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in the dark, in the bitter wind

shoulder to shoulder, on the rim of a hill

bend as one, and grasp one thing together

ask them, in the dream world, why

do they cry? they will show you in reply

their shawls of many colours, spread these wings

sweep you in, teach you how

once a year, in the dark of the year we wash

the whole world in a day-for one day, we cry

until they're home, until they all are home

from one dawn to the next mourning

for the broken wailing for regrets

love lost, wrong words, wrong actions

unbalanced moments and all the cracks between heart

and heart, parent and child

lover and beloved friend, nation and nation

creature, and creature of another kind

for what we choose and what we neglect to choose

for what we wish we'd known

for each hand unclasped tongue unbridled

one whisper falling short of heard

until they're home, until they are all home

the bread far from the hunger the apology

the confusion the broken road

these things we gather in this blanket

we wash the world, between us

hold this blanket, fill it with our tears

from one dawn to the next

then we will rise, and we will dance

until they're home, until they all are home

lay your hands upon the truth of beauty's loss

heavy, soft as moss, this blanket

full of tears and dust and dying

becomes ocean cradle, healing, dark

the promise, washed clean by our sorrow

today crying out, as we're birthing tomorrow

as the law of moon and season

one day, the lawmakers must

exit their echoing halls, fall in

with the grandmothers dancing

carry it cry it clean

until they're home, until they are all home

until light through their bodies

translates to rainbows hung over the land

until light through their bodies

translates to rainbows strung over this land

until light through our bodies

translates to rainbows shining over our land

until we're home, until we all are home

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Washing the World by Anna Marie Sewell | Poetry Foundation

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in the dark, in the bitter wind shoulder to shoulder, on the rim of a hill bend as one, and grasp one thing together ask them, in the dream world, why do they cry?

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Exhibition Review the REDress Project in EcoCentrix
Permanent Exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights
Previous Solo Exhibitions
Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, 2019

Canadian Museum of Human Rights, 2014

University of Alberta, March 2012
University of Manitoba, Nov.2011
Thompson Rivers University, Oct. 2011
University of Ottawa, July 2011
The Manitoba Legislature, May 2011
The University of Winnipeg, March 2011

RECOMMENDED:
University of BC Indigenous Foundations Artist Database
REDress/REdress Documentary
PRESS COVERAGE:

March 2019: The Guardian
Spring 2019: American Indian Magazine
October 2015: Global News

March 2012: The REDress Project at UofA
March 2012: The REDress Project at The university of Alberta, CBC Radio Interview w. jaime Black and Andrea Menard

March 2012: REdress Project Panel Discussion U of Alberta

March 2012: The REDress Project at Uof A, Augustana Satellite Campus, the Camrose Canadian.

March 2012: The Edmonton Journal, The REDress Project UofA

January 2012: University of Manitoba Radio Interview on The REDress Project

December 10 , 2010: Examiner Art Review

December 7, 2010: The Guardian: On Canada's 'Highway of Tears' by Renee Martin

October 5, 2010: CBC News: Empty dresses honour missing, slain women

October 5, 2010: CTV News: Artist aims to raise awareness regarding missing, murdered women

October 2010: Windspeaker: Red Dresses: There, but just not there by Susan Solway

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Exhibition Review the REDress Project in EcoCentrix Permanent Exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights Previous Solo Exhibitions Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, 2019 Canadian Museum of Human Rights, 2014 University of Alberta, March 2012University of Manitoba, Nov.2011Thompson Rivers University, Oct.

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About the project

On Jan. 20, 2018, Native American women led the Seattle Womxn's March with a striking statement emblazoned on a handmade sign: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

It was a call to action and a demand for lawmakers, law enforcement, the media and the general public to pay attention to the crisis of violence inflicted on Native women for centuries.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) is a grassroots movement that began with First Nations women and families in Canada, and compelled the Canadian government to initiate a national inquiry.

The movement has gained momentum in Washington and other U.S. states as organizers lead marches, lobby lawmakers and partner with local organizations like the Urban Indian Health Institute to collect data that backs up their lived experiences.

Seattle Times journalists Bettina Hansen and Lauren Frohne have been following the efforts of local advocates and families who have lost loved ones, and are working to craft stories to reach our readers in a way that feels as personal and grassroots as the movement itself.

Reach out to us with your comments, ideas and stories for this docuseries, "Not Invisible," at MMIWstories@seattletimes.com.

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Not Invisible: Confronting a crisis of violence against Native women

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Native American women have been targeted with high rates of violence, murder, rape and disappearance for centuries. This ongoing series explores how MMIW activists, communities, lawmakers and law enforcement are raising awareness about missing and murdered indigenous women and working for change.

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By now, if you're even vaguely following the news, you've probably heard about Gabrielle Petito, the 22-year-old Florida woman who went missing and was later found dead after an ill-fated road trip out West with her boyfriend.

Chances are, you probably haven't heard about Pepita Redhair, a 27-year-old Navajo woman who's been missing since March 2020, when she was last seen in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Or of RoyLynn Rides Horse, a 28-year-old who died after being beaten, strangled and set on fire on Montana's Crow Indian Reservation in 2016. Or of the thousands of other Native American and Alaska Native women and girls who ended up missing or murdered in recent years.

Petito's case "was this huge international story," says Charon Asetoyer, founder of the Native American Community Board on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. "Well, women of color all over this country go missing every day and you never hear about it in the news. All life matters. Her life matters. But our lives matter, too."

For years, Asetoyer and other activists have been demanding that authorities pay attention to what they consider an epidemic of murdered and missing Indigenous women, whose cases they say are often overlooked or dismissed by law enforcement. In recent years they've finally seen some movement, as more than a dozen states with significant Native American populations - including New Mexico, Arizona, Washington and Minnesota - have launched task forces or other efforts aimed at addressing the problem.

Those involved say the initiatives, paired with recent action at the federal level, provide their first glimmer of hope that authorities might be willing to change the systems that have led to so many unsolved murders and disappearances. Others are less optimistic, questioning their design and efficacy.

While data on the exact number of missing and murdered Indigenous women is hard to come by, available statistics paint a grim picture. From 1999 to 2019, homicide was the third-leading cause of death among American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls ages 12 to 30, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among white women and girls, it was the fifth-leading cause of death. On some reservations, homicide rates for American Indian women have been more than 10 times the national average.

In 2020, there were 5,295 records for missing American Indian girls and women tallied by the National Crime Information Center, including 578 records that were still "active" by year's end.

Advocates suspect the real number of missing or murdered Indigenous women is far higher than the data suggests, but that systemic racism, jurisdictional confusion and poor data collection leads to underreporting and half-hearted investigations - if an investigation occurs at all.

"Indigenous women, they're subjected to a version of justice that is completely different from everybody else," says Rachel Ward, research director for Amnesty International USA, a human rights group. "Many of these cases slip through the cracks. Everybody spends hours arguing over who has the responsibility to do the primary investigation and meanwhile, days, weeks, months have passed without someone conducting even the most basic investigation."

