I remember this Christmas holiday season particularly well because this was the year that Winnie and I became close friends. I knew that she had helped to babysit me when I was two, but I remembered none of that. This Christmas, she gave me a special gift. She taught me how to find sneaky hiding places and eavesdrop on adult conversations.
The night after Christmas, two meetings were scheduled: one for the men and one for the women. I was trying out Winnie's gift in the Wilizy/Asia's living room where William and Wizard were having a combined science and business meeting. The women were having their own meeting on the Wilizy/Europe. I knew that Winnie would be at that meeting and she'd tell me what had happened. So I found a nice corner behind the sofa and scrunched up real tight on the floor. Mom and dad hadn't allowed me to have invisibility powers on my sling yet, so I was staying as quiet as I could. Doc, Grandpa Hank and Uncle Jock were in soft chairs away from the head table. Wizard, William, Wolf and my dad were sitting at that table. I noticed that Doc was frequently leaning over and whispering into Uncle Jock's ear. He'd listen and then nod. Doc was explaining things, I suppose, because at one point I heard Uncle Jock say, "You demolished their entire coal production industry?" and Doc nodded.
I learned that they were going to try to capture some guy named Carbon. And Wizard was told that he could go ahead and hire some mining people to search the Alberta mountains for something called titanium.
"Rick's pressuring me to choose specific land parcels," Wizard said. "I'll have to know if we want urban parcels or mountain parcels soon."
"I have to perfect the manufacturing process first." William replied. "Then we have to make absolutely sure that nobody will learn what we're really doing."
"What progress have you made on the titanium?" Wolf asked Wizard.
"Still in negotiations," Wizard said. "Our purchase will be part of Rick's deal to sell babies to the North Koreans."
"Is Ingrid on board with that sale, TG?" Grandpa Hank asked. Ingrid was my dad's mother. I never met my grandmother. I don't believe that my dad ever got over her decision to have him killed, but we never talked about that as a family.
"Making North Korean babies gives her something to do," my dad said. "It's better than sitting in a cell. But I've locked her out of the lab's computers and made the programming changes myself. North Korea is going to receive brown babies who, if they were born in Alberta, would all receive a name starting with an A."
"The North Korean leaders are going to get quite the surprise twelve years from now." Doc commented to the group and then leaned over and whispered to Uncle Jock. "These Albertan babies will be very assertive," he said. "They'll try to take charge of everybody and everything."
"Goodbye to their docile population," Uncle Jock whispered back.
Then Grandpa Hank saw me and shooed me out of the room. I tried to sneak into the women's meeting but the door was locked. Winnie told me afterwards what they had discussed.
# # # # # # # #
The Raging Gardeners called the women's meeting. Granny and Momaka were at the head table. Wanda was there too, but she couldn't stay long. Granny had invited her to come for the holiday but the sawmill was working overtime to complete the order for the University of Alberta and she had to return to Clearwater. Yolanda and Winnie were present too. All of the young moms were in the Wilizy/America feeding their babies. Dreamer was with them. She hadn't been told anything about the Raging Gardeners yet.
"We are completely stymied," Granny admitted. "We know that Double-Tom was arrested the night of September 4 in Kamloops for ambushing and stabbing a bartender who refused to sell him more alcohol. With his history, he received a quick trial and was transported to the Sicamous Regional Prison to serve his sentence. We could try and follow him when he's released but that's going to be difficult."
Momaka took over. "We know that when prisoners are released, they are loaded into the prison's transport copters. We can't see them being loaded. Nor can we see inside the copter during the flight because the copter visors are tinted. The copters can deliver their ex-prisoners to either Kamloops, Salmon Arm, or Vernon. We have no way of knowing which city Double-Tom will choose for his drop-off point."
Momaka continued. "We know from Hank's contact inside the B.C. government that Double-Tom was given an eighteen month sentence which puts his presumed release fifteen months from now. With the volume of copter traffic that comes in and out of that prison, it would be very difficult to track him unless we knew the exact day and time he was scheduled to leave the prison. Then we'd have to follow every copter that left within half an hour or so of that time. We should see a glimpse of him when he steps out of the copter, but the drop-off spot will be in the center of a busy city. Double-Tom could disappear into a building and come out another exit. Shopping centers, for example, have multiple entrances and exits."
