Praise for

THIS INDIAN KID

by E D D I E C H U C U L AT E

“A tightly crafted story about coming of age in Oklahoma from Eddie Chuculate,
a writer of breathtaking lyricism and remarkable candor. This Indian Kid is
nostalgia at its most potent.” —Luke Jerod Kummer, author of The Blue
Period: A Novel and Takers Mad

“Chuculate’s memoir is a story of tremendous strength, courage, and resilience,

with a message of hope.  Here we witness Native American life in the heartland
of America with a critical eye toward racism, poverty, and bullying, and skill-
fully executed with heart and compassion.  I highly recommend THIS INDIAN
KID, because I found myself absorbed by its genuine rendition of Oklahoma,
of Native diversity, and of the complexities of the human experience.” —Oscar
Hokeah, author of Calling for a Blanket Dance

“Anyone who’s grown up in America will find Eddie Chuculate’s This Indian
Kid to be as satisfying as a cold drink of water on a blazing hot day. With his
razor-sharp eye for detail, Chuculate reveals the heartache and joy of everyday
life. This is a remarkable book that will stick with you long after you’re fin-
ished.” —Rus Bradburd, author of All the Dreams We’ve Dreamed: A
Story of Hoops and Handguns on Chicago’s West Side
“Eddie Chuculate’s considerable skills as a fiction writer are on display in his
beguiling new memoir, This Indian Kid. In clear, evocative prose, rich with tell-
ing detail, Chuculate recreates a specific time and place (Oklahoma in the 1970’s)
and his own childhood in ways that are at once unique and universal. This por-
trait of a young Native boy navigating his world with its familiar challenges—a
complicated, blended family; frequent moves; changing schools; playing sports;
fishing; traipsing through eastern Oklahoma’s sometimes harsh landscapes—is
rendered with honesty, affection, and humor. Elements of racism and classism
are here, acknowledged as the conditions of the day, but without rancor. The
forces of love and family thread through all the trouble. This Indian Kid is a
delightful, swiftly moving read. Highly recommended.” —Rilla Askew, author
of Kind of Kin and Most American: Notes from a Wounded Place 
AL SO BY E D D I E CH UCU L ATE

CHEYENNE MADONNA
E D D I E C H U C U L AT E
 Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Copyright 2023 © by Eddie Chuculate

All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Focus, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.,

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Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data

Names: Chuculate, Eddie D., author.

Title: This Indian kid : a Native American memoir / Eddie Chuculate.
Other titles: Native American memoir
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Scholastic Focus, 2023. | Audience: Ages
12 and up | Audience: Grades 10–12 | Summary: “Award-winning author Eddie
Chuculate recounts his experience growing up in rural Oklahoma, from boyhood to
young manhood, in an evocative and vivid voice. “Granny was full-blood Creek, but
the Bureau of Indian Affairs insisted she was thirteen-sixteenths. She showed her card
to me. I’d sit at the kitchen table and stare at her when she was eating, wondering how
you could be thirteen-sixteenths of anything and if so, what part of her constituted
the other three-sixteenths.” Growing up impoverished and shuttled between different
households, it seemed life was bound to take a certain path for Eddie Chuculate. Despite
the challenges he faced, his upbringing was rich with love and bountiful lessons from
his Creek and Cherokee heritage, deep-rooted traditions he embraced even as he learned
to live within the culture of white, small-town America that dominated his migratory
childhood. Award-winning author Eddie Chuculate brings his childhood to life with
spare, unflinching prose. This book is at once a love letter to his Native American roots
and an inspiring and essential message for young readers everywhere, who are coming
of age in an era when conversations about acceptance and empathy, love and perspective
are more necessary than ever before. ”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023005172 | ISBN 9781338802085 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9781338802108 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Chuculate, Eddie D.—Childhood and youth—Juvenile literature. | Creek
Indians—Oklahoma—Muskogee—Biography—Juvenile literature. | Cherokee
Indians—Oklahoma—Muskogee—Biography—Juvenile literature. | Muskogee
(Okla.)—Social life and customs—20th century—Juvenile literature. | Muskogee
(Okla.)—Race relations—History—20th century—Juvenile literature. | Muskogee
(Okla.)—Biography—Juvenile literature.
Classification: LCC E99.C9 C48 2023 | DDC 976.6004/97385092 [B]—dc23/
eng/20230221
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023005172

