Free Novel Read

The Tao of Nookomis Page 13


  Getting sent out of the in-school suspension room for insubordination.

  Having a shouting match with some town girls.

  Sleeping in study hall.

  Being late to class after class after class.

  Refusing to dress for gym.

  “I ain’t wearing them gym clothes,” she told the gym teacher. I told her she ain’t got nothing to show off anyway but she wouldn’t listen to me either.

  Raising hell on the bus.

  “Everyone raises hell on the bus,” she said to me.

  “We ain’t talking about everyone else,” I’d say, “We’re talking about you.”

  But she would just sneer and fold her arms and sit there on the couch and clam up and pretty soon I realized it was like lecturing to the wall and she would go off in her room, and I wouldn’t see her until the next day and she would come out like nothing happened.

  I got to know every crack in the sidewalk leading to that school. And that school lady at the front desk of the principal’s office as well, she was calling me by my first name by then.

  “Renee,” she’d say, looking like she was feeling sorry for my ass because I had this miserable kid. “Desiree can be such a sweet girl sometimes, but sometimes she can be such a rascal, too.”

  Of course, I just wanted to go tell her to go screw herself because I was so pissed off at the time, and who in the hell calls anyone “rascal” anymore, anyway?

  Desiree’s grades took a nosedive as well. D’s in art and music. F’s in social, English, gym, and math. That second quarter of the eighth grade, she was suspended eight of forty-two days, and sitting in in-school suspension seven more. That’s a third of the time she wasn’t even in classes, and it wasn’t even counting the days she skipped school.

  Now sometimes, you know, I didn’t even want to talk to her ’cause I was afraid of how it would come out.

  So then just a couple of weeks ago I got this letter from the school.

  March 1, 2015

  Ms. Renee Strong

  34 Fond du Lac Homes

  Cloquet, Minnesota 55720

  Dear Mrs. Strong:

  The Middle School Intervention Team would like to schedule a meeting with you next Thursday, March 8 at 10:00 a.m. in the school conference room to discuss Desiree. The team consists of Dave Hall (counselor), Britt Johnson (Indian homeschool social worker aide), Mary Courier (Special Education), and Josie White (Assistant Principal).

  Sincerely,

  Mary Courier, Team Leader

  I think when I read that letter I felt like I was ready to give up because I just couldn’t go into that school one more time and listen to them tell me what was wrong with Desiree, and implying all along what was wrong with me as a parent, and what was wrong with us Indians. And I guess I was just tired of hearing nothing but bad news all the time and them people being so damn condescending and acting like this was my fault.

  That letter just sat on my lap, and I thought about Desiree and what was going on with her, and I couldn’t help but think about what a sweet little girl she was, and all the good in her as well. ’Cause on the living room wall was a picture of my girl when she was nine years old and she was so sweet, and I remembered my mom and dad had that picture taken at Kmart on their way back from a pow-wow where Desiree had won the girl’s fancy shawl category and we were all so proud of her.

  “Mom,” she had said when she came running into the house, her grandparents just getting out of the car to come in as well, “Mom, I won!”

  She won $100 and I was so proud of her that day. She still had her hair ties on, beaded ones with the eagle fluffs. The ones I made just for her. Anyway, she gave me fifty dollars of her prize money, and said, “Mom, you need it more than me,” and my eyes welled up, and I put my hands up to my lips to catch myself from bawling then and there I was so proud of my girl.

  And she still showed in many ways she was a nice girl, you know. She helped clean the house and I didn’t even have to push her much to help. And she knew we share washing dishes, and when I was folding clothes she’d come over and fold with me. And sometimes when she thought no one could hear, I could hear her singing in her room, and she has the voice of an angel, she does.

  My little girl, Desiree, I just love her so much it makes me cry thinking what was going on with her right now.

  So on that day I met with the intervention team I tried to go into that school thinking in a good way ’cause I knew it wasn’t going to do no good to be otherwise and maybe I even smiled at the school lady at the reception desk who was calling me Renee, and she gave me a big smile right back. Her sitting there with a Saturday beauty salon ’do and perfect, long red manicured fingernails, and in a dress I was sure was at least a hundred bucks, and me in my baggy-ass jeans and a four-dollar Walmart blouse I bought at some rummage sale somewhere, and cheap tennies that have taken me everywhere. Her in a job I was sure she didn’t even need except she’d be bored at home, and me wishing I had one.

  “I’ll buzz Ms. Courier to take you to the conference room,” she said to me.

  So I sit there in the office reception and eventually this fat bitch I ain’t ever seen before came in and said she was Ms. Courier and she was leaning down talking to me like I was some kind of retard and deaf and shit, and I just wanted to blast her right there because I could tell she was going to be lecturing me because I was just some dumb reservation Indian who didn’t know a thing.

  Anyway, I was still trying to act nice and all, just barely, and I was sure that phony smile on my face was looking more like a snarl by then, and off we went to the conference room.

