by Clara Hume
"But after that she started trying to come on to me. I wasn't aware of it at first. I was also not believin' she'd do that. My head wasn't there at all. But she pulled me down next to her and started kissin' on me, and I'm sorry."
"What the hell happened then," I asked. My face felt like it had a little bird inside wanting to rip me open.
"Well, nothin," he said. "I told her we couldn't be doin' this, and she said she knew it, and we both fell asleep on the couch together. That's all that happened, my friend. I woke up a few hours later and went home to get naked and slide into bed with my wife. The one I loved, the only one I'd ever been with in years like that."
I couldn't hardly believe my ears. It sounded dumb and innocent enough, but there was a side to them he revealed to me that day, which went deeper than just too much to drink, and it made me open my eyes to true human nature and what can happen when one thinks someone is doing something they aren't or when one is lonely and needs a friend or a body and acts on impulse only.
I also wondered why the hell he told me about this incident, but I figured maybe he'd carried the guilt around long enough and both our wives were dead so he could tell me now. I don't rightly know. He'd always been a genuine man and friend, but I couldn't forgive Ishmael right then or possibly ever. If I couldn't have trusted the two people closest to me in life, who could I ever trust?
Ishmael felt so guilty about it that he moved his family down to Silver City. Before he left, I said, "If your wife hadn't of just died, Ishmael, I swear to God I might've killed ya back when you told me you slept with my Loretta. I don't know what I would do if I ever see you again."
It was like with the horse. He looked at me humbly. He said, "I know I did you wrong. I am going to live with that all my life. And if we cross paths down the road, I guess you can punch me again or even shoot me dead if you want. I got no excuse for what I did."
***
'Twas hard to believe we'd ever meet again, but here he was, an old man staring at me down in Mississippi. I had thought of him often, and over the years had realized what he and my wife did wasn't good, but it wasn't the worst that coulda happened either. They stopped themselves before anything really happened that they'd regret. Out of all the years that man stood by me as a best buddy, and I couldn't find it in my heart to forgive him for one shadowy moment in all that time on the last day I might have ever seen him...it had haunted me each and every day.
Now he was looking at me as a different man. How'd he get from Silver City to here? How'd he get so old? How'd we let those years lose themselves without us being good friends?
I thought about how he looked when I punched him after he put my horse down. I thought of his face bleeding that day we sat outside the pub. I thought of his expression when he told me about his daddy getting shot in cold blood. I saw his face now after he just lost a good friend.
"Ishmael!" I said.
I couldn't do nuthin' but run over to him and give him a big 'ol hug. He returned it and hung onto me like he'd just been livin' to see me once more in this life.
"Gorblimey!" he said.
"Gorblimey!" I echoed.
We started laughing so hard we fell on the ground and had tears in our eyes. Every time we stopped laughing, we saw what each other was thinking and started it up again. This went on so long, and those young ones around us didn't know what to think.
Eugenia finally said, "What in the tarnation has gotten into you all?"
Eugenia—Chapter 19
I spent days moping about my 'ol Wesley. During that whole time, those young'uns who helped save us made camp at my homestead and made friends with Kenny.
I was glad to see Ishmael come back. He's my cousin; he's also a self-proclaimed shaman, and for a short while I was thinkin' he could raise my Wesley back to life, but I was in shock. It took me days to come around and quit crying. It took me a while to realize Wesley wasn't comin' back.
Funny thing is, Ishmael had told me about Jimmy Coombs from another lifetime. My cousin had fled Idaho and figured he would go to Silver City for to start a new life but found nobody there, so just came here to his relatives back home. He raised his boys in the swamps of the old river. When he got here, this was years and years ago, he was in shock from the road and from his falling-out with Jimmy. I had no clue that the people who came to our fruit stand that day were associated with the same Jimmy. The coincidence was just too far-fetched and fantastical. Sometimes I swear life ain't nothing but a big old bag of tricks.
Anyway, I figured losing Jimmy meant Ishmael started losing his own self. Ishmael moved to a tent in the woods and lived like a hermit once his boys got older. One day he came over to my place and said he could bring things back to life.
"What in hell's bells are you talkin' about?"
He showed me a caterpillar that had died, but he had chanted over it and it had come back to life. I didn't believe him, but could see by the far-out look in his eyes he was probably going a little crazy, and I felt sorry for him and let him think I believed him.
Then a month or so later a neighbor's girl supposedly drowned in the river when she was out playing. There had been a big rain, which flooded the river banks. Ishmael went right down there when he heard about it, and everyone says he brought the girl back to life. I went down to see the girl myself, and she was as alive as a butterfly.
Rumor got around for the few folks in our county that Ishmael was a doctor, and so that was his new occupation. Not a cowboy no more, but a shaman, he said. Deep inside I thought he was trying to breathe life back into whatever he was missing with Jimmy, but never said a thing about it.
Anyway, the morning after Wesley was shot, I came into my shack and heard Fran call out, "I'm in the back. Can't let any light in."
"Why not, child?"
