Sourmouth (25 page)

To the back of the restaurant was the fully stocked
bar complete with stools and counter. It was the spot that seemed to be the
most active. The working area was dimly lit, with a tangle of small Christmas
lights strewn above the bar countertop and a few searchlights in the corners of
the walls covered by thin yellow satin-line cloths that dulled the light and
prevented it from blinding the customers. Strangely the management didn’t see
the need for the customers to see their food or even let the workers see what
they were doing.

             
The bartender was a portly native man in his 40’s and didn’t look the type to
know the names of any of his customers. He certainly wasn’t the man to gripe to
about the problems of your life over a tall can. There weren’t more than ten
patrons in the bar, few of them doing more than slinking over their mugs of
beer.

             
“Table for two?” asked a young girl no older than 18 at the front of the
restaurant. She was pretty for her age, tall and lean but with the chubby
cheeks she sported she was still clearly going through puberty. She was attired
in a black and white uniform with the joint’s name emblazoned on the sides
which made her look sort of like an advertisement on a telephone poll with
posters plastered on it.

             
“Actually, we’ve got a reservation for three under the
Tylers
,”
Violet spoke up.

             
It was just when the waitress began searching through a paper that she had on
her lectern that Riley realized that they never did actually make the
reservation.    

             
“Sorry,” he started awkwardly, his hand suddenly in front of him without a place
to go that didn’t feel entirely like the wrong choice, “We don’t have a
reservation. We were supposed to and then never bothered to make it”.

             
Violet turned towards her husband and shot him an eyebrow.

             
The waitress tittered from behind her hand. She almost teasingly looked over
her shoulder at the almost barren restaurant for a moment before directing her
attention back to the duo.

             
“It’s fine. We’ve got room. Since nobody else has come in looking for a reservation
that isn’t here, I’m assuming you’ll be awaiting another party?” inquired the
girl. 

             
“Yes, a young man,” he answered.

             
The girl grabbed two menus and led the couple into the eatery portion of the
bar.

             
The waitress seated the couple near the back of the rather sparsely inhabited
restaurant section. The only other person around them was a small Asian man
eating a large bowl of soup on his lonesome.

             
“No wonder she had room for us,” Riley cracked as he opened up his menu.

             
Violet was already nose deep looking for what she wanted to order. Until they
sat down she didn’t even realize that she was hungry. But once the idea of real
food entered her mind, there was no turning back to granola and plastic wrapped
sandwiches.

             
“Do you think he’s going to show on time?” Riley asked as he spotted the large
Salvador Dali inspired clock pinned to the wall which gave their new friend
approximately ten minutes to arrive.

             
“He’s travelling from Vancouver. If he’s late, it’s understandable. Besides,
he’s doing us a
favour
, remember? Not the other way
around,” she answered as she noted the few things to order that sounded good.

             
“I suppose. But he did seem pretty eager to discuss
Sourmouth
.
I’m guessing that he wants to know what we know, so I hope that desire gets him
here on time. I kind of want to get this stuff sorted as soon as possible”.

             
Violet’s mouth was practically watering at some of the descriptions of the
food, Virginia Honey Ham with Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Smoked Turkey Breast with
Oven Roasted Corn on the Cob, Canadian Bacon Sloppy Joes. Either she was
starving or she was choosing to focus her mind on a happier topic.

             
“For a rat hole this place looks to have amazing food. How in the world is it
not stacked with customers? What are you having to eat?” she asked, slightly
raising her head from behind her menu.

             
It was the first time that Riley noticed how bloodshot his wife’s eyes were. He
wondered if his were the same. Either way he knew that she was exhausted and
didn’t seem to want to dwell on the subject of
Sourmouth
if she could avoid it, even if only for ten minutes.

             
“I don’t know,
hun
; I haven’t really looked yet. Have
you spotted anything worth getting?”

             
“Knowing you? Just get yourself some pie and don’t even bother with the human
food. I assume that this place has to have some pretty good pie if it’s called
the Pie Company”.

             
“You know me all too well,” he admitted as he flipped to the dessert section
which seemed to be of equal length to the
entrees.             

