Dr. Aram hurries over and pulls his patient’s head out of the drapes, as delicately as a Girl Scout would remove a butterfly from the webbing of a net. “Perhaps you are taking things too personally. Maybe this Howie Dornick simply doesn’t like white.”
“What he doesn’t like is me.”
The doctor leads him back to the big leather chair. “You are what we in my native Iran call a keer-khar. A big man in town. A big cheese. Am I right?” He does not tell his patient that the term also refers to the impressive size of a donkey’s penis, though he is tempted.
“There is nothing wrong with ambition,” Aitchbone says.
“Of course not. I am an ambitious man myself. But big cheeses get used to having their way. They rely on it. Plan on it. Then suddenly—boom! Somebody does something unexpected and all the roses you are sniffing turn to dogshit.”
“Amen to that, brother.”
Dr. Aram likes the unexpected religious reference. “Now you are blaming God for your misfortunes? I thought everything was Howie Dornick’s fault?”
Aitchbone’s head begins to bob. “Oh, it is.”
“Not even a little bit your fault?”
D. William Aitchbone calms instantly. His fingers stop drumming. His eyelids stop blinking. He smiles. It is not a maniacal smile, but a sheepish smile. “Of course it’s my fault. Why would I come to you if it wasn’t? You charge more than I do for christsakes.”
Once again Dr. Pirooz Aram is as astonished as Xerxes. “So, already you and I are making progress.”
Aitchbone folds his hands under his nose. “I’ve miscalculated somewhere along the line, that’s for sure.”
Dr. Aram erupts. “Miscalculated? I am a psychiatrist not a professor of mathematics! You want me to figure out where you miscalculated? That is why you come to me? Not to repent? Not for self-realization? Not for transcendence? Not to get your head on straight? You are a keer-khar all right, Mr. D. William Aitchbone. A very big one. And I’m not talking cheese.”
Aitchbone checks his watch. “I thought maybe you could prescribe some pills.”
Now it is Dr. Pirooz Aram who staggers to the window and wraps his head in the expensive drapery. “Pills? All you Americans ever want are goddamn pills!”
D. William Aitchbone reaches for his checkbook. “How many sessions do you think this will take? Three? Four? Squaw Days is in five weeks. If I’m not on top of my game by then, I’m toast politically.”
When the Greeks sank the Persian fleet at Salamis, Xerxes impetuously had his own officers beheaded. It was a big mistake, a mistake that prevented Persia from civilizing the world, as God had intended. Instead that honor went to the Greeks, and then to successive empires of barbaric Europeans: To the Romans. To the Christian Crusaders. To the English. To the French. To the Spaniards. To the Americans. So Dr. Pirooz Aram knows that if he is to civilize the civilizers, he must not be impetuous like Xerxes was. He is, as the keer-khar has pointed out, a professional. So, while he wants to throw the keer-khar out on his donkey ears, he pulls his head from the drapes and playfully musses the keer-khar’s hair. “Perhaps a lawyer like yourself can undo somebody’s mistakes in three or four sessions, but your mistakes are not legal mistakes, my friend. They are mistakes of the soul. Who knows? Squaw Days might come and go a half-dozen times before that terrible soul of yours is mended. In the meantime I will prescribe some pills for you, as you wish.”
D. William Aitchbone is relieved. “Thank you.”
The doctor scribbles on his pad. “I must confess that I have heard a great deal about this Serendipity Green® house. From Katherine and others. And most of what I have heard has been wonderful! It has awakened and transformed so many people! Unfortunately it has not awakened and transformed you. Apparently Serendipity Green® is not an equal opportunity transformer, eh? So, these pills I prescribe are not for you, Mr. D. William Aitchbone, they are for your enemies. You swallow the pills, and they will feel better.”
“Whatever floats your boat.”
Dr. Pirooz Aram hands him the prescription and walks him out. “Did you know that the word serendipity is from a very old Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You know it now.”
26
It is August. For the first time in thirty years the Cleveland Indians have a chance of winning their division. If they do win it—and the Chicago White Sox are fading fast—they will go on to the playoffs, where they will try to beat the Boston Red Sox and then the New York Yankees. And if they beat the Red Sox and the Yankees, they will go on to the World Series and try to beat the Atlanta Braves.
