Reservation Blues - Alexie Sherman (13 page)

"
He was such a good basketball player that all
the Spokanes wanted him to be more. When any Indian shows the
slightest hint of talent in any direction, the rest of the tribe
starts expecting Jesus. Sometimes they'll stop a reservation hero in
the middle of the street, look into his eyes, and ask him to change a
can of sardines into a river of salmon.

"But my father lived up to those expectations,
you know? Game after game, he defined himself. He wasn't like some
tired old sports hero, some little white kid, some Wonder-bread boy.
Think about it. Take the basketball in your hands, fake left, fake
right, look your defender in the eyes to let him know he won't be
stopping you. Take the ball to the rim, the hoop, the goal, the
basket, that circle that meant everything in an Indian boy's life.

"My father wasn't any different. After his
basketball days were over, he didn't have much else. If he could've
held a basketball in his arms when he cut down trees for the BIA,
maybe my father would've kept that job. If he could have drank his
own sweat after a basketball game and got drunk off the effort, maybe
he would've stayed away from the real booze."

Thomas opened his eyes and looked at his father,
lying still on the kitchen table. A wake for a live man. Thomas tried
to smile for the sisters. Checkers looked at the overweight Indian
man on the table, saw the dirt under his fingernails, the clogged
pores, the darkness around his eyes and at the elbows and knees.

"I would've never thought he played basketball,"
Chess said.

"Me, neither," Checkers said.

Thomas looked at his father again, studied him, and
touched Samuel's big belly.

"Did you ever play?" Chess asked.

"No," Thomas said.

"Why not?"

"Well, even Moses only parted the Red Sea once.
There are things you just can't do twice."

"Sometimes," Checkers said, "I hate
being Indian."

"Ain't that the true test?" Chess asked.
"You ain't really Indian unless there was some point in your
life that you didn't want to be."

"
Enit," Thomas said.

"
You know," Chess said, "like when
you're walking downtown or something, and you see some drunk Indian
passed out on the sidewalk."

Thomas looked at his father.

"Oh," Chess said. "I didn't mean your
father."

"That's okay," Thomas said. "I have
been walking in downtown Spokane and stumbled over my father passed
out on the sidewalk."

"Yeah," Checkers said. "And I hate it
when some Indian comes begging for money. Calling me sister or
cousin. What am I supposed to do? I ain't got much money myself. So I
give it to them anyway. Then I feel bad for doing it, because I know
they're going to drink it all up."

Checkers was always afraid of those Indian men who
wandered the streets. She always thought they looked like
brown-skinned zombies. Samuel Builds-the-Fire looked like a zombie on
the kitchen table. Those Indian zombies lived in Missoula when she
was little. Once a month, the whole Warm Water family traveled from
their little shack on the reservation to pick up supplies in
Missoula. Those drunk zombies always followed the family from store
to store.

Still, Checkers remembered how quiet and polite some
of those zombies were, just as quiet as Samuel passed out on the
table. In Missoula they stood on street corners, wrapped in old
quilts, and held their hands out without saying a word. Just stood
there and waited.

Once, Checkers watched a white man spit into a
zombie's open hand. Just spit in his palm. The zombie wiped his hand
clean on his pants and offered it again. Then the white man spit
again. Checkers saw all that happen. After the white man walked away,
she ran up to the zombie and gave him a piece of candy, her last
piece of candy.

Thank you
, the zombie
said. He unwrapped the candy, popped it in his mouth, and smiled.

"
What are we supposed to do?" Chess asked
Thomas, as Checkers remembered her zombies.
"What
should we do for your father?"

"
I don't know."

Samuel groaned in his sleep, raised his hands in a
defensive position.

"Listen," Thomas said, "do you want
something to drink."

Thomas gave them all a glass of commodity grape
juice. It was very sweet, almost too sweet. Thomas loved sugar.

"
Our cousins are drinking this stuff mixed with
rubbing alcohol at home," Chess said.

"Really?" Thomas said. The creativity of
alcoholics constantly surprised him.
"Yeah,
they call it a Rubbie Dubbie."

"Drinking that will kill them."

"
I think that's the idea."

Thomas, Chess, and Checkers stayed quiet for a long
time. After a while, Chess and Checkers started to sing a Flathead
song of mourning. For a wake, for a wake. Samuel was still alive, but
Thomas sang along without hesitation. That mourning song was B-7 on
every reservation jukebox.

After the song, Thomas stood and walked away from the
table where his father lay flat as a paper plate. He walked outside
while the women stayed inside. They understood. Once outside, Thomas
cried. Not because he needed to be alone; not because he was afraid
to cry in front of women. He just wanted his tears to be individual,
not tribal. Those tribal tears collected and fermented in huge BIA
barrels. Then the BIA poured those tears into beer and Pepsi cans and
distributed them back onto the reservation. Thomas wanted his tears
to be selfish and fresh.

"Hello," he said to the night sky. He
wanted to say the first word of a prayer or a joke. A prayer and a
joke often sound alike on the reservation.

"Help," he said to the ground. He knew the
words to a million songs; Indian, European, African, Mexican, Asian.
He sang "Stairway to Heaven" in four different languages
but never knew where that staircase stood. He sang the same Indian
songs continually but never sang them correctly. He wanted to make
his guitar sound like a waterfall, like a spear striking salmon, but
his guitar only sounded like a guitar. He wanted the songs, the
stories, to save everybody.

"Father," he said to the crickets, who
carried their own songs to worry about.

 
* * *

Just minutes, days, years, maybe a generation out of
high school, Samuel Builds-the-Fire, Jr. raced down the reservation
road in his Chevy. He stopped to pick up Lester FallsApart, who
hitchhiked with no particular destination in mind.

