Zoetrope: All-Story Extra

Midnight, and a heavy snow is falling in what the Shoshone call the spirit country. It has been falling for three days. Wrapped in tattered buffalo robes two gaunt, white-haired men, once strong, proud, warriors, sit crosslegged around a meager campfire. Their names, translated to the white man' s tongue, are Bonekeeper and Bows To The Wind. It is the winter of 1874.

A medicine pipe passes from one gnarled hand to another, its ribbon of smoke rising sinuously to marry the plume from the fire. The pipe is handled with the reverence of sacred ritual, though their trembling hands are a sign of their body's observance of another kind of ritual, one that began with the winter snows, and will be over with long before the thaw.

In the light of the fire, the old men's faces resemble the crags of redrock that jut out defiantly from the white mountainsides. Their eyes are fixed on the fire, showing no interest in their surroundings, or in the present.

While they are smoking, a sudden ominous whirring fills the air like a thousand wild geese descending. As the whirring fades, the earth begins to tremble. The trembling grows more violent. An impenetrable mist of snow swirls around them. The old men look at one another. "Hi-ee-ni-na-na," sings Bows To The Wind to combat his fear, although his voice cannot be heard above the tumult. Suddenly there is a whoosh and then a roar like a great wind outside a cave.

"Am I disappearing?" Bonekeeper calls out. Bows To The Wind does not answer. The campfire's flames leap in the air. He wonders if it will consume him. In more awe than fear, he wonders if the white-eyes are making some kind of magic. Everything around him blurs as he loses his thoughts.

Within the same few seconds, Bows To The Wind asks himself: Is my flesh being lifted from my bones and turned into dust? He hears Bonekeeper say something, but he cannot answer. Dizzy, he begins to mutter his death chant. His words falter as glimpses from his past flash through his mind like lightning across the high plains.

When their senses return, like a flock of birds to a field of corn, Bows To The Wind and Bonekeeper are still in front of their fire. Bows To The Wind still holds the lit pipe in his hand. What they do not know is there has been a warp singularity in space and time, and they and their immediate surroundings have emerged intact, transported to the corner of Fifty-Seventh Street and Sixth Avenue of Manhattan. The year is 1985.

Their two tipis sit side by side in the taxi lane of W. Fifty Seventh. In front of the CBS building their two emaciated dogs fight half-heartedly over a piece of hide. The Indians become aware of the strange change in their surroundings, but they accept it since they can do nothing about it.

Oblivious to this phenomenon, Manahata's modern tribe march by on the sidewalks, some of them having just exited from Cats. They see, but do not comprehend, nor do they feel a compulsion to investigate, not even the Irish cop whose brisk stride maintains its course up Seventh Avenue.

In the sky above, the clouds have opened up, allowing the full moon to appear above the tall pines and higher up, even the skyscrapers looming overhead. Stars wink between the buildings and through the tree's snow-laden branches. The frigid air is empty and still, although it is full of the sounds of the city. Because the old men are hard of hearing, and past caring, they ignore it.

The two Indians were not alone when they were transported. A raggedly white man, a whiskey peddler, was circling their camp, followed by a pack of hungry wolves. He is hungry too--nearly starving. His suffering--the hunger spasms, total exhaustion, fever, toothache--has convinced him the strange occurrence is only temporary delirium. He is overjoyed to see the fire.

Apparently the Indians are not aware of his presence until he stumbles snowshoed into the circle of firelight. Bows To The Wind, the older of the bent back warriors, glances up at him, and yawns toothlessly, to show his unconcern. Bonekeeper grunts. He is sad to see the appearance of such a pathetic creature, with his red, greasy hair sticking out from his fur cap, and frozen on his sunken, ghostly face, a sneer curled above rotten teeth. When the visitor sits crosslegged before the fire, his deep-set eyes glint like a ferret.

