There There

Each of the four main parts of There There is broken up further into sections dedicated to a single character’s point of view.

The first section focuses on Tony Loneman, a 21-year-old man who was born with “fetal alcohol syndrome,” or the “Drome,” as he calls it (15). As a result of “the Drome,” Tony has distinctive facial features, and “people look at [him] then look away” (16). Tony narrates his experience as a young person who “basically failed the intelligence test” and developed his own sense of intelligence: knowing “what people have in mind” (16, 17). His grandmother, Maxine, who raised him, tells Tony that he is a “medicine person” who looks different because he is different on the inside. Tony lives with Maxine and greatly respects her. Tony’s mother is incarcerated, and all Tony knows about his father is that he is in New Mexico. Tony describes some of his core traits and values. He often gets angry, and when he does, he blacks out. He has been selling marijuana since the age of 13, and he spends the rest of his time with Maxine. Tony talks about “all the shit [he] got in,” which started after he began procuring drugs for “some white boys up in the Oakland hills” (21). Tony works with Octavio Gomez, a drug dealer, to get the cocaine the boys want.

One day Octavio asks Tony to help him rob the powwow happening soon in Oakland. Octavio has 3D-printed guns and asks Tony to get bullets from Walmart, put them in a sock, and throw them in the bushes at the front of the coliseum where the powwow will occur. Finally, Octavio asks Tony to wear “some Indian shit” (25), meaning regalia, for the robbery. Tony’s section closes as he tries on the regalia he has at home and looks at his reflection in the TV. Instead of what he usually sees, “the Drome,” he sees “an Indian […] a dancer” (26).

The second section centers on Dene Oxendene, a graffiti artist who tags under the name “Lens.” Dene is on his way to apply for an arts grant to create a documentary, inspired by his Uncle Lucas, based on interviews with Indigenous community members in Oakland. As Dene rides a train to the grant interview, he feels anxious about his lack of qualifications for the project, specifically his identity as a half-white, half-Indigenous person. Dene is also confused about whether his uncle has already “written the scripts to be performed” or “transcribed actual interviews” (33). In a flashback, Dene recalls the genesis for the documentary: Almost immediately after telling Dene the idea for the film, Lucas landed in the hospital for liver failure related to alcoholism. From his hospital bed, Lucas also told Dene about a camera “with a grip like a gun” that he wanted to give him for the project (37). Shortly thereafter, his uncle passed away, leaving Dene devastated.

The narrative returns to the present. In the interview for the cultural arts grant, Dene feels like “his mind is a mess of misfires” and watches the members of the committee judge him (39). Dene reflects on a Gertrude Stein quote that one of the other applicants, a white man, brings up about Oakland. In commenting on the unfamiliarity of Oakland after being away for a long time, Gertrude Stein said, “There is no there there” (39). To Dene, the quote signifies the way that ancestral Indigenous homes were destroyed to make way for highways and steel skyscrapers.

Dene presents his idea to the panel: a series of interviews with Indigenous community members in Oakland. As Dene takes the train home, he smiles because he is confident he won the grant for $5,000.

The third section opens a window on the character of Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield. In the 1970s, when Opal is a young girl, her mother brings both Opal and her older sister Jacquie Red Feather to a months-long sit-in at Alcatraz, organized by Indigenous activists. Opal and her sister do not like their names: “They come from old Indian names,” their mom explains (45). Opal does not understand the explanation and finds it frustrating that other “kids didn’t have to do anything to my name to make fun of me, no rhymes or variations. They just said the whole thing and it was funny” (46).

As the family heads to Alcatraz, Opal carries her teddy bear, Two Shoes, and thinks about the many evictions they have experienced. Opal is confused about what the Indigenous protest at Alcatraz Island is for. Hot meals are served every day, and Jacquie and Opal sleep “on Indian blankets, in that old jail cell across from [their] mom” (49). Time passes, and Jacquie starts hanging with a group of teenagers on the island. Opal often tags along. One day, the teenagers get a bottle of alcohol and are drinking on the beach. Opal, who is watching, finds a boy, Rocky, her own age to talk to. Meanwhile, Jacquie, who is inebriated, starts screaming off in the distance. Rocky’s older brother, Harvey, who was one of the teenagers drinking, has raped Jacquie.

Shortly after the incident, the protest on the island ends, and Opal and her family go home. Jacquie has become pregnant and wants to have an abortion, but Opal wants her to keep the baby. Meanwhile, Opal’s mother is diagnosed with cancer. Rather than follow the advice of doctors, Opal’s mother listens to her adopted brother Ronald, a “medicine man” who suggests dubious remedies. She later dies. Opal recalls her mother’s advice that they have a responsibility to tell their stories.

The final section introduces Edwin Black, a half-Cheyenne and half-white young man who is addicted to the internet. Edwin reflects on his “sick addiction” (63), weight gain, and recent week-long constipation, which he believes is caused by his diet of junk food. Edwin lives in his mother Karen’s house and primarily sees only her and Bill Davis, her boyfriend for the last two years. Edwin feels frustrated that, whenever Bill is at the house, Edwin feels that he has to stay in his room. Edwin wonders if the fact that he “always felt fat” meant that he was “destined to one day be fat” (68).

Edwin and his mother argue frequently over his weight and his lack of income, despite the fact that he has a master’s degree in comparative literature. Eventually, he finds work with the committee that will host the powwow in Oakland. Edwin also begins the process of searching for his father online using “his first name, Harvey” and the fact that “he lived in Phoenix, and […] was a Native American” (69). Pretending to be his mom, Edwin gets Harvey to respond to his messages. The response states: “Hey there, Karen, I do remember that wild night” (69). Edwin engages in an online conversation with Harvey and learns that his father will be attending the Big Oakland Powwow as the emcee. At the end of the section, Edwin tries to exercise and defecates in his sweatpants from the exertion. Having finally found relief from his constipation, Edwin says, “Thank you.”