Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson

wasn’t anything like mine. Dad said that even when they were kids he never called his sister Gertrude, because if you did, she would backslap you into next week. She hadn’t officially changed her name to Trudy, but if you were smart you didn’t call her anything else. We could hear her vomiting in the upstairs bathroom, then clomping down the stairs to Tab’s room, hungover and cranky, she sent me home, saying I could damn well eat out someone else’s fridge.
    Mick had moved into an apartment near the City Centre Mall. Mom and Dad were going to Terrace for a wedding, and since most of the people in the village were going too, Mick was the only baby-sitter she could find. Mom told me to be on my best behaviour. She didn’t tell Jimmy to behave himself, but he sat quietly on Uncle Mick’s sofa.
    Uncle Mick’s apartment was large but almost empty. He had a TV, a battered plaid sofa that smelled mouldy, a kitchen table with some crates in place of a missing leg, a mattress on the floor and a dresser with all the knobs broken off. The only new thing was an eight-track, which would have been great if he’d playedanything but Elvis. Later, Dad told me Mick was very happy I’d been named after the King’s daughter, but disappointed that they hadn’t named Jimmy Elvis, or at the very least, Presley.
    “Elvis Hill,” Dad said, rolling his eyes.
    Mick was on workman’s comp that summer. There’d been an accident out in the logging camp, and he’d been knocked over by a truck. He moved slow, as if he were an old man. He made us Kraft Dinner with wieners and some grape Kool-Aid. Then he retreated to his bedroom, poking his head out once in a while to see what we were up to. Jimmy was happy to have a TV all to himself and he could watch forever. I went and knocked on Mick’s door.
    “What’s up?” he said, pushing himself onto his elbows.
    I carefully sat on the edge of his mattress. He winced when it wobbled. I paused for a moment, knowing Mom would say I was being rude.
    “What?” he said.
    “Did you really get shot?” I said.
    He smiled, but only one side of his mouth turned up. “Yeah.”
    “Did it hurt? Did you cry?”
    “You betcha.”
    “Who shot you? Did you shoot him back? How come you went to jail?”
    He closed his eyes and eased himself back down onto his mattress. “Do me a big favour. Go get me a glass of water, okay?”
    None of his dishes were clean so I had to rinse out a glass. He thanked me when I handed him the water.He took out a plastic bottle and shook out two large orange pills with one hand, then popped them into his mouth. “Listen, if I fall asleep, you go and watch Jimmy. If anything happens, you take care of him first, you hear?”
    I nodded.
    “Good girl,” he said. “I owe you one. Why don’t you go watch TV? Good girl. Go watch TV.”
    I waited patiently, but then his eyes started drifting shut. “Uncle Mick?”
    He blinked hard and stared at me. “What?”
    “Who shot you?”
    “It’s a long story, all grown-up and silly.”
    “I like stories.”
    “You do, huh?” He grimaced as he shifted his pillow under his neck. “Well, about the time you were born, I was on a reserve called Rosebud having tea with a very nice old woman. She was a few years older than your Ma-ma-oo and some people were doing things she didn’t like—”
    “What people? Were they drug dealers?”
    “No, no. They were Goons.”
    “Why were they called Goons?”
    “Guardians of the Oglala Nation. Goons. That’s what they were. Big, old goons.” He crossed his eyes and let his tongue roll out of his mouth. I laughed. Then he added lightly, “This old lady had told the police about what the Goons were doing and the police had told the Goons what she said, and so the Goons came over to her house while we were having tea and they shot at us.”
    “Why?”
    He shrugged. “Because the world is a fucked-up, amoral—” He paused, scratched his nose. “They were trying to scare her into