The Indian world is filled with charlatans, men and women who pretended — hell, who might have come to believe — that they were holy. Last year, I had gone to a lecture at the University of Washington. An elderly Indian woman, a Sioux writer and scholar and charlatan, 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 to the other Indian man in the hospital.
“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 some 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 guy wanted to sing a song? That was dangerous. This song could take two minutes or two hours. It was impossible to know. Hell, considering how desperate this old man was to be seen as holy, he might sing for a week. I couldn’t let this guy 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 and winked. “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 his radio-friendly honor song, just three-and-a-half minutes, like the length of any Top 40 rock song of the last fifty years. But here’s the funny thing: the old man couldn’t sing very well. If you were going to have the balls to sing healing songs in hospital hallways, then you should logically have a great voice, right? But, no, this guy couldn’t keep the tune. And his voice cracked and wavered. Does a holy song lose its power if its singer is untalented?
“That is your father’s song,” the old man said when he was 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 back into his sister’s room.
“Okay, thank you,” I said. I felt like an ass, accepting the blanket and the old man’s good wishes, but 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,” the old man 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 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 healthy stopped to listen. The nurses, even the remote black one, unconsciously took a few steps toward us. The black nurse sighed and smiled. I smiled back. I knew what she was thinking. Sometimes, even after all of these years, she could still be surprised by her work. She still marveled at the infinite and ridiculous faith of other people.
5. 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 I could not hear. He said his nurse would likely have to clear wax and fluid, 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 30 percent 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 for blood? Had my levees burst? Was I going to flood?
6. 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 six months old.”
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.