1977 was the year Hunter learned to wait for his mother. He stayed up late while Deb and Noah slept. He sat by the front window, looked out at a dark empty street and waited for Margarette to come home.
One night, a shiny black two-door pulled up, and Margarette poured out the passenger’s side laughing as she staggered and struggled to stand straight. She bent over, blew a kiss at the driver—Hunter couldn’t see if it was someone he knew—and slammed the door shut. She teetered and waved goodbye to the driver as the car sped away then stumbled to the gate and, fumbling with the latch, pushed through. Hunter lost sight of her as she moved to the side entrance, but he heard her stumble up the stairs and open the door. She hummed a tune, kicked off her boots and staggered to the kitchen, then the dining room. Hunter moved from the front window.
“Water just boiled,” he said, in as small a voice as he could.
“Oh!” Margarette jumped and spun around. She struggled to focus on Hunter, “You scared me, baby boy.”
“Can I pour you a tea, Mom?”
Margarette smiled, “Always taking care, keeping watch, eh?” she said, a warm hand on his face. She kissed him on the cheek, and Hunter could smell the booze on her breath and the cigarette smoke on her clothes. Margarette sat at the dining table, unslung her purse and fished out a large paper napkin wrapped around something.
“Want to try some Chinese food?” She unfolded the napkin on the table.
“Is it good?” asked Hunter. He walked into the dining room, took a seat and gave his mother her tea.
“ Emeetsook. Eat baby. Don’t tell Noah or Deb,” Margarette put her finger to her lip like it was a secret. She pushed the napkin at him.
It was an eggroll and wonton, deep-fried. The wonton was all smashed up but the bits were crunchy and salty, the centre bit was meaty and rich. Hunter examined the flavours as he chewed and rolled the food in his mouth. He closed his eyes, “Pork?” he said, sipping his tea as if cleansing his pallet, then picked up the eggroll. He examined it.
“Hang on,” said Margarette, reaching back into her purse. “No eggroll is complete without this.” With one hand she pulled out a single pack of plum sauce with a flourish. She tore the corner of the pack. “Tear just a little bit off the tip, enough to squeeze the sauce into,” she instructed.
He bit into the crispy surface and took a small bite. The filling was cold but savoury, with bits of meat and vegetables. It was delicious.
Margarette saw his pleasure and smiled. “Wait ’til you try this.” She tipped the open corner of the sauce pack and squeezed out a portion. “Now try it.”
The excitement in her voice gave Hunter a charge. He’d rarely seen his mother like this: drunk and jovial.
He bit into the eggroll again and tasted the plum sauce. It blended perfectly with the savoury. Hunter couldn’t help himself, “Oh my God, that’s good!”
Margarette handed him the sachet. “Enjoy, my boy.” She sat back, sipped her tea, and watched Hunter gobble up the food. With their tea finished, Margarette slapped her thighs, stood and said: “I’m going to bed. You should too.”
Hunter stood and faced his mother. Margarette bent down, put one hand on the table to steady herself. “Kiss,” she presented her round cheek.
Hunter reached up and gently kissed her. Margarette turned and walked down the hall to her room, reaching out a couple of times for the wall.
Hunter cleaned up any evidence of the Chinese food, cleared the table and rinsed their teacups. He turned off the lights and locked the front door, crept through the darkness down the stairs to the unfinished basement. His eyes drank in a pale silver light cast by the streetlight through a ground-level window. Noah’s deep snore proof he’d been quiet enough as he tiptoed to his bed. He pulled back the blanket that hung from the rafters to surround his bed and turned in for the night.
1978 was the year Hunter learned about hunger. At the beginning of the summer holidays, he slept restlessly for the third night in the same jeans and T-shirt. Hunter thought his home life was like living in a battle; he had to be ready to move, always on the defensive.
A rush of water coursing through the pipes jarred him awake. He sat up slowly, feeling like he hadn’t slept. His belly rumbled with hunger and he was dizzy, his head full of fog. Above, he heard the sound of his mother shuffling into the kitchen, then the noise of the faucet and a kettle being filled. The digital clock on his bedside table shone: 8:17. Margarette had gone out for groceries five days earlier and hadn’t been seen again until eleven last night when she arrived with a party that lasted until four in the morning.
He was alone in the basement—with Noah away on his first season with the Wildfire Service, stress in the house had been reduced by half. He swung his feet over the edge. His jeans were rolled up to his knees, T-shirt twisted, white cotton tube socks, worn through at the heel, were rolled down to his ankles. Hunter slid his feet into the sneakers he’d left at his bedside, heard the phone ring and Margarette walk across the kitchen floor to the dining room, where the phone hung on the wall.
“Tansi,” he heard her answer.
Hunter straightened his clothes on his way to the bathroom to pee. Upstairs he looked past the kitchen into the dining room and saw Margarette on the phone nursing her hangover and talking to someone in Cree. The house was a mess. Again.
In the bathroom, empty bottles and drink glasses pushed against the large mirror that ran the length of the counter. An ashtray full of half-smoked cigarettes and burned filters teetered at the edge. He emptied the ashtray in the trash bin between the counter and the toilet. He pissed, leaving a bit of piddle on the toilet seat. He wiped it off with his socked foot, washed his hands and walked to the kitchen. The kettle had just begun to boil. He made a cup of sweet tea. On the kitchen table was a half-eaten bowl of Deb’s porridge. Hunter looked at it: breakfast. Deb was long gone, on the early shift at the Blue Sky Restaurant in Dawson Creek where she had a part-time job.
Besides the empty bottles piled in the kitchen sink, a case of empty stubbies and a spent twenty-six-ounce bottle of Crown Royal sat on the counter. Hunter dragged his feet to the living room, knowing that he’d have to clean his mother’s mess or risk getting a licking. He joined Kitty, a massive orange tabby with his balls intact and an attitude to prove it, on the old couch and pulled the throw from the frayed armrest over himself.
