Raw Revelations from Apache Country-
A Christmas story, a parable, an urban legend, a myth, a catharsis

It was the day after Thanksgiving and I was driving somewhere between Tombstone, AZ and the San Carlos Apache reservation. I had spent the night before and most of that day ruminating at the ornate, antique bar of the Crystal Palace Saloon in Tombstone. The last of the pain medication supply had begun to wear off. The pinched nerve in my slightly dislocated right elbow started to ache and throb. I had been strung out on the little pink and white pills for days. I had covered this span of time and over a thousand hard miles in an existential and heartsick daze. Now, the pain had its fangs in me again and it was beginning to chew.
So, there I was wrestling 25,000 lbs. of steel and cargo down this lonesome desert road. I was hauling sound and video equipment for a trade show in San Jose. Holiday season had officially begun at midnight the night before and the wheels of commerce were already spinning in a frenzy throughout the land. The only radio station that would halfway tune in out there was playing Christmas music. The airwaves, even in this desolate and forsaken landscape were filled with songs about sugar plum fairies and talking snowmen cavorting in white Christmas wonderlands.
I am no grinch, however, this materialism driven ridiculousness began to cross mojinate with the road-wear, pain and mileage on my soul and my composure began to unravel.
About halfway through Elvis’ “Blue Christmas”, my mind seized up like a powerful engine dried up of oil. I plunged the vehicle off the road and out amongst the cactus greasewood and yucca. Now at a stop, I leapt out and engaged myself in an overdue primal scream. I cried out first to and then at the twilight heavens above. The words that spilled out of me arose from such depths that they are forever lost to me. It was as if I had spoken in tongues. Perhaps I had.
As my mind recoiled back to relative awareness, I noticed the rusted hulk of a 1940s model automobile in the still burning beams of the truck’s headlights. I dashed into the cab of the truck and extracted my Winchester, model 250, 30-30 caliber rifle from behind the seat. I carry this weapon on my cross country travels as an equalizer. After all, one never knows when the apocalypse will set in or they will be beset on the road by roving banditos. I shouldered the weapon and blasted five quick shots into the decaying body of the car, sending various appendages and pieces of it flying. I went back into the truck for more bullets. The radio was now blaring “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”, which I silenced with my boot.
I was back on the sand reloading when I sensed someone or something standing behind me and to the left. I turned to behold a male figure. His visage was such that I knew instantly that this visitor was spiritual. This is something us Injuns, even half-breeds like me, are more or less accustomed to. I turned back to my target, sighted in my weapon and spoke to him/it in a casual tone,
“So…you a ghost?”
No answer.
I asked, “Uhhh…is this your car I’m shootin’ at? No offense man,” I said turning back to him, “I was just lettin’ off a little…”
My sentence trailed off as a pair of majestic, white feathered wings
unfolded gracefully behind him.
“Ahhh,” I said, trying to remain non-plussed, “One of the Man Upstairs’ errand boys.”
I spun and fired another shot into the car.
“I hope you’re here to take me home,” said I, as I lifted my eyes
skyward. The stars were beginning to twinkle above.
“So where’s the fiery chariot?” I asked, cocking the gun again.
“Your home is still here on the Earth for now,” came the answer.
When I turned to view him again he appeared as a Kachina this time. I
sensed that this change had come in order to perhaps inspire a bit more awe and respect from me than I had given. So, he was playing to my penchant for Native American metaphysics. I was still feeling riled up and insolent about my state of being and said,
“Ohhh, Mr. Mudman Kachina now. This here’s Apache country…ain’t you a Hopi myth? A little off aren’t ya….”

“I am Thunder Kachina and this whole continent is Indian country in general,” he said, “you should remember such things.”

“Well,” I said, “Excuuuuse me… it’s a little hard to keep it all straight here in the 21st century world of concrete and steel and shopping mall culture …I mean aren’t there like over 400 of you guys? Now if you ask me the difference between Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Spider Man and…”

“Enough!,” Kachina Man says sternly, “We are without number, humans only know few of us.”

“There is a holy mountain not far from here,” he says gesturing towards the shadowy peaks just to the north.

“What is its name?” he asks.

Without reflection I answer, “D’zil N’cha Si’ an. It means Sky Island in the Apache tongue.”

“So you have not forgotten…you still know what to do…And why have you not taken your troubles there in prayer? Why are you here raging against a piece of rotting steel?” he asks.

His questions rile me further.

