Blasphemy Read online

  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—another Indian idiom—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 just goes along, 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. Like, 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 and is dancing around my sister’s 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 and banged 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 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.

  Some of the side effects of phenobarbital—all of which I suffered to some degree or another as a child—include 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?

  And now, as an adult, thirty-three years removed from phenobarbital, I still suffer—to one 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 syndrome?

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

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

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

  7. 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 I was holding my cell to my bad ear. And 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 okay; I’m okay; the boys are okay.”

  “You know, before you go in that 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 always 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 okay, I think. And I’m going to the store. But I think I already said that. Anyway, 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.”

  8. World Phone Conversation, 3 A.M.

  After I got home with yogurt and turkey dogs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch and my brother-in-law had 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 okay,” 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 Catholicism.”

  “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 check if they had changed shape—to feel if antennae were growing. Some insects “hear” with their antennae. Maybe that’s what was happening to me.

  9. Valediction

  My father, a part-time blue collar construction worker, died in March 2003, from full-time alcoholism. On his deathbed, he asked me to “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.


  10. 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 had served as a cook in the first Iraq war in 1991; I had another cousin who served in the Vietnam War in 1964–65, also as a cook; and my father’s father, Adolph, served in WWII and was killed in action on Okinawa Island, on April 5, 1946.

  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 taped 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.

  LE: 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.

  LE: 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, okay, there we go. I can hear now. So what were you asking?

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

  LE: Sure, my name is Leonard Elmore.

  Me: How old are you?

  LE: 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—

  LE: 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.

  LE: 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.