He listened to his mother speak a language he hardly understood. The inflections, timbre, in her voice, he couldn’t grasp. One phrase he knew well. “Mukwey soniyaw,” he heard her say. Nothing for money. Margarette talked for several minutes, and at the end of the conversation laughed, “Eksetigway, echagen.” She hung up the phone.
She moved into the living room, not looking at him. She rummaged through the records beside the ancient hi-fi and put one on. Country. Hunter hated most country. Margarette walked down the hall to the bathroom. The music blared, and Hunter followed. Margarette opened her makeup kit on the bathroom counter, leaned close to the mirror and applied her eyebrows. She hummed the song playing on the stereo. Merle Haggard.
“Why don’t you teach us how to speak Cree?” asked Hunter.
“It’s pointless,” she said. “Nobody speaks the language anymore.”
“You speak it with all your friends,” replied Hunter.
“ Wushte!” she said. “Get out of here,” Margarette swatted at him like he was a mosquito.
Hunter ducked and went back to the dining room. He sat at the table, close to the phone. He glanced between the wall-mounted analogue clock and the phone. It was a couple of minutes to nine. Outside, magpies and ravens squawked, signalling the warming air as morning light poured through the windows. The phone rang, and Hunter picked it up mid-ring. It was Jacob and Eric, on the party line. The three friends had arranged the call the day before.
“Where you want to meet?” asked Jacob.
“We can meet at MacDonald’s,” said Eric.
“Can’t. No money,” said Hunter.
“Is your mom home?” asked Jacob.
“Yeah, maybe she has some money,” said Eric.
Hunter cupped his hand over his mouth and the receiver. “I just heard her say mukwey soniyaw,” he whispered. “That means she’s got no money.”
“Not even a couple quarters?” asked Eric, exaggerated disbelief in his voice.
Jacob snapped. “If he said she’s broke, she’s broke.”
“Then where are we going to meet?” asked Eric.
“Let’s meet at the museum,” said Hunter.
“Ten minutes?” asked Jacob. The boys agreed and hung up.
Margarette walked into the kitchen. She had managed to change into a clean outfit of chestnut brown polyester pants and a baggy floral print top. Hunter, still sitting at the kitchen table, kept one eye on his mother across the room.
“Can I have a couple of quarters, Mom?” Hunter spoke over the the record player.
“What, do I look like a bank?” said Margarette. “Look,” she pointed at the pile of bottles beside her, “gotta be at least four bits there. Take those back. And clean up this damned mess.”
Someone knocked. “ Austum,” yelled Margarette. Carol and Ingrid walked through the front door.
“Tansi,” said Carol, who lived two blocks down the street. Hunter didn’t say hello to his mother’s drinking buddies, just picked up the case of stubbies and carried it outside. Moments later Margarette and her friends descended the front steps, chattering in Cree.
“You be good this weekend!” Margarette pointed a long slender finger at Hunter. He didn’t ask where she was going. There was no point. He knew. But he didn’t know when she’d be back. Or if she would bring groceries. They piled into the Pontiac and sped off towards the city.
Later that afternoon Hunter sat on the old couch in the living room, a snoring Kitty curled on his lap. Hunter heard the door open. Deb called out, “Hello.”
The cat woke, dug its claws into Hunter’s thigh. “Hey-yaaa, Cat! It’s just Deb!”
“Just?” Deb walked into the living room with a brown paper bag of takeout. “Put on a tea, and grab a couple of plates, baby boy.”
Hunter flipped Kitty off his lap and bolted for the kitchen.
1979 was the year Hunter learned not to miss his mother. Spring marked the beginning of the high point of Margarette’s increasingly long absences. The problem was, the longer she was gone, the more likely she was to show up at the worst time.
Margarette was on a drunk. It had been five days. Hunter, Jacob and Eric were hanging out in the basement. It was cool and out of the way of Deb and her friend Anita, Eric’s sister. The girls were sitting upstairs, drinking tea and listening to records.
“Why don’t we try a Kool-Aid stand?” Eric asked. He was a year younger than Hunter, as was Jacob. They were in the same class because Hunter had failed his first year in Red Rock. Eric had big blue eyes, a small mouth and a tomato soup stain over his top lip.
Hunter looked at him, “With what, genius? Buttons and a smile?”
“I’ll ask my sister to give me some money.”
Jacob shrugged his shoulders as a smile formed large dimples in his round cheeks.
Eric noticed. “What’s so funny?”
“Like your sister will give us the money,” Jacob said, whose dark eyes were like wet obsidian. He was full-blooded Cree Nation, and the only one of the three boys born in Red Rock.
Eric stood with his round belly stuck out, and his T-shirt stained with milk from his breakfast cereal. “Just watch.” He crept up the stairs to the kitchen.
Deb and Anita were planning something. Eric was an intrusion. Jacob and Hunter peeked around the corner of the living room as Eric negotiated the terms of a five-dollar short-term business loan.
“You know more than half the businesses in the food industry fail within the first six months,” Hunter and Jacob heard Deb say.
“Who told you that?” Eric asked.
“Our Consumer Economics teacher,” said Anita.
“Consumer Economics?”
“It’s a class we take in school,” Anita said handing Eric a five-dollar bill. “Interest, kid. I want six bucks by the end of the month.” Eric walked toward his friends with a big smile on his face.
The boys rode their bikes to MacDonald’s Market to pick up drink crystals and sugar. It was not yet noon, and even though it was only May, they all broke out in a sweat from the short ride. Especially Eric. He dismounted his bike, swung a pudgy leg over the long seat of his Motocross. It was the kind of bike that looked like a motorcycle and weighed a ton. They leaned their bikes against the outside wall, stacked one next to the other. Inside, the store was clean and cool. The sweat on Hunter’s back gave him shivers. MacDonald’s had the best selection in Red Rock but was owned by the family of Hunter’s former teacher.
