The Lesser Blessed (13 page)

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking. You have to buy a puppy for yourself.”

“What?”

“It’s all up here.” She pointed to her head. “You can get over your allergies. I read about it in this book. I want to be a psychologist.”

“Wow,” I said. The hurt washed from me and I looked at her. “Thanks, Juliet. Thanks a lot. A psychologist? You’ll do it. Good for you.”

“Larry,” she said, “I’m sorry about the dance.”

I pouted. “Well, I’m not.”

With that, she held out her hands and ran them through my hair. She brushed my neck softly and closed her eyes. She pulled me close and kissed me on the cheek. I tried to kiss her back but it was crooked, lost. I started to blush and look away. She caught me and looked into my eyes.

“You’re sweet, Larry,” she whispered. “I know you want to be my secret Santa Claus.”

I had an out-of-body experience. She let me go.

“I better get back,” she said.

“No,” I whispered.

She turned and started to walk back into the apartment. I watched her and I was alive inside. My eyes were watering and my knees were shaking. I half walked, half floated out of the building, heading for the potato field. So I was sweet! Sweet! Sweet! Didja hear that, you fuckin’ plague monkeys! Me! Larry! Sweet in the eyes of Juliet. I am the ambassador of love! Woo hoo hoo!

The plastic of my running shoes started to crack from the cold, so I stopped walking. I lit up a smoke and took turns stuffing my free hand in my pocket as I puffed and blew smoke to all the stars. From where I stood, I could see the light from the airport tower slicing the sky every minute or so. I had it all. I had the answer to my allergies, I had the words of Juliet Hope bathing me, straight from her pink, hot mouth—and the northern lights were out, for God’s sake! They were green and purple bright. They looked like thick warring wolves running across the sky. I could see Spruce Manor and the high school.
Jesus, it had only been three months since I met Johnny. I took another long drag on the cigarette and knew I wasn’t the same. I thought of tongues, mothers, snaggle teeth and crimson-red gasoline. I started to shiver.

I flicked the butt when it got to the filter. I turned around and looked at the sky. I could see the rods and cones in my eyes. They were little pin-point haemorrhages. I was so happy I made up a little ditty. It went a little like this:

“Tapeworm, tapeworm

Spin it around

Look up your bum

And see what you’ve found !”

The moon was getting fuller and from nowhere the thought came to me: “Maybe the moon is God’s flashlight.”

When I got home, Jed was up. He was standing in his gonch with his big belly hanging over. Patsy Cline was wailing, “Sweet dreams of you.” Jed’s left hand scratched his bum and his right hand offered the phone.

“Partner!” he said. “Phone’s for you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Nice ass!”

He gave me the fish eye and waddled to bed. Jed had done the dishes—he always did the dishes when he was home—and the kitchen smelled fresh. He told me once the Slavey believed that if you went to bed with a dirty kitchen, your legs would ache when you got old.

“Hello? ” I said. I was feeling bubbly.

“Is this Larry? This is Juliet.”

“Hey, wow, how’s it going, Juliet?”

“Not bad.”

Jed always covered the plates and cups with a tea towel as they drip-dried. He told me you had to protect the dishes from spirits. I didn’t know about that. It just felt so great to be in my house!

“Not too shabby, hey?”

She sounded kind of sad.

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

“Kind of.”

“Where’s Johnny?”

“He took off. We kind of had an argument.”

“Shit. Was it ’cause I kissed you?”

“No,” she laughed. “I didn’t tell him about that.”

“Good.”

“Larry? Johnny told me you were a good storyteller.”

I borrowed a classic Jed line and said, “I know a thing or two about a thing or two.”

“Well, could you tell me one?” Her voice sounded really distant. I thought maybe she was crying, or had been.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked.

“Larry, just tell me a story, will you? Johnny said that you were kissed by the devil.”

I was quiet. (That fuckin’ Johnny)

“Yeah, he said one night you and him were talking, and that’s what you said.”

I laughed. “I was talking stupid. That was after Jazz used my head as a football.”

“Well, it had to have come from somewhere. Could you tell me? Come on, I told you about you having to get a puppy.”

“Are you sure you want to hear this story?”

“Yes!”

“First you have to tell me what you’re wearing—”

“Larry!”

