Chapter 25

REMY’S STOICISM

“Heaven is author of the virtue that is in me.’ – Confucius

Just east of Craven, Saskatchewan

Here, in the fluid anonymity of time somewhere in Saskatchewan, rolling tumbleweeds race by faster than a man can run. For a while we drive parallel to some train tracks that takes me back to something I read in Pierre Burton’s The Last Spike. What was cool about the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway was the ‘end of track:’ that community of workers that stirred like a beehive full tracklayers, carpenters and blacksmiths that laid the tracks all the way across the country. In our road buggies Remy and I are constantly at the end of track except we move several hundred kilometres a day instead of a few. By removing the persistent need of a motel each night, the road sailor can push the boundaries of exploration to new limits compared to the early settlers, especially if the road buggy is stocked with a substantial supply of fuel, water and food. You have control over what route you take because you are your own captain in charge of navigation. Like the road sailor exploring, the end of track has everything to do with becoming, but it’s a life fraught with risk and is not a life for everyone. Instead of drinking whiskey brewed with rye, red ink and tobacco juice that the scallywag tracklayers drank 120 years ago, we smoke tea and drink beer. Only those with the requisite mettle can forage so far into the unknown.

There is an element of extremism that’s required for such an existence, and the capacity, endurance and willingness to undergo privation, cold, hunger and isolation.

Mile after mile we cross the golden plains of the prairies that pioneers harnessed with their hands to turn into the wheat basket of the world. Wherever I look I see knee-high buffalo grass, purple sage and yellow daisies surrounding the roadside that stretch forever into the horizon. Prairie foxes dart across the road like cats on a city street.

In the middle of a passing field is a large church beside the tracks but there aren’t any homes around for miles. Freshly painted, the hundred-year old chapel bespeaks victory over a history of a thousand blizzards.

We pass a sign that reads:

BIBLE CAMP

NEXT EXIT

Signs for Bible camps soon dot the highway and the radio is full of Christian music. I guess this is as far as many of the pioneering padres made it. Few seemed to have reached the oil fields of northern Alberta. The southern prairies is the Canadian Bible belt that was a massive land grab for farmers last century after the failure of the Métis Rebellion of 1885.

A fuel stop brings us to rest just across the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border near the Louis Riel Trail in the Métis homeland of Manitoba.

Standing here I can smell the scent of willow and balsam.

“You know James Dean grew up right across the US border just south of here?” says Remy. “Jimmy Dean’s mother was part Indian. A lot of good people come from the prairie table. It’s that Métis stock. People forget that Manitoba and Saskatchewan were created as the homeland of the Métis. They say up to 80 percent of the population here are Métis. Hemingway was part Ojibway. I believe he’s an Illinois boy. And you know who else was Métis?”

“Charlton Heston.”

“Yes. And so is Winston Churchill. His mother was from New York State. She had a tattoo of a snake on her wrist. Look it up.” I’m pensive today with a hangover so I’m not the best company for Remy but he’s energized from the surroundings. Soon I am feeding off his energy that causes me to ask the question foremost in my mind.  

“I can’t stop thinking about what the waitress said to us last night about Cain.” I say. “Are we cast out and destined to lead a wanderer’s life because we create?”

“Do we have the mark of Cain, you mean?” Remy rubs his chin for a moment. “Those of us who create are like God; we are God’s Messengers – His Angels – because we honour our divine gift given to us by the Creator. And because we know what it is to create, we are not like Abel. We are not keepers of cattle; we are the growers of crops and producers of bounty. Cain’s flock has given mankind fields of wheat and the sustenance of bread, and has enabled man to move from a hunter-gatherer state of existence to a stable homestead where arts and crafts and literature can flourish.”

Standing there I get a mouthful of dust from the wind off the roadside, but I hear Remy say that self-knowledge is being aware of the divine ability to create and that he believes all peoples have a drop of the divine in each of them.

“One can see who they are through their creations,” he says, “and that the act of creating something – anything – is a higher form of self-growth.” Feeling weak I follow the tumbleweeds rolling by in front of the pencil-thin shrubs beside us.

“C’mon, let’s go. I want to hit Seven Sister’s by tonight.” We get in our road buggies and drive for Seven Sister’s Falls to see Remy’s friends. By nightfall we are nearing the roundabout for Winnipeg when Remy suddenly pops a tire and swerves to the shoulder. He stops his rig high up on the bend where 18-wheelers whiz by within a few feet.

I park behind him on the shoulder.

“Leave your lights on,” he says to me. “I have a jack. No problem. Let me handle it.” I stay in my rig with my headlights on, watching Remy unscrew the flat tire. Just as he is about to screw the spare tire on, a truck roars past him that shakes his rig. Remy’s camper slips off the jack and is going to fall on top of him but is stopped only by the spare tire that is pinned between the falling camper and the pavement. It’s screwed in just enough to stop the camper from falling on him. In fact the camper would have fallen onto the Trans-Canada Highway after crushing Remy if it weren’t for the spare tire being partially attached with one screw.

The red bandana is slightly askew but Remy slowly moves away from the camper and stands up untouched by the leaning camper above him. He shakes his head and begins examining the jack, cool as a cucumber. Unruffled, the 18-wheelers keep passing close to the shoulder but with grace under pressure Remy begins jacking up his rig again in a new spot along the bumper. Once he raises his truck he removes the spare tire, checks it and then puts it on again when for no apparent reason the rig crashes down for a second time. For a moment Remy stops moving and faces the camper falling onto him calmly, as if he’s saying: ‘C’mon, take me.’

I witness this for a second time within the span of a few minutes.

I get out of my truck in disbelief.

“Are you crazy?”

“It keeps slipping.”

“I can see that!”

“You saw that?”

“Yeah, I saw that – both times.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do? It’s not my fault. The trucks are pushing my rig over.”

“Do you want to die?”

“You mean graduate. We all have an inheritance to collect someday.” Remy shines his flashlight on the wallet he’s removed from a pocket. I see it and his Canadian Automobile Association card.

“I’ll find a payphone and call CAA,” I say, taking the card from him. “I’ll be back soon.” I find a store five minutes away and then return.

“They told me they will be by in the next ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks Trapp.”

“I saw you surrender there when your camper was falling on you.”

“I didn’t think you were watching.”

 “You were almost killed,” I say, shaking my head.

“You mean graduate. I wouldn’t mind spending my time in the spirit world.” Remy is composed as the cars speed by on the road in the dark.

“Are you serious?” Remy’s brush with death has brought something to the fore as we both stand on the shoulder of the highway.

“Don’t you see? The Lost Generation that Tom Cardinal spoke of is now coming to age so I can’t die yet. Métis like us will lead a new revolution in the footsteps of our leader Louis Riel. The Sons of Riel are now coming together under the prophesied leadership of the Pahana. The Messiah of the Twelve Tribes of Israel appeared in Jerusalem and worked his ministry of turn the other cheek. Our revolution will not be one of violence but of the heart. The Red Man came from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel in 680BC. They’re known as the Lammanites and the Nephites in the Book of Mormon. That’s what the Mormon founder Joseph Smith Senior preached. The Red Man sailed over from the old land in boats and settled Turtle Island. Read the Book of Mormon and you’ll see. Dougie Bell and Tattoo Jimmy believe me. They think I’m the Pahana.” I let out a deep sigh but it was drowned out by the sound of vehicles passing us by. I have no rebuttal to what he has just said. I don’t know anything about the Book of Mormon.

“Everything’s jiggie, man” he says. We stand together smoking a cigarette, now protected from the passing traffic by the half-fallen rig. When the CAA mechanic arrives. Remy offers him a cigarette and explains what happened. The mechanic promptly begins securing the jack and replacing the flat tire. The cigarette dangles from below his clipped moustache. I can see that he’s good at his job.

“How much do I owe you?” Remy asks when he’s done.

“I don’t like paperwork,” he answers. “But I do take tips.” Remy glances at me and then hesitates. I know he doesn’t have much money so I hand him a twenty-dollar bill.

“We really appreciate you helping us out,” I say. We both shake his hand and he departs. When there’s a break in traffic, we pull out onto the Trans-Canada Highway and continue east towards Remy’s Manitoba stomping grounds. Remy’s stoicism continues to rattle me as I drive east.

Chapter 26

SEVEN SISTER’S FALLS

“Make it your guiding principle to do your best for others and

to be trustworthy in what you say. Do not accept as friend

anyone who is not as good as you.” – Confucius

Beausejour, Manitoba

Long willow branches brush the tops of our campers as we quietly shuffle through the sleepy town of Beausejour on our way towards Seven Sister’s Falls. Placid, benign and charming, we pass by the Brokenhead River Campground where Remy lived years before, once spending an entire winter in his trailer with only a small electric heater. Another example of Remy’s nonchalant extremism.

Once outside Beausejour the countryside is full of 100-acre farms neatly placed side-by-side. Birds fly in the full moon sky as we drive down the main street in Seven Sister’s Falls nestled on the boundary of Whiteshell Provincial Park. Twenty minutes from Beausejour, there’s only one store in town and a dozen homes.

It’s also where Tom Cardinal’s sweat lodge is located.

Inside a small tavern beside the general store, the bartender thinks she recognizes Remy when she sees me walk in first.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” she says. I tell her I’m Remy’s twin. She puts her hands to her face.

“His twin! Oh I always believed him but they never did.” Her ringed fingers point to three or four patrons that are drinking at a table, hunched-over fixtures, part of the beer-stained wood.

“Well Molly, looks like you’ve met my twin brother!” Remy says behind me.

“That is so strange! You do have a twin brother Remy!” A ripple of interest causing upheaval in the bar. Molly follows Remy past the bar to the table and introduces me to the group, nameless names to featureless faces. My eyes twitch from fatigue and my stomach screams for hot food.

“I thought you were pulling my wire all these years,” says a skinny man with a trimmed moustache sitting in front of a slot machine in the corner, his words slurred, wet and almost without form.

“So where you been to now Remy?” asks Jerry, who whispers through a microphone that has a wire coming out of his neck. Part electronic, part flesh.

“The Yukon.” When he has garnered the collective ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs,’ he’s encouraged to continue. “And we went to Atlin – the original location of Atlantis. Beautiful and remote – too remote actually when push came to shove. But it was good. We were touched by a golden eagle that swooped down on my brother’s shoulder.” They study me, eyes expecting me to dance or pull a rabbit from behind my ear.

Or out of my ass.

“Atlantis? You get all over the place don’t you?” says Molly, adoring Remy.

“And then we went to Whitehorse and clear on across the old Yellowhead Indian Trail and down the Red River Valley to right here. We saw the wild buffalo Grandfather always said existed around the northern BC-Alberta border.” Ronnie gets up out of his stool in front of the slot machine like oozing plasma thinking it had a backbone.

“Wild buffalo? You’re shitt’n me.”

“Remember me telling you about how Grandfather always said the Cree believed the wild buffalo being extinct was a white man’s myth? And that there were large herds still roaming in northern Alberta in some valley only accessible through a waterfall? Well, we found a couple of herds living wild in the bush. A couple of them stood there on the road and wouldn’t let me pass. The Cree legend is true. There are still wild buffalo roaming in the north-west.”

