Greyhounding to Billings, Montana

by

Maurice Kenny

---

For Shirley Sneeve Gunderson   .   .   .   who knows

"Hey! you Indian?"
I nodded.
"Hey you! You Indian?"
His cowboy hat fell onto the beercan
in his lap as he turned to his seat-companion
reading a Superman comic.
"I rode from Chi-ca-go to Minn'apolis
with these two dudes. I thought
they were greasers."
He topped his head again with the hat
and sipped his beer.
"They were reeeeal live Apaaaacheees."
I stood waiting to get into the bus bathroom.
"Hey! I asked you if you was Indian!"
Mohawk.
"From back there East?"
He sipped his beer again.
"Man, it's good sittin' next a normal person,"
and he slouched in the seat.
I agreed,
closing the bathroom door,
and turned on the bright light.

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© 1988 Maurice Kenny
From Humors and/or Not So Humorous and reprinted in On Second Thought, University of Oklahoma Press.

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