Sherman Alexie - War Dances

“Last week, outside of Spokane, a man and his kids got into a car wreck. He was critically injured, paralyzed from the neck down, and all five of his kids were killed. They were driving to pick up the mother at the train station. So tell me, do you think you are as lonely as that woman is right now?”

Wow, this woman had a gift for shaming!

“No,” Paul said. “I am not that lonely. Not even close.”

“Okay, good. You do realize that, grading on a curve, your loneliness is completely average.”

“Yes, I realize that. Compared to all the lonely in the world, mine is pretty boring.”

“Good,” she said. “You might be an adulterous bastard, but at least you’re a self-aware adulterous bastard.”

She waited for his response, but he had nothing to say. He couldn’t dispute the accuracy of her judgment of his questionable morals, nor could he offer her compelling evidence of his goodness. He was as she thought he was.

“My father cheated on us, too,” she said. “We all knew it. My mother knew it. But he never admitted to it. He kept cheating and my mother kept ignoring it. They were married for fifty-two years and he cheated during all of them. Had to go on the damn Viagra so he could cheat well into his golden years. I think Viagra was invented so that extramarital assholes could have extra years to be assholes.

“But you know the worst thing?” she asked. “At the end, my father got cancer and he was dying and you’d think that would be the time to confess all, to get right with God, you know? But nope, on his deathbed, my father pledged his eternal and undying love to my mother. And you know what?”

“What?”

“She believed him.”

Paul wanted to ask her why she doubted her father’s love. Well, of course, Paul knew why she doubted it, but why couldn’t her father have been telling the truth? Despite all the adultery and lies, all the shame and anger, perhaps her father had deeply and honestly loved her mother. If his last act on earth was a declaration of love, didn’t that make him a loving man? Could an adulterous man also be a good man? But Paul couldn’t say any of this, couldn’t ask these questions. He knew it would only sound like the moral relativism of a liar, a cheater, and a thief.

“Listen to me,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this stuff to you. I don’t say this stuff to anybody, and here I am, talking to you like we’re friends.”

Paul figured silence was the best possible response to her candor.

“Okay, then,” she said, “I guess that’s it. I don’t want to miss my flight. It was really nice to see you again. I’m not sure why. But it was.”

She walked away. He watched her. He knew he should let her go. What attraction could he have for her now? He was the cheating husband of a cheated wife and the lying father of deceived daughters. But he couldn’t let her go. Not yet. So he chased after her again.

“Hey,” he said, and touched her shoulder.

“Just let me go,” she said. A flash of anger. Her first flash of anger at him.

“Listen,” he said. “I was going to let you go. But I couldn’t. I mean, don’t you think it’s amazing that we’ve run into each other twice in two different airports?”

“It’s just a coincidence.”

“It’s more than that. You know it’s more than that. We’ve got some connection. I can feel it. And I think you can feel it, too.”

“I have a nice ass. And a great smile. And you have pretty eyes and good hair. And you wear movie stars’ clothes. That’s why we noticed each other. But I have news for us, buddy, there’s about two hundred women in this airport who are better-looking than me, and about two hundred and one men who are better-looking than you.”

“But we’ve seen each other twice. And you remembered me.”

“We saw each other twice because we are traveling salespeople in a capitalistic country. If we paid attention, I bet you we would notice the same twelve people over and over again.”

Okay, so she was belittling him and their magical connection. And insulting his beloved country, too. But she was still talking to him. She’d tried to walk away, but he’d caught her, and she was engaged in a somewhat real conversation with him. He suddenly realized that he knew nothing of substance about this woman. He only knew her opinions of his character.

“Okay,” he said. “We’re making progress. I sell clothes. But you already knew that. What do you sell?”

“You don’t want to know,” she said.

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Tell me.”

“It will kill your dreams,” she said.

That hyperbole made Paul laugh.

“Come on, it can’t be that bad.”

“I work for a bank,” she said.

“So, wow, you’re a banker,” Paul said, and tried to hide his disappointment. She could have said that she did live-animal testing — smeared mascara directly into the eyes of chimpanzees — and Paul would have felt better about her career choice.

“But I’m not the kind of banker you’re thinking about,” she said.

“What kind of banker are you?” Paul asked, and studied her casual, if stylish, clothing. What kind of banker wore blue jeans? Perhaps a trustworthy banker? Perhaps the morality of any banker was inversely proportional to the quality of his or her clothing?

“Have you ever heard of microlending?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s where you get regular people to loan money to poor people in other countries. To start small businesses and stuff, right?”

“Basically, yes, but my company focuses on microlending to unique entrepreneurs in the United States.”

“Ah, so what’s your bank called?”

“We’re in the start-up phase, so I don’t want to get into that quite yet.”

He was a little insulted, but then he realized that he was a stranger, after all, so her secrecy was understandable.

“You’re just starting out then?” Paul asked. “That’s why you’re traveling so much?”

“Yes. We have initial funding from one source,” she said, “and I’m meeting with other potential funders around the country.”

“Sounds exciting,” Paul said. He lied. Paul didn’t trust the concept of using money to make more money. He believed it was all imaginary. He preferred his job — the selling of tangible goods. Paul trusted his merchandise. He knew a pair of blue jeans would never betray him.

“It’s good work, but it’s not exciting,” she said. “Fund-raising is fucking humiliating. You know what I really do? You know what I’m good at? I’m good at making millionaires cry. And crying millionaires are generous with their money.”

“I’m a millionaire,” Paul said, “and you haven’t made me cry yet.”

“I haven’t tried to,” she said. She patted Paul on the cheek — let the hounds of condescension loose! — and walked out of the bookstore.

After she left, Paul bought the book she’d been browsing — the list of the greatest movies of all time — and read it on the flight back to Seattle. It was a book composed entirely of information taken from other sources. But Paul set it on his nightstand, then set his alarm clock on the book, and thought about the beautiful microbanker whenever he glanced at the time.

On a Tuesday, a year and a half into their separation, while sitting in their marriage counselor’s office, Paul turned to his wife and tried to tell the truth.

“I love you,” he said. “You’re my best friend. I can’t imagine a life without you as my wife. But, the thing is, I’ve lost my desire — my sexual desire — for you.”

Could there be a more painful thing to say to her? To say to anyone? You are not desirable. That was a treasonous, even murderous, statement inside of a marriage. What kind of person could say that to his wife? To the person who’d most often allowed herself to be naked and vulnerable in front of him? Paul supposed he was being honest, but fuck honesty completely, fuck honesty all the way to the spine, and fuck the honest man who tells the truth on his way out the door.