The Removed Read online

  I sat in the armchair in my living room and watched TV for a while, some movie about a pilot who went blind and refused help from his wife. He threw things around the house, shattering glass, knocking over lamps and tables. I looked outside and saw a cardinal on the windowsill. It spread its wings and flew away.

  I turned off the TV and tried to relax, but I couldn’t. I called Edgar, but he didn’t answer. This time I didn’t leave a voice mail. I took a hot bath, which helped me feel better temporarily. Soon enough a weariness came over me, and I had the sense that something disorderly was flowing throughout the house. I felt restrained in the drowsy warmth of my bathwater, as if something was pressing down on me.

  That night Vin called, as I knew he would. He was a little drunk. Again, I let it go to voice mail, and then listened to the message. “I’m coming over after a while,” he said. That was it, nothing more. I played a dumb balloon game on my phone, then turned off the lamp beside my bed and smoked a cigarette in the dark. Colette had become the smoke in my house, drifting around from room to room. I felt her presence in the darkness. I felt her presence everywhere lately: in my bedroom, in the hallway, when I was in the bath at night. Or was it the presence of someone else entirely?

  How aware my senses were in the middle of the night, in the darkness, as if I could access some place I wasn’t able to during daylight hours. I felt the room’s pulsating heart, its breathing. I heard, too, a rhythmic sound, like soldiers marching in the distance. I had a vision of an intruder watching me through the window, then breaking down the door and dragging me out of the house. I felt like a young girl again, terrified after hearing a noise, and then waking Papa to tell him.

  I drifted in and out of sleep, I think, hovering in that space between dreams and visions. At one point I heard the Cherokee phrase whispered in my ear: “Aniyosgi anahili, aniyosgi anahili.” Soldiers are marching, soldiers are marching. I heard it over and over, nudging at me like a bad dream.

  At three in the morning, a knock on the door startled me. I sat up in bed. The knock came again, and I peeked out my window blinds, somewhat relieved to see Vin’s car. I turned on the light in the living room, and when I opened the door, he was already letting himself in, smelling of cigarettes and whiskey.

  “You’re drunk?” I said.

  He could barely keep from falling over. He moved in close and kissed me. I let him, but just for a minute. Then I pulled back and asked where he had been—and where was Luka? He frowned, moved in close to me, and kissed me again, sliding his hands down my arms. He started kissing my neck, and after a moment I pulled away.

  “What do you want?” He laughed. “Tell me what you want.”

  I felt him gripping my hair, as he did during sex, but this was more forceful and way more irritating.

  “Stop,” I said, pushing away from him. He grabbed my arm and squeezed, unexpectedly.

  Something flashed in my mind then, and when I looked up to meet his eyes, he was dressed in uniform, a face of the past, threatening me. Something about his face, his expression, as if he were someone I didn’t recognize. “You’re hurting me,” I said. “Seriously, Vin, stop.”

  “Come on,” he said, squeezing my wrist. “I drove all the way over here from downtown just to see you. Come on.”

  I jerked my arm away more forcefully this time, pushing him away. “Stop it, Vin,” I told him. “That hurts.” Now I was angry.

  “You’re a crazy Indian woman,” he said, releasing my wrist. “Just an old slut.”

  Without thinking, I swung at him, but he grabbed my arm again and twisted it, dragging me down to the floor. I screamed, but he didn’t let go. Then he slapped me, hard, and I collapsed, covering my face.

  I had never been struck in the face like that by a man I thought I knew. My cheek was burning from the blow, and the stinging only seemed to grow worse as I sat there holding my hand to my face.

  I screamed “I’m calling the police!” at him and ran into the hall bathroom, locking the door behind me. My heart was racing. I quickly realized I didn’t have my phone, though, and paced in the bathroom until I caught my breath. It didn’t sound like he was outside the door, luckily. I wanted to scream again, start smashing things in there. I must’ve bitten my lip because I tasted blood. In the mirror I saw that my cheek and lips were red. I ran cold water over my face and over a washcloth by the sink, then held it to my skin.