“How you travel so much, Remy,” says Molly, all eyelashes and gushing like a proud mother.

“We’ve done more than five thousand kilometres so far without so much as a scratch until tonight. Got a flat tire, no problem though. Got it fixed and made it here. Trapp and I have the same rigs, see out there.” We could all see my rig through the front window of the tavern. Ronnie nods.

“Let’s go for a smoke,” he says so we go out to the front of the pub. Still not used to smoke-free pubs, they are something new to me since I left the Far East.

“It’s been a good camper this one but tonight…”

“His camper almost crushed him to death,” I say, completing Remy’s sentence. Remy waves off the hyperbole. He’s too excited at me meeting his friends, so I drop it.

“You know I used to work for Ronnie.”

“Yeah, I work at the dam, down the street – at Seven Sisters Falls. That’s where I hired Remy to drive around the lawnmower for a summer.”

“The best job I ever had. All I did was ride around on that lawn mower like a dirt bike! And got paid for it! A little plan W. Perfect.” But I notice Ronnie looking as if there was some unfinished business. Residue best left unsaid.

An old man walks up to us from the sidewalk, surveying the new faces. His blue eyes show tragedy and a soul that has seen life, the hooded eyes stopping on Remy. His hand goes up to his white stubble and then he looks at me and then back on Remy.

“Remy, you back?”

“Neil, how are you my friend?” Remy shakes his hand in a proud-to-know-you manner. Eyes sad and watery, an old man’s story visible for all to see, inviting and unabashed, all written in the lines of an old man’s face.

“I’m still around so life can’t be that bad.” Neil ignores Ronnie who ignores Neil.

“This is my identical twin brother, Trapp.” He studies my tired face.

“I can see the resemblance but when your beard comes in fuller, then you’ll be twins.” Neil laughs from his gut, pure as the albumin of an unopened egg. Ronnie stumbles over to his pick-up truck.

“You’re not driving, are you?” I say. He slams his door closed.

“He’s just down the road. He’ll be OK,” says Neil, as we go back inside the bar. Molly stands up when she sees Neil, who waits at the bar as we sit at the table with Remy’s friends.

“What are you doing back?” asks Neil loudly from the bar.

“We’re looking for property to buy.”

“Lots of it around here,” he says.

“This bar’s for sale,” says Molly. “You two would be perfect to get this place.” She smiles as she ponders the idea. “There’s plenty of space upstairs in the master quarters and in the corner room. You could run the bar – that would be easy for you Remy.”

“Great idea. I’d be drinking every day, which may not be wise.” The idea intrigues me for a moment but the practicality of it would be that no writing would ever get done. Neil motions to leave so Remy stands up.

“Leaving so soon? You just got here Neil.”

“Why don’t you and your brother come back to my house and we can drink beer.” And he adds in a whisper: “It’s too stuffy in here.” Looking at me without saying anything, I can tell he wants to leave because Tattoo Jimmy and Dougie Bell are still at large in the bar.

We finish our beer in one gulp.

“We’ll be back later,” he says to Molly. Her face is sad for a moment until he waves. Remy and I go out to our trucks and wait for Neil to buy a case of beer in the lobby.

“Neil is a bit of an outcast here,” Remy says to me beside our rigs. “People don’t like him but I think he’s got a good heart. Lonely, seen life.” Neil comes out of the lobby and puts the case of beer in my camper and shows me the way to his place, one minute from the pub. We both park in Neil’s driveway and enter a two-room wooden shack no bigger than 300 square feet. Inside my eyes are drawn to the dirt floor, worn and dry almost like rock. I stumble on an uneven part when I sit on the small couch against the wall in the kitchen. Remy hands me a beer and Neil sits in the rocking chair beside the kitchen table. Paint peels on the windowless wall behind him stained with nicotine that drips in slow motion.

“Cool pad,” says Remy. “See? This is what we’re after. Something modest: a bedroom and a kitchen.” Remy and I look at each other for a moment, his eyes are serious as they look down to the floor. A frayed calendar hangs askew and outdated by several years. 

“A writer’s cabin should be modest. Keeps the distractions away,” I say.

“This is good country,” says Remy. “There’s a place down the street: 30 acres and a broken-down old home. Twenty-nine grand they want. I looked at it last summer. What’s that? A thousand an acre? That’s what we’re looking for.”

“Is the home liveable?” He shakes his head.

“We can build something or get a trailer.” I shake my head in disagreement.

“We want some acreage but we need a cabin or cottage on the property. Building will be too expensive and complicated. And it’ll take too long.”

“I could get a trailer, or live in my camper with a generator.” An ache descends on me from nowhere, my beer still unsipped in my hand. When I lift it a shard of jagged pain pierces the core of my shoulder.

“We’re living in our campers right now and it’s already too cold at night,” I say. “Only candles are keeping me warm.”

“It gets cold here in the winter months. Remy knows that,” says Neil. When he asks me if I’m in pain I tell him about the pin in my shoulder.

“Ever try Oxy Contin?” Both of us look at Neil.

“No,” we both say at the same time.

“I have some.” He pulls out a small plastic bottle. “You’re welcome to try some if you like. It’s good for pain.” He pours out some pills.

“It’s unnatural. Manmade. I will smoke weed because it’s from the Creator but I won’t take a pill that’s made from man.” We both look at Remy. “You go ahead though. Take them and be merry.” Remy waves his hand dismissively as if speaking to two kids who want to take an unnecessary risk by eating a poisonous berry of the nightshade family.

Neil holds three pills in the palm of his hand.

“I could use some pain relief.” They are tiny pills so I pop them into my mouth, still used to taking more than what is recommended because of my size while living amongst smaller people in greater China.

“Three, good?” I ask after I ingest the pills. All I know about it the drug is that it’s given to patients after surgery for pain. I think I might as well give it a test spin with my shoulder since the opportunity may never come again. A torn tendon bordering a stainless steel pin in the heart of the socket is not like a blister or hangnail.

“Three’s enough the first time – more than enough.” Neil turns on a small radio on top of his fridge.

“Trapp,” Remy says, shaking his head. “Reckless with unfamiliar tech. Bad combo.” Extremism never far away when the opportunity presents itself.

“So you two brothers going to live together in the same place?” The question stops both of us.

“I might live on the property in my trailer,” Remy replies. “But far from my brother! I’m hoping Trapp finds a place that has lots of space so I can surround myself with trees and feel like I’m living in the bush – like Gabriel Dumont.”

“Who?”

“A Métis hunter. Louis Riel’s right-hand man.”

“He needs his own space,” I say.

“Brothers living together under the same roof ain’t always a good idea,” says the old man, rocking a bit in his chair. Calm. Grounded.

“So we need land,” says Remy.

“And the cheapest land is in BC and yet now we’re going to Ontario.”

“Cheap land and farms in Ontario my boy,” says Neil. “More of ‘em, that’s why. Early settlers. Pioneers. Many of them are falling apart now.” The hardened look of a wise man transforms Neil from a skinny pauper to profound sage.

“Good point.”

“Damn cold here during January but it depends on what you want. Your family from here?”

“Originally, yes, but not now, no. Toronto mainly,” says Remy. “And our mother hasn’t seen this guy in years.” The thought of going to Toronto makes me anxious and impatient, wafer-thin fluff unready for re-introduction – an unfinished piece of pottery, leaky and oblong. Maybe I’m still freaked out from Remy’s brush with death on the shoulder of the highway and his inexplicable faith in his destiny.

“What does that have to do with our house hunt?” I ask.

“It has a lot to do with it. Mom and Dad are starting to get old, Trapp.” Remy’s voice becomes softer. “You’ve been away a long time. Dad’s all white now. And Mom isn’t moving as well as she was even last year.”

“That’s not my problem,” I say. I’m surprised at the coldness in my voice.

“Her life can only be empty without her youngest son in her life. Sure, it has a lot to do with it.” Remy is looking at me curiously. I sigh and feel the throbbing of the torn shoulder tissue, sharper but ebbing.

“Living close to Mommy and Daddy? Holy catfish! You must be joking,” says Neil, slapping his bony hand on his bony thigh. “You don’t have to live close to your folks. They can handle themselves.” I rub my eyes and try to focus but my eyeglasses put everything out of focus.

There’s something about Neil I like, an honesty and his down-to-earth acceptance of the grit. Remy has always had a knack for befriending the lonely and outcast, those islands without the lumber to complete the bridge to the other side. I can tell he doesn’t want to be alone.

He gets up after looking at my hiking shoes.

“You need some cowboy boots? I gotta pair here that don’t fit me no more. Still good mind you.” From the small closet he hands me a pair scuffed and cracked and worn, a life story pressed into the leather. I take off my wet hiking shoes and slip them on and I walk around the dirt floor no more than three strides to the door. Like a glove, the toes have the benefit of space from the mileage etched in the sinew.

“Very solid foundation. The heel is firm.” I take out my tobacco pouch and hand the old man a cigarette, thanking him for his boots. I lean back on the couch and feel half a foot longer. The pills are making my eyelids heavy, leaden shades slipping to gravity.

“The pain in my shoulder is gone.” But I can’t see my brother.

“Want some coffee?” I sigh and my chin falls on my chest.

***

“You want some coffee?” Neil’s voice is now stripped raw from talking and smoking, ripped-sandpaper dry throat. There is light through the open door. He sits at the kitchen table sipping coffee and wearing a different flannel shirt, cigarettes in the pocket.

“Your brother just left.”

“These boots are great,” I say remembering where I am and then briefly close my eyes again.

***

“Yes, I’ll have some coffee,” I reply. “Please, thanks.” Neil stands by the sink washing dishes. Refreshed, I stand up from the couch. “Best way to work-in the leather is to walk in ‘em eh?” Walking on the dirt floor, my foot and boot are one.

“I’ll make some,” he says. I think it’s strange that he needs to brew another pot. I look at my watch but the numbers mean nothing to me. It’s clear I’ve lost track of time so I open the door and I smell the freshness of morning, rich prairie air unsullied and pure.

“Inge!” I find the door to my camper open and there is no sign of my dog anywhere on the property. And Remy’s truck is gone.

“I think Remy may have picked up your dog.”

“Remy? Didn’t he just leave?”

“He came back. He was here looking for Tattoo Jimmy.”

“Where is he?”

“He was going to Doug Bell’s. You know where it is?”

“I think I do. He pointed it out on the way into town yesterday.” A flood of ideas racing in my head.

“You mean two days ago.” I smile at him in good humour. Thinking it was a joke, I thank him again for the boots and leave for Doug Bell’s place. I can’t lose Remy, and I need to find Inge.

Chapter 27

MISUNDERSTOOD

“It is rare, indeed, for a man with cunning words

and an ingratiating face to be benevolent.’ – Confucius

Seven Sister’s Falls, Manitoba

At Doug Bell’s house I hear music coming from the garage so I walk over and see Remy standing with a bunch of people. He comes out of the garage and shakes my hand as if he’s been worried about me.

