I saw them just as soon as they came in from the lower door on the far other side of the vast old Seattle Union Train Station that Sunday afternoon in late October, down in what was left of the increasingly Urban Renewed and Yuppie-Invaded old Skid Road district below the totem poles on Yesler Way. Humanity numbered a few billion by that fall of 1986 -- and many many years had come and gone -- but, joltingly and with a sharp eerie chill, I knew immediately that it was Her. And there was something familiar -- very familiar -- about the young and slender man of about 30 who followed her, sometimes gently guiding.
They turned right, moving very slowly along the wall. An old Black shoe shine man rose from his chair, smiling and shaking hands. Visiting briefly with him, they then resumed what was obviously some sort of regular walk routine. She was a Native woman in an old dress and sweater, erect, walking with stiff rigidity, short and halting steps. And even from the distance across the great wide floor she looked to be old with her very grayish/whiteish hair -- maybe even hitting her seventies. But I knew -- I knew very well -- that she wasn't much older than my 52 years. And the young guy following her, though at first glance Black, was also as much Indian as African, and obviously her son. It had been a long, long time -- Another Age. But only an hour or so before, she had been much on my mind -- very heavily so. To an Indian, there are no coincidences in the Creation. But I still felt the eerie chills. Based at that point in North Dakota, I had been in the Pacific Northwest -- mostly at Tacoma -- for a week, renewing those old Left contacts who still remained. I was doing research on radical industrial unionism over several great epochs. Now, in Seattle and killing a few hours before I headed train-wise back to the Northern Plains, I'd been wandering around the old Skid Road area in a mild drizzling rain. And, as I hoofed it along, I'd been doing a great deal of Remembering in what had once been the wide open land of hell-raising working-stiffs. For a little while, as I had walked that afternoon on the many rainy streets below Yesler Way, I was once again hardly 21, a big husky Indian kid, barely out of the Army, not yet ready to go back home to Northern Arizona. It was the very early Spring, 1955. And it was a gray and grim and awful time with the Red Scare in full swing. I was a fresh Red Card Wobbly, a member of the old Industrial Workers of the World -- very recently signed up at the ancient Seattle Wobbly Hall on Skid Road. Many years after '55, in 1967-68, we had lived in Seattle -- myself and Eldri and our little developing family. We came there right after we'd left the Deep South -- to which I and Eldri had gone in 1961 for six extremely turbulent years in the Civil Rights Movement. At Seattle, we'd driven around the old Skid Road from time to time, looking for my landmarks and memories while I noted the invasive changes even then being wrought by urban renewal and the new human colonizers. As we junketed, now and again down there, it was clear that much was gone from the old scene, including the Wobblies. Some traditional buildings and other geography still remained. But during that year, though only a little more respectable and much involved in many solid social justice causes, I never actually walked around the old Skid Road. And now, in '86 and a long generation after even that, I did walk the turf in the old rip-roaring district of long ago. The turbulent saloons were gone, no Salvation soup kitchens remained, a rather drab Asian marketing firm was in the building that had housed the I.W.W. hall of yore. A short distance from that, I walked north up a very short hill to a small park. And there, with tallish Washington-type trees all around me, I sat down in the drizzling rain. And I remembered when I last seen her, late one afternoon -- walking down into that very park in the early Spring of '55 when the trees were still very small. And very young And so were we -- she and I. Very young indeed. And now -- in the Native world of no coincidence -- here she was more than an Age later in close-by Union Station. It was heavy emotionally to watch them. Continuing their walk along the wall, they stopped and visited with the man who sold magazines, and then, turning left along the next stretch of wall, stopped briefly in front of the couple who hustled pre-fab sandwiches and weak coffee. I noticed by this time that her son did almost all the talking. And by now, as they drew closer along that wall, her bronze features seemed old, dried and sunken in a face with sharp canyon lines. Her hair was obviously very gray white. And she was now moving very slowly. When I had first seen her, not much older than I, the face was a Face of Vibrant Fire and the Hair was Jet Black. I had come that evening into a bar that for me was new -- Hank's Place -- and the curtained front window had a large, partially-raised slightly glowing red sheet of cardboard with a bright light under it. From inside, I could hear on a juke box a Weavers' song -- one of my great favorites, Darlin' Corey. I went inside. Although it was dim, I could see about 30 people, many of whom seemed surprisingly well-dressed. But it was She who seized my eyes and heart. She was vigorously wiping a bar table. And her eyes flashed Hot Light when she saw me come in -- and that was very mutual. She motioned over to a bar stool. I sat down. A burly rough-hewn Anglo in his forties was sitting next to me. "This is Matt," she said. "From Great Falls. Montana. Copper miner. Just come over from Butte." "I'm from Northern Arizona," said I. I gave my full name. "Just a drifter. For now." The miner grinned, stuck out his big hand. "Well, me too," he said. "I'm Matt Rough." He