There There(20)

“I know nothing about grant writing.”

“You could learn. Research. There’s probably YouTube tutorials or something, right?”

“Those are my updates,” I say, and feel a pull from a limb gone loose. While I was talking something in me reached back to remember all that I’d once hoped I’d be, and placed it next to the feeling of being who I am now. “I’m sorry I’m such a fuckup,” I say. And I don’t want to but I really mean it.

“Don’t talk like that. You’re not a loser, Ed.”

“I didn’t say I was a loser. Bill says that. That’s Bill’s word for me,” I say, and whatever true sadness I felt is gone. I turn to go back to my room.

“Just…wait. Don’t go back to your room. Please. Wait a second. Sit down. Let’s talk, this isn’t talking.”

“I’ve been sitting down all day.”

“And whose fault is that?” she says, and I start to walk toward my room.

“Okay, stand, but stay. We don’t have to talk about Bill. How are your stories coming along then, sweetie?”

“My stories? Come on, Mom.”

“What?”

“Whenever we talk about my writing, I feel like you’re trying to make me feel better about the fact that I’m even doing it.”

“Ed, we can all use encouragement. All of us.”

    “That’s true, that’s true, Mom, you could use some too, but do you hear me telling you that you need to stop smoking and drinking so much, that you should find healthy alternatives to passing out in front of the TV every night, especially given your job, I think even your title is substance abuse counselor. No. I don’t. Because it’s not helpful. Now can I go?”

“You know, you still act like you’re fourteen, like you can’t wait to get back to your video games. I’m not always gonna be here, Ed. One day you’re gonna turn around and I’ll be gone, and you’ll wish you had appreciated these times we have together.”

“Oh my God.”

“I’m just saying. The internet has a lot to offer, but they’ll never make a website that can take the place of your mother’s company.”

“So can I go?”

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“I heard about a position.”

“At the Indian Center.”

“Yes.”

“Fine, what is it?”

“It’s a paid internship. You’d basically be helping with anything related to the powwow.”

“An internship?”

“Paid.”

“Send me the information.”

“Really?”

“Now can I go?”

“Go.”

    Then I come up from behind my mom and give her a kiss on the cheek.



* * *



—

Back in my room I put my earphones in. Put on A Tribe Called Red. They’re a group of First Nations DJs and producers based out of Ottawa. They make electronic music with samples from powwow drum groups. It’s the most modern, or most postmodern, form of Indigenous music I’ve heard that’s both traditional and new-sounding. The problem with Indigenous art in general is that it’s stuck in the past. The catch, or the double bind, about the whole thing is this: If it isn’t pulling from tradition, how is it Indigenous? And if it is stuck in tradition, in the past, how can it be relevant to other Indigenous people living now, how can it be modern? So to get close to but keep enough distance from tradition, in order to be recognizably Native and modern-sounding, is a small kind of miracle these three First Nations producers made happen on a particularly accessible self-titled album, which they, in the spirit of the age of the mixtape, gave away for free online.

I settle myself on the floor and weakly attempt some push-ups. I roll over and try a sit-up. My top half won’t budge. I think about my college days. About how long ago that was and how hopeful I’d been. How impossible my current life would have seemed to me then.

I’m not used to pushing my body to do anything. Maybe it’s too late to come back from what I’ve done to myself. No. Being finished looks like sitting back down at the computer. I’m not finished. I am a Cheyenne Indian. A warrior. No. That’s super corny. Fuck. I get mad at that thought, that I even thought it. I use the anger to push, to do a sit-up. I push my hardest and rise, I get all the way up. But with the exhilaration of completing my first sit-up comes an explosion, a wet smelly lump of relief in the seat of my sweatpants. I’m out of breath, sweating, sitting in my own shit. I lie back down, put both of my arms out flat, palms up. I find myself saying “Thank you” out loud, to no one in particular. I feel something not unlike hope.





PART II


   Reclaim




        A feather is trimmed, it is trimmed by the light and the bug and the post, it is trimmed by little leaning and by all sorts of mounted reserves and loud volumes. It is surely cohesive.

    —GERTRUDE STEIN





Bill Davis





BILL MOVES THROUGH the bleachers with the slow thoroughness of one who’s had a job too long. He slogs along, plods, but not without pride. He immerses himself in his job. He likes to have something to do, to feel useful, even if that work, that job, is currently in maintenance. He is picking up garbage missed by the initial postgame crew. It’s a job for the old guy they can’t fire because he’s been there so long. He knows. But he also knows he means more than that to them. Because don’t they count on him to cover their shifts? Wasn’t he available any day of the week for any shift? Didn’t he know the ins and outs of that coliseum better than anyone? Hadn’t he done almost every single available job over all the years he’d worked there? From security, where he started, all the way to peanut vendor—a job he’d only done once and hated. He tells himself he means more. He tells himself he can tell himself and believe it. But it’s not true. There’s no room here for old people like Bill anymore. Anywhere.