"You'll see," she said. She was in a small broom closet back there doin' who knows what.
It was far too hot to be inside, anyhow. I'd only come in for more pork and beans that the bearded one liked. The night before, when we had a mourning crowd for Wesley, after we'd wept and shook our heads, before the light came up, we was still up to honor Wesley, and Leo told all the folks who came from the countryside how he used to be an actor. Some of them remembered him, but not me. I never watched no TV. Now Leo was just like us, dirty and poor and hungry.
When I finally escaped the kitchen heat and took the pork and beans to the bonfire, I noticed that Leo had shaved himself on an old razor that Kenny kept around. But it was a bad shave job on a dull razor, with a lot of nicks and some leftover stubble.
"So that's what your face looks like," I said as I handed him a plate of beans.
"You're a dream, you know. Thank you most kindly, Eugenia," he said with boyish charm.
He could be real nice and almost coy to the women folk, but that one, he had a cynical and blunt streak in him. I'd seen his face when he started shooting back on the road. I knew my Kenny shot out of fear, but this one, Leo, he was shooting from somewhere else. I could see it in his cold, blue glare.
I liked this band of travelers, though. We'd seen a handful of drifters come by our part of the world: some sad and dying, some happy despite their outcome, some lost and zealous.
Ain't seen many of them stick together like this crowd. They had something decent inside, but I sensed individual trauma inside each of them too.
I sat by the fire. Maisie came over and said, "Miss Eugenia, have you lived here all your life?"
"Yes, ma'am, more or less."
This Maisie was a doe of a girl. Quite pretty but delicate. She had an awful sunburn on her face.
"Well, my mom went to Athens a few years back. I thought I might find her. You ever heard of a Katherine Segal? Or, her maiden name was Gibson. Her mama was Grace Gibson."
I thought about it for a bit, but said, "No, child. I cain't say I've ever been that far in Georgia. I've traveled down to the bay, but that's about it. You think your mama and grandmama are going to be alive still?"
&nbs
p; "I don't think so," Maisie said.
"But you want to see anyway?"
"Yes, ma'am," she said.
Maisie began roasting a scrawny looking corn on the cob over the fire with a willow branch. Her violet eyes were intent on something that had nothing to do with the corn. I could see Caine perched on a log in the background. He had a dark stare and a brown face, but he was never gruff like Leo. Instead, he looked pleasant, and I could tell he had a thing for her. The night before they'd volunteered to go out to the woods to get some kindling, and they couldn't stop staring at each other.
Everyone had their duties while they stayed at my place. Buddha—my favorite—had to go down to the riverbank and get dirty water for sterilizing. He never complained. He was dutiful. I could tell he probably had loved his mother. He was like a puppy, laughable and desirous to please.
But in the end, they all had to move on. I'd forgotten they had come upon us to trade things at the road booth. That was just a few days prior but a lifetime ago, back when my Wesley was by my side. Some of them were looking through their goods and seeing what they could give us in return for our hospitality, peaches, and pork and beans. I got a handgun out of the deal, some ammunition, and some chemicals to clean our water.
Then, before they moseyed on down the road, Jimmy decided to stay here for a bit. He wanted to catch up with Ishmael. He told the others if he got back to the mountain, it would be in his own time. Everyone was sad, but accepted it.
Before they left, they gave me hugs and the little one, that Mei, even left a few tears on my apron as she tugged at me for whatever reason.
The last one to say good bye was Fran. She hugged me tight and surprised me with some photos she'd taken at the fruit stand. It was the last picture I saw of me and Wesley, and I did everything I could to not break down bawling when I saw it.
Fran hugged me tightly. I knew she had a good heart. She'd given me the most treasured gift.
"I used coffee to develop these prints," she said.
I wondered what she'd been up to. I was still holding those photos in my hand when the wagon crested on up the road and off to the east, with that strange dog Floppy running beside it.
Part III—The Ocean and the Bear
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
-William Butler Yeats, from "The Stolen Child"
Buddha—Chapter 20
Hey dudes, don't know what I would've done if I hadn't met this crowd going east while I was heading west with my buddies, but here I am, leaving the not so grand ol' Mississippi just days after my best friends in the world were shot by the soulless dickheads of the new generation. It's worse now than old times, when a lonely guy sold his soul to the devil to play the blues. There's no music anymore, except from Leo, who plays a mean, beatup guitar and croons like a hawk soars. I am glad we got him in our traveling band.
I have found potlatches with my new friends, where poor people like us, who are left wandering the road, have discovered each other and share what little we have. A peach for a photo. A gun for some pork. A hug for a sigh.
I remember telling my new friends about how the Canadian government once banned potlatches. I still scratch my head at why people do what they do half the time. I was dreaming about potlucks along the way as we headed east. Eugenia's place was one such meal. I haven't ever felt such love, like when Ishmael and Jimmy reunited, and it's been a long time since I ate that much good food.
