Tribal Journey Read online

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Robinson, Gary, 1950-

  Tribal journey / Gary Robinson.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-939053-01-5 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-1-939053-87-9 (e-books)

  1. Duwamish Indians--Juvenile fiction. 2. Children with disabilities--Juvenile fiction. 3. Canoes and canoeing--Juvenile fiction. 4. Self-esteem--Juvenile fiction. 5. Self-confidence--Juvenile fiction. 6. West Seattle (Seattle, Wash.)--Juvenile fiction. [1. Duwamish Indians--Fiction. 2. Indians of North America—Fiction. 3. People with disabilities--Fiction. 4. Canoes and canoeing--Fiction. 5. Self-esteem- Fiction. 6. Self-confidence--Fiction. 7. West Seattle (Seattle, Wash.)--Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.R56577Tri 2013

  813.6--dc23

  2012044250

  © 2013 Gary Robinson

  Cover and interior design: Deirdre Nemmers

  Cover photo: Gary Robinson

  Taken at the 2008 Tribal Journeys canoe gathering at Cowichan Bay, British Columbia.

  Pictured is one of the 109 tribal canoes that arrived on the host tribe’s shores that year.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means whatsoever, except for brief quotations in reviews, without written permission from the publisher.

  7th Generation, a division of

  Book Publishing Company

  PO Box 99, Summertown, TN 38483

  888-260-8458 bookpubco.com

  ISBN: 978-1-939053-01-5

  18 17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

  Printed in the United States

  Book Publishing Company is a member of Green Press Initiative. We chose to print this title on paper with 100% postconsumer recycled content, processed without chlorine, which saved the following natural resources:

  • 16 trees

  • 488 pounds of solid waste

  • 7,292 gallons of water

  • 1,345 pounds of greenhouse gases

  • 7 million BTU of energy

  For more information on Green Press Initiative, visit www.greenpressinitiative.org.

  Environmental impact estimates were made using the Environmental Defense Fund Paper Calculator.

  For more information visit www.papercalculator.org.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1: Freedom Rings

  Chapter 2: Quality Family Time

  Chapter 3: Spring Break

  Chapter 4: Bottomless Pit

  Chapter 5: Rolling Along

  Chapter 6: Us and Them

  Chapter 7: The Canoe Family

  Chapter 8: Ambassadors

  Chapter 9: Whispers on the Wind

  Chapter 10: The Smell of the Ocean

  Chapter 11: Crossing the Straits

  Chapter 12: Landing Day

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank a few people for their assistance in the development of this book.

  First, there is my friend and colleague Swil Kanim, a Lummi storyteller, musician, visionary, and inspirational motivator extraordinaire. His thoughts, words, music, and prayers are always most appreciated.

  Cindy Williams of the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center in West Seattle graciously agreed to review the book to ensure its cultural appropriateness. It’s always good to get feedback from a tribal community when creating stories and characters from that community. A big wa- do (“thank you” in Cherokee) to Cindy.

  Finally, there is Jessy Lucas, who is an accomplished young Native puller, singer, and drummer, and one of the few people in the world able to play the hand flute. His work with Northwest tribal cultures, along with his own personal experiences with tribal canoe journeys, provided a solid foundation on which this book is based. His time and insights are most appreciated.

  Tribal

  Journey

  Chapter 1

  Freedom Rings

  I’m lucky to even be alive to tell you my story. I learned the hard way that texting and driving don’t mix. And that healing can come from unexpected places. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  It was the first Friday in April. The three o’clock bell rang. Screams of joy erupted from every classroom. Spring break had arrived. Freedom at last! A whole week of unsupervised fun!

  I escaped the West Seattle High School building like it was on fire.

  “Jason! Jason!” I heard my name being called from across the school’s front lawn. It was my best friend, Ron.

  “Ron, what’s up?”

  “I’m jazzed,” he said. “My family’s spring break trip was canceled. I’ll be here all next week!”

  “Awesome. Maybe we can cruise the Junction. Or hit Alki Beach every day! I’ve got to stay in shape for the swim meet next month.”

  “Whoa,” he said. “I don’t have unlimited use of the family car, remember. I have to ‘earn’ it by doing chores around the house. You know, the point system.”

  “Oh yeah.” I had to think for a minute. We were both sixteen, but neither of us had a car.

  “I’ve got it,” I said finally. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. I can come over. We can work our way through a whole list of chores around your house. Maybe we can earn enough points to use the car all week.”

  A horn honked. We both looked to see his mom’s car waiting at the curb.

  “Sounds possible,” Ron said. “I’ll text you,” he shouted, as he ran toward the car.

  “Later,” I shouted back.

  I caught my usual bus for the ride home. Riding the bus wasn’t fun, because most of the riders were younger kids. But both my parents worked, so the bus was the only way for me to get home. I usually sat in the back and looked out the window. Or just thought about stuff.

  I grew up here in West Seattle. Most people don’t know that this area was the original Seattle. It’s where the white settlers first landed in this region to create their new home. But of course there were people already here. My mother’s people—the Duwamish Indians. Her ancestors were on the shore to greet the settlers when they arrived.

