Inheriting a Future

Published in Caketrain

I found her by accident. See, I was looking for a psychic, but instead I found Patsy Two Feathers, Native American healer, metaphysical adviser, and spiritual intuitive counselor. And oh, she's also a pet psychic, although she doesn't like that word, psychic, because it detracts from the seriousness and sincerity of her work. On weekends, she does house blessings, drumming workshops, and communicates with abused animals. Also, did I mention, she works full time as a real estate agent in New York City?

Over the phone, I tell her I'm interested in including her in an article about psychics. She sighs. She gets this a lot. She stopped listing herself under “Psychic” in the yellow pages a few years ago, because too many people like me called with the wrong idea. She is tired of this. In one articulate breath, she says she is a divorced, 42 year old woman, three-quarters white and one-quarter Chickahominy, although she was baptized and raised strictly Roman Catholic, and she is not Madame X the kitschy psychic or anything. I get the feeling she is used to repeating this. I tell her that actually, this situation is much more interesting than a regular old psychic, and she agrees to be interviewed.

Patsy tells me there's a special place she has in mind, where she likes to meet, a place in which she will be able to “intuitively sense my energy.”

“Do you know where the Wendy's is on Fifth Avenue?” She says.

Then she decides, no, the second floor of the lobby in a nearby hotel has better energy for her. She is big on energy.

“Besides, the Wendy's is so…pedestrian,” she says.

She then tells me she has long black hair, but won't describe herself further, because “when we meet, intuitively, we will know one another.” She asks me to uncross my legs if they're crossed, because it blocks the chakras, and they are, because I like to sit at my desk chair with my legs crossed when I'm on the phone. She asks my permission to say a prayer before we part ways. We agree to meet the next day, where the energy is good. I say okay, and she exhales another deep breath of words.

“With the father, son, and holy spirit as my guides, let our lord Jesus Christ look down on the union of a Miss Sarah Wexler and Patsy Two Feathers today. We ask for guidance and truth in writing this article, and to be blessed by the angels, guides, and higher spirits with nothing but light and positive energy,” she says.

“Amen,” I say. Amen? Do you say amen to this kind of prayer? I start to ask her how to respond, but she's already hung up.

When she walks through the revolving doors of the hotel, her corporate side is showing. She wears a black and white skirted business suit and three strands of pearls, sticking out her hand and then pulling me in for a hug. Patsy sits down across from me, pulls a pick from her purse, and quickly combs her hair. Her eyes are large and blue and friendly and her teeth are straight and white. She reminds me of the Disney cartoon version of Pocahontas: tall and thin, pretty Anglo facial features capped with flowing, black hair. She is 42, but the creases in her face don't tell the same story; she looks more like 35. For someone who's just worked an eight-hour day trying to sell houses, she is bursting with energy and seems enthralled someone wants to listen to her story.

“I'll get us some coffees,” she says. “My treat.” But before I can tell her that actually, I don't drink coffee, she's halfway over to the bar. Patsy is a tornado of efficiency.

She returns with two small white cups and saucers. “Thank you,” I say. It's too late to refuse it now. I try to think of something to say. “That was so nice of you to pay.”

“Actually, I know you're a student and everything, but I'm short two bucks,” she says. I rifle through my bag for my wallet and can't help making a face when my head is under the table. When I look up, I'm totally serious.

“No problem.” I hand her the last two bills in my wallet. She brings them over to the bar and then sits back down, taking a sip of her black coffee. That's better. Now she's ready to talk.

I have a list here, questions about how she got into being a psychic, what a day in the life of a psychic is all about. But before I can ask, Patsy Two Feathers starts in with a long-winded biography.

“My legal, divorced name that I use in professional settings is Patsy Beck. I was the last of nine children born to my Greek father and half-English, half-Chickahominy mother. I didn't know I was of Native American lineage until I was 37 years old, five years ago, but in my own way, I guess I always knew,” she says.

So, you're only one-quarter Chickahominy? And didn't find out about it until you've lived the greater part of your life as a white woman? And now this is how you're defining your entire identity? Um, I need a whole new list of questions. I try to write a note, but she's still talking so fast, it's hard to get it all down.

