Reservation Blues - Alexie Sherman (9 page)

Luke Warm Water started to scream then, a
high-pitched wail that sounded less than human. Maybe it sounded too
human. Colors poured out of him. Red flowed out of his mouth, and
black seeped from his pores. Those colors mixed together and filled
the room. Chess grabbed Checkers's hand and squeezed it until both
cried out in pain.

"Don't look," Chess said to her sister.
"Don't even move."

The sisters kept their eyes closed for minutes,
hours, days.

When Chess and Checkers opened them again, they
buried Backgammon in a grave Luke Warm Water dug for three days
because the ground was frozen solid. When the sisters opened their
eyes, Linda Warm Water took a knife to her skin and made three
hundred tiny cuts on her body. In mourning, in mourning. When the
Warm Waters opened their eyes, Luke traded his snowshoes for a good
coat, a case of whiskey, and stayed warm and drunk for weeks.
Checkers remembered so much about her father. She was sure she
remembered more than her sister ever did and wondered if Chess would
tell Thomas any secrets.

"You know," Chess said to Thomas in the
kitchen, just as Checkers fell into the sleep and familiar nightmares
of her uncomfortable bed, "I still miss Backgammon. I didn't
know him very long. But I miss him."

"What did you do after he died?" Thomas
asked.

"
We mostly kept to ourselves," Chess said.
"We'd wake up before our parents and be out the door into the
trees and hills. We'd play outside all day, eat berries and roots,
and only come back home when it got too cold and dark.

"Sometimes we'd climb tall trees and watch the
house. We'd watch our father storm out the door and down the road to
town. He'd stay away for days at a time, drinking, drunk, passed out
on the muddy streets in Arlee. Mom played the piano when Dad was
gone, and we could hear it. We'd stay close enough to hear it.

"
I used to think her songs drifted across the
entire reservation. I imagined they knocked deer over and shook the
antlers of moose and elk. Can you believe that? The music crept into
the dreams of hibernating bears and turned them into nightmares.
Those bears wouldn't ever leave their dens and starved to death as
spring grew warmer. Those songs floated up to the clouds, fell back
to the earth as rain, and changed the shape of plants and trees. I
once bit into a huckleberry, and it tasted like my brother's tears. I
used to believe all of that."

Thomas smiled at her. He had just met the only Indian
who told stories like his. He took a sip of his coffee and never even
noticed it was cold. How do you fall in love with a woman who grew up
without electricity and running water, who grew up in such poverty
that other poor Indians called her family poor?

"
Jeez," Chess said, "there I go again,
running at the mouth. You must be tired. Why don't you sleep on the
couch?"

Thomas stretched in his chair, rubbed his eyes.

"
I am tired," he said. "Do you think
it's okay?"

"Yeah," she said. "Why don't you go
lay down and I'll bring you a blanket."

"Okay. But can I use the bathroom?"

"Sure," Chess said and went to look for
bedding.

Thomas used the bathroom and marveled at the order.
The fancy soaps waited perfectly and patiently in their dishes, but
Thomas used a little sliver of Ivory soap to wash his hands and face.

"Are you okay in there?" Chess asked
through the door.

"
Oh, yeah," Thomas said, unaware of the
time he'd spent in the bathroom. "Do you have a toothbrush I can
borrow?"

"Yeah, use mine. It's the red one."
Thomas picked up Chess's toothbrush, unsure if she
meant it. She brushed her teeth with this toothbrush, he thought. She
had this in her mouth. He hurriedly squeezed Crest onto the bristles
and brushed slowly.

"Jeez," Chess said after he came out, "I
thought you fell in.

"I had a life preserver," Thomas said,
embarrassed.

"You can sleep here," Chess said and
motioned toward the couch. He lay down and pulled the quilt over
himself. She sat beside him and touched his face.

"
You know, " she said, "my mom made
this quilt."

Thomas studied the patterns.

"You think Junior and Victor are okay outside?"
he asked.

"They're fine," she said. "It's warm."

"How did your mom die?" he asked.

"Of cancer," she lied.

"
Mine, too."

"
You go to sleep now. I'll see you in the
morning? She leaned over quickly and kissed him on the cheek. A
powerful kiss, more magical than any kiss on the mouth. She kissed
him like he was a warrior; she kissed him like she was a warrior.

"Good night," he said.

"
Good night," she said and walked to her
bedroom.

Chess tried to sleep, but the memories crowded and
haunted her. The sisters grew strong in those Montana summer days but
felt weak when they crawled into their shared bed. Before Backgammon
died, they had often listened carefully to their parents' lovemaking.
The hurried breathing and those wet, mysterious noises shook the
sisters' bodies. It was good.

After the baby died, those good sounds stopped. The
sisters heard their father push at their mom, wanting it, but Linda
rolled over and pretended to sleep. She slapped his hands. Luke
fought and fought, but eventually he gave up if sober. If drunk,
however, he forced himself on his wife. Sometimes, he came home from
drinking and woke everybody with his needs. He fell on their mother
while Chess and Checkers listened and waited for it to end. Sometimes
their mother fought their father off, punched and kicked until he
left her alone. Other times he passed out before he did anything.

The winters and summers arrived and left, as did the
family's seasons. Luke and Linda Warm Water raged like storms,
lightning in the summer, blizzards in the winter. But sometimes they
sat in the house, placid as a lake during spring or an autumn
evening. The sisters never knew what to expect, but Checkers grew
taller and more frightened with each day. Chess just wanted to be
older, to run away from home. She wanted to bury her parents beside
Backgammon, find a way to love them in death, because she forgot how
to love them in life.

