Wake The Stone Man (13 page)

“Yeah.” After dinner he played a few of his own songs on the guitar and he was good. Later, when Rita was about to drive me home, Lars took the keys from her hand. We didn't talk on the ride to my place, but it was comfortable. Before he drove off he said, “We're having a party on Friday. Send off for Tom. Come.”

“I'm not sure.”

“I'll pick you up.”

I thought for a moment. I was really starting to enjoy my time at Cripple Creek Farm. “OK,” I said.

chapter sixteen

I was working on a new painting of Nakina. From a photo I'd taken the day we'd been out in the boat with Dad, with her hair blowing across her face and the water blue behind her. I was sketching out her profile. Long straight nose and high cheekbones. Her lips were open slightly. She had a strong chin. I don't think I'd noticed that before. A straight line from her jaw, which angled to a strong squared chin. The chin slightly prominent. A look of determination.

After a while I took a break and sat at the table reading through more of the papers from the school. A report from the Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs:

I submit the following report from my visit to the St. Mary's Residential School in Fort McKay Ontario, July 16, 1936.

Curriculum — The school is working to prepare the students for positions in domestic service and farming. I was witness to the students attending to their chores inside the school and was impressed with the high standards of cleanliness. Girls are given training in home economics, including meal preparation and kitchen hygiene. I observed boys in the school gardens where they were taught crop cultivation.

Rooms — classrooms, dining rooms, recreation rooms, sleeping dormitories all scrupulously clean

Dress — neat and clean in dress and appearance. Apparently happy and well nourished. I took lunch with the Archbishop and was presented with a good meal consisting of roast of beef, potatoes and vegetables from the school garden.

I put the report down. I remembered one morning when my dad had made porridge for breakfast and Nakina refused to eat it. Said the nuns made them eat cold porridge every morning at the residential school. They called it gruel, and sometimes it had bugs in it.

I looked at the report again. I doubted if any of the kids at the school that day were fed a nice meal of roast beef and potatoes like the superintendent was.

Another letter from 1949 was sent to the Department of Indian Affairs from a priest in the Fort McKay parish. Father Morrow gave the department authority to pick up three children, Joseph, Raymond and Paul Jackpine, from Perrault Falls. “The three children,” said Father Morrow, “can be picked up as early as possible for enrollment at St. Mary's Residential School. The older boy Joseph is nine years of age, and his brother Raymond is eight years of age. The youngest child, Paul, is the illegitimate child of Rebecca Jackpine, the mother, who is an individual of low mentality. The father, Frank Jackpine, I am told, does not want the children. It is a common finding that Indian parents have no interest in raising their own children and so it is in their best interest to be enrolled at the school.”

I crumpled the letter in my hands. More goddamned government propaganda to justify the stealing of children.

I looked up at my first painting of Nakina, in the Lorna Doone. Nakina bent forward. Looking distant and worried. I stood up and grabbed a brush. I painted out her head and shoulders with white paint, and then, working fast, I painted her shoulders an inch higher, more rounded, heavier. I curved the neck so her head hung lower. That was it. I had caught Nakina in a rare moment when she didn't know she was being watched. A moment when I could see the weight of worry pressing down on her.

***

Lars arrived the following Friday and I invited him in.

“These yours?” He was looking at the paintings on the windowsill.

“I'm just playing around.”

“I like it. That's First Avenue?”

“Yeah.”

“And Mary Christmas. I like the red lips.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. Beautiful. Who's this?”

“My friend.”

“At the Lorna Doone?”

“It's not finished. Still trying to get the face right.”

“Hey, let me help with that.” I was struggling to get my arm into the plucked beaver coat and Lars held it up for me.

“Thanks. I don't have anything to bring to the party. Is that OK?”

“Don't worry about it. Rita has a ton of food cooking and Frank and I did a beer run this morning.”

Lars stood in front of the painting of Nakina. Finally he turned to me and said, “It's good.”

We talked a bit in the car, about painting and music and writing songs. Lars turned on the radio. It was comfortable talking with him.

“Where is she now?” he asked when we were heading down the Silver Falls Road.

“Who?”

“Your friend. The one in the painting.”

“I don't know.”

“She move away?”

