The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (11 page)

He measured insomnia by minutes. Ten
minutes
, he told himself.
I’ll be asleep in ten minutes. If not, I’ll get up and turn on the light. Read a book maybe
.

Ten minutes passed and he made more promises.
It’s hopeless. If I’m not asleep in half an hour, I’ll get up and make some breakfast. I’ll watch the sunrise. Vacuum
.

When dawn finally arrived, he lay awake for a few minutes, ran his tongue over his teeth. He reached out and touched the other half of his bed. No one was supposed to be there; he just stretched his arms. Then he rose quickly, showered, shaved, and sat at the kitchen table with his coffee and newspaper. He read headlines, a few Help Wanted ads, and circled one with a pencil.

“Good morning,” he said aloud, then louder. “Good morning.”

“People change,” she told Victor. He watched her face as she spoke and watched her hands when she touched his arm.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” he said. Her hands were white and small. He remembered how white and small they looked against his brown skin as they lay together, wrapped in sheets. She fell asleep easily and he watched her, listened to her breathing, until his breath fell into the same rhythm, until he slept.

“I miss watching you sleep,” he said.

“Listen, things are just crazy right now. I went to a party the other night and someone had some cocaine, you know? It was there and I liked it.”

“You mean you snorted it?”

“No, no. I just liked it being there. I danced, too. There was music, and people were dancing out by the pool. So I danced.”

He stared at her then. She smiled and touched her face, brushed hair away from her eyes.

“God,” she said. “I could really get addicted to cocaine, you know? I could really like it.”

Victor sipped his coffee carefully even though it was lukewarm. He stared out over the cup, through the window into the sun rising. He felt dizzy and didn’t stand up for fear of falling. His eyes were heavy, ached.

“Today,” he said to his coffee, “I’m going to run.”

He imagined pulling on a pair of shorts and his tennis shoes, stretching his muscles on the back porch before he set out into the early morning. Two, maybe three miles out and then back to the house. A few sit-ups, push-ups, to cool down and a piece of dry toast to settle his stomach. Instead, he finished his coffee and switched on the television, flipped through a few stations before he found a face he liked. A pretty blond woman was reading the local news, but he turned the volume all the way down, watched her mouth working silently.

Soon she was replaced by other faces, tired reporters with windblown hair, a forest fire, another war. It was all the same. Once, he owned a black-and-white television. He thought everything was much clearer then. Color complicated even the smallest events. A commercial for a new candy bar was so bright, so layered, he ran to the bathroom and threw up.

Still, he drank his coffee straight today. In other yesterdays he poured vodka into his cup before the coffee was finished brewing.

“Shit,” he said aloud. “Nothing more hopeless than a sober Indian.”

Victor was fancydancing. Eight, maybe nine years old and he was fancydancing in the same outfit his father wore as a child. The feathers were genetic; the fringe was passed down like the curve of his face.

Drums.

He looked into the crowd for approval, saw his mother and father. He waved and they waved back. Smiles and Indian teeth. They were both drunk. Everything familiar and welcome. Everything beautiful.

Drums.

After the dance, back at camp, he ate fry bread with too much butter and drank a Pepsi just pulled from the cooler. The Pepsi was partly frozen and the little pieces of ice hurt his teeth.

“Did you see Junior dancing?” his mother asked everyone in camp. She was loud, drunk, staggered.

They all nodded heads in agreement; this other kind of dancing was nothing new. His father passed out beneath the picnic table, and after a while his mother crawled under, wrapped her arms around her husband, and passed out with him. Of course, they were in love.

Drums.

Victor was drunk again.

A night in the wooden-floor bar and she wanted to dance, but he wanted to drink and ease that tug in his throat and gut.

“Come on, you’ve had enough,” she said.

“Just one more beer, sweetheart, and then we’ll go home.”

It happened that way. He thought one more beer could save the world. One more beer and every chair would be comfortable. One more beer and the light bulb in the bathroom would never burn out. One more beer and he would love her forever. One more beer and he would sign any treaty for her.

At home, in the dark, they fought and kicked at sheets, at each other. She waited for him to pass out. He drank so much but he would never pass out. He cried.

“Goddamn it,” he said. “I hate the fucking world.”

“Go to sleep.”

