The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1
In this first chapter, the narrator, Junior, introduces himself. He was born with "water on the brain", and when he was six months old had to undergo surgery which he was not supposed to survive. Obviously, Junior did survive the surgery, but he has a variety of physical problems resulting from brain damage sustained during the operation.
One of Junior's anomalies is that he ended up having forty-two teeth. He had to have the extra ones pulled out by the Indian Health Service dentist, but since the Health Service funded major dental work only once yearly, he had to have all ten pulled at once, with only half the usual amount of Novocain, because the white dentist believed Indians "only felt half as much pain as white people". Junior also has to wear "ugly, thick, black plastic" eyeglasses, and is extremely skinny, with huge hands and feet. His skull is enormous, and he is prone to seizures.
In addition to the above-named handicaps, Junior also has a stutter and a lisp, which make him the object of much teasing by his peers. At fourteen years old, he has been branded "a retard", and to avoid being beaten up regularly, he spends a lot of time alone in his room reading books and drawing cartoons.
Junior is a good cartoonist, who likes to draw because "words are too unpredictable...but...when you draw a picture, everybody can understand it". He also draws because he would like to become rich and famous, and he sees the arts as the onlyavenue by whichsomeone like him might someday escape the reservation.
Chapter 2
Junior knows that his cartoons "will never take the place of food or money". Hewishes he were magical and could make the things he draws - like "a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or a fist full of twenty dollar bills" - real, but he knows he cannot. Junior dislikes being poor, because oftentimes he and his family must go hungry, but lack of food is not the worst thing about poverty.
The worst thing about poverty is not being able to help those you love. Last week, Junior's "best friend" Oscar got really sick. Oscar was "only an adopted stray mutt", but he was more precious to Junior than any person in his life. He told his mother that Oscar needed to see the vet, but his Mom regretfully told him there was no money for Oscar. Junior begged his Mom, offering to get a job and pay the doctor back, but then realized that there were no jobs that a reservation Indian boy could get. There was nothing he could do to save Oscar.
When Junior's Dad came home, he took his rifle from the closet and told Junior to carry Oscar outside. Junior was furious, but then noticed that his Dad was crying. Junior could not blame his parents for the family's poverty. They too once had dreams, but "they never got the chance to be anything because nobody paid attention to their dreams". Realizing that he was helplessly trapped in the cycle of poverty, Junior gently picked up Oscar and took him outside. He ran away as fast as he could so as not to hear the sound of the shot, butcould notescape the "boom of (his) father's rifle when he shot (his) best friend". Bitterly, Junior reflects that a bullet "only costs...two cents...anybody can afford that".
Chapter 3
Rowdy, "the toughest kid on the rez", is Junior's "best human friend". Although he "fights everybody",he cares about Junior and always tells him the truth.Rowdy's father is a hard drinker and is always punching Rowdy and his mother. Although Junior's parents are drunks too, they are not violent, and, since Junior's house is a comparatively "safe place", Rowdy spends most of his time there.
On this particular day, Rowdy wants to go to the powwow. Junior likes the dancers and singers at the powwow, but he does not like the Indians who attend and get drunk and get into fights.Junior is also afraid someone he knows will recognize him and pick on him, but Rowdy, promising to stick up for him, convinces him to go. At the powwow, Rowdy trips and bumps into a window, and when Junior laughs, Rowdy goes intoone of his infamousrages. Junior runs, but is accosted by the Andruss brothers, who, at age thirty, are "the cruelest triplets in the history of the world". The brothers make fun of Junior and beat him up, and when Rowdy finds out, he resolves to seek revenge for his friend. When the Andruss boys fall asleep in their camp, Rowdy sneaks in, shaves their eyebrows, and cuts off their braids, which is "about the worst thing you can do to an Indian guy".
Rowdy loves comic books, and Junior's cartoons make him laugh. Rowdy is a dreamer, just like Junior, and he only talks about his dreams with his friend. Junior thinks Rowdy may be the most important person in his life.
