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    Flight: A Novel
    Flight: A Novel
    Flight: A Novel
    Ebook182 pages2 hours

    Flight: A Novel

    By Sherman Alexie

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    About this ebook

    From the National Book Award–winning author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the tale of a troubled boy’s trip through history.

    Half Native American and half Irish, fifteen-year-old “Zits” has spent much of his short life alternately abused and ignored as an orphan and ward of the foster care system. Ever since his mother died, he’s felt alienated from everyone, but, thanks to the alcoholic father whom he’s never met, especially disconnected from other Indians.
     
    After he runs away from his latest foster home, he makes a new friend. Handsome, charismatic, and eloquent, Justice soon persuades Zits to unleash his pain and anger on the uncaring world. But picking up a gun leads Zits on an unexpected time-traveling journey through several violent moments in American history, experiencing life as an FBI agent during the civil rights movement, a mute Indian boy during the Battle of Little Bighorn, a nineteenth-century Indian tracker, and a modern-day airplane pilot. When Zits finally returns to his own body, “he begins to understand what it means to be the hero, the villain and the victim. . . . Mr. Alexie succeeds yet again with his ability to pierce to the heart of matters, leaving this reader with tears in her eyes” (The New York Times Book Review).
     
    Sherman Alexie’s acclaimed novels have turned a spotlight on the unique experiences of modern-day Native Americans, and here, the New York Times–bestselling author of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian takes a bold new turn, combining magical realism with his singular humor and insight.
     
    This ebook features an illustrated biography of Sherman Alexie including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateOct 15, 2013
    ISBN9781480457218
    Flight: A Novel
    Author

    Sherman Alexie

    Sherman Alexie is the author of, most recently, Blasphemy, stories, from Grove Press, and Face, poetry, from Hanging Loose Press. He is the winner of the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award, the 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the 2001 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, and a Special Citation for the 1994 PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Fiction. Smoke Signals, the film he wrote and coproduced, won both the Audience Award and the Filmmakers Trophy at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. Alexie lives with his family in Seattle.

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    Reviews for Flight

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    • 5/5
      A classic Sherman Alexie with a change from his usual status quo endings--this one is happy, or at least clearly hopeful. 10/10.
      Definitelty read this.
    • 4/5
      When a troubled teen is killed while shooting up a bank lobby, he finds himself transported into the bodies and lives of people across the centuries. In each scene, he experiences a different part of Native American history, from the arrival of the white man to the present. Alexie channels the teen voice very well, so while there are many tragic and poignant parts, there's still plenty of humor. Definitely worth reading.
    • 4/5
      Zits is 15 years old, half white, half Native American. His father abandoned him and his mother when he was born, and his mother died when he was 6. Since then, he has bounced around from foster home to foster home (some better than others - with better being a relative term), started drinking and getting into trouble. He is well-known to the police. Zits finds himself in a bank, committing a terrible crime. When he comes to, he has traveled in time and is inhabiting someone else's body. This is the start of a series of jumps through time, into several different bodies, at key moments.Through Zits's experiences - in his present, his past, and his time travel - Alexie raises questions about history, the point(lessness) of revenge and war, and much more. There is anger, hurt, loss, desperation, but also glimmers that things can be different. Zits has been exposed to so much at such a young age that there is a sense at the start that he is a lost cause; that he's been written off by family after family, by the authorities, by his social workers and his therapists; that he never had a chance - and that he wonders if it is nature or nurture that he landed him where he is. When he suddenly is jumping from event to event, he is thrust into violent situations, forced to examine who he is, why things are the way they are, how he's ended up here. The ending is on the neatly-wrapped up saccharine side, but otherwise Flight is a tightly-written, staccato, fast-paced journey through jarring events.
    • 5/5
      I was feeling sad about the number of Sherman Alexie books I haven't read, so I made a bookstore run and picked this one up. Yesterday morning I grabbed it as we were getting in the car for a trip, and by the time we were home that afternoon I had finished it. In between I did a lot of crying, developed a major headache and a mild sense of nausea, all of which I'm blaming on this book. It was horrific, filled with rage and blame and fury, and yet somehow infused with hope.

