House Made of Dawn

The narrative switches to the first-person perspective of Ben Benally. He narrates in a fluid, flowing internal monologue while drinking wine and allowing his mind to wander. He begins with the story of Abel’s departure. Abel is Ben’s roommate, and he leaves the apartment they share carrying only “a sack and a suitcase” (79). Ben accompanies Abel to the train station; Abel is badly injured after waking up on a beach with his hands broken and his body beaten. After leaving Abel at the station, Ben walks home through the rain. He describes the city at night, and the sights and smells trigger memories. He remembers the time he spent with Abel, and his childhood growing up on a reservation. As he walks, he worries that people on the train won’t help the injured Abel. Even in the crowded city, Ben feels lonely.

Ben eats at The Silver Dollar, the type of bar favored across the city by the Indigenous American population. Sometimes at The Silver Dollar, Ben sees a corrupt, easily angered police officer named Martinez. The officer—like the albino man whom Abel killed—is often referred to as a “culebra,” Spanish for snake. Ben spots Manygoats, a friend who owes him money. When he asks that the loan be repaid, however, Manygoats gives him $3. Rather than stay and joke with Manygoats and his female companion, Ben leaves. He lies, telling Manygoats that he has somewhere he must be. He steps out of the friendly bar into the rain.

Returning to the dark apartment he shared with Abel, Ben notices that the window is open. He remembers that he and Abel tried to lure a “big pigeon” (80) in through the open window. Now, the floor is soaked with rain. He closes the window and turns on the radiator while thinking about Abel and Abel’s sometime girlfriend, Milly. Ben misses her and remembers how she first met Abel. Milly works for a social services firm. As part of an outreach program, she was sent to ask “silly questions” of Indigenous American men like Ben and Abel. They struck up a friendship, and her visits soon became more about socializing than bureaucracy.

The previous night, Ben remembers, he went out drinking with Abel, Tosamah, and a man named Cruz. They drank and sang traditional Indigenous songs in the hills east of Los Angeles. During the event, Abel and Ben stepped aside. They promised one another that they’d meet again in the future “and get drunk together” (82). Both have plans to return to their ancestral homelands and, many years from now, they’ll organize a real reunion. Ben’s thoughts shift from this proposed reunion to his recollections of his home. Ben is Navajo and a chanter, the people tasked in Navajo culture with memorizing every detail of a specific religious ceremony. Ben begins softly singing a Navajo song. One of these traditional Navajo ceremonial chants is provided in translation. The lyrics reflect on the Navajo lifestyle and culture and on the concept of beauty. To the Navajo, beauty is associated with how a person can center themselves in the context of the ordered universe. Ben considers his singing to Abel an appropriate centering of himself. The song is a healing song, and Ben hopes it will cure Abel of his many problems. By returning home, Abel will begin this journey of recovery.

Ben recalls a dispute between Abel and Tosamah. The priest confided in Ben that the sight of the long-haired, unsociable Abel shocked non-Indigenous Americans. Although Tosamah claimed that Abel is “too damn dumb to be civilized” (84), he pointed out how their non-Indigenous society couldn’t tolerate a man of profound and clear faith, simply because he didn’t fit their preconceived rules. When thinking about Abel’s murder trial, Tosamah took pleasure in the confusion of the non-Indigenous people when Abel told them that he killed the victim because he believed the man was a witch. Ben thinks about a prophecy that warned Indigenous people about Christianity; Tosamah agrees with this bitter sentiment toward Christianity and the entire European colonial project. In Ben’s opinion, Tosamah doesn’t quite understand Abel. The “educated” people who grew up on reservations in the vast, empty plains are different from those (like Tosamah) who have spent their lives in cities. On the plains, the supernatural seems much closer and more real. In such places, the existence of a witch seems like a genuine possibility.

Ben’s thoughts turn to the first time he met Abel. Ben worked in a factory, and Abel came in to ask for a job. They worked together on a carton assembly line. During that first day, Ben worried that Abel would react to the frequent racist comments of fellow workers and bosses. However, Abel didn’t react. When he found out that the social workers had failed to find Abel a place to live, Ben invited Abel to stay with him. Their friendship grew from this day on. They had much in common, as both were raised on Indigenous reservations on the plains. Ben sympathized with Abel’s evident loneliness and felt as though they were “related, somehow.”

