S,Envraru

ALE,IE (b.
1966) was born in Spoknne,
Washington.
74
regis_
tered member of the Spokane trt.be through his mother, i;;;;r';;;;;;'i*0,
,rt oot on the Spokane reseruation
^in
y:,pr"r!.,.V?f,ltignn At.Washingtin
itot, Urirerrity
he took a creqtioe zoriting course utith Alex iio a1d
legan
to pubrish in magazines
such as The Beloit
poetry
]ournal, fhe
Jo,-r.nut of Ethnic Stu{ies,
New
york
Quarterly'
ploughshare
s, and Zyzzyvu. in l-sgl he was o*rrari oioetry
ferota-
:!tp
frr:.the
.Washington
State Arts" Commtiss;;;,
;;;;;"#;';;:i,
receiaed
a poetry
fellowship
from
the Nationar Endowment
for the Arts.
In 1992 Arexie published
his
first
tzuo boiks,I
wourd steal Horses and rhe Bu1i,nesl
of Fancydancing:
stories and
poems.
seuerar more titres
forowed in rapid order, incruding
The Lone Ranger u.ra ro.,to Fistfight
in Heaven (1gg3),
uthich receiaed q pEN/Hemi"g:oy
ai,*ii*
best
first
book of
fiction.
Arexie arso roon the American
Book Awora
|oi
t i, noori i""uruation
Blues (lggD),
in which he imagined
what would happen ii the legendary
blrrr*on
Robert
Johnson u)ere resrlr_
rected on the Spokane Indian-Reseraition.
iniiun Killer (1g96)
is qnother
recent
nooel. His
film
smoke Sig.nals rnon prizes ot tir- sunaorce F,m Festiaar.
Alexie has stated,
,,1
am a ipoknne/Coeur
d,Alene Indian
from
Wellpinit,
washington,
where I riae on the spoknne rndian Reserration.
Eaerything
I do now,
writing and otherwise,has
its origin in tnati iis shortfiction,
tike
,,"Trte
ione Ranger
and Tonto Fistfight in H*:r!.,,, ieflects his u* oj th, icons of popular
culture _
radio
and teleuision programs,
7-Ereoei
stores, tl,,e nlo,
.pro*i*
of adaertising
-
to
faciti- tate a rapid crossoaer
betzoeen storyteller
and reader. As the critic susai n. Brill hqs noticed, "Little
eaer changes in the"rioes ,f alr-ir;, characters.
Commodita
food, arco_
holism, and desperation'are
constants
in the stories.,,
The Toughest
Iniian in the World (2000)
is his latest story collection.
S HrnvraN
A rExrr
The Lone Ranger
and Tonto
Eistfight
in Heaoen
Too hot to sleep so I walked down to the Third Avenue 7-7\ for a Creamsicle
'r*:."o*p:,.ry
of a graveyard-shift
cashier. I know that game. I worked graveyard
ror a seattle z-"lt andgot ,ouu"J;""
too ort".,. The last
ffi;il""l*tard
locked me in the cooter. U""."""irrt.r,l.money
and basket_
The graveyard-shift
worker in the Third Avenue 7-11 looked rike they all do' Acne scars and a bad haircut, work pants that r^o*Jonrus
white socks,
'14
\-
t u( t,t,ne rnnq.,r finfi towo rtgrfifint ln Hewen. It
a,d tlrose clreap black shoes that have no support. My arches stin ache from
my year at the Seattle 7-11.
"Hello," he asked when I walked into his store.
,,How
you doing?,,
I gave him a half-wave as I headed back to the freezer. He looked me
over so he could describe me to the police later. I knew the look. one of my old
girlfriends said I started to look at her that way, too. she left me not long after
that. No, I left her and don't blame her for anything. That,s how it happened.
when one person starts to look at another like a criminal, then the love is over.
It's logical.
'I don't trustyort," she said to me.
,,you
get too angry.,,
she was white and I lived with her in Seattle. some nights we fought so
bad that I would just get in my car and drive all night, only"stop to fil irp on
gas. In fact, I worked the graveyard shift to spend as much time araray from her
as possible. But I learned all about seattle thatway,driving its back ways and
dirty alleys.
