The Pretendian

FALL 2025, SHORT STORY, 4400 WORDS

There is no magic without the procedure. Three steps, each as important as the other and beautiful in their simplicity. But simple things are easily forgotten after so many years. And with each phase of your existence, the remembering gets harder.

Last time, you vowed to never forget again. You’d rehearse the steps in your mind as you walked the streets, muttering instructions under your breath lest you be overheard and found out.

Life has a way of taking over the vulgar business of existing. You develop an entitlement to the story you tell. Days, weeks, and months pass without so much as a thought for the procedure. Until you wake up old and muddled, with only a vague sense of how to prepare for the next transition.

Then, when all seems lost, muscle memory takes over.

And the procedure finds you again.

“Good news, Mister Whiskeyjack. Your bloodwork is normal. No diabetes.”

“That makes no sense,” Leroy says.

“Your sugar levels are perfect,” Dr. Simpson replies. “I can put you through a morning of needle jabs and peeing into a cup, but the results won’t change.”

“But I’m native. Diabetes is endemic to my people.”

“You heard me call this good news, right?”

“Everyone in my family has it.”

“Not everyone, apparently. Was your Dad diabetic?”

Leroy is drawing a blank. The memory lapses have been getting worse, but how can he not remember his own father?

“Yes,” he lies. “Type 2.”

“And your mother?”

“Same as Dad.” Technically this is correct. Leroy is blanking on Mom, too.

“You’re one of the lucky ones,” says Dr. Simpson. “Keep eating right and exercising, and you should stay that way.”

Leroy eases himself down from the examination table and reaches for his jacket.

“One thing I don’t get,” he says. “If my bloodwork is normal, why am I so tired all the time?”

Dr. Simpson looks up from his computer terminal and shrugs with his eyebrows.

“Age catches up on us, Mister Whiskeyjack. Our energy levels wane, we start forgetting where we left our keys—”

Leroy’s ears radiate heat as he processes that last part.

“So, memory lapses are normal?”

The doctor’s smile looks forced instead of reassuring. He rises from his chair and taps a wall poster showing a cutaway of the human brain, his finger encircling a purple-shaded swirl northeast of the nasal cavity.

“Normal to a point,” the doctor says. “This seahorse-shaped structure is the hippocampus. There’s one on either side, and they control memory. We still don’t understand them 100 percent, but this much is certain: anything can mess up those little seahorses. Age is the most common culprit.”

Leroy wasn’t always old and bordering on senile. He even had a girlfriend, once. Girlfriend seemed like an odd word choice—they were well into their sixties at the time—but they never lived together, and Sandra found the word partner too business-like. So girlfriend it was.

Sandra ran the microfiche room at the State Archives. Like the patrons who lined up at her desk each day, she was obsessed with genealogy. Sandra carried a ledger-sized print-out of her family tree and would tell anyone who’d listen that she was half Scottish, three-eighths Dutch, and one-eighth African American. She didn’t identify as Black, though. Sandra knew better than to assume an identity based on distant ancestry.

When the commercials started coming on TV saying they could trace your DNA back ten generations, Sandra was all over it. The results corroborated her research, with percentages instead of fractions. Of course, Sandra couldn’t be satisfied with just her own results. She insisted Leroy try it, too.

“What’s there to find?” Leroy asked. “I was born on the Reservation, so I’m Lakota.”

“You never know until you try,” Sandra said. “Maybe a passing trader or dashing, young cowboy snuck in there somewhere.”

“It’s a waste of money.”

“I’ll pay for it,” Sandra said. “All you need to do is swab your mouth.”

Leroy’s results came back in less than a month. The sealed envelope sat on his side table for three days before Sandra came over and snatched it up.

“You didn’t tell me your results came in.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Aw! Were you waiting for me to open them with you?”

“Sure,” Leroy said. “Let’s go with that.”

“A drum roll, please.” Sandra tore off one corner of the envelope and slid a lacquered fingernail into the gap. It made a surprisingly good letter opener. A frown overtook her face as she began reading.

“Well, that can’t be right.”

“What?” Leroy asked.

“It says you’re 50 percent West European and 50 percent unknown DNA.”

Leroy held his bronze arms out in front of his body. “Do I look European to you?”

“What the hell is unknown DNA?” Sandra asked. “They’re supposed to have coverage for every Indigenous tribe in North America.”

