“Yeah, but I thought that guy was Mary’s father,” I said.
“He raised her as a daughter,” my sister said. “But he was not her birth father.”
I remembered that my big sister, as an adult, had moved to Montana to be closer to her father and other half siblings. But I now realized that Mary had moved closer to the man, not biologically related, who’d raised her as his own blood. He’d chosen to love her as a daughter; my big sister had chosen him as a father. They’d chosen each other. I was overwhelmed by the enormity of love. I had to get off the phone. I said good-bye to my sister and paced around my office.
My mother was a liar. A bold liar. But she was not an accomplished liar. Her falsehoods were often so obvious that we could immediately discount them. But had she successfully lied to my sister and me about rape—about two rapes? And why had she told me about the rape when I was only a young boy—when I was beginning my separation from her? Was it a way to keep me close? Was it a way to include me in some personal conspiracy? Did she worry that I might become a rapist? Was that story a warning? A call to self-examination? Did that rape story serve as my mother’s highly dysfunctional version of the Sex Talk? Was she trying to help me? Or hurt me? I paced and paced and paced. I thought about my mother. I thought about her various deceptions.
Then I called my sister again.
“Why did Mom divorce that Montana Indian?” I asked.
“She missed our rez,” my sister said. “She loved our rez.”
“And he loved his rez too much to leave his,” I said, anticipating the narrative.
“Yep,” my sister said. “Mom gave him an ultimatum. Move to the Spokane rez or get divorced.”
I laughed. That seemed utterly logical. That is exactly how much an Indian can love their own reservation.
“So, it’s like Mom was having an affair with the Spokane rez,” I said.
“And that Montana guy was sleeping around with his rez,” my sister said, filling in the narrative.
We laughed.
I said good-bye again.
And then I wept, not for long. I cried so often while writing this book. It became a ceremony, equal parts healing and wounding. I often get asked if my writing is “therapeutic,” and I always say, “Well, I think it can be therapeutic for other people. But for me? Well...”
I thought more about my mother. About her lifetime of myths, lies, and exaggerations. And then I realized something new: I don’t think my mother ever told a lie about something as tragic and epic as rape. She was a fabulist but not criminally so. She manipulated us with her lies. She hurt our feelings. She exhausted us. But she never put us in physical danger with a lie. Can a liar have a code of ethics? No matter how cruel my mother could be, I cannot imagine her being cruel enough to invent two rapes.
So I believe that my mother told my sister the truth about being raped and giving birth to Mary, the daughter of that rape.
I also believe that my mother told the truth when she said that she was, like her daughter, conceived by rape.
But why did my mother apportion the truth? Why did she tell me one version of history and tell another to my sister? I imagine my mother’s pain and shame were so huge that she could only approach them piece by piece. I also think my mother was afraid to burden any of her children with the entire truth. My mother needed us to know. She needed to tell her story. But each of her children only got one piece—one chapter—of the book. I imagine my other siblings—and perhaps nieces, nephews, and cousins—were also given parts of my mother’s most painful and truthful stories.
And, in this way, I recognize the way in which I have protected myself through the careful apportioning of secrets, of personal details, of emotions. I know how I reveal certain parts of myself only to certain groups of people.
“Sherman,” a friend once said to me. “How come you’re so much funnier around strangers than you are around me?”
That line made me laugh and wince with self-recognition.
“I think the realest version of me isn’t funny,” I said to him. “If I’m being funny, it usually means I’m uncomfortable. It usually means I’m angry. Maybe being unfunny around you is me trying to be your real friend. And not just your funny friend. Maybe being unfunny is my way of showing you love. I mean—I don’t want to perform for you.”
“Okay,” he said. “That makes sense. But could you maybe try to be funnier sometimes? Because that version of you is so entertaining.”
My friend and I laughed again. And I winced again. That friend knows I am a secretive person. And he will someday read this book and he will have more questions. And I might tell him things—good and bad stuff—that are not contained within these pages.
But I will also still keep my secrets. I don’t want him to know the worst stuff, not all of it, or maybe not any of it.
You want to talk tribal sovereignty? Well, let me tell you about my personal sovereignty. Let me tell you about my one-man reservation. Let me tell you about My Clan of Me.
Let me tell you that, yes, I am my mother’s son. And I am so much like her. We lived in separate, but related, villages forever across the river from each other. We belonged to the Ever-Nomadic Tribe of Obfuscation.
