“He’s my son,” she’d said. “He’s always going to be my son.”
They live with a large extended family group in a small house. John and his mother share a bedroom with two girl cousins. John’s two uncles and two aunts share another bedroom. John’s maternal grandparents share the third bedroom. One small boy cousin sleeps in a walk-in closet. Five or six transient relatives sleeping on the living room floor on any given night.
Everybody plays Scrabble.
It is not easy to explain why this particular group of Indians plays Scrabble. John’s grandmother had bought their Scrabble game for a dollar at a secondhand store. For some reason, all the E tiles were missing when she brought it home. E is the most common letter in the alphabet, John knows, but that does not explain why all the tiles are gone. The family has always compensated by allowing any other tile to function as an E. It has worked well. It is diplomatic. Near the end of a game, when John’s rack is filled with difficult letters, Q, Z, K, and he has nowhere to play them, he can always pretend they are all E tiles.
They eat well.
For breakfast, there is always corn flakes and milk, orange juice, whole wheat toast. John’s grandparents love their coffee black and his mother mixes hers with lots of sugar. John’s cousins eat quickly and run to school. They can all read and love their teachers, who are Indian. John is too young for school, but is smart enough to read books. He reads books all day, waiting to be old enough for kindergarten. His mother reads to him sometimes. They sit on the couch together and read books. John sometimes pretends that all of the difficult words, the big words with their amorphous ideas, are simpler and clear. A word like democracy can become rain instead. That changes everything. John can read a phrase from his history book and change it to “Our Founding Fathers believed in rain.”
John’s grandparents are very traditional people and are teaching John the ways of his tribe. Ancient ways. John is learning to speak his tribal language. Sometimes, the whole family plays Scrabble using the tribal language. This is much more difficult and John always loses, but he is learning. There are words and sounds in the tribal language that have no corresponding words or sounds in English. John feels the words in his heart, but it is hard to make his mouth work that way.
John is also learning to dance. His grandmother has made him a grassdancing outfit because he loves to dance.
“Listen to me,” his grandmother says. “The grassdancers are special. You see, the grassdancers were always the first ones in the old ways. They’re not first anymore, but before, they would dance in the tall grass and knock it down, make it flat enough for the other dancers. That’s why the grassdancers move the way they do. Even if there’s no grass, they have to pretend there is. Stomp the grass down when you dance. But remember, you have to fool the grass, too. You have to sneak up on it. You have to look like grass, move like grass, smell like grass. That’s why grassdancers look like they do.”
John is four years old when he dances at a powwow for the first time. His entire family is in the audience, cheering him on as loudly as tradition allows. He is nervous, waiting for the drums. Then they begin, and the singers, too, with their high-pitched wails. They are singing in a way that John feels in the center of himself, from his feet to his hair. The head dancer, a huge man in a traditional outfit, leads the dancers into the hall. This is the Grand Entry, the welcoming, the beginning of another powwow, John’s first as a dancer.
He dances with the other grassdancers, young men mostly. There are a few middle-aged grassdancers, but grassdancing is mostly for the young. They dance in order of age. The oldest dancers enter first, followed by the next oldest, until, finally, the youngest, John. He turns in fast circles. He is the grass. He is the grass.
John’s mother watches from the bleachers. She loves her son and cannot believe she almost gave him away. But that was so long ago, a million years ago, and she would never give him away now. Not for anything. Not for all the money in the world. She taps her feet in rhythm with the drums. She is a dancer, too, but wants this moment to be her son’s. If she were dancing, she would not be able to see him make his first circle. He looks up into the crowd, looking for her. She waves her arms wildly. He sees her. He tries not to smile. Grassdancing is serious business. But he cannot help himself and grins with all of his teeth.
For lunch, when he is ten years old, John eats peanut butter sandwiches. The peanut butter is commodity food, government surplus, but it still tastes good. There are dozens of cans and boxes of commodity food in the house. John’s mother uses them in wonderful and original ways. She makes the best commodity beef stew in Indian history.
