And The Children Shall Lead

by Michael J. Bowler

  Dakota watched as Lance played back that part of the press conference where he talked about being raped. Then he played the videos of him making out with Bridget and grinding against Michael. He hated watching them and grimaced with disgust to see how out-of-control he’d been when under the influence. He froze the image and turned his eyes on the impassive Dakota. “Sure you still wanna follow me?”

  Dakota looked from the frozen image of Lance kissing Michael to Lance’s questioning expression. There was a moment of silence between them. “Yes,” Dakota replied with vigor. “If you lead half as good as you shoot, you are a great chief.”

  Lance blew out his breathy little laugh. “Thanks, man.”

  Dakota studied the image of Lance and Michael kissing. Then he said, in a voice almost too low for Lance to hear over the beehive hum of the computers, “I was drunk when I stabbed him.”

  Lance studied the young man’s profile, so striking did it look with the long black hair framing the high cheekbones, aquiline nose, and pinched mouth. But he said nothing, and waited.

  “I was fourteen, my brother thirteen,” Dakota went on quietly, his voice trembling with remorse. “We were drinking and playing with knives. I blacked out. When I woke up, I had a knife in my hand. There was blood everywhere and he was barely alive.”

  He stopped then, eyes still fixed on that frozen kiss.

  Lance sat stupefied, his whole body coiled and tense.

  Dakota sighed. “He was practically brain-dead from bleeding out. He’s a vegetable now. My mother has to do everything for him. And she disavowed me. They all did. I deserve it.” He turned then to look right into Lance’s eyes. “He was only thirteen, and I ended his life.” He paused again as though composing himself. “Now you know why I was kicked out.”

  Lance wanted to reach out a hand and touch the other boy, but feared an adverse reaction given his negative view of Two-Spirits. Oh, screw it, he decided, and placed a hand of comfort on Dakota’s rigid shoulder. The boy looked over sharply at the hand, and Lance smiled sadly, with understanding.

  “Basic human contact, man. We all need it.”

  Dakota narrowed his eyes again, but made no attempt to flinch off the hand. “Do you still want to drink sometimes, Lance?”

  Lance nodded guiltily, removing his hand and lowering it to his lap.

  “How do you not?” Dakota asked desperately, his fingers on the mouse trembling again.

  Lance smiled warmly. “I just reach out and take Ricky’s hand.” Just the memory of holding it filled him with peace. “Holding that boy’s hand is better than any drug. When he holds my hand I’m Superman, Dakota. I can do anything.”

  Dakota digested that information. “I’ve never been loved by someone like that.”

  That surprised Lance. “You’re kidding, right? I mean, you’re pretty hot and have kick-ass hair and you’re all athletic and stuff. You never had a girlfriend?”

  Dakota shook his head. “There were some girls on the rez who might have wanted me, before I...” He let the rest of the thought trail off, but Lance understood.

  “You’re with us now and we’re gonna travel the country. You’ll find someone like Ricky. A girl, I mean.”

  Dakota eyed the screen once again. “Maybe.”

  “Uh,” Lance felt compelled to add, “you might try smiling once in awhile, though. Girls love it when we smile.”

  Dakota didn’t respond, nor did he attempt a smile. Lance sighed and told him to keep scrolling through the website so he could familiarize himself with the Round Table and its overall goals. In particular, he directed Dakota to the most recent press conference about the CBOR.

  “I’m gonna work with Ricky on revising our bill of rights to include native kids.”

  Dakota’s eyes were already roaming pictures on the screen. “Cool.”

  Lance stood and watched Dakota a moment, but the boy sat transfixed by the power of imagery opening and closing before his eyes. He moved down the line to Kai and Ricky.

  He noted that they were sitting close together, his eyes going to their thighs, which were clearly touching. He and Ricky were leaning in to the screen and giggling at something they were watching. As Lance watched, both boys moved a hand for the mouse at the same time and their fingers touched. Startled, Ricky looked over at Kai’s face, and spotted Lance standing just beyond.

  He yanked his hand back like it was on fire and turned redder than Lance had ever seen him. Kai’s gaze quickly returned to the computer screen.

  Lance stepped around behind them. “Everything okay here, guys?”

  Ricky sat upright in his chair and moved slightly back from Kai. “Uh, yeah, Lance, no problem. Kai’s had some practice on computers.”

  Kai looked sheepishly up at Lance. “Only at school, or when I go into the city, to the library. My rez is so small and out there we barely even get many TV stations.”

  Lance noted that Ricky wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Uh, Kai, we’re gonna work on amending the bill, so maybe you could help Dakota.”

  Kai got to his feet quickly. “Sure, Lance. That dope probably never even used a computer before.” He hurried away to join Dakota. Lance heard the Lakota boy grunt with annoyance, and then nothing more.

  He stood looking soberly down at Ricky, whose eyes remained downcast. “You guys were looking pretty friendly over here.”

  Ricky flicked his head up and their eyes met. “He’s just fun, Lance, that’s all. Dakota’s right––he does laugh a lot. I like him.”

  Lance felt an uncharacteristic surge of jealousy. “You like him.” That was all he could get out.

