The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Read online

  "Can I tell you a secret?" I asked.

  "It better not be girly," he said.

  "It's not."

  "Okay, then, tell me."

  "I'm transferring to Reardan."

  Rowdy's eyes narrowed. His eyes always narrowed right re he beat the crap out of

  someone. I started shaking.

  "That's not funny," he said.

  "It's not supposed to be funny," I said. "I'm transferring to Reardan. I want you to come with me."

  "And when are you going on this imaginary journey?"

  "It's not imaginary. It's real. And I'm transferring now. I start school tomorrow at Reardan."

  "You better quit saying that," he said. "You're getting me mad."

  I didn't want to get him mad. When Rowdy got mad it ok him days to get un-mad. But he

  was my best friend and wanted him to know the truth.

  "I'm not trying to get you mad," I said. "I'm telling the truth. I'm leaving the rez, man, and I want you to come with me. Come on. It will be an adventure."

  "I don't even drive through that town," he said. "What makes you think I want to go to school there?"

  He got up, stared me hard in the eyes, and then spit on the floor.

  Last year, during eighth grade, we traveled to Reardan to play them in flag football.

  Rowdy was our star quarterback and kicker and middle linebacker, and I was the loser water boy, and we lost to Reardan by the score of 45-0.

  Of course, losing isn't exactly fun.

  Nobody wants to be a loser.

  We all got really mad and vowed to kick their asses the next game.

  But, two weeks after that, Reardan came to the rez and beat us 56-10.

  During basketball season, Reardan beat us 72-5 and 86-50, our only two losses of the

  season.

  Rowdy scored twenty-four points in the first game and forty in the second game.

  I scored nine points in each game, going 3 for 10 on three-pointers in the first game and 3

  for 15 in the second. Those were my two worst games of the season.

  During baseball season, Rowdy hit three home runs in the first game against Reardan and two home runs in the second but we still lost by scores of 17-3 and 12-2. I played in both losses and struck out seven times and was hit by a pitch once.

  Sad thing is, getting hit like that was my only hit of the season.

  After baseball season, I led the Wellpinit Junior High Academic Bowl team against

  Reardan Junior High, and we lost by a grand total of 50-1.

  Yep, we answered one question correctly.

  I was the only kid, white or Indian, who knew that Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities. And let me tell you, we Indians were the worst of times and those Reardan kids were the best of times.

  Those kids were magnificent.

  They knew everything.

  And they were beautiful.

  They were beautiful and smart.

  They were beautiful and smart and epic.

  They were filled with hope.

  I don't know if hope is white. But I do know that hope for us like some mythical creature: Man, I was scared of those Reardan kids, and maybe I was scared of hope, too, but

  Rowdy absolutely hated all of it.

  "Rowdy," I said. "I am going to Reardan tomorrow."

  For the first time he saw that I was serious, but he didn't want me to be serious.

  "You'll never do it," he said. "You're too scared."

  "I'm going," I said.

  "No way, you're a wuss."

  "I'm doing it."

  "You're a pussy."

  "I'm going to Reardan tomorrow."

  "You're really serious?"

  "Rowdy," I said. "I'm as serious as a tumor."

  He coughed and turned away from me. I touched In shoulder. Why did I touch his

  shoulder? I don't know. I was stupid. Rowdy spun around and shoved me.

  "Don't touch me, you retarded fag!" he yelled.

  My heart broke into fourteen pieces, one for each year that Rowdy and I had been best

  friends.

  I started crying.

  That wasn't surprising at all, but Rowdy started crying, too, and he hated that. He wiped his eyes, stared at his wet hand, and screamed. I'm sure that everybody on the rez heard that scream. It was the worst thing I'd ever heard.

  It was pain, pure pain.

  "Rowdy, I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry."

  He kept screaming.

  "You can still come with me," I said. "You're still my best friend."

  Rowdy stopped screaming with his mouth but he kept screaming with his eyes.

  "You always thought you were better than me," he yelled.

  "No, no, I don't think I'm better than anybody. I think I'm worse than everybody else."

  "Why are you leaving?"

  "I have to go. I'm going to die if I don't leave."

