, “meantime we’ll have to pray.”

  “Pray?”

  “Pray! Pray for rain! You need a nice, big rain storm to make it happen. We had a good one a couple of weeks ago. That’s why your beach was closed. That grease is heavy. All that grease is just waiting there to be flushed out. We need a nice big storm. Then, bang!, we’ve got him! But God will have to flush the toilet for us first.”

  There’s an idea that my father would like. Praying for rain.

  To God, or the great Spirit of the Abos!

  XIII

  Mr. Fryday just phoned.

  I’m “unfired”!

  On the phone he tells me he wants to see me right away, this morning, and that everything’s O.K. and not to worry and that I’m not fired anymore.

  That’s what I say to my mother as she’s rushing out the door, late for work.

  “Hey, Mom,” I shout, “I just got unfired!”

  She stops at the door and looks at me, her head tilted a bit, a little smile.

  “You’re a chip off the old block, you know that? And I think you’re even going to be handsomer than he was.”

  I say goodbye to her.

  As she’s going down the stairs she calls out: “Be careful, John! There’s something serious going on!”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, “I will.”

  I can’t wait to tell Dink that Mr. Fryday wants to “unfire” me.

  “UN-fire you?” he’ll say. “No such word.”

  Every night all week long Dink and I walked casually by Dumper’s truck outside the Elmdale Tavern, minding our own business, even whistling sometimes just for a laugh, and flipped one of those babies into Dumper’s barrel, just like our eyebrow man said. And we dreamed of a red river of rancid grease.

  And I dream of nailing Dumper Stubbs.

  I go down the back stairs and jump on my bike and race down and over to Bayswater Avenue. Mr. and Mrs. Fryday are having breakfast on the veranda.

  Above, the clouds are racing like a herd of caribou across the sky.

  Mr. Fryday is his old self, smiling and praising and glittering. Mrs. Fryday just stares straight ahead, nibbling at her little pieces of toast and jam that Mr. Fryday has so carefully cut on her plate for her. After Mr. Fryday gets me a lemonade and a donut he starts praising me up and telling Mrs. Fryday what an intelligent young man I am and how nice my mother is and how glad he is that I am going back to school and how, after I graduated from school how I will be a big success and how he knew my father and loved to hear him play the trombone and how proud my father would be of his handsome son with all the good ideas about business and especially how his son is not afraid to speak his mind, stand up to authority when he sees something wrong, even though he might put his job in danger...

  There is a whole lot more in his speech but I can’t hear it now because my father is on the stage, playing his solo at the Penguin Club, playing his solo in the piece he wrote, “Hanging Gardens,” with Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians’ Jazz and Swing Band.

  And everyone is up cheering.

  “...courage of his convictions,” Mr. Fryday is telling Mrs. Fryday. “Now, Spud Sweetgrass, I must tell you that you were right about Angelo.”

  “Stubbs?” I say.

  “Yes, you were right about what Angelo Stubbs was doing with the grease. And you were right about the faked receipts. He had a whole pad of blank receipts locked in the glove compartment of his truck. I went out to the grease depot and you were right, they had never met him. I was very ashamed. I confronted Angelo, you see Angelo is my brother-in-law and I’ve tried to do my best for him because I promised Mrs. Fryday here, didn’t I dear? I promised Mrs. Fryday that I would take care of her brother as much as I could. He’s always been a problem, you see, suffered brain damage as a child. Was hit on the head with a snowball with a rock inside it. However, when I looked into your accusations, Spud, and found them to be accurate, I confronted my brother-in-law and he confessed the whole thing. I immediately took him off the grease detail. He now no longer picks up spent cooking grease from Fryday’s Classical Chipwagons. He still does the trash and his truck is still available for maintenance, but this irresponsible act of pouring grease down the sewer and having it end up in the river is at an end, thanks to you, Spud Sweetgrass. Now, I formally reinstate you as a valued employee on Mr. Fryday’s team. What do you say? Will you rejoin my firm? Let bygones be bygones? And please accept this check as a bonus, for having the courage of your convictions. It’s a check for a full week’s vacation with pay. So, you see, you’ve never been away, have you? Your father would be so proud!”

  So that’s why he was with him that night in the Elmdale Tavern. Dumper is his brother-in-law and he’s taking care of him to do his poor wife a favor!

  Should I tell him about the other six barrels a week? About the capsules? About the red rancid river that’s coming?

  “Who picks up your
grease now?” I ask.

  “Our grease, Spud, our grease!”

  “Our grease. Who picks up our grease now?”