But I still have questions I want to ask her. There are questions I want to ask of the whole world. As a man, I don’t feel I have the right to formulate answers to these questions. I don’t want to pretend that I am wise about anything, let alone a subject as complicated and horrific as the meaning of rape. But, as the son and brother of rape victims, as a man who feels the primal need to understand and protect his loved ones, I have questions. I have questions. I have questions.
What were my grandmother and mother thinking and feeling as they gave birth to daughters of rape? As they raised those daughters? Did they often think about how their daughter was conceived? Did they willfully forget? Did they love that child less than their other children? Or did they love those daughters most? Is my big sister’s early death somehow psychologically connected to her conception? Was my big sister’s difficult life an inevitable result of the horrific way she was created? How does the child of a rape develop self-esteem? How does it feel to look into a mirror and see your rapist father’s face? How does it feel to look into your child’s face and see your rapist’s features? How much forgiveness does it take to survive all of that?
I asked my wife these questions, because she’s the woman I know best, because she’s Native American, and because I needed her counsel, and she said, “Think of the history of war. Think of the aftermath of war. Think of what men have always done after victory. Think of the rich and poor. Think of the way entire groups of people—of women—were treated by invading armies. It happened in ancient times. In every age. It happened very recently. It’s happening now. It’s happening to most Native women right now. There have been millions of children who’ve been conceived by rape. And millions of mothers who love those children.”
I didn’t have any response to my wife’s history lesson. I knew she was telling the truth. I knew she was right.
“Rape culture” might be a recently created descriptive phrase, but that phrase retroactively and accurately describes the collected history of human beings.
And it also describes the culture on my reservation. If some evil scientist had wanted to create a place where rape would become a primary element of a culture, then he would have built something very much like an Indian reservation. That scientist would have put sociopathic and capitalistic politicians, priests, and soldiers in absolute control of a dispossessed people—of a people stripped of their language, art, religion, history, land, and economy. And then, after decades of horrific physical, emotional, spiritual, and sexual torture, that scientist would have removed those torturing politicians, priests, and soldiers, and watched as an epically wounded people tried to rebuild their dignity. And, finally, that scientist would have taken notes as some of those wounded people turned their rage on other wounded people.
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br /> My family did not escape that mad scientist’s experiment. In my most blasphemous moments, I think of that evil scientist as God.
So look again at the photo on the book’s jacket.
Look anew.
Perhaps you assumed this is a photo of my mother and me. Other people have made that assumption. I’m the author of this book, so it makes aesthetic sense that my face, along with my mother’s, would be on the jacket.
But that baby on the jacket is Mary, my big sister. She looks pissed about being a part of the photograph. And that woman on the cover is my mother at seventeen. She looks happy and not bothered by her daughter’s anger.
That’s a mother and daughter on the jacket of this book. Those are two women who, with strength and grace, loved each other. They led incredibly painful lives. One died tragically young. One endured catastrophic losses.
Look at that mother and daughter.
Look at those two Native American women.
Think of their grief.
Think of their grace.
Think of their pain.
Think of their power.
Sing them an honor song.
141.
Dear Mother
I’m going to sleep now.
Since you died, I’ve only dreamed
Of ordinary errands:
Groceries, driving the boys
To baseball and saxophone,
Folding laundry at noon.
But, in these dreams, you
Are always there, mute,
Five or six feet away,
And younger than I am now.
I do my best to ignore you
(As I did in life)
But your persistent
Presence is maddening.
These aren’t nightmares
And, yet, I tell myself
To remain calm,
To remain calm.
Eventually, in these dreams,
I lose my shit
And scream, “What
Do you want?”
And you nod
And smile
As beautifully as ever
And turn away.
Mother, what a trickster
You have become.
After seventy-eight years
Of words, words, words,
And words, you are now
Mocking me
With your silence,
So complete, so absurd.
142.
The Urban Indian Boy Dreams of the Hunt
On the reservation,
My big brother kills an elk
And cuts open its belly—
Intending to eat its heart
And praise the animal’s sacrifice—
But instead finds the six hearts
Of his six best friends who
Have died in drunken car wrecks
Over the last twenty years.
Kneeling beside the elk,
My brother pauses—
Even a reservation Indian can be
Surprised by the bloody magic of things—
Then feasts on his friends’ hearts
And thanks God for the brief
Moments when we are loved well
And for those stretched-taut days
When we are barely loved at all.
143.
