Fluent Essays

Please write a substantial paragraph (no fewer than seven or eight sentences) in response to each of the following questions. 1. Choose one of the characters about whom you read in the section of our syllabus entitled “Love” (Browning My Last Duchess p.1103, Glaspell_Jury_of_Peers p. 1155, Faulkner Rose for Emily p. 628) Analyze this character that you’ve chosen. Is he or she “in love”? If not, what other motivations might she or she have? If so, how do you know? Are the character’s actions believable? Justified? Is there anything else that seems worth noting about this character? 2. Consider Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (p. 526) Is this piece still relevant to us in this day? Why or why not? 3. Based on your reading of Death of a Salesman, (p.1709) what would you guess Arthur Millers viewpoint to be on capitalism? Why? 4. Several authors have recently written about travel as a political act. Using one or two of the works that we read in the “Travel” portion of our syllabus (“Flight Patterns” Sherman Alexie, p. 54, A Good Man is Hard to Find” O’Connor, p. 470, “London” William Blake, p. 801), argue that it either is or is not (a political act). I don’t mean to be vague in asking this question, but I’m trying not to be so specific as to steer your answers one way or the other. Think about the places that we might chose to go, why we choose them, and what that might mean to the “locals” who live in those places. 5. Finally, consider all the characters that we’ve been reading about for the last month. Which character is most like you? Why? Which character is least like you? Why? All the text are in the e-book you have: THE NORTON INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE SHORTER TWELFTH EDITION KELLY J. MAYS. I copied them and paste in a word document ROBERT BROWNING My Last Duchess That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands4 Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said “Frà Pandolf” by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the fi rst Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not Her husband’s presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps Frà Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half- fl ush that dies along her throat”: such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart— how shall I say?— too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, ’twas all one! My favor at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some offi cious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace— all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men,— good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how— as if she ranked My gift of a nine- hundred- years- old name With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame This sort of trifl ing? Even had you skill In speech— which I have not— to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark”— and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, —E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master’s known munifi cence Is ample warrant that no just pretense Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea- horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! ARTHUR MILLER (1915–2005) Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller was born in New York City to a prosperous family whose fortunes were ruined by the Depression, a circumstance that would shape his po liti cal outlook and imbue him with a deep sense of social responsibility. Miller studied history, economics, and journalism at the University of Michigan, began writing plays, and joined the Federal Theater Project, a proving ground for some of the best playwrights of the period. He had his fi rst Broadway success, All My Sons, in 1947, followed two years later by his Pulitzer Prize– winning masterpiece, Death of a Salesman. In 1953, against the backdrop of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti- Communist “witch- hunts,” Miller fashioned another modern parable, his Tony Award– winning The Crucible, based on the seventeenth- century Salem witch trials. Among his other works for the stage are the Pulitzer Prize– winner A View from the Bridge (1955), After the Fall (1964), Incident at Vichy (1965), The Price (1968), The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991), Broken Glass (1994), and Resurrection Blues (2004). In addition, Miller wrote a novel, Focus (1945); the screenplay for the fi lm The Misfi ts (1961), which starred his second wife, Marilyn Monroe; The Theater Essays (1971), a collection of his writings about dramatic literature; and Timebends (1987), his autobiography. Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem CHARACTERS willy loman the woman stanley linda charley miss forsythe biff uncle ben letta happy howard wagner bernard jenny The action takes place in willy loman’s house and yard and in various places he visits in the New York and Boston of today. ACT I A melody is heard, playing upon a fl ute. It is small and fi ne, telling of grass and trees and the horizon. The curtain rises. Before us is the Salesman’s house. We are aware of towering, angular shapes behind it, surrounding it on all sides. Only the blue light of the sky falls upon the house and forestage; the surrounding area shows an angry fl ow of orange. As more light appears, we see a solid vault of apartment houses around the small, fragile- seeming home. An air of the dream clings to the place, a dream rising out of reality. The kitchen at center seems actual enough, for there is a kitchen table 1710 READING MORE DRAMA with