Iceberg Theory April 3, 2003 This is not a Hemingway story. There are no white hills looming in the distance. We are not on our way to Barcelona. Nobody is waiting reasonably for the train. We are at LAX on an early spring morning, my father, my older brother Bob, and I. Downstairs at check-in, we’ve gotten a taste of post-9/11 security. We watched as the bags were searched at the curb, then sent through x-ray machines and checked for explosives residues. The agent at the counter, a gruff man in his fifties, interrogated us with a series of well-rehearsed probes, checked our driver’s licenses against a list of known and/or suspected terrorists, never smiling, never once wishing us a pleasant trip. A year ago, on this same journey, this scene was just the opposite. The pretty blond with the sensuous Texas drawl was happy to talk to us then: “So y’all are all headed to Utah, huh? What for? Fishin? Oh I used to fish with my daddy when I was a little girl. It’s so nice that y’all are goin as a family...” Back then that twang in her voice was alluring, sweet. I’d cringe to hear it today. “Don’t mess with Texas.” Y’all. And now we run the gauntlet of metal detectors and newly trained security screeners to get to the terminal. Their backgrounds have all been checked, they’ve signed loyalty oaths, but their fingerprints and photographs are on file with the F.B.I., just in case. As we near the detectors, my father whispers at me, “you should have shaved your goatee, Tom. You kind of look like an Al Qaida sympathizer.” I smile politely at him, and watch as my backpack, filled with papers from my advanced composition class at Cal State Fullerton (I hope to grade them, but I know I won’t), clears security. My backpack will have to wait for me. The metal detector rings like a slot machine hitting on a jackpot, and I’m ushered to a holding area, relieved of my shoes, and told to assume the position: legs apart, arms out, palms up. The screener rummages through my pockets, has me unbuckle my belt and roll the waistband of my pants over, skims me over with a handheld detector. At my belt buckle it rings, lights flash red, and I dutifully roll my waistband over for a second look. The screener is young, African American, early twenties. He could be one of my students. He walks over and picks up my shoes, brings them over to me. “Have a pleasant trip,” he says. I retrieve my backpack and join my dad and brother, who are waiting outside the screening area. On my way, I look outside the terminal screening area, out to the building atrium and notice four young men looking towards the screening zoo, smiling, laughing as they observe the scene. They look Middle Eastern. My brother has seen them too. “You know,” he says, “I miss the phony religious fanatics who used to beg for donations. You know, those Mexican ladies in the pseudo-nun costumes. They’ve all been banished. But maybe those guys are selling box cutters for Allah.” * * * On the plane, I’m stuck in the middle seat. Bob gets the window, but he ignores the view for the duration of the flight. Instead, he reads the Wall Street Journal, every page. He is a nervous reader, biting his nails, mining his nose for nuggets, then biting his nails some more, oblivious to the thought that anyone could be watching him. His legs are restless, twitching, bouncing like springs, rattling my seat. His size fourteen Nikes show old, smell old. For a while, I think he just has gas, until I make the connection to his running shoes. I know that he’s probably only had them for a few months, but he wears them every day, so they look like they’ve been through ten marathons already. He always seems to be racing. He’s not a runner, though. He just moves abruptly, with severe determination, from place to place. I deflect my attention to my father, who is engrossed in yet another one of his arch-conservative tomes. This one is written by a woman named Ann Coulter, some Fox News neo-Reaganite pundit. I recall her picture on the cover, blond haired blue eyed, a handsome woman with a cold glare and a buttoned collar. I sneak a look at page eighty-five. Ann is railing on about how us evil Liberals are so concerned with gender issues, gender equality, that we’ve actually robbed women of their femininity. We’ve pushed women out of their traditional roles by encouraging them to pursue standard male-dominated professions, erasing their naturally submissive and nurturing personalities. Ann carries the argument further on page eighty-six, where she moves from gender issues to race issues. We are all so focused on race that we are actually racist, always bringing race into the social and civil process. In fact, Liberals are so focused on race, they have more in common with Nazis and the neo-Nazi movement than anything else. I have just been linked to genocide. I shake my head, disgusted, and pull my own book out, find my place, and begin to