Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys

by Francesca Lia Block

  “Cherokee! Cherokee!”

  They were calling her but she wasn’t really listening. She was dancing, thrusting. Her voice was bells. Her tambourine sent off sparks. The Vamp audience reached for her, there at the bottom of the stage, there, beneath her hooves.

  She spun and spun. She had imagined she was the color of red flame but she was whiter than ever, like the hottest part of the fire before it burns itself out.

  Later, someone was reaching down her shirt. She called for Raphael but he was not there. Witch Baby came and pulled her away. Feathers were flying in a whirlwind. Her feet were blistering inside the hoof hoots.

  Then they were back at the house. Raphael had invited Lulu over and he. Lulu and Angel Juan were on the couch sharing a joint. Candles were burning. Raphael touched Lulu’s smooth, dark cheek with the back of his hand. Or had Cherokee imagined that? Her feet hurt so much and in the candlelight she could have been mistaken.

  “Help me take these off,” she said to Witch Baby. “Please. They hurt.”

  Witch Baby pulled at one boot. Every part of her body strained, even the tendons in her neck. Finally she fell backward and Cherokee’s foot was free, throbbing with pain. Witch Baby pulled on the other boot until it came off too.

  “It cut me! Nasty thing!”

  “What?”

  “Your boot cut me.” There was blood on Witch Baby’s hand.

  “Let’s wash it off.”

  They went into the bathroom and Cherokee held on to the claw-footed tub for balance- She felt as if she were going to be sick and took a deep breath. Then she helped clean the cut that ran across Witch Baby’s palm like a red lifeline.

  “I want to stop. Witch Baby,” she whispered.

  Witch Baby stood at the sink, her wings drooping with sweat and filth, her eyes glazed, blood from her hand dripping into the basin. “Tell that to our boyfriends out there on the couch,” she said. “Tell that to Angel Juan’s horns.”

  But what did Angel Juan’s horns tell Angel Juan?

  The next night The Goat Guys smoked and drank tequila before the show. Onstage they were all in a frenzy. Cherokee, burning with tequila, could not stop whirling, although her toes were screaming, smashed into the hooves. Witch Baby was playing so hard that the wings seemed to be flapping by themselves, ready to fly away with her. Raphael leaped up and down as if the fur pants were scalding him. Finally, he leaped into the audience and the people held him up, grabbing at matted fur, at his long dreadlocks, at his skin slippery with sweat.

  While Raphael was thrashing around in the audience trying not to lose hold of his microphone. Angel Juan pumped his bass, charging forward with his whole body like a bull in a ring. He swung his head back and forth as if it were very heavy, crammed full of pain and sound. He slid to his knees. Something flashed in his hand. Cherokee thought she could hear the audience salivating as they yelled. They saw the knife before she did. They saw Angel Juan make the slash marks across his bare chest like a warrior painting himself before the fight. They reached out, hoping to feel his blood splash on them.

  It was only surface cuts; The Goal Guys saw that later when they were at home cleaning him. But Cherokee’s hands were trembling and her stomach felt as if she had eaten a live thing. She took the horns off Angel Juan’s head.

  He sat in a chair, his eyes half-closed. Witch Baby was kneeling at his feet with a reddened washcloth in her hands, Raphael stood by himself, smoking a cigarette. They all watched Cherokee as she put the horns on the floor and backed away from them.

  “We have to give them back to Coyote,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The horns. They don’t belong to us. Coyote was here while we were out.” Cherokee reached into her pocket and held out three glossy feathers she had found tied to the front door, “We have to give back the horns.”

  “You can’t do that now,” Witch Baby said. “Tomorrow night we’ll have at least two record companies at our house! We need the horns!”

  “Yeah, Cherokee, cool out,” Angel Juan said. “You’re just uptight about tomorrow.”

  “Look at you!” She pointed to his chest.

  “He’s all right. Lots of rock stars get carried away and do stuff like that. And we won’t drink anything tomorrow,” Raphael promised her.

  She wanted him to hold her but lately they almost never touched. After the shows they were always too exhausted to make love and collapsed together, chilled from their sweat and smelling of cigarettes, when they got hack.

