The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

But I can’t blame my parents for our poverty because my mother and father are the twin suns around which I orbit and my world would EXPLODE without them.

Yep, I have to admit that isosceles triangles make me feel hormonal.

But Mr. P isn’t a Democratic-, Republican-, Christian-, or Devil-worshipping freak. He is just sleepy.

I grabbed my book and opened it up. I wanted to smell it. Heck, I wanted to kiss it. Yes, kiss it. That’s right, I am a book kisser. Maybe that’s kind of perverted or maybe it’s just romantic and highly intelligent.

I mean, yeah, it is kind of a silly dream. What kind of Indian writes romance novels? But it is still pretty cool. I love the thought of reading my sister’s books. I love the thought of walking into a bookstore and seeing her name on the cover of a big and beautiful novel.

“The only thing you kids are being taught is how to give up.

I was studying the sky like I was an astronomer, except it was daytime and I didn’t have a telescope, so I was just an idiot.

“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.”

There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away.

If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.

“The people at home,” I said. “A lot of them call me an apple.” “Do they think you’re a fruit or something?” he asked. “No, no,” I said. “They call me an apple because they think I’m red on the outside and white on the inside.” “Ah, so they think you’re a traitor.” “Yep.” “Well, life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.”

Still, I probably would have turned around if I hadn’t seen my mom and dad and grandma waiting at the front door. I know they’d been pitched just as much crap as I was. And there they were, ready to catch more crap for me. Ready to walk through the crap with me.

My grandmother’s greatest gift was tolerance. Now, in the old days, Indians used to be forgiving of any kind of eccentricity. In fact, weird people were often celebrated. Epileptics were often shamans because people just assumed that God gave seizure-visions to the lucky ones. Gay people were seen as magical, too.

Of course, ever since white people showed up and brought along their Christianity and their fears of eccentricity, Indians have gradually lost all of their tolerance.

We were all completely silent. This was the weirdest thing any of us had ever witnessed. And we’re Indians, so trust me, we’ve seen some really weird stuff.

“I used to think the world was broken down by tribes,” I said. “By black and white. By Indian and white. But I know that isn’t true. The world is only broken into two tribes: The people who are assholes and the people who are not.”

“You can do it.” “I can do it.” Do you understand how amazing it is to hear that from an adult? Do you know how amazing it is to hear that from anybody? It’s one of the simplest sentences in the world, just four words, but they’re the four

hugest words in the world when they’re put together.

As we ran through our warm-up layup drills, I looked up into the crowd to see if my dad was in his usual place, high up in the northwest corner. And there he was. I waved at him. He waved back. Yep, my daddy was an undependable drunk. But he’d never missed any of my organized games, concerts, plays, or picnics. He may not have loved me perfectly, but he loved me as well as he could.

I mean, you have to love somebody that much to also hate them that much, too.

But I’m still an Indian, and we like to be scared. I don’t know what it is about us. But we love ghosts. We love monsters.

“Will we still know each other when we’re old men?” I asked. “Who knows anything?” Rowdy asked.