Reservation Blues

  “Who is this Indian John?” Victor asked as they parked the van.

  “I’m Indian John,” Junior said.

  Chess and Thomas sat on the grass and shared a warm Pepsi. Victor and Junior walked to the bathroom. Inside, a little white boy stared at them.

  “Hello there,” Junior said.

  “Hello,” the boy said.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jason. Are you an Indian?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Hey, Daddy, there’s a real Indian out here.”

  A huge white man stepped out of a stall.

  “Who you talking to?” the white man asked his son.

  “This Indian. He’s real.”

  Junior waved weakly to the man. Victor turned away and pretended not to know Junior. But they were the only two Indians in the bathroom. Both wore white t-shirts that had COYOTE SPRINGS scribbled across the front, although Junior had on jeans and Victor had on his purple bell bottoms.

  “You’re an Indian, huh?” the white man asked.

  “Yeah,” Junior said and prepared to run. On a reservation, this white man would have been all alone. In America, this white man was legion.

  “That’s cool,” the white man said. “Did you know this rest area was named after an Indian?”

  “Yeah,” Victor said and put his arm around Junior. “And you’re looking at the grandsons of Indian John himself.”

  “Really? What’s your names?”

  “I’m Indian Victor and this is Indian Junior.”

  The white man almost believed them but came to his senses and stormed away with his son in tow.

  “What took you so long?” the white man’s wife asked.

  “Just some Indians,” the white man said.

  “Just some Indians,” the little boy repeated.

  Victor and Junior grabbed a free cup of coffee from the stand outside the bathroom. The Veterans of War offered free coffee and donuts in return for donations. Junior dropped a dollar into the box; Victor dropped sugar into his coffee. Both knew it was too warm for coffee, but they drank it anyway and talked about the price of guitar strings and drumsticks. They stood near the coffee stand and dreamed about Seattle.

  Chess and Thomas sat on the grass for a long time. Neither wanted to rise and leave the rest stop, because Seattle waited somewhere down the mountain. Seattle. Seattle. The word sounded like a song.

  “It’s named after an Indian,” Chess said. “Seattle is named after a real Indian chief.

  “Really?”

  “Really. But I guess it was something like Sealth. Chief Stealth. Or Shelf. Or something like that. Something different.”

  “Seattle was his white name, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Jeez, you know his granddaughter lived in some old shack before she died. They name the town after her grandfather, and she lives in a shack downtown.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Ain’t it awful. You know, I was wondering where your father was. Where’d he take off to anyway? I never even saw him get off the table.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You never told us who won that game between your father and the Tribal Cops.”

  “Who do you think?” Thomas asked. “Who you think won that game?”

  5

  My God Has Dark Skin

  MY BRAIDS WERE CUT off in the name of Jesus

  To make me look so white

  My tongue was cut out in the name of Jesus

  So I would not speak what’s right

  My heart was cut out in the name of Jesus

  So I would not try to feel

  My eyes were cut out in the name of Jesus

  So I could not see what’s real

  chorus:

  And I’ve got news for you

  But I’m not sure where to begin

  Yeah, I’ve got news for you

  My God has dark skin

  My God has dark skin

  I had my braids cut off by black robes

  But I know they’ll grow again

  I had my tongue cut out by these black robes

  But I know I’ll speak ’til the end

  I had my heart cut out by the black robes

  But I know what I still feel

  I had my eyes cut out by the black robes

  But I know I see what’s real

  (repeat chorus)

  Chess wondered which member of Coyote Springs most closely resembled the Cowardly Lion as they pulled into the Emerald City, Seattle. The drive from Indian John Rest Area to downtown Seattle took six hours, because the blue van refused to go more than forty miles per hour.

  “This van don’t want to go to Seattle, enit?” Junior asked.

  “Van might be the only smart one,” Chess said.

  The van drove into downtown and found a Super 8 Motel, right next to the Pink Elephant Car Wash. Coyote Springs all strained their necks to look at everything: the Space Needle, the Olympic and Cascade mountains, the ocean. None of them had ever visited Seattle before, so the sheer number of people frightened them. Especially the number of white people.

