Dakota Dream (6 page)

“What do you mean, a connection?”

“Never mind. Forget it.”

Then he said, “I'm pretty good at art. I could draw you some better pictures than those stick figures if you want.”

I couldn't believe it. “These posters are authentic.”

“Sorry,” he said.

By this time I'd had about all of Kinderhook I could deal with. “Go to your room,” I told him. “Go somewhere. These are museum photographs of real Indian art. The thing with actual art is, you don't try to change it or make it suit you better.”

“Well, excuuuuuuuuse me!” he said. He was trying to imitate Steve Martin, the movie star; it was real lame. He left without another word.

It was good to get rid of him, and not only because he was irritating; I wanted to unpack my two most valued possessions, my ceremonial pipe and my journal. It wouldn't be easy to find a place for them, because in group homes you never have any real privacy. Your personal things are never secure the way they should be, the way they would be in a regular house.

Mr. Gibbs gave me the Sioux ceremonial a couple of months after I moved in with him and Mrs. Gibbs. He said he'd got it a long time ago on a vacation out west, but he couldn't remember exactly where. Of course my journal is where I keep my notes and ideas; it's real personal and ultraprivate.

I finally put the ceremonial under some blue jeans in the bottom drawer of the dresser. It seemed safe enough for temporary, but I didn't know if it would work for the long haul.

Before I decided where to put the journal, I spent some time leafing through it. The journal wasn't cheap to buy; the pages are just blank, but it's a hardback book with a dark blue cover. Even though it cost quite a bit of money, I look at it as a wise investment. I've been moved around a lot, shuffled over from one placement to another, but the journal is something like a constant. No matter where I'm placed, it stays the same; it's still the same ideas and notes, and it's always me.

Anyway, I got to leafing through and rereading story notes I hadn't thought about for a while. There was one about this guy named Wintergreen, who is a very important executive in a huge corporation. The corporation is almost like an empire, they have important business deals with the U.S. government and also many foreign governments. Wintergreen has built up quite a few enemies, as anyone would in such a high position. One day, Wintergreen begins to develop this strange mental disease. The way it affects him is, he can't ignore anything, or put any information in the back of his mind. Everything he sees on the television news, everything stays right in the front of his mind at all times. His head is about ready to explode from this overload of data, so he has to move into this padded room without any windows, or radio, or TV, or any reading material. When his enemies find out about his condition, they conspire against him and rig this speaker into the ceiling of his padded room. Then they pipe this all-news radio station through the speaker until Wintergreen can't stand it anymore, and he commits suicide.

After I finished reading through the Wintergreen notes, I came across another favorite story outline: This conspiracy of military officers has overthrown the U.S. government. The country is now under the control of these certain generals, who form a dictatorship. They use military police to enforce strict order in all parts of the country, which is a policy that makes most people happy. But after that, they go on this huge campaign for
efficiency.
One of the major aspects of this efficiency campaign is the elimination of everyone who is designated as a TUS. TUS is the abbreviation for people who
take up space.
People who take up space are people who don't make any contribution to the general welfare of the society. Like the ones who just feed their own face, watch a lot of TV, and go to bed. Or the people who sit around drinking beer and making a lot of public noise, like driving around aimlessly in a loud car or shooting off fireworks any time of year. This efficiency campaign has the population in a frenzy, as thousands of people suddenly realize that taking up space is about all they do. The new government has an agency that identifies everyone who is a TUS, and then the military police round them up and take them away for elimination.

I ended up reading these notes and outlines for quite a while. When I was finished, I put the journal in the one drawer in the nightstand next to the bed, where I could practically reach out and touch it. There was no lock on the drawer, though, so I knew I'd probably end up taking it with me wherever I went.

My new social worker didn't come by until the next morning. She looked around fifty years old and she was big, maybe six feet or close to it. She wasn't fat, but she was what you might call bulky. Her name was Barb McGuire.

She said why don't we go out and get a donut, and I said okay. We took a ride in her car, which was an old station wagon with plenty of rust and rattles and a back window that didn't close all the way. While she was driving, she was eating from a bag of Fritos; she offered me some, but I said no thanks.

“Maybe we can visit a while,” she said. “I'd like to get to know you a little bit if we're going to be working together. Then we can go to the high school and get you registered.”

I didn't say anything.

“You'll be a little late. I hope you don't mind.” She was still eating the Fritos. Her face was pockmarked with acne scars, and her voice was loud.

“It sounds okay to me,” I said.

We stopped at a McDonald's restaurant. She got a briefcase from the backseat, then we went inside. We both had a cheese Danish and coffee. She asked me if I like coffee.

I told her if I didn't like it, I wouldn't be drinking it.

She laughed. “It'll stunt your growth.”

“Let's say you're right,” I said. “I'm trying to think of a reason to get any taller.”

“Do they let you have coffee at Gates House?”

“I don't know. I don't know much about Gates House yet.”

Then she lit up a cigarette and started telling me a few things about herself. “I'm brand new at this,” she said. “Maybe you and I can help each other.”

I asked her what she meant.

“I'm a late bloomer,” she said. “I'm getting my degree in social work in another six weeks. A month after that, my high school class is having their thirtieth reunion. Most people get a college degree in four years, but I'm on the thirty-year plan, I guess.” Then she started laughing again, real loud.

I guess I needed to say something. “Better late than never, huh?”

“That's how I look at it. Or try to. It just takes some of us a little longer to find ourselves. Anyway, I've only got four clients. I'll have a full caseload after I graduate. For right now, I'm afraid you're one of the guinea pigs.”

