True Shot handed me a lit candle, the votive kind like in church when you put a quarter in a slot and light a candle in front of a saint. I put the candle in the center of Ruby’s curl, between Ruby’s hands and his head. The light was soft on his face.
I climbed out of Home Sweet Home. The gray-bearded men, Black Plastic Woman, Karolyn, and the kid with the Custer T-shirt stood in line to see Ruby.
On the green bench, I sat down hard, the sigh and scratch of the English elms all around me. The leaves were yellow in the dust-storm mercury-vapor light.
Black Plastic Woman made the high loud ululation in her throat. I heard the others, too.
People in the next room saying their prayers.
The kid wearing the CUSTER DIED FOR YOUR SINS T-shirt came over to where I was sitting and said, OK, man, he said, It’s your turn.
The whole time I walked I was thinking, Last call. I was walking up to Ruby Prestigiacomo’s grave and this was it.
Inside, under the arborvitae, there was Ruby. Looked like somebody had thrown a pint of blackberries in on his skin. Ruby Prestigiacomo in the light brown dirt hole, Home Sweet Home, curled up around the little votive fire.
Not sleeping.
I said Hail Mary Full of Grace the Lord is with thee and Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners—and then I stopped. Somebody else’s Catholic words. Pharisee words.
I didn’t know any others.
So I just knelt there, looking in, my folded hands pointed down at my friend.
I tried to sing “Fools Rush In.” But I couldn’t sing.
Ruby Prestigiacomo, what am I going to do with you?
TRUE SHOT KNELT down next to the cement thing, his extra-lovely butt sticking out of the hole in the arborvitae. True Shot took off his mirrors. His shoulders moved up and down, up and down, and the muscles in his back shook.
True Shot’s voice was a child’s whispering in a culvert.
When he stood up, True Shot brushed the dirt off his Levi’s knees, brushed off his butt, put his mirrors on.
True Shot bent over and, from underneath the arborvitae, pulled an old suitcase covered in buckskin with beadwork on the handle around where the locks flapped up.
* * *
THE CHANDELABRA ELM tree limbs and leaves were darker above us than the rest of the night. Hard bits of stars. True Shot was sitting west facing east. He had washed himself and put on a clean red shirt. Two small fires on the surface of his mirrors. I sat on True Shot’s right. Next to me, the kid with the Custer T-shirt. Next to him, a graybeard, next to the graybeard the other graybeard. Across from me, Black Plastic Woman, and, to the left of True Shot, Karolyn on the drum.
Seven people in a circle around the fire.
Between me and True Shot’s boots was one of those Catholic candles with a saint on it—Saint George killing the dragon—a big eagle feather with a piece of red flannel tied to it, and a white bowl full of water. An earthen bowl the size of one of True Shot’s hands was directly in front of him.
From out of a buckskin bag, True Shot poured sand through his fingers into the bowl, and out of another buckskin bag, True Shot poured dirt—not the tan-colored hard pan dirt we buried Ruby in, but dark loamy earth I could smell over where I was sitting. True Shot mixed the earth and the sand together with his fingers.
When True Shot told me, I lit a Fish Bar match and put the match to the bottom of the piece of charcoal and the charcoal started fizzing, and I put the charcoal on the mixed earth and sand in the bowl, and the edges of the charcoal started turning white.
All at once, a high wind blasted through the elm trees. For a moment, they sounded like cottonwoods.
True Shot’s old suitcase covered in buckskin sat on the grass. The suitcase was open. Inside was animal fur, beaded bags, and little boxes and paper sacks tied with ribbon. On the inside of the suitcase lid, where the cloth pocket with the elastic trim usually is, was the same painting that Charlie 2Moons used to have of an Indian on his horse, tired and beaten, the sun setting in the distance.
True Shot took a square piece of polished wood out of the suitcase. There was a circle of brass tacks on the wood. Then out of the suitcase, he pulled out bags: leather bags, plastic bags, paper bags.
Karolyn was on the drum, heartbeat, heartbeat, heartbeat.
