Kiss of the Fur Queen Page 19

  “Take that, bitch.” His wife’s hair wound around a fist, Jake banged her face against the fridge. “Now get the fuck out of my house.” He threw her at the door, in his hand a bleeding clump of hair.

  Amanda bit Jeremiah’s ear. Half in pain, half in joy, Jeremiah wailed: yes, Father, make me bleed, please, please make me bleed.

  “Okay then, bitch,” Amanda parodied her soap opera husband, “get the fuck out of this room and get back to your piano.” To suffocate the word, and her laugh, Jeremiah slid his tongue into her mouth. But now she was taking his penis into her body.

  “If the Gitche Manitou ever came down to Earth,” he read the card above the bed as, with Amanda’s assistance, he thrust and thrust, “He would stay at the Manitowaning Lodge, Manitoulin Island, Ontario.” Good for him. Or was it her? On television, a door slammed shut.

  “Damn.” Jake punched a hole through a wall.

  “Next week,” the telecaster’s FM voice slid in. “Can Dorothy Asapap make it on her own? Can Jacob Asapap raise the children on his own? Find out in the next episode of Tender Is My Heart. Moosonee-TV, northern Ontario’s window on Cree-Ojibway country.”

  Panting, Amanda reached around Jeremiah’s waist and silenced the television with the remote.

  “There,” she gasped, and wrestled her way from under his weight.

  Jeremiah moaned. And fell to the side.

  He couldn’t get erect. His sex was dead. The very thought made him sick, as with a cancer. Somehow, misogynistic violence — watching it, thinking it — was relief.

  “Put it on rewind.” He took a cigarette and lay back on the pillow. “Play it again.”

  PART SIX

  Presto con fuoco

  FORTY-ONE

  “So, you coming home?” though Gabriel tried his best at sounding cold, even angry — thank God telephones transmitted sound, not sight — his performance was not quite convincing. For, naked as the day, he lay luxuriating in black satin sheets, his lower limbs entangled in some unseen task. His pleasure in the posture, in fact, was making conversation increasingly difficult. From some source equally invisible, Sarah Vaughan’s honeyed alto crooned of sirens and madness.

  Three hundred miles north of the rose-hued bedroom, Jeremiah stood huddled in a telephone booth, fending off a hangover so acute it was victory just to be propped upright. “I’m north of the island somewhere, outskirts of … Sudbury, I think.”

  “By land and water,” Gabriel stated with machine-like precision despite virtually surging with joy, “it’ll take you nine hours.” At his waist, his fingers sank into a head of golden curls. “By land alone, it’ll only take five.”

  “Forget the ferry. I barely have enough for gas.”

  “Then I’ll see you tonight.” And see, Gabriel thrilled at the prospect, what revenge I dream up for your treachery.

  Trying to keep his breakfast down, Jeremiah gulped his way back to the car. Furious with him for his recent bout of cowardice, of fraternal irresponsibility, the little yellow Beetle had not said a word to him all morning, not in Cree, not in English.

  Gabriel set the telephone down, flexed his thighs, and, distractedly, gazed at the opposite wall. Zebra-striped by noon-light through horizontal blinds, the photographs of Gregory Newman in his salad days — as prince, as hero, as danseur noble — looked glamorous enough, if somewhat vintage. But they were boisterously upstaged. For there atop the oak armoire, applauded by the masses, feted by a queen, beamed the champion of the world. Gabriel closed his eyes and let the wave sweep him off.

  From the folds of black satin, like a loon from a lake, the golden head reared, lips overflowing.

  In a chamber of mirrors — another church made redundant by the death of faith — Gabriel sat with legs splayed across the hardwood floor, stretching his tendons, massaging his feet, garbed in the habit of his calling: slippers, tights, leg-warmers, sweat-stained T-shirt. In crumpled shirt and jeans, Jeremiah sat slumped at a creaky grand piano, the keyboard as silent as a tomb.

  “Go on.” Gabriel had to work at his prodigal brother. “Play something.” Through his hangover, Jeremiah unenthusiastically picked out a five-finger run — up, down. But hey! The damned thing was in tune.

  “Yeah, right,” he feigned disgust. “The fingers are gone.” In a silence this large, with only Gabriel watching, sitting like this felt eerily natural. “Gone, gone, gone. Forget it.” Like a house one sees for the first time since childhood, the keyboard invited, enticed, but belonged to others now.

