Louise Erdrich - Love Medicine

Alterating tongue storms and rock-hard silences was hard on a man, even one who didn’t notice, like Grandpa. So I went fetching him.

But he was gone when I popped through the little screen door that led out on the courtyard. There was nobody out there either, to point which way they went. just the dandelion fork quibbling upright in the ground.

That gave me an idea. I snookered over to the Lamartine’s door and I listened in first, then knocked. But nobody. So I went walking through the lounges and around the card tables. Still nobody.

Finally it was my touch that led me to the laundry room. I cracked the door. I went in. There they were, And he was really loving her up good, boy, and she was going hell for leather. Sheets was flapping on the lines above, and washcloths, pillowcases, shirts was also flying through the air, for they was trying to clear out a place for themselves in a high heaped but shallow laundry cart. The washers and the dryers was all on, chock full of quarters, shaking and moaning. I couldn’t hear what Grandpa and the Lamartine was billing and cooing, and they couldn’t hear me.

I didn’t know what to do, so I went inside and shut the door.

The Lamartine wore a big curly light-brown wig. Looked like one of them squeaky little white-people dogs. Poodles they call them.

Anyway, that wig is what saved us from the-worse. For I could hardly shout and tell them I was in there, no more could I try and grab him.

I was trapped where I was. There was nothing I could really do but hold the door shut. I was scared of somebody else upsetting in and really getting an eyeful. Turned out though, in the heat of the clinch, as I was trying to avert my eyes you see, the Lamartine’s curly wig ‘jumped off her head. And if you ever been in the midst of something and had a big change like that occur in the someone, you can’t help know how it devastates your basic urges. Not only that, but her wig was almost with a life of its own. Grandpa’s eyes were bugging at the change already, and swear to God if the thing didn’t rear up and pop him in the face like it was going to start something. He scrambled up, Grandpa did, and the Lamartine jumped up after him all addled looking. They just stared at each other, huffing and puffing, with quizzical expression. The surprise seemed to drive all sense completely out of Grandpa’s mind.

“The letter was what started the fire,” he said. I never would have done it.”

“What letter?” said the Lamartine. She was stiff-necked now, and elegant, even bald, like some alien queen. I gave her back the wig.

The Lamartine replaced it on her head, and whenever I saw her after that, I couldn’t help thinking of her bald, with special powers, as if from another planet.

“That was a close call,” I said to Grandpa after she had left.

But I think he had already forgot the incident. He just stood there all quiet and thoughtful. You really wouldn’t think he was crazy.

He looked like he was just about to say something imp or bomb.-, tant, explaining himself He said something, all right, but it didn’t have nothing to do with anything that made sense.

He wondered where the heck he put his dandelion fork. That’s when I decided about the mental adjustment.

Now what was mostly our problem was not so much that he was not all there, but that what was there of him often hankered after Lamartine.

If we could put a stop to that, I thought, we might be getting someplace. But here, see, my touch was of no use.

For what could I snap my fingers at to make him faithful to Grandma?

Like the quality of staying power, this faithfulness was invisible. I know it’s something that you got to acquire, but I never known where from. Maybe there’s no rhyme or reason to it, like my getting the touch, and then again maybe it’s a kind of magic.

It was Grandma Kashpaw who thought of it in the end. She knows things.

Although she will not admit she has a scrap of Indian blood in her, there’s no doubt in my mind she’s got some Chippewa. How else would you explain the way she’ll be sitting there, in front of her TV story, rocking in herprinchair and suddenly she turns on me, her brown eyes hard as lake-bed flint.

“Lipsha Morrissey,” she’ll say, “you went out last night and got drunk.

” How did she know that? I’ll hardly remember it myself. Then she’ll say she just had a feeling or ache in the scar of her hand or a creak in her shoulder. She is constantly being told things by little aggravations in her joints or by her household appliances. One time she told Gordie never to ride with a crazy Lamartine boy.

She had seen something in the polished-up tin of her bread toaster.

So he didn’t. Sure enough, the time came we heard how Lyman and Henry went out of control in their car, ending up in the river. Lyman swam to the top, but Henry never made it.

Thanks to Grandma’s toaster, Gordie was probably spared.

hear what Grandpa and the Larnartine was billing and cooing, and they couldn’t hear me.

I didn’t know what to do, so I went inside and shut the door.

The Larnartine wore a big curly light-brown wig. Looked like one of them squeaky little white-people dogs. Poodles they call them.

Anyway, that wig is what saved us from the-worse. For I could hardly shout and tell them I was in there, no more could I try and grab him.

I was trapped where I was. There was nothing I could really do but hold the door shut. I was scared of somebody else upsetting in and really getting an eyeful. Turned out though, in the heat of the clinch, as I was trying to avert my eyes you see, the Larnartine’s curly wig jumped off her head. And if you ever been in the midst of something and had a big change like that occur in the someone, you can’t help know how it devastates your basic urges. Not only that, but her wig was almost with a life of its own. Grandpa’s eyes were bugging at the change already, and swear to God if the thing didn’t rear up and pop him in the face like it was going to start something. He scrambled up, Grandpa did, and the Larnartine jumped up after him all addled looking. They just stared at each other, huffing and puffing, with quizzical expression. The surprise seemed to drive all sense completely out of Grandpa’s mind.

“The letter was what started the fire,” he said. I never would have done it.”

“What letter?” said the Lamartine. She was stiff-necked now, and elegant, even bald, like some alien queen. I gave her back the wig.

The Larnartine replaced it on her head, and whenever I saw her after that, I couldn’t help thinking of her bald, with special powers, as if from another planet.

“That was a close call,” I said to Grandpa after she had left.

But I think he had already forgot the incident. He just stood there all quiet and thoughtful. You really wouldn’t think he was crazy.

He looked like he was just about to say something imp or Someplace in thelblood Grandma Kasbpaw knows things. She also remembers things, I found. She keeps things filed away She’s got a memory like them video games that don’t forget your score. One reason she remembers so many details about the trouble I gave her in early life is so she can flash back her total when she needs to.

Like now. Take the love medicine. I don’t know where she remembered that from. It came tumbling from her mind like an asteroid off the corner of the screen.

Of course she starts out by mentioning the time I had this ‘dent in church and did she leave me there with wet overacci halls? No she didn’t. And ain’t I glad? Yes I am. Now what you want now, Grandma?

But when she mentions them love medicines, I feel my back prickle at the danger. These love medicines is something of an old Chippewa specialty.