Marie saw the sadness in John’s eyes. She had approached him because she thought he was a fellow student, another urban Indian, but now she felt his confusion and loss. He didn’t know how to dance, didn’t seem to recognize anybody at the powwow. Nobody shouted out his name in an effort to embarrass him as he danced. He was a stranger here, and Marie understood that isolation. Though she had blossomed in college and would be graduating with honors, her work for the Native American Students Alliance and her job at a downtown homeless shelter had led Marie to so many Indians who were, as John was, as she was, outcasts from their tribes. They were forced to create their own urban tribe. Some had been forced to leave their reservations because they were different, like Fawn, the Crow who would not talk about what had happened to her in Montana. Some had never lived on their reservations and had very little connection to their tribes. Nick, the son of a Ute doctor and Cheyenne nurse, had grown up upper-middle-class in St. Louis.
But, somehow, most every urban Indian still held closely to his or her birth tribe. Marie was Spokane, would always be Spokane. But she was also an urban Indian, an amalgamation that included over two hundred tribes in the same Seattle area where many white people wanted to have Indian blood. Marie was always careful to test people, to hear their stories, to ask about their tribes, their people, and their ties to the land from which they originated. The pretend Indians had no answers for these questions, while real Indians answered the questions easily, and had a few questions of their own for Marie. Indians were always placing one another on an identity spectrum, with the more traditional to the left and the less traditional Indians to the right. Marie knew she belonged somewhere in the middle of that spectrum and that her happiness depended on placing more Indians to her right. She wondered where John belonged.
“Hey,” Marie said to him. “You’re getting it now.”
John listened carefully to the drums, which had drowned out all the other noises in his head. He concentrated on the music, his brow furrowed. Sweat, deep breaths.
“Jeez,” Marie said. “Take it easy. You’re supposed to be having fun.”
A little girl handed Marie the broom. Suddenly, John was looking down at a new dance partner. She had huge brown eyes and short brown hair. She smiled with a mouthful of braces.
“I’m Kim,” she said, laughed, and then ducked her head. She was playing at a courtship game, flirting and teasing with John as if she were ten years older than she was. This was all practice for her.
“I’m John.”
The dance stopped, drums suddenly silent. The dancers clapped and thanked each other. The audience cheered. John looked for Marie. She was talking to a tall Indian man in traditional dance regalia. She stopped talking long enough to notice John. She smiled and waved. John raised his hand a little. He tried to smile, but could not make it happen. The traditional dancer with Marie turned toward John. He was fierce looking, all sharp feathers and angry beads, and seemed to be ten feet tall. John was not surprised that Indians had always terrified white people. He wondered what the early European settlers must have thought when they first encountered an Indian warrior in all of his finest regalia. Even in his flannel shirts and blue jeans, John knew he was intimidating. If I were dressed like a real Indian, John thought, I could rule the world.
“Thank you for the dance,” said the little girl, Kim. She was still standing beside John, waiting for him to acknowledge her presence with a traditional politeness.
“Thank you,” John said.
“You know,” she said. “I’m a twin. My sister’s name is Arlene. She’s sick. That’s why she’s not here. Do you know her?”
“What? No, I don’t know her,” John said. “I’m sorry she’s sick. Tell her I said so. Tell her to get well.”
Kim giggled and ran away. John watched the little girl run back into the arms of an old Indian woman, her grandmother perhaps, and then he turned back toward Marie. But she was gone. John scanned the crowd. She had disappeared. He breathed deeply. Had she left with the traditional dancer? No. The dancer, standing with a group of other dancers, was drinking a Pepsi. Disappointed, John walked away. He turned his back and left the powwow. He wasn’t even sure why he was disappointed, but he had overheard real Indian men talk to real Indian women. He could have mimicked their easy banter, their fluid conversation.
He could have said, “I’m not a dancer.”
“I figured that one out,” Marie might have said.
He could have been funny and self-deprecating. “I can’t sing, either. When I dance and sing, I’m insulting thousands of years of tribal traditions. I’ve got to be careful, you know? I start dancing and they close the powwow. That’s it. John has ruined it for everybody, the powwow’s over.” But John couldn’t say anything. Not to the Indian woman who knew Father Duncan. Not to the beautiful Indian woman with the crooked front tooth.
Walking silently and quickly away from the powwow, John found himself on University Way, the heart of the University District, which everybody called simply the Ave. John could never understand things like that. Why did people change names as easily as they changed clothes? Though it was just another Monday night, dozens of people walked the Ave. Secondhand bookstores and a dozen Asian restaurants. Movie theaters and street performers. A black man in a wheelchair outside Tower Records calling out to everybody who passed him. Three dogs in red bandannas being walked by a twenty-something white woman wearing a blue bandanna. A teenage white couple kissing in a doorway. They were all so young and white, whiter, whitest. Three Asian-Americans, two African-Americans, but everybody else was white and whiter and younger than John. So many people. John was dizzy. He staggered as he walked and bumped into a knot of people who were bidding each other good night.
“Hey,” said one of the young white men. “Watch your step, chief.”
The white man wore faded clothes that were supposed to be old, but they were expensive new clothes designed to look old. A goatee and pierced ears, small gold hoops that looked good, blue flannel shirt, a black stocking cap, big brown leather boots. John stared at him.
“You okay, buddy?” asked the white man.
John was silent, carefully listening to the sounds of the street.
“Hey, chief,” said the white man. “Had a few too many? You need some help?”
John did not respond. The white man was trying to be friendly. He was really not a man, John thought, just a boy dressed like a man. Though John was only a few years older, he felt ancient. He knew that Indians were supposed to feel ancient, old and wise. He concentrated on feeling old and wise, until the youth and relative innocence of this young white man infuriated him. John felt the rage he didn’t like to feel.
“Hey,” said the young man. “Hey, are you okay?”
“You’re not as smart as you think you are,” John said. “Not even close.”
The young man smiled, confused and a little intimidated.
“Calm down there, dude,” he said.
“I’m older than the hills,” said John, holding his hands out toward the white man. The young man looked at his friends, who shrugged their shoulders and smiled nervously. He turned back to John and flashed him the peace sign.