Monkey Beach

by Eden Robinson

Contacting the dead, lesson three. Seeing ghosts is a trick of concentration. You must be able to

concentrate on nothing and everything at the same time. You must be both asleep and awake. It should be the only thing on your mind, but you can’t want it or expect it to happen. It’s very Zen.

It was the little man. But this time his red hair was stringy red and he was hanging by his neck from a yellow rope, smiling at me as he swung back and forth.

“I saw the man. This morning. I saw Jimmy. In my dream. He thinks. I’m nuts. I don’t know what to do.”

Oh, brother, I thought. I’d seen this on one of The Exorcist rip-off B-movies on the late show about a week earlier. Cheese rolled his eyes. Frank narrowed his eyes and mouthed something at him and Cheese put his hands back on.

The pointer went to “No.” “He killed her cat?” “No.” “What about Josh?” Frank said. “B-e-d.”

“That’s the problem with the dead,” Pooch said. “They have such a fucked-up sense of humour.”

He told me Ma-ma-oo had just had a heart attack.

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But she was walking with her head down and didn’t see me as she went by. I noticed a car following her. A young white guy stuck his head out of the passenger’s side of the car and invited her in, they’d show her a good time. All three guys in the car were wearing black baseball caps and sunglasses even though it was cloudy. I couldn’t tell what colour their hair was, and there was mud all over their licence plates. One of them had a black mustache, but it was obviously fake. Erica turned on her heel and walked back towards me. They pulled a U-turn and the driver called out that he’d teach her how to fuck a white man.

“Yeah?” I yelled out. “With what, you dickless wonder?” The car stopped ten feet away from me. “Hey, looky, looky, we got a feisty little squaw on our hands,” the driver said. “Looky, looky” I said. “The dickless wonder can speak. I thought guys like you just grunted.” “You fucking watch your mouth, cunt.” “Yeah, you’re so brave with a girl, aren’t you, ass-wipe? Can’t stand up to someone your own size, can you? Cowards like you gotta pick on girls to feel like men.” “Bitch,” he said. “You’re begging for it.”

“Babydoll,” he said. “Take it from someone who knows—that temper of yours is gonna get you killed one day.”

“Oh my God,” Dad said. “Lisa—Lisa, did it occur to you to run into a store? Did it occur to you to call the police? Did you even think about running away? Do you know what they could have done to you?”

“Honey,” she said, “if you were some little white girl, that would be true. But you’re a mouthy Indian, and everyone thinks we’re born sluts. Those guys would have said you were asking for it and got off scot-free.”

“Facts of life, girly. There were tons of priests in the residential schools, tons of fucking matrons and helpers that ‘helped’ themselves to little kids just like you. You look at me and tell me how many of them got away scot-free.”

“Lisa,” she said, “no one would have cared. You would have been hurt or dead, and no one would have given a flying fuck.” She touched my shoulder. “Except your crazy old aunt, who just about made you cry, didn’t I? I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry.

I gotta mouth on me too. Never know when to keep it shut.”

The last piece is pain between my legs, and a body on top of me, panting. We’re moving together as if we were lovers, and the rocks and twigs are digging into my back. I open my mouth and a hand covers it. I can’t see the face. It has the feeling of a dream,

as if it didn’t happen to me. I remember fighting sleep, thinking I had to stay awake, but I couldn’t.

A different voice, barely a whisper, said, “We can hurt him for you.” “Yes,” a chorus of other voices said, “Yes, yes, let us, yes.”

“Cheese lies, Frank. He lies and he’s mean. Tell him if he comes near me again, I’m going to kill him.”

“You don’t have to be scared of things you don’t understand. They’re just ghosts.”

They stood watch over their families. Some of them watched me with strange, sad eyes. When I came back to my body, the nurse

had called the doctor and they were watching me curiously. They said I had been walking around and around the bed.

Sometimes I dream about it, how Ma-ma-oo decided to make herself some forbidden food, fried bacon. The frying pan caught fire. I see Ma-ma-oo as she takes a lid to cover the pan and it burns her arm. She collapses as her heart speeds up, she falls to the floor, gasping for breath as her heart

labours.

Two volunteer firemen carried her body up out of the rubble. She had no hair, no skin. She was charred and smelled like bacon. My mother and my aunt shrieked. I remember that the clearest, my aunt’s voice cutting through all the other sounds.

“It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.”

If I had listened to my

gift instead of ignoring it, I could have saved her.

Well, I’m here, I think. At Monkey Beach.

“I’m not going to be able to help you any more, Lisa. I just can’t.” She stood up. “Don’t depend on me to bail you out next time you get in trouble.”

What could I say? Sorry for dumping on you when I had a problem with Cheese?

“Didn’t you hear?” Frank said. “He shot himself. He’s in the hospital. They’re taking his organs tomorrow. I’m going to the funeral with Adelaine. No one told you?”

“No.” The cars and the street began to blur, everything was out of focus.

“That’s a death sending,” I said. “It’s nothing to worry about. He probably just wanted to say goodbye.”

“Yeah. I like those ones too. I was in prison once.” “What for?” “Small stuff. Nothing major. Just a B & E. Failure to appear. Disturbing the peace.”

As I drove away, I felt deeply comforted knowing that magical things were still living in the world.

I wondered how Tab was doing. I considered calling her, to tell her about my plan to get my life back together. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to try grade eleven again.

It’s hard to philosophize about how crappy life is when you’re trying to finish a zillion things at once. Sometimes, late, late in the night when I paused for my smoke and coffee break, I would sit on the patio chairs and stare at the stars.

“Pooch thought you were rea—rea—really special.”

“Josh-u-wa, wa-wa does too. He says you remind him of Mick, Michael, Michelle, elle.”

“She didn’t say anything. She packed her things and took off and she didn’t even say—”

“She’s gone. She hitched to Prince George. She left me.”

“Give her some space, Jimmy. Maybe she needs to blow off a little steam. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks she’ll be back. Here’s my hand. If you don’t believe me, shake on it.”

I hold him there in my memory, smiling, excited, telling me how they moved like submarines, and how the water looked so much more magical when they were swimming in it.

“I wasted hours—no, days, days—in that pool going back and forth and back and forth. You have no idea how much time I put into that part of my life. It was like I was possessed.”

“You don’t know what it was like. No one who hasn’t done it knows what it’s like. I’m better off without it. You know it, I know it. I’m having fun now. I couldn’t have fun before. Everything was

so serious.” He enthusiastically slapped my shoulder. “Now I’m letting loose!”

Ah, sweet denial, I...