Monday, September 21, 2015

Salesmanship 101 from Untitled

Changes (1989)

Chapter 1. Salesmanship 101
(Selling Yourself)

   It was the beginning of the end of an era for me the day my cab license was yanked by the City. I had been at a stand-still for several years anyway and hardly cared but for the principle of it. Cab driving always gave me the independence and pocket cash I needed to keep my bar tab paid and enough for a room at The Virginia Hotel. Driving at night, I could also stay invisible to a daylight world I wanted nothing to do with. But now that was gone.
   I dumped my coin jar on the dresser and, with a shaking hand, separated the pennies from the dimes and quarters. There was enough silver for a pack of generic smokes and a pint of Popov’s at Jerry’s. I didn’t necessarily want a drink but I definitely needed one to calm my nerves.
   I tried to slip out through the lobby while Lucas sat on his ass behind the check-in counter reading a skin mag. He was like a spider waiting for its prey all day without moving, the lobby was his web. When anyone touched the carpet at the bottom of the stairs he must have sensed the vibration at the counter. He let me get all the way to the door before he put down his magazine and called out, “Crash!”
   I froze, “Yeh, I know.”
   “I’ve let you go a week already. The boss…”
   “C’mon Lucas, I’ve always been good. I’m waiting for a shift to open up,” I lied. It wasn’t a big lie because there was always a chance the Professor would change his mind.
   “You ever hear from the VA on that appeal?” he asked, rubbing the stub of what was left of his arm under his shirt.
   “Not yet, but any time now. It’s been three years,” I felt embarrassed. He’d lost an arm and a leg in Nam and I’d only lost my mind. I went back to the counter, “How come you never wear your prosthetic, Lucas?”
   “Not unless I have too. I like to air it. Irritates the skin, you know.”
   “I’ll take you to Vegas when my ship comes in,” I promised. I meant it too but three years back-pay on my VA claim was but a dream. I had a better chance of winning the lottery.
   “Don’t try to grease my butt Craszhinski.”
   “Think of it, Lucas. The Chicken Ranch and...”
   “Okay, okay, enough Crash. But I want good news from you by tomorrow or you’re out.”
   Spiderman was actually a good guy. He was just doing his job. We were like brothers over the years. He’d covered me several times in the past but he had to answer to the boss. I apologized, “Lucas, you know how humiliating it is to beg another week’s reprieve.”
   “Humiliating? Look at me. I sit here at a dead-end job putting the squeeze on losers like you. And you whine about humiliation? I probably have only a year or two left on this pile of shit.”
   “Never looked at it that way, Spiderman. I’ll pay up soon enough, okay?”
   “It’s Lucas, not Spiderman. Friday… no later than five, Crash,” he shook his head, “and that’s final.”
   I was out the door before he finished. I got my smokes and pint. It occurred to me I ought to save it ‘til later... After being put on hold every time I’d called the past week, I knew what to expect. Okay, just one toke before I face the music. I needed a bit of liquid courage... enough to make the Professor squirm, mano y mano.
   The company’s offices were down on East Yananoli, near South Salsipuedes, and not too far a walk if I took the tracks. It’s an uneasy feeling to be in a place where I was no longer a part of the business. For several years it was like we were family but overnight I had become persona non grata. Bob sat in the dispatch office situated behind a crosshatched wire glass window where anyone entering the lobby could be seen. He swiveled around in his chair checking who’d come in. Next to the dispatch office, the door to the inner sanctum was open. It was an oversight. Dispatch would normally have to buzz me in and, as I passed through it, Bob looked at me as though I had breached the barricades. The speaker above the door crackled, “Hey, Crash, you can’t go...”
   Once inside I took a seat across from Ginny’s reception desk guarding Professor’s office. While she was on the phone I could see why all the drivers used to stop by the receptionist desk to chat with Ginny just to be in the presence of her Dolly Parton’s. She was a freak of nature for sure. When Ginny became Professor’s plaything he installed the buzzer lock at the door and moved the drop-safe into dispatch office instead of behind her desk.