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 23 24 25 26 27

Printed in the U.S.A.  37

First edition, September 2023

Book design by Cassy Price

Map on pages xii-xiii by Jim McMahon
To Momma
 A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Following the adage about writing what you’d like to read, I realized
I hadn’t read much about growing up Native in the 1970s and ’80s—​
­snippets from a larger work, maybe, but not set exclusively in that
era. And to be even more specific, about growing up in Oklahoma.
I felt compelled to write an account of my childhood living in ­cities
and towns among mixed races (although still primarily white),
­religions, and lifestyles.
I think you’ll identify with characters in everyday circum-
stances similar to your own, providing a realistic lens to observe
aspects of modern Native life. Native life certainly can be foreign
to the ­non-​­Native and seem fantastic and supernatural, but more
often it’s an everyday life of going to school or work, playing sports,
enjoying the outdoors, celebrating and mourning with friends and
family.
I also hope you’ll realize you can overcome m
­ istakes—​­rise
above t­hem—​­and not be defined by your circumstances. You’ll
encounter racism along the way, but don’t allow yourself to con-
form to outdated beliefs and attitudes of ­others—​­whether it be
from peers or older generations. Know that it’s good to be proud
of your race, but realize other races will play big roles in your life
as well.
I sincerely hope you enjoy reading the story from This Indian
Kid. Let me know.
Sincerely,
Eddie Chuculate
­First-​­grade photo at Calera (OK) Elementary in ­1972–​­73. I was there long enough to have
my picture taken in my giraffe shirt before transferring to Irving Elementary in Muskogee,
Oklahoma. (Courtesy of the author.)
 PROLOGUE

WETUMKA, WAURIKA, WAPANUCKA, Weleetka: Names on the

map sing like poetry. Coweta, Chickasha, Tecumseh, Pawhuska:
words rooted in Indigenous mother tongues invading English.
Skiatook, Talihina, Washita, Oologah: Where are they who named
you? Tuskahoma, Watonga, Anadarko, Bokchito: They roll off the
tongue and echo across Oklahoma.
­Oklahoma—​­with t­hirty-​­nine tribal nations and half a million
people of Native a­ ncestry—​­is Indian land. Even the name is derived
from Choctaw words roughly translating to “red people.” Your state
or town quite likely originates from a Native American word, too.
The land was acquired by treaties with the US government
and acts of Congress and called Indian Territory before it became
Oklahoma. It comprises not only lakes, rivers, woods, and prairie,
but cities, counties, and towns. Farms and ranches occupy Indian
land along with factories, skyscrapers, and shopping malls. Public
schools in Oklahoma have students of many races.
My maternal ­great-​­great-​­grandfather was a ­full-​­blood Creek
named Jackson Lewis. His parents came to Indian Territory from
their homeland in Alabama after being herded out with 20,000 oth-
ers at gunpoint and bayonet by the United States military in the
 EDDIE CHUCULATE

forced removal known romantically as the Trail of Tears. After

walking 400 miles, more than 300 Creeks drowned when the steam-
boat they were packed onto struck another boat in the Mississippi
River near Baton Rouge, a few hours after leaving New Orleans, in
October 1837.
But that was just one segment of several journeys on wagons,
afoot, and on horseback; in bitter winter conditions, the southeastern
tribes endured. Tens of thousands died either during the exodus or
after arrival. If they managed to stay alive, they were awarded 160
acres of land in Indian Territory. After Jackson’s parents left Alabama
in 1834, I was born at Claremore (OK) Indian Hospital five genera-
tions later.
My dad’s father was Edward C
­ huculate—​­my namesake, although
Eddie appears on my birth ­certificate—​­a ­full-​­blood Cherokee whose
grandparents were forced from their homes in North Carolina as kids
and orphaned on the removal on a northern route that trapped hun-
dreds for weeks alongside the frozen Mississippi River. In Oklahoma,
Ed married Martha Lundbeck, a Norwegian American missionary
from North Dakota. So I’m part Norwegian but never really claimed
it. Both of my grandfathers were ­full-​­blood Indian Baptist preachers
who delivered sermons in their Native languages and in English. My
dad also spoke both.
We’re issued cards by the federal government stating what per-
centage of Indian blood we are. Growing up, I was shuttled between
my mom and her mother, Maxine Mae (Narcomey) Flanary, who,
thanks to me, became a grandmother at age t­ hirty-​­six. Granny was
­full-​­blood Creek, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs insisted she was

2
 THIS INDIAN KID

thirteen-sixteenths. She showed her card to me. I’d sit at the kitchen
table and stare at her when she was eating, wondering how you could
be a thirteen-sixteenths of anything and if so, what part of her con-
stituted the other three-sixteenths. I determined it must be the three
strands of white hair wisping from her brown forehead.

