Beyond Repair
I slid the folder up my belly, protectively, palms pressed flat against its stiff pebbled plastic. The folder made a popping sound, and I tensed—was I wrinkling the papers? I glanced down, cracked the folder, and examined the thin slips of my life within.
I slid the folder up my belly, protectively, palms pressed flat against its stiff pebbled plastic. The folder made a popping sound, and I tensed—was I wrinkling the papers? I glanced down, cracked the folder, and examined the thin slips of my life within.
“Ms. Smallwood?” I looked up, smiling brightly into the shadowed face, shifting the folder so I could reach out and shake the woman’s hand. My school ID band stretched, too tight around my wrist. The woman, who smelled of artificial vanilla, looked startled at my hand’s clasp. I echoed the startle. Was this—the shaking of her hand—too formal? Too informal? “I’m just going to show you to the meeting room,” she said, easing her hand away from mine. I swallowed the rough bundle in my throat and re-gripped the folder. “Great, thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much.” I stood and followed the woman. The air in the school’s wide hallway was even smokier than in the visitor’s lounge. “Sorry about this.” My guide waved a hand, tracing paths through the particulate. “Filtration system’s back up since morning, but it’s going to be a good long minute before they get all this out.” I didn’t know the right response, so I nodded. When I’d heard that school was cancelled today, I panicked. My breaths came so fast I went blind. I felt my way through the commands as I sent a polite, cheerful, not-at-all-desperate message about rescheduling the interview. Dr. Swenson responded within the minute: “Be there or be squared.” He followed with my least favourite sound-emoji: canned laughter. I didn’t understand the joke, and I didn’t know if I should respond. For several minutes, I circled the phone, until I could feel Megis rolling her eyes at me. Then I snatched it up and said: “Thank you!! I’ll be there!” By the time we reached the end of the hallway, my heart was throwing itself sideways against my ribcage. I thought: In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. I thought: Why should you destroy us, who have provided you with food? Then my guide leaned in and swiped open a large door. Five men and two women looked straight at me. My skin went cold. It was like a police interview all over again, and my right knee loosened, my leg swanning out— —but my body reacted in time, managing to catch it. I stiffened my joints. Pulled my shoulders back. Everyone was looking at me. “Ms. Smallwood.” A chubby Scandinavian-looking man stood, his large belly banging against the edge of the table. He glanced down at the wobbling table, briefly, before he extended a hand. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. I’m Dr. Swensen.” I reached through all that gloom until I got hold of his clammy hand. “Pleased to meet you.” My teeth buzzed. I couldn’t remember if that was the normal thing to say. Dr. Swensen gave me a bland smile-nod, and my skin relaxed. I shook two more extended hands—a man’s and a woman’s—who stood to greet me. The others just nodded, so I sat in the empty chair, putting the green folder in front of me. I hadn’t been expecting seven. Was that the usual thing? The air had a sour tang, and I tried not to breathe in too deeply. I touched my folder for confirmation that I was me.My own throat was parched, but I swallowed the discomfort and looked down at my folder. I was tempted to shout LISTEN, I AM VERY GOOD WITH CHILDREN.“We’re sorry about the air,” a slender East African woman said. She squirmed in her chair, as if pushing off her shoes. “Our system’s back online, but it does take a while. We’ll understand—if you want to wear a mask.” “Oh.” I shook my head earnestly. “No, thank you. I don’t have any health concerns.” Small smiles popped up on the faces around the table. I must’ve said something idiotic. I smiled back, idiotically. “Let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves, shall we?” chubby Dr. Swensen said, tugging on the last two words like an earlobe. I was nodding at him when their names all shot at me—so fast I couldn’t keep them sorted. I was about to introduce myself when one of them—Bill, I thought—said, “Now, of course we all know you.” I flinched at that, and I had to fight my way back to a smile. One of the women reached out and poured herself a glass of water. She grimaced as bits of ash floated to the top. My own throat was parched, but I swallowed the discomfort and looked down at my folder. I was tempted to shout LISTEN, I AM VERY GOOD WITH CHILDREN. Mm, Megis’s voice whispered, just behind my left ear. That should be persuasive. “All right.” Dr. Swensen put both hands on the table and rubbed them in loose circles, as if giving the table a massage. “Why don’t you tell us why you want this job?” I almost said: In case you’re wondering, I am no longer confused or angry about what happened. I’ve had two decades of intensive counselling, and I understand most people at Gikinoo’amaadiiwigamig—even the kidnappers—had what they imagined were good intentions. Even Grace Firdin was just a white saviour with a God complex. Most of the adults were just lost and confused and…lonely.
