Road Tales/Rode Tails - New School

New School

My new school was called Central Junior High. It was located at Belknap Street and Cumming Avenue. It would be a few months before I got the joke about the name of the avenue. Even though I’d played strip clubs in Fat City, I was still terribly naïve. I still thought that head was a body part that sat on the shoulders. And that dick was a nickname for Richard.

The school was a brownstone monstrosity that had originally been the high school in Superior back when there were fewer people. My dad had gone to this school but quit in the 11^th grade to join the Army in WWII.

In front of the school stood a large bust of Jim Dan Hill, a industrialist who made his fortune building a railroad with government money and original growth trees from the surrounding forests. I took this statue as a bad omen about the school. I would soon find out how right my instincts were.

I was in seventh grade at this point. They discussed holding me back because I’d missed half a year and had come from the illiterate state of Louisiana, but I passed a series of tests that showed I was at college level. Of course, they wouldn’t put me in college because I was only 12. I got the old “he needs to stay with his peers” argument. Peers? What peers? I could read and write at college level or beyond. I knew science better than the science teacher. I had studied actual rocket science. I not only knew historical dates, but actually understood the socio-economic pressures that influenced the events. I played in a rock band making more than most of my teachers. Who the hell else in that school could do all that? I didn’t have any peers in this school.

I was also gawky with military-issue horn rimmed glasses, buzz cut hair, and my skin was so much darker than the rest of the pasty white people that it was scary. They looked like vampires had sucked all the blood from their body.

On my first day I got a taste of what my black friends in New Orleans dealt with. I was obviously an Indian. Most of these wasicu kids had been taught by their parents that Indians were shiftless, sneaky, savage drunkards. They were taught that all Indians lived off the public dole, were dirty and lazy, and weren’t good enough to mix with wholesome white people.

I recall particularly one painful class on that first day. The subject was Industrial Arts – Drafting. I had recently read Ayn Rand’s incredible novel The Fountainhead and thought that I might want to be an architect. Drafting was a required course for architecture students. I found the classroom late, down a long, dark, locker-lined hallway. The only remaining seat was in the left, back corner. I took my seat, a stool sitting in front of tall, slanted drafting table, constructed by a preceding wood shop class. The teacher stood near the blackboard a good 10 yards away calling row. A tall, dark kid sat on a stool behind the drafting table to my right. He answered when they called Mark O’Connell. I answered when my name was called: Blackwater, Armond. I noticed O’Connell scowling at me out of the corner of my right eye as I replied, “Here”.

Upon completion of the roll the teacher turned toward the blackboard and suddenly I felt a stabbing pain in my right shoulder blade. I looked right to see O’Connell retracting the T-Square from hitting me and winding up for another strike. I ducked the next swing. The teacher turned back to address the class with his annual indoctrination speech. O’Connell righted himself and smiled toward the front with an angelic smile that disappeared when the teacher looked down to read notes that weren’t there.

“Fucking Indian,” O’Connell spat at me.

I stood stunned. I knew the word Indian, but the new word “fucking” was new to me. I judged from his demeanor that the word emphasized a racial slur against redskins.

The word “fucking” was almost never used back in 1965. This was the first time I had heard the word. I had no idea what it meant, or how important it would become by the next century. I could not perceive what I had done to anger this kid in the 5 minutes since I entered the classroom.

We all listened intently for a few minutes while the teacher blathered on about the importance of what he was about to boringly teach us. The next time he turned toward the blackboard O’Connell grabbed me in a headlock and started banging the top of my head with his knuckles. I wrenched myself loose therein dislodging and moving my drafting table causing a low sickening groan to emit from the base of the table.

“Blackwater,” shouted the teacher, “Do you have a balance problem back there?”

I looked at O’Connell who was looking toward Heaven like a righteous choir boy and realized that complaint would only result in more pain in the future. Mr. O’Neil was not going to take my side in the battle between Blackwater and O’Connell.

“No sir,” I said in my most obedient military voice.

“Stop fooling around and pay attention,” the teacher scolded as he recorded my name on his shit list and then returned to his notes.

“I’m going to kick your nuts in, fucking Indian,” O’Connell hissed at me as I stood and shook.

I hadn’t been in many fights in my life to that point. My fight record at that point was 0 wins and all losses. I sprinted out the door when the bell rang to my next class, German. The next day, I walked in terror to the Drafting class where I received another chop from the T-Square wielding O’Connell and more racial epithets.

I avoided him that afternoon but in so doing I ran into Bob Begonia who knocked me to the street to munch on gravel. I told my dad what happened, to which I received his patented First Shirt response, “You’ve got to learn to fight your own battles, son.”

Ok, teach me. You fought in the second wave of Omaha Beach and the Battle of the Bulge. Teach me how to fight. That was my brain screaming not my mouth.

The next day it was Sal Mortarano’s turn to ring the bell with my balls. As I stumbled toward home another Italian looking kid socked me in the face about ten times.

I was a bloody mess when I got home. When dad asked what had happened I lied, “I fell,” pausing, “several times.” He didn’t probe further. Apparently, I was learning some lesson that he believed I needed to learn.

A few days later I looked like I had been dragged on my face by a bus for a few hundred miles. The girl sitting in front of me in English class turned sheepishly to look at me as she had done all week, but this time she gasped, “What happened to you?”

“I fell,” was my guarded reply.

“It’s the eye-talin kids, idn’t it,” Loraine asked.

I stared into her sincere brown eyes and couldn’t lie, “Yes.”

“You come home wit me atter schoo,” commanded the Ojibwa girl.

She was beyond pudgy, too fat to even be called Rubenesque, and missing several teeth important to a smile, yet her heart reached to mine. “Yes, I will.”

Loraine Lafontaine waited for me by my locker as the school-ending bell rang. I was about ninety yards away when I first saw her. My brain struggled to find an excuse to not accompany her, but then I spied O’Connell coming from one direction and Mortarano from the other. Shamefully, I chose the path to Loraine. The two bullies sped up toward me until I reached my locker and they saw Loraine. Then, each mysteriously diverted to alternate destinations. Weird, I thought.

I opened my locker, deposited my load of books and notepads, and slammed it shut as Loraine grasped my left forearm leading me toward the Cummings Avenue exit.

Once out of that dark dungeon of a school Loraine tugged me toward the North End, the opposite direction of the route to my house. She immediately began quizzing me about New Orleans and my previous life. Occasionally, she would squeeze my arm and hug me around the waste. Loraine was short. The top of her head came up to just bellow my nipples. She had a strong grip in both arms and powerful legs.

Soon, I became comfortable with Loraine’s affectionate advances as we walked toward the lower end of Superior near the waterfront. We talked: I talked; she listened until we reached 314 John Avenue, her house. She marched me to the rear of the house and into a dilapidated garage. We walked into a dark, dank crumble filled with scowling Indian kids. I was fairly certain this was a trap and that these would be my final moments in this life. These were some scary looking kids. Custer looked into eyes like these on his last day on Earth.

