"Smoke Signals" Dialogue

The lives of Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire were marked since they’re infants for the fire that took Thomas’ parents lives.  Victor always thought his dad had saved Thomas from the fire leaving him behind and, that if it wouldn’t have been for his mother who saved him he would have died burn.  This thought planted the seed of envy in Victor for Thomas as he couldn’t understand what was so special about Thomas for his dad to risk his life to save him.  As they grew older, and after Arnold had left the reservation, Thomas developed a great devotion for the man who had saved his live as a baby; perhaps, this was also something that Victor envied Thomas for.  Victor envied the idolized image that Thomas had of Arnold, since all Victor could see were his dad’s defects and mistakes, and not the great man of Thomas’ stories, which by the way were mostly made up by him.  It’s normal for children and adults to desire that that one does not possess, as it may be for Victor to see his father as the hero Thomas thought he was.  On the other hand, Thomas feelings for Victor are far more confusing to my understanding, since he seems to consider Victor as a friend, careless of Victor’s offences and humiliations something that would personally be hard for me to overlook on a friend.  Nevertheless, Thomas seems to understand the pain Victor is in for not having his father, as he, himself, grew up without both of his parents.

The journey to Phoenix, Arizona changed Victor’s feelings for Thomas.  Once Victor learned the real reason behind his father’s drinking problem and his abandoned, he valued more Thomas’ friendship; after all, not everyone can be friends with the son of one’s parent’s murderer.  When I was four, my uncle’s wife went “crazy”, she accused my mom of trying to poison her and with a knife on her hand intended to kill my cousin, Renata, who was my uncle’s daughter from a previous marriage, my mom who was seven months pregnant, my younger sister, and me.  Luckily for us, my dad returned from work just on time to intervene and save his family from a massacre.  My uncle and she split after that and we never saw her or her two sons, my cousins, again.  On a surprising casualty, Renata found one of her half-brothers on a popular social network a couple months ago and, she’s working on establishing a closer relationship between them, they’re brothers after all.  However, even though she’s instead on the possibility of me talking to them, I’m not sure I can do that, since their mom caused so much trouble to my family.  They’re both different situations, yet the pain caused to one’s family is not something that could be easily forgiven, which must be why Victor begins to respect Thomas; because Thomas not only forgave Victor’s father for killing his parents, he also befriend him despite his arrogance and helped him when he needed it.