My first-ever teacher was Gikinoo'amaagewikwe Namid. I was seven when my mom threw everything we owned in the car, in a giggling and chatty and bouncing frenzy. All through the long drive, I kept my legs pressed together, because she didn’t want to stop at a real bathroom. “We can use the bushes! That’s nature, sweetie!” My mom laughed as she kept trying to say Gikinoo’amaadiiwigamig, Gikinoo’amaadiiwigamig, and watching our progress on the screen. We moved into a tiny room together, and, since there was no room for our stuff, we left it all in the car. “Isn’t this amazing?” my mom kept shouting at me. “Smell the air, baby. Just smell the air!” The next morning, I was sitting cross-legged on a stiff rug, learning to count in Ojibwe with a bunch of other White kids. I learned to chant that:
Kishkedee left Turtle Nation in 1516 and set sail across the ocean green.All of us kids sat stiffly as we heard how, on the other side, Kishkedee had discovered Oshki-Aki, “the cold lands of the pink-skinned English, Frankish, and Germanic tribes. Brr!” Namid had shivered dramatically before she went back to reading out of the big book. “He met all the poor and sickly peoples who lived west of the Ottoman Empire.” “The great Kishkedee found these poor souls living under the yoke of a savage hierarchy. All of these people, except for their ‘princes’ and ‘kings,’ were hungry and desperate, sick and dirty. The great Kishkedee taught the Frankish tribes about consensus governance.” Here, Namid turned the book around so we could see the illustration of Kishkedee standing on a wooden platform, talking to the Franks. “He taught them about freedom and fellowship. Then he showed them how to build great boats that would help them cross the sea.” I looked around as Namid read to us from the book. When I looked back, I saw a pink flush creeping up her neck and into her face. I squinted at the title of the book: The Great Book of Human History, by Grace Firdin. Namid snapped the book shut and smiled at us. Then she got down on the carpet among us seven or eight kids and told us to crowd in. “I came from the Oshki-Aki, you know,” she said. “Just like all of you. We’re all immigrants to this land. But that’s nothing to be ashamed of.” A boy raised his hand and asked Namid to tell the story of the Drunken Duke again, and Namid flushed and laughed. I could barely follow the wild story of this English duke who beat his daughters and raped his maidservants. “Happily, his nieces fled across the ocean, to be free peoples in the Great Turtle Nation.” The boy clapped. I waited a moment to see what the other kids would do before I joined in. Namid walked around, from child to child, hugging us, telling us we belonged here.
Of course, I wasn’t going to tell my seven interviewers about Namid, whose legal name was Caroline Sotheby, and who was later sentenced to two years in federal prison. Instead, I told them what I would do in the classroom: help children navigate between worlds. “Children must work to benefit the class, but without losing their sense of individual agency.” One of the women made an aw sound, and I startled. She was giving me a smiling-sad look, as though she was looking at a half-drowned kitten. “That’s good, very good,” Dr. Swensen broke in, nodding. “I see you’ve done some substituting at Crystalbank?” “I—yes.” I smiled. Crystalbank Elementary had not been my favourite. They reserved the right not to pay their substitutes if you hadn’t followed all of their teaching guidelines. “My sister-in-law is an admin there.” “Oh.” I smiled more widely. The German-looking woman, whose name might be Anna, leaned forward and asked if she could put in a question. Dr. Swensen looked at me before he nodded. “You may.” “How do you help a child tell the difference between what’s real and what’s imaginary?” The woman leaned forward, sliding her arms to the centre of the table. The pen she was holding seemed to light up. Behind my left ear, Megis’s voice murmured, Don’t be paranoid. The pen had not lit up. I was not secretly being recorded, and this was not a ruse that would end up online for laughs and views.
