No Place Like Home, page 20
“That’s me and your mom,” my uncle says, and points to the one I’m facing.
Mom is a teenager. My uncle is my age. They look like two little Indians ready to take on the world. If it wasn’t in color, you’d guess this photo is from a hundred years ago.
“Your mama saved my life that day,” he adds.
“How?” I ask.
“I was sent to a boarding school. Our mom was sick, so she couldn’t take care of me. I was young enough for the state to step in. And it did. They thought I need some Christianity in my life. Back then, in Minnesota, being Indian was a first offense. Anyway, your mama walked thirty-two miles to that awful place. She snuck in and brought me back home. We basically ran the whole way back. And, well, I’ve been running ever since,” he says.
“Mom never told me that story,” I say.
“Because stories are supposed to have happy endings,” she says, and spreads a blanket over the couch and puts a pillow on top of it.
I look at all the other photos. My uncle must really love his family. I see my grandma and grandpa for the first time. My uncle doesn’t even need to tell me who they are. I immediately know. She looks like my mom, and he looks a bit like Emjay. A bit like me. A bit like my uncle.
“Mom did tell me that you got shot by a cop,” I say.
“Now, there’s a happy ending,” he says, and lifts up his shirt.
I see the scar on his right shoulder. It looks like a huge dimple. “Does it hurt?”
“Only when it’s cold out. And sometimes in the mornings. Or whenever I move it,” he says.
“So, basically, all the time?” I ask.
“I tell you, I’ll never touch a box of Lucky Charms again,” he jokes.
Mom starts to clean up his mess. He notices but says nothing. A big sister, however long she’s been gone, will always be a big sister and clean up her little brother’s mess, I guess. “When’s the last time you were outside?” she asks him.
“I don’t know. I played the lotto a few nights ago. Hey, if I win, I can finally get you the bike I owe you,” he says to her, and then looks at me. “I borrowed her bike once, and some jerk stole it from me.”
“I got the bike back. You know that. And that jerk lost a tooth for taking it. I have proof,” Mom says, and shows me her knuckles. A small scar sits on the middle finger. “You lost the bike two weeks later down by Gichigami,” she says.
“Oh, yeah. My bad. I should check if I won,” he says, and grabs the lottery ticket off the coffee table.
As he hops on the phone to check the winning numbers, Mom approaches me and hands me a fork. She makes sure my uncle doesn’t see it. “He’s a creep? He seems all right to me,” I say.
“Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it,” she says, and begins to pull our stuff out of the shopping cart and place it all into neat piles along the wall.
“Damn it,” he shouts, and hangs up the phone.
“You didn’t win?” I ask.
“I don’t get it. I was sure I was gonna win this time. Maybe next week,” he says.
“I need to use your phone,” Mom says, and pulls out the angel’s cousin’s business card.
She wastes no time. She must really want to get out of this apartment as soon as possible. There must be a whole history between these two that I don’t know. But family is weird like that. There’s a history between Emjay and me, and we’re both not even old enough to have a history yet. Maybe all families have histories. Even the ones with homes and cars and TVs and basketball hoops hanging over their garage. Maybe even white families have histories. And maybe no one can really understand those family histories except the people involved. On the outside, Emjay and I should be friends. We should be close. We’ve known each other our entire lives. We look similar. We both love music, and we both know what it’s like to struggle and hustle. That should bond us. But we’re not friends. We’re not close. And I can totally see us drifting even further apart as we both get older. When we’re both men.
Men. I look at my uncle and see a man. But I also see a little boy. A boy who wishes he was closer with his family. A lonely boy. And the only way he can feel close to his family is to tack photos of them on his walls. Maybe he even talks to the photos? Maybe he tells them good morning and good night each day?
Mom picks up the phone and dials the number. My uncle turns off the baseball game on TV, which I didn’t even notice was on, and he says to me, “Wanna see something?”
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s a secret. You can’t tell your mom.”
