Read Online Bear and His Daughter by Robert Stone - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Stone
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between the plantations and the beach. Just outside the village, where the police post was, the Indians were lined along the road in their Sunday suits, holding palm fronds and flags. Five men in silver-studded vests stood behind the crowd with instruments at the ready—two trumpeters, a tuba player; a drummer and a cymbalist. People in the crowd held lengths of a banner reading BIENVENIDOS PADRE URRIETA!
Fencer and Willie Wings saluted the crowd as they drove by. Fencer salaamed and Willie Wings, his fingers joined to suggest the Trinity, dispensed papal benedictions.
“
Diablo,
” someone shouted.
Fletch crouched down beside the tire in a position from which he could see only the crests of palm trees and the sky.
After a while they turned inland, following the straight plantation roads through armies of coconut palm. At the turn where the road curved upward into the sierra, they started a covey of vultures from the jungle. The birds flapped about the car windows in alarm.
“Hong won’t sell me tarot cards,” Willie Wings said. “He told me no, absolutely refused to sell me them, won’t have me near them.”
“He probably doesn’t have tarot cards,” Fletch said. “He’s a grocer.”
“I know what Hong has,” Willie said heatedly. “I know every thing about him.” Willie was popping pills; he turned to Fencer in a fury. “Listen, Fences how can he be a poet? He don’t live the conscious life. He lives unawares.”
“You reckon there’s truth in that?” Fencer asked.
“No,” Fletch said. “I live the conscious life.”
Fencer smiled at him in the rear-view mirror.
“You hear that, Fencer?” Willie Wings shouted. “You hear what he said?”
Fletch stared at the moist flushed surface of Willie’s head and felt a thrill of fear.
“Everyone has a potential level of consciousness,” Fencer said kindly. “There’s a vein of deep perception in all beings. The thing is to bring it out.”
“Fletch’s perception is dead,” Willie Wings declared. He began to assemble a joint of his own. “Like a dead nerve in a tooth.”
They were leaving the low ground. Palms gave way to occasional live oak, Spanish cedar and euphorbia; vines covered the road. They ascended a green spiral, and at the turns Fletch could see the bay below.
He said nothing, but when Willie Wings presented the next joint he accepted it. His perception, he reminded himself, was not dead but throbbed within his lax and ill-used body, a secret agent. Crouched low in the back seat, he stared dully toward the mass of the sierra and tried to consider the action.
They were taking him up to the volcano. When the moment came, he promised himself, he would act appropriately.
The smell of thick-fleshed green things was suffocating. The wind that resisted their climb was heavy and sweet.
“I was once the only white bellhop in Chattanooga,” Willie Wings told them when the joint had been consumed. “Years and years ago at the start of my career. I worked in an eight-story hotel. You see me, right? Youthful in those days, with glossy black hair that indicated my Cherokee blood. Braided uniform, kind of like the staff drape at the Hotel Dixie on Forty-two Street when the bus depot was up there. Only it’s an eight-story hotel in Chattanooga—take it off the stationery.
“Now I couldn’t begin to lay on you the parts of the human heart I witnessed there. Forget the microcosm—it was more than that. Eight stories high.
“You
know,
don’t you, that I saw lots of shit to appeal to the prurient interest? I saw every variety of sexuality known to the Eastern masters. Dig it! In each and every room was a viewee thing—sometimes it was a little hole, sometimes it was more complicated, because this was in the great age of hotels.”
Fletch listened with growing panic. While Willie Wings paused to do a speed item, he raised his thermos and drank. He tried to do so in absolute silence, and huddled even lower in the seat so that
Fencer and Willie Wings saluted the crowd as they drove by. Fencer salaamed and Willie Wings, his fingers joined to suggest the Trinity, dispensed papal benedictions.
“
Diablo,
” someone shouted.
Fletch crouched down beside the tire in a position from which he could see only the crests of palm trees and the sky.
After a while they turned inland, following the straight plantation roads through armies of coconut palm. At the turn where the road curved upward into the sierra, they started a covey of vultures from the jungle. The birds flapped about the car windows in alarm.
“Hong won’t sell me tarot cards,” Willie Wings said. “He told me no, absolutely refused to sell me them, won’t have me near them.”
“He probably doesn’t have tarot cards,” Fletch said. “He’s a grocer.”
“I know what Hong has,” Willie said heatedly. “I know every thing about him.” Willie was popping pills; he turned to Fencer in a fury. “Listen, Fences how can he be a poet? He don’t live the conscious life. He lives unawares.”
“You reckon there’s truth in that?” Fencer asked.
“No,” Fletch said. “I live the conscious life.”
Fencer smiled at him in the rear-view mirror.
“You hear that, Fencer?” Willie Wings shouted. “You hear what he said?”
Fletch stared at the moist flushed surface of Willie’s head and felt a thrill of fear.
“Everyone has a potential level of consciousness,” Fencer said kindly. “There’s a vein of deep perception in all beings. The thing is to bring it out.”
“Fletch’s perception is dead,” Willie Wings declared. He began to assemble a joint of his own. “Like a dead nerve in a tooth.”
They were leaving the low ground. Palms gave way to occasional live oak, Spanish cedar and euphorbia; vines covered the road. They ascended a green spiral, and at the turns Fletch could see the bay below.
He said nothing, but when Willie Wings presented the next joint he accepted it. His perception, he reminded himself, was not dead but throbbed within his lax and ill-used body, a secret agent. Crouched low in the back seat, he stared dully toward the mass of the sierra and tried to consider the action.
They were taking him up to the volcano. When the moment came, he promised himself, he would act appropriately.
The smell of thick-fleshed green things was suffocating. The wind that resisted their climb was heavy and sweet.
“I was once the only white bellhop in Chattanooga,” Willie Wings told them when the joint had been consumed. “Years and years ago at the start of my career. I worked in an eight-story hotel. You see me, right? Youthful in those days, with glossy black hair that indicated my Cherokee blood. Braided uniform, kind of like the staff drape at the Hotel Dixie on Forty-two Street when the bus depot was up there. Only it’s an eight-story hotel in Chattanooga—take it off the stationery.
“Now I couldn’t begin to lay on you the parts of the human heart I witnessed there. Forget the microcosm—it was more than that. Eight stories high.
“You
know,
don’t you, that I saw lots of shit to appeal to the prurient interest? I saw every variety of sexuality known to the Eastern masters. Dig it! In each and every room was a viewee thing—sometimes it was a little hole, sometimes it was more complicated, because this was in the great age of hotels.”
Fletch listened with growing panic. While Willie Wings paused to do a speed item, he raised his thermos and drank. He tried to do so in absolute silence, and huddled even lower in the seat so that
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