All the Agents and Saints: Dispatches from the U.S. Borderlands

161 13 The War Before entering Mo’ Money Pawnshop—a cinder block­building that stands alongside Lt. Dan’s Camo Gear & Accessories on Route 37 in Akwesasne—you must first contend with the sign taped to its door. blacklisted, it reads in eye-chart E font size, followed by a dozen names. Mine isn’t among them, so I push through the door, causing bells to jingle. Pawnshopsinthesouthernborderlandsgenerallyhavefluorescentlightingthatcastsagreenishpallorovercasesofweddingrings ,rowsofflat-screen TVs,andenoughguitarsandtrumpetstoequipamariachibrigade.Theattendants are invariably young Tejanas with slicked-back ponytails who follow you around, peppering you with questions, while the mustachioed Tejano behind the counter strong-arms clients into hocking heirlooms to pay off their electric bill. Mo’ Money feels homey by comparison, with its racks of DVDs and VHS tapes and a smattering of camping gear, lacrosse sticks, and vacuum cleaners. Thetableandchairsinthebackoftheroomsuggestdemocraticnegotiations, whiletheartworkonthewallsatteststoculturalpride:dreamcatchers,beadwork , images of wolves and moons and ravens. The jewelry cases are light on diamonds but flush with turquoise, some stones the size of my fist. Themanagerseemstobeinhermid-sixtiesandhasaboomingvoiceand a regal gait. Golden corncobs swing from her earlobes, and three strands of beads adorn her neck. Her eyeliner is thick as kohl. At the moment, she is assisting a middle-aged couple sorting through cocktail rings. The wife tries on a topaz number, and the manager sugars her up. It’s vintage, she purrs, 7.5 carats for just $250 with only 30 percent down. The husband jokes that they’ll have to stop at the casino first. “Don’t do that; I went to the Bingo Palace Friday night and they took all my money!” the manager says. “So I tells my friend I had no luck, and you know what he says? Take some antler bone and wrap it up in black silk with 162 The New York–Canada Borderlands a pinch of tobacco and put it in your bra, on the left side next to your heart. Try that and your luck will turn around.” “Did it work?” “I don’t know, I’ve never done it.” Why is it that, of the many cities I’ve lived in—Austin, Seattle, Moscow, Beijing, Brooklyn, Querétaro, Princeton, Iowa City, and Washington, D.C., to name a few—I overhear conversations like this only in the borderlands? When you live a few miles away from an arbitrary line that places you in an entirely different consciousness with its own history and culture and references and rules, your mind must become more receptive to additional imaginative leaps. The telephone rings and the manager scoops it up. “Mo’ Money, this is Vera.” After a long pause, she says, “No, no, I have no place to put it,” and hangs up. A woman emerges from the back of the store, asking who it was, and Vera says it was so-and-so wanting to know if she could come hock her fridge so she can play bingo tonight. Bythispoint,Ihavegravitatedtowardacaseofdanglyearringsfashioned out of beads and something I cannot identify. Sensing a sales opportunity, Vera strolls over and pulls out a pair for me to examine. “Porcupine quills,” shesays,runningafingertipdowntheirtubularlength.“Imadethemmyself.” I ask where she found the quills and she says all you have to do is sneak up and throw a blanket on one, and he’ll release a few for you.1 They’ve got upward of 30,000 quills apiece, and they grow back quick.2 Doesn’t even hurt them. Otherwise, you wait till you find one dead on the side of the road. “Their spirit then protects you.” When I admire her craftsmanship, she says she learned as a child from an elder next door. “She taught me that I needed to do some sort of craft so I wouldalwaysbeabletomakesomethingIcouldsellsoIcouldeat.Wewould go to near Montreal and sell our crafts. My dad would say, ‘You’re learning all these backward ways.’ But if you live in a world where you don’t respect who you are, your spirit is not happy.” 1. Months later, I’ll relay this explanation to a Mohawk, and she’ll laugh and call it a­“bullshit performance for white tourists.” I will join in the laughter and say I had thought as much, but truthfully, I hadn’t. 2. Another factoid about porcupines that seems improbable but isn’t: they can climb trees. Because they prefer the tenderest buds on the farthest tips of branches, they can also fall out of trees. Many a North Country camping story includes a porcupine nearly landing on somebody’s head. [210.158...