He closed his eyes; he played the stereo at full volume. He punched the walls but never hard enough to hurt himself.

“Nothing works. Nothing works.”

Mornings after, he would pretend sleep while she dressed, left for work and her own home. Mornings after, she paused at the door before leaving, asked herself if this was for good.

One morning, it was.

Sometimes Victor worked.

He drove a garbage truck for the BIA; he cooked hamburgers at the Tribal Cafe. On payday, his wallet stuffed with money, he would stand in front of the beer cooler in the Trading Post.

“How long has he been standing there?” Phyllis asked Seymour.

“Some say he’s been there for hours. That woman over there with the music case says Victor has been standing there his whole life. I think he’s been there for five hundred years.”

Once, Victor bought a case of Coors Light and drove for miles with the bottles beside him on the seat. He would open one, touch the cold glass to his lips, and feel his heart stagger. But he could not drink, and one by one he tossed twenty-four full bottles out the window.

The small explosions, their shattering, was the way he measured time.

Victor watched the morning arrive and leave. His hands were cold. He pressed them against the window glass and waited for some warmth to translate. He’d been back home on the reservation for one hundred days after being lost in the desert for forty years. But he wasn’t going to save anyone. Maybe not even himself.

He opened his front door to watch the world revolving. He walked onto his front porch and felt the cold air. Tomorrow he would run. He would be somebody’s hero. Tomorrow.

He counted his coins. Enough for a bottle of Annie Green Springs Wine in the Trading Post. He walked down the hill and into the store, grabbed the bottle without hesitation, paid for it with nickels and pennies, and walked into the parking lot. Victor pulled the wine from its paper bag, cracked the seal, and twisted the cap off.

Jesus, he wanted to drink so much his blood could make the entire tribe numb.

“Hey, cousin, you got to let it breathe.”

An Indian stranger jumped from a pickup, walked over to Victor, and smiled.

“What did you say?” Victor asked him.

“I said you got to let it breathe.”

Victor looked at his open bottle, offered it to the stranger in an intertribal gesture.

“You want the first drink, cousin?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

The stranger drank long and hard, his throat working like gears. When he was done, he wiped the bottle clean and handed it back to Victor.

“Listen up,” the stranger said. “Today is my birthday.”

“How old are you?”

“Old enough.”

And they laughed.

Victor looked at the bottle again and offered it again to the stranger in a personal gesture.

“Have a birthday drink.”

“Shit, you’re a generous drunk, enit?”

“Generous enough.”

And they laughed.

The Indian stranger drank half the bottle with one swallow. He smiled when he handed the wine back to Victor.

“What tribe are you, cousin?” Victor asked him.

“Cherokee.”

“Really? Shit, I’ve never met a real Cherokee.”

“Neither have I.”

And they laughed.

Victor looked at the bottle for a third time. He handed it back to the Indian stranger.

“Keep it,” he said. “You deserve it more.”

“Thanks, cousin. My throat is dry, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

Victor touched the Indian stranger’s hand, smiled hard at him, and walked away. He looked at the sun to determine the time and then checked his watch to be sure.

“Hey, cousin,” the Indian stranger yelled. “You know how to tell the difference between a real Indian and a fake Indian?”

“How?”

“The real Indian got blisters on his feet. The fake Indian got blisters on his ass.”

And they laughed. And Victor kept laughing as he walked. And he was walking down this road and tomorrow maybe he would be walking down another road and maybe tomorrow he would be dancing. Victor might be dancing.

Yes, Victor would be dancing.

Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without

having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.

—Franz Kafka

T
HOMAS BUILDS-THE-FIRE WAITED ALONE
in the Spokane tribal holding cell while BIA officials discussed his future, the immediate present, and of course, his past.

“Builds-the-Fire has a history of this kind of behavior,” a man in a BIA suit said to the others. “A storytelling fetish accompanied by an extreme need to tell the truth. Dangerous.”

Thomas was in the holding cell because he had once held the reservation postmaster hostage for eight hours with the idea of a gun and had also threatened to make significant changes in the tribal vision. But that crisis was resolved years ago as Thomas surrendered voluntarily and agreed to remain silent. In fact, Thomas had not spoken in nearly twenty years. All his stories remained internal; he would not even send letters or Christmas cards.

