The sharp taste of the mouthwash hit her tongue and almost made her spew again, but instead she began to laugh. The mouthwash was not as sharp as it could have been since she had switched to the alcohol-free variety years ago. It was her first step toward sobriety after realizing how low and desperate she had sunk, buying Listerine at the Geshig convenience because the liquor store was closed.
Just like now, she had ended up painting the toilet, only then with a minty-fresh twist. At her first AA meeting, her group leader told her she was lucky she had expelled it because she could have died.
“What if I want to?” was her response, one she recalled in shame now, even though she felt like roadkill just standing in her bathroom.
“Is that what you really feel, Brenda?” the leader said. “Tell us about it.”
Quickly she had apologized but refused to elaborate on what made her say that.
Brenda stumbled from room to room in her house, switching on every light and looking for any clues. If she had found Henrietta or some other cousin on her couch—or god forbid some barfly in her bed like she might have done years ago—things might have cleared up. How she got home. When she left the Classic Shack. Where her cell phone was.
She sat on the empty couch in the living room, sipped a mug of water, and tried to clear her head. This was nothing new to her, just a few years too late and unwelcome. After a minute or an hour, she could stand up again and pace the room. On the walls were pictures of both her girls. Natalie and Tasha, and their own children.
It was the faces of her three grandchildren that had pushed her into sobriety. Natalie had one gorgeous son, Adrian, ten years old and wild. Tasha had five-year-old twin girls, Mariposa and Memengwaa. Brenda had been to each of their births, but afterward her daughters did not trust her around their children.
“I’m not going to let you do to them what you did to us,” Tasha had said. “What you did to Jared.”
Mother and daughter stared and each waited for the other to say something to take the sting away. In that moment, Brenda wanted to give in to anger, scream, slap her daughter like she was a little girl again, but the twins’ cooing in harmony in the crib stopped her.
None of Jared’s pictures were on the wall anymore. All of them were boxed away. Baby pictures. Grade school. Birthdays. She had considered giving every photo to his father or his sisters but when she had the chance to rid herself of the reminders, she could not remove the box from the house.
The only photo of Jared that mattered anymore was his mug shot.
Whatever was left in her stomach suddenly flooded to her throat and undid the work of the mouthwash. She made it to the kitchen sink before any could land on her floor. None was solid. When the heaving finally stopped and she was ready for sleep, the clock on the oven read four minutes past midnight.
In the first dream she had after passing out, she was at the prison where Jared was rotting. Kayla Kelliher’s words, not her own. He was not a rot. He was her flower. But the guards at the prison would not bring him out. She sat at a gray table in a gray prison and the only color she could see was orange jumpsuits on faceless men and the guards never returned from the doors with Jared. There was nothing particularly gruesome about the dream, only that it felt like hours of waiting.
In the dream she had after waking up with a dry throat, getting a drink of water, and passing out again, she was at the tribal court. Her daughters were middle school aged again, and instead of just jumping a girl in the bathroom for her money, they killed her. The girl’s family was suing Brenda for ten million dollars and the court found her guilty of raising monsters.
She did not sleep much after that, but she could still feel that teetering sway and tight clench of her inner cheeks at the back of her mouth that told her the hangover hadn’t quite passed.
When she finally fell asleep mostly sober, there was no dream but a queasy yet settled peace.
CHUCK BIRSTON WAS KNOWN as a hard-ass manager, and he did not hesitate to fire his “problem children.” The hotel was one of two departments that allowed for workers as young as sixteen, but the majority of his problem children were middle-aged, like Brenda.
It was a shock to her that she was even hired by him after her botched jobs over the years. Especially because Chuck was one of the few white managers. All of the casino’s jobs were Indian preference, which generally meant leniency to fellow Indian employees. A worker could miss two days a week per month and keep their job with the right story and manager.
Brenda had neither.
