due to savage feuds. It will be our job to teach
them to behave as educated Christians, our job
to teach them that they must be the ones to
eradicate the rampant ignorance and poverty
that exists amongst their people.
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I do not know what to think about this. What do these words mean? Animosity, savage, eradicate, rampant, ignorance, and poverty. We do not use these kinds of words in Kotzebue.
“Well?” says Evelyn.
We’re sitting at breakfast, watching Sister Mary Kate, and now all four of us—me, Donna, Evelyn, and Rose—know that Sister Mary Kate has hair, and we all know it’s the same color as mine. Only longer. But Evelyn wants to know more.
“So what else she got?” Evelyn says. “How come you never say?”
She leans close to me when she talks because the boys are sitting right next to us and we both have agreed, without actually saying it, that Sister’s stuff is none of their business.
“Well?”
I look over at Sister Mary Kate, and she looks back like she knows we’re talking about her. My cheeks get hot, and I suddenly feel very, very guilty.
“She doesn’t have anything. Just a comb and a Bible and a book of poems written by some lady.” My cheeks get even hotter and the boys are starting to look at me, too. Me and my red freckles.
“Hey, Snowbird! How come you get so red?” says Bunna.
Bunna started calling me Snowbird because my name is Chickie and I am white like a snowbird. He thinks he’s funny.
Now all the boys next to him are chirping “snowbird, snowbird,” like a winter chorus of big, wild birds.
I wish I could melt right into my chair, but instead I sit up 54
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straight and stare right at my opponent, just like Swede says to do. Look ’em in the eyes, Swede always says, which I do.
“My aaka says you aren’t supposed to mess with snowbirds.” I spit the words right at Bunna, and his eyes get wide.
Bingo. Bunna still has a smirk on his face, but he isn’t laughing anymore. I bet you money his aaka has told him that if you are mean to snowbirds, you will never be a good hunter. Th at’s
what Aaka Mae always tells boys.
“Come on, girls,” Evelyn says, glaring at Bunna. “Too many Eskimos here. Let’s go.” She heads for the door.
Evelyn is trying to make me feel better, but this only makes me feel worse. Th
is world doesn’t have too many Eskimos. It
has too many sides and too many closed doors and too many people who don’t understand.
Th
at’s what I think.
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Kickball
SPRING 1961
SONNY
—
Sonny watched as kids fl uttered up the hall on their way to lunch like a thick fl ock of ravens. Junior, Chickie, and Donna were laughing at some joke.
Th
ose two Eskimo brothers—Luke and Bunna—were
stuck together behind Amiq like an Amiq-shaped shadow.
And Amiq, as usual, was looking for trouble.
“So you been out hunting lately?” he was saying, saying it real loud, too, like he wanted to make sure everybody heard him. Like he wanted to make sure Sonny, in particular, heard him.
Sonny did. He knew those brothers. Th
ey were always out
in the woods. Hiding from Indians for the most part, he fi gured. Not hunting.
Th
e older brother, Luke, looked at Amiq like he wasn’t sure what the heck he was talking about. Th
en he glanced
back at Sonny with a nervous look. Sonny scowled.
“Yeah. Hunting. Me and Bunna,” Luke said—like he
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knew he was supposed to say it but wasn’t sure why. You could tell he was trying to sound tough.
Sonny wasn’t fooled.
Amiq was still eyeing him. Like he was daring him to do something.
“You ever run into that old Indian?” Amiq said. He used the word Indian like an arrow aimed right at Sonny. Rose and Evelyn and the Pete boys sidled up next to Sonny.
Luke frowned, as if he were trying to remember something. Or maybe forget it. “Yeah,” he said.
“And he said to quit scaring off all the animals, right?”
Amiq coached.
“Yeah! He did!” Th
is was the younger brother, Bunna.
“And he acts like he’s gonna shoot us, too, but he never.”
Suddenly Amiq burst out laughing, like it was a really funny joke. Possibly the funniest joke in the history of funny jokes. Th
e sound of that laugh made Sonny stop walking and
turn to look back at them, hard. Th
at little smart mouth.
Now all of them had stopped walking and they were all watching Sonny and Amiq.
“Heck, that old guy ain’t gonna shoot nothing,” Amiq said. “He’s half blind, that one.”
Only he didn’t say blind, he said “plind.” And he looked right at Sonny when he said it, too, like he was accusing all Indians of being half blind.
“Plind,” Sonny mimicked.
Evelyn giggled. “How come he talks like that?” she whispered.
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“He’s from Barrow,” Sonny said loudly. “I mean Parrow.
Th
at’s how they dalk. ”
Rose and Evelyn giggled.
“Th
at old Indian’s probably waiting for somebody to scare the animals his way so he could eat sometime,” Amiq told Bunna, glaring at Rose and Evelyn. “He’s so blind, he can’t even fi nd his own butt in broad daylight.”
