Reservation Blues - Alexie Sherman

by Alexie Sherman

  Love,

  Lynn

  * * *

  Just before sunrise, Thomas and Chess walked into the lobby of their hotel and discovered America. No. They actually discovered Victor and Junior sleeping on couches in the lobby. No. They actually discovered Victor passed out on a couch while Junior read USA

  Today.

  "Where've you two been?" Chess asked."We've been looking for you all damn night."

  "We've been here a couple hours," Junior said.

  Thomas and Chess looked at each other.

  "Didn't the hotel hassle you for being here?" Thomas asked.

  "No," Junior said. "I think they figured we was rock stars and didn't want to piss us off."

  "Well," Chess said, "we certainly ain't rock stars."

  "Why didn't you go up to the room?" Thomas asked.

  "I couldn't carry him any farther? Junior said."And those damn bellboys wanted five bucks to help me."

  "Where's Checkers?" Chess asked.

  "I don't know," Junior said."Where is she supposed to be?"

  "In the room," Chess said.

  "Well, then," Junior said, "she's probably upstairs. You want to help me carry Victor up?"

  "Yeah," Thomas said, and all three of them carried Victor into the elevator.

  "Oh, man, he stinks," Chess said, and they all agreed.

  Chess looked closely at Junior. His eyes were bloodshot, but they weren't glossed over. He didn't even smell like booze.

  He just smelled like day-old clothes.

  "Don't you have a hangover?" Chess asked.

  "Nope," Junior said. "I didn't drink none. Just orange Juice."

  "How come?"

  "Somebody needed to stay sober," Junior said. "This is New York City, enit?"

  Chess was surprised at Junior's logic.

  "You know, Junior," Chess said, "you're always saving Victor from something?

  "Yeah, I know."

  They dragged Victor to their hotel room and knocked on the door. They were shocked all to hell when George Wright answered.

  "What's going on?'° Thomas and Junior asked, ready to fight.

  "Listen," Wright said, "it's all right. I was Just waiting for you to get back. Checkers asked me to wait. She's sleeping now."

  "What happened?" asked Chess as they dragged Victor into the room."Where's Checkers? What did you do to her?"

  "She's okay, she's okay," Wright said. "I didn't do anything. It was just a nightmare. She just had a nightmare."

  "A nightmare?" Chess asked.

  "Yes," Wright said, "a nightmare."

  Chess went to look in on Checkers. Thomas and Junior surrounded Wright as best as they could. Victor snored on the floor.

  "What are you doing here?" Junior asked."And where's that asshole Sheridan?"

  "I don't know where he is," Wright said."I just came here to apologize."

  "Apologize for what?" Junior asked.

  Chess walked out of the bedroom.

  "How is she?" Thomas asked.

  "She's sore, but okay, I guess," Chess said. "She said it was the worst nightmare she ever had."

  Junior shivered.

  "Checkers said you saved her life," Chess said to Wright.

  "I Just woke her up," Wright said.

  "Why you helping us?"

  "Because I owe you."

  "Owe us for what?"

  Wright looked at Coyote Springs. He saw their Indian faces. He saw the faces of millions of Indians, beaten, scarred by smallpox and frostbite, split open by bayonets and bullets. He looked at his own white hands and saw the blood stains there.

  9

  Small World

  Indian boy takes a drink of everything that killed his brother

  Indian boy drives his car through the rail, over the shoulder

  Off the road, on the rez, where survivors are forced to gather

  All his bones, all his blood, while the dead watch the world shatter

  chorus:

  But it's a small world

  You don't have to pay attention

  It's the reservation

  The news don't give it a mention

  Yeah, it's a small world

  Getting smaller and smaller and smaller

  Indian girl disappeared while hitchhiking on the old highway

  Indian girl left the road and some white wolf ate her heart away

  Indian girl found naked by the river, shot twice in the head

  One more gone, one more gone, and our world fills with all of our dead

  (repeat chorus)

  A week after Coyote Springs staggered from Manhattan back onto the Spokane Indian Reservation, Junior Polatkin stole a rifle from the gun rack in Simon's pickup. Junior didn't know anything about caliber, but he knew the rifle was loaded. He knew the rifle was loaded because Simon had told him so. Junior strapped that rifle over his shoulder and climbed up the water tower that had been empty for most of his life. He looked down at his reservation, at the tops of HUD houses and the Trading Post. A crowd gathered below him and circled the base of the tower. He could hear the distant sirens of Tribal Police cars and was amazed the cops were already on their way.

