Grief

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “‘Yes, if you had not killed me,’ she cried suddenly, and her eyes shone feverishly. ‘Forgiveness—that is nothing. . . . If I only do not die! Ah, you have accomplished what you desired! I hate you!’ “Then she grew delirious. She was frightened, and cried: “‘Fire, I do not fear . . . but strike them all . . . He has gone. . . . He has gone.’ . . . “The delirium continued. She no longer recognized the children, not even little Lise, who had approached. Toward noon she died. As for me, I was arrested before her death, at eight o’clock in the morning. They took me to the police station, and then to prison, and there, during eleven months, awaiting the verdict, I reflected upon myself, and upon my past, and I understood it. Yes, I began to understand from the third day. The third day they took me to the house.” . . . Posdnicheff seemed to wish to add something, but, no longer having the strength to repress his sobs, he stopped. After a few minutes, having recovered his calmness, he resumed: “I began to understand only when I saw her in the coffin.” . . . He uttered a sob, and then immediately continued, with haste: “Then only, when I saw her dead face, did I understand all that I had done. I understood that it was I, I, who had killed her. I understood that I was the cause of the fact that she, who had been a moving, living, palpitating being, had now become motionless and cold, and that there was no way of repairing this thing. He who has not lived through that cannot understand it.” We remained silent a long time. Posdnicheff sobbed and trembled before me. His face had become delicate and long, and his mouth had grown larger. “Yes,” said he suddenly, “if I had known what I now know, I should never have married her, never, not for anything.” Again we remained silent for a long time. “Yes, that is what I have done, that is my experience, We must understand the real meaning of the words of the Gospel,—Matthew, v. 28,—‘that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery’; and these words relate to the wife, to the sister, and not only to the wife of another, but especially to one’s own wife.” THE END. Justine, The Misfortunes of VirtueMarquis De Sade

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  He died in a car wreck in December of 2016. And the question…When you sent me that e-mail saying you had reread it, I hadn’t reread the book, not the ending, and when you asked that question that they ask of each other, “Are we going to know each other as old men?”—when I wrote it in 2006, when I was working on the book, of course I always imagined that Randy and I would know each other as old men. I’m still in mourning; I mean, it’s only been a few months since he died. And I’m not just mourning him and our friendship. I’m mourning the way in which maybe we would have reunited and reconciled in some small or large way. I’m mourning the loss of possibilities. JW: There’s something about those eleven-, twelve-year-old friendships, when you’re at that age where you’ve seen the best and the worst of each other and you’ve made it through something together. You do root for them. SA: That’s what he did. He, more than any other person outside of my parents and siblings, gave me permission and celebrated my leaving. He never punished me for it, not after that first year. That first year he punished me, but we reconciled after that. And even now, especially now that he’s gone, as I doubt my journey away from the rez, my continuing journey away from the rez—I know that he always supported me, if not in presence or if not in postcards or phone calls, I know that he was happy for me. JW: And in a way that allowed you to go find who you were, to express yourself, to live. SA: I was not a courageous boy when he first moved to Wellpinit, but I left Wellpinit in a courageous way and I owe a huge debt to Randy for that courage. JW: Junior’s art, his drawings—was that a way to sort of allegorically write about your own writing? How did you decide he would be the funny artist that he is?

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  For the first time he saw that I was serious, but he didn’t want me to be serious. “You’ll never do it,” he said. “You’re too scared.” “I’m going,” I said. “No way, you’re a wuss.” “I’m doing it.” “You’re a pussy.” “I’m going to Reardan tomorrow.” “You’re really serious?” “Rowdy,” I said. “I’m as serious as a tumor.” He coughed and turned away from me. I touched his shoulder. Why did I touch his shoulder? I don’t know. I was stupid. Rowdy spun around and shoved me. “Don’t touch me, you retarded fag!” he yelled. My heart broke into fourteen pieces, one for each year that Rowdy and I had been best friends. I started crying. That wasn’t surprising at all, but Rowdy started crying, too, and he hated that. He wiped his eyes, stared at his wet hand, and screamed. I’m sure that everybody on the rez heard that scream. It was the worst thing I’d ever heard. It was pain, pure pain. “Rowdy, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.” He kept screaming. “You can still come with me,” I said. “You’re still my best friend.” Rowdy stopped screaming with his mouth but he kept screaming with his eyes. “You always thought you were better than me,” he yelled. “No, no, I don’t think I’m better than anybody. I think I’m worse than everybody else.” “Why are you leaving?” “I have to go. I’m going to die if I don’t leave.” I touched his shoulder again and Rowdy flinched. Yes, I touched him again. What kind of idiot was I? I was the kind of idiot that got punched hard in the face by his best friend. Bang! Rowdy punched me. Bang! I hit the ground. Bang! My nose bled like a firework. I stayed on the ground for a long time after Rowdy walked away. I stupidly hoped that time would stand still if