   The owner, Dr. Lawrence Spawn, was in. I could see his door ajar. The professor was one of us; an old cabby that hooked into a widow ten years before. He was once called driver #75, or Larry, but now he insists we use his formal name; title and all. He was a PHD after all and we all knew that in his case it stood for Piled Higher and Deeper.
   There are those in every cab company who thrive on pushing ahead in those kinds of shark infested waters. There were students too for whom cabbing was just another job to pay the rent. There were others holding down a shift to make ends meet until they got that big break... a screenplay that gets accepted or, a real acting job. Then there were realists ...fishermen that can haul groceries and church ladies all day without losing sight that they are casting to reel in the big tuna... a widow with enough inheritance to put ‘em on easy street. Rachelle was in her late fifties when the Professor sank a hook in her. He was in his thirties and movie star handsome when she took his bait... empty promises of eternal love. He gave her a free ride to Vegas where they got hitched by an Elvis impersonator, and that was the last time he did anything for her that came from his own pocket.
   Ginny pretended to be on the phone ignoring me. I got out of the chair and stood for several lifelong minutes before she acknowledged my presence.
“Hi, Crash, what can I do for you?” She was warmer towards me the last time I saw her.
   It was everything I could do to keep my eyes focused on that silver cross hanging from her neck, “I need to talk to the Professor.”
   “I’m sorry, Crash, Dr. Spawn’s not in…” Ginny held the phone receiver covering that silver cross between her ample breasts. She kept her dual assets locked up under a heavy duty bra and a puritan white, long-sleeved blouse. I wasn’t distracted enough to miss the door gently shutting.
   “Don’t tell me he’s not in. Did a ghost just close his door?”
   “You can come back when Dr. Spawn isn’t busy, Crash,” her tone sealed the conversation. “Or, I can tell Rachelle you were here when she comes in.”
I knew the Professor wasn’t busy. He didn’t run the company. Rachelle and Bob did that. Doc only owned it. He owned it along with Rachelle’s house in Montecito, a nice boat named A Doctor’s Dream, and a blood red Jaguar, with the money we dropped in the safe guarded behind the locked door of the dispatch office.
Doc was in charge of PR, the hiring and firing, and that was about all. You just knew he loved hamming it up for spots on late night TV. He wore stripes behind bars for his pitch... “Leavin’ the bar? Don’t drive your car. Take a cab.” He followed these with Dr. Spawn’s Bail Bondsman ads, “Drop a dime and I’ll save you time.” 
   Ginny would bounce in on cue, “You’ll be out before you can shout, Dr. Spawn Bail Bonds!”
   Professor’s wife knew about Ginny but looked the other way. Divorce was not an option for other than religious reasons. Professor had a grip on the bank account she’d signed away when the romance was hot.
   I’m really not a breast man but my eyes couldn’t help themselves. I alternatively gave Ginny the once-over before nailing her eye to eye. I planted both hands on her desk and demanded, “Ginny, don’t give me any shit.”
   Bob came out of dispatch with one of those 18 inch cop flashlights in his hands.
   “Get back in there Bob.” I turned to face him, “The phone’s ringing.”
Bob stood a minute and considered whether there was anything he could do. We went back a few years. There was a time when he could have mopped the floor with me but he’d grown soft in the office and wasn’t about to take me on now.
   I passed Ginny’s desk and opened Professor’s door. Doc was standing a few feet back. He reached out to shake hands. His gesture wasn’t reciprocated.
   “Crash, good to see you. I was just going to tell Ginny to let you in,” Professor backed behind his desk and sat down, “Have a seat, Craszhinski.”
   “Cut the shit, Professor,” I was brief with him. Behind Doc, on the wall above his head, hung a certificate nicely framed. It was his Doctorate of Philosophy diploma. A few of us knew about how the Professor got his degree. It was a con like everything else in his life. He had somehow incorporated, formed his own college, and turned in a thesis. It was filed where doctorates are filed and amounted to little more than a list of stats about cab drivers: their gender; education; marital status; military service; race;... and so on. He had a no more than a dozen drivers to fill out a survey form from which he expanded the numbers to hundreds for the sake of a thorough sampling.
