Larry & the Dog People

by J. Paul Henderson

  When the bandages were removed and the stitches unpicked, Delores’ hands were left permanently scarred. She looked down on them with a depth of sadness she’d never before experienced, and only then resigned herself to the fact that her career as a hand artist had come to an end.

  At moments of crisis in her life Delores would head for the Portland Art Museum, sit on a bench in the quiet of one of its galleries and ponder the problem at hand. This particular visit she noted a leaflet stapled to the notice board advertising for a gallery attendant. She scanned the requirements – high school diploma, polite helpful manner, friendly, enjoys meeting people, likes art – and mentally ticked all the boxes. She completed an application form and two weeks later was standing in a gallery wearing the uniform of the Portland Art Museum. She worked there six years, patrolling rooms, monitoring security systems, talking to visitors and helping with enquiries, but most of the time she just stood or sat there.

  As a child Delores had tended toward the chubby, but her weight had been kept in check by balanced home-cooked meals and enforced school exercise. And as a hand model the agency had insisted she lose weight: there was little demand in the world of commerce for podgy hands, they told her. Once she stopped modelling though and adopted the stationary life of a gallery attendant and moved into her own apartment, all constraints were lifted. Calories that at one time would have only squatted in her body now took up permanent residence, and word went out to the other homeless calories of the region and to all the illegal calories that had crossed the border from Mexico that Delores’ body was a warm and welcoming place that asked no questions.

  As the number of mouths to feed mounted so did Delores’ appetite. She ate burgers and hot dogs, pizzas with extra toppings, fried chicken and fried fish, portions of fries and more portions of fries. During the day she snacked on Almond Joys, Big Hunks, Idaho Spuds, Denver Sandwiches, Cow Tales and Butterfinger Crisps and at night drank beer with her friends in a local bar and grazed on potato chips and salted peanuts. She’d never known such comfort.

  There was, however, a downside to this contentment. She became larger and changed in shape, grew breathless easily and started to sweat. And she had to remodel her wardrobe and buy loose fitting dresses and elasticised pants that disguised her new size. She joined a gym but went only occasionally, bought magazines and cut out diet plans and experimented with every over-the-counter slimming aid sold at the local drug stores.

  Although Delores recognised that she was overweight she was reluctant to accept that fast food had made her the slow person she’d become, and rather than change her diet opted instead for eating smaller portions of the same food and avoiding all-you-can-eat restaurants. The weight, however, remained loyal to Delores, and rather than take responsibility for her own lack of action she started to blame her environment: Portland’s slow pace of life was affecting her metabolism, sapping her of willpower. What she needed was a fresh start in a new and more vibrant city: a city that burned fat!

  Two weeks after having made this resolution, and as if by fate, a flier appeared on the museum’s notice board advertising an opening at the National Museum of the American Indian. Delores filled out an application form and was eventually called to Washington. She did her homework, beefed up on Native Americans and the National Museum and interviewed well. By nature she was friendly and amenable, and her round appearance spoke volumes for her approachability. For purposes of equal opportunity the museum was, at that time, also in need of a non-Native American on staff, and the appointment of a fat non-Native American was difficult to pass on: it was like killing two birds with one arrow.

  Delores was offered the position of gallery attendant and shortly moved to Washington. As the museum’s newbie she spent her first year floating from floor to floor, filling in for others and familiarising herself with the NMAI’s artefacts and permanent exhibitions. She worked at the Welcome Desk, in the Roanoke Museum Store, in the Lelawi Theatre and in the family activity centre. And as her knowledge and confidence grew she was given added responsibilities: conducting tours, and helping organise special exhibitions in the Sealaska Gallery and cultural events staged on the floor of the museum’s atrium.

  For the first month Delores made a point of climbing the stairs that linked the museum’s four levels but soon lost interest, especially after she discovered the Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe on the first floor and started to lunch there. She continued to descend the flights on foot for a time, but eventually gave up even this exercise and took the elevator. Unsurprisingly, in the city that burned fat, Delores’ weight remained constant.

