When My Brother Was an Aztec Read Free Page B

World

    What if Eve was an Indian
    & Adam was never kneaded
    from the earth, Eve
was
Earth
    & ribs were her idea all along?

    What if Mary was an Indian
    & when Gabriel visited her wigwam
    she was away at a monthly WIC clinic
    receiving eggs, boxed cheese
    & peanut butter instead of Jesus?

    What if God was an Indian
    with turquoise wings & coral breasts
    who invented a game called White Man Chess
    played on silver boards with all white pieces
    pawns & kings & only one side, the white side
    & the more they won the more they were beaten?

    What if the world was an Indian
    whose head & back were flat from being strapped
    to a cradleboard as a baby & when she slept
    she had nightmares lit up by yellow-haired men & ships
    scraping anchors in her throat? What if she wailed
    all night while great waves rose up carrying the fleets
    across her flat back, over the edge of the flat world?

The Last Mojave Indian Barbie

    Wired to her display box were a pair of one-size-fits-all-Indians stiletto moccasins, faux turquoise earrings, a dream catcher, a copy of
Indian Country Today,
erasable markers for chin and forehead tattoos, and two six-packs of mini magic beer bottles—when tilted up, the bottles turned clear, when turned right-side-up, the bottles refilled. Mojave Barbie repeatedly drank Ken and Skipper under their pink plastic patio table sets. Skipper said she drank like a boy.

    Mojave Barbie secretly hated the color of her new friends’ apricot skins, how they burned after riding in Ken’s convertible Camaro with the top down, hated how their micro hairbrushes tangled and knotted in her own thick, black hair, which they always wanted to braid. There wasn’t any diet cola in their cute little ice chests, and worst of all, Mojave Barbie couldn’t find a single soft spot on her body to inject her insulin. It had taken years of court cases, litigation, letters from tribal council members, testimonials from CHR nurses, and a few diabetic comas just to receive permission to buy the never-released hypodermic needle accessory kit—before that, she’d bought most on the Japanese black market—Mattel didn’t like toying around with the possibility of a Junkie Barbie.

    Mojave Barbie had been banned from the horse stables and was no longer invited to dinner, not since she let it slip that when the cavalry came to Fort Mojave, the Mojaves ate a few horses. It had happened, and she only let it slip after Skipper tried to force her to admit the Mojave Creation was just a myth:
It’s true. I’m from
Spirit Mountain,
Mojave Barbie had said.
No, you’re not,
Skipper had argued.
You came from Asia.
But Mojave Barbie wasn’t missing much—they didn’t have lazy man’s bread or tortillas in the Barbie Stovetop to Tabletop Deluxe Kitchen. In fact, they only had abreakfast set, so they ate the same two sunny-side-up eggs and pancakes every meal.

    Each night after dinner, Mojave Barbie sneaked from the guesthouse—next to the tennis courts and Hairtastic Salon—to rendezvous with Ken, sometimes in the collapsible Glamour Camper, but most often in the Dream Pool. She would
yenni
Ken all night long. (
Yenni
was the Mojave word for sex, explained a culturally informative booklet included in Mojave Barbie’s box, along with an authentic frybread recipe, her Certificate of Indian Blood, a casino player’s card, and a voided per capita check.) They took precautions to prevent waking others inside the Dream House—Mojave Barbie’s tan webbed hand covering Ken’s always- open mouth muffled his ejaculations.

    One night, after drinking a pint of Black Velvet disguised as a bottle of suntan lotion, Ken felt especially playful. Ken was wild, wanted to sport his plastic Stetson and pleather holsters, wanted Mojave Barbie to wear her traditional outfit, still twist-tied to her box. She agreed and donned her mesquite-bark skirt and went shirtless except for strands of blue