When My Brother Was an Aztec (2 page)

Love is a pound of sticky raisins

packed tight in black and white

government boxes the day we had no

groceries. I told my mom I was hungry.

She gave me the whole bright box.

USDA stamped like a fist on the side.

I ate them all in ten minutes. Ate

too many too fast. It wasn't long

before those old grapes set like black

clay at the bottom of my belly

making it ache and swell.

I complained,
I hate raisins.

I just wanted a sandwich like other kids.

Well that's all we've got, my mom sighed.

And what other kids?

Everyone but me,
I told her.

She said,
You mean the white kids.

You want to be a white kid?

Well too bad 'cause you're my kid.

I cried,
At least the white kids get a sandwich.

At least the white kids don't get the shits.

That's when she slapped me. Left me

holding my mouth and stomach—

devoured by shame.

I still hate raisins,

but not for the crooked commodity lines

we stood in to get them—winding

around and in the tribal gymnasium.

Not for the awkward cardboard boxes

we carried them home in. Not for the shits

or how they distended my belly.

I hate raisins because now I know

my mom was hungry that day, too,

and I ate all the raisins.

There is a dawn between my legs,

a rising of mad rouge birds, overflowing

and crazy-mean, bronze-tailed hawks,

a phoenix preening

sharp-hot wings, pretty pecking procession,

feathers flashing like flames

in a
Semana Santa
parade.

There are bulls between my legs,

a
torera

stabbing her
banderillas,

snapping her cape, tippy-toes scraping

my mottled thighs, the crowd's throats open,

shining like new scars,
cornadas
glowing

from beneath hands and white handkerchiefs

bright as bandages.

There are car wrecks between my legs,

a mess of maroon Volkswagens,

a rusted bus abandoned in the Grand Canyon,

a gas tanker in flames,

an IHS van full of corned beef hash,

an open can of commodity beets

on this village's one main road, a stoplight

pulsing like a bullet hole, a police car

flickering like a new scab,

an ambulance driven by Custer,

another ambulance

for Custer.

There is a war between my legs,

'ahway nyavay,
a wager, a fight, a losing

that cramps my fists, a battle on eroding banks

of muddy creeks, the stench of metal,

purple-gray clotting the air,

in the grass the bodies

dim, cracked pomegranates, stone fruit,

this orchard stains

like a cemetery.

There is a martyr between my legs,

my personal San Sebastián

leaking reed arrows and sin, stubbornly sewing

a sacred red ribbon dress,
ahvay chuchqer,

the carmine threads

pull the Colorado River,
'Aha Haviily,
clay,

and creosotes from the skirt,

each wound a week,

a coral moon, a calendar, a begging

for a master, or a slave, for a god

in magic cochineal pants.

There are broken baskets between my legs,

cracked vases, terra-cotta crumbs,

crippled grandmothers with mahogany skins

whose ruby shoes throb on shelves in closets,

who teach me to vomit

this fuchsia madness,

this scarlet smallpox blanket,

this sugar-riddled amputated robe,

these cursive curses scrawling down my calves,

this rotting strawberry field, swollen sunset,

hemoglobin joke with no punch line,

this crimson garbage truck,

this bloody nose, splintered cherry tree,
manzano,

this
métis
Mary's heart,

guitarra acerezada,
red race
mestiza,
this cattle train,

this hand-me-down adobe drum,

this slug in the mouth,

this
'av'unye 'ahwaatm, via roja dolorosa,

this dark hut, this mud house, this dirty bed,

this period of exile.

At The Injun That Could, a jalopy bar drooping and lopsided

on the bank of the Colorado River—a once mighty red body

now dammed and tamed blue—Guy No-Horse was glistening

drunk and dancing fancy with two white gals—both yellow-haired

tourists still in bikini tops, freckled skins blistered pink

by the savage Mohave Desert sun.

Though The Injun, as it was known by locals, had no true dance floor—

truths meant little on such a night—card tables covered in drink, ash,

and melting ice had been pushed aside, shoved together to make a place

for the rhythms that came easy to people in the coyote hours

beyond midnight.