  “Oh, a reputable firm. The grease question is no longer in our hands. It’s a headache we’re well rid of, don’t you think? And, by the way, I would be careful how I talk to Angelo for a while, because he knows that you are the one who discovered this unfortunate activity and reported it to me and he is quite angry at you. But it will pass. I have convinced Angelo that you have done him and all of us a very great favor. Imagine, if this had gotten out of hand and the authorities became involved? There are heavy fines and even possible jail sentences for such activity. You are our hero, Spud Sweetgrass!”

  Sure. A hero. I bet Dumper thinks I’m a hero. I bet Dumper would like to kill me. I bet Dumper dreams of boiling me in rancid fat. Shipping me to Montreal in a drum of rotten lard.

  Should I tell Mr. Fryday about what’s really going on? About the other six barrels a week?

  I’ll tell him later, maybe.

  I’ll see what happens.

  Mr. Fryday’s not part of it now, anyway.

  And I don’t want to warn Dumper. If I tell Mr. Fryday, he’ll fire me again, or he’ll tell Dumper and Dumper will get away.

  No, I won’t tell him.

  I take the bonus check, fold it, and put it carefully in my shirt pocket, just under my silk buttercup. I give the pocket a pat.

  “Excellent!” says Mr. Fryday. “Isn’t this excellent, dear?” he says to his wife. His wife nods a little but doesn’t look at him. I don’t think she understands.

  “Have some more lemonade, Spud Sweetgrass! What a beautiful name! Sweetgrass!”

  Mr. Fryday doesn’t know it but he’s just said a word that could put his brother-in-law in jail. Sweetgrass.

  “I won’t be able to start until tomorrow,” I tell him, as I gulp down the lemonade.

  “Fine, Spud Sweetgrass,” he says, and we wave goodbye.

  XIV

  It’s Connie Pan’s day off from work and she and Dink and me, we’re off to meet Nenaposh the Medicine Man. He’s an old man who was a friend of my father’s. He loved my father and I remember us visiting him over on Britannia Road when I was a little kid. He told me at my father’s funeral if there was anything I needed or I was in trouble or anything to call him on the phone. He gave me his phone number and told me not to tell anybody what it was.

  A few days ago I phoned him and explained everything to him about Dumper and the grease, the whole works. There was a long long quiet at the other end of the phone. Then Nenaposh spoke very slowly and seriously.

  “Come to my place tomorrow and bring some tobacco with you. It must be tobacco that is not associated with metal or coins in any way. In other words, you cannot buy the tobacco. It must be given to you or you must get it somehow. I will get a holy man I know to bless it. This you needn’t know anything about. Don’t knock on my door. Leave the tobacco on my step. Three days later, for I must fast for three days, I will meet you at twelve o’clock noon, when the sun is high and strong. I will meet you and your friends at Kitchissippi Lookout. There, you will be my assistants. Also, at that time, one of your friends must present to me a gift, a simple gift, wrapped in a plain piece of cloth, and tied with red yarn. This gift must be priceless but simple.”

  Dink and I got a full ashtray off his dad’s bureau and we broke open all the butts and collected a whole handful of tobacco. I took it over in a jar and left it on Nenaposh’s step. Then I went and discussed with Connie Pan what a “priceless” gift would be. We thought for a long time about diamonds and jewels and other “priceless” things. Then I told her that old Nenaposh said a “simple” priceless gift. Then Connie Pan said that she always thought “priceless” in English was the same as “worthless.” Something with no price on it.

  We went out in her back yard on Cambridge Street and picked the top off a big thistle. The top of a thistle isn’t worth anything. Connie Pan is right. You can’t sell it to anybody for anything. It has no price. It is priceless. A priceless purple flower with thorns around. Connie Pan wrapped it in a piece of plain cloth and tied it with red yarn.

  We are at Kitchissippi Lookout, Dink and Connie Pan and me.

  Down on Westboro Beach is my Medicine Man, building a fire on the sand. There is a big crowd of beach freaks standing around. Connie Pan’s E.S.L. volleyball players are there.

  Nenaposh, the Medicine Man, lights the fire. Nenaposh has reddish skin and black eyes. He has a long black braid hanging. He has one tooth sticking over his lip.

  He opens his suitcase beside the fire. He takes out a blanket with patterns of birds and fish and beaver on it. He places a small blue cloth in the middle of the blanket.

  He removes all metal from his body, coins from his pocket, his knife, his belt, his watch, his pen from his shirt pocket and places these things on the sand away from the blanket. Out of his suitcase he takes his medicine bag. It is light brown and is made of soft moose hide. From the bag he takes a pipe which is in two pieces. He puts the pipe on the blue cloth. He looks up at the sky. He moves the pipe over a little bit.

