Dem Bones

It stands to reason that while digging through this great, vast country of ours pipeliners were bound to run into some Indian burial grounds. (Considering that this great, vast country was once theirs after all.)

Mr. B told me that this happened in Kansas. He was 12. The workers came across the bones and they were naturally quite distressed. Mr. B still seemed visibly shaken by the memory. I don't suppose it's something you forget...being confronted by dozens of skeletons and all. He told me it was a Navajo burial ground. I asked him how he knew that it was Navajo. He said he didn't know. He seems to recall that the engineers contacted a local university to come take a look at the site. They excavated and the pipeliners just went on around 'em. 

Mr. B's says his mom was full Cherokee. I asked him how his parents met, his dad a no-holds-barred Scotsman and she a no-holds-barred Cherokee. He said his dad was pipelining in Corsicana, Texas and they met there. He's not sure of the specifics. I wish he knew more about that. I wonder what she saw in Mr. B senior. From what he's told me, the senior B was a small, wiry man who could take a licking and give it back ten times worse. 

I asked him the other day if he would consider the prospect of me interviewing him about his life. He didn't seem enthused by the idea saying once again that his life "wasn't all that interesting." I again countered with, "That's for me to decide." (My grandfather used to call me "very persistent." He was very correct.) He asked where we would do the interview. I told him at the library after my shift was over one of these days. He was still apprehensive. It was written all over his face. 

This made me worry of course. Did I have a right to tell his stories without permission? Was it made okay by anonymity? Did he not want his stories told because he didn't think much of them or was there something more dangerous happening in his head? Were there shards of memories that he didn't want to cut his fingers on? Were there gaps that he didn't want to admit were there? Bones buried under the earth? Was something too painful? Too awful? Or. Is he just completely convinced that he isn't interesting? Mr. B doesn't think something is interesting unless it's grand and amazing. I have another take entirely. I like the small things. The soaring beauty of the untapped potential of the people you see every damn day.

I told Mr. B to think about it. He didn't have to commit one way or the other. The funny thing was as he kept denying that he had interesting stories to tell, he would tell me more stories. And each one ending with, "That's all I can tell ya. Hardly even worth mentionin'." He failed the 5th grade twice. His dad called pipes less than 50 inches around "spaghetti." And all about the time when he and his friends thought it would be a good idea to swim in some kind of ditch filled with oil sludge. "Why would you do that?" I asked, stifling a laugh.

"All the other kids were doing it."

"That's really gross."

"Yeah. My mom....whoo boy, she wouldn't let me back in the house after that."

"I can imagine."

"She sprayed me with the hose outside!"

"You asked for it, my friend."

"Yeah well. Uh. You see? I don't got any stories worth mentionin'."

So I don't think he's fully against telling his story after all. He just needs some convincing and some well-meaning encouragement. Good thing I'm very persistent.

Later that afternoon, he asked me to Google images of a Star of David, a Christian cross and a Confederate flag. Not sure what he wanted them for. Still haven't seen that finished work of art yet.