  I touched his shoulder again and Rowdy flinched.

  Yes, I touched him again.

  What kind of idiot was I?

  I was the kind of idiot that got punched hard in the face by his best friend.

  Bang! Rowdy punched me.

  Bang! I hit the ground.

  Bang! My nose bled like a firework.

  I stayed on the ground for a long time after Rowdy walked by. I stupidly hoped that time would stand still if I stayed still. But I had to stand eventually, and when I did, I knew that my best friend had become my worst enemy.

  How to Fight Monsters

  The next morning, Dad drove me the twenty-two miles to Reardan.

  "I'm scared," I said.

  "I'm scared, too," Dad said.

  He hugged me close. His breath smelled like mouthwash and lime vodka.

  "You don't have to do this," he said. "You can always go back to the rez school."

  "No," I said. "I have to do this."

  Can you imagine what would have happened to me if I'd hinted around and gone back to

  the rez school?

  I would have been pummeled. Mutilated. Crucified.

  You can't just betray your tribe and then change your mind ton minutes later. I was on a one-way bridge. There was no way to turn around, even if I wanted to.

  "Just remember this," my father said. "Those white people aren't better than you."

  But he was so wrong. And he knew he was wrong. He was the loser Indian father of a

  loser Indian son living in a world built for winners.

  But he loved me so much. He hugged me even closer.

  "This is a great thing," he said. "You're so brave. You're a warrior."

  It was the best thing he could have said.

  "Hey, here's some lunch money," he said and handed me a dollar.

  We were poor enough to get free lunch, but I didn't want to be the only Indian and a sad sack who needed charity.

  "Thanks, Dad," I said.

  "I love you," he said.

  "I love you, too."

  I felt stronger so I stepped out of the car and walked to the front door. It was locked.

  So I stood alone on the sidewalk and watched my father drive away. I hoped he'd drive

  right home and not stop in a bar and spend whatever money he had left.

  I hoped he'd remember to come back and pick me up after school.

  I stood alone at the front door for a few very long minutes.

  It was still early and I had a black eye from Rowdy's good-bye punch. No, I had a purple, blue, yellow, and black eye. It looked like modern art.

  Then the white kids began arriving for school. They surrounded me. Those kids weren't

  just white. They were translucent. I could see the blue veins running through their skin like rivers.

  Most of the kids were my size or smaller, but there were ten or twelve monster dudes.

  Giant white guys. They looked like men, not boys. They had to be seniors. Some of them looked like they had to shave two or three times a day.

 
They stared at me, the Indian boy with the black eye and swollen nose, my going-away

  gifts from Rowdy. Those white kids couldn't believe their eyes. They stared at me like I was Bigfoot or a UFO. What was I doing at Reardan, whose mascot was an Indian, thereby making me the only other Indian in town?

  So what was I doing in racist Reardan, where more than hall of every graduating class

  went to college? Nobody in my family had ever gone near a college.

  Reardan was the opposite of the rez. It was the opposite of my family. It was the opposite of me. I didn't deserve to be there. I knew it; all of those kids knew it. Indians don't deserve shit.

  So, feeling worthless and stupid, I just waited. And pretty soon, a janitor opened the front door and all of the other kids strolled inside.

  I stayed outside.

  Maybe I could just drop out of school completely. I co go live in the woods like a hermit.

  Like a real Indian.

  Of course, since I was allergic to pretty much every plant that grew on earth, I would

  have been a real Indian with a head full of snot.

  "Okay," I said to myself. "Here I go."

  I walked into the school, made my way to the front office, and told them who I was.

  "Oh, you're the one from the reservation," the secretary said.

  "Yeah," I said.

  I couldn't tell if she thought the reservation was a good or bad thing.

  "My name is Melinda," she said. "Welcome to Reardan High School. Here's your schedule, a copy of the school constitution and moral code, and a temporary student ID. We've got you assigned to Mr. Grant for homeroom. You better hustle on down there. You're late."

  "All, where is that?" I asked.

  "We've only got one hallway here," she said and smiled. She had red hair and green eyes and was kind of sexy for an old woman. "It's all the way down on the left."

