Page 105 - Esquire (November 2019)

there have certainly been struggles, but Mar- them how much generosity is a part of Chey- her father, and how he sort of spiraled down
tha really has done everything to make their enne culture. A value I was taught as a Chey- after they came from South Dakota to Oak-
lives true and considered and rooted in Lako- enne value. It’s not enough. They want some- land,” he said. “It’s happened to all the men
ta ways. When my wife and I have questions thing familiar, a popular depiction of Native in the family. My dad and all his brothers have
about parenting, Martha is the first (and only) Americans, not that a spirit of generosity is one passed away. There’s this theme of the men
person we call. She is the epitome of a model of the things that make me Cheyenne. I knew falling out, mainly because of the historical
parent. When Jeffrey was little, he wanted long from early on that if someone said something trauma that has trickled down. Being able to
hair, and Martha allowed him to wear dish tow- nice about something you owned, you gave overcome that mentally is very important. My
els on his head, first around the house and then it to them. Last year, while visiting my dad, I mom always talks about breaking the chain,
to school. “I had all these dress-up phases,” saw a very nice (and very expensive) Pendle- breaking that cycle, that downward trend.”
he told me. “I’d go to preschool dressed like ton jacket in his closet. I told him I liked it, for- He understands the gravity of his situation,
crazy.” Jeffrey now has long black hair that I getting that this would result in him immedi- and he’s still figuring out the speed he’ll need
can’t imagine he’ll stop wearing long. It’s not ately giving it to me, which he did. I ended up to escape the field. He knows that to succeed
a stereotype to wear your hair long as a Native taking my author photo in that jacket. I don’t will be the exception.
man; it’s a cultural value, and he’ll no more cut like that I can’t avoid seeing that photograph
his value system than he will his hair. Martha a lot these days, but then I like it because it
brushes it for him all the time. makes me remember my dad. ANOTHER THING you should
I don’t always like to use the words wise and Jeffrey was wearing a faded black hood- know about Jeffrey is that he is fierce. He is
wisdom, because they’ve been overused to de- ie with an incomprehensible (to me) math- kind and gentle and sweet, right down to the
scribe Native people. But Martha is wise, and ematical equation and the phrase ESCAPE way his voice sounds, but to see him in the
this is not the same as being smart, which Mar- VELOCITY. I asked what it means. “The speed dojo is to fear him. When he moves, his face
tha is, too. Wisdom is as hard-earned as it is de- at which you have to shoot something directly is intense. There’s no anger, just a ferocity
ceptively simple. It cuts to the heart of matters. up, or at least perpendicular to the surface, in and a precision of movement that you can
Martha and Geri have that way about them, so order to get it to escape the gravitational field tell comes from countless hours of practice.
Jeffrey was raised in a home rich with wisdom. of an object,” he said. Like an orbit? “No, be- The day after we talked in his backyard, I
If wisdom is an overused and underrespect- cause orbit is described as you’re falling to- met up with Jeffrey at West Wind, the mar-
ed quality employed to describe Native people, wards an object, but you’re going so fast that tial-arts school where he was training for the
I feel that there are other qualities we’re not al- you always miss it.” He helps me understand. test to earn his third-degree black belt. He’d
lowed to ascribe to ourselves, to our tribes, to “Say I was talking about you. If I shot you up started taking lessons after an incident at space
our cultures. Words like fortitude, and generosi- at escape velocity, you’d escape Earth’s grav- camp the summer before fifth grade, when
ty. We’ve been given stoic and brave, drunk and itational field, which means you wouldn’t fall another camper hit him. Martha decided she
dumb, wise and sage, and anything referring to back down.” While he explained, I inadver- wanted her son to learn how to defend himself
us being mystically connected to the earth. We tently looked up to the sky and imagined mov- and enrolled him at West Wind. He took to it
find ourselves caught between the polar oppo- ing beyond the blue and into the black, getting right away. With Jeffrey, that’s no small thing.
sites of subhuman and superhuman. I’ve of- very cold very fast and then dead. “When I dive into something, I usually go pret-
ten been asked by non-Natives what makes me There’s more to the hoodie than a space joke. ty deep,” he told me. “I’ve always been natu-
Native American, and how will I teach my son He wants to be an astrophysicist, but it’s not rally focused. My mom calls them ‘phases.’ I
to be a Native American? I don’t feel I can tell just that, either. “My mom always talks about won’t stop until I’ve learned as much as I pos-

THIS PAGE: Jeffrey’s intricate cardboard
replicas, like that of Hogwarts
Castle, can take him weeks to build.
OPPOSITE: Martha, his mother, brushes
his long black hair all the time.