“Told you it was crap,” Leroy said.

“Maybe we should test again. What do you think?”

“I think we should break up,” Leroy replied, opening the door.

Step 1: The Heart

Reaching a human heart is tricky and prone to beginner mistakes. You are eager, and with so little practice after six decades, you could be forgiven for trying to go through the breastbone. It seems like the most direct route, sawing upward through bone, an incision from bellybutton to chin like the door flaps on a tipi. Then jimmy the blade back into the ragged seam dividing what remains of the sternum, the handle serving as a lever as you open the gap enough for prying fingers to reach in, first from one side, then the other. You imagine the rib cage spreading, a shopkeeper’s cabinet offering its wares.

You don’t have time for this drama. Hacking through bone would be laborious enough with proper sawing instruments and impossible with this ancient, straight-edged blade. And you must act fast to reach the prize while it still beats.

The correct method is this: A single thrust with the blade parallel to the ground, piercing the body three inches below that troublesome breastbone. Then pull hard to the right—your right, which is the prey’s left. Then plunge your free hand through the skin, fat and other warm, quivering goo, dodging lesser organs the way a driver weaves around potholes. Follow the pulsing rhythms until you hold that beating heart in your palm. Wrap your hand around the thrumming mass as best you can and await Step 2.

“Sir! Are you alright? Do you need help?”

Leroy finds himself standing at a supermarket counter. A loaf of white bread and two pounds of bacon sit on the conveyor belt in front of him. A paper coupon with a picture of the same bacon is wedged between the shrink-wrapped packages.

“Is there someone we can call for you?” asks the woman in the A&P smock.

“No,” he says. “Just need to collect myself.”

Leroy’s hand gravitates to the breast pocket of his windbreaker, where it finds a wad of paper. He unfolds the yellowed sheet and recognizes his own ornate cursive.

Urgent note to self:

Your name is Leroy Whiskeyjack. You are a full-blooded Lakota and indirectly descended from Tasunke Witco, popularly known as Crazy Horse.

You were born in 1938 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Your parents were Norman Whiskeyjack and Grace Medicine. Norman was Chief of your tribe for twelve years. You were the first Native American to receive a PhD from Dennison University and are renowned for the Indigenous lens you cast on European history.

You are reading this because you’ve reached the age where things slow down and memory fails you. Hang on, Leroy. Just a little longer and you move to the next phase of your existence.

Good luck!

Leroy

“Hey Chief, can you move it along? Some of us have lives to get back to.”

Leroy looks up from the letter just in time to catch some serious stink eye from a sandy-haired man in a tailored suit. The man brandishes a bag of Spanish onions as though it were a human heart awaiting transplantation.

“Sorry.” Leroy pats his pockets, still grasping the letter. The only thing he finds is his bus pass in a worn plastic sleeve. No wallet or loose change. He frowns at the cluster of groceries on the conveyor belt, then forces a sheepish grin for the clerk.

“I’ll need to leave this for another day,” he says. “Do you know where the bus stop is?”

Twenty-three-year-old Leroy had never tried alcohol before but felt he’d earned the right, no matter what mother used to say. He would stop at one, pouring the evening’s budget into a single dram of what Professor Turcotte called “the good stuff.”

“You have to celebrate,” Turcotte said over the phone. “You beat a lot of people for this fellowship. I suggest a barrel-aged single malt.”

The pub surprised him with its array of sparkling bottles on the shelf above the beer taps. Leroy sat on the stool closest to the door and attempted eye contact with the bartender, a tall, redheaded man who looked like he should be wearing a kilt.

“Lemme guess,” the bartender said. “Beer?”

“I was hoping for something fancier,” Leroy stammered. “Scotch, maybe?”

The bartender shook his head. “Nothing stronger than beer for Indians. Bar policy.”

“Christ sakes, Willie. Give the young man what he asked for. And put it on my tab.”

Leroy turned to see an old white guy who looked like he was still growing into his three-piece suit. His green irises caught the light as he winked at Leroy.

“Pour him an Ardbeg Seventeen,” he commanded. “And one for me as well.”

Willie bit his lip and turned to the wall of bottles.

“Sure thing, mister.”

“That’s very kind,” Leroy said, “but I have money.”

“Of course you do,” said the old man.

Leroy blushed. “We don’t even know each other.”

