Sharing Our Stories of Survival: Native Women Surviving Violence (27 page)

One day, Charity Cats 1, 2, and 3—me, Margaret, and Veronica—took some spray paint to the high school our first year there. We painted Brown Power, and Black Power (just to confuse things), and other markings all over the school walls, covering the halls, the stairwells, and even bathrooms while conducting other vandalism. In the process, I threw some item at the back of the principal’s head, catching him as he was getting up. I was hauled by force and physically thrown out the door of the school in front of a crowd of students. That and some other pranks through the glue-sniffing day caused us girls to be arrested and jailed again. The principal said I was the worst student he had ever seen in nineteen years of being around public schools. With a dark smirk, I expressed my pride for it to the others. The school counselor had once told me that I would probably end up pregnant and a dropout like most Native girls, and having been reduced to low-level classes, I thought what did I give a damn about school. I had wanted to be in Color Guard and be part of the basketball games. I even went to a couple of practices, but the rage, the alcohol, the drugs, and that counselor’s words, erased those ideas away. That day’s activities caused me to be kicked out of school permanently until some curious lawyer or someone found the law that required me to go to school and that meant the school had to take me back. But that took a year and, in the interim, I was sent to Sitka to live with my maternal grandparents.

I liked Sitka. At least I was with my own people. Grandma and Grandpa spoke Tlingit quietly around the house, told stories about our family, and it felt good. But I was the problem child, lest anyone should forget, and I was not allowed to leave the top of the stairs when company was over, and I was not allowed to step on the carpet, only walk on the plastic, or allowed to sit on any furniture in the living room. I sat on a stool at my grandmother’s feet. I cleaned things up as requested and spoke politely. It was my desire to belong and to somehow be worthy. But old habits called me to sneak out of the house from time to time, hang with my new friends, drink into oblivion in the Russian graveyard, and try new highs. It was a pretty good year, and I wasn’t arrested for anything. I went back to Ketchikan and to Kay-Hi and tried to start over. Life and its demons wouldn’t allow it.

Even though I wasn’t up to the same mischief and was studying at school, I was still angry and resistant with authority, and that included my foster mother. I also enjoyed stealing and managed to acquire an entire wardrobe out of it. The more I acted out, the harder it was to look into the ever-growing sad eyes of my foster mother. I was making her life terribly unpleasant and I knew it, yet I could do nothing. I had an ever-smoldering rage. To worsen the situation, her grandson had returned from Germany and one night had forced me down to the bed in his mother’s house, determined to resume the violations. This time I fought hard—I was bigger, and I was angry. In the struggle, I bit his lip clean through and blood shot everywhere. In a fury, he grabbed for me as I ran, knocking into things, and I ran. Even though I was in a skirt, I ran out of sight of him and walked the few miles, crying hopelessly in the rain, to the police station. In a tired and helpless state, I told the police officer what had happened and how this man had been molesting me. The middle-aged officer, looking hard at my thin cold legs, replied in a whispering voice that he wouldn’t mind “having some too.” My heart squeezing, I got up slowly and moved carefully to the door. And I ran. I ran screaming, screaming in the rain, until my throat stung and I felt I’d vomit. I wanted to slam my head into a rock. Instead, I took stock of my soaking wet, childlike body, and I went to the hotel downtown where my boyfriend from Metlakatla was staying, and I had sex with him. I decided everything, from that point, would be on my terms. I would take what I had to take, and do whatever I had to do. I would have the power. I was fourteen years old.

One morning towards the end of that wet, dark winter, I awoke from a bad dream and set about to make breakfast, cooking up some fried potatoes like my brothers and I liked, like our foster mother made for us. She was sleeping on the couch and I heard her sigh when I began to drop the peeled potatoes into the hot cast-iron pan. My brothers got up with the smell and sat at the tiny kitchen table. We were visiting with one another, and it was nice. I was troubled by the dream I had had. I now had a full pan of potatoes and onions going and our mouths began to water. While talking to my brothers, I happened to look at our foster mother lying on the couch. She looked peculiar. She was too still. I went to her, and felt her. She was cold, not moving. I saw the dream, and I knew this was not good. I ran and woke her son Scott who was snoring away and told him that something was wrong with her. As I heard him say, “Mom, Mom, wake up,” and the change in his voice, choking, I ran in the bathroom and stood in the tiny rusted shower and prayed. I prayed hard, and I told God that he must wake her right now, because it was important, even if it was just for a minute, it was important. I had to tell her that I did love her. I would be willing to do anything. He had to make it happen. It didn’t happen, and as the hearse came, and of all things, it was a hearse, I took a cigarette from my abuser who stood there, pale and shaking, and watched them drive away—with her and with every shred of my hope or faith. I sucked on the cigarette and turned towards the darkness of my soul.

