Reservation Blues

8. Urban Indian Blues

I’VE BEEN RELOCATED AND given a room

In a downtown hotel called The Tomb

And they gave me a job and cut my hair

I trip on rats when I climb the stairs

I get letters from my cousins on the rez

They wonder when they’ll see me next

But I’ve got a job and a landlady

She calls me chief, she calls me crazy

chorus:

I’m walking sidewalks miles from home, I’m walking streets alone

I’m walking in cheap old shoes, I’ve got the Urban Indian blues

I’m working for minimum, I’m working the maximum

I’m working in cheap old shoes, I’ve got the Urban Indian blues

I paint the ceilings, I paint the walls

I paint the floors and I paint the halls

That’s my job and that’s my boss there

He gave me the clothes that I wear

We drink a few in his favorite bar

We drink a few more in his car

He’s a friend of the Indian, he says

He’s been to the rez, he’s been to the rez

(repeat chorus)

I’m saving money for the Greyhound

’Cause I want to be homeward bound

But the landlady raises the rent

The boss don’t know where my check went

And the neighbors are lonely

And the neighbors are ghostly

And I watch my television

And I dream of the reservation

Inside the recording studio at Cavalry Records in New York City, Coyote Springs nervously re-tuned their already tuned instruments. Chess and Checkers sang scales. Junior tapped his foot to some rhythm he heard in his head. Victor stroked his guitar gently; the guitar purred.

“Are you folks ready yet?” asked a disembodied voice from the control booth.

“Who are you?” Victor asked.

“Just the engineer,” said the voice.

“Where are you?”

“Right here,” said a young white woman in pressed denim shirt and blue jeans. She waved at Coyote Springs and grinned.

Phil Sheridan and George Wright sat behind the engineer. They were just as nervous as Coyote Springs.

“What if Mr. Armstrong doesn’t like them,” Sheridan asked Wright. Thomas watched Sheridan and Wright talk, although he couldn’t hear them through the glass.

“He’ll like them,” Wright said. “He signed that duo from Seattle on just our word, right? He’s got to like these guys. Indians are big these days. Way popular, right? Besides, these Indians are good. They’re just plain good. They’re artists. When was the last time we signed artists?”

“Shit, as if being good meant anything in this business. They don’t need to be good. They just need to make money. I don’t give a fuck if they’re artists. Where are all the executives who signed artists? They’re working at radio stations now, right?”

The engineer studied her soundboard. She flipped switches in patterns that would make the music sound exactly like she wanted it to sound.

“I’m just going to tell Armstrong this was your idea,” Sheridan said and laughed.

“Fuck you, too,” Wright said.

Sheridan and Wright continued to reassure each other until Mr. Armstrong, the president and CEO of Cavalry Records, arrived.

“Mr. Armstrong,” Sheridan and Wright said and stood.

“Where are the Indians?” Armstrong asked.

“Right there,” Sheridan said and pointed at the band.

“They look Indian,” Armstrong said.

“Of course, sir.”

Mr. Armstrong was a small man, barely over five feet, but he weighed three hundred pounds. The weight looked unnatural on him, though, like he had been padded to play a fat guy in a movie. His blond hair was pulled into a ponytail that hung down past his waist. He spoke in short sentences.

“Can they play?” Armstrong asked Sheridan and Wright.

“Yes, sir.”

“Can they play?” Armstrong asked the engineer, who just shrugged her shoulders and ran Coyote Springs through a sound check.

“Jeez,” Chess said, “that’s the big boss man, enit?”

“Yeah, it is,” Victor said. “And he’s going to sign me up for a solo career after he hears me play. He’s just going to send all you losers home.”

“Are you ready to run through a song?” asked the engineer.

“Damn right,” Victor said.

“Well, let’s go for it. Tape’s running,” said the engineer.

“What do you think we should play?” Thomas asked.

“How about ‘Urban Indian Blues’?” Chess asked.

“Makes sense, enit?” Checkers asked.