  “Bullshit,” Gabriel fired back. “You haven’t touched a fish crate in fifteen years.”

  “What is this? Penance?”

  “Yes. For running like a rat from those spineless fag-bashers? Yes. Play!”

  Jeremiah began, for, indeed, was not the dear brown boy owed amends?

  First came his left hand, pounding on its own a steel-hard, unforgiving four-four time, each beat seamlessly connected by triplet sixteenth notes, an accidental toccata. From where? “Ha!” Before he knew it, his other hand had joined, its discords like random gunshots: bang, bang!

  No less surprised, and tickled bubblegum pink, Gabriel leapt to his feet and started rocking to the pulse — peeyuk, neesoo, peeyuk … Some spectacular celebration was about to begin, he could feel it in his bones. “Weeks’chihowew!” he yodelled, and catapulted his dancer’s frame at space.

  As if sculpted from marble, five male dancers came twirling downstage, stomped up to the audience, and twirled back upstage, gull plumes in cellophane flashing from their waists like kilts made of lake spray. At one end of the line, Gabriel Okimasis executed a turn so nimble witnesses swore later that he had outwitted gravity, then snapped into a robot-like march to a circle of blue-white light.

  In the crowded semi-darkness, Gregory Newman watched, impressively tanned — an interlude in Mexico, according to the press — but the light in his eyes had lost its spark; a permanent glower had seduced their emerald green.

  Teacher of the young, connoisseur of beauty, celebrated artist, he would fool himself no longer. The boy-man on stage was beautiful, in his prime, poetry in motion, a choreographer with promise. But behind the show of innocence and northern piety, what a piece of dirt, a slut, a whore, a slab of meat fucked through every orifice, from Tokyo to Toronto, from Rome to Buenos Aires.

  Behind him, a door flew open and closed just as quickly. Amidst a flurry of rustling cloth, hissed apology, feverish breathing, Amanda Clear Sky wedged her way to the only empty seat that she could make out in the darkness.

  “Is this the piece by Gabriel Okimasis?” she ventured of her scowling neighbour.

  As politely as he could, Gregory shushed her.

  “Well, is it?”

  “Yes, but you’re sitting on my coat.”

  Partly concealed by a scrim behind the dancers, Jeremiah laboured at a black grand piano. As seamless as thread, his triplet sixteenth notes connected the four-four time of an unrelenting, drum-like bass. How had a casual improvisation grown, in ten months, into a showpiece stomped to by professional dancers, a sonata in four contrasting movements scored, phrased, liberally fermataed? It was quite beyond his grasp. All he knew was that he had to play or his relationship with Gabriel was history, and he’d be back in the alleyways of Winnipeg. And should the collar of his rented black tuxedo choke off his windpipe, so be it; hands on the keyboard, dressed for the casket, he would die a Cree hero’s death.

  Like a thunderclap, silence struck. Jeremiah leapt from his bench, and with a beaded drumstick pounded at the bass strings of the instrument. The quintet of circling dancers launched into a pentatonic chant, “Ateek, ateek, astum, astum, yoah, ho-ho!” And, suddenly, the piano was a pow wow drum propelling a Cree Round Dance with the clangour and dissonance of the twentieth century.

  Gabriel knew that his magic had worked, for the audience was speaking to some space inside themselves, some void that needed filling, some depthless sky; and this sky was responding. Through the brothers, as one, and thro
ugh a chamber as vast as the north, an old man’s voice passed. “My son,” it sighed, “with these magic weapons, make a new world …”

  Amidst the storm of clapping, hooting, and shouting, Gabriel stood on stage with his dancers, glowing like the sun, proudly introducing his brother to the world. And at his bidding, the wild-haired pianist, utterly confounded, bowed once, twice. And the house went dark.

  FORTY-TWO

  “Ayash oogoosisa, oogoosisa, oogoosisa.” The sun-filled chamber danced to Jeremiah’s Cree.

  “Ayash oogoosisa, oogoosisa …,” echoed four children’s voices, somewhat raggedly.

  “Think of it as music,” suggested their instructor. “Let it swing. One more time: Ayash oogoosisa, oogoosisa …”

  A dozen Indian children squatted in a circle at the centre of the room, impressively orderly for six- to ten-year-olds. Four of them repeated, better this time.