It is the dream season Cleveland’s Real Indians have been waiting for. Each round of the playoffs gives CRI a chance to parade before national television cameras to demand that Chief Wahoo be dropped as the baseball Indians’ mascot. And if it is Cleveland and the Atlanta Braves in the World Series! Well, what an opportunity to make white America feel ashamed that will be! But the CRI’s president, Ernest Not Irish, is strangely blasé about this opportunity. He has put all matters concerning baseball into the capable hands of Angel Guerra Smith, a no-nonsense Apache woman whose great-grandfather once hid out with Geronimo in the Sierra Madres.
Yes, despite the baseball Indians’ rare winning season, despite the rare opportunities for national exposure it offers, Ernest Not Irish is instead focusing like a flashlight on Squaw Days.
On the morning of the Squaw Day parade and Re-Enactment, Ernest Not Irish takes the .22 revolver he bought from the Slovenian who owns Paddy’s 25th Street Pub, and heads for Tuttwyler. As he drives his blue-fendered white Pontiac south on Interstate 71, he thinks of the two old shibboleths that so perfectly sum up Native American History since Christopher Columbus stumbled ashore with his greed, muskets, Bibles, and diseases:
“The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
“It is a good day to die.”
The first is a white man’s shibboleth. The second an Indian shibboleth. It has always amazed him how well the symbiotic relationship between these two shibboleths have served the cause of White American History.
The farther south he drives, the heavier the traffic gets. Apparently lots of people are going to Tuttwyler today, the twin attractions of Howie Dornick’s Serendipity Green® house and Princess Pogawedka rising from stumps making a visit irresistible. Won’t they be surprised by the third attraction Ernest Not Irish has in store for them.
It will be a hot day. D. William Aitchbone showers and gives his armpits a double rub of Right Guard. He has orange juice and a tablet of Solhzac for breakfast. He polishes his shoes and trims the wiry middle-aged hairs erupting from his nostrils and ears. He tears his best blue suit out of the dry cleaning bag and makes sure to remove all the tags. He puts on the Serendipity Green® tie he forced himself to buy at the mall. Surely the VP will be wearing one. Donald Grinspoon, too, probably.
D. William Aitchbone knows today will be the worst day of his life. But he will look his best. Doesn’t a good solider always makes sure every button of his tunic is buttoned before he faces the firing squad? Yessireebob he does.
Ernest Not Irish realizes too late that he should have started for Tuttwyler earlier. He is forced to park at the Walmart on West Wooseman and take a shuttle bus to the village square. Apparently the bus has just been painted Serendipity Green® and the fumes of not-quite-dry enamel are making him woozy. Also it is not easy to sit on a bus seat with a .22 revolver in your pants.
Katherine Hardihood has not left the house yet and Rhubarb has pissed the curio cabinet already. His mistress’ nervous rushing about has made him nervous. And so to put a little order and certainty into his always vulnerable, low-to-the-floor life, he backed up to the curio cabinet and let it squirt. And now Katherine, dressed in her pioneer woman bonnet and dress, has to get out the Pine Sol and scrub like a pioneer woman.
Before leaving for the old Tuttwyler Mills snake cake plant, where the parade units ar
e assembling, she snaps Rhubarb into his clothesline leash and stakes him in the backyard. “Don’t kill any squirrels,” she tells him. Rhubarb rushes to the porch to make sure that the food and water bowls are full. Relieved, he heads for the rhubarb and curls up for the exhausting day ahead.
The shuttle bus stops in front of the Daydream Beanery. Ernest Not Irish shuffles off. The sidewalks are packed with people, all white and most of them overweight. Many of them are wearing something Serendipity Green®, tee shirts or baseball caps, walking shorts or socks. Though the crowd is huge, he can see the Serendipity Green® gazebo. It looks less impressive than it did in the Bison-Prickert commercial he saw during the NBA finals.
The parade will be starting soon. But he is not much interested in the parade. It is tonight’s Re-Enactment of Princess Pogawedka rising through the stumps that has his Cherokee heart bumping. Still the parade offers him an opportunity to make as many whites as he can feel uncomfortable. So he squeezes through the crowd until he reaches the Pizza Teepee and stands next to the wooden Indian with the pepperoni pizza in its hand. He waits for people to notice him, to be struck by the irony of seeing a real Indian standing next to a wooden Indian, to be so guilt-ridden they won’t ever attend another Indians game, or even watch one on TV.
