by Joseph Grady
“Coming from you,” she pointed out what he was wearing, “that means something. Do you think he was trying to steal something?”
“If he was, it was stupid. Runners don’t carry wallets.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Did he look like a gypsy?”
“Not really.”
Brian arched his eyebrows. “Did he get your number?”
“No!”
“Maybe he’s some kind of operator. He thinks you’re some innocent study-abroad girl. Giving you some keys is his way of getting his foot in the door. He can make sure that he gets to see you again some other time and take your purse.”
“I guess,” she said. “But that kind of freaks me out, because he said he recognized me as that American girl from Palazzo Mortimer.”
Brian shrugged his shoulder. “Maybe he’s new on staff and he just really needed to get his keys back to the Palazzo for some reason. It’s probably nothing. And even if he is an operator, you’ve got a head on your shoulders. He probably tries the same trick on tons of girls who are much dumber than you. We’ll see what happens. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Lucy sipped her coffee and tried not to worry. It didn’t work. “Wait, what do you mean girls dumber than me? I can’t tell if that’s supposed to be a compliment or not.”
“Well, if you don’t get what that means, then you probably know how you’re supposed to take it.”
“And aren’t I just some innocent study-abroad girl?”
“No, you’ve been here too long for me to call you a ‘study-abroad-girl’… I was talking about the innocent part.”
It took a good twenty-five minutes for the rain to let up. As it did, Lucy and Brian headed up the Janiculum hill to Palazzo Mortimer. Coming around the curve, they found an ambulance and a huge variety of police vehicles parked in front of the building with lights blazing. About twenty yards off, she finally saw me, standing there in the middle of the scene. I’m hard to miss, at least for Lucy.
She quickened her pace up the sidewalk towards me, leaving Brian to chug up the hill by himself, but a police officer jumped out and blocked her way, “Lei non può entrare, c’è stato un omicidio. Ha capito? Un omicidio!”1
“Sì?” she gasped. “Qua? Ma io abito qua. Chi è stato?”2
“Eh, a ’sto punto, non lo possiamo dire. Ma adesso Lei deve stare qui,” said the officer pointing at the ground, “E Le facciamo un paio di domande.”3
The officer brushed past her to intercept other pedestrians. From where Lucy stood, she could just catch glimpses of the main entrance to Palazzo Mortimer. The door was propped open, and a twisted shape lay beneath a plastic tarp in the doorway with two feet sticking out. The legs had red Nike sneakers and red track pants.
CHAPTER TWO
LE RAGAZZE NON FANNO VISION QUEST
I still clearly remember, twelve years, two months and five days earlier, when I first met Lucy. After quite a few years of inactivity, they finally told me I might be given a new assignment, if everything lined up as it should, and if the guide request was both valid and licit. Now, I had been told the same thing a number of times already, but nothing had ever come of it, so I logged that information in the back of my mind, and endeavored to keep it there. There’s little sense in getting all stirred up, you old bear. You know it will all probably come to nothing, so why start making plans before you’re damn sure?
And so I waited. In moments of weakness I would let my guard down and envision what it would be like to be back in the field: the hunting, the practical advice, the wilderness. But then I would snap out of it, and remind myself that I already had a comfortable life without solid work. Sure, it would be nice if it were still like the old days, when there was no lag time whatsoever between assignments. But things change, and even I appreciate some of the advances of modernity: Volkswagens, martial arts classes, white noise machines.
Despite my doubts, one day I actually did get the call. The higher ups — that is, men in starched linens, ancient enough to bear esoteric names like Emile Durkheim or Henry James or Rudolph Otto — delivered a name and an address, and ordered my deployment. I was unable to hide my delight at the fact that the address they gave me was not some anonymous urban jungle, but was deep in the hinterlands of Montana. Wide open space. Backcountry. Woodlands. Freedom. Too many these days are commissioned to the cities. I had really dodged a bullet. It is difficult to describe that thrill I experienced when I turned off the paved road, and felt that gravel beneath me for miles and miles, and that even greater thrill when I came around a bend, the hill crested, and the camp came into view: a lake full of kids in canoes, and twenty large teepees beyond that. Perfect. This is it. This is the wilderness. I had stopped believing assignments like this could still exist.
