Richard Hahn

CRAZY HORSE'S VACATION

      I have a friend living in a cheap motel on the south side of our town, which is a pretty mediocre Southern town, better than most, but not exactly rife with ambition. A place that stays the same. I was sitting in the motel room with him the other day and he told me something very personal.

      He had been telling me about prison; he'd just pulled out the Indianhead tattoo he got there, which looked like somebody'd drawn it on a couple hours ago with a charred branch out of the fire and since then he'd sweated some. He said to me, he said:

      Boy, you roll up a spliff of that Cherokee herb you always got on you and I'll do something for you.

      Now you'll have to imagine his voice is something like a black bear who's been licking sandpaper, so it takes a couple seconds after he says a sentence to parse out what you're meant to hear. This is because he's been drinking low quality liquor for thirty-five years.

      And I said to him once I'd figured out what he said, Well now sir I'd roll you up one of them for free if I had any to give you, you have my word as a gentleman on that.

      Of course this wasn't the con's first rodeo, if you will, and he came back at me with some righteous vitriol of his own.

      Don't give me that shit. I can smell it boy, I can smell it right where you got it hid in your pocket there. Now boy, you gonna let me do you a favor and smoke me out with some of that good old Cherokee herb or you gonna sit there like a son of a bitch and hold out on an old man?

      Now I know for a fact that he'd huff just about whatever he could get his nose on and I wasn't sure if that would help or hinder his olfactories, but as I did have a sack of pot in my right pant pocket, and am inclined to superstition when I'm already a bit high, I decided he could indeed smell my baggy, and I feared him.

      Well, there, Crazy Horse… (I call him Crazy Horse and he calls me Standing Bear, since when we sit and drink together we like to fancy ourselves descendants of the ancient race and bloodright inhabitants of this land, spiritually at least. He's a deeply spiritual man when provoked).

      Well there Crazy Horse, I said, you got me on that one, and he gave me a look like he knew he had from the start, but I'll tell you sir, you have to earn it man, because this shit ain't free and I'm poor as you if not poorer. So what exactly can I expect from you?

      He shifted in his chair, this wood and wicker one, about half the size of his ass, so his sides flopped over the edges. He shifted and the chair kind of shrieked, high pitched, with the strain that was really testing his luck by even sitting there, much less moving around.

      Like I said, I'm gonna do you a favor boy. Can't you just take me at my word? Swear by the ring you won't regret it. And at that he kissed his old college ring which I knew meant more to him than about anything, because he'd never once pawned it for drugs, even after he'd lost just about everything else that was his to lose. He went to a military school, and those boys, if they buy in like they should, tend to take the vestiges more seriously than what they learn.

      I only got a little, you see, and it has to last me a while. At that point I thought it best to lay my hand out on the table. I pulled out the clear little baggy full of shaky green herb, the very bottom of the barrel, what was left on my table and carpet that morning after an all night session that broke up too late for me to sleep, so I drank through the day, which was why I was there, or at least goes far to explain it. You're not bound for glory on a day that begins on your hands and knees tweezing up bits of discarded pot.

      A joint's a big investment sir, if I can be frank with you…

      And he interrupted there, An' you don't know if I'm a good investment, is that it? Invite you in… I'm like the father you never wanted, and I get blown off when it come time to spark the Cherokee herb. Reckon you're planning if you save it long enough you can scare up some cunt with it.

      Well, he hit the nail on the head but damned if I'd let him get the best of me like that so I said, Nah, it's just, you see, a spliff is a big investment. Now if you're talking about maybe a gravity bong or something along those lines…

      Ah hell, your generation never wants to just roll up a joint and enjoy it with other people. You want to hide out in bathrooms and get high in secret with as little of the herb as possible. Away from everybody. Back in my day you'd get a spliff offered you at a party sooner than a beer and that's a fact.

      Well but it's a different scene out there today.

      Hell, pot's, pot's, pot's, pot. Ain't no difference.

      Nonetheless. You're gonna wipe me out with a joint. And aren't we gonna have to smoke it in the bathroom anyway? Look, just tell me what you're gonna do for me and then we'll see about his herbage.

      Well I was planning on telling your fortune if you'd condescend to let me. But seems like you know better than to let that…

      Whoa now, nobody's getting condescending. How you aim to tell me my future when you don't even know what day of the week it is?

      Well, his voice softened, I ain't exactly going to tell you your future. More like I'm gonna tell you your past, see?