“Maybe. I'm not sure.” The truth was I had been thinking about Nakina all week — wondering if there was any way I could send her a letter. I didn't know what I'd say. I just wanted to know where she was.

When we got to Cripple Creek the house was rocking. People were dancing to Moody Blues in the front room, and a couple were making out on the mattress under the “Don't fuck with Mother Nature” poster. In the kitchen Rita and Mary were cooking. Mary came over and dropped her sleeping baby into my arms. “Glad you made it. Have some wine.”

Kid in one arm, wine in the other, I sat down and watched the women roll out perogy dough across the table. They had their hair tied back with kerchiefs like the ladies at the Polish legion.

I didn't like babies. Didn't know what to do with them. “What's the kid's name?” I asked.

“Blue.”

“His name is Blue?” I asked.

“Yeah, Tom said he had this blue aura when he was born and that it was a sign.”

“A sign of what?”

“A sign that his name was Blue.”

I was thinking maybe he was blue because he wasn't getting enough oxygen and they should have called him Oxygen.

“He was born right out there.” She was pointing to the mattress on the floor where the two people were making out.

Rita stopped cooking and wiped her hands on her apron. “It was amazing. We were all sitting on the floor massaging Mary's belly and she was screaming and we were screaming with her. It was like we all birthed Blue together, like one big womb pushing him out.”

I wanted to wipe that happy image out of my head so I headed upstairs to see if I could find Celeste. She was in her room drawing. She seemed glad to see me. I put Blue down in the crib and he didn't wake up. He seemed like a pretty easygoing kid, which was a good thing for him.

We drew for a while and then Celeste asked me to read to her.

“Sure, what do you want me to read?”

Celeste handed me a copy of
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
.

“You're kidding.”

“No I'm not.”

She wasn't either. Man, she was a straight ahead kid.

I lay down on the mattress and read to Celeste. She put her head on my chest and looked up at the ceiling. After a while I noticed things were getting louder and crazier downstairs. I could smell perogies frying in onions. Jimmy Hendrix was belting out “Purple Haze” and the air was thick with pot. It was nice lying there reading and after a while we both fell asleep.

A while later baby Blue woke us with his crying. That kid had good lungs on him. I picked him up, and Celeste and I went downstairs. In the kitchen I handed Blue to his mother and lined up at the stove with my plate. As I was standing there I looked back to see if I could spot Lars. He was in the living room talking to Frank.

When I got my food I moved into the front room and sat down on a mattress on the floor beside Frank. He had his artificial leg on and his legs were spread straight out in front of him. Frank was really wasted. His shirt was open and he was eating his cabbage rolls with his hands, tomato sauce dripping down his bare chest. Frank and Lars were having a heated discussion about whether Neil Young wrote the song “Helpless” about Fort McKay. Frank said no, and Lars said yes and what did Frank know anyway — he was a Yank.

To change the subject I asked Frank what he did.

“I'm a prosthetician,” he said.

I looked at Frank and he could tell from my stunned expression I didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

“I make artificial limbs. A prosthetician.”

I don't know if it was the wine or the pot or both, but the word prosthetician set me off laughing. Between gasps for air I kept saying “pros-the-tician!”

Lars grabbed my plate and said he'd get me more perogies before they were all gone. Frank picked up a book and started reading poems about gods and dogs and dogs and gods, and it occurred to me that dog is god spelled backwards. When Frank started to read a Milton Acorn poem about flying foreskins I went back into the kitchen looking for Lars.

“Draft Dodger Rag” was playing on the stereo. Seemed appropriate. All the guys at Cripple Creek Farm were dodging the war in Vietnam. Everyone except Lars.

Lars handed me a plate of perogies and headed out the back door. Out the kitchen window I saw him walking across the field towards the sauna. He walked past Tom, who was talking to some skinny dude with a brush cut, who was waving a book in the air like he was some sort of southern Baptist preacher. Tom seemed angry and I could hear the skinny dude shouting but I couldn't hear what they were saying.

“Who's that?” I asked Rita.

“Who? Oh Sid. Friend of Tom's.”

“Some friend.”

Rita turned and looked out the window. Sid was still flailing the book around in front of Tom's face. “Yeah, bit of an asshole.”

