The Lesser Blessed (8 page)

“Shit,” I said. “Juliet.”

I didn’t want her to see me bleeding to death so I knocked on Donny’s door.

“Enter,” he said. I did.

Donny’s room was pretty barren. All he had was a box spring, a mattress and a lamp. He was sitting on the carpet, drawing.

“Whatcha doing?”

“What’s it look like, chief?” he said, holding up his picture.

It was bizarre. There was a kid holding a gun and he was smiling; in the background there were five dogs lying dead, with a hundred lines behind them saying the same thing: “Stab the dog stab the dog stab the dog.”

“Whatdaya think, chief?” His eyes were looking into me for a reaction, so I told the truth.

“Pretty grim.”

He snatched it back. “Yeah, what do you know?”

As I looked around, I realized he had drawings hung up all over. In the bare closet he had drawn on the wall. There were men and women crying and there were fallen-down scarecrows, thousands of them. He had tried to write swear words, but they all came out like, “Fok FoK fOK.”

“Shit, man, you psycho?”

“Gotta be, it’s a fuckin’ war zone,” he said.

“You’re rude.”

“I guess,” he said and looked down.

“It snowed,” I offered.

“Big deal. Snow melts.”

“No,” I said, “you should be playing outside.”

“And freeze?”

We were quiet.

“You know,” I tried. “I was reading that playing Mozart helps plants grow.”

He went back to drawing. “Fuck Mozart.”

“Sol later, man,” I said.

“Yeah, sol, chief.”

Aha! At least somebody knew some Raven Talk.

I walked down the hallway, and the synthesizer shot Van Halen’s “1984” into my veins. I got piss shivers. I heard the clink of bottles and laughter. I went around the corner and there she was, Juliet.

But she was with Jazz! Jakka Jazz! The biggest asshole in the
universe ! The Leonard of all Leonards ! I looked at Johnny, but Juliet and him were hugging and kissing, slopping their tongues all over each other. Johnny had his hands in her hair and she was grabbing him back.

“Were you pushing or pulling in there?” Jazz asked me. Johnny’s giving him a lickin’ hadn’t changed anything at all.

“What?” I slurred. That music was too loud. I could see Juliet laughing at me and my fat lips. I could see Johnny squinting at me, and I felt humiliated. Everyone was laughing and I hated it. I could see Juliet’s ass in those black pants that I loved. I could see Jazz and his smug skinny-ass face. He was drinking out of my favourite glass mug and he had beer in it. I could see Johnny giving me the knee and I could hear the hoofs on the pavement again and I could hear the puppy being torn to pieces and dogs roaring. The whole damn world was turning up the volume. I could see the nurses who made me look in the mirror and me screaming when I saw the skin peeling from my cousins as the people pulled the blankets off; and my father doing it—my father fucking, the teeth of the hammer sinking into his soft eyes and me yelling, “I send you to hell, Daddy, I send you to hell!”

“I said!” Jazz reached out and pinched my nose. “Were you pushing or pulling in the bathroom—”

I punched Jazz so damn hard his feet touched the ceiling. He hit the floor rolling and I landed on top of him. I was yelling so loud I couldn’t hear the music. Johnny pulled me off him after a bit. I guess he knew Jazz had it coming. I felt like I had water in my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I just couldn’t take it. I tried to put my fist through Jazz so hard that I heard something snap. After that, I blacked out.

Next thing I knew, I was on the couch. Johnny and Juliet were looking at me. Juliet’s eyes were huge as she put a blanket over me.

“Holy shit, Larry,” she said. “If you were Mexican you’d be Rocky!”

“Larry, holy fuck.” Johnny shook his head and offered me a smoke. “You didn’t have to do that, man. You busted his nose!”

I waved the smoke away and looked at Juliet. I savoured her hair. It looked like a fire on a mountain rolling down into the forest. She was chewing gum: Bubblicious. I could smell that it was strawberry flavour. I wanted that gum so bad. I saw the glint of her teeth and I wanted her. Big time.

“Gimme gum,” I said, and she gave it to me. She stuck it in my mouth and I bit soft. Johnny took her other hand and led her away. I watched them as they went around the corner. I heard a door close. The music had changed. This time it was Power Station: “Get it on! Bang a gong!”

