The Beadworkers

by Beth Piatote

  Iris laughed. “You know the most dangerous place? Between Russell Means and a camera.”

  There was a pause, then a laugh. And from that moment on they were friends.

  TO PLAY. All tokens are placed on the Home space, identified by the continental map of North America. To begin play, each player rolls the die. The first to roll a five begins, and the play proceeds from player to player in a clockwise fashion. Each player takes a turn by throwing the die and moving the corresponding number of spaces. If a player lands on a casino, he or she has the option to roll again but is not obligated to do so. More than one token can occupy a space at any given time, in accordance with special treaty provision.

  PROTOCOL. Players are expected to respect the integrity of the circle and never move their tokens across the board, but rather proceed always in a circular fashion. Protocol must be monitored by all players at the table. Breaking protocol can result in arbitrary fines, family shame, and teasing by other players.

  In the time that Trevor and Iris had known each other, they had been through a fair share of dramas together. Like most young Indians, they were preoccupied with their social lives, family situations, and the perennial question of going to law school. Every Indian family pressures its children to do something useful, and law school inevitably presents itself as a path to this end. Iris felt no particular aptitude for federal Indian law, despite her congenital familiarity with it, but Trevor had been struck with the fever in the fifth grade when he saw Al Smith at a powwow. As Al Smith circled around the arena, visiting and joking with small clusters of Indians, Trevor would hear folks whisper in his wake: “There’s Al Smith!” and “That’s Al Smith!” Trevor wondered what astonishing powers this slight man with the long graying braids might possess. Trevor strolled over to the bleachers and asked his uncle, “Who is Al Smith?” Trevor’s uncle had scanned the crowd, then pointed with his chin. “That’s Al Smith.” Trevor sighed, then asked again: “What did he do?” Trevor’s uncle leaned back against the wooden bleacher and regarded his nephew. Finally the uncle said, “You ever hear of Smith v. Oregon? That’s Al Smith. He’s the one who fought for us all the way to the Supreme Court.” Trevor’s uncle explained that Al Smith had been fired for taking peyote during a Native American Church ceremony, and that the State had then denied Smith unemployment benefits, saying that Smith had been fired for misconduct. Smith defended himself on the grounds of religious freedom and lost.

  Trevor’s uncle shook his head slightly. Then he went on: “You know who did that? Scalia! The Catholic! I tell you, we should fire that Scalia on Monday for taking Communion on Sunday.” Trevor’s uncle paused. “Al Smith fought for us,” he said, “and Congress tried to fix what the Court done. We have some religious protections because of him.” Trevor sat silently and thought about the story his uncle had told him. He looked out across the arena, and he felt his heart surge when he saw Al Smith v. Oregon standing beside a drum, laughing.

  When Trevor went to the university, he majored in history and political science, dutifully treading his path toward a JD. On the morning that Iris had first seen Trevor, in fact, he was on his way to his LSAT preparation course. As it happened, Trevor was also on his way to falling in love with his LSAT instructor, Brian, who would later dump him the night before the appointed test date. Consequently, on the morning of the exam Trevor was still so drunk that his hangover hadn’t even started, giving him just the sense of invincibility he needed to propel him forward. He got up and drank a glass of water. It had a slight aftertaste of irony. He pondered his options. He had to move on. He summoned all the warrior strength he’d learned from his mother and delivered himself to the testing site, the wound sitting in his chest as numb and rubbery as an eraser.

  TO ROAM. Once play begins, players are expected to continue around the board in turn. Exceptions to this rule are the following: (1) When a player’s token lands on any of the following spaces: Home, Julyamsh, Pendleton Round-Up, Crow Fair, Pi-Uma-Sha Treaty Days, Gathering of Nations, or the Intertribal Friendship House. On these spaces, the player has the option to pass and will not be required to roll the die and move until the next round. (2) Alternatively, a player has the option to roll again and thus accelerate forward movement around the board, i.e., Get Out of Dodge.

