The Flying Man

by Joy Harjo

As I was being born I fought my mother to escape, all the way out to the breathing world, until I was pulled abruptly by the doctor who was later credited with saving both my mother and me. I dangled there from his hands, a reluctant acrobat caught in flight. I took note there was a rush with the release, with flying free, and like an addict I flew whenever I could, from crib bars to jungle gyms and once the roof of the garage. Later, it was anything dangerous, like smoking cigarettes in the bathroom of the church, or jumping off a cliff into the lake after drinking illegal beer. And then the plain stupid: I leaped from the house of the proverbial cruel stepfather to the arms of a young dancer I met at Indian school who could not love me. And now we were stuffed into an apartment over a pizza restaurant, living from paycheck to paycheck. At 17, I was a mother with a nursing child and a hyperactive three-year-old stepdaughter.

When I looked out the window to where the sun, moon, and stars flew by, the only view was a rundown street bypassed by the freeway and progress. Anything that took root had to break through asphalt and concrete and climb the walls of decay. Anything that flew over this city of stolen land and oil had to have wings.

I could see the roof of my mother-in-law's apartment. She blamed me for the fix her son was in, as if it hadn’t happened before. He was supposed to return from Indian school with a postgraduate degree and support her, his half-sister, and the daughter he kidnapped from her teenage mother in Oregon. Instead, he returned with yet another pregnant teenage wife who would once again shift the fortunes of her son. I was the other woman, the reason for his lack of success, for her suffering. I had the one man bound to her by blood and guilt, a most volatile bond. Every man she had been with had given her a child then abandoned her, including her son who had left her with his daughter while he went to school in the Southwest. I was in the way and she took every opportunity to remind me.

She was now without a man, but she made sure she wouldn't be without everything she and the children had ever owned. Every item of clothing that her children had ever worn, every toy they had ever played with, every piece of paper with their names on it, she packed into boxes she piled high into a maze that filled up her apartment to the ceiling. She threw nothing away. She would not throw away her son to a strange, foolish girl.

Of course I wasn't ecstatic about the situation, either. None of this had figured into my map for a life, though I must admit the map was never clearly drawn. My path meandered according to the whim of failed adults and chance. It headed wanly to the life of a painter, like my Aunt Lois, who traveled from the Creek Nation all over the country without the encumbrance of children or husband and had the money to buy paint, canvas, and a car. Living as an artist was as close to my now limited universe as the planet Mars. Despite all my attempts at flight I couldn't afford art supplies, not even a junked car.

Each day was predictable. We got up, ate cold pizza for breakfast left over from my husband's shift at the restaurant the night before. I washed the children and cleaned, and he went to work, and I worried about money and what we would do when he lost his job. And he would lose it, as he had lost all the others. The only question was, when? The last time he walked out on a job we had only an industrial-sized box of pancake mix, a gift from my mother, for meals to supplement beans, commodity cheese, and a squirrel once in a while. My mother was disgusted with the mess I had found myself in and did everything she could to keep from coming to the side of town I was now living in. She had grown up in worse and had cleaned and cooked her way to decency. My life was now a mockery of her struggle.

Every night he came in from work in a furious cloud. He had yet another story of how someone had tried to pull one over on him. Most recently he had barely managed to keep from punching out the skinny white boss who was riding him even though the new waitress was the one screwing up the orders and apparently the boss, too. We had nearly starved until he got this job, and I hadn't been able to work yet because I was still recovering from birth. The baby was nearing eight weeks old, and, as I watched my husband open another beer and pace the room, I decided I had better start looking for work. I would wash dishes, dance on tables, or fly to the moon if I had to, rather than starve the children or myself again.

Some days his mother would come over and we would pool our resources for food. We were bound together for raw survival and her mood shifted according to the nature of our predicament. On the nice days we would hit the yard sales together. Then I was her ally as we searched through junk for dishes and clothes. If she were feeling especially hospitable she would buy me something to wear for under a dollar.

She felt sorry for me and even that was difficult for me to swallow, but understandable considering I had first shown up in that small town of the tribal capitol, where they were all living then, my blooming stomach leading the way. My then-to-be husband attempted to hide me from his mother at his grandmother's house, but it is impossible to hide a pregnant woman or anybody in a close Indian community in which everyone knows everyone else's business, or thinks they do. Word got out, especially after I was seen sitting in the town square with the old lady who spent the crisp mornings with her friends under the eaves of the old bandstand. They were the heart of the nation and made note of the current state of affairs as they watched people enter and leave the bank and the various establishments and agencies around the square. They were also still checking each other out for romantic liaisons. At least they didn't have to worry about getting pregnant at that age. They didn't say much and I didn't understand much of their Cherokee. To be included in this daily meeting under the oak trees gave me a fresh peace that was rare everywhere else.

Once, when the grandmother got her monthly check, we ate lunch at the diner across the street. I watched her unclasp her black patent bag and empty the basket of crackers into it to take home. I was horrified and tried to duck down, but my growing belly made it impossible. I bumped and spilled my glass of water, which called even more attention to us. She, however, had grace as she carefully left change for a tip, and we walked back to her house.

Soon thereafter I was summoned to my soon-to-be mother-in-law's house. I was nervous. I had been warned by anyone who could take me aside that she was jealous, overprotective, and mean. They were right. What they didn’t say was how attractive she was, how she was still in perfect form despite the rough years, her dark hair thick and lightly curled with energy. It was her dark eyes that told the other story, took in the edges of things, the tatters, and left the good behind. My lively new daughter ran up to us as soon as she saw her father. My new sister-in-law quietly drew pictures of horses at the table. . . .

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Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa and now lives in Honolulu. Her most recent collection of poetry, A Map to the Next World, was just published by Norton. The Good Luck Cat will be published by Harcourt Brace this spring. E-mail: Katcvpoet@aol.com.