She starts with the beef. She opens the can with a manual opener, a sharp and clever device. She barely has to work because the cutting is so easy. She pours the beef into a saucepan, seasons it with salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, and brings it to a boil. In a separate pan, she combines vegetables from her garden—carrots, peas, celery, onions—and heats until tender. At the last possible moment, she combines beef and vegetables, stirring together. Stirring. When the vegetables are shiny with beef grease, his mother fills a bowl for each member of the family. They sit together to eat. Most every night, his cousins, grandparents, his entire family, all eat together. Then, of course, they have the fry bread. The fry bread! Water, flour, salt, rolled together and deep-fried. There is nothing like that smell, fry bread sizzling on the stove, a slight smoke filling the house. John can smell the fry bread smoke in his clothes. The scent rumbles his stomach. He loves this time, the dipping of fry bread into beef stew.
“So,” says his mother. “What did you do today?”
“We were over to the pipes today,” John says. He cannot lie.
“I told you not to go there,” his mother says, a little angry. John knows her anger is because of love. The pipes are abandoned sewer pipes piled on a hillside near the old high school. Rusted metal, in fifty-foot sections, the pipes are magical, the reservation playground. Running water and soil erosion have created caves beneath the pipes, and certain pipes, propped up by others, rise at gentle angles in the air. It is a maze. One pipe, pinned between two others, is nearly vertical. Only the strongest of the boys and girls can climb inside that pipe, using its metal ribs for handholds. Crazy Randy climbs to the top of that pipe and hangs down from the rim, thirty feet above the ground. Everybody is jealous of Randy’s strength and courage. They crowd around him to look at the cuts on his hands when he comes down. In the five years since the pipes were left there, no Indian child has ever been seriously hurt. There have been a few cuts and bruises, a couple of close calls, but the Indian children are safe in the pipes, a kind of safety that adults can never understand.
“It’s okay, mom,” John says. “Nobody gets hurt.”
John smiles, beams really, and tries to hide his glee. Just that day, he had climbed into a cave beneath the pipes, a small cave with an even smaller entrance. When John climbed inside, he saw Dawn, the most beautiful Indian girl in the world, face smudged with dirt, stray grass in her hair, holes in her jeans.
“Shh,” she said. “I’m hiding from Verla and them.”
“Oh, okay.”
They sat quietly, listening to the laughter and voices of other Indian kids. Somebody ran through the pipe directly above their cave. The echoes sounded like music. More kids ran through the pipe. The music was so loud that John worried the pipe was going to collapse. He was afraid. The fear felt wonderful.
“Do you like me?” asked Dawn, bold, as Indian girls and women always are.
“Yeah, sure,” John said.
“Well, kiss me then. Now or never.”
John kissed her then, quickly and dryly, chapped lips against chapped lips. He could feel her teeth clenched tightly behind her lips. His jaw ached with the effort. His heart sounded louder than the kids running through the pipes above his head. He wanted to sing a love song. The pipes were the best place in the history of the world.
“What are you smiling abo
ut?” asks his mother. John shakes his head. He fills his mouth with fry bread and stew, hoping his mother will not ask him any more questions. She smiles. She knows about Dawn. His whole family knows about Dawn and John.
