Key Grip

by Dustin Beall Smith

  Everyone, that is, except the guy with the bowie knife. From him I got a nod.

  The next morning, as I waited for Arturo to fetch me from my tent, I tried to imagine my hanblecheya. Arturo had given me the drill, more or less, during our drive west: I would be confined to an “altar” the size of my Pendleton blanket, which in turn would be surrounded by a perimeter of tobacco ties. Holding a long-stemmed pipe, I was supposed to pray until the sun went down, after which I would go through a second sweat ceremony and some kind of debriefing session, conducted by Mike. Even though I had gone without food or water for about twenty-four hours, I figured I could get through the hanblecheya well enough.

  But what about obtaining a vision? Would I be able to cry for a dream? Or was I too self-conscious, too cynical? And what kind of dream or vision could I expect? Might I discover, at last, the true me, and be ready to take up where the old me had left off? What would it mean if I had no vision at all? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  I unzipped my tent flap. A brown-and-white female mutt, the mother of the puppies I had seen on our arrival, sat outside slapping her tail in the dirt. Her swollen teats tugged at her loose skin, accentuating her rib cage. One eye had gone milky white, but with the other she eyed me affectionately. Another dog, part German shepherd, lay sprawled in the shade on the west side of the tent. This beast had kept me awake most of the night, nosing and pawing the nylon walls, sniffing at the mosquito netting, growling at my every move. He raised his head to look at me.

  By the time Arturo finally showed up with my prayer pipe, the sun had risen two hands above the horizon. He looked both annoyed and guilty about being late. He put a finger to his lips, silencing me, and signed that he needed the key to my car. I had just pocketed the key in my sweatpants, which I planned to wear that day. The rest of my belongings were locked in the trunk and the glove compartment.

  “You can’t take any metal up the hill,” said Arturo. “And leave your eyeglasses down here.”

  The idea of Arturo having access to my car, credit cards, cash, and eyeglasses was something I hadn’t anticipated. How could I cry for a dream with that kind of worry on my mind? Bad enough that I wasn’t allowed paper and pen. How could I see a spirit clearly without my glasses? But I turned them over to Arturo, along with the key, and sat in the passenger seat with my necessities on my lap: one large blanket, one small camping blanket, one pipe, five chokecherry stakes, and 150 feet of carefully wrapped tobacco ties. The car was already oppressively hot. I squinted at the dashboard clock: 8:20 A.M.

  Arturo got in behind the wheel and said he would need some money for the feast his family planned to prepare when I got down from the hill that night. I took the key from the ignition, unlocked the glove compartment, and removed my wallet.

  “Tell me when to stop,” said Arturo, shutting his eyes and bunching his fingers like a monkey.

  I opened my wallet and watched as he blindly extracted one bill at a time. I began to imagine scrambled eggs and bacon, pancakes and fresh strawberries, a mug of French roast coffee, a tall glass of chilled Evian water. I pictured feasting victoriously to the cheers and congratulations of admiring Indians. I didn’t flip the wallet shut until he had removed five twenties.

  Arturo tucked the money in his shirt pocket and opened his eyes. I tossed the wallet back in the glove compartment, locked it again, and handed back the key.

  We drove away from my tent, passing an old chicken coop with a clothesline out front. Maneuvering between two wooden fence posts, we headed out across the rolling, trackless plains. Arturo didn’t say a word. Tall grass and sage scraped the undercarriage of the car as we bounced for half a mile over prairie-dog mounds. Nearing our destination, I turned in my seat and saw the mutt bitch and the German shepherd following us in hot pursuit, their tongues dangling from their mouths.

  I had pictured a normal hilltop, a place from which I would have a commanding view of the Great Plains—the better to inspire a vision. But when we arrived at the edge of the sparsely wooded area, it became clear that the hilltop itself was actually concave, like the apex of a volcano. The sparse trees I had seen from Mike’s house grew out of that declivity, disguising the hill’s true shape.

  Weighed down with paraphernalia, I followed Arturo and the two dogs, who had caught up with us, into the hollow. Scrawny, widely spaced pines struggled to keep a foothold on the slope. We paused for a moment in front of one tree, the limbs of which were festooned with discarded tobacco ties—black, red, white, and yellow—some faded by the sun, some bright. Strands of spider silk stretched like guy wires between the smaller branches.