  I sat on the edge of the tub with my head in my hands, unable to bring myself to tears despite what had happened. A feeling comes in an instant, a restlessness, an irritability, that alerts you to leave before something terrible happens. I felt it pressing against me, suffocating me, warning me to separate myself from him. What was I supposed to do? There was no window to crawl out of. I was alone in a locked bathroom with no phone, trapped.

  I stayed in the bathroom for at least twenty minutes, maybe longer. It felt like forever. Thankfully he never tried to open the door. At one point I wasn’t sure whether he’d left; it was so quiet, and I couldn’t hear him walking around. Even so, I needed to feel safe, I needed something for protection. I opened drawers under the sink, where I found a pair of scissors. I found rubbing alcohol, which I could throw in his face if I needed to. None of this made me any more prepared to face him. I stood at the door for a moment, listening, but there was still nothing but silence. Finally, gripping the scissors firmly, I unlocked the door and stepped out.

  I walked slowly, quietly, into the living room. Vin was slumped on the couch, asleep. I hurried to retrieve my phone from the floor, against the wall, and returned to him. His mouth was open, and he muttered something when I said his name.

  “Vin,” I repeated. “I’m calling the police, and you have to go now. Do you hear me? Hey, Vin.”

  He was too drunk to even respond, and obviously in no condition to drive himself home. I wanted to slap him while he slept. I could’ve slapped him, right then, and he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it. I thought of calling the police, but the thought of Luka entered my mind. What would happen to Luka if his dad was in jail? I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t even think straight. Vin was completely passed out, and I told myself I was probably safe at this point.

  I thought I could call someone to come get him, but it was four in the morning; who would I call? In the kitchen I poured myself a glass of wine, trying to think what I could do with him by the time he woke in the morning. As the minutes passed, I kept thinking about how I would not forgive him. I watched him sleep, thinking about how pathetic and weak he was. He slept deeply with his mouth open, snoring. I couldn’t stand watching him. I couldn’t stand to be in the same house with him.

  In the hall I turned on the light and opened the door leading downstairs to the basement. I walked quietly back into the living room and shook him awake. “Vin,” I said over and over, “let’s go to bed. Come on, Vin, let’s go to bed,” until he stirred and opened his eyes. I kept pulling on his arm, and finally he got up and mumbled something, and I led him by the hand to the hallway and helped him down the stairs. At one point I thought he said something about Luka, but I ignored him. I just wanted to make sure he got down there. Once we were in the basement, I told him to lie down. “Go to sleep, go to sleep,” I said.

  He lay down on his side, on my old bed, and fell back asleep. I was so nervous about it that I had to sit down on the basement steps and rest a moment. He stirred and mumbled something, which startled me. I could still smell the liquor on him. I stepped over to him, reached into his front pants pocket, and carefully took his phone. He still had his wallet and car keys. Then I went back upstairs, closing the door behind me and bolting it so that he couldn’t get out. I felt safe with him down there, locked inside.

  In the kitchen, I set his phone on the table and stepped outside to the back porch, where I lit a cigarette. Then I walked down the trail near the lake, as I had done so many nights before, with the moonlight reflecting on the water and the soft dirt beneath my feet. I was calm,
even being out alone so late at night. A little ways along the bank, I sat down and hummed a song, a lullaby my mom used to sing. The wolves go away, the wolves go away, and sweet baby will stay. I hummed other songs from my childhood, songs I didn’t understand or barely remembered the words to. Then I spoke a prayer to the Great Spirit to bless me with protection and to give me peace.

  After about twenty minutes I walked back to the house. I didn’t go down to the basement—Vin needed to sleep it off—but I felt the need to go back inside and check all the rooms. I peeked inside my bedroom, then I closed all the blinds in the house. I checked the hall closet, the bathroom, under the bed, and in the shower. After all that, I sat quiet on the kitchen floor so that I could hear Vin in the basement underneath me if he woke up. It was five in the morning, and the sun would be coming up soon. I wasn’t even tired. I picked up his phone and scrolled through his messages, emails, and photos.

