just needed a protractor.

I am getting near the end of this semester. I only have two tests left and two projects! It's very exciting. After that I have three more classes to take during spring term and I'm officially done! It's becoming more and more real to me that I will graduate.

Yesterday I was working on a project for one of my classes. I thought a cool visual for it would be a pentagon to represent the five parts of the project and I bought my posterboard and started trying to draw out a pentagon on the back. I say "try" because it ultimately didn't work. I tried for about an hour to draw out this pentagon using various techniques; I drew a five-pointed-star in the middle with all kinds of angles and measurements and I just couldn't do it. This is where anyone who remembers geometry starts laughing at me. But this was an important moment, I believe. I like to think of this whole incident as the parable of the pentagon. At that point my friend quickly calculated the angle of a pentagon (108 degrees) and told me I needed a protractor if I wanted to draw a perfect pentagon. I scoffed and tried to improvise a little more. Then I humbled myself a little and finally went to the bookstore and bought a protractor for $2.50. I went back to my project and in less than a minute I'd drawn a perfect pentagon with the help of that little, plastic protractor. What a concept! With the correct knowledge and appropriate tool, I could do it. I felt like I was trying to re-invent the wheel with my initial approach. It was frustrating. I didn't know that producing something so simple could be so difficult.

I almost immediately saw a way to apply this to broader concepts in my life. True, this was just a small project, but I also saw it as a metaphor for doing things the Lord's way. The scriptures from Isaiah 55 (verses 8 and 9) came to mind:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

For me this was about humbling myself to have the faith to do something outside my realm of knowledge. I saw eventually that it was a very simple task. I only needed a small, plastic device to accomplish what I needed to do. I compare this to living righteously or keeping the commandments. Life can seem very complicated without guidelines. We can make plenty of mistakes and take so many detours without the simple bounds of the commandments. Life mathematical rules, the commandments are eternal. They make my life easier (notice I didn't say easy). If I have learned anything from this experience (besides how to draw a pentagon), I have learned that I should turn to the Lord more quickly in my times of need and more frequently in general. My knowledge is flawed and mortal. His is perfect and eternal. He always knows the correct way. In order to do something perfect, or become perfect, I cannot rely on my own strength or knowledge. It just isn't sufficient.

Another interesting thing to note about this metaphor, a pentagon is based on the number five, of course, which is often connected with perfection. How interesting that I could not make something perfect without the correct knowledge.

I hope you enjoyed this little parable. I think I will use it in my Relief Society lesson next week. Any ideas on what talk from conference I should center my lesson on?

lives in a house called "nostalgia."

It's already been six months since my missionary left. I am really amazed at how quickly time does pass and sometimes it catches me by surprise. Like right now. I don't wish for it to pass more quickly, well, not always. I recognize that that is ingratitude and each day is important. My life is only a sum of days, whether I used them well or wished them away. I want to enjoy each one.

But sometimes I wander into the realm of nostalgia or saudade. I am feeling a little anxious and nostalgic for the future right now as I approach graduation. There are many things that are still undecided about my life. I suppose there will always be something undecided about life and that is just how it goes. Right now my tentative plan is something like this:

1. Graduate in April, finish my last classes spring term
2. Move back home to Oregon
3. Get a job there and pay off as much debt as I can
4. Take the GRE this fall
5. Apply to grad programs this winter
6. Keep working
7. Keep writing my missionary
8. If I get into a grad program, go back to school in September 2009
9. See what happens when my missionary gets home in November 2009

I am trying to focus on the things that I do have control over, like my schooling, instead of things I don't have complete control over, like what happens with my missionary. I feel actually very accepting of my life right now and I am happy. It would just be inhuman not to feel anxious at this point. When the present gets to be too much, I go to my favorite place. As my missionary put it, it's "that old, quiet house with the curtains drawn and the lamps lit, that I've never lived in. I think that house is named 'nostalgia."

He goes even further saying, "Can't you just see the two of us - two authors in some remodeled farmhouse surrounded by trees? Piles of books next to the fireplace and by the stairs, portraits of Virginia Woolf and Pushkin in the kitchen, a mug of pens by the front door - just in case..." It sounds like heaven to me. Now don't criticize him and say he's distracted. He's just human. I loved the image and while it is not real yet, it gives me hope for the future, "a point to walk toward on the horizon," as he once said too. And is it wrong to hope? I don't think so.

So I walk forward toward the horizon. And sometimes I'm scared. Sometimes I'm hopeful. Sometimes overwhelmed. Today I felt a little mix of all three.

Days

Each one is a gift, no doubt.
mysteriously placed in your waking hand
or set upon your forehead
moments before you open your eyes.

Today begins cold and bright,
the ground heavy with snow
and a thick masonry of ice,
the sun glinting off the turrets of clouds.

Through the calm eyes of the window
everything is in its place
but so precariously
this day might be resting somehow

on the one before it,
all the days of the past stacked high
like an impossible tower of dishes
entertainers used to build on stage.

No wonder you find yourself
perched on top of a tall ladder
hoping to add one more, Just another Wednesday,

you whisper,
then holding your breath,
place this cup on yesterday's saucer
without the slightest clink.

Billy Collins

is a beggar.

"For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have...And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name...And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy" (Mosiah 4: 19-20)

I just wanted to post one simple thought I had today. It is about happiness. I know that there are many who could come up with many exceptions to what I am about to say, but I believe whole-heartedly that the pillars of happiness are: 1. acceptance and 2. gratitude.

Acceptance because it is imperative to first accept your life in order to love it. No matter what the circumstances are, they are what have been given to you. It is like a metaphor I read in a book by Sue Bender called Everyday Sacred, you hold your life in your hands like a beggar holding a bowl and must be content with what is placed in it. You may reject it, but if you accept it, you must recognize what you have been given. And it is always "enough," as Sue says.

Gratitude because it is the mindset of receiving rather than taking. If a person goes about their life noticing what is missing from it instead of noticing all the good things around them, they neglect gratitude and thus suffer from it by constantly feeling disappointed, neglected, and unhappy.

Happiness is a choice. I know that every day I have this choice before me. Will I choose to be happy because I can hear birds in the trees as I walk to school? Or will I choose to be unhappy because I didn't get all my homework done and my hair is unwashed? Will I choose to see the good around me? Will I reach out with the goodness that I feel inside of myself and share it with others?

"And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another" (Mosiah 4: 21).

My happiness is greatly multiplied when I can share it with someone else. I know that one of the best remedies for a bout of discouragement is to serve someone else.

