The Story of Eskimo Pie Girl

Prologue

Hello Rainbow, Goodbye Blues

Hello.
I'm just visiting
on the way to my past life.
Am I going somewhere?
A year ago I couldn't have told you.
But like I had this really wild dream.
A Descartes dream.
I'm afraid I might wake up back in Kansas.

Victor the Tin Man wants a heart.
Timothy Scarecrow wants some brains.
Lawrence the Lion wants to be king of the forest.

I wanna hold all your hands
and dance.
I mean really dance
down the road
with the four of you.
Don't forget Clubfoot.
Puppy of love.
That's what we all want.
Almost got lost in the shuffle.

Some lady in a white dress,
Emily, Emily something, Auntie Em
twanged me on the head and said
You're a poet
but don't know it
Your feet show it
Eskimo
Those legs were made for dancing.

Chapter 1 - The Past

"Well," said Dr. Robert Loggins, "it's just not possible for an Eskimo Pie Girl to be a Zen Buddhist. I mean you could cut all your hair off and have mind-like-water dreams every day, but it just isn't in your DNA to be a Buddha. You have to go back to your own past, find your own Bodhisattva."

"My mom said her ancestors were a bunch of gypsies," Eskimo replied. "I found a book on gypsies, once. Gypsies are always moving. I like that. I can't ever sit still. I think I'd die if I sat still. I feel like I'm dying now. I've sat in this Disneyland cow town for almost twenty years. My mom's family, they all stayed in England. But she had engines in her blood, bi-planes and tugboats, and choo-choo trains that carried her half a world away. My dad's roots were a bunch of American pioneers. I think his tree grows all the way back to Pilgrims Rock. They used to be movers, moved across the frontier and then they all settled down in Nebraska on a chicken ranch. Just like my mom's family traveled all over Europe and then finally settled down in England. But these two people, Mom and Dad, didn't deny their heritage like their brothers and sisters. They knew that you gotta keep moving in order to really live. So he left his brothers and sisters in the chicken scratch and Ma left hers sitting in the parlor room playing whistody and drinking orange marmalade tea. And together they moved to The Last Frontier. And me, I'm the kid of those two outlaw renegades that had quicksilver veins, that keeps flowing. I got the movement in me, tidal waves and earthquakes and volcanoes and hurricanes. Like a howling wind on a frozen Alaskan tundra in the heart of winter, that's my soul. Screaming across wastelands, playing tag with the Northern Lights, flowing with the Pacific current all the way down to Antarctica and back. Migrating like a Beluga whale. Chuck Yeager, my cousin, got the movement so bad he broke the sound barrier. Sometime I gotta make a pilgrimage up there to see him."

Chapter 2 - Timothy Moon

"Where's 'up there'?" Dr. Loggins asked.

"Weed Valley. That's where Timothy lives, with his Indian woman. Timothy's got the movement in him. Moved out here from Georgia looking for a heart of gold, like a Neil Young song. And now he's living in the heart of the gold country. But the Sacramento River's calling him, like a Louisiana call of the bayou. I think he thinks he's some kind of new-fangled Huckleberry Finn, out to find the world. And I'm the girl next door, his best friend's girl, Tom Sawyer's Becky. And Huck and me are gonna ride the rapids and follow our dreams."

"Is that what you want to do?"

"I don't know. Timothy sure as hell got the movement in him. But he's part Indian. That's the part that scares me--Wild and Crazy Horse, Little Big Man. He likes playing in the dirt and eating worms. Those worms kind of get under my skin. Like they're too earthy. Too alive. Some kind of giant Dune worms that are gonna swallow me up in a red dust storm. I'm afraid I would lose myself if I hung around him too much. I'd turn into a woolly mammoth of a worm too. And there's no worms in my heritage. So Timothy and I aren't seeing each other for a while."

Chapter 3 - Indian Pie

About a thousand miles south of the Brooks Range, across the inlet from the Land of Ten Thousand Smokes, Eskimo Pie Girl was playing Indian. Black shiny raven's feather in her hair which Mother had graciously braided into two long plaits, Pocahontas of the tundra was crawling through the grass on all fours. She paused to pick some cranberries to smear on her cheeks. Sacagawea of the far North was looking for dinner to take back to the fort. The fort was built between two spruce trees that stood on top of a mossy bank which ambled down to the marsh. Hiawatha girl filled up her Campbell's soup can with marshy water and made Indian pies with dirt and twigs and grass. She made Indian designs on top of her Indian pies with cranberries and pine cones. Bowl of chickweed as a side dish. Pulling chickweed was more fun than eating it. It made a wonderful Rip Rip sound as she yanked it out of the ground. It was at that early age that she began her love affair with Nature. She lived in the grass and fireweed and blueberry moss. She ate the berries and clover and covered the dirt floor of her fort with grass and moss. Her tools were rocks and pieces of bark and young willow branches. But those little ravaging Indian hands barely made a dent on Nature's face.