3
 ­1976–​­77

CHAPTER 1
MONKEY TAIL AND Cookie chased the rabbit around the bank of
the frozen pond, their ­bark-​­howl filling the universe. When the rab-
bit turned the corner in a gallop like a racehorse, sun broke from the
clouds, sparkling the snow like sugar, and we had to shield our eyes.
“They’re running him right at us,” my best friend and baseball
teammate Lonnie Hill said, and I saw the pride in his eyes. I was
in sixth grade in Muskogee, Lonnie in fifth but only two months
younger, both of us out on Christmas vacation.
Lonnie raised his arm for me to stop and cautiously leveled his
shotgun at the solitary rabbit, gray against the snow-white land-
scape, now standing on its hind legs, sniffing the air. The red lights
of the KMUS radio towers blinked in the distance.
“Tell your Granny to get her skillet ready,” Lonnie said out of
the side of his mouth, cheek flattened against the stock. “This one’s
dead meat.” His breath puffed the air like steam. He shucked a shell
into the chamber; the clack rattled the silence.
I knelt and watched, knee crunching snow.
The cottontail scooted ahead a few yards, nose to the ground.
Lonnie lowered the barrel momentarily, then raised it again. The
blast exploded clods of black dirt right behind the rabbit, which
Lonnie Ray Hill, Jr., age eleven, ­1976–​­77, Muskogee. Lonnie routinely walked about half
a mile up a gravel road to see me, carrying either a fishing rod, shotgun, or baseball bat, his
beagle dogs trailing him. (Courtesy of Melita Griffith.)
 THIS INDIAN KID

cartwheeled. His second shot sprayed a fountain of snow just in

front of it. The rabbit reversed and darted straight for the pond,
Monkey Tail and Cookie yowling right behind its flashing white
tail. The shots echoed over the pastures.
“C’moan,” Lonnie said, “they’re on him now!”
I took off after Lonnie with my BB gun, stumbling over skele-
tons of brown brush that poked through the snow. The rabbit veered
and slashed, always toward the pond, an oval rink dusted with snow.
The barking beagle pups tangled and fell trying to copy the rabbit’s
moves, but they scrambled up howling and resumed pursuit.
The sun dipped into the clouds again and it grew dim. A shadow
slid across the pond as the rabbit sprang from the bank, hit the ice,
and went spinning like Bambi in a Disney cartoon. Lonnie aimed and
pulled the trigger but the gun clicked. As he fed another shell into
it the rabbit regained its footing and shot across the surface, kicking
up puffs of snow as it leaped onto the far rim and vanished in a blur
into the bushes.
Monkey Tail stopped at the edge of the pond, but Cookie
jumped onto the ice, tumbled, and I heard a grumble in her throat.
Cookie tried to walk but slipped onto her chest each time. She finally
gave up in the middle of the pond and froze, looking all around.
“Cookie!” Lonnie yelled. “Come here, girl.”
The dog looked up at Lonnie, whimpering.
“Come here, girl!” Lonnie whistled and smacked his thigh.
“C’moan now.”
Cookie barked at him, then panted, her tongue hanging like

7
 EDDIE CHUCULATE

a piece of bubblegum. She sat on her hind legs, whimpered, and

barked at Lonnie. Monkey Tail joined us. He barked at Cookie, too.
Lonnie’s uncle had given the pups to him last year. He’d brought
them over to show me the day after, walking them down the dirt
road. He’d seemed as happy as if he’d been given a stack of money.
“Dang it,” he said. “Here, hold this.”
Lonnie broke the gun open and handed it to me. I was astounded
at its weight compared to my BB gun. I wasn’t much of a hunter, only
plunked at aluminum cans, birds, or turtles in the pond. Granny
only let me go hunting with Lonnie because she trusted him. He
knew all the regulations, wore a blaze-orange hunting vest, and kept
the gun on safety and angled to the ground.
Lonnie tested the edge with his foot, stomped on it, then crept on.
“Come here, Cookie,” he said in a soft voice, and whistled.
Cookie just whined and barked and would not move.
Lonnie eased out toward the middle, testing the surface every
few feet with his boot. Cookie barked and wagged her rump as
Lonnie inched closer. As he knelt to pick her up, the ice cracked and
spider-webbed in long veins. He plunged in over his head with an
arm stretched to the sky and Cookie went under, too.
“Lonnie!” I yelled.
He submerged for an instant and came back up, pawing at a big
plate of ice, spewing water and yelling. He got a knee up onto a jag-
ged shelf, then it broke off with a big crunch, and he fell in again on
his back, disappearing. He resurfaced dog-paddling, thrashing and
kicking, chopping and splashing water.
I ran around to the opposite bank, tripping and falling in snow

