The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Like he’s been doing for years, he imagines the headline on the Glacier Reporter back home: FORMER BASKETBALL STAR CAN’T EVEN HANG GRADUATION BLANKET IN OWN HOME. Or maybe the reward for lucking through all that-meth too, he guesses-is having been married ten years now to Peta, who doesn’t have to put up with motorcycle parts soaking in the sink, with the drips of Wolf-brand chili he always leaves between the coffee table and the couch, with the tribal junk he always tries to sneak up onto the walls of their next house. And he gets the rest of the trophies for having avoided all the car crashes and jail time and alcoholism on his cultural dance card. Really, Lewis imagines, he deserves some big Indian award for having made it to thirty-six without pulling into the drive-through for a burger and fries, easing away with diabetes and high blood pressure and leukemia. Not that Harley’s young enough to be trained anymore, but not like Lewis is, either. Unhooking his collar now would be the dog training him, instead of the other way around. He’ll give it up soon enough, Lewis knows.

Outside, Harley, Lewis’s malamutant, is barking steady and pitiful from being tied to the laundry line, but the barks are already getting hoarse. But-more important-it’s a mystery he’s going to solve as a surprise for Peta, and in the time it takes her to drive down to the grocery store and back for dinner.

And don’t even get him started on all the possibilities between the garage door and the freezer and the floodlights aimed down at the driveway. Maybe in relation to some arcane and unlikely combination of light switches in the house, or maybe from the iron being plugged into a kitchen socket while the clock upstairs isn’t-or is?-plugged in. So far it only comes on with its thready glow at completely random times. Lewis is standing in the vaulted living room of his and Peta’s new rent house, staring straight up at the spotlight over the mantel, daring it to flicker on now that he’s looking at it.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones