father fell asleep drunk. foot on the fire pit. the burning rubber soles of his boots sent smoke signals and heavy clouds floating out over his land. kept the indians out and the mosquitoes off the skin.
the green glowing face of a pheasant cock. i grew up worshipping those bastard birds the way he did. the same way we always will in that moment of flash and colour before the buckshot connects and sends our love spiralling limp into the ever-after.
that day on the porch. talking for two hours, four beers wortha bullshit between the two of us. complain about the grey and the stucco. the constant rumble of rabbit feet on the road. how his eyes followed traffic. how his legs wanted to run. not full blooded, but nomadic enough to be.
recall the freedom and the land. the water. the trees. the comfort found dwelling neck-deep in mud and reeds, assuring yourself you’re not quite them. not quite the red rez boys you grew up hating. the boys on the other side of big rupert’s imaginary line. the wasteland just past the stop sign.
“that’s the same blood that runs in you, boy. its the same red savage that raped our mothers that makes you wanna run. makes you wanna sweat out your problems and let the hard earth soak up your tears. that same red makes you feel like you got an extra grandmother out there, beyond it all.”
archieduncanbelaneyswampyscottchartrandpoundmakercampbell.
years spent guessing at the nothing. looking to colour that white space on your birth certificate.
stoicism and the inability to speak our father tongue. perpetuate the image better than your indian brothers. mouth shut. drunken noble. disappear into the wild.
napew. man. man who does not see. man who refuses to see he is the hatred himself. man who does not believe in the man he was created to be.
plains cree or just plain old cree. something about it made you learn. made you pay money and sit in a desk and listen and speak and forget. wash your hands of it. scrub your fingernails clean. remove the red dirt lodged beneath them from years of drawing lines in clay and sand.
wapim. see it. wapiw. see him. see a likeness: wapimisow. he sees a reflection of himself. like son in father, father in son.
napew. wapimisow.