Native American women have been advocating for stolen loved ones for years, stretching back to the early days of colonization. But a few recent developments helped get their efforts, often dubbed the MMIW or MMIWG movement, a boost.

In 2016, Canada's National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls threw the issue into the international spotlight. Then there was a 2018 report from the Urban Indian Health Institute, a research and advocacy organization focused on health in Indigenous communities, that surveyed cases of missing and murdered American Indian and Alaska Native women in 71 cities.

Another tipping point, says Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, was the " historic number of native women across the country running for office and serving in positions" in 2020.

"We are witnessing a new awareness around the issue that's growing across the country," says Flanagan, a self-described survivor and child witness of abuse. "I'm so grateful that we got to the point where decision-makers actually heard it, where we don't need to continue to put our trauma on display to be heard and believed and for action to occur."

State efforts to address the MMIW crisis started to get off the ground in 2019. That year alone, Minnesota, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana and New Mexico each launched a task force or study committee to address the issue; Idaho held a summit; and Oregon and Nebraska directed their state police to study the problem. Wisconsin and Utah established task forces in 2020.

In 2021, South Dakota and Oklahoma moved to create offices to address missing Indigenous people, Kansas passed a law paving the way for relevant police training and Washington state's attorney general announced he will lead a task force.

Lawmakers and attorneys general have played key roles in creation of the task forces. Most have two goals: to address the scope of the problem and make recommendations for how to remedy it. They tend to consist primarily of lawmakers, tribal representatives, law enforcement officials, and advocates and service providers for Indigenous women and girls.

Multiple state groups - including in Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming and Minnesota - have already issued reports. Their recommendations include actions such as increasing funding for services that would help grieving family members and survivors, encouraging memorandums of understanding between tribal law and non-tribal law enforcement, implementing cultural training for police, and mandating data collection and reporting.

Many of those involved in the efforts say they are already seeing positive results.

In Minnesota, Flanagan says, the state is creating an office within the Department of Public Safety that was recommended by the task force. In Montana, lawmakers created a Missing Indigenous Persons Review Commission at the Montana Department of Justice - a move suggested by its task force. And in Arizona, a new law championed by its study group makes it mandatory for law enforcement agencies to promptly report missing, kidnapped or runaway children and have the record updated.

"I'm hopeful the movement is happening in the right direction," says Jennifer Jermaine, a member of the White Earth Nation and the Democratic state representative who sponsored the bill to launch Arizona's study group.

But not everyone is so sanguine.

Many of the task forces are "PR stunts" that have operated on "very fast timelines with very little results," says Annita Lucchesi, a Montana-based expert researcher on missing Indigenous people who worked on the 2018 Urban Indian Health Institute report. A successful task force, she says, is one that provides healing for families and leads to more arrests and fewer cases - none of which she sees happening.

"I think there are well-meaning people with good heads on the task forces who generally want to make a difference," she says. "However, I doubt the efficacy of any system where the people responsible for the problem are tasked with solving the problem."

Lucchesi wants to see fewer members of law enforcement serving on the task forces and more survivors of violence, as well as more advocates and families who have been touched by the crisis.

"People who have been at the forefront of the movement, they're not invited to the table," says Lucchesi, who is also founding executive director of the Sovereign Bodies Institute, which researches gender and sexual violence against Indigenous people. "Instead there is often a very top-down process determining who is at the table, what is the agenda, who are we inviting to listen."

Task force members say they've tried to make the stories of affected family members and survivors central to their work - if not through task force membership then through public testimony - but that the COVID-19 pandemic, which further isolated and devastated some Native American communities just as many task forces started holding meetings, hindered their efforts.

In the case of New Mexico, for example, task force members were only able to hold a few in-person meetings before the pandemic forced them to go online.

"We wanted to host more community events to get testimony from families, but we struggled with how to do this virtually in a manner that would allow us to provide necessary support services to individuals," Stephanie Salazar, general counsel for New Mexico's Indian Affairs Department, tells U.S. News in an email.

Even in normal times, convincing people to share their trauma can be challenging, notes Yolanda Francisco-Nez of Restoring Ancestral Winds, a nonprofit that helped pressure Utah to launch a task force.

"There are some cultural factors that do hinder or dissuade families and survivors from offering their public comments," she says. "Take, for instance, the Navajo tribe, which has beliefs about not speaking about the dead."

She adds: "We have legislators who are interested in hearing stories but it can sometimes be difficult for a person to come forward and repeat that story over and over again because of the trauma that can bring to a person."

Flanagan, Minnesota's lieutenant governor, says she's sympathetic to the concerns about representation on the task forces, particularly when it comes to the involvement of law enforcement.

But, she says, "I also need those folks who are part of perpetuating this crisis to be at the table to hear directly from people who've been impacted and to have some accountability for the changes they need to make within their own institutions to ensure that doesn't happen anymore. If we close the door to them, there's no accountability. And that has to be part of the solution."

Given the complex nature of the crisis, some experts question whether the solution is really in the hands of states at all. Legislation and Supreme Court precedent, for example, have created a complicated web regarding whether the federal government, states or tribes have criminal jurisdiction over particular crimes and offenders.

Ward, with Amnesty International, says it ultimately will take federal action to solve the problem.

"The lack of accountability and impunity is very much rooted in the systems and structures that the federal government has put in place and has failed to address," she says. "Tribal nations - sovereign nations - need to have their inherent authority restored to be able to investigate, collect and gather the evidence and then to prosecute those who are preying on Indigenous women in their community."

It's important that states do what they can to develop interagency partnerships, spread awareness and take other steps, she says. But until the federal government acts, "we may just be seeing fixes around the edges."

There has been some movement at the federal level to address the crisis, but much like the work by states, it's still in its nascent stages.

In April, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history, announced the formation of a new Missing and Murdered Unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The unit would provide "direction for cross-departmental and interagency work" and help put the "full weight of the federal government" into investigating cases, according to a press release.

The efforts are a continuation of work by the Trump administration, which launched a two-year Presidential Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, also known as Operation Lady Justice, in 2019.

Advocates acknowledge the problem is so complex that individual states alone aren't likely to fix it. Still, they say, state lawmakers have a responsibility to address the issue.

"We have Native Americans living all across this country, and particularly in states that have a large population of native people, I think it's important (for lawmakers) to pay attention," Francisco-Nez says.

"We are their constituents. We deserve equal attention to these topics - and we're talking about alarming rates of murder and abduction that really deserve attention."

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'Our lives matter, too.' States Address Violence Against Indigenous Women

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By now, if you're even vaguely following the news, you've probably heard about Gabrielle Petito, the 22-year-old Florida woman who went missing and was later found dead after an ill-fated road trip out West with her boyfriend.

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MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Kaysera Stops Pretty Places | Crime Junkie Podcast

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When 18-year-old Kaysera Stops Pretty Places disappears after a night with friends, her family and friends hold their breath waiting for answers.

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Muralist draws attention to epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women

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Artist Gregg Deal's mural, titled "Take Back the Power," brings Indigenous experiences to the forefront of Colorado Springs' city scape.