spelled his last name. We shook hands. "You're new here," she said. "I guess so," I replied. "You're Indian?" She smiled all over, "Sure am. Blackfeet. Montana." "I'm Wabanaki and Mohawk," I told her. "Micmac, St. Francis Abenaki, St Regis Mohawk." "Now that's a mouthful," she grinned. "I could sure tell you're Indian," she said. "Just as soon as you walked in." She moved off to carry drinks to the tables. Matt Rough and I shot the breeze briefly about the Big City. The heavy bartender came over and smiled. His eyes were steel-cold and his mouth looked like a jagged gash in a rough rock wall. He poured me a drink -- "on us." Then she came back toward the bar. But instead of going behind it, she sat down by me -- very close indeed. Now I felt pure excitement. She put her head close to mine, looked deeply into my eyes. And she asked, "What do you think of John Foster Dulles?" The tree began to fall. I felt dazed. Finally, I said, "I don't like him at all." She smiled approvingly. For a few minutes, we talked about the Secretary of State. I still felt dazed. Then she asked, "Where are you politically?" I told her. "I'm an I.W.W." Matt Rough looked at me, sharply. I reached in my pocket and held up my Dark Red Card -- the little Wobbly membership book. There was, momentarily, a glint in her eyes. Then the earnestness returned. She looked at me carefully. "That's good," she replied. "But, and she paused, then went on. "But it's not enough. We need to put something else behind that, something stronger than it's ever had by itself." The tree crashed, hard. "You're a Bolshevik, aren't you?" I asked. "A Communist." She said nothing, still looking intently at me. Matt Rough, staring straight ahead over the bar itself, was nursing his drink. I stood up sharply. "I don't think much of that at all," I said. "I'm a Wobbly." Her face was suddenly icy. And her eyes were narrowed and the glint was back. "The Wobblies don't huddle in a darkened bar," I finished tersely. Then she jumped up and yelled, "Why Goddamn you!" The lights went on. Quickly I surveyed the faces at the bar and at the table. Matt Rough was still staring silently and dead ahead. But elsewhere I saw storm clouds. Step by step, I began to back out, very slowly, turning my head from side to side. Then something -- suddenly -- and it may have been a flash of psychic intuition or the expression on the faces of the people at the tables, led me to look quickly over my shoulder to the bar. The bartender, his gash of a mouth tightly closed and his face glowing the grimness of determination, was swinging a huge leather-covered sap at me. I ducked away and it grazed my neck. Then I was out on the sidewalk. The illuminated red poster looked at me. And someone banged the door shut very hard behind me. I hung around in front, for a minute or two. But no one came out. The next morning, I mentioned the incident to the regulars at the Wobbly Hall. They all looked up immediately from cards and cribbage, books and coffee and soup. And they were all extremely interested. Old O.N. Peterson, a former lumberjack, dressed in an ancient and very proper black suit, headed the Local. "Mostly Communists at that place," he said.."Pretty tough outfit." Looking at me sternly like a grandfather, he finished, "A few are OK -- maybe. But don't go back to try to settle any scores." I assured him I would not. Late that afternoon, I walked north to the little park and sat down. The early Spring sun was warm. Then, suddenly, I saw Her -- coming into the park from the other end, walking in my direction. She saw me and our eyes locked -- hard. She stopped with a jerk. There was fear in her face and she moved, almost stumbling, sharply off to the side -- and then out of the park. And Beyond. And then I felt a very deep, poignant sadness. A few days later, on a Sunday afternoon, O.N. Peterson, like most Wobblies a stickler for super-precise financial accuracy, appointed a periodic ad-hoc committee to spend an hour or so going over the financial books for the past month. He named me, Andrew Hatch [whose trail had started in New Mexico ages ago and who was a veteran of several historic IWW lumber struggles], and a colorful migratory "snow bird" hard-rock miner named Stevens who I later knew down in Arizona. We went over the dues payments, name by name, line by line -- and then, suddenly, I saw the name of Matt Rough. He from Great Falls, he of Hank's Place, And an obvious friend of Her. I almost said something. The Wobblies wanted no Communists. But I said nothing. Politics and possible political differences aside, I was an Indian and a Westerner. Whatever Rough was, it was Rough's business. So I let it pass. The I.W.W. had inherited the large radical library maintained for years by the Pacific Northwest Labor School -- which had accumulated books since the Thirties. Attacked from the earliest stages of the Red Scare onward by the Washington State Un-American Activities Committee and then by HUAC and other Federal witch-hunting outfits, the School -- formally listed as "subversive" by the U.S, Attorney General -- finally went under. A general council of the spokespersons for those regional radical organizations still extant eventually agreed consensus-wise that the I.W.W. would be the recipient of the School's library -- with the understanding that the Wobblies would check things out to all. And the I.W.W. -- formally listed as "subversive" as well by the United States A.G. but for damn sure keeping on keeping on -- brought in the very large library indeed. To the letter, they faithfully carried out the all-around radical consensus agreement. And I did a great deal of reading in that super-congenial setting with the photos of the old Wobbly martyrs on the wall above. And, when I wasn't reading, I was listening to