             
“I was thinking.
T
situsem
mentioned that this was his
favourite
place on the island, right? And he’s spent a lot of time here speaking to the
locals to gather information. It would be logical that some of the regulars
here might know him,” Violet thought aloud.

             
“You want to just start asking people whether or not they know him? What would
that accomplish?”

             
“We don’t know anything about this man. It might be nice to know whether or not
he’s a credible source of information,” she explained.

             
“He’s our only source of information”.

             
“That’s why this is so important. We are putting all of our sheep in this one
basket and it might be a basket full of wolves”.

             
Riley leaned back in his chair and covered his face with his menu, “You’re
finally losing it”.

             
Violet didn’t bother replying to her husband’s doubts as she rose from her
seat. She stepped off towards the crowded bar on her own, leaving Riley to
quietly scan the menu in embarrassment.

             
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked as he wiped down a big glass with a
dirty looking towel.

             
“I honestly don’t know what to get. I’m not from around these parts. Something
Canadian?” Violet asked as she eyed the rows of alcohol behind the man.

             
The barman sucked the air in like he was running out of it, “Beer, spirits or
wine?”

             
“What’s your suggestion?” she asked politely.

             
“...We don’t have wine,” he said deadpan.

             
At first Violet assumed he was making a joke after offering wine, but his
straight-faced delivery made her think that he was either serious about it or
would be a king at the poker table.

             
“Two beers will do,” she answered as he stepped away to grab them from a
standing freezer.

             
Violet looked over across the bar and saw that her husband had gotten up and
was now toying around with the music player, checking out the selection of
records that sat in rows inside the glowing green glass.

             
The bartender returned to the counter and plopped down two brown beer bottles
with red and white labels.

             
“$8.50,” he said in a way that almost sounded like he was annoyed to be making
money.

             
Violet reached into her pants pocket and pulled out her wallet, fishing out a
local ten dollar bill and motioning for him to keep the change.

             
“Can I ask you something?” she asked as she picked up both beers by their necks
with one hand.

             
“’Pends on the question,” he answered as he leered at one of the other men
sitting at the bar who was loudly sucking his beer through a straw.

             
“My husband and I are looking for a man,” she started.

             
“The men don’t typically go for that kinky shit ‘round these parts,” he interrupted
as his eyes switched back towards her.

             
The man sucking his drink turned his attention to her as well, awkwardly eyeing
her from her feet upwards before landing obnoxiously on her chest.

             
Violet’s head gave an involuntary twist as she turned away from the creepy
staring, “What? No. I mean, we’re looking to speak to someone about local
history. We were told that there was a man named
T
sit
usem
that hangs around in here that might be able to help us out. I was wondering if
you knew anything about him”.

             
“Local history...
T
sit
usem
” the man said rhetorically as he leaned
his head back to think, “I can’t say I know anything about those”.

             
“Nothing at all? You’ve never heard of that name? Or have any interesting
stories to tell?” she asked surprised, knowing full well he was just trying to
get rid of her.

             
“I just said I didn’t, didn’t I? Unless you’re buying another drink, I suggest
you go back to your pervert husband,” he said irritated. 

Without
bothering to say goodbye she retreated with the drinks back towards her
partner. Riley was still toying around with the jukebox when his wife
approached with the beers.

             
“They have a pretty good selection of Billie Holiday here. I
kinda
want to smash the glass and take the records home
with us,” he said grinning wildly as she handed him his drink.

             
“I’d like to not end up in jail, thank you. I’m sure that Canadian jails are
much nicer than ones in Mexico, but I don’t want to be the one to find out,”
she said before taking a sip of her beer.

             
Riley turned away from the machine to his wife, “You find out anything
interesting?”

             
Violet shook her head in defeat.

             
“You didn’t find out anything? He doesn’t know the guy or wouldn’t tell you?”
Riley asked.

             
“I don’t know,” she answered plainly without further
explanation,             
her eyes widening as she drank.

             
Riley cleared his throat, “What did you and the barman talk about then?”

             
Violet shrugged, “Kinky shit?”

             
“Don’t even want to know...” he said with a laugh as he walked back towards
their table.

