Onwaachige the Dreamer Read online

  “Have you ever had anyone stick you in the face with a flaming-hot rod, you stupid fuck?” Joshua shouted at the befuddled camper.

  Joshua didn’t wait for a response. He grabbed the rod from the camper’s hand and stuck it in the fire, igniting the hotdog. He then waved it threateningly at the now frightened camper.

  “How funny would it be if I plunged this into your ugly face?” Joshua shouted.

  Suddenly, Joshua caught Pywacky observing him from behind the cowering camper. He had stopped some distance away and turned to look back at Joshua, as if acknowledging his defender.

  Then Joshua awoke, with Pywacky curled up comfortably on his stomach, as Joshua lay on his back.

  “I remember you now, Pywacky,” Joshua said as he caressed the poor abused cat. “I saw you just a few weeks ago when I was practicing my Fancy Dance. We really are brothers. Both on the run, both hiding out. It’ll be okay, little guy. I’ll find you a home. I promise.” Joshua stared into the lake, petting Pywacky as the cat enjoyed both his peaceful nap and the love and affection of his protector.

  A PEACEFUL stream of thoughts drifted through Joshua’s mind as he lost himself in the calm serenity of the clear blue lake water. Pywacky had gotten up and trotted into the forest, attending to his afternoon routine, whatever it was. Joshua enjoyed resting by the lake and trying to forget his problems. Following Pywacky’s lead, he tried to live in the present moment. But he wasn’t exactly practiced at it, and after a while he started to grow antsy. He still lacked a plan of action for dealing with his situation, other than the rather farfetched advice of going to sleep and hoping to dream up a solution. And that meant more waiting, as he still had to get through the afternoon.

  Joshua couldn’t stand the boredom any longer. He had to do something to keep himself occupied. But he couldn’t join his friends at the various sites at the village. Gentle Eagle could come back at any moment. But then he thought about the college interns that helped staff the village.

  Of course! Joshua realized. Today was Monday. It was the day the interns had off to relax and recharge after all their hard work the previous week. No wonder his friends were so busy today: all the interns were on break. They typically spent the day relaxing uninterrupted back at the campsite designated for them.

  Joshua had grown fond of the interns he had “broken in” earlier in the summer. He smiled as he remembered hazing them, following Mokwa’s lead. But Joshua had also enjoyed getting to know them and even teaching them about Ojibwe culture. He had found them eager to learn and easy to please. But the interns were on a two-week rotation throughout the summer; the ones Joshua had met would be gone by now. This new group wouldn’t even know him, as he had been gone from the reservation for several weeks. Time to make some new friends, Joshua decided.

  And so Joshua walked optimistically, but still cautiously, to the interns’ campsite. “Gigawabamen, Pywacky,” he shouted as he left the lakefront, saying good-bye to his pal. “See you later, little guy!” he added in English, uncertain if his cat understood the Ojibwe language.

  JOSHUA SOAKED in the easygoing spirit coming from the interns’ campsite as he approached. The interns were still eating lunch, despite the fact that lunchtime had long since passed. They must have been up late the previous night and got up to a late start. The interns would often travel off the reservation to get pizza and catch a movie the night before their day off. They were worked very hard at the village, so when they had time off, they enjoyed themselves and often slept late the next morning.

  As he entered the campsite, Joshua heard something sizzling in a pan one of the interns held over a campfire, and caught the tantalizing smell of scrambled eggs. Next to him, another intern sat quietly on a log sipping some coffee. Two others were lying down in their sleeping bags, peacefully enjoying the crackling of the campfire. Near the back of the site, two interns enjoyed a lethargic game of catch with lacrosse sticks. The scene was inviting, and Joshua relaxed a bit, releasing some of the tension he had brought with him. For a moment, he felt like he had never left the reservation, like he still worked there and was still in charge of the interns.

  “Hey, we have a visitor,” one of the boys lying by the fire said as he looked up at Joshua, having heard the cracking of a twig. Only then did Joshua become self-conscious of his situation. Yes, his grandfather rarely came out to this campsite, but still, he was taking a big chance in being there. What if the interns happened to mention him to Gentle Eagle? But it was too late now. He had been seen.

