I wrote three songs over the years about Leonard Peltier’s situation wasting away in prison when it seemed from the accounts I studied, his motives were helping elders at Pine Ridge. A couple times I received criticism like maybe he is guilty, how could you write supportive songs? Another criticism was who are you to write about Indigenous people when you aren’t one of them. I can understand those lines of thought but in the end you have to live with yourself and whatever makes less suffering in the world, whatever you believe right or wrong.
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At the food court in Winnipeg with my mother and daughter. A grandfather and two granddaughters take seats next to us. I think the girls are three and five. Zayda twice gets angry and scares the girls. He bangs a glass container and barks at them so loud everyone turns. The girls know to stop and stare expressionlessly straight ahead. He vents they are not behaving the way he expects. They were giggly and excited about root beer and maybe more root beer.
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My mother and daughter also are alarmed. The food court is packed and the others are busy with their own food court business. When we start leaving, Zayda and the granddaughters also collect their garbage, also leaving. I offer to help take his tray to the garbage bin, as if to help because he has to manage a few things including the children but, additionally, I want to interact because extending a friendly tone might help him change for everyone’s sake. He says it is ok, he doesn’t want my help. I turn to the girls and look back at him and say what nice girls. They smile, he says mind your own business. We leave.
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My mother and daughter discuss whether it was right or wrong for me to do what I did. True, it might mean he feels embarrassed and then gets angrier at them later but it also might have made him think his actions worry/ effect others. I wanted to show my daughter there is a chance being nice to the person who seems an asshole could improve things, whether or not it works. I wanted to make those little girls feel a little relief even if only a couple seconds that a stranger might react to their grandfather’s anger.
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Some songs make you feel like you wish you thought of it first. Dylan has done that to me a few times. I imagine it in the background as we leave this mall, Ain’t no use Jokin’, Everything is broken.