three chairs, and a refrigerator. But no other fi xtures are seen. At the back of the kitchen there is a draped entrance, which leads to the living- room. To the right of the kitchen, on a level raised two feet, is a bedroom furnished only with a brass bedstead and a straight chair. On a shelf over the bed a silver athletic trophy stands. A window opens onto the apartment house at the side. Behind the kitchen, on a level raised six and a half feet, is the boys’ bedroom, at present barely visible. Two beds are dimly seen, and at the back of the room a dormer window. (This bedroom is above the unseen living- room.) At the left a stairway curves up to it from the kitchen. The entire setting is wholly or, in some places, partially transparent. The roof- line of the house is one- dimensional; under and over it we see the apartment buildings. Before the house lies an apron, curving beyond the forestage into the orchestra. This forward area serves as the back yard as well as the locale of all willy’s imaginings and of his city scenes. Whenever the action is in the present the actors observe the imaginary wall- lines, entering the house only through its door at the left. But in the scenes of the past these boundaries are broken, and characters enter or leave a room by stepping “through” a wall onto the forestage. From the right, willy loman, the Salesman, enters, carry ing two large sample cases. The fl ute plays on. He hears but is not aware of it. He is past sixty years of age, dressed quietly. Even as he crosses the stage to the doorway of the house, his exhaustion is apparent. He unlocks the door, comes into the kitchen, and thankfully lets his burden down, feeling the soreness of his palms. A word- sigh escapes his lips— it might be “Oh, boy, oh, boy.” He closes the door, then carries his cases out into the living- room, through the draped kitchen doorway. linda, his wife, has stirred in her bed at the right. She gets out and puts on a robe, listening. Most often jovial, she has developed an iron repression of her exceptions to willy’s behavior— she more than loves him, she admires him, as though his mercurial nature, his temper, his massive dreams and little cruelties, served her only as sharp reminders of the turbulent longings within him, longings which she shares but lacks the temperament to utter and follow to their end. linda: [Hearing willy outside the bedroom, calls with some trepidation.] Willy! willy: It’s all right. I came back. linda: Why? What happened? [Slight pause.] Did something happen, Willy? willy: No, nothing happened. linda: You didn’t smash the car, did you? willy: [With casual irritation.] I said nothing happened. Didn’t you hear me? linda: Don’t you feel well? willy: I’m tired to the death. [The fl ute has faded away. He sits on the bed beside her, a little numb.] I couldn’t make it. I just couldn’t make it, Linda. linda: [Very carefully, delicately.] Where were you all day? You look terrible. willy: I got as far as a little above Yonkers. I stopped for a cup of coffee. Maybe it was the coffee. linda: What? willy: [After a pause.] I suddenly couldn’t drive any more. The car kept going off onto the shoulder, y’know? linda: [Helpfully.] Oh. Maybe it was the steering again. I don’t think Angelo knows the Studebaker. willy: No, it’s me, it’s me. Suddenly I realize I’m goin’ sixty miles an hour and I don’t remember the last fi ve minutes. I’m— I can’t seem to— keep my mind to it. linda: Maybe it’s your glasses. You never went for your new glasses. willy: No, I see everything. I came back ten miles an hour. It took me nearly four hours from Yonkers. linda: [Resigned.] Well, you’ll just have to take a rest, Willy, you can’t continue this way. willy: I just got back from Florida. linda: But you didn’t rest your mind. Your mind is overactive, and the mind is what counts, dear. willy: I’ll start out in the morning. Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning. [She is taking off his shoes.] These goddam arch supports are killing me. linda: Take an aspirin. Should I get you an aspirin? It’ll soothe you. willy: [With wonder.] I was driving along, you understand? And I was fi ne. I was even observing the scenery. You can imagine, me looking at scenery, on the road every week of my life. But it’s so beautiful up there, Linda, the trees are so thick, and the sun is warm. I opened the windshield and just let the warm air bathe over me. And then all of a sudden I’m goin’ off the road! I’m tellin’ ya, I absolutely forgot I was driving. If I’d’ve gone the other way over the white line I might’ve killed somebody. So I went on again— and fi ve minutes later I’m dreamin’ again, and I nearly—[He presses two fi ngers against his eyes.] I have such thoughts, I have such strange thoughts. linda: Willy, dear. Talk to them again. There’s no reason why you can’t work in New York. willy: They don’t need me in New York. I’m the New En gland man. I’m vital in New En gland. linda: But you’re sixty years old. They can’t expect you to keep traveling every week. willy: I’ll have to send a wire 1 to Portland. I’m supposed to see Brown and Morrison tomorrow morning at ten o’clock to show the line. Goddammit, I could sell them! [He starts putting on his jacket.] linda: [Taking the jacket from him.] Why don’t you go down to the place tomorrow and tell Howard you’ve simply got to work in New York? You’re too accommodating, dear. willy: If old man Wagner was alive I’da been in charge of New York now! That man was a prince, he was a masterful man. But that boy of his, that Howard, he don’t appreciate. When I went north the fi rst time, the Wagner Company didn’t know where New En gland was! linda: Why don’t you tell those things to Howard, dear? willy: [Encouraged.] I will, I defi nitely will. Is there any cheese? linda: I’ll make you a sandwich. willy: No, go to sleep. I’ll take some milk. I’ll be up right away. The boys in? linda: They’re sleeping. Happy took Biff on a date to night. willy: [Interested.] That so? linda: It was so nice to see them shaving together, one behind the other, in the bathroom. And going out together. You notice? The whole house smells of shaving lotion. 