      Why do I need you to tell me my past? I lived it. I liked some of it, didn't like parts.

      But truthfully, I love any time somebody tells me a story or does a trick for me. Any kind of personal entertainment gives me a warm feeling that's not really like any drug. It's just as if everything in my head melts together and works as one for once, and is soft and forgiving and sweet. Yes, I can't resist it.

      Don't be so damned stupid. I have a way about me you might not know.

      I'd known the man for six months, since he came from Memphis with his ex-wife, met him on somebody's porch, and taken to his sandblasted ways.

      You learn things on the streets, learn how to read people out, mostly so you can get things from them, but you spend a lot of time watching people with their guard down since they don't put their guard up around homeless people, since they think they're better than us to begin with and don't need to put up a front to impress us.

      All that seemed reasonable I suppose, as reasonable as sitting in a cheap motel room outside of town with this man. I said, All right sir, do your magic. Tell me about myself, something I don't already know, and I'll be impressed.

      Thing is I was nervous and started thinking about how I was wording my sentences in case there was some trick to that. He reached in the drawer of the bedside table, about falling out of his chair in the process, and ripped a page out of the Gideon's Bible, something in James, handed it to me with a stubby little motel pencil, the kind they give with board games, and told me, Write down something pertaining to yourself, crumple it up and put it in your pocket. And he turned full around in the chair, which made all kinds of death noises.

      So I wrote down, I'm high as hell, on the little bit of Bible and crumpled it up with more of that superstitious guilt and put it in the front pocket of my shirt and said, Now you can turn around. You bout to tell me what I got written on that sheet?

      Of course I'm bout to tell you what you wrote, boy. He patronized me, but I thought it was funny. You must not be too smart.

      Well maybe I'm not, but I still don't think you can tell me what I got written on this piece of paper. I felt pretty clever since I didn't imagine he'd figure I'd put down exactly how I felt right then.

      And he puts his finger on his temple and rubs around in the long silver hairs for a minute, snaps twice, and says, Well obviously you're drunk as hell. Why would you write that? He keeps his eyes right on my eyes so I feel like it's a test to see if I look away, like I don't want him to see something down in me.

      Shit man, funny you should say that, because I actually wrote ‘I'm high as hell’. But he's close enough that he impressed me and I'm immediately wondering if it's statistical, if the average person would write exactly how they felt now and expect no one to expect it. Then again maybe there was a reflection, but I didn't look around because I didn't want to let on that I was impressed or didn't know how he did it. I was and I didn't, so anyway I said, That was pretty slick, though, and I showed him the crumpled paper so he could see just how close the phrasing even was.

      But I asked, So was that what you planned to tell me about myself?

      And he said, No that was just to feel out your soul some, get a kind of gauge on where we stand. Now let me see your hand and I'll tell you something real, maybe something you know already, maybe not. Lemme see your hand.

      I stuck out my palm, face up, toward him and he grabbed the wrist and nearly pulled me out of the chair trying to get a closer look. He scrunched up his eyes like a jeweler and blew some hair out of his face.

      Hmm, he says, yes, yes. It's in that studied old movie way that the hucksters always played at expertise. He knitted his brow like he didn't want to say anything. I admit I felt that good clean warm feeling I get when somebody's doing something just for my benefit. His fingernails are long and thick and dirty, and his fingers are mostly caramel colored because of all the unfiltered cigarettes he smoked during his life.

      Well what do you see, sir. Long life and prosperity? Health and happiness? Tell me something good.

      You want to know what I see? You know what I see, boy?

      I laughed then, because I was nervous and because he didn't smile when he said this.

      No, I'm afraid I don't, and I was thinking of all my sins and how my face was going to look when he called me out on one I thought I had hidden and didn't want anyone to know.

      He looked at me like he was waiting for me to talk, like the more I said the more complete it made it.

      Well what do you see man? Good God don't keep me in suspense. I was serious but I tried to laugh it off.

      I'm going to tell you this. He still had my hand with his bigger one around my wrist. Boy this is what I see, and you do with it what you will: That girl sure did mess you up.

      And as soon as it left his mouth and went in my ear, it reeked of truth. Sure enough, any problem I have can be traced back to this: That girl messed me up. But which one? I should have asked but didn't think of it at the time because I was flabbergasted that he'd gotten in my personal mind, just climbed in and taken such a crucial bit out with him.

