Reintroduced into the wilderness, my mother
Struggles to remember what
Her wolf ancestors knew in their DNA—
When this first stanza arrived in my head, I was sitting next to my wife, watching a married couple reenacting an argument. Onstage, the woman recounted how she, as an eight-year-old, contracted polio from a bad sugar-cube immunization. She speculated that she was one of only three people in the United States who caught polio from inoculate because her immune system was already burned out from the case of mumps that her physician father didn’t care to notice. “My father was a great healer,” she said. “For everybody except his own children.” At that very moment, I thought of my late mother as a wolf, and of her immense and intimidating and feral power, and then I disassociated and launched into my flight across the universe—
My mother, pack-hungry, lopes
Through the tall wild grass
In search of other wolves
And other mothers—
So, yes, I did end up writing a second stanza about my mother as a wolf, even after that first stanza disassociated me. But here’s the crazy thing: After the woman onstage talked about her polio—and after I’d disassociated, fallen asleep for a few minutes sitting in my chair, and was awakened by audience applause—I turned to my wife and smiled. I was going to joke about falling asleep, but my wife said, “Why’d you leave?” I was confused. “I’ve been sitting here the whole time,” I said. “But you got up and left,” my wife said. “You bumped my shoulder and then you were gone. And I didn’t even realize you’d come back until you smiled at me.” I laughed and told her about my flight through the universe and quick nap, and she said, “Childhood trauma can give you superpowers, right?”
My mother stalks a small pack of sheep.
She knows these animals are protected
By humans with rifles—with metal and fire.
My mother doesn’t have a word for “rifle,”
But she knows one hundred ways
To say “hungry” and “blood” and “tooth.”
And, yes, she taught me those words.
So watch me now as I rend, gnash, and chew.
117.
All My Relations
I AM RELATED, by blood and marriage, to men who hit women, and to men and women who hit children, and to men and women in jail and in prison and on parole for stealing and robbing and raping and shooting and stabbing and punching and kicking and forging and abetting and neglecting and manslaughtering and murdering and dealing and buying and muling and abandoning and vandalizing and breaking and entering and jacking and driving without insurance and driving under the influence and driving without a license and vehicular homiciding and shoplifting and deserting and violating and failing to pay on time and failing to pay at all and failing to yield and failing to stop and failing and failing and failing and failing.
So many felonies and misdemeanors.
Therefore, I have been at parties, weddings, births, barbecues, tailgaters, games, proms, funerals, baptisms, and graduations with convicts and ex-convicts whom I love and whom I hate and whom I have met only once and hope to never see again.
I have been victimized by some of these criminals. I have been the subject and object of their misdemeanors and felonies.
Scholars talk about the endless cycle of poverty and racism and classism and crime. But I don’t see it as a cycle, as a circle. I see it as a locked room filled with the people who share my DNA. This room has recently been set afire and there’s only one escape hatch, ten feet off the ground. And I know I have to build a ladder out of the bones of my fallen family in order to climb to safety.
118.
How to Argue with a Colonialist
SHERMAN,” SAYS Mr. Blanc. “I am sorry that you Interior Salish Indians lost your wild salmon to the Grand Coulee Dam. But, honestly, can’t you do your religious ceremonies and cultural stuff with wild salmon from elsewhere? Or with salmon you farm yourself?”
“Yes,” I say to Mr. Blanc. “Many of us Interior Salish Indians do order wild salmon at restaurants. We definitely eat and enjoy wild salmon caught in rivers not our own. And, yes, we also farm our own salmon as well. But, honestly, Mr. Blanc, comparing outsider and farmed salmon to our own wild salmon is like comparing bobblehead Jesus to the real Jesus. One is plastic and the other one is blood.”
119.
Dear Native Critics, Dear Native Detractors
I WRITE ABOUT this shit because this shit happened to me.
Did shit like this happen to you? Did this shit happen to some Indian you love? Some Indian you know? Some Indian you knew?
This shit happened to me. This shit happened to Indians I love. This shit happened to Indians I hate.
This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened. This shit happened.
Now, let’s pick up a hand drum and sing it together.
This shit happened. Way ya hi ya. This shit happened. Way ya hi ya. This shit happened. Way ya hi ya. This shit happened. Way ya hi ya. This shit happened to me. Way ya hi ya. This shit happened to you. Way ya hi ya. This shit happened to Indians I love and hate. Way ya way ya way ya way ya ho.
This shit happened.
This shit happens.
This shit is happening now.
But if this shit didn’t happen to you, dear Indian, if this shit never happened to you, then I am happy for you, I am happy for you, way ya hi ya, I am happy for you, if this shit didn’t happen to you, then I feel joy for you, I feel joy for you.
I feel joy for you, way ya hi ya, so much joy for you.
