Warning: this story contains adult language. It also touches on themes in some of my previous stories.

Dibaajimowin
by Todd F.

1953 – Fond Du Lac, Minn.

Dad told better stories when he was sober. So Johnny knew his only chance was to trap his father on the porch before the guys came to pick him up. The boy perched on the crumbling wooden bench, alert and ready, his bare feet scraping the floor as his legs swung back and forth. On his left foot, his big toe was a patchwork of black, yellow-gray and red. The nail was all but gone. It was the toe Johnny had dangled from after climbing up the side of the boat dock on a dare from his cousin Buck a week before. He turned his foot this way and that, admiring the bruise from all angles. Momentarily distracted from the vigil for his father, he proudly remembered the brief moment of panic and the stab of pain, hanging over the St. Louis River, before Buck’s grimy arms pulled him back up.

Dad came out the front door. Johnny startled. He ceased examining his toe-of-honor and patted the seat next to him.

“Tell me a story, like your dad used to tell you,” he demanded.

The man sat. He hugged the boy close, so close Johnny could smell the work and sweat and horses and cigarettes.

“There once was a man who enjoyed watching the Ravens,” his dad began. “For months, the Ravens taught the man all about their language and how the Ravens lived. Many of the Ravens accepted him as a friend. One day, an older Raven was flying far over the man and dropped a walnut on the man's head, on purpose. All the Ravens almost fell off their branches laughing so hard, the way they do. The man was sad and hurt, and he asked, ‘Why are you all picking on me?’

“The Ravens said, ‘We thought you understood us. If you did, you would know that we are not mocking you... well, maybe a bit, but that’s how we have fun. It is not to be taken seriously. You should know us better.’ “The man went home and told all the people about his adventures and what he learned about the Ravens. The villagers gave the man a new name of ‘Black Feather,’ but the man objected and said, ‘I am no longer close to the Raven people.’

“From above, there was a squawking sound of a single Raven. The Raven said, ‘It is true, you are closer to us than any Anishinaabe has ever come. But you still don't understand us fully. I invite you to return to us; we miss you.’

“Black Feather responded, ‘It's useless; how can I ever understand you? I can't even fly!’

“The Raven said, ‘Of course you can't fly. You are Anishinaabe and we are Ravens. But we accept you as one of us. Don't try to fly, because then you would be neither Anishinaabe nor Raven, but something else. We like you as an Anishinaabe who understands us as Ravens. Join us or not; the decision is yours….’ ”

Johnny interrupted. Patience was not his strong suit. “Which did he choose?”

“What do you think he chose?” the older John Gage asked at his son, his broad, weathered face holding a hint of amusement.

“He can’t be a Raven. He’s an Indian.”

“But so is your mother. And she understands me as a Raven. Did we make the right choice?”

“If you hadn’t chosen to understand each other, I wouldn’t be here now,” Johnny said dismissively. His dad wasn’t making any sense. He wasn’t a Raven. Mom and Dad were both Indian, unless you figured in Mom’s Norwegian father, who died so long ago that he didn’t even count. But then Johnny had a sudden thought, which he voiced aloud: “Hey, Dad, what’ll I pick when I’m grown?”

“You will probably pick whatever seems like the right idea at the time,” his father replied. “If you choose Raven, then you will fly away. If you choose Anishinaabe, you will stay put. But you will understand why others needed to take wing.”

“Which do you want me to choose?” Johnny asked, swinging his legs once again beneath the dusty bench.

His father laughed. “When it comes time for you to make a decision, I may not be here anymore. But at that moment, listen carefully, and you will feel my spirit chanting into the wind, like that old PowWow song – ‘Hear my song. It is my voice. I speak to your naked heart.’”

Then suddenly the strange conversation was over, because Dad’s buddies arrived. Dad stumbled through the dusk into the back of their pick-up truck. “Adawegamigong nwi biba zha. Back later,” he called out. Dad’s sudden reversion to awkward Anishinaabe was explained by the equally sudden appearance of Johnny’s mother at the door.

Going to the store, my ass, Johnny thought. I can’t believe he thinks Mom would fall for that. But he said nothing as he waved goodbye and wandered back into the little ranch house to help his mother start some supper. His mother remained on the porch for a moment, waving at the pickup as it disappeared down the darkening, dusty road.

*****

February 1977 – Carson, CA

When it came time for John Gage to kill his mother -- for that is how he had come to think of it -- he felt nothing. No relief. No fear. No turmoil. Nothing. He thought he’d feel more than this… this big numb, dumb nothingness that seemed to hover just over and to the side of his head.

But after his aunt died, and his options were made clear before him, it was obvious what route he would have to take. It was the route to Cloquet, Minnesota, where an old lady – a lady who was once strikingly pretty, inconveniently tall and dumb as a bunch of rocks -- lay comatose in a nursing home, victim of an attack she never saw coming, and never would have understood if she had.

