The Pale-Faced Lie

by David Crow

Dad said we lived on the Navajo Indian Reservation, but because we were Cherokees, we didn’t have to follow any of the damn Anglo rules.

“You sure as hell better be tough.” He wagged his finger at me. “I hate sissies. You’re scrawny and you can’t hear worth a damn, but you’re a determined little son of a bitch. Remember, you’re a Crow, by God, a Cherokee Indian of superior intelligence and courage.”

Indians on the reservation or the ones on TV. We were the pale kind. Lots of Cherokees were as pale as ghosts, Dad said, so they could outrace the wind and the cavalry.

The car was silent, except for Mom’s crying. She cried the way she breathed, which is to say all the time.

How could the Navajos have so little in a land where there was so much?

I felt powerful and invisible again.

I don’t care what they said to you first. You should never respond to unkindness with more of the same. It makes you lesser. Let’s go home and do better.”

“I’m no longer your mother. These are yours.”

Choking on guilt, struggling to inhale, I vowed never to let anyone get close enough to hurt me again.

the myths had become our identity. Being a Cherokee was the only point of family pride. I had no good truths to replace the lie. Were we nothing more than Okie white trash?

“Be careful whenever everything is given to you,” Mr. Ashcroft said. “Because then you’ll be totally beholden to your masters.”

“You can’t change your childhood, but you can let it go,” he said.