My Heart Belongs to Crazy Horse by Lysi Whisler

The sky was the color of brushed pewter, with patches along the
horizon couched in the hue of tarnished armor on the morning that
Annie Jane Brokenshire fell in love with Crazy Horse. A thick fog
bathed the tree-lined streets in a giant stretch of smoky webs, cast
Annie Jane's bedroom in grey shadows that mirrored every known shade
of rain.

It happened while Annie Jane was in the shower, with her eyes clenched
shut and the hot water coursing over her body like melted sunshine.
She was so intent to belie the mood of the world she almost missed the
sneak of realization, which didn't come with a clap of thunder.

Rather it crept, like a crocodile out of a bog, a maw-dripping pierce
of strength she didn't recognize till it snapped her from behind.

Annie Jane didn't feel bitten, though. Only penetrated, filled, and
forever transformed by something incredibly sweet and surprising.

I'm a cream puff, Annie Jane decided. And I'm in love with Crazy Horse.

The first thing she did was flush her Zoloft down the toilet.

Good-bye depression. She waved her fingers as the pills swirled
around in a tornado of blue chemicals. Good-bye anxiety. Good-bye
Zoloft. I don't need you anymore. I'm in love with Crazy Horse.

That was one annoyance forever banished to the sewers of northern
Virginia.

Now for the small matter of her fiancé.

He wasn't going to take this well. After all, they were perfect for
each other, Annie Jane and Trevor Wilson, III. Annie Jane's friends
and family adored Trevor. He was Prince Charming in a power tie. And
Annie Jane, wasn't she just the prettiest thing? She was neither
brought by the stork nor hidden under cabbage leaves in the garden.

One sunny morning, Glinda the Good Witch dusted off her cauldron,
filled it with spring rain, stirred in rose petals and rainbows and
all those colored sugars used to decorate Christmas cookies, waved her
wand and blew a kiss over the whole mess and out popped Annie Jane!
Trevor Wilson, III and Annie Jane Brokenshire. A perfect match.

Crazy Horse was going to be a real problem.

The Brokenshire-Wilson wedding was scheduled to take place on
Saturday, three days hence. Dozens of friends and family members were
flying in from all over the country. The church and reception hall
were reserved. The cake and flowers paid for. And let's not forget
the mortgage. Another kink in Annie Jane's discovery was the fact
that she and Trevor lived together, had in fact bought the condo they
shared before they'd ever made solid plans for tying the knot. Who
needs a marriage license when you share a house payment? Annie Jane
and Trevor might as well have been married for three years now. They
just hadn't taken the vows.

The vows.

Yes. Annie Jane accepted it. She was in love with Crazy Horse.

There it was, and there was nothing she could do about it. She
figured she had two options where Trevor was concerned. There was no
way she was going home to her mother, so she gathered all of Trevor's
stuff—well, not all of his stuff, but all of the stuff he cared about
most—and placed it outside the front door, in the hallway.

Annie Jane struggled with Trevor's free-weight set, piece by piece.
She ignored curious neighbors waiting for the elevator while she added
his favorite blue jeans, his label maker, his Washington Redskins
baseball cap, and his iPod. He already had his briefcase and cell
phone with him at work, as well as his pager and his hair gel. That
should about cover all the things most important to Trevor Wilson, III.

Annie Jane danced into the kitchen—releve, grand jete, pas de
bourree!—fixed herself a pot of coffee, gulped down three cups,
fingers trembling, and decided it wasn't fair to kick Trevor out and
leave him nowhere to go. There was the possibility of allowing Trevor
to stay until Annie Jane figured out what she was going to do next,
but she was sure Crazy Horse wouldn't like that, so her thoughts
turned to Charlotte, her best friend since college. Charlotte had a
huge thing for Trevor, always said, "If you ever get sick of him,
Annie Jane, just pack him up and send him my way."

Annie Jane packed Trevor an overnight bag filled with toiletries to
take to Charlotte's, drank three more cups of coffee, and jogged seven
miles around the wildlife preserve near the condo, even though there
were ridiculous signs posted that warned in bold block lettering: "No
Running in the Wildlife Preserve."

Trevor came through the door that evening with his iPod and Redskins
cap clutched in one hand and his other arm hanging down like his
briefcase was filled with lead. His face swam in the cautious fear of
a boy who's discovered his tree-house has been penetrated by a rival
gang. "How'd you find out?"

"It just came to me," Annie Jane said. "Something natural, that's
always lived inside me, on hibernation, and this morning it woke up,
sprouted all out and over like one of those science films where you
watch the seed grow at hyper-speed. At first it seemed more like
getting snapped up by a crocodile in the middle of a dark swamp, but
there was nothing violent about it, so--"

"Don't be a bitch." Trevor threw his iPod and cap on the sandy beige
sofa. "So it's out, it's over. You don't have to torture me with
your caffeinated metaphors." He looked toward the kitchen, perhaps
checking the level of the dark brew left in the coffee pot.

"But I--"

"Who told you? Did Charlotte tell you? Or did you find the … did you
find … anything?" Trevor dropped his briefcase to the floor with a
thunk, and craned his head over his shoulder, in the direction of his
desk.

"I haven't talked to Charlotte," Annie Jane said. "But I packed some
stuff for you to take to her apartment. It's only fair you have
somewhere to go."

"Wow," Trevor said, rubbed his temples and looked around the condo
like he was trying to decide if he'd come through the wrong door. "I
can't believe you packed for me, that was … that was … wow. You're
taking all this rather well."

"I feel great." She'd never felt better in her whole life. Not the
day she won the Spelling Bee in sixth grade, pounded down Katrina
Maloney with aboriginal, a-b-o-r-i-g-i-n-a-l, aboriginal. Not the day
she scored a Principal with the Washington Ballet. Not the day she
met Trevor, backstage after the Nutcracker, holding a bouquet of red
roses studded with babies' breath. A man who said she'd bewitched him
with the spell of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

None of those days compared to this one.

Annie Jane was in love.

She handed Trevor his overnight bag, and his face crumpled like a
discarded ball of paper. "Can't we even talk about this, Annie Jane?
I don't … I don't love her, you know. It didn't mean anything.
You're the only woman I've ever loved, Annie Jane." Trevor's voice
wavered like a bad swimmer, and his eyes, blue as the waters around
the Bahamas, were glassy. He looked sick or drunk, and sank to his
knees on the plush ecru carpeting. "Please don't make me leave."