I got up and sat at the kitchen table. I was looking at my swollen knuckles. The blood from Jazz’s nose had caked on them and turned chocolate brown. There was blood on my white socks. I could see cigarette butts in an ashtray, one with Juliet’s lipstick on it. I picked it up. It was a small butt and I lit it. I placed my lips where she had placed hers. I puckered and swallowed deep. I burned my thumb and lip; I coughed and hacked. The music had ended, so I put Van Halen back on. I turned it low and sat down. I looked out the window and tried pretty hard not to look at my reflection. When I heard the bed bang chang against the wall, I turned up the system as loud as it would go.

I had it bad for Juliet. I wanted her for my secret, my prayer. I wanted her as my sweet violence of seeds and metal. I wanted to spill candles with her, to hold hands and walk around in gumboots with her. I wanted to do anything and everything with her. I mean, if she were in a coma, I’d make sure the nurses played her favourite music over and over so she’d come back to life and thank me.

I was looking at the floor, past my bloody socks, and I saw those burns in the linoleum floor, the ones that looked like scorched blurred eyes. Except this time it wasn’t the ceiling they were staring at; it was me. They were studying me and I wondered what they were seeing, what they were thinking.

I sat back on the couch, and all I could do was think of when I was
younger. I looked around the living room. There was a couch like this one in the old house, but ours was green. The music was blasting then, too. My dad stood over my mom. He had called me out of my room. He was holding the yellow broom. He was speaking French. He had learned it in the residential schools. He never talked about what had happened there, but he always talked French when he drank.

My mom was passed out on the couch. A couch like this one. This was back when she used to drink. She had gone to residential schools, too. She was passed out, in her bathrobe. My father took the broomstick and started laughing. He spread her legs and with the yellow broomstick—

I shot awake.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” I said. “No!”

I purposely made myself remember the lake in Rae. One time before the accident, I was hanging out with my cousins there. We used to play in the sand way down the beach. We’d take some toys down and build houses. We’d also sniff gas. I wasn’t too crazy about it at first, but after seeing my dad do the bad thing to my aunt, it took the shakes away. I could feel the heat on my back from the sun. Every now and then we’d stop to eat or take a leak. Me and my cousin Franky were good pals, even though he was demented. He was the guy who told me that if you touch gasoline to a cat’s asshole, the cat’d jump ten feet into the air. He was the guy who taught me about bennies.

He’d say, “Close your eyes, Larry. Close them tight. Now face the sun, that’s right. Face it and feel the bennies bouncing off you.”

I’d close my eyes so tight my forehead would stretch, and after a while I’d relax and, sure enough, I could feel bennies bouncing off me. They’d hit one area and the warmth would spread. It was glorious. I began to shout, “Hey! Hey Franky! I feel them! I feel them!”

One time we were taking leaks and facing the sun. We could feel the bennies bouncing off us and we were yelling, “Bennies! Bennies!
Bennies!” but soon I was the only one who was yelling, and when I opened my eyes, there was Franky pointing at my feet.

“Cousin,” he whispered, “you’re pissing blood.”

I was.

That’s all I remember.

I woke up when Johnny led Juliet to the door. She was putting on her running shoes and her damn sweater was inside out. Why didn’t she just goddamned advertise on the blue channel: “Hello! I just got plowed!”

She had her damn socks off and I could see her tiny toes. I wanted to run over there and bite her ass! Johnny kissed her and told her he’d call her. She hugged him and whispered something to him. He laughed. After she left, he came over and sat next to me. His hair was messed up and he didn’t look too happy either.

“Lare,” he asked, “what’s in your hair?”

I didn’t answer. I just looked at him. I knew he was gonna give me a lecture.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said.

Fort Simmer braces for two things in winter. The first is the cold. The second is the Floaters. Floaters are the town drunks who stagger around the community at all hours of the night. Hobo Jungle is where they camp. But when it’s cold out, they come into town to pass out in the alleys, or in the hotel lobby or at the taxi stand. Some throw bricks through the windows of the Bay so they can be charged and shipped off to Yellowknife where they can hibernate and clean up. They are the lost, and Johnny and I walked among them. The ice popped and cracked under our feet and we shimmied like we were wearing kimonos.

Johnny took me out to the back roads of town, by the landslide. We passed two men, one of whom shuffled slow with his head down; the other jumped around him, shadowboxing in old tennis shoes and a bright yellow sweater. His big belly bounced up and down, and he strutted up to us, away from his brother.

