Spílexm, page 2
“Whatcha doing?” On her bed I see the Speed Sew, along with some foam, and a big pair of silver and black scissors. This is exactly where I want to be.
“You just never mind. I’m busy.”
“I wanna Speed Sew something. I like Speed Sew. I want some of that.” I point to the foam. She has a pink quilt and her bed is neatly fixed. The door is closed, and the butter knife is back in place. Noopy curls up beside me and I get right to work. Mommy draws circles on the foam with a black felt pen. Then she cuts the circles out with her black and silver scissors. My young mom is always busy doing things with her hands, too. She likes to crochet and sew with her sewing machine. She’s been gone for a while now. I feel the thickness expand in my throat; my eyes well and my chest is heavy. “When is my real mommy coming back, Mommy?”
“Hmm? She’ll come back soon, Babygirl. She always comes back.” I try not to feel sad. She’s still in the hospital because something happened. Something happened to her and she’s all bandaged up. I try not to worry but I always worry about both of them. They both had long hair, but now my young mom’s hair is all gone.
My godmommy goes to the hospital too sometimes. One time her wrists were in bandages and she had tubes attached to her nose and arm. She takes medicine from the doctor every day. Sometimes she takes too much. My godmommy always says, “If it wasn’t for you, Babygirl, I wouldn’t be here.” I wonder and wonder, what do those words mean? I don’t like the hospital.
I use the black pen and scissors and cut my foam into circles too. Then I Speed Sew them together. She glues foam circles to the inside of a pair of brand-new stretchy panties, the kind with the girdle that holds her tummy in. Speed Sew is rolled up in gooey balls all over my fingers. When I look up, she’s wearing those stretchy panties and the foam makes her bum huge. Then she pulls on her slacks. She stands in front of the mirror looking at it from side to side.
“Holy cow! Mommy!” I point at her huge, brand-new bum and poke the squishy foam.
“Ah! You! Don’t you even look at me!” Her face is a shade of red I’ve never seen before. She sits down and tugs them off. “Go on now! You go play!”
hamburger stew
coffee pot perking, tea kettle warm,
framed photo on the wall
of a sailor girl dressed in navy blue.
chop, chop, chop—celery, carrots, onions,
hamburger and potatoes
sizzle in the cast iron pan
on a black and white cookstove.
“Babygirl, sing your bluebird song.
it’s good to sing while you cook.”
perched on a stool with my wooden spoon,
blue flames dance on low.
she exits the kitchen and i sing.
bluebird, bluebird flying in the sky.
bluebird, bluebird flying really high.
knock, knock, knock!
old-style syílx cowboy drawl, “coffee on?”
Grandpa Adam walks in wearing
chaps, cowboy hat, and western boots.
“yes sir! and Babygirl is cooking hamburger stew!”
cigarette-stained hands, spittoon close by,
nsyílxcn weaves through the house
cowboy coffee and Red Rose tea.
teaspoons sing, “ting ting ting”
lil’ dishwasher
nsyílxcn word catcher
i listen, eager to understand
with bubbles on my hands.
lullabies
so many nights i sat awake
and listened.
Old Mom, you were speaking
nłeʔkepmxcín, nsyílxcn
with the many old ones
who came through our door.
i sat quietly, sometimes.
sometimes i pestered you
with questions.
belly warm with toast,
Red Rose tea, Pacific cream
and sugar.
i sat tracing salt and pepper designs
with my fingers on the
red and white tablecloth,
black and white benches.
listening carefully to grandmother voices,
stories only heard in the quiet hours
between Elders.
“my girl, go to bed!”
“Babygirl, you’re asking too many questions!”
nłeʔkepmxcín
nsyílxcn
english
i could never decide when one ended
and the next began,
lulled to sleep by an Indian lullaby.
your voice soothing,
singing, praying
gently explaining.
