Sherman Alexie - The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

It was a rainy day on Bobby’s street. It was a rainy day. Bobby put on his yellow rain slicker and his yellow rain boots and went out into the rain to play. It rained all day. Bobby splashed through puddles and pretended to be a sailor. It was a rainy, rainy day and Bobby pretended to sail away.

Junior read his books and stared out his window into the snow. He watched cars pass by and wondered if white people were happier than Indians. He figured that even white people can’t be happy all the time but they must be happier most of the time. At least, they must spend more time being happy than Indians do.

Junior checked his mail three times a day although the mail was only delivered at ten in the morning. There would be letters from his family out on the reservation. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. That kind of thing. Junior always half-expected a little miracle in the mail. After all, it was the season for miracles. But nothing ever happened until December 29, a day that is marked by nothing.

On that day, Junior went to check his mail for the second time and discovered Lynn, the woman from his history class, checking her mail.

“Hey,” she asked. “Weren’t you in my history class?”

“Yeah,” Junior said and wondered if she remembered their brief conversation outside the cafeteria.

“What did you think?” she asked.

“It was all right.”

“Did you get a good grade?”

“It was all right.”

She smiled and looked at Junior, hoped he would continue the conversation, introduce a new topic, tell a joke, something. She had been a little lonely, living in the dorm over the holidays.

“Indian,” Junior suddenly said with great passion, as if he were running for office.

“What?” Lynn asked and laughed.

“Indian,” Junior repeated. “I’m Indian.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said.

Junior looked down at his shoes, tugged at his shirt, ran his fingers through his hair. Lynn stared at him, smiled, but Junior couldn’t maintain eye contact.

“You’re pretty quiet,” she said.

“Yeah, sometimes, but not always.”

“What’s your name?”

“Polatkin. Junior Polatkin.”

“I’m Casey. Lynn Casey. Pleased to meet you.”

They shook hands, then, standing by the mailboxes. Junior started to feel more comfortable and Lynn did most of the talking anyway, so they moved the conversation from the dorm to the student lounge, and then ended up at a restaurant just off campus.

“So, what’s it like being the only Indian here?” Lynn asked.

“It gets pretty lonely, you know? I’ve got friends but I don’t ever feel like I fit in.”

“Do you drink much?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Lynn said. “I’ve seen you before. At parties and stuff. You seem to drink a lot.”

“Yeah, I guess. Maybe I drink a lot.”

Junior couldn’t believe she was asking him these personal questions. She hardly knew him but it didn’t seem wrong. Somehow or other, Junior trusted Lynn immediately.

“Well, I’m not passing judgment or anything,” Lynn said. “I’m just curious. I remember you from class, too. You were always late.”

“I don’t like waking up much.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

Junior and Lynn shared an order of french fries and talked for hours. Junior had probably seen too many movies in his life, so he imagined their conversation was a movie. He imagined that Mel Gibson would play him and Kim Basinger would play Lynn. But he changed his mind. He wanted this movie to be classic, to be the best movie put to film. It would star Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep. And in a real character stretch, De Niro would play Lynn and Meryl would play him, complete with reservation accent.

“What are you laughing about?” Lynn asked Junior and he told her his plans for casting the movie.

“De Niro?” Lynn asked. “You think De Niro could play me?”

“De Niro can play anybody.” Junior said.

“You know what? I think it should be made into a western, staring Clint Eastwood and Sigourney Weaver.”

“Hey,” Junior said. “I thought you didn’t like westerns.”

Lynn laughed and looked at Junior, studied his features. He had long hair, not as long as some Indians, but definitely longer than the hair of all the nice Catholic boys at Gonzaga. He had a nice, open face. Not handsome, really, but definitely not plain. It was his hands that were beautiful. He made strange, unexpected gestures when he talked, used his hands like a magician would.

“Your hands are beautiful,” Lynn said.

“Really?” Junior asked, surprised. He looked at his own hands as if they belonged to someone else. They had never been more than tools to him. Now maybe they were beautiful tools.

“Hi,” Junior said instead of thanking Lynn for her compliment. He became very nervous.

“Hi,” Lynn said.

They sat there for a little while longer in silence. Then Lynn paid for the food and led Junior out the door.

“Listen,” she said and kissed Junior. Just like that, they kissed. Junior had never kissed a white woman before and he used his tongue a lot, reached for every part of her mouth, and tried to find out if she tasted different.

“Irish,” Lynn broke the kiss and said, as if she read Junior’s mind. “I’m Irish.”

Junior dreamed of the western that starred Lynn as Lynn and Junior as himself. During the love scenes, the camera would fade out just as they fell into each other’s arms. But in real life, Junior and Lynn fell onto the bed, drew circles on each other’s naked bodies, and counted moles.

Junior ran through his vocabulary in his mind: make love, sex, do it, fuck. He wanted to climb out of bed and find a thesaurus. He wanted Lynn to whisper synonyms in his ear.

Lynn touched Junior’s brown skin and smiled. She realized that all those sexual stereotypes about Indians were both true and false, but then she also realized that there were no sexual stereotypes about Indians. She touched her belly and wondered if she had gotten pregnant. They had used a rubber but who knows about those things, right? She rubbed her belly a little and wondered what their imaginary baby would look like. She was almost scared. She hadn’t meant this to happen, she’d just wanted some company. She’d never been alone at Christmas. Junior was Santa Claus with braids, maybe.

“What if I’m pregnant?”

“You’re not.”

“Maybe I am.”

“Maybe not.”

But Lynn missed her next period and then her next before she went to student health to confirm the news. Junior waited for her outside, in the snow and cold.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

“What do you want to do?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Get married?” Junior asked.

“No,” she said. “I don’t love you. It was just one night.”

“Abortion?”

“No way, I’d go to hell for sure. I’m Catholic, remember?”

“Adoption?”

“I couldn’t give my baby away after carrying it all that time.”

“Our baby,” Junior said. “Our baby.”

Lynn started to cry and Junior soon joined her. They walked for hours, talked very little.

“Oh, God, what’s he going to be?” Lynn said. “What should we name him?”

“She,” Junior said. “Maybe it’ll be a she.”

Sean Casey was a healthy baby, with dark skin and blue eyes, webbed toes. He could talk by the time he was one and read by the time he was three. But Junior only learned those details through the mail, by random phone calls and timed visits. He had never pressed Lynn for anything other than minimal visitation rights and Lynn loved him for that small act, if nothing else.

Lynn’s parents refused to accept Sean Casey’s Indian blood and, in fact, exhibited a kind of denial that was nearly pathological in its intensity. But Lynn continually reminded Sean of his heritage, read him books about Indians in the womb and crib, gave him Indian books to read when he finally could do it himself.