In the City of Shy Hunters (16 page)

We drove along silent for some miles, just the Sioux tape. Then, all at once, True Shot pulled Door of the Dead van over and we stopped. He shut the engine off, leaned back against the seat, and put the last of the Maple Bar in his mouth. It wasn't raining. It got real silent in the van with the Sioux tape off.

Outside my window was a big old stone building with pillars and grand steps: Brooklyn Academy of Music. Not a person in sight,
personne
, no Charlie.

It is this way, True Shot said. Let me tell you a story.

The drums and the rattles started going. Like he'd brought his own sound track with him.

I was in for something important, so I rolled a cigarette.

A long time ago, when the white man bought Manhattan from the
Indians, True Shot said, The white man bought Manhattan for twenty-four dollars' worth of coins and beads. The white man thought he'd really put one over on the Indians and made jokes about how dumb the Indians were to sell the island of Manhattan so cheap.

It is this way, True Shot said. The joke was on the white man.

True Shot said, The secret name the Indians called Manhattan was Wolf Swamp, and Wolf Swamp, from ancient times, was a sacred place. A family of wolves lived on the island, and their home was at the heart of the forested island near the mouth of a beautiful spring.

What you couldn't see, though, True Shot said, What was obstructed from your view, hidden in the rocks of the beautiful spring, was the entrance to a deep cave. The cave was full of intricate passageways and blind alleys. In the heart of the cave lived a monster whose name was never spoken aloud.

It is this way, True Shot said. The wolves of Wolf Swamp were a special family whose task it was to guard the cave, to keep the monster inside and keep everything, everybody else, outside.

Once a year, True Shot said, Every year in the dog days of summer, the monster began to roar and beat the walls of the cave. His roar was earthquake or thunder. And when the family of wolves heard the monster earthquake thunder, the wolves began to howl.

Across the river, True Shot said, When the native people heard the howl of the wolves of Wolf Swamp, they knew. The monster was trying to escape the island and kill the people.

At this time, True Shot said, The native people chose a young woman and a young man to make the journey to Wolf Swamp. As was the custom, the women of the tribe took the young woman and taught her the secret steps into and out of the cave. As was the custom, the men took the young man and taught him the secret way to hurl the rock that repels the monster. As was the custom, the women of the tribe counseled the young woman never to look into the eyes of the young man until their task had ended and they were safe outside. As was the custom, the men of the tribe counseled the young man in the same way.

It is this way, True Shot said. Only the young woman knew the steps through the cave. Only the young man could send the monster back into the cave, and only by hurling a rock.

On the night of the full moon of the dog days, True Shot said, Riding on a white stallion, the stallion's mane and tail combed and soft—the stallion prancing, stepping high, ears up, tail up, a magic horse like a piece of the magic moon—the young woman and the young man crossed
the river, rode to the spring, and offered the customary gifts of tobacco and herbs to the family of wolves, and after smoking pipe they feasted. After feasting, and before the woman and the man entered the cave, as was the custom, together the young woman and the young man blindfolded the white stallion. The young man mounted the horse and the young woman led the horse into the cave. When they came upon the monster, the young man hurled a rock and the monster turned back. Then the young woman, remembering the steps, led the young man and the white stallion out of the cave.

And so it went on for many years, True Shot said, Until there came a year that something happened.

Different people tell the story different, True Shot said. Some say it was the young woman, some say the young man. In any case, one of the two of them looked the other in the eyes.

These things happened next, True Shot said. Immediately the monster came after them. Immediately, the young woman forgot the steps, and they were lost.

The young woman knew her only choice was to offer herself as a sacrifice to the monster, and she knelt down and begged the young man to sacrifice her. The young man refused and, in his panic, tore the blindfold from the white stallion and rode off to fight the monster alone.

When the monster came upon the young man on the white stallion, True Shot said, The young man hurled the rock, but just before he hurled the rock, the white stallion saw the monster, reared, and the rock missed. The young man fell off, the white stallion ran away, and the monster devoured the young man.

