Odd Whitefeather
A Story By
Nicholas Antinozzi
PUBLISHED BY:
Nicholas Antinozzi
Copyright (c) 2010 by Nicholas Antinozzi
Edited by Coleta Wright
Cover Design by Steve Peterson
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Odd Whitefeather
Have you ever picked up a newspaper for no particular reason and found yourself going straight to the obituary section? Have you ever gotten some really, really bad news while doing that? That happened to me not all that long ago and I will never forget the experience. I usually avoid the daily paper and all of the bad news printed there; if anything, I’ll give the sports section a quick look. I seldom go further than that, but for some reason that obituary was screaming at me to read it. I know that now to be true.
My name is Billy Proudfoot and I was late for work, again. Before hitting the time-clock, I needed to drop my lunch in the refrigerator inside the break-room. People were waiting for me, no doubt checking their watches and complaining about me once again. I knew that, but I still stopped to pick up that damn paper. The sections lay scattered on one of the long tables and I reached down and flipped the pages of the Local section and scanned the obituaries. Why?
There were two full pages of them and I found his, printed with a nice photo, near the bottom of the second page. I hadn’t seen Doug Warner in over ten years, but I recognized that photograph the instant I laid my eyes on it. For, it was me who took that particular shot. Doug and I had been best friends from childhood until the day I moved to Minneapolis. My knees buckled as the terrible news hit me like a city bus. I sat down and read the awful piece that chronicled his life. My vision blurred and the first fat teardrop fell on Doug’s picture. I shook my head, picked up my lunch and returned to my car.
The funeral was in Carlton, one hundred and some miles to the north and it began in less than two hours. I was on Interstate 35 heading north at eighty MPH not five minutes after reading the news. Doug was that type of friend, and if you don’t understand that you’re hanging out with the wrong type of people. The tears fell in great waves and I cried like a lost six year-old child. I didn’t care what the people in the other cars thought, but to be honest; I couldn’t have prevented my emotional outburst, even if I had wanted to.
The day was tailor-made for a funeral. It was March; it was overcast and it was cold and breezy. I had one hundred bucks in my checking account and not one ounce of plastic. I’d gone bankrupt the year before, but that’s not important. The wheel shook on my Saturn at any speed above eighty, ten MPH above the posted limit and I was moving right along with traffic. Twenty minutes later the shock had diminished; just enough for me to do some reflecting that produced a few choked sobs. Death does that to you; let’s you think the worst is over before sinking its claws into your heart and refreshing the agony.
I had moved away from the Fond Du Lac Indian Reservation in 1998, after spending the first thirty-five years of my life there. I am half Ojibwe on my mother’s side, half dirty, rotten Traveling Salesman on my dad’s. I had moved for love, or, at least I had told myself so. Mom had died the previous year, which had caused me to lose the center of my universe. Sasha Linder and I started dating six months after that. We were married and she decided that we pack up and move to Minneapolis. Foolishly, I followed her.
Upon arrival, she began to spin a web inside our life together, a web that prevented me from ever going back to the reservation for a visit. She never said as much, but that web was as real as the lock on a bank vault and just as hard to break open. She consumed ten years of my life before becoming addicted to the poker machines at a local casino. At the time of our divorce we were nearly three hundred thousand dollars in debt. She couldn’t stop herself; my guess is that she’s sitting at a slot machine this very minute.
That had been two years ago. I’d lost my job, my home, my wife, and most of the self-respect that I’d left the reservation with. I now lived in the basement of a friend’s house, trying to eek out a living at the birdseed factory on minimum wage.
For twelve long years I had lived my life by the foolish concept of never looking back. I shook my head, how had I let that happen? Sasha had promised that we’d head back for a visit, sometime. That sometime was now, minus Five-of-a-Kind Sasha, which was what I had taken to calling her. Hitting five-of-a-kinds was all she ever mentioned about her casino experiences.
Doug Warner lived off of the reservation with his family in Carlton. Or, that’s where I had left him in 1998. He’d been married and they’d had three kids by the time I’d left. Doug was the type to put down deep roots, always involved in the community at some level. He was the man I aspired to become, but I’d fallen dreadfully short and now he was gone.
I had a few aunts and uncles on the reservation, along with seven cousins that I had left behind in 1998. I wasn’t particularly close to any of them, as I was the bastard child of the family outcast. That didn’t mean that I had no friends, for I had some good ones, some of which I was bound to see shortly. I looked down at my stained, blue work uniform, the same one that I’d wore the day before. I hadn’t even showered that morning and my heart fell to some lower place with the realization.
Nothing could be done for that and I continued driving.
I arrived at the funeral home with fifteen minutes to spare and I parked my battered Saturn at the back of the empty lot. A shimmering Hearse was parked at the door. The time had come and I found that I couldn’t move. I had expected to arrive to a crowded lot with people milling about as they do at these things, gathering up their courage to go inside and face reality. I couldn’t go and mill about by myself, so I stayed behind the steering wheel and stared at the black and chrome Hearse.
Carlton is a small town south of Duluth, boasting a four-way stop and a population that numbered in the hundreds. Doug Warner had been good friends with many of them at the time I’d left and I was beginning to wonder where they all were. There was no one on the street or on the sidewalks and the familiar little shops that lined the main drag looked dark and imposing.
Five minutes passed and my legs began to cramp up. I shook my head; took a deep breath and I stepped outside into the cold, gusting wind. I didn’t bother to lock the Saturn.
I walked around my car three times, deep in a conversation with myself, when another car eased into the small parking lot of Swenson’s Funeral Home. I immediately recognized Terry Blackbird and my mood brightened considerably. I was beginning to think that I’d have to attend the service alone, which was really bothering me by that time. Where was everyone?
Terry and I had been friends for as long as I could remember. He was a big kid that had grown into a huge man. Like me, Terry was a half blood and had been raised by his mother. His hair was long and black, like mine, except he stood a full foot taller and he outweighed me by at least one hundred pounds. I watched him get out of his Buick and grimace. He then turned to face me and he shook his head with a great sorrow.
There are moments in your life, like these, that you will never forget no matter how long you live. I walked over to Terry and we embraced, never exchanging a word, both of us racked with sobs of pure, unadulterated grief. When we backed away from each other, Terry shook out a smoke and offered it to me. I accepted, even though I hadn’t smoked in almost twelve years.
We smoked in silence for half a cigarette before Terry looked at his watch and swore under his breath.
“Where is everyone?” I managed, trying to keep my voice from breaking.
“Don’t know,” said Terry. “But, I’ve got five
minutes to ten.”
I nodded, exhaling deeply as if to make up for lost time. The cigarette, added another touch of surrealism to the moment.
“Billy, you and I need to talk when this is over. A lot has happened since you left town. You should know of it. Do you have some time after the service?”
“Sure, I’m just playing this by ear. I didn’t even know that Doug was gone until an hour and a half, ago. That’s why I’m dressed like this and look like shit.”
Terry Blackbird nodded his head and took a drag off of his cigarette, the wind whipping his long hair at a ninety degree angle. “I knew you’d be here.”
I thought about telling him about my chance encounter with the newspaper, and that’s when I