WICHITA MAN----
Archaeologists from around the world have gathered in this sleepy Midwestern town to study human bones unearthed by a backhoe operator working on one of the many Federally-mandated upgradings of decaying waste treatment plants throughout the area. The peculiar arrangement of the bones has excited speculation by some experts that this may be the first solid evidence of the long-rumored existence of a sect who died out under mysterious circumstances. The team has named the find “Witchita Man” in honor of the town in which the waste treatment plant is located.
....Nothing else to do. We had to tell them the others were upstaris. To survive. That's all that matters. Alive. Crouched in the closet listening. "Please sir". A laugh. A thud. Waiting for the next order. Alive...
No notes necessary. He knew the phrases by heart: The devastation of black-on-black crime. The indignity. Black women. The lyrics. He could hear a commercial blaring on the other side of the wall. It was a living. He glanced across at the woman who would accompany him on the show. They hadn't spoken since their brief introduction by an assistant producer. A twelve by ten room, or so. The walls of this room reminded him of the walls in an old city hospital where he once waited for his grandmother. He glanced at her brightly colored head wrap. She looked at the other wall. Silently moving her lips. Nervous maybe. "We'll do the segment," they had promised, "if you can get someone to authenticate your message. You know what we mean." I know. You're my authenticator, he thought. He imagined a scene in which he suddenly turns to the camera and yells: "Run for your lives! They hate our guts! Are you deaf!? Can't you hear the words?" A small laugh escaped. The woman looked across at him. She didn't ask. He didn't tell. Another assistant producer was beckoning them in. He paused for her to pass. He heard the muffled deep base thump-thump of a commercial. He hoped the extra few pounds wouldn't show around his face. "That would never do," his grandmother always said. No. That would never do.
...To start over. Montana maybe. Clean slate. We've all stopped looking at each other. It's better that way. She's whispering to the floor that he promised not to kill us and that's all that matters. Ten years from now. Beauty is truth, truth beauty. Where did that come from? Another yelp and a thud. Then a laugh. The ineveitable laugh. A groan. We're all still alive and that's what counts....
Someplace in Kuwait she said, jingling her keys impatiently. He let her go. The parking lot was a cold place for a conversation. He heard that she had secured the business loan. She looked busy. The way a businesswoman looked. At least he knew where the boy was now. Last he heard he had been stationed--somewhere on the Balkans. Or was it "in"? The day he enlisted they sat in uncomfortable silence in the car outside the Kentucky Fried Chicken. He hadn't ordered anything. Maybe he was worried about cash flow since the mill had closed permanently two months before. He told him about the interviews at WalMart and the casino. To reaasure him. They shook hands. He would probably never come back here. Who could blame him? Anyway, he was alive. That was all that mattered.
...Everybody in the world isn't as lucky as you are. Don't stereotype. Don't assume. Count to ten. I remember everything. I will learn to forget. Getting along. Getting to know you. Cooperation. A thud. A whimper. And the laugh. "Four!" More laughter. The golf club by the door, of course. Did it kill him? Did he slice open his head? Count to ten. Breath deeply. To forget. A groan and a sob. "Please sir." No. not dead. They were coming back now. Not dead...
Let it be a beer-gut bubba. That's all. A prime, juicy, grade-A, all-American redneck. No sign language. No frantic semaphoring. No secret decoder rings for the press conferences. And thirty-thousand dollars the girl said! Just to advise them on the technical aspects of the investigation when the case is wrapped up. The plans were already in the works she had informed him briskly, looking around the littered office. "It smells like a gym in here. I wonder if we can get that on the screen? For 'authenticity,'" she said, pronouncing it as four separate words. Maybe as much as thirty thousand she repeated. Staring at something invisible on the ceiling she assumed a monotone voice, like a chant, to describe the plot-in-progress. "Angry. Intelligent. Member of the New Black Panthers. Joins the force for reasons even he can't understand." Breaking out of her reverie she pointed with both index fingers and said excitedly: "He doesn't know his grandfather was the first black cop in some Southern town and solved the case of a string of child lynchings by the local KKK which, it turns out, is run the beloved mayor. But we won't reveal that until almost the end." Then, in the monotone again: 'Clashing with a Chief he believes is an Uncle Tom. In spite of all this, remorselessly tracks down the serial sniper." He would give them tips of the trade and earn thirty-thousand. The killer would be a flabby, pasty-faced guy. Anybody could play him. Or maybe a sharp-faced, angular guy whose blue eyes were locked in a permanent squint. A guy---a guy who looks like that, he thought with surprise as he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the coffee maker. Just let it be a classic redneck. In hunting camo. Thirty-thousand. Might smooth over some of the pot-holes that had formed in the road. Please.
.... The smell. Will it be with me as long as I live? When I'm old and living in a cabin in northern Canada somewhere, stirring the fire, will I catch of whiff of it on me and run out and roll in the snow? Once, in the early days, stretched out full length on that fake sheepskin rug, she had whispered:" I love your smell inside of me and on me." Was she lying? Was she saying it because she had read in a magazine that was something she might say?...
Relaxation. He relaxed around those people. No. Not "those people". He knew the looks when they thought he couldn't see. What they said when he was not there. It was a living. To be consulted on the great issues of the day. About people who were fighting for land and life. No apologies. No worries. They even had settlers. Not like our settlers. Who could not be spoken of without...worrying. Long gone people. To feel relaxed. If only for a segment of time between the thumping commericials. Their survival on the line. Clean and clear. His tie was too tight again. It made him look heavy on camera. Relax. Prophecy, seamlessly unfolding.
