CHAPTER 1
WE STOP KEEP RUNNING
Each morning I try to count to five. One, we will have a home 1 day. Two, everything can change for the better 2day. Three, it’s just the 3 of us: me, Mom, and my brother. Four, will life be like this 4ever?
I never get to five because number four trips me up and bums me out. Four is now my least favorite number. Our car has four seats. Mom just put her last four dollars in the gas tank. And I was four when my life abruptly changed. I went from having a home (which has four letters) to being poor and without one (poor also has four letters, and it even rhymes with four). And even though Mom says on the inside we are not poor, our blood is rich and full of warriors, chiefs, healers, and something called tenacity, on the outside, all we have is our little red car, parked in this ugly parking lot, which we must exit by 4 P.M. (ugh, there’s that number again) or else our car will get towed away.
It’s 3:52, and we have exactly eight more minutes to wait for my brother to return to the car. Even though we know he’s not coming back anytime soon, Mom insists on waiting. He ran away again. He runs away a lot. He’s fifteen and lately has refused to share the back seat with me. But he hates the front seat even more because it makes him more visible to people on the street as we trot down the road in our red horse. Well, it’s a Ford Pinto, but technically, a pinto is a type of horse, and we are Native American, so calling our car a horse makes me feel like I’m one of my ancestors galloping across this strange land called California.
My brother blames Mom for everything that happened to us, which is stupid because it wasn’t her fault. Dad was a monster. I know this because Mom has told me so.
“How do you pronounce this city?” I ask her.
“Sacramento. It comes from a Latin word. It means ‘consecrated one,’” she says while digging through her purse to find her red lipstick.
My mom is very smart. Probably one of the smartest people alive. On paper, you wouldn’t think so. She doesn’t have a degree. She never even made it past tenth grade. But she is what is called street-smart. Having street smarts is far more useful than carrying around a diploma that says you know how to sit still and memorize the Periodic Table of the Elements. She needs to be street-smart because we live on the streets. Every day she has to figure out how to beat the game. And this game is not easy. The only way to win is to survive. And the only way to survive is to keep playing.
The most important rule of this game is making money. Street smarts help us do that. It’s called hustling. Every day we must work out and exercise our hustle muscle. That’s what Mom calls our brains. And our brains don’t need to know how helium works or what the abbreviated symbol for sodium is. The science of hustle works differently. We know if you add some hustle and charm to each heavy day, the struggle becomes lighter. That’s street science.
I also study street math, which is mostly Mom trying to make and save up money while constantly having to subtract some for gas, food, and the occasional motel room. The goal is to never hit zero. But that’s a tough goal. We’ve hit zero many times.
Then there’s street history, which is just a better term for real history. Mom says that schools don’t teach what really happened to our people in America. And what’s still happening to us today. From the moment the white people arrived, they’ve been trying to erase us. And the only way to not be erased is to pull everything that they swept under the rug back out in the open and study it.
Mom is my teacher, and this car is my classroom, and the back seat is my desk. Still, I can’t wait until I can go back to school. I miss having friends. I’ve attended over twenty schools already. But we never stay in one place long enough for me to have a best friend. Mom promises we will, someday, when we can afford an apartment.
“What does consecrated mean?” I ask.
“It means something is holy, or special, or some crap like that,” she says, and drags the lipstick over her lips, ending it with a loud puckered-up “muah” as she stares at her reflection in the rearview mirror.
“This is a holy parking lot?” I ask.
“Sure is. Full of potholes. What do you say we get outta here and find a less consecrated place to sleep tonight?”
I look at the clock on our car stereo. It’s 4:01. We’re still waiting on Emjay. That’s my brother’s name. He was named after our dad’s two favorite basketball players: Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. But Emjay hates our dad for what happened, so now he hates basketball. Nowadays, when people ask him what Emjay stands for, he tells people he is named after his two favorite music stars: Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger.
“How’s Emjay gonna find us?” I ask.
“Same as always. I’ll leave a note,” she says, and pulls out a napkin to write on, using the steering wheel as her desk.
Hotel Miranda. Back lot. We miss you. Come back. We love you.—Mama and Opin.
That’s my name. Opin. I was supposed to be named Jayem, like JM, after my dad’s two favorite football players: Joe Montana, the famous quarterback, and John Madden, the famous coach—but my dad didn’t show up to the hospital while my mom was giving birth to me, and she got upset and scrapped his wishes, naming me the first Ojibwe word that popped into her head as I popped out of her womb. Opin. It means “adventure seeker.” I love my name because I love adventures. And Mom says that a life on the road is the most exciting adventure of all. I don’t know if that’s true, because it’s only exciting sometimes. Other times I don’t like life on the road. It’s scary. And confusing. But I don’t tell her that. She already knows.
