THURSDAY
Come on, man. Jesus Christ.
More beer bottles flow onto the stage, break apart, and scatter across the canvas. A young Native man hops up and knocks off the bottles with a push broom. He gives a thumbs-up to the chief. A beer bottle narrowly misses Thursday’s head.
CHIEF
There is but one hope for your people. A girl, now a woman, who has the strength of many warriors. She is Faby Apache.
The crowd goes crazy. Little girls hold up hand-painted signs. Old women begin to cry. Young men watch the gorgeous warrior as she paces the ring, side to side, like a caged tiger.
THURSDAY
(Leaning in to whisper to the chief)
This is all an act, right? Just part of the show?
CHIEF
Sure. If you say so.
Jeff met many Apaches that night; one even handed him an ice pack for his head. They offered him Mexican beer from coolers in the backs of their pickup trucks and warm shots of mescal. He accepted, although he felt bad about drinking with Native Americans. He’d read countless stories in the New York Times about drug and alcohol abuse among indigenous peoples. But his head hurt a lot. It wasn’t from the beer bottle that had hit him between the eyes; it was from Faby Apache using one of her signature moves (although Jeff didn’t know it was famous until after he’d come to), the Hurricanrana, in which the wrestler wrapped her legs around her opponent’s neck and drove him headfirst into the mat.
Faby Apache was beautiful, muscular, and very strong. But it hadn’t been pleasant to be caught between her thighs and hammered to the ground. He accepted the mescal as a reward.
“I hear you have an old Bronco,” said a young man introduced as Lorenzo. He looked to be very drunk and dangerous. He had long black hair and lots of ragged tattoos and kept on telling Jeff that the feds wanted to send him back to jail. His T-shirt shilled for a band called Eyes Set to Kill.
“Thank you for the drink.”
“Can you give me a ride?” he said. “It’s a very pretty truck. Faith told me about it.”
“Who’s she?”
“The girl who brought you the cheap beer at the pool,” Lorenzo said. “And the club sandwich on wheat toast. No bacon.”
“She’s very pretty.”
“Yeah?” Lorenzo said. “She’s fourteen, dipshit.”
“Oh.”
“And my little sister.”
Lorenzo wanted to take the Bronco through the piney hills at night. Jeff worried the car would get muddy, that something might break, that he might bust a tire or, God forbid, twist the frame. “What the hell do you have a four-wheel drive for if you don’t use it? Are you some kind of pussy?” Lorenzo asked.
“I’m no pussy,” Jeff said and agreed to let him drive the Bronco. He’d drunk half a bottle of mescal. He told Lorenzo he wanted to eat the worm but Lorenzo told him there was no worm in that bottle. Lorenzo drove with two other men in the backseat and made Jeff run shoeless behind them, trailing the Bronco like a dog. They told him this was a rite of passage for all Apaches: if he followed the Road of Trials, he would be their blood brother. Jeff thought maybe he might sell the story, a first-person account, to Outside or maybe Men’s Journal. “How Mescal Turned to Apache Blood.”
Jeff was a runner, knew the Hollywood Hills as well as a coyote, but after a couple miles or maybe a hundred, he stopped, bent at the waist, and tried to catch his breath. The moon above them was huge, painting the pine trees silver. Damn, he wished he had a pen. He’d write down that description and use it in a novel sometime. Shining silvery pines. “No más,” Jeff said.
One of the Apaches, a laughing, grinning teen, tossed a Dos Equis bottle at him. It missed by a mile and shattered against a rock.
“What’s next?” Jeff said.
“You look at my sister?” Lorenzo asked.
“No.”
“I like your Bronco,” he said. “How much?”
“It’s not mine.”
“Everything is for sale.”
“My brother-in-law bought it in Malibu,” Jeff said. “And he’d never sell it. He loves this truck more than my sister. Okay? So what’s next?”
Lorenzo turned around in the driver’s seat, lighting up a cigarette, smoke coming from his nostrils. “What are you talking about?”
“The Road of Trials,” Jeff said. “The Native American way. Joseph Campbell and all that shit.”
