[This is a work of fiction, written for fun and not for profit. All DC Comics-related characters are copyrighted by DC Comics; all rights reserved and no permission was granted to use them. This work may not be reprinted without the written consent of the author and must include this disclaimer.]
Shivering for more than two hours in the unseasonably windy afternoon air, I'd been standing there outside of that quaint red and white symbol of bygone-days westward-ho travel: The Harvey House restaurant in Barstow, California. I'd been down the street nearer to the freeway entrance with my thumb stuck out since a 'titch after sunrise, hoping to find someone kind enough to let a young desert traveler hitch a ride up the I-15 and out to the 40 with them. A jeep-load of Jar-heads from the local military intelligence base had spent the better part of an hour circling around me, screaming "Get a haircut, you little faggot!" and other standard-issue hate slogans, so I had retreated into the parking lot of the restaurant for protection. I knew if I could get a ride up to the 40 I could retrace my trip from my old desert stomping-grounds; figured I'd have to do those last few dusty road miles on foot, but I didn't much care. It's what was at the end of the journey that mattered.
Red and white---guess that pretty much describes me, too. "The Strawberry Shortcake Boy---red on the inside, white on the outside" is how the kids teased me when I first arrived at Star City High School three years ago, having just moved out west to start life with my new guardian. I was green, dumb and F.O.R. --- "Fresh Off the Reservation," and they never let me forget it, 'cept for the few kids who started to suck up to me 'cause of my ultra-wealthy mentor. To this day, I still can't decide which kind of treatment I hated more. I quickly became a self-imposed mute, only speaking when forced to by one of my teachers, and I kept my mouth shut and absorbed their speech patterns, their slang and their culture both good and bad until I was comfortable enough in it to fool even one of their own. Then I made like I was too hip to hang with them, though the opposite of that was more the truth. No matter what, I never forgot who I was and where I'd come from, and now I've got to get back to the place I used to call home, the place where I can heal from those hard lessons in alienation I learned in the city.
My aching thumb and tired feet were finally given solace from two gentle souls by the names of Edna and Fred Moore of St. Louis, Missouri, who, now in their retirement years, were out to conquer America via the sand-blasted, air conditioned comfort of their vacation sticker-plastered motor home. The Moores were returning from the promised land---that fairy tale amusement park down in Anaheim I'd once visited with a pal of mine from Gotham City. Having seen the center of their souvenir-collecting universe, they were heading back across the mountains which segment Southern California and shelter sleepy places like Barstow from all points east, from the haunted, dry salt beds which line the highway, from the twin sisters of sin at Stateline and Las Vegas, and from the rust-colored painted monuments which loom far beyond her southeastern border.
"Where you headed, Sugar?" Edna had asked me, while the portly, graying Fred quickly tucked away his wallet as he exited the steak house behind his wife. Couldn't blame him for that 'cause I looked like something the cat barfed up; two weeks of detoxing after a three year bout with everything from pot to cocaine to heroin will do that to you. My bruised cheek and fading black eye---the results of being thrashed by my guardian---sure didn't do anything to enhance my appearance either. Luckily for me, my hollow-looking cheeks and emaciated frame must have wormed quickly away at the heart of this kindly mother of four grown, successful children. While Fred shooed and shshshshsh'd her, admonishing her to "...just get in the car, Edna," she walked over to me and tapped my shoulder, using a chubby brown finger to brush strands of my long, stringy, red-penny hair out of the way. "Got no business hitch-hikin' at his age, Edna! Don't encourage him!" Fred yelled, "Looks like he's thirteen!" "Sixteen, sir," I answered him with my head bowed, and added, looking over my shoulder at Edna, "I'm trying to get to Flagstaff, ma'am. I need to get back home to..." "Well WE'RE headed out that way, and you shouldn't be out here in the cold. We have to pass through Flagstaff; you can ride with us!" And with that she grabbed my arm and pushed me into the cab of the RV, right next to the agitated Fred, and then climbed in next to me, slamming the door shut for good measure.
