Children are Expedient: Nothing more

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Having watched the young dancers at the powwows for several years, I was impressed. I imagined Andrew as a fancy dancer. Wanting him to have a chance to learn, I called the Indian Center and was told about a child's drum and dance group meeting every week at the health center. Roland wasn't interested, so I took Andrew by myself.

The room was lined with parents sitting on folding chairs against the wall and their children sitting on their laps or standing near. I found a place to sit and held Andrew in front of me. I was surprised at the discomfort I felt. Having been with Roland for 6 years, I no longer felt conspicuous around Indians. But there was something here that wasn’t right. I looked around for a familiar face, but my eyes met only hostile stares. I understood immediately I was not wanted. What I couldn't understand though was with all of the talk about the benefits of tribal culture, why would these people chase away a white person who was trying to make sure their child stayed connected to the tribal culture? We never returned to the class.

Candis was visiting Arnold's sister on the northeast side, and Annie asked if I would drive Savannah and her up there. Driving over a bridge on Aspen Street, I slid on black ice and rammed into the rear end of a nice little car. Unfortunately, I wasn't carrying insurance.

The owner and I both got out to look at the damage. His rear fender suffered only a small, inch long crack. I was relieved. No important damage occurred. However, he seemed to think it was important and asked for my name, address and phone number. In a panic, I lied and gave him false information.

At Arnold's sister's later that afternoon, we told them about the incident. After that, I put it out of mind.

A few days later Arnold paid me to taxi Candis and him home to his “Rez”, which neighbored Salmon Lake. Candis was about ten at the time. Dorothy’s son, Troy, was visiting for a few days and rode with us. It was a cold night. The snow fell softly and silently. It was late and we all were tired. We hadn't originally intended to stop anywhere, but we had gotten a late start, and the weather had slowed us down. I couldn't drive anymore, and was glad Arnold had suggested we stop at his sister’s house.

The house we stopped at, with shoulder high snowdrifts in the driveway, was an unexpected, beautiful, ranch style home. The owner, Arnold's other sister and her husband, were obviously employed. We weren't sure if anyone was at home at first, but their 15-year-old daughter finally answered the door. After she assured Arnold it was no problem for us to stay, she led me past the kitchen and down to the end of the hall where there was a room I could use to sleep with Andrew. It was a teenage girl's room. The twin bed had a fluffy, pink comforter and the furnishings and toiletries on the dresser were that of a bubbly adolescent. I guessed it was her room. I am not sure where she and Candis were to sleep that night. Arnold and Troy slept on the living room couches.

I don't know how long I had been asleep when I heard noises in the hall. I could hear a man laughing and talking in slurred, drunken fashion, and I could hear Candis laughing and answering, "No, no, leave me alone. Don't do that!" I heard a loud thump, and suddenly the door to my room flew open. In the darkness, the man pushed Candis onto my bed, onto my legs, and began fumbling with the zipper of her pants.

In horror, I sat straight up and screamed at the top of my lungs; "Get the H--- out of here!"

The man jerked up, turned to look at me, and then dashed from the room. To my surprise, Candis started after him. Quickly, I jumped out of bed and grabbed her by the arm, "No! Not you!" I slammed the door shut and pulled Candis back to the bed, putting her in-between myself and Andrew, (who had never awakened). I wasn't going to let anyone touch her if I could help it. But I could hear the man moving around in the kitchen, getting himself something to eat. The kitchen was in between the living room and us. How will I get to Arnold and Troy for help? Who was that man? What if he comes back with a gun, mad, or scared I’ll call the cops?

Candis fell asleep after a short time, but I sat in the room with the lights on for the rest of the night, too afraid to close my eyes. After a time, I could hear the man snoring, but I was still too scared to attempt to get past him. In my mind's eye, I pictured him sitting in a chair, sleeping with his head bent and his chin on his chest. What could I do? I was too afraid to leave the room.

Candis and Andrew slept peacefully beside me.
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Being Raised to Die

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Wilson began working at an upholstery shop on the northeast side. It didn't pay much, but he was glad for the work. I was surprised how little trouble he had getting up with the alarm.


We signed Joy up for ballet classes in the suburb near my Dad’s. Every Saturday that fall, I dropped her off at class and went to do laundry at my dad's. We also signed Junior up with a gym near his house and paid for his and Cheri's piano lessons at the Park. In addition, Wilson and I attended most of Junior's floor hockey games and were proud when Cheri won an award in tennis.

