THE VOW
If I get Alzheimer’s,” he said, “then I want you to put me in a home.”
“Indians don’t get Alzheimer’s,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because our elders continue to be an active part of our culture. With powwows and storytelling and ceremonies.”
“That sounds very anecdotal,” he said. “And also, you know, like bullshit.”
“It sounds true is what it sounds like.”
“Everything sounds true if you say it enough.”
“It’s true for me,” she said. “If you get Alzheimer’s, I’m going to take care of you. I’ll turn the dining room into a hospital room. And I’ll get one of those recliners that you can raise and lower. And I’ll spoon-feed you sweet potatoes.”
“I hate sweet potatoes,” he said.
“Carrots, then.”
“Why would you take care of me like that? Why would you sacrifice your health for mine?”
“A thing called wedding vows,” she said. “Perhaps you remember ours?”
“We need Wedding Vows 2.0,” he said.
“How very modern of you.”
“I’m an Indian man,” he said. “You know I’m going to get sick before you do. If one of us gets Alzheimer’s, it’s going to be me.”
“Self-pity is so sexy.”
“No, really,” he said, and took her hand. “Promise me.”
“Promise you what?”
“Promise me you’ll put me in a home if I get Alzheimer’s.”
“I’m not going to do that. You’re still going to be you.”
“I can’t be me if I don’t have my memories. We’re made of memories, damn it.”
She was not surprised by his sudden anger. And she knew how to mollify him.
“Okay,” she said. “You’ll lose your memories. I understand. But I’ll still have mine. I’ll have enough memory for both of us.”
“That’s beautiful,” he said. “And also, you know, more bullshit.”
“Maybe. But it’s my bullshit.”
“Listen,” he said. “Just make this promise. When I forget your name—when I forget who you are—then you have to put me in a home.”
She tried to picture it. She imagined him staring at her like she was an intruder in their home. It was a terrifying hypothetical, but it felt so possible that she was startled by her grief.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said. “It’s not going to happen.”
“I love you,” he said. “I love you like the earth loves the earth. I need you to promise me this.”
“No.”
“Promise me you’ll put me in a home if I forget who you are.”
“No.”
He stood from the couch and walked across the room. He paused in the doorway to the kitchen and turned to face her.
“Pretend,” he said. “Pretend this space between us is all we have left. Pretend I can’t see or hear you across the distance. Pretend I have to introduce myself to you thirty times a day.”
Her eyes watered. She didn’t want to cry.
“Stop it,” she said. “Why are you doing this?”
“Just make the promise,” he said. “Quit asking questions. And just make the promise. I need the promise. Just be my wife and don’t question my motives this time. Just accept it. Don’t you love me enough to just accept something I ask for?”
She hid her face and sobbed. After a few minutes, she stopped. Then, a few minutes after that, she could speak again.
“Okay,” she said. “If you can’t remember who I am, then I’ll put you in a home. But I’m going to visit you every day. I’ll introduce myself to you every fucking day for the rest of our lives.”
She rarely cursed, so he knew that she was telling the truth.
“Damn you,” she said. “Damn you for doing this to me. Damn you for being so fucking sad.”
They were both twenty-seven years old and lived in a one-bedroom house in a city. They’d been married for three years. She was pregnant with their second child. They’d known beforehand the gender of the first child, a daughter, but they’d decided to keep the gender of the second one a mystery. She was from the Colville Indian Reservation and he from the Spokane Indian Reservation. Between their tribal lands flowed the Columbia River, the fourth largest in the United States. During their seven years of courtship, he’d drive his car onto the Gifford Ferry and cross the water for her.
O, he’d loved that river since his birth.
O, he’d loved her since the first time he’d seen her shawl-dancing in the powwow twilight.
But he’d always been afraid of his love’s volume, and he’d always been more afraid of her love’s volume.
When he was nineteen, he’d driven onto the ferry, positive he was going to break up with her and join the Marines. Distraught by his weakness, he stepped out of his car and paced the ferry’s small deck. Then he leaned over the railing and saw a herd of deer swimming alongside the ship.
“Holy shit,” he said to himself.
“Holy shit,” he said again, and counted eleven deer.
“Holy shit,” he said for the third time as the largest buck turned its head and looked at him. The deer was judging him.
Amazed, he turned to tell the three other people on the ferry. But he changed his mind. He wanted to keep the deer for himself. It was a sign, he thought. How could he leave a place where he could see miracles like this?
So, instead of leaving her on that day and going to war, he carried his hand drum into her house. And with an audience of three—her and her parents—he sang an honor song to deer. He improvised a song for deer. And as he sang it, he knew that his honor song was also a love song for her. And he’d instantly memorized it.
So, years later, as he stood in the kitchen doorway and watched his wife weeping over his ridiculous amendment of their wedding vows, he tried to comfort her.
“Sweetheart,” he said. “Even if I forget your name, I’ll still remember that deer song. Every time you come to visit me, I’ll sing you that deer song, even if I’m not sure why I’m singing it, and everything will be okay.”
He almost believed it. And she almost believed it, too.