That made things hard. Annie Jane hated to hurt people's feelings.
Despite what he was trying to confess, Trevor could be a good man.

But it was useless to pretend. "I'm sorry, Trevor," Annie Jane said.
"But my heart belongs to Crazy Horse."

His eyes changed first. All the tears dried up, and he blinked a few
times, looked like he'd been struck on the head. Then Trevor rose,
reneged on his beg, put his hands on his hips. He chewed his upper
lip, cleared his throat. His words came dry and sane as Sunday.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"What we've been talking about the whole time." Annie Jane should've
known it wouldn't occur to Trevor that this was about anything other
than himself. "I've fallen in love with Crazy Horse."

Trevor looked at the carpet for awhile. That, or he studied his shoes
like he'd never seen them before. When he looked up again his face
was the color of pink glass in a Tiffany lamp. "Who the fuck is Crazy
Horse?" The sanity of his tone was gone, his words shot with
bitterness and tossed back like a hard whiskey.

"He's a Sioux Warrior." Annie Jane had never met such ignorance in
all her life. If she were a rude woman, she would've laughed in
Trevor's face. But what was more laughable was the way Trevor seemed
to go through emotions like costume changes. It made Annie Jane feel
feverish, and she began to doubt her reality. She wanted to race to
the bathroom and exhale, centimeters from the mirror on the wall, to
make sure she was breathing. Then she wanted to take one of Trevor's
razor blades, make a tiny cut on her wrist or her leg or even her
face, to see if she bled.

"A what? A Sioux Warrior? You're fucking a hockey player?" Trevor
took a step toward her, stretched his neck out, as if that could make
him taller. As if that could frighten her.

Annie Jane's head cleared, and her heart slowed. She was not
frightened. She could get through this. "It's not like that, I--"
"When did this happen?" Trevor did that ridiculous thing with his neck
again. He looked about as threatening as a turtle. Which was funny,
because there had been times in the past when Trevor had made that
same face, done that same thing with his neck, and Annie Jane had felt
terrified. There was the time she'd promised to iron Trevor's shirts
before she went to rehearsal, forgot, and hid in the closet until
Trevor fell asleep. There was the time she dug the key to Trevor's
desk out of his underwear drawer, rooted through it for cash because
she needed cab money to get to D.C. on time for her performance at the
Kennedy Center. She'd fled the apartment suffering only two smacks to
the face before she made it to the elevator. There was the time …
shit, there were a lot of times, Annie Jane realized. A lot of times
she'd been afraid of Trevor.

"I asked you when the hell this happened."

Annie Jane was glad to be reminded of the morning's hot melted
sunshine amidst the hang of fog and patter of raindrops on the
windowpanes. "It happened in the shower."

"You fucked him in the shower? Our shower?" Trevor turned and kicked
his briefcase, sent it flying across the room. The metal clasps burst
open and papers and manila folders scattered all over the spotless carpet.

"I told you, it's not like that."

"Oh, please," Trevor scoffed. "I've heard that before. Shit, I've
said that before. So what is this about? This is about Charlotte,
right? You found the tape I made of us in my desk, because you're
always such a snoop, so you brought some hockey player home and did it
in our show--"

"He's not a fucking hockey player!" Annie Jane's love for Crazy Horse
had filled her with heart, and unfamiliar bravery. Crazy Horse, in
twelve hours, had already given Annie Jane more than Trevor had in
three years. "He's a Sioux Warrior. A real Sioux Warrior."

Trevor made another costume change. This time he chose Confused and
Repentant. Possibly Disgusted. Then a new emotion fluttered across
his face, and he became a psychiatrist who really believes in his
manual of diagnoses. "Oh, God," he said. "Did you take your Zoloft
today? Are you feeling depressed again? You know what happened last
time you skipped your pills. You sat in your bathrobe for a week,
never took a shower, smelled like a foreigner who slept in a barn--"

"No."

"You skipped. Either that, or you're drinking." Trevor leaned in and
smelled around her mouth, like it was the fourteenth century and he
was checking his wife for an errant dip in the barrel.

Annie Jane jumped back, guts twisting. "I chose not to take it.
After I fell in love with Crazy Horse." That was an important
distinction, in Annie Jane's unprofessional opinion.

"The dead Crazy Horse. Dead over a hundred years."

"He was murdered," Annie Jane conceded. "Stabbed in the back by a
white man."

Trevor waved a hand in the air. "Do you think," he asked, as he
observed the strewn contents of his briefcase, "that him being dead
will get in the way of your happiness?"

Annie Jane hadn't really considered that. Crazy Horse being dead had
seemed inconsequential this morning when the feeling of him had
swallowed her like a fire eater at a magic show. "I don't know," she
admitted.

"You can't be in love with a dead guy, Annie Jane."

"Sure you can. You wrote it yourself. In your vows for our wedding.
You wrote, `Nothing can defy true love. True love knows no
boundaries.' Remember?"

"Funny you bring up our wedding vows," Trevor said. "We're supposed
to get married in three days and while I'm off working myself to death
you're home Googling Crazy Horse!"

"I didn't Google him," Annie Jane insisted. "He came to me in the
shower."

"Uh-huh." Trevor smiled, the way an adult talks down to a child.

"Why don't you go get in the bath, relax, and in a few minutes I'll
bring you some hot tea … along with your Zoloft!"

"Get out."

"Annie Jane, you're--"

"Shut up." Even though Annie Jane was not afraid of Trevor's fists
this time, she was tired of looking at him, and wanted to send him
running. And there was only one thing that sent Trevor Wilson, III
running. "Get out or I'll mail the tape you have in your desk to your
mother."

Annie Jane was alone. As much as she realized in a flash all the life
she'd wasted on Trevor, he'd made a valid point that Annie Jane hadn't
considered.

How much did it matter that Crazy Horse was dead?

She drank a cup of coffee, then a glass of red wine, relished the
rituals particular to each: the smell of the dark powder and the brew
as dark as a Turk's eyes; the slip of the glass and silky liquid the
color of blood on her inner lip. When she was done, and alone in bed,
Annie Jane decided she couldn't answer her questions by herself.
Tomorrow she would go visit Dr. Spotted Calf, her calculus professor
from college.

