Potassett: The Mystery of Blood Creek

By Charles Young

Rudi Jenkins is a young man of Native American descent. At the bedside of his dying father in a local hospice, he realizes he is looking at a stranger and asks himself, "Who is this man?"

Through Smiley Jenkins final words and the familys coming to terms with his life and demise, a history of the trials and tribulations of the Potassett tribe - a Connecticut branch of the Pequots - unfolds from the genocide at Mystic in colonial times to the present world of casino gambling. Smileys wife Martha, his two sisters, Uncle Bumps and Iris, an engaging young anthropologist from Columbia University, along with a host of local characters all contribute to unraveling the mystery of Blood Creek. Potassett is a saga of greed, love, hate and the role of culture and environment in fulfilling human needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 6, 2002
• ISBN: 9781469112015

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Copyright ©2002 by Charles Young.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

-ONE

-TWO

-THREE

-FOUR

-FIVE

-SIX

-SEVEN

-EIGHT-

-NINE

-TEN

-ELEVEN

-TWELVE

-THIRTEEN

-FOURTEEN

-FIFTEEN

-SIXTEEN—

-SEVENTEEN

-EIGHTEEN

-NINETEEN

-TWENTY

EPILOGUE

For my sister Betty Miller

-ONE

Smiley Jenkins was dead. Ended now, the long ordeal of doctors, hospital corridors, waiting rooms and cafeterias, daily trips to the nursing home. Sphinx-like as in life, in whispered darkness amidst a heavy incense of banked roses, calla lilies and carnations, my father lay at peace in white shirt, tie and the suit he loathed to wear. Al Diller and George Hopkins, VFW cronies, stood solemn-faced at either end of the flag draped coffin, Springfield rifles in hand. Al, tall and lanky, easy going and quick to smile was born in one of the Park houses and worked under my father. George, another Potassett native, was my father’s shadow and the closest thing he had to a best friend. The two marched off together to the war in the Pacific; on return they went back to their old jobs in the Park. Slight of build, bushy beard, deep lined leather face, George could have passed for a miniature mountain man. My mother called him one of the Smith Brothers. Less charitable, Aunt Smoky claimed the grubby little troll had crawled out from under a rock and was enough to scare the pants off a gorilla. Ironically, because of a slight speech impediment, George never raised his voice above a whisper and was the mildest, low-keyed individual to walk this earth since Jesus. He had to be to get along with Smiley all those years. My father would have been pleased to see his two old sidekicks standing honor guard over his bier.

The only thing that would have met his approval. I recoiled inwardly and looked again at Al and George, the casket, the shadowy crowd of mourners that filled the chair rows, lined the walls and spilled out into the lobby. What were they all doing here? What were we? The Gookin Funeral Home was the last place on earth Smiley would have wanted to wind up. My mother knew this but had no choice. In Adamsport there was no other funeral parlor.

Gookin. My father hated the word. Gookin Inn, Gookin Funeral Home, Gookin Pharmacy, Gookin Pizza, Gookin Cinema, Gookin Gas Station. The name was synonymous with the town hall he battled all of his life. Elections meant nothing. Tight little Republican Adamsport never had a Democrat anything. Boss Gookin was it. Tax collector, assessor, building inspector, zoning officials all appointed and in the old scumbag’s pocket. No cop, fireman, teacher hired or fired without the Gookin stamp of approval. In my father’s lingo the name was never Gookin but Gook, Gooky or Gookshit, depending on the company. Nothing pleased him more than to point out that my mother’s family house predated the Gookin mansion on the town green by some fifty years, a fact born out by the deed for our ten acres signed by Uncas, a Mohican sachem and town hero. Uncas was another one on the shit list. Smiley called him a low down, turncoat sonofabitch.

Nor was it only the town, the Gookins and Uncas that burned Smiley’s butt. At one time or another, the State and Federal Governments came under his wrath as well as my mother, my brothers and myself. Sometimes, I felt Smiley hated himself. For as long as I could remember he had acted that way.

