To speak of such things was embarrassing to Sissy, but she was about to tell Debbie of the marvelous Mexican when Jelly came trotting up on her horse. Jelly had been observing the Siwash Ridge ruckus from a closer perspective, ascertaining that it would have no repercussions upon the ranch. Now she called to the cowgirls, “Hey, podners, Delores is wanting you in the bunkhouse for drill. Let's be hitting it.”
“Drill!” huffed Big Red. “I should have stayed in the goddamned Wacs.”
“This is a mistake,” said Debbie. “There are higher ways for women to deal with things.”
Some eagerly, some reluctantly, the cowgirls walked off toward the bunkhouse. Jellybean dismounted.
“Aren't they a great bunch of podners?” she asked.
Sissy nodded. “Where do they come from?” she inquired.
“Oh, East, West and the cuckoo's nest. Lot of 'em grew up on farms and ranches and kinda liked the life, but when they got outta high school there was nothing for 'em to do but marry some local jerk or else try to get by in a college that wasn't prepared to teach 'em anything they really wanted to know. A couple of 'em, like Kym and Debbie, came buckin' out of middle-class suburbia. Big Red was the only working cowgirl in the lot; she'd ridden in barrel races all over Texas. 'Course Big Red is twenty-seven years old; the rest of us are a heap younger. Except for Delores. Nobody knows how old she is or what she was doing before she showed up here, but, God, she sure can rope and ride. I was after girls who wanted to be cowgirls and I never asked too many questions. Ones I tried to weed out were the ones that were in love with horses. You know, the Freudian thing. Lot of parents, about the time their baby daughters start pushing out their sweaters in front, they buy 'em a horse to divert their attention from boys. What they really buy 'em is a thousand-pound organic vibrator. A horse is great for good clean hands-above-the-sheets masturbation, and some girls never outgrow the thrill of it. Those kind just don't make real cowgirls.”
Siwash Ridge had become as quiet and inanimate as the geology book that might describe its formation. Indian summer, the ham, was taking yet another curtain call, and the hills, warmed into an expansive mood, heaped bouquets of asters at its feet. Goldenrod, too. And butterfly weed. Giant sunflowers, like junkie scarecrows on the nod, dozed in one spot with their dry heads drooped upon their breastbones. Their lives extended another day, flies buzzed everything within their range, monotonously eulogizing themselves, like the patriots who persist in praising the glory of a culture long after it is decadent and doomed.
Eventually, Jelly spoke again. “You sure brought some cute weather with you. Looking around today, you'd never believe the snow and howling winds that are gonna slam this place in a month or two.”
“New York gets a long case of the won't-quit shivers, too,” Sissy said. “I've never spent a whole winter in one place before, not since I was a kid.”
“One just has to snuggle up,” said Jelly, copping a glance at the bunkhouse. “Miss Adrian, when she first told me you were comin' out here, she said that you'd been recently married.”
“About nine months ago.”
“Hmm. Yeah. I never figured that you'd be the type to marry and settle down.”
“Nobody did,” said Sissy, sort of laughing. “Including me. But it's all right.”
“I've got this theory,” Jelly said. “Men—in general—are turned on by women who are attached. It's an ego challenge to break that attachment and transfer it to themselves. Women—in general—are turned on by men who are unattached. Freedom excites 'em. Unconsciously, they're aching to end it.” She scanned Sissy's face. “It would have been the opposite in your case, though. Or was it like that?”
“I don't know. Maybe. I've never thought about it that way. You see, Jelly, I was alone for a long, long time. Few women are alone by choice—maybe that's our major weakness—but upon the advice of nature I chose not to be boxed in or play it straight. Alone, I was able to shake to the big beat, dance the fourth dimension and make transportation talk out of its head. Only nobody cared. Oh, Jack Kerouac and a dozen other desperate souls, maybe, had a whiff that I was something more than world's champion, but nobody else. Well, so what? I did believe that my accomplishments might have lifted human spirits, the way that a comet fills people with joy for no logical or productive reason when it shoots across the sky. If they had paid attention. They didn't, and that's okay, because I was really hitchhiking for myself. Myself and the great windy powers. Then, all of a sudden, there was somebody who needed me. For the first time in my life, I was needed. It was a powerful attraction.”