*****

Christmas Eve, 1976 – Carson, CA
1900 hrs

As the crew finished up supper dishes, Chet announced, “I’m taking a survey, Cap. What do you wanna watch tonight?”

“The inside of my eyelids. Best show in town.”

“Seriously, Cap. Whadaya wanna watch?”

“Kelly, you don’t care what I want to watch. You are just collecting ammunition so you can watch that idiotic robot cop show again.”

“Oh jeez, not ‘Holmes and Yoyo’,” Johnny piped up. “Cap, he can’t make us watch that again.”

“You’re right, he can’t,” Roy joined in the conversation. “It got cancelled a couple weeks ago. Chris was beside himself.”

“Ha!” Johnny said. “So there, Chet! You’ll just have to be stuck with ‘The Jeffersons’.” Johnny held the spoon he was drying like a microphone and started dancing around the sink. “Oh we’re movin’ on up, movin’ on up, to the east side… “

“To the east side,” Marco chorused.

“To a dee-lux apartment, in the sky-y-y,” Johnny sang. “Oh, we’re movin’ on up.”

“Movin’ on up,” Roy helped Marco with the chorus this time.

“To the east side,” Johnny resumed.

“Movin’ on up,” Roy and Marco sang.

“Oh, we finally got a piece of the pie-ie-ie-y-y,” Mike Stoker chimed in, using a dishrag to punctuate the lyrics.

The sight – and sound -- of their tone-deaf engineer loosening up long enough to do a Ja’net DuBois impersonation was too much. Chet, Marco, Roy and Johnny started choking with laughter, while Captain Stanley clapped Mike on the shoulder.

“Don’t quit your day job, Michael,” Cap said with a grin.

*****

Christmas Eve, 1976
2300 hrs

“Man, I can’t believe they cancelled ‘Holmes and Yoyo’,” Chet muttered in his bunk.

“Shut up, Chet. I can’t believe you didn’t notice when it wasn’t on last week,” Johnny said. “Go to sleep.”

“Yeah, and don’t try watching ‘Mr. T and Tina’ either. That was cancelled back in October,” Marco teased.

“Twits,” said a muffled voice from Captain Stanley’s direction. He pulled his head out from under his pillow. “I’ve got a long drive tomorrow. Do me a favor and stifle it.”

“Stifle it, Edith,” Chet said, sotto-voce.

Marco snickered.

“Where you goin’, Cap?” Johnny asked.

Captain Stanley released a frustrated sigh. “We’re taking the girls to my parents in Phoenix. It’s going to take all day, and the wife isn’t going to want to drive, so I need sleep. Now!”

“And we didn’t even get ‘Starsky and Hutch’ tonight! Just that stupid Christmas Eve special,” Chet prattled on, oblivious to his captain’s sleep needs.

“Chet, don’t you know Santa won’t come if you’re not asleep?” Roy said. “If you’re not good, he’ll leave coal in your boots.”

“Chet left shaving cream in mine last week. Serve him right if he stepped into coal some night,” Johnny said. “That reminds me…” He peered in his boots and bunker gear, which were set up next to his bunk. “Nope, all clear. I can sleep now.” He lay back down on his bunk and got under the blankets.

Chet snorted. “The Phantom never takes a holiday, Gage. Even Christmas is not safe from his machinations. Bwahaha…uk!”  A pillow flew threw the air and smacked Chet in the head. “Where’d that come from?”

Mike grinned and settled deeper into his now pillow-less bed.

“Well, I have to agree with Mike,” Roy said. “I’ve got to take the family to Joanne’s mother tomorrow, and I need some sleep. Are you still going to see your aunt tomorrow, Johnny? That’s a bit of a drive, too.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “She just moved into a Lutheran nursing home in Napa,” he said in response to the other men’s questioning looks.

“Hope we don’t get any calls tonight,” Cap said, closing his eyes. Chet and Roy nodded in agreement and settled into their own pillows. Marco and Mike were already asleep. Johnny worried silently that Cap’s wish had jinxed their silent night. His worry lasted all of 30 seconds, before he too joined the others in dreamland.

*****

Christmas Day, 1976
0324 hrs

As was often the case, the almost subconscious sound of the SCU relay clicking open woke Mike a split second before the tones actually went off.

“Squad 51, woman injured. 2300 East Carson. 2300 East Carson. Cross street Avalon. Time out, 0324.”

Mike closed his eyes. Cap, Chet and Marco did the same. Roy and John pulled on their bunker pants and headed out.

Snoring noises soon resumed from three of the bunks. But Mike lay with his hands behind his head, finding it hard to settle back into sleep. His pillow lay on the floor near Chet’s bed, but he was feeling too lazy to retrieve it. He found comfort in the regular night noises of the station: the snores of his crewmates, the rattle the fridge made as the compressor kicked on and off, the whistling breath of the overweight and asthmatic Henry, the crackle of a dispatch monitor someone had left on in another room. Mike was good at listening.

