Reservation Blues - Alexie Sherman (28 page)

"You can't go to New York if you don't get on
that plane," Chess said.

"Please, " Checkers said.

Victor stared out the terminal window at the plane.
That plane Just looked too damn big to fly.

"All right, all right," Victor finally
said. "I'll get on that goddamn plane, but I'm going to get
wasted. And you're all going to buy me drinks."

"Okay, okay," said all the rest of Coyote
Springs, happy for once to be codependents.

"
Listen," Thomas said, "you can still
have my eagle feather."

"I told you to get that thing away from me,"
Victor said.

"I don't believe in that shit."

Coyote Springs boarded the plane, waved to Wright and
Sheridan as they walked back to the coach section. Victor started
drinking immediately. He put down shot after shot, closed his eyes as
the plane took off.

"Shit," Victor said after the plane reached
cruising altitude, "that was easy."

Victor was drunk enough to forget about flying for a
while, until the plane hit some nasty turbulence.

"Sorry, folks," the captain said over the
intercom.

"We've run into some choppy air, and we're going
to have to ask you to return to your seats and buckle yourselves in.
This is going to be a bumpy ride."

The plane bounced up and down like crazy, and Victor
went pale. The whole band turned white.

"Hey, Thomas," Victor slurred, "do you
still got that eagle feather?"

"Sure," Thomas said and handed it to
Victor, who held it tightly in his hand and whispered some inexpert
prayer. The rest of Coyote Springs looked to Thomas for help, so he
produced an eagle feather for each of them.

"
Jeez, Thomas," Chess said, "I love
you so much."

Thomas Just smiled and held tightly to his eagle
feather. Chess and Checkers held hands, held their feathers. Junior
put his feather in his mouth and bit down to prevent himself from
calling out. Coyote Springs was flying to a place they had never
been. They didn't know what would happen or how they would come back.

* * *

Meanwhile, the reservation remained behind. It never
exactly longed for any Indian who left, for all those whose bodies
were dragged quickly and quietly into the twentieth century while
their souls were left behind somewhere in the nineteenth. But the
reservation was there, had always been there, and would still be
there, waiting for Coyote Springs's return from New York City. Every
Indian, every leaf of grass, and every animal and insect waited
collectively.

The old Indian women dipped wooden spoons into stews
and stirred and stirred. The stews made of random vegetables and
commodity food, of failed dreams and predictable tears. That was the
only way to measure time, to wait. Those spoons moved in slow
circles. Stir, stir. The reservation waited for Coyote Springs to
fall into pieces, so they could be dropped into the old women's
stews.

It waited for the end of the stickgarne, one chance
to choose the hand holding the colored bone. Those old women always
hid the colored bone in one hand and a plain bone in the other. Those
old women smelled of stew and pine. If an Indian chose the correct
hand, he won everything, he won all the sticks. If an Indian chose
wrong, he never got to play again. Coyote Springs had only one dream,
one chance to choose the correct hand.
 

8

Urban Indian Blues

I've been relocated and given a room
In
a downtown hotel called The Tomb
And they
gave me a job and cut my hair
I trip on rats
when I climb the stairs
I get letters from my
cousins on the rez
They wonder when they'll
see me next
But I've got a job and a landlady
She calls me chief she calls me crazy

chorus:
I'm walking sidewalks
miles from home, I'm walking streets alone
I'm
walking in cheap old shoes, I've got the Urban Indian blues
I'm working for minimum, I'm working the maximum
I'm working in cheap old shoes, I've got the Urban
Indian blues
I paint the ceilings, I paint
the walls
I paint the floors and I paint the
halls

That's my job and that's my boss there
He
gave me the clothes that I wear
We drink a
few in his favorite bar
We drink a few more
in his car
He's a friend of the Indian, he
says
He's been to the rez, he's been to the
rez

(repeat chorus)
I'm saving
money for the Greyhound
'
Cause I want to be
homeward bound
But the landlady raises the
rent
The boss don't know where my check went
And the neighbors are lonely
And
the neighbors are ghostly
And I watch my
television
And I dream of the reservation
 

Inside the recording studio at Cavalry Records in New
York City, Coyote Springs nervously retuned their already tuned
instruments. Chess and Checkers sang scales. Junior tapped his foot
to some rhythm he heard in his head. Victor stroked his guitar
gently; the guitar purred.

"Are you folks ready yet?" asked a
disembodied voice from the control booth.

"Who are you?" Victor asked.

"Just the engineer," said the voice.

"Where are you?"

"
Right here, " said a young white woman in
pressed denim shirt and blue jeans. She waved at Coyote Springs and
grinned.

Phil Sheridan and George Wright sat behind the
engineer.

They were just as nervous as Coyote Springs.

"What if Mr. Armstrong doesn't like them,"
Sheridan asked Wright. Thomas watched Sheridan and Wright talk,
although he couldn't hear them through the glass.

"He'll like them," Wright said."He
signed that duo from Seattle on just our word, right? He's got to
like these guys. Indians are big these days. Way popular, right?
Besides, these Indians are good. They're just plain good. They're
artists. When was the last time we signed artists?"

"Shit, as if being good meant anything in this
business. They don't need to be good. They just need to make money. I
don't give a fuck if they're artists. Where are all the executives
who signed artists? They're working at radio stations now, right?"

The engineer studied her soundboard. She flipped
switches in patterns that would make the music sound exactly like she
wanted it to sound.