  HOME. Each time that a player circles back to Home, the player will receive the following combination of cash and trade goods: one hundred dollars from the bank; one hundred dollars from the player to his or her right; a horse from the corral; and a Pendleton Blanket card. For each Give Away that the player has hosted on that particular circle around the board, the allocation of cash and trade goods will be doubled. Players are not awarded cash and trade goods simply for passing Home, but must actually land on Home to receive his or her allotted share. A player who draws a Get Back Home Free card from the Stick Game deck is allowed to redeem it at any time.

  Iris had been there to pick up the pieces, so to speak. When the breakup was fresh, she regularly cooked for Trevor: noodle casseroles and meatloaf with potatoes, in huge quantities because that was the only way she knew how to make them. She stayed up late with him watching Jim Jarmusch movies. They went out drinking together, and she would ration one pint through the entire evening so that she could reasonably drive him home. She was careful about drinking anyway because she was quite small, with a birdlike body: thin legs and a compact middle. Her face was round and sweet, framed by her squarish, red eyeglasses and spiky dark hair. Iris became very protective of Trevor during this time, conscripting herself to defend him against Brian’s possible return. She knew that Brian occasionally phoned, and Trevor was always a wreck afterward.

  Iris’s job would have been easier, she thought, if she didn’t like Brian. She was vigilant precisely because she could see why Trevor loved him. Brian had a sharp wit but he didn’t use it unkindly, and he could make fun of himself. He was a generous partner to Trevor when they were together. But Brian had seemed too polite with Trevor, and it spoke of a peculiar distance that existed between them. Brian knew that he was the one more loved.

  Keeping watch over Trevor’s affections was the kind of distraction Iris needed that spring. Her auntie had been fighting off diabetes for years when one day a heart attack threw her to her knees in the produce aisle of the Safeway. Iris had gone straight home and stayed for two weeks, appointed at bedside, doing Design Depot assignments on her laptop while her auntie recovered from bypass surgery. When Iris had returned to her little apartment in Eugene, Trevor had been waiting at the door with a six-pack of Miller and an empty March Madness bracket.

  “I can’t do this without you,” he said.

  Inside the apartment, Trevor cracked open the beers. He set the bracket aside as Iris recounted the days with her family. Sometimes tears would spill out of her eyes while she was talking. She said that her auntie had dreamed of eels, and Iris knew that this meant that her auntie would live.

  Trevor and Iris sat side by side on the couch that was so worn down that they slid together into the well of cushions in the middle. Iris snuggled in to Trevor, and he lifted his arm to place it around her shoulder. His body was warm and reassuring.

  “How have you been?” she asked.

  He sighed.

  “Brian?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I just saw him in the parking lot of the store.”

  “It will get better,” she said, patting his knee gently.

  “My love life would be so much easier if I were white. And straight. And thin. And easy,” he said. “Or just any one of those things.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she said. “A little man belly is very attractive.”

  “Look, no offense,” he said. “But straight women have lower expectations. The man belly isn’t going to cut it in my world.”

  She pulled away from him a bit. She tried to push his last two words out of her mind, but they remained planted in her heart, a stubborn root.

  FEASTS. Four Feast Days appear on the b
oard. They are Root Feast, Salmon Feast, Huckleberry Feast, and Friendship Feast. When a player lands on a feast day, the player should exchange equivalent cash and/or trade goods with all other players (e.g., a horse for a horse, a blanket for a blanket, a twenty for a twenty). Players may negotiate for alternate exchanges as long as they are deemed equitable by both parties.

  It was Columbus Day, so the buses were running on a holiday schedule, making public transit both slower and more crowded than usual. When Iris finally climbed aboard, she was relieved to see Trevor standing toward the back, clutching the bar above for balance. She weaved into position next to him, wrapping her arm around the pole in the middle.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Ya-hey,” he said. “I called in sick today.”

  “So what are you doing?” she asked.

  “Going to the mall to celebrate the arrival of capitalism in the Americas.” The bus made a tight turn and Iris struggled for balance, leaning momentarily into Trevor.

