“Jesus,” I say when she’s done with her cig, “you better not smoke that way in college.”
We both become silent. College seems irrelevant suddenly, which is scary. It’s all I’ve thought about for years. But I don’t want to go to college, or anywhere, without Emmy.
She gets up, says she has to get something out of her bag in Teresa’s room. “Look,” she says when she returns. It’s the diamond necklace she wore the first weeks she was here. Why show it to me? “We can hock it for gas money.” I’m not sure. “Come on, Reuben.” When I don’t respond, she sings, “R-E-V-E-N-G-E,” instead of R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I grin, but I still don’t want anything to do with the necklace.
“Did you know Connor has his tongue pierced?”
“Really? What a fag.”
“You shouldn’t use that word.”
“Sorry. What a cocksucker. Does he really?”
“Yeah, and sometimes he’d cover my eyes when we had sex.”
“What the hell?”
“So let me hock the necklace. It’ll make me feel better”
“Let me throw it in the fucking Dumpster.”
“He didn’t cover your eyes. He covered mine.”
Good point. I tell her we’ll hit the pawnshop on the way out of town.
* * *
“Wait in your truck,” Emmy says as I pull in front of Basin Gun & Pawn. “This is between Connor and me.”
“What? No way.” Pawnbrokers are sleazy. She can’t talk very well to people she knows, like Teresa, let alone a greasy-haired stranger with a pinkie ring and a sour toothpick dangling from his mouth. “I’m not letting you go in there alone. Forget it.”
“Connor always made me strip. Always. He’d never undress me. I was like his personal porn star.”
“Fine.” I cave. “Just don’t tell me any more shit about that guy.”
She comes back out ten minutes later with three hundred dollars. She probably got only forty bucks for the necklace. I can’t picture Emmy bartering. The rest of the cash is Spencer’s. I’m not an idiot. But I love her smile and the confidence she tries to fake.
We drive north on highway 17 into the coulees. White people are fishing for trout and bass off the side of the road and in boats on the various reservoirs. These holding lakes, engineered together with pipes, pumps, smaller dams, and canals, make a fake branch of the Columbia—white man’s branch—so basin farmers can irrigate their thirsty crops. Just past Coulee City, I get on 155 to the dam. I could head west instead and take 97 north to Omak, but then we’d only skirt the rez. On 155, we have to go right past Grand Coulee Dam and then through a large portion of the rez to get to Omak. Emmy’s eyes practically pop out when she first sees the dam. Whose wouldn’t? It’s only fifty feet short of being a mile across. Whites love to brag about how much concrete Coulee Dam contains: enough to pave a highway from Seattle to Miami; three times more than Hoover Dam. It’s the largest concrete structure in the United States. Emmy knows how I feel about the dam, what it’s done to the river, the salmon, my people. I already told her. Her great-grandfathers probably helped build it. Fuck, so did mine.
We’re on the rez. She’s been sitting close but scoots closer. After about ten minutes, we pass the agency headquarters. I point them out to Emmy. Across the highway, I point out the Nespelem Community Center and powwow arena. We pass the state’s POINT OF HISTORICAL INTEREST sign for Chief Joseph’s grave. I don’t point to it—out of respect to Chief Joe and his descendants who live here. Emmy starts to point to the sign but then only looks back at it. As a rule, I don’t take white girls driving around the rez. Other Indian boys do, but not me. We pass decent-looking trailer houses, then junky ones, some even with the “skin” torn off, others bandaged with plywood. Emmy says nothing. Every once in a while there’s a nice trailer set off with a well-maintained yard and outbuildings. We pass houses and shacks in the town of Nespelem. She must see the rusted cars and appliances, strewn garbage, broken trampolines and swing sets, but she stays silent. “Poverty isn’t looked down upon on the rez,” I tell her as we pass the Nespelem longhouse. “The elders say we’re all in this together.”
The scattered pines thicken as we start to climb the pass.
When the trees get dense and shade darkens the cab, Emmy whispers, “I love you, Reuben.” I feel the words in my joints. “I love you more than I love Beth.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I do have to say it. I feel so guilty.”
“Just breathe,” I tell her. It’s not safe to pull over here—way too curvy—or I would. “We’ll go to Spokane first thing in the morning.”
