Gitlu by Sarah Days

"Our home is small, but strong because of this. Our beliefs are still intact, and for this” He takes an overly dramatic pause, “I am proud." He’s the chief elder and he’s sitting in his wooden chair, rocking back and forth, stroking his feather and buffalo skin headpiece contently.

The other members of our “tribe” nod at him passionately and gullibly as he continues to drone on and on about our oh-so-sacred past, our cherished traditions as The First Nation People, and how the white man has wronged us.

Really the "white man?” It’s the 1970s, not the 1870s! That's when I get up and walk out of the Tribe Council House. Sure I felt the narrowed eyes following me, the unnecessary gasps of shock, as if this is an irregular act, the displeased faces, shaking their heads.

I don't belong here anyhow.

“Gitlu!” The chief elder calls after me. I continue my on my own way.

I stomp my way just a few yards to my home's garage, and throw on the large moto jacket that is draped over my hog. It’s a humid day despite the encroaching gray clouds. I can feel my hairs sticking to my sticky neck so I quickly braid it back. I pull out the keys and the bike roars to life. I rev it a few times, long and loud, just incase someone hadn't seen me walk out. I mean, I am the only one with a motorcycle on the reservation, and the only one not in the tribe meeting.

Soon enough, I was on the highway, racing away from ignorance, and into civilization, my long braid jumping up and down on my back. I can tell I was close now, the smoke from the tall buildings hits my nose, the gas fumes from the cars snake beneath my shades, and made my eyes tear. With flared nostrils and a wide grin, I happily welcome the city pollution.

The city opened before me and I turned on 8th street, and into the Grape Boys' Alley. The gate is left open for me, and I get off my bike to lock it back. Bags of garbage are laid everywhere, and The Boys are already there, on their own bikes facing away from me, laughing, and betting on who could spit a grape seed the farthest. There are five of them.

There’s Warren, the short overly-muscular one who never smiles, and barely talks.

There’s Chad, the very tan, very loud dude with the huge chompers from the heart of Hollywood.

There’s Duke, ever-smirking, mischievous, playful, second-in-command.

There's Jack the no-nonsense leader.

And then, there’s Janie. Jack's fraternal twin sister.  She looks exactly like Jack, even down to the slick haircut. She wears the black leather jacket like the rest of us, she spits the grape seeds like us. She does everything like us, like boys. The only time we remember that she’s a female is when we take off our jackets at Dona Lola’s Cafe, where we’re unable to take our eyes off of her chest; the two teats that stare back at us defiantly. Jack would give us the look and we’d all look away sheepish. He always then leans over and whispers, “Why can’t you wear a bra?” And she responds quite loudly, “I will not be oppressed!”

She’s been a part of this group I guess, since it first began, way long before I joined last year.

Plunk!

A grape seed hits my front fender, and I am knocked out of my Janie-ponderings.

Janie is the one who spit it at me actually, and the boys are facing me now, looking at me expectantly.

I hop off my hog, and park it in place. I pop up my jacket collars and stroll over to them. “Hey gang!” I say to all of them.

They don’t say anything, they just wait. Looking at me blankly.

“Fine, fine I got it”. I laugh and pull out a brick of reefer from my jacket.

“Yeahhhh man.” says Chad laughing and running over to me. He wraps his arm around me and snatches the package. “Ha ha!” He laughs showing all his teeth while opening up the package.

Warren silently pulls out some rolling paper and hands us each one.

Duke staggers over to me, and leans on me hard as if he cannot stand up by himself. “Thanks mannnn” he slurs, leaving specks of booze-infused saliva on my nose.

“No problem.”

 “I realllly needed this.” He nods, dramatically putting his hand on the back of my neck.

He’s a bit too close for comfort, and I lean away.

“Stop being a fruit, Duke” Jack says, and Duke laughs and goes back to sit astride his motorcycle. “Let’s blaze up.”

“What kind is this today” Janie says to me. “The usual Blond Lebanese?”

“Nah man, this is new, Black Afgani”

Janie takes the longest drag I have ever seen a person, let alone a girl. (Even though she is the only girl I know that smokes reefer) “This is far out, man” She nods in my direction, her eyes in the sky, and her mind in another dimension.

We all lean against the dirty alley walls, inhale, exhale, and get lost.

About an hour and a half later, we’re still in the alley, totally strung out. The brick almost done. It was supposed to last me the entire week.

“Hey! You boys!” a voice calls banging on the gate on the opposite end of the Alley. I don’t know how long it took me to turn my head, but by the time I see it’s a police officer, The Boys were already on their bikes. I might be just a bit too high for functioning right now.

