Creative Writing & Literature

Self Divulgence in Green Country

by Noah Walker Bogatko

Back in my pissing grounds I was. I don’t like to refer to it that way, but for the majority of my lifetime it was just that; relieving myself on the Christ’s-crown-like foliage of wild blackberries whenever I felt like it. It was humid, warm, and rainy, just how I’d always remembered it. It in fact was Oklahoma. The place where the proper red-blooded South collides with the barrenness and breathlessness of the southwest, or what many refer to as the Suburbs of Texas. Sometimes I like to refer to it as Diet Texas, just to mess with people who know little about the place, or to humble those many Oklahomans who hate Texas for superficial reasons.

Next to New Mexico, it’s one of my favorite places upon the salted-face of this planet. Being there revitalizes my spirit, and not like how a menthol cigarette or Bang Energy does, no, it fixes me to some people I’ve known since before my brain could collect memories, and brings me closer to those whom I often find myself fundamentally disagreeing with, but ultimately share the strip of my veins with. Perhaps primally I feel more at home there than I ever did in New Mexico. Sitting on the second-hand sofa belonging to my old family friends’ household (that of the Wilmanns’) and listening to instinctively familiar voices speak about largely harmless or good-in-nature issues brings me closer to home than I ever have been.

Recently I trucked the ten-hour journey on an empty stomach and under the influence of synthetic caffeine. These two factors have been my traveling tradition since the age of twelve, and they’ve never done me wrong. Spending my nights on my Giddee’s couch (that’s Lebanese for Grandfather), and ripping off my semi-bedazzled belt and slipping off my boots never feels any better on the first night unless these conditions are met. As I walked up to his garage door and tapped in the four-digit code, 1936, I heard the chorus of tree frogs coming from the greenery all around me, and that felt good. Entering the home at 11 p.m., my parents and I were met by my Siddee (Lebanese for Grandmother) who wasn’t up to snuff as they say over there. She had had no sleep in the past forty-eight hours for the same reason we’d traveled all that way; Giddee was held up in the hospital for congestive heart failure. To cut to the chase, he’s fine, no, resilient, and his only problem is his diet that awfully abridges that of a healthy diabetic’s regiment. But his little unintentional stunt raised a whole lot of familial stress and other largely needless hand-wringing.

This all caused me to be temporarily misplaced out there, and I came to a lot of personally innate realizations there way out east. I’m a man of nature, as many people have zealously referred to me as, and this same setting was the place where many of these realizations were come upon. In a way I tried to replicate the setting of my more rural Broken Arrow childhood; creeks full of bullfrog tadpoles, brier patches impossible to traverse, roadside drainage ditches full of bass and cigarette butts, etc. Yet this proved to be difficult, as I was largely confined to a gated-in chunk of cookie-cutter suburbia. But I ended up making do with what I was given, and that was a pond dyed Powerade blue full of sunfish, an old crappy Walmart fishing rod, and a little hill with a line of dying desert cypresses on it that I used for thinking. For me it was heaven.

Though I didn’t catch a singular one of those baitfish on my first crack at it, I had a hell of a time. And that hill had a good view of the neighborhood where a few of my cousins live and where my great-great-aunt passed away from MERSA at the age of 92. I had hours upon hours to myself and observed how some of my extended relatives that would pass on through the house every once in a while for a check-up on the old man conducted their lives. I got to passively thinking about this, and observed them to be happy sons-a-bitches. While I was fishing away I just ruminated on this: they’d always been this extra-content with life. Indeed, they had, at least for as long as I could remember. One of my cousins ended up becoming a medical-marijuana salesman, and that dude is just happy to take gummies and go semi-illegally snag bass in upper-class residential ponds. I had to retrieve this general Oklahoman gratuity for life.

I went on with my beau-beau’s spiritual retreat for happiness by further pursuing those things that can make a man feel full. One morning I spent my time standing in the warm-misty rainfalls of a front blown in from the Caribbean, and I listened to that soft breeze collide with the needles of some nearby tall loblolly pines; a tree you really only find in lands below the Mason-Dixon Line. I almost felt indifferent to the muddy-soil beneath my boots, or those worms and earth snakes that tunneled on in that dirt. I was on the right track. I was in a Southern Baptist’s rendition of the therapist’s appropriated Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction.