  “I feel like I’m talking into your armpit,” she said. Trevor switched arms. “Better?” he asked. It was. He asked how the work on wIndin! was going.

  “I have this idea,” she said. “I’m going to make a space called ‘Racism-Free Zone,’ but it is going to be too small to actually fit on.”

  “Cool,” he said. The bus turned again, and he swayed in her direction. “Are you going to have a Jail?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not? Everyone is going to expect a jail. ‘Go to Jail, go directly to Jail, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars—you know, something like that.”

  “No.”

  “Not even a low-security prison?”

  “No.”

  “C’mon. You could make a card that says: ‘Hey, Indians really do pay taxes! But not you, so the IRS is throwing your brown ass in the slam.’”

  Iris sighed. She shifted position. He continued: “How about House Arrest? Just an ankle monitor.”

  “Trevor, that is effed up. No Indian has ever even seen a low-security prison,” she said. “No Indian has ever worn an ankle monitor.”

  “But it’s not real. It’s a game.”

  She looked up at him then, sudden and fierce. “I mean, it’s art,” he said. “It’s political art.”

  “Right,” she said. “I’m not having a jail.”

  STICK GAME CARDS. When a player lands on a Stick Game space, he or she must draw the top card from the deck of Stick Game cards, dispense or receive money and/or trade goods as the card indicates, and return the card to the bottom of the deck. The following exceptions apply: (1) A player may hold, trade, or sell the Tribal Corruption card once it has been drawn, and the holder of the card may retain it for the entire game. (2) If a player draws a Trust Pit card, the card must be taken out of circulation along with the player’s cash assets and placed in the TRUST PIT in the middle of the board.

  GIVE AWAY. There are three Give Away spaces on the board: Naming Give Away, Weddin’ Give Away, and Memorial Give Away. When a player arrives on a Give Away space, he or she is expected to distribute horses, blankets, and cash to fellow players. The exact quantity of items is determined by the player; however, each player must be awarded some combination of cash and trade goods. In the event that a player who lands on a Give Away space does not have adequate resources to host a Give Away, the other players will make contributions to the host. Each player should maintain a record of Give Aways hosted, as the player who has the most Give Aways is declared the winner.

  For Halloween, Trevor convinced Iris to go with him to a couples masquerade party as the Lone Ranger and Tonto. The party was a free-for-all, attracting the city’s trendiest straight couples to the city’s only gay bar. For a long time, Iris balked. But then Trevor played his trump card: What if Brian were there? So she gave in, and they found a white Western shirt at St. Vinny’s for two dollars fifty cents, which went along with Iris’s white denim pants, red cowboy boots, and black mask. Trevor, who had spent the summer working out, was showing off his newly svelte form in a body-conscious faux-buckskin outfit with laces up the front. When Iris caught a glimpse of herself with him in the glass storefronts that lined the sidewalk, she flushed for a moment with the thought that they could pass as a couple.

  So Iris was surprised when she ran into an acquaintance in the restroom, a young woman who worked as a barista at the coffee shop next to Design Depot. The woman, Jill, was wearing a red miniskirt, white knee socks with patent black Mary Janes, and a red hooded cloak.

  “Nice costume,” Iris offered, lifting her mask. The elastic cord held it firmly to the top of her head.

  Jill nodded brightly and removed her hood. “Thanks,” she said, smoothing her thick brown hair with one hand. “Love your Lone Ranger look. You look so little next to Tonto.”

  “As it should be,” Iris said. Jill gave a little laugh, showing her gleaming white teeth.

  “So,” Jill said. “Want to look in my basket?”

  “Um, sure.”

  Jill took a step closer and pulled back the top. It was full of condoms.

  “Good thinking,” Iris said.

  “It’s my job to hand these out tonight. I’m volunteering for HIV Alliance.” She offered the open basket to Iris. “Would you like one? Or five?”

  Iris blushed suddenly and stepped back. “Uh, no thanks.”