Chapter 4 - Cheesecake

She looked for signs of Nature as she pulled out of Dr. Loggins' parking lot. Sure, there was a lot of green around, but you could hardly call that "natural." Green grass with a crew cut so short not even a scout ant could hide in it. A scraggly old oak tree stranded in the middle of the cement street divider. Some kind of ghoulish memory of "the way it used to be," when this whole valley stood under the umbrella of those trees. If trees could have opinions then that tree in the street would be galled. Dr. Loggins looked like he had an oak gall in his throat, she mused drily. Dr. Scroggins or Noggins or Bobbins would be more appropriate, the way his shiny bald head nodded up and down all the time. Sometimes she imagined he had a sewing machine in his head, and a loose spool. Questions, questions, questions. That inquisitive tongue of his was forever poking into the eye of her mind. But she was always pulling threads out of her childhood and weaving big yarns, just to keep his busy brain zig zagging. He'd always try to buttonhole her though, pin her down, make her say something that made her sad. "Let out your emotions," he would yell at her. "Cry! Shout at me! You've got to let out that volcano that you know is inside you before you can ever find peace." Find peace. What kind of a joke was that? Sure, she was trying to find peace, just like every other poor custard. It wasn't under the bed. Not in the closet, the toilet tank, the container of dry mustard that sat in the cupboard for five years. However, that is a peaceful thought, to sit for five years in the cupboard conversing spicily with the other ground up nuts. And then one day, Mr. Hand comes along and pours you on top of a repugnant nude meatloaf. And you die an aromatic death in a 450 degree oven, your very essence melting into the fat hot sputtering juice until you ceased being a spice and became one with the meatloaf. But just when you'd become accustomed to being a meatloaf, some fat pig with a fork would stab you and eat you and turn you into a salivating enzyme. You'd slide down the throat into that pit of a stomach and finally make your way out into the white goddess where you'd be flushed out to sea. Or maybe you'd actually become part of the body. Eskimo Pie looked closely at her hands. Hard to believe those hands were composed of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. You are what you eat. Maybe there were flecks of mustard in her black jellybean eyes. Licorice eyelashes. Lips like a tart juicy plum, overripe, bursting. Or lips like two snippets of red licorice. Or maybe mouth like a pretzel, warm and malleable, fresh out of the oven, ready to eat. Gumdrop toes and butterfingers. Breasts like dollops of whipped cream with pert swollen cherries on top. Or breasts like mounds of mashed potatoes with pats of butter. Breasts like melted marshmallows with butterscotch drops on top. Belly of an angel food cake and bellybutton of a butterrum lifesaver. Muff like a cinnamon jelly roll, the middle, hot sweet and sticky yum.

She was getting hungry. She forgot all about finding peace and looked for the nearest drive-through. Dr. Loggins would be proud of the way she yelled at the clown, "No, that's TWO cheeseburgers, one cheesecake and one chocolate milkshake!" Stupid clown. Lawrence had told her that eating cheese helped her dendrites make connections. Bite of cheeseburger--Leonardo. Bite of cheesecake--Einstein. Chocolate milkshake--Aphrodite. Lawrence had said she was a cheesecake, with whipped cream and nuts on top. And did he ever like her legs! Twiggy. Twiggy Starbuck. That was her real name. Ever since those legs kicked their way into existence and Dad muttered, "Boy can she kick!" those legs had been knocking men off their feet. Cold stoned dead. Flat out. All tires punctured. Flying squirrel kind of flat out. And could those legs dance! She'd put on her jitterbug perfume and dance the Hot to Trot, the Salamander Sidewinder, the Hot Potato, the Mashed Potato. She was always hungry. Her best move was the Hare Krishna Sidestep. The men always kneeled and bowed to that boogaloo.

Chapter 5 - Lawrence

"Unwind," said Lawrence. "Let your mind float above the futon couch. Without your mind your body ceases to exist." Mind-like-water. Jellyfish. Ninety percent of the brain is made of water; the other ten percent, cheese.

"Free floating is the latest rage," Lawrence had said. Lawrence of an Arabian girl's night dream. An Arabian Stallion. Night Mare. If words could kill, these words would kill themselves. "Stepping out of your mind is mere transcendence," he mantra-ed. "Instead of leaving your body, your sensual contact with the world, behind you, you should use the power of your mind to draw your body into a new agelessness. There's nothing your body can do without your mind, but there's nothing your mind can't do without a body. Your mind never grows old. It just atrophies, and the body follows the mind wherever it goes. To hell and back, if necessary. That's what happens to people who take too many drugs. Their mind goes to hell in a handbasket and their body follows in a black casket. You are what you ingest."

