Indian Killer (3 page)

For John, though, Father Duncan did not vanish completely. The Jesuit, exhausted and sunburned, often visited him in dreams. Duncan never spoke. He just brought the smell, sounds, and images of the desert into John’s head. The wind pushing sand from dune to dune, the scorpions and spiders, the relentless yellow sun and deep blue sky, the stand of palm trees on the horizon. John always assumed it was a Catholic way to die, lost in the desert, no water, no food, the unforgiving heat. But the hallucinations must have been magical. John knew that real Indians climbed into the mountains to have vision quests. Stripped of their clothes, they ate and drank nothing. Naked and starved, they waited for a vision to arrive. Father Duncan must have been on a vision quest in the desert when he walked to the edge of the world and stepped off. Did it feel good to disappear? Perhaps Duncan, as Indian and Christian, had discovered a frightening secret and could not live with it. Perhaps Duncan knew what existed on the other side of the desert. Maybe he was looking for a new name for God.

John attended St. Francis Catholic School from the very beginning. His shoes always black topsiders polished clean. His black hair very short, nearly a crew cut, just like every other boy in school. He was the only Indian in the school, but he had friends, handsome white boys. And John had danced with a few pretty white girls in high school. Mary, Margaret, Stephanie. He had fumbled with their underwear in the back seats of cars. John knew their smell, a combination of perfume, baby powder, sweat, and sex. A clean smell on one level, a darker odor beneath. Their breasts were small and perfect. John was always uncomfortable during his time with the girls, and he was never sorry when it was over. He was impatient with them, unsure of their motives, and vaguely insulting. The girls expected it. It was high school and boys were supposed to act that way. The girls assumed the boys were much more complicated than they actually were. Inside, John knew that he was more simple and shallow than other boys, and less than real.

“What are you thinking?” the girls always asked John. But John knew the girls really wanted to tell him what they were thinking. John’s thoughts were merely starting points for the girls to talk about mothers and fathers, girlfriends, ex-boyfriends, pets, clothes, and a thousand other details. John felt insignificant at those times and retreated into a small place inside of himself, until the girls confused his painful silence with rapt interest.

The girls’ fathers were always uncomfortable when they first met John, and grew more irritated as he continued to date Mary, Margaret, or Stephanie. The relationships began and ended quickly. A dance or two, a movie, a hamburger, a few hours in a friend’s basement with generic rock music playing softly on the radio, cold fingers on warm skin.

“I just don’t think it’s working out,” she’d tell John, who understood. He could almost hear the conversations that had taken place.

“Hon,” a father would say to his daughter. “What was that boy’s name?”

“Which boy, daddy?”

“That dark one.”

“Oh, you mean John. Isn’t he cute?”

“Yes, he seems like a very nice young man. You say he’s at St. Francis? Is he a scholarship student?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Does it matter?”

“Well, no. I’m just curious, hon. By the way, what is he? I mean, where does he come from?”

“He’s Indian, daddy.”

“From India? He’s a foreigner?”

“No, daddy, he’s Indian from here. You know, American Indian. Like bows and arrows and stuff. Except he’s not like that. His parents are white.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Daddy, he’s adopted.”

“Oh. Are you going to see him again?”

“I hope so. Why?”

“Well, you know. I just think. Well, adopted kids have so many problems adjusting to things, you know. I’ve read about it. They have self-esteem problems. I just think, I mean, don’t you think you should find somebody more appropriate?”