  Junior unshouldered the rifle. He felt the smooth, cool wood of the stock, set the butt of the rifle against the metal grating of the floor, and placed his forehead against the mouth of the barrel. There was a childhood game like that, Junior remembered, with a baseball bat. Standing at home plate, you placed one end of the bat on the ground and held your forehead against the other. You were supposed to spin round and round the bat, once, twice, ten times. Then you had to run from home plate to first base, weaving and falling like a drunk. Junior remembered. He flipped the safety off, held his thumb against the trigger, and felt the slight

  tension. Junior squeezed the trigger.

  * * *

  The night before Junior Polatkin climbed the water tower, Checkers Warrn Water crawled out of a bedroom window in Thomas Builds-the-Fire's house. She had to climb out of the window because the Tribal Police had ordered the band to stay inside the house. The death threats had started soon after Coyote Springs returned to the reservation, and the Tribal Police weren't taking anychances. Michael White Hawk had been released from Tribal Jail but didn't have much to say about the band. He Just walked blankly around the softball field with his huge head still wrapped in bandages, like some carnival psychic. The Tribal Cops kept suggesting that he should go to Indian Health Service, but White Hawk refused to go and Just stood for hours at the softball field. He wouldn't say anything at all, but then he would burst into sudden frenetic conversations with himself. He swung his fists at the air and tried to dig up that grave in center field before the Tribal Police calmed him down. White Hawk had been crazy and dangerous before he was knocked twice on the head. Now he had become

  crazy, dangerous, and unpredictable. Even White Hawk's buddies were afraid.

  "He's Just acting," White Hawk's friends reassured each other."He's Just trying to fool everybody into thinking he's goofy."

  White Hawk was asleep on third base when Checkers slipped out of the window in Thomas's house. Thomas didn't even move, but Chess stirred in bed as Checkers slipped away. Even sound asleep, Chess reached out for her sister. Checkers had not slept well since her return from New York. Phil Sheridan had come back again and again. Sometimes he threatened her. Other times he remained on the edge of her dreams. No matter what she dreamed about, Sheridan sat in a corner with a cup of coffee in his hands. He wore a wool suit or his cavalry dress blues. Sheridan had eventually forced Checkers to abandon her own room and sleep on the floor beside the bed that Thomas and Chess shared. Wide awake, Checkers climbed out the window and snuck past the Tribal Cops asleep in their cruisers. She avoided the roads and cut across fields. There was no moon on that night, and the walk was treacherous. She stepped in gopher holes, tripped over abandoned barbed wire, heard the laughter of animals. Checkers wasn't afraid of the dark. She was afraid of what waited in the dark. She heard ru
stling in the brush, the scratch-scratch of unseen animals as they climbed pine trees.

  But she made her way through to the Catholic Church. She saw its lights in the distance, and it grew larger and brighter as she approached. Checkers wasn't sure how long the walk had taken. But the church was still lit up, bright as God. She walked boldly through the front door and stepped inside.

  Father Arnold kneeled at the front of the church. His whole body rocked and shook. From Checkers's viewpoint, she couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying.

  "Father?" Checkers whispered, but he didn't respond.

  "Father?" Checkers said louder, and Arnold turned around. He had been crying, was still crying. He wiped his face with a sleeve of his cassock. He stood.

  "Father?" Checkers asked."Are you okay?"

  She slowly walked toward him. She had dreamed of this moment. Even as Phil Sheridan floated on the periphery, Checkers had dreamed of taking Father Arnold in her arms. She dreamed of the smell of his hair, washed with cheap shampoo, all that a priest could afford. She dreamed of the kiss they shared Just before Coyote Springs left for Big Mom"s house, for Manhattan.

  Checkers wasn't dreaming as she walked across the church, her muddy feet leaving tracks on the wood floor. She trailed her right hand over the pews, felt the splintered wood. Father Arnold had once told her those pews were over fifty years old. But Checkers didn't really care about the age of that wood. She walked up to Father Arnold and stood Just inches away.

  "Checkers," Father Arnold whispered.

  "Father."

  Checkers closed her eyes and expected the next kiss.

