by Layla Wolfe
Ozzie also made his eyes slits. “Why would I send a Russian to follow you? Don’t worry about what’s not your concern. We’ve got people already fanning out, offering cash to people to rebuild their own homes.”
“Hush money.”
“Money to rebuild. We’re going to use the clean leach mining process. No one can complain about that.”
“You’re going to make uranium soup right in the water? Because that’s what it is. I’ve looked at every Navajo well. They all tap into the same aquifer—”
“Ah, here we go!” Ozzie grandly cried as he practically embraced two goons with aviator shades and ear pieces, heading toward me like a wave of acid rain.
Was he going to give me the bum’s rush to his plane without even giving me a chance to talk to Twinkletoes? Wasn’t this the equivalent to being fired? Handed a box with all the shit from your desk and being escorted to the elevator?
“Whoa, whoa,” I said. “Give me a chance to gather some things from my trailer. I need my laptop and clothes at the very least.”
“Of course!” Ozzie waved an arm that nearly brained me. “These fellows are just here to help you pack up!”
It was always hard to read that insipid, wide grin of his that practically truncated his face in two. But I had no choice, and the G-men nearly grabbed both my biceps and trotted me off to my rental car. They both sat in the back seat like Lyft customers while I drove the drive of shame back to my trailer. Forlorn, I was forced to look at Noel’s little white church as we cruised by like we were in a funeral procession. I saw Galileo on a tall ladder cleaning out the gutters, looking about to topple over like he was on stilts. But I didn’t see Noel.
The last time I would see Noel would be that strange, confusing time I’d practically run out of the room, terrified we might actually have a real relationship waiting in the wings for us. I’d told him I couldn’t even be a part-time lover, especially to a priest. How insulting and damaging was that remark? Noel had just used the word “love.” Now Ozzie Avery’s plan for me would take me far away, far enough that any reasonable sort of affair, even conducted in secret, would be fucking impossible.
Twinkletoes was in the trailer, sitting patiently on the edge of a fold-out bed. He almost looked like a studious boy, a giant stretch for a weedy kid in a boxy leather vest. “Twinkletoes,” I gasped, as the escorts took to picking up papers all about the living room and glancing at them. “I’m being sent back to Aurora.”
“What?” he cried quietly. “What the fuck, Fremont? They need you here more than ever.”
“It’s punishment,” I said, grabbing my suitcase and shoving dirty clothes into it. “And to shut me up. I know too much.”
Twinkletoes scoffed. “Well, isn’t that the point of having a project manager on-site? That they know a lot?”
“Apparently not. Avery has some new and idiotic plan to use this leach mining process. This is going to poison even more wells. I need you to stay here.”
“Ten-four, Kemosabe.”
“I want you to recruit high school kids to collect water from wells. Start with Bloodgood Junior and enlist all his friends. We can send the vials to labs.”
“Okay. Did you hear about the medicine man who put a curse on your project? He’s sick of bilagáana meddling.”
“I’ll get Bloodgood Senior to reverse his curse.”
Jutting out my lower lip, I returned to my frantic packing. I couldn’t even look Twinkletoes in the face.
So finally, I rode solemnly back toward Ozzie’s stupid plane, feeling like I was going to my own execution.
There was nothing to be done. I was being forced off the rez. Billowing cumulus clouds above signaled a break in the chain of storms, and chittering shorebirds played in the puddles and lakes. But my heart was leaden.
I was a zombie as I stomped up the stairs to the plane, my feet made of cement. Cement shoes. That’s what U-238 would dress me in before long if I didn’t make a drastic change.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NOEL
I was bereft, empty in my soul.
I had been peering out my window when Ozzie Avery’s plane landed. Of course, I didn’t see where Avery himself went from there, blocked by several swelling dunes. And I had no way to know that when the plane took off again, it held my sweet, beloved Fremont. The notion that Avery would actually recall Fremont from the job when Fremont was the only one who knew anything was completely beyond the pale.
