The Black Wolf: An Urban Indian's Journey to the Good Red Road

By "JC ""Indio""" Ortega

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456850494

"JC ""Indio""" Ortega

The coming of age of an urban American Indian at the end of the 20th Century. JC “Indio” Ortega has never known life on an Indian reservation. As a mixed-blood Hispanic/American Indian his experience has been that of an “Urban Indian” his reservation being the streets of the cities he grew up in. He has struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction, he has been a mugger, a thief, an armed robber, a bouncer, a janitor, a boxer, an actor, a writer, a lecturer and at last a member of a Traditional Indian Medicine Society.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

To quote Robert DeNiro when he portrayed Middleweight Champ Jake LaMotta in that great Martin Scorsese flick Raging Bull, I recall every fall, every hook, every jab, as you know my life wasn’t fab. Now ain’t that the truth. It’s been one hell of a roller coaster ride for sure, ups and downs, highs and lows. Sometimes I think there have been more lows than highs.

So to quote my man Frank from his song, That’s Life, Many times I thought of cutting out, but my heart won’t buy it. Amen! So Each time I find myself laying flat on my face, I just pick myself up and get back in the race. Amen to that, too.

So why this book? One warm Saturday afternoon in early November a few years ago I took a ride up to the Mohawk Trail area of Western Massachusetts. The Mohawk Trail is a beacon for tourists during the fall season due to its breathtaking foliage. A friend of mine, a Mohawk woman named Tania, had come along for the ride. Tania was known as The Mohawk Chili Lady, because of the fantastic chili she used to make and sell at the pow-wows around New England. Tania died from lung cancer a while back, I’m sorry to say. I still miss having her at the pow-wows with me.

Although it was a little past peak season in terms of leaf peeping, the weather was still warm enough and there was still enough foliage left on the trees for us to enjoy the scenery. We stopped off at the town of Shelburne Falls which is right off of the Trail, parked the car and headed over to the area known as the Glacial Potholes which are located right in the middle of Shelburne Falls.

The Potholes are stone swimming pools that were formed in the rocks during the Ice Age. They were formed by the swirling or water and rocks as the ice melted and the glaciers began to recede. According to my understanding this is one of the largest collection of glacial potholes on record. They’re right at the base of Salmon Falls and they can be observed from an observation deck overlooking the falls. It’s a beautiful, magical spot, I was introduced to them a couple of years before by some friends and I usually venture up there several times during the year. Tania and I found a bench on the observation deck and just kind of zoned out enjoying both the potholes and the still fairly warm weather.

But for some reason I began to sit there and bemoan my misspent youth and all the good, prime years that I had wasted through booze, drugs, bad companions and bad behavior. Years that I knew I could never get back. Then all of a sudden this thought came out of left field, Why not write a book? Write a book about everything you experienced, maybe it won’t be a complete waste after all. The idea intrigued the hell out of me.

So a couple of nights a week, armed with a black notebook filled with lined paper and a couple of pens, I would hit a local coffee shop, grab a seat at the counter, and fueled on by several cups of coffee I’d sit there and write my ass off. In the beginning it was mostly stream of consciousness stuff, whatever came to mind. I might describe a person I knew or a place, or I would write about a particular event that had occurred. Slowly it started to come together and look like something.

This went on for awhile. Then one night this guy I knew asked me what I was writing. I’m working on a book, I told him. No kidding? What’s it about? he asked. I guess you could say it’s my autobiography, I informed him. Why? he asked me. Who’s gonna’ care? Well now there he had me, who indeed? I was starting to suffer from a major case of writer’s block by that point, anyway. So I stashed the black notebook away and went on with my affairs.

A little while later I enrolled in college. I had been promising myself that I would for some time, finally I made the move. One of the first classes I took there was a writing course. It was taught by a fantastic instructor named Richard Anderson, great guy, wonderful teacher, very kind, encouraging and supportive.

Over the course of the semester the class was required to submit four essays on various topics. Among the topics were a time when you witnessed prejudice being visited upon someone, another essay was to be about a time when you experienced prejudice yourself. I thought about it and I realized that a couple of chapters I had written for my Great American Novel, would work perfectly as essays.

I pulled out my black notebook, dusted it off and looked through it, and sure enough there were a couple of chapters that fit the bill perfectly. So I typed them up and submitted them as homework assignments. Well they worked all right, and Professor Anderson liked them. In fact, he liked them so much that he went as far as to submit one for publication in a booklet that the college put out on an annual basis.

So now I start feeling a little guilty. I mean I hadn’t written them specifically as assignments for the course they were meant to be chapters in my Great American Novel. I decided I had to make a confession to Richard Anderson. So one afternoon after class I took him aside and made a clean breast of things.

Did you really write them? he asked me. I assured him that I had. Did these events really take place? he queried. Once again I answered in the affirmative. Then you’ve got nothing to worry about, he told me. So now every time I run into him on campus he’s telling me, You can write that book, and I think you have to.

So after awhile, between classes, homework assignments work and hitting the gym and all my other endeavors, I’d sit down at the computer and chip away at it. It took some time, but before long it started to come together.

So did all this really take place? Oh yes, yes indeed. Now in terms of the dialogue, this one said this, then I said that. I don’t remember verbatim who said what to whom in every single instance, I’m working off of memory here, but I know I’m pretty close. As far as certain people’s names, in some instances I’ve changed the person’s name, to protect the innocent, as they say, or the guilty in some cases. And in other cases I’ve only used the person’s first name, aside from that; this exactly is how it all went down.