“Are we in the Cascades?” she asks between breaths. “Aunt Beth and I stayed in the foothills.”
I explain that the mountains on the rez are part of the Okanogan Highlands, not the Cascades. “But you’ll see the Cascades as soon as we head west.”
Emmy relaxes when the land opens back up. Right here is one of my favorite parts of the rez. I point to the snow-covered Cascades in front of us. At least whites can’t flatten them as they’ve slowed and backed up the flow of the Columbia with their, what, fourteen dams on the main stem alone. When Coyote returns—and the elders promise he will—he certainly has his work cut out for him.
Emmy is doing much better. She points to horses and ponies that she finds pretty, which is damn near all of them, and there are a lot.
We’re back in sage as we make it to Omak by two in the afternoon. I drive Emmy around town, show her the stampede grounds, Suicide Hill, the high school. I want her to meet my mom while she’s at work, in hopes she’ll be somewhat sober. I try to find parking in front of the bar or the Laundromat next door. Shit. A church youth group is singing on the corner. I park across the street. We get out. Emmy seems mesmerized by the group of teenagers, holding signs and crosses and singing about victory in Jesus. “Can we watch for a minute?” she asks when I grab her hand to start walking.
“Sure.” I’d love nothing more. Not.
“Her voice is beautiful,” Emmy says about the girl holding a megaphone. “Like Beth’s.”
“That’s Jenny. She goes to my school.”
“She’s kind of pretty.”
I’ve never really thought so before. “Her dad’s a rodeo drunk.” I explain how the bar where Mom works caters to whites and Indians. Hence the Christians singing on the corner. Jenny’s dad drinks in the white cowboy bar a few streets over.
“I’m sorry I made you go to church with me,” Emmy says.
“You didn’t make me.”
We cross the street. Jenny, who is between songs, smiles at me. I think her dad hits her. She and I partnered on a school project last year and she had suspicious bruises. The project, proposed by a new-to-the-area teacher, was to incorporate some Colville Coyote tales into the literature curriculum. The Christian kids, white and Mexican, had a hard time grasping the “slipperiness” of Coyote. Was he considered a god or not? We Indian kids, for the most part, kept our mouths shut. The teacher finally concluded that Coyote, like Jesus, had been sent by the Creator to do work for humans. One kid decided Coyote was the Antichrist. Even Jenny struggled, though in a far less obnoxious way, with Coyote being both a good and a bad example. The teacher pointed out that the Greek gods were also “complex”—pursuing fleeing maidens, deceiving, losing their tempers, but also helping with wisdom and kindness. She stated that perhaps striving to mirror the perfection of Jesus Christ was self-defeating. Wrong thing to say. Flustered, she moved the class on to Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of madness, which practically sent the Gothic kids into orgasm.
“Hello, Reuben,” Jenny says now.
“Hi, Jenny,” I reply, squeezing Emmy’s hand. Emmy smiles at her. Of course she does.
Emmy looks different from the Christian girls singing on the corner. She looks different from the most popular girls at Omak High, who have
ten times Emmy’s confidence and just as many clothes. I didn’t fully realize the difference until now. It’s not just Emmy’s mix of styles but the way she wears each piece. I sound gay as hell. The popular girls here wear a lot of pink. Emmy doesn’t. Neither does she have long fake nails with white tips. She paints her nails but keeps them short. It’s also the way Emmy holds herself and walks: not with certainty, like the wealthy white girls, or attitude, like the tougher Indian girls, but something. Maybe grace. Femininity. But she’s not docile or even dainty. I can’t figure it out. Certainly I don’t think it’s a California thing. Every once in a while Emmy loses it in a big way and slouches or becomes awkward or even stumbles. The girl sure can move during sex, though, especially for someone who can’t ride a bike, shoot hoops, or supposedly dance.
Before Emmy and I left Moses Lake, Teresa said she’d call Mom for me and explain the situation. Mom was mad at me the last time we saw each other, and drunk. If Mom listened to Teresa, as she does on occasion, she’ll be a saint today. If not, she’ll be drunk off her ass in spite. Where Emmy and I stay the night depends on which it is.
We walk into the dark bar. I hear Mom calling my name before I see her.
