On the mornings after house parties, I gather the empty, half-empty, and nearly full beer cans. I pour any remaining liquid into the sink then crush the cans flat and throw them into the bed of my grandmother’s truck.
She’s been dead for three years but it’s still her truck. I’m only borrowing it from her ghost. It has over three hundred thousand miles on the odometer but I keep it running with tools, prayers, and hand-drum honor songs.
Way-ya-hey-ya, start, engine, start! Way-ya-hey-ya, don’t break my heart!
When the truck bed is filled with cans, I tie a sheet over them to keep them from flying out, and drive off my reservation into Spokane, Washington.
I’m seventeen but don’t have a driver’s license or even a learner’s permit. My family is poor and we can’t afford driver’s ed. And I can’t take the driving test if I haven’t passed driver’s ed. But I don’t need official approval to drive safely. I obey the speed limit, check my mirrors often, and keep both hands on the wheel.
Way-ya-hey-hey, go, go, little truck, speed along with skill and luck, way-ya-ho-hey.
Once I arrive in Spokane, I drive to the recycling center near the abandoned East Sprague Drive-In and sell my aluminum cans for fifty-five cents per pound. I’ve done the math:
I need to sell 818 pounds in order to make $450.
I need $450 in order to pay for the SAT prep course that guarantees I’ll raise my test scores by 20%.
In the competition to win scholarships and admission into great colleges, a great SAT score makes all the difference.
My parents live on government welfare and tribal charity. Their full-time job is sadness. Neither of them graduated high school and they haven’t lived anywhere but on our reservation. But, sober or drunk, they have always played hand-drums and sang the ancient and new songs:
Way-yay-hey-hey, I can’t win or lose, I got the rez-rez-reservation blues, Ya-ya-hey-hey.
They have taught me to sing and drum. And though I don’t believe in God, I believe a beautiful song is approximately God. So I sing and drum with my mother and father. I sing with my tribe.
And I travel our reservation, by car and foot, to collect aluminum cans. Pound by pound, dollar by dollar, I’m preparing myself for the test, for the most important questions and answers of my life.
Complete the Sentence:
When the Indian boy, poor and [fill in the blank], decided that he had to [fill in the blank] his reservation, he felt [fill in the blank].
1. suicidally depressed…escape…like he was trying to save his life
2. loyal to his tribe…remain on…that he had no other choice
3. very intelligent…help…that a college education was vital
4. devoted to his parents…abandon them and…like a traitor
5. ambitious…see the world beyond…elated and terrified
When I take that SAT, I’m going to sing, if only in my imagination, because I can’t bring in my real drum. I will sing to lessen my fear. And I will sing about this crazy life:
Ya-ya-hey-hey, you can’t leave and you can’t stay, way-ya-hey-hey.
Ya-ya-hey-hey, you got too many questions too many days, way-ya-hey-hey.
Ya-ya-hey-hey. Should you hate? Or should you love? Way-ya-hey-hey.
Ya-ya-hey-hey. The answer is All of the Above. Way-ya-hey-hey.
"...They have taught me to sing and drum. And though I don’t believe in God, I believe a beautiful song is approximately God. So I sing and drum with my mother and father. I sing with my tribe ..."
This beautiful story of honor and survival and community and difficult choices is approximately God, too. Grateful.
I admire the way you say so much with so few words.