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around one another like sled dogs in a snowstorm. I woke, hour by hour, and touched my head and neck to check if they had changed shape—to feel if antennae were growing. Some insects “hear” with their antennae. Maybe that’s what was happening to me.
9. Valediction
    My father, a part-time blue collar construction worker, died in March 2003, from full-time alcoholism. On his deathbed, he asked me to “Turn down that light, please.”
    “Which light?” I asked.
    “The light on the ceiling.”
    “Dad, there’s no light.”
    “It burns my skin, son. It’s too bright. It hurts my eyes.”
    “Dad, I promise you there’s no light.”
    “Don’t lie to me, son, it’s God passing judgment on Earth.”
    “Dad, you’ve been an atheist since ’79. Come on, you’re just remembering your birth. On your last day, you’re going back to your first.”
    “No, son, it’s God telling me I’m doomed. He’s using the brightest lights in the universe to show me the way to my flame-filled tomb.”
    “No, Dad, those lights were in your delivery room.”
    “If that’s true, son, then turn down my mother’s womb.”
    We buried my father in the tiny Catholic cemetery on our reservation. Since I am named after him, I had to stare at a tombstone with my name on it.
10. Battle Fatigue
    Two months after my father’s death, I began research on a book about our family’s history with war. I had a cousin who had served as a cook in the first Iraq war in 1991; I had another cousin who served in the Vietnam War in 1964–65, also as a cook; and my father’s father, Adolph, served in WWII and was killed in action on Okinawa Island, on April 5, 1946.
    During my research, I interviewed thirteen men who’d served with my cousin in Vietnam but could find only one surviving man who’d served with my grandfather. This is a partial transcript of that taped interview, recorded with a microphone and an iPod on January 14, 2008:
    Me: Ah, yes, hello, I’m here in Livonia, Michigan, to interview—well, perhaps you should introduce yourself, please?
    Leonard Elmore: What?
    Me: Um, oh, I’m sorry, I was asking if you could perhaps introduce yourself.
    LE: You’re going to have to speak up. I think my hearing aid is going low on power or something.
    Me: That is a fancy thing in your ear.
    LE: Yeah, let me mess with it a bit. I got a remote control for it. I can listen to the TV, the stereo, and the telephone with this thing. It’s fancy. It’s one of them blue tooth hearing aids. My grandson bought it for me. Wait, okay, there we go. I can hear now. So what were you asking?
    Me: I was hoping you could introduce yourself into my recorder here.
    LE: Sure, my name is Leonard Elmore.
    Me: How old are you?
    LE: I’m eighty-five-and-a-half years old (laughter). My great-grandkids are always saying they’re seven-and-a-half or nine-and-a-half or whatever. It just cracks me up to say the same thing at my age.
    Me: So, that’s funny, um, but I’m here to ask you some questions about my grandfather—
    LE: Adolph. It’s hard to forget a name like that. An Indian named Adolph and there was that Nazi bastard named Adolph. Your grandfather caught plenty of grief over that. But we mostly called him “Chief,” did you know that?
    Me: I could have guessed.
    LE: Yeah, nowadays, I suppose it isn’t a good thing to call an Indian “Chief,” but back then, it was what we did. I served with a few Indians. They didn’t segregate them Indians, you know, not like the black boys. I know you aren’t supposed to call them boys anymore, but they were boys. All of us were boys, I guess. But the thing is, those Indian boys lived and slept and ate with us white boys. They were right there with us. But, anyway, we called all them Indians “Chief.” I bet you’ve been called “Chief” a few times yourself.
    Me: Just once.
    LE: Were you all right with it?
    Me: I threw a basketball in the guy’s face.
    LE: (laughter)
    Me: We live in different