“Strangers are just friends who haven’t met yet.” The old man extended a wizened hand. “Name’s Henry King. Tell me all about yourself, my young native friend. What is your story?”

This is the part Leroy struggles with. He could remember a lot more clearly if he put what was left of his mind to it, but something in his gut tells him not to. It starts with the spindly old man named Henry King waving to Willie the bartender. “Keep the tab open. My new friend and I are going outside for a smoke.”

Leroy didn’t smoke back then and still doesn’t, to this day. He can’t remember why he followed Henry King into the alley. Polite gratitude for the old man’s hospitality, perhaps? Or something about blowing tobacco smoke up to the open skies, the way Leroy’s ancestors used to, instead of turning the air inside the bar a sickly grey blue. Either way, he remembers only the darkness of the alley, as though every star in the sky had taken the night off.

Leroy sees that darkness now, and the usual deep breathing exercises do nothing to shut out the memories. The cold bone handle of a knife as he wraps his hand around it and slips it from his pocket. The surprised flicker of eyes in the dark, timed perfectly with the tearing sound as the knife plunges through fabric and flesh. The choking sounds as the knife digs under the ribs, puncturing a lung, severing arteries. And the smell of blood, fresh and metallic through blackness.

Then nothing for a while, not even darkness. The memory resumes with Leroy walking back into the pub. He caught Willie’s attention right away as he slapped a hundred-dollar bill on the bar.

“This is from the old man. You can keep the change.”

Willie’s eyes widened as he took the hundred-dollar bill and punched open the cash register. Leroy half expected him to hold the bill up to the light, checking for signs of counterfeit. Instead, he cashed out his tip and stuffed it into the hip pocket of his jeans.

“There’s nothing else I can get you?” Willie asked.

“Actually,” Leroy said, “do you have a pen I can borrow? And a piece of paper?”

Step 2: Eye Contact

This part should be easy, but the timing is delicate. You must show your true form at just the right moment. Show it too early, before the light goes out of their eyes, and their last memory will be the sight of you, tendrils out, teeth menacing. As though your hand grasping their heart isn’t bad enough. You do not want that.

Move too late, and the sea horses will have begun dying. That’s even worse.

For Step 2, nothing less than perfect precision will do.

The one constant is eye contact. You lock onto their gaze and stay there. And as their eyes lower, so do yours. Resist nothing. Let the darkness take you. The magic will tell you where to go next.

Leroy catches himself dozing on the bus. He would have slipped into deep sleep and found his geriatric ass in some far-flung corner of the city, but the French Indian saves him.

Sometimes when Leroy is sleeping, this guy speaks French in his head. Either that or English with a French accent. Neither of which makes sense. Leroy has never been to Quebec, much less France, and French 101 was the only course he didn’t ace in undergrad. The man’s voice rasps through darkness, intense and imploring, using words that escape Leroy as he bolts upright in bed, drenched in sweat. He never remembers the man’s face, but something in his voice leaves the distinct impression he’s native.

This is the first time the French Indian spoke to him from the front row of a city bus. Leroy’s eyes spring open to the stare of a college-aged woman from across the aisle. Is it the customary pity and disgust displayed by people who dismiss him as some old drunk? Or is she one of those self-proclaimed old souls who thinks every native elder can turn into an eagle after enough drags on a peace pipe? Leroy wants to yell out that old people of any race get sleepy without booze or drugs or a mystical trance. He can inform her that Leroy Whiskeyjack, PhD, was a big deal back in the day, and that if she’d ever taken a history class, she’d know that.

Leroy says none of those things. He grabs the stainless-steel pole, hoists himself to his feet and yanks the yellow overhead cord. The bus slows to a stop. A hand appears on his shoulder as he turns to the door.
“Professor Whiskeyjack?” the young woman says. “I’m Abigail La Jeune from IPTV. I was hoping to buy you a drink.”

Classic technique. Get an old man tipsy so he’d give up his stories. Except Leroy knows he can hold his booze better than this young snot. What is she, twenty, twenty-one? If she’s some kind of reporter, she’d be no more than a year out of school. That would put her at twenty-three. The perfect age.

Maybe a drink wouldn’t be so bad right now.

“Tell you what,” Leroy says. “I know an old pub near here. But the beer’s on me.”

