Tribes Read online

  Tribes

  By

  Arthur Slade

  Copyright 2002 by Arthur Slade

  ISBN: 978-0-9868555-5-9

  www.arthurslade.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Arthur Slade.

  Cover art by Christopher Steininger

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  For fans of Stephen King and Ray Bradbury...

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  Dedication

  For Scott Treimel,

  who believed from the beginning

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks to Brenda Baker, Vincent Sakowski and Edna Alford for their helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript; to the Saskatchewan Arts Board and the Canada Council for financial support; to Wendy Lamb for her insight; and to Lucy, Darwin and Rush for their inspiration.

  prologue

  MY FATHER

  My father, Percival Montmount, died in the Congo after lunch on a Sunday three years ago. I was fourteen. He was an anthropologist, then living with a tribe of blue-skinned pygmies who gathered fruits from the fronds of midget trees. We have a picture of Dad between a pygmy and a plastic-looking tree. Dad smiles, showing white, perfect teeth. The pygmy looks into the camera, hypnotized.

  My dad died the next day. The photo was given to us by a National Geographic photographer, a blond hominid named Cindy Mozkowski. She called him a saint, a brilliant ethnographer, and said the pygmies had truly respected Percival of the Shining Forehead.

  Ms. Mozkowski wept big tears that slid slowly down her cheeks and landed on our doorstep. Mom wouldn't let her in the house because she had brought bad news. Next it would be bad luck.

  Here's how my dad ascended to the department of Heaven reserved for anthropologists. He was lying on his cot one muggy summer day, outlining an essay titled "Why a Pygmy Refers to Himself as We." A tsetse fly stole through the netting and into Dad's tent. It landed on his arm. He brushed it away. It buzzed over to his exposed toe. He wiggled, and the fly shot into the air. Undaunted, it circled around and around and compound-eyeballed Dad's neck. It touched down and bit.

  That evening black Azazel sickness conquered my father. The pygmies buried him standing up. He was facing the sunrise so that he could be carried off to the next world. It was their custom.

  It's what Dad wanted. It was in his will.

  second prologue

  MY FATHER'S EYES

  My name is Percival Montmount, Jr., and I have my father's eyes. My eyes are aquamarine like his, set in a thin-boned, eagle-nosed face. But the similarity is more than a physical trait: I have my father's eyes. The night he died, Dad materialized at my bedside, extended a ghost arm, and opened his fingers to reveal a pair of glowing spirit eyes. He gently held the back of my head and inserted the magical orbs into my sockets.

  I blinked once...darkness. Twice...light. Dad waved goodbye as he faded away.

  I wept, not knowing whether the tears were mine or my father's.

  field journal

  Items to carry on the person:

  Reliable pen

  Backup pen

  Field study notebook

  Open mind

  one

  THE BEGINNING

  Let's begin at the beginning. About 3.5 million years ago, a short, hairy hominid called Australopithecus afarensis walked on two legs, thus distinguishing himself from his peers. His hobbies were swinging a club and throwing stones, precursors to baseball. His offspring gave birth to taller, less hairy anthropoids, who in their turn birthed more. As the millennia passed, these hominids mutated, shed their body hair, perfected the use of their opposable thumbs and strained the boundaries of their intellects, until at last they built siege engines and sailing ships.

  These creatures discovered North America. They engineered primitive cities and formed an unwieldy organization they named government. One particularly keen tribe attempted to walk across the barren Canadian prairies in search of the perfect site for a temperance colony. Confused by the wind's whistling, they wandered north. They camped near a river and named the place after the Cree word for a tasty purple berry: Missask-quah-toomina. Saskatoon. This camp grew especially fecund, attracting sufficient hominids to include one motivated biped who convinced the others to build a high school.

  Truly, it was the first backward step in 3.5 million years. The second was the invention of football teams.

  Justin, a robust member of the Jock Tribe, clutched my collar with meaty digits. His right hand was clenched in a fist.

