The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Hunger Pains

Our history teacher, Mr. Sheridan, was trying to teach us something about the Civil War.

But he was so boring and monotonous that he was only teaching us how to sleep with our eyes open.

I had to get out of there, so I raised my hand.

"What is it, Arnold?" the teacher asked.

"I have to go the bathroom."

"Hold it."

"I can't."

I put on my best If-I-Don't-Go-Now-I'm-Going-To-Explode face.

"Do you really have to?" the teacher asked.

I didn't have to go at first, but then I realized that yes, I did have to go.

"I have to go really bad," I said.

"All right, all right, go, go."

I headed over to the library bathrooms because they're usually a lot cleaner than the ones by the lunchroom.

So, okay, I'm going number two, and I'm sitting on the toilet, and I'm concentrating. I'm in my Zen mode, trying to lake this whole thing a spiritual experience. I read once that Gandhi was way into his own number two. I don't know if he I old fortunes or anything. But I guess he thought the condition and quality of his number two revealed the condition and quality of his life.

Yeah, I know, I probably read too many books.

And probably WAY too many books about number two.

But it's all important, okay? So I finish, flush, wash my lands, and then stare in the mirror and start popping zits. I'm all quiet and concentrating when I hear this weird noise coming from the other side of the wall.

That's the girls' bathroom.

And I hear that weird noise again.

Do you want to know what it sounds like?

It sounds like this:

ARGGHHHHHHHHSSSSSPPPPPPGGGHHHHHHH

AAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHAGGGGHH!

It sounds like somebody is vomiting.

Nope.

It sounds like a 747 is landing on a runway of vomit.

I'm planning on heading back to the classroom for more scintillating lessons from the

history teacher. But then I hear that noise again.

ARGGGHHHHHHHHSGHHSLLLSKSSSHHSDKFDJSABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST

UVWXYZ!

Okay, so somebody might have the flu or something. Maybe they're having, like, kidney

failure in there. I can't walk away.

So I knock on the door. The girls' bathroom door.

"Hey," I say. "Are you okay in there?"

"Go away!"

It's a girl, which makes sense, since it is the girls' bathroom

"Do you want me to get a teacher or something?" I ask through the bathroom door.

"I said, GO AWAY!"

I'm not dumb. I can pick up on subtle clues.

So I walk away, but something pulls me back. I don't know what it is. If you're romantic, you might think it was destiny.

So destiny and me lean against the wall and wait.

The vomiter will eventually have to come out of the bathroom, and then I'll know that

she's okay.

And pretty soon, she does come out.

And it is the lovely Penelope, and she's chomping hard on cinnamon gum. She'd

obviously tried to cover the smell of vomit with the biggest piece of cinnamon gum in the world.

But it doesn't work. She just smells like somebody vomited on a big old cinnamon tree.

"What are you looking at?" she asks me.

"I'm looking at an anorexic," I say.

A really HOT anorexic, I want to add, but I don't.

"I'm not anorexic," she says. "I'm bulimic."

She says it with her nose and chin in the air. She gets all arrogant. And then I remember there are a bunch of anorexics who are PROUD to be skinny and starved freaks.

They think being anorexic makes them special, makes them better than everybody else.

They have their own fricking Web sites where they give advice on the best laxatives and stuff.

"What's the difference between bulimics and anorexics?" I ask.

"Anorexics are anorexics all the time," she says. "I'm only bulimic when I'm throwing up."

Wow.

SHE SOUNDS JUST LIKE MY DAD!

There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to

make the pain go away.

Penelope gorges on her pain and then throws it up and flushes it away. My dad drinks his pain away.

So I say to Penelope what I always say to Dad when drunk and depressed and ready to

give up on the world,

"Hey, Penelope," I say. "Don't give up."

Okay, so it's not the wisest advice in the world. It's actually kind of obvious and corny.

But Penelope starts crying, talking about how lonely she is, and how everybody thinks

her life is perfect because she's pretty and smart and popular, but that he's scared all the time, but nobody will let her be scared because she's pretty and smart and popular.

You notice that she mentioned her beauty, intelligence and popularity twice in one

sentence?

The girl has an ego.

