Fall 2007 TCJ STUDENT EDITION
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STUDENT EDITION
Nice Guys Finish Last By Jerry Manheimer
Being Indian In White Country ByMichael Bonga
Broken Promises By Sharon Redhorn-Chamberlain
Eulogy for a Warrior By Micki Lindeman
Lichtenstein’s Girl By Jaquetta Shade
Ursuline Inheritance By Amanda Irvine-Louie
Henry’s Last Will and Testament By Mandi Henderson
Objects in the Mirror By Kristiaan A. Rawlings
Nice Guys Finish Last (excerpt)
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By Jerry Manheimer
"It’s time to cut the s--t and get down to business,” he said to himself as he sat down to look at the still blank sheet of paper. Almost instantly he knew how to start his paper and began writing.
I used to believe that love was a feeling that two people share with one another. I believed that love was something great and wonderful; there was no other feeling like it. I used to think that if you're in love, nothing can ever bring you down.
I was in love once; I had those feelings. I used to think I was on top of the world, I could do anything. It was indeed the greatest feeling ever. I felt as though nothing mattered, just the feelings I had. I couldn't go one day without seeing her. I felt as if my day wasn't complete till I'd seen her. She was my first thought when I got up in the morning and my last thought before sleep.
But sometimes things aren't what they seem. Sometimes you don't know how high up you've gone until you have to come back down. That's when it hits you the hardest. I believe that the most painful emotional experience ever is to realize the one you have feelings for does not share the same feelings as you. That you've poured out your heart for someone and it wasn't appreciated is heartbreaking.
She hurt me a great deal; I wasn't really myself after that. I felt as if that whole experience changed me. As an artist I saw beauty in everything. After that I saw things the way they really were. I felt as if my whole world had darkened.
After all that she started dating a guy that was a complete jerk. He treated her badly; he would say mean things to her. I hate men like that, and yet they get all the women, leaving us nice guys with nothing more than friendship with the women they steal. It hurt me even more to see them together.
I guess that's just the way things are. Love is something great and beautiful, but it is also something painful and miserable. Love is a hard thing to explain; it’s like touching something hot and cold at the same time. I'm confused at this moment as to what love is, but I'll know if I ever experience it again.
With that, Nathan decided he was done. He put his pencil down and looked at his paper. "I hope Mrs. Fast Elk won't complain about my paper,” he said to himself as he read through it again. "I don't think I want to write about my experiences again.” Nathan got up from his seat, stretched, looked at the clock, and saw it was 5:30. "Man, it took me an hour and a half to write two pages. S--t I must be losing my knack for writing,” he said to himself with slight amusement.
Nathan picked up his Monster can, which was less than half way full of spit. He took it to the toilet and flushed the contents. "Properly dispose of my spit,” he said to himself as he crushed the can and tossed it into the wastebasket. Lance hated it when Nathan left spittoons lying around the room. Just then Lance entered the room.
"Hey, Nate, you ready? Let’s go.”
"Now? But it’s only six,” Nathan said as he was lying on his bed.
"I want to get there early to find a good parking space. There's going to be a s--t load of Indians there.”
Nathan got up. "Okay, man, let’s go.”
"Okay, man, where's my hand drum? Oh, there it is.” Lance found his hand drum under a pile of clothes.
They made their way to Lance's car in the parking lot – it was what you would call an Indian car. It was a 1981 Buick with red paint chipping off more on its top than anywhere else; rust spots marked the chipping. The driver's door was a different color. The bumper was held on with bailing wire, and the front grill was missing. On the rearview mirror was an eagle plume, and the rear bumper had a sticker which read "Indian Power.” The interior vinyl seats were duct taped so they wouldn't lose more foam padding.
Nathan and Lance climbed in. "What the hell is that smell?” Nathan said as he covered his nose.
Lance responded with, "How the hell should I know?” He said this with slight amusement. "This is an Indian car.” Lance and Nathan were laughing as they drove to the party listening to Apache Spirit's rendition of the song "Indian Car.”
It was difficult to find a parking space, but they finally parked a block away from the apartment. After they walked in, Nathan and Lance stood a moment looking around.
Shawn Hawkeye approached them saying, "Well, glad you guys could make it. You can help yourself to anything you want to drink. If you don't want to drink, that's cool. Just kick it with us. We're all having a good time.” Shawn was a Crow Indian from Montana; he was a guy of medium build with short hair cut in the military fashion. He had just completed almost 6 years of active duty for the U.S. Army and was now starting an artistic career at IAIA.