  "Don't!" Whack. "Ever!" Whack. "Call me!" Whack. Whack. "That!" Whack. "Again!" Whack.

  His football ring flashed in and out of my vision, stamping impressions in my cheek that would likely be documented in Grad pictures next Thursday. Justin's features were Cro-Magnon: high forehead, thick skull, broad face. The color of his large gray eyes resembled that of an atomic mushroom cloud. Football season was long over, leaving him with vast reserves of simmering testosterone. I was helping burn them off.

  "Got that, you little turd?" He shook me. My limbs flopped, but his grip prevented my collapse. "Don't follow me. Don't even look at me." Justin rapped Stonehenge-sized knuckles on my skull. "Got it?"

  I nodded. The signal. Submission. He was Lord of the Apes, the Almighty Banana King. I was a low monkey, not worth his energy. Not worth—

  Whack!

  An uppercut to the jaw lifted my consciousness from its mortal cage. I floated skyward, watching my body waver back and forth like a pugilist whose brain hasn't processed the message that the last punch knocked him out. I drifted higher. A light opened above me. Was this a harbinger of the fabled afterlife all tribes dream of?

  A female voice sang out, "Let him go!" Was it a high priestess come to bring down the temples? The mother goddess herself?

  "No problem," Justin grunted, "I'm bored anyway." He shoved my carcass. I suddenly snapped back inside myself, eyes wide with fear. I fell like a cut redwood tree, momentum adding to my body's weight. I neglected to use my hands, so I smacked into the ground and shock waves coursed through my nervous system.

  The Busybody Tribe surrounded us, shielding the crude ceremony from Groverly High's windows. Its affiliates goggled. Their eyes were large, their batlike ears stretched high to gather up every vibration and echo. When it became clear that I would do no more than moan, they vacated.

  I blinked. Stared at an azure morning sky. Wisps of clouds floated in the air. Birds chirped. It could have been a nature documentary. I was relieved it was Friday.

  A face appeared in my line of vision. Female. Blurry. Familiar. I batted my eyelids to clear my watering eyes. It was Elissa, my friend.

  "Jesus, Percy! What happened?"

  Several facial areas felt hot as coals. I rubbed my cranium. "I left my body."

  "What?"

  "I was floating and this light appeared, coming toward me. Maybe it was the afterlife."

  "I think you have a concussion."

  I tried to sit up. Not prudent. Pain fused seven lower vertebrae. "I am experiencing severe discomfort."

  Elissa leaned over, blocking the morning sun. She was as tall and thin as me, her brown hair bobbed, her elfin face elegantly bisected by a slim nose. Her eyes grew wide and owl-like. They stared now, signaling concern and curiosity. She
had epicanthic eye folds, though no obvious Asian ancestors. A sign that all humans share common traits.

  Elissa had engaged in ritual body piercing, not for fashion, but in honor of ancient beliefs. Some African cultures believe that demon spirits fly up a person's nostrils and cause illness. To prevent this, she wore a nose ring. She had also situated one ring at the end of her right eyebrow, an ever-present silver tear flicked to the side.

  Her fingertips brushed my cheek. "Ow!" I exclaimed.

  "Why'd Justin do it?"

  "It was my fault. I strayed into his territory." She helped me sit up; my back cracked with each movement. "He then spoke inciteful words to evoke a response."

  "What?" Though Elissa has been my closest friend for years, anthropological vernacular can still escape her. "What did he say?"

  "He asked whether you and I engage in sexual intimacy and what I thought of the experience. His exact words were: 'Hey, Percy, what's Freak Girl like in the sack?'"

  "Freak Girl," she echoed quietly. "Freak Girl?"

  "His moniker. Don't let it upset you. The gifted are often shunned by lesser intellects. Darwin himself experienced this throughout his lifetime. Besides, I struck back with a witticism. I likened Justin to a body orifice and he took offense."

  "You called him an asshole?"

  "Please! I was more specific. I implied he was the mythical ape rectum that shat across the known universe. You should have seen the look on his face—well, once he figured out it was an insult, that is."