True Shot took off his mirrors, folded them, put his mirrors inside the Armani case. He stuck the case in his shirt pocket. From out of the suitcase, True Shot took a spotted piece of fur. It looked like the collar to an old fur coat, mountain lion or bobcat.
But it’s not the truth.
The spotted fur was ocelot.
True Shot unrolled the ocelot skin, and behold, just like that, lying there next to the Saint George and the dragon candle, right in front of me, was the pipe.
The moment that, after, you’re different.
The dark blue beads, the feathers, the pipe bowl black around the hole, the carved buffalo, the pipe stem as long as your arm, the male and female of the pipe put together.
The pipe was Grandfather Alessandro’s pipe. Charlie’s pipe.
Voici la pipe.
What scared me was the pipe was alive.
My hand on the end of my arm reached out, and when I touched the pipe—just like that—I’d touched Charlie 2Moons again.
My eyes turned slow, like a rattlesnake in the sun, its eyes following the horizon, taking everything in, and when my eyes landed they landed on True Shot.
True Shot laid the pipe on the ocelot skin pointing out from him. Then from the buckskin bags, he pinched herbs and sage onto the charcoal, took the pipe, and moved the pipe in a circle through the lick of smoke.
Then he spoke. I couldn’t believe my ears.
It is this way, True Shot said. I heard this story once. In Russia there was a famous rabbi. Whenever he saw misfortune threatening his people, this rabbi would go to a special place in the forest and meditate. Then he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and a miracle would happen and the rabbi’s people would be safe. Things went on like that and the rabbi died, and later, another rabbi, whenever there was a misfortune threatening his people, this rabbi would go to the same place in the forest and say to the Great Mystery, I’m sorry but I do not know how to light the fire, but I still know the prayer, and here’s the prayer, and this rabbi would say the prayer, and the miracle would happen. Then that rabbi died, and another rabbi, his disciple, whenever a misfortune threatened his people, he would go to the place in the forest and say, I do not know how to light the fire, and I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient, and the miracle would happen. So then that rabbi died, and his disciple, another rabbi, whenever a misfortune threatened his people, would sit in his chair at home with his head in his hands, speak to the Great Mystery, and say, I don’t know how to light the fire, I don’t know the prayer, and I don’t know the place in the forest, or even the forest. All I can do is tell you about it, and this must be sufficient. And the miracle would happen.
It is this way, True Shot said. The moral of this tale is that God made man because he loves to hear stories.
True Shot? I said.
True Shot blew on the embers in the pipe bowl, the embers in the bowl inside glowing, a thin line of smoke trailing up around True Shot’s head. The light from the Catholic saint candle back and forth, side to side in his eyes, on his face, his face like rocks and cliffs.
That’s a good one, huh? There’s lots of stories, True Shot said. Each one of us has one.
The locomotive, I said. Tell us the one about the locomotive.
Only the drum heartbeat, the wind in the English elms.
True Shot’s gap-toothed smile. His hand went up to his throat, his open palm on the beaded blue horizontal and the red vertical of the buckskin bag around his neck.
It is this way, True Shot said. When you’re lost on the blue road, when you’re in the west and cannot see, remember that the bright light coming toward you first appears to be a charg
ing iron horse, a locomotive train that will run over you, that will crush you.
But that bright light, I said.
But that bright light, True Shot said, Only appears to be an iron horse, we said together. What the light really is, we said, Is the light at the end of the tunnel.
MY HANDS REACHED out for the medicine pipe, past the Saint George candle, and I put my hands under the ocelot skin, around the wooden stem as long as my forearm, put my hands around the pipe bowl. The eagle fluff and the blue trader beads and mother-of-pearl shells. I held the pipe to my heart, to my head, to my belly, to my penis. Held the universe, known and unknown.
Held Charlie.
When I turned my head and looked up at True Shot, his lips had turned to rubber.
True Shot’s chin was on his chest, and he had his thumb and index on the bridge of his nose. His extra-lovely shoulders started shaking up and down.
Who knows how long True Shot wept?
True Shot is still weeping.
When True Shot lifted his chin up, what was in his eyes I wanted covered with his mirrors.
Then: My friends, True Shot said, True Shot is not my real name.
THE MOMENT THAT, after, you’re different.