The door would shut with a loud and insistent click. Mary, Margaret, or Stephanie would come to school the next day and give John the news. The daughters would never mention their fathers. Of course, there were a few white girls who dated John precisely because they wanted to bring home a dark boy. Through all of it, John repeatedly promised himself he would never be angry. He didn’t want to be angry. He wanted to be a real person. He wanted to control his emotions, so he would often swallow his anger. Once or twice a week, he felt the need to run and hide. In the middle of a math class or a history exam, he would get a bathroom pass and quickly leave the classroom. His teachers were always willing to give him a little slack. They knew he was adopted, an Indian orphan, and was leading a difficult life. His teachers gave him every opportunity and he responded well. If John happened to be a little fragile, well, that was perfectly understandable, considering his people’s history. All that alcoholism and poverty, the lack of God in their lives. In the bathroom, John would lock himself inside a stall and fight against his anger. He’d bite his tongue, his lips, until sometimes they would bleed. He would hold himself tightly and feel his arms, legs, and lower back shake with the effort. His eyes would be shut. He’d grind his teeth. One minute, two, five, and he would be fine. He would flush the toilet to make his visit seem normal, slowly wash his hands and return to the classroom. His struggles with his anger increased in intensity and frequency until he was visiting the bathroom on a daily basis during his senior year. But nobody noticed. In truth, nobody mentioned any strange behavior they may have seen. John was a trailblazer, a nice trophy for St. Francis, a successfully integrated Indian boy.

There were three hundred and seventy-six students at St. Francis. Along with three black kids, John was one of the four non-white students in the school. He was neither widely popular nor widely disliked. He played varsity basketball for two years, but never started, and entered the game when the outcome, a win or loss, was already decided. He was on the varsity only because he was an upperclassman and over six feet tall. His teammates cheered wildly whenever he entered the game because teammates are taught to behave that way. John understood this. He cheered for his teammates, even during those games in which he never played. He never really cared if the team won or lost. But he was always embarrassed when he had to play, because he knew he was not very good. In fact, he only played because his father, Daniel, a St. Francis alumnus, had been a star player.

“You need to get your hand behind the ball when you shoot,” Daniel Smith said to John during one of their driveway practices.

“Like this?” asked John, desperately trying to hold the basketball correctly.

“No,” Daniel said, calmly, patiently. Daniel Smith never raised his voice, not once, in all the years. He would coach John for hours, trying to show him how to play defense, box out for rebounds, throw the bounce pass. No matter how poorly John played, and he was awful, Daniel never yelled.

One winter, when John was a sophomore, Daniel read about an all-Indian basketball tournament that was going to be held at Indian Heritage High School in North Seattle. Daniel and Olivia both looked for any news about Indians and shared the information with John. The sportswriter made the tournament into some kind of joke, but Daniel thought it was a wonderful opportunity. He had never seen Indians play basketball. Maybe John would improve if he saw other Indians play.

John had spent time at different Indian events. Olivia had made sure of that. But he had never seen so many Indians crammed into such a small space. The Indian Heritage gym was full of Indians. All shapes and sizes, tribes and temperaments. Daniel and John found seats in the bleachers and watched a game between a Sioux team and a local team of Yakama Indians. The game was fast-paced and vaguely out of control, with offenses that took the first open shot, from anywhere on the court, and defenses that constantly gambled for steals. Most of the players were tall and impossibly thin, although a few were actually fat. The best player on the court was a chubby guy named Arnold, a Yakama Indian. Daniel and John knew he was named Arnold because they heard his name announced over the loudspeaker.

“Arnold for two.”

“Arnold with a three-pointer.”

“Arnold with the steal, and a nice pass for two.”

Daniel decided that Arnold was the best player he had ever seen. He could have played Division I basketball. God, Daniel thought, this Indian is fifty pounds overweight, closing in on forty years old, and still plays well.

“Watch,” Daniel said to John.

John was watching Arnold, but he was watching the people around him too. So many Indians, so many tribes, many sharing similar features, but also differing in slight and important ways. The Makahs different than the Quinaults, the Lummi different from the Puyallup. There were Indians with dark skin and jet-black hair. There were Indians with brown hair and paler skin. Green-eyed Indians. Indians with black blood. Indians with Mexican blood. Indians with white blood. Indians with Asian blood. All of them laughing and carrying on. Many Indians barely paying attention to the game. They were talking, telling jokes, and laughing loudly. So much laughter. John wanted to own that laughter, never realizing that their laughter was a ceremony used to drive away personal and collective demons. The Indians who were watching the game reacted mightily to each basket or defensive stop. They moaned and groaned as if each mistake were fatal, as if each field goal meant the second coming of Christ. But always, they were laughing. John had never seen so many happy people. He did not share their happiness.