      It's the story of Zits, whose father abandoned him at birth, and whose mother died when he was six, and who has bounced through twenty foster homes, in and out of jail and juvenile halfway houses, and finally ends up on the street with a hyper-intelligent homeless teenage sociopath. But a radical action allows him to slip through time, seeing history up close and personal through the eyes of a white FBI agent, a Native American youth, a white "Indian tracker," among others.

      These glimpses become an eduction of some uncomfortable questions: Who else has the right to such fury? Yet, what are the consequences of this fury? Where does it end? Where did it begin? And can any of this be redeemed?

      This novel is an amazing feat. Only Alexie could have pulled it off.
    • 4/5
      Sherman Alexie has a great way of storytelling. Going through time Zits realizes killing isn't a good idea. There are always two sides and revenge isn't a good answer. Both white and native Americans were cruel and barbaric and Zits just needed love.
    • 4/5
      I found this book funny, quirky, and poignant all at the same time. Sherman Alexie has a unique way of sharing and getting the reader into the mindset of the Native American of the 21st Century. The character of this book Zits, is yet another well drawn, thoughtful guy. His issues are connected to being Native American, but are also universal, which gives him a powerful voice.
    • 4/5
      Flight by Sherman AlexieNarrated in first person by "Zits", a 15yo half-Irish, half-American Indian boy, we are able to see into the mind of a Native American kid who was abandoned by his father at birth, and then orphaned by cancer when his mother died when he was six. He desperately feels the loss of both. He's a kid who, maybe more than most, really needed his parents in his life. He has no sense of self because he is not truly accepted into the Indian community as he wasn't acknowledged by his father. He didn't have his mother around long enough to teach him about his Irish heritage either. He feels like a nobody. To top it off, he's at a gawky age, skinny and with terrible acne. Of course, being a troubled runaway and many-times foster kid, he's never felt a sense of permanence anywhere.After getting into a little trouble with the law, he meets another boy in jail who immediately becomes his best friend. Justice is a couple years older than Zits, but he's really smart and seems wise, making it easy for Zits to place him in a parental role and to put all his trust in his new friend. When Justice talks him into committing a terrible atrocity, he doubts himself and his motives. Something strange happens that carries him off on a string of trippy time-hopping events which puts him inside other people's bodies in different points of history. The result is we are able to see all sides and different points of view of people and events from the late 19th century to present day (2007) that have affected Zits' life as well as his view of life and his view of himself as a Native American and overall human being. In a sense, it's about stepping into another's shoes and in exploring the past, we can find the truth about ourselves.
    • 5/5
      "Call me Zits.
      Everybody calls me Zits.
      That's not my real name, of course. My real name isn't important."

      Part of the experience of reading is, no doubt, influenced by more than the book itself. Just as the story or atmosphere can transport the reader into a different reality, the circumstances of reading, the reality of the reader, can change the reading experience.
      I'm convinced of that.

      So, what happens when you read a book about a lost 17-year-old who is at the brink of a meltdown, who is filled with rage and self-loathing, who is about to commit an act of violence on innocent bystanders, the day after an 18-year-old goes on a shooting rampage in a Munich shopping centre?

      While we cannot know what went on inside the head of the youth in Munich, it was hard to read Flight under the circumstances without wondering if there were any similarities between the Munich gunman and, Zits, the protagonist of Alexie's novel.

      Zits, is a young man who never knew his father, who lost his mother to cancer when he was six years old and who has been homed with twenty foster families. He's half-Irish and half-Native-American, and he has more questions than answers about who he is as a person.

      "Yes, I am Irish and Indian, which would be the coolest blend in the world if my parents were around to teach me how to be Irish and Indian. But they're not here and haven't been for years, so I'm not really Irish or Indian. I'm a blank sky, a human solar eclipse."

