Growing Up Ethnic in America: Contemporary Fiction About Learning to Be American (36 page)

“Baby, are you alright?” Janice eased over to the door, as she tried to see about Honey.

Honey Boy stood up like I never seen a man stand up, real straight, like he was gonna fly, and he smiled at his mama.
He walked over to Janice, just a smiling, and then he sunk to his knees real hard and breathed a deep sigh. The noise of his knees scared us way inside our bones. What we could touch of Honey was still there, but our warrior king was gone. Janice screamed, and she bent down and held him real tight. Aunt Lois and Aunt Grace wailed. Pigmeat shook all over. Me and Jimmy Edward got sick. There was a hole in Honey Boy that his spirit flew out of, a hole in his back. We put Honey Boy’s body in the car and rushed to the hospital, all the time knowing it wasn’t no need. That evening Uncle Richard drove back to a hard-to-see section of that train trestle and pumped his forty-five into the enemy territory, into its houses, wherever he thought there was life to take for the life what was taken from us.

Nowadays Patterson Park ain’t no big thing. Black folk live in what was once Whitetown. Times change, I guess. But I ain’t sure people really change all that much. Stuff is in their hearts what don’t go nowhere, although folk claim they done changed.

Pigmeat stays on the move, driving a tractor trailer. We hardly see him much.

Me and Jimmy Edward got little piece a jobs delivering, but mostly we just stay up here at the garage where Uncle Richard hung out until he died. We keep the tough ways of East Baltimore in mind ‘cause The Purple Funk is still alive, calling itself
gangstas
, carrying all kinds of guns, and most white folks ain’t changed a bit. Anyway, I keep a forty-four magnum and two forty-fives hanging up inside the garage door in holsters, along with a automatic shotgun.

We all starting to ache in places our mamas and papas talked about. Me and Jimmy Edward got the gout and high blood. We getting old. Something gotta take you outta here, I guess, something gotta close your eyes. We just hope it’s natural.

SHERMAN ALEXIE

Just after Victor lost his job at the BIA, he also found out that his father had died of a heart attack in Phoenix, Arizona. Victor hadn’t seen his father in a few years, only talked to him on the telephone once or twice, but there still was a genetic pain, which was soon to be pain as real and immediate as a broken bone.

Victor didn’t have any money. Who does have money on a reservation, except the cigarette and fireworks salespeople? His father had a savings account waiting to be claimed, but Victor needed to find a way to get to Phoenix. Victor’s mother was just as poor as he was, and the rest of his family didn’t have any use at all for him. So Victor called the Tribal Council.

“Listen,” Victor said. “My father just died. I need some money to get to Phoenix to make arrangements.”

“Now, Victor,” the council said. “You know we’re having a difficult time financially.”

“But I thought the council had special funds set aside for stuff like this.”

“Now, Victor, we do have some money available for the proper return of tribal members’ bodies. But I don’t think we have enough to bring your father all the way back from Phoenix.”

“Well,” Victor said. “It ain’t going to cost all that much. He had to be cremated. Things were kind of ugly. He died of a heart attack in his trailer and nobody found him for a week. It was really hot, too. You get the picture.”

“Now, Victor, we’re sorry for your loss and the circumstances. But we can really only afford to give you one hundred dollars.”

“That’s not even enough for a plane ticket.”

“Well, you might consider driving down to Phoenix.”

“I don’t have a car. Besides, I was going to drive my father’s pickup back up here.”

“Now, Victor,” the council said. “We’re sure there is somebody who could drive you to Phoenix. Or is there somebody who could lend you the rest of the money?”

“You know there ain’t nobody around with that kind of money.”

“Well, we’re sorry, Victor, but that’s the best we can do.”

Victor accepted the Tribal Council’s offer. What else could he do? So he signed the proper papers, picked up his check, and walked over to the Trading Post to cash it.

