Sherman Alexie - The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“Hey,” she said on the way home. “You can’t dance very good but you got the heart of a dancer.”

“Heart of the dancer,” I said. “And feet like the buffalo.”

And we laughed.

She dropped me at home, gave me a good night hug, and then drove on to her own HUD house. I went into my house and dreamed about her. Not like you think. I dreamed her a hundred years ago, riding bareback down on Little Falls Flats. Her hair was unbraided and she was yelling something to me as she rode closer to where I stood. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, though. But it was a dream and I listen to my dreams.

“I dreamed about you the other night,” I said to Norma the next time I saw her. I told her about the dream.

“I don’t know what that means,” she said. “I hope it’s nothing bad.”

“Maybe it just means I have a crush on you.”

“No way,” she said and laughed. “I’ve seen you hanging around with that Nadine Moses woman. You must have been dreaming about her.”

“Nadine don’t know how to ride a horse,” I said.

“Who said anything about horses?” Norma said, and we both laughed for a good long time.

Norma could ride horses like she did live one hundred years ago. She was a rodeo queen, but not one of those rhinestone women. She was a roper, a breaker of wild ponies. She wrestled steers down to the ground and did that goofy old three-legged knot dance. Norma just wasn’t quite as fast as some of the other Indian cowboys, though. I think, in the end, she was just having a good time. She’d hang with the cowboys and they’d sing songs for her, 49er songs that echoed beyond the evening’s last campfire.

Norma, I want to marry you

Norma, I want to make you mine

And we’ll go dancing, dancing, dancing

until the sun starts to shine.

Way yah hi yo, Way yah hi yo!

Some nights Norma took an Indian cowboy or a cowboy Indian back to her tipi. And that was good. Some people would have you believe it’s wrong, but it was two people sharing some body medicine. It wasn’t like Norma was out snagging for men all the time. Most nights she just went home alone and sang herself to sleep.

Some people said that Norma took a woman home with her once in a while, too. Years ago, homosexuals were given special status within the tribe. They had powerful medicine. I think it’s even more true today, even though our tribe has assimilated into homophobia. I mean, a person has to have magic to assert their identity without regard to all the bullshit, right?

Anyhow, or as we say around here, anyhoo, Norma held on to her status within the tribe despite all the rumors, the stories, the lies and jealous gossip. Even after she married that James Many Horses, who told so many jokes that he even made other Indians get tired of his joking.

The funny thing is that I always thought Norma would end up marrying Victor since she was so good at saving people and Victor needed more saving than most anybody besides Lester FallsApart. But she and Victor never got along, much. Victor was kind of a bully in his younger days, and I don’t think Norma ever forgave him. I doubt Victor ever forgave himself for it. I think he said I’m sorry more than any other human being alive.

I remember once when Norma and I were sitting in the Powwow Tavern and Victor walked in, drunker than drunk.

“Where’s the powwow?” Victor yelled.

“You’re in the Powwow,” somebody yelled back.

“No, I don’t mean this goddamn bar. I mean, where’s the powwow?”

“In your pants,” somebody else yelled and we all laughed.

Victor staggered up to our table.

“Junior,” he asked. “Where’s the powwow?”

“There ain’t no powwow going on,” I said.

“Well,” Victor said. “Somebody out in the parking lot kept saying powwow. And you know I love a good goddamn powwow.”

“We all love a good powwow,” Norma said.

Victor smiled a drunk smile at her, one of those smiles only possible through intoxication. The lips fall at odd angles, the left side of the face is slightly paralyzed, and skin shines with alcohol sweat. Nothing remotely approaching beauty.

“I’m going to go find the goddamn powwow,” Victor said then and staggered out the door. He’s on the wagon now but he used to get so drunk.

“Good luck,” Norma said. That’s one of the strangest things about the tribal ties that still exists. A sober Indian has infinite patience with a drunk Indian, even most of the Indians who have completely quit drinking. There ain’t many who do stay sober. Most spend time in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and everybody gets to know the routines and use them on all occasions, not just at A.A. meetings.

“Hi, my name is Junior,” I usually say when I walk into a bar or party where Indians have congregated.

“Hi, Junior,” all the others shout in an ironic unison.

A few of the really smart-asses about the whole A.A. thing carry around little medals indicating how long they’ve been continuously drunk.

“Hi, my name is Lester FallsApart, and I’ve been drunk for twenty-seven straight years.”

Norma didn’t much go for that kind of humor, though. She laughed when it was funny but she didn’t start anything up. Norma, she knew all about Indian belly laughter, the kind of laughter that made Indians squeeze their eyes up so tight they looked Chinese. Maybe that’s where those rumors about crossing the Bering Bridge started. Maybe some of us Indians just laughed our way over to China 25,000 years ago and jumpstarted that civilization. But whenever I started in on my crazy theories, Norma would put her finger to my lips really gently.

“Junior,” she would say with gentleness and patience. “Shut the fuck up.”

Norma always was a genius with words. She used to write stories for the tribal newspaper. She was even their sports reporter for a while. I still got the news clipping of a story she wrote about the basketball game I won back in high school. In fact, I keep it tucked in my wallet and if I get drunk enough, I’ll pull it out and read from it aloud, like it was a goddamn poem or something. But the way Norma wrote, I guess it was something close to a poem:

Junior’s Jumpshot Just Enough for Redskin Win

With three seconds left on the clock last Saturday night and the Springdale Chargers in possession of the ball, it looked like even the Wellpinit Redskins might have to call in the United States Cavalry to help them win the first game of this just-a-baby basketball season.

But Junior Polatkin tipi-creeped the Chargers by stealing the inbounds pass and then stealing the game away when he hit a three-thousand-foot jumper at the buzzer.

“I doubt we’ll be filing any charges against Junior for theft,” Tribal Chief of Police David WalksAlong said. “This was certainly a case of self-defense.”

People were gossiping all around the rez about Junior’s true identity.

“I think he was Crazy Horse for just a second,” said an anonymous and maybe-just-a-little-crazy-themselves source.

This reporter thinks Junior happened to be a little lucky so his new Indian name will be Lucky Shot. Still, luck or not, Junior has earned a couple points more on the Warrior Scale.

Whenever I pull that clipping out with Norma around, she always threatens to tear it up. But she never does. She’s proud of it, I can tell. I’d be proud, too. I mean, I’m proud I won that game. It was the only game we won that year. In fact, it was the only game the Wellpinit Redskins won in three years. It wasn’t like we had bad teams. We always had two or three of the best players in the league, but winning wasn’t always as important as getting drunk after the game for some and for going to the winter powwows for others. Some games, we’d only have five players.