Tangled Roots

by Marcia Talley

  I’d never developed a taste for beer, besides, I was driving. ‘Coke for me, please, if you have one.’

  As we were making our selections, Mai emerged from the RV carrying a box of sugar cookies.

  Julie selected a cookie to go along with her Coke, then turned her green eyes on Nick. ‘Can I ask you something, like, personal?’

  Nick seemed to flush. ‘Sure.’

  ‘I don’t want to step on any toes, so I’m wondering what, um, the indigenous people of the Americas prefer to be called. Indians? Native Americans?’

  ‘Speaking for our tribe,’ Nick said, ‘we use the term LDN Peoples – Lakota, Dakota and Nakota.’

  ‘I’ll bet that has some people scratching their heads,’ Julie said. ‘Trying to figure it out, I mean, like LGBTQ or something.’

  Sam laughed out loud. ‘Tell me about it!’

  ‘Julie probably mean Indians in general,’ Nick offered.

  Julie nodded.

  ‘“Indian” is the term we’ve known for generations. The term Native American is relatively new. Like African-American, it arose in the sixties and seventies out of political-correctness concerns of the civil rights era.’

  ‘Not too long ago somebody took a survey and asked Indians that same question,’ Mai cut in. ‘Fifty percent said they preferred American Indian, thirty-seven liked Native American and the rest had no preference.’

  ‘So Indian is good?’

  ‘It’s good.’

  I angled my chair so that it faced into the sun and adjusted my sunglasses, hoping to make my Vitamin D quotient for the week. ‘Tell me about the Native Lives Matter March,’ I said. ‘Is it about police brutality? I read in the New York Times or somewhere that Native Americans are being killed by police at a higher rate even than African-Americans and are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people.’

  Nick rested his beer can on his knee. ‘Organizers are taking a page from the Black Lives Matter movement, sure, but the fact of the matter is that you can’t have a legitimate conversation about racism, about institutionalized racism in particular, or about white supremacy without inviting native peoples to the table. At Pine Ridge, though, we’re focused much more broadly. Lack of housing is our number one concern.’

  ‘Then there’s poverty, unemployment, struggles with substance abuse,’ Sam added, gesturing with his beer can. ‘It’s all related.’

  Mai’s face grew serious. ‘Two of my friends from high school committed suicide last year. There were twenty-three youth suicides in 2015. It’s an epidemic.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mai,’ I said.

  But Mai was just getting wound up. ‘This country gives away billions and billions in foreign aid to countries most people have never even heard of. Our nation was built on two horrors.’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘One. The genocide of indigenous peoples and, two, the enslavement of Africans …’ She paused. ‘We want politicians to listen to us. They just have to do better!’

  Considering the current occupants of Capitol Hill, there was vast room for improvement.

  Julie plunked her empty soda can down on a folding end table. ‘OK, you talked me into it. I’m coming to the march. Where do I sign up?’

  I shot a warning glance her way, but if Julie noticed, she ignored it.

  Nick and Mai exchanged glances, then Nick turned to Julie and grinned. ‘We’re assembling at Judiciary Square at ten. The first stop is the Government Accountability Office at 4th and G.’

  Mai shot from her chair. ‘I’ll get you a printout,’ and disappeared into the RV.

  ‘GAO?’ I asked. ‘The waste, fraud and abuse agency? What does GAO have to do with Indian affairs?’

  ‘That’s where the Bureau of Land Management has their offices.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, thinking pipelines and fracking.

  ‘Then we march down 7th Street to the FBI, and from there, on to the White House. We’ll end up at the park in front of the Department of Interior, at 18th and E. That’s where the Bureau of Indian Affairs hangs out.’

  I’d worked in Washington, DC for years and was familiar with the route. ‘That’s a long walk,’ I said. ‘I hope the weather cooperates.’

  ‘According to Alexa this morning, it’s supposed to be sunny.’

  ‘Here’s the information.’ Mai was back.

  She handed me two sheets of paper. One was a black and white map of the parade route, the other a list of instructions: So You’re Going to Join a Protest March: Health and Safety Tips. My eyes scanned the list. I’d need to have $100 in my pocket, in case I was arrested, and leave my contact lenses at home because of tear gas. Swell.

