Growing Up Native American (28 page)

Soon after this incident, mom became very ill—or at least it seemed so to me. I was very worried. I thought it was my dad's fault that she was dying because he wouldn't take her to the
hospital. I decided I would shoot him…he was just no good, I thought. All he could say was that he didn't have enough money to take mom in, but we knew it wasn't true because he was a pretty good fisherman. I knew about death because we had done a lot of duck hunting and fishing. I thought it wouldn't be difficult to shoot dad. I told Roger my plan—he was eight then—and he talked me out of it, saying “If mom dies, shoot him. But let's wait and see—otherwise it's just stupid.” Well, I agreed—somewhat afraid to go ahead with my plan anyway—and mom got better in a couple of weeks. You have to understand that I really loved mom, and I hated my dad—especially when I was a young kid.

For a long time, dad had only been coming home occasionally, then one day he moved back in and said to us kids that he was going to stay around awhile. Actually, he started being quite nice to us. My earlier hatred melted and I even began to like him a little. He got a job with Sterling Shipyards and continued to fish, taking Ed along with him. He wanted to take Roger too, but he was only eight and couldn't pass for twelve, which was the minimum legal age for fishing.

One day when Roger and I were down at the waterfront, he said: “Babe let's take the skiff and go see dad; he's fishing down at Rivers Inlet.” I said “Okay,” and he ran to the crab shack to get the oars. It was locked, but we were determined to go by now and “borrowed” a pike pole and paddle from Allen George's canoe on the beach. We knew what we were doing was wrong. Mom and dad had both told us not to play around the water. We'd taken the boat out without asking several times—sometimes for hours—and mom and dad would worry, telling us how dangerous it was when we finally returned. Nevertheless, we pushed the heavy skiff over some barnacles down to the shore. We didn't know it, but we'd scraped up a few small holes in the bottom. Paddling and poling, we headed up the coast and out toward the ocean, bailing water all the time. After travelling about five miles, we found ourselves at the mouth of the inlet near Lion's Gate Bridge. We couldn't paddle beyond the point no matter how hard we tried. Finally, the ocean current settled us onto the shore. Long hours of paddling and poling had convinced us it was time to go home. But how
were we going to get the skiff back? We sat there a long time trying to figure it out: “Should we leave the skiff and walk back? Or try to make it back against the current, tired as we were?” As we talked it over, an RCMP patrol boat pulled up. The police asked us a few questions, then towed us home. Mom was worried finding us missing and the boat gone and had phoned the
RCMP
after a few hours. At home Roger just kept crying, saying he'd really wanted to visit dad up at Rivers Inlet. Mom told him we'd only gone five miles and it was another 300 to Rivers Inlet. But Roger was still too young to understand much about miles, so the tears kept falling. I was tired and didn't care anymore about Rivers Inlet, just wanting to lie down and rest.

In 1959, when mom became pregnant again with my younger brother, dad left home for good. He yelled at mom, saying she was whoring around with other men, havin' kids that weren't his, and so on. Maybe he was right, but he fooled around plenty too. Since 1947 he would be leaving her for six months to a year at a time. Sometimes she talked to us about how bad it was being without a man in the house, and what it was like when they had no kids. She said Nelson died because dad refused to take him to the hospital—and she would never forgive him for that. Then when he was home they argued and fought a lot about Nelson, Ed and me. Dad just didn't like Ed and kept complaining that I wasn't even his kid. He accused mom of telling us stories when he was gone, trying to make us hate him. But in fact, mom remained loyal to him until long after he'd left her, always telling us he was a good man who just had too many troubles.

Around this time a girl named Karen Thomas—we called her “Toni”—came to live with us. She'd been working in the canneries but was continually being laid off because of strikes or shortages of fish. So she decided to look after us kids while mom worked. She became like an older sister. We would often sit around in the evening and have long discussions—mainly mom and Toni. Sometimes they'd talk about politics. You see, when I was seven mom joined the Communist Party. Two years later there were lots of conflicts and she dropped out. I never found out why, except her saying the communists were real creepy, but since then she's been anti-communist.

