Piss-legged, drag-assed khakis tucked into jump-boots,
a sleeping-bag coat torn by river-bank blackberries—
parks himself across on the bench opposite the man
writing at a riverside picnic table. Clears his throat:
"Asking you a favor—guess my age. Close enough.
Thirty-eight this year, okay. Ask me a question,
any question. Know I’m Indian, yeah? Cheyenne,
Montana. Damn Indians, all they know is how
to do one thing: drink. Okay, here’s the joke.
How do you track an Indian? Go on, guess—
I’m listening. No? Put your ear to the wind
for the sound of the guy crying, 'Hey bro, I’m thirsty!'"
He unstraps a sweaty watchband, pushes the watch
across the table. Digs one pocket for change—nickels,
pennies, a dime—pours them around the watch.
Three knuckles are bloody, the forearm protruding
from his sweatshirt scored with long cuts, some scabbed,
some fresh. He parts the midnight hair over his eyes:
"Hey bro—another favor: drink with me? Take
that watch for a dollar or two, go up to Hop Sing’s
and get us a beer. You got to get it, bro,
Hop Sing won’t dispense to me, damn Indian.
So ask me a question, I’m listening. Name’s Wolverine.
Only know how to do one damn thing—"
He raises two fingers, points at a clutch of children
in a wading pool. Cocks his thumb, cradles one arm
like a gunstock, squints through an invisible scope.
The neck tightens, pulling his lip into wolverine snarl;
then rifle-recoil. Then the benign gaze of a full-time drunk.
"My first rifle? Pellet gun. Plinking quail. Plink
the rancher’s chickens when they strayed. One day
saw this hippie thumbing on the highway
while I was beating through sagebrush. Thought,
Why not? Just a bigger sort of target. Didn’t guess
I’d score at that distance, but plink—he claps
his leg like a big horsefly nailed him, Ow!
Goddam Ow! No idea who ambushed him.
So I see I got a gift to sell to Uncle Sam."
Groomed as a marksman, flown to Kuwait. Sniper duty
plinking Saddam’s waterboys wading the dunes. Their hair
black as his, heads poking out at sunrise in the crosshairs.
They don’t fall to be found, pocketed like quail, they fall
away behind dunes, unconfirmed kills. He can hear
their water-cans leaking through the sand of his dreams.
"Push the shirt up my arm. Farther. You got
to push, bro, this other arm’s broke. Yeah,
see that? Dog soldier. That’s the mark,
like a crosshair, north east south west,
grandfather’s four directions. Cut it myself.
I’m a killer and I’m hurting. I can see you’re scared,
a quail in the sage—don’t know which way
to run. No fear, bro, my woman outranks me.
Traded my rifle for Uncle Sam beans and cheese.
He’s got a warehouse in Montana where
our women line up to change bullets into beans."
He wants the white man to rouse himself, take coins
and wristwatch, raise him by his good arm to see Hop Sing
about a canister of eight percent oblivion. He wants
the invisible woman to trade him back one bullet full
of all the water telescoped in the desert to plant
beneath his wolverine chin. He wants a quail to claw
his eyes, a mother to say No, a grandfather to sing
West South East North, raising burnt sage in his palm.
"Hop Sing’s is two blocks south. Drink a beer
with me or walk me home, I’m hurting.
This park’s a graveyard where clouds bury
old water. Don’t turn round, bro,
the black and whites are talking about us—
—guess Hop Sing told them I was on the way, damn Indian."
A police cruiser idles across the street. It’s a good day
to walk away, the white man thinks. Then hands back
the watch he has bought, and helps Wolverine to his feet.
"My woman outranks me. Should I snipe her?
Yes or no. Tell me my mother says No, tell me.
Can you feel the shotgun pellets in my shoulder?
Like stars in the river of grandfathers. Go on
and touch them, bro, keep your hand there—"
When their feet reach the edge of the park, jump-boot
and sandal, black and whites bracket them. “Hold up,
chief,” one blueshirt says. Another bends to his shoulder-radio,
hand on holster. “Hands out of pockets. Sit on the curb.
Name?” The white man expects to hear "Wolverine;"
the answer is "White Crow, Leroy." Date of birth? "1967."
Home? "The riverbank." The blueshirts ask the white man
the same questions; the radio pronounces him free to go.
“Walk away, professor,” the blueshirt advises. It’s sunny,
mayflies unregulated as a drunk sniper’s thoughts blow east.
The writer walks north to his car, the black and whites
separate, east and west, and Leroy White Crow,
a fresh ten in his pocket, alone again on legs
too thin for his jump boots, wobbles south.
His father is jailed two counties south for stabbing
a logger in the cheek; he could use a visit.
Somehow Leroy must get there—burrowing
through roadside nights like Wolverine, or floating
above Interstate 5 fog like White Crow--
and he will. Even if his good arm breaks
against some windshield, even if he’s knocked
out of piss-legged khakis by a logging truck
and reduced to a cloud of mayflies over a ditch,
he will go south to bring drink to his father’s lips.