“Yeah man, you know why I remember that mountain? I was involved with the Native rights struggle to save that mountain from being defiled by the government building stuff up there a few years ago…ANOTHER LOST CAUSE,” I
said, my voice raising.
“Prayer?,” I went on “Maybe all you fellows up top haven’t been paying attention…I’ve been praying for six damn months for a little help with just one thing… beggin’ on my knees for just that one thing to go right…JUST ONE…IN YEARS…just one!!”

“Does this one thing have a name?” Kachina Man asks.

“You should know that,” I say sullenly.
I dared not speak the name for the terror of coming completely undone out there in the solitary wasteland.
“Whatever happened to that Bible teaching that says something about how almighty God knows the very number of the hairs of someone’s head anyway, man?” I ask, and then continue, “HE, should have known how important that was to me,” throwing a sharp look towards the stars.
“Maybe you have heard of a thing called free will,”
Kachina/Angel remarks, “That wasn’t really his call, now was it,” he adds. “Point taken,” I answer softly.

He continues,
“God, being God, can certainly know anything there is to know. But, do you really think he chooses to keep all those types of things like the number of nose hairs or the volume of the wax in the ears of every living person, or each person’s mood swings in his mind all at once? Come now…If you haven’t noticed, there are other pressing matters at hand…like the generally lost condition of mankind, past, present and future…the sickness and rampant evil, confusion and perversion in the world…the ongoing strife in the middle east and all the other regions…man’s defilement of the beauty and wonder of nature and the equilibrium of creation itself which is the greatest testament of all to the very existence of God…The most powerful nation in the planet’s history rests in the hands of corporate criminals and
sidewinding politicians…Man’s love of money and material things run amok…the penitentiaries, asylums and orphanages bursting at the seams…
I finally dropped my rifle to the sand and sunk to my haunches, head in hands.

” What is it Scott ,” Thunder Kachina asks, “are you needing someone to blame?”

“There is no blame,” I say after a pregnant pause, ” If you had done your homework before coming here you would know that I generally never do that.”
I continue, “Most of the time, when I don’t get the things I want or need, I just rationalize and say OK I guess it wasn’t God’s will for me…or Yep, he must have something else in store for me…Then I learned to just not ask for anything so I wouldn’t have to come up with new excuses for why it didn’t happen for me…Then I learned not to even expect anything at all
either…But, I guess I forgot all that and dared to hope for something for the first time in a great while…I thought maybe it would happen just this once.”
“Ya know, since we’re on the subject here,” I said rising to my feet and raising a pointed finger, “I would just like to remind all you Heaven dwellers that I AM one of the good guys…I am not a drunk or a drug abuser…I am honest to a fault…I do not lie or cheat or steal and always look for the good in any given situation…But, what has it gotten me?”

He answered calmly,
“So, are you expecting a reward for doing these things you are supposed to do as a matter of course, or not doing those things that you are not supposed to do? Do you think your suffering in this world will be less because of these things? Why don’t you just go ahead and tell me how bad you have it? You with your near perfect health…who have never gone hungry or had to fight in a war or seen your comrades or your family butchered, burned or blown up? Go ahead, this ought to be good…I’m listening…you humans are always entertaining this way.”

“Naw,” I thought to myself, “nothing as dramatic as all that…I just have to live in a world I never made.”

He had me on the run but I was still feeling like mixing it up and wanted to get a few more things off my chest. The best response I could think of was to pull out a rant and rave I had once written. I stepped to the truck, dug into my things and retrieved a book of my writings I had brought on this trip because I was feeling sentimental as I packed. I ripped out a page and went back waving it at him. “Here ya go Mr. Messenger,” I said, “take this home and pass it around.”
He began to quote it without even looking at it,

“I come rolling down the mountain solid as a rock
to find sugar crazed children chokin’ the man who keeps the clock
A streetwise and angry priest is throwing punches at the moon
A leather clad monkey man is determined to drink his doom
The preacher’s voice rattles like dry bones
As the T.V. god lights up the broken homes
nicotine junkies come in an ashtray kiss
black lung poison - it tastes like this
skinny third world kids try to suckle dry tits
as a fat man farts and takes another hit
The serpent crawls
The empire falls
The ultimate truth was buried still in Einstein’s balls
Relative truth is enforced by government guns
Like the wolves, whales and deer I live always on the run
But the tax man says I still haven’t paid my dues
I guess that’s why I’ve always got the blues…”

“We remember when you wrote that 10 years and three days ago to be
exact…right before you migrated to Texas. You were in about the same shape that day as this one. It caused a bit of a stir then…we thought you might be about ready to break out…silly us. Personally I prefer The Outlaw’s Prayer you wrote. It showed a bit more humility,” Thunder Kachina said. I squatted down again, all I could do was stare at the hardscrabble ground.