“My mother, Helen, was adopted out of her Chickahominy family and raised in a white, American family as a Roman Catholic. I was raised Native by her mother in terms of respect for the earth, animals, nature, and spirituality, but not in terms of Native language, religion, or ceremonies. My mother's Chickahominy heritage was never overtly discussed in our family and certainly not discussed in the church or community.”

Her words are strung together so seamlessly I wonder how many people she's already told this story to. Rehearsed, like I came in with my pre-thought list of questions, and she came in with her pre-thought list of answers, and now she's just dispensing the goods, making her delivery. Or maybe there's a tele-prompter behind me?

“My mother never wanted anyone to know, to be looked at as ‘that Indian',” she says. And although Patsy grew up watching western movies and TV shows in which Native Americans were negatively depicted as savages, she still felt connected to them.

“I was definitely the most Indian of all my siblings. It was never verbalized that I was different, but I always just knew it.”

Then she tells me that when she was only three years old, she pulled her mother into the basement, saying there were Indians down there waiting to take her home with them. She's done research on this, she says, “very credible research.” She tells me she's read about other Native American children having similar visions, called “ghost sickness,” a state of intense communication with deceased ancestors.

“It's a very real and credible condition,” Patsy says. “Psychologists are studying the psychological ramifications of this now, and soon you're going to see it all over the news.” She makes sure I accept that it's credible, and then plows ahead with such conviction that I'm not sure whether she's trying to convince me or herself.

“I felt inexplicably alienated and disconnected as a child, having been cut off from my tribe, my culture, and my religion. I mean, I have a whole family out there, a whole history I have not tapped into yet, and I knew that.”

Growing up, she tells me she was torn between “glamour girl and cowgirl,” and even as an adult, says “I'm the ultimate tom-girl princess.” Looking at her now, across the table in the lobby of a fancy hotel, the glamour girl seems to have won—the eyeliner, the feathered hair, the crisp suit. Then she tells me she studied Forestry for a year, thinking she'd be a park ranger. A park ranger? Like, with the khaki shorts and the wide-brim hat? I can't tell whether she was a different kind of person then or if she just has no idea who she is.

“Then I became interested in travel and nightlife,” she says, which is more in accordance with how she seems now. “I got a B.S. degree in Real Estate Management,” she says. “Or was it a B.A.? I'll have to check my diploma when I get home.” I think she realizes that this makes her sound less credible, the thing she fears most, and so she plows ahead listing all of the places she worked in the real estate industry: Vegas and Reno, Atlantic City, Miami.

“I still felt bothered and disconnected, but I just went on living life,” she says. “God, when I say it like that, it sounds terrible. I ignored my heart.”

I imagine her wandering through those 15 years, trying to figure out who she was.

“But it got to a point,” she says, all dramatic. “I knew something was wrong, that I had to blend my professional life with my spiritual life.” She got a B.S. a few years ago in Metaphysics from a “distance-learning” program, the American Institute of Holistic Theology, says it like I should know exactly what metaphysics and holistic and theology all mean together. But before I can ask, she's onto her heritage search.

“I discovered that my mother was a ‘Lost Bird,' separated from her tribe through adoption, which made me a confirmed Native,” she says. I want to ask her what exactly is a “heritage search”? And what desperation for an identity drove her to even try this? And if she'd discovered she was of German ancestry, would she be going around proclaiming herself with such gusto as a German healer?

But she's going on about The Big News, and there is no interrupting her now. She gets excited just talking about it, her eyes wide and animated. Officially, she was a second generation Native American.

“I was a part of something, and it felt so right. There's the hope of a whole new family and heritage to discover,” she says. Something to tap into, to latch onto? Patsy was no longer just a single, middle-aged, white woman who works as a real estate agent and feels estranged from her family. Now she is Native American, a feature she's built her life around for the last five years.

“I have this whole family out there in the world,” she says. “Tribal Enrollment Status is not a money thing, it's a family thing, you know? The financial benefits have nothing to do with it.” If it's not the money, I wonder what, exactly, Patsy is cashing in on.

