Henry Slough Chapter VII (Final)

“We want Indian justice”, said the Pima twins, and the Public Prosecutor, Public Defender, and Judge of Prairieville County all agreed that this would be a wonderful idea. There was no meth in the country, nor no Indians, and the thought of a courtroom filled with Ojibwes hooting and hollering to Free the Pima Twins was enough for them to quickly agree to remand the twins to the custody of the legal authorities of the Indian Affairs Bureau and the County Prosecutor.  They found a loophole in the tangle of US criminal law and newly-crafted Indian law which gave more autonomy to indigenous populations – such as keeping all the profits from casinos, but in the case retaining jurisdiction over cases which originated on the reservation.

While the Pima Twins and Jimmy One Feather actually bought the fixin’s for the meth lab off the reservation, all three were living there at the time, stored the product there, and used it as a depot for distribution to Prairieville. There was no law against buying Sudafed, toluene, paint thinner, and whatever else went into crank, so the only case the law had was “conspiracy to distribute”, and that was enough for the same trio up north. 

“This is no Indian justice”, said the twins when they settled into their jail cell; and indeed it wasn’t.  “It’s a shithole”.  The vomit from the overnight lockups had caked on the walls and never been cleaned; new puke ran from the cells to a sluice running down the small corridor between the two rows of cells. All the toilets were jammed and overflowing, and turds were piled in the corners.  No one from the Minnesota Department of Indian Affairs had ever visited the jail, and certainly no one from Washington.  As long as there was no serious crime committed or no serious travesty of justice, the modus operandi was live and let live.

Henry stayed up north until the arraignment, which was only a few days after the twins had been penned up.  Although there was the same collusion among the Prosecutor, Defender, and Judge as there was in Prairieville, this was a Class II Criminal Offense, and it would have to be tried in Federal Court. 

“We want Indian justice”, yelled the Pima twins again, and Jimmy One Feather hired an Indian attorney from nearby Monroe.  The lawyer hadn’t had a case in years, but because, in the vain hope of getting one, he kept his license up to date; and took the case.  Jimmy One Feather had more to lose than the Pima Twins because of prior convictions, and a federal case could put him away for years. 

The Indian lawyer, Jonas Clearwater, was so incompetent and inept all he could do was to cause trouble; and in these days of cultural sensitivity his yelling and screaming about discrimination towards Our Native Peoples was listened to.  Of course, no attorney or judge, let alone a legal scholar could make heads nor tails of what he was saying, invoking tribal spirits “immanent in the land”, and every transgression real or imagined against Indians since Custer; but they kept deferring the trial.  The liberal press was getting wind of all this and began putting pressure on the authorities to shape up or dismiss the case which, in their opinion, was a pure case of skinning the Redman.

It didn’t do any good at all, for the Federal Prosecutor had just been transferred from upstate New York where crank was epidemic, and he had only one bee in his bonnet – get rid of this scourge. Despite Jonas Clearwater’s elocution about the plight of the Indian, the unfortunate and unlucky Pima twins who got enticed and then entangled in the misdoings of the worst segments of Ojibwe society, they all got two years in the federal penitentiary in Browning.

“What a shame what happened to those nice Pima twins”, said Henry’s mother as he was about to leave for Boston.

“No, Mom.  They were not so nice.” Henry didn’t add all the things he could have about the twins – their dereliction, irresponsibility, arrogance, indifference to their family, and plain lead-plug dumbness and grotesque fatness.  He was glad to be rid of them. 

The crew at the site back in Boston welcomed Henry back, glad to see him, missed him, thought of him hammering tarpaper and carrying lumber, and were happy he was once again on the site, this time in Somerville.  It didn’t take long before he found out about Dina fucking Joe Fannon.  Fannon didn’t give a shit about Henry and since he had this twisted idea about eugenics and felt he was doing the world a favor by spreading his seed inside Dina DiMarco instead of Henry the Wuss, he came right out and told him so.  Now, the only thing Joe Fannon liked about Dina DiMarco was getting his rocks off regularly and trying to get her pregnant.  He was so dumb-assed with his Mickey Finn DNA eugenics shit that he actually thought Dina was taking no precautions, which of course she was, the last thing in the world she wanted was to get pregnant by this piece of meat. 

When Henry confronted her with it, she admitted all, said that she didn’t know what had gotten into her, would never see Fannon again, and was desperate for Henry to take her back.  Henry – the Middle – of course said yes.  Even the thought of taking a shotgun or shillelagh to Fannon never occurred to him.  Life goes on, was his Middle thought, he would be back with Dina, and he would see what happened.

So she moved back in with him, he went happily back to his carpentry; she took her job at the Fabric Man Outlet with a little more equanimity, and they headed towards marriage.  Joe Fannon kept showing up at their apartment and until she threatened to get a cease and desist order against him, he came knocking at all hours of the night.  The guy was one fucked-up dude, she now realized.  She did take up with her “old man” on the side, however, oh how she liked to fucked by the old gent who would get Viagra-ed up and do her every which way.  For him, 30 years his junior, she was like this gift from heaven.  Pushing 70 he never thought he would ever, ever, fuck a young woman again, and her soft skin, wet pussy, soft, pliant mouth, round, supple breasts were God-given.  For her, the man loved women in a way she had never known and reveled in it, and since it wasn’t hurting anyone – that is, no promises or expectations on either side – she continued it.  She didn’t like the lying, but she wasn’t really cheating on Henry since the relationship didn’t mean anything, and besides, oh besides, it felt so damn good.

So the moral of the story is this: everyone eventually returns to form.  Henry Slough eventually returned to Prairieville, Minnesota to live with his parents, got a good job in carpentry, married a local girl, and lived the Middle, uneventful life for which he was determined.

Dina stopped fucking her old man because he died; but kept on at low-wage, nowhere jobs at K-Mart, Fabric Man, Walmart, and Target.  Her grandfather died and left her some money, but it was so little that all she could do was buy a new car.  The Pima Twins belonged in jail because they were bad people, and were in and out of them for years.  After getting out of the pen in Minnesota they went to Pima country in Arizona, quickly got into wacko shit there and went back to jail.  Dina’s Mom realized that she had made a big mistake with the twins, never should have adopted them, and acted as if they never existed; which was fine with her husband who eventually turned into his drooling father hanging out in the North End.

FINIS