Lance made his way to the other side of the room with his hand drum. "Hey thanks, man, catch you guys later. I'm going to serenade the ladies.”
As Nathan and Shawn stood talking, Sharon Daniels walked into the room. Sharon was a Canadian Cree from Saskatchewan, Canada. She was beautiful with long black hair that she let hang loose and free. She was definitely a Northern Cree; her features were so distinctive. Nathan liked them northern girls, especially those Crees – there was just something about them that he found attractive.
Jerry Manheimer (Diné), who resides in Shonto, AZ, is a 2007 fine arts graduate of Diné College in Tsaile, AZ. Manheimer was on the Diné College Archery Team, which ranked ninth in the nation in May 2007.
Being Indian In White Country
By Michael Bonga
I. The Victory
When I was four,
I had figures made of plastic.
Indians,
soldiers,
past, present, and future,
monsters,
and they all fought.
One day when an Indian met his demise,
my sister came passing by.
"You know you’re an Indian, right?”
I thought for a moment about this.
I looked at the red tomahawks,
the green bows, the blue feathers,
and yellow hands waving.
And I saw the laser rifles, the bazookas,
the sharp teeth and claws.
The tides of battle turned thereafter.
The Indians won the impossible war.
II. The Culture
My great-grandfather
carved a totem-pole.
It was still standing when I saw it.
I was ten, on a trip with my family.
I saw the Quinault beach,
splashed ocean water in my hair,
since I couldn’t and still can’t swim.
That’s always been a problem.
Back in New Mexico I saw my first dance
and ate my first piece of frybread.
I had a wolf-head necklace.
Before swimming in my white friend’s pool
I took it off,
and it ran away, never to be seen again.
And all I did was wade.
III. The Language and Look
I wandered my high school
being lost.
One day I was walking the halls,
getting into mischief,
when a foreign exchange student came up to me.
She spoke differently and fast.
I stared at her blankly.
After a moment,
she spoke in broken English saying, "You not Korean?”
I shook my head no.
"Sorry, you look Korean.”
It was not the first time my New World looks
had passed me off as another race.
My 7th grade English teacher
asked me once if I was Native American.
Tired of the question, I had replied,
"I’m Egyptian,
born in Cairo,
didn’t you know?”
”Oh,” She said.
But being Korean, that was kinda nice.
IV. The War Cry
I was going down the street
after renting a movie from Blockbuster,
when suddenly a big red truck
came zooming by.
A white guy in a cowboy hat
stuck his head out the window.
I had my Haskell shirt on,
the Indian head on my chest.
He yelled at me,
"Indian!”
Happy, I yelled back,
"Cowboy!”
V. The Loss
No matter what this world
throws at me, or gives to me,
I try not to seethe
about an oppressive, assimilating culture
that takes water away
from thirsty people.
Blue water that would be
a passed-down story,
told from blood wiser than I could ever be.
Blue water that dances in front of my eyes,
songs forged from a people
living, raging, and surviving through time.
Blue water that I might be without a drop of,
but the red blood runs through my veins,
and that has to be enough.
Michael Bonga (Quinault, Chippewa), 24, was born in Grand Coulee Dam, WA, and lives in Portland, OR. He has four sisters; his mother is Quinault, and his father, Chippewa.
Bonga received his associate of arts degree with an emphasis in creative writing from Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, KS. He will study English at Portland State University in the fall of 2007 and plans to continue in the Creative Writing masters program there.
Broken Promises
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By Sharon Redhorn-Chamberlain
On a warm day in early March, I stood outside of our house – very sad and upset.
"Sharon.”
I turned around because I heard someone calling my name. It was my friend Carol. She was smiling as she walked toward me. I noticed she was carrying a sleeping bag and some extra clothes.
"Are you still having your slumber party?” she asked.
My heart sank as I quietly said, "No.”
"How come?” Carol asked.
I quickly made something up. The way I had learned to cover up the embarrassing truth.
"My mom is going out of town,” I blurted out.
"But it’s your birthday,” Carol said.
I shrugged my shoulders as if I didn’t care, and I smiled a fake smile, hiding the tears I was holding back. I cleared my throat and squeezed out, "I will have it next weekend.” I just told another lie.
