Tumbler, page 3
“Saw off his dick,” said Benetsee.
The guard looked at the old man.
“What?” he said.
Benetsee waved at the metal detector and he walked through it and he motioned for Du Pré to come along and he walked through and the thing was silent.
The guard looked at the old man.
Benetsee ignored him.
The metal detector began to crackle and buzz. It got louder and louder.
The guard looked at it and he frowned.
There were about twenty people in the courtroom. Most of them were journalists, crouched over their notebooks.
The two federal attorneys at their table looked up and nodded at Du Pré’s lawyer. They looked long and hard at Benetsee. The old man stood just in front of the two tables.
“All rise!” said the bailiff.
Everyone stood. The young judge came through the drapes and he went to his seat and he sat and nodded at the court.
The bailiff went to Benetsee and he whispered something to him.
Benetsee ignored him.
The judge was trying not to notice the old man, who, in his beads and quills and buckskins, was very hard to miss.
The bailiff motioned to some guards at the back of the room.
The guards began to walk toward the bailiff and the old man who would not move.
The guards took hold of Benetsee’s arms.
They began to pull the old man away.
Benetsee did not move.
The guards looked at each other, puzzled.
They took better stances and they pulled.
Benetsee did not move.
The metal detector began to crackle and buzz even louder than it had.
The security guard reached down and the metal detector went silent.
There were three windows on the east wall of the room, high ones, open on their pivots, so that the metal and glass window was set at about a forty-five-degree angle from level.
Du Pré saw a shadow.
A huge golden eagle landed at the window, grabbing the frame in its yellow talons. The big bird folded its wings and looked calmly down into the room.
“Judge Clemens,” said one of the government attorneys, “I move—”
The judge waved at him.
“Sir,” he said, looking at Benetsee, “I have heard of you. Now, I think you have something to say to the court, and of course you may.”
“Your honor!” said the federal attorney.
“Us, only,” said Benetsee.
The judge looked at the old man.
“Bailiff,” he said, “please clear the courtroom.”
“Your honor!” said the federal attorney.
“This is an ex parte hearing,” said the judge.
“This is irregular,” said the federal attorney.
“Tell ya what, Ralph,” said the judge, “you get an eagle to come and sit on the window up there and I’ll grant you your own ex parte. Until then, get your ass out of here. Miss Held …”
The court reporter looked up.
“Note I told Ralph to get his ass out of here,” said the judge.
“Yes, your honor,” said the reporter.
The bailiff was herding journalists and lawyers out the doors.
Du Pré went, along with his attorney.
“Mr. Benetsee,” said the judge, “could I ask you a favor? I do need a record of this. May Miss Held stay?”
“Yah,” said Benetsee.
The crowd out in the hall was joined by the bailiff, who shut the doors and stood in front of them.
The federal attorneys and Massingham were standing together saying things like I don’t believe this.
“Who is that old Indian, I mean Native American?” said a woman to Du Pré. She had a tape recorder on her purse.
“Him Indian,” said Du Pré, “them Native Americans teach writing at colleges. He is Indian.”
“What kind of Indian?” said the woman.
“Pain-in-the-ass Indian,” said Du Pré.
“Does he have a pet eagle?” she said.
Du Pré shook his head.
The security guard’s radio squawked.
“… There’s three coyotes in the parking lot … We’ve called Animal Control … Don’t let anyone leave the building. They may be rabid.”
Du Pré laughed.
The woman reporter came close.
“I want to talk to that old man,” she said.
“Non,” said Du Pré, “you do not, believe me.”
“What is going on in there?” said one of the journalists.
“… Six coyotes in the parking lot now …” said the radio.
CHAPTER 6
“THE JUDGE GRANTED A continuance,” said Massingham. “That gives us another six months.”
Du Pré nodded.
They were seated at a big round table in a fancy restaurant. The waitresses all wore black bodices and flaring skirts. The food was awful.
Du Pré ate a little more of his fruity goulash and he had some beer.
“Where did Benetsee go?” said Massingham. “I thought he rode down here with you.”
“Him come and go,” said Du Pré.
Old piece of shit turn into an eagle and fly home, Du Pré thought, it is faster and makes me crazy, too.
“He spoke with the judge for ten minutes,” said Massingham, “and he must have gone out through the judge’s chambers.”
Massingham ate a chunk of his heavy German food.
Du Pré looked at his goulash.