   “Doc, I need a break. I know you always need a graveyard dispatch.”
   “Crash, you know I can’t rehire you so soon after.”
   “And you know damned well I wasn’t busted on the job...” I protested, “It wasn’t for drugs.”
   “It just doesn’t look right, Crash,” Doc pulled out a green sheet of a carbon copied police report.
   “Yeh, like I’m a big drug king-pin living in the flea-bag hotel.”
   “The city still pulled your license and sent me this report: Drunk in public; creating a nuisance; assaulting a police officer...” Doc read from the list, checking off each item. When he finished he flipped a pencil in the air, missed the catch, it bounced off the desk and rolled to the floor.
   “They dropped all the charges ‘cept drunk in public,” I picked up the pencil and handed it to him, “Besides, I wasn’t in my cab!”
   The professor started chewing on the pencil. I couldn’t take my eyes off it hoping he would choke on the eraser. The pencil caused him to talk through his teeth, “I can’t do anything right away. The town’s changing. You’re becoming a relic... things of the past. You can’t be cowboys out there now.”
   “That’s an excuse Doc and you know it.” I approached his desk, “Dispatch has always been where drivers go that get their licenses yanked. Who else would want the job?”
   Dispatchers only get paid minimum wage. They supplement their income by milking tips from drivers. No tip... no good fares.... all’s fair on the streets where money is concerned. Some make out real well that way. It isn’t a job for anyone with some humanity, principles, or dignity left, after driving for years.
   “Look Crash, all the cab businesses have to clean up now. Times are changing and Sergeant Lopez is getting on all our asses. After last week the City’s leaning on him too. Go to Schick/Shadel; to a rehab or AA. Let ‘em know you got sober... get it on paper when you graduate... get your license reinstated and maybe we can get you back on...”
   “Bullshit, Professor. Clean up all you want... but you and I know damned well you ain’t so clean yourself.”
   “That was my past, David. But since I found the Lord...”
   “Don’t give me that Lord BS, Doc,” pointing to the wall I threw his crap back at him, “You found the Lord up Rachelle’s vagina. You can get widows and schoolgirls to wipe your ass with that paper but it won’t work with me!”
   I was on a roll and knew I got his goat but had no idea the implications went beyond the obvious. Doc’s face turned from pasty white to beacon red. He screeched, “Craszhinski, if you don’t leave now I’m calling nine-one-one!”
   I’d never heard the smooth talkin’ con-man yell like that. Professor stood from his chair holding the receiver away from his ear with his fingers on the keys of the phone.
   Bob must have had his ear to the door with the flashlight in hand. He opened the door, “You need help Professor?” He lifted the flashlight as though he was ready to use it.
   I slammed my body against Bob and shoved him out the door so hard he landed on Ginny’s lap with one of her bullet breasts inches from his mouth. I was out of the building and never did see him rise from Ginny’s lap. I suppose I did him a favor landing him there.

Chapter 2. Some Tea & Sympathy

   Did anyone hear that? The door to another chapter of my life had just slammed shut. I didn’t want it to. But the time had come to pack up everything and sneak out past Lucas. I had to put my stuff somewhere until I found another hole to crawl into. As always, Lucas let me cross the lobby before he caught me at the door.
  “Don’t be a stranger, Crash.” He called out and waved, “We’ll have a room for you when you pay up.”
  “Thanks, Lucas,” I was grateful for the old spider’s concern.
My feet took me up State Street towards Pal’s. It was a sad walk... a funeral dirge... Louis Armstrong’s horn was mourning in the background between my ears. The sidewalk was littered with the Fiesta refuse from the night before... plastic beer cups, confetti mixed the visual with splatterings of vomit that Jackson Pollack might have been proud of. I stopped for every signal though it was six AM and there was no traffic to be concerned about. I got as far as the Snake Pit bar where my friend Anna stood out front smoking a joint. “You want company, Crash? You look like you’re goin’ somewhere.”
