Keeper'n Me

by Richard Wagamese

  “Attaboy, Mitchum! Those pickerel are gonna be real hungry after a good laugh like that!” one of the others said through tears of laughter.

  All through that day someone would suddenly start to smirking and choking back the laughter and the whole boat would erupt all over again. The guy was real good about it and told Gilbert to keep the fifty and they even tipped him another fifty when they all caught their limit that day. Even threw back lots, Gilbert said.

  Needless to say, everyone around Kenny Keewatin’s fire that night roared long and loud too.

  Great story. You hear lotsa great stories around here. See, one of the things I caught onto real quick was the humor. Reason no one minds the welfare so much, or the government’s empty promises, or the lack of lots of things, is on accounta they always find some funny way of looking at it. They find a way to laugh about it. Keeper says that it’s the way they’ve survived everything and still remained a culture. Lotsa Indian ways changed when the whiteman got here, lotsa people suffered, but they stayed alive on accounta they learned to deal with things by not taking them so damn serious all the time. Go anywhere where there’s Indians and chances are you’ll find them cracking up laughing over something. Humor’s a big thing with Indians.

  Another place other than the fires where they get together to tell stories is leaning on the railing down at Big Ed Keewatin’s store. It’s the very last building down where the hydro is, right across from the Doc’s, and people are there night and day. Big Ed’s called Big Ed on accounta he’s about six foot three and three hundred pounds. Real gentle though and lets everyone have whatever they need on credit until cheque day comes. He’s got about five kids and his family’s real popular around here because they’re all real kind and gentle. Anyway, the store is the big hangout and that’s why there was so many people around the day the taxi let me off there. You could almost call it the center of White Dog life, and the Keewatins are pretty much always the first to know things when they happen around here.

  So looking around on that rock each morning reconnects me to the life of this place and walking through it all alone helps me see it a whole lot different than I did that first day. Then, I figured I was on another planet. Now, this is the only place that makes sense. It took a long time though. Keeper says all of us just get to a point where we’re ready to really start seeing. For me I guess it started that night I met him at the cabin and my vision’s been getting better and better ever since. I would have called the stuff lying around out here clutter and junk on accounta that’s the way my eyes worked before I came here. But now I see it all as evidence of people living the way they wanna live. It all spells out home to me now and I’d miss every bit of it if I had to go away. Sure changed me lots. Like those people living down where the hydro is, I acted like parts of the outside world were pasted to me. It took hanging with Keeper and working into the rhythm of the people to peel it off.

  According to Keeper there’s two kinds of silences us men like to use more than anything sometimes. There’s the smoldering, angry kind we use instead of our fists and there’s the big, open embarrassed kind we fall into when our mouths can’t move through the motions our hearts are going through. Learning how to work through both of them’s likely the biggest struggle us men have, Indian or not. Keeper says the real warriors in our circles are the ones who never surrender to silence. Says the only stone-faced Indians doing any good out there are statues. Funny guy, that Keeper.

  Anyway, I never gave that kinda thinking much attention until that first summer I was here. Learning how to fit in wasn’t just a matter of landing here and being embraced into the community. No, sir. Us Indians we learned through the years that not everyone that comes along is gonna be real trustworthy. People’s history has a good way of teaching you that, especially when your history’s full of broken promises and “government fooh-fah” as Chief Isaac puts it. Fooh-fah’s not an Ojibway word but it should be, I figure. Anyway, our people can be pretty suspicious at times, especially when it comes to Indians walking around acting white—like me when I got here. Most people who knew about me were kind and good about it all but there were some who really wrestled with wondering whether I really belonged here and if I was still carrying around an Indian heart after all I’d been through.