Here are some things that have been placed in my beggar's bowl lately:

1. A new job
2. More debt
3. A letter
4. Phone calls from my family
5. Rainy or snowy, cold weather
6. Plenty of homework
7. The messages from General Conference
8. A math test
9. A free movie
10. Dinner with friends
11. Meeting new friends
12. Fatigue and stress

Not all of these things are positive, but I accept them all. I see that as a whole, my life is good. It is enough and I am filled. I recently got a letter from my missionary in which he said, "I hope that you find the joy you need in your life-not just with each letter you receive from me, but also in those you serve and the things you are accomplishing." I do have joy in my life. I am learning to accept it and be grateful for all the things that come into it. I pray that you may feel the same and have joy.

is revisiting Odessa.

I posted an earlier draft of this personal essay on my travel blog. Now I am revising and this is the latest version. It is now entitled:

"Finding the Courage to Leave the Apartment: One Missionary’s Dilemma"

The tram ran next to my apartment, number 102A, on my street in Odessa, Ukraine. I often heard its bell ring, which brought to mind the image of children riding merrily on an amusement park ride, but the tram only carried people to their needed destinations, providing little merriment in the process. The cramped cabin was musty, the chairs rocked and vibrated, and the sudden stops left people sprawling in the aisles and gruffly adjusting their parcels once more.

We lived in one of the most impoverished parts of the city, Moldovanka—the former ghetto dedicated strictly to Moldavians—but its rawness appealed to me. The cobblestone streets were crumbling, half-covered with asphalt and dotted with old women gathered on the corners selling fresh homemade rolls, black in the center with sweetened poppy seeds. They would bring their vegetables in from the country and carefully place them in handkerchief-covered buckets to sell along with their rolls. Living there was not like home, but the simplicity of that lifestyle was beautiful to me.

Odessa overwhelmed my senses with new experiences. The air smelled warm and putrid in the summer and felt too thick to breathe. Window frames painted bright greens, blues, and reds seemed garish against gray concrete walls. Dingy white dogs ran around on three legs and lounged in the doorways when it got too hot to move. It was like a dismal Land of Oz. My surroundings were so surreal that I felt different too. I didn’t want to blend in with such a place, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself either. However, that was impossible with my black nametag emblazoned on my too-bright white, too-starched blouse.

After my first breakneck taxi ride along the hazardous cobblestone streets of Odessa, we arrived at our apartment and began the hike up to the fourth floor. Of course there was no elevator. My companion paused on the third floor to point out the broken window and faded brown stain on the floor. Pointing to it she mentioned that about two weeks ago there was a huge puddle of blood there. A drunken man had fallen into the window and broken it, injuring himself in the process. I gingerly walked around it and up the last flight of stairs to our door. I reached out and tested the doorbell. It made a sound like an angry bird.

“Home sweet home” my companion said flatly. I surveyed the entrance, taking in the faded pattern of the wallpaper, the shabby rug, and the dust that covered everything. I walked into the bedroom and upon finding the view, pulled apart the yellowed lace curtains. It reminded me of some pitiable tropical place with multi-colored, rotting, plaster buildings capped with rusted tin roofs and crawling with deep green foliage, unlike the barren Siberian wilderness I’d pictured in my mind. “This looks like Jamaica or something,” I thought out loud.

“Yeah, just like Jamaica. It even has cockroaches.” My companion interjected from the living room.

“Cockroaches?” I shuddered, searching the corners and imagining that I could see them skittering along the baseboards.

I was the typical missionary straight out of the MTC, filled with too much fire and too little ability. I wanted to get right to work, but was unsure of how to do it. I went to the living room to pester my companion about leaving the house already. She lay face down on the couch looking utterly spent, her fragile shoulders moving up and down with every breath. I couldn’t wake her. I decided to focus my brimming energy on the grime that coated our apartment.

Every empty space was filled with the ghosts of missionary past: ancient discussion booklets with duct-taped spines, antiquated lesson models made of plastic cups, bags of worn out nylons, and an assortment of books left behind because they were too bulky to carry. I pictured myself on the street carrying my Book of Mormon around proudly instead of being stuck inside and frowned at the junk in front of me. Since when is this missionary work? That day I scoured the apartment until my energy was sapped and I could at least try to rest, despite the jet lag that made my pulse race in the middle of the night.

Soon I found out that that day wasn’t out of the ordinary. I felt discouraged by the lack of work we were doing. Before my mission I had imagined that missionaries were constantly out on the streets, endlessly knocking on doors, and teaching lessons nodding in unison with pictures of happy families perched on their laps. I feared that I would never learn how to be a real missionary and that I would somehow be punished for the lack of smiling and nodding going on. I didn’t want to waste the time I had, but I couldn’t inject my spirit into my companion. To me it seemed like she went about each day as if she were weighted down with a large pack on her back, but she did not carry one. I saw her struggle with a fear of teaching, but I did not know how to help her. She often remarked that she was a bad trainer and a bad missionary. She had very high standards for herself and was determined that we could somehow improve our discussions without the risk of teaching actual people and making damaging, unalterable mistakes. I observed her spending hours studying the words in the lessons and how to present them. I saw the effort that she put into her study of the language and the gospel. I knew that she could teach, even though I was much less convinced of my own abilities.

One day in particular, I remember we stayed home for the specific purpose of “perfecting” our first lesson. That day, instead of continuing to work cheerfully, I let the joy of missionary work drain out of me completely. I stared off at the balcony from my seat facing a stuffed, floppy eared dog with his felt tongue sticking out derisively. “I can’t take much more of this,” I muttered to my companion in desperation. The reply I received was disheartening.

“Sister, we are not leaving this apartment until this lesson is perfect.” At the time it felt like she was trying to torture me. That day she had announced that in place of our usual wandering in the streets and misdirected contacting, we were going to stay inside the apartment to work on the first lesson together. All day. We gathered up all the old stuffed animals left there by our landlady and placed them on the couch as an audience to teach. I tried to make myself do it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak Russian or teach in the right way. Not to a motley pack of dolls anyway. I didn’t find any motivation in their unblinking plastic eyes. So I slumped down in my chair, with my elbows on my knees until that started hurting. Then I lay back and perked my ears towards the noise that came from the street below. I wanted to be out there with my Book of Mormon in hand.

“We haven’t even been out of the house today,” I whined with my head in my hands.

“Do you even want to do this?” she shot back at me.

I shut my mouth reluctantly and leaned back to stare at the water stains on the ceiling with tears in my eyes. Truthfully, I didn’t want to do it anymore but I kept listening while becoming angrier and angrier. I pointed at her and said, “You’re just scared of teaching!” and quickly glanced away, almost wincing at what I knew would come next.

