Hey, Xavier, at my mother’s funeral, did you notice that I am at least a foot taller than my sisters, nieces, and female cousins? Did you also notice that all of them were crying? So maybe, if you had noticed those things and put the clues together, Xavier, you could have solved the sartorial crime. My shirt was wrinkled because a few dozen short women had pressed their weepy faces into my chest when they hugged me. Did you also notice that my shirt was damp with tears and makeup?
Dear Xavier, my shirt was wrinkled because of our family’s collective grief.
And, okay, okay, okay, I had also pulled the imperfectly folded shirt from the suitcase that morning, and had briefly considered ironing it, but then thought, Rez funerals are way casual and 90 percent of the Indians will be in T-shirts and jean shorts anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.
So, yeah, honestly speaking, my shirt wasn’t exactly crisp when I arrived at my mother’s funeral, but my sisters and cousins had wrinkled it even more with their grief.
So, yeah, honestly speaking, fuck you, Xavier, and the farm-raised salmon you rode in on.
28.
Eulogize Rhymes with Disguise
When I was four and weeping For my father, gone
On another binge-drinking Sabbatical, my mother tore
Me from my bed at 4 a.m.
On a December night
And pushed me outside
Onto the porch.
“You can come back in when You stop crying!” she screamed And slammed and locked
The door. It wasn’t a freezing night
And the porch was covered So I wasn’t completely exposed.
And, for more warmth, I crawled Into the doghouse with our mutts.
Three minutes or three hours later— I don’t know which—my mother opened The door and called me back inside.
But I refused. I told her I would sleep
With the dogs. And I did, I did, Like some prehistoric Indian boy Learning how to survive
Any weather or wilderness.
At my mother’s funeral,
I heard other tribal members Remember her as someone better Than I had ever known—
I briefly wondered if I was at a funeral For a stranger who only resembled My mother. Then my cousin, Wearing a ribbon shirt and moccasins
Made by my mother, said, “Lillian was Our last connection to the ancient Stories and songs. Lillian was Also a mean and foulmouthed
Woman who scolded everybody.
Right now, I bet you Lillian just arrived In Heaven and is scolding Jesus For playing the wrong welcoming song.”
We all laughed and laughed Because, yes, my mother was Exactly the kind of mortal Who challenged the Gods.
She was the reservation Medea.
She was the indigenous Antigone.
But just imagine how it felt to be Her fragile child. I never stopped
Being afraid of her. I never left That dark porch. I am still Sleeping with those dogs.
Yes, I am always cold and curled
Like a question mark
Among those animal bodies.
As I wait for the glorious Warmth of the rising sun.
29.
The Undertaking
Five days after our mother’s death, We bury her next to our father, And as I stare at their shared Gravestone, I see our mother’s date
Of birth carved into the granite And realize belatedly that we’d Forgotten to hire somebody
To carve her date of death.
I also realize that it was odd— And equally fatalistic
And romantic—to have carved,
At our mother’s request, her name
Into this gravestone twelve years ago When we buried our father—her husband.
So, yes, our mother lived for over A decade with her name etched above
Her grave-to-be. And now, as we lower her Into the grave-that-is, she doesn’t have An official date of expiration.
Does this make her potentially immortal?
If we never hire a carver
To finish the gravestone then maybe We can pretend that this funeral Is yet another one of her spectacular lies.
Dear Mother, you bipolar necromancer, I fully expect you to rise like a shawl dancer Out of your false coffin and cry, “Surprise, surprise, I am still alive!”
30.
The Urban Indian Boy Sings a Death Song
How does one deliver an honest eulogy?
I mean—shit, shit, shit—I lied when my mother died And said nothing forceful about her cruelty
Or her kindness. I could have said she was crazy And dead-salmon cold and pathologically lied, But who wants such honesty in a eulogy?
I could have celebrated her sobriety
And chastised drunk cousins for their various crimes Against our tribe or their specific cruelty—
With their fists and cocks—against me and my body.
But I would have been speaking out of angry pride.
My narcissism could have turned my eulogy
Into Law & Order courtroom testimony.
I could’ve said, “I felt safe almost half the time With Mom. She protected me against cruelty
Three days a week.” And, yes, I know my scrutiny Is dead-salmon cold and probably misapplied, But I want this to be an honest eulogy
About how I learned to receive and deliver cruelty.
31.
Downtown
AT MY MOTHER’S funeral, my sister said, “When she was really sick, Mom was talking about the time she lost custody of us.”
“They only lost us once?” I asked.
“She only talked about one time,” my sister said.
I’d heard stories about Social Service visits to our various childhood homes—and knew we’d been taken away once—but I didn’t know the details.
“When did this happen?” I asked.
“Arlene and I were just a few months old,” my sister said. “And you were still just a baby. And Arnold was a toddler.”
“Why’d they lose us?” I asked. “What did they do?”
“Drinking, I’m sure,” my sister said.
“And probably one of the times we were living in Spokane,” I said.
“Probably.”
I have only impressionistic memories of living with my parents in a series of sad-ass residential hotels in downtown Spokane. And I’ve likely created those memories by blending old photographs I’ve seen firsthand with old stories I’ve heard secondhand.
So I remember my father pulling three empty drawers out of a dresser to use as cribs for my two sisters and me.
I remember the smell of cigarette smoke and body odor.
I remember the old black man who worked the manual elevator in one of those places.
I remember ratty area rugs and sticky wood floors.
I remember a lot of Indians, familiar and strange, staring at me.
But I don’t have any memories, impressionistic or not, about becoming wards of the state.
“You think Mom was telling the truth about losing us?” I asked my sister.
“You think she’d lie when she knew she was dying?” my sister asked me.
“Yes,” I said.