John barely made eye contact with Marie. Instead, he watched all of the Indians dancing in circles on the grass. It was an illegal powwow, not approved by the University. John could figure out that much when he noticed how the dancers were trampling on the well-kept lawn. Indians were always protesting something. Marie had organized the powwow as a protest against the University’s refusal to allow a powwow. Only a few of the Indians had originally known that, but most everybody knew now, and danced all that much harder.
Marie had been organizing protests since her days on the Spokane Indian Reservation, though she had often been the only protestor. A bright child who read by age three, she had quickly passed her classmates by. When they had all been five and six years old, Marie had friends because she was smart. Everybody wanted to be smart. But as the years passed, many of Marie’s reservation friends flunked classes, lost interest, were intimidated into silence by cruel, white teachers, or simply had no energy for school because of hunger. Marie felt more and more isolated. Some bright kids were more interested in Spokane Indian culture than in a public school education. Many of those kids skipped school so they could travel to powwows or attend various cultural events. During the summer, when powwow season was really in swing, those kids were too busy to pick up books. They could speak Spokane as fluently as many elders, but they could barely read English. They were intelligent and humorous, and never wanted to leave the reservation. They had chosen that life, and Marie both resented and envied them. Because she did not dance or sing traditionally, and because she could not speak Spokane, Marie was often thought of as being less than Indian. Her parents, who did speak Spokane, had refused to teach Marie because they felt it would be of no use to her in the world outside the reservation. Her mother, the speech therapist at the tribal school, and her father, the principal, knew their bright daughter belonged in that larger world. Instead of teaching her about Spokane culture, they bought her books by the pound at pawn shops, secondhand stores, and garage sales. She read those books and many others, studied hard at school, and endured constant bullying and taunting from many of her peers. Marie learned to fight, and her best friend, Sugar, a traditional dancer and accomplished street fighter, helped. Marie fought fiercely, without control or thought. She tackled people, bit and pinched, spat and kicked. She refused to accept beatings. She always wanted revenge, and would wait until the perfect moment, which could be months later, to ambush her enemies. In one memorable instance, she had stolen a knife from the high school cafeteria and chased Double Andy across the playground. Marie had really meant to stab Double Andy. Everybody had seen the crazy look in Marie’s eyes that day and nobody bullied her for months after that. Still, her nose had been broken four times before she graduated high school.
After two years at tribal college, she was accepted into the University of Washington on a full scholarship. Through her intelligence and dedication, Marie had found a way to escape the reservation. Now she was so afraid the reservation would pull her back and drown her in its rivers that she only ventured home for surprise visits to her parents, usually arriving in the middle of the night. Even then, she felt like a stranger and would sometimes leave before her parents knew she was there. And she rarely spoke to any of her reservation friends. She was twenty-three, near the end of her final year as an English major, when she met John Smith.
“You live around here?” Marie asked John.
“No,” he said.
“Man, you’re breathing hard,” she said, trying to make conversation. “What did you do, run here?”
“No, but I thought about it.”
Marie laughed because she thought he was making a joke. John looked at her, not really sure why she was laughing.
“I can’t believe the U wouldn’t let us have a powwow in Hec Ed this year,” Marie said.
“What’s Hec Ed?”
“In the Hec Ed Pavilion,” Marie said. “You know, the gym? Inside there? They wouldn’t let us rent it this year, so we’re messing up their nice lawn. I can’t believe the cops haven’t come yet.”
“The cops? Really?”
“No, not really. We’ve got too many reporters here already. The U isn’t going to stop us now. They’d look really bad. You know how white people are.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Expecting the usual Indian banter, Marie waited for him to say more. When he remained silent, she accepted that silence as being just as Indian as the banter, and turned away from him to watch the dancers. John knew that his silence was acceptable, but he also knew that he could have asked about her tribe, that Indians quizzed Indians about all the Indian friends, family, lovers, and acquaintances they might have in common. He was afraid she would discover that he was an Indian without a tribe.
Even though he had felt like a fraud at urban powwows, he had always loved them. Often, when he was a child, Olivia and Daniel had taken him. Through years of observation and practice, he had learned how an Indian was supposed to act at a powwow. When he got old enough to go without Daniel and Olivia, he could pretend to be a real Indian. He could sit in a huge crowd of Indians and be just another anonymous, silent Skin. That was what real Indians called each other. Skins. Other Indian men might give him that indigenous head nod, which confirmed a connection he did not feel. Indian women might give him that look which implied an interest he ignored. But he had always known that if he remained silent, he would receive a respectful silence in return. If he pursued conversation, the real Indians would be happy to talk. With Marie, he had chosen his usual silence.
She stood beside him. He could feel her there, but he continued to watch the dancers move in circles. A tall fancydancer caught his attention. The fancydancer cartwheeled across the grass, his brightly colored feathers nearly shocking in their clarity. Reds and blues, yellows and greens. The crowd gasped at the cartwheels. The fancydancer was bold, original, dangerous. Many Indian elders would surely disapprove of the cartwheels. Many elders dismissed any kind of fancydancing. It was too modern, too white, the dance of children who refused to grow up.