After talking about herself for almost an hour without pausing for even an mm-hmm from me, she stops, mid-sentence.

“I don't want you to feel like I'm being too wordy here,” she says. And then keeps going right where she left off.

Patsy has applied to the Canadian government for Tribal Enrollment Status, which would entitle her to all food, housing, and education programs offered to the Chickahominy, although she claims these benefits are not what she's after. More importantly, though, it would add validity to her claim on Native American roots. She's written a children's astrology book which hasn't been published, and she feels that the Tribal Enrollment Status will add to her credibility, making her books more desirable to publishers. A Native American folktale is a lot more marketable when it's written by what's called a “card-carrying” Native American, and Patsy's experience in the world of business and sales has made her savvy. So she did the necessary research, sent off the paperwork, and waited.

It is now four years later, and I'm sitting across from Patsy in the lobby of a fancy hotel. She's still waiting. It turns out that much of the necessary paperwork for her Tribal Enrollment Status, such as the birth certificate, adoption, and foster care records of her mother, are being tied up by the state of Virginia, and probably will not be released until her mother's death. Patsy is hopeful—she lives by that word, every day, hope. But she's also tired. Tired of working full-time in a spiritually-void job to pay the bills, running her practice on nights and weekends, working so diligently to receive the tribal status she feels she's entitled to. Four whole years she's been waiting, tired, hoping.

“I feel like I'm a senior in high school, like I've put in my four years and now if I can just hold out a little longer, I can graduate. I can get my tribal enrollment status.” She says that the ability to be authentic means everything to her, and getting the government recognition would give her credibility.

“People would have to recognize then that I am an Indian woman. I mean, the Enrollment card is as valid as a driver's license, and nobody every questions that.”

She's so articulate in telling me about her plight to claim the one thing she's known her whole life. She wants it so bad that I can feel the longing, palpably, weighing on the shoulders of her business suit. She tells me she wants to be recognized by the government to connect with a lost family, but she doesn't say why she hasn't contacted them in the four years she's been waiting for her card to arrive. She shakes her head and changes the subject, and I notice that along with the prim pearl necklace, she's also wearing tiny dream catcher earrings, so small I almost didn't notice.

I ask about her family, their take on her return-to-roots.

“My siblings haven't chosen to walk the native ways,” she says. “My family is not really comfortable with my decision.” Neither was her husband, who divorced her soon after her heritage search. In Patsy's honest attempt to discover a once-severed limb of her family tree, it seems she's strained the branches on her same stalk. But Patsy would rather not go into details—she's very specific about what to print and not to print.

“I'll tell you this off the record,” she says. “Don't write this down in your little notebook,” like if it's not written down, the words can just evaporate. I'm beginning to realize why Patsy needs this Enrollment card.

She also does animal communications. “I was doing this a decade before that pet psychic on TV came along, whatever-her-name-is. But no one would accept it—I guess New York is a pretty square town and I'm just a naturally progressive person.”

Patsy is extremely comfortable talking about her interests and authenticity, but good luck with the touchy stuff.

“Has finding your heritage has been worth the trouble it's caused with your family?” I say.

She looks panicked. She jumps up from the table.

“I'll go refill our coffees. One moment, please,” she says, darting towards the bar, even though I've only managed a few sips from my cup. She says that a lot, “One moment, please,” in a situation where anyone else would go “Hmmm” or “Hang on a sec.” I can tell she is a receptionist by trade. When Patsy sits back down, she's her usual articulate, composed self, and then she's got a ten-minute answer for me, which she recites as though she's been practicing it at the bar.

An hour later, I try to ask her a financial question. “Do you think you'll ever be able to leave real estate and have the psychic and healing practice be your sole support?” Again, the panic face.

“One moment, please,” she says. She looks down, and I'm worried that she's starting to cry. Keeping her head down, she says, “With the father, son, and holy spirit as my guides, let our lord Jesus Christ look down on Patsy Two Feathers with the guidance and truth of the higher spirits.” After a minute of silence, she looks up. “I need to go to the women's restroom. I was told to take a few minutes to gain clarity.” She pushes her chair back and is gone. Now, I have never found clarity in the women's restroom, but then again, I am not Patsy Two Feathers.

