In the Jungle The Indian Knows All

[Wayne A. Loftus]

As I type this, in my overcrowded, overheated apartment, my only retreat
from the dulling chill without; deep into the wee hours of a new Sunday
temporarily released from the drudgery of its seasonal, lake-directed habits
by the the ever capricious jet stream, responding to some dim, inscrutable
logic internal only to itself; my bare feet kicking beneath a familiar desk,
bought as hospital surplus in some dimly remembered fontier town I once
called my home, trapped between the Mississippi and the boundless prairie;
transfixed in the harsh glare only halogen can produce; vainly attempting to
banish the academic arcana which has kept me up so late, I am wearing an
aging shirt given to me by a woman whose name I shall refrain from dropping.
Gray and fading, splitting at the collar, the cuffs rapidly divorcing
themselves from their hated neighbors.  Fraying, demonless, it helplessly
obeys the second law of thermodynamics, the effects of which I cannot help
but observe all around me.  It is almost as tired as I am after a long day
locked in the cloister I refer to, not without irony, as my home.  A day of
toil and worry.  A day of writing.  And though I rarely take my life lessons
from drug fiends, I am reminded, in a vague, peculiar way, of an aphorism
once scrawled by the addled pen of Hunter Thompson: old whores don't giggle.
And I don't.

Thompson, remarkably, is still alive--as bombastic as ever--though failing a
bit, I hear.  I understand he lives next door to Don Johnson these days, and
that the two are collaborating with Cheech Marin on some television show or
other.  A shame.  Life must be rather boring in the western highlands--one
looks for entertainment in what is at hand: guns, explosives, drugs,
incontinent railing at feminist "pedagogues" and all postmodern theorists,
or, at least, the strawmen one chooses to set in their place.  I wonder if
this is what happened to old Ted.

I wonder at the causes of such immoderate behavior.  Thompson is a man who
acknowledges his own faults--revels in them--and yet rabidly attacks those
around him with little or no provocation.  How can such a man, surrounded as
I am, by the chaotic debris of a failed, fractured subjectivity issue with
such frequency such ferocious declamations of his fellows?  Surely, mortal
teeth must shatter as they pass the word of God. Surely no physical tongue
can trace their intricate patterns.  How is it that this remains unclear to
Aspen's most infamous citizen?  How is it that it remains unclear to anyone?

As I write this, a new stench invades my nostrils, displacing that of the
urban decay, blooming like gin blossoms, like apocaplypse from every orifice
of this rusting port town, this dying Canadian frontier nestled on the
shores of the world's largest toilet bowl, popular destination of newlyweds
and environmentalists.  I slowly realize that it is fear: my own--trusty
guardian of my ancestral gene pool.  For I have given umbrage, and I begin
to wonder what exquisite torture the Jesuits have in mind for me...

The fear fades with the coming of another memory... clearer this time.  A
lonely mesa on a warm afternoon--the cracked earth haltingly thrust toward
the infinite heavens.  A sweltering crowd under an angry sun, surrounded by
pickups, barbeques and sweat lodges.  Holy ground.  Stronghold.  A lone
pole, newly hewn, holding in its many hands the pierced breasts of its
orgiastic dependants as they dance, staring into the eye of the sun,
searching for wisdom, for release, for connection to a past nearly eclipsed
in this very place by my own ancestors.  As their feet pound the dusty
ground of my mind to the beat of a dimly remember drum, I find what called
me here: an ancient piece of Dlakota wisdom, a warrior's cry, shared with me
here beneath the boundless field of azure...

Hoka Hey.

It is a good day to die.

--wayne

You do realize, don't you Steely, that parody is the highest form of flattery?