“Damn right,” Victor said.

“Okay,” Thomas said. “Count it off, Junior.”

The horses screamed.

“One, two, one, two, three, four.”

Coyote Springs dropped into a familiar rhythm together. Thomas, Chess, and Checkers sang well. Thomas strummed note by note on the bass; Chess and Checkers both played keyboards. Junior flailed away at the drums, lost a few beats here and there, but mostly kept up. But Coyote Springs needed Victor to rise, needed his lead guitar to define them. Victor knew how important he was. He closed his eyes and let the chords come to him.

At first, the music flowed as usual, like a stream of fire through his fingers and the strings. Victor remembered how much the music had hurt him before. That guitar had scarred his hands, yet he had mastered the pain. He thought he could have placed his calloused hands into any fire and never felt the burning. But then, as the song moved forward, bar by bar, his fingers slipped off the strings and frets. The guitar bucked in his hands, twisted away from his body. He felt a razor slice across his palms.

“Shit, shit!” Victor shouted.

“What’s the problem?” asked the engineer.

“Could we start over?” Victor asked.

Sheridan and Wright exchanged a worried look. Mr. Armstrong cleared his throat loudly.

“Whenever you want,” said the engineer. “Tape’s still rolling.”

“What’s wrong?” Thomas asked Victor.

“Nothing,” Victor said, wiped his hands on his pants, and left blood stains. The rest of Coyote Springs studied those blood stains as Junior counted off again.

“One, two, one, two, three, four.”

Checkers could not remember what she was supposed to play. She looked to her sister for help, but Chess’s hands stayed motionless a few inches above the keyboard. Thomas sang half of the first verse before he noticed he was singing alone.

“Hold up a sec,” said the engineer. “Where are the keyboards and vocals, ladies?”

“Are you okay?” Thomas asked the sisters.

Chess and Checkers shook their heads. Junior continued to pound the snare drum. Victor’s guitar kept writhing in his hands until it broke the straps and fell to the floor in a flurry of feedback.

The engineer let that feedback whine until Sheridan jumped to the intercom.

“What the hell’s going on?” Sheridan asked Coyote Springs.

Coyote Springs all stared down at Victor’s guitar.

“What the hell’s happening?” Sheridan asked everybody in the control booth.

“I don’t know,” said the engineer. “I think they’re just nervous. Give them another chance.”

Mr. Armstrong rose from his seat, adjusted his tie and jacket.

“They don’t have it,” Armstrong said.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little hasty, sir?” Wright asked.

“No, I don’t,” Armstrong said and left.

Coyote Springs was still staring at the guitar on the floor when the engineer spoke.

“Hey, that’s it, I guess.”

Coyote Springs looked up at the engineer, who looked pained behind the glass. Wright and Sheridan were arguing violently, silently. Coyote Springs watched the two Cavalry officers gesture wildly, argue for a few more minutes, and then storm out of the control booth.

“What the hell happened?” Chess asked after a long time.

“I don’t know,” the engineer said over the intercom. “I thought you were pretty good.”

“What the hell happened?” Chess asked Thomas. “I don’t know,” Thomas said.

From The Wellpinit Rawhide Press:

Local Skins May Lose Their Shirts

Our local rock band, Coyote Springs, left yesterday for a meeting with Cavalry Records in New York City. Although they’ve been the center of much controversy on the Spokane Indian Reservation, it seems that white people are still interested in the band.

“We’re going to be rock stars,” Victor Joseph said before the band left. “And we won’t have to come back to this reservation ever again. We’ll just leave all of you [jerks] to your [awful] lives.”

Lead singer Thomas Builds-the-Fire, however, was a little more guarded about the purpose of the meeting.

“It’s an audition,” he said. “They haven’t promised us anything. You tell everybody that. We ain’t been promised anything.”

Tribal Chairman David WalksAlong was even more pessimistic about the future of Coyote Springs.