             
It wasn’t a few minutes of looking through their menus in silence before they
got who they were waiting for.

             
“Hello there,” said a voice from above that neither Tyler was properly prepared
for.

             
Standing flanked by the waitress stood a young native man, slight in stature,
well dressed in a dark blue two piece suit and a grey dress shirt. Attention
couldn’t help but be drawn to the small brown folder in this hand as the shine
on his silver watch nearby caught the eye like a strobe light. His face was completely
shaven and slim to the cheeks which emphasized his already extremely high
cheekbones. His hair was perfectly cropped to the last follicle, slicked back
with incredibly expensive gel. Even only visually the
Tylers
could tell that
Tsitusem
was the metrosexual type who
was very appearance-oriented and looked like he was prepared for a photo shoot
rather than a casual lunch.

             
“I would guess that you’re ‘Tee-sit-uh-
sem
’?” Violet
tried to sound out as she stood and shook the man’s hand.

             
He cleared his throat to try and suppress a chuckle, clearly amused by her
attempt.

             
“You may call me Too-
sem
” he enunciated, “It is much
easier to pronounce”.

The student took a seat opposite the couple and began
to spread out his papers on the tabletop as if he was at his desk at
home.   

             
“I’m Riley, this is my wife Violet”.

             
“It is a pleasure to meet you both. I hope that
Iam
not late to our meeting”.

             
Violet grinned, “You’re right on time, which I imagine you are already well
aware of with that dazzling watch of yours”.

             
Tusem
nodded admittedly, “I was merely attempting
small talk. People are incredibly impatient at the best of times. In my
experience, even if
youare
early, if the other
persons are earlier than you they are often silent in their resentment that you
kept them waiting. I find that drawing attention to the fact that you are
exactly there when expected negates what they perceive as their right to be
upset”.

             
“You’ve put a lot of thought to that,” Riley said as he tried to read some of
the papers that lay upside down in front of him.

             
“Mr. Tyler, I put a lot of thought into everything”.

             
The young waitress stepped up to their table, eyeing the collection of
documents.

             
“Can I get you guys anything to eat or are you just here using our tables?” she
asked with a well-mannered grin.

             
Violet couldn’t tell if that was the girl was actually trying to act passive-aggressive
or if it was purely her attempt at
humour
.

             
“I’ll take a green tea, the spicy spaghetti and meatballs with a side of Sour
Cherry & Swiss Apple pie,”
Tusem
ordered without
even needing to look at a menu; a fluency that comes from ordering the same
thing time and time again. 

             
Riley’s eyes bugged out wide as he was put on the spot, without any real idea
of what he wanted.

             
“Do you need a suggestion?” asked the young student as he reordered a few of
his papers on the table.

             
“It couldn’t hurt. I’m not sure if I want real hot food or if I just want to be
a pig and eat only desserts,” he explained sheepishly.

             
Tusem
nodded, “If it is desserts you want the Key
Lime & Coconut and the Peanut Butter & Jam pies are sublime here,
second only to the cherry & apple combo if I say so myself. The hot stuff
is serviceable if you’re drunk, but you don’t call yourself the Pie Company for
the burgers”.

             
“That’s what I said,” Violet mentioned as she closed her own menu.

             
Riley made a hand motion that was supposed to convey his acceptance of the
order, but the waitress didn’t seem to understand the gesture.

             
“I’ll take what he said,” Riley clarified.

             
“And you, Miss?” the waitress asked Violet.

             
“I’ll take the Canadian Bacon Sloppy Joes. I might as well go as local as I can
while I’m here”.

             
The young girl nodded with a smile and walked off towards the kitchen.

             
Tsitusem
cleared his throat politely to draw
attention, “Now that we have done what is needed to appease our appetites,
might we work on appeasing my curiosity?”

             
“Where to begin?” Riley asked rhetorically as he leaned forward, pulling at one
of the pages with his index finger.

             
The young man reached out and stopped the paper with two of his fingers and
pulled it back into place.

             
The three sat inaudibly as the waitress returned to the table with a platter of
drinks, dropping off the young man’s tea and two glasses of water for the
Tylers
. When she departed
Tusem
was able to continue his inquest.  

