“Jeremy,” I asked, “what am I supposed to do with all this information?”
“That’s up to you, sweetheart.”
Oh, there are more things in heaven and earth than can be explained by Meet the Press.
Jeremy and I haven’t talked since that day. We agreed that our friendship was best left abandoned in the past. My crime against him was also left in the past. As expected, the police did not pursue the case, and it was soon filed away. There was never any need to invent a story.
I cannot tell you what happened to James, or to Eddie and Spence, or to Bernard. We who shared the most important moment of our lives no longer have any part in the lives of the others. It happens that way. I imagine that someday one of them might try to tell the whole story. And I imagine nobody would believe them. Who would believe any of them? Or me? Has a liar ever told the truth?
As for my father, he lost his reelection bid and retired to the relatively sad life of an ex-senator. He plays golf three times a week. State leaders beg for his advice.
My father and I have never again discussed that horrible night. We have no need or right to judge each other for sins that might have already doomed us to a fiery afterlife. Instead, we both silently forgave each other, and separately and loudly pray to God for his forgiveness. I’ll let you know how that works out.
Another Proclamation
When
Lincoln
Delivered
The
Emancipation
Proclamation,
Who
Knew
that, one year earlier, in 1862, he’d signed and approved the order for the largest public execution in United States history? Who did they execute? “Mulatto, mixed-bloods, and Indians.” Why did they execute them? “For uprisings against the State and her citizens.” Where did they execute them? Mankato, Minnesota. How did they execute them? Well, Abraham Lincoln thought it was good
And
Just
To
Hang
Thirty-eight
Sioux
simultaneously. Yes, in front of a large and cheering crowd, thirty-eight Indians dropped to their deaths. Yes, thirty-eight necks snapped. But before they died, thirty-eight Indians sang their death songs. Can you imagine the cacophony of thirty-eight different death songs? But wait, one Indian was pardoned at the last minute, so only thirty-seven Indians had to sing their death songs. But, O, O, O, O, can you imagine the cacophony of that one survivor’s mourning song? If he taught you the words, do you think you would sing along?
Invisible Dog on a Leash
1.
In 1973, my father and I saw Enter the Dragon, the greatest martial arts movie of all time. I loved Bruce Lee. I wanted to be Bruce Lee. Afterward, as we walked to our car, I threw punches and kicks at the air.
“Hey, Dad,” I asked, “is Bruce Lee the toughest guy in the world?”
My father said, “No way. There are five guys in Spokane who could probably kick Bruce Lee’s ass.”
“Really? You mean in a fair fistfight and everything?”
“Who said anything about fair? And who’d want to throw punches with Bruce Lee? I’m not talking about fists. I’m saying there are at least five guys in Spokane who, if they even saw Bruce Lee, they’d walk up to him and just sucker punch him with a baseball bat or a two-by-four or something.”
“That’s not right.”
“You didn’t ask me about right. You asked me about tough.”
“Are you tougher than Bruce Lee?”
“Well, I’m tough in some ways, I guess. But I’m not the kind of guy who will knock somebody in the head with a baseball bat. I’m not going to do that to Bruce Lee. But let me tell you, there are more than five guys in Spokane who would do that. As I’m thinking more and more about it, I’m thinking there are probably fifty crazy guys who’d sneak up behind Bruce Lee at a restaurant and just knock him out with a big frying pan or something.”
“Okay, Dad, that’s enough.”
“And I haven’t even talked about prison dudes. Shoot, every other guy in prison would be happy to sucker punch Bruce Lee. They’d wait in a dark corner for a week, just waiting to ambush Bruce Lee with a chain saw or something. Man, those prison guys aren’t going to mess around with a Jeet Kune Do guy like Bruce Lee. No way. Those prison dudes would build a catapult and fling giant boulders at Bruce Lee.”
“Okay, Dad, I believe you. I’ve heard enough. Stop it, Dad, stop it!”
“Okay, Okay, I’m sorry. I’m just telling you the truth.”
2.
On TV, Uri Geller was bending spoons
With just his mind. “Wow,” I said. “That’s so cool.”
Then, three days later, as I browsed through Rick’s
Pawn Shop, I picked up a book of magic tricks
And learned how to bend spoons almost as well.
I called my act URI GELLER IS GOING TO HELL.
3.
At Expo ’74, in Spokane, I saw my first invisible dog on a leash. A hilarious and agile Chinese man was selling them. “My dog is fast,” he said. And his little pet, in its leash and harness, dragged him across the grass. I thought it was real magic. I didn’t know it was just an illusion. I didn’t know that thick and flexible wires had been threaded through the leash and harness and then shaped to look like a dog — an invisible dog. In fact, I didn’t discover the truth until two years later at our tribe’s powwow, when a felonious-looking white man tried to sell me an invisible dog with a broken leash. Without a taut leash, that invisible dog didn’t move or dance in its harness. The magic was gone. I was an emotional kid, so I started to cry, and the felonious dude said, “Shit, kid, take it, I found it in the garbage anyway.”
4.
In ’76, I also saw the remake of King Kong. It was terrible. Even my father, who loved the worst drive-in exploitation crap, said, “It’s Kong, man. What went so wrong?” But that does remind me of a drive-in flick whose name I can’t recall. It’s about a herd of Sasquatch who sneak into a biker gang’s house and kidnap all of the biker women. Later, the biker gang puts spiked wheels on their rods, roars into the woods, somehow finds the Sasquatch, and battles for the women. As the Sasquatch fight and fall and pretend to die, two or three of them lose their costume heads. Their furry masks just go sailing but the actors playing Sasquatch, and the other actors, and the director, and the writer, and the producers, and God just keep on going as if it didn’t matter. And I suppose, for the sake of budget, it didn’t matter, but I stood on the top of our van and shouted, “It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real!” And some politically aware but unseen dude shouted from out of the dark, “Okay, Little Crazy Horse, we know it’s not real, so get your ass back in your van.”
5.
Speaking of Sasquatch, I met the love of my life in 1979, in Redding, California, the heart of Bigfoot Country. Okay, she wasn’t the love of my life, she just happened to be the first world-class beauty I’d ever seen. Honestly. She could have been on the cover of Glamour magazine. But she was just a teenage girl from Redding, California, which, like I said, was the heart of Bigfoot Country. And I was obsessed with Bigfoot, with the real Sasquatch, not the fake biker-gang-fighting and biker-chick-kidnapping type. So, as this gorgeous girl asked me what I wanted (my family had stopped to eat at some fast-food joint on our way to Disneyland), I said, “Isn’t it cool to live in Bigfoot Country? In the heart of Bigfoot Country. In the heart of the heart of Bigfoot Country.”