When the young woman heard the young man's screams, True Shot said, She lay down in the cave and closed her eyes. She tried so hard to remember the steps. She could hear the monster coming closer and closer. With each step of the monster, instead of remembering, though, the young woman forgot even more. She forgot even what it was she was trying to remember.

The monster came so close the young woman could smell the decay and feel its cold breath in her ear, True Shot said. Just then, the family of wolves arrived, and the wolves surrounded the young woman.

It is this way, True Shot said. The wolves made the young woman one of them. The wolves gave the young woman the shape of Wolf.

It is this way, True Shot said. With all gifts there is a sacrifice. When the wolves shape-shifted the young woman into wolf to confuse the creature, in exchange, as a sacrifice, the wolves lost their memories.

The sound wolf makes is
wolf
, True Shot said.
Wolf wolf
the wolf says,
wolf wolf
, because the wolves have forgotten who they are, where they came from, what their purpose was. The family of wolves have forgotten everything but their name, which must be continually repeated or they will forget the name too.

The only one who can help is the white stallion, True Shot said. The white stallion has not forgotten. It is this way, True Shot said. The special powers of the white stallion are his strength, his speed, and his memory. The white stallion remembers where the gate is, remembers the steps through the cave, remembers how to hurl the rock, but the white stallion was so terrified by the sight of the creature that he is now only blind fear, running running.

Wolf's howl is a cry to the white stallion for help, True Shot said. Even though Wolf does not know it, Wolfs howl is trying to soothe the white stallion, trying to calm him, so that the white stallion can hear where the young woman is, can hear that the young woman has been shape-shifted into Wolf.

If the white stallion would only stop and listen, True Shot said, He would recognize the cries of Wolf as the young woman's, and he would go to her, acknowledge her, and she would change back into herself.

And so it is this way, True Shot said, Wolf Swamp became a marsh lost in fog where the Wolves of Amnesia roam, where the white stallion never stops running, and the monster, set free of his boundaries, rules in chaos, unchecked.

The story goes, True Shot said, That Wolf Swamp became a prison camp. The island of banishment from the tribe. The worst punishment, even worse than torture and death, was being sent to Wolf Swamp, because the banished one knew he was condemned to keep himself alive. The only way he could keep himself alive was by repeating his name. If he stopped repeating his name, he would die. It is said some people grew so weary of repeating their name they chose to stop. But just as they stopped, at that moment, they started again because what opened up before them was too much to bear.

Some say the island itself ceased to exist, True Shot said, That the island was only the fog, the sound of the white stallion running, and the howl of the wolves.

And so it was this way, True Shot said, For many years. That is, he said, Until the white man came along.

The legend goes that one night, True Shot said, Sitting around the fire, somebody told the white man about Wolf Swamp. They got the
white man drunk and told him about Wolf Swamp, told a real good story about Wolf Swamp so the white man wanted to go there. Nobody would take the white man to Wolf Swamp, but they did tell the white man they would sell it to him, that he could buy it.

And so this fucking dumb drunk white man bought Wolf Swamp, True Shot said. Twenty-four dollars for a place of torture, banishment, terror, and amnesia, complete with a monster set loose upon the land.

But then something quite remarkable happened, True Shot said. As soon as the white man bought the island, the island reappeared again, as if it were real.

As if, True Shot said, As if to appear.

It is this way, True Shot said. The white man acts as if he has a heart. But he has no heart. He has a paparazzi advertisement for a heart. As it is inside, so it is out, True Shot said. So as soon as the white man bought Wolf Swamp, he created Wolf Swamp.

God may have created the world, True Shot said, But the white man made Manhattan. It is a match made in hell.

Take away the architecture, True Shot said, Take away the fashion, the photography; take away the grid, the profiteering, the exchange, the stocks and bonds, the money, the fools and the pharisees, the careers, and all that's left is a foggy swamp, a family of forgetful wolves, a scared stallion, and a monster.