  “Jeez,” Victor said, “no wonder the Indians lost. Look at all these whites.”

  Thomas parked the van at the motel, and the band climbed out.

  “How many rooms should we get, Chess?” Thomas asked.

  “How much money we got?”

  “Not much.”

  “Shit,” Victor said, “shouldn’t those guys at the Backboard be paying for all of this anyway?”

  “Yeah, they probably should,” Chess said, forced to agree with Victor for the very first time.

  Coyote Springs walked into the lobby and surprised the desk clerk. Up to that point, how many desk clerks had seen a group of long-haired Indians carrying guitar cases? That clerk was a white guy in his twenties, a part-time business student at the University of Washington.

  “Can I help you?” the clerk asked.

  “Yeah,” Thomas said. “We need a couple rooms.”

  “And how will you be paying for your rooms?”

  “With money,” Victor said. “What did you think? Sea-shells?”

  “He means cash or credit,” Chess said.

  “Cash, then,” Victor said. “What Indian has a goddamn credit card?”

  “Okay,” the clerk said. “And how long do you plan on staying with us?”

  “Three nights,” Thomas said. “But listen, I need to use your phone and call the Backboard club. They’ll be paying for our rooms.”

  “The Backboard?” the clerk asked. “Are you guys in a band?”

  “Damn right,” Victor said. “What do you think we have in these cases? Machine guns? Bows and arrows?”

  “What’s your name?” the clerk asked, already learning to ignore Victor.

  “Coyote Springs,” Thomas said.

  “Coyote Springs? I haven’t heard of you. Got any CDs out?”

  “Not yet,” Victor said. “That’s why we’re in Seattle. We’re here to take over the whole goddamn city.”

  “Oh,” the clerk said. “Well, here’s the phone. Which one of you is the lead singer?”

  “I am,” Thomas said, and the clerk handed the phone to him.

  As Thomas dialed the number, the rest of Coyote Springs wandered around the lobby. Junior and Chess sat on couches and watched a huge television set in one corner. Victor bought a Pepsi from a vending machine. Chess watched him. She knew that kind of stuff tickled Victor. He looked like a little kid, counted out his quarters for pop and hoped he had enough change for a Snickers bar. He just stared at all the selections like the machines offered white women and beer.

  “Hey, Victor,” Chess shouted. “That’s a vending machine, you savage. It works on electricity.”

  “Hello,” Thomas said into the phone. “This is Thomas Builds-the-Fire. Lead singer of Coyote Springs. Yeah. Coyote Springs. We’re here for the gig tomorrow night. Yeah, that’s right. We’re the Indian band.”

  Thomas smiled
at Chess to let her know everything was cool.

  “Yeah, we’re over at the Super 8 Motel by that Pink Elephant Car Wash. We got a couple rooms, and the clerk wondered how you were going to pay for it.”

  Thomas lost his smile. Chess looked around the room for it.

  “I don’t understand. You mean we have to pay for it ourselves? But you invited us.”

  Thomas listened carefully to the voice at the other end.

  “Okay, okay. I see. Well, thanks. What time should we be there tomorrow?”

  Thomas hung up the phone and walked over to the rest of the band.

  “What’s wrong?” Chess asked.

  “They said we’re supposed to pay for it,” Thomas said.

  “No fucking way,” Victor said.

  “What’s happening?” Junior asked.

  “I guess it’s a contest tomorrow,” Thomas said. “A lot of bands are going to be there. The winner gets a thousand dollars. The losers don’t get nothing. I guess I didn’t understand the invitation too well.”

  “What are you talking about?” Coyote Springs asked.

  “It’s a Battle of the Bands tomorrow. We have to play the best to get the money. Otherwise, we don’t get nothing.”

  “Jeez,” Junior said. “How many bands are there going to be?”

  “Twenty or so.”