I didn’t find out until Twinkletoes called me. Yes, Fremont had been fired, or reassigned, if you will. He had clearly not stood his ground to Avery. Now the land was overflowing with men in Tyvek suits examining wells and stockpiles. Worst, Fremont didn’t call me for several days. I left him one pathetic voicemail wondering what was going on, and he never even replied to that. I wound up giving a genuinely fire and brimstone sermon that Sunday, scaring some folks.
“Most high, omnipotent good Lord, grant your people grace to renounce gladly the vanities of this world, that following the way of the blessed Francis, we may for love of you delight in your whole creation with perfection of joy. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you . . . “
Some in the congregation looked nonplussed. It wasn’t until much later I realized I was, in an indirect way, telling them water didn’t matter as long as they followed God. I made it worse by raving,
“If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God.”
In essence, or at least the way it was interpreted, was that the Diné basic needs like food and clothing didn’t matter, that they’d be taken care of as long as they blindly trusted, like toddlers learning to walk, clutching at walls. Which was bullshit. Everyone required food and water. Only then could they turn to more luxurious activities, like worship.
Several people approached me afterward to express discontent. I realized that maybe the sermon was meant for myself. That happened a lot. I thought I was writing about a particular event or concern in the rez, but my sermon really reflected where I was at. This time, I was telling myself that Fremont’s job mattered little. For that matter, my job mattered little if it meant I would be kept apart from the man I loved.
The Book of Mark states, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” I would discuss that the following Sunday.
But Fremont wasn’t returning my call. He had plenty of chances to do so.
I did the next best thing, consulted with Twinkletoes and Galileo. We met in my parlor on yet another rainy day. The breach had not been closed yet at Vicinity Lake and continued to flow over grazing grounds, most of which had been relocated. But was it enough? I poured myself and Twinkletoes a couple of snifters of good brandy. I knew I shouldn’t, not with my background as a drug user. But the other excuse, not to drink around any Indians, didn’t apply here. The half-breed apple Galileo didn’t apply to any rule.
Twinkletoes said, “He instructed me to rally the high school kids. He wants to put them to work. He thinks if they’re jazzed, it trickles up, and everyone gets jazzed. He wants them to gather water samples that I can send to the lab for testing.”
“That’s an excellent idea,” I said.
Galileo said, “A lot of teens knew their relatives died from lung disease, but they never knew about the uranium link or the mining that used to run this area.”
“Until Fremont came along,” Twinkletoes said angrily. He was slouched way back in the chair, the toes of his engineer boots turned inward to touch each other, his snifter balanced on his belly. His bitterness was palpable.
Galileo sat up straight. “I like this new angry aspect of you, Twinkletoe
s. Angry people relax me because I know where I fit in.”
“It’s true,” I said, backing up Twinkletoes. “Kids have been coming to church more, volunteering for stuff, asking if they can distribute water bottles—”
“If they come,” Twinkletoes said bitterly.
“When they come,” Galileo said.
“—and one gal, Fredericka, offered to make a film. She’s already been in touch with some arts council in Utah and she’s got a director in mind.”
“A director!” cried Galileo. “We’re going Hollywood now!”
Twinkletoes pointed his snifter at me. “Right. She told me that in old westerns, the Indians were always silent. In this movie, the Navajos would tell their tale. And did you know Ormond’s a makeup artist? He knows all sorts of Hollywood types, so he’s leaning on them to volunteer time. She’s got three teens, all affected by Navajo neuropathy in some way. She’s going to follow their stories back to the thirties. Get some famous documentary narrator.”
“John Hurt,” I said.
Twinkletoes said, “John Hurt passed away. Have you been living in a monastery? How’s about Neil DeGrasse Tyson?”
Galileo scoffed. “I’m sure he’s busy with way more important things like black holes, or the quest for the substance of substance. Morgan Freeman’s my choice.”
