The Toughest Indian in the World (17 page)

“It’s the Holiday Inn,” said her husband. He was president of the Spokane Indian Reservation VFW. “The Holiday Inn is dependable.”

Sid’s hair was pulled back in a gray ponytail. So was Estelle’s. Both of their faces told stories. Sid’s: the recovering alcoholic; the wronged son of a wronged son; the Hamlet of his reservation. Estelle’s: the tragic beauty; the woman who stopped drinking because her husband did; the woman who woke in the middle of the night to wash her hands ten times in a row.

Now they were Mormons.

“Do you believe in God?” Sid had asked Low Man before they sat down.

“Sure,” said Low Man, and he meant it.

“Do you believe in Jesus?” asked Sid as he unrolled his napkin and set it on his substantial lap.

“How do you mean?” asked Low Man.

“Do you believe that Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead?”

“Come on, Daddy, leave him alone,” said Sara. She knew how her father’s theological conversations usually began and how they often ended. He’d always been a preacher.

“No, Sara,” said Low Man. “It’s okay.”

“I think Mr. Smith can speak for himself,” said Sid. He leaned across the table and jabbed the air with a sharp index finger, a twenty-first century Indian’s idea of a bow and arrow.

“Low speaks too much,” said Tracy. Sure, it was a lame joke, but she was trying to change the tone of the conversation. Hey, she thought, everybody should laugh. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Let’s all clap hands and sing!

“Hey, Mr. Smith, Low Man,” continued Sid. “Why don’t you and I pretend we’re alone here. Let’s pretend this is a country of men.”

Low Man smiled and looked at the three women: Estelle, Sara, and Tracy; two strangers and his unrequited love; two Indians and one white. If asked, as a man, to rush to their defense, what would Low Man do? How far would he go? If asked, as an Indian, to defend Jesus, what could he say?

“Please, Low, tell me what you think about Jesus,” said Sid, moving from question to command somewhere in the middle of that sentence.

“I don’t think it matters what I think,” said Low Man. “I’m not a Christian. Let them have their Jesus.”

“How vague,” said Sid. “Tell me, then, what do you think their Jesus would say about lesbian marriage?”

Tracy and Sara sighed and leaned back in their chairs. How often had men sat around dinner tables and discussed women’s lives, their choices, and the reasons why one woman reached across the bed to touch another woman?

“Mr. Polatkin,” said Tracy. “If you want to talk about our relationship, then you should talk to Sara and me. Otherwise, it’s just cowardly.”

“You think I’m a coward?” asked Sid.

“Daddy, let’s just order dinner,” said Sara. “Mom, tell him to order dinner.”

Estelle closed her eyes.

“Hey,” said Sid. “Maybe I should order chicken, huh? But that would be cannibalism, right? Am I right, Tracy, tell me, am I right?”

“Mr. Polatkin,” said Tracy. “I don’t know you. But I love your daughter, and she tells me you’re a good man, so I’m willing to give you a chance. I’m hoping you’ll extend the same courtesy to me.”

“I don’t have to give you anything,” said Sid as he tossed his napkin onto his plate.

“No,” said Estelle, her voice barely rising above a whisper.

“What?” asked Sid. “What did you say?”

“We came here with love,” said Estelle. “We came here to forgive.”

“Forgive?” asked Tracy. “Forgive what? We don’t need your forgiveness.”

Low Man recognized the anger in Tracy’s eyes and in her voice.
Low,
she’d said to him in anger all those years ago,
I’m never going to love you that way. Never. Can you please understand that? I can’t change who I am. I don’t want to change who I am. And if you ever touch me again, I swear I will hate you forever.

“Hey, hey, Sid, sit down,” said Low. “You want to talk Jesus, I’ll talk Jesus.”

Sid hesitated a moment—asserting his independence—and then nodded his head.

“That’s good,” said Low. “Now, let me tell you. Jesus was a fag.”

Everybody was surprised, except Tracy, who snorted loudly and laughed.

“No, no, no,” continued Low. “Just think about it. I mean, there Jesus was, sticking up for the poor, the disadvantaged, the disabled. Who else but a fag would be that liberal, huh? And damn, Jesus hung out with twelve guys wearing great robes and great hair and never, ever talked about women. Tell me, Sidney, what kind of guys never talk about women?”

“Fags!” shouted Tracy.

“This isn’t funny,” said Sid.