      When Zits has another confrontation with yet another new pair of foster parents, he runs away, gets arrested and ends up being drawn to the persuasive character of Justice - another vengeful renegade - who offers the confused and frustrated Zits a way of making himself matter - with disastrous consequences.

      Luckily for Zits, this is a novel and Alexie is a master at weaving in an element of magic which lets Zits walk in the shoes of some other individuals and in other eras throughout American history - providing an opportunity for Zits to experience the outcomes of acts of violence like the one he is about to commit and a chance to change his mind about letting his rage and numbness towards the world take control over his own persona.

      Flight was a compelling read. It was a difficult read, too. Alexie doesn't shy away from writing gritty dialogue and detailing scenes of violence. And of course, it is one of those books where the realistic elements of the story outweigh the fantastic ones. I.e. where you know that everything he describes has probably happened at some time somewhere, might be happening someplace now.

      And yet, for all the books focus on violence and revenge, the message is about the importance of kindness and empathy. How recognizing people and their struggle may just make change somehow.

      "Who can survive such a revelation?
      It was father love and father shame and father rage that killed Hamlet. Imagine a new act. Imagine that Hamlet, after being poisoned by his own sword, wakes in the body of his father. Or, worse, inside the body of his incestuous Uncle Claudius?
      What would Hamlet do if he looked into the mirror and saw the face of the man who'd betrayed and murdered his father?"

      As I said at the beginning, it is impossible to draw connections or seek out similarities between the Munich gunman and Zits, but this is one occasion when current events have influenced my reading experience, and when reading Flight, I could not help but ponder about how fucked up it is when a 17-year-old (or an 18-year-old as the case may be) feels that killing other people is the only way for them to engage with the world - whether it is as a means to be heard and feel that they matter or for whatever other reason.

      "There's that man again, the one who told me I wasn't real.
      I think he's wrong; I think I am real.
      I have returned to my body. And my ugly face. And my anger. And my loneliness.
      And then I think, Maybe I never left my body at all. Maybe I never left this bank. Maybe I've been standing here for hours, minutes, seconds, trying to decide what I should do."

      Btw, his real name is Michael.
    • 3/5
      I was lent this book my a friend of mine who is very, very different from me. She feels things very deeply, and she has a huge social conscience. Because she's not a long-time friend, I'm having a little bit of trouble figuring out why she gave me this book: is it because I (academically) study children's literature - although really, this is issue-based YA literature? Is it because we had briefly discussed Sherman Alexie, and this is her favorite Alexie novel? Is it because it made her feel all sorts of feelings and she wants to share that cathartic experience, Oprah's Book Club-style? I don't know. I think it may be a combination of all of these things. I've even come up with some possibilities that are rather more troubling (such as that she is trying to "tell" me something about her own youth with this story of a disaffected, violent, and abused young man). I just...don't know. And that really bothers me.What I do know is that if I follow my most superficial theory - that the book made her cry and she thinks I will be emotionally impacted as well - it fails, simply because we are so different. I've never been someone who enjoyed issue-based YA literature, even when I was its target audience of a young teen. Books like "Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret" just turned me straight off because I either found them boring or extremely manipulative. [I]Flight[/I] belongs in that second camp: I can tell Alexie's a good writer, and I would like to read some additional material by him. But the entire point of the book is to bring awareness to an issue - the different perspectives of racism - and while I do believe there are many teenagers who would feel enlightened or empowered by the story, I just come out feeling like I've been hit over the head with a shovel. I learned about racism a long time ago, and I've learned even more about it since. I will continue learning. However, a book like this, which mostly serves to put "a human face" on racism, doesn't impact me much in my 30s. It just makes me feel annoyed, as if I'm being taken for a fool. Because I know I'm not the target audience, and because I'm still confused about my friend's intentions in giving me the novel, I have trouble putting a rating to [I]Flight[/I] that is anything but totally subjective. I didn't enjoy the book. It didn't make me cry. I finished it, because I respect my friend, but I will never recommend it to anyone else. However, I can easily imagine there are other, probably younger readers who will find it both significant and meaningful.
    • 3/5
      This novel is told from the point-of-view of "Zits," a teenager of Native American heritage being passed through the foster care system and acting out in response. After growing increasingly and gruesomely violent, Zits is magically transported into other peoples' bodies at different times in history including an FBI agent working against the indigenous rights movement, an Indian child at the time of the Battle of Little Big Horn, an Indian tracker working for the 19th-century U.S. Army, a pilot who trained an Islamic terrorist, and his own father. These experiences help him learn the effects of violence both a personal decision and societal impact. This is a pretty grim book but Alexie's characterization of Zits brings an element of humor as well. The conclusion of the book is a bit corny, but I think it's an effective story reflecting on some serious issues in American history and today.
    • 5/5
      I listened to the audiobook version, read by the author.