Little surprise that he nodded off on the bus. Last night, Leroy woke to the all-consuming thought that there was something under his bed. No clue how he knew this; he just did. Is it possible he put it there himself, whatever it was? This thought did nothing to temper the dread creeping up his back, chilling his body, but he resolved to push past it. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and turned on the nightstand lamp.

Leroy leaned in, careful not to lower his head too quickly and initiate another dizzy spell. The dim lighting rewarded his efforts with only a scattering of dust bunnies grazing on the laminate floor under the bed. How could his instincts be so wrong? For all his memory issues, he had never been one for delusions, much less hallucinations. Unless of course there really was something under the goddamned bed.

His eyes cringed as he turned on the overhead lights and sized up his sleeping quarters. For years, he had mused about buying a four-poster oak bed from that Mennonite shoppe up north and turfing the rickety piece of crap he’d bought on sale at Woolworth’s back when Woolworth’s was still in business. His cheapness appeared to come in handy for once. The particle board bed was much lighter and more portable than solid oak.

The scrape of particle board on laminate reverberated off the sparse décor as he slid the bed toward the wall. Dust bunnies frolicked in the newly disturbed air, all but covering a seam in the middle of the floor. A distinct rectangle interrupted the normal flow of the ten-foot faux wood slats. A trapdoor with only the handle missing.

Leroy lowered himself to the floor, knees creaking. His fingernails traced the seam in the floorboards, lifting the hatchway to reveal the distressed leather equivalent of those interoffice mail envelopes at the university. He unwound a decaying rawhide cord from the pouch.

“Mon Dieu,” he exclaimed, reminding himself he didn’t speak French.

The folded papers ranged from pale yellow to musty brown. Leroy trusted his instincts and went straight to the brownest and oldest looking of the bunch. The desiccated parchment crackled as he unfolded it. An all-too-familiar cursive leapt from the page despite the age-darkened paper.

Urgent note to self:

Your name is Sosep Atukwet. You were born in the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and seventy-eight. At time of writing, you hold the role of Story Keeper among your people, whom the French mistakenly call the Mik-Mak.

You are confident your band will choose you as leader, which will ease your plan to increase trade with the English. Not everyone will appreciate your efforts, but such is the cost of progress. Or more to the point, profit.

You are reading this because you’ve reached the age where things slow down and memory fails you. Just a little longer and you move to the next phase of your existence.

Stay strong!

Sosep

Leroy’s eyes could no longer follow the words on the page. Everything around him dissolved—the bedroom walls, the furniture, the crinkled parchment in his hand—the here-and-now consumed by a memory that was clearer than any dream.

Sosep Atukwet’s eyes flared through the dimness of his birchbark wikuom.

“I know what you are,” he said, “and what you can do.”

To the settlers, Atukwet was a great magician, master of the elements who could bend reality to his will. Superstitious nonsense from fishermen and farmers who knew nothing of these things. But it was that very nonsense which made Atukwet’s potential so great. He could influence trade with the English, convince the people to cede land and disarm the worthiest adversary with his direct talk. The only antidote to his directness was to match it.

“How could you know what I am? You’ve only just met me.”

“The job of Story Keeper isn’t limited to my own people’s stories,” Atukwet said. “I hear and remember all stories that make their way to our shores. And you, my white-faced friend, are what the Europeans call a shape shifter.”

The hiss and snap of the firepit seemed louder than it really was. Talking over them took effort. “Claptrap! Such things do not exist.”

“Don’t insult me, Monsieur Henri. You know what you’ve come to do. Kill me and eat my spirit. You’ll wear my face and skin like a suit of clothes. My memories will blend with yours until you lose sight of where one of us ends and the other begins. When my essence starts to fade, you will choose another.”

“How could you possibly know this?”

Sosep Atukwet stirred the firewood and cast a sidelong glance.

“Nothing magical if that’s what you mean. I simply listen for the truth inside every tale. Stories never lie, even when they begin their life as—What was your word?—claptrap.”

Firelight glinted off the knife blade as it thrust through the air and into Sosep Atukwet’s gut, inches below the breastbone. It tore through skin and fat, cartilage and tendons, pushed with the full force of its bearer’s scant body weight. Atukwet’s eyes flashed with the light of a Hunter’s Moon as a prying hand wrapped around his thrumming heart. The scent of blood wafted from his lips as he gurgled his dying words.

“Why me? All I have are stories.”