   “Company, sure,” I inhaled the pungent smoke she blew in my face, “but I can’t pay.”
   “Well, sailor, your credit’s good with me.” she teased, passing the roach on a clip.
   “With you and no one else,” I set my pack on the sidewalk.
   “Awe, poor baby, you looked like you needed a little tea and sympathy. What’s goin’ on?” she hefted my pack onto her shoulder. She knew exactly where I was headed.
   We were approaching De La Guerra arm-in-arm and I liked the way that, when Anna was with me, she acted as though we were a couple. I think it was her way of telegraphing to all concerned that she was off-duty. On the way up the street, a tatted-up character with a shaved head approached her as though I wasn’t there and asked, “Is this guy your father?”
   She snuggled closer to me, “No, he’s my pimp.”
   He checked me out. A general rule of mine says that, when in the jungle, never make eye contact with a predator unless you’re ready to take him on. We made eye contact.
   However, Anna was capable of handling him easily enough. “You couldn’t afford two minutes with me,” she blew smoke between us. In that Nano-second his eye lids flickered. She passed the roach to him and said, “Teeny weenie; take this and scoot.”
   Still eye to eye I swear I saw him blush. The guy backed off and walked away. I wasn’t sure if it was rage or embarrassment.
   “You know him?”
   “Not that well. He tried for a date once at The Toasting Company. I thought he was a cop, ya’ know. So, what’s goin’ on with you?”
   I knew the guy was probably a John as much as I was sure she was lying but it didn’t matter. After all, an essential part of her profession required discretion. Searching her face for sympathy, I confessed, “Doc’s not going to hire me back. I’m out of a job and homeless. I’ll have to move into the van.”
The old VW was parked in the lot at the company. Its brakes were completely shot and the registration was a year past due. Still, in an emergency, it was a hole I could crawl into.
   “Oh, boo-hoo. You need money? I can put up your rent.” Anna offered as we turned on De La Guerra Street towards Pal’s.
   “Isn’t it bad enough that you’re buying my drinks today?” I didn’t like owing anyone a piece of me but a drink was another thing.
   “Oh, am I now? Okay. I’ll buy ‘em.” She hooked an arm in mine, tugging,       “C’mon, Crash. Cheer up. It ain’t that bad. You’re the one that told me,” (air quotes), “pride ain’t an asset.” She was young… so young she missed high school and all that normal kid stuff. I forgave her the air quotes and we entered the bar.
   Once my eyes adjusted to the dark I could see the place was empty except for Keith, who was on his usual stool by the door doing the crossword. You couldn’t beat Keith to the bar. He was there every morning before the doors opened. Claire saw us and was pouring a beer from the tap already when we took our stools. “A soda with lime for Anna and beer for Mr. Glum. Right?”
   “Give him a Bloody Mary, Claire. Can’t I have a drink?” She flipped a passport to Claire, “I’m old enough to dance at the Rhino.”
   “You look 18 but if you’re 21, I’m Methuselah’s mamma,” Claire laughed.
Methu… who?” Anna puzzled and then schmoozed, “You hold your age well. I mean it, Claire.”
   Claire was in her early fifties and could still sport a short skirt when she wanted to. In the old days she worked at George’s Pour House on Milpas where the barmaids all wore stilettos and bikinis.
Clair laughed. “Where’d you steal this I.D.? Hmmm... So, you’re Laura Rogers... okay, when were you born?
   Anna smiled. It was a joke. She would never try to pass it on Claire but she took a guess, "1968... May? ah, let’s see... 19th? Hmm... let me see it again...”
   “March 19th 1968. Better get to know this one better, Laura,” she handed it back to Anna and busied herself mixing my drink.
Anna grinned impishly and showed it to me, “I just got it. Haven’t even looked at it yet.”
   “She kind of looks like you if you dyed your hair and injected Botox in your face,” I said.
   “I wear a wig when I use it,” she boasted.
Claire turned to ring up my Bloody Mary and I snuck the pint to Anna’s glass dumping a taste into her soda.