BASIC TRAINING
George Mikan was the best basketball donkey that Carter & Sons had ever owned. You could train any donkey to let any human ride it randomly around a basketball court. But George Mikan, named for the bespectacled giant who played pro ball in the ’50s, had an affinity for the game. He always trotted directly toward the hoop regardless of the dexterity, intelligence, or size of the person he was carrying. Emery Carter, Jr., mostly known as Deuce, was convinced that George Mikan would have shot the ball if he had opposable thumbs, but Emery Carter, Sr., mostly known as Emery, scoffed at the idea.
“Donkeys got only three talents,” Emery said. “Fucking, braying, and shitting.”
“What about basketball?” Deuce asked.
“For donkeys, everything is fucking, braying, and shitting.”
Deuce wanted to tell his father that all human activity is also about fucking, braying, and shitting, but he knew his father wouldn’t appreciate the joke. His father wasn’t dumb but he lived in a world that did not include metaphors.
There comes a time in every son’s life when he thinks he is smarter than his father. But the truth is that fathers and sons are mostly equal in intelligence. Geniuses beget geniuses and idiots beget idiots. And yet, there also comes a time in a few sons’ lives when it can be proven beyond any doubt that they are very much smarter than their fathers. So, yes, Deuce was the Socrates of the Carter clan. But even Deuce knew that wasn’t saying much because the Carter clan currently consisted of himself, the elder Emery, and twelve donkeys.
Emery Sr. and Emery Jr. were the president and vice president of Carter & Sons, one of two Donkey Basketball outfits in the Pacific Northwest and one of only ten still operating in the United States. Founded by Edgar Carter in the days after he’d come li
mping home from WWII, it had, for over four decades, provided solid middle-class employment for Edgar, his wife Eileen, and their three sons, Edgar Jr., Edward, and Emery.
The 1950s through early 1980s were the glory days of Donkey Basketball. Every weekend, the Carters and their donkeys traveled to high schools in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, and split the gate proceeds 50/50 with the sponsoring organizations. Once in a while, they even found games in Utah, Northern California, Nevada, and western Montana. Donkey Basketball was popular. Donkey Basketball helped high schools raise money for new football uniforms or new trumpets for the band or typewriters for the business classes. Donkey Basketball helped the Masons and Elks raise money for college scholarships or give out toys to poor kids at Christmas or help a war widow fix the roof on her house. Donkey Basketball wasn’t just profitable—it was socially responsible. It was good Christian work, and the Carters happened to be the most dedicated outfit with the most friendly humans and donkeys.
Then came the late ’80s and the concept, the romantic poetry, of Animal Rights, and Donkey Basketball was soon viewed in the same way as slaughtering pigs or injecting hepatitis into lab rats or cutting open the skulls of live monkeys and studying their working brains. It wasn’t fair. The Carters loved their donkeys. They fed and bathed the donkeys. The Carters, as a family, midwifed the births of at least a hundred donkey babies. Their donkeys weren’t just pets. And they weren’t just moneymaking employees. They were family.
By 1991, Carter & Sons went Chapter 11 bankrupt. Edgar and Eileen, married for fifty years, died within days of each other. The older boys, Edgar Jr. and Edward, went looking for work in Alaska and never came back. So that left only Emery to care for a barnful of unemployable donkeys and to try and save the family business. And he’d been saving it for twenty years, gaining and losing two wives in the process, but hanging on to a son, a namesake, who was also his best friend.
After dragging the company out of bankruptcy, Emery and Deuce somehow made enough money each year to feed the donkeys and themselves and to pay for the gas to make it to the various towns that still welcomed Donkey Basketball. And once in a while, they had enough cash to rent a motel rather than sleeping in the truck or driving for hours to get back home or to the next game. Though Emery considered himself a Truman Democrat, he discovered that 99 percent of Donkey Basketball fans were now Republicans and/or reservation Indians. He figured Indians loved basketball and animals in equal measure, and he knew those rez people loved to laugh, but he didn’t understand why Donkey Basketball had suddenly become a nearly exclusive Republican tradition. He decided not to care. Money was money, after all. And his donkeys didn’t give a shit about liberal-vs.-conservative battles, so Emery decided not to care, either. If Emery had thought to own a motto or to issue a mission statement, it would have been: “Donkeys love everybody.”
And it was true. Donkeys did love everybody. And Emery loved everybody, too. He was, in an old-fashioned way, a very decent man. One might have thought to call him chivalrous if that word wasn’t loaded with a history of pistol duels.
But Deuce hated the donkeys. He’d hated them since he could walk and say the word “donkey.” But mostly he hated the fact that he had, through family obligation, dedicated his life to something as inane as Donkey Basketball. He was embarrassed that his job hampered—no, destroyed—his romantic life. After all, what’s the third question any woman asks any potential lover?
—What’s your name?
—Deuce.
—Where you from?
—North of Spokane. Little town called Chewelah.
—So what do you do for a living?
—I run a Donkey Basketball company.
—Donkey Basketball?
—Uh, yeah.
—So you teach donkeys how to play basketball?