While Victor stood in line, he watched
Thomas Builds-the-Fire standing near the magazine rack, talking to himself. Like he always did. Thomas was a storyteller that nobody wanted to listen to. That’s like being a dentist in a town where everybody has false teeth.

Victor and Thomas Builds-the-Fire were the same age, had grown up and played in the dirt together. Ever since Victor could remember, it was Thomas who always had something to say.

Once, when they were seven years old, when Victor’s father still lived with the family, Thomas closed his eyes and told Victor this story: “Your father’s heart is weak. He is afraid of his own family. He is afraid of you. Late at night he sits in the dark. Watches the television until there’s nothing but that white noise. Sometimes he feels like he wants to buy a motorcycle and ride away. He wants to run and hide. He doesn’t want to be found.”

Thomas Builds-the-Fire had known that Victor’s father was going to leave, knew it before anyone. Now Victor stood in the Trading Post with a one-hundred-dollar check in his hand, wondering if Thomas knew that Victor’s father was dead, if he knew what was going to happen next.

Just then Thomas looked at Victor, smiled, and walked over to him.

“Victor, I’m sorry about your father,” Thomas said.

“How did you know about it?” Victor asked.

“I heard it on the wind. I heard it from the birds. I felt it in the sunlight. Also, your mother was just in here crying.”

“Oh,” Victor said and looked around the Trading Post. All the other Indians stared, surprised that Victor was even talking to Thomas. Nobody talked to Thomas anymore because he told the same damn stories over and over again. Victor was embarrassed, but he thought that Thomas might be able to help him. Victor felt a sudden need for tradition.

“I can lend you the money you need,” Thomas said suddenly. “But you have to take me with you.”

“I can’t take your money,” Victor said. “I mean, I haven’t hardly talked to you in years. We’re not really friends anymore.”

“I didn’t say we were friends. I said you had to take me with you.”

“Let me think about it.”

Victor went home with his one hundred dollars and sat at the kitchen table. He held his head in his hands and thought about Thomas Builds-the-Fire, remembered little details, tears and scars, the bicycle they shared for a summer, so many stories.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire sat on the bicycle, waited in Victor’s yard. He was ten years old and skinny. His hair was dirty because it was the Fourth of July.

“Victor,”
Thomas yelled. “Hurry up. We’re going to miss the fireworks.”

After a few minutes, Victor ran out of his house, jumped the porch railing, and landed gracefully on the sidewalk.

“And the judges award him a 9.95, the highest score of the summer,” Thomas said, clapped, laughed.

“That was perfect, cousin,” Victor said. “And it’s my turn to ride the bike.”

Thomas gave up the bike and they headed for the fair-grounds. It was nearly dark and the fireworks were about to start.

“You know,” Thomas said. “It’s strange how us Indians celebrate the Fourth of July. It ain’t like it was
our
independence everybody was fighting for.”

“You think about things too much,” Victor said. “It’s just supposed to be fun. Maybe Junior will be there.”

“Which Junior? Everybody on this reservation is named Junior.”

And they both laughed.

The fireworks were small, hardly more than a few bottle rockets and a fountain. But it was enough for two Indian boys. Years later, they would need much more.

Afterwards, sitting in the dark, fighting off mosquitoes, Victor turned to Thomas Builds-the-Fire.

“Hey,” Victor said. “Tell me a story.”

Thomas closed his eyes and told this story: “There were these two Indian boys who wanted to be warriors. But it was too late to be warriors in the old way. All the horses were gone. So the two Indian boys stole a car and drove to the city. They parked the stolen car in front of the police station and then hitchhiked back home to the reservation. When they got back, all their friends cheered and their parents’ eyes shone with pride.
You were very brave
, everybody said to the two Indian boys.
Very brave.
”

“Ya-hey,” Victor said. “That’s a good one. I wish I could be a warrior.”

“Me, too,” Thomas said.

They went home together in the dark, Thomas on the bike now, Victor on foot. They walked through shadows and light from streetlamps.