  Fuck him, I thought. On his phone there were several photos of other women. I deleted them, along with all his other photos, except for the ones of Luka. I deleted his phone numbers and contacts, and then I posted on his social media accounts: “I hit a woman tonight. I hit a woman. I hit an Indian.”

  Tsala

  BELOVED, THE EARTH WILL always speak to us when we need to hear her the most. Even in my time we were worried about rising oceans and burning land. I always looked for warnings. Our family believed strongly in Tecumseh’s warning of the soldiers coming to remove us from our land: there was a drought. There were high winds and a bitter cold winter.

  You are aware that this was a terrifying time for us. We were frightened but ready to defend our home. Our people would refuse to leave even though we were tricked by the government with their fraudulent treaty. We did not trust them.

  It was raining the night we rounded up a few families and quietly snuck away to hide in a cave in the mountains. I told the other people in the Cherokee language: What we do will affect our people for years to come. I thought of all my visions, our visions, the prophecy of the coming migration, and hoped they would be proven false. That night, in the cave, one of the wives was so afraid for her new baby that she ran out into the rain with a tomahawk, yelling, “Kill! Kill!” She felt the presence of a spirit’s strength so powerfully that she threw the tomahawk into the night sky, in the rain, and it never came down again, was never found anywhere. That night it hailed large ice pellets.

  We were there ten nights before they arrived to destroy our homes. We watched from afar as the ones who swarmed on our land like a pack of wolves began firing their weapons. Now there was a great threat upon us. The soldiers were ordered to be civil, but they destroyed our cabins and barns. They slaughtered our chickens and hogs and cattle. They prodded our wives and elders with bayonets as they forced them out of their homes and to stockades. By the end, many of our people had nothing but their clothes—everything else was gone. We felt a great misery spread throughout our land. Soldiers dug into graves to steal the gold from our dead, never bothered by the stench of corpses that filled the air. Though we were safe in seclusion, two other men and I couldn’t stand that we were not helping our people, so we set out, armed with our weapons. And you, my brave son, you came with us.

  At once the soldiers saw us approaching, and soon they surrounded us. We attacked and fought, but there were too many of them. One of them hit you with a shovel, and I lunged at him with my knife, cutting his arm. The other soldiers pulled me off and held me down. They tied us with rope. I told them to kill me first, but they did not agree. I closed my eyes and lowered my head as they pointed their rifles at us. I begged you not to open your eyes, even when they told you to.

  Edgar

  SEPTEMBER 5

  I KEPT WAKING UP, coughing. In sleep I dreamed that a woman brought me a seed basket full of rainbow-colored corn, turkey gizzard beans, and trumpet vine seeds. She was very beautiful, slender with long raven-black hair.

  “My gift for you,” she told me. “I’m planting pink cherry blossoms to swell in the gray world. The Seven Dancers, the Pleiades star system, is our home. Look for my cherry blossoms along the road and follow that road out. Remember the Tsalagi is about harmony.” I saw smoke drooling from her mouth as she walked away.

  After that I drifted in and out of sleep until the room brightened and I knew it was morning. I woke feeling I needed to leave Jackson’s house. I lay in bed for a while, then got up and saw that Jackson was gone. I made an omelet and coffee and turned on the TV in the living room. The Darkening Land was on fire, according to the live newscast. Flames were roaring everywhere. Chopper 8 showed the view from above a bridge, heavy plumes of smoke and flames. The reporter said fire crews stated that someone had started the fire near Devil’s Bridge. The reporter interviewed a witness, a young man holding a red helmet, who said he was looking for people in the restricted area of radioactive mud pits near the bridge. “I’ve seen people all around here in the past,” he said.

  “What’s the helmet for?” the reporter asked.

  “It’s for a game. That’s all I’m saying.”