I slide my hand into my pocket and grip the fork. I’ll be ready to stick it in his thigh if I need to. “Sure,” I say.
Mom’s busy on the phone, her back to us, and my uncle leads me to his porch. He opens the sliding glass door and steps out. I follow him.
The porch is small and has nothing but two plants in it. “That’s Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash,” he says.
“Your big secret is to show me that you have two plants named after musicians?” I ask.
He laughs. “No,” he says, and places both plants on the top of the porch’s wall to bask in the sun. “This is my secret,” he says, and points to a wooden telephone pole across the street.
At first, I don’t see what he’s trying to show me, but then I look closer. Near the top, an arrow is stuck into the pole. Two feathers hang down from the end of it. One red and one black. “You did that?” I ask.
“Sure did.”
“Why?” I ask.
“In case they get me and take everything I got, even Dolly and Johnny here, there will always be that arrow. That will be the evidence I was here. The proof I existed,” he says.
His words stun me. Does this arrow, the only proof to the outside world that he lived, make me feel sorry for him? A little. Do I also find it pretty cool he shot a telephone pole? I do.
“I ain’t much of much. Never have been. But I do know this … While you’re here, in this world, your only real enemy is time. But it’s also your best friend. So, while you have it, enjoy it. Because it will run out. But before it does … You got to take your shot. And in life, we only get one shot.”
I look at the arrow again. That was my uncle taking his shot. That was his rage against time. That was his battle to prove he is alive. Even when a state tried to take him away as a kid and even when a cop tried to kill him as a man. He survived.
“You got a car?” my mom asks from behind us. She’s holding a pitcher of water.
“The one good thing I got out of getting shot was the settlement. It got me my Bronco,” he says.
“I need to borrow it,” Mom says as she begins to water Dolly and Johnny. “You know, you’re supposed to put them in the sun when it comes up, not when it’s about to come down.”
“I let them sleep in sometimes,” my uncle says, and pulls his keys out of his pocket and tosses them to Mom.
She catches them. We had a red Pinto, which is a type of horse, and my uncle drives a Bronco, which is another type of horse. I guess America can never take our culture out of us, no matter how hard they try, because even now, after all the battles and colonization and forced assimilation and genocide, we are still alive, and we are still riding horses. Maybe when I grow up and get a job and have money, I’ll ride a Mustang.
CHAPTER 21
TAKE YOUR TIME SHOT
Mom sat me down and told me about the phone call. There was a light in her eyes that I haven’t seen in a long time. It was the color of hope. Hope has a glint to it. Mom’s eyes had the glint, the shine of tiger’s eye. Her big brown eyes with streams of gold flowing through them. She said Angel’s cousin was expecting the call. Angel told him about me and Mom. He handed the phone to his wife, and Mom told her about our situation. She gave Mom a list of numbers to call and assured her that there are many people who are going through what we are going through. And there are good people out there, good programs, and good organizations that are out there helping families like ours.
But that’s not the best part. The best information was that down in some area called Orange County, in a city called Fountain Valley, is a place called the Southern California American Indian Center. A place that helps Native American families, from all tribes, that have found themselves in Southern California and in need of help … Like my family.
“Do you want to come with me?” she asks. “I’m going tomorrow morning.”
I can just imagine how beautiful the place is. A valley full of fountains. An American Indian Center. The place is probably filled with cool stuff from all my ancestors.
“Yeah. I’ll come with. I should meet my people.”
“Great. I have to run out and go to social services and get us on the housing list. Amy said they can even get me a temp job for a few days,” Mom says.
“Who’s Amy?”
“Jose’s wife.”
“Who’s Jose?”
“Angel’s cousin.”
“Last question … Did Jose offer you free tickets to an Angels game?” I ask.
She smiles. “Not yet.”
