Prologue
Like an
amoeba; just like a goddamn running, yelling, but worst of all, touching,
amoeba, she thinks, as she watches children flow out of the long yellow bus.
The amoeba moves up the marble steps toward her, a multi-colored mass of smelly
little bodies herded by a heavy-set teacher in run-down shoes. The sweaty brats
will stink; the teacher will be exhausted from a long climb in the unseasonably
hot last week of school. Why did I volunteer to work at the museum, she wonders;
why did I ever agree to give tours? Because that’s what women in my situation
do, she answers herself. They don’t work as clerks in dry good stores; instead,
they serve as docents in local museums. They give of themselves because their
husbands can buy anything they want.
Out in the
parking lot her new white Mercedes gleams in the hot sun. Her high-heeled
lizard shoes match perfectly a stylish belt and complementary earrings. She has
her script memorized. Thank God there are no American Indians or blacks in this
group. She never felt she was able to say anything meaningful to black kids,
and the Indians embarrassed her. She feels most comfortable playing like an
expert on arrowheads and flint scrapers when the group is all white, and
especially if the girls are nicely dressed. Nor does she mind the Hispanics;
they are mostly Catholic, and consequently quiet and well-behaved, although
still not very receptive to her spiel.
Inside the
building, the teacher smiles, wipes her forehead, and pushes the children into
a group, speaking harshly to a few, and finally gets them all facing the
docent. Around each neck is a yarn loop holding a name card. Good; she could
ask questions by name: Michelle, now why do you suppose these people painted
their stories instead of writing them? A dozen hands go up. They didn’t care
what Michelle supposes; they just want to tell their version of some experience
that pops into, or out of, their minds. I painted a story once! My brother
painted a story once! Hey, lady, one time we were out at my grandpa’s farm and
we found a arrowhead (“err’haid”)!
Michelle?
Michelle is shy, sucks on her finger. I know, ‘cause they didn’t know how to
write! A freckly-faced redhead blurts out Michelle’s answer. His friends laugh.
You cain’t write neither! Douglas, be quiet!
says the teacher. Michelle, can you answer the lady? I don’t think the Indians
knew how to write back then, says Michelle softly. That’s right, Michelle;
written language had not been invented, so they kept records with pictures and
stories. Good! What else hadn’t been invented, Michelle?
Atomic bombs,
answers Michelle, and television sets, and cars, and cell phones, and assault
rifles, and telescopes, and computers, and electricity, and improvised
explosive devices, and . . . and . . . and.
That’s enough,
Michelle, says the teacher; that’s enough.
But I think
they made pretty pictures on their teepees anyway, continues Michelle, ignoring
the teacher, and they probably had good ideas.
And they used
them hatchets to bash in each other’s skulls! says Douglas.
His friends laugh. Yeah, Douglas! And they’d shoot
you in the ass with one o’ them arrows (“errs”)!
The docent is
ready to shoot Douglas in the ass with an
arrow herself. If she’d been able to get into the glass cases she’d probably
have done it. She looks at her watch. Need to hustle these kids on. Supposed to
meet a friend for lunch before her tennis lesson. The group moves on, but
Michelle stays behind, staring into the case.
Why did one of
them paint a picture of a raccoon? she asks. Nobody is around to answer. Her
teacher calls; come, Michelle, we need to move on. But Michelle does not move
on. Something about that raccoon behind the glass keeps her attention fixed. I
wonder, thinks Michelle to herself, why a raccoon was important enough to paint
its picture. The question sticks in her mind. When she gets home that night,
she gets on the Internet to learn as much as she can about raccoons.
DINKLE'S LIFE is available on kindle, nook, and smashwords.
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