The Toughest Indian in the World (21 page)

“You have lost the moment you pick up a gun,” he’d always said. “When you resort to violence to prove a point, you’ve just experienced a profound failure of imagination.”

Lying together in that Madrid Hilton Hotel, with its tiny European bathroom and scratchy sheets, she’d realized how much she loved her idealistic and pompous husband.

“Let’s go home,” she’d said to him again.

“Why?” he’d asked.

“Because I want to,” she’d said to him again as he stood naked from the bed and walked across the thin carpet.

No habla Español. Indios de Norte Americanos.

All during that time, during his domestic and foreign basketball career, she’d been writing stories, poems, essays, and the first few chapters of various failed novels. She’d never told Roman about her writing because she’d wanted to keep something for herself; she’d wanted to enjoy a secret, perhaps sacred, endeavor, and writing seemed to be her best vocation and avocation. Under various pseudonyms, she’d published work in dozens of the various university literary journals back in the United States, though she’d never bothered to read any of her writing after it had been published. She didn’t even bother to keep originals, preferring to start all over with the first word of each new poem, story, or essay.

“Let’s go home,” she’d said to him as he stood at the window of the Madrid Hilton. He was naked and thin and would never be that lovely again.

“I’m afraid,” he’d said.

“Of what?”

“I’m afraid I won’t know how to do anything else.”

There, in Spain, he’d stood naked in the window and wept.

No habla Español. Indios de Norte Americanos.

“What if basketball is all I will ever be good at?”

“Hey,” she’d said. “You’re not even that good a basketball player.”

“Ouch,” he’d said and laughed. They’d laughed together, though both of them had a secret. His: he’d hated her, ever so briefly, for telling the truth about his failed dreams. Hers: she’d hated herself, ever so briefly, for devoting her life to his dreams.

Both of them had locked their secrets in dark boxes, never to be opened, and caught the next plane back to the United States.

On the Spokane Indian Reservation, on the morning of that first snow, Roman sat down to piss. He could hear the television playing in the living room. He could hear Michael Jordan’s voice.

I’m back.

Sure, Roman could have stood and pissed. That would have been easier, more convenient. Just pull it out and blast away. But he wanted to be polite, even kind to Grace. That was exactly what was missing in most marriages: politeness, courtesy, good manners. He was the kind of man who wrote thank-you notes to his wife for the smallest favors.

After years of marriage, Roman had learned one basic truth: It was easy to make another person happy.

To make Grace happy, Roman sat down to piss, did the dishes at least three times a week, vacuumed every day, and occasionally threw a load of laundry into the washer, though he’d often forgotten to transfer the wet clothes into the dryer. No matter. Grace didn’t sweat the small stuff, and with each passing day she loved him more and more.

I’m back.

After his sit-down piss, Roman stood and pulled up his underwear, climbed into a pair of sweatpants hanging from the shower rod, slipped his feet into Chuck Taylor basketball shoes, and stepped into the bedroom.

Grace pretended to be asleep in their big bed. She loved this game. Still holding the basketball, Roman laid down next to her and pressed his body against hers.

“There’s a strange woman in my bed,” said Roman.

“I know,” said Grace, without opening her eyes.

“What should I do about her?”

“Let her sleep.”

Roman touched the basketball to Grace’s cheek. He wondered if she wanted to make love. She usually did, and had approached him as often as he’d approached her, but he’d always liked to delay, to think about her—the taste, smell, and sound of her—for hours, or even days, before he’d make a pass.

“Michael Jordan is coming back again,” he said.

“You can’t fool me,” said Grace. “I heard it. That was just a replay.”

“Yeah, but I wish he was coming back again. He should always come back.”

“Don’t let it give you any crazy ideas.”

Roman pulled the basketball away and leaned even closer to Grace. He loved her, of course, but better than that, he
chose
her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing. Other people claimed that you can’t choose who you love—it just happens!—but Grace and Roman knew that was a bunch of happy horseshit. Of course you chose who you loved. If you didn’t choose, you ended up with what was left—the drunks and abusers, the debtors and vacuums, the ones who ate their food too fast or had never read a novel. Damn, marriage was hard work, was manual labor, and
unpaid
manual labor at that. Yet, year after year, Grace and Roman had pressed their shoulders against the stone and rolled it up the hill together.

