“Honey,” Daniel whispered to his wife when John woke up crying. Three in the morning, the moon full and bright white. “Honey, it’s the baby.”
Olivia rose from bed, walked into the nursery, and picked up John. She carried him to the window.
“Look, sweetie,” she said to John. “It’s just the moon. See, it’s pretty.”
Daniel listened to his wife talking to their son.
“It’s the moon,” she said and then said the word in Navajo, Lakota, Apache. She had learned a few words in many Indian languages. From books, Western movies, documentaries. Once she saw an Indian woman at the supermarket and asked her a few questions that were answered with bemused tolerance.
“It’s just the moon,” whispered Olivia and then she softly sang it. “It’s the moon. It’s the moon.”
Daniel listened for a few minutes before he rolled over and fell asleep. When he woke the next morning, Olivia was standing at that same window with John in her arms, as if she’d been there all night.
“We need to get John baptized,” she said with a finality that Daniel didn’t question.
Because the baby John was Indian, Olivia and Daniel Smith wanted him to be baptized by an Indian, and they searched for days and weeks for the only Indian Jesuit in the Pacific Northwest. Father Duncan, a Spokane Indian Jesuit, was a strange man. A huge man, an artist. He painted contemporary landscapes, portraits, and murals that were highlighted with traditional Spokane Indian images. His work was displayed in almost every Jesuit community in the country. He was a great teacher, a revered theologian, but an eccentric. He ate bread and soup at every meal. Whole grains and vegetable broth, sourdough and chicken stock. He talked to himself, laughed at inappropriate moments, sometimes read books backward, starting with the last page and working toward the beginning. An irony, an Indian in black robes, he took a special interest in John and, with Olivia and Daniel’s heartfelt approval, often visited him. The Jesuit held the baby John in his arms, sang traditional Spokane songs and Catholic hymns, and rocked him to sleep. As John grew older, Father Duncan would tell him secrets and make him promise never to reveal them. John kept his promises.
On a gray day when John was six years old, Father Duncan took him to see the Chapel of the North American Martyrs in downtown Seattle. John found himself surrounded by vivid stained glass reproductions of Jesuits being martyred by Indians. Bright white Jesuits with bright white suns at their necks. A Jesuit, tied to a post, burning alive as Indians dance around him. Another pierced with dozens of arrows. A third, with his cassock torn from his body, crawling away from an especially evil-looking Indian. The fourth being drowned in a blue river. The fifth, sixth, and seventh being scalped. An eighth and ninth praying together as a small church burns behind them. And more and more. John stared up at so much red glass.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” asked Father Duncan.
John did not understand. He was not sure if Father Duncan thought the artwork was beautiful, or if the murder of the Jesuits was beautiful. Or both.
“There’s a myth, a story, that the blood of those Jesuits was used to stain the glass,” said Duncan. “But who knows if it’s true. We Jesuits love to tell stories.”
“Why did the Indians kill them?”
“They wanted to kick the white people out of America. Since the priests were the leaders, they were the first to be killed.”
John looked up at the stained glass Jesuits, then at the Spokane Indian Jesuit.
“But you’re a priest,” said John.
“Yes, I am.”
John did not have the vocabulary to express what he was feeling. But he understood there was something odd about the contrast between the slaughtered Jesuits and Father Duncan, and between the Indian Jesuit and the murderers.
“Did the white people leave?” asked John.
“Some of them did. But more came.”
“It didn’t work.”
“No.”
“Why didn’t the Indians kill all the white people?”
“They didn’t have the heart for it.”
“But didn’t white people kill most of the Indians?”
“Yes, they did.”
John was confused. He stared up at the martyred Jesuits. Then he noticed the large crucifix hanging over the altar. A mortally wounded Jesus, blood pouring from his hands and feet, from the wound in his side. John saw the altar candles burning and followed the white smoke as it rose toward the ceiling of the chapel.
“Was Jesus an Indian?” asked John.
