4 Indian Boys and Turkey

One time my college roommate ran into the room and said our neighbors
next door, Harley a Zuni and Bob, a Southern Cheyenne had gotten big
bucks and wanted to treat us out to eat. We were ready in a flash, we
were always hungry so we went out and ate.

My roommate, Mike was a Sioux, and me the Navajo; many times the four
of us would get together with a big bass drum and we would go into the
main living room of the dorm and sing Indian songs. We would sing
songs we knew and invite other skins to sing with us and we would do
this every once in a while. We had a good time. The room would fill up
with the other students and pretty soon we had a crowd standing around
us. We would teach each other our own tribal songs and would really
wail. These three were my brothers and we did a lot of things
together, and one of them was to eat.


We were in college and always looking for a free meal. There were
these girls from Onandagawa, New York, Seneca girls and we would see
them all the time and follow them back to the their apartment and
munch on what was around the place. It was a thing with us, we had a
reputation as munchers, always asking for food. There were some other
girls who were from Zuni and the Pueblos, we used to go see them, they
were in the next complex and we would munch down whatever they had.
They were good cooks, those Pueblo girls can really cook, so can those
Senecas. There was some other girls we knew who were not Indian but
were from places like Chicago, San Antonio, Seattle, who sure could
cook, too. We used to go see them and after a while they all would
bring us treats like cookies, cake and stuff like that, dropping it
off at our dorm.


Thanksgiving was coming up and since all four of us room mates were
going home we made a big deal of eating something for Thanksgiving.
You have to understand we were always broke, but managed to go out
somehow once in a while. Well we all sort of said to each of these
girls that we didn’t want to eat turkey in the student union, so
we could get a free Thanksgiving meal from somebody. The day after
class let out for the holiday we each got an invitation to eat with
the Pueblo girls, and then one from the Senecas and one from our
friends who were pale faces. We talked about it and figured we would
just go to one dinner and beg off that we forgot about the other
dinners later.


At 11 AM, Becky Lasil and her Pueblo friends and a couple of Lumbee
girls from North Carolina laid out a spread you would not believe and
they watched us four eat. We were young, and helped ourselves to
everything there. They offered more they wouldn't take no for an
answer and so we ate good. We joked and laughed and had a good time.


Afterward we were on our way back to the dorm, when Sue Jim and other
Seneca girls picked us up and took us to their apartment. There in
their living room they had borrowed a big dining table, tablecloth,
and real silverware, just like in a fine restaurant. They had turkey
with all the trimmings. Now Mike was a big eater, so we sat down and
started to eat. The taste of turkey gets kind of old the second time
around when your are already full. What could we do, we didn't tell
them about the first dinner, so we ate again, but couldn't eat desert.
We had a good meal; good conversation and they made us eat.


We then walked back to our dorm, when Sally and girls in the next
complex came over all pretty and nice and said, we fixed a meal for
you guys. Mike looked at me and we smiled faintly, then he went next
door and told Harley and Bob the girls had fixed us Thanksgiving
dinner. We looked at each other; we didn't have to say anything it was
all in the look. We made our way over there and they had quite a
spread. We stood there and looked at all the food, those girls
standing there so proud of their meal.


We sat down and started to play with the food, but they wouldn't let
us alone. Harley started to say we had already eaten, and the
girl’s reaction was not good. They told us they were going to
throw the food out if we did not eat and they had spent a good part of
the day fixing it for us. All four of us sat there and ate; trying to
smile and talk, but it was a tough meal to get through. We sort
finished part of the meal and they made us stay for desert. We went
into their living room, they wanted to know how the meal turned out,
we told them it was good, the best meal we had ever.


After that we got out of there as quick as we could. Halfway back, it
all started to come up, too much of good thing. We were miserable, the
long and short of it was the girls all found out what we had done and
none of them were happy with us, we did not get invited for any
Christmas meal and I can't say we were sorry about it either.


rustywire