“when it is your time, Babygirl,
you will understand.”
buckle-up shoes
she’d twirl by herself
in the living room
to the Beatles
and Wanda Jackson,
when she thought no one was watching.
i’d peek around the corner,
maybe four-foot tall
with moccasins on
and wispy braids.
tired out from a day full of
play
i would watch her feet
remember.
in black buckle-up shoes,
a skirt with flare,
a red blouse with a pretty collar,
auburn hair in curls.
Old Mom twirling
like a little girl.
Little People
My young mom said our new house is a CMHC house, but I don’t know what CMHC means. I know that it is a program though, that helps single moms buy houses in Canada. It’s a pink house. It’s about five or ten minutes from Grandpa’s house on our reserve and twenty minutes from town. We can’t get a house on our reserve because we’re non-status. So, I guess it’s not our reserve even though our family and ancestors lived in this valley long before the Indian reservations came into existence. The Canadian government took my mom’s status away when she married my dad because my dad was Métis from Saskatchewan. So that makes me non-status too because my dad was Métis. It is truly weird that we aren’t considered legitimate even though our ancestors are older than the dirt and the rocks and the trees. The Elders say that when the wind blows across the hills throughout this valley, we are breathing the breath of our ancestors, and when we walk, we are walking in the shadows of their footsteps.
My auntie got a CMHC house too; her house is white. It’s a couple blocks away from ours. Their house is off-reserve as well because she’s married to my uncle and he’s non-status from Alberta. After my mom got out of residential school, she eventually moved to Edmonton with Auntie. My mom met my dad at the Edmonton Friendship Centre during the Native rights movement of the 60s and 70s. Apparently, everyone was hitchhiking everywhere during those years. Indigenous people were travelling to participate in Native rights events throughout British Columbia, all across Canada, and down into the United States.
My godmom lives off-reserve even though she has her status. She likes living in town and there aren’t enough houses on her reserve. When my young mom was in the hospital, I had to stay in town with my godmom and I stayed with my aunties too. She was in the hospital for three months and that felt like forever. Now my young mom is home, and everything is all better. We live in our brand-new pink house in Lower Nicola, British Columbia.
I walk down the stairs of our house, flipping on light switches all the way down to the basement. Everything is new in this house: the walls, the carpet, the washer and dryer. I don’t like the basement, but I do as I’m told. Wet clothes into the dryer, whites into the wash, but the prickles along my skin don’t go away. When I turn, there’s a thing hanging from the ceiling and a pool of red beneath it on the cement floor. Heart in my throat, I sprint for the stairs. “MOM! Mom! Something is hanging in the basement!” Sliced meat and onions sizzle in her favourite cast iron pan and she’s standing by the stove with a fork in her hand.
“Mike and Coot went hunting. It’s a deer. It has to hang for a while before it can be butchered.”
“A deer? Mike hunted a deer?” Uncle gives us deer meat sometimes, but it’s always wrapped in brown paper. We’ve never had a dead deer in our house before; in fact we've never owned a house before.
“Did you remember to put laundry detergent in the wash?” I shake my head. I don’t want to go back down there. She gives me her mom stare. All the blood drains from my face as I retrace my steps back down the stairs. I am not certain which is worse: facing Mom’s wrath or facing the dead deer. I try not to stare but I’m afraid not to look. I run to the washer, scoop up a cup of the powdered detergent fast, not taking my eyes off of it.
Hanging from its hind legs, head gone, it is exposed without its hide. Transformation stories from the time of talking animals tell of Coyote taking the skin of other animals and transforming himself in his manipulations of others. You can’t really trust synép, Coyote, because he is always up to trickery and mischief. In the stories that I remember, females young and old should never trust synép because he likes to take what doesn’t belong to him and that includes girls. Stories about when the animals talked are called sptékwł and I still have a lot to learn about them. I know for a fact that if I wore the deer’s hide, I would look nothing like a deer.