But with that thrill, I also received the first sign that something was wrong: the sound of a perfectly tuned engine roaring around the bend, and the startling sight of a brand new Rolls Royce careening past me along the dirt road towards camp. The second indication that something was wrong came before I arrived at the teepees: a big wooden sign reading CAMP IWIFABLOF: the Initech Wilderness Institute for American Business Leaders of the Future. Well, at least it says ‘wilderness,’ I told myself.
I got to work right away canvassing the area, looking for anyone on a quest. Nothing. So I bid my time. The address given was right here. I knew the assignment was here. Patience. Everyone really sucked at archery, and they were using velcro arrows. Okay. Calm down. That’s alright. We’ll have something to work on. It looked like they were decent swimmers, but there was a man in a suit and tie with an “Office of Risk Management” badge. Whenever anyone approached a water level that was above the neck, he nodded to the life guard, who would whistle and bring the kids back in. Then the man in the suit would write everything down on a clipboard. Strange.
At the end of the day, hundreds of forms from various adults wound their way back to the “Legal Teepee.” I thought these might be the people in charge, but after a while it became obvious that they were only advisors. They documented everything twice, and would grow twitchy if anyone mentioned the word lawsuit. Finally, I found myself listening to the proceedings in the meeting teepee with the adult who seemed to be running the show.
A frightened twelve year old boy poked his head in the flap, “Miss, do you have a moment?”
“We’ll be moving forward with a guided reading on paradigm shifts in ten minutes. Can you be quick?”
“Absolutely.”
“Come on in.”
“I wanted to dialogue briefly about the implementation of our new project based learning procedures in the Cheyenne Arapahoe Teepee,” said the twelve year old.
“Our wheelhouse learning goal for that was yesterday,” responded Miss. “You know that.”
“And my guys have been very proactive at meeting that goal set.”
“Then what’s the delay? This is an early stage: archery, canoeing, that kind of stuff. Core competencies.”
“There’s been a few roadblocks towards synergy in the group — well, just one really.”
“Yes?”
“We’ve had one asset with serious HR objections about adaptive learning and seamless cooperation. First amendment objections.”
“Did you touch base with legal?”
“Oh, absolutely. They’ve been wonderful.”
“What did they say?”
“Well, we’ve got our hands tied. We’re one hundred percent committed to openness and mind-sharing, which means we can either accommodate or lose our 501(c)3 tax-exempt status.”
The woman in charge sighed. “If that’s what we’ve got to do, at the end of the day, that’s what we’ve got to do.”
“Then we have your go ahead for a reevaluation of my teepee’s Talent Relationship Management procedures?”
“You can tee off, but we’ll circle back on this tomorrow morning, alright?”
“Perfect. Thank you, Miss. Thank you for your time.”
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“Always a pleasure.”
Individually, I understood each word used in the conversation, but when put together in those combinations, the whole dialogue sounded completely foreign to me. So I stayed away from the adults, and focused in on the campers. None of them seemed to be doing anything remotely resembling a vision quest. There were three kids in the medical teepee. One of them was actually sick, and the other two just wanted some attention from the nurses. Nobody was fasting or meditating. There was one boy with autism who could see me just fine, but he didn’t pay me any attention. There was a girl on a juice diet. She spent her days in a teepee by herself reading Harry Potter, clearly not wanting to be at camp. There was one counselor who, on the sly, every once in a while, ingested some kind of hallucinogen. He saw me too, but was usually too incoherent for conversation. Nobody was the boy I was looking for.
