If All Else Fails (15 page)

Standing Bear was
sliding up and down a tree at the bot­tom, trying to itch at the places where the tree scratched
him. He was always a walking-backward man. He often nocked the arrow before stringing the
bow.

A woman in a car
came along the road beside the tree. He watched her go by. She did not stop. This gave him an
idea. Later he forgot it.

He stopped
scratching himself and this gave him another idea. He thought perhaps he would go to the place
where the world began. Nobody had ever done that as far as he knew. There had never been a need
for it, he thought to himself. If there had been, he was sure he would find a long line to buy
tickets. (The lines are long and we women see them now, but as we push into the future, no one
will be buying tickets.)

So he went back to
his lodge and packed his bag. He put the bag under the bed where no one would step on it and
wandered away into the woods to find the place where the world began. He was a great one for
wandering off into the woods on his own. But he had to rely on other people to find him
afterward. Sometimes this worked out and sometimes it didn't.

I am a proud woman.
Once the Cherokee nation followed me into battle. I happened to meet him as he entered the
forest. I was out in the woods early that morning. I was looking for my place in the forest of
the god they say wears a beard. I was looking for my place. They tell me my place is sitting on a
thistle bush, composing a warning to people who make obscene phone calls. My warning was,
"PER­HAPS WE WILL EVEN GET TO LIKE IT BY AND BY."

He blinked at me as
if surprised to see me. Sometimes surprise turns into terror. I could see it in his face. I said,
"Fortuitous and most cogent it is, our meeting at such a propitious time in such an auspicious
place." How cleverly I had been disguised!

Standing Bear
replied, "Blow less boldly in the talk of old white men's horse whistle. If your ear offends him,
he will pluck you and pluck you and thus it will ever be."

"Only for money,"
was my reply. "They wouldn't under­stand it any other way."

"I am off to see
the place where the world began," said Standing Bear. "Will you follow me?"

"Why dawdle in the
bathroom? My advice is, don't go where it whoops. Don't go if you expect me to follow
you."

"I will need help,
for the way is hard and long and they do not have bus service there, I think. Will you come with
me?"

I untucked my
buckskin face and checked my schedule. The only alternative was coming out with a modern
contra­ceptive for men. So I would go to help but not to follow. I agreed to go.

And go we did. We
glided across the glide spots, we whis­tled through the whistle spots. We walked across the
water, we tiptoed through the torpedoes. As we went we remem­bered how simple it used to be.
There was no one to blame in the old days. We only had to say the sun did it. Now the beginning
was poised on the edge of the future and we had lost so much. Life does not rise easy under the
shadow of death.

As we walked we
discussed the universals, the things of importance in our lives, all those things once the
playthings of healthy children now suggested for mature audiences only. We reflected sadly on the
family jewels, we talked at leisure of a week's worth in one little bag. It was automatic. It was
unsupported by committee votes. It was strong stuff and people grew out of it and took comfort
out of it and strength. No one sold tickets or waited in lines. It was strong stuff, never weak.
Ah, those were the days, we reflected. We were wise enough to know then what were the strongest
weapons, the hardest weapons in any fight. Who has not

heard the sound of
sex on skin? But in the land of the bowls in buildings with colored windows, they taught people
how to fall away. And now a thing of beauty is a foul ball for­ever. Such is life. It shall not
always be such at the begin­ning, at the edge of the future.

"We've come a long
way, baby," said Standing Bear, but as he spoke his gaze fell in the direction he had
come.

"I cannot scurry
around holding a book between my knees," I said. "I can only hitch my horse to the wind and hope
the people do not fall away."

"You are a
philosopher," said Standing Bear. "That is not good. People will expect you to use
peyote."

"I have been driven
soft and slow with a new language. I see women killed like pets you've just begun to name," I
said, and as we approached the place where the world began, my feelings grew stronger. I
stretched the wings of my hands over my eyes, and birdlike, my eyes crawled away from the world
to look in at me. And my feelings grew stronger. It is always thus at the edge of the future. I
found my hands bruised by lace and unnatural delicacy, felt my hands melting into a fistful of
silence. And I knew that strong feeling and I said, "I have felt the breech birth of cultures
clashing."

"And is there an
end to it?" asked Standing Bear.

I smiled and said,
"You can tell when it's over. When it's done with you, it lets out a little cry of triumph
(BEEP!) and then runs to take a PSSSSSSST furtively up your sleeve. Who among us has not known
the white man's love? Who has not felt the great TWINKLE TWINKLE of laps and knees?"

"You are a
philosopher and a thinker," said Standing Bear. "It is not too good. People will expect you use
drugs. Or think you mad."

Our journey
continued as we moved without moving. Suddenly, I gave a great cry. "Let us talk no more of
what
others think! Do you not see before
you the place where the world began?"

Standing Bear
closed his eyes without making a sound. The world closes its eyes without a sound. Sometimes the
world thinks this will make things go away. He said, "I grow weary of this sport. I cannot look
at what I can see. It is too visible. It is the mystery in life that makes it sweet." As he spoke
thus, a tiny hand caught him by the throat and pulled him away from the edge of the future. Life
is easy without tomorrow and the truth shrinks.

I could not agree.
The moment I saw the place where the world began, I was seized with knowing what it meant. You
think it'll never happen to you. I studied it and turned to look at the white man looking over my
shoulder. He had my wire tangled. There are always white men looking over my shoulder. Without
them, who could plug me into the nearest wall outlet? I turned and said to him, "I know you are
dying to get in there and push."

"Flameless heat is
pure comfort," he agreed.

"I find no flicker
of hope in your heat. It has not helped my golf game. It has not improved my life. Besides, I was
never really afraid that some night in the summer, perhaps at 2
a.m.,
I'd wish I had the GREAT INDOORS."