I decide to stay while Mom leaves to go do mom things. I’ve seen those places way too many times. Besides, if you’ve seen them once, you’ve seen them all. And instead, I choose to hang out with my uncle while he watches professional wrestling on TV. I don’t get it. Why would anyone willingly watch this? “But they’re not really fighting, are they?” I ask.
“Well, no. They are fighting, but it’s all choreographed,” he says.
“So they are just a bunch of grown sweaty men in tights, ballet dancing, without music?” I say.
He huffs. “I mean, yeah, but no, not ballet dancing,” he says. “They’re wrestling.”
“Pretending to wrestle. We can both be right and call it aggressive dancing.”
He turns it off. “No more wrestling for you. You hungry?” he asks, and gets up. “I’m making a ham sandwich.”
“I don’t eat animals anymore.”
“You’re Native. You got to eat meat,” he says.
“The animals need us to help them. This is how they need me,” I say, realizing I just ate two chicken tacos. Oops. But that’s okay, I’m still learning to be better. That takes time.
“The animals need us, huh?” He ponders. “I guess they do. Peanut butter and jelly, then?” he asks.
“Heck, yeah,” I say, and slap the table.
As I hit it, something falls off it and onto the floor. I pick it up off the carpet. It’s a notebook, just like my mom’s notebook. “My mom has one of these,” I say.
“Yeah. Grandma made one for every relative. It was her way of keeping our blood alive and red before she died,” he says.
I flip through the pages. It is handwritten, just like Mom’s. I can’t believe one woman wrote all these words and translations. Every page is filled top to bottom. My eyes rest on the word Indé. It translates to “heart.” “Why does my mom have a cool Ojibwe name and you don’t?” I ask.
“We both have cool names. Our mother named us after body parts,” he says.
“Mom’s name means ‘heart.’ That’s a body part. But you’re just Jonny,” I say.
“I know. I’m special. I was named after two body parts.”
“What are you talking about? Jonny isn’t—”
“Jonny. Jaw; knee. That’s two,” he says.
He’s right. Holy crap. And here I thought he had a common name. “Hers is cooler though. You can’t live without the heart,” I say.
He laughs. “I’m not so sure. Hearts break just as easily as jaws and knees. And to us Indians, eating and running are just as important as loving,” he says.
And just before I set the notebook back on the table, I remember the last thing Emjay said before he left. It was about my name. I was too angry to care about it then, but now I want to know why he called me those weird names while arguing with Mom. He called me a French fry. He called me a tater tot. And in my dream, he called me Hash Brown.
I flip to the O section and skim my finger down to Opin. Wow. Emjay was telling the truth. My name doesn’t mean “adventure seeker.” In fact, it doesn’t mean anything courageous or brave. I’m not even named after a body part. I’m named after a friggin’ vegetable!
Opin means “potato.”
I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. Maybe both. I want to craugh.
My whole life, I’ve been answering to Potato. I feel gutted. I feel squashed. I feel mashed like potatoes. Like opins. But then I remember why I’m named Opin. I remember why I am a potato. It’s not necessarily Mom’s fault. It’s because my dad never showed up when I entered this world. And he never showed up to be a dad ever since. That must have crushed my mom. And I’m glad she didn’t name me what he wanted me to be named. I’m glad she was upset and gave me an Ojibwe name. I’m not glad she chose Potato, but she didn’t have her notebook with her. Her intentions were good. It’s just her memory that wasn’t. And I guess it could have been worse. I could have been named Onion or Asparagus or even Corn. Those names would suck much worse. I’d hate having to answer to Corn every day. Besides, I do like potatoes. Baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, potato chips, French fries, tater tots, hash browns, scalloped potatoes, potatoes au gratin, sweet potato fries. They’re all good. And they’re technically root vegetables. And roots are important to Native Americans. It keeps us connected to our ancestors, the same way trees are connected to other trees.