No matter how much he enjoys breakfast and lunch, John knows that dinner is the best meal of all. No. After dinner is the best time. He is sixteen years old. His whole family sits in a circle in the living room and tells stories. His grandparents tell stories of the old times, before the white men came, when animals still talked. Coyote this, Coyote that. Raven flying around messing with everybody. Bear lumbering and rumbling across the grass. Mosquito mistaking urine for blood. His mother tells stories about other relatives, long since passed away. The uncle who was crushed beneath a falling tree. Another uncle who moved to the city and was never seen again. The aunt who went crazy. They are sad stories, but still filled with humor and hope, so the family is only half-sad. John knows that storytelling is a way of mourning the dead. His uncles and aunts, who are still alive and sharing the circle, tell stories about their travels. One uncle was in the Army, fought against Hitler, and came back with a medal. Another uncle built skyscrapers. A third fished for salmon in Alaska. The fourth fell in love with a Italian girl in Chicago, even though he only saw her a few times on a bus. So many stories to tell and songs to sing. John’s cousins, the little girls, sing Christmas carols, the only songs they know, no matter the time of year. Ninety degrees outside and the girls singing “Winter Wonderland.” John tells the longest stories, with many characters and changes of location. His stories are epic. They go long into the night. He invents ancestors. He speaks the truth about grandfathers and grandmothers. He convinces his family that Shakespeare was an Indian woman. The laughter and disbelief, the rubbing of bellies and contented sighs. His family listens to every word. His mother yawns once, twice, rubs her eyes, and listens some more. She can never get enough of her son. During his stories, John’s family laughs in the right places and cries when tears are due.
5
How It Happened
THE KILLER BELIEVED IN the knife, a custom-made bowie with three small turquoise gems inlaid in the handle, heavy but well-balanced, nearly long enough to be considered a sword. A beautiful weapon, polished until the killer could see clear eyes, curve of cheek, and thin lips in the silver sheen of the blade. During those moments, with knife in hand, the killer felt powerful, invincible, as if the world could be changed with a single gesture. Snap of the fingers, one step forward, a hand closed into fist. With the knife, the killer became the single, dark center around which all other people revolved.
At home, the killer had sharpened the blade until it could cut away a thin layer of skin when just lightly run along a forearm. Everything had a purpose. The knife needed to be sharp. The killer wanted to carry the knife at all times, but its size and weight made it difficult to conceal. A special knife needed a special sheath. Since the killer could not sleep, there was plenty of time to build a sheath, fashioned from irregular leather pieces and nylon cord. With the knife resting comfortably in its sheath, hidden beneath a jacket, the killer could move freely. More importantly, the killer had quick access to the blade as it sat just above the left hip. For hours, the killer practiced pulling the knife from its sheath, then slashing, cutting, and thrusting the blade into imaginary enemies. Faster and faster. The killer practiced, as hands blistered and arms ached with pain, until exhaustion. Only then did the killer fall asleep.
At night, the killer dreamed of the knife. Of the search for a perfect knife. It had not been easy. There were many choices. Paring, chef’s, boning knives. Bread, utility, carving knives. Wooden handles, plastic handles. So beautiful, the parts of a knife. Blade, bolster, tang, handle. Indestructible. Lifetime guarantees. Large sets. One knife at a time. Knife blocks with blade sharpeners included. Demonstration videos. County fairs. Mail order. Department stores and discount chains. Garage sales and secondhand stores. A Short Guide to Cutlery. In a large kitchen, the meat carver decided which piece of meat each guest received. The neck for the journalist, the breast for royalty. The killer had touched so many knives, studied their blades, tested their heft. The knife is the earliest tool used by humans, over two million years old. Knife, knifing, knives, to knife, to be knifed, knifelike. The killer sliced open test fruits and vegetables, ran fingers over the deep grooves cut into carving boards. Four thousand years ago, humans learned to separate elements, and discovered the power of iron. The killer shifted a knife from left to right hand, and then back again. How to hold a carving knife: last three fingers behind the bolster point, index finger on one side of the blade, thumb on the other side. The paring knife is an extension of the hand. The bread knife is perfect for cutting through objects with hard exteriors and soft interiors. Ancient and elemental, the knife. The Illustrated History of Swords. Blade against blade against blade. A knife must be sharp, clean, and stored properly. A blade should be sharpened before and after use. The mirror of a polished blade. The mirrors in a department store. The mirror of the sky visible between department stores. The Rockwell scale measured the hardness of steel. The higher the number, the sharper the blade. Steel tends to shrink back into itself after long periods of disuse.