But that's sexy, too.

How is it that a bulimic girl with vomit on her breath can suddenly be so sexy? Love and lust can make you go crazy.

I suddenly understand how my big sister, Mary, could have met a guy and married him

five minutes later. I'm not so mad at her for leaving us and moving to Montana.

Over the next few weeks, Penelope and I become the hot item at Reardan High School.

Well, okay, we're not exactly a romantic couple. We're more like friends with potential. But that's still cool.

Everybody is absolutely shocked that Penelope chose me to be her new friend. I'm not

some ugly, mutated beast. But I am an absolute stranger at the school.

And I am an Indian.

And Penelope's father, Earl, is a racist.

The first time I meet him, he said, "Kid, you better keep your hands out of my daughter's panties. She's only dating you because she knows it will piss me off. So I ain't going to get pissed.

And if I ain't pissed then she'll stop dating you. In the meantime, you just keep your trouser snake in your trousers mid I won't have to punch you in the stomach."

And then you know what he said to me after that?

"Kid, if you get my daughter pregnant, if you make some charcoal babies, I'm going to disown her. I'm going to kick her out of my house and you'll have to bring her home to your mommy and daddy. You hearing me straight, kid? This is hi on you now."

Yep, Earl was a real winner.

Okay, so Penelope and I became the hot topic because we were defying the great and

powerful Earl.

And, yeah, you're probably thinking that Penelope was dating me ONLY because I was

the worst possible choice for her.

She was probably dating me ONLY because I was an Indian boy.

And, okay, so she was only semi-dating me. We held hands once in a while and we

kissed once or twice, but that was it.

I don't know what I meant to her.

I think she was bored of being the prettiest, smartest, and most popular girl in the world.

She wanted to get a little crazy, you know? She wanted to get a little smudged.

And I was the smudge.

But, hey, I was kind of using her, too.

After all, I suddenly became popular.

Because Penelope had publicly declared that I was cute enough to ALMOST date, all of

the other girls in school decided that I was cute, too.

Because I got to hold hands with Penelope, and kiss her good-bye when she jumped on

the school bus to go home, all of the other boys in school decided that I was a major stud.

Even the teachers started paying more attention to me.

I was mysterious.

How did I, the dorky Indian guy, win a tiny piece of Penelope's heart?

What was my secret?

I looked and talked and dreamed and walked differently than everybody else.

I was new.

If you want to get all biological, then you'd have to say that I was an exciting addition to the Reardan gene pool.

So, okay, those are all the obvious reasons why Penelope I were friends. All the shallow reasons. But what about the bigger and better reasons?

"Arnold," she said one day after school, "I hate this little town. It's so small, too small.

Everything about it is small. The people here have small ideas. Small dreams. They all want to marry each other and live here forever."

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

"I want to leave as soon as I can. I think I was born with a suitcase."

Yeah, she talked like that. All big and goofy and dramatic. I wanted to make fun of her, but she was so earnest.

"Where do you want to go?" I asked.

"Everywhere. I want to walk on the Great Wall of China. I want to walk to the top of pyramids in Egypt. I want to swim in every ocean. I want to climb Mount Everest. I want to go on an African safari. I want to ride a dogsled in Antarctica. I want nil of it. Every single piece of everything."

Her eyes got this strange faraway look, like she'd been hypnotized.

I laughed.

"Don't laugh at me," she said.

"I'm not laughing at you," I said. "I'm laughing at your eyes."

"That's the whole problem," she said. "Nobody takes me seriously."

"Well, come on, it's kind of hard to take you seriously when you're talking about the Great Wall of China and Egypt and stuff. Those are just big goofy dreams. They're not real."

"They're real to me," she said.

"Why don't you quit talking in dreams and tell me what you really want to do with your life," I said. "Make it simple."

"I want to go to Stanford and study architecture."

"Wow, that's cool," I said. "But why architecture?"

"Because I want to build something beautiful. Because I want to be remembered."

And I couldn't make fun of her for that dream. It was my dream, too. And Indian boys

weren't supposed to dream like that. And white girls from small towns weren't supposed to dream big, either.

