Free Green Lake by S.K. Epperson

At first the anger and bitterness had been directed at Eris's adoptive mother, but then it turned upon Eris, the outsider, the interloper, and there was no one to protect him, since even his mother became cold to him to keep from drawing the heat of his father's fire back onto herself.
    Eris ran away from his parents at the age of thirteen. He rode a bus all the way to Kansas City, telling himself he was going to find his real parents on the nearby Sauk-Fox reservation. The whites hated him and he didn't want to live with them anymore. He knew he was Fox, because his adoptive parents always laughed and said they wanted a little Fox baby since she had Fox blood in her, and because the name Renard meant fox. They also told him the name Eris was given to him by his natural mother, and they had no idea what it meant, but they kept it because it was unusual and seemed to suit him. Eris had the idea that if he visited the reservation and told people his name, someone might remember something.
    An hour after he reached the reservation he knew his task would be impossible. His plight was not unusual, and few cared to help him even by trying to remember anything. He returned to the bus station and walked inside to sit at the diner. Several people eyed him, but since his hair was cut short and his clothes were clean, he passed inspection. He saw a notice printed on the chalkboard that a dishwasher was needed in the diner, and Eris applied on the spot. He was thirteen, but he was tall enough to pass for sixteen and no one ever asked him any questions. He was paid cash and he slept on a bench in the bus station at night, until he could afford to rent a room.
    He worked at the diner a year and a half, until he got on another bus and went to Oklahoma, because he heard there were Sauk-Fox there, too. In Oklahoma he hired on with a construction crew. At fifteen years of age he stood six-one and had good muscle definition, so, again, no one asked for anything but a social security number. He had one, courtesy of the military man who had called himself father. He let his hair grow long, like the other Indians on the crew, and he saved half of every paycheck, turning down invitations of the older men to go out and party with them. His spare time was spent looking for his natural parents.
    When he was sixteen he contracted chicken pox and was sick for several weeks. A girl he had dated steadily bid him adieu after the pustules appeared, and only when he was in the worst stage of the disease did he realize what was happening to his previously smooth, brown skin. Afterward he became bitter and stayed in his room nights, refusing to go out or to talk to anyone. The men at work teased him mercilessly about his face and chest and back, until Eris finally lost control and went after one of them with a shovel. The incident saw him fired from his job.
    He remained in Oklahoma long enough to receive his general equivalency diploma. At the age of seventeen he picked up his GED and took himself and all his saved money back to Kansas, where he enrolled himself in Kansas State University.
    Eris was a good student. He worked hard at his studies and made one or two friends while there. He took another job, this time at an animal shelter, where he was placed in charge of euthanizing the hundreds of strays that went unplaced each month. He vomited nearly every time he performed the task and was later given other work, but he still had problems. Regretfully, the operators of the shelter let him go.
    It was in his second year of college that he decided to be a conservation officer. He liked the idea of being outdoors all day, with no one but himself to answer to or be responsible for.
    Obtaining his degree took longer than he thought it would, since he kept running out of money. During breaks he worked full time at temporary jobs, and in the summer he hired on with construction crews and saved every penny so he could stay in school.
    It was more than pride and