Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories

by Sherman Alexie

  He’d never been courageous enough to do it, but he always considered it. He always almost did it. He almost always ran home and told Helen how close he’d been to doing it, how he was sure he could do it the next time, and she hugged him and told him how smart and good and handsome he was. Helen was loving and crazy and unpredictable and gentle and voluble and bitter and funny and a thousand other good and bad and indefinable things, but she was certainly not a liar.

  “Are you telling the truth?” Frank asked her. “Were you really a good basketball player?”

  “People said I was good,” she said and shrugged. “If enough people say you’re good at something, then you’re probably good at it.”

  “Okay, cool,” Frank said. “Do you want to play ball with me?”

  “Remember, you have to spell ‘implication’ first,” Harrison said.

  “It’s spelled ‘D-A-D I-S A J-E-R-K,’” Frank said.

  All three of them laughed. They were always laughing. That was what people said about the Snake Churches. People said the Snake Churches were good at laughing.

  “Okay, okay,” Helen said. “Let’s play ball. But I’m not making any guarantees. It’s been a long time.”

  So mother and son took to the court and played basketball. At first, she practiced shots while he rebounded her makes and misses and passed the ball back to her. She had a funny shot, a one-handed push, and she missed the first ten or twelve before her body remembered the game, and then she rarely missed. From ten feet away, then fifteen, then twenty, and twenty-five feet, she shot and made it and shot and made it and shot and made it and shot and missed it and then shot and made it and shot and made it and shot many times and made many more than she missed.

  “Wow,” Frank said to his mother as she shot. He kept saying it. It was all he could think to say. This was a new ceremony for them, for this mother and son. They’d created and shared other ceremonies. They baked cookies together; they told stories to each other at night; they made up love songs while she drove him to school; they gave silly nicknames to strangers in shopping malls; they made up stupid knock-knock jokes and laughed until milk sprayed out of their noses. But they’d never played a sport together, had never been this physical, this strong and competitive. Frank looked at his mother, and he saw a new woman, a different person, a mysterious stranger, and a romantic figure.

  “Mom,” Frank said. “You’re a ballplayer.”

  Oh man, he loved her, and he felt like crying yet again. Oh, he was young and worshipful and sentimental, and he didn’t know it, but his mother would always want her son to be young and worshipful and sentimental. She prayed that the world, filled with its cruel people and crueler philosophies, would not punish her son too harshly for being so kind and so receptive to kindness.

  “Mom,” Frank said. “Show me something new.”

  So Helen dribbled the ball toward the hoop, dribbled across the key, and shot a rolling left-handed hook that bounced around the rim and dropped in.

  “Oh, sweetie! I love you!” Harrison shouted from the grass and sprayed chicken and banana into the air. “That was her favorite move, son, she never missed that one! And nobody ever stopped it. Hell, I never stopped it!”

  “Do it again,” Frank said.

  So Helen shot the left-handed hook again. She shot it twenty times and made nineteen of them.

  “She’s beautiful!” Harrison shouted and ran to join his wife and son on the court. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  Frank wondered if this was the best day of his whole life so far, if he would ever be this happy again. Those were extreme thoughts for an eleven-year-old, and Frank, though he was that eleven-year-old, understood he was being extreme, but it was the only way he knew how to be. It was the only way he’d been taught to be.

  So mother, father, and son played basketball for hours, until it got dark enough for the streetlights to blink on, until it was too dark for even the streetlights to make any difference, until Frank could barely keep his eyes open, until Helen and Harrison took their exhausted son home and put him to bed and watched him sleep and breathe, and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale.

  On the first anniversary of his father’s death, Frank stepped outside to see what kind of day it was. He cursed the rain, stepped back inside to grab his windbreaker, and walked to the covered courts over on Rainier Avenue. On a sunny day, fifty guys played at Rainier, but on that rainy day, Preacher was shooting hoops all by himself; he was always shooting hoops by himself. Two or three hundred set shots a day. One day a month, he closed his eyes and shot blindly and would never reveal why he performed such an eccentric ceremony.

  “Honey, honey, honey,” Preacher always said when asked. “Just let the mystery be.”

