Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

Sitting on the dock, Nanabush asks Maggie what she wants to do with the new land. She would like to just leave it in its natural state. He agrees that’s the best use for it. He talks about his travels from one coast to the other.

As the sun goes down, Nanabush builds a fire. Slurring her words a little from the wine, Maggie asks him what he knows about women since he has had lots of experiences. She has only had three boyfriends and the last became her husband. Nanabush has had his share of lovers. He describes the beauty of women’s breasts—no two are alike. He tells her that her mother used to come to this bay when she was a young woman and go skinny dipping, sometimes with her boyfriends. This is difficult for Maggie to believe. “My mother! Virgil’s grandmother. I don’t think so” (184). Still, Nanabush insists it’s true.

Playing with her hair, he asks if Maggie would like to go skinny dipping. She considers the implications and then decides to do it. From across the bay, Dakota watches them have sex, feeling guilt, jealousy, and nausea.

Wayne and Virgil arrive on the mainland to figure out where they can confront Nanabush. They check Virgil’s house, and then Sammy’s house. At Sammy’s, they see Maggie’s car, and an inebriated Sammy argues with Wayne in Anishnawbe. Wayne explains to Virgil that Nanabush has taken Maggie for a picnic. A comedic chase scene follows: Wayne and Virgil decide to walk to Beer Bay, where Virgil assumes the picnic is taking place. On the way, they see the motorcycle coming toward them and duck into the bushes. As they walk back toward Sammy’s house, they see Maggie’s car headed in the opposite direction. They duck off the road again, this time into a marsh. They continue toward Sammy’s, but then the motorcycle once again drives past them—again, they dive off the road not to get spotted. They turn around and go back toward Beer Bay.

They find Nanabush on the dock at Beer Bay, surrounded by many raccoons. Nanabush speaks to the raccoons, seemingly arguing. The scene is so strange that Wayne and Virgil decide to leave: “This isn’t our fight” (199). Wayne realizes that John is a trickster demigod who has many different Indigenous names. Wayne cautions Virgil that the trickster has many powers and aspects—Nanabush is a lot more dangerous than he appears in legends.

Back at home, Maggie is thrilled with what happened that evening. She wonders where her relationship with Nanabush will go next.

The next morning, Maggie checks on Virgil, who is sleeping in his clothes, and finds Wayne in the living room wearing just underwear. They have a strained, awkward conversation because Wayne never visits his family. Maggie figures out that Virgil canoed across the lake by himself in search of Wayne. After Virgil flees to school to avoid his mother, Wayne gradually explains that he thinks John is Nanabush. Wayne and Maggie get into a huge argument, and Maggie pushes Wayne out of the house.

Driving to work, Maggie is furious. She is upset with her brother and realizes she is falling in love with the man she knows as John. “To her, Nanabush was a charming and inventing character from Ojibway mythology. A symbol. A teaching tool. That was all. And John was John” (214).

Virgil goes to school, getting there early for the first time in a long time. Dakota is there too, playing with the grass in a contemplative mood. Virgil asks her why she is so unusually reserved, and she tells him that Nanabush found her sitting on the dock asleep, holding her binoculars. They had a wonderful conversation about many things, including the Indigenous names for the constellations. Dakota feels in love with John and wonders if the age gap between them matters.

Nanabush sits in Betty Lou’s diner, taking in the local gossip. He’s formulating a plan to help Maggie. Three band members enter and ask for breakfast. One, Dan, is a very large, tattooed man who seems to take exception to Nanabush’s presence. Dan taunts Nanabush about his old motorcycle, claiming his newer Harley-Davidson is much better. Nanabush punches Dan, who falls face-first into his eggs and doesn’t respond. The other two men watch in amazement. Nanabush says not to disrespect the motorcycle because newer does not mean better.

When Maggie comes out of her office at lunchtime, she sees Nanabush waiting for her. He asks her to blow off an important meeting so they can have lunch. Though tempted, she is not willing to miss the meeting. Nanabush grows petulant and rides away. His reaction causes Maggie to rethink their relationship: “She was already raising one moody child; she didn’t need another” (227).