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MY KAFKA BAGGAGE

A few years ago, after I returned home to Seattle from a trip to Los Angeles, I unpacked my bag and found a dead cockroach, shrouded by a dirty sock, in a corner. Shit, I thought. We're being invaded. So I threw the clothes, books, shoes, and toiletries back into the suitcase, carried it out to the driveway, and dumped the contents onto the pavement, ready to stomp on any other cockroach stowaways. But there was only the one cockroach, dead and stiff. As he lay on the pavement, I leaned closer to him. His legs were curled under his body. His head was tilted at a sad angle. Sad? Yes, sad. For who is lonelier than the cockroach without his tribe? I laughed at myself. I was feeling empathy for a dead cockroach. I wondered about its story. How had it got into my bag? And where? At the hotel in Los Angeles? In the airport baggage system? It hadn't originated in our house. We've kept those tiny bastards from our place for fifteen years. So where had this little vermin come from? Had he smelled something delicious in my bag-my musky deodorant or some crumb from a chocolate Power Bar-and climbed inside, only to be crushed by the shifts of fate and garment bags? As he died, did he feel fear? Isolation? Existential dread?

SYMPTOMS

Last summer, in reaction to various allergies I was suffering from, defensive mucus flooded my inner right ear and confused, frightened, and unmoored me. My allergies had never been this severe. I could barely hear a fucking thing with that side, so I had to turn my head in order to understand what my two sons, ages eight and ten, were saying.

"We're hungry," they said. "We keep telling you."

I was embarrassed.

"Mom would have fed us by now," they said.

Their mother had left for Italy with her mother two days before. My sons and I were going to enjoy a boys' week, filled with unwashed socks, REI rock-wall climbing, and ridiculous heaps of pasta.

"What are you going to cook?" my sons asked. "Why haven't you cooked yet?"

I'd been lying on the couch reading a book while they played and I hadn't realized that I'd gone partially deaf. So, for just a moment, I could only weakly blame my allergies.

Then I recalled the man who went to the emergency room because he'd woken having lost most, if not all, of his hearing. The doctor peered into one ear, saw an obstruction, reached in with small tweezers, and pulled out a cockroach, then reached into the other ear and extracted a much larger cockroach. Did you know that ear wax is a delicacy for roaches?

I cooked dinner for my sons-overfed them out of guilt-and cleaned the hell out of our home. Then I walked into the bathroom and stood before the mirror. I turned my head and body at weird angles and tried to see deeply into my congested ear; I sang hymns and prayed that I'd see a small angel trapped in the canal. I would free the poor thing, and she'd unfurl and pat dry her tiny wings, then fly to my lips and give me a sweet kiss for sheltering her metamorphosis.

When I woke at 3 A.M., completely deaf in my right ear, and positive that a damn swarm of locusts was wedged inside, I left a message for my doctor, and told him that I would be sitting outside his office when he reported for work.

This would be the first time I had been inside a health-care facility since my father's last surgery.

BLANKETS

After the surgeon had cut off my father's right foot-no, half of my father's right foot-and three toes from the left, I sat with him in the recovery room. It was more like a recovery hallway. There was no privacy, not even a thin curtain. I supposed this made it easier for the nurses to monitor the post-surgical patients, but, still, my father was exposed-his decades of poor health and worse decisions were illuminated-on white sheets in a white hallway under white lights.

"Are you O.K.?" I asked. It was a stupid question. Who could be O.K. after such a thing? Yesterday, my father had walked into the hospital. Yes, he'd shuffled while balancing on two canes, but that was still called walking. A few hours ago, my father still had both of his feet. They were black with rot and disease, but they were still, technically speaking, feet and toes. And, most important, those feet had belonged to my father. Now they were gone, sliced off. Where were they? What had the hospital done with the right foot and the toes from the left foot? Had they been thrown into the incinerator? Were their ashes already floating over the city?

"Doctor, I'm cold," my father said.

"Dad, it's me," I said.

"I know who you are. You're my son." But, given the blankness in my father's eyes, I assumed he was just guessing.

"Dad, you're in the hospital. You just had surgery."

"I know where I am. I'm cold."

"Do you want another blanket?" Stupid question. Of course, he wanted another blanket. He probably wanted me to build a fucking campfire or drag in one of those giant heat blasters that N.F.L. football teams use on the sidelines.

I walked down the hallway-the recovery hallway-to the nurses' station. There were three women nurses there, two white and one black. I am Native American-Spokane and Coeur d'Alene Indian-and I thought my darker pigment might give me an edge with the black nurse, so I addressed her directly.

"My father is cold," I said. "Can I get another blanket?"

The nurse glanced up from her paperwork and regarded me. Her expression was neither compassionate nor callous.

"How can I help you, sir?" she asked.

"I'd like another blanket for my father. He's cold."

"I'll be with you in a moment, sir."

She looked back down at her paperwork. She made a few notes. Not knowing what else to do, I stood there and waited.

"Sir," the nurse said. "I'll be with you in a moment."

She was irritated. I understood. After all, how many thousands of times had she been asked for an extra blanket? She was a nurse, an educated woman, not a damn housekeeper. And it was never really about an extra blanket, was it? No, when people asked for an extra blanket they were asking for a time machine. My father, an alcoholic, diabetic Indian with terminally damaged kidneys, had just endured an incredibly expensive surgery for what? So that he could ride his motorized wheelchair to the bar and win bets by showing off his disfigured foot? Yes, she was a health-care worker and she didn't want to be cruel, but she believed that there came a point when doctors should stop rescuing people from their own self-destructive impulses. And I couldn't disagree with her, but I could ask for the most basic of comforts, couldn't I?

"My father," I said. "An extra blanket, please."

"Fine," she said. She got up and walked back to a linen closet, grabbed a white blanket, and handed it to me. "If you need anything else-"

I didn't wait around for the end of her sentence. With the blanket in hand, I walked back to my father. It was a thin blanket, laundered and sterilized a hundred times. In fact, it was too thin. It wasn't really a blanket. It was more like a large beach towel. Hell, it wasn't even good enough for that. It was more like the world's biggest coffee filter. Jesus, had health care finally come to this? Everybody was uninsured and unblanketed.

"Dad, I'm back."

He looked so small and pale lying in that hospital bed. How had this happened? For the first sixty-seven years of his life, my father had been a large and dark man. Now he was just another pale, sick drone in a hallway of pale, sick drones. A hive, I thought. This place is like a beehive with colony-collapse disorder.

"Dad, it's me."

"I'm cold."

"I have a blanket."

As I draped it over my father and tucked it around his body, I felt the first sting of grief. I'd read the hospital literature about this moment. There would come a time when roles would reverse and the adult child would become the caretaker of the ill parent. The circle of life. Such poetic bullshit.

"I can't get warm," my father said. "I'm freezing."

"I brought you a blanket, Dad. I put it on you."

"Get me another one. Please. I'm so cold. I need another blanket."

I knew that ten more of these cheap blankets wouldn't be enough. My father needed a real blanket, a good blanket.

I walked out of the recovery hallway and made my way through various doorways and other hallways, peering into rooms, looking at the patients and their families, searching for a particular kind of patient and family.

