Jack Moose
We met in 1962 when we were both 5-years-old. Jack was a husky little Indian. He looked tough then. I was staring at him and his mother, who were, like my mother and I, shopping at Safeway. Mind you, he stared as well. In the twinkle of youth we saw the operation of Fate. How little could I know what that might mean!
My mother thumped my little skull.
Don't stare!
They were Indians, don't you know, and Port Angeles had a history of keeping the Red Man out of certain establishments. I saw a sign in a beauty parlor when I was a kid: No Indians, it intelligently proclaimed. I was not allowed to entertain like sentiments, nor would I have. It has been my experience that the working class stock I come from doesn't give a rat's ass about your race. Usually two kinds of people are racist: the trailer trash kind, and the elite. (Not limited to white folks, by the way.) Will Durant was right when he said a country's virtue is protected by its middle class.
The next time I saw John was on the Eighth Street bridge when we were seven. It was after school. I had my spankin' new lunch pail in hand. I thought it would be really fun to whack him alongside the melon with my lunch box. It sure made a nice pop! His face squinched in pain, but then the Indian heart in him leapt for joy! Out of options, I considered it wise to run like hell, which I did. I gave it a brave go, but the stout little Indian caught up to me at the end of the bridge and educated me in manners. Thus started an annual tradition.
Jack and I were the same build, our birthdays the same month. Both Cancers. We were both traditional, but independent as hell. Olympic Peninsula boys to the core. He was Red and I was White. We both liked to laugh. He was a smart ass.
We went to a little country school that abutted the Klallam Rez, along the languid Elwha, the source of dreams to this day, mind you. I had only one white friend at school. The rest were of my freinds were Injun. But Jack and I . . . .
Well, there was some weird fate that bonded us, and we both knew it, even as boys. I picked one fight with him per year. Lost every one of them! He was tough as nails, and proud. He was Indian!
That's me up there, little Cicero. Everybody called me Moose in those days. No one ever called me by my real name. They only heard my real name the first day of school, when roll was called. Even the teachers called me Moose.
I never knew that Jack's mother died when we were in grade school. He never told me till we were on the phone a few years ago. Tough as nails, that little boy. It broke my heart to hear of it. How much pain that boy has endured! But what a grand man he has become! Lists his religion as Dreamer. Hoh River Boy and I are Dreamer, too. We don't give a rat's patoot for girly man tea. We drink the stout.
ALL of our friends from that little country school are dead. EVERY ONE of our little group, from our class. Jack and I survive. He went on to become an English prof in Indiana. Lists his favorite books as The Heartsong Of Charging Elk, The Way to Rainy Mtn, Ring Trilogy, Bless Me Ultima, Soul Mountain, Tigers On The Tenth Day, The Iceman Sings.
Always was a stud, Jack was. He left this comment last night:
Aye to that Bruce! Most of the Old guys on the Elwha were in tune with the visions of those yesterdays and were the ones that taught me about a world off the Indian reservation. They did not say it was a bad place but their memories seemed to resonate with accomplishment and honor. However, there were nights when the horror of war came to life and painted pictures in the coastal darkness with sounds of anger and psychic pain. At times those sounds would be replaced with songs of camaraderie and unity as they shared a bottle of firewater that was passed around their circle. A kindness from having witnessed scenes not met for human eyes was there for those of us willing to recognize it.
That's my brother, Jack Boyd. Here we are now:
Humble as Ever!
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