I stayed still. But I had to stand eventually, and when I did, I knew that my best friend had become my worst enemy. [image "The illustration depicts a person with spiky hair, standing amidst several speech bubbles that read ‘I HATE YOU’, ‘YOU SUCK’, and ‘YOU WHITE LOVER’." file=image_rsrc4S4.jpg] How to Fight Monsters [image file=image_rsrc4RJ.jpg] The next morning, Dad drove me the twenty-two miles to Reardan. “I’m scared,” I said. “I’m scared, too,” Dad said. He hugged me close. His breath smelled like mouthwash and lime vodka. “You don’t have to do this,” he said. “You can always go back to the rez school.” “No,” I said. “I have to do this.” Can you imagine what would have happened to me if I’d turned around and gone back to the rez school? I would have been pummeled. Mutilated. Crucified. You can’t just betray your tribe and then change your mind ten minutes later. I was on a one-way bridge. There was no way to turn around, even if I wanted to.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  [image "Book cover of ‘Burning Love.’ The cover image features two individuals embracing while standing in flames, with one saying, ‘Thanks a lot Junior.’" file=image_rsrc4TC.jpg] My Final Freshman Year Report Card [image "Final report card for Mister Arnold Spirit, Junior, shows grades for subjects including English, Geology, Geometry, History, P E, Computer Programming, and Woodworking, with a note of thanks." file=image_rsrc4TD.jpg] Remembering [image file=image_rsrc4RJ.jpg] Today my mother, father, and I went to the cemetery and cleaned graves. We took care of Grandmother Spirit, Eugene, and Mary. Mom had packed a picnic and Dad had brought his saxophone, so we made a whole day of it. We Indians know how to celebrate with our dead. And I felt okay. My mother and father held hands and kissed each other. “You can’t make out in a graveyard,” I said. “Love and death,” my father said. “It’s all love and death.” “You’re crazy,” I said. “I’m crazy about you,” he said. And he hugged me. And he hugged my mother. And she had tears in her eyes. And she held my face in her hands. “Junior,” she said. “I’m so proud of you.” That was the best thing she could have said. In the middle of a crazy and drunk life, you have to hang on to the good and sober moments tightly. I was happy. But I still missed my sister, and no amount of love and trust was going to make that better. I love her. I will always love her. I mean, she was amazing. It was courageous of her to leave the basement and move to Montana. She went searching for her dreams, and she didn’t find them, but she made the attempt. And I was making the attempt, too. And maybe it would kill me, too, but I knew that staying on the rez would have killed me, too. It all made me cry for my sister. It made me cry for myself. But I was crying for my tribe, too. I was crying because I knew five or ten or fifteen more Spokanes would die during the next year, and that most of them would die because of booze. I cried because so many of my fellow tribal members were slowly killing themselves and I wanted them to live. I wanted them to get strong and get sober and get the hell off the rez. It’s a weird thing. Reservations were meant to be prisons, you know? Indians were supposed to move onto reservations and die. We were supposed to disappear. But somehow or another, Indians have forgotten that reservations were meant to be death camps. I wept because I was the only one who was brave and crazy enough to leave the rez. I was the only one with enough arrogance.

• From Manhunt (2022)

  It’s peaceful.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “I think … someone I loved … they would have been really happy here. I thought maybe, once I’m better—” “No,” said Beth. The force of her own voice surprised her. She straightened up, folding her arms. “No. I’m grateful, for everything you did, for the risks you took—but I don’t want you with me. With us, here. I don’t want to be near you.” Ramona propped herself up on one elbow, though it cost her visibly to do so. Rage and self-pity warred across her bruised and battered face. “I gave up … everything ,” she said, her voice cracking into a pained sob. “You have … no idea … what I lost. What I sacrificed … for you people .” “You really don’t get it, do you?” Beth turned, heading for the front door. “You’re lucky we don’t fucking hang you.” “Do you remember how your mother screamed when you got your nose pierced?” Indi asked, slipping her forceps into the ragged red mouth of a wound. It helped to talk, she found, when you had to work on something that had been someone you loved. She scrunched up her face in mock disgust, digging deep for her best impression of thin, neurotic Willa Fine with her gray bob and her nasal Brooklyn accent. Cold, bloody skin shifted against her fingers. “‘They won’t let you be buried in Upper Valley with that hole in your face! Is that what you want, to be apart from me and mimi and your uncles forever ?’” Her laughter threatened to become a sob as, with a gentle turning of her wrist, she eased another bullet from the ruin of Fran’s pale, flat stomach and deposited it in a dish set by the dead girl’s head. She forced herself to breathe in deep and dipped the forceps’ jaws in a small bowl of alcohol, swirling them to dislodge any tissue, then slid the instrument back into one of the bullet holes. She had already removed Fran’s bowel, torn to ribbons by the storm of lead that had cut her down. It lay coiled in a trash bag by the bloody couch. A cool, damp wind blew through the room from the gaping hole where Galbraith had shelled them. She dropped another bullet in the dish. The pancaked metal clinked against the bloody porcelain. “I think that’s all of them,” said Indi to the empty living room. “Goodbye, baby.” It took her and Robbie a long time to dig the grave.

