Blasphemy

by Sherman Alexie

  “You better be careful,” Irene said. “Honey Boy knows all sorts of magic. He always makes straight boys fall for him.”

  “Honey Boy,” I said, “you can try to seduce me. And Irene, you can try with him. But my heart belongs to a woman named Kay.”

  “Is your Kay a virgin?” Honey Boy asked.

  We laughed.

  We drank our whiskey shots until they were gone. But the other Indians bought me more whiskey shots because I’d been so generous with my money. Honey Boy pulled out his credit card, and I drank and sailed on that plastic boat.

  After a dozen shots, I asked Irene to dance. And she refused. But Honey Boy shuffled over to the jukebox, dropped in a quarter, and selected Willie Nelson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night.” As Irene and I sat at the table and laughed and drank more whiskey, Honey Boy danced a slow circle around us and sang along with Willie.

  “Are you serenading me?” I asked him.

  He kept singing and dancing.

  “Are you serenading me?” I asked him again.

  “He’s going to put a spell on you,” Irene said.

  I leaned over the table, spilling a few drinks, and kissed Irene hard. She kissed me back.

  10:00 P.M.

  Irene pushed me into the women’s bathroom, into a stall, shut the door behind us, and shoved her hand down my pants. She was short, so I had to lean over to kiss her. I grabbed and squeezed her everywhere I could reach, and she was wonderfully fat, and every part of her body felt like a large, warm, and soft breast.

  Midnight

  Nearly blind with alcohol, I stood alone at the bar and swore I’d been standing in the bathroom with Irene only a minute ago.

  “One more shot!” I yelled at the bartender.

  “You’ve got no more money!” he yelled.

  “Somebody buy me a drink!” I shouted.

  “They’ve got no more money!”

  “Where’s Irene and Honey Boy?”

  “Long gone!”

  2:00 A.M.

  “Closing time!” the bartender shouted at the three or four Indians still drinking hard after a long hard day of drinking. Indian alcoholics are either sprinters or marathon runners.

  “Where’s Irene and Honey Bear?” I asked.

  “They’ve been gone for hours,” the bartender said.

  “Where’d they go?”

  “I told you a hundred times, I don’t know.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “It’s closing time. I don’t care where you go, but you’re not staying here.”

  “You are an ungrateful bastard. I’ve been good to you.”

  “You don’t leave right now, I’m going to kick your ass.”

  “Come on, I know how to fight.”

  He came for me. I don’t remember what happened after that.

  4:00 A.M.

  I emerged from the blackness and discovered myself walking behind a big warehouse. I didn’t know where I was. My face hurt. I touched my nose and decided it might be broken. Exhausted and cold, I pulled a plastic tarp from a truck bed, wrapped it around me like a faithful lover, and fell asleep in the dirt.

  6:00 A.M.

  Somebody kicked me in the ribs. I opened my eyes and looked up at a white cop.

  “Jackson,” said the cop. “Is that you?”

  “Officer Williams,” I said. He was a good cop with a sweet tooth. He’d given me hundreds of candy bars over the years. I wonder if he knew I was diabetic.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I was cold and sleepy,” I said. “So I laid down.”

  “You dumb-ass, you passed out on the railroad tracks.”

  I sat up and looked around. I was lying on the railroad tracks. Dockworkers stared at me. I should have been a railroad-track pizza, a double Indian pepperoni with extra cheese. Sick and scared, I leaned over and puked whiskey.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Officer Williams asked. “You’ve never been this stupid.”

  “It’s my grandmother,” I said. “She died.”

  “I’m sorry, man. When did she die?”

  “1972.”

  “And you’re killing yourself now?”

  “I’ve been killing myself ever since she died.”

  He shook his head. He was sad for me. Like I said, he was a good cop.

  “And somebody beat the hell out of you,” he said. “You remember who?”

  “Mr. Grief and I went a few rounds.”

  “It looks like Mr. Grief knocked you out.”

  “Mr. Grief always wins.”

  “Come on,” he said, “let’s get you out of here.”

  He helped me stand and led me over to his squad car. He put me in the back. “You throw up in there,” he said, “and you’re cleaning it up.”

  “That’s fair,” I said.

  He walked around the car and sat in the driver’s seat. “I’m taking you over to detox,” he said.

  “No, man, that place is awful,” I said. “It’s full of drunk Indians.”

  We laughed. He drove away from the docks.

  “I don’t know how you guys do it,” he said.

  “What guys?” I asked.

  “You Indians. How the hell do you laugh so much? I just picked your ass off the railroad tracks, and you’re making jokes. Why the hell do you do that?”

  “The two funniest tribes I’ve ever been around are Indians and Jews, so I guess that says something about the inherent humor of genocide.”

  We laughed.

  “Listen to you, Jackson. You’re so smart. Why the hell are you on the streets?”

  “Give me a thousand dollars, and I’ll tell you.”

  “You bet I’d give you a thousand dollars if I knew you’d straighten up your life.”

  He meant it. He was the second-best cop I’d ever known.

  “You’re a good cop,” I said.

  “Come on, Jackson,” he said. “Don’t blow smoke up my ass.”