"And that assumes that he's released as scheduled," Wanda added. "Some prisoners are released early. If that happened, we might not learn about it in time to prevent an attack on Dreamer."
"Mac offered to give me a bug that would tell us if he ever came near Dreamer," Yolanda offered.
"Yeah, she offered one to me too," Granny said. "But there's no point putting the bug on him when he's in prison – even if we could, which we can't. Prisoners are given new clothes on their release. And to put a bug on him after his release, we'd have to trail him after he leaves the transport copter which we know we're going to have difficulty doing."
"To be blunt, we don't know how we're going to find him after he's released," Wanda admitted.
Neither did anybody else.
"Why don't we break him out of prison ahead of time?" Winnie asked.
# # # # # # # #
Meanwhile, the three moms were using the cabin on the Wilizy/America that had a big sign on the door warning Beware of lactating milk hydrants. Dreamer had been invited to join them and had accepted immediately. When Yollie, Mac and Melissa were in the satellite compound, they were used to sitting together when nursing their babies. Since they were very close in age, the twins and Jock Junior were following the same feeding pattern. Yo-Yo was nine months older, but still needing her mom. If she weren't hungry at the same time as the newborns, she'd come into the nursing room and play on the floor.
This pattern continued during the Christmas visit. The ship's nursing cabin had two comfortable chairs with armrests for Yollie and Mac. Melissa was sitting in the middle of a sofa, as it was easier for her to keep both twins comfortable if she didn't have to deal with armrests. Dreamer was sitting at the end of Melissa's couch and helping with the burping and with the baby transfers from one hydrant to the next. If any baby became fussy, the mom would look at Dreamer and she'd take the squabbler off their hands and walk with him or her around the cabin, murmuring softly into an ear. One might almost think that she was singing.
This day's nursing session is not notable for that reason, although Dreamer's easy acceptance into the group and her enjoyment of being together with three older sisters are worth noting. But that's not why I'm describing this scene.
Yo-Yo wasn't particularly hungry. She was playing on the floor and drinking apple juice now and then from a sippy-cup. Mac and Melissa were busy being milk delivery systems. Dreamer was watching Yo-Yo play. Yollie saw the apple juice and decided to brag about how smart Yo-Yo was.
"One morning, TG and I were trying to snatch a few extra minutes of sleep. Yo-Yo was already up. I had set her up in the living room and she was playing with her dolls. Everything in the living room was safe, so I had crawled back into bed, rolled over onto my side facing away from TG and covered my exposed ear with my hand. I heard Yo-Yo come into the bedroom. She came over to my side of the bed with her sippy-cup and lifted one of my eyelids to see if I was in there. I tickled her under her chin and she went over to the other side where TG was flat on his back, dead to the world. He had his mouth wide open and was snoring more than a little bit."
"Yo-Yo heard the snores and figured out th
at the noise was coming from his mouth. So she left the room, came back with her little stool, put it on the floor next to the bed, and climbed up onto it. From there, she could see into TG's mouth and peered into it. Then she took her sippy cup, unscrewed the top, and poured the juice down TG's throat."
At that, both Mac and Melissa erupted into laughter. And glory behold, so did Dreamer.
"She was trying to drown the snore."
More laughter.
"Something that I thoroughly applauded."
More laughter.
"TG sat up, gasping and spewing juice, and looked at me."
A pause...
"Wasn't me, I said."
Pause...
"So we heard a noise in the hall and Yo-Yo came through the doorway. She was carrying the full carton of juice, fully intent on killing that awful noise once and for all."
More laughter and applause – Dreamer contributing more than her share.
# # # # # # # #
Wanda and Granny were saying goodbye. Wanda had a ton of work to do because she was going to expand the Clearwater mill. Almost all of their tribe members were back and they were building new houses for them. But Wanda wasn't delaying her departure to talk about that.