We were supposed to be happy with our limitations. But there was no way Penelope and I

were going to sit still. Nope, we both wanted to fly:

"You know," I said. "I think it's way cool that you want to travel the world. But you won't even make it halfway if you don't eat enough."

She was in pain and I loved her, sort of loved her, I guess, so I kind of had to love her pain, too.

Mostly I loved to look at her. I guess that's what boys do, light? And men. We look at

girls and women. We stare at them. And this is what I saw when I stared at Penelope:

Was it wrong to stare so much? Was it romantic at all? I don't know. But I couldn't help myself.

Maybe I don't know anything about romance, but I know a little bit about beauty.

And, man, Penelope was crazy beautiful.

Can you blame me for staring at her all day long?

Rowdy Gives Me Advice About Love

Have you ever watched a beautiful woman play volleyball?

Yesterday, during a game, Penelope was serving the ball and I watched her like she was a work of art.

She was wearing a white shirt and white shorts, and I could see the outlines of her white bra and white panties.

Her skin was pale white. Milky white. Cloud white.

So she was all white on white on white, like the most perfect kind of vanilla dessert cake you've ever seen.

I wanted to be her chocolate topping.

She was serving against the mean girls from Davenport Lady Gorillas. Yeah, you read

that correctly. They willingly called themselves the Lady Gorillas. And they played like superstrong primates, too. Penelope and her teammates were getting killed. The score was like 12 to 0 in the first set.

But I didn't care.

I just wanted to watch the sweaty Penelope sweat her perfect sweat on that perfectly

sweaty day.

She stood at the service line, bounced the volleyball a few lines to get her rhythm, then tossed it into the air above her head.

She tracked the ball with her blue eyes. Just watched it intensely. Like that volleyball mattered more than anything he in the world. I got jealous of that ball. I wished I were that ball.

As the ball floated in the air, Penelope twisted her hips id back and swung her right arm back over her shoulder, coiling like a really pretty snake. Her leg muscles were stretched and taut.

I almost fainted when she served. Using all of that twisting id flexing and concentration, she smashed the ball and aced le Lady Gorillas.

And then Penelope clenched a fist and shouted, "Yes!"

Absolutely gorgeous.

Even though I didn't think I'd ever hear back, I wanted to know what to do with my

feelings, so I walked over to the computer lab and e-mailed Rowdy. He's had the same address for five years.

"Hey, Rowdy," I wrote. "I'm in love with a white girl. What should I do?"

A few minutes later, Rowdy wrote back.

"Hey, Asshole," Rowdy wrote back. "I'm sick of Indian guys who treat white women like bowling trophies. Get a life."

Well, that didn't do me any good. So I asked Gordy what I should do about Penelope.

"I'm an Indian boy," I said. "How can I get a white girl to love me?"

"Let me do some research on that," Gordy said.

A few days later, he gave me a brief report.

"Hey, Arnold," he said. "I looked up 'in love with a white girl' on Google and found an article about that white girl named Cynthia who disappeared in Mexico last summer. You

remember how her face was all over the papers and everybody said it was such a sad thing?"

"I kinda remember," I said.

"Well, this article said that over two hundred Mexican girls have disappeared in the last three years in that same part of the country. And nobody says much about that. And that's racist.

The guy who wrote the article says people care more about beautiful white girls than they do about everybody else on the planet. White girls are privileged. They're damsels in distress."

"So what does that mean?" I asked.

"I think it means you're just a racist asshole like everybody else."

Wow.

In his own way, Gordy the bookworm was just as tough as Rowdy.

Dance, Dance, Dance

Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the

reservation, I always felt like a stranger.

I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other.

It was like being Indian was my job, but it was only a part-time job. And it didn't pay well at all.

The only person who made me feel great all the time was Penelope.

Well, I shouldn't say that.

I mean, my mother and father were working hard for me, too. They were constantly

scraping together enough money to pay for gas, to get me lunch money, to buy me a new pair of jeans and a few new shirts.

My parents gave me just enough money so that I could pretend to have more money than

I did.

I lied about how poor I was.

Everybody in Reardan assumed we Spokanes made lots of money because we had a

casino. But that casino, mismanaged and too far away from major highways, was a money-losing business. In order to make money from the casino, you had to work at the casino.

