by Thomas King
The next morning, Portland and Charlie and C. B. piled into C. B.’s Plymouth and drove to the studio, and Portland spent the day meeting people, shaking hands, talking about the old days. C. B. showed Charlie around the different lots where movies were being shot.
“Hey, you know your father was the best. I mean it. Better than even Sammy Hearne.”
“What are they doing over there?”
“Nobody played an Indian like Portland. I mean, he is Indian, but that’s different. Just because you are an Indian doesn’t mean that you can act like an Indian for the movies.”
“Is that Jeff Chandler?”
“It’s expensive down here now. You know what I mean? Me and Isabella do okay. But, hey, coffee costs a buck a cup. Who’d have guessed? What the hell are you supposed to do with that?”
C. B. and Portland spent the next night telling the same stories they had told the night before.
“You used to run the extras, C. B. What happened?”
“Hey, what can I say. They brought in some accountant type. A bean counter. He’s the big cheese’s nephew. And now they got computers.”
“I need work, C. B. Couple more months, Charlie has to be back in school. We got to find our own place.”
“Hey, maybe Remmington’s is hiring.”
“Oh, God!”
“Hey, hey, hey. Better than Four Corners.”
The next day, they were at the studio again. The day after it was the same. Everyone remembered Portland. And everyone was glad to see Portland, all smiles and laughter. Charlie had never seen so many happy people in his life.
Bill Bursum squeezed past the packing crates, turned on the light, unlocked the back door, and let Minnie out.
“Good night, Mr. Bursum.”
“Good night, Minnie,” said Bursum.
“Ms. Smith, Bill,” said Minnie.
“Whatever,” said Bursum, smiling. “My mother trained me.”
“Try again,” said Minnie.
“Good night,” said Bursum.
“Good night,” said Minnie.
Mrs., Miss, Ms. Bursum locked the door behind her. He just couldn’t keep everything straight. At first it had been fun. Ms. For God’s sake, it sounded like a buzz saw warming up. He had tried to keep up, but after a while it became annoying.
Indians were the same way. How many years had that old fart held up the dam? Some legal technicality. And the lake. A perfectly good piece of lakefront property going to waste.
And you couldn’t call them Indians. You had to remember their tribe, as if that made any difference, and when some smart college professor did come up with a really good name like Amerindian, the Indians didn’t like it. Even Lionel and Charlie could get testy every so often, and they weren’t really Indians anymore.
The world kept changing and you had to change with it. Otherwise you could go crazy like that nut in Montreal. One bad apple and the next thing you know, everyone is screaming that the whole barrel is full of worms.
Make money. The only effective way to keep from going insane in a changing world was to try to make money.
Bursum walked back to his office and ran the totals. Not a bad day. Not a good day. He opened a drawer and pulled out a catalogue. How he wished he had been in on the video market from the beginning. He could have predicted the popularity of old movies. Ten years ago, all the movies that came through his store were new movies. Now more than half were old movies, made before video had even been invented. A gold mine.
Better yet, Bursum enjoyed old movies more than he liked the new videos, in which most of the action centered around weird machines and robots with rifles. Romance, that’s what the new movies were missing. And the best romances were Westerns.
Bursum wandered through the displays of televisions, stereos, VCRs, speakers. Everything said money. It was a wonderful feeling. Bursum slipped the tape into the VCR and pushed a button. He pulled up a chair and sat down in front of The Map.
The screens glowed and flashed silver. One by one they came to full color. Bursum rocked back and forth in the chair, watching one screen and then another. Then taking in the panorama.
The Mysterious Warrior. The best Western of them all. John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Maureen O’Hara. All the biggies. He had seen the movie twenty times, knew the plot by heart. Even knew some of the lines.
“Yes!” Bursum whispered as the movie opened with a shot across Monument Valley, and he clutched his hands in his lap as if he was praying.
When Latisha got home, Christian was cooking something on the stove. Benjamin and Elizabeth were watching him.
“What’s cooking?”
“Ssh!” Benjamin whispered, his hands clutched in his lap.“If you talk too loud, the food will burn.”
“Yep!” said Elizabeth.
Christian pulled one side of his mouth up and looked at Benjamin. “It’s just that they wouldn’t stop talking. Where have you been?”
“Had to work late.”
“You own the place.”
“That’s why I had to work late.”
Christian stirred the pot with the yellow spatula. “Maybe we should come down to the restaurant to eat.”
“What are you cooking, honey?”
“Spaghetti.”
“You cooked spaghetti last night.”
“I’ve cooked it every day this week.”
“You should probably use a wooden spoon to stir it.”
“They’re all dirty.”
“Well, you could wash them.”
Christian stayed over the pot with his back to his mother. “I do everything already.”
Latisha sighed. So that’s the kind of evening it was going to be.
“It’s okay, Mom,” said Benjamin, rocking against his chair.“Elizabeth likes spaghetti.”
“Yep,” said Elizabeth.
She had stayed with George for nine years. That was how long it took to get the matter settled in her mind. Christian had been an only child for years before they decided that a second child would be good for Christian and would probably save their marriage. Benjamin and Elizabeth were two years apart. Elizabeth had been a surprise. The divorce was not.
