Our Country, Tis of Thee
J Saler Drees
When the Twin Towers were rammed by planes, my buddies, Ren Titus, Hunter Berling, and Took-Took Gyl, all pledged to enlist. The three of them, arms draped over each other’s shoulders, and swaying back and forth with Took-Took dangerously waving his pop’s Sig Sauer P226, and the Springfield M1A rear-sweep swinging from Ren’s back, and Hunter clutching a bottle of Jack. Jesus, they were serious, no weed or crystal around, and chanting, Gonna shoot me some terrorists, gonna make them pay. Laid out in the back of Ren’s F250 were several boxes of ammo and more guns, from a .22 Ruger to a bolt-action Bergara. Ren’s old man collected them, though he couldn’t shoot for shit. Never hit a buck or a bull’s-eye.
I’d just driven up to the meadows in my jeep, where they’d been target shooting. In the past we hauled up hay bales and attached butcher paper with our own body-traced silhouettes. Nothing like shooting yourself, although Took-Took had it easiest since he was six foot three and weighed 280 pounds. We also built a fort out of plywood and scrap metal, and where we placed bottles in varying degrees of difficulty. The meadows got buried in deep snow each winter, and soggy in spring, but by summer and fall, it was perfect, surrounded by a forest of pine and oak. Now, in early October, the cicadas were calling, and making me nostalgic for my boyhood, just a kid shooting hay bales and bottles. But for today, my buddies had tacked up poorly drawn silhouettes with turbans and tiny peckers. Bullet holes obliterated their heads, chests, and especially their nethers, although the desired target remained untouched.
I see you boys ain’t aiming so well today, I said.
Took-Took laughed. Let’s see you do better, Owalla.
We’re joining the army, Ren added.
Give me that Sig, I said.
Took-Took handed the gun to me. I clicked the mag out, racked the slide, all clear, good to go. Both hands on the grip, I slowly lifted, arms extended, eyes squinted tight at the terrorist, the crudely drawn dong. Got it lined with the front sight, cocked the hammer, but I don’t remember firing. Not until I felt the heat in my fingers, the rocking through my wrists, the ringing in my ears, and only then did I spot the dick obliterated at 30-yard distance, a whole cluster of holes. I thought, Christ, that’s something.
The guys were shouting, Owalla, you gotta join. Enlist with us.
I grinned, proud of my marksmanship, and the slaps on the back, and the Jack being handed to me, and the weighted metal of the Sig. And shit, I too was almost ready to sing God bless America. I really was. I’d seen the footage, the human shapes leaping from those burning towers, heard the terror inside the hijacked planes, felt the families grieving. And, hell, I knew grieving. Lost my father and Nans within a year of each other, my father’s death a shock, a brain hemorrhage, and Nans’ the prolonged torture of black lung. And I knew, even thousands of miles away, that other people, if they were anything like me, took loss like a plow to the gut.
Yet thinking about my father and Nans, I knew I’d never join. How my own people’s land had been stolen and, politics aside, this was personal, my father ranting in our kitchen during the Gulf War, about our grandfather in Vietnam, how many Sioux, Chippewa, Navajo, Karuk, and so on, had enlisted and died and got no credit. Or lived and got no credit, and for what? Christ, it gets me gnawing my inner cheeks, is what. And so I handed the Sig back, saying, I don’t know.
Ren laughed. Hell, you don’t know? Don’t your country mean nothing to you? My girl, she due with our son in five, and I gotta be a role model for him, a hero, a pihnîich to be proud of.
Hunter lit a Lucky, said, Plus, it’s good money, man. They pay for everything. Even get free education. I’m fixing to be a radar technician or a combat medic, you know? And then they pay for college. Fancy, right? College.
Took-Took added, And shit fool, we get based whatever place we want. Travel free and see the world, the different women, and listen, if I go to Iraq, I’m gonna save those girls from being all covered up. Give ’em a taste for freedom.
Yeah. Yeah, I said, and laughed, and kicked at some shotgun shells in the dried-out wheat and dust, the cicadas humming loud in my head.
My buddies, they stood opposite me. It was frightening to think about them out on their own, away from our little town in the Cascades along the Klamath, where we’d practice backflips off the side cliffs and into her depths. And how, during the salmon runs we’d go down to fish, and come summer blow up inner tubes and float the rapids: it’s what we knew.
But beyond the river, my buddies struggled. Ren Titus, I’d known him since grade school, and he was a wimp, crying his way on up since second grade. Narrow-chested, thin-armed, nothing much to pick for sports, but, man, could he lie. How he caught the largest fish, shot the biggest elk, wooed five different women in a single night, and the list goes on.
Next, Hunter Berling, a druggie and low-end dealer. A white kid who lived in the trailer park across the street from my house, and who’d been messed up most of that time. So him becoming anything technical seemed laughable. What he exceeded at was getting people, like me, on the crystal ship when they were shuffling.
Last, Took-Took Gyl. Lived in a camper out back his mom’s. Owned a pet skunk. Was probably too old to join the Army anyways, not to mention overweight. Never held a steady job unless recycling cans counted for something.
But Jesus, despite all their faults, I cared about those guys and began to worry. What with hearing them talk all this hope and such, it sounded to me like United States Army was playing them good. Or maybe even these “terrorists,” and they, my buddies, insignificant and unwanted, would be fed like grunt-fodder to a war-flame.
And yet, I’d never seen them so rallied, flushed and clear-eyed, and something else, a brightness, not from crystal, or beer, but more like an energy derived from purpose. For once in their lives that’s what they felt. Tiny Titus, white-boy Berling, giant Took-Took, all three of them ready to fight.
I’ll admit I almost said yes, not because that’s what they wanted to hear, but because if I didn’t go, they’d never fucking come back.
I asked, Who you been talking to about all this army business?
At the recruiting office in Medford, Ren said. Real informative, those guys. One says, Son, you was born for war, and I saluted, stood at attention, and said, Yes Sir.
All three of you?
Hunter nodded. We woulda asked you come along, you know, but your sister--
Yeah, she was home, Took-Took cut in.
Jesus, I spat. My sister, who never swayed on our beliefs, had she seen them coming to sway me into the army, she’d sure as hell have chewed them some shit.
