Up Ghost River (26 page)

We laughed about it, just like we mocked the other injustices of history. It was all so goddamned funny, especially the reserves. Tiny
plots of land that we desperately clung to. We called them prisons—the places that we'd been moved to against our will. We had rebelled and died not to go there. So they'd imprisoned us, locking away leaders like Big Bear, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. Or executed us, like Louis Riel, Wandering Spirit, Round the Sky, Bad Arrow, Miserable Man, Iron Body, Little Bear, Crooked Leg and Man Without Blood. And when there was no one left to fight, they had moved us to the reserves anyway. Assigned housing with an assigned religion and assigned laws under the Indian Act. Jails for Indian inmates, with the Indian Agent as the warden.

Why had I come back to my reserve? Clayton had been desperate to leave, too. Most people were. I'd come back because of Joan, that's why. Back to this place of arson and unemployment. Indian Agents and broken windows. Drinking and debt.

God, I needed a drink. There was nowhere around here to get one. Pa rarely made homebrew anymore and there was no way he'd give me any. There was the bootlegger's but Fort Albany was small enough that someone would see me, and word would get around. It would ruin me.

I got out of bed and went to the cots where Albalina, Shannin and Jassen were sleeping. I sat down next to my seven-year old daughter. She was getting so big. Her skin was so smooth, like the gentle waters of the Albany at first light. I stroked her hair. It was auburn, a colour midway between Joan's and my own. They were part of me.
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. All my relations. I had helped bring them into this world. I couldn't let them down again. I wouldn't.

We all went to Erick's funeral: Joan, Albalina, Shannin, Jassen and I, speeding along in our motorboat. It was the quickest way to Kashechewan, but three kids in a motorboat, even with life jackets, is pretty terrifying. Kash used to be part of Fort Albany, but it split away when I was in Grade 3 and moved directly across the river. The Kash elders said they were Protestants and needed to split from our Catholic community. I wondered if the behaviour of the nuns and priests at St. Anne's had anything to do with it.

When we got there, we went directly to the church, where a group of people were standing around outside. I hadn't been in a church since my wedding, and here I was again. I felt nervous and remembered back to my time in AA. “Come on, brother. Calm down. Just breathe.” Maurice was a good man. I would call him when we moved into our new house and got a phone.

I caught sight of a tall clean-shaven man in his late twenties. I looked closer: there was something I recognized about his high cheekbones, and the slightly crooked bridge of his nose. It was Tony. We hadn't seen each other since he left St. Anne's in Grade 7. He'd
fallen out with Brandon by then, and for a few months we were friends again, although never as close as before.

I stopped to chat while Joan took the kids inside.

“Hey man!” Tony said, hugging me. “I heard you were back.”

“Yeah. Down south is crazy. Busy, busy.”

“Tell me about it! I'm in Timmins. Place is booming. So crazy.”

“Mining?”

“No. Tried that. But I couldn't take the dark, you know?” I knew. I'd heard about grown men who'd found it hard to sleep in the dark even years after being locked in the St. Anne's basement. “No, I'm working as a logger,” he said.

“Good for you,” I said. “What's it like?”

“Oh, you know. It's no walk in the park. But the money's good.”

I nodded. “You going in?” I said, gesturing to the church.

“Yeah, in a moment.” He lowered his voice. “Heard it was an electrical fire.”

“Oh,” I said. We would never know for sure. Since there weren't any fire investigators or fire department, the uncertainty would hang around, like the dust after one of those bad autumn windstorms.

Then Nicholas approached us. He'd moved back home after high school, and started working in construction and for the band council. “Glad I found you, Ed. Can I have a word?” Nicholas glanced at Tony, who took the hint and went inside. We walked a few steps toward the side of the church, away from the people milling around. He lowered his voice. “There's a rumour going around. It's probably nothing, but I thought you should know.”

“What?” I said, although I saw the whole thing play out in my mind, him telling me that he'd heard about the drinking, and about the problems with my students.