Mom exits the car and places the note under a large round rock near the concrete wall of the church’s parking lot. As she heads back to our car, the same man that told us to leave yesterday approaches her. “Hey there,” he says, grinning, keeping both his hands in his pockets. Mom is teaching me to read another street subject, body language. She claims people say more with their bodies than they do with their words. And, well, this guy is saying a whole lot with that grin and both hands in his pockets. He’s nervous.
“I know, I know. We’re leaving,” Mom says.
“Hold on. You can stay another night, if you reconsider my proposal,” he says, and tilts his head, the way vampires do right before they go for the jugular.
“I don’t date … your kind, sorry,” she says.
He scoffs. “My kind? White men?” he asks. “Isn’t that a bit—”
Mom laughs, cutting him off. “Not white men. Men who would sit in the stands and watch the game rather than play.”
“I’m not following,” he says.
I scoot closer to the window so I can hear them. Even though I am close enough for him to see me, he doesn’t. His eyes are glued to my mom. He looks at her the way all men look at her. The way I look at pizza. The way my mom looks at money.
“Do you think there is some giant invisible dude up in the clouds who gets to decide if you’re worthy enough to be invited into his fancy gated community after you die? Even though he supposedly knows all your moves because he apparently knows everything already?”
“I do believe with all my heart that everything that happens is the Lord’s will—”
“I have enough invisible men in my life. I don’t need another one. Especially a judgy one that beckons his sheep to kick a mother and her two kids out of their lot,” she says, and gets back into the car.
He lets out a sigh, turns, and walks back into the church. I don’t know why he is so upset. It’s not like he was in love with my mom or anything. I mean, he’s already in love. I saw the wedding ring on his finger. Dude needs to chill.
“He wanted to kiss you. I could tell by the way he was looking at you,” I say.
“They all want to kiss me, Opin. But you can never trust a man that believes he’s not behind the wheel of his own life. Got it?”
“Got it. There is no God.”
“I didn’t say that. All I’m saying is, if there is a God up there, the way that people think there is, one thing’s for sure … He has no plan. Never did. He’s just as shocked up there as we are down here. It’s foolish to believe someone would make this world as messed up as it is on purpose.”
“Yeah. I don’t think someone would plan to let cats get run over. Remember that orange one we saw in the other parking lot? That was so sad.”
“If someone planned that, then that’s someone we don’t need in our life,” she says, and pulls onto the street.
I grab my G.I. Joe action figure off the empty seat next to me and make him jump from headrest to headrest, bouncing from every pothole we dip in, as we drive toward our next adventure. Our next game. I know I’m too old to be playing with action figures and toys, but Mom says people in prison make toys out of bars of soap and people trapped alone on deserted islands make toys out of coconuts and paint faces on rocks so they have someone to kill time with. That’s what my G.I. Joe figure does for me. He keeps me company. And sometimes living in a car does feel like a prison. And other times it feels like it’s our own tiny little island. But most of the time it feels like we are on our way to get somewhere, but we just never get there.
My action figure is disfigured. Its face is melted from Emjay’s lighter. I begged and begged for him to stop burning it, but he didn’t stop. He found it funny that I was so upset. Now it has no face. Just a blob above its shoulders. It also only has one arm. My brother tore the left one off about a week ago when I told him to stop yelling at Mom. They argue a lot. Mostly about the same thing. How come we always have to keep moving? He makes a friend and then we drive off, city after city. School after school. He hates it.
But he hates a lot of things. My brother is a pretty angry person.
Sometimes I pretend I’m asleep while they fight. I listen to both sides argue their case. My brother yells. My mom yells. My brother storms off. My mom cries. Sometimes I hear them fighting when they’re not fighting at all. When they’re both asleep. Why can’t we just pick a place and stick with it? Even I know the answer to that question. We have to keep moving. We’re Native American outlaws, like Geronimo, like all our ancestors, and the United States cavalry is after us. We stay put, and they’ll catch us. Duh.
Emjay says we’d probably be better off if they did catch us. He thinks it might be good for us to stop running and just see what happens. But I agree with Mom. History has shown us what will happen. We’re outnumbered. It’s just us three against the government, or at least Child Protective Services. They must never find us. And if they do, we must escape, just like our ancestors did when the red, white, and blue started rounding us all up like cattle. Even cows know what’s coming next. The slaughter. The butcher. The burger. The burp.
We gotta fight. And the way we fight is we survive. And the only way we will survive is if we keep running. Together. The cavalry separates families. They put poor moms in jail for too many unpaid parking tickets and for raising their kids on the run. They put kids like my brother in Juvenile Hall for stealing shoes or fighting. They put kids like me in foster care. That’s how the system erases us Native Americans today. They used to bury us under schools and churches, but now they sweep us under rugs and bury us in paperwork. The butcher just changed his outfit. America is still a slaughterhouse for us. I’ll become nothing but a number. A statistic. Another Indian lost in the system. Mom warns me about this every time they track us down.
