Calvin sits down next to the big guy and gives him a slight, general whatsup-type head nod. The guy lifts his hand and waves, then seems to immediately regret the wave because he puts his hand back down as fast as it went up and gets out his phone like everyone does now when they want to leave without leaving.
Blue is writing or doodling at the top of a yellow legal pad. Calvin likes Blue. Her and Maggie used to work together in youth services. She’s who got Calvin the job even though he had no experience working with youth. She probably thought Calvin was a youth. Or looks like one. With his Raiders shit and sad goatee. Blue’s the head of the powwow committee. She’d asked Calvin to join the committee shortly after he got the job. Blue said they wanted fresh new perspectives. They’d gotten this pretty big event-based grant and wanted to make this powwow big, compete with other big powwows out there. Calvin had stupidly said “Call it the Big Oakland Powwow” in one of the meetings and everyone loved it. He tried to tell them he was just joking, but they kept it anyway.
Thomas, the custodian, comes in talking to himself. Calvin smells it right away. Alcohol fumes. Then, as if Thomas knows Calvin smells him, he walks right past him to the big guy.
“Thomas Frank,” he says, and sticks his hand out.
“Edwin Black,” he says.
“I’ll let you folks get to work,” Thomas says as he takes the trash out. “Let me know if you need help cleaning up the leftovers,” he says with a tone like: Save a plate for me. Dude is weird. Awkward as fuck like he had to make you feel as uncomfortable as he always appeared to be, like he couldn’t contain it.
Blue knocks on the table twice and clears her throat. “Okay, you guys,” she says, knocking on the table two more times. “Let’s start. We have a lot to talk about. It’s already January. We have less than five months. We’ll start with the two new people, one of whom isn’t here yet, so that means you’ll start, Edwin. Go ahead and tell everyone a little bit about yourself and what your role’s gonna be here at the center.”
“Hi, everyone,” Edwin says, and puts his hand up and waves that same wave he’d waved at Calvin. “I’m Edwin Black, and well obviously I work here now, I mean, I guess not obviously, sorry.” Edwin shifts in his chair.
“Just tell them where you’re from, what’s your tribe, and your role here,” Blue says.
“Okay, so I grew up here in Oakland, and I’m, um, I’m Cheyenne, well I’m not enrolled yet, but, like, I will be, with the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, my dad told me we’re Cheyenne and not Arapaho, and, sorry, I’m gonna be interning for the next few months leading up to the powwow, I’m here to help with the powwow,” Edwin says.
“We’re just waiting on one more,” Blue is saying when another guy walks into the meeting. “Speak of the devil,” Blue says.
He’s a young guy in a baseball cap with an indistinct tribal pattern on it. If he didn’t have that hat, Calvin doesn’t know if he’d have guessed he’s Native.
“Everyone, this is Dene Oxendene. Dene Oxendene, this is the powwow committee. Dene’s gonna set up a storytelling booth kinda like StoryCorps. Have y’all heard of StoryCorps?”
They all murmur various noncommittal answers.
“Dene,” Blue says, “why don’t you go ahead and say a few things about yourself before we start.”
Dene starts to say something about storytelling, some real heady shit, so Calvin tunes out. He doesn’t know what he’s gonna say when it comes around to him. He’d been put in charge of finding younger vendors, to support young Native artists and entrepreneurs. But he hadn’t done shit.
“Calvin?” he hears Blue say.
Dene Oxendene
DENE CONVINCED BLUE to let Calvin do his interview for the storytelling project during work hours. Calvin keeps crossing and uncrossing his legs and pulling at his hat by the bill. Dene thinks Calvin is nervous, but then Dene is nervous, he is always nervous, so maybe it’s projection. But projection as a concept is a slippery slope because everything could be projection. He is regularly subject to solipsism’s recursive, drowning affect.
He set up the camera and mic in Blue’s office beforehand. Blue’s on her lunch hour. Calvin is sitting still now, staring at Dene mess with the recording equipment. Dene figures out what was wrong and hits Record on the camera and on the recording device, then adjusts the mic one last time. Dene learned early on to record everything before and after, as those moments can sometimes be even better than when the interviewee knows they’re being recorded.