“Trapp! Good you made it.” He regards me curiously, looking closely into my eyes, then introduces me to Doug. Square-faced and fit with a stern gait. He stares at me in amazement and the women look as if expecting me to tap dance.

“You brothers. You are twins. I never believed you Remy that you had a twin brother.” The voice unfriendly.

“I haven’t seen you in two days, Trapp. I was beginning to worry about you.”

“I’ve been at Neil’s. I must have fallen asleep last night.” The mention of Neil’s name causes a reaction, a hush on egg shells.

“For two days?” Dishevelled. Doug stares at both of us.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I tried to but you were like a log. You should never take pills.”

“Maybe you’re right about that. Listen, do you have Inge?”

“Yes, I did have Inge.” He shuffles his feet, sturdying himself to explain the word ‘did.’ “She was going to starve in your camper so I snagged her yesterday and I fed her but last night she ran away. She just ran off on me. I looked for her but couldn’t find her.”

“She just ran off? Where?”

“Near Grandfather’s place. It’s only about a mile from here. By the way, of all places, Grandfather’s in Wisconsin this week.”

“You’ve looked for her?”

“She ran off. She’s part wolf that dog – like Teetchema. She wants to be wild. It’s in her nature.”

“Remy,” I say, exasperated. “Who are you to make that judgment? It should be my call not yours. It’s my dog.”

“I think she was looking for you.” Irked by this, the only thing to do is to find her.

“If you’re going to look for her, meet me at West Hawk Lake tonight if you can, tomorrow for sure. I’ve been here for almost three days now; it’s time to keep going.” A rolling stone craving the drug of movement and the rubber on cement.

I ask where in West Hawk Lake.

“In one of the campgrounds. I’ll be in the big one on the water. You’ll know. It’s about two and a half hours from here.” Hearing this Doug Bell’s wife shakes her head and leaves the garage and Tattoo Jimmy’s wife walks to Doug’s side.

“You gonna leave just like that again with no thought for any others but yourself? You gonna leave your brother here? That’s just like you.”

“So irresponsible.”

“Leave, leave, leave. You leave Beth just as youse were getting along on each other,” she says. “You leave your Indian teacher just when he was needing you the most. You come and go at the bar and then drive around with your dog in your camper wherever you want. You have no home and you won’t until you grow up. You gotta grow up. When are you going to grow up?”

The garage dead silent, everyone looking at Remy. He stands there with one hand holding a beer and the other holding a cigarette, ragged, dirty in a matted beard, his long Roman nose pointing straight down but bonier and pointier than before. White hair shows under the fluorescent lights, his eyeglasses bent and dusty. Colour has drained from his face, an old man, a hobo, who lives from one drunk to the next, one road trip to the next and one town to the next so people only get to know part of him. The pained part. They never see his road sailing genius dodging potholes, navigating roads, smoking out von crannies and enjoying the beauty of the land. They fail to see him healing people all over the country in bars, the makeshift office of his free service, a progeny of our time, mobile, educated and rootless but a master of his own time. I know now from the road that he lives life full-time in the now – an artist and philosopher and a true visionary.

“Your crazy talk about Indians, it’s all bullshit,” says Dougie Bell, full of Angry Whiteman Syndrome rage and ignorance. “It’s like you live on the edge of a blade. I used to think you were just irresponsible but now all I see is a fool.” Remy squeamish and sullen.

“Wait a minute, Remy left here to meet me, to help me find a place to live. He’s doing me a favour.” I walk out bringing Remy with me. I can see deep creases in his face and pain in his eyes. Those who live an original life will always be misunderstood by those who don’t.

Chapter 28

TATTOO JIMMY

“What use to a blind man is the assistant who does not steady him

when he totters or support him when he falls.” – Confucius

It isn’t right that Remy lost my dog but there are some things you have no control over, like Remy who answers to his dreams and his own wanderlust – a buck taking to deer trails through the trees and across the meadows.

I drive to the bar where I ask Molly if she’s heard of anyone who’s seen a lost dog. Her eyes light up.

“Is that yours? A white dog?”

“Yes! Where was it?”

“I saw a white husky running along 5 out here, maybe twenty minutes ago. A big white dog. Yup.”

“Where’s 5? This one?” I point to the road west of the tavern.

I hop in my truck and drive along 5 and slow down when I see an oncoming truck. Undoing my window I wave it down. A bearded face looks at me from the open window in the dust. Mennonites. I ask the man if he’s seen a white dog.

“White dog. Big?”

“Yes, that’s the one. How far is it?”

“Ten minutes back.” The windswept face is pink and lined from the sun but his eyes twinkle with solar power, kids mumbling in the back seat.

 I tip my cowboy hat and drive fast down Highway 5 until I see her along the road running towards me, ears back in distress. So small in the wide-open prairie of tall grasses. I pull over and get out. She stops when I call her name and runs over to me. I hug Inge hard. Her happiness defies words. I put her in the front seat and see the pads on her paws are worn down raw. I can’t believe I found her.

Instead of going to West Hawk Lake I drive back to the bar to thank Molly.

“Remy, is that your bro?” Brown-bearded with a ponytail, he approaches and scrutinizes me with his eyes, searching and identifying a hundred small differences in what he sees. “No, you’re not Remy. He said he had a brother but wow! I never believed him that he had a twin brother. Wanna beer?”

“Well, at the moment I’m pretty pissed off with him for losing my dog.” He waves his hand dismissively and I see some green and orange tattoos under his sleeves.

“Are you Tattoo Jimmy?”

“Your brother calls me that.” Wrinkles around his eyes come to life, two front teeth missing like gates left open by the road.

“We were looking for you a few days ago here.”

“Yeah, I heard. You hear everything in this town. So you’re looking for property to buy.” I take him up on the beer and postpone my trip to West Hawk Lake.

I tell him that’s what we’re doing. Tattoo Jimmy takes this as a serious thing.

“A man with land is finally a man. It’s that simple.” Head shaking, studying my face and seeing Remy but talking to someone new for the first time – a stranger. “Yup. No man’s a man without land. I’m talking about owning property with no mortgage. The bank doesn’t own it; you own everything.”

“That’s what I’m looking for.” Tattoo Jimmy, ex-con and landowner, tells me that only when you can stand on your own piece of earth and no one can push you around have you the right to call yourself a man.

“Having your own property is freedom.” Tremendous gravity in his belief.

Outside for a cigarette, a car drives by coming from the direction of Neil’s shack. I ask him if he knows Neil.

“Miserable old cuss.”

“A bit crusty but nice guy. I crashed at his place a few nights ago. Small cabin.”

“He got that place from his parents, who he killed.” I puff from my cigarette as if I had just heard a comment about the local hockey team, a bad trade that left their offence anaemic. I raise an eyebrow. “He murdered his father with his hands and then took the property from his mother and left her with nothing. She died a few years back.”

To me it sounds like small town gossip, as valuable as a fish carcass.

“He went to court but there wasn’t enough evidence so he lives in that cabin he inherited from murdering his own father.”

“Didn’t do any time in the joint?”

“No time.” Cold wind fills my ears with the whistle of early autumn.

Molly brings us another round.

“Does Remy know about Neil?”

“Yeah, sure he does but it don’t bother him none. But Remy’s like that ain’t he? Kinda got a kind heart or something. Jack of Hearts that one. But that gets ‘em in trouble. People are suspicious of Remy. They don’t trust ’em. Where does he get his money? He shows up once in a while, whenever there’s a party and then boom! Disappears again. Sure it’s fun to hang out with him but after he leaves he ain’t around to defend himself so people always end up talking. I like Remy but you get some talking bad about him and people begin to look at him suspicious. People always want something to talk about and he’s an easy target.”

I ask if he knows the scar on Remy’s face. “The one that goes down his face,” I say to him. Remy sued the guy who cut him and the money he got is what he lives off.” His face like a Venetian blind, unmoving.

“See, that’s what I mean. If we just knew that then a lot of us wouldn’t think he’s an undercover cop. Why didn’t he tell us that?”

“Why should he? He never talks about his bad eye. It’s personal. And third-party speculation is really just bad manners. It’s nobody’s business but his.”

“You can’t stop the way people are going to act.” We’re silent for a minute.

“True,” I concede.

“It still doesn’t erase the way he lives. He only answers to himself. My wife doesn’t want him coming over to my parties because all he does is talk about Indian stuff. Medicines and that. She gets nervous so I stopped telling Remy about parties and it burned me because I know he found out about them. And I think because of that he hit the bottle hard. I seen him in here drunk and wondering how the hell he was going to keep it together. Every time I thought it would be the last time I ever seen him.”

I should go to West Hawk Lake but something makes me want to stay with Tattoo Jimmy to unlock the mystery of Remy’s missing years.

“Do you know Tom Cardinal?” I ask.

“I know him. Sometimes I wonder if Remy’s under his spell or something, like explain why he thinks he’s Jesus Christ. He talks about him all the time as if he was God ‘imself.”

I shrug my shoulders. “He’s always been a bit of an extremist in his own way,” I say. “But without me around it sounds like it’s become a bit out of control. A few nights ago he almost died – twice. He’s become so fatalistic that it’s basically dangerous.”

“That’s right. Don’t get me wrong, Remy is good people but there’s a screw loose there somewheres and if it ain’t tightened it’s going to loosen more and fall off.”

Or he may have a spiritual IQ of 160, I say to myself.

That, and he might be plain crazy.

It snows during the night and the camper is covered with snow in the morning. The 30-acre property where I stayed is unworthy of serious inquiry so I go east on the road to West Hawk Lake just as the snowfall turns into a Manitoba blizzard. I quickly surmise that driving is virtually impossible without the use of my windshield wipers. I can’t see the road in front of me so I pull a u-turn and go to the only general store in Seven Sister’s Falls.

“Do you sell any paperclips?” I ask the woman. “Actually I only need one.” The woman, homely and buxom, picks one up from her till and hands it to me.

“You can have this one Remy,” she says. I’m too harried to make a correction so I smile warmly and thank her.

I pay for duct tape and return to my truck where I unfold half the paperclip, tape one side of it and then attach it to the small metal piece. I fasten it with more duct tape, then try it and it works. The tape and metal hold and my windshield wipers come on. MacIvor. Duct tape and a paperclip.

I drive slowly through the blizzard and hardly see any traffic on the way through the forests of Whiteshell Provincial Park laden with snow, sugar sprinkled on boughs. It had been seven years since I had seen snow. Crows fly over the road going from tree to tree above, negotiating the snowflakes descending, undeterred and determined, black and thick and good.

When I arrive I find the big campground but I can’t find Remy. It’s deserted and forlorn in the unsoiled snow. After checking virtually every berth of all the campgrounds, there’s no sign of him anywhere. I try the walkie-talkie but the power is gone. I can’t reach him. I can’t see him. Remy is gone.

Chapter 29

ALONE AT LAST

“Being fond of courage while detesting poverty

will lead men to unruly behaviour.” – Confucius

West Hawk Lake, Manitoba

I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams like a piñata left outside in the rain prodded and pushed around but not yet broken. All I want is to find a modest place to write that I can call my own – my own private Idaho. Now I’m looking at heading back to Ontario where prices will be too high. Something has gone drastically wrong. I’m doing everything backwards and counter-clockwise. I want to blame Remy but I’m the one to blame.