In the midst of Camel smoke hanging lower and thicker

than a September monsoon, No-Horse rode high, his PIMC-issued

wheelchair transfigured—a magical chariot drawn by two blond,

beer-clumsy palominos perfumed with coconut sunscreen and dollar-fifty

Budweisers. He was as careful as any man could be at almost 2 a.m.

to avoid their sunburned toes—in the brown light of The Injun, chips

in their toenail polish glinted like diamonds.

Other Indians noticed the awkward trinity and gathered round

in a dented circle, clapping, whooping, slinging obscenities

from their tongues of fire:
Ya-ha! Ya-ha!
Jeering their dark horse,

No-Horse, toward the finish line of an obviously rigged race.

No-Horse didn't hear their rabble, which was soon overpowered

as the two-man band behind the bar really got after it—a jam

probably about love, but maybe about freedom, and definitely

about him, as his fair-haired tandem, his denim-skirted pendulums

kept time. The time being now—

No-Horse sucked his lips, imagined the taste of the white girls'

thrusting hips.
Hey!
He sang.
Hey!
He smiled.
Hey!
He spun around

in the middle of a crowd of his fellow tribesmen, a sparkling centurion

moving as fluid as an Indian could be at almost two in the morning,

rolling back, forth, popping wheelies that tipped his big head

and swung his braids like shiny lassos of lust. The two white gals

looked down at him, looked back up at each other, raised their plastic

Solo cups-runneth-over, laughing loudly, hysterical at the very thought

of dancing with a broken-down Indian.

But about that laughter, No-Horse didn't give a damn.

This was an edge of rez where warriors were made on nights

like these, with music like this, and tonight he was out, dancing

at The Injun That Could. If you'd seen the lightning of his smile,

not the empty space leaking from his thighs, you might have believed

that man was walking on water, or at least that he had legs again.

And as for the white girls slurring around him like two bedraggled

angels, one holding on to the handle of his wheelchair, the other

spilling her drink all down the front of her shirt, well, for them

he was sorry. Because this was not a John Wayne movie,

this was The Injun That Could, and the only cavalry riding this night

was in No-Horse's veins.
Hey! Hey! Hey!
he hollered.

Plays solitaire on
TV
trays with decks of old casino cards Trades her clothes for faded nightgowns long & loose like ghosts Drinks water & Diet Coke from blue cups with plastic bendy straws Bathes twice a week Is dropped to the green tiles of her HUD home while her daughters try to change her sheets & a child watches through a crack in the door Doesn't attend church services cakewalks or Indian Days parades Slides her old shoes under the legs of wooden tables & chairs Lives years & years in beds & wheelchairs stamped “Needles Hospital” in white stencil Dreams of playing kick-the-can in asphalt cul-de-sacs below the brown hum of streetlights about to burn out Asks her great-grandchildren to race from one end of her room to the other as fast as they can & the whole time she whoops Faster! Faster! Can't remember doing jackknifes or cannonballs or breaking the surface of the Colorado River Can't forget being locked in closets at the old Indian school Still cries telling how she peed the bed there How the white teacher wrapped her in her wet sheets & made her stand in the hall all day for the other Indian kids to see Receives visits from Nazarene preachers Contract Health & Records nurses & medicine men from Parker who knock stones & sticks together & spit magic saliva over her Taps out the two-step rhythm of Bird dances with her fingers Curses in Mojave some mornings Prays in English most nights Told me to keep my eyes open for the white man named Diabetes who is out there somewhere carrying her legs in red biohazard bags tucked under his arms Asks me to rub her legs which aren't there so I pretend by pressing my hands into the empty sheets at the foot of her bed Feels she's lost part of her memory the part the legs knew best like earth Her missing kneecaps are bright bones caught in my throat

In the beginning, light was shaved from its cob,

white kernels divided from dark ones, put to the pestle

until each sparked like a star. By nightfall, tortillas sprang up

from the dust, billowed like a fleet of prairie schooners

sailing a flat black sky, moons hot white

on the blue-flamed stove of the earth, and they were good.