read. After a while, my father looks my way. “What are you reading?” he asks. I just show him the cover, and say nothing. I’m reading chapter nine of Black Elk Speaks, “The Rubbing Out of Long Hair”, we know it as Custer’s Last Stand. The words of Black Elk are still fresh in my head, We were in our own country all the time and we only wanted to be let alone. The soldiers came there to kill us, and many got rubbed out. It was our country and we did not want to have trouble....Wherever we went, the soldiers came to kill us, and it was all our own country. It was ours already when the Wasichus made the treaty with Red Cloud, that said it would be ours as long as the grass should grow and the water flow. That was only eight winters before, and they were chasing us now because we remembered and they forgot. * * * Bob chooses the rental car, a Ford Expedition. After all, we are headed into the outback, into the mountains towards the Green River in the Northeast corner of Utah. While he drives, Dad scans the radio stations, country music and religious zealots, until he lands on the Rush Limbaugh show. Rush is pontificating about how the Palestinians are the lowest of all the Arabs, how all the other Arabs hate them, and then he begins wondering why there’s so much resistance from the rest of the world over our current effort to liberate the Iraqis. The nerve of people protesting the war. Do they really think it’s imperialism, that we really want to control the region? How ridiculous! It’s about freedom, and by God, we have a right to protect ourselves from future terrorist acts. “Hidden agenda?” chants Rush, “I don’t think so!” Dad chimes in, “Exactly. These protesters are so off base with this blood for oil nonsense. Ignorant traitors!” I think of the Crusades, the forming of the region after World War Two, the British and Rockefeller and Standard Oil, the annexation of Palestine, and the SUV we’re riding in, which gets about twelve miles per gallon. We are near the ski resorts now, and the hills are still white with snow. I can even see the ski jumps at Park City, where we held the recent Olympic events, and where in the closing ceremonies we celebrated World Unity, Tolerance, Love. A half a day’s drive from here, two tanks of gas, eighty dollars, is Ketchum, Idaho, where Papa Hemingway put a shotgun to his forehead; is the Nez Perce trail, where Chief Joseph finally surrendered in his vain attempt to lead his people to freedom in Canada after being hunted by Colonel Miles Nelson and the Seventh Cavalry of the U.S. Army; is the Valley of the Greasy Grass, the Little Bighorn, where Nelson’s predecessor lost his life in his search for glory and gold, killing “savages”, grossly underestimating their desperate fortitude. Papa Hemingway related writing stories to an iceberg: “There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn’t show.” This is my new Iceberg Theory, the duality of travel. I travel dichotomously, separating into two parts. There is the one who is here to fish and commune with his brother, his father, and there is the one who bites his tongue and looks to the hills, keeping seven-eighths below the surface. Unity. Tolerance. Love. II Red Canyon Lodge sits at the edge of Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in the northeast corner of Utah. We have checked into our log cabin, which rests at the edge of a small lake, and has more amenities than my own rundown bungalow in Long Beach, California:: fully equipped kitchen, king sized beds, wood burning stove, Jacuzzi bathtub, and a view that would cost millions in Southern California. We do not rough it by any stretch of the imagination, and dinner at the lodge restaurant brings this point to rest. Bob orders chateaubriand and Dad orders salmon in a pastry crust. Dad is retired, and treats himself to this sort of luxury on our fishing trips. Bob makes more money in a month than I make in a year as a college professor. The wine he has brought along on this trip has mold on the labels, but the price tag, which he always leaves conspicuously in place, is sharp and clear. The cabernet that he pours into my glass has a price tag of forty-five dollars. I am always grateful that he shares, but I know the hamburger I’ve ordered won’t stand up to the complexities of a nineteen ninety-two Sterling Reserve. “Notice,” he says, “that I’ve brought only California wines. I put all my French wine into my storage locker. I’ve just about had it with those arrogant bastards.” When we arrive back at the cabin, Dad’s friend, John Evans, is there to greet us. John has flown here in the corporate jet and is waiting for us on the porch, smoking a cigar and drinking cognac from a disposable plastic cup. I’ve never met John, so Dad makes the introductions, then they fall into familiar conversations, golf game, the business, Dad’s retirement. John’s company makes a bankload renting irrigation equipment