His first term at Red Rock, Mrs. MacDonald had called him a dumb Indian because he’d failed a spelling bee. That same term, Hunter had asked a classmate for a pen and Mrs. MacDonald had slapped him across the face. “You speak when I tell you to speak,” she hissed. She pulled Hunter off his chair and sat him up on her desk. “I’ll teach you to speak when I’m talking.” Mrs. MacDonald grabbed a thick red rubber band, “Show me your tongue!”
“No.”
Mrs. MacDonald dug into Hunter’s mouth; her long, pink-painted fingernails scratched and cut his pressed lips. The two struggled in front of the class until Hunter spat on her. She swung at him with an open hand and he dodged it. With one hand grasped onto his shirt collar, she reached for her yardstick. “I’ll teach you to come to class unprepared,” she said and broke the yardstick over his back. The class gasped collectively, but Hunter didn’t feel the pain. He struggled as she picked him up by the ear, her claws digging into his flesh. He felt warm blood trickle down his neck as she forced him to the principal’s office. Hunter received a week of detentions for assaulting his teacher and a licking from his mother.
At the end of the school year, Mrs. MacDonald had written in his report, “Hunter is an irretrievable misanthrope . . . He will repeat Grade 3.” He’d been mortified, afraid to show his mother, knew how she would react. She’d beat him with her fists, whip him with an electric cord. It’d be another excuse to call him a stupid fucking half-breed, an embarrassment to the family. His mother made Hunter feel a complicated mix of shame, guilt and anger, held together by the worn threads of familial obligation.
Mrs. MacDonald was manning the register when they pulled up to the counter with four packs of assorted Kool-Aid and a bag of white sugar. She smelled of Bengay, that citrusy antiseptic smell that burned and cooled at the same time.
Eric pulled out his money and slapped it on the counter with authority. Mrs. MacDonald’s pale wrinkled hands with their large protruding veins shook as she counted up the goods. Then, like it was a pop quiz in school, said, “Fifteen cents times four, plus a dollar-twenty-five is?”
Eric let out a deep sigh, “Look lady, do you want my money or not?” He straightened up, puffed out his chest, and with all the entitled defiance a spoiled eleven-year-old could manage, gave Mrs. MacDonald an electric blue stare. Jacob and Hunter stood by, expectant. Eric often got away with things that would get the two Indian boys a slap.
“Not with that attitude, young man,” Mrs. MacDonald pointed at Eric, her thick cat’s-eye glasses steamed up, her whole body shaking. She looked like a snake ready to strike.
Eric put the money back in his pocket, “You’re not the only store in town, you know.” He turned around and Hunter and Jacob followed. When Eric reached the door, he added loud enough so that she could hear, “It’s the school holiday, for fuck’s sakes. Christ, who does she think she is?”
“Blasphemer!” she yelled. “And don’t you come back!”
Outside, Hunter smirked at Mrs. MacDonald through the open glass door, emboldened by Eric’s defiance. She marched up and she slammed it shut. Hunter turned to his friends as they retrieved their bikes, “Aw, man, that was so boss! Did you see the look on her face?”
The boys mounted their bikes and rode a block away to the other store in Red Rock, the Four Corners Confectionery. It could have been on the set of an old black-and-white western—its contents and the people who owned it looked ancient. It was owned by old man Bauer and his wife. Through the single-pane windows, Hunter could see two big German shepherds standing guard and a lazy calico cat sleeping on a shelf of dusty canned goods. The faded white exterior paint peeled in curled chips, flecks littering the ground like dandruff, exposing the weathered bone-grey wood underneath.
“Better leave this one to me, boys,” said Eric. “Adolf’s a Nazi.” The boys didn’t know it for sure, but it was no secret the Bauers didn’t like Natives. Rumour in the village was that Mrs. Bauer would rip off and spit at anyone who didn’t look white.
“Meet you at the museum.” Eric leaned his bike against the store.
Jacob and Hunter sat on a mixed patch of dandelions and crabgrass, waiting in the shade. Five minutes later they heard Eric riding down the back alley, whistling a tune. He dropped his bike to the ground and held up a small paper bag. “What a rip-off! Twenty-five cents each! I got red, blue, green and purple. Oh, and I couldn’t afford sugar, so I bought us some candy instead.” It didn’t make good business sense, but no one argued.
“I’m sure we have white sugar at my place,” said Hunter. They always had a big bag of it in the house that never seemed to run out, no matter how short they were on other things.
“Then we’re set,” said Jacob.
As they rode back over the hardpan, washboard lane, their voices shook as they talked about their plan. “What we gonna do with all the money we make?” asked Hunter.
Jacob had a sweet tooth, “If we make any money, blow it on candy.”
“We should think about buying some ammo for the cap guns,” said Eric.
“Yes and yes. Skies the limit, boys,” said Hunter. They didn’t talk about paying back Anita.
At Hunter’s, they lay their bikes on the lawn, barged through the front door and ran downstairs into the basement. Some old camping gear was piled under the basement steps, and Hunter dug out a five-gallon Thermos jug to hold the water. In the kitchen, he filled a quart-sized mason jar with sugar and scrounged three Tupperware jugs for mixing. They hauled the supplies outside, and Hunter went to the backyard shed for his trailer. Jacob and Eric stacked the supplies into the trailer while Hunter tied it to his bike. Down a back alley, they found a wine crate and an old wooden chair.
They set up shop on the main street, in the parking lot of the abandoned gas station across the street from MacDonald’s. On a piece of cardboard, Eric printed neatly in black felt pen: “Kool-Aid 10 Cents a glass.” They used a string to tie it to the wine crate and agreed to share the chair at ten-minute intervals.
After an hour it seemed the only ones interested in the Kool-Aid were insects. They didn’t sell one glass. Eric crossed out 10 and added 5. But that didn’t help either. It took almost the whole afternoon to learn that getting a nickel for ten cents worth of drink was no way to make money. They ended up with a sunburn, a belly-full of Kool-Aid and a six-dollar debt.
That night, Deb and Anita were having a party at Hunter’s house. With no Margarette around, they’d brought in all sorts of snacks, red and white wine, beer and a bottle of Canada Club.