"
I'm Just going to tell Armstrong this was your
idea," Sheridan said and laughed.

"Fuck you, too," Wright said.

Sheridan and Wright continued to reassure each other
until Mr. Armstrong, the president and CEO of Cavalry Records,
arrived.

"Mr. Armstrong," Sheridan and Wright said
and stood.

"
Where are the Indians?" Armstrong asked.

"Right there, " Sheridan said and pointed
at the band.

"They look Indian," Armstrong said.

"
Of course, sir."

Mr. Armstrong was a small man, barely over five feet,
but he weighed three hundred pounds. The weight looked unnatural on
him, though, like he had been padded to play a fat guy in a movie.
His blond hair was pulled into a ponytail that hung down past his
waist. He spoke in short sentences.

"Can they play?" Armstrong asked Sheridan
and Wright.

"Yes, sir."

"Can they play?" Armstrong asked the
engineer, who just shrugged her shoulders and ran Coyote Springs
through a sound check.

"Jeez," Chess said, "that's the big
boss man, enit?"

"Yeah, it is," Victor said."And he's
going to sign me up for a solo career after he hears me play. He's
Just going to send all you losers home."

"Are you ready to run through a song?"
asked the engineer.

"
Damn right," Victor said.

"
Well, let's go for it. Tape's running,"
said the engineer.

"
What do you think we should play?" Thomas
asked.

"How about Urban Indian Blues?" Chess
asked.

"
Makes sense, enit?" Checkers asked.

"Damn right," Victor said.

"Okay," Thomas said."Count it off,
Junior."

The horses screamed.

"One, two, one, two, three, four."

Coyote Springs dropped into a familiar rhythm
together.

Thomas, Chess, and Checkers sang well. Thomas
strummed note by note on the bass; Chess and Checkers both played
keyboards. Junior flailed away at the drums, lost a few beats here
and there, but mostly kept up. But Coyote Springs needed Victor to
rise, needed his lead guitar to define them. Victor knew how
important he was. He closed his eyes and let the chords come to him.

At first, the music flowed as usual, like a stream of
fire through his frngers and the strings. Victor remembered how much
the music had hurt him before. That guitar had scarred his hands, yet
he had mastered the pain. He thought he could have placed his
calloused hands into any Hre and never felt the burning. But then, as
the song moved forward, bar by bar, his fingers slipped off the
strings and frets. The guitar bucked in his hands, twisted away from
his body. He felt a razor slice across his palms.

"Shit, shit!" Victor shouted.

"
What's the problem?" asked the engineer.

"Could we start over?" Victor asked.

Sheridan and Wright exchanged a worried look. Mr.
Armstrong cleared his throat loudly.

"Whenever you want," said the
engineer."Tape's still rolling."

"What's wrong?" Thomas asked Victor.

"Nothing," Victor said, wiped his hands on
his pants, and left blood stains. The rest of Coyote Springs studied
those blood stains as Junior counted off again.

"One, two, one, two, three, four."

Checkers could not remember what she was supposed to
play. She looked to her sister for help, but Chess's hands stayed
motionless a few inches above the keyboard. Thomas sang half of the
first verse before he noticed he was singing alone.

"Hold up a sec," said the engineer."Where
are the keyboards and vocals, ladies?"

"Are you okay?" Thomas asked the sisters.

Chess and Checkers shook their heads. Junior
continued to pound the snare drum. Victors guitar kept writhing in
his hands until it broke the straps and fell to the floor in a flurry
of feedback.

The engineer let that feedback whine until Sheridan
jumped to the intercom.

"What the hell's going on?" Sheridan asked
Coyote Springs.

Coyote Springs all stared down at Victor's guitar.

"What the hell's happening?" Sheridan asked
everybody in the control booth.

"I don't know," said the engineer."I
think they're just nervous. Give them another chance."

Mr. Armstrong rose from his seat, adjusted his tie
and jacket.

"They don't have it," Armstrong said.

"
Don't you think you're being a little hasty,
sir?" Wright asked.

"No, I don't," Armstrong said and left.

Coyote Springs was still staring at the guitar on the
floor when the engineer spoke.

"Hey, that's it, I guess."

Coyote Springs looked up at the engineer, who looked
pained behind the glass. Wright and Sheridan were arguing violently,
silently. Coyote Springs watched the two Cavalry officers gesture
wildly, argue for a few more minutes, and then storm out of the
control booth.

"
What the hell happened?" Chess asked after
a long time.

"I don't know," the engineer said over the
intercom. "I thought you were pretty good."

"What the hell happened?" Chess asked
Thomas.

"I don't know," Thomas said.

* * *

From
The Wellpinit Rawhide
Press
:

Local Skins May Lose Their Shirts
Our local rock band, Coyote Springs, left
yesterday for a meeting with Cavalry Records in New York City.
Although they've been the center of much controversy on the Spokane
Indian Reservation, it seems that white people are still interested
in the band.

"We're going to be rock stars,"
Victor Joseph said before the band left. "And we won't have to
come back to this reservation ever again. We'll just leave all of you
[Jerks] to your [awful] lives."

Lead singer Thomas Builds-the-Fire, however,
was a little more guarded about the purpose of the meeting.

"
It's an audition," he said."They
haven't promised us anything. You tell everybody that. We ain't been
promised anything."

Tribal Chairman David WalksAlong was even
more pessimistic about the future of Coyote Springs.