Born with a Tooth (15 page)

“I'm American,” she says suddenly. She's never even been to the States. He smiles, happy. These are the first words she's spoken directly to him tonight. He thinks he's that much closer to getting her home now, she knows.

“You from New York State? Michigan?”

She thinks of pretty turquoise and silver bracelets. “Arizona,” she answers smoothly.

“Shit! You're far from home!” She is.

He buys her another beer. The cowboy smiles and talks of nothing. She can tell from the cocky way he talks, from his eyes, that he fully expects her to come home with him now that he's lavished her with booze. But Sylvina is in control. She gets off her barstool and slips.

“Easy there, little darlin',” he says. “Where you goin'?” Sylvina knows it's time to sneak out of the bar. She'll go find another, avoid the end-of-the-night scene when he says, “Let's go to my place,” and she is forced to talk her way out gently or feign shock and anger.

“To the little girls' room,” she answers. She'll find a quiet
bar, have one last drink, then go to the pilot's and pack her few things. The cowboy's had her here for hours. She's drunk.

“Godspeed,” the cowboy answers.

When she thinks he's not looking, she slips her jacket from the barstool. She walks slowly in the direction of the ladies' room, trying to keep her balance. The place has become crowded in the time she's been here. Men shout over the music and slam drinks on tables, eyes wild with the night, on fire and ugly when they look at her. She makes it to the place where she must go towards the door to her left rather than the washroom along the right wall. Casually, carefully, she peers over her shoulder to the bar. The cowboy faces away from her, talking and gesturing with the bartender. The bartender's eyes catch Sylvina's. He winks. She slips out the door.

The snow has finally come. Huge flakes fall thick and quick all around her. Seeing snow for the first time this season makes Sylvina smile. It has already covered the ground. She knows the night's cold, but she only feels it tingle in the small of her back and harden her nipples. Her tongue is warm with the sweet booze and she can't feel her toes at all. Her head floats above her shoulders and she ploughs along the snowy sidewalk a block, then two, away from the bar. Tomorrow she will see her girls.

“Hey little darlin'.” The cowboy's voice is behind her, startling her. “Are you heading back to Arizona already?”

She turns to face him. “No” is all she can think to say.

“No thank-you's for all the drinks, bitch?” he asks, his voice still low and pleasant.

“I had to leave. I'm not feeling good,” she answers. He raises his hand to cut her off from saying more. With his other hand he pulls a long thin blade from his pocket and walks towards
her, making her back-step into the driveway of a small, dark house.

“Take your jeans off, squaw,” he says, smiling. Sylvina isn't sure if he's joking. She wants to believe it's his bad sense of humour, but he reaches out and pushes her hard so her ass hits the ground and her breath hitches. “What I tell you to do?” he asks her.

Sylvina is frozen. The cowboy steps closer. A pickup truck crunches by on the snowy road behind him. Sylvina wants to cry out. The cowboy is kneeling and in her face now, and she can't tell where the hand with the knife is. She holds her breath for the pierce and pain. “Take your jeans off, squaw bitch,” he hisses into her face. All the casualness has left his voice.

Sylvina sees the pickup truck suddenly behind the cowboy again. It honks its horn. The cowboy jumps, then turns and stands. “You OK, there?” a familiar voice shouts from the rolled-down window.

“Yeah. Girlfriend's just feeling a little sick, is all,” the cowboy answers.

“No!” Sylvina screams, not even aware it's her own voice. Her shout sets the cowboy in motion, like a grouse scared out of the bush by a shotgun blast. He rushes awkwardly down the drive, his boots slipping and skidding as he cuts left onto the sidewalk, just as Drew opens his truck door. The look on his face is confused, unsure, as he watches the cowboy run away. He walks to Sylvina and helps her up.

“You're frozen,” he says. “Get in the truck.”

His heater is running full blast. Sylvina reaches her hand to the vent and begins crying. Drew reaches across her to the glovebox and hands her some Kleenex. “Here,” he says. “What was all that about?”

“He followed me from the bar,” she says. “He had a knife.”

“It's all OK,” Drew says. “I won't tell him.”

