I’m going back to the beginning and reprinting the first short story from my first book, The Business of Fancydancing. I wrote this story in a fiction writing class at Washington State University in 1989. It’s my debut story, the beginning of my literary career. And, yes, it’s based on true events. I really did roam the earth for years with an all-Indian basketball team, traveling from rez to rez to win and lose games. Take a look at this photo of one iteration of our all-Indian hoops team. I’m #11 in case you don’t recognize the decades-younger version of me. Yeah, I was waaaay Indian, waaaay rezzy. And the first paragraph of my first story screams, “Here comes the rez boy to sing his songs for you.”
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, Rosalie, Spangle, all the small towns miles apart, all the Indians in the bars drinking their culture or boarded up in the 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 in the blue van, 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,” my father said. “I’m getting too damned old for this.”
Willie said, “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 goddamn 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 that 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 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.”
It was on Highway 2 just before Reardan when the State Trooper puled 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 tournament.”
The Trooper held us all in his flashlight for a moment, held the 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 circles of darkness.
“We all going to jail, enit?”
“Only if being Indian is illegal.”
“Shit, being Indian has been illegal in Wsahington 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 step out of the vehicle.”
“I didn’t do shit.”
“Mr. Victor, I won’t ask again.”
My father climbed out and we watched as the Trooper made him walk a straight line, touch his eyes 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.”
“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 them 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 our of our weight.
“I’m so dammed 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.