Reservation Blues - Alexie Sherman (4 page)

* * *

After the tavern had closed, Junior and Victor
climbed into the water truck and passed out. They spent many nights
asleep in parking lots. During this night, they dreamed of their
families.

Junior dreamed of his two brothers, two sisters,
mother and father. They all stood at a bus stop in Spokane, the white
city just a few miles from the reservation, waiting to go downtown.
Pawn shops and secondhand stores. The world was beautiful sometimes.

Junior's father had owned a couple hundred acres of
wheat that he rented out to a white farmer. Every harvest, Junior's
father made enough money for a family vacation in Spokane. They
stayed at the Park Lane Motel, ate Kmart submarine sandwiches, and
watched bad karate movies at the Trent Drive-In.

Junior dreamed of his parents' funeral in the Spokane
Indian Longhouse. His siblings, who had long since dispersed to other
reservations and cities, couldn't afford to come back for the
funeral. None of his siblings had enough money to mourn properly.

Victor dreamed of his stepfather, a short, stocky
white man, red-headed and so pale that veins flowed through his skin
like rivers on a map. Victor's mother and stepfather had met in a
cowboy bar in Spokane when Victor was nine years old, a few weeks
later his real father had moved to Phoenix, Arizona. His mother and
stepfather had two-stepped to Hank Williams all night long and fell
in love.

"It was the cowboy hat," Victor's mother
had said more than once.

In Victor's dream, he could smell the dead body, his
real father's. His real father had died of a heart attack during a
heat wave in Phoenix and lay on a couch for a week before a neighbor
discovered him. Victor hadn't seen his real father for years before
his death. Victor could still smell that dead body smell. That smell
never fully dissipated, had always remained on the edges of Victor's
senses.

In that way, both dreamed of their families.

Then the morning came and brought Robert Johnson"s
guitar with it. In Thomas's yard, the guitar played itself and the
music did rise into the clouds. It did rain down on the reservation,
which arched its back and drank deeply. It did fall on the roof of
the water truck, disturbing Junior's and Victor's sleep. The music
talked to them in their dreams, talking so loudly that neither could
sleep.

"Shit," Victor said, "what the hell is
that noise?"

"It's music," Junior said. "I think."

"
Man, I got a hangover."

"Me, too."

The music played on, and gradually changed.

"Jeez," Victor said, "now it sounds
like Thomas singing out there. I'm going to kick his ass. As soon as
I can lift my head."

"Thomas," Junior said, "will you keep
it down? I got a headache."

The music kept playing.

"That's it," Victor said. "I'm kicking
his ass good this time."

Victor and junior staggered out of the truck, but
Thomas was nowhere to be found. The music continued.

"
What the hell is that?" Victor asked.

"I don't know."

"
That fucking Thomas has to be doing this. It's
his voice. He's doing this. I say we go find him and kick his ass."

"It' s getting louder."

"That's it," Victor said as he slowly
climbed back into the truck. "Let's go get him."

Junior found his way into the driver's seat, started
the truck, and made his way toward Thomas's house. He was a good
driver.

* * *

"I smell water," the guitar said.

"It's the pond," Thomas said and pointed.
"Down there."

Benjamin Pond used to be called Benjamin Lake, but
then a white man named Benjamin Lake moved to the reservation to
teach biology at the Tribal High School. All the Indians liked the
teacher so much that they turned the lake into a pond to avoid
confusion.

"They're comin' now," the guitar said. "I
feel 'em."

Thomas walked into the house to get some food ready.
He had to offer food to his guest, no matter how little he had, even
if Junior and Victor were the guests. The cupboards were nearly bare,
but Thomas managed to find a jar of peanut butter and some saltine
crackers.

"
Tell me a story 'fore they get here," the
guitar said when Thomas came back outside with a plate of reservation
appetizers. Thomas sat, closed his eyes, and told this story:

"Benjamin Pond has been on the reservation
longer than anything. Jesus sipped water from the pond. But Turtle
Lake, on the other side of the reservation, has been here a long
time, too. Genghis Khan swam there and was nearly eaten by the giant
turtles. He decided not to conquer the Americas because even its
turtles were dangerous.

"The tribal elders say that Benjamin Pond and
Turtle Lake are connected by a tunnel. Those turtles swim from pond
to lake; they live in great caverns beneath the reservation and feed
on failed dreams.

"The elders tell the story of the horse that
fell into Benjamin Pond, drowned in those waters, but washed up on
the shore of Turtle Lake. Children swim in both places, but their
grandmothers burn sage and pray for their safety.

sweet smoke, save us, bless us now

"Indian teenagers build fires and camp at the
water. They sometimes hear a woman crying but can never find the
source of the sound. Victor, junior, and I saw Big Mom, the old woman
who lives on the hill, walk across Benjamin Pond. Victor and Junior
pretend they don't know about Big Mom, but we heard her sing all the
way.

sweet smoke, save us, bless us now

"I am in love with
water; I am frightened by water. I never learned to swim. Indians
have drowned in both Benjamin Pond and Turtle Lake, and I wonder if
we can taste them when we drink the water.

sweet smoke, save us, bless us now

"I watched Victor learn to swim when he was ten
years old. His stepfather threw him in Turtle Lake, which doesn't
have a bottom, which used to be a volcano. Victor's screams rose like
ash, drifted on the wind, and blanketed the reservation. Junior
watched his oldest brother James slip on the dock at Benjamin Pond.
James fractured his skull and woke up as somebody different. "

Thomas opened his eyes. The guitar was silent.