      Great short novel. There is some triggery content (of the evil uncle raping a six year old boy variety) and it's written in first person present tense -- which I nearly always hate, but it works within the voice of the fifteen year old narrator.

      Wonderful, harrowing drama, although it did take a while to really hook me. I ached for this kid and I believed in everything he experienced and I want to hug him a lot.

      The GLBT interest tag is used here for the protagonist questioning his sexuality when he becomes friends with a "beautiful" boy named Justice, and for m/m sexual assault.
    • 5/5
      I have not read anything like this in a while, the only thing that could compare would be The Time Travelers Wife. And yet there is something that Flight has that separates itself from the regular time travel category. I enjoyed this book because of it's controversy that the main character brings to almost all the situations he finds himself in. Alexie gave each character and time a unique twist, brining it all together in the end.

      A very unique and thought provoking relentless book.
    • 5/5
      It really had some huge thought provoking moments
    • 5/5
      A runaway who is sick of foster homes becomes involved with a dangerous character. When about to make a decision that will permanently affect his life, he experieces a slip in time allowing him to understand the impact of choices and consequences through new eyes. Alexie at his best.
    • 4/5
      A fantastic book that takes a disconcerting twist, but pulls back around for a meaningful, and (for me) watery eyed ending. I think most readers will have a "WTF moment" when the story takes an abrupt twist, and some will hate that the why and how of the twist are not explained. Still having these complaints afterwards would be signs to me that the reader has missed Alexie's compelling message. Great story of abandonment, betrayal, and the comically dark-sided natures that exist within our most unsheltered teens.
    • 2/5
      A little heavy handed, this is clearly a gritty morality tale aimed at tweens who are stuck on the wrong path. It might be in the adult collection at the library, but hopefully those in the know can point those who need this book the most in its direction. Not much here though for the adult reader.
    • 4/5
      Zits, an angry half-Indian kid who just ran away from his latest foster home, has a series of out-of-body experiences putting him in many different parts of the American history of violence. It is a life lesson book, but his raw anger and recognition that there are no simple solutions keeps most of the saccharin away. I enjoyed it.
    • 5/5
      Another home run for Sherman Alexie, but this time without the humor. It's a pretty disturbing book about Indians, of course, orphans, foster care and the futility of revenge both on a personal and national level. The guy is a treasure.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely wonderful book. I listened to the audiobook and loved it. You will laugh, cry and look at the world and all its people in a much different light. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Identity is a crucial issue for indigenous people and communities within the confines of the United States. Identity rears its head in many facets of Indian life. Individuals and communities struggle with how to identify themselves as US or Tribal citizens, full or mixed-blood, traditional or contemporary, reservation or urban, and in many other smaller but, just as confusing ways.Identity is the central theme of Flight. Alexie's main character, Zits, is presented as a half Indian, half white-Irish, fifteen year old orphan whose mother died when he was young and whose father abandoned him. "Yes, I am Irish and Indian, which would be the coolest blend in the world if my parents were around to teach me how to be Irish and Indian. But they're not here and haven't been for years, so I'm not really Irish or Indian. I'm a blank sky, a human solar eclipse." (p5)Zits struggles with his identity in part because while he self-identifies as Indian mostly based on how others perceive him due