[Summer settles into a rhythm, only to have the rhythm destroyed by an earthquake on the mud flats. SB SM]
Artie and Sandy Beach return from an afternoon of fishing. Well, metaphorically speaking. Sandy Beach has begun talking to him, and the two routinely carry on conversations about stripers, about fishing, about life. The imaginary Sandy Beach has become Artie’s fishing buddy.
“What is the bumper sticker … a bad day fishing beats a good day at the office?” asks Artie.
“Something like that,” answers Beach, “What did you learn today?”
“I learned that the strongest tides offer the best fishing, and that high barometric pressure is better than low.”
“What about the wind?”
“There’s nothing to the cliché that ‘west is best and east is least,’ but if there’s too much wind from any direction the water becomes roiled, and the fish can’t see your bait.”
“That’s right, and you can’t see your own fly, not to mention how difficult it is to cast into a strong head wind. I’d give you an ‘A’ for the day.”
“I’ve gotten a few ‘A’s in recent days, but still no fish,” says Artie.
“Don’t worry, you’re gaining on ‘em.”
It’s now mid-morning on a day that is shaping up as hot and muggy. Artie has been up since dawn. He made himself coffee, put on his waders over a bathing suit, grabbed his rod, and was out the door by 6:15. Low tide was at 8:32. He fished for two hours on the outgoing, then at dead low, took out his pen and notepad to make observations that would later be part of the log that Sandy Beach recommended he keep.
He is now several weeks into his quest to catch a striper. His results today are the same as previous days. He has been gone for nearly five hours. He fished the outgoing tide around Veasey Rocks, just off the western shore of Hough’s Neck. Just after the slack tide, he thought he could see fish tailing just off the mussel beds. His casts, however, left him fifteen yards short of the fish. When he tried to wade nearer, he slipped on the sea- weedy rocks and fell in with a grand splash. When he finally returned upright, his waders had filled and the fish were long gone, spooked by the thrashing of a clumsy homo sapiens.
Despite his failure, Artie feels successful. He actually found fish. He stalked them. Returning on the half mile walk over the mudflats to Indian Mound, carrying his rod and with his waders slung over his shoulder, salt water in his hair and wind and sun on his face, he is very much the warrior returning from the hunt. All is right with the world.
Turmoil
This is the moment you need to recognize in life. It’s the one moment when you take a deep breath and feel a deep sense of relaxation. This is the moment just prior to life whacking you upside the head with a two-by- four.
This is the edge. This is where hot meets cold, fast meets slow, strong meets weak. This is where the action is heaviest in life just as in the harbor. This is where things are most interesting. This is the edge of civilization.
What comes next? Maybe it’s the pain in the chest and the numbness in the left arm that tells you that life will never be the same. Maybe it’s the phone call that begins, “Mr. Gordon? This is the Quincy Police. I’m afraid there’s been an accident.” Maybe it’s your wife saying “Arthur, we have to talk.”
Or maybe it’s the moment you hear that damn ticking clock on Sixty Minutes and you see the teaser that lets you know that Mike Fucking Wallace is going to make a fool of you both on national television, but also right here in your living room filled with your best friends eating the poached salmon and drinking the champagne that you paid for.
When there is peace, turmoil can’t be far behind.
Artie doesn’t recognize the moment. He keeps walking with a little smile on his face until he looks up to the distant beach of Indian Mound.
Something’s not right.
There is motion and movement just over the seawall that protects Indian Mound from the highest tides and the fiercest North Atlantic storms. There’s also a new shape, a triangle that could almost be a teepee. There’s commotion. Lots of people. Sounds, drums and a voice over a bullhorn, the flashing lights of a police car or emergency vehicle.
The tableau only becomes more absurd as it comes into sharper focus. There are Indians, Native Americans, maybe twenty of them, in full war paint, beating drums, chanting, and carrying signs that read “Indian Mound is Our Home” and “We Sold You Manhattan, But Not The Mound” and “Give us Back Our Sacred Ground.”
Artie says to himself. “I get it, someone’s making a movie.” And there are cameras, but not for making a film. These are cameras for television. As he mounts the cement steps over the seawall, he can see what appears to be the entire population of Indian Mound milling about. Artie walks over to the police car, beacon flashing, where the officer formerly know as “Tubby” Tropiano is standing in full uniform.
“What is this?” asks Artie. He is actually feeling amusement at the unexpected spectacle.
“This is bullshit is what it is. We’ve been invaded.” There is no amusement in Tubby’s voice, nor in his posture. He spits out each word with dry bile. “I’m here to protect these fucking dirtbags while they’re try to steal my home. This is bullshit!”
“Who are these people?”
“They’re fucking crooks pretending to be Indians. Oh, excuse me, Native Americans. And they want us to give them our houses so they can build a casino and sell tax-free cigarettes. This is fucking bullshit, and it’s my job to fucking protect them. Well, they better know that there comes a time when I get off duty.”
Artie leaves Tubby to his mutters, and walks over to where a small semi-circle of Mounders are gathered around a Channel 5 news camera that is pointed at a smartly dressed young woman holding a microphone. She is looking extremely self-conscious. Just to her right is a young man with shoulder-length dark hair and a painted face. He is wearing a cordless headset and is speaking apparently to no one.
“I’m just about to do Channel 5. Everybody’s here. The Globe, The Herald, and the Monitor all sent reporters. Good work! We might even get a feed to the networks. Yeah, they’re sputtering about as expected. Ugly, but not violent, at least not yet.”
