Growing Up Native American (20 page)

“STUDY IS NOT OVER! PUT THESE BOOKS BACK! AND NOT PUT AWAY TILL I TELL YOU!”

Father Buck looked at his watch. Not until the malefactors had reopened their books and resumed study, or appeared to do so, did the prefect dismiss us. Everything was by the clock, by the book, by regulations.

“Downstairs!”

 

6:00
P.M.
Not one second before the minute or the hour would Father ring that bell, Clang! Clang! Clang! Clangity-clang! “Hurry up! Shshshsh!” There was silence, almost absolute ex
cept for the scuffle of boots and the odd sniffle and cough. This is the way it should have been, the way that it was intended to be, the way that would have gratified and edified the prefects and the way that would have pleased Father Buck.

Father Buck nodded, as he always did, to his colleague, Father Kehl, to open the door. In we filed and, for the next twenty minutes or a little longer, gave ourselves wholeheartedly to pea soup, bread, lard and green tea from Java. In quantity served there was just enough food to blunt the sharp edge of hunger for three or four hours, never enough to dispel hunger completely until the next meal. Every crumb was eaten, and the last morsel of bread was used to sponge up any residue of soup that might still be clinging to the sides or to the bottom of the plates, thereby leaving the plates clean and dry, the way puppies lick their dishes clean. There was the same quantity for every boy, regardless of size or need. Yet not even the “little shots,” whose ingestive capacities were considerably less than those of their elders and who therefore should have required and received less, were ever heard to extol a meal with “I'm full.” “I'm full” was an expression alien in our world and to our experience.

Never having the luxury of a second serving or an extra slice, the boys formed a healthy regard for food that bordered on reverence that shaped their eating habits. If they could not glut themselves, they could at least prolong the eating by carnally indulging in every morsel of food. To eat with such carnality may have constituted a sin, but we never considered it as such. Meals became rituals almost as solemn as religious services in their intensity, the only sounds the clatter of spoons on plates and mugs and the muted “Pass the mush” or “You owe me a slice”; “When you going to pay me that lard you owe me?” “I'm so hungry right now, can you wait till tomorrow?”

As deliberate as the boys were at table, few could match the solemnity or the sensuousness with which “That's the Kind” (Jim Wemigwans) presided over his meal. During the entire course of supper “That's the Kind” broke his bread, one pinch at a time, as one might nip petals off a bloom; each pinch was then deposited with delicacy on his tongue. Our colleague ate every morsel, be it barley, green beans, peas, onions, potatoes—
every spoonful of every meal—with as much deliberation and relish as if it were manna or ambrosia…or his last meal prior to execution.

 

6:30 to 7:30
P.M.
If the prefects had not prearranged some event—swimming, a short walk, a choir practice, a game, a play practice—the hour was relatively free for the boys to do what they felt like doing. But it was during this free time that mischief and misdeeds were perpetrated and fights most often broke out. Hence, it was to forestall the commission of mischief and to reduce the number of fights that the administration planned each day—each hour—so that there was as little free time as possible.

Now such fights as did break out from time to time were in the main instigated merely to infuse some excitement into the monotony of institutional life, a monotony that may have suited the clergy, but was not to the liking of the boys.

Like many other pursuits and diversions in the school, fights were conducted according to certain customs and codes. They never broke out amid the shouts and accusations that usually precede fights, nor did one aggressor, as from ambush, spring upon his victim to deliver the coup de grace with one blow. Nor yet was a fight conducted to the finish. Not allowed during the course of a fight were kicking, biting, hitting an opponent from behind or striking an opponent while he was on the ground. No one was allowed to interfere on behalf of a friend or brother; every boy was expected to fight his own battles. Fights were to be fair and square.

By custom, the challenger, usually one of the intermediates anxious to prove his worth or to avenge some wrong, would deliberately seek out his foe with a wood chip or a flat stone on his shoulder, placed there either by his own hand or by that of someone else. In the school, “walking around with a chip on his shoulder” was not merely an expression but a literal reality. Some challengers, not satisfied with the obvious meaning of the act, issued a dare in addition: “Betcha too scairt to knock it off.”

