The way I heard it was in the old days long time ago they had this Scalp Society for warriors who killed or touched dead enemies.
They had things they must do otherwise K’oo’ko would haunt their dreams with her great fangs and everything would be endangered. Maybe the rain wouldn’t come or the deer would go away. That’s why they had things they must do The flute and dancing blue cornmeal and hair-washing.
All these things they had to do.
The room was almost dark. Tayo wondered where Auntie and old Grandma had been all this time. The old man put his sack on his lap and began to feel around inside it with both hands. He brought out a bundle of dry green stalks and a small paper bag full of blue cornmeal. He laid the bundle of Indian tea in Tayo’s lap. He stood up then and set the bag of cornmeal on the chair.
“There are some things we can’t cure like we used to,” he said, “not since the white people came. The others who had the Scalp Ceremony, some of them are not better either.”
He pulled the blue wool cap over his ears. “I’m afraid of what will happen to all of us if you and the others don’t get well,” he said.
Old man Ku’oosh left that day, and as soon as he had closed the door Tayo rolled over on his belly and knocked the stalks of Indian tea on the floor. He pressed his face into the pillow and pushed his head hard against the bed frame. He cried, trying to release the great pressure that was swelling inside his chest, but he got no relief from crying any more. The pain was solid and constant as the beating of his own heart. The old man only made him certain of something he had feared all along, something in the old stories. It took only one person to tear away the delicate strands of the web, spilling the rays of sun into the sand, and the fragile world would be injured. Once there had been a man who cursed the rain clouds, a man of monstrous dreams. Tayo screamed, and curled his body against the pain.
Auntie woke him up and gave him a cup of Indian tea brewed dark as coffee. It was late and they had already eaten supper. Robert was sitting at the kitchen table saddle-soaping a bridle. Old Grandma was dozing beside her stove. The tea was mild, tasting like the air after a rainstorm, when all the grass and plants smell green and earth is damp. She brought him a bowl of blue cornmeal mush. He shook his head when he looked at it, but she sat down on the chair by the bed and fed him spoonful by spoonful. He looked at her while she fed him; he knew she had asked Ku’oosh not to mention the visit, except to the old men. He knew she was afraid people would find out he was crazy. The cornmeal mush tasted sweet; his stomach did not cramp around it like it did with other food. She took the empty bowl and cup away. He slid down under the blankets and waited for the nausea to come. If this didn’t work, then he knew he would die. He let himself go limp; he did not brace himself against the nausea. He didn’t care any more if it came; he didn’t care any more if he died.
He was sitting in the sun outside the screen door when they came driving into the yard. He had been looking at the apple tree by the woodshed, trying to see the tiny green fruits that would grow all summer until they became apples. He had been thinking about how easy it was to stay alive now that he didn’t care about being alive any more. The tiny apples hung on that way; they didn’t seem to fall, even in strong wind. He could eat regular food. He seldom vomited any more. Some nights he even slept all night without the dreams.
He went with them in the old Ford coupé. He laid his head back on the dusty seat and felt the sun getting hot on his shoulders and neck. He didn’t listen to them while they laughed and talked about how Emo bought the car. He didn’t hear where they said they were going. He didn’t care.
It was already getting hot, and it was still springtime. The sky was empty. The sun was too hot and it made the color of the sky too pale blue. He was the last one through the screen door at Dixie Tavern.
Harley pushed a bottle of beer in front of him. Harley said something to Tayo, and the others all laughed. These good times were courtesy of the U.S. Government and the Second World War. Cash from disability checks earned with shrapnel in the neck at Wake Island or shell shock on Iwo Jima; rewards for surviving the Bataan Death March.
“Hey, Tayo, you cash your check yet?”
Tayo pushed a ten dollar bill across the table. “More beer,” he said.
Emo was getting drunk on whiskey; his face was flushed and his forehead sweaty. Tayo watched Harley and Leroy flip quarters to see who was buying the next round, and he swallowed the beer in big mouthfuls like medicine. He could feel something loosening up inside. He had heard Auntie talk about the veterans — drunk all the time, she said. But he knew why. It was something the old people could not understand. Liquor was medicine for the anger that made them hurt, for the pain of the loss, medicine for tight bellies and choked-up throats. He was beginning to feel a comfortable place inside himself, close to his own beating heart, near his own warm belly; he crawled inside and watched the storm swirling on the outside and he was safe there; the winds of rage could not touch him.
They were all drunk now, and they wanted him to talk to them; they wanted him to tell stories with them. Someone kept patting him on the back. He reached for another bottle of beer.
White women never looked at me until I put on that uniform, and then by God I was a U.S. Marine and they came crowding around. All during the war they’d say to me, “Hey soldier, you sure are handsome. All that black thick hair.” “Dance with me,” the blond girl said. You know Los Angeles was the biggest city I ever saw. All those streets and tall buildings. Lights at night everywhere. I never saw so many bars and juke boxes — all the people coming from everywhere, dancing and laughing. They never asked me if I was Indian; sold me as much beer as I could drink. I was a big spender then. Had my military pay. Double starch in my uniform and my boots shining so good. I mean those white women fought over me. Yeah, they did really! I went home with a blonde one time. She had a big ’38 Buick. Good car. She let me drive it all the way.
Hey, whose turn to buy?
The first day in Oakland he and Rocky walked down the street together and a big Chrysler stopped in the street and an old white woman rolled down the window and said, “God bless you, God bless you,” but it was the uniform, not them, she blessed.
“Come on, Tayo! They didn’t keep you on latrine duty the whole war, did they? You talk now!”
“Yeah! Come on!”
Someone jerked the bottle out of his hand. His hand was cold and wet; he clenched it into a fist. They were outside him, in the distance; his own voice sounded far away too.
“America! America!” he sang, “God shed his grace on thee.” He stopped and pulled a beer away from Harley.
“One time there were these Indians, see. They put on uniforms, cut their hair. They went off to a big war. They had a real good time too. Bars served them booze, old white ladies on the street smiled at them. At Indians, remember that, because that’s all they were. Indians. These Indians fucked white women, they had as much as they wanted too. They were MacArthur’s boys; white whores took their money same as anyone. These Indians got treated the same as anyone: Wake Island, Iwo Jima. They got the same medals for bravery, the same flag over the coffin.” Tayo stopped. He realized the others weren’t laughing and talking any more. They were listening to him, and they weren’t smiling. He took another beer from Harley’s hand and swallowed until the bottle was empty. Harley yelled, “Hey, Mannie!” to the bartender. “Plug in the juke box for us!” But Tayo yelled, “No! No. I didn’t finish this story yet. See these dumb Indians thought these good times would last. They didn’t ever want to give up the cold beer and the blond cunt. Hell no! They were America the Beautiful too, this was the land of the free just like teachers said in school. They had the uniform and they didn’t look different no more. They got respect.” He could feel the words coming out faster and faster, the momentum building inside him like the words were all going to explode and he wanted to finish before it happened.