Th
e muscles in Sonny’s jaw tightened. He could level that guy, one shot, if he wanted to. Level them all. He glared at the one closest to him—nervous little Junior with the big glasses.
Junior backed away, shoving those glasses up onto the bridge of his nose.
“What’s he eat then, he don’t catch nothing?” Bunna was saying.
“Rotten fi sh,” Amiq said, watching Sonny sideways.
Bunna held his nose like someone’d farted. “Aqhaaa! ”
Th
at was it. Sonny reached out and grabbed Bunna by the collar, held on tight, twisting his hand a little. Bunna scowled like he was trying to look tough. Or at least trying to look a little bit brave.
Now they were in the middle of a big pack of kids. Kids pressed in on either side of them like two walls: the Indian wall and the Eskimo wall. Th
e Eskimo wall had one blond
head, that little white girl they’d nicknamed Snowbird. Th e
Indian wall looked hard as rock with no breaks in it, not even a crack. Sonny smiled.
“Better than raw meat,” he said. He knew about how Eskimos ate their meat frozen. Frozen and raw.
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Th
e older brother, Luke, pushed his way forward through the crush of kids. Amiq was right behind him.
“Leave him alone,” Luke growled.
Sonny shook Bunna, just for good measure, and let go of him. He wasn’t about to fi ght some little kid.
Amiq shoved himself fo
rward. “Back off ,” he snapped, muttering “half-a-gas-can” under his breath. And he aimed those words right at Sonny, too. “Pack off . ”
Sonny laughed. “Make me,” he said.
“Why’d he say half-a-gas-can?” Snowbird whispered.
Nobody said anything. Everyone was staring at Sonny and Amiq, who stood in the middle of the crowd, glaring at each other. Th
en Sonny turned toward Snowbird.
“’Cause he don’t know how to say ‘Athabascan,’” Sonny said. “He has trouble dalking.”
Amiq clenched his fi sts. “Go ahead,” he sneered, looking up at Sonny. “Go ahead.”
Th
e whole pack pressed in closer, both sides taunting.
“Punch him! Punch him!”
“Do it!”
Sonny reared up and smashed down on Amiq with a force hard enough to make him fall back into the crowd. But before Sonny could even step closer, Amiq had sprung up, tearing into Sonny like a wolverine. Th
e kid was smaller, all right, but
he was tough, Sonny thought. Plenty tough.
“Go for the throat!” someone hollered. “Th
e throat!”
Now everybody was yelling, everyone except that one Yupik girl with the long black hair and little Junior, who 59
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stood off to one side, nervously fi dgeting with his glasses.
Suddenly a door fl ew open and Father Flanagan came rac-ing down the hall, his robes billowing out like black sails.
“Break it up, boys! Break it up!”
“Shaving cream,” Junior whispered, cursing like his grandma taught him.
Father shoved himself between Amiq and Sonny, forcing them apart. Th
e two of them strained against his hold like
dogs at the ends of their lines. But Father’s arms were strong and sinewy.
“All right, boys, that’s enough. Th
at’s quite enough,” he
said.
He let go of them, fi nally, and they pulled away, wiping their faces and glaring at each other sideways. Th e crowd
pressed itself fl at against the sides of the hall, tried to melt into the wall—one thick body with dozens of eyes, watching.
No one said a word.
“All right everybody, break it up,” Father said. “It’s lunchtime now. Get going.”
But before they could even fan out, he laid his hands on Amiq’s and Sonny’s shoulders.
“Not you two,” he said, reeling them in with his voice.
“You two have earned yourselves a little conversation with Father Mullen.”
“Aw, Father, c’mon,” Amiq said. “We were just playing.”
He put a barb in the word for Sonny’s benefi t. Sonny glared at him, then looked away.
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“Yes, and Father Mullen is not very fond of games, I’m afraid. Let’s go,” the priest said.
As they walked off , behind Father Flanagan Sonny could hear the others, whispering among themselves.
“Oh man, that Father Mullen, he’s mean,” Bunna said.
“He might kill Amiq.”
“It wasn’t his fault, was it?” Chickie said. “He was just protecting himself. Th
ere’s no sin in that, is there?”
“Depending on how you look at it, pretty much everything’s a sin,” Junior said.
Father Flanagan sailed off down the hall with Sonny and Amiq trailing behind him like two fi sh on a stringer, trapped in the wake of a big black boat.
Father Mullen’s offi
ce was dim and musty smelling, and Father
Mullen’s eyes were just plain crazy. Sonny couldn’t really say what it was that made them crazy, but whatever it was, it was right there, just under the surface, like a big fi sh in dark water.
Amiq saw it, too, Sonny could tell. You’d have to be blind not to.
Sonny saw, as well, the worn two-by-four in the corner of the room, which he was trying not to look at. He and Amiq stood together. Waiting.