And white people everywhere have always believed that the government just gives

money to Indians.

And since the kids and parents at Reardan thought I had a lot of money, I did nothing to change their minds. I figured it wouldn't do me any good if they knew I was dirt poor.

What would they think of me if they knew I sometimes had to hitchhike to school?

Yeah, so I pretended to have a little money. I pretended to be middle class. I pretended I belonged.

Nobody knew the truth.

Of course, you can't lie forever. Lies have short shelf lives. Lies go bad. Lies rot and stink up the joint.

In December, I took Penelope to the Winter Formal. The thing is, I only had five dollars, not nearly enough to pay for anything—not for photos, not for food, not for gas, not for a hot dog and soda pop. If it had been any other dance, a regular dance, I would have stayed home with an imaginary illness. But I couldn't skip Winter Formal. And if I didn't take Penelope then she would have certainly gone with somebody else.

Because I didn't have money for gas, and because I couldn't have driven the car if I

wanted to, and because I didn't want to double date, I told Penelope I'd meet her at the gym for the dance. She wasn't too happy about that.

But the worst thing is that I had to wear one of Dad's old suits:

I was worried that people would make fun of me, right? And they probably would have if

Penelope hadn't immediately squealed with delight when she first saw me walk into the gym.

"Oh, my, God!" she yelled for everybody to hear. "That suit is so beautiful. It's so retroactive. It's so retroactive that it's radioactive!"

And every dude in the joint immediately wished he'd worn his father's lame polyester suit.

And I imagined that every girl was immediately breathless and horny at the sight of my

bell-bottom slacks.

So, drunk with my sudden power, I pulled off some lame disco dance moves that sent the

place into hysterics.

Even Roger, the huge dude I'd punched in the face, was suddenly my buddy.

Penelope and I were so happy to be alive, and so happy to be alive TOGETHER, even if

we were only a semi-hot item, and we danced every single dance.

Nineteen dances; nineteen songs.

Twelve fast songs; seven slow ones.

Eleven country hits; five rock songs; three hip-hop tunes.

It was the best night of my life.

Of course, I was a sweaty mess inside that hot polyester suit.

But it didn't matter. Penelope thought I was beautiful and so I felt beautiful.

And then the dance was over.

The lights flicked on.

And Penelope suddenly realized we'd forgotten to get our picture taken by the

professional dude.

"Oh, my God!" she yelled. "We forgot to get our picture taken! That sucks!"

She was sad for a moment, but then she realized that she'd had so much fun that a

photograph of the evening was completely beside the point. A photograph would be just a lame souvenir.

I was completely relieved that we'd forgotten. I wouldn't have been able to pay for the photographs. I knew that. And I'd rehearsed a speech about losing my wallet.

I'd made it through the evening without revealing my poverty.

I figured I'd walk Penelope out to the parking lot, where her dad was waiting in his car.

I'd give her a sweet little kiss on the cheek (because her dad would have shot me if I'd given her the tongue while he watched). And then I'd wave good-lye as they drove away. And then I'd wait in the parking lot until everybody was gone. And then I'd start the walk home in the dark. It was a Saturday, so I knew some reservation family would be returning home from Spokane. And I knew they'd see me and pick me up.

That was the plan.

But things changed. As things always change.

Roger and a few of the other dudes, the popular guys, decided they were going to drive

into Spokane and have pancakes at some twenty-four-hour diner. It was suddenly the coolest idea in the world.

It was all seniors and juniors, upperclassmen, who were going together.

But Penelope was so popular, especially for a freshman, and I was popular by association, even as a freshman, too, that Roger invited us to come along.

Penelope was ecstatic about the idea.

I was sick to my stomach.

I had five bucks in my pocket. What could I buy with that? Maybe one plate of pancakes.

Maybe.

I was doomed.

"What do you say, Arnie?" Roger asked. "You want to come carbo-load with us?"

"What do you want to do, Penelope?" I asked.

"Oh, I want to go, I want to go," she said. "Let me go ask Daddy."

Oh, man, I saw my only escape. I could only hope that Earl wouldn't let her go. Only Earl could save me now.