• From Manhunt (2022)

  She clapped her bloody hands over her mouth. “I killed a Chad!” V. Not All Men V NOT ALL MEN Robbie knew a lot about how to fight someone bigger than yourself. The first and best way to do it was to avoid them completely, to never be where they could find you, to give them no reason to realize you existed at all. The second was to be as brutal and unfair as humanly possible. In his sophomore year of high school, he’d donned a burlap sack with cut-out eyeholes for a hood and caught Dane Kimball, the football captain, on a stretch of empty dirt road between school and home. He’d walked right up to Kimball and fired a nail gun eight times into his hand and arm. Dane had kept away from Anna and her friends after that. It was the same with what the cis men had turned into. You had to kill them before they knew you were there, preferably during the scant two or three hours a day they spent asleep, or else when they were eating, or at a watering hole. Ideally you found one of their caves and just rolled in a Sheetrock bucket full of gasoline with a burning rag stuffed through a hole in the lid. Smoke did most of the work; you just had to stand over the cave mouth and shoot the survivors as they crawled out. Just now, with no fuel on hand and nothing else to occupy his time, he was sitting halfway up a thirty-foot maple in the crotch of two thick branches with a sour apple gumball in his mouth, a rifle across his lap, and sixteen hundred rounds of ammunition neatly slotted into the cubby holes of a vinyl laundry organizer he’d hung from a higher limb. In the clearing below lay the carcass of a dog he’d found, the smell of which he’d amplified with a rotten cut of venison and a liberal splash of his own piss. He was pretty sure they could smell estrogen. The first man showed itself near noon, loping like a wolf out of the shadows under the trees. He approached the dead dog warily, snuffling at the air and snarling to itself before it thrust its face into the carcass’s open flank to feed. Robbie raised the rifle to his shoulder and squinted down the iron sights. He took his time, waiting to see if another might join the first as it ripped mouthfuls of rotting meat off of the carcass and choked them down with its head thrown back, snuffling and snorting for breath. None did.

• From Manhunt (2022)

  You’re my sister.” It was hard to breathe. “Tell Indi and Robbie. Tell them … tell…” Red. Black. The sun had moved, and Beth was gone. Fran was shivering beside Rachel, who was dead. She could see the beach from where she lay at the roof’s edge. A stocky woman with short, spiky gray hair limped down the rocky shore toward the boats, a few TERFs in uniform straggling after her. They pushed one of the launches out into the waves, most scrambling aboard while two others got it turned around so that its blunt prow pointed away from shore. A pretty redhead about Fran’s age took the tiller and the engine roared to life. The women in the surf were shouting, crying out, reaching toward those in the boat as it slewed out against the current and the pounding breakers. They don’t even love each other, she thought. The boat cut through the glittering reflection of the sun on the dark water. It was coming up, washing the fort’s battlements in blinding radiance. It hurt to breathe. Black spots danced at the edges of her vision. They’re men. She let out a long, shuddering breath. She couldn’t seem to draw another. They’re just men. It was going wrong. Everything was going wrong. Galbraith was sinking. Kilroy and Pierce had turned on her. Molly nowhere to be found. And that big freak bitch, the one who’d taken a shot at her in the woods on that hot July day, was here. She’d got the other one, but the sight of that scarred face on the roof of the fort had rattled her enough to run when the bow came up. To run . Her. The woman who’d broken the back of the Baltimore transsexuals in the early days, when it had been just her and Dr. Raymond and a few dozen sisters who saw the chance the virus represented. The Maenads had been a mistake. She saw that now. She’d been too soft on them, too willing to believe that the right social pressures and incentives could override a hundred thousand years of baked-in slavering pig rapist instinct. But Pierce? Had it really been over that doughy degenerate thing she’d had shot, and if so, then why had Kilroy given her that brothel full of freaks? Hadn’t they been in it together? Traitors everywhere. That whole generation, poisoned beyond salvaging. She could still make it back to the boats, though. She still had loyalists, women who must be falling back too, wondering where she’d gone and how they could come to her aid. That was the sisterhood. That was their strength. They would never abandon her.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Left thus alone, absolutely destitute and friendless I began then to feel most bitterly the severity of this separation, the scene of which had passed in a little room in the inn; and no sooner was her back turned, but the affliction I felt at my helpless strange circumstances, burst out into a flood of tears, which infinitely relieved the oppression of my heart; though I still remained stupified, and most perfectly perplexed how to dispose of myself. One of the drawers coming in, added yet more to my uncertainty, by asking me, in a short way, if I called for anything? to which I replied innocently: “No.” But I wished him to tell me where I might get a lodging for that night. He said he would go and speak to his mistress, who accordingly came, and told me drily, without entering in the least into the distress she saw me in, that I might have a bed for a shilling, and that, as she supposed I had some friends in town (there I fetched a deep sigh in vain!), I might provide for myself in the morning. It is incredible what trifling consolations the human mind will seize in its greatest afflictions. The assurance of nothing more than a bed to lie on that night, calmed my agonies; and being ashamed to acquaint the mistress of the inn that I had no friends to apply to in town, I proposed to myself to proceed, the very next morning, to an intelligence office, to which I was furnished with written directions on the back of a ballad, Esther had given me. There I counted on getting information of any place that such a country girl as I might be fit for, and where I could get into any sort of being, before my little stock should be consumed; and as to a character, Esther had often repeated to me, that I might depend on her managing me one; nor, however affected I was at her leaving me thus, did I entirely cease to rely on her, as I began to think, good-naturedly, that her procedure was all in course, and that is was only my ignorance of life that had made me take it in the light I at first did. Accordingly, the next morning I dressed myself as clean and as neat as my rustic wardrobe would permit me; and having left my box, with special recommendation, with the landlady, I ventured out by myself, and without any more difficulty than can be supposed of a young country girl, barely fifteen, and to whom every sign or shop was a gazing trap, I got to the wished for intelligence office. It was kept by an elderly woman, who sat at the receipt of custom, with a book before her in great form and order, and several scrolls made out, of directions for places.