A Horse Named Sorrow (29 page)

And sure enough, San Francisco made one last play for my heart, as once down in the station I encountered the same problem Jimmy had had when I'd first found him on the platform in West Oakland:
NO BIKES ALLOWED DURING MORNING RUSH HOUR
. Even though I was going the opposite way. Backasswards. And I had a sudden fear that I couldn't escape, that the Venus flytrap of San Francisco had me good, that I'd have to head back upstairs and wait for three hours in a coffee shop at 16th and Mission like some dumb fly on a web, and who knew where that black widow was.

Close. I marched down to the end of the platform where the first car always stops, and I figured I'd just plead with every train engineer. The first engineer I begged gestured me on without a fight, and I thanked him profusely until he tired of me and shut the window.

We drove the rest of the way to Idaho Falls in silence. Where I got us a motel room. Two double beds. I didn't know how that was going to work out until Louis climbed into one of them and said, “Do what you gotta do, but don't make too much noise.” And he guffawed and vanished under the covers, turning his head to the far wall.

Eugene hit the lights and then sidled up to me and grabbed the hem of my Red Hot Chili Pepper (the garment, not the metaphor) T-shirt, and over my head it went. In no time, I was smothered in the silk of him.
What the hell's a winkte?
I remember thinking—somebody who winks? It sure feels good whatever it is.

He cupped his hand over my mouth at the crucial moment of meltdown.

And I spent the night holding Eugene, and dreaming that I was gathering up a parachute, folding and folding the silk of it, having flown and wanting to fly again.

I woke up early, to Louis's snoring and the whisper of Eugene's breath and the peace of his uncontorted face. We'd carried my bike up the stairs and into the room and it leaned against a dresser, all packed up and ready to go.

These men had been good to me. Some white kid, probably with ancestors who'd blasted away at buffalo and into that ditch at Wounded Knee Creek.
Ask for nothing back
. A bit late for that. My turn to vanish, Eugene.

It wasn't later than six and cold, and I had to pile on Jimmy's old ratty green sweater for warmth, his red windbreaker over that, and his long johns to boot. I yanked a string off the polyester bedspread and tied it onto the bike, and then I quietly rolled out the door. I fumbled with the map out on the street and found my way to the highway that led into Wyoming. I didn't even stop for pancakes—just wolfed down some god-awful sweet rolls at a minimart.

By the time I hit the Snake River, clouds had gathered and it started to rain. I pulled off and got out Jimmy's poncho, tucked him up inside the windbreaker, and got back on the road. They found me that way, pedaling along in the rain, a rooster tail of water behind me as the tires hummed their wet, revolving song—the bicycle waltz: one, two, three. This time they didn't bother asking, just slowed down, the taillights glowing red (one of them anyway). And out hopped Eugene. And the same routine as before got my bike into the truck bed and me up front, hand in his hand, thigh against his thigh.

They said nothing. Just the windshield wipers and their forlorn little squeaks speaking woe. We drove all the way up the Snake River like that, past pastureland and hillsides of beautiful chartreuse quaking aspen, on through the horror of Jackson Hole and its boutiques and faux out-west décor. Up through the Grand Tetons (they really are purple mountain majesty, but only Ray Charles knows how to sing that song with joy
and
sorrow) and on into Yellowstone, where we stopped at a big yellow lodge that was almost empty, scaling back services as the summer season had already waned.

I bought them gas, and while the tank guzzled it up and Eugene found a bathroom, Louis stared at the sky and its light, intermittent rain.

“Let's hope the thunderbeings aren't out.”

“Why?”

“Because they might make you dream about them, and after that you'll have to do everything backwards.”

I didn't recall dreaming of them, but that's how I did everything already.

“Really?”

“You become heyoka, a clown.”

I looked at him, and he went on: “Because it all ends up funny. Like if I felt cold, I'd have to say I was hot. If something was serious, I'd have to laugh. Or, if I had a story I really needed to tell, I wouldn't say a thing.”

“Are you talking about Rupert?” And I topped off the tank and replaced the nozzle in its holder.

“No,” he said abruptly.