“I want you to stay in the basement.” Deb spoke with her I’m-in-charge voice and gave Hunter a brand-new two-dollar bill, “Keep your mouth shut and you’ll get another two bucks after.” Shortly after seven, the guests rolled in and were ordered to leave their shoes on the landing. An hour later the party was in full swing; Donna Summer was on the record player, the volume cranked. Hunter put the two-dollar bill in his back pocket and tried to sleep, but the ceiling above his head undulated and groaned under the stress of twenty or more high school kids dancing up a storm. So he snuck out of the house to go for a walk. The stars shone bright, like sparkling flecks of glass. The gravel under his worn runners jabbed at the soles of his feet, but the night air was warm and good.
As he walked along the street, Hunter named out loud the cars parked curbside, “Ford, Chev, Dodge, Mercury . . .” Two blocks later, outside Carol’s house, he spotted the Pontiac parked in the driveway and crept up to the kitchen window. Country music crackled from a small AM radio at the centre of the dining room table where a couple of half-full glasses and empty bottles stood. He heard his mother’s voice, “Well, Carol, I better git home, see what them damn kids of mine are up to. Boy, that house better be clean when I get there . . .” Carol laughed, then called out to her own two teenagers, “You girls get out here! Clean up this goddamn mess or I’ll kill you!”
Hunter didn’t stick around. If Margarette was on her way home, he had minutes to warn Deb and her friends. He ran so fast the wind gave him goosebumps and he shivered as he bounded up the porch steps and swung the door open. He ran into the kitchen where Deb was pouring a rye and Coke.
“I thought I said stay downstairs.”
Hunter motioned for her ear, and she bent down, “Mom’s up the street at Carol’s place and she’s on her way home.”
“What? Fuck off! Really?”
“No kidding. I wish I were.”
Deb strode to the record player, where Anita was cueing up the next song, and whispered in her friend’s ear. Anita’s face turned stone grey, then she killed the music. Deb yelled louder than Hunter had ever heard her, “Party’s over! My mom’s on her way.”
Everybody knew what that meant. There’d been a time, last year, when Margarette had been at her table in the Cut Thumb, drinking with her buddies. Some white guy leaned into the table and said something to them, then barely had time to blink. Margarette head-faked him and hit him with an uppercut that broke his jaw. One shot. The poor bastard had to eat meat milkshakes for six weeks. “One-punch Maggie” her friends sometimes called her after that, OP for short.
Hunter watched as Deb and Anita’s panic induced a mad scramble to safety. Anita funnelled the guests toward the open back door where Deb shoved them unceremoniously out. Hunter chuckled out loud. It was old-timey slapstick, he thought, as people bounced and fell over one another. Deb slammed the door on the last guest, and the two scurried about cleaning up the mess of empty bottles. Any leftover booze went into Deb’s room. Deb, Anita and Hunter worked like an orchestra, piling the snacks onto the living room coffee table and turning on the television. It flickered to life; The Twilight Zone was on.
Hunter looked out the front window and saw Margarette half a block away, staggering home. “She’s coming. I can see her!”
He looked at the landing. The guests had had no time to retrieve their shoes.
“Deb.” Hunter pointed.
“Get rid of them, quick, baby boy!” While Deb washed the dishes and Anita dried, Hunter threw all the shoes into the basement. From the other side of the front door, he heard Margarette open the gate, her feet a heavy clump-clump up the stairs. The knob squeaked as she turned it. Locked. Moments later her keys rattled. Just before she pushed the door open, Hunter followed the shoes into the basement.
He heard Margarette’s unsteady footsteps on the living room floor. “What’s going on here? Why you still awake?”
Deb’s voice was calm. “It’s Saturday night. I’m having a sleepover with Anita.”
Hunter turned on his old nightlight and lay on his bed. Seconds later, someone knocked on the basement slider window. Hunter pulled a chair up and stood on it to reach the latch. There stood a boy whose breath stank of booze; the smell of skunk wafted from his clothes. He was very polite, “Do you know when I can have my shoes back?”
Hunter thought for a moment. “Do you have a quarter?” he whispered. “I’ll find ’em for you.”
The boy fished out two dimes and a nickel.
“What kind of shoes?”
“White Adidas, size ten, yellow laces.”
Hunter put the money in his pocket and searched for the shoes. The slightly drunk boy spread the word, and soon Hunter was making two bits for every pair. Within ten minutes, he’d made five bucks and given back all the shoes. He locked the window latch, returned the chair, and stowed the change in the purple bag hidden in his mattress. Still wearing his GWGs, he fell asleep to the voices of Margarette, Deb and Anita mingling with Rod Serling’s.
In the morning, as the rest of the house slept on, Hunter collected the hidden empties from Deb’s party into a burlap potato sack, stashed them under the porch steps and put the kettle on for tea. Leftover pretzels and plain potato chips were breakfast. The clock on the wall read 10:10. Just as he was about to pour a tea, there was a knock on the door. It was Uncle Howard. “Is your mom home? I saw her car parked up the way at Carol’s.”
“Yeah, but she’s still sleeping. Hey, I just made tea. Game of crib and a cup while you wait?”
Uncle Howard kicked off his size fourteen black leather slip-ons and the two went to the kitchen, where Howard pulled a crib board in the shape of the number twenty-nine and a deck of blue playing cards from the utility drawer. “Penny a point?” he asked.
Hunter grabbed another cup from the kitchen cupboard and put their mugs on the table. “You’re on.” Hunter leaned over, reaching in his back pocket for the folded two-dollar bill. “Skunk pays twice.”
Howard slapped the cards on the table and they cut for first crib: Hunter’s ten of diamonds to his queen of hearts. Uncle Howard dealt six cards and Hunter threw a three and a nine of the same suit to the crib. Uncle pegged four points, had ten points in his hand plus six in his crib; Hunter pegged three points and a go for last card plus a single run for four points. He was behind by twelve points. After they played the next hand, Hunter was still nine points back, but it was his crib. Eight points there.
