For years after my father’s death, I would find his spirit in the inhabitants of other males of the species. I was convinced, in a spiritual kind of mysterious, conspiratorial way, that there was more to the story than I knew. I’d just turned 14 when I put my hand on my father’s carcass—he was 38. —just 38?! A realization went through me like a shock-wave; a spasm that took me to my knees right there in the church in front of God & everybody. The body that was there was not my dad. He was gone, he had shed his skin like a snake—and, now—? Where was he?— Had he ever been his body? Have I ever been mine? The search was on. Fast-forward seven years; I’m now 21—and I’m still trying to find him.
yippee kai Yai yea get along little doogie
its your misfortune & none of my own
yippee kai Yai yo get along little doogie
I’m sitting and singing on my father’s ancient suitcase in front of a Hotel-Of-Ill-Repute next door to the Great Falls, Montana Grey-hound Bus Depot.
The bus had pulled in at about four in the morning & I was the only one that got off—I looked around for my friend Jerry. He was going to pick me up, so we could follow the ‘wheat harvest’. He wasn’t there and I was beyond exhausted.
My eyes are cold like cameras and they take everything in. I turn my head & look behind me and see a gorgeous array of women, posing in the store-front window of the lobby of this old run-down hotel. They are dressed in exotic bedroom-ware, and they are waving at me to
Come on inside, boy— have some fun!—
I turn back to the street and my ears take over—gun shots & screams & hoots & hollers—screaming & laughter & crying & screaming and some lady is SCREAMING. She falls to the pavement right in front of me, a huge lady in a mini-skirt & a top that’s way too small. She reaches up to me;
Would’ja call—?
A cop car with lights & siren pulls up to the curb. This conversation between the cop & the lady ensues—
Ma’am—Ma’am—Come on now—
please help me—would’ja call—would ‘ja call—would ‘ja call—
who, Ma’am, Who?—Ma’am—
I don’t know—
are you injured—do you hurt anywhere—?
I. Don’t. Know—hey—(she feels between her legs)—I think I’m all wet—I’down there’— oh, it’s water, it ain’t blood—know what? I think I might be—
Ma’am?
— haven’ another baby—would ‘ja call— get in the car.. hey pal , would ya help me help her up?
Um—sure, sure.
I don’t know—hey I can’t go to the county—
why’s that?
I think they might arrest me—again—
well, you need to have that baby first—
The cop looks at me & takes me in. He looks road & world weary—
Hell of a night, huh? wheat harvest?
Yep.
Been there, done that. The Carlson ranch?
Yep. How’d you—?
They’ll work your ass off—
—would ‘ja call—?
Uh-oh—gotta go—be safe out here.
The cop car drives off.
I hear this high-pitched wail behind me. I turn my head and see a flash of flying leather & something silver grazes my arm & my shirt is torn, my arm is cut—there’s blood! I look up & see this figure slashing at the air where the cop car had been——He’s got a big Bowie knife, a long, black leather duster, long black hair, turquoise jewelry everywhere-- neck, wrists & fingers—& custom-made cow-boy boots that were the softest black leather I’d ever seen. He strides up to me, the knife disappears & out of nowhere he’s got a quart bottle of Ancient Age whiskey. He takes a long pull, grimaces—lets out a—eeeeyyyyeeeoowww!!— laughs, wipes his chin and goes silent. He looks at me for a long time. He’s still, like a statue—He studies me as though he was viewing an exhibit , or studying a specimen of some kind. He hands me the bottle & I take a polite drink and I choke on it & start coughing—he says—
Don’t waste it!
He starts laughing & I laugh with him—because I don’t want to be impolite & he has that knife in his other hand—I’m terrified, I’m utterly terrified. I’m trying really hard to “man up,” not cry. He kneels down to where I’m sitting—the suit-case, remember? Pay attention, there’s a test here. He kneels down and whispers in a slow, slurred cadence, as he casually taps my knee with his knife:
I know you—I remember—Don’t be ashamed.
What?
You heard what I said. Be proud of what you are. Be proud of what you are— I remember when I was your age— What the fuck are you, anyway—? What’s your tribe?
What—? I don’t have—
God-Damn it, don’t you lie—I remember—Listen—
The bottle goes away & the knife is back. It’s up to my throat.
I could slit your throat right now and nobody, including mama and papa, would give a shit—
We have become intimate, in a very short period of time. Just like me & my father. We’d just had our first” man to man’—then the son of a bitch went & died on me. He was so solitary—He was so strong. The Lone Stranger stands up slowly & stares off down the boulevard. The hand with the knife retracts into it’s shell; the leather sleeve of his coat. He steps slightly back into the shadows of the street lights. He stands there. Still—so still. I look up; I see what he sees---That same cop car that had brought us together was returning after taking the big lady away.
Stand up, slow.
I start to wave—
Don’t wave. Look at me and smile; smile, or you’re a dead-man.
The cop slows & rolls his window down—
She’s gonna be fine! Bouncing’ baby boy—she had the little guy while we were still in route to the hospital.
He’s proud like a dad—& here I am, on death’s door. The Lone Stranger hisses to me out of the side of his mouth—
Say “that’s Great!”
That’s great!
Yeah—say—are you—?
Suddenly his radio crackles and he turns on the sirens & the lights & he peels off down the boulevard, laying rubber all the way. And my demise is certain. I fall to my knees, I piss my pants, I wail:
Bull-shit!. This is—crazy—I’m not—I don’t have—I’m not what you think—!
The Lone Stranger’s face softens.
Let’s you & me have another slug off this jug—
I’m there—& this time, I don’t spill it. I drink—like my life depended upon it.
Ok, Ok—so, we do have something in common—
The bottle disappears from my lips.
Where’s your ‘Chief”?—your ‘ride’—?, Your ‘CAR’, for Christ’s sake.
I told you-I got no tribe, I got no—
Right—ok—slow down, don’t freak. Stay here, I’m gonna get my Chief & take you back home & show you the ways—I got a feeling about you, son—
Then, just like that, he staggers, turns around & fades into the pre-dawn of an early Sunday morning’ in Great Falls Montana. I’m paralyzed as Jerry pulls up in his 1965 White Mustang & starts apologizing for being so late—
—working 16 hour days—there’s no time off—slept through the alarm.—
Let’s just get the fuck out of here before He get’s back—
He? Who’s He—?
Crazy, motherfucker’s got a Bowie knife—
What the fuck—
—He put it right up to my throat—! Never mind, let’s just GO—!
We get in the car and Jerry fires up his Chief—the engine rattles the windows of the whore-house and the lights come on in front & the girls spill out of the front door, waving at us to “come on in—honey—!”—& then I hear that war-cry & I look in the rear-view—
Oh my god! Look at the size of that knife—
Now Jerry’s all catatonic in the driver’s seat, while this dude’s running full-tilt to take-down & carve up the white man’s fancy white horse—
Drive, Jerry—Just Drive—
Jerry peel’s out in a low burn. I look in the rear-view mirror & I see The Lone Stranger slashing away at the great wall of smoke; all that is left of our great, white, iron-horse. I hear a faint war-hoop-wail & I watch a way of life fading away behind me. —he’s there—& then, he’s gone again.