"Dreamer looks so much better now, Granny. Speaking in a normal voice, standing up straight, not looking scared all the time."
"She's still clinging onto Wizard for dear life, but if that's her only problem, we've done well."
"Is Wizard the type of boy to take advantage?"
"Wizard? No. Never. He's not that kind of boy."
"She's taller than him, now that she's standing up straight. Does he object to that?"
"So long as it doesn't stop him from doing business, I doubt he'd notice it. Come to think of it, Dreamer is approaching Yollie's height. Yollie's considered a giant."
"I thought she had grown. Still very skinny. She'd be much taller than her dad now, curse his black heart."
"Wizard hasn't stopped growing yet. This isn't something that you need to worry about, Wanda."
"Dreamer has always been different from everybody else. Her height makes her feel awkward and she's shy because of that. She doesn't want to be noticed. That's difficult when you're taller than everybody in a school classroom including the teacher."
"The Wilizy live with flying wolves who can receive mind-messages. Nobody in this family is going to notice a little bit of height. Give'm Hell back home, Wanda."
"I always do."
# # # # # # # #
"I have to go sleepy-time," Melissa had announced to nobody in particular. Now she was curled up on the couch, dead to the world. Dreamer was walking a fussy Izzy; Will was asleep on a blanket on the deck.
"Melissa can fall asleep in ten seconds," Mac said. "We all can. You learn quickly to grab power naps whenever you can. I'll nap after Yollie returns and takes Jock upstairs. Right now she's fixing some hot moist towels to put on Melissa's shoulders. Then she'll give her a rub. Melissa sleeps right through it."
"Do you have to have big breasts to be able to feed a baby until she's full?" Dreamer had dropped a breast-bomb into what had been a casual conversation about babies and their demands on their mother.
"No, of course not! Why would you think that?"
"I was wondering if I'd have enough milk to fill a baby." Then in response to Mac's incredulous look, she added, "I'm very tiny."
"Of course, you could fill your baby. If you had a baby, your body would make milk and it wouldn't matter how small you were before you became pregnant."
"I see the way men look at women's breasts. No man looks at me that way. Some boys at Clearwater said that I'd need an operation before any guy would marry me."
"If a man suggested to me that I should have bigger boobs, I'd be handing him two giant balloons and telling him that he can sleep next to those from now on. You can't let a man belittle you because you don't fit some distorted fantasy he might have of what a woman's body should be like. ... What?"
"You're very blunt."
"I am. More importantly, I'm assertive. I stand up for what I believe in and I don't believe in some buffoon telling me the kind of body I should have so that he'd be happy."
"My nonny is the same."
"Wanda, Granny, Yollie, and I speak bluntly. That's our nature. Melissa and Yolanda have a different way of speaking to people. Sometimes their way works best; sometimes blunt is needed. But we all stand up for ourselves. We aren't doormats. And we all have wonderful husbands who respect us. How can anybody respect a doormat? How can you have love if you don't also have mutual respect?"
"I don't think I could stand up..."
"You already did. When you were ten and your dad came into your bathroom. You stood up to him the only way you knew how. You stopped him. You're the star of the group, Dreamer. None of us had to deal with somebody like your dad. I don't know if we could have when we were that age."
"I'm still scared of what he said he'd do to me."
"We're going to take care of your dad, Dreamer."
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 11
In the second week of January 2085, a prisoner transport copter deposited five new inmates into the Sicamous Regional Prison's courtyard. All five were quickly whisked away to processing and emerged thirty minutes later shorn, soaped, and sanitized. Four of them received normal transfers to their new accommodations. Each was accompanied by two guards and thrust quickly into the empty half of a two-prisoner cell.
The fifth prisoner was taken to his cell in leg manacles and handcuffs. His guard duty consisted of four men. In the previous hour, all the cells anywhere near his new home had been thoroughly searched for contraband. This was standard practice for a special visitor. The prisoners within those searched cells were mildly interested to see who was coming.
