2005-02-23 9:57 p.m. �And here we have a lovely home,� says the lady, smiling all teeth, �but I must warn you that there is one tiny little matter you should know about. �This place is built on top of an Indian burial ground. �But then, so is the whole town. So you've got to deal with that most anywhere.� The young couple buys the house from the smiling-all-teeth lady anyway. They put away boxes, dig out their cutlery and take walks around the neighborhood to get a feel for the place. After a few weeks, the spooks make themselves known. They do the old blood-on-the-walls gimmick but the young couple isn�t scared of blood. They buy buckets of paint and do touch-up work wandering from room to room. Then it�s the voices from nowhere saying EH-HA-JAY. EH-HA-JAY. TAH-AH-KWO-DIH. �It's gibberish, wifey, pure gibberish.� And they eat their morning cereal in their robes and fuzzy slippers. Next door neighbor stops by with a basket of fruit (Welcome To The Neighborhood) and says �Oh yeah, well, the threat�s in Indian, isn't it. So that's why you don�t know what they�re saying.� In the basement, translucent braves, dead young men swirling and angry over the desecration. They have a meeting and gather resources. Wounded Feather is selected to take a journey on their behalf. He firms up his ectoplasm and then he's off to the local community college to learn English as a Second Language. A middle-aged Polish man, an Eastern European woman in a babushka who smells like pickles. An East Indian and a crowd of Mexicans. They all work in their notebooks and cast glances at Wounded Feather. The teacher asks them all to buddy up for conversation practice and notices that nobody wants to work with the seven foot tall man with feathers in his hair and eyes that glow. He just sits there alone, arms folded, the seat he�s sitting on visible through his chest like he was made of fog. After class, the teacher with his Ichabod Crane glasses storms into the principal's office to complain. He starts talking to the high back of the principal's chair, the principal looking out the window. �He means well, sure,� says the teacher, �and he shows a willingness to learn but Principal Anderson... he's a ghost of vengeance. How is he even paying for his tuition?� The principal's chair swings around and an Indian made of fog is sitting there, arms crossed, a fake moustache pinned to his upper lip, full headdress of feathers trailing over the chair's arms. "I am Great Chief Principal Anderson of Waukesha Community College. You know me well. I am the same as I ever was. And I say there are no problems with the teaching of this brave. Back to work, fellow paleface." �Well, I never,� says the teacher, but he comes to accept the arrangement. With time, he loses that nagging feeling that Anderson seemed different than usual. A bit more spectral. But there�s no mistaking that moustache. And besides, even if he didn�t agree with Anderson, there�s nowhere else to make his appeal, anyway. After all, the spirits had been on the campaign trail and now three of the five PTA members are ghost Indians, infiltrating the process, changing the system from the inside. VOTE FOR CHIEF WILD BOW. Signs all over the neighborhood. Wounded Feather goes back to the house and the blood now spells out threats in English. But progress is slow. Verb conjugation proves itself a harsh taskmaster. To express the desire that the young couple leave and that violence awaits them if they don�t heed the warning, the walls drip with: YOU TO GO �I'm a murderer?� asks the husband in his terrycloth robe. He takes a sip of coffee, then says, �Why, that's defamation! I'll sue him in whatever legal system these ghost Indians subscribe to! I need a ghost Indian lawyer!� PROBLEMS WITH MY FELLOW SPIRITS? HIRE THREE DOGS, LAWYER FOR HIRE. Ad seen on the sides of buses and on late night local cable channels. Meanwhile, ghost Indians join the rolls in elementary schools, knees pressed up to chests in the tiny chair-desks. A IS FOR APPLE. B IS FOR BANANA. Show and tell they bring in smallpox infested blankets and the kids all lean in a circle to touch, sitting Indian-style legs crossed. Good thing they're all vaccinated. Except for the Christian Scientist kid. The spirits of vengeance are most happy when he isn't taken to the emergency room. Basements and crawl spaces all over town are practically over-full with the spirits of the unhappy. Gets so that being a gas meter reader pays eighty thousand a year. Can't get an exterminator to crawl under there for less than one hundred and twenty grand a year. �Before you start this job,� says the recruiter, �we just want to make you aware of a few things. Your resume was fantastic, previous experience a plus, and we see you're a team player. But as with any job, there are a few quirks that you have to become familiar with. �If you're a mailman, you have to worry about dogs on the route. If you're a baker, you might never want to eat another donut again. And this town-- we have to deal with the ghost Indians. �The person who held the job before you... well... he mutilated his own genitals. �Same with the person who held the job before him. �Last three guys, actually. So what I want to know is whether or not you have a problem with this job possibly leading to your own genitals being mutilated. By you.� �All the previous guys mutilated themselves?� �Uhm� no. Maybe four guys back, a guy was actually eaten by a tree. Mostly eaten. About half eaten by a tree that came to life. It also sorta turned him inside out. Used to be that if you stood in the town square, on a quiet day you could hear him yelling, even though the tree was eight miles out of town. Out by Poncitawni Creek. �Somehow, he was kept alive for eight days like that. And the funny thing is, by the end of those eight days? He was perfectly fluent in Navajo. No kidding. �We taped some of the stuff he was yelling onto audio tape and sent it off. Experts told us he was begging for his life. So the possibility is there for personal enrichment as well, is the nice way to look at it.� The mayor holds meetings and hears stories. A young man, newly divorced, complains that the Indians broke up his marriage. "She never forgave me for the fact that I wanted us to stick around. I told her it would be easier to leave once the baseball season was over, because my weekends would be free. Me and my son Jason were watching a Braves game . . ." He chokes up. ". . . Jason was pulled into the TV in mid-Tomahawk Chop." Baseball season turned to football season and every station on the television showed Redskins games and when he wouldn't move, she left. It's all the Indians� fault, obviously. Had they just returned his son and stayed out of his TV, he wouldn't be eating microwave dinners alone. �We did bring in an exorcist,� says the mayor. �Didn't work. He was eaten by a tree.� The mayor complains to his secretary, �Have you seen these new creatures? The dog-men? They have heads like dogs and human bodies and can run on all fours? I haven't slept for weeks, I'm so tired. My legs are sore from all the running. I'll be in my backyard and this howl goes up and next thing I know, I'm running from dog-men. I bob, I weave, I sprint, I cross rivers. �Then they just catch up with me and one will hold up a scrap of cloth with my scent. And we just laugh. You gotta laugh. I just shrug, you know? Like, what are you going to do? Not run? Crazy. They got me!� The HR person at the gas company continues the interview. �One more thing you should know before starting is that Christian symbols have no effect on any manifestations you may encounter.� Peels open his own shirt to show a cross made out of scar tissue. �I cut this into myself during a particularly bed stretch. You see, I don't sleep anymore. Almost no one in town can. It's been weeks for me and after weeks of being awake, some things make sense that shouldn't. �It was only AFTER cutting the cross that I remembered, duh, they're a completely different culture. They don't recognize our sets of symbols and cultural touchstones. So that's why all our employees carry these beads. We think they might help. Also, wear more feathers.� Education pays off as ghost Indians manage to get letters to the editor published. WE TO BE ANGRY. WE TO REST CAN NOT. YOU TO GO OR WILL PAY. MUCH BLOOD. NO SLEEP. YOU TO GO NOW. But the housing is cheap and the people are friendly. Welcome, neighbor. You�ll get used to it. We�ve all gotten used to it. |
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