City, Sister, Silver, page 27
It was winter. They dug a ditch and hid inside it. Fortunately the people of the pack still had the old free animals’ hides; those snowflakes weighed a lot. That night they were heavier than bullets. Many old people froze. Some of them threw their furs over the ones who were asleep and crept out of the ditch to go look for their time, thinking it had disappeared. Next morning the ones who were left had to kill the horses and eat their flesh. The horses’ blood was the warmest thing they had. The spirits surrounded them, but this time they broke the rules: they didn’t kill; they waited. A couple of journalists with Camerama, Inc. snuck across the line to Dull Knife’s people and began shooting footage; they’re still shooting there to this day. Then shrapnel began to fall on the trench. I shall not surrender another one of my men to the scalping knives of the inhumans, declared General Sherman. It is said that some of his men vomited on seeing the shredded bodies fly from the trenches. They no longer felt like warriors. They say some refused that method of warfare and were punished. When the head of Pte-San-Waste-Win rolled across the snow, it cried out Natanis’s name; she had taken away her brother’s freedom and now feared to meet him. Dull Knife’s remaining people climbed on their horses and charged the cannons. It is said the clouds carried them, releasing an avalanche. Few were the horses not shredded by grenades. The next day the survivors found out how strong the frost was. They cut open the horses’ bellies and put the little children inside to hide them from the cold. They knew they were going to die but still hoped the spirits might spare at least the littlest ones. They wanted the new tribe to live on in their songs. But soon there was no one left to sing them.
But it is said … Yellow Woman tethered Wolf Cub to her horse and broke through the encirclement. They couldn’t tell which way they were going, the snowstorm blinded them. But they reached the mountains and spent the winter there. Yellow Woman tied branches to Wolf Cub’s broken arms and the bones grew back together. They hunted. Somehow they survived. Wolf Cub saw that Yellow Woman’s belly was growing. She wanted to go on though, high into the mountains. The Earth is full of graves, she told him … the Earth is a grave, c’mon, you know … we have to go as high as we can.
The Earth swallowed up Dull Knife’s people and turned into a pit. No one knows where Dull Knife lies. All they know is he threw off his collar.
Yellow Woman took Wolf Cub higher and higher. She avoided the gullies and gorges where there might be bones. When they came to a place where there was nothing but rock, she suggested it might be appropriate to build a cottage there. Then she and the child rode on. They were trying to get to Kanaka, where there were still people who lived the old way, and lots of trees.
It is said that two braves, Wanatabe and Ishtu, spied their silhouettes on the horizon and rode off to face them without telling anyone in their pack. Great joy, brother, Ishtu said … I’m sick to death of hunting those stupid Wasichu … they don’t know the rules, they get frightened … they smell disgusting … they don’t know how to speak. And Wanatabe was joyful too, because now he was hunting people again, which required skill and strength. Because even a small child of the Lakota tribe could tell that the two beings riding toward them on the horizon were also people. No Wasichu knew how to move like that.
As soon as Wolf Cub saw the horsemen, he knew what they had in mind. He reached for his club. But Wanatabe and Ishtu left their arrows in their quivers. Are you people? Wanatabe asked formally. Ishtu made the sign for tribe. Yellow Woman replied that they were from the pack of Dull Knife. We heard … Ishtu signed … that you had done away with tribes and that all of you were slaughtered. Wanatabe left his fingers in his horse’s mane … this is a great … a great and sacred moment … dear brother and brave sister … welcome among the people of Sitting Bull. The child opened his eyes and reached out for the braves’ shiny ornaments … he remembered them from previous lives, but his father and mother had lost theirs … the four Déné knew the Lakotas had more than enough ornaments … so they dug their heels into their animals’ flanks, riding fast.