“We’ve come a long ways,” Thomas said. “We have outdoor lighting.”

“All I need is the stars,” Victor said. “And besides, you still think about things too much.”

They separated then, each headed for home, both laughing all the way.

Victor sat at his kitchen table. He counted his one hundred dollars again and again. He knew he needed more to make it to Phoenix and back. He knew he needed Thomas Builds-the-Fire. So he put his money in his wallet and opened the front door to find Thomas on the porch.

“Ya-hey, Victor,” Thomas said. “I knew you’d call me.”

Thomas walked into the living room and sat down on Victor’s favorite chair.

“I’ve got some money saved up,” Thomas said. “It’s enough to get us down there, but you have to get us back.”

“I’ve got this hundred dollars,” Victor said. “And my dad had a savings account I’m going to claim.”

“How much in your dad’s account?”

“Enough. A few hundred.”

“Sounds good. When we leaving?”

When they were fifteen and had long since stopped being friends, Victor and Thomas got into a fistfight. That is, Victor was really drunk and beat Thomas up for no reason at all.
All the other Indian boys stood around and watched it happen. Junior was there and so were Lester, Seymour, and a lot of others. The beating might have gone on until Thomas was dead if Norma Many Horses hadn’t come along and stopped it.

“Hey, you boys,” Norma yelled and jumped out of her car. “Leave him alone.”

If it had been someone else, even another man, the Indian boys would’ve just ignored the warnings. But Norma was a warrior. She was powerful. She could have picked up any two of the boys and smashed their skulls together. But worse than that, she would have dragged them all over to some tipi and made them listen to some elder tell a dusty old story.

The Indian boys scattered, and Norma walked over to Thomas and picked him up.

“Hey, little man, are you okay?” she asked.

Thomas gave her a thumbs up.

“Why they always picking on you?”

Thomas shook his head, closed his eyes, but no stories came to him, no words or music. He just wanted to go home, to lie in his bed and let his dreams tell his stories for him.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire and Victor sat next to each other in the airplane, coach section. A tiny white woman had the window seat. She was busy twisting her body into pretzels. She was flexible.

“I have to ask,” Thomas said, and Victor closed his eyes in embarrassment.

“Don’t,” Victor said.

“Excuse me, miss,” Thomas asked. “Are you a gymnast or something?”

“There’s no something about it,” she said. “I was first alternate on the 1980 Olympic team.”

“Really?” Thomas asked.

“Really.”

“I mean, you used to be a world-class athlete?” Thomas asked.

“My husband still thinks I am.”

Thomas Builds-the-Fire smiled. She was a mental gymnast, too. She pulled her leg straight up against her body so that she could’ve kissed her kneecap.

“I wish I could do that,” Thomas said.

Victor was ready to jump out of the plane. Thomas, that crazy Indian storyteller with ratty old braids and broken teeth, was flirting with a beautiful Olympic gymnast. Nobody back home on the reservation would ever believe it.

“Well,” the gymnast said. “It’s easy. Try it.”

Thomas grabbed at his leg and tried to pull it up into the same position as the gymnast. He couldn’t even come close, which made Victor and the gymnast laugh.

“Hey,” she asked. “You two are Indian, right?”

“Full-blood,” Victor said.

“Not me,” Thomas said. “I’m half magician on my mother’s side and half clown on my father’s.”

They all laughed.

“What are your names?” she asked.

“Victor and Thomas.”

“Mine is Cathy. Pleased to meet you all.”

The three of them talked for the duration of the flight. Cathy the gymnast complained about the government, how they screwed the 1980 Olympic team by boycotting.

“Sounds like you all got a lot in common with Indians,” Thomas said.

Nobody laughed.

After the plane landed in Phoenix and they had all found their way to the terminal, Cathy the gymnast smiled and waved good-bye.

“She was really nice,” Thomas said.

“Yeah, but everybody talks to everybody on airplanes,” Victor said. “It’s too bad we can’t always be that way.”