The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (10 page)

But I thought we were being warriors, you know?

And a warrior isn't afraid of confrontation.

So I went to school the next day and walked right up to Gordy the Genius White Boy.

"Gordy," I said. "I need to talk to you."

"I don't have time," he said. "Mr. Orcutt and I have to tie bug some PCs. Don't you hate PCs? They are sickly and fragile and vulnerable to viruses. PCs are like French people living during the bubonic plague."

Wow, and people thought I was a freak.

"I much prefer Macs, don't you?" he asked. "They're so poetic."

This guy was in love with computers. I wondered if he was secretly writing a romance

about a skinny, white boy genius who was having sex with a half-breed Apple computer.

"Computers are computers," I said. "One or the other, it's all the same."

Gordy sighed.

"So, Mr. Spirit," he said. "Are you going to bore me with your tautologies all day or are you going to actually say some thing?"

Tautologies? What the heck were tautologies? I couldn't ask Gordy because then he'd

know I was an illiterate Indian idiot.

"You don't know what a tautology is, do you?" he asked.

"Yes, I do," I said. "Really, I do. Completely, I do."

"You're lying."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"How can you tell?"

"Because your eyes dilated, your breathing rate increased a little bit, and you started to sweat."

Okay, so Gordy was a human lie detector machine, too.

"All right, I lied," I said. "What is a tautology?"

Gordy sighed again.

I HATED THAT SIGH! I WANTED TO PUNCH THAT SIGH IN THE FACE!

"A tautology is a repetition of the same sense in different words," he said.

"Oh," I said.

What the hell was he talking about?

"It's a redundancy."

"Oh, you mean, redundant, like saying the same thing over and over but in different ways?"

"Yes."

"Oh, so if I said something like, 'Gordy is a dick without ears and an ear without a dick,'

then that would be a tautology."

Gordy smiled.

"That's not exactly a tautology, but it is funny. You have a singular wit."

I laughed.

Gordy laughed, too. But then he realized that I wasn't laughing WITH him. I was

laughing AT him.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"I can't believe you said 'singular wit.' That's sounds like fricking British or something."

"Well, I am a bit of an Anglophile."

"An Anglophile? What's an Angophile?"

"It's someone who loves Mother England."

God, this kid was an eighty-year-old literature professor trapped in the body of a fifteen-year-old farm boy.

"Listen, Gordy," I said. "I know you're a genius and all. But you are one weird dude."

"I'm quite aware of my differences. I wouldn't classify them as weird."

"Don't get me wrong. I think weird is great. I mean, if you look at all the great people in history—Einstein, Michelangelo, Emily Dickinson—then you're looking at a bunch of weird people."

"I'm going to be late for class," Gordy said. "You're going to be late for class. Perhaps you should, as they say, cut to the chase."

I looked at Gordy. He was a big kid, actually, strong from bucking bales and driving

trucks. He was probably the strongest geek in the world.

"I want to be your friend," I said.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"I want us to be friends," I said.

Gordy stepped back.

"I assure you," he said. "I am not a homosexual."

"Oh, no," I said. "I don't want to be friends that way. I jus I meant regular friends. I mean, you and I, we have a lot in common."

Gordy studied me now.

I was an Indian kid from the reservation. I was lonely and sad and isolated and terrified.

Just like Gordy.

And so we did become friends. Not the best of friends. Not like Rowdy and me. We

didn't share secrets. Or dreams.

No, we studied together.

Gordy taught me how to study.

Best of all, he taught me how to read.

"Listen," he said one afternoon in the library. "You have to read a book three times before you know it. The first time you read it for the story. The plot. The movement from scene to scene that gives the book its momentum, its rhythm. It's like riding a raft down a river. You're just paying attention to the currents. Do you understand that?"

"Not at all," I said.

"Yes, you do," he said.

"Okay, I do," I said. I really didn't, but Gordy believed in me. He wouldn't let me give up.

"The second time you read a book, you read it for its history. For its knowledge of history.

You think about the meaning of each word, and where that word came from. I mean, you read a novel that has the word 'spam' in it, and you know where that word comes from, right?"

"Spam is junk e-mail," I said.

"Yes, that's what it is, but who invented the word, who first used it, and how has the meaning of the word changed since it was first used?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Well, you have to look all that up. If you don't treat each word that seriously then you're not treating the novel seriously."

I thought about my sister in Montana. Maybe romance novels were absolutely serious

business. My sister certainly I bought they were. I suddenly understood that if every moment of a book should be taken seriously, then every moment of a life should be taken seriously as well.

"I draw cartoons," I said.

"What's your point?" Gordy asked.

"I take them seriously. I use them to understand the world. I use them to make fun of the world. To make fun of people. And sometimes I draw people because they're my friends and family. And I want to honor them."

"So you take your cartoons as seriously as you take books?"

