REZ's EDGE - Destruction & Redemption by Brad Jensen

REZ's EDGE - Intro & Fwd (The Edge)

Introduction

I had it all.

I was only twelve, but everything was there for me.  Food, clothing, shelter, friends, the love of my mother and father, and the protective wall that my father constructed around us.

But the walls of my soul were decimated the summer before I started seventh grade.

Five thousand pounds of sheet metal and steel came barreling down upon my father, obliterating my wall, my protector.

So, now, how the heck do I rebuild some kind of wall? Because, Lord knows, I need one to protect my wounded heart and soul.

You know, nothing is more dangerous than a hurt and fearful animal.

Forward:  The Edge

A bunch of natives live in the government subsidized housing projects behind our hometown A&W Drive-Inn.  

Mom, Dad, and I eyeball them as we guzzle down frosted glass mugs of fresh draft root-beer, recently delivered by our carhop.  

The project shacks are sided with tar shingles.  Dirt drives are full of potholes.  Grass is almost non-existent.  Tidiness takes a back-seat to junk collections.

Across the street begins row after row of mobile homes with a mix of Caucasian and Native American residents.  Beyond that starts the small homes of white folks, with an occasional run down house, thrown in here and there, that houses a number of Indian family communes.  

Some better off Indian families have their own places, but they usually have grandparents, cousins, nephews, nieces, and a gaggle of kids in residence too.  More often than not they are more like halfway homes, with all kinds of coming and goings of temporary residents, friends and relatives.  It usually sounds like the circus is in town and all the performers and animals are staying at these shanties.

To be fair, there are some Indian homes that are well kept and some Caucasians' houses that are white-trashy, but that most-definitely is not the norm.  Or maybe our eyes are just naturally drawn to the eyesores?

Darrel 'The Barrel' Wamditanka and Jeffery Shakopee, 'The Piss Shaker', were a couple of elementary school friends of mine.  Darrel and Jeff called me Dakota 'Bone Head' Charleston, since I had bone-white blonde hair.  I had white friends too, and we ran together on the playground, raising Cain indiscriminately.   We saw the coloration difference in our skin, but we just didn't give a damn.

In sixth-grade middle-school, cliques changed all that.  Racial gravity pulled old friends further and further apart until we could hardly see each other.  Names like Barrel, Piss Shaker and Bone Head no longer sounded friendly.

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