He was white. No surprise there. About 90% of the men in this prison were white. The Sicamous prison drew its population from the urban areas of the Okanagan and all the remote land north of that. Those remote areas were prime land for growing marijuana. Of course, growing, distributing, or selling pot was legal. However it was unprofitable. Frontier families found it hard enough to grow enough food to live on; they weren't going to waste their land or their time on something that they couldn't eat. Besides, smoking pot and working sixteen hour days didn't go very well together.
But smoking pot as a full-time career was attractive to some whites. They survived, in a blurry daze, off the benevolence of others, mostly the B.C. government. Prison sociologists glibly explained how frequently these remote white-necks ended up in jail as the combination of a predisposition to avoiding hard work and a genetic susceptibility to pot. Defenders of the white race, at least for this area of the province, complained of racial profiling. "The police pick on certain people," they'd argue. "Racial targeting at its worst," they'd claim. At this time, over 70% of the police in this area were aboriginals. Over 70% of the guards in this prison were aboriginals. Over 60% of the judges in this area were aboriginals. Surely, the justice system was stacked against the minority whites.
That's why the warden's choice for the new prisoner's cellmate was surprising. He assigned him to the empty half of the cell currently occupied by one of the few aboriginals in the prison. This cell's bunk had a history of causing its owner health issues. Complaints of damaged ribs and sore backs from sleeping in the top bunk would eventually result in a transfer to another, more healthy cell. The new cellmate would hobble to a less dangerous bunk and Double-Tom would go back to his solitary life. Just him and his illegal businesses. He carried on a quiet trade in prisoner luxury items provided by the prison itself – electronic cigarettes for example. These were what prisoners used for gambling. Double-Tom was doing very well, thank you very much.
For those who worked in the prison, sending the new guest to a high-risk environment in Double-Tom's cell was not a surprise. The rumour from the guards' locker room was that the new inmate
was a key member of a Japanese crime family. The warden was teaching him that he'd receive no easy treatment because of his connections. Double-Tom would provide the hands-on introduction to prison life.
Softening the new guy up was not going to be much of a challenge for Double-Tom. The new white inmate had to be in his 50s, with glasses, a slight paunch around his middle, and a receding hairline. Ample gray hairs were mixed within his slightly red hair. He had rounded shoulders, probably from working at a desk far too long. Soft hands. No calluses. An office worker of some kind. Certainly not a person who could take even the lightest kidney punch that Double-Tom liked to start with in the middle of the night when his cellmate was sleeping.
Double-Tom now, he was not big. In fact, he was a little shorter than the average prisoner. Nor was he a strong, menacing man. At his best, he'd be considered wiry. But he had one big benefit that served him well in prison. He had no scruples. Double-Tom had tried to create the image of a tough guy with his Mohawk hair and his prison tattoos. Nobody in prison bought that. However they did try to stay clear of him.
Double-Tom was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. To be brutally honest, Double-Tom didn't make it into the knife drawer. Double-Tom didn't even know that there was a knife drawer. However D-T knew how to use a shiv – a homemade prison knife – that would easily penetrate any area of his cellmate's back where D-T might choose to strike. Coming at an enemy from the front was full of potential problems. Coming from behind was not. Hence my comment about scruples and D-T's lack of the same.
The closest creature in the animal kingdom to D-T would be the cartoon image of the sneaky, thieving, backstabbing weasel that always managed to flee before the authorities arrived. When managing his gambling business in Surrey, D-T would graciously pay a gambler who had won big and then follow him out of the dark alley where they had been playing. Soon, deep inside another dark alley, the gambler would have the choice of admitting that he had cheated and give the winnings back to D-T. Or he'd live without a kidney for the rest of his life. D-T would help him make that decision by ensuring that he knew where his failing kidney was. It was the organ immediately underneath the tip of the knife in his back. When the gambler decided to donate his winnings to D-T's favorite charity, D-T would take the money, tap him gently on each cheek with the flat of his knife and say, "It's been nice doing business with ya."