"Ya-hey," Samuel said. "Where you
going, Lester?"

"Same place you are. Now."

"Good enough."

Samuel dropped the car into gear and roared down the
highway.

"I hear you're getting married to that Susan,"
Lester said.

"Enit."

"You want to have kids."

"
There's already one on the way."

"
Congratulations," Lester said and slapped
Samuel hard on the back. Surprised, Samuel swerved across the center
line, which caused Spokane Tribal Police Officer Wilson to suddenly
appear. Officer Wilson was a white man who hated to live on the
reservation. He claimed a little bit of Indian blood and had used it
to get the job but seemed to forget that whenever he handcuffed
another Indian. He read Tom Clancy novels, drank hot tea year round,
and always fell asleep in his chair. At one A.M. every morning, he
woke up from the chair, brushed his teeth, and then fell into bed.
The years rushed by him.

"Shit,"' Lester said. "It's the cops."

"Shit. You're right."

Samuel pulled over. Wilson stepped out of his car,
walked up to the driver's window, and shone his flashlight inside the
Chevy.

"You two been drinking?"

"I've been drinking since I was five,"
Lester said. "Kindergarten is hard on a man."

"I'll pretend you didn't say that," Wilson
said.

"
And we'll pretend you're a real Indian,"
Samuel said. Wilson reached inside the Chevy, grabbed Samuel by the
collar, and grinned hard into his face. Officer Wilson was a big man.

"Better watch your mouth, " Wilson said.
"Or I'll have to hurt those precious hands of yours. I wonder
how you'd play ball after that."

"
He'd still kick your ass," Lester said.

"Shit," Wilson said. "Let's go for it
right now. Let's go over to the courts and go one on one. Hell, I'll
call up Officer William and we'll play two on two."

"Two of you ain't going to be near enough,"
Samuel said.

"Lester and me will take on all six of you fake
bastards. Full court to ten by ones. Make it. Take it."

"No shit, enit?" Lester asked. "How's
that fucking treaty for you, officer?"

"You're on," Wilson said, and got on his
radio to round up his teammates.

"
Shit," said Lester, who never played
basketball on purpose. "What are you doing?"

"Don't worry about it," Samuel said. "just
give me the ball and get out of the way."

Samuel and Lester arrived at the basketball courts
behind the Tribal School a few moments after the entire Spokane
Tribal Police Department. Wilson and William were the big white men.
Certifiably one-quarter Spokane Indian, William had made the varsity
basketball team in junior college. The brothers Plato, Socrates, and
Aristotle Heavy Burden were the forwards. Everybody on the
reservation called them Phil, Scott, and Art. The Tribal Police
Chief, David WalksAlong, tied up his shoes and stretched his back.

He would later be elected Tribal Chairman, but on
that night, he played point guard.

"
You take it out first," WalksAlong said
and threw the ball hard at Samuel's chest.

"You better take it out," Samuel said and
threw the ball back. "It's the only time you'll touch it."

The Chief faked a pass to his right and passed left,
but Samuel stole the ball and dribbled downcourt for the slam.

SAMUEL & LESTER——l
TRIBAL
COPS—0

* * *

Thomas stood outside while Chess and Checkers
jealously watched Samuel Builds-the-Fire sleep. The sisters really
needed to sleep but knew those Stick Indians might haunt Thomas if he
stayed up alone.

"What should we do?" Chess asked.

"
I don't know."

"I don't know, either."

"I know you're falling in love, enit?"

"
With Samuel?" Chess asked. "No way. "

"You know who I'm talking about."

"
Maybe I am. Maybe I ain't. I mean, he's got a
lot going for him. "e's got ajob, he's sober, he's got his own
teeth."

"Yeah," Checkers said. "Remember the
one I dated? Barney?"

Chess remembered that Checkers always chased the
older Indian men and never even looked at the young bucks. Checkers
dated Indian men old enough to be her father. Once she went after
Barney Pipe, a Blood Indian old enough to be her grandfather.

"
Jeez," Chess had said after she first met
the old man, "I know we're supposed to respect our elders, but
this is getting carried away." Barney liked to take out his
false teeth while dancing and usually dropped them in the front
pocket of his shirt. One night, old Barney pulled Checkers really
close during a slow dance, and his false teeth bit her.

"Do you remember Barney's false teeth?"
Chess asked.

"
Damn right, I remember. I still have a scar.
Biggest hickey I ever got," Checkers said.

"
Samuel's about the same age as Barney, enit?"

"Enit."

"Man, Barney had a house, a car, and three pairs
of cowboy boots."

Samuel Builds-the-Fire wore a ragged pair of Kmart
tennis shoes. The laces had been broken and retied a few times over.

"Indians would be a lot better off," Chess
said, "if we took care of our feet."

"Yeah," Checkers said. "And those
cavalry soldiers would've been much nicer if the government had given
them boots that fit. Ain't nothing worse than a soldier with an
ingrown toe-nail."

"Samuel would be all right if he'd gotten a good
pair of hiking boots when he was little."

Chess tried to fix Samuel's hair with her fingers.
Then she took out her brush and went to work. Samuel breathed deeply
in his sleep. Chess hummed a song as she brushed; Checkers pulled out
her brush and sang along. The song, an old gospel hymn, reminded the
sisters of the Catholic Church on the Flathead Reservation. Their
hands stayed in Samuel's hair, but their minds traveled back over
twenty years.

"Hurry up!" Chess, age twelve, shouted at
Checkers, who had just turned eleven. "We're going to be late
for church."

The Warm Water sisters struggled into their best
dresses, dingy from too many washes but still the best they owned,
and hurried to Flathead Reservation Catholic Church.

"Father James says I get to sing the lead
today," Checkers said.