to his looks he is not a "legal" Indian because of his fathers' abandonment which creates a lack of specific tribal affiliation."There's this law called the Indian Child Welfare Act that's supposed to protect half-breed orphans like me...But I'm not an official Indian. My Indian daddy gave me his looks, but he was never legally established as my father." (p8-9)*Alexie creates a character who is a troubled and confused fifteen year old who has been abandoned, orphaned, and shuffled through the social welfare system. When the story opens, Zits is a runaway from his most recent foster home and is about to commit a mass shooting in a bank.Just as Zits is about to fire into the crowded bank he is transported through space and time into different bodies where he explores the themes of identity, betrayal, abandonment, and love. Through these experiences Zits learns that he has a place in this world and that not everything in his life is what it seemed. It's a story of redemption that takes him to the Battle of the Little Big Horn, into the body of a 1970s FBI agent during the struggles of the Red Power Movement, a pilot, and the very father who abandoned him."I am looking at Crazy Horse, the magical one. Bullets couldn't hit him. He could never be photographed. He was a holy ghost, the Sioux Jesus..."I am standing right next to him. And his eyes are gold-colored.I think the greatest warrior in Sioux history is a half-breed mystery. I think this legendary killer of white men is half white, like me." (p68)Alexie gives the reader a powerful and raw story of Zits as he comes to understand himself, his circumstances, and his place in this world. My only issue with the book is the section where Zits transports into the body of a pilot who has trained a terrorist to fly planes and betrayed two-women in his life. This section, while touching on the one of the overarching themes of the book, betrayal, differs from the other "transport" sections in that it doesn't deal with Indians at all. Because of that, it just seemed out of place to me.On a personal note, Flight is the only book that has ever made me cry...a personal testament to the quality and power of Alexie's story.Indigenous Writes rating: 4.5/5 Not quite as good as frybread, but what really is?
    • 5/5
      This is definitely deeper than you think it will be. Philosophical and meaningful.
    • 3/5
      Funny and, at times, savage. I enjoyed Alexie's short, simple sentence structure, and his bluntness. However, the story wore thin by the end and failed to answer the questions he raised about violence.
    • 3/5
      An easy read about a boy traveling into different parts of the past and determining who he truly is while doing so. It's mildly interesting and it's easy to read, but not much more.
    • 4/5
      I enjoy Sherman Alexie's writing. He has such a talent for enlightening the reader about social issues facing native American Indians while being thoroughly entertaining. I appreciate the character, the story, and the especially the message. Adam Beach did an exceptional job of bringing the audio version of the book to life.
    • 3/5
      Fast paced and humorous, we follow Zizs an angry young indian boy who after being wounded travels through space and time, briefly occupying the bodies of people somehow linked to him. A somewhat spritual journey.An engaging book but it's story is too short for the subject. I would have liked to see the stories of the personas Zits occupies expanded.
    • 5/5
      Though short, this was a difficult book for me to make my way through. The story of Zits, a more-or-less homeless half-Indian teen with a private history of abuse and abandonment and a public history of arson and escape from foster homes, is wrenching enough, but the other lives he inhabits as he carooms through time add additional layers of pain, betrayal, and sadness. Part of this is because though Zits finds himself within a variety of bodies in a variety of times, he is unable to change history. While he can impact personal choices, his knowledge of the inevitable final outcome tinges even the small personal triumphs with an overarching sense of tragedy. Still, the book ends hopefully, with Zits given the opportunity to make a personal choice that has the potential to change his future.