When I was ten, my father had scoffed at Operation Desert Shield, and those, like my cousin Imnak, who enlisted. Once at a cookout, and after a few too many, Dad said to Imnak before he left for bootcamp, America don’t deserve your life.
He said it plum-faced, spitting, loud. I’d never seen him so riled. Imnak backed out the door, palms up, saying, Sorry, I got brass balls, and I’ll do my chant.
He joined. Based in Guam now.
If I joined now, my father and Nans, dead three years, they’d pound their hands upon the earth. And Willoh, who upheld the beliefs of our elders? How could I live with that?
You’re right, I told them. No way. My sister, she’d flip a switch.
Your sister, Took-Took sighed, and Ren hit his right fist into his left palm, bounced on the balls of his feet, all amped up, saying, Your sister own you? What does she know? What’s say terrorist knock down her door, bends her over.
Disgust was in his voice, but I didn’t care, no one speaks about Willoh like that. I took my time staring Ren down till he got to blinking real fast. I was leaning on the tailgate, the guns and ammo close behind me, the German Sig right there on the ledge of the bed. I ran my fingertips along the barrel, picked up the 9mm, saw the brassy gleam it took from the sun, and said, I don’t fight for white men.
Ren lunged toward me but stopped short, his thin face red, eyes bulging, spit spritzing from his lips, This is for my girl. My son. This is for them. Not Bush. Not for any of those politic-goons.
Cool it, cool it, Took-Took and Hunter kept saying.
I said nothing. Left them to it, walked off, got in my jeep, drove down to the river, the place I felt most at home, at peace, where the waters eddy softly in the autumn sun, though lately it looked different. When I was a boy the river meant seasons. Ishkêesh, Nans called her. The River, Dad called her. The Klamath, others called her, though I called her home, and there wasn’t nobody in all the big, go-get-’em world could make me leave.
Not the case for Ren Titus, and it didn’t take long before I found myself at his going away party the weekend before he flew off to boot camp in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. January 2002. Saturday playoffs: Raiders vs. Jets. No bother betting because loyalty would have us betting for the Raiders.
Instead, during commercial breaks, Ren said whoever split a log with an ax using the least amount of swings won his Springfield M1A, since he wouldn’t be needing that anymore, upgrading instead to top-notch fire power. Still, this didn’t stop him none from trying to split a log right-quick so he could keep the damn gun. And let’s just say that’s exactly what Ren and his old man were up to, old Titus giving his namesake the soft pine wood, knot-free, and already cracked as if begging to be split with one accurate whack. While commercials blared, there went Ren bragging again, See that, see that. That’s Army strong, pussies.
The women giggled and watched, Ren Titus’s cousin, Dehlia, among them, and I hoped she’d find me again. We’d become somewhat of a thing, the occasional fuck, the kind between two by-chance lovers. With Dehlia, it always just happened.
I said nothing when given the oak with four knots, and I took the ax, felt it top heavy in my hands, and I’d have to hit dead center, at its first-year ring. Ren was taunting, Let’s see you go, Owalla. Swing away.
Old Titus smiled, and Dehlia leaned against the shed, cigarette in hand, her face dappled in shadow. Using its weight to speed the fall, I raised the ax high, feeling it in my arms, my back, my legs, and drove the blade into the wood. The log cracked, followed by the second whack, and the log split in half. The women cheered, but Dehlia and Ren had already turned away.
Old Titus let out a whistle, said, Son, you got bear strength in them limbs.
From dip-fishing, I said, handing him the ax.
He grinned. You’re just like your father. I don’t miss him so much with you here, though.
I nodded. He meant well but it stung. My father wanted me to not be like him. Get gone from this town. Go get yourself an education, he always said.
I needed more beer, or better yet, a hit of crystal.
Shouts rose. Fourth quarter, and a Raiders upset looked promising. While I could follow football, basketball’s what got me pumped, and I’d even envisioned going to college and playing for the Bruins, but my father died knowing I’d do none of this, staying put instead because of him and Nans. I was there for them in their last days.
Ren was going on, his voice shrill, high-pitched with excitement as he boasted, Those terrorists, they got nothing on me. Don’t see it coming. My girl, she sees it coming. Ren Titus, combat engineer, 12B, baby, like the sound of that? Sounds smart. Sounds rich, don’t it? And baby, you and our boy, we gonna be feasting on prime rib, buy us a house, drive a fuckin’ Royce. And don’t forget them diamonds.
His girl, Sori, swooned at his speeches, rubbed her belly, and I felt bad for her and her child, all his talk just a build-up to a fall.
I searched for Dehlia, her long black hair, her smirk-smile and curvy laugh. Caught her in the garage talking to Hunter’s current, a bleached-blonde, sunken-cheeked biscuit devoted to meth. Dehlia appeared not to notice me as she tossed her head back and laughed. I pretended to ignore her. In the past this worked; she’d come over, unzip me, and tell me to shut up. I’d been accused of always thinking too much, and it was nice, more than nice, a gal willing to fuck without string. Except maybe there was string, given that I sought only her, her way of fucking, her way of not giving a squirrel’s ass.
And then Hunter was shoving a beer at me, his face stressed as he sucked on a Lucky, and raking his hands through his hair, saying, Holy shit, our boy Titus actually made the glorified cut.
Hunter, like Took-Took, didn’t. Both claimed clean living and mad workouts would get them prepared for the Combat Fitness Test, but within a week Hunter was fixing lines, and Took-Took, mid-way through second week, said, Fuck it, I can’t lose no weight, and which left only Ren Titus to do us proud. And that he did, what with PT—runs in the morning, weights in the afternoon, endurance at night—and then he passed the ACFT, the ASVAB, stayed clean, built up his stamina, credentials, the whole nine yards, all to become a true hero.
You regret not joining? I asked.
Hunter took a quick drag, flicked his ash onto the garage floor, and stayed silent. Beyond the garage, people still chopped logs, grunting, and sweating, and frustratingly happy, the Raiders up 24-10.
He jerked his chin, said, She’s looking at you.
Sure enough she was, her gaze unwavering.