By the time Thursday evening rolled around, I was getting pretty impatient, and was beginning to wonder whether or not this was all going to fall through. I started rehearsing all the old rationalizations. It’ll be fine. You’ll have so much free time. People aren’t interested in this kind of stuff these days. I was wandering away from camp, by the lake, when I finally heard someone say something.
“Oh, shoot, I guess I’ve been on a vision quest, or something, for a few days now.” The voice sounded high. It went on, “Um… so I think it’s getting close to the end of camp. So… my dear spirit animal, or whatever I’m supposed to see on this quest thing, if you’re going to show up, I suppose you don’t have a lot of time left.”
I stood up high on my back paws. The voice was coming loud and clear from the isolation teepee on the other side of the lake. I barreled over there as fast as I could, and burst inside. But I was immediately confused. The only person in there was a thirteen year old girl who was staring right at me while clutching the arms of a lawn chair, with a pale face and a slack jaw. It looked as though she wanted to scream, but just couldn’t get it out. Though she did have black hair, she looked white. Very white. Even her clothes were white: a hoodie with Skyview Academy Middle School written on it, blue jeans, and — the worst — a cheap pair of those moccasin slippers made of fake polyester. I waved my paws in the air to try to calm her down and whispered, with the most soothing voice I could muster, “Shhh, shhh, it’s okay. I’m a friendly bear.”
Unfortunately a talking animal was just enough to push her over the edge. She let loose and finally did scream.
One of the hard parts of being a bear is that it’s really hard for us to cover our ears. I can barely reach mine. We have excellent hearing. When a terrible noise happens, you’ve just got to shrug your shoulders, close your eyes and grimace until it stops. And eventually she did stop. Maybe she realized after a while that I wasn’t interested in mauling her.
When I opened my eyes I was balled up in a corner of the teepee — or at least as balled up as a four hundred pound blue bear can be and insofar as teepees have corners. The girl was still motionless on the other side, still clutching the arms of the lawn chair. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had spilled out of her lap onto the ground, next to the small lantern, the only faint illumination available. She was staring at me, hardly blinking, and taking short quick breaths.
I picked myself up. Hey eyes followed me. I made no sudden movements. She didn’t react. Looking around the teepee, there was no one but the two of us.
“Well, I guess you can see me?” I said.
She nodded, then narrowed her eyes to listen.
“And hear me?”
Another nod.
“That’s very strange.”
A third nod.
“No I mean… strange that you can see me. You didn’t see, by chance, if there’s somebody around here doing a vision quest?”
No response.
“You know… is there a boy or young man who’s spending his time fasting and waiting for a vision?”
She paused to think. I let her. But I was desperate to find him. Bit by bit, a look of wonder and understanding crept its way onto her face. She sat up straight and ran her fingers back and forth through her wavy black hair and said, “Holy shit, it worked.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “What worked?”
She pointed at me and said, “I mean… you’re here. It worked.”
“You mean there is a boy doing a vision quest somewhere around here?”
“No, no, no,” she pointed back at herself. “I’m on a vision quest.”
“Are you sure?” I gave another look around the teepee, and was about to start searching outside.
“Well,” her eyes followed mine around the teepee to see what I was looking for, “Yeah. I think I’m the only one. All the other kids are busy with camp stuff. I would have to do camp stuff too, but I started talking about my rights and all that, and now I don’t have to hang out with Cheyenne Arapahoe teepee anymore.”
“What?”
“I imagined that you would be a fox, though.”
“Okay, sure,” I said, trying not to take offense at the fox comment. “That’s fine. But girls don’t do vision quests.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Now she looked offended. I didn’t respond right away, so she kept talking. “Fine, I guess it was more of a ‘vision quest’ than a real serious one.” At the words “vision quest” she made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “But it looks like it’s working. I can’t say I was expecting a talking bear. I’ve just been on this juice diet… that’s never made me see things before. But who knows what they’re putting in juice these days. I think it was just juice. Are you real, though, or is this just a hallucination?”