I am in the army, Germany, he thought, I eat this crap, wonder why we don’t just shoot them all. Crime against humanity, this food.
“Good god,” said Massingham. He looked toward the entrance.
The judge and Benetsee were standing there, and then the hostess took them to a table over by the window. Diners looked up from their plates and marveled at the little old man in his buckskins.
Massingham sighed.
“That old fellow has a considerable moral force,” he said, “but as your attorney, I really would appreciate knowing what is going on. If you find out, do let me know.”
Du Pré nodded.
“You win,” he said to the goulash, and he got up.
He shook Massingham’s hand and he went over to the table where the judge and the medicine person were going to have lunch.
The judge looked up and he nodded.
“Old man,” said Du Pré, “I, me, am about to maybe go, jail, and I do not want to do that.”
Benetsee grinned.
“Builds character,” said Benetsee. “Food got lots, vitamins, I hear.”
The judge began to laugh.
“Goddamn it,” said Du Pré. “This is not funny.”
“You are whining,” said Benetsee. “Sit down and shut up. Me, judge here, having lunch, discussing, white men call it.”
Du Pré pulled out the faux chair and he sat down.
“How long this take, anyway?” said Du Pré.
Benetsee looked at him.
“You got your job,” he said. “Don’t got to complain so much. We are here until we are done. Then you drive me home maybe.”
Du Pré nodded. He wanted a smoke but not before the others at the table ate.
The barmaid came.
“Big whiskey,” said Du Pré.
“Menu?” she said.
“Non,” said Du Pré.
She went away.
The judge steepled his fingers, his elbows on the thick white tablecloth.
“Benetsee tells me,” he said, “that the lost journals and so forth may be returned in six months but for now they figure in another case which has precedence.”
Du Pré looked at the old man.
“Nineteen eleven,” said Benetsee.
Du Pré looked at the floor.
Nineteen eleven. Black Jack Pershing, some soldiers, round up the Métis don’t got papers, prove they are American, put four hundred, boxcars. It is the winter, cold, send them to Red River country, North Dakota, drive them north to the Canada border. Eighty-three people die, old people, children, from the cold.
“I did not know,” said the judge.
“Two Métis corpses they are not buried,” said Benetsee. “They are taken, that Washington, D.C. Made into skeletons. Now they are in boxes there. They got to come back.”
“The great age of grave robbing,” said the judge. “Called anthropology then and now.”
Du Pré looked at Benetsee.
“This is old bones?” he said.
Benetsee looked sad for a moment and then he smiled.
“Want their bones back home, them,” he said.
“Ah,” said Du Pré. Souls, ghosts, speak to Benetsee, that is it.
Bring us home.
The barmaid brought Du Pré’s whiskey.
Du Pré sipped it.
“Who these people are?” he said to Benetsee.
“Métis want to come home,” said Benetsee. And he grinned. He drank some white wine from his tulip glass.
Du Pré shrugged.
This is not all the story, he thought. I find the rest in time.
The judge leaned back and let the waitress set down his platter.
Benetsee did the same.
Pork tenderloin on sauerkraut.
“I’m not certain,” said the judge, “just what case Benetsee means. My staff is researching it.”
Benetsee was eating and he didn’t reply.
“As soon as we rose to go in the courtroom,” said the judge, “the eagle left and the coyotes were gone, I was told, just like that. They were sitting like statues, looking up at the eagle. And then they were gone, just like that.”
Du Pré nodded.
“Mister Benetsee?” said the judge.
“Mister is whiteman talk,” said Benetsee. “I am Benetsee.”
“So you are,” said the judge. “I don’t mean to be rude, but … I would like to ask Mr. Du Pré some questions, and don’t wish to have you feel I am doing so in front of you. Some of them concern you.”
“Him don’t know gopher fart’s worth about anything,” said Benetsee. “I got to waste my time with him. You want to, go ahead.”
Du Pré laughed.
“If this indeed is about the return of some bones stolen by those charming people whose gross racism excused the ransacking of graves and the stealing of corpses, back then,” said the judge, “and there is another case, it is still a most peculiar demand. It smells of extortion, actually. I wonder if I could possibly make any sense of this in terms of the law.”
Benetsee looked up from his plate.
“You don’t got to,” he said, “it is all right.”
“I was not about to throw an aged and holy person in the slam,” said the judge. “God alone knows how many damn coyotes that would have brought into town.”
Du Pré nodded.
“Them ain’t too bad,” he said, “but them skunks, they are.”
