Running Barefoot (13 page)

Samuel plucked the earphones off of my head, causing my eyelids to flutter open, and I stared at him stonily.

“What?” I mumbled.

“You are taking this too seriously,” He said simply.

I jumped right back in with both feet. “Othello was so proud, and he was so accomplished! Yet he was so easy to manipulate!” I argued passionately.

Samuel deliberated for a minute. “Othello was a man who’d had to fight and scrape to get where he was. He probably felt like at any moment his ship could spring a leak, and if it did? He would be the first one thrown overboard, even though it was his ship.”

“So Othello was an easy target?” I muttered. “Easy because his pride was really a front for his insecurity?”

“Insecurity...past experience... life…who knows? His pride demanded that he seek justice. He had worked too hard to be mocked by those closest to him.”

“But then . . . he was cuckolded by his pride - not Desdemona.”

“Ahhh, irony.” Samuel smirked at me then and cuffed me lightly on the chin.

He handed me back my earphones, twisting his side outward so we could share Chopin. I studied the strong lines of his face, his black eyes growing unfocused as he zoned into the music. He was so striking, and his face grew serene as he listened. I felt increasingly bereft as the music played on, and I continued to watch his face, a face that had become so precious to me.

The bus chugged violently and jerked to a stop. Being the last ones on in the morning meant we were the first ones off every afternoon, as Mr. Walker worked backwards through his route. Samuel pulled his earphone off, handed the headset to me, and picked up my bag so that I could shove them inside. We swayed on unsteady legs down the vibrating aisle and down the steep steps into the late March sun. It bounced blindingly off the melting snow, and as Samuel started on his way I called after him, squinting against its brightness. He turned, eyebrows raised, swinging his backpack over one shoulder.

“Is love really so complicated?” I asked desperately. “Is it really so hard to trust? I don’t understand.” My mind flickered back to 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13. “Did Othello even love Desdemona to begin with?”

Samuel looked at me then, and there was a wisdom and understanding in his gaze that made me feel incredibly naive.

He closed the few steps between us. “Othello loved Desdemona; he was crazy about her. That was never the problem. Othello’s problem was that he never felt worthy of Desdemona in the first place. He was the ‘black Moor’ - she was the ‘fair Desdemona.’” Samuel’s tone was conversational, but there was a certain wistfulness in his face. “It was too good to be true, too sweet to be reality for too long, so when someone set out to destroy his belief in her, it made more sense to doubt her than to believe that she had truly loved him in the first place.”

“But she did!”

Samuel shrugged his shoulders a little, dismissing this. He turned away again.

“Samuel!”

“What Josie?!” The other kids that got off at our stop were trudging home, out of earshot by now, but he seemed reluctant to continue the conversation.

“But she did!” I insisted again, enunciating each word.

Samuel’s eyes rested on my face, and I realized I was clenching my jaw tightly, my chin jutting out, daring him to deny it.

“I believe you, Josie,” he said at last. He turned then and strode away, his gait smooth and unhurried, his moccasins quiet on the hard packed snow.

I felt relieved that we seemed to understand one another. It wasn’t until I read the play again, many years later, that I realized we hadn’t been talking about Desdemona and Othello at all.

The school year was drawing to a close. Samuel grew distant and withdrawn again, much like he had been in the beginning. He’d been in constant touch with his recruiter and was mentally almost gone. He was swimming well enough now; he’d attacked the sport with a vengeance and was certain he’d be okay throughout training, even if he wasn’t the strongest swimmer. He had been running every night as well - trying to be as ready as he could be for boot camp. He told me that he wanted to get a perfect score on the fitness test. He’d gotten all his medical records when he’d left the reservation. He’d needed a series of shots that he’d never gotten, as well as some tests that were required. He was grim and testy the last month in school - ready to graduate, ready to move on.

I didn’t really understand why he was so anxious to leave. Boot camp sounded horrible to me…and wouldn’t he miss me at all? I couldn’t imagine not seeing him every day, listening to music, reading together. As he grew increasingly more agitated and short-tempered, I grew steadily more forlorn. I wanted to give him a gift for graduation. He had made the honor roll, which he seemed proud of; he was Ms. Whitmer’s new favorite student. She was so impressed with him she had given him the Outstanding Senior English student award. But all this didn’t seem to assuage his restlessness.

One morning on the bus I offered my earphones to Samuel, only to have him push my hand away irritably. I stifled the girlish instinct to cry from my hurt feelings. Sonja said women have many emotions, but only one physical response. When we’re angry we cry, when we’re happy we cry, when we’re sad we cry, when we’re scared, you guessed it, we cry.

“What’s wrong, Samuel?” I said after several moments of tense silence.

“I don’t want to listen - that’s all,” he said tersely.

“Okay. But why did you push my hand away? Am I bothering you?”

“Yes.” Samuel lifted his chin as he said this, jutting it at me, like he said the word purposely to hurt me and make me angry.

“What am I doing that’s bothering you?” I again fought the wet that threatened to undermine my dignity. I spoke each word distinctly, focusing on the shape and sound instead of the sentiment.

“You are so.....” His smooth voice was layered with turbulence and frustration. Samuel rarely raised his voice, and didn’t do so now, but the threat was there. “You are so… calm, and accepting, and NAIVE that sometimes…I just want to shake you!”

I wondered what in the world had brought on this vehement attack and sat in stunned silence for several heartbeats.

“I bother you because I’m calm...and accepting?” I said, my voice an incredulous squeak. “Do you want me to be hyper and, well, intolerant?”

“It would be nice if you questioned something, sometime.” Samuel was revving up to his argument; I could see the animation in his face. “You live in your own happy little world. You don’t know how it feels to not belong anywhere! I don’t belong anywhere!”

