Pigs in Heaven
Page 113
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Sugar sits down in one of the plastic chairs. “This here is the index for the Dawes Rolls,” she says, picking up a ring binder thick enough for a toddler to sit on at the dinner table.
“1902 to 1905,” she reads. She straightens her glasses, licks her thumb, and begins to page through it.
“Are you sure we ought to be doing this?”
Sugar looks up at Alice over her glasses. “I swear, Alice, I don’t know what’s become of you. You used to make me sneak out to the beer joints on a double dog dare, and now you’re scared of your shadow doing just a ordinary everyday thing.”
“I don’t want to break any rules.”
“For heaven’s sake, sit down here and look. This isn’t nothing in the world but a long list of names. People that was living here and got allotments between certain years.”
Alice sits down and scoots her chair toward Sugar, who is holding her chin high so she can see the small print through the bottom window of her bifocals. She looks like a proud little bird with a forties hairdo.
“I’m just going to show you your grandma’s name. She’s not going to reach out of the grave and tickle your feet.”
“She might, if she knew I was trying to cheat the Cherokees.”
“Alice Faye, you’re not cheating.”
Alice gets up and moves restlessly around the room, leaving Sugar to her search through the roll book. “What’s this?” she asks, holding up a yellowed, antique-looking newspaper covered with strange curlicues.
Sugar looks up over her glasses. “The Cherokee Advocate.
That’s old, they don’t run it anymore. That’s what the writing looks like for the Cherokee. It’s pretty, isn’t it? I never did learn to read it. Roscoe does.”
Alice studies the headlines, trying to connect their cursive roundness with the soft guttural voices she heard at the stomp dance. “They had their own paper?”
“Land, yes,” Sugar says, without looking up again from her book. “It was the first newspaper in Oklahoma. The Cherokees got things all organized out here while everybody else was cowboys eating with their jackknifes, Roscoe tells me. Them big old brick buildings we passed by in Tahlequah this morning? That was the Cherokee capitol. Oh, look, here she is, right here.” She motions Alice over, holding down Grandmother Stamper under her fingertip. “Write down this enrollment number: 25844.”
Alice digs in her purse for a pencil, licks the end of it, and dutifully records this number in her address book under the
“Z’s,” since it seems unlikely she’ll ever get close to anyone whose last name starts with a Z. For that matter, the whole address book is pretty much blank, except for three pages of crossed-out numbers for Taylor.
“Now all you’ve got to do is prove you’re descended from her. Having the birth certificate is the best, but she didn’t have one. What we did, when Roscoe helped me do this, was we writ to the records office down in Mississippi and we got the record of where she was drownded at. And then we just took that on down to the tribal recorder’s office and explained how she was my grandma, and that was that. I think I showed them some family pictures and stuff. They’re pretty understanding.”
Alice stares at the book of names. She can’t put a finger on who, exactly, she feels she’s cheating. All the people on the list, to begin with, and the fact they are dead doesn’t help. She wishes Sugar hadn’t mentioned the business of coming out of graves and tickling feet. “It doesn’t feel right to me,” she says. “I always knew we were some little part Indian, but I never really thought it was blood enough to sign up.”
“It don’t have to be more than a drop. We’re all so watered down here, anyway. Did you see them blond kids at the stomp dance, the Threadgills? They’re signed up. Roy Booth over here at the gas station, he’s enrolled, and he’s not more than about one two-hundredth. And his kids are. But his wife, she’s a quarter, but she’s real Methodist, so she don’t want to sign up. It’s no big thing. Being Cherokee is more or less a mind-set.”
“Well, maybe I have the wrong mind-set. What if I’m just doing it to get something I want?”
“Honey, the most you’re ever going to get out of the Nation is a new roof, money-wise, and you might have to wait so long you’ll go ahead and fix it yourself. There’s the hospitals and stuff, but nobody’s going to grudge you that.
They’ll collect from your insurance if you have it, no matter who you are.”
“1902 to 1905,” she reads. She straightens her glasses, licks her thumb, and begins to page through it.
“Are you sure we ought to be doing this?”
Sugar looks up at Alice over her glasses. “I swear, Alice, I don’t know what’s become of you. You used to make me sneak out to the beer joints on a double dog dare, and now you’re scared of your shadow doing just a ordinary everyday thing.”
“I don’t want to break any rules.”
“For heaven’s sake, sit down here and look. This isn’t nothing in the world but a long list of names. People that was living here and got allotments between certain years.”
Alice sits down and scoots her chair toward Sugar, who is holding her chin high so she can see the small print through the bottom window of her bifocals. She looks like a proud little bird with a forties hairdo.
“I’m just going to show you your grandma’s name. She’s not going to reach out of the grave and tickle your feet.”
“She might, if she knew I was trying to cheat the Cherokees.”
“Alice Faye, you’re not cheating.”
Alice gets up and moves restlessly around the room, leaving Sugar to her search through the roll book. “What’s this?” she asks, holding up a yellowed, antique-looking newspaper covered with strange curlicues.
Sugar looks up over her glasses. “The Cherokee Advocate.
That’s old, they don’t run it anymore. That’s what the writing looks like for the Cherokee. It’s pretty, isn’t it? I never did learn to read it. Roscoe does.”
Alice studies the headlines, trying to connect their cursive roundness with the soft guttural voices she heard at the stomp dance. “They had their own paper?”
“Land, yes,” Sugar says, without looking up again from her book. “It was the first newspaper in Oklahoma. The Cherokees got things all organized out here while everybody else was cowboys eating with their jackknifes, Roscoe tells me. Them big old brick buildings we passed by in Tahlequah this morning? That was the Cherokee capitol. Oh, look, here she is, right here.” She motions Alice over, holding down Grandmother Stamper under her fingertip. “Write down this enrollment number: 25844.”
Alice digs in her purse for a pencil, licks the end of it, and dutifully records this number in her address book under the
“Z’s,” since it seems unlikely she’ll ever get close to anyone whose last name starts with a Z. For that matter, the whole address book is pretty much blank, except for three pages of crossed-out numbers for Taylor.
“Now all you’ve got to do is prove you’re descended from her. Having the birth certificate is the best, but she didn’t have one. What we did, when Roscoe helped me do this, was we writ to the records office down in Mississippi and we got the record of where she was drownded at. And then we just took that on down to the tribal recorder’s office and explained how she was my grandma, and that was that. I think I showed them some family pictures and stuff. They’re pretty understanding.”
Alice stares at the book of names. She can’t put a finger on who, exactly, she feels she’s cheating. All the people on the list, to begin with, and the fact they are dead doesn’t help. She wishes Sugar hadn’t mentioned the business of coming out of graves and tickling feet. “It doesn’t feel right to me,” she says. “I always knew we were some little part Indian, but I never really thought it was blood enough to sign up.”
“It don’t have to be more than a drop. We’re all so watered down here, anyway. Did you see them blond kids at the stomp dance, the Threadgills? They’re signed up. Roy Booth over here at the gas station, he’s enrolled, and he’s not more than about one two-hundredth. And his kids are. But his wife, she’s a quarter, but she’s real Methodist, so she don’t want to sign up. It’s no big thing. Being Cherokee is more or less a mind-set.”
“Well, maybe I have the wrong mind-set. What if I’m just doing it to get something I want?”
“Honey, the most you’re ever going to get out of the Nation is a new roof, money-wise, and you might have to wait so long you’ll go ahead and fix it yourself. There’s the hospitals and stuff, but nobody’s going to grudge you that.
They’ll collect from your insurance if you have it, no matter who you are.”
