Summary
Analysis
An unnamed narrator describes the events of The First Annual All-Indian Horseshoe pitch and barbecue. Somebody has forgotten the charcoal; Victor brings a secondhand piano and plays Bartok; the narrator and his “love” hold each other beneath a picnic table. “There is something beautiful,” he says, “about an ordinary carnival.” One man, Simon, wins the horseshoe pitch, the storytelling contest, and the one-on-one basketball tournament. He suggests that basketball should become the tribe’s “new religion.” All across the carnival, dreams, the narrator says, “crackle like campfire, put on a good jacket that smells of fry bread, [and] stay up late and talk stories.”
Continuing in the vein of “A Good Story,” this short narrative describes a “beautiful” and “ordinary” day at a carnival, a celebration of community, culture, and love. Symbolism is rife throughout the story—there is a basketball game, everywhere there is the comforting smell of fry bread, and dreams are personified, given weight and value.