“Louis?”

He looked at me.

“How do you feel about white people?”

“There sure are a lot of 'em.” He winked.

I wasn't sure how to take that. “Well, I've never met any Indians before, and after reading that book, I feel kind of bad about even being in this country at all.”

“You didn't kill anybody, did ya, Blue Truck?”

“No, sir.” In fact that was my problem. I hadn't killed the one person who'd asked me to kill him.

“Being Indian's a state of mind, Blue Truck. So is being white. Just don't be a wasicu.”

“What's that?”

“Means ‘takes the fat,' like those people down in Jackson Hole. More than they need. Way more.”

The three of us went into the lodge for lunch, and other than a distant table with a geriatric couple eating, we were the only ones there. And while we sat there at the big picture window looking out across a huge meadow, the sun came back out and a mist began to rise. And way out there in the mist, we saw a buffalo grazing.

“Your destination.” Louis pointed with a French fry.

I smiled.

Eugene and Louis were eating and both staring at me then. I sort of smiled back. It felt like they were having a conversation about me, but they weren't talking and they weren't even looking at each other. But it was like I'd just come back from the bathroom or something and it
felt
like they'd been talking.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said.

“Thanks for the room,” Louis replied, “—and gas, and lunch,” he added, pushing the check my way.

“This one's on Jimmy,” I announced, pulling out my roll.

American bison,” Louis joked as we passed a park sign on our way back to the truck, warning park visitors not to hoist their infants onto buffalo heads to sit between their horns for photo ops. An honest mistake?

Twenty minutes later, we hadn't seen any more buffalo (if you see the Buddha on the road, kill him. Advice well taken by the white man a hundred years ago), but a wrathful jet of steam came bellowing out of the hood.

“Damn—Old Faithful,” Louis reported dryly as he pulled over.

“Jimmy,” I thought to myself, smiling. “He's everywhere.” And I thought of his lovely member—how many times it had spouted like a factory steam whistle, signaling the end of the work day, or like the earth itself, putting forth crops and water, rain and river. Old Faithful. Osiris and the life-giving river, and the sky is our mother. I looked up and saw the Virgin's blue mantle, enveloping us. The earth, he's just a boy. And I tried to remember the last time I'd seen the life hop out of Jimmy like that. Like a spring rabbit.

He didn't want to stick it in me anymore toward the end. “I'm not that motivated,” he'd quipped, “and besides, this thing” (holding his half-hard horsedick by its belly, as if it were a cat) “is lethal now.” And then, admonitorily, when I'd frown with disappointment, “You ain't coming with me, Seamus. Place for you …”

“I know my place. Under you or over you. Heads or tails.”

Jimmy and his say-nothing smile.

So, we were back to frottage mostly, which was nice, because we didn't need any condoms then. He'd rub against me, and I'd rub against him. Maybe that last time was when he was behind me squeezing it off between my butt cheeks, raining white stars across my back—Magellanic clouds. Or perhaps when he'd driven it, each vein in high relief, along my sternum, making love to my heart. I liked it that way best, my heart pulling Jimmy up from the roots. Jimmy throwing rice on the groom of my heart.

What was the
very last
time? I couldn't remember, and it made me panic. It suddenly seemed very important.

It was in Golden Gate Park, that's where it was. We were walking. He was never horny anymore, so when it came over him, we'd make sure to make the most of it. We went back in the trees and dropped our pants, our cocks bobbing like kids in a pool, bouncing. And he spilled all over my shirt, which I wore all that day, fingering the hard spots that no one knew the holiness of but him and me.

“Don't ever wash it. It's probably the last batch.” He was kidding, or he wasn't.

“I love you, Jimmy.” And I'd leaned over and kissed him across the table at the little Thai place on 9th Avenue we'd gone to after.

“And who wouldn't?” he replied sardonically, motioning for the waitress.

“Can't think of a soul,” I'd answered him. But by then, he was talking coconut curry, and how hot, and did they have eggplant. And me, I was in over my head.

He glared up from his noodles five minutes later.

“Don't worry, Jimmy. I'm pulling.”

