Dene turns the camera off and sets it up on a tripod to point at the stool he has placed in the corner for the storytellers. He flips one switch on his cheap lighting gear for soft light behind the stool, then the other switch for the harder lighting he has behind him. He’ll ask everyone who comes into his booth why they’ve come to the powwow, what powwows mean to them. Where do they live? What does being Indian mean to them? He doesn’t need more stories for his project. He doesn’t even need to show a product at the end of the year for the grant money he’s received. This is about the powwow, the committee. It’s about documentation. For posterity. It might end up in his final production, whatever that might be—he still doesn’t know. He’s still letting the content direct the vision. Which is not just another way of saying he’s making it up as he goes along. Dene walks through the black curtains out into the powwow.
Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield
OPAL IS SITTING alone in plaza infield, second deck. She’s watching from up there so as to not be seen by her grandsons. By Orvil especially. It would mess with him if he saw her there.
She hasn’t been to an A’s game in years. Why did they stop going to games? Time only seems to have skipped, or to have sped by without you when you looked the other way. That’s what Opal had been doing. Closing her eyes and ears to the closing of her eyes and ears.
Lony was just starting to walk on his own the last time they were here. Opal is listening to the drum. She hasn’t heard a big drum like that since she was young. She scans the field for the boys. It’s a blur. She should probably get glasses. Probably should have gotten glasses a long time ago. She would never tell anyone this, but she enjoys the distance being a blur. She can’t tell how crowded it is. Certainly not the same crowd as at a baseball game.
She looks up at the sky, then at the empty third deck. That’s where they’d watched the game from with the boys. She sees something fly over the edge of the rim of the coliseum. Not a bird. Its movement is unnatural. She squints to try to see it better.
Edwin Black
EDWIN HANDS BLUE a coffee he made for her just minutes before she came and knocked at his door. French-pressed organic dark roast. He’d guessed a moderate dose of sugar and milk. He doesn’t smile or make small talk as they walk to her car together. Today means everything for them. The countless hours they put in. All the different drum groups and vendors and dancers they had to call and convince to come, that there was prize money to be had, money to be made. Edwin’s made more phone calls this year than he has in his whole life. People didn’t really want to sign on for a new powwow. Especially one in Oakland. If it doesn’t go well, the powwow won’t happen again next year. And they’ll be out of a job. But this means more than a job for Edwin at this point. This is a new life. Plus his dad will be there today. It’s almost too much to think about. Or maybe Edwin just drank too much coffee this morning.
The drive to the coliseum feels slow and tense. Every time he thinks to say something he takes a sip of coffee instead. This is only the second time they’re spending time together outside of work. She has NPR on so low it’s unintelligible.
“I started writing a story the other day,” Edwin says.
“Oh yeah?” Blue says.
“It’s about a Native guy, I’ll call him Victor—”
“Victor? Really?” Blue says, with comically half-closed eyelids.
“Fine, his name is Phil. You wanna hear it?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, so Phil lives in a nice apartment in downtown Oakland he got grandfathered into, it’s a big place with fixed rent. Phil works at Whole Foods. One day a white guy he works with, I’ll call him John, he asks Phil if he wants to hang out after work. They hang out, go to a bar, have a good time, then John ends up spending the night at Phil’s. The next day when Phil comes home from work, John’s still there, only he has a couple of friends over. They brought a bunch of their stuff too. Phil asks John what’s going on and John tells Phil he figured since there’s so much extra room that Phil wasn’t using, that it would be okay. Phil doesn’t like it, but he’s not one for confrontation so he lets it go. Over the next few weeks, and then months, the house fills up with squatters, hipsters, corporate tech nerds, and every kind of young white person imaginable. They’re either living in Phil’s apartment or just sort of hanging out indefinitely. Phil doesn’t understand how he let it get so out of control. Then just when he gets up the nerve to say something, to kick everyone out, he gets really sick. Someone had stolen his blanket, and when he asked John about it, John gave him a new blanket. Phil believes that blanket made him sick. He’s in bed for a week. By the time he comes out, things have changed. Progressed, you might say. Some of the rooms have been turned into offices. John’s running some kind of start-up out of Phil’s apartment. Phil tells John he has to go, everyone has to leave, and that Phil had never agreed to any of this. That’s when John provides some paperwork. Phil had signed something, apparently. Maybe in a fever dream. But John won’t show him the papers. Trust me, bro, John says. You don’t wanna go there. Oh and by the way, you know that spot under the stairs, John says. Spot? Phil says. That room? He means the closet under the stairs. Phil knows what’s coming next. Let me guess, you’re moving me to that spot under the stairs, that’s my new room, Phil says. You guessed it, John says. This is my apartment, my grandfather lived here, he passed it on to me to take care of, Phil says. It’s for my family, if anyone needs a place to stay, that’s what it’s supposed to be here for. And here John produces a gun. He points it at Phil’s face, then proceeds to walk Phil to the closet under the stairs. Told you, bro, John says. Told me what? Phil says. You should have just joined the company. We could have used someone like you, John says. You never asked me anything, you just came to my apartment and stayed here, then took over, Phil says. Whatever, bro, my record keepers have it going down differently, John says, and nods with his head at a couple of guys on a couch in the downstairs living room furiously typing on their Apple computers what Phil assumes is a different version of the events happening just then. Suddenly feeling very tired, and hungry, Phil retreats to his under-the-stairs closet-room. That’s it, that’s what I have so far.”