At first, Latisha didn’t believe it. It was one thing to know that George was worthless and quite another to act on it. It wasn’t that George didn’t have a job. He had had lots of jobs. Changed them four or five times a year. Each one was going to be the one.
“You got to move with the times, Country,” George told her.
“Nothing wrong with a steady job. My brother does okay.”
“Things that stand still, die.”
And it wasn’t the affairs, or as George called them, “lapses in judgment.” In fact, she had grown tired of hearing about George’s “lapses,” had grown tired of forgiving George.
That was it. In the end, Latisha had just gotten bored. George was dull and he was stupid, bone-deep stupid, more stupid than Latisha could ever have guessed whites could be stupid.
“Quite a few men are like that, honey,” Camelot told her daughter. “You ought to read the articles in Cosmopolitan.”
So far as Latisha could tell, George’s twinkling eyes, his wonderful smile, and his sparkling teeth were all painted on a balloon.
“I’m sorry I’m late, honey.” Latisha gave Christian a hug. “You know how the place gets.”
“I want a hug,” said Benjamin.
“Me,” said Elizabeth.
Christian spooned the spaghetti into three plates. It slid out of the pan with remarkable speed, bright red and quivering. “You want some, Mom?”
Latisha looked at the wad of noodles on the plate. Under the strands of spaghetti and the oily sauce were brown chunks. “What’s in the spaghetti, honey?”
“Hot dogs,” said Christian.
“Oh, God.”
“Oh, Gawd,” said Elizabeth.
“That’s a bad word,” said Benjamin. “You’re
going to have to have time out.”
“No time out,” Elizabeth shouted.
“How about it?” said Christian. “I don’t want to stand here all night.”
“No,” said Latisha. “I’m not really hungry.”
Elizabeth was sucking on her cup. “Yook, Mommy, yook,” and she held it up. The liquid inside was brown.
“Christian, what’s Elizabeth drinking?”
“Coke and milk.”
“What?”
Christian tossed the spatula into the sink. It landed in a bowl of water and flipped specks of spaghetti sauce on the window. “It’s the same thing as a milk shake.”
“Look, guys,” Latisha said, rubbing her forehead, “I could use some help around here, you know.”
Christian ran his fork through the spaghetti. “What do you think this is?”
One day George walked into the restaurant wearing a fringed leather jacket. “What do you think?”
Latisha had looked and nodded and gone back to work. George stood there in the middle of the restaurant as if someone had turned him off.
“There’s a hat and gloves that go with it,” he said. “They belonged to one of my relatives. Now they belong to me.”
“Nice jacket,” Billy had told him.
“Damn right it is,” said George.
“Thought you just liked new things,” said Latisha, wiping down a table.
“It’s history,” said George, rolling his shoulders in the jacket.“Most old things are worthless. This is history.”
“Guess you got to know which is which.”
“There’s a hat and gloves that go with it.”
That night when Latisha got home, George was sitting in front of the television with Christian curled up on his lap. He still had on the jacket. Latisha hadn’t even seen it coming. George turned the television off, got out of the chair as if he was getting up to get a cup of coffee, grabbed Latisha by her dress, and slammed her against the wall. And before she realized what was happening, he was hitting her as hard as he could, beating her until she fell.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” he kept shouting, timing the words to the blows. “Don’t you ever do that again.”
He stood over Latisha for a long time, breathing, catching his breath, his feet wide apart, his knees locked. And then he sat down in the chair and turned the television back on.
Latisha could feel blood running from her nose, but she stayed there on the floor. She could hear Christian sobbing, could see her son’s thin body shaking as George took the boy in his arms to comfort him.
Benjamin and Elizabeth fell asleep on the couch, curled up against each other. Christian slouched over a pillow, his feet leaning against the wall.
“Mom, is this the one where the cavalry comes over the hill and kills the Indians?”
“Probably.”
“How come the Indians always get killed?”
“It’s just a movie.”
“But what if they won?”
“Well,” Latisha said, watching her son rub his dirty socks up and down the wall, “if the Indians won, it probably wouldn’t be a Western.”
On the screen, the chief and his men thundered across the river, yelling as they came. On the other side of the river, John Wayne stood up and waved his pistol over his head. He was wearing a leather jacket with fringe on it and a wide-brimmed hat. He stood in the sand, his feet set, challenging, ready. His gloves were stuck in his gun belt. On the ridge behind the Indians, a troop of cavalry appeared.
Christian took off one of his socks, smelled it, and threw it in the corner. “Not much point in watching it then.”
“Oh, oh,” says Coyote, “I don’t want to watch. Changing Woman is stuck on the island by herself. Is that the end of the story?”
“Goodness, no,” I says. “This story is just beginning. We’re just getting started.”
Changing Woman is on that beautiful island by herself for a long time.
So.
One day she is watching the ocean and she sees a ship. That ship sails right to where Changing Woman is standing.
Hello, shouts a voice. Have you seen a white whale?
There was a white canoe here a while ago, Changing Woman shouts back.
Canoe? shouts the voice. Say, are you an able-bodied seaman?