  Anyway, those are things I learned in the tribal culture classes my mother had me take when I was little. I’d been too busy for such things lately.

  My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I’d asked Dad for a smart phone like most of my friends had. But no luck. He said I could have one of those when I could pay for it myself.

  So I flipped the lame phone open to find a text from my friend Amy Chang. “Any l planning a get 2gether during spring break?” she asked.

  I texted back, “That’s what Ron & I r trying to figure out. I’ll let u know.”

  When I became a teenager, my non-Native friends complained that Indians always lived in the past. Without much thought, I decided I agreed with them.

  Of course I wanted to fit in with the other kids at school I hang out with. They’re a mixture of races: whites, Asians, Latinos, blacks—you name it. Most of them had figured out how to ignore their family’s past and live in the now. Track the trends. Merge with the moment.

  So I decided to do likewise and go with the flow. Nothing that my Duwamish mother, grandparents, or uncles tried to teach me from Native culture really applied to life today. They were so behind the times. It was easy to turn my back on all that and go with the flow.

  Another text came in. This time it was from Ben, my Latino friend. “My spring break is messed up. Got 2 go 2 Spokane 2 visit relatives.”

  “That sucks,” I texted back. “Hope u make it thru the week—see u when u get back.” I closed my phone and stuffed it back in my pocket.

  What was I talking about before? Oh yeah. Going with the flow. Seattle was a great place to go with the flow. The home of Mariners baseball, Seahawks football, Starbucks coffee
, and Microsoft. Sure, it was cloudy or rainy three hundred days of the year. So what. That’s one of the special things about the Northwest. The weather makes everything so green.

  I’d been swimming since I was little. I loved the water. I had dreams of being like Michael Phelps and winning twenty-two Olympic medals. Making the high school swim team was a step in that direction.

  My cell phone vibrated again. I dug it out of my pocket one more time and flipped it open. Another text from Ron. “My mom sez chores 2moro will work fine.”

  I texted him back, “Hope my mom sez the same.”

  The bus let me out at the corner of my street. I walked the short two blocks to my house. The neighborhood was made up of little two- story brick houses that had seen better days. My house really had problems—a leaky roof, rotting front steps, and cracks in the walls.

  Dad never had the time or money to fix any of this stuff. His job as a maintenance worker at the Boeing jet factory must not have paid very much. It did pay enough to keep him stocked in beer, however.

  I was lucky to have my own room upstairs. It was small but all mine. It was the best place to be when Dad went on one of his rampages.

  My younger brother Zak and his twin sister Shauna shared a room down the hall. Since birth they’ve never liked to be apart. Shauna can’t sleep if Zak isn’t nearby. So half of the room was filled with boy stuff, and the other half was all pink and girly.

  As I approached the house, I was surprised to see my mom’s car parked in the driveway.

  “What are you doing home?” I asked Mom as I walked through the front door.

  “It’s Good Friday. Sunday is Easter. So they let some of us get off work early to have some quality family time.”

  That was really the last thing I was interested in.

  “Can I go over to Ron’s tomorrow? I told him I’d help him with a few chores.”

  “You? Helping with chores? Wow, that’s a new one.” She was smiling when she said it, so I knew she wasn’t totally serious.

  “We’ll see. We might do something as a family. I’ll talk to your father when he gets home.”

  I think I moaned out loud. I knew that “we’ll see” was parent code for “probably not.”

  Chapter 2

  Quality Family Time

  “Absolutely not,” my father said when he got home from work. “This weekend is for staying at home and being with family.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that one bit.

  “The last time we had a family weekend,” I said, “you watched sports on TV while Mom refinished furniture. Shauna and Zak chased each other around the yard. I played video games in my room. What kind of quality family time is that?”

  I ran up to my room before anyone could punish me for talking back. After slamming the door, I grabbed my binoculars from the dresser and focused out the window.

  Since our house was on the highest hill in West Seattle, I could see pretty far in any direction. Looking west through the binoculars I could see the southern tip of Bainbridge Island across the waters of Puget Sound. Looking east I could see freight ships carrying their loads up and down the Duwamish River. Southeast of us was the Sea-Tac Airport, with its steady stream of jets landing and taking off. Downtown Seattle, where the Space Needle is located, was just visible to the northeast.

  Sometimes, when no one was around, I would sneak out of my window and onto the roof. You could see really far from there—so far that you could forget all your problems for a while.

  You could forget that your father drank too much and beat Mom and us kids when he did. You could forget that your mother spent hours at the Duwamish Tribal Culture Center to escape from your father. You could forget that for some odd reason the family never had any money to do anything or fix anything or buy anything new. That was a lot to forget.

  Ron texted me again. “What did they say?”

  “They said no,” was all I replied and closed the phone. What was I to do now? I could grit my teeth and try to get through another day. As usual.

  Instead, I decided to send a text blast to all my friends to let them know what was going on. Maybe someone would have an idea for how I could get out of the Saturday family time. So I started thumb-typing.