But, dear Indian, if this shit didn’t happen to you, then why do you need to judge the shit that happened to other Indians?
Why do you, like a schoolteacher, hand out grades to the shit that happened to us?
Why do you shame us?
Why do you shame us?
Why do you shame us?
Why do you shame us for the shit that was done to us?
Why do you shame us, the already shamed, who sing our poems and tell our stories because we want to be unashamed?
I am the Indian trying to be unashamed.
Way ya hi ya.
I want to be unashamed.
Way ya hi ya.
I am a Child of the Sun.
Way ya hi ya.
And there is nothing that can clean you like the sun.
Way ya hi ya.
I expose my shame to the sun.
Way ya hi ya.
I illuminate my shame.
Way ya hi ya.
I want my shame to burn, to burn, way ya hi ya, to burn, way ya hi ya, to burn away, burn away, burn away.
And maybe, maybe, as I sing, maybe, maybe, I can teach other Indians, the Clan of the Ashamed, to leave that clan and start anew.
Let us leave the Clan of the Ashamed and start anew.
Let us leave the Clan of the Ashamed and start anew.
Let us leave the Clan of the Ashamed and start anew.
Let us leave the Clan of the Ashamed and start anew.
Dear Native Critic, dear Native Detractor, do you judge me because I want to be new? Do you judge me because I am not the same kind of Indian as you?
120.
Slight
In Seattle, a street magician fucks up.
He’s publicly performing a year too early.
A little girl shouts, “I can see your fake thumb!”
I hurry away from his embarrassment,
As I recall when I’ve gone public too early
With intimations and declarations of love.
Who hasn’t been crushed by embarrassment?
I gave an awkward eulogy at my mother’s funeral;
It certainly wasn’t a declaration of love.
I delivered half-jokes, half-truths, and half-apologies.
r /> My eulogy for my mother needed its own eulogy.
But my self-deprecation is just another form
Of narcissism, right? What kind of ass apologizes
For his eulogy? I’m a magician fucking up his act.
And now I’ve gone public with my embarrassment
As my dead mother shouts, “I can see your fake thumb.”
121.
Psalm of Myself
At my mother’s funeral, a stranger said,
“It hurts more to lose your mother than your father.”
At first, I scoffed, “Oh, you never had the honor
Of meeting my mom. She was army-ant intense.”
And yet, weeks after her funeral, I’m still swarmed
By her memory’s teeth. I mean—it was easy
To love my father. He always sought to appease.
He was addicted to surrendering. He harmed
Nobody. I don’t think he had one enemy.
But my mom? She waged war on everything that moved.
She indicted and convicted before she accused.
She mocked oxygen and scolded gravity.
And, yes, I’m aware of how much I resemble her.
I’m the child with all of her vanity and rage.
I’m the actor who needs and needs to take the stage
And, with tender spite, seek to reassemble her.
But have I created her in my image? Am I playing God?
She belonged to herself and not to me. She birthed me,
Not the other way around. She is my mortal deity.
To emulate her, I’ll be arrogant, angry, beautiful, and odd.
122.
Hunger Games
I crave grief for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Sweet grief, salted grief, I want so much
To swallow you whole. I’m a damn sinner
Who can only be saved by your fingers.
Hurry, place the sacred grief on my tongue
And consecrate breakfast, lunch, and dinner—
Or maybe not. I wish I were slimmer
And more disciplined—a secular monk.
But I lust, lust, and lust. I’m a sinner
Who seeds, threshes, harvests, feasts, and shivers.
Forgive me. Condemn me. I need flesh and blood
And grief at each breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
I want to want too much. I know what hinders
and troubles you. But join me in this flood.
Look at me. I’m your beloved sinner.
Sit with me, please. Let’s talk. Please. Linger.
Let’s touch and eat everything that we touch.
Let us stay through breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Let’s become each other’s favorite sinner.
123.
Communal
THIRTEEN MONTHS AFTER my mother died, my sister texted me that her refrigerator had finally given up.
“It’s leaking everywhere,” she texted. “We unplugged it. And all the food is in plastic coolers with ice.”
That dead refrigerator was in the kitchen of my childhood home on the reservation. Our family home. Then our mother’s home after our father died. And now, my sister and niece’s home.
I remembered that I bought the refrigerator maybe ten or twelve years earlier, not long after my father had died.
My sisters live on low-paying jobs and disability checks. They long ago destroyed their credit ratings, so they can’t buy a refrigerator all at once or in monthly payments.
“Send me the dimensions of the old fridge,” I texted back to my sister. “And I will order you a new one from Sears.”
A few moments later, my sister texted, “64 inches high, 29 inches wide, 31 inches deep.”
I scanned the Sears website for good deals on fridges, for one that would fit the space and had an ice maker. I was goofily happy to think of an ice-making refrigerator in my childhood home. It felt like an earned extravagance.
