Unending Rooms

ONE

JOHN BOYD’S STORY

Preguntaéis: Y dónde están las lilas?

Y la metafísica cubierta de amapolas?

Neruda

John Boyd wrote a story that pissed off the white people in our writing group. He was a skin off the same rez as Sherman Alexie. He was already in his thirties when he came to us, a recovering alcoholic. One time we were hanging out at a party that the group had thrown, at the place of some white liberal, and we were the only brown people there. I was drinking beer, and John, who didn’t drink, was smoking cigarettes, one after another. We were both watching the people, like we were watching an unfunny sitcom. Suddenly, he leaned into me, and he pulled something out of his inside coat pocket. Look what I brought, he said, and handed it to me.

It was a cassette tape of Hank Williams, Sr.

All right, I said. Hank.

Damn right, he said.

He didn’t ask the white Rastafarian host if he could change the Bob Marley, he just went up to the stereo and put in the tape. Hank’s desperate voice and the pain of his guitar blew into the room like ghosts. Anyone who has felt drunken despair knows that Hank was not a phony. He was poor white trash, and had he been a Mexican, he would have sung mariachi music. You could tell that some of the white people felt uncomfortable listening to country music, but we were the only brown people there, and they were happy to have us in the group—more diversity and all—so they let Hank sing. They were hating it, waiting for the end of it.

They don’t even know what’s good about their own culture, John said.

Suddenly a young Rastafarian white guy stormed into the room yelling, What is this Okie shit?

They told him that me, a Chicano, and John, an Indian (although they would use the term Native American), brought the tape.

Oh, sorry, he said, bowing to John, and he sat on the couch, and everyone listened.

At that same party, a young woman named Emma, a white woman from Vermont, asked John how far was his reservation from Seattle. Close and far, he answered. Then she started on about how much she loved Seattle, especially Pike Market, she said, saying how much she loved watching the fish vendors throw the salmon back and forth. If I recall her correctly, she was pretty, very New Englandly, and she wrote stories that aspired to be like Pam Houston.

John listened to her talk of Pike, and he shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Everyone else at the party was looking at Emma, and they liked watching her, as if pink fish were flying from her mouth.

Suddenly John blurted out, How would you like it if we threw your Jesus around like dead fish?

I thought it was funny, and I started laughing, and he turned to me and laughed with me, but the others didn’t get it.

But this story (my story) is about a story John wrote. We were the only brown people in a graduate seminar in fiction writing at the University of Oregon.

The program was hard to get into, and John was accepted because he was a good fiction writer who could have been great. He wrote language-driven stories, so beautiful, I’d even say poetic, about natives walking along rivers, landscapes so vivid that you forget you’re reading. You could enter his world, you could hear the sound of the streams, and you could feel the sun streaming through the trees. White people in our group loved his stuff and thought that he could be the next James Welch.

But then he wrote a story that they didn’t think was any good. After that, maybe some of them began to think he wasn’t such a great writer. He would eventually drop out of the program, although I don’t think it was because of the story he wrote. It was and it wasn’t. It was more complex than that.

John Boyd’s story was about a guy who lives alone in a trailer on the rez, somewhere in Washington. One day he hears a knock at his door, which surprises him, because no one ever came to his door. He opens it and there’s this white guy standing there, a young man carrying a clipboard. The young man smiles all dumbly, like he’s happy to be there.

Hello? he says, a little too eagerly and cheerfully for John’s character, who looks over the guy’s shoulders and sees a new white truck parked in front.

What do you want?

The guy explains that he’s a graduate student at the university, and he’s doing his dissertation about life on the reservation. He’s very eager, and he says, I want to know what it’s like to be a Native American. What is it like? Please tell me. I have money.

John Boyd’s character says something like, You really want to know what it’s like?

The guy nods his head and says, Yes! Please, teach me!

John’s character looks around. Then he says, Let’s see the money. The visitor pulls out a wad of bills and hands it to Boyd’s character, who pockets it, steps back, and tells the white guy to come in.

Oh, thank you! Thank you!

They go into the trailer.

The Indian isn’t what you would call neat. There’s stuff everywhere, dishes, clothes, TV blaring. The white guy pulls up his clipboard and starts writing notes.

Put that down, says the Indian. Follow me.

Where are we going?

You said you wanted to know what it’s like being a Native American on the rez, right?

Yes, yes! So much!

I got the impression as I read the story that the guy living in the trailer was John Boyd at an earlier age. There are empty whisky bottles all over. The character clears a spot on the counter, knocking all the stuff to the floor, breaking bottles. The white guy pulls up his clipboard to write a note.

Put the clipboard down, John says (or rather, John’s character says), and the white guy looks around for a place to put it.

The Indian grabs the clipboard and throws it across the room.

