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They named me Jessie, just
like the outlaw. I hope I wasn’t a disappointment to them. I don’t think I ever
righted the right wrongs, the right way, or the wrong way for them maybe.
Perhaps they had never heard of the outlaw.
That is entirely possible also.
I’ve never been much of a talker. I am a reader though. I read too much probably. That’s why I was visiting the bookstore initially, getting ahead of myself here.
People always ask me why I left the Res and how I ended up in western Washington state of all places for a member of the fabled Dine’ people. Of course, the question is asked differently depending on who the questioner is. I guess it’s a long story by now, and somehow, like Ouroboros that loopy worm, lunching on its own tail, I ended up right back on the Res.
My parents were what an old Assiniboine friend used to call “blanket cases.” Real Indians. Fry bread, deer meat, no electricity, the whole bit. I looked around myself while growing up and I thought that I would like to see something else. Maybe just for a while. I knew I could always come back to Arizona. So, I decided to pick a place and start college courses. I chose a community college in the smallish city of Everett. It was a nice fit for a country boy. I hadn’t decided on a major.
Why did I pick the upper left corner of Washington? Well, for a change. Everything was different there. The climate, the landscape, the people. The way of doing things was way different. A person was expected to be on time. Things like that.
I found Beth working in a bookstore near the college. She was different also; from any girl I had ever known. I just kept going back to the bookstore until she took me seriously. We were married there in Washington. We lived up there for ten years. In those ten years I became a furniture maker after a few years of apprenticeship. I gave up on college. I liked building things.
Another question is why did you go back down to the desert, to Arizona? You had a life up north, why change it? That question delves into the central drama of our lives. We moved because I was willing to bet that I could make us disappear on the reservation among my family and the greater tribe.
Why did we need to disappear? To put it simply, Beth was in trouble. She had been picked up and held by some extra-legal black ops creeps. In fact, they injured her and it was a literal miracle that she survived the experience.
Why did this happen to her, a harmless lady working in a bookstore? Unlike me, she is a talker. She talked to anything that would talk. In the course of all these conversations she ran into a character bragging about some secret takeover operation with a local headquarters. She did not welcome his advances and he became angry with her. It’s my opinion that he is the one who brought her to the attention of his operators/employers. They didn’t want their operation talked about and she was talking about it. Those are the bare bones. Simple as that.
Moving back down here was like going back in time. Some of the urgency of northern life just had to fall off of us. Things just move slower here. It’s all personal. There is more space here. Everything is further apart. In time and space. There is an older logic at work at least part of the time. Myth is alive here, and lively. My Washington friends would be astounded at the things here that are real, but uncanny at the same time.
It was my elderly aunt, my father’s sister, who had vision enough to welcome us when we appeared at her door unannounced. She is a lady with vision. You could say that anytime and would still be true.
We fought some battles. But eventually our trail went cold, and we ceased to matter to anyone but ourselves and Julia Chee, and the rest of the family. What a blessing that was and is. Oh yes, I know blessing when I see it and feel it.
Our greatest blessing is that after all this time God gave us a child. Julia Maria Nez. We call her Emmy, so we aren’t addressing two Julias all the time. She is our greatest joy. There is a great deal that could be said about Emmy.
I’ve never been much of a talker. I am a reader though. I read too much probably. That’s why I was visiting the bookstore initially, getting ahead of myself here.
People always ask me why I left the Res and how I ended up in western Washington state of all places for a member of the fabled Dine’ people. Of course, the question is asked differently depending on who the questioner is. I guess it’s a long story by now, and somehow, like Ouroboros that loopy worm, lunching on its own tail, I ended up right back on the Res.
My parents were what an old Assiniboine friend used to call “blanket cases.” Real Indians. Fry bread, deer meat, no electricity, the whole bit. I looked around myself while growing up and I thought that I would like to see something else. Maybe just for a while. I knew I could always come back to Arizona. So, I decided to pick a place and start college courses. I chose a community college in the smallish city of Everett. It was a nice fit for a country boy. I hadn’t decided on a major.
Why did I pick the upper left corner of Washington? Well, for a change. Everything was different there. The climate, the landscape, the people. The way of doing things was way different. A person was expected to be on time. Things like that.
I found Beth working in a bookstore near the college. She was different also; from any girl I had ever known. I just kept going back to the bookstore until she took me seriously. We were married there in Washington. We lived up there for ten years. In those ten years I became a furniture maker after a few years of apprenticeship. I gave up on college. I liked building things.
Another question is why did you go back down to the desert, to Arizona? You had a life up north, why change it? That question delves into the central drama of our lives. We moved because I was willing to bet that I could make us disappear on the reservation among my family and the greater tribe.
Why did we need to disappear? To put it simply, Beth was in trouble. She had been picked up and held by some extra-legal black ops creeps. In fact, they injured her and it was a literal miracle that she survived the experience.
Why did this happen to her, a harmless lady working in a bookstore? Unlike me, she is a talker. She talked to anything that would talk. In the course of all these conversations she ran into a character bragging about some secret takeover operation with a local headquarters. She did not welcome his advances and he became angry with her. It’s my opinion that he is the one who brought her to the attention of his operators/employers. They didn’t want their operation talked about and she was talking about it. Those are the bare bones. Simple as that.
Moving back down here was like going back in time. Some of the urgency of northern life just had to fall off of us. Things just move slower here. It’s all personal. There is more space here. Everything is further apart. In time and space. There is an older logic at work at least part of the time. Myth is alive here, and lively. My Washington friends would be astounded at the things here that are real, but uncanny at the same time.
It was my elderly aunt, my father’s sister, who had vision enough to welcome us when we appeared at her door unannounced. She is a lady with vision. You could say that anytime and would still be true.
We fought some battles. But eventually our trail went cold, and we ceased to matter to anyone but ourselves and Julia Chee, and the rest of the family. What a blessing that was and is. Oh yes, I know blessing when I see it and feel it.
Our greatest blessing is that after all this time God gave us a child. Julia Maria Nez. We call her Emmy, so we aren’t addressing two Julias all the time. She is our greatest joy. There is a great deal that could be said about Emmy.
All of it...They haven't taken my phone yet.docx
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