explained that she was just there to draw blood. Ronnie watched carefully as she cinched the constricting band around his arm, searched for a vein, and then drew what she needed.
“What she wants to take,” Ronnie said, “is already gone.” Which might have been true, considering that years of drinking had likely left his veins more full of Gilbey's gin than blood. When she was finished, he sank back into the pillow.
“Raven,” he said.
“Ronnie,” I said. “What are you bothering the nurses for? They're going to take good care of you. If there's one thing they do better in the hospice than the hospital, it's take care of pain. So if you're uncomfortable, let them-”
“What I need to say, I need a clear head to say,” he said.
Now, a few years before, there's only one thing Ronnie would have said next:
So let us drink.
Instead, he said something I'd never heard him say before: “Father.” I tensed. Then another surprise: “I want to confess.”
This was so startling I assumed we were joking again. “Oh, Ronnie,” I said. “Let's just talk. Old friends.”
“Enemies,” he said, and smiled. “I want to go to confession.”
“You're not even Catholic, Ronnie,” I said, sure the floor was groaning and splitting beneath me like some last chunk of springtime ice in the river. Was Ronnie ready to believe? Had he finally found his proof?
“I don't have to be Catholic to tell secrets,” Ronnie said. He drew a deep breath, and then another, and another, and in another moment, he seemed deep asleep.
RONNIE IS NOT CATHOLIC. Nor is he Russian Orthodox. Nor Moravian Protestant. Nor Baptist, nor a member of any of the other churches that crowd vulnerable Bethel. As a result, it was somewhat difficult for me to obtain for him a position as assistant chaplain at the hospice some time ago, but it was certainly easier than getting him a position titled, say, “staff shaman.”
It's not that people would have frowned on the term
shaman.
(Or maybe they might have; it's a white man's word, and imprecise the way white men's words are.
Angalkuq
is the Yup'ik term.) Shamans, or
angalkut
, served many functions in times past, but a chief duty was healing, and even the hospital in town incorporates such traditional medicine into its care today.
But people did frown on Ronnie. He was, way back when, an
angalkuq
of some note. Mostly because he was a final, and absolutely unrepentant, holdout against the missionaries. As such, he merited a certain amount of respect, even from those God-fearing Natives who no longer sought his services-so much of the old ways had been lost, but in Ronnie they had a time capsule, a treasury, an unassailable fortress.
Until a tide of alcohol flooded it.
Ronnie's abilities had waned during the war, it was said, maybe before. Some said it happened gradually, some said abruptly. Some said Ronnie had done something, and others said something had been done to him. But every version of the story I heard turned out the same way: the war had brought soldiers; the soldiers, alcohol; and alcohol, for Ronnie at least, brought fleeting glimpses of the ethereal provinces he once visited regularly.
By the time I met him, he lacked both powers and respect. To my shame, I did nothing to help him. I thought an enfeebled foe made my job that much easier. Though Ronnie's various attempts to run me out of Alaska, or out of this world altogether, were occasionally frightening, withstanding them seemed to burnish my reputation in the community.
But eventually, I'd had my fill of respect. And I'd come to like Ronnie-in part, because no one else did. So I went to him. I worked with him, as much as he'd let me.
He should have been long dead by then, and I think he knew this. I say that because I can't think of any other reason why he would have let me help him as much as I tried to. Except for one. I'd suggested a dozen times he enter a treatment program, but he didn't agree until I- or a mischievous
“What she wants to take,” Ronnie said, “is already gone.” Which might have been true, considering that years of drinking had likely left his veins more full of Gilbey's gin than blood. When she was finished, he sank back into the pillow.
“Raven,” he said.
“Ronnie,” I said. “What are you bothering the nurses for? They're going to take good care of you. If there's one thing they do better in the hospice than the hospital, it's take care of pain. So if you're uncomfortable, let them-”
“What I need to say, I need a clear head to say,” he said.
Now, a few years before, there's only one thing Ronnie would have said next:
So let us drink.
Instead, he said something I'd never heard him say before: “Father.” I tensed. Then another surprise: “I want to confess.”
This was so startling I assumed we were joking again. “Oh, Ronnie,” I said. “Let's just talk. Old friends.”
“Enemies,” he said, and smiled. “I want to go to confession.”
“You're not even Catholic, Ronnie,” I said, sure the floor was groaning and splitting beneath me like some last chunk of springtime ice in the river. Was Ronnie ready to believe? Had he finally found his proof?
“I don't have to be Catholic to tell secrets,” Ronnie said. He drew a deep breath, and then another, and another, and in another moment, he seemed deep asleep.
RONNIE IS NOT CATHOLIC. Nor is he Russian Orthodox. Nor Moravian Protestant. Nor Baptist, nor a member of any of the other churches that crowd vulnerable Bethel. As a result, it was somewhat difficult for me to obtain for him a position as assistant chaplain at the hospice some time ago, but it was certainly easier than getting him a position titled, say, “staff shaman.”
It's not that people would have frowned on the term
shaman.
(Or maybe they might have; it's a white man's word, and imprecise the way white men's words are.
Angalkuq
is the Yup'ik term.) Shamans, or
angalkut
, served many functions in times past, but a chief duty was healing, and even the hospital in town incorporates such traditional medicine into its care today.
But people did frown on Ronnie. He was, way back when, an
angalkuq
of some note. Mostly because he was a final, and absolutely unrepentant, holdout against the missionaries. As such, he merited a certain amount of respect, even from those God-fearing Natives who no longer sought his services-so much of the old ways had been lost, but in Ronnie they had a time capsule, a treasury, an unassailable fortress.
Until a tide of alcohol flooded it.
Ronnie's abilities had waned during the war, it was said, maybe before. Some said it happened gradually, some said abruptly. Some said Ronnie had done something, and others said something had been done to him. But every version of the story I heard turned out the same way: the war had brought soldiers; the soldiers, alcohol; and alcohol, for Ronnie at least, brought fleeting glimpses of the ethereal provinces he once visited regularly.
By the time I met him, he lacked both powers and respect. To my shame, I did nothing to help him. I thought an enfeebled foe made my job that much easier. Though Ronnie's various attempts to run me out of Alaska, or out of this world altogether, were occasionally frightening, withstanding them seemed to burnish my reputation in the community.
But eventually, I'd had my fill of respect. And I'd come to like Ronnie-in part, because no one else did. So I went to him. I worked with him, as much as he'd let me.
He should have been long dead by then, and I think he knew this. I say that because I can't think of any other reason why he would have let me help him as much as I tried to. Except for one. I'd suggested a dozen times he enter a treatment program, but he didn't agree until I- or a mischievous
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