The Evolution of Alice (11 page)

The grocery store was pretty close to my place, and I decided to walk it rather than take my truck. I figured that, on account of the round trip, about four miles altogether, I’d get enough exercise that the junk I was planning to buy wasn’t gonna bother me much. I was, like, bargaining with myself about it. To give myself an even better excuse to go and buy that stuff, I thought I’d get something for Kathy and Jayne, too, while I was at it. You know, since Grace died, the girls hadn’t been given much of anything. I thought they’d really like some jujubes or something like that. I’d even pick out the yellow and the black ones for them, because nobody liked those ones anyway.

Most of the walk over to the grocery store was a stroll through a bunch of nothing after nothing, especially if you’d walked that way thousands of times like me. If there was something to see, though, it wouldn’t have mattered anyways, because all I could think about was the liquorice and peanut M&Ms. After about 15 minutes I got to the centre of the rez. “Downtown,” as I like to call it. I walked by the Adult Ed building, by the Elders’ home, and, finally, made my way by the community hall, which was a stone’s throw from the mall and doubled as the gaming centre. I never spent much time over there at the hall. Never played bingo, which was mostly what went on there, and I was never much of a gambler neither, so never had a reason to go into the gaming centre. Yeah, I wouldn’t’ve given that place a second thought, woulda been happy to pass by it and be even closer to the mall, because the grocery store was in the mall, and my liquorice and peanut M&Ms was in the grocery store. So, you could just imagine how annoyed I was when I heard an old familiar voice call at me.

“
Hey
-uh, Gideon,” said the voice. It sounded almost exactly like Baby Huey from those old cartoons.

I stopped right there in my tracks, closed my eyes, and cursed. I didn’t turn around at first, kinda wished I was imagining that I heard what I did. But pretty soon there were big, heavy footsteps coming toward me, then little bits of gravel sliding as feet skidded to a stop right behind me. I turned around and came face to face with Gunner, a big-chested, bigheaded, pencil-legged piece of work I’d sworn off as a friend over a decade ago. Tell you the truth, I was surprised he stopped me at all because we hadn’t spoken for God knows how long. I usually avoided being around anyplace he was at. Whenever I saw that stupid Sunfire of his, I just turned and went the other way. I didn’t see it anywhere in the parking lot this time, though, so he got one over on me there.

“Hey,” he said, “what’ve you been up to?”

“Nothin’ much,” I said.

“Oh, yeah?” he said.

“That’s what I said isn’t it?” I said.

“
Geeeeez-us
,” he said, taking a long time to spit out the word, like he was trying to sound as offended as possible.

I turned away, started walking toward the mall. I hoped he wouldn’t follow me. Stupid me. He didn’t take the hint, followed me right when I started to walk away, caught up to me quick, and started walking with me step for step like we were soldiers.

“You comin’ from the health centre?” he said.

I didn’t answer.

“Man, I got one chick over there at the health centre, Roxie. You know her?”

I stuck my hands into my windbreaker, kept walking in my own silence.

“She’s a chubby little bitch, but man she can screw. I’m screwing her all the time, just got to call her. She’s my booty call.”

“I’m not coming from there,” I said.

When I got inside the mall, I passed by the lottery booth and made a beeline for the grocery store, sharp and quick, like I could lose him or something. Shoulda known by then that he wasn’t goin’ nowhere though, for whatever the hell reason. He was like one of them damn rez dogs begging for food. Probably woulda rolled over if I asked him to. I stopped right in front of the grocery store, and he stopped beside me.

“Yeah? Where’re you coming from then? Alice’s place? You two are close aren’t you? What’s she like these days?” he said.

“She’s fine,” I said.

I looked out across the store and tried to recall what aisle I needed. I generally ignored the junk aisle, like I said before, but it wasn’t that hard to figure it out, because there was only four aisles in total. Aisle two was the one I wanted. I walked down that way, passed by soda pop, chips, and then got to the candy and chocolate bars. Bunch of vitamin water around that way too, all in rows one over top the other, and all different colours. Shit, all those bottles looked just like a rainbow. Anyway, that’s where I landed up, and that’s where Gunner followed me to, picking up and opening a bag of ketchup chips on the way.

“Aren’t you and Alice screwing or something? I swear I heard you’re screwing,” he said in a muffled voice, his mouth full of chips.