  “And we’re not even playing at a club. It’ll be like my birthday party,” Witch Baby said.

  “Belter! We’re so much hotter now. Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Elvis.”

  “I’m not doing any more shows ’til we give back the horns,” Cherokee said. “Don’t you see? We have to stop!”

  “Don’t worry,” Raphael said. “Coyote gave us the horns. Why are you so afraid?”

  Witch Baby began gnawing her cuticles, her eyes darting from Cherokee to Raphael, When Cherokee saw her, she just shook her head silently at Raphael. She couldn’t tell him and Angel Juan the truth about the horns because she was afraid they wouldn’t be able to forgive her and Witch Baby for what they had done.

  When she fell asleep that night, Cherokee dreamed she was in a cage. It was littered with bones.

  The night of the party, the house was crammed with people. They wore black leather and fur and drank tall, fluorescent-colored drinks. Some were in the bedrooms snorting piles of cocaine off mirrors. They were playing with the film equipment, pretending to surf on the surfboards, trying on beaded dresses and top hats, undressing the Barbie dolls and twisting the Mexican skeleton dolls’ limbs together. There were some six-foot-tall models with bare breasts and necklaces made of teeth. Men with tattooed chests and scarred arms. The air was hot with bodies and smoke.

  Before The Coat Guys played live, Raphael put on their tape—his own loping, reggae rap. Angel Juan’s salsa-influenced bass. Witch Baby’s rock-and-roll-slam drums, Cherokee’s shimmery tambourine and backup vocals. A few people were dancing, doing the “goat.” They rocked and hip-hopped in circles, butting each other with imaginary horns.

  Cherokee was drinking from a bottle of whiskey someone had handed her when she saw Lulu go over to Raphael. Lulu was wearing a very short, low-cut black dress, and she leaned forward as she spoke to him. Cherokee could not hear what they were saying, but she saw Raphael staring down Lulu’s dress, saw Lulu take his hand and lead him away. On the stereo, Raphael’s voice was singing.

  “White Dawn,” Raphael sang. It was a song he had written when the band first started, a name he never used anymore.

  Cherokee followed Raphael and Lulu into Weetzie’s bedroom. She watched Lulu bend her head, as if she were admiring her reflection in a lake, and inhale the white powder off a mirror. She watched Raphael stand and flex his bare muscles. Lulu put her hands on Raphael’s hips.

  That was when Cherokee turned and ran out of the room.

  First, she found Raphael’s haunches lying in her closet. The hot, heavy fur scratched her arms when she lifted the pants. Next, she found Angel Juan’s horns and Witch Baby’s wings strewn on the floor of the living room among the bottles and cigarette butts, dolls, surf equipment and cannisters of film.Cherokee was already wearing the hooves.

  She took the armload of fur and hone into the bathroom, pulled off her clothes, and stared at her reflection—a weak, pale girl, the shadows of her ribs showing bluish through her skin like an X ray.

  I am getting whiter and whiter, she thought. Maybe I’ll fade all the way.

  But the hooves and haunches and horns and wings were not fragile. Everything about them was dark and full, even the fragrance that rose from them like the ghosts of the animals to whom they had once belonged. Cherokee had seen her friends transformed by these things, one at a time. She had seen Witch Baby soar, Raphael charge. Angel Juan glow. She had felt the wild pull of the hooves on her feet and legs.
But what would it be like to wear all this power at once, Cherokee wondered. What creature could she become? What music would come from her, from her little white-girl body, when that body was something entirely different? How would they look at her then, all of them, those faces below her? How would Raphael look at her, how would his eyes shine, mirrors for her alone? He would look at her.

  Cherokee stepped into the haunches. They made her legs feel heavy, dense with strength. Her feet in the boots stuck out from the bottom of the hairy pants as if both hooves and haunches were really part of her body. She fastened Witch Baby’s wings to her shoulders and moved her shoulder blades together so that the wings stirred. Then she attached Angel Juan’s horns to her head. In the mirror she saw a wild creature, a myth-beast, a sphinx. She shut her eyes, threw back her head and licked her lips.

