Monday, September 14, 2009

Chapter 2

By David Kearns

"Where do you think aliens come from, are they from another galaxy or are they us in the future returning to the past?"

-- Nathan Thompson

He knew in the end that they would agree to take him where they were going even if they didn't realize it yet.
They were like many of the urban whites, coming into understanding of what was going on around them while, or after, it had happened to them; never attempting to understand things before they happened and then flowing with them. The urban whites had no grasp of the obvious, he thought.
If left out in the wilderness during the winter they would wander aimlessly, no doubt, awaiting rescue only to be found in the spring during the first thaw.
It was fitting, thought Read Dancing Bear, that they should go on this trip and agree to take him. That he would be there to guide them through what they would see.
He would show them many things which they sought and others they had no idea existed. And he would show them themselves, and there would be some pain in that.
At first they only agreed to take him a few exits up Interstate, only as far as Warner Robbins Air Force Base where Red Dancing Bear had said his son, Lester Sun Cloud Owens was stationed as an Intelligence officer.
The mother, Helen, had liked the sound of that. She was deeply curious of things the finest minds of her urban white society still could not yet explain, and yet she herself had no idea how something as simple as a toaster actually worked and no interest in finding that out.
Yet she had been the key to Red Dancing Bear's liberation from the confines of exits 12 and 13 near Tifton Georgia.
Stan Warner, the restaurant manager of Bob's Breakfast Barn, with a son growing inside the womb of one of his employees, and a spot of cancer growing in his own left lung, had hurled the old Indian out of the door into the parking lot, just a Red Dancing Bear had expected he would.
Red Dancing Bear had used the horrendous act of unkindness as a ploy to draw attention to himself and crafted his pitiful appearance into a bid for sympathy; a bid that was mostly directed at Helen, the one who wanted to know more about aliens.
The family came out of the restaurant to find red Dancing Bear sitting on the front bumper of their nice van, bleeding and crying and in general playing the part of the afflicted party.
The spectacle of him sitting there dappling the clotted blood from inside his nose with a dirty rag, touched upon all their urban white subconscious pangs of guilt.; their part, by association, in the massacre at Wounded Knee, the trail of tears and countless other evictions their culture had classified as "settling".
Here had been yet another lost battle, a peaceful Indian displaced by the vicious and ignorant white man, played beautifully this morning by Stan Warner, a man of dim vision, huge ego problems and a taste for young women down on their luck and in his employ.
Stan Warner had not injured Red Dancing Bear but the old Seminole knew how to carry his momentum farther than it normally would have, in order to win a free meal or a ride.
A small blotch of his blood stood out on the white finish of the Thompson's van. More guilt.
The bond of blood was now secure between Red Dancing Bear and this family.
Yes, the Thompsons - and what a nice name that was - were only supposed to be taking him two or three exists up I-75 but Red Dancing Bear knew they were stuck with him for the majority of their vacation out west.
"He could be an axe-murderer, Helen. I don't know why you don't listen to me" said Jeffrey who didn't have cancer but did have the beginnings of an enlarged prostate gland and whose family was becoming unglued with the pollution of a thousand years and cultures.
One of those cultures was not of this world. That was the angle Red Dancing Bear meant to exploit to get out west with them, to show them what they apparently wanted to learn.
"So your son is in the Air Force, huh?" asked Nathan.
"Yes but I can't talk about it too much. His last name is Owens. His mother took another husband," he said.
Before anyone could interrupt him he fabricated another story he spoke more on Lester Son Cloud Owens.
“ I haven’t seen him in a long time. That bump on my head made me remember him. I was an alcoholic before I discovered the Lord," he said.
"Jesus Christ?" asked Helen hopefully.
"Yes, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior," said Red Dancing Bear, meaning none of it.
Nathan could guess this was a ploy, judging buy the look on his face, so Red Dancing Bear gave him a sly wink. Nathan smiled. He would not give Red Dancing Bear away to his father who obviously had doubts, nor to his mother who seemed comforted that Red Dancing Bear was a Christian and not an axe murderer.
Red Dancing Bear reflected that some early Christian Crusaders had been both, but that was never an easy subject to broach while hitchhiking.
"Isn't that nice, Dear. He's a Christian like us," said Helen.
"Oh, I don't know Helen, Christian covers a lot of ground. Take you for instance; most Christians don't believe in alien spacecraft landing in their backyards and making off with small farm animals," said Jeffrey.
"I didn't say they made off with farm animals, Jeffrey, I just said they seemed to be picking up something. I know what I saw," Helen said.
Nathan could not resist asking his new friend a question, or seven, about aliens and the like. It was a family obsessed with the topic.
For the first time in months Nathan's notebook computer was closed and the cell phone modem was silent.
"Hey mister do you believe in aliens?" he asked.
Red Dancing Bear could not lie when it came to this, although much of the information on the subject was complete bullshit, in his view.
"Yes I do. I have seen them, spoken with them. They are not of this time and place," he said.
"Where do you think aliens come from, are they from another galaxy or are they us in the future returning to the past?" asked Nathan.
"You are wise beyond your years, boy. Where did you get such theories?" he asked.
" Omni Magazine and the Internet," Nathan said proudly patting his notebook computer.
"One as young as this has access to information which can be dangerous, Jeffrey. Don't you worry about your boy having nightmares from all the information he stuffs inside his growing brain?" asked Red Dancing Bear.
Jeffrey did not answer and Red Dancing Bear reflected that Jeffrey was a sullen, beaten-down fellow.
He obviously worked at someplace on or near "The Cape" on projects he did not fully understand.
"Jeffrey what do you do for a living that you can afford so much?" asked Red Dancing Bear.
"Nothing that a great Indian chief such as yourself would understand," quipped Jeffrey unpleasantly. He obviously did not buy into Red Dancing Bear's act.
"Jeffrey be nice," said Mrs. Thompson.
"He's an engineer at Camerdyne Systems in Melbourne. They make comstoppeters for the space shuttle," said Helen.
"And what are those?" asked the great Indian Chief with a smile. He liked that Jeffrey had a sense of humor. At the very least that was one redeeming aspect of the man. And he was not afraid of Red Dancing Bear which meant some shred of that manhood remained. This was good.
Jeffrey remained locked in a sullen gaze, staring out at the highway ahead of his 1994 Dodge Ram van.
"Honey, answer him," admonished his wife.
"They have to do with satellite communications," said Jeffrey, giving away the fact that he had no idea what it was he had spent the last 15 years of his life engineering and designing, nor what it did when it came in contact with a satellite, nor how it effected satellite communications.
Jeffrey knew as much about his product as he did the area of the country in which he lived.
He had never seen the beauty of the marshes near Merritt Island, though he probably drove past them everyday on the way to and from work.
He had no idea of the history of the vanished cultures which had lived and died on the lands which had turned over to cattle ranching, and then subdivisions, years ago.
Jeffrey was already losing his individuality like many of the urban settlers. Funny that it should be the whites to do so first, thought Red Dancing Bear. " Jeffrey where does your family come from?" asked Red Dancing Bear.
" Uh, Iowa, the Des Moines area," he said.
" So they were Dutch, huh, or perhaps they were they French Huguenots?" Red Dancing Bear asked arbitrarily.
He was not quite sure what a French Huguenot was, but he liked the sound of it.
"I don't know," said Jeffrey, confirming Red Dancing Bear's theory that Jeffrey didn't even know who his ancestors were and that was an evil thing indeed.
"You know, they will take all of our histories away before they are through," Red Dancing Bear said cryptically as he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

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