But no one was “too scairt” ever to refuse such a challenge, even if he knew from previous experience that he could never win in the proverbial “hundred years.” For among the boys it
had long been established that refusal was a sign of cowardice, and boys would sooner suffer a black eye, a bloodied nose or puffed lips than bear a reputation of being “yellow.” Hence, it was a matter of honour for the challenged to rise to the dare and, with as much scorn and deliberation as he could muster, knock the chip off the challenger's shoulder. And there was no greater sign of contempt than, in knocking the chip off the shoulder, to brush the cheek of the challenger at the same time; to do so was comparable to a slap on the cheek with a pair of white gloves. In more formal fights, if there could be such things as more formal or less formal fights, a “second” would retrieve the chip and hand it to the challenged, who in his turn placed the object on his shoulder to make certain that the challenge was no bluff.

“Fight! Fight!” resounded throughout the recreation hall as the adversaries stood up to square off like boxers. The words were magnetic, at once drawing an audience, prefects included, who formed a ring around the contestants.

It was Eugene Keeshig and Michael Taylor, two senior students (Grade 6) who could never see eye to eye on anything. They circled each other like professional boxers.

All of a sudden there was a “pow, pow, pow,” and the next moment Mike was on the ground, stricken by three blows delivered with lightning speed by Eugene, who had launched himself forward with the suddenness of a panther. Eugene now stepped back to allow his opponent to get back on his feet. Once Mike was upright the fight resumed, arms flailing and fists driving forward like pistons, with some grunts and growls. The skirmish was spirited but brief. Down went Michael who, in a kneeling position, held up one hand as a sign of submission; with the other he held his nose to stanch the flow of blood.

The fight was over in five minutes, but not the feud. Mike would never yield to anyone—or to anything, for that matter. In his ongoing feud with Eugene and Charlie Shoot, Mike took many lumps in living up to the basic principles of survival at the school: “taking it like a man” and “toughing it out.”

Sometimes in the cold dreary evenings of October and November, when the weather was too inclement for playing outside, the call “mushpot” rang out. Instantly, all the boys,
including those well settled on the pottie, suspended their operations to answer the summons. No fireman or soldier responded to a call more quickly. No one wanted to be “it,” “mushpot.” Hence, when the cry was uttered, everyone scrambled for a place in the circle—seniors, intermediates and juniors, all except the babies.

The last to arrive, the one who was “it,” fashioned a mushpot from an old rag or a handful of toilet tissue soaked in water, the soggier the better. With the dripping mushpot, the boy who was “it” ran around the perimeter of the circle proposing to plant the soggy object behind somebody. This was difficult to accomplish, because the boys in the circle kept a watchful eye on “it.” For if one of the players failed to notice the mushpot behind him by the time “it” came back around, “it” was entitled by tradition to bash the victim over the head with the mushpot and to kick him “in de hass” at the same time. The boy so walloped now became “it.” However, if the intended victim noticed the “plant” behind him, he instantly took up the mushpot and gave chase and, if he overtook the planter, was allowed by the rules to wallop him over the head with the mushpot, causing “it” to continue to be “it.” Some mushpots couldn't take it. As well as being mushpots, they were soreheads.

“Come on, Father! You ring that bell too soon…jis' when we were having fun. You don' want us to have fun.”

Bells and whistles, gongs and clappers represent everything connected with sound management—order, authority, discipline, efficiency, system, organization, schedule, regimentation, conformity—and may in themselves be necessary and desirable. But they also symbolize conditions, harmony and states that must be established in order to have efficient management: obedience, conformity, dependence, subservience, uniformity, docility, surrender. In the end it is the individual who must be made to conform, who must be made to bend to the will of another.