“I hate to break it to you,” I said, “but we might just get stuck with whoever we’re stuck with. I believe Fredericka is going to write the script too, to keep it in the authentic Diné voice.”
“What’s up with Fremont anyway?” asked Galileo, free of guile. “Why isn’t he here overseeing this horrible operation?”
Twinkletoes and I exchanged glances. Twinkletoes knew the score. His free hand fell limply to the floor, fingertips grazing the woven rug. I had to field the question alone.
“He was sent back to Aurora,” I said. I hoped the knot in my throat wasn’t affecting my delivery. “They told him he could oversee this project from afar.”
Galileo reacted like a shot, nearly leaping out of his chair. “What? Why would they do that? He’s devoted every waking second of his life to this rez! He’s our partner, like Sonny is to Cher!”
Twinkletoes grinned a little. “Was.”
Galileo ignored him. I had rarely seen him this overwrought. “We fit so well together! He was going to help us. I could always tell when he was upset. Hell, I could tell when he was puking!”
I frowned. “Puking?”
“I knew if he was puking because he had eaten green bell peppers, which he wasn’t allowed to eat, because it caused his pupils to dilate and his—”
Twinkletoes said, “Holmes and Watson.”
I said, “Fictional, Twinkletoes.” I was glad for the opportunity to change the subject off Fremont. “Lewis and Clark.”
“Dead as a doornail,” said Twinkletoes. “Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi.”
“Lesbians,” I said, as if that’d make a difference to a straight priest such as me. “How’s about David Bowie and Iman?”
Wrong. Mentioning the beloved David Bowie turned the mood sour. In the ensuing silence, we had to listen to Galileo rant.
“—pectorals to get a sort of rash, well not a rash really but a spreading mottled lacey sunburned look. We’ve depended on him to get this contamination under control! Even if ordered back to HQ, he should’ve stood his ground! How could he let thousands of Diné down? None of these moronic puppets in white hazmat suits are going to solve the problem.”
Now Galileo really did leap up. He pointed one spindly forefinger at me. “Father Moloney! You have to do something about this. Talk to Fremont’s boss, whatever it takes. The only reason he’d be ordered off the land would be that he was getting too close to the truth and you know it!”
Galileo was right. Under threat of having my love for Fremont exposed, I had turned into a spineless wimp. I could’ve called the Aurora U-238 HQ and tracked him down through legit channels that way. He was sure to have a new desk landline number by now. I could’ve even innocently called his sister Ariella, who had called my cell once when Fremont’s battery had died. It would be backhanded to tell her how much the rez needed him, banking that she would lean on her brother. But it just might work.
I stood, too, placing my snifter on a heavy monastic side table. I threaded my fingers together at the small of my back. Without thinking, I walked to the window that faced Fremont’s former trailer, Galileo dogging me, nearly stepping on my boot heels. “Galileo. You must understand, I can’t force anyone to do anything they don’t want—”
“But he does want, Father! He does, and I know it. There’s no mistaking that sort of sincerity. He has bet his reputation and heart on helping us!”
I frowned. “No, listen, Galileo. You can try calling him, but I think it’s useless. I know his heart was in the right place, but the pressure from his boss was just too much. His job is important to him. It encapsulates the meaning of his entire life’s work.”
Galileo was really riled about this. “But he promised me. He promised all of us, and he was on our side. He hasn’t left anyone halfway tolerable to take his place. I feel rage at his abandonment, and relief that he got away scot-free, and rejection because he rejected me!” He ran his spidery fingers through his conservative haircut. “Oh, Galileo, you’ve been destroyed.”
I hated to see that, I really did. I had to face him and place both hands on his shoulders. Galileo, too, had sacrificed a lot to help the Diné on this rez. He had, temporarily, I presumed, turned his pet grooming business over to someone else so he could assist his own people as my sort of de facto deacon. Now that I had him, I never wanted to let him go, though I knew eventually he’d have to return to Pure and Easy. He was a strange, twisted man with a dark past, but I’d never known anyone with as much empathy for others.