“It's hard to say, but you have to be careful …” he said. I stared at him as he talked, my mind spinning, and pretended to listen. It
felt like his words were beating down on my head. There was only the noise, and shame. I wanted to hide.

“You okay?” he said.

“What? Yeah,” I replied, coming back to the present. “Yeah, fine.

Thanks for telling me.”

“These things are always hard.”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.”

I went inside in a daze. The funeral had just started. I looked at Joan. She was singing. Everyone was singing, but I could hear her voice sweetest of all. The shame came over me like a waterfall. My face became hot, and everything—our house and town and the ground—fell away. Inside my mind were only angry accusations. What could I say to her? I had let her down, again. I had embarrassed and shamed her and now everyone would know about it.

Once the service was over, I wanted to get away. I wanted to be by myself long enough to get my head straight.

“You okay?” Joan said. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“Yeah well … you know, funerals.”

“We should get you home.” She drove the boat. When we got to land, I said there was something I needed to take care of and that she should take the kids home. “Where are you going?”

“I just need some fresh air.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. I just need a bit of space, that's all. I don't feel well.”

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Just the funeral. Erick. We were close, you know.” She squeezed my shoulder.

“I love you, Ed.”

“Yeah. You too,” I said, hurrying off.

I needed to talk to my sponsor, Brian. I needed to ask him what to do. I thought about going to Father Daneau's house and calling Brian on
the radio phone. It would mean the priest finding out about everything. Maybe I could ask him to leave while I talked. Was that a good idea? I couldn't tell. Everything was spinning and I just needed some space.

I knocked on the priest's door and stood there for a while before calling out his name. Next door, a window opened.

“Are you looking for Father Daneau?” A middle-aged woman leaned out.

“Yes.”

“He's gone to Denny's house for a haircut.”

I thought about waiting for the priest. About him listening in on my conversation with Brian about why I was so angry. Having the priest hear about what had happened with my students. About being a drunk. The memory of seeing the black robes in a “medical exam” and looking up at a face that was smiling, even as I turned red and the brother fondled my penis until it was hard.

It was a short walk from the priest's house to the bootlegger's. I searched in my pockets as I walked. I had fifty dollars in cash. Enough for half a mickey of vodka. It would have to do.

“I'm surprised to see you here,” said Luke, who ran booze in and out of Fort Albany.

“Yeah. Well. We're having a celebration,” I said, handing him the fifty dollars. In return, he gave me the vodka, which I put into my inner coat pocket so it didn't show. “Look,” I said, “I'd appreciate it if this didn't get around. You know, me coming here.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I'm not telling anyone. But that works both ways, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Of course.”

I walked along the main dirt road toward the trees. I pulled up the hood of my coat as I walked, hoping that I didn't run into anyone.

When I got to the edge of the spruce forest, I looked at the charcoal sky. There were a few faint stars. I looked away. The Great Creator
had turned some animals into stars to keep an eye on us. I didn't want them staring at me. They could see me in my despair, and I hated it. I wanted to curl into a ball. I headed into the shadows of the forest, unscrewed the vodka cap and took my first drink.

I got home a few hours later. Joan greeted me at the door.

“Can I have a word?” she said.

“Now?” I said.

“I really want to have a word.”

“Okay. Speak.”

“In private.”

“Nowhere is private.”

“For God's sake, Ed! Outside.” Joan took my hand and pulled me out of the front door. Then we were in my dad's truck. Joan drove. Neither of us said anything until we got to the cemetery. Then she turned off the ignition and shifted to face me.

“How could you!” she said. “After all we've been through.”

“What?”

“Ed! You're drunk!”

“It was only a couple.”

“Bullshit! You think I'm stupid?”

“No! Joan, I'm trying!”

“Everyone is trying but you!”

“That's not fair. I love you.”

“Oh, don't give me that love bull now. ‘Oh, the Cree eagle,' he says. ‘Oh, the Seven Sacred Teachings.' And to think I believed it! After all your lies, to think that I believed it!”