But Misty wasn't a joiner. She had briefly been in Girl Scouts, but never asked to be part of any other program, never indicated any special interests, and we, deep into our own problems, never thought to help her find some.

Misty, like Cheri, started her real trouble after leaving elementary school and beginning junior high. There being several elementary and junior high schools in our large city, kids moving to seventh grade often found themselves surrounded by a whole new group of children. I often wondered if the pressure of a new school and the change in peer group at such an insecure age had anything to do with the troubles inner city kids had. Maybe junior high kids should be kept with the same group of children they'd gone to elementary school with, rather than shuffling the children as you would a deck of cards.

Because of Misty's truancy, the school district was now picking her up in a van every day from her mother's house and taking her to a special school. But the costly effort had no effect on her uncooperative attitude or interest in learning.
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An Asian gang had jumped Savannah and Yvonne’s girl, Marci. Marci had gotten away, but Savannah was left. She had been gang-raped. Only thirteen, Savannah was already drinking heavily, had left school, been beaten several times, been stabbed in the throat, and had had clap (gonorrhea). I tried to get Savannah into treatment. The hospital was ready to take her, but no one in the family would help me to get her there. At the duplex Annie and Savannah were staying at with other people, (Candis was in the custody of her dad at the time.) I tried to talk Annie into helping me with Savannah.

"Well Savannah don't want to go, and if Savannah don't want to go, I can't do nothin," Annie said.

Busy at the kitchen table trying to hack a dirty cast off a little boy’s arm, she stopped a moment to take drag on her cigarette. I didn't know who the boy was. The son of the person Annie was staying with I guessed.

"Well, could we just trick her? Just tell her we're visiting someone?"

"Na-e, she won't fall for that," Annie said as she worked.

It was clear I wasn't going to get any help, so I gave up. After all, these adults were heavy drinkers and living homeless, transient lives themselves. Savannah was only a kid and wasn't near as bad off as they were, so in their minds, I was silly to suggest she needed help.

"By the way”, I said gesturing toward the boy. “How come you don't just bring him down to the hospital and have them cut that cast off? It would be easier."

"Nae, his mom don't want to bother with that."

More likely she didn't want to sober up for it or was hiding from social services.
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One day, as I came into Wanda's duplex, Julia jumped up from the table in confusion, looked frantically around for a place to hide, and then ran into the basement. She had been sniffing paint and didn't want me to know.

Wilson and I began to talk about the troubles all the teenagers were having and wondered if there was something that we could do to make it different. For a little while, we even bandied around the idea of running a home for Indian kids. At the time, the Native American community in this city was predominately located within a two-mile radius. It was estimated there were approximately 15,500 Indians in the area. According to statistics, Native Americans had a higher infant mortality, lower education attainment, higher unemployment rates, greater incidence of poverty and disproportionately higher chemical dependency rate than other people groups in the state. Statistics said that 40% of this state’s Indians had a serious problem with alcohol, as opposed to only 8.5% of the rest of the state population. It was considered the single most serious problem Indians faced because it contributed to the three leading causes of death in adults: cirrhosis of the liver, suicide, and homicide.

And many youth were following their parents’ path.

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Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord

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They had gone to Texas, traveling through Arkansas. Wilson called Elmer from Fayetteville, and Elmer was to come to meet them. But Wilson's friend grew impatient, and they moved on before Elmer arrived. After a brief visit in Texas, they headed north again.

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The elementary school called me to come and get eight-year-old Candis. Her mother had left my number as a message phone and Candis's hair was infested with lice. I arrived at the nurse's office and found Candis with a scarf around her head.

Annie had her own place now. As we drove to her mother’s apartment, I told Candis about the daycare that I was trying to start.

"Oh! I'll help you! I'll put a table by the door and take the money for you!"


I hadn't been to their apartment before. It was above a downtown bar. Candis led me through an old door and up a filthy flight of stairs. The stairwell stunk of stale beer and urine. In the hallway, wine bottles and dirty diapers littered the floor. At the end of the hall, the window was broken. I stopped to glance out and could see little children in dirty pajamas playing in the alley. One wore a winter stocking cap pulled almost over his eyes as he swung a stick around and threw it in the air.