Last year, he changed his name to ‘Newton.’ I’d considered changing my name, too, but I’d never found one that fit.As you might expect, the 12 of us children—popularly known as the Giki-12—all had trouble with trust. Four of us are currently in locked facilities. Of the remaining eight, only Wakwi has made a success of herself. Megis and I aren’t doing so badly, and Noodin’s holding his own. Last year, he changed his name to “Newton.” I’d considered changing my name, too, but I’d never found one that fit. “There are many different ways to help children sort fantasy and reality, including my favourite method, the Merdin-Reister.” I smiled at the woman, who was giving me a hardball-interviewer stare. “But, for younger children, I’m not going to say that dragons or the tooth fairy aren’t real. Of course, there are some things we must agree on.” “Such as?” the woman asked, leaning in. “The fact of Columbus,” I said, as the room tipped sideways. “For instance.” The seven faces looked at me, mocking, and I wasn’t sure what it was okay to say.
I was nine when we got our own little house in the compound. My mom had been depressed for months before that. Then she was suddenly bright and giggly again, taking me on fishing trips down to the creek, braiding my hair, trying to learn to play the à bec. I’m not sure if I noticed the day when Megis was driven in, but I did hear they were keeping a new girl in my old room. Wakwi told me. But it was weeks before we saw her. When she was finally allowed to join our class, Megis was still defiant. She talked about running away all the time. The other kids stayed away from her, but I liked her, because her world sounded exciting, even though I didn’t understand anything about gamefilms and email and doesn’t anyone here have a phone? When we were alone, she’d teach me a little Spanish. Sometimes, Megis wouldn’t be at class, and she said they tied her up at night so she wouldn’t run away. When nobody was looking, she showed me the marks on her ankles. My mom said Megis was suffering a shock, and she didn’t know how this place could save her. We should just humour her, my mom said, “but don’t get too close, sweetheart. Or you’ll fall right into her crazy.”
On the smoky drive home from the interview, tears blurred my vision. A cat darted across the street, and I didn’t even see it. The car did, thankfully. Its brakes locked, and my body was thrown forward. “We’ll let you know,” Dr. Swensen had said, as he shook my hand one last time. “We’re calling second-round candidates next week.” After the cat, I focused on the road. I’d gotten my teaching certificate late, after I’d struggled through years of cram school. I’d been so relieved to graduate. But, in the five years since, I’d gotten exactly one real interview. This one.
Naturally, it wasn’t my fault. And—naturally—they were still worried my traumatic weirdness might be contagious.You could hardly blame the schools, since each member of the Giki-12 was a walking three-ring circus. During my residency, half of the parents had lurked in the parking ramp to say hello and take a photo. The other half circulated a “secret” petition demanding I be fired. Most of the petition-signers thought I’d been a Giki teacher. Naturally, they were sorry when they realized the truth. Naturally, it wasn’t my fault. And—naturally—they were still worried my traumatic weirdness might be contagious. I pulled into my building’s underground lot, parked, and squeezed the tears out of my eyes. When I reached my tin-box apartment, I threw myself onto the couch. I pushed in a pair of headphones and hit play on a trashy romance novel as I sorted through dating profiles and wept. So: your basic Wednesday afternoon.
I’d just gotten my first period the night all the adults disappeared. I was supposed to have a ceremony, but nobody came except Megis, who kicked at my mattress and told me the ceremony was stupid. I’d laughed and agreed, but I still wanted my party. The sun set, and nobody came. Not even Mom came home. Megis had to show me how to fold up a pad so that my blood wouldn’t go everywhere. Megis and I were sitting alone, in the dark, when we heard tires crackling over the gravel. It was followed by a lot of grown-ups shouting. There was a whoop of a siren—just once, I think, although people remember it differently—and then lights everywhere. Strange men and women were suddenly all over the camp, pointing guns, shouting at people, and I couldn’t understand what they were saying. My stomach dropped, because where was Mom? “Mom?” I tried to go out, to look for her, but Megis grabbed my arm. She held onto me with a strength I didn’t know she had. When a blue-clad woman knocked on our door, Megis shouted: “We’re kids! Don’t shoot!”
