The Evolution of Alice by David Alexander Robertson Page A
Authors: David Alexander Robertson
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melted and made its way into the lake. Everybody was worried about flooding, of course. Every spring it flooded around where we lived. Anyway, I was at home picking over a microwave TV dinner. Hungry Man’s meal, they call it. One of my favourites, you know. That’s about when I started to have a pretty bad craving. See, just a few hours before that, I’d been at Alice’s house spending time with Kathy, Jayne, and … shit … almost always say Grace, me. Getting better at that, though. Not forgetting her, mind you, just remembering that she isn’t around anymore. So, I was with the girls in their bedroom playing tea party. I don’t really care what you think about that neither. I’d pretty much do anything for those girls. If they wanna play tea party, then Uncle Gideon’s gonna play tea party.
We did that for most of the afternoon. “Course, we didn’t have real tea or anything like that. We drank out of pretend teacups that were really Dixie cups filled with sterilized lake water, ate pretend cupcakes that were really ripped up pieces of stale bannock, and pretend liquorice that was really red pipe cleaners. Got all dressed up, too. Yeah, the girls got all done up in princess dresses and good ol’ Uncle Gideon went and snuck one of the only dresses Alice had and put it on. Like I said: anything for those girls. That afternoon was different, though. It got difficult for me; it was one of those times that Grace’s absence seemed bigger than normal. Wasn’t any good reason for it, neither. I just noticed her bed, which was still made up perfect like it always was; her stuffed animals huddled up around her pillow; and her empty spot at the tea table. She used to play with us when she was around, but now Jayne and Kathy put her favourite stuffy there, a big Dora the Explorer thing. After all that playing, Alice asked me to stay for supper, but I told her I didn’t feel like eating anything, which was true. I really didn’t. My stomach felt all in knots and sore.
I ended up going home, and that’s how I got to picking at that Hungry Man dinner. Like I said, that’s my favourite thing to eat almost, besides Alice’s bacon and eggs. But I wouldn’t’ve felt like eating that neither if she’d offered it to me. Guess I wasn’t much of a hungry man right then. What I did feel like eating was some real treats, not fake cupcakes or fake liquorice. I wanted to eat treats real bad. Problem was, diabetes kinda runs in my family. I don’t have it yet, but I still gotta watch what I eat pretty close. I’d always been pretty good about that, too—I hadn’t ate junk in a long time. Still, there I was getting that craving, for liquorice and a bag of peanut M&Ms to be exact. I knew it wasn’t a good idea, of course. But, before I knew it, I was putting on my boots, my windbreaker, and heading out the door on my way to the grocery store.
The grocery store was pretty close to my place, and I decided to walk it rather than take my truck. I figured that, on account of the round trip, about four miles altogether, I’d get enough exercise that the junk I was planning to buy wasn’t gonna bother me much. I was, like, bargaining with myself about it. To give myself an even better excuse to go and buy that stuff, I thought I’d get something for Kathy and Jayne, too, while I was at it. You know, since Grace died, the girls hadn’t been given much of anything. I thought they’d really like some jujubes or something like that. I’d even pick out the yellow and the black ones for them, because nobody liked those ones anyway.
Most of the walk over to the grocery store was a stroll through a bunch of nothing after nothing, especially if you’d walked that way thousands of times like me. If there was something to see, though, it wouldn’t have mattered anyways, because all I could think about was the liquorice and peanut M&Ms. After about 15 minutes I got to the centre of the rez. “Downtown,” as I like to call it. I
We did that for most of the afternoon. “Course, we didn’t have real tea or anything like that. We drank out of pretend teacups that were really Dixie cups filled with sterilized lake water, ate pretend cupcakes that were really ripped up pieces of stale bannock, and pretend liquorice that was really red pipe cleaners. Got all dressed up, too. Yeah, the girls got all done up in princess dresses and good ol’ Uncle Gideon went and snuck one of the only dresses Alice had and put it on. Like I said: anything for those girls. That afternoon was different, though. It got difficult for me; it was one of those times that Grace’s absence seemed bigger than normal. Wasn’t any good reason for it, neither. I just noticed her bed, which was still made up perfect like it always was; her stuffed animals huddled up around her pillow; and her empty spot at the tea table. She used to play with us when she was around, but now Jayne and Kathy put her favourite stuffy there, a big Dora the Explorer thing. After all that playing, Alice asked me to stay for supper, but I told her I didn’t feel like eating anything, which was true. I really didn’t. My stomach felt all in knots and sore.
I ended up going home, and that’s how I got to picking at that Hungry Man dinner. Like I said, that’s my favourite thing to eat almost, besides Alice’s bacon and eggs. But I wouldn’t’ve felt like eating that neither if she’d offered it to me. Guess I wasn’t much of a hungry man right then. What I did feel like eating was some real treats, not fake cupcakes or fake liquorice. I wanted to eat treats real bad. Problem was, diabetes kinda runs in my family. I don’t have it yet, but I still gotta watch what I eat pretty close. I’d always been pretty good about that, too—I hadn’t ate junk in a long time. Still, there I was getting that craving, for liquorice and a bag of peanut M&Ms to be exact. I knew it wasn’t a good idea, of course. But, before I knew it, I was putting on my boots, my windbreaker, and heading out the door on my way to the grocery store.
The grocery store was pretty close to my place, and I decided to walk it rather than take my truck. I figured that, on account of the round trip, about four miles altogether, I’d get enough exercise that the junk I was planning to buy wasn’t gonna bother me much. I was, like, bargaining with myself about it. To give myself an even better excuse to go and buy that stuff, I thought I’d get something for Kathy and Jayne, too, while I was at it. You know, since Grace died, the girls hadn’t been given much of anything. I thought they’d really like some jujubes or something like that. I’d even pick out the yellow and the black ones for them, because nobody liked those ones anyway.
Most of the walk over to the grocery store was a stroll through a bunch of nothing after nothing, especially if you’d walked that way thousands of times like me. If there was something to see, though, it wouldn’t have mattered anyways, because all I could think about was the liquorice and peanut M&Ms. After about 15 minutes I got to the centre of the rez. “Downtown,” as I like to call it. I
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