The Night Watchman(103)

Senator Watkins: Let me ask you a few questions about you personally. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I am not requiring this of you, but it may help to illustrate the situation. What do you do for a living?

Thomas Wazhashk: As I mentioned, farming. Also I am one of the guards at the Turtle Mountain ordnance plant, the jewel plant, where they make jewel bearings.

Senator Watkins: What are jewel bearings?

Thomas Wazhashk: We have brought an example of a jewel bearing, as well as a magnifying glass, which you will need to see that jewel bearing. We also have an expert on this work. Miss Patrice Paranteau. May I call upon her to give expert witness?

Senator Watkins: She must be sworn in, but yes.

Patrice Paranteau (after being sworn in; head buzzing with fear, holding the card, the example, and magnifying glass): This little wire that you see here is a wire made out of tongue steel, and that is set in the machine and worked back and forth until you finally drill a hole in the jewel. Through the magnifying glass you will see there is a tiny hole through this jewel and everything is polished, inside and outside. It has to be to the certain dimensions stated on the card, which you see here, and it is also cupped, so that it will hold oil for lubrication purposes.

Senator Watkins (ignoring Patrice and addressing Thomas Wazhashk): What can these people do with the training for this work?

Thomas Wazhashk: I believe the average pay is 75 to 90 cents an hour. As for me, I take home $38.25 a week.

Senator Watkins: Some of the Indian women who have families labor there, too, don’t they?

Thomas Wazhashk: Yes; most of the Indian women employed there have families.

Senator Watkins: Why do they take women, rather than men? You have plenty of men, haven’t you?

Thomas Wazhashk: They give tests. They give you manual dexterity tests, and I believe the women are better in that than the men are. And now, if I may take the opportunity, Miss Millie Cloud is here to introduce her field research study conducted on the social and economic conditions on the Turtle Mountain Reservation.





Millie


“If this might be introduced into the record . . . ,” said Millie.

Then she began.

Reading her study out went like a blur.

The questions were many.

So passed one hour, and the next. At last, a recess.





Roderick


Remember how you buttered that white teacher up to the teeth? Called him sir, sir this, sir that, thanked him constantly, asked his advice. Then stole the keys from his suit pocket? Then you let me out and slipped back the keys.





Thomas


“Should I try it?” Thomas whispered.

Thomas watched as Senator Watkins walked down the hall. With his small entourage, he walked down the stairs. Thomas followed Senator Watkins down the stairs. He found the senator’s office and entered. He was about to explain who he was to a secretary, when Senator Watkins emerged from the inner office.



“Hello there,” said Senator Watkins. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m here to thank you,” said Thomas.

“Well, well,” said the senator.

“I wanted to thank you for your concern for our people. You have obviously taken our situation to heart, and I was struck by the kindness showed to us in your carefully listening and thoughtfully weighing our testimony on the termination bill.”

“In all of my days as a senator, nobody has ever thanked me for listening to their testimony.”

“I call that an omission,” said Thomas.

As he left the senator’s office, he was thinking, I am and we are absolutely destitute and desperate. This is a sign of how bad things are. I am willing to forgo my dignity to try to butter you up to the teeth. I hope it helps our cause.





Goodbye


After the next day’s testimony, the little delegation was anxious to leave the Capitol. Yet they lingered, as if their presence might still have some effect.





The Way Home





Thomas


On the way home on the train, as the gray snow, the blinding snow, the dark fields flew by, as the birds raved and twisted in vast flocks above, moving in eerie specks and spirals, as Thomas glimpsed, silenced, untold numbers of boarded-up or curtained-back windows and rickety fire escapes, scruffy trash yards, blackened brick walls and dumps, he reviewed every moment, every word. Had he said such and such? What had it meant when the senator adjusted his eyeglasses? How would things go? Thomas was convinced that he’d destroyed their chances. He couldn’t point out exactly how he’d done it, but he knew. And the other thing. The senator had also asked every single Indian person who testified about their degree of Indian blood. The funny thing was, nobody knew exactly. No one had answered with a numeral. It wasn’t something that they kept close track of and in fact Thomas hadn’t parsed out his own ancestors—determined who was a quarter or half or three-quarters or full blood. Nor had anyone he knew. As the miles rolled on, this began to bother him. Everyone knew they were Indian or not Indian regardless of what the rolls said or what the government said, it was a given or not a given. Long ago, a guy in a bar had made a family tree for him. When Thomas looked at the tree, he pointed out the Indians and came out a full-blood, though he knew there was French somewhere. Then the person made the tree again and made him more white, more Indian, more white. It turned into a game. And it was still a game, but a game that interested Senator Watkins, which meant it was a game that could erase them.