  “No, really, you remind me of my grandfather.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you Indians always tell me.”

  “No, man, my grandfather was a tribal cop. He was a good cop. He never arrested people. He took care of them. Just like you.”

  “I’ve arrested hundreds of scumbags, Jackson. And I’ve shot a couple in the ass.”

  “It don’t matter. You’re not a killer.”

  “I didn’t kill them. I killed their asses. I’m an ass-killer.”

  We drove through downtown. The missions and shelters had already released their overnighters. Sleepy homeless men and women stood on corners and stared up at the gray sky. It was the morning after the night of the living dead.

  “Did you ever get scared?” I asked Officer Williams.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, being a cop, is it scary?”

  He thought about that for a while. He contemplated it. I liked that about him.

  “I guess I try not to think too much about being afraid,” he said. “If you think about fear, then you’ll be afraid. The job is boring most of the time. Just driving and looking into dark corners, you know, and seeing nothing. But then things get heavy. You’re chasing somebody or fighting them or walking around a dark house and you just know some crazy guy is hiding around a corner, and hell yes, it’s scary.”

  “My grandfather was killed in the line of duty,” I said.

  “I’m sorry. How’d it happen?”

  I knew he’d listen closely to my story.

  “He worked on the reservation. Everybody knew everybody. It was safe. We aren’t like those crazy Sioux or Apache or any of those other warrior tribes. There’s only been three murders on my reservation in the last hundred years.”

  “That is safe.”

  “Yeah, we Spokane, we’re passive, you know? We’re mean with words. And we’ll cuss out anybody. But we don’t shoot people. Or stab them. Not much, anyway.”

  “So what happened to your grandfath
er?”

  “This man and his girlfriend were fighting down by Little Falls.”

  “Domestic dispute. Those are the worst.”

  “Yeah, but this guy was my grandfather’s brother. My great-uncle.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Yeah, it was awful. My grandfather just strolled into the house. He’d been there a thousand times. And his brother and his girlfriend were all drunk and beating on each other. And my grandfather stepped between them just like he’d done a hundred times before. And the girlfriend tripped or something. She fell down and hit her head and started crying. And my grandfather knelt down beside her to make sure she was all right. And for some reason, my great-uncle reached down, pulled my grandfather’s pistol out of the holster, and shot him in the head.”

  “That’s terrible. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, my great-uncle could never figure out why he did it. He went to prison forever, you know, and he always wrote these long letters. Like fifty pages of tiny little handwriting. And he was always trying to figure out why he did it. He’d write and write and write and try to figure it out. He never did. It’s a great big mystery.”

  “Do you remember your grandfather?”

  “A little bit. I remember the funeral. My grandmother wouldn’t let them bury him. My father had to drag her away from the grave.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I don’t, either.”

  We stopped in front of the detox center.

  “We’re here,” Officer Williams said.

  “I can’t go in there,” I said.

  “You have to.”

  “Please, no. They’ll keep me for twenty-four hours. And then it will be too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  I told him about my grandmother’s regalia and the deadline for buying it back.

  “If it was stolen,” he said, “then you need to file reports. I’ll investigate it myself. If that thing is really your grandmother’s, I’ll get it back for you. Legally.”

  “No,” I said. “That’s not fair. The pawnbroker didn’t know it was stolen. And besides, I’m on a mission here. I want to be a hero, you know? I want to win it back like a knight.”

  “That’s romantic crap.”

  “It might be. But I care about it. It’s been a long time since I really cared about something.”

  Officer Williams turned around in his seat and stared at me. He studied me.

  “I’ll give you some money,” he said. “I don’t have much. Only thirty bucks. I’m short until payday. And it’s not enough to get back the regalia. But it’s something.”

  “I’ll take it,” I said.

  “I’m giving it to you because I believe in what you believe. I’m hoping, and I don’t know why I’m hoping it, but I hope you can turn thirty bucks into a thousand somehow.”

  “I believe in magic.”

  “I believe you’ll take my money and get drunk on it.”

  “Then why are you giving it to me?”

  “There ain’t no such thing as an atheist cop.”

  “Sure there is.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not an atheist cop.”

  He let me out of the car, handed me two fives and a twenty, and shook my hand. “Take care of yourself, Jackson,” he said. “Stay off the railroad tracks.”

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  He drove away. Carrying my money, I headed back toward the water.

  8:00 A.M.

  On the wharf, those three Aleut men still waited on the wooden bench.

  “Have you seen your ship?” I asked.

  “Seen a lot of ships,” the elder Aleut said. “But not our ship.”

  I sat on the bench with them. We sat in silence for a long time. I wondered whether we would fossilize if we sat there long enough.

  I thought about my grandmother. I’d never seen her dance in her regalia. More than anything, I wished I’d seen her dance at a powwow.

  “Do you guys know any songs?” I asked the Aleuts.

  “I know all of Hank Williams,” the elder Aleut said.

  “How about Indian songs?”

  “Hank Williams is Indian.”

  “How about sacred songs?”

  “Hank Williams is sacred.”