“Oh, man,” Lorenzo said. “I almost forgot. We were just bullshitting you, man. Come on. Get in the truck, we’ll drive you back to the casino. Just don’t look at Faith again.”
“He owes us for the beer,” one of the men said. “Beer costs money.”
“And the mescal,” said the other. “He drank most of the bottle.”
“I like this Bronco,” Lorenzo said, driving fast, hitting ravines and rocks, feeling the custom wheel in his hands. Jeff had to hold on to the roll bar or he’d fall out into the endless trees. “I dreamed of this night the whole time I was in jail,” Lorenzo said. “I knew it would come.”
Jeff played blackjack in the casino most of the next day. The casino paid him out chips for what he’d lost and gave him a voucher for a full buffet breakfast. Lorenzo and his two boys said Jeff owed them fifty bucks. They said they’d come back for it at noon and he’d better have it or else. Lorenzo said he needed cash to provide refreshments for his family. Tonight, Faith would dance for ten hours without interruption. Only through a test of strength, endurance, and character would she truly become a woman. No one should go hungry waiting for all that mess.
Head in hands, Jeff kept losing. Lorenzo took a seat next to him. He had on a T-shirt that showed Geronimo and his boys. It said Homeland Security—Fighting Terrorism Since 1492.
“You know my sister can’t smile for two days.”
“I know how she feels.”
“Where are you from?” Lorenzo said.
“I told you,” he said. “California.”
“Is that where you learned to gamble?”
Jeff stared at him.
“I didn’t play cards until I went to jail,” Lorenzo said. “Lots of time to learn there.”
“I worked my way through grad school playing poker,” Jeff said. “That’s how I got my MFA and published my book.”
Jeff doubled down. The dealer snatched up the cards and the last of his chips.
“You lost again?” Lorenzo said. “Damn, man. It’s like you are cursed or something.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Jeff said. “I’ll pay you.”
“I don’t worry,” Lorenzo said. “We’ll just take the Bronco.”
“Over fifty bucks?” Jeff asked. “C’mon. Right.”
Lorenzo didn’t smile, seeming to be thinking on something new. “The most important thing is that Faith choose the right medicine woman,” he said, cigarette hanging from his mouth. “Me and the boys built her a sacred teepee and later we’ll burn it down. I guess there’s not much else I can do for her now.”
“I’ll get you your money.”
Lorenzo nodded and scooped up the keys to the Bronco. “You better.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Jeff’s brother-in-law said. “It just sounds all so fantastic.”
“As fantastic as you in a werewolf suit solving crimes?”
“I don’t solve crimes as the werewolf,” he said. “The detective turns into a werewolf only when there’s danger or he feels threatened. He can’t think rationally when he’s the werewolf. Come on, man. You’re the writer. You know how this shit works.”
“I have to stay on the rez again tonight.”
“Until the puberty dance is over?”
“Yes,” Jeff said. “Exactly. And if I can win just one hand, I’ll go back to poker. Blackjack isn’t working for me.”
“You know that truck is in a chop shop in south Phoenix right now,” Jeff’s brother-in-law said. “Or have you really lost your mind this time? Not just faked a complete mental breakdown like
when you wanted to go to India.”
“They want me at the bonfire tonight,” Jeff said. “They promise I don’t have to pay for the mescal and beer. That tonight it’s on them. I’m a real invited guest of the tribe.”
“I’m so glad for you, Jeff,” the brother-in-law said. “Next time, call your sister instead of me. I don’t have time for this crap.”
Jeff walked to the bonfire at twilight, sat down on his butt, and watched the dance of the mountain gods, shirtless men wearing black hoods and what looked to be tall candlesticks on their heads jumping around and chanting to a ceaseless drum. Soon, a bunch of girls in white buckskin began to dance, moving around the fire, their faces painted a bright white, ornate necklaces jangling from their necks. Faith, one of them, pretended not to see him.
“It will stay on the woman’s mind her whole life,” said the medicine man. He’d snuck up on him. It was the same old man who’d prepped him to wrestle Faby Apache. The one who looked a lot like Chief Dan George. Hoffman had been so damn good in that movie.
“What about the boys?” Jeff said. “What do you do for them?”
