Birdie (17 page)

THE LAST TRAVEL BEFORE THE FINAL DESTINATION

nakipayiw
: s/he stops travelling, s/he stops driving

She dreams she was home, looking at the burnt-out shell of her uncle’s place. Walking a circle around the place where her family is buried. And one time, seeing her father walk by her, glancing quickly at her like he can tell she was there, and then looking at the ground again.

S
HE LEFT THE SAN.
No one tried to stop her, so she guessed it was okay.

Eventually, she had hitched from Edmonton to Calgary. It was so close to Edmonton – but she had never been. In the end, she couldn’t stand that city. Everyone was so snooty there. Even the street women – the hookers had fur coats! That’s one story she never told anyone. She didn’t think her mom or
Kohkom
would like that she knew that. Bernice stayed there only two days – the place just had a feel of soon-to-be nasty. Like when Skinny Freda got drunk – she looked good and all on the outside but by the time you realize she’s gonna be trouble, it’s already too late – someone is gonna get hurt. That’s what Calgary felt like to Bernice. That and there were too many cowboys and not enough Indians. People stared at her. Her fat. Her scars (healed but angry). She thought they could smell the San on her.

She wanted to see more people who looked like her, so she hopped in a big rig for a ride to Lethbridge. It was just a stop on the way to Waterton Park – and she wants to see the trees that the Blackfoot use in their ceremonies. It is ironic that she paid for the ceremony in ways that were unceremoniously troubling. She’s not proud of how she paid her way, but something was expected and she only had what she had. Anyway – it didn’t mean much to her – she had done worse than that before. That trucker – he was real stinky, though, smelled like ass and hair. Smart as a whip, when she tried to boost his wallet he smacked her, not so hard though, and gave her a twenty and the bottle they were drinking from. That asshole dropped her off in front of the cop shop – like
she would have been able to walk with the bottle unnoticed in Lethbridge, Alberta.

The first thing she took in about that place was the old people – lots and lots of old white people. Another thing she saw was big Indians. They’re Bloods there – really tall. She was not used to that – other than her
Moshom
she had never seen a tall Indian.

Maybe they aren’t tall and just feel that way, she had thought at the time. Bush Crees – we’re usually small for hunting and running. These Bloods – some of the women are almost six feet! Not so friendly either – one woman looked me up and down like a white guy. No wonder the Bloods and Crees don’t get along, we are two different people.

An old Blood couple had given her a ride to Waterton, though. They were really nice people – asking about her family and all. She hadn’t wanted to lie to them, they were so kind, so she just pretended she couldn’t hear. They talked all the way though, all about their kids and grandchildren. Just like Bernice’s
Moshom
and
Kohkom
– talk of the young ones filled the air around them. Those old Bloods lived right near the big national park – still their traditional territory, they said – so they didn’t mind taking Bernice right to the gate. It was April then so there was no one sitting at the gate and thank goodness, because she needed those twenty dollars.

The whole way there she just stared at those mountains. Coming from the north, the prettiest thing to her is the bush and the lakes; she had no idea what this
bigness
was. The rocks were big – bigger than anything she had ever seen. And the mountains pushed up into the sky so at some points
you couldn’t even see the blue past the hulk of the mountains blocking out the sky. Her first day there she just walked and walked – she didn’t even get back into the town until nightfall because there was so much to see. She wished she had a camera because she wanted that picture – blue sky caressing mountain of stone – to always be as beautiful to her as it appeared in that moment. Sometimes when you see something every day you forget its mystery and she wanted to keep this place as hers, as it appeared that day. She started thinking about the wildflowers near her old house and how she couldn’t remember what they looked like and that hurt so she just kept walking. She knew the bears were just waking up but wasn’t scared. She made sure that she didn’t go near the medicines growing in the bush and kept mostly near the road – she heard the hum of traffic once in a while.

She had come upon a little set of falls, fat and furious with spring runoff, and found a little rock that said “god is love” near the side of the falling water.