to farms in the San Joaquin Valley. He used to buy his raw aluminum stock from Dad when he ran the sales division at Kaiser Aluminum. “Bill,” says John, “you look good for an old man. We miss you. Things have changed since you left.” I look John over, he’s in his fifties, round tan face, soft delicate hands that probably spend most of their time dialing cell phones, gripping golf clubs or Cuban cigars. The hands of a C.E.O. “Why don’t you guys join me out here? The cognac is on the counter. The kitchen has every sort of appliance, but not a goddamn wine glass in sight. I could only find coffee mugs and a bunch of these disposable cups in the bathroom.” I rummage through my duffle bag for the stash of bargain rate mail order cigars that I’ve brought along, then I grab a beer from the fridge. Cognac gives me a headache, maybe because it’s French. When I return to the porch, Bob, Dad, and John are deep in venomous conversation. Bob takes a pull of his cognac, then gets back to it, “...and that Tim Robbins, did you hear his antiwar diatribe the other day? And then there’s Sean Penn touring the slums of Baghdad and telling us that there’s no need to go to war! Who do these celebrities think they are?” Dad adds to the complaint, “I read a list of all these celebrities and how far they got in their education. You don’t find any that actually finish college, let alone go in the first place, except that lesbian Jodie Foster.” I want to say that education has nothing to do with intelligence, I know all the prevailing theories, I have evidence sitting right next to me. Before I can get to it, Bob returns, “Yeah, these people don’t even have any sort of qualifications, yet they use their position to speak out against our country. I just hate that.” Rush Limbaugh is a college dropout, Reagan regularly fell asleep during Cabinet meetings, and he ran us into a trillion dollar deficit, George Dubbya couldn’t pass my comp class without downloading his papers from the Web; sanctimonious William Bennett, replete with the best Ivy League conceit that money can buy, gets fat preaching to the commoners about virtue while he gambles away eight million at the Vegas slots. It’s the Republican Mantra: Do as I say, not as I do. I got mine, so up yours. Malcolm X changed the world, and he never even got past the fourth grade. “You know,” Bob says, “Call me an elitist, but it would be much better for us if only three percent of the people in this country voted!” I’m confused about why John has flown all the way here in a private jet to fish with us. I know it’s got something to do with Bob being invited to join the Board of Directors at John’s company, so some sort of job interview is supposed to be happening here. I guess the whole trip is a tax write-off for everybody but me. I’m just here to fish. I’m not hearing any business talk though, just a bunch of arch-conservative hate speak, until John turns my way. “So you’re a teacher? What do you teach?” I’m engrossed in my smoke, watching it drift beyond the porch roofline and up towards the stars, so I barely hear him. Dad answers for me, “He teaches writing, at Cal State Fullerton.” I look over and catch on to the conversation, “I also teach intro courses...in the Liberal Studies department.” John twists his face in confusion, “Liberal Studies?” “Yeah,” I say, “we study Liberals.” As soon as I use the “L” word, I regret it, because Bob latches on and turns to a new complaint. “You know what they’re trying to do at my daughter’s school? I got a supplemental bill yesterday for six hundred dollars, to pay for their Arts program! What a bunch of crap, she already takes private dance lessons.” John waves his cigar and preaches, “We really need to do something about all of this, we need to get back to the basics. Teachers aren’t doing their jobs. They seem to be more focused on self-esteem than knowledge. Hell, at my son’s school, they’ve stopped assigning grades! And you know what? When I was in school, I didn’t have an Arts Program, my God! Math, Reading, Writing; that’s what kids need!” “So Tom, how many students do you get in your writing classes that are under prepared?” asks Dad. He’s asked this before, and so I give him what he wants just to get out of it clean. “Oh, about a third of them, but I only teach upper division classes these days, so I really don’t know about the freshmen and sophomores.” This doesn’t work. Maybe Dad feels strength in numbers, so he presses. “What do you teach in the intro courses?” “All the Humanities, from Art History to Science to Philosophy.” “Philosophy? Which philosophers?” “Oh, these days I’ve been using Hume, and a bit of Existentialism. You know, God, Godlessness, the soul as an artificial construct of the human psyche, how Morality is subjective from culture to culture, depending on the reaction each action receives from others, you know, I just try to make them think...” Dad shakes