  Having an Indian heart’s a pretty important thing. See, because nowadays not everyone’s walking around wearing braids and buckskin. Us we got a lotta different looks and lifestyles on accounta the modern world has been creeping into our camps quieter’n your average Cree. So meeting an Indian’s not as cut and dried as it used to be. Chief Isaac got a brushcut he’s had for years and years. My brother Stanley wears his hair in a ponytail or braids now and again and the women have perms, braids, short hair or whatever. No one dresses a particular way either, from the chief’s double-knit leisure suits to the old ladies’ shawls and print dresses and gumboots. Go to the city and you’ll find lotsa different-looking Indians walking around. We got punk rock Indians now, lawyer-looking brothers and sisters, cowboy Indians and the traditional-looking kind with braids and beaded hide jackets. See them all at pow-wows when you go. Don’t much matter what you look like nowadays but’s still important to carry an Indian heart inside you. Lots don’t. Lots surrender to the influence of the outside world and get thinking “pretty mainstream” as Stanley says. That’s about when he launches into the philosophical rambles he likes to go on and starts explaining that “what you think is how you’ll act, how you act is how you’ll feel, an’ how you feel is what you are” kinda fooh-fah. Not his fault. It’s all that social work stuff he had to learn in school. Me, I’d rather listen to Keeper, but I love my brother and listen anyway.

  Anyway, lotsa Indians nowadays get swallowed up in the influence of the outside and look like all-around brown but not carrying a brown heart anymore. Our people have a hard time accepting that and so have a hard time accepting those kinda people.

  Keeper says there’s a bunch of reasons why people go that way. Some, like me, got taken away and put into a whole different world and learned a whole different way. Others were put into the residential schools and learned how to be ashamed of their heritage on accounta the priests and nuns taught them from day one that they were dirty, stupid and helpless as Indians. Still others got kinda beat up around home on accounta their families were getting away from the traditional approach to being family and just walked away hurt and angry. Lots more got caught up in the booze and drugs and it sorta washed away all the Indian from their insides. Others started out pretty strong as Indians but started gradually easing over to the mainstream by going through school, marrying non-Indians, working in non-Indian places, hanging out with other kindsa people, joining some kinda church and learning how to grab onto things other than smudge, pow-wow and prayer. Lotsa city Indians are like that now and it happens so gradual they aren’t even aware it’s happening until someone points it out to them. Keeper says the ones like me and the ones that changed gradual are the easiest to bring back, but the others all gotta work through their hurt, shame and anger before they really get back home to themselves. That’s what’s important really, Keeper says. Learning how to be what the Creator created you to be. Face your truth. Do that he says and three big things happen in your life. First, you learn how to be a good human being. Second, you learn how to be a good person, and in the process of learning that you learn how to be a good Indian. Can’t happen the other way around on accounta you’d be so busy trying to be the ultimate Indian you’d kinda miss out on just being happy being a person. Going through the process is what gives you an Indian heart. Your insides in tune with your outside. Get that way and you can pretty much be anything you wanna be, live anywhere you wanna live, look any way you wanna look and you’re still gonna have a true heart. An Indian heart. Funny guy, that Keeper.

  Anyway, that’s what scares people the most I guess. Walking around without a true heart makes you kinda untrustworthy. On accounta history us Indians don’t mix well with
untrustworthy people. So I had my share of folks on White Dog and in the area looking at me with a kinda suspicious eye for a while. Some people used the language against me. They’d start talking away in Ojibway whenever I’d come along and be laughing away pretty good together. Me I’d always feel like it was me they were laughing at. Pretty soon though my ma got me to talking bits of Ojibway and that helped. She’d ask me for tea or something in Ojibway and point to what she wanted. Little things like that and it wasn’t too long before I could hold small conversations. Jane would walk around with me and drill me on the names of things all the time, so that it wasn’t too long either when I knew what people were referring to around me and I’d kinda get the drift of the talk. Soon as I started busting in on conversations people started to change.