The white man's appetite has no fear. He has not eaten since the blizzard. Now he is forced to try to scrounge some food from these old Snake Indians who look like they are starving. At least he speaks a few words of their lingo. His Snake woman from Fort Laramie had come in handy for something besides spreading her fat legs. Unfortunately for him, there is no food except one small piece of foul-smelling pemmican. He accepts the offering, with ill-disguised contempt in his voice. Then he tells them his name is Jean.

He is interrupted by a fit of violent coughing escaping from one of the tipis in the street. Bows To The Wind whispers something unintelligible to Bonekeeper, who nods. He then looks at Jean with a stare so penetrating that he feels compelled to speak.

"Dees country ees merde...eh, sheet, n'est-ce pas?" Getting no reaction, he uses signs and a few words of Shoshone to get his message across.

"We are part of the country we are in," Bonekeeper says slowly, but in flawless missionary-taught English. Then he adds in Shoshone: "You speak squaw words. Are you a squaw?"

Oh ho, you speak de Engleesh, eh? C'est bon!" Jean is stunned, but he tries not to show it. "I 'eard a seein' tings when you be starvin'. I 'eard a oly men dat starve demselve on purpose. What I be seein' ain't so oly...I be hearin' strange noisez too!"

While Jean talks the subway rumbles below like stampeding buffalo. Bows To The Wind lets his thoughts fly high above the white man's words, like an eagle soaring on a crest of hot air. He has a vision: He sees a huge yellow beast with spinning black feet running past them faster than a deer, and inside the belly of this beast, he sees a white maiden, pale as the winter sun, tall-haired, wearing pelts of fur. "Ai-ee," he mutters, under his breath. It is a frightening apparition.

What he has seen is real: a debutante in a taxi on her way home from the Beaux-Art's ball. The girl, being rather homely, with a nose like a ski run, eyes that almost cross, poufed hair, and layers of garish makeup, has been humiliated by one of the other girls, who said she looked like Barbara Streisand after a head-on collision.

If that wasn't humiliating enough, there was the problem with her escort, a boy from Atlanta. She didn't mind that he was uglier than she--he had a face that made her look away, Dixieland--but it was obvious that he didn't have any money, only ambition, and having ambition, her father had once told her, was like knowing the truth--the only way it did you any good was if you knew what to do with it.

Her name is Sylvia. Sylvia blinks in amazement when she sees the Indians and tipis, and all around them a small forest of pines. The taxi driver grudgingly slows down as he nonchalantly weaves among the trees and snow covered ground that is supposed to be a New York City street. Sylvia asks him what is going on, but he only shrugs his shoulders. He says something in his Afghani tongue, but she does not understand. What he has said is, "I do not understand what you are saying, but I think you are very beautiful." Suddenly they emerge from the pines, and Sylvia thinks the whole scene has

been fabricated, an elaborate promotion by some company, probably something to do with the holidays, since Thanksgiving has just passed and Christmas is in the air. She wonders where they found such an authentic-looking set and actors. A tear rolls down her cheek. Then another. She feels the makeup globbing up. Why did I have to be born? she asks herself.

An old woman, stooped with age, opens the flap of one of the tipis and looks around as a honking Trans-Am full of hooting Italian homeboys nearly sideswipes the tipi. The booming vibrations from their stereo causes pillows of snow to break loose and fall from the pine branches. A fine mist of snowflakes lifts up like a cloud, into the bristling air.

The old woman leaves the tipi and walks toward the fire, picks up the last piece of gathered wood and adds it to the fire, as if in disdain. She looks at Bonekeeper, her husband, and at Bows To The Wind, whose wife was her best friend. The firelight flickers in her sad face. She does not look at Jean who is mystified as to why there is no fire in either of the tipis, only this pitiful fire in the open. He looks around for more wood, but doesn't see any. The fire will burn out before day.

Bonekeeper speaks to Following Woman in a soft voice. He raises his right hand and gestures as if he is drawing shapes in the air. His right eye has a tic. It looks as if he is winking at her repeatedly. She says something in return, then takes tiny steps on her way back to the tipi.