“How would you like to be me? I have a new companion who doesn’t know anything and I’ve only been out for five months! What was President thinking?!”

“Well, you could at least try!” I became bolder in my anger. “You can’t learn how to teach a lesson by teaching freaking stuffed animals!” I threw the dog across the room to prove my point. I was freely crying now and my breath was short. “Why can’t we do what real missionaries do?!” I shut my eyes, denying what was really taking place.

My companion then blurted out in defense, “Are you saying I’m not a real missionary? You think I’m a bad companion. Well, I am a bad missionary. I obviously can’t do anything right.”

Her fears had come to a boiling point. I learned in this moment that I could not forcefully make her see my point of view. I also realized that I was afraid too. I was afraid of missing something, of never becoming the missionary I dreamed of being. We were both afraid of failing. Staying home to memorize the first lesson was obviously not a resolution for these problems, but perhaps going out onto the streets wasn’t the solution either.

“So what do we do?” I finally softened my approach and looked at her with my reddened eyes.

I don’t remember the exact details of how we resolved this conflict, but I do remember that we apologized to each other. We sat and talked about our weaknesses and our fears. We cried together and we realized that we both had the same goal underneath all our anxieties. We simply wanted to share our feelings about the gospel with the people in Ukraine. Thankfully, we never taught stuffed animals again and, soon enough, I was standing on a busy street corner contacting at the top of my lungs as rumbling trucks and hissing busses drove by. I smiled and held my Book of Mormon close to my chest as I called out one phrase I knew by heart, “Can I talk to you for a minute?” My companion looked over at me and smiled.

wants Reese Witherspoon's hair.

I have been growing out my hair since this summer. I think it might be this long by Christmas. Long, luscious locks, here I come!

It's about shoulder-length here. This was a couple months ago (sorry, the picture is totally cheesy).

Oh, and I also want cowboy boots.

That is all.

wrote another chapter.

Here's chapter two of the same novel with no title yet. Tom is now in Toquerville and the adjustment isn't going as well as he'd like. He is the new kid in a high school full of unfriendly hicks and feels more rejected than ever. Will things ever get better for him? You'll find out in chapter three!

Chapter two: An Empty Room

Tom walked into his newly painted bedroom. The lamp in the corner had no shade, which caused the light to reflect off the bare walls. The room felt empty; it did not have the same comfortable feeling as his old room, which was a dusty blue color, accentuated by his denim, patchwork bedspread and blue curtains that had faded a little over time. His old room had remnants of when his older brother had occupied it: basketball posters with the likes of Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan, which covered up holes that he’d punched into the walls, and an amateurish drawing of a wolf that he had sketched before he dropped out of high school. This new room was bare, but he didn’t attempt to change it by displaying anything personal. He wondered how long it would take for the room to look lived in, to soak up his essence and stop smelling like paint. For now he liked it this way, devoid of memories. It was easier to live in. It hurt less. He turned off the light and watched the dusk cast a moving shadow on his wall as he lay directly on top of his flowered mattress. The light grew fainter and fainter, but he never turned the light back on that night. He fell asleep with his boxes unpacked and his backpack at his feet and he awoke again early in the morning.

Unzipping his backpack for the first time since he packed it, Tom pulled out a black and white composition notebook. He hadn’t touched it in weeks. He didn’t know how to record what had happened to him and his family. He didn’t know if he wanted to put it into words. The guilt he felt had long settled deep into his body and he breathed it in and out along with the dry air. It was such a part of him that he’d already accepted his blame and behaved accordingly. He was more passive and quiet than ever in an unconscious effort to pay back the invisible debt that had seeped into his bones and made him feel heavy. He felt like he was always wearing the oversized lead apron that dentists put on their patients when they do x-rays on their teeth. This thought sparked an idea for a new poem and he opened the first page and put a sentence down on the paper:

It was not like falling down the stairs

He could not imagine that it was an accident.

wondering how I ended up at the bottom

with a bruised rib.

He wanted to escape his thoughts, but he realized that he kept revisiting them, agonizing over the “what ifs” and felt like there was no way out.

I take myself there,

like to a dentist’s appointment,

expecting to hurt.

He continued writing, unsure of what he was trying to say, but the words continued to come.

The presence left by your absence

is on the lumpy couch, the kitchen steps,

the cracked red earth;

in the cab of the truck, and on the brown

Formica tabletop.

Your fingerprints are like rings

left by coffee cups.

They can’t be erased.

I see them everywhere.

They cover me.

This new poem looked strange on the graphed paper next to another one about a girl he had liked months before. It now seemed immature and trite. It wasn’t even about love. Her deep, brown eyes, which he had praised so highly then hadn’t crossed his mind since he wrote about them. This new poem was his first about death. He didn’t like it in the notebook. It didn’t fit. He tore the page out and folded it into quarters, fitting it into the pocket of one of his father’s flannel shirts. It belonged there. He looked out the window and realized that it was light again. He placed his notebook under his mattress and went to brush his teeth and shower. He almost felt like doing it that day. Maybe it was progress.

The bathroom was just large enough for a bathtub, a toilet, and a sink. Tom could put one leg in the bathtub while sitting on the toilet and turn the sink on with his left hand. Everything was a pale pink color. The wallpaper, which wasn’t too old, was poorly chosen by a sentimental housewife. Tiny rosebuds filled the walls from floor to ceiling and on a border about halfway up the wall, furry brown bunnies hopped shyly among violets. He looked away from their whiskery noses poking out from behind the leaves and turned on the shower. It never got very hot and it frequently sputtered. Maybe Sam could do something about it. He got in and let the water run weakly down his back. He didn’t adjust it; the lukewarm temperature was pleasant. It was already hot out that morning. The shower head was almost too low for Tom and he hunched slightly to wet his head. He reached for the Vo5 shampoo and poured out a palmful. He tried to focus on the feel of the rubber flowers under his feet and the water on his body instead of the anxious thoughts in his head. He wasn’t ready for school. He didn’t want to have to adjust to a new group of friends, if he was lucky enough to make new friends. Everything felt overwhelming, even the simple task of going to register. He wondered why he couldn’t just drop out like his brother and work instead. Sam had stopped going to high school after his sophomore year and from that time on found odd jobs around the reservation. His mother never bothered Sam much about his choice. She always said, “Sam will be just fine. He’s always been good with his hands.” So why did his mother expect so much from him? She pushed him to go to school every day. He hadn’t missed one single day during his high school career. He’d been given an attendance award both his freshman and sophomore years. Tom resolved not to get that award this year and stared determinedly into the mirror with his towel on his head. He realized it was unconvincing and pulled the towel off. He slowly dressed himself in the humid bathroom. When he was almost done he heard his mother’s voice from the kitchen. “Tom! Come get some breakfast! We’ve got a lot to do today!” He could hear the sizzle of sausage. He felt hungry, finally, but his lean frame had visibly diminished after weeks of picking at all his meals and eating only when prodded. Today he wanted to eat. More progress. He squeezed the water out of his hair and quickly pulled it back into a ponytail at the base of his neck. It was too warm to leave it down. He searched for a t-shirt in his boxes and the only one he could find was the pow wow t-shirt he’d worn the night his father died. He couldn’t put it on. He went into Sam’s room and started going through his boxes. The first shirt he found said “Gettin’ lucky in Kentucky.” He rolled his eyes, pulled it over his head, and went into the kitchen as his mother called him once more.