About an hour later Lars was back. “I got the sauna stoked, it's almost ready. Get your coat.”

When I came back he took my hand and led me outside and down a path to the sauna. Lars stripped right away but I was shy. He handed me a towel and I wrapped it around myself and slipped my clothes off underneath. Lars threw water on the rocks and steam filled the room. We moved up to the middle bench.

Lars lifted the hair from the back of my neck and rubbed my shoulders with birch leaves. Moments later the door of the sauna opened and more people poured in. More hot wet naked bodies scrunched together along the lower bench. Lars and I moved up to the top bench to make room. He put his arm around me and his long hair fell across my shoulder.

Walking back to the house after the sauna I told Lars I had to get back to my house to stoke the fire and he took the keys to Rita's truck and drove me home. We didn't speak in the car but when we got to my house he leaned down, kissed me on the forehead and said he'd see me soon.

chapter seventeen

The next morning I stoked the fire and put a pot of water on the stove. There was frost on the inside of the window and it took hours for the kitchen to warm up. While I waited for the water to boil I looked through some of the photos from the residential school. Two photos side by side. On the left a boy about eight with straight black hair that came down to his shoulders. He was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans and was smiling at the camera. The second photo, on the right, the same boy with his hair cut short wearing a white shirt and black pants. In this photo he looked at the camera, or the person holding the camera, with an expression of distrust. Fear? I held the photocopy up in front of me. Someone had taped the two original images together. The nuns? Perhaps to show how much progress they'd made — every trace of Indian scrubbed clean.

That afternoon I skied to Cripple Creek. Lars was gone.

“When did he go?” I asked.

“This morning,” Rita said. “Frank drove him into town. Got a call this morning from his mom. His dad fell and broke his arm and they needed Lars to come home and help out. They run a gas station in Nipigon and his dad can't work with his arm out of commission.”

“Will he be coming back?”

“Maybe, but probably not for a couple of months at least.”

I didn't stay long that afternoon. When I got home I put more wood on the fire and pulled the easel over to the window. I worked on the original painting of Nakina.

The next day I was painting the light on the window of the Lorna Doone and that's when I saw it. My reflection. Taking the photograph outside the restaurant that day I had captured my own reflection in the glass. Me, outside the Doone, camera held up in front of my face, taking a photo of Nakina sitting alone in the booth. That was it. It wasn't just Nakina sitting there, it was me outside, separated by glass, watching her. Nakina sitting alone, looking worried and vulnerable — not knowing I was watching her.

That was the story. I painted my reflection into the picture. It was hard work and I kept at the painting for the rest of the week. Me, observing Nakina through glass. Watching her but never getting close. That was how it felt now.

One day when the sun had some heat in it I skied down to Cripple Creek. There were more cars than usual parked out front.

“Hey, Molly. I'm glad you're here. Celeste has been looking for you.” Rita was in the kitchen as usual, cooking for the men.

I sat down at the table and she put a mug of tea in front of me.

“Celeste wants you to teach her how to cross country ski. I found skis and boots for her in the attic.”

“OK.”

“Where have you been all week?”

“Just working on some paintings.”

“I'd like to see them sometime.”

“Sure.” I could hear Blue hollering upstairs.

“I think he's cutting teeth. Mary's been up all night.”

Frank walked through and gave me a nod. I felt like I was becoming part of the Cripple Creek landscape. I looked around for Lars but there was no sign of him.

“Molly, I got a pair of skis!” Celeste ran into the kitchen grinning from ear to ear. I'd never seen her face light up like that before. “Can you show me how to ski?”

“Wait a bit dear. Molly just got here. She's probably tired.”

“No, I'm not. Let's go.” I gulped back the warm tea and headed to the door to put my boots back on. Celeste sat on a wooden milk crate and I laced her ski boots.

Outside I helped her snap down the harness and tie the leather strap. “Now just slide your foot forward, like you're walking.”

“Like this?”

“Perfect. And when your left foot is forward, put your right pole out. Good, that's it. Now slide your right foot forward. OK, now change hands. That's it. Plant your left pole.”

“I'm doing it!” Celeste took a few strokes, then fell to the left into the deep snow. I helped her up.

“Now, just follow me. I'm going to cut a trail across this field. We'll go over by the beaver dam and then circle back.”