As she walked away, I pretended everything was all right. I hoped she didn’t know the truth. Deep down inside, I was very hurt and angry. It was just another broken promise. I should have been used to it by now, but I hoped that maybe, just maybe this time my mom would follow through with one promise.
One week earlier I had asked her if I could have a slumber party for my 10 th birthday. She had said that it would be okay. We made invitations and plans, so I thought this time she was going to stay home.
I still needed to get ready for a party. Not my 10 th birthday party, but the party my mom would bring home after the bar closed. I put pictures and knick-knacks away so they wouldn’t get broken. I hid our food because those drunks would eat it all if I didn’t. Next, I collected the knives and anything else that could be used as a weapon. I put them away where only I could find them.
My shoes went next to the door where I could easily slip them on, just in case. Usually there was at least one fight. I went upstairs and I put some diapers and bottles in my bedroom for my little brother, enough to get through the night. Then, I moved my bed into the closet and pushed it against the wall.
Tonight the four of us would share a single bed: me, the eldest, my two younger sisters, and my little brother. I pushed the dresser over to the door, telling my sisters and brother it was to keep out the Big Bad Wolf. The Big Bad Wolf was what I called the drunken men who tried to force themselves on me for sex. I was prepared for a sleepless night, protecting my younger sisters and baby brother.
I often sobbed, wondering why my mom chose her friends over me. I was her daughter, her flesh and blood. I didn’t know it then, but it wasn’t her friends she chose. It was the alcohol.
Since I’ve grown up, I have a better understanding of alcoholism. I understand the illness and how it affects millions of other people. Alcohol knows no gender or skin color. It rears its ugly head only to destroy lives. I didn’t suffer alone. Many Native American people have similar experiences.
Knowing this doesn’t take away those terrible childhood memories, but it helps me to be a better parent to my own children. As a parent, I have only made one promise and that is to myself. I will not let alcohol interfere with my relationship to my children.
As for my children, there will be no broken promises.
Sharon Redhorn-Chamberlain (Ho Chunk), Te jainga (Ocean Woman) in her Native language, lives with her family in Winnebago, NE. She is a graduate of Little Priest Tribal College (LPTC, Winnebago, NE) and plans to attend Wayne State College to pursue a bachelor’s degree in English and pre-law.
She loves the power of writing and "what it can do for a person’s soul.” Redhorn-Chamberlain appreciates her composition instructor, Norine Ryan, who gave her the tools to express herself "in words on paper.” She was originally a business student, but her passion for writing changed her area of study.
She wrote her story during her second semester at LPTC two years ago and considered submitting it several times, but reading it only made her cry. This year she sent it in because while she realizes the effects of alcohol will always remain in her life, her choices in dealing with those effects have made her the strong person she is today. Redhorn-Chamberlain asserts, "I am no longer a victim.”
Eulogy for a Warrior
 Micki Lindeman |
By Micki Lindeman
It was late evening when my phone rang. The ring caught my attention; sometimes you can tell how important a call is by the urgency of the ring. It was a cousin I barely remembered. My father was dying. I wondered why she thought I would care. I had not seen him in over 19 years.
I am not sure how I answered her; the rest of the conversation was hard to hear. My thoughts spoke louder than the words we exchanged. She expected me to go to him. He was in Sioux Falls, SD, over 9 hours from where I was living in Mandan, ND.
My father had drifted in and out of my life, mostly out of it. The only real thing I remember about him was his absence.
"Mom, he’ll be here,” I said with the trust of an 8-year-old. We were supposed to meet him for a picnic. I got angry at her when he didn’t show up; she was the only one there to take the blame.
"He might have gotten sick, Micki.” I would figure out years later that meant he was too drunk to remember me or our picnic.
Now I was expected to go to him. His doctor called me about half an hour later. She told me I was his next of kin, and all decisions fell on me. How could I make life and death decisions for a man I never knew? I told her I would be there the next day. His liver had failed.
My mother and I arrived to find his hospital room full of family I had never met. My father was awake and joking with everyone. I had the first real conversation with him in my life. He said his life with my mother and me was the best time in his life. This brought everyone to tears. After all this time I was still his "Baby-Mine.” He never called me Micki.
My father lived for almost a year after the phone call. We kept in touch, and I visited him a few times. We were finally able to spend time together.