She set a plate down in front of him with four links of sausage on it and a stack of pancakes. “Eat that and then we’ll go see about registering you for school.”

“All right.” He agreed to everything his mother said nowadays.

“Well, do you want to or not?” She put her hand on his face and turned it towards her.

“I do. Jeez.” He turned back to his sausage and wrapped one in a pancake and ate it.

“I just can’t do anything to make you happy, can I?” Her voice quivered on the verge of tears. Tom didn’t react. This was all-too-common lately. She turned abruptly and went into the kitchen. Tom hated it when she acted like this. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to make her happy either. The truth was, things had been like this for a long time, even before his father’s death. Now the unhappiness had been shifted from his father to him.

“Why do you always make her cry, dork?” Sam leaned over and punched Tom’s arm with a good deal of force.

“Ow! Stop it! Like you never do…” He trailed off, rubbing his arm.

“And quit borrowing my clothes without asking.” He socked him again in the same spot.

“Boys! Stop fighting!” Her voice sounded thin, like it did every time she started crying. They went silent and looked away from each other when they heard a clatter of silverware in the sink and more crying.

That day Tom registered high school in Hurricane, a neighboring town, because Toquerville was too small to have its own.

“Welcome to Hurricane high.” He noticed that the stout secretary said Hurricane like “hur-i-kun” as she stamped his transcript with a decisive thud. He disliked her accent and, perhaps even more so, he disliked her vest with puff-painted apples on it.

“Okay.” He tried not to stare at the ugly vest and the smiling apples hopping down her large chest.

“You mean ‘thank you’, right?”

His head snapped up and he nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Thomas Lamebull.” She pronounced his name with particular emphasis on his last name. “You’re a junior, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, here is your schedule and your locker combination. Good luck.” She eyed him the way sheriffs in old movies eyed villains like Billy the Kid. He was sure she added, “And I’ll be keeping a close eye on you,” in her head.

As he wandered the empty halls in search of his locker, he was self-conscious about the way he walked when he saw himself reflected in the large, plate-glass windows. His arms looked too long. His shoulders were hunched. His feet seemed to slap like duck’s feet on the newly-polished floor. His hair swayed behind him when he walked too quickly, so he slowed down. When he got to his locker he saw that it was one of many tall, orange ones randomly interspersed with light blue ones. This would be his junior year. Number 456. Combination 7-19-9. The locker popped open on the first try, rattling on its loose hinges. The former occupant had left a biology book inside and a moldy peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a Ziploc bag. Disgusted, he shut the locker again.

A week later, on the first day of school, Tom still hadn’t unpacked much and, once again, was rifling through all his boxes looking for something suitable to wear. He pulled out a pair of jeans he hadn’t worn for months that now fit him because he’d lost weight, and a snap-front, ribbon shirt he’d often worn out with friends on the reservation. It was one of his best shirts, but it still seemed like it wasn’t enough. He carefully braded his hair into two plaits, washed his face, and scoured his nose for new blemishes. There were a couple. Then his brother started knocking on the bathroom door.

“What are you doing in there? I’ve gotta go.”

“Come in then.” He pulled the door open and tried to step around his brother, but Sam caught him by his shoulders and pretended to check him out.

“Whoo. Who are you trying to impress, little brother?”

“Just let me go, all right?” He tried to shake his brother off of him and then let his shoulders droop in his brother’s strong grasp.

“No way. This is too good. You’re wearing your ribbon shirt for the first day of school? Since when do you care about school so much?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to be late.”

Sam let him go, but not without a mock punch in the gut. “Well, just be careful. They probably won’t understand you there. They’ll think you’re some kind of weird Indian if you show up looking like that.”

Tom shrugged and went back into his bedroom, took off his ribbon shirt, put it back in a box, and grabbed the first shirt that he laid his hands on, hastily pulling it over his head.

“Tom, are you about ready?” His mother poked her head into his room. “Why did you take off the other shirt? It looked nice.”

“I don’t know. It didn’t feel right.” He started to undo his left braid.

“Don’t do that. I like your hair like that. When your father was young…” She started the sentence, but she couldn’t finish it.

“Geez, Mom. Please, not today.” He replaced the elastic at the end of his braid to pacify her.

“It’s okay, honey. Wear your hair the way you want to.”

“I want it like this.”

“No, you don’t.” She wiped her eyes, but looked consoled for the moment.

“Yes, I do. Let’s go.” He put his backpack on. It was too small and sat high on his back like a hump. He took it off of his left shoulder and let it hang from the right.

“We’ll get you a new one soon, okay? I’m sorry it’s too small. I get my first paycheck in a week.”

“I don’t care, Mom. It’s just fine.”

She looked at him like she had when he left to go to school on the reservation for the first time when he was six. Her eyes were brimming with tears, but she didn’t let them spill over.

“You just look so much like him.”

When he heard this, Tom almost let his own tears fall, but he hadn’t cried in almost a month. He promised himself when he came to Toquerville that he wouldn’t cry anymore. He felt like he needed to somehow erase his past in order to get through what had happened, but he didn’t know how. He wanted his heart to be empty like his room, with no remnants of his pain. He wished that all the ugliness could be covered up with a fresh coat of paint.

“We have to go. It’s late.” Tom shifted his bag on his shoulder as if it weighed more than it did, but it was practically empty. His mom didn’t respond; she reached out to him and pulled his head down to her, holding his face against her neck and shoulder.

“I love you. So much. I wish I could change things.”

“I know.” He sniffed and pulled away.

They walked in silence to the door and she put a sack lunch in his hand. She’d even written his name on it.

“Have a good day.” She whispered and then kissed his cheek.