I was counting on Earl! That's how bad my life was at that particular moment!

Penelope skipped over toward her father's car.

"Hey, Penultimate," Roger said. "I'll go with you. I'll tell Earl you guys are riding with me. And I'll drive you guys home."

Roger's nickname for Penelope was Penultimate. It was maybe the biggest word he knew.

I hated that he had a nickname for her. And as they walked together toward Earl, I realized that Roger and Penelope looked good together. They looked natural. They looked like they should be a couple.

And after they all found out I was a poor-ass Indian, I knew they would be a couple.

Come on, Earl! Come on, Earl! Break your daughter's heart!

But Earl loved Roger. Every dad loved Roger. He was the best football player they'd ever seen. Of course they loved him. It would have been un-American not to love the best football player.

I imagined that Earl said his daughter could go only if Roger got his hands into her

panties instead of me.

I was angry and jealous and absolutely terrified.

"I can go! I can go!" Penelope said, ran back to me, and hugged me hard.

An hour later, about twenty of us were sitting in a Denny's in Spokane.

Everybody ordered pancakes.

I ordered pancakes for Penelope and me. I ordered orange juice and coffee and a side

order of toast and hot chocolate and French fries, too, even though I knew I wouldn't be able to pay for any of it.

I figured it was my last meal before my execution, and I was going to have a feast.

Halfway through our meal, I went to the bathroom.

I thought maybe I was going to throw up, so I kneeled at the toilet. But I only retched a bit.

Roger came into the bathroom and heard me.

"Hey, Arnie," he said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'm just tired."

"All right, man," he said. "I'm happy you guys came tonight. You and Penultimate are a great couple, man."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, have you done her yet?"

"I don't really want to talk about that stuff."

"Yeah, you're right, dude. It's none of my business. Hey, man, are you going to try out for basketball?"

I knew that practice started in a week. I'd planned on playing. But I didn't know if the Coach liked Indians or not.

"Yeah," I said.

"Are you any good?"

"I'm okay."

"You think you're good enough to play varsity?" Roger asked.

"No way," I said. "I'm junior varsity all the way."

"All right," Roger said. "It will be good to have you out there. We need some new blood."

"Thanks, man," I said.

I couldn't believe he was so nice. He was, well, he was POLITE! How many great

football players are polite? And kind? And generous like that?

It was amazing.

"Hey, listen," I said. "The reason I was getting sick in there is—"

I thought about telling him the whole truth, but I just couldn't.

"I bet you're just sick with love," Roger said.

"No, well, yeah, maybe," I said. "But the thing is, my stomach is all messed up because I, er, forgot my wallet. I left my money at home, man."

"Dude!" Roger said. "Man, don't sweat it. You should have said something earlier. I got you covered."

He opened his wallet and handed me forty bucks.

Holy, holy.

What kind of kid can just hand over forty bucks like that?

"I'll pay you back, man," I said.

"Whenever, man, just have a good time, all right?"

He slapped me on the back again. He was always slapping me on the back.

We walked back to the table together, finished our food, and Roger drove me back to the school. I told them my dad was going to pick me up outside the gym.

"Dude," Roger said. "It's three in the morning."

"It's okay," I said. "My dad works the swing shift. He's coming here straight from work."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, everything is cool."

"I'll bring Penultimate home safely, man."

"Cool."

So Penelope and I got out of the car so we could have a private good-bye. She had laser eyes.

"Roger told me he lent you some money," she said.

"Yeah," I said. "I forgot my wallet."

Her laser eyes grew hotter.

"Arnold?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something big?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Are you poor?"

I couldn't lie to her anymore.

"Yes," I said. "I'm poor."

I figured she was going to march out of my life right then. But she didn't. Instead she kissed me. On the cheek. I guess poor guys don't get kissed on the lips. I was going to yell at her for being shallow. But then I realized that she was being my friend. Being a really good friend, in fact. She was concerned about me. I'd been thinking about her breasts and she'd been thinking about my whole life. I was the shallow one.

"Roger was the one who guessed you were poor," she said.

"Oh, great, now he's going to tell everybody."