  On the wall, a home-made logo identified the gathering as “The Muskoosis Club of Ontario,” a round-faced bear in denim coveralls grinning toothily from the capital O. Such was Jeremiah’s day job — providing urban Indian children, most from broken homes, with REC: recreation, education, culture.

  Jeremiah launched into the next phrase. “Group B. Peechinook’soo, three, four, peechinook’soo, three, four …,” clapping as he walked.

  Dutiful as soldiers, four Muskoosisuk smiled, clapped, and talked, “Peechinook’soo …,” as Jeremiah’s focus kept returning to one little boy. Because he looked so like Gabriel Okimasis at the age of six? Not exactly, but …

  “And Group C. Now this one’s gotta be sort of moany and spooky, kinda like this,” and Jeremiah moaned, “Peeyatuk, peeyatuk …”

  “Peeyatuk …,” moaned the last four children, then exploded into titters because the goofy little whine reminded of them of ghosts they had known.

  “Now, we put it all together.” Swinging by his desk, the excited Cree-language revivalist fished a gourd from a drawer. “Groups A, B, C. Ready?” He raised the object — an improvised Brazilian maraca — and shook it with a vengeance, the rattle that resulted bossa nova crossed artfully with samba.

  “Ayash oogoosisa, oogoosisa, oogoosisa …” went the first four children, “Peechinook’soo three, four, peechinook’soo …” went the second, while the last quartet moaned, “Peeyatuk.” Like a priest sprinkling holy water, Jeremiah rattled the maraca, counted out the beat — “One, two, one, two.” Cree rap with a Latin stamp? The patent was theirs.

  “So what you’re saying, people, is this,” Jeremiah brought the music to a close. “Group A, ‘The Son of Ayash,’ over and over. Group B, ‘is approaching, three, four,’ over and over. Group C,” and he moaned like a ghost, “ ‘Be careful, be careful.’ Our hero, the Son of Ayash, has to be careful, for he is entering the dark place of the human soul where he will meet evil creatures like,” he shook the maraca one last time, “the Weetigo. Questions?” But the undersized Natives were restless. “Jenny! Cynthia!” Jeremiah was sounding unpleasantly like a school marm, “Puh-leeze!”

  “But Willie has a question, question, question,” a pretty little echo circulated. “But he’s too shy, shy, shy, shy.” Willie Joe Kayash, whose home was a shelter for battered women and whose father was nonexistent. Willie Joe Kayash, the lad who reminded Jeremiah of Gabriel as a child.

  It took some ancient Okimasis diplomacy but, eventually, Willie Joe spoke. “What … what …,” his mouth a little red cherry, ripe for the plucking. “What’s … what’s a … a Weetigo?” How fresh children smelled. You could take them in your hands, put them in your mouth, swallow them whole.

  “A Weetigo is a monster who eats little boys,” said Jeremiah, “like you.” And he dismissed the assembly.

  When the room was empty, Willie Joe skipped back in and jumped on Jeremiah, the rope-like arms wrapped around his waist, the hot face buried in his groin.

  “A Weetigo ate me,” the child mumbled into the faded blue denim. And then bit. Up Jeremiah’s spine shot a needle longer than an arm. In a panic, he disengaged himself and squatted, his eyes inches from the six-year-old’s. He had a raging hard-on.

  “What do you mean, Willie Joe?”

  Willie Joe said nothing, but, like a clandestine lover, kissed Jeremiah, square across the lips, then went skipping out: “Ayash oogoosisa, oogoosisa …”

  Into a vortex screaming with monsters Jeremiah stumbled, clawed hands reaching for his testicles, wet tongues burrowing past his lips, his orifices pried, torn, shredded. One minute, no more, and he made it to the director’s office.

  “The Friendship Centre has begun the process, yes,” the Mohawk gentleman behind the desk explained, “whereby the perpetrator — stepfather to the child — is being charged, yes, and, hopefully, yes, he will be jailed, yes.”

  For Jeremiah, jail was nowhere near enough.

  FORTY-THREE

  Like a bear with a honeypot, Jeremiah sat hunched at a typewriter, glaring at the page in its steel-trap jaw. If it wasn’t for the hum and the stop-start tap of the ageing IBM Selectric, the Muskoosis Clubroom would have been stone silent.

