Desperation (Metaphor)
As Corliss walked and “marveled at the architecture”, “at the depth and breadth and width of the city,” she saw “a homeless man begging for change outside a McDonald’s.” He was “dirty” and had wrapped “an old blanket around his shoulders for warmth.” This “handsome homeless man” was “still fighting his monsters,” and “maybe he’d win someday.” He smelled like “five gallons of cheap wine” and “hard times,” it was as clear as day that his life was not perfect at all. Any other girl would have walked away, but Corliss knew she had to talk to him! She loved tragic characters, and this poor man was definitely was a tragic character.
Self identity problems (Metaphor)
“I’m not really a Spokane Indian,” Harlan said. Corliss was both happy and terribly disappointed. She had suspected that he was “a fraud” from the very beginning! He could be “a white man with a good tan!” However, the reality was quite different. “Biologically,” he was “a Spokane Indian,” but he wasn’t raised Spokane. Harlan was “adopted out” and “raised by a white family” in Seattle. He was “a lost bird.” He started writing poems “to feel like” he “belonged,” “to feel more Indian.” The man just started imagining what it felt like to grow up “on the reservation.”
Dare to have Baby X (Metaphor)
Young Native American parents didn’t even name their little baby. They were Indians and didn’t want to harbor too much hope. The terrible thing about hope was that it “eats your flesh like a spider bite.” But they loved their nameless baby – baby X – immensely and took turns sitting beside his bed in the hospital and “singing to him.” The nurses were so kind that they even let them bring in their “hand drums,” so that they could sing their “pow wow song” to the baby.
The same (Simile)
His father was “an African American” and his mother was “a petite Spokane Indian ballerina.” During the college, he interned for Gary Locke, “the first Chinese American governor in United States history.” For now, the protagonist is Locke’s executive liaison to “Washington State’s twenty-nine Indian tribes, which are growing in political power due to casino revenues.” Though he likes his job, the man himself is a little bit tired, for it is a rather difficult task to get Indians to trust a politician. He hates to say it, but Native American politicians are “as corrupt and self-serving as any white D. or R.”
