Her grandmother always knew best. So when she sat at the table that afternoon, she knew that it would be tough to ask her grandma the question. She would never say yes, she thought. “You’re seven years old!” she would say. Using her fingers to hold her granddaughter’s gaze, she would inevitably shake her head and say, “No, eeeyah, doodá
those things!!” But there was something stronger than that fear of no–a driving sense of purpose that drew her little hands to bend her grandmother’s newspaper to the middle section, exposing the pages in the paper’s middle. She remembered that she has circled the section in a bold square of red crayon wax to draw in her grandmother’s eyes and stood close by as her grandmother read and stirred her afternoon coffee. She just couldn’t bear the thought of missing the new Kubrick, the commercials gave her the willies. How could she miss it? She could take it no longer. She blurted it out. “Grandma, can we please go to the movies to see ‘The Shining?’”
She remembered that the silence was only enhanced by the hollow ceramic sounds of the stirring coffee. Her grandmother stared at her in silence. That sinking feeling in her stomach was one that would stay with her for life, when she left home, when she started school, even today. She stared down at her grandmother’s feet, noticing the same old black leather shoes that her grandmother wore. It had been the same as the shoes she wore yesterday and the whole year before. Her grandmother always seemed to wear the same shoes but explained to her granddaughter that she kept a cache of shoes in her closet – each one the same as the one before. She never saw these shoes her grandma spoke of – but as a way to experiment and pass the sometimes boring hours of summer – she had marked her grandma’s shoe with a red “M” – for Minnie… her grandma’s name. She could see that “M” as she stared down at the floor. We never had the money to go. The stirring stopped. “Go get my purse.”
Her grandmother’s purse was heavy. It’s broad leather straps pressed into her hands as she rounded the corner and sat the old leather down against the table. Her grandmother’s weathered hands counted out a few folded bills and some change and put it on the table. She grabbed her coat and placed her purse on her arm. “Grab your movie money, let’s go.” They were out the door as soon as her chubby little hands had stuffed the money in her pockets.
The cold winds from the north had begun to move in and the bitter October cold against her cheeks kept her in her memory. On the ride into town she could feel that same chill filtered by the glass of the passenger window. She pressed her cheek against it and watched her grandmother drive their old pickup truck into town. The landscapes rushed by behind her as she became a silhouette in the blinding contrasts of yellows and reds. They were on their way.
They pulled into a space a block away from the theater. “Fate.” She remembered her grandmother saying. They pushed their money into the window and walked in, taking their seat as the lights dimmed. Her red tennis shoes hovered above the sticky floor of the El Morro Theater, her skinny brown legs a few years from touching the floor. As the credits began, she could see the flickering light against her grandma’s face. It was a moment she would never forget. They watched the movie together and memorized every terrifying scene. The creepy Room 237 scene was the scariest for her, by far. She grabbed her grandma’s hand as the echoed laughter of the old woman on screen filled the darkened aisles. “Eee yah,” her Grandma whispered in her ear, “Room 237.” Her Grandma winked at her and squeezed her hand.
Her love of horror movies was something her grandmother never understood but it was something they shared in secret. Her grandma laughed when she would act out scenes in the kitchen… “Your granddaughter is not here, Mrs. Emerson.” She talked like that all summer, with her finger for “added drama and authenticity.” And Room 237 became a code for them. One day, walking home from the Thriftway, arms stuffed with chili chips and Shasta, she heard old Mrs. Bitsi across the street cackle like the old hag as she called in her dog Ronnie Reagan – for dinner. I ran through my Grandmothers tattered doorway with “That crazy old woman across the street is straight out of Room 237!” …her cackle still audible in the quiet valley of summer. We laughed again. She pulled a loaf of bread from the bread box, a soft, blue gray lay sprinkled beneath the cellophane. Grandma countered, “Ewww! That bread is moldy, like the woman in Room 237!” Her grandmother’s laugher echoed in her head.
She felt herself laugh out loud and looked around to make sure no one heard her. A few distant cousins shot her a look but she chuckled again. Standing outside the white church twenty years from that magical day, she watched as the wind swept her hair into the reddened tip of her cigarette, sending its charred remnant out of sight. If her grandmother was here, she thought, she would be so pissed. “Your body’s a temple”, she would say, “would you smoke in church?” She could still remember when she would come home, her grandmother simultaneously clutching her tight and inhaling the aura of smoke covering her. She would shake her head and hug her again. She blew one last grey breath into the October air and walked toward the church.
She watched the sweaty collar of the mortician as he pulled up to the church door and wrestled the back door of his white hearse open, bringing the light pink box up the steep church steps… the last and final ascension by her side.
She could hear the sound of her shoes on the church’s creaky wooden floor and stood there still -that sinking feeling. This was the last time that she would see her grandmother… or her body that is. “Don’t ever get old.” Grandma would tell her. “Promise me” She could feel herself shaking her head. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the shoes…the black leather still scuffed with the mark of an old “M.” -that one vision speaking to the years of sacrifice. Grandma never would buy new shoes. But my own closet was filled with all of the old and tattered leather of shoes she bought her. Tears stung her cheeks. As the family began to gather and settle into the services, she sat in the row closest to her grandma. The father began to speak, “As we come to celebrate the life of Minnie, let us first turn to our chosen hymn, page 203, Hymns 2, 3 and 7.”
Ramona Emerson (Navajo) is a filmmaker originally from Tohatchi, New Mexico. She received her degree in Media Arts in 1997 from the University of New Mexico (one of the first two graduates of the program) and has worked as a professional videographer, writer and editor for over thirteen years. Her screenplay, The Backroad, was one of the first 10 finalists at the Flicks on 66 Digital Shootout (now Duke City Shootout), in 2000. The film, which was shot and edited in six days, was awarded the Student Spirit Award at the Indian Summer Film Festival in 2003. Emerson, who also directed The Last Trek and A Return Home (2008 Governor’s Cup/All Roads Film Project), has showcased her films around the country. She and her husband, producer/actor/artist Kelly Byars (Choctaw) continue to produce films through their company Reel Indian Pictures in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Emerson also works as an editor and director of photography on other independent productions.
She continues production on her documentary, Gambling with Our Future, which was funded through the 2008 New Visions /New Mexico Contract Awards. Ramona is also directing Hidden Talents, a documentary about Navajo mural painter James King Woolenshirt, with fellow Navajo filmmaker Nanobah Becker. She is a member of the Native American Producers Alliance and in January 2009, was appointed to the New Mexico Governor’s Council on Film and Media Industries. In May 2010, Ramona was selected for the Sundance Native Filmmakers Lab/Ford Foundation Fellowship with her screenplay “Opal.” Production of Opal was completed in January 2012 with the help of the Time/Warner Storyteller Fellowship and is starting its journey through film festivals. In 2012, Ramona and Reel Indian Pictures were funded for pre-production through Native American Public Telecommunications and the Public Media Fund for their newest documentary The Mayor of Shiprock. She is also a graduate of the 2013 CPB/PBS Producers Academy at WGBH Boston. She is also currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts and is working on her first novel, Shutter.
–Foreground art by Ashley Tsosie-Mahieu
–Background art by Winoka Begay