Jelly was scratching her horse's ears. The animal was named Lucas, after Tad. “I guess men need wives, all right,” she said. “Just as women think that they need husbands.”
“Julian needed more than a wife,” said Sissy. “By most standards, I'm not even a very good wife. On a conscious level, Julian doesn't appreciate or understand me a drop better than anyone else, but somewhere in him he knows he needs what only someone like me can offer. Julian is a Mohawk Indian who has been deformed by society. He denies being Mohawk, denies any possible physical or psychic benefit from it. He needs to be loved in a way that will put him in touch with his blood. And that's the way I'm trying to love him.”
Taking her time, Jelly mounted. “That makes a certain amount of sense,” she said. “If love can't re-create lovers, what good is it? But let me give you this caution, Sissy, my podner: Love is dope, not chicken soup.”
When Sissy continued to look puzzled, Jelly added, “I mean, love is something to be passed around freely, not spooned down someone's throat for their own good by a Jewish mother who cooked it all by herself.”
With that, Jelly swung down along Lucas's side, in imitation of a stunt once performed at high speeds by the horse's namesake, and kissed Sissy, half upon the mouth, half upon the chin. Then she righted herself and galloped away.
That afternoon, in the bunkhouse, when Gloria made a comparison between Sissy's thumbs and the hunchback of Notre Dame, Bonanza Jellybean slapped her chops.
47.
"THE POLISH SAUSAGE POLKA" was interrupted for a news bulletin about the international situation, which, as listeners in the bunkhouse soon learned, was desperate, as usual. Speaking of desperation, there was an expression of mild despair upon Big Red's face as, without knocking, she opened the door of the main exercise room.
Guests and staff alike stiffened when Big Red entered, for all of them were a bit uneasy about cowgirls by then, and Big Red, the flaming tower of freckles, was the roughest-looking cowgirl on the spread. There was no cause for alarm, however. Big Red had overheard Miss Adrian announce that the final weigh-out was to be held this day. At the close of the day's activities, guests were to assemble in the main exercise room for their last ride upon the Rubber Rose scales. The following day, at the low-cal barbecue that would mark the official end of the ranch's season, prizes would be awarded those women who had squirted off the most poundage into the dry Dakota air. Big Red coveted no award, was not eligible for one and, frankly, deserved none, but she did wish to consult the scales. Wearing her one-piece forest green swimsuit, she took a place in line before the oracle. After easily obtaining the guests' permission, Miss Adrian ushered Big Red to the head of the line.
The hugest cowgirl weighed, winced, grunted and, to everyone's relief, left as she had come. On the way back to the bunkhouse, Indian summer paying its respects to the flesh that bubbled out around the edges of her swimsuit, Big Red had a flash, a mental visitation perhaps no less intense than Delores del Ruby's First and Second Visions. Seized by inspiration, Big Red thought, “Wouldn't it be dadburned wonderful if there was a machine that you could hook up to your plate of food that would extract the flavors from it. After you'd ate all your belly could comfortably hold, you could stick a plastic tube in your mouth, switch on the little machine, and the flavors would continue to run into your mouth for as long as you pleased, without nothin' goin' into your belly to make it fuller and fa
tter. Mmm, Lord, Lord; ham gravy, cheese 'n onion pie, chili, rice puddin', Lord.”
In the main exercise room of the Rubber Rose, there was an immediate market for such an apparatus, and, no doubt, sales around the world could be counted in tens of millions, the international situation notwithstanding. It would, moreover, constitute an unprecedented boon for mankind, keeping as many people off the streets as television and saving move lives than a cancer cure.
Therefore, in the public interest, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues offers the Big Red flavor device idea free of charge to any inventor who can make it a reality.
48.
"JULIAN, I HAVE A FRIEND."
“A friend you say, dear?” It was a barely tolerable connection. “That's good. New friends are fun.”