My bike was too close to the police officer to run back and get on it now, especially since he was staring at me intently, and speaking into his radio.

“It’s the Pigs! Let’s go!” yells Warren.

“C’mon, guess gel off Mike!” Janie says to me. Two of The Boys were already pulling off.

“What?! Who’s Mike?” I said still standing in place.

She says something in Chinese then.

“Janie! What are you talking about!?”

She hops off her bike, and runs towards me. “I said”, she pulls me toward her bike “Just get on mine!”

“Oh!” I quickly get on and wait for her to get behind me

She just stares at me, eyebrows furrowing.

I look back at the gate, which three Pigs are standing at now.

“What are you doing? Let’s book!” I scream at her.

“This is my bike.” She states calmly. “You can get on back.”

What? “But I’m a guy”

“And?”

“And you’re a girl!” She doesn’t answer, she just stands there,eyebrow raised, taping her foot, as if the three police officers aren’t trying to bust open the gate. I anxiously run my fingers through my hair, which is now for some reason, completely undone and loose around my shoulders.

“WHAT THE HELL? LET’S BOOK IT ALREADY!” Jack yells at us.

The Pigs finally bust in the gate, squealing and running towards us and the other Boys zoom away, Jack is last to go, shaking his head.

Fear kicks in and I give in, sliding back. She grins and hops on, immediately zooming off out of the alley. I wrap my arms around her thin waist and look back. The Pigs are retreating, running fast in the other direction.

We’re racing down the highway now, zooming between cars. “They went to go get their cars Janie” I yell over the wind and the engine.

“Yes! Finally some excitement!”

Just a few minutes later, I can hear sirens. Why were they even chasing us? It wasn’t like we’d been committing a real crime. Loitering and smoking is no cause for a chase. They must have nothing else to do.

Fifteen minutes later, we’re still leading this ridiculously unnecessary chase. She could’ve cut through an alley and lost them in the first five minutes, Dona Lola’s was only about that far away, but the adrenaline was too much for her to stop. She laughed her maniacal yet contagious laugh the entire ride.

I look back to see how far off they are, but my hair slaps my face and covers my face completely. I turn forward again and realize that I must look like a girl and Janie must look like a dude.

She finally cuts through an alley and starts heading on the familiar route to Dona Lola’s. We’ve lost the cop car by now, behind the heavy dark clouds, the sun is setting in an orangey-pink sky and we’re just cruising. I can smell the rain, but more importantly, I can smell her.

We’re both pretty slim. We could pass for the opposite sex right now. My gangly body. Her slim body. Our bodies…

I shift my hands and grab her waist tighter. She makes a content humming noise. That’s a good sign. We’re on the isolated street just about a mile away from Dona Lola’s. I lean into her and kiss her cheek. I let my lips linger on her cheek and felt her cheeks raise into  smile. I then lean in even farther and kiss her on the lips.

They’re soft and plump, and they move in time with mine.

“Ya know, I’ve never really thought of you as a girl.” I rub my thumbs against her sides.

Her cheeks drop. “Uhmm. Okay?”

“It’s just, we’ve never spent any alone time together. And you don’t really act like a girl is supposed to…” I move my hands upwards towards her braless bosom. “So I didn’t even think you’d like guys.”

She moves her face away from mine. “What?!” Her eyes no where on the road.

“What? What’d I say?” I drop my hands nervously.

She makes a sound like a growl and I swear she purposely threw us from the bike by stopping and werving simultaneously.

We are on the ground the bike still skidding a couple of yards away. I am wincing at the scratches and scrapes, but Janie doesn’t seem to feel anything, as she immediately gets up and stands over me.

“Who the hell are you to say how a woman is supposed to behave? I am sooo tired of the roles imposed on women! It is NOT the fifties.” She’s screaming now “I can have short hair, I can wear whatever  the hell I feel like, I can go where I want and do what I want! And NO man or woman is ever going to tell me that I’m not a girl because of it!” Her finger is my face.

I sit up and grab her hand, trying to rub it and calm her down. “Doll, I didn’t say you weren’t a girl.”

She snatches her hand away.“Yes you did! You just did! And I’m not a doll!

“Fine” I sigh and try to stand to my feet. “I’m sorry.

She roughly grabs me by the arm and helps me up. We walk back to the bike and make our way towards Dona Lola’s in silence.

We find The Boys at our usual booth facing away from us.  When we stand in front,  and they take in our bloody scratches, scathed leather jackets, and overall disheveled appearances, we’re bombarded with a chorus of “What the hells?” and “What happened?”.