The mirror. Christ, maybe I’m the one who’s going mad.

In the campground I consult the map and mull over my options. There are a number of places where Remy could have gone. My finger follows the highway to Vermillion Bay, a place he once called one of the most beautiful on the planet. That would be the next nook von crannie. After a lunch of honey and stale rye bread in my camper with Inge I drive in the wet snow to Vermillion Bay. Overcast. When I arrive something tells me Remy isn’t here. Slowly explore all possible nook von crannies under the willow trees. I don’t find his camper so I spend the night near the water and leave early the next morning for Thunder Bay, our old tree-planting stomping ground. My twin intuition tells me he would be there if anywhere from here to Toronto.

Driving to Thunder Bay I pass miles of green forest following the Canadian Pacific Railway through Kenora and Dryden until I get sick of the 18-wheelers and slip south on Highway 622 through Turtle River Provincial Park down to Atikokan and Quetico Provincial Park, the canoeing capital of the world. It’s the first time I’ve been alone since I’ve been back, free to roam and now without the need to slow down for Remy. I open up to 100 on the open road and am confident that I’ll make it to Toronto for Thanksgiving. I think about Remy and the Twin Paradox and wonder what happens when the lines cross during the seventh year, when the double helix doubles and halves, doubles and halves, the storm more severe when the breakage is so complete. Thunder and lightning and waves and rain, the crossing point was full bore, the intersection of the latest seven-year cycle. A shaking of the hands in the passing night of time, a nod at the crossroads on our tandem journeys, two hitchhikers heading on down the road.

The crack when the fire ignites.

It doesn’t take me long to reach the city of Thunder Bay where I follow the signs to downtown and I find the old Inntowner Tavern, the scene of many good nights during tree-planting season when I was at university. I’m expecting Remy to be playing pool with a native talking about the medicine wheel and the Pahana. I walk into the pub and stop in my tracks. The old long bar that was always so crowded is boarded up with old Coke signs. Pool table still and abandoned, scarred and wise. The bar empty save a few old timers sitting on bar stools and a Chinese woman behind the bar with cheap Chinese decorations on all the walls.

“You wanna a drink?” The Chinese woman stern with an accent, impatient in her endoplast gait. I look around again making sure I’m in the right place. I decide against the drink and leave past the billiards table for the east.

Driving out of Thunder Bay for the open road I ponder some of the themes of my yet-to-be-completed book on China still kicking around in my hears like an unseen mosquito in a darkened tent. Susurration cannot remain unattended so I employ Inge to be my sounding board.

“Did you know China has moved away from the extreme left of the political spectrum?” Her ears go back and she smiles. Good doggie. “In 2004 capitalists were invited to join the communist party so with capitalists as party members, is the Chinese Communist Party still communist? It now wants the proletariat to act on personal self-interest for material gain for the good of the Motherland. Chinese by the millions educated at English-speaking universities in the West are now returning to the mainland to lead a new economic renaissance, sweeping the nation in a fever of state-sponsored nationalism. If political conformity is the dominant religion of China today and anything other than good economics is politically undesirable, then what does that say about good business in Red China? International trade reveals China exporting way more than it imports that has resulted in China having the biggest bank account on the planet and the biggest gap between the rich and the poor. But they need the big savings account to pay for oil. The merging of private sector oil exploration and the military is a blurry picture – especially when one is reminded the one party also makes the laws thus no division between the executive and judicial branches – yet it is understandable because China is now the biggest consumer of oil. And a country without enough oil flirts with a constant national security risk. So when the United States invaded Iraq, China lost about 20 percent of its oil supply coming from Iraq. All existing contracts were declared null and void. The American invasion of Iraq was a war against China by proxy. Oil makes people and nations do crazy things.” My throat is scratchy so I don’t tell Inge that the last two wars the United States lost were to China: the Vietnam War and the Korean War were both wars against China in the background, the Korean War being the more severe example of how Americans cannot win a war of attrition.

When I come out of my thoughts on China, I am driving along the north shore of Lake Superior where geographically Canada boils down to one strategic throughway along the Trans-Canada Highway. I remember Remy warning me that the chances of being pulled over along here were high for the slightest infringement.

Beginning to tire after passing through Nipigon, I look for a nook-von-crannie in the dark when I spot a provincial park and pull in beside the sign.

White Lake Provincial Park

CLOSED/FERMÉ

Despite the park being closed, it crosses my mind that I could find a spot to crash in the park but I’m prohibited by a metal bar. Instead of leaving the park entrance I roll up a joint. I put on the indoor light and am at the de-budding stage of its construction when a car stops in front of me. I kill the indoor light and place the half-rolled joint on the floor by my feet and slip my one-gram baggy of weed under my right thigh all the while thinking it was a park ranger. I slide it into drive and move for the highway but the car guns forward to prevent my exit. It’s only then that I realize it’s a police car.

Headlights crossing my path, I see a MAG flashlight in the dark coming towards me, slow and thorough, cautious like a lion to an antelope.

“What are you doing here?” The shining light at my hands and face and around the driver’s seat.

“I was just seeing if the park was open so I could stay the night.” He doesn’t answer. “But then I saw it was parked… er, I mean closed.” I don’t feel nervous despite the half-rolled joint.

“So what are you doing here sir?”

“I was just looking at my map to see how far it was to White River.” For a second I want to share information about how the story of Winnie-the-Pooh originated from there.

“You mean White Lake? Or…White River?” I passed White Lake ten minutes ago.

“White River. I reckon maybe 20 kilometres or so…”

“25 kilometres.” The cop seems to lose some of his swagger but then the flashlight focuses on the pile of junk and Inge in the passenger seat. The light flashes on my map, a jerry can and an open twelve-pack of Coors Light. The light stays on the box of beer.

“Is that beer sir?” his voice buoyant. When I answer that it is, he lets loose with a rapid-fire set of questions.

“Is the case open sir?”

“Yes.”

“Are there any open bottles in there sir?”

“No,” I reply, but suddenly I wonder what he means exactly by ‘open bottles’. “Ah well, there are a few empties in there,” I throw in as if I have nothing to hide.

“Have you consumed any alcohol today sir?”

“No I have not.” It is then that we have direct eye-to-eye contact. The cop is in his forties and keeps his moustache bushy in the middle.

“May I see your driver’s license please?” Pulling out my wallet without exposing my baggy of weed becomes my total focus like a surgeon crouching and about to cut the treated area. The flashlight becoming very active, I can hear the crumpling of the baggy as I adjust my weight to retrieve my driver’s license from my back pocket.

“Here it is.” He looks over my papers and he keeps the questions coming.

“Are there any firearms or illegal narcotics in the vehicle sir?” I say there aren’t but it sounds noticeably weaker than my answer about the booze. For a moment I contemplate telling the cop that I have a hunting knife in my camper, showing him I have nothing to hide. In that vein I’m about to confess I have a small baggy of marijuana for ‘personal use.’ How many people have told me that cops only bust you if you have more than an ounce on you? Facing this moment of crisis I know if asked to step out of the vehicle I won’t be able to conceal the baggy.

“May I ask where you are going?”

“I’m hoping to get to my mother’s for Thanksgiving on Sunday. She lives in Toronto.”

“Where have you come from?” I have no idea whether he means an hour ago, a day ago or a month ago.

“The Yukon.” I momentarily take delight in how much I have traveled since the Vancouver airport. The flashlight stops on the map that lies unfolded by my arm. The cop walks in front of my rig and checks the license plate against my papers.

“Do you also have insurance and registration for this vehicle sir?” Still hyper aware of the crumpling baggy of weed under my thigh I lean across and open the glove compartment and hand him more papers. More Chinese communist words come to my mind:

IF YOU LET ME GO, I WILL TELL YOU SOMETHING!

Words that were screamed at the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

He examines the papers one more time and gives a final flash of his flashlight.

“Sorry sir. Have a good evening.” As I accept my license and registration back I can again hear the crumpling of the baggy. Placing my papers beside my map, I slip it into drive and leave.

I drive stoically to get myself far away from the bottleneck, an hour along the stretch of road between Thunder Bay and Wawa, a pressure cooker of connecting tissue for the road sailor linking west to east.  The civilized world in the post-World Trade Tower age has become a place where one can no longer get lost in the timelessness of play without being suspect and watched by an invisible enemy that makes all good people on guard at all times. Anyone who stands out from the crowd is scrutinized for the markings of a criminal. Conform or be hassled.

LONG LIVE THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT!

WHO IS NOT WITH US – IS AGAINST US!

Hair should be presented in a certain way and beards and moustaches severely frowned upon distinguishing you as one who answers to Satan’s call. The warm blanket of security that kept me warm throughout my early years is gone. Conformity is used in China to consolidate opinion for political ends. In Canada one conforms to separate oneself from the suspicion of being a terrorist. Suspicion now reigns where the security of innocence once shone brightest in Canada.

More Chinese communist party propaganda pops into my head:

THE INDIVIDUAL MAY FALL,

BUT THE COLLECTIVE LASTS FOREVER.

The Collective, my ass.

***

The mixed bag of Canadian Shield and trees is a unique landscape strangely familiar, an ancient kinship. The land with its rich soil isn’t flat enough to be prairie nor can the jagged Precambrian bedrock hills pass for mountains. You can’t call the woods a pine forest because there isn’t enough pine but you can’t call it a birch forest because there isn’t enough birch and you can’t call it a poplar forest because there aren’t enough poplars, but you can with maple. Her autumn multi-coloured canopy houses countless rivers and millions of lakes carved out by receding glaciers like a tiger’s paw through butter. It is widely believed that Ontario’s geologists lost track counting the number of lakes at about three million. Its labyrinth of waterways provided transportation routes for the Anishinabek and les voyageurs fur traders of past centuries.

A canoeing paradise and the largest supply of fresh water in the world.

I hit the first limestone church of the journey at Brace Mines just past Sault Ste. Marie, an experience that make me think I’m home. I bypass the turn off at Espanola to explore Manitoulin Island because the ferry to Tobermory is closed for the season. Crossing the north shore of Georgina Bay I reach Parry Sound where the two-lane traffic turns to a four-lane feeder highway into Toronto. More buildings and factories appear and the traffic appears out of nowhere. Like a beehive the speeds become faster along Highway 400 and dangerous on Highway 401 to the city. New companies and films on billboards are like a new language to me, a foreign culture born from the ashes of the old, world-old and primeval.

When I arrive in the streets of Toronto I decide to pass through my old neighbourhood where I went to school. Quiet and the same as I remember it, nothing changed in this safe niche of the world. Treed and safe.

It’s too late to call my mother but just enough time for a pint of beer at the local pub. I park and walk in the Fox and Firkin.

“Sorry, we’re closed,” says a waiter.

“Last call is at 1:30, right?” I check my watch.

“Right, but it’s 2:30.” I’ve crossed a time zone today.

Driving up Yonge Street to a park near my mother’s place I begin to experience engine trouble. Sounds like the engine isn’t getting any fuel but I have lots of gas. I chug along and barely make it to the park and pull into a shady area beside the river for the night.