  Maybe it was the ominous advice about writing the telephone number of your lawyer on your arm in Magic Marker that made me turn to Julie and say, ‘Julie, you will absolutely have to ask your parents for permission to do this.’

  ‘Why? I’m eighteen.’

  ‘But you’re living at home,’ I said reasonably. ‘Unless you’re planning to move out, they still get to call the shots.’

  She scowled. ‘Can I tell them you’ll be coming with me?’

  Mai and Nicholas stared at me expectantly.

  I looked at Julie. Her face wore that obstinate you-know-I’m-going-to-do-it-anyway look I’d seen hundreds of times before on my own daughter Emily. Somebody had to watch out for the kid. ‘How can I refuse?’ I said.

  SEVENTEEN

  6:30 a.m. I had just begun to enjoy my first cup of coffee when Julie texted with a last-minute change of plans. Rather than driving herself down to Annapolis, she would be catching a Baltimore Light Rail train at Cold Spring Lane. Could I pick her up at the BWI airport station?

  An hour and a half later, I cruised past the International Air Terminal and pulled into the ‘no standing’ zone in front of the light rail station, but the platform was practically empty. A uniformed guard scowled and waved me away, forcing me to exit the airport and circle around. When I pulled into the station again, I was relieved to see that the guard had moved on. As my car idled, I checked my iPhone to see if Julie had left a text message.

  Someone rapped on my car window. Thinking it was the guard back to scold me for the second time, I dropped the phone onto the passenger seat, shifted into drive and prepared to pull away.

  But it wasn’t the guard. Julie’s Baltimore Poly T-shirt filled the passenger side window. I popped the lock. She opened the door, tossed her book bag on the floor and slid into the passenger seat.

  ‘What have you done to your hair?’ I gasped, although the answer was perfectly obvious. Julie had dyed her hair flat, shoe-polish black and arranged it in a single braid, the end wrapped with a yellow and red woven band. No wonder I’d missed seeing her on the platform.

  ‘I’m embracing my heritage,’ she explained.

  ‘But …’ I began.

  ‘My parents hate it, too,’ Julie said, as if reading my mind. ‘Dad had an absolute fit. That’s why I’m car-less again.’

  ‘Seatbelt,’ I said, and waited until my niece was strapped in before driving away. ‘It’s not your best look.’

  ‘It’ll wash out,’ she said. ‘Eventually.’

  ‘I always wanted red hair,’ I confessed as I merged onto US 1 heading south toward DC. ‘You and your mother seem to have cornered the red hair market in our family. You should show more respect for such a gift.’

  Our older sister, Ruth, had been fair-haired as a girl but had gone prematurely white, courtesy (I always felt) of her first marriage to the womanizing Eric Gannon. My curls were the same mousy brown they’d always been, although these days streaked with more gray.

  ‘So, who do you think your grandfather was?’ Julie asked, wisely steering the conversation in another direction. ‘If what Aunt Wasula told us is true, it has to be either White Bear or Hawk.’

  ‘It certainly seems so,’ I said. ‘She may be one hundred and two, but memory-wise she’s still playing with a full deck of cards.’

  ‘I’m
hoping it’s White Bear,’ Julie said. ‘He seemed, I don’t know, nicer? Always helping out at the clinic and stuff.’

  ‘Your great-grandmother was very attractive,’ I said. ‘I’m not surprised he hung around.’

  ‘Wasula believes that White Bear was murdered, doesn’t she?’

  ‘It certainly looks that way,’ I said.

  ‘Two juniors got suspended from Poly last year for fighting in the restroom,’ Julie said. It seemed like a non sequitur until she added, ‘One didn’t like that the other was taking Maryanne Grayson to see Despicable Me 3. What anyone sees in that stuck-up little bitch is beyond me.’

  I shot a scowl sideways.

  ‘Tramp?’ Julie amended.

  ‘How about floozy,’ I suggested with a grin. After a minute I added, more soberly, ‘You may be right. Lovers’ triangles sometimes end in tragedy. Think about Julius Caesar, Marc Anthony and Cleopatra.’

  ‘Or John Mayer, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry,’ she said.

  I had no idea who Julie was talking about: two generations separated by a common language.