...What happened to that rug? If, somehow, he found it stashed in a box of old things and buried his face in it, wrapped himself in it, would this smell be banished? She must have been lying. My stomach is in my throat. Every hair on the back of hand smells of it. She's whispering that he promised he would let us live. His smell on me is in her mouth. It flys off her lips. She says he promised her. I smell her repeating it. We are all one now. We are the world.....
Qualifications? A traffic coordination technician, he supposed. All that he could be. At this moment in time, as the TV people liked to say. A Mercedes gliding by kicking up the desert dust. Looking but not looking. An owner of oil in this Line In The Sand, he supposed. He shifted to his left leg. He had directed traffic in Kosovo a while back. Swung his arms in large circles pointing north. Black-hawk helicopters hovered overhead slapping the air in time with the feet of the people tramping in that direction. Little boxes wrapped up in table clothes and shawls. Layers of clothes and wooden crosses hung around their necks. Bad Guys. Losers. Looking but not looking. Pointing and rotating his arms, breathing deep and shifting from one foot to another. The winners, the freedom-fighters, lined the route and shouted something he could not understand. The black-hawks droned on; making lazy circles above. He rotated his head on his neck. Clockwise. Counterclockwise. Another Mercedes. Kicking up desert dust. At this moment in time.
...We would be old. We wouldn't have seen each other for fifty years, maybe more. We meet on a snowy field. Somehow. Somewhere in northern Alaska. The sun is blinding and we are walking towards each other. Nobody else in sight. Two old, old people shuffling along on the snowpack. We almost pass. At the last moment we recognise each other. After all the years. We don't need any explanations. We know. Then I will ask her: "Were you lying when you said you loved my smell in you and on you? Because..." And she will laugh the way she laughed a long time ago and put her fingers over my lips and tell me that everything was OK. All five of us do not fit in the trunk. Economy cars. No one sees three naked men being packed into a trunk. No one sees two women, naked below the waist climb into the car with two warmly-dressed men in brand new shoes. We are invisible. We are alone in the universe. Nothing above us. Nothing below. We are all together. Tumbling through space. We are alive.....
Craning his neck around for a full-face shot. Three heads bobbing around the microphone. Old hands, careful not to block each other out. High voices. Earnest little boys. Women liked that. Don't want to sound like the Old Man in the Mountain. Bread and butter. A woman's choice. Shriller now. Stretching his neck out further. "Outrage". It was a word they liked. It is an outrage. Teachers forced to buy toilet paper out of pocket. Bread and butter. Craning harder. Voice higher. Bread and butter. He was not one of those kind. He understood. He would make them pay. Don't forget on election day. He wasn't like them. A breeze. The odor of hair spray and sweat. He'd make the evening news. Priceless exposure.
...Before I leave for Alaska. We'll be able to think more clearly with our clothes on. A bath with my clothes on. Everything with my clothes on from now on. From now on. Beauty is Truth, truth beauty. From now on we will be alive. She said he promised her. I remember now. Beauty is truth, truth beauty. There. He called him "sir" again. "Please sir, don't kill me." The shot. I finally remember where I heard it. Finally...
He loved this town. They weren't supposed to say it. Not in public. No. They were all outsiders reluctantly taking office in order to clean out Dodge City. But so comforting to be here with people who understood how the real world worked. People from all over the real world. He loved them all. They were so sensible. So realistic. They knew what was real. They understood. So clear about what they wanted. Sometimes he had to clamp his teeth together to keep from shouting across to the other Party that he was just like they were. His wife was just like their wives. We all have to say these ridiculous things to the people out there. You to yours. Me to mine. They don't know what it's all about and we have to ask them for their votes. They were infants, really. It was degrading. A condolence note. Marine son. Kuwait. Casualty of the Real World. But only one, thank God. An army of one. The mother. Different last name. No address for a father. Word would get around to him if he was alive. My dear Mrs...Ms...Madame...Mother of a Fallen Hero? Too bad there wasn't a father's address. Dear "Mister". Simple. Unchanging. Then over to the mosque for a bit of islam is peace and don't even think about it rednecks. "Dear grieving mother of a Fallen Hero...."
.....Standing next to that old, old man. I was so pissed off. My dad's grandfather. Walking me around his farm and reciting endlessly. I wanted to go in and watch something on TV. A class assignment. To get out of the cold. I could see our breath meeting in the air between us. Little icicles forming on his eyebrows. He went on and on. Dad made us go there. Mom sometimes called him the "ancient fart" when dad wasn't around. She said: "Today we are going to visit AF." We would laugh. I was so pissed off. He kept going on and on reciting something and finally, just as I was about to interrupt, he squeeezed my shoulder and shouted into the night, his breath billowing out from his mouth: "When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'...The Nikes are coming over here now. Throwing out gravel as they move. Red spots on the bright white laces. New shoes coming towards me...
Rising up from the dirt and gravel and litter like a mirage. Amazing speed. Phenomenal savings. They came quietly and left quietly evry day, counting their cash. A bath and two closets in every bed suite. Game room. Nautilus. Pool. Computer room, of course. Acoustically correct music room. Marble, tile, pink granite, teak, slate. They worked sixteen hours on the summer days. Not a complaint out of them. They laughed and clinked glasses. It was all real. Here's to what's real. The dream house. The men trudged down the long, winding driveway carefully inspecting their little white envelopes. Leaving them alone laughing and clinking. They would be back on Monday to work.
.... My breath will shoot up into the night air beween us and hang there. : "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." As long as he lives. He'll never be able to escape. Dying well, the best revenge. Coming this way again. Shoes are huge from this angle. The snow and gravel in my cheek. Fame is coming my way. My picture on every channel twenty-four hours a day. Concerned heads nodding, repeating our names over and over and over. We are a slogan. My picture on the front page of the New York Times. Not the dorky sophmore picture. My breath melting the snow.
Please, sir......