“Look at him,” Daniel said. “Look at that guy play.”

John watched Arnold shoot a thirty-five-foot jumper that hit nothing but the bottom of the net. A glorious three-pointer. The crowd cheered and laughed some more. Arnold was laughing, on the court, doubled over, holding his stomach. Laughing so hard that tears ran down his face. His teammates were smiling and playing defense. The other team worked the ball around, trying to shoot a long jumper of their own, wanting to match Arnold’s feat. A big man caught the ball in the far corner, faked a dribble, then took the shot. An air ball, missing the basket and backboard completely, by two or three feet. The big man fell on his back, laughing. The crowd laughed and rolled all over the bleachers, pounding each other on the back, hugging each other tightly. One Yakama player grabbed the rebound and threw a long pass downcourt to Arnold. He caught the pass, fumbled the ball a bit, dribbled in for the layup, and missed it. So much laughter that the refs called an official timeout. John looked at his father. Daniel was laughing. John felt like crying. He did not recognize these Indians. They were nothing like the Indians he had read about. John felt betrayed.

John never did become a good basketball player, but he graduated from high school on time, in 1987. Since he was an Indian with respectable grades, John would have been admitted into almost any public university had he bothered to fill out even one application. His parents pushed him to at least try a community or technical college, but John refused. During his freshman year in high school, John had read an article about a group of Mohawk Indian steel workers who helped build the World Trade Center buildings in New York City. Ever since then, John had dreamed about working on a skyscraper. He figured it was the Indian thing to do. Since Daniel Smith was an architect, he sometimes flattered himself by thinking that John’s interest in construction was somehow related. Despite John’s refusal to go to college, his parents still supported him in his decision, and were sitting in the third row as he walked across the stage at St. Francis to accept his diploma. Polite applause, a few loud cheers from his friends, his mother and father now standing. John flipped his tassel from one side to the other, blinked in the glare of the flashbulbs, and tried to smile. He had practiced his smile, knew it was going to be needed for this moment. He smiled. The cameras flashed. John was finished with high school and would never attend college. He walked offstage and stepped onto the fortieth floor of an unfinished office building in downtown Seattle.

John Smith was now twenty-seven years old. He was six feet, six inches tall and heavily muscled, a young construction worker perfect for all of the heavy lifting. His black hair was long and tucked under his hard hat. When he had first started working, his co-workers used to give him grief about his hair, but half of the crew had long hair these days. Seattle was becoming a city dominated by young white men with tiny ponytails. John always had the urge to carry a pair of scissors and snip off those ponytails at every opportunity. He hated those ponytails, but he did not let them distract him at work. He was a good worker, quiet and efficient. He was eating lunch alone on the fortieth floor when he heard the voices again.

John swallowed the last of his cold coffee and gently set the thermos down. He cupped his hand to his ear. He knew he was alone on this floor, but the voices were clear and precise. During the quiet times, he could hear the soft
why-why-why
as Father Duncan’s leather sandals brushed against the sand on his long walk through the desert. Once, just once, John had heard the bubble of the baptismal fountain as Father Duncan dipped him into the water. Sometimes there were sudden sirens and explosions, or the rumble of a large crowd in an empty room. John could remember when it first happened, this noise in his head. He was young, maybe ten years old, when he heard strange music. It happened as he ran from school, across the parking lot, toward the car where Olivia waited for him. He knew this music was written especially for him: violins, bass guitar, piano, harmonica, drums. Now, as he sat on the fortieth floor and listened to those voices, John felt a sharp pain in his lower back. His belly burned.

“Jesus,” said John as he stood up, waving his arms in the air.

“Hey, chief, what you doing? Trying to land a plane?”

The foreman was standing in the elevator a few feet away. John liked to eat his lunch near the elevator so he could move quickly and easily between floors. He always liked mobility.