At Play in the Fields of the Lord (14 page)

He found his way across the room and stared so closely into the glass that his nose touched it; he watched the face wrinkle and turn old; he saw his own raw skull again and groaned.
Then another mask, a new expression, hard and sly and cold.
As he watched, it softened and turned young and wide-eyed, gentle; the muscles in his stomach eased, and he recognized the self of boyhood mornings.
He was touched by this last face and grinned at it in embarrassment; but just as he grinned, self-consciousness returned to poison him, and the boyish face turned hard again and mean, and the lips drew back upon sharp teeth and the eyes glittered, and the whole body tensed with an anger of such murderous black violence that he recoiled from his own hate, falling back again across the bed.

A huge dead dog had its teeth locked in his throat, and the metal bar dragged at his chest again, and when he closed his eyes the Rage descended, a huge and multilimbed galoot in hobnailed boots and spurs, eyes bulging, teeth grinding, cigars exploding in its mouth and flames shooting from its ears, bearing a club spiked with rusty nails, wearing brass knuckles and outsize six guns; in its blind snot-flying rage, it blew its own head off by mistake.
This thing came stomping down out of his mind, and he gasped,
Look at
that
guy, that guy is so mad, he blew his own head off by mistake!
His body relaxed and he howled with laughter, lying now with his back on the floor and his feet on the bed, and as he laughed, the gnawed and painful stake which had pierced his chest as long as he could remember cracked and opened like an ancient husk and turned to dust, and he could breathe again.

With the music rising in the summer breeze there came a gay preposterous parade along the highroad: calliope flutings and fanfare, with band wagons and floats and maelstroms of confetti, pouter pigeons and emerald parakeets, bursting drums and golden tubas, and gauzy fat-cheeked majorettes in crotch-tight sateen suits, chins bouncing on high squeaking breasts like taut balloons—
oompa, oompa, oompa, oompa
.
And an immense blowzy one-man band of a hand-me-down Big Irma, beer-soaked and high-colored, all billowing bows and curlicues and furbelows of hue and texture
Look At Her Go, Hurrah Hurrah!
all leer and wink, hiking her skirts to turn the ankle, pretty still beneath the mass of tired flesh, and trying in vain to shake a ball of hair and dog turd from her heel, squinching and squashing and squirting along like a banquet dumped into a bag.
She wore a gigantesque plumed hat which she flew like a flag, and as the old tub pushed along, batting her eyes and swinging her butt, she leaked and sagged and oozed so woefully at the seams that rats and crows fought for her leavings, while in the front and alongside, as trumpets blew and pennants flew and children snickered and horses nickered, stores and provisions and water and fuel were crammed aboard; varlets hurled up trays of tarts and heaved up meats and slung up wine flagons and kegs of ale, while others ran to pump in gasoline and air, barely able to offset the waste and loss of the vast outpourings beneath—Big Irma meanwhile, nothing daunted, leering and winking to beat hell, and curtseying prettily as the bands played and hats were tossed and wild cheers rent the air
hip hip hurroo
and winking her blinkers and twinking her pinkie and twirling a tiny parasol, all giggling and goosed and poked, as if to say, Well, sweet Christ knows I always done my damndest.

O
NCE
upon a time, at morning, a small blood-silver river in the rising plains, the silver undersides of wind-awakened leaves, the silver spider webs in dew.
A small boy hunting, poised, quick, listening, in a fine old-smelling boat parting new reeds.
Soft drops falling from an oar, a newborn sun, far bugling … a swan.
The stalk, the shot, the yell of blackbirds, the white bird turning a slow circle, head under water.
Feathers floating and wild silence … That morning his skin tingled, and he laughed aloud in that sky-high aloneness that was not loneliness, the strength of a young animal among animals in a soft summer sunrise …

horses,

rodeos, long murky bars and rotten sawdust smell in high small sandy towns of the Great Basin, a coyote trapped by hurtling cars where the road cut through the rock, a lone whiskey bottle on the shoulder of the road.
Night voices, speed, a dirtied strength, a flight, a maiming, a lost friend; women and bystanders overrun, struck aside by wheels spun loose from flying axles, flying hooves, by fenders: highways, sirens, howling lights, a crash … dread silence …

smoke,

and twisted metal shards, flayed twisted limbs, a staring eye, and gasoline spreading like a stain of blood on the stunned pavement: hiss of steam, oncoming sirens,
SIRENS
,
I-A-R-R-A-O-W-A-O-A-O-W
 …

Meriwether

Lewis Moon, in ditch, head bleeding at the temple

Ever driven a convertible, Lew boy?
Go ahead—try it
.

With the record you already made, Lew boy
–

Lewis
.

With the record you already made, Lewis, it won’t hardly be no trouble, no trouble at all
.

Yeah, but Eddie, his grades are very good, he’s got what you might call real native intelligence
–

Hell, just keep drinkin whiskies like you been doin right
along, and then you parade that little Eastern gal of yours around the campus
, you
know, feelin her up and all, and throw a punch maybe if somebody gets smart
—that
ought to do it
.

All you boys want is a complete sellout of the Cheyennes in this state, and you’ll give the dumb Injun three hundred brand-new all-American silver dollars, right?

