Sherman Alexie - Reservation Blues

“Hello,” Father Arnold said. “You’re one of those sisters, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Checkers said, thrilled. “I’m Checkers Warm Water.”

“Checkers? That’s an unusual name.”

“Well, it’s not my real name.”

“What is your real name?”

“I don’t think I’d even tell you that in confession.”

Father Arnold stood, walked back toward Checkers, and sat beside her. He smelled like cinnamon.

“So,” Father said. “How is the music business?”

“Not too good. I quit the band.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, not really.”

Checkers thought about Coyote Springs. She already missed the stage. There was something addicting about it. She loved to hear her name shouted by strangers.

“Are you interested in joining our community here?” Father Arnold asked.

“I’m thinking about it,” Checkers said. “But I’m from the Flathead Reservation. Is that okay?”

“Are you confirmed?”

“Yeah. Father James over there did that. A long time ago.”

Checkers swore she remembered her baptism, though she was only a few months old at the time. Sometimes, she still felt that place on her forehead where Father James poured the water. Once, while fighting fires in her teens, she found herself trapped in a firestorm. Convinced she was going to burn, she suddenly felt the cold, damp touch on her forehead. She felt the water flow down her face, into her mouth, and she drank deeply. Satiated, she burned down a circle of grass, lay down in the middle, and lived as the fire crowned the pine trees above her.

“So,” Father Arnold said, “tell me about your faith.”

“You know,” Checkers said, “it’s hard to talk about. I mean, there’s a lot I want to talk about.”

“I’m sure.”

Checkers thought about what she had seen during her brief time with Coyote Springs. She remembered Junior and Victor naked in the van with those two white women, Betty and Veronica, who had disappeared soon after.

“You know,” Checkers said, “two of the guys in the band, Junior and Victor. They’ve been doing bad things.

“I know them. Are you here to talk about them or you?”

“Both, I guess.”

Father Arnold reached for Checkers’s hand and held it gently. Her heart quickened a little.

“You can talk to me,” Father Arnold said.

“It’s just that everywhere I look these days, I see white women. We caught Junior and Victor having sex with some white women. They’re always having sex with white women. It makes me hate them.”

“Hate who?”

“White women. Indian men. Both, I guess.”

“Are you romantically involved with Junior or Victor?”

“Oh, God, no.”

“Well, then, what is it?”

“Those white women are always perfect, you know? When I was little and we’d go to shop in Missoula, I’d see perfect little white girls all the time. They were always so pretty and clean. I’d come to town in my muddy dress. It never mattered how clean it was when we left Arlee. By the time we got to Missoula, it was always a mess.”

“Did you travel with your parents?”

“Yeah, Dad drove the wagon. Can you believe that? We still had a wagon, and Dad made that thing move fast. The horses and wheels would kick up dirt and mud. Chess, my sister, and I always tried to hide under blankets, but it never worked. There’d be mud under our nails, and we’d grind mud between our teeth. There’d be dirt in the bends of our elbows and knees. Dirt and mud everywhere, you know?”

Father Arnold nodded his head.

“Anyway, all those little white girls would be so perfect, so pretty, and so white. White skin and white dresses. I’d be all brown-skinned in my muddy brown dress. I used to get so dark that white people thought I was a black girl.

“I wanted to be just like them, those white girls, and I’d follow them around town while Mom and Dad shopped. Chess was always telling me I was stupid for doing it. Chess said we were better than those white girls any day. But I never believed her.”

“How does that make you feel now?” Father Arnold asked.

“I don’t know. I just looked at that blond hair and blue eyes and knew I wanted to look like that. I wanted to be just like one of those white girls. You know, Father James even brought his little white nieces out to visit the reservation, and that was a crazy time.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, Father James wanted us all to be friends, Chess, me, and his little nieces. So we all sat together in our folding chairs and knelt down on the floor to pray. We even got to help with the candles at mass. I remember I always held onto my candle tight, because I didn’t want to drop it. I always thought flames were beautiful, you know?

“All four of us helped with Communion once. It all worked great. It was the best Communion. Then we carried the bread and wine back to the storage closet. While we were in there, those nieces pushed me over, and I dropped the wine and it spilled all over everything. On the floor, on my best dress. Everywhere. Those nieces started laughing. Me and Chess tried to clean it up. Father James came running to see what the noise was all about. When he came into the closet, those nieces started crying like babies. They told Father James that Chess and I’d been messing around and dropped the bottles. Father James really scolded Chess and me and never let us help with Communion for a long time.”

“That’s a sad story,” Father Arnold said.

“Yeah, it is, I guess. But his nieces could be nice, too. They let me play with their dolls sometimes. They were really good dolls, too. I taught the nieces how to climb trees and watch people walk by. I’d leave Chess at home and stand outside Father James’s house and wait for his nieces to come out and play. Sometimes I waited until after dark. I’d walk home in the dark all by myself. But sometimes they came out, and we played.

“And when they left the reservation, Chess and I rode down to the train station with Father James to say goodbye. Chess really didn’t want to come, but Mom and Dad made her. We stood there on the train platform, and those nieces wouldn’t even look at us. They were in their perfect little white dresses. They looked like angels. I wanted to go with them. I wanted to go live in the big city. I knew I wouldn’t get in the way. I’d sleep with their perfect dolls and eat crackers. I wanted to be just like them. I wanted to have everything they had. I knew if I was like them, I wouldn’t have to be brown and dirty and live on the reservation and spill Communion wine.

“I wanted to be as white as those little girls because Jesus was white and blond in all the pictures I ever saw of him.”

“You do know that Jesus was Jewish?” Father Arnold asked. “He probably had dark skin and hair.”

“That’s what they say,” Checkers said. “But I never saw him painted like that. I still never see him painted like that. You know, we had to hug those little white nieces, too. We’re standing there on the platform, and Father James tells us to hug each other. Chess refuses to hug anybody. But I hug those nieces, and the big one pinches my breast, my little nipple. Nobody sees it at all. It hurts so bad, and I start to cry. The nieces get on the train and leave. Father James hugs me because I’m crying. He says it will be all right, he knows how much I’ll miss his nieces. I stood there in Father James’s arms and cried and cried.”

Checkers cried in the little Catholic Church in Wellpinit. Father Arnold put his arms around her, and she cried into his shoulder, the soft fabric of his cassock. She put her arms around his waist, wanted to look into his eyes, but kept her face hidden.