  I shoved the paperwork into my backpack and hustled down to my homeroom.

  I paused a second at the door and then walked inside.

  Everybody, all of the students and the teacher, stopped to stare at me.

  They stared hard.

  Like I was bad weather.

  "Take your seat," the teacher said. He was a muscular guy.

  I walked down the aisle and sat in the back row and tried pore all the stares and whispers, until a blond girl leaned toward me.

  Penelope!

  Yes, there are places left in the world where people are named Penelope!

  I was emotionally erect.

  "What's your name?" Penelope asked.

  "Junior," I said.

  She laughed and told her girlfriend at the next desk that my name was Junior. They both laughed. Word spread around the room and pretty soon everybody was laughing.

  They were laughing at my name.

  I had no idea that Junior was a weird name. It's a common name on my rez, on any rez.

  You walk into any trading post any rez in the United States and shout, "Hey, Junior!" and seventeen guys will turn around.

  And three women.

  But there were no other people named Junior in Reardan, so I was being laughed at

  because I was the only one who had that silly name.

  And then I felt smaller because the teacher was taking roll and he called out my name name.

  "Arnold Spirit," the teacher said.

  No, he yelled it.

  He was so big and muscular that his whisper was probably a scream.

  "Here," I said as quietly as possible. My whisper was only a whisper.

  "Speak up," the teacher said.

  "Here," I said.

  "My name is Mr. Grant," he said.

  "I'm here, Mr. Grant."

  He moved on to other students, but Penelope leaned over toward me again, but she wasn't laughing at all. She was mad now.

  "I thought you said your name was Junior," Penelope said.

  She accused me of telling her my real name. Well, okay, it wasn't completely my real name. My full name is Arnold Spirit Jr. But nobody calls me that. Everybody calls me Junior.

  Well, every other Indian calls me Junior.

  "My name is Junior," I said. "And my name is Arnold. It's Junior and Arnold. I'm both."

  I felt like two different people inside of one body.

  No, I felt like a magician slicing myself in half, with Junior living on the north side of the Spokane River and Arnold living on the south.

  "Where are you from?" she asked.

  She was so pretty and her eyes were so blue.

  I was suddenly aware that she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen up close. She was

  movie star pretty.

  "Hey," she said. "I asked you where you're from."

  Wow, she was tough.

  "Wellpinit," I said. "Up on the rez, I mean, the reservation."

  "Oh," she said. "That's why you talk so funny."

  And yes, I had that stutter and lisp, but I also had that singsong reservation accent that made everything I said sound like a bad poem.

  Man, I was freaked.

  I didn't say another word for six days.

  And on the seventh day, I got into the weirdest fistfight of my life. But before I tell you about the weirdest fistfight of my life, I have to tell you:

  THE UNOFFICIAL AND UNWRITTEN

  (but you better follow them or you're going to get beaten twice as hard)

  SPOKANE INDIAN RULES OF FISTICUFFS:

  1. IF SOMEBODY INSULTS YOU THEN YOU HAVE TO FIGHT HIM.

  2. IF YOU THINK SOMEBODY IS GOING TO INSULT YOU, THEN YOU

  HAVE TO FIGHT HIM.

  3. IF YOU THINK SOMEBODY IS THINKING ABOUT INSULTING YOU,

  THEN YOU HAVE TO FIGHT HIM.

  4. IF SOMEBODY INSULTS ANY OF YOUR FAMILY OR FRIENDS, OR IF

  YOU THINK THEY'RE GOING TO INSULT YOUR FAMILY OR FRIENDS,

  OR IF YOU THINK THEY'RE THINKING ABOUT INSULTING YOUR

  FAMILY OR FRIENDS, THEN YOU HAVE TO FIGHT HIM.

  5. YOU SHOULD NEVER FIGHT A GIRL, UNLESS SHE INSULTS YOU,

  YOUR FAMILY, OR YOUR FRIENDS, THEN YOU HAVE TO FIGHT HER.

  6. IF SOMEBODY BEATS UP YOUR FATHER OR YOUR MOTHER, THEN

  YOU HAVE TO FIGHT THE SON AND/OR DAUGHTER OF THE PERSON

  WHO BEAT UP YOUR MOTHER OR FATHER.

