Reservation Blues - Alexie Sherman (31 page)

* * *

Just before sunrise, Thomas and Chess walked into the
lobby of their hotel and discovered America. No. They actually
discovered Victor and Junior sleeping on couches in the lobby. No.
They actually discovered Victor passed out on a couch while Junior
read USA
Today.

"
Where've you two been?" Chess asked."We've
been looking for you all damn night."

"We've been here a couple hours," Junior
said.

Thomas and Chess looked at each other.

"
Didn't the hotel hassle you for being here?"
Thomas asked.

"No," Junior said. "I think they
figured we was rock stars and didn't want to piss us off."

"
Well," Chess said, "we certainly
ain't rock stars."

"
Why didn't you go up to the room?" Thomas
asked.

"I couldn't carry him any farther? Junior
said."And those damn bellboys wanted five bucks to help me."

"
Where's Checkers?" Chess asked.

"I don't know," Junior said."Where is
she supposed to be?"

"
In the room," Chess said.

"
Well, then," Junior said, "she's
probably upstairs. You want to help me carry Victor up?"

"
Yeah," Thomas said, and all three of them
carried Victor into the elevator.

"Oh, man, he stinks," Chess said, and they
all agreed.

Chess looked closely at Junior. His eyes were
bloodshot, but they weren't glossed over. He didn't even smell like
booze.

He just smelled like day-old clothes.

"
Don't you have a hangover?" Chess asked.

"
Nope," Junior said. "I didn't drink
none. Just orange Juice."

"
How come?"

"Somebody needed to stay sober," Junior
said. "This is New York City, enit?"

Chess was surprised at Junior's logic.

"You know, Junior," Chess said, "you're
always saving Victor from something?

"Yeah, I know."

They dragged Victor to their hotel room and knocked
on the door. They were shocked all to hell when George Wright
answered.

"What's going on?'° Thomas and Junior asked,
ready to fight.

"
Listen," Wright said, "it's all
right. I was Just waiting for you to get back. Checkers asked me to
wait. She's sleeping now."

"
What happened?" asked Chess as they
dragged Victor into the room."Where's Checkers? What did you do
to her?"

"She's okay, she's okay," Wright said. "I
didn't do anything. It was just a nightmare. She just had a
nightmare."

"A nightmare?" Chess asked.

"
Yes," Wright said, "a nightmare."

Chess went to look in on Checkers. Thomas and Junior
surrounded Wright as best as they could. Victor snored on the floor.

"What are you doing here?" Junior
asked."And where's that asshole Sheridan?"

"I don't know where he is," Wright said."I
just came here to apologize."

"Apologize for what?" Junior asked.

Chess walked out of the bedroom.

"
How is she?" Thomas asked.

"
She's sore, but okay, I guess," Chess
said. "She said it was the worst nightmare she ever had."

Junior shivered.

"Checkers said you saved her life," Chess
said to Wright.

"I Just woke her up," Wright said.

"
Why you helping us?"

"
Because I owe you."

"Owe us for what?"

Wright looked at Coyote Springs. He saw their Indian
faces. He saw the faces of millions of Indians, beaten, scarred by
smallpox and frostbite, split open by bayonets and bullets. He looked
at his own white hands and saw the blood stains there.
 

9

Small World

Indian boy takes a drink of everything that
killed his brother
Indian boy drives his car
through the rail, over the shoulder
Off the
road, on the rez, where survivors are forced to gather
All
his bones, all his blood, while the dead watch the world shatter

chorus:
But it's a
small world
You don't have to pay attention
It's the reservation
The
news don't give it a mention
Yeah, it's a
small world
Getting smaller and smaller and
smaller
Indian girl disappeared while
hitchhiking on the old highway
Indian girl
left the road and some white wolf ate her heart away

Indian girl found naked by the river, shot
twice in the head
One more gone, one more
gone, and our world fills with all of our dead
(repeat
chorus)

A week after Coyote Springs staggered from
Manhattan back onto the Spokane Indian Reservation, Junior Polatkin
stole a rifle from the gun rack in Simon's pickup. Junior didn't know
anything about caliber, but he knew the rifle was loaded. He knew the
rifle was loaded because Simon had told him so. Junior strapped that
rifle over his shoulder and climbed up the water tower that had been
empty for most of his life. He looked down at his reservation, at the
tops of HUD houses and the Trading Post. A crowd gathered below him
and circled the base of the tower. He could hear the distant sirens
of Tribal Police cars and was amazed the cops were already on their
way.

Junior unshouldered the rifle. He felt the smooth,
cool wood of the stock, set the butt of the rifle against the metal
grating of the floor, and placed his forehead against the mouth of
the barrel. There was a childhood game like that, Junior remembered,
with a baseball bat. Standing at home plate, you placed one end of
the bat on the ground and held your forehead against the other. You
were supposed to spin round and round the bat, once, twice, ten
times. Then you had to run from home plate to first base, weaving and
falling like a drunk. Junior remembered. He flipped the safety off,
held his thumb against the trigger, and felt the slight
tension. Junior squeezed the trigger.