D. William Aitchbone arrives at the snack cake plant just as the Vice President’s helicopter is setting down. He was right about the Serendipity Green® neckties. Donald Grinspoon has one on. So does Mayor Woodrow Wilson Sadlebyrne. So does that old sonofabitch congressman Buddy Bowfin, and his worthless son, county commissioner Buddy Bowfin Jr., and that over-sexed banshee Victoria Bonobo, and so does the Vice President.
“Hello, Tuttwyler!” the VP sings out in his trademark Texan as he trots down the helicopter steps and then rushes forward to glad-hand the locals, his legs and back bent so the big bird’s still-spinning blades won’t slice the top off his huge Texas head. If the VP is worried about impeachment, he isn’t showing it.
Howie Dornick is watching from the window when the Gangrene Velveeta pulls in his driveway. It seems that Hugh Harbinger has brought somebody with him. He watches Hugh get out, wearing a Serendipity Green® tuxedo—the fancy kind with tails—and a Serendipity Green® top hat. Now the somebody gets out. He has unruly white hair and an unruly white heard. He is wearing a Serendipity Green® beret.
Howie Dornick watches Hugh Harbinger and the someone as they stand in the yard and grin up at the house. Finally they climb up on the porch. He opens the door for them. “Howie,” says Hugh Harbinger, “this is Dr. Pirooz Aram, my psychiatrist.”
“You don’t mind that I have tagged along?” this Dr. Pirooz Aram asks.
“The more the merrier,” says Howie Dornick.
All three of them now hurry into the Gangrene Velveeta and with Howie Dornick giving directions, hurry toward the old snack cake plant. “I have heard so much about you, Howie,” Dr. Pirooz Aram says. “How is it again that your father had only one foot?”
Katherine Hardihood takes her place on Princess Pogawedka’s float, next to the pair of ceramic lawn deer. She is relieved when she sees Howie Dornick crawl from the back seat of a boxy Serendipity Green® station wagon. She also is disappointed. Her man has not worn the pair of Serendipity Green® overalls the people at Oshkosh B’gosh sent him. He is wearing his navy blue dress pants and of all things a pink polo shirt. She watches as he and Hugh and somebody with a Serendipity Green® beret climb into the Serendipity Green® Mustang convertible provided by Bill Blazek Ford.
The first parade unit to reach the square is a black sheriff’s car. Its blue lights are blinking. Its siren is blaring. The crowd applauds. The deputy driving the car waves like he’s the queen of England.
The next parade unit is the VFW color guard. Two of the veterans carry a long canvas sign between them. ARTIE BROWN POST, the sign reads. The crowd applauds.
Next comes the school bus fitted with a hydraulic lift for handicapped students. A long sign on the side reads: SCHOOL STARTS IN 16 DAYS. The adults in the crowd cheer. The kids in the crowd jeer. Then everyone laughs as if they are extras in an old movie directed by Frank Capra. Behind the bus are the unicyclists in their chipmunk suits.
Next come clumps of Cub Scouts and Brownies and clumps of 4-H kids, some of them pulling goats, some carrying chickens and rabbits, some just waving and waving. Every clump gets a heartfelt round of applause.
The next parade unit is the Serendipity Green® Mustang carrying the famous Howie Dornick and the famous Hugh Harbinger and some man in a Serendipity Green® beret. A boom box blares Kermit the Frog’s “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” The crowd sings along.
Next comes Darren Frost in his cupcake costume. The handle of the plywood butcher’s knife sticking from the cupcake’s back is painted Serendipity Green®. The crowd applauds defiantly.
Now there is the clicky-clacky-click of drumsticks on metal and the threet-threet-threet of a drum major’s whistle The Marching Wildcat Band of West Wyssock High kicks into “Louie-Louie.” Bomp-bomp-bomp. Bomp-bomp. Bomp-bomp. Bomp-bomp. Bomp-bomp-bomp. The band does have one surprise this year, however, Their old red and gold uniforms have been replaced by new Serendipity Green® uniforms. The band director, dressed like Davy Crockett, urges the crowd to sing along: “Lou-eeeea, Loooo-i, Ohhhh no! I godda go.”
Many more parade units pass by: Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Clowns. Little League baseball teams dangling their legs over flatbed trucks. Former Mayor Donald Grinspoon, wearing his scarf and goggles, waving from his oil-farting old Harley. Waving sheriff’s deputies on prancing appaloosas. The Senior Squares square-dancing club do-si-doing through the horse biscuits.
