War Dances by Sherman Alexie

man.
    “But it’s not that easy,” my father said. “If you turn yourself in to the police, I will also pay for your sins. And I know I should pay for your sins because I am your father, and I have obviously failed to raise you well. But I will also pay for your sins as a U.S. senator, so our state and country will also pay for them. A scandal like this will ruin my career. It will ruin our party. And it will ruin our country. And though I know I will be judged harshly by God, I can’t let you tell the truth.”
    My father wanted me to lie. No, he was forcing me to lie.
    “William, Willy,” he said. “If we begin to suspect that you might be implicated in this, we’re going to go on the offensive. We’re going to kill their reputations.”
    If it is true that children pay for the sins of their fathers, is it also true that fathers pay for the sins of their children?
    Three days later, I returned to my condominium in downtown Seattle and found a message waiting on my voice mail.
    “Hey, William, it’s—um, me, Jeremy. You really need to call me.”
    And so I called Jeremy and agreed to meet him at his house in Magnolia, an upper-class neighborhood of Seattle. It was a small but lovely house, painted blue and chocolate.
    I rang the doorbell. Jeremy answered. His face and nose were swollen purple, yellow, and black; his eyes were bloodshot and tear-filled.
    “It was you,” I said, suddenly caught in an inferno of shame.
    “Of course it was me. Get your ass in here.”
    Inside, we sat in his study, a modernist room decorated with beautiful and useless furniture. What good is a filing cabinet that can only hold an inch of paperwork?
    “I’m so sorry, Jeremy,” I said. “I didn’t know it was you.”
    “Oh, so I’m supposed to be happy about that? Things would be okay if you’d beaten the shit out of a fag you didn’t know?”
    “That’s not what I meant.”
    “Okay, then, what did you mean?”
    “I was wrong to do what I did. Completely wrong.”
    “Yes, you were,” he said.
    He was smiling. I recognized that smile. Jeremy was giving me shit. Was he going to torture me before he killed me?
    “Why didn’t you tell the police it was me?” I asked.
    “Because the police don’t give a shit about fags.”
    “But we assaulted you. We could have killed you.”
    “Doubtful. James had already kicked the crap out of your friends. And he would have kicked the crap out of you and the guy with the tire iron. Let’s just call it a split decision.”
    “You didn’t tell James it was me, did you?”
    “No, of course not. I told the police a completely different story than James did. And I was the one with the broken face, so they believed me.”
    “But what about James? What’s he going to do?”
    “Oh, who cares? I barely knew him.”
    “But it was a hate crime.”
    “Aren’t all crimes, by definition, hate crimes? I mean, people don’t rob banks because they love tellers.”
    “I don’t understand you. Why haven’t you gone public with this? You could destroy my father. And me.”
    Jeremy sighed.
    “Oh, William,” he said. “You’re still such an adolescent. And so romantic. I haven’t turned you in because I’m a Republican, a good one, and I think your father is the finest senator we’ve ever had. I used to think he was a closet Democrat. But he’s become something special. This kind of shit would completely fuck his chance at the presidency.”
    Jesus, was this guy more a son to my father than I was?
    “And, okay, maybe I’m a romantic, too,” Jeremy said. “I didn’t turn you in because we were best friends and because I still consider you my best friend.”
    “But my father hates gay people.”
    “It’s more complicated than that.”
    And so Jeremy explained to me that his sexual preference had nothing to do with his political beliefs.
    “Hey,” he said. “I don’t expect to be judged negatively for my fuck buddies. But I don’t want to be judged positively, either.