In the morning Annie Jane drank two cups of coffee, with a small shot
of Irish whiskey to calm her nerves, and hung outside Dr. Spotted
Calf's office at George Mason University. She knew where he was
teaching his ten o'clock class, but there was no way she'd be able to
corner him afterward. It was a strange thing to watch, the way all
the students flocked around him after a grueling math lesson, asking
either detailed questions heavily laden with formulas cited to
impress, or vague queries that smelled suspiciously like excuses for
lingering, because Dr. Spotted Calf was pretty much a jerk to his
students. But he had long black hair that he kept in braids and a
sarcastic, stolid air that made white kids think he had answers to all
things spiritual, no mind he was a professor of math.

Annie Jane recalled that the first five minutes of his class required
writing and reciting the "Three Rules of Calculus 101, As Taught by
Dr. Spotted Calf." He scrawled them with sharp snaps of his chalk on
the first day and left them up all semester. "One," Dr. Spotted Calf
wrote. "Calculus is your friend." Some of the students snickered.
"Two," Dr. Spotted Calf continued, ignoring their humor. "You may
refer to formulas during testing. Good mathematicians do not memorize
formulas, they use them so often they become second nature." This
elicited sighs of relief. "And three," Dr. Spotted Calf finished, his
chalk breaking and requiring replacement halfway through his writing
of the last rule. "You may not, at any time, ask me what my name
means. If you give it careful, intelligent thought, it should be
self-explanatory."

During her time at GMU, Annie Jane once heard a girl telling Dr.
Spotted Calf that he ought to teach creative writing instead of
calculus. "Why?" Dr. Spotted Calf had demanded. "I don't write
stories. I am a professor of mathematics. In fact, I hate stories!"
And the girl had run away crying, and never returned. Annie Jane
remembered that the outburst caused her to raise her eyebrows and
shake her head, like an old grandmother might. Dr. Spotted Calf
witnessed her admonition, and from that day forward he spit her name
out in a rush—"Annie Jane Brokenshire!"—and picked on her constantly
for answers, ignored the fact that Annie Jane crouched motionless, a
clown fish amidst a sea of eager students waving their arms like the
tentacles of an anemone.

"Annie Jane Brokenshire," Dr. Spotted Calf snapped, though it had been
seven years since Calculus 101. He glared down at her as she leaned
against his office door. "Why are you bothering me?"

"I need your help, Dr. Spotted Calf."

"I can see that." Dr. Spotted Calf nudged her aside and unlocked his
door. "Why are you shaking? Are you cold? Sick? Hyped up on
caffeine, as usual?"

"I'm in love with Crazy Horse."

Dr. Spotted Calf paused in the half-open doorway of his dark office.
He made a grumbling sound with his throat. "You do need help." He
held the door open with his back and motioned her inside. "That's a
big problem."

"Because he's dead," Annie Jane agreed.

"No." Dr. Spotted Calf let the door to his office fall closed behind
him, and for a moment they stood together in darkness and all Annie
Jane could see was the outline of Dr. Spotted Calf's braids, and the
faint redness of the leather ties that bound them at the ends. Annie
Jane heard a click and the room flooded with light. "Because you're
white."

"Oh." And here she'd been spending all her time worrying over the
strength of the boundary that interfered with everlasting love between
the living and the dead. She'd forgotten about the depth of the race
chasm. "Right."

"What're you going to do about it?" Dr. Spotted Calf demanded.

Annie Jane surveyed the contents of Dr. Spotted Calf's office. She
didn't want to miss a possible solution to her compounding problem.
She had no wiggle room to overlook details. On the walls: Da Vinci's
"Coition of A Hemisected Man and Woman," and a colorful map of the
world that took up the entire east end. On his desk: a stack of Blue
Book exams, an apple with a bite out of it, now turning brown, and one
of those page-a-day calendars, which looked to be a series of
dog-eared mini-crossword puzzles. In the far corner, a trash can
overflowing with balled papers and pencil shavings. "I don't know,"
Annie Jane admitted. "That's why I came to you for help."

"Crazy Horse was an Oglala-Brule Sioux. I am not," Dr. Spotted Calf
said, and sat down in his desk chair with much ado and rustling of
Blue Book exams. He picked up a pen and poised it over the opened
front cover of one of the tests.

"I know you're not Sioux." Annie Jane hadn't come to Dr. Spotted Calf
for help because she thought he was from the same tribe as Crazy
Horse. She'd come to him for help because love was, if nothing else,
the world's greatest math problem.

"How do you know I'm not Sioux?" A shadow of a smile played with the
sharp contours and deep creases of Dr. Spotted Calf's intelligent,
obstinate face.

Annie Jane rolled back a shoulder. "You're not pretty enough."

Dr. Spotted Calf stilled his pen, looked up from his Blue Book, and
released a long-captive chuckle. Annie Jane was quite sure she'd
never seen his teeth before. They were white and square, looked
strong. "Touché, Annie Jane Brokenshire." He jumped up from his
desk, like the seat of his chair had burned him. "Tell me, how did
this happen."

"Yesterday morning. In the shower."

Dr. Spotted Calf nodded, as if he understood about falling in love in
the shower. "And how do you know you love him?"

"Well, I--"

"What is it you love about him? What he accomplished? What he stands
for? You love him like a wife? You love him like a child? You love
him like a savior?"

"Well, I--"

"It's important. I can't help you unless you're honest with me."
Annie Jane's face burned like it'd been rubbed with sandpaper. Her
head hurt, right around the temples. She looked out the tiny windows
of Dr. Spotted Calf's office and watched the rain beat the pavement,
eddying circles forming in the aged, caving concrete and mixing the
edges of the lawn to a muddy brown soup. "I love Crazy Horse like …"
She paused to suck in her breath, felt herself trembling. "I love
Crazy Horse like …"

"Like a sister? Like another man? Like--"

"I love Crazy Horse like old sheets," Annie Jane said. "Because
they're worn soft with years of fatigue and trust. I love Crazy Horse
like when you finally vomit, because that's proof your body's going to
fight its invasion, all the way to the death. And I love Crazy Horse
like the way your thighs tingle after you've climbed the tallest
mountain, even though the sky is grey and the wind stings. It doesn't
matter because you warm yourself inside with who you are and what
you've done, you prickle in your guts, like a porcupine that's been
given the power to reverse her quills. That's how I love Crazy Horse."