Margarette lumbered into the kitchen, dressed in her purple robe. Her hair was in curlers and covered by a patterned kerchief. She shuffled her feet along the linoleum, reached for a mug and barked, “Howard, watch that kid. He’s got a horseshoe up his ass.”
“Not this time, baby boy.” Uncle smiled at Margarette and rubbed two fingers against his thumb—money coming his way.
Hunter showed his best poker face, as Howard gathered the cards, shuffled them and dealt. “Oh!” He tapped his feet on the floor. They played the hand through and counted up. Hunter had a six-point lead.
Margarette sat down at the table and poured herself a cup of tea, “See? Horseshoes. I don’t play him anymore. He’s got someone watching over him.”
Hunter skunked Uncle Howard in six hands. Uncle Howard leaned over, pulled a black leather wallet from his back pocket and produced two worn one-dollar bills. As he slid them across the table, he winked. “Baby boy, don’t go spending it right away. You and me. Crib tomorrow. I want my money back.” His eyes were like black paint.
Hunter saluted him, “Yes, sir!”
“Yes.” Margarette winced as she swallowed her tea. “You put that away and don’t go spendin’ it. Now, wushte,” she said. “Go on with you.”
Hunter returned the cards and crib board to the drawer. Back in the basement, he spread all his money on the bed to count. Suddenly, he heard someone coming down the stairs and covered the cash with his pillow. It was Deb.
She sat on the edge of his cot. “Hey, thanks for your help last night.”
“No sweat.” Hunter wondered if she knew what was under his pillow.
She tussled his hair and pulled a five-dollar bill from her pocket, “You earned it, baby boy. Half is from Anita, so go thank her too.”
“Thanks, Sis. I’ll be up in a bit.”
At the top of the stairs, Deb turned back to Hunter. “Don’t call me Sis. My name is Deb.” Hunter smiled as he listened to her footsteps going back to her room, then rolled onto his side and pushed the pillow aside. He counted fourteen dollars and seventy-five cents. He hid the five-dollar bill in the Crown Royal bag and stuffed the rest into the front pocket of his jeans.
He knocked on Deb’s hollow wooden bedroom door. Anita swung it open. Hunter hugged her, and she hugged him back, her breasts pressed against his face. She smelled like wild roses. Suddenly he felt an unfamiliar tingling. He looked up into her blue eyes and her long blond hair shone.
“Thank you.” He turned and ran.
“You’re welcome!” Anita called as Hunter rounded the corner past the kitchen heading for the front porch.
Still tingling, he slung on his Kmart running shoes and gathered the empty booze bottles from under the porch steps. Round back, he tied the trailer to his bike and pulled the works to the pub for the two-dollar deposit. He totalled it up: he was up sixteen dollars and seventy-five cents and it wasn’t even noon. When he got back home, everyone was gone. Hunter picked up the phone and called Eric.
“Hello?”
“Your sister’s a fox!”
“Awe, man, that’s gross. Wait a minute while I barf.” Eric made retching vomiting noises. In the background, Hunter could hear Eric’s dad yelling. “Cut that racket out and get off the phone, you turkey!”
“I gotta go.”
“Wait. Meet me at the museum and bring Jacob?”
Eric whispered, “Okay, man. See you soon.”
That day, Hunter sprinkled his friends with candy. They sat in the visitor’s dugout at the sports ground, eating chips and drinking pop.
“Where did you get the money for all this?” asked Jacob.
“I got lucky at cards and did a favour for Deb.” Hunter told his friends all about the party.
“Man, that was some quick thinking with the shoe thing.” Eric shook his head.
“That reminds me,” said Hunter. He handed a two-dollar bill to Eric. “That’s my share of our Kool-Aid debt to your sister.” Paying his share made Hunter feel grown-up, responsible.
Eric stuffed the money into his sock, “Right, I forgot about that.” Hunter figured Eric would never remember it.
Seven days after Deb and Anita’s party, Hunter had burned through all his cash. Broke again. He was lying on his bed reading a Richie Rich comic book when Deb called, “Hunter! Phone! It’s Eric.” He dog-eared his page to save his place, slid the comic under his pillow, and went upstairs. Deb spoke into the receiver, “Tell Anita to give me a call when she’s done chores.” Deb handed him the phone and went back to playing solitaire at the dining table.
“Hello?”
“Meet me at Jacob’s in ten minutes.”
Hunter hung up. “Going to Jacob’s, Deb,” and raced toward the door.
“Back before dark, you hear?” Deb called back as he slammed the door behind him. He bolted around the house to the backyard and over the fence. The ridges, churned into the mud by garbage trucks rolling down the alley, now sun-hardened like clay pottery, hurt his feet.
Hunter knocked on the door, and Jacob’s mom opened. Not saying anything, she smiled and pointed her small jaw toward the basement. Jacob and Eric were setting up a Monopoly board. Hunter sat down and grabbed a stack of Monopoly money from the bank. “Wouldn’t it be nice if this was real money?” He spread it like a fan, put it to his mouth and nose, and breathed in.
In a corner, under a yellow light, Jacob’s dad was sorting through his mechanic’s tools. Not looking up, he said, “Why don’t you kids look for odd jobs around town?”
“Odd jobs?” Eric asked.
“Sure. Mowing lawns, raking leaves, painting a fence . . .”
Jacob’s oldest brother, Charles, chortled from upstairs, “I could use a blow job.”
“Go on with you! Don’t talk like that.”
“What’s a blow job?” Eric asked.
Hunter shrugged.
“Never mind him,” Jacob’s dad frowned. “Knock on people’s doors and ask. What’s the worst they’re gonna say?”
“Do you have any odd jobs for us?” Hunter asked.
“Nope,” he said, deadpan. “I have seven boys.”
“What do we charge?” Jacob asked his dad.
“Two bucks each for yard work is a fair price,” said Jacob’s dad, turning back to his tools.