             
“You can start by telling me why you’re looking into the
Sourmouth
legend. It is a rather obscure portion of the Squamish people’s beliefs. I find
it odd that tourists are so intrigued that they go out of their way to contact
someone like me for answers. Your time must be better spent biking through the
woods to catch sight of a deer or golfing on the back nine holes?”

             
“I’m a shit golfer,” Riley answered simply.

             
While he was appreciative of
Tsitusem’s
willingness
to help them, Riley couldn’t help but be annoyed by the man’s abruptness. But
in fear of scaring him off and losing what information that they might be able
to glean from him he kept his feelings to
himself.             

             
“Before we go into why we want to know about it, perhaps it would be possible
to hear what you have on it? It’s a bit touchy of a subject, and honestly we
wouldn’t want you to run off because you think that we’re crazy,” Violet
explained with a pained facial expression.

             
The man shook his head and made an annoyed facial expression. For a moment it
looked like he was ready to collect his belongings and leave. It would have
been awkward when the waitress returned with his food and he wasn’t there
anymore.

             
“I can assure you that I am not just going to leave based on whatever it is
that you tell me,” he tried to guarantee.

             
“Please. Indulge us?” Violet pleaded with her best puppy dog eyes.

             
Riley was a bit cross that she was pulling out the girly tricks. Perhaps a bit
jealous. He wasn’t sure if
Tusem
was straight or gay,
but he was handsome in a feminine male-model way. And while he didn’t think his
wife went for that sort of thing, he couldn’t help but picture his flabby old
body and feel inadequate by comparison.

             
“What do you want to know?” he asked as he picked up the first two pages of his
collection.

             
“I don’t know. What do you have?” she solicited openly. 
             

             
“I have what you already know about the Wolf Star and all of that lore. And I
have something about ‘powerful words’,” he explained as he scanned his notes.

             
“We know all that,” Riley said, the impatience in his voice not very well
hidden.

             
Tusem
shrugged as he looked through his papers,
trying to find something worth mentioning.

             
“I assume you know how
Sourmouth
came to being?”

             
Violet nodded, “Yeah, the whole trying to protect his family from the wolves.
We’ve already been told by Island Bill”.

             
Tsitusem’s
face changed abruptly in confusion as he
plucked out a paper from his pile.

             
“From the wolves you say? I do not have anything that mentions it fighting off
any wolves”.

             
“What do you have then?” Riley asked intrigued.

Tsitusem
looked at them
grimly, “I cannot say one way or another what other people have told you. But I
can tell you about what I have been told by one of the elders of the tribe.
Unfortunately he has passed on now so I am unable to follow up. But the one
thing that he was unabashed about in his story is that
Sourmouth
was no protector. At least, not in the traditional heroic sense of the word”.

He sat back and took a long sip of his tea before
continuing, “In the early 1700’s, Spanish voyagers would sometimes find
themselves visiting the islands of British Columbia, exploring as they would be
prone to do at the time. However on one fateful day, one small ship with a crew
no larger than a dozen found themselves on what would one day become Bowen
Island. This crew, it was not a crew of noble people who took to the high seas
to pacify their sense of adventure. These were people who set forth with the
intent to pillage whatever they could find. This crew landed and immediately
took to their dastardly actions, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that if
there were stars in the skies, they did not have good intentions for what had
been created below in their
honour
”.

Tsitusem
stopped to run his
finger around the rim of his cup as he apparently contemplated stopping.

“Part of me is convinced that
Sourmouth
is just another legend told to children around the fires late at night. I like
to think that I’m a sensible person and base my thoughts on science. But I,
like many others of my people, have heard the stories about the wolf spirit and
don’t want to entice it to pay me any attention in the off chance that it isn’t
just a fable. But looking at the faces of the two dolts across from me, I doubt
that you are going to ever find what little answers I could provide. And if we
are being realistic, certainly
Sourmouth
can be
nothing more than a story. Right?”

Riley could tell that the young man was trying to
convince himself of something that Riley knew wasn’t true. Self-servingly he
kept his mouth shut.