One other member of Dull Knife’s pack, Necklace, the Nez Perce, also made it out of the encirclement … but he didn’t remember how, later he claimed to have been carried off by an eagle … he wandered the region on foot until he stumbled across some chicken reeducation farms, trounced the subhumans, and helped himself to their armaments and accoutrements … the militiamen dogged him, tightening the noose, but he sliced through the knot … and made his way to the forests, where there were neither people nor Wasichu … he nursed his wounds there, feeling at peace … I’m a person, he said to himself, but after a time he set out again, he didn’t want to be alone … they hunted him and killed his horse with a machine … but he crawled on … and after many days he came to a forest where the Crows still hunted and the nonpeople hadn’t been yet … he saw some girls gathering wood … there were many trees … the girls screamed in fright at the beast creeping toward them on all fours … but one of them, She-Raven, recognized him … she knew who he was and wasn’t afraid. Welcome, she said … this is a good moment, for coincidentally … she said, unbraiding black strips of skin from her hair … by truly rare and remarkable coincidence, today ends the time of mourning for Little Shield … he was a good husband … and I’m cooking a doggie in the kettle as we speak … the meat must be quite tender by now, and I venture to presume, O warrior, you would not spurn a morsel … provided, that is, you have the time and the inclination … be my guest. Ugh, Necklace said, and he collapsed. She-Raven assumed that this was his way of expressing consent.
And so, dear friends and enemies, said Sharky, of the last thirty people they say three managed to escape, thereby thwarting genocide once again. And a certain crackpot, that is to say mystic, infers from these numbers the identity of the man who at a certain age chose to take on the responsibility that was lying out in the desert … spread his arms … and tried to do away with tribes … but seeing as you’re practical types and the cream of scholarly society, boys, I’m sure you know the name of this nearly extinct people. Bohler! The Irkuts, Mr. President! Outstanding … Micka! The Ingush,* boss minister! Marvelous … Potok! The Ikvas, fuckbrain hippie! Brilliant … our spiritual caretaker will answer on behalf of our missing colleague … the Inuits, potatohead! Very good. You’re well prepared. There’s various things, paths, snares, an pitfalls … various possibilities, you know what I’m sayin … an as your reward, tattoo the name of this people a thousand times on your sweet little hearts. Got it?
Bohler banged the window shut, it was getting cold outside. Sharky went on smiling and talking to us. We were almost the only ones left in the building. Beneath us was the Zone. We knew our pseudodroog was relating his dreams so persistently because he was parting with us … going home, as he put it. I had no idea which place on earth he called home. His business.
An now I’m gonna tell the lot of you, said Sharky, another made-up story from my dream about reality, but not about the pack, it’s about the Individual. Once upon a time lived a man named Rimbow, who wrote: I die of thirst beside the fountain, blazing hot with chattering teeth … or maybe it was someone else … probly a woman, same diff … but shortly after Rimbow ditched his old maman, he got tangled up in kulchur sections an went through some horrid stuff with phone idiots, an that’s what I’m gonna tell you about.
Rimbow put colors together with vowels an consonants, changin his tongue … inventin an alphabet … pavin the way for those that came after … but there was always someone phonin him up, cause there’s lots of idiots that donno what it is to drink solitude … an they wanna talk about their thoroughly boring lives an discuss the problems of tribes an crews … Rimbow mixed his solitude with Firewater an stuck it in his alphabet, which he was makin for people without a tribe, cause he was a seer an knew what traps were yet to come … it was obvious … but the idiots kept phonin him up an schedulin appointments an gabbin away at conferences, expressin their views on the things of the knowable world … there were frictions and squabbles, and voting too, mostly about chuckles and slavery, as usual … he needed the chuckles, after all he was human … he’d tried making a meal of air, rock, coal, steel, but it didn’t work … so he had to go to the conferences and listen to the views and speeches … it was awful … and since he didn’t pick up the phone, the lobbyists would come over with plans on how to get rid of the other lobbies, which is in every special-interest group’s job description, and since he happened to live on the ground floor, when his friends passed by and saw the lights on, they’d knock on his door … so he lived in the dark … drew his eyelids down like blinds and flapped his ears back like a dog … girlfriends and secretaries made him appointments with psychiatrists … saying: Don’t be crazy! He was, but as he wrote once from the woods … it’s all the same how it ends, it’s my power, my path, that’s what’s important … and when his friends broke down the door, he had a fake beard on, and said: I’m someone else! And just to confuse em he added: But that’s not me either! He was trying to stop the wheel of the world, at least for himself, if no one else. And every time he hit his stride and the mysterious symbols of his alphabet were beginning to take shape … his friends would steal into his place, plug the phone into the wall, and call an ambulance … he’d wake up in a straitjacket and his friends would come and sign him out and say: There, you see, it’s gonna be fine now … and he pretended not to see the wheel in motion, and with all the shots and pills he really didn’t anymore … he tried his best to give the impression he was satisfied again, and his employers in Scabieville, smiling benevolently, withdrew the black mark … and he began going to conferences and presenting his views on the visible and listening to other views and excitedly debating them, and the whole thing started all over again.