Chapter 6 - Victor

It was raining by the time she'd finished off her Leonardo cheeseburger and lucidly floated into the apartment in a melted cheese transcendence. "It seems like you've been gone for ages," Victor said.

"Oh, Victor, Victor, Victor," Eskimo thought.

"I've made another puzzle," he grinned with his mad scientist grin. When Victor turned his mind inside out, he created puzzles that turned other people's minds inside out. He had an inverted sense of humor, but he always turned himself inside out and did cartwheels for her, so she couldn't leave him. Some said she lived in the best of all possible worlds. But she lived in a world where people died every day, where pollution eroded the dreams of Utopia and hunger lived on the lips of the country.

"Victor, before you show me your latest puzzle, I just have to ask you, do neuron impulses go faster than the speed of light?"

Victor's grin turned into a smirk, "Nothing goes faster than the speed of light."

"Well, how fast do our neuron impulses go? It seems like it's instantaneous. Hasn't anyone measured how fast they go?"

"Yes, it's something like ten meters per second, but it seems faster because the impulses don't have far to go."

"So we haven't been able to build anything that goes faster than the speed of light?"

"Nope, not even close. Einstein says you can't go faster than the speed of light."

"Well what happens to you when you go faster than the speed of light?"

"No one knows. But they do know that the faster you go, the more you slow down. If you took two people going down a street, one walking and one running, the person running would be 'slowing' his system down because his body was moving faster."

"Is that why people who exercise live longer? And since we all drive around these days in fast cars, is that why we live longer than people who used to walk around all the time? And is Chuck Yeager going to live a long time?"

"No! No! No!" Victor said vexedly. "You have to be moving at speeds approaching the speed of light before there is any significant slowdown in your body. You could run your whole life and then you might only live one second longer than a couch potato."

Chapter 7 - Dr. Loggins

"Let's go back to before you were born, your past life." Dr. Loggins was a neo-Jungianist, a middle-aged upshoot of that circle of New Age psychologists who believed in reincarnation. Minds with eyes in the back of their heads, always looking backwards in time. Or was it eyes with minds in the back of their heads? Twiggy was looking forward, she knew there was a New Dawn coming. New Moon rising. Apollo was enlightened. He lived in a solar house.

A session with Dr. Bob was an exercise in discombobulation. Head spin. Nose dive. Ear drums. Lip service. "But I have to find a resolution, Dr. Bob! I want to help the world, but I don't know what to do. A woman with dark doe eyes and her child asked me for help the other day. But what if she was a drug addict? A con artist? But what if she wasn't? Should I carry a test with me, a 'Poor Test,' to determine if someone is really poor or not? Which poor person to give to? How much? But I want to be happy. I want to keep it for myself. Give myself the things I want. But if I know someone very well, I don't hesitate to give them what they need. What is it the world needs now?

"So people tell me I'm supposed to stand on my own two feet, and develop a nonpossessive attachment to the world. But aren't I supposed to make life mine? Attach myself with all my senses?"

Dr. Bob rubbed his head, "Yes, but it's more of a flowing, kind of like ball bearings. Close and touching constantly, but not attached, frictionless. You can pick up a lot of velocity that way, with nothing holding you down." Dr. Bob rubbed his head again. Ball bearing head. Mind-like-water. Hydroencephaletic idiot. When he sleeps his dreams run out of his ears onto his pillows which say nothing, but absorb everything. Pillow talk. She was lying on the paisley couch. Dr. Bob took off his glasses. They connected and flowed off the couch in a sensuous frictionless passion while the Picasso faces on the wall watched. Artists see the world through their paintings.

Chapter 8 - Snowflake

Snowflake was the most favorite of all of Eskimo Pie's progeny. Little white-as-a-baby-albino-mouse's-belly puppy with black patches. Snowflakes. That's what the patches were. Black snowflakes. Through Eskimo Pie Girl's kaleidoscope eyes every crystal white snowflake reflected all the potential of a rainbow. Rainbow patches falling from the black velvet sky. 'Skimo always had the privilege of naming the newest canine and feline additions to the family. It wasn't really a privilege. It was more of an honorable duty that she took upon herself. Before anybody, anything could really belong to the world, it had to have a name. Ma and Pa and Joey and Celia were too old to understand the importance of naming an animal as soon as possible. If you didn't name it right away, it could develop some kind of identity crisis. And you could never call it to you if it didn't have a name. Skippy and Lassie were Snowflake's parents. And before them came Rupert and Ralph and Twinkie the golden cat with the white fluffy tummy. Eskimo Pie had been with Snowflake right from the start of her doggy life. Out of the seven tiny ragamuffins brought into the world by Lassie, noble dog of the north, Snowflake had presented herself to Pie Girl in a way that only puppies can, with those big glossy saucer eyes that expose their souls every time they gaze at you. Eyes that say, "I'm ready to be loved by you forever."