  Others just used silence and that probably hurt the most. Hard to figure where you stand with people when they won’t recognize you in any way. I didn’t mind the name calling I’d get every now and then, especially from the younger crowd, on accounta I’d grown up with that and kinda learned to ignore it. And I didn’t mind the teasing I got when I didn’t know how to do things that even the little tykes knew, like cleaning fish or starting up a fire right off. Once I learned or even showed some desire to ask someone to show me things all the teasing went away.

  Got used to all of it and learned how to deal with lotsa different reactions from people. By the time that first summer was over I’d come a long way towards being comfortable with being here and being a White Dog Indian and most folks had gotten comfortable with me. There was a lotta laughing going on about something I’d done or tried to do, something I’d said all wrong or some way of behaving and even now those stories bring a lot of laughter.

  That’s why the stony silence coming from my brother Jackie was so hard to figure out. While the rest of my family just swallowed me up and took me in, Jackie sat on the edges of it all aloof and distant. He was bigger’n me and Stanley and it made me uneasy having him around on accounta he’d just stare at me most of the time and not say anything. He had a big, brooding silence whenever we were around together. After a while I think we just gave up trying to get through and we settled into that awkward kind of silence that can make strangers outta brothers.

  We were sitting around the fire outside Ma’s one night, Keeper’n me, Ma, Stanley, Jane, Jackie and my uncle Gilbert and auntie Mavis. Gilbert was showing us the new hand drum he’d made and Keeper decided he should show me how to sing a song with the thing.

  “Yeah, Keeper,” Gilbert said with a laugh. “Time he learned our way of singin’. Gotta learn that we got a few good tunes of our own, us Indyuns.”

  “I seen him dancin’ around to that music he plays all the time an’ kinda looks like he’s got some Indian rhythm in him, all right,” Jane said, giving my bum a little tweak. “Moves them skinny little buns around pretty good.”

  “Hey-yuh,” said Ma. “One of these days gonna teach him how to do a real dance. All boys gotta know how to do a jig, you know. You like fiddle, my boy?”

  “I seen him eyeing up the Keewatin girls the other day,” Stanley said. “Kinda looked like he had fiddlin’ around on his mind then, all right!”

  Keeper laughed. “Wanna win a girl over you gotta know a good love song on the drum. These days our women want a sensitive man around. Drum’s good for teachin’ sensitive.”

  “Hmmpfh.” Ma looked over at Keeper out of the corner of her eye. “Lot you know about it. When’s last time you ever paid a woman any mind? Old fart.”

  “Be surprised what some old guys can do,” Keeper said, grinning back across the fire.

  “Promises, promises, promises,” Ma said, and we all laughed.

  Keeper started a slow, steady rhythm on the drum and we all got quiet and listened. It was the kinda rhythm we use in our round dances. Round dances are the big get-together dances lotsa Indians use. You join hands and move around in a big circle, moving your feet in rhythm with the drum and kinda moving in and out from the center every now and then, coming nose to nose with each other then moving back out. It’s a lot of fun, and the songs are lighter than other kindsa singing.

  “Ah-ho my girl I love you so

  Give ev’rythin’ I got to you

  My home, my heart, my love you know

  My truck, my dog, my money too.”

  We all laughed again. Keeper kept on singing and drumming away so we all got up to shuffle around the fire while he went on and on.

  “Your hair so black your eyes so brown

  I want to lay you on the groun’

  To make papoose just you an’ me

  A big Ojibway family.”

  We all laughed and sat back down for more tea and the fried bread Ma’d made for the occasion. Jackie was the only one who hadn’t danced. He just sat there staring into the fire while the rest of us had carried on. Once we’d settled in Keeper handed Gilbert’s drum over to me.

  “S’a good drum, Gilbert, s’a good drum,” he said. “Give it a try there, boy!”

  It was the first time I’d held one and it felt light but clumsy in my hands. The beater was just a foot-long piece of clothes hanger all wrapped up with hockey tape and a big knob at the one end. I didn’t know what to do with it.

  “Just copy what Keeper did,” Jane said. “It’s okay. Try it.”