“Jeez,” Marie said of the fancydancer. “He’s good.”
John turned his head to look at her. She smiled. She was a pretty, small-boned woman at least a foot shorter than he was. Her black hair was very long, hanging down below her waist. With her wire-rimmed glasses and black blazer, she looked scholarly and serious, even as she smiled. Her teeth were just a little crowded, as if there were one tooth too many. Her nose looked as if it had been broken once or twice. She had large, dark eyes magnified by her prescription.
“Do you dance?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“You don’t talk much, do you?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“The strong silent type?” she asked. “All stoic and stuff, huh? How long you been working on that Tonto face? You should try out for the movies.”
He swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on the dancers again. She stared at him. With his looks and stature, she thought, John could have been a wonderful traditional dancer. The old style, slow and dignified, a proud man’s dance. John felt the power of her gaze, and was about to make an escape when the powwow’s master of ceremonies called for an owl dance.
“It’s ladies’ choice,” said the emcee. “Ladies, go snag yourself a warrior. If he says no, you bring him to me. Men, you know you can’t refuse a woman who asks you to dance. You’ll either pay up or tell everybody why you broke her heart.”
“Hey,” Marie said. “Do you want to dance?”
“I guess,” he said. He had learned about owl dances, but feared them. John knew many Indian tribes believed the owl was a messenger of death. For those Indians, the owl was death itself. Yet, those same Indians who feared the owl still owl danced. John had always been confused by that. Were the Indians dancing out of spite? Were they challenging the owl? Or perhaps they were dancing to prove their courage. With Indians, death was always so close anyway. When Indians owl danced, their shadows w
ere shaped like owls. What was one more owl in a room full of Indians dancing like owls?
She led him to the dance floor, where all the other couples had already formed a circle. There were old married couples, newlyweds, potential lovers, siblings, mothers and sons, a few reluctant teenagers, and a handful of preschoolers. Marie took John’s left hand in her right, and placed her left hand on his right shoulder. He reluctantly placed his right hand on her left hip. Together like that, they waited for a few other stragglers to join the circle, all of the dancers waiting for the drums to begin.
“I’m not any good at this,” he said. He had danced clumsy near-waltzes at high school dances with white girls, but had never danced with an Indian woman. He had never been close enough to an Indian woman to dance.
“Just like a foxtrot,” she said as the drums began. “Two steps forward, one step back. With the beat. Twirl me around when everybody else does.”
“Okay,” he said. He did as he was told. He looked down at his feet, tried to stay in rhythm, failed miserably.
“You’re a horrible dancer,” she said with a laugh. He dropped her hand, stopped dancing, stepped back.
“I’m sorry,” he said, wanting to run again.
“Jeez, it’s okay,” she said and smiled. “Just keep dancing. You can’t quit.”
It was a broom owl dance. One woman stood alone in the middle of the circle of dancers, holding a broom. She ran up to another dancing woman, gave her the broom, and they switched places. The displaced woman took the broom, ran around the circle, and gave the broom to a third woman. A kind of Indian musical chairs. There was much laughter. Friends chose friends. Sisters chose sisters. The broom passed from hand to hand. A tiny girl, barely able to lift the broom, dragged it around the circle, and gave it to her mother, who was dancing with the little girl’s father. More laughter. The emcee encouraged everybody, told bad jokes, teased the young lovers. Everybody kept dancing, two steps forward, one step back. As John danced with Marie, he looked at the other dancers, men, women and children, all with dazzling eyes and bright smiles. So much happiness so close to him, but John could not touch it.
Marie saw the sadness in John’s eyes. She had approached him because she thought he was a fellow student, another urban Indian, but now she felt his confusion and loss. He didn’t know how to dance, didn’t seem to recognize anybody at the powwow. Nobody shouted out his name in an effort to embarrass him as he danced. He was a stranger here, and Marie understood that isolation. Though she had blossomed in college and would be graduating with honors, her work for the Native American Students Alliance and her job at a downtown homeless shelter had led Marie to so many Indians who were, as John was, as she was, outcasts from their tribes. They were forced to create their own urban tribe. Some had been forced to leave their reservations because they were different, like Fawn, the Crow who would not talk about what had happened to her in Montana. Some had never lived on their reservations and had very little connection to their tribes. Nick, the son of a Ute doctor and Cheyenne nurse, had grown up upper-middle-class in St. Louis.
But, somehow, most every urban Indian still held closely to his or her birth tribe. Marie was Spokane, would always be Spokane. But she was also an urban Indian, an amalgamation that included over two hundred tribes in the same Seattle area where many white people wanted to have Indian blood. Marie was always careful to test people, to hear their stories, to ask about their tribes, their people, and their ties to the land from which they originated. The pretend Indians had no answers for these questions, while real Indians answered the questions easily, and had a few questions of their own for Marie. Indians were always placing one another on an identity spectrum, with the more traditional to the left and the less traditional Indians to the right. Marie knew she belonged somewhere in the middle of that spectrum and that her happiness depended on placing more Indians to her right. She wondered where John belonged.
“Hey,” Marie said to him. “You’re getting it now.”
John listened carefully to the drums, which had drowned out all the other noises in his head. He concentrated on the music, his brow furrowed. Sweat, deep breaths.
