Sherman Alexie - Indian Killer

“Jeez,” Marie said. “Take it easy. You’re supposed to be having fun.”

A little girl handed Marie the broom. Suddenly, John was looking down at a new dance partner. She had huge brown eyes and short brown hair. She smiled with a mouthful of braces.

“I’m Kim,” she said, laughed, and then ducked her head. She was playing at a courtship game, flirting and teasing with John as if she were ten years older than she was. This was all practice for her.

“I’m John.”

The dance stopped, drums suddenly silent. The dancers clapped and thanked each other. The audience cheered. John looked for Marie. She was talking to a tall Indian man in traditional dance regalia. She stopped talking long enough to notice John. She smiled and waved. John raised his hand a little. He tried to smile, but could not make it happen. The traditional dancer with Marie turned toward John. He was fierce looking, all sharp feathers and angry beads, and seemed to be ten feet tall. John was not surprised that Indians had always terrified white people. He wondered what the early European settlers must have thought when they first encountered an Indian warrior in all of his finest regalia. Even in his flannel shirts and blue jeans, John knew he was intimidating. If I were dressed like a real Indian, John thought, I could rule the world.

“Thank you for the dance,” said the little girl, Kim. She was still standing beside John, waiting for him to acknowledge her presence with a traditional politeness.

“Thank you,” John said.

“You know,” she said. “I’m a twin. My sister’s name is Arlene. She’s sick. That’s why she’s not here. Do you know her?”

“What? No, I don’t know her,” John said. “I’m sorry she’s sick. Tell her I said so. Tell her to get well.”

Kim giggled and ran away. John watched the little girl run back into the arms of an old Indian woman, her grandmother perhaps, and then he turned back toward Marie. But she was gone. John scanned the crowd. She had disappeared. He breathed deeply. Had she left with the traditional dancer? No. The dancer, standing with a group of other dancers, was drinking a Pepsi. Disappointed, John walked away. He turned his back and left the powwow. He wasn’t even sure why he was disappointed, but he had overheard real Indian men talk to real Indian women. He could have mimicked their easy banter, their fluid conversation.

He could have said, “I’m not a dancer.”

“I figured that one out,” Marie might have said.

He could have been funny and self-deprecating. “I can’t sing, either. When I dance and sing, I’m insulting thousands of years of tribal traditions. I’ve got to be careful, you know? I start dancing and they close the powwow. That’s it. John has ruined it for everybody, the powwow’s over.” But John couldn’t say anything. Not to the Indian woman who knew Father Duncan. Not to the beautiful Indian woman with the crooked front tooth.

Walking silently and quickly away from the powwow, John found himself on University Way, the heart of the University District, which everybody called simply the Ave. John could never understand things like that. Why did people change names as easily as they changed clothes? Though it was just another Monday night, dozens of people walked the Ave. Secondhand bookstores and a dozen Asian restaurants. Movie theaters and street performers. A black man in a wheelchair outside Tower Records calling out to everybody who passed him. Three dogs in red bandannas being walked by a twenty-something white woman wearing a blue bandanna. A teenage white couple kissing in a doorway. They were all so young and white, whiter, whitest. Three Asian-Americans, two African-Americans, but everybody else was white and whiter and younger than John. So many people. John was dizzy. He staggered as he walked and bumped into a knot of people who were bidding each other good night.

“Hey,” said one of the young white men. “Watch your step, chief.”

The white man wore faded clothes that were supposed to be old, but they were expensive new clothes designed to look old. A goatee and pierced ears, small gold hoops that looked good, blue flannel shirt, a black stocking cap, big brown leather boots. John stared at him.

“You okay, buddy?” asked the white man.

John was silent, carefully listening to the sounds of the street.

“Hey, chief,” said the white man. “Had a few too many? You need some help?”

John did not respond. The white man was trying to be friendly. He was really not a man, John thought, just a boy dressed like a man. Though John was only a few years older, he felt ancient. He knew that Indians were supposed to feel ancient, old and wise. He concentrated on feeling old and wise, until the youth and relative innocence of this young white man infuriated him. John felt the rage he didn’t like to feel.

“Hey,” said the young man. “Hey, are you okay?”

“You’re not as smart as you think you are,” John said. “Not even close.”

The young man smiled, confused and a little intimidated.

“Calm down there, dude,” he said.

“I’m older than the hills,” said John, holding his hands out toward the white man. The young man looked at his friends, who shrugged their shoulders and smiled nervously. He turned back to John and flashed him the peace sign.

John was surprised by the gesture. He took a step back, momentarily disarmed. The young man finished his good-byes to his companions and walked away. John watched as the young white man crossed against the light, stopped briefly to look at himself in a store window, and then walked south down the Ave. Carefully and silently, John followed him.

IT IS A GOOD LIFE, not like all the white people believe reservation life to be. There is enough food, plenty of books to read, and a devoted mother. She is very young, probably too young to have a son like John Smith, but it had happened and she has coped well. She had nearly given John up for adoption but changed her mind at the last minute. The social workers had tried to convince her otherwise, but John’s mother refused to let him go.

“He’s my son,” she’d said. “He’s always going to be my son.”

They live with a large extended family group in a small house. John and his mother share a bedroom with two girl cousins. John’s two uncles and two aunts share another bedroom. John’s maternal grandparents share the third bedroom. One small boy cousin sleeps in a walk-in closet. Five or six transient relatives sleeping on the living room floor on any given night.

Everybody plays Scrabble.

It is not easy to explain why this particular group of Indians plays Scrabble. John’s grandmother had bought their Scrabble game for a dollar at a secondhand store. For some reason, all the E tiles were missing when she brought it home. E is the most common letter in the alphabet, John knows, but that does not explain why all the tiles are gone. The family has always compensated by allowing any other tile to function as an E . It has worked well. It is diplomatic. Near the end of a game, when John’s rack is filled with difficult letters, Q, Z, K , and he has nowhere to play them, he can always pretend they are all E tiles.

They eat well.

For breakfast, there is always corn flakes and milk, orange juice, whole wheat toast. John’s grandparents love their coffee black and his mother mixes hers with lots of sugar. John’s cousins eat quickly and run to school. They can all read and love their teachers, who are Indian. John is too young for school, but is smart enough to read books. He reads books all day, waiting to be old enough for kindergarten. His mother reads to him sometimes. They sit on the couch together and read books. John sometimes pretends that all of the difficult words, the big words with their amorphous ideas, are simpler and clear. A word like democracy can become rain instead. That changes everything. John can read a phrase from his history book and change it to “Our Founding Fathers believed in rain.”