  “Shit,” Victor said. “Let’s forget that shit. Let’s go home. We don’t need this. We’re Coyote Springs.”

  “We don’t have enough money to get home,” Thomas said.

  “Fuck,” Victor said. “Well, let’s get the goddamn rooms ourselves and kick some ass at that contest tomorrow night.”

  “We don’t have enough money to get the rooms and eat, too.”

  “Thomas,” Chess said, “how much money do we have?”

  “Enough to eat on. But we can’t afford the rooms.”

  “Looks like Checkers was right in staying home,” Chess said and missed her sister.

  “What are we going to do?” Junior asked.

  “We can sleep in the van,” Thomas said, feigning confidence. “Then we go and win that contest tomorrow. A thousand bucks. We go home in style, enit?”

  Coyote Springs had no other options. Thomas started the van without a word, pulled out of the motel parking lot, and searched for a supermarket. He found a Foodmart and went inside. The rest of Coyote Springs waited for Thomas. He came out with a case of Pepsi, a loaf of bread, and a package of bologna. Silently, Coyote Springs built simple sandwiches and ate them.

  Checkers walked to the Catholic Church early Saturday to meet Father Arnold. She wanted to join the choir. Enough of the rock music. She needed to reserve her voice for something larger. She braided her hair, pulled on her best pair of blue jeans, red t-shirt, and white tennis shoes. Nike running shoes. Checkers always bought expensive tennis shoes, no matter how poor she was.

  Go in the supermarket, Luke Warm Water had said to his daughters during one of their shopping visits to Spokane, and get some eggs, milk, and butter. Oh, and get yourselves some tennis shoes. They’re in that third aisle. Try them on first.

  Checkers and Chess slumped into the store, sat in the third aisle, and tried on tennis shoes, those supermarket shoes constructed of cheap canvas and plastic. Other shoppers, white people, stared as the Warm Waters tried on shoes; Checkers saw the pity in their eyes. Those poor Indian kids have to buy their shoes in a supermarket. Both sisters cried as they paid for the essential food items and those ugly shoes. Ever since her father had gone, Checkers bought the most expensive pair of shoes she found.

  Those shoes felt good on her feet as Checkers walked into the church. A small church. Four walls, a few pews, an altar. Jesus crucified on the wall. Mary weeping in a corner. It felt like home. Checkers crossed herself and kneeled in a pew. She folded her hands into a prayer.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Let good things happen.”

  She lost track of time as she prayed. Amen, amen. Coyote Springs entered her mind, and she thought of her sister, tried to send a few prayers over the mountains. She felt a little guilty for leaving the band, but they played well without her. Chess sang and played the piano better than her.

  “Thank you, Lord,” Checkers whispered as she opened her eyes, surprised to see a priest sitting a few pews in front of her. Father Arnold.

  “Hello, Father,” Checkers said.

  Father Arnold turned and smiled. He was a handsome man, with brown hair and blue eyes. Slightly tanned skin. Even teeth. Checkers smiled back. She believed that every priest should be a handsome man.

  “Hello,” Father Arnold said. “You’re one of those sisters, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Checkers said, thrilled. “I’m Checkers Warm Water.”

  “Checkers? That’s an unusual name.”

  “Well, it’s not my real name.”

  “What is your real name?”

  “I don’t think I’d even tell you that in confession.”

  Father Arnold stood, walked back toward Checkers, and sat beside her. He smelled like cinnamon.

  “So,” Father said. “How is the music business?”

  “Not too good. I quit the band.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No, not really.”

  Checkers thought about Coyote Springs. She already missed the stage. There was something addicting about it. She loved to hear her name shouted by strangers.

  “Are you interested in joining our community here?” Father Arnold asked.

  “I’m thinking about it,” Checkers said. “But I’m from the Flathead Reservation. Is that okay?”

  “Are you confirmed?”

  “Yeah. Father James over there did that. A long time ago.”