Tusem
abruptly began to
share what he knew, “In a single night the crew burned all of the native
villages they could find for nothing more than their sick entertainment, to
watch the flames lick at the night sky. They slaughtered all of the men that
they could catch so that there was no one left to fight back, even if it would
only be with spears and arrows. Some of the men escaped to the darkness of the
woods and would return long after the crew departed, only to find their homes
in ruin. The crew would go on to ravish both the women and the children without
any concern to the hollow husks they left in their wake or whether their seed
would spawn bastard children. The children born from this tragedy would then
have their throats slit by the surviving village elders upon birth as to not
infect what remained of the tribe with the evils of their fathers”.

Violet made a small gasping sound to even her
surprise. For some reason the thought of what happened to the babies hit her
particularly hard. Perhaps it was the mothering instinct she never got to
express. She had once been contemplating having children with her husband, only
for things to fall apart before they even got close to discussing the matter.

“This crew nearly extinguished an entire island for
the mere fun of it, for the pleasure of it. It was not until the intervention
of the Wolf Star did it stop. The Wolf in his imminent rage cast down a curse
onto the ship captain, who swiftly became more than just a man, more than the
evil that he had once been. This captain of Spanish heritage would become a
wolf-man of godly lineage. He would become nothing but a tool, a weapon to the
Wolf Star. With as much haste as the crew devastated the island, the wolf-man
ripped apart his former company. Limbs were torn asunder; heads cleaved
straight off with nothing more than a claw. By the time of the morning dawn,
there was nothing left of the Spaniard crew but an empty ship, piles of
decomposing corpses and pools of their filthy blood between them. The wolf-man
would then vanish as quickly as he went to work, never to be seen by the
surviving natives again. Over the coming century there would be other visitors,
Spanish coming to locate their missing friends, English searching for new land.
And each time they would be warded off, sometimes with nothing more than a
whisper in the wind and other times with the slash of an unseen claw. It was
not until settlers found a more...diplomatic way to work with the natives did
the wolf-man finally sleep”.

Riley tensed up slightly as he mentioned, “So the
captain was able to rape and murder and his punishment was to become an animal
god who then got to just...rest? That doesn’t sound like he had to endure much
of a penalty to me”.

Tsitusem
shook his head as
he took another sip of his tea, “Although the Wolf Star imbued impossible
strength to the Spaniard, it was not as a blessing. The wolf-man is cursed to
spend all eternity in physical agony, tortured for his crimes. His bones, every
single one in his body, are said to break every night into millions of little
pieces, only to fuse back together piece by piece. His skin is said to burn as
if he were on fire, causing him to howl into the night in pain. When I say
‘sleep’ I don’t mean in our sense, like he slumbers in front of the haze of
late night television. He merely is absent a mission. The wolf-man never gets
to sleep or to even rest his eyes, as every time he tries he is struck with all
of the memories and feelings of those who he caused to suffer. It is said that
the man-wolf has gone quite mad. The Wolf Star and its weapon still keep an
ever watching eye on this island. Although they do not have any invaders to
ward off, they still like to keep their presence known from time to time. Even
if it’s only an eerie howl in the cold winter wind...” 

             
Riley looked over to his wife who looked on the verge of vomiting on the papers
before her. She was unmistakably disturbed by the news of
Sourmouth’s
more violent history. He didn’t want to leave her thinking that
Tusem’s
version of the story was the definitive account of
the truth, if the truth was even known.

             
“That’s quite the tale. Though, you have no idea if it’s actually true, right?
This is just another story that we’ve heard. The hook man escapes from prison.
The hook man is released from the asylum. The narrative changes from person to
person to fit the situation,” Riley stated, his voice increasing in pace and baritone
as the sentences went on.   

             
Tusem
forced a smile on his face and he shuffled his
papers into a neat pile.

             
“Of course. I made no illusions as to this being the truth. This is simply what
I was told when I requested stories from the elders. And if I might remind you,
that you in turn requested this from me. I would appreciate it if you did not
respond with such incredulity”.

             
Violet could see the tensions rising between the two men. And although she
wanted to support her husband in the matter, she also saw value in the young
man who knew far more about the creature and the community than they did.