11
Cousins
AFTER SHE’D LEFT DAVID Rogers standing in the street outside the convenience store, Marie walked home to her small apartment. As she walked, her anger began to fade. She’d always had a quick temper, was the first to shout obscenities or throw fists, but she was also the first to laugh nervously and apologize. By the time she opened the door of her apartment and saw Reggie Polatkin sitting at the shabby kitchen table, Marie was calm. She’d neither seen nor heard from Reggie in over a year, but she was not surprised to find him waiting for her. Indian relatives had a way of just showing up at the doorstep.
“Hey, cousin,” Reggie said to Marie.
“How’d you get in?” Marie asked as she placed her milk in the refrigerator. Her apartment had one microscopic bedroom, a bathroom with just enough room for toilet, sink, and small shower stall, and a third room that functioned as living room, kitchen, dining room, and study. Dozens of books were piled onto every free space. Books served as furniture by propping up the black-and-white television, by supporting shelves that held yet other books, and by serving as impromptu coffee and end tables. Overpriced, depressingly cold, and battered by generations of student renters, the apartment felt like some tiny box of a reservation in the middle of a city. Marie had tried to brighten the place with flowers and colorful prints, but she still felt miserable whenever she came home.
“I got in by magic,” said Reggie. “And I told the landlord I was your long lost brother.”
“Long lost is right.”
Reggie smiled. He was a very handsome man, with a strong nose, clear brown skin, and startling blue eyes that instantly revealed his half-breed status. In an attempt to look more traditionally Indian, he braided his long black hair into two thick ropes. He was just a few inches over five feet, which was pretty short even for a small people like the Spokanes. Like many short men, Indian and not, Reggie tried to compensate for his stature by growing a mustache. But he had an Indian mustache, meaning that ten or twelve thick black whiskers poked out from the corners of his mouth.
Reggie had grown up in Seattle with his white father, Bird, and his Spokane Indian mother, Martha. Though he’d visited the reservation a few times during his youth, Reggie had always been a stranger to Marie. Reggie was the mysterious urban Indian, the college student, the ambitious half-breed, the star basketball player, the Indian who would make a difference. On the reservation, among Marie’s family, that was how Reggie had always been described, as the one who would make a difference. Reggie carried with him the collective dreams of the family. Marie had always been jealous of that, and when Reggie got himself kicked out of college because of an altercation with Dr. Clarence Mather, she’d felt a strange combination of relief and sadness. She’d felt sadness because she’d come to the University of Washington precisely because Reggie was enrolled there. She’d thought she would feel safer if she was near a relative, no matter how distant and aloof he was. And she’d felt relief because she’d hoped that Reggie’s failure somehow made the possibility of her failure less likely, as if Reggie’s expulsion from college had somehow paid in full her family’s psychic debt.
Now, as Reggie Polatkin sat at her kitchen table, smiling and acting as if he were a regular visitor, Marie wondered how such an intelligent man could have sabotaged himself in such a profound way.
Reggie Polatkin, ten years old and little, had stared up at his white father, Bird Lawrence, a small man, barely taller than his son, but with huge arms and a coarsely featured face that made him appear larger than he was.
“Come on, you little shit,” Bird had whispered. “You want to be a dirty Indian your whole life? What’s the answer?”
“Dad, I don’t know.”
“What?”
“I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
Bird had slapped Reggie across the face.
“Okay, now for the second question. What year did the Pilgrims arrive in Massachusetts, and what was the name of the Indian who helped them survive?”
“Sixteen twenty,” Reggie had whispered. “And his name was Squanto.”
“And what happened to him?”
“He was sold into slavery in Europe. But he escaped and made his way back to his village. But everybody was dead from smallpox.”
“And was the smallpox good or bad?”
“Bad.”
“Wrong,” Bird had said and slapped Reggie again. “The smallpox was God’s revenge. It killed all the hostile Indians. You want to be a hostile Indian?”
“No,” Reggie had said.
At that time, in the early seventies, Bird had been the area director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was under siege by the American Indian Movement. All over the country, hostile AIM members had been attacking peaceful BIA Indians and non-Indians. Bird had known that the murder rate in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, was the highest in the country. All because of the hostiles. And those hostiles had been making it tough to help the good Indians. It had been happening since Europeans had first arrived in the United States. In the nineteenth century, while a peaceful and intelligent chief like Red Cloud had been trying to help his people, a hostile Indian like Crazy Horse had been making it worse for everybody. But Bird had always believed that Crazy Horse got what he deserved, a bayonet in his belly, while Red Cloud had lived a long life.
Martha Polatkin had married Bird because she was searching for a way off the reservation. She’d wanted to have a big house, a nice car, green grass, and, no matter how cruel Bird was, she’d known he could provide her with all of that. And because he had, in fact, provided her with all of that, she’d tried to ignore Bird’s hatred of “hostile” Indians, even after he’d impregnated her and she’d given birth to Reggie. As for Bird Lawrence, he’d hated hostile Indians so much that he insisted Reggie use Polatkin, his Indian surname, until he’d earned the right to be a Lawrence, until he’d become the appropriate kind of Indian.