his head, balls his fists, “But you don’t really teach them anything.” I would never dream of telling my father that he didn’t know how to manage his sales force, or give my financier brother advice on the stock market. Sure, I took a math class once, but that doesn’t make me an accountant. Yet people seem to think they have a right to dictate educational policy just for the fact that they’ve been to school, or because their little darling offspring are in elementary. I think about this and wonder, if we can find a way to reduce education to formulas, then we can just give standardized tests for everything. We can call it “Reductive Education”. I laugh out loud as I come up with a formula for Existentialism: (Existence + Cognition) ÷ Meaning = 0. “What’s so funny?” says Bob. “Oh, nothing,” I return, “absolutely nothing...” The night sky is clear. We are at six thousand feet in altitude here, so the stars fill the heavens. I search for the Big Dipper, then find the Little Dipper, and wonder if there is any animosity, any conflict between them. After all, the Big Dipper has the North Star at its edge. This gets it a lot of attention. The Little Dipper is just the inadequate younger sibling. If the stars were animate, I suppose this would be an issue, but they just burn the same every night. Down here, it’s a different matter. There is conflict, down here. III I wake before dawn, brew a pot of coffee, and then head out to the porch to watch the sunrise. The morning is cold, but the sky is clear. My visible breath reminds me of the smoke I pushed towards the stars just eight hours ago, and I try in vain to form my breath into rings. The porch faces east, and I look beyond the lake towards the distant ridgeline as the rising sun begins to appear above it. There is a layer of spring snow on the ice that caps the lake, and I squint into the dawn as the sun reflects brightly. The birds are coming to life, I hear crows and songbirds announcing the day’s arrival, but all else is silent, peaceful, until I catch a figure moving out on the lake. It is a man, running across the ice, I can see the rhythm of his breath before him. He is wearing shorts and a sweatshirt, and across his shoulders rests a log, which his arms are draped over. I stare in wonder at this sight, considering what it must take to inspire him to this extreme morning exercise. I listen to his feet crunch against the snow, watch him reach shore, run up the bank and into the stand of trees across the way. What has become of me? Ten years ago, I was that runner. Ten years ago, I could run with the best. My hands were calloused and my back was strong from working construction. Ten years ago, the only weight on my shoulders was the weight that I put there myself, to test my endurance. But today, the weight is not voluntary. Today the weight is heavier than I could have ever imagined. What about the boiling rivers that I kayaked down, the peaks I climbed? How many times had I hiked through the outreaches of the Grand Canyon, climbed Half Dome in Yosemite, separated from civilization to explore oceans, mountains, deserts? Where did my own crazed determination go? At the edge of forty, I have settled for five star fly fishing expeditions with the power elite, the obscene gluttony of forty-five dollar bottles of wine, cognac and cigars on the porch of a three hundred dollar a night “cabin”. Had I my brother’s money, would I join the country club, buy a Lexus, own a beach house behind the gates at Malibu, dine at tablecloth restaurants five times a week? It is a small comfort to me this morning to say it, but I look beyond the frozen lake, into the sun, and say it out loud. “At least I haven’t taken up golf...” * * * Our guides meet us at the foot of Flaming Gorge Dam. I look up to the twenty-story structure as the guides launch our boats into the Green River. I can see cars move across the road that skirts the top of the dam, and move my eyes to the red rocks of the canyon walls, which are dotted with twisted pine trees. I think of what it must take for a tree to take root in the crevices, punch its roots through the rock into earth below, and draw enough life from the rocky soil to thrive and reach fifty feet, a hundred feet, into the sky. I join the rest of our group at the water’s edge. We set up the fly rods, tying on perfect imitations of the blue winged olive mayflies that are hatching on the river. There is a seat at the bow and the stern of each of the seventeen-foot long aluminum riverboats. Their flat bottoms make it easy for the guide to navigate through rapids and around boulders, from the shallow riffles where the fish feed, to the calm eddies where the fish rest. Dad and John take the lead boat, with Chad as their guide. Chad is young and bright, an ex-college basketball player, quick to laugh at the slightest attempt of a joke. He has the ease of a California surfer and the