“We would like to observe you in the classroom.” I was standing in the frozen food aisle when Dr. Swensen’s call buzzed through. I almost dropped the phone. I imagined it crashing to the shop’s cement floor, shattering into a thousand jagged pieces just as Dr. Swensen asked me a question. But it didn’t fall. It was still in my hands. He said, chuckling, that they’d like to see me again. “Next week, then?” “I’m sorry?” There was a groan behind me. A stocky Korean-looking woman with blue hair stood there, waving her basket and giving me a pained grimace. I flattened myself to the freezer case and let her pass as Dr. Swensen cleared his throat. “We’d love you to come lead a class of third graders next week. Does the timing work—for you?” “Yes, thank you. That would be perfect.” People said the Giki-12 had ridiculous accents, and I struggled to flatten mine. “Thank you for this opportunity.” I shut myself up before I could say anything else. “You can schedule it with Danna.” After we closed the connection, I couldn’t help but do a little happy dance right there in the SuperSelect. A squat dark-skinned man with a crying infant rounded the corner and stared at me, upper lip curling in amused irritation.
I called Megis on the drive home. Her older kid was screaming, so I waited through it, my enthusiasm sliding into patience, and then boredom, and then anxiety. I definitely wouldn’t get this job. They already had a candidate. They just wanted to see one of the Giki-12 clowning in front of 30-some kids. As Megis shouted, I kept quiet. I didn’t want to rain good news on her shit-day parade. For a while, all of us were drowned in Wakwi’s positivity. We would be struggling with the basics while she called to say she’d been accepted at Columbia! Next, she was going to write her own TV series! She’d won a prize! And another prize! And gotten married! And had the most a-do-ra-ble baby! Did we want to see photos?
Only outside of her orbit could he feel—decent.Noodin said Wakwi was the real reason so many of us went crazy. Critics hated her for taking up any air space that might exist for real Ojibwe stories, but she didn’t care. Noodin had to change his contact info and move to Wisconsin just to escape her relentlessly successful face. Only outside of her orbit could he feel—decent. “Shit,” Megis said, once she’d got her kid under control and come back to the phone. “I think I stained my favourite shirt.” A thundercloud of tears hung over her voice. “With what?” “Sammy’s blood, of course.” She let out a half-laugh, half-sob. “Cold water and soap. The sooner the better.” A second later, I heard the shush of water, and of Megis’s tears. “Is he…” I didn’t want to push, but Megis knew what I was asking. “I can’t fucking tell. Can you come over?” “Of course.” I sank through a few seconds of regret before I steeled myself and swiped to Megis’s address. My car flashed a warning light, but I ignored it. Strangely, I felt okay. When I got there, the kids were quiet, and the only sign of trouble was Megis’s damp sleeve. “Coffee?” she asked, and I nodded and squeezed into a chair at her tiny kitchen table. I wanted to talk about the interview. I’d taught third before, but not for a while. What kind of lesson should it be? How could I convince them I wasn’t just some crazy from the famous Gikinoo’amaadiiwigamig? Sometimes, people ask who I am on Wakwi’s show, even though I’m obviously the shy one. I don’t mind her, honestly. “But she’s fake,” Noodin once told me, angrily. “Your character is fake modest. Fake humble. That idiot thinks you’re the one who’s a fraud.” I told him I didn’t care, although that was a lie. Now, Megis put down two cups of real coffee and squeezed into the chair by the wall. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “He’s not coming back,” she said. “And he’s not sending money to help with the kids.” “He has to.” Honestly, how many times could Steve threaten the exact same thing? “No, he doesn’t,” Megis said, her eyes still closed. “We’re not married, and he’s not on the birth certificates. He checked with a lawyer. DNA doesn’t matter in this state.” “Fuck.” Megis’s forehead tensed, but she kept her eyes shut. “You want to move in with us? We could split the rent.” She didn’t open her eyes, but I could feel her staring at me. “I might have a job,” I said, stepping carefully around the words. Megis opened her eyes, and I regretted saying it. “Maybe,” I said. “Nothing serious. Maybe it’s nothing. Just an interview at Greenview Elementary.” I flushed. “And of course I’ll move in. I’ll give notice on my apartment.” Megis closed her eyes and settled back against the wall. “You know what Wakwi will never understand?” I knew, but I didn’t say anything. “Romance is bullshit. It’s good for a story, sure. But the real fucking thing is friends.” I rolled my eyes, then stopped when I saw Megis was crying.