The mystery. The true mystery.
Everything is there all along and you just don’t realize it.
Then, just like in Agatha Christie, a twig snapped, or wind, the fire popped—something. True Shot’s hummingbird eyes stared at something straight ahead. The light from the flame back and forth, back and forth, onto True Shot’s face.
My eyes looked where True Shot was looking.
Black Plastic Woman screamed.
We were surrounded by Indians. In all four directions. Indian people stood just outside the light of the fire.
From where I sat, the line of the tops of their heads made the horizon. Rolling dark black shadows. The fire gold on their faces.
The man who stepped out seemed so big standing above us.
We seven on the ground seemed so small, so broken open.
My left hand on the bowl, my right on the stem, I pulled the pipe inside my arms, the ocelot skin smooth against my forearms.
Heartbeat.
The man took off his camouflage cap and shook his head so the long black shiny hair moved from his face. He wore dark aviator glasses and a Levi’s jacket with an eagle beaded on the pocket.
True Shot’s hummingbird eyes stared at the space in between. It is this way, True Shot said. You have arrived just in time, True Shot said. Welcome!
My name is Peter Morales, True Shot said.
The heartbeat stopped.
Yellow leaves, wind, a campfire in the night. The fire on Beaded Eagle’s skin, his aviators, his shiny black hair.
We know, Beaded Eagle said. That’s why we’re here.
The Indians we were surrounded by all made low sounds, moved their weight from side to side. The line of horizon lifted and fell, waves in a lake or ocean.
Beaded Eagle threw his hair back, lifted his arms, and looped his hair in a knot. He put his camouflage hat back on, pulled down the brim.
We’ve come for the pipe, Beaded Eagle said. We’ve been looking for this one for a long time.
Fire in his aviator sunglasses, Beaded Eagle took his sunglasses off, hunkered down, sat the way I never could for long. His Levi’s knees were pointed at me, his boots. His whole body was pointed at me.
From over the fire, he reached out his hand, his palm the color of cut cedar, his hand moving out from him like a bird flying. His index went straight for my heart but touched the carved buffalo on the pipe bowl instead.
I looked down. His index wrapped around the pipe stem.
This is Charlie 2Moons’s pipe, I said.
Give me the pipe, Beaded Eagle said. We’re here to return the pipe to its home.
Then his finger reached up and he touched me on my hair, my forehead.
His eyes were open, clear, like a child’s with nothing in between.
I’ll tell you something, Beaded Eagle said. So you’ll know.
Beaded Eagle’s hands, palms up, were open to me.
The fire on his skin, his shiny black hair, he looked so much like Charlie.
It took everything I had. Palms open, I sent my hands across the fire into the night, placing the ocelot skin and the pipe into Beaded Eagle’s hands.
Beaded Eagle tapped out the pipe, dumped out the earth and sand from the earthen bowl, folded the ocelot skin over the pipe, placed the pipe in the suitcase that was covered in buckskin. Then, one by one, Beaded Eagle took the square piece of polished wood with the circle of brass tacks, the Saint George candle, the earthen bowl, the white bowl, the eagle feather with a piece of red flannel tied to it, and placed them in the suitcase. He closed the suitcase, pulled each beaded lock down, snapped the suitcase closed.
Beaded Eagle’s cowboy boot stepped on the white piece of smoldering charcoal, crushed it.
Beaded Eagle put his aviators back on. Smiled real big.
When I opened my eyes, the horizon was back to the tops of buildings and Lower East Side water towers.
Beaded Eagle and the others had shape-shifted into Wolf Swamp and the night.
TRUE SHOT STILL sat like Buddha—Buddha in a clean red shirt—his Saint-Vitus’-dance eyes moving like the fire. Then he stood up, not stooped like usual. His shoulders were back and his chest was out. He dusted his pants off and looked around him on the ground.
He pulled the Armani glasses case from his shirt pocket, opened the case, unfolded the mirrors, and put the mirrors over his eyes.
Peter Morales, I said, What’s the fucking deal?
On the surface of True Shot’s mirrors, my face was a solitary illumination.
