A Blackfoot in Brighton

A Blackfoot in Brighton

I'm not sure which came first, 'the flats' or Indian Dave, but I think perhaps they came as a package. What I remember is that they were both red and grey. The flats had a gloomy red ashen exterior and were a product of the Councils 1930s slum clearing, built on the same land, by the same slum tenants.

The flats were a single long tenement, of soot stained brick, topped with dirty grey slates, splattered with bird shit. The block lay like a forgotten turd, and ran parallel, to its neighbouring block, which punctuated the steep hill, running up from the Royal Pavilion. There was a stench of fish and rotten fruit from the next-door municipal market, which mixed with the smell of urine in the communal stairwells, and lingered in the air like a London fog.

We were looked down on by the nearby residents, and the higher up the hill, then the better the folk thought they were, and which if you came from ‘the flats’ you were scum; if you came from our flats, then you were barely more than beggars.

We did our best to live up to this, often stealing fruit and veg from the market, or taking trips up to the shopping centre, to ask passersby, for bus fare home. September would see us on street corners asking, ‘penny for the guy’ and we would be carol singing the day after bonfire night.

Growing up I lacked a father figure, but thanks to my mum, was never short of uncles, and Indian Dave started out as an ‘uncle.’ He sported a buttock length ponytail, of thick grey hair, scraped back from his high forehead, accentuating a face as red as a sunburnt baby, and an eagle beak of a nose. He wore bright coloured clothes and moccasins, with a tasselled suede waistcoat. It may have been this look that attracted my mother to him, as she modelled herself on a Native American singer called Buffy Saint Marie.

The actual romantic relationship did not last long, and Indian Dave was banished to the front room, so that my mother could focus on younger, more handsome men, musicians mainly, with a Jim Morrison or Frank Zappa look.

Our front room was furnished with a bed, that doubled as a sofa, and one wall was covered in silver embossed wallpaper, which was covered in women, who were covered in nothing at all. My friends loved coming round to look at the breasts, and we spent many fun times counting the nipples on show.

We were often visited by our local vicar, and I’m certain I heard him counting under his breath, more than once. I think the highest count was about 167, but we were hindered by the bed which was against the wall, and to be fair, there were a lot of nipples.

Even in his new role, Indian Dave was good to us, and hand washed our tatty clothes, and kept us clean and fed. He also punished us, and I was often spanked with a large black clothes brush, as I was often naughty, and brought home by the police for some reason or other. My mum was never around much, normally because she had a new man on the scene, so Dave did it all, maybe in the hope he would be allowed back in her bedroom one day.

Ever since Dave had appeared, I had always been curious about him, and one day I asked, ‘Why do they call you Indian Dave? It’s a stupid name for an Indian.’

He went on to tell me that his real name was ‘Chogan,’ which meant Blackbird, in his native tongue of the Blackfoot tribe. He explained that he was born on a reservation in Alberta, Canada, and he had been forced to come to the UK, after his parents had died. He told me tales of how his folk were buffalo hunters, fierce warriors, who had fought in wars, with settlers and other Indian tribes. I was awestruck when he described the great ‘Chief Crowfoot’ who wore feathered headdresses, and how they lived in Tepees.

I sat transfixed, listening about wisdom that was passed down to the next generation of the Blackfoot tribe. I loved the stories, and I was a big fan of Little Plum from the Beano at this time.

‘Ha Ha, Dave’s a smelly foot like Little Plum’ I shouted gleefully.

He whacked me round the head.

‘Cheeky little bastard,’ he said, and he was right.

It all made sense, his red face, the long grey hair, the dodgy coloured sweaters,

He even had blankets just like they had in the cowboy films although I hoped they were not carrying this smallpox virus, he had mentioned. He also loved gambling on fruit machines, and explained that many native Americans now owned Casinos. He went on to say that this was the main reason, we had to wait for hours outside the local pub for him, while he tested the new machines to report back to his tribe.

I was six or seven at this time, and we were living on the poverty line, we had no fridge, we had a TV with a meter on the back of it, my clothes were donations or bought from jumble sales, I had never been to have my haircut, and my nickname was ‘Fleabag.’

Although it’s odd that my mum always had cigarettes and went out.

I was constantly bullied and picked on at school, for my bad haircuts, tatty clothes, and hippy mother and her friends.

I always felt ashamed, and part of me believed these bullies were right, I wasn't as good as they were, I probably did smell, and I was a freak. There is a part of me that still feels like that to this day, but at last I had some ammunition to hit back with.

When the other kids started to mock me for having a weird mum and a strange hippy living with us, I could finally answer back.

'Yeah but he looks like that because he is a real Red Indian.'

I remember a feeling that I'd never experienced before. I was proud of something for the first time in my life. It was fantastic, I felt different, I started to believe that I could be better, that I could be accepted, and maybe one day be normal. I would tell the tales of Dave chasing buffalo over cliffs and skinning them, and how he was the best bow and arrow shot ever.

‘That’s why he was called 'Dead Eye' I would say, and repeat and embellish his stories, making him a hero, and even more fascinating. So, just for a while, it made me interesting to the other kids, they would listen in awe, to my tales of the Real Red Indian from 'The Flats.'

One particular story Dave told me was supposed to have a hidden meaning.

It was the story of a baby bird who had fallen from its nest, and was shivering with cold and chirping loudly because it was so hungry.

