Sherman Alexie - Reservation Blues

“Maybe.”

Victor was nervous. He’d never talked to the dead before. It felt like a first date.

“This feels like a first date, enit?” Junior asked.

“Yeah, it does.”

“So,” Junior said, “am I going to get lucky?”

Both laughed. There was silence. They laughed at the silence. There was more silence.

“Why’d you do it?” Victor asked.

“Do what?”

“You know, shoot yourself. In the head.”

“You know,” Junior said, “I heard some people talking at the Trading Post after I did it. They thought I couldn’t hear them. But I could. They said I didn’t mean to kill myself. That I was just looking for attention. Assholes.”

“Some people sent you flowers, though, did you see?”

“Yeah, the assholes.”

Silence.

“You know,” Junior said, “I really am going to miss getting drunk with you. Remember when we used to go out chasing white women? Before you got fat and ugly.”

“Fat and ugly, my ass. Those white women loved me.”

“Do you remember Betty and Veronica?”

“Of course.”

“Those two weren’t bad,” Junior said. “Maybe we should’ve held on to them.”

“Yeah, maybe. Junior, why’d you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Kill yourself.”

Junior looked away, watching the sunlight reflecting off Turtle Lake.

“Because life is hard,” Junior said.

“That’s it?”

“That’s the whole story, folks. I wanted to be dead. Gone. No more.”

“Why?”

“Because when I closed my eyes like Thomas, I didn’t see a damn thing. Nothing. Zilch. No stories, no songs. Nothing.”

Victor looked down at the silver flask of whiskey in his hands. He wanted to take a drink. He wanted that guitar back, still dreamed about it every night.

“And,” Junior added, “because I didn’t want to be drunk no more.”

Victor rolled down his window and threw the flask out into Turtle Lake. It sank quickly.

“I don’t need that no more,” Victor said. “I’m going on the wagon.”

“Here,” Junior said and handed Victor another flask. “You better throw this one out, too.” How many of these you got?”

“A whole bunch. We better get to work.”

“What are we going to do after this?” Victor asked.

“Well, I’ve got other places to go. But I think you should go get yourself a goddamn job. I ain’t going to be around to take care of your sorry ass anymore.”

Like some alcoholic magician, Junior pulled flask after flask from his clothes and handed them to Victor, who threw them out the window into Turtle Lake. Those silver flasks floated down through the lake rumored to have no bottom, rumored to be an extinct volcano, and came to rest miles below the surface.

Big Mom lit the sage, and Chess, Checkers, and Thomas bathed themselves in the smoke. They pulled the smoke through their hair, over their legs and arms, into their open mouths.

“Who do you want to pray for?” Big Mom asked.

“Everybody.”

Big Mom picked up a 45 record with her huge hands and gently placed it on the turntable. She placed needle to vinyl, and they all waited together for the music.

Spokane Tribal Chairman David WalksAlong sat in his office, thinking about his nephew Michael White Hawk, when Victor came looking for a job. His nephew had been getting progressively worse, going from wandering around the football field in confused circles to drinking Sterno with the Android Brothers behind the Trading Post. All those half-crazy Sterno drunks talked some kind of gibberish to each other that only they understood. WalksAlong was wondering if he should just shoot his nephew in the head and end his misery, just like that Junior Polatkin ended his own misery.

“What the fuck do you want?” WalksAlong asked Victor when he walked into the office, pushing open that warped door. Victor’d worked up all the courage in the world to come to WalksAlong.

“They said you’re the one who decides who gets to work. I want a job,” Victor said. “Please.”

“Look what you did to the reservation, and you want me to give you a job?”

“I’m sorry about your nephew,” Victor said, but he wanted to tell WalksAlong that his nephew never had a chance.

“Well,” WalksAlong said, “what the hell can you do?”

Victor handed him a piece of paper.

“What the hell is this?” WalksAlong asked.

“It’s my résumé.”

“Your résumé?” WalksAlong asked, in complete disbelief. “What do you think this is, Wall Street?”

“I thought this was the way it worked,” Victor said. “Enit?”

WalksAlong read the résumé, crumpled it up, and threw it at Victor.

“Get the fuck out of here,” WalksAlong said.

Victor picked his résumé off the floor, smoothed it out, then folded it neatly into a small square, and tucked it into his pocket. His hands were shaking.

“Listen,” Victor said, his voice breaking. “I thought this was the way it worked.”

WalksAlong turned his back. Victor tried to think of something to say, some words that would change all of this.

“I want to drive the water truck,” Victor said. “Just like Junior used to. I want to be like Junior. It was his last wish.”

WalksAlong didn’t respond, and Victor left the office, feeling something slip inside him. He stole five dollars from WalksAlong’s secretary’s purse and bought a six-pack of cheap beer at the Trading Post.

“Fuck it, I can do it, too,” Victor whispered to himself and opened the first can. That little explosion of the beer can opening sounded exactly like a smaller, slower version of the explosion that Junior’s rifle made on the water tower.

From The Wellpinit Rawhide Press:

Father Arnold Leads Catholics to Championship

Father Arnold scored 33 points Tuesday night, including the game-winning free throws with no time left on the clock, to lead the Catholic Church to a thrilling come-from-behind 111–110 win over the Assembly of God in the championship game of the Spokane Indian Christian Basketball Tournament.

“I wasn’t sure those free throws were going in,” Father Arnold said, “but I sure prayed for them. Who knows? Maybe God was listening this time.”

Randy Peone, minister of the Assembly of God, had no official comment about the game, but was reported to have said that Father Arnold had probably spent more time away from the church than with his church, and that explained all the time he had to practice.

“He just didn’t play like a Catholic,” one spectator said. “Especially not like a Catholic priest.”

“Hey,” responded Bessie, the oldest Catholic on the reservation, “what the hell do any of you know about being Catholic? You have no idea how hard it is.”

A few days after Junior’s burial, while Chess and Checkers were taking a sweat with Big Mom, Thomas Builds-the-Fire heard a scratching on his roof. At first, he wondered which ghost had come to haunt him. But then he heard a knock on the back door.

“Who is it?” Thomas asked. He was still worried about Michael White Hawk.

“Package,” the voice said.

Thomas opened the door just a bit and saw the FedEx guy standing on the back porch, with rappelling gear.

“Jeez,” Thomas said. “It’s just you.”

“Mr. Builds-the-Fire, I presume,” said the FedEx guy.

“You know who I am.”

“We can never be too sure. Sign here.”

Thomas signed the form. The FedEx guy handed him a package and then climbed back onto the roof and scampered away. Thomas closed the door, took the package inside, and set it on the kitchen table. It was a small package, barely weighed anything at all. The return address said Cavalry Records. He didn’t want to open it and almost threw it in the garbage, but curiosity got the best of him. Inside, there was just a letter and a cassette tape.