Annie's apartment was bare. As I'd seen many times before, a mattress served as the bed and there was little other furniture. Annie smiled a greeting and we talked a few minutes. She was embarrassed about the lice. I felt for her. I loved Annie and in all the time I'd known her, had never sensed hardness in her heart nor felt maliciousness. Despite all the troubles and as mad as I got sometimes, she seemed to be honestly unable to turn things around. Despite all I'd seen in her life, I never condemned Annie.

And although I had seen hardness in Wilson, for some reason I never believed that was really him either.

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Roger asked if he could stay with me. I didn't mind. A handsome boy at eighteen years old, he was one of the few young people in Wilson’s family to have graduated from High school. In addition, he’d had a chance to go to visit Russia with the school and he took it. That was impressive. If anyone was going to make it, I was sure he would. I wanted to help him. 

So I helped him fill out the admission form for the Community College and get a learners permit for a driver’s license. In addition, I took him over to the United Parcel Service warehouse to apply for a job.

Once he got the job, I drove to the warehouse daily to drop him off and pick him up. After two weeks of work, he got his first paycheck. Then he quit.

"Aren't you going to work today?" I asked him after he'd missed a couple days.

"Nah, I don't feel like it. I don't like the job."

Frustrated, I sat down beside him. I could lead him to water, but I couldn't make him drink.

"Roger. I'm not your mom. I can't have you lying around here. If you want to lay around, maybe you should go back and live with Yvonne."

Roger left. He never did go to college. I don't know if he got his driver’s license.

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I heard rumors that Savannah had been beaten and molested by Annie’s boyfriend out near Mission. It was a rumor said in passing; it was just part of a conversation. I’m not even sure who said it.

Late one night during that ricing season some relatives drove up to Dorothy's house. Wilson and Dorothy went outside to talk to them. I stayed inside knowing it was none of my business. From the window I could hear Savannah screaming and crying, "I want my mom! I want my mom!"

Annie was gone again, drinking, and no one wanted the responsibility of keeping the girls. Poor Savannah, she knew that no one really wanted her and Candis, so she screamed for her mom to let her aunts and uncles know that she didn't want them either. I'm not sure who finally took the girls or where they went, but they didn't stay at Dorothy's.


Ricing was almost over.

"My dad said this will be the last time we rice together," Wilson told me ruefully.Walter had a feeling and just "knew" this was the last time. His dad wouldn't come out and say something like that unless it was true.


At home, Wilson’s daughter Cheri had stopped coming on the weekends. She spent time with her friends instead. I was sorry she didn't want to see us but also secretly relieved and even more relieved when Misty also quit coming. The fewer kids to take care of, the easier the weekends were. Besides, we never really went anywhere anymore, except to visit my family, and Wilson didn't go with us. It was easier the fewer children I had.

We were hearing from Junior and Joy that Cheri and Misty were running around. The little ones also said that their mother was paying the older girls to steal cigarettes from their corner store.

Sitting on the warm sidewalk with Junior and Joy one morning, I wondered why I was hanging around. Why couldn't I just walk away?

Suddenly, Joy looked up at me, smiled, and asked a question. Junior laughed at her question, and I hugged them both.


Maybe God wants me to stay here for them.

Living in Indian Country: a Promise for Always.

I watched Annie pack things for Savannah and Candis to take with them to the foster home, including a few jars of blueberries she had canned. Apparently, Annie had crossed the line with the social workers, a line no one was telling me about. The girls weren't going far; they were going just to the other side of town. Wilson and I drove Annie and the girls over. Little emotion was expressed. It seemed almost normal routine and the exchange between mother and foster parents was over in a matter of minutes.

Wilson drove down a dirt road and stopped at a clearing near the lake. We got out and stood in the tall grass near a tree, enjoying the warmth. The breeze was cool and the air smelled of pine. The sun sparkled on the water.

"I'll always take care of you," Wilson told me.

"Really?" My heart soaked it in, "Do you really mean that?'

"Of course. I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it."

Living in Indian Country: Salmon Lake

That summer we drove up north to Salmon Lake. Main Street, just a few blocks long, looked shriveled and lifeless. Although there were some tired businesses such as a grocery, liquor store, laundromat, mercantile, bars, and a Dairy Queen, most of the street appeared worn out and empty. The Five and Dime, its window display of trinkets dusty and sun bleached, had a "for sale" sign in the door. Wilson was sorry to see the elderly couple retire. Apparently they weren't asking much for the store. On later visits, the store was closed, but remained unsold, the same musty wares sitting in the window.