    • 3/5
      Like all of Alexie's novels it is a quick enjoyable read. Not quite on par with his other work, but perhaps because it is deriviative of the others. A young American-Indian boy (Zits) is caught up in the foster care system. Angry and alone he enters a vision-quest somewhate akin to "quantum leap" where is transported to other times and other bodies, helping him to understand history, perspective, and his own father who abandoned him.
    • 5/5
      First Line: Call me Zits.I first became a fan of Sherman Alexie when I watched the film Smoke Signals. The fandom intensified when I read Indian Killer. Now that I've read Flight, I may just graduate to waving his books in the faces of everyone I meet, exclaiming, "You gotta read these!" Alexie is a powerful, imaginative writer with a talent for making readers see other people, other cultures, in a whole new--and very real-- way.Everyone in Flight calls the main character "Zits", and if you wonder how Zits thinks of himself, he'll tell you: " I'm a blank sky, a human solar eclipse."Zits is half Indian, half Irish. His alcoholic father took off when he was born. His mother died when he was six. His aunt kicked him out when he was ten after he set her boyfriend on fire. (Don't feel too bad for the boyfriend; he was a pedophile.) Now he's fifteen. He's been in twenty foster homes and twenty-two schools. He has barely enough clothes to fit in a backpack. He's a throwaway kid, and he wants revenge, so one day he takes a gun and walks into a bank...and begins a series of adventures in time travel. No time machine for Zits; the gun is the catalyst for his stints as a mute Indian boy during the Battle of the Little Big Horn, an FBI agent, an Indian tracker, an airplane pilot instructor, and his own father. His desire for revenge rapidly becomes an ongoing lesson in empathy.The book had barely begun when I fell for Zits hook, line and sinker. What did he say? Something that every passionate reader will understand: " I bet you a million dollars there are less than five books in this whole house. What kind of life can you have in a house without books?"Alexie's skilled pen makes Zits anything but a throwaway kid in the reader's mind. I empathized with this lonely young boy, my heart broke when his broke, I became angry when he did. As Zits time-traveled, his attitude began to change, and I found myself hoping with all my heart that he no longer thought of himself as worthless; that someone somewhere would see how valuable he was.What better thing can you say about a writer than that you were totally involved in what happened to his fictional character? That, for a short period of time, you were transported miles away from your comfort zone and confronted with people totally alien to you, and that you began to care, to get angry, and to be compelled to do something?
    • 5/5
      Amazing book by Sherman Alexie about an irish-indian sent back in time. Each time he travels back in time he is a different person. Each person has a problem they need to overcome. The boy has to solve their problems so he can get back in time to solve his own problem. This book was amazing because it is not like every teen book on the shelf. I like difference.
    • 5/5
      Against expectation, this book made me cry. How'd Alexie do that? The story has a lot of seeming flaws, not least of which is a narrator perhaps too literary to be believed. But somehow it works. I think it's because Alexie isn't afraid to go to the sentimental places so many other writers of his generation seem to have had beaten out of them in workshop. I mean "sentimental" in its best possible sense. He tells the truth, and it's ugly, but ultimately his characters use it to find redemption. And not some pie-in-the-sky fake redemption, either, but an in-your-face, human, flawed redemption that comes from struggle and small gifts of compassion and forgiveness. I'm probably making this sound terrible and schmaltzy and maybe it is. It made me cry, dammit! What more do you need to know?

