John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

There was no sign that anyone lived in the cabin. The Indian boy and Freeman stood looking from the rim of trees, and when Hodge came up to them he, too, stopped to look. There was a rain-whitened chair in front of the black opening. On the eaves of the house there were wasps’ nests.

“I know Nick and Verne,” the boy said. He smiled, eyes glinting. “They’re friends of mine.”

“Have you seen them?” Hodge said. “I’m not the police, you know.”

But the boy was looking at the cabin. “I guess they’ve left,” he said. He took it lightly.

“Aw come on,” Freeman said. “The Chief of a noble old tribe wouldn’t just up and leave.” He started for the cabin. “They’ll be inside,” he said. The Indian boy smiled.

Hodge followed, slowly and heavily, and the Indian boy walked beside him.

“This your first visit to our people?” the boy said.

Hodge grunted.

“There are many interesting stories about Sun-on-the-Water,” the boy said. He squinted, perhaps seeing if Hodge was listening. “I know all the stories, but usually when I tell them there’s a small charge.”

Hodge nodded.

“The story of Sun-on-the-Water and the bear, for example, is short and amusing, so therefore I only charge a dollar. On the other hand—” They were within ten feet of the open door now. Freeman had stopped, a little ahead of them, and stood looking in with his hands in his pockets and his head tipped, dubious, as if afraid there might be snakes. There was a faint stink, of, perhaps, rotten food.

“Anybody there?” Hodge called.

“I don’t hear anybody,” Freeman said.

Hodge came up even with him. “We may as well go back,” he said. “Wild goose chase. If Nick came out to the Reservation, Sun-on-the-Water wouldn’t know.”

“Sure quiet,” the Indian boy said. “Maybe he’s in there waiting for us.”

“You want to go first?” Freeman said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hodge said. “You go ahead, if you want.”

The walls of the house were rotted and pieces of light came in through the roof. He wondered if perhaps there was no such man as Sun-on-the-Water.

Freeman said, “Maybe Jack here should go in first. He brought us.”

“I don’t care,” the boy said.

“Well, somebody better go in first, if we’re going.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hodge said. “You can see there’s nobody here.”

“Right. We might as well go back,” the boy said.

“We can’t do that,” Freeman said. “Maybe they’re sick or something.”

“Maybe he’s lying in there drunk,” the boy said.

Freeman looked at Hodge. In the clearing’s yellow light the black hat and glasses made Freeman seem obscurely dangerous now, anyway alien, more in league with the woods — or with Mars, it might be — than with them. He said, “You going in?”

Hodge rubbed his chin.

“Well shit,” Freeman said. He splashed his hands out with disgust and jerked forward. Hodge followed.

At first, they couldn’t see a thing inside. When their eyes adjusted to the dark they could make out a white-with-age table and chair, a wash basin, a great many empty whiskey bottles. In the corner there was a bed with a mass if rotten covers on it. Freeman moved toward it, the Indian boy a little behind him, then stopped abruptly. Now Hodge too could see it. There was a man on it, and he’d been dead for a long, long time, long enough that he didn’t smell. Dogs had gotten to him. There were only bones and some black stuff.

Freeman took off his hat. “Wrong Chief,” he said.

The Indian boy was smiling.

“You did this on purpose,” Hodge whispered.

“But I didn’t charge you,” the Indian boy said. His teeth were white and as large as the teeth of a horse.

2

“Truth is stranger than fiction,” said Freeman. “Nevertheless, this is all pretty God damn strange.”

“What?” Hodge said.

He repeated it, but Hodge did not listen the second time either. He drove with his head tipped down, jaw forward, brooding. He, of all people, trapped in an allegory!

“Thing is,” Freeman said, “you got all up-tight, you know? They kid around with you, so ok, so that’s their thing. Go along with it, that’s the way you gotta do. But no, you get all up-tight and you wanna go bam bam pow! Zuk!” He made motions like a fighter. “Choo,” he said. He shook his head. “I guess that’s where it is.”

Hodge drove.

“Man I was there, you know what I mean?” Freeman said. “I was this student, see—” He made the motions of a student, reading and writing. “Yes ma’am, no ma’am, ah ha! now I grasp it! Zing. Gonna cut through the waves man, arch the treeompf. Zap. ‘Wanted: smart young man.’ Ok.” His hands were a smart young man cutting through the crowd. “So I worked, see, and when I was finished with the books I was a house-painter and a carpenter and a butcher. And after that I would walk where the rich people’s houses were.” He showed how it was to be a young man walking, looking with vast admiration at swimming pools and shrubbery and gables. “Hoo!” He shook his head. “But pretty soon fella comes out of the sky and he taps me on the shoulder and says, ‘Hey baby, excuse me for being so personal, but that ain’t where it’s at.’”

“The sky,” Hodge said, merely registering it, like a man showing he’s listening. He drove.

“Something like that. Top of a building, maybe. You know how it is. So anyway, I put it all away for a while — you know, put it in a neat little pile for later—” (his hands quickly fashioned a neat little pile) “—and put the pile in a box and kissed my mother on the cheek—” (he kissed the fond air) “—and started down the valley of the numerous shadows of death, to speak pentameter. Not up-tight. You know what I mean?”

“Not up-tight,” Hodge mused. “In other words, you decided to reject—”

“No no! Not reject! That’s the other guy.” He pointed behind them, and Hodge looked back, then scowled. “I’m for all of it, understand? I kiss the sunset wherever it’s pretty, even setting over swimming pools and the topless towers of Indianapolis, Mmmmooch! I pat the world. ’Good dog, good cow, good bush, good trombone.’ See what I mean? I mean I’m the encourager. Keep the gears oiled, you understand? ‘Atta gear! Good baby! Spin, spin, spin.’ MMMMMMMM.”

“Hmm,” said Hodge. “It’s all right if you don’t have a family.”

“Right!” Freeman said. “So I meet the right lady and zoom: Tie — vest—” He showed how it would be when he put them on. “Get out the paintbrush and the butcher-knife and the schoolteacher books and wheel down the valley of the shadow of work!” He showed how he would go.

Hodge, after he’d thought about it, sighed.

They’d reached Batavia now. Hodge said suddenly, “I never asked you where you wanted to go. I guess my mind—” He let it trail off. “Do you want to get out somewhere?”

“Me?” Freeman said.

“Well, that is,” Hodge said, “if you had any plans—”

“Oh no, I’m not in any hurry. I’ll stick around and help you.”

“Well, actually,” Hodge said.

“Don’t think twice.” He grandly waved away all petty considerations. “I’ll just straighten things out for you, good as I can, and then psst! like air from a tire.”

“Hah,” Hodge said.

Freeman came alert. He hurriedly put on the hat and glasses and bent his nose close to the windshield and sniffed. Then he turned to Hodge and smiled, pointing slyly. Hodge saw it too now, Clumly and another policeman coming out of a store, Clumly writing on a pad, looking grim and as crafty as the devil. “That’s him?” Freeman said.