“You don't understand. I have a girl friend. I've never had a girl friend before.”
“Oh, now, honey, you exaggerate. Isn't Marie your friend?”
“Marie is your friend. She's only interested in me as an exotic cunt.”
“Sissy! We're on the telephone!”
“Sorry. I just wanted to tell you about Jelly, but never mind.”
“Jelly is that troublemaker you're supposed to be keeping an eye on for the Countess, isn't she? How's it going with those cowgirls? I hope everything is smooth out there. I worry about you constantly.”
“No need to worry about me, ever. I carry my guardian angels around on my hands.”
“Sissy, you mustn't mock yourself like that; it isn't healthy. Well, now, dear, my concern for you hasn't totally prevented me from enjoying myself. Numerous eat-abouts. Elaine's, La Grenouille, La Caravelle. Dancing Friday night at Kenny's Castaways with the Wrights and the Sabols. Howard was working late so Marie came with what's-his-name, Colacello. Cheek-to-cheek dancing is the rage in New York these days. I hadn't realized. I hope you'll go with me after you return. You'd love it if you'd give it a chance. A few people are coming here for a kitchen supper this evening. Cozy. I'm setting up a backgammon table. Wish you were here. Oh, I bought an enchanting doll at the Brooklyn Museum gift shop today—folk art. Wait until you see it. I'm almost finished with the painting I started the day before you left, the big one you thought was going to be a wigwam. It's nothing of the sort of course; it's . . .”
“Julian, what's that noise?”
“Noise? Oh, that. That's a surprise, dear. That's . . . Can't you guess? That's Butty. Carla and Rupert are together again. God, yes, I meant to tell you. Carla moved back into town and she can't keep Butty in their flat. So the old boy is here again. If you mind, I can always sell him. Dogs such as Butty are the rage in New York now; all the trend-benders own at least two. Andy Warhol brought his miniature dachshund, Archie, to Kenny's Castaways the other night. Imagine. Now, Sissy, about those cowgirls you're running with, watch your step, will you?”
The long-distance wires made those sounds that are part gurgle, part bleep; the sounds a baby robot might make in its crib. Endearments were exchanged and Julian hung up—without a clue that the call he had terminated had been made possible by Bonanza Jellybean, who, as an act of friendship, had postponed snipping the Rubber Rose telephone lines.
49.
IF WE MAY SAY that the civilized man is clever but not wise, we may say, also, that the prairie is dry but not without water. Upon the prairie there are occasional rivers, streams, lakes, ponds and flooded buffalo wallows. Like the American System itself, most of the prairie ponds and lakes are fly-by-night operations. Although they may thrive temporarily, supporting a teeming food chain that can run from aquatic plants to muskrats to owls; from nymphal insects to sunfish to snapping turtles; or from salamanders to magpies to weasels, in time the ponds and lakes are invaded by vegetation, filled with silt and reduced during summer droughts until they gasp (!) and die, changing into marsh and then prairie again. Often a prairie pond is not around long enough to earn a name.
Siwash Lake, since it found a home in a relatively deep depression between the hills of the terminal moraines left by the continental ice sheet, has enjoyed a certain permanence, although as evidenced by its imploding margins of arrowhead, cattail and reed, it, too, is entering the swamp phase of its existence and eventually will be unable to provide enough moisture to freshen a tadpole's highball.
There are a few good years left on the little lake yet, however, and it was shimmering like a blob of invisible ink when Sissy and Jelly caught sight of it from the hill behind the cinematographer's blind. Sissy and Jelly walked over the crest of the hill, having tied their horses at the cherry tree, and there was the lake, laking. Knee-deep in wheatgrass and asters, Sissy and Jelly walked over the crest of the hill naked, having left their clothing at the cherry tree, and the lake was below them, shimmering. Sissy and Jelly walked over the crest of the hill naked, for the sunning that was in it, and it was truly difficult to believe, as they gazed at Siwash Lake, that they, too, Sissy and Jelly, were mostly water. (The brain, with its fragmentary and elusive qualities, yes, water; but body meat?)