She yells again over the honky-tonk music. She sits in one of the back booths, next to the white guy who’s been giving her so much hell lately. He wears a cowboy hat but sells cars, and I guarantee he’s never ridden a horse down Suicide Hill like Dad. Mom’s boyfriend has a wife, but he likes to screw Indian women on the side. Fuck him. I make it a point to never stick around when Mom has a new guy, Indian or white. I stay with one of my aunts or with Ray or wherever. Her relationships never last long. Dad was by far the longest. Until recently, my little sister, Lena, has been keeping Mom sober. Better than I ever could. Mom’s got two empty shot glasses in front of her. “Hey, baby boy.” She gets up to hug me. No wobbling. That’s good. I introduce her to Emmy. “You’re a doll,” she says to Emmy. “Isn’t she a doll, Harold?”
“Mom,” I whisper. “Can we get a different booth?” I grip Emmy’s hand. “Away from Gerald?”
“Sure, baby. It’s Harold. Go grab a table up front. Let me refill some drinks and I’ll be over. You kids want a couple burgers?”
I, for one, am starving. “Definitely.”
We grab a table. There’s only about six other people in the bar. Emmy looks around at all the cowboy and Indian decor on the walls: dream catchers, horseshoes, oil paintings, neon signs, a beaded Indian vest. “You doing okay?” I ask her.
“I’m fine, baby.”
I grin. She’s being cool. I thought she might get instantly uptight in a joint like this. I wouldn’t blame her. And especially considering her aunt’s in a coma. We’ll leave extra early in the morning for Spokane. Luckily Beth isn’t in the same hospital where my dad never recovered. I can tell Emmy’s trying hard not to think about her aunt, but worry clouds her gray eyes. “You want a cigarette?” I offer.
She nods. “I’ve never been in a bar.”
“It’s a great atmosphere. Don’t you think?” I light us both a cigarette. “Desperation.”
“Assimilation.” Here comes the wordplay—and a smile.
“Proclamation,” I say. “As in the Emancipation Proclamation.”
“Confederation. As in twelve tribes on one reservation.”
“As in group masturbation.”
“As in taking your own ass to the station.”
I high-five Emmy.
Mom is standing beside the table, holding two Cokes and looking confused. She puts down the Cokes. I invite her to sit with us. She looks back at the booth where Harold is. “Okay. For a minute.” I can see now that she’s pretty drunk. She and Emmy talk a little. Mom’s going to think Emmy is stuck up, but she’s just shy and has a lot on her mind. Twice Emmy brings up Teresa’s kids and Grace’s beadwork. Mom’s not trying at all. She keeps looking just at me and calling me baby. She starts talking in our native language. I don’t know it very well. Just enough. But even if I did, I’d reply in English, which I do. The cook calls her. She gets up and comes back with our burgers and fries. “On Harold,” she says, serving us, but not sitting back down.
“No, thanks.” I hand my plate back to her. Emmy kicks me under the table.
“Tell him we said thanks, Marie,” Emmy says.
“You’re a doll,” Mom says to her. “You go tell him. He speaks English.”
“Mom, fuck.”
Emmy gets up to go tell Harold thanks.
“Sit down,” I tell Emmy. She doesn’t listen.
“Sorry, baby,” Mom says.
I watch Emmy. I watch the cowboys at the bar who turn to watch Emmy. My dad suddenly joins them. I should tell Mom, but I don’t. He’s watching Emmy, but not in a lusty way. There’s almost a protective look on his face. I’m not sure I’ve ever loved him more. He gets up and two-steps for a minute to the honky-tonk music. I try not to grin. Then he does a few native dance moves to a far older rhythm—a rhythm he’s always heard better than I can. “Listen,” the elders say. To the earth, they mean, to the fish, to the wind, to the silence of rocks, to your fathers. But what if your father is a drunk? Your uncles? My dad stops dancing. He gives me the same warning gesture he did on Teresa’s couch. “Listen,” he’s insisting. He was never pushy with me while he was alive. Then he disappears.
“She doesn’t listen to you very well,” Mom says.
