The Lesser Blessed (3 page)

“What the hell happened?” Johnny asked as he jogged up to me.

“Those damn ravens got into the garbage again. I was supposed to put another lock on the door. The ravens keep picking the old one.”

“Ravens can’t do that—”

“Damn straight,” I said. “I’ve seen ravens steal food from a baby’s hand. They’re real bastards when it comes right down to it.”

“Wow.”

“Well, could you help me?” I asked.

“I think,” he said, “I’m gonna be a Leonard and get the hell home. My mom’ll be home at five.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Yeah. You can come over later if you want. Bring food—or call me. Ask for the Big Kahoona.”

“You bet!” I called out. “I’ll do that. Sol later.” “Sol later” is Raven Talk. It’s “See you later” said really fast. The correct response is “Sol” but Johnny didn’t say it. All he did was shake his head and go, “Little Vietnam. Not bad, not bad.”

I went into the house to grab more garbage bags.

The sticker by the apartment 13 slot said “A. Beck,” and seeing how Johnny’s last name was Beck, I rang it. I had some hot bannock wrapped in a plastic bag stuffed in my jacket. The intercom crackled and I called out, “Johnny, this is Larry, I’m—”

“Hello?” Johnny asked. “Hello, am I on the air? Can I make a request? Just wait, someone else wants to make a request... oh, piss on it—this thing is broken. Just come up.” The buzzer went off and I opened the door.

Spruce Manor, I thought, what a place to die. There was the smell of wet rugs, muktuk and dry meat in the air. I breathed through my mouth and covered my nose. People had punchedholes in the wall all the way up the stairs. Johnny was standing out in the hallway with the door open. From his apartment I could hear AC/DC. It was either “Back in Black” or “Highway to Hell.” I didn’t really know them. AC/DC was great to dance to but I never bought any of their tapes. Johnny had his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows; his hair was kind of messy. He had on bleached white socks with a hole in one of them. As I got closer, I noticed he had soap suds on his hands.

“
Edanat’e?
” I said.

“Which?”

“That means, How are you?”

“Oh ... good. Come on in. I’m just cleaning up the joint. It’s Larry, right?”

“Yup,” I said, “and you’re the Big Kahoona.”

“Yeah.” He looked nervous.

I walked into the apartment and took off my jacket. I carefully hung it up, away from the dirty floor.

“What’s this?” Johnny asked as I handed him the hot package.

“Don’t panic,” I answered. “I made bannock.”

“Oh yeah?” Johnny smiled. “That’s cool, man. That’s really cool. Come in.”

We walked through the kitchen. Johnny had done a motherload of dishes. They were stacked right up and there were still more to do. Ashtrays on the kitchen table were overflowing. There were about three different sets of cards, all of which looked overused. There was a crib board there too, but I didn’t know how to play. I
sat on the love seat in the living room and Johnny turned down the volume. The apartment was barren. I mean, there was nothing on the walls except for a Canadian flag that reached from one end of the room to the other, covering the windows completely. There was a TV, but it was piled on some old milk crates. I noticed the linoleum was peppered with burns where people had dropped their cigarettes and matches. The holes looked like charred, blurred eyes staring up at the ceiling.

I remembered the flag from school had been stolen recently and eyed this one more carefully.

“You like country?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“Hey, is it true there’s a song called ‘Take Your Tongue Outta My Mouth, I’m Trying to Kiss You Good-bye?’ ”

“What!”

“Jokes! You like AC/DC?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Iron Maiden rules.”

“Oh yeah, ‘Run to the Hills,’ hey? Did you butter this already?”

“Yeah. Do you have any raspberry jam?”

“Naw, we’re strapped until my mom gets some cash. Things are pretty horror-show right now.”

“What?” I said, eyeing him. “Ain’t nothing sadder than bannock without raspberry jam—that’s just about as sad as a one-bark dog!” (Jed taught me that one.) “Well, how about lard? You got any lard?”

“Nope.”

“You know what they say? Bannock and lard make you hard!”

“Cute,” he smirked.

From the hallway, a little boy peeked around the corner. He had big eyes, like a whitefish. He walked past Johnny and sat at the table across from me.

“Edanat’e?” I asked.

“The hell does that mean?” the little guy asked.

“How are you, smart ass, and be nice to Larry. He’s in my class,” Johnny snapped. “Look what he brought us.”

“Is that bannock?”

