As another season of harvest and preparation for colder weather begins, my mind cannot help but wander back to the days of innocence lost, courtesy of my Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school experience.
School resumed for another year and with it came the pained expectation of family separations and abuses at the hands of the B.I.A. officials and my peers. This is suppose to be a happy and promised season of shedding of the old, yet the stories of those who attended these institutions are all the same, at least up to the late 1960s—painful and a dreaded sense of loneliness. We were released back into the enclosure of cinderblock and steel geometry, there to survive another year.
With new tribal clothing clutched tightly in our hands we kept our heads low as we began negotiating another nine months of anguish. We saw faces from last year, friends, acquaintances and bullies—especially bullies. Some young boys who were not prone to such meanness came back into the government folds bullies themselves. I do not know how that happens. Maybe their summer experiences left them traumatized and empty in the heart. I lost my share of good young buddies to such changes. Within the first two weeks, I knew who my friends were going to be, who to stay clear of and who I just knew I would have to fight that year. A caste system went up and the bullies took on their role with great glee. Bullies did not have to be the bigger boys, some were small and wiry and brutal. Most small bullies had bigger buddies, brothers, cousins or the like. My brothers were older and in another dormitory altogether. Bullies seemed to ply their abuses in my dormitory the most. There was no escaping them anywhere. They were there in your faces day and night; they were like creatures out of nightmares that always made you uneasy even in your dreams. These bullies tested our fortitude those first weeks of the new school year: which little boys they were going to torture the most. My heart went out to so many of the helpless boys who had to undergo constant abuses. We were small boys. In our marches everywhere we lined up by sizes and, being one of the smallest kids, I was always up front—a bigger target.
Some of us little boys were made to surrender our food by sneaking it out of the dining room as sandwiches in our socks, some of us ended up hungry all the time. We gave up what little valuables we had to them. Mostly we turned over our dignity to them. There were multiple reasons to fear them. They seem to possess no heart. Implements of torture and weapons were always flashed at you if you resisted in the slightest. Butter knives sharpened to a lethal point, piano wires for choking and steel bearings to knock you in the head. Anything and everything was used against you. This is not a pretty story.
Bullies like entertainment at your expense the most. Like tyrants of old, they force brutal intrusions on your innocence. Late night fights staged in the laundry room were most common. Your name was picked as was your opponent. Once a week, late at night, we found ourselves once again cleaning up the floor of blood and other bodily liquid. Brass knuckles and clutched stones were not off limits. I remember all too well wanting to finish off an opponent early to shorten the show. I remember nights when I shed the most blood. I remember even as a victor, crying late in silence. This was not who I was or wanted to be. The bullies laughed all the while, when they were not cursing and pushing you back into the fight. There were audiences made up of bullies, victims and those who were just left alone.
You may be wondering by now where the adult overseers were. They were home sleeping or drunk on their watch. The nights belonged to the bullies. The light of day did not wash away the nightmares, it just began another round.
Along with my friends, Amos and Wilson, I managed to escape the full brunt of their assaults, mainly because at that young age, I was book smart, they found out. I did one head bully’s homework—a total moron he was. He got good grades and my friends and I were left alone most of the time. We were already scarred inside and the experience had already hardened our young hearts. That was the way to survive, I was told by a helpless older cousin. I was good at homework and soon it became profitable for me as I bravely, with a quivering voice one day demanded payment for each bit of homework. I took a quarter for each and soon other bullies asked for the benefit of my smarts. I made out like a bandit among those brutal boys.
As the years progressed, things got better and the reckless bullies either died off or ended up in juvie somewhere. Few attempted to carry on but, by then, the Civil Rights movement had taken much steam out of that environment that made it possible. I owe a debt of gratitude. Some former bullies I see still staggering down alleys and highways of my peripheral vision. The government boarding school system has left many permanently scarred and dead. The rest of us are traumatized for good, and people often wonder what is wrong with me. There is part of the answer. It is a lifetime effort to reclaim tenderness for the self. Art saves lives. My heart goes out to those who survived.