So is anybody going to care? Well, that remains to be seen, I guess time will tell. But it’s been quite the journey for sure, no question about it. So buckle up your seat belt, keep your hands in the vehicle at all times, and enjoy the ride.

JC Indio Ortega

ONE

John Wayne was my hero, no question about it. He was everything a man should be, tough with men, tender with women; I mean the guy had class. Okay, so I wasn’t nuts about the way he killed Indians in the movies, but what the hell, nobody’s perfect. He was tough, he was brave, he was fearless, he was a tall, lean, steely-eyed killer and I wish the hell I had him here with me right now, I thought.

I stopped and looked down at the baseball bat I held in my right hand. Then I turned and looked back at our apartment building. I wanted to turn around and head home, I wanted to forget the whole thing, just say to hell with it. But my grandfather was there waiting for me and he’s want to know what had happened. I knew I couldn’t lie to him, he’d know. He’d give me that Goddamn grim look of his and he’d know.

The old boy reminded me a little of John Wayne to a degree. In some ways they were an awful lot alike. The glaring difference was that the Duke was an Indian fighter and the old man was an Indian. But that little detail aside they were two peas out of the same pod.

I turned and looked back at our place one more time, then I took a deep breath, clutched the baseball bat a little tighter, and then slowly headed towards my destination. Win, lose or draw I was going to have to go through with it.

About a half an hour before I’d been working my newspaper stand in front of Marchetti’s Grocery Store on Salem Street, within spitting distance of the Historic Old North Church in Boston’s Italian North End just like I did everyday after school, Monday through Friday.

I’d get there a little before three in the afternoon, wait for the guy in the truck to come by and drop off the papers and pick up the unsold ones from the day before. Then I’d unbundle the papers, set them up and sell as many of the fuckers as I could before I wrapped things up around six or six-thirty and headed for home.

But on this particular Monday afternoon I’d had visitors, two older Italian kids named Anthony and Rocco. They had come around a couple of times before demanding protection money. I guess they were trying to break into the rackets early.

Anthony was about thirteen, and from what I could gather he was the brains of the pair. He was tall and thin, with straight black hair that he slicked back with about a half a pound of grease. He was constantly sucking on a toothpick, which I imagine he figured made him look like a real hood.

Rocco, on the other hand was unquestionably the brawn. He was around the same age as Anthony, a little shorter, but twice as wide. He was obviously going to be a real gorilla when he got older. And if he didn’t wind up dead or in jail first, he’d have himself one hell of a career as a leg-breaker.

I was eleven years old, not particularly big for my age, but most importantly I was alone. In short, I was the perfect target. One thing about guys like this, you were never going to catch any one of them alone, they ran in pairs, or in packs like hyenas. The more, the merrier, after all, there was strength in numbers. But you could bet your life you wouldn’t catch one of them alone, they knew better.

Today they had a third would-be racketeer in tow, a tall, fourteen-year old black kid named Cedric. Anthony informed me that they had given me enough time to come across with their money, now they were going to take the stand and whatever cash I had there. Anthony ordered Rocco to rough me up, Cedric just stood there looking amused, he apparently had just come along for the ride.

Rocco did as he was instructed and I took off for home. But no sooner was I through the door when I felt a large hand grab me and throw me against the wall. This just wasn’t my day.

Hey, what the hell is this? my grandfather hollered. What the hell are you doing home so early? And what’s with the tears? Those are for women. Three older boys jumped me, I stammered. They took over my newsstand. I had expected a little sympathy. I was sadly mistaken. Instead he doubled up his fist and nearly put a hole through the wall.

Jesus! he roared. So what the hell are you doing here? Go take it back! But there are three of them, I protested. And they’re bigger and older and . . . .  So use an equalizer! A what? I asked meekly.

He stormed into the bedroom I shared with my three brothers and came out carrying a baseball bat.

Here, take this! he said, thrusting the bat into my hands. Now go take care of business. But . . . I tried to protest. Go! he hollered. But . . . Now! he roared. But . . . Deal with it, and don’t come back until you’ve taken that damn stand back. But I . . . Make them taste their own blood. Make them understand that if they ever touch you again they’re going to get worse. But I can’t . . .

The old boy opened the door and shoved me out into the hallway. He glared at me and asked, Who you more afraid of boy, them or me? And with that he shut the door in my face.

Once out in the street the thought of enlisting some aid crossed my mind, but who? I had two older brothers who could handle themselves pretty well. But they were off somewhere doing whatever it was they did and I had no idea when they’d be home. I also had four cousins, all boys, and every single one of them could get pretty nasty, but they lived too far away. So that still left friends, neighbors, or whoever, but we had only recently moved to Boston from Hartford, so I really had no friends here and I didn’t know my neighbors. Besides, looking around I realized there wasn’t another damn soul on the street. It almost seemed like everybody in the world had vanished, everybody that is, except Anthony, and Rocco and Cedric and me.

Maybe they’ll be gone by the time I get there, I thought to myself. But I quickly shook that little fantasy off. They’ll be there; you can bet your life on it, you’re not that lucky. So with no one around to back me up I was faced with the rather unpleasant prospect of taking on those three bastards alone or facing my Grandfather’s wrath. I decided that Anthony and Rocco were the lesser of the two evils, but how much less? That remained to be seen.

Slowly, I started heading back in the direction of the North End and my newsstand. My palms felt sweaty; I was having trouble holding on to the baseball bat. My breath became labored, I could hardly breathe. My legs felt heavy; it was like I had two lead ball and chains attached to them. I stopped and looked back our place one more time, Who you more afraid of, them or me? I turned and once more headed for the North End and my newsstand.