“Do you want to be a hostile?” Bird had asked Reggie again.
“No,” Reggie had said.
“Good, good. What was the name of the Indian who led the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 through 1692, and why did he begin the revolt?”
“His name was Pope. He was from San Juan Pueblo, and he said a spirit had told him to rid his homeland of the Spanish.”
“What was the name of the Spanish commander who ended the revolt?”
“Uh, Diego. Diego.”
“Diego what?”
“Diego…I don’t remember.”
Bird had punched Reggie in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. When Reggie could speak again, Bird had continued the surprise quiz.
“You remember that crazy Indian’s name, but not the name of the white man who saved thousands of lives? Why is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re hopeless. Can you explain why the Iroquois Confederacy fell apart from the years 1777 to 1783?”
“Because of the Revolutionary War.”
“And?”
“Well, some Iroquois, like the Mohawks, wanted to fight with the British. But the Oneidas and the Tuscaroras wanted to fight with the United States. And the Seneca and the Onondaga didn’t want to fight at all. Nobody could get along, so they broke apart from the Confederacy.”
“And which Indians were right?”
“The Oneidas and Tuscaroras.”
“Correct. Name the four Indian cowards who were indicted for the murder of two FBI agents on July twenty-sixth near Pine Ridge, South Dakota.”
“Leonard Peltier, Bob Robideau, an Eagle, and, and…”
“I’ll give you that one. Now, for the last question. What was the name of the Indian who helped raise the flag on Iwo Jima during World War Two?”
“Ira Hayes.”
“And what happened to him?”
“He was a hero.”
“No, you idiot. What really happened to him?”
“He died of exposure in the winter of 1955. Passed out in the snow.”
; “Why did he do that?”
“Because he was a dirty Indian.”
“Exactly, and what tribe was he?”
“I don’t remember.”
Bird had slapped Reggie again and bloodied his nose.
“I want you to know I’m doing this for your own good,” Bird had said. “I don’t want you to end up like all the other Indians. I want you to be special. I don’t want you to be running around with a gun. I want you to love your country. I want you to know your history.” The white father gave his Indian son a handkerchief. “Here, clean your face.”
Trying to avoid his father’s beatings, Reggie had always studied hard and brought home excellent report cards. Bird would beam with pride and tape the reports to the refrigerator, that place of familial honor. On those rare occasions when Reggie had brought home a failed test or a flawed term paper, Bird would beat him.
“You stupid, dirty Indian,” Bird would say, never above a whisper. “You’ll never get into college this way. You want to be a drunk? You want to be one of those Indians staggering around downtown? What do you want to be, Reggie? What do you want to be?”
Over the years, Reggie had come to believe that he was successful because of his father’s white blood, and that his Indian mother’s blood was to blame for his failures. Throughout high school, he’d spent all of his time with white kids. He’d ignored his mother, Martha. He hadn’t gone to local powwows. He hadn’t danced or sang. He’d pretended to be white, and had thought his white friends accepted him as such. He’d buried his Indian identity so successfully that he’d become invisible.
Reggie had graduated from high school with honors and enrolled as a history major at the University of Washington. There he had met Dr. Clarence Mather.
“Hey,” Marie said to Reggie as she sat at the table across from him. “I’m taking a class with your favorite teacher.”
Reggie’s eyes narrowed.
“Yeah,” said Marie. “Dr. Clarence Mather.”
“He’s a fucking liar.”
“Yes, he is.”
Reggie was fuming. He’d never told Marie what had happened with Mather. She’d heard all kinds of stories from other Indian students. She’d heard Mather and Reggie had been lovers and that Reggie had threatened to kill Mather if he ever revealed it. She’d also heard that Reggie and Mather had fought because they’d fallen in love with the same Indian woman. She’d heard that Mather had stolen some of Reggie’s academic research and claimed it as his own. So many stories, so many half-truths and outright lies. But since Indians used gossip as a form of literature, Marie knew she’d never heard the true story about Reggie and Mather. She knew the real story was probably something very pedestrian.
“Hey,” said Marie, trying to be a good host. “You hungry or something? All I got is water and cereal.”
“What kind of cereal?”
“Apple Jacks.”
“Cool.”
Marie poured two bowls of cereal. As they ate that simple dinner, Marie smiled at the small tragedy of it all. The two smartest Spokane Indians in tribal history were forced to eat Apple Jacks cereal for dinner.
“Quite the feast, huh?” asked Marie and laughed.
“Well, at least it’s traditional,” said Reggie, fighting back a smile.
“Yeah, don’t mind us, we’re indigenous.”
They laughed together.
“So,” said Reggie, more friendly now. “How is school going?”
“Ah, you know,” said Marie. “It isn’t easy.”
Reggie knew.
“Are you working?” asked Marie.
“Mostly,” said Reggie, who’d been running through a series of minimum wage jobs since he’d been kicked out of college. He mostly played basketball, especially at the all-Indian tournaments held nearly every weekend on the local reservations.
“How’s your folks?” asked Marie.