“Skunks,” said the judge.
Benetsee was wolfing down his pork tenderloin.
“Have you known Benetsee for a long time?” said the judge.
“Too long,” said Du Pré. “I will shoot him just as soon as we are past, city limits.”
The judge roared with laughter.
“Do you know what this is about?” said the judge.
Du Pré shook his head.
“What then should I do?” said the judge.
Du Pré sighed.
“Medicine people,” he said, “they maybe do things, call it magic maybe, but … they cannot do it for evil, or to feed their own greed.”
The judge looked intently at Du Pré.
“You believe Benetsee can perform … magic?” said the judge.
“Check your window,” said Du Pré. “Got eagle shit on it. Eagle, they eat so much they shit all the time.”
The judge nodded.
“But you say if … a medicine person does anything … immoral … they lose their powers,” said the judge.
Du Pré nodded.
“God,” said the judge, “we could use that in Washington, D.C.”
Du Pré laughed.
Benetsee ate. He had some more white wine.
“Damn it,” said the judge, “something will have to be done within six months.”
Du Pré nodded.
“You two,” said Benetsee, “worry too much. You eat, drink. It is fine, you know.”
“What other case do these artifacts figure in, really?” said the judge.
“Him smarter than you,” said Benetsee, looking at Du Pré.
The judge threw up his hands.
“Case hasn’t happened yet,” said Benetsee. “You two, worry too much.”
CHAPTER 7
“NICE NEW HOLE THERE,” said Du Pré, squinting at the back window of Bassman’s van.
Bassman set the heavy amplifier in the back of the van and he shoved it in to the wheel blocks.
“Yah,” he said. “Another, the front there. Good thing you are not sitting, the passenger seat.”
Du Pré looked through the van and he saw the hole in the windshield. It was about neck high for a passenger.
“You got any holes?” said Du Pré.
“Bunch of them,” said Bassman. “Born with them all. Kim didn’t add none.”
“She is still gunning for you?” said Du Pré.
“I take the gun away,” said Bassman, “tell her, cut it out I am get mad soon. She cries. Calls me a shit. Says Bassman, you got to marry me. I say, look, man marries a woman, she starts in on him, get a job, go to work, every day, make money, save money, all that shit I am not good at. So, I don’t marry you, you are not so angry all the time. You marry me, you will be.”
“Oh,” said Du Pré.
“So,” said Bassman, “she is the saloon, having a drink, while I am out here getting the stuff. That is the way it should be.”
“Them poor people, the roadhouse,” said Du Pré, “they are shitting pickles. Good thing Madelaine grabs them, the cops be all over you. Dope you got all the time, I be playing Deer Lodge Prison with you.”
“God watch over me,” said Bassman. “Now, I am through, packing my shit here. You want to give me the rest of the sermon, you do it while I am sucking on a beer.”
“OK,” said Du Pré.
“Shut up,” said Bassman. “You are my cousin, they kill each other a lot. Read the papers. I couldn’t take, no more, his bullshit.” Bassman got in his van. Du Pré got in front. He looked at the hole in the windshield.”
“Insurance cover this?” said Du Pré.
Bassman started the engine.
“Insurance. They got this law, North Dakota, you can’t get no insurance, you don’t have driver’s license,” said Bassman.
Du Pré nodded.
“They got no manners there,” said Bassman. “I play good, you know, do this gig, South Dakota, I am driving along home, cop pulls me over. I got this hole, the floor, drop the dope out on the highway. Makes my throat dry, I have beer, drop the bottle out, the highway. So I am a clean ver’ law-abiding citizen. Cop, little sawed-off white prick, he say you walk down that white line. He don’t like the way, me, Bassman, walk. He take me to jail. Tells me, blow in this tube. Me, I say you go blow, dead coyote, you.”
Bassman drove on up the street.
“So,” said Bassman, “things, they sort of fall apart after that.”
Bassman parked by the Toussaint Saloon.
“So they take my driver’s license,” said Bassman, “and the rude fucker don’t give it back.”
Du Pré laughed.
“Insurance,” said Bassman.
They went on in.
Bassman’s burlap blonde was sitting at the bar talking to Madelaine and Bart and a girl Du Pré didn’t know.
Bart’s niece, Du Pré thought.
Sour-looking kid. Pissed-off-looking kid.
Du Pré and Bassman stood at the bar. Madelaine brought a ditch for Du Pré and a beer for Bassman.
