Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light. Joy Harjo
Let’s dance. Give me a ticket for an airplane. Ain’t got time to take a fast train.”
We all admire Marlene; she’s one of the best. She’s Jackson Pollack in a dress. She only leaves the painting studio for sleep or work, and on Sunday she sneaks out to the Indian hospital on the other side of campus. She took me once. The children clapped and laughed when she came in. She brought them gifts: crayons, paper, tiny fans, all her desserts saved up for a week. When the staff came in, we hid. They eventually threw her out. The hospital carried no insurance to cover the harm she might do. Here’s to you, Marlene!
And Venus Ramierez, now that’s a name, and a history: one parent from the north on the back of a horse, the other from the south over the back of a river.
Venus is a singer, a real singer. Each singer has a particular gift. Some grow plants, some call helpers. Some heal the sick, some make the dead rise up and dance. When Venus sings we enter into a trance. We no longer hurt from freak chance. You’re going to make it to Broadway,
Either New York, or Albuquerque!
None of us are coping well with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. We’ve read the reports:
“Doesn’t play well with others,” “Won’t speak or look us in the eyes … talks to ghosts.”
We hear what they are really saying: “We have the guns and money, and we have your children.”
Where’s Kit? We can’t find Kit anywhere.
She’s not in the laundry room, practicing powwow in her underwear. She’s not out on the roof where she sneaks her smokes. She’s not in the tent she made of government-issued bedspreads, where she sketches high fashion of Indians in Paris.
Here comes Kit with a knife.
And there she goes. No top or bottom, only fury whirling in a spiritual nudity.
She’s headed out into the snow.
She’s what happens when someone hurts the baby.
My escape to Indian school was a success.
I present Redbird Monahwee case in point. She can corner her sheets so a quarter spins, and knows the drill for shots, debugging, and towels. And because she’s forgotten the Indian language she learned in the cradle, she has a chance. If we suck out her soul and put it in the closet with her ancestors’ bones—she’ll make it, if she doesn’t blow it.
REDBIRD blows one note wildly on her sax. Sings.
WITHI-TAI-TO, GIMEE RAH
WHOA RAH NEEKO, WHOA RAH NEEKO
HEY NEY, HEY NEY, NO WAY
HEY NEY, HEY NEY, NO WAY
WITHI-TAI-TO, GIMEE RAH
WHOA RAH NEEKO, WHOA RAH NEEKO
HEY NEY, HEY NEY, NO WAY
HEY NEY, HEY NEY, NO WAY
I’M GOING BACK HOME TO CLAIM MY SOUL
TAKE IT BACK FROM THE SUGAR MAN
TAKE IT BACK FROM THE MONEY MAN
TAKE IT BACK FROM THE KEEPER MAN
WITHI-TAI-TO, GIMEE RAH
WHOA RAH NEEKO, WHOA RAH NEEKO
HEY NEY, HEY NEY, NO WAY
Sax solo, improvised.
Stomp breakdown.
SCENE 13
Light day.
REDBIRD: I went to see my mother. I saw her car in the drive. Her keeper was supposed to be at work.
I knocked quietly first, then with sweat.
The keeper answered. “She’s not here.” And slammed the door.
I knocked again. I kicked the door and pounded it with my high school diploma.
“Thief! I want my mom!”
Then I saw the baby at the window looking scared.
I wanted to hold her and take her out of there.
We were all trapped, even the keeper.
He could never stray far from his lair.
I turned away and found my way out of there.
SCENE 14
Party bar light.
REDBIRD dances.
REDBIRD: The first official Howling Contest took place one Saturday night out on the west mesa after the Powwow Club had closed. That night the bar didn’t just close, it gave out from exhaustion. Finally, all the stuck weight of unanswered prayers, the struggle to put food on the table and buy shoes for the babies, in a city built over sacred grounds, and it all collapsed.
The howling contest was Wind’s idea. She always joked: she was raised by wolves, so howling came natural. The truth was, she was raised far away from Indian country by adoptive parents who didn’t know what to do when the irresistibly cute Indian baby girl grew into a troubled young woman. Wind ratted her hair out into a loose halo and she fit tight into black leather pants and jacket. She was no Pocahontas. She warmed up on forty-nine songs and Everclear. Then when she was ready she took a sip and let it rip.
A-ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
That tight little circle of Navajo drag queens I loved to party with was just then digging through the sand, searching for the heel of Marty’s broken sateen pump. Marty always dressed the best for any occasion, and tonight in the bushes he pulled on his outfit of silk, buckskin and organdy flowers to celebrate Cher’s birthday.
He was really she, except for the particulars.
Manny, Marty’s companion-in-crime-against-masculinity, considered himself to be Loretta Lynn’s reincarnation, even though she wasn’t dead yet. Manny was the calm rudder for Marty’s roller-coaster rages. Manny loved to sing. He found Marty’s heel and beat out time on the car hood.
REDBIRD as MARTY sings.
I DON’T LIKE YOUR GIRLFRIEND AND HER HIGH-HEELED SHOES WHEN YOU DANCE RIGHT PAST WITH HER IT GIVES ME THE BLUES. YOU HAVE THE SWEETEST STEP IN DOUBLE TIME. HOW CAN I TELL YOU THAT I LOVE YOU WHEN YOU DON’T EVEN CARE? YOU DON’T EVEN TALK TO ME? YOU MAKE ME Sooooo—
Aooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo—oooooo—
ooooo—ooooo
REDBIRD: “Now, finally, some competition,” Wind shouted. “Okay Oklahoma girl, show us what you got there in your rooty-tooty boots. Let’s hear the poetry of howl.”
“C’mon!!!” yelled Marty. “You’re stalling!”
The howling contest was temporarily suspended by a hulk of a man from up North, who, rumor had it, had just gotten out of prison.
He and his friends strutted up to the fire.
And as their eyes adjusted to the dark, what did they see but an Indian man in a dress.
That did it. They spit and slid up to our party with their fists.
Marty threw the first punch, with his repaired pump.
He put a nasty spin on it.
Marty’s finery fooled others, but she didn’t fool us. We knew she was rough.
She hit the man perfectly between the eyes, and the guy went down. Manny backed him up with a slap to one of the guy’s stunned friends. This set the gnarl into a fury.
Being downed by a queen was a hundred times