* * *

The night before Junior Polatkin climbed the water
tower, Checkers Warrn Water crawled out of a bedroom window in Thomas
Builds-the-Fire's house. She had to climb out of the window because
the Tribal Police had ordered the band to stay inside the house. The
death threats had started soon after Coyote Springs returned to the
reservation, and the Tribal Police weren't taking anychances. Michael
White Hawk had been released from Tribal Jail but didn't have much to
say about the band. He Just walked blankly around the softball field
with his huge head still wrapped in bandages, like some carnival
psychic. The Tribal Cops kept suggesting that he should go to Indian
Health Service, but White Hawk refused to go and Just stood for hours
at the softball field. He wouldn't say anything at all, but then he
would burst into sudden frenetic conversations with himself. He swung
his fists at the air and tried to dig up that grave in center field
before the Tribal Police calmed him down. White Hawk had been crazy
and dangerous before he was knocked twice on the head. Now he had
become
crazy, dangerous, and unpredictable.
Even White Hawk's buddies were afraid.

"
He's Just acting
,"
White Hawk's friends reassured each other."
He's
Just trying to fool everybody into thinking he's goofy
."

White Hawk was asleep on third base when Checkers
slipped out of the window in Thomas's house. Thomas didn't even move,
but Chess stirred in bed as Checkers slipped away. Even sound asleep,
Chess reached out for her sister. Checkers had not slept well since
her return from New York. Phil Sheridan had come back again and
again. Sometimes he threatened her. Other times he remained on the
edge of her dreams. No matter what she dreamed about, Sheridan sat in
a corner with a cup of coffee in his hands. He wore a wool suit or
his cavalry dress blues. Sheridan had eventually forced Checkers to
abandon her own room and sleep on the floor beside the bed that
Thomas and Chess shared. Wide awake, Checkers climbed out the window
and snuck past the Tribal Cops asleep in their cruisers. She avoided
the roads and cut across fields. There was no moon on that night, and
the walk was treacherous. She stepped in gopher holes, tripped over
abandoned barbed wire, heard the laughter of animals. Checkers wasn't
afraid of the dark. She was afraid of what waited in the dark. She
heard rustling in the brush, the scratch-scratch of unseen animals as
they climbed pine trees.

But she made her way through to the Catholic Church.
She saw its lights in the distance, and it grew larger and brighter
as she approached. Checkers wasn't sure how long the walk had taken.
But the church was still lit up, bright as God. She walked boldly
through the front door and stepped inside.

Father Arnold kneeled at the front of the church. His
whole body rocked and shook. From Checkers's viewpoint, she couldn't
tell if he was laughing or crying.

"
Father?" Checkers whispered, but he didn't
respond.

"
Father?" Checkers said louder, and Arnold
turned around. He had been crying, was still crying. He wiped his
face with a sleeve of his cassock. He stood.

"Father?" Checkers asked."Are you
okay?"

She slowly walked toward him. She had dreamed of this
moment. Even as Phil Sheridan floated on the periphery, Checkers had
dreamed of taking Father Arnold in her arms. She dreamed of the smell
of his hair, washed with cheap shampoo, all that a priest could
afford. She dreamed of the kiss they shared Just before Coyote
Springs left for Big Mom"s house, for Manhattan.

Checkers wasn't dreaming as she walked across the
church, her muddy feet leaving tracks on the wood floor. She trailed
her right hand over the pews, felt the splintered wood. Father Arnold
had once told her those pews were over fifty years old. But Checkers
didn't really care about the age of that wood. She walked up to
Father Arnold and stood Just inches away.

"Checkers," Father Arnold whispered.

"Father."

Checkers closed her eyes and expected the next kiss.

"
Checkers," Father Arnold said, "this
is not going to happen. It can't. I'm sorry."

Checkers looked up at him.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

Father Arnold led Checkers to a pew and sat beside
her.

"
I'm leaving the reservation," he
said."I've lost my direction here."

Father Arnold had served the Spokane Indian
Reservation for five years and ministered with self-conscious
kindness. He effusively praised even the smallest signs of an
Indian's faith. He had cried at his first service when Bessie, the
oldest Spokane Indian Catholic, presented him with a dreamcatcher.
Other priests would have dismissed the dreamcatcher as Indian
mysticism or mythological arts and crafts, but Father Arnold was
genuinely thrilled by its intricate system of threads and beads. He
had laughed out loud when he noticed the dreamcatcher was actually
decorated with rosary beads.

"Hang this over your bed," Bessie had said,
"and it will catch those Protestant nightmares before they can
sneak into your sIeep."

"
But what about Catholic nightmares?"
Father Arnold had asked.

"
Protestants are a good Catholic's worst
nightmare."

Father Arnold had rushed home and hung it over his
bed. Later that night, he stared up at the dreamcatcher over his
head. He willed himself to think of the worst possible things.
Murders, rapes, loss of faith. Father Arnold imagined that he was
nailed to the cross. He heard the dull thud of hammer on nail.

"
Come on,
nightmares," Arnold had whispered."You can't touch me now."

*

"Where are you going?" Checkers asked
Father Arnold. "Where are they sending you?"

"They aren't sending me anywhere," Arnold
said."I'm leaving the church. I'm letting it all go."

Checkers leaned back in the pew. She felt some winged
thing bump against the interior of her ribcage. She felt the slight
brush of wingtips as it struggled between her ribs and left her body.
She had no name for it. Checkers heard that winged thing flutter
against the stained-glass windows. Then it flew so close that she
felt a slight breeze. She closed her eyes, and the winged thing was
gone.

"
But I love you, " Checkers said.

"
I love you, too," Father Arnold said."But
not like that. It can't work that way."

"
But you kissed me."

"I know I kissed you. It was wrong."

"You can't do this. You can't. Not now,"
Checkers said.

She didn't know how much she had left. Coyote Springs
had failed, had not even bothered to bring their instruments home
from Manhattan. Checkers could see the guitars and keyboards strewn
around the studio. Victor's guitar was smashed into pieces, but
everything else was just as useless.