As she explained it, at the higher elevations many of the alpine plants were dwarfed to avoid the brutal winds and survive in the nutrient-poor substrate that couldn’t possibly maintain regular forest plants. Even the shrubs were ground-hugging with thick, leathery leaves that sometimes curled at the margins to help reduce the physical abuse and dehydrating effects of the mountain winds.
“So when exactly,” Alex pressed, “were you planning to tell me about your Indian heritage?”
Phyllis shrugged and, cresting the rise, started down the far side. “What do you want to know?”
“I’m not sure. Start at the beginning.”
They passed a clump of fleshy white baneberry. “There was once a time when there were only two people in the world, Old Man and Old Woman?”
“A creation myth,” Alex said.
As Phyllis Half Moon explained it, the Old man said that they should decide how everything worked properly in the new world they were creating, and that he should have first say in everything. Old Woman agreed as long as she could have the second say. Then the Old Man said, “Let the people have eyes and mouths in their faces, but they shall be straight up and down.”
“No,’ said the Old Woman. We will not have them that way. We will have the eyes and the mouth in the faces, as you say, but they shall be set crosswise.”
They passed through a gash in the hillside where granite boulders rose thirty feet high on either side of the cleft. Small wildflowers, mosses and seedlings that Alex hadn’t noticed previously clung to the steep sides of the bald-faced rock—a vegetative world in microcosm. “Is that the only story about the Old Man and Old Woman?”
“Oh, no,” Phyllis laughed. “Here’s another.”
“The Old Man said the people shall have ten fingers on each hand, but the Old Woman said, ‘Oh, no. That will be too many and they will be in the way. There shall be four fingers and one thumb on each hand.’”
“’Well’ said the old man, ‘we shall beget children. The genitals shall be at our navels.’”
“’No’, said the Old Woman, ‘that will make childbearing too easy; the people will not care for their children. The genitals shall be further down.’”
Alex began to chuckle. They had arrived back at the campsite. “I think I’ve heard enough for the time being.”
“Why did you change your name?” They were down by the pond in the early afternoon. Phyllis was fly-casting, whipping a strand of translucent monofilament line out over the placid water. As she retrieved the feathery lure, she flicked her wrist to simulate a bug flitting about the watery surface.
The woman waded further away from shore until the water crawled up her slender thighs and was nipping at the hem of her shorts. She let out a length of line and slingshotted the fly in a wavy ribbon back out into the pond. “Being Native American,” she addressed his earlier question, “is a state of mind. I don’t have to wear my Indian heritage like some badge of honor.”
Sitting twenty feet away on a stump Alex, nodded. He had always felt uncomfortable at Fourth of July ceremonies, watching the doddering, eighty year-old VFW members with pot bellies and hip replacements limp by wearing their pointy military caps.
“My people lived for centuries in these very same woods before they migrated to the northwestern Great Plains hunting buffalo and gathering wild plants. The Blackfeet were the strongest military power in the region during the buffalo days and all the neighboring tribes, the Shoshonis, Kutenais and Flatheads, feared them.”
Slogging back into shore she removed the fly, exchanging it for another with a fluffy lemon-colored feather and silver spinner. “Being Indian is a state of grace,” she repeated what she had said a moment earlier only altering the last word.
In the late afternoon, Phyllis sent Alex to collect kindling and scrounge up thicker deadwood for the campfire. Once the fire was established, she steamed a cup of whole grain rice and sautéed onions and green peppers over the open flame.”
“You even remembered to bring salt,” Alex shook his head, “and sugar for the coffee.” The light was seeping out of the sky leaving the landscape shrouded in dull shadows. “Howie says we’re not doing so hot.” After they had finished the meal, he told Phyllis about the accountant’s assessment earlier in the week.
She sat on a blanket sipping black coffee from a battered tin cup. “This is what I think.” A light breeze sent a rustling through the trees. Somewhere in the distance a small creek was gurgling a soothing, repetitive melody. “Hold off until September, then cut benefits. Do away with all sick days. No more time-and-a-half for evening service, and make the direct-care employees pay fifty-fifty toward their medical coverage.”
Alex mulled the suggestion. “Isn’t that a bit drastic?”
“And what are your alternatives? Howie says we’re no better than the garment industry. Well, the garment industry has been around for a hundred years. We won’t survive much beyond January, from what I can see, unless you do something drastic.”
“Some people will quit.”
“So you swallow hard and hire replacements. Start them at entry level salaries. When the state gives us a rate increase, you can reward the loyal troops with a decent raise.” Phyllis rose and threw the last few drops of coffee onto the fading embers, which sent up a steamy, aromatic smoke. “Now, I’m going to bed. See you in the morning.”
Around three o’clock, Alex had to pee. He had forgotten to bring a flashlight, but the moon was bright, and he relieved himself behind a clump of evergreen bushes with bright red berries that Phyllis had identified earlier as a rare mountain variety of wild cranberry that only grew in western Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. Back in the cozy comfort of the sleeping bag, Alex realized that, for the first time in ages, he was sublimely happy.
Earlier while Phyllis was preparing supper, Alex insisted, “Tell me another story about Old Man and Old Woman.”