All of a sudden a feeling of rage and indignation started to sweep over me. It mixed in with the fear and began taking over. Who the hell were these three fucks, anyway? What gave them the right to just come along and take over my newsstand? It wasn’t theirs, God damn it, it was mine! And if I didn’t take it back I was going to get an ass whipping from Grandpa, now I started to get very pissed off.

Why in the hell did we have to move here in the first place? Why did we have to leave the North End of Hartford? So it wasn’t the Garden of Eden, so what? At least I was accepted there to a certain extent, anyway. Why was I sent to a Catholic school right in the God damn Italian section? And why the fuck did the last newsstand franchise have to be right in the middle of fucking spaghetti-bender territory?

I hated those cocksuckers, and I mean with a passion! I hated everything about them, their gestures, their mannerisms, the way they looked at you like you were something they just stepped in, that’s if they even looked at you at all. And they didn’t really look at you, they sneered at you. I swore every one of those assholes spent at least fifteen minutes a day looking into a mirror practicing their sneers.

In truth, I could have probably passed for one of them if I wanted to; the trouble was I didn’t want to. And when they found out I wasn’t an Italian I was automatically an outcast. And when they found out I was a combination of Puerto Rican and American Indian, sweet Jesus Christ! I felt like a mongoose in the middle of a cobra convention.

By now I had made it back to the North End where my newsstand was located, I stood there for a moment plotting my next move. They were still there all right, all three of them. Anthony was leaning against the stand holding court, his ever-present toothpick dangling from his lips. Cedric was standing with his hands in his jacket pockets talking to Anthony. Rocco was standing with his back to me, arms folded across his chest; hanging on Anthony’s every word. They hadn’t spotted me yet. Good! I thought, that will give me the element of surprise.

I took a deep breath, then slowly, quietly, I started heading towards them. I was fifteen feet away from them, then ten feet. Still they hadn’t seen me. Now I was six feet away from them, I clutched the bat tightly with both hands. Then I was four feet away from them, now three. Suddenly Anthony glanced to his right and spotted me, he shouted a warning to Rocco. Rocco spun around but it was too late. I swung the bat with everything I had, Mickey Mantle would have been proud. I caught Rocco Square in the stomach. He doubled over with a loud Woooof! Then I swung a second time, Mighty Casey may have struck out, but I didn’t. This time I nailed Rocco in the face. His nose and mouth exploded with blood. He fell over and hit the sidewalk on his back. I straddled him and began swinging the bat like a madman. Rocco covered his head and face with his arms, but I can’t remember him crying out in pain once.

You motherfucker! Anthony screamed. You motherfuckin’ Injun-Spic! You’re fuckin’ dead, you got that! I’m gonna’ break your fuckin’ legs! I’m gonna’ . . . .  He didn’t get to finish. I turned and swung the bat in the direction of his oily head. I missed by about three feet, but he spat out his toothpick and took off down the street, screaming threats and swearing revenge every step of the way.

I turned back to Rocco, and then I remembered Cedric. I’d forgotten all about him, I turned to face him. Maricon! I spat at him, brandishing the bat. You want some? He put his hands up and backed away. Man what the fuck is wrong with you? I didn’t do shit. He stepped around Rocco and headed down the street in the same direction Anthony had taken. Crazy motherfucker! he muttered, as he walked away.

So that left only Rocco to feel my wrath. He was the one who had roughed me up in the first place, now it was my turn. He was already trying to get up when I reached him, with a murderous look in his eyes. He was a fighter all right. Well God dammit, so was I, and I was there to prove it.

I slammed him in the head; he fell back and covered up again. You fuckin’ piece of shit! I screamed as I rained wood on him. I was too scared to stop and too enraged to want to. Most of my blows landed on his elbows and arms, but I didn’t miss once.

I had shifted my attack to his knees when I heard a man yell Hey! I looked up to see old man Marchetti coming out of his grocery store. Hey what you try to do, kill him? Oh shit, I thought. Here comes the Goddamn Calvary. Where the hell was he when they were fucking me up?

I stopped beating Rocco and backed away. Mr. Marchetti charged over and snatched the bat out of my hands. You gone nuts? he hollered at me. I half expected him to start belting me around. I figured he’d take the side of the bambino on the sidewalk, instead he surprised me.

He reached down and grabbed a handful of Rocco’s hair and yanked him to his feet. That dirty fuckin’ . . . Rocco started to say. Shaddup! Mr. Marchetti yelled at him, and punctuated by slapping Rocco across the head. Jesus! Rocco protested. Shaddup I said! Mr. Marchetti roared. I don’t know who was more shocked, Rocco or yours truly.

Troublemaker! Mr. Marchetti berated him. Always the trouble, you and the other one. I know what you did. Rocco stared at Mr. Marchetti with a perplexed look on his face. Blood was coming from his nose and mouth, and his right elbow looked like it was starting to swell. He never dreamed I’d fight back and he sure as hell had never expected his paisan, Mr. Marchetti, to side against him. I almost felt sorry for the prick.

Now get the hell out of here! Mr. Marchetti ordered him. Don’t make no trouble around my store, and don’t bother this kid again.

Rocco said nothing. He stared at Mr. Marchetti for a moment, then at me. Then back at Mr. Marchetti. It seemed like he was trying to figure out which one of us had shocked him the most. Or which one of us he was angrier at. Finally he just turned and headed down the street, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

Mr. Marchetti watched Rocco take off down the street, and I stood there silently watching Mr. Marchetti. I wondered what his next move would be. I figured him to be in his late fifties, his curly hair was almost completely white, but his moustache still held a couple of black hairs here and there. His hair must have been jet black at one time, maybe even blacker than mine. He wasn’t very tall, perhaps five foot six or seven, but he was powerfully build, a real brick shithouse. He must have been a real pisser when he was younger, I couldn’t picture him being a punk like Anthony and Rocco, but I’d be willing to wager he put more than one Anthony and Rocco in their place.