When he died, I had to fight with his oldest sister over funeral arrangements and the money Pine Ridge gave for the expenses. Her family probably still thinks I am a terrible person. I fought to make his final wishes realized. I had him buried in the Sturgis Veteran’s Cemetery with military honors. I never knew he served in Vietnam until just before he died.
I spent time with my father’s other sister, Mary, and her family before the funeral, and they told me I was very important to him. I heard stories about how protective he was of me as a baby. How he removed the coffee table from our house and chopped it to pieces after I cut my head on it while learning to walk.
I learned how he hid away gifts for his "Baby-Mine” and how he sold his father’s land to get the money to build a home for me. He tried to be in my life but struggled with resistance from his own demons and my mother.
I was too numb to speak at his funeral. I was completely unable to function. But this is what I wanted to say:
"My father was a warrior. A Vietnam veteran, who fought a lifetime for the recognition, respect, and honor he deserved for his service. He fought many battles. He struggled to forgive his own father, as absent in his own life as he had been in mine.
He battled to be in my life and fought the guilt of failing me. He fought memories of the dead, a beloved mother who left this world when he was a child. He grieved for his brother and a nephew, who died too young. He fought the memory of his baby brother Micki, who was murdered in New Orleans. I was given Micki’s name. He fought misjudgment, mistrust, and all of those who tried to keep him down.
My father fought for a fair chance, rarely getting it because of his skin color. He fought his own family and people who only wanted to take from him and did. He fought memories of a war he drowned with alcohol. He battled alcohol all his life. It never set him free for long. He fought my reluctance to forgive.
In the end he fought disease and lived longer than medical science said was possible. He fought to live long enough to fix the wound in my soul caused by his absence. He fought to live, to remind me one more time I was Indian; he seemed to think I had forgotten.
He wandered the world, always searching, never being in one place too long. In the end we finally found each other, I not realizing I was ever searching for him. We found a small sense of peace in each other.
After a hard life, his battles are over, and his demons are slain. I find comfort knowing he is finally not fighting and resting in the warm embrace of his mother and brothers.
Micki Lindeman is studying Tribal Environmental Science at United Tribes Technical College (UTTC, Bismarck, ND) and hopes to someday teach ecology there. She credits the SEEDS program, whose goal is to expose minority students to ecology, for her own future goals.
Lindeman thanks many people for their support: Melissa, Jeramie, Katherine, and Jason of SEEDS; Dr. Sarah Gergel, her mentor from the University of British Columbia; and people at UTTC who encouraged and helped her.
Her father, Paul Theodore Goodshield, was enrolled at Pine Ridge in South Dakota, and her three sons "have his warrior spirit.” She came to UTTC to find her cultural identity and "found out who I really am instead.
Lichtenstein’s Girl
By Jaquetta Shade
"I DON’T CARE! –
I’D RATHER SINK THAN
CALL BRAD FOR HELP!”
the thought bubble declares.
Comic benday dots
bleed together
to form new flesh tones
to brighten the cobalt waves,
the ink
that stained the papers
endorsing the end
of a matrimonial mess.
"Drowning Girl” knows
bitter resentment,
accusations like bullets,
and the death to love.
The blanched tears brimming
from her lids don’t redden
her eyes like mine do.
I know the sentiment is the same.
I didn’t know that I could
grieve liberation;
achieving solitude
was misleading.
It didn’t sound lonely.
 Jaquetta Shade |
Jaquetta Shade (United Keetoowah Band of the Cherokee) lives in Tahlequah, OK, and is pursuing a degree in creative writing at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, KS. She says, "I have always been an ardent reader and truly love the act of writing, which is paramount as I have aspirations for careers in both journalism and creative writing.”
Shade credits good fortune for the many great teachers she’s had who have encouraged her to follow her writing ambitions. Among those mentors are Mrs. Lorraine Walker, Mrs. Jacque McIntosh, and Mr. Michael Peters. Shade adds, "I hope that my work can reflect their excellent tutelage.”
Ursuline Inheritance
By Amanda Irvine-Louie
They came walking from the sunrise land,
With their black robes and their black books,
And their pinched and frozen-seeming faces
Alight with the cold fire of their belief.
They came to teach us what they assumed we did not know,
To tell us we sinned in our ignorance,
To snatch away the small future clinging
To each mother’s leg with the eyes of a startled doe.