"We're good, God-fearing senior citizens, boy, and that there is a CB radio. Any trouble out of you and the Smokies'll be on us faster'n a coyote on a ailing hare! Ya' hear me?" "Yes'sir," I said apologetically, adjusting my near-empty back pack in my lap and righting the sepia-colored band tied around my head. "Ignore him, honey; he's just grumpy, that's all. He's been asleep most of the day while I took a turn at driving, and now he's mad 'cause it's his turn at the wheel, plus they got his steak too well done at the restaurant. All that and the waitress acted like she ain't never seen black people before. Oh well---takes all kinds to make the world, you know, that's what I say. What's your name, son?" "It's...Roy, Ma'am, Roy Harper...but back home they call me 'Lost Arrow..."
On and on we shimmied down the highway, Memphis blues quietly playing on the cassette deck hour after hour, Fred tapping calmly away in time on the steering wheel while Edna just as softly snored away, finally tired from telling me about each one of her nine grandchildren and about how she'd met Fred in her giddy teenage girl days at a sock hop---whatever that is---and about life as a child during wartime and all. It had done her good to have fresh young ears to bounce the trials and joys of her life off of, and it had done me good to hear that for some people the world could be a normal and happy place in which giant robots did not wreak havoc on a daily basis. It was even more refreshing for me to find that families could really be like the ones on TV, with loving, caring parents and well-nurtured children. Maybe if I'd been brought up by people like the Moores I wouldn't be on this vision quest to repair the damage I've done to my body and my mind. My life in California has destroyed me, or, better put, I destroyed myself because of my life there. I lived in a world of costumed heroes, people who can save the world but can't find ten minutes to talk to the kids they are supposedly "raising," to listen to their problems or to help with their schoolwork. Maybe these folks are the real heroes---the ones who keep the world going twenty-four hours a day by working hard and caring for their children. They seek truth and justice for themselves and their families in the simple act of living with dignity and hope for the future. It's a never-ending battle for which they don't have to be "faster than a speeding bullet" to accomplish their deeds of valor, which are often seen in the forms of a good report card, a graduation march or in comforting the cries of a new-born grandchild.
"Where do your folks live in Flagstaff?" Fred probed, turning the volume dial down a notch or two. "I don't have....I mean...I'm not from there..." I mumbled, trying both not to reveal anything that would cause him to want to alert Children's Protective Services or wake Edna from her nap. "The 40 will take me up to Northeastern Arizona; that's home..." "Ain't nothin' up that way 'cept Indian reservations. Says so right there on the map," and he tapped his Auto Club road map to emphasize this truth. "You from up there?" "Yes'sir, from up on the Navajo Nation." "Is that right?" Fred shook his head and took a long, long look at me through narrowed eyes. "Well ain't that something. My Grand-daddy was a Buffalo Soldier---you know about them, son?" "Yes'sir, I sure do!" I piped up happily, "I met some of them at the Rodeo Days roundup a few years back. They bring pictures from their history with them and teach people about their traditions, but I knew of them before that. The old ones of our tribe always spoke of them as being honorable warriors, great horsemen and the only soldiers they trusted to be fair." With that, Fred smiled with pride and sat comfortably back in his seat, taking a moment to give me a gentle but firm pat on the knee, saying "Well if that don't beat all..."
We got off the 40 in Flagstaff, with Fred having me check his AAA guide to find a filling station with a propane pump, and it was there we were to part company. Before they left, Edna had given me money to take into the little convenience store at the station, along with a short list of items she needed: one four-pack of easy-open canned lunch snack cling peaches, two turkey sandwiches ("...be sure they have some lettuce on them,") she had scribbled, a 32 ounce bottle of drinking water, a sun visor and a box of animal crackers. I was to give the man $30.00 for gas pump number four, $10.00 for the propane and then to do her shopping. I came back to the pump and filled the tank while Fred dealt with the propane fuel and Edna went "...to visit the little girls' lounge," which, from the outside, looked more like it was used by truckers named "Bubba" on a regular basis. Once the tanks were loaded and the change from shopping accounted for, Edna and I exchanged embraces and she handed me my back pack, which was now suddenly...but not surprisingly...much heavier than it had been hours ago.