When I’m done with the laundry, I stare at the deer, inching closer. I see muscles, sinew, meat, and bone with a pool of blood beneath. I’ve seen a dead deer on the side of the road before—Mom said it had been hit by a car. I have never been this close to one though. With the tip of my finger I touch flesh and random strands of bristly deer fur. Yesterday, it was alive running through fields of tall grass, fragrant Labrador bushes, and pine trees. Yesterday, it was drinking fresh water from the creek. Now, its antlers are on our wall with pieces of flesh still clinging to them; its front legs curled with the hooves intact. If it could speak, what would it say? When I’m back upstairs I look into the frying pan.
“What’s that, Mom?”
“Deer heart and liver, the best parts. Better set the table.”
“For who?”
“You know who. The three of us: Mike, me, and you.” I look at her for another moment. Her hair is growing long again.
“Okay.” I clear and then wipe the kitchen table, all the while contemplating Mike. Mike is Mom’s new boyfriend. He is Syílx. An Okanagan Indian from Quilchena, BC. My mom’s mom, she would be my grandmother, was Syílx too. We aren’t related to him though. The noises below us indicate he’s downstairs again, huffing and rumbling around. He has put his tool boxes and things carpenters use down there. When we first moved in, I dreamt the basement was a cave that went deep underground, but it’s his workshop now. He’s always busy and if he isn’t busy, he’s sleeping or watching TV. He likes to lie down in front of the television with his feet crossed just like my grandpa does. He has long, wiry black hair that he ties with a buckskin string. I know it’s buckskin because I smelled it once when it was on the bathroom counter. I know what buckskin smells like because my Auntie E. I. is always tanning deer hides to make beautiful buckskin moccasins.
When Auntie E. I. is given a deer or moose hide, she either strings it up on a wooden rack and scrapes it clean right away or she puts it in the freezer so that she can process it later. She used to tie it to a tree in order to soak it in the river until one day, we went to check her hide and it was gone. We weren’t sure if it was coyotes or high water or dogs from the reserve that took it. She was upset and didn’t want animals stealing her hides, so she started soaking them in a barrel covered with a lid. She even put a great big, heavy brick on top to keep it closed. She uses every part of the deer, including the meat, bones, hooves, hide, and a concoction made with the deer brains that helps soften the hide. After that, she strings up the hide on a special wooden rack and lights a smoky fire underneath. The fire can’t be too close, or it will burn the hide. She has special tools for scraping, stretching, and tanning her hides.
“It’s important to know where your blood comes from, especially because we’re related to darn near everyone in the valley.” My other-other auntie, my mom’s oldest sister, is always reciting a long list of our family bloodlines and who we’re related to. My young mom and numerous aunties and relatives have been researching our family tree. My mom comes from a family with nine children, so she has five sisters and three brothers.
“Your maternal grandfather, maternal great-grandparents, and extended family are all Nłeʔkepmx—in the Nicola Valley, we are referred to as Scéxmx. Your maternal grandmother, her parents and extended family are Syílx from up Fish Lake out towards Vernon, BC.” Nłeʔkepmx people are categorized as part of the Interior Salish linguistic group. There are several language groups categorized as Interior Salish: Nłeʔkepmx, Secwepmx, Sƛ’aƛ’imx, and Syílx. The traditional territory of the Nłeʔkepmx includes the Fraser Canyon, Boston Bar, Siska, through Spences Bridge up into the Nicola Valley, and all the way over to Hedley and the Similkameen Valley.
“Your Great-Grandma Mem’s english name was Lily and Great-Grandpa Pep’s english name was Tim. They had twelve children including Grandpa, your mom’s dad. Can you imagine all those children and descendants? That is a small part of our family tree. Our family tree shows that, through Mem, we are also descendants of Chief Nk’wala. Chief Nk’wala was a well-known chief from the Nicola Valley. It is important for you to learn your family tree and remember who your family is.” Our family is enormous and remembering everyone’s name is hard. I’m better at remembering my cousins and my aunties—especially the ones I play with and the ones who take care of me.
