More Than Good Enough
Crissa-Jean Chappell
for Harlan
one
Names are like tree rings. You might end up with a lot. But if you chopped me open and looked inside, you’d find only one. That’s the first thing I learned after I moved onto the Miccosukee reservation with my dad.
We were gliding through the Everglades on Uncle Seth’s airboat. The late afternoon sky gleamed in the smooth surface of the water, as if the clouds rolled under us. All around the boat, a chain of lilies floated. Nothing to hear except the fan blades roaring away.
On my lap, I held the baby alligator that we’d caught
in the tall grass. My uncle said that somebody must’ve kept the gator as a pet. When it grew too big, they dumped it in the swamp.
“They probably kept him in a bathtub,” he said, tapping the gator’s snout. “He didn’t eat right. Not enough meat and bones. See, his back’s all twisted.”
The gator squirmed in my fingers, looking for escape.
I knew how he felt.
We swerved up to the docks and cut the engine. A sign bolted to the post said MICCOSUKEE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING. The breeze smelled like woodsmoke and low tide. My aunts had waited for us all day, cooking sofke with cornbread.
Our sneakers clattered down the boardwalk. In the middle of the island was a chickee hut, its thatched roof jutting above the oak trees. No walls. Everybody was hanging out by the fire, talking super fast in Hitchiti. I didn’t understand a single word, but I had a feeling it was about me.
A bunch of kids were running around, playing stickball. They wore patchwork shirts that drooped over their jeans, and in both hands, they carried rackets. They took turns, lunging across the grass. I wanted to join them, but I had no clue how to play.
As I turned away, Dad called out, “Trent, aren’t you hungry?”
“No,” I said, heading to the water.
I found a quiet spot by the canal. Uncle Seth and my dad used to climb the big trees here, but that was a long time ago. Now the shoreline was choked with stringy cattails, the “gravestone” of the Everglades.
“A lot of fish have disappeared,” my uncle said. “Back in the day, we had so many, they used to jump into my canoe.”
I couldn’t tell if he was making this up. Uncle Seth was real good at stretching the truth. Not that I’d call him a liar. I mean, at least he didn’t mess with my head. That was my dad’s job.
In my arms, I held the gator. Did he even have a name? I crouched down near the canal and let go. Uncle Seth told me it couldn’t survive on its own, but I didn’t believe it. For a second, the gator didn’t move. Then it crawled into the water like it knew exactly where it belonged.
A couple weeks before, I was in the garage at my mom’s house, messing around with my bass guitar, trying to teach myself this epic spider-walk technique I learned on YouTube. It was sad how much I’d been neglecting my bass. My pinky kept slipping over the frets and making this wacked-out zppppptttt noise. It was beyond irritating.
Music is what got me into Southwinds, the magnet school for super-obsessed people who start playing violin at age two. Right. Everybody’s a genius. Here’s the truth. My grades had crashed and burned that last semester. I just wasn’t into it. Not when you’ve got teachers like Mr. Harding (aka Hard On) forcing you to play Canon in D over and over. It was so freaking boring. If I tried to freestyle, he’d get pissed.
When Mom found out I’d been ejected from Southwinds, she blamed the school. Then she called the principal and he blamed me.
“How could you fail all your exams?” Mom wanted to know.
Easy. I never went to class.
“This is inexcusable, Trenton,” she said, slamming down the phone. “I can’t have you going to Palm Hammock with all those druggies. Lord, what is this world coming to? They’re installing metal detectors on campus. I read it in the paper.”
If you asked me, regular school sounded a hell of a lot better. Metal detectors were nothing major unless you’re, like, carrying a Bowie knife in your sock.
Mom wouldn’t drop it. “We are having a discussion. Now.”
Discuss what? I was already done. Over and out.
I sank into the chair and slapped the tabs to “All Along the Watchtower.” My dad used to say that Jimi Hendrix was part Cherokee. When I was little, Dad would lock himself in here and play along with 94.9 Zeta Rocks. He’d crank the stereo so nobody would catch his mistakes. Still, I could tell he was good. More than good.
Mom got so frustrated with my little solo, she left the garage. I think she started crying. I felt kind of guilty for a nanosecond. Then I heard her on the phone, talking to my dad. They got divorced when I was little and he spent the past decade behind bars, but now that he’d gotten out of jail, he was staying with us. He was supposed to be looking for work, but as far as I could tell that wasn’t happening.
I played louder.
Jimi’s refrain buzzed through me, as if his rage had channeled into my hands. That’s the most awesome part about bass guitar. It’s a physical thing, almost percussive. I was so into it, I didn’t hear the car pull into the driveway.
The garage door rumbled open, ultra-dramatic. I watched a blade of light cut across the wall. In my mind, I heard drums thumping like the soundtrack to an old Western. I really hated those movies. The Indians were usually white people in headbands. The director would record their lines and play it backward, just to make it sound like another language. How dumb is that?