I believe it to be around this time that I uncovered the truth that you really don’t have to overthink life to get a lot out of it; there is no code that needs to be punched in like a garage’s key in order to get to the spoils of life, which could be as simple as constructing a smokehouse with your neighbor a safe distance away from your wife’s wooden she-shed. As I alluded to before, this realization was and has always been innate within me, I’ve known it since before I could use words, but being back in my pissing-ground element and seeing how my relatives conduct their lives happily and simply just dragged me back into that perspective.

My last night within my homeland entailed me getting rescued from that maximum-security neighborhood by an old friend; perhaps the first true friend I have ever made. I’d known him since I was four years old, and despite not seeing him for nearing two years it was as if our dynamics had resumed how they had been when we were nine-year-olds and back in the same third-grade class in Catholic school. He took me to his old oil-boom era house and I asked him about how things were going in his life (they are going pretty well, he’s on the varsity football team of his school), and he asked me about how things were going with my life (indeed one very different to his.) We didn’t smoke cigarettes, eat any edibles, or drink any beers. We were only more than content with viewing life through the eyes of sober teenagers.

Nearing the end of the night he asked me if I wanted to go see the nearby town I used to live in for a good chunk of my life, and I obliged. We drove some fifteen minutes through outlet mall territory to get into my old neighborhood, and once there I pointed out the old houses of myself, my uncle, grandmother, and second cousin (we all used to live real close to one another because that’s how it was on our farm.) Nobody related to me lives there anymore. Eventually we sat on some swings in a nearby park and just listened to some crappy new-age country music. We continued talking about positive happenings in our lives, with the chit-chattering of insects and frogs going on in the background, and the warm buzz of a sodium street light buzzing away. Not long after he took me back to my Giddee’s house and I drifted off into a deep sleep, ready to go back to not-far-off New Mexico.

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  A Brief History of Prom

 and Post-Quarantine Prom

by Sarah Peralta

I spend too much of my time imagining life as a movie. When I was younger, I would form sentences in my head, narrating my surroundings or my actions as if I were in a novel. Now, that has shifted to me picturing the world as scenes and thinking about how well songs match those scenes. Sometimes this urge gets overwhelming or annoying¹and I have to pull myself back into reality.

If my life were a movie, more specifically a coming of age narrative or romcom, prom night would have been the climax. In the weeks leading up to it, even the mention of prom would send my mind into a spiral of self doubt. I’m in my junior year but the only other dance I have attended in high school was one in early October² and that had ended with me crying and leaving after barely more than two hours. I felt like a failure for getting overwhelmed at a school dance and figured prom couldn’t possibly go any better. But I also knew that if I didn’t go, I would regret it even more. That would be letting my anxiety win and what’s a movie without a little tension?

School dances seem to be fairly polarizing like this; either people hate them, or they love them. This stereotype is pushed heavily in media, starting in the 80s when many of the classic coming-of-age movies were released. Bitchy-prom-queen, quirky-underdog-who-ends-up-winning, boyfriend-whose-only-personality-is-boyfriend, are common tropes³ in these films. Many of the movies painted prom as a crucial night to every teenager’s life and soon pushed the importance of it into high school culture.

Prom’s roots, however, aren’t even connected to high schools. The dance, shortened from “promenade,” started as social events put together by colleges for their graduating classes in the late 19th century. These gatherings were closer to galas and typically involved dinners more than dancing. After the turn of the century, proms morphed into extravagant tea parties, where they also shifted to a younger audience; highschoolers. This is the first point we see prom as a coming of age ritual where mostly young women, were introduced into society⁴. Then, as Americans started having more disposable incomes and leisure time in the 1950s, proms became large dances where families would spend lots of money on creating a perfect experience for their children.

