Wabanaki Blues (6 page)

“Whoo-wee!” he says. “Now pull the lever forward and down. Step your foot on the skinny pedal, and let off on the left.”

I hold my breath at each instruction, not daring to miss a word, trying to coordinate the motions. I need groceries. I need to stay alive. We jerk forward. I lurch downhill over the frost heaves in the road, and my teeth rattle. Grumps' great belly bounces like a barrel full of Jell-O. Sweat glazes my eyes but I exhale. I'm shaken but I'm also driving for the first time.

I expect him to complain about me abusing his antique truck with my amateur driving technique. Instead, he pumps his fists over his head and yells, “Here we go!” as if he is a ten-year-old, riding the Goliath hypercoaster in Montreal.

We're headed uphill now. I shake my wrist till the charms on my bracelet tinkle like sleigh bells. It's my way of asking my grandmother to please keep us on the road. She definitely hears me. Everything disappears, except for the center lines and gritty pavement before me. I feel focused. I'm grateful not to see any stray bears, considering all the road signs warning us we're passing through their favorite haunts. Coming down the first hill, Grumps asks me to pump the brakes, to make sure they work. I scream inside, but I do it, and to my relief the truck slows down.

Calmer, I ask, “Is this land all part of the Abenaki reservation?”

“Nope. All the Abenaki First Nations' reserves are located in Canada. Things are different here in northern New England than they are down in Connecticut, City Gal. The land is broader, and the history is darker and deeper, like the woods.”

“But Bilki always said the Abenaki territory here was huge.”

“It is. That's the problem. There's enough land to make a colossal reservation, which is why the government won't let your relatives have it.”

I mutter, “I can't help thinking about our tiny Mohegan reservation and all the things we have squeezed onto it: a pharmacy, casino, restaurants, hotels, shops, gardens, elder housing, museum, church, ceremonial grounds, sacred sites, and burial grounds. It's a small piece of land, and I'm grateful for it. Yet we hardly have any trees. These Abenakis may not have a reservation but they sure have us Mohegans beat when it comes to trees in their territory.”

“Indeed they do. But protecting those trees comes at a high cost. Remember that.”

I nod; too busy focusing on my driving to engage in further philosophical debate about protecting trees. At the bottom of the next hill, Grumps signals me to stop.

“You made it, City Gal. Welcome to downtown Indian Stream.”

I lay a hand on his shoulder. “
We
made it, thanks. Mom never let me drive.”

“She has her reasons.” His words catch in his throat. “You'll be a pro in no time.”

I take in Indian Stream's Main Street. This is not the Currier and Ives quaint New English small-town center I expected. There's not a single white church or wood clapboard colonial house anywhere in sight. It's nothing but a cluster of jaundiced yellow warehouses. A dozen beat-up pickups sit parked in this gravel lot. I wonder who repairs Grumps' truck. It has to be forty years old but it looks better maintained than all the others, despite its multicolored bodywork.

I pull up to one of the yellow warehouses and park beside a dented pickup with a muddy ATV loaded in the bed. The hand-painted sign in front of the warehouse says, “Indian Stream General Store.” The adjacent warehouse has a dent in it the size of a semi. A flimsy banner roped across the front reads: “Black Bear Bar and Grill.”

One warehouse has sliding doors big enough to move tractors or snowmobiles in and out. The town municipal building has a sign hammered into the ground out front that says, “-own -all,” with the first letter of each word amusingly missing. I see a parking spot that says “-ax Collector.” Now I know what teenagers around here do for fun.

The fourth yellow warehouse is so bad it makes me give thanks for Colt High for the first time. Hanging out front is a ragged piece of scrap lumber, wood-burned with the words “Indian Stream School K-12.” Apparently, the students made the sign themselves. I'm guessing Mom went here, which explains why she hates yellow. At least Colt High has a professional-looking sign out front, and we didn't have to hang out with elementary school kids. COLT HIGH. I realize I'm missing my graduation tomorrow and mentally slip downhill.

Grumps pulls me back up, with a shake of my arm. “Time to visit our fancy Indian Stream general store,” he snickers. “C'mon.”

