The Naked Pope

I found a quote in a book that said a woman can be anything she wants, if she also manages to be a good wife and mother, sweet and good looking, and not too aggressive. I copied it, and have it hanging by my desk. I started to write my husband, Good Gravy's, name underneath it. Circle it. Underline it. Say "Yeah, Good Gravy! Isn't that right?" Good Gravy looked at it and snorted. Lately, that's the kind of reaction I've been gettin' out of that guy, no matter what I say. I could tell him that I saw the dog singing a Kiowa song out back last night, and he'll just look at me and make a whistling noise with his nostrils.

Maybe he's bored with me. And to think, I was once almost tribal princess. I could have had any of them Indian boys. Yeah, there were some good ones all right. I had to go and fall for Good Gravy. My mother told me it was his singing at the powwow drum that I fell for. She told me that he tsikoo-ban. Sometimes there are no literal translations for these words. It means something like "he killed you with sex through his singing." That's how she thinks he got a hold of me. When Good Gravy heard this, he said "Right on!" I told him that from then on, I planned to be keepin' a close eye on him when he was at that drum. I got a double snort out of him that time.

I think about my girlhood snags. I could be makin' a lot of money, writing about my past romances in one of those romance books. You know, the kind with the white woman on the cover falling over while the really muscular Indian guy holds her up with just one arm. Only, you know, it would be an Indian woman with her buckskin on really tight, holding that Indian man, really squeezing him, winterbabe style. Not no skinny woman, either. One that looks real. One that has a stomach she can hold in pretty good when she needs to. I kinda feel sorry for the really bony ones. Makes you think they don't know how to cook frybread. But most of the time I just figure they fell for all that skinny-women look on TV.

Yeah, my little sister told me she's totally into that kind of lifestyle. "If I ever get me some oil money from my land," she says, "I'm gonna' get some plastic surgery, liposuction, all that." As far as I know, I've never seen an Indian woman with plastic surgery, at least not just for looking younger. We, as Indian people, look pretty interesting most of the time. My husband, Good Gravy, is always sayin' that Indians are a good-looking people. I agree. I've seen Indians in every shade of brown and copper with every shade of eyes and hair and realize that we are beautiful. I wouldn't get plastic surgery. Native people age really well. They don't get so dried up and wrinkled as some non-Natives. Most of them don't try to look younger than they are and buy into that fountain of youth stuff. A few of us do, I guess. I just couldn't see myself walking into a powwow or tribal meeting with the skin on my face pulled back tight.

Actually, what might work, as I noticed with my son, Biscut, is when I braid his hair just right, it makes him look a little more awake, kinda pulls his eyes open a little more. Good Gravy says if I get plastic surgery, he'll let the kids bounce those Sacajawea dollars off of my face for fun.

My beautiful sisters have got it goin' on. They don't need that plastic surgery stuff. You know they had...