She was filleting a trout she caught. “Old woman asked, ‘What should we do about life and death? Should the people always live or should they die?’”
They had some difficulty in agreeing on this; but finally Old Man said, that he would throw a buffalo chip into the water, and, if it floated, the people will die for four days and live again. But if it sank, they would die forever. So he threw it in and it floated.
But Old Woman said that they would not decide in that way. She would throw a large rock. If it floated the people would die for four days. If it sank they would die forever. Then Old woman threw the rock into the water, and it sank to the bottom. “There,” she said. “It is better that the people die forever, for, if they did not die forever, they would never feel sorry for each other, and there would be no sympathy in the world.”
Somewhere in the darkness an owl hooted. An army of bullfrogs buried in the rushes was croaking their hearts out, an impromptu chorus. Of the four Blackfoot creation myths, Alex definitely liked the last story the best. Rolling over on his side, he went soundly off to sleep.
In the morning while Alex got the fire ready, Phyllis drove to a convenient store and picked up some English muffins, fresh eggs and bacon. In her absence, he let the wood flare up then burn down to a smoldering redness before adding a few small branches. “I’m breaking up with Clarice as soon as she gets back from visiting her parents.”
Phyllis, who was cracking eggs in a bowl, didn’t bother to raise her eyes. “You didn’t seem very well suited for one another.” Drizzling shredded cheddar cheese over the egg, she poured the mixture into the frying pan. “Such a pretty woman, Clarice won’t have much trouble finding a new partner.”
A light breeze kicked up, fanning the warm pine smoke in Alex’s face, forcing him to shift a half-turn to the right. “After I settle things with Clarice, I thought maybe we could start seeing each other.”
The egg batter began to congeal and Phyllis stirred it with a spatula. “Perhaps,
but not right away. That would be in bad taste and give rise to gossip.”
Strips of hickory-smoked bacon were bubbling on a separate griddle that she positioned on a slower burning section of wood. “How long should we wait?”
“At least a month. Perhaps two.” She scraped some eggs onto a plastic dish and handed it to him. “The bacon will be ready in a moment. You can brown the English muffins with a little butter on the griddle, but wipe the grease away first.”
Return to Table of Contents
The Chiropractor’s Assistant
A week before the poet, Gregory Stiles, was to read from his award-winning collection at Brown University, Elliot Slotnick threw his back out changing a flat tire. He almost had the wheel free of the axle with one rusty lug nut frozen tight. Setting his feet firmly on the asphalt, he gave the tire iron an extra twist and felt the icy burst of pain approximately eight inches up from the base of his tailbone. Lumbar three. At least twice a year, he did something whacky, injuring the same part of his back.
The next afternoon he was lying on his stomach in the chiropractor's office, his mouth and nose protruding through a strategically placed hole in the leather-padded examining table. The pain in his back was miraculously gone, replaced by a dull, achy soreness. He recognized the soreness from previous injuries and luxuriated in the promise of restored health. Dr. Edwards, the chiropractor, had gone off to tend to the next client. His assistant, a zuftig blonde on the front side of middle age, spread a cold gel on his lower back; a moment later, she was massaging the area with an electronic device that made his skin tingle.
"Does that feel better, Mr. Slotnick?"
"Yes, it does, thank you." Sad to think this was the closest Elliot had come to female companionship in the past six months. "Yes, that feels much better!"
From his prone position Elliot's field of vision was extremely limited, but he could picture the attractive, white-frocked woman in his mind's eye. The way she walked with her wide shoulders thrown back and chin held erect. The cheekbones were high offsetting a pair of thin but delicate lips. Elliot had spent the better part of his adolescence well into young adulthood lusting after erotic goddesses like her. Was there a brain in that gorgeous head? What were her interests and hobbies, her aspirations, her dreams? He peered down at the floor through the hole in the table and watched a dust bunny no bigger than his fingernail drift aimlessly across the linoleum.
The assistant left the room so he could put his clothes on. As he buttoned his shirt, Elliot studied himself in the full-length mirror. Upon his arrival a half hour earlier, the right shoulder sagged two inches below its mate. A subluxation of the lower spinal column, Dr. Edwards pointed that disconcerting fact out to him during the initial examination. Now both shoulders were more or less aligned.
"Is this yours?" The chiropractor's assistant had returned and was holding a blue flyer, which she fished out from under the table.
"It's just a notice for a poetry reading." Elliot was mildly embarrassed. So few people had any interest in poetry. Even among his students at Brown where he taught comparative literature, he would be shocked, pleasantly so, to see more than one or two familiar faces in the meager crowd.
"A poetry reading?" There was a hint of awe mingled with envy in her tone. "It sounds so refined."
"Well yes, I suppose." Elliot folded the flyer into a compact square and buried it in his pants pocket. "If the poet has a bad night or the material he chooses isn't up to par, it can be a huge bore."
"I wouldn't care," she replied.
"How's that?" His bushy eyebrows edged up a fraction of an inch.
"My last reading was tarot cards and tea leaves.” She flashed him a sick grin and began straightening up the examining room.