—Well, no, we’ve trained the donkeys to carry people around the court. The people play basketball while riding the donkeys.
—So it’s like wheelchair basketball? Except the donkeys are the wheelchairs?
—Well, no, those wheelchair folks are amazing athletes. We don’t usually have athletes in our games. The people are goofs. And the donkeys just wander around the court. Mostly wander. But we got one donkey that’s a natural ballplayer.
—Don’t donkeys make, you know, a mess on the court?
—Yeah, sometimes. Most times, I guess. It’s part of the show. It’s funny. People laugh.
—So who cleans up the mess?
—I do. Mostly. My dad has a bad back so the shoveling isn’t always too good for him.
—So your name is Deuce and you clean it up when donkeys go number two? You’re the Deuce who cleans up the deuce?
—Yeah, I guess.
—Well, um, okay, it was nice to meet you, but I’ve got some friends waiting for me. I have to go. Bye.
It had been nearly a decade since Deuce hadn’t had to pay for sex. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. He was thin and muscular like a slice of beef jerky, and had read a couple thousand books in his life. He was one of those rare men who did not monologue his way through life. Deuce loved conversation, but that still did him no good with women, not even the women who liked Donkey Basketball, because those women tended to be farm wives married to their high school sweethearts who were, in turn, in love with their thousand acres of wheat or lentils or some other damn plant. And it wasn’t like Deuce didn’t try. He always picked the most attractive women—the ones without wedding rings—to ride George Mikan. He wanted to use his most talented donkey as a matchmaker, as a love connection, as an aphrodisiac. But Deuce knew that even the hope of using a donkey as a romantic tool was weird, sad, and doomed.
In fact, it had become so weird, sad, and doomed that Deuce had, without informing his father, enlisted in the Army. After basic training, Deuce, even at the advanced age of thirty-one, was certain to be sent into an active combat zone, but he was desperate enough to believe that getting shot at by angry Muslims was a better deal than refereeing one more game of Donkey Basketball.
The game that very evening had been in Browning, Montana, on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. They were raising money for the Meals on Wheels program for senior citizens. A damn good cause, so Carter & Sons had volunteered to take a 40 percent cut of the proceeds instead of their usual 50. But it turned out the white woman who organized the event was new to the reservation and hadn’t realized it was the same weekend as some special Blackfeet holiday. Deuce hadn’t spent any time with Indians outside of Donkey Basketball, but he’d learned that Indians have more holidays than just about any other group of people. This meant that most of the Blackfeet were busy with holiday activities, so that more people rode the donkeys than watched the game from the stands.
As usual, Deuce had given George Mikan to the most attractive single woman in the gym. And, oh, was this Indian woman gorgeous. She was probably six-four, a couple inches taller than Deuce, and her black hair hung down to her knees. All by itself her hair was taller than Emery. She was probably thirty pounds heavier than she should have been but it was thirty pounds placed in exactly the best places. And though you wouldn’t think it would be beautiful, her nose was an indigenous work of art that belonged in the Smithsonian. She was pale brown, like maybe one of her parents was white. And her hands—oh, her hands—were long and aerodynamic, like she was carrying ten thin birds around instead of fingers.
“What’s your name?” Deuce asked her.
“Carlene,” she said.
Carlene! Deuce thought women were named Carlene only in country songs.
“Have you ever ridden a donkey before?”
“I barrel race horses,” she said.
“Okay, so you can handle George Mikan. Do you play basketball?”
“Not so much anymore, but I played college hoops at BYU.”
“Oh, you’re Mormon?”
“No, Mormons make Indians their special mission. Well, Indians are the special mission for a lot of white people, but Mormons are the superst
ars of trying to save Indians.”
“How come you aren’t at those holiday ceremonies?”
“Does it look like I can fit in those little ceremony rooms?” she asked.
She was a smart and funny woman. Deuce wondered if Carlene had a thing for white men, or maybe could develop a thing for one particular white man. Maybe her dad was white and mean. If so, then Deuce could potentially take gentle advantage of her father issues.
“Are you married?” he asked.
“Ain’t you the bold one?” she said. “No, I’m not married. But if Montana ever makes it legal, I’ll marry my girlfriend.”
Damn. A tall, smart, athletic, hilarious, horse-riding Indian beauty queen who liked her men to be, well, women.
“Well, I’m happy for you and your girl,” Deuce said. “But it’s a damn shame for me and mankind in general. I swear I would have killed buffalo for you, or whatever it is an Indian warrior is supposed to do to earn your love.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Now me and this mule here are going to kick ass, no pun intended.”
And so Carlene and George Mikan instantly became the greatest duo in Donkey Basketball history. George didn’t trot this time. No, he galloped. And Carlene made basket after basket. Hell, she was hitting long three-point shots from the back of a donkey. George Mikan weaved through the other donkeys, his stablemates, and drove toward the hoop to give Carlene easy lay-ins. And though the crowd was small, they knew they were witnessing something special—perhaps the greatest Donkey Basketball performance of all time—and so they cheered and hooted and war-whooped so loud that they seemed to turn a mostly empty gym into a crowded arena.