“Mom’s okay. Bird’s got cancer.”
Bird had recently been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and spent a lot of time in hospitals. Once, when Martha had called to say that Bird had asked for him, Reggie had promised to come home to the hospital, but had traveled to a basketball tournament in Montana instead.
“Oh, shit,” Marie said. “I’m sorry. How is he? Really?”
“I don’t know. Don’t care much, either.”
They ate the rest of their dinner in silence, then settled in to watch a bad movie on Marie’s black-and-white television.
“Hey, cousin,” said Reggie after the movie was over. “I hate to ask. But do you got any money I could borrow?”
Marie knew that Reggie had been building up the courage to ask for money.
“Reggie,” she said. “If I had money, do you think we’d be eating Apple Jacks?”
Reggie smiled.
“Hey,” he asked. “Have you heard about the scalping of that white man?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think?”
Marie shrugged her shoulders.
“Yeah, I agree,” said Reggie.
He slept on the couch that night, and when Marie woke up early the next morning, he was already gone.
12
Seattle’s Best Donuts
FOR THE FIRST TIME since he had started construction work, John asked for permission to leave early, and went straight home to sleep. He was tired and willing to admit it to the foreman. A little after ten that night, he woke from a nightmare he could not remember, but he felt its residual effects, the sweat, racing heart, tensed muscles. He rubbed his stomach, remembered how, when he was twenty years old, he thought he was pregnant. No one had believed him, so he had forced himself to throw up every morning to prove it. For nine months, he waited to give birth, surprised by how little his belly had grown.
“This is going to be the smallest baby ever,” John had told Olivia. “You’re going to be a huge grandmother. Gigantic. The biggest grandmother ever.”
John had decided to have his baby at home because he hated hospitals and doctors, though he loved the nurses with their white nylons and long eyelashes. Using his latest paycheck, John made a list and then bought all the items he’d written down:
towels, clean and hot
hammer and nails
baby blankets and toys
bottle
graham crackers and milk
needle and thread
radio
sharp knife
soup
brand-new tool belt
rent money
newspapers with all the want ads cut out
On his delivery date, John lay naked on his bed, waiting for the baby. He watched the digital clock. 7:51. 7:52. 7:53. But the baby would not come. John felt his stomach, wished for labor pains, and heard the music growing louder and louder.
“No!” he’d shouted. “Don’t cheat me! Don’t cheat me again!”
But the baby never arrived, and John realized he had never been pregnant. He felt foolish. He had told everybody that he was pregnant, his mother and father, the woman who worked at the supermarket, his landlord. John packed up all his birthing supplies, the toys and blankets, knife and newspapers, and packed them into a box. He shoved the box under his bed and never looked at it. No. He opened it sometimes to take inventory, to make sure everything was still there. Criminals were everywhere these days, especially in his neighborhood. A girl had been shot and killed outside Ballard High School, just a few blocks away from his apartment. He was not going to take any chances with his possessions.
John smiled at the memory of his failed pregnancy. He was awake. He had to work the next day and he always tried to get plenty of sleep on work nights. The foreman liked to start early, so they would be done before that late afternoon sun took over. John thought this a strange belief, especially during winter in Seattle, when the skies were gray and rain fell constantly. John had seen one of his co-workers fall over with heat exhaustion a few summers earlier, but had never known it to happen since. Still, the foreman kn
ew that an unconscious worker was an unproductive worker and made sure his men drank lots of water. John worried about what might have been in the water, but he usually drank it anyway.
John could not fall back to sleep. He crawled from bed, dressed in his work clothes, and walked to the all-hours donut shop on the corner. Seattle’s Best Donuts. John liked their donuts well enough, but he was not sure if they were the best in Seattle. He had once asked if there had been some kind of contest, but the manager just laughed. The shop was small, simple, and passably clean, as if one wet rag had been used to clean the entire place. A large picture window fronted the store. A window display of donuts at the end of the counter and another display hanging on the wall behind the counter. The kitchen was dark and mysterious behind the swinging doors.
“Lookee here, lookee here,” said Paul, the graveyard shift worker at the donut shop, when John walked in. Paul was a twenty-year-old black man, an art major at the University. He was handsome, with clear eyes and a strong chin. His hair was shaved close to his head. He worked the shift with Paul Too, an old black man whose great-great-grandmother had escaped slavery by marrying into the Seminole tribe. Paul Too sat at the counter, smoking a cigarette and reading the newspaper. He had a face like an old map, stained with age and folded incorrectly one too many times.
“Good morning, John,” said Paul. “You having the usual?”
“Yeah,” John said and sat beside Paul Too, who looked up from his newspaper and nodded. Paul set a jelly-filled donut and a cup of coffee in front of John. Paul Too picked up John’s donut, took a bite, and set it back down. Then he sipped a little of John’s coffee. John watched Paul Too very carefully. One minute, two minutes went by. Paul Too had survived. The food had not been poisoned. John took a bite of his donut and washed it down with coffee.
“So, John,” said Paul. “You couldn’t sleep again?”
John shook his head.