Motorcycles & Sweetgrass (27 page)

“I fell asleep on the dock, and when I woke up, there he was, standing over me.”

It seems Virgil couldn’t do anything or go anywhere without John somehow coming into the picture. And now, somehow, he was involved in Dakota’s life. And if what his uncle had said was true, John/Nanabush wasn’t always a nice guy.

“What… what happened? And why were you sleeping on your dock?”

Dakota just kept pulling at the grass.

“Dakota?”

“I’d been watching him. I don’t know if you know this but he likes to dance. And talk to animals… raccoons at least. He’s really amazing to watch. I could see all this across Beer Bay with my father’s new binoculars. And I think he somehow knew I’d been watching. That’s why he came over last night. I didn’t even hear him or his motorcycle.”

Though only thirteen, Virgil was aware of some of the horrible people who existed out there in the world. The kind who did nasty things to people, especially young girls. And young boys. Unfortunately, Otter Lake had not been spared this experience over the years. Swallowing a lump in his throat, he slid a little closer to his cousin, afraid of where the conversation was going.

“So, what happened?”

Dakota seemed preoccupied with a ball of grass in her hands, and kept rubbing it between her palms until it became smaller and smaller.

“Dakota?”

She looked up at Virgil, and suddenly, the most beautiful smile lit her face. “Oh my God, Virgil, he is so amazing. So fantastic. I can’t believe there are people like that in the world. He wasn’t angry with me at all for watching him. In fact John said he was flattered. And he’s so considerate. At first I think I was a little jealous, watching him with your mother…”

Virgil became even more concerned at the mention of his mother, but Dakota was so excited, he couldn’t get a word in edgewise. “But he said he was teaching her all about the constellations, that’s why they were lying there. He knows so much. And he says he saw me out here when he was taking her home, man he must have great eyesight, especially at night, like an owl, ’cause
he was worried and came over to see what I was doing out on the dock so late, and he found me sleeping there. Man, if my parents had found me, oh boy, I’d really be in for it. So anyway, he woke me up, told me to go to bed, but before that, we talked. He’s a really good talker. He told me a little about the constellations too, the Native names, and so much more. We talked and talked and talked. You’re so lucky he likes your mother.”

Lucky
wasn’t the word that immediately came to Virgil’s mind.

“So why were you so sad looking, just now?”

“I think I’m in love. There’s only, like, ten or fifteen years’ difference between us. Think that matters?”

If Virgil had wondered whether it was possible for his life to get more complicated, he now had the answer. The other horrible thing he realized was that it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet, and there was so much more day left for things to go wrong.

“Virgil Second!” Ms. Weatherford, standing at the front doors, bellowed in the kind of voice only teachers who have been in the educational system for over twenty years can manage. She had spotted him through the classroom window. “Perhaps we should have a little word or two before class starts. I do believe you were not in attendance yesterday. Do you have a proper note explaining that?”

“No, ma’am.” Somehow his coffin, and some additional nails, had found him here at school too.

“Then, my office, Mr. Second, and we’ll discuss it.”

The school bell rang then, signalling the beginning of the day. Only another twelve or fourteen hours more to go.

NINETEEN

John was having his morning coffee at Betty Lou’s, taking in the sun and fresh air through an open window, and listening to the conversations as people came and went. He’d flirted innocently with Elvira but was keeping pretty much to himself. Coffee, more than alcohol, tended to loosen the tongues of most people, especially in environments such as this—the local diner. All the knowledge of the community was eventually passed around those cigarette-burned Formica tables. John knew this, so like a snake out hunting, he sat there, waiting for someone to say something of interest.

The man had something on his agenda. His evening with the lovely Maggie had put familiar thoughts in his head. He wanted to help—to help Maggie, and Otter Lake, and do something positive like he used to in the old days. That was the kind of guy he was. He could be incredibly selfish and vain at certain times, but at others, he could be very community oriented and conscientious. Especially when there was a lovely and striking woman involved. Plus, Lillian would have been very pleased, his promises to her still fresh in his mind. So he sat and thought. And listened…

It was a slow Friday morning, so breakfast traffic was a little light. But Elvira hovered over and around John like a hawk watching an exposed chipmunk. Ever since that night at the bar, she had viewed him the way a dieter might an ice-cream cake at a
Weight Watchers’ meeting. “More coffee?” she’d ask him after every sip. John had to move to the far side of the room to make it more difficult for her to reach him. Eventually three more customers entered, dressed for a hard day of manual labour judging by the amount of dirt and dust on their work clothes.

“Ahneen, Elvira,” greeted the biggest one, a man named Roger. The other two men with him, Dan and Joshua, were cousins and they worked for the village, currently clearing a plot of land near the eastern border of the community. Otter Lake was getting a youth centre. Dan’s glance lingered a little too long on him for John’s taste, like he was sizing him up. Dan definitely looked rougher than the other two, with most of his arms covered in a multitude of tattoos, most of them homemade. John knew that people who didn’t respect their bodies tended not to respect others much. John took another sip of his coffee and looked the other way.

“You guys are late,” commented Elvira, still keeping one eye on the handsome stranger in the back corner.

“
Late
is a White man’s term,” countered Dan.

“Tell that to the Band Office when your cheque is late. The usual, guys?”

Roger and Dan nodded, but Joshua shook his head. “Elvira…?”

“No eggs Benedict,” pre-empted Elvira. “I’ve told you that a dozen times, Joshua.”