  “Boozhoo,” Joshua greeted the intern. Backing out at this point would look suspicious.

  “Boo-Joh,” the intern said back, not quite getting it right. The others turned around to see what was going on.

  “Hey, don’t think we’ve met you yet. Do you work here?” another intern asked.

  Joshua considered the best response. He couldn’t give too many details. He had to be vague. “Sort of,” said Joshua. “I’ve been a bit preoccupied of late.”

  “Oh,” said the boy by the campfire. “Well, welcome to our humble home.”

  “Indeed,” another chimed in. “Welcome.”

  Joshua’s anxiety melted away, and he confidently approached.

  “I’m Caleb,” one guy said as he awkwardly liberated himself from his sleeping bag to greet Joshua in a more dignified manner. He extended his hand in a welcoming gesture, which Joshua gracefully received. The others joined in, but without the extra effort involved in getting up to shake his hand. “John over here,” the intern cooking over the fire said, waving one hand at Joshua. “And this is Oli,” Caleb added, introducing the guy sipping coffee next to him.

  Caleb threw a rolled up T-shirt at a lump in the other sleeping bag. “Where are your manners, Christie?”

  Christie peeped out of the bag, smiled, and waved over to Joshua. “Hey,” she said in a friendly but tired voice.

  “So what’s your name?” Caleb said to Joshua.

  “Take your pick,” he teased dismissively. Joshua thought it was funny, but the others gazed at him, perplexed.

  “Sorry,” Joshua said. “You can call me Pukawiss.”

  Caleb’s eyes widened like he had just realized he was in the presence of a celebrity. “Pukawiss! Oh wow, the legendary manitou,” Caleb said, obviously impressed.

  “You’ve heard of him?” Joshua hadn’t expected that from the interns.

  “Of course! It was the first story Mokwa taught us. I’ve told it several times myself to some of the tourists.”

  “What do you know about him exactly?” Joshua asked cautiously, testing their knowledge.

  “Pukawiss was the second son of the manitou, Aepungishimook, and a human woman, Winonah. He was also the younger brother of Maudjee-kawiss,” Caleb said proudly, slowly pronouncing the difficult names. “Pukawiss was different from his peers and didn’t take well to his father’s teachings. He didn’t like to hunt or fish, or provide for the community. He didn’t even take a wife, long after his childhood friends had done so.”

  “And instead of hunting animals, he spent hours in the forests observing and mimicking them,” Christie added, continuing the story where Caleb had left off.

  “And in the process,” Oli jumped in, “Pukawiss learned how to dance.”

  “And eventually,” Caleb said, “Pukawiss taught others how to dance. And though he was rejected by his own father, the people came to love him for teaching them the dance and how to celebrate and enjoy life.” Caleb paused for a moment as if reflecting on the story he had just told. “It’s really quite a beautiful story,” Caleb said in admiration.

  “Yeah,” Christie added. “It teaches people to accept those who are, well, different.”

  “So how did you get the name exactly?” Caleb inquired.

  “Let’s just say I’m different,” Joshua said, believing he had been vague enough as to not give anything away.

  “Oh, wow,” Caleb said enthusiastically. “You mean you’re a two-spirit!”

 
So much for vague, Joshua realized.

  Suddenly, everyone seemed excited. Even the two lacrosse players stopped playing and joined the group.

  “Well, yeah, I’m a two-spirit,” Joshua said awkwardly, still not used to coming out to people. But something was very different about this group. They acted as though he was some kind of superstar, as though it was cool to be gay. It was a refreshing reaction after everything he had been through at summer camp and with his mother. Mokwa had trained them well.

