Keeper'n Me

by Richard Wagamese

  Lots don’t. The boy brung me this book by some white guy gettin’ men to use drums. Called Iron John. Me I thought it had to do with a better way to build an outhouse. Heh, heh, heh. Iron John says drummin’s the way for men to get back to their tribal nature. Their wildness. Kinda get rid of womanish things. Be a real man. Guess there’s lots buyin’ into it but they’re missin’ the real teaching of the drum. Beatin’ away on them drums, gettin’ wild, but missin’ out on teachin’s that’ll keep ’em alive forever.

  See, the drum’s about motherhood. It’s about the woman power all around us. Woman’s only one got power to give life. That’s why we call this land our Mother. Land gives life to Indyuns. Get all we need to survive from our Mother. The drum reminds us to treat her with respect. But drum’s also about the spirit power of the female.

  Women got more power than men on accounta they can give life. More power. Spirit power. The old people taught that women were more holy than us men an’ us we had to treat them with the most respect we had inside us. Mother Earth, birth mothers, mothers of our children, treat them all the same. That’s why the drum’s round, like the womb an’ like the universe too. Like life. You watch sometime. Us men get around our drums get real respectful all of a sudden. Those of us followin’ the Indyun way don’t go near the drum when we’re drinkin’ or acting in bad ways. Smudge ourselves real good with sweetgrass or cedar first. Get cleansed so we can approach it with respect. The drum teaches respect. Reason pow-wow singers put tobacco on the toppa their drums when they sing’s on accounta they know that their songs are another offering to the power of the earth, universe too. Female power. Power of life.

  Those wildmen they’re missin’ that. They’re missin’ too about the female part of themselves thass never gonna go away. Beat that drum all they want but female part’s never gonna go away. Us we known that long, long time.

  See, when we get sent out into the world we come here carryin’ two sets of gifts. The gifts of the father an’ gifts of the mother. The two human bein’s that made our life. We came here carryin’ those two sets of gifts, each one equal to the other. But sometimes the world gets hold of us and makes us see diff’rent way. We get told as men that we gotta be strong, gotta be fearless. Lotta us kinda start ignorin’ the gifts of our mother. Go through life just usin’ gifts of the father. Bein’ tough, makin’ our own plans, livin’ in the head. But if you do that you can’t be whole on accounta you gotta use both of them equal setsa gifts to live right, to fill out the circle of your own life. Be complete. Gotta use the mother’s gifts too. Like gentleness an’ nurturin’, livin’ in the heart. That’s where the female power comes from. Livin’ in the heart. Them that’s tryin’ to chase the female outta themselves an’ their world are chasing out half of who they are. Busy bein’ incomplete. That’s not our way. That’s not what the drum’s about. Drum’s a tool to help us remember the power of the female, in the world and in us all. The balance we gotta have inside. Both sets of gifts. Using them in everything we do. And that female power, that female side’s always gonna be there. Never goes away.

  Drum’s the heartbeat. Heartbeat of our Mother. Heartbeat of the land. Heartbeat of our culture. Power of the female to give life to ev’rything. Land, culture, us too. So you gotta respect that power everywhere you find it. That’s why the boy’n me do what we do ev’ry mornin’. Outta respect. Man livin’ with respect can’t do nobody no harm. Reason behind that’s on accounta respect’s big center of it all. Give respect, you give kindness, honesty, openness, gentleness, good thoughts, good actions. Simple, eh?

  That’s what it’s all about the Indyun way. Simplicity.

  Us we always believed that keepin’ things simple makes it easier to remember. Easy to be yourself. Easy to remember what gave you life. Never seen no confused tree all my life, an’ I been around. Heh, heh, heh.