The office was quiet. Dr. Spotted Calf sat down in his chair and took
a bite of his rotting apple. He chewed in various tempos, sometimes
quick, sometimes slow, like his grinding teeth matched his thoughts.
Annie Jane stared at the crossword puzzle calendar, and figured from
its nappy condition that Dr. Spotted Calf had leafed and scribbled all
the way to December. She wondered if he was measuring the truth and
depth of her vow, or if he was considering the senility of a woman who
had been consumed by the love of a dead warrior in her morning shower.
"Can you help me, Dr. Spotted Calf? Maybe there's a potion you can
mix, or--"

"Don't get stupid on me, Annie Jane Brokenshire. You were my best
student. I'm a professor of mathematics, not a Hoodoo master."

"Sorry." Annie Jane had gone stupid, but she was desperate.

"You need to provide Crazy Horse with an extreme test of faith," Dr.
Spotted Calf announced, and pitched his gnawed apple core into the
metal wastebasket in the opposite corner of the room. The papers and
pencil shavings toppled and poofed. "Two points," he said, raised his
arms high above his head.

"How do I do that?" Annie Jane asked.

Dr. Spotted Calf shrugged. "How should I know?"

"But what would a Sioux Warrior do to provide proof of an extreme test
of faith?"

"It doesn't matter." Dr. Spotted Calf lifted his pen, and opened the
same Blue Book he'd been pretending to grade for the last twenty
minutes. "You're not a Sioux Warrior. For this test, you have to do
what a white woman would do. And I, for one, have no idea what a
white woman would do."

Neither did Annie Jane. She noticed Dr. Spotted Calf had made a few
marks on the exam in front of him. That was her dismissal. "Thanks,
Dr. Spotted Calf," she said. "And good-bye."

Dr. Spotted Calf didn't look up as she opened the office door, but his
voice followed her retreat, his tone weighted with the reserve saved
for candlelight dinners or prayers at the tabernacle. "Good-bye to
you, Annie Jane Brokenshire."

Annie Jane drove home, the lines on the highway a little blurry but
not enough to make her swerve. What would a white woman do to provide
an extreme test of faith? Annie Jane thought about Charlotte. What
would Charlotte do? Vow to quit talking on her cell phone while she
was driving? Return her store-bought boobs? Give all her Sex and the
City DVDs and eighties-style peg-leg pants to the local homeless
shelter? Quit sleeping with other women's fiancés?

None of those were tests for Annie Jane. They couldn't even be
considered comparable to Multiple Choice, even if each one would be a
Blue Book Exam for Charlotte. But Dr. Spotted Calf was right. She
couldn't expect to win the love of Crazy Horse with nothing more to
show for herself than shin splints and hammer toes.

Annie Jane squeezed past the free-weight bench to get into the
apartment. Trevor had taken everything else with him last night.

Trevor.

Tests.

Annie Jane thought about what he'd said before he'd left. "You can't
be in love with a dead guy, Annie Jane." That's what he'd said. You
can't.

Annie Jane was tired of you can't. That's all she'd been hearing, her
whole life, ever since she was four years old and her mother had told
her, "You can be anything you want to be, Annie Jane." Mom had just
finished cursing, on her knees scrubbing Gladys Gentry's tiled
kitchen, one of the many kitchens Mom cleaned. Robbie, Annie Jane's
younger brother, was whining in his baby carriage, parked on Gladys
Gentry's Berber carpet. Mom's back was bent, her shoulders jerking
with the motion of the hand-brush, her long blond hair roped back and
held in place with a pencil snitched from Gladys Gentry's oak desk.
"You never have to do this, Annie Jane," her mother told her. "You
can be anything you want to be."

Annie Jane was supposed to be coloring at the table, but watched a
spider instead, in the corner in her web as she wrapped a fly in
layers of white silk. She stood up and looked through Gladys Gentry's
French door. "I want to be that." Annie Jane pointed out the window
to the backyard.

Mom rose with relief from her scrubbing, just as an airplane roared
overhead. "What? A pilot? A stewardess? What?"

"No." Annie Jane moved her finger around and around the image of the
puff-chested bird perched in a high layer of one of the pin oaks. It
was so tiny, so blue, singing its little lungs out, its beak trembling
with the effort of challenging its insignificance. "I want to be that
bluebird."

"Oh," Mom laughed, and sank back to her knees with a groan. "You
can't be a bird, Annie Jane."

You can't.

As she grew older her requests continued to be met with the same
response, though in Annie Jane's opinion each of her suggestions was
more and more of a compromise away from the perfect idea of being a
bluebird. "I want to be her," Annie Jane said when she was ten years
old. She pointed at the television screen.

"What?" Mom looked at the TV, at the picture flashing of the inside of
a church, a choir of Black women singing praises to Jesus, a Black
minister at a podium, shouting, praying, encouraging the music and the
joy and the weeping. "You want to be a Baptist?" Mom's face spread
thin in a grimace, she raised her hands and shrugged her shoulders in
her ragged maid's clothes. "Annie Jane, don't tell me you've found
God. Is this about that time you went to church with that little
religious-nut friend of yours?"

"No." Annie Jane pointed again. "I want to be her." She moved her
finger around and around in the air, squinted her eyes at the image of
the fattest, Blackest, happiest woman in the choir. Annie Jane wanted
to look like that. Annie Jane wanted to sing like that. Annie Jane
wanted to feel like that.

"Oh," Mom laughed, and went back to paying the bills. "You can't be a
big, fat, Black woman, Annie Jane."

You can't.

When Annie Jane was fifteen, she saw some old sports footage of Dr. J,
in his Chucks, running the court. Jumping. Hanging. Flying. She
informed her mother, "I want to be a basketball player."

"I can't afford to buy you a hoop." Mom had given up on incredulity
and admonition, tossed away Annie Jane's fantastic suggestions with
more and more ease as the years passed. "You'll have to go to the
schoolyard."

"No, I mean, I want to fly like Dr. J," Annie Jane said.

"Oh," Mom laughed, never once looked up from her studies. Mom was
going to become a beautician, and not only had she chopped off and
dyed her own long beautiful locks, she'd already subjected Annie Jane
to several stinky nail and hair treatments for practice. "You're five
foot three, Annie Jane. You can't fly like Dr. J."

You can't.

When Annie Jane finished college, she told her mother, "I know what I
want to do with my life. I want to work construction."

