Reservation Blues - Alexie Sherman (20 page)

As Coyote Springs turned a corner, they discovered
the magical duo: an old Indian man singer and Victor, the guitar
player. In a filthy brown corduroy suit and white t-shirt, the singer
looked older than dirt. But his voice, his voice. A huge crowd
gathered.

"
Look at all the people," Junior said.

Tourists and office workers stopped to listen to this
ragged Indian version of Simon and Garfunkel. Those people who
usually ignored street people threw money into the old Indian man's
hat. Chess noticed Victor was playing some shoestring guitar and
figured it had to be the old man's instrument. Bandaged and bloody,
the old man's hands fascinated Chess.

"
Why's Victor playing with that guy?" Chess
asked.

Thomas also noticed the old man's bandages. That old
man could not play the guitar anymore, because he'd played it until
his hands were useless. Thomas remembered Robert Johnson's hands; he
felt pain in his hands in memory of Robert Johnson's guitar. Victor's
guitar now, he said to himself .

"Jeez," Chess said. "Victor sounds
pretty good on that guitar. That thing's a mess though, enit? Looks
like it's made from cardboard."

The old man's guitar was constructed of cardboard,
but the sound that rose from the strings defied its construction.
Thomas watched the money fall into the old man's hat. A hundred
dollars, maybe two hundred.

"
Thomas, we're going to be late, remember?"
Chess said.

"
It can wait," Thomas said, frightened, but
needing to see the end of that little story in the market.

Victor played with the old Indian man for another
hour.

The money fell into the hat.

"
Thomas!" Chess shouted. "We need to
go."

Thomas broke from his trance, rushed to Victor, stole
the guitar away, and handed it back to the old man. It burned.

"We need to go, " Thomas said to Victor,
who briefly reached for the guitar but pulled back.

The crowd jeered Thomas.

"Shit," Victor said. "What time is
it?"

"
After six. "

"Man, we got to go."

Coyote Springs ran from the market, but Thomas looked
back. The old Indian man picked up the hat full of money and smiled.

"We should've asked that old man to join the
band, enit?" Junior asked.

"
Maybe," Victor said, and then he smiled at
Chess. He really smiled. Chess was frightened. She wanted to go home;
she wanted her sister. The blue van rolled down Mercer Street,
beneath the Space Needle, and found the Backboard Club. Victor
strapped on his guitar, cracked his knuckles, and led the band
inside.

***

From Thomas Builds-the-Fire's Journal:

The Reservation's Ten Commandments as Given by the
United States of America to the Spokane Indians

l . You shall have no other forms of government
before me.

2. You shall not make for yourself an independent and
selfsufficient government, for I am a jealous bureaucracy and will
punish the Indian children for the sins of their fathers to the
seventh generation of those who hate me.

3. You shall not misuse my name or my symbols, for I
will impale you on my flag pole.

4. Remember the first of each month by keeping it
holy. The rest of the month you shall go hungry, but the first day of
each month is a tribute to me, and you shall receive welfare checks
and commodity food in exchange for your continued dependence.

5. Honor your Indian father and Indian mother because
I have stripped them of their land, language, and hearts, and they
need your compassion, which is a commodity I do not supply.

6. You shall not murder, but I will bring FBI and CIA
agents to your reservations and into your homes, and the most
intelligent, vocal, and angriest members of your tribes will vanish
quietly.

7. You shall not commit adultery, but I will
impregnate your women with illegitimate dreams.

8. You shall not steal back what I have already
stolen from you.

9. You shall not give false testimony against any
white men, but they will tell lies about you, and I will believe them
and convict you.

10. You shall not covet the white man's house. You
shall not covet the white man's wife, or his hopes and opportunities,
his cars or VCRs, or anything that belongs to the white man.

* * *

Back on the reservation, Checkers fell asleep on the
couch in Thomas's house. She always slept on couches when houses were
empty. She dreamed of Father Arnold. In her dream, Father Arnold came
into her bedroom in the shack in Arlee. Checkers lay under the
covers, naked.

Let me see
, Father Arnold
said, so Checkers pulled back her covers.

You're such a pretty girl
,
Father said. Father dropped his robe to the floor. Naked. Checkers
studied him. His penis was huge.

Can I lie with you?
Father
asked.

Checkers patted the sheet beside her, and Father lay
down close to her. She felt his heat, his smell. He smelled like
smoke and Communion wine.

You know I love you,
Father
said.

Checkers felt his penis brush against her thigh. It
was so big she knew it would hurt her. Father touched her breasts,
squeezed her nipples, moved his hand down her stomach.

I won't hurt you
, Father
said.
Not ever.

Father kissed Checkers gently, flicked his tongue
between her teeth. Her jaw ached as he forced her mouth open wider
and wider. He tasted strange, old, musty. She cried out as he forced
her legs apart.

I forgive you,
Father
said.

Checkers held her breath as Father climbed between
her legs and entered her roughly.

Yes, I forgive you
, Father
whispered inside her.