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  Why Chicken Means So Much to Me [image file=image_rsrc4RJ.jpg] Okay, so now you know that I’m a cartoonist. And I think I’m pretty good at it, too. But no matter how good I am, my cartoons will never take the place of food or money. I wish I could draw a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or a fist full of twenty dollar bills, and perform some magic trick and make it real. But I can’t do that. Nobody can do that, not even the hungriest magician in the world. I wish I were magical, but I am really just a poor-ass reservation kid living with his poor-ass family on the poor-ass Spokane Indian Reservation. Do you know the worst thing about being poor? Oh, maybe you’ve done the math in your head and you figure: Poverty = empty refrigerator + empty stomach And sure, sometimes, my family misses a meal, and sleep is the only thing we have for dinner, but I know that, sooner or later, my parents will come bursting through the door with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Original Recipe. And hey, in a weird way, being hungry makes food taste better. There is nothing better than a chicken leg when you haven’t eaten for (approximately) eighteen-and-a-half hours. And believe me, a good piece of chicken can make anybody believe in the existence of God. [image "An illustration of a chicken drumstick with rays around it, labeled the Shroud of Kentucky Fried." file=image_rsrc4RN.jpg] So hunger is not the worst thing about being poor. And now I’m sure you’re asking, “Okay, okay, Mr. Hunger Artist, Mr. Mouth-Full-of-Words, Mr. Woe-Is-Me, Mr. Secret Recipe, what is the worst thing about being poor?” So, okay, I’ll tell you the worst thing. Last week, my best friend Oscar got really sick. At first, I thought he just had heat exhaustion or something. I mean, it was a crazy-hot July day (102 degrees with 90 percent humidity), and plenty of people were falling over from heat exhaustion, so why not a little dog wearing a fur coat? I tried to give him some water, but he didn’t want any of that. He was lying on his bed with red, watery, snotty eyes. He whimpered in pain. When I touched him, he yelped like crazy. It was like his nerves were poking out three inches from his skin. I figured he’d be okay with some rest, but then he started vomiting, and diarrhea blasted out of him, and he had these seizures where his little legs just kicked and kicked and kicked. And sure, Oscar was only an adopted stray mutt, but he was the only living thing that I could depend on. He was more dependable than my parents, grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and big sister. He taught me more than any teachers ever did. Honestly, Oscar was a better person than any human I had ever known. “Mom,” I said. “We have to take Oscar to the vet.”

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  With what regards Therese, as soon as she learned of so many agreeable developments she came well-nigh to expiring from joy; for several days on end the sweetest tears flowed from her eyes and she rejoiced upon her guardians' breasts, and then, all of a sudden, her humor altered, and 'twas impossible to ferret out the cause. She became somber, uneasy, troubled, was given to dreaming, sometimes she burst into weeping before her friends, and was not herself able to explain what was the subject of her woe. "I was not born for such felicity," said she to Madame de Lorsange, "... oh, dear sister, 'tis impossible it last much longer." She was assured all her troubles were over, none remained, said they, no more inquietude for her; 'twas all in vain, nothing would quiet her; one might have said that this melancholy creature, uniquely destined for sorrow, and feeling the hand of misery forever raised above her head, already foresaw the final blow whereby she was going to be smitten down. Monsieur de Corville was still residing on his country estate; 'twas toward summer's end, they had planned an outing when the approach of a dreadful storm obliged them to postpone their promenade; the excessive heat had constrained them to leave all the windows open. Lightning glitters, shakes, hail slashes down, winds blow wrathfully, heaven's fire convulses the clouds, in the most hideous manner makes them to seethe; it seems as if Nature were wearied out of patience with what she has wrought, as if she were ready to confound all the elements that she might wrench new forms from them. Terrified, Madame de Lorsange begs her sister to make all haste and close the shutters; anxious to calm her, Therese dashes to the windows which are already being broken; she would do battle with the wind, she gives a minute's fight, is driven back and at that instant a blazing thunderbolt reaches her where she stands in the middle of the room... transfixes her. Madame de Lorsange emits a terrible cry and falls in a faint; Monsieur de Corville calls for help, attentions are given each woman, Madame de Lorsange is revived, but the unhappy Therese has been struck in such wise hope itself can no longer subsist for her; the lightning entered her right breast, found the heart, and after having consumed her chest and face, burst out through her belly.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Blame yourself only that it is no better.” Then, without giving me time to reply, he addressed himself to the young fellow: “For you, spark, I shall, for your father’s sake, take care of you: the town is no place for such an easy fool as thou art; and to-morrow you shall set out, under the charge of one of my men, well recommended, in my name, to your father, not to let you return and be spoil’d here.” At these words he went out, after my vainly attempting to stop him, by throwing myself at his feet. He shook me off, though he seemed greatly moved too, and took Will away with him, who, I dare swear, thought himself very cheaply off. I was now once more a-drift, and left upon my own hands, by a gentleman whom I certainly did not deserve. And all the letters, arts, friends, entreaties that I employed within the week of grace in my lodging, could never win on him so much as to see me again. He had irrevocably pronounced my doom, and submission to it was my only part. Soon after he married a lady of birth and fortune, to whom, I have heard he proved an irreproachable husband. As for poor Will, he was immediately sent down to the country to his father, who was an easy farmer, where he was not four months before an inn-keepers’ buxom young widow, with a very good stock, both in money and trade, fancied, and perhaps pre-acquainted with his secret excellencies, married him: and I am sure there was, at least, one good foundation for their living happily together. Though I should have been charmed to see him before he went, such measures were taken, by Mr. H....’s orders, that it was impossible; otherwise I should certainly have endeavoured to detain him in town, and would have spared neither offers nor expense to have procured myself the satisfaction of keeping him with me. He had such powerful holds upon my inclinations as were not easily to be shaken off, or replaced; as to my heart, it was quite out of the question: glad, however, I was from my soul, that nothing worse, and as things turned out, nothing better could have happened to him.