In their marriage bed, Roman chose Grace once more and brushed his lips against her ear.

“It snowed last night,” he whispered.

“I can smell it,” said Grace, choosing him.

“What do you want for breakfast?”

“Make me some of your grandma’s salmon mush.”

Grandmother Fury had died of cancer the previous winter. On her deathbed, she’d pulled Roman close to her. She’d kissed him full on the lips and cried in his arms.

“I don’t want to go,”
she’d said in Spokane.

“I know,” he’d said and felt the heat leave her body.

“I’m cold.”

“I love you.”

“Listen,”
she’d said.
“You better keep making that salmon mush. You’re the only one now. You have to keep it alive.”

“I’ll teach Grace.”

“She’s a good woman, that one, a good person. You better hang on to her. She could live without you easily, but you’d be lost without her.”

“She loves you as much as I do.”

“I am happy to hear that. But listen, the important thing is the salmon mush. You have to remember one thing, the big secret.”

“I know, I know, pour the milk in just before serving.”

“No, no, that’s the most obvious secret. You don’t know the biggest secret. You don’t know it. Let me tell you.”

Roman had leaned close to her ear and heard that secret. He’d listened to his grandmother’s last words and then she’d died.

On his first day at St. Jerome the Second University, Roman walked alone into the freshman dormitory. Everybody else carried new luggage, stereos, bicycles, books, but Roman carried all of his possessions in a Hefty garbage bag slung over his shoulder. He found his room, walked inside, and met his roommate.

“Hey,” said the kid with blue eyes and blond hair. “You must be my roomie. I’m Alex Weber.”

“Roman.”

“I thought you were Indian.”

“I am Indian. Roman is my name.”

“First or last?”

“The first name is Roman, the middle name is Gabriel, the last name is Fury.”

“A spectacular moniker.”

“Thank you.”

“Is that your luggage?”

Roman tossed his Hefty bag onto his bed. He was ashamed of it, his poverty, but pretended to be proud.

“Yeah,” said Roman. “I got ninety-nine of them back home. The whole matching set.”

“Scholarship student, huh?”

“Yeah. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, not at all. I’m a legacy.”

“A what?”

“My great-grandfather went to school here, as did my grandfather, my father, and now, I’m here. As long as there’s been a St. Junior, there’s been a Weber.”

“Family tradition.”

“My family is all about tradition. So, where you from? What’s your major?”

Before Roman could answer, Alex pulled out a silver flask of whiskey.

“You want a drink?” asked the legacy.

“I’m undeclared,” said Roman.

“About the drink or your major?”

“I don’t drink.”

“More for me.”

Roman looked at Alex’s side of the room. All of the white boy’s possessions still carried price tags.

“Well,” said Alex. “Get your stuff unpacked, that shouldn’t take too long, and let’s head upstairs where the lovely young women make their abodes.”

“I’m not much for parties,” said Roman. “I think I’m just going to hang around the room.”

“Suit yourself. But I’ve got to get a little tonight, you know what I mean?”

“I assume you’re referring to sexual intercourse.”

“You make it sound so romantic. Listen. My great-grandfather had sexual intercourse on his first night at St. Junior. As did my grandfather, my father, and now, me.”

“You’re a legacy.”

“Exactly. See you later, Chief.”

With a nod of his head and a click of his tongue, Alex left the room. A little stunned and bewildered by his roommate—how had the personal-tastes questionnaire put them together?—Roman sat down on his bed. Then he noticed a box sitting on the desk. It was a “
WELCOME TO ST. JUNIOR
” care package.

He opened the box and discovered its contents.

“Donuts,” said Roman.

Six months into their freshman year at St. Junior, Roman and Grace made love for the first time. Afterward, squeezed together in his narrow dorm room bed, they’d nervously tried to fill the silence.

“So,” he’d asked. “You must be the only Indian in New York City, enit?”

“There are lots of Indians in New York City. Lots of Mohawks.”

