The Lesser Blessed (5 page)

I got a phone call that night. It was Johnny.

“Larry, baby,” he purred, “Friday night, you and me are going to a party. ”

I didn’t know whose house we were going to party at. All I knew was that Juliet had invited Johnny and Johnny had invited me. I was very nervous, but being the Ambassador of Love, I figured this was my chance to be around Juliet.

I wore my newest black jeans and my whitest socks. I ironed my black Iron Maiden “Powerslave” T-shirt, the one where Eddy is on the pyramids in Egypt. I showered and I even flossed my teeth. I met Johnny outside his place. He had showered too, and the part in his hair was perfect. His feathered hair looked like the wing tips of ravens, they whispered so thinly at the ends. He wore faded Levi’s and had a thick red cotton shirt. He left the top three buttons undone so you could see his chest hair. He had a little patch that he liked to show off; I guess that was one of the benefits of being Metis. He was wearing a jean jacket, and as he lit a smoke, his hair fell over his face.

“You packin’ rubbers?” he asked.

“Naw,” I sniffed, “don’t need ’em.”

“What?” His eyes went big.

“I’m so damn hot, my women buy my rubbers for me—I’m a safe sexsonovabitch!”

“Jesus,” he smirked, “I thought you were serious.”

“Just joshing. Coulda been, though—I’m something!”

He shook his head, smiling. “Leonard.”

“Is your mom home?”

Johnny tensed up. “Yeah, why?”

“Just wonderin’ if sometime I could meet her.”

“Larry,” he answered, “that’s one woman you never want to meet.”

“Wow,” I said. “Shereshly?” That’s Raven talk for “Seriously.”

“Seriously. Let’s go.”

Johnny didn’t know where the house was, but I did. It was by Conibear Park. It was in the Welfare Centre, a pretty rough part of town. We knocked on the door and were greeted by an older woman. She was dressed up, and I could tell she was off to the Friday night dance. Her hair was still wet and she didn’t have any make-up on. I could smell her shampoo and her perfume, the combination of which smelled like rust metal roses. I could see her cleavage: Bananas!

“Hey,” this perfect stranger said, looking at me, “you’re Verna’s boy, ain’t ya? I used to live on your street.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, all flushed and hot. I didn’t recognize her but was too embarrassed to say anything.

“You men here for Juliet?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “She here?”

“Yeah,” the woman said, turning around and walking into the house. “She’s putting my kids to bed.”

Johnny and I stood outside.

“Do we go in?” I asked stupidly.

“I guess,” he shrugged. I stopped in the porch and took off my shoes.

“Pussy,” Johnny scoffed, “taking off your shoes at a house party. What a putz.” He dropped his jacket on the floor on top of a small shelf that held boots. I hissed and hung it up. My mom never allowed anyone in our house to drop a jacket or hat. If you do and a woman steps over your clothes, that’s it. You’re done for: bad luck and you’ll never catch a moose. I hung it up for him and carefully hung mine up too.

Like I said, I’m Dogrib: I gotta watch it.

“Hey, man,” I whispered, “I got respect for the lady and her house.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. He pushed me aside and walked into the kitchen.

The woman came out of one of the hallways, towelling her hair. “Juliet’ll be out in a few minutes. Hey!” she yelled with wide eyes when she saw Johnny’s runners on her kitchen floor. “Whatsa matter with you—ain’t you got no respect?”

Johnny turned around and pushed past me. His face was red as he took off his shoes.

“Bitch,” he whispered.

“Hey, Juliet,” the lady called out. “You picked yourself a real winner.”

“Oh, Auntie,” Juliet said as she rounded the corner. She had a lit smoke and an ashtray in the same hand. “Relax.”

“Hi, Juliet,” I called softly. I couldn’t look at her. I just looked
down at her clothes. She had on those black jeans, the ones that I liked the best. She was also wearing a cool blue shirt. As always, her hair and her make-up were perfect.

“Hi, Larry,” she said. “Come in.”

I could tell she was disappointed I had come. Now I felt like a Leonard. When she saw Johnny, her eyes lit up and her smile changed; this time it reached her eyes.

Johnny and I sat on the couch. Juliet was talking to her auntie in the kitchen. I read a magazine while Johnny kept messing up my hair.

“You’re not going to get any tonight, Larry-poo,” he said. “You got monkey-hair.”