“Maybe it is you Mr. Starrider,” He said mockingly, “who has not done your homework.”
“Do you not remember,” he continued, “What has happened to men in pursuit of better things through the ages? Almost none of them ever found that which they sought the most in this world. This very territory is littered with the dust and bones of hungry hearted people just like you.”
I sunk further down to my knees, head down, with my face hidden in the dirt.

“Do you really think you are so different,” he asked?

I closed my eyes and visions of men of this territory like Geronimo whose families, whole tribes, whole civilizations were wiped out during the conquest of the continent and the pursuit of the gold and cotton and coal. I also saw the cast of characters that made the town of Tombstone, where I’d
just left earlier, famous. I saw men like Doc Holliday, the Earps, Johnny Ringo… A scene from the movie “Tombstone” replayed in my head where someone asked Val Kilmer’s version of Doc Holliday what drives men like Johnny Ringo to act as they do.
“Revenge,” Doc answered.
“For what,” Doc was asked.

“Bein’ born,” Doc replied pensively.

I could almost hear the blood of the ages still crying from the ground. I saw other men and women whose lives had been unfulfilled or cut short; Abe Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Crazy Horse, the Kennedys, millions of soldiers, firemen, cops, mothers, tortured musicians, artists and writers. I saw Hemingway with a shotgun in his mouth. I thought of my favorite writer, Edward Abbey, taken by cancer, who had himself buried somewhere in this very desert in a dry wash underneath a cactus. I also thought of those people enslaved and stepped on in order to build the big machine and the hungry children that never had a chance at all. Thunder Kachina spoke again, adding to my reverie. Even the most righteous, the men closest to God, the Messiah himself included, have met with sorry ends…and too soon. They were crucified, some of them upside down… stoned, burned, beheaded….”
I pictured the apostle John, disheveled, crazy and hiding in a salt cave on the Greek island of Patmos trying to scribble down his fitful dreams into what would become the book of Revelation.
“No hope,” I thought out loud as I rose to my feet feeling more sullen
than ever.
”Well, golly gee,” I said, “Thanks so much for dropping in to cheer me up like this Kachina-angel man, but, really I’ve gotta get goin’…take care now.”

“I am here because we need you to stay the course,” he said.

“The course!?!” I say, “What freakin’ course man!? If there is some master plan workin’ for me I sure don’t see it.”

He says, “Contrary to your anger, your faith is still strong. If it were not so, I would not be here.”

“Faith!?,” I ask, “Is that what you call it when a dumb shit like me keeps hanging on and hanging on when there’s nothing left to be hanging on to but some gut instinct that says don’t let go?”
“Yes,” he said, “Even now you cling to your faith, if you did not, you
would not be so lost and tortured feeling…You simply would not care like most people out there…you’d just be absorbed in consumerism, television shows, sports utility vehicles and the like.”
He continues, “I’ve seen many just like you, all lost trying to live a
life of spirit and relevance and the life of the worldly at the same time. You’re trying to keep a foot in both worlds at the same time and it’s tearing you apart. Still, you have lived longer than most of your ilk ever do. The world has not found a way to put out your fire just yet. Only you yourself can do that. That is why the Lord favors you.”

“FAVORS ME!?,” I scream, “If he favors me so much what the fuck am I doing out here damaged bad, all by myself talking to some big head clay mask wearing guy who probably ain’t even there!?!”
“Don’t pretend my friend,’ he says, “You know the power of the gift you
have been given…You have known since you were a boy, which you really still are by the way. You could have been a billionaire twenty times over if you had let the world corrupt you, but nooo, not you. You cling to that faith… that vision inside you of how things ought to be. Right now you are just pissed off . The trouble is you have not used that gift at all…except to try and woo women and make jokes.”

“That’s right, I am pissed off…hurt too. How observant of you,”I said.

Then sarcastically I added, “I’m real sorry man if I am mistaken, but, I like women…and I always heard that laughter was good medicine too.”

“Women are good, but, I don’t think I need to tell you they can also destroy you… mind body and soul. Laughter is good medicine, insincerity is a sin” Thunder Kachina said.

After letting these words sink in for a moment he said, “There was a story you were supposed to tell…don’t pretend you have forgotten the visit we paid you back in 1985. You haven’t told that story yet though… now have you.”

Another pregnant pause.

“Because,” he continued, “You, my friend, are a coward…a survivor, but, still a coward. You try so hard to fit in, even though you know you never will…until you use that inner voice you were given…And then…things will fit in around you…Look at yourself…How long do you plan to wait?”