   “I saw that, Crash.” Claire returned to the bar, poured herself a shot of schnapps, and downed it. “But time, sweetheart, will have us joining the ranks of old broads soon enough. Lay off the crack and booze or you’ll have to retire your bones early or go Postal like Crash here.”
   “I haven’t done coke or meth for three months now, Claire.”
Claire turned motherly, “Booze and cigarettes will wrinkle you too.”
   “Postal?” I knew I had gotten in trouble… blacked out most of it… there had been a fight and I ended up in jail. I had no idea about the why’s and what’s of it and tucked in my sphincter awaiting the news. It was like the television news to me because it was as though I was hearing about someone else.
   “I didn’t tell you yet,” Anna nearly whispered, “You flipped the other day... completely flipped.”
   “Naw, I knew what I was doin’...” I couldn’t remember a thing but I tried to act like I did.
   Clair stepped in, “You were here all day. Not kidding. I stopped serving you. Your daughter... you know... the courts and all. I let you get by with it all day but sent you home. I heard you stopped by De La Guerra Plaza and got in a fight with one of the dope dealers. Anna’s right. You flipped... yelling all kinds of stuff at the statue and you threw away your wad from the night before.”
   “Threw away? What do you mean, threw away?” I wondered what happened to my cash.
   “You went over and threw all your money at the bums and dopers hanging there. They ate it up. How much did you have?”
   “About three hundred when I got off my shift.” I had no idea where that money went. I thought it got dirt-grabbed sometime that night.
   “Another Vet gone bug-shit fuckin’ crazy,” Claire said mournfully.
Anna cozied up, “Look, Crash, I have a new place with lots of room. My door’s always open. Get the point. You helped me when I was a kid.”
   “You’re still a kid.” And she was still a kid as far as I was concerned, but I can admit to be feeling a little high just thinking of the possibilities. “Say, are you bidding for my affection?”
   She leered back, “Your affection but not your intentions,” Anna was used to leering older men but got serious with Claire... almost in tears the words slurred just a little, “Crash... if it weren’t for himm... Did I ever tell you about when I rode in hiz cab with everything I owned in a Hello Kitty backpack?”
   “Oh, c’mon, a thousand times, Anna. Where did you find her today, Crash?”
   “The Snake Pit, why?”
   “This ain’t my first day on the job,” Claire scowled. “She’s blitzed and she’s repeating old stories.”
Claire was right. Like a child, Anna reverts to a stripper’s voice when she’s loaded. I found it annoying but cute enough to tolerate.
   “Hey, I’m here. I’m here!” Anna waved. “I know… I know... I’m buzzed. Sorry, but don’t talk ‘bout me like I’m not here.” She returned to the subject, “You’ve been my best friend. You kin stay with me, Crash.”
Claire’s warned, “Girl, careful what you say when you’re high. Crash might take you for more than a couch.”
    “See, Anna, don’t let him fool you. That’s what he wanted all along. Ain’t I right, Crash? You wanna thank me?”
   Claire had me pinned, I am a man after all, and I have to admit my mind swam with romantic fantasies... of sharing an apartment with Anna. My sub-Craszhinski was already introducing her to my family, marrying her, and slipping between the sheets. It’s an ego thing. Lonely men like me dream of entering a room James Bond full of movers and shakers with a sexy young women in arm...  imagining the envy of others thinking... he must be rich to have a girl like that! The best I usually went home with was another bar-fly past her prime.
   Anna patted my back sympathetically cooing, “Now-now, grand-pa, you’re my friend. You’ve got the couch as long as you need it. Okay?”
   “All I’ve got to do is to get back with the company. I kind of blew it today.”
Claire scowled, “Now, what did you do, knucklehead.”
   I laughed. It always made me laugh when Claire or Anna called me a knucklehead. From anyone else it’s not so funny but there’s an arcane cuteness about that word coming from either one of them. “I don’t feel much like explaining it, Claire, but I went off on Doc. I have no idea what’s going on with him and Bob. I expected them to back me up... dispatching, you know.”