8
 THIS INDIAN KID

with Monkey Tail barking at my heels. Lonnie had his head above
water, elbows resting on a sheet of ice. It was thicker near the bank,
so I inched out on my belly with the BB gun extended. He grabbed
the barrel, and with both of us pulling like a tug-of-war, he slid
onto the thicker section and stood up.

My small house was visible to the northwest, smoke trailing a thin

line from the chimney, firewood stacked high out front. We jogged
toward it, high-stepping and stomping through the snow, and as
we neared I saw the windows fogged with steam at the corners.
Dripping icicles hung from the porch roof like a row of fangs, but
inside it looked warm and inviting.
We banged in.
“Granny!” I yelled, “Lonnie fell into the pond and lost his dog
and gun and everything!”
“Oh, my word!” she said at the kitchen table where she sat with
my great-uncle Chester.
Lonnie and I shivered and hopped with our arms crossed by the
King woodstove, glowing red at the sides. It heated the whole house.
Lonnie pawed pellets of ice from his hair onto the stove, where they
puddled and steamed.
My grandpa Homer sat with his legs crossed in his chair across
from us, holding the Muskogee Daily Phoenix spread open wide
before him. It was like he hadn’t seen or heard us.
He brought the paper down, revealing his blue eyes, magnified
through the lenses of his rubber-banded cat-eyed reading glasses.
“You boys shoot anything?” he said. “Where’s all them rabbits at?”

9
 EDDIE CHUCULATE

“Lonnie fell into the ice. His dog wouldn’t come and he went
out there to get it and fell in.”
“Well, son of a buck,” Homer said, drawing it out, just truly
realizing what happened.
Lonnie stared at the stove, shaking. It looked like he was about
to cry. The Christmas tree was up in the corner, no lights, but
decorated with acorn shells Granny had strung up with curling red-
and-silver strips of tin cut from Homer’s Prince Albert tobacco cans.
They looked like tinsel.
“Eddie, go run Lonnie a bath,” Granny said. “Lonnie, go into
Eddie’s room and get out of those clothes.”
I ran hot water into the tub from a hose screwed into a faucet
at the sink because the pipes under the bathtub had frozen. Granny
laid out a towel and a pair of jeans and a sweater from my dresser
drawer.
While Lonnie took a bath, my great-uncle said, “What’s he cry-
ing around about?”
Over the years, I was always meeting one great-uncle or another,
one of my grandma’s six brothers. They were always big and tall and
sort of intimidating, loud, but friendly, buying me pizza, pop,
and baseball cards. They usually had some artwork for me to look
at, visiting Granny and Homer out in the country from Tulsa.
But this one, Chester, I had never met before yesterday. He showed
up the night before from California, showing me pictures of him in
rodeos dressed up with a floppy cowboy hat, suspenders over a polka-
dotted shirt, red tights under cutoff blue-jean shorts. With painted
red circles on his cheeks, he wore high-top basketball shoes and waved

10
 THIS INDIAN KID

the hat in a bull’s face, inches from its horns. He had scruffed my head
last night, playfully slap-boxing and tickling me until I was breath-
less. He said I’d never make it as a bulldogger unless I toughened up.

We piled into the car to take Lonnie home. Lonnie and I sat in back
with Monkey Tail between us, his tail thumping the seat. Homer
started the car and got out to scrape ice off the windshield as Chester,
a former semipro football lineman, drank from his bottle in the pas-
senger’s seat, broad-shouldered and hunched over in the small sedan.
Granny sat in the middle.
Chester turned and snatched Lonnie around the throat.
“You freaking n—!”
Lonnie’s eyes grew big. He gripped the armrest beside him.
Everything froze; snowflakes swirled and floated outside the win-
dow, slid down the glass. The little car rumbled, exhaust puffing
from the tailpipe. The windshield wipers swished every few seconds,
loud in the silence.
Chester’s eyes were narrowed, his teeth bared in a sneer.
“Here now, Chester, leave him be! That’s Eddie’s friend,”
Granny said.
Monkey Tail grew tense in my arms, trembling, and let out a
sharp bark at Chester.
One by one, second by second, the fingers released from around
Lonnie’s neck like in a countdown. The last one bore a turquoise ring.
Chester drank the rest of his bottle, rolled down the window,
and flung it into the snow. Cold wind rushed in.
“Oh, heck, he knows I’d never hurt him,” he said.

