When My Brother Was an Aztec (3 page)

Betsy Ross needled hot stars to Mr. Washington's bedspread—

Pack the suitcases with white cans of corned beef—

Blue gourds glow and rattle like a two-man band:

We carry dimming lamps like god cages—

History has chapped lips, unkissable lips—

Loot bag ghosts float fatly in dark museum corners—

Splintering cradleboards sing bone lullabies—

A tongue will wrestle its mouth to death and lose—

in my little sister's closet,

navy socks with holes in the heels, packets of black

dragging wire hangers across her arms and stomach.

The picks spark, sparklers from a Fourth of July

The clanking is too many

Why won't you put her on the phone? Why

in the Picasso museum—all corners,

Old women, sisters begging for ears and tails, shaking

handkerchiefs—in the sky, glittering magpies,

razorblade ballads, and Ma Rainey records. These blues are

What if Eve was an Indian

& Adam was never kneaded

from the earth, Eve
was
Earth

& ribs were her idea all along?

What if Mary was an Indian

& when Gabriel visited her wigwam

she was away at a monthly WIC clinic

receiving eggs, boxed cheese

& peanut butter instead of Jesus?

What if God was an Indian

with turquoise wings & coral breasts

who invented a game called White Man Chess

played on silver boards with all white pieces

pawns & kings & only one side, the white side

& the more they won the more they were beaten?

What if the world was an Indian

whose head & back were flat from being strapped

to a cradleboard as a baby & when she slept

she had nightmares lit up by yellow-haired men & ships

scraping anchors in her throat? What if she wailed

all night while great waves rose up carrying the fleets

across her flat back, over the edge of the flat world?

Wired to her display box were a pair of one-size-fits-all-Indians stiletto moccasins, faux turquoise earrings, a dream catcher, a copy of
Indian Country Today,
erasable markers for chin and forehead tattoos, and two six-packs of mini magic beer bottles—when tilted up, the bottles turned clear, when turned right-side-up, the bottles refilled. Mojave Barbie repeatedly drank Ken and Skipper under their pink plastic patio table sets. Skipper said she drank like a boy.

Mojave Barbie secretly hated the color of her new friends' apricot skins, how they burned after riding in Ken's convertible Camaro with the top down, hated how their micro hairbrushes tangled and knotted in her own thick, black hair, which they always wanted to braid. There wasn't any diet cola in their cute little ice chests, and worst of all, Mojave Barbie couldn't find a single soft spot on her body to inject her insulin. It had taken years of court cases, litigation, letters from tribal council members, testimonials from CHR nurses, and a few diabetic comas just to receive permission to buy the never-released hypodermic needle accessory kit—before that, she'd bought most on the Japanese black market—Mattel didn't like toying around with the possibility of a Junkie Barbie.

Mojave Barbie had been banned from the horse stables and was no longer invited to dinner, not since she let it slip that when the cavalry came to Fort Mojave, the Mojaves ate a few horses. It had happened, and she only let it slip after Skipper tried to force her to admit the Mojave Creation was just a myth:
It's true. I'm from
Spirit Mountain,
Mojave Barbie had said.
No, you're not,
Skipper had argued.
You came from Asia.
But Mojave Barbie wasn't missing much—they didn't have lazy man's bread or tortillas in the Barbie Stovetop to Tabletop Deluxe Kitchen. In fact, they only had a
breakfast set, so they ate the same two sunny-side-up eggs and pancakes every meal.

Each night after dinner, Mojave Barbie sneaked from the guesthouse—next to the tennis courts and Hairtastic Salon—to rendezvous with Ken, sometimes in the collapsible Glamour Camper, but most often in the Dream Pool. She would
yenni
Ken all night long. (
Yenni
was the Mojave word for sex, explained a culturally informative booklet included in Mojave Barbie's box, along with an authentic frybread recipe, her Certificate of Indian Blood, a casino player's card, and a voided per capita check.) They took precautions to prevent waking others inside the Dream House—Mojave Barbie's tan webbed hand covering Ken's always- open mouth muffled his ejaculations.

