box on the human resources form, an improbable situation at best and thus frequently problematic. Though my scholarship research specialized in Indians in American film, every time I admired beadwork for its beauty and craft, the artists thought I was working on a way to turn it into a lecture and make millions talking to fascinated white audiences about their work. The life this reservation has invented for me is far more glamorous than the one I have in reality.
They never see lectures where the honorarium doesn’t cover costs or see conference presentations where the panel is relieved that there are more people in the audience than there are on the stage. They also don’t see that I’m working at a very small college where there are no courses specializing in media studies or popular culture or even American studies. I am the art historian, period. I can do the research I want, but in the classroom, I had better represent the Renaissance through postmodernism, or it is poor-evaluation time for me. The luxury of a large University, where I could really devote my time to the study of Fred Howkowski and his impact on the roles of Indians in film, is really more a dream than anything else, a way to not make myself crazy repeating over and over again the significance of the first Italian perspective painters or Pablo Picasso’s break with form, or Cindy Sherman’s own ironic take on Hollywood.
T.J. at least got some response as the chief in Cuckoo’s Nest around the country in the summers, if not from his students. Half the time I’m not sure the audience listens as I lecture through a slide show, the only ways of documenting our culture that I have. He’s also got the advantage of being a poster boy for Indian men in America—slick braids, hawk nose, thick sensuous lips, and the stoic look that just won’t quit. I’m not sure he would get the same stares with a flattop or even a regular haircut but those braids are unstoppable.
Those same looks drive the Indian men around here as crazy as they do the women. That he is part white and raised by a white couple seventeen hundred miles away doesn’t stop their wives and girlfriends commenting anytime they see him. Even Doug, when we lived together, carried on a running monologue about everything wrong with T.J. whenever someone mentioned him. When T.J. had a small speaking part last year on Justice Scales, Doug was insufferable. He’d even brought home one of the countdown calendars Mason Rollins had printed, with T.J.’s face, but not to mark the days until the broadcast. Doug’s El Marko had given my colleague a pirate’s eye patch, missing teeth, warts, the works.
I wonder if Doug still has it. He probably took it down last spring when I moved back to the city—the only home I had ever known. I’m convinced Doug had put it up, trying to brew tension, as if his mother’s seven-year presence with us hadn’t been enough. The whole time I’d lived on the reservation, people whispered behind my back, though about what, I never knew exactly. I thought maybe it would stop when I left, but they blamed the breakup on me, the city-Indian woman with the degrees, and not on the hardworking smoke-shop-clerking rez-born and -bred husband, and certainly not on the chain-smoking, soap opera-game show watching, invasive and pervasive mother-in-law who had lived with us since we moved to that trailer.
It hadn’t been my fault her house burned down, and after seven years, I couldn’t take one more day of that life, not knowing how much longer it would go on. I thought I’d be rid of her for the most part after I moved out. I felt safe living back in the city while she remained in my old trailer on the reservation. It was strange at first not to wake up to Doug snoring, and I had been surprised to discover that in the time I was on the reservation, I had acclimated to its otherwise quiet nights. I guess I missed the place.
“Did you know about this?” I whispered to T.J., as the students began their march across the stage. I revealed the article from the sleeve of my regalia, passing him the newspaper. He’d glanced, nodded, and handed it back to me. “It’s not every day your stepfather gets on national TV. How come you never mentioned it?”
“Adoptive father. I don’t know, didn’t think it would be all that interesting to you. You know how that show is. I don’t know what he’s thinking. And besides, it’s not like he’s going to be talking about your favorite subject.” Some days T.J. was willing to talk for hours about his real father’s brief time home and then in Hollywood before he committed suicide, and some days he wasn’t. Fred Howkowski’s career was the major thematic core of my research, but I had to deal with my source material on its own terms, and that meant waiting a lot of the time for people to feel right about their relationships to him. I like to think that the slight reservation animosity to T.J. is what brought me to befriend him. When he showed back up here, he was so desperately looking for a community, and most people would have little to do with him. So, I did what I could, became his friend, helped him get a job, but he’s also bright enough to know that part of my interest is his connection to Fred. I wish I could say it was different, but we both know the truth of that reality, and we just don’t explore the topic unless he’s had enough prodding. Then he reminds me in no uncertain terms.
“It’s only about that Japanese woman. Didn’t you read the article?”
“Yeah, what happened with all that, anyway? Did he ever say?” A colleague sitting in front of us turned and gave us the shut-up frown, so we waited for the students to move their tassels and get on with their lives. As we recessed from the auditorium, T.J. vanished, but then reappeared in my door a little while later.
“ You all set?” he said. We walked to the lot in silence, the warm spring breeze rolling across the nearly empty lot. As we reached my Blazer, he said, “I’m thinking about going down there.”
“Really? When?”
“I don’t know, soon. It’s been a while. Why?”
“I’d like to go with you.” I could not believe those words had come out of my mouth. I panicked and then he offered the perfect recovery.
“ Yeah, he might have a lot of useful information for you, and it would be nice to have some company,” he said, staring at me from the passenger’s seat. “When do you think you can go?”
“As of ten minutes ago, I am free for three months. Why don’t we leave tonight?” I laughed and started the Blazer.
“Are you serious?” I wasn’t sure myself if I were really committing to this idea. Maybe I was serious. So much had changed since this morning and it was true—I was free for three months. I had three lonely months of that apartment staring me down.
“Well, I should let my family know, so they don’t worry,” I said, finally.
“Okay, I don’t have anything holding me here, and I’ve been meaning to make this trip for a long time. If we can get ready by five, we could make Cleveland before the TV show comes on.”
“It means you have to come to my mom’s with me, so I can let her know I’ll be gone for a while, and I want to stop and get gas at Royal’s shop, too.”
“Your momma’s all right.”
When we arrived, my mother’s eyes passed over us, trying to decide if I were really going to ask her the things I intended with T.J. in the room. This was the way she dealt with confrontation, a posh salesperson—politely and discreetly showing you the price of your desire. You might not have the necessary down payment, and she waited, wondering if you could hear the question being asked. She was wrong this time. I’d come with enough to pay in full and to answer forcefully and clearly.
“Your TV working, Ma?” I asked.
“About as good as it ever does,” she said. “Depends on the wind, season, trees, whatever.” That was also part of her translation key. She could complain without ever technically doing so.
“T.J., why don’t you climb up on her roof, see if the antenna is secure. Maybe it’s just some loose connections or wires exposed on the line in,” I said. He clearly hadn’t any idea how he might implement such changes. So much for the improv skills of this professional actor. How had he ever managed to get even off-Broadway roles? “Here, I’ll show you where the ladder and the duct tape are.” I walked him out to the shed behind my brother Royal’s trailer. “There’s plenty of things that might need addressing on that roof.”