“Brother, this is Armond Blackwater, a Nakota Sioux,” she announced. “The eye-talin kiss.” She didn’t need to explain further. My face told the story. She hugged me around the waste. I became aroused with her face so close to my new favourite toy. “He’s good.”

The tallest Ojibwa in the garage, Loraine’s brother, Buster, stepped before me, scouring me with penetrating eyes.

“Hoka hey,” said Buster Lafontaine.

“Hoka hey,” I burst in relief. “It is a good day to die!”

Buster laughed, stepped forward and embraced me, “Yes, it is a good day to die, my brother.”

Dig this picture. I had 6-foot-3 Buster Lafontaine hugging my shoulders while his little sister hugged my ass, her hot breath moistening my scrotum.

“You have nothing to fear, my brother,” said Buster.

“Nothing,” said Loraine peering at my face over my belt buckle.

Catching the vibe, the other kids in the room chanted, “Hoka hey. Hoka hey. Hoka hey.” I had never felt safer in my life, not even with the US Army surrounding me.

Loraine dragged me out of the garage and into the shabby house where she introduced me to her mother. “This is Armond Blackwater, my boyfriend,” she announced.

“Blackwater,” her mother said. “That’s not Chippewa.”

“No, ma’am” I blushed. “I am Nakota.”

“Hoka hey,” she burst forth hugging me even lower than Loraine had. Then, she jostled my jewels and jabbered something to Loraine in Ojibwa, to which, Loraine grinned and jostled said privates while jabbering a response in Ojibwa. I’m not sure if they were complimenting or denigrating, but it felt better than having my nuts kicked in.

They sat me at the kitchen table. Loraine talked to me, smiling like I was a great jewel she had just discovered, while her mother mixed and cooked fry bread that rivaled my grandmother’s for tastiness. Fry bread is a dish created by Indians out of the basic rations the government provided: flour, lard, and sugar.

Before long, the kids from the garage joined us as Loraine’s mother plucked fry bread from the sizzling cast iron pan. Lips smacked, eyes smiled, and love was exchanged while souls shared in Momma Lafontaine’s kitchen treats.

In the midst of the reverie, Momma Lafontaine pointed at me speaking something in Ojibwa while the kids in the room nodded sincerely. Then, she said something that made them all laugh and embrace me. I don’t recall her words but I’ll never forget the feeling. Loraine was truly her daughter.

My perception of Loraine as a fat, unattractive girl evaporated, replaced with a vision of loveliness that remains in my heart to this day. I recalled the words of Rimbaud, “Last night I held beauty in my arms, but I found her bitter, and I insulted her.”

Tears came to my eyes, tears that Loraine understood. She knew that she was beautiful. And she recognized that now I saw it to.

Loraine Lafontaine, Chippewa girl, was my first girlfriend.

At school the following Monday, my nemesis kept their distance and again on Tuesday, and Wednesday. I walked Loraine home each of those days.

Loraine missed school on Thursday. I quickly detected a group of my enemies as I began the three mile walk home from Central JH. I didn’t run. I wasn’t about to show fear, even if I was scared shitless.

At 21^st and Hammond, the ass-kickers started running toward me. I shook like I’d never shaken before. “So, this is what racism really feels like,” I said out loud to no one.  I stopped to face the posse at 23^rd and Hammond, certain that my ass was about to be kicked like it had never been kicked before.

The wasicu posse closed in screaming, ironically like wild Indians, with flailing arms, heaving chests, and drooling jowls toward their prey: me. Out of nowhere came a silent explosion of Ojibwa teens cutting across the wasicu line like Crazy Horse slicing through Custer’s troops. Disoriented as the 7^th Cavalry, the wasicu scattered in every direction with nil success. Buster Lafontaine and my new Chippewa brothers cut through the enemy like a superbly sharpened lawn mower.

As the conflagration subsided, Loraine walked out and hugged me, “You no have worry no more.” I hugged her tight, tighter than anyone before her. I was now seeing the beauty in this girl’s soul. I didn’t care what my so called peers had to say about her. I was proud to be her boyfriend. Piss on anyone who didn’t like it. I didn’t need friends like that anyway. “You can’t judge a book by its cover” resounded in my head.

I looked around me seeing blood everywhere in the snow, Italian blood. It was a beautiful sight to behold. We walked the two miles back to North End together, Loraine clutching my forearm. My brothers relived the glory of the fight.

“We sure kicked the fuck out of them,” said Daniel Swift Arrow.

There was that word again. I wanted to ask its meaning but pride prevented me.  I tried looking the word up in the dictionary, but it wasn’t there. That meant it was a “dirty” word, as words of that sort were referred to back then.

Loraine’s mother made fry bread again for us and coffee, hot black coffee. The combination was delicious. She offered us milk but I spied the large sack of powdered milk, the same disgusting shit that we had at home that gagged me when I tried to drink it. So, I politely declined. Real milk was too expensive for people at our level of society. We ate, slurped, and talked.

The Lafontaine’s were a joyous family. Their father worked on the ore boats year-round and was seldom home. Even though it was winter and ships couldn’t sail out of the frozen harbor, their dad worked maintaining and refurbishing ships or standing watch.

Their mother was the center of their world. She was a wonderful woman, warm, gregarious, and always smiling or singing an old tribal song. It was clear where Loraine got her girth from. Her mother had the same beach ball shape, round face, and sparkling eyes.

Soon, other siblings joined us in the kitchen. Brother Auggie was similarly proportioned with that same joy in his eyes. When Sister Mary entered I did a double-take. She looked exactly like Loraine. I asked if they were twins but they assured me they were nearly a year apart in age. The resemblance was remarkable. How was I going to tell them apart? Oh yeah, Loraine was the one attached to my arm and rubbing her leg against mine under the table.

When I finally returned home that night Tad was outside waiting for me, anybody to mess around with. It was too dark to do much of anything. So, we occupied ourselves with snowball target practice and talking. Eventually, I worked up the nerve to ask him what the word fuck meant. For a kid that wasn’t too bright and had been left back a grade or two in school he certainly knew all about the word. He went on to add several more phrases to my vocabulary, like: cock, prick, dick, cocksucker, blow job, butt-fuck, 69 (which he drew in the snow to illustrate), pussy, snatch, and cunt. Tad proved to be a veritable dirty word encyclopedia. He quite eloquently explained the various ways that fuck could be used in a sentence. He was 14 and hadn’t mastered the multiplication tables yet, but he could swear like a seasoned sailor. I couldn’t wait until I could impress my new friends with my worldly knowledge.

The next day I trod softly to the Drafting class, attempting to avoid my tormentors, however there were none to be seen. I moved carefully around Mark O’Connell taking care not to make eye contact with him. Class time went by with no incident. Mark grabbed his book and darted out of the room at the sound of the bell. I remained wary as I walked to my locker, but no threat arose.

