Apple: Skin to the Core

This section summarizes “Wyatt Wingfoot Gives Us Some Four-Color Comic Hope,” “Hunger Test 2.,” My Brother Quietly Tries to Wake Us Up,” “Proving Ground or Baptism of Fire,” and “I Lose a Ribbon Shirt to Bloodlines.”

“Wyatt Wingfoot Gives Us Some Four-Color Comic Hope” introduces Wyatt, a character in a Fantastic Four comic. A member of the fictional Keewazi tribe, Wyatt doesn’t have a superpower, but his tribe is rich, having discovered oil on its land. Gansworth wonders whether his superpower is survival.

“Hunger Test 2.” describes a night that Gansworth slept over at a house that had an abundance of food. In the morning, he was unsure whether he should take part in the elaborate breakfast. Although food was abundant, his mother had always told him not to eat more than necessary.

In “My Brother Quietly Tries to Wake Us Up,” it’s 1971. Gansworth recalls how his older brother tried to get his family to engage with more popular Indigenous culture. He changed his musical tastes and subscribed to an Indigenous newspaper. Despite his efforts, media depictions of Indigenous people were often “frozen in the past” (100).

“Proving Ground or Baptism of Fire” describes the elementary school located on the reservation. Many teachers either left after a few years or stuck around to bully their students.