  What did change, though, was her worldview. Working in the National Museum opened her eyes to the history, philosophies and traditions of American Indians and to their struggles to survive in a world no longer their own but that of foreign invaders: white men who’d arrived with suitcases packed with deadly diseases, alcohol and firearms and who’d gone on to exterminate the buffalo herds – the Indians’ main source of food and resources – and seize their homelands. And Delores was even more shocked when she learned that her own family had played a role in the Indians’ ignominious downfall, and recoiled when she thought of her long-dead ancestor who had supposedly helped rout a dangerous band of Cheyenne at Sand Creek.

  The family had lived in Colorado at the time, and Lucas Bobo, according to the story, had been one of the bravest soldiers to have ever lived. He’d served with Colonel Chivington in the High Plains and fought with honour at the Battle of Sand Creek. She now knew this story to be a lie: Sand Creek hadn’t been a battle but a massacre – and Chivington’s battle cry no less than an exhortation for ethnic cleansing: I have come to kill Indians, and I believe it is right and honourable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians. Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.

  One hundred and thirty-three Indians were killed and mutilated that day, and two-thirds of them had been women and children. Not satisfied with their deaths the soldiers had disembowelled the bodies, ripped out foetuses and cut off genitalia. They’d scalped the dead, cut off noses, ears and fingers and paraded their trophies in the downtown theatres of Denver…

  Delores shuddered. Could it be that Lucas’ tobacco pouch – the family heirloom displayed in her grandparents’ cabinet – wasn’t made from the testicles of a white antelope after all, but the testicles of White Antelope, the Cheyenne chief who’d fallen in battle that day? Immediately she’d phoned her grandparents and told them to burn the pouch; told them it was no less evil than having a lampshade made from human skin in their house and that if they didn’t they could forget about their trip to Washington next spring and she’d change her name to Antelope! The Bobo buck stops here, she’d told them.

  But it didn’t: the buck remained with her grandfather. He told her not to be so silly and that he had no intention of burning what was left of a dear family ancestor on the strength of a whim and that he and Grandma could go anywhere they damned-well pleased in the country and that she didn’t own Washington and that for all he cared she could change her name to Buffalo!

  Having already left home it was difficult for Delores to leave home again, but she decided that as long as White Antelope’s testicles were on display in her grandparents’ cabinet she would never set foot in Portland again. She talked about changing her name to Antelope with a couple of friends at the museum, but as in their opinion she looked nothing like an antelope they advised against it and proposed instead that she go with her grandfather’s suggestion. Delores didn’t understand their logic. Chief Black Kettle hadn’t been called Black Kettle because he’d looked like a black kettle, so why did it matter if she didn’t look like an antelope? And she certainly wasn’t going to choose the name her grandfather had suggested: Delores Buffalo was unsuitable for any woman trying to lose weight.

  So instead of changing her name – which was tokenistic at best she realised – she stuck an eagle’s feather in her h
air ribbon and embraced the concept of the Noble Savage – wholeheartedly and without proviso – and became more native than the Native Americans. And on their behalf, and often to their bemusement, she decried the crimes of her own civilisation – whose food additives she now blamed for her size – and was happy to go toe-to-toe with anyone prepared to contradict her.

  She found her match on the third Friday of July, the opening night of the Wabanaki Confederacy exhibition.

  It was the first time in weeks the gang had been together. Tank had missed two Saturdays, Delores one and Laura and Alice another; often it had been just Larry and Mike sitting at the table in Volta Park. Wayne had joined them on one such occasion, but left when Mike started to lecture him about climbing trees and Larry had run out of mints. Unsurprisingly, Wayne hadn’t been invited to the exhibition.

  By the time Larry arrived at the museum, Mike, Laura and Alice were already sitting on a bench in the huge Potomac Atrium.

  ‘How you doing, man?’ Mike smiled. ‘Got the use of your legs back?’