  “That’s pretty amazing,” Caleb said in response, seemingly in awe. “Hey sit down with us,” he invited. Caleb shoved Oli to the side to make room for the dignitary. This was not the reaction Joshua was used to getting from Christians. But then interns weren’t typical of Christians either. Some did come as missionaries, hoping to learn enough about the Ojibwe to make it easier to spread the true faith to them. Gentle Eagle tolerated such interns as long as they did their work and didn’t say anything disrespectful around the tourists. He understood that these missionaries would learn more from him than the other way around. Maybe it’s why he tolerated Pastor Martin, Joshua had long since concluded. But most of the interns were college students who were a bit disgruntled with their own culture and looking for something more. Seekers, Mokwa had called them earlier in the summer. Joshua found that attitude especially prevalent among the ecology and outdoor education majors who interned at the village. They looked for truth wherever they could find it, lacking a well-developed belief system of their own. Joshua identified with that. It’s how he had felt himself most of the summer as he encountered Ojibwe spirituality for the first time.

  “Yeah, wow, you must have some pretty impressive powers,” Oli said, clearly honored to give up his seat for a two-spirit.

  “Impressive? We’ll see tonight,” Joshua said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Joshua mumbled, not wanting to discuss it. “I’m guessing you’re not missionaries, then.”

  “Well, most of us at least,” Oli said, shooting Caleb an accusatory glance.

  “Guilty as charged,” Caleb admitted, as though he had committed some kind of unforgivable crime.

  “You’re a missionary?” Joshua said, not seeing it.

  Caleb laughed. “Why exactly is that so hard to believe?”

  “Well, you don’t seem to think I’m an abomination before God, for one thing,” Joshua said. He was angry at everything he had been through at summer camp. Pastor Bob, his cruel scoutmaster, was one of the most hateful human beings he had ever known, and his attitude toward gays came straight out of the Bible. And then there was Levi, who perfectly epitomized the detestable Christian hatred so prominent in rural America. Finally, Joshua could never forget the endless anti-gay tirades of his own mother, as she scornfully quoted Bible verses in reaction to any news on TV whenever it relayed anything positive about gay rights.

  “I don’t know you well enough to consider you an abomination,” Caleb teased. “Give it some time, though.”

  The others snickered, but Joshua was still cautious of this enigmatic Christian. But then Ben Johnson, the assistant scoutmaster he met at summer camp, came to his mind. Ben had helped him get back to the reservation. Joshua wished he had gotten to know him better at camp. He was nothing like Pastor Bob.

  “It’s okay,” Caleb said, getting serious. “I understand your caution. If I were gay, I’d be cautious of me too. We Christians have a lot to be embarrassed about. And a lot to atone for.”

  “Yeah you do,” Oli teased, as he put his hand on Caleb’s shoulder. Caleb smiled.

  “Consider my presence here an act of atonement,” Caleb said. “I’m not here to teach you. I’m here for you to teach me. God made many different faiths, and I intend to learn as much as I can about them.”

  Joshua couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “So, you don’t think I’m going to hell?” he asked cautiously. No doubt Caleb would be unable to respond in the positive to that question, Joshua figured. He knew how to get Christians to reveal their true colors. It was all about salvation in their eyes. And there was only one way to salvation: accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior, Joshua had heard his mother say repeatedly. And Jesus didn’t like gay people, he had always been taught.

  But Caleb didn’t take the bait. “Of course not,” Caleb said. “And anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know their Bible very well.”

  Joshua was intrigued. He had come to see Christians as hate-filled bigots. It’s all he had ever seen from them. But this one seemed different. Joshua thought he’d test this one. He knew the Bible better than most believing Christians he had known. His mom had forced him to read it growing up, often quizzing him over her favorite passages. She had a special fondness for the ones that emphasized the evils of sin, like homosexuality. So Joshua wasn’t about to let Caleb off the hook. He had years of Biblical conditioning he could use as a weapon.

  “How about Sodom and Gomorrah?” Joshua challenged. That was the one his mother used most to denounce queers. The story, as his mother told it, involved the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were populated by evil homosexuals who tried to rape two strangers to their village. The strangers were simply seeking shelter. And the strangers, it turned out, were actually angels disguised as humans. God soon destroyed the two cities for their sinful behavior against these angels. Surely this missionary knew the story.