New York is structure, True Shot said. You'll find it's nothing else. Form, function, no content. Manhattan is point zero, the place where nothing occupies space and holds power that becomes something only because you have entered it. Like that.

This island exists, True Shot said, Only because we name it, buy it, sell it, trade it, build it, tear it down, dress it up, undress it, fuck it, fight it, forget it, get it high.

We the residents of Wolf Swamp, True Shot said, Exist only because we say we exist, because we can prove we exist because we got it memorized, can repeat it like a wolf, where I'm coming from, how much I'm worth, what my purpose is, how much you need me, what I can do for you, what's in, what ain't, where to go, what to wear, what not to wear, what to buy, where to buy it, what to build, how high, what to tear down. Look at me! This is me! This is how important I am, right here in Manhattan is where I am, and this is who you are, and this is where you are, and if you don't know exactly who you are, if you don't know exactly where you are, then where you should go is go back to Idaho or go fuck yourself.

Through the van window, the Brooklyn Academy of Music was ancient Greece in the red-dirt dust-storm mercury-vapor light. Its grand stone steps, the columns, the big wood door was the Alexandria Library, was Rome burning, was the Oracle of Delphi.

I rolled cigarettes, one for me, one for True Shot.

When I poured the tobacco into the bright square of white, I looked at my forearms, where the fear always starts. I looked at the fear going up my forearms to my shoulders.

I lit True Shot's cigarette, lit mine.

Jesus, True Shot, I said. My God, is that story true?

SHOPPING FOR AN
Honest Man
is what Fiona and Harry called their performance piece. Fiona scored the gig for Halloween night at Dixon Place, a performance space on East First Street.

At Café Cauchemar, two weeks before the performance, all Fiona and Harry did was say
Shopping for an Honest Man
dialogue back and forth, serving cocktails, in the kitchen, busing tables, after work with the staff cocktail, in front of Ronald and Nancy—even one night sharing a cab downtown—back and forth, those two.

One night walking home after work, the week before
Shopping for an Honest Man,
I must have passed ten posters of Fiona and Harry—an enlarged Polaroid of Fiona and Harry, draped in white sheets, wreaths in their hair like Greeks, holding up lanterns.

No Charlie 2Moons on 46th or Second Avenue, no Charlie on East Fifth. But there was somebody else. Halfway to my apartment on East Fifth I stopped in my tracks.

There he was: Argwings Khodek, sitting on my stoop with the three dogs from upstairs.

Upstairs.

Ever since I moved in, only sounds; the tin flip of the mailbox door in the hallway, two hundred and sixty pounds up thirteen steps, the locks on his door. One night, I barely caught the unrelenting fluorescence on his bald head, his big hand running along the second-floor banister.

Argwings Khodek, Rose.

In all the world, on
my
stoop.

Rose was wearing long johns, red, unbuttoned to below the navel just above where there's hair, long johns cut off at the knees, and no shoes, just thongs—Rose hated all men's shoes except for combat boots, every once in a while, and thongs. Women's shoes—Rose hated most
of them too, made his arches hurt, but he had a closet full of women's shoes: heels, mules, fuck-me stilettos, studio flats—because Rose was an ac-
tor
.

When I got to the stoop, Rose's dogs were on leashes, leashes every which way, and the dogs were all at once wild with smelling the turkey thigh I'd bought at Schacht's.

I didn't look at Rose, but I still saw the big chest of him, the big arms and legs, the deep black of his chest and arms and legs. Didn't dare look at the crotch. Instead I looked off to my left at the poster of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Stranded Beings Searching for God and the three Polaroids. I said a little prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus when I took the step, policing my body, new-shoe stiff, and sure enough, what I did was step on Mary—my grandpa shoe right onto her poodle paw—and Mary yelped and I bent down to comfort her and the little shit bit my hand.

I was smiling when I looked at Rose and then stopped smiling. Kept walking. Rose was holding Mary in his big black hands, Sahara Desert palms, and Mary was yelping yelping.

Sorry, I said.

On the back of Rose's long underwear, the black letters said
FUCK THE POPE
.