Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke

“It happens here.” “Do you know how many jive-ass graves I’ve seen?” “I couldn’t guess.” “Fuckers have shown me his bones. I’ve tasted his so-called ashes,

man. I’ve cooked his grease in a spoon and run it in my arm. That shit

don’t fly. I’m the tester, man. Every beat of my blood tells me he’s alive.” “I’m told he’s buried in this hole.” “If this is his grave, then he didn’t die back in ‘Nam.” “Right enough. If this is his grave.” “Well —is it? When was he buried? Who buried him? Did you bury

him?” “Not I.” “Who buried him?” “I don’t know. I’m told he died suddenly without explanation. I’m

sorry to say that somebody could have given him poison. That’s one pos

sibility.” A monstrous falsehood. But who were its perpetrators? “I met you once in Saigon. In ‘67 or ‘68.” “Let’s see. In ‘67 or ‘68. It’s entirely possible.” “You’re Pitchfork.” “I go by many names.” “Don’t play like that. I met you in Saigon. You’re the colonel’s old

buddy. You gave him an egg.” “An egg?” “In the prison camp, when he was hungry. You gave him an egg.” “Did I?” “He said you did.” “Well then, I must have done.” “You look the same. Are you always the same? You don’t get any

older? Are you Satan?” “Now you’re the one playing a game.” “Don’t show me graves.” “Then what can I show you?” Only the living colonel would suffice. The colonel smoking Cubans

and up to his old shit. “Here lies the colonel.” “Then what are you doing here?”

Pitchfork said, “I tend the grave.” Whether this served as the colonel’s grave or someone else’s, whether

he lived or rotted, his zone remained. And Storm had walked into it. “I want to see inside that shed.” They turned from the grave and went back up the hill. The sun hit

their faces, but to the east, behind them, clouds formed. Storm said,

“Looks like rain.” “Not this month. Never in the month of April.” “Show me inside that shed.” A board laid across wooden stays held shut the outbuilding’s door.

Pitchfork tossed down the bolt and stepped backward, drawing the door wide. Storm stepped forward. In the banded light something long and substantial lay across the ground. He couldn’t imagine what. He swallowed involuntarily and audibly. A monster without limbs. He watched its face develop like a photograph and run rapidly through the colonel’s innumerable dissemblances.

Pitchfork swung the door wider. “What is it?” “A mahogany log.” “A log?” “A mahogany log. I kept a pile of timber here. That’s the last of it. Till

I get more.” Another fake and phony prophet. Another fucked-up revelator. Storm drew his knife and grabbed the old man in a choke-hold from

behind and put the point to the man’s side, between the ribs, over the

liver. “Where’s the colonel?” “KIA.” “MIA.” “No. Deceased.” He tightened his choke-hold. “Fucker, you will tell me, or I will fuck

you up. Who dug that grave?” “I don’t know.” His voice came out like a frog’s. “Tell me who, or I will pull your tab.” “I don’t know who buried him. And when you pull my tab, as you

say, I still won’t know.” “What are you doing here?”

“I got tired of the world.” “Who are you?” “Anders Pitchfork.” “There was a point a long time ago where none of you fuckers could

lie to me anymore, because I was the one distributing the lies. Half your

shit came out of my ass.” “He’s dead.” “Look,” Storm said, his heart breaking, “I’ve gotta get out of this ma

chine.” Storm released him. Pitchfork sat down heavily in the dirt, clenching

and unclenching his hands and not touching his neck. Storm said, “I suspect you of doing away with him.” “I’d suspect the same if I were in your position.” “And what is my position?” “Unknown.” After a minute he tried to stand and Storm put his knife away and

helped him rise. “Do you have any idea how deep down that person burned us, man?

How very deep down the burn went?” “No.” “As deep as hell is hot and dark, brother.” “Don’t call me brother.” “Don’t deny me, brother.” Pitchfork headed for the house and Storm watched him go. He came

out carrying a rifle with a short magazine and a skeletal metal stock which he unfolded from under the foregrip as he walked. Ten paces away he stopped.

“I think that’s one of those World War Two machines.” “I think an Ml Garand. The paratrooper issue. A lot of people died

by it.” “I heard you jumped out of planes.” “You know? —in the war itself, I only jumped out of one. Captain

Sands was flying the thing. My first and last jump in that war. Although I made a few with the Scouts around here in the fifties.” He raised the rifle and engaged the bolt and sighted carefully at Storm from ten feet away. His finger firm on the trigger. “You’ll be going now.”

Storm turned and marched south toward the trail, back the way he’d come.

He’d thought of continuing into Thailand, but fate had turned him around. Somewhere along the odyssey of years he’d negotiated a crossing without acknowledging its keeper or paying its necessary tribute. You don’t recognize these entities for what they are until after the crossing. Until after the dissemblances dissolve.

What could be left, what left undone?

From the trailhead he surveyed the distances he’d ascended this day and witnessed how far he’d come. As it dipped below the clouds the afternoon sun exploded down the valley.

He felt no fatigue. Only strength and heat. He believed he might make it back down before sunset. He hurried. As quickly as he descended, just as quickly the daylight withdrew up the mountain, and he saw his destiny entangled with the sun’s.

He passed into the shadow. The valley rested in a moment neither light nor dark. With the change the animals hushed. They’d begun again, the first chorus of night insects and sunset birdcalls, by the time he reached level earth. Still he saw no column of smoke, no fires ascending from the Roo.

He reached the spot at the river where the False Guides had sent him over in their happy knowledge he’d missed this most important thing. Without removing his shoes he raised his pack high above his head and divided the waters.

Nothing irrevocable had begun. On the ground in the vicinity of the tall pyre scores of candles flickered in the upturned halves of coconut husks. The villagers wore colorful, clean apparel and seemed busy with nonessential tasks, in and out of the hooches, keeping the moments cool, clapping in a slow rhythm, but only some of them, handing the rhythm from this pair to that pair of hands, no one committed yet, the thing only beginning to build. Maybe they saw him. Maybe they decided they didn’t. The priest stood next to the pyre wearing a headdress, his hair done in coils and feathers, holding a soft-drink bottle in both hands and talking to Mahathir. The boy stood both with them and apart from them.

Mahathir watched Storm come along the river’s edge and raised his hand. The priest seemed unperturbed, but Mahathir didn’t like this. “The ceremony is quite soon,” he said.

Storm said, “I can feel it.” “You did not go to Thailand. Why? Why didn’t you stay with your

friend?” “If you don’t know, I can’t tell you.” “But, Jimmy, it’s not a good idea for you. This man has something to

do. I am a scientist, so of course I can observe. But for you it’s not a good idea.” The boy stood rigid, face pulled tight, breathing hard. None of the Roo looked at him.

The females had begun to assemble, younger ones and tiny girls sheathed in sarongs, wearing lipstick and rouge, beads strung in their hair. Small boys stood behind them, feet stuck to their spots but shoulders working, vibrating all over with excitement and childhood. So happy to be alive in their bodies, jumping around in their slave suits. Sodomizers of the True Thing.