Smoke Signals

Grandma Builds-the-Fire:
You saved Thomas. You did a good thing.

Arnold Joseph:
I didn't mean to.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
Hey Victor! I'm sorry 'bout your dad.

Victor Joseph:
How'd you hear about it?

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
I heard it on the wind. I heard it from the birds. I felt it in the sunlight. And your mom was just in here cryin'.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
If we forgive our fathers, what is left?

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
The only thing more pathetic than Indians on TV is Indians watching Indians on TV.

Victor Joseph:
Thomas, you are so full of sh*t.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
Geez, Victor... I guess the warrior look doesn't work every time.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
Sometimes it's a good day to die, and sometimes it's a good day to have breakfast.

Victor Joseph:
You gotta look mean or people won't respect you. White people will run all over you if you don't look mean. You gotta look like a warrior! You gotta look like you just came back from killing a buffalo!

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
But our tribe never hunted buffalo - we were fishermen.

Victor Joseph:
What! You want to look like you just came back from catching a fish? This ain't "Dances With Salmon" you know!

Velma:
Hey Thomas, need a ride?

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
Yeah!

Velma:
What are goin' to trade for it. We're Indians, remember. We barter!

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
A story?

Lucy:
Better be good.

Velma:
You guys got your passports?

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
Passports?

Velma:
Yeah, you're leavin' the rez and goin' into a whole different country, cousin.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
But... but, it's the United States.

Lucy:
Damn right it is! That's as foreign as it gets. Hope you two have your vaccinations.

Randy Peone:
Good morning, this is Randy Peone on KREZ radio, the voice of the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation. And it's time for the morning traffic report on this rainy Bicentennial Fourth of July. Let's go out to Lester Fallsapart in the KREZ traffic van broken down at the crossroads.

Lester Fallsapart:
Big truck just went by... now it's gone.

Randy Peone:
Well, there you go folks. Looks like another busy morning.

Victor Joseph:
Thomas, don't you even know how to be a real Indian? How many times have you seen "Dances with Wolves" anyways? 100... 200 times? Oh jesus Thomas, you have seen it that many times?

Arlene Joseph:
If you leave here don't you ever come back. You hear me?

Victor Joseph:
Dad don't go.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
Your father saved my life

Victor Joseph:
Thomas you don't even know my father. Did you know that my father was the one that set your parent's house on fire? Did you know that my father beat my mother? Did you know that my father beat me too?

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
All I know is that when your father left your mother lost you too.

Victor Joseph:
Thomas I wish that fire had killed you.

Thomas Builds-the-Fire:
Victor LOOK OUT!

Police Chief:
This man apparantly wants to press charges against you. He said and I "you assaulted him and pushed him to the ground".

Victor Joseph:
That's bullshit.

Police Chief:
Mr Joseph there's no need for that type of language. Mr Johnson's daughter Holly says he's, and I quote, "a drunken a**hole". So you two are free to go.

How do we forgive our Fathers?

Maybe in a dream

Do we forgive our Fathers for leaving us too often or forever

when we were little?

Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage

or making us nervous

because there never seemed to be any rage there at all.

Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers?

For Divorcing or not divorcing our Mothers?

And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?

Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning

for shutting doors

for speaking through walls

or never speaking

or never being silent?

Do we forgive our Fathers in our age or in theirs

or their deaths

saying it to them or not saying it?

If we forgive our Fathers what is left?

—last scene from Smoke Signals, from a poem by a Dick Lourie