Mapping the Interior

by Stephen Graham Jones

Who wouldn’t want to step into a fancydancer outfit? It would be the obvious next step. The bustles, the armbands, the beadwork, the cool knee-high moccasins—and the facepaint. It makes you look like the assassin-aliens in space movies. With your face black and white like that, you automatically slit your eyes like a gunfighter, like you’re staring America down across the centuries.

I think she was talking about all the Indians on the whole reservation, maybe even on the whole pow-wow circuit. I think she was saying that if my dad would have just applied the same energy and forethought to his regalia and his routine as he did to what trouble there was to get in once the sun came down, there would have been no stopping him.

That’s how you talk about dead people, though, especially dead Indians. It’s all about squandered potential, not actual accomplishments.

When you come back from the dead, you’re a spirit, you’re nothing, just some leftover intention, some unassociated memory.

But you’re supposed to be getting more solid, I said inside. Not more invisible.

I’d never smoked—you need your lungs if you dance—but after that night, I kind of understood why Mom always had. It makes you feel like you have some control. You know it’s bad for you, but you’re doing it on purpose, too. You’re breathing that in of your own volition, because you want to.