“It’s your fault, Diane, that she’s dead,” said her daughter and someone else. I figured they spoke the truth and why not. A few short hours later, the house was full of people trying to decide what to do with her stuff, us kids, and the house, sometimes crying, and their cigarette smoke everywhere. The scene was baffling and my head was swimming. I overheard her daughter say that us kids would have to be taken to the Children’s Home or somewhere. I didn’t want to go. I’d heard about the place and we weren’t going. I talked quietly to my brothers. I was running away to Metlakatla and they should go with me.

That afternoon we were all at her daughter’s house in Ketchikan, with our dog Lady, dazed by the change, and us kids schemed to run away as alcohol cast its spell on the household, and angry outbursts made us twitch. One brother was thrown against the wall at one point, and I grabbed the youngest brother and ran. We ran until our lungs ached to one of the Charity Cats’ house. We hid in her bedroom closet away from her mother until we could make a boat to Metlakatla. In Metlakatla we went straight away to my boyfriend’s parents’ house, where we settled in for the night. Quiet was not to be ours, as the evening turned into a blur of alcoholic confusion and the parents began to fight. My boyfriend and his dad turned scuffling quickly into blows of ugly violence. My boyfriend’s hand and arm went through some glass, and blood sprayed everywhere, even a piece of his flesh lying in a pool of red. I was in one of his white T-shirts, and as I tried to calm down the household, me almost in a serene state with the utter chaos, his mother screaming and crying, kids hysterical, I mechanically called the base hospital and whoever I could reach and then mopped blood. As my boyfriend left for treatment, and me covered in a seriously blood-soaked T-shirt, I put the little ones to bed, and then told the parents to stop blaming each other and stop scaring their children. I tucked everyone into bed as if it was my duty, and then I opened a bottle of whiskey, sat on the couch and read
Romeo and Juliet
and drank until my boyfriend came back late that night.

My boyfriend tossed and turned in sweat-soaked pain as I watched the sun come up. In the still morning light, I heard a gunshot. My heart skipped as my eyes closed and I slipped unwillingly into sleep’s fearful darkness. Apparently, the neighbor killed himself in front of his wife and kids. I no longer felt a thing about anything. Life was nothing but a sentence born on the unworthy.

Although the night had been what it had been, we did not want to leave my boyfriend’s family. When the State Troopers finally showed up some days later to take my brother and I away back to Ketchikan, my tall and fierce boyfriend and his large stocky father made it clear that they would not get past the door to take us away. It took a few more days but the Troopers finally had their way. We were hauled back to Ketchikan.

My brothers were placed in a home with a Christian couple from the church we had attended. The couple had decided it was best that I not be allowed to see my brothers, since I was “a bad influence.” When it came to my brothers I only wanted them safe and near. They were all that mattered. Still hopeful I would see my brothers, I was put into a State-sanctioned foster home where the adults of the household were prone to drink. It wasn’t long before I understood I would not be living with my brothers again. I cried quietly into my pillow most every night. I wanted the nerve to cut my wrists clean through, but could only muster a few light cuts with razors on my wrists and hands. I hated my weakness.

In this new foster home, I was separated from the family at dinnertime. I loved the smell of pork chop suey that she cooked several times during my stay, but never allowed me to eat. Instead, my new foster mother would place a tin TV tray in the living room with a plate of pasta noodles and a can of chili on top as my dinner. I learned to hate that combination of tastes and craved their meals, particularly all that pork, celery, onion, and soy sauce over rice. I cleaned their house, sometimes hand-scrubbing the kitchen floor, even while their own kids went out, and tried to be a good kid. I was too lost and empty to be that rebellious. I would go out sometimes and meet my Metlakatla boyfriend, and one time he bought me shoes. My foster mother, enraged upon seeing the shoes, accused me of being a whore. I was not allowed to visit my boyfriend thereafter, even though my dad had let them know in a rare call that he approved.

