For Joshua (13 page)

Over the six months I spent in custody I continued to read pro-Indian material. I devoured
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, God Is Red
, and
The Indian Manifesto
. The only friends I allowed myself to make in jail were other Native men with whom I shared my beliefs in the wrongs of the white man. I came to the belief during that stretch of jail time that being an Indian meant being a warrior, fighting against the power structure, fighting to bring that power down and restore the people to their rightful place as owners of this land. My hair grew longer as my resolve deepened. This, I remember thinking, is what I had been looking for all my life.

I decided to live without the few privileges jail offered. The white guards and the white warden wouldn’t get me to buy into their cycle of dependency. I went without canteen supplies and saved the incentive allowances we were allowed at that time. When I was released after six and a half months I had a few hundred dollars in my account, and my plan was to head back west where I imagined the heart of the Indian rebellion was centred.

But I’d made a friend while I was inside and he had talked endlessly about the hot rod he was fixing up in his mother’s garage in Toronto. He’d shown me pictures, from the day he’d bought it at a junkyard, right through the restoration process to the point where it was rebuilt, fitted with a new engine, and primed for the paint job he wanted to do once he was out. So I went to visit him and see this car before I caught my bus to western Canada.

We had a great visit. It was good to see a “brother” on the street. I met his family, we drank some beers, and we tinkered with his car. Early that evening I left to catch my bus. As I was leaving he tossed me a black denim jacket. The back was emblazoned with a bright red fist clutching an eagle feather. “Red Power” was written boldly beneath it.

“You’ll need this,” he said, and he smiled.

“Thanks,” I replied. “It’s great. You sure?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Besides, it looks better on you than on me.”

We hugged and I left him. Walking down the street I felt filled with pride. The emblem and the words on my back gave me strength. I believed that I walked taller and prouder just wearing it. As I passed store windows I looked at my reflection: a tall, lean, long-haired Native man with a
headband and a Red Power jacket looked back at me. For the first time in my life I felt fully dressed.

I was lost in the thoughts of what I would do once I got back to Regina and I didn’t notice the police cruiser until it was blocking my path across a laneway. The two officers got out and stood in front of me.

“Where you headin’, Chief?” the one asked.

“Bus station,” I said.

“Oh, yeah?” his partner asked. “Where’d you come from?”

“I came from Burtch Correctional Centre,” I said. “I just got out this morning. I’m heading home.”

“That right? Well, you won’t mind if we search you then, an upstanding citizen like yourself.”

I had nothing to hide and I’d been honest, so despite the anger I could feel boiling in my chest I leaned against the wall and allowed them to frisk me. I figured I’d be on my way in a few minutes.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” I heard and I was twisted around to face the two of them. In his hands one of the officers had the small screwdriver and two thin wrenches I’d been using in my friend’s garage and forgotten about.

“Tools,” I said. “I was working on a friend’s car and I forgot that I had them. If you want we can go back and ask him.”

“That where you got the three hundred, too?” the first officer asked.

“That’s what I saved during my bit,” I said. “You could check that, too, I guess.”

I was put in the back of the cruiser while they ran my identification on the computer. It came up clean, as I knew it would. No wants or warrants. But it also showed my record.

“Seems you’ve been a pretty busy boy. Break and enters, too. You know this area’s been pretty bad for B&E’s lately and here you are with burglary tools in your pocket and a bunch of money,” the second officer said, turning back in his seat and fixing me with a hard glare.

“I told you. I was helping a friend fix a car and that money’s what I earned in Burtch.”

“You been drinking, too, Chief. So I think we’re going to take you in for possession of burglary tools. What do you think of that?”

I was stunned. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when all that was needed was for them to drive me back to my buddy’s and things could get straightened out. Then I remembered all the things I’d read and learned over the past year. That was my mistake.

“I think you’re both a couple of pigs and if I was Joe White Guy walking down this street you wouldn’t even have
bothered. But you see an Indian, you gotta pull a move. Pigs,” I said. “Couple of fuckin’ pigs.”

Twelve hours after I’d been released I was back in lockup. When they closed the door to my cell that night I laughed. It was all so ridiculous that anyone with an ounce of comprehension would see the situation for the charade that it was. My anger boiled over and by morning I’d decided that I would make a mockery of the whole thing. I’d plead guilty and once the facts were revealed, the judge and everyone in that courtroom would see how ridiculous it was. I didn’t need a lawyer. To me, at that instant, a lawyer was just going to be one more white man I didn’t need and this whole thing was silly anyway.

I was sentenced to six months.

For a whole week I spoke to no one. I paced the cell block and I thought. I thought about how I’d been judged on the way I looked, on what I represented. I thought about my place in the world—a place and a world that seemed beyond my control, defined and arranged by an order of others, comprised of anyone who had ever done me harm, that I could think of only as
they
. I had been tossed away as something unimportant, something inconsequential that
their
system wanted out of the way. I was an Indian and because I chose to express my identity through long hair
and clothing
they
decided I needed to learn my place. My place apparently was not on the streets of
their
city. I was a threat to
their
peace of mind. The anger over the injustice of what had happened to me felt hot and rancid in my throat. I burned with it.