Suddenly he turned to face me. He held the bat in his right hand and lightly slapped his left palm with it. Who you think you are? he asked finally, Babe Ruth? I assured him I didn’t. Hell, I didn’t even know who Babe Ruth was. He studied me a moment longer than asked, You Italian? I shook my head no. Well maybe you should be, he chuckled. Handing me back the baseball bat he said, Here, take this. Don’t worry, they no bother you again. I look out for you. And with that he turned and headed back into his grocery store.

I strode over to my newsstand and reclaimed it as mine. Never before had I felt such a rush of adrenaline. Hell. I felt absolutely great! I had successfully defended my little corner of the world, my turf, my reservation. I had been driven off my land and had fought a great battle to win it back. The Indians who defeated Custer had nothing on me. Move over Geronimo, give me some room, show me some respect, and stop looking so damn fierce, or I’ll whack your ass, too.

But then a dark cloud crossed over my victory celebration, they’ll be back, I told myself. They’ll be back and there will be more of them. They’ll have bats, pipes, their kitchen sinks and whatever the hell else they can carry. Maybe old man Marchetti will pitch in and help me out, then again maybe he won’t. But one way or another, they’ll be back.

I shook that thought off, I’d worry about that later, I wanted to savor my victory just a little bit longer. I remained at the stand for another half an hour then I decided to wrap things up. I’d had enough excitement for one day. I stashed the unsold papers under the stand, slung the Louisville Slugger over my shoulder and headed for home.

I made it home okay and headed up the stairs to our apartment. It had already started to get dark and the light in the hallway was on. And that was when I noticed something I hadn’t spotted before; there was a trace of blood on the tip of the bat. Now I started to get a little sick.

When I stepped inside the apartment I found Grandpa waiting for me on the other side of the door. I wondered if he had even moved from that spot since I left.

Well? he demanded. I showed him the blood on the tip of the bat. Good! he nodded, and then he went into the kitchen without even asking me if I was okay.

I took the bat into the bathroom and washed the blood off of it. I was furious at my Grandfather. He hadn’t even asked me if I was all right, he just wanted to see blood. Hell, old man Marchetti had been ready to adopt me. Was that what it took to get respect in this world? Was that what you had to do in order to be accepted? Did you have to beat the hell out of somebody? Did you have to draw blood? Sweet Jesus, what a shithole this damn world is.

Our kitchen wasn’t much bigger than our bathroom, and our bathroom was just an overgrown closet. My family was large, and we had to cram into the kitchen like sardines for our meals. Tonight was no different from any other night, one of my brothers or sisters was getting screamed at for some Goddamn thing. I can’t remember who or why, I was just grateful it wasn’t me for a change. After dinner I went into the bedroom I shared with my two older brothers and my younger brother. We had a desk and a chair in there, supposedly to do our homework at. I sat down at it picked up a comic book and started reading it. I was about half way through when Grandpa walked into the room.

He sat down on my bed; I tossed the comic book aside. So, tell me what happened, he said. It’s about damn time, I thought. I recounted my epic battle to reclaim the newsstand, finishing with how Mr. Marchetti had come out of his store to break it up and asked me if I was an Italian.

The old man chuckled and nodded his head. Yeah, Marchetti’s a good man, I like him. Look, maybe you think I was harsh to send you back there alone. Maybe you think I should have sent somebody with you, or maybe you think I should have gone with you myself. But there are going to be times when there isn’t going to be someone around to help you. There are going to be times when you’re going have to go it alone. So you might as well start learning to do that now, do you understand that? I nodded yes, though I didn’t really mean it.

But you did okay, you handled it by yourself and you handled it well, I’m very proud of you. They might come back, I told him. Yeah, they might. You surprised them today, they didn’t expect it. They’ll be ready for you next time. If this conversation was designed to comfort me, it was failing miserably.

He reached into his pants pockets and pulled something out and thrust it towards me. I looked down and saw it was a pair of brass knuckles. Do you know how to use these? he asked. I nodded yes. Then you be ready for them. You are in the right here, you know. That’s not always going to make a difference. You might get screwed anyway, but you are in the right. So you’ve got that in you’re corner anyway. I nodded again. That’ll be a huge help when they’re driving my head into the sidewalk, I thought. But I said nothing.

I arrived at the newsstand the next afternoon loaded for bear. I had the baseball bat under my arm and the brass knuckles in my jacket pocket. I sold newspapers until four o’clock. It occurred to me that it would be dark in an hour, and my boys might very well be waiting to make their move under the cover of darkness. I decided to cut out of there around five, make it an early evening.

Every few minutes someone would either go in or come out of Marchetti’s Grocery Store. Whenever the door would open the aroma of Italian meats, cheeses and spices would filter out and mingle with the cool autumn air. They smelled fantastic. Looking in I could see the clock inside the store. It read four-fifteen. Good! I thought. I’m outta’ here soon, I’ll just give it a little more time.

I sold a few more papers then darkness started to fall. I checked the time, the clock inside Marchetti’s now stated that it was 5:15 p.m. Okay, that’s it, I’m gone, I told myself. Why press my luck?