I did run into Auggie in the hall. He invited me to spend the night at their house. It sounded like a great idea to me. I wouldn’t have to listen to my parents drink and argue all night. I could hang out with my red brothers doing whatever it was they did on a Friday night. I called home from a pay phone to clear it with my mother, found Loraine, and walked her home to 314 John.

Road Tales/Rode Tails - Doors Of Perception

Doors Of Perception

I recall six of us travelling to Bad River Res on a warm Sunday in late July, 1967. Buster Lafontaine drove with one hand on the wheel and the other arm tightly wrapped around his girlfriend Nampao (nam-pay-oh), Snake Woman or Snake as most referred to her. Loraine and Mary Lafontaine sat between Champlain and me in the back seat. Patty O’Leary was off with her parents doing some sort of Catholic retreat thing for the week.

Buster diverted onto Lemieux Road, which brought us to a nameless dirt trail. We abandoned the car and set out to walk even further into nowhere amidst towering pines and poplar eventually arriving at an old faded yellow school bus, which was the residence of an old Chippewa named Joe. I wondered aloud how the fuck he’d gotten the school bus back to this remote quadrant of Earth. The woods were far too thick to allow passage of even a bicycle let alone a monstrosity like that bus.

Buster talked to Joe in Ojibwa requesting his assistance aiding our party in entering the spirit world. The old man stood in front of each of us in turn evaluating our auras. He invited us to sit around his campfire that sat in a pit that had been dug decades before. This old man had lived out there a long, long time. I guessed that the bus was a rather recent addition to his camp. Joe built the fire higher and hotter as a large pot of water steamed in the center to which he added piles of mushrooms.

As we waited for the naboob (soup) to boil and steep, the old man told us the story of how the Great Waken Tanka had sewed the Earth with mushrooms so that his children would have a path to commune with their ancestors. I was amazed that this man spoke English quite eloquently.

Joe asked our names and various questions about each of us. He roared when Buster’s girlfriend told him her name was Nampao. He excused himself for the outburst then explained that his grandfather had warned him to stay away from Nampao because “Snake woman copulates with horses.”

Quick witted Buster said, “That is true. I am quite a stud.” The group roared together hearing that boast.

Joe ladled naboob into Army surplus metal cups for each of us and himself. He toasted us all with an Ojibwa phrase and then translated it to “See you on the other side.” With that ominous thought in mind we sipped and slurped the soup, which was the foulest tasting liquid I had ever put in my mouth. My stomach tried to say no but my brain said swallow. I noticed that my compatriots were all suppressing the urge to hurl, as well. The old man laughed at the faces we made. Undaunted, we all finished our soup in short order.

Joe ordered Buster into the sweat lodge first. At the far end of the fire pit stood a small teepee made of poplar frame covered by deer skin hides. In the fire pit sat dozens of rocks. Buster stripped down to nothing, entered the sweat lodge and dragged a few piping hot rocks in with him. It is amazing how quickly a few rocks heated in a fire pit can raise the temperature inside a sweat lodge to the 140 to 160 degree range. I could hear the hiss of steam as Buster poured water over the rocks.

The woods began changing colours. I suddenly could see tiny creatures crawling on branches, munching leaves, and jumping from branch to branch, leaf to leaf. The naboob was taking effect. I noticed that my friends were all grinning then realized that I was smiling as well. An overwhelming feeling of serenity washed over me.

Buster burst out of the sweat lodge and immediately began dancing in circles and figure eights. Nampao stripped to nothing and entered the sweat lodge. One by one we all stripped to nothing taking our turn in the sweat lodge. I saw an uncle that I had never known. He told me that I must never forget the old ways, that I must never lose track of the center of the universe. I heard Sioux ancestors singing and saw them dancing the Sun Dance around the fire in a ritual, thanking Waken Tanka for all that He had provided. “Break on through to the other side, yeah.”

Upon emerging I laid on my back to watch the clouds. I had a brief conversation with a hawk soaring above me. The world was spinning about me, trees danced tiptoe on their roots, and the wind sang a beautiful song. All this happened in a minute or a month, I wasn’t sure. At some point, Loraine pulled me up and off into the woods where she threw me down and mounted me. It was then that I realized how horny the mushrooms had made me. Sex was exactly what my body was craving, though I hadn’t thought of it on my own.

The next overwhelming sensation was thirst. We crawled, or walked, or floated to a nearby brook that delivered delicious, clear, cold liquid. Water had never tasted that marvelous before. Once sated with water we both realized that we were itching and scratching all over. Giant mosquitoes were snacking on us. The pesky insects have such a short lifespan in the Wisconsin tundra that they have evolved into Marvel Comic super-bugs that are referred to locally as the State Bird.

We returned our naked, bitten bodies back to the fire where the old man sat by himself, naked, brewing more psychedelic broth. We eagerly drank more of the potent beverage that sustained our tripping minds. Everything around us was brighter and more vivid than anything had ever been.

Two by two our companions returned after their own mad copulations among the tripping woods. I got the urge to sing so I pulled my guitar from the car and began strumming folk standards while my friends sang along.

“Goodbye, Joe me got go, Me oh my oh,

Me gotta go float a pirouette down the bayou

My Loraine, sweetest thang, Me oh my oh,

Son of a gun gonna have big fun on the bayou.

Oh, Jambalaya, crawfish pie, filet gumbo

For tonight I’m gonna see my Chera Mio,

Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay oh,

Son of a gun gonna have big fun on the bayou.”

After singing that song somebody asked me what the fuck a bayou was. I was the only one there who had actually been in bayou before. So, I told them all tales of life as a Cajun on the bayou. Then, onto the story of how the Acadian’s had been banished from France to Acadia and how the worst of that lot were further banished to the swamps of southern Louisiana and that the word Acadian was shortened by the lazy French tongues of the South to Cajun.

They loved my stories of alligators large enough to swallow a man in one bite, of cottonmouth and coral snakes so poisonous that one injection of their venom could paralyze and kill a horse. I spun the tales wild and grandiose to my eager listeners. The old man called me a natural storyteller, saying that I must come from a long line of shaman. I hadn’t thought of myself in that light before, but I realized that he was correct. My dad was a great storyteller who aided many with his wisdom. Granny Blackwater had been an entertainer and sage advisor to generations. Great-grandfather Blackwater had led his tribe away from the murderous wasicu soldiers to the safety and freedom of Canada. I was the descendant of storytellers, of shaman, of tribal healers.

My stature among my actual peers raised that day.

I played the new Door’s songs that I just learned for them as the sun set on our encampment. The old man passed out venison jerky that fed our spirit as well as our bellies. I awakened that day, feeling one with the earth, the trees, the deer, the beaver, the bear, and even the mosquito.

The old man passed the pipe after dark with what I presumed would be marijuana but tasted much sweeter and hurt the lungs. That wasn’t pot in that pipe. It was dried and ground peyote. Another level of hallucinations flooded in as the old man took over the role of storyteller.

“There are two wolves that live in your mind, one with light silvery gray fur the other dark gray, nearly black.

“The light gray wolf is peaceful and seeks a gentle path with respect for all. This wolf will lead your heart on a fruitful journey through a satisfying life.