  By the time we pulled into the Greenbelt Metro parking lot (only two dollars all day Saturday!) Julie had concluded that White Bear and Charlotte had been romantically involved and someone had killed him in a jealous rage. Julie’s alternate theory, in which Charlotte, the attractive visiting nurse, had been raped and gallant White Bear had had a confrontation over it, was put on the back-burner. ‘Nobody wants to be the product of rape,’ Julie said reasonably. ‘So until evidence surfaces to the contrary, I’m going with the first story.’

  ‘You read too many romance novels,’ I teased as Julie and I headed for the ticket machines. ‘Ever heard of Occam’s Razor?’

  Julie slotted a ten-dollar bill into the machine and topped up her SmarTrip card. ‘Help me out, Aunt Hannah.’

  ‘Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem,’ I quoted. ‘All things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.’

  ‘You mean White Bear’s horse got spooked and trampled him to death?’

  ‘It could have been that simple,’ I said as we passed through the turnstiles.

  From two steps above me on the escalator, Julie looked back and said, ‘I like my theory better.’

  My niece and I rode the Green Line into the city and got off at Gallery Place where we flowed in the direction of the escalator, joining an ever-increasing river of high-spirited, poster-carrying protesters. In such close quarters, I was thankful that Nick and Mai had volunteered to bring the protest signs. I had no idea what mine would say but prayed it wouldn’t embarrass me if in the future I lost my mind and decided to run for political office.

  Hoping to avoid the larger crowd that I knew would be assembling at the police memorial at Judiciary Square, I’d suggested we meet the Johnson family on the southwest corner of 5th and F Streets. By the time we got there, however, the crowd was already surging down F, heading for the memorial, carrying us along like trees uprooted in a flash flood. ‘Stay close, Julie,’ I said as we bobbed on tiptoe, like prairie dogs, scanning the crowd for our new-found family.

  ‘No worries.’ Julie leaned against the wall of a fire station, eased her cell phone out of her back pocket, woke it up and tapped the Find My Friend app. ‘Almost here,’ she announced, turning the screen so I could see the map. Nick’s icon was moving east along H Street, rapidly closing the distance between us. ‘They must have gotten off at Metro Center,’ she said, her thumbs darting about the keyboard as she sent her cousin a text.

  While being jostled right and left, Julie and I had a hard time staying put, but eventually we spotted the real Nick rounding the corner at 5th and G. Nick was skillfully steering the wheelchair with Wasula in it through the crowd which parted before them like the Red Sea.

  Julie waved both arms overhead and shouted, ‘Over here!’

  As he drew closer, Nick caught sight of her, his face puzzled. ‘Don’t ask,’ Julie said, gently shoving him aside and taking charge of Wasula’s wheelchair. ‘Yesterday I thought it was a good idea.’

  Mai giggled and linked her arm through Julie’s. ‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘Dye or rinse?’

  ‘Rinse,’ Julie said. ‘I wasn’t that brave!’

  ‘Shall we wait for your father?’ I asked, thinking that Sam had somehow gotten lost in the crowd.

  ‘Worst luck.’ Nick frowned. ‘The air con in the RV’s conked out. He’s waiting for the repairman. If it weren’t so hot …’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘C’mon, Nick!’ his sister said.

  Wasula, I noticed, was in charge of the picket signs, stowed as they were in a bag hung over the back of her wheelchair. She was dressed in the same outfit she’d been wearing when I first met her but had swapped the cardigan for a multi-colored shawl that matched the beaded circle earrings that dangled from her ears. Wasula’s green ball cap made me smile: MAKE AMERICA NATIVE AGAIN.

  Nick did the honors, handing me a handmade sign that said, ‘INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE SINCE 1492.’

  ‘I like it,’ I said. ‘Very much.’

  ‘Dibs on this one!’ Julie said, grabbing another of the signs he’d fanned out in front of him. She waved it in a few practice arcs over her head: TWEET NATIVE AMERICANS WITH RESPECT.

  Carrying a sign that said, HONOR THE TREATIES, Mai charged ahead leading Julie, Wasula and the wheelchair. We followed close behind. Soon our family cluster became engulfed by a crowd that pitched and heaved, amoeba-like, along the entire length of the street between the General Accountability Office and the Pension Building.