“Maaaan,” I dragged, “don’t touch the hair. Besides, it doesn’t look like this is a party after all.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said as he eyed the place, “you’re right. I thought this was going to be a shaker. I wonder what they’re doing tonight in Hay? Man, they sure know how to party in Hay.”

The living room had a huge TV, a cheap stereo and a black velvet Elvis singing to the guests at the Last Supper. There were hippie beads for doors in the house; they hung down like dead spaghetti. The lights were red, which was really neat. Heart was howling, “Let me go crazy crazy on youuuuuuu....”

“Hey, goofs,” Juliet’s auntie called out, “don’t bust my stereo, don’t wake up my kids, and leave the food in the fridge alone. There’s pop and chips in the pantry.”

“Okay.” I jumped up. “See you! Have a good time!”

Johnny elbowed me and said, “Kiss-ass.”

“Hey, man,” I answered, sitting down, “I got respect.”

“Oooooooooo,” Johnny said, widening his eyes in mock admiration.

We sat there not knowing what to do. I kept trying to pretend I was reading something mighty interesting and Johnny turned on the TV with the remote. He kept flicking through the channels.

“So,” Juliet said when she walked into the room. “What do you
boys want to do tonight?” She kept looking at Johnny. Johnny stared at the TV.

“Dunno,” he said. “Who’s all coming over?”

“Oh,” she sighed, “whoever wants to, I guess.”

I kept my mouth shut. This was my first party and I didn’t want to blow it. I noticed that Johnny was playing it cool, not making eye contact. Juliet kept staring at the clock.

When Juliet got tired of trying to pry answers out of Johnny, she began to talk to me. At first I just answered yes or no, but I soon found myself talking to her and loving it.

“Tsa full moon tonight,” I said. “Does the full moon make you crazyr

“No. Something else,” she answered and crossed her legs.

“What?”

“Lonely,” she said, sliding her hands between her thighs and looking at Johnny. “The full moon makes me lonely.”

“Humph,” I said, looking at the situation. “If I ever swallowed the barrel,” I thought, “it would be under a full moon. My mouth would be full of water when I did it. Just like Shamus told me. The pressure of the water would take my head clean off...”

“Hey, want to see some puppies? My auntie’s dog just had a litter.”

“I got allergies,” I explained.

“Are you serious?” she asked. “They’ve been up here all day. We usually keep them in the basement. Shouldn’t you be itching and scratching or something?”

“It’s only if I see the puppies, then my eyes get all watery and I get itchy.”

“Sounds like you’re suppressing something,” she said.

“Yeah,” Johnny said, “like his little happy hard-on.”

“More like my whole fuckin’ life,” I said.

As they laughed, the doorbell rang.

“Well, look who’s here,” Darcy said as he walked into the kitchen. He had a bottle of Jack Daniels in his right hand and a case of beer in
his left. He had his eyes on Johnny, and the way he was gripping that bottle you could tell he was itching to scrap.

Johnny stood up, his face flushed. His hands were fists and he stood his ground.

I stood up too and walked towards Darcy. Juliet was behind him, saying something I couldn’t hear.

Darcy stopped when he saw me. A smile crept across his face.

“Oh yeah, the kid,” he said. “How’s it going, Lare?” he asked. I took the case and the bottle from him and put them on the table, then shook the beefy hand he held out. I could tell by his breath and sleepy eyes that he’d been drinking for a while.

“Not too shabby,” I answered. “Scoop?”

He eyed Johnny over my shoulder. “Just looking for a shaker.”

“Well, there’s the dance at the hall tonight.”

“Naw,” he said. “Can’t, got barred for being rowdy. ”

Juliet put her hand on Darcy’s shoulder, and he limped back into the porch. His chunky ass under those sweat pants rippled. I turned and sat down. My armpits were dripping sweat and my knees were shaking. I was quite surprised I had stood up and done something.

“Man,” I said. “That was close.”

Johnny looked at me and said, “The hell was that all about?”

“That?” I answered. “Darcy gave me a concussion last year. I could have pressed charges but decided against it.”

“Well, thanks for telling me.” Johnny scoffed. “You and Thumper—bum buddies ...”

“Johnny,” I sliced, “if it wasn’t for me, you two would be toe to toe right now, and I bet he’d be kicking your ass.”

Johnny winced, so I continued. “You may have taken him in round one, but he’s got some booze in him. Believe me, when he’s drinking, he feels no pain. Right now I bet he’s running on pure adrenaline. I seen him once take on two of the Mercier boys when he was loaded. He damn near kicked their heads in.”