“Yeah, and you owe another twenty-five cents to the swear-jar.”

“What! ?” the little guy said. “What for, huh? What did I say?”

“You said, ‘What the hell does that mean?’ ‘Hell’ is on the list. You owe twenty-five cents.”

“Damn,” the little guy agreed. “Can I pay later when Mom gives me allowance?”

“No,” Johnny said. “You pay it now, and that’s another twenty-five cents, Mister Damn.”

Frowning, the boy pulled two quarters out of his pocket and put them into a glass jar in the middle of the supper table. The jar was half full. The quarters clinked as they landed on the top of the pile.

“Good boy,” Johnny said. “Now don’t swear.”

I looked at Johnny and motioned to the jar.

“Scoop?” I asked.

“Scoop ... where?”

“No, what’s the scoop? With the jar?”

“Oh that.” He smiled. “If Donny swears he puts twenty-five cents into the swear-jar. If he calls anyone a name, that’s another twenty-five cents in the jar. If he talks back or starts to hit, that’s another quarter. I use the money to do the laundry and buy milk or juice.”

“Ever smart,” I said.

“It’s ’cause of my big cock, I guess!” Johnny joked.

“Ischa!” I said and laughed.

They both studied me.

“You some kind of chief or what?” Donny asked.

Before I could answer, he asked, “How much money you got, chief?”

“Two bucks.”

“Well,” he said, eyeing my pockets, “if I can guess where you were born, I can keep it, ’kay?”

“What are you going to do with the cash if you win?”

“He’s saving up for a mountain bike,” Johnny muttered. “He’s already got a hundred dollars so far.”

“Okay,” I said. There was no damn way he could know I was born in Fort Rae. “Where was I born?”

He eyeballed me and grinned. “You were born between your mama’s legs!”

We all started laughing.

“He’s a bandit,” Johnny smiled, looking at Donny.

“Hand it over,” Donny commanded. I gave him his cash.

“Thanks, chief,” he said as he stuffed the bills into his shirt pocket. “You got hair on your nuts, or what?”

Before I could answer, Johnny stomped over to Donny, scooped him up and took him around the corner. The little boy was quiet about the whole thing, and it looked like this had been done many times before. They were gone for about thirty seconds. Only Johnny came back.

“Sorry, Lare,” he said. “My brother can be a putz.”

I didn’t say anything. Johnny took a break from doing the dishes and had some bannock. I was thinking of having some too, but the way he was taking great big mouthfuls, it looked like he hadn’t eaten in a long time.

“Hey, this is goob,” he said.

“Not too dry?” I asked.

“Naw, just right. Goob.” Johnny seemed to be antsy about me being there. He kept mentioning that his mom would be home soon and that she liked it really quiet.

“Nothing personal, Lare, but you better go before she gets here. Thanks for the bannock. I still have to do those dishes.”

“Yeah. Tell Donny I said good-bye.”

“You gotter.” He nodded. He looked at the clock, then walked me to the hall. I wasn’t even out the door yet and he was already back in the kitchen scrubbing away.

The next time I saw Johnny was in the hallway at school. Except it wasn’t him that I saw first—it was the fight he was in and the commotion it caused.

There were students all around him, buzzing like bees excited or about to swarm. There were about thirty guys—Chipewyan, Cree, Slavey, Inuit and white—with their arms locked to form a huge human circle so nobody in the ring could escape until it was all over. If whoever was fighting tried to escape, they’d be kicked back into the ring. People who were late were pushing into the circle to watch the fight. The air was charged and people were yelling out things like: “Kick his honky ass!” “Don’t be a pussy ...fight!! fight!” “Fiiiiidemm!”

Johnny had his fists raised, and his face was ruby red. The way his fists were guarding his face, I could tell he was no stranger to scraps. It wasn’t until I pushed into the crowd that I saw who he was scrapping. Johnny Beck was fighting Darcy McMannus!

I have to tell you about Darcy McMannus. He was the whitest, meanest, toughest, rowdiest and most feared bully in town. It was rumoured that he had a police record and that he used to fight his uncles for money. He was slow but powerful. Jed once told me a story about an old grizzly charging a moose. That old grizzly was Darcy, and he stood now with the stance of a boxer. Darcy had fat fingers and scarred knuckles. His thick forearms rippled when he gripped a bat or whaled on somebody’s skull. He was shy when he was sober but vicious when drunk. I knew Darcy as a slow dinosaur who had a chunky ass, which, in all honesty, was getting chunkier. He used to play hockey until his knees blew, and often in the locker room I would study the metal knee braces embedded in his meaty shins. Darcy
always wore a leather hockey jacket that said “Timber Wolves” on the back in faded orange letters and “Center” over the right bicep. The jacket was thick and faded, and Darcy never zipped it up. When he would smoke across the street, off school property, I could see steam rising from his chest as his body heat met the autumn chill.

