Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories

BASIC TRAINING

George Mikan was the best basketball donkey that Carter & Sons had ever owned. You could train any donkey to let any human ride it randomly around a basketball court. But George Mikan, named for the bespectacled giant who played pro ball in the ’50s, had an affinity for the game. He always trotted directly toward the hoop regardless of the dexterity, intelligence, or size of the person he was carrying. Emery Carter, Jr., mostly known as Deuce, was convinced that George Mikan would have shot the ball if he had opposable thumbs, but Emery Carter, Sr., mostly known as Emery, scoffed at the idea.

“Donkeys got only three talents,” Emery said. “Fucking, braying, and shitting.”

“What about basketball?” Deuce asked.

“For donkeys, everything is fucking, braying, and shitting.”

Deuce wanted to tell his father that all human activity is also about fucking, braying, and shitting, but he knew his father wouldn’t appreciate the joke. His father wasn’t dumb but he lived in a world that did not include metaphors.

There comes a time in every son’s life when he thinks he is smarter than his father. But the truth is that fathers and sons are mostly equal in intelligence. Geniuses beget geniuses and idiots beget idiots. And yet, there also comes a time in a few sons’ lives when it can be proven beyond any doubt that they are very much smarter than their fathers. So, yes, Deuce was the Socrates of the Carter clan. But even Deuce knew that wasn’t saying much because the Carter clan currently consisted of himself, the elder Emery, and twelve donkeys.

Emery Sr. and Emery Jr. were the president and vice president of Carter & Sons, one of two Donkey Basketball outfits in the Pacific Northwest and one of only ten still operating in the United States. Founded by Edgar Carter in the days after he’d come limping home from WWII, it had, for over four decades, provided solid middle-class employment for Edgar, his wife Eileen, and their three sons, Edgar Jr., Edward, and Emery.

The 1950s through early 1980s were the glory days of Donkey Basketball. Every weekend, the Carters and their donkeys traveled to high schools in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, and split the gate proceeds 50/50 with the sponsoring organizations. Once in a while, they even found games in Utah, Northern California, Nevada, and western Montana. Donkey Basketball was popular. Donkey Basketball helped high schools raise money for new football uniforms or new trumpets for the band or typewriters for the business classes. Donkey Basketball helped the Masons and Elks raise money for college scholarships or give out toys to poor kids at Christmas or help a war widow fix the roof on her house. Donkey Basketball wasn’t just profitable — it was socially responsible. It was good Christian work, and the Carters happened to be the most dedicated outfit with the most friendly humans and donkeys.

Then came the late ’80s and the concept, the romantic poetry, of Animal Rights, and Donkey Basketball was soon viewed in the same way as slaughtering pigs or injecting hepatitis into lab rats or cutting open the skulls of live monkeys and studying their working brains. It wasn’t fair. The Carters loved their donkeys. They fed and bathed the donkeys. The Carters, as a family, midwifed the births of at least a hundred donkey babies. Their donkeys weren’t just pets. And they weren’t just moneymaking employees. They were family.

By 1991, Carter & Sons went Chapter 11 bankrupt. Edgar and Eileen, married for fifty years, died within days of each other. The older boys, Edgar Jr. and Edward, went looking for work in Alaska and never came back. So that left only Emery to care for a barnful of unemployable donkeys and to try and save the family business. And he’d been saving it for twenty years, gaining and losing two wives in the process, but hanging on to a son, a namesake, who was also his best friend.

After dragging the company out of bankruptcy, Emery and Deuce somehow made enough money each year to feed the donkeys and themselves and to pay for the gas to make it to the various towns that still welcomed Donkey Basketball. And once in a while, they had enough cash to rent a motel rather than sleeping in the truck or driving for hours to get back home or to the next game. Though Emery considered himself a Truman Democrat, he discovered that 99 percent of Donkey Basketball fans were now Republicans and/or reservation Indians. He figured Indians loved basketball and animals in equal measure, and he knew those rez people loved to laugh, but he didn’t understand why Donkey Basketball had suddenly become a nearly exclusive Republican tradition. He decided not to care. Money was money, after all. And his donkeys didn’t give a shit about liberal-vs.-conservative battles, so Emery decided not to care, either. If Emery had thought to own a motto or to issue a mission statement, it would have been: “Donkeys love everybody.”

