“It ain’t big enough anyway,” I said. “We have to take them to the lake. All of them. We have to set them free.”
For some reason, that was all it took. Mom stuffed some trash bags in her purse and rummaged beneath the kitchen sink for a metal bucket. Then we were out the door. It took us an hour to scoop up all those fish with the mop bucket. The manager kept trying to talk Mom into going on a date with him but stayed out of our way. We splashed around in that mossy little pond with our pants rolled up, bumping heads and knocking elbows and butts. We didn’t stop until we got the last fish caught. Mom didn’t even complain when I splashed her, so I splashed her some more. Once we got all the fish in the trash bag, Mom tied it off and lugged it into the back of the car. She spun gravel taking off for Lake Tenkiller.
Some of the fish were small, and some of them must have weighed two or three pounds. I got to thinking on the car ride that I wasn’t sure I’d seen Blinky at all.
“What’s up, Bean?” Mom asked.
“I don’t even know if Blinky was still in there,” I said.
“Think I saw him,” she said. “Pretty sure I did.”
I leaned my head against the window, watching the trees go by, and smiled.
We pulled up to a public boat ramp and wrestled the big green trash bag onto the dock. We could only carry it a couple of steps before setting it down to rest. When we got to the end of the dock, Mom pulled at the knot in the bag with her teeth and helped me pour the water and fish into Tenkiller.
Those fish shot off in every direction like fireworks. A few did great, leaping belly flops. A couple stayed close by the dock, coming to the top every few seconds. Mom and I sat there tossing them cracker crumbs, dangling our feet off the dock, and watching the sun gathering itself for bed.
When we got back to Granny and Lula’s, the house was quiet. Granny stuck her head out the door to make sure we were okay and tell us Lula was finally sleeping. Me and Mom ate bologna sandwiches on the porch swing. Then we shared the sink while I got ready for bed and she got ready for work. I couldn’t sleep with Granny when Lula was sick, so before my mom left, she tucked me into her bed and checked my alarm clock.
“You’re too tenderhearted, Reney Bean,” she said. Then she kissed my forehead and whispered, “Wish I was more like you,” before she turned off the light.
That night I dreamed me and Mom were splashing around the banks of Tenkiller calling for Blinky. Granny and Lula were there. They were watching us from two lawn chairs they had sitting just in the edge of the water, and there was a glowing lantern between them. We waded all over the lake but couldn’t find Blinky anywhere. I wanted to swim deeper, but Mom grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go. She kept saying that the water was full of cottonmouths. And then I realized that it was, and I started crying. That’s when Blinky appeared, and all the snakes scattered. Me and Mom started hugging and laughing at the sight of him. That fish was golden as the evening sky and big as a blue whale.
He nudged me onto his back, and I put out my hand for Mom. We waved goodbye to Granny and Lula. Then I hung on to his top fin, and Mom held on to me. Blinky dove all the way to the deepest part of the lake, chasing catfish and nosing great turtles, showing us all the treasures he’d found down there. My mom’s long black hair trailed behind us, and we didn’t have any trouble breathing at all. We held on when he leapt for the sun, shimmying high up through the clouds until we splashed back down into the lake.
I woke up just before my alarm went off. Mom was curled around me, sound asleep, so I eased out of her arms and turned off the alarm. She mumbled something and turned over onto her other side. I pulled the covers around her and laid down next to her for a long time, remembering how it felt to be moving through water and clouds, both of us together.
July 23, 1982—I never can forget. I got the news my poor lost grandson John Joseph passed when I was braiding my hair, fixing to walk to Dandy Dalton’s to pay on my grocery bill. I already had my purse under my arm when Thorpe Rogers called on the telephone. I couldn’t put any of the sounds he was making into words, but right off I knew.
Thorpe Rogers preached on faith power in a special service the night before—Saints got to be sanctified, he said, got to live good and right so little lost ones can see light. He said it in his language and then he tried to make it right in Cherokee for me and the other old ones. Thorpe Rogers raised up his arms like a picture of Good Lord’s love—In Heaven, he said, we shall reap our rewards. Then his face kind of broke in two and he said—But we got to get there, Saints.
We had a good, long service, like the ones that used to set my soul to burn. But going home I did not feel good. The Sequoyah Hills, always sweet to me, looked down like cold mountains. Even the moonshine on my arm felt like a stranger. Dear babies Reney and Sheila by me in the back seat did not make me better. Maybe I knew, but only in my heart first. John Joseph was going cold right then.
The boy never could stay out of trouble, even when he was a little one. Cracked his head diving in Bluff Hole, July 3, 1972. He could hear a song one time and play it all the way through, humming it out as he go. Didn’t matter—he sold the electric guitar Thorpe Rogers gave him for five dollars so he could buy up Dandy Dalton’s candy, January 12, 1969.
I used to back then put down things that happen in this nice notebook Lula gave me. Always put my thoughts in there as best I could, just for me. John Joseph passed the day before his own birthday, the day before this country would ever call him a man. After I put that down, I could not write another thing in here for a long time. The nice leather book was just ledger. I added up my charges for the month—
39 cents, shortcakes
89 cents, hairnet
3 lbs. Crisco, 2.10
25 cents, pop
66 cents of Liver loaf
1 dollar cash
I stay on my knees after altar call ends now. But I don’t hardly pray. I look for pictures in the altar wood. Try to make out long-gone faces when I know I should lean hard on myself to get up and go back to my seat. I stay there so long the church goes still. I hear little ones rustling on pallets and sweet sister Saints praying—Thank you, Jesus. Thorpe Rogers and Lula start up again. They weep and moan with Good Lord’s love. My children, so strong in their chests. That muscle can only be from Good Lord. Cannot be me or their cowboy daddy, with his drinking and Good Lord knows what else.
I feel hands on me. Skirts dance by, fan me cool. I know they pray this old Indian is finally meeting Holy Ghost, praying good like I should, with fire. Truth is, all I pray is to be able to pray. Maybe pray to be strong when I need to be.
One night right before he passed, I woke to a broke front door and John Joseph asleep on the living room floor. He had 12 stitches sewed up over his eye. Drunk running around in Sequoyah County and an argument over a girl got him hit with a tire iron. He opened his eyes to me standing over him. He looked scared for minute but not of me. Then he came back to me. He stretched and poked his finger on the end of the thread holding him together. He said—She’s so pretty, Granny. He could not pray either.
I shushed him. Lula was still asleep with one of her spells. She would be in a bad way with John Joseph there smelling like beer joints and the screen door broke. Thorpe Rogers wouldn’t let him come home from drinking no more already.
I should have got on my knees and prayed. Drag him by his hair and tell him—You pray! And tell my own self too that Good Lord was listening and believe it down in my pitiful heart. But I thought to myself—I will fix it. I put bologna on to fry and called my sister Celia in Hominy.
Celia married an Indian