At the end he was no different. In Yale-New Haven, where he was first admitted for diagnosis, Smiley told his doctors they were retards. He refused medication and tangled with every nurse on the floor. Any well-meaning aide who happened to look at him cross-eyed had her head taken off. A smoker all of his life, Smiley wasn’t about to quit now. Wracked with cancer, he slyly conned weeds from other patients and lit up in spite of warnings of the oxygen flow in the room. Unhappy with his food, he dumped the tray on the floor or threw it at the TV screen to protest the views of some news anchor he found offensive. The staff, my mother, uncle, aunts, we all wasted our breath attempting to reason with him. Smiley pigheadedly maintained he wanted to go home. What did these young squirt doctors today know? With his plants and herbal cures, George Hopkins, whom he suddenly began referring to as Shaman or Medicine Man, knew more than the whole damn bunch put together. What could we do or say? The man was determined to play it his way. Old Smiley was going out not with a whimper, but a bang.

Smiley battled on for another week and then one morning refused all further nourishment, a ploy he believed would get him home. The relieved doctors had their own plans and Smiley found himself transferred to Mercy House, a nursing home for the terminally ill in the next town over.

Outfoxed, a ghost of his former self, Smiley was not about to join the Great Spirit. Lapsing in and out of consciousness, he accused the staff of starving him to death and continually badgered my mother for something decent to eat. His favorite brownies, lemon pie, venison stew, anything he mentioned my mother cooked and we dutifully toted to the nursing home. And what happened? Smiley refused as much as a bite, telling us we were both nuts. Didn’t we know he was dying?

We did of course. But when? Six hours, six days, six months? The terminally ill were expiring daily all around us at the home but in Smiley’s case no one in authority was willing to hazard a guess. I began to think my father was right, and that the doctors didn’t know anything. Still he lingered. On our daily visits I watched my father become ever weaker, solaced and sedated by injections of morphine, at first every four hours and then hourly.

Oddly, it was during this time that a subtle bonding took place; I came closer to my father, whom I had always viewed as a cantankerous bully, a fearsome presence that I often went out of my way to avoid. When he was first hospitalized at Yale, I guiltily kept asking myself, how much longer? Why didn’t he give up?

Have it over with? All of our lives my mother and I put up with his shit. Why should we do so now? And always the haunting memory of the bookcase. A simple bookcase. Why did it still rankle? I was a kid but it meant so much to me. Didn’t he know?

Before Smiley went into the service, the only reading material around the house other than the newspaper was The Saturday Evening Post, Hunting and Fishing and The Sears Catalog, which always wound up in the outhouse over on the Res. At a dime a copy, Life was a luxury, nothing but pictures and too rich for Smiley’s blood. This all changed once my father was out of the house and my mother came into her own.

Always handy with her machine, my mother had a real talent for decorating and began picking up sewing jobs for people on the gold coast. Much of this work was done off-season and the owner absent. Accompanying her when she took measurements, hung drapes or fitted slip covers, I was intrigued by these dark stained, shingled mansions that stood back in a gloomy grove of towering trees and overgrown rhododendrons, some patches twenty feet tall. Built along a strip of cliff, each weather beaten relic of the past looked out to the sea over its own private sandy beach. Left alone and given the run of the places, I probed about in musty boathouses and climbed up into the turrets and widows’ walks. I rummaged through old trunks in dusty attics. Rainy or snowy days, I curled up in the library with a book. Noting my interest, one amused housekeeper presented me with the complete works of Jack London, which the owner was about to pitch. Thrilled and excited, I added the new acquisition to my growing collection that included Doctor Doolittle, The Rover Boys and Treasure Island. For birthdays and Christmas, I came to expect an Edmonds or Stevenson volume from Aunt Prissy, and Smoky often brought me discards from the New London library. To house these treasures, my brothers assembled a wall of shelves from bricks and rough pine planks found in my father’s shed. Though more than adequate, I continued to dream of a proper bookcase, something stained and varnished smooth like the ones out in the mansions on the gold coast.