Duncan studied the crucifix, then looked down at John.
“He wasn’t an Indian,” said the Jesuit, “but he should have been.”
John seemed to accept that answer. He could see the pain in Jesus’s wooden eyes. At six, he already knew that a wooden Jesus could weep. He’d seen it on the television. Once every few years, a wooden Jesus wept and thousands of people made the pilgrimage to the place where the miracle happened. If miracles happened with such regularity when did they cease to be miracles? And simply become ordinary events, pedestrian proof of God? John knew that holy people sometimes bled from their hands and feet, just as Jesus had bled from his hands and feet when nailed to the cross. Such violence, such faith.
“Why did they do that to Jesus?” asked John.
“He died so that we may live forever.”
“Forever?”
“Forever.”
John looked up again at the windows filled with the dead and dying.
“Did those priests die like Jesus?” asked John.
Father Duncan did not reply. He knew that Jesus was killed because he was dangerous, because he wanted to change the world in a good way. He also knew that the Jesuits were killed because they were dangerous to the Indians who didn’t want their world to change at all. Duncan knew those Jesuits thought they were changing the Indians in a good way.
“Did they die like Jesus?” John asked again.
Duncan was afraid to answer the question. As a Jesuit, he knew those priests were martyred just like Jesus. As a Spokane Indian, he knew those Jesuits deserved to die for their crimes against Indians.
“John,” Duncan said after a long silence. “You see these windows? You see all of this? It’s what is happening inside me right now.”
John stared at Duncan, wondering if the Jesuit had a stained glass heart. Rain began to beat against the windows, creating an illusion of movement on the stained faces of the murderous Indians and martyred Jesuits, and on young John’s face. And on Duncan’s. The man and child stared up at the glass.
Father Duncan’s visits continued until John was seven years old. Then, with no warning or explanation, Duncan was gone. When John asked his parents about Father Duncan’s whereabouts, Olivia and Daniel told him that the Jesuit had retired and moved to Arizona. In fact, Duncan’s eccentricities had become liabilities. After the strange Sunday when he had openly wept during Eucharist and run out of the church before the closing hymn, Duncan was summarily removed from active duty and shipped to a retreat in Arizona. He walked into the desert one week after he arrived at the retreat and was never seen again.
As he grew up, John kept reading the newspaper account of the disappearance, though it contained obvious errors. Anonymous sources insisted that Father Duncan had lost his faith in God. John knew that Duncan had never lost his faith, but had caused others to believe he did. His body was never found, though a search party followed Duncan’s tracks miles into the desert, until they simply stopped.
For John, though, Father Duncan did not vanish completely. The Jesuit, exhausted and sunburned, often visited him in dreams. Duncan never spoke. He just brought the smell, sounds, and images of the desert into John’s head. The wind pushing sand from dune to dune, the scorpions and spiders, the relentless yellow sun and deep blue sky, the stand of palm trees on the horizon. John always assumed it was a Catholic way to die, lost in the desert, no water, no food, the unforgiving heat. But the hallucinations must have been magical. John
knew that real Indians climbed into the mountains to have vision quests. Stripped of their clothes, they ate and drank nothing. Naked and starved, they waited for a vision to arrive. Father Duncan must have been on a vision quest in the desert when he walked to the edge of the world and stepped off. Did it feel good to disappear? Perhaps Duncan, as Indian and Christian, had discovered a frightening secret and could not live with it. Perhaps Duncan knew what existed on the other side of the desert. Maybe he was looking for a new name for God.
John attended St. Francis Catholic School from the very beginning. His shoes always black topsiders polished clean. His black hair very short, nearly a crew cut, just like every other boy in school. He was the only Indian in the school, but he had friends, handsome white boys. And John had danced with a few pretty white girls in high school. Mary, Margaret, Stephanie. He had fumbled with their underwear in the back seats of cars. John knew their smell, a combination of perfume, baby powder, sweat, and sex. A clean smell on one level, a darker odor beneath. Their breasts were small and perfect. John was always uncomfortable during his time with the girls, and he was never sorry when it was over. He was impatient with them, unsure of their motives, and vaguely insulting. The girls expected it. It was high school and boys were supposed to act that way. The girls assumed the boys were much more complicated than they actually were. Inside, John knew that he was more simple and shallow than other boys, and less than real.