stories -- class war stories, old and new -- and learning much that I've always treasured to this very moment. Only a day or so after I'd seen Matt Rough's name on the membership dues-record, a young Black man entered the Wobbly Hall to check out books. In his mid-twenties, he was slender with a sharply quiet intensity underlying his pleasantness, The I.W.W. was always totally egalitarian in all respects -- and had been all the way through from its hatch in 1905. The young Black man was greeted cordially, given coffee. When he'd checked out a stack of books and left, O.N. Peterson commented to me, "He's a Commie. But he's young Seems good." And Andrew Hatch added, "He always brings the books back." Not long after that, I left Seattle with my I.W.W. card and the lessons I'd learned -- and went eastward into the Rockies for more adventures before heading back to Northern Arizona. I always remembered all of the old Wobblies at Seattle -- and kept in touch with them by letter over many, many years until almost all were gone. By 1967-68, none of the old-timers remained. And Hank's Place had been leveled for some sort of non-descript and slick-looking business building. But I always remembered Her. And sometimes I thought of Matt Rough as well -- and the young Black man. I knew the Communist Party was totally egalitarian. It was a tough and brutal and racist time. Hard as Hell for Indian people. However she'd gotten to Seattle from the Montana mountains, the Communists had obviously given her home and purpose. And the young Black guy -- whoever he was -- had found a refuge there as well. Matt Rough? Well, I figured -- and always have -- that he went back to Montana Copper. And now, many many Ages ahead in the Fall of '86, here she was, with her son -- in Union Station. And this only an hour or so after I'd hunched in the rain in the little park surrounded by the tall trees which had been so small more than thirty-one years before. And remembered her with such vital clarity. I continued to feel eerie twinges. The two had now turned left once again and were coming along directly toward me. And now I saw so absolutely clearly the burned out eyes and the ragged face and the gray white hair. They were moving very, very slowly and her son was regularly and gently nudging her forward. When they came almost abreast of me, no more than a dozen feet away, she looked straight into my face. And I at her. And under the many, many tearing decades, I saw, in a deep down illuminating flash, the beautifully vibrant face as I had first seen her -- quickly wiping a bar table at Hank's on that long ago Spring evening. And then the ravages covered it all again. >From my own extended family -- and from far, far beyond -- I knew the corrosion and tragedy of alcoholism. Our eyes -- hers almost twin caves -- lingered for an instant. What broken pieces of Dreams and Visions with all their cutting edges lived far far down in there? There was no recognition from those dark caverns. But she was still Indian. A brightly beaded barrette held her hair back. And when I looked at her son, I saw clearly the young Black man who had come to the I.W.W. hall to check out the books. And it all came together then, in Union Station, Seattle -- at what had become her tribal grounds. On what was left of Old Skid Road. The young man was looking at me, knew I was Indian. Nodding, I smiled at him and he at me. Then they went on, very slowly, for the short Station remainder of their walk routine. Reaching the door through which they'd come, they left. And She was gone. Forever. Some months before all of this, I'd mentioned the long-ago Hank's Place confrontation -- two young Indians with competing radical brands of Save-the-World -- to a historian friend of mine who published much on the I.W.W. He suggested I write it up and get it into print. And, when I returned to North Dakota, I did just that. In due course, the piece was published in a rather surprisingly august journal along with an excellent sketch of Skid Road during its High Time. But that Account ended in the park -- with myself sitting in the rain under the now-tall trees and thinking deeply of her and of another Time. My essay did not go into Union Station. I simply could not bring myself to do that to her. Certainly not at that point. Not then. Over the many decades after our meeting at Hank's Place, I had often wondered whatever had become of this beautiful and fiery Torch. The Communist Party went through wrenching factionalism beginning only a year after our meeting. That built to tremendous internal intensity in '57 -- when many indeed left it forever. She, like I, was Indian and therefore most likely to place loyalty to friends over any ideological intricacies. And did she ever go back Home -- I had frequently wondered -- back to the Blackfeet country? Or had she stayed in Seattle? Now I knew. And the truth was super heavy. So when I wrote the initial piece about the two of us and Hank's Place and Wobblies and Communists, I stopped the ending short. Let those professorial readers, I figured -- all of them -- speculate as I had for more than 31 years on the possible scenarios of her personal and political future: the Sun and the Clouds. And let them, as I had for so very, very long a time, remember the extremely young and the extremely beautiful -- and the extremely committed -- Native person in that early Spring evening during that hideously grim time in 1955. Let those initial readers remember Her -- as I still try to. But until now, no one will remember the dried Red leaf, blowing along the tortured Earth, blowing toward the inevitable Winter. Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] www.hunterbear.org (strawberry socialism) Protected by NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
