Father Coming Home

Father Coming Home


THEN

Father coming home from work. Me, waiting on the front steps,
watching him walk slowly and carefully, like half a real Indian.
The other half stumbling, carrying the black metal lunch box,
with maybe half a sandwich, maybe the first drink of good coffee
out of the thermos, maybe the last bite of a dream.

SPOKANE

Father coming home from work five days a week. Me, waiting
every day until the day he doesn't come walking home, because
he cut his knee in half with a chainsaw.

Me, visiting my father laying in bed in he hospital in Spokane.
Both of us, watching the color television until my mother
comes from shopping at Goodwill or Salvation Army, until
the nurses come in telling us we have to go.

CEREMONIES

Father coming home from the hospital in a wheelchair. Me,
waiting for him to stand up and teach me how to shoot
free throws.

Me, running up to him one day and jumping hard into his
lap, forgetting about his knee. Father holding me tight
against his chest, dark and muddy, squeezing his pain
into my thin ribs, his eyes staying clear.

AFTER

Father coming home from the mailbox, exercising his knee
again and again. Me, looking up from the floor as he's
shaking his head because there is no check, no tiny
miracles coming in the mail.

Father bouncing the basketball, shooting lay-in after
lay-in, working the knee until it bleeds along the scar.

Father crying from the pain late at night, watching
television.

Me, pretending to be asleep. All of us listening to
canned laughter.

INSOMNIA

Father coming home from another job interview, limping
only a little but more than enough to keep hearing no,
no, no.

Me, eating potatoes again in the kitchen, my mother's
face growing darker and darker by halves. One half still
mostly beautiful, still mostly Indian, the other half
something all-crazy and all-hungry.

Me, waking her up in the middle of the night, telling
her my stomach is empty. Her throwing me outside in
my underwear and locking the door. Me, trying anything
to get back in.

HOMECOMING

Father coming home from drinking, after being gone for
weeks. Me, following him around all the time. Him,
never leaving my sight, going into the bathroom.

Me, sitting outside the door, waiting, knocking on
the wood every few seconds, asking him, "Are you
there? Are you still there?"

NOW

Father coming home finally from a part-time job.
Driving a water truck for the BIA.

Me, waiting on the front steps, watching him come
home early every day.

Him, telling my mother when they think I can't hear,
he doesn't know if he's strong enough.

Father telling mother he was driving the truck down
Little Falls Hill, trying to downshift, but his
knee was not strong enough to keep holding the
clutch in.

Me, holding my breath.
Him, driving around the corner on two wheels,
tons and tons of water, half-insane.
Me, closing my eyes.
Him, balancing, always ready to fall.
Me, holding onto father
with all my strength.


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

James Montgomery Flagg Wants You

James Montgomery Flagg (June 18, 1877 – May 27, 1960) was an American artist and illustrator. He worked in media ranging from fine art painting to cartooning, but is best remembered for his posters.

Flagg was born in Pelham Manor, New York. He was enthusiastic about drawing from a young age, and had illustrations accepted by national magazines by the age of 12 years. By 14 he was a contributing artist for Life Magazine, and the following year was on the staff of Judge Magazine. From 1894 through 1898 he attended the Art Students League of New York, studied fine art in London and Paris in his early 20s, then returned to the United States, where he produced illustrations for books, magazine covers, political and humorous cartoons, advertising, and spot drawings prolifically. At his peak, Flagg was reported to have been the highest paid magazine illustrator in America[citation needed].

His most famous poster was created in 1917 to encourage recruitment in the United States Army during World War I. It showed Uncle Sam pointing at the viewer (inspired by a British recruitment poster showing Lord Kitchener in a similar pose) with the caption "I Want YOU for U. S. Army". Over 4 million copies of the poster were printed during World War I, and it was revived for World War II. Flagg used his own face for that of Uncle Sam (adding age and the white goatee), he said later simply to avoid the trouble of arranging for a model.

In 1946 Flagg published his autobiography, Roses and Buckshot.

Snow, Snow

Snow, Snow


We've got 9 1/2 inches of the stuff
Nice day today,
the sun is coming out.
Booted up (my feet)
and walked about a mile to the store.

Over dressed because
the family seems to think
that this is some kind disaster area
and we should hide in a bunker
until it's over.
So I got back almost as sweaty
as if I had ridden 20 miles on the Peugeot.

Squirrels leaping and surfing
through the snow.
Birds pecking away at the stuff
fallen out of the feeder
while bigger birds hog it.
Cat refuses to go out side at all
(except for the litter box
we've kindly placed on the porch)

I don't remember ever
having a white Christmas here


Doug Palmer December 2008

Obama And His Bad Self

Obama And His Bad Self


Obama Lama-
mere man out of which many
create their new God.

Obama Lama-
mere man out of many which
creates their new God.

