Take Us to Your Chief (13 page)

“I didn't like where things wer
e going.”

Again, the boy tried to coalesce his exploding thoughts. “But how long…? Whe
n did…?”

Normally, the boy wasn't verbose. He would get away with as little conversation as he could. But that wasn't the reason he was currently struggling to speak. He fought for the right word to explain what he was trying to express. Then it came to him, though without the necessary grammar or sentenc
e structure.

“Consciousness.”

The word had popped into his head, from where he wasn't sure. It wasn't the kind of word used frequently in teenag
e conversations.

Mr. Gizmo had an answer. “I have always been… conscious, as you put it. Just like you are. Just like your grandfather. Just like your bed. You
r bike.”

There was so much wrong with that sentence, the boy didn't know where t
o begin.

“You can't be talking. Am I… am I… crazy?”

Mr. Gizmo, somehow, shrugged his little plastic shoulders. “Well, that's for a toy much more knowledgeable than I am to decide. But enough about me. Let's talk abou
t you.”

It seemed his childhood toy wanted to have a detailed and comprehensive discussion with him—about him. Once again, this couldn't be good. His response consisted of a hearty and fearful swallow. Then he managed, “I don't want to talk abou
t me.”

“Yeah, but we're going to. Look, I broke protocols to talk to you. At the very least you could be a little more receptive. And grateful. Geez, I bet the Impatient One didn't give the trees this much grief when they showed him the way through the mountains. Or when that carving introduced itself to the Impatient One, who then turned around and adopted it as a brother. At least that carving wasn't s
o snotty.”

Like a drowning man grabbing at a life preserver, the boy suddenly had a frame of reference, albeit one less concrete than he might have preferred. He'd heard that unusual name before, and the references to helpful trees and a carving coming to life tickled the back of his memory. These were stories—fabulous, incredible ones—his grandfather had told him that came from the Kwakwaka'wakw people. His people. What this had to do with a cheap plastic toy named Mr. Gizmo eluded him, though.

“But those are just… just… legends.”

“So were the Trojan War and Vikings hanging out on the East Coast. Doesn't mean they're not true. The Impatient One's carving? Distant cousin of mine. Those trees? I knew a gazebo who knew a stump who used to date one of thos
e trees.”

More of the traditional tales were slowly coming back, surfacing above the sea of confusion swirling around in the boy's head. He'd listened to them when he was very young, and then again when he was older, relishing their detail and his grandfather's ability to make them feel real. These were stories of the West Coast that had sprung from the mountains and the sea and were first told way back in the epoch known as Time Immemorial. Starring Raven and a plethora of other amazing characters, who until now the boy had relegated to the same status as Santa Claus an
d Superman.

“Now look, dude, I'm sorry for interrupting your little depression fest here, but I did not like where your interest in that gun was going, and I figured I had to say something. There's been a lot of talk among us about this lately, about where you young people have been going these days. Years, actually. Yeah, ever since the People of Pallor—that's what we call them—arrived, things have been kind of tough for your people. Actually, all First Nations people. Sort of a hangover of the colonized. We call it
PCSD
—post-contact stress disorder. But, buddy, enough i
s enough.”

“What… what do you… what do you mean, ‘There's been a lot of talk'? B
y who?”

“Us. The things in your life. The things in all Native people's lives. Am I right, or am
I right?”

The light on the boy's desk clicked on and off. So did the radio. One of his graphic novels opened a page, and the pillow on his bed seemed to b
e breathing.

The room around him had been his sanctuary. A fortress where he could contemplate his place in the world and feel reasonably secure. All those years of confident refuge now went flying out the window, which had conveniently just opene
d itself.

Mr. Gizmo still commanded the floor, or in this particular case, the shelf. “This has got to stop. You were going to kill yourself, weren't you? Or at least you were thinking about it. Come on, admit it. We all sa
w you.”

The amazement he had been feeling, freshly tinged with a healthy dollop of fear, was now replaced by embarrassed surprise intermingled with a substantial dose o
f shame.

Shaking his head, he muttered, “No, no.
I was…”

“Oh, be quiet. We know you better than you know yourself. You were playing with that gun more than you play wit
h yourself.”

That substantial dose of shame suddenly became a flood. They had indeed been watchin
g him.

Down the hall, face down on the bed, his grandfather snorted twice, enveloped in a deep intoxicated sleep. If only the old man could be in this room right now, thought the boy. Maybe then there would be answers to the multitude of unasked questions currently crowding the boy's brain. His mother's father had been a treasure trove of cultural facts. Unfortunately, the boy could only remember bits and pieces of what the old man had taught him over the years. Still, above everything else was the Kwakwaka'wakw belief that all things were alive… Actually, “alive” might not be the correct word. Everything had a spirit… Again, that didn't sound right. It was something about everything in Creation being animate—having a will, an intelligence, a state of being. Kwakwaka'wakw stories were replete with tales of objects come to life. If there was a need or a reason, or more specifically, if they wante
d to.

“Quit denying it. You were going to kill yourself. What an absolute waste of time and energy. And life. You think life is that depressing? Trust me, that kind of death is even more depressing. Add to that the fact you think the best way to deal with all this is to repaint your grandfather's wall with your brains… Excuse me, but I'm having trouble seeing th
e logic.”

“You don'
t know—”

Before the boy could finish his sentence, the robot interrupted with a rude beep and a flashin
g light.

“
I
don't know? Really? You think I don't know? You forget, my morose little friend, I was not born on the date of manufacture printed on my butt. I have been around since the days when Raven used to crash all the parties. I just live here now and go by the name Mr. Gizmo. So, thanks to the passing millenniums, I know a fe
w things.”