  They were all watching me now, even Jackie. I tried to remember the rhythm I’d gotten used to at Keeper’s in the mornings and then tried to tap it out on the drum. Lightly at first, then a little stronger and stronger. It sounded okay to me, but when I started to sing one of the songs I heard Keeper singing in the mornings I lost the rhythm. The beat got all scattered and the song fell apart on its own.

  Jackie stood up and just kinda stared at me. “Real Indyuns got a feel for the drum. Got that rhythm right here!” he said, thumping his chest real hard. “Shouldn’t be bangin’ that city crap on no hand drum! All of you should quit encouraging him. Tryin’ to dance, tryin’ to speak the language, tryin’ to drum an’ sing. He ain’t no Indyun. Got more white an’ black in him than he does us. Gotta be able to see that. I sure do!” He stalked off into the darkness.

  No one said a word, just stared at the empty space in the darkness he disappeared into. I handed the drum back to Gilbert. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as I stared into the fire. My ma put her arm around my shoulders and when I looked up I could see Keeper watching me from across that fire, his eyes glowing from the reflection and tears as he nodded his head slowly, slowly.

  “I don’t know, man,” Stanley was saying a few days later while we were walking through the bush. “Jackie’s always been a little more intense than the resta us, even when we were kids. Maybe things just hit him more than the resta us.”

  Me’n Stanley spend a lot time wandering through the bush together. Even now. He just stops by Ma’s and we head off without even saying anything to each other or Ma about where we’re going or what we’re gonna do. It’s one of those unspoken brother things that kinda grew up on its own soon after I was home. Stanley takes a lotta pride in the fact that he got through social work school, got a degree and came right back home. He says lot more people gotta do that on accounta it’s the only way our reserves and communities are really gonna benefit from the outside world. Him he calls it stealing horses.

  “They always used to call us Indians horse thieves way back when, might as well be that now,” he’d always say in that social worker kinda educated voice he uses when he’s thought about something lots. “Only now we gotta steal diff’rent kinda horses, brother. We gotta steal all the whiteman’s horses to make our circles strong again.”

  I’ve learned through the years to just nod my head and listen when he gets going like this on accounta Stanley can really get on a roll and it’s pretty near impossible to squeeze even a grunt in between his words when he’s rolling.

  “Diff’rent kinda horses. Education, technology, business, politics, communication, employment an’ health care. All of
’em, we gotta steal all of ’em if we’re gonna be competitive an’ stay alive as people.”

  One of these days my big brother’s gonna find his way into politics and I just know he’s gonna be doing a good job for the people. He’s sure got a way with words, and I learned a whole lotta stuff about our people from just walking through the bush with him and letting him ramble on. Better than any history course and lots funnier too.

  Anyway, we’re walking through the bush that day and Stanley’s not saying a lot. Jackie’s behavior at the fire that night had everyone wondering and worrying some too. I guess outbursts like that have been a mainstay of my brother’s life for as long as anyone can remember.

  “He was always kinda wild inside,” Stanley said finally. “Always kinda wild. Hung out with our grampa lots when we lived on the trapline an’ was the only one of us that really ever went an’ stayed with our father before he died. He was really connected to the men an’ when they died he took it hard both times.

  “Sometimes I think the wilderness he was born in kinda stuck to him, you know. Always had that untamed thing about him. He’s always gonna be a strong Indian, that Jackie. Never let anybody roll over him, not even when we were kids.

  “You know, that day they came and took us away, he punched that guy right in the face when he was droppin’ us off at the foster home. Just reached up an’ gave him a good one right in the teeth. He was only six. Hurt his hand but I kinda think he hurt the social worker more. Once he realized we were being kidnapped he got real mean. Come to think of it, we had our problems too when he found out I was gonna go off an’ study. Didn’t really settle down about it until I told him I was comin’ right back here. Can’t stand social workers even to this day, that Jackie.”