Elliot rubbed his chin thoughtfully and lowered his eyes. The light banter was drifting off in an unexpected and potentially troublesome direction. He could let the conversation lapse, die a natural, painless death, and that would be the end of it. On the other hand, if he asked her to join him, it wouldn’t be a date per se. The woman had never been to a poetry reading and Elliot, without any ulterior motive or devious intent, would simply be accompanying her.—a literary tour guide, so to speak. The fact that she was outrageously attractive was an incredible stroke of good luck, an act of serendipity like winning the lottery or getting an unexpected promotion, and nothing more.
"You could come with me, if you like."
Unable to call them back, he watched the words fly stupidly out of his mouth, and, before he could even consider the consequence of what he had done, the chiropractor's assistant said, "Yes, that would be nice."
Elliot Slotnick’s Grandmother, Esther, came to America from Kiev in the Ukraine. She arrived as a young girl in 1912. There had been a pogrom, a massacre of Jews, in the town where she was born close by the Dneper River. One night during an unusually cold winter, the Cossacks rampaged through the Jewish quarter waving their swords in the air and screaming for blood. It was the week before Passover. Three people died. A dozen chickens and a brown cow were stolen, several buildings burnt to the ground. After the incident, it was decided that the family, which had relatives already firmly established in America, would emigrate.
When Elliot was a little boy, Grandma Esther sang a whacky song in Yiddish - a lilting, repetitious ditty that she learned from her own parents as a young girl not much older than Elliot. She sang the song during the day as she kneaded the dough to make her sugar-glazed, apple and cinnamon strudel; over and over she repeated the absurd refrain as she sprinkled lemon and orange rind, black raisins and honey onto the paper-thin crust. Later in the evening, she hummed the minor-keyed melody, however inappropriately, as a lullaby to send her favorite grandson off to sleep
Shiker ist a Goy,
und nichter ist a Yid.
Geht a Yid
in Bet Hamikdash arein,
und habt er dort a kaddusha...
The Christians are all drunkards
and the Jews are all sober.
The Jews go to the Synagogue
and say their prayers,
while the Christians …
As he grew older, Elliot could not remember the final verse. It was lost to him along with his grandmother's cock-eyed, superstitious logic and secret recipe for strudel. But he imagined that the Christians acted much like the Cossacks who had terrorized his not-so-distant relatives - running amok, raping, pillaging, and murdering righteous Jews.
If Grandma Esther were alive and knew Elliot was attending a poetry reading with the chiropractor’s assistant, an idol-worshipping shiksa and veritable heathen, she would have recited the Prayer for the Dead and sent the Golem, medieval Jewry's version of the Frankenstein monster, to hunt Elliot Slotnick down and tear him limb from repulsive limb.
Marilyn Moneghan. That was the woman’s name. She reminded Elliot of another Marilyn - the one who, in the early 60's, was romantically linked with President Kennedy - not so much in face but in her generous bosom and milk-white, translucent skin. The jutting breasts and immaculate, baby-soft skin were right up there with those of her glamorous, Hollywood namesake.
On the night of the poetry reading, Elliot drove cross town to a tidy, two story tenement in the working-class, Silver Lake district. When he arrived at the apartment, Marilyn opened the door and stepped out onto the landing. "There's a problem," she said in a pinched tone.
She wore a fashionable, print dress with low heels and a pair of teardrop, pearl earrings. The effect was stunning. "My daughter is giving me fits. She doesn't want to stay home alone."
"Bring her along, then."
"You're sure it's all right?"
"It's not unusual for people to bring children."
"I'll be just a minute." Marilyn disappeared back into the apartment. A moment later, she reemerged with a young girl, a physically underdeveloped version of the mother but with a taciturn expression. "Chrissy, this is Mr. Slotnick." The girl, who pushed her lips out in a petulant scowl,
glanced vaguely in Elliot's direction while taking special precaution not to make direct eye contact or alter her expression. She was wearing a Black Sabbath T-shirt and jeans with a tear in one knee. "Should I have her change into something more formal?"
"No, she looks just fine."
"About tonight’s reading," Elliot said. "Gregory Stiles is something of a legendary figure among the West Coast, beat poets." Marilyn was sitting next to him in the front seat with her hands folded neatly in her lap. Chrissy was slouched down in the back at such an angle that Elliot could not locate her in the rear view mirror. "In the mid-sixties he bummed around the Bay Area, working odd jobs and writing some amazingly good poetry - mostly about his childhood." Elliot turned onto Broadway heading east toward the downtown area. It was already quite dark out. They passed a number of tall buildings with intricately carved, gingerbread trim in Victorian style.
Gregory Stiles was considered one of the young lions, a literary prodigy, whose first book of poems, a small collection of no more than sixty pages, was noteworthy for, among other things, its simple, uncluttered language. There was at least a dozen new books over the next ten years, and the author became a fixture at writing seminars and college workshops throughout the country. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way from journeyman poet to literary lion, the wellspring of Gregory Stiles' creative juices ran dry; his writing lost much of its crispness and verve. In his prime, the man had written some first rate poetry; if the material which followed didn't quite measure up, Elliot saw no reason to share this unpleasant detail with the woman sitting next to him.