  "Oh, Percy." She shook her head. Her earrings, two tiny spiders, swung back and forth.

  "I know. Not wise. His machismo dictated he must respond in a physical manner. Obvious, now."

  "What got into you? We ignore his type. They aren't our tribe. They don't matter."

  Our tribe. Let me explain. Numerous tribes exist in friction at our school. The Logo Tribe exhibits name brands wherever and whenever possible. The Digerati Tribe worships bytes and silicon chips. The Lipstick/Hairspray Tribe performs elaborate appearance alterations to attract mates. The Gee-the-Seventies-Were-Great-Even-Though-I-Wasn't-Born-Yet Tribe has predictable backward habits. The Hockey Tribe subdivides into Oilers, Canadiens, Rangers, and other assorted clans.

  And finally there's us, the quasi-omniscient Observers.

  We are a cohesive group of two—Elissa and I. We are privileged with a special disposition: We don't like the same music as everyone else, don't wear the same baggy clothes, can't always decode their dialects. We seem to have awakened from a Rip Van Winkle-like sleep to behold the ritualistic world called Grade Twelve. The natives fascinate us.

  Justin's thumping was a primitive message: I'd trespassed on his territory.

  "How do my abrasions look?" I asked.

  Elissa smiled. Her braces were removed three months ago, but I am amazed still at the white perfection of her teeth. I'm forever intrigued by mankind's ability to connive improvements on our evolution. "Not too bad," she said. "You'll have bruises for sure."

  "He held back. If truly angry he would break at least one bone."

  "C'mon, enough sitting around." She helped me to my feet. "We'll be late. You going to tell anyone about him?"

  "No point. He reaffirmed he's the alpha male. If I'm careful he won't exhibit again before graduation."

  We headed up to Groverly High: a hulking, ancient redbrick edifice centered with long stone steps leading to gigantic oak doors. Ascending the steps, you are forced to look directly up at the face of the school. Glorify the architect. See the vision of forefather Walter Groverly, who blessed the architect's design. See there is no escape—the moatlike river blocks off the rear, the street outlines the front. The building has a hundred windows, yet none at ground level. Escape impossible. A perfect plan.

  Until Willard Spokes, that is. One year ago, he fell in love with Marcia Grady of the Lipstick/Hairspray Tribe. Willard was too shy to express his amorous feelings. Upon discovering that Marcia dated a basketball player, Willard picked the lock of the belfry and jumped from the tower. He smashed on the cement four stories below. This was after the morning bell rang, so only stragglers witnessed the event.

  Willard didn't regain consciousness. After three days in the ICU, he passed to the next world while his mother held his hand. If not for that aerial misadventure, he'd have graduated this coming Thursday too.

  He'd be grinning like a plump simian and cracking jokes. He was a leading member of the Smile Tribe.

  Onward. When you step through Groverly's gigantic oak doors, you enter an über-hallway, standing on hardwood that creaks, suggesting that the building will momentarily collapse under the weight of teenagers and heavy angst.

  After my father's untimely departure, money became scarce. My mother was forced to withdraw me from private school and I was sent here for Grade Ten. Groverly still constitutes my habitat for six and a half hours a day, five days a week, unless I partake of any G.A.S.A.'s (Groverly After School Activities).

  Elissa escorted me to my locker. En route she pointed to a bleached-blond girl. "Madonna Cult—I thought they were extinct." The female was called Karen, and she was the product of a Blue Collar-Lipstick/Hairspray Tribe union. A crucifix and a black pearl necklace hung between her net shirt-girded mammae.

  "Definitely," I agreed. "Sad, isn't it? Clinging to the past. Not even Madonna's dance tracks could revive her cult. A tribe in decline—uh-oh." I bent down so my head wasn't visible through the masses, a reflex bequeathed by my hominid ancestors, who would crouch in marsh reeds to avoid predators.

  Elissa also scrunched down. "Uh-oh what?"