This is just great
, I thought to myself. I've got a social worker so green, she probably doesn't know the front door from the back. “What were you doing for the thirty years, before you went to college?” I asked.

“I was taking care of a husband and raising a son,” she said. “I did some part-time secretarial work. I don't have much experience in the workplace, so I was serious when I said we'd have to help each other.”

I could tell she was a person who meant well, but I could see how the system might eat her alive. As for helping her, I couldn't see how it was my job to baby-sit inexperienced social workers. All I really planned on doing was putting in my time until the legal age of eighteen, then finding my place in the Indian world.

She got some papers and folders out of her briefcase and started scrounging through them. Pretty soon after she put out the first cigarette, she lit up again.

“You know those cigarettes are bad for your health,” I said.

“How well I know, please don't remind me. I'm trying to cut down, and someday I'll give them up completely.” Then she put on a pair of glasses and said, “Do you remember your parents at all, Floyd?”

“No.” This was going to be the same old questions.

“You never knew your father at all?”

“Not hardly. Maybe my mother didn't even know.”

“You were living with your mother until you were four years old. But you don't remember a thing about her?”

“No. I remember a woman and a place. The place was a house with a porch and a big yard. I think there were cars in the yard, up on blocks. I know it was in Missouri, but that's just because I've been told it was; who knows one state from another when they're only four years old?”

“You've been living in a foster home?”

I nodded my head.

“A couple by the name of Gibbs, from down in Peoria.”

“Mrs. Gibbs has diabetes,” I said. “It's pretty serious. She was too sick to have foster kids anymore.”

“Was that a good placement for you?” Barb asked.

“It was okay, I guess. It was better than a group home.”

“Were you close to Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs?”

“I wouldn't say that. Mr. Gibbs wasn't a guy who did a lot of talking. He had a lot of mechanical talent, though; he had a real good workshop.”

“Do you like to do mechanical work?”

“Yeah, I like it.”

Barb was still shuffling papers. “You've lived in two other group homes and two other foster homes. You've crammed a lot of moving into your fifteen years, haven't you?”

I didn't say anything. People in social services have your files, so they read through your case history material and they think they know something about you. Like you could read the ingredients on a cereal box and you'd know what the cereal tastes like. If she really wanted to know something about me, she'd have to understand about my Indian destiny or get a look inside my journal. But I wasn't about to go into any of that.

Then she asked me what I thought about Gates House.

I just shrugged. “I haven't been there twenty-four hours yet. It's a group home, what can I say?”

“Do you like foster homes better than group homes?”

“It depends on the foster home.”

She put out her cigarette and smiled at me. “You keep a tight lid on it, don't you, Floyd?”

She surprised me a little with that remark. “I don't know what you mean.”

“You don't? What I mean is, you keep things inside.”

I looked her in the eye. “Maybe that's true, I never thought about it. Is there something wrong with it?”

“It can't be good for you. Maybe you should loosen up.”

“You get that way,” I said.

“Maybe. Do you have to stay that way?”

I really didn't care for her approach at all. I hardly even knew her. I said, “What are we going to do, get psychological here?”

She was still smiling. “I guess we're not.”

I wondered what the hell she meant by that remark. I didn't know what was happening here, but all I wanted was to get on with the next thing.

I guess she did, too. “Why don't we go on over to the high school,” she said, “and get you registered?”

I told her thanks for the Danish and the coffee.

School registration was routine. Most of it was handled by this guy named Mr. Saberhagen, who was an assistant principal but said he preferred to be called dean of students. He was a real crisp kind of a guy, buttoned down personally and when it came to his clothes. He spent a lot of time stretching his neck.

Since we were late, I didn't go to all my classes, but I went to some. I got a locker for P.E. People stared at me because I was new, but it didn't bother me; I've transferred to new schools enough times to be used to it.

My chemistry teacher was an old man named Mr. Mushrush. He had a hearing aid and seemed a little senile. He didn't have much control over the class. The students called him Mushy.

It was different in English class. The teacher, Mrs. Bluefish, was real edgy. She did a lot of pacing around and every once in a while she clapped her hands if she thought there was somebody with a wandering mind. But other times, she seemed to do the clapping just for emphasis. She had blue hair, which you sometimes see in ladies her age. Before class was over, she gave us an assignment to write a book report.

After supper, I signed myself out to take another walk, destination Vale Park. Kinderhook begged to come along, so I said okay.

There was a stream in the park with quite a few willow trees along the bank. There were scraps of willow bark on the ground, and some of them were pretty dry; I started picking them up and stuffing them into my pockets.

Kinderhook wanted to know why I was taking the willow bark.

“It's traditional in Sioux rituals and on solemn occasions. They smoke it in their ceremonial pipes.”

“Is it like a drug or something?”

“It's got nothing to do with drugs. It's just a tradition.”

“How come you always talk about the Sioux?” he wanted to know.

“The real name is Dakota,” I told him. “That's the Indian name. Sioux is a French word, and if you want the truth, it's not really authentic.”

“Okay, but that's not what I asked.”

Kinderhook was such a pest. I said to him, “I had a vision last summer. I believe I was a Dakota in a past life. It's my destiny to become an Indian.”

Maybe it was more than he wanted to deal with; anyway, it shut him up.

On the way back to Gates House, he said he wanted to watch
The Wizard
.

“So watch it,” I said. “There's a TV in the lounge.”

“Slive will never let me,” said Kinderhook. “He doesn't really care about watching anything else, he just likes to take it out on me.”

I knew who Slive was; his room was at the other end of the hall. I could tell just by looking at him that he was your basic intimidator. I felt a little sorry for Kinderhook, so I said, “Maybe he won't be there. Maybe you can watch what you want.”