Janet Leigh December 2008

I read this as a haiku, a mantra, a hope for the future.
Glenn

Traveling

Traveling


My eyes were closed tight in the reservation November
night and the three in the morning highway was the longest
in tribal history. It was my father driving the blue van
filled with short Spokane Indians, back from the

Kamiah All-Indian Six-Foot-And-Under Basketball Tournament.
Orofino, Lapwai, Lewiston, Rosalia, Spangle, all the
small towns miles apart, all the Indians in the bars
drinking their culture or boarded up in their houses

so much in love with cable television. I wasn't there
when the old Indian man from Worley said it, but I
know it must be true: Every highway in the world
crosses some reservation, cuts it in half.

I was awake, listening to the sleeping sounds of the
other Skins, to my father talking to his assistant coach,
Willie Boyd, both trying to stay awake, afraid of the
dark. "Willie, I'm getting too damned old for this."

"We'd win more games if we could hit our free throws,
enit?" "Yeah, maybe. I guess we need to find a couple
more players. Arnold gets tired, you know?" "Shit,
he's young. When I was his age I was the toughest

goddamned Indian on the reservation, don't you know?"
"No way, I lived next door to you. Shit, you weren't
even the toughest Indian on the block, enit?"
And they laughed.

It was hunger made me move then, not a dream, and I
reached down and rummaged through the cooler for
something to eat, drink. Two slices of bread, a half-
full Pepsi, melting ice. My hand was cold when I

touched my father's arm. "Hey, Dad, we ain't got any
food left." "What's in your hand?" "Just two slices
of bread." "Well, you can have a jam sandwich, enit?"
"What's that?" "You just take two slices of bread and

jam them together." Willie laughed the loudest and
looked back at me. "You can have a wish sandwich, too,"
Willie said,"All the time you're eating, you wish there
was something in your sandwich."

All the talking stories and laughter woke up the rest
of the Skins, and my brother, two-hundred and eighty-
pound point guard, sat up and farted. "Hey," he said,
"I'm hungry."

I was on Highway 2 just before Reardan when the State
Trooper pulled the blue van filled with Spokane Indians
over to the side of the road. The Trooper walked up to
my father on the driver's side cool and sure, like he

was ordering a hamburger and fries or making a treaty.
"Excuse me, officer, what's the problem?" my father asked.
"You were weaving back there. Been drinking much?"
"Ain't had any, officer. Just coming back from a
basketball tourney.

The Trooper held us all in his flashlight for a moment,
held that light a little longer on the empty cooler.
"What was in that?" he asked. "A whole lot of wishes,"
Willie said and we all laughed.

The Trooper took my father's license and the registration
card and walked back to his cruiser. I watched him walk
back in the headlights, taillights, moonlight, all pushing
back a small circle of darkness.

"We're all going to jail, enit?"
"Only if being Indian is illegal."
"Shit, being Indian has been illegal in Washington since
1972, don't you know?"

"How do you know that? When were you born?"
"1972."
We were still laughing when the Trooper came back
to the van.

"Mr. Victor, I'm going to have to ask you to please step
out of the vehicle."
"Why?"
"Mr. Victor, I'm going to have to ask you to please step
out of the vehicle."

"I didn't do shit."
"Mr. Victor, I won't ask you again."
My father climbed out and we watched as the Trooper
made him walk a straight linek, touch his nose with
his eyes closed, sing the Star-Spangled Banner.

"Who holds the major league record for most home runs
in a single season?" the Trooper asked my father.
"Roger Maris."
"No, it's Babe Ruth. You must be drunk. Who shot J.F.K.?"

"It wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald."
"Wrong. Who invented velcro?"
"You did."
The Trooper bumped chests with my father, spit in his face
as he yelled.

"Now, you understand, Indian. Who is the most beautiful
woman in the world?"
"Your mistress."
"Yes. Who is the greatest entertainer of all time?"

"Frank Sinatra."
"Perfect. What would you order with your bagel?"
"Cream cheese."
"Definitely. Never lox. Now, the last question.

Are you now or have you ever been a member of the
Communist Party?"
"No, no."
All the Indians were silent in the blue van as it

climbed up the roads leading home to the Spokane
Indian Reservation. I tore up my two pieces of
bread and passed it around to the other Skins.
Then the blue van shuddered, the headlights went

dim, out, and the van stopped dark in the endless
night.
"What the hell is it?"
"Out of gas."

"Shit, we're going to have to push it home."
We climbed out of the van while my father and
Willie sat in the front, watching the road.
Ten skinnyspit Indians pushed hard while

my brother struggled against his weight, against
all of our weight.
"I'm so damned tired," he said, stopped pushing,
stood still. I looked back as he stood on the

reservation highway. I turned back to the van,
put my shoulder to the cold metal and waited
for something to change.


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

Translated from the American

Translated from the American


Agnes drove the senior citizen's van from powwow to
powwow, watching all the grandmothers sift into the
even motion of earth, until she came to sit beside me,
holding my son, her grandchild, as we drove west for
the Spokane Tribal Celebration.