"But no man wants
the same thing every night," said the white man. "Unless he is a judge of creativity and has a
format."

Standing Bear fell
back toward the edge of the future as laughter came from his belly and pushed him. He said, "Who
has not heard a silly white woman say, 'My man likes something unexpected now and then. That's
why I serve him a tremendous bang.'" And Standing Bear laughed. And laughter was a place beside
the edge of the future.

I drew my warrior's
robes about me. I arranged sunrise and sunset very carefully around me. I am a proud woman and I
walk everywhere. I said, "At the beginning of the

IF ALL ELSE FAILS
...

world is the
beginning of the way. Have we not come to start over? And this time here at the edge of the
future, will we not set the world right? I am a proud woman and I walk everywhere, as was our
way."

"Pride comes before
a fall," said the white man, but he made a treaty face and he vanished without a trace. His words
ate him alive.

"I laugh at
rattlesnake clothes. I eat the apple of life with pride. The world was the white man's body.
White men killed it every twenty-eight days. They are too selfish. At the edge of the future,
here in this god, we shall twist it away from your weak fingers."

The white man moved
after death, but it was too late. The connection was made. I was plugged into the outlet, the
image danced on the screen, but it was too late. If he feasted at the edge of the electric fire,
he himself was spit on his own ribs, turning slowly in the sun. It was too late.

"Woman!" he yelled
at me, offering products with his eyes. "It is not right that you evade the great
undress."

I spat on him. I
hit in die center of his TV screen. I am the chief, the warrior who killed High Hefner. I killed
him very poetically. I gave him the most beautiful body a girl ever had. It was his own. How he
shrieked when his hips went in and his chest went out. I spat on the white man. He melted into
the air I breathe. At the beginning of the world it is written that none may follow, that all
must walk beside each other.

Woman is strength
and wisdom. That was the beginning of the world. And the only world that ever lived never lived
without this beginning. And this is the edge of the future.

"Standing Bear!"
cried the ghost of the white man, reach­ing to drag another after him, reaching to pull him down
into the past after the beginning. "Are you a man or a mouse? Will you let this woman get away
with ..."

But Standing Bear
had no time to tell him coochie-coo
and
tickle his fat baby chin. He was a man walking with a woman. Both knew what it is to follow, both
knew what it is to lead. He was a man walking with a woman. What more can I say he might have
said to the white man? Bill me later, he might have said, talking to the white man in the only
way he can understand.

I am a woman. I
sang at the beginning of the world. We will sing at the end. There will be bloodshed. Throats
will be cut by strong hands when the music dies. But we will all be in one place at the edge of
the future.

The voices heard at
the beginning are those of strong men and strong women. The voices that will be heard at the end
are those of strong men and strong women. If you take pride in lies you believe about yourself,
if you feel better being self-deceived, stay in the present. Don't go where it whoops. The war
cry will only make you equal. It will only thrust you over the edge of the future.

I am a proud woman.
I walk everywhere. I have heard ru­mors that the God who lives in bowls in buildings with colored
windows wears a beard. I know it's a lie.

I thank God by
thanking myself.

You take some cops,
they punch in, do their job, punch out, and that's it. Not me. When I punch into the computer, I
come alive. I hate punching out. Man, the next wombcop practically has to pry me out. I got this,
like, obsession. I love my work. If I could work two straight shifts, I would. I love it that
much.

Like tonight, I
tool in and plunk myself into the console web. The console monitors sweep into position as the
street monitors flip back into my patrol sector. There's my sector. Nothing else exists for me
when I slam my rump into the chair. The audio helmet fits over my head and my hands fit the twin
trigger grips of my double bank of pocket lasers. My mobile units begin their random
sweeps.

Not a minute in the
chair and already the action is on.

"
Position
" says the computer. "
Pickup 10, monitor
7.
"

I flip the right
toggles. The mobile unit zeros in. Hit the wide angle scoop. There in the left of the screen, a
man. Punch in zoom lens. Closeup. Enlarge. Print and file.

The computer reads
out, "
Caucasoid, male, intoxica­tion, public, urination in public. Scan . .
. video . . .
234-56-3456-6 . .
. taylor, william paul . . . prior  . . . 1 count 432 . . . 5 counts . . . 433.
"

I whistle. Six
misdemeanors. That's the limit. I push the red code and wait. Central hits the line ten seconds
later.

"
Command decision.
" They are telling me, not asking me.

"Destroy," I
decide. Six misdemeanors make him habit­ual. I line in my mobile unit, trigger off a burst, and
the man
explodes in flame. Quick,
efficient. No waste. Total burn-down. Now it's Sanitation's problem.

Central is still on
the line. I read in the report. "Decision to terminate. Executed."

"Good work."
Central rings off. I punch in file tapes and code it for termination. I attach the 314 code to
the tape which automatically notifies Sanitation of the termination. A clean job. Makes a man
feel useful.

Monitor 13 is
showing a blank wall. Something wrong here. I run my eyes over the monitor consoles. No wonder—
the last wombcop unplugged my audio cables on sector 13. Stupid greenie. Probably using the
plug-in to clean his fingernails with. Takes all kinds.

I run in the sector
13 plug-in. Suddenly the blank wall makes sense. House number in the corner of the screen. Audio
homes in on a family dispute. A gun goes off. Antici­pate is the name of the game. Before I even
plug in the audio hookup, I have a troubleshooter unit on the way. An­other shot and then my
audio goes right off the deep end. Sound of lasers blowing in metal doors. Video switchover. Man
and woman. Woman dead, man with gun. Homicide, il­legal possession of hand weapon.