He wanted me to talk like an Indian, to whisper his name like an Indian.
“Fuck you,” I said. He thought I was joking, but I was serious.
I got on top of him and pulled his hair. Then he pulled mine. I called him a little white boy.
“Come on,” I kept saying. “Come on, do it!”
He kept making this face, which struck me as funny. Afterward I began laughing, which made him angry, I could tell.
“But you make a weird face,” I said, and he laughed a little, so it was all good. Both of us lay there in bed in the dim light of the lamp on the nightstand. He turned to lie on his stomach, and I ran my hands over his back lightly.
“I’m kidding around,” I said.
“Whatever, I’m good. Women tell me I’m good.”
“Funny guy.”
“It’s all good,” he said.
I didn’t care what he said. He could’ve said anything to me. I felt his skin, sticky and warm from fucking. I put my face to his back and smelled him.
After Vin fell asleep, I texted Edgar: Hey, you around? Are u coming home? Edgar never called Papa or our mom, and I knew it hurt them. Edgar had promised me, too, he’d keep me posted on what was going on. We usually texted once a week, at least, but that hadn’t happened in a while, and I was concerned. I kept texting him: Are u ok? Hey, need to talk asap!!! Call me when u can! The more frantic I sounded, I thought, the more he would realize how badly he was needed. Part of Edgar’s problem was feeling unloved, being the youngest child. He was so little when Ray-Ray died, and he’d spent his childhood trying to grow up in Ray-Ray’s shadow, listening to our mother and Papa talk about Ray-Ray’s sense of humor and about everything he did.
I walked quietly down the hall, still naked, to Luka’s bedroom and peeked inside. I couldn’t hear him breathing over the hum of the ceiling fan, but I was able to make out his figure in the bed. Outside there was thunder, followed by rain thrumming against the window. I pulled Luka’s door closed softly, then walked quietly downstairs and turned on the light in the living room, where I stood and stretched. It was raining really hard now, and the wind had come up. A squall battered the back door. How wonderful to walk naked in a stranger’s house during a thunderstorm, I thought. Something about it always excited me, being naked in a strange house. There was a picture of Luka and, I assumed, his mother on the fireplace mantel. I picked it up. She was sitting outside somewhere, wearing sunglasses, and he was in her lap. He was wearing a blue Dallas Cowboys T-shirt with the number 8 across the front, and holding a little football. The photo crushed me.
As I put the frame down, I noticed a photo of Vin and an older man I was certain was his father. I picked it up and stared at it, then set it back on the mantel. Outside I heard the rumble of thunder in the distance. The trees were waving in the wind, and it was raining hard now. I opened the screen door and stepped naked into the rain outside. It was dark, and the drops felt cold on my body. I walked to the trees and squatted to pee while thunder rumbled all around.
I don’t know what I expected to feel. I suppose I wondered whether Vin would wake, find me gone, and rush outside, but no light ever came on in the house. The moon came out from behind the clouds. I looked up to the blue night sky and saw its glow. Whatever may have happened then, I could feel something stirring around me, perhaps the wind or something else entirely. I won’t lie and say I didn’t find it exciting, the trembling of wind, the unknown presence of something watching me naked in the night. I sank down to my knees and felt the warm earth and grass. I ran my fingers along hedge branches and bushes. Something was there, I could feel it. I stood up again as if being summoned, stepping toward the house.
I heard the sound of wings. I looked up and saw a large bird perched on the roof of the house, its wings spread, looking down at me. It had me now, whatever it was. It had my attention. Who can say how long I was out there? I heard the wind, the sky, the trees. Welcoming the storm, I let the rain come down on me.
Tsala
BELOVED SON: when I look at the scope of our history, I can see the longing to hold on to people, to keep them close so they don’t leave. We were afraid they would depart and never return. I witnessed the removal of our people from our lands. We each have our own stories, which bring us together.
I loved your mother, Clara, more than any other person I had met. When I was a young man I found her by a stream near the mountains. I brought her gifts: a blanket and sweet corn. I told her about her natural beauty. Her eyes were like none I had ever seen, and eventually we were married, but it was not easy. Our story is similar to the old story of the young man who meets Laoka—a story that holds a special meaning for me. My great-grandfather told the story to my grandfather, who passed it down to my father, who passed it down to me. And now I will tell it to you, as it possesses a great lesson.
THE STORY OF LAOKA
A young man who was very lonely met a beautiful woman by the mountains and told her he was an honest and adept hunter.
“I like hunters,” she said. “Show me how well you can shoot a bow.”
He looked to the sky and squinted at the sun. He took his bow and an arrow from his bag and looked at a tree across the stream.
“I know when a man is acting a fool,” she said.
He stared straight ahead and shot his bow, which hit the tree across the stream. “That is what I was aiming for,” he told her.
The young woman was not impressed. She told him he was looking into the sky, not at the tree.
“I can skin a bear with my hands,” he said. “I have killed bears and snakes with my knife.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. She became very suspicious of his stories and told him goodbye. He was sad but determined to win her love.