  “Guys, I need your help. How can I get out of spending the entire weekend with my lame family? Got ideas?” I pushed the send button and hoped.

  Within minutes reply messages came back from Ron, Amy, Ben, and Randy. Ashley must not have had her phone handy.

  “U can always sneak out in the middle of the nite,” Ben suggested.

  “Tell ur parents my auntie died and u hav 2 come 2 comfort me,” Amy replied. Her message ended with a smiley face. I think she wants to be more than friends. I’m not ready.

  “Put sleeping pills in their breakfast so they fall asleep. They won’t know u left until it’s 2 late,” Ron offered.

  “Tell em ur sick & need 2 lie down,” Randy’s text began. “Go 2 ur room & close the door. Fix ur bed 2 look like u r asleep under the covers. Then sneak out. I saw this in a movie.”

  Wow. These all sounded like terrible ideas. I’m not a very good liar.

  Then Ashley’s text came in. “Honesty is the best policy,” her message said. “Ask for a family meeting. Tell your parents how you feel and why. Even if you don’t get what you want, it will bring the family closer. Talking it out is always a good thing.”

  That seemed like the worst idea yet. Ashley didn’t really fit in with the rest of the crowd. And her message was so proper. Everything was spelled out completely and correctly with no text shortcuts. Well, she did like to read a lot. And she always said she was going to be a writer when she grew up. I had to remember not to include her in future text blasts.

  “Jason!” My mother’s voice echoed up the stairs. “Time to come down for dinner.”

  As I sat down at the table, my cell phone vibrated. I took it out of my pocket to see who was texting me. My father immediately grabbed the phone from my hand and put it next to his plate.

  “New rule,” he said. “No texting at the dinner table.”

  “But I—” That’s all I could say before Dad interrupted.

  “You’re on that thing too much. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are times for us to focus on being right here. At work they said lots of parents are doing this now.”

  I remained silent and began eating. The room was quiet except for the sound of forks scraping on plates.

  Later, I asked about the family’s plans for this Saturday.

  “You’ll find out tomorrow,” my dad barked and took a sip of his beer. He jerked in the middle of the sip. I could tell that Mom had kicked him under the table.

  “Your father and I haven’t had any time to talk about it, but we will tonight,” Mom said softly.

  “Why don’t we all get a chance to say what we want to do?” I asked. I don’t even know where that came from. It just jumped out of my mouth.

  “You kids aren’t smart enough to—” Dad began. He jerked again. “Ow,” he said, and reached down to rub his leg.

  “Watch yourself, woman,” he snarled at Mom.

  “Actually, Jason, since you’re sixteen, I do think you’re old enough to have a vote,” Mom said. “What would you like to do?”

  “I was thinking that Sunday might be a better day for family time. It is Easter and all. I think there’s a spring street fair at the Junction. We could all go and check it out.”

  I held my breath. How would they react?

  “You mean after church, right, Jason?” Mom asked.

  “Of course.” Actually I’d forgotten about church. Christmas, Easter, and All Saints Day were the only times we went. That was Dad’s rule.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Mom said. “What do you think, Jack?”

  “You and I will talk about this later,” Dad said through clenched teeth. “Right now, let’s finish eating.”

  That was the end of the conversation. Wow. We actually almost had a family me
eting like Ashley had suggested.

  Dad usually didn’t like talking about things. He just barked commands at us. He came from a loud German-American family. Family reunions with them were kind of weird. All they did was drink beer and complain.

  A lot of people think all Indians are alcoholics. Not in my family.

  When dinner was over I grabbed my phone off the table and headed up to my room. It was still light outside, thanks to daylight saving time. What a cool invention. Everyone agrees to set their clocks ahead an hour this time of year. Then, magically, there’s an extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day for the spring and summer.

  I picked up my binoculars and ear buds. Opening my bedroom window, I climbed out onto the roof. I had to take each step carefully on the slanted cedar tiles.

  I made my way over to the west side of the house. It had been a rare sunny day in the Pacific Northwest. The sun reflected brightly off the water in the distance. It shimmered like gold in the light.

  I could tell from the sun’s position low in the sky that it would be setting in about an hour. I liked to watch it go down. I put the ear buds in and started the playlist on my phone. I texted Ron.

  “There’s a chance I could make it 2moro. Parents r talking about doing the family thing on Sunday.”

  He replied without delay.

  “Great. Keep me posted.”

  I leaned back, listened to the music, and relaxed. I knew there’d be some fireworks later inside the house when my parents talked about my Sunday family idea. But I wasn’t going to worry about that now. I shut off my mind and focused on the music. In a few minutes I nodded off to sleep.

  When I woke up, the sun was just sliding down beyond Bainbridge Island. I imagined it settling into the water like someone taking a bath. The air was becoming cooler. I decided to go back inside.

  As I climbed in and closed the window I heard loud voices from downstairs. The fireworks had already started. I couldn’t make out what words they were saying, or rather yelling, at each other. I could tell they were angry words. Dad must really be drunk.