The brutal homeboys have come from the neighborhood of Astoria, Queens cruising Forty-Second Street faggot-bashing for sport. They are drunk, exhilarated, enraged crusaders, with blood smeared knuckles and spattered clothes. The boys don't mind the blood. There is something primal about it. Since they are football players, blood is a part of their lives. None of them would admit it, but even the taste of blood excites them. It does not occur to them the blood could be infected with the AIDS virus.

This was the game plan: See an effeminately dressed man obviously cruising, jump out of the car and beat him senseless. What they do not realize is that one of their victims was not a prostitute--he was a well known fashion assistant to Stephen Sprouse. The man, who does volunteer work in an AIDS crisis center, has written down their license number. He is already being interviewed by the police. The police will see to it that the Astoria homeboys miss the conference championship football game, the most important event of their lives thus far.

The driver of the car is the starting quarterback and neighborhood hero. He is not like the others but he is afraid to say anything. Deep down he is ashamed, but his fear of being outcast is greater than his sense of shame. Not only does he not get to play in the championship game, but his fear of being outcast will be tragically realized when he tests positive for AIDS from having sucked his injured, bloody knuckles.

Bonekeeper speaks: "I think this place is two places."

"I think we are already dead and don't know it," says Bows To The Wind in his own tongue. He knows only a few words of English.

"I ain't afraid a' deat'. I look it in ze eye a tousand times," sneers Jean.

The fire crackles, then hisses with burning sap. Jean kicks the log and the hissing stops. Bows To The Wind (whose head is bowed, not out of respect, but because he cannot stand the way Jean looks), lays the medicine pipe at his feet and looks up. In the dark, brooding eyes of the old man, Jean sees a tiny reflection of himself. He looks away, then clears his parched throat. The pemmican tastes like rancid rat meat. Shivering, he draws himself closer to the fire.

Bows To The Wind is thinking about what Bonekeeper had said to him the day they had been left behind. He said he did not believe in human life after death. ("It is for the heart to believe, not the head.") Unpersuaded by Bonekeeper, he has been trying to imagine what it is like to enter the land of the dead. He wonders if it is just like the land of the living, only peopled by the dead. He wonders if he will be young again. He wonders what happens to babies that have died. Will they be babies forever? That would be ridiculous.

A black woman wearing a clear plastic raincoat with nothing underneath and some unbelievably filthy Bugs Bunny houseshoes walks up to Jean and asks for money. She is the first person who has acknowledged seeing them. Jean waves his knife in front of her eyes until his eyes cross. The woman's body looks overripe and otherworldly under the raincoat.

Jean starts to sing, a nervous reaction, but his voice breaks and he begins to cough.

The woman staggers off, saying, "This muthafucka's crazy."

Jean is afraid his desperation is showing. It is all he can do to keep from bawling like an infant. He hates this place. He hates the Blackfeet who stole his dozen cases of watered-down whiskey, his month's supply of food, and even his horses, leaving him only a team of stupid mules to pull a nearly empty wagon. And now he is lost! The map the storekeeper at Fort Laramie drew him was worthless. Of course, the man was drunk on Jean's private stock of whiskey. Next time I get ze map first 'fore I make ze bargain, Jean thinks.

Eef only I were back in Sain' Louie. Back where he belongs--with whiskey, whores, and cards. It seems as if he is trapped in a bad dream. The thought makes him burn with defiance.

He pulls an old bone whistle from his pocket and blows a few shrill blasts. The piercing blasts irreverantly shatter the air of politeness. The two scrapping dogs raise their heads and howl. The old Indians grimace. Jean feels justified. Politeness is a sign of weakness, he believes. To prevail, a man has to be bold, do the unexpected. Like the time at a whorehouse in St. Louis when he put on a whore's red curly wig, some lipstick and face powder, then slipped into her high heels, one of her lacy camisoles, and threw a feather boa around his neck, before sashaying downstairs to a congregation of hoots and hollers. He waved and winked, and cursed and spat filthy words in French. He danced on top of the rinkytink piano and sang bawdy French songs in a falsetto voice. The parlor full of gentlemen and whores urged him on with great laughter and abandon. They bought him thin whiskey and his fat whore for the night and by morning he had picked enough gentlemen's pockets to buy his grubstake for the coming year. And he felt like Jesus himself would have approved because someone had told him the Bible says rich

men cannot enter heaven and he was only doing his part to help them qualify for the Pearly Gates.