• From Manhunt (2022)

  Beth wiped her nose on her sleeve and laughed. It was half a sob. “Then what the fuck is ?” Ramona wasn’t sure how she’d gotten to Feather’s building, that pile of stone and concrete, air conditioners still lodged in broken windows like a thyroid case’s bulging eyes. Her arm hurt. It itched, bad, where the bitch with the undercut had inked her. She slapped it like she would a mosquito. Not supposed to scratch. When she got her sparrows in high school—a small flock on her upper right arm—she’d had to wear oven mitts to bed for weeks to keep from clawing at them. She’d been like that with all her tattoos. The tulips on her chest, under her collarbones. The stars on her right ankle and the dates on her left inner forearm: mother, brothers one and two. I don’t want to remember anything, she thought, staring up at the stars. I want to scratch it off. I want my skin back. I want my mother. She remembered, out of nowhere, the name of the fat barfly from Cheers . It was Norm. That’s what everyone had shouted when he hustled through the door, Boston accents ringing from the walls. Naaahhhm. Why do I know that? She was on the stairs of the apartment building, an arm slung through the banisters, laughing or crying. When had she gone inside? Someone was watching her from the door closest to the landing. A gauzy nightie. Flyaway white hair drifting in the summer breeze. She raised a hand and made a finger gun at the pale blur standing in the half-open door. “Bang,” she muttered, and dissolved into gales of laughter. There were footsteps on the staircase. Voices in the hall where the white nightgown was saying something to a big, thick blur in boy shorts and an undershirt. And then Feather was there, kneeling down beside her, belly pale and striated with deep purple waterways beneath their silver camisole. “Let’s get you upstairs,” they said, slipping an arm through Ramona’s while other half women gathered in the hall to watch them. “Up, up, up.” She disentangled herself from the rail and looped her arms around their neck, burying her face in their little breasts, kissing the tops of them. “I don’t wanna get up,” she murmured into their neck as they heaved her to her feet. She bit them, not hard, just nipping their skin. “I wanna kiss you. I love you, baby.” Feather wasn’t smiling when they broke apart. “I didn’t pull the trigger,” Ramona snarled. “Why are you looking at me like that? What crawled up your cunt and died?” She slumped against the railing, hot air rising up the stairwell and tickling the back of her neck. She laughed again, and this time she sounded ugly to herself.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  I reached up to scratch my face and squished the wasp that had been sucking sugar off my cheek. Have you ever been stung in the face? Well, I have, and that’s why I hate cantaloupe. So, I woke up from this dream, this nightmare, just as my dad drove the car up to our house. “We’re here,” he said. “My sister is dead,” I said. “Yes.” “I was hoping I dreamed that,” I said. “Me, too.” “I dreamed about that time I got stung by the wasp,” I said. “I remember that,” Dad said. “We had to take you to the hospital.” “I thought I was going to die.” “We were scared, too.” My dad started to cry. Not big tears. Just little ones. He breathed deep and tried to stop them. I guess he wanted to be strong in front of his son. But it didn’t work. He kept crying. I didn’t cry. I reached out, wiped the tears off my father’s face, and tasted them. Salty. “I love you,” he said. Wow. He hardly ever said that to me. “I love you, too,” I said. I never said that to him. We walked into the house. My mom was curled into a ball on the couch. There were, like, twenty-five or thirty cousins there, eating all of our food. Somebody dies and people eat your food. Funny how that works. “Mom,” I said. “Oh, Junior,” she said and pulled me onto the couch with her. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.” “Don’t leave me,” she said. “Don’t ever leave me.” She was freaking out. But who could blame her? She’d lost her mother and her daughter in just a few months. Who ever recovers from a thing like that? Who ever gets better? I knew that my mother was now broken and that she’d always be broken. “Don’t you ever drink,” my mother said to me. She slapped me. Once, twice, three times. She slapped me HARD. “Promise me you’ll never drink.” “Okay, okay, I promise,” I said. I couldn’t believe it. My sister killed herself with booze and I was the one getting slapped. Where was Leo Tolstoy when I needed him? I kept wishing he’d show up so my mother could slap him instead. Well, my mother quit slapping me, thank God, but she held on to me for hours. Held on to me like I was a baby. And she kept crying. So many tears. My clothes and hair were soaked with her tears. It was, like, my mother had given me a grief shower, you know? Like she’d baptized me with her pain. Of course, it was way too weird to watch. So all of my cousins left. My dad went in his bedroom. It was just my mother and me. Just her tears and me.