Sam, sitting impatiently in the truck, honked the horn long and loud.

“Bye.” Tom hurried out the door to the truck and his waiting brother.

“Did you make sure you kissed her goodbye?” Sam joked as he backed down the driveway with his arm across the back seat, looking over his shoulder.

“Shut up.”

“Be that way. You’re too uptight lately.” Sam put the truck into drive quickly and it jerked forward. He accelerated to a speed well above the limit and turned on the radio. Tom didn’t mind the opportunity to listen instead of making conversation. He felt sick and nervous. Every bump in the road jarred him and he wanted to throw up, but he tried to pretend like it was the same as going to his old school. When they pulled up at the curb, he opened the door quickly and slid out. “Hey!” Sam called out loudly, “Don’t forget your lunch!” He held the brown paper sack with Tom’s name on it out the window, visible to everyone in the courtyard.

“Great,” Tom muttered, grabbing the lunch and shoving it quickly into his backpack.

“See you later!” He honked again and drove off too quickly. Everyone who saw it giggled. Tom made a beeline into the school and to his locker where he could stow away the cursed lunch bag.

That day went down as the third to worst in Tom’s entire life. The first was the day his father died, and the second was the day in seventh grade when he asked a girl he’d liked for the entire year to dance with him at the school dance, but she denied him. She said that she didn’t dance. He felt like he was going to pass out from the effort of simply talking to her. All his blood had rushed to his head and he felt dizzy and rejected for the rest of the dance. Later on, he saw her dancing with Kerry Yazzie, that cocky half-Indian. He held her too tightly against him and she giggled too much. He had heard somewhere that she was now pregnant and working at the Seven to Eleven food store #27.

Tom made a mental list of why the day was so terrible as he walked home, which, incidentally, was one of the reasons on the list. Sam hadn’t shown up to get him. He waited almost an hour and then started walking. He was used to it. Number one, his locker wouldn’t open. Maybe the combination was changed or maybe someone was messing with him. Either way, he had to carry his books and lunch around all day in his tiny backpack. He could just picture the faces of the students around him snickering behind their hands as he tried over and over to open the locker. He finally kicked it with his foot and walked away, limping slightly from the effort. One boy had even called out, “Trouble with your locker, newbie?” He wanted to punch that kid. He was revolting to him—his carefully spiked hair, his polo collar popped just so, his sweat bands carefully placed on his forearms with no basketball game in sight. What an idiot.

Number two, he had to introduce himself in every class. He sat in the very back of the class, practically hiding behind his books, but they still found him out and interrogated him about everything from his favorite color to his birthday. He paired it down to a few sentences that he could quickly spit out and then sit down. “My name is Thomas. Lamebull. I’m sixteen. Yeah, I’m a Navajo. I moved here from Tuba City, Arizona. That’s all.” And when his teachers would look too interested in anything he said, he would answer their questions in the most inane manner possible to discourage them from further questions. “So, Tom, can you tell us about where you’re from?” “Uh yeah, it’s a reservation.” It occurred to him after the questioning began, in his third class, that this school had not had a “new kid” in years. Not many people moved in to Toquerville. All the students there seemed to know each other from birth. They had odd cliques that he’d never seen before: groupings of cousins sporting matching belt buckles; jocks with the sense that they were incredibly fashionable, even though they all looked the same in their Abercrombie rip-off polos; girls who primped in their locker mirrors and had sparkles on their faces and nails; various sullen individuals wearing black with oversized pants on their skinny legs and oversized chains around their skinny necks. They looked like sad strays.

Number three, the cafeteria. He had no idea where to sit or how to even begin to interact with these freaks. Each of these odd groups seemed to occupy more space than they needed, but no group violated the space of another group. They hovered around their tables, shrieking, throwing french fries, and pointing at each other, but never coming close to one another. Tom took one step into this jungle and stepped right back out. He went outside and sat in the hot weather under the school’s puny Vietnam memorial tree and ate his sack lunch. While he was there, eating peacefully, an administrator walked by and reprimanded him for not being in the cafeteria with the other students. He wadded up the remnants of his lunch and threw the entire bag into the trash on the way back in, saving his bottle of Coke for later.

Number four, Mr. Harvey. After lunch was his “government” class. It made no sense to him. He understood enough about what had happened to Native Americans to question the logic of what they all nodded their heads in unison about. Like colonization. They all talked about all the good things that happened when white men from Europe came to America. The less attractive aspects were glossed over, like the smallpox epidemic that killed off the bulk of the Indians. It was all he could do to sit through the class silently. In addition to the tedious curriculum, Mr. Harvey had some finite rules in class and one was “no food or drink,” of course. Tom had placed his Coke bottle on the desk, waiting to open it when he was about to fall asleep, but at the mention of this rule, jerked out his hand to grab it and accidently knocked it onto the floor. It shattered and the Coke went everywhere, leaving a fizzing, brown puddle on the floor. Mr. Harvey then tactfully commented as loud as he could, “That’s why I don’t allow food or drink in class.” Everyone laughed. He was forced to go to the restroom and bring back a fistful of paper towels to clean up the mess with while everyone watched. It was humiliating. On the way out of class one of the cousins remarked, “That was smooth. We’re Hey, smooth!” They continued to yell this new nickname at him after he walked off down the hall after class.

Before he could think of another reason, Sam drove up next to him. “Get in.”

“Where were you?” He felt like yelling, but it came out sounding choked.

“Are you going to cry?”

“No.”

“Looks like it. Anyhow, I was just over at the auto shop to see if they needed any help. Looks like I’ll be changing oil there for a while.”

“Good for you,” Tom said flatly.

“Yeah, well, it’s something. Most places won’t hire me because I don’t have a diploma or something. But whatever.”

“Just take me home now.” He stared out the window at the town passing by slowly and let his self-pity drain out of him. He added up all the experiences he’d had that day and racked them up to his punishment’s total. It wasn’t much, but he was paying it back a little at a time. He felt like he needed to suffer more, it still wasn’t enough.

keeps on writing.

This is a project I am working on that might even turn into a novel. If you have the stamina to get through it, let me know what you think.