Now Jean laughs, remembering, his open mouth full of gaps and blackened teeth. The little act of bravado has made him giddy. Wonder if they know what I'm thinking, he asks himself. No, not smart enough. Not as smart as he. It takes a smart man to prevail in this country.

"Where are your people?" he asks innocently.

"Hunting."

"God almighty, dey must be stupeed! N'est pas? Twenty below. Best to sit tight--keep de innards warm...Where are your 'orses?"

The two Indians do not answer. One question too many from a white man.

Dese Indians need to be taught a lesso', thinks Jean.

Bonekeeper spits in the fire. "White man, are you more alive or more dead?"

"A little of bot', I guess. 'ard to tell, I recko'." He snickers.

"White man, are you...a bad man?" Bonekeeper asks.

Jean affects a hurt look. "Bad accordin' to the beechez and sonsabeechez, n'est pas? Nah, I tink I a good enough man."

"Are you in my dream or am I in yours?"

Jean looks at him strangely, and his eyes narrow. "I don' know what you be rattlin' 'bout. Go ask de wolves dat 'ave been followin' me for two days. Dey are out dere waiting for dere nex' meal. You savagez are too simple-mind, eh?. Me, I civiliz'. I doan worry 'bout nuttin'. I let deh somedin worry 'bout me." He spits in the fire and watches as his bloody spittle bubbles on a log. He shrugs his stiff shoulders. "I learn eet doan matter. All dat matter eez..." He has to stop, a little flustered. He can't think of what it is that matters. Suddenly, a look of triumph comes over his stupified expression. "What matter eez, who get what, eh? Dat what matter." For emphasis he pokes the air with his crooked finger.

Jean sees the two old Indians exchange looks of derision. He seeks to reassure them. "I speak only ze trut'."

Bonekeeper slowly raises his head. How many times has he heard the white-eyes speak those words. He twists around just enough that he can point behind him. "You see the black dog and the white dog?" They whine when he points. "They were too weak to even bark at you when you approached. Yet as weak as they are, they still fight over a no-good piece of buffalo hide. Do you know which dog is strongest?"

"Deh black one, I recko'?" Jean guesses.

"No. The one we feed the most. That is the truth."

Jean lets what the old man say sink in, and then he retorts: "I 'ad a beech could whip eedar one. She gave me deh clap!" He guffawed.

The two old Indians are still sitting by the dying fire when Jean leaves. No one says goodbye.

After trekking a short distance, his exhaustion makes him light-headed. His eyes can barely see where to put his feet. He imagines the sky is filled with glittering lights. He pauses in the lee of what he thinks is a rock wall. It is Trump Tower. He is thinking how much he hates thinking. He thinks it is unnatural. It addles his brain. He is a man of action. He does not want to go back to his empty wagon and butchered mules with the ache still in his guts and teeth, the roaring still in his head. He has the sudden irresistible urge to show these smug savages who they're dealing with. The more he thinks about what the old Indian said about the black dog and the white dog, the madder he gets, until pretty soon he has to hold his ears and hit his head against the rock wall until the roaring dies down.

After he has rested, he hears them, the wolves coming to get him, figuring he is too weak to defend himself. But it isn't wolves this time. Five or six members of a street gang swagger by the doorway and jape, saying, "Looka'dis bad-smellin' , Davy Crockett-on-crack-lookin' mutha'fucka." They laugh and spit on him, then move on. Dese devil minstrel must 'ave come from Saint Louie, he thinks.