Two hours later, sleep still elusive, Mike was mentally composing a list of things to do for his infant son’s first Christmas, when Roy and John returned. The paramedics whispered about their last call as they removed their bunker pants and settled back into bed.

“It’s like they enjoy being victims.” That was Roy.

“She didn’t enjoy getting her arm broken.” John’s angry whisper threatened to get louder.

“But she could have left.”

“Sometimes they can’t.”

“I don’t think they try too hard sometimes.”

“Where could she have gone?” John hissed. “She didn’t look like she had much going for her. Maybe he seemed like the best deal she could get. Maybe he takes good care of her when he’s not drunk off his ass.”

“Well, we’ll never know. And you know what? I don’t want to. I want to sleep.”

Mike heard the squeak of bedsprings as Roy settled down. A few moments later, an agitated John sprang up and headed for the kitchen. Mike heard him pace furiously before opening the rattling fridge and pulling out the milk.

Mike was good at listening.

*****

Christmas Day, 1976 – Napa, CA
1600 hrs

Gage pulled the Rover into the hotel and almost ran for the office. “Gotta check in, but gotta use your phone first,” he said, breathless.

The amused desk attendant pointed him toward the house phone. He dialed the number written on the crumpled remnant of a run sheet and waited impatiently as the line rang.

“Good afternoon, The Vinyards, may I help you?”

“Yeah. This is John Gage. I was gonna see my aunt today, Violet Oswald, but I got into town a little late. I know visiting hours are almost over, but please tell me you can make an exception.”

“Mr. Gage!” The woman on the phone sounded surprised and a little annoyed. Johnny’s internal radar, seasoned by years of fire and EMS emergencies, went off. “We have been trying to get a hold of you at home, Mr. Gage, since yesterday.”

“I was at work,” he answered, a little cautiously. “I tried calling her this morning before I left. I figured I’d try again when I got in.”

“You should probably come by. Now.”

*****

December 27, 1976 – Carson, CA
0800 hrs

The crew of Station 51 stood in the apparatus bay, awaiting roll call. “Where’s Gage?” Chet asked, eyeing Brice suspiciously. Brice ignored him and continued polishing an invisible smudge on his badge.

“His aunt died,” Roy said. “He called me yesterday. She stroked out.”

“Wow. I didn’t think she was that sick,” Chet said, momentarily subdued.

“Just one of those things, I guess. She’d only moved to the nursing home a couple weeks ago. She used to live in one of those assisted-living apartment buildings.”

Brice stopped polishing his badge and looked up. “Stroke is a not-uncommon occurrence when a disabled elderly person is moved from one place to another. Often the stress of the move, along with changes in care patterns or medications, can loosen a blood clot that the patient isn’t even aware he or she has.” Brice returned to his badge-polishing.

“Ooo… kaay,” Roy said slowly, not sure whether it was worth responding to that tidbit of medical knowledge. “Anyway, all her stuff is stored at her old house. There are legal things to handle, too. He’ll be gone a shift or two.”

“No funeral?” asked Chet.

“Johnny was all the family she had left. He didn’t say that straight out, but that’s the impression he left me with when he said there wasn’t going to be a funeral.”

“You mean, she was all the family Johnny had left.”

“I think you’re jumping to conclusions there, Chet,” Roy said. “His parents are gone, I think, but he’s got some cousins I know he talks with sometimes. And some family and friends in Minnesota he exchanges Christmas cards with. There’s no mystery. I don’t think he sprang forth fully grown from the stork’s stash of babies.”

“Har dee har har. I never said he did,” Chet said, annoyed at the turn the conversation was taking. “Maybe we could still send flowers or something. I can’t see just ignoring it. I don’t know how those Lutheran-Indian-whatevers do things, but we Catholics don’t just ignore a death.”

Mike whispered something to Brice. Brice nodded and nudged him forward. Mike shook his head vigorously. Brice nudged him again, harder.

Mike glared at him and finally spoke up, “When she was still well enough to come visit him, he would take her to the First Lutheran Church on 197th and Central. Maybe we could make a donation in her name.”

Mike glared again at Brice, who said under his breath, “Now that didn’t hurt much, did it?”

Mike muttered back, “Shut up and go polish something,” and gave Brice the business end of his elbow.

Not for the first time, Roy marveled at their strangely symbiotic friendship before saying quickly, “It’s settled then. I’ll make the arrangements.”

*****

As Johnny sorted through his aunt’s papers, he found a curious one titled “Healthcare Power of Attorney.” He put his cigarette down in the only ashtray his aunt had in her house. She kept it for him, and only pulled it out when he visited. When she moved into assisted living, she kept the house. And the ashtray. The house was his now. The ashtray, too, he supposed. He moved into better light to read the paper.

When he was done reading, he picked up the cigarette again with shaking fingers. Johnny had never realized until now that it wasn’t a court order keeping his mother alive in a nursing home in Cloquet. It was his aunt.

