Read Online War Dances by Sherman Alexie - Free Book Online Page A

treason. Was it hyperbole? Sure, but I think he almost meant it. He was a romantic when it came to political assassination.
    “When I close one eye, you look just like Lee Harvey,” I said.
    “I’m not Oswald,” he said. “Oswald was a communist. I’m more like John Wilkes Booth.”
    “Come on, man, read your history. Booth killed Lincoln over slavery.”
    “It wasn’t about slavery. It was about states’ rights.”
    Jeremy had always enjoyed a major-league hard-on for states’ rights. If it had been up to him, the United States would be fifty separate countries with fifty separate interpretations of the Constitution.
    Yes, compared to Jeremy, I was more Mao than Goldwater.
    It was in January of our sophomore year at Madison Park that Jeremy stole me out of class and drove me to the McDonald’s in North Bend, high up in the Cascade Mountains, more than thirty miles away from our hometown of Seattle.
    “What are we doing way up here?” I asked.
    “Getting lunch,” he said.
    So we ordered hamburgers and fries from the drive-thru and ate in the car.
    “I love McDonald’s fries,” he said.
    “Yeah, they’re great,” I said. “But you know the best thing about them?”
    “What?”
    “I love that McDonald’s fries are exactly the same everywhere you go. The McDonald’s fries in Washington, DC, are exactly like the fries in Seattle. Heck, the McDonald’s fries in Paris, France, are exactly like the fries in Seattle.”
    “Yeah, so what’s your point?” Jeremy asked.
    “Well, I think the McDonald’s fries in North Bend are also exactly like the fries in Washington, DC, Paris, and Seattle. Do you agree?”
    “Yeah, that seems reasonable.”
    “Okay, then,” I said. “If all the McDonald’s fries in the world are the same, why did you drive me all the way up into the mountains to buy fries we could have gotten anywhere else in the world and, most especially, in Seattle?”
    “To celebrate capitalism?”
    “That’s funny, but it’s not true,” I said. “What’s really going on?”
    “I have something I need to tell you,” Jeremy said.
    “And you couldn’t have told me in Seattle?”
    “I didn’t want anybody to hear,” he said.
    “Oh, nobody is going to hear anything up here,” I said.
    Jeremy stared out the window at Mount Si, a four-thousand-foot-tall rock left behind by one glacier or another. I usually don’t pay attention to such things, but I did that day. Along with my best friend, I stared at the mountain and wondered how old it was. That’s the thing: the world is old. Ancient. And humans are so temporary. But who wants to think about such things? Who wants to feel small?
    “I’m getting bored,” I said.
    “It’s beautiful up here,” he said. “So green and golden.”
    “Yeah, whatever, Robert Frost. Now tell me why we’re here.”
    He looked me in the eye. Stared at me for a long time. Regarded me.
    “What?” I said, and laughed, uncomfortable as hell.
    “I’m a fag,” he said.
    “What?” I said, and laughed.
    “I’m a fag,” he repeated.
    “That’s not funny,” I said, and laughed again.
    “It’s kind of funny.”
    “Okay, yeah, it’s a little funny, but it’s not true.”
    “Yes, it is. I am a fag.”
    I looked into his eyes. I stared at him for a long time. I regarded him.
    “You’re telling the truth,” I said.
    “Yeah.”
    “You’re a fag.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Wow.”
    “That’s all you have to say?”
    “What else am I supposed to say?” I asked.
    “I was hoping you would say more than ‘Wow.’”
    “Well, ‘Wow’ is all I got.”
    “Damn,” he said. “And I had this all planned out.”
    He’d been thinking about coming out to me, his unveiling, for months. At first, he’d thought about telling me while we were engaged in some overtly masculine activity, like shouting out “I’m gay!” while we were butchering a hog. Or whispering, “I’m a really good shot—for a homosexual,” while we were duck hunting. Or