Sylvina is confused for a moment. For a second she thinks Drew is talking about the cowboy, but soon realizes he's referring to the pilot. “No, Drew, that's not a worry. We're basically broke up now,” she says, her fingers thawing, aching and burning. She shivers, watching the snow cover the truck windows.

“You two didn't seem a good match anyway,” Drew says after a while. A Shania Twain song plays quietly on his radio.

“I love this song,” Sylvina says to break the uncomfortable silence.

“I love you,” Drew answers. Sylvina bursts out laughing. This is all just too much. She's laughing and crying and just wants to be back home. She looks over at Drew and can see he's hurt and she wants to explain to him that her laughter is release, not aimed at him. She's just happy she isn't getting raped right now by that pig.

“Sylvina,” Drew moans and reaches over to her, hugging her hard.

“No, Drew,” she says, her laughter drying up. “It isn't what either of us wants.”

“I love you, Sylvina,” Drew says again, beginning to cry. “And all you do is hurt me. You can't even wave to me in the bar.” Sylvina is twisted towards him in her seat, her arms pinned at her sides. It's hard to breathe.

“No, Drew,” she says again, worried.

“I want you, Sylvina,” he says. “I didn't want to share you with him. That was his idea.”

“No, Drew,” she repeats. She struggles against him now. He reaches up with his left hand and punches her hard in
the temple. A sharp pain shoots in her head, ricocheting and popping. She sees black spots.

“Now don't you try to hurt me again, Sylvina,” Drew says. “Don't you go embarrassing me in front of my friends.” Drew punches her again in the same spot, one knuckle digging into the soft circle of flesh. Her head feels like it's been split. She blacks out.

What follows comes in flashes. She is on her back in his seat. Her eyes open to his face just above hers, grimacing and crying, kissing her mouth. Her body is numb from his weight. She sees snowflakes hitting the passenger window, sees his vinyl dash. She goes back into darkness. She comes awake again, tugged back by yanks at her legs. She looks down to Drew struggling to pull her jeans off her. She kicks at him and he shoves her hard so that her head hits the metal of the passenger door handle. Lights and dots explode all around her and she fades out again. There's a stabbing pain and a burn in her groin and she knows in the darkness what it is. She swings out at the weight on top of her and again feels the knuckles on her temple, sending her this time deep into the warm black liquid of the truck's seat.

After a time, the warmth begins to turn icy. Something is tickling her face. It's Grandpa, her mother's dad, Prophet, tickling her face with a goose feather, telling her a story so she isn't too lonely. “One time I was out hunting with my brother,” Grandpa says. “My brother liked to make fun of me because I liked sleeping naked in my blanket at night. He didn't believe it was warmer than clothes. Well, one morning I woke up and my brother was gone and so were my clothes. I went outside to look for them. Nothing. Only my boots and my blanket. It was much colder than this, you know. Crazy brother. I had to walk five kilometres home through the snow with only my blanket.

When I got back to the reserve, everyone came out and laughed at me. Someone said I looked like a prophet, and that name stuck.” Sylvina can feel herself smiling. She'd always thought that was his birth name. “Get up now, Sylvina,” he whispers to her. “Get up now before you freeze.” He gently tickles her face with the goose feather again and says, “Hey. Hey.”

Sylvina opens her eyes, but everything is fuzzy, like a
TV
left on too late at night. Snow falls in fat flakes, tickling her face. Her eyes focus. A woman's face is above her. An Indian, silhouetted by a streetlight. “Hey. Hey,” she says. “You better wake up, you. You're going to freeze there.” Sylvina recognizes her. She's from a little reserve, Fort Albany, up north of Moose Factory. The woman is drunk.

Sylvina tries to sit up. The woman helps her. Sylvina shivers violently. “Somebody's hurt you,” the woman says. “Look at you,
Anishnaabe
woman. You wait here, you. I'll get help.”

The woman is gone a long time. Sylvina looks around but doesn't recognize where she is. A pickup truck passes farther down the street. Suddenly, Sylvina is more afraid than she has ever been that Drew will come back. She stands up and her head explodes with pain. She tries to walk but trips. Her jeans are around her ankles. It takes forever to pull them up and button them. She sits huddled on the curb, shivering crazily and crying.