A sudden thought occurred to the boy. He could just leave. Walk out the door. Leave all this behind and return to a place where the rational laws of reality still operated. Many things in the universe were beyond his understanding—he was bright enough to acknowledge this—and this was definitely one of them. Everything happening now, here, was not normal, and he was rapidly discovering he was a big fan of normal. Normal had become a lot more important and appealing than it had been just five minutes ago. But the doorknob refused to turn, and as a result, the door would not open, despite his furiou
s tugging.

“Have you met my friend the door? We have… a
n arrangement.”

The boy was getting frustrated. He was being thwarted by a cheap, mass-produced toy manufactured in some far-of
f land.

“You can't hold me prisoner. I hav
e rights.”

If a quasi-mechanical coughing sound could be called laughter, the robot had just chuckled loudly. Mr. Gizmo's arm rose, pointing at the boy. “You don't even know what that means. Besides, you were gonna kill yourself, and to the best of my knowledge, dead bodies don't have a lot of rights. So given the choice between a locked door and lying on the floor, staining your grandmother's lovely carpet—which, by the way, is not looking forward to that—I think this is the safes
t option.”

Trapped. The boy knew it. Someday, far in the future, if he survived this exceedingly bizarre encounter, he would look back on the events of today and… well, he had no idea what he would feel or think. True, it takes a certain amount of time and reflection to figure out the complexities of any given situation. And in this particular case, a little therapy might also be required. Still, there were other avenues for the boy to take in search o
f deliverance.

“I won't do it. I promise. I'll put the gu
n back.”

He wasn't lying. He would do that if the talking robot would let him. Anything, including staying alive, had to be better than being held hostage by a children'
s toy.

What's even worse than being held hostage by a children's toy? Being lectured to by that sam
e toy.

“Did you know suicide doesn't really solve a heck of a lot? Only those who live forever can really understand that. You might think it's an end to everything that is bothering you. The pain. The misery. All gone in a final act of desperation. But it just transfers the pain, passes it off to othe
r people.”

This was all becoming too much for the boy. A talking toy robot that claimed to be a Kwakwaka'wakw spirit lecturing him on menta
l health.

“How the hell do you kno
w that?”

“Your laptop is my best friend, so we talk. Suicide is really just a permanent solution to a temporary problem. One of the benefits and curses of being eternal is witnessing the history of a people pass by. I was here, in a different form, when the first of the Colour Challenged—that's another thing we call them—landed on these shores. I was here during the epidemics. I was here when the reserves and residential schools were set up. I saw entire generations of your people… shit on. And they survived. And now, you're shitting on yourselves. And you know, after a few hundred years it's gotten kind of annoying. A noble, proud, strong people chopping away at their own legs. Until now, it's been these Pigment Denied People—we also call them that—doing their best to weaken Native people by targeting the youth. Now it seems Native youth are targeting themselves. There comes a time when even toy robots have to stand up and say, ‘This has just got t
o stop.
'
”

Everything that could make a sound in the room made a sound. It was a cacophony of agreement from a variety of inanimate objects, though as the boy had found out, “inanimate” was no longer the correct word for things in the Indigenou
s world.

Once at the top of the food and technology chain, the boy now realized he was definitely at the bottom of the power paradigm that currently existed in his bedroom. In fact, he was finding it difficult to argue his position. How often does a teenager get asked to validate his choice to decrease, however minimally, the Aboriginal population of his community and of Canada? No defence, no rationalization, no justification miraculously sprang to the boy's lips. So, he sai
d nothing.

But the robot would have none of that. It was talking, and it wanted to be talked to. “So, you gonna say anything or stand there like a bump on a log? Which by the way is a stupid saying 'cause most of the log bumps I know are quit
e opinionated.”

The boy opened his mouth, then closed i
t again.

“Come on. Anything this monumental in your life must have taken loads and loads of consideration. Serious and deep thought. Share with us you
r rationale.”

The whole room seemed to pause, as if waiting for the boy to say something. Anything. His mouth opened, though the brain controlling it wasn't quite sure what was going to be said. But the boy had faith something wise and logical would com
e out.

“It'
s hard.”

The head on the robot twirled around three times. “‘It's hard!' What kind of rational
e is—”

“Shut up.” For the first time the boy forcibly interjected, cutting off the robot's criticism. “You just… you just shut up. You don't know anything.” The boy had taken control, leaving the animated animatronic silent. The whole room looked on in expectation. “Yeah, so you've been around since forever. Big deal. That doesn't mean you know what it's like to be me or understand what I've gone through. Just because you can talk to laptops and log bumps doesn't give you the right to tell me what I should or shouldn't do with m
y life!”

“Excuse me! Show a little respect here. Do I have to remind you your people worship m
y people?”

Now the boy had found his rhythm. He'd found his voice, or perhaps his voice had found him. “No they—we—don't. We respect and honour the spirits. Not worship. Because we're all equal, not better o
r worse.”

Just a year ago, the boy had attended a family potlatch and had spent an afternoon listening to one of the village elders talk about this. At the time, the whole topic had seemed kind of silly and he had quickly become bored, not expecting the content of the elder's stories to eventually become s
o pertinent.

“Dammit…” muttered Mr. Gizmo. He had hoped the boy wouldn't know that. It's a little-known fact that plastic robots hate bein
g one-upped.

“My parents are gone. My grandmother just died. I love my grandfather, but he's passed out in the other room. I don't really belong here, and because of that, I don't have any real friends. I don't fit in, and I don't know what to do.” The boy took a breath. “I feel so… alone.”