“I’m a boxer!” he said and raised his fists. His breath rose above him and plumed like a baby Hiroshima.

The other man was trying to say something in his raspy voice. He was drunk. I could smell the men downwind. They reeked of sweet Lysol and sour fish. The raspy man’s voice was haunting, as if he were a face screaming without a throat.

“Have you ever walked in the footsteps of Jesus?” he asked. I could see his long nose, which slid across his face like a snake off its trail. It had been broken many times. His eyes were black, as black as the eyes of a corpse. They were lifeless, staring at me.

“No,” I said.

Rasp Man shambled closer and raised his hands like the lord of the cross. “Have you ever walked in the footsteps of Satan?” he whispered. I stepped back instinctively. I did not want to touch the man or breathe the air around him.

“Great ! ” Johnny said and came between the Boxer and his brother. He handed the Boxer a smoke. The man stopped his fists long enough to accept it. Johnny lit it for him. Rasp Man floated towards them. I couldn’t see his feet move. He just floated. I heard a quiet thanks that sounded like a death prayer and both men shook Johnny’s hand. Johnny said something to them and they continued on their way towards town. Johnny put his hands in his pockets and walked over tome.

“Fuckin’ chronics,” he whispered.

I was cold and shivering. We started following the brothers towards the town lights. There were pockets of snow on the roads and the ice had glassed over in a thick skin. When the Floaters walked on the ice, it cracked, sounding like panes of glass.

“You really did it tonight, buddy,” Johnny said, changing his tone. “Now you’re in. Now you gotta learn the rules of fighting. When you broke Jazz’s nose—and you owe me one for wiping up the blood—you got brought into a circle. This circle is one for fighters, like Buddy X up there,” he motioned with his head.

The bigger man was shadowboxing his fists about his brother’s head without making contact. He was quick. His belly bounced and bounced. Rasp Man cackled back and started to call and cough loudly. It was a scene of shadow puppets, almost as if we were watching an ape and a lizard meet in an arena. Rasp Man raised his arms again and the Boxer held him.

Johnny snorted and lit up a smoke. “Pretty soon the word is gonna be out that you’re a scrapper. The next time you’re at a party and someone’s looking for a fight they might grab you. You’re fair game now. You’re in.”

He took a puff and passed the cigarette to me. I was smiling inside: I was in.

“This here’s unspoken. I’m only gonna say it once. If you get into a fight and you get hurt bad, stay down. Just stay down and cover your head. Whoever it is that’s scrapping you will take that as a surrender. It works 99 per cent of the time. If they’re drunk, you just run your Indian ass the hell out of there, ’cause drunks like to keep kicking. If they’re stoned, they’ll usually stop when you cover your head. You got that?”

I took a drag and handed the smoke back to him. “Yeah,” I said, goon.

The brothers stopped up ahead. They were arguing. The Boxer started to yell and Johnny and I stopped to watch. There weren’t any streetlights where we were, but the men were close enough to the Bay that we could make out their silhouettes. The Boxer planted his feet in the cold gravel. The raspy brother tried to walk away, but was grabbed and shaken by the Boxer. Johnny continued to talk, keeping a watchful eye on the two men.

“Larry,” he said, “if I have to listen to my mom fuck one more guy, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

He went silent, and I felt sad.

“Johnny,” I said. “I didn’t know ...”

“Well, shit,” he said, blowing smoke in my face, “now you got the hunger; you’ll probably want to start screwing anything that walks. I’ll tell you something, Lare, and this is coming to you straight. Sex is a drug; once you start, you can’t stop. Sometimes it’s downright ugly what people will do to get it.”

“Man, I know that,” I said, thinking of my father.

Up ahead, Rasp Man was trying to get free of the Boxer. His hands fluttered like the wings of a shot chicken. The Boxer yelled into his face and shook him again. In the distance, from where I stood, they looked like lovers in an incredible dance.

Johnny continued with his grim message. “You wanna start screwing someone, you talk to Dean Meddows. His mom works at the hospital as a nurse. She knows all the girls in this town that have the dose. She tells Dean every name. I know it’s bad—you can just close your mouth—but this is a shit town and she’s just looking out for her own. I had Juliet checked out. She’s okay. You think you’ll remember that before you wet your wick? You pay Dean five bucks and he’ll give you a list of all the chicks who got the clap.”