*****

A few shifts after he returned, he and Roy were 10-8 to Rampart for supplies one afternoon.

“Roy, how can I find an attorney that does healthcare stuff?” Johnny asked.

“Why?”

“My aunt. Some things I have to settle.”

Roy waited for one of two things: a requisite rant or a tedious explanation. Neither came. He decided to answer the question and not look a gift horse in the mouth. “Joanne’s brother-in-law is a lawyer. I’ll ask him if he knows anyone.”

“Thanks, Roy.”

*****

Fond Du Lac, MN – 1955

“Johnny, come help.”

She often tried to speak English to her son. Johnny appreciated the effort, although he had picked up enough of both Norwegian and Ojibwe over his 11 years that she really didn’t need to bother. Dad didn’t know Norwegian, but he knew enough Anishinaabe to get along most times. Unfortunately, she mixed and matched languages under stress -- so that in heated conversations, Dad was always pausing to yell at his son, “What the hell did she say?”

He went to his mother, who was pulling boxes from a closet. One had fallen. It apparently had opened upon impact, spilling its contents. One of the items was a photo album, plain, black, with “Wedding” scrawled on the front page in a childish hand.

Johnny picked it up and paged through. “Mama, is this your wedding to Dad?”

His mother paused in her organization efforts. “Ja. Far og Mor. Your Daddy and Mama.”

“You were beautiful, Mama” he said, with no trace of embarrassment.

She smiled, one of those huge smiles that stayed in her son’s dreams forever. “Bra, takk. You are handsome,” she said to her son, crouching down to give him a crushing hug. “You and Daddy. Woman-killers.”

He laughed. “That’s lady-killers, Mama.”

“Nei da. No more talk. You boxes. I put away.”

His smile echoed hers, as she stretched like a majestic willow branch up toward the top shelf of the closet.

******

Cloquet, MN – March 1977

John sat in the doctor’s private office with his attorney. Money left to him by his aunt covered the legal advice, as well as the trip by both of them to Cloquet. John was uncharacteristically still and quiet, as his attorney did the talking.

“A judge in California has granted Mr. Gage healthcare power-of-attorney for his mother. Mr. Gage has considered his options, and he wants no further invasive or mechanical assistance for Mrs. Gage.”

The doctor put the tips of his fingers together. A facial twitch that reminded John ever so slightly of Dr. Brackett was the only sign of emotion on the physician’s behalf. “This isn’t California.”

“She’s a vegetable. She’s been a vegetable for years. We could get a judge in Duluth to agree. Or you could just bite the bullet and do it,” the attorney said, with a trace of annoyance in his voice.

“You are aware that removal of the ventilator and feeding tube will likely result in her death,” the doctor said.

John was aware of that. He had gone to see her that morning before heading to the doctor’s main office across town. He nodded to the doctor and his attorney.

“Euthanasia is not a popular option in the Midwest. If word got around, I could lose my license,” the doctor said. He got up and closed his office door. Then he turned back toward John and the attorney. “But, of course, I can’t help it if someone accidentally trips over a cord, or flips a switch.”

John couldn’t believe what he was hearing. But his attorney didn’t seem surprised.

“She’s in no pain currently?” the attorney asked.

“No,” the doctor replied.

“So if any ‘accidents’ were to happen, she would go quickly and painlessly.”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Gage, do you understand what we are discussing here?”

John nodded. He understood all to well.

*****

Accidents did happen. John never found out how. He didn’t want to. The attorney flew back home. John stayed in a hotel close to the nursing home. He got the call a few days later.

A half-hour after the call, he stood looking at his mother as she lay in bed. He took her hand and kissed her cheek, feeling a flash of unreasonable anger when she didn’t respond. Then he left the room. The anger followed him into the hall, burning his eyes and throat.

He had made no funeral arrangements. With the death of Aunt Violet, her family was gone. He assumed Dad’s family wouldn’t be interested. His memory of Ojibwe funerals was hazy, except for the overriding impression of a lot of people and a lot of food. When the nurse accosted him in the hallway to ask about “your wishes,” he had no idea what to say. He’d never thought that far ahead.

“Can we cremate her?” He wasn’t sure the nurse was the person to be asking about this. But she was at hand. And with cremation, at least he had some time to figure out what to do about a funeral.

“Sure,” she said, seeming to understand his confusion. “Let’s go talk with the nursing home director.”

*****

Fond Du Lac, 1950

Once Johnny fell asleep on the porch while waiting for his dad to come home, and awoke hours later as the sun was peeking over the trees. A pick-up truck pulled up, spat Johnny’s father onto the driveway and drove off. As Johnny stretched the chill away, Dad sat next to him. The smell of nausea and cigarettes and beer was fresh on his father’s breath as he spoke.

“Where’s your mother?”

“Asleep. She messed up the stove again. We had butter and sugar sammitches for supper and then I wanted to wait for you. She didn’t say no I couldn’t, so I did. But you were so late.”