  To make a long story short, they all ganged up on me and said that Desiree may have a disability, and they wanted to assess her, and if she was in need of special services, then that was just what she would receive. I was especially disappointed in Britt Johnson, the Indian Social Worker Aide, because she sat through the whole thing like she was in some kind of coma and didn’t utter a peep. Now, I knew she was supposed to be the advocate for us Indians, and here she was selling out to them. Them Johnsons were nothing but a bunch of hang-around-the-fort Indians anyway.

  But I was on my best behavior, even if that Courier bitch was irritating the hell out of me with her condescending yak yak yak about Desiree this, and we were only concerned about Desiree and all that phony B.S.

  So I left there that day pretty pissed off but proud of myself because I didn’t rank off on anyone and I signed that paper saying they could assess my girl.

  About a week later I got another letter and they scheduled a meeting with the team and the school psychologist and that’s when they told me that she belonged in the special class for kids with behavior disorders. And that fatass Courier bitch teacher, I just wanted to punch her, she was sitting there so damn righteous when the psychologist was telling me what was going on with Desiree and how this was the right thing and all, and me just wanting to crawl into a hole somewhere I was feeling so low.

  THAT NIGHT ME and the kids went over to Mom’s and I asked her if she would watch my boys because I wanted to take Desiree to see Lester Northbird. He did healing. I had called him as soon as I got back from that school conference, and he said I could come on over and he had the time to see Desiree. He said to bring a new blanket, tobacco, and anything I could offer, and he would work on her.

  I been to see him myself before. Like when my dad died I was in such pain, maybe more for my mom and Desiree than myself, but I needed some healing on the inside, and going to see Lester helped a lot because he prayed over me for a long time, and when I told him about all my pain he spoke about that pain to the spirits who took it up to the Creator to pity me, and help me cope and all.

  I had Desiree hand Lester the blanket and sacred asema and she was just shy and that little girl again and not the angry one I saw so much now. And he took her in the back room where he does his doctoring and when they came out I thanked him and slipped him twenty dollars—all I had—and I knew it was wort
h it ’cause sometimes we needed a spiritual intervention when things got really rugged and nothing else helped.

  Those White people knew nothing about assessment. Lester, he could just look right into your soul and tell what was wrong. He could see right through all the pain we carried, all the hurt, and he could take it and ask the spirits to help us make sure our Creator had pity on us, and take it from us and cast it into the wind.

  Lester the assessor. Hey, that rhymed.

  That night after we picked up the boys and got home, I asked Desiree if she would stay up for a while and we went into the living room and I asked her if she’d like some tea.

  “Mom,” she said, and she was surprised because I’d never offered her tea before. That was something we usually only did with adults when they were visiting.

  “Come here, my girl,” I said, and my voice was cracking, although I was trying to hide it, but she could tell I was really holding back a good bawling.

  “I wish your pappa were here right now,” I continued, and I was crying by then. And then she was sitting right by me and holding my hand, and her head was rested on my shoulder like she would do when she was just a little girl and the world was closing in on her and she needed me just then.

  And we talked.

  We talked almost the half the night. I told her everything about when I was fifteen, just a year older than she was then, and how I ended up pregnant and how her grandfather kicked me out, and of trying to survive on nothing. I told her about when she was born and how the nurses at the Cass Lake Indian Hospital said she was the most beautiful Indian baby they ever seen. And I told her about her real father, even though he was worthless, and I tried to think of good things to say even though I had to make some things up and twist the story to make him look a little like a good guy and all. And I told her about the boys’ father. Then I told her about that life journey we were all on, and how my journey had sometimes been a pretty rugged one and that I didn’t want to see her stumble the way I had. That I didn’t want to see her pregnant so young like me. That I wanted her to get the education I never was able to get and wanted to see her graduate and go on and make something of herself and go back to that school and show them.

  She cried all through this story I told her. Then when it was over we lightened up, and we laughed together for the first time in a long, long time.

  And she says, “Mom, I’ll try. I’ll try to do better. I will. I’ll try. I love you, Mom.”

  My Desiree. I love her so.

  When I looked in her eyes, I saw the mirror of myself.

  See, them school people, they only see one side of her. They ain’t seen her here at home helping me with her brothers. She takes care of them like a big sister should. And they ain’t seen her in the summer when she works for the rez cleanup crew and gives me some of her check so we have enough to live on. None of them A-holes were there with that f------ sheet of paper to check off that. They ain’t seen her at ceremonies. They ain’t seen her help her aunties. They ain’t ever seen her bring food to elders at the pow-wows. They ain’t ever seen her dance. She moves so strong, so beautiful, it makes me cry sometimes I’m so proud of her. They ain’t ever seen her selling my crafts and giving me the money. They ain’t ever seen her give the hindquarters of every deer she ever shot to those who need it more than we do.

  That school. They look at our kids and right off they start checking off all the things wrong with them. They never see the other side, the parts we see. They don’t even know it exists.

  Maybe someone needs to come up with a way of assessing the whole child. Then they would know my Desiree. Then maybe they could say things and I would listen.

  A Wolf Story Part One: The Arrival

  A fictional story of the arrival of French fur traders to the Ojibwe settlement on Madeline Island, Wisconsin, on the south shore of Lake Superior, approximately 1644, as told by the spirit of a wolf.