  I can do anything now, Cherokee thought, leaving the bathroom, passing among the people who had taken over the house so that she hardly recognized it anymore. Angel Juan was on the couch, surrounded by girls, their limbs flailing, but Cherokee didn’t see Witch Baby anywhere.

  Then Cherokee passed the room where Raphael and Lulu were sitting on the bed, staring at each other. Raphael did not take his eyes off Lulu as Cherokee walked by.

  I don’t need Raphael or Weetzie or Coyote or anybody, Cherokee told herself. She kept her eyes focused straight ahead of her and paraded like a runway model.

  Cherokee climbed up the narrow staircase and out onto the roof deck, into the night. She could see the city below, shimmering beyond the dark canyon. Each of those lights was someone’s window, each an eye that would see her someday and fill with desire and awe. Maybe tonight. Maybe tonight each of those people would gaze up at her, at this creature she had become, and applaud. And she wouldn’t have to feel alone. Even without her family and Coyote. Even without the rest of The Goat Guys. Even without Raphael. She would fly above them on the wings she had made.

  Cherokee swayed at the edge of the roof, gazing into the buoyant darkness. She felt the boots blistering her feet, the haunches scratching her legs, the horns pressing against her temples; but the wings, quivering with a slight breeze, would lift her away from all that, from anything that hurt. The way they had lifted Witch Baby from the mud.

  Cherokee spread out her arms, poised.

  And that was when she felt flight. But it was not the flight she had imagined.

  Something had swept her away but it was not the wings carrying her into air. Something warm and steady and strong had swept her to itself. Something with a heartbeat and a scent of sage smoke. She was greeted, but not by an audience of anonymous lights, voices echoing her name. She recognized the voice that drew her close. It was Coyote’s voice,

  “Cherokee, my little one,” Coyote wept. They were not the tears of silver—moons and stars—she had once imagined, but wet and salt as they fell from his eyes onto her face.

  Dear Cherokee, Witeh Baby, Raphael and Angel Juan,

  We are coming home.

  Love,

  Weetzie

  Home

  The first things Cherokee saw when she woke were the stained-glass roses and irises blossoming with sun. Then she shifted her head on the pillow and saw Raphael kneeling beside her.

  “How are you feeling?” he whispered, his eyes on her face.

  She nodded, trying to swallow as her throat swelled with tears.

  “We’re all going to take care of you.”

  “What about you?”

  “Don’t worry, Kee. Coyote said he is going to help all of us. I’m going to quit drinking and smoking, even. And he called Weetzie. They’re all on their way home.”

  “What about Angel Juan’s headaches?”

  “Coyote is going to get some medicine together.” He pressed his forehead to her chest, listening for her heart. “I’m so sorry, Cherokee.”

  “I just missed you so much.”

  “Me too. Where were we?”

  Cherokee looked down at herself, small and white beneath the blankets. “Do you like me like this?” she asked. The tears in her throat had started to show in her eyes. “I mean, not all dressed up. I’m not like Lulu. …”

  Raphael flung his arms around her and she saw the sobs shudder through his back as she stroked his head. “You are my beauty, White Dawn.”

  Coyote, Witch Baby and Angel Juan came in with strawberries, cornmeal pancakes, maple syrup and bunches of real roses and irises that looked like the windows come to life. They gathered around the bed scanning Cherokee’s face, the way Raphael had done, to see if she was all right.

  “What happened?” Cherokee asked them.

  “Witch Baby saw how you were acting at the party and she went to get Coyote,” Angel Juan said, squinting and rubbing his temples.

  “She told me all about the horns,” Coyote said. “Forgive me, Cherokee.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cherokee said. “About the horns.”

  “It’s my fault!” said Witch Baby. “I should never have taken those clutch horns.”

  “Yes,” said Coyote, “we were all at fault. But I am supposed to care for you and I failed.”

  “Did you know we had the horns?” Cherokee asked.

  “I could have guessed. I turned my mind away from you. Sometimes, there on the hilltop, I forget life. Dreaming of past sorrows and the injured earth, I forget my friends and their children who are also my friends.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I called your parents and they will be home in a few days.”

