I could have easily dodged the can. But I didn’t. Instead, I watched it with amazement. I kept marveling that my extremely clumsy mother had thrown it with such force and accuracy. I worry now that I didn’t duck because I wanted to get hit. In any case, I continued to be amazed and/or expectant as that can struck me in the forehead and knocked me unconscious.
Okay, I need to remind you that I was a hydrocephalic kid who had brain surgery at five months and then again at two years, and suffered epileptic seizures until I was seven. I still have four burr hole soft spots in my skull and a Frankenstein mess of head scars. So, yes, along with bipolar disorder, my brain damage might have also made me quick to rage.
But let’s get back to that soda can. It would be dangerous to throw that projectile at anybody’s face, but it was especially threatening to me.
I don’t know how long I was unconscious. When I opened my eyes and looked at the water-stained ceiling, I was in shock. I wasn’t bleeding very much but would have a huge bruise—a black eye of the forehead—for a week. I slowly sat up and saw that my mother was still quilting. I don’t know if she’d even moved from the couch after she’d knocked me out. Maybe she’d thought I was faking it. That’s the only way to justify the fact that she hadn’t sought to help me.
I silently and slowly got to my feet.
I was dizzy, nauseated, and confused. It felt like my arms and legs had switched places and I would have to relearn how to walk again.
There was no concussion protocol in those days.
Carefully, I walked to the basement door, opened it, eased my way downstairs, shuffled to my room, slumped onto my bed, and slept for many dreamless hours.
I suppose I could have died from my head injury—from a clotted vein or subdural hematoma or brain bleed.
But I woke the next morning with a massive headache, slowly walked upstairs, and ate the hash browns and Spam that my mother had left for me on the dining table.
It was a greasy and unspoken apology.
And by eating her food, I guess I had accepted it.
6.
Prayer Animals
When I was ten or twelve, my late mother told me that, When she was ten or twelve, she grabbed a stray cat By the front legs while her little niece grabbed Its rear legs, and they twisted and pulled that damned And doomed animal until it split into bloody halves.
Would you be shocked to know that I wasn’t shocked By that story? On the reservation, violence is a clock, Ordinary and relentless. Even stopped, it doesn’t stop.
But, Jesus, as an adult in the city, I am rocked By that story’s implications. My mother was not
A sociopath, but animal torture is a common crime For serial killers in training. So how and why Did my mother and her niece commit an act so borderline?
Of course, being Native females, they were bull’s-eyes For every man—known or unknown, indigenous or white—
So which men hurt my mother and her niece so terribly And so often that they would possess the need To capture, torture, and murder something so weak?
How disconnected was my mother from her body And her emotions? To survive, she had to be as mean
As those who would do her harm. So I guess I know Why she was often distant, storm-hearted, and cold.
But my reluctant compassion does nothing to console Me, as a middle-aged man who remembers, in whole, The day an older and larger white boy named Mike cajoled
Five of us Indian boys into his trailer “for some fun.”
At first, he let each of us marvel at his new pellet gun And then he shot Gooch in the neck. There was blood.
It still felt ordinary, though. After all, we were young And dumb. We laughed at Gooch. We didn’t run.
And then Mike shot Gooch in the ear. He screamed In pain. So Mike kicked him quiet. Gooch was weak.
But then Mike shot all of us. He shot me.
Terrified, we did not fight. We gave up so easily As Mike roped us together into one fragile body.
I’d guess I was pellet-shot at least five times.
Punched in the face once, kicked in the balls twice.
Mike struck matches and flicked them at our eyes.
And then he pulled out a huge hunting knife.
And made us beg for our “useless little lives.”
After hours of this, we escaped when I broke Through a window and ran. Everybody ran without Rhyme or reason. The five of us fled in five separate Directions. I ran home and immediately told my mother What had just happened. And she did nothing.
“Oh,” she said to me. “Mike was joking. You take Everything so seriously.” My mother, so traumatized By her own painful life, could not see the sharp danger Of anybody else’s knife. I don’t know if the other boys Were as traumatized as me. They’ve never talked about Mike,
So maybe they are mute with post-traumatic stress.
Maybe they don’t know how to talk about Mike.
I often wonder why I’m the one who remembers All the pain. Why am I the one who remains obsessed By the bloody nose, but rarely remembers any joy?
Eight years after our faux kidnapping, I was watching TV
With my girlfriend when Mike’s face appeared on-screen.
He’d been arrested in Spokane for kidnapping, raping, And murdering two little girls. One of their bodies Has never been found. And then he’d tried to hide
His crime by piling brush on the other girl’s body And setting her aflame. After seeing this news, I turned to my girlfriend and said, “We were practice For him. We were dress rehearsal for rape
And torture and murder. We were his game.”
Growing up on the rez, I’d often felt like a prey Animal, like a carnivore’s easiest meal.
But that fear was more metaphor than real,
Except for the time, only a mile from my house, When a killer played with me like I was his mouse.
I called my mother and asked her if she’d heard About Mike. About the murders he had committed.
She said she’d forgotten about him, which meant That she’d forgotten what he had done to me
And the other Indian boys. “Mom,” I said.
“Mike hurt us. Don’t you remember that?”
She denied that it had ever happened.
And that if it had happened, then it could not Have been that bad. “If Mike had done that
To you for real,” she said, “then he would’ve been
In trouble. He would have gone to jail.”
I laughed. “Mom,” I said. “Nothing happened
Because you didn’t take me seriously.”
“Well,” my mother said. “He’s in jail now.
So what’s done is done.” I was pissed
At my mother’s dismissal. I hung up the phone And remembered yet again that she, as a child, Had once tortured, killed, and mutilated a cat.
Who does shit like that? Who can be that cruel?
It was my mother. It was my mother. That’s who.
7.
Benediction
I only spent a few hours with my mother
As she lay dying in her rented hospital bed.
I kissed her, told her I loved her,
And then I fled.
8.
My Sister’s Waltz
OUR MOTHER WAS on her deathbed. Dreaming morphine dreams. Speaking the tribal language in her sleep. And then she was awake. And she was thirsty. So she called out in English to my sister.
“Help me,” she said. “My mouth is dry.”