Page 38 of Love Is a War Song

“Avery, I want you to come with me to meet a few people.” Lottie stood from her chair and reached her hand out to me to help me up.

I wore my denim shorts, which gave me a wedgie unlike any I had ever experienced in my life.

I tried to innocuously pull down the ends to get myself comfortable as I followed Lottie to a canopy a few yards away from our setup.

Inside the shade was a group of six older people, four women and two men. The women lazily waved fans at their faces.

“Hensci, Lottie. Is this who we think it is?” The woman in a folding chair at the right end of the group greeted us. She was wearing a purple tie-dyed dress, sandals, and thick glasses with dark lenses clipped on.

“Hensci, Shauna, yes, this here is Hattie’s daughter, Avery.”

“Good to meet you, Avery.” Shauna inclined her head in greeting.

“Shauna works in our citizenship office. She can help us get you enrolled as everyone in the country is obsessed with.”

Shauna and her group laughed. “You made a mistake on that magazine cover, honey.”

My shoulders immediately drooped. I was tired of the Southern patronizing honey everyone used, even if well-intentioned.

She continued, “But we don’t believe a person is defined by their mistakes. Bessie says you’ve been visiting with her.”

“Yes, ma’am. I do what I can, even though it’s limited.”

“That’s all we can do. So many people have come and stolen our knowledge to use for personal gain.”

“I wouldn’t dream of doing that. I am Muscogee and I am trying to figure out what that means for me. We don’t have many successful female musicians in the popular genres who are Native.”

“Carrie Underwood is popular. She’s Muscogee, and her extended family comes out to events every now and then,” the older man sitting next to Shauna said matter-of-factly. He wore a black baseball cap with an embroidered marijuana leaf on it.

“I had no idea she was Native,” I said.

“It’s not exactly something she leads with, but she’s ours. We know. Now we got you,” one of the other women in the group said. She sat in the middle, wearing an oversized T-shirt from the 2013 Muscogee Festival and a pair of black basketball shorts.

“I want to introduce her to everyone else before the game starts. We’ll drop off the application soon to get the ball rolling on citizenship,” Lottie said as she started leading me away to the next group.

“See ya soon, Avery,” Shauna said. They all waved their fans at me in farewell.

Lottie stopped at several blankets and canopies to introduce me to people she had known her whole life.

Many asked after my mother and I saw firsthand how Lottie fielded those questions, brushing them off with vague generalities like, “Oh, you know Hattie. Busy doing who knows what in Hollywood.” It was obvious everyone had heard these answers so much they smiled it off and nodded and quickly changed the subject.

As we went from group to group, this event felt like a big party with everyone waiting to watch this game, and it was full of fun and community. I loved it.

Lottie and I started heading back to our spot when the opening notes to my song started blasting on a stereo. I would recognize the hand drum beat anywhere. I looked around in a panic, trying to see who was playing it and if it was a friend or a foe.

My voice singing the “oh oh ohs” echoed around us and even Lottie knew it was me.

Across the field was the Red Team, led by Molly, doing a terrible version of the choreography from my music video. Molly saw she had my attention and started pointing at me and laughing.

Then a couple of the men ripped their shirts off and screamed across the distance, “You need a warrior tonight? Ow ow!”

I shuddered in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, Lottie. I didn’t think this would happen.” Maybe I could make a run for it to the truck and hide out there, or drive down the road and wait out the game there, away from prying eyes. I couldn’t blow my cover here before our fundraiser was announced. It had to happen right.

“Just ignore it. They’ll get bored soon and then the game will start,” she said, trying to reassure me as we met back up with Red and Mary Beth.

Mary Beth stood from her seat and was flipping off the group with both her hands.

“Mary Beth!” Lottie snapped. “There are children here.”

“What? They are humping the air right now. How is the bird worse?” Mary Beth cried with her hands out.

“We don’t stoop to their level, and we can’t be distracting Davey when he is going to be the sole target of Molly’s wrath,” Lottie gently scolded.

Mary Beth dropped down into her chair, arms crossed. “You’re right.”

Both teams started heading for us, and I wasn’t proud of it, but I sat and hid behind Mary Beth’s and Lottie’s chairs.

“Red, we need your help. Travis pulled his hamstring and can’t play. We need you to cover. Can you do it?” Lucas asked with the rest of the players standing behind him.

“Ah shit, I’m already three beers in. I won’t be much help.”

“Aw too bad, Luke. Looks like y’all will have to play down a player or forfeit. Unless that scrawny little fake Indian princess wants to get her hands dirty and play with us,” Molly taunted, coming up to stand by Lucas. “What say you, little songbird? Up for a friendly game?”

Nothing about Molly sounded friendly. “She isn’t a fake and she’s never played before. Go see if Derek’s here. He could do it,” Mary Beth said.

“Derek had to work. Everyone else is too young or too old.”

“But inexperience is okay? You’ll eat her alive. I’ll do it.” Mary Beth stood up.

“Oh no you won’t,” Davey said as he stepped forward and used the basket end of his stick to gently push Mary Beth back down into her seat. “Not in your condition.”

The group of thirty men and women yipped, yelled, clapped, and shook Davey by the shoulders.

“Dammit, Davey, we were going to wait to say anything until after the wedding.” Mary Beth was fuming.

“That was before you were going to volunteer to play this game.” Davey was smiling proudly.

“I’ll do it,” I said as I stood up from the ground. What was the worst they could do? It wasn’t like I could catch the ball anyway. I would just be there for numbers.

“I don’t know about this—” Lucas said but was cut off.

“Great, let’s play!” Molly yelled, jumping with her team to the chant “Red hot we on top!” over and over again.