“Well, just wait,” I said. “I gotta ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

I was feeling kind of daring due to the impact of her kissing me. “How does it feel knowing you have the best ass in town? I mean, do you lie in bed at night giggling ’cause you got the power? Do you wake up smiling knowing you’re breaking hearts with that ass?”

“Larry,” she said, “really, when you think about it, what’s an ass for?”

Fuck. Talk about crashing. She didn’t have to get all grim about it. I started crisis management. I had to save the night. I knew that this was my chance to completely give Juliet something that was mine so much that I would be nothing else. I closed my eyes and decided to let the story lead. I was just the voice, and I knew the story would tell itself. I began:

“Well, one time, long time ago, I guess there was a mother and her son. They were fighting. The boy had seen something and his mother knew what he had seen, but they didn’t talk about it. They were arguing and they were both drunk. They began to fight, push, yell and scream. The mother yelled at her boy because he challenged her, but the boy was right in what he had seen and said so. He knew it was wrong. So she banished him. She threw him out. He begged her not to. There was a snowstorm outside, a whiteout, and he had only a jean jacket, runners and a cap on. It was a long way to his cousins’, and he said, ‘Mom, don’t send me out. I’ll freeze. I’ll die.’

“She said, ‘You should have thought about that before you said those things about your father.’ The boy was thrown out. He walked by himself. He fell through ice and he died.

“His mother was so sad when her boy died that she sobered up, quit drinking. But she became haunted. She’d see him whenever she was around fire. If someone lit a match or had a fire going, she’d see him, and he’d be freezing, wet. His lips would be blue and she could see his breath. His hair was wet and his jacket clung to him. He was
cold and shivering, and he’d be pointing at her from the fire. He’d be saying, ‘You ... you ... you.’ And she went mad. She stopped eating, she couldn’t sleep, and she stopped talking.

“A Medicine Woman in the community noticed the mother was acting strange, so she went to her and asked her straight out what had happened. The woman told her. She said, I see my boy in fire. I see him and he’s not dead. He wants to die but he’s not dead. He’s suffering, my boy, and it’s my fault.’

“The Medicine Woman said, ‘Does your boy have any clothes that he loved?’

“The mother said, ‘Yes, yes! My boy was in cadets last year and he loved his uniform. He was always washing it. Even his boots were always polished.

“‘Do you still have it?’ the Medicine Woman asked.

“The mother nodded.

“The Medicine Woman asked, ‘Why haven’t you gotten rid of it?’

“The mother replied, ‘It’s his. It reminds me of him. It smells like him.’

“The Medicine Woman told her, ‘Burn it. You must burn it. You go out someplace and you make a fire. By yourself. You make a fire and you call him. He’ll come. You make a fire and you take whatever he says and you say you’re sorry. You say you’re sorry to your boy and you tell him to sleep, to rest, to die. You call him and he’ll come.’

“So the woman did. She made a fire and her boy came. He was like always: wet, freezing. And he was pointing at her, going, ‘You ... you ... you ...’ And she took it. She took it and she cried and she wailed, ‘My boy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ And she offered the clothes to the fire and she burned them. She burned the boots, the uniform, a toque, mitts and long Johns. And she told her boy to sleep, to rest, to die, and he did. She never saw him again.”

I was quiet, and my blood was pounding in my cars. Juliet was quiet too.

“Larry,” she whispered, “that was beautiful.”

“No,” I said, “that’s the truth.”

“Oh!” she whispered. “Johnny’s buzzing the apartment. I have to go. But thanks for the story, Larry. I’ll miss you.”

And with that, she hung up.

I walked down to where Mister Ferguson kept his sled dogs and shit, wouldn’t you know it? The snow had covered completely the two hearts I had made the month before! Who knew what had occurred on or within them? And what was the deal with Juiet’s “I’ll miss you” ? I had the last of the dry fish with me and finished it off, running the smoked flesh of white fish over my teeth like cardboard.

“Mmmmm,” I said as I chewed.

The huskies weren’t there yet as Mister Ferguson kept his dogs in Fort Chip during the summer and fall. The abandoned doghouses sat on both sides of an old Ski-Doo trail in the bush behind my house. When I first moved to Fort Simmer, just after my mom met Jed, he and I would come out here and hunt ptarmigan. It was getting too cold for a jean jacket and a sweater, which is what I had on. Man, my feet were cold in my runners.