"What?" Mom didn't pause from her tornado of cabinet rearranging. Her
life was different now, better. She'd gone to school, got a new
boyfriend who brought her flowers and leered at Annie Jane's breasts
when Mom wasn't looking. Life was wonderful, and everything from bath
towels to soup cans needed to be situated to match this change.

"Like…what? Constructing what?"

"You know," Annie Jane said. "Like framing houses. Putting up tile."
Annie Jane had watched her mother's transformation from pretty but
tired maid to plastic but tired beautician, and she wasn't impressed.
She decided she wanted to be one of the Hispanic guys, up on the
roofs, loud and happy and singing under the sun, trilling to Latino
songs while she hammered down beams and tarred up shingles.

"Are you crazy?" A can of peas slipped from Mom's grasp, fell and
nicked her big toe. When she was done slinging curses she faced Annie
Jane. "You got a scholarship. You went to college. You aced
calculus. And I scrubbed my butt off my whole life so you could take
ballet. You're going to be a ballerina, Annie Jane. A smart
ballerina. Not a construction worker. You can't frame houses, Annie
Jane."

You can't.

"You said I could be anything I wanted," Annie Jane said. "Remember
that? You said I could be anything."

"Well," Mom laughed, and started to hurry back through re-organizing
her pantry. She had to get to work at the beauty salon she owned with
her partner, the bleached and toned and utterly insufferable Wanda
Puffenstraight. "That's not what I meant."

After that day, Annie Jane didn't trust anybody. Even at the
Betrothed Couples Retreat for Trevor's church, when they played this
ridiculous game where you were supposed to fall backwards into your
partner's arms, Annie Jane couldn't pony up the blind faith she was
supposed to have in her intended. "C'mon, Annie Jane," Trevor had
laughed. "I'm not gonna drop you."

Annie Jane remained unconvinced. Besides, she'd had a lot of coffee
during the break and she had to pee. "This is stupid," she said. "I
mean, I could knock you over. Or you could fall asleep while you're
standing there, or get a cramp in your leg, and drop me on accident.
I could hit my head and go into a coma. Anything could happen. This
isn't about trust. This is about tricks. This is about forcing
people to do things they don't want to do, Trevor. This is about
making us look like idiots."

"For God's sake, just fall back into my arms! Just let go, Annie Jane!"

"No," Annie Jane said. "I can't."

Annie Jane made a pot of coffee and drank three cups. She listened to
her voicemail messages, six from Trevor, three from her mother, two
from Charlotte, and one from Dr. Anstead, each and every one of them
asking her to stop being either crazy, stupid, or thoughtless, and
begging her to please take her medication.

Annie Jane deleted them all.

She was unclear still of her extreme test of faith, but she knew she
was afraid, almost in a panic. The fear caused her to tremble
uncontrollably, and in this terrified state she started to do lesser
acts, hoping that a series of smaller tests might make up for
accomplishing the real ones that faced her before she could win the
heart of Crazy Horse, bridge the unfathomable gap of race wars and
opposite plains of existence.

She did a whole slew of things she'd always been told she couldn't do.
"I'm going to eat until I burst!" Annie Jane ate canned soup and
cheese sandwiches till she threw up six times in the sink. "I'm going
to run until my heart explodes!" Annie Jane jogged the Wildlife
Preserve for three hours, until her legs gave out and she passed out
on a toxic, No-Digging zone. While she lay there, she had a vivid
series of dreams, the most prominent edges of her consciousness formed
to the shape of a giant nest, covered in singing bluebirds.

Annie Jane woke up with her face in the dirt, realized her folly, went
home and got in bed. She slept without moving until morning, roused
by a sun shining brighter than a chest of gold. She got in her car,
and drove to an area in Manassas recently razed of all its trees and
wildlife in preparation for a series of wall-to-wall McMansions.

Annie Jane watched the men, four of them, all wearing blue shirts,
perched on the roof of the freshly erected house, their hammers
pounding, their voices trilling happily in Spanish.

Annie Jane's thoughts turned to the man she loved: to Crazy Horse.

Crazy Horse was, to the whites, a renegade. A problem. A
trouble-maker. Crazy Horse was, to his people, a fearless Warrior.
An odd, pensive recluse. A good leader. Crazy Horse was, to Annie
Jane, a man who knew how to live. A man who followed his heart. A
man worthy of true love.

Annie Jane abandoned her car and approached the house, waved her arms
over her head at the men till their singing petered out in various
stages of gusto and trilling. After a clustered conference, they all
descended the ladder with expert quickness. Annie Jane spoke to the
man ahead of all the others, his smooth brown face dripping with
sweat, his hands callused and knuckles bloody, his t-shirt, bare arms
and blue jeans layered in sawdust, tar and dirt. "I need to help
build your roof," Annie Jane said.

The man stared at her, shrugged. He looked over his shoulder at the
three guys behind him, and they shrugged too, spoke words to each
other in Spanish that Annie Jane didn't understand. "Uh," Annie Jane
started again. "Necesito … uh … trabajar … contigo? Por favor?"

The man smiled, exposed a front tooth rimmed in gold. He said
something in Spanish and shook his head. The men behind him laughed.
"Por favor," Annie Jane repeated. "Te amo … uh … no, not te amo."
The men laughed again, louder this time. Annie Jane had just told the
stranger she loved him. And then she'd retracted it, which made her
feel bad. She thought briefly on apologizing, lo siento—of course I
love you—but she decided not to create anymore confusion.

Annie Jane tried again. "Te amo Crazy Horse."

No, that wasn't it, either. She'd just said, "I love you, Crazy
Horse." But yes! That was true! "Si!" she shouted. "Te amo, Crazy
Horse!" Annie Jane raised her arms and did several rapid pirouettes.

"Muchachos, te amo Crazy Horse! Y necesito trabajar contigo, por
favor! Ahora!"

The men laughed, shuffled out of their queue to get a look at her,
exchange glances, maybe decide she was loca. But they helped her
anyway. The head man pointed to the ladder, and together they all
climbed to the roof of the McMansion.

Annie Jane had to adjust to what balance felt like on the slanted
beams, rested her fingertips against the palms of the men when she
felt shaky. Annie Jane discovered what she'd always known—that they
were professional dancers, too—they just wore jeans and tee shirts and
utility boots instead of tights and unitards. The man with the
gold-rimmed tooth told her his name was Luz, and handed her a hammer.
Together they worked, breathed sawdust and fresh bursting sunshine,
hammered and sang loud happy songs in Spanish. They put all of their
hearts into building a house that none of them would ever live in.
Annie Jane figured she was singing more in Spanglish, but that was
okay with her. She sang like a bird, and her heart was full.