"Yeah, I do," I said. "That's kind of pathetic, isn't it?"

"No, not at all," Gordy said. "If you're good at it, and you love it, and it helps you navigate the river of the world, then it can't be wrong."

Wow, this dude was a poet. My cartoons weren't just good for giggles; they were also

good for poetry. Funny poetry, but poetry nonetheless. It was seriously funny stuff.

"But don't take anything too seriously, either," Gordy said.

The little dork could read minds, too. He was like some kind of Star Wars alien creature with invisible tentacles that sucked your thoughts out of your brain.

"You read a book for the story, for each of its words," Gordy said, "and you draw your cartoons for the story, for each of the words and images. And, yeah, you need to take that seriously, but you should also read and draw because really good books and cartoons give you a boner."

I was shocked:

"You should get a boner! You have to get a boner!" Gordy shouted. "Come on!"

We ran into the Reardan High School Library.

"Look at all these books," he said.

"There aren't that many," I said. It was a small library in a small high school in a small town.

"There are three thousand four hundred and twelve books here," Gordy said. "I know that because I counted them."

"Okay, now you're officially a freak," I said.

"Yes, it's a small library. It's a tiny one. But if you read one of these books a day, it would still take you almost ten years to finish."

"What's your point?"

"The world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don't know."

Wow. That was a huge idea.

Any town, even one as small as Reardan, was a place of mystery. And that meant that

Wellpinit, that smaller, Indian town, was also a place of mystery.

"Okay, so it's like each of these books is a mystery. Every I look is a mystery. And if you read all the books ever written, it's like you've read one giant mystery. And no matter how much you learn, you just keep on learning there is so much more you need to learn."

"Yes, yes, yes, yes," Gordy said. "Now doesn't that give you a boner?"

"I am rock hard," I said.

Gordy blushed.

"Well, I don't mean boner in the sexual sense," Gordy said. "I don't think you should run through life with a real erect penis. But you should approach each book—you should approach life—with the real possibility that you might get a metaphorical boner at any point."

"A metaphorical boner!" I shouted. "What the heck is metaphorical boner?"

Gordy laughed.

"When I say boner, I really mean joy," he said.

"Then why didn't you say joy? You didn't have to say boner. Whenever I think about boners, I get confused."

"Boner is funnier. And more joyful."

Gordy and I laughed.

He was an extremely weird dude. But he was the smartest person I'd ever known. He

would always be the smartest person I'd ever known.

And he certainly helped me through school. He not only tutored me and challenged me,

but he made me realize that hard work—that the act of finishing, of completing, of

accomplishing a task—is joyous.

In Wellpinit, I was a freak because I loved books.

In Reardan, I was a joyous freak.

And my sister, she was a traveling freak.

We were the freakiest brother and sister in history.

My Sister Sends Me an E-mail

-----Original Message-----

From: Mary

Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 4:41 PM

To: Junior Subject: Hi!

Dear Junior:

I love it here in Montana. It's beautiful. Yesterday, I rode a

horse for the first time. Indians still ride horses in Montana.

I'm still looking for a job. I've sent applications to all the

restaurants on the reservation. Yep, the Flathead Rez has about

twenty restaurants. It's weird. They have six or seven towns,

too. Can you believe that? That's a lot of towns for one rez!

And you know what's really weird? Some of the towns on the rez

are filled with white people. I don't know how that happened.

But the people who live in those white towns don't always like

Indians much. One of those towns, called Poison, tried to secede

(that means quit, I looked it up) from the rez. Really. It was

like the Civil War. Even though the town is in the middle of the

rez, the white folks in that town decided they didn't want to be

a part of the rez. Crazy. But most of the people here are nice.

The whites and Indians. And you know the best part? There's this

really great hotel where hubby and I had our honeymoon. It's on

Flathead Lake and we had a suite, a hotel room with its own

separate bedroom! And there was a phone in the bath room!

Really! I could have called you from the bathroom. But that's

not even the most crazy part. We decide to order room service,

to have the food delivered to our room, and guess what they had

on the menu? Indian fry bread! Yep. For five dollars, you could

get fry bread. Crazy! So I ordered up two pieces. I didn't think

it would be any good, especially not as good as grandma's. But

let me tell you. It was great. Almost as good as grandma's. And

they had the fry bread on this fancy plate and so I ate it with

this fancy fork and knife. And I just kept imagining there was

some Flathead Indian grandma in the kitchen, just making fry

bread for all the room-service people. It was a dream come true!

I love my life! I love my husband! I love Montana!

I love you!

Your sis, Mary

It was a snowless Thanksgiving.

We had a turkey, and Mom cooked it perfectly.

We also had mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin

pie. It was a feast.

I always think it's funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends luring that first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians.

So I'm never quite sure why we eat turkey like everybody else.