Motorcycles & Sweetgrass (26 page)

“Coffee. I was looking for coffee.”

He turned around and went into the living room, where apparently he’d been sleeping on the couch. “It’s already in the coffee maker. Just turn it on. That’s one thing about living with no electricity. You have to boil your coffee. Not the same. Luckily I remember how Momma’s worked. Do you remember how I like mine?”

Still having difficulty believing her recluse brother was here, in her house, half naked at that, Maggie peeked around the doorway to see him folding the blankets on the couch. Then he started to get dressed. It all seemed so normal.

“Two sugars,” she answered. “Wayne, don’t get me wrong, but what are you doing here? It’s been almost a year since you came to visit any of the family, outside of Mom.”

“Things have changed. I should have brought my laundry. Washing machines: one of the three greatest inventions of White people. Big sister, we have to talk.” He started rubbing his feet. “But first, you gonna turn the coffee on or what? Man, my feet hurt.”

“Your feet? What?”

Behind her, Maggie heard Virgil’s door open, and saw her sleepy son walk out.

“Hey, Mom. Hey, Uncle Wayne. What’s up?”

Maggie looked at the both of them, sensing something was amiss. “I’d like to know that myself.”

The early part of the morning passed quickly. Maggie made breakfast for her son and brother, grabbed a shower and went about getting ready for work. All the time, though, she had a nagging suspicion the two males in the house knew what she’d been up to the night before.

Eventually, just before she was to leave for the Band Office, Virgil excused himself, saying he was going to get ready for school. That seemed to Maggie more of a strategic manoeuvre than a statement of intent, because how often do thirteen-year-olds say, “Well, school’s calling. Don’t want to be late”? Especially Virgil.

“Wayne, what’s going on here?” she asked after Virgil had left the room.

Wayne took a sip from his third cup of coffee, carefully choosing his words. “Maggie, it’s good to see you. I really should visit more. I’m seriously going to try. And, uh, Virgil’s been telling me things. And we’ve found out other things. Events are happening around here that I think you need to know about.”

“What things?”

“This guy, the one that calls himself John…”

“John? Has Virgil told you about John?” Suddenly it dawned on Maggie. “Oh my God, it’s my son, isn’t it? He’s upset, thinking I’m replacing his father. He’s jealous. Oh, my poor boy. This has all happened so fast. This is all new to me too.”

“Oh, Maggie, take a breath. That’s what I thought at first, but it has nothing to do with Virgil. Actually, it has everything to do with this situation, but not in the way you think. Uh, this is kind of awkward, but… John’s not what he seems to be. You need to be careful.”

“John? And just who is John, then, other than a man that you’ve never met? And by the way, why are you here, really?” It seemed to Maggie that the more her brother talked, the less sense he was making. And why was everybody obsessed with John? Was it just family concern, or something more?

“Maggie, listen carefully.” And Wayne began to explain.

“Get out!” yelled Maggie, visibly shaking. The calm of breakfast had ended.

“Maggie…”

“Wayne, I swear, I will knock your head off if you talk like that around Virgil. Do you know how insane this sounds?”

Wayne hesitated before confessing. “Yes, I do, and he knows already. We’ve been discussing the possibility since yesterday.”

“What do you mean since yesterday? Did he go over to your island by himself?”

“Well, he was worried about you and that guy and, yes, he canoed over to my island. He thought maybe I could talk some sense into either you or ‘John’…”

Maggie’s eyes practically burned a hole through Wayne. “Yesterday was a school day. What was he doing canoeing across the lake? Alone.”

“Maggie, I don’t think you’re seeing the bigger picture here…”

Maggie was indeed not seeing Wayne’s bigger picture. At the moment, she was seeing only red, and not the red usually associated with Native people.

“Virgil Second!” she yelled as she threw open the door to Virgil’s bedroom.

Startled, he scurried over the bed and into the far corner. He knew he was in deep trouble, on a number of different fronts. He wondered if his uncle could use an apprentice.

“Your uncle was just telling me that you canoed across the lake yesterday. Alone. Is that true?”

That would be the first nail in his coffin. “Yes, Mom.”

“Yesterday was a school day. Weren’t you supposed to be at
school? Didn’t you promise me you would start spending more time at school and not doing this kind of thing?”

Virgil could hear the hammer hitting the next nail. “Yes, Mom.”

“And you did all this to talk… to gossip behind my back, and to come up with the idea that John is, in fact, Nanabush, a fictional character from Native mythology. Am I understanding this all correctly?”

“Yes, Mom.”

Then the silence fell. No more questions or nail-hammering, just a long piercing stare of an angry and pissed-off mother. In retrospect, Virgil would rather have faced a few more nails than the passing seconds (actually more like an eternity) of silence.

Finally: “Get to school.”

Nodding vigorously to the point of almost hurting his neck, Virgil grabbed his knapsack and ran out the door. It seemed his uncle had been of no help in dealing with his angry mother, and now Virgil was quite happy to leave him behind to deal with her alone. Getting an education, at the moment, definitely seemed preferable to facing his mom’s wrath. It had been a long time since he’d run full out to his class. Seething, Maggie watched her son leave, though
bolt
seemed the more correct word. She had never been the sort of person to get unduly angry. She was, in fact, the calm one of the family, and her job practically demanded it. But today was an unusual day. So Wayne was to witness a rare treat.

