Squid and humans have the same eyeballs, just about, and koalas and humans both got fingerprints. There’s a prehensility to all sorts of creatures’ tails. A scientist could swap out a woodpecker’s tongue for an anteater’s, though that might be illegal or against laboratory rules. Dolphins and bats! Sonar, the both of ’em, even though they’ve nothing else in common except the inability to do jumping jacks. This is called convergent evolution. Cultures display convergent evolution, too. Bushido and chivalry are the same bullshit, and folks on every continent figured out independently how to let fruit rot just enough to turn it into booze.
And then there is the problem of corpses. The ancients of the Canary Islands, the Egyptians, and the Aztecs all came up with the same mummification techniques; the primitives of Europe, Australia, the Levant had easily-turned earth, and so they invented burials; the first inhabitants of the Aegean Sea and the Carpathian Mountains liked to play with matches. In what is now Iran and what is Tibet, the living let the vultures take care of the dead.
So, too, in the valley between the ocean and the hills that would one day be called Little Aleppo.
“That’s me.”
“No. That’s your body.”
“I live in my body,” Cannot Swim said.
The eyeballs, so like a squid’s, were already gone, along with most of the softer bits of the face, and the neck was a mess. Belly. Genitals. Vultures go for the soft meat first.
“You don’t want to be in there right now,” Here And There said.
Cannot Swim was a Pulaski, as was she, and so did not have a detailed view of the afterlife. Had he been Christian, he would have expected clouds and sainted doormen, or perhaps flames and torment. Your everyday Ancient Greek would be looking for a guy with a boat. The Pulaski were vaguer. One has a spirit, an essence, an inhabitant, and when one dies, it becomes part of the natural world. They did not care to flesh out the idea more than that, and children who questioned the concept would be told the story of Snakes Flee From Him.
One day, the adults would say, two young men were arguing. The first claimed that, when we die, our spirits are reborn into animals. No, no, no, the second said. When we die, we become one of the trees in the woods.
And though the two young men were good friends, they could not agree and quickly became cross with one another. Their arguments ruined the peace of the village. The elders could not sleep, and the men and women could not work, and the children could not play. Finally, the other Pulaski made the two young men go see Snakes Flee From Him, whom everyone knew was the wisest of them all.
So they did.
Each young man made his case, and Snakes Flee From Him listened carefully. When they finished, he was silent for a long moment, and then drew his knife.
I do not know which of you is right, Snakes Flee From Him said. Only the dead know.
He lay the knife in front of the two young men.
The first young man did not pick it up, and neither did the second young man.
So, Snakes Flee From Him said, I see that you are not as interested in the answer to your question as it seemed. One day, you will find out. We all will. Until then, cut the shit. Catch a fish, write a song. Make yourselves useful.
The tribe excarnated the dead–technically, the vultures did the excarnating–upon a sacred rock a third of the way up the highest of the seven hills that cleaved their home from America. When the prayers were said and the songs finished, the name of the dead was never spoken. The spirit returns to nature, and receives a new name from The Bear Who Is Always Pregnant. To call the dead by their former names would be an insult, and The Bear had told no living soul, so better to not say anything. The Pulaski tried their hardest not to insult nature; there were still monsters in the forest in those times.
So Cannot Swim was in uncharted territory, theologically speaking.
“Am I dead?”
“Apparently not entirely,” Here And There said.
“I feel strange.”
“I would imagine.”
“Does this happen a lot?”
“More than you’d imagine, less than you’d hope for.”
The two were standing–hovering lowishly is more correct–on a smallish plateau that contained a sacred rock about a third of the way up the highest of the seven hills. The condors had arrived, shoved the vultures from the meal. This was 18– and so California was greasy with condors, nine feet across and stinking like only an animal with no sense of smell could. The wind shifted and blew the stench towards the two Pulaski.
“Holy fuck,” Cannot Swim said, recoiled.
“They’re a whiffy bird.”
“This is what death smells like.”
“No, condors shit on their legs to keep ’em cool. This is what condor shit smells like.”
“Oh.”
Neither was see-through, but both were far more translucent than humans usually are.
“I am dead.”
“For a certain definition of the word, sure.”
“I was shot by the White.”
“Right in the face.”
“And that killed me.”
“It didn’t help,” Here And There shrugged. “Let’s say that getting shot in the face was not beneficial to you. That’s a fair statement.”
“You are not helping, either.”
“Cousin, I’ve never helped you.”
Here And There was Cannot Swim’s cousin, but only because there weren’t that many Pulaski; technically, everybody was everybody’s cousin. She had been an only child (this was common to shamans), and her parents had both died when she was young (this was common to shamans’ parents), and the members of the tribe old enough to remember which clan she was from didn’t like talking about her, because sometimes when you talked about her, she just appeared.
“Could you start?”
“Anything could happen.”
Anything could be provided at the Norwegian Hotel. In fact, it had been provided while you weren’t looking, and just the way you liked it, too. Without anything as uncouth as asking. Guests’ preferences were noted, recorded, respected. There were elevators, and not like the other two elevators in Little Aleppo, which were fake and would trap people inside to be beaten and robbed. Real elevators with real elevator operators: two per cab. It was in no way a two-man job, but that was the meaning of luxury. There was no room service at the Norwegian: it was guest service. We are, the hotel said, merely the background for your life. You are the star here. We are scenery; we exist so that you may live.