Janie slides in confidently  next to her brother and begins working the group with a fantastically exaggerated story about The Chase. I sit across from her next to a knocked out Duke.

“Wait.” Jack interrupts when he saw the story was going nowhere and explaining nothing. “So what happened with you two. Did the fuzz knock you over or something?”

“Well, actually…” she starts. Was she going to tell everyone that we’d kissed? Would she tell Jack that I tried to touch her boobs? Would The Boys attend my funeral after Jack pummeled me to a pulp? “Actually, Git decided that I wasn’t a real girl and I made the bike fall.”

Jack laughs.

I breathe.

“You’re so ridiculous Jane” he says wrapping his arm around her head and pulling her close in. They laughed their twin laugh and sipped on Jack’s bottle of Coca-Cola.

Duke was awake now and his hands, as usual, were in my hair. “Why are you such a fruitcake sometimes? I say grabbing my hair and flinging it to my other shoulder.

“C’mon man, my hair won’t grow, I’m just a little jealous” he slurs.

“Yeah, a little jealous fruitcake.”

“You’re the fruitcake, Git” Interjects Chad.

“Burn!” Duke yells in my ear.

 “I don’t know why you don’t just cut it off and wear it like the rest of us.” Chad continues  He smiles his Colgate smile and smoothes his hard gelled hair with one hand, as if he were modeling in his favorite hair gel commercial.

Oh god. Not this conversation again.

“Yeah man. Why?”

“This is how the cool cats wear it.”

“If you’re going to be with us, you gotta look like us.” I roll my eyes. “If you wanna wear long hair, you can dance in the park with the hippies”

“Yeah, then I’ll bring my reefer for them” Everyone laughs especially the over-intoxicated Duke.

“C’mon man! Even Jan the Man wears her hair better than you.” Duke laughs.

Janie stands up and punches him in the chest. There’s a loud metallic sound, and Janie winces, sits back down, rubbing her knuckles, chuckling.

This guy just flat out called her a man! And she does it punches him in the chest? Why the hell did she wig out on me?

Duke pulls out a silver flask and shakes it at her, smirking.

When she recovers, she says, “I think, Git should keep his long hair. It makes him unique, and it’s a part of his heritage.”

“What do you know about my heritage.”

“I know you’re Native American.”

“How the hell would you know that?”

“Well you live on a reservation so…” she says looking at me as if I were dumb.

“Have I ever told any of you that I was Native American?” I dart my eyes at each one of their confused faces.

“Yo man, be still.. We know you’re an Indian.” Jack says.

“It’s Native American, and no.” I get up out of my seat. “No I’m not!”

 I walk out the diner leaving their chorus of “C’mon mans!” “What the problem?” and “Quit buggin’ out”s behind. I cross the street and start my trek back to the alley where my bike hopefully waits.

  I don’t belong here anyway.

So where do you think you belong son?

Who said that? I turn around myself looking for the light, tinkling, probably female voice that had just asked me that question. How the hell had she heard my thoughts? And more importantly, why was that voice so familiar? I’ve stopped walking now and I’m just looking around.

BOOM! CRACK!

The thunder makes jump me and the rain immediately begins to fall. I immediately begin to run toward the alley to get my bike out of the rain. When I got there five minutes later, my bike was there, thankfully, unconfiscated. I hop on the bike and slowly map the streets back to the reservation.

By the time I get home, it’s dark and disgusting, I park my bike in the garage and drag myself up to the back of the tiny house throwing myself onto my bed.

Just as I’m on the brink of slumber, I hear the ever-annoying voice of The Chief Elder. “Gitlu!” he screams. He is out of his mind.

“What?” I yell back, only moving my face towards the door so the old man can actually hear me.

“Come here!”I groan and roll myself off the bed and onto the floor. It takes another “Gitlu, come here now!” to get me off the floor and into the living room where The Chief Elder is laid back in his recliner reading some book.

“Grandfather. I’m trying to sleep”. I say standing in front of his chair.

He puts down the book, and pushes his glasses up on his face, looking at me up and down. “What happened to you?” I start to answer but he quickly says “Why are you getting home this time of the night?

“I was out with my friends, I got caught up and didn’t see the time.”

“And your clothes? Why are you all scratched up? He motions for me to come down closer to him. I kneel in front of him and bow my head so that he can rub the bruise on the side of my head.

“I fell off the bike”

“I’ve told you about that bike.” He shakes his head, I sigh and sink down to sit on my butt, I know this will be a long night. “So you just fell off the bike? Were you drinking?”