  “But will you help us now?” Cherokee asked. She looked over at Witch Baby, who was gazing at Angel Juan as if her head ached too. “Will you help take away Angel Juan’s headaches and help Raphael stop smoking?”

  The lines running through Coyote’s face like scars were not from anger but concern. He took Cherokee’s cold, damp hands in his own that were dry and warm, solid as desert rock. “I will help you,” Coyote said.

  After they had scrubbed the house clean, glued the broken bowls, washed the salsa-and liquor-stained tablecloths, waxed the scratched surfboards and fastened the dolls’ limbs back on. Coyote, Cherokee, Raphael, Witch Baby and Angel Juan gathered in a circle on Coyote’s hill.

  Coyote lit candles and burned sage. In the center of the circle he put the tattered wings, haunches, horns and hooves. Then he began to chant and to beat a small drum with his flat, heavy palms.

  “This is the healing circle,” Coyote said. “First we will all say our names so that our ancestor spirits will come and join us.”

  “Angel Juan Perez.”

  “Witch Baby Wigg Bat.”

  “Raphael Chong Jah-Love.”

  “Cherokee Bat.”

  “Coyote Dream Song.”

  Coyote Dream Song chanted again. His voice filled the evening like the candlelight, like the smoke from the sage, like the beat of his heart.

  “Now we will dance the sacred dances,” Coyote said, and everyone stood, shyly at first, with their hands in their pockets or folded on their chests. Coyote jumped into the air as he played his drum, and the music moved in all of them until they were jumping too, leaping as high as they could. Then Coyote began to spin and they spun with him, circles making a circle, planets in orbit, everything becoming a blur of fragrant shadow and fragmented light around them.

  “And we will dance our animal spirit,” Coyote said, crouching, hunching his shoulders, his eyes flashing, his face becoming lean and secretive. The circle changed, then. There were ravens flying, deer prancing, obsidian elks dreaming.

  Finally, the dancing ended and they sat, exhausted, leaning against each other, protected by ancestors who had recognized their names and glowing with the dream of the feathers and fur they might have been or would become.

  “This is the healing circle,” Coyote said. “So you may each say what it is you wish to heal. Or you may think it in silence.” And he put his hand to his heart, then reached to the sky, then touched his heart again.

  “The child
ren in my country who beg in gutters and the hurt I gave to Witch Baby,” Angel Juan said.

  “My Angel Juan’s headaches and all broken hearts,” Witch Baby said.

  “Cherokee’s blistered feet and anything in the world that makes her sad,” Raphael murmured.

  “Our damaged earth. Angel Juan’s headaches, Raphael’s desire for smoke. Witch Baby’s sweet heart. Cherokee’s pain,” Coyote said.

  Wings, haunches, horns and hooves, thought Cherokee Bat, Wings, haunches, horns, hooves, home. Then, “All of you,” she said aloud.

  Coyote put his hand to his heart, reached to the sky, then touched his heart again.

  That was when the wind came, a hot desert wind, a salt crystal wind, ragged with traveling, full of memories. It was wild like the wind that had brought Cherokee the feathers for Witch Baby’s wings, but this time there were no feathers. This wind came empty, ready to take back. Cherokee imagined it extending cloud fingers toward them, toward the circle on the hill, imagined the crystalline gaze of the wind when it recognized Witch Baby’s wings made from the feathers it had once brought.

  The wings also recognized the wind and began to flap as if they were attached to a weak angel crouched in the center of the circle. They flapped and flapped until they began to rise, staggering back and forth in the dust. Cherokee, Raphael, Witch Baby, Angel Juan and Coyote stared in silence as the wind reclaimed the wings and carried them off, flapping weakly into the evening sky.

  Witch Baby stood and reached above her head, watching the wings disappear. Then she collapsed against Angel Juan and he held hen

  “You don’t need them,” he whispered. “You make me feel like I have wings when you touch me.” And as he spoke, one fragile feather, glinting with a streak of green, drifted down from the sky and landed upright in Witch Baby’s hair.

  Meanwhile, Raphael was inching toward the haunches that lay in front of him, Cherokee could see by his eyes that he wasn’t sure if he was ready to give them up. But it was too late.