Scales by Louise Erdrich, 1982
The magic trick:
A literary metaphor everywhere you turn
As we continue this week to look at some old gems from Louise Erdrich, I will offer that this one – a “Scales” – is my favorite of the bunch.
“Scales” isn’t shy about showing off its themes. In it, our hero is the criminal with a clean conscience. He respects justice not laws. So obviously, we have that equation to weigh. Our characters here are constantly trying to measure what matters even as they wonder if society worries about measuring how much they matter. Our narrator works a giant scale all day, measuring commercial truck loads. Mind you, I should also repeat that the story is called “Scales.”
Subtle, it is not. But who asked for subtle?
And that’s quite a trick on Erdrich’s part.
The selection:
Gerry’s problem, you see, was he believed in justice, not laws. He felt he had paid for his crime, which was done in a drunk heat and to settle the question with a cowboy of whether a Chippewa was also a n—-. Gerry said that the two had never settled it between them, but that the cowboy at least knew that if a Chippewa was a n—- he was sure also a hell of a mean and low-down fighter. For Gerry did not believe in fighting by any rules but reservation rules, which is to say the first thing Gerry did to the cowboy, after they squared off, was kick his balls.
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