“I believe it,” I said softly.

“No you don't! No you don't! You believe in your Cree Fucking Helper. And you believe in fucking yourself up. That's what you believe in.”

“Joan!”

“I want you out of the house,” she said.

“Where should I go?”

“I don't care. Stay at John's. Stay with Nicholas.”

“Joan, what about the kids?”

“That's just it. They need role models. Not drunks.”

“Joan. Please. I'm sorry.”

“You're always fucking sorry.”

“I'll try harder. I love you.”

“This isn't about fucking love!”

I got out of the truck and walked away.

I stayed on Nicholas's couch that night. The next day I went to the ATM and took out some cash and then I went to our wooden shack of an airport and bought a plane ticket to Timmins, and onwards by bus to Peterborough. I wanted to say goodbye to my family, but I knew it would be too hard, seeing all those faces I'd disappointed.

Clayton picked me up from the bus station in my car. He'd been storing it for me until he could sell it.

“No luggage,” he said.

“Didn't need any.”

He didn't reply.

We drove back to his apartment. My car was as shitty as a worn-out Predator ATV. The engine didn't feel like it could pull more than a couple of dead geese. No wonder I had bought it so cheap.

“So what are you going to do now?” Clayton said.

“I'll probably get in touch with my sponsor. Try and figure out how to start again.”

“Who's your sponsor?”

“A former addict. Brian.”

“He any good?”

“He was. Is,” I corrected myself. “I couldn't get hold of him up north.”

“That part of it?”

“I guess.”

“I don't understand what happened,” Clayton said. “I mean, you were doing so well.”

“Yeah. I was. My past caught up with me, I guess. All those people I'd let down. They were all there, stuck in that tiny house.” I shook my head.

“You wanna talk about it?” Clayton said.

“Not really.”

“You're going to have to talk about it sometime, you know.”

“I know.”

“A lot of AA programs don't really work for our people, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno, just stuff I hear.”

“What stuff?”

“Just that it's hard to relate. All that pop psychology stuff. Behaviour modification. That's not what this is about.”

I glanced at him as he drove, and wondered whether he'd been through any of the same things as me. He'd been in a residential school too: he'd likely seen and experienced things that troubled him. He probably had his suspicions. You started opening up and the memories came back faster and faster, swirling over your pit of dread. You tried to do the right thing and put that stuff behind you, but then it was right there, screwing up the present, and you were left with a trail of people you'd loved that you'd then pulled into your own hurt and misery.

We didn't say anything for a while. I was thinking about Joan and our children, and my eyes were wet. I looked out the window so he wouldn't see. The grass and the signs by the highway whipped by.

“You know, there's some interesting things happening in Edmonton,” he said eventually. “I heard about it from my uncle Travis. He lives out there.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well a bunch of people have been working with kids in residential schools. Eddie Bellerose, George Callingbull, Wilton Littlechild, Madeline Stout, Allen Benson.”

“Never heard of them.”

“They don't think the old models are working.”

“What old models?”

“The wemistikoshiw models of healing.”

“Why not?”

“It doesn't jell with our way of thinking.”

I thought about reading the religious doctrine in the Big Book in our AA sessions in rehab, and seeing Sister Wesley's face replace Barb's. He got that one right.

“So what's different?” I said.

“I'm not too sure. They have traditional healing groups. Something about rewiring your brain with culture.”

“With culture? What, so they play you music or something?”

“Nah, man. This is different. It's about figuring out how you can follow the Red Road.”

I remembered Pa telling me about the Red Road after I'd hit my brother Alex. What had he said again? He was always talking about that, but after I'd gone to St. Anne's, I'd started to tune him out. I thought back to that summer. He'd been mad, and said he wanted me to understand what I'd done wrong. How I wasn't treating anyone with respect. How I was forgetting that we are all related, and all need each other to survive. All my relations.
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. That stuff felt like it had happened to someone else.