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Just a little rough draft
My Hyundai broke down and I got towed to a Texaco station in the middle of nowhere. The mechanic was an old Native American man who claimed to be the last of his tribe. He was the chief, the medicine man, the scout and the wife. “I have to be everyone,” he chuckled “but luckily there is no one else, so I don’t have to do anything - I’m free.”
I guess that was his idea of metaphysics. And if he hadn’t been levitating a Baby Ruth candy bar one foot above his head the whole time I woulda dismissed him as some crack pot. I just stared at him as he floated the candy bar over to his mouth and took a bite. “You wanna go on a vision quest?” he asked. Being a divorced white man who was loathed by everyone who knew me I said yes, even after he told me it would cost 2,000 dollars.
So we hitch-hiked to a cabin by a lake in the foothills. A wolf and an woman lived there. The old man called them both, ‘Honey’. I never saw either of them at the same time.
After a session in the sweat lodge out back one night, we took a three day hike to the top of a mountain. We ate some mushrooms and sat up for another day and as the sun rose the old man pointed, “See,” he said. We then hiked down to an Avis rent-a-center and drove to Vegas. We got on a hot streak on one of tables and won big. It took us 2 days to loose it all. Spending most of it on escorts and good ‘lawyer cocaine’. The next morning as we sat at the breakfast buffet eating endless piles of meat, the chief was muttering about stupid, fucking, white people when he stopped suddenly and pointed at the TV, Al Roker was on. “See,” he whispered. Later I drove him back to his house and he took me into the basement and showed my a video on the internet of some cute, funny kittens. “I see,” I nodded solemny, “Same thing?” I queried. “No.” he said sounding incredulous, “These are kittens. Are you soft brains?” Before I left we stopped for a bootle of hooch and then to the DQ for some ice cream, the chief looked up and smiled. “You are the shape of your blindness. It is the same for all people.” then he just went back to eating his Banana Split. “What is my blindness,” I asked. “Its unknowable or it wouldn’t be blindness, dumbass,” he said. “But there is sight so I can know,” I pleaded. “Seeing is not knowledge. he continued, “That is like comparing the vast boundless universe to a lawn mower. You have misidentified yourself, the truth is you have no real identity. You are just this dumb, boundless heart, stumbling around like a baby.”
“Oh,” I said. And for some reason when I finally got home I alternately laughed and cried for several days.