determination of body and mind to pull his launch through even the most dangerous rapids. Bob and I are in Boomer’s boat. Boomer doesn’t look like a typical guide. He’s not screaming with youthful exuberance, and he has the look of a guy who spends his days on the couch watching football, eating hot wings, and drinking Coors. But we know Boomer from our trip here last year, and have requested him from the guide service. He is the most experienced guide on the river, nearly a legend among the younger guides. Out of the boat, he is short and ornery. Inside the boat, he has the skill of a conductor, guiding his boat, directing his charges in symphonic grace. As we launch into the river, John calls over to us, “Any of you guys see that crazy sonofabitch running across the lake this morning?” “I saw him,” I say. “Was that a log on top of his shoulders?” “I think so. What a crazy bastard! Why on earth would he do that?” I’m in the seat at the bow, and can see Boomer’s eyes as he rows us out into the river. A smile twists onto his unshaven face, and he lets out a chuckle as he looks over at me. “That was Jimbo. He does the maintenance at the lodge, built all those new cabins on the edge of the lake last year. He runs ultra marathons down into the Grand Canyon every summer.” “Really...” “Yeah, from the north rim down to the bottom, over the river and up the other side to the south rim. Do you know how hot it gets in the Canyon in mid summer? Average ninety-five degrees at the bottom, but it gets above a hundred regularly.” I look at Boomer and nod my head. “I know. I used to go to the Canyon every summer myself.” It is easy to see where this river got its name. The water is a bright emerald, and clear enough to count the individual rocks on the bottom at thirty feet. Together the green water and red canyon walls complement each other, making the entire canyon seem to vibrate in the morning breeze. All about us are trout, resting, holding in the current, rising to the surface to take the hatching mayflies. Bob and I spend the morning fooling them with our imitations, enticing them to strike, fighting them, reeling them to Boomer’s net, then releasing them back into the water for another day. A storm front is moving in from the northeast, dark clouds are spilling over the canyon walls. By the time we meet Dad, John, and Chad for lunch, the sun has disappeared and the temperature has dropped enough for us to don our fleece jackets and gloves. Bob has spit venom all morning in his conversations with Boomer. Each snide comment about Hillary and healthcare, Bill and impeachment, the unfairness of his personal tax burden, overzealous environmentalists, welfare abusers, the Liberal Media, drives me further and further into silence. By the time we beach the boat for a lunch stop, I’ve just about had it. Dad and John are standing with Chad beneath a weathered pine, waiting for us to join them. As I approach, I can hear John comparing the finesse of fly casting to his golf swing. When I reach them, Chad looks to me, “So Tom, do you golf too?” I spit back a bitter reply. “I don’t golf. Don’t talk to me about golf!” I watch Dad’s jaw drop, his face shows surprise. “Why do you say it like that?” He is offended in the worst way. He mimics my delivery as he repeats my words, “I don’t GOLF. Don’t talk to me about GOLF. That’s insulting, the way you said that.” I retreat over to Bob, who’s talking with Boomer about Michael Moore and his speech at the Oscars. “...shame on you Mr. Bush, what an asshole! Just accept your damn award and get off the stage. You have no right to turn your award into an opportunity to spout your political views. Besides, all that stuff he said about the war being based on false evidence is bullshit. We have plenty of evidence.” “Have you read his book, that one about Stupid White Men?” asks Boomer. “It’s been on the best seller list for about forty weeks now.” Bob is agitated now, his face is bright red, and his reply is just below a shout. “That book is the biggest piece of Liberal propaganda I’ve ever seen. He makes all these accusations and then he never backs any of it up with concrete evidence!” “So Bob,” I say, “have you read it? It sounds like you have.” Bob frowns at me. I’ve caught him, and we both know it. “I don’t have to read it,” he snaps. “I saw an interview with him where he talked about it. That’s enough for me to know what’s in the book.” I’m suddenly reminded of presidential candidate Bob Dole, in all his resplendent impotence, ranting about the glorified violence and overt sexual content of movies that he never actually saw. I want to raise my arms in triumph and take a victory lap around the beach, but there is the rest of the day ahead of us, tomorrow, and then the trip home. I grab a sandwich and a soda from the cooler, and find a spot away from the rest of the group where I can eat my lunch in peace. Before long, Boomer joins