I leave Rosalita in the truck because I don't want to make a bad first impression on his friends. I know what people think of musician chicks.
They do drugs. They're
easy.
The store smells oily and rusty like an auto-repair shop. Rows of red metal industrial shelves rise from a cracked linoleum floor to a water-stained ceiling. The shelves are piled high with fishing and hunting gear, car parts, tools, DVDs, locally made maple syrup, handmade quilts and mittens, yellowing books, wrapping paper, and weird Canadian food products, ranging from pork brains to a whole chicken in a can. These oddities shouldn't surprise me. When I looked up the history of Indian Stream before I left, I read that it's frontier territory. People in this place have been fighting over their rights to land for centuries. The colonists who came here were so ornery they formed their own republic and stayed independent from both Canada and the United States for years. The Indians tried to keep their independence, too, but that didn't work out as well as they'd hoped.

One side of a cloudy glass refrigerator contains microbrew beers with depressing names like Grim Reaper and Last Chance Lager. The other side holds milk, eggs, butter, and locally produced sodas, which come in red, pink, or blue. Their names are sweet enough to make my teeth hurt. Black Cherry Charmer. Wild Blueberry Fizz. Razzamatazzberry. I crave a Diet Coke.

Grumps stands next to a DVD rack and shakes a copy of the movie
Smoke Signals
at me. I watched this movie like a thousand times. It's about a couple of Indians who come from the boondocks out West, a place not all that different from this one. The movie is hysterical. I presume Grumps picked it off the rack because there's a pretty Indian woman on the cover.

“We ain't got no way to play movies,” he says. “But help yourself to the books.” He continues staring at his DVD. “They loan them out, here, like a library.”

I rifle through the yellowed books that smell like my dad and review their titles. Not a bestseller in the bunch. They're about local subject matter with titles like
Logging the Modern Way
,
How to Dress a Moose in Thirty Minutes
, and
Foraging for Beginners
. I choose one called
Wabanaki Tales
. The introduction says “Wabanaki means ‘people of the dawn land.' It refers to the ancient confederacy of the Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki and Penobscot tribes of the northeastern United States.”

At least he didn't make up the word. I'm hoping the text might tell me something about Grumps' big “secret.”

I start to read an Indian story about how a bear saved all the people of the northeast woodlands.

Grumps clears his throat, makes a fake pompous face, and imitates my father's professor voice. “I'm glad to see you researching your heritage.” He points to my book. “But don't believe anything in there. A book can't teach you our real Indian traditions—excuse me, what your Ph.D. mother calls Native American or Indigenous lifeways. You don't want to read about our people in books by folks who get their information secondhand. They're all gobbledygook. All you need are these woods for a true Indian education.” He leans backward. “Books are misleading when it comes to our ancient stories. Too many people believe what they say, literally–like some of your lunatic relations.”

I assume he's talking about my dad, who's chasing down Russian bear legends from old books. I tuck the book under my arm, debating whether or not to borrow it. I don't want to put it back, mainly because Grumps made fun of it. But he is right about Dad. I follow him to the meat section, which turns out to be nothing but a dented chest freezer full of Ziploc bags, with labels like “rabbit parts,” and “ground moose.” Venison suddenly sounds as ordinary as hamburger.

Grumps pulls aside a guy in a blood-splattered white coat who is carrying a cleaver. He mumbles something to my grandfather about the “stash out back.” Thanks to my slaughterhouse apartment, I'm not big on blood and so feeling green, not to mention this guy makes me think I'm in the middle of a crack deal. Three minutes later, the same blood-splattered man—who I hope to God is a butcher—slaps a fresh turkey on a piece of brown butcher paper at the checkout counter along with a half dozen bunches of bananas and two sealed boxes, marked “Elmwood.” A list, scotch-taped to one box, says, “2 loaves of whole wheat bread, flour, vegetable oil, dried yellow eye beans, yeast, pancake mix, crunchy peanut butter, and wildflower honey.” I grab a bag of onions, a bottle of ketchup and a jar of mustard. I've got all I need—as long as I can keep a few bananas away from Marilynn.