“Precisely. Your stories are the magic I need.”

The bartender sets a frosty pint in front of Leroy and draws another for Abigail La Jeune.

“What does Indigenous People’s Television want with an old fart like me?” Leroy asks. “Please tell me it’s not that claptrap about whether I’m a real Indian.”

Abigail thanks the bartender and offers Leroy a broad smile. “I never doubted your claim, Uncle. Between residential schools and the scoop, half your generation is unsure where they were born.”

“Thank you,” Leroy says. It’s been a while since some random native kid called him ‘Uncle.’ He forgot how it warmed his insides.

“There are some inconsistencies to iron out. This is your opportunity to set the record straight.”

Leroy sips his ale and wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “I’d like that.”

“Whiskeyjack is not a typical Lakota name. Are you sure your family isn’t Cree?”

“I was always told Lakota. There could be some ancestor from North of the Medicine Line.”

“There’s also the issue of your father,” Abigail says. “Pine Ridge has no record of a chief named Whiskeyjack. And no one with Norman as their first name.”

Leroy snorts and shakes his head. “Written records only tell half the story. My dad put down his traditional Lakota name as an act of defiance.”

Abigail peers over the rims of her glasses. “And what name was that?”

“I don’t recall. If you give me a list of Chiefs, I’m sure I could pick it out.”

“You don’t remember your own dad’s traditional name?”

Leroy taps his forehead, blushing. “The old seahorses don’t swim like they used to.”

“Excuse me?”

“Something my doctor said. Doesn’t matter.”

Unable to return Abigail’s gaze, Leroy sizes up the rows of glasses behind the bar. He notices the obligatory mirror behind the shelf. When a whitish face stares back at him from mirror, his heart starts pounding.

It isn’t possible. How could he be showing himself? He isn’t that far along yet. Must be some barfly who happens to look like him.

Leroy’s head swivels, surveying the empty pub. No one, except Abigail La Jeune and the bartender. When he forces himself to look back at the mirror, his usual reflection greets him, his face startled but intact.

“Are you alright?” Abigail asks. “You look kind of pale.”

“I’m fine,” Leroy says. “Just overdue for a cigarette.”

“I didn’t know you smoke.”

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know. If you’d kindly join me outside, there’s more I can tell you.”

Step 3: The Seahorses

This is where the tendrils come in. Or more accurately, go in. You pierce the eyeballs, the supple pop awakening your appetites, and it’s all you can do not to salivate at the vitreous humor cascading deliciously down the prey’s cheeks. You must focus. Now is not the time for gluttony. This step is all about the seahorses.

There are two, one on each side of the brain. If you time it right, they won’t remember being taken, the senses having shut down a split second before your tendrils probe into sockets, trailing through twists and turns of fast dying grey matter. They travel and track until they find their targets, attach themselves and absorb as much as they can.

This is when the magic washes over you. There is no more procedure to remember, no conscious task to trouble you. The magic takes care of everything, even the extraneous body lying dead and bloody at your feet. The only thing left is to slip into the current and drift. Swim with the seahorses if you will. And do the one thing you came here to do: You become.

Abigail reclaims her seat at the bar. The bartender looks up from her crossword.

“Another round, hon?”

“Please. Then the check.”

“Where’s the old native guy?”

“My uncle?” Abigail says. “He retired early.”

“Salut,” the bartender chimes, setting the ale in front of her.

Abigail slurps the froth from her glass and downs the pint in a single gulp. She wipes her lips with the back of her hand and fishes a notebook from her satchel. Leaning in, she shields the paper from the bartender’s view and begins writing.

Urgent note to self:

Your name is Abigail La Jeune. You are of English and Mi’kmaw descent and were born in Newfoundland, Canada, in 2002. You are a distant descendent of Sosep Atukwet, the fabled Mi’kmaw Story Keeper from what the French called Acadie.

At time of writing, you are an intern with Indigenous People’s Television. You’re investigating the disappearance of noted historian and alleged pretendian Leroy Whiskeyjack. You may not find anything, but your initiative should secure you a full-time position upon graduation.

You are reading this because you’ve reached the age where things start to slow down, and memory fails you. By now, your name will be the pride of Mi’kmaq everywhere and your words their greatest treasure. Stick to your story, and your next phase of existence will be even better than this one.

All my relations,
Abigail

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