Bart and the girl got off their stools and came over.
“My niece Julie,” said Bart.
Julie found something fascinating and urgent on the floor six inches or so in front of her black-painted toenails. She tugged at a silver stud punched through her lower lip.
“This is Mr. Du Pré,” said Bart, “and Bassman. Fine musicians.”
Julie mumbled something.
“Kim,” said Bassman to his burlap blonde, “you maybe take this shitbrain kid out, talk to her.”
“Sure,” said Kim, getting down. She grabbed Julie by the shoulder and shoved her out the side door before the girl knew she was moving.
“Kim got a couple of those,” said Bassman, “nails in their heads and shit. She knows, talking to them.”
“Ah …,” said Bart.
“Bart,” said Madelaine, “it is all right. Come here. Talk to Madelaine. Drink your soda pop. You got about as much brains to deal with that little bitch as that stuffed moose head over there. You let me, Kim, handle this.”
“OK,” said Bart.
“Don’t get smart,” said Madelaine, “don’t say to yourself, ah, me, Bart, me, I know what to do now. You don’t never know.”
“OK,” said Bart.
Madelaine patted his hand.
“You make a good husband and father someday,” said Madelaine.
“What are Kim’s kids … doing?” said Bart. He was looking hard at Bassman.
Bassman sighed.
“Ver’ disappointing,” he said. “Boy, he got music in him, but Kim she terrify the little shit into doing good in school. He gets over being scared, starts to like school. He is at that University of Wisconsin, studying uranium. Bombs and shit.”
“Physics?” said Bart.
“Yeah, that,” said Bassman. “I thought physics was that shit you give horses, make them puke.”
“Oh,” said Bart.
“Girl, she is getting that nursing degree, so she can be a doctor,” said Bassman.
“Pre-med?” said Bart.
Bassman shrugged.
Bart looked at Bassman.
“What the fuck is Kim doing with you?” said Bart.
“Shooting at me, some of the time. She like the music,” said Bassman. “I got this huge dick, too.”
“She tell you that?” said Madelaine.
“She ain’t the only one,” said Bassman.
“Bassman,” said Madelaine, “you go on, play that good music, dodge them bullets, shit like that. You are so dumb, Kim about got to water you twice a month is all.”
The guard looked at the old man.
“What?” he said.
Benetsee waved at the metal detector and he walked through it and he motioned for Du Pré to come along and he walked through and the thing was silent.
The guard looked at the old man.
Benetsee ignored him.
The metal detector began to crackle and buzz. It got louder and louder.
The guard looked at it and he frowned.
There were about twenty people in the courtroom. Most of them were journalists, crouched over their notebooks.
The two federal attorneys at their table looked up and nodded at Du Pré’s lawyer. They looked long and hard at Benetsee. The old man stood just in front of the two tables.
“All rise!” said the bailiff.
Everyone stood. The young judge came through the drapes and he went to his seat and he sat and nodded at the court.
The bailiff went to Benetsee and he whispered something to him.
Benetsee ignored him.
The judge was trying not to notice the old man, who, in his beads and quills and buckskins, was very hard to miss.
The bailiff motioned to some guards at the back of the room.
The guards began to walk toward the bailiff and the old man who would not move.
The guards took hold of Benetsee’s arms.
They began to pull the old man away.
Benetsee did not move.
The guards looked at each other, puzzled.
They took better stances and they pulled.
Benetsee did not move.
The metal detector began to crackle and buzz even louder than it had.
The security guard reached down and the metal detector went silent.
There were three windows on the east wall of the room, high ones, open on their pivots, so that the metal and glass window was set at about a forty-five-degree angle from level.
Du Pré saw a shadow.
A huge golden eagle landed at the window, grabbing the frame in its yellow talons. The big bird folded its wings and looked calmly down into the room.
“Judge Clemens,” said one of the government attorneys, “I move—”
The judge waved at him.
“Sir,” he said, looking at Benetsee, “I have heard of you. Now, I think you have something to say to the court, and of course you may.”
“Your honor!” said the federal attorney.
“Us, only,” said Benetsee.
The judge looked at the old man.
“Bailiff,” he said, “please clear the courtroom.”
“Your honor!” said the federal attorney.
“This is an ex parte hearing,” said the judge.
“This is irregular,” said the federal attorney.
“Tell ya what, Ralph,” said the judge, “you get an eagle to come and sit on the window up there and I’ll grant you your own ex parte. Until then, get your ass out of here. Miss Held …”
The court reporter looked up.