“Go ahead, Galileo. Call Fremont. See if you can convince him to return.”
I wandered away a bit, clasping my hands behind my back in the priestly manner. I don’t know what prompted it, but I swear I had a revelation then. That’s all I can call it. Suddenly, I knew I could never return to my regular daily body, assuming my leaden corpse, to continue in a stupor, boredom, weariness.
I would go directly to Fremont’s office, knock, and step on in. “Here I am, you bastard. Take me or kill me. Stab me in the brain, shoot me through the heart. If you leave one organ uninjured you are fucked, cursed to be mine for eternity, in this incarnation and all of them to come. I’m ravenous, I’ll eat everything of yours. Teeth, blood, cartilage, anything you’ve ever called yours. Show me your sister with her biology, her cages and test tubes. I will swallow her alive. Where is the foldout bed you lie in? The archery bow you said you use, your pan to cook chicken cordon blue, your katana swords? Bring ‘em out so I can swallow them at once.”
I’m a believer in God the Father, in Jesus Christ his holy son, in uranium’s protons and electrons, in opioids and their antidotes, in AIDS and Ebola, in black holes and chariots of the gods, chanting, cave painting, and coyote’s teeth, in chicken feet and chicken stock. I believe in cannabis and cans of beans, in floods and storm surges, in global warming and polar melting. I believe. I believe. I believe because to stop is to become inert like platinum, rigid and cold, to forever lie underground . . .
As I gazed in the direction of Fremont’s trailer I followed the V of Canadian honkers heading south for the winter. Where were the lowing herds of cows, the waving fields of corn, the cow patties decorated with poppies that flowered in the air of sleazery? I see dunes and a ribbon of red, rusty water—not even a chicken in sight. I see it all clearly as though a window had been lifted, desolate dune after dune, soil that would never support a healthy organism. Devastation and waste everlasting. For forty-two years I’ve worn the mantle of dishonorable obedience, serving but not trusting, resting but knowing no rest. Why on earth would I believe that everything will suddenly get better, just having him, just loving and being loved?
Only I w
ill be changed.
Simultaneously, all three of us looked at each other. Our ears perked up like rabbits’. In the unearthly quiet of a desert with no rain, a low but loud rumble came from the north, almost moving the very air with persistent throbs.
Our eyes widened, our pupils contracted into pinpoints with fear. Another dam breach? Twinkletoes was the first to figure it out.
Leaping awkwardly from his chair, he cried, “Chopper!” He swept the other two of us along in his wake as he stumbled wildly toward the front door.
True, it was a shiny blue helicopter flying low and wobbly directly toward us. I wasn’t sure if it saw us running onto the front portico of the rectory, Twinkletoes waving his arms as though signaling it to land. But it suddenly banked to the left, displaying huge white EPA lettering on its side. I cringed, almost expecting door gunners, though I knew the EPA didn’t do that. Or did they? There was a guy in the co-pilot’s seat wearing one of those helmets with built-in microphones, his face so veiled with equipment I couldn’t tell if he was friend or foe.
Galileo cried, “Look like they’re surveying the Vicinity Lake breach.”
Twinkletoes said, “Let’s get over there.”
“Come with me,” I told Galileo.
In a flash our convoy of two Harleys was beating the asphalt, following the chopper. Sure enough, it landed on the other side of the pit-lake around where the breach was. Absolutely no one, not one piece of construction equipment, had arrived to shore up the breach while men bitched and pointed fingers about jurisdiction. Apparently, the EPA had caught wind of this and had come to see for themselves. That was potentially good news.
We ripped up the asphalt state highway, then cut off onto a sandy finger of what we hoped was solid land. Stopping in a spray of sand and little cacti, we nearly leaped from our rides. Three, four G-men in helmets and shades emerged from the chopper, blades still spinning. The guy in the passenger seat was pointing, showing them things as they talked through their little mikes.