In general, prom is seen as an occasion where people break out of their typical cliches. Even students who refuse to go to any other school dances or events will go because, well, it’s prom. There is a potential element of anxiety about missing out⁵, with people believing if they don’t go they’ll regret it for the rest of their lives. Much of this stems from the aforementioned surplus of media attention to prom, but at what level does this importance switch from artificial to real?

This has been made even more relevant in recent years when proms had to be canceled due to the pandemic. Suddenly, something that seemed constant, something that seemed promised, was taken away from people. Many highschool students count on being able to attend prom, at least senior year, as a celebration of all they have accomplished. But Covid has made it clear that nothing is too small to take advantage of. Especially because attending prom has come to symbolize a moment of coming of age, the cancellation of them has only magnified their importance.

The 2022 New Mexico School for the Arts prom was a little different than most proms because all four grades were invited to come⁶. This difference is due to the small size of our school⁷ with our student population barely surpassing 300. The small size of prom actually helped me feel more comfortable there, I think a larger dance would have been much more overwhelming. But despite the small size, the venue didn’t feel any less beautiful or formal than any other prom may have been. It still felt special.

By the time we arrived⁸, it was twenty minutes past eight. A line of students trailed out of the doors leading into the concrete building prom was held in. The line poles outside were wrapped with artificial flower garlands. The line moved slowly with ticket check-ins, bag and coat checks, and random breathalyzer tests⁹ clogging up the flow of things. A red piece of paper lined the floor into the dance, our own faux red carpet, where teachers clapped and cheered for students as they entered¹⁰.

Strings of lights hung from the high vaulted ceilings. There was a projector projecting art that was allegedly at the Louvre¹¹. White chairs lined the edges of the dance floor and pop music played on the speakers as a few people danced. Further back, tables were set up in front of an impressive food display¹² and mocktails¹³ created by a teacher who would rather not be named.

Before the night of prom, my friend group had a discussion about mask wearing. We all still wear ours at school but NMSA has been mask option since coming back from spring break in March. We decided to bring them just in case, but the general consensus was masks would be left behind for prom. And it seems like that’s what the rest of the student body decided as well. Many people I know who regularly wear masks at school didn’t wear them for prom¹⁴. It felt like a giant, “why not?”

After a certainly not picture-book high school experience, having such a classic coming of age movie moment felt so normal. It almost felt like the pandemic wasn’t even happening¹⁵.

These moments of levity are important now more than ever, but they also might be part of the reason why prom has stayed so relevant. Senior and junior years are often the hardest, so giving students a night where they can relax and have fun with their friends is something for them to look forward to.

There has already been talk of 2023’s prom, with most people saying they want it to go back to being upperclassmen only, and I have to agree. One of the biggest factors for prom’s importance is its exclusivity. It always has been, not always for the best. Right after schools were desegregated in the 50s, Black students were still not allowed to go to their school proms which led to Black parents throwing their own proms for their children. Or even farther back, when proms were held at colleges where only those affluent enough could attend.

Prom’s significance was virtually faked until it just was important to people. There is no clear reason why it is so important; to me, it seems like we’ve just been told how special it is for so long we’ve started to believe it. Or even more blatantly obvious, maybe people just like to have fun, put on fancy outfits, and dance without thinking about the responsibilities life puts on them. In a world that can seem doomed so often, moments of carefreeness are vital for humans to keep being human¹⁶.

I didn’t hate prom like I thought I would. I might even call it fun if you catch me at the right moment. I was still too nervous to dance, but I can’t say I regretted going even for a second. Getting to wear a pretty dress, seeing my friends¹⁷ all dressed up, watching people I see everyday dancing and laughing, was well worth it. It wasn’t a movie, and I don’t think I changed as a person from that night. I didn’t suddenly discover I wanted different friends or decide I didn’t want to live a life of solitude anymore. I am still me. Prom stops being fun when we start pressuring it to be something it’s not. Maybe prom doesn’t have to be a night of change like we’ve been told to be fun. Maybe it’s just fun to put on a dress.