Dad shook his head. Six-year-old Johnny didn’t know why, but he figured it had to do with Mom being slow. That’s what it always was. Dad didn’t say anything else, so Johnny decided to take his chances.

“Tell me a story, Dad.”

And his father complied:

“One morning, as the sun was rising, he came to close too Earth and got tangled up in the top branches of a very tall tree. So, the dawn did not come. At first, all of the birds and animals did not notice. Some of them stayed asleep, thinking it was not yet time to get up. Other animals, like the panther and the owl, were really glad that it stayed dark, so they could continue to hunt. But, after a while, the birds and animals knew that something was wrong. They gathered together, in the dark, to hold a council.

‘Sun has gotten lost,’ said the eagle.

‘We must look for him,’ said the bear.

So, all of the birds and animals went out to look for Sun. But they couldn’t find him, not in caves, or in the deep forest, or on the mountains, or in the swamps.

Then a small brown squirrel had an idea. ‘Maybe Sun is caught in a tall tree,’ he said.

The little squirrel began to go from tree to tree. At last, in the top of a very tall tree, he saw the Sun. Sun's light was pale and he looked weak.

‘Help me, Little Brother,’ Sun said.

The small brown squirrel came close and began to chew at the branches in which the Sun was caught. The closer he came to Sun, the hotter it got. ‘I must stop now,’ said the squirrel. ‘My fur is burning. It's all turning black.’

‘Help me,’ said Sun. ‘Don't stop now.’

The little squirrel continued to work, but the heat of Sun was very hot now. ‘My tail is burning away,’ said the squirrel. ‘I can do no more.’

‘Help me,’ said Sun. ‘Soon I will be free.’

So, the small brown squirrel continued to chew. ‘I am growing blind,’ said the squirrel. ‘I must stop.’

‘Just a little more,’ said Sun. ‘I am almost free.’

Finally, the small brown squirrel chewed the last of the branches free. Sun broke free and rose up into the sky. Dawn spread across the land, and it was day again. All over the world, the birds and animals rejoiced.

But, the small brown squirrel was not happy. He was blinded by the brightness of Sun. His long tail had burned away and what fur he had left was now all black. His skin was stretched from the heat and he clung miserably to the top branches of that tall tree.

Up in the sky, Sun looked down and felt sorry for the small brown squirrel. It had suffered so much to save him. ‘Little Brother,’ Sun said. ‘You have helped me. Now, I will give you something. Is there anything that you have always wanted?’

‘I have always wanted to fly,’ said the small brown squirrel. ‘But I am blinded, now, and my tail is all burned away.’

Sun smiled. ‘Little Brother,’ he said, ‘from now on you will be an even better flyer than the birds. Because you came too close to me, my light will always be too bright for you, but you will see in the dark and you will hear everything around you as you fly. From this time on, you will sleep when I rise into the sky and when I say goodbye to the world each evening, you will wake.’

Then the small animal, which had once been a squirrel, dropped from the branch, spread its leathery wings and began to fly. He no longer missed his tail and his brown fur and he knew that when night came again, it would be his time. He could not look at Sun, but he held the joy of Sun in his heart. And so it was, long ago, that Sun showed his thanks to the small brown squirrel who was a squirrel no longer, but the first of the bats.”

Johnny giggled joyfully. “So bats are skirls?” he asked, his childish speech bringing a smile to his father’s face.

“Yes, bats are squirrels. The squirrel worked very hard to help the Sun shine, and didn’t expect anything in return. So the Sun was grateful and allowed the squirrel to shine in his own way, by becoming a bat.”

Johnny didn’t think it was a particularly fair trade-off. After all, bats were ugly and squinty and didn’t play outside in the daytime. He’d much rather be a squirrel.

*****

Carson, CA – April 1977

The flyer showed up in his locker one morning. It advertised a meeting for adult children of alcoholics. He crumpled it up and was preparing to toss it across the room into the garbage when Roy and Marco came in. Swiftly he changed his trajectory and flipped the paper into his locker before they noticed.

After roll call, as Cap drilled them on ventilation techniques, Johnny studied the faces of each of his co-workers for clues as to who had left the flyer in his locker. None of the faces gave up any secrets.

Later that day Johnny went to his locker to pull out a new shoelace. He saw the crumpled paper. He slowly unfolded it, smoothed out the wrinkles, and read it again. After committing it to memory, he once again crumpled it up. This time he hit the garbage can on the first throw.

It was a busy shift, and sleep was elusive. The next morning he went home and slept, waking up disoriented and grumpy around suppertime.

*****

John walked into the community center and encountered a sign stuck to the stairwell entrance: “Meeting.” An arrow pointed downward. The flyer had said the meeting was anonymous, but he hadn’t realized that would extend to signage, too. He headed downstairs. A dozen or so people milled around a coffee machine. Another handful sat in chairs that were set in a layered semi-circle. A group of smokers hovered over the only ashtray in the room. John pulled the Marlboros out of his shirt pocket and headed for the ashtray group.

