Friday Night Fights

Star Wallowing Bull (1979).

Months before my sister and I moved in with our grandmother, my father was working a lot and making art. He would occasionally go out to the local bars. Which were, Commodores, Mr. Arthur's,and the Corral. Located on Franklyn Avenue in South Minneapolis. These places did not scare me at first until my father came back one night and he was full of blood and swollen up. Someone had beat him up pretty bad. Fawn and I were very hurt and sad to see him like this. Fawn,especially took it hard. I later felt very angry about this and I wanted to find this guy and teach him a lesson. I was only seven or eight years old at the time. One night I woke up and decided to go to the bar to find this guy. So I sneaked out the front door at 12:00 in the morning and I went to my friends houses in the neighborhood and knocked on their bedroom windows to wake them up. Sometimes three or four of us would go. One of them was Nate. He was around my age. He also was Native American. I just don't recall what tribe. Some of us had Big Wheels and some walked to the bars. Mr. Arthur's bar was commonly known as an Indian bar. Always some chaotic,dysfunctional event was going on after the bar closes. We didn't find that out until we got there that late morning when the bar started to close. We were right across the street and I'm surprised the police didn't say anything to us. We seemed to always know someone at the bar. I remember seeing my two auntie's there sometimes. Sandy and Kathy. I always hid behind cars because I didn't want them to see me. I knew they would get upset if they saw me. They were the two closest I had to a mother figure. They were and still am so loving and compassionate to me. I loved them just like I would a mother. I always worried about them being at those bars. I remember one night,seeing my auntie Kathy coming out of the bar. She was wearing a cowboy hat and sun glasses. I thought she looked pretty cool but it was also funny that it was 1:00 in the morning. I still tease my aunties to this day. There seems to be a fight every Friday and Saturday nights. We had made it a routine to go on some of those weekends. Fist fights, hair pulling,scratching which resulted in the police constantly breaking up those fights. There was blood everywhere! We even witnessed a stabbing. I just can't believe us kids were watching all of that. It was so uncivilized and dysfuntional for us. I am 34 years old now, and sadly I realize now how I grew up was not normal.