I started stashing the unsold papers under the stand when a voice behind me yelled, Hey you! I froze. Oh fuck, here it comes, I thought. I almost made it out of here. Son of a bitch, I almost made it. I thrust my hand into my jacket pocket, slipped my fingers into the holes in the brass knuckles and whirled around. I found myself face to face with my older brother Mike. He was standing there laughing at me. What the fuck, you jumpy? he chided me. God damn, man! Don’t fuckin’ do that to me! I yelled at him. What time you goin’ home? he chuckled. Right now! Okay, I’ll wait. I finished stashing the rest of the papers and the two of us walked home together.

Wednesday passed uneventfully, so did Thursday. By Friday afternoon I started to allow myself to relax just ever so slightly. Maybe my friends will go looking for easier pickings in greener pastures, I told myself. But as badly as I wanted to believe that deep down I didn’t. They’d be back for their pound of flesh all right. What I couldn’t figure out was what was taking them so long.

In order to pass the time I started looking over the front page of one of the newspapers. For all the papers I’d sold I never actually read one. I had just turned to the second page when I felt something behind me. I turned around and froze. There was a guy standing there with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket just looking me up and down.

He had to be in his late twenties, maybe even early thirties. He certainly looked Italian. His jet black hair was already starting to recede, he was obviously going to be bald by the time he was forty. He looked like he stood about five foot ten and weighed around one hundred and sixty-five pounds. But he might as well have been six foot six and weighed two hundred and fifty for all the difference it made.

This guy had danger written all over him, I mean he was a real killer. His eyes were like wild animal’s, he looked like he was already at least half-crazy. He reminded me a little of Anthony. No, no way! This is what Anthony aspired to. Anthony was a wannabe; this guy was the real McCoy.

I figured him for one of Anthony’s relatives, an older brother or an uncle or some damn thing. Well, old buddy, at least now you won’t have to wonder how they’re going to come after you, I told myself. Now you know. I glanced at the baseball bat under the newsstand, it couldn’t have been more than three feet away, but from where I stood it looked more like three miles. Slowly I reached into my jacket pocket and slipped on the brass knuckles. They’re not going to make any difference with this guy, I told myself. But I want to try and get one in there, at least. I’ll get one good shot in and then I’m going to get seriously fucked up.

Al Capone, Jr. stared at me a moment longer, finally he spoke, You the one that fucked up the Demarco kid with the bat? Huh? Oh you mean Rocco? Well I didn’t mean to . . . He cut me off. Hey! Either you did, or you didn’t! Yeah I did. I admitted, resigning myself. This is going to bad, I told myself. This is going to be so fucking bad.

He studied me a moment longer. You know my uncle in there? he asked, jerking a thumb towards Marchetti’s store. You mean Mr. Marchetti? Yeah, sure. He tells me you’re okay, he says you got balls. My heart, which a moment before had been threatening to pound right out of my chest, started to slow down just a little. Oh yeah? Well, he’s okay, too.

My newfound paisan studied me a little more. Look, you’ll be okay around here from now on, nobody’s gonna’ bother you. Anybody fucks with you, you come see me, understand? I nodded. You know where Jimmy’s Shoe Shine is? he asked. I nodded again. Jimmy’s Shoe Shine was about a block away. Inside there were six elevated chairs and a little old Italian guy named Jimmy who shined shoes and sold magazines, cigarettes and cigars. But all that was a front, Jimmy’s Shoe Shine was a bookie joint. Anybody fucks with you again you go over there and ask for Joey, that’s me, got that? I nodded once more. And then, without another word he was gone.

Joey turned out to be a man of his word. I had no trouble in that neighborhood from that day on. In time my newsstand and I became part of the sights and sounds of the North End. And as I got to know some of the spaghetti-benders I discovered that most of them weren’t all that bad after all. I never really fit in with them completely, but we co-existed without any major problems. As for Anthony and Rocco, well we never became bosom buddies, but they gave me room. They sneered and they grumbled, but they gave me room and they let me go my way, and that was all that I could ask for.

TWO

Schimitzin! The Green Corn Festival, members of over five hundred Indian tribes gathering at the Civic Center right in the middle of Hartford, Connecticut. Gathering for a four-day celebration of dancing and drumming. Between the dancers, the drummers and the traders, there had to be well over two thousand Indians packed into the Civic Center. Now that is one huge, kick ass pow-wow!

The Mashantucket Pequot Tribe of Ledyard, Connecticut was sponsoring it. The very same Pequot’s who owned the Foxwoods Resort Casino, so there was big money involved. They held contests among both the individual dancers as well as the drum groups who showed up to show their stuff. The dancers were divided up into categories, men’s traditional, woman’s traditional, fancy dancers, jingle dancers, juniors category, seniors category, the you name it category. A dancer who came in first place in a particular category could walk away fifty thousand dollars richer. So it was no secret why this four-day event drew dancers and drummers from all over the U.S. as well as Canada and Mexico, big bucks!

The grand entry that day had been awesome. It had taken close to forty-five minutes to get all the dancers inside the arena. One drum group would start the grand entry song, and then another group would pick it up, then another, and then yet another. The echo of the drum reverberating off the ceiling and the walls of the Civic Center was exhilarating.

When the grand entry was finally over they held a couple of inter-tribal dances, after that the contests got underway. And that was my queue to split. I never bothered with the contests; I only did the grand entry and the inter-tribals. In the first place, I didn’t consider myself to be that good a dancer, and in the second place I’d have to register, and the first thing they’d want to know is what tribe did I belong to?

And what tribe do I belong to? Now that’s an interesting question. As a matter of fact I had the blood of at least three, possibly four Indian tribes coursing through my veins. If you separate them it isn’t much, one fourth there, one sixteenth here, one-twenty-fourth over there. But if you add them all together it comes to around three eighths. Still, how do you claim only one without negating the other two? And would they all want me to claim them, for that matter?

