Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke

through the bush like he had a grenade up his ass.” “I don’t know. It’s his belief.” “He’ll get you stitched up,” Storm explained to the kid as the doctor

found his materials in the kitchen. “It’s gonna be unpleasant.”

The doctor came back dragging a bench with one hand and carrying a Pepsi bottle in the other. Between his lips he gripped a needle, thread hanging down from it. “Sit here, please.” He and the boy sat on the dirt floor and he rested the boy’s arm across the bench and lowered his suturing materials down into the bottle’s mouth. “I’m going to sterilize,” he said, and fished out the needle by its thread and immediately pinched closed the wound and ran the needle through the flesh. The kid inhaled through his teeth with a hiss, nothing more. “He is a stoic,” the scientist said.

“Can you talk to this guy? Translate for me, man.” “Of course.” “First off, who was that old woman he ran over with his motor

bike?” The two spoke, and the scientist said, “It was his grandmother.” “You’re shitting me. Who is this guy?” “He is not permitted to tell us his actual name. I know who he is. I

have heard of him. He’s traveling to a village up ahead.”

In silence, except for the boy’s hissing with each suture, the scientist finished his work. The wound was bloodless now, closed with five tight blue knots. Storm said, “That’s some number one stuff. You’re Elvis.”

“Yes. It’s good. Thank you.” The boy stood up and said a few words. “He says that from here we must walk.” “No shit? We’ve been walking for an hour already.” “Tomorrow is an important ceremony. This man has made a very se

rious bargain to participate.” “Where does this happen? He said ‘The Road.’ ” “Yes. I will write it for you. You can spell it this way.” With his finger he gouged at the hardened film of dust on his tabletop, among the float

ing monstrosities: The Roo. “I will go also.” “Can we get a car?” “We can only walk. It’s a few hours, but very easy. You see, we are on

a plain. Then we go down to the valley.” “All right, fuck it, let’s walk.” “You are going to accompany us?” “No, man. You are the fucking new guy. I’m already on this ride.” The scientist rubbed his hands together and frowned. “All right! You

can accompany us for a while, Jimmy, okay?”

The boy had already walked out the door. Storm followed, and Dr. Mahathir caught up to them on the path as it gave over again to paddies outside the village. “Do you have water in your canteen?”

“I’m half full.” “It’s enough.” The boy did not look back at them. He pulled his shirt on over his

head without pausing or even slowing down. The three clambered along at such a pace none of them had breath to speak until they’d regained the path after half a kilometer of successive dikes and ditches. Mahathir called after him in Malay with a plea in his voice.

“I have told him we must stop to rest at the next place. I think he will

allow it.” “Sefior, what is this kid up to? Ask him to tell me what he’s doing.” “He cannot answer you. From this place until we reach that place, he

must keep his silence.” “What for?” “He has a function to perform. There will be a ceremony.” “What kind of ceremony would that be, Mr. Bugs?” “It’s very unusual. It is not often to happen. I will observe it.”

At the next village they stopped outside a small wooden house and sat on two benches in the shade and drank iced tea without ice. The entomologist said, “It is a hot day.”

“Damn right.” “Here is a good place. It’s far enough for you. Can you rest?” “No way I stay here. I’m going farther than you.” “Farther will be Thailand.”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Mahathir hunched his shoulders and sipped tea from his plastic glass, looking as if it tasted bad. He knit his brow, cleared his throat, poured out the last drops on the ground, and wiped down the glass with the hem of his undershirt, making sure to keep his dress shirt clean.

They all three rose and began walking. When they reached the last house at the edge of the village Mahathir halted, wrapped his arms around himself, and said, “Excuse me, Jimmy. I think you should not go on from here. No, you must not come now. I’m very sorry to bring you here.”

The boy was getting away. “Let’s go, Doc. I gotta talk to some peo

ple.” “This is not the proper day for you to do it. Do it another day, okay?” They’d left behind them the shade trees of the village, and they passed

now among scrubby bushes streaked with rainwashed dust. “This is bad,

it’s even terrible. Yes, it’s terrible,” Mahathir said. They began the descent into the Belum Valley. “There he is,” Storm said, “there he is.” “Who is there?” Before them stretched the jungle canopy beneath which in a substra

tum invisible to the eyes of Disneyland right now MIAs were getting the

fuck tortured out of them. “Who is there?” “Let’s go. This kid ain’t waiting.” The path descended gradually, cutting along the side of the hill, or

the mountain, Storm didn’t know which it was, because even on the steep decline the trees grew tall enough to hide both the sky and the valley’s bed. After another kilometer they came onto a grassy flat. The path took them toward a clearing and some dwellings, hooches of woven straw and batten, roofed with galvanize. He heard the river somewhere and some birds or perhaps people.

“The boy will stop here. I am stopping here also.” “Where are they?” “We will go closer to the river.” A hundred meters on, beside the river, they found a couple of dozen

villagers and a burn pile nearly five meters in height and twice as wide at its base. Its preparation was apparently complete. Three women wrapped in dirty sarongs circled the edifice with armloads of dry tree limbs, inserting kindling where they could. Beyond these women, men in G-strings stood in the river up to their knees, bathing, splashing water one-handed up into their armpits and dousing their heads and swaying from side to side, bent over, to shake away the drops from their long hair.

“They’ve made the pyre.” “They’re gonna torch him.” “This boy? No.” “Then who?” —Storm wondered if it was himself. “With this fire they are going to destroy his soul.” Four men also in G-strings stood to the side acknowledging no one,

as if they waited to be photographed, as did the pyre itself, looming like a god assembled out of limbs and bones while the boy looked up at it out of his flat face.

Mahathir addressed the four. As if he’d broken a paralyzing spell, they approached, gesturing and speaking. “There is a problem,” Mahathir said, “an infestation. They are burdened and tormented by the infestation of a curse. They say if we look we’ll see the teeth marks on their possessions. What is the infestation? One says monkeys, some are saying rodents. They will not say. They are angry because of fear. They will lose everything. They will starve.”

One man came close and spoke only to Mahathir. “He says the priest is waiting in a special place. We can go see him.”

Storm and Mahathir and the boy passed through the collection of dwellings, the entomologist leading along a path to a small clearing where they found three very small hooches and one man in a G-string standing around by himself.

“Another fucker with no clothes.” “He is the priest, especially hired for this important ceremony. But don’t worry. He is a false priest. He is a charlatan.” The boy stopped walking some yards from the little savage, who

crouched as if about to leap violently into the air, and studied him. Mahathir put his hand on Storm’s arm. “Stay here. It’s not for us.” After some seconds the priest relaxed and stood upright again and ap