  ‘Just about, Mike, but my keyboard skills are still a bit hit-and-miss. The mouse had a life of its own this morning. Did the recordings turn out okay?’

  Mike made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and gave Larry the A-okay sign. ‘And I couldn’t have done it without you, man. You’re the dude, Larry!’

  Larry had spent most of the previous afternoon suspended by his feet in the Great Falls Park recording the sound of the Potomac River as it rushed over the jagged rocks of Mather Gorge. It was an action that ran counter to the park’s rule that visitors should only view the falls from the overlooks provided, but from Mike’s point of view it had been necessary. ‘I need to hear the force of the water, Larry, feel its speed and get the drama on tape.’

  Mike had been happy for Larry to suspend him, but worried that his ageing friend might well drop and kill him – something that had also crossed Larry’s mind when the idea was discussed. ‘I’ve no upper strength, Mike; no muscles. It’s probably best if you hold my legs.’ And so on and off for the next three hours, and moving from one rock to another, it was Mike who gripped and squeezed Larry’s ankles, cutting the circulation to his feet and channelling the blood to his head.

  When Mike hauled him up for the final time Larry’s shirt was wet through and his face bright red. ‘Man, that was a blast,’ Mike said. ‘How about we drop by Stubblefield Falls on the way back and record Scot’s Run falling into the Potomac?’ On the grounds that he didn’t have any feeling in his legs and wasn’t sure where his arms were, Larry politely suggested they do that another day.

  ‘You’re becoming quite the gadabout, Larry,’ Laura said.

  ‘I am, aren’t I?’ Larry smiled. ‘It’s a good job I’m retired these days or I wouldn’t have time for all these adventures.’

  ‘What adventures?’

  The question had been asked by Tank. He’d come straight from work and was wearing a dark pinstriped suit, suspenders, a maroon tie and black dress shoes.

  ‘I went with Mike to the Great Falls Park yesterday and we recorded the sound of the water,’ Larry said.

  ‘How come you can find time to help Mike when you can’t find time to help me? When I asked you to do some gardening the other day you said you were too busy. You can’t be that busy if you’ve got time to help a Hippie. I was going to pay you, too. How much did you pay him, Mike?’

  Mike ignored the question and Tank drew his own conclusions. ‘Just as I figured,’ he said. He scanned the room for a bar or a waiter carrying a tray of drinks and came up empty. ‘Where the hell’s Delores when you need her? I thought she was supposed to be looking after us.’

  ‘She’s tied up with the exhibition,’ Laura said. ‘She’ll be joining us after the opening ceremony.’

  ‘I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you in a suit,’ Alice said. ‘If you just stood there and kept your mouth shut you could almost be mistaken for an attractive man.’

  ‘You ought to see me at a funeral, Alice. I cut quite the dash there. That reminds me, I’ve decided to take Sherman to that animal blessing service you were talking about the other week. I want him to meet the Pastor.’

  Mike laughed. ‘You old dog, Tank. You’re smitten with the Pastor, aren’t you?’

  ‘I might be and I might not,’ Tank replied. ‘All I’ll say on the subject is that she conducts a fine funeral service. What’s her name, anyway? All it said on the service sheet was Pastor Millsap.’

  ‘It’s Donna. Donna Millsap,’ Mike said. ‘Who died anyway? No one mentioned a funeral to me.’

  ‘Oh, just some guy at the State Department. I didn’t know him all that well – never even shook his hand for that matter – but for the sake of internal politics I had to show up at his funeral and look sad. Donna’s not gay, is she?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ Mike said. ‘All I’ve heard is that she’s divorced.’

  ‘We’ve got that in common, then. Next time you see her, put in a good word for me, will you? Do that and I won’t tell her about this woman I know of who can whistle hymns better than you can play them. Now where’s that bar?’

  Tank walked off and left the group in a state of shellshock. ‘He didn’t even ask us how we were,’ Alice complained. ‘And he hasn’t seen us for two weeks! He never asks us how we are.’

  ‘Well, I suppose we’re as guilty as he is on that score,’ Laura said. ‘We didn’t ask him how his trip went.’

