The Shirt

By Lois Beardslee
Sun contributor
“No. You can’t have the shirt.”
“But I want it.”
“I know. But you can’t have the shirt.”
“My friends will think it’s cool!”
“I know. But you can’t have the shirt.”
“It’s on sale, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But you can’t have the shirt.”
It is a camouflage design, in muted shades of military beiges and greens. The corporations that control America want to go to war again. And they are marketing children’s clothing as early recruitment…groundwork. The shirts are cheaper than any other shirts. They are in all the stores, and they are cheaper than all of the other shirts. It comes in other colors, that camouflage pattern. Oranges. Reds. Muted. Blending. Bloodlike.

“It comes in other colors, too. Look.”
“I know. But you can’t have the shirt.”
“Why?”
She wants to tell him.
“Why?”
She wants to tell him. But she knows that he is still too young to understand modern military operations. He is too young to understand death. He is too young to understand permanent loss of faculties, of limb. He thinks it’s cool. Blood and gore and stuff like in the horror movies. Like a Hallowe’en mask.
“It’s cool.”
Like a Hallowe’en mask.
“Mom. I said, it’s cool.”
“I know. But you can’t have the shirt.”
But nothing like a Hallowe’en mask.
“I could wear it for Halloween.”
“No, I wouldn’t let you.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want you to be a soldier for Halloween.”
“I could put fake blood on.”
“It’s called Hallowed Evening.”
“What?”
“Hallowe’en. It’s short for Hallowed Evening. And that means Holy Evening. It’s supposed to be a Holy
Evening.”
“Who cares…”
“I care.” It’s supposed to be about honoring the dead, she’s fairly sure, not just about gruesome ceremonies and an association with all things gory. It’s supposed to be about loving the dead, loving their memories. And scaring the kids is just a bonus. Because scaring kids a little bit is important to keeping them alive and safe. That’s why we’ve got stories about bad things. They are preventative stories. They are the true warriors’ stories. And it’s fun scaring the kids, too. It’s fun hearing children squeal with delight.
Ima Pipiig’s mind is wandering. It is taking her away from the urban development fringing the once-small town of Traverse City, Michigan. She is in small graveyards in the woods. Small patches of history and intertwined lives. She is sprinkling tobacco on the graves, following her mother, glad for the opportunity to toss and scatter something wildly with her young arms that beg for wide and simple motions without consequence.
She is hiding bundles of fresh sweetgrass behind the gravestones of Indian soldiers, where the white people will not see them and take them away, as souvenirs attesting to the quaintness of northern Michigan’s remnant Native inhabitants. The boy is sprinkling tobacco on the graves, following his mother, glad for the opportunity to toss and scatter something wildly with his young arms that beg for wide and simple motions without consequence.
“But I want it.”
“No. You can’t have the shirt.”
“Why?”
It is a camouflage design, in muted shades of military beiges and greens. The corporations that control America want to go to war again. And they are marketing children’s clothing as early recruitment…groundwork. The shirts are cheaper than any other shirts. They are in all the stores, and they are cheaper than all of the other shirts. It comes in other colors, that camouflage pattern. Oranges. Reds. Muted. Blending. Bloodlike.
He cannot have the shirt because, because… there is nothing in our oral and written history prior to the advent of the fur trade that refers to protectors being recuited as warriors. There is nothing in our stories, no cultural precedents for the concept of children recruited for future disposability in the form of corporate warriors. Once enlisted, these children are endlessly deployed until death or dismemberment. There is no Anishnabe word for this. There is no Anishnabe concept for this. This came with the fur trade, and our success at adapting to the warfare you brought upon us is being used to recruit us right now.
Ima Pipiig has seen the government posters, distributed in the Native American communities, the ones that talk about Indian warrior traditions. Ima Pipiig knows at this time that the boy is to be protected from the idea of protector as warrior, until he is old enough to know that dead is forever, until he is old enough to know that dismemberment is not cool, until he knows that one must carefully choose what one protects.
“Mom. I want the shirt.”
“I know. But you can’t have it.”