She walks briskly back to the table and begins the monologue.

“I'd love to have my practice be my sole job, but I won't be able to do that for a few years.” She leans towards me across the table. “I think I can leave real estate in five years, but no one knows that and let's keep it that way,” she whispers like we're KGB spies. Then she launches into her plans for the future—hope, that persistent word.

“I want my writing, lectures, songs, and dance to bring Native American culture into mainstream America and abroad, but it's all hinging on enrollment status,” she says, sighing. “I hope it's almost time for graduation,” she tells me, and hugs me goodbye.

# # #

The interviews are over. Now is the time to reflect and write, and I feel like I have a good grasp of what Patsy is all about.

I call her and say, “Thanks so much for your time. I'll send you a copy of the draft.” But she can't stay away. She stops by my apartment two days in a row to drop off some information that might be helpful, although I haven't been home either time.

“How did you know where I live?” I ask when she calls to find out where I was.

“You wrote down your address on an envelope for me to mail you some research, and I figured, ‘Why not stop by?'” she says. I don't tell her: because there is a fine line between being available and being a stalker.

“Why haven't you called me back?” she says. “Are your roommates erasing my messages? Let this be just a taste for you of the racism I deal with every day of my life.” Racism. This coming from a woman who lived 37 years as a white person, and feels persecuted because I'm trying to tactfully stop calling her back?

For the past two weeks, when I trudge up two steep flights of stairs to my apartment, I find a large manila envelope in front of the door, covered in typed stickers that read: “PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL. TO BE OPENED BY ADDRESSEE ONLY!!!” I'm sure my neighbors think I am ordering porn. I sigh and bring it inside, one light envelope after another that are becoming an increasingly heavy burden. My answering machine is blinking, a little red light I used to look forward to seeing. There are usually two almost-identical messages, and they go like this:

“Patsy Two Feathers calling for Sarah Z. Wexler. Sarah, please call me to confirm you received my mailing. Also, please don't open the envelope before 7:11 pm, due to strict numerological reasons.” I sigh and hit the erase button, knowing that if I don't call her back tonight, I'll have two more messages and a lot of explaining to do. I think: this is worse than having an overprotective boyfriend. I think: having an overprotective boyfriend might be nice right now.

“Do you think I can come over and have an intuitive session with your cat?” Patsy says in our third phone conversation of the day.

“Well, it's my roommate's cat, so I don't think.…”

“Because I'm sensing some blockage. Has your cat been into any cheese lately, or the peanut butter?” she says.

“No, but you know what…Oh my god…he did eat a chicken breast off the stove last night,” I hear myself saying. I realize I'm starting to sound like the people who believe in Patsy Two Feathers, who want so desperately to believe that they can will a psychic's words to ring true. This is bad. I put the finishing touches on my profile and send it off to my editor.

I leave for a week's vacation, hoping the Patsy Situation will magically vanish in my absence. But when I return, there are five increasingly concerned messages from her on my machine. I'm beginning to realize there is a point where desperation becomes obsession, in which I started out as someone who listened and became, in Patsy's mind, the only person who cared. I'm trying not to be annoyed, because this is sad in a way. In my pile of mail, mostly bills and catalogues for clothes I can't afford, there is another large manila envelope. Patsy has edited my draft, signing her name in flowing cursive on the bottom of every single page. She includes a letter making sure I received her phone messages from Tuesday at 12:47 pm and Thursday at 5:13 pm. She is overly professional, and I'm beginning to understand why she doesn't have any close relationships. Snuck in at the bottom of the letter, she edits:

“Please change the spelling from ‘adviser' to ‘advisor' in the first paragraph. This is due to my personal spiritual beliefs in Lexigrams.”

I take a deep breath and call her. I thank her and say that I met my deadline, that the article is done, that there's really no more business between us. Still, every two or three days I get another message, telling me she has urgent news updates on her story. In a way, I am more similar to Patsy Two Feathers than I'd thought. We are both waiting, every single day hoping, for some sort of graduation, for a release.