In a couple of weeks, when it got really warm, no one would be able to see that little rock because of the runoff and she felt sad for herself because she was the last one to carry the message and she knew there was no love. As much as Bernice hated feeling sad and pitiful, the wave of pain came upon her so quickly that she couldn’t avoid it.

And then the stone people had talked to her, but she was trying to forget their talk – it hurt too much to be away from home and she didn’t want to hear their tongue. She could hear the spirittalk from the rock and felt blessed that she knew the language that so many had forgotten. They told her that
Maggie was gone. She didn’t listen to that news then, could not absorb the weight of the meaning, but she can still feel the full weight of all they have lost, as a family, sitting at the side of the bed, patiently waiting for her to receive it. At the time she thought the ache it caused would be too much, and that it might turn her to stone, too. She had tried to convince herself, there in the stone and sitting in the richness of the company of the stone people, that her mind was playing tricks on her. She can feel Maggie’s absence in the bakery because it wafts from her cousin and her aunt, too.

She wishes she had all that stone around her now, wishes she had asked the stone people questions. Instead, she had soothed herself. She sang a little song, a children’s walking song, and went to a lake with no one around her for miles. She had pulled out a photocopied picture of Jesse from her bag and put it in the soil as an offering to say thanks for her journey, but with the booze in her jacket it didn’t feel quite right. She decided right then and there to get rid of it. Drinking it was hard, but she had lots of practice, so she just opened her throat and poured.

After that she wandered around a bit before she could find the road. Around seven o’clock Bernice found the little town again – it wasn’t so difficult – you just walk downhill and eventually you come upon it.

The next day, after her third dirty look from the park ranger, she decided to head west again and hitched a ride to Vancouver. Sometime she will write a book about that. Lola said one time that her stories could turn a whore to blushing.

When the truck driver dropped her off at a shelter, she
checked in, and felt the absence of life, of soil, of nature. As soon as she recognized the feeling, she went to the flower store on the corner. They must have thought she was crazy. Didn’t buy anything, really couldn’t afford it. She had just stood by the glass cases, never opening them, and imagined the smell. Sure, she knew it wouldn’t be the same. Still, it was comforting to think that these flowers came from fields and old
kohkoms
’ gardens. The self-delusion was important. She caught herself pressing her face against the glass, the humming of the flower fridge grounded her. She had to leave quickly, people were staring. After that, she couldn’t get the scent out of her head. Walking to the alley, not quite sure what she was looking for, she opened the lid of a huge blue bin. The smell of rotting and mildewing flowers took her breath away. On the tip of her tongue came a word she had never heard: death-garden.

And then she saw it. A semi-bouquet of wilting tiger lilies. You could pick them back home. They were bountiful. People back home tried not to, though, because their smell was fresh even when they were dying – it was better to let them live. To let the smell live. Still, her momma used to let her pick them from beside the house. They would pull them out in bunches, throwing them in old Planters peanut jars and baking soda cans. It was like they had a treasure, a secret garden that no one on the outside of their home could imagine. Giddy, they would laugh and tell stories about the old days when grandmothers would swat at their kids, and smiled at the same time at their ingenuity.

In an alley, in a coastal city, where she knew no one, she jumped in, grabbed the damp bouquet, imagining their smell
and touch. Played with their parts. She put them in her jacket and crawled awkwardly out of the trash bin. Two old ladies had stared at her, like she was a maniac or something.

Running to the shelter, climbing up the stairs, she could hardly wait to get them in water. Her hands were shaking, she was so excited. When she opened them up and put them on the table she noticed an odour about them. She breathed in deeply, wanting to pull their soft sweet smell into her toes.

They smelled like dirt.

That smell now lingers in her little loft. After the shelter and after the ride to Gibsons she had lost them to the air, falling out and dropping wherever she passed, one petal at a time. The flowers are long gone and the dirt smell came back just yesterday, but Bernice knows it is there. She is less able to reconcile herself with the recent past, so that the return of the smell surprises her. Now, at Lola’s, she is able to see and begin to understand what her past has been while the musty wet smell of earth permeates the tiny rooms like music. Her senses are alive now, no matter what her makeshift family is seeing. She knows things. Feels things. Smells things. Wants to start to believe things. Hears things.