And it was true. Donkeys did love everybody. And Emery loved everybody, too. He was, in an old-fashioned way, a very decent man. One might have thought to call him chivalrous if that word wasn’t loaded with a history of pistol duels.

But Deuce hated the donkeys. He’d hated them since he could walk and say the word “donkey.” But mostly he hated the fact that he had, through family obligation, dedicated his life to something as inane as Donkey Basketball. He was embarrassed that his job hampered — no, destroyed — his romantic life. After all, what’s the third question any woman asks any potential lover?

— What’s your name?

— Deuce.

— Where you from?

— North of Spokane. Little town called Chewelah.

— So what do you do for a living?

— I run a Donkey Basketball company.

— Donkey Basketball?

— Uh, yeah.

— So you teach donkeys how to play basketball?

— Well, no, we’ve trained the donkeys to carry people around the court. The people play basketball while riding the donkeys.

— So it’s like wheelchair basketball? Except the donkeys are the wheelchairs?

— Well, no, those wheelchair folks are amazing athletes. We don’t usually have athletes in our games. The people are goofs. And the donkeys just wander around the court. Mostly wander. But we got one donkey that’s a natural ballplayer.

— Don’t donkeys make, you know, a mess on the court?

— Yeah, sometimes. Most times, I guess. It’s part of the show. It’s funny. People laugh.

— So who cleans up the mess?

— I do. Mostly. My dad has a bad back so the shoveling isn’t always too good for him.

— So your name is Deuce and you clean it up when donkeys go number two? You’re the Deuce who cleans up the deuce?

— Yeah, I guess.

— Well, um, okay, it was nice to meet you, but I’ve got some friends waiting for me. I have to go. Bye.

It had been nearly a decade since Deuce hadn’t had to pay for sex. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. He was thin and muscular like a slice of beef jerky, and had read a couple thousand books in his life. He was one of those rare men who did not monologue his way through life. Deuce loved conversation, but that still did him no good with women, not even the women who liked Donkey Basketball, because those women tended to be farm wives married to their high school sweethearts who were, in turn, in love with their thousand acres of wheat or lentils or some other damn plant. And it wasn’t like Deuce didn’t try. He always picked the most attractive women — the ones without wedding rings — to ride George Mikan. He wanted to use his most talented donkey as a matchmaker, as a love connection, as an aphrodisiac. But Deuce knew that even the hope of using a donkey as a romantic tool was weird, sad, and doomed.

In fact, it had become so weird, sad, and doomed that Deuce had, without informing his father, enlisted in the Army. After basic training, Deuce, even at the advanced age of thirty-one, was certain to be sent into an active combat zone, but he was desperate enough to believe that getting shot at by angry Muslims was a better deal than refereeing one more game of Donkey Basketball.

The game that very evening had been in Browning, Montana, on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. They were raising money for the Meals on Wheels program for senior citizens. A damn good cause, so Carter & Sons had volunteered to take a 40 percent cut of the proceeds instead of their usual 50. But it turned out the white woman who organized the event was new to the reservation and hadn’t realized it was the same weekend as some special Blackfeet holiday. Deuce hadn’t spent any time with Indians outside of Donkey Basketball, but he’d learned that Indians have more holidays than just about any other group of people. This meant that most of the Blackfeet were busy with holiday activities, so that more people rode the donkeys than watched the game from the stands.

As usual, Deuce had given George Mikan to the most attractive single woman in the gym. And, oh, was this Indian woman gorgeous. She was probably six-four, a couple inches taller than Deuce, and her black hair hung down to her knees. All by itself her hair was taller than Emery. She was probably thirty pounds heavier than she should have been but it was thirty pounds placed in exactly the best places. And though you wouldn’t think it would be beautiful, her nose was an indigenous work of art that belonged in the Smithsonian. She was pale brown, like maybe one of her parents was white. And her hands — oh, her hands — were long and aerodynamic, like she was carrying ten thin birds around instead of fingers.

“What’s your name?” Deuce asked her.

“Carlene,” she said.

Carlene! Deuce thought women were named Carlene only in country songs.

“Have you ever ridden a donkey before?”

“I barrel race horses,” she said.

“Okay, so you can handle George Mikan. Do you play basketball?”

“Not so much anymore, but I played college hoops at BYU.”

“Oh, you’re Mormon?”

“No, Mormons make Indians their special mission. Well, Indians are the special mission for a lot of white people, but Mormons are the superstars of trying to save Indians.”

