- This poem looks a whole lot like the other poems we've read so far, but there's something very different about it. Instead of a traditional Laguna story, this is a story about Indian men macking on white women during the war years. It's crude, crass, and full of racial slurs.
- The story goes like this: A Native American soldier sees two white women in a bar and decides to hit on the busty blonde. He buys them both a drink so they'll think he's friendly. The soldier tells the girls his name is Mattuci—the name of an Italian guy in their unit.
- The Native American soldier drives off with the women, sitting in between them and feeling them up. The next day he brags to his buddy that he went to bed with both of them. His friend points out that he's making quite a reputation for Mattuci.
- Back to the prose part of the text: Leroy, Harley, and Pinkie think Emo's story is hi-larious. But Tayo's not laughing . . .
- The guys try to get Emo to tell another story, but he's not feeling it. Tayo is making him uncomfortable. They stare each other down like two tomcats gearing for a fight.
- Emo tries to taunt Tayo, but Tayo stays cool. That is, until Emo gets out his little bag . . .
- The bag is full of human teeth. Emo knocked them out of the corpse of a Japanese soldier and now he likes to carry them around and play with them. Yeah . . . Emo is a creepy, creepy dude.
- Emo starts talking about how good he was at torturing Japanese soldiers during the war. He really seems to relish chopping off body parts. Gross.
- Tayo's the only one who seems bothered by Emo's sadistic stories. The other guys just laugh.
- Emo says the bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan weren't enough—they should have bombed the entire country and wiped out all the Japanese. So he's not just a racist and sadistic psychopath—he's also genocidal.
- There's a break on the page, and then we get a really confusing paragraph. Someone (we're not sure who) sneaks into an old man's field of melons. He smashes all of the melons, relishing the way they pop. He even tramples the ants and covers up the pulp with dirt so the flies can't enjoy the pulp. What a waste!
- Even though the text doesn't come out and say it, we have a feeling this is a story about Emo, maybe when he was an adolescent. Who else would take so much pleasure in that kind of waste and destruction?
- This paragraph (about the melons) and the next one allow us to get inside Emo's head. Just imagine we're the psychoanalysts and Emo is on the couch. It's our job to examine his past in order to figure out what made him so crazypants.
- Another page break. This paragraph is definitely about Emo. He really, really liked the weapons he got to use as a member of the U.S. Army: shells, grenades, flamethrowers. . . . The man is a killing machine.
- An even bigger page break lets us know we're shifting away from Emo's perspective and back to Tayo's. Instead of calming him down like it usually does, the beer is having a different sort of effect on him now. It's loosening the part of him that usually keeps his anger in check.
- Emo is playing with the teeth, pretending to put them in his mouth at funny angles, when Tayo snaps. He breaks a beer bottle, jumps up, and starts screaming that Emo is a "Killer!" (IX.26).
- Does Emo back off? No way! He calls Tayo white trash and says something bad about his mom.
- Tayo stabs Emo in the belly. He feels like he'll get well if he kills Emo.
- Tayo's buddies pull him off of Emo. Tayo feels numb while he watches Emo get loaded into the ambulance.
- The cops wrap up Tayo's bloody hand in gauze and drive him to Albuquerque.
- The text jumps back in time to the day Rocky and Tayo visited the army recruiter. The wind threatens to blow away all of the recruiter's pamphlets.
- The recruiter was hoping for a crowd, but it's just Tayo and Rocky. He looks disgusted, like he's ready to leave, but he gives the boys his speech anyway. He says: "Anyone can fight for America [ . . . ] even you boys" (IX.33).
- Tayo knows Rocky wants to enlist. Rocky tells the recruiter he wants to be a pilot. The recruiter gives Rocky a dismissive "sure, sure" as he packs up the car. Doesn't sound very encouraging.
- Rocky asks the recruiter if he and his "brother" can stay together—it's the first time he's ever called Tayo that (IX.40).
- Auntie had always made sure everyone knew that Tayo was "Laura's boy." It was her way of maintaining a distance between Tayo, the unwanted child, and Rocky, her pride and joy.
- Flashback to the night Tayo's mother leaves him at Auntie's house. Tayo is 4 years old. He remembers that there were men in the car with them and that they were drinking—his mom had whiskey breath.
- Tayo doesn't want to let his mom go, because he knows she'll be gone for a long time. He cries when she leaves, but Josiah tells him not to because now he has a brother—Rocky.
- The little 4-year-olds get off to a "rocky" start (ha ha, get it?), but soon they're sleeping in the same bed. Tayo stays awake and listens to Auntie slam pots around in the kitchen—which she does whenever she's angry.
- Auntie raises the boys together, but she's not very nice to little Tayo when Josiah and Grandma aren't around. Rocky definitely gets preferential treatment.
- As soon as the boys start school, Rocky starts to pull away from Auntie. Tayo becomes the person in the family who understands her best—probably because he's the only one who's willing to listen to her.
- OK, comb your goatees and get out your cigars . . . it's psychoanalysis time. This time it's Auntie who gets to take a turn on the couch. Everyone got their Austrian accents ready? Here we go:
- Tayo understands that part of the reason Auntie is such a meanie-pants is that she's scared. She's afraid of being stuck in "one of the oldest ways"—the Laguna Pueblo community (IX.48).
- Auntie feels torn between Laguna customs and certain aspects of white American culture—especially Christianity.
- To make matters worse, she feels responsible for Little Sister's shenanigans. The Laguna people feel they're losing Little Sister and therefore losing a part of themselves. It's up to Big Sister (Auntie) to bring her back.
- How about we take a minute to get inside Little Sister's head?
- Little Sister is ashamed of being Native American, because the white missionaries at school have taught her that Indian culture is inferior. So she dresses like the white girls and tries to fit in.
- White men think she's cute, and she starts hooking up with them. This doesn't really help, though. These guys are sort of pathetic in bed. Now she just feels ashamed of her own people AND white people.
- Oh yeah, and of herself.
- OK . . . back to Auntie. When Auntie fails to stop Little Sis from running around with white men, it brings shame on the family and the entire community.
- So that's why Auntie is such a grouch all the time. She feels shamed by her little sister and cut off from the community.
- A page break indicates that psychoanalysis time is over. The text shifts back to Tayo's perspective.
- Sometimes Auntie would pull Tayo aside and tell him secret stories about things his mother did before he was born. They're shameful stories that they have to hide from old Grandma and Josiah. But Auntie wants Tayo to know about them so he'll understand why their relationship is so strained.
- Auntie tells Tayo one story about his mother coming home after staying out all night long. She walked home completely naked, wearing only her high-heeled shoes. Talk about a walk of shame.
- When Auntie finishes that story, Tayo asks her what his mother looked like before he was born. Auntie doesn't answer, and Tayo knows their conversation is over.
- Tayo was really asking about a photo of his mother that he used to have when he was a kid. Auntie had taken it away from him and he'd never seen it again. He couldn't cry to Josiah or anything because he didn't want to drag him into the weird secret politics of his relationship with Auntie.