Mothership

by Bill Campbell

  “Now that we got it clean, time to put on some of this old-time medicine. See if it works.”

  Stay calm. It isn’t gasoline. Harley said to himself. It hasn’t been set on fire.

  “HOLYMARYMOTHER OF JESUS!” Harley grabbed the edge of the sink hard enough to leave fingerprints in the porcelain.

  “Yup, it’s working,” Uncle Fred said.

  The Big Nose sweat lodge wasn’t set up facing the west, Lakota-style. Harley had been in western sweat lodges before and they’d been good. But he always felt best when he went into that place of purification when it was being done in their own old way, with the door toward the sunrise, the direction of birth, of things starting over.

  As always, Uncle Fred was the first to duck his head and enter. Harley was second.

  “Wli dogo wongan,” Harley said in a soft voice as he bowed his head. Those Kwasuck words meant pretty much the same as the ones the Lakotas always say, reminding each pathetic man who enters that on the one hand he is only one small being, but on the other hand that he is related to everything that lives.

  He crawled in through the door and sat back on his haunches. Then he looked toward the circle of light that was the opening. The lodge was big enough for half a dozen more bodies, but no one else was coming in after him.

  Uncle Fred’s voice came out of the shadow on the far side of the central pit where the red-hot rocks would be placed. “Timmy Jackson’s the fire man. Billy Sore Eyes is the door man. So it’s just us in here. You, me, and Harold. Call him in now?”

  Harley nodded and swallowed hard. This wasn’t easy to do because it meant speaking his name. Harold. That was harder than thinking it, harder than feeling his twin’s invisible presence every sober minute of every day, harder than reading the notes signed with his name that were, of course, printed by Harley’s own left hand. Like a lot of identical twins, they’d come out the same except for one being right-handed and that one was Harley.

  “Harold,” he whispered, holding out his right hand. “Come on in, bro.”

  Just an ordinary street. Market sounds. The two of them walking side by side. And then a pop, like the opening of a soda can, from a high balcony and a sound like a fist thudding into Harold’s upper chest in that spot not covered by Kevlar. Looking up and seeing the face looking down at him. Not a bearded man, but two small boys. One of them holding an old Renfield rifle. Brothers? The looks on both boy’s faces not triumphant, but puzzled, a little afraid of what they had just done. And in that split-second Harley saw the knowledge in their eyes that they were perfect targets for Harley’s own M-16 that was now pointing dead at them. No. Harley flicked on the safety, dropped to his knees by his brother’s side.

  Harold’s eyes were wide open, looking at that same rooftop where the boys who’d shot him had been standing. He turned his eyes, same eyes as my own, Harley thought, toward his brother’s face, lifted his left hand in a thumb’s up.

  “Good call,” Harold said, his voice raspy from the blood that was filling his throat. “We rock, Bro. Don’t kill babies.”

  And then he just died. No long soliloquy, no speculation about that undiscovered country the old bard of Avon was so fixated upon. Just dead. Just like that.

  But not gone.

  A breeze from the west brushed over the fire pit, stirring the embers into a brief whirlwind before that wind fluttered the blankets over the doorway and Harley felt the presence beside him, the touch of a left hand to his right.

  “Nephew,” Fred Big Nose said, “I welcome you into this lodge.” He wasn’t talking to Harley.

  Then Uncle Fred leaned toward the door. “Fire man, “he called, “bring in them stones.”

  The door to the lodge had been closed. Rising smoke from dry cedar needles dropped on the red-hot rocks followed by the cleansing scent of sweetgrass burned by the glowing surface of the ancient stones. Uncle Fred’s prayers in Kwasuck and Harley’s own responses. Harold had always been better at learning their old language, but here in the lodge Harley felt his brother helping him, strengthening his voice. But he also felt himself trying not to think once again how unfair it was that he should still be alive when half of him was dead. Trying not to lean too far over that edge when self-sacrifice and humility turn into pity and you fall back into the bottle.

  “Let go, nephew,” Uncle Fred said.

