Asunder

THE INDIAN FROM INDIANA

EVERYONE WAS AFRAID OF THE INDIAN FROM INDIANA BECAUSE HE WAS DRUNK AND FROM INDIANA. We were afraid he would embarrass us in front of everyone. We were afraid he would ruin our evening. None of us were sure where Indiana was and so we didn’t know how the Indians from there behaved. Some of us had heard of Indiana and one of us said out loud that it might be somewhere in the middle of the country. Then another one of us said they do a lot of farming there and they play basketball and the country is flat as a sheet of paper. We didn’t know if all Indians from Indiana were drunks like this one but one of us said he didn’t think so. He said they wouldn’t be good at basketball and wouldn’t be able to farm if they all were drunks like this Indian here. We didn’t even know if that’s what you called someone from Indiana, an Indian, but it made sense to most of us. We were gathered together for a celebration but I forget what we were celebrating. There wasn’t much to celebrate then so even the slightest victory, a morning without incident, for instance, would be grounds for a celebration. None of us knew how the Indian came to be where we were. None of us had seen him before. Eventually this Indian from Indiana cornered me into a discussion about language, specifically the English language and where it came from. I don’t know what made him think this was something I’d want to discuss. There is nothing about me that says I like to talk about the English language and where it came from. Maybe it was because he was an Indian that he thought otherwise. Maybe this is what goes on in Indiana when they’re not farming and playing basketball. He seemed to speak English like he’d been speaking it his whole life but he was drunk so you couldn’t tell for sure. The rest of us were at the bar when he cornered me so I was on my own. Had I known this was to happen I would’ve accompanied the rest of us to the bar. I wouldn’t have let myself get cornered by an Indian had I known better. I almost never know better beforehand and this is why I often find myself in these sorts of fixes. At any rate, this Indian went on to say English derives from the languages of love. This is when I took the glass of water beside me and drank from it. I was hoping it was gin in the glass or vodka but it turned out to be water. I looked down on this Indian to see if maybe he’d fallen or had decided I wasn’t the one to discuss this with. He was drunker now than he was before. His eyes were halfway shut and there was spittle on his chin and beard. It was good he was short so I could drink a glass of water and look down on him at the same time. I felt like I needed to keep an eye on this little Indian. He was still there beneath me by the time I’d finished the water. I waited for the rest of us to get back from the bar. I didn’t know what was taking so long but I figured they’d be back soon. This way the Indian would be distracted and skulk away. I’d seen him skulk away several times that night. His habit was to approach someone on their own, do some talking and gesturing, then skulk away when others joined them. I was waiting for this to happen when it occurred to me he was referring to Romance languages. In his drunken Indian head you can see how he would get from there to there and for a second I was filled with something, a feeling I cannot describe. It was almost like love, maybe, or awe, for all Indians everywhere, their complexities and foibles. So I told him he was right, that English comes from the languages of love. I figured there was no harm and the Indian might appreciate it. I don’t think he heard me, though, because the rest of us were approaching and the Indian was already in retreat and like that he was somewhere else. The Indian stayed on through the night but we never saw him again and none of us knows what became of him. Whenever the rest of us gather to celebrate something these days we’ll take turns telling stories of that night and the Indian from Indiana. Almost none of these stories are true but that doesn’t stop anyone from telling the stories or listening to them. It is embarrassing is what it is, that we find these sorts of tales amusing. The rest of us know this full well and the ones that don’t suspect it.