After some discussion, the three boys decided to focus on folks without kids, the elderly and the houses with the shabbiest yards. Home after home, they worked their way to the outer reaches of the village, without so much as a “thanks for asking” or a pity job. It was getting to be mid-afternoon when Jacob shrugged. “Let’s face it guys, this money-making idea is about as lame as the Kool-Aid stand.”
“Aw, come on guys. Let’s try one more house,” Hunter said. “Look, this is the one, boys! See?” He pointed. “That yard needs work. They can’t say no! I can feel it.” He pushed open an old gate that almost fell off its hinges. A path of crumbled pavers with tussocks of grass between the cracks led to the front door. The grass looked like it had not been mowed all year. At the side of the house, a shed leaned to one side and Hunter could see the rusty handle of an old push mower sticking out where the door used to be. The door now leaned against the outside wall. Hunter stepped up creaky stairs to the house, and the rickety handrail gave him a sliver. He knocked on the dented screen door and looked back at Eric and Jacob, who were still on the sidewalk. He knocked a couple more times and the door squeaked open. It was an old woman, a lit cigarette dangled from one side of her mouth. Her skin was pale, her face scrunched and wrinkled, and Hunter thought she looked a hundred. She sucked air through a tube that stretched from her nose to a slender silver oxygen tank strapped to a small dolly with a no-smoking sign stuck to it.
“Hello, ma’am. Me and my friends wash cars, clean windows, mow lawns—”
“You’re interrupting my favourite TV show,” she gasped and slammed the door shut.
Eric drank the last of their water from a one-litre glass Coke bottle, the kind with a metal screw-top. He shook it over his mouth, his tongue out to catch the last few drops. “Christ’s sake, Hunter, how much longer are we going to do this?” he said.
Jacob shook his head, “Quit your bitchin’, Eric. It’s better than cleaning my bedroom. Dad thinks we’re out trying to make some money, and we’ve made zip.”
“Can’t you Indians dance in a circle, or send some smoke signals, maybe ask the gods for help?” Eric always said shit like that.
Jacob punched him in the shoulder, “Wit-ta-guy weijaksew nipuck-stikwan moniyaw .” Hunter knew that meant, “Fuck you, stinking flat-headed white man.”
Eric rubbed his shoulder and looked at Hunter, “Well, isn’t it true? You Indians sent signals and danced in circles?”
Jacob said, “Times change, dumbass! You know what a telephone is? Or do your people still use the Pony Express?”
“A horse is faster than smoke signals.”
“Not if you see smoke signals twenty miles off.”
“Enough! Jesus Christ, guys, am I the only one interested in making some money?”
Eric shrugged, “Yup.”
“Is your mom gone again?” Jacob asked.
Hunter nodded.
Eric said, “How long?”
Hunter held up one finger. “Now there’s mukwey emitsook, and mukwey soniyaw to buy it. No food, no money.” Any prospects to earn some had evaporated in the afternoon heat.
“If my mom were gone that long, I don’t know what I’d do. Who would make my bed?” Eric said.
Jacob snorted. “Your sister?”
“You’re right!” Eric gritted his small teeth. “Hey, I have three bucks. I’ll split it if we can stop this and go play guns.”
Hunter agreed, “Okay, but only this once.” It was a better idea than looking for odd jobs.
“Mrs. MacDonald banned us from the store, remember,” said Jacob.
“So? Make a list and we’ll get it at Adolph’s.”
The boys rode their bikes back to Hunter’s place. Hunter found an empty cigarette package in the trash and a broken pencil in the utility drawer.
“Three Cokes, a big bag of barbeque chips and the rest on Mojos. They’re two for a penny. It’s a good deal.”
Halfway to the store, they split up—Jacob and Hunter headed to the museum, while Eric went to the store. Hunter was getting really hungry. He was dizzy and it felt like his stomach had twisted in on itself. They reached the museum, where the scrubby ground cover crunched under their feet. Hunter dropped his bike and lay down in the shade. Jacob sat beside him, pulled a long blade of grass, held it up between his two thumbs, and blew air through the small gap.
Hunter laughed and said: “That sounded like a duck with a sore throat.”
The boys made bird sounds and waited. Hunter gave up on the grass and cawed like Raven. It was his favourite call. Jacob joined in with his best bird calls. A couple of crows landed twenty or so feet from them.
When Eric showed up, the crows lifted off and watched the boys from the museum roof. Eric sat across from his friends, cross-legged, and split the junk food into three equal parts. The chips were sweet and cut the roof of Hunter’s mouth. He bit the inside of his cheek and winced as the taste of blood mixed with barbeque flavouring. He washed it down with the pop. During the feeding frenzy, nobody said a word. Hunter saved the Mojos for last. The tangy candy gave him a canker on the tip of his tongue, and he could feel the sugar move through his body like a wave of anxious energy. His mouth felt swollen, but it was the sort of pain Hunter didn’t mind. At least he had something in him; he felt better, less dizzy, and for a moment, time hung like the first frost before a long Indian summer.
“Gawd, I hate school,” said Eric.
“One month, two weeks until summer break,” Hunter agreed. He hated school too.
“It’s the hours. I have to wake up an hour earlier than you guys just to catch the bus,” Eric protested. Since Grade 4, Eric had been going to school in Dawson Creek, because Eric’s parents were convinced that Matthew Begbie Elementary was the worst place in the world for a kid to be educated. Hunter couldn’t argue. Teachers like Mrs. MacDonald made it worse for the Indian kids. If she had a Native name, it’d be White-Tail Deer Hawk Woman. She listened like a white-tail deer, and watched like a hawk, especially when she supervised morning recess.
“You poor bastard,” Jacob shook his head.
“I can’t wait. I miss sleeping in,” said Eric.
“Are you guys going anywhere this summer?” Jacob asked.
“I think it’s a bit early to have this conversation,” Hunter said.
“Dad was talking about a family visit to Alberta,” Eric said. “But my mom and Grandma Mary don’t get along. We always end up leaving early.”