One morning, Eskimo couldn't find Snowflake anywhere. She called and called. And still no Snowflake. "Mother, where's Snowflake?" Mother took her and sat her down at the kitchen table. "Honey, I'm really sorry, but I found Snowflake by the side of the highway last night. She was hit by a car." Eskimo couldn't believe it. "Where is she? I have to see her! Maybe she's still alive!" "No, she's not alive," Mother said. "She's gone to Heaven; and I don't think you should see her. Just remember her the way she was." Eskimo Pie Girl ran out of the house into the snow. She ran down the dirt road, across the highway into the woods. The snow was just starting to melt, and Eskimo's running feet left footprints alternating in patches of snow and mud. Run and run and run. She ran down the trail which wound among the spruce trees and over fallen logs. Up the road past the Johnson's house, up the old horse trail deeper into the woods. Down the old fisherman's road which led towards the river. She finally stopped at the crest of the hill and stood looking down at the river which gushed and rushed over the rocks eating away at the last remaining patches of ice. Pie Girl stood on the hill letting the wind that denied that spring was on the way lash her hair against her face. That was the only way she could handle grief. By standing out there in the wilderness, alone in the cold wind, alone with her grief. She wanted to run because she thought that she could run the pain away, punish her own body so much that she would forget about Snowflake. Stand there braving the elements so that she could show Snowflake, wherever she was, that she, Eskimo Pie, was suffering. It was a show of love for Snowflake. None of the other members of Pie's family had shared her passion for Snowflake while Snowflake was alive and none of them would share her deep sorrow. So she went it alone.

She slowly walked down the hill and found a dry patch under a spruce tree next to the river. She leaned her back against the trunk of the tree and stayed there for a long long time listening to the water, the wind in the trees, the occasional "Caw, Caw" of a crow. While she sat there, clouds started gathering overhead, and as night approached, the dark clouds of winter obscured the sunset. Eskimo, cold and tired and hungry, finally started walking home. About a mile from the Johnson's house, she stopped in the middle of the road and listened. The snow had started to fall from the black sky. She listened to the silent snowflakes falling, covering the forest with a blanket of quietness. When she got home, Mother didn't chastise her for coming home late, didn't ask her any questions; just gave her a bowl of hot soup with some crackers. Pie Girl went to bed right away. She was lying there in the dark when Mother opened the door and a shaft of light fell on Eskimo's bed. "I'm sorry Honey. I thought you might like to sleep with little Clubfoot." Mother placed the little brown puppy on the bed. "I don't want Clubfoot! All I want is Snowflake and Snowflake is gone and I don't ever want anything ever again!" Mother said, "All right," kissed Pie on the cheek and left the room. Clubfoot clumsily crawled up towards the pillow. "I don't want you!" Pie Girl said emphatically as she picked him up and put him on the floor. An angry silence hung in the air. The silence didn't last long, though. Clubfoot started making grring and gnawing sounds and short puppy barks as he attacked Pie Girl's slipper. So Pie Girl had no choice but to bring him back up onto the bed. She had to put him under the covers and hold onto him really close so he would be still. In the dark, little Clubfoot felt just like Snowflake. She imagined he was Snowflake. The snowflake visions in her mind melted and started falling, rolling down her cheeks, falling like big raindrops on top of Clubfoot's head. Clubfoot licked her cheeks in that special way, that only puppies can. The special way that says, "I understand. And I will love you forever." Pie Girl's cold heart melted just then and she hugged Clubfoot closer, letting him know that she would love him more than any puppy had ever been loved before. And in her dreams, all the snow had melted and she and Snowflake and Clubfoot were rolling and playing in the spring flowers. In that special way, that only children and puppies can.

Chapter 9 - Blue Moon

Some evenings Timothy and she would walk down to the boat harbor. Reflections of tiny lights strung out on a wire rose and fell on the water, as if the waves were winking at Eskimo Pie. With the moon rising on waves of blue jazz, she felt her spirits yield. She succumbed to the night. Night of a thousand rememberances. And in each shimmer of the river she saw a part of herself. Part of her was blue moon, turning in a lagoon sky. The moon poured out its blue notes while crystal stars shone like cutouts on a black velvet sky. Timothy told her that the stars were spirits of people passed from the earth. Flames of unknown souls flickering in the inky abyss. When the sun laid down at night, she pulled her black velvet blanket over the earth. The earth like a guinea pig or hamster covered up each night. But the stars shone down from the blackness all the time. No night or day for them. Just eternal light shining in an interminable darkness. Eskimo would never get to touch the stars or even get a star's-eye view of the earth. But perhaps she could touch the moon. The moon, a lone wolf, loped across the sky, spinning rings around the earth. A syncopated dance of moon and earth and stars. Layers upon layers of spinning webs encasing the earth. And if, layer by layer, you unraveled all the strings, you would be left with Eskimo's thoughts. Paradise would be to escape from her thoughts. But more often than not, it was her thoughts which escaped from her. The memories ran out of her mind-like-water, and as there were so many lost thoughts out there already, as soon as her thoughts escaped, she would never be able to retrieve them. Eskimo Pie poured her glass of water into the river. The water melded into the ripples and she would never see that particular glass of water again. But was it important to see Timothy again? The thoughts remaining behind thought so. And she couldn't get them out of her head.