  The reason us Indyuns survived everythin’ that happened to us these last five hunnerd years is on accounta we never lost that simplicity. Like faith. Faith’s gotta be simple to work. Sure, lotsa us gettin’ caught up in that big shiny world, chasin’ them complicated kindsa livin’, but there’s always believers around to catch them when they fall, kinda help ’em back to simplicity again. You can have all that too, don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to have all that, as long as you got a simple faith workin’ in your life. If you don’t you’re gonna need the elders. Ones who lived lots. Lived in a good way. Lived simple. That’s why we use the drum. Kinda remind us. Remind us that simplicity kept us Indyuns alive through everythin’. Kinda help us live in balance with the whole world.

  Around here there’s two ways of doing things. There’s the slow methodical Ojibway method and there’s the slow non-methodical Ojibway method. Either way seems to work out for most folks but for someone used to the fast pace of downtown living it sure took a lotta getting used to. Things move slow here. They seem to just kinda develop at their own speed. Indian time. Keeper says it’s on accounta the simple way our people are used to living.

  In my old life I was used to things happening quick. Once you made a decision you got into it. That downtown lifestyle was built on speed, the kind you feel in the bones when the party’s going, people are bopping, chicks be checking you out and life feels kinda on the wild side. Lonnie called it livin’ large. Livin’ large meant you had things going. Lotta money, lotta flashy clothes, lotta plans, lotta friends—big living. There wasn’t no small, regular or medium. It all had to be large.

  White Dog living was far from large. There were times in that first year when I thought I’d scream from boredom. I even toyed with the idea of going back to Toronto. Kinda got to writing Lonnie regular and telling him how it was going and he was hip enough to start sending some good blues and R&B tapes after a while. That helped some, but still I thought I’d burst. People put up with me and there’s some who kinda adopted my music. In fact, the rumor around here now is that the Miracles are actually an Indian group on accounta they got such good rhythm. The way it’s told is, they got their name misspelled on their album covers. It’s really the Maracles, like Chief Dan Maracle and his family from Shoal Lake. Anyway, the music helped, but not lots.

  I’d wandered around a long time wondering if Garnet really existed at all and now it felt like two. There was this innocent side that was waking up to my Ojibway background and really beginning to understand something about it and myself. That side could wander along the shore of the lake and get blown away by the beauty of the land and the simplicity of these people. The side that got real turned on by those morning ceremonies and was feeling some faint stirrings of faith inside. A wide-open guy with a new family and a new history to provide the anchor I’d needed all my life.

  And then there was the side of me that was going rapidly stir crazy. The one hungry for all the flash and motion of the world I’d walked away from. The downtown side that still believed that he needed all that flash and motion to be alive. The scared side.

  As usual, of course, it was the least likely thing to get things rolling. See, Wilbert Fish and his buddies are really into hockey. Not playing, betting on games that come in on the radio. The fact that no one’s got any money around here doesn’t stop those boys. Usually the bets work out to be a cord of wood being chopped and delivered, a moose hide tanned, a ride into town on demand, a good feed of pickerel. Guess when there’s actually work involved instead of money the betting gets real intense. Spring was rolling in pretty good that year and folks were busy getting ready for the big break-up on the lake. Once the pickerel start their spawning run in the creeks and rivers, well, it gets real hectic around here. Which is more than fine these days except back then it wasn’t really the kinda action I was looking for. Anyway, there was energy in the air but I was missing it on accounta my downtown daydreaming.

  Springtime also means that the nhl playoffs start up and that means Wilbert and the boys would be huddled around Bert Otter’s shortwave radio in the community hall almost every night for a month.


  In a remote little place like this, an everyday thing like radio gets to be important to folks. Chief Isaac with his satellite dish has the only clear connection to the outside. The others, like Doc and the Mrs. or Big Ed, have TVs too but their pictures are all snowed over so you’re never really sure what you’re watching. Most folks don’t even bother trying to watch anymore. Same with radio. This country’s got so many big tree-covered hills that them radio signals just get kinda eaten up by it all. Only thing that makes it up this far is the cbc. I’ve heard the cbc manages to make it everywhere. Why, I’ve heard of people moving into the furthest part of the north just to get away from it and then finding it’s the only thing they can pick up.