  On that day, Preacher’s eyes were wide open when Frank joined him for a game of Horse.

  “Hey, Frank Snake Church, what ever happened to you?” Preacher asked. He always asked variations of the same question when he saw Frank. “Tell me, tell me, tell me, what ever happened to Frank Snake Church, what the hell happened to Benjamin Franklin Snake Church?”

  Preacher hit a thirty-foot bank shot, but Frank missed it. Preacher hit a left-handed hook shot from half-court, but Frank threw the ball over the basket.

  “Look at me,” said Preacher. “I’m a senior citizen and I’ve given Frank the ‘H’ and the ‘O.’ Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas. But wait, I must stop and ponder this existential dilemma. How could I, a retired blue-collar worker, a fixed-income pensioner, a tattered coat upon a stick, how could I be defeating the legendary Frank Snake Church? What the hell is wrong with this picture? What the hell ever happened to Frank Snake Church?”

  “I am Frank Snake Church in the here and now and forever,” Frank said and laughed. He loved to listen to Preacher rant and rave. A retired railroad engineer, Preacher was a gray-haired black man with a big belly. He stood at the top of the key, bounced the ball off the free-throw line, and off the board into the hoop.

  “That was a garbage shot,” Frank said. “You’d never take that shot in a real game. Never.”

  “Every game is real, every game is real, every game is real,” Preacher chanted as Frank missed the trick shot.

  “That’s a screaming scarlet ‘R’ for you,” said Preacher and called out his next shot. “This one is all net all day.”

  Preacher hit the fifteen-foot swish, and Frank also swished it.

  “Oh, a pretty little shot by the Indian stranger,” said Preacher.

  “I ain’t no stranger, I am Frank Snake Church.”

  “Naw, you ain’t no Frank Snake Church,” Preacher said. “I saw Frank Snake Church score seventy-seven against the Ballard Beavers in 1979. I saw Frank Snake Church shoot twenty-eight for thirty-six from the field and twenty-one for twenty-two from the line. I saw Frank Snake Church grab nineteen rebounds that same night and hand out eleven dimes. Yeah, I knew Frank Snake Church. Frank Snake Church was a friend of basketball, and believe me, you ain’t no Frank Snake Church.”

  “My driver’s license says I’m Frank Snake Church.”

  “Your social security card, library card, unemployment check, and the tattoo on your right butt cheek might say Frank Snake Church,” Preacher said, “but you, sir, are an imposter; you are a doppelgänger; you are a body snatcher; you are a pod person; you are Frank Snake Church’s evil and elderly twin is what you are.”

  Preacher closed his eyes and hit a blind shot from the corner. Frank closed his eyes and missed by five feet.

  “That’s an ‘S’ for you, as in Shut Up and Learn How to Play Another Game,” said Preacher. “God could pluck out my eyes, and you could play with a microscope, and I’d still beat you. Man, you used to be somebody.”

  “I am now what I always was,” Frank said.

  “You now and you then are two entirely different people. You used to be Frank the Snake, Frank the Hot Dog, but now you’re just a plain Oscar Mayer wiener, just a burned-up frankfurter without any damn mustard to make you taste b
etter, make you easier to swallow. I watch you toss up one more of those ugly jumpers, and I’m going to need the Heimlich to squeeze your ugliness out of my throat.”

  “Nope, Frank now and Frank then are exactly the same. I am a tasty indigenous sausage.”

  “You were young and fresh, and now you’re prehistoric, my man, you’re only about two and a half hours younger than the Big Bang, that’s how old you are. And I know you’re old because I’m old. I smell the old on you like I smell the old on me. And it reeks, son, it reeks of stupid and desperate hope.”

  Preacher hit a Rick Barry two-handed scoop-shot free throw.

  “I can’t believe you took that white-boy shot,” Frank said. “I’m going to turn you in to the NAACP for that sinful thing.”

  “Honey, I believe in the multicultural beauty of this diverse country.”

  “But that Anglo crap was just plain ugly.”

  “Did it go in?” Preacher asked.

  “Well, it went in, but it didn’t go in pretty.”