“I’m not her boss.” Why is Dad so adamant with his warning? Doesn’t he understand that I hear things in Emmy’s quietness? In her breath? I hear the blood in her veins same as he could hear fish in the rivers. I wonder if he hangs at this bar often. According to Teresa, Mom’s never seen his ghost. He wasn’t easy on Mom. He used to call her Mama Marie. It can’t be too long before Dad moves completely into the spirit world. He should’ve already. I’m his only son, but I never thought his unwillingness to move on had anything to do with me. In life, Dad had his own reasons for things, and they didn’t include me.
“She must be your boss,” Mom says. “You’re wearing white boy clothes.”
I’m wearing the cargo shorts and checked shirt I bought myself. I look at my mom. I don’t hate her. I never could. But I don’t always like her. “I hope you don’t let Gerald boss you.”
She takes my chin in her hand. “Eat. You look thin. Teresa never feeds you enough.”
I pull my face free. “Don’t start on Teresa.” What’s taking Emmy so long? She’s too damn polite to walk away when a drunk is rambling.
“I’m praying for the white girl’s aunt.”
“Her name is Emmy.” Here she comes.
“See you and Emmy later at the apartment,” Mom says. “I’ll make dinner for you guys. And Harold. And Lena.”
Not hardly.
* * *
I pick up Lena from my aunt Lori’s house to take her to my great-aunt Shirley’s house on the Sanpoil River, where Emmy and I are staying the night. Shirley is my great-aunt on my dad’s side. She’s also Ray’s great-aunt. She was raised in a boarding school and is afraid of white people. She won’t mind Emmy, though. Lena, who is seven, insists on sitting between Emmy and me in my truck on the forty-minute drive, but then she leans her head on Emmy, not me. Emmy puts her arm around Lena. “You’re pretty,” my sister says, taking Emmy’s hand. “And your hands are so warm.”
“Not as pretty as you,” Emmy says.
“I like your sunglasses.”
“Here, you can have them.” Emmy takes off her Hollywood sunglasses and gives them to Lena without looking at me. My sister puts them on immediately.
“I’m a dancer,” Lena brags. She is. Mom takes her all over for competitions and powwows and rodeos. Or my aunts do.
“Will you show me a dance later?” Emmy asks.
“Only if Reuben will dance with me.”
“No way, little sister.”
“
Then will you drum while I dance?” Lena asks.
“Be quiet, pipsqueak, or I’ll take you back to Aunt Lori’s.”
“Emmy won’t let you.” She snuggles in closer to Emmy.
Emmy’s been smiling the whole time with Lena. But when I look over at Emmy next, she’s crying. I reach over and squeeze her shoulder.
“What’s wrong, Emmy?” Lena asks with real concern.
I answer. “Emmy’s only aunt is sick. She’s in the hospital.”
Lena asks Emmy, “You only have one aunt?” Shit. Emmy nods. “Then I’ll dance for her tonight.” Lena turns to me. “Hurry and drive, Mr. Slowpoke.”
Ray shows up at dinnertime, as usual. But I’m glad. He can drum for Lena, who is anxious to dance. Aunt Shirley insists we all eat first. The meat is venison. I transfer Emmy’s portion to Ray’s plate when Aunt Shirley glances at the television that’s turned down but never off. Mostly she watches HSN. She never orders anything but has been considering a new set of pots and pans for years. I’m glad my aunt doesn’t mention the venison is from me. A small fork horn that I nearly lost last week. I quartered it out and gave half to Aunt Shirley and half to Mom. Aunt Shirley’s two sons have been dead for almost thirty years, killed in a single vehicle accident, and her husband for twenty. It’s not that I don’t want to drum for Beth. I have already. But I can’t drum in front of Emmy. Not yet. Ray introduces himself to Emmy in his usual fashion, explaining his name. “I’m Ray,” he says. “Short for Rainier. The beer, not the mountain.”
Before I build a fire in the pit in the backyard, I sneak Emmy away for a quick walk alone in the pines and along the river. The Sanpoil’s current will give her strength. It’s nine o’clock and still not dark. I build the fire. Aunt will need more wood chopped before September. Ray drums in his Seattle Mariners cap, and Lena dances in a buckskin dress and Emmy’s funky sunglasses. Emmy and I sit side by side in camp chairs that have seen better days. My aunt’s house has seen better days. My people have seen better days. Though not for a long, long time. Emmy watches Lena. Ray drums and sings. I sing too because I can’t help it. I pray because I can’t help it.
Steal the North: A Novel Page 19