He gives a quick laugh. “Spewing might be a better description.”
“Ready when you are, Cynthia” says the man operating the camera. The woman tilts her microphone towards the young man, who mutters a quick “gotta go” and removes his headset and clips it to his belt. Immediately another painted man, carrying a feathered headress, steps forward and puts it on the first man from behind, who sidesteps to the woman with the microphone. After a quick preening, he gives the woman a slight nod, who passes it along to the cameraman. They’ve done this before.
“A-a-an-n-nd, rolling.”
Cynthia Tidwell-Kant: I’m here at the quiet seaside village of Indian Mound, which is anything but quiet today. You can probably hear the drums in the background. The Wompanoag Tribe is claiming that this is a sacred burial site for their tribe that was wrongly taken from them when colonial settlers broke their treaty with the Wompanoags back in 1725. And, as you might imagine, local residents are none too happy about it.
As if on cue, the people watching the interview start shouting and booing, sputtering and spewing. Artie realizes, they are on cue. Someone has coached them.
With me is tribal spokesperson, Joe Liquordup. First of all, is that your real name?
Joe: It’s not my given name, but it’s my real name. I took it when I realized how systematically my people have been suppressed and exploited since the English colonists arrived. Our lands have been stolen, our access to resources denied, and as a people we’ve been shackled and sedated. I chose this name so the white man could see that I’ve confronted my demons and am now ready to ask for what rightfully belongs to my people.
Cynthia Tidwell-Kant: But why Indian Mound?
Joe: Because we’re reasonable and responsible people. We could say “Give us back Massachusetts, but this is the 21st century. Indian Mound is where our people came to enjoy the good life. We hunted and fished and gathered clams here. We also buried our dead here. If at least our sacred spaces are returned to us, then something meaningful will have been done to right the wrongs of the last three centuries.
Cynthia Tidwell-Kant: Do you expect these people to give you their homes?
Joe: We’re not asking that we be given anything. We have nothing against these people. They didn’t take our sacred spaces, but their ancestors did. They deserve compensation. All we’re asking is Wompanoags be treated fairly, and we’re not going to be ignored, marginalized, or trivialized. That’s why we are occupying Indian Mound until it is returned to us.
Cynthia Tidwell-Kant: How are you prepared to compensate them?
Joe: I didn’t say we would compensate them, only that they should be compensated. We’re not the ones who broke the treaty. We shouldn’t have to make reparations.
Cynthia Tidwell-Kant, turning from Joe and speaking directly into the camera: That’s the Wompanoag position, but as you might imagine, there’s another side to the story.
She smiles and freezes. “A-a-an-n-nd, cut,” says the cameraman. Joe and Cynthia exchange a brief nod. His assistant removes his headdress, and he immediately replaces it with his headset. Within seconds he is talking purposefully into space.
Cynthia meanwhile has replaced Joe with a man that Artie recognizes as being from Indian Mound. He is overweight, with a red face. He has the Irish look, handsome in youth, but now puffed with anger and disappointment. After a few moments of conversation that Artie can’t hear, the interview rituals are repeated:
Cynthia Tidwell-Kant: With me is Dennis McGuinty, one of the Indian Mound residents who will be displaced if the Wompanoags have their way. What do you think of the Wompanoag claim that Indian Mound is a sacred burial site?
In contrast to Liquordup who was relaxed and articulate, obviously comfortable with the interviewing process, McGuinty is agitated. He leans over and gets much too close to the microphone:
Dennis: I think it’s fucking bullshit!
Cynthia immediately lowers the microphone. The camera operator yells “cut,” and She says “We can’t talk like that on the air. “Let’s approach this a different way,” she suggests.
Cynthia: With me is Dennis McGuinty, one of the Indian Mound residents who will be displaced if the Wompanoag Indians have their way. How long have you lived here?
Dennis: Fowa yiz, and I ain’t plannin’ t’leave soon. He speaks fluent Squantese.
Cynthia: Do you own a home here?
Dennis: Yuh, we bought our place for a hunnert ‘n twenny-five gran and musta put another thirty-fawty int’it. I ain gonna handit ovah to someone pretendin’ to be an Indyin who wantsta build a cahsino.
Cynthia: Have you ever heard that this is a sacred Indian Burial site? Dennis stares at her, exasperated. He pauses:
Dennis: Does it look like a fuckin’ cemetery to you? I tellya it’s pyuwah bullshit.
Cynthia lowers the mic again and says “Cut. Let’s just go with what we’ve got.”
A voice from the crowd says “Go home, Twiddlecunt.” She whirls to face them. “I heard that! You boys can have your little adolescent joke,” she snaps.
“It ain’t just the boys, Twiddlecunt.” comes a female voice. “Us girls callsya Twiddlecut, too,” echos another female voice. “Ya Skank!”
Artie hangs around the waterfront for another hour, watching various sideshows. The Indians erect another teepee. There are more interviews. At one point a shouting match breaks out between Kathleen, Officer Tropiano’s wife, and one of the Native Americans. Actually, it’s not a “match” because it only involves Kathleen screaming obscenitites.
Artie is just preparing to go home when Shea approaches him.
“There’s going to be a meeting of Indian Mound residents tonight down on the site of the old community house. I guess that includes you. Seven thirty, bring a lawn chair.”