“How come you aren’t at those holiday ceremonies?”

“Does it look like I can fit in those little ceremony rooms?” she asked.

She was a smart and funny woman. Deuce wondered if Carlene had a thing for white men, or maybe could develop a thing for one particular white man. Maybe her dad was white and mean. If so, then Deuce could potentially take gentle advantage of her father issues.

“Are you married?” he asked.

“Ain’t you the bold one?” she said. “No, I’m not married. But if Montana ever makes it legal, I’ll marry my girlfriend.”

Damn. A tall, smart, athletic, hilarious, horse-riding Indian beauty queen who liked her men to be, well, women.

“Well, I’m happy for you and your girl,” Deuce said. “But it’s a damn shame for me and mankind in general. I swear I would have killed buffalo for you, or whatever it is an Indian warrior is supposed to do to earn your love.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Now me and this mule here are going to kick ass, no pun intended.”

And so Carlene and George Mikan instantly became the greatest duo in Donkey Basketball history. George didn’t trot this time. No, he galloped. And Carlene made basket after basket. Hell, she was hitting long three-point shots from the back of a donkey. George Mikan weaved through the other donkeys, his stablemates, and drove toward the hoop to give Carlene easy lay-ins. And though the crowd was small, they knew they were witnessing something special — perhaps the greatest Donkey Basketball performance of all time — and so they cheered and hooted and war-whooped so loud that they seemed to turn a mostly empty gym into a crowded arena.

In the end, Carlene scored 42 points and led her team of mostly Blackfeet women to a huge victory over a bunch of mostly white guys who must have worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Emery thanked the crowd for their attendance and enthusiasm, handed Carlene one of the cheap little plastic trophies they always gave to the Most Valuable Player, and then Carter & Sons hustled to get the donkeys into the trailer so they could get on the road.

As they loaded the last donkey, Deuce saw Carlene walking through the parking lot with a small white woman. They were holding hands, a pretty bold move in rural Montana, he guessed, but he figured Indians must be more kind toward the eccentric — to Donkey Basketball kingpins and lesbians.

“Hey, MVP,” Deuce shouted at Carlene. “I hope I see you down the road somewhere.”

She smiled and waved, as did her partner, and Deuce felt a cold, cold Chinook wind barrel race through his heart. Carlene was an honest and good woman, but Deuce knew he’d been keeping a terrible secret from his father.

So it was one in the morning, mid-April, and Emery and Deuce were driving east on Highway 2. They were just a few miles from Cut Bank on their way to a game the next night in Poplar, on the North Dakota border.

In his pocket, Deuce held a one-way Greyhound bus ticket that would carry him from Cut Bank to Tacoma, Washington, where he would take a taxi and report to basic training at Fort Lewis. Deuce knew that it was less a piece of paper than it was an epic betrayal of his father and his family’s history. For weeks, he’d tried to tell his father the truth. That it was over. That it was done. That donkeys had become dinosaurs. He’d wanted to tell his father back at the ranch in Chewelah. He’d wanted to maybe just sneak out of the house one night and never return. But he lacked the courage. Instead, he’d decided to abandon his father in the middle of a road trip. It was a cruel and sinful thing to do but Deuce decided that it was his only alternative. He had to break his father’s heart in order to break away from the family business. Most folks went into the military out of some sense of honor, but Deuce was dishonorably discharging himself into the Army.

“How much money we make tonight?” Emery asked Deuce.

“Fifty bucks,” Deuce said. “If we don’t make two hundred in Poplar, we’re not going to have money to get back home.”

“Tomorrow will be all right,” Emery said. “Everything will be all right. Donkey Basketball is coming back. With all this new technology shit, people are aching to get back to what really matters. They’re hurting to get back to the land. And Donkey Basketball is the land. Donkey Basketball is the good earth. And you and I are the good earth, too. I’m telling you, Deuce, we’re going to get rich the old-fashioned way and we’re going to get rich because we’re doing something old-fashioned.”

But Deuce knew that the old-fashioned never became the new thing, especially in this era when people changed their cell phones more often than they changed their pants.

And so in their truck, towing a trailer with twelve donkeys, Deuce, after much pain, self-loathing, and deliberation, told his father the truth about his military enlistment. And the shock of the news gave Emery a spiritual heart attack. He lost control of the steering wheel and sent the truck carrying the men and the trailer carrying the donkeys rolling into a fallow wheat field where both vehicles broke apart and rolled over four times.