  Ricky grinned now. “Dumber-ass is jealous.”

  Lance stiffened. “Am not.” He paused, his breath catching in his throat. “But he is good-looking and funny and I get all emo, you said so yourself, and––”

  He didn’t get any farther because Ricky was on his feet, one hand over Lance’s mouth, cutting off his words. “You’re the only one I love, Lance, all emo-ass and everything.” He lowered his hand.

  “For now and always?” Lance asked hopefully.

  Ricky grinned. “For now and always.”

  They gazed breathlessly at each other a moment before suddenly realizing that all activity had ceased. They turned to the silent onlookers, and then both of them bowed sheepishly. Everyone laughed and applauded, Kai loudest of all. Dakota, as always, maintained his stoic demeanor and looked at them dispassionately.

  Secure in their oneness, they sat down to revise the Children’s Bill of Rights. Lance slipped both letters from his pocket, the one from the Oglala Lakota and the other from the Navajo Nation.

  Their concerns were similar, and shocking to the boys. Both tribes mentioned the rampant taking of Native children from their families into foster care, with those children never returned to their homes or families even if the mother or parents corrected whatever issues social services had originally objected to. As Dakota had told Lance, alcoholism was a huge problem. Mostly it was poverty, but Lance knew they had already mentioned poverty in the CBOR. Thirty-two out of the fifty states abused the Indian Child Welfare Act, which was supposed to protect Native kids from being taken from their homes without recourse.

  In South Dakota, they discovered, over seven hundred Native children were taken from their homes every year, and only three per cent of those homes had ever been classified as abusive. As Lance and Ricky knew so well from all their forays into the political arena this past year, it came down to money. According to the information from the Lakota Tribal Council, the federal government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs paid the state of South Dakota over seventy thousand dollars for each Native child placed into foster care, and another twelve thousand or so for every one adopted by a white family. Talk about a bribe! Lance’s blood began to boil every time he read that part, and he felt a fiery determination to help these kids.

  Other serious issues amongst Native youth were alcoholism, of course, but also a high suicide rate and an egregiously high num
ber of children raped every year, boys as well as girls. When Lance had first read this part, it had taken Ricky’s hand in his for thirty straight minutes to keep him from flashing back and freaking out.

  The rapists of these children were almost exclusively white, and due to a Supreme Court ruling in 1978 called Oliphant v. Suquamish, Natives were not allowed to prosecute non-Natives for any crime, including rape or murder. Sam had already looked up that case and had gotten the particulars. It involved a guy named Mark David Oliphant who was a non-Native living on a reservation, which was apparently not uncommon across the country. This guy was constantly getting into fights, beating up both men and women. He even beat up one of the tribal cops who intervened one time. He was arrested on battery charges and sent to court.

  For some reason, the Supreme Court took up this case and ruled that the Suquamish tribe didn’t have the power to even charge Oliphant in their tribal courts because the guy was a white, non-Indian. As Lance and Ricky had listened to Sam explaining the case, both sat staring open-mouthed at their own brown skin and couldn’t believe the country still did stuff like that.

  Knowing these to be serious and weighty issues, and understanding that Tribal lands fell under a different legal umbrella than the rest of the country, the boys opened their Children’s Bill of Rights and considered how best to make the revisions.

  “Since native tribes are like, you know, their own little countries,” Ricky began soberly, “how can what we put in here affect them?”

  Lance considered a moment. They had learned the shocking fact that it wasn’t until 1924 that Congress passed a law making all Indians United States citizens. Even the fourteenth amendment hadn’t done that because some Indians didn’t pay taxes to the federal government. That part hadn’t surprised either boy, with money seemingly the only thing that mattered to government. Even after 1924, however, many states didn’t know what to do with Indians, and Natives were banned from voting in state elections.

  Lance and Ricky were stunned when Sam had explained all of this, and remained stunned now. Because Natives were both citizens of their tribal nations and the United States, and those tribal nations under U.S. law were called “domestic dependent nations,” a separate Indian Bill of Rights had been passed by Congress in 1968 guaranteeing Indians the same rights as other citizens under the original Bill of Rights.

  1968! The boys had been shocked yet again that for all the years prior Natives like Dakota and Kai had no civil rights like other Americans. But that seemed to be their ace in the hole. If they tapped into the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, they should be able to include Native children in their CBOR.

  So that’s where they began as they scanned each amendment they’d written for language that could be changed to reference the ICRA and the Indian Child Welfare Act. Apparently there was a flaw in that bill which allowed states to place Indian children with non-Indian parents without giving preferential consideration to other Indian homes to maintain the cultural connection. Lance felt such contempt for these social service agencies based on his own experiences with their arrogant, “we know better” attitude that his body tightened with rage at this scandalous behavior.