“Listen,” he said over lunch at the Tribal Cafe. “Those Skins ain’t got a chance in New York City. I’ve been to New York City, and I know what it’s like. My grandfather always told me you can take a boy off the reservation, but you can’t take the reservation off the boy. Coyote Springs is done for. I’m happy about that.”

But the other members of Coyote Springs seemed to take all the controversy in stride.

“I just want to be good at something,” Junior Polatkin said. “I messed up at everything else. I’m not mad at anybody who talked bad about us. I just want them to like us.”

Chess and Checkers Warm Water simply gave the thumbs-up as they left the reservation, although some Spokanes thought it was a different finger they raised.

“Listen,” Polatkin added, “if we make it big, it just means we won’t have to eat commodity food anymore.”

Coyote Springs was still standing in the dark studio when Sheridan and Wright came back. The engineer had already left, so the two record company executives fiddled with the knobs and dials until they found the lights and power.

“Listen,” Sheridan said over the intercom. “I don’t know what happened to you. But Mr. Armstrong doesn’t want to have anything to do with you right now.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Victor asked.

“Now, you listen closely,” Sheridan said. “My ass is on the line here, too. I brought you little shits here. You screwed me over. Now, I’m going to try and fix this. Mr. Armstrong can be a little bit emotional. Maybe he didn’t get his coffee or something this morning. Why don’t you just head over to your hotel and wait this out. We’ll fly you back to the reservation in the morning.”

“No fucking way!” Victor shouted. “We can’t go back there. Not like this.”

“Calm your ass down,” Sheridan said. “We’ll give Mr. Armstrong a couple months, and then we’ll try it again.”

“We don’t have a couple months,” Thomas whispered.

Wright slumped into a chair and wiped his face with a handkerchief just as Victor picked up his guitar and threw it across the studio. Chess and Checkers ducked. Junior continued to beat a quiet rhythm on the drum.

“Goddamn it,” Sheridan shouted over the intercom. “That’s fucking studio equipment.”

“Fuck you,” Victor shouted. “You’re studio equipment.

“Hey,” Sheridan said. “I’m trying to help you. I didn’t screw this up. I’m not the goddamn guitar player. Maybe you just aren’t ready. Maybe next time. But if you don’t calm down, I’ll call security.”

Victor kicked a music stand over, picked up a studio saxophone and threw it at Sheridan. Sheridan ducked behind the control panel, but the sax just rebounded off the glass and fell to the floor. Angry, Sheridan and Wright stormed into the studio.

“That’s it,” Sheridan said to Wright. “I’m out of here. I tried to help these goddamn Indians. But they don’t want help. They don’t want anything.”

“I think they want the same things we do,” Wright said.

Victor went after Sheridan and Wright then and might have strangled them, but Thomas and Junior tackled him. They pinned Victor to the floor as Sheridan looked down.

“Jesus,” Sheridan said. “It isn’t that bad. You got a free trip to New York. You aren’t leaving until tomorrow. You’ve got a whole night in Manhattan to yourselves. I’ll even treat you to a nice evening. Some dinner, dancing, the sights.”

Sheridan pulled out his wallet and dropped a few bills on the floor near Victor. Chess and Checkers quickly picked up the money and threw it in Sheridan’s face.

“That’s it,” Sheridan said. “You’re out of here.”

“Wait,” Wright said, but the security guards arrived quickly and roughly escorted Coyote Springs out of the building. Coyote Springs cried, but no crowd gathered to watch them. Coyote Springs stood in the middle of the sidewalk, and hundreds of people just flowed impassively around them.

“What are we supposed to do?” Chess asked.

“Let’s just go home,” Thomas said. It was all he knew to say. “Big Mom will know what to do.”

“She’s just an old woman,” Victor shouted. “She ain’t magic. And even if she was, she’s a million miles away. What the fuck can she do? Everything is a million miles away. It’s all lies, lies, lies. All the whites ever done was tell us lies.”