  And just like that his eyes filled with tears and he was crying, sobbing, speaking his brother’s name again and again, his head down on the earthen floor of the lodge while the steam washed over his back, searing him like the wings of an eagle made of flame, while Uncle Fred poured dipper after dipper of water onto the hissing stones.

  And then, after a while, his sobbing stopped. Uncle Fred was no longer pouring water or chanting. It was quiet except for the singing of the stones. Then the stones grew silent as well.

  Quiet, quiet. Quieter and calmer than a long night. Quieter than sleep. Years and ages going by as Harley waited patiently—the first patience he’d felt in his heart for a long time—waited inside the lodge.

  “Spirits,” Uncle Fred said. Then he paused for another age’s passing. “It’s not so simple as some think it is. Not just body and spirit. Spirit is in everything. And as far as us pathetic human beings go, our old people saw it different than the teachers and the missionaries. Tried to explain it to some of them for a while till we saw it didn’t make no never mind to them.”

  This time when Uncle Fred paused Harley realized he was supposed to show he was listening.

  “Unh-hunh,” Harley said.

  “Unh-hunh,” Fred Big Nose repeated. “Unh-hunh. Now you know this, nephew, but knowing something don’t mean that you don’t need to hear it again. Us humans are not just one body and one spirit. There’s four spirits in every living person. There’s that spirit of life, the wind of breath that comes from all Creation and goes back into it when we die. That’s one. Then there’s that original spirit that makes you unique, unlike any other person who ever lived before. And that second one is the spirit that goes up the Sky Road to the place where the hunting is always good and the berries are always ripe. The third spirit is the one that’s reborn, that part of someone who lived before who joins you to help guide you along, help you remember things before you were even born. And those three are all good, always good. But then there’s the fourth one. And that’s the dangerous one. That’s the Bone Spirit. It’s not bad, but it can make real bad things happen. Because if someone’s bones are left in peace to go back into the earth, that spirit starts to moving and doing.”

  “Unh-hunh,” Harley repeated. He’d heard this all before, but never said so clear. Then a part of him realized why that was so. It wasn’t just Uncle Fred’s choice of words or being in the sweat lodge. It was where he was right now in his own life. Caught in the middle, dancing with ghosts.

  “Harold,” he whispered.

  “You and your brother,” Uncle Fred said. “You two shared one spirit, that new spirit that makes every person different. So as you two was both one and the same in some ways. But not all. So that part of him is still walking around with you. And it always will be. Just let him strengthen you and let go of that stupid guilt, nephew. That’s how he wants it and you would of done the same for him. He’s not haunting you unless you are haunting yourself.”

  “I see,” Harley said.

  And he did. And what he saw was not just the truth of his uncle’s words, words holding a wisdom as old as the stones in the lodge. What he saw was Harold’s face, that look Harold could get with one eyebrow raised, half-amused, half-expectant. Like when they got in a tough spot together and knew there was no way out other than to go forward. The “Okay, Bro. So what are you goin’ to do now?” look.

  He wasn’t sure.

  Uncle Fred’s voice spoke out of the darkness. “First thing t’ do is to bring in more stones. It’s getting cold in here.”

  The second round went by so fast that it seemed as if there’d hardly been time enough for their
prayers. But Harley knew that was because of how fast his mind was moving now. It was like one of those hummingbirds from the feeder back at the trailer had gotten lodged between his ears. Even so, he kept shaking his head and smiling. It’s a good day, he kept thinking. It’s a good day.

  Uncle Fred called out the words and the lodge door opened, the bright afternoon sun streamed in, stirring the dancing motes of dust above the cooling stones. One beam of light shone directly onto Fred Big Nose’s face, making him glow like the painting of a medieval hermit-saint in the wilderness.

  “So,” Uncle Fred said, “you know what to do?”

  “Talk,” Harley said. “I’m going back to talk to them.”

  “Good,” Uncle Fred said. “Just stick with the truth.”