I walked through the E.R., through the cancer, heart and vascular, neuroscience, orthopedic, women's health, pediatric, and surgical wards. Nobody stopped me. My expression and posture were those of a man with a sick father, and so I belonged.

And then I saw him, another Native man, leaning against a wall near the gift shop. Well, maybe he was Asian-lots of those in Seattle. He was a small man, pale brown, with muscular arms and a soft belly. Maybe he was Mexican, which is really a kind of Indian, too, but not the kind that I needed. It's hard to tell sometimes what people are. Even brown people guess at the identity of other brown people.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," the other man said.

"You Indian?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"What tribe?"

"Lummi."

"I'm Spokane."

"My first wife was Spokane. I hated her."

"My first wife was Lummi. She hated me."

We laughed at the new jokes that instantly sounded old.

"Why are you in here?" I asked.

"My sister is having a baby," he said. "But don't worry, it's not mine."

"Ayyyyyy," I said and laughed.

"I don't even want to be here," the other Indian said. "But my dad started, like, this new Indian tradition. He says it's a thousand years old. But that's bullshit. He just made it up to impress himself. And the whole family goes along with it, even when we know it's bullshit. He's in the delivery room waving eagle feathers around. Jesus."

"What's the tradition?"

"Oh, he does a naming ceremony right in the hospital. It's supposed to protect the baby from all the technology and shit. Like hospitals are the big problem. You know how many babies died before we had good hospitals?"

"I don't know."

"Most of them. Well, shit, a lot of them, at least."

This guy was talking out of his ass. I liked him immediately.

"I mean," the guy said. "You should see my dad right now. He's pretending to go into this, like, fucking trance, dancing around my sister in the bed, and he says he's trying to, you know, see into her womb, to see who the baby is, to see its true nature, so he can give it a name-a protective name-before it's born."

The guy laughed and threw his head back, banging it on the wall.

"I mean, come on, I'm a loser," he said and rubbed his sore skull. "My whole family is filled with losers."

The Indian world is filled with charlatans, men and women who pretend-hell, who might have come to believe-that they are holy. The year before, I went to a lecture at the University of Washington. An elderly Indian woman, a scholar, had come to orate on Indian sovereignty and literature. She kept arguing for some kind of separate indigenous literary identity, which was ironic considering that she was speaking English to a room full of white professors. But I wasn't angry with the woman, or even bored. No, I felt sorry for her. I realized that she was dying of nostalgia. She had taken nostalgia as her false idol-her thin blanket-and it was murdering her.

"Nostalgia," I said.

"What?"

"Your dad, he sounds like he's got a bad case of nostalgia."

"Yeah, I hear you catch that from fucking old high-school girlfriends," the man said. "What the hell you doing here, anyway?"

"My dad just got his feet cut off," I said.

"Diabetes?"

"And vodka."

"Vodka straight up or with a nostalgia chaser?"

"Both."

"Natural causes for an Indian."

"Yep."

There wasn't much to say after that.

"Well, I better get back," the man said. "Otherwise, my dad might wave an eagle feather and change my name."

"Hey, wait," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you a favor?"

"What?"

"My dad, he's in the recovery room," I said. "Well, it's more like a hallway, and he's freezing, and they've only got these shitty little blankets, and I came looking for Indians in the hospital because I figured-well, I guessed if I found any Indians they might have some good blankets."

"So you want to borrow a blanket from us?" the man asked.

"Yeah."

"Because you thought Indians would just happen to have some extra blankets lying around?"

"Yeah."

"That's fucking ridiculous."

"I know."

"And it's racist."

"I know."

"You're stereotyping your own damn people."

"I know."

"But damn if we don't have a room full of Pendleton blankets. New ones. Jesus, you'd think my sister was having, like, a dozen babies."

Five minutes later, carrying a Pendleton Star blanket, the Indian man walked out of his sister's hospital room, accompanied by his father, who wore Levi's, a black T-shirt, and eagle feathers in his gray braids.

"We want to give your father this blanket," the old man said. "It was meant for my grandson, but I think it will be good for your father, too."

"Thank you."

"Let me bless it. I will sing a healing song for the blanket. And for your father."

I flinched. This old man wanted to sing a song? That was dangerous. The song could take two minutes or two hours. It was impossible to know. Hell, considering how desperate the old man was to be seen as holy, he might sing for a week. I couldn't let him begin his song without issuing a caveat.

"My dad," I said. "I really need to get back to him. He's really sick."

"Don't worry," the old man said, winking. "I'll sing one of my short ones."

Jesus, who'd ever heard of a self-aware fundamentalist? The son, perhaps not the unbeliever he'd pretended to be, sang backup as his father launched into a radio-friendly honor song, just three and a half minutes, like any Top Forty rock song of the past fifty years. But here's the funny thing: the old man couldn't sing very well. If you had the balls to sing healing songs in hospital hallways, then you should have a great voice, right? But, no, this guy couldn't keep the tune; his voice cracked and wavered. Does a holy song lose its power if the singer is untalented?

"That is your father's song," the old man said when he finished. "I give it to him. I will never sing it again. It belongs to your father now."

Behind his back, the old man's son rolled his eyes and walked into his sister's room.

"O.K., thank you," I said. I felt like an ass, accepting the blanket and the old man's good wishes, and silently mocking them at the same time. But maybe the old man did have some power, some real medicine, because he peeked into my brain.

"It doesn't matter if you believe in the healing song," he said. "It only matters that the blanket heard."

"Where have you been?" my father asked when I returned. "I'm cold."

"I know, I know," I said. "I found you a blanket. A good one. It will keep you warm."

I draped the Star blanket over my father. He pulled the thick wool up to his chin. And then he began to sing. It was a healing song, not the same song that I had just heard but a healing song nonetheless. My father could sing beautifully. I wondered if it was proper for a man to sing a healing song for himself. I wondered if my father needed help with the song. I hadn't sung for many years, not like that, but I joined him. I knew that this song would not bring back my father's feet. This song would not repair my father's bladder, kidneys, lungs, and heart. This song would not prevent my father from drinking a bottle of vodka as soon as he could sit up in bed. This song would not defeat death. No, I thought, this song is temporary, but right now temporary is good enough. And it was a good song. Our voices filled the recovery hallway. The sick and the healthy stopped to listen. The nurses, even the remote black one, unconsciously took a few steps toward us. She sighed and smiled. I smiled back. I knew what she was thinking. Sometimes, even after all these years, she could still be surprised by her work. She still marvelled at the infinite and ridiculous faith of other people.

DOCTOR'S OFFICE

I took my kids with me to my doctor, a handsome man-a reservist-who'd served in both Iraq wars. I told him that I couldn't hear because of my allergies. He said he would likely have to clear wax and mucus out of my ear, but when he scoped inside he discovered nothing.

"Nope, it's all dry in there," he said.

He led my sons and me to the audiologist in the other half of the building. I was scared, but I wanted my children to remain calm, so I tried to stay measured. More than anything, I wanted my wife to materialize.

During the hearing test, I heard only thirty per cent of the clicks, bells, and words-I apparently had nerve- and bone-conductive deafness. My inner ear thumped and thumped.