There were two telephones in the lobby, one at the desk and another in a private sanctum (filigreed, oak, custom) with a clever sliding door available to all guests; the hotel’s operator would get the local operator on the line, and they’d dial out together, and soon thereafter report on your calls to various interested parties.
Electric light. Not the first in the neighborhood when the hotel (re)opened in 1901, but the brightest. The glow blasted from too many windows. That is what the builders told Duke Dorleans during (re)construction.
“This is bishwah,” Duke told them. “Without windows, a soul cripples itself. They are integral.”
One cannot overstate how gloomy the past was, even during the day, and so Monsieur Dorleans knew that he had to (re)build the Norwegian Hotel to be light and airy in the day and . And thus: the windows and the electric lights.
The carpet was plush enough to have political opinions, but elegant enough to keep them to itself. There was more ivory than the waiting room of an elephant dentist. The glass that was supposed to be stained was stained miraculously; the glass that was not supposed to be stained was immaculately clean. The long, low desk in the lobby was made from thustled oak, which only grew in one North Carolina wood, and did so sporadically. The naked ladies in the art had the classiest titties anyone in Little Aleppo had ever laid eyes upon. None of it was the star.
Bathrooms. Each suite had its own private, indoor bathrooms with running hot and cold water, all hygienic-white with gleaming, unchipped porcelain; where the suites were overstuffed and soft and cozy, the bathrooms were stark and pure. They were clean. It was 1900, and this was madness. 92 bathrooms? My God, were there even 92 bathrooms in the entire neighborhood? Local pastors drew analogies between Dorleans’ hotel and the Flight of Icarus. At least one Town Father declared it was Communism, but, it being 1900 and all, no one knew what the hell he was talking about. Many believed it to be faluting of a high nature. Some of the wealthy on the Upside had installed water closets, but everybody else did as humans had been doing for thousands of years, which was pissing out windows and shitting in holes in the backyards.
There was to be no yard-shitting in the Norwegian Hotel, not once Duke Dorleans (re)built it.
The original owner’s name is unknown, but his place of origin is to be assumed; the first Norwegian opened in 18– as a tent with canvas-partitioned rooms and cots with rotten mattresses. It burned down immediately, killing three, one of whom was the very first mime to ever visit the neighborhood. Within days, construction had begun on a simple plank-and-beam structure, two stories, with a dining room and a kitchen. You could have your meals brought to your room, but you still had to shit in the backyard. Whitey Tonch ran the place; it would have been segregated had Little Aleppo been large enough. Burned down again in the Wayside Fire of 1871. Once more during reconstruction in 1872. Small fire in 1889, nothing too scary. The one in 1899 took half the block and twenty people, including most of the bucket brigade.
So it was 1900 and the Norwegian Hotel was (re)built again, with private bathrooms. Brick and iron this time, and the floorboards treated to make them incapable of sustaining flames, and the walls and crawlspaces stuffed with asbestos.
“The fuckers try burning my hotel, they get burned. I BURN THE FUCKERS!”
That was Duke Dorleans. He said it to a foreman who suggested a wood roof instead of the demanded tin with asphalt shingles. He was from Europe, that much was certain. He spoke French with a German accent, English with a French accent, and Spanish with a Portuguese accent. His suits were from London, his shoes were from Rome, and his haircut had been the inspiration for several cocktails and a light opera. No one knew whether “Duke” was his name or title: his guests never asked as it seemed rude, and his staff never asked because he was liable to start yelling about burning fuckers if you got him worked up.
There was also the dining room to attend to. Prior to the (re)build, tables were jammed together and food was served buffet-style. A local simpleton named Fuckface Archie did the cooking; Whitey didn’t buy the choicest cuts of meat, so Fuckface Archie made chili most of the time, and diners sat around farting their asses off. In their defense, it was the 19th century and there was very little to do. This was not what Duke Dorleans wanted for his hotel. Glamour. He would have glamour. There would be sexy and secretive assignations. Maybe a band in the corner. It was to be the first restaurant in Little Aleppo with tablecloths. Respectable women could enter by themselves, but prostitutes required escorts. (If you let unaccompanied hookers in, they start hooking.) And because Duke Dorleans had Monsieur Tarare, he would have the finest food in Little Aleppo.
(This was, in 1900, an eminently achievable goal. Besides eating at home, which was what most did, there were few options and certainly nothing for a gourmand. There was Yung Man’s, of course, but that was Chinese food and so therefore did not count in any rankings. The Chophouse, near the newly-built Valentine Courthouse, served chops. They would be no more specific. Customers would indicate with their hands how much meat they wanted, and then the meat would arrive at the table. Cigars were enjoyed concurrently. A fellow once asked for some creamed spinach; he was beaten. Women were not permitted in the Chophouse; women were completely fine with that. Over by the harbor, unnamed fish fries occupied rickety shacks and served various perches and smelts, all of which tasted like shit with bones in it. It was best to eat at home.)