“You were a baby,” she hears an owl cry.

“No one deserves this,” a whisper.

She is talking to herself.

She does not feel mad, she left the crazy behind when she crawled into bed. She is wondering if the Creator sees her, heard her while she is in this bed, because she was questioning whether he even existed. It had come to her slowly that she has no God. It had first visited her on a Thursday night
at some faux-Latino bar in the core of Gibsons’ downtown after four gins and when she was on the verge of falling in some guy’s lap (no small feat) around last call. The first and last last call.

The thought that came to her then was that she had to take care of herself because there was no one watching out for her anymore.

Then. On her road to Godlessness.

She had left with Some Guy anyway. A second thought came to her that night. When you are this far from God you can be optimistic ‘cause you have nothing. She almost pondered it again on the way home in the cab but was struck with the loveliness of being alone with her thoughtlessness.

When she got to Gibsons, Bernice had forced herself out every night for three weeks. If Lola noticed her haggard appearance she did not comment. This was somewhat discomfiting. She had let her hair grow wild – wild like a bush Indian, her
kohkom
would have laughed. Except it was short and entirely grey now. It turned overnight. No one has mentioned it, and Birdie knows they won’t. It’s understood that she has seen something. Bad. In the dark times, the
Whitigo
*
comes. Especially when you are sleeping. She didn’t let herself sleep much those days but on the one night she did, something changed her hair.

It didn’t seem odd to her to believe in evil and to disbelieve in benevolence. Disregard kindness. Distinctly disavow goodness. She had the faith that optimists and pessimists share – it could only get better. Also, there is a crazy tune in her head – her default category song. It sounds familiar and she thinks
she may have heard it on the radio (97.2 The Fox Rocks) or on the pow wow trail. It was some drum group she vaguely remembered but could not place. But that was then, when she let the madness take the memories. Except now they seem to want back in.

*
Spirit, a sometimes bad spirit.

“Heyaaa heyaaa.”
Crescendo decrescendo. Electric and acoustic. The cadence was sensible – in that she could actually feel the music surge through her.

Somewhere in the recesses of her recess, she knows that when she got to Gibsons she began numbing herself – and for no good reason. For a bad reason, most certainly. Now, she might know that when she started sinking it started outside of her. It was almost like feeling the ground outside of you give – like quicksand – before your insides felt the pressure and responded to the weight of the sand engulfing it. Until the outside shift resulted in the pressure on her insides, she could only feel external stimulation. Self-realization aside, it was really not that easy to live within yourself in public. And so very public.

The second sign that she was free-falling past goodness and Godliness came to her at Lola’s birthday party. She threw the old lady a birthday party at Lou’s Blue Bayou on Highway 101. It was really an act of love/self-love because she wanted to get the old bird drunk. Getting drunk with strangers was numbing, but seeing someone she knew loaded might allow her to see the sense in sedation. Lola, decked out like the diva she is, was free-spirited and had a pink to her cheek that Bernice had never seen before. Bernice had invited all of “the girls,” Lola’s Whippet-tongued poker crew.
Everyone had doted on Lola, commented on her hair – newly shorn and dyed red – and her jean jumper, a gift that Bernice had sewn for the occasion. What Bernice did not tell her: she had sewn some sage into the cuffs, women’s medicine, to keep Lola well.

Lola had danced with men – young and old – her cooking, karaoke and sharp conversation had made her famous in the small seaside town. She drank bourbon with vigour and toasted herself regularly throughout the evening. Bernice brought out her outside self, which she always did when she had to be seen.

Her outside self drank gin. Too much gin. She, too, danced with men young and old, although with fewer than Lola and the Whippets. And toasted Lola regularly. And skirted from conversation to conversation with ease. She can see her former self and feels a pang in the middle of her chest, shifts on the bed, and understands that it was easier to be drunk and outside Bernice than who she has become.