She walked into the hotel with her slate-gray polo and apron, did not make eye contact with Lily, the front desk lead, clocked in as if nothing was wrong, and began to load her cart with cleaning supplies.
“When does he want to see me?” she asked Lily before she got too far into the day’s work.
“After your first wing is done.”
That was probably a good sign, Brenda thought. If he was planning on firing her he would just do it, but still, the graveness in Lily’s usually chipper voice did not go unnoticed by her.
The rooms on the first floor were a disaster. First Monday after a powwow was always a mess, so maybe it was just her anxiety that made this round shittier than usual.
Two rooms had clogged toilets, and one bathroom had three footprints of excrement from the toilet to the bath. Were they toddler-size feet she might have been less annoyed, but these were gigantic, probably size-14 men’s.
Less than two hours passed and she was done with the round. It was almost time for her break when she saw the shape of her manager appear in the doorway of the room and beckon her. He did not wait to see if she saw him or followed.
She placed a chocolate-mint candy on a pillow, made sure the corners were smoothed out just right, and then marched the cart back to the front desk slow as she could.
Three years of perfect attendance had to count for something. That was rare even among the few departments that didn’t shuffle employees in and out like speed dating. She left the cart outside the front desk counter and walked into Chuck’s office.
“I heard you had a wild time at Classics,” Chuck said. He spoke with his eyes focused on an open file on his desk, as if she was not even there.
“Who did you hear it from?”
“I can’t reveal that.”
“I know. And I’m not going to deny it.”
“So, as I understand it, you were drunk on the powwow grounds, during a powwow weekend, and you missed your shift because you were throwing darts. Is that what you’re not going to deny?”
“Yes. I was drunk. I fucked up. I’m not going to make an excuse for myself.”
Chuck closed her file and finally met her gaze. But the manager Chuck Birston was nowhere to be found between the crow’s-feet. Instead, Brenda thought she could see something vaguely resembling concern.
“Are you okay?”
“. . . what?”
“Are you okay? Is something going on?”
Brenda’s words caught in her throat and she stared at him with utter confusion. Those were not the kinds of questions he asked, and it instantly made her uncomfortable.
“I have your attendance records for the past ten years. All the departments you worked in. The other managers really don’t like you.” He laughed. That was closer to his usual manner. “But it looks like you’ve turned things around.”
“I know. I’ve tried really hard. It was—”
“You also attended AA a couple years ago, right?”
“Excuse me? Why the hell do you know that?”
“It’s all here in your file. Information you freely gave to at least one of the managers. I’ll ask again. Are you okay? Something had to have pushed you off that wagon.”
She knew she could never have it in her to bring the words I’m not okay to her lips, her eyes weren’t so tight about it. Two snail-slow tears trailed over her cheeks. “I’ll never see my son again . . .”
“I didn’t know you had a son.”
“Jared. He’s gonna be thirty soon . . . Do you know the Kellihers?”
“If they’re a local family, I don’t really. Truthfully I’m never really on this reservation except for work.”
She laughed and wiped her tears. There was always that one white person at the casino who didn’t know the rez and didn’t care. “Jared killed a boy named Kayden. They were only seventeen. That’s like, still a baby, ain’t it? You remember being seventeen? I don’t remember forty or thirty or even last year as much as I remember being a teenager.”
“I see. So where does your absence come in?”
She rolled her eyes just as the tissue dabbed at the sides. “There’s this little girl. Maya Kelliher . . . I think I know more about her than my own two baby granddaughters . . . She was Kayden’s.”
“He had a child before he died?”
Brenda shook her head and felt the stiffness of the past fifteen years creaking in her bones. “No. He never got to meet her. She was born six months after he died . . . I saw her at the bar. I swear, I wasn’t going to touch the booze. I never do. Ask my daughters, ask the waitresses. I never order beer . . .” She decided to try to force more tears and leave Henrietta out of the story. There was a slim chance Chuck would be lenient, but zero chance if he knew she’d been drinking before the girl walked in. “But I saw Kayden’s daughter. Still a baby. But starting to be a woman. Another little Indian child that doesn’t know their daddy . . . all because of my son . . .”