“What are you thinking?” the girls always asked John. But John knew the girls really wanted to tell him what they were thinking. John’s thoughts were merely starting points for the girls to talk about mothers and fathers, girlfriends, ex-boyfriends, pets, clothes, and a thousand other details. John felt insignificant at those times and retreated into a small place inside of himself, until the girls confused his painful silence with rapt interest.
The girls’ fathers were always uncomfortable when they first met John, and grew more irritated as he continued to date Mary, Margaret, or Stephanie. The relationships began and ended quickly. A dance or two, a movie, a hamburger, a few hours in a friend’s basement with generic rock music playing softly on the radio, cold fingers on warm skin.
“I just don’t think it’s working out,” she’d tell John, who understood. He could almost hear the conversations that had taken place.
“Hon,” a father would say to his daughter. “What was that boy’s name?”
“Which boy, daddy?”
“That dark one.”
“Oh, you mean John. Isn’t he cute?”
“Yes, he seems like a very nice young man. You say he’s at St. Francis? Is he a scholarship student?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Does it matter?”
“Well, no. I’m just curious, hon. By the way, what is he? I mean, where does he come from?”
“He’s Indian, daddy.”
“From India? He’s a foreigner?”
“No, daddy, he’s Indian from here. You know, American Indian. Like bows and arrows and stuff. Except he’s not like that. His parents are white.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Daddy, he’s adopted.”
“Oh. Are you going to see him again?”
“I hope so. Why?”
“Well, you know. I just think. Well, adopted kids have so many problems adjusting to things, you know. I’ve read about it. They have self-esteem problems. I just think, I mean, don’t you think you should find somebody more appropriate?”
The door would shut with a loud and insistent click. Mary, Margaret, or Stephanie would come to school the next day and give John the news. The daughters would never mention their fathers. Of course, there were a few white girls who dated John precisely because they wanted to bring home a dark boy. Through all of it, John repeatedly promised himself he would never be angry. He didn’t want to be angry. He wanted to be a real person. He wanted to control his emotions, so he would often swallow his anger. Once or twice a week, he felt the need to run and hide. In the middle of a math class or a history exam, he would get a bathroom pass and quickly leave the classroom. His teachers were always willing to give him a little slack. They knew he was adopted, an Indian orphan, and was leading a difficult life. His teachers gave him every opportunity and he responded well. If John happened to be a little fragile, well, that was perfectly understandable, considering his people’s history. All that alcoholism and poverty, the lack of God in their lives. In the bathroom, John would lock himself inside a stall and fight against his anger. He’d bite his tongue, his lips, until sometimes they would bleed. He would hold himself tightly and feel his arms, legs, and lower back shake with the effort. His eyes would be shut. He’d grind his teeth. One minute, two, five, and he would be fine. He would flush the toilet to make his visit seem normal, slowly wash his hands and return to the classroom. His struggles with his anger increased in intensity and frequency until he was visiting the bathroom on a daily basis during his senior year. But nobody noticed. In truth, nobody mentioned any strange behavior they may have seen. John was a trailblazer, a nice trophy for St. Francis, a successfully integrated Indian boy.
There were three hundred and seventy-six students at St. Francis. Along with three black kids, John was one of the four non-white students in the school. He was neither widely popular nor widely disliked. He played varsity basketball for two years, but never started, and entered the game when the outcome, a win or loss, was already decided. He was on the varsity only because he was an upperclassman and over six feet tall. His teammates cheered wildly whenever he entered the game because teammates are taught to behave that way. John understood this. He cheered for his teammates, even during those games in which he never played. He never really cared if the team won or lost. But he was always embarrassed when he had to play, because he knew he was not very good. In fact, he only played because his father, Daniel, a St. Francis alumnus, had been a star player.