Okay. No pressure. Except this was my ONE AND ONLY CHANCE to get a TEACHING JOB, EVER. If I blew it, I’d live as a perpetual substitute, always wobbling at the edge of the real world, never getting in. I couldn’t swallow. I changed my outfit five times. Put on earrings. Took them off. Put on lipstick. Wiped it off with a tissue. Washed my lips, which felt dry and pebbly. Put on a greasy lotion and wiped that off, too. I stood over the notes on my phone. Music. No one could object to a lesson on music. Right? My hands shook as I put the instruments into my bag and pinched it shut. The AQ wasn’t bad, but I wore a mask for the drive in. I didn’t want to cough, sneeze, or have a single gooey tear run out of my eye. I’d drunk exactly one cup of coffee. I was alert without being jittery. I offered up thanks to Gitchie Manitou and God and the whole wobbly universe. During the drive in, two more emergency lights came on in the car. I clenched my teeth and ignored them. The car was a gift from some anonymous donor almost 15 years ago, when we were still in the news. It could keep working for 15 more minutes. And…we made it. I patted the car’s dashboard as it parked itself. I waited long enough to get a decent breath before I opened the door and shoved my way through the morning’s haze. I went through the security check. Got my ID bracelet. Smiled at everyone until my ears and jaw hurt. “Thank you so much for this opportunity.” “Thank you.” “What’s your name again?” Thank you, Danna, thank you.” It wasn’t a great time: 11 a.m. on a Friday, when the kids were jumpy and ready to run. But this was it. The classroom teacher clapped her hands—once—before she introduced me. The kids didn’t settle, and she shouted at them to be quiet. I dropped one of my tuners onto a desk, clunk, and a dark-skinned, eager-faced boy looked up. The classroom teacher took a seat at the back. I knew Dr. Swensen was watching on the closed-circuit, but I tried to feel only the children’s eyes as I set a tuner on each desk. Clunk. Clunk. Most of the kids started playing with them right away. I hurried around the room, one for each child, as they whispered. Then they were talking, and giggling, and they ignored me when I put up a hand. “Mine doesn’t work,” one girl complained. “All of your tuners work,” I said firmly. “But they have to work—together.” That won me a moment of attention. Furrowed brows. Kids looking at each other, doing silly faces. I held up my tuner, explained how it worked, and had everyone count three. One—two—and we made a note. Several of the kids laughed in surprise. They tried to make their own notes after that, but the tuners didn’t work unless we worked together. Now I had their full attention. Yes, they wanted to play a song. At the end of class, when the real teacher said grouchily that it was time for lunch, several of them moaned. One wanted to take his tuner home. Another asked if I would have lunch with her. “Please?” I looked over at the two adults standing in the doorway, and both shook their heads. I crouched down and told the girl I hoped to be a teacher in her school one day, and then I would definitely, absolutely, 100 percent have lunch with her. “All right?” At the cubbies, a boy shoved the girl in front of him. The girl kicked his shin, he screamed, and the classroom teacher shouted. An administrator—Anna, I think—beckoned me out, thanking me for my time. I took the long walk to the front door, replaying the children’s questions and my answers. I tugged at my bracelet as I approached the exit, and Dr. Swensen stepped out of a door I hadn’t seen. “Ms. Smallwood.” I pivoted toward him so fast I almost lost my balance. “We’ll be making our decision soon.” “Oh,” I said, clumsily straightening up. “Thank, thank you.” He gave a grimace-like smile, and we both stood in pained silence. I mumbled that I was late for another appointment and fled the building, half-running toward my car, cussing myself as I collapsed inside it. Tears fell as the car started up. I managed to get out of the parking lot on a prayer, although the car was making a high-pitched grinding noise. “Please,” I whispered. “Just one more ride. Just take me home.” But the car lost power. People honked at me. I tried to keep up, but someone swiped down their window as they passed, screaming that they’d call the cops