How many cockroaches were in my head?

My doctor said, "We need an MRI of your ear and brain, and maybe we'll find out what's going on."

"Maybe"? That word terrified me.

What the fuck was wrong with my fucking head? Had my hydrocephalus come back? Had my levees burst? Was I going to flood?

HYDROCEPHALUS

Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines "hydrocephalus" as "an abnormal increase in the amount of cerebrospinal fluid within the cranial cavity that is accompanied by expansion of the cerebral ventricles, enlargement of the skull and especially the forehead, and atrophy of the brain." I define "hydrocephalus" as "the obese, imperialistic water demon that nearly killed me when I was a baby."

In order to save my life, and stop the water demon, I had brain surgery in 1967, when I was six months old. I was supposed to die. Obviously, I didn't. I was supposed to be severely mentally disabled. I have only minor to moderate brain damage. I was supposed to have epileptic seizures. Those I did have, until I was seven years old. I was on phenobarbital, a major-league antiseizure medication, for six years.

The side effects of phenobarbital-all of which I suffered to some degree or another as a child-are sleepwalking, agitation, confusion, depression, nightmares, hallucinations, insomnia, apnea, vomiting, constipation, dermatitis, fever, liver and bladder dysfunction, and psychiatric disturbance.

How do you like them cockroaches?

Now, as an adult, thirty-three years removed from phenobarbital, I still suffer-to some degree or another-from sleepwalking, agitation, confusion, depression, nightmares, hallucinations, insomnia, bladder dysfunction, apnea, and dermatitis.

Is there such a disease as post-phenobarbital traumatic stress disorder?

Most hydrocephalics are shunted. A shunt is essentially brain plumbing that drains away excess cerebrospinal fluid. The shunts often fuck up and stop working. I know hydrocephalics who've had a hundred or more shunt revisions and repairs. That's more than a hundred brain surgeries. There are ten fingers on any surgeon's hands. There are two or three surgeons involved in any particular brain operation. That means that some hydrocephalics have had their brains fondled by three thousand fingers.

I'm lucky. I was shunted only temporarily. And I hadn't suffered any hydrocephalic symptoms since I was seven years old.

Until July, 2008, when, at the age of forty-one, I went deaf in my right ear.

CONVERSATION

Sitting in my car in the hospital parking garage, I called my brother-in-law, who was babysitting my sons.

"Hey, it's me. I just got done with the MRI on my head."

My brother-in-law said something unintelligible. I realized that I was holding my cell to my bad ear, and I switched it to the good ear.

"The MRI dude didn't look happy," I said.

"That's not good," my brother-in-law said.

"No, it's not. But he's just a tech guy, right? He's not an expert on brains or anything. He's just the photographer, really. And he doesn't know anything about ears or deafness or anything, I don't think. Ah, hell, I don't know what he knows. I just didn't like the look on his face when I was done."

"Maybe he just didn't like you."

"Well, I got worried when I told him I had hydrocephalus when I was a baby and he didn't seem to know what that was."

"Nobody knows what that is."

"That's the truth. Have you fed the boys dinner?"

"Yeah, but I was scrounging. There's not much here."

"I better go shopping."

"Are you sure? I can do it if you need me to. I can shop the shit out of Trader Joe's."

"No, it'll be good for me. I feel good. I fell asleep during the MRI. And I kept twitching, so we had to do it twice. Otherwise, I would've been done earlier."

"That's O.K. I'm O.K. The boys are O.K."

"You know, before you go in the MRI tube they ask you what kind of music you want to listen to-jazz, classical, rock, or country-and I remembered how my dad spent a lot of time in MRI tubes near the end of his life. So I was wondering what kind of music he chose. I mean, he couldn't hear shit anyway by that time, but he still must have chosen something. And I wanted to choose the same thing he chose. So I picked country."

"Was it good country?"

"It was fucking Shania Twain and Faith Hill shit. I was hoping for George Jones or Loretta Lynn, or even some George Strait. Hell, I would've cried if they'd played Charley Pride or Freddy Fender."

"You wanted to hear the Alcoholic Indian Father Jukebox."

"Hey, that's my line. You can't quote me to me."

"Why not? You're always quoting you to you."

"Kiss my ass. So, hey, I'm O.K., I think. And I'm going to the store. I'll see you in a bit. You want anything?"

"Ah, man, I love Trader Joe's. But you know what's bad about them? You fall in love with something they have-they stock it for a year-and then it just disappears. They had those wontons I loved, and now they don't. I was willing to shop for you and the boys, but I don't want anything for me. I'm on a one-man hunger strike against them."

WORLD PHONE CONVERSATION, 3 A.M.

After I got home with yogurt and turkey dogs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch and my brother-in-law left, I watched George Romero's "Diary of the Dead," and laughed at myself for choosing a movie that featured dozens of zombies getting shot in the head.

When the movie was over, I called my wife, nine hours ahead in Italy.

"I should come home," she said.

"No, I'm O.K.," I said. "Come on, you're in Rome. What are you seeing today?"

"The Vatican."

"You can't leave now. You have to go and steal something. It will be revenge for every Indian. Or maybe you can plant an eagle feather and claim that you just discovered Italy."

"I'm worried."

"Yeah, Catholicism has always worried me."

"Stop being funny. I should see if I can get Mom and me on a flight tonight."

"No, no, listen, your mom is old. This might be her last adventure. It might be your last adventure with her. Stay there. Say hi to the Pope for me. Tell him I like his shoes."

That night, my sons climbed into bed with me. We all slept curled around one another like sled dogs in a snowstorm. I woke, hour by hour, and touched my head and neck to see if they had changed shape-to feel if antennae were growing. Some insects hear with their antennae. Maybe that was what was happening to me.

VALEDICTION

My father, a part-time blue-collar construction worker, died of full-time alcoholism in March, 2003. On his deathbed, he said to me, "Turn down that light, please."

"Which light?" I asked.

"The light on the ceiling."

"Dad, there's no light."

"It burns my skin, son. It's too bright. It hurts my eyes."

"Dad, I promise you there's no light."

"Don't lie to me, son. It's God passing judgment on earth."

"Dad, you've been an atheist since '79. Come on, you're just remembering your birth. On your last day, you're going back to your first."

"No, son, it's God telling me I'm doomed. He's using the brightest lights in the universe to show me the way to my flame-filled tomb."

"No, Dad, those lights were in your delivery room."

"If that's true, son, then turn down my mother's womb."

We buried my father in the tiny Catholic cemetery on our reservation. Since I am named after him, I had to stare at a tombstone with my name on it.

BATTLE FATIGUE

Two months after my father's death, I began research on a book about our family's history with war. I had a cousin who served as a cook in the Gulf War, in 1990; I had another cousin who served in the Vietnam War as a cook; and my father's father, Adolph, served in the Second World War and was killed in action on Okinawa, on April 5, 1945.

