Sherman Alexie: Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories

But please, as I speak of infinity, don’t worry that I am trying to tell you an infinite tale. I cannot tell you about every windmill; I can only tell you about the twelve windmills that were built a few miles outside of the little town on that unnameable Indian reservation. I don’t know who built those windmills; I was hired to dispose of the dead birds.

As you know, windmills kill birds. Each windmill kills hundreds of birds a year. Perhaps thousands. It’s hard to say. Since the birds are chopped into pieces, it is impossible to count individuals. One can only weigh a shovel-, wheelbarrow-, or truckload of bird parts and estimate the death count. Of course, due to personal and political bias, environmentalists overestimate the carnage while energy companies underestimate. It was that way with the first windmills and it is that way with all of our current windmills. As with most things, the truth, or the most accurate possible measure of the truth, exists somewhere in the in-between.

It is still my job, even as an old man, to collect the dead birds, and I share this work with tens of thousands of men and women. But, I must repeat, this story is not about any of those windmills. Or any of those dead birds. No, this story is only about the twelve windmills — my first windmills — that churned on a bluff overlooking one of the world’s great rivers. No, this story is about that unnamed Indian man. And his shotgun. No. Let me be more honest. This story is about me.

I was lucky to get the job. The tribe had wanted to hire an Indian. I am not an Indian. But they hired me because nobody else wanted the job. Or rather, three or four Indians had been hired but had soon quit because of the terrible amounts of blood and gore. Frankly speaking, if one comes near enough dead birds, one begins to smell like dead birds. It is not an odor that can be easily washed away.

Of course, I did not know about the more difficult aspects of the job when I was hired. I only knew that I had found a job, and a well-paying job at that, in the midst of our country’s Second Great Depression. And while I was not happy with the work — who could be happy doing such a thing? — I labored with great discipline and, dare I say it, passion. It was not a job I wanted to lose.

Each day, just before sunrise, I arrived at the tribal garage, procured my official vehicle — a flatbed truck — and drove the short distance to the twelve windmills. Arranged in two rows of six, those windmills were rather simple and lovely but became glorious at sunrise, when the golden light struck those golden windmills rising like wooden giants in the wild and golden fields. Still, as physically beautiful as the windmills were, I found myself falling in love with their music, the rhythmic hum of wood meeting metal.

But then, each day, after admiring the windmills, I would have to back the truck up to the base of a windmill, step out, grab my shovel, and pick up pieces of bird. And, each day, as I bent my back and calloused my hands, I would think — or try not to think — Dead bird, dead bird, dead bird, dead bird.

I vomited, often, during my first few weeks of that work. One could not be a thinking, feeling person and not be made sick. One would not be human if one were not overcome with sadness and pity. But in order to continue working — in order to keep the job — I became immune to such emotions. And so, three months into the job, on an early October morning, I realized that I had acquired enough self-control to keep disposing of dead birds forever.

The first snow came early that year. It wasn’t a big storm. There was only an inch or two of snow on the ground. It didn’t prevent me from driving the truck the short distance from the garage to the windmills. And so it was that I came to see the windmills, those wooden giants, standing ankle-deep in twelve ponds of blood.

They weren’t ponds of blood, of course. I can be a fantasist; forgive me. Rather, the windmills had sliced dozens of birds and scattered the bloody pieces into twelve distinct circles around their foundations.

It was a particularly disturbing sight, and I might have driven away had I not seen that Indian man walking toward the windmills. The windmills and those bloody circles stood between the Indian man and me. He was singing a tribal song, and though I understood none of the words or rhythms, I can promise you that he was singing a death song.

And so, for reasons I still cannot explain, I stepped out of the truck and walked toward that Indian man. I walked between the windmill rows and through those bloody circles and that Indian man did the same from the opposite direction, until we stood just ten feet apart. It was only then that I noticed he was carrying a shotgun.

He kept singing his death song as he raised his weapon and pointed it at me. I remember thinking that he was singing my death song.

“Please,” I said.

The Indian man kept singing as he stepped closer to me and pressed the shotgun against my forehead.

“Please,” I said again.

He was singing so loudly that it hurt my ears. And as his song reached a crescendo, I closed my eyes, sure that I was about to become my own bloody circle in the snow.

But then he stopped singing.

I opened my eyes and watched him lower the shotgun and walk over to a circle and kneel in the bloody snow. He dropped the shotgun into the snow and picked up a carcass so ravaged and mutilated that I cannot even tell you what kind of bird he was holding. He hugged that corpse close to his chest, as if he were holding something of his own, and wept for some long moments.

I watched him.

He stopped weeping and held the dead bird toward me. “My tribe built these windmills,” he said.

“I know,” I said.

“We started this,” he said.

“I suppose,” I said.

“This is just the beginning,” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“It’s never going to stop,” he said.

“I guess not,” I said. But I wanted to tell him that it was necessary and predictable. We humans have to kill in order to live. No, every living thing on earth kills in order to survive. But I didn’t say anything. I knew that my opinion might put my life in more danger.

The Indian studied my face for a while. Then he made some judgment about me. I could see him make his decision. He set down the dead bird, picked up the shotgun, walked close to one of the windmills, and shot it.

He stepped forward and closely studied the shotgun blast in the windmill, as if he expected the machine to bleed. Then he stepped back and shot the windmill again. He reloaded, shot, reloaded, shot, reloaded, shot, and then stepped back and looked up at the windmill. It was still moving, working, and ready to kill birds. It was impervious.

After a while, he turned and walked away. I watched him go over the slight rise and disappear. Indians are good at walking away.

I stood in the cold for a while. I’m not a religious man. I’m not even sure that I believe in God, but I knelt in the snow and prayed.

On Mike’s right forearm, a lightning-shaped scar.

“Hurrying for a job interview,” he said. “Trying to make my white shirt crisp. Reached across the ironing board for the starch bottle and dragged my arm over the tip of the hot iron.”

On Mike’s left forearm, a keloid scar that looks like Pac-Man.

“Got that job,” he said. “Waiting tables at that pancake house on Aurora. First shift. First ten minutes. First time I tried to pour coffee, I spilled some on my arm. At first, the burn was just a mess of red skin and blisters, but then, as it healed, it shrank up, got all thick and ugly, and turned into Pac-Man, if Pac-Man got his face all burned to shit in a pizza oven.”