“Looks just like a deer.”
“We’re all the same guts on the inside,” Here And There said.
Cannot Swim’s body was opened up, raggedly, and the condors shoved their heads into his belly; one of the birds had a rib in its beak and worried it back and forth. It made a sound like wet wood breaking.
“This is upsetting me. Why am I watching this?”
“Not many get to view their own funeral, cousin. You’re lucky.”
Cannot Swim (all the parts of him that were not his body and standing/hovering about a dozen feet from the sacred rock) turned to the short woman (who was also sort of hovering) and waved an aghast arm towards the scavengers’ feast.
“How is this lucky!?”
Here And There said nothing. A vulture hopped over to them. Pecked Cannot Swim on the calf, hard. Hopped back to the rock. Here And There said,
“Don’t yell at me.”
“I’m sorry. I’m watching vultures eat my dick. I’m a bit overwhelmed.”
“You’re having a lot of new experiences today. First time talking to a White.”
“No. I spoke with one once. When I accompanied Talks To Whites on his last visit.”
“How did it go?”
“Poorly.”
It was not his fault. The Pulaski had avoided most contact with the Whites. They had let that raggedy little preacher idiot stay with them, but he had learned precisely none of the Pulaski language in his time with the tribe, so he was treated more like a pet than a person. As for goods, the Pulaski did not trade with the Whites for anything except guns and ammo, Also, knives. These objects were the only machined metal Cannot Swim had ever seen in his life. The Pulaski did not mine, nor did they smith, and so had no finished steel; this meant no axes to fell trees, nor saws to plank the wood, so he had also never seen a framed house before. He had never smelled tobacco. He had no concept of glass. It was unfair of his cousin to shove him right onto the thoroughfare of the settlement they were calling C—– City.
“I would not doubt it,” Here And There said. When she smiled, her eyes disappeared behind her freckles. They spread from her nose like bat wings. She was the only Pulaski with freckles. “What happened?”
“Their village is stressful. I didn’t know what anything was called. Like, I didn’t recognize anything. And the sunlight was strange. It bounced all over.”
“Like off the lake?”
“Yes. Just like that. But from everywhere. And the hats.”
“You have mentioned the hats.”
“Some made sense. Some had large brims that provided shade. They were like the hoods we wear when working the crops. I understood those hats. But most of ’em were useless. A lot of their clothes looked useless, honestly. They wore tunics over their tunics. Talks To Whites told me the words, but I forgot.”
“Maybe they were cold.”
“It was a warm day. My cousin brought me into the building where he buys the rifles and ammo.”
“Also, knives.”
“The room gleamed at me. I could hear mountains running in fear. What could make a mountain flee? I did not know. I could barely keep breathing. My lungs were full of tree sap. There was a man on the wall of the store, and he was watching me.”
Here And There was barefoot, but left no prints in the grass. She looked up at Cannot Swim. He looked over at the birds, the rock, his corpse.
“The man was leaning against the wall?”
“No. He was hanging there. He was carved from wood. He was not a real man, but I felt a presence coming from him.”
“Then perhaps he was real. The Whites have magick of their own, just as we do.”
“Do you think they would keep their magick in a gun store?”
“I have no idea what those people are capable of,” Here And There said.
“The man who was in charge refused to sell the guns to Talks To Whites unless I was…I forgot the word. He’s taught it to me a hundred times, but I forget. He poured water on my head while yelling some stuff.”
“Why?”
“Because the man on the wall loved me.”
They were both wearing their tunics, which came down to right below the knee, and Here And There had her satchel, which she reached into and pulled a handful of leaves from the peregrina maria tree. Shared, rolled, chewed. Both the taste and the effect were refreshing.
“What else do you remember about him?”
“The man on the wall?”
“Keep up, cousin.”
“He was wearing only his breechcloth and he was nailed to a tree.”
“Most people would have put the thing about the tree first.”
“Talks To Whites is the person you want to ask about this. He knows all about it.”
And, for a moment, there was silence on the side of the mountain, except for the sound of a two vultures fighting over a spleen.
“Is he okay? How is my cousin?”
“He is physically unharmed. As is Black Eyes. Look.”
She grabbed his elbow and they were 50, 100, 200 feet up so that the whole northwestern slope of the hill, the tallest of the seven that separated the Pulaski village from the rest of the world, lay beneath them. She pointed. Young man, short woman, big dog. The path was more of a trail, and so the three were picking their way through the scrub.
Cannot Swim peered in a little bit more.
“Is that you?”
“Down there?”
“Yes.”
“Yes,” she answered.
“But you’re here.”
“And there. Get it?”
The wind was strong and blew around Cannot Swim, and also through, and he had never been here before. He had never been anywhere near here before, and he did not know the names of anything in the world, but he was feeling a bit chilly and sort of nauseous ; the air currents were waves and he was in the lake, the harbor, the open sea and all the stars had fucked off for the evening, so he had no compass at all in the valley which would one day be a neighborhood in America called Little Aleppo,
feeling this one.
oh.