White people don’t know how to be comfortable with
silence the way Indians do. Sonny knew this. Without even thinking about it, he understood the diff erence. When Indians don’t talk, it’s because they don’t need to, because things are already understood, and everybody knows it. When a white 61
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guy like Father Mullen doesn’t talk, it means something else altogether. Father Mullen’s silence stalked them from the edge of the room like a shadowy animal.
“Th
e fi ght’s in your blood, isn’t it?” he said fi nally.
His voice made Sonny squirm. He saw Amiq twitch.
“Do you understand that you can be expelled for this sort of behavior?”
“Yes, Father,” Sonny said as fast as he could.
“Yes, Father,” Amiq echoed.
“Mr. George”—Sonny’s skin crawled at the way he said his name. In Father’s mouth the word Mr. sounded small and ugly—“do you suppose your mother saved up to send you here just so you could learn to scuffl
e like a ruffi
an with your
fellow students?”
“No, Father.”
“And Mr. Amundson”—he turned to Amiq—“do you
suppose those scientists who sponsored your education did so for the purpose of training you in the science of cat fi ghting?” He spat out the word cat so hard, they could feel its claws.
Sonny glanced sideways at Amiq, but Amiq was looking down at his feet. Sonny looked down, too. He didn’t know how Mr. Amundson was feeling, but he, Sonny Boy George, was mad about the way Father Mullen had dragged his mom into the room. He stared at his feet hard, remembering how his mom had stayed up late at night threading those tiny beads by the smoky light of the kerosene lamp, making slippers. He studied his shoes, his brand-new shoes, thinking about all the 62
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beadwork his mom had to make in order to pay for those shoes. In order to get him here.
Th
e air in Father Mullen’s offi
ce was close and stale.
“I said, ‘the fi ght’s in your blood, isn’t it?’” Father hissed.
“Yes, Father . . . I mean no, Father,” Sonny mumbled.
“No, Father,” Amiq added.
“‘Yes, Father. No, Father.’ You boys seem to be suff ering from some confusion.” His voice was tight and terrifying. Like a gun about to fi re.
“Yes, Father, No Father.” Th
ey were both saying it now, no
longer sure about who was saying what.
“Confusion,” Father snapped, “is the mark of the Devil.”
His eyes were shining with a strange light, and they both backed away, instinctively, both of them suddenly aware of that two-by-four waiting in the corner behind them.
“And let me tell you something, gentlemen. In this school there’s only one kind of fi ghting allowed.”
Father’s voice was ominously low, but Sonny looked up, surprised. Fighting allowed?
“Boxing,” Father said, his voice like a fast punch. “Do you know what that is?”
Sonny nodded. Amiq raised his eyebrows.
“You wear gloves, follow rules, and when the fi ght is over, you shake hands. Th
at’s the only kind of fi ghting we’ll tolerate
here. Anything else, and you’ll be punished. Severely. Keep it up, and you’re out. Do. You. Understand?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Yes, Father
.”
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Both of them were nodding together, like two heads on one neck, both of them eyeing the door for deliverance. Father dismissed them with a curt nod.
Th
en, right there at the door, just as they were ready to step across the border into freedom, that crazy Eskimo—
Amiq—he raised up one fi st, held it tight against his chest, and grinned. Right at Sonny. Maybe he thought Father didn’t see him, but he was wrong. Father sees everything.
Before they could even move, Father fl ew to the corner and grabbed the two-by-four. Sonny felt the force of it cracking against Amiq’s bones as if against his own. But Amiq just stood there, his back bent to Father’s blows, staring at the door to freedom, smiling.
Amiq and Father were both in their own narrow spaces, both seeing only what they wanted to see, but Sonny saw it all—the bent back, the crazy priest, the smile stretched so tight across Amiq’s face, you could probably snap it like slingshot rubber—and something else, something in Amiq’s eyes—a look no two-by-four could ever touch. And even though Father couldn’t see it from where he stood, you could tell by the way he was swinging that paddle that he knew it was there.
Sonny watched Father, imagining what it would feel like to slam a kickball right through Father’s gut, right out that door, right down the hall, reverberating from fl oor to ceiling like gunshot.
Indian kickball.
And when he played it, he would win.
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The Size of Things Back Home
SUMMER 1961
LUKE
—
It seems like everything in the world has changed. Th en we get
home and it seems like nothing has changed. Except for the size of things—the door has gotten shorter and the window, lower. Mom seems smaller, too, somehow. Small and brittle, like she might break. She watched us getting off the plane and kept watching. Even after we had walked all across the runway, she kept watching, holding her heart and waiting for Isaac, knowing, just like we knew, that he wasn’t there. Isaac’s gone. It had to do with papers we didn’t understand. And now, none of Mom’s letters to Isaac—the ones she sends to the school—get answered. Mom moves about the house and no matter what she’s doing, it still feels like she’s holding her hand over her heart, missing Isaac. But she won’t talk about it. Whatever there is to be said about Isaac, nobody’s saying it.
My Name Is Not Easy Page 6