Darcy walked with a limp. Sometimes it was his left knee and sometimes it was his right leg that gave him problems. He always wore grey track pants and never any ginch. His horse cock would jiggle through the cotton as he limped down the main hallway. I once saw two grade eight babes walk past him with wide, bulging eyes and whisper in glee as his tired, dark shadow slowly passed over them.

“Oh my God,” one swooned, “it’s ever big!”

“Ever!” the other agreed.

“Oh Darcy,” I prayed as I studied him now, “get your skull crushed, get that moose cock of yours kicked. Bleed for a day, Darcy, bleed for a day.”

And, as if in agreement with my plea, a fist blurred its way into Darcy’s fat face so quickly it snapped back before Darcy could make a sound. The sound was shock. Darcy made an “oh” in recoil, and then began his bleeding. I’m not talking trickle-trickle. I’m talking a faucet of blood gushing down his shirt, his grey gym pants and all over his fat runners. Darcy’s eyes were watering, and I could tell he wanted out of the fight pretty bad. He kept his guard up, close to his spurting face.

“Hey, b... backstabber,” Darcy hissed around his hands, “y ... you think you’re so tough ’cause you sucker-punched me? Next time I see you, you’re going down.”

“Thumper, you fat fuck. You can’t touch me,” Johnny said and smiled. I stood there awestruck. I think we all were. Darcy put his splashed hands down when he saw the principal and three other teachers come running towards the circle. The teachers tried to push through but the students had their arms locked tight. It was a good thirty-second struggle. Then Mister Harris showed up.

“Break it up. Break it up,” he called out, and pushed through the crowd. “What in hell’s name is going on here?”

When he saw Johnny Beck with his fists up and the blood faucet down Darcy’s body, he decided who the culprit was.

“Beck!” he yelled, “get your ass to my office!”

With that, he grabbed Johnny and pushed him in the general direction of the office. But Johnny reeled around and caught Mister Harris’s grip and sent him off balance. Mister Harris staggered back about two feet into the crowd. I swear to God the whole school fell silent, even Darcy. It was like everyone was holding their breath. If there’s one thing you do not do, you never touch a teacher. Johnny took that moment, turned around and walked right out of the school.

“Screw you, Harris!” somebody yelled around the corner. “We were just trying to keep the circle strong!”

Everybody laughed but me. It was Jazz the Jackal.

“Back to your classes,” Harris ordered. “Anyone out in the hallway gets a week’s detention.”

The next thing I knew everyone had dispersed and gone quickly to their next class. All I remember was glancing to my right and seeing the look on Mister Harris’s face. His little head shimmied back and forth as if he were agreeing with someone or deciding on something.

I, like the rest of the school, got the hell out of there and went straight to Math.

It was two days later when Johnny called.

“Hello?”

“Larry. Johnny Beck here. Just calling to remind you what a stud I am. Listen ... let’s go for coffee.”

“Sure, man. Hey, you kicked Darcy’s ass the other day. What was the fight all about anyways?”

“Not now. Someday I’ll tell you about me and Thumper—maybe when you’re older.”

“Where do you want to meet?”

“Pinebough.”

“Halfan hour?”

“Nope, fifteen.”

“Kay.”

“Later.”

“Mkbuh.” That’s Raven talk for “Okay bye.” We say it really fast and that’s how it comes out.

The Pinebough was the teen-age hangout in Fort Simmer. The first thing you noticed when you walked in was the smoke. The room was blue with it. I swear to God if I have an iron lung ten years from now it will be because I used to hang around that place. It was the kind of smoke that stuck to your clothes and skin. It made your hair all tough and scratchy, and your nostrils burned if you hung there too long.

Definitely not a place to do it doggy-style!

I walked in and Johnny was waiting for me. His back was to the wall and he had a coffee in his hand. He smiled as I walked towards him. On the other side of the cafe were all the other downtown regulars. They watched Johnny and sniffed the air like wolves. The Shandells were droning, “Crimson and clover, over and over.”