* * *

From a live interview on KROK, Seattle's best rock:

Hello, this is Adam the Original, your
favorite D.J. in Seattle for six years straight, coming to you live
from the Backboard in the shadow of the Space Needle. Tonight, as you
all know, was the Tenth Annual Battle of the Bands. After thirty
acts, the Judges chose a winner. And it's a shocker, folks. The best
band tonight happened to be a bunch of Spokane Indians from the
Spokane Reservation on the other side of the mountain. The name of
the band is Coyote Springs, of all things, and I have with me the
lead singer, Thomas Builds-the-Fire. Now, Thomas, tell me about
yourself.

Like you said, I'm a Spokane Indian from the
Spokane Indian Reservation. I play bass guitar and share vocals with
Chess Warm Water. She's a Flathead Indian from Montana, not Spokane.

I've talked to some people here tonight
who said they've seen quite a  few of your shows. They were
really impressed. You're not Just a cover band, areyou? When did you
make the decision to play original material? And who writes your
songs?

Well, we started out as a cover band. But it
was sort of weird, enit? We covered great stuff, like Aretha Franklin
and Alex Chilton, but none of those songs were Indian, I you know? I
mean, some of those songs we covered should've been written by
Indians, but they weren't. So I decided to write some songs myself. I
write all the songs now. But I was wondering who heard of us before.
We mostly played on the reservations. I didn't see no Indians here
tonight.

A couple people mentioned they saw you.
But seriously, how does songwriting make you fell?

Good.

I've noticed that you had two white women
singing backup for the band tonight. That seemed sort cf unusual. How
do you think other Indians look at that? And how do you think it
affects your sound?

I don't even know those women all that well.
They were waiting for us when we got here. I've seen them before
though. They've been following us for a while, way back on the
reservation even, then in Montana. I caught Junior and Victor, the
drummer and lead guitarist, all naked with them a while back. They
sound really good, enit? We took a quick vote to see if they would
sing with us, and the vote was 2-2. So we flipped a coin, and the
white women were in. It's kind of tough, though. They only sang
backup because they're sleeping with Junior and Victor. I don't know
how it affected the music. But we won, didn't we? I don't know what
Indian people will think about those white women. But hey, an Indian
woman invented the blues a day before Columbus landed, and rock 'n'
roll the next day. We're not stealing those white women or stealing
the music. It's not like we're all white because we have
white women in the band.

Well, if nothing else, the irony is
incredible, isn't it? And I was wondering who voted against the white
women. And what are the white women's names?

Chess and I voted against them. And their
names are Betty and Veronica.

Really?

Really.

How would you assess their relationship
with Junior and Victor?

I'm not like a therapist or something. But I
don't think it has much of a chance. I mean, I think they're all
using each other as trophies. Junior and Victor get to have beautiful
white women on their arms, and Betty and Veronica get to have Indian
men.

Do you think you could elaborate on that?
Our listeners out there in the rock world would love to know.

Jeez, I Just realized. Them two are the ones
who saw us play before. They must really be following us around. That
Betty and Veronica. Man. They are beautiful, enit?

Yes, they are. But what do Betty and
Veronica have to gain in all of this?

Look at them. They got more Indian jewelry
and junk on than any dozen Indians. The spotlights hit the crystals
on their necks and nearly blinded me once. All they talk about is
Coyote this and Coyote that, sweatlodge this and sweatlodge that.
They think Indians got all the answers. How long do you think that
relationship will last? Until the next slow song.

Well, I don't know when that's going to
be. That Victor plays a wicked guitar. I 've never actually seen a
guitar set a table on fire,  though. It's a good thing that
Chess had fire safety training, isn't it?

We almost lost the whole damn thing because
Victor got drunk. How did you know Chess had fire experience?

An amateur would never have put a fire
out that quickly. Forgive me for asking, but I noticed that you and
Chess seem to have a close relationship.

Jeez, getting personal, enit? She's my
partner. We're in love, I guess. No. We are 1n love. She's pretty
amazing. I write songs for her, you know. She's the first Indian
woman who ever paid me much attention. That's something special.

Well, I think you'll be getting a lot of
attention from all kinds of women now. Especially white women.

I don't need that.

Well, I hope that's true. I also heard
that Chess has a sister who used to be in the band. Is that true?

Yeah, Checkers, her sister, stayed home on
the reservation. She wants to sing in the church choir instead.
They're both Catholic women, you know?

Don't you think that's odd?

I don't think it's odd at all. I mean, I
think God loves to dance as much as the rest of us. I think we'd all
be better off if we put more rock music into our churches. Chess told
me that God is a long ways up, and we need to be loud so God can hear
us. What's louder than rock 'n' roll?

Do you believe in God?

Yeah, I do.

Do you believe in the devil?

I don't know. I'm beginning to. Seems
there's more proof of the devil than proof of God, enit?

Is God a man or a woman?

God could be an armadillo. I have no idea.

* * *

Checkers stood in the back row of the choir; she was
much taller than all the altos, baritones, and sopranos. She was
taller than everybody in the church and wondered if Spokane Indian
Catholics were short by nature. Easily distracted by the details, she
tried to concentrate on the service. Father Arnold led the service
with intensity and passion, like he was more Baptist than Catholic.
Most priests Just went through the motions, recited platitudes by
rote, and turned Communion into a Sunday brunch.