“What the hell are you talkin’ about? God, you’re a real shit,” I said.

“
Shee-it
, just curious,” Gunner said.

There we both were, standing in the aisle surrounded by a bunch of junk. All I wanted to do was grab my stuff and go, but he was standing in my way, between me and the cash register. I woulda went the other way, to the back of the store and then all the way around, but I didn’t think he deserved that much of an effort from me. So I didn’t go, on principle alone.

“What do you
want
, Gunner?” I said.

“Say, you ever think about that little girl? What’s her name, that
little
girl … uhhh …,” he said.

“Grace,” I said.

“Yeah, Grace. You ever think about her?”

I picked up a pack of peanut M&Ms and rolled it around in my hand.

“I do, yeah,” I said. “Always do. Think about what she might’ve become, all that.”

Gunner shrugged, like he didn’t care to hear the answer even though he’d asked the question. I reached over and picked up a package of liquorice to go with my peanut
M&MS.
I got to thinking about how I was saving money by getting junk for supper. That’d always been funny to me, how a big bag of candy was cheaper than fruits or vegetables. Yeah, I coulda bought a few bags of candy for the same price as a carton of milk. Stupid.

“Yeah,” Gunner said. “But, you know, she
could’ve
been a real nobody too, if she’d gotten the chance to be anything. She
could’ve
been a real shit. Kids grow up that way from time to time.”

Well, I don’t know what else to tell you about that. I dropped the liquorice and the peanut M&Ms faster than you can say go, and then I grabbed Gunner by his stupid Metallica T-shirt with my left hand, and punched him straight across the jaw. Felt that thing bust into pieces. Heard it crack, too. It sounded just like when you crack your knuckles all at one time, you know. He flew against the candy display and a whole bunch of candy bags came showering down over his head like rain; M&Ms, Reese’s Pieces, Nibs, Clodhoppers, and every other candy you could think of. I stared at him there for a moment, along with a bunch of other people who’d come running when they heard the commotion. We were all standing there staring at him. He was out cold. His head was resting to the side and there was this sound coming from his mouth that was kind of like snoring but kind of like gargling water. If he wasn’t lying in a heap of candy, and there wasn’t blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, you woulda thought he was having a nap.

Me, you woulda thought I’d just run a marathon. I’d only just decked the bastard but I was sweatin’ like crazy. My hand hurt like a bitch, too. Anyway, it wasn’t long before Randy, the manager, showed up.

“What happened over here?” he said.

I didn’t answer him, just stood there rubbing my hand, kinda worried I broke the damn thing, to be honest. I’d never punched anybody before in my entire life, and, with how I was feelin’ right then, with the sweating and the pain in my hand, I was sure I wasn’t going to do it again.

“You’d better get out of here, Gideon,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s a pretty good idea.”

I got home about 20 minutes later. I took off my boots and my windbreaker, went to get a bag of frozen peas for my knuckles, and got all settled in. Ended up laying down on the futon with my head against the armrest. I flipped through channels on the television until I found a good crime show, a
Law and Order
spin-off. SVU I think, not that it matters. Not long after that, my eyes kind of trailed down to the microwave dinner I’d heated up for myself earlier in the evening, and wouldn’t you know, I felt like eating. I reached over and picked up the tray and rested the food right there on my stomach. Now it was as cold as one of them piles of snow out around the rez, but I didn’t care about that. With my left hand—the one without the ice pack on it—I picked up a chunk of “steak” and shoved it in my mouth. I say “steak” because that’s what it was
supposed
to be, and it was the only kind of steak I really ever got to eat, but it was more like a hockey puck or something like that. It tasted pretty good. Coulda used some ketchup, mind you, but I ain’t ever been picky. I must’ve been pretty tired, though, because I fell asleep before I could take another bite.

When I woke up in the morning, there was an infomercial playing about some kitchen tool in place of the crime show I’d been watching, and that bag of peas had gone and melted on me, right across my pants, too. I got up to throw my food in the garbage, and when I looked down I saw that it looked like I’d pissed myself. I went over to my dresser in the corner of the room, pulled off the wet pair of jeans, and fished for something else to wear. Ended up finding an old ripped pair that I had. I got one leg into them when I heard a knock on the door. I didn’t have any clock around me that worked, so didn’t know exactly what time it was, but it felt pretty early for somebody to come see me. Hell, nobody ever came to see me no matter what time it was anyway. I was usually the one who went and saw people.

