Sherman Alexie - Reservation Blues

It’s their eyes, he finally decided. Those Indians have the most amazing eyes. Truly amazing.

David WalksAlong, the Spokane Tribal Council Chairman, showed up at the band’s rehearsal a few times. He was a tall, light-skinned Indian with brown eyes and a round face. He’d been a great basketball player in his youth, a slashing, brutal point guard who looked almost like an old-time Indian warrior. But he spent most of his time playing golf now and had grown fat in the belly and thighs. WalksAlong had long, dark, beautiful hair twenty years ago but had cut it shorter and shorter as it grew more gray.

“Kind of loud, enit?” WalksAlong asked Thomas after a particularly intense set.

“What’d you say?” asked Thomas. His ears were ringing.

“I said you’re disturbing the peace!”

“Yeah,” Thomas shouted. “We’re a three-piece band!”

“No, I said you’re too loud!”

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed. “It is a pretty good crowd!

WalksAlong was visibly angry.

“Listen,” the Chairman said, “you better quit fucking with me! You’re just like your asshole father!”

“Really?” Thomas asked. “You really think we’re rocking? You think my father will like us, too?”

WalksAlong jabbed Thomas’s chest with a thick finger.

“You might think you’re funny!” he shouted loud enough for Thomas to understand him, “but I can shut you down anytime I want to! I just have to give the word!” He stormed off, but Thomas just shrugged his shoulders. David WalksAlong had never cared much about the Builds-the-Fire family. He always thought the Builds-the-Fires talked too much. And Thomas’s father, Samuel, had been a better basketball player than WalksAlong. Not a lot better but enough to make all the Indian women chase him after the games, while WalksAlong walked home alone.

“What was that all about?” Junior asked Thomas.

“I don’t know,” Thomas shouted. “I don’t think he likes us.”

“Bullshit,” Victor shouted. “He just doesn’t like you. He ain’t never liked you.”

WalksAlong walked back to the Spokane Tribal Headquarters, cussing to himself all the way. He stormed through the front door, ignored his secretary’s attempts at conversation, and used his whole body to push open his office door. The contractor had used cheap, warped wood for the door, and it was nearly impassable on warm days.

“H’llo, Uncle,” said Michael White Hawk.

“Shit,” WalksAlong said, surprised. “What the hell are you doing here? Why didn’t you call me?”

“Jus’ got out,” White Hawk said. “Walked here.”

Michael White Hawk had been in Walla Walla State Penitentiary for two years. He was a huge man before he went to jail, but hours of weightlifting had turned him into a monster.

“Jeez, Nephew,” WalksAlong said. “You been shooting up steroids or what?”

“Pumped iron, you know?”

White Hawk had been in the same class as Victor and Junior but didn’t graduate from high school. He dropped out in eighth grade, unable to read and write. He could sign his name, but he did that purely by rote.

“Man,” WalksAlong said and hugged his nephew. “It’s good to have you back. It’s really good.”

WalksAlong had raised his nephew since he was a toddler. Michael’s mother had died of cirrhosis when he was just two years old, and he’d never even known his father. Michael was conceived during some anonymous three-in-the-morning powwow encounter in South Dakota. His mother’s drinking had done obvious damage to Michael in the womb. He had those vaguely Asian eyes and the flat face that alcohol babies always had on reservations. But he’d grown large and muscular despite the alcohol’s effects. Even in grade school, he’d been as big as most men and terrorized his classmates. He bullied even older kids past the point of reason. He once shoved a pencil up a seventh grader’s nose. That kid was in the hospital for a month and then moved to another reservation to live with some cousins. They’d sent White Hawk to a boys’ school near Spokane. But he beat the crap out of a few delinquent white boys, so they sent him back to the reservation.

“Uncle,” White Hawk said and hugged WalksAlong too hard.

“Oh,” WalksAlong said. “Take it easy. You’re going to bust my ribs.”

White Hawk did not ease up, however, hugging his uncle with all he had. WalksAlong was about to pass out when White Hawk finally let him go.

“Uncle, Uncle! Look what I fuckin’ got in prison!”

White Hawk took off his t-shirt to show his uncle the dozen tattoos he had received in prison. There were dragons, bears, feathers, and naked women. There was a naked Indian woman with braids on his back and a naked Indian woman with un-braided hair on his stomach. The tattoos were incredibly crude, little more than scars with ink imbedded in them. WalksAlong was amazed by how much pain his nephew must have gone through.

“How was it in there?” WalksAlong asked.

“Okay,” White Hawk said. “How come you di’nt come ’n see me?”

WalksAlong had driven to Walla Walla many times in the two years his nephew had been in prison, but he never once went inside. He sat in his car in the prison parking lot and smoked cigarettes.

“I didn’t want to see you in there,” WalksAlong said. “You didn’t belong in there.”

“Uncle, it hurt in here.”

White Hawk pointed to his chest, pressed his finger against a horse tattoo. WalksAlong had not seen his nephew cry in years, although White Hawk had screamed his way through childhood. But White Hawk didn’t cry. He just pointed to his chest.

“Jeez,” WalksAlong said, “we have to celebrate. Let me call the other Councilmen.”

Old Jerry, Buck, and Paula, the other Councilmen, hastily declined the offer when they heard that Michael White Hawk was home. David WalksAlong’s secretary, Kim, had already been on the phone with her sister, Arlene, and the gossip soon spread all over the reservation. Michael White Hawk was home. The news made it to Irene’s Grocery.

“White Hawk is home,” whispered one Indian to another.

“No shit? White Hawk is home?”

Lester FallsApart staggered up to Thomas after a song.

“Thomas!” Lester shouted. “White Hawk is home!”

Thomas looked back at Junior and Victor. Junior cleared his throat loudly. Victor shrugged his shoulders but felt something drop in his stomach. They barely made it through the next song and then went home, disappointing the crowd.

White strangers had begun to arrive on the Spokane Indian Reservation to listen to this all-Indian rock and blues band. A lot of those New Agers showed up with their crystals, expecting to hear-some ancient Indian wisdom and got a good dose of Sex Pistols covers instead. In emulation of all their rock heroes, who destroyed hotel rooms with style and wit, Victor and Junior trashed their own HUD house. Both lived together in a tiny HUD house with faulty wiring and no indoor plumbing. They slept in the house only when there was no other alternative.

One evening, after a long rehearsal, Victor decided he was the Beatles.

“I’m McCartney and Lennon all rolled up into one,” Victor said. “Thomas is George. And Junior, you get to be Ringo.”

“Shit,” Junior said, “how come I have to be Ringo?”

“If the Ringo fits,” Victor said, “then wear it.”

Thomas knew it was just the beginning but was already frightened by how much Victor and Junior had improved. Victor, especially. He played that guitar like a crazy man, and chords and riffs and notes jumped out of that thing like fancydancers. If you looked close enough, you saw the music rising off the strings and frets.

Two white women, Betty and Veronica, had somehow found their way to the reservation and showed up at every rehearsal. They even parked their car outside Irene’s Grocery and set up camp. Betty slept in the front seat and Veronica slept in the back. Both had long blonde hair and wore too much Indian jewelry. Turquoise rings, silver feather earrings, beaded necklaces. They always appeared in sundresses with matching Birkenstocks.