In the end I decided that I wasn’t going to play nice any longer. If
they
were responsible for the struggles of my life, if
they
were to blame for everything I’d gone through, for my sense of being lost, for not knowing about myself or my culture and heritage, then
they
were going to pay. If
they
could say that I was a criminal and put me where
they
figured I belonged, then I would prove that
they
were right. I would rebel, and hard. I would cease to care. I would get out and get all that I could for myself without regard for anyone else.

I needed a symbol of my rebellion. Until then I had never had a tattoo, although “tatties” were considered strong symbols of a rebel heart. My next-door neighbour was a tattoo artist, and he’d rigged up a homemade needle that he’d used to tattoo other men. It cost me a couple bales of tobacco, but one night he drew a marijuana leaf on my right forearm. It hurt. The needle was made out of a thread-wrapped pencil that held a darning needle. The needle was dipped in ink and then jabbed continuously in the desired emblem. It took about an hour, and with each jab I clenched my teeth and
allowed my anger to numb the pain. Then it was over. I was going to war. I would be a warrior and screw anyone else, and especially screw
them
. They could do what they wanted with me. As long as I could know that I was fighting back, tossing it all in their faces, showing them that they had created me, that I was their invention and their punishment.

The sun came out. It flashed on that little tree in the rock like a spotlight and I snapped back to the ledge. That little tree was rebelling, too. It was refusing to die. It was choosing life despite its desperate circumstances. No matter how difficult the climb, that little tree was reaching for the sky, reaching for all that it could be, for its truest expression of itself. I admired that little tree. I had never had that kind of courage. And as I looked back at those days of my imprisonment I saw that I had been willing to cling to any cleft in any rock at any time. I’d been willing to become a militant warrior. I’d been willing to be a rebel, a career criminal, and a revolving-door inmate as long as I didn’t have to face myself as I really was. And the truth was that I had been a scared little boy all along, terrified that someone would uncover my secret, know me as flawed, unworthy, and send me off alone again. Because
I had been that little boy, the only cleft I clung to that lasted through everything was the cold, hard rock of alcoholism.

I didn’t become a warrior criminal. I didn’t become an activist. I didn’t become a passionate upholder of Native rights. I was released and became what I’d always been, a drunk. My prison anger didn’t save me. It didn’t transform me. Neither did the rhetoric of rebellion or militancy. They just made it easier to pop another top and drown the confusion, pain, doubt, and fear that drove everything, even the anger.

I was grateful for that little tree and I made another tobacco pouch for its teachings. It was showing me that there is courage in merely hanging on. It was showing me that nature—life—will always find a way to its truest expression of itself. It was showing me that growth happens invisibly, where we least expect it, in forms that sometimes surprise us.

I thought about the rain I’d endured. It had shown me that the gifts of the world—the wind, rain, snow, heat, humidity—all work to a purpose. Beforehand, I could only see the discomfort they caused me. My discomfort led to being critical, complaining about the lack of comfort in my life. I saw now that it was always going to be either too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too dark, too bright, or not enough of any of them. The rain, like the ants before them, was
telling me that I am a part of Creation whether I like what’s happening or not. My purpose, like that of all Creation, is to continue. Creation is intent on continuing towards its best possible fulfillment of itself—because that is the reason for life. I saw then, in that tree in the rock and the rain, that I needed to continue on towards the best possible fulfillment of
me
—the best I can possibly be—despite what was going on around me. The rain taught me that and I was thankful.

That third night I was past the point where hunger was painful. I didn’t need much water, either—wetting my lips was enough. I saw the sun set. Everything around me was pulled into sharper focus and I felt like I was seeing things for the very first time. As the colours exploded over the top of the mountains, they faded into softer, then darker shades. I had conquered hunger, thirst, rain, insects, discomfort, fear, and the desire to quit. I had beaten them by accepting that I felt them and continuing on despite them. I had shown courage. As the light faded and the world eased into sleep I came to experience solitude in a way I never had before. Other times solitude was a weight that pushed me down and down into depression, self-pity, fear, and a sense that I would never be enough—enough of a man, enough of a person, friend, worker, lover, or smart enough, funny enough, handsome
enough, strong enough, talented enough, rich enough—for people to really want to be with me. I feared being alone more than I feared anything else. And the reason I feared being alone was that I had never felt right with myself—didn’t like myself, appreciate myself, or even love myself enough to be comfortable in my own company. Up to that point I believed that if I didn’t like being with me, no one else would either.

There was no longer a need in me to be anywhere else, to surround myself with strangers so I wouldn’t feel alone, or to want to run to some other place so that I could lose myself in the running. Instead, I belonged on that hill. I thought about all the places I had travelled to, all the people I had known, all the things that I had tried to feel like I was in the right place. And I made a tobacco pouch for all of them because they had all led me to that hill. I looked up at the universe and found all my favourite stars. I listened for the sound of the owls as they flapped their heavy wings through the night in search of game. I waited for the coyotes on nearby hills to begin their shrill yipping at the moon. The night was inhabited by many beings, and I was one of them. And that was when it hit me. I
belonged
. Just as I was, I belonged. And the truth was, despite the feelings I had carried around about myself all my life, despite the beliefs that I wasn’t enough, I had belonged all along.