As I lay in my loft, I dreamt I was in a field where a long “V” shape of birds appeared overhead. I took my pellet gun and shot at the birds so high up in the sky. Miraculously I hit one and it fell to the ground so I ran after it with so much delight and amazement that I forgot I was carrying my rifle until I encountered some strangers in the field. They looked at me and my weapon as if I was a serial killer. I stopped to debate whether I should pick up the bird, and decided not to retrieve it. I turned back without the bird.

***

People take their morning run along the creek the next morning, well-rested and crisp, urban in posture and earnestness, in gait and structure. I want to drive to my mother’s to surprise her but my engine won’t start. I turn it over and it won’t catch. There happens to be a police car parked only ten yards from me. For all I know I’m being watched. I hesitate for a moment before I approach the cop car.

“Excuse me, officer?” The policeman unrolls his window after scrutinizing me. I step away from the window because of the unfriendly expression on his face.

“Can I help you?” Italian descent. Polite. Young.

“Yes, I hope so. My truck won’t start. I was wondering if you could call in for a tow truck. My mobile phone is out of credits.” The policeman looks back at my rig and then gets out of his car. 

“Is that your vehicle, sir?”

“Yes. Could you call for a tow truck? I could take it to a mechanic. I think it’s the fuel line. The engine’s not getting enough gas.” He asks me to try the motor again so I go to the driver’s seat and try it again but it still doesn’t start. The cop radios for a tow truck that shows up in fifteen minutes. I ride in the passenger seat of the tow truck, with Inge still in the camper and am dropped off at my mother’s house.

“Dear! What a surprise!” My mother embraces me. Genuinely shocked to see me, hands fluttering around my shoulders making sure I’m real.

“Happy Thanksgiving Mom.”

“I’m so glad you made it for Thanksgiving. I couldn’t have asked for a better Thanksgiving present. It’s been too many years.” The familiar and unwanted guilt for being away for so long sneaks into the room like a fox watching from the corner of the room.

“Is Remy with you?” I’m just about to tell her I lost him on the road when Remy arrives. Standing in the doorway he’s unaware that I’m in the room for a moment, until he takes off his jacket.

“Trapp!”

“My brother!”

“How did you get here before me?” 

“I got here last night.”

“Last night?”

“Where were you? I checked all the campgrounds in West Hawk Lake.”

“I was there. Well hidden. I was behind the thing with the metal-” I immediately know where he had been, the one place I neglected to look.”

“I know where you’re talking about,” I say, interrupting him. “Beyond the thing there on the right.”

“Yeah, right there.” We nod at each other in understanding and give each other a bear hug. I get a faint waft of marijuana.

“Happy Thanksgiving Mom,” we say at the same time.

Chapter 30

THANKSGIVING

“Is one who simply sides with tenacious opinions a gentleman?

or is he merely putting on a dignified appearance?” – Confucius

Toronto, Ontario

There are only a few scraps of turkey left on the carcass and some cranberry sauce, remnants of a royal feast. Never has my appetite been so veracious, a wild animal in my capacities like all men of instinct. My journals of the trip lay scattered around the table. It’s not long when another bottle of red wine is opened and Remy asks me if he can flip through some pages.

There’s some cranberry sauce in his whiskers.

“Soccer,” I say. He looks closely at me as I briefly touch my whiskers around the left side of my mouth, the cue for him to raise his serviette and swipe his whiskers and remove the cranberry. He reads some entries.

“Who wrote this in Watson Lake? The one written in large scrawl.”

“The cook. Remember him?”

“Yeah. Mom, listen to this. It’s from a guy we met one night in the Yukon. 

‘Welcome to my world. Today I cooked for 8 hours then met Two very Interesting Brothers which have the Know how and Energy to accomblish what they put there energy two. I see good out of what they see but they will find who they are and why they are here and where they are happy for what they got and for what they know. not for what they do because what you do will make yourself wonder and wonder day in and day out. (WHY) for you yourself will be rich but it’s a long road where the road becomes many. So go with Your own self for who you are and what you are and get to know your Innerself and learn how to USE THE ENERGY.’

He wrote the last three words in capital letters.”

“He had a good heart,” I say. Remy nods and I know he’s thinking of the Coke-bottle glasses and the pale and fragile skin. In my food stupor my mind wanders to how Remy asked about his life and the kindness in his voice. Emotion sweeps over me like a gust of wind in a storm that hits me in the heart. In him I see compassion so thorough, so unthanked and so overlooked, and so pure and noble in empathy that my heart leaps into my throat. Morose in the candlelit semi-darkness and my eyes become heavy. In front of my mother I see one brother who seeks to heal himself and another who seeks to heal others, one selfish and the other selfless, and the one selfless, so misunderstood.

“Sounds like you got through to him. I wish sometimes you two could see how you are when you’re around one another, how infectious it is. Have I ever told you what your grandmother said about you two? You weren’t cry-babies, you were laugh-babies.” A smile full of pride and joy justifies the thousands of miles we’ve driven, her two sons finally home for Thanksgiving after so many years away.

After a laugh-filled meal and bouts of storytelling with some key editing on both our parts, Remy and I slow in our food comas and distended stomachs, go out for a nightcap.

After we say our good-byes and leave, Remy suggests that since my camper is at the mechanic’s I put Inge in his camper.

“What about your beads and stuff?”

“They’re doggie-proof.” When he lets Inge in his camper the dog goes to sleep on the floor. Settled.

“I called Kenny before I came in tonight. He’s going to meet us at the Fox and Firkin for a pint.” It’s one of Remy’s oldest friends.

“Kenny? Haven’t seen him in ten years.”

“Man, I still can’t believe you made it here before me! It’s a long haul from Thunder Puppy.”

When we arrive at the pub, Kenny is already there. Looks exactly the same, not one line.

“The McFlynn twins!” He asks me about the places I’ve traveled so I tell him about some of the people I met and the jobs I’ve had. Interested but no questions come after my spiel. Instead he turns his attention to Remy. He makes snide remarks about the way Remy looks and his leather medicine bundle and straw cowboy hat and worn denims. Remy tired, gets up to call our father on the telephone.

“Don’t you think Remy has lost something since his days as an undergrad?”

“You think so? I think he has gained something.” For some reason he thinks I would betray my identical twin brother behind his back.

Remy returns from the phone call, his face ashen.

“Dad just totally chewed me out. I can’t believe he was so harsh! He said I was a loser. He was so blunt.” Kenny laughs.

“Yeah but Remy, look at you. You’re a bum. Look at your untrimmed beard and your clothes. I don’t know anyone who looks as grubby as you. I’m embarrassed to be here at this table with you.” Posture now concave, exhaustion clouding his eyes, defenceless, trodden and hampered by gravity.

I ask Kenny why he’s so cranky.

“I’m not cranky Trapp. Your brother calls me up once every few years when he comes into town and we go out and have a few laughs but it’s always the same. He always leaves the next morning – gone like the bride’s panties. Like Laura.”

“I should call her,” he mumbles, taking it all on the chin and filling his cup.

“Your damn right you should call her. She misses you man. I don’t want to dish on you old boy but take a look at yourself.”

“It’s the end of a 7000 kilometre road trip,” I say, feeble from the turkey and stuffing and horseradish. “We’re both grubby, man. We’ve both been eating and sleeping on wheels for almost two months.”

“Decorum. This man has a master’s degree and look at him: a real-life bum. You live in a camper with all your worldly possessions. You want to help others but you can’t even help yourself. Sorry to be the guy to break it to you old boy but that’s just the way it is.” Kenny had atrophied in both mind and spirit, his education lost out to the repetitive preaching of television writers with dubious ethics and make-believe worlds, his time spent dreaming dreams far different than mine in a world padded with soft truths from living vicariously through an electronic window to the world.

I tell him it’s rude to speak to my brother like that so he stands up and throws money on the table.

Dark circles like coffee stains on a coaster, eyes sad and salt of dried sweat mark the tanned skin above the beard.

“Ever wonder why I’ve embraced our Indian side? It’s because all my white friends have turned their backs on me just like that.” We sit in silence for a while and drink as the bar begins to close down. There’s an expression in Latin that describes Remy, an axis in medictate signi; an axis in the midst of signs. He recognizes signs from God. It’s a gift.

“Don’t let someone like Kenny put you off. You’ve grown while he’s stayed the same.” I tell him about the Twin Paradox and our crossing at the intersection of the double helix. I tell him Kenny doesn’t know how the world works and I doubt he is acquainted with the ache of hunger and how you can never trust someone who hasn’t experienced tragedy. We have experienced tragedy and loss because we go out into life to such extremes and that makes us different. “You have something special Remy. I wasn’t sure at first but it was in Fort Nelson that morning we took that dip in the pool that I saw something in you I had never seen before. You have the courage to follow what you believe. Most people never reach that point; most people never dig as deep as you have to find their gift.”

He looks as weak and exhausted as I’ve ever seen him.

“It’s been a good road trip I must say.”

He tells me that what he sees at the crossing of the paths after the last seven-year cycle is his opposite: the Wendigokaan.

“I had a serious dream nine days ago but I needed nine days to interpret it properly. It was about you. I dreamed that you are a Wendigokaan – a contrary spirit. A Wendigokaan, not a Wendigo – that’s something different – is associated with the power of thunder and lightning. Your spirit is that of a sacred clown who lives according to their own rules. You buck authority and live apart from others and you show what is wrong with the way things are through contrary behaviour.” I nod.

“That would explain a lot.” In a haze I ask where Wendigokaans live.

“Midland, Parry Sound and Manitoulin Island and some other good spots. Our Ojibway brothers are in all of those areas.”

“Manitoulin?”

“I’ve been there. It’s the land the Creator made in the image of himself. ’Manitoulin’ actually means ‘the Land of the Creator.’ Literally it’s where the Great Spirit resides.”

“I may check it out.”

“It’s the largest fresh water island in the world. And it has the only unceded territory in North America. It’s an independent Indian reserve still to this day never taken by the Europeans.”

“We’ve road-sailed across the continent of Canada, our Africa”

“You see I am a Red Man who walks through life without regard for rules while the sun makes a crown on my head. It says of me in the Bible:

‘My enemies say cruel things about me.

They want me to die and be forgotten.

Those who come to see me are not sincere;

they gather bad news about me

and then go out and tell it everywhere…

Even my best friend, the one I trusted most,

the one who shared my food,

has turned against me.’”

“I will not turn against you,” I say.

“That’s what the prophecies say.”

***

Arriving at Remy’s camper he opens the door and Inge jumps out along with bits of drapery and feathers that fall to the ground. Eagle feathers lay half-eaten on the floor of the camper and on his bed, a roll of paper towel has been chewed up and the drapes are shredded, even the bearskin having been gnawed at.

“Inge, come!” I yell. She comes to me sheepishly with her ears back.