“Fucking adults.” A sudden anger pressed against Hunter’s chest. “When I grow up, I’m never having kids. I’ll never be like them.” Hunter thought of his mother, the father who’d left him with her, and who didn’t want him. He thought of Noah, now twenty-one, and wicked like his mother.
“I don’t hate grownups,” said Eric. “I’ll probably have kids, but I won’t hit them like my dad hits me. Fucker.”
“Hmm,” said Jacob. He pressed a finger to his bottom lip, and said, “I can’t remember the last time I got a lickin’. Three, maybe? Mom said I tried to drink bleach, but I don’t remember.”
“I can’t wait to grow up and leave this place,” said Hunter.
“What?” said Eric.
“You know, leave and never come back.”
Jacob asked, “Like, get kicked out of the house?”
“No, like old enough to move away and live someplace else.” Hunter stood up. “Wanna go hang out at my place? I’ve got a few pennies at home. We could play cards, gamble a little?”
“Beats sunburn,” Eric stood, threw a leg over his bike, “C’mon, man. Let’s go. I’m cooking!”
Hunter, Jacob, and Eric sat in Hunter’s dining room. They played the radio, dealt cards, played blackjack for pennies. Hunter was up twenty-three cents when Eric looked at his watch.
“Oh man, I better get ready to go. It’s almost dinner time.” He seemed genuinely shocked.
“We must have been having fun, then.” They’d drunk so much tea they peed every five minutes and shook with the effects of caffeine and sugar.
“Yeah, me too,” Jacob rubbed his belly. “I wonder what’s for dinner tonight?”
“Okay, guys,” said Hunter. He gathered the cards in a pile, arranged them into a deck, shuffled them and dealt himself a hand of solitaire, “Call after dinner, then?”
“Sure,” said Eric. “I don’t know if my parents are going to let me back out after dinner. Tonight’s bath night.”
“You just gonna sit here and play cards by yourself?” Jacob looked at Hunter with disbelief.
“Yeah, man. It’s cool.” He looked down at the deck of cards.
Jacob pointed to the telephone. “Can I use your—”
Eric interrupted. “Where does your mom go?”
Hunter flipped over three cards. Margarette had taught him how to play the first year they moved to Red Rock.
“No clue, man.” He shrugged his shoulders, his voice neutral.
Jacob was on the phone. “Mom, what’s for dinner?” He nodded, “Oh, yummy!” Jacob looked at his friends and rubbed his stomach. “Okay, I’ll be right home. Hey, Mom,” Jacob cupped his hand over the handset, turned away from his friends and spoke quietly. Jacob hung up and then turned around. Hunter knew that look on his friend’s face.
Hunter put his hands flat and the table and glared at Jacob. “What did you do?”
Jacob sat back down at the table and finished his cold tea.
“Mom says you’re welcome for dinner.”
Hunter felt the flush of blood rush to the capillaries in his face, like instant rosacea. Shame, embarrassment and anger came over him, and when he added them all up, it felt like betrayal. He stood and leaned over the table and made to punch Jacob in the shoulder. Jacob held up his hands, “Mom says you’re always welcome. She thinks you’re a nice polite young man, but don’t worry. I haven’t told her what a hard-ass you really are.”
Hunter stared Jacob down, ready to administer a precision charley horse to the meatiest part of Jacob’s thin arm. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.
Jacob raised his hands defensively. “Chicken stew and dumplings. Fresh bannock. Apple pie and ice cream for dessert.”
Eric leaned over and gathered up Hunter’s game of solitaire. “You’re going to dinner,” he said firmly, “because if you don’t, I will. Jacob’s mom’s cooking is legendary, man.” He was dead serious.
Hunter didn’t want to be perceived as a needy case, some shabby “sloppy half-breed,” as Margarette often called him. He hung out at Jacob’s in the northeast quadrant of Red Rock sometimes, but never at Eric’s, who lived in the northeast too, but near the treeline where the properties, houses and incomes were larger.
“Hang on,” said Hunter. He scooted downstairs to his bedroom and changed into a clean, long-sleeved shirt. The three left the house, and Hunter locked the door. In the western sky, a wisp of high cloud like a thin frayed veil glowed a vibrant burnt orange as the sun inched its way toward the horizon. It was just past six o’clock. The boys walked around to the back of the house, jumped over the fence and headed north along the back lane.
Eric led the way, and Hunter, who brought up the rear, could feel the heat of the day radiating off the ground. The three boys slapped at the biting insects that were capitalizing on any exposed skin, then picked up their pace, walking single file along the edge of the gnarled dirt lane where there was less chance of rolling an ankle.
“Summer can’t come soon enough for me,” Hunter said out of the blue. “When I move away, I’m going someplace warm.”
“What brought that on?” Eric’s chuckle ended with a snort.
“The thought of winter,” said Hunter.
After that, the boys hardly spoke. That’s why Hunter liked Jacob and Eric; they could hang out without the need to fill every bit of time together with talk. They reached the street where Eric had to turn northeast, alone. Jacob and Hunter continued down the lane, not speaking at all until they reached Jacob’s front yard. Hunter followed Jacob up the steps to the door. Jacob walked in and kicked his shoes off into a large wooden box that read VINO CABERNET SAUVIGNON in bright red letters. Jacob’s shoes bounced off the side of the scarred and dented box, the gathering spot for the Wooden-Spoon family footwear. Hunter slid his shoes off with the heel of each foot and set them together in the box. Then he followed Jacob up three stairs and into the kitchen, where Mrs. Wooden-Spoon stood in front of the stove. The air smelled of fresh savoury bread, and Hunter’s stomach roiled in anticipation. Half of Hunter resented his stomach, the other half was open to discussion.
Around the table sat Jacob’s father and all six of his brothers. Jacob, his mother and Hunter would make it a cool setting for ten. The pot of stew was enormous and there was a half wheel of bannock in front of every person.
Jacob said, “You can sit beside me, Hunter.”