In a time of inexorable change, we sent our sons and daughters
To learn the ways of a new world.
They were building over our hunting grounds and sacred places,
And we knew the young, at least, would rest with filled bellies.
In the red brick building that squatted, like a fat qene ?,
And frowned with disapproval on the village,
We watched them disappear
Like everything else we had come to think was enduring,
And we endured the questions shining, pooling in their eyes,
And falling, like liquid recriminations, from quivering chins.
It was only bearable, for most, because we knew
The new ways must be learned
If they were to walk with pride in a world
Where only the "civilized” were welcome
And where Salish was equivalent to Savage.
So we sent them off with smiles we could not feel.
Our culture fell from us, like braids to the hardwood floors.
Our language was stripped from us like dirty garments.
They washed away our pride in our traditions
With lye, and vinegar, and gasoline,
And when we were scrubbed pink, like them,
They sent us out, made newly white, like sheets from the mangle.
They made of us smaller, darker images of themselves,
So we would be acceptable in their churches and their markets
And on their streets, if never in their homes,
Their businesses, or their taverns.
They were kind, and good to us, except when they were not.
Some things were intolerable, could not be condoned.
Being Indian was one of these.
The speaking of our Native tongue was forbidden,
And our ancient ways of praying, we learned, were idolatry.
Grandfather wished his children to abandon the old ways,
And only the fathers, they told us, could carry our prayers to him now.
We must bring to them our packages of sin
So that Divine Grace might be bestowed upon us,
Which we would receive but did not deserve.
For some, the changes chafed more than for others,
And for these, who toiled beneath the rule of the ruler,
The stinging welt of shame and resentment still blisters.
For the rest of us, it has just become numb over time.
We are fruits borne of the seeds of injustice,
Deprived of the culture that bore us
And the language that our tongues now find unpalatable.
It is foreign in our mouths,
Like mother’s milk is to the soy-nourished infant,
Yet, we struggle to accept it, digest it, and make it a part of us once more.
We realize we have no choice now, but to walk in the new world,
And we often walk in circles, for we’re also aware
We must keep one foot firmly rooted in the old ways we can remember,
Lest we lose what little remains of the once-rich tradition we inherited so late.
We learn, in bright, white classrooms,
The stories our ya-yas were told on winter nights, by firelight.
We go home to our blue and yellow box houses and try to remember them right,
And shut off X-boxes and sitcoms, and make our children hear.
We post sticky notes with words in the old language
On whatever items we know the words for, which are few,
And when we hear the stories of the school beside the church,
We wax indignant in our hearts, and are bitter:
"He wouldn’t eat, so the sister beat him; she was fed soap for speaking Salish;
The government men dragged her from under her bed
And carried her away to the school in the night;
The priest chased her and grabbed her by her breasts.”
We cannot resign ourselves to their fates, nor to the fates they left for us,
So we attempt to reverse fate for our children.
 Amanda Irvine-Louie |
Amanda Irvine-Louie (Confederated Salish and Kootenai) is a psychology student at Salish Kootenai College (SKC, Pablo, MT). Irvine-Louie considers herself "foremost a writer and a lover of all language and creative linguistic expression.” She is married to Conan Louie (Colville) and is mother to three children: Teal Forest, Coral Ember, and Indigo Tempest. The family is excited about a new baby due in mid-September.
Irvine-Louie says, "In many ways, the past couple of years have been my second beginning – in marriage, in college, in life – and much of my success I owe to the support and encouragement of SKC staff. SKC has been a major catalyst in my psycho-spiritual and cognitive restructuring.”
She enjoys the chance to write while attending SKC and finds her works speak "the most about me as a Salish woman and about the critical and creative thinking I have been taught at SKC.”
Henry’s Last Will and Testament
By Mandi Henderson
The old man was bent and gnarled from years of hard work. His hands were callused, long and lean. In his youth his hands once had so many uses. Now he could hardly button his shirt. Today seemed to be worse than other days, though. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to steady them. As he tied his shoes, the shaking was so relentless he found himself as frustrated as a small child just learning how to tie his shoes.
The frustration soon flooded his body with anger. He could feel his neck and head grow warm. He found himself feeling a strange sensation, one he hadn’t felt since the death of his youngest daughter, Shelly. His throat tightened up into intense pain and red-hot tears boiled in his eyes. He brought his hand up to his face and felt the wet tears streaming down. "Oh god,” he thought, "It’s finally happened. I’m going crazy just like the old man did.”
