The Marlon Brando Memorial Swimming Pool

The Marlon Brando Memorial Swimming Pool


There are no mistakes on the reservation, no flubbed lines
or marks missed, no boom mike intruding

down into the frame for the audience to notice, spoiling
every sense of realism, no irregularities

in time, space, or object. We've had a man in charge
of continuity for 500 years. If Lester Fallsapart

holds a half-empty beer in his hand during a crucial scene
then he'll still be holding a half-empty beer

in his hand during the second take, the third, until the
director yells "Print that!" Dress rehearsals will

be formalities. Our sense of character will be methodical.
You'll almost believe every Indian is an Indian.

*

I can't believe it. This late in the 20th century and
Dennis Banks and Marlon Brando are eating

finger sandwiches out by the swimming pool. This must be
fiction. But, wait, whatever happened to AIM?

Did they all drown because Marlon Brando refused to pay
for a lifeguard? "That's impossible!" Vine Deloria, Jr. says

"There was never any water in the pool." In Okie's, I heard
a story that Leonard Peltier left town

after a terrible performance in another reservation high
school production of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

but the Skin who told me that lie wore his hair in a weak
braid, his whole life falling out of the knot.

Where is the news we can trust? Edward R. Murrow is lost
in Beijing and CNN has finally lost its satellite link.

Last year, a local news-crew filmed a softball game between
the Spokane Tribe and a military team travelling in

from the local air force base. In the bottom of the ninth,
down by three with the bases loaded, Seymour at bat

when he was hit by a fastball from the air force pitcher.
One run scored. Lester up next and he got beaned

by a wicked slider, scoring another run. Chief Victor
then stepped into the batter's box. Blasted by a thunderous

pitch, he staggered to first while another Indian came home
from third and tied the game. Junior came to the plate

with Seymour, the winning run, leading off third, and ran
the count to full: two strikes, three balls.

The air force pitcher threw the change-up and Junior
watched it all the way into the catcher's mitt. Imagine

Marlon Brando was the umpire. Would he call it a ball or
a strike? Imagine Dennis Banks as the first

Native American real estate agent, selling a 5,000
gallon capacity dream in the middle of the desert.

Imagine the dream is cracked, leaks into the surrounding
sand, wastes so much time and money. Imagine Banks

trades the pool for everything west of the Mississippi.
Imagine Banks sold the pool to "some white guy".

Imagine he sold it to Cotton Mather. Imagine he sold it
to Andrew Jackson. Imagine the want ads

fancydancing through the newspapers. Imagine Marlon Brando
dressed up like an Indian for the commercials

on late night television. Imagine the possibilities.
Imagine Coyote accepts the Oscar for his lifetime achievement.

Imagine the Marlon Brando Memorial Swimming Pool as monument
to war, to the insane economics of supply and demand.

Imagine the reservation metaphors: no water in the pool
and it's like my stomach; pour whiskey into the pool

until it smells like my kidney; fill it with salt water
and add a few sharks; throw a bag full of kittens

or Indians into the deep end. Imagine the possibilities.
Imagine the songs. Imagine how our lives will change.

*

There are no mistakes on the reservation. The 20th
century warrior relies on HBO for his vision

at three in the morning. Last night, it was THE
GODFATHER made me realize how a slight gesture

can change the world, how the smallest facial tic can
give the illusion of perfection, by highlighting

imperfection. Marlon Brando, cheap diamond, lisping genius,
why did you slow dance with Dennis Banks

beside the swimming pool of every Indian's dreams? Why did
you hide so often on your private island

that personal reservation in the Pacific? All these years
later, Marlon, and you on live television

defending your son, Christian, against murder charges. Do
you remember Leonard Peltier? Do you remember

he stood at the window of the farm house in South Dakota
yelling,"Stella! Stella!" while the FBI surrounded him

and the rest of AIM, a cast of thousands. It was epic,
a Cecil B. DeMille production made intimate

when two FBI agents were shot to death. The murder weapon
was a rifle. Peltier never touched, a rifle

Dennis Banks never touched, a rifle Marlon Brando never
touched, but they were all guilty

of some crime or another, all wore their braids tucked under
a black hat, all fancydanced away

from the fire, and went home alone. Peltier goes blind in
Leavenworth, Banks rents limousenes in Rapid City

and Brando sits, fat and naked, by the Pacific Ocean. "There
was never any water in the damned thing."

Vine Deloria tells me again and I believe him because the
Marlon Brando Memorial Swimming Pool waits

for a buyer, another dreamer who will imagine the pool is
filled with water, with bingo cards ,with uranium

just beginning a half-life, with the very last salmon,
with every Urban Indian looking to find a way home.


Sherman Alexie...........from Old Shirts & New Skins