Sherman Alexie - Blasphemy - New and Selected Stories

“Yeah, nothing like a regular paycheck.”

“Are you drinking?”

“No, I’ve been on the wagon for almost a year.”

“Good.”

The connection was good. I could hear her breathing in the spaces between our words. How do you talk to the real person whose ghost has haunted you? How do you tell the difference between the two?

“Listen,” I said. “I’m sorry for everything.”

“Me, too.”

“What’s going to happen to us?” I asked her and wished I had the answer for myself.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I want to change the world.”

These days, living alone in Spokane, I wish I lived closer to the river, to the falls where ghosts of salmon jump. I wish I could sleep. I put down my paper or book and turn off all the lights, lie quietly in the dark. It may take hours, even years, for me to sleep again. There’s nothing surprising or disappointing in that.

I know how all my dreams end anyway.

After the argument that I had lost but pretended to win, I stormed out of the HUD house, jumped into the car, and prepared to drive off in victory, which was also known as defeat. But I realized that I hadn’t grabbed my keys. At that kind of moment, a person begins to realize how he can be fooled by his own games. And at that kind of moment, a person begins to formulate a new game to compensate for the failure of the first.

“Honey, I’m home,” I yelled as I walked back into the house.

My wife ignored me, gave me a momentary stoic look that impressed me with its resemblance to generations of television Indians.

“Oh, what is that?” I asked. “Your Tonto face?”

She flipped me off, shook her head, and disappeared into the bedroom.

“Honey,” I called after her. “Didn’t you miss me? I’ve been gone so long and it’s good to be back home. Where I belong.”

I could hear dresser drawers open and close.

“And look at the kids,” I said as I patted the heads of imagined children. “They’ve grown so much. And they have your eyes.”

She walked out of the bedroom in her favorite ribbon shirt, hair wrapped in her best ties, and wearing a pair of come-here boots. You know, the kind with the curled toe that looks like a finger gesturing Come here, cowboy, come on over here . But those boots weren’t meant for me: I’m an Indian.

“Honey,” I asked. “I just get back from the war and you’re leaving already? No kiss for the returning hero?”

She pretended to ignore me, which I enjoyed. But then she pulled out her car keys, checked herself in the mirror, and headed for the door. I jumped in front of her, knowing she meant to begin her own war. That scared the shit out of me.

“Hey,” I said. “I was just kidding, honey. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I’ll do whatever you want me to.”

She pushed me aside, adjusted her dreams, pulled on her braids for a jumpstart, and walked out the door. I followed her and stood on the porch as she jumped into the car and started it up.

“I’m going dancing,” she said and drove off into the sunset, or at least she drove down the tribal highway toward the Powwow Tavern.

“But what am I going to feed the kids?” I asked and walked back into the house to feed myself and my illusions.

After a dinner of macaroni and commodity cheese, I put on my best shirt, a new pair of blue jeans, and set out to hitchhike down the tribal highway. The sun had gone down already so I decided that I was riding off toward the great unknown, which was actually the same Powwow Tavern where my love had escaped to an hour earlier.

As I stood on the highway with my big, brown, and beautiful thumb showing me the way, Simon pulled up in his pickup, stopped, opened the passenger door, and whooped.

“Shit,” he yelled. “If it ain’t little Jimmy One-Horse! Where you going, cousin, and how fast do you need to get there?”

I hesitated at the offer of a ride. Simon was world famous, at least famous on the Spokane Indian Reservation, for driving backward. He always obeyed posted speed limits, traffic signals and signs, even minute suggestions. But he drove in reverse, using the rearview mirror as his guide. But what could I do? I trusted the man, and when you trust a man you also have to trust his horse.

“I’m headed for the Powwow Tavern,” I said and climbed into Simon’s rig. “And I need to be there before my wife finds herself a dance partner.”

“Shit,” Simon said. “Why didn’t you say something sooner? We’ll be there before she hears the first note of the first goddamned song.”

Simon jammed the car into his only gear, reverse, and roared down the highway. I wanted to hang my head out the window like a dog, let my braids flap like a tongue in the wind, but good manners prevented me from taking the liberty. Still, it was so tempting. Always was.

“So, little Jimmy Sixteen-and-One-Half-Horses,” Simon asked me after a bit. “What did you do to make your wife take off this time?”

“Well,” I said. “I told her the truth, Simon. I told her I got cancer everywhere inside me.”

Simon slammed on the brakes and brought the pickup sliding to a quick but decidedly cinematic stop.

“That ain’t nothing to joke about,” he yelled.

“Ain’t joking about the cancer,” I said. “But I started joking about dying and that pissed her off.”

“What’d you say?”

“Well, I told her the doctor showed me my X-rays and my favorite tumor was just about the size of a baseball, shaped like one, too. Even had stitch marks.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“No, really. I told her to call me Babe Ruth. Or Roger Maris. Maybe even Hank Aaron ’cause there must have been about 755 damn tumors inside me. Then, I told her I was going to Cooperstown and sit right down in the lobby of the Hall of Fame. Make myself a new exhibit, you know? Pin my X-rays to my chest and point out the tumors. What a dedicated baseball fan! What a sacrifice for the national pastime!”

“You’re an asshole, little Jimmy Zero-Horses.”

“I know, I know,” I said as Simon got the pickup rolling again, down the highway toward an uncertain future, which was, as usual, simply called the Powwow Tavern.

We rode the rest of the way in silence. That is to say that neither of us had anything at all to say. But I could hear Simon breathing and I’m sure he could hear me, too. And once, he coughed.

“There you go, cousin,” he said finally as he stopped his pickup in front of the Powwow Tavern. “I hope it all works out, you know?”

I shook his hand, offered him a few exaggerated gifts, made a couple promises that he knew were just promises, and waved wildly as he drove off, backwards, and away from the rest of my life. Then I walked into the tavern, shook my body like a dog shaking off water. I’ve always wanted to walk into a bar that way.

“Where the hell is Suzy Boyd?” I asked.

“Right here, asshole,” Suzy answered quickly and succinctly.

“Okay, Suzy,” I asked. “Where the hell is my wife?”

“Right here, asshole,” my wife answered quickly and succinctly. Then she paused a second before she added, “And quit calling me your wife . It makes me sound like I’m a fucking bowling ball or something.”

“Okay, okay, Norma,” I said and sat down beside her. I ordered a Diet Pepsi for me and a pitcher of beer for the next table. There was no one sitting at the next table. It was just something I always did. Someone would come along and drink it.

“Norma,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I have cancer and I’m sorry I’m dying.”

She took a long drink of her Diet Pepsi, stared at me for a long time. Stared hard.