Sherman Alexie - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

I'm still looking for a job. I've sent applications to all the

restaurants on the reservation. Yep, the Flathead Rez has about

twenty restaurants. It's weird. They have six or seven towns,

too. Can you believe that? That's a lot of towns for one rez!

And you know what's really weird? Some of the towns on the rez

are filled with white people. I don't know how that happened.

But the people who live in those white towns don't always like

Indians much. One of those towns, called Poison, tried to secede

(that means quit, I looked it up) from the rez. Really. It was

like the Civil War. Even though the town is in the middle of the

rez, the white folks in that town decided they didn't want to be

a part of the rez. Crazy. But most of the people here are nice.

The whites and Indians. And you know the best part? There's this

really great hotel where hubby and I had our honeymoon. It's on

Flathead Lake and we had a suite, a hotel room with its own

separate bedroom! And there was a phone in the bath room!

Really! I could have called you from the bathroom. But that's

not even the most crazy part. We decide to order room service,

to have the food delivered to our room, and guess what they had

on the menu? Indian fry bread! Yep. For five dollars, you could

get fry bread. Crazy! So I ordered up two pieces. I didn't think

it would be any good, especially not as good as grandma's. But

let me tell you. It was great. Almost as good as grandma's. And

they had the fry bread on this fancy plate and so I ate it with

this fancy fork and knife. And I just kept imagining there was

some Flathead Indian grandma in the kitchen, just making fry

bread for all the room-service people. It was a dream come true!

I love my life! I love my husband! I love Montana!

I love you!

Your sis, Mary

It was a snowless Thanksgiving.

We had a turkey, and Mom cooked it perfectly.

We also had mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin

pie. It was a feast.

I always think it's funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends luring that first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians.

So I'm never quite sure why we eat turkey like everybody else.

"Hey, Dad," I said. "What do Indians have to be so thankful for?"

"We should give thanks that they didn't kill all of us."

We laughed like crazy. It was a good day. Dad was sober. Mom was getting ready to nap.

Grandma was already napping

But I missed Rowdy. I kept looking at the door. For the last ten years, he'd always come over to the house to have a pumpkin-pie eating contest with me.

I missed him.

So I drew a cartoon of Rowdy and me like we used to be:

Then I put on my coat and shoes, walked over to Rowdy's house, and knocked on the

door.

Rowdy's dad, drunk as usual, opened the door.

"Junior," he said. "What do you want?"

"Is Rowdy home?"

"Nope."

"Oh, well, I drew this for him. Can you give it to him?"

Rowdy's dad took the cartoon and stared at it for a while. Then he smirked.

"You're kind of gay, aren't you?" he asked.

Yeah, that was the guy who was raising Rowdy. Jesus, no wonder my best friend was

always so angry.

"Can you just give it to him?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'll give it to him. Even if it's a little gay."

I wanted to cuss at him. I wanted to tell him that I thought I was being courageous, and that I was trying to fix my broken friendship with Rowdy, and that I missed him, and if that was gay, then okay, I was the gayest dude in the world. But I didn't say any of that.

"Okay, thank you," I said instead. "And Happy Thanksgiving."

Rowdy's dad closed the door on me. I walked away. But I slopped at the end of the

driveway and looked back. I could see Rowdy in the window of his upstairs bedroom. He was holding my cartoon. He was watching me walk away. And I could see the sadness in his face. I just knew he missed me, too.

I waved at him. He gave me the finger.

"Hey, Rowdy!" I shouted. "Thanks a lot!"

He stepped away from the window. And I felt sad for a moment. But then I realized that

Rowdy may have flipped me off, but he hadn't torn up my cartoon. As much as he hated me, he probably should have ripped it to pieces. That would have hurt my feelings more than just about anything I can think of. But Rowdy still respected my cartoons. And so maybe he still respected me a little bit.

Our history teacher, Mr. Sheridan, was trying to teach us something about the Civil War.

But he was so boring and monotonous that he was only teaching us how to sleep with our eyes open.

I had to get out of there, so I raised my hand.

"What is it, Arnold?" the teacher asked.

"I have to go the bathroom."

"Hold it."

"I can't."

I put on my best If-I-Don't-Go-Now-I'm-Going-To-Explode face.

"Do you really have to?" the teacher asked.

I didn't have to go at first, but then I realized that yes, I did have to go.

"I have to go really bad," I said.

"All right, all right, go, go."

I headed over to the library bathrooms because they're usually a lot cleaner than the ones by the lunchroom.

So, okay, I'm going number two, and I'm sitting on the toilet, and I'm concentrating. I'm in my Zen mode, trying to lake this whole thing a spiritual experience. I read once that Gandhi was way into his own number two. I don't know if he I old fortunes or anything. But I guess he thought the condition and quality of his number two revealed the condition and quality of his life.

Yeah, I know, I probably read too many books.

And probably WAY too many books about number two.

But it's all important, okay? So I finish, flush, wash my lands, and then stare in the mirror and start popping zits. I'm all quiet and concentrating when I hear this weird noise coming from the other side of the wall.

That's the girls' bathroom.

And I hear that weird noise again.

Do you want to know what it sounds like?

It sounds like this:

ARGGHHHHHHHHSSSSSPPPPPPGGGHHHHHHH

AAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHAGGGGHH!

It sounds like somebody is vomiting.

Nope.

It sounds like a 747 is landing on a runway of vomit.

I'm planning on heading back to the classroom for more scintillating lessons from the

history teacher. But then I hear that noise again.

ARGGGHHHHHHHHSGHHSLLLSKSSSHHSDKFDJSABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST

UVWXYZ!

Okay, so somebody might have the flu or something. Maybe they're having, like, kidney

failure in there. I can't walk away.

So I knock on the door. The girls' bathroom door.

"Hey," I say. "Are you okay in there?"

"Go away!"

It's a girl, which makes sense, since it is the girls' bathroom

"Do you want me to get a teacher or something?" I ask through the bathroom door.

"I said, GO AWAY!"

I'm not dumb. I can pick up on subtle clues.

So I walk away, but something pulls me back. I don't know what it is. If you're romantic, you might think it was destiny.

So destiny and me lean against the wall and wait.

The vomiter will eventually have to come out of the bathroom, and then I'll know that