Wilson's dad, Walter Hunter, lived in a yellow three-bedroom house on the tribal tract, a section of land built up with many of these identical homes. This tract was across the highway from the main part of this small resort town. Wilson's relatives, laughing during the telling, related how white tourists drive slowly through the tract with their windows rolled up and their doors locked, looking at tribal members and their homes as if visiting a zoo. Wilson’s relatives laughed, then cursed the tourists.

Walter had been a Christian for almost thirty years now, but still practiced many of the old traditions he was raised with. In his eighties with white hair and weathered hands, he kept constantly busy. While many of the homes around him were barren and dirt packed, growing more old cars and dogs then trees or grass, his lawn was clean and well kept. A source of pride was his cucumber patch in the backyard. One of his favorite stories, which he would tell over and over, was how he had caught two boys stealing from his patch a couple years earlier. Walter laughed and laughed as he retold about how one boy stood and vehemently denied the theft, all the while cucumbers were peeking out of his pockets.

The house itself was a simple box design used by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on many reservations across the country at that time. The front door, toward the center, brought you into the living room. The linoleum-covered floor extended into the dining area and the kitchen was behind a wall to the side. The wall brought you down a hallway to the bedrooms. The number of bedrooms differed from house to house. The furniture was simple and the thin walls were adorned with pictures of grandchildren and Native American mementos.

I was the last one out of bed on my first morning there. I could hear people talking and laughing in the other room. They had ignored me when we'd come in the night before. I stayed in bed as long as possible out of fear of everyone.

Living with Walter was his youngest daughter, Annie, her two daughters, Savannah and Candis, and Wilson's nephew Mathew. Finally their voices quieted down and I decided I to get up. I got dressed and joined Wilson and Walter in the kitchen. To my delight, there was a big bowl of unglazed doughnuts on the table.

"Can I have one?" I asked Wilson.
"Sure."

Great. I grabbed one and took a big bite.
"Ugh! What's wrong with these doughnuts!"

Wilson laughed. "Those aren't doughnuts. That's fry bread. That's the best kind of bread there is!"

Well, Wilson may think so, but after that kind of disappointment, it took me a long time to warm up to the things.

Annie was outside on the dirt driveway, leaning on a car, talking to two social workers about her girls. Savannah and Candis where about seven and four. Candis, in her pajamas, kept peeking out the front door. Every time she did, her mom would holler at her to get back into the house and get dressed. Figuring that this wasn't going to impress the social workers much, I finally took Candis into the back room, found some clothes for her and brushed her hair.

As Wilson left for the woods with his dad the next morning, he kissed me good-bye. Annie leaned over after he left and said, "He really must love you. I've never seen him kiss anyone in front of people before. Not even his wife."

I was sitting with Wilson's sisters around the kitchen table. It was beginning to feel comfortable. Now most of them looked at me and smiled and laughed as we talked. The atmosphere was relaxing. They didn't seem to care how I looked or what I wore. I didn't feel any pressure to perform.

Mathew's older sister Wanda kind of slid into her grandpa's house that day. When she moved, she glided across a room. Intelligent and quick-witted, Wanda radiated confidence. A beautiful girl with shoulder length black hair, heart shaped face and sunglasses; she wore her jeans tight. She quickly took me under her wing and invited me to go play pool with her down at the bowling alley. I went with her and watched as she teased and flirted with the men. Wanda was full of life and held people's attention. After the bowling alley, we sat in the grass at the park talking about Wilson while we ate snacks.
"Is Wilson a good worker?" I asked.
After hesitating a moment, she answered, "When he works."
I took that to be a positive answer.

Later I was told, "It's hard to get jobs around here. White people won't hire Indians, and a person can only get a job with the tribal government if they've got connections, like family on the council."

That evening, after hearing I'd been walking around the tract with Wanda, Wilson warned me not to walk around the tract by myself.
"There's a rapist that lives in that house over there," Wilson said, pursing his lips and pointing with them, a custom used rather than point with fingers.
"Everyone knows it?"
"Well, that's just the way he is. People just stay away from him."



The whole tract bore that feeling of “live and let be.”