I socked him in the shoulder, and when I approached Dehlia, she draped her arms around my neck and pressed her body into me. The blonde biscuit, who was older than him, walked over to Hunter, but then again, he’d always been into older women. Rumor had it that he’d lost his virginity at thirteen to a forty-year-old, and that was that. But me, I liked Dehlia, the thick of her, the so-much-of-her to hold and feel. Her aggressiveness, and knowingness, and shyness. How she’d hide her breasts yet suck my cock like apocalypse now or never.
I said, Ren Titus, off to the army.
I’m proud of him, she said, and smiled up at me.
That mean I should I join too?
Why? What use would you be to me in the army? She laughed again and led me to Ren Titus’s room, where he’d slept as a boy, and now as a man with his girl. I wasn’t high or drunk enough to see the kink to it. If anything it shriveled me, and I was shaking my head no as Dehlia tugged me down onto the bed.
Touch me hard, she said, stripping off her pants before I could even unzip mine. An old scribble of some Star Wars starship was taped above the bed, and the coverlet with prints of Chewbacca, and Han Solo, and Princess Leia on it.
Make me pant, Dehlia went on, kicking her panties off, her place shaved clean, her hands on my chest, tearing my shirt up, my hands on her thighs.
Shirt and bra still on, she opened her legs, and when I licked my fingers and stroked her, she bucked and moaned until neither of us could hold off, and I pushed inside her, her stomach contracting, eyes squenched, her mouth a silent shout, and everything felt swollen, and Jesus, in that moment, wasn’t I her hero.
Once we finished, she kissed me and whispered, Jonny, baby, you sure know how to fuck.
I’d hold off all day for you, I said, and she playfully slapped me.
We wiped ourselves down and shared a little crystal, crushed it on the bathtub rim, lined it, snorted it with a twenty, and, voila, we were back in business, smoothed the sheets and bedspread to how they were, and rejoined the party, where the Raiders, with only minutes remaining, managed an 80 yard scoring drive. And then it was over: Raiders 38, Jets 24, and everyone whooping, and embracing, and swigging Jack. And me, sex-buzzed and crystal-dripped, was swept into it too, Ren Titus hugging me, his girl hugging me next, her blooming belly pressing hard. And then Old Titus patting me on the back, saying, Raiders still got it. Then Dehlia kissing me, and Hunter and his woman hollering like a hair-metal band, and everyone started singing, arms on shoulders, faces blazen, throats extended, God bless America, land that I love, stand beside her, and guide her, through the night with the light from above.
It was in this moment, warm and revved and hopeful, with Dehlia and my friends, Ren Titus, Hunter, and Took-Took—all singing out of sync, and celebrating the Raiders’ victory, the food and drink non-stop, and with the wood chopped by our own ax-holding hands—that I saw how even the likes of me, despite ever probing denials, could feel proud to be an American.
In March, 2003, President George W. Bush declared war on Iraq, and there was talk of WMDs, and Osama bin Laden, and overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Shortly after, Ren Titus was deployed to Kuwait, a full two years after he’d already been in the army, moving from one base to the next, dragging his wife and son along.
They came back to visit for certain holidays, but I hardly saw them. Yet, when Hussein was captured near Tikrit in December, Ren, on leave, had just arrived back in town, and I ran into him at Logger’s Saloon. I’d been clean then four months and twenty days. No crystal, no alcohol, no weed, and I’d taken a job as custodian for the bar, the only one in town. I liked the quiet moments with mop and bucket, the bleach striking out the stale beer smell, the darkness, the humming neon lights, the jukebox silent, the voices all gone home, and the emptiness filled with its past fullness. I liked it because in such lonely environments, I could face the morning and be content to see the sun.
On this December night, Louie was still shooing everyone out at 3:00 a.m. Once again, he’d let the usuals overstay. I’d just driven up, when I saw him, Ren Titus, stumbling out, wearing his ACU uniform like it was Operation Red Dawn, except that this was home. His head looked even smaller with the crew-cut and clean shave. His breath steamed in the cold air as he crashed into me, burped, then laughed in that brash drunk way. Oh, shi-eeet, Owalla, didn’t see you there. Janitor now is it?
I let this slide, seeing how he reeked of alcohol, off-balance, stupid. And something else, something in his eyes, made me quiet. He fell into my shoulder, reached up, awkwardly patted my face. I held him up under the arms; he still weighed nothing.
Titus, I said. Shit, man, how’s army life?
You, you’d know if you’d join, join-ed, Titus slurred.
Give me your car keys, I told him. You’re not driving anywhere tonight.
No, nah. I’m good, Jonny, I’m okay. He pushed back and fell against the wall behind him.
Come on. I’ll drive you home.
He fumbled with all those pockets, then pulled out the keys. Swaying, he handed them to me, an easy surrender. I guided him over to his 1980 F-250, the very one we boys used to ride around in the truck bed, while old Titus drove up those winding roads and we could feel the stars’ pin pricks of light, and the mountain air pounding our lungs and faces.
She still running loyal? I said. This heap, I mean.
Titus nodded limply, muttered, Still turning over.
I hoisted him up into the passenger seat, then slid into the driver’s, turned the key, the engine whiny in the cold. I pushed in the clutch, shifted into first, and eased out of the parking lot, onto the icy road.
Damn the cold, Titus blurted out after a long silence, and he barely sounded drunk anymore. Hunched over, he blew into his hands, then rubbed them on his thighs.
Iraq, he said, it’s a lot of sun and a bunch of waiting. Fucking waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Put you in a desert, and that’s what you do, sit and wait. All you want is to go home, and here I am. Home sweet home, and I hate it.
So now you’re fighting for a place you hate, I said.
Fuck you, Owalla. You ain’t no better than anyone. Plus, you don’t know shit.
He spat his resentment toward me. How I didn’t join, how I had no clue what it’d been like for him growing up, and now he was a soldier, A hero, he said, so bite your tongue, brother.
Who knows if Ren Titus remembered this conversation. It was the last one we ever had, there in his truck, his voice snapping, and me driving with chapped hands that split and later bled. And he, Titus, probably moaning next morning to Sori to make him coffee, his son, two years old, climbing onto the bed, bouncing and wanting his hung-over father to get up and play with him.
