SURVIVORMAN

by Sherman Alexie

Here’s a fact: Some people want to live moreThan others do. Some can withstand any horror While others will easily surrenderTo thirst, hunger, and extremes of weather. In Utah, one man carried anotherMan on his back like a conjoined brother And crossed twenty-five miles of desertTo safety. Can you imagine the hurt? Do you think you could be that good and strong?Yes, yes, you think, but you’re probably wrong.

I Would Steal Horses by Sherman Alexie

for you, if there were any left,give a dozen of the bestto your father, the auto mechanicin the small town where you were born

and where he will die sometime by dark.I am afraid of his hands, which haverebuilt more of the small partsof this world than I ever will.

I would sign treaties for you, takeevery promise as the last lie, the lastpoint after which we both refuse the exact.

I would wrap us both in old blanketshold every disease tight against our skin.

Evolutionby Sherman Alexie 

Buffalo Bill opens a pawn shop on the reservationright across the border from the liquor storeand he stays open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

and the Indians come running in with jewelrytelevision sets, a VCR, a full-length beaded buckskin outfitit took Inez Muse 12 years to finish. Buffalo Bill

takes everything the Indians have to offer, keeps itall catalogued and filed in a storage room. The Indianspawn their hands, saving the thumbs for last, they pawn

their skeletons, falling endlessly from the skinand when the last Indian has pawned everything but his heart, Buffalo Bill takes that for twenty bucks

closes up the pawn shop, paints a new sign over the oldcalls his venture THE MUSEUM OF NATIVE AMERICAN CULTUREScharges the Indians five bucks a head to enter.

House Fires by Sherman Alexie

The night my father brokethe furniture and used the piecesto build a fire, my mother tore mefrom my bed at 3 a.m. Eyes and mouthwide with whiskey, she told mewe were leaving that placeand would never come back.We drove for hours, under the gatesof this reservation, as she recantedyears of life with my father,the man who pulled our house from its foundationsand sent us all tumbling downto a café in Colville. We took penancein the breakfast special, she told meforgave all our sins. We drove backto my father, gathering ashin his hands, planning to bury it allin the graves we had chosen for each other.

Poverty of Mirrorsby Sherman Alexie You wake these mornings alone and nothingcan be forgiven; you drink the lastswallow of warm beer from the canbeside the bed, tell the stranger sleepingon the floor to go home. It's too easy

to be no one with nothing to do, onlyslightly worried about the light billmore concerned with how dark day gets.

You walk alone on moist pavement wonderingwhat color rain is in the country.Does the world out there revolve around roomswithout doors or windows? Centering the mirroryou found in the trash, walls seem closerand you can never find the right way

out, so you open the fridge againfor a beer, find only rancid milk and drink itwhole. This all tastes too familiar. 

What the Orphan Inheritsby Sherman Alexie 

Language

I dreamed I was digging your gravewith my bare hands. I touched your faceand skin fell in thin strips to the ground

until only your tongue remained whole.I hung it to smoke with the deerfor seven days. It tasted thick and greasy

sinew gripped my tongue tight. I roseto walk naked through the fire. I spokeEnglish. I was not consumed.

Names

I do not have an Indian name.The wind never spoke to my motherwhen I was born. My heart was hidden

beneath the shells of walnuts switchedback and forth. I have to cheat to feelthe beating of drums in my chest.

Alcohol

"For bringing us the horsewe could almost forgive youfor bringing us whisky."

Time

We measure time leaningout car windows shatteringbeer bottles off road signs.

Tradition

Indian boyssinewy and doe-eyedfrozen in headlights.