“Get that evil dog out of here!” I take the dog for a good run around thinking of the carnage. His mobile homestead and his temple, everything of value is there carefully arranged and adorned with beads that have been programmed from sweat lodges and medicines brewed with expertise and finesse but now it’s all wrecked by the dog he always thought was evil. Yelling at the dog isn’t going to do anything useful at this point so I grab Inge by the leash and go. Back at the camper Remy is closing the doors and driving off. He passes in front of me for the main road and I wave but he ignores me as if were a stranger he had never once seen.

Chapter 31

NOWHERE TO GO

“The gentleman understands what is moral.

The small man understands what is profitable.” – Confucius

I’m winded by the massacre and butchery by Inge, perhaps spooked by some spiritual force or medicine. Nothing I can do about it and I remind myself that it was Remy’s idea to put my dog in his camper. Now facing the task of finding my writer’s cabin on my own, I pick up my rig and arrange to go see an old friend. He tells me to come over and that another old friend of mine will be there.

When I arrive I think I’m at the wrong house because it’s so massive. My guess is that he lives with his wife and two children only on one floor of the 5000 square-foot home. I knock on the front door and out comes Byers, much bigger around the waistline.

“Trapp! Too long old buddy.” I can tell from the quick scan of his eyes that he’s surprised by the way I look. I haven’t seen him since his wedding twelve years ago. Images of past hockey games on the shinny rink roll around between my ears, ankles crooked in inherited skates.

“Back from China! Where does the time go?”

The house is immaculate. Alison, the picture of hospitality, tall and thin is a seasoned hostess. She is mostly busy with her youngest boy as Byers and I settle in the kitchen. 

“Umm, it’s about the size of your house. You have the entire house?” A look of fatigue and stress overcomes his features. Dark bags under his eyes like flower pots left unattended to dry, blousy and loose. He is far away from the rhythms of nature.

“It’s big enough. We won’t be moving for a while. It’s probably big for you after Hong Kong and Tokyo where everything is so small.”

“Small apartments are the norm over there. Nothing like this.”

We’re still in the kitchen when the doorbell rings. I follow him to the foyer and Byers opens the door. Standing on the threshold is one of my oldest friends: Rob Tribiniverius. When he looks at me he has a double take. His eyes dissect my face, trying again to confirm that it’s me. I feel like telling him that it’s different over in China but I don’t think it will do any good because China for Torontonians is a kingdom of quaint hutongs and palaces surrounded by old stonewalls but for me was like living among mobilized peasants in an industrial revolution wasteland who still retain their peasantness. Anything from frayed cuffs and hay in their hair to scuffed pants from their scooter, it’s more down to earth than the over manicured business suits, clean-shaven faces and big wallets with lots of plastic. I had lived in a different world from them and I had to forgive them for their ignorance.

“Lost your shaver on the road?” he says once he recognizes me. I rub my hand over my flaxen beard.

“I’ve let it go, like Remy’s.”

“Didn’t see a barber on your travels?” I can see him glance at the turquoise rock around my neck.

“First ponytail I’ve ever had Tribby. I never found a Chinese barber I could trust.” He recovers from the shock and settles down in the living room with a beer trying to figure me out.

“I like to look at my time in China as enlightening,” I say. “I’ve stretched a bit since I last saw you.” I’m deadpan but Tribby seems to get my point, haughty disposition softening, plumage descending.

“Knowing you, I’m sure you stretched with a purpose.” The old playful grin I knew in childhood, a homecoming from my friends.

My friends were engaged in a normal life in Toronto, self-preserving and self-serving to build wealth and have families whereas I have been delving deeply into foreign cultures with both feet forward, choosing to immerse myself in life and work in new cultures. My aim was to expand my mind and build my character and to grow as a person in stature and knowledge – a goal and lifestyle at odds with these two old friends. Different paths. Different people. Different priorities. But still each respectful of each other. But the question now was: what was instore for me? Where would I now end up now that I was back? What would happen to me after my book was written? For the first time I felt a waft of fear in my guts. Had I meandered too far from where I had first come from?

***

The next day, after picking up my rig and having lunch with my mother, I leave for Owen Sound and the Bruce Peninsula and learn the prices are beyond my budget that is quickly dwindling from petrol costs. Moving over through Parry Sound to north of Huntsville near Algonquin Park I spend a couple of weeks looking at properties that are too big, too expensive and too remote. Soon a month flies by with no word from Remy and the November cold is upon me – the uninvited guest. Hope that buoys the spirit is waning and I’m afraid I’ll have to spend the winter in Toronto renting.

For the first time I consider failure is a real possibility.

I’ve been able to continue my streak of not paying for accommodation but the cold is becoming increasingly tough to endure. I’m still not used to the below-zero temperatures after so many years among palm trees and maybe that’s why it’s difficult to convey the experience of sleeping overnight in my camper when it’s five below zero with no heat. Your hands must be positioned inside the sleeping bag or else the deep throbbing of fire in your digits wakes you up. Wool socks are the only solution to keeping feet warm – the more the better – and the hat: the most important item outside the sleeping bag. I have learned from experience that a hood is preferable than a hat to keep in all your well-earned heat. A hat will fall off during the night and without a hat your body cannot stay warm and the cold becomes a danger. Once the chill enters your bones sleep is simply unattainable; shivering involuntary and voluntary, is the only means to increase temperature. When I woke up this morning I found my bottle of water beside my head frozen solid.

Only physical movement and hot coffee could restore my normal temperature and alleviate the tremors of frost down my spine.

I learn that Remy has rented a cabin near Parry Sound. Being close to Parry Sound I find out exactly where the cabins are from my mother. Along Highway 69 I drop by Key River, an hour north of Parry Sound. When I find the cabins beside the river I spot his brown and white road buggy beside a red log cabin covered with snow, smoke billowing from the chimney into the darkening sky. Already half buried in the early snowfall. A deer hanging upside down from a tree at the cabin beside him, blood stains in the snow below it.

Hunting season is here.

When I knock on the door there is no response until I knock a second time, shivering. The door opens and I see Remy with tangled hair wearing his moccasins and his Thunderbird vest.

“Trapp!”

“Hey brother.”

“What are you doing here?”

“It’s freezing out. I’m not used to the cold.” He doesn’t say anything. “I’ve been looking at properties around here but everything’s too expensive. And it’s too chilly to stay in my camper. I was hoping I could crash on your couch for a few nights.” I see thoughts passing through his mind.

“I can’t. Sorry man. You have your camper. You’ll be all right. I stayed in Manitoba an entire winter. You can rough it man. I don’t want that dog around here.” I remove a glove and rub my face.

“I don’t have any electricity in there. C’mon man. At night it’s freezing. The dog can stay in the camper.” I look at the sunken cheeks and the lines criss-crossing around his eyes, a face of overwhelming sadness.

“I have my medicines all over the place. I can’t, man.” For a moment I am speechless.

“How about a cup of coffee then? I’ll hit the road but a java would be nice. It will warm me up.” Remy sighs but goes into his cabin to make coffee but he doesn’t let me come into his cabin, only returning when the water is boiled and the coffee is made. My feet are freezing in the snow when he hands me a mug of steaming coffee, my hands shaking.

“How’s your rig?” I ask.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Listen sorry man, but-“

“Good spread here,” I say trying to change the subject but I know it’s pointless. I hand him the coffee half full and see his hands shaking like mine. When Remy shuts the door I stand there for ten minutes not moving and not knowing where to go. It’s a strange feeling not knowing where to go when you have no place to turn at the end of the road. I’m stunned standing there in the snow not knowing what to do, age 40, jobless, single and without a home. Dark, cold and no more candles. A profound loneliness hits me, a strange sensation as it dawns on me that I have nowhere else to go in the world.

Chapter 32

LANDING ON MANITOULIN ISLAND

“A man has no way of becoming a gentleman unless he understands Destiny.” – Confucius

Key River, Ontario

It’s too cold to sleep after the aborted coffee so I decide to drive to Manitoulin Island. The idea of going to an island is comforting, away from the grid and away from the trucks and away from the malls. Being back on the road is soothing, my real home now. I pat Inge as I drive through the LaCloche Mountains under a full moon, one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. I reach the famous wooden swing bridge and pass over the North Shore waters into Little Current. As soon as I arrive I feel safe, as if I have crossed a moat onto an island castle built on rock.

Down the main street beside the docks and then around the town and still a few hours before last call, I hunt for a pub. Having honed my skills in finding the right pub across the country I have developed a keen sense of where the social centre of the town is, so it doesn’t take me long to find the old Anchor Inn, on the corner since 1888.

There are a few guys watching the hockey game. A short man walks out from behind the corner of the bar.

“What can I get you?” says the bartender, a gruff voice. I scan the beer on tap.

“A pint of Alex,” I say. My voice is shaky, still wound up from my encounter with Remy.

“A pint of Alexander Pale?” he confirms. I nod. “Yes!” he says and pulls the beer. A few large beer signs on an exposed wall and a jukebox, rustic and laidback, I’m at home immediately.

“You want to shoot a game?” He introduces himself as Chas. His native friend is busy eating his chicken wings. “It’s the second intermission in the hockey game. Lots of time for me to kick your ass.”

“Sure.”

As we play pool a group of natives sit near the billiards table and order pitchers of beer.

“Passing through?” Chas is thin as a rake. Pants dusty, dirt on his tight, sun-tanned face.

“Looking for a place to live actually. Just arrived.”

“House?”

“More like a writer’s cabin in the woods.”

“Oh well there’s a lot of ‘em around here. My brother just bought a place close by.” Chas sinks the eight ball and then moves around the table to put back the cue and return to the hockey game. A serious-faced native looks at me curiously so I go over to him and offer him a cigarette. He takes it and tells me his name is Goat.

“I just arrived on the island today,” I say. Goat nods and then leans back and speaks with his women friends. Flushed and feeling I’m in a different world, they look at me and then talk more.

“Where you from?” asks one of the women, the big-cheeked long-haired matriarch of the group.

“Tough to say. I’m returning from overseas after a long time.” They all keep looking at me waiting for me to go on. “I’m Métis. My home is Canada. I’m just not sure where to live. That’s why I’m here.” I give them a tired smile and see acceptance.

“You want to come to a party?” asks Goat.

“Sure.”

“Can you drive?” I tell him I can so we all leave the Anchor Inn with Goat coming with me in my truck. I drive behind the Indian woman who drives to the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve. Past the sign we drive for twenty minutes into the darkness through the forest until we hit a row of houses where we park. The home is surrounded by thick woods. As soon as I enter I see a girl under the living room light with long dark hair. She smiles when I introduce myself.

“I’m Val,” she says. Her mouth is small but her eyes tell me she’s happy.

“You live here?”

“My mother does, but I live close by.” 

“I just arrived from the Yukon. Long road trip.” I tell her a bit about my journey as she stands beside me blinking, bashful. The others have no trouble carrying on the party.

“Why are you on Manitoulin?” Val’s long hair like a horse’s mane parted in the center and combed smooth by a caring hand.

“I’m looking to buy some property to settle down and finish a book. My brother said Manitoulin was a beautiful island so I thought I would check it out.”

“Are you from here?”

“I’m a Métis Indian, part Ojibway and looking for my ancestral homeland.”

“I’m Ojibway too. Manitoulin is mainly Ojibway so it’s the right place. Have you found a home yet?”