11
 EDDIE CHUCULATE

Lonnie looked at me wide-eyed. I mouthed “It’s OK”—although

I had no idea if it would be—and gave his shoulder a shake, keeping
a wary eye on Chester, who had grown silent. It all happened so fast
and without provocation, we didn’t have time to react.
Chester instantly complied with Granny’s wishes, which made
me feel safer, but I kept watching him as he shivered, as though cold,
pulled his cap over his eyes, and leaned back against the headrest. I
was further relieved when Homer—oblivious to it all—got back in,
revved the engine, and turned on the heater. Granny didn’t say any-
thing about it to him and, following her lead, I didn’t either. It was best
to let a sleeping dog lie. That sleeping dog didn’t even know Lonnie.
He didn’t even know me, really, since I’d only met him last night.

Lonnie and I played with Monkey Tail on the ride down to the gate,
making him snarl and yap. I got out and unchained the gate. We
were quiet on the short ride to his place, past squat little houses with
green shingling and pens and hutches nearby for pigs and chickens.
“Here, Lonnie, give these to your folks,” Granny said, big jars of
canned okra, small red potatoes, and cucumbers clinking in a box as
she handed them over from the front seat. “Anytime you guys want
more, come on over.”
“Thank you very much, Granny, I’m sure Daddy’s going to love
this,” he said. “Thanks for everything. You, too, Mr. Homer.”
“See you later, Stud,” Homer said. “We’ll get them rabbits
next time.”
I got out with Lonnie and carried his sack of wet clothes to the
front door.

12
 THIS INDIAN KID

“I’m sorry about all that, Lonnie, I don’t even know him.”
“Don’t worry about it, it ain’t your fault,” he said.
We executed our ritualistic handshake, which ended with two
quick back-and-forth claps and a finger snap. I walked back to the car.
“Chook.”
I stopped and turned.
“Be careful,” Lonnie said, and raised his jaw toward the car. I
knew who he was pointing at.
With Lonnie gone, I didn’t know if Chester would reach around
and grab my neck next, so instead of going riding around with them,
I said I wasn’t feeling good and had Homer drop me back off at the
gate. I walked up to the house through the pasture, past Chester’s
car in the yard with the California license plates I had thought were
so exotic.
In my room, I got out my notebook and wrote down everything
that had happened, from shooting at rabbits, the pups running and
barking, and Lonnie falling in the pond. But from there, I rewrote
it. Chester asked Lonnie if he was okay, where he lived, and what
his parents did. He shook his hand and even boxed around a little
with him, too. He took us to eat barbecue and bought us baseball
cards. We went riding in the country to Fort Gibson Dam and saw
eagles nesting in the bluffs. When we took Lonnie home he still had
both pups, his gun, and rabbits to clean. But that was just a made-
up story.
The next morning Chester sat at the table drinking coffee. I
saw his unfamiliar silhouette through the sheet Granny hung up to
keep the kitchen light out of my room. When I turned my fan off,

13
 EDDIE CHUCULATE

I could hear them talking and the radio playing softly. His voice
sounded normal again. I regarded him warily for the few more days
he was around, but never saw the hatred in his eyes again. He tried
roughhousing and tickling me a few more times but I pulled away,
picturing his hand around Lonnie’s throat. After Christmas, he left.
Granny said he’d gone back to California. I didn’t see him again
until his funeral a few years later.
I wondered if Lonnie would ever come back after what Chester
did, and I wouldn’t have blamed him if he didn’t. I thought about
which was more offensive: the name-calling or neck grabbing, and
figured they were about the same, but even worse combined. I didn’t
see Lonnie again until weeks later. He yelled my name and slapped
the open seat next to him when I got on the school bus for the
first day of the new year. We talked about everything except what

Lonnie Hill, age seven, 1973.

(Courtesy of Melita Griffith.)

14
 THIS INDIAN KID

happened, it seemed. He even returned my clothes that he wore

home that day. When spring came we started fishing again and in
the summer he came over and we threw the ball against the pitch-
back, angling it for grounders and pop-ups.