And Rimbow turned his back on the carnival and left, because the Earth hurt his feet. No, he told his mom, no, he told the kulchur sections, no, he told the city, an when Satyr called from the slammer: May I kiss you again before I kick the bucket? Rimbow said no an killed the phone.
Sharp bones jutted out all over the Earth, lacerating him. So he decided to split. My heart dribbles tobacco off the stern, he said, and hired himself out. Deserting to Ceylon, he made his way through the rain forests and up into the mountains so he could get firm rock underfoot instead of a mass grave.
He knew the important dreams were the ones that hit hard on hard earth, not on soft, which is … you know what by now. Being a seer was all that saved him from the gorilla raids and macaque attacks. He was maestus et errabundus, and knew it didn’t make any difference whether he survived the climb to the summit. He was a seer and knew that up there, especially in Ceylon, there were freedom-loving ants, and it was enough for him to meet one that could pass the news on to his partners … so the things he wrote would remain puzzles and snares for those that came after him … one single proud, freedom-loving ant was all it would take, because all lives’re interconnected, that was obvious to him. He was a VOYANT, a seer, he was a clear-sighted eagle, and in his important dream he saw Mussolini offer him his daughter and half the republic if he would bow down to him, but he also saw the Abyssinians and their ruler, King Menelik, counting out flints for spears.
He felt the gusts of icy wind as the wheel turned round, and looking ahead he could sense what awaited the Abyssinians, the pit opening to swallow them up …
So he blew off his stupid poems, left them in Ceylon, and rushed off to Abyssinia … took to the byznys path, buying Kalashnikovs from Ukraine and lifting them in to the Abyssinians … didn’t get much cash out of it, he never was good with numbers, but he knew what his reasons were … he needed something concrete to keep from going totally insane … and thanks to Rimbow the Abyssinians were able to hold off the stalingos’ tanks for a while … and thanks to the fact that they slaughtered a lot of them, the Abyssinians were preserved and their name has not been forgotten. And the circle of tribes remained intact, and apart from the letter G there’s still the whole alphabet and the Abyssinians’ tongue, and G is just one of a number of letters.
Then they cut off his leg and he died.