May, 2004. Two funerals for Ren Titus. One military up in Medford, one civilian here in town. I didn’t attend the first. Didn’t see the formations, the uniforms, the flag-draped casket, the stars pointed upwards, In God We Trust, and then thirteen times folded, the flag handed to his son. Nor did I hear the rifles firing their three-volley salute, or the solo bugle playing taps, or the sobs. He died in transport, after stepping on an IED, which blew off half his face. Or maybe I only imagined that’s what happened, his death vague, and sometimes I’d think, What if he tripped it, knowing it was there?
To the second funeral located at Peacock Farm, I came dressed in a black button-up shirt and onyx bolo, a bottle of Jack under my arm. I placed the Jack on Ren’s altar, set up by the fireplace. In the center, a military portrait, Ren in his army greens, his face expressionless, staring bone-eyed at the camera. Surrounding the main portrait, along with candles and flowers, were pictures from his boyhood: him down at the river, holding up a shiny brown trout; him field dressing a buck; him with Sori on prom night. Then on their wedding day at the Medford Courthouse, then holding his newborn son. Next the three of them, Ren, Sori, and child building a snowman.
I couldn’t look long before it all began to blur, so I ambled into the kitchen where Ren’s mom whipped up stacks and stacks of pancakes, his favorite. Other mothers surrounded her, nodding and ohhing, as she went on saying, My boy, all he wanted, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He tell me, Ma, make me some pancakes, just the plain, no syrup or butter. Didn’t add blueberries, a simple boy, easy to please, just pancakes, all he wanted was pancakes.
In the front room, Sori and son sat huddled on the couch, their faces puffy, but they smiled at each person who approached, and when I did, she patted a spot on the couch. Sit, she said. Sit and tell me how you knew to stay.
But I couldn’t, her with those wet dark eyes, swollen cheeks, face older and resigned. And her son nestled into her side, burying his head as she petted his black matted hair. They seemed limp, unimpressed, as if Ren had abandoned them, led them into a bottomless pool of false hope.
He was braver than me, I finally said.
She nodded glumly, unaffected by anything anyone said, including me. If only their story could be happy, like Evening Star’s. A Karuk story Nans used to tell when the North Star was extra bright. She’d tell us how Evening Star wandered from his woman, and how she sang to get him back. She sang, and here Nans’ voice got whispery and soft: You may go to the end of the sky, but you’ll come back, and we will roll together here in the middle of the world.
Jesus, I needed a break. The pancakes sizzling made me dizzy, and I was tempted to drink a quick nip or two, or worse, tap on Hunter’s shoulder—he was there too, sick and rubbing at a bloody nose. Always sick lately and yet, I wanted to say, Hey, hook me up, man. Just a lift, a little lift. Dehlia was near him, unphased as usual. No amount of drugs or booze, sleepless nights and eatless days seemed to change her. Took-Took in prison now, and old Titus dead, and fortunately, before his son. Nans and Dad deader than before, and with each passing day they disappeared more, and soon Ren Titus would too. Life goes on and who were they? In the end, what’d they once mean to me anyway?
Just as I was stomping down the steps of Peacock Farm, to gulp the sunny air away from the pancake-burn of Ren’s funeral, there came Willoh, marching up the drive, holding a bouquet of white lilies, her thick black hair in a neat single braid down her back, her face royal as a queen. She wore a black silk shirt, black flowing pants, and she moved with deliberation.
Ayukîi, Chíish, I called to her. Hey, Sister.
Her seriousness lifted. Ayukîi, Aaníhich. Hey, Brother.
We exchanged one arm hugs.
I chided, Never seen you arrive to anything late before.
It’s the lilies, she said. I drove all the way to Yreka for them. You bring any flowers?
I didn’t answer. We started walking back up the drive, toward the house, where the pancake smoke grew stronger, the laughs louder, music playing Dr. Dre, Ren’s tastes all over again, which brought back our early party days.
She shook her head, said, He’s your friend, and you bring no flowers? I didn’t see you at the funeral in Medford either.
You were there?
She stopped walking and stared at me, that same face she gave me when I realized I needed to quit my bad habits if I meant to hang around awhile. If I was going to show Nans and Dad proud.
Stop, I told her. Jesus, I feel bad enough. Like his life was my responsibility? Like I could’ve saved him if I’d joined the damn army.
That last part, an unexpected dive, but it’d been pushing at me since day one, and there it was now, out in the open.
She shifted the flowers to the crook of her arm, and reached for me, barely touching my shoulder before I jerked away. She looked sad, but how could I fix anything? Suppose it’d been her fault Ren had died. If she hadn’t held onto Dad and Nans, I wouldn’t have either. I could’ve joined with Titus, and who knows, maybe we’d have both come home.
You’re too proud to think his life was in your hands, she said.
Ka’íuu. Quiet, I snapped. Proud? It’s not that.
She walked past me, up to the house, to Sori waiting and giving my sister a hug, taking the lilies.
Soon there’d be the pour-one-out for Ren, and we’d all watch in silence as the whiskey disappeared into the ground. Followed by the speeches, the ones that break into sobs or laughs, and Ren’s mother saying, My warrior, he’s eating pancakes now, and I wondered, could I face those moments.
I went around back, where the peacocks were kept, the males fanning their feathers to color the drabs of the females, and there, as I knew I would, I found Hunter and Dehlia, the two of them smoking, a bloodied tissue jammed up Hunter’s nose, and Dehlia still fine as ever though she’d stopped fucking me since I’d gotten clean. It seemed like ages.
Before I said anything, Hunter asked, You hurting?
Our boy Jonny wants to come back, Dehlia announced, like I wasn’t even there.
I kicked at the wet dirt, shoved my hands into my pockets, saying, Christ’s sake. Our buddy just died, and I need a lift. Just for today, what you got?
Hunter pulled the tissue out of his nose and tossed it into the peacock pen, then muttered, Lucky you. I got enough to welcome you back.
Yes, Dehlia said. Welcome back.