The boy at the checkout wraps the turkey for Grumps and rings up our order, slapping the outdated cash register as if it's a video game. He is short, not much taller than me, and maybe a year or two older. I catch him staring at my tie-dyed tee shirt, biting his lip, trying not to laugh. I wonder if he's a pervert or simply amused by the design—a peace sign riddled with bullet holes. I don't want to stare back at him but it's hard not to. His black hair spikes in a jagged way, as if he cut it with a dull knife. His eyes remind me of the pale green lichen on tree bark, and his bushy black eyebrows rise up to a point over his nose like a furry teepee. His noxious attitude and offbeat looks give the impression of a snarky leprechaun. He's no Beetle.

Grumps reads the notices on the community bulletin board, aloud. “Used Snowmobile For Sale. Mel's Worms, Crawlers & Dillies. Free Horse Manure. Tag Sale of Biblical Proportions. Veterans Ham and Bean Supper. Over-Fifty's Singles Dance.”

This all sounds depressingly hick to me. The leprechaun chuckles at my pained expression and limps out from behind the counter to bag my groceries. I want to ask him if he has hurt his leg tripping over a pot of gold. Instead, I ask, “What's so funny?”

He points at my tee shirt. “What's so funny,” he repeats, “is you. You're obviously not from around here.” I try to ignore his buttery voice. Its smooth and melodic quality reminds me of Shankdaddy, the amazing old blues man from the other end of my street.

“No, I'm from Hartford, Connecticut.” I say proudly for the first time in my life.

I examine the cartoon drawing on his tee shirt. It shows a sexy blond bear with long eyelashes and pillowy red lips. He watches my curious reaction to it, and his lichen-green eyes darken to the color of the twilight trees.

“What's your name, Hartford?”

I sigh at the way he says, “Hartford.” It makes my dinky city sound sophisticated. Invisible fire ants run up my arms. I've never felt this sharp sensation before. Of course, there are no actual fire ants in New Hampshire, or anywhere in New England, for that matter. I only imagine this is how they must feel.

I swallow and reply, “I'm Mona LaPierre,” carefully omitting my dreaded middle name. My heart is fluttering like a baby bird, and it pisses me off.

He clomps out from behind the counter in the heaviest black boots I've ever seen. Besides the boots, he's weighed down with nothing but muscle, like you'd expect for a guy who chops his own firewood. He also smells woodsy, like smoke and musky honey.

“I'm Del Pyne,” he says. “Too bad a pretty girl like you has to spend the summer up here in the sticks with us backwoods folks.”

I step away from him. Nobody has ever stooped low enough to call me pretty, not even jokingly, especially not my parents. They pride themselves on being realists.

Del's eyes flash with horror at the sight of my quivering chin. Now, I'm completely confused. Can he seriously think I'm pretty? Might squinty eyes the color of deep-woods mud and tree bark hair be considered attractive up here because they give me a woodsy look. He lowers his flushing face, pretending to review a grocery price book. Oh my God, he
does
think I'm pretty.

I muster the courage to ask him a question. “Do you go to school?” I picture the yellow warehouse next to this one. For his sake, I hope he's already graduated.

He flashes the most inveigling smile I've ever seen—not a sarcastic smirk like Beetle's—a full-blown, I-really-like-you smile with a brain attached. I've only seen smiles like this in my dreams.

“I'm nineteen. I'll be twenty in August” he says, “if that's what you're asking. I just finished my third year of forestry school at Yale. How about you?” Del folds his arms, signaling it's my turn to dish on my background information.

I don't know what to say. He's smug, and he's obviously a liar. Like he goes to Yale. Like anyone could finish three years at Yale by nineteen. Nobody from Colt High has ever attended Yale. It's one of those mystical places in Connecticut that everybody has heard about but nobody actually goes. And seriously, why would Yale have a forestry school in the city of New Haven?

I don't mention that I have birthday coming up in late July, as I don't want him to know I'm only seventeen. “Let's see what you like to read.” He pulls out the book from under my arm. “
Wabanaki Legends
. So you have an interest in the stories of these woods? I'm not surprised. Your relatives are the keepers of its most ancient tales.”

I grab the book back. “That's not why I chose this book. I like reading about lots of things. You don't have to go to Yale to like reading, you know.” I decide to smoke out his lie. “What do you plan to do with a degree from Yale Forestry School?”