I sit here at Bob’s with a coffee, half-smoked joint in the ashtray and a cigarette in my hand listening to Brittney Spears; Three. The light is emitting from a plugged-in plant light in back of me hanging on the white wall. The weather outside is a very brisk seven degrees; on this December 29th, 2009 evening at 9:35PM.
I got back from an eight-day trip to Hodgdon, Maine three days ago, saw my cardiologist yesterday afternoon and had court this morning. I had Bob drop me off at Greyhound Bus on Bates Street on the 19th. We had a twenty minute layover in Bangor. We switched onto the Cyr Bus line. When I arrived in Hodgdon Josh was waiting in a van with two cousins.
We drove to his mother’s house. Dave was in Caribou with his mom. Christmas Eve we drove to Carol’s house and spent some time with the family, where I was again introduced to his grandmother. The first time was at the hospital for Joshua’s Aunt Sally when we went to pick her and her husband up. Josh and I went to see Avatar at the local cinema.
Tina let me use the family car to go to the movies, rather then sitting around at the hospital. I parked the car in the front of the cinema. A van pulled up beside the drivers’ side with two adults and three kids. We walked inside got our tickets and Joshua pick out some seats in the front. The movie I concluded before seeing it was a virtual world like World of Warcraft with a camera inside following a few key characters. What a long movie, I moved around my butt in the chair changing positions many time trying to get comfortable. Another James Cameron movie, for those who have seen a great movie called Titanic, you know it’s long. The movie was about two main characters that connect through lying in a box, like a suntan bed, where they are sedated and live through a lab-created alien body in another world full of color. A virtual world where a person can breathe, run and talk to others with first-hand narration.
One evening I went to a Beano game at the tribes’ hall and went to a Christmas event for the kids of the tribe. Alex was a hungry girl. I had met Alex who was bartending at a bar in Presque Isle when Josh and I went up for a visit. After many snacks and determined to win she walked away at the end of the night with the money she had left over. Grandmother had one a hundred dollars that evening after grandfather had lost some money somewhere.
Joshua told me to look and see how integrated the Indian blood had gone. There were many more white children then those with a darker complexion. There was a long line for the children to see Santa Clause. They would go up and get a gift from Santa. Something I remember doing at a local hall when I was a child with my sisters and my dad’s family. I was probably eight years old of younger. When our name was called we would go up and go up and get a gift. We also went to the nunnery and got gifts from Sister Dalpe, Sister Annette and others, and the many years we got gifts from the staff at St Mary’s Hospital and the Grey Nun crew.
Christmas Eve we went to Carol’s. Grandmother and Grandfather were there. Grandfather caught a few winks of sleep on the couch with gifts under it and Christmas songs playing through the playstation. Sage was there.