“And as for you…” she said as she turned to face him.

“Uh, Maggie, I didn’t know yesterday was a school day. Sorry… not that I had anything to do with it.”

“Everybody knows Wednesday is usually a school day.”

“Today’s Wednesday?”

“No, today is Thursday. Yesterday was Wednesday.” Maggie struggled to keep her voice calm. “Most people also know what day of the week it is.”

“Well, there’s no need to get so snippy. I don’t have a calendar on the island. Geez, Maggie, you know, you’ve always been bossy. Now, about John…”

Unable to deal with her lunatic brother, Maggie opted to push him toward the door. All the way across the living room from the kitchen and to the front door, she shoved him, and then she shoved him through it.

All the while, Wayne tried to reason with her, but he never got past uttering, “Maggie…” before she would push him again, almost knocking him over. One chair and a lamp fell to the ground along the way.

“I want you out of here. Go back to your island. Leave me and Virgil alone. John too.”

Wayne fought the impulse to defend himself, which he easily could have done. Rarely do circumstances arise, however, where the use of a deadly martial art is permissible on an irate sister. Instead, he let himself be pushed, struggling at least to maintain his balance, which luckily was an integral part of his training.

Once he was out the door, Maggie stopped, breathing hard.

“If you’d just listen to me, we…” he pleaded.

She pushed him one more time, almost causing him to tumble down the cement steps. “Wayne, you are my brother, and because of that, I love you. But I will pound your face in if you continue with this ludicrous line of thought.”

“What is it with you and violence? Were you always like this?”

“Me and violence? Mr. Indian Kung Fu? I am not violent!”

Now it was Wayne’s turn to display his temper. “Are you kidding! You used to beat me up. All the time. I still have nightmares of you coming into my room with a bucket of cold water. Of hip-checking me into the lake. Of kicking me in the shins, all the time. Taking my boots away on the way home from school, in winter! You were a vicious, mean sister!”

“Oh, shut up. I wasn’t that bad. All sisters do that kind of stuff. Besides, you were Mom’s favourite, we all knew that, and maybe I was a bit jealous. She spoiled you. Why do you think none of us liked you much? You never seemed right to the rest of us. Now I am convinced of it. But that was then, Wayne, a long time ago. So grow up and listen to me. I don’t want to see you in this house again until you smarten up. I mean it. Or I will do worse than take your boots away.”

The little boy in Wayne also made an appearance. “Oh yeah, I can defend myself pretty good now. So you better watch it with those threats, Maggie. Or else.”

“Oh yeah?” Maggie stepped onto the front steps, hands on her hips, facing her brother. “Show me. I dare you.”

For a moment, time seemed locked as they faced off. But there are a few things in the world that are almost impossible to challenge, one of them being a younger brother’s fear, respect and love (though he wouldn’t have used that last word in this particular situation) of an older sister. Wayne could have done damage to the slender woman standing a metre in front of him without breaking a sweat, but the thought never entered his mind. Instead, he folded, and literally backed down the stairs.

Wayne made one last attempt to make his point, but a steely glare from Maggie ended that effort. Instead, he watched her lock the house, get in her car and drive away. She didn’t look back.

As he stood there breathing in the car exhaust, Wayne ran through the last twenty-four hours in his head. How do you train for all or any of this? he thought to himself. More to the point, why had he let himself be dragged across the water from the safety, security and sanity of his secluded island to this place, where he had no control over anything?

On her way to work, Maggie fought the impulse to speed. She also resisted the desire to turn around and chase her stupid younger brother down and run him over with her car.

Her knuckles turning white with the force of gripping the steering wheel, she pointed the car toward work and hoped somehow she would arrive there without killing someone.

Her brother, a major freak job for sure, who basically abandoned the family to live on an island to devise some sort of Aboriginal martial art, had come into her home and essentially confessed his insanity. Nanabush. Maggie didn’t believe those stories when she was a kid, and there was less chance she’d believe them today. Those stories were fun, for little kids. She remembered how devastated Wayne had been when he had discovered there was indeed no Santa Claus—and maybe this was all tied up in the same neurosis. To her, Nanabush was a charming and inventive character from Ojibway mythology. A symbol. A teaching tool. That was all. And John was John. Yes there was something different and special about him, but she was sure all people falling in love felt this about the object of their affection (had she actually just admitted that to herself?). And Virgil was in on this too, somehow. Perhaps she would have a little chat with him during lunch.

Maggie didn’t remember dating being this difficult.

The day had started quite badly and Virgil had an inkling that things were probably not going to get much better. As he waited outside for the school bell to ring, he noticed Dakota sitting on the lawn, by herself. Normally a sociable cousin, Dakota was idly pulling grass out of the ground, lost in her own thoughts. Needing a distraction, Virgil trotted over to her, playfully knocking her baseball cap off.

“Hey, what’s up, cousin?”

“Nothing.”

Virgil sat down beside her. “Yeah, you seem in a nothing mood. Why so serious-looking?”

“I got reasons.”

“That’s awfully mysterious. What kind of reasons?”

Something seemed to be seriously affecting Dakota, and Virgil was being drawn in. Feeling concerned and admittedly uncomfortable, he tried some small talk. “My mother caught me skipping. Boy, was I in trouble. I hope…”

“That guy John came to see me last night.”

“What?”