"He still has blue eyes," she said,"Only newborns are
supposed to have blue eyes.

She studied my face for a reaction. I felt it darken
by halves.

"When are they going to change?" she asked.

It was the only solid question between us, the last
point after which we both refused the exact.

"They're always going to be blue," I said,
"You know that."

"I have this dream all the time," she said, ignoring me,
"I'm sitting with your son. He's in his crib and he keeps
crying. But when I talk to him or sing to him, he grows.
Really, he grows until he fills the room and I have to
cut off one of his legs to get out the door."

Agnes touched my son's leg with the tip of her forefinger
and whispered a word in Salish.

"What did you say?" I asked.

She repeated it again in Salish.

"In English, you know I don't understand."

"It doesn't make any sense that way," she said.

I began to count mile markers, made mental lists
of everything I really needed: a new pair of shoes,
a winter coat for the baby, a ticket for a Greyhound
traveling back or ahead 500 years.

At that time of the year, the end of summer, the last
powwow, our skins returned reluctantly to our bodies.
We could only come back to our half-life for four walls,
old blanketsm, and black-and-white television. All the

gifts from a thousand cousins buried in the trunk, used
only once and forgotten. I laughed at the Flathead who
gave us the electric blanket in Arlee, a town of random
electricity and occasional water. I asked him what he
remembered and he said half of everything that ever
happened to him.

"Pretty damn good percentage," I said in my mind, then
aloud.

"What?" Agnes asked, though I knew she heard me. She
enjoys repetition as a form of tradition.

"That old man in Arlee said he remembered half of
everything that ever happened to him. I think that's
a good percentage." I said.

"That's nothing," she said,"I remember everything."

"Really?" I asked her. "What's my son's name?"

She called him by a word in Salish.

"That's not his name," I said.

"It's the one I gave him."

"It's useless," I said, only half-believing it. Years
ago, when Agnes tried to teach me the language, she told
me to hold a smooth stone in my mouth, under the tongue.
She would say the words for salt, pepper, mother, son,

and I would try to repeat the Salish exactly, until my
tongue blistered around the stone. Ashamed of my voice
when I could not say the words, I would hide for days
in the trees, stealing food from the kitchen in the
middle of the night.

"His name is Joseph," I said.

"White name," she said.

"He's half white," I said,"I thought you remembered
everything."

"I remember you leaving us to be with the Catholics."
she said," I remember you coming to visit us with your book
of lies, when you told me you could speak German.

I remember you were so proud you knew a foreign
language. I remember I told you English was your
foreign language and you left again."

"It was college," I said, but she had nothing more
for me, either too many memories for her to classify
or not enough words for her to be specific.

She held Joseph tightly against her chest, despite me,
and watched the landscape mover toward her, beside her,
and then away.

The road sign read WELLPINIT--HOME OF THE 99TH ANNUAL
SPOKANE TRIBAL CELEBRATION--25 MILES.

I found myself following a line of cars, followed by a
longer line of cars, all traveling to the same place,
all leaving from another. In some small, ordinary way,
Indians are still nomadic, always halfway.

We pulled into Wellpinit, another reservation town of
torn shacks and abandoned cars. We found the powwow
grounds and stopped at the entrance. The Indian deputy,
a cousin of the Tribal Police Chief or a Councilman,

leaned into our open window. "This here is a dry
powwow," he said."You don't have any alcohol or drugs
in the car, do you?"

"No," I said,"We don't have anything except us."


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

Snow Hug

Photograph by Alex Shapiro

Snow Hug

We had a good dose
of that white fluffy stuff
the night before last.
Everyone knows just how giddy
snowfalls make me,
and this one was no exception.

It’s rare to get “real” snow here
because it’s usually so warm
that whenever a few flakes
hit the ground
they quickly morph into liquid.

But as some may have heard
and others are experiencing,
the Pacific Northwest is in a week-long grip
of the coldest snap in almost twenty years–
and even broke a 44 year old record low today
with 19 degrees in the Seattle area.

On the islands,
it’s been in the low 20’s every day,
and for those exposed to the sturdy wind
on the west side, well,
I can’t imagine what that chill factor makes it,
but the views across the wave-driven straits are spectacular.

Normal temps this time of year
would be in the low to upper 40’s.
But perhaps nothing is “normal” any more,
or perhaps we’ve been keeping records
for far too short a period
in the grand scheme of things
for any of this to raise an eyebrow
with the Universe.

Business as usual, maybe,
if you’ve been around
a few hundred thousand years.
I’m working to achieve that goal myself
because I enjoy my life so much
I don’t particularly want it
to come to an inevitable cadence.
But my fondness for wines,
spirits and dark chocolate
may be cutting into my competitive edge.
We’ll see.


Alex Shapiro December 2008