What You Pawn I Will Redeem

“I didn’t set any land-speed records running out the door. Piece by piece, I disappeared. I’ve been disappearing ever since.” 

Jackson’s description of “disappearing” is on the face of it a reference to the way he has left past relationships: “slowly and carefully” (Part I, Paragraph 2). However, the idea of disappearance also has important thematic implications for the story, which is in many ways about the vanishing of Native American peoples and cultures through disease, war, and forced relocation. Alexie suggests that this process of erasure continues into the present day, taking the form of trends like poverty and homelessness, which marginalize and endanger Native American populations. Jackson also participates in his own disappearance in certain ways—most notably, through self-destructive drinking.

“If you put Junior and me next to each other, he’s the Before Columbus Arrived Indian and I’m the After Columbus Arrived Indian. I am living proof of the horrible damage that colonialism has done to us Skins.”

The above passage is a good example of how black humor functions in the story. In comparing himself to Junior, Jackson references the “horrible damage” of colonialism in a way that almost seems to trivialize it; he is after all only talking about physical appearance. Ultimately, however, the story suggests that this kind of humor, far from being flippant, plays an important role in salvaging something from a history of suffering and oppression. Meanwhile, Jackson’s reliance on stock characters (the “Before Columbus Arrived Indian”) serves as a reminder of the problem of stereotyping, which constitutes another form of indigenous erasure; it’s difficult even for Jackson himself to avoid disappearing into a caricature of a Native American man.