Father and son survived the wreck with seemingly minor cuts and bruises and sprained fingers and knees. They crawled out of the broken truck and rushed to the trailer lying on its side fifty feet away.

Six donkeys — Dave Cowens, Tiny Archibald, Tom and Dick Van Arsdale, Artis Gilmore, and Billy Paultz — were obviously dead, torn into parts and pieces.

Four other donkeys — Dr. J, Connie Hawkins, Billy Cunningham, and Bob Cousy — were mortally wounded. Two were screaming somewhere in the wreckage and two were trying to walk away despite their injuries.

One donkey, Bill Laimbeer, seemed to be alive and well and just angry at the situation.

But George Mikan, the greatest basketball donkey in the world, was missing.

Seeing the carnage, and the end of his way of life, Emery attacked his son.

“This is your fault!” he screamed again and again, throwing punch after punch.

Deuce, younger and quicker, dodged most of the blows. In no world would he have struck his father so Deuce just defended himself as best as he could. The father, cursing the world, chased the son around the field until the old man lost his anger and collapsed to his knees and wept.

It was the first time that Deuce had seen his father cry. He kneeled beside him, and though Emery resisted at first, he soon accepted his son’s embrace, and they wept together.

“I’m sorry, Dad, I’m so sorry.”

After a while, Emery recovered and did the only thing a simple man could do in such a situation.

“We have to take care of the donkeys,” he said.

Deuce understood what his father wanted. So he climbed back into the truck, unbolted the rifle from its rack, pulled the box of bullets from the glove compartment, and carried it back to his father. Emery looked at the rifle and bullets.

“You do the first one,” he said. “I’m not ready for it yet.”

But loading the rifle, Deuce wasn’t sure that he could shoot the mortally wounded and suffering donkeys. He realized for the first time that perhaps he did love the animals. Or at least, he loved how much his father loved the donkeys.

“I’ll take care of everybody,” Deuce said.

“No,” Emery said. “Just let me catch my breath. I’ll help.”

“Half,” Deuce said. “We’ll each do half.”

“Okay, okay,” Emery said, and got to his feet.

Such are the compromises of grief.

Carrying the rifle, Deuce walked over to Billy Cunningham, desperately trying to walk on mutilated forelegs. Deuce could see white bone shining through red viscera in both. Billy was a dumb animal but was probably the most affectionate of the herd. Even in great pain, he leaned his head against Deuce’s chest.

“I’m sorry, Billy,” Deuce said, then stepped back, pressed the rifle against the donkey’s skull, and pulled the trigger.

Emery cried out at the gunshot, fell back to his knees, and buried his face in the dirt like a mourning pilgrim. Deuce knew then he’d have to do the entire killing. It was mercy, he guessed, but is there really such a thing as mercy with a bullet?

Connie Hawkins, quite intelligent and aware of what a gunshot meant, tried to run away. And she was moving pretty quickly for an animal whose lower jaw was broken in two and whose ribs were visible through a massive gash in her flank. Deuce, weeping hard again and gasping for breath, had to jog to catch up with Connie. And poor, smart Connie tried to defend herself. She weakly reared up and tried to head-butt Deuce but only tripped herself and fell heavily to the dirt. Deuce stood over Connie, who looked up at him with anger and fear. Deuce wanted to lean over and hug the animal but he knew that Connie might find the strength to hurt him. So Deuce aimed, held his breath, and shot Connie in the head.

Dr. J and Bob Cousy were still trapped in the ruined trailer. A piece of metal had pierced Dr. J’s chest, missing her heart, but had likely torn her lungs. She was coughing blood. Deuce could barely see through his tears as he shot the animal.

Deuce went to his knees again and tossed the rifle aside. He knew he couldn’t shoot another one of his animals, even though Bob Cousy was screaming beneath a pile of twisted metal. Deuce scuttled his way through the mess and lay down beside the dying donkey. As soon as Deuce held the donkey’s face in his hands, Bob Cousy stopped screaming.

Man and donkey had known each other for fifteen years. And they stared into each other’s eyes with a man’s regret and a donkey’s primal pain. But Deuce could see that Bob Cousy wanted to live. Considering how slow and clueless Bob had been as a basketball player, it was surprising to see such strength in him now.

“Just let go, Bob,” Deuce said. “Let go. It’s okay. Let go. It’s okay to let go.”