Sometimes, though, I wourd forget where I was and get lost. I'd drive for
hours, searching for something familiar. seems like I,d slpent my whole life
that way, looking for anything I recognized. once, I ended up in a nice resi-
dential neighborhood and somebody must have been *or.i.d because the
police showed up and pulled me over.
"what are you doing outhere?" the porice officer asked me as he looked
over my license and registration.
"I'mlost."
"Well, where are you supposed tobe?,,he asked me, and I knew there
were plenty of places I wanted to be, but none where I was supposed to be.
"I got in a fight with my girlfriend,,, I said.
,,I
was
lust
diiving around,
blowing off steam, you know?,,
"well, you should be'more careful where you drive," the officer said.
'-'Yoy're making people nervous.
you
don't fit ihe profire of the neighbor-
hood."
I wanted to tell him that I didn't really fit the profile of the country but I
knew it would just get me into trouble.
"Canlhelp you?" the 7-71clerk asked me loudly, searching for some
response that would reassure him that I wasn,t r., u.*"d robber. HJknew this
dark skin and long, black hair of mine was dangerous. I had potentiar.
"]ust getting a Creamsicle
," r said after a long interval. it *u, a sick twist
to pull on the guy, but it was late and I was bored. I grabbed my Creamsicle
and walked back to the counter slowly, scanned the aLles for effect. I wanted
to whistle low and menacingly but I never learned to whistle.
"Pretty hot out tonight?" he asked, that old rhetorical weather bullshit
question designed to put us both at ease.
"Hot enough to make you go ctazy," I said and smiled. He swallowed
hard like a white man does in those situations. I looked him over. same ord
green/ red, and white 7-.11, jacket and thick glasses. But he wasn,t ugly, just
misplaced and marked by loneliness. If he wasn't working there thai night,
i,I:],Tt';lrile
arone, flipping
rrrrough channers
and wrshrng
he, crurtJ nfrrord
,,Will
this be all?,,he
asked me, in that company
effort to make me do some impulse
shopping,
Like adding a crause ontoa treaty.
we,ril take washing_ ton and oregon, ,ra y!.get
six pirr"trrrc
ond o brooi_*ir'
iiirt*
Cordoba.
r knew how to make una bi"ak pro*ir""
-
,,No,,,
I said and paused.
,,Give
me a Cherry Slushie, too.,,
"What size?,, he asked, relieved.
eruDruE/ L(r(r.
"Large,"
I said, and he turned his back to me to make the drink. He rear- ized his mistake but it was too rate. n" rin"r"a,
;""dil;;
il
|unrr,ot o, the blow behind the ear. When it didn;,
".rJ
n" turned back to me.
".I'm
sorry,,' he said.
,,What
size did'you
say?,,
"Small,,,
I said and changed
the storv.
"Brrt I thought you said i"arge.,,
"If youknew
I wanted a hrle, then why did you ask me again?,,I
asked him and laughed'
He looked ,t #;";il";ii"",TJ#i**
,,1['*
** serious shit or just
goofing. There *u, ,o*",ni-,g
about him I ,iked, even if it was three in the morning
and he *u, *hit".
-'.
"H"y"
I said' "Forget
the srushie.
what I want to know is if you know alt the words to the theml f.o*
,Th"
;;;dy Bunch,?,,
He looked at me, confused
at first, iien taughed.
"Shit,, he said.
,,I
was hoping yo" *"r"rr,t
irazy.youwere
scaring me.,, '-!Ie-ll,I'm
going.to
g"t
"riry\f
you don,t know the words.,,
He laughed
loudry *r".,, toia *" toiutu
*," c;;ri"l;;;r
free. He was the graveyard-shift
manager
and those rittre demonskations
of power
tickred him. All seventy_fivecents
of it. I t<rrew how much everything
cost.