Full of self-pity, Nanabush rides to the city. He remembers the beautiful Indigenous woman walking into a dry cleaner that he had called out to from the flop house. After setting fire to the trash container outside the dry cleaners to lure out the owner, Nanabush sneaks into the building and steals all the receipts. He deduces the name and address of the beautiful woman, goes to her house, seduces her, and then leaves without saying a word while she is in the bathroom. He feels that he has enacted his revenge.

Wayne and Virgil sit in the backyard at Maggie’s house thinking about the events of the previous day. Virgil’s teacher told him he was close to failing eighth grade; in response, Virgil promised to do a special assignment for extra credit: He has to write a 3,000-word essay by the end of the school year about being an Indigenous person. Wayne went to see Maggie after lunch and apologized for acting out, attributing it to the fact he is still mourning the death of their mother. After Maggie accepted his apology, Wayne asked to stick around for a while, hoping to confront Nanabush.

Nanabush goes to a natural history museum with a new Indigenous Canadian exhibit. He comments on the lack of authenticity in the exhibits, explaining what he knows about various native Indigenous nations in depth until the museum staff kicks him out, writing his name as John Smith—a joke about Nanabush’s many John-based aliases and the well-known historical English colonist and explorer.

While Maggie fixes supper, Wayne practices martial arts, impressing Virgil. At Virgil’s request, Wayne demonstrates the martial arts system he’s developed, merging elements from karate, Kung Fu, and other martial arts and adding an Indigenous spin. Wayne’s feats include leaping onto the roof of the house and showing Virgil that he can easily disarm him. Virgil is amazed and very interested.

Nanabush breaks into the museum after dark. Familiar with how museums work, he sneaks into the lower archives, where anything he steals will not be missed for a long time. Nanabush takes what he wants and departs as rain begins to fall.

Lying in her bed, Maggie thinks about Nanabush, hoping that brushing him off when he offered to take her to lunch will be nothing more than a blip in their relationship. As she decides that he has a lot of “man-boy” in him, a tremendous flash of lightning knocks out the power. The storm makes Maggie feel vulnerable: “So here she lay, a woman in political power but apparently having absolutely no control over what was going on in her life” (253).

Nanabush rides his motorcycle toward the Reserve. He stops at the cemetery near Lillian’s grave. The torrential thunderstorm causes many creatures to seek shelter. When a chickadee lands at Nanabush’s feet, he picks it up and puts it inside his leather vest so that it doesn’t get wet. When the storm recedes, he lets the chickadee go and gets back on his motorcycle. He has fulfilled one of the promises he made to Lillian, who loved thunderstorms. Now he heads to the new 300-acre land with the artifacts he stole from the museum.

At breakfast, Maggie asks what Virgil and Wayne are going to do. From their evasive answers, she realizes that Wayne and Virgil are planning to deal with Nanabush. Maggie tells Wayne he needs a girlfriend; he should also move back to the mainland and into Lillian’s house. Virgil changes the subject: He plans to come to her press conference on the new tribal lands at 3:30.

Nanabush thinks about his really good dream. He has been reluctant to sleep because his dreams cause things to happen: “A lot of problems in the world had sprung from the widespread disrespect of dreams and the power within them” (265). The night before, however, he dreamed of being in a completely enclosed forest glade. Jesus appeared and they had a casual conversation, comparing notes about how their lives complement one another. Both of them loved Lillian, who loved them in return. Before the dream ended, Nanabush asked Jesus for a better way to travel (in the epilogue, readers will learn that this was the secret of how to walk—or ride—on water).

While Virgil is on the school computer, researching his 3,000-word essay, Dakota asks if he has seen Nanabush. When Virgil tells her to avoid Nanabush, she decides to find him on her own. Virgil warns that Nanabush is not the person she thinks he is, but she rushes out of the library. Virgil follows her, leaving open several web pages devoted to the trickster god.