Wednesday, November 18, 2009

breece d'j pancake

"I put on my jacket, go into the foggy night, walk toward town. Another hour till dawn, and both lanes of the Pike are empty, so I walk the yellow line running though the valley to Rock Camp. I keep thinking back to the summer me and my buddy Eddie tore that burial mount apart for arrowheads and copper beads gone green with rot. We were getting down to the good stuff, coming up with skulls galore, when of a sudden Grandad showed out of thin air and yelled, "Wah-pah-nah-te-he." He was waving his arms around, and I could see Eddie was about to shit the nest. I knew it was all part of the old man's Injun act, so I stayed put, but Eddie sat down like he was ready to surrender.

Grandad kept on: "Wah-pah-nah-te-he. You evil. Make bad medicine here. Now put the goddamn bones back or I'll take a switch to your young asses." He watched us bury the bones, then scratched a picture of a man in the dust, a bow drawn, aimed at a crude sun. "Now go home." He walked across the pasture.

Edide said, "You Red Eagle. Me Black Hawk." I knew he had bought the game for keeps. By then I couldn't tell Eddie that if Grandad had a shot at the sixty-four-dollar question, he would have sold them on those Injun words: Wah-pah-nah-te-he. - the fat of my ass." - Breece D'J Pancake, "The Honored Dead"

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