Johnny’s coat had survived the torch job, but I liked to tease him about it. We both agreed Kevin Garner was prick of the year. I was avoiding my mom these days. I thought she’d know I was stoned. I was also starting to worry about where I was going to keep getting cash for hash. The good news was my mom and Jed were really getting along, not arguing for once. Maybe they were doing it doggy-style! I knew for sure Jed used to smoke up because he had this bullet on the end of his necklace where you could pull the bullet head off the shell casing and there was a roach clip inside. When I first saw it, I thought the roach clip was a pair of tweezers.

I was sitting on a doghouse that had the words “Back in the doghouse again!” painted on the side. There were old slop pails for fish lying around in the cornmeal snow. (That’s what Jed called this kind of snow, because it was quite thin and it crunched when we walked on it.) I was just going to light up a smoke I had swiped from my mom when I heard the cracking of twigs and heavy boots on the path. A voice called out, “Zat you, Larry?”

I jumped. “Who’s there?”

“Jed. What you’re doing?”

“Jed!” I said, surprised to see him. He came into the clearing brushing his kamiks off. “Hey, I was just thinking of you.”

“Gretzky,” he said. I brushed snow off the plywood roof and he sat down next to me. “That one of your mother’s stogies?” he said, offering a light.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, “howdjoo know?”

“Export A,” he explained, “Verna’s brand. Did you save some for Uncle?”

“Any time,” I said, taking a puff and handing him the smoke.

“Good man,” he said, eyeing me. “There’s an acre in heaven reserved for boys like you.”

“There better be,” I said. “Hey, I thought you quit.”

“Did.” He took a plug. “Bad year to try.”

I noticed that his hands were shaking. “Have a coffee, man,” I joked.

He looked at his own hands. “Nervous, Lare, just nervous.”

“Scoop?”

“Nuthin’,” he lied, looking up at the stars. “You know, I had to cut through the elementary playground today. Kids in elementary are already starting to chew snuff.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad.”

“Hmmm,” he said, scratching his scruff.

“You gonna pass that smoke back over here,” I asked, “Uncle?”

“What? Oh... hey, look at you, a young man sticking up for himself. Yeah, sure, here you go.”

“Thanks.”

“Been smoking long?” he asked.

“Naw, just started.”

“Then you stain easy, I guess.”

“What?”

Jed held up his pointer and middle fingers and pointed to the top digits. He motioned for me to look at mine. I did. They were stained yellow; same with my fingernails.

“Jesus, Jed, what am I gonna do? Mom’s gonna kill me.”

“Verna knows.”

“What?”

“Larry, your mom knows a lot of things you think she doesn’t.”

“I guess.”

“And me too,” he said. I met his eyes.

“If you ever need to talk,” he continued, “you just ask and we’ll come down here.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks, Jed.”

And we were silent.

“Listen, uh ... Larry, your mom is trying to get me to take you out on the land again.”

“What? The last time we tried, we didn’t get any moose. And when you had that bear in your sights, the gun didn’t go off.”

“Dud,” he explained. “It was a dud. And those moose were Ninjas. We can go somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“Tsu Lake. Renewable Resources takes their first-year students out to bush camp for a month, and they’ll need someone to cook or teach fire science. I talked to the head instructor today and it looks like a go.”

“When?”

“March, winter camp, and I could stick around until September for their summer camp.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked. “Thinking of sticking around?”

“Well,” he said, looking at his shoes and taking a deep breath, “I think I’m going to try to stick around more than I have been.”

(Woo hoo! Right fuckin’ on!) “Cool,” I said.

“Yeah. Your mom and I are gonna give it a go—” Then he said really quick, “Boy, it’s getting cold out here. You come out here often?”

“Yeah,” I said, “when I need to think.”

“Anything particular?”

“Naw. I’m happy for you and Mom, though.”

“Yeah, well. You gonna stick it out here or are you going to come back to the house? I could gab on and on, but I feel like some hot chocolate. You want some?”

“Sure,” I said. I hadn’t had hot chocolate in ages.

“Let’s play some cards, see if I can win some money back. Hey, you see that snow on the trees over there? You know what a Cree woman once told me? She said that when the snow is on the trees like that, it’s the breath of the caribou, they are so close.”