Where's that shirt now? Probably went out into the street in one of those boxes. If there were a Jimmy Museum, it'd be in a glass case, the people crowding round, little kids pointing out the stiff parts you could barely make out: “Right there, Mommy, see?” The last batch.

Eugene wasn't much of a mechanic, and the clouds were clearing, so he dragged me into a meadow to let Louis handle the engine alone. I walked behind him, holding his hand, watching him, his thin hips and wing-sprouting shoulder blades. And I worried a little that I was looking for Jimmy in Eugene, and that the beast that throbbed at my waist didn't seem to distinguish all that much. It was faithful alright, in a sort of impartial way.

But Jimmy and Eugene were nothing alike. Jimmy was all about making me pull, keeping things moving. Eugene, he seemed to be about just watching me and showing me things, staying in one place, even if it was but for a very short time. Like I say, he was no horse, he was a bird. He perched.

And inhaled.

He winked—is that why they called us winktes?—and exhaled. Soon we came upon a creek and he showed me dragonflies and water bugs, creamy blue lupine flowers dusted with rain and chartreuse green tufts of dew-clad moss. He found a little frog. And he winked again.

I sighed, thinking that since the weather was clearing and they'd taken me up the hardest part of the incline, and the truck was once again broken down, it was probably my cue to get back on the bike and go. But I didn't want to leave Eugene's side just yet as the two of us wandered further and further across the meadow and away into the woods. Eventually we came to a cliff, where the forest opened up into a huge vista, a river canyon below us. And it was like we were back in Jimmy, the big nowhere that expanded all around us. His whisper way down there far below in the water, humming I don't know what. A song.

Eugene turned and our mouths came together, and then the fury of it, the fire lit and he one landscape and me another, and our shirts coming off and our buckles undone, and we were birds flying over each other, his chest like a beautiful orange desert, and me some salt flat, and then we brought them rain.

We were the earth when we made love—or of the earth. We were with Jimmy when we did it, because he was earth and so it was like we made love in the palm of Jimmy's hand. I guess I loved Jimmy and Eugene all at once when I made it with Eugene. It sort of confused me, but it also felt just right. A holy trinity three-way: the lost soul, the birdboy, and the holy ghosthorse.

We loafed back through the forest, me saying “who are you, Eugene?” while he handed me things by way of an answer: a crinkled old leaf, a stick, a granite stone, a horse turd—once a robin's egg (he winked at the really good ones)—a butterfly's wing, a curled fern flute, bright orange lichen rubbed together in his hands and poured over my head like dust.

Multitudes.

Louis was sitting against the front tire when we made it back across the meadow. “I can't patch it; we gotta find a new hose somewhere.”

“I can ride my bike back to the lodge,” I offered.

“Nah, that's not necessary. We're in a national park, and they have rangers to come hassle Indians. They call it road service. They'll be along anytime now.”

We all hopped in the cab and waited. And sure enough, Ranger Rick appeared within the half hour. He was the cop kind of ranger; he did it all by the book. The pulling over, the lights, the making us wait, while he probably checked the registration. “Do Indians register their cars?” I asked Louis.

“Not usually. We're exempt.” And he ever so slightly lifted one side of his mouth, without averting his gaze from the rearview mirror. I wasn't sure what he meant, as usual.

“Hello gentlemen. You got car trouble?”

“Yeah, a radiator hose. Give us a lift?”

He looked us over, considering. “I'll take one of you,” he offered.

Louis hopped out. “I'm the only one who knows what this rig needs, except for Blue Truck there,” adding as he walked away: “He's an expert on straight sixes.”

Eugene and I played cards and smoked pot in the back of the truck while we waited for Louis to get back. He had to teach me all the games, since I never played cards—my mom had liked Yahtzee and dominoes and Scrabble. He'd correct me by replaying the hand for me, or putting out cards all in a row and pointing.

“What's my incentive to win?”

He used his tongue against the inside of his cheek to mimic a blowjob, and grinned flirtatiously.

Real simple commerce, me and Eugene.

I liked how he put his hand on my knee to congratulate me, to correct me, or from time to time, to just say hey.