“The dark gray wolf seeks to feed on prey, the weaker the better. He wants to destroy all that is in his path. If left unrestrained he will eventually lead to your destruction.

“These wolves fight constantly for domination of your mind and your body. Only one can win.

“Can you tell me which wolf will win?”

We said no as a group.

“The one who will win is one that you feed. Feed the good one and he will surely win because he will grow stronger.”

What an incredible message to trip on. I could feel the two wolves within me. I knew them both. I had fed the bad wolf too much already. I needed to cut off his food source and feed the good wolf.

The answer was so clear.

Road Tales/Rode Tails - Ultimatum

Ultimatum

There is an old Cajun joke that goes something like this. Boudreaux and Fontenot were walking down a deserted country road late on a Friday night. Boudreaux says to Fontenot, “The next time you tell the girls to fuck or walk… make sure that we’re driving.”

With May came more madness, more anti-war protests, and a general unrest in the nation. Nine kids took over the Selective Service office in Maryland and burned a bunch of records before the authorities swooped in to crush the dissenters. The government had recently renamed the Draft Board to the Selective Service to put a more positive spin on their evil deeds.

On May 24^th, a teacher entered our English class and asked for Loraine Lafontaine and me. The Principal wanted to see us. I’ll admit that I trembled a bit while we were being escorted to the office. We found Mary, Champlain, and Auggie had been summoned to the office, too.

“What’s going on?” I asked. Nobody knew.

It has never been a good sign when officials round up Indians. Nothing good ever comes of that.

The principal finally entered the room, but with a new face. He normally looked quite serious and stern. That day, however, he looked sad and downtrodden with the weight of the planet on his heart. I guessed what he was about to say. I knew precisely what he was going to say. We all knew what he was going to say. He had already said it with his demeanor. I fought back tears as he delivered the horrific news. Mary and Loraine quivered as unrestrained grief entered their hearts, their heads drooping from the weight of the words that hung in the cumulous cloud of air that engulfed the office.

“I am… I… Um, I regret to inform you that Corporal Buster Lafontaine has been killed in action in Viet Nam.” Our wailing shook the windows of the office. Our brother, leader, spirit guide, and best friend that anyone could ever hope to find, was dead. He was… dead. This just couldn’t be true. There had to be a mistake. Buster was too strong. Buster was invincible. He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t. My worst fears had been realized. The dread that I felt months before proved to be a premonition that I was powerless, we all were powerless to stop.

We hugged each other, crying together, grieving together.

“You are excused from school today,” the principal said. We filed out of his office, out of the school, and walked to North End. We would have left the planet if that had been possible. The house at 314 John was already filled with Ojibwa mothers trying to console Momma Lafontaine, but nothing eases the pain of losing a child. No words, no looks, no hugs, nothing eases the pain of losing a child.

A bunch of us jumped into Buster’s Yellow ’57 Chevy and drove to Wisconsin Point. We built a fire from driftwood collected along the beach. Dancing and chanting around the fire we unleashed our grief so that Gitche Manitou would know of our love for our fallen brother.

“Hoka hey, hoka hey – it is a good day to die.”

The skies grew ominously gray. A thunderstorm brought tears of Gitche Manitou, who grieved with us, down from the heavens.

I felt the bad wolf inside me growing in strength, feeding upon my pain, and reveling in my misery. I wanted to lash out at something or someone, but mostly the stupid government.

I didn’t call Patty until late in the evening that Friday, which was very unusual. She didn’t understand my words at first, thought I must be drunk, or tripping, or having a stroke, until she finally assembled my blubbering into a cogent thought. “Oh my God, I am so incredibly sorry, Armond. I don’t know… words just…” and her voice trailed off into tears. I knew she couldn’t get out that night as relatives from Ireland were visiting, yet I needed her more than I had ever needed anyone.

Her mother picked up the phone, “What did you say to her?” she demanded. I could hear Patty wailing in the background, suffering as I was, but not able to be with me. Not able to comfort me or obtain comfort from me, the enormity of the happening broke her down as it had me. “What did you say to her?” Her mother insisted. I couldn’t catch my breath to talk nor did I really want to. I hung up the phone on the desperate woman at the other end.

Most of the crowd at the Ramble Inn knew Buster, either personally or by reputation. None but the band had yet heard of Buster’s death.

“Today, we learned,” I choked, “that our brother Buster Lafontaine was killed in combat in Viet Nam.” Shrieks, cries, anguish, “Oh God no,” filled the room.

Jack Ghostly stepped up to his mike sensing that I was about to lose all control of myself, “The name of our group is Die Nasty,” he emphasized. “We are the ones who must force change in this country, or we will all Die Nasty. But right now, we are going to rock… rock our asses off in honor of Buster and the entire Lafontaine tribe.” With that Loraine, Mary, Champlain, Auggie, Rita, and Oscar Deutsch, the Queen of the North End pushed in from the back of the crowd and started a circular tribal dance in front of the band.

Dynasty played upbeat songs to break the sad mood. We celebrated Buster’s life, his spirit, his huge heart, his impact and influence on all our lives. Our message was that a person’s life is not measured by how they die, but how they lived and who they were while they lived.

Later that night, after the gig, several Indian brothers and I drove to the local Selective Service office in Superior on Tower Avenue near the North End. We had armed ourselves with bricks and bats. I hurled a cinder block through the large window fronting Tower. Inside, we smashed and tipped over everything in sight. I spray painted “Fuck War” on the wall. The flurry of destruction of the office took less than five minutes, yet it was a thorough demolition. We stopped short of torching the place because other businesses were attached and occupied apartments set above. We weren’t murderers. We held all life sacred.

