26 Dominic C. Jaeger On one sunny Mother’s Day, my aunt was gifted with the birth of a son. A new Native American boy, who would be the love of the family. And he had a lot of family. He had a mom, a father, a sister, a brother, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandmas, and grandpas. In the small town he would find himself within a network of love and kindness. He would be a bit spoiled, despite the family’s financial troubles. He would be given many toys and even a video game console. It was hard to see that chubby face cry, to let the new life of the family be discouraged for even one second. But it was a big family, and they banded together to take care of this child. Every morning, they would bathe him and brush his long, knotted hair. He would cry in pain, hating the brush and comb. The orange bottle of Gorilla Snot was lightly applied to his hair. His mother, father, grandma, or sister would delicately braid that hair, and finish it off with a black hair tie. The bus would come charging up on the dirt road and we would search around wildly for his misplaced shoes. Finding them, he would come out of the house with his Spiderman backpack, waddling up to the bus alongside us. Like any child, he was quite fussy growing up. You can tell because he was given the nickname “Andrew Brokeit Enapay.” Being the older kids, we didn’t like him that much. He followed us around too much, wanted to play the same games as us, wanted to just be in our business all the time. When he didn’t get his way, he would cry and yell. He would often get to play our games, playing far into the night and falling asleep on the controller. And the instant he woke up, eyes half-closed, you would hear the sharp beep of the PS3 as he turned it on. His mom, his dad, his grandma, or his sister would get angry and tell him not to stay up so late. But, of course, it’s hard to discipline a child. Andrew got even fussier in the mornings, and one day, they didn’t braid his hair. It was too much of a pain right now, just let him go to school with his hair down. And one day, there were no fingers delicately twirling his hair into that long braid. His hair grewmatted and tangled because no one washed it. Too little time, too much of a pain. Finally, they cut it, ten long years of his Native American hair snipped off. A year past and I returned with my parents and brothers after a failed attempt at moving. After sitting in the car for hours, we pulled up to my grandma’s white metal house. He ran out, looking much older. He was holding out two purple cans of grape soda and he smiles so wide. Months passed by and he now lives with us. The simple reason for this is we have video games and he doesn’t. He’s a child, after all, there doesn’t need to be a more complicated reason. In and out like a wild dog, between his parents’ house and ours. The house was crowded already, so he would sleep on the floor, one blanket underneath him and another over him. One night, he confided to us that he had smoked his first cigarette with the other boys outside. We told him he was stupid and basked in our superiority for following the so-called right path. He copied the other boys, wearing baggy black sweatshirts, and adopting the slang of the other Native boys. andrew wi enapay : a native american boy
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzkyNTY=