* * *
—
At the powwow, Jacquie sits next to Harvey under a canvas canopy with the sound system and mixing board, the mic cord snaking out of it.
“Will you have all the names and dancers’ numbers somewhere, like on a piece of paper in front of you, or do you memorize?” Jacquie says.
“Memorize? Pssh. Here,” Harvey says, and hands her a clipboard with a long list of names and numbers on it. She absently looks down the list.
“We’re okay, Harvey,” Jacquie says.
“I know,” Harvey says.
“Well you shouldn’t,” Jacquie says.
“It was more than forty years ago,” Harvey says.
“Forty-two,” she says. “She’s forty-two years old. Our daughter.”
Jacquie’s about to hand the clipboard back to Harvey when she sees Orvil’s name on the list. She pulls the clipboard closer to her eyes to be sure. She reads his name over and over. Orvil Red Feather. It’s there. Jacquie gets out her phone to text her sister.
Octavio Gomez
EVEN THOUGH the guns are plastic, going through the metal detectors still makes Octavio sweat. Nothing happens though. On the other side, Octavio looks around to see if anyone is paying attention to them. The security guard is reading a newspaper next to the detector. Octavio walks over to the bushes and sees the black socks. He reaches down for the pair.
In the bathroom, Octavio fishes around in one of the socks and grabs a handful of bullets, then passes the socks under the stall to Charles, who does the same then passes them under to Carlos, who passes them under the last stall to Calvin. As Octavio puts the bullets in his gun, he feels a dread move all the way from his toes to the top of his head. The dread keeps going, moves out of him, like he had his chance with what it was telling him but he missed it, because just as he feels it a bullet drops and rolls out in front of him, out of the stall. Hears the squeak of shoes. Must be Tony here to get his bullets. Everyone goes quiet at the sound of that bullet rolling.
Edwin Black
BLUE AND EDWIN SIT at the table and canopy they’d set up earlier. They watch the dancers come out for Grand Entry. Blue tilts her head up at them.
“You know anyone out there?” Blue says.
“Nah. But listen,” Edwin says, and points up, at the sound of the powwow emcee’s voice.
“Your dad,” Blue says, and they listen for a second.
“Weird, right?” Edwin says.
“Totally weird. But wait, did you find out before or after you got the internsh…I mean the job or—”
“No, I knew. I mean, part of taking the job had to do with finding out who he is.”
They watch the dancers enter. The veterans first, with their flags and staffs. Then a long line of bouncing dancers. Edwin had avoided watching powwow footage to preserve this moment. Let it be new, even after Blue insisted he watch some powwow footage on YouTube so he’d know what he was getting into.
“You know anyone out there?” Edwin says.
“A lotta the kids I knew when I used to work here are all grown up, but I haven’t seen any of them around,” Blue says. She looks at Edwin, who’s just stood up.
“Where you going?”
“Get a taco,” Edwin says. “You want one?”
“You’re gonna go walk past your dad again, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but I’m really getting a taco this time.”
“And you got one last time.”
“Did I?” Edwin said.
“Just go talk to him.”
“It’s not that easy,” Edwin says, and smiles.
“I’ll go with you,” Blue says. “But you have to actually talk to him.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Blue says, and stands up. “Didn’t you guys plan to meet up here anyway?”
“Yeah, but then we didn’t talk after that,” Edwin says.
“So,” Blue says.
“It’s not on me. Imagine it. Your son gets ahold of you, your son who you didn’t know existed, then you just…stop communicating? You don’t just say, yeah, hey, let’s meet up, then not make plans.”
“Maybe he figured he’d wait until you could meet in person,” Blue says.
“We’re already walking over there, aren’t we?” Edwin says. “So let’s stop talking about it. Let’s act like we’re talking about something else.”
“We should probably not act like we’re talking about something else and just talk about something else,” Blue says. But this makes it impossible to think of anything else to talk about.