"He's not going to tell anybody. Roger likes you. He's a great guy. He's like my big brother. He can be your friend, too."

That sounded pretty good to me. I needed friends more than I needed my lust-filled

dreams.

"Is your Dad really coming to pick you up?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Are you telling the truth?"

"No," I said.

"How will you get home?" she asked.

"Most nights, I walk home. I hitchhike. Somebody usually picks me up. I've only had to walk the whole way a few times."

She started to cry.

FOR ME!

Who knew that tears of sympathy could be so sexy?

"Oh, my God, Arnold, you can't do that," she said. "I won't let you do that. You'll freeze.

Roger will drive you home. He'll he happy to drive you home."

I tried to stop her, but Penelope ran over to Roger's car and told him the truth.

And Roger, being of kind heart and generous pocket, and a little bit racist, drove me

home that night.

And he drove me home plenty of other nights, too.

If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.

Don't Trust Your Computer

Today at school, I was really missing Rowdy, so I walked over to the computer lab, took a digital photo of my smiling face, and e-mailed it to him.

A few minutes later, he e-mailed me a digital photo of his bare ass. I don't know when he snapped that pic.

It made me laugh.

And it made me depressed, too.

Rowdy could be so crazy-funny-disgusting. The Reardan kids were so worried about

grades and sports and THEIR FUTURES that they sometimes acted like repressed middle-aged business dudes with cell phones stuck in their small intestines.

Rowdy was the opposite of repressed. He was exactly the kind of kid who would e-mail

his bare ass (and bare everything else) to the world.

"Hey," Gordy said. "Is that somebody's posterior?"

Posterior! Did he just say "posterior"?

"Gordy, my man," I said. "That is most definitely NOT a posterior. That is a stinky ass.

You can smell the thing, even though the computer."

"Whose butt is that?" he asked.

"Ah, it's my best friend, Rowdy. Well, he used to be my best friend. He hates me now."

"How come he hates you?" he asked.

"Because I left the rez," I said.

"But you still live there, don't you? You're just going to school here."

"I know, I know, but some Indians think you have to act white to make your life better.

Some Indians think you become white if you try to make your life better, if you become

successful."

"If that were true, then wouldn't all white people be successful?"

Man, Gordy was smart. I wished I could take him to the rez and let him educate Rowdy.

Of course, Rowdy would probably punch Gordy until he was brain-dead. Or maybe Rowdy,

Gordy, and I could become a superhero trio, fighting for truth, justice, and the Native American way. Well, okay, Gordy was white, but anybody can start to act like an Indian if he hangs around us long enough.

"The people at home," I said. "A lot of them call me an apple."

"Do they think you're a fruit or something?" he asked.

"No, no," I said. "They call me an apple because they think I'm red on the outside and white on the inside."

"Ah, so they think you're a traitor."

"Yep."

"Well, life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community."

Can you believe there is a kid who talks like that? Like he's already a college professor impressed with the sound of his own voice?

"Gordy," I said. "I don't understand what you're trying to say to me."

"Well, in the early days of humans, the community was our only protection against

predators, and against starvation. We survived because we trusted one another."

"So?"

"So, back in the day, weird people threatened the strength of the tribe. If you weren't good for making food, shelter, or babies, then you were tossed out on your own."

"But we're not primitive like that anymore."

"Oh, yes, we are. Weird people still get banished."

"You mean weird people like me," I said.

"And me," Gordy said.

"All right, then," I said. "So we have a tribe of two."

I had the sudden urge to hug Gordy, and he had the sudden urge to prevent me from

hugging him.

"Don't get sentimental," he said.

Yep, even the weird boys are afraid of their emotions.

My Sister Sends Me a Letter

Dear Junior,

I am still looking for a job. They keep telling me I don't have enough experience. But how can I get enough experience if they don't give me a chance to get experience? Oh, well. I have a lot of free time, so I have started to write my life story. Really! Isn't that crazy? I think I'm going to call it HOW TO RUN AWAY FROM YOUR HOUSE AND FIND YOUR HOME.

What do you think?

Tell everybody I love them and miss them!

Love,

your Big Sis!

P.S.

And we moved into a new house.

It's the most gorgeous place in the world!