And because prefects were our constant attendants and super-intendents, regulating our time and motions, scheduling our comings and goings, supervising our work and play, keeping surveillance over deeds and words, enforcing the rules and
maintaining discipline with the help of two instruments of control and oppression—bells and the black book—we came to dislike and to distrust these young men. Most were in their early twenties and had completed their novitiate of four years' study at Guelph, Ontario. Regardless of their dispositions or their attitudes toward us, they were the archenemies, simply because they held the upper hand both by virtue of their calling and by the exercise of threats. If one of our fellow inmates grew too contumacious even for the strap there was always the “reform school.”

While most of these young novices (referred to as first, second or third prefects) superintended our lives by the book, a few possessed a degree of compassion. But even they were helpless to show their sympathy in a tangible way, for the prefects, too, were under the close and keen observation of the Father Superior and “the Minister,” the administrator of the school. During their regency, the prefects, sometimes called “scholastics” by the priests, had to demonstrate that they had the stuff to be Jesuits.

Once one of the boys, after being warned to “
Shut up
!,” continued to whisper, or perhaps just uttered one more word, which, if left unsaid, would have rendered his entire message meaningless. It must have been a very important word to risk its utterance in the presence of Father Buck. Anyway, the prefect flew into a rage and struck the offender on the head with the bell. At least, it appeared as if Father Buck had clouted the offender with the bell, for he struck our colleague with the same hand in which he held the bell—not hard enough to draw blood but forcefully enough to raise a contusion and to elicit an “Eeeeeyow!” and cause the victim to clutch his head in pain.

Even before the outcry had subsided, the senior boys at the back—Renee Cada, Tom White, Louis Mitchell, Jim Coocoo, John Latour and Louis Francis—protested: “Come on, Father! That's going too far.” They wrenched the bell from Father Buck's hand and threatened to knock him on the head to “See how you'd like it….”

The boy who had seized the bell raised his hand as if to strike…but, instead of bringing it down on Father Buck's head, returned the instrument to the disconcerted young prefect,
whose face turned from ash to crimson and then back again. Had our colleague carried out his threat, he would most likely have been committed to the nearest reformatory, and also excommunicated from the church. There was a hushed silence throughout the recreation hall, both at the moment the bell was suspended over the prefect's head and afterward.

Father Buck opened the door in silence. What saved the senior boys then and other boys on other occasions from retribution was the prefect's own uneasiness about his superiors. Of course, we knew nothing of the prefects' fears.

 

9:00
P.M.
At that hour we were dismissed from study (the babies having gone to bed at 7:30) to retire to the dormitory where everyone—or nearly everyone—loitered around the washing area, either brushing his teeth or washing…or just pretending to wash. Anything to waste time. While many boys dallied near and around the trough, others made their way to the infirmary, there to linger and to have their pains, bruises, aches and cuts attended to by Brother Laflamme.

 

9:25
P.M.
The lights were switched on and off in a radical departure from bell clanging as a signal for all the boys to return to their bedsides.

“Kneel down and say your prayers.”

We prayed, imploring God to allow us release from Spanish the very next day.

 

9:30
P.M.
“All right! Get in bed…and no noise!”

The lights went out. The only illumination in the dormitory came from two night lights glowing red like coals at either end of the ceiling of the huge sleeping quarters. In the silence and the darkness it was a time for remembrance and reflection. But thoughts of family and home did not yield much comfort and strength; instead such memories as one had served to inflame the feelings of alienation and abandonment and to fan the flames of resentment. Soon the silence was broken by the sobs and whimpers of boys who gave way to misery and sadness, dejection and melancholy, heartache and gloom.

Besides the sobs and whimpers, which would come to an end
by the finish of a boy's first week at the school, there were the muted fall of footsteps and the faint motion of the phantom form of the prefect as he patrolled the dormitory.

“Shut up!”

But the dormitory was not always given to either golden or angelic silence or to the frigid winds that blew in through the open windows or to maudlin whimperings. More often there were muted whispers commingled with muffled giggles from the various regions of the dormitory. Sometimes one boy would cup his hand under his armpit and bring his arm down abruptly to produce a most obscene backfire, such as one would hear in a horse barn produced by an overwrought horse. Within moments there would be similar eruptions all over the dormitory.