Blasphemy Read Online Free

Indian man and me. He was singing a tribal song, and though I understood none of the words or rhythms, I can promise you that he was singing a death song.
    And so, for reasons I still cannot explain, I stepped out of the truck and walked toward that Indian man. I walked between the windmill rows and through those bloody circles and that Indian man did the same from the opposite direction, until we stood just ten feet apart. It was only then that I noticed he was carrying a shotgun.
    He kept singing his death song as he raised his weapon and pointed it at me. I remember thinking that he was singing my death song.
    “Please,” I said.
    The Indian man kept singing as he stepped closer to me and pressed the shotgun against my forehead.
    “Please,” I said again.
    He was singing so loudly that it hurt my ears. And as his song reached a crescendo, I closed my eyes, sure that I was about to become my own bloody circle in the snow.
    But then he stopped singing.
    I opened my eyes and watched him lower the shotgun and walk over to a circle and kneel in the bloody snow. He dropped the shotgun into the snow and picked up a carcass so ravaged and mutilated that I cannot even tell you what kind of bird he was holding. He hugged that corpse close to his chest, as if he were holding something of his own, and wept for some long moments.
    I watched him.
    He stopped weeping and held the dead bird toward me. “My tribe built these windmills,” he said.
    “I know,” I said.
    “We started this,” he said.
    “I suppose,” I said.
    “This is just the beginning,” he said.
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “It’s never going to stop,” he said.
    “I guess not,” I said. But I wanted to tell him that it was necessary and predictable. We humans have to kill in order to live. No, every living thing on earth kills in order to survive. But I didn’t say anything. I knew that my opinion might put my life in more danger.
    The Indian studied my face for a while. Then he made some judgment about me. I could see him make his decision. He set down the dead bird, picked up the shotgun, walked close to one of the windmills, and shot it.
    He stepped forward and closely studied the shotgun blast in the windmill, as if he expected the machine to bleed. Then he stepped back and shot the windmill again. He reloaded, shot, reloaded, shot, reloaded, shot, and then stepped back and looked up at the windmill. It was still moving, working, and ready to kill birds. It was impervious.
    After a while, he turned and walked away. I watched him go over the slight rise and disappear. Indians are good at walking away.
    I stood in the cold for a while. I’m not a religious man. I’m not even sure that I believe in God, but I knelt in the snow and prayed.

SCARS
    On Mike’s right forearm, a lightning-shaped scar.
    “Hurrying for a job interview,” he said. “Trying to make my white shirt crisp. Reached across the ironing board for the starch bottle and dragged my arm over the tip of the hot iron.”
    On Mike’s left forearm, a keloid scar that looks like Pac-Man.
    “Got that job,” he said. “Waiting tables at that pancake house on Aurora. First shift. First ten minutes. First time I tried to pour coffee, I spilled some on my arm. At first, the burn was just a mess of red skin and blisters, but then, as it healed, it shrank up, got all thick and ugly, and turned into Pac-Man, if Pac-Man got his face all burned to shit in a pizza oven.”
    On Mike’s forehead, a white scar running from temple to temple like the horizon.
    “Only worked that job long enough to buy me a snowboard,” he said. “Hitchhiked to Stevens Pass. Hitchhiked up a mountain. How crazy is that? Anyway, my first run, I plow into this old dude. And we tumble and slide down the hill together and somehow his ski slices my forehead. Took seventy-five stitches to sew it up. Old dude broke his leg, but wasn’t too freaked about it. Said it was just the way skiing goes sometimes. Cool old