Tom Robbins - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

The noise is closer yet. .

Sissy sits up in her bedroll. Delores is awake now, also.

And out on the Siwash Trail, following by flashlight a map hand-drawn in minute detail by the only person who could have drawn it (Chink!), comes stumbling, crashing, falling, cursing and sniggering, Dr. Robbins, your author.

Having gathered all of the material for this book, Dr. Robbins waits not even for light of day, but plunges, mustache first, into dangerous Dakota darkness to reach Siwash Cave. For what purpose?

Does Dr. Robbins actually believe he will mate with Sissy, that it is his seed that will next ignite her egg, he who will be called daddy by the prophesied brood of big-thumbed babes? Does he believe that he will share the pagan stewardship of Siwash Ridge — and that he is the agent of Sissy Hankshaw's special destiny?

Dr. Robbins won't say what he believes. Except:

I believe in everything; nothing is sacred/I believe in nothing; everything is sacred.

Ha ha ho ho and hee hee.

SPECIAL BONUS PARABLE

IN A PLACE out of doors, near forests and meadows, stands a jar of vinegar — the emblem of life.

Confucius approaches the jar, dips his finger in and tastes the brew. “Sour,” he says. “Nonetheless, I can see where it could be very useful in preparing certain foods.”

Buddha comes to the vinegar jar, dips in a finger and has a taste. “Bitter,” is his comment. “It can cause suffering to the palate, and since suffering is to be avoided, the stuff should be disposed of at once.”

The next to stick a finger in the vinegar is Jesus Christ. “Yuk,” says Jesus. “It's both bitter and sour. It's not fit to drink. In order that no one else will have to drink it, I will drink it all myself.”

But now two people approach the jar, together, naked, hand in hand. The man has a beard and woolly legs like a goat. His long tongue is slightly swollen from some poetry he's been reciting. The woman wears a cowgirl hat, a necklace of feathers, a rosy complexion. Her tummy and tits bear the stretch marks of motherhood; she carries a basket of mushrooms and herbs. First the man and then the woman sticks a thumb into the vinegar. She licks his thumb and he hers. Initially they make a face, but almost immediately they break into wide grins. “It's sweet ,” they chime.

“Swee-eet!”

TOM ROBBINS has been called “a vital natural resource” by The Portland Oregonian, “one of the wildest and most entertaining novelists in the world” by the Financial Times of London, and “the most dangerous writer in the world today” by Fernanda Pivano of Italy's Corriere della Sera. A Southerner by birth, Robbins has lived in and around Seattle since 1962.