I Can Make This Promise: Prologue–Chapter 2

A school-issued lanyard was looped around my neck, clipped to a laminated square: Edith with an illustrated elephant.

They ask me what tribe I’m from. They ask if I know what buffalo tastes like. They ask about my spiritual beliefs. They ask about the percentages and ratios of my blood.

This place is crowded and colorful and chaotic.

There’s a food truck parked beside the big gravel lot, selling authentic Mexican tacos.

I wonder if they created drawings and stencils first, or if they just grabbed their cans of spray paint and improvised.

A dog peers up at me with watery, bloodshot eyes. He’s panting hard, and his fur is mangy, but he looks happy.

The rock-and-roll version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is no longer recognizable. The guitar riffs have dissolved into wails. It doesn’t sound like “O’er the ramparts we watched.” It doesn’t sound like anything. Just crashing notes and frantic energy.

The rock-and-roll version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is no longer recognizable. The guitar riffs have dissolved into wails. It doesn’t sound like “O’er the ramparts we watched.” It doesn’t sound like anything. Just crashing notes and frantic energy.

The dog sits in the middle of the walkway. His ears perk up, and his tongue lolls out of the corner of his mouth as he watches me leave.

Their labels alternate between sounding patriotic and menacing: “Rocket’s Red Glare.”

Both my parents look at me. And the boy does, too. I feel heat rise in my cheeks. I go rigid under their scrutiny.

The air is smoky and filled with flying bits of debris; there’s so much of it, it’s almost difficult to breathe.

We’re standing a respectful distance away from other people. Thickets of trees line the field’s perimeter. An explosion goes off, perilously close to a cluster of dry-looking leaves and branches.

We’re standing a respectful distance away from other people. Thickets of trees line the field’s perimeter. An explosion goes off, perilously close to a cluster of dry-looking leaves and branches.

I swallow and return my attention to our fountain as it huffs blue smoke and embers.

Mom doesn’t share many of her childhood memories. She doesn’t have endless nostalgic stories like Dad does.

I light the fuse. We both stand and back away swiftly. His arm crosses in front of me protectively. Mom’s warm hands grip my shoulders as we watch the fuse disintegrate into nothing.

I keep my eyes glued to the little parachute as it meanders through
the dangerous atmosphere.

The boy turns his head and pivots his body just in time; the Roman candle’s projectile misses my parachute by several feet.

A tuft of his black hair is sticking through the open gap.

“Sorry,” he says with a grimace. “I wasn’t trying to point at your parachute.”

A purple fireball erupts from his candle, but I only see it in my peripheral vision, because we’re face-to-face now.

Two silhouettes are moving through the thick gray fog.

Bits of debris and shrapnel rain around them, like the little black spots that appear on-screen in old movies.

“Oh good,” Dad mutters. “Sweetheart, you can’t just run off like that, okay? Come on, let’s go, it’s getting late.” As an afterthought he adds, “I’m glad you got your parachute.”

Fireworks bloom all along the darkened hillsides. The sky is like a swath of indigo velvet.

I’m still thinking about the dog I saw. I wonder if he ever found his owners, his family. I hope someone was there for him. I hope he’s curled up in front of a fireplace right now, with a full belly and a cozy rug. Or maybe he’s standing in a bathtub, his tail whacking the tiled walls behind him, his fur lathered in fragrant bubbles.

Uncle Phil sent Mom two GIFs and a text message. The first is a fireworks GIF, the second is a wavering American flag.

I wait and listen to the ongoing whoosh of cars on the freeway around us. The dingy bellow of a truck’s diesel exhaust. The low, distant wail of sirens.

I think about Roger. He was the first person to ever say those words to me. You look Native. And it didn’t feel presumptuous. It didn’t feel like a wild guess.