“Jeez,” Marie said. “Take it easy. You’re supposed to be having fun.”
A little girl handed Marie the broom. Suddenly, John was looking down at a new dance partner. She had huge brown eyes and short brown hair. She smiled with a mouthful of braces.
“I’m Kim,” she said, laughed, and then ducked her head. She was playing at a courtship game, flirting and teasing with John as if she were ten years older than she was. This was all practice for her.
“I’m John.”
The dance stopped, drums suddenly silent. The dancers clapped and thanked each other. The audience cheered. John looked for Marie. She was talking to a tall Indian man in traditional dance regalia. She stopped talking long enough to notice John. She smiled and waved. John raised his hand a little. He tried to smile, but could not make it happen. The traditional dancer with Marie turned toward John. He was fierce looking, all sharp feathers and angry beads, and seemed to be ten feet tall. John was not surprised that Indians had always terrified white people. He wondered what the early European settlers must have thought when they first encountered an Indian warrior in all of his finest regalia. Even in his flannel shirts and blue jeans, John knew he was intimidating. If I were dressed like a real Indian, John thought, I could rule the world.
“Thank you for the dance,” said the little girl, Kim. She was still standing beside John, waiting for him to acknowledge her presence with a traditional politeness.
“Thank you,” John said.
“You know,” she said. “I’m a twin. My sister’s name is Arlene. She’s sick. That’s why she’s not here. Do you know her?”
“What? No, I don’t know her,” John said. “I’m sorry she’s sick. Tell her I said so. Tell her to get well.”
Kim giggled and ran away. John watched the little girl run back into the arms of an old Indian woman, her grandmother perhaps, and then he turned back toward Marie. But she was gone. John scanned the crowd. She had disappeared. He breathed deeply. Had she left with the traditional dancer? No. The dancer, standing with a group of other dancers, was drinking a Pepsi. Disappointed, John walked away. He turned his back and left the powwow. He wasn’t even sure why he was disappointed, but he had overheard real Indian men talk to real Indian women. He could have mimicked their easy banter, their fluid conversation.
He could have said, “I’m not a dancer.”
“I figured that one out,” Marie might have said.
He could have been funny and self-deprecating. “I can’t sing, either. When I dance and sing, I’m insulting thousands of years of tribal traditions. I’ve got to be careful, you know? I start dancing and they close the powwow. That’s it. John has ruined it for everybody, the powwow’s over.” But John couldn’t say anything. Not to the Indian woman who knew Father Duncan. Not to the beautiful Indian woman with the crooked front tooth.
Walking silently and quickly away from the powwow, John found himself on University Way, the heart of the University District, which everybody called simply the Ave. John could never understand things like that. Why did people change names as easily as they changed clothes? Though it was just another Monday night, dozens of people walked the Ave. Secondhand bookstores and a dozen Asian restaurants. Movie theaters and street performers. A black man in a wheelchair outside Tower Records calling out to everybody who passed him. Three dogs in red bandannas being walked by a twenty-something white woman wearing a blue bandanna. A teenage white couple kissing in a doorway. They were all so young and white, whiter, whitest. Three Asian-Americans, two African-Americans, but everybody else was white and whiter and younger than John. So many people. John was dizzy. He staggered as he walked and bumped into a knot of people who were bidding each other good night.
“Hey,” said one of the young white men. “Watch your step, chief.”
The white man wore faded
clothes that were supposed to be old, but they were expensive new clothes designed to look old. A goatee and pierced ears, small gold hoops that looked good, blue flannel shirt, a black stocking cap, big brown leather boots. John stared at him.
“You okay, buddy?” asked the white man.
John was silent, carefully listening to the sounds of the street.
“Hey, chief,” said the white man. “Had a few too many? You need some help?”
John did not respond. The white man was trying to be friendly. He was really not a man, John thought, just a boy dressed like a man. Though John was only a few years older, he felt ancient. He knew that Indians were supposed to feel ancient, old and wise. He concentrated on feeling old and wise, until the youth and relative innocence of this young white man infuriated him. John felt the rage he didn’t like to feel.
“Hey,” said the young man. “Hey, are you okay?”
“You’re not as smart as you think you are,” John said. “Not even close.”
The young man smiled, confused and a little intimidated.
“Calm down there, dude,” he said.
“I’m older than the hills,” said John, holding his hands out toward the white man. The young man looked at his friends, who shrugged their shoulders and smiled nervously. He turned back to John and flashed him the peace sign.
John was surprised by the gesture. He took a step back, momentarily disarmed. The young man finished his good-byes to his companions and walked away. John watched as the young white man crossed against the light, stopped briefly to look at himself in a store window, and then walked south down the Ave. Carefully and silently, John followed him.
4
How He Imagines His Life on the Reservation
IT IS A GOOD LIFE, not like all the white people believe reservation life to be. There is enough food, plenty of books to read, and a devoted mother. She is very young, probably too young to have a son like John Smith, but it had happened and she has coped well. She had nearly given John up for adoption but changed her mind at the last minute. The social workers had tried to convince her otherwise, but John’s mother refused to let him go.