I started off slowly and I could hear the swish of Celeste's skis behind me. Half way across the field I heard a shout, then the clacking of skis as she fell again.

I turned to help her up and she was laughing so hard I fell over on top of her, making her laugh even more. Once we got up on our feet we headed back to the house. I figured that was enough for one day.

“I did it, Mom! I was good, wasn't I Molly?”

“She's a natural. Maybe next time I'll take you out past the beaver pond.”

Rita had made a banana loaf and she cut me a thick piece, still warm from the oven. I spent the afternoon drawing with Celeste. I should have headed home. I had started work on a new painting — the basket man — but I didn't feel like being alone so I stayed at Cripple Creek. The sun was low when I left. I taped the flashlights onto my wrists. By the time I got home I was following the ridge of light from the full moon. The stove was almost out and I spent the rest of the evening stoking it until the kitchen was warm enough so I could take off my fur coat.

Life in the bush seemed like one long fight against the cold. Heating the house, chipping ice off the washbasin in the morning, filling the wood basket, heating water on the stove for tea. There wasn't much time for anything else.

The basket man. I didn't know much about him, just that when I was growing up he would come down our street pushing a baby carriage filled with his baskets. He had bells on the carriage to let people know he was there. Mom bought a few baskets from him. Willow. He wove them mixing together red strips, which had the bark still on, and white strips, with the bark peeled off. The basket we'd had in our living room was deep and round with a tall handle. As I worked on the painting it bothered me that I didn't know anything about him. Was he married? Did he have children? Was he born in Fort McKay or did he come from somewhere else? Why did he weave baskets? To me he was just the short, dark-skinned man who appeared mysteriously on our street to sell his wares.

***

The next time I went to Cripple Creek, Celeste and I headed into the field again. This time we made it past the beaver pond and across the meadow behind the house. Rita had packed us sandwiches and we stopped at the edge of the clearing for lunch.

“You're doing great, Celeste.”

“Can we ski to your house some day?”

“Maybe some day. It's pretty far. Maybe your mom could drive you.”

“How about today?”

“I don't know. We'll have to ask her when we get back.”

Back at the house a few people had gathered in the living room to play music. There was a woman I'd never seen before tuning a fiddle and a guy with a guitar. Celeste was tired after the long trek and she curled up with her head on my lap. Her little body felt warm.

Frank sat down beside us.

“So how's things in the prosthetics biz?”

“Can't complain.”

“Where do you work anyway?”

“St. Joseph's Hospital, in the rehab wing.”

“Do you go in every day?”

“Three times a week. I do a lot of the work here though. I've got a workshop in the barn.”

“Hey, do you think you could pick up some stuff for me in town?”

“Sure. Make a list,” Frank said as he finished rolling a joint.

I went into the kitchen and got some paper to make a list for Frank. I needed more canvases and paint and some canned goods and milk. I was getting low on food.

“Staying for supper?” Rita asked.

“I have to get back. It's late.”

“Don't go back. You should stay here tonight.”

“No, can't let the fire go out.”

“OK, I'll drive you.”

“Can I go too?” Celeste woke up and was rubbing her eyes. “I want to see where Molly lives.”

“I guess so.”

When we got to my place Rita and Celeste came in. It seemed strange to have people in my house. I lit the Coleman lamps.

“Did you paint this, Molly?” Rita asked.

“I did.”

“It's good. Who is it?”

“It's my friend Nakina.”

“There's my drawing!” Celeste spotted the drawing of her house in Africa that I had put up on the wall.

“It keeps me warm in this cold kitchen,” I said.

I showed Celeste my bedroom and the pantry, and she had lots of questions about the house and who lived there with me and who had lived there before. She was a curious kid.

“Where is your mom and dad?” she asked

I was so surprised I didn't answer right away. “They died. They were in a car accident and they died.”

“That's too bad. My dad died too. He died in Vietnam.”

“I'm really sorry.”

“That's OK. It was a long time ago.”

Celeste looked at her mom and asked, “Can Molly come and live with us?”

“That's very sweet,” I said, “but I'm OK here.”

As I watched them getting into the truck I thought maybe one day I'd invite Celeste to come and paint with me.