Now, as Reggie Polatkin sat at her kitchen table, smiling and acting as if he were a regular visitor, Marie wondered how such an intelligent man could have sabotaged himself in such a profound way.
Reggie Polatkin, ten years old and little, had stared up at his white father, Bird Lawrence, a small man, barely taller than his son, but with huge arms and a coarsely featured face that made him appear larger than he was.
“Come on, you little shit,” Bird had whispered. “You want to be a dirty Indian your whole life? What’s the answer?”
“Dad, I don’t know.”
“What?”
“I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
Bird had slapped Reggie across the face.
“Okay, now for the second question. What year did the Pilgrims arrive in Massachusetts, and what was the name of the Indian who helped them survive?”
“Sixteen twenty,” Reggie had whispered. “And his name was Squanto.”
“And what happened to him?”
“He was sold into slavery in Europe. But he escaped and made his way back to his village. But everybody was dead from smallpox.”
“And was the smallpox good or bad?”
“Bad.”
“Wrong,” Bird had said and slapped Reggie again. “The smallpox was God’s revenge. It killed all the hostile Indians. You want to be a hostile Indian?”
“No,” Reggie had said.
At that time, in the early seventies, Bird had been the area director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was under siege by the American Indian Movement. All over the country, hostile AIM members had been attacking peaceful BIA Indians and non-Indians. Bird had known that the murder rate in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, was the highest in the country. All because of the hostiles. And those hostiles had been making it tough to help the good Indians. It had been happening since Europeans had first arrived in the United States. In the nineteenth century, while a peaceful and intelligent chief like Red Cloud had been trying to help his people, a hostile Indian like Crazy Horse had been making it worse for everybody. But Bird had always believed that Crazy Horse got what he deserved, a bayonet in his belly, while Red Cloud had lived a long life.
Martha Polatkin had married Bird because she was searching for a way off the reservation. She’d wanted to have a big house, a nice car, green grass, and, no matter how cruel Bird was, she’d known he could provide her with all of that. And because he had, in fact, provided her with all of that, she’d tried to ignore Bird’s hatred of “hostile” Indians, even after he’d impregnated her and she’d given birth to Reggie. As for Bird Lawrence, he’d hated hostile Indians so much that he insisted Reggie use Polatkin, his Indian surname, until he’d earned the right to be a Lawrence, until he’d become the appropriate kind of Indian.
“Do you want to be a hostile?” Bird had asked Reggie again.
“No,” Reggie had said.
“Good, good. What was the name of the Indian who led the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 through 1692, and why did he begin the revolt?”
“His name was Pope. He was from San Juan Pueblo, and he said a spirit had told him to rid his homeland of the Spanish.”
“What was the name of the Spanish commander who ended the revolt?”
“Uh, Diego. Diego.”
“Diego what?”
“Diego…I don’t remember.”
Bird had punched Reggie in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. When Reggie could speak again, Bird had continued the surprise quiz.
“You remember that crazy Indian’s name, but not the name of the white man who saved thousands of lives? Why is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re hopeless. Can you explain why the Iroquois Confederacy fell apart from the years 1777 to 1783?”
“Because of the Revolutionary War.”
“And?”
“Well, some Iroquois, like the Mohawks, wanted to fight with the British. But the Oneidas and the Tuscaroras wanted to fight with the United States. And the Seneca and the Onondaga didn’t want to fight at all. Nobody could get along, so they broke apart from the Confederacy.”
“And which Indians were right?”
“The Oneidas and Tuscaroras.”
“Correct. Name the four Indian cowards who were indicted for the murder of two FBI agents on July twenty-sixth near Pine Ridge, South Dakota.”
“Leonard Peltier, Bob Robideau, an Eagle, and, and…”
“I’ll give you that one. Now, for the last question. What was the name of the Indian who helped raise the flag on Iwo Jima during World War Two?”
“Ira Hayes.”
“And what happened to him?”
“He was a hero.”
“No, you idiot. What really happened to him?”
“He died of exposure in the winter of 1955. Passed out in the snow.”
“Why did he do that?”
“Because he was a dirty Indian.”
“Exactly, and what tribe was he?”
“I don’t remember.”
Bird had slapped Reggie again and bloodied his nose.
“I want you to know I’m doing this for your own good,” Bird had said. “I don’t want you to end up like all the other Indians. I want you to be special. I don’t want you to be running around with a gun. I want you to love your country. I want you to know your history.” The white father gave his Indian son a handkerchief. “Here, clean your face.”
Trying to avoid his father’s beatings, Reggie had always studied hard and brought home excellent report cards. Bird would beam with pride and tape the reports to the refrigerator, that place of familial honor. On those rare occasions when Reggie had brought home a failed test or a flawed term paper, Bird would beat him.
“You stupid, dirty Indian,” Bird would say, never above a whisper. “You’ll never get into college this way. You want to be a drunk? You want to be one of those Indians staggering around downtown? What do you want to be, Reggie? What do you want to be?”
Over the years, Reggie had come to believe that he was successful because of his father’s white blood, and that his Indian mother’s blood was to blame for his failures. Throughout high school, he’d spent all of his time with white kids. He’d ignored his mother, Martha. He hadn’t gone to local powwows. He hadn’t danced or sang. He’d pretended to be white, and had thought his white friends accepted him as such. He’d buried his Indian identity so successfully that he’d become invisible.
Reggie had graduated from high school with honors and enrolled as a history major at the University of Washington. There he had met Dr. Clarence Mather.
“Hey,” Marie said to Reggie as she sat at the table across from him. “I’m taking a class with your favorite teacher.”
Reggie’s eyes narrowed.
“Yeah,” said Marie. “Dr. Clarence Mather.”
“He’s a fucking liar.”
“Yes, he is.”
Reggie was fuming. He’d never told Marie what had happened with Mather. She’d heard all kinds of stories from other Indian students. She’d heard Mather and Reggie had been lovers and that Reggie had threatened to kill Mather if he ever revealed it. She’d also heard that Reggie and Mather had fought because they’d fallen in love with the same Indian woman. She’d heard that Mather had stolen some of Reggie’s academic research and claimed it as his own. So many stories, so many half-truths and outright lies. But since Indians used gossip as a form of literature, Marie knew she’d never heard the true story about Reggie and Mather. She knew the real story was probably something very pedestrian.
“Hey,” said Marie, trying to be a good host. “You hungry or something? All I got is water and cereal.”
“What kind of cereal?”