  “I’m talking about ceremonial songs, you know, religious ones. The songs you sing back home when you’re wishing and hoping.”

  “What are you wishing and hoping for?”

  “I’m wishing my grandmother was still alive.”

  “Every song I know is about that.”

  “Well, sing me as many as you can.”

  The Aleuts sang their strange and beautiful songs. I listened. They sang about my grandmother and their grandmothers. They were lonely for the cold and snow. I was lonely for everybody.

  10:00 A.M.

  After the Aleuts finished their last song, we sat in silence. Indians are good at silence.

  “Was that the last song?” I asked.

  “We sang all the ones we could,” the elder Aleut said. “All the others are just for our people.”

  I understood. We Indians have to keep our secrets. And these Aleuts were so secretive that they didn’t refer to themselves as Indians.

  “Are you guys hungry?” I asked.

  They looked at one another and communicated without talking.

  “We could eat,” the elder Aleut said.

  11:00 A.M.

  The Aleuts and I walked over to Mother’s Kitchen, a greasy diner in the International District. I knew they served homeless Indians who’d lucked in to money.

  “Four for breakfast?” the waitress asked when we stepped inside.

  “Yes, we’re very hungry,” the elder Aleut said.

  She sat us in a booth near the kitchen. I could smell the food cooking. My stomach growled.

  “You guys want separate checks?” the waitress asked.

  “No, I’m paying for it,” I said.

  “Aren’t you the generous one,” she said.

  “Don’t do that,” I said.

  “Do what?” she asked.

  “Don’t ask me rhetorical questions. They scare me.”

  She looked puzzled, and then she laughed.

  “Okay, Professor,” she said. “I’ll only ask you real questions from now on.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What do you guys want to eat?”

  “That’s the best question anybody can ask anybody,” I said.

  “How much money you got?” she asked.

  “Another good question,” I said. “I’ve got twenty-five dollars I can spend. Bring us all the breakfast you can, plus your tip.”

  She knew the math.

  “All right, that’s four specials and four coffees and fifteen percent for me.”

  The Aleuts and I waited in silence. Soon enough, the waitress returned and poured us four coffees, and we sipped at them until she returned again with four plates of food. Eggs, bacon, toast, hash-brown potatoes. It is amazing how much food you can buy for so little money.

  Grateful, we feasted.

  Noon

  I said farewell to the Aleuts and walked toward the pawnshop. I later heard the Aleuts had waded into the saltwater near Dock 47 and disappeared. Some Indians said the Aleuts walked on the water and headed north. Other Indians saw the Aleuts drown. I don’t know what happened to them.

  I looked for the pawnshop and couldn’t find it. I swear it wasn’t located in the place where it had been before. I walked twenty or thirty blocks looking for the pawnshop, turned corners and bisected intersections, looked up its name in the phone books, and asked people walking past me if they’d ever heard of it. But that pawnshop seemed to have sailed away from me like a ghost ship. I wanted to cry. Right when I’d given up, when I turned one last corner and thought I might die if I didn’t find that pawnshop, there it was, located in a space I swore it hadn’t been filling up a few minutes before.

  I walked inside and greeted the pawnbroker, who look
ed a little younger than he had before.

  “It’s you,” he said.

  “Yes, it’s me,” I said.

  “Jackson Jackson.”

  “That is my name.”

  “Where are your friends?”

  “They went traveling. But it’s okay. Indians are everywhere.”

  “Do you have my money?”

  “How much do you need again?” I asked and hoped the price had changed.

  “Nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars.”

  It was still the same price. Of course it was the same price. Why would it change?

  “I don’t have that,” I said.

  “What do you have?”

  “Five dollars.”

  I set the crumpled Lincoln on the countertop. The pawnbroker studied it.

  “Is that the same five dollars from yesterday?”

  “No, it’s different.”

  He thought about the possibilities.

  “Did you work hard for this money?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He closed his eyes and thought harder about the possibilities. Then he stepped into his back room and returned with my grandmother’s regalia.

  “Take it,” he said and held it out to me.

  “I don’t have the money.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “But I wanted to win it.”

  “You did win it. Now, take it before I change my mind.”

  Do you know how many good men live in this world? Too many to count!

  I took my grandmother’s regalia and walked outside. I knew that solitary yellow bead was part of me. I knew I was that yellow bead in part. Outside, I wrapped myself in my grandmother’s regalia and breathed her in. I stepped off the sidewalk and into the intersection. Pedestrians stopped. Cars stopped. The city stopped. They all watched me dance with my grandmother. I was my grandmother, dancing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For their editorial advice, insults, and friendship, I want to thank Jess Walter, Shann Ferch, and Kevin Taylor.

  I also send loving trash talk out to the Thursday and Sunday night basketball boys. You know who you are.

  I certainly thank Elisabeth, Deb, Judy, and Morgan for twenty years of joy.

  For their support and patience, I extend special thanks to Reagan Arthur and Megan Tinley.

  To my agent hero, Nancy Stauffer, I send all the love and respect in the world.

  With her brilliant legal mind, Susan Grode has always been way ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to a rapidly changing publishing world. I am lucky to call her my friend and colleague.