Our drive had started in the Wal- lowas, home of the Joseph band of the Nez Perce, the forefathers of Lesley’s fictional characters. As we cruised west, Dave talked about coming to Celilo Falls before the dam, about being a ten year old from Portland whose parents knew that something important was passing, wanting him to see it before it did. Driving by Celilo, once a major fishing and trading center, we saw nets bobbing in the Columbia and a few fishing platforms at the edge of the River. I thought about Celilo Falls, the villages that had been covered, and about Lesley’s book. The wooden longhouse I’d gone by hundreds of times took on new meaning. 1suggested to Dave that some people have always been more culturally aware than others. People have always crossed over. I told him about the gringos and Mexicans of my childhood, who created individual lives on the borders of two cultures. We discussed early white trappers who intermarried with the Indians as they moved across the continent, about Indians who married and slaved across tribal lines, picking up the dress, hunting habits and weapons of their friends and foes. Isolation is rarely complete. Especially in this country, grown through immigration and conquest, through slavery, the Civil War, Manifest Destiny; which simmers now with new immigrants from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. There have always been writers— explainers, apologists, storytellers—who have written from the other person’s point of view. There was McWhorter and the Nez Perce. Joseph Conrad wrote in English about his adopted culture. Nadine Gordimer and Alan Paton, white South Africans, write about the intersection of blacks and whites in their homeland. This doesn’t mean that the American Indians, or the Mexicans in California, the blacks in the south or South Africa, have been treated fairly by a dominant culture or by its writers. Individual writers have their own points of view, their own prejudices, genius and limitations. There is no guarantee that any writer is fair to family, friends or culture. Cultural membership—especially membership by birth—is not critical to cultural sensitivity. We passed through the Columbia Gorge, where massive landforms in large swatches of different greens seemed to shed off the elephant skin hills east of The Dalles. Traffic picked up as the Portland suburbs came into view, and we were soon on another planet, where on and off-ramps, huge buildings and bridges are the backdrops to human life. Entering downtown Portland, it occurred to me that more people were on the Morrison Bridge than were in Joseph’s band during the .great Nez Perce War. Neon signs announced Asian groceries and Chinese restaurants. Did any of these Portland Chinese have ties to the many Chinese who used to live and work in Eastern Oregon? People of all colors and descriptions jostled each other as they shopped and made their ways to their own appointments. As we parted company, I realized that Dave’s questions had prompted a discussion which made the day fly. I felt purged and recharged. Recalling a childhood of cultural borders, remembering Civil Rights activities and Peace Corps experiences, and driving down the mighty Columbia on a beautiful day with Craig Lesley as our guide had all combined to reconfirm my own appreciation for diversity. That’s the writer’s gift, to make us aware of our own families and tribes, and the ones that surround us and are bound up with us, to show the mountains and rivers and bridges and history that we walk through without awareness. To make us walk through it all in someone else’s moccasins. Writer Rich Wandschneider lives in Enterprise, Oregon, where he serves as director of the annual Fishtrap Writers Gathering. This is his first story in Clinton St. Individual writers have their own points of view, their own prejudices, genius and limitations. There is no guarantee that any writer is fair to family, friends or culture. STARING STRAIGHT AT ME Jack stuck a long piece of dry grass between his teeth.”A strange thing happened last night while 1was at the pizza place. I was done eating and ready to leave when the door banged open and I felt a cold wind at my back. This woman was standing outside the door, staring straight at me.” “Like Pudge said, you’re a handsome dog. Maybe she wanted to pick you up.” Jack spit the grass from his mouth. “Knock it off. This wasn’t just any woman. She looked exactly like Mom. From what 1could see. It was dusk and her face was in a shadow, but everything else was like her, even the way she dressed. You remember that blue shawl?” “I remember,” Danny said. He put his hand on the warm ground and dug his fingers into the sandy soil. When he picked up some of the dirt, it trickled Indian Cowboy, ca. 1915. away. “I know it sounds crazy,” Jack said, “but she stood there a long time. Everyone else was talking or eating. No one seemed to notice. Then she motioned at me, like, come here." Danny closed his eyes. “Did you?” Jack shook his head. “No.” Danny looked at Jack. “And she left?” “Somebody dropped a tray of drinks, breaking glass all over the tile floor, so I turned toward the noise. When I looked again, the door was closed. I started outside, but when 1touched the door handle, I couldn’t open it.” “Stuck?” “I don’t think so. My knees gave out. After that, I tried ordering a beer, but the bartender laughed and called me Sonny Boy.” From River Song, ©1989 Craig Lesley, Houghton Mifflin, Boston. C linton St. Dec. ’89-Jan. ’90 31
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