Ben’s sympathy for Abel compels him to reflect on his own life. He remembers his childhood spent surrounded by family and farm animals on the reservation. Snow on the ground, coffee on the stove, and the crisp, clean air are vivid, pleasantly nostalgic memories. In contrast, Ben thinks about Abel’s time in Los Angeles. After their friendly introduction, Abel’s experiences of Los Angeles grew steadily worse, and “trouble” seemed inevitable. Abel disliked his boring job, his racist workplace, the bureaucracy of the social workers, and the intrusiveness of the parole officers. Ben remembers how he could see Abel sinking into sadness and how he felt helpless to stop it. Gradually, Abel alienated his friends and lost his job. He even fell out with Tosamah and Cruz while “crazy drunk.” He walked out of the factory after an argument with his supervisor and never returned. In the days that followed, Abel “drank himself sick” (90) as he sunk into an apathetic, hopeless alcohol addiction. The only highlights involved Milly, who attempted to lighten Abel’s spirits with picnics and other social events. Milly was from a poor background and grew up watching her father struggle to make anything from his unfertile farmland, but she remains “easygoing and friendly to everybody” (91). Ben remembers spending a day with Milly and Abel. As they sat on the beach, they shared a moment of optimism. They swapped stories and swam in the sea. Ben believes that Milly is “pretty,” and his memories of her overlap with thoughts of a similarly pretty girl from his past.

Ben regrets that Abel couldn’t be cured of whatever sickness fueled his sadness and alcohol addiction. Jobs and socializing didn’t help him. Ben thinks about Abel travelling home to New Mexico, though his thoughts slip back to his own past on the reservation at that time. Abel’s fate reminds him of a horse from his youth. He loved the horse and whispered prayers about its beauty, riding it to festivals.

A violent memory interrupts Ben’s reverie. He recalls Martinez, the corrupt policeman, stopping Ben and Abel in an alley one night. Martinez demanded money and, when Abel claimed to have none, beat Abel across the back of his hands with a flashlight; however, Abel didn’t “cry out or make a sound” (97). From this moment on, Abel sunk deeper into his sullen passivity. Ben remembers being with Abel around this time when Abel spotted Angela in the distance but seemed to hide, “like he didn’t want her to see him” (98). Abel pointed her out to Ben, who struggled to believe that a man like Abel could ever be associated with a woman like Angela. He would be proved wrong when Angela visited Abel in the hospital.

Sitting in his apartment, listening to the rain outside, Ben recalls when he and Abel sat with his neighbor, an elderly woman named Carlozini. Her only friend was a pet guinea pig, and when it died, the two men listened to her grieving words. Ben wonders about life in the city, where an old woman’s only friend is her pet. He hasn’t talked to her since. The rain continues to fall, and Ben thinks about the government policies that affect Indigenous Americans. Although Tosamah has condemned policies such as “Relocation and Welfare and Termination and all” (100), Ben privately believes that they have some merit. Despite the beauty of the plains, he prefers life in the city. Some part of him still believes in the American Dream. Thus, he believes Tosamah is incorrect. He agrees with the government policy to bring Indigenous Americans from the reservations to the city so that they can pursue the American Dream for themselves.

Ben drinks wine as he recalls Abel’s rapid descent into alcohol addiction, when he refused to look for a job, drank every day, and “didn’t let anybody help him” (101). This behavior culminated recently when Abel left the house to search for Martinez. He wanted revenge. Ben didn’t see Abel for three days, but then his friend returned inebriated, badly beaten, and “almost dead” (103). Ben took Abel to the hospital and was subjected to a barrage of questions. He worried that Abel wouldn’t recover. He telephoned people like Angela to ask them for help with Abel. She visited two days later and talked to Abel about her son. Overhearing her telling Abel a story she invented for her boy, Ben was shocked that Angela knew a story that closely resembled an old Navajo tale. He thinks about this tale, titled Changing Bear Maiden. Ben’s thoughts drift back to the previous evening. He remembers Abel’s farewell party and his promise to Abel that they’d reunite in the future and “sing about the way it always was” (106).