By afternoon, Annie Jane was sunburned, had six slivers, one black
thumbnail, and a hole in the knee of her jeans. Luz climbed down the
ladder after her, said something to her in his rapid, musical
language, and put the back of his hand to her forehead.

Annie Jane shrugged.

Luz leaned in, brushed his lips where his knuckles had been. It was a
kiss of concern. A mother checking for fever.

"I'm good," Annie Jane said. "But gracias."

Luz offered her a hit off the joint the men had been passing around on
the roof. Annie Jane sucked it till she felt her lips burn. Luz's
fingers smelled like spice and tar. She held the smoke in her lungs
till it jumped out on the edge of her coughing fit, and Luz clapped
her on the back a few times. Annie Jane stood up straight, and Luz
smiled at her. Annie Jane smiled back, they clasped fingertips, and
Annie Jane wondered what sort of dreams had lived in Luz's heart when
he was a boy. If they'd had anything to do with A-frames and concrete
footers, or if he'd even dared to dream at all. Annie Jane took
another hit off the joint, and her head felt calmer, the growing
tremble on her body stilled with the heaviness of the hot weed.

Annie Jane drove away, knew she would miss Luz and all the other men,
even though she didn't really know them. But she turned her gaze to
the blue of the sky, which had dimmed a shade, like the royalness of
it had been brushed over with a thin glaze of rain.

She didn't have much time. Tomorrow was her wedding day.

Annie Jane checked her cell phone, and noticed there were fifteen
missed calls. She rolled down her window as she crossed the
Fourteenth Street Bridge—which felt wobbly and must've been built
crooked, in her opinion—and pitched her phone into the Potomac River.
She wasn't sure of her destination, but she drove past all the
monuments in the District, cruised around and around until she came to
C Street, which ran next to a row of tall, attached brick housing
units on one side, and a basketball court swarming with Black teenaged
boys on the other. Annie Jane parked in front of a fire hydrant, and
crossed to the basketball courts, which thrummed with sweat, curses,
and the vibrations of heavy bass coming from a boom box resting on
graffiti and broken glass in the corner of the fenced-in yard.

She watched the boys play until one of them noticed her. He tapped
one of his friends on the shoulder, who tapped one of his friends, and
one of his, until the game of b-ball petered out in slow motion, like
actors onstage who all hear the director yell "Cut!" at their own speed.

"What up wit' the white girl?" one of the boys asked, a red bandana
wrapped around his head and knotted in back.

Nobody had an answer for that.

"I need to play with you," Annie Jane said. She wasn't afraid of the
boys, and the increasing grayness of the sky was nothing but a
comfort, but she was terrified of the idea of running the court,
trying to sink a ball. One elbow to the nose and Annie Jane was toast.

The boy with the bandana looked her up and down. "Eh," he called to
his friends. "Mugsy Bogues turned into a white chick and came all the
way out here to get game wit' us." Everybody laughed. He looked her
up and down again. "Can you shoot?"

"No," Annie Jane admitted.

"Dribble?"

"A little."

"Guard?"

"No way."

"Can you do anything?" The boy pointed a finger at her and made a
motion in the air, like he traced an invisible number eight or the
sign for infinity.

"I can run," Annie Jane said. "And I can dance."

"What the hell you out here fo', then?"

"I'm in love with Crazy Horse," Annie Jane said.

"Say what?"

"I'm in love with Crazy Horse," she repeated.

The boy cupped his hands around his mouth and turned his head. "She in
love with Crazy Horse!" he yelled. The rap music died, Jay-Z
instantly shushed with the push of a button, which rendered the court
less of a playground and more ominous in its silence, like a warpath.
"I said, she in love with Crazy Horse!" the boy called.

Laughter.

"I need to play with you, to prove my love to him," Annie Jane
explained. "I need to fly. Like Dr. J."

"Oh, you gonna fly, huh? You gonna play like Dr. J?" The boy cupped
his hands around his mouth again, even though most of the boys were
close enough to have heard her and had laughed already anyway, and he
chanted, "She go-in' ta play, like Doc-tuh-J!"

More laughter.

"I'll help you fly." The tallest kid on the court, must've been close
to seven feet, pushed through the group and gave the boy with the
bandana an elbow to the chest. He stared down at Annie Jane, his face
straight, his torso bare and sweaty, the orange globe tucked between
his elbow and his hip, a blue sweatband around his forehead catching
the drops that hadn't already escaped to his cheeks. "You wanna play
with the Warriors?" He pointed at a few of the boys naked from the
waist up. The other half of the boys wore long, sleeveless shirts.
Shirts and Skins.

"Yes," Annie Jane said. "I do. I want to play with the Warriors."

The boy held out a giant, open-palmed hand, and just as Annie Jane
took it he said, "You like Jay-Z?" and tilted his head back toward the
silent boom box. The court hushed, and Annie Jane felt him squeeze
her fingers, the softest embrace in the world. The heartbeat of a gnat.

"No, I don't," Annie Jane said.

"No?"

"No, sir," Annie Jane said. She stripped off her tank top, threw it
in the pile littering the bench outside the court line. "I do not
like Jay-Z. I like Robert Johnson."

The boy smiled. Then he tossed her up on his shoulders and took off
running. They flew like Dr. J. All the boys flew like Dr. J. They'd
become hawks, Warrior birds, swooping and swishing, bumping and
screeching around the court, and when the game was over, Annie Jane
was covered in sweat, a million new bruises, and a sprinkling of rain
that was starting to drip from the sky.

"Name's Michael," the tall boy said, after he'd helped Annie Jane to
her feet and tossed her the only pink tank top in the pile. "No
relation to Jordan," he added.

"Annie Jane." She thought about sticking out her hand for a formal
shake, but it seemed ridiculous after riding around on Michael's
shoulders for the last hour. "Thanks."

"We kicked their asses," Michael said. "Does that do it for you?
Profess your love to … the guy that … who was it?"

"Crazy Horse."

"Crazy Horse," Michael agreed.

"I'm not sure," Annie Jane said. She knew something was missing.