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  And I hoped I could find stories that would help me. So I looked up the word “grief” in the dictionary. I wanted to find out everything I could about grief. I wanted to know why my family had been given so much to grieve about. And then I discovered the answer: Okay, so it was Gordy who showed me a book written by the guy who knew the answer. It was Euripides, this Greek writer from the fifth century BC. A way-old dude. In one of his plays, Medea says, “What greater grief than the loss of one’s native land?” I read that and thought, “Well, of course, man. We Indians have LOST EVERYTHING. We lost our native land, we lost our languages, we lost our songs and dances. We lost each other. We only know how to lose and be lost.” But it’s more than that, too. I mean, the thing is, Medea was so distraught by the world, and felt so betrayed, that she murdered her own kids. She thought the world was that joyless. And, after Eugene’s funeral, I agreed with her. I could have easily killed myself, killed my mother and father, killed the birds, killed the trees, and killed the oxygen in the air. More than anything, I wanted to kill God. I was joyless. I mean, I can’t even tell you how I found the strength to get up every morning. And yet, every morning, I did get up and go to school. Well, no, that’s not exactly true. I was so depressed that I thought about dropping out of Reardan. I thought about going back to Wellpinit. I blamed myself for all of the deaths. I had cursed my family. I had left the tribe, and had broken something inside all of us, and I was now being punished for that. No, my family was being punished. I was healthy and alive. Then, after my fifteenth or twentieth missed day of school, I sat in my social studies classroom with Mrs. Jeremy. Mrs. Jeremy was an old bird who’d taught at Reardan for thirty-five years. I slumped into her class and sat in the back of the room. “Oh, class,” she said. “We have a special guest today. It’s Arnold Spirit. I didn’t realize you still went to this school, Mr. Spirit.” The classroom was quiet. They all knew my family had been living inside a grief-storm. And had this teacher just mocked me for that? “What did you just say?” I asked her. “You really shouldn’t be missing class this much,” she said. If I’d been stronger, I would have stood up to her. I would have called her names. I would have walked across the room and slapped her. But I was too broken. Instead, it was Gordy who defended me. He stood with his textbook and dropped it. Whomp! He looked so strong. He looked like a warrior. He was protecting me like Rowdy used to protect me.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  And then, finally, as we crossed the reservation border, I stopped laughing. “How did she die?” I asked. “There was a big party at her house, her trailer in Montana—,” he said. Yep, my sister and her husband lived in some old silver trailer that was more like a TV dinner tray than a home. “They had a big party—,” my father said. OF COURSE THEY HAD A BIG PARTY! OF COURSE THEY WERE DRUNK! THEY’RE INDIANS! “They had a big party,” my father said. “And your sister and her husband passed out in the back bedroom. And somebody tried to cook some soup on a hot plate. And they forgot about it and left. And a curtain drifted in on the wind and caught the hot plate, and the trailer burned down quick.” I swear to you that I could hear my sister screaming. “The police say your sister never even woke up,” my father said. “She was way too drunk.” My dad was trying to comfort me. But it’s not too comforting to learn that your sister was TOO FREAKING DRUNK to feel any pain when she BURNED TO DEATH! And for some reason, that thought made me laugh even harder. I was laughing so hard that I threw up a little bit in my mouth. I spit out a little piece of cantaloupe. Which was weird, because I don’t like cantaloupe. I’ve hated cantaloupe since I was a little kid. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten the evil fruit. And then I remembered that my sister had always loved cantaloupe. Ain’t that weird? It was so freaky that I laughed even harder than I’d already been laughing. I started pounding the dashboard and stomping on the floor. I was going absolutely insane with laughter. My dad didn’t say a word. He just stared straight ahead and drove home. I laughed the whole way. Well, I laughed until we were about halfway home, and then I fell asleep. Snap, just like that. Things had gotten so intense, so painful, that my body just checked out. Yep, my mind and soul and heart had a quick meeting and voted to shut down for a few repairs. And guess what? I dreamed about cantaloupe! Well, I dreamed about a school picnic I went to way back when I was seven years old. There were hot dogs and hamburgers and soda pop and potato chips and watermelon and cantaloupe. I ate, like, seven pieces of cantaloupe. My hands and face were way sticky and sweet. I’d eaten so much cantaloupe that I’d turned into a cantaloupe. Well, I finished my lunch and I ran around the playground, laughing and screaming, when I felt this tickle on my cheek. I reached up to scratch my face and squished the wasp that had been sucking sugar off my cheek. Have you ever been stung in the face?