"Thanks,,,I
said to him and wakJ o1ft: d":1. irilil;;e
walking home, Iet the heat of
.the
nignt mertih;tilmsicte
a, over my hand. At three in the morning I could_act
l"ust
as yr""g;;
wanted to act. Tiere *u, .ro o.r" around to ask me to grow up.
o"f
,,T; #I";."*Tiffi:fffi#ii#urd
argue and I'dbreaka
lamp, just
ind beautirur. erilrt"'
u *r,,e she,d buy,r#;:t#H;T,1i[?;r"#""]*;
Then she just
gave up the idea
""til;;J;;"
;fi"-;;;ili:"
;il?;TJtrJlfffi
Hi#ffi1;1;f
i"r
-D#rk
a,r the tiilJ una st,pia
.
' she and I never tried to nu.t er". ott er physicary.
I did rove he1, after all, and she loved me..But thor" ,ffiJrir,
*"ru just
as damaging
as a fist. I^/ords can be like that, you knowiWt"rr".r",
I get into arguments
now, I remember
her and I also rememuu,
tvtriu.i*aa
rt. H" k"";;h;power
of his fists but' more imo-ortantry,
he knew iiu po*".
of his words, too. Even though he only had ur,'tg or ao o. ,", ari
-r,
a genius. And she was a genius, too. She knew. exactly what to *y to
"r"r"
*u the most pain.
But don't
Set
me
ly1ng
f witd ,t r"gh that relltionship
with an exe_ cutioner's
hood. Or more appropriately,
with war paint and sharp arrows. She was a kindergarten
teacheiand
i contiiruatty
insuttea
her for that.
"Hey, schoolmarm," I asked. "Did your kids teach you anything new
tudny?'f
And I always had crazy dreams. I always have had them, but it seemed
tJrt,y bccame nightmares more often in Seattle.
lrr one dream, she was a missionary's wife and I was a minor war chief.
Wc fcll in love and tried to keep it secret. But the missionary caught us fucking
ltt thc barn and shot me. As I lay dying, my tribe learned of the shooting and
ctttrcked the whites all across the reservation. I died and my soul drifted above
tltc reservation.
Disembodied, I could see everything that was happening' Whites killing
lrrdians and Indians killing whites. At first it was small, just my tribe and the
l'r,w whites who lived there. But my dream grew, intensified. Other tribes
nrrived on horseback to continue the slaughter of whites, and the United
Sttttes Cavalry rode into battle.
The most vivid image of that dream stays with me. Three mounted sol-
dicrs played polo with a dead Indianwoman's head. When I first dreamed it, I
thought it was just a product of my anger and imagination. But since then, I've
rcad similar accounts of that kind of evil in the old West. Even more tettifytng,
tlrough, is the fact that those kinds of brutal things are happening today in
places like El Salvador.
All I know for sure, though, is that I woke from that dream in terror,
;-racked
up all my possessions, and left Seattle in the middle of the night.
"I love you," she said as I left her. "And don't ever come back."
I drove through the night, over the Cascades, down into the plains of
ce1l1al Washington, and back home totheSpokane Indian Reservation.
When I finished the Creamsicle that the 7-11 clerk gave me, I held the
wooden stick up into the air and shouted out very loudly. A couple lights
flashed on in windows and a police car cruised by me a few minutes later' I
waved to the men in blue and they waved back accidentally' When I got home
it was still too hot to sleep so I picked up a week-old newspaper from the floor
and read.
There was another civil war, another terrorist bomb exploded, and one
more plane crashed and all aboard were presumed dead' The crime rate was
rising in every city with populations larger than 100,000, and a farmer in Iowa
shot his banker after foreclosure on his 1,000 acres.
A kid from Spokane won the local spelling bee by spelling thewotdrhi-
noceros.
When I got back to the reservatiory my family wasn't surprised to see
me. They'd been expecting me back since the day I left for Seattle' There's an
old Indian poet who said that Indians can reside in the city, but they can never
live there. That's as close to truth as any of us can get.
Mostly I watched television. For weeks I flipped through channels,
searched for answers in the game shows and soap oPeras. My mother would
circle the want ads in red and hand the paper to me.