True Shot stood taller, pulled his shoulders back farther. His red shirt filled up with air.
Where did you get that pipe, I said, Ruby’s friend’s pipe? Who was Ruby’s friend?
Only silence. Just the yellow leaves, the wind, the fire.
Fred, True Shot said. Ruby’s friend was Fred.
I went to land a Hollywood punch onto True Shot’s hooked nose, but that’s when I heard them.
Horses. All at once, all around us, cops on horses.
A white stallion jumped over the fire, hitting True Shot straight on.
I was running through tree limbs, juniper bushes; I was jumping over benches; I was out of there, out of Dog Shit Park, out; I was on First Avenue and Sixth Street; I was far away, running.
Nowhere.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
For three days I got True Shot’s answering machine.
On my next day off I took the L train to Bedford. On the corner of Wythe and North Third, at number 85, there was no buzzer. I banged on the door, kicked the door, hollered.
Nobody on the street, not one person. Personne.
Up the flights of stairs in the building across the street. When I got to the fourth floor, my heart was pounding pounding. Around the corner there it was, plain as day, Door of the Dead van.
I got the key from under the wheel well, unlocked the passenger-side door.
True Shot was not dead in the back of the van.
There was nothing in the back of the van except the bucket I sat on between Ruby and True Shot on the ride from the airport and two empty vodka bottles.
All Dodges sound the same when you start them up.
I drove Door of the Dead van for a week, to all the places True Shot and I had gone to look for Charlie. The World Trade center. The parking lot where you could see the Lady with the Paintbrush out in the harbor. The meat district. Over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Staten Island. Jackson Heights. To the very tip of the island where Manhattan starts. Even drove to Harlem.
Not-looking for True Shot.
For Charlie.
One day about a week later, sitting on the green bench next to Ruby’s Home Sweet Home—abracadabra!—just like that there was the CUSTER DIED FOR YOUR SINS kid.
/> This time his T-shirt was gray with nothing on it. Pizza face. Just below his hairline was an arch of dirt and sweat.
He looked even more scared in the daylight.
I bought him a veggie burger at Life Café.
Have you seen Black Plastic Woman? I said. Maybe she’d know.
The Custer kid had such a mouthful of veggie burger he couldn’t talk.
After he swallowed, after a drink of water, the Custer kid wiped his mouth.
Morales is on a bender, the kid said. You’ll never find him.
Morales. Peter Morales.
The yellow English elms were bare.
But there’s got to be some way, I said.
Make him come to you, the kid said.
How do I do that? I said.
Just open up that place in you, the kid said.
YOU’RE GOING THIS way and then shit happens and then you’re going that way.
The beep on my red answering machine and Fiona’s voice was around and around in my rooms.
Will? Are you there, Will? Please pick up if you’re there! Will, are you there? Look, I’m at the hospital, Saint Vincent’s, Room Three-ohfive. It’s Harry. Harry’s lying in the bed all blue breathing on a machine. He doesn’t even know I’m here, Will! Please come as soon as you can!
I rewound the tape.
Will? Are you there, Will?
WHEN I CALLED work, Daniel, the boss’s brother, answered the phone.
Daniel? I said. Why are you answering?
John is in the hospital, Daniel said.
John the Bartender? I said. Hospital?
Saint Vincent’s, Daniel said.
What room’s he in?
You can’t see him, Daniel said. Quarantined.
What?
They think it’s TB.
Tuberculosis?
You’re Section Five tonight, Daniel said.
I’m sick, I said.
Shit! Daniel said. What’s going on, Spud?
Flu, I said.
You been to a doctor?
I’m all right, I said. Just the flu.
Vitamin C, Daniel said. Take big doses of Vitamin C. Rest. Walter and Joanie are out with it too.
And Harry, Daniel said.
IN THE CORRIDOR, Saint Vincent’s unrelenting light from above. Through the swinging doors, a man in swimming-pool-blue shirt and pants and cap pushed a gurney past me, the IV a snake into the arm of a bald guy. The steel-gray eyes of the bald guy looked up out through his skin and bones at me like I was a vision, Saint Vincent himself, some kind of saint.
In the City of Shy Hunters Page 44