  As Harley turned off the main road onto the lane into Spirit Valley, which Uncle Fred had told him was the old name for that place, a smile came to his face. He was remembering Bill Begay, the only other Skin in their unit the last time he was deployed. Good thing I’m not a Navajo like Bill, Harley thought. Mention the word ghost to a Navajo and he’ll be booking it over the nearest hill to get away as fast as he could. Navajos took bones spirits, chindii they called them, real serious.

  But then again, this was no laughing matter. Dealing with ghosts—even ghosts of white folks—could end up with you being sick or even dead.

  He parked the bike in front of the trailer. He could feel the pressure in the air. A sound that he wasn’t hearing with his ears of something hard hitting something else hard in an angry rhythm. Rock against rock or bone against bone.

  No point in going up to the door or trying to go inside.

  Instead Harley walked around back and sat down at the picnic table there, just below the hummingbird feeder that hung in front of the window. He reached down and put his hand against the soil.

  Somebody’s father or mother, somebody’s daughter or son. I’m sorry that the living forgot about you. But I know you are here.

  He sat up and looked at the hills, the old trees that the eight trailers had been wedged in among.

  “It’s beautiful here,” he said. “Quiet. It ought to stay this way. Get rid of the trailers, though. Make it a park where people can just walk or sit and enjoy the quiet.”

  The pounding sound inside his head was dying away. Just in time. He’d been feeling as if he really needed those aspirins that were locked inside the trailer. The earth at his feet swirled a little, shaped a face. Not mean or toothy now, but recognizably that same face he’d seen bulge out the hi-def screen. The expression on its face was quizzical.

  Remember, Uncle Fred had said to him. Bone spirits don’t deal in subtlety. They’re simple. You keep it the same.

  The eyes of the bone spirit face shifted to Harley’s left side, toward the empty seat there.

  Harley nodded. “That’s right. I’m not alone. There’s two of us. Me and my brother. And we both want the same thing. We want to help you. And that’s because it’ll help me…us, too.”

  There was a hummingbird flying around Harley’s head now, then two, three, four. He kept himself from swatting at them, but it was a little unnerving how close they were coming as they spun and dove, circled and whirred. Those sharp little beaks could put a man’s eyes out with one thrust. But the face seemed to be listening—if the fact that those ears made out of red dirt and pebbles were getting bigger meant anything.

  “So I plan to stay here for a while, just a little while, until we can work out a way to get rid of these trailers.”

  The hummingbirds had been joined by a swarm of hornets now. A whole little routine. Like airborne synchronized swimmers. Hornets going clockwise, hummingbirds counterclockwise.

  Harley was sweating. Keep it simple, stupid! Harold used to say that. He raised his voice and sat up straight, opened his arms and spoke to everything around him.

  “Listen! I know what’s being planned for this valley. If I have anything to say about it, that is not going to happen.”

  The hummingbirds and hornets peeled off like fighter jets leaving an aircraft carrier. Harley looked back down at the ground. The face was still there, but it actually had one eyebrow raised.

  “Just give me something I can use, if you know what I mean.” Harley said. The ground next to the face started to roil. Harley quickly held out his hand. “No bones! Something else.”

  The ground grew quiet and the face sank back into the soil. Have I blown it? he thought.

  From behind him Harley heard the faint sound of the lock on the front door of the trailer clicking open.

  He stood up and walked around the trailer, went up to the door and pushed it open. He stepped inside. It felt different this time, not all tight and sad. It was like walking into the house of someone else who just invited you to stay, for a little while, as a guest. Otherwise, everything was just as he’d left it.

  Or maybe not. He stepped into the kitchen and looked down at what was there in the middle of the table. It was a small toy soldier. It wasn’t plastic, but cast metal, like they made them back 200 years ago. A few grains of red dirt still stuck to its face.