My Indian blood all came from my mother’s side of the family. I suppose I could always tell the Indians at the registration table that my Puerto Rican/Cuban father probably had Taino in him. Maybe I could claim Taino, which might go over with some, with others maybe not.

My parents met while serving in the Army together. My father was a photographer, my mother a nurse. When he first saw her he thought she was Spanish, so he went up to her and proceeded to speak to her in Espanol. She told him to Get lost! and that pretty much set the tone for their relationship from that point on.

Anyway, many years and eight kids later and here I am walking through the Civic Center in my homemade dancer’s regalia, which looked so drab compared to some of the truly beautiful outfits that many of the dancers were sporting. Some of them had to be worth hundreds of dollars. A lot of the male fancy dancers looked like peacocks and were strutting around just as proudly. The Mashuntucket Pequot’s had really done a fantastic job of bringing some the best dancers throughout North America to their gathering. I looked at the faces of the full-bloods and compared their copper brown skin to mine; it made me realize how little like an Indian I really do look. Okay, so I have black hair, so what? A lot of people have black hair. I have my mother’s eyes and nose, but beyond that? I’ve been taken for Greek, Italian, French, Black Irish and on a couple of occasions, Spanish.

But mixed-blood Indians here in the east aren’t the exception, they’re the rule. So many of the people have been mixed with white or black, or both or Hispanic, like me, or even Asian. The Narragansett tribe of Rhode Island is comprised of mixed-bloods, I have a good friend from that tribe named Dean, a member of the Wolf Clan, who looks African-American, and yet acts more Indian than a lot of full-blooded Indians.

We get our share of flack about this at some of the pow-wows. On one occasion he and I were standing near the dance circle in our regalia having a conversation. All of a sudden this white woman came up to us and asked,

Excuse me, but are there any Real Indians here?

Now there was a time in my life when I would have gotten very nasty at that particular moment, but one of my teachers, a Micmac medicine man, who was himself half-Italian, taught me how to handle situations like this. I looked around and spotted a full-blooded Indian named Jules.

Hey Jules! I called to him. Have you seen any Real Indians here today? I asked him while pointing at the woman, You know, from India? Jules quickly caught on and called back, No, not so far! I turned back to the woman and shrugged, I guess not.

The lady stared at me a moment, then realized she’d been the butt of a joke.

I mean are there any Indians from out west here? she asked coolly. I don’t know, I replied, turning away, and my Narragansett buddy and I simply picked up our conversation where we’d left off.

But as dumb and as ignorant as shit like that was, the fact remained that neither my friend and I, nor a lot of other mixed-blood Indians like us were ever going to be accepted as Real Indians, not by non-Indians, and in some cases not even by Indians. I had come to the realization a long time ago that I was never going to be completely accepted by anyone, not by the Hispanics, not by the Indians, and not by the Whites. The simple truth was I was never white enough for the one, or dark enough for the other two.

But I shook that thought off as I walked through the Civic Center assembly hall. I hadn’t come here to fret over shit like that, I had come to dance my toes off, celebrate one of my cultures and heritages, and in short have a good time. Just the same, I couldn’t help but marvel at the vast number of the people from so many different tribes that had congregated here; I had literally never seen so many Indians in one place in my life. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was how Custer had felt in his last couple of minutes on earth.

I decided to get something to eat; dancing and sex always gave me an appetite. I hooked a right and headed in the direction of the food concession stands. My quest for food would take me right past the registration table where the dancers entering the competition were signing up. As I approached the table I saw a guy standing there talking to the three mixed-blood ’skins sitting behind it. The three men in charge of registration that day weren’t Mashuntucket Pequot’s, I recognized one of them from the pow-wow circuit, the other two I didn’t know. The guy standing in front of them seemed to be arguing about something, he had an object in his hand and he kept thrusting it towards the three guys behind the table, but they just kept shaking their heads No!

The guy was about my height, maybe an inch shorter and two or three years younger. His long black hair was tied in a braid that hung down his back. I assumed he was Indian, but he could have passed for Asian. But that was far from unusual, a lot of ’skins look Asian, and vice versa. The anthropologists say that the Indian people came here to Turtle Island, by way of a land bridge that once connected Siberia to Alaska. But the old traditional people say that’s horseshit. They admit to the relationship with the people of Asia, and they agree that a migration took place, but they maintain that it went from west to east, not the other way around.

But whatever the case, I couldn’t help but wonder what this guy was arguing with the three men at the registration table about. I noticed he had a large suitcase on the floor next to him, but it was the item he held in his hand that he seemed hell bent on getting them to look at, and they seemed just as determined not to.

A great deal of bickering and infighting goes on at the pow-wows, and it’s usually about some bullshit not even worth thinking about, let alone fighting over, and as long as they didn’t involve me personally, I tried to stay out of it. And this situation was no different, whatever the hell they were arguing about, it was between the four of them, and that was that. As the saying goes, My name is Bennett, and I ain’t in it.

But as I passed the table, I heard one of the three guys say, Look, you’ve got your own culture and your own people and that’s where you belong. You just plain don’t belong here. That stopped me dead in my tracks. I’d heard that so many times, in so many different places, for a moment I thought the prick was talking to me. I had no idea what was going on, but now I had to find out. So much against my better judgment, I turned around and walked over to the registration table.

How you doing guys? Is there a problem here? I asked the three men behind the table. Well this guy wants to enter the competition as a fancy dancer, but he’s not Indian. One of them replied. Yes, I am! The guy protested. I’m Chippewa!