Images of Timothy swam in and out of her mind as she basted in the glowing orb of the moon. Everything spun round and round and went in and out. God was playing with his galactic yo-yo. Round the world. Eskimo decided then and there that all societies had a fixation with circles because the moon and sun were circles. And all living things, her body, her eyes, were rounded. Her eyes--gateway to a midnight black river, Running River. That was Timothy's grandmother's name. He believed her spirit still lived in the water. Save the river. That's what Timothy aimed to do. The first time they'd walked along the river he'd collected garbage strewn about like confetti--bits of glass, broken bottles, gum wrappers, pieces of cardboard, rotten socks. And he'd take it and glued it all together. "This is you, baby. This is us," he'd say. A rusty tin can stuck on top of a tire. He glued all the dirty scraps of paper together into a map and tacked it, stretched out like a hide on a drum, over the tire. He'd drawn a black circle in the middle with a red "X" in it. "We're here, baby. This is it." Said he was just giving back to humanity what it had given to the river.

They never failed to find garbage. Except for one day, when they covered a small stretch they'd been over a week before. They couldn't find anything. And they'd been happy for a little while. They'd laughed and cheered humanity then. Thought that maybe, just maybe, somebody else gave a damn. "Do you love me?" he'd asked her that evening. "More than the stars," she'd said.

An Indian summer it was. Long days melting into brief nights. Some day the Indian summer would never end. The sun would never set. The moon would never rise. The moon was waning already.

Chapter 10 - Blue Eyes

Eskimo called him, "the man with the far-away heart." Victor always wanted to touch, but it was a quick touch, a hasty hug, an embrace of, "Hello," but not, "How are you?" Eskimo Pie pictured him as a wayward lamb, one that looks so cuddly, so inviting, that you want to run over and stroke his little lambkin head. But he would always run away. Baa! Baa! She could never get him to sit down in one place and have a heart-to-heart discussion. Sometimes, from a distance, she would watch him moving about like a doddering old man, fidgeting with things, straightening up, but always moving. When he was like that, by himself, he somehow seemed to be a martyr; maybe not a martyr; but just sad. And sometimes she tried to ask him, "Why are you so sad?" And he'd always shy away from the question, as if when you spoke to him, he turned on his happy face. Sometimes he got angry if she wanted to talk about sad things, like about what happened to his wife. But maybe Eskimo was reading him all wrong. Maybe he didn't have a far-away-heart. Maybe his heart was too close to the surface, beating, pulsing, pulling at Eskimo Pie's little heart with his blue eyes, lake blue eyes. She wanted to drown herself in those eyes. But they always skipped past her, quickly to the next patch of bare skin that entered the room. Just when she'd gotten up enough courage to dive into his eyes like water, when the reflection off the water burned her skin and made her want to cool her fever, he'd run away. Maybe she just couldn't get enough. She wanted to immerse herself in him. She wanted those blue eyes to linger, smolder, simmer. Wanted those pouting lips to shut the fuck up about work and all that other crap that he used to keep people away. Just shut the fuck up and moan. Wanted him to let go and fall away in a moaning yawing cavern of lust. Slip her cool hands beneath his crisp white shirt and touch. And kiss. His smooth burning skin. His sun-kissed skin. With her cherry lips. She wanted those strong and gentle hands to tease . . . . Blue eyes flashed and sparkled like iridescent fish, "Hello." "How are you? " chocolate eyes asked. Brown eyes wanted to melt all over blue eyes. But blue eyes darted away and all she got was a sunburn and salt in her eyes.