  ‘He never gave us the chance,’ Mike said. ‘He just turned up and started haranguing us.’

  ‘He’s always like that when he gets back from the Middle East,’ Laura said. ‘He has to be nice to people out there and it’s not in his nature. He’d rather knock heads together than listen to spout, but it’s his job to listen and so he has to bite his tongue. And if he’s been biting his tongue for two weeks in the Middle East, you know for a fact that he’s going to bite us in the ass when he gets home. We’re like his safety valve.’

  ‘I think you’re just making excuses for him,’ Alice said. ‘My job’s as stressful as his and you don’t hear me talking to people like that. It’s not easy finding jobs for people, especially when most of them are losers. There are days when I have to have the patience of a saint.’

  A microphone was tapped and a voice called for attention. There were short introductions, a longer overview of the five Nations that comprised the Wabanaki Confederacy and then the invitees to the exhibition, close to 150 in number, were asked to make their way to the Sealaska Gallery on the second floor where they could read more about the Confederacy and view the exhibits.

  Larry and the others, now rejoined by Tank, climbed the stairs and headed for the Gallery. There was a wigwam made from birch bark at the centre of the room, and a canoe to its left made from the same material. There were mannequins dressed in ponchos, wraparound skirts and leather tunics; breechcloths with leather leggings, cloaks, pointed caps and moccasins decorated with beadwork. Elsewhere in the Gallery, and behind glass, were deer facemasks, horned-owl hoods, headdresses made from ostrich feathers, heavy wooden clubs, pronged spears, bows and arrows and wampum belts.

  ‘You could get a few pointers from the way they dressed, Mike.’

  ‘Do you want my help with Donna or don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ Tank said, ‘and, if you don’t mind me saying so, you’re wearing a fine pair of overalls this evening.’

  ‘I don’t think I quite understand this,’ Alice said. ‘Are the Wabanaki American or Canadian Indians?’

  ‘They’re both,’ Laura replied. ‘They lived – and still live – in the states of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont and in the Canadian Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They banded together to defend themselves against the Iroquois.’

  ‘So is this relative of yours American or Canadian?’

  ‘Ameri
can. He was born in Vermont.’

  Delores came to join them. ‘Did you see the cradleboard, Laura? That’s one of the Abenaki artefacts I promised you, and the cornhusk dolls and black ash baskets are Abenaki, too. It makes you proud to be Indian, doesn’t it?’

  So far as Laura was aware, neither she nor Delores had the slightest drop of Indian blood in them and just smiled. ‘Where’s Petey? I thought he was coming tonight.’

  ‘He’s over there talking to Larry. As they both write, I thought they’d have something in common.’

  It was true that both Larry and Petey wrote, but their styles and reasons for writing had little in common. Larry’s writing was practical and no-nonsense, designed to convey facts and analyse data, while Petey’s words were more patterned and his subjects less tangible. Notwithstanding these differences the two men appeared to have hit it off and were in deep conversation. Larry had been explaining the Desert Land Act to Petey and now Petey was asking him if he was happy with his agent.

  ‘I’ve never had an agent,’ Larry replied. ‘I just sent the articles to a journal.’

  ‘And the journal sent you the cheques?’

  ‘Oh I never got paid for them – not directly anyway. I got promoted on the strength of them and that was the payoff. I suppose it’s different when you write commercially.’

  ‘It is,’ Petey sighed. ‘If you don’t have an agent there’s little chance of a publisher ever seeing your work – and finding an agent isn’t easy. Everything you read tells you to choose your agent carefully, feel from your gut that this is the person for you, but in truth you don’t have any real choice. You’re thankful to get any agent.’

  ‘And do you have one?’

  ‘I do, but it’s not working out. She spends more time at the hairdresser than she does promoting me. Every time I check the agency’s website her hair’s a different colour. And she strikes me as being a middleperson rather than a decision maker. It was another guy who found my manuscript in the slush pile and recommended it.