The Night Watchman

by Louise Erdrich

“The average man is proof the average woman can take a joke,” he said.

The services that the government provides to Indians might be likened to rent. The rent for use of the entire country of the United States.

shame. It made him curdle inside. And the curdling became something hard and sour. It became a black sediment he carried around in his stomach. Or a thought that stabbed so hard he might cast it out in a flare of anger. Or it might stay in there hardening even further until it flew up to his brain and killed him.

Radiance filled him and he reared up, knowing that the drummers wished him to dance.

How sad it was not to be sad.

Watkins’s coin-purse mouth.

I do things perfectly when enraged.

Ha!