Some tortillas wandered the dry ground

like bright tribes, others settled through the floury ceiling

el cielo de mis sueños,
hovering above our tents,

over our beds—floppy white Frisbees, spinning, whirling

like project merry-go-rounds—they were fruitful and multiplied,

subduing all the beasts, eyeteeth, and bellies of the world.

How we prayed to the tortilla god: to roll us up

like burritos—tight and fat
como porros
—to hold us

in His lips, to be ignited, lit up luminous with Holy Spirit

dancing on the edge of a table, grooving all up and down

the gold piping of the green robe of San Peregrino—

the saint who keeps the black spots away,

to toke and be token, carried up up

away in tortilla smoke, up to the steeple

where the angels and our grandpas live—

high to the top that is the bottom, the side, the side,

the space between, back to the end that is the beginning—

a giant ball of
masa
rolling, rolling, rolling down,

riding hard the arc of earth—gathering rocks, size, lemon

trees, Joshua trees, creosotes, size, spray-painted

blue bicycles rusting in gardens, hunched bow-legged grandpas in white

undershirts that cover cancers whittling their organs like thorns

and thistles, like dark eyes wide open, like sin—leaving behind

bits and pieces of finger-sticky dough grandmas mistake

for Communion
y toman la hostia
—it clings to their ribs

like gum they swallowed in first grade.

The grandmas return from
misa,
with full to the brim

estómagos
and overflowing souls, to empty homes.

They tie on their aprons. Between their palms they sculpt and caress,

stroke and press, dozens and dozens of tortillas—stack them

from basement to attic, from wall to wall, crowding closets,

jamming drawers, filling cupboards and
el vacío.

At night they kiss ceramic statues of Virgin Marys,

roll rosary beads between their index fingers and thumbs,

weep tears prettier than holy water—

When they wake they realize frogs haven't had tails in ages,

they hope gravity doesn't last long, and they wait—

y esperan y esperan y esperamos
—to be carried up up—anywhere—

on round white magic carpets and tortilla smoke.

Mary Lambert was born at the Indian hospital on the rez.

She never missed a 3-pointer in the first thirteen years of her life.

She started smoking pot in seventh grade, still, never missed

a 3-pointer, but eventually missed most of her freshman classes

and finally dropped out of high school.

A year or so later, a smooth-faced Mojave who had a jump shot

smoother than a silver can of commodity shortening and soared

for rebounds like he was made of red-tailed hawk feathers

visited her rez for a money tournament. His team won the money,

and he won MVI—Most Valuable Indian.

Afterward, at the little bar on the corner of Indian Route 1,

where the only people not allowed to drink were dialysis patients,

he told Mary she was his favorite, his first string,

that he'd dropped all those buckets for her. He spent his entire cut

of the tournament winnings on her Wild Turkey 'n' Cokes,

told her he was going to stay the night with her, even though

it was already morning when they stumbled from the bar.

He stayed and stayed and stayed, then left—

her heart felt pierced with spears and arrows, and her belly swelled

round as an August melon.

That was a lifetime ago. Now, she's seventeen. She kept the baby

and the weight and sells famous frybread and breakfast burritos

at tribal entities on pay days—tortillas round and chewy as Communion

wafers embracing commod cheese and government potatoes,

delivered in tinfoil from the trunk of an old brown Buick

with a cracked windshield and a pair of baby Jordan shoes hanging

from the rearview mirror—her sleeping brown baby tied tightly

into a cradleboard in the backseat.

Just the other day, at a party on first beach, someone asked

if she still had that 3-point touch, if she wished she still played ball,

and she answered that she wished a lot of things,

but what she wished for most at that minute was that she could turn

the entire Colorado River into E & J Ripple—

she went on a beer run instead,

and as she made her way over the bumpy back roads along the river,

that smooth-faced baby in the backseat cried out for something.