Ten Little Indians Read Online Free Page A

poems, Mom, not crack.”
    “I know you love them, honey, but how are you going to get a job with poems? You go to a job interview, and they ask you what you did in college, and you say ‘poems,’ then what are your chances?”
    “Maybe I’ll work in a poem factory.”
    “Don’t get smart.”
    “I can’t help it. I am smart.”
    Corliss knew she was smart because her mother was smart, but she also knew she’d inherited a little bit of her mother’s crazies as well. Why else would she be calling to talk about a vanished Indian poet? The crazy mother–crazy daughter telephone ceremony!
    “So did you call to break my heart,” her mother said, “or do you have some other reason?”
    “I called about this book of poems.”
    “Okay, so tell me about your book of poems.”
    “It’s written by this guy called Harlan Atwater. It says he’s a Spokane. Do you know him?”
    Her mother was the unofficial historian of the urban Spokane Indians. Corliss figured “historian” and “pathological liar” meant the same thing in all cultures and countries.
    “Harlan Atwater? Harlan Atwater?” her mother repeated the name and tried to place it. “Nope. Don’t know him. Don’t know any Spokanes named Atwater.”
    “His book was published in 1972. It’s called In the Reservation of My Mind. Do you remember that?”
    “I don’t read books much.”
    “Yes, I know, Mom. But you’re aware there are inventions called books and inside some of those books they have things called poems.”
    “I know what books are, smart-ass daughter.”
    “Okay, then, have you heard of this book?”
    “No.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes, I’m sure.”
    “I thought you knew every Spokane.”
    “I guess I don’t. Have you looked him up on the Internet?”
    “How do you know about the Internet?”
    “I’m old, Corliss, I’m not stupid.”
    “Oh, jeez, Mom, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be such a jerk. It’s just, this book, is pretty cool. It’s getting me all riled up.”
    “It’s okay. You’re always riled up. I love that about you.”
    “I love you, too, Mom. I got to go.”
    “Okay, bye-bye.”
    Corliss hung up the telephone, grabbed her backpack and coat, and hurried to the campus computer lab. She was too poor to afford her own computer and was ashamed of her poverty. Corliss talked her way past the work-study student who’d said the computers were all reserved by other poor students. She sat at a Mac and logged on. Her user name was “CrazyIndian,” and her password was “StillCrazy.” She typed “Harlan Atwater, Native American poet, Spokane Indian” into the search engine and found nothing. She didn’t find him with any variations of the search, either. She couldn’t find his book on Amazon.com, Alibris.com, or Powells.com. She couldn’t find any evidence that Harlan Atwater’s book had ever existed. She couldn’t find the press that had published his book. She couldn’t find any reviews or mention of the book. She sent e-mails to two dozen different Indian writers, including Simon Ortiz, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Adrian C. Louis, and those who responded said they’d never heard of Harlan Atwater. She paged through old government records. Maybe he’d been a criminal and had gone to prison. Maybe he’d been married and divorced. Maybe he’d died in a spectacular car wreck. But she couldn’t find any mention of him. The library didn’t have any record of where or when the book had been purchased. The Spokane Tribal Enrollment Office didn’t have any records of his existence. According to the enrollment secretary, who also happened to be Corliss’s second cousin, there’d never been an enrolled Spokane Indian named Atwater. Corliss was stumped and suspicious. Every moment of an Indian’s life is put down in triplicate on government forms, collated, and filed. Indians are given their social security numbers before the OB/GYN sucks the snot and blood out of their throats. How could