I was reeling but still had plenty of fight left in me. As I reached for words, a passage from a book I had once read rose up and commanded a moment’s thought. It was from a book entitled “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, by Milan Kundera.

The passage that had stuck to my head for so long went, “…He had never been able to engage himself completely in any love affair or any pleasure, he had never been really unhappy; he always felt as though he were somewhere else, that he was not yet wholly born…He waited.”
Thunder Kachina had me on the run.
Still, I wanted to self indulge in my sorry mood, my bleeding heart, my
rage, my solitude. My highly evolved self defense mechanisms flared again and I decided to just bolt. I snatched my rifle up again, but before I could spout some snappy comeback and storm away, the angel morphed again.
Suddenly, the angel appeared as a gorgeous blond haired, green eyed
cowgirl with a dynamite smile and dressed only in a western hat and boots, nothing else…and holding a fine guitar. This time I WAS in awe. For the first time since the episode had begun, I questioned my own sanity. I thought I’d better verify whether or not I
was hallucinating phantasms. At least that was the handiest excuse as I stepped forward and ran my fingers through her golden hair. Then, I reached out and gently touched one of her perfect breasts. I stepped back flustered now.

“Whatever it takes to keep your attention,” she/he/it, said.

I grinned sheepishly as I took in the beautiful visage in front of me. I was Still wanting to maintain my cocky bearing and so asked flirtatiously, “So is this like the modern day version of the burning bush?,” smiling at my own tasteless joke.

“You are feeling fresh tonight aren’t you?” she remarked with a twinkle in her eye.

She then said, ” The Lord wants me to sing you a song now…Why don’t you just have a seat over there and take a load off…You look so tired.”

Her comment about my wear and tear showing wounded me a little and
softened me up a bit. The female sympathy made my eyes mist a little as I leaned my rifle on the old car and took a seat in the dirt leaning back on the fender, slack jawed. She began to play and sing with the voice of …well an angel.

(listen below)

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses,

You’ve been out ridin fences for so long now,
Oh and you’re a hard one, but I know that you’ve got your reasons,
The things that are pleasin’ you can hurt you somehow.

Don’t you draw the Queen of Diamonds boy, she’ll beat you if she’s able.
You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet.
Now it seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table,
But you only want the ones you can’t get.

Desperado, you ain’t gettin no younger,
Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin you home,
And freedom, oh freedom, well that’s just some people talkin.
Your prison is walking through this world all alone.

Don’t your feet get cold in the wintertime,
The sky won’t snow and the sun won’t shine,
It’s hard to tell the nighttime from the day.
And you’re losin all your highs and lows,
Ain’t it funny how the feelin goes away?

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses,
Come down from your fences- open the gates.
It may be rainin, but there’s a rainbow above you.
You’d better let somebody love you,
LET SOMEBODY LOVE YOU.
You’d better let somebody love you,
before it’s too late.

By the middle of the song, my heart was shattered. Still, I was somehow able to swallow it and stifle most of my tears.
“It’s gonna take more than some sappy song to make things right,” I tell myself. I struggle back to my feet like a prize fighter that had gone down hard from a crushing blow, but whose instinct to fight on lifted him again against all reason. Sensing she had nearly broken me, she started into another tune- a Bible school song I remembered from boyhood.

She sang, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine - This little light of mine-I’m gonna let it…”

I stepped up and muted the strings of the guitar by grabbing it by the neck. I resisted the urge to snatch that guitar and smash it over the hood of that rusty old car, figuring that it might be a good way to get myself smited or smitten or whatever. I figured there just might be an entire legion of angels standing by at the ready to turn me into a crispy smithereen to mingle with the desert sands and be tossed around by roving dust devils til the Earth itself became a smithereeen.
Still, I could not resist the urge to give more voice to the hurt inside me even though I knew the angel was right about everything and I was wrong as I could be.

“Ya know,” I said, “I really did enjoy your little ditty and all…and I really do appreciate the Good Lord playing Casey Kasem up there with the long distance dedications and all…I mean I have always been a sucker for a good tune… rock and roll, country, blues, gospel, bluegrass, folk…you name it…but ya know I think right now that all of that music of the ages, all that expression of humanity - the longing -the yearning for something better- for truth and beauty and love…it don’t mean nothing…it’s just
NOISE!!!! You miss Eternal Angel, should know that…bound forever to sing praise and more praise in heavenly choirs just so you can keep doing it some more. I’m glad you are OK with that and can keep it up…But, I have had all the pointlessness I can stand.”
I turned my back to her and I lowered my voice and said sarcastically,

“Let somebody love me, huh? Now why didn’t I think of that?”