“There’s not a ceremony like this for boys,” the medicine man said. “A boy is like a lost dog. He must find his own way.”
“How’s that?”
“We all have our own path, our own journey to manhood,” he said. “I served in the Marine Corps.”
Jeff took another drink of the mescal, still looking to the bottom of the bottle for the worm but not finding it. “No shit?”
“Two tours of Vietnam,” said the medicine man. “That sucked big-time. The ladies understand ceremony. Boys this age only want to fondle themselves and get drunk.”
Faith came to Jeff later, her face painted white, dried mud from chin to below her eyes. She spoke with tight skin and a stoic face, having to be stoic because of the whole no-smiling rule. In bare feet, Jeff had let her inside the small casino hotel room where the AC unit hummed and hummed. She wore white buckskin and feathers in her hair. Her black eyes were very large and dark. She was hopped up, excited with energy, talking so fast Jeff had trouble following. “I want to give you something.”
“Why is your face white?”
“To represent the White-Painted Woman,” she said. “In the morning, after dancing all night, I will run around the sacred basket four times and wipe the clay and mashed corn from my face. The giant teepee my brothers built will fall and burn and then I’ll be a woman.”
Jeff nodded. “Sure.”
The girl took his hand and pressed it to her chest. “Do you feel this?”
“Yes,” Jeff said. “Yes, I do.”
“I am almost a woman.”
“I’m more than twice your age,” Jeff said. “I can’t accept what you want to give me. They could put me in jail. It’s wrong. Your brother would murder me.”
The girl with the white-painted face narrowed her eyes and shook her head. Beads around Faith’s neck clinked softly. She smelled like clay and cornmeal.
“Maybe in a few years,” Jeff said. “Maybe if I get my movie produced. It’s still being optioned by David Schwimmer. He was Ross on Friends. He wants to produce, direct, and star in it. I don’t think he’s ideal for the part. But I buy him as the trader. He talks smart and fast.”
“What you feel is my heart,” Faith said. “Not my boob. And my gift isn’t my womanhood. You know I’m not a woman until the morning?”
“Oh,” Jeff said. “Of course.”
“I must get back,” she said. “I am to be imbued with the spirit of Changing Woman. Changing Woman is powerful. She has the ability to heal the sick, help the weak-minded. People have come from all over the rez to be touched by the spirit of Changing Woman.”
“That’s good,” he said. “Right?”
She touched Jeff’s head and held it in both hands. “But you will accept my gift,” she said. “Won’t you?”
“Sure,” he said. “Why not?”
Faith opened her right hand and showed him the Bronco keys in her palm. “You should run. The truck is parked by the great teepee. As it falls, my brother will be with it. Go.”
“And when does it fall?”
“Not long after the medicine man shows his painted hand to the rising star.”
“And when exactly is that?”
“I think about nine o’clock.”
Jeff couldn’t sleep. After a few hours of lying in the dark hotel room, he pulled on his blue jeans and V-neck T-shirt by American Apparel, gathered his things, and walked to the big fire a half mile away from the casino. He sat on a fallen tree and watched the women, young and old, painted and barefaced, dance around the giant bonfire. Faby Apache was there but no longer dressed as a warrior. Now she had on a plain blue dress, cowboy boots, and a glittery ball cap.
Sparks kicked up into the starry night. The dance was more of a shuffle with closed eyes, a movement with little direction or aim other than to keep moving, keep chanting. No one stopped. The energy was ceaseless.
Men played drums and chanted at the women: Keep moving. Keep going. Some of them wore ceremonial dress, others black cowboy hats with colorful beads. One skinny guy wore a Captain America T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The medicine man made big pronouncements in Apache that Jeff didn’t understand. More sparks flew up into the purplish sky.