“Why do you think I created my own happy little world?” I shot back. “I fit in perfectly there!” I hated it when he tried to start a fight with me.

“Come on, Samuel. Everyone feels like they don’t belong sometimes, don’t they? Mrs. Grimaldi even told me that Franz Schubert, the composer, said that at times he didn’t feel like he belonged in this world at all. He created amazing, beautiful music. He had this enormous gift, yet he often felt out of place, too.

“Franz Schubert? He was the guy that wrote the song you played at Christmas, right?

“Yes!” I smiled at him like a proud teacher.

“It’s not quite the same thing Josie. I don’t think Franz and I have much in common.”

“Well I hope not!” I said saucily. “Poor Franz Schubert never made any money from his music and was completely broke and mostly destitute when he died from Typhus at only 31-years-old.”

Samuel sighed and shook his head. “You always seem to have an answer for everything, huh? So tell me what to do, Josie. My mother keeps calling me. She calls me late at night, and she’s so drunk all she can do is cry and swear. My grandparents are trying to stay out of it, but I know her calling like that, at all hours, is upsetting them. She says I will never find
hozho
in the white man’s world. Can you believe she is using the Navajo religion to make me feel guilty, while she is a complete mess?”

I realized none of Samuel’s angst had anything to do with me.

“What’s
hozho
?” I plied him gently.

“
Hozho
is at the heart of the Navajo religion. It essentially means harmony. Harmony within your spirit, your life, with God. Some people compare it to karma too, the idea that what you put out comes back to you. It is a balance between your body, mind, and spirit.”

“Have you found
hozho
on the reservation?” I held my breath, hoping I hadn’t overstepped my bounds.

“Ha!” Samuel mocked, throwing his head back, “I feel closest to it when I am with my grandmother, listening to her, learning from her; but no...I have never found it there.”

“It doesn’t sound like your mom has it. How can she lecture you about something she doesn’t possess herself?” I grew indignant on his behalf.

“My mom has not had any
hozho
since my father died. She says she turned her back on her people when she married him, but I think she turns her back on me when she says things like that. I was six years old when he died. I remember being a family! We were happy! My dad was a good man!” Samuel’s composure cracked, and he visibly shook himself.

“Grandma Yates gave me my dad’s journals. He kept them all through high school and during his mission on the reservation. When he left home, he boxed his things up, but somehow the journals were left behind at my grandparent’s. I haven’t read them all, but what I have read makes me want to be
more
like him, not less! I feel like I am being ripped in half. I don’t want to see my mother anymore; I am disgusted by her. Do you know my father never drank alcohol…..ever! In his journal he said one of his friends in high school raped a girl after drinking too much. He said his friend never would have done something like that without the alcohol. It ruined both the girl’s life and his friend’s life. He decided then and there he would never touch the stuff.

“On the reservation alcohol is a huge problem. I’ve seen Gordon hit my mom so many times it makes me sick. I have fought him off of her only to have her turn on me. She wasn’t always like that. I have memories of her being gentle and happy. She has no excuse! She had my grandmother to raise her. My Grandmother Yazzie is the finest woman I know. My Grandfather Yazzie was much older than my grandmother, and he struggled with his health, putting a lot more responsibility on her shoulders, but they both loved my mother and they raised her right; my mother was their only child. My grandmother had a lot of miscarriages; they considered my mother a miracle, a gift. They taught her the traditions and language of our people. I think she turns her back on the
dine’
when she hides in the bottle.”

“What does your Grandmother Yazzie tell you?”

“I really haven’t talked to her about any of this. She doesn’t speak English very well, and although she has access to a phone, she’s not comfortable using one. She has my mother make calls for her when it’s necessary, but unfortunately, with my mother in the state she is in most of the time, my grandmother stays away. My grandmother lives out on the land she was born on in her hogan. My mother lives in tribal housing with her husband and whichever of his kids that happen to be living at home.”

“But you said your grandmother told you that you would need to survive in both worlds, remember? That is why you needed a warrior spirit. Maybe for you,
hozho
won’t come from either place, but from a merging of both,” I offered, trying to comfort him.

Samuel looked at me then, his eyes sad, his expression conflicted. “Maybe my father’s God can help me find the answers I need. I have his bible. My mother gave it to me a long time ago, before she remarried. I told you she would read it sometimes. She believed it was true when she married my father. I don’t think she’s found any balance in trying to straddle both worlds.”

“But Samuel, you just said she was happy once, before your father died. Maybe the loss of balance came when she rejected your father’s God. She’s rejected both her traditions and her beliefs. She’s not embracing the Navajo way and shunning the other. She’s shunning them both. So she moved back to the reservation after your father died. So what? Living on a reservation doesn’t make you a Navajo.”

“What?” Samuel looked at me with something akin to shock widening his eyes and slackening his jaw. He grabbed my arm. “What did you just say? Say it again!”

“You don’t have to live on a reservation to be a Navajo?” I stammered, confused.

“You didn’t say it like that,” Samuel was shaking his head. “You said ‘living on a reservation doesn’t make you a Navajo.’”

“Right…so....?”

“So what
does
make a Navajo - is that what you’re saying?” It sounded more like a statement than a question

“Yeah, I guess so. What makes someone a Navajo, Samuel? What is it that defines a Navajo? Is it really where you live, the color of your skin, your moccasins, the turquoise you wear around your neck? What?”

Samuel was momentarily stumped. I was anxious to hear what his answer would be. I was a descendant of the Danes - and if someone asked me, I could tell them a little about my ancestry. But was I Danish? I’d never even been to Denmark. I didn’t speak the language. I didn’t know any Danish customs or traditions. It was just my lineage. I had a feeling being Navajo was a lot bigger than just heritage or ancestry.