One night, after drinking a pint of Black Velvet disguised as a bottle of suntan lotion, Ken felt especially playful. Ken was wild, wanted to sport his plastic Stetson and pleather holsters, wanted Mojave Barbie to wear her traditional outfit, still twist-tied to her box. She agreed and donned her mesquite-bark skirt and went shirtless except for strands of blue and white glass beads that hung down in coils around her neck. The single feather in her hair tickled Ken's fancy. He begged Mojave Barbie to wrap her wide, dark hips around him in the “Mojave Death Grip,” an indigenous love maneuver that made him thankful for his double-jointed pelvis. (A Mojave Death Grip Graphic How-To Manual was once included in the culturally informative booklet, but a string of disjointed legs and a campaign by the Girl Scouts of America led to a recall.) Ken pointed his wooden six-shooter and chased her up the Dream Slide. The weight of the perfectly proportioned bodies sent the pool accessory crashing to the patio. Every light in every window painted itself on as the Dream House swung open from
the middle, giving all inside a sneak peek at naked Ken's hard body and naked Mojave Barbie gripping his pistol, both mid-yenni and dripping wet.

Ken was punished by Mattel's higher-ups, had his tennis racket, tuxedo, Limited Edition Hummer, scuba and snorkel gear, aviator sunglasses, Harley, windjammer sailboard, his iPad and iPhone confiscated. Mojave Barbie had been caught red-handed and bare- breasted. She was being relocated—a job dealing blackjack at some California casino. On her way out the gate, she kicked the plastic cocker spaniel, which fell sideways but never pulled its tongue in or even barked—she felt an ache behind her 39 EE left breast for her rez dog, which had been discontinued long ago. Mojave Barbie tossed a trash bag filled with clothes and accessories into her primered Barbie Happy Family Volvo, which she'd bought at a yard sale. The car had hidden beneath a tarp in the Dream House driveway since she got there. She climbed through the passenger door over to the driver's seat, an explosion of ripped vinyl, towels, and duct tape. She pumped and pumped the gas pedal, clicked and clicked the ignition, until the jalopy fired up. Mojave Barbie rolled away, her mismatched hubcaps wobbling and rattling, a book of yellow WIC coupons rustling on the dash, and a Joy Harjo tape melted in the tape deck blaring,
I'm not afraid to be hungry. I'm not
afraid to be full.

Mom and Dad Barbie, Grandma Barbie, Skipper, and Ken stood on the Dream House balcony and watched Mojave Barbie go. Grandma Barbie tilted at the waist whispering to Mom Barbie,
They should've kept that one in the cupboard.
Dad Barbie piped in,
Yep, it's always a gamble with those people.
Mom Barbie was silent, hoping the purpling, bruise-like marks the size of mouths circling Ken's neck were not what she thought they were: hickies, or, as
the culturally informative booklet explained, a “Mojave necklace.” Skipper complained to Ken that Mojave Barbie had flipped them off as she drove out the wrought-iron gates, which, of course, locked behind her with a clang. Ken fingered the blue bead in his pocket and reassured Skipper,
Mojave Barbie was probably waving
goodbye—with hands like that, you can never be sure.

We smoke more grass than we ever promise to plant.

Our front yards are green and brown, triangles of glass—
What is the grass?
—emeralds and garnets sewed like seeds in the dirt.

The shards of glass grow men bunched together—
multitudes
—men larger than weeds and Whitmans, leaning against the sides of houses—
dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers
—upon dirt not lawn.

Corned beef comes on the first of every month—
this the meat of hunger
— in white cans with bold black writing.

We—
myself and mine
—toss it in a pot and wonder how it will ever feed us all—
witness and wait
—but never worry, never fret, never give a damn, over mowing the grass.

What have we—
the red aborigines
—
out of hopeful green stuff woven?

We are born with spinning coins in place of eyes,

paid in full to ferry Charon's narrow skiffs—

not to be driven mad by the caroling of thirsty children

or the symphony of dogs slaking hunger

by licking our ribcages like xylophones.

Our medicine bags are anchored with buffalo nickels—

How we plow and furrow the murky Styx, lovingly

digging with smooth dark oars—

A gunnysack full of tigers wrestles in our chests—

Chest translates to bomb.

Bomb is a song—

Burlap is no place for prayers or hands.

The reservation is no place for a jungle.

The snow-dim prairies are garlanded with children—

Some crawled until they came undone—

Others lay where they first fell, enamored by the warmth

of a blanket of blood.

My dress is bluer than a sky weeping bones—

Yesterday is much closer than today—

We've memorized the way a Hotchkiss can wreck a mouth.

Streetlights glow, neon gourds, electric dandelions—

Wish hard for orange buttes and purple canyons,

moon-hoofed horses with manes made from wars,

other small thundering.