Junior stayed in school another year, even took another history class from the professor who’d taught that course where Lynn and Junior had met. Although Junior had done fairly well in the first class, he wanted to do even better the next time around. He studied hard, sacrificed his grades in other courses, even skipped other classes to study history. And just like Lynn had done, he challenged the professor on every point. Every detail.
“But don’t you think the gunfighter was just a symbol that justified the violent nature of white men?” Junior asked.
The professor ignored Junior and continued with his lecture. Junior leaned back in his chair and dreamed of being a gunfighter. He drew his pistol and fired, once, twice, three times. He never missed.
“But don’t you think the western movie is just a contemporary measure of America’s fondness for war?” Junior asked.
“Okay, okay,” the professor said. “Enough lecture. Time for a pop quiz. And you can all thank Mr. Polatkin for it.”
The class groaned and struggled with the test. Junior ran through the test, answered most questions correctly, missed a couple. He carried the test up to the professor.
“Correct this,” Junior said.
“I’ll give it back to you next class,” the professor said.
“No, correct it now.”
The professor grabbed the test from Junior, hoped it was a failure. But Junior did well enough to get an A.
“Happy now?” the professor asked.
“No,” Junior said. He took the test paper back and threw it in the garbage as he walked out the classroom door and out of college. He hitchhiked back to the reservation, stopped at a pay phone, and made a collect call to Lynn.
“Hello, Lynn, this is Junior. I left school.”
“Junior, you can’t do that. You can’t go back to the reservation. You’ll die out there.”
“Well, I’m dying at school, too. So I guess it’s a matter of choosing my own grave.”
“Listen, Junior, do you need anything?”
“Can I talk to my son?”
“Sure, hold on.”
Junior waited for Sean Casey’s voice.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Sean, it’s Daddy.”
“Daddy.”
“I love you, Sean.”
“Quen comanche, Daddy.”
“Yeah, Sean, quen comanche.”
Junior hung up the phone and walked down the highway toward the reservation. He wanted to imagine that he was walking off into the sunset, into a happy ending. But he knew that all along the road he traveled, there were reservation drive-ins, each showing a new and painful sequel to the first act of his life.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following journals, where some of these stories originally appeared, in slightly different form: Hanging Loose: “Crazy Horse Dreams” and “Family Portrait”; Blue Mesa Review: “Imagining the Reservation”; Lactuca: “Amusements”; Esquire: “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona.”
Copyright © 1993, 2005 by Sherman Alexie
New Prologue Copyright © 2013 by Sherman Alexie and Jess Walter
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
978-1-4804-5716-4
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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EBOOKS BY SHERMAN ALEXIE
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The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven Page 20