Victor roared against his whole life. If he could have been hooked up to a power line, he would have lit up Times Square. He had enough anger inside to guide every salmon over Grand Coulee Dam. He wanted to steal a New York cop’s horse and go on the warpath. He wanted to scalp stockbrokers and kidnap supermodels. He wanted to shoot flaming arrows into the Museum of Modern Art. He wanted to lay siege to Radio City Music Hall. Victor wanted to win. Victor wanted to get drunk.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Victor said to Junior, and they ran off into the crowd.

“Come back,” Checkers shouted after them, but they were already gone, swallowed by the river of people.

“I’m so scared,” Chess said to Thomas and moved into his arms.

“I am, too,” Checkers said and held onto Thomas and Chess.

Thomas felt his whole body shake.

If any New Yorkers had stopped to look, they would have seen three Indians slow dancing, their hair swirling in the wind. The whole scene could have been a postcard, WISH YOU WERE HERE. It could have been on the cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

Chess, Checkers, and Thomas stood in the hotel lobby with no idea what to do about Junior and Victor, who were getting drunk somewhere in Manhattan. But there were thousands of bars, taverns, lounges, and dives in New York. Thousands and thousands. Victor and Junior could be anywhere.

“Jeez,” Checkers said, “what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Thomas, a reservation storyteller without answers or stories.

“Well,” Chess said, “we have to find those two. It’s dangerous here. Especially for them.”

Thomas was truly frightened. He felt totally out of control. He could only think about the instruments they left in the studio.

“Our stuff,” Thomas said.

“What stuff?” Chess asked.

“Our guitars and stuff. They’re still in the studio.”

“Forget them, it’s all over now, anyways. Can’t you feel it?”

Thomas touched his body and felt the absence, like some unnamed part of him had been cut away.

“What are we going to do?” Checkers pleaded. She dropped into a chair and held her head between her knees. “I think I’m going to pass out.”

Chess watched Thomas and Checkers collapse. She knew Victor and Junior had to be found. There was no time for drama. Victor and Junior, two small-town reservation hicks, were out drunk somewhere in New York City. There were only a few ways to the on the reservation but a few thousand new and exciting ways in Manhattan. All of it felt like a three-in-the-morning movie on television. Some punks would kill Victor and Junior for their shoes and dump their bodies in the Hudson River. And Kojak would never find them.

“Listen,” Chess said, but Thomas and Checkers stared off into space.

“Listen, goddamn it!” Chess shouted. Thomas and Checkers looked at her. “Thomas and I will grab a phonebook and hit all the bars in this whole town. Checkers, you stay here in case they come back. How does that sound?”

“That’s crazy,” Thomas said. “There are thousands of bars.”

“I know it’s crazy,” Chess said. “But what else are we going to do? Who knows what Victor and Junior are going to do? They might get themselves killed.”

“Where do we start?”

“With the A’s,” Chess said. “And work our way from there.”

Chess hugged her sister; Checkers wouldn’t let her go.

“I’ve got to go,” Chess said.

“Don’t,” Checkers whispered.

Chess led her sister across the lobby and into the elevator.

“Eleventh floor,” Chess said to the elevator man.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The elevator doors slid closed. Chess and Thomas left the hotel with a few dozen pages of the phonebook.

Victor and Junior sat in a smoky lounge with a half dozen empty glasses in front of them.

“Fucking assholes,” Victor shouted.

“Be quiet,” Junior said. “You’ll get us kicked out of here, too.”

It was the fourth bar that Junior and Victor had been in since they ran away from the rest of Coyote Springs. The bouncers had tossed them out of the first bar for fighting. The second lounge had closed early, and the third established a new dress code fifteen minutes after Junior and Victor sat down. Still, these bars they visited in New York City weren’t all that different from the bars on the reservation. A few tables and chairs, a few stools at the bar, a television, and a pool table. The only difference between bars was the program on the TV.

“Everybody’s a liar,” Victor whispered. He laughed drunkenly and looked around the bar. The bartender stared at Victor and mentally cut him off.