The student looks a little disconcerted, as if he needs to take notes in order for the experience to be real.

Put your hand here, says the Indian, indicating the empty spot he has cleared on the counter.

So the guy, happy to be learning what it’s like, puts his hand on the counter.

John’s character grabs a large kitchen knife. Spread out your fingers, he says.

The student seems a little more reluctant now, so the Indian yells, Do it!

The guy says, O.K., and he spreads out his fingers, maybe thinking that the Indian is going to play that game where you poke a knife real fast between the digits, maybe meaning that being a Native American was scary, uncertain, dangerous at times. He wants to take notes.

But the Indian takes the knife and whacks off three of the white guy’s fingers, who screams bloody murder, and blood spurts everywhere, like in a Monty Python movie. He holds his hand up, screaming, blood squirting from where the fingers used to be.

John’s character grabs a beer, walks to the living room, plops on his couch and says, That’s what it’s like.

We workshopped the story, and when it was time to talk about it, the people in our group were silent, not sure how to react.

Then they started.

Emma went first:

John, she said, as if she were very concerned. What happened to those beautiful stories you used to write? Where are your trees and mystical rivers and schools of metaphorical salmon, slipping between the rocks? Where are the rainbows reflecting in the water?

And everyone agreed. You’re such a good writer, said a white Rastafarian boy, the one from the party. But this. It’s so angry. Why is it so angry?

MEAN LOOKS

"This is why I made it," I say.

"What have you made?" asks Vern, quoting with his fingers the word made, as if I were claiming too much.

You know what I mean, I say.

Vern’s like that, says Shelly from the couch, where she watches TV. A number one asshole. The den is wood-paneled, dim, brightened by the TV and the brassy shine of athletic trophies Vern had earned in high school.

Fuck you, he says, scrolling through the numbers on his cell phone.

We’re both sitting at the table.

Have some respect, I say, looking into the kitchen at my mother and little brother Kevin, who are looking through the glass door of the oven. The Christmas cookies smell sweet, like baking sugar.

Look who’s talking respect, says Vern. He’s 38 and has a beard with white hairs among the black. His eyeglasses are thick and his dark forehead has sweat beading on it, like always. You caused more grief for Mom than all of us put together.

You caused more smell, says Shelly.

Fuck you, says Vern.

You’re such a retard, says Shelly. She’s 34.

So my friend Paco and I are just kicking it, I continue, looking at Kevin in the kitchen. Nothing to do. It’s about 100 degrees outside.

And of course you’re wearing your gang banger costume, says Vern.

It’s just how we dressed back then.

Like a clown, he says.

Like you dress any better, says Shelly.

Vern looks around the room. I’m sorry. Did the fat chick say something?

I like baggy pants, says my little brother Kevin. He’s leaning against my mother. He’s eleven-years old. I’m telling this story for him.

I don’t like him to dress like a gang banger, says Mom. Too many bad memories.

Anyway, it’s hot. A hundred and ten, I say. We’re on the corner of Blackstone and Shields, and it’s crazy with cars, exhaust fumes burning our lungs. So Paco says, ‘Hey, let’s get on the city bus.’ The busses are air-conditioned, so I think Paco’s got something with that idea. What the hell. We had nowhere to go. So we wait. We see the bus rise up over the avenue, coming slowly in the traffic. When it gets closer, we can see through the windshield that the bus driver is this big fat man with a white beard like Santa Claus. I joke to Paco, So this is what Santa does in the summer, but Paco doesn’t even know what I’m talking about. He’s watching a Mexican mother, very young and pretty, pushing a stroller. She’s wearing a short green skirt and has a round, brown face. She gets to the bus stop and the baby, like he knew something was going to happen, starts to cry, spraying tears and slobber like a sprinkler. When she bends over to lift the baby from the stroller, Paco taps me on the arm, points his head at her, says, ‘Check it out.’ We can see down her blouse, into her loose bra, we can see everything. Paco’s eyebrows slide up and down, he has a smirk on his face. The young mother lifts the baby and starts to coo to it. Her lips are very red, very plump. She was dressed nice, too, but you could tell she was poor by the way the hems of her clothes were unraveling.

Probably on welfare too, says Vern.

You have a lot of room to criticize, says Shelly. Mr. Freeloader. Mr. Still-Lives-With-Mommy.

Hey, Screw you, says Vern. I contribute around here. I pay rent.

What, fifty dollars a month?

Let him finish, says Kevin from the kitchen.

So, it’s obvious that Santa Claus, the bus driver, doesn’t want to stop for me and Paco, I say, because of the way we’re dressed. And maybe he saw our tattoos.

Mine’s on the forearm, letters and numbers, and one on my neck, an image of a growling bulldog.

And this was the time when they had that policy, I continue, "that if you looked like a gang member, the bus drivers didn’t have to stop for you. I’m not sure if it was legal, but that’s the way it was.