  7. IF YOUR MOTHER OR FATHER BEATS UP SOMEBODY, THEN THAT

  PERSON'S SON AND/OR DAUGHTER WILL FIGHT YOU.

  8. YOU MUST ALWAYS PICK FIGHTS WITH THE SONS AND/OR

  DAUGHTERS OF ANY INDIANS WHO WORK FOR THE BUREAU OF

  INDIAN AFFAIRS.

  9. YOU MUST ALWAYS PICK FIGHTS WITH THE SONS AND/OR

  DAUGHTERS OF ANY WHITE PEOPLE WHO LIVE ANYWHERE ON THE

  RESERVATION.

  10. IF YOU GET IN A FIGHT WITH SOMEBODY WHO IS SURE TO BEAT

  YOU UP, THEN YOU MUST THROW THE FIRST PUNCH, BECAUSE IT'S

  THE ONLY PUNCH YOU'LL EVER GET TO THROW.

  11. IN ANY FIGHT, THE LOSER IS THE FIRST ONE WHO CRIES.

  I knew those rules. I'd memorized those rules. I'd lived my life by those rules. I got into my first fistfight when I was three years old, and I'd been in dozens since.

  My all-time record was five wins and one hundred and twelve losses.

  Yes, I was a terrible fighter.

  I was a human punching bag.

  I lost fights to boys, girls, and kids half my age.

  One bully, Micah, made me beat up myself. Yes, he made me punch myself in the face

  three times. I am the only Indian in the history of the world who ever lost a fight with himself.

  Okay, so now that you know about the rules, then I can tell you that I went from being a small target in Wellpinit to being a larger target in Reardan.

  Well, let's get something straight. All of those pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty white girls ignored me. But that was okay. Indian girls ignored me, too, so I was used to it.

  And let's face it, most of the white boys ignored me, too
. Hut there were a few of those Reardan boys, the big jocks, who paid special attention to me. None of those guys punched me or got violent. After all, I was a reservation Indian, and no matter how geeky and weak I appeared to be, I was still a potential killer. So mostly they called me names. Lots of names.

  And yeah, those were bad enough names. But I could handle them, especially when some

  huge monster boy was insulting me. But I knew I'd have to put a stop to it eventually or I'd always be known as "Chief" or "Tonto" or "Squaw Boy."

  But I was scared.

  I wasn't scared of fistfighting with those boys. I'd been in plenty of fights. And I wasn't scared of losing fights with them, either. I'd lost most every fight I'd been in. I was afraid those monsters were going to kill me.

  And I don't mean "kill" as in "metaphor." I mean "kill" as in "beat me to death."

  So, weak and poor and scared, I let them call me names while I tried to figure out what to do. And it might have continued that way if Roger the Giant hadn't taken it too far.

  It was lunchtime and I was standing outside by the weird sculpture that was supposed to be an Indian. I was studying the sky like I was an astronomer, except it was daytime and I didn't have a telescope, so I was just an idiot.

  Roger the Giant and his gang of giants strutted over to me.

  "Hey, Chief," Roger said.

  It seemed like he was seven feet tall and three hundred pounds. He was a farm boy who

  carried squealing pigs around like they were already thin slices of bacon.

  I stared at Roger and tried to look tough. I read once that you can scare away a charging bear if you wave your arms and look big. But I figured I'd just look like a terrified idiot having an arm seizure.

  "Hey, Chief," Roger said. "You want to hear a joke?"

  "Sure," I said.

  "Did you know that Indians are living proof that niggers fuck buffalo?"

  I felt like Roger had kicked me in the face. That was the most racist thing I'd ever heard in my life.

  Roger and his friends were laughing like crazy. I hated them. And I knew I had to do

  something big. I couldn't let them get away with that shit. I wasn't just defending myself. I was defending Indians, black people, and buffalo.

  So I punched Roger in the face.

  He wasn't laughing when he landed on his ass. And he wasn't laughing when his nose

  bled like red fireworks.

  I struck some fake karate pose because I figured Roger's gang was going to attack me for bloodying their leader.