1. Tele gram. ARTHUR MILLER Death of a Salesman, Act I 1711 1712 READING MORE DRAMA willy: Figure it out. Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You fi nally own it, and there’s nobody to live in it. CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN (1860–1935) The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Anna Perkins was born in Hartford, Connecticut. After a painful, lonely childhood and several years of supporting herself as a governess, art teacher, and designer of greeting cards, Perkins married the artist Charles Stetson. Following her several extended periods of depression, Charles Stetson put his wife in the care of a doctor who, in her own words, “sent me home with the solemn advice to ‘live as domestic a life as [. . .] possible,’ to ‘have but two hours’ intellectual life a day,’ and ‘never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again’ as long as I lived.” Three months of this regimen brought her “near the borderline of utter mortal ruin” and inspired her masterpiece, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In 1900, she married George Houghton Gilman, having divorced Stetson in 1892. Her nonfi ction works, springing from the early women’s movement, include Women and Economics (1898) and Man- Made World (1911). She also wrote several utopian novels, including Moving the Mountain (1911) and Herland (1915). It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity— but that would be asking too much of fate! Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted? John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in fi gures. John is a physician, and perhaps—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind—) perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do? If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary ner vous depression— a slight hysterical tendency— what is one to do? My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing. So I take phosphates or phosphites— whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. 5 10 526 CH. 8 | CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN The Yellow Wallpaper 527 Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do? I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal— having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition. I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus— but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. So I will let it alone and talk about the house. The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of Eng lish places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people. There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden— large and shady, full of box- bordered paths, and lined with long grape- covered arbors with seats under them. There were green houses, too, but they are all broken now. There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and co- heirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years. That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don’t care— there is something strange about the house— I can feel it. I even said so to John one moonlight eve ning, but he said what I felt was a draught, and shut the window. I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this ner vous condition. But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self- control; so I take pains to control myself— before him, at least, and that makes me very tired. I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old- fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of it. He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another. He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction. I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more. He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. “Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear,” said he, “and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time.” So we took the nursery at the top of the house. It is a big, airy room, the whole fl oor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery fi rst and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls. The paint and paper look as if a boys’ school had used it. It is stripped off— the paper— in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life. 15 20 25 30 One of those sprawling fl amboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide— plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions. The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow- turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others. No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long. There comes John, and I must put this away,— he hates to have me write a word. We have been here two weeks, and I haven’t felt like writing before, since that fi rst day. I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength. John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. I am glad my case is not serious! But these ner vous troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfi es him. Of course it is only ner vous ness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way! I mean to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and h ere I am a comparative burden already! Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able,— to dress and entertain, and order things. It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so ner vous. I suppose John never was ner vous in his life. He laughs at me so about this wallpaper! At fi rst he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a ner vous patient than to give way to such fancies. He said that after the wallpaper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on. “You know the place is doing you good,” he said, “and really, dear, I don’t care to renovate the house just for a three months’ rental.” “Then do let us go downstairs,” I said, “there are such pretty rooms there.” Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain. But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things. It is an airy and comfortable room as any one need wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim. I’m really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper. 35 40 45 50 55 528 CH. 8 | CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN The Yellow Wallpaper 529 Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deep- shaded arbors, the riotous old- fashioned fl owers, and bushes and gnarly trees. Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story- making, a ner vous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try. I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me. But I fi nd I get pretty tired when I try. It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well, John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he says he would as soon put fi reworks in my pillow- case as to let me have those stimulating people about now. I wish I could get well faster. But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious infl uence it had! There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down. I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breadths didn’t match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other. I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could fi nd in a toy- store. I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend. I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fi erce I could always hop into that chair and be safe. The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I suppose when this was used as a playroom they had to take the nursery things out, and no wonder! I never saw such ravages as the children have made here. The wallpaper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother— they must have had perseverance as well as hatred. Then the fl oor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars. But I don’t mind it a bit— only the paper. There comes John’s sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of me! I must not let her fi nd me writing. She is a perfect and enthusiastic house keeper, and hopes for no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick! SHERMAN ALEXIE (b. 1966) Flight Patterns Sherman Alexie grew up with his four siblings on a reservation near Spokane, Washington, an experience he once described as the “origin” of “everything I do now, writing and otherwise.” After attending high school in nearby Reardan, where he was the only Native American other than the school mascot, he earned a BA in American Studies from Washington State University and soon after published the fi rst of over twelve collections of poetry, The Business of Fancydancing (1991). Named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, it also earned high praise from the New York Times Book Review, which hailed its twenty-six- year- old author as “one of the major lyric voices of our time.” Yet Alexie is perhaps better understood as an accomplished storyteller in verse and prose. His fi rst collection of fi ction, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfi ght in Heaven (1993), received a PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book, which Alexie followed up over fi fteen years later with a PEN/Faulkner Award for his fourth collection, War Dances (2010). In between have come novels— including Reservation Blues (1995), Flight (2007), and the National Book Award– winning young adult novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part- Time Indian (2009)— as well as radio scripts and screenplays: Smoke Signals (1998) was featured at the Sundance Film Festival. A sometime stand- up comedian and four- time champion of the World Heavyweight Poetry Slam, he lives in Seattle, Washington, with his wife and two sons. At 5:05 a.m., Patsy Cline fell loudly to pieces on William’s clock radio.1 He hit the snooze button, silencing lonesome Patsy, and dozed for fi fteen more minutes before Donna Fargo bragged about being the happiest girl in the whole USA. William wondered what had ever happened to Donna Fargo,2 whose birth name was the infi nitely more interesting Yvonne Vaughn, and wondered why he knew Donna Fargo’s birth name. Ah, he was the bemused and slightly embarrassed own er of a twenty- fi rst- century American mind. His intellect was a big comfy couch stuffed with sacred and profane trivia. He knew the names of all nine of Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands and could quote from memory the entire Declaration of In de pen dence. William knew Donna Fargo’s birth name because he wanted to know her birth name. He wanted to know all of the great big and tiny little American details. He didn’t want to choose between Ernie Hemingway and the Spokane tribal elders, between Mia Hamm and Crazy Horse, between The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and Chief Dan George. William wanted all of it. Hunger was his crime. As for dear Miss Fargo, William fi gured she probably played the Indian casino circuit along with the Righ teous Brothers, Smokey Robinson, Eddie Money, Pat Benatar, RATT, REO Speedwagon, and 1. Reference to country music singer Patsy Cline’s recording of “I Fall to Pieces” (1961). 