Read Online The Lesser Blessed by Richard van Camp - Free Book Online

from the kitchen and gave me thumbs-up. I joined him and inhaled the hash. No hooter this time. Just me and the smoke.
    “Yeah,” I thought, “the day I saw Juliet Hope was the day I felt my pubic hair grow.” I could still close my eyes and see her on the bed. I looked at Johnny, who was at the table rolling a fatty.
    “You know, Lare, I had this girl once, her name was Lisa Beatty. What a fuck doll. This one time we were fooling around and she gave me a hickey. I told her not to do it again, and she did. She gave me another one and I got her back. I gave her hickeys on her ass. I did a big J on one cheek and a big B on the other. She was a lifeguard at the swimming pool in Hay River, and she had this bathing suit that was green and white. When she dove into the water, you could see the J and B—and I wasn’t the only one who noticed!”
    “Wow!” I said. “Now that’s a story!”
    “Yeah,” he smiled, “that’s Hay River for you. She was smooth, brother, smooth.”
    “Wasted Years” ended; “Power Slave” began. We paused to listen to the guitars. The glasses on the table were shaking as I inhaled some more.
    I sat down next to Johnny and put my hand on his shoulder. He looked at me and I smiled. I had never really said anything to himabout helping me out, and now it seemed like I could say it without sounding like a pansy. “Thanks for taking care of Jazz, man.”
    Johnny smiled back. “No prob.” He thought about it as he rolled. “Listen, Lare, I gotta teach you some new moves.”
    “Yeah?” I asked. “Yeah, you better. I don’t know how to fight.”
    “The next time you smoke someone it better be three hits: you hitting them, the shit hitting their shorts and the ambulance hitting ninety!”
    I laughed.
    “Stand up and put your arms on my shoulders.”
    I did.
    He whipped his arms over mine and slapped them around my back. He pulled up while he kneed me in the gut.
    “Ugh,” I grunted and hit the floor.
    “Lare,” he laughed, “you gotta block it.”
    I struggled up and rested on bent knees. I guess he could see that I was mad because he sat down again and straightened his hair with his hands. I could smell the Right Guard in his scalp. He had showed me that if you sprayed your head with it for a long time, you could do cartwheels and your hair wouldn’t move. Rubbing my gut, I stared at him.
    “So tell me about being fool blood,” he said.
    I sat down. “Whattaya wanta know?”
    He got up and handed me a cigarette. He was saving the joints till later.
    “Well, what tribe are you? Chip? Cree?”
    “Dogrib.”
    “I thought they were from around Yellowknife.”
    I got a little nervous. “Yeah.”
    “What’s the scoop?”
    “Well, Jed told me that our tribe came from a woman who gave birth to six puppies.” I eyed him while I said that because I knew some people would laugh. He didn’t, so I continued.
    “Well, she had to live by herself in the woods so she could raise ru pups. One day she left her hut so she could check her snares, and when she came home she could see human footprints in the snow and ashes.”
    “No shit,” Johnny said.
    “Yeah ... so one day she went out like she was going to check her snares but she snuck back and watched her hut. She could hear her pups yapping like this: Yap! Yap ! Then she could hear them laughing like children. After a while she could hear kids running around the hut and choo! Out from the hut run six kids, all naked.”
    “Whoah!” Johnny said.
    “Yeah! So she watches them and they’re playing in the snow all laughing and having a great time. She runs out of the bush and chases them back into the hut. They all make a run for the bag she used to leave them in. Three make it and turn back to pups. A girl and two boys don’t. She catches them. They stay human and they’re the first Dogribs. She raised them to be beautiful hunters with strong medicine.”
    “Hunh. Wait a minute,” Johnny interrupted. “What happened to the