“You need to get your hand behind the ball when you shoot,” Daniel Smith said to John during one of their driveway practices.
“Like this?” asked John, desperately trying to hold the basketball correctly.
“No,” Daniel said, calmly, patiently. Daniel Smith never raised his voice, not once, in all the years. He would coach John for hours, trying to show him how to play defense, box out for rebounds, throw the bounce pass. No matter how poorly John played, and he was awful, Daniel never yelled.
One winter, when John was a sophomore, Daniel read about an all-Indian basketball tournament that was going to be held at Indian Heritage High School in North Seattle. Daniel and Olivia both looked for any news about Indians and shared the information with John. The sportswriter made the tournament into some kind of joke, but Daniel thought it was a wonderful opportunity. He had never seen Indians play basketball. Maybe John would improve if he saw other Indians play.
John had spent time at different Indian events. Olivia had made sure of that. But he had never seen so many Indians crammed into such a small space. The Indian Heritage gym was full of Indians. All shapes and sizes, tribes and temperaments. Daniel and John found seats in the bleachers and watched a game between a Sioux team and a local team of Yakama Indians. The game was fast-paced and vaguely out of control, with offenses that took the first open shot, from anywhere on the court, and defenses that constantly gambled for steals. Most of the players were tall and impossibly thin, although a few were actually fat. The best player on the court was a chubby guy named Arnold, a Yakama Indian. Daniel and John knew he was named Arnold because they heard his name announced over the loudspeaker.
“Arnold for two.”
“Arnold with a three-pointer.”
“Arnold with the steal, and a nice pass for two.”
Daniel decided that Arnold was the best player he had ever seen. He could have played Division I basketball. God, Daniel thought, this Indian is fifty pounds overweight, closing in on forty years old, and still plays well.
“Watch,” Daniel said to John.
&n
bsp; John was watching Arnold, but he was watching the people around him too. So many Indians, so many tribes, many sharing similar features, but also differing in slight and important ways. The Makahs different than the Quinaults, the Lummi different from the Puyallup. There were Indians with dark skin and jet-black hair. There were Indians with brown hair and paler skin. Green-eyed Indians. Indians with black blood. Indians with Mexican blood. Indians with white blood. Indians with Asian blood. All of them laughing and carrying on. Many Indians barely paying attention to the game. They were talking, telling jokes, and laughing loudly. So much laughter. John wanted to own that laughter, never realizing that their laughter was a ceremony used to drive away personal and collective demons. The Indians who were watching the game reacted mightily to each basket or defensive stop. They moaned and groaned as if each mistake were fatal, as if each field goal meant the second coming of Christ. But always, they were laughing. John had never seen so many happy people. He did not share their happiness.
“Look at him,” Daniel said. “Look at that guy play.”
John watched Arnold shoot a thirty-five-foot jumper that hit nothing but the bottom of the net. A glorious three-pointer. The crowd cheered and laughed some more. Arnold was laughing, on the court, doubled over, holding his stomach. Laughing so hard that tears ran down his face. His teammates were smiling and playing defense. The other team worked the ball around, trying to shoot a long jumper of their own, wanting to match Arnold’s feat. A big man caught the ball in the far corner, faked a dribble, then took the shot. An air ball, missing the basket and backboard completely, by two or three feet. The big man fell on his back, laughing. The crowd laughed and rolled all over the bleachers, pounding each other on the back, hugging each other tightly. One Yakama player grabbed the rebound and threw a long pass downcourt to Arnold. He caught the pass, fumbled the ball a bit, dribbled in for the layup, and missed it. So much laughter that the refs called an official timeout. John looked at his father. Daniel was laughing. John felt like crying. He did not recognize these Indians. They were nothing like the Indians he had read about. John felt betrayed.