It was never Henry’s way to cry. It was never the way of any man, as far as Henry was concerned. There was only one answer as to why a man who had lived through three world wars, fought in "the big one,” and taken a bullet through his thigh without shedding a single tear could be crying now. He had to be crazy. Through his blurred vision he reached for the phone. Dialing the number came easier for him today than it had ever been. He didn’t even have to look for the yellow scrap of paper the number was written on. Today the number came to mind, traveled through his body and out to his finger tip.
The phone rang once, twice, then half a third ring, when he heard her voice on the other line. "…Hello?” said Mary, half laughing. He could hear voices of other aging women in the background. He could just imagine her sitting there with her Marlboro Light 100 resting daintily between her soft, white fingers. Her nails would be painted dollar store red. Her hair would be set in large curls. He imagined it fell in waves over her shoulders, rolling down her back. Her trademark dirty blonde hair still held its color. He thought, since she had company, she probably had on large dream-catcher earrings and was wearing blue eye shadow and red lipstick. Thinking of her brought a slight smile to his face and calmed him.
"Hello!” Mary called into the phone. The way she said it jolted him, and all of the fondness he was just feeling turned into a kind of defensive, vulnerable and foolish feeling. "Mary, it’s me…Henry,” he replied.
"Henry Croxley? What do you want? You mean you’re not dead yet, you old sonofab***h?” Mary always had a way with her mouth that both repulsed Henry and enticed him. It’s what had attracted him to her in the first place. That and a combination of her blonde waves and her twenty years younger pneumatic figure had won him over, despite the fact that he had a wife and five children.
Something about her brutally honest yet borderline trashy personality was a welcome relief to his monotonous life. His wife, a big-hearted, big-boned Blackfeet woman, had become unbearably predictable and, to Henry, somewhat unattractive. But she was a good mother to his children, who were a source of tremendous pride for Henry. A fact that always made him feel guilty for leaving her, mostly when he was drunk.
"Now listen here, Mary, or should I say Jezebel? I just called to let you know that, well, I know I’m going nuts… and I’m going to kill myself. But I don’t know why I called an old drunk like you anyways.” Click. Before Henry even comprehended what he’d just done, he took a deep breath that cleared his mind for a brief second. Then he burst into laughter. He laughed so hard his stomach was strained and there were tears in his eyes.
Then he thought more seriously of the conversation. "I wonder what the hell she thought of that?” Henry said to himself. He laughed a little again and sighed. He thought then he really was crazy. Why did he call Mary? "Well, I guess I better get it over with then, since I said I was gonna do the f**kin thing.” Henry cursed himself. He always did what he said he was going to do. Or at least he always said he always did what he said he was going to do.
Suicide, Henry thought, is a hell of a way to go, seeing as how he had already lived to be 81 years old. He thought of all he’d been through. How much he loved his four older brothers, his kind soft-bodied mother, and his father who was a bootlegger. He thought about how he and his brothers had always had new shoes. He saw his youth: big smiles, flushed cheeks, and the frosty breath blown from his nostrils when he and his brother Eli were wrestling outside of the barn. He could feel the cold, hard ground beneath his feet and smell the dirt still.
He thought of his children: Of Henry Jr. who was a doctor and lived in Missoula, of Marietta who was a nurse at the IHS, his youngest son Eli who was a 3-time state champion basketball player in high school. He thought of how Eli had become, to some, a disappointment, but Henry held a soft spot in his heart for his son, and often favored him. He thought about leaving Eli all of his land. It’d be a nice start, seeing as how Eli would be getting out of pre-release in the spring. Maybe Eli could get a home built out past Star School. Then Henry thought of how he didn’t have a will and how he was still married to that old drunk Mary.
"I better make up some kinda will before I die,” Henry told himself. He retrieved a yellow notepad and a pen from the cupboard beside his refrigerator and returned to his kitchen table.
To my youngest son, Eli, I leave … as Henry began to write, he was interrupted by the telephone. He was annoyed but answered anyway. It wasn’t often his phone rang these days. "Hello?”