Chapter 11 - Green Eyes

Now Green Eyes was a different flavor altogether. Oh Timothy, Timothy, Timothy. She missed him already. Missed the way she'd catch him looking at her from across the room, just as he did when they'd first met. He'd been working as a cashier in a museum, and she'd been looking at paintings. She'd gone to the museum mainly because Victor and she had had a tiff. He had accused her of having no culture. And she'd replied that he was a culture, a fungal growth of diseased ideas that ate away any heart he might have once had. He didn't have any real feelings, he wasn't a real person, she'd yelled. He was just a clone of a man, a man molded by a plastic society. A cultured blob in a petri dish, she'd said. Yes, he was more of a . . . more of a mushroom than a man. And with that, she'd stormed out and driven off. She thought the museum would calm her down, like it always did. It was always so quiet, so dignified, from the marble steps and columns outside to the high ornate ceilings and elegant polished banisters inside. She liked the impressionistic paintings most of all. They seemed an actual representation of life to her, with the tiny individual splotches of color only visible up close. Real life was not smooth surfaced, not whole; but instead composed of a myriad of microcosmic entities. A person was not one thing, but many things. So she'd gazed for a very long time at the elegant woman in the white dress with the white hat and white parasol standing eloquently in a green field flocked with a spray of pastel wildflowers. The Woman in White looked very prim and proper, very cultured. Victor would like her. But the Woman in White wasn't really a woman in white, for when Eskimo Pie looked closely, her whiteness was composed of brush strokes of pinks and greys and peachy creams and amber beiges.

As Eskimo turned away from the painting, she caught his eyes gazing at her. The emerald eyes set in a bronze face, with his thick black hair an extravagant exclamation point. She turned away quickly. Mustn't let him smile at her. For she was terribly susceptible to smiles, especially from handsome strangers. That's how she'd fallen in with Victor--his blue, blue smile. No, she mustn't look. She bumped into the woman beside her. "I'm so sorry," smile. Accepting smile. The distinguished looking old man in the corner smiled. The little girl smiled. Smile, smile, smile. She began to laugh. Oh really now, mustn't look, mustn't smile. Must look at the pretty pictures and not think about the green eyes. Sea-green eyes. Moss-green eyes. Lime jello-green eyes. Pistachio pudding-green eyes. Mint julep-green eyes. She pretended to look at the next painting. They were all smiling. All ten Indians. Sitting stoically in a straight line on their painted black and white ponies. The painted desert stretching off into the horizon behind them. Their painted faces with stark black eyes, twenty eyes, staring at her. She wondered what Green Eyes thought of the painting. She wondered what he thought of a white girl staring at ten partially clad Indians. And what if he said something to her? What in the world would she say? Victor was right. She hadn't any culture. Didn't know a Michael Angelo from a Manet, a Rembrandt from a Renoir. She didn't belong there. She didn't want to look at pictures anymore. Wanted to run away from the static eyes and painted smiles bearing down on her like a thunder of buffaloes. She didn't care if he thought she was strange because she'd only looked at two paintings and then left. She had to leave before she suffocated. She'd take a couple of deep breaths, turn, and without looking at him, make her escape. One deep breath, two deep breaths. "Do you like Indians?" a deep voice from close behind her said. A wave of color brushed her cheeks as she turned. And looked. And smiled.

Chapter 12 - Light and Dark

"Two men walking up a hill
One disappears and one's left standing still.
I wish we'd all been ready.
There's no time to change your mind.
The Son has come
And you've been left behind.
You've been left behind."
--Anonymous

"There is no time like tonight to save your soul. He may come tonight. But you can bet that He'll come when you're not looking. So look straight ahead; don't let yourself fall into darkness. Look to Him for guidance. Open your door to Him and He will guide you. Don't do it! Don't be blinded by the glittering trappings of this mortal world. You must have faith. Only by holding on tightly to your faith will you stay on the path of righteousness. Only if you follow Him will He lead you to the light of everlasting love."

Eskimo Pie Girl's face burned in the glow of the fire. The eyes of the other children sitting on the floor of the darkened room were turned upwards towards the Reverend. "You must repent my children. Tonight is the night to openly proclaim your sins so that He may take your burden from you. Do you have the courage to face God? Do you want to face Him now, while there is still time for salvation? Or do you want to face Him on the Judgement Day, when all your insolent sins will weigh heavy on your soul, hurtling you down into the fiery inferno of Hell?"

The room was deathly silent save for the hissing and popping of the logs in the fire. Eskimo was sitting too close to the fire. She began to swelter. "I am in Hell," she thought frantically. One tall gangly boy stood up slowly, wiping his eyes as he rose. She recognized him as the boy that she had overheard two other girls discussing at the beginning of the Bible Camp. She'd heard them say he was evil, sinful, because they'd seen him smoking behind the outhouse. She had decided he was evil too. "I . . . I am a terrible sinner," he sniffled. "I tried to turn away from him. But he has spoken to me. I've opened my heart and I've seen what I've done was wrong. I am saved!" he cried. He sat down slowly, sobbing. Eskimo Pie felt like sobbing too. "Amen, amen, praise be," reverberated through the room like a slow wind rustling the leaves on a tree. One by one the other children stood up, tearfully denouncing their sins and asking Jesus into their hearts.