It was Memorial Day weekend, 1968.

~~~

Thus far, 1968 was living up to my expectation that it would be a bad year. The year was sucking pretty hard. The beginning of my fatalistic attitude about life began around that time. I was convinced that my life would be short, that I would die young, long before my time. There seemed to be so many forces conspiring against me. Life expectancy for an Indian in this country was about 40 years. Suicide was the leading cause of teenage Indian deaths. Fucking Viet Nam! The Fucking Draft. Diabetes struck the majority of Indians. Alcoholism infected 75% of our reservations. And if I didn’t die I had a large chance of going insane. My mother was schizophrenic, which was a hereditary mental disease. All my mother’s relatives were fucking nuts.

Dynasty played a gig at a resort in Barnes, Wisconsin on my 15^th birthday. Patty accompanied me. We started drinking early, the death of Buster still hung heavy in my heart, and I was fairly drunk when the gig started. I may have missed a few notes here and there but nobody noticed. Patty got annihilated. Too drunk to fuck, at first – no skinny dipping because it was June 1^st and the water temp was still in the low 50’s – we humped drunkenly in a nearby boat house.

In the days following, a new sense of foreboding overtook me. Something was wrong. Patty seemed bothered of late. I could tell that something was askew in her life, but didn’t know what it was and she wouldn’t tell me. She seemed distant much of the time. No matter what I said she wouldn’t open up

Finally, I broke her down on the 4^th of June at Jack Ghostly’s birthday party, which is why I remember the date so distinctly, Jack and I were born three days and three years apart, him being the elder. Patty confided that her mother had been diagnosed. It was cancer. In 1968, cancer meant certain death. For months her mother had become weaker by the day. The doctors didn’t give her much time to live, a month, maybe more, but she wouldn’t see the New Year.

Frankly, I didn’t know what to say. I talked about the cycles of life, but that talk didn’t help Patty one bit. Patty and her mother were very close, more like best friends than mother and daughter. I suddenly saw a new dimension to Mrs. O’Leary’s panicked question of me the preceding week. I felt terrible that I had hung up on her – had hung up on a dying woman. I didn’t know. In my grief I had forgotten that others might have grief outside of mine.

Patty felt guilty, that perhaps her wicked ways had somehow brought on her mother’s illness. I told Patty that she was being silly, that she was not the cause. Have you ever seen an Irish girl when she gets mad? I thought I had, but really I hadn’t up until that moment.

“What do you fucking know about it?” she croaked through tears. “Is your mother dying?”

“No, mine is in the crazy house,” I replied.

She cried a bunch of other words that I made no sense of and then she demanded, “I need you here.”

“I am here,” I said.

“No, you’re not,” she argued. “You’re going away.”

“You mean the tour?” I asked.

“Yes, you’re going away and you won’t be here when I need you most.”

“I’ll only be gone for a few weeks,” I lied. We expected to be gone most of June and July.

“That’s not true. You’re scheduled for seven weeks. You’re going to San Francisco and back. She could die at any time. I need you here with me. I need you to stay. Don’t go.”

“I’m not sure that I can do that,” I said. “There are four other guys involved. If I don’t go they can’t go. We would have to cancel the tour. And there’s another band involved. We’ve signed contracts.”

“Cancel the tour, then. I need you here.”

“I’ll have to think about it. I’ll have to talk it over with the guys. The tour is important to them and me.”

“If you really love me you’ll stay.”

“I do really love you, but it’s not just me involved here. It is more complicated than that,” I tried to argue my point.

“Well, you’re going to have to decide,” she said. “Is it me or the band that you love most?”

“I’ll have to think about it,” I said.

“If you really loved me you wouldn’t have to think about it.”

This was my first experience playing the if-you-really-love-me game. I didn’t know the rules or penalties. I just knew that she was asking me to scuttle the plans of four people that I cared about and she was being quite simplistic about the whole matter. I did love her, as much as any kid can experience love at age 15, but I loved music more. Music was everything to me. Music was “my only friend, until the end,” as Morrison had so eloquently stated.

Could things get any worse? I thought. My answer came later that evening from old Uncle Walter Cronkite. “Robert F. Kennedy has been shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. We have few details at this time, but we have been told that a priest is at his bedside giving him the last rights.”

Bobby Kennedy, as the young generation knew him, was a breath of fresh air, an anti-war candidate for president, and the one person that we felt could save the nation. We would all return to the days of Camelot with a Kennedy back in the White House. Bobby would end the war in Viet Nam. He would bring our soldiers home where they belonged. All that promise and hope died with Robert Kennedy that day.

On Friday, I said a teary goodbye to Patty knowing that it meant the end of our relationship. I had to do the tour. I really had no choice in the matter. I quoted lines from Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra”:

“O, man, take good care.

What does the deep midnight declare?

That all joy wants eternity

Wants deep

Wants deep eternity”

The words seemed fitting to me, but not to Patty.

“You are an ass,” she said. “Have fun on your fucking tour.”

Road Tales/Rode Tails - Cabin Fever

Cabin Fever

Bad news came around the 1^st of November when Buster Lafontaine learned that he had been drafted. We threw a big party for him down in the North End in the garage at 314 John. It was a nervous affair because Patty insisted on coming with me. All that Patty cared about was the beer and wine. She brought her own whiskey. I couldn’t protest too much lest she become suspicious. I wasn’t sure what the sisters Lafontaine might say or do. Would they be jealous? Would they inform Patty of my unfaithfulness? Would I still have balls in the morning?

Everything was cool, though. Loraine and Mary had their own guys in tow and everyone focused upon Buster who was scheduled to leave before Thanksgiving. It was impossible to think of life without Buster. We asked him to be very careful. One guy offered to shoot him in the leg to get him out of it.

“Naw, it will be cool. I’ve fought tougher guys than the Viet Cong,” he said bravely. “I’ll be just fine. Hell, it looks like they’ve got Charlie on the run. That war will probably be finished before I get out of basic training.”

I had a bad feeling about it all. I was worried for Buster. He was an Indian going into the military, which meant he’d be assigned to a mostly black battalion. Black battalions were always the first into battle. Even though the military had been officially integrated for over a decade and officially banned racism, the fact was that most of the officers and First Shirts (high ranking enlisted men) were from The South and this was still the 60’s and people of colour were far more dispensable than whites.

Patty noticed Loraine and Champlain disappear up the ladder to the loft. She looked at me and said, “What are they gonna do up there?” in a voice that indicated she knew full well what they were going to do up there.

I played dumb, “I don’t know,” I replied in a voice that confirmed that they were going into the loft to fuck. “What could a guy and a girl do in a loft?”

Somehow, I survived the night having no secrets revealed. I wasn’t sure how my Wild Irish Patty would react if she found out what I’d been up to in the loft and I sure didn’t want to find out.

We said goodbye to Buster around midnight and walked through the crisp air back to Patty’s house. The feeling of foreboding wouldn’t leave me. I told Patty, “I don’t know why, but I have this sick feeling that I’ll never see Buster again.”

She tried to reassure me, “Like he said, the war is almost over. The US will win. We always win. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“I certainly hope so, but… I wish this feeling would go away.”

~~~

Thanksgiving zoomed by, as did Christmas, and before we knew it a New Year was staring us in the face. I wasn’t ready for a new year. I liked the old year. I had so much fun in 1967 that I didn’t want it to ever end.

Dynasty rang in the New Year down in Hayward at the ski resort. We were playing a new song that hit the airwaves in early December titled “Incense and Peppermint” by a band named The Strawberry Alarm Clock. It was a cool tune with great organ parts and the crowd really dug it. We played it at least three times that night by request. It was quite a drunken night for all at the ski lodge. It was like nobody else wanted the year to end either.

Somehow, Patty managed to juke her parents into believing that she was going skiing with the girls. Either her parents were extremely gullible or they trusted that their daughter knew what she was doing. Patty got totally shitfaced that night. It was a good thing her parents didn’t know what was really going on.

Drinking always made Patty more amorous. At the stroke of midnight she was on the stage with me behind the organ. I had recently changed to playing in sweat pants with no underwear, which Patty didn’t approve of at first but got onboard when I pointed out the easy access it afforded her. She reached around and grabbed my bare ass with both hands as we kissed in the New Year. She was ready to go right there on the stage.