“Man,” Victor said. “Look at all the beautiful white women in here.”

Junior looked around the room. He saw beautiful white women in the bar, had seen beautiful white women in all four bars that night, and Victor had made sure to shout about it. There were beautiful women of all colors in those bars and some plain white ones, but Victor and Junior never seemed to notice the plain ones.

“This city’s filled up with beautiful white women,” Victor said and laughed his drunk laugh. Phlegm rattled in his throat and spit fell from his mouth.

“Victor,” Junior said. “Why you like white women so much?”

“Don’t you know? Bucks prefer white tail.”

Junior didn’t feel like laughing. He just ate a handful of peanuts and stared at the television. Victor babbled on about nothing. The bartender cleared the glasses away from Junior’s and Victor’s area. Victor ordered another beer, but Junior gave the bartender a look that said He don’t need no more. The bartender gave Junior a look back that said I wasn’t going to give him one anyway.

Junior knew that white women were trophies for Indian boys. He always figured getting a white woman was like counting coup or stealing horses, like the best kind of revenge against white men.

Hey, Indian men said to white men. You may have kicked our ass in the Indian wars, but we got your women.

But that was too easy an explanation, and Junior knew it. He knew he loved to walk around with Betty and Veronica. Especially on the reservation. He loved to have something that other Indians didn’t have. He’d had his first white woman back when he was in college in Oregon.

Junior had met Lynn when he had spent a Christmas break in the dorms; neither of them could afford to go home. All during the break, Junior read books and stared out the window into the snow. He watched cars pass by and wondered if white people were happier than Indians.

They met each other while checking their mail the day after Christmas.

“So,” Lynn had asked, “what’s it like being the only Indian here?”

“It gets pretty lonely, I guess.”

“Do you drink much?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I see you at parties. You seem to drink a lot.”

“Yeah, maybe I do.”

Lynn studied Junior’s face.

“You know,” she said, “you’re very pretty.”

“You’re pretty, too.”

They walked around campus for hours, talking and laughing. Then Lynn suddenly stopped and stared at Junior.

“What?” he asked.

“Listen,” she said and kissed him. Just like that. Junior had never kissed a white woman before, so he used his tongue a lot, and tried to find out if she tasted different than an Indian woman.

“Irish,” said Lynn as she broke the kiss. “I’m Irish.”

“Who’s Irish?” Victor asked Junior and pulled him from his memories.

“What?” Junior asked.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said you were Irish.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, you did,” Victor said. “Where the hell were you? On another planet?”

“Yeah,” Junior said. “On another planet.”

From the night report, 34th precinct, Manhattan:

12:53 A.M. Two Native Americans, Thomas Builds-the-Fire and Chess Warm Water, reported disappearance of two friends, Victor Joseph and Junior Polatkin. All are from Wellpinit, Washington, and are in a rock band called Coyote Springs, along with a Checkers Warm Water, who is waiting at the band’s hotel. The disappeared supposedly took off on drinking binge after confrontation at record company. Took down stats on the missing but informed others that we couldn’t do much unless there was some evidence of foul play. Joseph and Polatkin will probably stagger into hotel at dawn. Builds-the-Fire was lead singer of the band.

Checkers waited in the hotel room and stared out the window, at the clock, at the door. She was afraid for the rest of Coyote Springs, because she knew that Indians always disappeared. She knew about Sam Bone, that Indian who waved to a few friends, turned a corner, and was never seen again.

“Please,” Checkers said, her only prayer. She lay on the bed, closed her eyes, and prayed. She prayed until she fell asleep, and then she dreamed.

Checkers? asked the voice, like a knock on the door.

Chess, Checkers whispered as she rushed to the door and opened it.

Hello, said Phil Sheridan as he pushed his way into the room.

What do you want? Checkers asked.

I came to apologize, Sheridan said. Where is everybody?

They all just left. They’ll be back soon.

You’re alone?

For just a little while, Checkers said and edged back toward the door. Sheridan stepped around her, shut the door, and locked it. He stared at Checkers. His eyes were wild, furtive.