During my research, I interviewed thirteen men who'd served with my cousin in Vietnam but could find only one surviving man who'd served with my grandfather. This is a partial transcript of that interview, recorded with a microphone and an iPod on January 14, 2008:

Me: Ah, yes, hello. I'm here in Livonia, Michigan, to interview-well, perhaps you should introduce yourself, please?

Leonard Elmore: What?

Me: Um, oh, I'm sorry, I was asking if you could perhaps introduce yourself.

L.E.: You're going to have to speak up. I think my hearing aid is going low on power or something.

Me: That is a fancy thing in your ear.

L.E.: Yeah, let me mess with it a bit. I got a remote control for it. I can listen to the TV, the stereo, and the telephone with this thing. It's fancy. It's one of them Bluetooth hearing aids. My grandson bought it for me. Wait, O.K., there we go. I can hear now. So, what were you asking?

Me: I was hoping you could introduce yourself into my recorder here.

L.E.: Sure, my name is Leonard Elmore.

Me: How old are you?

L.E.: I'm eighty-five and a half years old ( laughter). My great-grandkids are always saying they're seven and a half or nine and a half or whatever. It just cracks me up to say the same thing at my age.

Me: So, that's funny, um, but I'm here to ask you some questions about my grandfather-

L.E.: Adolph. It's hard to forget a name like that. An Indian named Adolph, and there was that Nazi bastard named Adolph. Your grandfather caught plenty of grief over that. But we mostly called him Chief. Did you know that?

Me: I could have guessed.

L.E.: Yeah, nowadays I suppose it isn't a good thing to call an Indian Chief, but back then it was what we did. I served with a few Indians. They didn't segregate them Indians, you know, not like the black boys. I know you aren't supposed to call them boys anymore, but they were boys. All of us were boys, I guess. But the thing is, those Indian boys lived and slept and ate with us white boys. They were right there with us. But, anyway, we called all them Indians Chief. I bet you've been called Chief a few times yourself.

Me: Just once.

L.E.: Were you all right with it?

Me: I threw a basketball in the guy's face.

L.E. ( laughs).

Me: We live in different times.

L.E.: Yes, we do. Yes, we do.

Me: So, perhaps you could, uh, tell me something about my grandfather.

L.E.: I can tell you how he died.

Me: Really?

L.E.: Yeah, it was on Okinawa, and we hit the beach, and, well, it's hard to talk about it. It was the worst thing-it was hell. No, that's not even a good way to describe it. I'm not a writer like you, I'm not a poet, so I don't have the word, but just think of it this way. That beach, that island, was filled with sons and fathers, men who loved and were loved, American and Japanese and Okinawan, and all of us were dying, were being killed by other sons and fathers who also loved and were loved.

Me: That sounds like poetry to me- tragic poetry.

L.E.: Well, anyway, it was like that. Fire everywhere. And two of our boys, Jonesy and O'Neal, went down, were wounded and in the open on the sand. And your grandfather-who was just this little man, barely over five feet tall and maybe a hundred and thirty pounds-he just ran out there and picked up those two guys, one on each shoulder, and carried them to cover. Hey, are you O.K., son?

Me: Yes, I'm sorry. But, well, the thing is, I knew my grandfather was a war hero-he won twelve medals-but I could never find out what he did to win the medals.

L.E.: I didn't know about any medals. I just know what I saw. Your grandfather saved those two boys, but he got shot in the back doing it. And he lay there in the sand-I was lying right beside him-and he died.

Me: Did he say anything before he died?

L.E.: Hold on. I need to-

Me: Are you O.K.?

L.E.: It's just-I can't-

Me: I'm sorry. Is there something wrong?

L.E.: No, it's just-with your book and everything, I know you want something big here. I know you want something big from your grandfather. I know you're hoping he said something huge and poetic, and, honestly, I was thinking about lying to you. I was thinking about making up something as beautiful as I could. Something about love and forgiveness and courage and all that. But I couldn't think of anything good enough. And I didn't want to lie to you. So I have to be honest and say that your grandfather didn't say anything. He just died there in the sand. In silence.

ORPHANS

I could not sleep. I was scared that I would die if I slept. And I didn't want my sons to become orphans-partial orphans-as they slept. So I stayed awake and waited for dawn. Then, at 3 A.M., the phone rang.

"It's me," my wife said. "I don't care what you say. I'll be home in sixteen hours."

"Thank you," I said.

COFFEE-SHOP NEWS

While I waited for the results of the MRI, I asked my brother-in-law to watch the boys again because I didn't want to get bad news in front of them.

Alone and haunted, I wandered the mall, tried on clothes, and waited for my cell phone to ring.

Two hours later, I wanted to murder everything, so I drove south to a coffee joint, a spotless place called Dirty Joe's. Yes, I was silly enough to think that I'd be calmer with a caffeinated drink.

As I sat outside in a wooden chair and sipped my coffee, I cursed the vague, rumbling, ringing noise in my ear. And yet when my cell phone rang I again held it to my deaf ear.

"Hello. Hello," I said and wondered if it was a prank call, then remembered and switched the phone to my left ear.

"Hello," my doctor said. "Are you there?"

"Yes," I said. "So what's going on?"

"There are irregularities in your head."

"My head's always been irregular."

"It's good to have a sense of humor," the doctor said. "You have a small tumor that is called a meningioma. They grow in the meninges membranes that lie between your brain and your skull."

"Shit," I said. "I have cancer."

"Well," he said. "These kinds of tumors are usually non-cancerous. And they grow very slowly, so in six months or so we'll do another MRI. Don't worry. You're going to be O.K."

"What about my hearing?" I asked.

"We don't know what is causing the hearing loss, but you should start a course of prednisone, a steroid, just to go with the odds. Your deafness might lessen if left alone, but we've had success with the steroids in bringing back hearing. There are side effects, like insomnia, weight gain, night sweats, and depression."

"Oh, boy," I said. "Those side effects might make up most of my personality already. Will the 'roids also make me quick to pass judgment? And I've always wished I had a dozen more skin tags and moles."

The doctor chuckled. "You're a funny man."

I wanted to throw my phone into a wall, but I said goodbye instead and glared at the tumorless people and their pretty tumorless heads.

MENINGIOMA

Mayoclinic.com gave this definition of "meningioma": "a tumor that arises from the meninges-the membranes that surround your brain and spinal cord. The majority of meningioma cases are noncancerous (benign), though rarely a meningioma can be cancerous (malignant)."

It was a scary and yet strangely positive description. No one ever wants to read the word "malignant" unless you're reading a Charles Dickens novel about an evil landlord, but "benign" and "majority" are two words that go well together.

From the University of Washington Medical School Web site I learned that meningioma tumors "are usually benign, slow growing and do not spread into normal brain tissue. Typically, a meningioma grows inward causing pressure on the brain or spinal cord. It may grow outward toward the skull, causing it to thicken."

So, wait, what the fuck? A meningioma can cause pressure on the brain, and spinal fluid? Oh, you mean just like fucking hydrocephalus? Just like the water demon that once tried to crush my brain and kill me? Armed with this new information-with these new questions-I called my doctor.

"Hey, you're O.K.," he said. "We're going to closely monitor you. And your meningioma is very small."

"O.K., but I just read-"

"Did you go on the Internet?"