  At ten o’clock precisely, a Native American I took to be the leader of the demonstration mounted the steps in front of the soulless, block-like building and took charge. Dressed in a fringed white leather jacket and wearing a magnificent feathered headdress, he aimed a bullhorn at the protestors.

  ‘Irresponsible decision …’ the bullhorn spit and crackled. ‘Future generations …’

  ‘What’s he saying?’ I shouted into Julie’s ear.

  ‘Who knows?’ she shouted back. ‘Isn’t this fun?’

  ‘Suffer the consequences …’ the spokesman continued. ‘Risking natural resources …’

  Wasula tugged on Nick’s arm. ‘Isn’t anyone from the Corps of Engineers going to come out and speak to us?’

  ‘It’s Saturday, T’unwín-la. They’re probably at home, grilling burgers in the back yard.’

  ‘Cowards,’ she muttered. ‘We’re here. They should be, too.’

  ‘Who’s the guy with the bullhorn?’ I asked Nick.

  ‘Spotted Dog,’ he said, ‘One of our sub-chiefs.’

  ‘Water is life, water is life, water is life!’ Spotted Dog chanted into the bullhorn.

  As he no doubt intended, the protestors picked up the cry: ‘Water is life, water is life, water is life!’ as we followed Spotted Dog west, marching to the hypnotic beat of a half-dozen native drums and waving tribal flags and protest signs.

  At 7th Street the exuberantly noisy crowd flowed south, heading for the crumbling J. Edgar Hoover Building where the FBI still had its headquarters. I warned our group well away from the building, recently swathed in construction netting to keep chunks of it from falling on the heads of passersby.

  A Native American girl I took to be around ten climbed up on one of the concrete planters and, borrowing a protest song from the early days of the civil rights movement, launched into ‘We Shall Overcome’ in a clear, high soprano. Several thousand voices strong, we joined in while continuing west on Pennsylvania Avenue. Spotted Dog stopped short in front of what used to be the old Post Office Building, now converted into the controversial Trump International Hotel.

  The singing gradually died. Boos and catcalls ensued. No surprise. Donald J. Trump was the president who had signed an executive order, reversing an earlier Obama administration stay, that allowed construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline under Lake Oahe to resume. 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day now flowed under the re
servation’s main water supply.

  ‘Too bad it’s not dark,’ I said. ‘There’s a renegade multi-media artist who sometimes shows up with a projector to beam messages over the entrance, like “Emoluments Welcome: Pay Bribes Here”.’

  Mai’s eyes widened. ‘Doesn’t he get arrested?’

  ‘I don’t think the guy’s breaking any laws,’ I said. ‘He’s got the projector hooked up to his laptop on a rolling battery-powered cart, and he’s not blocking the sidewalk or anything.’

  ‘It’s totally hysterical,’ said Julie. ‘Remember when Trump was calling Africa and Haiti shithole countries?’

  Nick, who had been releasing the brake on his aunt’s wheelchair preparing to move on, looked up with interest. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The guy projected “This place is a shithole” over the door.’

  Nick and Mai laughed.

  I wasn’t sure Wasula was following our conversation until she gave a big thumbs up.

  As we marched up Pennsylvania Avenue in the direction of the White House, I took over wheelchair duties, while Nick, Mai and Julie ambled slightly ahead, their protest signs and three dark heads – Julie’s dye job still had the ability to shock – bobbing along together. Every once in a while Nick would glance back, presumably to make sure he hadn’t lost the geezers.

  The heat was intense and it was only eleven o’clock. I was grateful for my hat, but my nose stung; I wore no sunscreen because, according to Mai’s brochure, it would cause tear gas to stick to your skin.

  At the street corner by the Willard Hotel, we were confronted by a band of anti-protesters, carrying signs: THE ONLY GOOD INDIAN IS A DEAD INDIAN and GO BACK TO THE REZ.

  ‘I wondered how long it would take before the likes of them showed up,’ Wasula grumbled.

  The ragtag band – about ten in number – danced at the periphery of our march, just out of fist-fight range. The police presence, I noticed, had increased, too. Uniformed officers – DC Metro by their insignia – lined both sides of the street. As we spilled into Lafayette Square Park, those officers were supplemented by US Park Police, some wearing green Day-Glo vests over their summer uniforms.