He nodded at the group and lit a cigarette. Only then did he allow himself to relax enough to look around at the faces around him. All were men. A few were familiar to him. He didn’t meet their eyes, but instead continued scanning the room. Were all these people in the same boat he was? He found that a little hard to believe. The smokers didn’t seem all that troubled. They were chatting about the NFPA’s latest idiocy, which confirmed Johnny’s suspicion that many of the people at this meeting were firefighters.

He took a deep drag on his cigarette and took another look at the men sitting in chairs. Mike Stoker sat among them, reading a book. The cool cigarette smoke turned traitor, burning Johnny’s throat. He started having a coughing fit. The more he tried to suppress it, the more he coughed. He coughed harder, and heads turned. Johnny saw Mike lift his attention away from the book. Their eyes locked. Johnny regained control over his upper respiratory system and turned away from the engineer’s gaze.

“They said smoking would kill me some day,” Johnny said lightly to the people around him, eliciting chuckles from his fellow smokers. They went back to their conversation. Johnny’s mind raced.

Jesus. How did Mike know?

*****

For the next few weeks, Johnny went to meetings a couple days a week, as his shift schedule allowed. Sometimes Mike was there, sometimes he wasn’t. They never sat together; Johnny never spoke to his crewmate, and Mike never made a move to speak to him.

The meetings were eye-opening. As more and more people told stories of growing up with drunks for parents, Johnny realized he wasn’t alone. He admitted to himself some morbid curiosity about what brought Mike to the meetings. But the engineer wasn’t forthcoming.

He probably tells Brice, Johnny thought, in a fit of pique one night. He was irritable that particular evening. He was done listening. He was ready to talk. It wasn’t in his nature to stay still and quiet. But he couldn’t get up the nerve. Seeing Mike sitting there, silently nodding when another speaker related a life experience was just making matters worse.

Time to shit or get off the pot, he thought. He mentally set the next meeting as the time to share his tale. Then he prayed to God, the ghosts of his ancestors, and any other helpful deity that came to mind, that Mike would be gone that night.

*****

He barely listened to the people speaking. The Anishinaabeg expression Johnny’s mother had laboriously, and phonetically, embroidered onto a wall-hanging one summer echoed in his head: “Giishpin gekendaman gegoo geyaabi gig-bagidinaa awiya idash gaawiin giga-zegendaziin gegoo.”

‘The more you know, the more you will trust, and the less you will fear.’ It was a mantra against embarrassment as much as anything else. Then, it was his turn. He had already chosen a seat that guaranteed he wouldn’t see Mike’s face as he spoke. Johnny tentatively raised his hand, and the group leader acknowledged him.

“I’m John. My father was… is… an alcoholic.”

“Hi, John,” the group replied.

Johnny had to hold back a smirk. It was worse than a TV movie, all those earnest faces replying to his stuttered introduction. Back to business.

“He always drank,” John said. “Like a fish. My mom, she always said he smoked like a fish and drank like a chimney. But she had the right idea. He did both. A lot.”

The malapropism triggered some smiles in the group. OK, so far, so good, he thought.

“When I was younger, it wasn’t such a huge deal, ‘cuz he always kept the ranch going OK. I grew up in Minnesota. We had a ranch manager who lived down the road, and he and his wife always took care of me when Mom and Dad were having problems.”

He saw some questioning faces.

“Oh, not like marriage problems. Like Dad’s drinking problems. He’d be gone for a couple a days, and Mom… she was a little what you might call ‘slow.’ She took care of me, but sometimes she’d forget to cook, or I would need help cleaning my clothes, or once she flooded the bathroom, or something like that. Then Bob and Alyce – the ranch manager and his wife – would take care of me. They pretty much raised me. I’d stay over a few days until Dad sobered up and came home. Or if they weren’t around, I’d stay at my cousin Buck’s house.

“But, when I got older, it happened a lot more. And around the same time the reservation, the tribal business council, started getting on my dad’s case for having a ranch manager who was white. They didn’t tell him to do anything, like fire him or something like that. They just pressured him a lot. So, Bob quit eventually, ‘cuz he didn’t want to put up with that shit anymore… sorry, that crap anymore. And Dad was fucked. I mean screwed. Damn, I’m sorry about cussing….”

He felt the heat rise in his cheeks, as he wondered why now – of all times -- he couldn’t stop himself from sounding like a potty-mouthed child. But the smiles in the group told him he was forgiven.

“I was like 11 or 12 or something, and it was me and Dad and some part-timers running things ‘cuz a lot of the help left when Bob left. We weren’t raising or trading any stock anymore. Dad couldn’t get up early enough to take care of them. We were barely even keeping horses for the tourists, you know, the ones who want to take horseback riding trips along the Indian trails. ‘Cept they weren’t really Indian trails, but I never told them that… ruined the mystery for them.”