Then it was winter again, and Linda Warm Water walked
into the woods like an old dog and found a hiding place to die.
Checkers and Chess nearly fell back in love with their father that
winter. He quit drinking after his wife disappeared and spent most of
his time searching for her. He refused to believe she had dug a hole
and buried herself, or climbed into a den and lay down in the bones
of a long dead bear. Because he'd convinced himself that Linda ran
away with another man, Luke wandered all over Montana in search of
his unfaithful wife.

Whenever he returned from his endless searches, Luke
brought his daughters little gifts: ribbons, scraps of material,
buttons, pages torn from magazines, even food, candy bars, and
bottles of Pepsi. One time, he brought the sisters each a Pepsi from
Missoula. Chess and Checkers buried those soft drinks in a snowbank
so they would be cold, cold. Luke sat at his piano then and played
for the first time since the baby died. The sisters ran inside and
sang with him. They sang for a long time.

"
Where are those Pepsis?" Luke asked his
daughters.

"Outside," Chess said and knew they were in
trouble.

The three rushed outside to the snowbank and
discovered the Pepsis had exploded from the cold. The snow was
stained brown with Pepsi. Luke grabbed Checkers by the arm and shook
her violently,

"
Goddamn it," he shouted, "you've
wasted it all!"

He shook her harder, then let her go and ran away.
The sisters fell to their knees in the snow and wept.

"I'm sorry," Checkers said. "The
Pepsi's gone. It's all my fault."

‘
"No, it's not," Chess said, scooped up a
handful of Pepsi-stained snow, and held it in front of her sister.
"Not everything's your fault."

"
What?" Checkers asked.

"Look," Chess said. The snow was saturated
with Pepsi. Chess bit off a mouthful, tasted the cold, sweet, and
dark. Checkers buried both hands in the snowbank, away from the
broken glass, and shoved handful after handful of snow into her
mouth. The sisters drank that snow and Pepsi until their hands and
mouths were sticky and frozen. Soon, they went into the house to
build a fire and wait for their father's return. Checkers and Chess
lay down together by the stove and held onto each other. They held
on.

***

As he slept in the Warm Waters' house, Thomas dreamed
about television and hunger. In his dream, he sat, all hungry and
lonely, in his house and wanted more. He turned on his little
black-and-white television to watch white people live. White people
owned everything: food, houses, clothes, children. Television
constantly reminded Thomas of all he never owned.

For hours, Thomas searched the television for
evidence of Indians, clicked the remote control until his hands
ached. Once on channel four, he watched three cowboys string
telegraph wire across the Great Plains until confronted by the entire
Sioux Nation, all on horseback.

We come in friendship
, the
cowboys said to the Indians. In Thomas's dream, the Indians argued
among themselves, whooped like Indians always do in movies and
dreams, waved their bows and arrows wildly. Three Indian warriors
dismounted and grabbed hold of the telegraph wire.

We come in friendship
, the
cowboys said, cranked the generator, and electrocuted the three
Indians. Those three Indians danced crazily, unable to release the
wire, and the rest of the Sioux Nation rode off in a superstitious
panic.

In his dream, Thomas watched it all happen on his
television until he suddenly returned to the summer when Victor and
Junior killed snakes by draping them over an electric fence. Watch
this, Victor said as he dropped a foot-long water snake onto the
fence. Thomas nearly choked on the smell.

The electric fence belonged to a white family that
had homesteaded on the reservation a hundred years ago and never
left. All the Spokanes liked them because the white family owned a
huge herd of cattle and gave away free beef. The homesteaders built
the fence to keep the cows away from the forests, but the cows
ignored the pine trees anyway. The fence burned on and on.

Victor and junior draped a hundred snakes over the
fence that summer and dragged Thomas there once or twice a week. Come
on, Victor said to Thomas and put him in yet another headlock. You're
coming with us.

Ya-hey, Junior said. Don't you think he's had enough?
I'll tell you when he's had enough, Victor said.

Victor and junior carried Thomas to the fence, where
they kept a rattlesnake in a plastic barrel. Look, Victor said, and
Thomas saw the snake.

Where'd you get that? he asked, frightened.

From your momma's panties, Victor said.

Thomas strained against Victor and Junior, but they
pushed him down and held his face close to the barrel.

Grab the fence, Victor said. Or grab the snake.

No, Thomas said.

Wait a second, Junior said, scared as Thomas.

Fence or snake, Victor said.

Thomas looked down at the rattler, which remained
still. No sound, no rattles shaking. Then he reached out as if to
grab the fence but grabbed the rattlesnake instead and threw it at
Victor.

Oh, shit, shit, shit, Victor said and jumped away
from the dead snake.

Junior and Thomas laughed.

You think that's funny? Victor asked as he picked up
the rattler. You think that's funny?

Yeah, junior and Thomas said.

Victor shoved the snake in Thomas's face while Junior
jumped back.

Eat this, Victor said and pushed the snake against
Thomas's mouth. Thomas tripped, fell to the ground, and Victor shoved
that snake at him until the game grew old.

Jesus, Junior said. He's had enough.

Victor draped the dead snake across the electric
fence. It danced and danced, fell off the wire, squirmed its way back
to life, and started to rattle.

Oh, shit, Victor said and ran away. Junior and Thomas
ran after him, kept running. Soon, in his dream, Victor and Junior
ran into a large empty room. Thomas followed them. The three picked
up musical instruments and started to practice.

You know, Thomas said between songs. I hope we don't
make it.

Make what? Junior asked.

Make it big. Have a hit song and all that, Thomas
said.

Why the hell not? Victor asked.

I don't know. Maybe we don't deserve it. Maybe we
should have something better in mind. Maybe something bad is going to
happen to us we don't have something better on our minds.

Like what? Victor asked.

Well, Thomas said, what if we get rich and eat too
much? We'll all get fat and disgusting.
Shit,
Victor said. I'm not Elvis.