The Blue Team started following the Red Team, less excited and cheerful. In the core of my essence, I knew I had made a terrible mistake agreeing to volunteer. I started to follow them, leaving Davey to kiss Mary Beth into forgiveness.

And then that familiar, warm, rough hand grasped my wrist. “Wait here a minute,” Lucas said.

I gulped.

He pulled out two backup sticks from his duffel and handed them to me. “Hold each in your hand like this.” He demonstrated, showing his hands at the end, about six inches up from the bottom.

Thank god I didn’t have those stiletto nails anymore, because they would snap from the grip I was using to hold on to these sticks. Lucas put a spare ball on the ground and showed me how to use the sticks to pick it up and the best way to use both to cradle the ball to run.

“I’ll just stand on the outskirts and stay out of everyone’s way, so you don’t have to worry about me. I want you to play and have fun. You won’t even know I’m there.”

“I’ll know.” His voice was low, only for me.

I hitched a breath. The feeling was mutual. No matter where Lucas was in my vicinity, my body was aware. He was like a magnet, and I was drawn to him.

“Keep your guard up. The Red Team is riled up and will want to haze you. Stay out of their way and you should survive.”

“Survive?” I shrieked.

“You wanted a crash course on being Indian. Well, here it is. Just…be careful. If you see someone charging at you, just run away, got it?”

I nodded, nerves stealing my voice. Lucas’s lips pressed together in a grim line, and he led us to our team. Once we joined them, everyone started banging their sticks together in unison. The sound thrummed around me like a thunderous heartbeat.

“We are gonna go out there and we are gonna give it our all!” Lucas said. “We have a green player who is the size of my pinky. We need to protect her. Davey, you and Avery are both on goal with Gill and Perry.”

Gill and Perry nodded and walked over to stand next to Davey. Davey’s height towered over everyone. Gill was only slightly taller than me and Perry was more in between, but very stout and wide.

“Jon Deerwood is reffing today and you know he accepts no nonsense. No hitting below the knees, no sticks in the face, and no horse wrangling.”

At my confused expression, Lucas leaned down to explain. “No grabbing necks or hooking arms around necks. This isn’t wrestling.”

I nodded my understanding again and wished I could hightail it off the field and hide somewhere far away. I gripped the smooth wooden sticks with my sweaty hands.

Every single player gathered around the center of the field.

The referee was distinguishable by the bright orange shirt he wore with a whistle around his neck.

He held a red ball, the texture of the leather weaving hardly visible from where I stood behind everyone else.

I stayed close to Davey, Gill, and Perry so that I could follow them quickly to our goalpost.

The ref blew his whistle once and everyone lifted their sticks into the air. He threw the tiny red ball up and whistled again.

Then chaos broke out.

The sound of sticks slapping together mixed with a cacophony of grunts and screams. I tried to look for Lucas in the chaotic dogpile and couldn’t make him out in the midst of red and blue shirts, bare arms, and sticks.

“Avery!” Davey yelled and nodded for me to follow him to our position.

The goalpost looked like a simple piece of wood painted white and stuck into the ground. It had to be at least twenty feet tall, and Gill and Perry were already standing up against it with their sticks straight up in the air.

“Use your sticks to whack the ball away from the post if it comes anywhere near you. Like this.” Davey demonstrated with his stick, the basket side facing out and down.

I practiced.

“That’s good. Make sure you keep both baskets as close together as possible so that it’s wider to really knock the ball away.”

I practiced a few more times before Davey was satisfied, and soon I had it down. He made me stand on the far back side of the goal while he, Gill, and Perry would block the front to protect me.

It was a long wait before the Red Team had the ball in their possession to make it to our end of the field.

I finally spotted Lucas; he dove and stole the ball from the Red Team.

He had the ball clasped between his two sticks and was seamlessly running and dodging the Red players, running to the opposite side of the field toward their goalpost.

“Go, go, go!” Everyone was screaming as he made it with a clear shot to the goal.

“Shoot it!” Davey screamed with all his might.

I watched in awe as Lucas stepped forward on his left leg, launched his sticks, and released the ball. From this far back, I couldn’t see the ball at all, but the entire Red Team converged on Lucas and the goalpost when we heard a loud WHACK!

The ball connected with the post.

The crowd erupted as the first point in the game went to our team.

Molly ran by him, chucking him with her shoulder as she did so, before the ref threw the ball back into play.

It looked like a bloodbath down there with elbows flying and players being tackled down left and right.

This was not my idea of fun. There were contact sports and then there was stickball.

I couldn’t believe no one was wearing any protective gear.

Some people were straight up running around the field barefoot.

The Red Team was in possession of the ball again, and a bull of a man was sprinting our way with the ball nestled between his two sticks. Gill and Perry blocked his path to the post, but it was high, and the player took his chances, shooting the ball in an arc, and it missed.

Players were running toward our goal and Davey was running toward me, pointing to the ground. “Get the ball!” he yelled.

I felt like those hungry hippos in that game, trying to clasp the ball in my sticks. I got it and felt a millisecond of satisfaction before I was looking around to give it to someone else—anyone else. Davey was next to me, blocking a Red Team player from clasping on to me.

“Run now! Find a blue shirt to pass it to!” Davey barked his order.

I started running, praying the ball stayed put like an egg-and-spoon race with much higher stakes.

Then I saw him. Lucas waving at me to chuck the ball to him.

I tried to mimic his throwing stance, stepping forward with my left leg and letting the momentum propel the ball forward, but before I could release the ball, I felt a sudden impact like I was hit by a train at full speed, and then everything went black.