We slipped and slid our way to the chalet shortly after 2am. Bars are allowed to stay open an extra hour on New Year’s Eve in Wisconsin, another arbitrary nonsensical law that makes me question all authority.

I got a good blaze going in our fireplace to warm the place up. There was no other heat source. Patty grabbed a large quilt from the bed and we huddled together near the fire while drinking Irish whiskey out of a Ball pickling jar, which was strangely appropriate given that we were trying to pickle ourselves. We had way too much blood in our alcohol systems.

We talked, sang, and drank as the fire warmed us enough to shed layers of clothes one at a time. Before long we were naked and doing what drunken naked people do in the frigid winter. We banged, cuddled, drank, banged, cuddled, drank, banged, drank, cuddled for the next few hours. On at least one revolution I forgot to don a rubber. It didn’t occur to either of us at the time in our inebriated state. It wasn’t until the next morning that we both realized that we had been careless, or I had been careless since it was my whacker that needed the wrapper. A sick feeling, that had nothing to do with alcohol, descended upon us. Oh shit, here we go again.

I doubt that either of us breathed for the next two weeks. How were we in this position again? Why didn’t we learn with December’s frightful scare? Was 1968 going to be as bad as my premonitions indicated?

I noticed around the 12^th of January that Patty was a bit cranky. A day later our relief was renewed by Aunt Flow’s monthly visit. We both swore that we would never get careless again. Yeah, right.

A few days later Dynasty opened at the Duluth National Guard Armory for Strawberry Alarm Clock, the band that recorded “Incense and Peppermints”, which was near the top on Billboard’s Pop Charts.

Mark Weitz was their keyboard player. I remember talking with him about the Vox Continental sound he used on their hit song. He explained that he liked the Hammond sound far better, but management said that it wasn’t feasible to tour with one so they insisted that he use the smaller, far lighter Vox. They wanted live performances to sound just like the record so no Hammond. He fooled around with my A-105 for awhile before the show, loved the feel and sound, and was visibly disappointed having to play the Vox for their show.

The only other band member that I recall was a kid named Jimmy Pitman. I only remember him because I met him a few years back in Jacksonville Beach and he seemed to remember me. We got to talking and sure enough he was in the travelling band of Strawberry Alarm Clock. He was a jovial kid and an awesome guitarist who loved to drink. We threw a few pints of Guinness down one night at The Ritz Bar on Jax Beach exchanging stories of the road.

In late January, 1968, the temperature dropped into the -40 range at night warming up to -10 during the day and stayed that way for the next twenty days. For twenty straight days the high temperature for the day never rose about minus 10. That’s not just cold, that’s fucking cold. The magic of living in a winter wonderland was quickly fading.

The cold was replaced by blizzards that stacked snow upon drifted snow banks. There were days that the blowing snow drifted twelve feet high. On the bright side they cancelled school for several days in a row. It was nearly impossible to go anywhere or do anything except sit inside. At least the snow warmed the temperatures into the low teens. I spent most of my time in my room listening to music and practicing on the Farfisa. As much as I wanted to, and I wanted to a lot, I wasn’t able to see Patty much. I wanted to get laid, but I wasn’t willing to walk two miles in a blizzard or in below zero temperatures to do it.

On January 30th, while I was freezing my ass off in the Land Beyond Reality, the Viet Cong launched an all out offensive in the sizzling hot jungles of Viet Nam. It was the Vietnamese New Year, called Tet.. The war that the US was “winning” took a dramatic turn for the worse with what became known as the Tet Offensive. I thought of Buster Lafontaine who was training in San Diego to be a “heartbreaker and life taker” in the Marines.

I also contemplated what might happen if the war didn’t end soon, which seemed quite probable at that point, if it extended past 1971 when I would turn 18 and be eligible to become cannon fodder. The war was stupid. All wars are stupid. The Viet Nam war had no justification. Most of the people of South Viet Nam didn’t care anything about democracy or communism. They merely wanted to work the fields and enjoy a bowl of rice laughing with their family at night.

The anti-war movement was growing in America. I joined that movement to speak out against the war despite what my father thought. “My country right or wrong” was dad’s motto but it wasn’t a slogan that I could adopt. My country was wrong and young kids like me were dying because of it. This marked the beginning of my lifelong activism in the pursuit of peace. I was damned if I was going to sludge off to some jungle to die to insure the riches of some wasicu businessman. Fuck that. Bite the bag, baby, I’m not going. Hell no, I won’t go.

February brought no relief to the snow and cold. Are we entering a new Ice Age? I wondered. It hurt to breath in the out of doors and yet I walked the two miles every day to school in -15 temperatures. Naturally, this made me hate school all the more. Also, I had my fill of cold and snow. Perhaps I should have stayed in New Orleans on my own after our tour.

On February 13^th, a near riot broke out on the Madison campus of the University of Wisconsin over civil rights, raising another cause on my internal radar. We threw our own protest the next day at the Douglas County Courthouse, which was four blocks south of my school. We caught “the man” by surprise. They didn’t know how to handle protesting youngsters. It was an effrontery to their authority and they weren’t about to admit any weakness. Police poured into the old building, pushing and shoving kids around. It all got quite loud. A kid was pushed through a large pain glass window causing him to bleed profusely. Both sides smelled the blood and the scene became uglier and more violent. Handcuffed teenagers were hauled off to jail. The injured were rushed to the hospital. Our protest ended in a draw, yet our point had been made. We weren’t going to accept the status quo. There would be civil rights for all or there would be no peace.

I had an obvious stake in the Civil Rights Movement. I was what was called a Breed, of mixed blood. I wasn’t Indian enough for full-blooded Indians and I wasn’t white enough for the whites. To this day people ask me, “How much Indian are you?” Do they ever ask that of a black person? No. Do they ever ask that of an Asian person? No. Then, why is it ok to ask me that question? I always answer, “100 percent in spirit,” because I am. The people that primarily raised me insured that I would think like and possess the value system of a Nakota Sioux.

I wrote letter after letter to the editor of the local fish-wrap, The Superior Evening Telegram, intelligent arguments decrying the inequities in civil rights contrasted against the words in The Constitution, but none were published. So, I wrote a letter to the editor complaining about his fish-wrap’s biased editorial policies. Again, my letter was not acknowledged. My disdain for the American system grew by the day. They called it the Justice system where in reality it was the Just Us white people system.

More anti-war protests broke out across the country as the body count of US troops mounted. America was no longer winning the war. I had several serious arguments with my dad about the war and protests. Dad wasn’t easily swayed, but when the pictures splashed on the evening news night after night he could no longer defend the Army that he’d retired from a mere three years before. Wrong is wrong.

I asked him one simple question that changed everything for him. “Are you ready to send me, your only son, to die in Viet Nam?”

He choked up, fighting back tears, and said, “No, son, I’m not.”

Game, set, and match to Armond.