My foster parents received a State check for caring for me, but they never managed to buy me clothes or shoes for school or anything else. I would walk out into the cold wet mornings to retrieve their mail from the mailbox so I knew the checks came. I sometimes borrowed their daughter’s clothes. All the clothes I had acquired at Wards Cove, albeit by stealing, were long gone, stolen away from me by an even greedier bunch. I wore cowboy boots, because that’s all I had left. At a school that required girls to wear dresses, this didn’t fit too well. That’s why my boyfriend bought me shoes. Receipt of a check usually meant drinking would follow. A number of times the foster parents would wake me in the wee hours to watch them dance as they drunkenly swayed to Ink Spots songs like “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” I would sit there, sleepy-eyed but anxious, knowing in a few short hours I’d have to be up for school. I willingly watched them dance because I was afraid if I didn’t, I would be evicted from the home. The more I tried to be “good” the more I really began to resent the situation. What was the point in trying to do the right thing if this was the payoff?

Due to the historical problems with Native students like myself, Ketchikan High School saw fit to hire a Native counselor. We were excited about that, and we all lined up to see him. He was a Vietnam veteran, a Tlingit and Filipino man, who did not pretend with us. He talked straight to us about not only drugs, but also about life, our lives, and acknowledged our pain, even if we wouldn’t. We liked him. He inspired our Native pride, and feeling such pride one day, we organized in an unusual rebellious act. Rather than wear the hippie fashions of 1970, we wore Native attire to school. We followed the dress code with our skirts to our knees, and blouses buttoned, but wore Native necklaces, beaded vests, and whatever any gang member’s family would loan. These were things many of us never saw in public, ever. It was probably the most frightening but strangely liberating thing we had ever done. Especially when we had to separate to go to our individual classes and sit with the stares from teachers and snickers from students. And we did it. Our counselor was proud, but the school seemed to think maybe he was causing a problem stirring up Native students. It was always something. But we held our heads up in a new way for a whole day. It was a great feeling, even if short-lived.

During that year, the Charity Cats began to spar with one another, and power struggles stressed the unity. While I was in Sitka things had changed. Most of the J.D.’s were in jail, and the addition of new Charity Cat members confused the leadership. Eventually I was at odds with other members and faced off with them in halls. I had written a letter to my dad telling him how horrible it was at the new foster home. He showed it to the State people and the foster home license was taken away, I was told. After the letter, I was sent to the dreaded Children’s Home, and it wasn’t so bad, just crammed and lonely. The foster parents’ daughter wanted revenge and some members of the Charity Cats were going to oblige. I received death threats by phone at the Children’s Home. I told my PO (probation officer). He showed me a stack of files about six, seven inches high and asked me if I knew what it was. I said no. He said all of it was about me. We starting talking about youth halls, and places for teenagers to go, and that there were little activities or resources for impoverished kids and kids on the streets. I would walk through town thinking about it. I ended up going to a school dance supposedly with police protection at his urging. I was out of the gang. Gangs, I found out, take on a deadly life of their own making.

Police protection felt like an oxymoron, since we hated the police. We hated them for harassing us, picking us up for no reason, even holding us up to seventy-two hours, and for offering us Native girls the option of providing them sexual favors rather than jail. Once, upon such an offer, I told the officer, in certain expletives, where he could go. Then I ran for my life. That incident involved my arrest for assaulting a white girl with a deadly weapon. I had a switchblade that I had proudly obtained from burglarizing a store a couple years’ previous with another Charity Cat. He told me I would get ten years if I didn’t “go out the road with him.” Instead, I went to court and received more probation time, but this time with the promise that anything more would send me to McLaughlin in Anchorage. Hard time. Now I was to rely on police to protect me from my own gang. It seemed inconceivable, and I got drunk at the dance, and from there disappeared into drug and alcohol oblivion. I was tired of police, of gangs, of everybody. I had a bullet go through my hair and hit the wall behind me at a drug party, seen blood after blood all over walls, fists smashing faces, walked in drug paranoia often, and once passed out drunk in a muddy ditch. A couple of drug dealers apparently killed the friend who had rescued me from the ditch not long after, but no one was charged for it. Nothing was worse than being a “narc” and to tell was to be a “narc,” so no one told, and no one was arrested. Besides, the drug dealers were white, and no one expected them to do time anyway. But I missed my friend terribly. He cared. And a Charity Cat’s old boyfriend hung himself. I was simply tired of it all. To worsen my despair, I was trash that couldn’t see my brothers. Midsummer I was sent to Sitka to my grandparents only to end up in jail.