  Every once in a while, usually when the nights are really clear, them radio signals manage to get through. Then it’s a big wrestling match for picking stations. See, a few years back Bert Otter had somehow talked Chief and council into giving him a big bunch of money for one of them old shortwave radios. Being the community development officer and in charge of activities down at the community hall, Bert set that old radio up on a little wooden table just inside his office. Bert’s reason for getting the radio was so he could keep an ear to the world and “expand my vision” in order to be a better community development guy. Everyone knew the truth though, and the truth was that as Wally Red Sky’s nextdoor neighbor, Bert was getting real tired of hearing nothing but mournful renditions of sappy country ballads cranked out over Wally’s big old tube amplifier every night. That radio was gonna be old Bert’s saving grace.

  But when them radio signals were getting through people would just kinda reach around and turn the tuning knob till they found something they liked. Once in a while we’ll get crystal-clear reception from stations all the way down in Chicago or Detroit or even country music stations from Tennessee. Some of the older people like to hear that old-time music and the younger ones wanna hear the new music. The jock guys like Wilbert want the hockey. So that old radio at the community hall sure was a popular thing sometimes. I say “was” because Bert had to get himself another shortwave on accounta that old one got trashed by Wilbert one night, and that’s really how this whole story started.

  On that particular night, Wilbert and company were trying to tune in a hockey game from Winnipeg. The Jets were challenging the Calgary Flames in the first round of the playoffs and the betting was heavier than usual. Wilbert had the Jets and them being the underdogs meant if he won he stood to win a bundle—a bundle by White Dog standards anyway. Midway through the third period with the score tied and Wilbert within sniffing distance of winning a hindquarter of moose, the signal suddenly vanished. All you could hear was the whistle and grunt of static and the occasional blurt of announcers calling the game.

  The boys kept on getting closer and closer. They were shoulder to shoulder and face to face, the six of them, like maybe their bodies could help bring the signal in better. Their faces were screwed up in all kindsa strange expressions and their fists were clenching and unclenching while the whistle and grunt of static went on and on. Nothin’ was helping. That signal was coming in and out, in and out so you really couldn’t hear anything at all.

  With the situation nearing desperate and the game down to the last frantic minute, Wilbert lost all patience and flung the radio clear across the hall where it smashed into a hundred state-of-the-art pieces against the empty Government of Canada job board.

  “Damn thing never works when you need it!” Wilbert yelled to no one in particular. “Tell that Bert to send me the bill. I’ll pay him off in pickerel!”

  Keeper’n me were down at the hall that night playing a few games of checkers and I had half a mind to say what a good idea it was for a Fish to be paying up in fish but about then I didn’t figure old Wilbert was in the mood for a funny. Keeper just kinda grinned and proceeded to crown another man.

  “Good thing he’s not one of them Shoal Lake Skunks. Sure would be a stink ’bout payin’ up then!” he said.

  Once word got out that Wilbert had trashed the radio, folks were kinda depressed. It’s a big wild world out there sometimes and I kinda think hearing about all them strange goings-on helps White Dog folks stay grateful for the simplicity of their lives. It was real quiet around the community hall at night and not many people drifted down there. Wilbert and the boys weren’t saying a lot and Bert Otter was wandering around looking like he’d lost his dog. He’d come running in as soon as he’d heard about the radio being flung across the room. He spent about an hour kneeling on the floor with little black pieces of radio in his hands and sighing and sighing. For a while there you’d catch him walking around staring at his hands like he couldn’t get the memory of a hundred state-of-the-art pieces off them. Around the fire at Ma’s those nights we could hear the distant sounds of Wally Red Sky crooning away in his bedroom with his amplifier turned up way too loud. When you hear that kinda thing late at night you’d wish for a radio too, believe me. Even with the CBC.

  I wasn’t the only one starting to suffer. Us Indians we believe that everything moves in a circle. The sun makes a big circle when it travels through the sky, our drums are round and life itself is a circle according to Keeper. The way he sees it, we start off with a kinda innocence when we’re born and by the time we work our way around the circle of our lives, as long as we live right, we wind up with a kinda childlike innocence again. But an innocence built on wisdom, he says. And humility too, he says. Anyway, the circle that Wilbert started by trashing the radio started to become noticed pretty quick around here.