Events grew crazier by the day. Nerve gas escaped at the US Army Dugway Proving Ground near Skull Valley, Utah. Anti-war demonstrations multiplied and spread to other countries. Poland dived deep into political unrest. France was nearing the point of revolution. Peaceful protests broke into bloody skirmishes across the planet. Students took over administration buildings at Howard University to protest the university’s ROTC program.

All this madness was amplified by the desolation brought on by the remoteness, relentless snow, and unending cold of Northern Wisconsin.

I saw my mother tilting closer and closer to madness. I was frustrated that I could see it happening yet there was nothing I could do to stop it. I couldn’t fix her. My dad couldn’t fix her. Hell, not even the doctors could fix her.

On April 4^th, 1968, I caught a ride from my mother’s brother, Vinnie, and his wife, Mona. To call Mona a slut would do disservice to all sluts. Her favourite saying was “Cock-a-doodle Do, any cock will do.” As we turned onto 31^st Street a news bulletin interrupted the Rock and Roll. “From Memphis, Dr. Martin Luther King has been shot dead at the Lorraine Motel. Repeating, Dr. Martin Luther King is dead.”

I was in shock as waves of sadness washed over me. I started to cry. Mona asked, “What are you crying about?”

“This is the worst news I’ve ever heard,” I replied through my sobs.

“Well, that’s just stupid. It’s just one more dead n****r,” said Mona.

“Fuck you,” was my reply to her. Who did my uncle marry? What did my uncle marry? I got out of the car and rushed inside to watch the news on TV. Vinnie and Mona drove off. A few minutes later the phone rang. It was Vinnie. Mona was crying and he wanted to know what I had said to upset her. I told him. He laid into me with a barrage of bitter idiot ramblings.

I listened for less thirty seconds when I said, “Fuck you, too,” and hung up the phone. That was enough of these people and their ugly minds. I wanted nothing further to do with my mother’s family.

Riots swept the nation in the days follow Dr. King’s murder. Detroit was in flames. More than 100 US cities erupted in a volcanic backlash against that unimaginable crime. I was depressed. I reached the lowest point of my life in those days. I’ll never shake the memory. It was cathartic to watch the cities burn in righteous retribution.

Mother was incensed at my outburst to her brother’s slut wife and her brother. I would not back down, not even for this crazy lady. I didn’t care how they felt because they obviously didn’t care how I felt, nor did they understand the source and depth of my grief. I left the house and walked in the beautiful spring weather over to Tim O’Neil’s basement where I met up with Patty O’Leary who was still my girlfriend.  The mood in the basement was somber in contrast to its normal festive atmosphere. My Irish friends understood the source and depth of my pain.

I called my dad at work and told him what had transpired and that I wouldn’t be coming home that night nor going to school the next day. He understood and told me to grieve as I needed to. He said that he would smooth things out with mother and try to make her understand if he could find the right pair of ears inside her to listen. She heard voices when the schizophrenia took over her mind so that we were never quite sure which person we were talking to in her brain.

Patty had to be home early for some family function so after walking her home I walked down to the North End where I knew I would find ultimate solace and comfort. The mood in the garage was somber and worried. Momma Lafontaine had just received a postcard from Buster who was on a layover in Hawaii on his way to Saigon. The worry among my brothers and sisters was palpable.

The last batch of homemade wine that Buster had fermented was ready for drinking. We toasted him and danced for his safety. We sang in Ojibwa a plea to Gitche Manitou to watch over our brother Buster and keep him safe.

I lead them in the Nakota Sioux chant of, “Hoka hey, hoka hey – it is a good day to die. Hoka hey, hoka hey – it is a good day to die.”

Before long, Loraine pulled me into the loft where we consoled each other in naked bliss. Soon, we were joined by Mary and Champlain, then, Auggie (younger Lafontaine brother) and his girlfriend, Rita. There was no swapping. Each stayed with their own mate, drinking and banging to ease the pain.

I didn’t return home that night. None of us went to school the next day. I rode the bus out to Granny Blackwater’s house early in the morning. I needed to hear the words of the Spirit Woman, the only words that would ease the pain. She assured me that all this craziness would pass in time. I believed her. I trusted her above all others, a vibe that I’d gotten from my dad.

We dedicated our next gig to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and proceeds were donated to the Freedom Movement. We played Dr. King’s favourite song to a packed bar, “Take my hand, Precious Lord,” which was way out of character for Dynasty. The outburst of applause and cheers was heartening and brought tears to my eyes. The younger generation galvanized around the concepts of equal rights, peace and justice for all. Perhaps there was still hope, even in these darkest of times. Ted Anderson led the bar in song,

“Precious Lord, take my hand

Lead me on,

Let me stand.

I am tired, and I am weak, I am worn

Through the storm, through the night

Lead me on to the light

Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.”

I was moved to see over 100 beer-guzzling teenagers sing the song along with us.

One week later, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The rioting had ceased. People got back to their normal lives.

Things would never again be the same in America.

Road Tales/Rode Tails - Res Life

Res Life

Our first residence was a crappy little pale blue trailer on the Red Cliff Reservation near Bayfield on the banks of Gitche Gumee. I immediately made friends with other Indian kids my age. They were really cool people, human beings as they referred to themselves. We played on the shores of the big water, occasionally dipping ourselves to cool off in the 38 degree lake. When I left Louisiana the temperature was 95 every day with 90% humidity. The Mississippi River hovered around 88 degrees. In Red Cliff if the temperature reached 80 everybody started complaining about the excessive heat. To me it felt great and relatively cool. To them it was torturously hot, hence the need to immerse in the frigid lake.

Lake Superior never rises above 38 degrees. I certainly didn’t expect that. The Gulf never dropped below 50 degrees in the depths of winter, hit 88 by my June 1^st birthday and stayed that way until October.

The culture was as different as the temperature. New Orleans is rich in heritage forged from Spanish, French, English, and Creole influences since the 1500’s. Red Cliff had been the same for thousands of years until French trappers and Jesuit priests meandered into the area in the late 1700’s. Soon after came Nordic settlers from Norway, Sweden, and Finland as well as Europeans, mostly from Germany and Poland.

My new friends quizzed me constantly about New Orleans, a fascinating mythical world that they could barely imagine. I explained what life was like in my old home town, but my tales were met with wonder and much disbelief.

One of the funniest questions came from Billy Little Bear. He asked, “Did you see any negroes down there. We are told that they are plentiful but none of us has ever seen one.”

“You’ve never seen a black person? For real? Are you kidding me?” I was incredulous. “I’ve played with them every day of my life.”

“What are they like?”

“They are like any other kid. There is no difference. They were just as poor as we were. We played baseball year round.”

“You’re making that up. You can’t play baseball in the winter.”

“I’m telling you the truth. We played all day on New Year’s Day.”

“You played baseball in the snow? I don’t believe it.”

“It doesn’t snow down there.”

“No snows? I don’t believe it.”

I heard ‘I don’t believe it’ a lot from Billy Little Bear whenever I told him of life in Louisiana.