    Book preview

    Flight - Sherman Alexie

    One

    CALL ME ZITS.

    Everybody calls me Zits.

    That’s not my real name, of course. My real name isn’t important.

    This morning, I wake in a room I do not recognize. I often wake in strange rooms. It’s what I do. The alarm clock beeps at me. I know I didn’t set that thing. I always set alarm clocks to play wake-up music. Something good like the White Stripes or PJ Harvey or Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Kanye West. Something to start your brain, cook your guts, and get you angry and horny at the same time. Sometimes I wake to my mother’s favorite music, like Marvin Gaye or Blood, Sweat & Tears.

    Yes, there used to be a band called Blood, Sweat & Tears.

    Isn’t that the most amazing name for a rock band you ever heard? When it comes right down to it, everything in the world is about blood, sweat, and tears. So that name is perfect. No, it’s almost perfect. The perfect name would be Blood, Sweat, Tears & Come, but I wonder if people would buy a CD by a band named so graphically.

    All of the guys in Blood, Sweat & Tears had long stringy hair and greasy beards and bloodshot eyes. They were ugly. Back in the seventies, all of the rocks stars were ugly. And they were great musicians. Do ugly guys compensate for their ugliness by becoming great guitar players? Or do certain guitars choose their homely players like Excalibur chose Lancelot? I wish I lived back in the seventies. As ugly as I am, I might have been the biggest rock star in the world.

    I love Blood, Sweat & Tears because they’re ugly and because they rock hard. And because they were my mother’s favorite rock band. Her favorite song was the one called I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know.

    She used to sing that to me when I was a baby. I remember her singing it to me. I know I’m not supposed to remember it. But I do.

    My memory is strange that way. I often remember people I’ve never met and events and places I’ve never seen.

    I don’t think I’m some mystical bastard. I just think I pay attention to the details.

    I remember my mother and father slow-dancing to that Blood, Sweat & Tears song. I remember how my father whisper-sang I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know to my mother. I remember how they conceived me that night. Okay, I don’t exactly remember it. I can’t see my mother and father naked in bed, but I can feel a lightning ball rebound off my soul whenever I think about it.

    I figure my father’s sperm and my mother’s egg were equal parts electricity and water.

    So, yes, I was created because of that bloody, sweaty, tearful, and sex-soaked song. And so my mother always sang it to me to celebrate my creation.

    My mother loved me more than any of you will ever know.

    But I don’t like to think about my mother or father. Especially this early in the morning. And my alarm clock isn’t playing Blood, Sweat & Tears or any other kind of music, so I punch it quiet, get out of bed, walk into the strange pink bathroom, and pee for three minutes.

    I keep trying to figure out where I am, and then I remember: This is my new foster home.

    I can hear my new foster family bumping around in the other rooms. I don’t care about them. There are more important things to think about, so I look in the mirror and count the zits on my face.

    One, two, three, four, all the way up to forty-seven.

    Fourteen zits on my forehead. Twenty-one on my left cheek. Six on my right cheek. Five on my chin. A huge North Star zit shines brightly on the end of my nose.

    I can’t even count the Milky Way on my back. There are billions and billions of those pimple-stars. I bet I could sell the rights to name each of them. Maybe I’ll stand at a freeway exit and shout at all of those lonely commuters: Back zits for sale! Back zits for sale! Yes, you can purchase the rights to name one of my back pimples! Give it as a birthday gift! Buy one for your Valentine! Name one after your clear-skinned and beautiful teenage daughter to remind her how lucky she is!

    The skin doctor tells me I have six months to live. I’m exaggerating. I don’t have a skin doctor and you can’t actually die of zits. But you can die of shame. And, trust me, my zit-shame is killing me.

    I’m dying from about ninety-nine kinds of shame.

    I’m ashamed of being fifteen years old. And being tall. And skinny. And ugly.

    I’m ashamed that I look like a bag of zits tied to a broomstick.

    I wonder if loneliness causes acne. I wonder if being Indian causes acne.

    My father was an Indian. From this or that tribe. From this or that reservation. I never knew him, but I have a photograph of his acne-blasted face. I’ve inherited his ruined complexion and black hair and big Indian nose.

    My father was a drunk, too, more in love with beer and vodka than with my mother and me.

    He vanished like a cruel magician about two minutes after I was born.

    My mother died of breast cancer when I was six. I remember a few things about her. Her voice, her red hair, and the way she raised one eyebrow when she laughed. I sometimes wish she’d died when I was younger so I wouldn’t remember her at all.

    I remember her green eyes.

    She was a white woman. Irish, I guess. I have a photograph of her, too, and she is gorgeous. My eyes are green, like hers, but I’m not pretty. I wish I looked more like her.

    Yes, I am Irish and Indian, which would be the coolest blend in the world if my parents were around to teach me how to be Irish and Indian. But they’re not here and haven’t been for years, so I’m not really Irish or Indian. I’m a blank sky, a human solar eclipse.

    A social worker, a woman who wore blue eyeglasses with a green stripe and perfect black pants, once told me that I had never developed a sense of citizenship.

    It’s all in the small ceremonies, she said. For instance, do you know how to knot a necktie?

