Genuine Aboriginal Democracy Read online

"I'm a Finger Lakes Boy," said a chirpy little man in gold-rimmed glasses as he signed George very large in the front of a book, and Reedy much smaller.

  "Like wow," said the pimply young man with a Jelly Roll hairstyle who was seated beside George at the drugstore counter. "Is it a book or something?" he asked, an expression of horror gradually spreading over his face.

  "That's right!" George exclaimed, oblivious to his new friend's true feelings, "My book. I like to say I'm a Finger Lakes Boy, born ninety years ago in northern New York State."

  "Crazy," said the boy, reluctantly taking up the small volume that was thrust at him by the stranger who had struck up a conversation at the counter.

  "It took me five years to write it," George added.

  "Super murgitroid!" exclaimed the young man, his eyes bugging. He slapped the thin volume on top of his stack of college texts. "There it sits. As much good as it'll do me. I don't dig reading."

  "But this book will interest you. You see, I graduated in '85 at about your age, I suppose it was, and I immediately felt a need to strike out for the West, for Utah and New Mexico, the big open West, you see. And eventually I came to Arizona. I became an archaeologist, and it was a fascinating career for me and what you've got there is a book all about the Indians I've been privileged to know at my digs. They were wonderful people that I met in the high deserts of Arizona. Navajos and Apaches, Piutes and Hopis," said George, putting the cap on his fountain pen and clipping it to his shirt pocket, "wonderful people who helped me understand more about life than you can imagine."

  "Meanwhile, back at the ranch," said the chap beside George. He worked his jaw in vigorous fashion to destroy his burger.

  George frowned. He knew this expression about the waiting ranch was some kind of new, disparaging comment on the lengthy and boring nature of a speech. That it referred to his speech was something the old man couldn't fathom.

  George sat trying to think of something to say.

  "Well, word from the bird, maybe you shouldn't be giving a stranger your book like this." The young man gave George that advice and then sucked noisily on the straw that was stuck in his chocolate shake.

  "Why not!" George exclaimed. "I have plenty of them. Do you think you're interested in archaeology at all? I'm assuming you're a student here." It was a reasonable assumption. George and the boy sat at Ryan-Evans' Drugstore Number 3, right outside the black basalt walls of the desert campus where George Reedy had been a professor for forty-five years.

  An ancient waitress in a dirty apron trundled along the counter with a coffee pot and quickly pocketed Professor Reedy's generous tip.

  "Aw," the boy whined, "I'm a student, all right. The problem is I don't know what to study. Not really, Pop, not at all. I haven't picked a major. It's a real drag to pick a major, lemme tell you. In the modern world, what is a man, anyway? Everybody's after you. 'Whattaya gonna be? Whattaya gonna be?' I tell 'em, 'I don't know. Stop with the royal shaft.' I mean, life is a real nowhere sometimes. How can I be something in the future when I've hardly even been anything in the past? Except a kid. But history, man, history actually gives me a pain right here in my side. A royal pain. Lemme tell you. I'm interested in the communists, all right. And all that Red hooha, but I don't know about the Indians."

  George grew excited. "Well, say, you're exactly the type of person who needs to read my book. You're a man of action. If you read about my friends the Indians and our excavations together, you will feel yourself come alive and I guarantee it will help you decide on a major."

  "Oh, I don't know about that," whined the dubious boy.

  "You see, the Indian is a decisive person."

  "Uh huh," said the boy, taking another big bite of his burger.

  "That's what you need to hear about. I wish I could invite you back to my office for a man to man talk. A real heart-to-heart session. I used to have an office at the back of the state museum," George explained.

  "Uh huh, what did they do-throw you out?" The young man lifted his straw and sucked holes in a hunk of ice cream at the bottom of his shake.

  "I'm emeritus," George said in a shocked voice.

  "Kinda an oddball?"

  "No, it's an honorary position. I could tell you some tales about the early times in Arizona. Gun fights. Lost caves full of rare pots."

  "Aw shucks, rare pots?" exclaimed the boy, "Is that what your book's about? Ah, Pop," he whined, "you otta take it back right now. I'm not gonna read that. Pots are not a gas. When you said digs I thought you meant you found Indian gold or something. It could be a blast hunting for Indian gold."

  "You might be thinking of the Incas in South America. I never found any gold in my digs," said George.

  "What a drag," said the boy. "Now if you were telling about a lifetime spent finding gold that would get my wazoo going."

  "But I wrestled Apaches," George offered.

  "Wrestled Apaches? Did they break your glasses a few times?"

  George took a last sip of water out of his frosted plastic glass. "Would you have time for a tour of the State Museum with me? There are some interesting dioramas about the killing of the mammoths. I think you would find them to be a gas."

  "Dioramas? Oh, nah, Pop. I've gotta class at one. I gotta cut out right away. I'm in English Lit, with some kinda weirdo lady who digs the Lake Poets. Why didn't they drown themselves, that's what I wanna know about those damn Lake Poets? All their daffodils and clouds give me a pain in my side." He went to work sucking the dregs of his chocolate shake.

  "Well, read my book," said George. "Read it and see if it prompts a few questions."

  The young man spoke with the straw in his mouth. "Aw, really Pop, I think you otta take it back."

  "Absolutely not. It's what you need." George got off the stool, picked up a leather satchel, and shook the young man's hand. "It's been nice meeting you."

  "Like crazy, Big Daddy," said the boy.

  George left quickly.

  "There goes Professor Pickax," said one of the gang at the window booth. Everybody laughed.

  "I think he's kinda kooky," said one of the girls.