With dad gone, we began working after school and didn't have much chance to play. When I was nine I started taking care of my baby brother in the summer while mom worked at the Army & Navy Department Store. She'd always been at home before and now we felt lost without her. We just couldn't understand why she had to go off to work every day and I remember our telling her in childish anguish that we would all work harder if she stayed at home. I was taking in ironing and doing a little baby-sitting outside, but we couldn't make enough to live on. She had a deeply held ethic, handed down from both her family and dad's father, that people ought to work. Government was always trying to put Indians on welfare, but they didn't want it. Government said they were going to take away Indian trapping and fishing rights and put them on welfare—the Indians resisted. Our grandparents had been involved in many anti-welfare struggles.

With mom, it was partly a matter of pride; she didn't want her folks to come out and see her living like that…on government handouts. She would sometimes cry and talk to me, saying she couldn't understand how it was we could work so hard and yet be so poor…and grumbling under her breath that she would never accept their dirty welfare money. So we all worked very hard at the crab shack and various other jobs. Mom was nearly forty and was having a very difficult time carrying George. Once she had been crying and sick for about two days. I cried too. We were very close then. She asked over and over, “Why are we so poor when we work so hard?” She was just talking out loud, but I felt she was asking me and I didn't have an answer. I just wondered alone with her how it was that no matter how hard we worked—my brothers caddying or doing other odd jobs, me ironing, etc.—we never seemed to have anything to eat but the fruit and vegetables we canned. We almost never bought anything. I never wore a regular pair of shoes till I was ten—only runners—and we never had any heat in the house. I also began wondering why most people—white people—didn't like Indians and treated us badly, like we weren't as good as they were. And soon I began to wonder if, or how, we could change the situation we found ourselves in. We seemed
to be caught in the same rut all the time…always runnin' around in the same miserable rut. But I was still far too young and inexperienced to understand the social and class nature of our oppression.

A couple of years later, when I was eleven, mom bought another house. She was one of the few people in the neighbourhood who owned their own place. We got $15,000 for the old house and lot—and I was really happy to leave the mud flats. I always seemed to be sick in that house, with no protection against the cold, wet winters and the wind which constantly whipped in off the ocean. Things got a lot better when we moved into the new place. It had a furnace and central heating. Some of our friends from the Reserve helped us move, but we girls did most of the work as the boys were out fishing.

Then my mother began to change…for the worse, I thought. She quit drinking, stopped running around with men and became very moralistic. But what was bad was that she stopped being the easy-going person we all loved and enjoyed being around. Actually, we thought she was going a bit crazy. She sat and stared a lot, talking to herself and acting in other strange ways. A certain tension filled the house and it scared all of us.

Because mom wanted me to, I started studying the Bible…but I didn't like it. It was full of unbelievable fantasies. As a kid, I thought a lot, but never daydreamed or fantasized. My dreams were mostly of conversations I'd had; I'd remember things that happened and try to figure them out. I was always trying to understand things—why there was air, how we breathed, and so forth. There was something in me that made me conscious of all the little things that happened.

Three months after I entered school I became aware that I was an Indian and that white people didn't like me because of the colour of my skin. I talked about it with kids on the Reserve but they would just say “We don't like whites either.” Even the older people didn't like whites. Many worked in the white communities, around white people, but they had no white friends. Like most of the kids, when some white called me a name or abused me, I fought back. But otherwise I just ignored
them like everyone else, fighting their contempt with silence. Of course, my situation wasn't simple because my old man was white. But when he got drunk and angry with mom he called her a “dirty old squaw.”