    No, I said.

    Do you know how to shine a pair of shoes?

    No, I said.

    When you walk around this city, how many men do you see wearing neckties and shiny shoes?

    A lot, I guess.

    Hundreds of men, right?

    Probably.

    Thousands in Seattle, thousands in other cities, hundreds of thousands in the country.

    So what?

    So what do you think it means for you?

    She stared at me with sympathy. I hate sympathy.

    This is bullshit, I said.

    What is bullshit? she said.

    I laughed at her. I hate it when social workers curse to prove how connected they are to youth and street culture.

    You’re a fucking dreamer, I said to her. What do you think this is, the nineteen-fifties or something? Do you really think I’d become some kind of asshole citizen if I wore a tie and shiny shoes?

    It would help, she said.

    Whatever.

    She leaned close to me. She smelled like cigarettes and cinnamon gum.

    Here’s the thing, she said. You’ve never learned how to be a fully realized human being.

    Jesus, what kind of overeducated bitch says that to a kid?

    She made me sound like I was raised by wolves when, in fact, I haven’t been raised by anybody.

    No, that’s not true.

    I’ve been partially raised by too many people.

    I’ve lived in twenty different foster homes and attended twenty-two different schools. I own only two pairs of pants and three shirts and four pairs of underwear and one baseball hat and three pairs of socks and three paperback novels (Grapes of Wrath, Winter in the Blood, and The Dead Zone) and the photographs of my mother and father.

    My entire life fits into one small backpack.

    I don’t know any other Native Americans, except the homeless Indians who wander around downtown Seattle. I like to run away from my foster homes and get drunk with those street Indians. Yeah, I’m a drunk, just like my father. I’m a good drunk, too. Gifted, you might say. I can outdrink any of those homeless Indians and remain on my feet and still tell my stories. Those street Indians enjoy my company. I’m good at begging. I make good coin and buy whiskey and beer for all of us to drink.

    Of course, those wandering Indians are not the only Indians in the world, but they’re the only ones who pay attention to me.

    The rich and educated Indians don’t give a shit about me. They pretend I don’t exist. They say, The drunken Indian is just a racist cartoon. They say, The lonely Indian is just a ghost in a ghost story.

    I wish I could learn how to hate those rich Indians. I wish I could ignore them. But I want them to pay attention to me. I want everybody to pay attention to me.

    So I shoplift candy and food and magazines and cigarettes and books and CDs and anything that can fit in my pockets. The police always catch me and put me in juvenile jail.

    I get into arguments and fistfights with everybody.

    I get so angry that I go blind and deaf and mute.

    I like to start fires. And I’m ashamed that I’m a fire starter.

    I’m ashamed of everything, and I’m ashamed of being ashamed.

    This morning, as I count my zits in the mirror, I’m ashamed that I can’t remember the names of my new foster mother and father.

    I’ve only been living here in this strange house, with its strange pink bathroom, for two days.

    I can’t remember the names of my new foster parents’ two real kids, either, or the names of the other five foster kids.

    When it comes to foster parents, there are only two kinds: the good but messy people who are trying to help kids or the absolute welfare vultures who like to cash government checks every month.

    It’s easy to tell what kind of people my latest foster parents are. Their real kids have new shoes; the foster kids are wearing crap shoes.

    But who cares, right? It’s not like I’m going to be here much longer. I’m never in any one place long enough to care.

    There’s this law called the Indian Child Welfare Act that’s supposed to protect half-breed orphans like me. I’m only supposed to be placed with Indian foster parents and families. But I’m not an official Indian. My Indian daddy gave me his looks, but he was never legally established as my father.

    Since I’m not a legal Indian, the government can put me wherever they want. So they put me with anybody who will take me. Mostly they’re white people. I suppose that makes sense. I am half white. And it’s not like any of this makes any difference. I’ve had two Indian foster fathers, and they were bigger jerks than any of my eighteen white foster fathers.

    Of course, I assumed those Indian men would automatically be better fathers to me than any white guy, but I was wrong.

    I had

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