Blasphemy

by Sherman Alexie

T) And: “If you really want a woman to love you, then you have to dance. And if you don’t want to dance, then you’re going to have to work extra hard to make a woman love you forever, and you will always run the risk that she will leave you at any second for a man who knows how to tango.”

  U) And: “I really miss those cafeterias they use to have in Kmart. I don’t know why they stopped having those. If there is a Heaven then I firmly believe it’s a Kmart cafeteria.”

  V) And: “A father always knows what his sons are doing. For instance, boys, I knew you were sneaking that Hustler magazine out of my bedroom. You remember that one? Where actors who looked like Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura were screwing on the bridge of the Enterprise. Yeah, that one. I know you kept borrowing it. I let you borrow it. Remember this: men and pornography are like plants and sunshine. To me, porn is photosynthesis.”

  W) And: “Your mother is a better man than me. Mothers are almost always better men than men are.”

  16. Reunion

  After she returned from Italy, my wife climbed into bed with me. I felt like I had not slept comfortably in years.

  I said, “There was a rumor that I’d grown a tumor but I killed it with humor.”

  “How long have you been waiting to tell me that one?” she asked.

  “Oh, probably since the first time some doctor put his fingers in my brain.”

  We made love. We fell asleep. But I, agitated by the steroids, woke at two, three, four, and five a.m. The bed was killing my back so I lay flat on the floor. I wasn’t going to die anytime soon, at least not because of my little friend, Mr. Tumor, but that didn’t make me feel any more comfortable or comforted. I felt distant from the world—from my wife and sons, from my mother and siblings—from all of my friends. I felt closer to those who’ve always had fingers in their brains.

  And I didn’t feel any closer to the world six months later when another MRI revealed that my meningioma had not grown in size or changed its shape.

  “You’re looking good,” my doctor said. “How’s your hearing?”

  “I think I’ve got about 90 percent of it back.”

  “Well, then, the steroids worked. Good.”

  And I didn’t feel any more intimate with God nine months later when one more MRI made my doctor hypothesize that my meningioma might only be more scar tissue from the hydrocephalus.

  “Frankly,” my doctor said. “Your brain is beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” I said, though it was the oddest compliment I’d ever received.

  I wanted to call up my father and tell him that a white man thought my brain was beautiful. But I couldn’t tell him anything. He was dead. I told my wife and sons that I was okay. I told my mother and siblings. I told my friends. But none of them laughed as hard about my beautiful brain as I knew my father would have. I miss him, the drunk bastard. I would always feel closest to the man who had most disappointed me.

  THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO SAY PHOENIX, ARIZONA

  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 fairgrounds. 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.”

  “You always used to tell me I think too much,” Thomas said. “Now it sounds like you do.”

  “Maybe I caught it from you.”

  “Yeah.”

  Thomas and Victor rode in a taxi to the trailer where Victor’s father died.

  “Listen,” Victor said as they stopped in front of the trailer. “I never told you I was sorry for beating you up that time.”

  “Oh, it was nothing. We were just kids and you were drunk.”

  “Yeah, but I’m still sorry.”

  “That’s all right.”

  Victor paid for the taxi and the two of them stood in the hot Phoenix summer. They could smell the trailer.

  “This ain’t going to be nice,” Victor said. “You don’t have to go in.”

  “You’re going to need help.”

  Victor walked to the front door and opened it. The stink rolled out and made them both gag. Victor’s father had lain in that trailer for a week in hundred-degree temperatures before anyone found him. And the only reason anyone found him was because of the smell. They needed dental records to identify him. That’s exactly what the coroner said. They needed dental records.

  “Oh, man,” Victor said. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Well, then don’t.”

  “But there might be something valuable in there.”

  “I thought his money was in the bank.”

  “It is. I was talking about pictures and letters and stuff like that.”

  “Oh,” Thomas said as he held his breath and followed Victor into the trailer.

  When Victor
was twelve, he stepped into an underground wasp nest. His foot was caught in the hole, and no matter how hard he struggled, Victor couldn’t pull free. He might have died there, stung a thousand times, if Thomas Builds-the-Fire had not come by.

  “Run,” Thomas yelled and pulled Victor’s foot from the hole. They ran then, hard as they ever had, faster than Billy Mills, faster than Jim Thorpe, faster than the wasps could fly.

  Victor and Thomas ran until they couldn’t breathe, ran until it was cold and dark outside, ran until they were lost and it took hours to find their way home. All the way back, Victor counted his stings.

  “Seven,” Victor said. “My lucky number.”

  Victor didn’t find much to keep in the trailer. Only a photo album and a stereo. Everything else had that smell stuck in it or was useless anyway.

  “I guess this is all,” Victor said. “It ain’t much.”

  “Better than nothing,” Thomas said.

  “Yeah, and I do have the pickup.”

  “Yeah,” Thomas said. “It’s in good shape.”

  “Dad was good about that stuff.”

  “Yeah, I remember your dad.”

  “Really?” Victor asked. “What do you remember?”

  Thomas Builds-the-Fire closed his eyes and told this story: “I remember when I had this dream that told me to go to Spokane, to stand by the Falls in the middle of the city and wait for a sign. I knew I had to go there but I didn’t have a car. Didn’t have a license. I was only thirteen. So I walked all the way, took me all day, and I finally made it to the Falls. I stood there for an hour waiting. Then your dad came walking up. What the hell are you doing here? he asked me. I said, Waiting for a vision. Then your father said, All you’re going to get here is mugged. So he drove me over to Denny’s, bought me dinner, and then drove me home to the reservation. For a long time I was mad because I thought my dreams had lied to me. But they didn’t. Your dad was my vision. Take care of each other is what my dreams were saying. Take care of each other.”

  Victor was quiet for a long time. He searched his mind for memories of his father, found the good ones, found a few bad ones, added it all up, and smiled.

  “My father never told me about finding you in Spokane,” Victor said.