Wake The Stone Man Read Online Free PDF

the Odeon Theatre. Fahrenheit 451 was playing. It was directed by Francis Truffaut but because some of the lights on the marquee were burned out it said “directed by –ranci-T---f-a-t” Ha. I took a photo of the brass bells in the steeple of Knox United Church, and I took a photo of the park across from the church with the old chestnut tree.
    I took a whole series of photos of the Lorna Doone Tea Room. The Doone from the inside, the Doone from the outside, the Doone dog — classic. Nakina was with me that day — a rare event that spring. I took a shot of Nakina inside the Doone, and then I went outside when she was eating and took a shot of her through the window. The lights of the neon sign made her face green.
    She didn’t know I was taking the picture. She was looking straight ahead and had this faraway look on her face. Nakina always had attitude — always ready with a smart-ass remark or a joke, but that day I saw something different. That day she looked serious — maybe angry. When I went back in she was drinking a Coke and talking to the waitress, who bounced her cig between her lips as she talked. Talent.
    A Coke and a smoke at the Doone. I took that shot too and I thought I would paint the lit end of the cigarette red.
    â€œSo what are you going to do with the photos?” Nakina asked.
    â€œI told you.”
    â€œPaint them?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œSo why do you have to paint them when you have the photos.”
    â€œCome on Nakina.”
    â€œSeriously. Seems like a waste of time if you already have the photos.”
    â€œI need the photos to remember the details when I … never mind.”
    â€œSo, am I getting an invitation to the opening night?” she asked.
    â€œNo.” I was getting angry with Nakina but I didn’t really know why. I felt she was making fun of me because I was pretending to be an artist. And she was right. I was just messing around. I didn’t know what I was doing.
    â€œSo what are you going to call your big show?” She asked.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œNo, really.”
    â€œPiss off!”
    â€œPiss off. Nice. That’ll look good on the poster.”
    â€œVery funny.”
    â€œSeriously, what will you call it?”
    I thought for a few minutes, “Sixty-eight. Get it, from nineteen sixty-eight — the year I took the photos.”
    â€œDon’t call it that.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œJust don’t, OK.”
    I took another bite of my burger. “What’s wrong with sixty-eight?”
    â€œLeave it, Molly.” I looked over at Nakina and could see she was getting upset.
    â€œWhat’s your problem?”
    She was silent for a few minutes, head down looking at her plate, then she quietly said, “That was my number.”
    â€œWhat number?”
    â€œIn the residential school. They gave us numbers. Not names — just numbers. I was sixty-eight.”
    ***
    That summer Nakina came with us to our camp at Loon Lake. The camp was a couple of hours out of town on the west side of the lake. There were a lot of camps on East Loon but ours was on the far end with bush on either side. We drove to the end of the Loon Road and hauled all our food and supplies about ten minutes down a narrow path. My grandpa built the camp in 1904, and in those days, before the highway went in, they came out to the camp on the train.
    Nakina and I slept in the shed near the tracks and every night at 11:30, when the Canadian rolled past, we’d sit up and watch the lights of the passenger cars flicker by.
    â€œI’m going on that train some day.” I was leaning on the windowsill trying to see the people in the cars.
    â€œWhere to?”
    â€œAnywhere. Out of here. Think about it, you go to bed in Ontario and wake up in Manitoba or Quebec.”
    â€œAnd then what?”
    â€œI don’t know. It would be different that’s all. Do you think that’s the