  Harley picked it up and brushed it off.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  He pictured himself doing what he knew he had to do, holding the pictures clearly in his mind for the spirits he felt watching. Sneaking up to the Tribal Chairman’s new split-level tonight after midnight, easy enough to do for a Marine wearing camo with his face blackened, slipping into the basement and concealing the small soldier under the ceiling tiles directly beneath the master bedroom. Opening a way in for the bone spirits to make themselves part of the T.C.’s dreams—or nightmares.

  By the time that Council meeting took place a week from now, the T.C. would be spending his sleepless spirit-ridden nights in a motel and more than ready to talk turkey.

  Harley turned over the note pad and picked up the pencil with his right hand.

  OK? he printed.

  Then he switched the pencil to his left hand and watched the words formed on the page in answer to his own.

  AOK, BRO. WE ROCK.

  Un Aperitivo Col Diavolo

  Darius James

  “Un Aperitivo Col Diavolo”

  The Ku’dam glowed in a frost of lights. The air surrounding the Christmas bazaar’s wooden-stalled shops was heavy with the cloying aroma of glazed nuts simmering in kettles of artificial syrup. Shoppers trundled along the boulevard, bundled in expensive furs. I wandered from bar to café with one drink bleeding into another, one drug morphing into the next, without meeting a single soul with whom I could tipple and commiserate that Christmas Eve. The loneliness was crippling and I drank prodigiously.

  My drinking was unrelenting. It bordered on the suicidal. I was estranged from friends I left behind in the U.S. and those I knew in Berlin. Christmas had become a special time of year with no family, friends, or grand feast. It was simply an endless supply of wine and a galaxy of drugs.

  By the time I settled into the last bar I would visit that night, my brain was spinning with dizzying swirls and throbbing lines. My vision skewed into flipping horizontal patterns. Everything was in fish-eyed perspective. I could no longer tell the difference between night and day.

  “Money Dissolves in My Mouth”

  Manhattan had peaked in the summer of nineteen eighty-six. The Lower Eastside was a circus of openings and exhibitions. There was an abundance of yuppies and money. Parties and coke. Bad women and worse dope. The battle cry echoed in the squats on East Thirteenth Street was “DIE YUPPIE SCUM!!!”

  But fuck that bullshit. Yuppies spent money. They bought us dinner. We found them drugs. Our favorite marks were European tourists. As we sat in the shadow of the Tompkins Square bandshell, they would approach us and ask in stilted English where to cop blow. Cocaine was cheap that summer. We charged one hundred, when in fact it was only forty, and pocketed the rest. Our foreign-born guests were always happy with the fat white bags of laxative we scored from the Puerto Rican crew m
anaging the laundromat on East Seventh Street.

  In those years I lived an undemanding life of unending night. I made the rounds of galleries; dance clubs; after-hours bars; all-night diners and, freak that I am, bondage clubs and “Satanist” escapades in the West Side’smeat-packing district. I never knew where or with whom I might wake up the next morning. Some mornings I awoke, impossibly pretzeled in the arms and legs of a neon-haired floozie in torn fishnets, on the floor of a plush Chinatown loft to the odor of sour sweat and alcohol. On others, I was sprawled with limbs akimbo in the stairwell of a low-income housing project on Avenue D. It really didn’t matter to me because I would start the whole routine all over again the next day on a bench in Tompkins Square Park.

  Where did the money come from? No one knew. But my friends and I ate, survived and had fun. Our gratification was in the company of each other. There was always a party, always an opening. There was always a case of wine and a tray of food. We always shared.

  Summer ended. The leaves withered. And our “endless night” was over. Of course, we still gathered in the park. And went to parties thrown by flatulent art-world frauds who had more money than talent or taste. We still ate on the Yuppie dime. And short-changed constipated Europeans. But it was all by rote, all routine. The inspired exuberance was gone. Then a dark Christmas came.

  Corpses turned up in the park. Some stewed and served in the shelters. Derelicts were raped in the bandshell; brutal cluster-fucks illuminated by a halo of blinking holiday lights. Friends succumbed to the lure of heroin. I became a drunk. And, as the illness of addiction took over, I watched my friends turn their backs on their own humanity.