He returns to the Indians' camp when he thinks they are safely asleep, stopping his snowshoe shuffle near a cluster of aspens at the corner of Fifty-Eighth. The dogs come out to meet him, sniffing him and licking the salivating, leathery rims of their mouths as if he might be something edible. He lunges at the white one, in a futile attempt to tackle it. The dog dodges him easily. Jean sprawls in the snow. While he struggles to his to feet both dogs disappear into the trees, nipping at each others' backs.

Lungs aching, and gasping for breath, Jean falls back against a dead pine and sinks to the ground. When he can breathe again, he removes his snowshoes. A feeling of disgust wraps itself around his consciousness like a rotten carcass. He picks up a handful of snow and wipes his face with it. Then he picks up another handful and takes a bite. As it melts in his mouth, he tastes the nauseating pungency of animal piss. "Pih-h-h!" He spits and spits until his mouth is dry, but he can't get rid of the taste. Finally, he tastes

blood. His infected gums bleed easily. The taste of blood is welcome. Even his own blood.

When he is able to get to his feet he trudges slowly into the camp. The old Indians do not hear as he crunches through the shadows, following his earlier trail of footsteps in the snow. As he passes the remains of the fire, a still-glowing ember bursts into tiny stars, startling him. He freezes in his steps and listens for the rustling of movement within the tipis. Nothing stirs. He moves on, shivering from a chilling sweat, coming to a halt in front of the first tipi. It is Bows To The Wind's tipi. He steps inside and with swift precision slits the old warrior's throat as he sleeps. He puts his hand over the old man's eyes and feels his lashes beating against the skin of his hand. But there is no struggle.

Jean wipes the blood from his skinning knife and crawls to Bonekeeper's tipi. Before he can reach his throat, the old Indian grunts as if he has been expecting him. Jean stabs his knife deep into the little man's chest and waits until he ceases to shudder. He feels for the old woman and his bloody hand finds the contours of her face. It is covered by a soft pelt. Rabbit, he thinks. Underneath, her skin is like ice. No breath passes between her lips. She is already dead. "Merci," he whispers. He takes the rabbit pelt

and stuffs it in his coat.

While he searches the old man, his hand rakes across a rawhide bag held tightly in his hand. Eagerly, Jean plies it from his grip and feels inside it. It is a bag of bones; small delicate bones of different shapes and sizes. As he turns to the moonlight pouring through the open flap, he sees they have been carved into intricate human and animal figurines. He steps outside the tipi and tosses them into the air.

At that moment, the debutante is removing her makeup. Reaching for a jar of cleansing cream, she accidentally knocks her older sister's old razor off the shelf. She picks it up by the smooth handle. She sees herself plucking out the blade, sliding her plump naked body down into a bathtub of clear water, and then gracefully slicing into her wrists. Her parents--dressed in their formal wear--would find her, throw themselves down and hug her limp body, begging her forgiveness, smearing her blood on their beautiful clothes. It shocks her to realize how much she enjoys this fantasy. She laughs uneasily. She thinks she has drunk too much champagne. Get real, she scolds herself. Life is for the living. But wouldn' t it serve them right? she thinks. After all, I didn' t ask to be born. I would just love to see the looks on their faces, she thinks. All of their faces.

She takes out the blade and nicks her wrist. A bead of bright red blood appears on her pale wrist, and grows under her gaze. She extends her tongue and touches the tip to the beautiful red liquescent jewel. The taste makes her salivate. She becomes nauseated, not at the taste of her blood, but at her overpowering impulse. "Oh my God," she says out loud. Oh my God.

The quarterback is making a salami sandwich in the kitchen of his home in Queens. Even from here, he can hear a rapping boombox in the street. What's a nigger doin' in this neighborhood? he asks himself. That' s a good way to get a cap popped in your ass. There's blacks, he thinks, and then there are niggers. Just like there are gays and then there are faggots. There are two kinds of everything, he thinks. What is it that makes the difference?

It's whether I know'em or not, he decides.