"Can't have you roaming around the state all dehydrated and hungry; what would your people think of us?" she asked, fussing with my hair. "Don't like leaving you out here by yourself. You take my advise and get over there to that blue building across the way, you hear? And do it now." "You better listen to her, son; she ain't the kind to be argued with," Fred chimed in, patting my shoulder. "Why? What's in that building?" I asked rather timidly, squinting in the glaring sun to get a look at it. "A ticket with your name on it, Lost Arrow," Edna said, waggling her finger at me, "and the Greyhound Bus ain't gonna wait on you---so GET!" With tears running down my face, I hugged them both as hard as I could, said a fast goodbye to my benefactors and ran across the street to get my ticket and board the bus. Through the dingy sliding window, I watched their coach as it drove away and prayed for their safe journey home, sticking in a quick prayer for my own as the bus loudly lurched to life and began its trip up the highway.
Red mesas and sun-drenched clay and sand stretch out before me from as far as my eyes can see. Orange sunsets mirrored in gold-lined clouds give way to a violet twilight creating purple blankets for miles into the distance. And then...then the spirits of the ancestors begin to glow in the skies above, shining down, constant and patient, as they guard the dreams of their children. The last time I had traveled this dusty desert trail I was headed in the other direction, headed south and then west to California. I watch the skies and pray the ancient ones are watching over me, just as I did on that night three years ago as the lights of the convertible sports car guided our drive along the road which leads away from Window Rock---the center of my Navajo universe---away from Oljato, away from Arizona...my boyhood home.
The southwesterly drive along the hot desert highway had promised to be a long one, making for lots of time to look back on what had led me to such a major change in my life. On that warm and windy evening, the sorrow of leaving my desert home was almost equally matched by the thrill of sitting in a car next to Oliver Queen, the ultra-rich playboy who, at times, dressed up as Robin Hood and patrolled the streets of Star City, California, as my hero, The Green Arrow. I'd followed his exploits for months in the newspapers and magazines the missionaries' kids brought with them to our school. Being an archer myself from the time I was old enough to wrap a fist around a bow's hand-grip, I was fascinated both by the urban legends surrounding this man's crusade against crime and the fact that anyone could be as good a shot as he'd been touted to be.
"Well, well, if you aren't the most quiet little customer..." Oliver said, squinting slightly at the oncoming headlights of the only car we'd seen for thirty miles. "You can't be homesick already; we only just left the reservation." I didn't look his way; I didn't want my hero and new senior partner in the law and order firm of "The Green Arrow and Speedy" to see me crying. I'd learned by then that boys aren't supposed to cry, but I'd sure done my share of it over those last few months I'd spent with the Tachini band, ever since my brothers and sisters on the reservation began to treat me as if I'd just newly arrived from Planet X. I wasn't sure what I'd done wrong, but I was sure of one thing: I was no longer wanted there and had nowhere else to go. And then, just like Errol Flynn in the movies, The Green Arrow arrived to rescue me.
Trying to make conversation, my new friend whistled loudly, saying, "Amazing amount of undeveloped land you fellas have out this way. What this place needs is some venture capital funding. I'll have to have my man, Widdershins, look into land rights and usage out here, though I can see already I'd have to call in a favor with the highway boys and a state official or two to get a project going this far out of the way. This is about the most barren area on God's Green Earth...no spas, no malls, no restaurants---man, what a place to live. Not fit for anything but coyotes and jack rabbits. Any wonder the gee-dang government conveniently saw fit to give it back to those poor bastard Indians." He had to speak of property in such terms, of course, being an extremely wealthy businessman and financier who, at that time, owned more properties and corporations than any single investment firm or bank could handle. Still, his remarks made my blood boil.
There are no curse words in the Bizzad, the language of my...of the Navajo people, the Diné, but if there had been any I probably would have been saying them under my breath. I rolled my eyes and made sure to shield this action from his view. Even at the age of thirteen, I knew that "undeveloped land" to someone like Ollie---as he almost immediately allowed me to call him---meant destroying the natural beauty of the landscape just to deposit a factory outlet mall on it. Sure, it gives a few people jobs, but it also strips away more of their heritage at the same time, though when you're the parent of a hungry kid, scenery don't mean squat. Some of the Naat'aani, the tribal chiefs, had been considering something like an outlet mall or one of those Indian gaming casinos in an effort to bring in some money to our...their reservation. Many of the Sani Thlani, the elders, are against such schemes, saying that this would rob the people of their culture and bring in too many strangers. On the other side of the issue, the young people desperately need the jobs businesses would bring because otherwise they'll move on to the cities and never come home to visit or help out. It was figured that maybe a casino would be the only way to help the tribe survive financially, and it's pretty hard to argue against something like that when faced with kids with little chance of a decent education or no hope of work in their future unless they travel many miles from home. That situation was no longer to be my future, though my own destiny has an equal air of uncertainty.