He smiled at the memory, and a low chuckle came from the group.

“One thing about Dad, though, was up ‘til then he never touched Mom or me. I don’t know if he got violent in town, where he’d go drink. But he never got violent at home. He worshipped Mom, when he was sober. He always told me what a good woman she was, how beautiful she was, how hard she tried to take care of us.

“Then, he got sick, something about walking pneumonia and his liver. Then, he really couldn’t do anything around the ranch, so that was that. We shut down the tourist stuff. It was me and Mom and Dad in this little house, with no horses or cattle or nothing. Anything, I mean.”

John shifted in his seat, readjusting his long legs and running his fingers through his hair. This was harder than he had thought it would be.

“Mom didn’t understand why we didn’t have money for things anymore. Dad never explained anything to her. He didn’t have the patience. I tried, but she’d always say something like, ‘Don’t worry, I’m your mother and I’ll take care of you.’ Except she couldn’t. It was always Dad and me taking care of her, and then after a while, just me. I’d cook for her, because she couldn’t ever get that damn stove to work right with the pilot light thingy. She’d break things and I’d fix them. She’d want something, and I’d go into town and get it. I’d get into Dad’s truck and drive into Cloquet or Sawyer, even though I was only 12. Back then, all us rez kids drove, so it wasn’t such a big deal… as long as we didn’t get caught. Plus, I couldn’t bring groceries home on the school bus; all the kids would laugh at me for other stuff anyway, and I didn’t need more misery.”

His voice was starting to crack, like he’d just eaten some smoke. He took a deep breath and forged ahead.

“Dad wasn’t supposed to be drinking anymore. But his friends picked him up one night, and he couldn’t say no -- I guess. He was gone for forever, or it felt like it anyway. Someone called a few nights later to say that Dad was sprawled on a sidewalk somewhere. Our phone never worked, ‘cuz Mom didn’t pay bills very well. But Dad always carried Bob’s phone number in his wallet, even after Bob left. Bob didn’t live there anymore, but we were leasing his house to another couple. It was our only income. Their car was broken down, but they got the phone call, ran down the road a piece and got me.

“I drove to where Dad was and started kicking at him to get up. I was still 12, remember, not exactly a paramedic yet,” he said, with a sheepish grin. The group smiled back.

“He was still on the sidewalk, awake-like but not really willing to walk into the truck. I couldn’t lift him. I was yelling at his buddies to help me out, and finally a couple of ‘em got off their drunken asses and helped me out. We dumped Dad into the bed of the pick-up, and I took him home.” Anger suddenly rose in his voice. It embarrassed and surprised him, but he couldn’t stop the words that came out next: “I shouldn’t have taken him home. I should have left him there to rot.”

He took another deep breath. The group leader looked at him questioningly and opened his mouth to intervene.

Johnny waved him off. “No, I gotta get through the whole story, or I won’t. Ya know?” The group leader nodded.

“Anyway, we got home OK. I guess the ride woke him up a bit more. He was all ticked off and raging, like I’d never seen before. He was standing in the truck bed, swaying and stumbling like anything, screaming his head off at me for taking him home. I was screaming back at him, all kinds of stuff -- stuff you’d imagine a pissed-off 12-year-old saying. He just got madder and madder, and I yelled more and more. Then he bent down and picked up something from the truck bed. An old piece of cast-iron pipe, left over I think from when he and Bob had re-done the drainage in the stables.

“He… he swung it at me. I ducked, even though I knew he was nowhere near my head, with him being so high up in the truck. He probably just meant to scare me. But I didn’t know… Mom had come out to see what all the yelling was about...”

*****

“What happening? Hva?” his mother asked in an English-Norwegian mishmash, as she stood in her nightgown at the door. She walked toward the man and boy as they argued. “John. Johnny. Aaniish gaa kida yek? What happening?”

Dad reached down and grabbed something. He took a swing. Johnny ducked, yelling at his mother as he did so, “Mama, get out of the way!”

She didn’t.  He realized later that he had yelled his warning to her in English -- not that her reaction time would have been fast enough anyway.  That noise she made hitting the ground… for the rest of his life, that noise would remind him of the sound a pile of laundry makes when it hits the basement stairs.

*****

He had to stop. Damned if he was going to cry now, in front of all them. He didn’t care how understanding they were. He had to work with some of these people. Especially Mike. No way was he gonna cry. He shook off a few comforting hands and opened his mouth to speak again.

“She kept asking us what was happening, what we were talking about. She just didn’t understand.” He took another breath.

“It hit her in the head,” he said, his voice strained but strong. “It missed me. It hit her in the head. I… just remember the sound she made hitting the ground. She didn’t say anything, just dropped.”

