Reservation Rape Culture
A culture of rape is presented as prevalent throughout the reservation. The author’s mother was a child of rape, making his children the great-grandchildren of rape. And that is just one story out of many. Scientific imagery is used to put this culture into perspective:
“If some evil scientist had wanted to create a place where rape would become a primary element of a culture, then he would have built something very much like an Indian reservation. That scientist would have put sociopathic and capitalistic politicians, priests, and soldiers in absolute control of a dispossessed people—And then, after decades of horrific physical, emotional, spiritual, and sexual torture, that scientist would have removed those torturing politicians, priests, and soldiers, and watched as an epically wounded people tried to rebuild their dignity.”
Bird Therapy
The author shares an interest of his therapist which turns out to be insight into the psychology of dealing with human trauma. What is physical to the animal world is often emotional of mental distress among humans, but it is the reaction to the pain which binds the species together:
“I love birds. And when they hit a window like that, or get hurt in any significant way, they have this ritual. They shake off the pain. They shake off the trauma. And they walk in circles to reconnect their brain and body and soul…walking and shaking, it was remembering and relearning how to be a bird.”
“Junior High Honky”
Even Alexie terms the insult tossed his way by girls in middle school such an embarrassment on their part that merely repeating it feels like an insult to him all over ago. Despite the fact that “junior high honky” lowers the creative bar for insults about as far down as it go, however, the fact is all those years later he still remembers it vividly:
“That’s a stupid insult, right? Inane. It hardly seems like it would be damaging. But, like water falling drop by drop onto your face for hours and days and weeks, that tiny insult slowly came to have enormous power over me.”
Brain Surgery
Alexie talks quite openly and honestly his neurological difficulties requiring brain surgery. The imagery with which he describes the operative conditioning of his brain following surgery is striking and a little terrifying:
“After neurosurgery, I have learned that my brain is a boardinghouse where my waking consciousness rents one room with a hot plate and a black-and-white TV while the rest of the rooms are occupied by a random assortment of banshees, ghosts, mimes wearing eagle feathers, and approximately twelve thousand strangers who look exactly like me.”