  I glanced over my shoulder. "Michael and Nicole sighting."

  She giggled. "The Jesus Freaks."

  "The Born-Again Tribe," I corrected. "I don't want their anti-evolution chant again. It's always so...circular."

  Elissa stood and stretched her neck, ostrich-like. "They're gone. Heading for homeroom. Punctual as Jesus commanded, I guess." She glanced at her portable chronometer, a Gucci. "Two minutes to the ritual sounding of the bell. You ready for algebra?"

  I straightened my back. Major pain sparked from seven vertebrae. "Y-yes."

  "Ah, the study of the incestuous breeding of numbers and letters. Invented by Professor Algebrady. Objective: to induce coma."

  I smiled. Elissa invented fake histories for all our classes. She produced her reliable pen and printed the words believe nothing across her binder. She replaced the writing utensil in her shirt pocket and held up the notebook. "Today's motto! Did you know handwriting is a 'makework' invention? A monk liked its appearance, so he made his novices use it. Then civilizations worldwide mimicked the style. Printing is faster and clearer. Test it sometime."

  "Yeah...okay."

  Elissa's encyclopedic mind catalogued stacks of anecdotes about our societal fallacies. It was her raison d'étre. Her parents are trial lawyers, so her house is home to constant allegation, rebuttal and proof. And expensive furniture no one sits on.

  "So you're okay?" she asked.

  "Yes. Just a hazard of my job."

  "Maybe splash water on your face. At least clean the scratches; you know how bacteria love open wounds. Could contract the flesh-eating disease and expire before second period."

  I smiled. The bell clanged like a fire alarm.

  I must correct my observation. There was no bell, only an electronic recording of one. It had the same effect, though.

  "Assimilation time," I announced. We assumed our impartial anthro faces. Elissa amalgamated with the crowd, her head bobbing.

  I headed into the field. Four steps later a deep voice commanded, "Percy Montmount, come here."

  It was the leader of all the Groverly High strata. He-Whose-First-Name-Is-Too-Sacred-to-Speak.

  Principal Michaels.

  two

  THE LUCK OF THE BEOTHUKS

  Michaels waved me toward his office. He was adept at using his gargantuan hands to communicate. I obeyed. Justin sat in the outer waiting room, conducting
a staredown with the floor—a sitzkrieg. He took time out to glower at me. I exhibited no antagonistic behaviors.

  I hesitated at the door to the inner sanctum. What was protocol? Leave it open? Did Principal Michaels wish to display ascendancy to all? Or close the door, thereby inflaming plebeian wonder at the execution of his power?

  Principal Michaels sat at his desk. His hand signaled Close the door.

  I did so. He gestured to an adjacent wooden chair. I sat. His use of nonverbal signals was perhaps intended to intimidate me.

  The office was spacious and clean, every book shelved, binding face out, and every spit-polished wall plaque hung squarely. The desk was exactly in the center of the room.

  "Hello, Percy," he said carefully. "How. Are. You. Today?" His slow elocution indicated that he assumed I was mentally challenged.

  "Fine, I am," I answered, opting to mimic Dr. Seuss.

  Principal Michaels cracked a crooked smile. Though a backward hominid, he was amiable. He was ruddy-faced and bald, heavyset, with amazingly thick eyebrows. They replicated two black, well-fed caterpillars clinging midbrow.

  "Why are you smirking?" he asked.

  "I—I'm sorry. I was preparing to sneeze." And I did. Lightly. Obviously fake.

  His blue, serious eyes cooled. "There was a scuffle outside the schoolyard. What are those cuts on your face?"

  I held myself rigid. "The result of a biking accident, sir."

  "Did you ride your bike this morning?"

  I paused. I had walked the three blocks from home. "No. Last night, sir."

  "They look fresh. I was told you were in a fight with Justin Anverson."

  I had overlooked the fleet-footed tribe of Sneaks who lurk, awaiting the chance to insinuate themselves with the school patriarchy, intending to advance their grades and general status.