"What the f**k did you call me for then, you old drug addict!” It was Mary. "G*******t, Henry, you’re not going crazy, you’ve always been crazy, you old fool! You’re an 81-year-old man, but you don’t look a day over…71, and if you quit snorting those pain pills, you’ll live to be a hundred. Anyways, that’s not the point… point is you got no reason to be trying to kill yourself; I think you’re just depressed.
You know I just graduated from the community college with a degree in psychology. So take it from me. I’m still your wife. Why don’t you just call up one of your kids or Bernadette. You know old Buck died last winter, and I know you never did quit your first wife, Henry. And I heard about you sneakin’ in her window two years after you two was divorced, and you and me were shacked up. So don’t you be callin’ here tryna make me feel bad for you, old man.”
Henry was shocked. For once he just wanted to listen to her. The line was quiet. "You still there? Or you dead already?” Mary inquired after a substantial pause.
"I’m here,” replied Henry. "You know I always knew you knew about me and Bernadette. I never really tried to hide it from you.”
"You old bastard. You’ll never change.”
"Mary, truth is I don’t know why I called you. I guess it’s cause you’re my wife. And I guess I just don’t think anyone’s home on Saturday but you. My kids are all busy, you know, and my grandkids are all in sports. ‘Cept for Sadie, who’s in debate or something. That’s beside the point anyway. I was just making out a will.”
"You know damn well you can’t be serious, Henry,” replied Mary, a little bit worried now. "Please don’t be talking like this…maybe you are going crazy. You know what? I’m just gonna call your girl Kim. She’s a teacher, she’s got Saturdays off, doesn’t she?” The softness in her voice made him want to love Mary again, but he didn’t want her to call his daughter and worry her.
He suddenly had another vision of Mary and all of that blonde hair, which provoked a new thought. Maybe he should have sex with his wife again before he died. He wondered if he still had it. He wondered if Mary was too mad at him now, or worse, thought he was too old. But Henry was always good at sweet talking women. He had sweet-talked Mary into the bed of his pickup truck that he used as the Fish and Game Warden the first week he met her.
He looked down at his hand. He thought about how weathered it was, all of the shots fired with it, all of the women it had loved, the nails he had pounded, and the diapers he’d changed. Now Henry struggled to sign his name. His once accurate, gentle and strong fingers had become unsteady, wrinkled and useless. But he could probably still handle that old drunk Mary.
So he decided he’d coax her over to his new handicap accessible home out at Flat Iron.
Mandi Henderson graduated from the Blackfeet Community College (BCC) in Browning, MT in 2007 with a two-year degree in general studies. She plans to continue her education at the University of Montana, Missoula. She is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet tribe and has lived on the Blackfeet Reservation her entire life.
Henderson indicates BCC has helped prepare her academically and has allowed her to realize a unique world view. She has also discovered an interest in the written word, specifically fiction. Henderson’s poem, "Dreams Wrapped in a Pendleton Blanket” was published in the Tribal College Journal, Vol. 17, N.1.
Objects in the Mirror
By Kristiaan A. Rawlings
"Listen, talent isn't in your height, strength, or your ability to shoot a basketball. Talent is right here in your heart,” I calmly say, tapping a player on the chest.
It's half-time, the score is tied, and the Indian youth team I coach needs encouragement.
In the middle of my speech, Stormy, a dark-skinned girl with big brown eyes and pigtails, approaches me. "Lean over, Eminem,” she says with a big smile. I do and she rubs my head. "There, that's for good luck. Now we'll win for sure.”
Due to my shaved head and skin color, the kids love to reference the famous musical artist. "Eminem's got nothing on me,” I often say, laughing. One girl once replied, "Then how come he's rich and you're still here on the rez?”
Working with youth at the SuAnne Big Crow Boys and Girls Club, coaching two basketball teams, and attending Oglala Lakota College keeps my schedule packed. Although it seems I've lived on the Indian reservation my whole life, sometimes during the deathly quiet nights, interrupted only by an occasional coyote howl, a dream will bring back memories of Indiana, where I was born and raised.
I myself didn't have the opportunity to play youth basketball. I once asked my parents if I could play in the league at the Shelbyville Boys and Girls Club. ”You'll have to ask the Elder,” Mom said.
Nervously, I called and petitioned the pastor of our church. "No,” he said gruffly and hung up. I slowly set the phone receiver down and went outside to dribble a basketball and dream of playing on a team someday.
I'm certainly not the most knowledgeable coach, but the success our teams have had is because talent lies within the heart and because our hearts are absolutely sold out to realizing our dreams.