“Fuck.”

“Yup,” I said. “Now why do you call him Thumper?”

“That, little buddy,” he said, “is something you’ll hear about soon enough.” Johnny messed up my hair and we watched some more TV. Juliet and Darcy talked for a long time on the porch. I was pretty scared that Darcy’d try something with Johnny, but at the same time I wanted to talk to him. I’d be a liar if I told you he didn’t scare me, but something about guys like Darcy always intrigued me. I knew he had had his share of drugs, booze and fights. He was everything I wasn’t. He was bad news, but still...

“Yo, Lare!” Darcy called out.

I went into the kitchen. Juliet walked past me, heading for Johnny. Darcy was standing by the stove and he waved me over. I noticed right away that the stove elements were bright red. My first thought was that he was going to burn me, the next that he wanted a tattoo, and third, that he wanted to get his ear pierced.

“You know what hot-knifing is?” he asked, holding two knives in his left hand and a beer in his right.

“No, Darce, can’t say that I do.”

“You ever do drugs before?”

“Nope.”

“You wanna?” he said, a grin widening across his face.

Every fibre in my body, every molecule, every atom was screaming no, but instead I said, “Sure.”

Van Halen boomed on the stereo and a light went out in the house.

“All right! !” he said, smiling like a Buddha. He slapped me on the back and reassured me that tonight was going to be great.

“Go into the bathroom and get me a roll of toilet paper.”

I did. There was one roll with hardly any paper left on it, so I took that one. Darcy, upon seeing my pick, grunted, “Sure you ain’t done this before?”

“Yup,” I said. I noticed he had his knives propped in between the ribs of the red-hot elements. Their tips were glowing like horseshoes before the blacksmith hammers them into shape. I noticed some
tin foil flattened out on the counter with a big chunk of black Plasticine in the centre of it and a whole bunch of baby Plasticines all around.

“Okay,” Darcy said, “watch this.” He pulled the knives out from the ribs of the elements and with his right blade touched one of the Plasticines. It stuck to the blade. He touched the left blade to the baby Plasticine and pressed the blades together. This hissed off a white smoke, which he puckered his lips for and inhaled.

The smell hit my nose and my eyes began to water.

Darcy held his breath and motioned for me to get the toilet paper roll.

“Okay, man,” he said as he exhaled, “put your mouth over the end of the roll. Don’t waste any ... this is from Colombia, man ... people died to get this to my main man in Hay River.”

He did the same procedure with the baby Plastercines, touching the blades together at the other end of the toilet paper roll. The smoke went into my face, nose and mouth. Darcy put the knives down and covered my mouth and nose with his hands. I just about fainted; my knees wanted to buckle and my eyes were crying. The only thing that kept me standing was Darcy and his gorilla grip.

“Fuck, man, dontwasteitdontwasteitdontwasteit...,” he commanded.

My lungs heaved and my throat was on fire. My hands were ripping at Darcy’s and my eyes were wide open, looking at the ceiling. About twenty seconds later, Darcy decided I was allowed to breathe. I coughed and ran into the bathroom. I ran the water and drank about a gallon. When I looked in the mirror, I saw Darcy laughing.

“Weez brothers now,” he giggled.

I wiped my eyes with a towel and said, “Let’s do some more.”

I hot-knifed about three more times. Never had I smelled or tasted anything so harsh. It felt like I was swallowing fire. I think more smoke went into my hair and eyes than anything. Darcy kept me in his famous “dontwasteit” grip. I felt normal at first and I
thought that I would be invisible to the smoke, but then my blackouts began.

At first, it was like somebody had turned me off. I totally blanked out. When I woke up, I found myself sitting on the couch. The TV was off and Darcy, Johnny and Juliet were inches from my face, laughing and yelling. I could hear the Cult blaring from the stereo, “She Sells Sanctuary.” I just sat there numb and happy.

“Hey, Lare,” Johnny asked, “how do you feel?”

I wanted to say fine, but couldn’t. All I could do was smile.

“Look,” Darcy said, pointing to my smile. “He’s got a permy.”

They all laughed harder.

The next thing I knew, Darcy had a five-dollar bill in my face and was saying, “Goooo cliiiimb the telephoooone poooole outsiiiide.”

I noticed Johnny and Juliet’s laughter coming from the kitchen.

I looked straight into Darcy’s eyes, straight in. I thought of all the things he could do to me but it came out anyway: “Fuck you, moose cock.”