From One Raven's Eye

Page 7

Ahneen, hello and tansi to you. You know, whenever I head down to the corner liquor store this same social problem reaches out for me. It starts in the cashier lineup. They go, "and that's $18.70. From twenty? A dollar thirty is your change. Have a nice weekend, sir." When my turn comes they just shove my booze in a bag, shove the bag and change in my direction without a smile or a word. Sometimes, I feel like saying, "here, keep the bag, I'm gonna go drink this in the alley back there anyway."

This goes on even after two years of never having shown up there d-r-u-n-k, without even a hint of booze on my breath or in my clothes. Two years without even so much as a beer label on my baseball hat or tee shirt. Yet they act like I'm gonna pass out or throw up on their cash register for sure this time.

Maybe it's because they are in the firewater dispensing business they figure they know about Indians and liquor. In fairness to them, their thinking is not limited to the liquor workers union. In fairness to myself I haven't taken a drink of anything resembling liquor for nine years. This only goes to show how powerfully held is that image of us as savage when sober but even more wild when plastered.

There is, however, no sense in denying that hopped up, fermented and distilled products do cause certain problems amongst us. What would you answer to the question: Why do Indian minikwe as much as they do? There are a bunch of theories around that try to answer that question.

A couple of them are based on the fact that before the Seagram, Molson and Labatt families showed up here, there wre no such things as wine glasses, beer commercials or detox centres over here. Even after 500 years, one theory goes, our Aboriginal tummies haven't tuned in to the stuff yet. The hangover part, yes, but social sipping of it needs work.

The priests figured we got into liquor as a quicker way to vision. Personal experience tells me it is much harder trying to make sense of yourself lying face down on the sidewalk.

Another theory says that if your mother, father, or grandparents were alcoholics, your chances of becoming one is greater. These guys aren't satisfied insulting you. No, they try to put down your entire family, too. This must have started when Indian babies began drinking from bottles. You know how one bottle can lead to another.

Another explanation is connected to how and where you grew up. The drinking behaviour you saw as a kid will have a bearing on how you go about the deal as an adult. Now me, I grew up around non-Natives. They drank quite a bit. So what that means is when I went staggering down the street, it was as a shogenosh and not as an Indian at all. What a relief.

Along with that environmental one if the idea we drink as a means of social protest. Instead of carrying picket signs and blowing up power lines, we keep small

town hotels in business and get behind in our electricity bills.

Well, it's a stressful life, alright. Economically, socially, emotionally being a skin can wear on ya. Yep, as an excuse, that one will work as good as any other.

The thing about all these theories is that not one or all of them together is enough to explain why one single person gets carried away with the bubbly stuff. That is probably because going at it 'til your personal lights flash out is, after all, senseless.

The worst part in dealing with the question that way is that it's all basically racist thinking. It tries to come up with a wholesome answer to an individual-by-individual situation. People end up becoming patterns, statistics and colours. None of which has

to do with waking up Sunday morning in such awesome pain even your fingernails hurt. Then again, maybe the answer is as simple as the one my friend George once suggested. Indians drink just because they like to. The same way as the English, French, Germans and Russians do. Most do alright, but some lose control and never learn when to call it a night, or a weeend, or a week for that matter.

Maybe my reception at that liquor store is not racial at all. Maybe it's got to do with the fact that one in ten Canadians is an alcoholic. One in ten - that's pretty high. When you re walking down a street full of non-Native, you never know. Maybe none, or every single one has the liquor and nothing else but thirst. You would have to know each one personally to pick out for sure who is and who isn't. That's another tricky side to this drinking business we obviously haven't figured out. Most of them claim to be able to pick out right away, every time, the problem drinkers amongst a passel of us.

Maybe at that liquor store I keep running into the drunk of the staff. Or maybe that whole branch consists of the pie-eyed ten in every hundred. Maybe, just maybe, they resent me because I always act like one of those smarty pants social drinkers - the ones who quietly understand when they see crying or arguing around at parties. Then again it could just be the meatheaded thinking we have to put up with lots of times.

The reason I've never bothered to tell them why I don't drink is because, well, because I shouldn't have to. If they can't accept the evidence of their own eyes, no fingerpointing of mine will do any good either.

Why do I still hang around those bottled up places? Well my wife, who isn't a problem drinker by any means, never touched a single drop to help me sort myself out. Now that I'm comfortable enough to be left alone in the house with the stuff, it seems the least I can do to pick her up a bottle every now and then.

Well, I have to go. That liquor store is about to close. I gotta get down there and face those sober cashiers again. It's always fun wishing them a happy weekend before they get around to wishing me one. See you all next week, then. Adios...