As I sat there thinking about my former home, a lump formed in my throat; it would have been tough to respond to Oliver even if I'd wanted to. So much had happened to me in the weeks before meeting him, some of it being of near-monumental proportions––'cause for me, the thought of being uprooted was the worst thing in life. I'd always lived on the reservation...well, almost always. Before I was two...before my father died...I lived nearby the Tachini in a small combination office and living quarters provided by the US Forestry Service, or so I've been told. My father, Roy William Harper, Sr., was a ranger assigned to the wooded reserves lining the Oljato River Valley. One night in October, just weeks before my second birthday, an inferno ignited the trees; the old ones of the tribe still call it "The Day Of Great Fire." Apparently some jerks on a poaching excursion started an illegal campfire and lost control of it. They took off and left the trees to burn and, in the process, destroyed countless lives. What did they care? After all, there was only the reservation near by, and who cared about trees and Indians anyway...?
My dad cared, and many of the Tachini liked him in a way they'd never warmed up to a "bela gona"---a white man---before. Unlike his predecessors who had preferred to keep their distance, this friendly ranger often came down from his perch high in the trees and, with his long sturdy legs, strode the two miles down the road to visit the reservation on a regular basis. He brought with him any food staples or medical supplies that might have been mentioned to be of need during his previous visit, as well as any comic strips he'd saved from the newspapers for the children there. During my years growing up on the reservation, I was told that my dad had made many good friends among the tribe, with the Diné Chief of War calling him "Belican Nez," meaning, "the tall American." Those who had embraced his friendship told me he had a big, hearty laugh and use to ride his chubby little flame-haired toddler high up on his square shoulders as he rambled through the trees. I've always wished I had independent memories of him, but all that I would ever know of him was snuffed out on that horrible night with the inferno that consumed our home and everything in it, hundreds of trees, several posts, gates and fences, three horses, five goats, hundreds of plants, birds, rabbits and squirrels...and my father. On the night of that fire, I had been too young to feel the horror of being orphaned, but as my eyes scanned the dusty highway and Ollie and I drove away from my father's beloved forest on that fateful evening, I understood that sense of being all alone in the world far too well.
"If you're too warm, I can put up the hood and punch the AC, kiddo," said my big, blonde idol. He took a hand off the wheel and unfastened the top three buttons on his shirt, revealing his burly, blondish-brown chest hairs; this looked so strange to me, since few Native American men have that kind of body hair, and none that I knew of in the Tachini band. "Sure gets hot out here. I don't know how you people can stand it; you must run fans and air conditioning all day and half the night!" I looked up at the road, not at him, and stated dryly, "We don't have electricity in the hogan; nothin' wired for that 'cept over at the souvenir shop where I work, the farmer's co-op and the feed and grain store." I forced a smile at him, not wanting him to feel silly for having said what he did, but out of the corner of my eye I saw him grimace, as if he'd put a foot wrong for the hundredth time of our short relationship---and he had, of course. It had become a quickly-established habit of his, though not a willing one, to compare his affluent life to my own impoverished one, but only because money and all of its affectations were simply second nature to him. He just "assumed" that everyone had everything they needed or wanted and had a butler to bring it, as if the harsh reality of life on the reservation was a game that certain people played to be "close to the land." For me, even as a kid it was not a matter of fun and games---it was a matter of survival, and I, like everyone else, had chores to do to insure the survival of the Diné.
"Doesn't seem right that a thirteen year old kid has a job," Ollie said, shaking his head. "Heck, at my age even I don't have a job---well, not beyond glorified pencil-pushing. How come they made you work back there?" "Everyone has to pitch in to keep things goin', Mister...errrr, Ollie. We all work real hard; it's the way of things---otherwise we'd all go hungry. I have...I had a lot of little jobs too, 'cause Brave Bow has had to see the doctor a lot and I always help with payin' for medicine and clinic bills and stuff like that. Sure nice of you to say you'd help him out now that I won't be there, sir. It'll mean a lot to him. Guess some of the other's'll really miss me, though, 'cause of the stuff I used to do. At the souvenir store, I stacked the shelves and swept up when we closed at night. I used to help out glazing pottery and fixing looms for some extra change, too. Folks knew why I needed money, so most anyone who needed a hand used to ask me if I wanted to make a couple of dollars, you know? But that wasn't my main job..."
