Rat Medicine & Other Unlikely Curatives. Lauren B. Davis
to the ‘fridge.
I started to cry, salty tears burning into my split lip. I heard the tires of our pickup squeal as John skidded out the drive and down the road.
“Don’t waste your time crying, girl.” She rolled ice in a plastic baggy. “Here, use this. What we need is a cup of tea. He’s not coming back for a while. I guarantee. Sit,” she ordered and I did as I was told as she puttered around my kitchen and fixed the tea. She reached into her basket and took out a skin pouch, sprinkled some herbs into the teapot. “This’ll help the hurts, inside and out.”
I didn’t feel much of anything just then, except glad Auntie Betty was there, glad someone else was taking control of things. I felt as limp as a newborn baby and just as naked. We drank the tea. I held the ice to my swelling-up eye. Auntie Betty held my hand.
Later she reached into her basket.
“I brought this for you,” she said, and laid a carton of rat poison on the counter. “You got yourself a vermin problem.”
“Poison?” I knew Auntie would never suggest such a thing, it went against the natural respect she had for one of all-her-relations, spirit rats or full bone and fur. “I don’t need that,” I said, my chest tight as a drum.
“I think you do. You got these kinda rats, you got to get rid of ‘em. White man’s rats need white man’s measures. This here’s white man’s poison.”
“You can’t be serious. You’ve lost your mind!”
“No, and you better remember to respect your elders! I ain’t lost my mind, but you better start using yours. I ain’t talking about poisoning nobody, not that some people don’t deserve it,” she snorted with disdain, “but I been given it some thought. Rat spirit chose to show up here, not no other. No bear or wolf or snake. ”
“You’re scaring me Auntie, and I been scared enough for one day.”
“Well, let it be the last day anything scares you. You shed that fear skin and maybe you’ll shed that fat skin too. Oh, don’t look at me that way, you know it’s true. Big woman’s a fine thing, but not the way you’re going at it. You can’t grow another baby in you by trying to stuff if down your mouth. You weren’t meant to be as big as you are; you ain’t got the bones for it, not like me.” She patted her belly and cackled. “But that’ll take care of itself once you start taking care of yourself, and for now, that means getting rid of this big old rat.”
“He didn’t mean it. You saw how sorry he was. It’s the pressure. We been going through some hard times.”
“What a load of horse shit! Times is always hard. That ain’t no excuse for what that man’s doing. He needs to learn.”
“I can’t leave him.”
“You can and you will. He might be able to get away with taking out his shit on soft minded little white women, but no Indian woman’s gonna stand for it.” She leaned over and took both my hands in hers, looked into my battered up face.
“You think he’s gonna stop unless you make him stop? You think it’s not going to just get worse? Don’t you watch Oprah?”
I didn’t say nothing.
“Nellie. Answer me. You think it’s gonna get any better unless he knows he’s gone too far, knows exactly what it’s cost him? Look me in the eye and tell me that.”
She was right. I knew she was right and it caved in my heart to know it.
“I know.”
“Well then.”
“But Auntie, I....”
“Don’t you even think about telling me you love that man! The man you fell in love with is gone. I don’t know whether he’ll be back or not, but what you got living in this house with you at the moment, sure as hell is not a man to love. This is an evil thing, all twisted over on itself.” I made a motion to protest. “Don’t interrupt me. Sometimes you put poison out for rats and like magic they disappear. Seems like they know it just ain’t safe no more.” She looked at me, her eyes flashing like stars among the wrinkles. “You understand?”
And I did.
She stayed all afternoon and as night fell she smudged the house up good. Then she called Jimmy and had him pick her up. She waited out at the end of the driveway so he wouldn’t come in and see me. Jimmy’d be just as likely to go off into town with his rifle and look for John, and nobody wanted that kind of trouble.
John didn’t come home that night, and I shouldn’t have expected him because Auntie Betty’d told me as much. Still, I lay in bed all night straining to hear the sound of his tires on the gravel. I finally fell asleep around dawn, too tired to mind the aches and pains, and didn’t dream about nothing at all.
The next day I fasted. I smudged the house again. Around my neck I put the leather pouch with the lightening stone in it that Auntie’d given me. She’d dug up the round red stone from between the roots of a tree where lightening’d struck last spring. It was powerful protection. I wore my ribbon dress. Green ribbons, white ribbons, black and rose. This was my ceremony.
I fixed the food just so. All the things John liked. Fried chicken. Lima beans. Mashed potatoes. Carrot salad with raisins.
I heard the truck in the yard just before 6:00. I took a deep breath. Smoothed my hair. Said a prayer. I heard the screen door shut and then John was in the kitchen. He stood in the doorway, a bunch of red roses in his hand. He was wearing the shirt I’d given his brother Philip last Christmas, so I knew where he’d spent the night. His hair was combed down neat. He looked like a school kid showing up at my door to pick me up for a date.
“Jesus Nellie, I’m so sorry. I’m gonna spend the rest of my life making it up to you, I swear.” He winced when he looked at me. My left eye was swollen and black, my lips were swollen, my cheek had a big bruise on it. I looked a mess. He didn’t mention my clothes, although I was in what he called “Squaw gear.”
“Come on baby. You just got to forgive me. It’ll never happen again, I mean it, cross my heart. Here, sweetheart.” He held out the flowers. I took them but didn’t say nothing. I put them in the sink. He came to put his arms around me from behind. I cringed as he squeezed my bruised ribs.
“Don’t,” I said.
“OK, OK. I’m sorry.” He put his hands up like I was holding a gun on him and backed away. “Christ. I really am sorry, Baby. I don’t know what got into me. You know how much I love you.”
“I fixed some food for you. Fried chicken. Your favourites,” I said.
“Oh, Honey, you’re just the best. I knew you wouldn’t stay mad at me.” He hugged me and this time I let him. His arms felt so good. For a second I felt safe there. Then I pushed him away.
“Sit down.”
John swung his long leg over the back of the chrome chair and sat, a grin on his face. I opened the oven and brought the plate I’d kept warming over to him. Then I went back and leaned up against the kitchen counter, next to the open box of rat poison. He picked up his knife and fork.
“Where’s yours?” he said.
“I’m not eating. This here’s special food. Just for you, eh?”
“I don’t want to eat alone, Sugar.”
“But I want you to.”
He looked puzzled. He looked down at his plate. Looked back over to me and then his eyes flicked to the box of poison. The colour drained out of his face.
“No,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked, folding my arms against my chest.
“You eat it,” he said.
“Fine,” I said. “See, it just don’t matter to me anymore.” I made a move toward the