Motorcycles & Sweetgrass (30 page)

John had walked from exhibit to exhibit, reading, looking, assessing and plotting. He was finding his afternoon very informative. In fact it was far more than he had expected. He had planned to be in and out of the building quickly after surveying the layout. But the exhibit and what it had to offer had generated in him a legitimate interest, and he took his time reading all the little display cards. John was nothing if not curious.

The first exhibit he came to was about local history. Life in the mid-1800s. Lots of plows, spinning wheels and butter churns. Nothing about Native people in that time period. Evidently they didn’t exist until the Department of Indian Affairs was created after Confederation. John wondered how those poor White women could get anything done wearing all those heavy cotton dresses. He could never understand why Native women so readily switched over to them. Still, it brought back memories.

It took an hour and a half for him to make his way through all the exhibits. As was often the case, John decided to see where his curiosity would take him today. He soon found himself in a different exhibit, this one showcasing canoes from across Canada, boats of varying lengths and designs. Some of which he recognized. Like a kid in a candy store, John studied each and every boat, sometimes making comments to others around him.

“Look at that stitching! That’s not Algonquin! That’s Odawa. Who curated this exhibit anyway? And look at the shade of the pitch on that boat, what does the label say? Woodland Cree! Like hell, the colour’s too dark. I’ve seen that colour pitch on canoes myself. That is one hundred percent Saulteaux. In fact, look at that distinctive stitching design. I think I knew that guy!” A lady with her ten-year-old daughter pointed out that the canoe was supposedly one hundred and fifty years old. John just shrugged, saying, “Well, he did say he built his canoes to last!”

Next he came to the more elaborate West Coast canoes, and he became even more vocal. It was “Haida this” and “Bella Coola that!” There was something wrong, according to him, with practically every single canoe or the information posted. “Look at the dorsal fin on that killer whale, no self-respecting Salish would draw it that way! They’d run him out of the village. Jesus, that’s a Tlingit dorsal fin if ever there was a Tlingit born! I want to talk to the guy who runs things around here!”

Eventually security was called, and even though John protested and ranted about his expertise on the subject of canoe recognition and on the rampant mistakes being perpetrated on the public, the museum staff were not inclined to believe him. He was asked to leave the building and never return, taking his so-called expertise with him.

John stood on the front steps of the building, yelling at the doors closing behind him. “You don’t educate. You mis-educate! If I had the time… !” By now, however, nobody was listening, the doors were closed and he was alone on the steps. Though still agitated, he decided he’d made his point, and crossed the street to a bench, where he patiently sat and waited for the building to close.

As he sat there quietly fuming, an errant memory, stimulated by the day’s adventures, tap-danced across his frontal cortex. Somewhere, a long time ago, he dimly recalled telling somebody, an English collector of some sort, that this genuine authentic Naskapi canoe was in fact Abanaki, and he should buy it and take it back with him to Europe to impress all his friends. In fact, now that he took the time to concentrate on the issue, he realized that he may have done that quite frequently over time. With a lot of canoes, and a lot of academics, among other things. Maybe some of the mistakes in that building across the street were his fault.

“Well, fuck them if they can’t take a joke,” he said aloud, to nobody in particular.

Inside the museum, in the security logbook, a name was written. It was the last name entered on the page. It was the name given to the security guards by a man who had caused a small disturbance in one of the galleries and had been ejected. The guards had laughed as they wrote it down:
John Smith
.

“Uncle Wayne, what exactly do you do over on your island?” Virgil had been wanting to ask this question for a while now. He knew how testy his uncle could be, but there seemed to be no better time than now. The sun was setting, Maggie was inside whipping up some mashed potatoes, corn and Shake ’n Bake pork chops. The boy sat in a lawn chair, finishing his second glass of iced tea, watching his uncle warm up. But warm up for what? Whatever it was, it required him to be barefoot, and shirtless. “Train.”

“I know. You told me that, but train for what?”