"Yes."

"Which sites?"

"Mayo Clinic and the University of Washington."

"O.K., those are pretty good sites. Let me look at them."

I listened to my doctor type.

"O.K., those are accurate," he said.

"What do you mean by accurate?" I asked. "I mean, the whole pressure-on-the-brain thing-that sounds like hydrocephalus."

"Well, there were some irregularities in your MRI that were the burr holes from your surgery, and there seems to be some scarring and perhaps you had an old concussion. But other than that it all looks fine."

"But what about me going deaf? Can't these tumors make you lose hearing?"

"Yes, but only if they're located near an auditory nerve. And your tumor is not."

"Can this tumor cause pressure on my brain?"

"It could, but yours is too small for that."

"So I'm supposed to trust you on the tumor thing when you can't figure out the hearing thing?"

"There is no physical correlation between your deafness and the tumor. Do the twenty-day treatment of prednisone, and the audiologist and I will examine your ear and your hearing then. If there's no improvement, we'll figure out other ways of treating you."

"But you won't be treating the tumor?"

"Like I said, we'll scan you again in six to nine months-"

"You said six before."

"O.K., in six months we'll take another MRI, and if it has grown significantly-or has changed shape or location or anything dramatic-then we'll talk about treatment options. But if you look on the Internet-and I know you're going to spend a lot of time obsessing about this, so I'll tell you what you'll find. About two per cent of the population live their whole lives with undetected meningiomas. The tumors can become quite large, without any side effects, and are found only at autopsies conducted for other reasons of death. Even when these kinds of tumors become invasive or dangerous, they are still rarely fatal. And your tumor, even if it grows fairly quickly, will not likely become an issue for many years, decades. So that's what I can tell you right now. How are you feeling?"

"Freaked and fucked."

I wanted to feel reassured, but I had a brain tumor. How can one feel any optimism about being diagnosed with a brain tumor? Even if that brain tumor is neither cancerous nor interested in crushing one's brain?

DRUGSTORE INDIAN

In Bartell Drugs, I gave the pharmacist my prescription for prednisone.

"Is this your first fill with us?" she asked.

"No," I said. "And it won't be my last."

I felt like an ass, but she looked bored.

"It'll take thirty minutes," she said. "More or less. We'll page you over the speakers."

I don't think I'd ever felt weaker. Or more vulnerable. Or more absurd. I was the weak antelope in the herd-yeah, the mangy fucker with the big limp and a sign that read, "Eat Me! I'm a Gimp!"

So for thirty minutes I walked the store and found myself shoving more and more useful shit into my shopping basket, as if I were filling my casket with things I'd need in the afterlife. I grabbed toothpaste, a Swiss Army knife, moisturizer, mouthwash, nonstick Band-Aids, antacid, protein bars, and extra razor blades. I grabbed pen and paper. And I also grabbed an ice scraper and sunscreen. Who can predict what kind of weather awaits us in Heaven?

This random shopping made me feel better for a few minutes, but then I stopped and walked to the toy aisle. My boys needed gifts, Lego cars or something, for a lift, a shot of capitalist joy. But the selection of proper toys is both an art and a science. I have been wrong as often as right and have heard the sad song of a disappointed son.

Shit, I knew that if I died my sons would survive, even thrive, because of their graceful mother.

I thought of my father's life. He had been just six when his father was killed in the Second World War. Then his mother, ill with tuberculosis, had died a few months later. Six years old and my father was cratered. In most ways, he never stopped being six. There was no religion, no magic, and no song or dance that could have helped my father.

I needed a drink of water, so I found the fountain and drank and drank until the pharmacist called my name.

"Have you taken these before?" she asked.

I said, "No, but they're going to kick my ass, aren't they?"

That made the pharmacist smile, so I felt sadly and briefly worthwhile. But another customer, some nosy hag, said, "You've got a lot of sleepless nights ahead of you."

I was shocked. I stammered, glared at her, and said, "Miss, how is this any of your business? Please, just fuck all the way off, O.K.?"

She had no idea what to say, so she just turned and walked away, and I pulled out my credit card and paid far too much for my goddam steroids, and forgot to bring the toys home to my boys.

EXIT INTERVIEW FOR MY FATHER

· True or False: When a reservation-raised Native American dies of alcoholism, it should be considered death by natural causes.

· Do you understand the term "wanderlust," and, if you do, can you please tell us, in twenty-five words or less, what place made you wanderlust the most?

· Did you, when drunk, ever get behind the tattered wheel of a '76 Ford three-speed van and somehow drive your family a thousand miles on an empty tank of gas?

· Is it true that the only literary term that has any real meaning in the Native American world is "road movie"?

· How many times, during any of your road trips, did your children ask you, "Are we there yet?"

· In twenty-five words or less, please define "there."

· Sir, in your thirty-nine years as a parent you broke your children's hearts, collectively and individually, six hundred and twelve times, and you did this without ever striking any human being in anger. Does this absence of physical violence make you a better man than you might otherwise have been?

· Without using the words "man" or "good," can you please define what it means to be a good man?

· Do you think you will see angels before you die? Do you think angels will come to escort you to Heaven? As the angels are carrying you to Heaven, how many times will you ask, "Are we there yet?"

· Your son distinctly remembers stopping once or twice a month at that grocery store in Freeman, Washington, where you would buy him a red-white-and-blue rocket Popsicle and purchase for yourself a pickled pig foot. Your son distinctly remembers that the feet still had their toenails and little tufts of pig fur. Could this be true? Did you actually eat such horrendous food?

· Your son has often made the joke that you were the only Indian of your generation who went to Catholic school on purpose. This is, of course, a tasteless joke that makes light of the forced incarceration and subsequent physical, spiritual, cultural, and sexual abuse of tens of thousands of Native American children in Catholic and Protestant boarding schools. In consideration of your son's questionable judgment in telling jokes, do you think there should be any moral limits placed on comedy?

· Your other son and your two daughters, all over thirty-six years of age, still live in your house. Do you think that this is a lovely expression of tribal culture? Or is it a symptom of extreme familial co-dependency? Or is it both things at the same time?

· F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the sign of a superior mind "is the ability to hold two opposing ideas at the same time." Do you believe this to be true? And is it also true that you once said, "The only time white people tell the truth is when they keep their mouths shut"?

· A poet once wrote, "Pain is never added to pain. It multiplies." Can you tell us, in twenty-five words or less, exactly how much we all hate mathematical blackmail?

· Your son wrote this poem to explain one of the most significant nights in his life:

Mutually Assured Destruction

When I was nine, my father sliced his knee

With a chainsaw. But he let himself bleed

And finished cutting down one more tree

Before his boss drove him TO EMERGENCY.

Late that night, stoned on morphine and beer,

My father needed my help to steer

His pickup into the woods. "Watch for deer,"

My father said. "Those things just appear

Like magic." It was an Indian summer

And we drove through warm rain and thunder,

Until we found that chainsaw, lying under

The fallen pine. Then I watched, with wonder,

As my father, shotgun-rich and impulse-poor,

Blasted that chainsaw dead. "What was that for?"