  In reviewing their Amendment Twenty-eight, the boys decided to insert a clause about placing children who did need removal because of serious abuse or neglect with another family member or someone of the same Indian tribe. The revised amendment read thus:

  #28:

  Congress shall make no law constraining anyone seventeen years or younger to the servitude or ownership of their biological parents, guardians, or any other adult or government entity; they shall henceforth from the date of passage of this amendment be considered human beings in their own right and not, in any sense of the word, ‘property’; likewise, the government nor any government-sponsored agency shall remove a child from his/her lawful parents without evidence of actual abuse or serious neglect-–poverty, alone, shall not be a determining factor; if removal from the home is a necessity due to serious neglect or abuse, the child will be placed with a stable relative or member of a tribal community, in the case of Native American children, in order to maintain cultural and familial stability; in the event of removal from the home due to proven abuse or neglect, children, including Native Americans, shall have the innate right to return to their parents upon evidence of parental stability and the right to decide for themselves upon the issue of return; these provisions regarding Native children will supersede similar language within the Indian Child Welfare Act; likewise, minor children under eighteen years of age shall not find their freedom of speech infringed within any public venue, including schools and courtrooms, nor their right to peaceably assemble, or to petition the Government or government-controlled entities for redress of grievances, including, but not limited to, bullying behaviors inflicted upon them by school officials or students within those schools whereby no action was taken by school authorities to eliminate it.

  The boys sat back and reviewed what they had added. It looked sound enough and clear enough, but they’d need to run it by Sam, and hopefully get feedback from the Tribal Councils, before putting it out to the public. As they considered the inability of Natives to prosecute non-Natives, even for so horrific a crime as raping a child, Lance flashed back to his own violation. If he’d reported it, Richard might have been put in prison and never hurt any other kid. But what about Michael? He had told his father and the man had ignored the rape, covered it up, even.

  What if children, themselves, could bring charges against adults who raped or assaulted them? If that were the case, and the CBOR became law, then Native children, at least, could bring charges against any rapist, even if that rapist was non-Native. It should invalidate the egregious unfairness of Oliphant v. Suquamish and allow prosecution of child rapists of Indian children. They tinkered with Amendment Thirty-Two since that one involved giving minors rights against harassment by law enforcement. They played with the wording a bit and ended up revising the amendment in this way:

  #32:

  The right of children seventeen and under to be secure in their persons, homes, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall be issued, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized; ‘probable cause’ is defined as a clear and present danger of criminality that may bring harm to persons or property (walking down the street with peers does not constitute ‘probable cause’); any minor child who is raped or sexually abused, including Native American children raped or abused by non-Natives on or off tribal lands, shall have the right to bring charges against the attacker, with or without adult support, and shall have the expectation that an arrest will be made and the case brought to trial, at which time the child may testify against his or her attacker; said testimony may be recorded on video to protect the child from having to directly face his or her assailant in court.

  Again studying what they had written, the boys felt satisfied with the wording. Sam would have to be the final arbiter and they would alter any phraseology per his recommendations. Sadly, they did not know how their CBOR could address the high alcoholism and suicide rates amongst Native youth, but then, both of them decided, some of that may be due to the removal of children from tribal lands and the unspoken-of sexual abuse. Lance knew all too well how his own horrific childhood experiences had contributed to the drinking he’d done earlier in the year.

  The boys felt good about what they were doing, and more importantly, they were doing it together. So they just sat for a time, side by side, hands clasped between them, relishing the presence of the other. Lance glanced over a moment at Kai and Dakota, who seemed oblivious to anyone but each other. Kai was chattering on about this picture or that one while Dakota grunted and nodded, but continued moving the mouse around like he was flying a plane.

  Ricky looked down at his and Lance’s intertwined fingers, and then indicated the
computer screen. “You’re getting pretty good at this political stuff, Lance. Maybe you should take the mayor’s advice and run for president some day.”

  Lance laughed. “And if I did, you’d be the First Lady. Ha!”

  Ricky feigned an angry glower. “Don’t even go there, fool.”

  Lance sat up quickly and raised his free hand, snapping his fingers. “I got it, Ricky! This is how we’d be introduced.” He cleared his throat and deepened his voice, trying to replicate a loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, the President and the First Fool.” Then he busted up as Ricky’s eyes went wide.

  “I am so going to kick your ass,” Ricky said with a shake of his head, but grinning nonetheless.

  Still laughing, Lance shoved him. “Yeah, you and what army again?”

  Ricky shoved him back and joined in the laughter. But their hands never unclasped. They were one spirit in two boys.

  †††

  At the gathering that afternoon, Dakota and Kai were introduced to those of the Round Table who hadn’t met them in school during the week, and the newcomers were welcomed with a hearty round of applause. They were also something of a curiosity since, other than Lance and Ricky fitting the image, most of these kids had never seen a real Native American before. Lance explained the need to amend the CBOR to include Native American children, and then had Techie project onto the flat-screen the two revised amendments.

  Everyone approved of the changes, including Jenny, Arthur, and Merlin. The assemblage was shocked to learn of the abuses often heaped upon Indian children because of their murky dual citizenship status. Those who grew up in the inner city finally found out that there were kids worse off than they were. It was sobering for all.

  Some knights reported on the mayor’s City Hall meetings, and everyone liked what they were seeing. They’d met representatives from Homeboy Industries and all manner of community groups serving the various neighborhoods. All had given the mayor and city council members many ideas on how to make life better for kids growing up in those areas, and the mayor hoped to begin implementing these ideas at the start of the new year.