Four times a week our family attended church. Mostly, the pastor preached about how "the Shelbyville church” had stayed on course while everyone else was quickly and definitively headed to hell.
"I'll preach Tim Spell under a table any day,” he'd say, frequently naming other ministers of the same religious faith. "Stand up if you support me!” he demanded, and the congregation would stand, whether they agreed with him or not.
Occasionally, we would hear a message from the Bible, and one of my favorites was the story of Moses. A young man raised in an environment in which he didn't belong was summoned by God to do something meaningful with his life. At this divine meeting, Moses asked the question that every child in every culture and race has asked. "Who am I?” Instead of rushing to do God's will, Moses first needed to know who he was as a person.
As a teenager, three of us church boys decided to sneak out and attend the Valentine's Day dance at Southwestern High School. Clad in jeans and sports jackets, we didn't realize that advance registration was required. As we scrawny boys strutted toward the entrance, a security officer grabbed his radio and declared, "Here comes trouble.” Indeed, trouble was brewing.
After the school rejected us, we left with two girls who were "worldly,” or non-church members, only to be pulled over by a sheriff shortly thereafter. As great gossip tends to do, word spread to our pastor and on Sunday we waited outside his office, concocting a cohesive explanation, which was difficult because Ben kept vomiting while Brent and I did our concocting. The thought of being pulled into "the Elder’s office” was enough to make any juvenile boy vomit.
Although our stories seemed to hold, Ben and Brent were found guilty of other infractions and kicked out of the choir for six months, as well as forced to sit on the back row of the church. They were told, "I don't want you around the other boys in the church. You'll sit in the back for awhile. Don't think about worshipping with the saints.” Such was the punishment of those who violated the rules.
When the wind blows the colored leaves across the pond in central Rapid City, we gather for the He Sapa Wacipi. There the most beautiful Indian dances are performed by our boys and girls, alongside their fathers and mothers, and elders. While watching the vibrant colors swirl on the ground, everyone certain of their place and position in the center, I'm sometimes reminded of us church boys and our failed attempt to dance, and I smile. The circles of dance move on and so do Indian traditions, regardless of the sadness and hardships of past years.
"This is your language, don't be afraid to speak it,” Dollie Red Elk, my Lakota teacher, tells us. After twenty-four years, I have somewhat of an answer to Moses' introspective question. I was meant to work with young people. I was born to write, to coach, and to live on the reservation.
My last years in Indiana paved the way for me to understand life a little better. One Sunday afternoon, I timidly entered the pastor's office for the last time as a "saint.” "I won't be back,” I said from the expensive leather chair, with my hand tightly clutching a Bible. As long as I have the Bible, he can't hurt me, I told myself.
Black dress shoes coated in mud, I crossed the middle school field, heading toward home. I opened the door to a find a family paralyzed with angst. "I'm not going back,” I said quietly.
"I don't think so,” came the reply. "I won't let you go to hell living in this house!”
That night I sat in the living room with tears running down my face. In the service that night, one minister told my brother to "cut your brother off” and not to speak to me again. "I did it!” the minister said proudly in reference to the broken relationship with his own father. For several weeks we would sit at dinner, no one saying a word. Sometimes I would speak up, only to hear silence in return.
I packed my bags one hot July day, loaded the car, and prepared to leave for South Dakota in search of a new life. As my Honda pulled away from town and eventually the state, I was sure I’d forget. Cars flew past me on the interstate as I checked my mirrors. "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.”
Success has come to me at Oglala Lakota College, in friendships, and in work, not due to innate brilliance or strength, but because of the heart. The Lakota virtues of generosity, fortitude, wisdom, and courage have led me to a more meaningful and introspective life.
Kristiaan A. Rawlings grew up in central Indiana and credits viewing the dramatic production "Tecumseh” for his fascination with Native American culture and literature. When the opportunity arose to work at the SuAnne Big Crow Boys and Girls Club in Pine Ridge, SD, he gladly accepted.
A Lakota Studies major at Oglala Lakota College, he intends to complete his undergraduate degree and continue on to earn a master's in Lakota Leadership there. He says his experience at the tribal college has been greatly enhanced by Dollie Red Elk, Lakota language instructor, and Larry Salway, a social work teacher. Both have guided and offered him numerous opportunities to expand his knowledge.