But ice-making fridges cost over $1,000. I could have afforded that, but I didn’t want to spend that much money. I’ve often had to financially rescue my siblings and parents over the years. I resent it sometimes—being the family hero—but I deal with my resentment by setting limits.
So I bought an Amana that cost only $600. And I texted my sister and suggested she get some cousin to pick it up from Sears in Spokane. Otherwise, it would cost me another $200 to have it delivered to the reservation.
“Okay,” my sister texted. “Can you send me gas money for whoever picks it up?”
“Okay,” I texted, and transferred cash to her bank account. “There’s money for all of you. Split it evenly. And pay somebody to get the fridge.”
A week later, my sister texted me a photo of the new refrigerator, looking rather Darth Vaderesque, wedged into the space where the old fridge had been.
“Thank you,” my sister texted. “Everything cold is cold. And everything frozen is frozen.”
I realized the new fridge resembled a new coffin or a large black tombstone. I realized that I’d never have to send emergency cash to my dead mother ever again. I’d never have to rescue her from her poor financial decisions—from the poverty she’d created for herself and for the poverty forced upon her.
But I know I will be rescuing my siblings until all of them are dead—or until I’m dead.
“My doctor ordered me to only eat food that grows or walks,” my sister texted me a few days later. “Healthy food is so expensive.”
“I’ll send you some green to buy greens,” I texted her. “Some lettuce to buy lettuce. So you can become a skinny rez rabbit.”
Except I typed “rabbi” instead of “rabbit.” A funny mistake.
“Can a woman be a rabbi?” my sister texted me back with a smiling emoji.
“Yes,” I texted back. “That’s one of the cooler things about Jewish cultures. Women can be spiritual leaders. A woman was president of Israel.”
“I think Mom was like a rabbi,” my sister texted.
“Ha,” I texted back. “But remember she lost by twenty votes when she ran for Tribal Council.”
It was a close election. I thought of Hillary Clinton and her close loss to Donald Trump. Our tribe survived the man who defeated our mother. I don’t know if our country will survive Trump.
“I looked up ‘rabbi’ online,” my sister said. “It means ‘teacher.’”
Was our mother a teacher? Was she holy?
I think so. I’m not sure. Maybe.
So I texted her old cell phone. I didn’t know if her number had already been assigned in the months since her death. I didn’t know who might receive my text. So, in not knowing its destination, it felt like a prayer.
“How sacred were you?” I texted my mother’s ghost.
I am still waiting for a response.
124.
Your Theology or Mine?
THREE HUNDRED AND seventy-one days after my mother’s death—after enduring what can only be described as the worst year of my adult life—after maternal loss and forest fires and uranium radiation and brain surgery and seizures and more forest fires—and after a fevered and flawed and grief-driven study of family and tribal history, I realize that I am equally a child of Jesuit and Salish cultures.
I might be an atheist—driven more by my reaction to the politics of religion than its practical theology—but I am also the progeny of the mystical Jesus and the mystical salmon. I would argue that Jesus is made of salmon and each salmon is made of many parts of Jesus. And, yes, I know these are contradictory thoughts for an atheist to express.
So what?
If you believers want to corner me—if you force me to choose the Word—then I am going to choose only one word. And that one word is going to be a verb. And that one verb will be “return,” for I am always compelled to return, return, return to my place of birth, to my reservation, to my unfinished childhood home, and ultimately to my mother, my ultimate salmon.
I return to her, my mothe
r, who, in these pages, dies and dies and dies and is continually reborn.
125.
Review, Reprise,
Revision
AT SOME POINT in my childhood—in my early teens—my mother, Lillian, told me the most painful secret of her life. I have repeated this conversation in my head many times over the years. I repeat it in this book. I can’t help but repeat it. I repeat the same words, sentences, and paragraphs. That’s what happens. Great pain is repetitive. Grief is repetitive. And, maybe, this repetition can become a chant inside a healing ceremony.
“Junior,” she said. “I am the daughter of a rape.”
“What?” I asked, unsure that I’d heard her correctly.
“A man raped my mother. And she got pregnant with me because of it.”
“Who was the rapist?”
My mother, Lillian, said his name. He was a man who’d died years earlier. I’d never known him, but I knew his children and went to the tribal school with his grandchildren. They were among the tallest kids on the reservation. Unlike my siblings and parents, I was tall, too. I’d always wondered why I was so much taller than the rest of my family. Why I was darker. I’d sometimes worried that perhaps I wasn’t my father’s biological child. But I have the same widow’s-peak cowlick—a rebellious lock of black hair that defies styling—as my father. My biological older brother and my younger twin sisters have that cowlick, too. Plus, as I’ve aged from a skinny dark kid into a chubby paler man (having lived in sunless Seattle for twenty-three years), I have come to strongly resemble my father and my siblings.