 

¹ I have on occasion been sobbing, only for my brain to turn my thoughts into poetry lines that get stuck in my head, which only furthers my distress.

² And before that, the last dance I had gone to was one in fifth grade.

³ Another big one is the transformation montage.

⁴ Similar to debutante balls or quinceañeras.

⁵ This is sometimes referred to as FOMO, which is one of the nastiest abbreviations ever so I will not use it, but technically it gets the point across so it is relevant.

⁶ Additionally, guests from outside schools could come as long as they had the right forms.

⁷ And also because the prom council wanted to make as much money as possible.

⁸ I went with my friend group of five people, including my girlfriend, and one person who goes to another school.

⁹ Breathalyzers check for levels of alcohol content in a person’s breath, but alcohol isn’t usually NMSA students’ drug of choice. Basically they were useless.

¹⁰This was my least favorite part.

¹¹ The theme for our prom was “Night at the Louvre,” though I can say with certainty Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” is actually at the MoMA, contrary to the excessively themed decorations of the aforementioned piece.

¹² I had three chocolate covered strawberries. They were very good.

¹³ These were not good.

¹⁴ In total that night I probably saw three people wearing masks and most of them took them off by the end.

¹⁵ Which may not have been the case for some of the kids there who were/are more affected than I am personally.

¹⁶ Maybe that is too far of a stretch, but it’s the one I am leaving you with.

¹⁷ And girlfriend.

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Scripture: A Father After Death

by Jesse Begay

The youngest of three brothers, Sheradiin, a junior in high school, wears her house key on a strip of yarn that doubles as fuel for string games in the winter. One of her first date questions is, “Do you love your parents?” And until this past month, after they met the parents, she would ask, “Is your daddy anything like mine?”

And as her father Frank lay dying, Sheradiin offered up the prospect of hospice care, Frank said, “You’re no better than me if you do that. If you send me out to die like fucking cattle.”

His oldest son (affectionately) nicknamed Squishy smiled and answered, “That’s not true. I’m actually worse than you.”

* * *

During Frank’s eulogies, the youngest son Seneca leaned over to whisper, “This is a load of barnacles,” as Frank’s now-widowed wife Maria lamented ‘the unmatched loss of life’ that had rocked their hobbled together family.

The entire service, he had kept a musty, moth-eaten tie wound over his forehead. He said it made him feel like, “a real Indian,” and the looks he got from Frank’s two (white) sons were only a bonus.

The second youngest brother Carl Jr (or, as his family calls him, Carl 2.0), paid for the funeral. The primary breadwinner since his father’s death, he had saved up a modest amount from his BIA job, which also meant the service was devoid of neighbors and friends. No one wanted to be caught dead rubbing elbows with, “that wanna-be white boy,” who worked for the detested and useless Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Even if they had Frank in their delivery rooms – the only white not-doctor in the Indian Health Services’ hospitals, he was dead now. Native funerals often have around forty to fifty people in attendance. It’s a tight-knit town and no one else got themselves all sweetly done up for Christmas dinners at the local church, playing Santa Claus, let their beard get yanked on, gave such moving sermons, and let anyone clawing through the first few weeks of sobriety crash on their couch, did they?

Frank did. But only twelve people had shown up to his funeral. His wife, his children, and a few folks found at the very beginning of his address book, tugging at their collars and gone before the big meals were served.

And yet Maria dabbed at her eyes and shuffled around the room, murmuring to his two disowned biological children, and scolding his other children, who were not showing the right amount of grief.

Frank had three children of his own – two sons, who were in attendance and did not speak to anyone but Maria, and a daughter who he had not seen or spoken to in eight years and four foster children – Sheradiin, Seneca, Carl 2.0, and Squishy.

Sheradiin and Squishy spent most of the service bent over Squishy’s phone, sharing a pair of earbuds so they could watch Spongebob.

Then, they went home and got high.

* * *

Before he died, Frank wrote letters to each child.