Chapter 4
Junior is fourteen, and is happy about starting high school. He is especially anxious to take his first geometry class. Unlike his sister, Mary Runs Away, Junior is excited about school and life in general. When Mary finished high school she "didn't go to college...didn't get a job...didn't do anything". Although she is "beautiful and strong and funny", she spends her days alone in the basement.
Mr. P, Junior's geometry teacher, is "a weird-looking dude". The tribe houses all the teachers at the reservation school in cottages on-site, and sometimes Mr. P forgets to come to school, and, when summoned, ends up teaching in his pajamas. Junior has had some strange teachers before, but Mr. P isn't like them. He is "just sleepy". Junior thinks Mr. P "is a lonely old man who used to be a lonely young man", who, like many lonely white people "love to hang around lonelier Indians".
When Mr. P passes out the geometry books, Junior is ecstatic. He cracks it open with great anticipation, and is stunned to read inside the front cover, "This book belongs to Agnes Adams". Agnes Adams is Junior's mother, and Junior is horrified when he realizes that the books are "at least thirty years older than (he) (is)". The awareness that he is not important enough to merit anything better than that "old, old, old...geometry book" hits Junior's heart"with the force of a nuclear bomb", and his"hopes and dreams (float) up in a mushroom cloud".
Chapter 5
Junior is suspended when, in a rage at realizing his geometry book is over thirty years older than he is, he throws the book and hits his teacher in the face. While he is serving his suspension, Mr. P comes to visit him at home. The teacher tells Junior that hitting him with the book is "probably the worst thing (he's) ever done", but then confesses that, as part of the white race, he himself has been greatly unjust to Junior and his people. Mr. P says that he "hurt a lot of Indian kids when (he) was a young teacher", having been instructed that the best way to deal with his Native American students was to "make (them) give up being Indian". He reveals to Junior that Junior's sister Mary, who spends her days watching television in the basement, was "the smartest kid (he) ever had". Mary had wanted to be a writer, but never found the courage or confidence to pursue her dreams.
Mr. P tells Junior that he, like his sister, is "a bright and shining star...the smartest kid in the school". He says that Junior deserves better than what Indians on the reservation are allowed, and that the only way he will find a better life is if he leaves the reservation. Mr. P tells Junior that the only thing reservation kids are being taught is "to give up"; his friend Rowdy has already given up, and that's why he's so mean. Junior, however, still has hope in his heart,and the only way for him to keep that hope is to "go somewhere where other people have hope".
Chapter 6
Junior thinks about his life and what Mr. P has told him. When his parents come home, he asks them, "Who has the most hope?" Both of his parents, without hesitation, answer that "white people" have the most hope. Junior then tells them that he wants to transfer schools.
Junior does not want to go to Hunters, a school on the west end of the reservation "filled with poor Indians and poorer white kids", nor does he want to attend Springdale, a school on the reservation border "filled with the poorest Indians and poorer-than-poorest white kids". He has set his sights on Reardan, which is located in a rich, white farm town twenty-two miles away. Reardan is "a hick town...filled with farmers and rednecks and racist cops who stop every Indian that drives through", but it also has one of the state's best small schools, with a computer room, big chemistry lab, a drama club, and two basketball courts.
Junior can't believe it when he hears himself saying he wants to go to Reardan. His parents, however, quickly agree to his plans. Junior realizes that his parents really do love him and his sister, and want to help them, and that, though his parents are drunks, "they don't want their kids to be drunks".
It will be hard for Junior to attend Reardan. There is no transportation, and the other Indians will be angry that Junior is leaving. Junior knows, though, that if he doesn't do this now, he never will.
Chapter 7
Junior tells Rowdy about his plans to go to Reardan. He knows that Rowdy might get angry, but Rowdy "was (his) best friend and (Junior) wanted him to know the truth". He tells Rowdy that he is leaving the rez, and that he wants Rowdy to go with him. Rowdy at first does not take Junior seriously.