  “So,” Jill said. “You’re not with that guy?” When Iris didn’t answer, Jill continued, hurriedly: “I didn’t think so—you don’t really seem like a couple. I mean, except for the Lone Ranger–Tonto thing. Is he—is he your brother? I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but he is really hot! Do you think you might be able to, you know, introduce us?”

  In the rush of words Iris’s gaze fixed on the gaping jaw of the basket, hanging open off Jill’s arm.

  “Sure,” Iris said. Then added, “He’d be into you.”

  Jill thanked Iris and turned to the mirror to apply a fresh layer of lipstick. “See you out there!” she called as Iris left the room.

  Iris drifted back to the table and saw that Trevor had ordered another round of beers. She sat down stiffly beside him. Trevor glanced at her.

  “This sucks,” she said.

  Trevor leaned toward her ear. “What?” he asked, in a voice loud enough to prevail over the pounding techno beat.

  “This girl in the women’s room, she wants to meet you,” Iris shouted back. Trevor shrugged his shoulders dismissively. “So?” he asked.

  “It’s not . . . ” Iris struggled with her thoughts. “It’s just . . . she acted like . . . ” Iris caught her breath roughly. “She acted like there’s no way someone like you would be with someone like me.”

  “Well, she’s kind of right about that.”

  “But that’s just it! She doesn’t get that you’re gay. She wants to hook up with you.” Trevor registered her feelings and placed his hand gently on her shoulder. A tear slipped and glided down her cheek. He looked intently at her. He lifted his hand from her shoulder and brushed her cheek.

  “C’mon, Iris,” he said. She swallowed hard against a wave of emotion.

  “It’s true,” she said. “You’re hot and I’m just . . . ” Her voice trailed off. She felt absurd in her all-white outfit. He shook his head. He reclined in his chair and took a deep swallow of beer. Iris began to settle herself.

  Trevor studied her face. She felt the intensity of his attention and looked into his eyes. She gave him a half smile. Then she felt him move toward her.

  Slowly, without shifting his gaze, he reached for the mask. He gently pulled it down over her eyes. He smiled.

  He leaned into her then, and kissed her. Her mouth parted, and she barely felt his tongue. She had only the smallest taste of him.

  He drew back, but only a few inches. For a second she thought he may kiss her again.

  Trevor broke into a wide grin. “Let her think about that, Kemosabe.”

  He settled back into his chair and reached for his be
er. Iris let out a small, unanchored laugh. She looked toward the bar, scanning the line for Red Riding Hood. Iris couldn’t help it. She had to look.

  [Stick Game] Bingo! You won big-time at the tribal casino. Collect $5,000 from the bank. A photograph of you holding your giant check appears in the tribal paper, so everyone knows you have money. Distribute $6,000 to the other players at the table.

  [Stick Game] Congratulations! Your three-on-three basketball team won the regional tourney. Collect $500 from the bank and give everyone at the table $20 to celebrate.

  [Stick Game] You have just graduated from dental school and taken a job with the IHS. Congratulations! Collect a Pendleton Blanket card from each player.

  [Stick Game] Arrows from behind: the Tribal Museum Director has been stealing cornhusk bags and selling them on the internet. She was appointed by the previous Tribal Chair, her husband’s cousin, so give $500 to the Tribal Chair at the table and hope he’ll press charges.

  Trevor convinced Iris that if she were serious about snagging an Indian man, she needed to fish in deeper water. So in mid-November she fired up the Corolla and headed down I-5 for the annual American Indian Film Festival.

  Three days later, Iris left San Francisco just after midnight and headed home. She couldn’t wait to talk to Trevor, so once she cleared the mountains she pulled into a rest stop and got out her phone. It was six thirty on a Sunday morning. Trevor gave a groggy hello when she called.

  “Hey, Trevor, I met somebody.”

  “Yeah? At the film festival?”

  “Yeah, and we made out during this documentary on deforestation. I felt kind of bad, but the movie was so depressing! You know how that kind of thing just makes you want to escape?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Okay, well, that’s what happened.”