She'd come closer with each test, could feel the intimacy compounding
in tandem with the darkening of the sky, the inches between her and
Crazy Horse deleting, the feeling of closeness to him shroud her like
the fog that suspended the world on the morning of her fateful shower
two days ago. "I've sang like a bird," she said. "And I've flown
like a bird. I'm not sure what's left. What's left that birds do."
She racked her brain, but her mind was so chaotic, her ideas a running
machine gun, like scenes of a war movie on heavy fast-forward.

"You need to be a bird, that it?" Michael asked, paused to give out a
series of complicated handshakes to his bare-chested teammates as they
took off for home, some of whom said, "Later, Michael," and some of
whom added, "Later, nekid white girl."

Annie Jane glanced at her pink bra, littered with rosebuds, and pulled
her tank top over her head. "I guess they soar," Annie Jane decided,
the picture coming to her fast, and freezing, large as the sky.

"Birds sing, fly, and, if they're lucky, they soar. What do you
think, Michael?"

Michael dribbled the ball a few times, then passed it between his
legs, took it from behind his back, turned, and made a three-point
jump shot. The ball bounced back to his massive hands, and he looked
down at Annie Jane. "Girl," he said. "If you need to soar like a
bird, then you need to meet my mama."

By suppertime, everyone in Michael's family had gathered in a tight
warm clan of brightly colored clothing and nodding sympathetic heads
completely devoid of suspicion or judgment. They all decided that
Annie Jane needed a special church service with Brother Taylor, and by
seven o'clock the whole community had gathered in the church around
the corner from Michael's house. The choir showed up in shiny blue
dress robes, and Brother Taylor in a black pinstripe suit and
cornflower tie. Michael's mother, Grace Daley, was head of the choir,
and was the fattest, Blackest, happiest woman that Annie Jane had ever
met.

"When we're done here, I'm gonna feed yo' skinny white ass," Grace
said. "But for now, we goin' to sing to the Lord. And even if you
don't know the words, I want you to sing loud, and lift your arms
high. You understand me?"

Annie Jane looked into Grace's deep brown eyes, and nodded. She
understood. Sing to the Lord. Annie Jane was going to sing to the
Lord! She was sandwiched smack in the middle of the choir, between
Grace Daley and her cousin, Hope Daley. Michael sat in the front row
of the church, with about six or seven of the other guys from the
basketball game. The boys were still Warriors, Annie Jane could feel
it. The suits and ties did nothing to smother the energy that brewed
in their bellies, a fierce energy that warmed the church, drew in
people off the street for a specially prepared Friday night worship
till the place was full as Christmastime.

And what a worship it was! They sang, and they danced. They sang
about the Blood, the Blood never losing its power. And they sang
about the mountains and the rivers and the valleys. And they sang
about the Lord. They sang about the sweetness of Jesus and his
everlasting redemption. They sang, and they danced, and some people
even fell to their knees in rapture. Annie Jane sweated more in
church than she did on the basketball court. She soaked her blue
jeans and her pink tank top with sweat, tears, and the Blood That
Would Never Lose Its Power. Annie Jane felt like the fattest,
Blackest, happiest woman on the planet. Annie Jane sang, and she
flew, and she soared.

Annie Jane soared.

Grace Daley fed Annie Jane like she promised, and, seeing as how she'd
already eaten till she burst, Annie Jane felt no need to repeat that
ritual, and stopped when she was full. Then Grace Daley threw her
skinny white ass in the shower, gave her a white nightgown that was
ten sizes too large, and tucked her in the spare bed, which was really
Michael's bed, who was banished to the worn living room couch with the
sagging cushions. Grace kissed Annie Jane on the forehead. "What are
you, girl?" she asked.

Annie Jane wasn't sure, so she said, "I'm a ballerina."

Grace nodded. "Well, that fits like pixie dust on an angel food cake,
don't it?"

Annie Jane shrugged.

"I always wanted to be a ballerina," Grace said. "But I'm too fat.
You're a lucky girl."

"Yes, ma'am," Annie Jane agreed. "I come from a long line of lucky
people."

"Go to sleep now."

"Okay." Annie Jane closed her eyes, and she dreamt of her mother,
natural and pretty and tired of poverty, and of her slow
transformation over time to artificial and painted and hollow in
richness. Then the dream changed, and Annie Jane was dancing in her
toe shoes, reaching for her partner, falling down and snapping her ankle.

"So you sang, and you flew, and you soared." It was Michael's voice.
Annie Jane opened her eyes in the darkness. She looked at the digital
clock on the end table, which told her in bright green lights that, in
this part of the world, it was midnight. Michael stood by the side of
her bed, a shadowy, colossal presence that made her feel safe. "What
you gonna do now?" he asked.

Annie Jane sat up. She'd been wondering the same thing. Michael was
right. She sang, she flew, and she soared. And she was so close to
Crazy Horse she could smell him. He smelled like sweet rain and heady
fog and immaculate childhood memories. But Annie Jane wasn't finished
proving herself, hadn't reached the apex of her extreme test of faith,
and she had no idea what to do next. "I don't know. But it's big,
whatever it is."

"Dang, you fell hard for this guy," Michael said.

Annie Jane thought again about the great gulf between her and Crazy
Horse: the heartbreaking wrench of time, the perception of culture,
the circular vastness between the poles of reality, of sanity, of
truth. Yet she trusted in what happened in the shower this morning
more than anything she'd ever known in her life. Could true love
really overcome anything?

Michael sat down on the edge of the bed, made the mattress dip toward
him with his weight. "You over eighteen?" he asked.

"I'm twenty-seven." Annie Jane didn't mind sliding against him with
the sudden slant of the bed. His size was matched only by the warmth
that exuded from the passion for life that he held tight inside him.
"Oh." Michael laughed at himself. "You have one of those looks, like
… you can't tell. You could be seventeen or twenty-seven or even forty."

Annie Jane nodded. "I know," she said. "I think it has something to
do with my size."

Michael shook his head. He put his fist over his chest. "It has
something to do with what's in here."

"Oh," Annie Jane whispered. No one had ever said such a thing to her.
"I'm a gentleman," Michael said. "I'm only here to see if you're
okay. You got me worried or somethin', so I'm lookin' out for you is
all."

"Of course you're a gentleman," Annie Jane agreed. She laid her head
back against the pillow, and closed her eyes. "But I'm okay."