And all those gutted-up, smashed-up, maddened-up feelings I had one second ago are now gone. Instead, I laugh. And I don’t stop laughing. My name means “potato.” That’s hilarious. And it is so funny because names don’t really matter, in the end. Names change all the time. They’re not forever. Ask any Indigenous person what they prefer to be called. Native American? American Indian? First Nations? Indigenous? Indian? And it goes even deeper, on a tribal level. Ojibwe? Anishinaabe? Chippewa?
Names are just labels. That’s all. Just a word scribbled on a box. But I don’t belong in a box. No one does. Opin can mean “potato,” but that doesn’t mean I’m a potato. To me, opin can mean “adventure seeker.” Potatoes seek adventures, don’t they? They start in the ground, right? Just like us. We start in the earth. Then some rain comes down and gives us life, like all water does to all things. Then, bam, the potato begins to seek its adventure. It climbs and digs up from the dirt, just like Mom and I and Emjay have been trying to do. And finally, with a helping hand from an angel or an ancestor, or maybe a complete stranger, the potato is pulled from beneath the soil and sees the sun. It feels the wind. It is alive. The adventure has begun.
That’s why I am Opin. And that’s why I’ll never give up. Because like every opin, I’ll start from the bottom, but I’ll reach the top.
I close the notebook and drop it onto the coffee table. My uncle hands me my sandwich, but before I eat it, I look him right in the eye and say, “I want to take my shot.”
My uncle sets his plate down and smiles. “Are you sure? Are you done being a boy? Because if you hit that pole, you’ll be a boy no more. Are you ready to be a man?” he asks.
My mind floods back to everything I’ve been through. How I relied on my mom to make all the decisions for me and how I depended on her to keep me safe. But recently there have been changes in my brain. Big changes. I didn’t run when those guys in the park approached Leland and me. I stood up to them. I tried to protect my friend. I rescued Ani from the streets. And even though I needed her more than she needed me, I still protected her as best I could. And when Emjay took her away from me, I stood up to him. Sure, I lost the fight, but that’s a given. I was always going to lose, but the point is, I fought back. And it was me who made the decision to wait for the cop to return with the cart. Mom was ready to cut our losses and run. But I stood up. And it was me who convinced Mom to let Angel help us. And with my brother gone, I need to step up and be the man my mom needs me to be. She’s exhausted and has been trying to keep all three of us afloat for so long, all on her own. She wasn’t ready to be a grown-up. Her childhood was just as tough as mine, maybe tougher. But she fought and fought and fought, and look, we’re still alive. And along the way, she’s taught us how to fight and fight and fight.
I’m not saying I am a man. Clearly, I still have a lot of growing up to do, but I am realizing that I am not really a kid anymore. I’m somewhere in between.
“I don’t think anyone is ever ready to become who they are meant to be. It just happens, ready or not. And it’s happening now. I’m growing up,” I say, and head to the porch.
I slide back the door and step out, with my eyes fixed on the telephone pole. That inanimate object means so much right now. That propped-up wooden pole will now determine where I am in life. If I strike it, my childhood is gone. If I miss, then I’m not ready to be chief. I’m not ready to give up on my imagination and focus on the harsh realities of life. I can still play. I can still hope everything works out. I can still rely on my mom to take care of me, the way every kid lucky enough to have a mom should be able to.
My uncle joins me, holding his bow and arrow. It looks homemade, in a good way. Multicolored yarn wraps around the wooden bow. There are shapes and letters carved into the frame. “What are these symbols?” I ask. “Are these letters in Ojibwe?”
“I’ve carved all my attempts into that bow. Every etch you see is a time where I missed my shot,” he says.
Wow. He missed a lot. But I guess the lesson there is obvious. If you miss, try again. Never give up. Practice makes perfect. All the clichés people wear on their T-shirts.
But hey, he eventually hit it.
“I hit this pole and I’ll be a grown-up, right?” I ask.
“Hitting that pole won’t make you a grown-up. There’s a huge difference between growing up and becoming a man.”
“What’s the difference?”
