I
learned to read with a Superman comic book. Simple enough, I suppose.
I cannot recall which particular Superman comic book I read, nor
can I remember which villain he fought in that issue. I cannot remember
the plot, nor the means by which I obtained the comic book. What
I can remember is this: I was 3 years old, a Spokane Indian boy
living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern
Washington state. We were poor by most standards, but one of my
parents usually managed to find some minimum-wage job or another,
which made us middle-class by reservation standards. I had a brother
and three sisters. We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks,
hope, fear and government surplus food.
My father, who is one of the few Indians who went to Catholic
school on purpose, was an avid reader of westerns, spy thrillers,
murder mysteries, gangster epics, basketball player biographies
and anything else he could find. He bought his books by the pound
at Dutch's Pawn Shop, Goodwill, Salvation Army and Value Village.
When he had extra money, he bought new novels at supermarkets, convenience
stores and hospital gift shops. Our house was filled with books.
They were stacked in crazy piles in the bathroom, bedrooms and living
room. In a fit of unemployment-inspired creative energy, my father
built a set of bookshelves and soon filled them with a random assortment
of books about the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, the Vietnam
War and the entire 23-book series of the Apache westerns. My father
loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion,
I decided to love books as well.
I can remember picking up my father's books before I could read.
The words themselves were mostly foreign, but I still remember the
exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the
purpose of a paragraph. I didn't have the vocabulary to say "paragraph,"
but I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words. The
words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose. They
had some specific reason for being inside the same fence. This knowledge
delighted me. I began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs.
Our reservation was a small paragraph within the United States.
My family's house was a paragraph, distinct from the other paragraphs
of the LeBrets to the north, the Fords to our south and the Tribal
School to the west. Inside our house, each family member existed
as a separate paragraph but still had genetics and common experiences
to link us. Now, using this logic, I can see my changed family as
an essay of seven paragraphs: mother, father, older brother, the
deceased sister, my younger twin sisters and our adopted little
brother.
At the same time I was seeing the world in paragraphs, I also
picked up that Superman comic book. Each panel, complete with picture,
dialogue and narrative was a three-dimensional paragraph. In one
panel, Superman breaks through a door. His suit is red, blue and
yellow. The brown door shatters into many pieces. I look at the
narrative above the picture. I cannot read the words, but I assume
it tells me that "Superman is breaking down the door."
Aloud, I pretend to read the words and say, "Superman is breaking
down the door." Words, dialogue, also float out of Superman's
mouth. Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, "I
am breaking down the door." Once again, I pretend to read the
words and say aloud, "I am breaking down the door" In
this way, I learned to read.
This
might be an interesting story all by itself. A little Indian boy
teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly. He
reads "Grapes of Wrath" in kindergarten when other children are
struggling through "Dick and Jane." If he'd been anything but an
Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called
a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and
is simply an oddity. He grows into a man who often speaks of his
childhood in the third-person, as if it will somehow dull the pain
and make him sound more modest about his talents.
A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed
by Indians and non-Indians alike. I fought with my classmates on
a daily basis. They wanted me to stay quiet when the non-Indian
teacher asked for answers, for volunteers, for help. We were Indian
children who were expected to be stupid. Most lived up to those
expectations inside the classroom but subverted them on the outside.
They struggled with basic reading in school but could remember how
to sing a few dozen powwow songs. They were monosyllabic in front
of their non-Indian teachers but could tell complicated stories
and jokes at the dinner table. They submissively ducked their heads
when confronted by a non-Indian adult but would slug it out with
the Indian bully who was 10 years older. As Indian children, we
were expected to fail in the non-Indian world. Those who failed
were ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied
by non-Indians.
I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky.
I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes
open. I read books at recess, then during lunch, and in the few
minutes left after I had finished my classroom assignments. I read
books in the car when my family traveled to powwows or basketball
games. In shopping malls, I ran to the bookstores and read bits
and pieces of as many books as I could. I read the books my father
brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books
I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes. I
read the newspaper. I read the bulletins posted on the walls of
the school, the clinic, the tribal offices, the post office. I read
junk mail. I read auto-repair manuals. I read magazines. I read
anything that had words and paragraphs. I read with equal parts
joy and desperation. I loved those books, but I also knew that love
had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life.
Despite
all the books I read, I am still surprised I became a writer. I
was going to be a pediatrician. These days, I write novels, short
stories, and poems. I visit schools and teach creative writing to
Indian kids. In all my years in the reservation school system, I
was never taught how to write poetry, short stories or novels. I
was certainly never taught that Indians wrote poetry, short stories
and novels. Writing was something beyond Indians. I cannot recall
a single time that a guest teacher visited the reservation. There
must have been visiting teachers. Who were they? Where are they
now? Do they exist? I visit the schools as often as possible. The
Indian kids crowd the classroom. Many are writing their own poems,
short stories and novels. They have read my books. They have read
many other books. They look at me with bright eyes and arrogant
wonder. They are trying to save their lives. Then there are the
sullen and already defeated Indian kids who sit in the back rows
and ignore me with theatrical precision. The pages of their notebooks
are empty. They carry neither pencil nor pen. They stare out the
window. They refuse and resist. "Books," I say to them. "Books,"
I say. I throw my weight against their locked doors. The door holds.
I am smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives.
|