Chapter one: Buffalo Tears

Tom waited in the cab of the truck, languishing in the heat. The strands of hair that escaped from his long plait clung to the sides of his russet, sweaty face. His palms were covered in the grime of a day’s worth of working cattle. He had helped his father, a shorter, stockier version of himself, prod the remaining cows into their pens. Then had come the buffalo. He hadn’t wanted to be anywhere near them when it was time to bring them in. So he waited. When he was a child his grandmother had told him the story of a man who had been gored by a buffalo. The buffalo caught the man with its horn in the pit of his stomach and ripped up to his rib cage. He imagined that the man did not suffer long. He died quickly, taking deep, gulping breaths, but no sound came out. His eyes rolled back in his head with only the whites showing and they didn’t close when he died. Tom shuddered at the thought and turned on the radio. A fuzzy, Mexican station came through and he switched it off. He lay down on the cracked leather seat, resting his ever-growing legs out the driver’s side window and played with the end of his braid. He whistled the Bonanza theme song to himself, missing notes, and forgetting the tune halfway through. The moment he started drifting off to sleep he felt a sudden push on his feet. “Son, it’s time to go.”

“Sorry, Dad.” Tom sat up quickly, slid to the middle seat, and let his older brother Sam in the other side. Soon he was in between his dad and his brother. They drove in silence. The tepid breeze blowing through the open windows did nothing to ease his discomfort, but he sat still, watching the road ahead. They had an hour’s drive back to Tuba City. About five miles from their home, a dilapidated tavern appeared on the horizon and his father veered towards it and stopped outside while dust billowed out from under the tires from the abrupt halt. Tom felt heavy inside. He knew that his father would be stopping here today; they had been paid and his father wanted to unwind. His mother had begged him that morning to keep his father away from the tavern, but Tom knew there was nothing he could do to stop him.

“I won’t be long,” his father said abruptly and hopped out of the truck, followed by Sam.

“Sam!” Tom called out to him. He turned around and cocked his head to the side.

“What do you want, little brother?”

“Are you going to watch after dad?”

“I’m going to get a drink myself. We’ll be fine.” His lanky body loomed in the approaching dusk, his shadow reaching far behind him. He turned back to Tom and tossed his hair back over his shoulder and then crammed his hands into his back pockets. “Just wait here. We won’t be more than an hour or so. And don’t take the truck anywhere, okay?”

Tom remained in the middle seat, buckled in. He didn’t answer his brother. He couldn’t decide if he should go home without them or wait. It had happened too many times before and each time he waited. He didn’t want to see his father and brother get in the car drunk again and grip the dashboard while his father drove home, riding mostly in the middle of the road. It used to be easier when Sam was with him waiting, but Sam had started joining his father regularly at the bar that year. It was clear he was underage, but they were on the reservation, and the barman was a close friend so he made an exception for him. Tom knew he couldn’t stand another one of those drunken nights. He wanted to go home and see his father hug his mother. He wanted to feel like everything was alright. He watched the sun waver low on the horizon in the heat of the peach-stained sky. It was almost twilight. The ruckus from the bar could be heard outside—clinking bottles, rowdy laughter, whiny country music, and cracking pool balls. A thought crossed his mind. Take the keys. They wouldn’t be able to drive home. They would have to call for his mother to pick them up. Maybe that would make his father think a little more about what he was doing to his family. He reached for the keys in the ignition and then pulled his hand away. If he took them, his brother would be very angry. He left them dangling there. The keychain had a miniature horseshoe on it and a pair of dice with holes drilled in them. The dice were yellowed with age and dirt. Tom watched them as they swung there and impulsively reached out and grabbed them. He unbuckled, hopped out of the truck quickly, slammed the door, and started home, walking on the dry, weedy patch in the center of the dirt road.

A little less than an hour later he was home. It was almost dark. His mother was not home yet from work. He sat in front of the TV and watched episode after episode of some show packed with smiling white kids in high school until he couldn’t look at their phony faces any longer. When he heard tires on the driveway, he went upstairs. His mother was getting dropped off today by her co-worker, Verna. They always came inside together and made coffee so they could chat together for hours. They sat at the table talking for a while until Tom’s mother called him down. “Tom! Can you come in here?”

“Yeah, I’m coming.” He took his time marking his place in his book and rolling off the bed. He slowed at the entrance of the kitchen, “what do you want?” he asked cautiously.

“I want to see you. Come in here, hon.”

He looked around the corner and saw them at the dinette table. The brown Formica surface was chipped in a couple places at the edges. There were two cups of coffee on the table in handmade, pottery mugs. No steam was rising from them. His mother’s hands rested near her cup; they were small and weathered, but still had nicely shaped fingernails. He loved that about her. Her hands were beautiful. She used to scratch his back until he fell asleep when he was a child. Her index finger traced the rim of her cup, over and over. He could tell she was uneasy.

“What’s up, Mom?”

“Come here, give me a hug.” She extended her arms out and caught him by the sleeve, pulling him in and hugging him around the waist. He was much taller than her, especially when she was sitting. She scratched his lower back lightly. “Did your dad come home?” She already knew the answer.

“Nuh uh. He’s at the bar. Sam stayed too.” He tried to keep his words to a minimum, but he didn’t feel the need to lie. It didn’t work anymore. There was nothing left to cover up. He didn’t want to stay to see his mother’s face fall, so he wriggled out of her grasp and went back upstairs to his books. They were his refuge. He could read about anything he wanted and almost feel far away from all the sadness and disappointment that permeated their small, government house.

That night he dreamed his father was gored by a buffalo. The sun was high above them as they worked in the corral, trying to coerce a colossal black buffalo into its pen. Its body was clearly too wide to fit through the gate. His father boldly approached the buffalo’s looming, shaggy body and began to push on the right flank. As he pushed, his feet left shallow trenches in the dry earth and the buffalo stood rigid, not moving even an inch. Dust clouded around his ankles. He continued to push. The dust reached his waist; his boots were no longer visible. Tom was too afraid to approach. He stood back, shielding his eyes from the sun. He could barely see his father any longer through the dust. In a blur of dark movement, the buffalo swung around the right side and disrupted the cloud his father was gathering. It was like lightning striking through a thunderhead. The buffalo struck with its left horn. It ripped through his father’s flannel shirt, through his white undershirt, and into his soft underbelly. As the buffalo drew its head upward, it seemed deliberately slow. It watched Tom with its eye, rimmed in red, and snorted with a final effort, pulling its horn up and out, and shaking its head as it finished. His father fell to the ground with a deadened thud, flat onto his torn belly. The buffalo raced around the perimeter of the corral, looking for an exit, and spied Tom gazing in shock at his father and the puddle of blood spreading out from underneath his body. He raced forward trying to separate Tom from the body, but Tom flung himself on top of his father’s bulk and buried his face in the dank hollow of his neck. He tensed his body, waiting for the buffalo to attack, and screamed for his dad, although he knew it was useless. He felt his body shaking but wasn’t sure if it was coming from him.