Yep, colleagues, Sharky smiled at us, that’s how it was with the Individual that didn’t have any tribe … I simplified it a little … an it might seem hard to believe, but even without a tribe there’s things you can do … an that’s why I sprang this character on you … without a tribe, I say, cause that’s what awaits you, you Subeuropeans, you Czechs an other carpetbaggers … it’s gonna be tough because, my apologies, free horsemen and masons, but you didn’t have any good, free animals around your more or less smelly cradles back in those cold ratty tenements, the donkeys and cows had gone to pasture for reeducation, not to mention Chief Joseph was long gone by then, just remember, you rejects and sinful vessels, who stood at your cradles, none other than Adolf himself an Uncle Joe, come on, you remember … Mowgli roared at the wolves … an they sank their claws into your craven little hearts, so cover yourselves with protective tattoos, you’re the last of the old time an you’re gonna need em … and remember! Remember how it began here, remember who it was that unified the tribes … Sámo, a Frank, a traitor to his own people, it began with betrayal … he got so messed up from those tall tales his old Czech nanny Slava told him that he turned against his own tribe, your grandfather, the father of miscegenation … remember the days when the Christians rendered unto Caesar not just a lousy penny or two but took their children outta the rec rooms an school-sponsored factories an gave him them too, an that was you … an I’ll tell you right now, straight up an full force: entirely unintentionally it led to the creation of a subeuropean bastard megarace, rising up like Venus from the foam, or like Baba Yaga from the muck, whatever you feel, I’m not givin any orders here, heh. An those two that stood at your cradles were regime installation artists, they knew what an efficient killer the state is, they knew how to let the G-arrow fly … you dear listeners, future possible defensive snipers an potential humanist ethnic cleansers … Sharky lectured us … you know that part of my bastard Prague constitution derives from the People of the Book … an that they tiptoed out of G-night through the holes between the hinges was nothing short of a miracle … but these People of the Book have an old and amazing alphabet, an they wrote down, wrote out, an compiled what happened, an that’s why it exists today, that’s why it’s real an isn’t forgotten.
But there’s yet another people here, trained in the art of survival, an this one doesn’t write, its only chronicles are scars, occasionally on other peoples’ skins … an no one knows the names of its dead, it’s like they never existed … they’re not written on the walls of any bloodstained house of prayer either, cause on G-nights this people’s blood gushed without anywhere to pray … this people lives in rough coexistence with the state, an for them the state’s always been a killer, they’re the People of the Pack, who tend to the family an don’t mind a bit that it’s crawling with lice from time to time … an no one from this tribe was ever so fatuous as to invent a mobile wheel so no one could escape from anyone anymore … or electric-powered torches so people could scrape away at the lie of progress absolutely nonstop … or the unnatural telephone, which shortens life as well as distances … on the contrary, this people cleverly tears down ads to use for occasional fires … an wages its miniature war with pockets an shivs, an what is that next to genocide … a very unusual people they are, never marched into the field or destroyed another tribe, cause they’ve got no talent for organization … never dug a pit for another tribe, cause shovels an picks don’t interest em much … quicklime only gives em the hiccups an makes em fling up their arms … this people knows very well how important it is to daydream and slack off, that it’s true art when a dream and a color fill in the spots where once the menacing lions of the subconscious roared … and Goliath said: Who is not with us is against us and will be killed or reeducated … and David said: Live and let live … gimme a break aready, why doncha! And let his slingshot fly. You know, you illustrious rec room dwellers … let live … and keep a close watch on the colorful boisterous throngs of criminal Romanies … because their tribe keeps the pack and the family alive, and will be the last that knows what a pack is … and that there’s more than just the rules of the state with its markets and its ads’ duper-super cookie-cutter freaks of the near-distant homogenized future … and Rs don’t look like ads, not even from far away … and even the newfangled dragon pseudopit of the Meediya won’t swallow the Rs but just spits them up … they’re drunk and noisy too much of the time, and don’t look good on the Grainy … put the beast behind bars with the rest of the beasts … but the earth must never again be a pit for another tribe … it wouldn’t be able to take it, you know what comes next … and that it’s starting again, literally every day, like everything else … every G-day was yesterday and goes on smoldering … but there’s various things here, various possibilities, all sorts of paths, dear brothers’ sisters and dear sisters’ brothers, and it’s not a pretty sight. The earth is entirely overburDénéd, it seems, but there’s still one more possibility, said the mythomaniac Sharky … and then Dolphin the brujo storyteller darted off into the dark and heavy tide, plowing through the surf and surfacing near the sandy beach, he fixed us with his sparkling emerald eyes and said … you know … there’s possibilities here, and one of them is hope.