Eskimo Pie's legs were cramped and she was still too close to the fire, but she was too afraid to move. She thought of the conversation she'd had earlier in the day with one of the Bible counselors. Eskimo had asked, "How do you know when the time is right to let God in?" "You will know," the woman replied. "The entrance of the glory of God is like no other feeling on earth." "But I'm ready for him," Eskimo said. "But he doesn't come. He doesn't speak to me." The woman patted Eskimo on the cheek and said confidently, "Just have faith, dear." The woman turned and walked away and didn't see the exasperated tears running down Pie Girl's face onto her T-shirt.

After the last sobbing confessors finished their soul-saving speeches, the Reverend led them in a prayer, "Thank you dear Lord, for bringing us here together tonight. Thank you for opening so many hearts, and may those sinners left among us yet find the power within themselves to humble themselves before your heavenly glory. May all of here tonight rejoice together on the Judgement Day and be welcomed into eternal light." "Amen. Amen. Amen. . . ."

The cool night breeze felt good against her face as she walked back towards the log cabin. She walked alone, listening to the others' murmured voices as they ran ahead of her down the trail, laughing and talking. She paused at the top of the trail overlooking the lake and focused her hearing away from the laughter towards the sound of the waves lapping against the shore. She tried to imprint in her mind the tranquil picture of trees and water and starlight laid out before her. Just one of many pictures she would carry with her until the end of her days.

The lights were turned out and Eskimo tossed and turned in her sleeping bag. "I'm ready," she whispered. No reply. An owl hooted in the distance. She sat up slowly so as not to waken the others, and gazed out the window at the dark. A squirrel scampered over the roof. She slowly unlatched the window and pushed it until it locked into an open position. Cool air ran over her skin as she breathed in the night. God had forsaken her, but outside the window the world beckoned her. She floated out into the night like a Princess of Darkness, dancing lustfully in the stardust moonlight in her flowing white nightgown, among the trees, the children of the earth.

Chapter 13 - Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright

Lawrence exuded calmness. Solemnity dripped from his very limbs like juice from a cling peach. Liquid in motion, his mind-like-water washed over her in cool soothing waves. The fluidity of his thoughts and actions never ceased to amaze her. "I am the water," he said. "I am the sky. I am the fire. I am the stone."

When she visited him, he made her take off her high heels and slip into gold brocade slippers. Each slipper of snake skin-like fabric was painted with a black dragon whose flaming red and yellow tongue wound round the curlicue pointed ends. Little Rumplestiltskin shoes. Each time she let herself in, he would be sitting in front of his fire in the same lotus position she had left him in before. His futon couch, pillows, black lacquer table, all sat low on the floor. "Sitting on the ground brings us closer to our animal state," he said. "The lotus position symbolizes the inwardness which we must strive for. Only by reaching inward will we find the center of being."

"But what about Shiva? she asked. "Shiva stands and dances. Isn't she close to the earth?"

"Ah, yes. Shiva," he said. "Shiva dances the cosmic dance. She is the energy that binds all living things."

Brilliant oriental tapestries hung upon his walls. The richly colored woven fabrics vibrated with exotic animals and tropical scenes. On one, a white elephant lumbered beneath an emerald canopy of towering white-barked, sun-flecked trees. On the elephant's forehead lay a giant ruby attached to a white strip of cloth gilded with golden fringes. A half-naked, brown-skinned boy sat atop, brandishing a long wooden stick and a smile. Lawrence called him "The Prince." "He is king of his domain. He sees no further than his immediate surroundings and thus he is content," Lawrence said sadly.

"Do you envy him?" asked Eskimo. "Don't you think he longs to live elsewhere, doing something more?"

"How can he long for something he does not know?" posed Lawrence as he faced the hanging with his back towards her. "If only I did not know what I know. Ah, how much happier I would be," he sighed.

"But I don't understand," said Eskimo.

"You think he is trapped in the tapestry, don't you Eskimo?" said Lawrence. "But he does not know he is trapped. Therefore he is content. That is why I meditate. To dissolve my awareness . . . of the pain."

"But don't you want to experience all that life has to offer? Sorrows and joys?" Eskimo insisted. "The boy can never be happy for he experiences nothing. He is nothing. Oh Lawrence, what kind of a way is that to live? You don't want to live. You want to die. There is your peace! You would! You would die right now if you could. You're the one who's trapped, Lawrence," she cried and threw her arms around him, clasping her hands together at the front of his chest. "There's time enough for dying," she sobbed into the warm valley between his shoulder blades. "Why can't you give something to life? Give something to me?"

"And if I gave to you . . .?" he asked. "You would only take more until there was nothing left of me to give. And then you would go. And I would long for you." She pressed closer to him. "I am not a boy in a tapestry. I am an old man. And you are so very young. I have already seen too much. Too much," he said as he closed his hands around hers. "One day you will understand. When I am gone, you will wish you had never known me, never loved me, never loved anyone. Someday you will remember the happy times and loves of your life, but they will all be blurred by a veil of sorrow. Wishes for happiness are only coins tossed in a well of tears, Eskimo. Save your pennies for someone else."