Dialogue
Is my mother still dead? Yes, she is still
Dead. Are you sure that my mother is dead?
We are positive that your mother is
Dead because we are looking at her grave.
It’s been a year since her death. Yes, we know
Because we can no longer sense her breath
Or body heat. Is that why you have come
To my home? We’re not dumb. We need fresh blood.
I’ve built homemade traps. We’ve seen the lights
Floating in the shallow bowls of soapy
Water. We can’t resist the lure. I’ve drowned
Over one hundred of you. There are more
Of us alive than dead: adults, pupae,
Larvae, and eggs. The four stages of fleas?
We’re not unlike the Five Stages of Grief.
We can be temporarily submerged
But we always return. I have summoned
An exterminator. She reminds me
Of Darth Vader. Eh, as she poisons us,
She will also be poisoning your ass.
I’m desperate. I’ll do what I must to end
Your invasion. I’ll burn my fucking house.
Hey, pal, you’re practicing some evasion.
It’s not us you hate. You hate your own blood.
But don’t worry. We love the salt in you.
Be still. Our bites don’t pinch. They only itch.
I want my mother back. You’re lying.
You might ache now but she caused you far more
Pain when she was alive. Your grief might itch
But it stings less and less with each new day.
So shut up and bare your legs, bare your arms.
Damn, you’re not fooled by my false pleas or charm,
Are you? Oh, come on, dude, it’s not us fleas
You need to flatter. You don’t require
Our approval. Okay, maybe you’re right.
Maybe life is better since my mom died,
But what about my sisters and brothers?
What about their pain? Do you aspire
To be like us now? Do you want to feast
On their blood? I want to honor their grief.
Fuck you. You’re a writer. You’re a damned thief.
No, no, no, no, I love my siblings.
They’re more important than my scribbling,
Than these sad-sack rhymes. Okay, if that’s true
Then tell them, say it aloud, testify.
Okay, I will, I will. Let’s hear it now.
Dear sisters, dear brothers, I am sorry
For being a ghost, for not loving you
And our mother as much as all of you
Have loved me. I’m sorry for being so
Incomplete. Okay, pal, we’ll grade that a C.
Maybe a C-minus. But now you need
To tell us how you’re going to atone.
I don’t know. What? I don’t know. I don’t know.
Should I kneel and thrash my back with thorns?
Listen, pilgrim, we’re not Catholic. We’re fleas.
We just want you to bleed and bleed and bleed
And bleed and bleed, but not to death.
No, we need you alive. We need your pain
To be close to the surface and bite-sized.
You are not my God. You don’t control me.
You can’t escape us. You are beyond help.
Fuck this, fuck death, fuck grief. Nice try, Junior,
But cursing fleas is like cursing yourself.
144.
Tantrums
First Set
What should I do with my rage against death?
I grab the exercise ball, lift it above
My head at full extension and throw it
Down against the floor with all of my strength.
This is called a tantrum and I’m supposed
To throw the fucking ball through the fucking
Floor. Of course, nobody is strong enough
To actually break the floor. But we must want
To break the floor. We must attempt to break
The floor. We must need to break the floor.
So a few days after my mother’s death,
I tantrum that fucking ball fifteen times.
I need to throw it through the floor. I need
To throw it through the wall. I need to break
Down my muscles and rebuild them again.
Second Set
And then I rest and marvel at how hard
This simple exercise works my shoulders
And back and arms and legs. I’m out of breath
; As I think of my mother’s funeral
And how fucking childish I felt
As I looked at all of the mourners—
My fellow Spokane Indians—and realized
How desperately I’d always wanted
To be beloved by them. And how unloved
I’d always felt. Yeah, my mom was dead
But I was more worried about my life.
Angry at my narcissism, I grab
That exercise ball and tantrum the thing
Fifteen more times. I want to throw
That ball through the walls I’d created...
Third Set
Between me and my tribe. I didn’t belong
Because maybe I never wanted
To belong. When everybody else danced and sang,
I silently sat in my room with books,
Books, and books. I used books for self-defense
And as stealth bombers: I am better than you
Because I have read more books than you; I am
Beloved by these books; I am beloved by words.
Ah, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I tantrum
That ball fifteen more times. Can I break
The earth itself and throw this fucking ball
Through the crust, mantle, and core? No, no,
No, no. I grow weaker with each throw. I stop.
I stagger. I surrender to the invincible floor,
This Indian boy can’t tantrum anymore.