Authors: Sherman Alexie

Tags: #General Fiction

Blasphemy (53 page)

BOOK: Blasphemy

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“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 looked 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.

To Rosalie Swedlin, I sing an honor song for her guidance.

And, of course, to my mother and siblings for loving my stories even when they probably reveal too many family secrets.

And most of all, I want to thank my wife, Diane, and my sons, Joseph and David. It’s hard to live with a writer but they manage to survive me with beauty and grace. I cherish them.