Ernest Not Irish’s eyes are watching the parade, his mind on tonight’s Re-Enactment. He is going to give these white fools a Squaw Days to remember. Tonight when that white woman with the stained butterscotch pudding skin rises above the stumps, a real Indian will rise with her. This real Indian will rip the wig off the fake Indian’s head and shake it at the crowd. This real Indian will pull a .22 revolver from his pants. Then this real Indian will say this: “Like to worship dead Indians, do you? Worship this, you unreasonable white bastards!” Then the real Indian will put the .22 to his real Indian temple and put a real bullet through his real Indian brains.
Now there is the familiar DOOM-doom-doom-doom of Indian drums. The enthusiastic crowd grows ecstatic. Everybody stretches their neck to see. A cheer rattles up the street. Then there she is, Princess Pogawedka, standing high on the back of a farm trailer, pulled along by a huge Serendipity Green® tractor. This year little Kapusta is nestled in a Serendipity Green® backpack.
Then: Booooooo! Here comes John and Amos Tuttwyler with their papier-mâché clubs and fistfuls of candy for the kids.
Were this any other Squaw Days, the next parade unit would be The West Wyssock Junior High School Band, wearing their construction paper feathers, squeaking and honking their way through “America the Beautiful.” But this is not any other Squaw Days. This year the Vice President has come.
Katherine Hardihood holds onto the neck of a ceramic deer so she doesn’t fall off the bouncing trailer. She does not feel as ashamed as she usually does. She knows this will be the last year for this nonsense. Sometime this fall she is gong to call a press conference and tell the truth about Princess Pogawedka. It won’t be pleasant. Her friends and neighbors will hate her and shun her and more than likely force the library board to fire her. Certainly Bill Aitchbone will enact some cruel revenge on her. But, Jiminy Cricket, facts are facts, and the truth is the truth. And isn’t that what really counts?
Given the VP’s troubles over Montezuma’s Revenge, he is welcomed with an even bigger Boooooooooooo! than the Tuttwyler brothers.
The VP is riding atop the village’s new Serendipity Green® pumper, the one the Bison-Prickert Paint Company bribed the village council with. He is not alone up there. Mayor Woodrow Wilson Sadlebyrne is on his left and Council President D. William Aitchbone is on his right. Co
uncilwoman Victoria Bonobo is just behind him, as are the two Buddy Bowfins. Assistant Fire Chief Dick Mueller is driving the pumper. Like his passengers, he is smiling and waving and wearing a Serendipity Green® tie. Secret Service men are squishing right through those horse biscuits the Senior Squares so artfully do-si-doed around.
D. William Aitchbone listens to the boos and knows they are the howling winds of his own political demise. He wants to reach back and push Victoria Bonobo off the pumper. He wants to see the wide tires of this great machine smash her like a cockroach under the heels of a flamingo dancer. “They’re booing me,” he says to the VP, “not you. They love you, sir. Absolutely love you.”
Ernest Not Irish is still thinking about how he will jump through the smoking stumps when he spots D. William Aitchbone atop the Serendipity Green® pumper. He remembers how this white devil humiliated him the night he came to be reasonable.
Those two old shibboleths he has dwelt on—The only good Indian is a dead Indian and It is a good day to die—are suddenly replaced by the words of Little Crow, chief of Mdewkanton Sioux. Little Crow had angered the young warriors of his tribe by signing a treaty. These warriors did not want to live peaceably with the whites. They wanted to go to war against the whites and in the dead of night they came to confront Little Crow in his bed, to demand war. They called him a coward. But Little Crow told them he was not a coward and said to them: “You are like dogs in the Hot Moon when they run mad and snap at their own shadows.” Recalling these words Ernest Not Irish realizes that he is behaving like a dog in the Hot Moon. Little Crow had counseled against war with the whites because there were so many whites. War against the whites would be suicidal, he said. “You will die like the rabbits when the hungry wolves hunt them in the Hard Moon of January,” he said.
But the Mdewkanton warriors would not listen. They went to war and died like rabbits. Ernest Not Irish realizes that enough Indians have died like rabbits. He realizes that it is not such a good day to die after all. At least not for him to die. So he pulls the .22 revolver from his pants and he lays his arm across the wooden Indian’s wooden pizza and he takes aim at D. William Aitchbone, who is just now passing by. Just as he squeezes the trigger a white woman wearing a construction paper headdress bumps into him with her big wad of Serendipity Green® cotton candy. The bullet meant for D. William Aitchbone goes astray. In desperation Ernest Not Irish fires every bullet in his gun. Pop pop pop pop pop.
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