"Ya-hey, " Thomas whispered, but the guitar
didn't respond. The sun was almost directly overhead when Junior and
Victor pulled up in the water truck. They stepped out of the rig at
the same time and walked toward Thomas.

"
They're here," Thomas whispered to the
guitar, which remained silent. He picked it up and strummed a few
chords, thinking how nobody believed in anything on this reservation.
All the Indians just dropped their quarters into the jukebox, punched
the same old buttons, and called that music. Thomas shared his
stories with pine trees because people didn't listen. He was grateful
for the trees when the guitar left him.

"
I don't know what the fuck is going on,"
Victor said to Thomas. "But I can't get your voice out of my
head."

"What's he saying to you?" Junior asked
Victor.

"Something about being on the cover of Rolling
Stone."

"Yeah," Junior said. "Me, too."

"
I was wondering if you guys wanted to be in my
band," Thomas said. "I need a lead guitarist and drummer."

"I'II do it," Junior said, already
convinced. Two peanut butter and onion sandwiches waited in his lunch
box.

"What's in it for me?" Victor asked.

"This," Thomas said and handed Robert
Johnson's guitar to him. Victor picked at the strings and flinched.

"Damn," Victor said. "This thing is
hot. How long it been in the sun?"

"
I thought we broke that thing," Junior
said.

"
Nothing' s broken yet," Thomas said.

"Why the hell you want us in your band anyway?"
Victor asked. "Who's to say I won't break this guitar over your
head every damn day?"

"Nothing I can say about that," Thomas
said.

But Victor held on to that guitar too tenderly to
ever break it again. He already gave it a name and heard it whisper.
Thomas couldn't hear the guitar at all anymore but saw it snuggle
closer to Victor's body.

"Play that thing a little," Thomas said.
"Then tell me you don't want to be in my band."

"No problem," Victor said.

"He don't even play the guitar," Junior
said.

"He does now," Thomas said.

Victor's fingers moved toward the chord; index finger
on first two strings, first fret; middle finger on third string,
second fret, ring linger on fourth string, third fret. He strummed
the strings, hit the chord, and smiled.

"I'll be your lead guitarist," Victor said.
"But what are you going to do?"

"I'm the bass player," Thomas said. "And
the lead singer."
 

2

Treaties

Listen to me, listen to me, listen to me

Somebody breaks a hard promise
Somebody breaks your tired heart
The
moon tears the sun in half
Love can tear you
apart

chorus:
What do you
want from your father?
What do you want from
your brother?
What do you want from your
sister?
What do you want from your mother?

Treaties never remember
They
give and take 'til they fall apart

Treaties never surrender
I'm
sure treaties we made are
gonna break this
Indian's heart

I don't know what I want from love  
I just know it ain't easy
I
just know how it all feels
It's just like
signing a treaty

(repeat chorus)

I just know it ain't easy
It's
just like signing a treaty  

Thomas, Victor, and Junior rehearsed in Irene's
Grocery Store. Even though the building had been condemned for years,
boarded up and dangerous, everybody still called it Irene's. The band
crawled through a hole in the back wall and practiced for hours at a
time. Thomas had spent most of his savings on a bass guitar and an
amplifier for himself and a drum set for Junior. Victor wore gloves
when he played Robert Johnson's guitar but still suffered little
burns and scratches. At first, Thomas had worried that his amplified
bass and Junior's drums would overwhelm the acoustic lead guitar, but
Victor could have kicked the guitar around the floor and it would
have sounded good enough. Even without an amplifier or microphones,
Robert Johnson's guitar filled the room.

Pretty soon, the band's practice sessions started to
draw a crowd. In the beginning, only Lester FallsApart materialized,
like a reservation magician, and usually knocked somebody or
something over, like a reservation clown. After a few days, however,
a dozen Spokanes showed up and started to dance, even in the heat.
Undercover CIA and FBI agents dressed up like Indians and infiltrated
the band practices but didn't fool anybody because they danced like
shit. The crowds kept growing and converted the rehearsal into a
semi-religious ceremony that made the Assemblies of God, Catholics,
and Presbyterians very nervous. United in their outrage, a few of
those reservation Indian Christians showed up at rehearsals just to
protest the band.

"
You're damned! " shouted an old Catholic
Indian woman. "You're sinners! Rock 'n' roll is the devil's
music!"

"Damn right it is!" Victor shouted back and
hit an open chord that shook the protestors' fillings out of their
teeth. The Indian Health Service dentist spent the next two weeks
with his
hands deep in Christian mouths.

"No," the dentist had to say more than once
to Catholic patients, "I don't think there is a saint of
orthodontics."

* * *

Father Arnold, priest of the reservation Catholic
Church, didn't care much about the band one way or the other. He
thought the whole thing was sort of amusing and nostalgic. He'd been
a little boy, maybe five years old, when Elvis appeared on "The
Ed Sullivan Show" and threw the entire country into a righteous
panic. Arnold would never have thought that Indians would be as
judgmental as those white people way back when, but he was
discovering exactly how Catholic Spokanes could become.

"Listen," he said to one of his more rabid
parishioners, "I really don't think God is too concerned about
this band. I think hunger and world peace are at the top of His list
of things to worry about, and rock music is somewhere down near the
bottom."

Father Arnold had waited tables in a restaurant and
sung in a rock band for a few years after he graduated college,
before he received his calling into the priesthood. They'd played
mostly fif-ties songs, like "Teen Angel" and "Rock
Around the Clock" with Father Arnold on lead vocals. He'd had a
good voice, still had a good voice, but now the music he sang was in
church and was much more important than the stuff he used to sing at
American Legion dances and high school proms.