She held her breath to make the sob that escaped more dramatic.
“Hmm. I see. Well, I’ll have you sign this and ask you to mind your attendance from now on.”
He handed her a three-layer carbon-copy document. It was a notice of a one-day suspension, date to be determined.
“. . . really?”
“Really, what? Call-ins on powwow weekends are automatic suspensions.”
“Thank you, Mr. Birston.”
“Good luck with the rest of the wing. You didn’t hear it from me, but the other housekeepers gave you the worst rooms for ditching them.”
She managed a laugh and stood up.
For the rest of the day, no amount of fecal matter or mysterious bed stains could bring down her sense of relief.
A MONTH AFTER BRENDA’S one-day bender, she brought the photos of Jared out from the basement. They were untouched by dust and in the same condition as when she packed them away. No moisture damage or fading.
Natalie and Tasha took one look at the photos and declined her offer to take them.
“I mean, why?” Tasha said. “Honestly, it’s not like we know him that well.”
“Yeah, Mom. I mean, do you even visit him? Neither of us have in years.”
“Does that mean he’s not your brother?” Brenda asked.
“I’d rather not answer that. You won’t like it.” Tasha still had a razor tongue.
“Okay. If you’re going to be like that, then I can be like that too, right?” Brenda closed her eyes. “I don’t want them right now. I don’t want to get rid of them but I don’t want them here.”
“Are you gonna want them back? We can put them in storage or something,” Natalie suggested.
Outside the children’s voices shouted, some game about the small tree stumps in her yard. “I want them kept safe as possible. Can one of you please keep them?”
“Fine,” Natalie said. “I’ll take them. No idea where I’ll find the room but I’ll keep them.” There was a slight petulance to her tone, the brattiness of earlier years. “Can I have a cigarette?”
She gave both of her daughters a few of her menthols, hugged them, and they left. The grandkids went with. She wanted them to stay the night for the first time in weeks, but her daughters had found out about the relapse. A promise is a promise, they said, and she would need to stay sober longer to win back their trust. Again.
Brenda sat in a mesh lawn chair and stared at her empty yard, where her grandchildren were supposed to be. Instead, there was nothing but a white propane tank, a clothesline, and undisturbed grass. The drink holder on her chair held a diet soda, and in the corner of her eye the silver can occasionally looked like a beer.
Seven
Plastique Shaman
“MAYBE YOU NEED A name.”
The morning does not bring my mother back. Anni’s eyes are dark red and flickering like a weathered filmstrip. He hasn’t had a cup of coffee in years—even the idea of caffeine addiction makes him uncomfortable—but the smell of the fresh pot woke me up. I slept easily unlike him.
“I’ve made it this far without one,” I say.
“Think of how much easier everything could have been.” His head bobs down and shoots back up, almost rhythmically as he tries to stay awake.
“Does Hazel have a name?”
“Wiijiwaagan, my life partner,” Anni says.
“That’s not a name.”
“Well, fine. She refused a name too. The hell made you Lafourniers so stubborn?”
When I was in middle school Ojibwe class, I first learned the concept of having an Indian name. Or spirit name. The phrase we had to use for our English name actually translates to “pretend to be called.” Marion Lafournier indizhinikaaz. I pretend to be called Marion Lafournier.
But I’ve never had the feeling that I was not Marion. I’ve hated my name before, sure. Going through middle school with the nickname Mary Ann La-Four-Eyes wasn’t the best, especially when I always tried to hide my sexuality but still faced some rumors anyway.
“Indians aren’t complete unless they have a traditional name,” my Ojibwe teacher told us in middle school. “I have two given to me by an elder. One I can share and one I keep to myself.”
Anni insists that I should receive my name, that it’ll stop this haunting or whatever is going on with me.