  Him and his pals got real cranky not being able to hear the playoffs. Naturally they got cranky with their families. Pretty soon their wives and kids were being cranky with their friends and their friends were getting cranky with theirs until finally White Dog was one big cranky place to be.

  Being kinda outta sorts over this radio thing meant they’d listen more to whining and complaining than they normally do. Around here whining’s something reserved for the politicians. Most folks just kinda accept things when they happen. So whiners usually have to be happy with whining all alone. Right then though, whining was fast becoming a new traditional thing. Which suited me just fine since folks started to listen when I talked about how White Dog needed some twentieth-century entertainment.

  Turned out one of the most eager to listen to me was Wally Red Sky.

  “Holee,” he said one day while we were walking by the lake. “Ever lotsa cranky people, eh?”

  “Really,” I said. “Ever.”

  “Kinda gettin’ hard to talk to people. Yesterday even Doc was snappin’ around an’ him he never goes that way.”

  “Well, Wally, it’s like I’ve been saying, too much stone age around here has gotta make you nuts.”

  “Guess. Never woulda thought losin’ that radio was gonna make ev’ryone as crazy as they are, though. Not even like White Dog anymore.”

  “I’ll tell you, it only takes one good DJ to bring people around, Wally. I’ve heard some guys on those big downtown radio stations just make people happy to be alive. Got their rap down real good, play mean tunes, get everybody tuned in, you know?”

  “Really? Don’t get that kinda radio on CBC.”

  “The CBC ain’t radio, man! Way before there was TV, radio was getting people motivated. Where do you think Hank Williams woulda been without radio playing his tunes?”

  “Hank woulda been a star no matter what. Radio or no radio, Garnet. His music set the world on fire. We’da hearda him anyway.”

  “Maybe so, maybe so. But radio connected up the world. Got ideas happening fast. Changed the way people thought. Got them to see the light, like Hank would say. Got the world moving, man, moving. And that’s why people are so grouchy, Wally. When you get a little bit of the real world happening around here, people like it. When it’s gone they start to see how slow things really are on White Dog.”

  “White Dog’s in the real world too, ain’ it?”

  “Sure, in a way. But, Wal
ly, man, there’s such a big thing out there beyond that fence it’d make you crazy if you and me spent even one weekend together in T.O. Chicks, parties, nightclubs. Yeah, nightclubs, man. There’s even hip, happening country places that would make you die, Wally.”

  “Yeah? Really? What’re they like?”

  “All sortsa cool downtown cowboys and cowchicks and the best country singers you’d ever wanna hear. Kinda like that Urban Cowboy movie Bert showed at the hall last month, ’member?”

  “Yeah, that was cool. What about them singers?”

  “Just like you hear on the radio when the signals come in from Tennessee. The best. You’d learn lots there, Wally. Learn lots.”

  “Hmmpfh. Don’t know that I could learn more’n I know now. But tell me more about this radio thing. Think we could ever get a radio station up here?”

  “Hell, I wish. It’s a hard thing, though. Need lotsa cash. But, man, you’d really get this place going full tilt if you had one. Full tilt.”

  “Hmmpfh. Hard, eh? Think anyone would listen if we had one?”

  “Listen? No one’d be outside at night except to be dancing around and living it up. Get a good DJ playing good tunes and look out! A good DJ can be the hero for a lotta people, man. Real hero.”

  “Hero, eh?”

  “Like everyone knows Wolfman Jack, you know? Get talking, tellin’ them things they might not have heard, jokes, all kindsa things. If there’s one thing this place really needs it’s a big dose of the outside. If we brought them big ideas in here maybe we’d feel more with it. Maybe we’d start getting better ideas about how to change things around here real fast instead of slow like they move now. Maybe a big dose of the outside would get everything moving together, get some more hydro, plumbing and lots of good things.”