  He takes an eagle feather from his medicine bag and places it with the quill end almost touching the pipe. He takes out a cup from the bag and sends Dink to the river to fill it up with Ottawa River water. He places the cup of Ottawa River water on the other side of the blue cloth.

  He takes some long dry sweetgrass from his bag and places it just exactly right on the cloth.

  He looks up at the sky. He moves the cup a little closer to the sweetgrass. He takes a wooden bowl out of his bag and places it on the cloth under the eagle feather. He takes Connie Pan’s priceless gift and places it. He places the tobacco I left for him on his step. He takes out some cedar boughs, some sage, a stone, a seashell and some roots and places them.

  Then he puts the empty medicine bag on the cloth right exactly where it should go.

  In the wooden bowl he places some tobacco and breaks up some pieces of cedar bough, some sage and some sweetgrass. He reaches in the fire and pulls out a burning stick.

  He lights the sweetgrass, sage, cedar bough and tobacco in the bowl.

  He brings Connie Pan and Dink and me closer. He scoops the smoke from the bowl up into our faces with his hands. Then our hair. Then the front of our clothes and our hands. He scoops the smoke with his hands up to his own face and waves his long black braid in it.

  When the fire in the bowl is finished, he digs a hole and buries the ashes in the sand.

  Now he picks up the pipe and fills it with tobacco. He lights the pipe with another burning stick. He begins to talk and smokes the pipe and points it this way and then the opposite way. East for the Yellow People. North for the White People, west for the Red People, south for the Black People. Then he names all animals from worms to eagles. And all growing things from grains of wheat to great oak trees. Then points the pipe to the water. Then to the sun. Then specially he points to the women and then to the men and then very specially to the children on Westboro Beach.

  Now he passes the pipe around to the left, right around the fire. If you don’t want to smoke it, you just rub the middle of it. While the pipe is going around, Nenaposh the Medicine Man takes out a whistle made of the bone of an animal and blows on it and begins to sing “Hé Hé Hé Hé” very quietly and begins to dance very softly without lifting his feet off the sand. And he says words that we don’t understand.

  And some words we do understand: the wild rice at the edge of the water, the syrup from the maple tree, the berry on the bush, the moose in the wood, the beaver in the pond, the balsam gum to heal...the balsam boughs you cut with your own knife to make a shelter alone beside a lake when your father was only ten minutes away.

  I’m half in a trance listening to Nenaposh quietly singing “Hé Hé Hé Hé” and dancing softly and blowing on his bone whistle. The Pham family are swaying back and forward with the rhythm and sort of dancing without lifting their feet. The beach frea
ks are lying around looking at us over their sunglasses or under their sunglasses and lying on their stomachs with their chins on their hands watching, their knees bent, the bottoms of their feet getting a suntan. Or they are lying on their sides, on their elbows while the little kids are kicking sand, trying to dance to Nenaposh’s rain dance rhythm.

  If only my father and his trombone were here!

  Is it the trance I’m in, or is it my imagination? Do I hear howling, and do I see, out the corner of my eye, flashing lightning? Is the Medicine Man’s Rain Dance working already?

  No, it’s not.

  It’s the cops!

  What I’m actually hearing is sirens and what I’m actually seeing when I turn around is two cop cars pulling up and three cops getting out. The pipe is passed to Nenaposh. He breaks it back into two pieces. He kicks the fire out. The volleyball team helps him.

  “O.K.,” says Nenaposh, “the ceremony is over! The medicine will work. Hello, officers, you’re right on time. My friends and I have just put out a very dangerous fire. I think somebody was trying to burn down your lovely sandy beach!”

  While the cops are writing down all our names, Nenaposh the Medicine Man carefully puts all his medicine back in the medicine bag and puts the bag and the cloth and the blanket in his suitcase.

  After I’m finished explaining to one of the cops that my name is Sweetgrass, not Snotgrass, I look around for Nenaposh. I run up to Kitchissippi Lookout and look up and down the Ottawa River Parkway.

  There is no sign of the Medicine Man.

  The cops are still down around the fire. They’re sniffing the ashes of the fire. They’re digging around, looking for what was buried. Looking for what Nenaposh gave back to the earth.

  You can tell by the way they act, these cops don’t like Nenaposh.

  Well, that’s just too bad.

  They’re too late. His spell is already cast! Now we wait for the rain. The sky is moving around like soup just before it starts to boil.

  What did Nenaposh say to me, as the cops were coming down the beach? Oh, yes. “You’re gonna have rain within twelve hours. I put some extra medicine in, so it’s gonna be big! I put in extra because your father played such sweet trombone. If I was you, I’d go home and shut the windows. This is gonna be a big one!”