Point is, with these new dudes I met, everyone helps out, whether it's digging for water or gathering wood. Then we put together our meager portions of food and we chow down. Eating is a community thing where we laugh and sop up bread in broth, and sometimes the couples gaze at each other across fire pits at night. I ain't got no love partner, and I doubt I will ever find someone who wants me like that. I am fat. I don't mind, though. You could say I have a love affair with food, but hell, I can feel how loose my pants are getting.
I still dig potlucks and am fascinated by the togetherness of folks; you know, in the old days, one of my teachers told us that potlatches were not just for sharing food but for introducing single people to each other from neighboring bands so that everyone wouldn't marry in their own tribe. I liked this idea. Just goes to show a species has to have some diversity and have fun together (eating) at the same time.
I wanted to study anthropology because of what I'd learned about potlatches and cultures, but ended up following my older brother Charlie and his biker friends once the world got bad and once college became something old-fashioned that nobody did anymore.
When I was little, my parents had moved down to Vancouver. Mom was from the Haisla Nation, but Dad was a city man. Mom remembers their hereditary chiefs holding these potlatches every now and then, and she said it was because they liked to redistribute wealth, and back then wealth meant things like food and clothes, not money or power. She called it cultural wealth, which is something she said the white men knew when they were young but lost when they grew old.
Those get-togethers were banned in 1884, long before my mom was born, but they still practiced those old rituals, even more so once the land started drying up and authorities couldn't control everyone anymore. When Mom got married to someone of European descent and moved to the city, she joined his church, and they had what they called potlucks, where the ladies would bring casseroles and pies and families would eat together and be merry. Same old thing, only in a modern church, and it was legal. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it?
My first potluck was at the United Church, which ran a soup kitchen for the homeless. I was only a little boy and tried ice cream for the first time. At that point, I figured that God dude was in charge of ice cream, laughter, and sharing—and that's all I knew about him. My best friend Peter went to a church across the city, and had been taught that God was getting back at humans for their sins and causing all the droughts, floods, heat, plagues, and starvation.
"It's because of fornication and the degradation of society," Peter said.
"What the hell is fornication?"
"It's when men love each other."
"Wait, what?"
I couldn't grasp the fact that the God I knew who told us to love everyone would also cause us sorrow for doing just that, and made up my mind very early that my ice cream God made way more sense than Peter's complicated, hypocritical savior. Back then, when we went to church, my mom made me dress up in little suits every Sunday morning. I liked church. I dug our Sunday school teacher, Marcie Willowby. She was very old and tender, kinda chubby like me, and had a graceful smile and played the piano. I liked those old hymns, even if the lyrics were a little weird. But I tell you, the minute I got home, I was excited to get out of my suit, throw on my jeans, and run outside. Outside was God's world I thought. The sunshine, ice cream, and people in it were kindly and loving. The trees and mountains he gave so we could get out of our digs and run around in. That was my version of what life was good for.
Anyway, the church was in an area of the city where the junkies and the mentally ill had been left to fend for themselves, and for a century or more the church had run a soup kitchen. So when its congregation had potlucks every last Wednesday night of the month, I was there with my mom, my pops, and my siblings. These were some of my favorite memories growing up. We would stand in a line and serve food to the homeless, including homemade ice cream for dessert.
Then, by the time I was a teenager, Main Street folks, where the church had survived for a long time, were ravished by disease. Everyone stopped going to church, either cause they died or figured if they went anywhere at all they'd catch something and die themselves. Now most folks were homeless. We moved up to the Great Bear Rainforest, where my mother's people had once lived, an area that used to have old-growth forests, spirit bears, a great canopy, and beautiful misty fjords, but now some of it was a logged and dried up woodland where salmon str
eams had disappeared, and where oil from supertankers had left the parts of the coastline sea contaminated. Many species that had once lived there, or had migrated through there, were gone. I'd heard tell of magical places that still existed, but they were further north.
Mom and Pops passed on, and even though I followed my brother Charlie down the coast with his friends—they were all older than me—he too got one of the spreading mosquito diseases and passed on. His friends were all I had left.
I told them about potlatches, and they agreed it was a good tradition. We made our own biofuel in our tent city in California at Lake Elsinore, and would ride back and forth to Arizona, sometimes down to Mexico, sometimes up to Oregon, just to assess the situation in the world and find people who might need help.
I still couldn't believe this group of friends had been shot in cold blood by the soulless dickheads of the world.
I remember once my childhood friend Peter grew up, he said that he had to take the sword of God and get rid of corruption if we were ever to see a good planet again. I knew he was off his rocker, but his madness reminded me of the highwaymen out killing like that; they had no real God, and they had no soul. And if they did, I had to wonder what kind of soul that was in the name of.
One night we were sitting around at Eugenia's place. The bugs were out bothering us. If the Mississippi had been bigger, maybe there'd been a breeze, but no such luck. We had a fire going for the wake, for the bug relief, and for the cooking, but it was too hot for any one of us to sit too near it. I was on a log backaways, swatting at bugs and watching my chubby legs stretch out before me. My thick, black hair that needed washed was sticking uncomfortably to my face, my skin dripped oil and sweat, and I looked around and saw most everyone had someone.