“Note I told Ralph to get his ass out of here,” said the judge.
“Yes, your honor,” said the reporter.
The bailiff was herding journalists and lawyers out the doors.
Du Pré went, along with his attorney.
“Mr. Benetsee,” said the judge, “could I ask you a favor? I do need a record of this. May Miss Held stay?”
“Yah,” said Benetsee.
The crowd out in the hall was joined by the bailiff, who shut the doors and stood in front of them.
The federal attorneys and Massingham were standing together saying things like I don’t believe this.
“Who is that old Indian, I mean Native American?” said a woman to Du Pré. She had a tape recorder on her purse.
“Him Indian,” said Du Pré, “them Native Americans teach writing at colleges. He is Indian.”
“What kind of Indian?” said the woman.
“Pain-in-the-ass Indian,” said Du Pré.
“Does he have a pet eagle?” she said.
Du Pré shook his head.
The security guard’s radio squawked.
“… There’s three coyotes in the parking lot … We’ve called Animal Control … Don’t let anyone leave the building. They may be rabid.”
Du Pré laughed.
The woman reporter came close.
“I want to talk to that old man,” she said.
“Non,” said Du Pré, “you do not, believe me.”
“What is going on in there?” said one of the journalists.
“… Six coyotes in the parking lot now …” said the radio.
CHAPTER 6
“THE JUDGE GRANTED A continuance,” said Massingham. “That gives us another six months.”
Du Pré nodded.
They were seated at a big round table in a fancy restaurant. The waitresses all wore black bodices and flaring skirts. The food was awful.
Du Pré ate a little more of his fruity goulash and he had some beer.
“Where did Benetsee go?” said Massingham. “I thought he rode down here with you.”
“Him come and go,” said Du Pré.
Old piece of shit turn into an eagle and fly home, Du Pré thought, it is faster and makes me crazy, too.
“He spoke with the judge for ten minutes,” said Massingham, “and he must have gone out through the judge’s chambers.”
Massingham ate a chunk of his heavy German food.
Du Pré looked at his goulash.
I am in the army, Germany, he thought, I eat this crap, wonder why we don’t just shoot them all. Crime against humanity, this food.
“Good god,” said Massingham. He looked toward the entrance.
The judge and Benetsee were standing there, and then the hostess took them to a table over by the window. Diners looked up from their plates and marveled at the little old man in his buckskins.
Massingham sighed.
“That old fellow has a considerable moral force,” he said, “but as your attorney, I really would appreciate knowing what is going on. If you find out, do let me know.”
Du Pré nodded.
“You win,” he said to the goulash, and he got up.
He shook Massingham’s hand and he went over to the table where the judge and the medicine person were going to have lunch.
The judge looked up and he nodded.
“Old man,” said Du Pré, “I, me, am about to maybe go, jail, and I do not want to do that.”
Benetsee grinned.
“Builds character,” said Benetsee. “Food got lots, vitamins, I hear.”
The judge began to laugh.
“Goddamn it,” said Du Pré. “This is not funny.”
“You are whining,” said Benetsee. “Sit down and shut up. Me, judge here, having lunch, discussing, white men call it.”
Du Pré pulled out the faux chair and he sat down.
“How long this take, anyway?” said Du Pré.
Benetsee looked at him.
“You got your job,” he said. “Don’t got to complain so much. We are here until we are done. Then you drive me home maybe.”
Du Pré nodded. He wanted a smoke but not before the others at the table ate.
The barmaid came.
“Big whiskey,” said Du Pré.
“Menu?” she said.
“Non,” said Du Pré.
She went away.
The judge steepled his fingers, his elbows on the thick white tablecloth.
“Benetsee tells me,” he said, “that the lost journals and so forth may be returned in six months but for now they figure in another case which has precedence.”
Du Pré looked at the old man.
“Nineteen eleven,” said Benetsee.
Du Pré looked at the floor.
Nineteen eleven. Black Jack Pershing, some soldiers, round up the Métis don’t got papers, prove they are American, put four hundred, boxcars. It is the winter, cold, send them to Red River country, North Dakota, drive them north to the Canada border. Eighty-three people die, old people, children, from the cold.
“I did not know,” said the judge.
“Two Métis corpses they are not buried,” said Benetsee. “They are taken, that Washington, D.C. Made into skeletons. Now they are in boxes there. They got to come back.”