      For a while we were both real silent and he held my arm till he felt my tendons twitching, trying to passively tell him to let go. He let go then and looked a little sheepish for all his knowledge, and I was trying to look anywhere but at him, yet felt I had to look at him, so I timed my glances to seem natural, which didn't feel natural at all.

       Well how bout that herb now, Standing Bear, he growled to release the tension. How can you tell a man who's bared your soul no?

       I tell you what, sir, if you got papers I'll roll you up a fat spliff and we'll get high and forget about today and say fuck it to everything. Deal?

      At this point I was trying to sound real casual like he hadn't just rattled me. He'd rattled me like I'd just come to the city for the first time and got mugged trying to give quarters to a bum with a handgun.

       You got the papers, I said again magnanimously, I got your Cherokee herb.

      So of course he took up the same poor Bible and ripped out another strip of a page, this time I think from Ecclesiastes, and said, Hand me that herb and I'll show you how we used to roll 'em up when I was going to Woodstock.

      I knew he'd never been to Woodstock, and he knew I knew. I handed him the baggy, and rolled out a fresh Seneca light on the cover of the Bible and he took the paper and the pot right close next to his face and squinted at them like he was near-sighted, and rolled up a fat spliff with a constipated look on his face that I supposed passed for concentration.

      We stepped into the bathroom and sparked it, turned on the exhaust fan and opened up the commode to have a place to ash in. The paper must have been treated with some pretty dreadful chemicals because the ash turned the toilet water rust brown, but I was too young to care and he was too old and blasted already to care. We got a nice buzz on from the pot. I made him save the old roach for later and we flipped off the fan and went out front on the pavement to smoke a real cigarette. I had some menthols in my truck I thought would kill the awful shake weed taste.

      The asphalt was cooling and the few other cars parked there were cooling too, and clicking as the metal changed temperature. It was close to sunset.

       Mighty fine Cherokee herb, Standing Bear. He called me that because when we first started hanging out I was always standing to give someone else my seat. And he thought any weed was mighty fine.

       Uh huh. I was thinking about how inside that 300 pounds and under that gristle and stubble and silver mop head there was a twenty-one year old cadet with a flashy sports car and something along the road ahead of it. It had to still be there; people might change but they never lose who they were. He still had some money that he never used, anyway. He liked to be feral and if he did this late in life, he must have always liked it.

      I said, Hell Crazy Horse, I didn't mean to come off stingy earlier. It's just some pot; I know it is and I was wrong to make it anything more.

      It was that breezy time of the day when everything can be forgiven.

       I know it. We all got to fiend every now and then.

       I've just had one hell of a day, I'll tell you what sir. I could use a vacation.

       Vacation, he laughed. What do you call this?

       I mean a vacation from myself. Just a real, genuine head-change. I'm getting twisted around myself and I'll tell you, I'm too complacent to change.

      He inhaled deep and did his favorite trick with cigarette smoke, where he breathes out his mouth and back in through his nostrils so the smoke goes around and around. Then he blows a ring, like he's on a lovely mesa somewhere out west, and the ring scoots off into oblivion.

       Take it easy boy. This shit's a marathon not a sprint, you know.

       I know it.

       Like Hank said, you never get out of this world alive, so no use trying to scheme a way.

       What you reckon you'll do tonight Crazy Horse?

       Do a little drinking, same as every night. I imagined him with his Seagrams and paper carton of Five Alive, maybe sprawled out on the bathroom floor with whichever one didn't run out first spilled all over his shirt.

       Well I guess I'll leave you to it then. And I stubbed out my cigarette. No reason to linger with the sun going down.

       You running around chasing that cunt tonight, I suppose? He didn't even try to be wistful. It sounded more like an indictment.

       Same as every night, you know? I did my best to grin broadly so he could see how shiny my teeth were. Maybe I'd get him to be jealous.

       Well, do your duty to Dixie boy. He looked straight ahead. Then he stubbed his out and walked back inside the dark pine paneled room to his chair and his bottle.

      The thought occurred to me later that everybody gets messed up by a girl at some point in their life and it's pretty much the sure-fire thing you can say to a man and make him think you're seeing his soul, because a man always thinks he alone suffers that way, that he alone is stupid enough to let a woman change the way he operates and thinks and feels, and a woman alone can get through the wall and battlements a man fights his life from behind.

      The neon lights at the motel were coming on when I pulled my truck out the lot and kicked up gravel at the red vacancy sign.