“No, it’s not,” said Sara. “Tracy, let’s just go home. Let’s just go. And Low Man, you just shut up, you shut up.”

“No, Sara,” said Tracy. “Let them talk. Let them be men. And God said, let them be men.”

“I don’t like you this way,” Sara said to Tracy. “You’ve been different ever since Low showed up. You’re different with him.”

Low Man wondered if that was true; he wondered what it meant; he knew what he wanted it to mean.

“Please,” said Sara. “Let’s just go, Tracy, let’s go.”

“Nobody’s going anywhere,” said Sid. “Not until this is over.”

Estelle’s eyes glowed with tears.

“I’m being dead serious here, Sid,” said Low. “I mean, Jesus was an incredibly decent human being and they crucified him for it. He sounds like a fag to me.”

“Jesus
was
a human being,” said Sid. “At least, you’ve got that much right. He didn’t rise from the dead. He wasn’t the Son of God. He was just a man.”

“No, Sid, you and me, we’re just men. Simple, stupid men.”

“Yes, yes, I’m simple,” said Sid. “I’m a man who is simply afraid of God. And next to God, we’re all stupid. That much we can agree on.”

“Fine, fine, Sid, we agree.”

Sid stared at Low Man. The question: How does any father prove how much he loves his child? One answer: the father must hate his child’s enemies. Another answer: the father must protect his child from all harm.

“Listen to me,” said Sid. “I’m being terrible. I’m not being good. Not good at all. We’re all hungry and angry and tired. Why don’t we eat and then figure out whether we’re going to stay or go? How does that sound?”

Because they all loved one another, in one form or another, in one direction or another, they agreed.

All five of them ordered soda pop, except for Tracy, the white woman, who ordered red wine. Low Man wondered what would happen when every drunk Indian quit drinking—and he truly believed it would someday happen—when Indians quit giving white people something to worry about besides which wine went with fish and which wine went with Indians.

“So, you’re a writer?” Sid asked Low Man.

“Yes.”

“You make a living at it?”

“Sid,” said Low Man, leaning close to the table. “I make shitloads of money. I make so much money that white people think I’m white.”

Nobody laughed.

“You’re one of the funny Indians, enit?” Sid asked Low Man. “Always making the jokes, never taking it seriously.”

“What is this
it
you’re talking about?” asked Low Man.

“Everything. You think everything is funny.”

Low knew for a fact that everything was funny. Homophobia? Funny! Genocide? Hilarious! Political assassination? Side-splitting! Love? Ha, Ha, Ha!

“Low, honey,” said Tracy. “Maybe you should get some coffee. Maybe you should shut up, huh?”

Low Man looked at Tracy, at Sara. He wanted to separate them.

Sara looked at Low and wondered yet again why Indian men insisted on being warriors.
Put down your bows and arrows,
she wanted to scream at Low, at her father, at every hypermasculine Injun in the world.
Put down your fucking guns and pick up your kids.

“Sid,” said Low Man. “How many women have you had in your life?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, counting lovely Estelle here, how many women have you slept with, bedded down, screwed, humped, did the nasty with?”

Estelle gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth—a strangely mannered gesture for a reservation Indian woman.

“I think we made a mistake here,” said Sid, rising with his wife. “I think we should just go home. Whatever treaties we signed here are broken now.”

“No, no, no,” said Sara. “Please, Mom, Dad, sit down.”

Sid and Estelle might have left then, might never have returned to their daughter’s life, but the salmon arrived at that moment.

“Eat, eat,” said Sara, with tears in her eyes. She turned her attention to Low Man.

“I think you should leave,” she said, understanding that Indian men wanted to own the world just as much as white men did. They just wanted it for different reasons.

Low Man looked to Tracy. He wanted her to choose.

“I think she’s right, Low,” said Tracy. “Why don’t you take the truck and drive back to our place?”

Low Man stared into her eyes. He stepped through her pupils and searched for some sign, some indication, some clue of what he was supposed to do.

“Low, go, just go,” said Tracy.

“Mom,” said Sara, as she held her mother’s hand. “Please, stay.”

Tracy said, “Go, Low, just go for a ride. Sid and Estelle can give us a ride back to our place, right?”

Sid nodded his head. He sliced into his salmon and shoved a huge piece into his mouth.

“Please, Low,” said Tracy. “Go.”

“Sid,” said Low Man. “I was wondering why you came here. I mean, if you don’t approve of this, of them, then why the hell are you here?”