I hopped across the room to the front door, walking while trying to get my pants on. Opened the door while zipping them up. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Ernie there with his cop getup on. Even had the cop car behind him still running. He looked pretty serious; his mouth was stuck in a frown, and it made his wrinkles seem deeper and longer. I ain’t ever seen Ernie like that, actually. He was usually hiding behind the desk at the
RCMP
detachment in the rez, playing some kind of game on the computer. He was always happy, too. Point is, I was surprised to see him at my door, whether I should’ve been or not. Guess I thought nothing would happen after I punched Gunner out. Or at least I never thought too much about it. Honestly, people get punched out around here all the time and I’m not sure how many of ‘em get in trouble for it. Then again, most folks don’t get punched in the middle of a grocery store in front of a bunch of shoppers and workers and shit. So, it was what it was.

“Hey, Gideon,” Ernie said.

“What’s up?” I said, even though I knew exactly what was up.

“I heard what happened last night,” he said.

“I guess so,” I said.

“What were you thinking?” he said.

“I was thinking he was being an asshole,” I said.

“There’re lots of assholes out there, Gideon. You can’t just go punching them all.”

I didn’t put up much of an argument when Ernie said he had to take me in. I knew I had to go. So, I put my windbreaker on and got in the car. I wanted to walk over to the detachment, it wasn’t very far, and I felt like fresh air would’ve been good considering I was about to get locked up, but Ernie wouldn’t let me. He did let me ride shotgun though. That was good. I woulda felt like a real criminal sitting in the back seat.

Before too long I was sitting in my cell, and I have to tell you, sitting inside and seeing it from the outside are two different things. You know, I’d been in the detachment before, but I’d never been there on account of something I’d done. It might sound like a bit of a cliché, but there wasn’t much to do in there but sit and think. I got to thinking in a roundabout way, though, because at first all I was doing was looking across the room out of boredom. It had three white walls and one wall made of metal bars. It was small in there, but that didn’t bother me too much. My house was small, too. There was a bed but no pillows or sheets. Guess they didn’t want people gettin’ too comfortable. Out on the other side, the free side, there wasn’t much to see, neither. There was a desk that Ernie was sitting in, the reception desk, I guess, and then a couple more desks in the room where the other cops sat. Other than that, there was just a bunch of posters on the wall. One of them caught my eye, though: a recruitment poster for one of those Aboriginal programs that tried getting people jobs. There was this good-lookin’ Aboriginal woman in a police uniform smiling big and wide on it. I’d been to a few of those programs in the past. Anyway, when I looked at that poster, I started to think about what Gunner said when he went and got himself punched out. You know, about what Grace woulda been if she didn’t get killed. She coulda been a police officer for sure. She was feisty, that one—little but fierce. Hell, she coulda been anything she wanted to be.

Thinking about Grace got me thinking about Alice and the girls, and thinking about them made me feel pretty lonely even though I hadn’t been in there for too long. I figured I could ask Ernie to use my phone call. I knew I got one of them from all the crime shows I’d watched. From the way I was feeling, I thought the best thing woulda been to get them to come over and visit with me, maybe at the same time get Kathy to bring me over a book, something like that book I seen her reading a long time ago.
The Lovely Bones
, I think it was. I didn’t read much, me, but I woulda read right then, and a sad book like that woulda been a good one for me. Course, that wasn’t ever going to happen; Alice never left her house any more, and she certainly wasn’t gonna leave to come visit me in jail. It woulda been good to talk to them, though, whether they came or not. You know, hear a familiar voice.

I was about to ask Ernie about that phone call, too, when I saw the front door open. I went and hid in the corner faster than you could imagine. It wasn’t that I was scared or nothing, you know, but I sure was embarrassed. Like I said before, I knew most people around the rez, and nobody thought I was one to make any trouble, and I didn’t want people to think that now. I listened real close as heavy footsteps made their way across the room and then stopped. I didn’t know many people who had footsteps like that. Started to wonder who it could be. Even when the person started to talk, I had trouble placing the voice. It was real low, and all the words kind of jumbled together. Sounded kind of like they were talking without their lips open.