Sherman Alexie: Reservation Blues

DANCING ALL ALONE, FEELING nothing good

It’s been so long since someone understood

All I’ve seen is, is why I weep

And all I had for dinner was some sleep

You know I’m lonely, I’m so lonely

My heart is empty and I’ve been so hungry

All I need for my hunger to ease

Is anything that you can give me please

chorus:

I ain’t got nothing, I heard no good news

I fill my pockets with those reservation blues

Those old, those old rez blues, those old reservation blues

And if you ain’t got choices

What else do you choose?

(repeat chorus twice)

And if you ain’t got choices

Ain’t got much to lose

In the one hundred and eleven years since the creation of the Spokane Indian Reservation in 1881, not one person, Indian or otherwise, had ever arrived there by accident. Wellpinit, the only town on the reservation, did not exist on most maps, so the black stranger surprised the whole tribe when he appeared with nothing more than the suit he wore and the guitar slung over his back. As Simon drove backward into town, he first noticed the black man standing beside the faded WELCOME TO WELLPINIT, POPULATION: VARIABLE sign. Lester FallsApart slept under that sign and dreamed about the stranger before anyone else had a chance. That black man walked past the Assembly of God Church, the Catholic Church and Cemetery, the Presbyterian Church and Cemetery. He strolled to the crossroads near the Softball diamond, with its solitary grave hidden in deep center field. The black man leaned his guitar against a stop sign but stood himself straight and waited.

The entire reservation knew about the black man five minutes after he showed up at the crossroads. All the Spokanes thought up reasons to leave work or home so they could drive down to look the stranger over. A small man with very dark skin and huge hands, he wore a brown suit that looked good from a distance but grew more ragged, frayed at the cuffs, as he came into focus. The black man waved at every Indian that drove by, but nobody had the courage to stop, until Thomas Builds-the-Fire pulled up in his old blue van.

“Ya-hey,” Thomas called out.

“Hey,” the black man said.

“Are you lost?”

“Been lost a while, I suppose.”

“You know where you’re at?”

“At the crossroad,” the black man said, but his words sounded like stones in his mouth and coals in his stomach.

“This is the Spokane Indian Reservation,” Thomas said.

“Indians? I ain’t seen many Indians.”

Thomas parked his van and jumped out. Although the Spokanes were mostly a light-skinned tribe, Thomas tanned to a deep brown, nearly dark as the black man. With his long, black hair pulled into braids, he looked like an old-time salmon fisherman: short, muscular legs for the low center of gravity, long torso and arms for the leverage to throw the spear. Just a few days past thirty-two, he carried a slightly protruding belly that he’d had when he was eight years old and would still have when he was eighty. He wasn’t ugly, though, just marked by loneliness, like some red L was tattooed on his forehead. Indian women had never paid much attention to him, because he didn’t pretend to be some twentieth-century warrior, alternating between blind rage and feigned disinterest. He was neither loud nor aggressive, neither calm nor silent. He walked up to the black man and offered his hand, but the stranger kept his hands at his sides, out of view, hidden.

“I’m careful with my hands,” the black man said. “He might hear me if I use my hands.”

“Who might hear you?”

“The Gentleman.”

Thomas wanted to know more about the Gentleman, but he was too polite and traditional to ask and refused to offend the black man with personal questions that early in the relationship. Traditional Spokanes believe in rules of conduct that aren’t collected into any book and have been forgotten by most of the tribe. For thousands of years, the Spokanes feasted, danced, conducted conversations, and courted each other in certain ways. Most Indians don’t follow those rules anymore, but Thomas made the attempt.

“What’s your name?” the black man asked after a long silence.

“Thomas Builds-the-Fire.”

“That a good name?”

“I don’t know. I think so.”

“My name’s Johnson,” the black man said. “Robert Johnson.”

“It’s good to meet you, Mr. Johnson. Who’s your traveling partner?”

Johnson picked up his guitar, held it close to his body.

“My best friend,” Johnson said. “But I ain’t gonna tell y’all his name. The Gentleman might hear and come runnin’. He gets into the strings, you hear?”

Thomas saw that Robert Johnson looked scared and tired, in need of a shower, a good night’s rest, and a few stories to fill his stomach.

“How’d you end up here?” Thomas asked. A crowd of Indian kids had gathered, because crowds of Indian kids are always gathering somewhere, to watch Thomas Builds-the-Fire, the misfit storyteller of the Spokane Tribe, talk to a strange black man and his guitar. The whole event required the construction of another historical monument. The reservation had filled with those monuments years ago, but the Tribal Council still looked to build more, because they received government grants to do exactly that.

“Been lookin’ for a woman,” Johnson said. “I dream ’bout her.”

“What woman?”

“Old woman lives on a hill. I think she can fix what’s wrong with me.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Thomas asked.

“Made a bad deal years ago. Caught a sickness I can’t get rid of.”

Thomas knew about sickness. He’d caught some disease in the womb that forced him to tell stories. The weight of those stories bowed his legs and bent his spine a bit. Robert Johnson looked bowed, bent, and more fragile with each word. Those Indian kids were ready to pounce on the black man with questions and requests. The adults wouldn’t be too far behind their kids.

“Listen,” Thomas said, “we should get out of the sun. I’ll take you up to my house.”

Johnson considered his options. Old and tired, he had walked from crossroads to crossroads in search of the woman in his dreams. That woman might save him. A big woman, she arrived in shadows, riding a horse. She rode into his dreams as a shadow on a shadowy horse, with songs that he loved but could not sing because the Gentleman might hear. The Gentleman held the majority of stock in Robert Johnson’s soul and had chased Robert Johnson for decades. Since 1938, the year he faked his death by poisoning and made his escape, Johnson had been running from the Gentleman, who narrowly missed him at every stop.

“Come on,” Thomas said. “Hop in the van. You can crash at my place. Maybe you can play some songs.

“I can’t play nothin’,” Johnson said. “Not ever.”

Robert Johnson raised his hands, palms open, to Thomas. Burned, scarred, those hands frightened Thomas.

“This is what happens,” Johnson said. “This is how it happens sometimes. Things work like this. They really do.”

Thomas wanted to take Johnson to the Indian Health Service Clinic, for a checkup and the exact diagnosis of his illness, but he knew that wouldn’t work. Indian Health only gave out dental floss and condoms, and Thomas spent his whole life trying to figure out the connection between the two. More than anything, he wanted a story to heal the wounds, but he knew that his stories never healed anything.