Louise Erdrich - The Round House

Durlin Peace said that the washers belonged to him. As there were no distinguishing marks on the washers, which were examined by Judge Coutts, there was no proof that the washers belonged to the Bingo Palace. As there was no valid basis upon which Durlin Peace could be fired, it was ordered that he be reinstated at the Bingo Palace.

Washers? I said.

What about them? said my father.

I looked back down at the file.

Although this was not one of the cases we marked out as important, I remember it well. Here it was. The weighty matters on which my father spent his time and his life. I had, of course, been in court when he handled these sorts of cases. But I’d thought I was being excluded from weightier matters, upsetting or violent or too complex, because of my age. I had imagined that my father decided great questions of the law, that he worked on treaty rights, land restoration, that he looked murderers in the eye, that he frowned while witnesses stuttered and silenced clever lawyers with a slice of irony. I said nothing, but as I read on I was flooded by a slow leak of dismay. For what had Felix S. Cohen written his Handbook ? Where was the greatness? the drama? the respect? All of the cases that my father judged were nearly as small, as ridiculous, as petty. Though a few were heartbreaking, or a combination of sad and idiotic, like that of Marilyn Shigaag, who stole five gas station hot dogs and ate them all in the gas station bathroom, none rose to the grandeur I had pictured. My father was punishing hot dog thieves and examining washers—not even washing machines—just washers worth 15 cents apiece.

December 8, 1976

Before Chief Judge Antone Coutts, also Justice Rose Chenois and Associate Justice Mervin “Tubby” Ma’ingan.

Tommy Thomas et al., Plaintiffs

v.

Vinland Super Mart et al., Defendants

Tommy Thomas and the other plaintiffs in this case were Chippewa tribal members, and Vinland was and is a non-Indian-owned gas and grocery business, which, though located primarily on fee (former purchased allotment) land, is surrounded by tribal trust land. The plaintiffs alleged that during commercial transactions occurring at Vinland Super Mart a 20% surcharge was added to transactions involving tribal members showing signs of age-related dementia, innocence of extreme youth, mental preoccupation, inebriation, or general confusion.

The owners, George and Grace Lark, did not deny that on some occasions a 20% surcharge had been added to cash register receipts. They defended their action by insisting it was a way to recoup losses from shoplifting. The defendants claimed that the Tribal Court did not have personal jurisdiction over them or subject matter jurisdiction over the transactions, which were the basis for the plaintiffs’ complaint.

The Court found that although the gas station building itself was located on allotment #122093, the parking lot, garbage Dumpster, sidewalk, pumps, fire hydrants, sewage system, leach field, concrete parking barriers, outside picnic tables, and decorative flower planters were all located on tribal trust land, and that in order to enter the Vinland Super Mart, customers, 86% of whom were tribal members, had to drive and then to walk across tribal trust land.

This court claimed jurisdiction over the case and as there was no evidence presented to deny the surcharge had taken place found in favor of the plaintiffs.

My father had kept this one aside.

It seems like an ordinary enough case, I said. I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

I was able in that case to claim limited jurisdiction over a non-Indian-owned business, said my father. The case held up on appeal. There was some pride in his voice.

That was satisfying, he went on, but that is not the reason I’ve pulled the case. I’ve marked it out to examine it further because of the people involved.

I looked back at the file.

Tommy Thomas et al. or the Larks?

The Larks, though Grace and George are dead. Linda survives. And their son, Linden, who is not mentioned or involved here, but who figures in another action, one more emotionally complicated. The Larks are the sort of people who trot out their relationships with “good Indians,” whom they secretly despise and openly patronize, in order to prove their general love for Indians, whom they are engaged in cheating. The Larks were bumbling entrepreneurs and petty thieves, but they were also self-deceived. While their moral standards for the rest of the world were rigid, they were always able to find excuses for their own shortcomings. It is these people really, said my father, small-time hypocrites, who may in special cases be capable of monstrous acts if given the chance. The Larks, in fact, were shrill opponents of abortion. Yet at the birth of their twins, they had been willing to put to death the weaker and (as they thought at the time) deformed member, a baby girl. The whole reservation knew about it because one of the nurses at the hospital removed the damaged twin. A tribal member, Betty Wishkob, who was a night janitor, succeeded in adopting the infant. Which brings us to the other case.

In the Matter of the Estate of Albert and Betty Wishkob

Albert and Betty Wishkob, both enrolled members of the Chippewa Tribe and residents on the reservation, died intestate and with four children, Sheryl Wishkob Martin, Cedric Wishkob, Albert Wishkob Jr., and Linda Wishkob, who was born Linda Lark. Linda was informally adopted by the Wishkobs and raised among their family as an Indian. At the death of her adoptive parents, the other children, who had moved off reservation, agreed to let Linda continue living as she had in the home of Albert and Betty, which is situated on allotment #1002874, consists of 160 acres, and was returned to Tribal Trust after the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. On January 19, 1986, the biological mother of Linda Lark Wishkob, Grace Lark, appealed to this court to allow her to assume guardianship of her now middle-aged daughter, Linda, in order to manage her affairs.

Grace Lark claimed that an illness contracted after Linda underwent a difficult medical procedure left Linda severely depressed and mentally confused. Grace Lark openly stated that she was interested in developing the 160 acres that she claimed had been left to Linda after her adoptive parents’ death.

The last paragraph was handwritten, an aside for my father’s eyes only.

As Linda is non-Indian by blood, as there is no legal evidence that the Wishkobs formally adopted Linda, as Grace Lark made no attempt to contact the other three inheriting children involved, and as, moreover, Linda Lark Wishkob, in the opinion of the court, was not only mentally competent but more sane than many who have come before this court, including her biological mother, this case was dismissed with prejudice.

Strange, I said.

It gets stranger, said my father.

How can it?

What you see is only the tip of a psychodrama that for some years consumed both the Larks, who gave their child up, and the Wishkobs, who in their kindness rescued and raised Linda. When the Wishkob children caught wind of the action, a clumsy, greedy, mean-minded attempt to raid and profit from an inheritance that never was, and land that never could be passed out of tribal ownership, they were furious. Linda’s older sister by adoption, Sheryl, took direct action and organized a boycott of Lark’s gas station. Not only that, she helped Whitey apply for a business grant. Everybody goes to Whitey’s now. Whitey and Sonja have put the Larks out of business. During this time, Mrs. Lark’s son, Linden, lost his job in South Dakota and returned to help his mother run the failing enterprise. She died of a sudden aneurysm. He blames the Wishkobs, his sister, Linda, Whitey and Sonja, and the judge in this case, me, for her death and his near bankruptcy, which seems now inevitable.