  “All right, pretty boy, let’s see what you got.”

  Frank clanged the shot off the rim.

  “My shot might’ve been ugly,” Preacher said, “but your shot is missing chromosomes. You want me to prove it, or you want to lose this game all by yourself?”

  “Here begins my comeback,” said Frank as he took the shot and missed again.

  “Spell it out, honey, that’s ‘H-O-R-S’ and double ‘E.’ Game over.”

  “Man, I can’t believe I lost on that old-fashioned antique.”

  “Sweetheart, I might be old-fashioned, but you’re just plain old.”

  Frank felt hot and stupid. He tasted bitterness—that awful need to cry—and he was ashamed of his weakness, and then he was ashamed of being ashamed.

  “Age don’t mean anything,” Frank said. “I walk onto any court in this city, and I’m the best baller. Other guys might be faster or stronger, maybe they jump higher, but I’m smarter. I’ve got skills and I’ve got wisdom.”

  Frank’s heart raced. He wondered if he was going to fall again; he wondered if lightning was going to strike him again.

  “You might be the wisest forty-year-old ballplayer in the whole city,” Preacher said. “You might be the Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates of Seattle street hoops, but you’re still forty years old. You should be collecting your basketball pension.”

  “You’re twenty years older than me,” Frank said. “Why are you giving me crap about my age?”

  Frank could hear the desperation in his own voice, so he knew Preacher could also hear it. In another time, in other, less civilized places, desperate men killed those who made them feel desperation. Who was he kidding? Frank knew, and Preacher should have known, that desperate men are fragile and dangerous at all times and places. Frank wanted to punch Preacher in the face. Frank wanted to knock the old man to the ground and kick and kick and kick and kick him and break his ribs and drive bone splinters into the old man’s heart and lungs.

  “I know I’m old,” Preacher said. “I know it like I know the feel of my own sagging ball sack. I know exactly how old I am in my brain, in my mind. And my basketball mind is the same age as my basketball body. Old, old, ancient, King Tut antique. But you, son, you’re in denial. Your mind is stuck somewhere back in 1980, but your eggshell body is cracking here in the twenty-first century.”

  “I’m only forty years old,” Frank said. He bounced the ball between his legs, around his back, thump, thump, between his legs, around his back, thump, thump, again and again, thump, thump, faster and faster, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

  “Basketball years are like dog years,” Preacher said. “You’re truly about two hundred and ninety-nine years old.”

  Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

  “I’m still a player,” Frank said. “I’m still playing good and hard.”

  Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

  “But why are you still playing so hard?” Preacher asked. “What are you trying to prove? You keep trying to get all those years back, right? You’re trying to time-machine it, trying to alternate-universe it, but one of these days, you’re going to come down wrong on one of your arthritic knees, and it will be over. What will you do then? You’ve bet your whole life on basketball, and playground basketball at that, and what do you have to show for it? Look at you. You’re not some sixteen-year-old gangster trying to play your way out of the ghetto. You ain’t even some reservation warrior boy trying to shoot your way off the reservation and into some white-collar job at Microsoft Ice Cream. You’re just Frank the Pretty Good Shooter for an Old Fart. Nobody’s looking to recruit you. Nobody’s going to draft you. Ain’t no university alumni lining up to financially corrupt your naive ass. Ain’t no pretty little Caucasian cheerleaders looking to bed you down in room seven of the Delta Delta Delta house. Ain’t no ESPN putting you in the Plays of the Day. You ain’t as cool as the other side of the pillow. You’re hot and sweaty, like an orthopedic support. You’re one lonely Chuck Taylor high-top rotting in the ten-cent pile at Goodwill. Your game is old and ugly and misguided, like the Salem witch trials. You’re committing injustice every time you step on the court. I think I’m going to organize a march against your ancient ass. I’m going to boycott you. I’m going to boycott your corporate sponsors. But wait, you ain’t got any corporate sponsors, unless Nike has come out with a shoe called Tired Old Bastard. So why don’t you just give up the full-court game and the half-court game and enjoy the fruitful retirement of shooting a few basketballs and drinking a few glasses of lemonade.”