I turned to face him, and now I saw that the object he had been thrusting at the three guys at the table was a card. He extended it towards me, so I took it and looked it over. According to the card his name was Matthew Chen, and it stated that he was a member of the Chippewa tribe.

Chen, that sounded Chinese, and he certainly looked Asian. For a moment I wondered if he was a Chinese who had been adopted by an Indian family. Are you Chinese? I asked. My father is, yes. But my mother’s Indian from Minnesota. She’s Chippewa and so am I.

So that was it, he was a half-blood. He looked more like his father, but followed his mother’s traditions. The three ’skins at the table probably had him pegged as a Wannabee, someone who wants to be an Indian so badly that they go around pretending that they are. Do you have regalia? I asked him. Yes, right here in my suitcase. Do you have the registration fee? Of course I do, he assured me.

I handed him back the card and turned to the three men behind the table. Well guys, what do you say? Come on, do the right thing. I thought. But the guy in the middle leaned back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest and shook his head no. He has a culture of his own and that’s where he belongs. He doesn’t belong here, this is ours!

Now this was pure bullshit. If this kid had been half-Indian and half-French, English, Dutch, German or whatever the hell else, there’s no way these guys would have given him any trouble. They wouldn’t be telling him, Go back to you own people like they were God almighty, he’d be as welcome as the flowers in the spring. This was flat out bigotry. I hated it when Indians acted like this; it embarrassed the hell out of me.

This kind of shit is very common among mixed-blood Indians, I’m sorry to say. Full-bloods tend to be a little more accepting, for the most part, but mixed-bloods can be God-awful when it comes to this shit. Most of the time it’s Indians who are mixed with white facing off against Indians mixed with black, with both sides claiming that they are the Real Indians! In truth, no one who practices any kind of bigotry has the true spirit of the Indian people inside of them, but they’re usually too fucked up to realize that. I was so sick of shit like this that right at that moment I wanted to smash my fist into each one of these three guy’s mouths and see which one I could bloody up the worst. But instead I kept my cool.

It looks to me like he’s got two peoples and two different cultures, I told them calmly. Now here’s how I see it. He meets all the criteria, he has his card, he has his regalia and he has the registration fee. So here it is, if he’s not allowed to enter whatever the hell category he wants here, and I don’t care if he wins, loses or draws, if he’s not allowed to enter along with everyone else, I’m going to insist that he get a lawyer and sue the three of you for discrimination. And he has a witness, and my friends, you’re looking at him!

And that’s just exactly what I would have done. I didn’t blame the Pequot’s for this nonsense. I’ve always found the people from Mashuntucket to be very open and accepting, unfortunately it just worked out that they had the wrong people, who were not part of the tribe, working the registration table that day.

The three men behind the table sat there and stared daggers at me. I stood there and glared right back at them. Fuck you! I thought. Fuck you and your elitist bullshit. Fuck you and every piece of shit in the world just like you; whether they be white, black, red, yellow or brown, fuck all of you.

Finally the one in the middle sighed and pushed the registration form towards the guy standing next to me, he leaned over and began filling it out. All right! I nodded, and turned and stared to walk away. Okay, Boy Scout, you did your good deed for the day, I told myself. Now let’s get the hell out of here and go find something to eat.

But still . . . was there some unwritten rule somewhere that stated you could only be a member of one ethnic group at a time? Was it all like some kind of a soccer tournament? You picked your team, or in most cases had your team picked for you, then you remained on that team until the bloody end, was that how it worked?

I was snapped out of my thoughts by a tap on the shoulder. I turned around and found Matthew, the Chinese-Chippewa guy standing there. I just wanted to thank you for standing up for me back there, he said. No problem, I assured him. Has anything like that ever happened to you before? Yeah, a couple of times, but most of the people are usually pretty cool. But there’s always going to be one or two assholes. Amen, brother! I laughed. But I did want to prove to you that I’m telling the truth. Matthew, that’s not necessary, I believe you. No please, he insisted.

He pulled out his wallet and proceeded to show me pictures of his family, his father and mother, brothers and sisters. Apparently his mother came from a reservation in Minnesota; she wound up in Oakland, California where she met a man of Chinese background. They got married and had five kids. When Matthew was young, his mother took him to a pow-wow somewhere around the Bay area. The drumbeat, the songs and the dancing stirred something in him, as it did in a great many others, including me I guess. So when he got older he hit the pow-wow circuit and became a competition dancer.

I guess I’m unique, he shrugged. Actually, Matthew my father is a combination of Cuban and Puerto Rican. I also have Indian friends, who are half-Mexican, half-Japanese, half-Korean, and I know an awful lot who are half-black and half-Indian, so I’m afraid you’re not as unique as you think.

Hey, maybe people like us should start our own tribe, huh? Maybe that’s the answer. Well, once again, thank you, I should probably go and get ready. He shook hands with me, then picked up his suitcase and headed in the direction of the dressing rooms. I watched him walk away, was starting our own tribe the answer? Or was that just running away from the whole thing?

But all of a sudden I started to feel something; a lot of the self-loathing I had harbored for so long seemed to drain out of me. Deep down inside I had always hated the fact that I was a Mongrel. Secretly I had always felt that I would have been better off if I had been born a Thoroughbred, thoroughly white, or black, or Indian, or Chinese, or Italian, or whatever. At least I’d know what the hell I was and where I belonged. Somehow I had always blamed myself for never being able to completely fit in; all of a sudden that feeling was gone.

