WALKING DOWN THE BURKE-GILMAN Trail, Arthur Two Leaf thought about the evening chemistry class he’d just left. He was a carbon-based life-form. The chemistry professor, Dr. McMinn, was a carbon-based life-form. The plants on either side of the trail were carbon-based life-forms.
“We are all made of essentially the same DNA, the same genetic material,” Dr. McMinn had said. “In fact, women and men share about ninety-nine percent of the same genetic material.” She’d then looked at Arthur, who had a wild crush on the white professor. “And people of different races, such as Native Americans and European-Americans, also share about ninety-nine percent.”
That might be true, Arthur had thought, but that one percent makes all the difference.
He was still thinking of Dr. McMinn’s blue eyes, and speculating about her genetics, when three masked men stepped from the brush beside the trail. One man, wearing a white mask, was holding a baseball bat.
“Hey, prairie nigger,” said white mask. “What the fuck you doing on our trail?”
Arthur suddenly understood the flight instinct. And he also understood how a deer could stare into the headlights of an approaching car and be unable to move.
“I don’t want any trouble,” said Arthur.
“You don’t want any trouble?” asked white mask.
“No,” said Arthur, his voice breaking.
“Oh, now, listen to him squeal,” said white mask.
“Yeah, like a pig,” said blue mask.
Purple mask was silent.
“Are you an Indian pig?” asked white mask.
“Whatever you say, man,” said Arthur.
“Whatever I say?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Well, Indian pig, I say this,” said white mask as he punched the bat into Arthur’s belly. Dazed, Arthur staggered and fell to the ground. As he fell, he could see the baseball bat in white mask’s hands. Expecting a beating, Arthur reflexively curled into a fetal ball to protect himself. He wondered if he was going to die.