“No”

“Because I know how those city kids behave wildly, drinking and smoking as they please, like they’re animals, as if they have no parents.”

“I have no parents”

“You have me!”

“You’re not my parents.”

“But I’ve raised you.”

“You’re still not my father. Or my mother.”

“You know what?!” He takes off his glasses and glares at me. “You are so much like your mother when she was younger. She thought she had to go off into the city too, and hang out with those eery white kids.” His forehead creases and join with his bushy eyebrows. She made a lot of mistakes out there.” I shoot up to my feet, and I can feel my blood boiling.

“Do. Not. Talk. About my mother.”

“And that’s how you came about. My sweet little Cherokee boy.” He reaches for my arm in an affectionate way, I swing it away out of his reach as he says “Cherokee”.

“I know I’m a mistake! You don’t have to remind me of my mother’s sins every damned chance you get!

“Why are you so ashamed of your heritage?” He completely ignores the point I am trying to make, and wobbles to his feet to stand eye to eye with me. “Why don’t you accept it? Look at you, your skin, your hair. Your skin may be lighter than the rest of us, but you can’t deny your heritage with all this hair, it looks just like your mother’s.” He reaches once again for me, and this time I’ve had enough.

“I am not Native American!” I push him with all my might, and he is flung into his recliner which is moved back about a foot from the impact. He just looks up at me, bewildered.

I run to the adjacent kitchen and grab a scissor out of the utensil drawer. Then I run to the bathroom, look in the mirror, take a deep breath and raise the scissor to my head.

            What are you doing?!

I stop. There’s that voice again. Now I’m convinced I’m insane, I just pushed my grandfather, the only family in my life, I pushed my friends out of my life as well. I raise the scissor and cut off the first lock, and watch as the light brown tresses sways lightly down and down, onto the tile floor. It only could have been a few inches, but my body suddenly feels much lighter and unstable, as if the chop had left me unbalanced.

Stop it son. Stop it now!

I recognize the voice. Now I just can’t stop, I am sobbing and cutting. Crying and clipping, growing weaker and weaker with each trim. By the time I am down to the last few possible chops, I am clutching the wall, trying to keep myself upright despite the dizziness. Now there is just one last snip to do.

Gitlu! Please don’t.

Mom. I have to.

And I do. I cut those last strands, and it’s like the world is going in slow motion. Though my vision is completely blurry now, I can still make out the hair falling as slowly as possible to the tile and before it touches the floor, I can feel myself starting to fall. I aim at grabbing onto  the wall but both the wall and my fingers are too moist with sweat now to make that happen. The light coming from fixture above the sink begins to dim, or is it my eyes?

 I open my eyes, and they’re not blurry anymore. The floor is cold and I can fully lay out so I know I’m not still on the bathroom floor. I look up and there she is.

My Mom.

I can’t speak, I can’t move, all I can do is stare. Stare and take in her waist length brown hair, her small frame, her face and lips which are exactly like mine and her dark brown, almost black eyes.

Gitlu. She speaks but her mouth does not move.

“Mom!” I want to get up and hug her or embrace her or kiss her or something but I cannot move. Im in a state of painful paralysis.

Who are you? Why have you done this?

I know she is talking about my hair, and I say, “I’m tired of everyone expecting me to be something I’m not.”

But you don’t even know who you are for yourself Gitlu. Listen, there’s nothing wrong with into the city and being with white people. When I was your age, I was lost and bored with the old traditions of this place too, but there is something wrong with denying yourself and who you are. Yes you never knew your father, but that doesn’t mean you’re not part Cherokee, it’s undeniable. Gitlu, you are my son. You are your father’s son, and you are your grandfather’s son. Don’t forget it.

Her last words had become distant and fading and I know it’s almost over now. “Wait! Where are you?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Why’d you die so young?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Who is my father?”

She doesn’t answer still.

“Please Mom! I miss you”

“And I love you son. I really do love you. It’s time for you to love yourself, Git.”

When I’m awaken I’m lying down, no longer on the floor but on an uncomfortable box mattress in a white room. Great a hospital, we don’t have a real hospital on the res, so I know we’re in the city. I look around the room and there is my grandfather, and to my surprise, there’s The Grape Boys too, every last one of them. Janie, is resting her head on my Grandfather’s shoulder. Her face is red and she has crumpled up tissues still balled in her hands and on her lap.

It’s a funny sight honestly, this tough gang and my shriveled up old grandfather all looking at me lovingly. I guess this is what a family is. At least what my family is. Where I belong.