Sid chewed on his salmon. The great fish was gone from the Spokane River. Disappeared.

“I love my daughter,” said Sid. “And I don’t want her to go to hell.”

Estelle started weeping. She stared down at the salmon on her plate.

“Mom,” said Sara. “Please.”

Sid finished his salmon with two huge bites. He washed it down with water and leaned back in his chair. He stared at Low Man.

“Come on, boys,” said Tracy. “No need for the testicle show, okay?”

“You have a filthy mouth,” Sid said.

“Yeah, I guess I fucking do,” she said.

“Whore.”

“Dad, stop it,” said Sara. Her mother lowered her chin onto her chest and wept like she was thirty years older.

“I raised my daughter to be better than this,” said Sid.

“Better than what?” asked Low.

“My daughter wasn’t, wasn’t a gay until she met this, this white woman.”

“Maybe I should go,” said Tracy.

“No,” said Sara. “Nobody’s going anywhere.”

In Sara’s voice, the others heard something new: an adulthood ceremony taking place between syllables.

“What’s wrong with you?” Low asked Sid. “She’s your daughter. You should love her no matter what.”

Low Man wanted this father to take his daughter away.

“I don’t think this is any of your business,” said Sid. “You’re not even supposed to be here.”

“I’m not supposed to be anywhere,” said Low. “But here I am.”

Low Man smiled at himself. He sounded like a character out of film noir, like Lee Marvin or Robert Mitchum. Or maybe like Peter Lorre.

“What are you smiling at?” asked Sid.

“I’m going to the room,” said Estelle as she stood up. Sara rose with her.

“Mom, Mom, I love you,” said Sara as she hugged her.

Low Man wondered what would have happened if he had a pistol. He wondered if he would have shot Sid Polatkin in the face. No, of course not. Low Man probably would have raced out into the dark and tried to bring down one of the airplanes that kept passing over the motel.

“Do you know what I want?” Low asked Sid.

“No. Tell me.”

“I want to take Tracy out of here. I want to take her back home with me. I want her to fall in love with me.”

“Go ahead,” said Sid. “And I’ll take my daughter back home where she belongs.”

“Sid,” said Low. “These women don’t belong to us. They live in whole separate worlds, man, don’t you know that?”

Sid couldn’t answer. His jaw worked furiously. When he was a young man, he used to fight Golden Gloves. Even at his advanced age, he could have beaten the crap out of Low Man. Both men knew this to be a fact.

Tracy stood up from the table. She took two steps away, then turned back.

“I’m leaving, Sara,” she said. “Finally, I’m leaving.”

Sara looked to her father and mother. Together, the three of them had buried dozens of loved ones. The three of them knew all of the same mourning songs. Two of them had loved each other enough to conceive the third. They’d invented her! She was their Monster; she was surely going to murder them. That’s what children were supposed to do!

“Mom, Dad,” she said. “I love you.”

Sara stepped away from her mother, her father. She stepped away from the table, away from the salmon, and toward Tracy.

“If you leave now,” said Sid. “Don’t you ever call us. Don’t you ever talk to us again.”

Sara closed her eyes. She remembered the winter when her father fell from the roof of their house and disappeared into a snowbank. She remembered the dreadful silence after the impact, and then the wondrous noise, the joyful cacophony of his laughter.

Tracy took Sara’s hand. They stood there in the silence.

“Sid,” said Low Man. “These women don’t need us. They never did.”

“We’re leaving,” said Tracy and Sara together. Hand in hand, they walked away.

With surprising speed, Sid rose from the table and chased after them. He caught them just before they got to the restaurant exit. He pushed Tracy into a wall—pushed her into the plasterboard—and took his daughter by the elbow.

“You’re coming with us,” he said.

“No,” said Sara.

Estelle couldn’t move. “Help them,” she said to Low Man. “Help them.”

Low didn’t know which “them” she was talking about. He rushed across the room just as Sid slapped his daughter once, then again. One Indian man raised his hand to slap an Indian woman, but a third Indian stepped between them.

“She’s my daughter, she’s mine,” shouted Sid. He pushed against Low, as Sara fell back against a glass door, as she turned to hide her face.

Sid and Low grappled with each other. The old man was very strong.

At the table, Estelle covered her face with her hands.

“She’s my daughter, she’s my daughter,” shouted Sid as he punched Low in the chest. Low staggered back and fell to one knee.