“This is a real experience.”
“But are you real?”
“You’re really not going to understand this right now. Did you see if anyone else is on a vision quest?”
“It’s pretty important to me. Are you real?”
“Metaphysically… that’s not the point. It’s about the narrative reality, not the material reality. But speaking of narrative, let’s go back to my other question.”
“Okay, so then what are you?”
“Please. I don’t have time for this. Maybe I’m just some tasteless cultural stereotype, something that doesn’t really correspond to any real tradition, but is still hanging on somehow in a misguided ethos. Fair enough? I don’t even qualify as a misappropriation, because there was never anything there to misappropriate in the first place. Is that alright?”
She shook her head no.
“Don’t they teach Emile Durkheim and totem theory in middle school anymore?”
“No.”
“This is the last thing I’m going to say about it and then no more questions. Look, it’s 2003. I really shouldn’t be allowed anymore in popular society, but hopefully you’ll let this slide. I’m part of your personal experience of the mysterium tremendum et fascians. I’m a projection of Rudolph Otto and late 19th century stereotypes. That’s it. I’m more real than you, but not. Just let it be. Think Clarence Odbody or James Cricket. I understand. It’s not kosher anymore, but just let it be. It’s okay.”
But I didn’t have the patience for this kind of circling philosophical discussion. Neither did the girl. Her face was beyond confused, and I had successfully used big words to convince her that seeking an answer was not within her ability. I came across the teepee and sat in front of her lawn chair. Even with my butt on the ground and hers up in the chair, I was still looking down on her. I didn’t want to waste any more time. I looked her square in the eyes and put on a disappointed principal face. She crossed her arms and sat back farther in her lawn chair.
“Alright, sweetheart, I need you to be as clear and honest as possible. What’s going on here?”
I kept my eyes right on her, and she kept her eyes anywhere but me, as if the answers were written somewhere on the teepee walls.
“Hey!” I snapped at her. “I’m over here. Focus in, child. This is very important.
You need to be very honest with me for a second. What’s going on here?”
She looked down at her belly button and muttered quickly and quietly. I could make out some words, but not many. “Liberal chaplain lady… special project… be yourself… find your meaning… but they were like… but I said okay… then I talked to this lawyer, and he said… so they got all scared and said yes —”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I interrupted. I reached out and raised her chin with my paw so that she’d look me in the eyes. I intensified my expression from disappointed principle to police interrogator — a four hundred pound police interrogator with fangs. “You need to slow down, look me in the eyes and use full sentences. Can you do that? Can you talk like a big girl? If not, you don’t want to know how serious the consequences will be. I need the truth and I need it now.”
This tactic was a mistake. The girl burst into tears and became twice as incoherent as before. Between sobbing and gasping for air, I could just catch small bits and pieces of phrases: “… it wasn’t even, like, my idea… just trying to fit in… other kids… stupid, like, juice diet… sorry! The camp food just sucks… get away from this place for just a while… I’m sorry… and she was all like, sure, you’re a quarter Cree… but I’m not even a quarter, I’m just an eighth!… but whatever… so she was like… why don’t you just go find your spirit animal or something… whatever the hell that means… like you said, it’s just 19th century projections from shoddy anthropologists… but the teepee committee was like, no, we need to streamline our new learning goals… and I was like screw you… and they were like, let’s talk team cohesion… which is their bass ackwards code for ‘hey, so it turns out you’re actually a terrible person’… so then I went to legal and they were all like, hey everybody, back off, we don’t want litigation, do we?…but I’m only in eighth grade, what the F do I know about litigation?… anyways… sorry… this wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m sorry… it’s not my fault I’m even here… five weeks in the middle of nowhere with no friends… mom and dad were like, tough cookies, you’re going… but I was like, just ’cause friggen’ Kelly loved Camp Iwifablof doesn’t mean I have to… sorry… I’m sorry.”