“The great age of grave robbing,” said the judge. “Called anthropology then and now.”
Du Pré looked at Benetsee.
“This is old bones?” he said.
Benetsee looked sad for a moment and then he smiled.
“Want their bones back home, them,” he said.
“Ah,” said Du Pré. Souls, ghosts, speak to Benetsee, that is it.
Bring us home.
The barmaid brought Du Pré’s whiskey.
Du Pré sipped it.
“Who these people are?” he said to Benetsee.
“Métis want to come home,” said Benetsee. And he grinned. He drank some white wine from his tulip glass.
Du Pré shrugged.
This is not all the story, he thought. I find the rest in time.
The judge leaned back and let the waitress set down his platter.
Benetsee did the same.
Pork tenderloin on sauerkraut.
“I’m not certain,” said the judge, “just what case Benetsee means. My staff is researching it.”
Benetsee was eating and he didn’t reply.
“As soon as we rose to go in the courtroom,” said the judge, “the eagle left and the coyotes were gone, I was told, just like that. They were sitting like statues, looking up at the eagle. And then they were gone, just like that.”
Du Pré nodded.
“Mister Benetsee?” said the judge.
“Mister is whiteman talk,” said Benetsee. “I am Benetsee.”
“So you are,” said the judge. “I don’t mean to be rude, but … I would like to ask Mr. Du Pré some questions, and don’t wish to have you feel I am doing so in front of you. Some of them concern you.”
“Him don’t know gopher fart’s worth about anything,” said Benetsee. “I got to waste my time with him. You want to, go ahead.”
Du Pré laughed.
“If this indeed is about the return of some bones stolen by those charming people whose gross racism excused the ransacking of graves and the stealing of corpses, back then,” said the judge, “and there is another case, it is still a most peculiar demand. It smells of extortion, actually. I wonder if I could possibly make any sense of this in terms of the law.”
Benetsee looked up from his plate.
“You don’t got to,” he said, “it is all right.”
“I was not about to throw an aged and holy person in the slam,” said the judge. “God alone knows how many damn coyotes that would have brought into town.”
Du Pré nodded.
“Them ain’t too bad,” he said, “but them skunks, they are.”
“Skunks,” said the judge.
Benetsee was wolfing down his pork tenderloin.
“Have you known Benetsee for a long time?” said the judge.
“Too long,” said Du Pré. “I will shoot him just as soon as we are past, city limits.”
The judge roared with laughter.
“Do you know what this is about?” said the judge.
Du Pré shook his head.
“What then should I do?” said the judge.
Du Pré sighed.
“Medicine people,” he said, “they maybe do things, call it magic maybe, but … they cannot do it for evil, or to feed their own greed.”
The judge looked intently at Du Pré.
“You believe Benetsee can perform … magic?” said the judge.
“Check your window,” said Du Pré. “Got eagle shit on it. Eagle, they eat so much they shit all the time.”
The judge nodded.
“But you say if … a medicine person does anything … immoral … they lose their powers,” said the judge.
Du Pré nodded.
“God,” said the judge, “we could use that in Washington, D.C.”
Du Pré laughed.
Benetsee ate. He had some more white wine.
“Damn it,” said the judge, “something will have to be done within six months.”
Du Pré nodded.
“You two,” said Benetsee, “worry too much. You eat, drink. It is fine, you know.”
“What other case do these artifacts figure in, really?” said the judge.
“Him smarter than you,” said Benetsee, looking at Du Pré.
The judge threw up his hands.
“Case hasn’t happened yet,” said Benetsee. “You two, worry too much.”
CHAPTER 7
“NICE NEW HOLE THERE,” said Du Pré, squinting at the back window of Bassman’s van.
Bassman set the heavy amplifier in the back of the van and he shoved it in to the wheel blocks.
“Yah,” he said. “Another, the front there. Good thing you are not sitting, the passenger seat.”
Du Pré looked through the van and he saw the hole in the windshield. It was about neck high for a passenger.
“You got any holes?” said Du Pré.
“Bunch of them,” said Bassman. “Born with them all. Kim didn’t add none.”
“She is still gunning for you?” said Du Pré.
“I take the gun away,” said Bassman, “tell her, cut it out I am get mad soon. She cries. Calls me a shit. Says Bassman, you got to marry me. I say, look, man marries a woman, she starts in on him, get a job, go to work, every day, make money, save money, all that shit I am not good at. So, I don’t marry you, you are not so angry all the time. You marry me, you will be.”