   “Now what are we going to do?” Claire merely posed a rhetorical question as if it was her problem too. She knew about the bust but she didn’t know about how or why I was shut out that morning.
   “C’mon,” Anna coaxed me off the stool, “We’ve got things to do and they ain’t gonna get done sittin’ here all day.”

Claire called out as we left, “Don’t sell yourself short, Craszhinski. You’re a better man than you think you are.”

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Joeseph & Joe

I'm working on a turn of the century (19th and 20th) saga about the people and landscape of the Northwest from British Columbia, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Utah. The Wobblies and the Nez Perce... soldiers, gamblers, miners, loggers, farmers, convicts, missionaries and whores... the characters that made my home what it is today.

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Vision Quest

This is the missing chapter from the Amazon Kindle Edition of A Time Ago and Then. The book is being edited once more as the wrong manuscript was transcribed. I am so sorry this chapter was left out because it is a pivotal point in the story... enjoy.
*****
I crossed the mesa the next morning to Brian’s place at the Pueblo where I was welcomed in. Brian wasn’t happy about the whole situation but I was surprised to find him remorseful for his own reactions the other night. He spoke slowly and deliberately in the dark of his place with only a kerosene lamp for light. It flickered, adding eeriness to the scene that caused me to pay attention closely.
“When we left California we were visited several times like this. We had gone up there to Mahayana Ranch hoping to get away from the hassles of the city after it all broke loose in the summer of ’67. Trouble followed.”
“You think it will get worse then?”
“I’m hoping it will settle down once we get ourselves established and we can be taken seriously. Right now we seem to have become a magnet for run-a-ways and some shady characters.” He laughed at what he’d just said, “Look at me. I was going to fight Billy last night… all the booze and so on.”
“Yeh, I’m not all that proud of myself either. I came out here to escape that crap too.” I found myself caring deeply about Brian’s contrition.
“I haven’t had much opportunity to get to know you, Max. I hope you find what you came here for.” Brian pulled a book out from his shelf and opened it. I could see it was well worn and a valuable text of some sort. He read aloud a verse in what sounded like Sanskrit or something then he recited in English for me… something about change and blissful peace.
“What is that from?” I was honored to be sitting in this dark room with this mysterious and helpful man. I had been starving for something like that “blissful peace” and I had very little idea how it was attained.
“That is from the Diamond Sutra… a Buddhist text.” Brian said calmly without pretense.
“You know, the reason that incident last night between you and Billy got to me was that I quit drinking a while back and now I drinking again. I’m not too much different from Billy. I don’t want to drink and it seems I can’t get away from it,” I confessed because I wanted to know why Brian had gotten so fired up too. It might have done us both some good to get it out.
“I have been around all kinds of abusive drunks in my life. My dad was pretty bad but you would never know it. He was a professor of English lit but he had a secret life we saw at home.” Brian hung his head from side to side, “I swore I would never drink like him but, every once in a while, I drink and I can’t tell what will happen next.”
I told him about my first trip in Waikiki and how I’d stayed away from drinking for three or four months after that.
“So, I thought I saw that in you. You ought to go on a vision quest.”
“I’ve heard of vision quests. What would I do?”
Brian gave me a leather pouch with a three or four buttons in it. “Take this medicine and go on a fast. Head up the arroyo to the wilderness area. When hunger hits you… take a bite or two from one of these.”
“Yeh, how long do I go?”
“Go until you have a vision.”
“I’ve seen some pretty amazing things… like the Peyote Ceremony and all… all the coincidences and wonders on the way here and so on, but visions? The most powerful aspect of it was of a calm and serene love… a love that not only was at one with other people, but with the prickly pear cactus and the sage… and, of course, the goats.” I had a feeling that what Brian was talking about wasn’t just some more hippy bull-shit. He was talking about a vision… a real vision and it seemed that if anything would make that happen perhaps peyote might.
“There is only one way to find out, eh?” Though Brian was slightly rotund in physique he still had an intrinsically mischievous elfish quality about him whenever his face took on a sly smirk like it did then.