"But Lawrence . . . ." He pulled her hands away from him and turned to face her. He lifted up her chin with one hand as he caressed tears from her cheek with the other. "But I don't understand," she shook her head softly as tears ran over his hand. He drew close and in his crushing embrace he gave her as much as he could bear to give.

They clung to each other for what seemed like hours, though it was only minutes. Rain began to pelt the roof as Eskimo dried her tears and Lawrence gently kissed her forehead. "Go ahead and live your dreams, Shiva," he said tenderly. "I've found my way. Go and find yours. Don't. Don't . . . ."

He stood at the door as she walked through the rain, pausing once beneath a streetlight to turn and look at him. She passed out of his sight and began running down the darkened wet streets. Rainwater gushed down the gutters while her own torrent broke free. Half-running, half-stumbling, crying and laughing, hair and skin and forgotten dragon slippers drenched, a raggedy Shiva raged through mudpuddles trying to drown out the image of his face. "I wish I'd never loved you! she cried to the somber sky.

Lawrence resumed his position in front of the fire and gazed at the flames until they no longer burned. "I am the water. I am the sky. I am the fire. I am the stone."

Chapter 14 - The Duck

Eskimo and Jenny walked across the dusty earth beneath the makeshift awning perched precariously against the east side of the house. "We'd better hurry," Jenny said. "Your Ma and Pa are waiting." Coming out from under the dirty green plastic awning to the front of the house, Jenny held open the screen door. Banging the scorching heat behind them, they crossed the cold vinyl floor of the tiny living room, down the short hall into Jenny's room. "O.K." said Jenny. "I wanna give you going-away present. What do you want?" And with a sweep of her hand she displayed the contents of her room. Blankets and sheets lay crumpled on the unmade bed and clothes lay carelessly thrown about the room--on the dresser, the nightstand, the floor. Shoes lay jumbled on the closet floor and stuffed animals collected dust on the closet shelf. But Eskimo already knew what she wanted. "The duck," she said, pointing to the little yellow plastic head which peeped out from beneath a sock on top of the dresser. "The duck? Well, isn't there something else you'd like? How about this flute?" Jenny displayed the plastic black and white toy and gave it a quick, "Toot, toot." "The duck," said Eskimo again. A horn honked outside. "Well, you'd better go," said Jenny. "I'm sorry, but the duck . . . well the duck is special to me. Here. Just take the flute and believe me that you're getting the best thing I have."

Jenny pulled Eskimo's thumb out of her mouth and placed Eskimo's hand around the flute. "C'mon, let's go." Jenny pulled Eskimo along as fast as Eskimo's short legs could toddle; and at the car, Mother, spying the flute, said, "Oh, that's very sweet of you, Jenny. Did you say, 'Thank you,' Eskimo?" Eskimo gazed up at them, squinting against the sun. She let go of the flute, which fell forlorn into the dirt, and began to cry. "Oh, she must be tired," said Mother apologetically, retrieving the flute and lifting Eskimo into the back seat. "Goodbye Jenny. Thanks for everything. I'll write you as soon as we get there." The '58 Chevy pulled slowly out of the driveway, tires crunching through the dusty pebbles. Eskimo wiped her tears as soon as she discovered they weren't getting her any attention, and pulled herself up into a standing position so she could look out the back window. What she didn't see were the small shabby houses spread sporadically, impotently across the barren treeless desert, helpless in the immense face of the squalid sun. She didn't see the whirlwinds of dust which played havoc with tangled tumbleweeds. Didn't see the barefooted Mexican children playing outside the corner soda shop where Celia and Joey and she often escaped the heat. Didn't see the big glass container frothing and gurgling with cold orange drink just inside the shop window. Didn't see the brown stone school with the broken down metal fence sitting abandoned on a scorching August day. Didn't see old Mrs. Withers rocking inside her tiny house knitting bright red mittens. Mittens for Eskimo who didn't know she was going to a cold dark land where the fertile black soil wasn't bleached by the sun. A place with no soda shops. No sunbaked barefooted children. A place where a shiny new school sat wrapped in snow nine months out of the year.

But Mother saw. When one has been and seen and left many places and never gone back again, one takes in as much as one can when one leaves a place. What she saw was even more than houses and dirt and people. She saw another page turned, another chapter ended, another story ahead of them, with a different setting. "How can you build a home on change," she thought, "when the chapter ends when you've just begun?"

But Eskimo's field of view was much narrower. She had never left anywhere before. She only knew that when you left you were supposed to wave goodbye. And so her fat little fingers flexed open and closed, open and closed as she said goodbye to the little yellow duck under the sock on the dresser in the room of the girl that she could no longer see and would never see again.



To be continued . . .

© Eskimo Pie Girl