“Ohhhh Scott,” she said, “You are loved.”

“Yeah right,” I said, “Nobody really knows me, my people like me mainly for my entertainment value…my so called charisma.”
My voice began to crack.
I went on, “I’m out here chasing some myth, call it truth, true
love…whatever, I am the stupid one here. I see other people settle, take the path of least resistance, simply tolerate each other and they all look as happy as clams while I’m making myself miserable by believing someday I will find satisfaction…something to believe in…
a love that will move mountains…something real and honest and pure…some truth to cling to…meanwhile other people choose each other like they were picking out a new car…I know now that my romanticism of life must die and give way to realism.”

“I know you are hurting Scott,” she said sweetly, ” But I also know that inside you know that the path to becoming a better person is about learning how to give love not how to get it. I see it in you. I see it in your actions…You have done so well.”

I was shaking I was so worked up. My insides felt like a burning cinder. I was seething with spite.
I worked up a big fake smile, turned back to her and said sarcastically, “Ohhhh, I get it. It’s like John Lennon once
said, “In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

“That’s it,” she said with a tentative smile.

I went on, “I always wondered though, what Lennon thought about that saying while he laid there on the sidewalk WITH ALL THOSE BULLET HOLES IN HIM AND HIS BLOOD SEEPING INTO THE GUTTER.”

I took some vile pleasure in watching the smile drain from that lovely, angelic face. Then big tears formed in those beautiful eyes and the guitar slipped from her grasp to the desert floor.
My satisfaction was short lived. I had outdone myself. One thing I
cannot stand is to see a woman cry. I will say or do anything to avoid it. I had to turn away again. Hearing the soft and pitiful sobs of an angel made something inside of me break as well.
I dropped once again to my knees. I felt as though I was being turned
inside out. In the most pitiful human voice I have ever heard, I sobbed,

“Who will take care of me when I get old?”

She stepped up and embraced me from behind.
She said in the voice of a nurturing mother, “I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you my son.” She ran her fingers lovingly through my now sweaty hair. I sobbed like a baby.
After several epic moments she said with a humorous lilt,
“Besides, what makes you think that you are going to live long enough to be considered old.”

I turned to look up a her gorgeous face and that tender teasing smile made me smile as well, right through my hot, passionate tears.
She then stepped back. In a minute, I staggered back to my feet again. Practice makes perfect. She picked up the guitar again and I retrieved my gun.

“I’ve really gotta get going now,” I said, “There’s a bunch of meeting planners that are gonna come apart at the seams if I don’t get all these electronic toys to ‘em on time for their little pep rally.”

She stood pat.

I could only bear to stare at the ground, standing there in the cool desert night air with that gun over my shoulder. I turned toward the truck and spoke to her again.

I said, “You know, they’ll all think I’m crazy, they already do…no one will ever believe I was out here talking to you…them…whatever.”

“Does that really matter?” she asked.

“Naw,” I said, I reckon It don’t.”

She said softly, “Stay the course Scott…allow yourself to be great…You have now defeated ignorance, greed, fear, pride and desire…there’s nothing left to stop you. Most people live as though they had a thousand years in front of them…don’t make that mistake…your fate is at your heels, you already know this. I just came to give you a reminder…a little lift.”
“Thank you,” I said in a whisper.
Then, shuffled back to my truck and loaded myself up.
She started strumming the guitar again and sung a few lines from the song from the rock band “Foreigner” that have given me my nickname back in high school when my old pal Anthony Mazza used to sing it to me.
She sung, “Starrrrriderrrr-Starrrrriderrrr nobody knows who you are.”
I leaned out the truck window and said, “Cute… very Cute.”
We shared a mischevious smile. I fired the engine and began to back up. I was amazed that the truck was not bogged in the sand. I thought this must surely be her/their work. I looked back in her direction just in time to see her/them/it morph again into the form of a coyote, the Native American Indian archetype of the trickster, a divine messenger and vessel of wisdom. The coyote dashed away into the desert night.
I backed on up to the pavement and aimed the truck down the pitch black
road.
After a bit, I put the radio on again and began to sing along with the song that was on:

I am a poor boy too
a rumpa pum pum

I have no gift to bring
a rumpa pum pum

That’s fit to give a king
a rumpa pum pum, rumpapum pum, rumpapum pum

Shall I play for you?
a rumpa pum pum
On my drum?

There he nodded
a rumpa pum pum, rumpa pum pum, rumpapumpum….

copyright 2003- S. Starr

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