Squishy’s is a crumpled ball, tucked at the very back of his nightstand. Parts of it are stained with Dr. Pepper where Squishy had let it leak from the two liter bottles he keeps in his bedroom. Downright unreadable. In it, he explains that he wanted to adopt Squishy, that – “You’re not just like a son to me. You are more of a son than the ones I popped out before. You and your mother and your siblings kept me from a very bad place.”

In the next paragraph – “I never wanted to hurt any of you. But the only way you would ever listen is if I was screaming my godam lungs out. You’re the only one of them who’s starting to get I did what I had to do to keep our family together.”

Squishy even offers to give it to me. Of it, he says only, “Why the hell would I want it?”

* * *

Seneca’s is kept in a sheet protector, tucked in the binder he takes to school. Behind it, other important documents – birth certificate, Certificate of Indian Birth (exactly what it sounds like – “a dumbass piece of paper sayin’ congrats, you flunked the first test we ever got. You’re fuckin’ Indian.”), and his social security card.

His is the shortest. Frank writes, “My daddy wasn’t no better to me than I was to you. You got no idea what kinda shit he put me through. You had it easy. I scraped and slaved for y’all and what the hell do I get??? Talk shit get hit.”

Seneca keeps it for one reason only – “Bragging rights. Duh.”

* * *

Carl 2.0 set his on fire. He never read it.

* * *

Sheradiin’s is twenty-seven pages long. It’s buried somewhere in her closet. She’s never finished it but, “It probably says the word sorry in there somewhere.”

* * *

In the back of Sheradiin’s closet, there is a pair of hot-pink cowboy boots. Christmas gifts, wrapped in My Little Pony paper, purchased at the Boot Barn in town. Ate up his whole paycheck in a single trip. He had been so proud when presenting them that she wore them until her feet couldn’t get inside anymore.

For Squishy, a revolver, just like John Wayne’s. He had been twelve. The first thing he ever purchased with his own money was a box of bullets. He slept with it tucked under his shoulder, unloaded, like a teddy bear.

Until he sold it to help pay for the funeral home.

For Seneca, a rainbow assortment of oil paint. The first thing Seneca painted with them was a portrait of Frank, with his deep frown still clear beneath his beard. He spent weeks practicing his eyes – “I didn’t wanna fuck up the blue. He’d beat my ass so hard if I made ‘im look mad.”

After he died, Seneca took black and red Sharpies in the corner and drew a tiny stick figure yanking a knife out of his eyes.

For Carl 2.0, a Playstation 5. He holds a busted controller in his hands, wire guts spilling out of a crack in the plastic, up to Sheradiin’s lamp and says, “He busted this up ‘fore he kicked the bucket.”

From the corner, Seneca says, “That was his parting gift.”

“Jesus wept, man,” Sheradiin says, swiping a finger underneath one of her eyes. “Scripture.”

“Oh, you’re so smart. Ol’ Ms. Thesaurus over here,” Seneca mutters sarcastically, raking his fingers through his newly-cut hair – according to tradition, you could only cut it when you underwent a great loss. (Of this great loss, Seneca said, “Man, I hope that motherfucker died covered in his own piss and shit.”)

Carl 2.0 – “I think that was the bible, but I could be wrong.”

“It’s actually from Star Wars,” Sheradiin says, brushing out more of the layers of crunchy hair-gel her mother had slathered over her in preparation for the funeral. “Yeah, at the end of the movie, Luke and the man upstairs hit it off and then they get into the Death Star and make-out.”

She still wears the key around her neck, though now a boyfriend’s promise ring has joined it. Her earrings are tiny hoops. Mismatched. One silver, one gold. They make a chain between the kids – tiny hoops from one Claire’s set. She says it links them together. Seneca thinks it’s stupid, though during service, he twisted it in his fingers. Something to do with his hands.

Squishy drops a trashcan in front of the closet for Sheradiin. Watching her haul things into it. He looks around at all of them and says, in a gravelly voice, “Luke, I am your father. Your old one got murked.”

The boys cheer.

Sheradiin waits until it’s quiet before she says, “You can quote the scripture so beautifully,” and tosses the boots into the trash. Spring cleaning.

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