When Junior thinks about Reardan, he has a picture in his mind of the school against which his own school played flag football, basketball, and baseball last year, and lost embarrassingly every time. The only student from his own school who had any success at all in any of those games was Rowdy. Junior remembers that even in the Academic Bowl competitionin which the schools engaged the year before, his own school lost by "a grand total of 50-1". When Junior thinks about the kids from Reardan, he thinks of kids who are "beautiful and smart and epic...filled with hope".
Rowdy "absolutely hate(s)" the idea of Junior going to Reardan. He becomes violently angry, and when Junior reaches out to him, Rowdy starts crying. When Rowdy realizing that he is crying, he begins to scream, making a sound that is "the worst thing (Junior'd) ever heard...it was pain, pure pain". Junior tells Rowdy that he has to go, or he will die, and that Rowdy can go with him, but Rowdy, overcome by rage, punches his best friend in the face.
Chapter 8
Dad drives Junior the twenty-two miles to Reardan on his first day. He tells his son to just remember, that "those white people aren't better than (him)". Junior does not believe him, but he does gain strength from his father's obvious love for him. Dad tells Junior that he is "brave...a warrior". It is "the best thing he could have said".
There is no one at school yet when Junior gets there. When they white kids finally do begin to arrive, they just stare at him. Ironically, Reardan's mascot is an Indian, which makes Junior "the only Indian in town".
Junior is assigned to Mr. Grant's homeroom. Mr. Grant is "a muscular guy...a football coach". A blond girl asks Junior his name. Her name is Penelope.
When Mr. Grant calls roll, he calls Junior by his "name name", Arnold Spirit. Penelope is angry that he had told her his name was Junior, so Junior has to explain that "every other Indian calls him Junior", but he is both, Junior and Arnold. He tells her he is from the reservation, and she says he talks funny.
Most of the kids at Reardan ignore Junior, but the big jocks call him lots of names. One day, one of the boys, Roger,tells him a particularly offensive racist joke, and Junior punches him in the face. According to the unspoken rules of peer interaction with which he had grown up on the reservation, Junior had acted correctly, but the white boys are shocked, and walk away, saying Junior is "crazy". Realizing that the rules are different here, Junior is left completely confused.
Chapter 9
Junior goes home "confused...and terrified". If he had punched an Indian in the face, he could expect retaliation, but when he had punched Roger in the face, the white boy just walked away. Now Junior is afraid that Roger is going to kill him. He wishes he could ask Rowdy what to do, but Rowdy hates him for leaving the reservation. Junior talks to his grandmother instead.
Junior's wise grandmother thinks for awhile, and concludes that, bystanding up tothe "giant boy (who) is the alpha male of the school", Junior has earned his respect. Junior loves his grandmother, but thinks her idea is crazy.
The next day, Dad cannot drive Junior to school because there is no money for gas. Fortunately, his Dad's best friend Eugene just happens to be riding to Spokane on his motorcycle that morning, and he gives Junior a lift. When Junior arrives at school, he sees Roger. Certain that he is going to have to fight, Junior is surprised when Roger says, "Hey", and asks who that was who brought him to school. Roger is "actually nice", speaking to Junior with "some respect", and paying respect to Eugene and his bike as well. Junior thinks that maybe his grandmother's analysis of the situation was correct.
Feeling somewhat better about himself, he greets the beautiful Penelope when he gets into class. She at first ignores him, then makes fun of him. Ashamed, Junior realizes that though he "might have impressed the king...the queen still hated (him)".
Chapter 10
Junior remembers that when he was twelve, he fell in love with an Indian girl named Dawn. She was beautiful and the best powwow dancer on the reservation, but she didn't care about him, and was definitely out ofhis league. Junior recognizes that he is the type of guy who always falls in love "with the unreachable, ungettable, and uninterested".
One night, when Rowdy is spending the night at his house, Junior tells his friend about his feelings for Dawn. Rowdy, ever the realist, advises Junior that he is "just being stupid...Dawn doesn't give a shit about (him)". ToJunior's embarrassment, Rowdy's blunt but truthful words make him cry; he has always cried too easily, when he's "happy or sad...(or) angry". Junior thinks he is weak, "the opposite of warrior", and Rowdy unceremoniously tells his friend to stop crying.