  "Checkers," Father Arnold said, "this is not going to happen. It can't. I'm sorry."

  Checkers looked up at him.

  "What are you talking about?" she asked.

  Father Arnold led Checkers to a pew and sat beside her.

  "I'm leaving the reservation," he said."I've lost my direction here."

  Father Arnold had served the Spokane Indian Reservation for five years and ministered with self-conscious kindness. He effusively praised even the smallest signs of an Indian's faith. He had cried at his first service when Bessie, the oldest Spokane Indian Catholic, presented him with a dreamcatcher. Other priests would have dismissed the dreamcatcher as Indian mysticism or mythological arts and crafts, but Father Arnold was genuinely thrilled by its intricate system of threads and beads. He had laughed out loud when he noticed the dreamcatcher was actually decorated with rosary beads.

  "Hang this over your bed," Bessie had said, "and it will catch those Protestant nightmares before they can sneak into your sIeep."

  "But what about Catholic nightmares?" Father Arnold had asked.

  "Protestants are a good Catholic's worst nightmare."

  Father Arnold had rushed home and hung it over his bed. Later that night, he stared up at the dreamcatcher over his head. He willed himself to think of the worst possible things. Murders, rapes, loss of faith. Father Arnold imagined that he was nailed to the cross. He heard the dull thud of hammer on nail.

  "Come on, nightmares," Arnold had whispered."You can't touch me now."

  *

  "Where are you going?" Checkers asked Father Arnold. "Where are they sending you?"

  "They aren't sending me anywhere," Arnold said."I'm leaving the church. I'm letting it all go."

  Checkers leaned back in the pew. She felt some winged thing bump against the interior of her ribcage. She felt the slight brush of wingtips as it struggled between her ribs and left her body. She had no name for it. Checkers heard that winged thing flutter against the stained-glass windows. Then it flew so close that she felt a slight breeze. She closed her eyes, and the winged thing was gone.

  "But I love you, " Checkers said.

  "I love you, too," Father Arnold said."But not like that. It can't work that way."

  "But you kissed me."

  "I know I kissed you. It was wrong."

  "You can't do this. You can't. Not now," Checkers said.

  She didn't know how much she had left. Coyote Springs had failed, had not even bothered to bring their instruments home from Manhattan. Checkers could see the guitars and keyboards strewn around the studio. Victor's guitar was smashed into pieces, but everything else was just as useless.

  "Would you like some headphones?" the attendant had asked Checkers during the flight home from Manhattan. Checkers just shook her head. The rest of Coyote Springs refused the headphones, too.

  Checkers sat next to the window, Chess in the middle, and Thomas in the aisle seat. Junior and Victor sat directly across the aisle, one on either side of an empty seat. It was the only empty seat on the plane.

  Coyote Springs didn't have much to say on the way home. They all drank their complimentary Pepsis and ate their roasted peanuts. Junior and Victor didn't order any booze. They didn't have the money. They might not have drank anyway, even if given the chance. After they returned home, both just sipped at tall glasses of ice water

  "Thomas and I had a talk," Chess whispered to Checkers somewhere over Iowa."We're going to move back to Arlee. We want you to come with us."

  "Why Arlee?" Checkers asked.

  "What do you mean? Those are our people. We don't have anywhere else to go anyway."

  "We can go anywhere. We can stay on the Spokane Reservation."

  "Jeez, Checkers. Will you get your head out of your ass? They don't want us there anymore."

  "How do you know that?" Checkers asked."Besides, it's only that White Hawk causing all the trouble. The people at the church still like me."

  "They only liked you because you quit the band," Chess said."And all you're worried about is Father Arnold anyway."

  The plane bounced through rough air, but Coyote Springs barely noticed. Junior looked out his window and wondered how he would feel if the plane lost power and began the long dive to the ground. The oxygen masks would drop from the ceiling while the flight attendants rushed from row to row, speaking in calm and practiced tones.

