(Praying mantises in Kahramanmaras, Turkey; taken by Mehmet Karaca)
After my mother died at age 56 and
my father’s next hasty remarriage failed, he lost his house and his job. He moved into a crappy apartment near my
youngest brother and got a security officer job. He began giving full vent to all the racism
he had been forced to keep in check living with Mama, and started buying
guns.
He finally married again, an
alcoholic Baptist widow older than him who owned her home, and spent his days
on his recliner in front of the TV watching Walker Texas Ranger and Bonanza
reruns. He had caddies over each arm
rest. In the right hand one was the
remote, a large sportsdrink cup filled with iced tea and bourbon, and a loaded
9 mm with the safety off. In the left
hand one was a men’s urinal bedpan jug so he didn’t have to keep running to the
toilet.
He warned me often that if I came to
visit, I was to give him advance notice and a firm arrival time, and NEVER to
let myself in without loud knocking and much calling out of my name. He’d say sorrowfully “I’d hate to have to
shoot you, honey.”
I liken his unveiling of what must
have been there all along, unchanged by my mother’s influence, as analogous to
what has happened in this country since the Right made it publicly acceptable (again)
to articulate open violence against niggers and bitches. People of colour and open-eyed women could
have told you that the ugly reality of hate was there all along, and indeed is
the foundation of American mythic superiority.
Churches and the military tend to support this resurgence. It’s where the money and the troops are to be
found.
At his funeral, everybody talked
about what a kind, generous old man he had been. Law-abiding and a pillar of the church. White men get every pass in the world, and we
all ignore how scared we are of them.
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Joan Annsfire recently posted a thought-provoking piece at her blog about how Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris had been
important role models for her, and the devastation she felt when it was
revealed that Michael had molested their children before he committed suicide. I likewise felt a terrible, personal betrayal
about this man in whom I had placed so much faith. Even more, I wondered how on earth Louise was
bearing it.
Louise kept a public quiet as she
recovered. Finally, on 5 March 2001, she
released a short story to The New Yorker called
"The Shawl". I was still rereading it and trying to take in its message when my
little brother Bill died under terrible circumstances. The two became linked together in my memory.
I talked about it last night with
Margot, and this morning she tracked down the story to read it. I just reread it, too, for the first time in
a dozen years, and I am weeping at the power of this woman’s art.
This is how we go on.
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