if I didn’t pull over. At the side of the road, I requested a mechanic. Ages passed before one came. He spent barely five minutes with the car before he told me it wasn’t worth a repair. “Junker.” I asked him to reconsider—please—but he snorted and got in his own car, which drove him away. Parents started to arrive for pickup, and I walked off, hands in my pockets, as though the car had nothing to do with me. I searched “we buy ugly” services as I looked for a public toilet. I didn’t find one, so I walked back to the school, which was now locked up. As a long-shot, I requested a second mechanic, but the service said: “BLOCKED – VEHICLE BEYOND REPAIR.” I sat down in the car and rested my head against the steering column. The sky grew dimmer, redder, colder. Megis called, but I didn’t answer. At around 6:30, I had to pee so badly I signed up with the first “we buy ugly” service on the list. A woman who looked Ojibwe pulled up. I bristled with hope as she stepped out her car, showed me her ID, and swiped up my hood. I wanted to ask her. About everything. I’d dated an Anishanaabeg man, once. It was going okay until I met his family. The we-buy-ugly woman closed the hood, swiped into her screen, and offered me $430. “I’m one of the Giki-12,” I told her, trying to smile. Her expression didn’t change. I couldn’t stop myself, and I went on: “You know, the cult, where they raised us White kids as if Columbus had never—” The woman’s face convulsed with such an embarrassed, disgusted expression that I stopped. Slowly, I walked around to the trunk. I pulled things out, and she prepared the title transfer.
Plus, in the real world, people stayed in their own skins. Each of us carried our own confusion.It was past ten when I finally stepped onto a bus heading home. I sat down behind a woman whose face was pressed to the window. After a moment, I realized she was sobbing. I wanted to sit beside her, wrap my arms around her, tell her everything would be okay. But maybe I just wanted to steal comfort from her. Plus, in the real world, people stayed in their own skins. Each of us carried our own confusion. After the crying woman got off, the police stepped on and told us all to get off for a routine inspection. They found something—a severed hand, someone said—and we had to wait while they asked everyone questions. “Did you see anything unusual?” I wanted to tell the officer so many things, but I shut up and shook my head. It was past midnight when I got home, my lungs prickling, right shoulder screaming with pain. How was I supposed to move in with Megis now, with no car? I threw myself down on the hard bed. I thought about Mom, who’d died in prison, and I lay there for hours until I fell asleep.
Steve wanted to make things work. “I forgive you,” he’d told Megis. When Megis played me the message, I almost howled HE FORGIVES YOU??? But she sounded happy. She said she liked having him around. I told her never mind, it was all right. Whatever made her feel…. The next Monday morning, I had a substitute gig. I had to make the 6:20 to be there on time. This is your real world, I told myself, as I rode in. Time to get used to it. After work on Tuesday, I saw two new messages from Megis, both about the protesters gathering outside Temporary Detention. Under that was a forward from Noodin—about a Kickapoo boy who’d been shot thirteen times by police—and a “medium priority” from Dr. Swensen. The whole stop-and-start bus ride home, I stared at my four messages. I thought: I’ll open the last one when I get home. Or I won’t. I thought: I’ll keep Dr. Swensen’s message forever. If I never open it, then I’ll have the job. There will be another me—in a parallel universe—who’s a classroom teacher at Greenview Elementary. I looked around the bus, imagining all my parallel selves. There was another Ms. Smallwood who lived in a tiny house down the road from her eccentric mother. She worked as a teacher in a bustling collective—the same one where she’d grown up—along with her best friend Megis. In that universe, there had been no American Indian genocide, no trans-Atlantic slave trade, and not a single police shooting. As I stared at that parallel self, she shook her head at me. If I looked more closely at Grace Firdin’s paradise up in the woods, it had always been a nightmare. There was no place for us there.