Walking away, he called out wearily for help. He sat on a rock and said he would give anything to win her. He held his head in his hands.
Would you give anything? He heard a voice speak from the darkness.
A large brown rodent with a dark snout and long tail crawled out of the brush. The rodent stood on its hind legs. This was Laoka, whose belly swelled at the sight of human and animal flesh.
Laoka staggered toward the young man, leaning down to tilt his hairy snout and making gurgling sounds.
The young man had heard stories of Laoka from the elders, stories of how he appeared in different form, as a snake or beast, and how he slaughtered birds and animals and then ate them. How his belly swelled and burst and then swelled again. How wasps flew from his mouth and attacked whatever person or animal he wanted to eat.
“Go or I will kill you,” the young man said. “I know who you are.”
Laoka was studying him to see what he was going to do. The young man lunged at him, and Laoka moved out of the way.
Laoka hissed, I can help you.
Then three sacred stones materialized before the young man: a dark-red stone, the petrified coral, love’s wisdom. A yellow stone, the topaz, to think of future generations. And a rose stone that healed a heart overwhelmed by sadness. The young man reached for the stones, but Laoka latched on to his hand with his mouth. The young man felt the teeth in the fleshy part of his hand, and he yelled out in pain.
Laoka let go and said, You can have these stones if you follow me to the fire.
The young man wanted to see the fire. Those who entered it disappeared, leaving no remains. It was a sacrifice to enter the fire, to reestablish a good relationship with the land and our nation, the earth, and the sky. It was the most sacred place, and it never appeared in the same location.
So the young man followed Laoka through the woods. The sun went behind a cloud, and the woods dimmed. He could hear his footsteps crackling through leaves and twigs. Soon they came out of the woods and upon a cave, where Laoka stopped and turned.
Before seeing the fire, Laoka hissed, you must first see selu, the corn.
The young man agreed and followed Laoka into the cave, where they sat on the ground and Laoka offered
him ears of corn.
This selu contains a powerful energy. You should take them and feed them to the woman you are in love with. She will fall in love with you.
“How do I know you’re not tricking me?” the young man asked.
I find your young strength admirable. Now go.
The next day the young man arrived at the stream and saw the beautiful woman. She asked, “Where is your bow and arrow, adept hunter?”
“I brought you this corn,” he told her.
“Where did you get this?”
“I found it near the river,” he lied. “I want you to eat it, please. Taste it and tell me what you’re feeling. It’s good corn. I ate it myself.”
She pulled off some kernels and tossed them to the ground. After a moment a small bird, a sparrow, flew down and hopped over to it and ate it. The sparrow immediately began convulsing and making noises. “This is poison,” she said. She stood and went over to the sparrow, which was still shaking. The bird fluttered and shook, trying to fly away.
“You killed that bird, and it would’ve poisoned me,” she told the young man.
He was horrified by what had happened. “No, no,” he told her. “I didn’t know.”
“You told me you ate it, so you lied to me, too.”
“I didn’t mean to,” he said. “I gave it to you because I thought it would make you like me.”
But she walked away. He called after her, but she didn’t respond.
Now furious, the young man returned to the cave and called for Laoka: “Yo ho, Laoka! Yo ho, yo ho, Laoka! Come out so I can kill you . . .”
He entered the cave, but it was empty. He searched and searched for him, but he wasn’t there.
He sat outside and waited. For days he sat there, starving himself, freezing in the cold, but Laoka never returned. The young man knew he was out in the world somewhere, but he held his anger inside himself so fiercely that he slowly died out there. While he waited, he heard the hissing of Laoka, but never found him. He heard the shrieks of animals in the woods. He saw black vultures in the moonlit sky.
* * *
My son, I had to earn trust of your mother by showing I was trustworthy. I did not lie or betray her. Anger and vengeance were not uncommon in our family. They are dangerous, as you can see from the story of Laoka. We must warn our family about their dangers.
Your mother and I married, and soon you were born. We lived peacefully among our people on our land. But soon, too soon, I began having visions of the coming soldiers.
Edgar
SEPTEMBER 3
MY DAD USED TO SAY the ringing in my ears was a sign the dead were trying to contact me. “Your ancestors,” he said. “Listen for them. Pay attention to things around you.” At Jackson’s that first night, the constant ringing made it difficult to sleep. I remembered how Rae used to stay up late with me and talk whenever I couldn’t sleep. She would turn on the lamp, sit up in bed, and we would talk about anything. I listened again to the voice mail my mother had left, reminding me of Ray-Ray’s anniversary.
In the morning I woke to a noise outside, which I hoped was a cat or raccoon rummaging around and not the red fowl. My room was still dim despite it being morning. The room had a bluish tint. I heard the wind blowing, and from the window I could see the branches moving. I thought of Rae lying next to me. I thought of my dad’s confusion, walking around the house, forgetting where he put things. I thought of the look on my mother’s face while she watched him struggle.
I lay in bed awake for several minutes before I finally got up. In the kitchen, Jackson was clanging dishes around in the sink. He wiped his hands on a dish towel and took a drink of his coffee.