Well, there’s no call to look at it
that
way
 …

Make it two thousand, or this auto, and I’ll be out of your miserable alma mater before daylight
.

Two
thou
sand?
Or this
auto
mobile?
How in hell are you going to earn two
thou
sand
—scalp
somebody?

Hand it over and find out
.

Look, Geronimo, we can get you framed for less than that!

Ah, come on, Eddie, they said they wanted it a nice clean job
.

Well, there’s the two, goddamit, Lewis—now when you going to
earn
it?

 … eighteen, nineteen, two.
Right now—you two fat turds get out and walk
.

Hey, wait a minute, watcher language!
No red nigger’s gonna
 …

–
Ow!
Christ
watch
it!

In the mirror he saw one of them, face bloodied, help the other to his feet; they bawled for justice.

You mean that’s
their
car you have downstairs?
Oh, I can’t bear it, you were almost graduated!
Lew, listen to me, darling, this is no way to prove anything
–

Lewis.
I’m supposed to feel you up in public
.

Oh, listen to you, sweetheart, look how drunk you are!
If you
really
believe in what you’re doing, why are you so drunk?
Listen, it’s not only a question of yourself—how about your people?
How about the people who worked so hard to get you in here
–

That’s it, right there—I sold out when I first signed in as their pet Indian.
And yours too, baby, yours.
The only reason you’re making it with me is because you don’t come from around
here.
You goddamn liberals are all alike—all talk and no risk
.

Don’t
be
like that!
How can we help you people if you won’t help yourselves!
Oh, can’t you understand?
I
love
you!

Love, love, lo-ove …

Down the road.
The big two-tone auto stank of lotion and cigar butts, but it moved.
It roared across the land like an apocalypse, almost to the state line, before the oil gauge flashed red; then he forced it harder still, grinding his teeth and driving the gas through it to burn it clean, until the tires reeked and the body shuddered, until the fat plastic dashboard bulged with warnings, until the whole fat contraption of churchgoing chromium and patriotic plush screeched and choked on its own heat and burst its block and screamed to a hissing locked fiery halt with eight million all-American motorcycles hard behind.
I-A-R-R-A-O-A-O-W
.
A last swig and he broke the bottle, then toppled out, rolling and laughing, on the highway shoulder.
Down he went through waving weeds into the swamp, hailing and cursing the cop silhouettes, with two thousand dollars and a hand cut by broken teeth, and nothing and nowhere, but free, by Christ, how free of their whole Indian game.

He headed eastward to New York.
On a truck radio he heard the charges: grand larceny—an automobile and two thousand dollars—and felonious assault.

See, Lewis, it ain’t gonna work.
You find yourself another local
.

I don’t get it.
You had a fight in here yourself only last week—you guys were drunk right on the job
.

You don’t fight the way we fight.
We fight for fun, Lewis.
Because we like it.
Because we
like
it.
We ain’t tryin to prove nothin.
So you just find yourself a nice white local where they fight the way you fight
.

White local, huh?
There’s more Cheyenne in this blood coming out of my nose than there is Mohawk in all you bastards put together
–

You got shit in your blood too.
We never heard of Cheyennes
,
hardly, until you come along, and anyway, we ain’t professional Indians like you.
All we know about Indians, bub, is what we seen on television
.

I-A-R-R-A-O-A-O-W
 …

Sirens, howling lights, another crash, another, still another: modern times.
CRASH, CRASH, CA-RASH
—that crazy kid is CA-RAZY—he began to laugh.
The crashes became gimcrack destruction, a breaking and tinkling of deafening dimensions, a mounting heap of slow jalopies hurling themselves together at a crossroads.

Port

scene with rum, tropical colors, high white birds, the lonely palms of dawn: a crazy-legged Negress dancing nude,

Wistaria,

her flesh …

Because the way things are goin they ain’t no hope for none of us, lessen we don’t get somethin learned here to us pretty quick
 …

Here was

Rage again, exploded now, hung-up like an old scarecrow, like a big broken toy with one loose eye and loose old parts and springs and stuffing every whichy-way—all hung-up on itself, poor critter.
Rage danced somewhat sheepishly to guitar and wind, as if to say: Well, just because I’m
angry
doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a dance or two …

Lucidity.
He sighed.
He lay there all laughed out and loose, loose as a dead snake slung on a rail, lay there drunk with gentleness and pleasure.
Be a good boy, Lewis, do not hate so much
.

Oh good old Wolfie, Wolfie would die laughing.
The thought of the Old Wolf laughing,
dying
of
laughing
, set him off again, but this time, even as he laughed, an apprehension came.
He crawled to the corner of the room, where he crouched low, watching both door and window.
The noises were surrounding him, there was something happening to him, something
happening
,
and he felt too tired now to deal with it.
If he could only stop this laughing, but he could not; his laughter grew louder and louder, and when he tried to stop he could not close his mouth.
It stretched wider and wider, until he swallowed the ceiling light, the room, the window and the night; the world rushed down into the cavernous void inside him, leaving him alone in space, pin-wheeling wildly like a jagged fragment spun out from a planet.