I asked. "Son," my father said. "Here's the score.

Once a thing tastes blood, it will come for more."

· Well, first of all, as you know, you did cut your knee with a chainsaw, but in direct contradiction to your son's poem:

(a) You immediately went to the emergency room.

(b) Your boss called your wife, who drove you to the emergency room.

(c) You were given morphine, but even you were not stupid enough to drink alcohol while on serious narcotics.

(d) You and your son did not get into the pickup that night.

(e) And, even if you had driven the pickup, you were not injured seriously enough to need your son's help with the pedals and/or the steering wheel.

(f) You never in your life used the word "appear," and you certainly never used the phrase "like magic."

(g) You think that "Indian summer" is a questionable seasonal reference for an Indian poet to use.

(h) What the fuck is "warm rain and thunder"? Well, everybody knows what "warm rain" is, but what the fuck is "warm thunder"?

(i) You never went looking for that chainsaw, because it belonged to the Spokane Tribe of Indians, and what kind of freak would want to reclaim the chainsaw that had just cut the shit out of his knee?

(j) You also agree that the entire third stanza of this poem sounds like a Bruce Springsteen song, and not necessarily one of the great ones.

(k) And yet "shotgun-rich and impulse-poor" is one of the greatest descriptions your son has ever written and probably redeems the entire poem.

(l) You never owned a shotgun. You did own a few rifles in your youth, but did not own so much as a pellet gun during the last thirty years of your life.

(m) You never said, in any context, "Once a thing tastes blood, it will come for more."

(n) But, as you read it, you know that is absolutely true and does indeed sound suspiciously like your entire life philosophy.

(o) Other summations of your life philosophy include: "It's all wasted days and wasted nights."

(p) And: "If God really loved Indians, he would have made us white people."

(q) And: "Oscar Robertson should be the man on the N.B.A. logo. They only put Jerry West on there because he's a white guy."

(r) And: "A peanut-butter sandwich with onions-damn, that's the way to go."

(s) And: "Why eat a pomegranate when you can eat a plain old apple. Or a carrot. When it comes to fruit and vegetables, eat only the simple stuff."

(t) And: "If you really want a woman to love you, then you have to dance. And if you don't want to dance, then you're going to have to work extra hard to make a woman love you forever, and you will always run the risk that she will leave you at any second for a man who knows how to tango."

(u) And: "I really miss those cafeterias they used to have at Kmart. I don't know why they stopped having those. If there is a Heaven, I firmly believe it's a Kmart cafeteria."

(v) And: "A father always knows what his sons are doing. For instance, boys, I knew you were sneaking that Hustler magazine out of my bedroom. You remember that one. Where actors who looked like Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura were screwing on the bridge of the Enterprise. Yeah, that one. I know you kept borrowing it. I let you borrow it. Remember this: men and pornography are like plants and sunshine. To me, porn is photosynthesis."

(w) And: "Your mother is a better man than me. Mothers are almost always better men than men are."

REUNION

After she returned from Italy, my wife climbed into bed with me. I felt as if I hadn't slept comfortably in years.

I said, "There was a rumor that I'd grown a tumor, but I killed it with humor."

"How long have you been waiting to tell me that one?" she asked.

"Oh, probably since the first time some doctor put his fingers in my brain."

We made love. We fell asleep. But, agitated by the steroids, I woke at 2, 3, 4, and 5 A.M. The bed was killing my back, so I lay flat on the floor. I wasn't going to die anytime soon, at least not because of my little friend Tumor, but that didn't make me feel any more comfortable or comforted. I felt distant from the world-from my wife and my sons, from my mother and my siblings, from all my friends. I felt closest to those who'd always had fingers in their brains.

I didn't feel any closer to the world six months later, when another MRI revealed that my meningioma had not grown in size or changed its shape.

"You're looking good," my doctor said. "How's your hearing?"

"I think I've got about ninety per cent of it back."

"Well, then, the steroids worked. Good."

And I didn't feel any more intimate with the world nine months after that, when one more MRI made my doctor hypothesize that my meningioma might only be more scar tissue from the hydrocephalus.

"Frankly," he said, "your brain is beautiful."

"Thank you," I said, though it was the oddest compliment I'd ever received.

I wanted to call my father and tell him that a white man thought my brain was beautiful. But I couldn't tell him anything. He was dead. I told my wife and my sons that I was O.K. I told my mother and my siblings. I told my friends. But none of them laughed as hard about my beautiful brain as I knew my father-the drunk bastard-would have. ♦

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Short story about a Native American man who suffers from hearing loss.

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Iskwé | The Unforgotten | First Play Live

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Women in Canada who are connected to the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) movement are questioning why their social media posts disappeared on a day meant to raise awareness for the issue.

"A bunch of content exclusively relating to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls has just gone missing overnight," said Emily Henderson, a Toronto-based Inuk arts and culture writer.

On May 5, many people in Canada wore red and hung red dresses and ribbons for Red Dress Day, which coincides with the National Day of Awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in the United States.

Henderson, who created a four-part Instagram post Wednesday, woke up on Thursday to group messages saying the post she made, along with others meant to raise awareness for MMIWG, had vanished from her friends' Instagram stories.

"It's very suspicious that it was only missing and murdered Indigenous Women's Day posts," said Henderson, who said friends from both Canada and the U.S. had stories disappear from the app.

"On the day when we're doing the most grieving and the most processing, and this is an incredibly heavy experience for the community, that suddenly the voices, our voices, our resources, our stories are just kind of wiped without a trace or explanation."

Henderson, who often uses her social media platforms to educate people about Indigenous issues, said her post was shared over 500 times. She said it feels like Indigenous people are "being gaslit by the algorithms."

'Global technical issue,' says Instagram

On Thursday afternoon, Instagram communications released a tweet that said: "We know that some people are experiencing issues uploading and viewing stories. This is a widespread global technical issue not related to any particular topic and we're fixing it right now. We'll provide an update as soon as we can."

Shanese Steele posted a photo Wednesday of her holding her hand over her mouth beside a spray painting that says "no more stolen sisters."

She said posts are often "shadow banned" by social media apps, a practice where platforms restrict, limit, or hide content from being viewed by audiences.

"I've noticed that it's happening a lot to Black and Indigenous and brown folks who are talking about political things," said Steele, who is Anishinaabe-Métis and Trinidadian.

For Kakeka Thundersky, a community organizer in Winnipeg, days like May 5 are usually a day for the community to gather, rally and heal together.

"We've been in code red for so long and so many other communities are too. Everyone's just stuck at home on their phone, unable to gather and able to go to the rallies, unable to talk to face to face with people," said Thundersky.

She said sharing information through social media also allows people to convey messages that aren't always shared in the mainstream media.

Henderson said her options for engaging with her community in real life "have been really limited."

"The digital space in general is really, really important right now just for maintaining community connections or connections."

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Indigenous women's Instagram stories on MMIWG awareness vanish on Red Dress Day | CBC News

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Women in Canada who are connected to the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls movement are questioning why their social media posts disappeared on a day meant to raise awareness for the issue.