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  That was it. I had to get out of there. I turned and ran out of the graveyard and into the woods across the road. I planned on running deep into the woods. So deep that I’d never be found. But guess what? I ran full-speed into Rowdy and sent us both sprawling. Yep, Rowdy had been hiding in the woods while he watched the burial. Wow. Rowdy sat up. I sat up, too. We sat there together. Rowdy was crying. His face was shiny with tears. “Rowdy,” I said. “You’re crying.” “I ain’t crying,” he said. “You’re crying.” I touched my face. It was dry. No tears yet. “I can’t remember how to cry,” I said. That made Rowdy sort of choke. He gasped a little. And more tears rolled down his face. “You’re crying,” I said. “No, I’m not.” “It’s okay; I miss my sister, too. I love her.” “I said I’m not crying.” “It’s okay.” I reached out and touched Rowdy’s shoulder. Big mistake. He punched me. Well, he almost punched me. He threw a punch but he MISSED! ROWDY MISSED A PUNCH! His fist went sailing over my head. “Wow,” I said. “You missed.” “I missed on purpose.” “No, you didn’t. You missed because your eyes are FILLED WITH TEARS!” That made me laugh. Yep, I started laughing like a crazy man again. I rolled around on the cold, frozen ground and laughed and laughed and laughed. I didn’t want to laugh. I wanted to stop laughing. I wanted to grab Rowdy and hang on to him. He was my best friend and I needed him. But I couldn’t stop laughing. I looked at Rowdy and he was crying hard now. He thought I was laughing at him. Normally, Rowdy would have absolutely murdered anybody who dared to laugh at him. But this was not a normal day. “It’s all your fault,” he said. “What’s my fault?” I asked. “Your sister is dead because you left us. You killed her.” That made me stop laughing. I suddenly felt like I might never laugh again. Rowdy was right. I had killed my sister. Well, I didn’t kill her. But she only got married so quickly and left the rez because I had left the rez first. She was only living in Montana in a cheap trailer house because I had gone to school in Reardan. She had burned to death because I had decided that I wanted to spend my life with white people. It was all my fault. “I hate you!” Rowdy screamed. “I hate you! I hate you!” And then he jumped up and ran away. Rowdy ran! He’d never run away from anything or anybody. But now he was running. I watched him disappear into the woods. I wondered if I’d ever see him again.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  We played Almira Coulee-Hartline, this tiny farm-town team, and they beat us when this kid named Keith hit a crazy half-court shot at the buzzer. It was a big upset. We all cried in the locker room for hours. Coach cried, too. I guess that’s the only time that men and boys get to cry and not get punched in the face. Rowdy and I Have a Long and Serious Discussion About Basketball [image file=image_rsrc4RJ.jpg] A few days after basketball season ended, I e-mailed Rowdy and told him I was sorry that we beat them so bad and that their season went to hell after that. “We’ll kick your asses next year,” Rowdy wrote back. “And you’ll cry like the little faggot you are.” “I might be a faggot,” I wrote back, “but I’m the faggot who beat you.” “Ha-ha,” Rowdy wrote. Now that might just sound like a series of homophobic insults, but I think it was also a little bit friendly, and it was the first time that Rowdy had talked to me since I left the rez. I was a happy faggot! Because Russian Guys Are Not Always Geniuses [image file=image_rsrc4RJ.jpg] After my grandmother died, I felt like crawling into the coffin with her. After my dad’s best friend got shot in the face, I wondered if I was destined to get shot in the face, too. Considering how many young Spokanes have died in car wrecks, I’m pretty sure it’s my destiny to die in a wreck, too. Jeez, I’ve been to so many funerals in my short life. I’m fourteen years old and I’ve been to forty-two funerals. That’s really the biggest difference between Indians and white people. A few of my white classmates have been to a grandparent’s funeral. And a few have lost an uncle or aunt. And one guy’s brother died of leukemia when he was in third grade. But there’s nobody who has been to more than five funerals. All my white friends can count their deaths on one hand. I can count my fingers, toes, arms, legs, eyes, ears, nose, penis, butt cheeks, and nipples, and still not get close to my deaths. And you know what the worst part is? The unhappy part? About 90 percent of the deaths have been because of alcohol. Gordy gave me this book by a Russian dude named Tolstoy, who wrote: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Well, I hate to argue with a Russian genius, but Tolstoy didn’t know Indians. And he didn’t know that all Indian families are unhappy for the same exact reason: the fricking booze. Yep, so let me pour a drink for Tolstoy and let him think hard about the true definition of unhappy families. So, okay, you’re probably thinking I’m being extra bitter. And I would have to agree with you. I am being extra bitter. So let me tell you why.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  Every game is serious. “Coach,” I said. “I would walk out of this hospital and walk all the way back to Wellpinit to play them right now if I could.” Coach smiled. “Vince Lombardi used to say something I like,” he said. “It’s not whether you win or lose,” I said. “It’s how you play the game.” “No, but I like that one,” Coach said. “But Lombardi didn’t mean it. Of course, it’s better to win.” We laughed. “No, I like this other one more,” Coach said. “The quality of a man’s life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor.” “That’s a good one.” “It’s perfect for you. I’ve never met anybody as committed as you.” “Thanks, Coach.” “You’re welcome. Okay, kid, you take care of your head. I’m going to get out of here so you can sleep.” “Oh, I’m not supposed to sleep. They want to keep me awake to monitor my head. Make sure I don’t have some hidden damage or something.” “Oh, okay,” Coach said. “Well, how about I stay and keep you company, then?” “Wow, that would be great.” So Coach and I sat awake all night. We told each other many stories. But I never repeat those stories. That night belongs to just me and my