Mrs. Wooden-Spoon scooped out bowlfuls for Hunter, Jacob, her husband and then herself. She sat down. “The rest of you can help yourselves.” Her almond eyes smiled in her soft face. Hunter understood where Jacob, the youngest of the seven, got his looks from: lean, like his father, round-faced like his mother.
Mrs. Wooden-Spoon leaned over and kissed her husband on the temple. It made Hunter uncomfortable, but his friend and his six older brothers carried on as if nothing happened. Hunter stared down at his bowl of chicken stew. The dumplings were small, and it all looked and smelled incredible. No one was eating yet, and Hunter’s belly complained about the wait.
“There we go, we have a full quorum.” Jacob’s dad pointed at Hunter, raised his hands and said, “Creator, thank you for the food, the laughter, the sadness and the tears. Thank you for this family.”
Hunter’s belly growled loudly.
“It’s okay, son,” said Jacob’s dad. “We won’t bite.”
Charles, who was the same age as Noah, joked, “Not unless you want us to.” He got up, snuck up behind Jacob and tickled him. Everyone winced when Jacob let out an ear-piercing squeal, a sound Hunter had never heard before.
“Oh,” said Jacob’s mother to Hunter, who was looking at his friend in amazement. “You’ve never heard that noise come out of my little jumping mouse?” She reached over the table and pinched Jacob’s cheek.
“Mo—om. Not in front of my friends.” Jacob flushed.
“It’s okay, baby bear. This is nothing,” said Charles, who sat back beside Hunter. He gave him a nudge. “Just wait ’til these boys get girlfriends, ma!” The entire table erupted in laughter.
So did Hunter, who was on his best behaviour. He kept looking at Jacob’s mother and ate in time with her. He finished his bowl of chicken stew and ate all his bannock, and although he could have had seconds, he declined politely when asked.
Margarette had taught Hunter how to behave. Back in Edmonton, when they visited with family, she drilled into him never to take seconds at dinner, to eat in time with his hostess, to earn his keep. Clean up, be grateful. There was private life and public behaviour. Be polite, look presentable, never take leftovers even if offered, do whatever anybody asks you and be courteous about it. Hunter had learned to do it all. They were good lessons, but he was most afraid that any lapse would get back to Margarette. If he shamed the family, shamed her, the reprisals would be painful.
When it came time to do the dishes, Hunter volunteered to wash, but Jacob’s mom drew the line at that. “No, dear boy. You’re our guest.” With a wide smile, Mrs. Wooden-Spoon raised the palm of her hand to Hunter’s face. He flinched. It was an automatic response, one he couldn’t help. Jacob’s mom pulled her hand back, her eyes sad. “Maybe you could help sweep the kitchen floor.” Hunter did so gladly, relieved he was being allowed to help.
Jacob pointed with his thumb to the living room, “We like to have dessert and watch TV in the living room.” Jacob’s dimples were so deep you could lose your keys.
“Sure, I’ll be right there.” He looked at Jacob’s mother. “May I help you with dessert? I work a pretty mean ice cream scoop.”
Mrs. Wooden-Spoon’s smile and her soft voice warmed Hunter, put him at ease, less on his guard. “You’ve done enough, Hunter, thank you. Go find a seat, I’ll bring you boys dessert.”
They watched Chips, bowls of apple pie with huge scoops of vanilla ice cream on their laps. Jacob and his brothers ran into the kitchen for seconds. Hunter didn’t. It amazed Hunter how well the Wooden-Spoons all got along—it made the centre of his chest feel heavy and light at the same time. Jacob’s mom pointed at Charles, “You and Harvey can wash up here, eh?” Harvey and Charles stood, stretched like gorged bears, collected the dessert dishes, and carried them to the kitchen. Moments later Harvey poked his head around the corner into the living room, “Tea anyone?”
Hunter stayed for a cup of tea, watched an episode of B.J. and the Bear and then thanked Mrs. Wooden-Spoon and said goodnight to everyone. Jacob saw his friend to the door, where Hunter sat on a step to slip into his shoes. He stood. “Thank you, Jacob. This was a nice evening.” It was hard to keep a tremble out of his voice.
Hunter left Jacob’s place feeling uncomfortably full as he walked carefully down the dark dusty road. Swarms of moths and biting insects fluttered around the streetlight at the corner; bats swooped, gorging themselves. The more he walked, the better he felt. When he got home, the driveway was still empty, and Kitty sped between his legs, startling him. He squealed and that made him wince at the pain in his distended belly. He closed the door behind him, kicked off his shoes, carefully searched the house for life and found none. Safe, he thought.
In the living room, Hunter sat on the couch and enjoyed the quiet. After a while, he got up, turned the television on, made another cup of tea, and sat back down on the couch, splayed out. The Fifth Estate was on CBC. Five minutes later he heard Kitty loudly scratch and meow at the door. He pulled himself awkwardly up and let the cat back in.
After letting Kitty back in, Hunter sat back down on the couch. The cat followed him and rolled up beside Hunter. The Fifth Estate signed off, and Hunter finished his tea, lay down on the couch and pulled the throw over himself. Kitty kneaded the blanket, his claws sinking deep, his eyes half-mast. The tom turned a complete circle and rolled into a ball. The cat was warm, and its purr soothed Hunter as he drifted off.
He woke up to the closing credits of The Carol Burnett Show. Damn, it was one of his favourite comedies. Kitty was still asleep. He looked at the clock on the wall—11:00. The National was next, then regional news. Boring, thought Hunter. It all seemed so far away, so out of reach. What did it all mean for a twelve-year-old?
Hunter didn’t know how long he could take living like this. On the TV, a commercial played for a Honda motorcycle: a couple rode their bikes off around a bend, into the sunset and away. Hunter could imagine doing that. He wanted to do it now. Deb and Jacob and Eric. He’d miss them. But he would promise to write, never lose touch. He fell back to sleep, dreamed of wind on his face and money in his pocket.