  We continued down, weaving our way through fallen tree trunks and low brush. When we reached the bottom of the declivity, Arturo began pacing with the focused intensity of a dowser looking for water. But instead of using a dowsing rod, he held out his palm, apparently feeling the aura of the place. He searched the sky as if seeking avian guidance. Satisfied, he nodded and told me to spread out my blanket.

  How could I ever see the sunset from the bottom of this bowl, this ungodly swale? No horizon, no majesty. I wouldn’t have thought of stopping here to piss, much less settled here for hanblecheya. But I spread out my blanket.

  “Take off your sandals,” said Arturo. “Put them off the blanket, upside down.”

  I obeyed, quietly calculating the hours that remained—twelve, roughly. The ground Arturo had picked was lumpy and uninviting.

  “Stand in the center and start to pray,” he said. “Don’t let go of that pipe, ever.”

  I picked up the pipe and cradled it in my arms, in rough imitation of a loin-clothed medicine man I had seen in an Edward’S. Curtis photograph. I faked the praying, sneaking looks at Arturo, who drove the chokecherry stakes into the ground, one at each corner of the blanket. When he had sunk a fifth stake, to indicate west, he attached one end of my string of tobacco ties and began winding them from stake to stake, around and around, laying out the colors in reverse order of the way I had tied them in New York City. He walked backward, moving clockwise around me. The dogs watched.

  Done with the ties, Arturo recited something in Lakota, slowly and with sincerity. Then he simply walked away, in the direction of the car. The bitch sniffed my sandals and plopped down next to them. The German shepherd leapt over the ties and joined me on the blanket. I clapped my hands loudly to get Arturo’s attention and signal him to take the dogs back with him. I clapped again and again, but he ignored me. I tried to whistle, but all that came out was a hiss. By the time I called his name he was gone.

  “Get out!” I ordered. “Go away!”

  Unaccustomed to commands in English, the shepherd leapt playfully at my outstretched hand and got hold of my shirtsleeve with his teeth. The bitch tried to join us in what she took to be play, but instead of springing over the tobacco ties, she just barged through them. I yelled at the shepherd and punched him hard in the side, trying simultaneously to push the bitch away with my foot. She got the message and backed out, dragging down the north side of my altar. The shepherd, however, got serious and started fighting for the space.

  “That’s enough,” I said. “Get out of here, leave me alone!”

  The dog came at my left arm again, and again I nailed him with my right fist. His mood changed, his confidence mounting in direct proportion to my anger and frustration. He arose and came at me on two legs, his forepaws pushing at my chest. I grabbed his neck fur and tossed him sideways, but he recovered and bounded toward me again. There was nothing playful in his demeanor now; his eyes were beady black. Were we competing? Was this how I was going to die, fighting for this sacred space, my prayer altar, with a creature who thought I was after his mate? I remembered how people on hanblecheya were sometimes visited at night by coyotes, and suddenly this all seemed much too real—the shepherd’s teeth sinking into my wrist, his slobber on my hands, his hot breath mingling with mine. If he were to drive me from this altar—push me out, or compel me to run away—my hanblecheya would be
blown. But if I refused to give way, might he not kill me? I had to act, or this was going to end badly.

  In a panic I slugged the dog with an uppercut to the throat and kicked him hard with the top of my bare foot in the soft space between his ribs and his genitals. He yelped and jumped off the blanket. He began circling the altar, teeth bared, clearly thinking of another approach. I heard myself say, “No, please, go away, I didn’t want to hurt you, just go away, please.” But he came at me again, head low, snarling. Alarmed, the bitch jumped up and ran about ten yards away. As the shepherd grabbed a leg of my sweatpants, I begged him again to retreat, pleaded with God to stop him. Desperate, I drove my fist into his jaw, then both fists into his ears. He had nearly dragged me out of the altar area when, suddenly, he let go, moved off, and started sniffing around as if I had never been of any interest at all. I watched as he followed some scent. Watched until he, with the bitch in tow, disappeared over the ridge.

  It was then that I realized I was crying. Crying for a dream had begun as simply as that.

