Sherman Alexie - War Dances

“Officers,” Paul said, “I’m very tired. Can I please have some time? The thing is, I’m sorry for everything. And I know this is no excuse, but I think — I realize now that I want to remember everything — every song, every article of clothing — because I’m afraid they will be forgotten.”

One of the men shook his head; the other turned his back and spoke into a cell phone.

Paul bowed his head with shame.

And then he spoke so softly that he wasn’t sure the men heard him. Paul thought of his wife and his daughters, of Sara Smile, and he said, “I don’t want to be forgotten. I don’t want to be forgotten. Don’t forget me. Don’t forget me. Don’t forget me. Don’t forget me.”

I am always amused

By those couples—

Lovers and spouses—

Who perform and ask

Others to perform

Musical chairs

Whenever they, by

Random seat selection,

Are separated

From each other.

“Can you switch

Seats with me?”

A woman asked me.

“So I can sit

With my husband?”

She wanted me,

A big man, who

Always books early,

And will gratefully

Pay extra for the exit row,

To trade my aisle seat

For her middle seat.

By asking me to change

My location for hers,

The woman is actually

Saying to me:

“Dear stranger, dear

Sir, my comfort is

More important than yours.

Dear solitary traveler,

My love and fear—

As contained

Within my marriage—

Are larger than yours.”

O, the insult!

O, the condescension!

And this is not

An isolated incident.

I’ve been asked

To trade seats

Twenty or thirty times

Over the years.

How dare you!

How dare you

Ask me to change

My life for you!

How imperial!

How colonial!

But, ah, here is

The strange truth:

Whenever I’m asked

To trade seats

For somebody else’s love,

I do, I always do.

After our earliest ancestors crawled out of the oceans, how soon did they feel the desire to crawl back in?

At age nine, I stepped into the pool at the YWCA. I didn’t know how to swim, but the other Indian boys had grown salmon and eagle wings and could fly in water and sky.

Wouldn’t the crow, that ubiquitous trickster, make a more compelling and accurate national symbol for the United States than the bald eagle?

Okay, that Indian-boy salmon-and-eagle-wings transformation thing is bullshit, but I’m trying to tell a creation story here, and by definition all creation stories are bullshit. Scientifically speaking, we all descend from one man and woman who lived in what we now call Africa — yes, we are all African at our cores — but why should we all live with the same metaphorical creation story? The Kiowa think they were created when lightning struck the mud inside a log. I think the Hopis are crash-landed aliens who are still waiting for a rescue mission. Christians think God built everything in a week — well, in six days — and then rested. Yeah, like God created the universe in anticipation of the Sunday funny pages.

Q: In the singles bar, over nonalcoholic beer, what did the Palestinian say to the Israeli?

A: “Your holy war or mine?”

But wait, before I get too critical or metaphysical, let me return to that YWCA on Maple Street in Spokane, Washington. I stood alone in the shallow end while my big brother, cousins, best friend, and little warrior enemies swam in the deep end. I was so ashamed, but then our female swim instructors shouted my name and challenged me to dive off the five-foot board. Fuck that! I jumped out of the pool and ran into the locker room.

There is a myth that drowning is a peaceful death. I’ve heard people say, “I would just open my mouth and breathe death in.” In truth, drowning is torture. The fear of drowning is used as torture.

At the YWCA, I quickly dressed and waited for the other Indian boys, who mocked me for my aquatic cowardice and locked me in a towel bin. But I escaped and made it onto the bus that took us to the Fox Theater for a matinee showing of Jaws, the blockbuster that changed the way our country looks at sharks and at films.

Did you know that when a shark stops swimming, it dies?

As we walked past the endless line of movie lovers, the other boys kept pitching me crap, but then our female swim instructors, one Japanese and one Korean, shouted my name again and insisted that I join them in the line. “But what about us?” my brother asked. “You go to the deep end,” the Japanese girl said.

A wise man once said that revenge is not more important than love or compassion. Until it is.

I was nine. The Asian girls were sixteen. I sat between them and they each held one of my hands as we watched a great white shark devour people. At one point, when a little boy was in danger, I hid my face in the Korean girl’s chest. Oh, it was the first time I had ever been that close to a woman’s breast.

Do you think the universe is expanding or contracting?

I wish I knew what happened to those Asian girls. Are they still living in Spokane? Do you realize how much they mean to me? Did they love me? Or was I just a sad-ass kid who needed their help? If I could talk to them, I would tell them this creation story: “A bonnethead shark in Omaha, Nebraska, conceived and gave birth to a baby that soon died. But this mother shark had never shared water with a male. Scientists were puzzled. So they performed a DNA test and discovered the dead baby only had its mother’s DNA. Yes, that bonnethead shark had given virgin birth. Do you think this is amazing? Well, it’s not. Dozens of species of insects give virgin birth. Crayfish give virgin birth. Some honeybees give virgin birth. And Komodo dragons — yeah, those big lizards give virgin birth, too. Jeez, one human gives virgin birth and that jump-starts one of the world’s great religions. But when a Komodo dragon gives virgin birth, do you know what it’s thinking? It’s thinking, This is Tuesday, right? I think this is Tuesday. What am I going to do on Wednesday?

ALL

That

Autumn,

I walked from

The apartment (shared

With my sisters) to that pay phone

On Third Avenue, next to a sleazy gas station

And down the block from the International House of Pancakes. I was working the night

Shift at a pizza joint and you were away at college. You dated a series of inconsequential boys. Well, each boy meant little on his

Own, but their cumulative effect devastated my brain and balls. I wanted you to stop kissing relative strangers, so I called you at midnight as often as I could afford. If I talked to you that late, I knew

(Or hoped) you couldn’t rush into anybody’s bed. But, O, I still recall the misery of hearing the ring, ring, ring, ring

Of your unanswered phone. These days, I’d text you to find you, but where’s the delicious pain

In that? God, I miss standing in the mosquito dark

At this or that pay phone. I wish

That I could find one

And call back

All that

I

Loved.

WHEN HE WAS EIGHTEEN and a senior in high school, Sherwin Polatkin and a GROUP of his schoolmates jumped into two cars and drove into Spokane to see The Breakfast Club. Sherwin sat next to Karen, a smart and confident sophomore — a farm-town white girl with the sun-bleached hair and tanned skin of a harvest truck driver. She’d never been of romantic interest, so Sherwin slouched in his seat and munched on popcorn. It was just the random draw of a dozen friends choosing seats.