“But…”

“I tried making that… that… holiday sauce or whatever it’s called once, for you, Joshua, and it just turned into a pot of yellow gunk. Nothing fancy here. Just the basics. House rules.”

“
Gunk?
Is that the proper Anishnawbe word for it?”

“It is for today. Tell you what, Joshua. I will put some poached eggs on a piece of toast piled with bacon. I’ll even pour some mustard on the top. It will look identical. That’s the best I can do, boys. What do you say?”

Joshua thought about his options for a moment before nodding ruefully. “I guess. I hate having to go to town for it. It looks easy.”

“Then you cook it.” With that, Elvira disappeared into the back, and soon, the satisfying sound of bacon hitting the griddle could be heard. And smelled.

After a second, Joshua yelled to Elvira, “Uh, but you can hold the mustard. Please.”

Left to their own devices, the three men grabbed coffees and two took seats near the large window. Dan, instead, took a long time stirring the milk into his coffee, his attention occasionally wandering to the stranger. Absentmindedly, Roger stared out through the glass, his eyes once again lovingly tracing the shape of the motorcycle sitting seductively in the shade. He could never get tired of looking at it. Joshua, on the other hand, had issues of his own to discuss.

“So, can you pick up my kid on Friday?”

Roger finished dumping three small bags of non-sugar into his coffee before answering. “Yeah, I guess so. I hate museums. I don’t know if it’s because I’m Ojibway and they might lock me up in some display or…”

“… or what?”

Roger hesitated. “… or, I don’t know. I thought I had another reason but I guess I don’t. I thought they had teachers and people for these school trips. Why do I have to go with them? I work for a living. I don’t have to learn anything.”

“Hey, buddy, that your bike out front?” said Dan.

John nodded, still not looking at the tattooed man.

“Kind of old, isn’t it?”

“It’s as old as it is. No more, no less. Just like me.”

“You’re just a kid.”

“I have an old soul.”

Managing to tear his eyes away from the motorcycle, Roger drank his coffee, black.

Joshua continued. “Christ, it’s one of those education policy things. Some kind of ‘trying to rebuild the nuclear family’ program. Get parents involved in their kid’s education. I had to take my two girls to a play. Hated it. Had no idea what was going on. No character development whatsoever.”

Incensed, Roger raised his voice, catching the distant John’s attention. “There you go again. Dan’s right. Nuclear. What do we know about nuclear? That’s a White man’s term. We never had anything nuclear. We had the extended family, not the nuclear family.”

“So what? You want your second cousin and brother to go instead?”

“Hell yeah! I mean, here we are, taking it up the ass because the White man wants to make us a nuclear family.”

“I didn’t realize taking your son to a museum was ‘taking it up the ass.’”

Dan took a small sip of his coffee. “You’re the guy with the motorbike aren’t you?”

“That would be me.”

“I’ve got a 2007 Harley-Davidson. Bet it could eat your little bike up.”

“Bikes don’t eat each other. Only animals do.”

Roger and Joshua were deep in their own discussion. “Bones. That’s what they are showing at that museum. Some kind of
archaeological thing. Bones from a thousand… million… years ago. That kind of thing.”

Joshua nodded. “Kids love that kind of stuff. Especially dinosaur bones.”

“But I don’t. The only bones I like make soup.”

Bones, thought John. That could be interesting, very interesting. Maybe that was what he had been looking for. It could be the stock for the soup he was planning to cook up. A soup of mischief and fun. But he’d have to think it through…

“Where you from, guy with the old motorcycle?”

Dan was now next to John’s table, practically standing over him. John could see on the man’s forearms, printed in grey-blue and wedged between various tattoos, a set of capital letters. On the left arm he read
D.G.A.F.
, and on the right, he was sure it said
D.G.A.S
.

“Everywhere, I guess.”

“Homeless, I guess?”

“You got a problem with me?

“Yeah, blondie, I do.”

“Is it the fact I like to shower?”

“That snotty attitude. You and other guys like you. I met a lot of guys like you in jail. Leather pants like that, fancy bike, attitude, think you’re hot shit. Tough shit. Mostly, though, guys like you are all packaging with nothing inside. I bet you’re some rich kid spending Daddy’s money. People like you are a waste of time. And I hear you’ve been riding around this village like you own it. Come to impress the Natives?”

“Dan, is it? Well, you don’t know anything about me. And the less you know, the better. Now why don’t you go join your friends.”

“Or what?”

“You really want to know what, buddy?”

Dan leaned over the table, smiling. “Yeah, what?”

“Well, it will have to wait. Your breakfast is ready,” he said, as Elvira came out of the kitchen with three fully loaded plates in her arms, including the Otter Lake version of eggs Benedict.

“Hey, Dan, come and get your eggs before they get cold,” she said, putting the plates down in front of the men.

John smiled a mysterious smile at Dan. “You heard the lady. Nothing worse than cold eggs.”

Dan smiled back. “Okay. Bye, for now. And you know, a museum might want that thing of yours. Try and join the new century.”

Dan rejoined his two friends, and other than one quick look over his shoulder, seemed engrossed in their conversation. Much like a car stuck in a snowdrift, the discussion went on and on, grinding up the same snow repeatedly and not making any progress. The talk continued to centre on museums, bones and the disgusting lack of ambition among certain Otter Lake breakfast makers. They were so absorbed in their conversation that they never heard the only other occupant of the restaurant open the door and leave.