You guys really blew it, Sheridan said.

What do you mean?

You blew it by acting like a bunch of goddamn wild Indians. I might have been able to talk Mr. Armstrong into listening to you again. He might have given you another chance. But not after that shit you pulled in the studio. You caused a lot of damage.

We didn’t start it.

That’s what you Indians always say. The white men did this to us, the white men did that to us. When are you ever going to take responsibility for yourselves?

Sheridan paced around the room, lit a cigarette, and waved it like a saber.

You had a choice, Sheridan said. We gave you every chance. All you had to do was move to the reservation. We would’ve protected you. The U.S. Army was the best friend the Indians ever had.

What are you talking about? Checkers asked. We’re not in the army. We’re a rock band.

Checkers made a move for the door, but Sheridan grabbed her.

This is just like you Indians, Sheridan shouted in her face. You could never stay where we put you. You never listened to orders. Always fighting. You never quit fighting. Do you understand how tired I am of fighting you? When will you ever give up?

Sheridan threw Checkers to the floor. He pulled off his coat and necktie.

Listen, he said and tried to regain composure. I don’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt anybody. But it was war. This is war. We won. Don’t you understand? We won the war. We keep winning the war. But you won’t surrender.

Sheridan kneeled down beside Checkers and tied her hands behind her back with his necktie.

I remember once, he said, when I killed this Indian woman. I don’t even know what tribe she was. It was back in ’72. I rode up on her and ran my saber right through her heart. I thought that was it. But she jumped up and pulled me off my mount. I couldn’t believe it. I was so angry that I threw her to the ground and stomped her to death. It was then I noticed she was pregnant. We couldn’t have that. Nits make lice, you know? So I cut her belly open and pulled that fetus out. Then that baby bit me. Can you believe that?

I don’t know what you’re talking about, Checkers said.

You know exactly what I’m talking about. You Indians always knew how to play dumb. But you were never dumb. You talked like Tonto, but you had brains like fucking Einstein. Had us whites all figured out. But we still kept trying to change you. Tried to make you white. It never worked.

Mr. Sheridan, what are you going to do to me?

I don’t know, Sheridan said and sat on the floor beside Checkers. I never know what to do with you.

Sheridan studied Checkers. He had watched her during the last few centuries. She was beautiful. But she was Indian beautiful with tribal features. She didn’t look anything at all like a white woman. She was tall with narrow hips and muscular legs. Large breasts. She had arms strong as any man’s. And black, black hair that hung down past her shoulders. Sheridan wanted to touch it. He had always been that way about Indian women’s hair.

You know, Sheridan said, you’re more beautiful than your sister.

She didn’t listen. She didn’t really care one way or the other. She just wanted help.

I don’t care what you think, Checkers said. I don’t believe in you.

What?

I don’t believe in you. I’m just dreaming. You’re a ghost, a dream, a piece of dust, afoul-smelling wind. Go away.

Sheridan reached across the years and took Checkers’s face in his hands. He squeezed until she cried out and saw white flashes of light.

Do you believe in me now? he asked.

Thomas and Chess walked into Carson’s All-Night Restaurant on the Lower East Side. They had been lost on the subway for hours, sure they were going to be mugged at any time.

“Why aren’t we dead?” Chess asked Thomas as they sat in a booth.

“Probably because we looked too pathetic to mug,” Thomas said.

“What do you want?” asked the waitress who came to the table. She had an unusually beautiful voice for a waitress, but it was New York. That waitress had been blonde at several different points during her lifetime, even though she was currently redheaded. Still, she was pretty and had even been called back for a few television commercials. She hadn’t gotten a role yet, but there was a bathroom cleaner spot in her future.

“Hey,” Chess said, “you ain’t seen two Indian men come in here, have you?”

“What?” the waitress asked. “What do you mean? From India?”