Tom’s eyes zoomed back into the dark around him as hand on his back was shaking him awake. He realized he was clenching the sides of his pillow over his ears; his eyes were damp. He didn’t remember crying. His mother turned him over, her face seemed distorted; tracks of wetness ran down her cheeks, the whites of her eyes were almost entirely pink. She looked like a smaller, sad version of the buffalo. “I’ve been trying to wake you up for a while. Tom…are you… okay?” She started sobbing into a corner of the sheets. Then she looked into his eyes for a long time trying to focus on him, but tears kept filling up her eyes and blurring him out.

“What’s going on? Tell me!” He practically shouted, sitting up to face her. He grabbed his mom’s arms and felt her weight shift forward. She teetered on the edge of his bed and almost fell onto him. “Tom. He’s gone. He’s gone.” She gasped and started coughing deeply, as if she’d swallowed too many tears. Tom reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Mom, I took the keys. He’s fine. He’s probably still at the bar.” He pulled the keys out from under his mattress and showed her in a desperate attempt to prove her wrong, but he felt his lower lip stretching down as he grimaced, trying not to cry in front of her.

“Honey…Vince gave him a ride home. They got in an accident.” She hung her head and cupped her face with her hands.

“No.” Tom started crying too, covering his eyes with his fists.

“He lived. So did Sam. But your father…didn’t.” The last word came out with renewed sobbing. He couldn’t speak. He turned back to himself and let his face sink down into the pillow. He cried while his mom held his back and shoulders close to her chest, pinning his arms under hers. He stayed that way until he couldn’t feel them any longer. He didn’t remember falling asleep again, wrapped in his mother’s arms, but soon he was facing the buffalo again in his dreams.

Tom woke up again before dawn. His mother was not holding him any longer, she had left him. The room felt unbearably empty. He looked out the window at the lightening sky and wondered if he had dreamed his father’s death. He looked at the front of his thin, 1996 Four Corners Powwow t-shirt and saw the mascara stains his mother left on him. Reality hit him again. He crumpled into a ball beneath his sheets, the pain of death squeezing his lungs until he felt like he couldn’t inhale. He sobbed on exhales, his chest tightening with every lunge, until his eyes were dry and there were no tears left. His face burned, rubbed raw by his damp shirt sleeve. Continuing to wipe his dry face, he got off of his bed to walk around his room mindlessly. After a few minutes he paused to look at a picture of himself and his father on a fishing trip and he pounded his chest with his fist to shake a cry loose. The empty feeling only worsened. It seemed to him like his life had a chunk taken out of it, the kind of gaping hole left by a backhoe when it lifts out tons of dirt and leaves behind long toothy gashes in the earth. His heart hurt. He didn’t know that was even possible. How could it literally hurt with every beat? He imagined what it looked like inside his bony chest—the blood splattered on its spongy inner walls with every beat, but it was never absorbed. It sloshed around, growing darker, pooling, until it grew black and his heart burst from the excess blood, covering his organs with a dark coating like the stomach on the Pepto-Bismol commercial.

It was only 5:17, but he couldn’t stay in his room any longer waiting to find out what his part would be in this tragedy. It was already here and he needed to know. He had taken the keys. The memories running through his head were spaced with incessant “whys.” Why did his father go to the bar? Why did he take the keys? Why didn’t his brother help? Why did he get a ride home from that good-for-nothing drunk, Vince? Why did he have to die? Why didn’t he stay? Why was he such a bad son? Why was he so stupid? He felt responsible. He knew that if he’d just stayed like he was supposed to, he could have at least helped his father watch the road. He made him get a ride with someone else. It was stupid, so stupid! Why did he do it?! These thoughts wound themselves around his brain until they left room for no others. All he knew was it was his fault. He opened the bedroom door and checked his mother’s room. She wasn’t there. He panicked. When he walked into the living room, he saw his grandmother’s salt and pepper head resting on the back of the couch and he went up to her. Seeing that she was still asleep, he sat down next to her carefully, breathless sobs still escaping his compressed lungs, and put his head on her bent shoulder to wait for his blame.

Somehow he fell asleep again and stayed that way for a couple more hours. When he awoke, he smelled fry bread. His grandmother, Shima, was in the kitchen making a large batch to get them through the dawning, woe-filled day. He buried his head in the couch cushions, and imagining he smelled his father’s scent there, immediately snapped his head up and stared out the window. His father’s white truck was still missing from the driveway. He imagined going back to get it and he wanted to vomit. Everything was different now. Wrong. Empty. Strange. It was a mistake, but it was my mistake, he thought over and over again. What could be done? Nothing. He could not imagine an alternate reality in which his father did not exist. Yet he was in it. He could not see any solutions to the problem that faced his family. He imagined them trying to exist each day, but eventually the sorrow would shatter them.

“Thomas.” His grandmother said, placing a floury hand on his shoulder. “Come eat. I know you probably aren’t hungry, but try.”

He stood up obediently, walked over to the table, and sat down in front of a stack of fry bread and a glass of warm Pepsi. He did not want it. The Pepsi hit his stomach and contracted it to the size of a walnut. He bit into the bread and swallowed a large chunk. The thick, glutinous mass strained at the sides of his stomach. But he ate. He said nothing; it was as if each moment he re-awoke to the reality of his existence. And he was shocked each time it happened.

“I know what you are thinking. Please don’t blame yourself.”

He looked at his grandmother with narrowed, fearful eyes and ripped off a piece of fry bread with his teeth. “Do you know what I’m thinking?!” He said, still chewing. His anger was apparent in his voice.

“You are not the first person to experience the death of someone they love. I lost your grandfather more than ten years ago. I lost my first child. I lost my own parents even before you were born. Don’t tell me I don’t understand, because I do.” Her voice remained soft as she recalled each of the painful memories she’d unearthed with her words. “You did not make him die, Thomas.”

“Don’t you know what happened, Grandma?! I took the keys. I left him stranded at the bar. On purpose! He couldn’t get home because of me! Vince gave him a ride. Stupid drunk! He died because of me!” His tears ran out against his will, down his cheeks, and over his lips and chin. He swallowed them unwillingly.