On his return from the war, Smiley scoffed at my brothers’ handiwork, called it a piece of crap. From the remark, I knew at Christmas I would have a new bookcase, a simple task for my skilled father. My excitement grew as the holiday neared. On Christmas morning I was the first one downstairs to look under the tree. No bookcase but I was certain it was in the garage or tool shed to be brought in later as was the case with any larger gift like a sled or bike. Beside myself, I continued to scrutinize the faces of my mother and brothers, certain they were in on the conspiracy. The last gift was unwrapped and then nothing. Nothing. Everyone rose to clean up the mess and get ready for the aunts who were coming over from the Res for dinner. By that time I had the picture. Angry, hurt, I slammed out of the house and headed into the Park to hide my disappointment. At Blood Creek, I sat on the dunes and sobbed it out of my system.

At the nursing home, I looked at my father’s ashen features and wondered if he remembered my bookcase. Or if he remembered anything at all. In his delirium, Smiley often called me Tom and seemed actually glad to see me when we showed up for our visit. Other than bitch about the food, he had little to say unless my mother happened to step out of the room. It was uncanny. The minute we were alone, he would slowly turn his head to me and lay his frail hand over mine. Fixing me with his clear hazel eyes, he seemed to have a message to relate. It was at such moments I realized how little I knew him. What was behind the piercing gaze? I wondered what he knew, what abuse he had suffered to make him so hateful. Once he was gone, any answer would go with him and be lost forever. Blood Creek was such an issue. In the past he refused to talk about it. When I now brought up the subject, he at first made no reply but continued to stare as if recognizing me for the first time.

Blood, Rudi, he rasped at length in a voice scarcely above a whisper. Hallow ground … Broken Wing.

What, Pa? I put my ear close to his mouth, unsure that I had heard correctly. Who?

A tear formed in the corner of his eye and slid down his unshaven cheek. Broken Wing, he breathed, his pale lips barely moving. Squaw Sachem … sixty-five teepees.

The Village? I was convinced that he was drifting off into a morphine haze. Pa, can you hear me? Who is Broken Wing?

Uncas, he murmured weakly. Don’t trust … snake … intelligence … Broken Wing… .

My mother’s entry into the room terminated further communication. My father slowly withdrew his thin hand. Fixing his gaze on the ceiling, he retreated into his own silent world. Anxious to know more now that he had opened up, I wondered what he would have to impart on my next visit. Who was the mysterious Broken Wing? Was he ready to tell me about Blood Creek? He called me by name. I was no longer Tom.

On the drive home to Potassett that night I continued to mull over my father’s words and asked my mother about Broken Wing. She made no reply but remained intent on the road ahead.

Ma, who is Broken Wing? I asked again.

Jaw set, she scowled, staring at the road ahead. Heard you the first time, Rudi. My word, I declare this Post Road gets worse every time we come over this way. Time they did something besides talk about putting in a new highway. My eyes aren’t what they used to be. Tomorrow I’ll have you drive.

Well, Ma? I asked, when she again fell silent. What about Broken Wing? Or is this another hush-hush mystery like Blood Creek?

What are you going on about? She spoke in a strange tone. Did your father say something?

Not much. Just the name Broken Wing and something about a Squaw Sachem. Twice he mentioned the number sixty-five. I don’t think he was referring to the cottages in back.

Again she fell silent and seemed to focus on the taillights of the truck ahead. He wasn’t, she sighed somewhat reluctantly at length. Before my people settled in Potassett, natives farmed the land in summer. A small tribe, only sixty-five families. For some reason, the number meant something. When your father set up our village, he insisted on that many cottages. I thought it strange, but you don’t argue with Henry Jenkins. Not once he gets a bee in his bonnet. I should think you learned that much by now.

And Broken Wing? That’s an odd name.

Fairy tales. Same as Blood Creek. Your father would never say. Drive a body crazy with his secrets. Those people over at the Res are all that way. Silly superstitions. Devil’s footprints, faces in the clouds, ghosts and goblins. A lot of foolishness in my opinion. Ask Pris if you’re that interested. Maybe she can tell you more. She’s like your father and Smoke. They were brought up on all those wild tales. I guess parents in those days meant well. They just didn’t know any better.

We walked into the house that night and weren’t there five minutes before the phone rang. It was the nursing home. Smiley, we were informed, died shortly after we left.