"You're sweatin' pretty bad. And you're shakin' worse. I'll sit with
you, Annie Jane," Michael said. "You can sleep, and I'll watch over
you. Make sure you okay. Aright? You can let go, Annie Jane."

Annie Jane fell asleep, and dreamt of mists and mountains, horses and
hawks. A violent storm. Hail. And then a fog rose, thick as
obsession, and Annie Jane jolted from her sleep, and sat up in bed.
Michael was right. She was hot and sweaty. And shaking. She could
feel it now. Her head burned with fever and her hands trembled like
new birth. Michael had fallen asleep at the foot of her bed, his
torso slumped over on the mattress, his knees on the bedroom carpet.
Annie Jane got out of bed, didn't bother to change out of the white
nightgown that was ten sizes too big, because it made her feel like an
angel. This was it. It was time. Annie Jane heard the low rumble of
thunder, smelled the froth of ancient tides, felt the ache of passion
on the cusp of explosion. Annie Jane leaned over Michael's body, and
kissed him on the cheek. He smelled like his mother, Grace, and her
beautiful supper of roast beef and new red potatoes.

Annie Jane found her car, not booted, busted or glossed with graffiti,
still parked in front of a fire hydrant. She drove out to Great
Falls, knowing the park was not open past dark, but also knowing it
was impossible, no matter how hard people tried, to gate and rope off
and lock up things that are wild. She remembered a place from the
last time she was here, at least ten years ago, when she really had
been seventeen, had been young and innocent and oblivious to her fate.
She'd felt a connection to the place, a separation from her body and
all its wants and desires, a lightheaded bask of attachment and sacred
love that she knew she'd never replicate. She'd vowed right then to
return to the Falls every year. But she'd never been back.

Annie Jane parked in the darkness, and registered the time as 3:30
A.M. It was her wedding day, both here in Great Falls, Virginia, and
in the Black Hills.

Annie Jane slinked through the trees and crunched on the rocks in the
darkness. She could hear the mad rush of the falls, and smell the
moon on the wind. Her eyes had long ago adjusted to the nighttime,
but that was useless because the fog had risen so thick it was like
wading through the gossamer spun from the abdomen of a spider.

But direct vision didn't matter. What was right in front of her
didn't matter. All that mattered was turning her eyes to the sky, to
the sight of a hawk, streaking beneath the light of the haze-shrouded
moon. Annie Jane climbed toward it, till she reached the peak of a
rocky ridge near the rushing Potomac River, high from the spring
rains. She stood on the edge of her ridge, curled her toes over the
sharpness of the rocks, closed her eyes, and pictured Crazy Horse.
His long, dark hair, flowing free. His body, slight, and painted with
hailstones. There were no undisputed photos of Crazy Horse in
existence, but there was an artist's rendering, done by Andrew
Standing Soldier, a man who, before he attempted his sketch, spoke
with the Elders who knew Crazy Horse intimately. Annie Jane had seen
it, had taken it upon herself to Google Crazy Horse, an unwitting
suggestion provided by Trevor before he left the day Annie Jane would
last rest eyes on him.

But it wasn't this image that came to Annie Jane as she stood on the
rocks, above the rushing falls of the Potomac. No image came at all.
She expected, as she stood alone, cloaked in the mist, her mind open
and her senses running like wild rivers, that she would feel again the
unexpected, glorious insistence that she'd felt in the shower almost
three days ago.

Annie Jane felt nothing.

Her eyes flew open as her heartbeat rose and made her skin prickle to
her fingertips. Every step she'd ever taken in life had led her to
this moment. This was her path. "Crazy Horse!" she screamed. She
might be white, but she'd worked hard to prove herself. Time and
space might be a big issue, but she'd traveled a long way today.

Annie Jane's love meant more than anyone's, because she'd worked the
hardest to show it, to win his heart in return. Annie Jane was not
crazy. Annie Jane was a Warrior. She wanted to hunt with Crazy
Horse. She wanted to raid with Crazy Horse. She wanted to lie down
with Crazy Horse. She wanted to die with him, all over again, get
stabbed in the back in treachery, the world left to mourn in confusion
and despair. Annie Jane would see Crazy Horse to the end of his days.
To the end of all days.

"Crazy Horse!" she screamed again. She squeezed her eyes shut. Her
body trembled like the flu. It quivered like an orgasm. It shook
like an earthquake. The fog felt clammy. Cold. Not warm, like the
shower had been on her back. Not warm … like the shower … on her back.

Annie Jane smiled. She flexed her arches, tipped on her toes, the
rocks cutting into her thickened skin, and she danced like a ballerina
in circular, precise steps. She kept her eyes closed, and tiptoed her
back to the edge of the Falls.

Turned her back, and her trust, to the great chasm of impossibilities.
She felt the wet spray soaking her gown. A mist. A warm breath. A
heat that stilled her shaking. Washed away the ache of her head,
breathed a life into her body that could paralyze the universe. Annie
Jane sighed, rested to the soles of her feet, opened her arms wide.
Crazy Horse filled her. He tasted like fresh blood, and sea salt, and
vomit. He tasted like hot Turkish coffee, and silky red wine. He
tasted like old bones, and even older trees, and the sweet dew of
springtime where it catches on a freshly spun cocoon. Annie Jane
whispered, "Tasunka Witko."

His name was carried away in the mist.

"Annie Jane."

The voice crawled through the fog.

"Annie Jane!"

Her name was garbled, like it came from a merman with a throat full of
water.

"Oh, God. Annie Jane."

Annie Jane opened her eyes. She thought she saw the outline of
Michael, the giant of the basketball court, hovering in the fog. It
might've been his shadow that loomed, or it might've been the tangled
reach of the dogwoods and sugar maples. Whatever it was, it was brown
and beautiful like Jesus. The shadow stretched out a hand towards
her, fingers trembling, eyes piercing the haze and battling the drop
from the rocks to the Potomac at Annie Jane's back. She smiled at
him, and closed her eyes again.

"Annie Jane!" It sounded far away. "Whatever it is, Annie Jane, it
don't matter. You don't have to do this. Nothing can be this bad.
Just let it go, Annie Jane."

"Tasunka Witko."

"Annie Jane. No. You can't."

A perennial force opened her, as wide as the sky, consumed her, as
deep as the hesternal moon of a tangled wood. Love knows no boundaries.

Annie Jane let go.