“Hey, look at him!”
“No wonder he doesn’t say nothing. How many does that make?” Harley counted the empty bottles. He said something, but it was difficult for Tayo to hear clearly; their voices sounded dim and far away.
He got up and weaved his way between the chairs and tables to the toilet at the back of the room. The yellow stained walls were at the far end of the long tunnel between him and the world. He reached out across this distance to try to steady himself against the walls. He looked down at the stream of urine; it wasn’t yellow but clear like water. He imagined then that if a man could bring the drought, he could also return the water, out of his own belly, out of his own body. He strained the muscles of his belly and forced it out.
He pushed down on the handle of the toilet, but it didn’t flush; the lid of the toilet tank was leaning against the wall and the floor was covered with dirty water. It was soaking through his boots. The sensation was sudden and terrifying; he could not get out of the room, and he was afraid he would fall into the stinking dirty water and have to crawl through it, like before, with jungle clouds raining down filthy water that smelled ripe with death. He lunged at the door; he landed on his hands and knees in the dark outside the toilet. The dreams did not wait any more for night; they came out anytime.
When he got back to the table he saw that Emo’s glasses were sitting crookedly on his puffy face. Emo watched him walk across the room to the table.
“There he is. He thinks he’s something all right. Because he’s part white. Don’t you, half-breed?” Tayo stopped in front of them. He saw all their faces clustered around Emo’s fat, sweaty head; he thought of dogs standing over something dead, crowded close together. He couldn’t make out Harley or Leroy or Pinkie; all he could see was Emo’s sullen face. He stood there in front of them for a long time until his eyes lost focus. Someone touched his arm.
“Come on, Tayo, sit down with us,” Leroy said. He put his mouth close to Tayo’s ear. “Emo didn’t mean nothing. He’s just drunk, that’s all.”
Tayo sat down. He knew Emo meant what he said; Emo had hated him since the time they had been in grade school together, and the only reason for this hate was that Tayo was part white. But Tayo was used to it by now. Since he could remember, he had known Auntie’s shame for what his mother had done, and Auntie’s shame for him. He remembered how the white men who were building the new highway through Laguna had pointed at him. They had elbowed each other and winked. He never forgot that, and finally, years later, he understood what it was about white men and Indian women: the disgrace of Indian women who went with them. And during the war Tayo learned about white women and Indian men.
We went into this bar on 4th Ave., see,
me and O’Shay, this crazy Irishman.
We had a few drinks, then I saw
these two white women
sitting all alone.
One was kind of fat
She had dark hair.
But this other one, man,
She had big tits and
real blond hair.
I said to him
“Hey buddy, that’s the one I want.
Over there.”
He said, “Go get ’em, Chief.”
He was my best drinking buddy, that guy
He’d watch me
see how good I’d score with each one.
“I’m Italian tonight.”
“Oh a Wop!” He laughed
and hollered so loud
both of those girls were watching us then.
I smiled at
both of them, see, so they’d
both think I was friendly.
But I gave my “special look”
to the blonde. So she’d know, see.
That’s how I’d do it.
Then I went up to the bar and
I told the bartender I wanted
two more of whatever the ladies over there was
drinking, and I went over.
They took the
drinks and the fat one asked me
to sit down.
I sat down close to the blonde
and told them my name.
I used Mattuci’s name that night — this Wop
in our unit.
The fat girl had a car. I sat in the middle, grabbing titties with both hands all the way to Long Beach. Next day my buddy was dying to know. He kept asking all morning “Well? Well?” I told him “Well, I scored all right.” “Which one, which one?” “Not one,” I said “Both of them!” “Well, I’ll be goddamned!” he said “all in the same bed?” “Yes, sir, this In’di’n was grabbin’ white pussy all night!” “Shit, Chief, that’s some reputation you’re making for Mattuci!” “Goddamn,” I said “Maybe next time I’ll send him a bill!”
Pinkie was holding his belly, laughing so hard. Leroy and Harley were slapping each other on the backs, laughing real loud.
“Hey, Emo, that’s a good one!”
“Hey, tell the one about the time that guy told on you.”
“Which guy?”
“When you were balling that little redhead and what’s his name — the Irishman?. .”
“Yeah, he knocked on the door. You know, the Irishman knocked on the door and yelled, ‘Hey, Geronimo!’”
“Oh. Yeah. That time.” Emo’s forehead was covered with little balls of sweat. He wiped them off with the back of his hand. He was looking at Tayo.
“Come on, Emo, tell it.”
“I don’t feel like it.” The corners of his mouth looked sullen.
“It’s so damn funny! That white guy yells, ‘Hey, Geronimo!’ and the white woman hears him and says, ‘Who’s that?’ He says, ‘A drunk Irishman.’ She says, ‘No, who’s that Geronimo?’ You have a titty in your mouth so you don’t answer. She says, ‘That’s an Indian, isn’t it?’ She yells back at him, ‘This guy’s an Indian?’ He says, ‘Yeah — his name is Geronimo.’ She starts screaming and faints.”
“Passed out.”
“Well, anyway, she fainted or passed out.” Leroy and Pinkie finished the story and went for more beer. There was something about the story Emo didn’t like. Tayo was watching him; he didn’t turn his eyes away when Emo looked back at him. They sat staring at each other across the big round table. Tayo remembered fighting tomcats then, the frozen pose, arched bodies coiled, only the tails twitching with their anger, until one or the other made a move and they went rolling around in the dirt.
“You don’t like my stories, do you? Not good enough for you, huh? You think you’re hot shit, like your cousin. Big football star. Big hero.” Emo pointed a finger at the empties in front of Tayo. “One thing you can do is drink like an Indian, can’t you? Maybe you aren’t no better than the rest of us, huh?”
Tayo thought of Rocky then, and he was proud that Emo was so envious. The beer kept him loose inside. Emo’s words never touched him. The beer stroked a place deep under his heart and put all the feeling to sleep.
Then Emo took out the little bag again. He fumbled with the yellow pull-strings and opened it. He poured the human teeth out on the table. He looked over at Tayo and laughed out loud. He pushed them into circles and rows like unstrung beads; he scooped them into his hand and shook them like dice. They were his war souvenirs, the teeth he had knocked out of the corpse of a Japanese soldier. The night progressed according to that rituaclass="underline" from cursing the barren dry land the white man had left them, to talking about San Diego and the cities where the white women were still waiting for them to come back to give them another taste of what white women never got enough of. But in the end, they always came around to it.