I went back to the goat pasture with my pouch of buttons... er, Medicine. I figured I ought to get the booze and the acid out of my system a few days before doing anything as serious as a vision quest. I was about a day into a fast when, in the morning just before sunrise, a commotion with the goats broke out. There was bleating and some rather furious noises that could have only come from a cat… a big cat. I went out to where I’d heard the ado and saw the evidence of big cat tracks, fur on the ground and a little blood here and there. Charlie escorted me to the spot where I put two and two together. I didn’t like the idea that a cat could take one of my kids. I did a count and, sure enough, one was missing.
I didn’t have a rifle but I sorely needed one now. I figured Mason might have one because I had seen a deer hide stretched out for tanning Indian style at his place on the island.
I approached Mason’s place and was glad to see smoke coming from the chimney.
“Howdy, stranger!” Mason called out from a rock above the cabin behind me.
Startled, I spun around to see him coming down off the rock.
“I need to ask you something kinda irregular.” I called out.
“I’ve been waiting for you to show up. We need to sit down and smoke a bowl over it then.” Mason went inside and came out with what looked like a classic Indian peace pipe, beaded and adorned with feathers. The pipe was packed with Bull Durham tobacco and sage but not pot. We smoked and passed the pipe between us before I brought up the goat and the cat.
“What do you want to do about the cat?” Mason asked.
“Huh?” How did he know? “I was wondering if you have a rifle.”
“I know… You want to kill the cat?”
“Yeh, I can’t see letting the goats get picked off one by one.”
“You know anything about cats?”
“Not really. Just that one of ‘em is eating my kids.”
“Didn’t we eat one the other day?”
“Yeh, we did.” I took this as a rejection of my request for the rifle. More disturbing however, I was afraid the whole idea was sour to Mason and I respected his judgment.
“If you gotta do it….” Mason paused a few minutes as though he were weighing my character. “Big cats, they kill in the hour before and after sunset and the hour before and after sunrise.”
“Very well, then all I have to do is stay up an hour after sundown and get up an hour before sunrise… throw rocks at ‘em if they go for any of my goats?”
“It is likely it is only one, probably a female cat this time of the year. Wouldn’t you rather have a rifle?”
“Yeh.”
“You know how to use one?” I liked the idea that Mason asked me these questions. It was one of those things I have about guns. I’d been raised to respect guns and to use them safely.
“You know the rifle that Angelo came into the Peyote Ceremony with?”
Winchester .44, lever action,” I thought it looked like it was at Little Big Horn.
He went inside and came out with the rifle. I wondered if Mason knew Angelo would show up the way he did at the ceremony. Mason handed me the rifle and a box of ammo with only five bullets in the box. I checked it out to see if the chamber was empty and was pleased it was well maintained, oiled and clean. I wondered how old it was and found the stamp with the date: 1886: I asked, “Was this rifle handed down from Custer’s Last Stand?”
“Little Big Horn was in the ‘70’s. This rifle would be almost a Vatican relic to the Ogalas if it had been. It sure wouldn’t be in my hands if it were.” Mason snorted. And then he continued, “Now, cats have a range of seventy or eighty miles. But they will carry their kill only as far away as their den. You probably won’t find her anyway.” Mason went back inside his cabin and turned to say, “Go do what you must and nothing more.”
“With five bullets… I’m pretty safe on that account.”
  I went back to the pasture and put together a small kit. I would combine the vision quest with the hunt. I had to get going while the trail was still fresh. I wasn’t all that sure I was good enough at tracking to find and follow it anyway. I had my coat and good Army Surplus boots I’d nabbed while in Spokane as well as a warm flannel shirt and jeans. I only carried a small day-pack I’d sewn together out of some scraps of canvas that had been lying around.
I launched out at sunrise the next morning. At first there were signs of blood and unmistakable goat hairs on bushes that led towards the arroyo between the Hondo and the mesa. I lost the trail several times as it progressed up through some farm land higher up on the mesa. I paused in the draw I had been following up and opened my pouch of peyote the first time since I’d begun the trek. I hadn’t seen any sign for at least a half a mile and now I was to cross some acreage owned by ranchers who would not take kindly to a hippy toting a rifle on their property.
