Eugene Boyd Don't Drink Here Anymore

Eugene Boyd Don't Drink Here Anymore


The stranger walks into a bar,
orders a beer, and asks me
where the hell Eugene Boyd is,
and I tell him,
he got shot last year in the parking lot
of the Gold Coin, man,
he's dead.

The Stranger looks me right in the eyes,
looks the whole bar straight in the eyes,
and drinks his beer in one drink.

Who the hell did it,
the Stranger asks me, and I tell him
that everyone knows but the police
ain't going to do anything about it
because when one Indian kills another Indian,
that's considered natural selection.

He holds that empty glass tight
and looks in the mirror behind the bar
where all our faces are reflected.
All of us stoic Indians rehearsing for parts
as extras is some eternal black and white Western.

Shit, used to be only whites expected Skins
to have monosyllabic faces, but now,
we can even expect it of each other.

But the Stranger looks in the mirror
and he starts crying. Crying for the dead,
not looking forward to the gifts he'll get
from the deceased, not lookin forward to
the wake, he's crying
for the dead.

I used to figure strength was all a matter
of being waterproof, like our houses could
never be. So the Stranger throws
his glass at the mirror, shattering us all
into pieces, and in the silence after that
the Professor, at the end of the bar,
tips his beer and says,
"that was some serious fucking dualism."


Sherman Alexie......from The Business of Fancydancing