"What are you going to do with the rest of your life?" she asked.
1C Sherntan
Alexle
"Don,t know,, I said, and normally,
for almost any other Indian in the country, that would have been u p".f".ity
fr"";;;;;.r#;;;;;.rJ;
former co'ege student, a smart kti.i;;;
one of those Indians
who was sup_ posed to make it, to rise above the rest of the reservation
rike a fucking eagle or something.
I was the new kind of warrior.
For a few months I didn't even look at the want ads my mother circred, just
left the newspaper
where she had *, fg"y*';;d,
*r.1,ll*""gtr,
r got tired of terevision
and started to pray uurtu,uutt
again. t,d u""" r'g"ra phyer in high school, nearry great, and arri*,
frry"a
at the colege I attended
for a couple years. But I,d been too out of shaJe from drinking and sadness to ever
h:f,::i;3ftT#:'*:f*
th" *'v ;;;;r rert in *v #;;;;the
wav'mv
At first I just
shot b.asr<{s by myserf. It was serfish, and r arso wanted to
1"".i,rn:
game again before
I flry"j
rgrinst anybody
etse. Since I had been good before and embarrassed
ierow triSJmembers,
I knew they would want to take revenge
on me. Forget about thecowboys
versus Indians business.
The most intense competition
o.r r.,y reservation
is Indians versus Indians.
,."
*H;TJ[T1il:ild"',Tj[*.ptuv
io. rear, there was this white guy at
"14/ho is that?,, Iasked
Iimmy Sevler.
"He,s the new BlAr chief,s tia..'
"Can he play?,,
"oh'Yeah'"
,n" r"fflrnico-uld
play. He ptayed Indian ball, fast and loose, better rhan all
"How long,s he been playing
here?,, I asked.
"Longenough.,,
I stretched
my muscles,-and
everybody
watched
me. All these Indians
watched one of their old and dusty herJes. B;"r, ,h;gh ii.,J
Oirr"a most of my ball at the white high school i*;;;;
I was stilt all *rdian, you know? I
ilH#iff#I:X.it
counted,
and this sia tia
"""d;;;;;'u'"1t",,
uy u,,
I jumped
into the, gaTe and,played
well for a little while. It felt good. I hit a few shots, grabbed
i,*prylril
i,"r,
ily"a enough defense to keep the other team honest' Then that white kid tooi trr", the gJme. H" *u, too gooa. Late1, he'd play coilege ball back East ,"J *"rra nearly make the Knicks team a couple years on. But we didn,t know ,r,y,of that would happen.
We just
knew he was better that day una
"rr"ry "af-,"ldry. The next morning,I
woke up tir"a urj hlngry, so I grabbed
the want
#'*:fffl:i
j^H*r,
u"a a,oiuio
sporl'e to get it. r,vI been working at
someimesr*o;;-ffi
Jixlfi l;il
jffi;.T#:iillxTJf,
:T,ri:l;
Indian and if their voices would change if th;; did know.
one day I picked up the phone u"a ri*lr her, ca,ing from seattre.
IIJureau
of Indian Affairs.
)
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaaen
"I got your number from your mom,,, she said.
,,I,m
glad you,re work_
lng,"
"Yeah, nothing like a regular paycheck.,,
"Are you drinking?"
"No, I've been on the wagon for almost a year.,,
"Good."
The connection was good. I could hear her breathing in the spaces
bctween our words. How do you talk to the real person *]ror" ghost has
hnunted you? How do you tell the difference between the two?
"Listert," I said. "I'm sorry for everything.,,
"Me,too."
"What's going to happen to :us?,, I asked her and wished I had the
6nswer for myself.
"I don't know," she said. "I want to change the world.,,
These days, living alone in Spokane, I wish I lived closer to the river, to
the falls where ghosts of salmon jump. I wish I could sreep. I put down my
Peper
or book and turn off all the lights, lie quietly in the dark. It may takl
hours, even years, for me to sleep again. There's nothing surprising o, iirup-
polnting in that.
I know how all my dreams end anyway.
Ilee3l