  ~Thomas D. Peacock

  My earth is the moon over the lake, the vapor of our breaths when we run hard through fields on cold fall nights with the stars all above and around us and shining off the perfect calm of the water. My earth is tracking deer on cold winter days, the chase and precise timing of the kill, and then of sleeping curled together for warmth in deep snow, our mouths covered in fresh, dried blood from our feasting. My earth is of the dark and wind and perfect stillness before a summer storm and the sounds of slow, rolling thunder off the lake, echoing through the trees. My earth is the smell of wet grass and wildflowers, and all the bright colors of the land and water and sky.

  We have lived the entirety of our lives on this sacred island, the place we know as Turtle Island, the island of islands, on this lake, I along with Waubun Anung (Dawn Star), my mate, and all of our relatives—brothers and sisters, cousins, aunties and uncles, nephews and nieces. There are scarcely fifteen of us, but we are all family with one beginning, one grandmother, all of us together.

  It was late in the season of falling leaves, and we had been tracking a mother deer and her two young ones near the western shore when we saw the new man-wolves coming across the water from the mainland in vessels made from the meat and outer skin of trees, toward us, toward our island. And although I rarely knew fear, there was something about the sight of them that raised the hairs on the back of my neck, but I tried not to show it because I would never let the others know that I possessed fear. We had discerned their scent long before they were sighted, and it contained smells we didn’t recognize and found confusing. For sure, there were familiar smells of fire and ashes, sweat, piss, and bear grease, but there were other things we did not recognize that were new to us and not of the islands, nor to Turtle Island, the island of islands. Even their muffled voices in the distance sounded strange and new and made us wonder. And once they were close enough for us to discern their language, we were certain right away these were a whole new kind of man-wolves because it took us some time before we were able to translate their new tongue to our thoughts. As they came near shore, we crouched hidden behind great white pines and saw they were very pale in complexion, almost like the clouds on cold, fall days, and there were several among them who seemed to have no color whatsoever in their eyes, and most had fur grown all on their faces, and the hair on their heads were many shades of light and dark. Nor did we recognize the animal skins they wore to cover their nakedness, and maybe their garments weren’t from animals at all, for they were new to us. But mostly it was their scent, overwhelming, and we sensed coming away these were creatures whose bodies never knew the sweat lodge, or the cleansing waters of the lake, or fresh cedar boughs.

  I counted seven of them, all males.

  Ogema (leader), a voice entered my thoughts, calling to me. We should have killed them just as they were stepping ashore, as soon as the clunking of their canoes touched the first rocks of the shoreline, as soon as their moccasins touched the rich earth of our homeland. Maybe I should have heeded the thoughts of my cousin, Andig (Crow), the black one, who had once challenged me to be leader, who still hated me deep in the recesses of his heart, who had once felt my fury, who may have smelled the scent of my fear at their coming, who had early on sent the thought out to all of us: Kill them. Kill them now before it is too late. Instead we lay hidden and watching until the sun moved late across the sky as the newcomers set up camp, built fire, cooked and ate a meal.

  We lay there watching them for a long time, in perfect silence, practiced since we were pups, learned well. Later, as we finally left our watching place and returned to the north end of the island, I asked one of my nephews to stay and to report back to us of their doings. And when we returned to our village we gathered in circle and talked about the new man-wolves, of their coming and strong scent and unfamiliar tongue and of the fur on their faces, the strange skins covering their nakedness, and skin the color of death, and eyes and hair of many shades of light and dark. We should kill them, Andig repeated to us. You are showing weakness not to do this, he said to me. To hesitate
is to foreshadow our demise. You have always been weak that way. There is no good in these new wolves.

  These are not our brothers.

  But I reminded him and the others that we were intimately connected to the man-wolves. That even these strange new ones were our brothers as well, just as the old man-wolves with whom we shared the island were our relatives, that all wolves shared a common story. And I tried to assure them, convince them, especially the older warriors among us, and Waubun Anung pulled the she-wolves aside, her sister and cousins and aunties, and did the same. We all share a common story, we repeated. These are our brothers.

  And later in the evening when the nephew returned he told us what he had learned of their ways, and of why they had come, and we wondered more what their coming meant to us, for us.

  And as we lay sleepless, wondering, Old Uncle, my father’s brother, gathered us all together in story, an old, familiar story, often told, practiced:

  After all of the earth and sky were made, the Creator instructed first man to travel to all the corners of the earth and give names to all the plants, animals, and places of the Creation. And he did as he was instructed, naming everything, the day and night and seasons, and the circle of all things. Nothing was left untouched by his travels.

  Yet he walked alone and noticed that all other animals walked in pairs. And he was lonely and said to his Creator, “I am alone.” And the Creator sent someone to walk with him, and that was Ma-en’gun (Wolf), our grandfather, the grandfather of all wolves.

  Man and Wolf walked all the corners of the earth and became very close, as brothers. When this was done, the Creator called them to him again and told them they must now part ways—man one way, wolf the other.

  “From this day on, you are to separate your paths. You must go your different ways.