“No,” Chess said. “Not that kind of Indian. We mean American Indians, you know? Bows-and-arrows Indians. Cow-boys-and-Indians Indians.”

“Oh,” the waitress said, “that kind. Shoot, I ain’t ever seen that kind of Indian.”

“We’re that kind of Indian.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Hey, Kit,” the waitress yelled back at the fry cook and owner of the deli. “Have you seen any Indians in here?”

“What do you mean?” Kit asked. “You mean from India or what?”

“No, stupid,” the waitress yelled. “Indians like in the western movies. Like Geronimo.”

“Oh, I ain’t seen none of those around for a long time. I saw a few in a book once. You sure there are still Indians around at all?”

“These two right here say they’re Indian.”

Kit the fry cook came out to look at the two potential Indians. Chess and Thomas saw a fat man in a dirty white t-shirt, although they weren’t sure where the shirt ended and the man began.

“Shit,” Kit said. “They don’t look nothing like those Indians in the movies. They look Puerto Rican to me.”

“Yeah,” the waitress said. “They kind of do.”

“Do you speak English?” Kit asked.

“Let’s get out of here,” Chess said to Thomas.

“Yeah, let’s go home,” Thomas said.

“Hey, you speak good English,” Kit yelled after Chess and Thomas. “Have a good trip back to Puerto Rico.”

I’m pregnant, Lynn had told Junior after they dated for a few months during that first year in college.

“I’m pregnant,” Junior said aloud as he sat with Victor in their sixth bar of the night. After hours. Victor would have been falling down drunk if he had been standing up.

“Who’s the father?” Victor asked and laughed.

What do you want to do? Junior had asked Lynn after she told him.

“Am I the father?” Victor asked and laughed some more.

Lynn had just shrugged her shoulders.

Do you want to get married? Junior had asked her then.

“Do you want to get married?” he said aloud in the bar.

“I ain’t going to marry you if I ain’t the father,” Victor said.

I can’t marry you, Lynn had said. You’re Indian.

Junior had turned and walked away from Lynn. He always wondered why they had been together at all. Everybody on campus stared at them. The Indian boy and the white girl walking hand in hand. Lynn’s parents wouldn’t even talk to him when they came to campus for visits.

Junior walked away from Lynn and never looked back. No. That wasn’t true. He did turn back once, and she was still standing there, an explosion of white skin and blonde hair. She waved, and Junior felt himself break into small pieces that blew away uselessly in the wind.

“Nothing as white as the white girl an Indian boy loves,” Junior said aloud.

“What the fuck you talking about?” Victor asked. “I ain’t white. I’m lower sub-chief of the Spokane Tribe.”

Junior walked away from his memories of Lynn and looked Victor square in the face.

“You know,” Junior said, “the end of the world is near.”

“Shit, I know that. Don’t you think I know that? I’m a fatalist.”

Spittle hung from Victor’s mouth, his eyes were glazed over, and his hair was plastered wetly to his forehead. He smiled a little, a single tear ran down his face, and then he passed out face first onto the table.

“It’s time to take you home,” Junior said.

Junior picked him up and carried him out the door. The bartender watched them leave, cleaned the glasses they had drunk from, and erased their presence from that part of the world.

Do you know how many times I’ve dreamed about you? Sheridan asked Checkers.

It couldn’t have been very many, Checkers said. You haven’t known me very long.

I’ve known you for centuries.

Jeez, now you’re starting to sound like Dracula. And I don’t believe in monsters.

I want to kiss you, Sheridan said.

No, Checkers said. I don’t believe in you.

Sheridan slapped Checkers hard, drew a little blood. A little is more than enough.

Do you believe in me now? he asked.

You ain’t nothing, you ain’t nothing.

I’m everything.

You ain’t much at all. You’re just another white guy telling lies. I don’t believe in you. All you want to do is fight and fuck. You never tell a story that’s true. I don’t believe in you.

Sheridan kissed Checkers, bit down hard on her lips. He was pulling at her clothes when there was a knock on the door.