Many of my res friends had never been more than 20 miles from Red Cliff in their life. Their entire world consisted of Gitche Gumee, the Madeline Islands, and the surrounding pine woods. The biggest town they knew was Bayfield, population 600.

The fact that my Indian friends had never travelled wasn’t new to me, though. The time was in the midst of the 20^th Century and though cars had been around for some 50 years most people didn’t travel far. We were one of the few families in Desire neighborhood that owned a car, dilapidated as it was. Most of my friends had never been outside of Orleans Parish, nor had their parents or grandparents.

It was true that the Ojibwa didn’t know much of the outside world, but they knew everything about living. Billy Little Bear taught me canoeing in the blue waters of Lake Superior. I distinctly remember feeling the coolness of the lake through the bottom of the canoe on my bare feet. In no time, I was paddling in concert with Billy.

~~~

On our first overnight trip we launched into Gitche Gumee from Pageant Road at dawn. Stroke by stroke we headed north out of Red Cliff Bay between York and Raspberry Islands on past Bear Island toward our destination, Devil’s Island, one of the outermost islands sitting directly on dangerous Lake Superior, an inland fresh water ocean.  I could feel the spirits of my predecessors swirling in the water and the air. There were no mechanized sounds. No cars, or airplanes, or lawn mowers, or even motorboats, just the rush of wind, waves lapping against the sides of the canoe, and the quiet sound of our paddles entering and exiting the water as we glided over the surface. Occasionally, we would hear the caw-caw of a large hawk.

The smell of pine dominated my nostrils, a noticeable change from the pungent odor of the French Quarter – a combination of beer, puke, and piss fermenting in 100 degree heat. Indeed, this smell was truly refreshing and preferable.

We made camp on the west side of the island around noon. First, we established a lean-to shelter out of small felled pines and poplar stretched between branches of parallel trees. We embarked on our trip with only bacon drippings, bread and peanut butter. I was concerned that we were going to starve. Man, was I wrong. Next, we foraged for native roots and tubers. Billy showed me that the woods contained enough edible food to live indefinitely. We then dug for worms, which were plentiful in the sandy loam.

With the worms we fished standing knee deep in the frigid waters. Eventually, the body gets used to the cold and it is actually sort of refreshing and numbing. Billy caught the first fish a few moments after his first cast using just a line and a hook attached to a long, trimmed branch. I had a relatively fancy Zebco 202 rod and reel combination and caught nothing in the first hour while Billy piled fish after fish upon the shore. I finally caught a few small pan fish and sun fish, but nothing compared to the walleyes and northern pike that Billy was hauling in.

I learned that day that a knife is the most important tool that you can carry into the wilderness. And we were truly in the wilderness on this island. There is a lighthouse on the northernmost point of Devil’s Island, but from where we camped you wouldn’t know it. Looking northward I saw nothing but water. Canada was the nearest land to the north across the vast lake. With my knife I learned to scale and clean the fish, cut willows to act as skewers, cut forked limbs for use as a spit for rotisserie, and cut pine boughs to provide shelter from the elements in the lean to.

With water from the lake in a small cast iron pot we boiled the tubers over our campfire and roasted fish on the spits. What a great meal it was. What a blissful experience. I was living as our ancestors had for hundreds of years before the wasicu invaded our land. I had never before felt so complete, so at peace.

Night came quickly even though it was August. The crystal clear sky displayed more stars than I had ever seen. The setting sun caused the temperature to fall down to 55 degrees in a matter of minutes. As we warmed ourselves by the fire I asked the obvious question. “Why do they call this Devil’s Island?”

“It is called Devil’s Island because this is where Matchi Manitou lives. The Evil Spirit was imprisoned here by Gichi Manitou long ago and he has haunted this island ever since.”

“Sorry I asked,” I said.

“When the winds blow you can hear the Devil howl. If we’re lucky we will hear him howl tonight. Then, you’ll be able to say that you faced Matchi-Manitou and were not afraid.”

“Cool,” I feigned bravado.

On cue, the winds began to blow, the stars disappeared, and a light, cold rain fell around our shelter. Then, the Devil began to howl. Under and around the island are caves hallowed over tens of thousands of years by the waves. When the wind blows through these caves the howl is nearly deafening and one of the eeriest sounds I have ever heard. Chills ran through me as the Devil shrieked and howled his lonely, pained lament. I wanted to head back home, but that was impossible. We were trapped on this remote island until daylight. Fortunately, I had Billy Little Bear to talk me through the experience, a feat that I wouldn’t recommend trying alone. I was as spooked as I’ve ever been in my life. The voodoo ghosts of New Orleans didn’t hold a candle to Devil’s Island of the Apostles.

~~~

The Ojibwa were directed to the Red Cliff area by Gitche Manitou, the Great Spirit, to find “the food that grows on the water” otherwise known as wild rice. For centuries the Chippewa lived in peace on the banks of Lake Superior feeding on the plentiful deer, bear, and fish. Their descendants taught me some of the most important lessons in this life.

In September, I began studies at the reservation school – one room containing grades 1 through 8. One teacher, 30 kids in ages ranging from 6 to 14 occupied this grimy weather-beaten building. The promise of better educational opportunities fell far short of what I expected or what I was promised. In some ways this school worked quite well for me because by this time I knew how to learn from books and there was plenty of new reading on the shelves on the perimeter of the classroom. Plus, I wasn’t that concerned with school because I was learning far more important lessons in the woods.

I established several encampments in the pines as Billy had taught me. I could go out for an entire weekend with only a knife and my sleeping bag and eat hearty in the peaceful surroundings. I always brought a notebook with me so that I could journal my activities and practice writing, my newfound love.

What I truly loved about the school was that all of the kids had been taught the same values that my father and grandmother instilled in me.

~~~

By December, the largest fresh water lake on the planet was frozen for as far as the eye could see. The snow banks were piled 10 feet high. The spirit islands offshore that we had paddled to by canoe in August now had well worn trails where local Ojibwa had trekked to fish through the ice and camp on frozen shores in the Apostle Island chain.

Our trailer was cramped but somewhat comfy. It was heated by a fuel oil stove in the center fed by a fat tank that sat just outside the kitchen window.

A rope was strung from the front porch to the outhouse so a visitor wouldn’t get lost in a blizzard when trudging to and back. That’s right, we had an outhouse for a bathroom. Legend had it that many people had been lost through the years when they could not find their way back from the outhouse. What a shitty way to die.

Whiteout conditions are frequent in northern Wisconsin. It doesn’t even have to be snowing. The winds whipping off Lake Superior pick up snow from the ground sweeping it horizontally across the landscape. It is easy to become disoriented and lose one’s way in just a few steps; getting lost in those conditions very quickly turns deadly and often had for many unfortunate souls in yet another contrast to my former life in New Orleans. Down south, it would rain sideways obliterating buildings or any landmark, but you could only get so wet and it wasn’t likely to kill you.

Days before the Christmas break my father brought news that he had landed the job of supervisor at pump manufacturing factory in Superior. We were going to move again, but this time to a house in the town.