  I pulled the stakes and ties of the altar upright and stood in the center of the blanket. I raised my pipe to the Thunder Beings who live in the west. I offered them the pipe, bowl first. If they were paying attention, I must have had them howling with laughter, since the idea, I learned later, was to offer them a smoke—stem first. I turned ninety degrees and raised my pipe in similar fashion to the Buffalo People in the north, then turned to the Black-Tailed Deer People in the east, then to the spirits in the south. I lifted the bowl to Grandfather Sky, dipped it to Grandmother Earth, and clutched the pipe to my chest, indicating that my offer was coming from the heart.

  I went through the motions of praying. But my first attempts resembled a cold motor being awakened by a low battery; not all parts of me seemed ready yet. Did I believe in spirits? No. In beseeching them I had succeeded only in seeing myself from their point of view: a fifty-seven-year-old stoop-shouldered, bare-headed white man wearing green Gap sweatpants and a blue L. L. Bean work shirt, a key grip from New York City whose doctor had warned him to watch his cholesterol and wear a hat in the sun.

  But by paying attention to the six directions and positioning my heart at the center of all things, as instructed, I had succeeded at least in locating myself—my physical self—there in the declivity of that hilltop in South Dakota, not far from the longitudinal center of America on north parallel forty-three. And by imagining myself at the center of all things I suddenly felt perfectly at home, since this position mimicked the way I had lived my whole self-centered life. The spotlight was on me alone now. And the sun bore down, but I raised my collar against it.

  Not unlike a child kneeling by his bed, I prayed out loud for each member of my family: for my father; for my son, Chelsey, who had died twenty-six years earlier at the age of eighteen months; for my mother, who now lived alone; and for my daughter. I spoke softly, so as not to be overheard by humans, should any be lurking about. I did the directional offerings with the pipe again and prayed to be given a vision.

  Not bad, I thought. This was going to be easier than I had expected, and praying, I found, had a calming effect on me. Proud of myself, I sat down on the hot wool blanket. A few minutes passed before the truth began to sink in—there was nothing else to do on this hill but pray.

  My mind wandered, searching for a constructive idea to write about later. What about the alcohol problem on the reservation? Now there was a subject I could address in some authoritative fashion when I got down from the hill. I had kicked drugs and booze fifteen years before. Who better to speak to the issue than me? I began composing a speech to a tribal council, to a powwow of all the Indian nations. I saw myself as a significant and long-awaited messenger to the Lakota people—to all Native people. So there is a purpose to my coming here, I thought. The notion produced in me a wild exhilaration, as if at long last I had found my destiny.

  Without pencil and paper to compose it, however, my speech to the powwow soon fizzled. My destiny evaporated. I grew bored. My freckled skin seemed awfully pale under the increasingly harsh sunlight. I got a sudden urge to check my phone messages and e-mail. A lot of people would be wondering about me. Several times I found myself shifting my position on the blanket and reaching for . . . what? A cell phone? A thermos of iced tea? Fruit salad? A cookie? What time was it, anyway? The sun, sitting only one hand above my new horizon, sliced in on me like a machete.

  The desire to write overwhelmed me. Sitting there on the hilltop, I felt, was clearly a form of procrastination. I should get down from this hill and start writing in my tent immediately. I stood up, but the tobacco ties reminded me there was nowhere to run.

  My first wife, Catherine, leapt into my mind. She was the mother of my two children, a woman who had actually believed in me and accompanied me to Spain so I could write a novel—the novel that never was. Then came my second wife, Lucille. She was the woman who had supported me while I actually did write a novel—the novel that never got published—and from whom I was now seeking a divorce. Then a whole slew of girlfriends—Barbara, Sandra, Betsy, Jennifer, Michou, Claire, Tabitha, Kiko—clamored to be remembered. I had professed undying love to them all, failed in love with them all.

  The floodgate was open now. People I had wronged when I was drinking, people I had ignored when they were dying, people I had never thanked for helping me, people who had tolerated my worst behavior and suffered betrayal and disappointment at my hands—teachers, mentors, surrogate parents, partners, employers, employees, neighbors, passersby—I tried to keep pace with them all, praying for forgiveness from them all in one long, desperate attempt at absolution. It was like vomiting. Just when I thought I had brought them all up—thrown light on them and thus absolved myself—more faces asked to be remembered, more memories played out before my eyes. I heard a choking sob, then saw my sobbing self as if from high above.