“Not for what. For whom. I train for myself. Push myself. Develop myself. Practise for myself. It’s a personal, self-motivated, some unenlightened people might say narcissistic, way of life— to see what I can do, and how good I can get at doing it. I do it to honour our culture. Some people think everything we are is rooted in the past. It is, partially. But like evolution tells us, if things don’t develop, change, evolve, adapt, they die. I believe that. So I and what I do are part of that evolution. My heart and spirit are with our grandfathers and grandmothers, but my hands and feet are in the now. I do what I do to honour our ancestors, knowing that if they lived today they would probably be doing the same thing I am. I may never use what I’ve developed, but it’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.”

Virgil wasn’t quite sure what
narcissistic
was. Wayne had only a basic understanding of what it meant, based on some parting comments made to him by his last girlfriend, who didn’t share his enthusiasm for the direction he wanted to take his life. “You’re crazy!” was the other half of her comment.

Virgil pondered what
narcissistic
might mean as he watched his uncle take a running leap at the side of the brick house and, using only his toes, run up the side of the building, grab the eaves and swing up to the roof, all in less than two seconds. Virgil was impressed.

“That’s training?” he asked.

“That’s what training can train you for.”

“Climbing brick houses?”

“Being prepared for everything. That’s what all martial arts teach you.”

“I’ve never heard of a Native martial art.”

From high atop the house, Wayne smiled. “You have now.”

Maggie’s voice boomed from the window directly underneath her brother. “Wayne! Are you on the roof again? Get down before you damage the shingles. I’ve told you this before. I don’t want you doing that stuff around here.”

Suppressing a groan, Wayne leaped to a nearby tree, grabbed the strongest limb with his right hand, braced his feet against the trunk, and did a cartwheel in mid-air, landing directly where he had been stretching earlier.

“At least your mother’s over being mad at us. You see, Virgil, like most true martial artists, I don’t think of it as a way of fighting. I think of it instead as a way of
not
fighting. I have just adapted many of the same principles used in the development of karate and kung fu, and given them an Indigenous flavour. Wild rice instead of white rice. Get it?” Wayne did the splits, tearing up grass with both feet. As his torso hit the ground, in the blink of an eye he thrust the four fingers on each hand deeply into the ground to anchor his body for his next move.

“Did you know, Virgil, that kung fu was based on the movements of animals? A long time ago, these Chinese monks with nothing better to do would watch how animals moved, and they gradually developed these four schools of kung fu. There was the Monkey, the Tiger, the Snake and the Dragon. There were a few other variations, but essentially those four became the basis for some, if not all, Asian martial arts.”

Still watching Virgil, he leaned on his anchored hands and lifted his legs into an L-shaped position, then straight up, his muscles tight with exertion. In one supple move with blinding
speed—he turned in mid-air so that he was sitting cross-legged in the exact same spot, before the grass from his feet had fallen. Gradually, the grass settled on his head and shoulders.

“It’s amazing the things you teach yourself to do when you live alone on an island.”

“I guess. Is any of this practical?”

“How practical is a video game? And it’s better cardio.”

Virgil couldn’t argue that point. “So that’s what you do all the time? Just hang around your island, learning how to fight people who aren’t there?”

“It’s a lot easier than fighting people who are there. Come here. I want to show you something.”

Virgil got up off his lawn chair and approached his uncle, who by now was standing tall, his toes embedded in the grass. “Take a swing at me,” said Wayne.

“You want me to punch you?”

“If you can. Show me what you got.”

Instinctively, Virgil crouched into a fighting position and threw a punch. The boy had been in two fights his entire life, and one was with a girl, but if pressed, Virgil was sure he could be dangerous. He’d seen enough Rocky and Rambo movies to know something. But evidently not enough to take on Wayne. By the time his arm was fully extended, his uncle was no longer standing in front of him. Wayne was standing on the side of his now-outstretched arm, and he gently bumped him with his shoulder, knocking him off balance. “Again,” Wayne said.

“Okay.” A little embarrassed and a lot intrigued, Virgil scrambled to his feet and took another swing.

This was even easier for Wayne, who pivoted, deflecting the punch with his shoulder, at the same time backing into Virgil and
knocking him down again. During neither encounter had Wayne used his arms or legs as weapons. Just his upper body.

This time, Virgil stayed on the ground, assessing his uncle in a new light. “Cool. Very cool. But I’m sure I’ve seen moves like that in a dozen different martial arts movies. What’s so Aboriginal about all that?”