me. He seems to have an intuitive knowledge of the conflict that has now broken the surface tension of our familial relations. “You know,” he says, “I would never guess you guys are related.” “What do you mean?” “Well, you don’t look much like them. They’re both tall, over six feet, they’re thin, wiry. And you’re about my size, five seven or eight. Built like a bull. I think you can probably break your older brother in half. Plus, you can’t say that your personality is anything like theirs.” “That’s about it. I love them, they’re family, but these trips get harder and harder. My politics are about the opposite of theirs, and that’s all they talk about. It’s like I’m not even here.” “You know,” says Boomer, “my older brother and I are just about like you and Bob, oil and water, but my brother used to get real physical, beat on me, because he was always bigger. One day, about five years ago, he was being his usual asshole self, talking down to me, and I finally decided that I’d had enough. I laid him out with one punch, about twenty years of frustration behind it. About a month later, he called me up, crying, and apologized for being an overbearing asshole for all those years.” “Must have felt good,” I say. I stand up and look down towards the boats. Everyone looks about ready to load up. Bob is just down river, he’s skipped lunch to fish the pocket water about twenty yards downstream. Snow has begun to fall on us, and I marvel at the quiet the snow has brought along with it. As Boomer and I reach our boat, I hear Dad ask Bob about his morning, how many fish he caught. “I caught nine, mostly Browns,” Bob shouts, “four over fifteen inches, and I lost two others.” “How many for you, Tom?” Dad asks. “I don’t know, I didn’t count.” Bob hears my answer, then adds to it. “He caught fourteen. Eight over fifteen inches, and most of them rainbows. He always catches more fish.” I can tell that it pains Bob to admit this. Even fishing to him is a competition. It bothers him more that for me it’s not. The snow has built up in a thin layer across the bow of the boat. I look up to the ridge, watching the flakes scatter down to the shore, or melt as they reach the water. The pine trees stand like sentinels on canyon walls. Maybe I should say something to make peace, tell Bob that he’s a great fly fisherman, that Michael Moore is a self righteous idiot, tell Dad that I’d love to shoot a round of golf with him some day, but I am silent, like snow. * * * The hush of the snowfall has brought us all to quiet. Not much is said as we load up for the drive back to the lodge. Bob is driving, and he guns the Expedition up the canyon, towards the top of the dam. The road hugs the side of the canyon, and I look out the back window down to the river. There are still fishermen out on the water, casting to trout as sunlight fades behind clouds and canyon walls. There is a small contingent of security guards standing at the section of the road that leads over the dam, and Bob slows the car as we reach them. There are three guards, and one of them breaks from the group to approach us. He is wearing mirrored sunglasses, his hair is buzzed short, and he’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt, as if impervious to the falling snow. He gives a serious look through the passenger side window, and when he sees Dad, he breaks into a grin and waves us through. Dad chuckles a bit at the sight of the guards, and then throws a joke, “Everybody on the lookout for low flying planes...” I haven’t read the paper for days. Is the current terror alert on yellow or orange? I don’t know, but I take a moment to imagine the dam bursting and flooding out Northeast Utah, no more Flaming Gorge Recreation Area, no more Green River for the fly fishermen to fish, no more lights for the condos and million dollar chalets lining all the ski resorts, no more power for Provo and Salt Lake City... “What a nightmare it would be if some terrorist took out this dam,” says Bob, “except, of course, for the environmentalists. They’d just love that.” We reach the other side of the dam and begin a gradual climb into the mountains. The road winds up and out of the canyon and we emerge into a forest of trees. A mule deer is on the road before us, and Bob has to honk the horn to get its attention. It finally runs off into the trees, and we all watch it dance away. We see another deer, and then another, and then all around us, deer. I have never seen so many at one time, down in the trees, up on the slopes, standing at the side of the road. They ignore us as we slowly pass, and another walks out in front of us. Bob honks, flashes his headlights, stopping just in time. “They must come down to the road because it retains heat,” says John. My mind wanders back to my reading on the plane, ...they wanted to have a road up through our country...They told us that they wanted only to use a little land, as much