  Checkers swore she remembered her baptism, though she was only a few months old at the time. Sometimes, she still felt that place on her forehead where Father James poured the water. Once, while fighting fires in her teens, she found herself trapped in a firestorm. Convinced she was going to burn, she suddenly felt the cold, damp touch on her forehead. She felt the water flow down her face, into her mouth, and she drank deeply. Satiated, she burned down a circle of grass, lay down in the middle, and lived as the fire crowned the pine trees above her.

  “So,” Father Arnold said, “tell me about your faith.”

  “You know,” Checkers said, “it’s hard to talk about. I mean, there’s a lot I want to talk about.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Checkers thought about what she had seen during her brief time with Coyote Springs. She remembered Junior and Victor naked in the van with those two white women, Betty and Veronica, who had disappeared soon after.

  “You know,” Checkers said, “two of the guys in the band, Junior and Victor. They’ve been doing bad things.

  “I know them. Are you here to talk about them or you?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  Father Arnold reached for Checkers’s hand and held it gently. Her heart quickened a little.

  “You can talk to me,” Father Arnold said.

  “It’s just that everywhere I look these days, I see white women. We caught Junior and Victor having sex with some white women. They’re always having sex with white women. It makes me hate them.”

  “Hate who?”

  “White women. Indian men. Both, I guess.”

  “Are you romantically involved with Junior or Victor?”

  “Oh, God, no.”

  “Well, then, what is it?”

  “Those white women are always perfect, you know? When I was little and we’d go to shop in Missoula, I’d see perfect little white girls all the time. They were always so pretty and clean. I’d come to town in my muddy dress. It never mattered how clean it was when we left Arlee. By the time we got to Missoula, it was always a mess.”

  “Did you travel with your parents?”

  “Yeah, Dad drove the wagon. Can you believe that? We still had a wagon, and Dad made that thing move fast. The h
orses and wheels would kick up dirt and mud. Chess, my sister, and I always tried to hide under blankets, but it never worked. There’d be mud under our nails, and we’d grind mud between our teeth. There’d be dirt in the bends of our elbows and knees. Dirt and mud everywhere, you know?”

  Father Arnold nodded his head.

  “Anyway, all those little white girls would be so perfect, so pretty, and so white. White skin and white dresses. I’d be all brown-skinned in my muddy brown dress. I used to get so dark that white people thought I was a black girl.

  “I wanted to be just like them, those white girls, and I’d follow them around town while Mom and Dad shopped. Chess was always telling me I was stupid for doing it. Chess said we were better than those white girls any day. But I never believed her.”

  “How does that make you feel now?” Father Arnold asked.

  “I don’t know. I just looked at that blond hair and blue eyes and knew I wanted to look like that. I wanted to be just like one of those white girls. You know, Father James even brought his little white nieces out to visit the reservation, and that was a crazy time.”

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, Father James wanted us all to be friends, Chess, me, and his little nieces. So we all sat together in our folding chairs and knelt down on the floor to pray. We even got to help with the candles at mass. I remember I always held onto my candle tight, because I didn’t want to drop it. I always thought flames were beautiful, you know?

  “All four of us helped with Communion once. It all worked great. It was the best Communion. Then we carried the bread and wine back to the storage closet. While we were in there, those nieces pushed me over, and I dropped the wine and it spilled all over everything. On the floor, on my best dress. Everywhere. Those nieces started laughing. Me and Chess tried to clean it up. Father James came running to see what the noise was all about. When he came into the closet, those nieces started crying like babies. They told Father James that Chess and I’d been messing around and dropped the bottles. Father James really scolded Chess and me and never let us help with Communion for a long time.”

  “That’s a sad story,” Father Arnold said.

  “Yeah, it is, I guess. But his nieces could be nice, too. They let me play with their dolls sometimes. They were really good dolls, too. I taught the nieces how to climb trees and watch people walk by. I’d leave Chess at home and stand outside Father James’s house and wait for his nieces to come out and play. Sometimes I waited until after dark. I’d walk home in the dark all by myself. But sometimes they came out, and we played.