In his mind he sees the bloody faces of the men he has helped assault. Filled with disgust and guilt, he replaces those images by visualizing himself passing and running for touchdowns in the championship game.

"I'm going to be a fuckin' hero," he says out loud. "We're going to win the fuckin' championship."

Breathing raspily, nearly faint, covered with sweat and blood, afraid to celebrate, Jean finishes his butchery and stuffs the chunks in a leather pouch. Then he hastens decrepitly to get away, ignoring the paltry spoils of the Indians' camp. Hefting the bag to his shoulder, he staggers to where he has left his snowshoes.

While he is putting them on, he hears yelling coming from a doorway up the block, unbeknownst to him, an argument over territorial infringement of a cardboard box. Worried that whoever it is might be heading for the Indians' camp, Jean shuffles into the shadows of the trees, hiding from the moon. Snow dusts him from overhanging branches. He knows where he has to go. As far away from his old camp as possible.

When he has gone the distance of a rifle shot, he comes to a clearing. A siren penetrates the other unfamiliar traffic noises that have been assaulting his ears since the onset of his delirium. This new sound spooks him. He has never heard such an eery wail, not even from a wolf mourning the death of its mate. He wonders if it comes from one of those stampeding beasts he thought he was only imagining he saw. Maybe they were

sent after him by the Indians' spirits to torture him and drive him insane.

He curses his legs and begs them to move faster. He crosses the Sheep Meadow in Central Park while talking to himself out loud, trying to convince himself that he is safe. He lets go a high-pitched girlish laugh.

The sound of his own laugh dies out as in the distance behind him a deeper, more primal sound takes its place. It is the sound of dogs fighting ferociously. Jean stops and cocks his head to listen. He knows instantly what the dogs are fighting over. He feels a churning in his gut as he stops by the statue of Alice in Wonderland. The fighting goes on for awhile and then he hears one of the dog's yowl and yip in wounded retreat.

He looks up at the statue, blinking in amazement. "Sacre bleu!" he mutters. He places a numb, stiffening hand on Alice's knee to make sure the statue is real. From the mellow radiance of a nearby vapor light he sees his hands are caked with frozen blood. He wipes them in the snow drifted at the statue's feet and then wraps them both in the old squaw's rabbit pelt.

He gives Alice a final look, shakes his head, and then moves on, cursing himself for his cowardice, and his hunger, which is assuming an animal shape of its own, something that could easily devour him before the wolves would get their chance.

Tears flood his burning eyes. He is having second doubts. Why was there no food in the Indian's camp but the Indians themselves? Were zey left 'ere to starve? he asks himself. How defenseless these savages were! Why hadn't they eaten those two scroungy dogs? Most Indians love dog. He would have eaten them if he hadn't been too weak to catch them. Even dogs were smarter than Indians. The Indians deserved to die for their stupidity, for their lack of understanding of the way things are. He was just putting them

out of their misery. They ought to thank him. What fools! God almighty! He raises the pelt to wipe away the tears.

Somehow he would have to summon enough strength to make camp. Just a little farther and if he was able to start a fire, he could roast some of the flesh and he wouldn't have to think about what it was. It wouldn't be the first time he had eaten Indian. It was like antelope, only tougher and sweeter. After it was all gone he would have to wait until spring when all the snow would melt and the flowers would pop up on the mountainsides and he would join a new band of Indians, maybe from this strange new place, one that was civilized, and they would give him everything he wanted because they would know that he existed in his very own world, that he made his own way, in the way he saw fit, and they would accept that, even if no one else ever had.

His thoughts are interrupted by a long, haunting howl of one of the Indian's dogs, echoing through the piney forest and steel and glass corridors. Jean pauses in his tracks. "I won'er wheech one zey feed ze mos' dis time," he says aloud, erupting first into silent laughter and then sobbing as he falls to his knees.

* * *

I heard the Indian parable about the black dog and the white dog in this story from Ken Kesey back in 1971.