“Some folks draw lines between gay and straight like it’s a fence that keeps the rain out. Kurt Cobain was proud of being gay even though he wasn’t. Love’s a trickster too.” ~ The Clown

A Moniker for Mamzer

Meanwhile, back on the Rez, it hadn’t taken long for his new nickname to reach Mamzer’s ears. He’d first heard it when he passed the school playground. “There’s He She!” they’d giggled. “Look at that pink briefcase! He’s not a real man, he’s a lawyer!”

He She. What a bastardization of his good name! Small tears ran down his cheeks as he steered down the gravel road leading to the state highway. It hadn’t helped that he’d kept to himself since he arrived. It also hadn’t helped that he’d turned down invitations for romance from the local ladies. Last night, for example.

“What’s the matter with you?” his plump guest asked him soon after arriving in his hut. “I’ve been here an hour, and you haven’t said a single word. You’ve just been trembling in the corner with the bugs and snakes. Why don’t you scoot over here and warm me up?”

“I am heaven’s answer to most feminine prayers, but I don’t like women, and they don’t like me. Most men don’t like me either,” Mamzer said, instantly regretting his word choices. “I mean, I don’t prefer men. I just don’t like anyone coming here in the middle of the night to disturb my slumber.” But it was too late. The damage was done. 

She left in a huff and Mamzer reached for one of the handkerchiefs his grandmother had dutifully ironed before he left Minneapolis. That seemed like a long time ago. “I’m a lawyer for the Indian people!” he shrieked. “The best legal mind in North Dakota! But I must have my rest! No one—woman, man, or god—must be allowed to disturb my slumber!”

No way thought the Clown. Everyone’s fair game out here—and you smell like open season. The moccasin telegraph carried the news in minutes, slithering like a bullsnake in dry grass. The Clown decided at that very moment to close the circle, sow a seed that would sprout more mischief. Nine months later, Elbowoods Hospital welcomed a fresh mamzer, squalling into the world like he already knew the score. Even immaculate conception, it seems, has taste for vengeance. They named the child Mamzer Mud Hut He-She II, because some curses deserve a sequel.

The 1942 State B Championship

“Talent’ll win games, but mendacity brings home a trophy all swaddled in bacon and what not. Check that out with any champion.” ~ The Clown

The season finale was at hand. The Elbowoods Warriors had cruised to the title game. The Lakota Ice Holes had grappled their way there with augers, chisels, and the most profane fans in this history of North Dakota school boy basketball. This was Minot, the second largest city in North Dakota, a near White only town with a real gym and solid oak floors. Both teams were awed by the smell of floor polish and newly installed fluorescent lights casting violet hues throughout the gym. There was no noisy radiator hissing on the court. There’d be no ten-foot-high jump shots from the corner, but at least the basketball would bounce predictably. Perhaps.

The Minot police, forewarned about the carnage the Lakota fans had drunkenly left behind in the gyms and parking lots of their opponents throughout the season, had intercepted their bus on the outskirts of town. If the occupants didn’t want to spend the night in jail, they would act civil and keep their booze bottles on the bus.

Sven took the challenge to heart. He locked himself in a restroom stall just minutes before the start, furiously scribbling his latest disaster of a cheer on a crumpled napkin. Emerging like a proud rutabaga and mounting the bleachers he thrust his creation into the sweaty hands of the Lakota fans, “Pass it on. Memorize it. Let’s go Ice Holes!”

Rah, Rah, Rah!
Mean Bad Indians!
Sis Boom Bah!
They look like amphibians!
Hop, hop, splash—
Give the game some trash!
Rah, Rah, Rah!
Mean Bad Indians!

Even the most cognitively destitute in the gym realized the chant carried all the finesse of a toddler’s tantrum. No rhythm, creativity, or dignity. It was pure Sven. The Clown rolled around beneath the bleachers, whooping and hollering like a lunatic. He wished that Lord Byron was still alive to hear this prattle. The scent of alcohol and perspiration from above made his liver flutter.