Not exactly, says Changing Woman.
Close enough, says the voice. Come aboard.
Okay, says Changing Woman. And that one swims out to the ship.
I’m Ahab, says a short little man with a wooden leg, and this is my ship the Pequod.
Here says a nice-looking man with a grim mouth, and he hands Changing Woman a towel. What’s your name?
Changing Woman, says Changing Woman.
Call me Ishmael, says the young man. What’s your favorite month?
They’re all fine, says Changing Woman.
Oh dear, says the young man, looking through a book. Let’s try again. What’s your name?
Changing Woman.
That just won’t do either, says the young man, and he quickly thumbs through the book again. Here, he says, poking a page with his finger. Queequeg. I’ll call you Queequeg. This book has a Queequeg in it, and this story is supposed to have a Queequeg in it, but I’ve looked all over the ship and there aren’t any Queequegs. I hope you don’t mind.
Ishmael is a nice name, says Changing Woman.
But we already have an Ishmael, says Ishmael. And we do so need a Queequeg.
Oh, okay, says Changing Woman.
“My favorite month is April,” says Coyote.
“That’s nice,” I says.
“I also like July,” says Coyote.
“We can’t hear what’s happening if you keep talking,” I says.
“I don’t care much for November,” says Coyote.
“Forget November,” I says. “Pay attention.”
Pay attention, says Ahab. Keep watching for whales.
Why does he want a whale? says Changing Woman.
This is a whaling ship, says Ishmael.
Whaleswhaleswhaleswhalesbianswhalesbianswhaleswhales! shouts Ahab, and everybody grabs their spears and knives and juicers and chain saws and blenders and axes and they all leap into little wooden boats and chase whales.
And.
When they catch the whales.
They kill them.
This is crazy, says Changing Woman. Why are you killing all these whales?
Oil. Perfume, too. There’s a big market in dog food, says Ahab. This is a Christian world, you know. We only kill things that are useful or things we don’t like.
“He doesn’t mean Coyotes?” says Coyote.
“I suspect that he does,” I says.
“But Coyotes are very useful,” says Coyote.
“Maybe you should explain that to him,” I says.
“Just around the eyes,” says Coyote, “he looks like that GOD guy.”
We’re looking for the white whale, Ahab tells his men. Keep looking.
So Ahab’s men look at the ocean and they see something and that something is a whale.
Blackwhaleblackwhaleblackwhalesbianblackwhalesbianblackwhale, they all shout.
Black whale? yells Ahab. You mean white whale, don’t you? Moby-Dick, the great male white whale?
That’s not a white whale, says Changing Woman. That’s a female whale and she’s black.
Nonsense, says Ahab. It’s Moby-Dick, the great white whale.
You’re mistaken, says Changing Woman, I believe that is Moby-Jane, the Great Black Whale.
“She means Moby-Dick,” says Coyote. “I read the book. It’s Moby-Dick, the great white whale who destroys the Pequod.”
“You haven’t been reading your history,” I tell Coyote. “It’s English colonists who destroy the Pequots.”
“But there isn’t any Moby-Jane.”
“Sure there is,” I says. “Just look out over t
here. What do you see?”
“Well . . . I’ll be,” says Coyote.
* * *
It’s Moby-Dick, Ahab tells his crew, the great white whale.
Begging your pardon, says one of the crew. But isn’t that whale black?
Throw that man overboard, says Ahab.
Begging your pardon again, says another one of the crew. But isn’t that whale female?
Throw that man overboard, too, says Ahab.
“Look out! Look out!” shouts Coyote. “It’s Moby-Jane, the Great Black Whale. Run for your lives.”
“That wasn’t very nice,” I says. “Now look what you’ve done.”
“Hee-hee, hee-hee,” says Coyote.
Moby-Jane! the crew yells. The Great Black Whale!
Throw everybody overboard, shouts Ahab.
Call me Ishmael, says Ishmael, and all the crew jumps into the boats and rows away.
This could be a problem, says Ahab.
That is a very beautiful whale, says Changing Woman, but I don’t think she looks very happy.
Happy, happy, there you go again, says Ahab. Grab that harpoon and make yourself useful.
But Changing Woman walks to the side of the ship and dives into the water.
Hello, says Changing Woman. It’s a good day for a swim.
Yes, it is, says Moby-Jane. If you’ll excuse me, I have a little matter to take care of and then I’ll be back.
And Moby-Jane swims over to the ship and punches a large hole in its bottom.
There, says Moby-Jane. That should take care of that.
That was very clever of you, says Changing Woman as she watches the ship sink. What happens to Ahab?
We do this every year, says Moby-Jane. He’ll be back. He always comes back.
How curious, says Changing Woman.
Where are you going? says Moby-Jane.
Someplace warm, I think, says Changing Woman.
Come on, says Moby-Jane. I know just the place.
“I know the place she is talking about,” says Coyote. “Italy.”
“No,” I says, “that’s not the place.”
“Hawaii?” says Coyote.
“Wrong again,” I says.
“Tahiti? Australia? The south of France? Prince Edward Island?” says Coyote.
“Not even close,” I says.