But recently Thomas had begun to make small noises, form syllables that contained more emotion and meaning than entire sentences constructed by the BIA. A noise that sounded something like
rain
had given Esther courage enough to leave her husband, tribal chairman David WalksAlong, who had been tribal police chief at the time of Thomas Builds-the-Fire’s original crime. WalksAlong walked along with BIA policy so willingly that he took to calling his wife
a savage in polyester pants
. She packed her bags the day after she listened to Thomas speak; Thomas was arrested the day after Esther left.

Now Thomas sat quietly in his cell, counting cockroaches and silverfish. He couldn’t sleep, he didn’t feel like eating. Often he closed his eyes and stories came to him quickly, but he would not speak. He nodded and laughed if the story was funny; cried a little when the stories were sad; pounded his fists against his mattress when the stories angered him.

“Well, the traveling judge is coming in tomorrow,” one guy in a BIA suit said to the others. “What charges should we bring him up on?”

“Inciting a riot? Kidnapping? Extortion? Maybe murder?” another guy in a BIA suit asked, and the others laughed.

“Well,” they all agreed. “It has to be a felony charge. We don’t need his kind around here anymore.”

Later that night, Thomas lay awake and counted stars through the bars in his window. He was guilty, he knew that. All that was variable on any reservation was how the convicted would be punished.

The following report is adapted from
the
original court transcript
.

“Mr. Builds-the-Fire,” the judge said to Thomas. “Before we begin this trial, the court must be certain that you understand the charges against you.”

Thomas, who wore his best ribbon shirt and decided to represent himself, stood and spoke a complete sentence for the first time in two decades.

“Your Honor,” he said. “I don’t believe that the exact nature of any charges against me have been revealed, let alone detailed.”

There was a hush in the crowd, followed by exclamations of joy, sadness, etc. Eve Ford, the former reservation postmaster held hostage by Thomas years earlier, sat quietly in the back row and thought to herself,
He hasn’t done anything wrong
.

“Well, Mr. Builds-the-Fire,” the judge said. “I can only infer by your sudden willingness to communicate that you do in fact understand the purpose of this trial.”

“That’s not true.”

“Are you accusing this court of dishonesty, Mr. Builds-the-Fire?”

Thomas sat down, to regain his silence for a few moments.

“Well, Mr. Builds-the-Fire, we’re going to dispense with opening remarks and proceed to testimony. Are you ready to call your first witness?”

“Yes, I am, Your Honor. I call myself as first and only witness to all the crimes I’m accused of and, additionally, to bring attention to all the mitigating circumstances.”

“Whatever,” the judge said. “Raise your right hand and promise me you’ll tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

“Honesty is all I have left,” Thomas said.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire sat in the witness stand, closed his eyes, and spoke this story aloud:

“It all started on September 8, 1858. I was a young pony, strong and quick in every movement. I remember this. Still, there was so much to fear on that day when Colonel George Wright took me and 799 of my brothers captive. Imagine, 800 beautiful ponies stolen at once. It was the worst kind of war crime. But Colonel Wright thought we were too many to transport, that we were all dangerous. In fact, I still carry his letter of that day which justified the coming slaughter”:

Dear Sir:

As I reported in my communication of yesterday the capture of 800 horses on the 8th instant, I have now to add that this large band of horses composed the entire wealth of the Spokane chief Til-co-ax. This man has ever been hostile; for the last two years he has been constantly sending his young men into the Walla Walla valley, and stealing horses and cattle from the settlers and from the government. He boldly acknowledged these facts when he met Colonel Steptoe, in May last. Retributive justice has now overtaken him; the blow has been severe but well merited. I found myself embarrassed with these 800 horses. I could not hazard the experiment of moving with such a number of animals (many of them very wild) along with my large train; should a stampede take place, we might not only lose our captured animals, but many of our own. Under those circumstances, I determined to kill them all, save a few in service in the quartermaster’s department and to replace broken-down animals. I deeply regretted killing these poor creatures, but a dire necessity drove me to it. This work of slaughter has been going on since 10 o’clock of yesterday, and will not be completed before this evening, and I shall march for the Coeur d’Alene Mission tomorrow.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. WRIGHT, Colonel 9th Infantry, Commanding.