The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

We Indians really should be better liars, considering how often we’ve been lied to.

His father is drinking hard and throwing hard punches, so Rowdy and his mother are always walking around with bruised and bloody faces. “It’s war paint,” Rowdy always says. “It just makes me look tougher.”

Zitty and lonely, I woke up on the reservation as an Indian, and somewhere on the road to Reardan, I became something less than Indian. And once I arrived at Reardan, I became something less than less than less than Indian. Those white kids did not talk to me. They barely looked at me.

“Hey, Dad,” I said. “What do Indians have to be so thankful for?” “We should give thanks that they didn’t kill all of us.”

headed over to the library bathrooms because they’re usually a lot cleaner than the ones by the lunchroom.