“You did not make your father do anything. You will understand someday that death is not a punishment, it is part of life.” She set another piece of bread in front of him and he looked at it with disgust. “Thomas, I love you. You can talk to me about it when you’re ready, okay?” She left whitened handprints on his cheek and shoulder, kissed his head, and walked back into the kitchen. He saw her start to knead the dough again with her arthritic fingers. He wondered how she could remain so calm. He was angry at her because she didn’t seem upset about it. How could she take it so lightly? Just one more? Or was it just her son-in-law? Maybe she never loved him. But he knew that wasn’t true either. Death just didn’t seem like what everyone said it was. His grandmother said it was simply a part of life. But he felt like he died inside along with his father. He sat for the remainder of the morning and into the afternoon on the sofa under a ragged afghan, his favorite from childhood, disregarding the warmth of the day. He would sweat one moment and shiver the next. His thoughts did not allow him to sleep again for the rest of the day, no matter how hard he tried to escape the situation. He was completely exhausted. The fry bread and Pepsi came up and hour after he ate it and his stomach churned in its absence.

When his mother pulled up in the truck that afternoon with his brother Sam, back from the hospital, Tom didn’t know whether to be happy to see him or to be upset with him. Sam had a part in this too. The rusted whiteness of the Toyota seemed purer in the burning sunlight. Maybe it was trying to be holier than it really was to honor its past owner.

As soon as Sam came in the door, Tom glared at him. He huddled on the couch, not wanting to fling accusations at his frail-looking body. Sam’s arm was in a sling; his face had numerous cuts on it, butterflied shut with tiny white pieces of tape. He looked guilty and worn. The two brothers continued to exchange glances as their mother escorted Sam into the room by his shoulders. She reached to smooth his hair and make him sit in an armchair like an invalid. “Sam, just sit here. Grandma will get you something to eat.”

“Thanks mom,” he murmured. Turning to Tom he looked like he wanted to explain, but Tom immediately looked at the ground and waved his hand in front of his face.

“I don’t want to hear a thing from you, Sam. I just don’t.”

“I won’t say a thing then. Damnit! I just don’t know what to do.” He got up and went into the kitchen, grabbed a Coors out of the fridge and went out the back door.

“Sam! Bring that back in here!” His mother called after him, but didn’t follow.

Tom could hear the sound of a basketball hitting the pavement. Sam stayed out back shooting baskets one-handed until it got too dark to see the rim clearly.

When he came in for dinner, they all sat around the table chewing pensively. Occasionally Tom’s mother would let out a tiny gasp and dab her eye with a napkin. The large stack of fry bread never seemed to diminish as they picked at it. Their chili cooled and coagulated. No one ate much. Tom stood up with his bowl in hand, ready to exit to his room when his mother stopped him. “Sit down. We all need to talk about some things.”

“Can’t it wait, mom?” Sam put down his fork noisily with his left hand.

“No. We need to decide a couple of things. Everything is different now…” Tears dripped from the corners of her eyes and flowed down the well-worn paths they had traveled all day long.

“Mom. You aren’t ready to talk about this. And I don’t want to talk about it either, okay?” Tom said without making eye contact.

“Why does everything have to be so damn hard?!” She shoved her bowl aside, knocking it off the table and letting it shatter without even reacting to the sound. “I can’t be here anymore. Not here. Not where he was. I won’t be able to live longer than a week.”

“What are you talking about?” Tom said, looking up from his full bowl of chili. “We can’t go anywhere else. There is nowhere else.”

“Mom, I’m sorry it all happened, okay? Is that what you’ve wanted to hear from me all day? Sorry. I’m a bad son. In fact, I’m worse than him. I’m the one that put him in the car with Vince when he was too drunk to walk. It’s my own fault!” Sam started crying for the first time since he got home.

Tom didn’t know what to say. He was too sore inside from it all. His guilt choked him and he let Sam blame it on himself. But he knew it was nobody’s fault but his own and he watched them sob in agony, trying to make sense of what had happened.

* * *

The next week the Navajo Hopi Observer ran an obituary that Tom wrote and submitted himself:

SANI LAMEBULL—Tuba City, AZ. Died 23 August, 2002. Born on 12 November, 1964, he was only 37 years old when he passed away. He was a loving husband and father. Sani is survived by his two sons, Samuel and Thomas Lamebull, and his wife Tansy Lamebull. Services for Sani Lamebull will be held on Thursday August 28 at 5:00 p.m. in the Desert Memorial Funeral Home. He will be greatly missed.

* * *

Every day seemed the same for a long time. Each morning when they awoke, the stinging reality of loss was renewed. It was as if they could not recover from the shock. At the funeral they cried with their family and friends, said how much they would miss him, and knew that their words would never match the pain they felt. It was only a shadow of the beast that had taken over their lives. The buffalo continued to haunt Tom in his dreams. Each night his family was attacked. He saw them torn apart over and over. He walked about each day feeling as if his insides were torn and they would not heal.

At the beginning of September, Tom’s mother started collecting boxes. She announced they would be leaving the reservation—at least for a while until she could recover. To Tom it felt like he was being uprooted again and the hole in his heart grew deeper. She found a job in Toquerville, Utah at a factory. They loaded all the boxes into the back of the truck, lashed them down with bungee cords, and started off down the dusty road. Shima would live in their house as it was government property anyway and they couldn’t sell it. No one would rent it either. Tuba city wasn’t exactly expanding.

Tom sat between his mother and Sam in the truck. They drove for more than six hours across Arizona and into Utah. He couldn’t see out the back window at the road trailing behind. He kept glancing into the rear view mirror and instead of a long stretch of yellow double lines in the desert landscape, he saw brown cardboard marked with handwritten labels in thin, shaky sharpie lines like “dishes”, “Tom’s stuff”, “bedroom”, and so on. They left the boxes with his father’s things in the basement of their house. There were only two boxes, each the size of an average television. They held most of his worn clothing, boots, hats, and some personal items. He had kept all of his most treasured objects in his sock drawer. Before they left, Tom had taken a pocket knife, some old coins, and a photo of his father as a teenager, fancydancing at a powwow, from that cache. He also took a couple smaller flannel shirts that would fit him. He kept these things in his backpack at his feet. His thoughts condensed in the cramped cab of the truck and he switched on the radio to let them out.

“Turn that off. I hate that Mexican radio stuff.” Sam poked his head out of the window and spit his gum into the red sand.

Tom switched the radio to a country song on the only other clear station. The song was about a man who had left a message on his own answering machine for his lost love. Somehow it won her back. Tom couldn’t help thinking how completely ludicrous that story sounded, but he continued to listen, wincing at the yellow butterflies that hit the windshield in swarms.

They drove down the main street at dusk; Toquerville was even smaller than Tuba City. Sam groaned and hung his head and arms out the window, folding his body in half as if he were going to be sick. Tom just stared ahead, feeling like he was receiving his punishment for what he’d done. He reached up and fingered his braid, rubbing the brush-like tip across his jaw line, back and forth.