“No. I only arrived today.”

“Today!”

“Tonight actually.”

“You must be one of very few strangers ever to come onto Manitoulin and end up in Wiki after only a few hours.” She laughs, eyes dance in the light. I think for a moment of Alexa on the west coast poised to fly to Africa and all the frustrations I felt when I saw her, but as soon as she appeared in my mind’s eye she was gone. By the end of the evening I’m wearing some new beads around my neck and unable to stop kissing her. It is as if Val had been waiting for me for years.

***

I leave Val the next morning and drive out of Wiki to the wide-open spaces of Manitoulin Island that feels like a playground. I pass parks, beaches, lakes, lighthouses, waterfalls, hiking trails, caves, harbours, homesteads, tepees, trading posts, heritage museums, Indian reservations, snake fences, handicraft shops and limestone churches. The old limestone church in Mindemoya looks like it doubled as a fortress. From the lay of the land I’m optimistic that I can find a sleepy old cabin in need of some tender-loving care. I pick up a newspaper with the real estate listings and make a list of places that are within my price range. I see one that looks like it’s under-priced from the photo so I decide to check it out.

I pass steep cliffs along the escarpment by the original Jesuit Mission founded in 1648 along THE GREAT SPIRIT CIRCLE TRAIL to the west of Lake Manitou. Red century farms mark the farmland between the escarpment and the road until the village of Sandfield. It’s just past Manitou River and a fish hatchery when I see a sign that reads:

RAINBOW COUNTRY

An old general store that looks like it’s been there since the nineteenth century, and mature cedar forests and cottages dot the road until I come to the turnoff. Past an old school house, I see some white-tailed deer running from the road when I spot the ‘For Sale’ sign. The homestead is on the lip of a hill overseeing about 20 acres of rolling fields. It’s a white house with chipping paint and a limestone chimney that’s protected by a mix of cedar and maple trees, a classic A-frame with gables and a few wooden sheds falling down. Once I’m out of my camper Inge runs around the property with her tail wagging.

The two-story house is almost entirely obscured by two massive oak trees that flank the front and west side. Paint is chipping off the siding and the grass is running wild around the front porch covered by a weathered veranda. Lazy porch for reading under the protection of cedars and oak. I try the door but it’s locked. Limestone base of the structure. Very solid. Picnic table on the back porch with a view of an open meadow with Lake Manitou through the trees. I know that this place has all the things necessary to qualify as my homestead, as if I had been here before in a dream.

I drive to the general store in Sandfield where I want to call the listing broker from a pay phone but I happen to see his name on a sign in the window. Walking into the store I inquire about the house for sale. A tall man hobbles on a bad knee behind the counter says that he’s the listing broker. He extends his hand to me.

“Bill Watson,” he says.

“Could I have a look at the property for sale down the road?” 

“Don’t see why not. It’s closing time.” We leave for the house in separate vehicles and are soon walking through the front door.

“Nice open concept.” I say.

“That used to be the bedroom but they put an extension on it about thirty years ago. The bedrooms are behind that wall.” I can see that this house is grossly under-priced because it doesn’t show well without furniture or care. It’s the lack of walls inside the house makes it ideal for writing, lots of space and no neighbours breathing down my neck. The general store a walk up the street.

“It had a septic tank installed in 1991,” says Bill. “And it has a furnace, although you could switch to a woodstove if you want.” I check out the bedrooms. There’s an old bed frame and oak dresser. In the basement beside the furnace Bill shines his flashlight in the corner.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“A cistern.” Bill walks over to it. “With a water pump, you could get this working again. The previous tenants opened up this wall but if you filled it in you could have a working cistern. But there’s now a drilled well.”

“Why? Is it built on a water spring?”

“All these homes along this road are tapped into the spring water that feeds the lake.” Timeless water supply! My long lost worked-in skate?

I ask Bill about the price.

“It’s been reduced. They are looking to get rid of the property soon.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s being sold by the three kids after their mother passed away a year ago. Since no one is living here they want to sell it before it costs them too much more in property taxes.”

“Did she pass away in this house?” Bill laughs.

“No, in the hospital.”

“Well then I would like to make an offer.”

“OK, let’s go back to my office.” As we climb into our trucks, Inge comes back with her white coat covered in blood.

“Looks like she found a poached deer,” says Bill. “Hunting season just ended and sometimes hunters throw a deer carcass in the field where no one can find it except the wolves and the turkey vultures.”

“Seem to be lots of deer here.”

“Yes. There are also lots of Sandhill cranes.”

“So she now has the taste of deer blood,” I say flatly. “C’est la vie.”

Chapter 33

WENDIGOKAAN

“How can the man be considered wise who, when he has the choice,

does not settle in benevolence?” – Confucius

Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve, Manitoulin Island, Ontario

That night I stay with Val in Wikwemikong and have an unusual dream. I was floating in the sky looking down on Manitoulin Island. Beside me was Remy and with the look of mischief in his eye he said to me: “See, watch this.” He whipped his arm downwards and lightning bolts came out of the tips of his fingers followed by thunder. Remy was looking at me, proving he had the power to create thunder. Just as I was about to ask him how he was able to do this he said: “Because I am Rainbow Thunderbird.” That’s when I wake up.

Outside I feel a jolt in my solar plexus when I see a thunderstorm.

***

I’m eager to explore the island so I leave Val’s place after another few more cups of yarrow tea and cruise around the island, the fresh air invigorating and my clear head. When I pass a sign that reads: ‘Cup and Saucer Hiking Trail,’ I turn into the parking area and take Inge for a long walk. My senses fill with the richness of unspoilt foliage, wild flowers and damp earth under my feet. An hour of walking passes in a moment and it begins to snow and I find myself facing a vertical wall of the escarpment. As I survey the climb in front of me I realize it’s too steep to attempt with the snow, even for me. I’m content to meander back to my rig and look for another path but when I turn back Inge bolts from the trail. Sounds in the forest of hooves hitting fallen logs, leaving a maze of tracks in the snow.

“Inge, come!” I yell. I can hear the scurrying going farther and farther into the forest. The snow begins to fall harder and the sky becomes darker. I yell for my dog but I can’t hear her anymore and follow her tracks into the woods but there are too many of them, her tracks spreading out like spokes in a wheel. The bush is dense and my feet are cold and it’s darker off the trail so I double back to the main trail and whistle for her. I wait and call for her but she doesn’t return. Inge has fled. The taste of deer blood and the smell of deer lured her back to the wild.

Dogs or men, it lurks so close to the surface in us all.

I drive to the house in Sandfield and then park by the lake. I walk out onto the wooden dock where the boats dock on Lake Manitou and stare at the clear water. There is a small dam at the mouth of Manitou River where the cedar trees are thick. I feel alone without my dog to look after but it is still and quiet in the falling snow.

My mobile phone rings.

“Trapp, this is Remy.”

“Remy!”

“Where are you?”

“Manitoulin Island.”

“Manitoulin Island? Are you near Lake Manitou?”

“Yes, actually that’s where I am right now.”

“Is there a river there with the little footbridge in the park?”

“Um, yes.”

“There’s a forest along the lakefront and a fish hatchery across the street.”

“Yes.”

“And there’s a little general store there across from an old schoolhouse.”

“Sandfield, that’s where I am right now.”

“That’s the place I stopped at when I was through Manitoulin before, the only place.” Even for twins an eerie coincidence like this still makes my spine tingle.

“I think you’re right Remy: Manitoulin is a magical place.”

“Listen, I’m calling to say I didn’t mean to take off that day in Toronto. I still think your dog is evil. In fact I had a dream about her last night that she attacked a deer. Her white fur was covered in blood. Pretty gory really. And then Inge became a wolf and lived in the forest and hunted deer.” The strange tingling goes up my spine again and the back of my neck feels cold.

I say nothing about Inge.

“Do you recall the Wendigokaan dream I had about you as a sacred clown who danced backwards and disturbed proceedings by acting in a contrary manner? Remember, the spirit that doesn’t care about rules or norms?”

“Why?”

“Because in any given society conventions of behaviour and cultural norms are followed by most people, but the Wendigokaan’s role is to ignore these norms so blatantly and act in such a contrary manner that it shocks others to open the door to new insights for them to heal themselves. Your contradictory behaviour shows them a new way of seeing the world and in the process help them to overcome emotional pains to see their own weaknesses and heal themselves. Your Wendigokaan spirit enables you to act as the impetus for them to change.”

“By acting as a clown?”

“No, he is not a source of entertainment. The Wendigokaan has a purpose. It is to induce his audience and use laughter to open minds to a subliminal state so that one is more receptive to grasp a deeper reality.”

“For the better I hope.”

“So they can heal! Your Wendigokaan spirit has the power to teach people to look at things in a different way. You act as a mirror and using extreme behaviour to mirror others thereby causing them to look at their own fears and weaknesses. He drags others into his world so he can provide comic relief to take other’s minds off their suffering but through your gift of satirical behaviour you actually enlighten them so that they can see a new way of living. See, the Wendigokaan’s outbursts and unconventional behaviour – like lightning – captivates others’ attention because they are regarded as the keys to enlightenment, much like Zen masters in Japan. Wendigokaans are a source of wisdom and healing.”

“Thunder and lightning.”

“So this is the other part of what I wanted to say about this vision I had about you. Have you ever dreamed of a Thunderbird or of a thunderstorm?”

“Um, actually yes. Just recently. Why?”

“Because it is said that having a vision of a Thunderbird – usually in the form of a thunderstorm – necessitates that he become a Wendigokaan for life. According to Ojibway beliefs, Wendigokaans are Thunder Beings. Like a Thunderbird, they have the power of contrariness, of laughter and tears, of thunder and lightning. Our powers come not from the earth but from the Great Spirit. Like thunder and lightning, a Wendigokaan jars those out of their funk that leads to transformation, like a shock that leads to a revelation and inspiration.”

“It all sounds pretty far out, but I see what you’re saying.”

“Have you ever had a dream about of birds or of dreams of violence, such as human butchering?” There is a silence on the phone.

“Umm, why would you ask that?”

“Because from what I’ve read about it you must dream your way into becoming a Wendigokaan. The violent butchering I think has to do with the Wendigo aspect, but if you have a dream of birds you are destined to become a medicine man. However, if you have a dream of a Thunderbird then it is your destiny to become a Wendigokaan sacred clown.”

I begin laughing in a very strange manner, like something is grabbing me in a ticklish spot.

“Traditionally, your kind is seen as a cultural hero and a figure to be feared and avoided.”

“How ‘bout that.”

“You remind people that the primordial energy of nature is beyond good and evil and of the arbitrariness of social order and the social construction of reality.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“They are few in number but important to each tribe throughout Turtle Island, especially the Ojibway. Wendigokaans are especially found among the Ojibway around the Great Lakes region, and are known to be fearless and known to endure pain.” As Remy was revealing the mystery of who I am, I enjoy the beautiful view of the lake and the water sloshing near my feet. Home. I think, I feel like I’m home.

“It explains why I’m so weird and do things in such an extreme way.”

