I hear coyotes yapping in the distance, singing their song to the moon mother. My heart yearns to learn their song, but my voice can’t match the notes or rhythm. The only noise I make is a low hum-growl, throaty and guttural. They don’t hear me and keep yapping, singing, and dancing on the Oklahoma red earth. Car lights flash and their singing stops. Back to work.

The sun leans heavily on us redskins working the road crew. Paving highway roads, patching potholes, and getting hollered at for making an honest living. We get paid fifteen bucks an hour to hold a Slow Down sign and yet the locals call us drunks, crackheads, and lazy freeloaders. Most people think it’s court ordered community service, but it ain’t. Just regular work for the county. I make more money selling dope, except that business doesn’t offer insurance. The county does.

Once, I heard a wolf howling.

Damon McKinney is an Indigenous writer from Oklahoma and he is the former Associate Editor for Likely Red Press, a former Contributing Editor of Fiction for Barren Magazine, and the Managing Editor for Emerge Literary Journal