The group gasped. The leader asked. “And she died?” “

No,” John answered. He looked down at his hands, and started absently picking at a scab. “She didn’t die. Our neighbors called the cops when they heard all the yelling. They took Dad off to jail and Mom off to the hospital. Her head was all squashed in. There was cerebral cortex injury, as well as some brain stem involvement… he hit her that hard. She ended up in a nursing home, a vegetable. I went to stay with Buck. Dad was in prison for a long time. He’s out now. I think he’s living in Wisconsin somewhere; I don’t keep track of him. My aunt, Mom’s sister, before she died she used to hear stuff through the grapevine about him. But I didn’t care to keep up, you know what I mean?”

The scab came off, and Johnny’s knuckle began to bleed. He pushed the back of his hand against his jeans, and continued with the story.

“Mom died a couple months back. That’s a story in itself.  Maybe for next time. I hadn’t seen her for a long time before she died. I used to go with my aunt. But Mom didn’t know I was there, so there wasn’t much point. Although I guess that since she was so out of it, at least she couldn’t really blame me for screwing up so much.

“But the thing is,” he continued after a slight pause, “I don’t hate him. He wasn’t a half bad dad, most of the time. He treated us good -- except for the obvious.”

He was exhausted. His chin sunk onto his chest. The group leader called for a break, but John barely heard him.

*****

Ever since he had begun attending meetings, Johnny and Mike had circled each other like wary boxers. But the next few shifts after his big breakthrough (as the group leader had called it), Johnny crossed the line from wariness to avoidance. It didn’t seem to bother Mike much. But then again, Mike so hard to read, Johnny wasn’t 100 percent sure about that.

The avoidance tactic failed one morning, however, when Johnny was sneaking in a shave after roll call, and Mike had stopped by his locker to retrieve a book. Johnny bowed to the inevitable.

“Um, Mike?”

“Yes, John?” Stoker looked equally uncomfortable. He held his book like a shield. Johnny forged ahead.

“About the other night… I know this stuff is private, the stuff in meetings. It’s no big deal that you were there, but… “ he started.

“It stayed there,” Mike said, with a look on his face that was both angry and embarrassed.

“Huh?”

"What you said, it stayed there. In the meetings, we are both sons of alcoholics. Outside the meetings, we are both firefighters. Don’t forget that.” Mike strode out of the room, nearly knocking over Chet, who was coming from the opposite direction.

“How’d you piss off Mikey, Gage? He doesn’t look too happy.”

“Shut up, Chet,” Johnny said almost reflexively. He wiped some stray shaving cream from his earlobes and left the room.

*****

Later that month, John took some vacation time and brought his mother’s ashes to the St. Louis River, not far from the boat dock where he’d mashed his toe so many years ago. The nail had never grown back. His cousin’s little house was gone now, replaced by upscale fishing cabins. But this was the tail-end of the off-season, and John had the riverbank to himself. He opened the urn and scattered the ashes on the water. Somehow that didn’t seem solemn enough, though.

“Sorry, Mom,” he muttered. “I’m not too good at this stuff.” He remembered a prayer that his mother used to say in the mornings, when exuberance was still her most endearing trait:

“Miigwetch Nmishoomis

ogii bi waase aazheyin nongom.

Miigwetch ndikid nongom gii zhigak, weweni ji mino gnawaabmag ngwii ji bimaadis,

miinwa weweni ji gnoonag.

Miigwetch giiye shkikimi kwe ogii miizhiyaang maadizowin, ogii miizhiyaang miijim,

ogii miizhiyaang nbiish, ogii miizhiyaang wesiinhyig miinwa ogii miizhiyaang nesewin.

Semaa nbaagdina Giiwedinong, Waabanong, Zhaawanong miinwa Epingishmak.

Naadmooshin ji mshkoogaabwiyaan miinwa ji zoongde'ehyaan.

Miigwetch Nmisoomis.”

“Thank you Grandfather sun for shining on us today.

I say thank you for this day, that I will look upon everyone and that I will talk to everyone in a good way.

Thank you to Mother earth for giving us life, for giving us food, for giving us water, for

giving us the animals and for the air that we breathe.

I offer my tobacco to the four directions, North, South, East and West. Help me to be able to stand strong and to have a strong heart.

Thank you Grandfather sun.”

His cigarettes were back in his hotel room, but he figured the spirits would understand his intent. He watched as she floated downriver, where the sun threw sparkles of silver and gold upon the water. He had finally given her the chance to shine.

The End

A few notes:

*-Anishinaabe is what northern Minnesota Ojibwe call their culture and language. Ojibwe in Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Canada, etc. use slightly different phrasing, wording, etc. Oh, and “Dibaajimowin” is the Ojibwe word for “story”. Sounded cooler before you knew that, didn’t it?

*-Thanks to MJ for originally housing this story on Junior’s Journals. Thanks Rose for the beta read. Thanks Rose, Linda and a few others I can’t remember for forcing me to take on Gage angst. I’ll never do it again. Thanks to Art for the Ojibwe editing and stories. I am not a Native American, although I did grow up in northern Minnesota near the Fond du Lac Reservation, and any mistakes are mine alone.