Louise Erdrich - The Antelope Wife

ONCE I UNDERSTAND THAT, I’m okay. My mind is clear.

The hallways of this big elaborate jungle hotel lobby contrast with the long white light tunnels to the stacks of rooms. Walking toward our number we are of course accompanied off the elevator by the big guys in suits, whom I am tired of seeing at every turn. So tired of it all, in fact, so clear in my read, that without thinking or caring about the consequences I confront them.

I whirl, annoyed to the point where I do not have fear. I face them with stony resistance. They sweep right past, whereas I thought they’d halt, we’d speak, have words. No words. At least an exchange where I could ask who on earth they thought I was — a man worth pursuing and killing? How come?

“Hey”—I take on the smaller, bullnecked one—“what’s the rush?”

Both stop and look, eyes like marbles.

“You’re sent to kill, I know,” I say, amiable. “Obvious. So why not enjoy yourself first?”

“We’re not here to hurt you,” says the shorter one after a pause. “It’s nothing like that.”

The bigger one laughs. “Worse.”

My heart thumps. My voice comes out scratchy and small.

“IRS?”

“Not exactly. We’re here because of dumping practices. You’re part of a major sweep. It’s okay to tell you, we just got the word.”

“Might as well do the honors,” says the big guy.

“You’re under arrest.” It is the smaller one who shows his badge.

“You have to say his name,” the larger guy prompts, underneath his breath.

“Oh yeah,” says the newer cop, officer, whatever.

“Whiteheart. Richard Whiteheart.”

“Beads.”

“No! I’m not him!” A sudden wave of relief gushes through me. I start to laugh, to explain. “He gave these tickets to me for my honeymoon. He sent us here, made us a gift, changed our lives.”

“Oh, right.” They both grin little tight shark smiles and remind me that I’m on an island. We’ll leave in the morning. They’ll accompany me to the airport.

“Really, though. I’m not Whiteheart. Look .”

I take out my wallet, open it, slip my license from the interior of its pocket, and to my complete sincere suddenly remembering shock I find that I am carrying the ID pictures of Whiteheart — he gave them to me, of course, to present for the tickets. We look enough alike, I guess, being both the real thing Anishinaabe men.

“Wait,” I say, digging for the real me, which I can’t find. Where is it and where am I and worst of all who?

SO THAT IS ABOUT the extent of our honeymoon, me and Sweetheart. I decide, since we’ve got one night in paradise, to make the most of it. I purchase my babe mai tais in a big plastic cup. We go down in the elevator to the tile whirlpool hot tub, a hidden glade unit surrounded by flowers. Of course, the big guys follow.

We get in, her and me. She’s wearing a suit covered with blue hibiscus flowers. Something I bought her back in Gakaabikaang. And oh man, but is it ever good, this whirlpool bath of heat and chlorine. The hot jets rumble up and down my spine and the presence of my lady is all but too much for me. I’ll never forget this, never, I think, her face in the rushing blue lights. Her hair in smooth snakes and curlicues floating and drifting on the surface of the medicinal waters. The booze, which I suck down in order to enjoy the present moment, disremember the past, meet the stupid future, both knocks me down and buoys me up. The night progresses and the heat intensifies. Of course, there is a certain restraining factor in the presence of the gorilla.

“You have to sit there in that suit?” I say at last to the big boy in the shadows. “How come you don’t just hop in here?”

“Yeah, wish I could.”

“Why don’t you guys pretend not to catch me for a while and stay here, I mean, hang out and absorb some rays. Snorkel. Beachcomb. Hot tub. Swim.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” he says, but in a wistful tone.

MY DEAR ONE and me stay up all night, and I tell you it is a night to remember. A night I won’t forget. Sensations abound that haunt me even now in the underpasses and the park undergrowth and old abandoned boat shacks of Gakaabikaang. There is something very pure and old that happens when we’re on, together, moving like we’re running over distances, floating like swift clouds. The next morning, breakfast, and by nine o’clock we’re hustled off. We’re boarding. We’re gone. It’s like we dreamed the night. I can’t tell you with what a sense of desolation and purpose I look down on that green beauty and blue sea from on high.

Maybe I know then, and maybe I’m just starting to understand, that life will always be like this around Richard Whiteheart. One minute high in Maui and the next minute yanked from bliss. I’m heading back now to tell my story before the judge, and I don’t even know what my story is, though I’m certain it involves waste carpet. I decide, right then, as we pass into a cloud, whatever else happens I won’t take the blame I can sense waiting at the terminal. No, that will be Richard. I won’t pay. Will not be held responsible. I’ll rat. I’ll speak. Things get dumped, terrible poisons in deep old wells. Or barns. Nothing’s endless, though. Every place has limits. And everybody.

The Autumn Rose Dress

The air is pink and golden, smelling of fresh rain. The girls’ canvas high-top shoes soak through as they run over wet grass to the time tunnels, the monkey bars, the fenced plain of deer. Early fall. The late roses are blooming, their petals flimsy, trembling, floppy silk and tight furled centers. They see a woman in an autumn rose dress just like their mother’s. She is walking across the rose garden with a man. With Frank, of course. The girls see that the woman is their mother. Rozin. They are with their father, Richard, because he has been bullied into taking them somewhere, anywhere. They grab him by the wrist, bring him to the rose beds. They point across the grass to make him understand that it is Rozin. He returns their excitement with a calm gaze, chin tipped down. His eyes clouded and hard.

“No, that isn’t her.”

“Look!” The girls pull on his sleeves.

“No”—he speaks indifferently—“that isn’t your mother. I know she looks like your mother.”

“She is! She does!”

“I know she does.”

“But Daddy”—they are together in this now, persuading him—“she has the same dress .”

“A lot of women bought that same dress.” He speaks with deliberate and now forceful gravity. “Like I said, that’s not her.”

It is only when the two walking people get close enough for the girls to clearly see her face, laughter fading in their mouths, that they decide, as she bends to the other man, touching his chest with the flat of her hand, that their father is right. They are looking at some other woman whose face, alight and radiant and still with anticipation, they have never seen before.

CALLY AND DEANNA turn away from their father and away from that woman who looks like their mother. They begin to slap each other’s hands in a complex, nimble patty-cake.

I don’t wanna go to Hollywood

No more, more, more.

There’s a big fat Michael Jackson

At my door, door, door.

He grabbed me by the hips

And made me kiss his lips.

I don’t wanna go to Hollywood

No more, more, more.

Shame on you!

Then they laugh hysterically and do the rhyme over and over all the way home and keep it up until Richard thinks he’ll lose his mind.

Love and Relocation

Get them off that land! Away from one another. Split apart those families just getting to know one another after boarding school. Relocation is the main reason fewer Indians now live on reservations than in cities — like Klaus, like his cousin Frank, like Rozin, and like Richard Whiteheart Beads, whose mind is a bright rubber-band ball twisted of bewildered jealousy.