2. American singer (b. 1949) best known for her recording of “Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.” (1972). 54 TELLING STORIES: AN ALBUM SHERMAN ALEXIE Flight Patterns 55 dozens of other formerly famous rock- and country- music stars. Many of the Indian casino acts w ere bad, and most of the rest were pure nostalgic entertainment, but a small number made beautiful and timeless music. William knew the genius Merle Haggard played thirty or forty Indian casinos every year, so long live Haggard and long live tribal economic sovereignty. Who cares about fi shing and hunting rights? Who cares about uranium mines and nuclear- waste- dump sites on sacred land? Who cares about the recovery of tribal languages? Give me Freddy Fender singing “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” in En glish and Spanish to 206 Spokane Indians, William thought, and I will be a happy man. But William wasn’t happy this morning. He’d slept poorly— he always slept poorly— and wondered again if his insomnia was a physical or a mental condition. His doctor had offered him sleeping- pill prescriptions, but William declined for philosophical reasons. He was an Indian who didn’t smoke or drink or eat processed sugar. He lifted weights three days a week, ran every day, and competed in four triathlons a year. A two- mile swim, a 150- mile bike ride, and a full marathon. A triathlon was a religious quest. If Saint Francis were still around, he’d be a triathlete. Another exaggeration! Theological hyperbole! Rabid self- justifi cation! Diagnostically speaking, William was an obsessive- compulsive workaholic who was afraid of pills. So he suffered sleepless nights and constant daytime fatigue. This morning, awake and not awake, William turned down the radio, changing Yvonne Vaughn’s celebratory anthem into whispered blues, and rolled off the couch onto his hands and knees. His back and legs were sore because he’d slept on the living room couch so the alarm wouldn’t disturb his wife and daughter upstairs. Still on his hands and knees, William stretched his spine, using the twelve basic exercises he’d learned from Dr. Adams, that master practitioner of white middle- class chiropractic voodoo. This was all part of William’s regular morning ceremony. Other people fi nd God in ornate ritual, but William called out to Geronimo, Jesus Christ, Saint Therese, Buddha, Allah, Billie Holiday, Simon Ortiz, Abe Lincoln, Bessie Smith, Howard Hughes, Leslie Marmon Silko, Joan of Arc and Joan of Collins, John Woo, Wilma Mankiller, and Karl and Groucho Marx while he pumped out fi fty push- ups and fi fty abdominal crunches. William wasn’t particularly religious; he was generally religious. Finished with his morning calisthenics, William showered in the basement, suffering the water that was always too cold down there, and threaded his long black hair into two tight braids— the indigenous businessman’s tonsorial special— and dressed in his best travel suit, a navy three- button pinstripe he’d ordered online. He’d worried about the fi t, but his tailor was a magician and had only mildly chastised William for such an impulsive purchase. After knotting his blue paisley tie, purchased in person and on sale, William walked upstairs in bare feet and kissed his wife, Marie, good- bye. “Cancel your fl ight,” she said. “And come back to bed.” “You’re supposed to be asleep,” he said. She was a small and dark woman who seemed to be smaller and darker at that time of the morning. Her long black hair had once again defeated its braids, but she didn’t care. She sometimes went two or three days without brushing it. William was obsessive about his mane, tying and retying his ponytail, knotting and reknotting his braids, experimenting with this shampoo and that conditioner. He greased down his cowlicks (inherited from a cowlicked father and grandfather) with shiny pomade, but Marie’s hair was always unkempt, wild, 5 and renegade. William’s hair hung around the fort, but Marie’s rode on the warpath! She constantly pulled stray strands out of her mouth. William loved her for it. During sex, they spent as much time readjusting her hair as they did readjusting positions. Such were the erotic dangers of loving a Spokane Indian woman. “Take off your clothes and get in bed,” Marie pleaded now. “I can’t do that,” William said. “They’re counting on me.” “Oh, the plane will be fi lled with salesmen. Let some other salesman sell what you’re selling.” “Your breath stinks.” “So do my feet, my pits, and my butt, but you still love me. Come back to bed, and I’ll make it worth your while.” William kissed Marie, reached beneath her pajama top, and squeezed her breasts. He thought about reaching inside her pajama bottoms. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and tried to wrestle him into bed. Oh, God, he wanted to climb into bed and make love. He wanted to fornicate, to sex, to breed, to screw, to make the beast with two backs. Oh, sweetheart, be my little synonym! He wanted her to be both subject and object. Perhaps it was wrong (and unavoidable) to objectify female strangers, but shouldn’t every husband seek to objectify his wife at least once a day? William loved and respected his wife, and delighted in her intelligence, humor, and kindness, but he also loved to watch her lovely ass when she walked, and stare down the front of her loose shirts when she leaned over, and grab her breasts at wildly inappropriate times— during dinner parties and piano recitals and uncontrolled intersections, for instance. He constantly made passes at her, not necessarily expecting to be successful, but to remind her he still desired her and was excited by the thought of her. She was his passive and active. “Come on,” she said. “If you stay home, I’ll make you Scooby.” He laughed at the inside joke, created one night while he tried to give her sexual directions and was so aroused that he sounded exactly like Scooby- Doo. “Stay home, stay home, stay home,” she chanted and wrapped herself tighter around him. He was supporting all of her weight, holding her two feet off the bed. “I’m not strong enough to do this,” he said. “Baby, baby, I’ll make you strong,” she sang, and it sounded like she was writing a Top 40 hit in the Brill Building, circa 1962. How could he leave a woman who sang like that? He hated to leave, but he loved his work. He was a man, and men needed to work. More sexism! More masculine tunnel vision! More need for gender- sensitivity workshops! He pulled away from her, dropping her back onto the bed, and stepped away. “Willy Loman,” she said, “you must pay attention to me.”3 “I love you,” he said, but she’d already fallen back to sleep— a narcoleptic gift William envied— and he wondered if she would dream about a man who never left her, about some unemployed agoraphobic Indian warrior who liked to cook and wash dishes. William tiptoed into his daughter’s bedroom, expecting to hear her light snore, but she was awake and sitting up in bed, and looked so magical and 3. Protagonist of Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman (1949); Willy’s wife, Linda, says of her husband, “Attention, attention must fi nally be paid to such a person.” 10 15 20 56 TELLING STORIES: AN ALBUM SHERMAN ALEXIE Flight Patterns 57 androgynous with her huge brown eyes and crew- cut hair. She’d wanted to completely shave her head: I don’t want long hair, I don’t want short hair, I don’t want hair at all, and I don’t want to be a girl or a boy, I want to be a yellow and orange leaf some little kid picks up and pastes in his scrapbook. “Daddy,” she said. “Grace,” he said. “You should be asleep. You have school today.” “I know,” she said. “But I wanted to see you before you left.” “Okay,” said William as he kissed her forehead, nose, and chin. “You’ve seen me. Now go back to sleep. I love you and I’m going to miss you.” She fi ercely hugged him. “Oh,” he said. “You’re such a lovely, lovely girl.” Preternaturally serious, she took his face in her eyes and studied his eyes. Morally examined by a kindergartner! “Daddy,” she said. “Go be silly for those people far away.” She cried as William left her room. Already quite sure he was only an adequate husband, he wondered, as he often did, if he was a bad father. During these mornings, he felt generic and violent, like some caveman leaving the fi re to hunt animals in the cold and dark. Maybe his hands were smooth and clean, but they felt bloody. Downstairs, he put on his socks and shoes and overcoat and listened for his daughter’s crying, but she was quiet, having inherited her mother’s gift for instant sleep. She had probably fallen back into one of her odd little dreams. While he was gone, she often drew pictures of those dreams, coloring the sky green and the grass blue— everything backward and wrong— and had once sketched a man in a suit crashing an airplane into the bright yellow sun. Ah, the rage, fear, and loneliness of a fi ve- year- old, simple and true! She’d been especially afraid since September 11 of the previous year4 and constantly quizzed William about what he would do if terrorists hijacked his plane. “I’d tell them I was your father,” he’d said to her before he left for his last business trip. “And they’d stop being bad.” “You’re lying,” she’d said. “I’m not supposed to listen to liars. If you lie to me, I can’t love you.” He couldn’t argue with her logic. Maybe she was the most logical person on the planet. Maybe she should be illegally elected president of the United States. William understood her fear of fl ying and of his fl ight. He was afraid of fl ying, too, but not of terrorists. After the horrible violence of September 11, he fi gured hijacking was no longer a useful weapon in the terrorist arsenal. These days, a terrorist armed with a box cutter would be torn to pieces by all of the coach- class passengers and fed to the fi rst- class upgrades. However, no matter how much he tried to laugh his fear away, William always scanned the airports and airplanes for little brown guys who reeked of fundamentalism. That meant William was equally afraid of Osama bin Laden and Jerry Falwell wearing the last vestiges of a summer tan. William himself was a little brown guy, so the other travelers were always sniffi ng around him, but he smelled only of Dove soap, Mennen deodorant, and sarcasm. Still, he understood why people were afraid of him, a brown- skinned man with dark hair and eyes. If Norwegian 4. That is, September 11, 2001, when hijacked planes were fl own into the World Trade Center in New York and into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing thousands. 25 30 terrorists had exploded the World Trade Center, then blue- eyed blondes would be viewed with more suspicion. Or so he hoped.