Just at that moment a buffalo came over and stood over it, the buffalo let out a great big dump, and the steaming pat completely covered the little bird, which was instantly warm and snug under the massive heap.

Now although warm, the baby bird was still starving so carried on chirping loudly.

Then a nasty coyote, on hearing the baby bird, crept up to the big buffalo pat, and hooked the baby bird out and swallowed it in one gulp.

I did not understand the story then and Indian Dave would not explain what it meant, he told me that I would figure it out one day. When I asked other people what it meant, they could not tell me either.

Indian Dave moved out after about five years, after realising that he was no more than a live in babysitter, and although I saw him a few times, it was not until my mothers funeral some twenty years later that I got to talk to him again properly.

Maybe it was because I was older, maybe it was because I was wiser, and harder to impress, or maybe it was because Indian Dave asked everyone at the wake if he could borrow some money. Whatever the reason, I found him quite boring and very annoying, all he talked about was how he had taught my sister and I to boil an egg.

I didn’t see him very often, after that, even though I knew where he lived, I occasionally met him for a quick drink in his local pub. He was still testing the fruit machines even then. He continued to bore me, which was a shame, as I wanted to remember him as the hero from my childhood who had given me a reason to feel proud and hold my head up high.

In 2001, I was thirty-one years old. I was married, had travelled and had my own small business. It seemed I had finally got away from the poverty, and misery of my childhood. I was happy and in control of my life.

My younger sister called me one day, to tell me that Indian Dave was in hospital, and that she was planning to visit him and asked if I wanted to go. I chose not to, as I was working and very busy at the time. It’s a decision that I will always regret.

He never came out of hospital, and sadly died shortly after.

My sister told me the news, and that he had also named us as his next of kin, which I thought was quite sweet, until she went on to say that we would have to pay for his funeral, which only a few attended, other than us.

We held a sort of wake, after the service and visited various pubs that Indian Dave had frequented, and I was asked in each one if I was going to settle his large bar tab, which I obviously declined.

As his next of kin, we were also expected to sort out his affairs, which included registering his death at the town hall. I went alone, and was asked questions that I could not answer properly.

I told the registrar that he was born in 1938 on an Indian reservation in Canada, and that I did not know how he had ended up in Brighton. I explained his relationship to me, and after giving me some very strange looks, I was given a death certificate which I have to this day.

It was a few days after the funeral that my sister and I were clearing out Indian Dave's dark and dingy little bedsit. This was a very depressing job, in a very depressing place. It saddened me to see how he had ended up living, and I could not help but to cast my mind to the stories he had told me.

To come from the Great Plains of Montana and Saskatchewan, where buffalo roamed, and eagles soared, and battles were fought. To end his days in a backstreet bedsit, was very upsetting to me.

Whilst sorting through his very few belongings, I did hope in all honesty to find details of a secret bank account, or a stash of cash, or items of high value and when I came across a locked little metal box, I got quite excited. I could not find a key, and had to force it open, which took some time.

On opening the box, I found a bunch of papers and photographs, and even a few of my sister and me.

I flicked through the papers looking for some hidden treasure, and finally found a birth certificate, which I read, and read again.

I felt cheated, I felt anger, and I felt ashamed and quite hurt. I was devastated, and I am happy to admit that I cried like a baby.

“What have you found?” asked my sister, when she heard my sobs.

“Oh my God,” I shouted, “You will not believe this. Dave was not a real Red Indian, he was born in Blackpool in Lancashire.”

‘Yes, I know,’ she replied, ‘everyone knows that,’ and started laughing.

‘What are you saying?’ I blubbered, ‘why did no one tell me?’

‘I thought you knew,’ was all she could say, and laughed, as only a sibling can.

I don’t believe that I am a gullible person, I like to believe that I am street smart, but I can honestly say I really had believed him for all those years. I had never doubted him, and I started to wonder what other lies people had told me over the years. I was half expecting to find the world is actually flat, and that NASA faked the moon landings.

I have questioned why and how this had happened, and how I had missed the reality of the situation, and after a lot of time pondering, I came to the conclusion that it does not really matter.

What is important, is the fact that I had belief in his stories, and that had stopped me being ashamed of being poor and living in those flats.

I was able to look beyond what I thought I was, and of what everyone else told me that I was.

I could be interesting, I could be an equal, even if it was for a short time, people had listened to me.

Most of all I believed that I could be a storyteller, which even in middle age, I still believe today.

I like to think Indian Dave, knew what he was doing, and wanted this for me.

Maybe my journey through life, would not have been as good, had I not been proud, that very first time.

So, he will always be Indian Dave to me, although Lancashire Dave is probably more appropriate.

It was only recently that I finally worked out what the moral of the baby bird story was, and although it has no real bearing on this story. It was fantastic advice, and I will it share it anyway.

This is my interpretation of the story.

Sometimes, people who dump you in the shit, are not always out to cause you harm. Sometimes people who pull you out of the shit, are not always trying to help you.

Saying that, I think the most important point to the story is this.

‘When you are up to your neck in shit, it's best to keep your beak shut.’

Indian Dave wherever you are, I will say this in native Blackfoot. “Ah dah mah tsee noo tsee yoop.”

Which translated means,

“See you again.”

Thank you for reading, I apologise to anyone, who may be unhappy with my reference to the character Dave in the story.

He was known by this name, and I wanted to write an honest childlike view of my relationship with him.

I do not mean to be in any way offensive to Native Americans, or anyone else.

Thank you