"Ok, kid, I'll bite---what was your main job?" Ollie asked me, grinning ear to ear. "They didn't make you play Cupid delivering singing telegrams with your bow and arrow, did they?" "Huh?" My scrunched up face had Ollie in stitches; I had guessed by then we two would go through a lot of this as I worked at making my English better and learned more pop culture references. "No, sir...I'm a goat herd by trade. Guess that's what I really do best, 'cept for shootin' arrows. I learned herding off of one of the chief's sons, Two Bears. He went away to animal husbandry school, all the way back East. Nobody from our band ever done that before," I told him. "Did," Ollie corrected me, his cheeks red from alternately laughing and smirking at me. "Don't say 'ever done;' say 'ever did.'" "Oh...I guess I'll never get it right. Talking in English all the time is hard; better to speak the Diné Bizzad---it makes more sense." "Better get used to it, kiddo; English is just about all we speak way out West," he said assuredly, winking at me. "Oh...and the buckskin jacket is a definite no-no," he waggled a finger at me, "'cause the animal rights activists on the main drag are gonna tear a new hole in you if they see that!" "Oh great," I thought, resigning myself to the inevitable, "Just what I needed---more adjustments!"
My life has always been one long series of adjustments. Growing up among the Tachini band had been pretty rough for me at times, mainly after my eleventh birthday when I began to lose my baby-like appearance and took on the look of a tall, lean preteen. People could laugh off a little pale-faced kid playing at being an Indian when he didn't know any better; it was another thing to watch that kid turn into the personification of the threatening white man living among them and being part of their daily lives. Sometimes I was looked upon as if I were a spy for the Bureau Of Indian Affairs, the county Sheriff's Department or some other organization easily as threatening. I never really had any close friends except for one or two girls who lived near by us in their family's hogan---one of our traditional six-sided wooden dwellings. They didn't seem to mind talking to me, and I was grateful for their attention, especially on days when no one else had a word to say to me. Navajo men still have a lot of taboos about females and their role within the clan, so I didn't win any points on the "macho-meter" for hanging out with girls. No complaints from me about that, though. I like girls...a lot.
Being the only white kid around with no immediately accessible reason for a stranger to know why I lived there always made for awkward moments, and, in many cases, bouts of staring and giggling, particularly from the tourists who came to the area to visit the souvenir stands where I helped out. I'd figured that Ollie, too, would have more awkward questions about me, just as other bela gonas always did. He'd stared at me a few times as if about to ask me more about my life, but then he'd squirm with embarrassment and shift to minding the road before uttering a word, visibly miffed at himself for not finding the right words for the moment. Just as well; my past reads like a whacked-out dime store novel. Still, I idolized this man and would have answered any questions he'd asked. I knew I would adore him from the time I began to read about him, one of the few things for which I could thank the kids at school.
Those kids weren't ever very friendly to me and rarely did any of them speak to me; guess they figured I was pretty freaky: a red-headed white kid in tattered and patched t-shirts, jeans or buckskins who lived on a Navajo reservation with the hataali---the tribal medicine man. Guess things can't get much stranger than that. Lucky for me, one of the boys in my class took pity on me, with my artwork being the icebreaker. Since I had no money and couldn't afford frivolous things like magazines, a boy named Roberto who sat near me in class was nice enough to save articles for me on "The Archer," as my stern, disapproving guardian, Brave Bow, referred to Green Arrow. I saved every one of those bits of paper as if they were proof of a fantasy come true, and I kept them and the drawings I'd done of my hero in a makeshift scrapbook. Brave Bow didn't like that, saying it was being disrespectful to "real" heroes, especially his hero---my father---for, after all, it was my father who had saved his life in that horrible fire years ago. Fine for him, but I've never had "memories" of my dad that BB didn't give to me. For me, the archer in green was as vivid a hero as the tall, red-haired white man Brave Bow told me stories of, the man of whom I had no recall. As he spoke of my father, in my mind I always pictured Green Arrow. And suddenly, on that night, the vision magically became flesh and blood to me; I could reach out and touch the man I dreamed of as my father.
|
|