Besides that, people like Matthew and I had the benefit of being able to experience more than one people and one culture. So many people could only experience one, and they probably didn’t truly appreciate the culture they were in. But I had walked a long, hard road before I had reached that level of awareness and self-acceptance. A long, hard, rocky road.

THREE

I’ve had a lot of fun over the years with the section on forms and applications that ask you to list your race or ethnic background. The choices they give you are usually as follows. White comes first, followed by Black, or Afro-American, or African-American, depending upon how they have it listed. Next comes Hispanic, this includes Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans and virtually anyone else from Central or South America and parts of the Caribbean. Sometimes you’ll be asked if you are Hispanic-White or Hispanic-Black. Another means of separating and dividing people I suppose.

The next choice you’ll be given is Asian/Pacific Islander. This will include Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Hawaiians, Samoans and anyone else who can trace their ancestry to either Asia or an island in the Pacific. After that comes American Indian. Lately it’s been Native American; I guess they’re concerned about being Politically Correct. Eskimos and Aleuts usually fall into this category. And the very last choice you’ll be given is the category called Other. I was never quite sure just exactly what an Other was, but I’ve always had a horrible feeling that I might actually be one.

Now the problem for people like me comes when they insist that you only choose one of these categories. At times, depending upon the mood I’m in, I might check off Hispanic, on other occasions I’ll check off American Indian, or Native American, or however they have it listed. Or I might just say to hell with picking just one and I might check off both Hispanic and American Indian. Or I may check off Hispanic American Indian and White, because technically that’s the absolute truth.

Once I checked off Asian just for the fun of it. My reasoning was that since many anthropologists claim that the Indian people came to this continent by way of a land bridge that once connected Asia to Alaska, then they migrated south to Central and South America. So trace it back far enough I must have some kind of Asian in me. (As I said before, the old traditional Indians dispute this theory. They agree that we’re distantly related to the people of Asia, but they insist that the migration took place from west to east, not vice versa, but that’s a whole different story.)

On another occasion I listed myself as Black. I figured that since my first girlfriend was African-American, then I had to be black by injections, as they say. Besides, I could very well have a little bit of African in me on the Hispanic side. And a couple of times, just for the hell of it, I checked off Other.

I’ve lived in New England most of my life. When I was a kid I called Hartford, Connecticut my home, after which my family and I moved to Boston, Massachusetts. I’ve also lived in Western Massachusetts, Providence, Rhode Island, and a few other locations, so I guess you could say I’m as New England as a bowl of clam chowder. Well, maybe I should say a bowl of clam chowder with a fair amount of Tabasco sauce thrown in.

I come from a large family. I lived in an apartment in the North End of Hartford with my father, mother, my aunt and my uncle Jerry, (My mother’s sister and her husband) as well as my maternal grandparents. On top of that I have three brothers, two older and one younger and four sisters. I guess you could say we were a fairly sizeable tribe.

And tribe isn’t a bad way to describe it, since both my mother’s parents were American Indians. My grandfather was a full-blood and my grandmother was around three-eighths. He was a Winnebago; Nana traced her Indian blood to one of the Iroquois tribes on her mother’s side, and at least one, possibly two, Algonquin speaking tribes from New England on her Father’s.

And although my grandmother was born in Mystic, Connecticut, she and her brothers and sisters spent eight years on the Passamaquoddy Reservation outside of Perry, Maine while her father did the Lord’s work there, and then six years on the St. Regis Mohawk Reserve in New York State where my great-grandfather continued his ministry. The Passamaquoddy’s call the Pleasant Point Reservation at Perry Sibiyik. And as for the St. Regis Mohawk’s, they call their rez Akwesasne, which means The place where the Partridge drums. I can’t recall what Sibiyik means I’m sorry to say.

So break it all down I’m a combination of Winnebago, along with one of the Iroquois tribes and one or two tribes from New England. Separate them and it’s not much, add them together and I’m around three-eighths, I guess. I don’t know, math was never exactly my forte.

My father was Hispanic; he was born in Spanish Harlem. His father came from Ponce, Puerto Rico but his mother was born in Cuba. My uncle Jerry, my aunt Dotty’s husband was Irish, his true nationality however, was United States Marine. It was kind of funny in a way, he looked a little like Bob Hope, but he had a personality that reminded me more of Lee Marvin, the actor.

As I stated earlier, my parents met in the Army, got married and when all was said and done they wound up with eight children. The oldest was my sister Anita, next came my brother Don, he was followed by my brother Mike. Mike was followed by twins, yours truly and my twin sister Carmen, who would later be given the name Bowie. Bowie was born a couple of minutes before I was and she’s lorded that over me ever since.

My youngest brother Raymond, who years later when he started boxing took the name Rocky after his favorite fighter one Rocco Francis Marchegiano aka Rocky Marciano, came after Bowie and me. My sister Paula came after Rocky and my baby sister Maria followed her about two years later. So as you can see, when I call us a fairly sizeable tribe, I don’t mean maybe.

In spite of the fact that they were of different backgrounds, the one thing that my father, grandfather and my uncle Jerry had in common and which bonded them together was alcohol. They loved to drink and they loved to get roaring drunk and they weren’t above getting involved in the occasional bar room brawl. Now that was particularly true of my father and my grandfather, who didn’t exactly believe in aging gracefully. What’s more, my father’s brothers, Angel, my Godfather Sammy and his sister Margarita were also heavy hitters when it came to the old joy juice. I guess you could say that alcoholismdidn’t run in my family, it galloped. And that demon was going to gallop right over my three brothers and me in time, but that was still a few years down the road.

As with culture and ethnic background religion was another mixed bag. My father and his brothers and sister were Catholics, but their mother had