“You have lost the moment you pick up a gun,” he’d always said. “When you resort to violence to prove a point, you’ve just experienced a profound failure of imagination.”
Lying together in that Madrid Hilton Hotel, with its tiny European bathroom and scratchy sheets, she’d realized how much she loved her idealistic and pompous husband.
“Let’s go home,” she’d said to him again.
“Why?” he’d asked.
“Because I want to,” she’d said to him again as he stood naked from the bed and walked across the thin carpet.
No habla Español. Indios de Norte Americanos.
All during that time, during his domestic and foreign basketball career, she’d been writing stories, poems, essays, and the first few chapters of various failed novels. She’d never told Roman about her writing because she’d wanted to keep something for herself; she’d wanted to enjoy a secret, perhaps sacred, endeavor, and writing seemed to be her best vocation and avocation. Under various pseudonyms, she’d published work in dozens of the various university literary journals back in the United States, though she’d never bothered to read any of her writing after it had been published. She didn’t even bother to keep originals, preferring to start all over with the first word of each new poem, story, or essay.
“Let’s go home,” she’d said to him as he stood at the window of the Madrid Hilton. He was naked and thin and would never be that lovely again.
“I’m afraid,” he’d said.
“Of what?”
“I’m afraid I won’t know how to do anything else.”
There, in Spain, he’d stood naked in the window and wept.
No habla Español. Indios de Norte Americanos.
“What if basketball is all I will ever be good at?”
“Hey,” she’d said. “You’re not even that good a basketball player.”
“Ouch,” he’d said and laughed. They’d laughed together, though both of them had a secret. His: he’d hated her, ever so briefly, for telling the truth about his failed dreams. Hers: she’d hated herself, ever so briefly, for devoting her life to his dreams.
Both of them had locked their secrets in dark boxes, never to be opened, and caught the next plane back to the United States.
On the Spokane Indian Reservation, on the morning of that first snow, Roman sat down to piss. He could hear the television playing in the living room. He could hear Michael Jordan’s voice.
I’m back.
Sure, Roman could have stood and pissed. That would have been easier, more convenient. Just pull it out and blast away. But he wanted to be polite, even kind to Grace. That was exactly what was missing in most marriages: politeness, courtesy, good manners. He was the kind of man who wrote thank-you notes to his wife for the smallest favors.
After years of marriage, Roman had learned one basic truth: It was easy to make another person happy.
To make Grace happy, Roman sat down to piss, did the dishes at least three times a week, vacuumed every day, and occasionally threw a load of laundry into the washer, though he’d often forgotten to transfer the wet clothes into the dryer. No matter. Grace didn’t sweat the small stuff, and with each passing day she loved him more and more.
I’m back.
After his sit-down piss, Roman stood and pulled up his underwear, climbed into a pair of sweatpants hanging from the shower rod, slipped his feet into Chuck Taylor basketball shoes, and stepped into the bedroom.
Grace pretended to be asleep in their big bed. She loved this game. Still holding the basketball, Roman laid down next to her and pressed his body against hers.
“There’s a strange woman in my bed,” said Roman.
“I know,” said Grace, without opening her eyes.
“What should I do about her?”
“Let her sleep.”
Roman touched the basketball to Grace’s cheek. He wondered if she wanted to make love. She usually did, and had approached him as often as he’d approached her, but he’d always liked to delay, to think about her — the taste, smell, and sound of her — for hours, or even days, before he’d make a pass.
“Michael Jordan is coming back again,” he said.
“You can’t fool me,” said Grace. “I heard it. That was just a replay.”
“Yeah, but I wish he was coming back again. He should always come back.”
“Don’t let it give you any crazy ideas.”
Roman pulled the basketball away and leaned even closer to Grace. He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing. Other people claimed that you can’t choose who you love — it just happens! — but Grace and Roman knew that was a bunch of happy horseshit. Of course you chose who you loved. If you didn’t choose, you ended up with what was left — the drunks and abusers, the debtors and vacuums, the ones who ate their food too fast or had never read a novel. Damn, marriage was hard work, was manual labor, and unpaid manual labor at that. Yet, year after year, Grace and Roman had pressed their shoulders against the stone and rolled it up the hill together.
In their marriage bed, Roman chose Grace once more and brushed his lips against her ear.
“It snowed last night,” he whispered.
“I can smell it,” said Grace, choosing him.
“What do you want for breakfast?”
“Make me some of your grandma’s salmon mush.”
Grandmother Fury had died of cancer the previous winter. On her deathbed, she’d pulled Roman close to her. She’d kissed him full on the lips and cried in his arms.
“I don’t want to go,” she’d said in Spokane.
“I know,” he’d said and felt the heat leave her body.
“I’m cold.”
“I love you.”
“Listen,” she’d said. “You better keep making that salmon mush. You’re the only one now. You have to keep it alive.”
“I’ll teach Grace.”
“She’s a good woman, that one, a good person. You better hang on to her. She could live without you easily, but you’d be lost without her.”
“She loves you as much as I do.”
“I am happy to hear that. But listen, the important thing is the salmon mush. You have to remember one thing, the big secret.”
“I know, I know, pour the milk in just before serving.”
“No, no, that’s the most obvious secret. You don’t know the biggest secret. You don’t know it. Let me tell you.”
Roman had leaned close to her ear and heard that secret. He’d listened to his grandmother’s last words and then she’d died.
On his first day at St. Jerome the Second University, Roman walked alone into the freshman dormitory. Everybody else carried new luggage, stereos, bicycles, books, but Roman carried all of his possessions in a Hefty garbage bag slung over his shoulder. He found his room, walked inside, and met his roommate.
“Hey,” said the kid with blue eyes and blond hair. “You must be my roomie. I’m Alex Weber.”
“Roman.”
“I thought you were Indian.”
“I am Indian. Roman is my name.”
“First or last?”
“The first name is Roman, the middle name is Gabriel, the last name is Fury.”
“A spectacular moniker.”
“Thank you.”
“Is that your luggage?”
Roman tossed his Hefty bag onto his bed. He was ashamed of it, his poverty, but pretended to be proud.
“Yeah,” said Roman. “I got ninety-nine of them back home. The whole matching set.”