  “And what exactly do you think the sin of the people of Sodom was, my good friend?” Caleb challenged right back.

  “That they were gay, and God destroyed them for it,” Joshua said. His mother had taught him that lesson many times.

  “They were rapists,” Caleb said. “And they were cruel to the two strangers to the town in need of assistance, people who would likely have died if they had to leave the town and seek shelter somewhere else, given the harsh conditions of the time. And rather than help them, rather than take them in, the people of the town wanted to rape them. That intent to harm the innocent, to violate them, that was the sin of Sodom and was considered unpardonable in the ancient world.”

  Joshua thought about that for a moment. It wasn’t the interpretation of the story that his mother so often put on it. Joshua was so confident in her preachings that he never considered even for a moment that she could have gotten it wrong.

  “So I guess you could say that anyone who is bigoted and inhospitable to strangers is the real sodomite,” Caleb said, finishing his thought. “By the way,” he added, “do you remember the rest of the story?”

  Joshua struggled to remember the details. His mother was content to stop the story after she had illustrated how evil gay people were. But there was more to the story, Joshua realized, as the details bubbled up to the surface.

  “A man named Lot sheltered the angels in his home, and he offered the gang his daughters instead,” Joshua said, as though it made perfect sense.

  “Well, doesn’t that seem odd to you?”

  “What do you mean?” Joshua asked, realizing he had missed something.

  “For centuries, Christians have focused on gay people being the evil ones. It never occurred to them that raping Lot’s daughters was the sin of Sodom. Why is that? What kind of moral people overlook the sin of heterosexual child rape in order to scapegoat gay people? Not very Christian in my book,” Caleb said.

  Joshua had heard the story countless times from his mother, and not once did she say anything about the evil heterosexual child rapists. She had completely missed that detail, so focused was she on her intended target, those evil homosexuals. But Caleb was right. The passage held up for centuries by Christians as the epitome of moral guidance actually condoned heterosexual child rape. Joshua smiled as he contemplated the look on his mother’s face when informing her of that interpretation.

  “Still, there are other passages,” Joshua said, a bit less confident now.

  “Do tell,” Caleb challenged once again.

  “How about in the Book of Leviticus?” Joshua said, recallin
g one of his mother’s favorite anti-gay passages. “It clearly condemns gay people.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Caleb asked.

  Joshua mentally reviewed Leviticus, wanting to be sure he had it right. Reluctantly, he finally offered, “It calls gay people an abomination. It says they should be put to death.”

  “Do you know what that means?”

  “Yeah, it’s usually done by stoning.”

  “No, not the putting to death part. What is an abomination?”

  “Oh, well, it’s not good,” Joshua said. Even as he mentioned it, he mentally chided himself for sounding so stupid.

  Caleb’s face got serious, as he waited for his answer.

  “Of course I know,” Joshua said, embarrassed.

  Caleb continued to stare.

  “Okay, fine, what is an abomination?” Joshua asked, finally giving in.

  “Don’t worry, very few people who quote the Bible know what it means. An abomination means it violates ancient purity taboos.”

  “Oh, yeah, that clarifies it,” Oli said sarcastically.

  Caleb ignored him and continued with his point. “The ancient Hebrews were called to worship only one God and not follow the practices of surrounding cultures, who worshiped many gods in, well, strange ways. Specifically, the Hebrews were called to be different from the Canaanites, who also occupied the area. And the Canaanites had cult prostitutes.”

  “Cult prostitutes?” Joshua asked, interrupting him.

  “Yeah, male and female prostitutes who you could have sex with. It was considered a religious ritual.”

  “Finally Caleb says something interesting,” Oli teased.

  “Yeah, where do I sign up for that religion?” Christie said, looking up from her sleeping bag, suddenly taking an interest in the conversation.

  Joshua tried to put it all together in his mind. “So the prohibition against gays was really prohibiting cult prostitution in order to keep the Hebrews from worshipping someone else’s god?” Joshua asked, wanting to make sure he understood.