Since the hidden cameras were trained on the lakeshore, they could not record the images that moved at the crest of the hill, nor could the concealed microphones steal conversation. Sissy and Jelly were talking when they walked over the crest, and after they had studied the lake for a while, they sat and talked again.
“She was living in Louisiana, in a shack town built by runaway slaves deep in the bayous. That's one story, anyway. I've also heard that she was traveling through Yucatán with a circus, popping false eyelashes off a trained monkey with a bullwhip. It doesn't matter. Wherever it was that she was, she ate peyote one night and had a vision. Niwetúkame, the Mother Goddess, came to her on the back of a doe, hummingbirds sipping the tears she was shedding, crying 'Delores, you must lead my daughters against their natural enemy.' Delores thought about it for a long time—it was one hell of a vivid vision—until she determined that the natural enemy of the daughters were the fathers and the sons. That night she whipped the shit out of her black lover, or the circus owner—it doesn't matter which—and ran away. For a while she drove around, making a living selling peyote buttons to hippies. Then, Niwetúkame came to her again, saying that she must go to a certain place and prepare for her mission, the details of which would be revealed to her in another vision. The place the Peyote Mother directed her to come was the Rubber Rose Ranch. Isn't that incredible? She zonks out on peyote at least once a week, but so far her Third Vision hasn't happened. Meanwhile, she and Debbie are rivaling each other like a couple of crosstown high schools. Tension. Cowgirl tension! What a drag.”
“What is Debbie's position?” Sissy asked. A breeze swatted her ribcage with grassheads.
“Well, as I understand it, Debbie feels that people have a tendency to become what they hate. She says that women who hate men turn into men. Eee! That grass tickles, doesn't it?” Jelly was being swatted, too. “Debbie says that women are different from men and that that difference is the source of their strength. Way back before Judaism and Christianity, women were in charge of everything, government, economics, family, agriculture and especially religion; both Debbie and Delores agree on that. But Debbie says that if women are to take charge again, they must do it in the feminine way; they mustn't resort to aggressive and violent masculine methods. She says it is up to women to show themselves better than men, to love men, set good examples for them and guide them tenderly toward the New Age. She's a real dreamer, that Debbie-dear.”
“You don't agree with Debbie, then?”
“I wouldn't say that. I expect she's right, ultimately. But I'm with Delores when it comes to fighting for what's mine. I can't understand why Delores is so uptight about the Chink; he could probably teach her a thing or two. Or how can anybody dislike Billy West, that good ol' rascal? God knows I love women, but nothing can take the place of a man that fits. Still, this here is cowgirl territory and I'll stand with Delores and fight any bastards who might deny it. I guess I've always been a scrapper. Look. This scar. Only twelve years
old and I was felled by a silver bullet.”
Jelly took Sissy's hand, carefully avoiding its first or most preaxial digit, and helped her to feel the depression in her belly. It was as if she had bought her navel at a two-for-one sale.
Ignoring the possibilities that she had piqued Sissy's curiosity or lit up her limbic switchboard, Jelly continued to speak. “God, I dig it out here. This raw space. Nobody has ever nailed it down. It's too big and too tough. Men saw it as a challenge; they wanted to compete against it, to conquer it. For the most part they failed, and now they hate it. But women can regard it in a different way. We can flow with it, merge with it and love it. The Chink says that these plains exist on the edge of meaning, at a zone between meaning and something so great it's got no meaning. I think I understand. Why any cowgirl wouldn't be content with this I don't know, but I reckon some people just can't have fun unless everyone else is having fun, too.”
Sissy kept her hand on jelly's tummy, for as soon as the cowgirl quit talking she wished to inquire how she happened to catch a silver bullet in such a tender spot at such a tender age. Before she had a second to ask, however, Jelly lobbed a question of her own. “Say, Sissy, you working for the Countess and all, I wonder if you've had a chance to try the perfume trick we told the guests about the other day?”
“Er, well, no, I haven't. It actually works, does it?”