Behind us, in the house, voices rose. They were singing, and at first it was hard to make out. But after another few minutes passed, standing there by the peacock pen, I recognized the song, Our Country, Tis of Thee. Land where our fathers died. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
J Saler Drees
When the Twin Towers were rammed by planes, my buddies, Ren Titus, Hunter Berling, and Took-Took Gyl, all pledged to enlist. The three of them, arms draped over each other’s shoulders, and swaying back and forth with Took-Took dangerously waving his pop’s Sig Sauer P226, and the Springfield M1A rear-sweep swinging from Ren’s back, and Hunter clutching a bottle of Jack. Jesus, they were serious, no weed or crystal around, and chanting, Gonna shoot me some terrorists, gonna make them pay. Laid out in the back of Ren’s F250 were several boxes of ammo and more guns, from a .22 Ruger to a bolt-action Bergara. Ren’s old man collected them, though he couldn’t shoot for shit. Never hit a buck or a bull’s-eye.
I’d just driven up to the meadows in my jeep, where they’d been target shooting. In the past we hauled up hay bales and attached butcher paper with our own body-traced silhouettes. Nothing like shooting yourself, although Took-Took had it easiest since he was six foot three and weighed 280 pounds. We also built a fort out of plywood and scrap metal, and where we placed bottles in varying degrees of difficulty. The meadows got buried in deep snow each winter, and soggy in spring, but by summer and fall, it was perfect, surrounded by a forest of pine and oak. Now, in early October, the cicadas were calling, and making me nostalgic for my boyhood, just a kid shooting hay bales and bottles. But for today, my buddies had tacked up poorly drawn silhouettes with turbans and tiny peckers. Bullet holes obliterated their heads, chests, and especially their nethers, although the desired target remained untouched.
I see you boys ain’t aiming so well today, I said.
Took-Took laughed. Let’s see you do better, Owalla.
We’re joining the army, Ren added.
Give me that Sig, I said.
Took-Took handed the gun to me. I clicked the mag out, racked the slide, all clear, good to go. Both hands on the grip, I slowly lifted, arms extended, eyes squinted tight at the terrorist, the crudely drawn dong. Got it lined with the front sight, cocked the hammer, but I don’t remember firing. Not until I felt the heat in my fingers, the rocking through my wrists, the ringing in my ears, and only then did I spot the dick obliterated at 30-yard distance, a whole cluster of holes. I thought, Christ, that’s something.
The guys were shouting, Owalla, you gotta join. Enlist with us.
I grinned, proud of my marksmanship, and the slaps on the back, and the Jack being handed to me, and the weighted metal of the Sig. And shit, I too was almost ready to sing God bless America. I really was. I’d seen the footage, the human shapes leaping from those burning towers, heard the terror inside the hijacked planes, felt the families grieving. And, hell, I knew grieving. Lost my father and Nans within a year of each other, my father’s death a shock, a brain hemorrhage, and Nans’ the prolonged torture of black lung. And I knew, even thousands of miles away, that other people, if they were anything like me, took loss like a plow to the gut.
Yet thinking about my father and Nans, I knew I’d never join. How my own people’s land had been stolen and, politics aside, this was personal, my father ranting in our kitchen during the Gulf War, about our grandfather in Vietnam, how many Sioux, Chippewa, Navajo, Karuk, and so on, had enlisted and died and got no credit. Or lived and got no credit, and for what? Christ, it gets me gnawing my inner cheeks, is what. And so I handed the Sig back, saying, I don’t know.
Ren laughed. Hell, you don’t know? Don’t your country mean nothing to you? My girl, she due with our son in five, and I gotta be a role model for him, a hero, a pihnîich to be proud of.
Hunter lit a Lucky, said, Plus, it’s good money, man. They pay for everything. Even get free education. I’m fixing to be a radar technician or a combat medic, you know? And then they pay for college. Fancy, right? College.
Took-Took added, And shit fool, we get based whatever place we want. Travel free and see the world, the different women, and listen, if I go to Iraq, I’m gonna save those girls from being all covered up. Give ’em a taste for freedom.
Yeah. Yeah, I said, and laughed, and kicked at some shotgun shells in the dried-out wheat and dust, the cicadas humming loud in my head.
My buddies, they stood opposite me. It was frightening to think about them out on their own, away from our little town in the Cascades along the Klamath, where we’d practice backflips off the side cliffs and into her depths. And how, during the salmon runs we’d go down to fish, and come summer blow up inner tubes and float the rapids: it’s what we knew.
But beyond the river, my buddies struggled. Ren Titus, I’d known him since grade school, and he was a wimp, crying his way on up since second grade. Narrow-chested, thin-armed, nothing much to pick for sports, but, man, could he lie. How he caught the largest fish, shot the biggest elk, wooed five different women in a single night, and the list goes on.
Next, Hunter Berling, a druggie and low-end dealer. A white kid who lived in the trailer park across the street from my house, and who’d been messed up most of that time. So him becoming anything technical seemed laughable. What he exceeded at was getting people, like me, on the crystal ship when they were shuffling.
Last, Took-Took Gyl. Lived in a camper out back his mom’s. Owned a pet skunk. Was probably too old to join the Army anyways, not to mention overweight. Never held a steady job unless recycling cans counted for something.
But Jesus, despite all their faults, I cared about those guys and began to worry. What with hearing them talk all this hope and such, it sounded to me like United States Army was playing them good. Or maybe even these “terrorists,” and they, my buddies, insignificant and unwanted, would be fed like grunt-fodder to a war-flame.
And yet, I’d never seen them so rallied, flushed and clear-eyed, and something else, a brightness, not from crystal, or beer, but more like an energy derived from purpose. For once in their lives that’s what they felt. Tiny Titus, white-boy Berling, giant Took-Took, all three of them ready to fight.
I’ll admit I almost said yes, not because that’s what they wanted to hear, but because if I didn’t go, they’d never fucking come back.
I asked, Who you been talking to about all this army business?
At the recruiting office in Medford, Ren said. Real informative, those guys. One says, Son, you was born for war, and I saluted, stood at attention, and said, Yes Sir.
All three of you?
Hunter nodded. We woulda asked you come along, you know, but your sister--
Yeah, she was home, Took-Took cut in.
Jesus, I spat. My sister, who never swayed on our beliefs, had she seen them coming to sway me into the army, she’d sure as hell have chewed them some shit.