as a wagon would take between the wheels, but our people knew better. And when you look about you now, you can see what it was they wanted. Dad works the radio, searching for a clear station. He lands on the voice of George W. fumbling through a speech, explaining that we only intend to occupy Iraq until the newly liberated populous can fend for themselves. Bob adjusts the rear view mirror, and I can see him now looking directly at me, “I don’t care if he can’t speak clearly, or that he was a drug user, or that he barely made it out of college, Florida and Enron, I just care that he makes the right decisions, that’s all that matters. So far, he’s done that. He’s just what we need right now. Everything else is bullshit!” I think about the speech Junior made two days before the war began, the one where he mispronounced “nuclear” seventy-five times. Newcular newcular newcular. That’s how they say it down in Texas. Don’t mess with Texas. Y’all. As if on cue, the tension is broken when we drive into a new herd. But this time, it’s a herd of elk. There are dozens of them, surrounding us. I’ve never seen elk up close, and they are bigger and more regal than I’ve ever imagined, their heads are as high as the SUV. One wanders out onto the road ahead and faces us, staring at us in the twilight. Bob flashes the lights, honks the horn, but the elk holds its ground. I am a Lakota of the Ogalala band. My father’s name was Black Elk, and his father before him bore the name, and the father of his father, so that I am the fourth to bear it. Coda The plane approaches LAX, gliding above suburban sprawl, following the 105 freeway. An offshore wind has blown the brown, chewable air out into the Santa Monica Bay, and the city is unusually clear. I can see the twin towers in Century City, and Downtown L.A. skyscrapers glisten in the distance like the Emerald City in the Land of Oz. There is still a hint of snow on the surrounding mountains, but I focus on the Hollywood sign, its white letters blazing on the foothills announce that this is the land of dreams, where millions have come to make a life of pretend and pretension. This is the very place that drove Hemingway, with its failed renditions of his once clear, lucid prose, into self-doubt and electroshock therapy. Dad has hired a town car to shuttle us home in luxury, and we are met by the driver, dressed in a black suit and flashing a sign with our name on it, at Baggage Claim. We retrieve our bags and find our way out to the curb. We are waiting, reasonably, for the driver to bring the car, and I re-acclimate to the surroundings I left just five days ago. There is no more Green River, there are no more trout rising, no regal elk standing in the road. Instead there are buses, taxis, cars, and swarming masses of people making their way out into the city and suburbs beyond. Next to us is a group of African Americans, all home from a long trip, their luggage is piled on the curb before them. The cop standing behind us is African American as well, and he looks about the size of an N.F.L. lineman. He walks up to us and smiles, “Good afternoon, gentlemen. And how are you this fine day?” He sees our fly rods resting against our bags. “Looks like you’ve been fishing. How was it?” “Great,” says Dad, “we were at the Green River in Utah....” Dad is about to continue, when an Acura sedan pulls up in front of the group of African Americans. A pretty girl with cornrowed hair and a bright smile jumps out of the driver’s seat to greet them. “Hey, y’all!” A man in the group shouts back in protest, “Yo yo yo! Damn girl, done took yo’ sweet time!” The cop has moved beyond earshot, but just to be sure, Dad lowers his head to my ear, his voice nearly a whisper, “How come some of them speak so well, and others talk like Yo, yo, yo...done took yo sweet time...?” My father, who loves Hemingway, who lives unchanging and without apology, who speaks Spanish and Russian fluently, who is on the board of directors of his country club, who looks forward to playing golf with Bob next Sunday, who has a portrait of Reagan hanging on the wall of his den, who celebrates any good Rush Limbaugh diatribe, is entirely serious with this observation. I think about what to say, looking out on the stream of vehicles circling past the terminals, watching as our driver pulls the town car up in front of us, and decide that, still, all but one-eighth must remain beneath the surface. “I don’t know, Dad. I don’t know...”
Tom Sydow is creator and director of City Dialogues, a loose association of artists and writers who present collaborative multidisciplinary publications and shows, most recently at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Art Park. He currently teaches writing and literature at Potomac State College of West Virginia University. Previous publications can be found in DisOrient, Mosaic, and Riprap, under an assumed name….
Monday
Apr
29