Relief was my first reaction. A weight had been lifted. I listened to my mother on the phone with the aunts and couldn’t believe the long nightmare was at last ended. By bedtime the news had sunk in and I felt shaken. I realized Smiley’s death spelled the end of an era. The old curmudgeon would not be coming home again to the house that suddenly seemed big and empty. Who was this stranger, now gone? What had he wished to impart at the nursing home? Who was Broken Wing? Why did the name sound suddenly familiar? I pictured an Indian woman like a vague half-remembered dream. An image I knew was there but could not fully reclaim. Would I ever be able to do so? Was it significant that the last words I heard Smiley utter were Broken Wing?

-TWO

At a nod from the undertaker the pallbearers in the first row, Uncle Bumps, Old Man Munger and four Park employees rose to their feet; mourners behind them and those lined along the walls followed suit, inching forward along the aisles to pay their last respects before the final closing of the coffin. To receive their condolences, I stood in line with my two aunts and my mother, who was a shade younger and a full head taller than her sisters-in-law. Attired in black, the veiled trio could have passed for the Eumenides.

Salt of the earth. Born woodsman. Gifted. Honest Injun. One of a kind, build anything, fix anything. Family oriented, loved his wife and kids. Give you his last dime, shirt off his back. Do anything for anyone. Natural leader. He was proud of you, Rudi. No more like your old man around. We’ll miss the old bugger.

Neighbors, park employees, campers, vets, tribal cronies from the Res and around New London filed by. Following the example of my mother and aunts, I listened to the encomiums, uttered a few words, shook hands, kissed cheeks and played the dutiful son while thinking to myself, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

All my life I had been subjected to the same bullshit. Every goddamn day. And I was still hearing it. People on the street and from the Village down in back, campers, perfect strangers stopped to tell me what a great guy Smiley was, how generous, how talented. Jesus, if they only knew the half of it. Sure my father was generous, I wanted to shout in their inane faces. Sure Smiley would do anything and help anyone out. Anyone but his own family. The man never lifted a hammer or wielded a paintbrush in his own house. My mother varnished floors, painted woodwork and hung her own wallpaper. When I brought home straight A’s on my report card, or if the twins scored big at Crystal Rock, it was the least we could do. We never got a hug or pat on the back. Nothing. Christmas, birthdays, my mother’s anniversary, none of us ever received a card, a smile or a greeting, let alone a gift. Not from Smiley. The man was ice, a thorny bastard. As a family, the best years of our life were those when he was out of the country.

I looked at the body in the coffin. Light from an overhead spot reflected on his glasses giving the uncanny impression he was alive. For a moment, I hoped he was. I wanted to ask this stranger what made him tick. What was it like growing up on the Res? Where did he go to school? Who were his friends? What did he know about Blood Creek and Broken Wing? What was the wellspring of such hate, such bitterness? Boss Gookin and the town? Hardly, for that conflict started after his move to Potassett. Shame of his Indian heritage? As a kid I always felt Potassett people were outsiders. I never wore the right sneakers or carried the right lunch box to meet the standards of posh little Adamsport. Was it my mother, a marriage gone sour?

Ma, Ma, why did you ever marry him? I asked the question more than once during our drives over to the Res following a family blow up. He doesn’t care about us. Get a divorce. Throw him out. It’s your house.

Now don’t talk like that, Rudi, my mother would scold. Henry means well. Your father is a good provider. He’s under pressure. Stress. The job—Henry takes his problems home.

More bullshit. These stock answers meant nothing. On one occasion she did reveal she married at fifteen and that my father, a bachelor ten years older, was considered quite a handsome catch. That was it.

Aunt Smoky called my father a street angel, house devil. As always in these matters, she was more forthcoming, especially after a few drinks. One afternoon when she was helping out at the Sea Horse, I casually inquired if she attended my parents’ wedding.

No, I went to the pictures that day. She took a pull at her rye and water and set the glass on the bar. Of course I was at the wedding. Who do you think stood up for Martha? You never saw a prettier bride. What makes you ask, sweetie?

I don’t know. Just curious, I guess.

Nosy little shit, she chuckled. Even as a toddler, you always had to know everything. Little Big Ears we called you. Rudi, you haven’t changed.

There are no pictures around the house, I said, unwilling to be put off now that we were on the subject. Not even in the family album.

