AND THE MOON'S NOT EVEN FULL

“Heard a wicked scream last night,” R said, leaning on C’s desk.

B was leafing through files. She glanced up in surprise.

I thought R was saying that someONE was screaming, considering the spate of violent insanity that has plagued the Rancheria. Pellet guns, men stomping others with steel-toed boots, setting fire to the church, to dumpsters, then sitting wasted with their mothers in front of the doublewides, cursing out children and trying to instigate fights with anyone willing to so much as look at them.

Driving through the placid neighborhood, I was hard pressed to picture the anarchy and J there taking pictures of everything; a mother intervening with a knife shaking in her hands. This is the demon of alcohol run wild in Indian Country.

B described one of the victims of this drunken psychosis:

“Head swelled up like a watermelon.”

“We were all sittin’ there watching TV then heard it, what the hell was that,” R said about the scream. “Ain’t no home made that.”

“The little dark things?” I asked.

“They come out when stuff is bad like that,” he said.

B sneered: “the creatures.”

A few months ago R told me about a time where there were a lot of families who were all messed up, getting really hard into drugs and alcohol, and people started seeing these dark creatures everywhere, surrounding the houses, imposing particularly upon the children.

“Lots of people see them when this stuff’s happening,” R said.

I felt chilled.

The timeline I crafted of all the happenings was a broken jumble, and as B described the events more thoroughly, it felt as if it was a jumble. About how her brother and uncle got drunk, then started fighting, broke out into the street, then her brother shot out L’s window, and he got into it. Pretty soon there were four guys beating on one. Somewhere in there were four visits by the police, the brother running off the other way, and the cops doing nothing, standing around for a minute then leaving.

“They don’t do nothing,” R said.

This is true. The cops really refuse to do anything, but much of that is due to the roadblocks they experience when trying to bring anybody in. Today J was speaking about his dedication to the community and how it wasn’t even the community.

“Only about two houses I’m not related to down here.”

I thought about a week early, after the first incident of violence (just fires getting set, children being cussed out by their neighbors), and how I proposed a neighborhood watch to the council. J squinted at the cover of the pamphlet, a bunch of anthropomorphic cartoon houses with their eyes peeled. ‘Take a Stand,’ it said.

“Take a stand!” J proclaimed, giving form to the skepticism that drew everyone to silence, “Take a stand! Turn in your cousin!”

“Excited for the weekend?” I asked B later, when the office was empty.

“It’ll calm down,” she said.

I get the feeling that the Rancheria feels explosions and lulls, they look to the cops to mediate, but aren’t willing to turn in their own. It’s not so bad if the cops wrestle the offenders down, cuff them and put them in the can for a night, but at this point the cops expect the community to do everything. When the community protests, the policemen’s silent disregard speaks volumes about the lack of support they get in their own actions.

This is strange, because the same sort of thing is experienced when cops work with inner city projects. To be fair, like those areas, when someone on the Rancheria calls 911 with a medical emergency, it’s possible that the ambulance won’t even go down there.

The disconnect between the Rancheria and the outside world is institutional: older than the trees and the hills. There is a discomfort in going out there.

“We were at Sherry’s the other night, then we looked around, and realized we were the only brown folk in there, got real nervous,” L says.

It’s not paranoia though.

A hefty portion of the foothills population are descended from the pioneers, the goldrush, who massacred Indians without discretion or the veil of military action. Back then it was sanctioned by the state. The scalp of a man, woman, or child, could fetch you five dollars at government trading posts.

B and I circled the Rancheria passing out flyers. I ran down to one house and knocked. A grumble from behind it. I knocked again.

“Come in!” a man yelled impatiently.

I turned the handle and he looked at me incredulously, white man in his house!? I handed him a flyer for tutoring classes which calmed his expression.

“Thank you,” he said between his teeth.

I shut the door, but it wouldn’t stay shut. Noticed the whole doorknob apparatus was knocked out, the door kicked in.

“What house was it, with the woman cussing out your kids?” I asked B.

She pointed to the house I just came out of and laughed.