When I was ten, my father had scoffed at Operation Desert Shield, and those, like my cousin Imnak, who enlisted. Once at a cookout, and after a few too many, Dad said to Imnak before he left for bootcamp, America don’t deserve your life.
He said it plum-faced, spitting, loud. I’d never seen him so riled. Imnak backed out the door, palms up, saying, Sorry, I got brass balls, and I’ll do my chant.
He joined. Based in Guam now.
If I joined now, my father and Nans, dead three years, they’d pound their hands upon the earth. And Willoh, who upheld the beliefs of our elders? How could I live with that?
You’re right, I told them. No way. My sister, she’d flip a switch.
Your sister, Took-Took sighed, and Ren hit his right fist into his left palm, bounced on the balls of his feet, all amped up, saying, Your sister own you? What does she know? What’s say terrorist knock down her door, bends her over.
Disgust was in his voice, but I didn’t care, no one speaks about Willoh like that. I took my time staring Ren down till he got to blinking real fast. I was leaning on the tailgate, the guns and ammo close behind me, the German Sig right there on the ledge of the bed. I ran my fingertips along the barrel, picked up the 9mm, saw the brassy gleam it took from the sun, and said, I don’t fight for white men.
Ren lunged toward me but stopped short, his thin face red, eyes bulging, spit spritzing from his lips, This is for my girl. My son. This is for them. Not Bush. Not for any of those politic-goons.
Cool it, cool it, Took-Took and Hunter kept saying.
I said nothing. Left them to it, walked off, got in my jeep, drove down to the river, the place I felt most at home, at peace, where the waters eddy softly in the autumn sun, though lately it looked different. When I was a boy the river meant seasons. Ishkêesh, Nans called her. The River, Dad called her. The Klamath, others called her, though I called her home, and there wasn’t nobody in all the big, go-get-’em world could make me leave.
Not the case for Ren Titus, and it didn’t take long before I found myself at his going away party the weekend before he flew off to boot camp in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. January 2002. Saturday playoffs: Raiders vs. Jets. No bother betting because loyalty would have us betting for the Raiders.
Instead, during commercial breaks, Ren said whoever split a log with an ax using the least amount of swings won his Springfield M1A, since he wouldn’t be needing that anymore, upgrading instead to top-notch fire power. Still, this didn’t stop him none from trying to split a log right-quick so he could keep the damn gun. And let’s just say that’s exactly what Ren and his old man were up to, old Titus giving his namesake the soft pine wood, knot-free, and already cracked as if begging to be split with one accurate whack. While commercials blared, there went Ren bragging again, See that, see that. That’s Army strong, pussies.
The women giggled and watched, Ren Titus’s cousin, Dehlia, among them, and I hoped she’d find me again. We’d become somewhat of a thing, the occasional fuck, the kind between two by-chance lovers. With Dehlia, it always just happened.
I said nothing when given the oak with four knots, and I took the ax, felt it top heavy in my hands, and I’d have to hit dead center, at its first-year ring. Ren was taunting, Let’s see you go, Owalla. Swing away.
Old Titus smiled, and Dehlia leaned against the shed, cigarette in hand, her face dappled in shadow. Using its weight to speed the fall, I raised the ax high, feeling it in my arms, my back, my legs, and drove the blade into the wood. The log cracked, followed by the second whack, and the log split in half. The women cheered, but Dehlia and Ren had already turned away.
Old Titus let out a whistle, said, Son, you got bear strength in them limbs.
From dip-fishing, I said, handing him the ax.
He grinned. You’re just like your father. I don’t miss him so much with you here, though.
I nodded. He meant well but it stung. My father wanted me to not be like him. Get gone from this town. Go get yourself an education, he always said.
I needed more beer, or better yet, a hit of crystal.
Shouts rose. Fourth quarter, and a Raiders upset looked promising. While I could follow football, basketball’s what got me pumped, and I’d even envisioned going to college and playing for the Bruins, but my father died knowing I’d do none of this, staying put instead because of him and Nans. I was there for them in their last days.
Ren was going on, his voice shrill, high-pitched with excitement as he boasted, Those terrorists, they got nothing on me. Don’t see it coming. My girl, she sees it coming. Ren Titus, combat engineer, 12B, baby, like the sound of that? Sounds smart. Sounds rich, don’t it? And baby, you and our boy, we gonna be feasting on prime rib, buy us a house, drive a fuckin’ Royce. And don’t forget them diamonds.
His girl, Sori, swooned at his speeches, rubbed her belly, and I felt bad for her and her child, all his talk just a build-up to a fall.
I searched for Dehlia, her long black hair, her smirk-smile and curvy laugh. Caught her in the garage talking to Hunter’s current, a bleached-blonde, sunken-cheeked biscuit devoted to meth. Dehlia appeared not to notice me as she tossed her head back and laughed. I pretended to ignore her. In the past this worked; she’d come over, unzip me, and tell me to shut up. I’d been accused of always thinking too much, and it was nice, more than nice, a gal willing to fuck without string. Except maybe there was string, given that I sought only her, her way of fucking, her way of not giving a squirrel’s ass.
And then Hunter was shoving a beer at me, his face stressed as he sucked on a Lucky, and raking his hands through his hair, saying, Holy shit, our boy Titus actually made the glorified cut.
Hunter, like Took-Took, didn’t. Both claimed clean living and mad workouts would get them prepared for the Combat Fitness Test, but within a week Hunter was fixing lines, and Took-Took, mid-way through second week, said, Fuck it, I can’t lose no weight, and which left only Ren Titus to do us proud. And that he did, what with PT—runs in the morning, weights in the afternoon, endurance at night—and then he passed the ACFT, the ASVAB, stayed clean, built up his stamina, credentials, the whole nine yards, all to become a true hero.
You regret not joining? I asked.
Hunter took a quick drag, flicked his ash onto the garage floor, and stayed silent. Beyond the garage, people still chopped logs, grunting, and sweating, and frustratingly happy, the Raiders up 24-10.
He jerked his chin, said, She’s looking at you.
Sure enough she was, her gaze unwavering.