  Remove your eyewear. Remove all Jewelry. Make sure the aisles are clear. Buckle yourself in tightly. We're going to make it. We're going to make it. Don't panic. Panic is your enemy. Don't feel guily that you left college in the middle if an English class. During a boring discussion about the proper way to write an essay. Remember that you had no idea she was going to get an abortion. It's not your fault. You didn't want the baby either. Not really. Not until she didn't want you anymore. Not until she didn't want some halfbreed baby. Not until you thought about how much her parents hated you. How they deserved a halfbreed grandchild. How would they explain it to their friends? Please, breathe slowly. Hold on to the hand of the person next to you at impact. Don't let them go. Don't let them go even when the flames roll through the cabin and melt you into your seat. She had no other choice. She had no other choice. Our pilot has thousands of hours of flying experience. The whole crew has been trained to deal with these emergencies. No matter what happens, the coroners will be able to identify you fom your dental records. Indian Health Service keeps excellent records. And if you do survive the impact, survive the flames and the toxic smoke, then you will hear music. A cedar flute perhaps. Follow that music. Even though you don't deserve it. Follow that thin music.

  Junior closed his eyes and listened for the music. He didn't hear anything. He looked over at Victor, who was fighting back tears. Chess, Checkers, and Thomas could not have seen Victor from where they sat. Nobody could have known exactly why he was in mourning. The rest of Coyote Springs might have assumed it was because he had lost his chance to be a rock star. But he mourned for the loss of that guitar. Junior watched his best friend mourn, but he wanted to reach across the seat, touch Victor's arms, and point out the exits.

  "You can't leave," Checkers said to Father Arnold."You can't leave me, us, alone."

  "The Bishop will send another priest, " Father Arnold said.

  "They won't have any other option. They can't leave the community alone. I'm sure the new priest w
ill be here soon. They can arrange for a few visitors to conduct the services until he arrives."

  "That's not what I mean. You know that's not what I mean."

  Father Arnold searched his soul for the right words, the right prayer. He had always had them before. God, he had been sure of the answers. Self-deprecating and modest, he had still believed he was a great priest. He knew he was a great priest, in a quietly arrogant way. On some spiritual scoreboard in his head, he had kept count of the people he was saving.

  Checkers had taken all that away. No. That wasn't fair to Checkers. She didn't love him any more than other parishioners had. Father Arnold had resisted advances before. It happened to priests often enough to warrant a few good-natured jokes in the seminary. But Checkers had truly shaken Father Arnold and his vows. He dreamed about her every night. In those dreams, she led him into a tipi, lay down with him on a robe, and touched him. Frightened and aroused, Father Arnold woke and prayed that his dreamcatcher would work. He prayed that his dreams of Checkers would be trapped in the dreamcatcher's web.

  "I dream about you," Father Arnold said to Checkers.

  "I dream about you, too."

  "No," Arnold said. "I don't want to dream about you. I'm a man of God. I belong to God."

  Checkers reached for Father Arnold, but he stood and stepped away. He had always loved how his flock kept a respectable distance away, coming closer only with his permission.

  "I'm sorry," he said."But you need to leave. I need to leave."

  Father Arnold reached out to Checkers, reconsidered, and then quickly walked out of the church. Checkers didn't follow him. She leaned back in the pew and stared at the crucifix nailed to the wall. Jesus nailed to the cross that's nailed to the wall. She felt a sharp ache deep in her chest. She curled her knees up next to her breasts, wrapped her arms around her legs, and slowly rocked back and forth, back and forth.

  * * *

  On the day before Checkers made her escape to the Catholic Church, Victor Joseph sat alone on the couch. The rest of Coyote Springs was out on the front lawn, talking to the Tribal Cops. Victor had no use for Tribal Cops, even if they were supposedly protecting him. Victor stared at the space in the room where the television used to sit. Upon their arrival home, Coyote Springs had thrown out the television, which didn't work anyway, three radios, and a pair of squeaky cowboy boots. They didn't want to hear any kind of music. Victor stared at that space until he fell asleep. In his dream, Victor sat alone in the house and heard a soft noise in the distance. At first, he thought it was the conversation outside, but the noise took shape and became a C chord, then a D, F, and G. He clapped his hands to his ears, but the music would not stop. He stood and looked out the window at his bandmates and the cops, but they Just continued, oblivious to the music. He searched the house for the source. The two bedrooms were empty, as were the bathroom and kitchen. The music grew louder as Victor descended the stairs. In the unfinished basement, the blankets that served as walls swayed with the force of the chords. Victor searched under the stairs, in the bedrooms, and still couldn't find the source. He opened up the downstairs bathroom door and was knocked back by a vicious open chord. The guitar was leaning against the wall.