But there’s this young Mexican mother with her child, so Santa Claus stops. Paco lets her go first, the baby in her arms, so he can watch her climb the stairs. She forgets the stroller on the sidewalk. The bus driver asks her what she’s going to do, but he’s looking at Paco when he says it. The mother squeezes by Paco and gets the stroller, squeezes by Paco again and carries it on.

How come you didn’t help her? asks Kevin.

I look at my little brother. He’s half Japanese, half brother to us all. Vern, Shelly and I are Chicanos. Kevin’s black eyes are as wide as walnuts. He wants to go to the same university where I attend. And major in History, too. I try to explain it to him.

Paco and I were always…

Oh my, correct grammar, says Vern. "Paco and I."

People try really hard not to look at us, but everyone does. If they’re little kids or old ladies, well that’s O.K., let them look, because mostly they’re wondering what you might do. It’s attitude. I couldn’t help this lady.

That’s a shit-poor excuse, says Vern.

You’re right, I say, it is. What happened next, I mean, that’s what it was. This was three years ago. Not long after this day I said to myself, the heck with this. I went to junior college and now, well, you know where I am now.

You make it sound like you’re all successful, says Vern. You ain’t shit.

Stop it, Vern, says Shelly. He’s accomplished a lot. You never even finished junior college or held a job for more than a month.

UC Santa Cruz is a great school, says Kevin. You should be proud of your brother.

Proud of Affirmative Action Boy? I don’t think so.

So what happened next? says Shelly.

Paco hands the money to Santa Claus, who says, ‘Where are you going?’ Paco says he’s going to visit his mama. Santa looks at him like he hates him, but he takes the money anyway. We’re walking to the back of the bus. And it’s full of people, mostly old ladies doing their shopping, so there are hardly any seats left, some in the back, three of them. So Paco runs to the back to get them before the girl does, running right by her because that’s where she was heading. She stops. She looks around for another seat. There’s only one other free seat, next to this big black guy, but he’s big, so there’s not much room. That’s where the Mexican mother sits. She has trouble holding her baby in her arms and trying to fold up the stroller, but she manages. This black guy she’s sitting next to is about four feet taller than she is. Or at least it seems that way. Mean-looking, too. His arms are thick like telephone poles. He’s got this look on his face like he hates everyone, like you better not mess with him.

Like you guys, says Kevin.

"Exactly. So naturally I stare him down as I walk by, make sure he doesn’t look at me. Paco doesn’t even notice him because he’s checking out some skinny Vietnamese girl with her purse on her lap, probably going to work. And he starts talking to her, but she doesn’t say much.

"When I get to the back of the bus, I sit down, and this black guy turns around and looks at me. Hard.

I thought maybe he’s pissed that we didn’t give the mother our seats, since we had three of them, one each, and one between us, you know, the faggot buffer zone.

That’s not very nice, says Shelly. ‘Fag’ is an ugly word.

You’re right,I say. Gang members aren’t politically correct. That’s just the way we talked. So this black guy is looking at me.

African-American, corrects Shelly.

Like he thought he was bad. His face is all scrunched up like he was challenging me. I had to do something. So I stand up.

Were you packing? asks Kevin.

No, not that day. I walk over to this black guy, and he’s looking at me hard the whole time I’m walking over there. I get to where he is and I say, ‘You got a problem, dogg?’ He says nothing, just stares hard. I notice the baby in the mother’s arms is staring up at me, too, his eyes wide open, and he’s happy, his little hands and fingers reaching up for me. He’s making ga ga noises. I say to the black guy, ‘You want to F with me. Let’s go, punk!

Damn, says Kevin.

I don’t think I want to hear this, says Mom.

"And that’s when it happened. The black dude, man, he fucking smiles at me, a big slobbery smile. And he lifts his hands like he’s got no control over the movement. They’re bending at the wrists and shit. And he starts making noises with his mouth. Funny noises.

The young Mexican mother looks up at me. ‘Please,’ she says, ‘Leave him alone.’ The black guy jerks his neck, involuntarily, and he says to me, ‘Hi, you! Hi!’ and he waves again. Then his face goes back to the hard way it was before, only now I see that his eyes are not mean, but innocent. I guess, he was mentally retarded.

I turn to Shelly. Or however it’s called.

I see that the TV is playing a commercial that’s supposed to be funny.

I notice the ceiling fan is on low.

The family is silent.

Vern starts. He busts out laughing. I want to tell him that he better watch himself.

He continues laughing with a few oh mys and some tears. Shelly can’t help it, she laughs too, not at the story but at Vern. She stops laughing and shakes her head at Vern for laughing.

Vern says, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, Sorry, man. It’s just that… That’s a great story! Great! You ought to publish it.

It was very nice, agrees