Hiding that beautiful knife in the sheath beneath a jacket, the killer followed white men, selected at random. The killer simply picked any one of the men in gray suits and followed him from office building to cash machine, from lunchtime restaurant back to office building. Those gray suits were not happy, yet showed their unhappiness only during moments of weakness. Punching the buttons of a cash machine that refused to work. Yelling at a taxi that had come too close. Insulting the homeless people who begged for spare change. But the killer also saw the more subtle signs of unhappiness. A slight limp in uncomfortable shoes. Eyes closed, head thrown back while waiting for the traffic signal. The slight hesitation before opening a door. The men in gray suits wanted to escape, but their hatred and anger trapped them.
The killer first saw that particular white man in the University District. Confidently, arrogantly, the white man, Justin Summers, had brushed past the killer. With his head high and shoulders wide, Summers took up as much space as he possibly could. He strolled down the middle of the sidewalk, forcing others to walk around him. So when the arrogant white man rudely brushed past, the killer wanted to teach him a lesson. Nothing serious, just a simple and slightly painful lesson. Then, without reason or warning, the killer suddenly understood that the knife had a specific purpose. But the killer had to be careful. There were rules for hunting.
The killer knew that particular white man in the University District was all alone, and that was good. Men in a pack could protect each other. When threatened, they could scatter in many directions and confuse the killer. A solitary man was vulnerable. Easy to follow, that white man, so self-absorbed he failed to notice much of anything. Muttering to himself, looking down at the sidewalk, he walked block after block. He ate Thai food by himself and read a magazine. After he finished eating, the white man walked toward the Burke-Gilman Trail. The killer followed him closely, and once stood beside him as they waited for the walk signal. So close. At any time, the killer could have reached inside the jacket and pulled out the knife. The late evening streets were so quiet that the killer could have slid the knife into the white man’s kidney and then walked away. But the moon was terribly bright and illuminating. There was a chance the killer would be caught. Thrilled by the idea, the killer moved closer to the white man, until they were almost touching. The white man glanced at the killer. A superficial glance, nothing more important than a wind blowing a newspaper down the street. The killer reached inside the jacket and touched the knife.
The killer especially hated the white man’s clothes and followed him as he walked south for a few blocks, then turned west on the Burke-Gilman Trail. The killer could see and smell the white man. Aftershave, leather jacket, Thai food. It was late, a few bicyclists flashed by, but the trail was mostly deserted. The kille
r walked a few feet behind the white man for a few minutes, then reached out and tapped the white man on the shoulder.
“Whoa,” said the white man. “You scared the shit out of me.”
The killer was silent.
“Hey,” said the white man. “Do I know you, man?”
The killer took a step back, knowing that anger would change a face. The killer had seen other people do it. Other people could change the shape of their faces at will. Through a trick of shadow and moonlight, or through some undefined magic, the killer’s face did change.
“What’s going on?” asked the white man, now really frightened by what he saw in the killer’s face.
The killer saw the fear in the white man’s blue eyes. The man’s fear inspired the killer’s confidence. The killer slid a hand beneath the jacket and felt for the knife. It was there in its homemade sheath, blade sharp and beautiful. It would soak up all the moonlight. The white man was not stupid. When he saw the killer reach beneath the jacket, the white man began to desperately hope that somebody would walk along the trail soon. A dozen University cops were always breaking up unauthorized parties on campus, but very few ever patrolled the trail.
“What do you want?” asked the white man loudly, trying to inject anger into his voice. Be strong, he said to himself, don’t show any fear.
“Hey, let’s be cool about this. I don’t want any problems,” the white man said.
The killer moved quickly. With fingers wrapped around the handle, the killer snapped the knife out of its handmade sheath. The killer’s feet moved forward, and the sharp blade forced its way into the white man’s belly.
The killer had not necessarily meant for any of it to happen. The killer picked up the white man’s body, carried it on a shoulder, and walked along the trail in a daze. A group of UW students staggered past, on their way home from some party, and laughed loudly at the killer. The killer stopped, ready to drop the body, and run.