Palm Diary – Great Society

My name is John Thomas Twofist. Since the new Greatsociety has encouraged contributors to use their real names, it’s a proud moment to “come out” here on the front page with my real identity.

I am half Cherokee, half Irish and half Polish. When I was 15, I took the name Twofist. My mother said, as she birthed me in the reservation’s Bastard Tent, that she held two fists in the air. For some time, I had considered taking the name Twofisted Shrieking. In Native American tradition, the child is named after the first thing the mother sees. I have worked hard to encourage my sister to take the name Sally Thomas Nurse Jenkins, but she has left her Native American roots behind and now lives in Encino with an anglo dentist.

My father was anglo, but he left mom before he even knew she was pregnant. My mother worked at Happy’s All Night out on Jefferson Highway. She was only a waitress, so don’t get any funny ideas. My father was the only man she had been with on the afternoon I was conceived.

Isn’t it just like the Anglos to leave their children behind?

I was raised on the reservation and, later, moved to Encino to live with my treacherous sister, but she soon demanded that I leave her house and even accused me of selling dope, which is a lie and all of the charges you may have heard about are false. The anglo police sided with my sister because she was wealthy and I, in their jaded eyes, was just an Indian. A redskin. I’ve heard it all before. There is no place for us in the anglo world unless, like my sister, we abandon our heritage and dye our hair. She dyes her hair. She’s really going grey.

I am glad for this opportunity to write, and I was thrilled when my publishers here told me that I could write under my given name and, for the first time, write from the heart. That is why I have chosen to discuss an important topic to all Native American men: Masturbation.

I once dated a woman named Meredith. She was one-third Shawnee, so don’t let the name fool you. Her great-grandmother set out with a group of families during the gold rush and ended up in Indian Territory where a tribe of kindly Shawnee saved her from certain death. Unfortunately, no one else in her group survived. She lived with the Shawnee and birthed many children over the years until the cruel and unforgiving US soldiers wiped out her saviors and took her back to the anglo world. There are some pictures of Meredith’s great grandmother in her later years. I’m an avid photographer and I love those antique photographs. Though the woman in the photos always averts her face, due to extensive scarring, I can tell that she is proud and strong.

Meredith was a good and supportive woman. She took me in after my anglo-loving sister kicked me out. I moved to Wichita with Meredith. She would leave me in the end, and that was truly heartbreaking. Though I love to travel, I could not leave Kansas because there were warrants for my arrest in Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri and Oklahoma. I understand why she had to leave because there’s not much to do in Kansas.

As a young boy on the reservation and well into my adulthood, I had worked hard on my masturbation schedule. In Cherokee tradition, masturbation cleanses the body and soul of demons. As a spiritual exercise, it is very important to practice the ritual at least three times a day. Having perfected this schedule at the appropriate intervals, I was troubled when I entered my relationship with Meredith. She asked, after only a month under our shared roof, that I refrain from what she called “excessive masturbation.” I pleaded with her to look back to her Shawnee roots, but she insisted that her people had no such practice. I came to wonder if the historical stereotypes about the Shawnee may be true – from bestiality right up to the curious fact that all the Shawnee in New York called in sick on September 11th, 2001. This is not only true with the Shawnee but also the Hopi. I guess the Navajo were right all along.

During the term of my relationship with Meredith I became an expert in how and where a man can masturbate when in a serious relationship with a woman. First: Let the woman shop. The strain on your household budget will soon be forgotten when you cleanse yourself of impurities. Luckily for me, I was not employed when I was with Meredith, so my afternoon session was never interrupted. For those of you who work, there is little choice but the bathroom stall at your office. I understand your hesitation but, trust me, everyone does it.

In the morning, there is the shower. I learned that the shower can be very productive for cleansing impurities. At night, I became a night owl and waited until Meredith went to bed.

These are very easy solutions and I hope you all will practice them in your daily lives. It is my belief that many relationships will be strengthened by your observation of this vital ritual. It is not just Cherokee, it is all humanity, who will benefit. Despite the continued brutality shown against my kind by the Anglos, I have come to realize that we are all brothers and sisters beneath the great sky and in the eyes of Father Sun.

Thank you for reading. May the Earth walk with you in light.

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