  Frank stopped bouncing the ball and threw it hard at Preacher, who easily caught it and laughed.

  “Man oh man,” Preacher said. “I’m getting to you, ain’t I? I’m hurting your ballplaying heart, ain’t I?”

  Preacher threw the ball back at Frank, who also caught it easily, and resumed the trick dribbling, the thump, thump, thump, and thump, thump.

  “I play ball because I need to play,” Frank said.

  Thump, thump.

  “And I need yearly prostate exams,” Preacher said, “so don’t try to tell me nothing about needing nothing.”

  Thump, thump.

  “I’m playing to remember my mom and dad,” Frank said.

  Preacher laughed so hard he sat on the court.

  “What’s so funny?” Frank asked. He dropped the ball and let it roll away.

  “Well, I just took myself a poll,” Preacher said. “And I asked one thousand mothers and fathers how they would feel about a forty-year-old son who quit his high-paying job to pursue a full-time career as a playground basketball player in Seattle, Washington, and all one thousand of them mothers and fathers cried in shame.”

  “Preacher,” Frank said, “it’s true. I’m not kidding. This is, like, a mission or something. My mom and dad are dead. I’m playing to honor them. It’s an Indian thing.”

  Preacher laughed harder and longer. “That’s crap,” he said. “And it’s racist crap at that. What makes you think your pain is so special, so different from anybody else’s pain? You look up death in the medical dictionary, and it says everybody’s going to catch it. So don’t lecture me about death.”

  “Believe me, I’m playing to remember them.”

  “You’re playing to remember yourself. You’re playing because of some of that nostalgia. And nostalgia is a cancer. Nostalgia will fill your heart up with tumors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s what you are. You’re just an old fart dying of terminal nostalgia.”

  Frank moaned—a strange, involuntary, and primal noise—and turned his back on Preacher. Frank wept and furiously wiped the tears from his face.

  “Oh man, are you crying?” Preacher asked. He was alarmed and embarrassed for Frank.

  “Leave me alone,” Frank said.

  “Oh, come on, man, I’m just talking.”

  “No, you’re not just talking. You’re talking about my whole failed life.”

  “You ain’t no failure. I’m just try
ing to distract you. I’m just trying to win.”

  “Don’t you condescend to me. Don’t. Don’t you look inside me and then pretend you didn’t look inside me.”

  Preacher felt the heat of Frank’s mania, of his burning.

  “Listen, brother,” Preacher said. “Why don’t we go get some decaf and talk this out? I had no idea this meant so much to you. Why don’t we go talk it out?”

  Frank walked in fast circles around Preacher, who wondered if he could outrun the younger man.

  “Listen,” said Frank. “You can’t take something away from me, steal from me, and then just leave me. You have to replace what you’ve broken. You have to fix it.”

  “All right, all right, tell me how to fix it.”

  “I don’t know how to fix it. I didn’t know it could be broken. I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to do.”

  “Hey, brother, hey, man, this is too heavy for me and you, all right? Why don’t we head over to the church and talk to Reverend Billy?”

  “You’re a preacher.”

  “That’s just my name. They call me Preacher because I talk too much. I ain’t spiritual. I just talk. I don’t know anything.”

  “You’re a preacher. Your name is Preacher.”

  “I know my name is Preacher, but that’s like, that’s just, it’s, you know, it’s nothing but false advertising.”

  Frank stepped quickly toward the old man, who raised his fists in defense. But Frank only hugged him hard and cried into the black man’s shoulder. Preacher didn’t know what to do. He was pressed skin-to-skin with a crazy man, maybe a dangerous man, and how the hell do you escape such an embrace?

  “I’m sorry, brother,” Preacher said. “I didn’t know.”

  Frank laughed. He released Preacher. He turned in circles and walked away. And he laughed. He stood on the grass on the edge of the basketball court and spun in circles. And he laughed. Preacher couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. He’d known quite a few crazy people in his life. A man doesn’t grow up black in the USA without knowing a lot of crazy black folks, without being born to and giving birth to the breakable and broken. But Preacher had never seen this kind of crazy, and he’d certainly never seen the exact moment when a crazy man went completely crazy.