A car pulls up and a bright light shines in her eyes. The pain makes her cry out and throw her hands up. Two policemen get out, hands casual in their coat pockets. “What's the problem here?” the taller one asks.

“Looks like this one's been brawling,” the other says. Sylvina stands up, swaying, light-headed and stunned. “Maybe she got in a fight with that other crazy squaw we just talked to,”
the cop continues, pointing and walking towards Sylvina, his hands out of his pockets now.

“This one's definitely had a few too many as well,” the taller cop laughs, approaching her from the other side. “Makes ya wish they'd just stay on the reserve.”

The idea of more rough hands on her makes Sylvina go grey, makes her stomach rock. As the tall one grabs her arm, Sylvina reaches out and strikes at him, slapping his cheek hard with her open palm. “Hey!” the other shouts as he pounces and grabs her, pulling her arms behind her back. The slapped policeman, red-faced and shaking with anger, grabs her by the hair and drags her to the police car. Sylvina's legs give out and he drags her weight, grunting.

“Stupid bitch,” he says. “Resisting arrest, assault on an officer, public drunk.” Sylvina throws up from the pain onto the side of the cruiser.

“Assaulting a police cruiser,” the other cop says, guffawing. “We got a real live one here.” They get her into the back of the car. Her crying almost sounds like a laugh.

Sylvina remembers flashes of the drive in the car, being taken inside the police station, the place so brightly lit that she throws up again. Shouting. Laughing. Being fingerprinted and asked many questions, none of which she can make sense of. Her head screaming, pounding, her brain trying to break out of her skull. The bright, sick lights. The policeman takes her wallet, her belt, her shoelaces, her beaded eagle hairclip. He puts her in an eight-by-eight cell with a cot and toilet and nothing else.

“Sleep it off,” he says to her. She wishes she could. Thirsty. So thirsty. She considers drinking out of the toilet like a dog. “I'd like to die,” she says out loud. She considers
hanging herself. Sylvina lies down, wondering if she'll wake up again.

Minutes? Hours? How long has she slept? The bright fluorescent light of the cell gives nothing away. The police have forgotten about her. The pilot doesn't care. Her mother doesn't know where she is. Pounding head. She can feel the swell of bruise on her right temple. Her vagina is on fire. Sylvina's afraid to touch it, scared of what she will find, some disgusting leftover of Drew. Her shaking sobs hurt. Just a drink of water, a shower, darkness. She can tie one leg of her jeans around her neck and the other somehow to the vent above. Then it would be easy. Stand on the cot. Step off.

The cell door clanks open. A new policeman holds out a sandwich in wax paper and bottled water. He places them on the edge of Sylvina's cot. She looks at his eyes for a brief second. The look in them surprises her.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “It seems that the officer doing shift change forgot to mention your presence. Can I get you something?”

There is so much that Sylvina wants right now. The last day to disappear. To be home. She can't find words to answer him. She feels sick and ugly under his gaze and turns her head away.

“My advice is to go along with what is asked of you for the next couple of days, until the court backlog is eased, and not make any waves. Your hearing should be before this weekend but, if not, this is your home for the next little while. Hitting Officer Whitt was not a good idea.” Sylvina listens with her head to the wall. “Volunteering information like your name and address can only help, Sylvina,” he continues. She looks over to him quickly. How does he know her name? Then she remembers they have her wallet. “My name's Officer Johansson,” the
policeman says. “I'll be in to check on you every hour during my shift.”

She wants to ask him for something for her headache, but in the time she searches for her voice, he leaves.

A fitful sleep. She dreams of her girls, of them dancing at the spring powwow in jingle dresses, in moccasins that Sylvina has stitched and elaborately beaded herself. Theresa dances a competition dance. So pretty. Long black braids tied tight and shining. Her dress flashing and tinkling its hundreds of little bells as she spins and taps the balls, then heels, of her feet in the dirt of the circle. Peneshish following her big sister's lead, spinning and jingling, dancing and clapping and laughing and winning.

Her coughing wakes her. Her throat feels shredded. Sylvina reaches down and picks up the water, opens it and drinks it all at once. She fights the urge to throw it back up. Her body needs this one thing.