Too Close to the Falls (6 page)

Sure enough at 12:13 p.m. Mr. Manners appeared and addressed me from his unique vantage point under a dining table, where he was surrounded by a picket fence of thick stumpy legs. He asked if I wanted to be caught out with a slippery napkin that
slid to the floor exposing my bare lap. Being ready for him, I reached for my napkin box, and to my horror I noticed that all of my products were gone. I felt as though I were in a performance and the stage director had walked off with all the props, while the audience waited, watching me flounder as the seconds ticked by.

As I tore around fuming and flinging things from the pantry, my mother called to Dolores from the front parlour, where she was working on her “emerging African nations” research, that it was not a good idea to “relocate” my products. Dolores retorted that I was “one spoiled brat.” She grabbed my hand and began pulling me behind the RCA Victor. I resisted and tried to put on the brakes with my feet, but my slipper socks burned across the rug and I lost the tug-of-war. I was furious at her for messing up my products and now for forcing me into this disrespectful behaviour of going behind the RCA Victor.

“I've a job to do, and I can't be held up by every ninny who thinks they're the belle of the ball,” she said, unplugging the RCA Victor. Suddenly John disappeared and Mr. Manners was ominously silent. She plugged them in again and they came to life. She said she could be in charge of all the products on RCA Victor. She then pulled out the plug and plugged the vacuum into the same outlet and made the Hoover hose roar in my face, blowing dust on my hair ribbons, and demanded, “Who is talking to you now?” Confused, I shrugged my shoulders. She continued, “It's the same energy, only now it's the vacuum. Is this vacuum talking to you? It's electricity lined up different ways to do different things.” As I blinked away a cyclone of dust, she moved on to her second line of offence. “John Cameron Swayzee is also on a television in a display window in a store in New York City and he
asks everyone outside on the street the same questions he asks you. I saw it in
Life
magazine. Do you want me to bring it in?” I shook my head in defeat as the dust cleared. “He doesn't care what you answer. John Cameron Swayzee just says it, waits a second, and goes on. He gets paid by Procter and Gamble. He doesn't care what soap you use as long as someone buys it. He doesn't even know you exist.”

I was dumbfounded. I thought John waited to go onstage when I turned the knob. Suddenly I realized what a television was and how impersonal its messages were. Then I had the dawning realization that I'd been duped,
betrayed
.

Clearly Dolores felt it was her job to enlighten me regarding my truly insignificant status in the universe, which I guess had to happen, as that seems to be a stop on the road of growing up. However, I never truly forgave her for depriving me of my first intimate relationship. The Indian was like the priest in confession, the big brother, the always present Dad. Finally, he was someone who never criticized. As he faded from the screen that day and was replaced in my mind as a mere test pattern, I lost one of the few people who really knew me.

In our escapades across the Niagara Frontier, Roy and I usually had some deliveries in the Tuscarora Indian reservation. I had seen what the Creek Indians did on the “Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter” show on
Disneyland
. I knew that Davy had to kill them with Betsy, his Winchester, before they attacked and pulled the ol' Indian
torture trick of tying the settlers to trees, covering them with honey, and letting them be eaten alive by red ants. It was a slow death. Sometimes it took two weeks before their bones were picked clean. I, like Davy, had my own beloved coon-skin hat, fringed jacket, and plastic rifle which my mother suggested be kept in a box with my Mouseketeer ears labelled “for inside use only.”

I considered Roy and myself courageous for heading under the viaduct into the reservation where I suspected we were surrounded on all sides. When I looked up at the jagged Niagara Escarpment, my heart pounded as I was sure Cochise was hiding on every shale ledge. Roy, not as knowledgeable in “Indian ways” as I, wanted to play his radio; I, however, nixed that idea, telling him that Indians could sneak up on us and scalp us at any time if we weren't ready for them. As we tooted along we played a game called Pony Express — the Nash Rambler delivery car metamorphosed into a stagecoach where Roy drove the team and I was the scout. I drove ahead on reconnaissance missions and reported back on any known war parties.

If we were feeling particularly jovial after our deliveries and I was sure we were making it out of Creek territory with our shirts on, we played Cisco and Pancho, two Mexican scouts in my favourite TV program,
The Cisco Kid
. My favourite part was the concluding scene, their signature piece, repeated weekly, where Cisco and Pancho came back on after their adventure of killing Indians and the occasional extraneous gringo. Filling the screen with leering grins and rakishly tilted wide sombreros with dancing tassels, they were perched high on their twitchy palominos. Then they held their horses still long enough to give forth with great belly laughs and Pancho would say, “Hey, Cisco” and
Cisco, doubled over in great guffaws, responded with “Hey, Pancho.” At this point they slapped their horses and sped away. Roy and I loved that scene, which we reenacted. Although we had no idea what their inside joke was, we agreed we enjoyed their display of convivial camaraderie.

Every week after we managed to deliver our prescriptions without having our wagon surrounded, we celebrated by going to Shim-Shacks, a tavern on the edge of the reservation which had great beef-on-wecks. (This is a western New York delicacy consisting of shavings of beef with burning horseradish sandwiched in a hard roll covered with rock salt and caraway seeds.) Shim-Shacks had its own protocol that was understood and followed to the letter by all of its patrons. Indians, always male, sat at the bar and never ate but drank, and whites sat at the tables and ate and drank. (Roy sat at the table for whites; I had no idea he was black, but I knew neither of us was Indian.) The same dozen or so Indians frequented the bar and had reserved seating on particular stools. If a regular came in and another patron had taken his seat, the newer patron moved, giving the regular his stool. They were usually men from the Bear or Turtle Clan, one of whom was Black Cloud, whom I knew from delivering insulin to many of his clan members. I also had to deliver hypodermic needles for him to administer the insulin, and since he'd had to sign the narcotics book for them with me as a witness — my father referred to this procedure as “giving us your John Hancock” — we'd developed a tenuous but begrudgingly friendly relationship over the years.