I once got a test result back from a clinic that made me celibate for months. Chlamydia of the throat. Other than feeling angry with myself on how stupid I’d been, I also felt sick and unclean. I had no symptoms but I had to spend a whole weekend before I could get antibiotics, knowing there were these nasty things inside me that shouldn’t be there.
If what Anni says about dead bodies is true, and if it’s connected to the dog and Kayden Kelliher’s grave, I wonder now if there was some part of Kayden’s spirit living with me all this time, like an infection sitting in my throat.
I take out a cigarette, Marlboro Red, and toss it to him. “Okay. You can name me.”
He catches the cigarette on the filter between his index and middle finger tips, careful not to let the tobacco fall. “That’s not how you gift asemaa.”
“Sorry.” I try to take the cigarette back but he withholds it.
“But I’ll accept it. I can’t actually give you a name, but I can take you to someone who can.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes, and instead ask him if he wants me to cook him something for breakfast. The chair legs scrape across the kitchen floor and his body wilts down, asleep. I finish my coffee and then drag him to the couch.
Outside, I let the dogs out of their kennel and they take to the yard as if it was new to them again. Unlike Basil at the park, none of them seem interested in the place where the Revenant was. The youngest two mutts run off into the nearby woods, the pit bull paws at the roots of a tree, with the German shepherd circling, and Kuba plops down by my feet on the porch.
My phone still has no text or call from my mother. Anni’s phone is similarly silent. His is a cheap flip phone with no service other than calls, so there’s no real privacy for me to break by checking it.
Turkey Feather is a much quieter reservation than Languille Lake. The biggest town here is no bigger than Geshig, and they have only one casino instead of three. Aside from the padding steps and panting of the dogs, there is not much noise out here. The yard around me is spotless, the kitchen inside spotless, the garden free of dandelions or other pests. I can’t even try to be the good son while I wait, unless I learn how to finish th
e sweat lodge that Anni is building in the backyard.
Just for the hell of it, I open up my dating app. There isn’t much service out here but the app can be accessed through Wi-Fi. There is no one within ten miles and the closest handful of profiles have no pictures. I scroll down and see Shannon’s profile now has a name: SH. He still doesn’t have a picture but he’s brave enough for initials.
I’d like to say I don’t watch his profile for patterns, but I do. He loves Friday nights and early, early Sunday mornings for fucking. He goes offline after every meeting of ours. He is the only profile I have marked in my favorites.
Shannon still has no description, except the relationship status is now set to “dating.” And he hasn’t been online for a full day. I have to assume he means he is dating me, but that’s too much to hope for from a closet case.
AT THE SOUTH END of Meegwan, the hub of this reservation, there is a giant turkey statue with a stone bench at its talons. Though the largest turkey farm is white-owned, the abundance of these birds gave this reservation the honorable and dignified name: Turkey Feather.
I follow Anni’s truck through Meegwan, past the statue, and farther into the reservation. On this side, the woods have faded away and now there is only open pasture and gray cages filled with turkeys, the ground more shit than soil.
Anni’s medicine guy lives out here. At first, Anni was insistent we drive only one car—probably wants to talk more about spirits—but I don’t like being anywhere I can’t get away from on my own time. So, with a rare show of some contempt, Anni let me drive myself.
The first time I had ever gone through this reservation it surprised me. Because of the abundance of trees in Geshig, I had just assumed all Ojibwes only ever lived in the woods. Out here, though, it’s miles of open land with the occasional copse of trees. I follow Anni’s truck nearly ten miles through backroads until I come across the house.
While driving around this state, and a few others years ago, I noticed there is always that house, that one house in every county background. It’s surrounded by fields. White, two-story, with a long driveway and a station wagon out front. A perfect oak tree off to the side of the house, tire swing optional. Timeless in a way, like it would fit in any county’s history-in-photographs book. It’s probably in the same location in every plat map in the country. That’s the house that Anni brings me to.
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