“Child Protective Services!” the cavalry shouts after a few knocks on our thin motel door, when we are lucky enough to afford a motel room. They always look the same, too. Three people, two men and a woman. Two in suits and one police officer in uniform. They’re always smiling, carrying a clipboard and sometimes a to-go cup of coffee. The woman usually calls out through the door so they appear softer and friendlier, but we don’t fall for their traps. Instead, we stay quiet. We don’t move. We listen. We wait.
And when they walk over to the motel office to demand that the clerk give them a key, after they flash their badge and whatnot, that’s when we make our move. We run. Even when we’re tired.
My mom tries to make it a game. “First one to the car wins,” she whispers. We have about thirty seconds to grab whatever we have, stuff it all into black trash bags, and sneak out the back window. That’s when we all run to our car—which is always parked in the very back and which is why we always try to get a room on the first floor.
But it’s not a game I like to play anymore. It was sort of fun when I was younger, when I didn’t really understand what was happening. But I’m twelve now. I’m not a kid. I know what’s going on. And it’s not fun to think about getting put into foster care. It’s scary … But still, I always try to win and be the first one to the car.
“You hungry?” my mom asks as we sit at a red light.
“If you are,” I say, knowing she is. She always is.
She finds a Burger King and pulls into the parking lot. We park, and I hop into the front seat. I can smell the food. My stomach howls.
“Ready for a game?” she says.
“I’m ready,” I say, and hold out my hands.
She hands me the buffalo bag. It’s the brown plastic bag we use for this game. We call it the buffalo bag because we imagine we’re Native American hunters in the open plains, even though we are actually just two hungry Native Americans about to steal food from Burger King.
“Lean in,” she says.
I lean into her as she drags her dark lipstick under my eyes to make me look like a fierce hunter. “You look so brave,” she says, and plants a kiss on my war-painted cheek.
One of the great things about fast-food joints is they are full of people who order a lot of food because it’s so cheap. Hopefully, not many of them will trash their leftovers. For this game to work, I rely on people who get up and don’t clean up.
My mom and I exit the car and head into Burger King. We both have a role to play. She walks up to the cashier and asks for two free waters while smiling and telling a joke or two, which keeps the employee distracted long enough for me to make my rounds. I open the buffalo bag and head toward the tables. Most are full of eaters, but some are empty. Well, empty of people. I already see a half-eaten burger. French fries? Check. Onion rings? Yes! Check. Another burger. Then another. I sweep through the plains and hunt down as much big game as I can fit into my buffalo bag. And even though there are cups of soda left behind and I can easily take one, we never take people’s drinks. Because backwash is gross.
Today is a good day. This was a successful hunt.
I meet my mom back at the car, and we sit inside and go through our loot. I hand her the half-eaten burger as I stuff my face with as many French fries as I can fit. It all tastes so good. Warm but not hot. Greasy. Juicy. Exactly how we would have ordered had we ordered at all.
After we eat, my mom makes me thank the people who gave us this food by kissing my fingers and touching the windshield. “Nothing is ever free,” she says, and wipes the lipstick lines from my face. “Someone paid for this food. An animal died for this meal. Say it.”
I feel the salt on my fingers as I touch the glass. “Someone bought it. An animal died. We stole it. Miigwech,” I say.
Miigwech means “thanks” in Anishinaabemowin. That’s what the Ojibwe language is called. It took me a long time to know how to pronounce it correctly. I try to learn at least one new Anishinaabe word every day. Mom says it’s important.
She snatches an onion ring out of my hand. Her eyebrows narrow in on me. I said something wrong.
“Just because we didn’t pay for it with our own money doesn’t mean we didn’t earn it. You worked hard for this food. And it’s better to be in your stomach than to be dumped into some trash can. The cow deserves better than being wasted.”
“Gaagiizom, Mom. We didn’t steal it. We earned it,” I say.
Gaagiizom means “sorry.” I say that one a lot.
She smiles and hands me back my onion ring. “You moved quick in there. You didn’t hesitate. Not once. You’re becoming a great hunter, Opin. Your ancestors would be proud,” she says, which fills my chest with pride—right above my belly full of greasy fast food.
“Should we save some for Emjay? In case he shows up to the hotel,” I ask.
“He won’t eat any of this, but yes, we should still save him some.”
After we eat and ball up the wrappers and thank the animals who died for us, we head back out on the road toward Hotel Miranda.
I know what game comes next. It’s a fun one. A bit more difficult than hunting buffalo, but still pretty fun. We call it How to Take a Shower with No One Knowing.
Copyright © 2023 by James Bird