I socked him in the shoulder, and when I approached Dehlia, she draped her arms around my neck and pressed her body into me. The blonde biscuit, who was older than him, walked over to Hunter, but then again, he’d always been into older women. Rumor had it that he’d lost his virginity at thirteen to a forty-year-old, and that was that. But me, I liked Dehlia, the thick of her, the so-much-of-her to hold and feel. Her aggressiveness, and knowingness, and shyness. How she’d hide her breasts yet suck my cock like apocalypse now or never.
I said, Ren Titus, off to the army.
I’m proud of him, she said, and smiled up at me.
That mean I should I join too?
Why? What use would you be to me in the army? She laughed again and led me to Ren Titus’s room, where he’d slept as a boy, and now as a man with his girl. I wasn’t high or drunk enough to see the kink to it. If anything it shriveled me, and I was shaking my head no as Dehlia tugged me down onto the bed.
Touch me hard, she said, stripping off her pants before I could even unzip mine. An old scribble of some Star Wars starship was taped above the bed, and the coverlet with prints of Chewbacca, and Han Solo, and Princess Leia on it.
Make me pant, Dehlia went on, kicking her panties off, her place shaved clean, her hands on my chest, tearing my shirt up, my hands on her thighs.
Shirt and bra still on, she opened her legs, and when I licked my fingers and stroked her, she bucked and moaned until neither of us could hold off, and I pushed inside her, her stomach contracting, eyes squenched, her mouth a silent shout, and everything felt swollen, and Jesus, in that moment, wasn’t I her hero.
Once we finished, she kissed me and whispered, Jonny, baby, you sure know how to fuck.
I’d hold off all day for you, I said, and she playfully slapped me.
We wiped ourselves down and shared a little crystal, crushed it on the bathtub rim, lined it, snorted it with a twenty, and, voila, we were back in business, smoothed the sheets and bedspread to how they were, and rejoined the party, where the Raiders, with only minutes remaining, managed an 80 yard scoring drive. And then it was over: Raiders 38, Jets 24, and everyone whooping, and embracing, and swigging Jack. And me, sex-buzzed and crystal-dripped, was swept into it too, Ren Titus hugging me, his girl hugging me next, her blooming belly pressing hard. And then Old Titus patting me on the back, saying, Raiders still got it. Then Dehlia kissing me, and Hunter and his woman hollering like a hair-metal band, and everyone started singing, arms on shoulders, faces blazen, throats extended, God bless America, land that I love, stand beside her, and guide her, through the night with the light from above.
It was in this moment, warm and revved and hopeful, with Dehlia and my friends, Ren Titus, Hunter, and Took-Took—all singing out of sync, and celebrating the Raiders’ victory, the food and drink non-stop, and with the wood chopped by our own ax-holding hands—that I saw how even the likes of me, despite ever probing denials, could feel proud to be an American.
In March, 2003, President George W. Bush declared war on Iraq, and there was talk of WMDs, and Osama bin Laden, and overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Shortly after, Ren Titus was deployed to Kuwait, a full two years after he’d already been in the army, moving from one base to the next, dragging his wife and son along.
They came back to visit for certain holidays, but I hardly saw them. Yet, when Hussein was captured near Tikrit in December, Ren, on leave, had just arrived back in town, and I ran into him at Logger’s Saloon. I’d been clean then four months and twenty days. No crystal, no alcohol, no weed, and I’d taken a job as custodian for the bar, the only one in town. I liked the quiet moments with mop and bucket, the bleach striking out the stale beer smell, the darkness, the humming neon lights, the jukebox silent, the voices all gone home, and the emptiness filled with its past fullness. I liked it because in such lonely environments, I could face the morning and be content to see the sun.
On this December night, Louie was still shooing everyone out at 3:00 a.m. Once again, he’d let the usuals overstay. I’d just driven up, when I saw him, Ren Titus, stumbling out, wearing his ACU uniform like it was Operation Red Dawn, except that this was home. His head looked even smaller with the crew-cut and clean shave. His breath steamed in the cold air as he crashed into me, burped, then laughed in that brash drunk way. Oh, shi-eeet, Owalla, didn’t see you there. Janitor now is it?
I let this slide, seeing how he reeked of alcohol, off-balance, stupid. And something else, something in his eyes, made me quiet. He fell into my shoulder, reached up, awkwardly patted my face. I held him up under the arms; he still weighed nothing.
Titus, I said. Shit, man, how’s army life?
You, you’d know if you’d join, join-ed, Titus slurred.
Give me your car keys, I told him. You’re not driving anywhere tonight.
No, nah. I’m good, Jonny, I’m okay. He pushed back and fell against the wall behind him.
Come on. I’ll drive you home.
He fumbled with all those pockets, then pulled out the keys. Swaying, he handed them to me, an easy surrender. I guided him over to his 1980 F-250, the very one we boys used to ride around in the truck bed, while old Titus drove up those winding roads and we could feel the stars’ pin pricks of light, and the mountain air pounding our lungs and faces.
She still running loyal? I said. This heap, I mean.
Titus nodded limply, muttered, Still turning over.
I hoisted him up into the passenger seat, then slid into the driver’s, turned the key, the engine whiny in the cold. I pushed in the clutch, shifted into first, and eased out of the parking lot, onto the icy road.
Damn the cold, Titus blurted out after a long silence, and he barely sounded drunk anymore. Hunched over, he blew into his hands, then rubbed them on his thighs.
Iraq, he said, it’s a lot of sun and a bunch of waiting. Fucking waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Put you in a desert, and that’s what you do, sit and wait. All you want is to go home, and here I am. Home sweet home, and I hate it.
So now you’re fighting for a place you hate, I said.
Fuck you, Owalla. You ain’t no better than anyone. Plus, you don’t know shit.
He spat his resentment toward me. How I didn’t join, how I had no clue what it’d been like for him growing up, and now he was a soldier, A hero, he said, so bite your tongue, brother.
Who knows if Ren Titus remembered this conversation. It was the last one we ever had, there in his truck, his voice snapping, and me driving with chapped hands that split and later bled. And he, Titus, probably moaning next morning to Sori to make him coffee, his son, two years old, climbing onto the bed, bouncing and wanting his hung-over father to get up and play with him.
