Sherman Alexie - Blasphemy - New and Selected Stories

As usual, Deuce had given George Mikan to the most attractive single woman in the gym. And, oh, was this Indian woman gorgeous. She was probably six-four, a couple inches taller than Deuce, and her black hair hung down to her knees. All by itself her hair was taller than Emery. She was probably thirty pounds heavier than she should have been but it was thirty pounds placed in exactly the best places. And though you wouldn’t think it would be beautiful, her nose was an indigenous work of art that belonged in the Smithsonian. She was pale brown, like maybe one of her parents was white. And her hands — oh, her hands — were long and aerodynamic, like she was carrying ten thin birds around instead of fingers.

“What’s your name?” Deuce asked her.

“Carlene,” she said.

Carlene! Deuce thought women were named Carlene only in country songs.

“Have you ever ridden a donkey before?”

“I barrel race horses,” she said.

“Okay, so you can handle George Mikan. Do you play basketball?”

“Not so much anymore, but I played college hoops at BYU.”

“Oh, you’re Mormon?”

“No, Mormons make Indians their special mission. Well, Indians are the special mission for a lot of white people, but Mormons are the superstars of trying to save Indians.”

“How come you aren’t at those holiday ceremonies?”

“Does it look like I can fit in those little ceremony rooms?” she asked.

She was a smart and funny woman. Deuce wondered if Carlene had a thing for white men, or maybe could develop a thing for one particular white man. Maybe her dad was white and mean. If so, then Deuce could potentially take gentle advantage of her father issues.

“Are you married?” he asked.

“Ain’t you the bold one?” she said. “No, I’m not married. But if Montana ever makes it legal, I’ll marry my girlfriend.”

Damn. A tall, smart, athletic, hilarious, horse-riding Indian beauty queen who liked her men to be, well, women.

“Well, I’m happy for you and your girl,” Deuce said. “But it’s a damn shame for me and mankind in general. I swear I would have killed buffalo for you, or whatever it is an Indian warrior is supposed to do to earn your love.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Now me and this mule here are going to kick ass, no pun intended.”

And so Carlene and George Mikan instantly became the greatest duo in Donkey Basketball history. George didn’t trot this time. No, he galloped. And Carlene made basket after basket. Hell, she was hitting long three-point shots from the back of a donkey. George Mikan weaved through the other donkeys, his stablemates, and drove toward the hoop to give Carlene easy lay-ins. And though the crowd was small, they knew they were witnessing something special — perhaps the greatest Donkey Basketball performance of all time — and so they cheered and hooted and war-whooped so loud that they seemed to turn a mostly empty gym into a crowded arena.

In the end, Carlene scored 42 points and led her team of mostly Blackfeet women to a huge victory over a bunch of mostly white guys who must have worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Emery thanked the crowd for their attendance and enthusiasm, handed Carlene one of the cheap little plastic trophies they always gave to the Most Valuable Player, and then Carter & Sons hustled to get the donkeys into the trailer so they could get on the road.

As they loaded the last donkey, Deuce saw Carlene walking through the parking lot with a small white woman. They were holding hands, a pretty bold move in rural Montana, he guessed, but he figured Indians must be more kind toward the eccentric — to Donkey Basketball kingpins and lesbians.

“Hey, MVP,” Deuce shouted at Carlene. “I hope I see you down the road somewhere.”

She smiled and waved, as did her partner, and Deuce felt a cold, cold Chinook wind barrel race through his heart. Carlene was an honest and good woman, but Deuce knew he’d been keeping a terrible secret from his father.

So it was one in the morning, mid-April, and Emery and Deuce were driving east on Highway 2. They were just a few miles from Cut Bank on their way to a game the next night in Poplar, on the North Dakota border.

In his pocket, Deuce held a one-way Greyhound bus ticket that would carry him from Cut Bank to Tacoma, Washington, where he would take a taxi and report to basic training at Fort Lewis. Deuce knew that it was less a piece of paper than it was an epic betrayal of his father and his family’s history. For weeks, he’d tried to tell his father the truth. That it was over. That it was done. That donkeys had become dinosaurs. He’d wanted to tell his father back at the ranch in Chewelah. He’d wanted to maybe just sneak out of the house one night and never return. But he lacked the courage. Instead, he’d decided to abandon his father in the middle of a road trip. It was a cruel and sinful thing to do but Deuce decided that it was his only alternative. He had to break his father’s heart in order to break away from the family business. Most folks went into the military out of some sense of honor, but Deuce was dishonorably discharging himself into the Army.

“How much money we make tonight?” Emery asked Deuce.

“Fifty bucks,” Deuce said. “If we don’t make two hundred in Poplar, we’re not going to have money to get back home.”

“Tomorrow will be all right,” Emery said. “Everything will be all right. Donkey Basketball is coming back. With all this new technology shit, people are aching to get back to what really matters. They’re hurting to get back to the land. And Donkey Basketball is the land. Donkey Basketball is the good earth. And you and I are the good earth, too. I’m telling you, Deuce, we’re going to get rich the old-fashioned way and we’re going to get rich because we’re doing something old-fashioned.”

But Deuce knew that the old-fashioned never became the new thing, especially in this era when people changed their cell phones more often than they changed their pants.

And so in their truck, towing a trailer with twelve donkeys, Deuce, after much pain, self-loathing, and deliberation, told his father the truth about his military enlistment. And the shock of the news gave Emery a spiritual heart attack. He lost control of the steering wheel and sent the truck carrying the men and the trailer carrying the donkeys rolling into a fallow wheat field where both vehicles broke apart and rolled over four times.

Father and son survived the wreck with seemingly minor cuts and bruises and sprained fingers and knees. They crawled out of the broken truck and rushed to the trailer lying on its side fifty feet away.

Six donkeys — Dave Cowens, Tiny Archibald, Tom and Dick Van Arsdale, Artis Gilmore, and Billy Paultz — were obviously dead, torn into parts and pieces.

Four other donkeys — Dr. J, Connie Hawkins, Billy Cunningham, and Bob Cousy — were mortally wounded. Two were screaming somewhere in the wreckage and two were trying to walk away despite their injuries.

One donkey, Bill Laimbeer, seemed to be alive and well and just angry at the situation.

But George Mikan, the greatest basketball donkey in the world, was missing.

Seeing the carnage, and the end of his way of life, Emery attacked his son.

“This is your fault!” he screamed again and again, throwing punch after punch.

Deuce, younger and quicker, dodged most of the blows. In no world would he have struck his father so Deuce just defended himself as best as he could. The father, cursing the world, chased the son around the field until the old man lost his anger and collapsed to his knees and wept.

It was the first time that Deuce had seen his father cry. He kneeled beside him, and though Emery resisted at first, he soon accepted his son’s embrace, and they wept together.