“You should go back to bed,” he said. “Sleep while you can. I’m hoping to talk to someone today about getting you involved in the software development and new avatars, now that you’re here. If you leave and run into anyone, say your name is Jim, as in Jim Thorpe. You look like him anyway. You don’t want people harassing you.”
“What the hell?”
“The name Edgar is a loaded name. There was an Edgar in town who went on a killing spree a few years ago, and it’s still touchy. Everyone knew the guy as Edgar, plain old Edgar. He took an assault rifle and shot a bunch of people at the park on the south side. Everyone was saying Edgar this, Edgar that. He was the only Edgar in this town. So you should go by Jim for a while.”
I rubbed my hands over my face.
“It’s a strange place,” he said. “People might give you weird looks. Best to just ignore them. You need to trust me.”
I got a coffee mug from the cabinet, and Jackson poured me a cup. “I better get to work,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here, Edgar. I’m going to talk to my work team about bringing you on board for the game development, but for now feel free to walk around town and explore. There’s a coffee shop down the street. There’s a liquor store. Everything will be fine.”
After he left, I drank my coffee, went to lie down on the couch. I put my arm over my face and lay there, thinking about the Darkening Land, where I was, and trying to remember why I decided to come here in the first place, so far away from my family. I sat up and looked around Jackson’s rotting house. While Jackson was at work, I made a piece of dry toast and ate it standing up, looking out the window. I sat in the rickety wooden chair and watched TV for a while, read part of a book from his shelf on Eastern religion. I found strange old books, one on the occult, another on General Custer. I flipped through a book on Baron Jeffrey Amherst and Pontiac’s War, with a photo of dead men. The book felt dirty in my hands, so I headed out for a walk.
The air was hard to breathe, full of smog. All around, the land was full of dumpy houses, old buildings, small shops. Dead leaves trembled as I walked past them. I stopped at trees and examined the cracked faces in them, wondering whose faces they were. One street I came to was lined with pink weeping trees, which I found somewhat attractive in such a dark place, so I followed that road. I walked past a laundromat. A few steps ahead of me was a woman wearing a long coat and house shoes, annoyed that I was walking behind her. She stopped and waited for me to pass, muttering to herself. Behind the laundromat were three dumpsters with graffiti spray-painted on them: SAVAGES. All the buildings were falling apart, abandoned video rental stores, restaurants, auto parts stores. I saw a man with no legs begging in the street, shouting “Beware Devil’s Bridge!” I saw another man pushing a boy in a wheelbarrow along the side of the road. The boy was pointing a toy gun at everything he saw. “POW!” he yelled, pointing the water gun at me as they wheeled past. “POW WOW!”
What did he mean, “Pow wow”? Or had I misheard him, and he’d said “pow” twice? Finally I came to a small cluster of stores on a street of old buildings and stepped into a place called Rusty Spoon Records. Inside, the owner, a bearded man with long silver hair and black teeth, asked me if I was looking for a particular record.
“Browsing,” I said.
He told me his name was Venery, and he lived upstairs in the building with his miniature Doberman. He looked like an ex-hippie who’d tripped too many times in the sixties.
“You’re a stranger in town,” he said. “A stranger in an even stranger town.”
I looked at him.
“Where you from?” he asked.
“I came here from Albuquerque.”
“No, I mean where you from, son?”
“Oklahoma.”
“Indian Territory,” he said. He looked brain-dead and slack-jawed. I could see bits of egg in his beard. “Woody Guthrie was from Oklahoma, right?”
“Right.”
“So was Jim Thorpe.”
“Right again.”
“You’re a dead ringer for Jim Thorpe,” he said. “Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Yeah, a few people.”
Venery scratched at his cheek. “They say Jim Thorpe died of a heart attack. A victim of racism and intolerance and suffering. Tall, like yourself.”
I didn’t make ey
e contact with him, and I think he could tell I was feeling uncomfortable, so he went over to his space by the register and returned with a good smoke and a large ashtray. “This ashtray was made from the ancient bones of a man from the plains,” he said. “I’m not kidding. Look at this thing.”
The ashtray was oblong and pale, and we smoked and looked at it, studying its curves and cracks. “I got a forty-thousand-year-old Neanderthal skull,” he went on. “I use it as a bong for my good weed upstairs. Is it true the Natives had elongated skulls? What do you know about that? Can you enlighten me, Jim Thorpe?”
His tone was inconsiderate, but then I thought he was partly unhinged. The music playing in the store was loud, something psychedelic from the sixties or seventies. I decided to try to ignore him and began browsing records, flipping through the classic rock section, then on to blues and jazz. Some punk, even old country and western.
He told me he was so obsessed with Procol Harum that he’d named his oldest daughter after the band. “She and her husband live in a farmhouse outside of Kansas. It’s a flat and desolate area full of cockeyed mouth breathers. Good God. I haven’t seen them since I swallowed a bunch of pills thirteen years ago.”
The Removed Page 8