This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona

Thomas Builds-the-Fire is a primary, rounded character whose presence facilitates and illuminates Victor’s identity crisis. Alexie characterizes him primarily via Victor’s thoughts about and memories of him, though Thomas’s own actions and stories also indirectly contribute.

While Thomas embodies many traditional characteristics of Indigenous American culture, Victor describes him as eccentric and paints him as an outcast on the reservation (suggesting Victor is not alone in his ambivalence toward his cultural identity). Thomas is first and foremost a storyteller: He takes storytelling very seriously and says at one point that storytelling is all he can do. Thomas is also highly intuitive and perhaps able to predict the future. For example, Victor recalls Thomas saying his father “had a weak heart” and wanted to “run and hide” (319-20), which Victor takes to mean that Thomas knew his father would leave the reservation.

In both his acceptance of Indigenous identity and general temperament, Thomas is a foil to Victor. Thomas, for example, engages in genial conversation with Cathy, while Victor shows insecurity. The men’s interactions with one another are also instructive, with Victor’s rejection of and disgust with Thomas highlighting Victor’s rebellion against his culture. Despite this one-sided antagonism, Thomas fills the role of sidekick or sage rather than villain. Thomas takes Victor’s rejection in stride and forgives him each time that Victor fails him, showing support for his one-time friend and understanding of his struggle. Like Victor, Thomas has also grown up lonely: His father died in World War II and his mother in childbirth, leaving him without siblings. In this sense, he shares Victor’s struggle to make sense of his identity.

Victor’s father is a minor character who remains unnamed throughout the story and whose death motives Victor’s journey. As Victor’s father has died by the time the narrative begins, his characterization is indirect and fragmented, making him an ambiguous figure. The reader learns early on that Victor’s father left the reservation and his family and made little effort to keep in touch. While these details might suggest a man who was irresponsible or uncaring, a story that Thomas tells about Victor’s father offers a different perspective. Finding Thomas alone at Spokane Falls waiting for a vision, Victor’s father shows concern and kindness: He warns Thomas that he could get mugged and takes him to Denny’s before driving him home. His actions lead Thomas to conclude that the message he was meant to take away from the episode was to “take care of each other” (324), just as Victor’s father cared for him. Thomas admits that this interaction was the reason he decided to help Victor retrieve his father’s ashes.

Personal traits aside, Victor’s father also has a symbolic role as a representative of familial cultural inheritance. His absence from Victor’s life mirrors and perhaps exacerbates Victor’s alienation from his culture. That Victor’s father left the reservation may indicate that he himself grappled with his Spokane identity, making Victor’s identity crisis something that is itself inherited generationally. Victor’s desire to bring his father’s ashes home reflects his desire to reclaim his own cultural identity, but it also offers a symbolic resolution to his father’s implied struggles.

Cathy is a gymnast and minor character who illuminates the relationship Indigenous Americans have with white America. Victor and Thomas sit next to Cathy on their flight to Phoenix, watching as she “twist[s] her body into pretzels” (322). Cathy’s contortions symbolize the cultural tension between Indigenous Americans and the rest of American society. Undeterred, Thomas strikes up a conversation with her, remarking on her flexibility. Thomas, by contrast, feels embarrassed that Thomas might be flirting with her. Similarly, when Cathy asks the men if they are “Indians,” Victor responds, “Full-blood,” whereas Thomas claims he is “half magician on [his] mother’s side and half clown on [his] father’s” (322-23). Their replies to Cathy’s question show their very different feelings about who they are: Victor’s identity consumes him, whereas Thomas’s comfort with himself prompts him to define himself as more than Indigenous and even to make light of the question. A later joke, however, hits too close to home: When Thomas quips that the 1980 Olympic team has a lot in common with Indigenous Americans—namely, being “screwed over” by the US government—the joke falls flat and makes everyone uncomfortable. When the plane lands and Cathy bids them farewell, Thomas remarks that she was nice. Victor rebukes him, saying, “[E]verybody talks to everybody on planes” (323).