Johnny Antelope Ears had thought he would be on the court helping his Warriors to win its first state championship. As fate would have it, and as circadian rhythms dictate, today was also his twentieth birthday. The Warriors’ coach, learning this, had no honest alternative but to hold him out of the final game. His high school career was over.  He watched on the bench watching helplessly as victory looked increasingly out of reach. The Marine Corps was looking more real on this March night.

The game was tight in the beginning, but the Ice Holes started to pull away late in the second quarter. The Elbowoods fans were respectful. Being called amphibians had no visible effect on their bearing. As the gap between the two teams widened some in the Elbowoods section wished that Johnny might have waited a day or so to shed the womb. Lakota had taken an eight-point lead into the fourth quarter, but the Warriors came battling back.

They’d come together around Johnny’s cousin, Elgin Black Ferret. At five foot four, Black Ferret was the smallest player on the court. But he had shaped himself into his totem.  Sharp-eyed and relentless, he always measured his distance to the rim was and instinctively how to spot the open teammate without a look. He irritated the taller Lakota team with his pesky steals and deft dribbling skills. They couldn’t catch him. The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Gros Ventres who made the drive from Fort Berthold came alive in their section of the gymnasium as they saw the momentum shift. Hooting and chanting, their Warriors drew nearer with each play quarterbacked by their new star. Only Man joined in the chant, “Black Ferret, Black Ferret, Never Get Your Hair Cut!” The cadence echoed in the bleachers. 

The Ice Holes were now drained and angry. They’d prepared for the athletic grace of Johnny Antelope Ears and, instead they now had to grapple with this pest named Black Ferret. What had they or their ancestors ever done to irritate the Norse Gods? Their lead was slipping away, and it would be a long cold drive back to Lakota if they couldn’t find a way to shut this little shrimp down. Odin began to search his hardware to mete out any punishments required.

Eric Bimdahl was worried. Hot sweat mixed with cold sweat. He’d turned twenty last August and every soul in Lakota knew it. They also ignored it, swept it into the cookie jar. Bimdahl was sure that someone, somewhere would see that Lakota’s dirty little secret would escape and cook his goose. But not tonight. He could make out his mother’s yelling over the crowd, “Shut him down, Eric. Shut that sneaky Indian down!” Sven smiled and chortled beside her. He snuck another pinch. Sis Boom Bah.

The Warriors were down by two with five seconds left to play when Bimdahl leapt into the air to block Black Ferret’s jump shot to tie the game. As his fingers extended, he locked eyes across the floor with Antelope Ears sitting on the bench. Time stopped.

Both players saw their past lives and future kindship sweep past them in that nanosecond before Bimdahl’s hand tipped Black Ferret’s ball away. Bimdahl came crashing down on top of the Warrior’s would-be savior. Smelling the floor, Johnny and Eric continued their trance other across a new and gentler, silent dimension of space and a feeling a peace not commonly found on a basketball court. The Clown’s silent whoop seemed to trigger the screams and yells from the crowd. The ghostly Hidatsa drum group collided with the growing volume of Odin’s Gjallarhorn. In the next fleeting second, the Natives and the Scandinavians could hear each other’s soundtrack. Neither side could hear the referee’s whistle and the call on Bimdahl. Flash bulbs popped.

Ah, hoops—the only place where you can fly, crash, and find enlightenment all in the same five seconds thought the Clown. Two souls lock eyes and remember they’ve danced this dance before—maybe as warriors, maybe as fools, but always as kin. Funny how a leather ball and a bad call can open the door to eternity.” Some 85 miles to the south as the crow flies a certain butte celebrated by waking up the season’s first bullsnakes that they might shape themselves into hoops to scoot down its flanks.

Black Ferret toed the free throw line, bounced the ball twice, sighed and launched the first of two penalty shots. The ball caressed the strings without touching the rim. The Warriors were now down by one. Black Ferret sighed again, looked toward the bench and winked at Antelope Ears. Smiling and still hearing the Hidatsa chorus, Antelope Ears thought about Bimdahl and how weird it had been to look him in the eyes. Uncanny.