coach. And a Partridge in a Pear Tree When the holidays rolled around, we didn’t have any money for presents, so Dad did what he always does when we don’t have enough money. He took what little money we did have and ran away to get drunk. He left on Christmas Eve and came back on January 2. With an epic hangover, he just lay on his bed for hours. “Hey, Dad,” I said. “Hey, kid,” he said. “I’m sorry about Christmas.” “It’s okay,” I said. But it wasn’t okay. It was about as far from okay as you can get. If okay was the earth, then I was standing on Jupiter. I don’t know why I said it was okay. For some reason, I was protecting the feelings of the man who had broken my heart yet again. Jeez, I’d just won the Silver Medal in the Children of Alcoholics Olympics. “I got you something,” he said. “What?” “It’s in my boot.” I picked up one of his cowboy boots. “No, the other one,” he said. “Inside, under that foot-pad thing.” I picked up the other boot and dug inside. Man, that thing smelled like booze and fear and failure. I found a wrinkled and damp five dollar bill. “Merry Christmas,” he said. Wow. Drunk for a week, my father must have really wanted to spend those last five dollars. Shoot, you can buy a bottle of the worst whiskey for five dollars. He could have spent that five bucks and stayed drunk for another day or two. But he saved it for me.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  How was it getting into the head of Arnold Spirit? Intense. Sherman describes Arnold so well in the text that I felt I had a good grip on who Arnold was. But to draw like him, to think of jokes that he might tell, I had to really immerse myself in being him, and it wasn’t an easy place to be. For instance, while drawing my last round of thumbnail sketches, I was working in a café, with manuscripts and sketches spread out all over the table. I’d worked for hours, hadn’t eaten in a long time, and I drank too much coffee. I was deep in Arnold’s head and felt like I had to keep going. So much heavy stuff was happening in the story, that’s when I came up with some of Arnold’s darkest humor, like the comic about the last sip of wine and the Burning Love book cover cartoon when Arnold’s sister died. Then when I got to the end of the manuscript, where Arnold and Rowdy play basketball, and as it was getting dark outside, I felt a tightening in my chest and I realized I was about to bawl. It felt like I was playing a bittersweet basketball game with Rowdy. I had a split second to decide whether or not I would cry in the café, and I put my head in my hands, sobbed once, and thought about something else. I had read that section so many times, but until then I hadn’t been so deep in Arnold’s mind. What was your biggest concern/objective when creating the art for the book? My absolute biggest concern was to make Arnold’s comics look authentic. I was afraid my work would look too polished and professional, or maybe too goofy, but I also didn’t want to dumb it down or stiffen it up. I briefly tried to draw like some of my teenage boy students, but that didn’t work at all—you could tell I was trying too hard and it was obvious that it wasn’t my style. So I talked about it with Sherman, and he thought it’d be fine if I just drew like me. What’s the most difficult part of the process: sketching the artwork or inking? My process for this book was different from usual. In most of my work, doing the thumbnails is hard (writing and drawing my brainstorming ideas), sketching is easier (penciling and polishing up what I’ve laid out in the thumbnails), and inking is easiest (I use a brush and india ink).

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  During baseball season, Rowdy hit three home runs in the first game against Reardan and two home runs in the second but we still lost by scores of 17–3 and 12–2. I played in both losses and struck out seven times and was hit by a pitch once. Sad thing is, getting hit like that was my only hit of the season. After baseball season, I led the Wellpinit Junior High Academic Bowl team against Reardan Junior High, and we lost by a grand total of 50–1. Yep, we answered one question correctly. I was the only kid, white or Indian, who knew that Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities. And let me tell you, we Indians were the worst of times and those Reardan kids were the best of times. Those kids were magnificent. They knew everything. And they were beautiful. They were beautiful and smart. They were beautiful and smart and epic. They were filled with hope. I don’t know if hope is white. But I do know that hope for me is like some mythical creature: Man, I was scared of those Reardan kids, and maybe I was scared of hope, too, but Rowdy absolutely hated all of it. “Rowdy,” I said. “I am going to Reardan tomorrow.” For the first time he saw that I was serious, but he didn’t want me to be serious. “You’ll never do it,” he said. “You’re too scared.” “I’m going,” I said. “No way, you’re a wuss.” “I’m doing it.” “You’re a pussy.” “I’m going to Reardan tomorrow.” “You’re really serious?” “Rowdy,” I said. “I’m as serious as a tumor.” He coughed and turned away from me. I touched his shoulder. Why did I touch his shoulder? I don’t know. I was stupid. Rowdy spun around and shoved me. “Don’t touch me, you retarded fag!” he yelled. My heart broke into fourteen pieces, one for each year that Rowdy and I had been best friends. I started crying. That wasn’t surprising at all, but Rowdy started crying, too, and he hated that. He wiped his eyes, stared at his wet hand, and screamed. I’m sure that everybody on the rez heard that scream. It was the worst thing I’d ever heard. It was pain, pure pain. “Rowdy, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.” He kept screaming. “You can still come with me,” I said. “You’re still my best friend.” Rowdy stopped screaming with his mouth but he kept screaming with his eyes. “You always thought you were better than me,” he yelled. “No, no, I don’t think I’m better than anybody. I think I’m worse than everybody else.” “Why are you leaving?” “I have to go. I’m going to die if I don’t leave.” I touched his shoulder again and Rowdy flinched. Yes, I touched him again. What kind of idiot was I? I was the kind of idiot that got punched hard in the face by his best friend. Bang! Rowdy punched me. Bang!