I sat there for over an hour resting after taking a bite from the medicine. I was inspired to head over north to the Rio Hondo thinking that perhaps the cat would not like crossing farm land either. I was crossing the rim road that coursed its way towards the Carson National Forest above the Rio Hondo when I saw several perfect paw prints in the dusty shoulder of the road. Where there had been dust on the weeds it was clear to see a trail weeds bent and absent of dust too. My vision was sharpened at this point. “I see where you are going now, mama.” I softly said to the winds.
I followed that trail down a draw into the arroyo. I began seeing the landscape with a clarity that I found most pleasant. It wasn’t so much that I saw colors that weren’t already there but I saw in the colors a heightened intensity. I passed the junipers and pinions. It was as though their presence was extended out from them with an aura or vibration that I actually felt as I passed. I began melding into that flow, like a wake left by a boat through water, the path the cat had taken. I sat near the waters of the Rio Hondo and filled my canteen, taking the cup off the top at first then cupping my hands and swallowing the fresh cold molecules that tweaked my senses all the way to my stomach. The rocks also took on an aura and I sensed what was meant by the biblical prophets who had declared that the rocks would preach if they didn’t. As night fell I found a comfortable spot to curl up on my haunches but I didn’t sleep. I listened instead to the sounds of the night. The coyotes in the distance and the soft flutter of an owl swooping down to grab a field mouse. Indeed, the hills were alive around me.
The second day I had finished off one piece of the medicine and started on the second. The wake of a trail left by the cat led me up a steep canyon. I felt as though my boots were too harsh on the earth. It was as though the earth was lifting up to cushion my feet; they found their way around the sharp edges of the stones or gently folded around them like a snail would on the razor’s edge. The higher I went the more snow was on the ground but I rarely saw any sign of the cat in the snow. The cat knew better and somehow I sensed that the cat knew I would follow her. My feet felt no chill or cold and I kept following slowly through the next night up into the forest.
The third day, after a night of sitting and listening, I approached on the far side, down-wind of the canyon. I stripped off the rest of my clothes wearing only a rope sash to hang my medicine bag and the rifle sheath strapped over my shoulder. I felt the presence of the cat.
She was very near me.
There was no fear.
I came to a place on the shady side of the draw where I could see a collection of rocks that had an overhang making a sort of entrance to her den. I took the rifle out of the sheath strapped over my shoulder. Looking down the sights I saw mama cat looking straight into my eyes from her spot in the cave. She crouched and turned suddenly to give her attention behind her. There I observed one cub, then another, she gently pawed them back out of sight. Mason’s words came to me then, “Do what you must but nothing more.”
The chamber of the rifle was loaded and I had a clear shot. She was no more than a hundred feet away. My heart saw mama and I understood. She killed the goat-kid to feed her cubs. The kid carcass was probably stashed somewhere nearby. Her breasts had done the job up ‘til now but it was time to feed her cubs some meat. I lowered the rifle and stood… not being sure what she would do at that juncture. Would she attack me to protect her brood?
 I wasn’t able to do anything but turn my back to her and walk away. Throughout the day, I walked down the canyon. I felt her presence behind me at times… ahead or along side of me at others. I caught a glimpse now and then. She let me know she was escorting me away from her den. There was a special affection, like the love that filled my heart after the peyote ceremony, which never left me for that cat. After all, as Mason said; we, at the communal feast, had eaten one of the kids too. As far as I was concerned the score was even.
I neared Mason’s cabin: Mason was standing at the door grinning. Fully dressed now, I handed over the rifle to him. Reaching into my day pack I passed over the box of ammo.
“Still five in it,” Mason observed.
“Yeh, still five in it.”
“You found her though?”
“Yeh, I found her.”
“Did you have a vision?”
“Yeh, you might say so.”
“You might write it down someday.”
“Yeh, once I figure out what it was, I will.”
“That might take some time.”

“It will.”