Pictures cost money. None of us had any to throw around in those days. Martha was just a kid and smitten. My brother should have known better. They got to know one another when he was coming over here to Potassett to work for Uncle Joe.

You mean the farm that was behind our house? The twenty-five acres now part of the Park?

Aunt Smoky nodded and gave the bar a swipe with a damp rag. That’s it. Joe and Vi had no kids. Smiley was like their son. Pris and I had the house on the Res so it was only natural for your father to inherit Aunt Vi’s land. What the hell, keep it in the family. That was the name of the game.

But Smiley didn’t get the farm. He never talks about it. Maybe that’s what’s bugging him. What happened?

Smoky swigged her highball. Greed, Rudi. Today they say it makes the world go round. Back then it was no different. Unfortunately, Vi passed away first. It was her land but there was no will so everything automatically slid over to Joe. We always thought the two were an ideal couple. Then Pris caught the old goat in the kitchen holding hands with this Maureen, a fat Irish broad from New Haven. The night of the wake, mind you. Come to find out, the two were doing the featherbed jig for six months or so. Joe was nuts about her, worse than a teenager. Before Vi was settled in her grave he married the dumb harp. Not here of course, he didn’t have the balls. Justice of the Peace in New Haven.

So what happened to my father? Was he out of the picture?

Not right away, but things weren’t all that rosy. My brother continued working the farm but Maureen had a bug up her arse. She didn’t like him. Or any of the rest of us, for that matter. Pris claimed it was prejudice, but you know Pris when it comes to anything Indian. The real blow came a few months later. Joe sold out to the State. He told us Maureen didn’t like Connecticut and wanted to live in Florida. Pris said he should have offered Smiley an option, but then it was too late. Anyway, they moved south and bought themselves a trailer. Maureen called it a mobile home. Didn’t say good-bye or kiss my ass to any of us. Up and left, just like that. I guess Joe came to regret it. At least I like to think so. He wasn’t a bad guy, just weak. Poor bastard was miserable down there. Died in less than a year. Pris thought he should be buried up here next to Vi and the family over in the Potassett Cemetery. Maureen wouldn’t hear of it. Too expensive. She had her way so we don’t know where Joe is today. Money, sweetie, isn’t that always the way?

Okay, so my father lost the farm to the State. Where does my mother come in?

Love, Smoky snorted and reached for her glass. Smiley invited Martha out to the Res for the annual clambake that year. The two couldn’t take their eyes off each other. Or their hands, she added with a cackle. You can guess what happened.

Smiley popped the question, right? No big deal. Now, why wouldn’t my mother want to tell me he proposed?

Smoky shot me a puzzled look. What are you talking about, sweetie? Who said anything about a proposal? Martha had a cake in the oven. The dumb bunnies had no choice. They had to get married. In those days it was the only thing to do.

My mother delivered healthy twin boys, which should have made my father happy. Knowing Smiley, I wouldn’t bet on it. My own birth ten years later had to be a complete letdown, especially for my mother, who had her heart set on a girl. According to Aunt Prissy, the old Indian signs were all there—no morning sickness, high carriage, early kicking. At the baby shower over at the Res, the layette of booties, bibs and blankets was all pink. Even the cake decorations and lemonade, according to my mother.

I arrived a month early, weighing scarcely four pounds. So much for Indian wisdom. To make matters worse my right eye turned out, my left foot, inward. When it came time to walk, I fell all over myself. If this wasn’t enough, I lisped until I went to school, which I pronounced tool. Succotash became fuccotash and always cracked up my brothers; my mother refused to put the dish on the table if company was present. Smiley was indifferent. In the old days, he claimed, a throwback like myself would be left on a rock out in the woods to the mercy of the Great Spirit. At the time, I wanted to believe he was kidding, but had my doubts.

Luckily for me, my mother didn’t hold truck with the Great Spirit. Swallowing her disappointment, she contacted a Korean surgeon at Yale, who retied the eye muscle and had me wear a patch. A year later I was fine but I still wear glasses for distance. The walking problem turned out to be my knee. Two years in straight-last shoes and I could run as fast as any kid in Potassett. But what the doctors couldn’t cure was my addiction to books. Both aunts, Prissy an avid reader and Smoky a librarian,