TWENTY YEARS AGO, I sat in a room with more than fifty indigenous men from all over North America as they, one by one, stood and testified about being raped by white priests, white teachers, white coaches, and white security guards and soldiers. These rapes happened in residential boarding schools all across the United States and Canada. And they happened from the late nineteenth century into the late twentieth.
I had learned about the epidemic violence in Indian boarding schools, and I’d heard and read the countless stories of sexually abused women, but I had never seen so many male victims gathered together.
One elder, over seventy years old, stood and said, “We were beaten for speaking our tribal languages. We were beaten for dancing and singing in traditional ways. We were beaten for resisting the beatings. Sometimes, we would escape and run away. The white men would catch us and beat us for running away. They’d beat us for wanting to go home. They’d beat us for crying. So, more than anything, we learned not to cry. Our tears were the only thing we could control. So not crying felt like we had won something.”
He said, “Sometimes, white men would take you into private rooms and they would beat you. And you’d be happy to only get slapped and punched. Because, sometimes, those white men would take you into those private rooms and rape you. Sometimes, it was one white man. Sometimes, it was more.”
The elder stopped speaking. He could not continue. He stood, without crying, and trembled.
I watched him.
That Indian man, over seventy years old, trembled like a frightened boy—like the boy he used to be and the boy he remained, trapped in time by his torture.
That trembling man—that trembling boy—stood in silence for many minutes. And we other Indian men sat in silence and waited. We all knew, collectively, that we would silently wait for that man—that boy—to resume speaking or to remain silent or to sing or dance or to cry or to leave the room. We would have waited for hours. Maybe for days. I think some of those Indian men would have let themselves die while waiting in that room.
But that elder—that frozen child—smiled, placed his hand on his chest, and sat so he could listen to other Indian men tell their stories. And those men told their stories for hours.
When people consider the meaning of genocide, they might only think of corpses being pushed into mass graves.
But a person can be genocided—can have every connection to his past severed—and live to be an old man whose rib cage is a haunted house built around his heart.
I know this because I once sat in a room and listened to dozens of Indian men desperately try to speak louder than their howling, howling, howling, howling ghosts.
60.
Pack Behavior
NINETEEN SEVENTY-FIVE. Night on the reservation. Summer. Mosquitoes and moths following heat and light.
In the treehouse, five boy cousins pass three porn magazines from hand to hand, their version of the Internet.
This is the USA. Deny it, if you must, but nearly every American boy has been in a treehouse like that with cousins and magazines like that. There is nothing wrong with it.
Three of the cousins pulled out their penises and masturbated—performed—for the others.
Deny it if you need, but that kind of performance has happened in many an American treehouse.
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with it. But, depending on circumstances, there might be something wrong with it.
The other two cousins—who were brothers—did not perform. Instead, they shyly climbed down from the treehouse and walked home.
Why were two brothers, who grew up in a town of only fifteen hundred people, so unlike the three cousins who grew up in that same town?
There are no provable answers. Only psychological guesswork.
Those brothers who went home? One of them has spent time in jail for DUI and unpaid fines, but the other brother has only been in jails to visit his brother.
As for those other cousins, the ones who remained in the treehouse? All three grew up to be rapists. Two of them have spent years in prison for their crimes. The third cousin has never been convicted of any felony, though he has raped more people than the other two combined.
How has that third cousin escaped justice? Because he mimics proper human behavior better than the others. Because he speaks a little bit of the tribal language. Because he genuflects and prays in front of large crowds. Because he wears beads and feathers every day of the year. Because he plays the role of traditional Indian better than most. Because he proclaims himself holy and is superficially believed.
Because his victims have learned, on the reservation and everywhere else, that it is more painful and dangerous to testify than it is to silently grieve.
On the reservation, testifiers are shunned and exiled.
On the reservation, the silent are honored with more silence. In that way, silence becomes sacred. Silence becomes the tribal ceremony that everybody performs.
Perhaps everybody, indigenous and not, lives on their own kind of reservation.
If those five cousins were transformed into animals—into three wolves and two dogs—then this story might sound more like a parable, like a familiar fable, like an ancient lesson taught around the campfire.
This story would teach us that dogs and wolves are alike. But the story would also teach us that, in most ways, dogs and wolves are nothing alike.
Dogs and wolves might have the same ancestors, but they long ago became members of different tribes.
But how did dogs and wolves become so different from each other?
Dogs are wolves that were loved by humans. Dogs were created by human tenderness.
But wolves have always walked slow circles around humans. Wolves have seen humans only as potential prey and potential predators.
But, wait, you might say, there has never been a recorded instance of a healthy wolf attacking a human.
But, ah, the storyteller replies, did you hear me claim that those wolves, those three cousins, were ever healthy? Did you know that wolves will hunt other wolves? Did you know that wolves will eat their young? Did you know that wolves teach other wolves how to be wolves? Did you know that wolves beget wolves?
Did you know that some wolves will dress up as Indians and dance and sing and dance and hunt and sing and dance and hunt and sing and dance and hunt and hunt and hunt and hunt all night long?
Do you understand how one small dog—afraid of the wolves who had attacked him and those who would attack him anew—might stand on his hind legs, might evolve in a moment, so he could run away and never return?
61.
Prophecy
the salmon have built mansions
at the bottom of every ocean
thousands of rooms
thousands of rooms
the salmon have sent ambassadors
to live among Indians
thousands of salmon
thousands of salmon
those ambassadors are teaching us
how to breathe water
62.
Welcome to the Middle-Aged Orphans Club
One week after we buried my mother,
And four years after we buried hers, my wife and I went To see Wicked, the musical, for the third time.
But that was the first time that my whole body ached As the Wicked and Good Witches sang their final duet.