I never understood why Chester did that to Lonnie. Growing up, the
N-word was not unheard of, but that was the first time I heard any-
one say it with venom. Momma never said it. Homer and Granny,
whose strongest word was “gosh,” never used it. Muskogee schools
were racially mixed but everyone on my bus home was Black except
for me, my sister Dawn, and the driver, Mr. Anderson. The Native
kids got along with the Black kids, and vice versa. Some of us were
best friends, played on the same teams, and hung out after school.
Some were even mixed, half-Black and half-Indian and members
of a tribe, or had cousins who were, which made it harder for me
to understand Chester’s actions. Maybe it was his generation. But
Homer’s generation was even older and one of his oldest friends was
a Black man in Tullahassee.
I had white, Black, Native, and Latino friends. I can’t say I
ever felt singled out or excluded from anything because of my race.
Sometimes I found myself the only brown-skinned person in a set-
ting, but I never felt ashamed or embarrassed. The city was more
diverse than many small towns in Oklahoma where no Black or
Indian people resided.
Nearby, small towns like Taft and Tullahassee (“Old Town” in
Creek) were all-Black, but one sizable town, about fifty miles away
outside of the Creek Nation, had zero African Americans. In the

15
 EDDIE CHUCULATE

1980s, a woman called from Philadelphia looking to relocate there

and was told there were plenty of houses available. But when she
arrived for a meeting to be shown properties, the agent saw that her
adopted kids were from Ghana and suddenly there were no listings.
That would have never happened in Muskogee, which always had
substantial Native and Black populations—Black doctors, lawyers,
and, I presume, real estate agents. Black students had their own
schools in town until desegregation in 1970 when Manual Training
and Central merged and Muskogee High School was born.

The riders on my bus were a blend of elementary, junior high, and

high school students. I’d sit in back with Lonnie and slap out beats
to songs on the backs of the high green seats along with everyone
else. At first I never joined in, but when I finally did, Lonnie nudged
his friend with an elbow and nodded his head in my direction as
I pounded on the seats with everyone else. A boom box blared “I
Wish.” After a bass and keyboard intro, the vocalist sang about being
a nappy-headed boy whose only worry was what would be his toy
for Christmas.
The bus was packed three to a seat and ear-ringing loud with
singing, arguing, laughing, and yelling. Mr. Anderson stopped on
the side of the road and looked at us in the mirror with his owlish
glasses and ball cap and said in a real friendly voice, “Now, boys and
girls, we’re going to have to keep the noise down.”
“It ain’t noise it’s Stevie Wonder!” someone yelled.
The racket started up again but regressed in notches every time
we dropped off a group down North 17th Street. It was quiet as a

16
 THIS INDIAN KID

library by the time Lonnie got off. Dawn, Elaine Ledbetter, and
I were the last to disembark after the asphalt ran out because the
district didn’t allow the bus down the dirt road. It turned around,
empty, as we walked home. We all turned and waved to Mr.
Anderson.
From the beginning of my school days in Muskogee, Black edu-
cators were a big part of my life. My first coach at age six, A.  C.
Richardson, played me at shortstop for the Blue Blazers, but would
also put me on the pitcher’s mound. I had two strikes on a batter one
night at Hatbox Field and was about to deliver the next pitch, when
I saw Momma in the stands behind the backstop pointing in the air. I
stood on the rubber looking up into the sky until everyone started
yelling throw the ball already. She told me later she was just holding
up a finger to indicate one more strike.
Coach Richardson gave me the MVP trophy at season’s end at
the field where we practiced in Honor Heights Park. I had no idea it
was coming, because I thought his son, Allyn, was our best player,
but he called out “Chook” and gave me an Easton aluminum bat,
silver with green letters, still shrink-wrapped in plastic.
Wearing my cleats, I dragged it to school every day, to the
Muskogee Public Library, and back home. I don’t know why I didn’t
carry it. I dragged it so much the rubber cap at the top fell off. Today
you’re probably not allowed to bring a bat or wear cleats to school—
or to the library for that matter. I was so proud of that bat I should
have had it bronzed.
At Jefferson in second grade, the only people who paid any
attention to me were the older Black girls. They cupped their hands

17
 EDDIE CHUCULATE

around my face while I watched them play tetherball and told me

I was so cute. They asked what my name was and I said, “Radar,”
which I’d heard on the TV show M.A.S.H. I thought it was such
a cool name. But they stuck me with Eddie Chocolate, Eddie
Chickenlegs, and Eddie Spaghetti, following that with, “Got Your
Meatballs Ready?” I hung around their periphery while they bashed
the ball around the pole on a rope until they noticed me. I especially
loved one girl named Velvet Lee.

18
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