Many things happened back home but I missed all of them.
Buuut, this is what I heard from some very valuable, highly reputable and noncriminal sources whose identities I will keep secret no matter what happens. They can drag my Cree ass through the highest court in the universe and put me on Murphy Brown and then, and only then, I might spill my journalistic guts.
Bigshots (delete S and H) from our friendly provincial hydro and forestry organizations came calling to seduce us with their plans to strip our home of its riches.
There they sat in the room looking the way hydro and forestry reps look when they come courting. With a great deal of discomfort they tell of their great plan to come in, develop the hell out of the place, give us, double exclamation point, a share of the profits. What they don’t tell us is they’ll then F-off with the rest and practically give it away to the extremely United States south of us. This is what they’ve been doing with results from their first phase.
They only reason they’ll actually step on rez soil is when they see no other way but to buy us off. Don’t trust them. Good Indians through the past five hundred year never have and never will.
They know nothing of us. They don’t even know the names of our communities. Guess which village they called “Waswapiki.” They even insulted the Great Chef Jean Cuisine and called him “Chef Jean Poulet” Okay, that’s pretty funny, but still… They should at least take a second of their precious times to learn the proper pronunciation of Cree names. Maybe then they wouldn’t insult their artists by proposing to name those 101 “islands” in the wasteland they created after them.
Anyway, at one point in the proceedings the chief called an impromptu break because nature was calling. The new boys in town were freaked out by this and it was all downhill from there. They impolitely declined an invitation to spend the night in the local hotel and promptly F-ed off to the nearest, they were heard to say, town.
Our reader’s poll caused quite a stir in some communities. There’s one guy who was mentioned who hasn’t been able to show his face in town since the issue appeared. There was talk of a few long faces on some people. Some of them couldn’t wait for the next issue to come out so people would forget about the poll. Even the CBC called to inquire about the results. There’s reason to worry, we’re planning a few more of those in the very near future.
Someone with money from the office went to the dep to buy a six pack and offered me one. I had trouble twisting the cap off so I utilized the Cree method, using a lighter. The drink tasted like it should but then I noticed a sharp chip of glass had broken off the top and was sitting at the bottom of the bottle. The distinct sound of chi-ching, chi-ching, chi-ching went off in my head. We debated whether we should take it to where it was purchased from or take it straight to the top. We were just down the hall when wiser heads prevailed and decided it would be too alcoholic of us to take it to the dep for a measly bottle of beer. We decided to call the manufacturer instead. I dialed their number but all I got was a computerized voice. I hung up in disgust.
I called a friend of mine for advice. Pedro had, in the early and wild seventies, found a matchbook floating around in a stub nosed bottle of 50. He took a photograph of it and sent it to the company demanding reparations. They offered to buy his negatives for a two four. “That’s not enough. We want ten cases!” he demanded. He was told by their legal counsel it was too much and that was the end of that. Cheap or what!
“I still have the negatives.” says my friend, who is considering changing brands.
There’s a moral to that, and maybe the other, stories. Don’t give in so impulsively, hold out for more and then strike.