Cutlery, dishes, salt and pepper, butter, a little saucer with bread; the table is almost set. That’s when I look below the kitchen table for the hole. It’s a habit. The one I hate (not Mike) put the hole there when he was drunk. He wrecked the wall in our brand-new house by putting a chair through it. Like in the stories of Coyote’s trickery, that man disguised himself as a nice man. He pretended, but when he was drunk, he was mean. I can’t help but remember that man every time I see the hole in the wall. I move the chairs around, searching. When I find it, it’s covered with a patch of white.
“Hey Mom, look! That hole is gone!”
“Mike patched it.”
“Mike patched it?” I look again. Like my knees, the wall has a scar, but the wound is gone. After supper Mike goes downstairs with his knife and a handsaw. He brings up a huge hunk of meat that he calls a hindquarter. And I inspect him, his eyes. The sound of his laugh. I inspect his hands, bloody from working with the deer meat. I watch every move he makes in our kitchen and I can’t see anything mean in him, anywhere. Not in his eyes, not in his hands, not in a single strand of his hair or even his chin.
I help wash dishes while they butcher the meat on the kitchen table for stew, roasts, steaks, and stir-fry. They even have a silver contraption that they attach to the counter. They stuff hunks of meat in the top, turn a metal crank and meat comes out the bottom like soft ice cream.
In the morning, Mom cooks pancakes, eggs, and bacon for breakfast and we all sit at the table and eat together all over again: my mom, Mike, and me. His name is Mike, but everyone calls him Brown or even Mr. Brown. And when he teases my mom too much, she calls him, “Michael Brown.” Brown isn’t his real name; it’s a nickname, but it’s a good one for him. He’s quiet and his voice is gentle. He would definitely be a brown bear, I know it. He huffs around the house like a bear, especially when he’s downstairs in his workshop. Mr. Brown built a shelf using grey bricks for his stereo. He likes a radio station from Vancouver called 99.3 The Fox. We listen to George Thorogood, The Animals, Tina Turner, The Beatles, whatever happens to be playing on The Fox. Or we listen to records.
After the breakfast dishes are done, Mom gets into her Sunday cleaning vibe because every Sunday is cleaning day. His radio station is still playing but I can’t find Mr. Brown. He’s not lying on the couch with his feet crossed. He’s not downstairs in his workshop area, where he hung the deer. He’s not in their bedroom. They share my mom’s bedroom because he lives with us now. I used to be able to sleep with her, especially when I had bad dreams, but not anymore. He’s nowhere inside the house. I walk to the back door and stand on the back deck. He’s starting a little garden for his special plants, right behind the house, but he’s not there either. I come back inside.
“Mom, where’s Mike?” She’s washing every single windowsill in the whole house. She lifts a living room window and then pulls it right out of the frame. She doesn’t answer so I ask again, “Mom, where’s Mike?”
“He went for a walk.”
“Where?”
“Up there.” She points out the window towards the mountains. “Help me clean the windows.” She hands me the Windex and paper towels. Ever since she got this new house, all she wants to do is clean. Not just a little bit either; she scrubs everything.
“Up the mountains?” I was mystified. “Who did he go with?” Clear blue liquid runs in streams down the glass.
“He went alone.”
“What’s he doing?” I unravel a huge wad of paper towel and wipe.
“I don’t know, walking. Don’t waste the paper towel.”
“Did he bring a gun? Is he hunting again? Maybe Coot is with him.” I look at her and her eyebrows are raised, so I pull a couple pieces from my wad and use only them. When they’re saturated, I grab two more.
“He’s fine.” She’s annoyed so I stop asking questions.
“That’s weird, Mom.” I keep looking out the window. “Is he just walking around the mountain?” The hayfields roll and gradually rise into the mountainside, which is covered in pine trees and juniper. When I’m finished washing windows, I mop the kitchen floor, the bathroom floor, and the landing. When I am finished mopping, Mom says it’s still sticky, so I have to mop it all over again. A clean house is good until I have to clean, too.
