Free Fall from Grace by Wayne Arthurson Page B

that community. Thanks for your time, and if you need to contact me for whatever reason, I’ll be leaving a bunch of cards at the back and by the front door and those numbers are my direct line and cell phone.
    “Thanks again for this opportunity and I, uh…” A lump in my throat and heaviness in the pit of my stomach stopped me. I stood there, looking at the crowd of unfamiliar yet familiar faces, some of them smiling, some of them nodding, some just staring, my eyes misting. I couldn’t think of anything more to say; my mind was filled with a deep sense of sorrow, the same feeling that would always hit me after the first moment in a casino after months or years of being good.
    I stepped back from the mic, and instead of turning toward the mayor and the rest of the people onstage, I went in the opposite direction, quickly walking down the stairs and moving through the crowd. I needed to clear my head and I wasn’t going to be able to do that here. I had to leave the room. The crowd allowed me to pass, and there wasn’t any uneasiness about it.
    Somewhere in my addled brain I think I heard some applause, but my emotions were lost to me. I hoped to make it to my car, but as soon as I got out the front door and felt the blast of cool air on my face, tears were streaming down my cheeks. I quickly turned the corner so as not to be seen and fell back against the wall, and dropped my butt to the ground, breathing deep in order to stay centered. But I couldn’t; I hit something that I always knew was there but also thought was under my control. Guess I was wrong, which had happened before.

10
     
    “Smoke?”
    I looked up, and one of the elders from the stage was staring down at me, a lone cigarette extending from a pack held in his outstretched hand. His face was blank, but it still made me feel calm.
    I lifted my hand to wave it away and opened my mouth to say, No, thanks, but I froze. Even though I didn’t smoke and would normally refuse any offer of a cigarette from anyone, I realized that in many native cultures, the Cree included, an offer of tobacco, no matter how minor, could be an offering of peace and friendship, a sacred thing. To refuse, even if you don’t smoke, created an insult on par with spitting in a priest’s face when he offers the host or slugging a Buddhist monk ’cause he smiles at you.
    So I sat there, wondering if I should take the smoke as a gesture and just pocket it. But would that further insult him? Was the offer of the tobacco just the first step in a ritual I couldn’t comprehend? Was I expected to light up and share in the smoke as a bond of friendship? I shut my eyes, knowing that this was just another reminder that I shouldn’t have agreed to Larry’s proposal. What the hell did I know about being Indian if I couldn’t even figure out how to accept or refuse the simple offer of a cigarette?
    The old man seemed to understand what I was thinking because his blank expression morphed into a smile so slowly that I barely saw it happening. “You know,” he said with a soft Cree accent, the slur of the English barely noticeable, “I think it was Freud who said ‘sometimes a cigar is a just a cigar.’ So if you need or want a smoke, take the cigarette; if not, don’t. We’re just hanging out, not negotiating a new treaty.”
    I finally let out the “No, thanks” I had been holding in, shaking my head at my own stupidity. The elder nodded and then slid the smoke back into the pack and tucked that into his storm rider pocket.
    I pulled myself to my feet, shaking the cold out of my legs, and for about a minute we leaned against the west wall of the Friendship Centre watching the scattering of cars roll back and forth along Ninety-seventh Avenue. I wondered how to break the silence, how to engage the elder in conversation, but since I was still feeling the lingering effects of my emotional outburst, I was a little embarrassed. I should have said something besides, “Think it will