  I needed to do something quickly. I must have prayed for forgiveness from a hundred people already, and still new ones came to mind. I never realized I had known so many souls so intimately, and yet I had forgotten them all in the ongoing rush of my life. Just the people who had died, for God’s sake! Skydiving, combat, car accidents, motorcycles, horseback riding, gunshots, alcohol, drugs, cancer, old age. Why was I alive? I had jumped out of airplanes, sped cars, messed around on motorcycles. I had been thrown from a horse, shot at, knifed. I had drunk myself to oblivion, snorted coke, smoked dope, dropped acid, eaten too many eggs . . . Why was I still here? What had I done to deserve being in the world right now?

  I looked around. My eyes had adjusted somewhat to seeing without glasses. None of my agitation was reflected in my surroundings. A white butterfly landed gently on a black tobacco tie. Another butterfly, a monarch, settled on a nearby Scottish thistle. I remembered my grandfather telling me that I was descended from a Scottish king, and I felt oddly soothed.

  Off to my left a chipmunk rustled in the brush, a crow swooped onto the limb of a nearby tree, and a bumblebee zoomed through my altar space, its buzzing the only sound on the still air. So quiet now. I measured the position of the sun again. No change. It hadn’t moved an inch, but it was searing my skin more deeply with each passing second. I pulled the small camp blanket over my head, but the effect was ovenlike, so I dropped it. Tucking the pipe under one arm, I stood and removed my sweatpants and underwear. Knotting the elastic on one side of my Calvin Klein briefs, I fashioned a cap and slipped it over my head. I put on my sweatpants again and sat down.

  After a while I hit on the notion of measuring time not from the now useless horizon, but backward, from the straight-up noon position. Extending my right arm I measured hand widths, from the zenith eastward to the sun. It was only half past nine! I would cook to death if this heat continued.

  Despair settled in. Black Elk had his vision as a youngster. He knew from the get-go what he was about. What good was a vision at age fifty-seven? Whom would I tell it to? Who would listen? The world was full of New Age charlatans, over
run with visionaries. Who needed another one? What difference could any vision make to the people of New York City in the ravenous last days of the twentieth century? What was I doing here, waiting for butterflies to speak? Why had I never asked myself this simple question: What is wrong with you? Other men my age, friends of mine, had led purposeful, dignified lives—their accomplishments lined up like ducks in a row. Me, I was still one big question mark, still looking for the writer in myself. Well, here he was, with his underpants on his head.

  Unable to see what good the prayer pipe was doing me, I put it down on the blanket and did some push-ups. I folded my small blanket into a cushion and sat on it cross-legged. A wood nymph landed on my wrist. A daddy longlegs crawled over my big toe. When my knees began to ache, I stood up stiffly and checked the sun again. Not quite noon. My lips were parched. I felt an awful thirst, and my saliva had turned thin and foamy. I ripped off my “cap” and dropped to my knees. Folding up like an accordion, I rested my forehead on the blanket. I pushed the pipe aside, pulled up my skimpy work-shirt collar, and dangled my arms alongside my torso. This probably wasn’t proper hanblecheya behavior, but I didn’t care now. The sun had won this battle. The heat seemed to come from everywhere, even from beneath the blanket. The air, so utterly motionless, remained unresponsive to my plight. My forehead, already burned, prickled now against the rough wool.

  “I give up,” I said.

  I could smell dog on the blanket as I faded away.

  When I came out of it—woke up, if that’s the word—I unfolded my body slowly into an upright seated position, my buttocks pressing into my heels. A small cloud now covered the sun, but I could tell by the glow behind the cloud that it had to be somewhere around 1:30 P.M. The butterflies were gone, the air still dead. I felt unusually alert, as if I had been wakened from an afternoon nap by a knock on the door. Some sound had caught my attention—a sound emanating from something that I now imagined to be poised close behind me. I held my breath. A chill spread from my spine and traveled across my shoulder blades and down my arms. Like a frog sensing the presence of a snake, I was stricken with apprehension. I did not dare look behind me, afraid that I might see some terrible morphing of man and beast dressed in hide and wearing war paint. I waited, blood pounding in my temples, listening for a repeat of the sound I had heard in my sleep. Then, from behind my right shoulder, came a gentle waft of air, as if someone, just once, had swiped a fan. A perfectly subtle movement of air that had nothing in common with a breeze and was not at all sustained like a breeze. Its touch was abrupt and brief, like an exhalation—a nearly imperceptible adjustment of molecules, muscled with intent.