When two jacked-up trucks drove off from the ceremony, Jeff spotted the parked Bronco and sighed. A white coat of dust had spread over the dented hood. The windshield wipers had cleared off a sliver from the glass, enough to see a little road. Faith continued to dance around the teepee. She did not see him or look anywhere but at the path before her. Move, move, more. Keep dancing. Keep breathing. The fire cast a wide slice of light and kicked up white smoke. The women kept up a hobbling kind of dance, moving from side to side with the rhythm of the chanting men. On the page, Jeff hoped it might actually go like this:
EXT. WHITE MOUNTAIN RANGE PUBERTY CEREMONY MORNING
A giant morning sun rising over the impoverishment of the rez. THE MAN hands FAITH SPOTTED EAGLE the keys to the vintage truck. With the keys, she could escape the rez, the poverty and drug abuse (assuming there was drug abuse), and ride away with a greater understanding of the world. The world was wide open; the future was fun. The girl was hot. The desert was hotter.
JEFF
I want you to have it. Keep the Bronco. You are now a woman.
Faith Spotted Eagle hugs the Man hard as she wipes the clay from her face and dirt from her eyes. She can see!
FAITH
It’s all clear now. I won’t forget you.
The Man kisses Faith on the cheek. A brotherly kiss. She looks at him, holds his hands tight, and looks as if she wants to say more. We see the Man toss his travel bag over his shoulder and walk to the rising sun over the mountains.
In real time, Lorenzo slid off the dented hood of the Bronco, took a swig of mescal, and offered Jeff his middle finger. He looked tall and wavy through the haze of the bonfire, the smoke making him seem hard and important. The women kept on dancing, circling around and around. The morning light had gone from black to gray, a yellow swath of sunlight coming up over the mountains.
Several Apache men gathered, including Lorenzo, and walked toward the teepee. Lorenzo carried a metal gas can. The girls stopped dancing, and a large old woman handed Faith a red hand towel. A basket was set away from the teepee and the girls began to run for it as the men doused the teepee with gas. The fire was lit as the girls rushed toward the basket, running round and round, four times, nearly tripping, one falling to her knees with exhaustion.
Faith ran toward a group of old women with fat arms spread wide, wiping the white clay and cornmeal from her face and dust from her eyes. She nodded toward Jeff, and Jeff ran for the Bronco.
He jumped into the seat, slipped the keys into the ignition, and tried to crank the engine. It sputtered and failed and sputtered and failed.
Lorenzo looked up from the flames and falling beams. He spit in th
e dirt and yelled something to his boys and they turned for the Bronco. Jeff tried the engine again. Lorenzo pointed and yelled, running hard. Arms pumping. In the narrow slice of windshield, Jeff lost sight of the man until he was ten yards away.
Jeff slammed his fist on the wheel as Faby Apache let out a Mexican war cry and tackled Lorenzo to the ground. She pressed his face into the dirt and held the man’s head between her thighs. Her muscled chest and arms shone with sweat. She looked across the way to Jeff, mouthed the word Go!
Jeff tried the ignition again and the twin pipes growled and joined up with the chanting mountain spirits. All of the girls had found the old women; they were embracing. He smelled the burning wood and corn on the hot morning wind. The sun rose high in the east over a ribbon of blacktop leading away from the rez.
Faith walked down the highway, moving the opposite direction, coated in the white buckskin, her arms disappearing into the buckskin shirt, her face washed clean of the clay. The logs of the teepee fell into a big heap behind them.
She continued to walk, eyes not leaving her path, but this time smiling. A little.
A necklace of mescal seeds dangled from his rearview mirror. Jeff stopped only twice on the way to St. Louis.
THE TWO FALCONS
by Gary Phillips
Present—Four Days Ago
Evening and two men sat slouched on a pleather and chrome couch. They had their legs up on the Goodwill-purchased coffee table and one of the men was barefoot, revealing a little toe missing from one of his feet. Laminated onto the table’s surface were numerous baseball trading cards covering various eras. There were several empty beer cans on the thick lacquer as well as a family-size bag of barbecue chips they’d been munching from steadily. The chips rested on two cards of the stolen-base king Maury Wills. The elder of the two men, the one with the missing toe, was an uncle of sorts to the other one via a long-dissolved marriage. He’d bought the chips and beer on sale at Vons.
A corner lamp threw off weak light in the tidy living room as the two were entertained by a program on the flat-screen before them. It was one of those fact-based efforts that revisited historic and modern-day crimes through conjecture and on-screen re-creations. The men shared a joint while a segment unfolded on the television.
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