  On TV I saw plumes of black smoke floating over the bridge. I saw dancing flames. I finished my breakfast and watched. “This is a former military base for nuclear testing,” the city manager told the reporter. “We’ve detected underground nuclear explosions for the past fifty years and I can tell you with the utmost certainty that the explosions have left radiation in the area. That’s why it’s restricted. Someone started a fire in an act of arson.”

  I stepped outside on the back porch for a smoke. A light drizzle fell. Across the yard, a blurry image hovered around the bushes like a dark fog, and through the drizzle I saw a solitary bird on the horizon. The bird circled in the sky before disappearing into the low clouds. It was quiet outside, too quiet, and soon enough I heard a church bell ringing in the distance. Back inside, I put on a Bauhaus record. It was after five in the afternoon. I lay on the floor and listened, staring at the ceiling. When the music finished, I turned the record over and played the other side. I kept doing this, listening to one side and then flipping the record and listening to the other.

  When Jackson came in, it was dark outside and the music was still playing. He set his briefcase down and stood over me. “There’s a gathering tonight,” he said. “Some folks involved in the games. It’s not far, maybe a mile or so down the road. My friend Lyle who’s working on the Thorpe game with me wants to meet you. Maybe take some video, have you stomp in a headdress or shake your head like an animal.”

  “Shake my head like an animal?”

  “People will be fascinated, Chief. Who knows—maybe someone will have some good gak you can get geared up on. Good gak, Chief. Sometimes Charlie has Mexican speedballs.”

  He took a shower while I turned the album over and started it again. In the kitchen I heated up leftover pizza in the microwave. When he was ready to go, he came into the kitchen and ate leftovers while I looked in my bag for a toothbrush. I couldn’t find one and then wondered when I’d last brushed my teeth. My teeth were bad from meth use. I changed my T-shirt before we left.

  Jackson wanted to get there quickly, so he drove us, taking a road I hadn’t seen. We crossed over the railroad tracks, and a flock of blackbirds fired into the dark sky. I thought about the fowl, which I hadn’t seen in a while. I knew it was still lurking around, waiting to swoop down and attack me, dig its talons in my shoulder or hair. We drove down a desolate road until we came to a warehouse.

  The warehouse was crowded inside. A band of old men with gray beards and straw hats played some type of sad country music, droning slide guitar and low singing. The people around me were wearing loose-fitting flannel shirts and boots, the only alcohol a domestic beer served in red plastic cups. I saw people engaged in serious conversations, looking at their phones. I saw the intensity and pain on their faces, no laughter at all. This is supposed to be a party, I thought. There were NO SHOOTING signs all around.

  Jackson left to get us beer
s. While he was gone, I overheard two guys talking near me. “I played for twenty-seven hours straight, stopping only to piss once,” one guy said to the other. “The game is really addictive. The whole town is buzzing about it.”

  The other guy rocked on his heels. “I played three days without sleep. Fought about two dozen Indians. My wife prefers TV, but I need something more interactive.”

  Suddenly one of the guys made eye contact with me, and I realized I had been staring. He squinted at me, and I looked away. No matter where I looked, I felt threatened by everyone I saw. Before she left me, Rae had encouraged me to go to counseling and figure out why I never wanted to be social, why I preferred isolation, and why I always wanted to stay home. She said I was constantly running away, never facing my problems or emotions. I wasn’t confrontational enough, that was the problem. I’d struggled to look her in the eye as she told me this. Maybe she was right.

  Jackson returned with Lyle, who was thin and pale. Jackson handed me a beer, and Lyle introduced himself. “I’m mighty glad to meet someone who can help us with this Thorpe game,” he said. “We understand there’s a way Jim Thorpe dominated sports with his body. He used his weight, had a low center of gravity, so he had certain poses that gave him a whole lot of power.”

  Jackson coughed hard into his fist. “Well, that’s all purely speculation, Lyle.”

  Lyle had narrow eyes and sculpted hair. He was short, with a slender chin and a bony nose. It made him look a little like a badger.

  “We met a Depp-like Indian who told us his grandpa works for the government here,” he told me.