There was one neutral landmark in the tavern and that was the electronic bowling machine. Whatever “watering hole” Roy and I
found ourselves in, we always availed ourselves of all games, from pinball to darts. At Shim-Shacks we always played the electronic bowling game, not once, but at least a dozen times for a nickel a game. Over the years I had become quite good at rolling that steel puck with the red-dot centre through the sawdust. Most of the men had too heavy a hand. I had even learned how to bounce it off the sides to clear a split. Roy and I were a team and we often stood Black Cloud and his clan members a game or two. Whenever anyone asked Roy if he wanted to place a little wager on the game he would ask, “Does a bear shit in the woods?” (Once I said that to my mother when she asked me if I wanted a frozen custard and she was speechless — too shocked even for punishment.) Within fifteen minutes others would bring their beer and sandwiches over to the game and eat standing up watching the proceedings. I noticed Indians were not like white people when it came to games. They never said, “good shot,” or laughed at your gutter balls. Instead they simply nodded and stepped up for their turn. I, however, kept up the banter that Roy and I had developed over the years, but they never acknowledged that I was saying anything. This silence wasn't hostile and I found it reassuring in that I always knew their reaction — nothing. Also I never minded giving a “one-woman show,” as Roy called it.

This year Buzz, the owner of Shim-Shacks who also drove the school bus in the daytime wearing a long white bloody apron, ran a contest for Christmas. Anyone with over 1,500 points in the bowling game could reach into a huge jar and pick a number. If it was the lucky ticket you won the expensive rifle displayed on the wall which had a sign attached:
Donated by Gold's Sporting and Hunting Shop for Christmas of 1953, retail value $88.98.
I was the
only one to get that score and I reached in the bottle. I had been this far before and lost but this time Roy said he felt a rustling in his bones and sure enough I won the double-barrelled rifle with the mahogany handle. Everyone crowded around and I could hardly lift it when Buzz took it down off its wall hooks. As I stood next to the gun everyone laughed because it was as tall as I was; Buzz caught the moment with his Brownie Starflash and my toothless grin was forever immortalized as the “1953 winner” on the wall between the men's room and the bowling game. The best part of it all was that everyone seemed to be having such a good time.

I didn't need a ballistics test to know that I couldn't arrive home with a rifle I'd won by playing a bowling game at a tavern on the Tuscarora Indian reservation. First of all, I had no desire to alert my mother to my secret life as the Annie Oakley of the electronic bowling set. Surely she'd keep closer tabs on my delivery schedule, curtailing the best part of my life. Secondly, she'd suggest I give the gun away to someone who hunts and that would be to Dr. Carroll, my parents' friend, the local veterinarian. It seemed weird to me to save animals during the week and kill them on the weekend. I figured I won the gun and I could give it to the person of
my
choice. I had seen Black Cloud admiring it and looking through its sight several times since it went on display in the fall. I went over to Black Cloud and laid it on the bar, knowing he didn't like fusses. He put his hand on the barrel and that was the only time I saw Black Cloud smile so you could actually see his teeth.

Aside from the seating arrangement and the neutral turf bowling game, there was one other rule at Shim-Shacks. No one talked while the television was on. It would have been as rude as
talking in the theatre during a movie. Most people still didn't have a television and they were captivated by whatever was presented. There were only a few shows on a day and usually we silently watched the TV test pattern — that same Indian in profile in a full war party headdress amidst concentric circles — until the screen sprang into animation at 6:00 p.m. with the
Howdy Doody Show
. We at Shim-Shacks sat in rapt attention with those in the peanut gallery, listening to Buffalo Bob, laughing at Chief Thunderthud, Princess Summerfall Winterspring, Clarabell, and Mr. Flubadub. This dinner theatre was taken totally seriously with all serving, eating, and game-playing done before
Howdy Doody
's commencement.

One cold winter day before Christmas Eve, Roy and I were dreadfully behind schedule. We had far more prescriptions than usual to deliver and as the day wore on several people had invited us in for some Christmas cheer. Usually we hit the reservation before anyone was up and left the medication between the doors, but it was too cold for that this day and we were hours late in getting there. Instead of lunch we had dinner at Shim-Shacks, and as we got back in the stage coach I noticed one bag had fallen on the floor. I picked it up and read aloud the prescription stapled to the front of its white bag:
“Mad Bear Power. Tuscarora reservation. Phenobarbital 120 mg. Sedative. Taken three times a day/or as needed. Emergency — deliver immediately.”

“Uh-oh, kimosabe, we should've been out there first thing,” Roy said, slamming the car into gear as he quickly drove out to the far edge of the reservation. As we approached the Mad Bears' mailbox by the side of the road, I always held my breath when I saw the carved wooden figure perched on top — an angry bear
rearing and baring its teeth. Mad Bear's family needed a lot of medicine and I'd been there before, usually in early morning when everyone was asleep and we tiptoed away, not wanting to stir the Mad Bears.