By the time I was nine I didn't want anything to do with whites. There were many in my school, but I had no friends and asked no questions in class. When a teacher called on me I just refused to answer. As time went on I became very nervous and uncomfortable at school; I just wanted to be completely away from white people in my daily life. A talent I had in art added to my misfortune. I once made a clay bear and glazed it black, but it came out gray. I tried again, but still it came out gray. My teacher was nice to me and sympathetic. He took my bear around to the other classes and talked about how well it was done. The kids took notice and some told me they really liked it. Of course, I remained passive. I didn't want their compliments, or even to be noticed. I wanted only to be left alone, ignored. Their attention just embarrassed me, and my hatred of that bear grew monstrous in comparison to its size. Because of it I was drawn into the Whiteman's spotlight—a place I wanted to avoid. But I silently accepted the situation—their tolerance, their racism.

After we moved, I went to a new school in Lynn Valley. I remembered that standing up and being introduced to my new class was—after the bear incident—the second most humiliating incident in my life to that point. The teacher then appointed a girl to show me around the school. I really needed it too; I'd become completely introverted, keeping all to myself and rarely talking. My problem was complicated because it was around this time that mom started talking to herself, flying off the handle at nothing, and forgetting things all the time. I thought a lot about it and decided that I didn't ever want to become like her. In fact, I'd reached a point of not wanting anything more to do with either mom or dad. We'd been very close before, mom and me, but now we seemed very far apart.

There was another new girl in my school, named Gertrude. I'd known her in grade two. When I was little I always wanted hair like hers, long and very blonde. Sometimes she teased me
saying, “Don't you wish you had long pretty hair like mine?” It made me very sad and angry. Then one day I was playing with her hair; she'd let me do it because it flattered her. We were in school. Then, as I braided the long blonde strands, I added some of dad's boat glue, which I kept in my desk. I worked it carefully into the braids and by recess they had become hard as a rock. When Gertrude jumped up to flaunt her pony-tail, it swung around and hit her like a stick right in the face. She screamed, then started crying. I was taken to the principal, who gave me a hard strapping. They told mom, but she didn't get angry; in fact she thought it was funny and laughed. “Maybe that'll teach her not to bug you anymore,” she said. By grade six, Gertrude had become a really vain and mean person, but she never bothered me again.

After a time in the new school I started to change a bit. I became a little more relaxed around white people. One of my teachers was a pretty nice guy. I remember reading about various religions and talking to him about why people believed in these strange ideas. He had been to the Soviet Union in 1956 and was a liberal—not at all anti-Russian. I decided that I would like to go visit Russia too. When mom was in the Communist Party she'd subscribed to a magazine called “Soviet Union,” published in Moscow. Sometimes all of us kids would sit around and talk about what we saw and thought. I remember liking the photographs very much—especially the ones of Eskimo dwellings. The idea that they were all alike fascinated me.

This Mr. Cleamens was also my music teacher. He asked why I never sang with the rest of the kids in the chorus. When I didn't reply, he said that if I didn't start singing he would have me stand up in front of the entire class and practice so I would overcome my shyness. But I remained silent in the chorus. Finally, he told me to stand and sing before the class. I don't remember if I uttered a few notes or not; just that I started crying and didn't go to school for the next three weeks. I've never been able to sing…can't even carry a tune. After I returned he allowed me to remain silent. Strangely enough, our choir won several prizes that year.

In grade six my marks improved for the first time. I was a
straight “A” student that year and the next. I also became good friends with a Jewish classmate named Maria von Strassen. Once I even went to synagogue with her. But I decided I didn't want to become Jewish—or any other religion for that matter.

Maria, however, was a very nice girl, and very quiet. Everyone used to pick on her because of her being Jewish, quiet and a good student…I guess. Anyway, I often walked to school with her even though the other girls didn't want anyone to play with or talk to her. Once a gang of them came down on me as I walked to school. They started calling me names and beating up on me. I became furious and ferocious, screaming that if they didn't stop I'd kill them all, one by one. “I'll get every last one of you! No matter how long it takes me! I'll kill you all!” I yelled. But that just made them madder. They sat on me and punched my arm and stomach very hard. I was sick for a couple of days after and wore sweaters so mom and the others wouldn't find out what happened.