My Mother Is Now Earth

13. Wounded Hearts

Ga-ween has become my mother’s favorite Indian word this summer , especially since James bought her a new book on home remedies . Every chance she gets away from the stove, she turns on the fan full blast and lays on her bed to read about natural cures. We ask her if she has any extra change so we can walk uptown to go to the store. Ga-ween. We ask her if she can ask the old man to drive us to the dump so we can look for old radios, toys, or maybe some clothes for her. Ga-ween. We ask her if she can bake oatmeal cookies because we haven’t had any in months. Ga-ween. We’re so sick and tired of her always telling us ga-ween that Philly finally blows up. “Mom! You’re acting like a hypocrite. You never want to tell us any Indian words or anything about Chippewas. How can you say ga-ween all the time without getting a guilty conscience?” My mother does not even look away from her book. She just lays there and mumbles, “Ever since you got back from that camp, you’ve become sassy as hell, Philly.” Philly storms out of the bedroom, saying she’s going to town to see her friend Jackie. Sassy is only a small part of Philly’s problem as far as I’m concerned. Now she’s picky about what kind of jeans she wants to wear. She doesn’t want bell-bottoms anymore. She wants f13g Wounded Hearts 132 Wounded Hearts 133 flares. When James got paid for working at the sawmill, he bought her two really expensive pairs of jeans at Penney’s just because she’s the only girl in the family. What really drives me crazy is Philly telling me that I can’t hang out with her and Jackie. She always stands on the dirt road looking back, threatening to throw rocks at me if I keep following her to town. And those few times that she does let me go with her to Jackie’s house, she completely ignores me. Every time I sit next to them, they start whispering to each other. “You see how bored you are,” she says. “Go find your own friends.” I would go to town on my own, but just like last summer, the twins, Rick and Robbie, are gone again, visiting cousins. The last time I hung out with Mike Hovan was on the Fourth of July. We were standing on the curb waiting for the parade to start, and he was telling me about how he was “damned determined” to hook up with Melissa Russell. “And if she says no again, I’m gonna slip this firecracker down her pants.” But once my younger brothers and I started scrambling, shoving with all the other kids to get at the candy people were throwing from their parade floats, Mike disappeared in the crowd. I sit on the edge of my mother’s bed and think about bugging her about why I couldn’t go with my father and the older brothers to Red Lake this morning. A few weeks ago while swimming in the creek about a mile down the dirt road from the farm, we spotted an old red wood canoe stuck on some rocks. Dennis talked my father into loading it on top of his Oldsmobile. They set the canoe on two sawhorses because it was waterlogged. My father spread layers of tar on the bottom to plug up the holes. When the final coat of red paint was dry, my father said he would take Dennis and the other older brothers fishing at Red Lake. 134 1972 But I decide not to bug my mother because I know she’ll just tell me to quit feeling sorry for myself. And that will make me blow up. I’ll scream that I am not feeling sorry for myself. Then she’ll remind me again that I need to start acting my age, that I’m going into the fourth grade now. Her bringing up school will just make me even madder because I’ll see Mrs. Mattson standing in front of my desk with her arms folded, waiting for me to look up at the clock and tell the whole class what time it is. So I don’t say anything...