There There(10)
The quote is important to Dene. This there there. He hadn’t read Gertrude Stein beyond the quote. But for Native people in this country, all over the Americas, it’s been developed over, buried ancestral land, glass and concrete and wire and steel, unreturnable covered memory. There is no there there.
The guy says it’s his time and goes in. Dene wipes his head with his undershirt one more time and puts it in his backpack.
The panel of judges turns out to be a square of four tables. As he sits down he realizes they’re in the middle of talking about his project. Dene has no idea what he said he was going to do. His mind is a mess of misfires. They mention the lack of sample work. None of them looks at him. Are they forbidden to look at him? The makeup of the group is all over the place. Old white lady. Two middle-aged black guys. Two middle-aged white ladies. A youngish Hispanic guy. An Indian—from India—woman who could be twenty-five or thirty-five or forty-five, and an older guy who’s definitely Native, with long hair and turquoise-and-silver feather earrings in both ears. They turn their heads toward Dene. He has three minutes to say whatever he thinks they should know that wasn’t included in the application. A final moment to convince them that his project is worth funding.
“Hello. My name is Dene Oxendene. I’m an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. Good morning and thank you for your time and consideration. Sorry ahead of time if I ramble. I’m grateful for this opportunity. I know our time is limited, so I’ll just move into it if that’s okay. This all started for me when I was thirteen. My uncle died and, sort of, I inherited the work he started. What he did, what I want to do, is to document Indian stories in Oakland. I want to put a camera in front of them, video, audio, I’ll transcribe it while they talk if they want, let them write, every kind of story I can collect, let them tell their stories with no one else there, with no direction or manipulation or agenda. I want them to be able to say what they want. Let the content direct the vision. There are so many stories here. I know this means a lot of editing, a lot of watching, and a lot of listening, but that’s just what our community needs considering how long it’s been ignored, has remained invisible. I’m gonna set up a room down at the Indian Center. What I want to do is to pay the storytellers for their stories. Stories are invaluable, but to pay is to appreciate. And this is not just qualitative data collection. I want to bring something new to the vision of the Native experience as it’s seen on the screen. We haven’t seen the Urban Indian story. What we’ve seen is full of the kinds of stereotypes that are the reason no one is interested in the Native story in general, it’s too sad, so sad it can’t even be entertaining, but more importantly because of the way it’s been portrayed, it looks pathetic, and we perpetuate that, but no, fuck that, excuse my language, but it makes me mad, because the whole picture is not pathetic, and the individual people and stories that you come across are not pathetic or weak or in need of pity, and there is real passion there, and rage, and that’s part of what I’m bringing to the project, because I feel that way too, I will bring that same energy to it, I mean if it gets approved and everything, and I can raise more money, it won’t take that much really, maybe even just this grant, and I’ll be doing most of the work. Sorry if I went over my time. Thank you.”
* * *
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Dene takes a deep breath and holds it. The judges don’t look up at all. He lets out his breath, regrets everything he said. They stare at their laptops and type like stenographers. This is the time allotted for questions. Not questions for Dene. This is when they ask each other questions. Discuss the viability of the project. Fuck. He doesn’t even know what he just said. The Native guy taps the stack of papers that is Dene’s application and clears his throat.
“It’s an interesting idea. But I’m having trouble seeing exactly what the applicant has in mind, and I’m wondering, and please correct me if I missed something, I’m wondering if there’s a real vision here, or if he’s just gonna sort of make it up as he goes along. I mean, he doesn’t even have a work sample,” the Native guy says.
Dene knew it would be the Native guy. He probably doesn’t even think Dene is Native. Fuck. The work sample. Dene can’t say anything. He’s supposed to be a fly on the wall. But the guy just swatted at him. Someone say something else. Someone say anything else. The older of the two black guys, the more nicely dressed, with a white beard and glasses, says, “I think it’s interesting, if he’s doing what I think he’s saying he’s going to do, which is, essentially, to put aside the pretension of documentation. He’s moving out of the way, so to speak. If he does it right, it will seem as if he isn’t even the one behind the camera, it will almost seem like there isn’t a cameraperson there at all. My main question is whether or not he’ll be able to get people to come and tell their stories and to trust him with them. If he does, I think this could be important regardless of whether he turns it into something his own, something tangible, and with vision, or not. Sometimes we risk putting too much of the director’s vision on stories. I like that he’s going to allow the content to direct the vision. However it goes, these are important stories to document, period.”
Dene sees the Native guy shift uncomfortably in his chair, tap Dene’s application in a neat stack, then put it behind a bigger stack. The older white woman who looks like Tilda Swinton says, “If he can raise the money and come out with a film that says something new, I think that’s great, and I don’t know how much more there is to say about it. We’ve got twenty or so more applicants to review, and I’m sure there will be at least a few that will require serious scrutiny and discussion.”