“Oh,” said Du Pré.
“So,” said Bassman, “she is the saloon, having a drink, while I am out here getting the stuff. That is the way it should be.”
“Them poor people, the roadhouse,” said Du Pré, “they are shitting pickles. Good thing Madelaine grabs them, the cops be all over you. Dope you got all the time, I be playing Deer Lodge Prison with you.”
“God watch over me,” said Bassman. “Now, I am through, packing my shit here. You want to give me the rest of the sermon, you do it while I am sucking on a beer.”
“OK,” said Du Pré.
“Shut up,” said Bassman. “You are my cousin, they kill each other a lot. Read the papers. I couldn’t take, no more, his bullshit.” Bassman got in his van. Du Pré got in front. He looked at the hole in the windshield.”
“Insurance cover this?” said Du Pré.
Bassman started the engine.
“Insurance. They got this law, North Dakota, you can’t get no insurance, you don’t have driver’s license,” said Bassman.
Du Pré nodded.
“They got no manners there,” said Bassman. “I play good, you know, do this gig, South Dakota, I am driving along home, cop pulls me over. I got this hole, the floor, drop the dope out on the highway. Makes my throat dry, I have beer, drop the bottle out, the highway. So I am a clean ver’ law-abiding citizen. Cop, little sawed-off white prick, he say you walk down that white line. He don’t like the way, me, Bassman, walk. He take me to jail. Tells me, blow in this tube. Me, I say you go blow, dead coyote, you.”
Bassman drove on up the street.
“So,” said Bassman, “things, they sort of fall apart after that.”
Bassman parked by the Toussaint Saloon.
“So they take my driver’s license,” said Bassman, “and the rude fucker don’t give it back.”
Du Pré laughed.
“Insurance,” said Bassman.
They went on in.
Bassman’s burlap blonde was sitting at the bar talking to Madelaine and Bart and a girl Du Pré didn’t know.
Bart’s niece, Du Pré thought.
Sour-looking kid. Pissed-off-looking kid.
Du Pré and Bassman stood at the bar. Madelaine brought a ditch for Du Pré and a beer for Bassman.
Bart and the girl got off their stools and came over.
“My niece Julie,” said Bart.
Julie found something fascinating and urgent on the floor six inches or so in front of her black-painted toenails. She tugged at a silver stud punched through her lower lip.
“This is Mr. Du Pré,” said Bart, “and Bassman. Fine musicians.”
Julie mumbled something.
“Kim,” said Bassman to his burlap blonde, “you maybe take this shitbrain kid out, talk to her.”
“Sure,” said Kim, getting down. She grabbed Julie by the shoulder and shoved her out the side door before the girl knew she was moving.
“Kim got a couple of those,” said Bassman, “nails in their heads and shit. She knows, talking to them.”
“Ah …,” said Bart.
“Bart,” said Madelaine, “it is all right. Come here. Talk to Madelaine. Drink your soda pop. You got about as much brains to deal with that little bitch as that stuffed moose head over there. You let me, Kim, handle this.”
“OK,” said Bart.
“Don’t get smart,” said Madelaine, “don’t say to yourself, ah, me, Bart, me, I know what to do now. You don’t never know.”
“OK,” said Bart.
Madelaine patted his hand.
“You make a good husband and father someday,” said Madelaine.
“What are Kim’s kids … doing?” said Bart. He was looking hard at Bassman.
Bassman sighed.
“Ver’ disappointing,” he said. “Boy, he got music in him, but Kim she terrify the little shit into doing good in school. He gets over being scared, starts to like school. He is at that University of Wisconsin, studying uranium. Bombs and shit.”
“Physics?” said Bart.
“Yeah, that,” said Bassman. “I thought physics was that shit you give horses, make them puke.”
“Oh,” said Bart.
“Girl, she is getting that nursing degree, so she can be a doctor,” said Bassman.
“Pre-med?” said Bart.
Bassman shrugged.
Bart looked at Bassman.
“What the fuck is Kim doing with you?” said Bart.
“Shooting at me, some of the time. She like the music,” said Bassman. “I got this huge dick, too.”
“She tell you that?” said Madelaine.
“She ain’t the only one,” said Bassman.
“Bassman,” said Madelaine, “you go on, play that good music, dodge them bullets, shit like that. You are so dumb, Kim about got to water you twice a month is all.”