“Your recklessness, yes. The way you do things backwards. The Wendigokaan shuns safety and strives for risk. Your road sailing up to the Yukon that night from Dease Lake was a manifestation of the softness of safety and the hardness of danger.”

“I hope you’re not trying to justify my recklessness.”

“But don’t you see? Your risk-taking – of which I know well – only shows how you give the finger to conventions and rules because you see the world without constraints. Of anyone in the world, I know you the best. You’ve always been like that Trapp: free from handcuffs that suffocate and maim so many every year.”

I let out a long satisfied sigh.

“Listen,” he says, “all this stuff aside, I did want to apologize for that night in Key River. I was in the middle of organizing my medicines and I had had that dream and there was all sorts of things spread around my cabin-“

“No problem brother.” A raven lands on a branch only a few feet away, perched and overseeing the dock.

“The measure of a man is his power of forgiveness,” he says.

“I must be quite a man then.”

“And the search? How’s that going?”

“I’ve just found our homestead. I submitted a first offer but I don’t think they’ll accept.”

“Can I check it out?”

“It’s about three hours from where you are.”

“We’re road sailors, man!”

“Two o’clock tomorrow at the Anchor Inn – the only pub in Little Current. I’ll be there.”

Chapter 34

LANDOWNER

“If a man remembers what is right at the sight of profit, is ready

to lay down his life in the face of danger, and does not forget sentiments

he has repeated all his life even when he has been in straitened

circumstances for a long time, he may said to be a complete man.” – Confucius

Little Current, Manitoulin Island, Ontario

Inside the Anchor Inn I sip on coffee and wait for Remy. Being early gives me a chance to think about our trip. I feel an urge to call Alexa in Vancouver. Something in me tells me that I owe it to her to call. I want to wish her good fortune with her Kenya gig but just then I see Remy’s rig park in front of the Anchor Inn.

I run out to meet him.

“Good timing,” he says through his window. The Dodge engine is still running in a deep, V-6 hum.

“Let’s go see the property.” He follows me down Highway 6 to 542 where we stop in Sandfield and I pick up the key to house. Bill trusts me with it because he needs to run the store. Past the old schoolhouse and down the road, when we pass over the Manitou River bridge I can hear Remy give a short beep of the horn behind me, then we pull into the driveway of the homestead.

“Cedars, hmmm…” he says, “good medicine.” I unlock the front door. Remy stops at the threshold of the doorway and surveys the room just as I had done. His eyes follow the walls to the open part between the kitchen and the living room.

“Open concept,” he says.

“Look how big it is! Nice wood floors. Throw a table down here. Lots of space in this mall.” Remy walks out of the house and around the perimeter until he’s back in the living room near the kitchen with me.

“With some furniture in here and a paint job, it could be pretty cool. Lots of windows. The sunlight is good.”

“Needs some work.”

“It has great potential. You have a one-acre yard, privacy, two bedrooms, an open workroom, a back patio, a general store down the street-”

“And the lake.”

“And the lake. We get a canoe. And we can go fishing. And get some trail bikes. We can ride to the pub.”

“And forests.”

“Lots of hiking.”

“And it’s built on a spring.”

“So there will always be water.”

“And a place for a garden.”

“Plant some sage. I saw some yarrow growing wild. That’s a great tea.”

“Yarrow?”

“When do you hear about the first offer?” I take out my mobile phone and call Bill. He tells me it’s been rejected and there’s no counter offer.

“No dice,” I say to Remy after hanging up. “Wasn’t accepted.”

“So why don’t you make a second offer?”

“I think I might. You like it?”

“Yeah, I mean look at it. Cheap and beautiful. Fresh air. Good geomancy. Private.”

“So let’s make a second offer then. Let’s go up to talk to the broker and make it so.” We find Bill behind the meat window chopping meat.

“Real Estate broker, general store manager and butcher?” I say to him with a smile.

“And a few other things.” He looks at Remy.

“Your brother?”

“Yes.”

“Are you twins?”

“Yes,” we say at the same time, both adjusting our cowboy hats with the same hand.

“My God! Amazing!” Remy has trimmed his beard and mine has grown to full length so now we look truly identical. We are at that point in the twin-intertwining-double-helix matrix where the strands are identical after a complete seven-year cycle. We interlock at the intersection, and I wonder if we’ll have to wait for another seven years until we’re as identical as we are at this moment.

“I’d like to make a second offer.”

“Okay, but I think your first offer was a bit too low.”

“It needs some work on it, but I agree it was low.”

“I know I’ll need to do some financial stick handling to get the deal together but I’ll see. Let’s make a second offer and request all the chattels including the big new fridge.”

After Bill writes up the second offer we leave for the Anchor Inn. Chas and his friend are there eating wings and watching hockey. They nod at me and then look at Remy as we come in.

“Chas, this is my brother Remy.”

“Don’t tell me: Identical twins?”

“Wow, beards and all,” says his friend.

“Who’s older?”

“I am by five minutes,” he says.

“Actually,” I say. “We were born at the same moment but Remy here was delivered first. We were both created at the same instant.” Remy looks at me and nods.

“Never heard that before but I can see it.” It’s another thing I learned from my doctor friend in Hong Kong.

“We’re mirror twins,” I say. “We split into two sometime between the ninth and the twelfth day.”

“So that means you were the same person for like a week. That’s weird.”

“Don’t forget that everything is a mirror and backwards,” says his friend.

“Identical opposites,” says Remy.

“That’s quite a trip you two took,” says Chas.

He takes the floor not as a holy man but as my old mischievous brother recounting exploits with his oldest partner in crime. I see the trip before my eyes as he explains it using the same words as I would, the images I will have in my mind for the rest of my life. I listen to Remy recount our road trip with longing as if a pearl of time is just now ending, the dust still on our clothes, the scratches still unhealed. I see now as he tells our story that it’s through laughter that we express what a thousand words cannot, reminding you that you are not alone in the world. It confirms your existence because it is a moment of happiness momentarily free of all constraints. His words convey an experience that will remain in my heart for the rest of my life – a moment in time when we were able to share our lives fully with each other free of constraints such as a job or family pressures, a time when we were truly free.

Remy is still recounting the trip when I hear my phone ring so I remove it out of my breast pocket. Vibrations foreboding and heavy.

“Yes Bill. Have they responded? I see…” I glance at Remy and he glances at me. He can see it in my eyes. No words need to be spoken.

“They-“

“Yes.”

“We now-“

“Yes, are landowners.” Remy lets out a long sigh and claps his hands together.

“Nice one man!”

I think to myself: our days as wanderers are over because we have gained, like Cain, self-knowledge from the mirror in us both. Unless you know someone’s basic quality you cannot truly know the man, and to see this quality one must see that in himself.

My brother, my twin.

THE END

Author’s Note

All strange or otherwise unknown language used in this narrative may be found here in the “Glossary of Twinspeak.”

Glossary of Twinspeak

AWS: an acronym meaning: ‘Angry Whiteman Syndrome.’

action pass: something done; an action. The origin of this expression is from a type of play during high school football.

advantageous plumage: attractive hair.

aguey: action, usually action with some style or poise. Derives from the French ‘accent ague.’

BO plenty: whenever we say the ‘plenty,’ we always add ‘B.O.’ before it. (It stands for ‘body odour’).

bushwhacking: hiking.

cake: money.

Claudia: means ‘proud of you.’ There are many phonetic variations of this one, such as “Gloria” and “mafia.”

combo-plate: combination.

crisp: good.

dart: cigarette.

die spinnah: to roll a joint.

duddy: beard, or in general any facial hair. It comes from the book The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordechai Richler. (The main character, Duddy Kravitz, shaved twice a day to encourage a beard).

el grande: used liberally to emphasize a point.

false gazelle: when something that is supposed to happen doesn’t happen.

floatie: to spit.

full dippage: thorough or deep knowledge.

fundage: money.

gazelle: to leave somewhere.

goosey: ‘excited’ or ‘energized,’ from the idea of goose pimples.

hairy bush: severe.

hairy-crack: hardcore. It’s origin lies in it first letters: ‘h’ and ‘c.’

highly sallassie: very interesting.

Inge Hammerstrom: code word meaning ‘she is spoken for.’ It’s used when one of us is moving in on a girl that one of us has our eye on, and to therefore back off. (It’s the name of a hockey player who played on the Toronto Maple Leafs back in the seventies).

Johnnie: joint.

Louie: left (as opposed to ‘Ralphie’ meaning ‘right’).

mammalia: mammals.

merge: ‘to slip away’ or ‘to leave quietly.’

mon frere: French for ‘my brother.’

niblet: the head or mind of a person (comes from the root word ‘nib’).

nipples and crusties: human obstacles or negative peoples.

nook-von-cranny: a place to stop and sleep in the road buggy.

onion bun: one of our main expressions that can mean many different things, depending on the content. Initially it meant ‘opinion without the ‘p,’ but it has grown to denote ‘one’s opinion’ or ‘world view’ or ‘someones way of thinking,’ or even ‘the character of one’s personality.’ The short form is either ‘onion,’ or simply ‘bun.’ To enhance one’s bun is to enhance one’s state of being. Used as a verb, it can mean ‘to deepen one’s knowledge of,’ to therefore strengthen or enhance one’s opinion.

padre: term of endearment.

phybic: claustrophobic.

plan A: to steal or acquire.

plan B: to buy something.

plan C: to get caught.

plan D: disturbing the peace.

plan F: to engage in sexual activity.

plan H: hooker.

plan I: a cigarette, or ‘dart.’

plan L: firecracker.

plan M: matches.

plan P: puke.

plan R: fart.

plan S: streak.

plan T: ‘good-looking girl.’

plan W: drugs, usually weed.

plan X: the ultimate plan: when you plan A a plan T who is plan W or plan Z and you plan F.

plan Z: booze, usually beer.

pork Archimedes: to have sex.

punky-ass pilgrim: critical term for the person being discussed.

pulp fiction: pulp-and-paper mill air pollution.

puppy: used in the same manner as “piece,” denoting the contextual noun.

Ralphie: to turn right. (To turn left is to hang a ‘Louie’).

road buggy: a vehicle suited for long distance and prolonged road trips, namely a pick-up truck with a small camper on the back.

sampling technology: carnal knowledge or empirical data.

serial: serious.

sick: a word used to describe anything that is irrational or unnecessary.

small pine: variation of ‘small penis;’ used as a term of endearment (almost).

snagglepussy: to purchase or obtain something; ‘snag.’

soccer: code word asking if there’s something hanging out of your nose.

take the hack: roll with the punches, and overcoming the given obstacle.

tech: short for ‘technology.’

technology: drugs, usually denoting weed.

teste: test or test spin.

testicular atrophy: low spiritual energy.

total snag: great deal or good bargain.

turb: short for ‘turbulence.’

###

About the Author

Peter Higgins was born in Vancouver but grew up in Toronto, graduating from Queen’s University in 1990 and then with a master’s degree from the University of Hong Kong in 2004. Mr. Higgins worked as a professional writer in Taiwan, the Philippines and Hong Kong for ten years before he returned to Canada to write. He currently lives with his family on Manitoulin Island, Ontario Canada.