May, 2004. Two funerals for Ren Titus. One military up in Medford, one civilian here in town. I didn’t attend the first. Didn’t see the formations, the uniforms, the flag-draped casket, the stars pointed upwards, In God We Trust, and then thirteen times folded, the flag handed to his son. Nor did I hear the rifles firing their three-volley salute, or the solo bugle playing taps, or the sobs. He died in transport, after stepping on an IED, which blew off half his face. Or maybe I only imagined that’s what happened, his death vague, and sometimes I’d think, What if he tripped it, knowing it was there?
To the second funeral located at Peacock Farm, I came dressed in a black button-up shirt and onyx bolo, a bottle of Jack under my arm. I placed the Jack on Ren’s altar, set up by the fireplace. In the center, a military portrait, Ren in his army greens, his face expressionless, staring bone-eyed at the camera. Surrounding the main portrait, along with candles and flowers, were pictures from his boyhood: him down at the river, holding up a shiny brown trout; him field dressing a buck; him with Sori on prom night. Then on their wedding day at the Medford Courthouse, then holding his newborn son. Next the three of them, Ren, Sori, and child building a snowman.
I couldn’t look long before it all began to blur, so I ambled into the kitchen where Ren’s mom whipped up stacks and stacks of pancakes, his favorite. Other mothers surrounded her, nodding and ohhing, as she went on saying, My boy, all he wanted, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He tell me, Ma, make me some pancakes, just the plain, no syrup or butter. Didn’t add blueberries, a simple boy, easy to please, just pancakes, all he wanted was pancakes.
In the front room, Sori and son sat huddled on the couch, their faces puffy, but they smiled at each person who approached, and when I did, she patted a spot on the couch. Sit, she said. Sit and tell me how you knew to stay.
But I couldn’t, her with those wet dark eyes, swollen cheeks, face older and resigned. And her son nestled into her side, burying his head as she petted his black matted hair. They seemed limp, unimpressed, as if Ren had abandoned them, led them into a bottomless pool of false hope.
He was braver than me, I finally said.
She nodded glumly, unaffected by anything anyone said, including me. If only their story could be happy, like Evening Star’s. A Karuk story Nans used to tell when the North Star was extra bright. She’d tell us how Evening Star wandered from his woman, and how she sang to get him back. She sang, and here Nans’ voice got whispery and soft: You may go to the end of the sky, but you’ll come back, and we will roll together here in the middle of the world.
Jesus, I needed a break. The pancakes sizzling made me dizzy, and I was tempted to drink a quick nip or two, or worse, tap on Hunter’s shoulder—he was there too, sick and rubbing at a bloody nose. Always sick lately and yet, I wanted to say, Hey, hook me up, man. Just a lift, a little lift. Dehlia was near him, unphased as usual. No amount of drugs or booze, sleepless nights and eatless days seemed to change her. Took-Took in prison now, and old Titus dead, and fortunately, before his son. Nans and Dad deader than before, and with each passing day they disappeared more, and soon Ren Titus would too. Life goes on and who were they? In the end, what’d they once mean to me anyway?
Just as I was stomping down the steps of Peacock Farm, to gulp the sunny air away from the pancake-burn of Ren’s funeral, there came Willoh, marching up the drive, holding a bouquet of white lilies, her thick black hair in a neat single braid down her back, her face royal as a queen. She wore a black silk shirt, black flowing pants, and she moved with deliberation.
Ayukîi, Chíish, I called to her. Hey, Sister.
Her seriousness lifted. Ayukîi, Aaníhich. Hey, Brother.
We exchanged one arm hugs.
I chided, Never seen you arrive to anything late before.
It’s the lilies, she said. I drove all the way to Yreka for them. You bring any flowers?
I didn’t answer. We started walking back up the drive, toward the house, where the pancake smoke grew stronger, the laughs louder, music playing Dr. Dre, Ren’s tastes all over again, which brought back our early party days.
She shook her head, said, He’s your friend, and you bring no flowers? I didn’t see you at the funeral in Medford either.
You were there?
She stopped walking and stared at me, that same face she gave me when I realized I needed to quit my bad habits if I meant to hang around awhile. If I was going to show Nans and Dad proud.
Stop, I told her. Jesus, I feel bad enough. Like his life was my responsibility? Like I could’ve saved him if I’d joined the damn army.
That last part, an unexpected dive, but it’d been pushing at me since day one, and there it was now, out in the open.
She shifted the flowers to the crook of her arm, and reached for me, barely touching my shoulder before I jerked away. She looked sad, but how could I fix anything? Suppose it’d been her fault Ren had died. If she hadn’t held onto Dad and Nans, I wouldn’t have either. I could’ve joined with Titus, and who knows, maybe we’d have both come home.
You’re too proud to think his life was in your hands, she said.
Ka’íuu. Quiet, I snapped. Proud? It’s not that.
She walked past me, up to the house, to Sori waiting and giving my sister a hug, taking the lilies.
Soon there’d be the pour-one-out for Ren, and we’d all watch in silence as the whiskey disappeared into the ground. Followed by the speeches, the ones that break into sobs or laughs, and Ren’s mother saying, My warrior, he’s eating pancakes now, and I wondered, could I face those moments.
I went around back, where the peacocks were kept, the males fanning their feathers to color the drabs of the females, and there, as I knew I would, I found Hunter and Dehlia, the two of them smoking, a bloodied tissue jammed up Hunter’s nose, and Dehlia still fine as ever though she’d stopped fucking me since I’d gotten clean. It seemed like ages.
Before I said anything, Hunter asked, You hurting?
Our boy Jonny wants to come back, Dehlia announced, like I wasn’t even there.
I kicked at the wet dirt, shoved my hands into my pockets, saying, Christ’s sake. Our buddy just died, and I need a lift. Just for today, what you got?
Hunter pulled the tissue out of his nose and tossed it into the peacock pen, then muttered, Lucky you. I got enough to welcome you back.
Yes, Dehlia said. Welcome back.
Behind us, in the house, voices rose. They were singing, and at first it was hard to make out. But after another few minutes passed, standing there by the peacock pen, I recognized the song, Our Country, Tis of Thee. Land where our fathers died. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.