After work that day, the foreman went home and ate two pork chops, five homemade biscuits, and canned green beans. His wife, Estelle, always had a good dinner waiting for him. They sat at their cheap table with four unmatched chairs in a kitchen whose walls had been a painful yellow when the paint was fresh, though now the glare had faded into a pale ugliness. They ate and watched the evening news on their thirty-one-inch television. While showing some homes to a potential buyer, a Century 21 salesman had discovered the body of the white man in an empty house in Fremont. The white man had been scalped and murdered. After hearing the bad news, the foreman pulled his wife closer and thought of John Smith. He loved his wife. She had gained a few pounds because of their three kids, but the foreman was no lightweight himself, and he knew it. He weighed himself every morning on the bathroom scale. He was getting to be a fat fuck. His pants did not fit right and his belly now hung over his belt. Everything seemed to be changing in his life, in the whole damn world. His kids were getting older, and wiser. They would know a lot more than he did pretty soon. Hell, he could barely remember their ages. Lately, when addressing a specific child, he ran through all of the possible combinations of their names before he found the correct one. Bobby, Dave, Cyndy, Robert, David, Cynthia, a group of strangers who could program a VCR. His wife had always been smarter. That did not bother him so much. She knew everything about him. She knew he had begun to hate work. He wanted to finish the lousy skyscraper and move on to his government job. He got a queasy feeling in his stomach every morning before work. Morning sickness, his wife teased him. But the foreman was beginning to wonder if he felt afraid of John.
“You know John, the Indian kid,” the foreman said to Estelle. “He’s been acting goofy. I’m wondering if he’s got mental problems or something.”
“What? Is he crazy?”
“Nah, he’s not bug-eyed and slobbering. But still, he’s…different.”
“Different? He’s always been different, hasn’t he?”
“Yeah, but now he’s really different.”
“You think you should talk to him?”
“I’ve tried. But he hardly talks, and when he does, he sounds like a robot.”
“Well, maybe you should talk to somebody else about him.”
“Who? The union? The architects? That’ll go over well. You see, gentlemen, we’ve got this Indian guy who doesn’t talk and eats his lunch alone. He doesn’t go for beers after work. He also arrives early, leaves late, does everything I tell him to do, and does it right. He’s a really big problem. I mean, we’ve got a few guys about ready to flunk drug tests, a couple ex-Hell’s Angels who ain’t so ex, and a guy who knocked over a 7-Eleven, but I’m really worried about this Indian.”
“Don’t get smart with me. You’re the one who brought it up.”
The foreman apologized to his wife and hugged her tightly as they stood in the kitchen of their small house, their kids running and yelling in the yard. Maybe he could count everything good in his life on one hand, but that was more than most people could do.
That night, after he made love to his wife in his quick and clumsy fashion, the foreman fell asleep and dreamed. In that dream, a figure stood on the top floor of the last skyscraper in Seattle. It was dark in the dream, only a sliver of moon illuminating the building. The foreman approached the figure. With its back turned, the figure could have been a man or woman. The foreman was scared of the figure, but also very curious. The figure held an object in its hand. Something valuable, a gift for the foreman perhaps. The foreman stepped beside the figure, and both stared down at the street hundreds of feet below. Suddenly afraid of falling, the foreman woke with a sudden start and sat up in bed. His wife was soundly asleep beside him. He curled up close to her, fell back asleep, and remembered nothing of his dream by morning.
10. Confessions
“THE ESTABLISHMENT OF GAMBLING casinos on Indian reservations is very much an act of fiscal rebellion,” said Dr. Clarence Mather during that second session of the Native American literature class. “However, I worry about the longtime cultural implications of such a rebellion. Are the Indians polluting their cultural purity by engaging in such a boldly capitalistic activity? As Jack Wilson writes in his latest novel, ‘Indians are gambling with their futures.’”
“Dr. Mather,” said Marie, raising her hand. Mather ignored her.
“Mr. Rogers,” Mather said to David. “How do you feel about this?”
“Well,” said David. “I’ve never been to a casino before. I don’t know how I feel about it. But the state runs a lottery, doesn’t it? Aren’t the Indian casinos and the state lottery the same kind of thing?”
Marie was surprised by David’s logic, but still suspicious. He tried to talk to her after that class, but she avoided him. Instead, she followed Dr. Mather back to his office. He was clueless, of course, as she tailed him through the dark campus, past quiet buildings and empty tennis courts. She could have closed her eyes and found her way. She had been negotiating the campus’s maze of buildings and paths for a few years. At that late hour, the campus was surprisingly busy. A few students recognized Marie because she was a very vocal Indian student leader, but she ignored the friendly greetings of some and the hostile stares of others. Instead, she silently followed Mather into the Anthropology Building and up the stairs to his office. He was unlocking his office door, with his name stenciled in black on its gray-green opaque window, when Marie tapped him on the shoulder.
“Oh, Ms. Polatkin, you startled me.”
Marie stared at the professor, who soon became very uncomfortable.
“Is there something I can do for you?” he asked.
“It’s Wilson’s book,” Marie said and handed the mystery novel over to Mather. “I refuse to study it.”
“Ms. Polatkin, Marie. Why do you insist on challenging everything I say?”
“I only challenge you when you’re wrong. You just happen to be wrong about Wilson. I mean, we need the casinos. It’s not like we’re planning a rebellion. We’re just putting food in our cupboards. If eating is rebellious, then I guess we’re the biggest rebels out there. Indians are just plain hungry. Not for power. Not for money. For food, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Wilson doesn’t know anything about that. You don’t know anything about that.”
Dr. Mather shook his head sadly.
“There you go again, creating an antagonistic situation. Don’t you understand what I’m trying to teach? I’m trying to present a positive portrait of Indian peoples, of your people. Of you. I simply cannot do that if you insist on this kind of confrontational relationship. I mean, with all this negative publicity surrounding the murder of that white man, don’t you understand I am trying to do a good thing here? People actually think an Indian killed and scalped that young man. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, people still think that Indians are savages. Don’t you understand that I’m on your side?”
“On my side?”
“Yes, Ms. Polatkin, we, you and I, are on the same side of this battle.”
Marie stared up at the tenured professor.
“What gives you the right to say that?” Marie asked him. “Who are you to tell me what battles I’m fighting?”
“Listen,” said Mather. “I understand what you’re going through, I really do. An Indian woman in college. I understand. I’m a Marxist.”