  He snarled and tore the sheet of paper out. So disgusted was he for taking up Amanda’s challenge — “Write me a role and I’ll move to Toronto” — that leaping out the window looked attractive when he remembered that the Native Friendship Centre was only four floors high, and he was on the third.

  Yes, he had written a spot of music — freak accident though that may have been — interspersed with words he dared to claim were poetry, if in Cree. And, yes, the work had been successful, on a very modest scale. But did that make him a dramatist? And in English, that humourless tongue?

  “Atimootagay!” he banged out each letter and, in glum despair, scowled at the slush-bound street below.

  And suddenly, Mistik Lake lapped rhythmically, July was at its peak, and arctic terns were clucking from their holding patterns high overhead — “click, Jeremiah, click, click” — telling the Cree ex-pianist of their holiday this January past in far Antarctica, where penguins threw formal-dress receptions that were the envy of the world.

  And Jeremiah was nine, Gabriel six, the brothers sitting at the stern of their father’s blue canoe. Squeezed into the seat — planks nailed hastily together — they rowed the narrow, pointed vessel in reverse as, from the prow, their father cast his silver net into the cold, dark waves.

  “So, Ayash oogoosisa,” said Abraham Okimasis as he wove sun diamonds with water and webs of nylon, “eehee, Ayash oogoosisa had to go out into the world at a very young age …”

  A suitcase in one hand, his father’s portrait in the other, Gabriel stood at the threshold of an empty living room. Lit like a rooming house, its plaster barely hung. And the smell of mothballs, mould, even stale urine, though subtle, still penetrated. Cardboard boxes spilling over with his life sat scattered at his feet.

  Pensively, he set the suitcase down. He could still hear Gregory: “If you didn’t do so much running around, you wouldn’t get sick so often.”

  Cracked down the middle, a mirror sliced his image in two; he had one eye, in the centre of his forehead. He pawed at a cobweb, cleared the dust away, and peered into the glass.

  The sheen of youth was fading. He was attractive, not exquisite, not the way he once had been. What’s this? The blemish on his neck still there? After two weeks?

  Gabriel had had the flu twice this year, so this might be the third, but was anyone immune at this time of the year?

  Still, Gregory’s voice bled through: “Where did you go after the preview last night? Come on, Gabriel. Production meetings don’t go to 3:00 A.M. Where do you go after the show — in New York, Amsterdam, Vancouver? How many people come by the house whenever I’m out for even half an hour? Do you think I have no nose? That I can’t smell bed-sheets, sweat?”

  From one side of his “Holy Trinity” — the photos of his brother, his best friend, his surrogate son — Jeremiah glanced at the clock in the rusted old stove of his rooming house
. Four A.M. He yawned, stretched, and vowed that he would work until the sun came up.

  “Mother (to Son):” afraid the old typewriter would crumble and die if he struck it too hard, he picked at the letters gingerly, “Here, the weapons you will need: a spear, an axe, a fox’s pelt”

  FORTY-FOUR

  “Got this feelin’, burnin’ inside me; got this feelin’,” the wild-haired tenor snarled into the microphone. Then, chillingly, his voice swooped sky high, “And I don’t know oh what to do, oh what to do.”

  Behind him, three black-shirted men stroked impassively at drums, bass, and keyboard while their soloist’s half-closed eyes hung fixed … on what? Or who? wondered Gabriel. Sitting at a small round table, sipping at a beer, waiting anxiously for Jeremiah, he decided the singer could do with a more expressive body, looser at the hips, not so jerky. But this Robin Beatty, as the posters proclaimed his name to be, was looking at him, Gabriel was certain. Did that little shudder at the base of his spine not tell him so? His microphone so hot Gabriel half-expected it to melt, Robin swooped from a growl to a wail, “Every time I look into your eye-eye-eyes …”

  Jeremiah popped his head through the black velvet curtain over the club’s back wall and assessed the territory.

  “Don’t go away,” barked the singer.

  “We’ll be right back.”

  “What’s this?” asked Gabriel, looking at the tattered manila envelope Jeremiah had plunked beside his beer.

  “Open it,” said Jeremiah, trying to contain his excitement.

  Out came a sheaf of paper the thickness of a score.

  “ ‘Ulysses Thunderchild’?” Gabriel read. “ ‘A play by Jerem …’ ”

  “Well? You gonna have a peek?”

  Gabriel turned a page.