Black Ferret launched the second shot and watched as the leather sphere rolled around the rim, not once but twice, and then three times. The Clown was lightly amused by the unchanging speed with which the ball circled the rim. Just like a dust devil he thought. The fourth rotation had started when Odin stuck his fetid finger in the ball’s orbit and out of the rim’s circumference.

In the uproar that followed, no one noticed that the ball hadn’t bounced when it hit the floor. Nor did they see it disappear in the purple plume of smoke summoned by the Clown. Damn that was slick he thought. I wonder where Odin got that dandy orange nail polish?

Push It Down

“Ignorance asks no questions, and apathy gives no answers. That’s how trophies get dusty, truth gets swept under the rug, and the Clown keeps laughing from the rafters.” ~ The Clown

The Bakelite phone made the commissioner’s desk shudder the Monday after the big game. It was only two o’clock, but it’d already been a trying day at the North Dakota State High School Activities Association. That pesky Fargo newspaper reporter was on the line asking John Anderson whether he heard the news about the Lakota team. John sighed. Of course, he’d heard. Earlier the school superintendent from Lakota had called to fess up that his star player had turned 20 in June of 1941 and had played the whole football and basketball seasons shaving a beard every day. Twenty!

Serving as the head of the high school athletics was supposed to be a plum job. Have two meetings a year with an honorary board of old fogies to certify referees, do a little math to set tournament pairings, smile at invited speeches in front of Rotary Clubs, plan annual meetings of school principals and underpaid teachers, and above all, keep the lid on things. If something came up, push it down.

In a state with an advancing reputation for harboring the worst features of passive aggressive behavior among its natives, especially when it came to ending the careers of public officials, controversy should die a quick death first the Commissioner thought. Then there were those Indians from Elbowoods. The Sneaky Indians from the Bottom of the Missouri River as this very reporter had called. John reached for the Bayer Aspirin.

“So, what do you know and when did you know it?” the reporter asked?

“What do you mean, what did I know?” John countered.

“Come on, John. That Bimdahl kid from Lakota. He brought home the trophy, but he shouldn’t have even been on the court. He was over the age limit. I was at that game. He was a man among boys.”

“Well, I did get a call from the superintendent at Lakota, and I’ve notified the board. We’re looking into it.”

“What’s to look in to? Bimdahl turned 20 last summer! Everyone had to know up there. The superintendent told me he was shocked and was going to talk to the coach. About what, I’m wondering?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea. Follow the chain of command. Get to the bottom of things. I’m sure it was an honest mistake.”

“Honest mistake? Maybe. But, how about Elbowoods? They held Antelope Ears out because he turned 20 the day before the championship game. That’s being more honest, don’t you think?”

“If that’s true, that’s commendable.” Anderson said. “You’d think it would have been the other way around because we don’t always get the whole story out of those Indians, you know. Even you said they were sneaky in your headline earlier this year.”

“You’re talking about the ‘Sneaky Indians from the Valuable Missouri River Bottom Lands’ as I labeled them, right? Well, I’ve now had a change of heart. That team was wonderful. They were artists on the court and superbly entertaining. Nothing sneaky about a jump shot. That new kid, Black Ferret, was tremendous. I’m a fan. From now on out, I’m calling them ‘Noble Indians’ when I get the shot, if you’ll pardon the pun. That seems to fit better now.”

“Yes, I was there. He was a real hit with the crowd. Too bad they lost.”

“They didn’t lose. They were robbed. When will you and your board reverse that? We know who really won the game.”

“I have to follow the chain of command on this. We’ll see what the board wants to do when they meet this summer.”

“Chain of command? Summer? Wait until August? That sounds like Elbowoods gets the short end of the stick. Are you and your board going to sweep this sordid affair away?”

“There’s a war on in case you hadn’t heard. And, I’m telling you that we’ll need to see what the Board wants to do.” Anderson rolled his eyes and sighed again. He’d been a regular church goer. He didn’t like this new test. He hadn’t liked his pastor’s shrill tone about the Indians in the past months, but he’d tried to take it like a Nordic man. Real stoic like. Maybe he was Odin’s new pawn?