“Are you full-blood?”

“No, I’m Mohawk and Chinese.”

“Chinese? You’re kidding.”

“What? You have something against Chinese?”

“No, no. I just never heard of no Chinese Indians. I mean, I know black Indians and white Indians and Mexican Indians and a whole bunch of Indian Indians, but you’re the first Chinese Indian I’ve ever met. Was it some kind of Bering Strait land bridge thing?”

“No. My mom was Chinese. She was playing piano in this bar in Brooklyn. That’s where my mom and dad met.”

“Where are they now?”

“Gone, all gone.”

Over the next four years of college, they’d slept together maybe twenty more times without formal attachment, and each of them had run through quick romances with a few other people, and each had also experienced the requisite homoerotic one-night stand—both with Hawaiians, coincidentally—before he’d run up to her after his last college game, still in uniform and drenched in sweat, and hugged her close.

“You’re the best Indian I’m ever going to find,” he’d said. “Marry me.”

Not the most romantic proposal in the world, to be sure, but a true and good moment, demographically speaking.

“Okay,” she'd said.

In bed, on the Spokane Indian Reservation, eighteen years after their graduation from St. Jerome the Second, Grace ate her salmon mush, drank her coffee, and read the newspaper aloud. Roman laid back on his pillow and listened to her. This was one of their ceremonies: she’d read aloud every word of the newspaper, even the want ads, and then quiz him about the details.

“Hey,” she said. “What’s the phone number of the guy who is selling the Ping-Pong table that has only been used once?”

“Harry.”

“Uh, good remembering. That earns you a kiss, with tongue.”

“A hand job would be better.”

“God, you’re so charming.”

She smacked him with a pillow. He kissed her cheek, then walked from the bedroom into the kitchen. Still holding the basketball, he opened the refrigerator, pulled out another big bottle of Diet Pepsi, and swallowed deeply. He breathed the sweet fluid in, as if it were oxygen. He set the Pepsi back on the shelf, among a dozen other bottles, and then pulled out a donut. A maple bar. He sniffed at it, took a bite, spit it back out, and threw the donut back into the fridge.

Roman slammed the fridge shut and walked outside into the backyard. Two feet of the first snow had covered the basketball half-court. Roman looked at the snow, at the hoop and backboard rising ten feet above the snow.

Smiling, Roman gave a head fake, took a step left, and dribbled the basketball, expecting it to bounce back up into his hand.

When the ball didn’t return to his hand, Roman stared down to see the orange Rawlings embedded in the white snow. The contrast was gorgeous, like the difference between Heaven and Hell.

He had always been a religious man, had participated in all of the specific Spokane Indian ceremonies, most involving salmon, and in many of the general American Indian ceremonies like powwows and basketball tournaments. He’d also spent time in all three of the Spokane Reservation’s Christian churches, singing Assembly of God hymns, praying Presbyterian prayers, and eating Catholic Communion wafers. Roman had always known that God was elusive. All his life, Roman had been chasing God and had never once caught sight of him, or her.

During her first night at St. Junior, Grace was standing in the middle of a room full of drunken white kids when Alex Weber, the drunkest white kid, stepped up to her.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he slurred.

“Hey,” she said, a little nauseated by the whiskey smell of his breath. She’d never even sipped a glass of wine at dinner.

“Okay,” he said. “Tell me. Have you enjoyed your St. Junior experience so far?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He kissed her then, a wet kiss that was meant for her lips but landed on her chin. She pushed him away.

“Hey, listen,” she said, strangely polite. “You’re drunk, man, and you’re making a big mistake. Why don’t you just leave before you do something really stupid? How does that sound?”

She didn’t understand why she was negotiating. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” he asked.

“Yeah, you ask one question. I answer once. Then you leave. Deal?”

“Did you get in here because of affirmative action?”

“What?”

“Really. I want to know, did you get in here on account of some quota or something? Because you’re Indian, right, excuse me, I mean, Native American?”

“I belong here. Just as much as you or anybody else.”

“No, no, no, I’m not questioning your intelligence. Believe me, I’m not. Honestly. I just want to know if you got admitted because of affirmative action.”