Wayne helped his nephew to his feet, nervously looking over his shoulder to make sure his older sister hadn’t seen him manhandling her son. “What I just used was called the Marten method, or the Otter Method. Same clan. You see, Virgil, there’re only so many ways to punch, kick, knee or elbow. So there is bound to be a certain amount of similarity in movements. As the saying goes, there’s no particularly Native way to boil an egg. Where it differs is in its origins, and its execution. Everybody can throw a ball. But not everybody can throw it fast, or with a curve, or very hard.”

“Why is it called the Marten method?”

“It’s based on the movements of the marten.”

It took a moment for this to sink in. “The animal. Just like what those Chinese monks did, except you did it with animals around here. I get it. That’s how a marten would move.”

“If it was five foot ten, one hundred and sixty pounds. The martin is a very quick animal. Just when you grab it, it’s gone. And when you get close, it becomes twice as dangerous. The style is geared toward very close fighting, too close for two sets of arms. Do you understand?”

Virgil nodded. He was developing a whole new respect for his uncle. Everything Wayne was saying kinda made sense. “Why marten?”

“It’s one of the seven clans of the Ojibway, the Anishnawbe. It took me a while but I have based a style of fighting on each of the
clans: the crane, loon, fish, bear, hoof or deer, bird and, of course, the marten. A unique style of combat completely influenced by the animals themselves, their strengths, abilities, their particular defences and so on. Do you think your uncle is so crazy now?”

That was a question Virgil still wasn’t willing to answer just yet. “A fish? A fish-based martial art? I’m sorry, but fish aren’t exactly known as powerful or dangerous animals. How do they fight?”

“Ah, a smart-though-naive question, my young nephew,” he said, briefly adopting an elderly Chinese accent. “The entire focus of the Fish method is geared toward escape. Toward getting away. To prevent being captured or hurt.” Wayne put his jean jacket on and once more stood in front of him. “Okay, let’s have some more fun. Grab me.”

Rushing in, he grabbed his uncle’s arms and started wrestling, but before he had a chance to do anything substantially offensive, Wayne had slipped out of his jacket by bending forward and letting it slide up his body, still in the boy’s grip, and somehow had wrapped it around Virgil’s arms several times, incapacitating him.

Once more, Virgil was surprised and impressed. “The Fish method,” he said, with a trace of awe.

Wayne unwrapped his jacket from around Virgil.

“And all those broken branches on the island? That thing you do by snapping your wrist?” Virgil asked.

“Hoof method. Quick, short movements. Incredibly powerful and effective. Like being hit with a hoof. I also try to incorporate the roles of each clan into their style. For instance, both the Crane and Loon clans are responsible for chieftainship and government. Therefore, their movements have to be respectful, decisive and considerate of both parties. The Marten clan, on the other hand, are hunters, warriors, master strategists in planning
the defence of their people, so their actions are more aggressive, thought-out and effective. Like karate and kung fu, it’s more defensive than offensive. I call the whole thing Aangwaamzih.”

“What does Ang… aang…?”

Wayne shook his head in disappointment. “Kids and their knowledge of Anishnawbe. You should be ashamed of yourself. Aangwaamzih. It means ‘watching out for yourself.’ That’s what all martial arts pretty much try to teach you. Aangwaamzih included.”

They both heard the patio door opening and saw Maggie come out onto the deck, drying her hands.

“Okay, boys, hope you worked up an appetite. Dinner’s ready.”

Wayne sniffed the air. “Ah yes, Shake ’n Bake. One of the three greatest inventions of White people. And I have indeed worked up quite the appetite.” Before entering the house, Wayne put his T-shirt back on and cleaned his feet of all grass and dirt. Maggie stepped aside as he entered the house.

“Virgil?”

“Be there in a second, Mom.”

Nodding, Maggie returned to her kitchen duties, leaving Virgil alone on the back lawn, wondering about all he had just observed. He looked down and could see where his uncle’s feet had ripped up the grass, where his fingers had dug into the hard ground with surprising ease. Under the tree he saw the dislodged bark from Wayne’s dismount from the roof.