And so Bob took two deep breaths, shuddered, and died.

In that silence, Deuce could hear only his father’s quiet weeping. The son had no idea how long he listened to his father. But eventually, he crawled out of the trailer and walked over to his father, lying facedown in the dirt. Deuce rolled his wailing father over and saw that his face was covered with dirt turned to mud from tears.

“Dad, are you hurt? Do you feel anything broken inside you?”

“Where’s George Mikan?” Emery asked. “Go find George.”

“I will, I will, but are you going to be okay? Are you bleeding inside?”

“I’m okay, I’m okay. Just find George.”

But Deuce couldn’t leave his father looking that way. So he pulled off his shirt and wiped his father’s face clean and pulled off his T-shirt and wrapped that around his father’s bloody arm. Then Deuce pulled out his cell phone, but there was no signal.

“Dad, I’m going to have to walk to get us help.”

“No, find George.”

Deuce scanned the dark horizon. He could see lights out on the plains. Farmhouses, he supposed. Deuce thought he could easily walk close to one of those lights but that it probably wasn’t wise for a shirtless, bloody man to knock on a rural Montana door in the middle of the night. He had to walk into Cut Bank.

“Dad, we can find George in the daylight. I have to go get help for you now.”

“Goddamn you, goddamn you,” Emery said. He weakly punched and kicked at his son. “You do what I say. If it’s the last goddamn time, you do what I say. I’m your goddamn father and you’re going to obey me. Obey me, you little fucker. Obey me.”

Deuce again weathered his father’s blows. And then he handed the phone to Emery.

“Dad, keep trying to call for help. I’ll go look for George.”

Deuce was terrified to leave his father alone.

“Go get George,” Emery said. “I’ve got Bill Laimbeer. He’ll take care of me.”

Deuce couldn’t believe that Bill wasn’t as injured as the other donkeys, and that gave him hope that George Mikan was also okay.

“All right, Bill,” Deuce said to the donkey. “You watch Dad. I’m going for George.”

And so Deuce walked out into the dark. He tried to think like a donkey, like George Mikan, who always trotted for the rim, the goal. So Deuce picked the brightest light in the distance. He figured that George would be traveling toward that light. That light was the hoop and that wheat field was the court.

“Okay, George,” Deuce said. “Let’s win this game.”

He’d walked maybe ten yards when he realized that George might be terribly injured. Deuce understood that he might have to shoot their best donkey. He might have to end that beautiful animal’s misery. But he’d been unable to shoot Bob, so how could he shoot George?

And yet, he knew it was his duty. He knew he had to find the strength and grace. The violent kindness. So he walked back to the trailer, picked up the rifle, and then headed again toward the bright light.

Traveling through the dark with his rifle, Deuce realized that he was now some other kind of soldier. This damn donkey business had started at the end of one war and was now dying in the middle of another one.

After half an hour, Deuce had slowed considerably. The adrenaline had dissipated, so that he could feel his sprained ankles and knees, and the hundred different bruises, and the probably broken collarbone. He knew that George had to be injured, too. He understood that George must have been slowing down.

After another half hour, Deuce had to stop. His ribs felt like they were scraping against his lungs. Maybe a busted rib had pierced his lungs. Deuce wondered if he was dying. He wanted to lie down in the cool dirt and rest. Just close his eyes for a few minutes. And then he’d get up and resume the hunt.

Deuce wanted to surrender.

But then he saw George, illuminated by moonlight, standing atop a rise fifty feet away. Soaked with blood and sweat, trembling and ruined, George couldn’t possibly survive his injuries.

Deuce thought of his father, lying back there in the dark. Deuce knew that he’d mortally wounded his father’s soul.

Deuce knew he was a bad man. But he hoped that he could become a good soldier.

On the rise, George staggered and nearly fell. He brayed and brayed, and it sounded like a prayer, like a plea to be released. Deuce wanted to walk up the rise, stand next to his friend, and end his pain. But he didn’t have the strength. Even as he tried to remain standing, Deuce lost his balance and fell again on his knees. Jesus, he thought, give me some strength. But he didn’t think he’d ever have strength enough to crawl to George.

So Deuce raised the rifle to his shoulder and aimed at George’s head. In the daylight, with full strength, it would have been an easy shot. But on this night, in this dark, he might miss.

Deuce inhaled and exhaled deeply. Then, with shaking hands and with both eyes open, he pulled the trigger.