Sherman Alexie - Flight

“It’s all he knows how to do,” she says. “Don’t let it get to you.”

He relaxes a bit. I can tell that he listens to her. He pays attention. He takes her advice. He seeks her counsel. He respects her.

I hate him for it. And I hate her for inspiring him.

“Hey, Paul,” I say. “Does she like it in the ass?”

She can’t stop him this time. He rushes toward me and punches me in the face.

I THINK HE BROKE my jaw.

I shamble through an alley, blood filling my mouth and nose, and wonder if a man can drown in his own blood. Well, yes, of course, a man can drown in his blood. But can he drown while walking? If I stay upright, will I stay alive?

This alley smells like rotten food. Huge Dumpsters and garbage cans line both sides. They’re filled with expired food and half-eaten meals. This must be an alley between rows of restaurants.

Other homeless folks forage. Flocks of sparrows, pigeons, and seagulls forage. And murders of crows bully the other birds and bully the humans, too.

I wish I’d wake up inside a crow.

Nobody looks at me as I stagger past. I’m not an uncommon sight. I’m a beaten bloody Indian. Who turns to look at such a man? There are other beaten bloody Indians in this alley.

What do you call a group of beaten bloody Indians, a murder of Indians? A herd of Indians? A bottle of Indians?

I want the other Indians to recognize me. To shout out my name. But they are hungry. And their pain is more important than my pain.

I don’t remember how I got here. I remember that Paul punched me. And then I remember stepping into this alley. I don’t remember the in-between. I have lost time.

Losing time: That’s all I know how to do now.

Jesus, I’m pathetic. Didn’t I just force that poor guy to hit me? Didn’t I want his violence? Fuck me. I’m leaving this alley.

I’m going to walk out of this sad-sack alley and find a bathroom. And I’m going to wash my face and clothes. No, I’ll steal some clothes. Good clothes. A white shirt and black pants. And I’ll steal good shoes, too. Black leather shoes, cap toes, with intricate designs cut into the leather. In good clothes, I can be a good man.

And so I shamble out of the alley. No, I suck in my stomach muscles, straighten my spine, and hold my head level and I strut out of the alley.

And I horrify my audience. People sprint around me. A few just turn around and walk in the opposite direction. One woman screams.

Jesus, I must look like a horror movie. But that doesn’t matter. I am covered with the same blood that is inside everybody else. They can’t judge me because of this blood.

“I want some respect,” I say.

Nobody hears me. Worse, nobody understands me.

“I want some respect,” I say again, louder this time.

A man walks around the corner, almost bumps into me, and then continues on. He didn’t notice me. He didn’t see my blood. I follow him. A gray man, he wears a cheap three-button suit with better shoes. He talks loudly into a Bluetooth earpiece.

“I want some respect,” I say to him.

He stops, turns around, and looks at me. He regards me.

“I want some respect,” I say.

“I’ll call you back, Jim, I got some drunk guy talking to me,” he says into his earpiece, and hits the hangup button. And then he asks me, “What the fuck do you want, chief?”

He thinks the curse word will scare me. He thinks the curse word will let me know that he once shot a man just to watch him die.

“I knew Johnny Cash,” I say, “and you ain’t Johnny Cash.”

The man laughs. He thinks I’m crazy. I laugh. I am crazy. He offers me a handful of spare change.

“There you go, chief,” he says.

“I don’t want your money,” I say. “I want your respect.”

The man laughs again. Is laughter all I can expect?

“Don’t laugh at me,” I say.

“All right, all right, chief,” he says. “I won’t laugh at you. You have a good day.”

He turns to walk away, but I grab his shoulder. He grabs my wrist and judos me into the brick wall.

“All right, all right, chief,” he says. “I don’t want you touching me.”

He could snap my bones if he wanted to. He could drive his thumb into my temple and kill me. I can feel his strength, his skill, his muscle memory.

It’s my turn to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” he asks.

“I’m just wondering how many white guys are going to beat my ass today.”

“Chief, you keep acting this way and we’re all going to beat your ass today.”

We both think that’s funny, so we laugh together. And we almost bond because of our shared amusement.

“I’m going to let you go,” he says. “And when I do, I want us both to act like gentlemen, okay?”

“I want some respect,” I say.

“Are you going to be a gentleman?”

“I want some respect.”

“How many times are you going to say that?”

“I’m going to say it until I get some respect.”

The man looks around. He realizes that he’s pinned a bloody homeless man against a brick wall. Not one of his prouder moments. But he’s scared to let me go.

“All right, all right,” he says. “How do I show you some respect?”

Shit, I don’t have an answer for that. And then I realize that respect isn’t exactly what I want. This body wants respect. I don’t know what I want. And I don’t know how to define respect, for me or for this homeless guy. So I take a guess.

“Tell me a story,” I say.

“You want me to tell you a story?”

“Yeah.”

“And that will give you respect?”

“Yeah.”

The guy pauses again. He is flabbergasted to be in this situation. And I’m flabbergasted that I have used the word flabbergasted. This homeless Indian has an old-fashioned vocabulary wired into his brain.

“All right,” he says. “What kind of story do you want to hear?”

“Something personal,” I say. “Something you haven’t told anybody. Something secret.”

“I can’t tell you secrets,” he says. “I don’t even know you.”

And then the guy realizes that he can tell me anything precisely because he doesn’t know me. He realizes that any stranger can be your priest.

“All right,” he says. “I got a bird story.”

“Bird stories are my favorite stories.”

“You liar,” he says, and lets me go.

He takes a step back. I turn and face him. He waits to see if I’m going to attack him.

“I’m listening,” I say.

“All right,” he says. “I have a daughter, Jill. She’s seven. And she’s been crying about getting a pet. A dog, a cat, a turtle, anything with four legs, right?”

“Kids like pets,” I say.

“Just let me tell the story, Captain Obvious,” he says.

“Then tell it.”

“So, okay, we don’t want to get a cat or dog or turtle or whatever because we don’t want to clean up shit. Or we don’t want to clean up a lot of shit. So my wife and I, we go to the pet store, and we ask the clerk what kind of animal shits the least.”

“Fish,” I say.

“See there, that’s what I thought, too. Little fish, little poop. But then the clerk says that fish might shit small but they shit in their own water—”

“—so the aquarium itself becomes one big shit,” I say.

“Gallons of shit and piss,” he says. “So the clerk says that snakes only eat once a month, so they only shit once a month.”

“And then you asked him what kind of asshole father would give a snake to his seven-year-old daughter.”

“Well, I didn’t say it in so many words, but that’s essentially what I said.”

“Then what did the clerk say?”