George Wright knocked on the door of Coyote Springs’s hotel room. He couldn’t sleep at all. He had tossed and turned, worrying about the band. So he jumped into a taxi and came over. He wasn’t even sure why. He knocked on the door again. He heard a woman’s voice inside and then her scream.

“Shit,” Wright said and threw his shoulder against the door. He was surprised when the unlocked door flew wide open and sent him sprawling.

From a letter Junior kept hidden in his wallet:

Dear Junior:

It’s over. I went to the free clinic and it’s over. My parents will never know about it. You don’t have to worry about it. I’m okay. I barely even felt anything. I just closed my eyes and then it was over. I hummed a little song to myself so I couldn’t hear anything and then it was over. My parents will never even know it happened. You don’t have to think about it anymore. Just remember that I love you. But that’s all over now.

Love,

Lynn

Just before sunrise, Thomas and Chess walked into the lobby of their hotel and discovered America. No. They actually discovered Victor and Junior sleeping on couches in the lobby. No. They actually discovered Victor passed out on a couch while Junior read USA Today.

“Where’ve you two been?” Chess asked. “We’ve been looking for you all damn night.”

“We’ve been here a couple hours,” Junior said.

Thomas and Chess looked at each other.

“Didn’t the hotel hassle you for being here?” Thomas asked.

“No,” Junior said. “I think they figured we was rock stars and didn’t want to piss us off.”

“Well,” Chess said, “we certainly ain’t rock stars.”

“Why didn’t you go up to the room?” Thomas asked.

“I couldn’t carry him any farther,” Junior said. “And those damn bellboys wanted five bucks to help me.”

“Where’s Checkers?” Chess asked.

“I don’t know,” Junior said. “Where is she supposed to be?”

“In the room,” Chess said.

“Well, then,” Junior said, “she’s probably upstairs. You want to help me carry Victor up?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, and all three of them carried Victor into the elevator.

“Oh, man, he stinks,” Chess said, and they all agreed.

Chess looked closely at Junior. His eyes were bloodshot, but they weren’t glossed over. He didn’t even smell like booze. He just smelled like day-old clothes.

“Don’t you have a hangover?” Chess asked.

“Nope,” Junior said. “I didn’t drink none. Just orange juice.”

“How come?”

“Somebody needed to stay sober,” Junior said. “This is New York City, enit?”

Chess was surprised at Junior’s logic.

“You know, Junior,” Chess said, “you’re always saving Victor from something.”

“Yeah, I know.”

They dragged Victor to their hotel room and knocked on the door. They were shocked all to hell when George Wright answered.

“What’s going on?” Thomas and Junior asked, ready to fight.

“Listen,” Wright said, “it’s all right. I was just waiting for you to get back. Checkers asked me to wait. She’s sleeping now.”

“What happened?” asked Chess as they dragged Victor into the room. “Where’s Checkers? What did you do to her?”

“She’s okay, she’s okay,” Wright said. “I didn’t do anything. It was just a nightmare. She just had a nightmare.

“A nightmare?” Chess asked.

“Yes,” Wright said, “a nightmare.”

Chess went to look in on Checkers. Thomas and Junior surrounded Wright as best as they could. Victor snored on the floor.

“What are you doing here?” Junior asked. “And where’s that asshole Sheridan?”

“I don’t know where he is,” Wright said. “I just came here to apologize.”

“Apologize for what?” Junior asked.

Chess walked out of the bedroom.

“How is she?” Thomas asked.

“She’s sore, but okay, I guess,” Chess said. “She said it was the worst nightmare she ever had.”

Junior shivered.

“Checkers said you saved her life,” Chess said to Wright.

“I just woke her up,” Wright said.

“Why you helping us?”

“Because I owe you.

“Owe us for what?”

Wright looked at Coyote Springs. He saw their Indian faces. He saw the faces of millions of Indians, beaten, scarred by smallpox and frostbite, split open by bayonets and bullets. He looked at his own white hands and saw the blood stains there.