[Readers may also be interested in my earlier pieces, The Indian Giver and Another Note On Ward Churchill Of The Hyena-Vulture Tribe)
by Jerome du Bois
That's right, last night I had the strangest flight --on the same astral plane as Ward Churchill. Sitting right next to him, in fact. At first, I made a mental note for my astral travel agent; I mean, come on, this turkey and me on the same plane? No way. I'm first class, and he . . . I mean, we couldn't be karmically konnected, could we?
But after the way it turned out, with those others who showed up during the flight, I cancelled that mental note.
I had the window seat, and he was in the aisle seat, and the middle seat was empty. It was beautiful, as usual. Multicolored ribbons of light and delight passed through the transparent plane from time to time, interesting passengers walked or floated up and down the aisles, the multitudinous stars and comets had no intention of hiding, the music of the spheres was especially entrancing tonight --but the man seemed sunk in thought; his long grey hair (which is lank, has no style, and certainly isn't in the same league as my own wavy long grey hair), hiding that Rushmore face.
It was the music, I guess, my favorite Chopin waltz, which lifted my heart, and I leaned over and whispered, "You okay? The media blitz getting you down? What about all those standing ovations you got tonight?"
He looked over --no dark glasses, washed-out pale blue eyes wary-- shrugged, and turned away again, his chin sunk on his chest.
"Russell was there. They drummed for you, skin. Everybody in the room was on your side. What's the problem?"
Another shrug. After a moment, I heard him murmur something.
I leaned closer. Even on the astral plane, he stank of cigarettes. "Excuse me?"
He murmured it again, louder: "Loudermilk."
"Loudermilk?" I chuckled involuntarily, and Churchill's head shot up.
"Yes, Loudermilk, man," he said in his typically bullying fashion. "John D. Loudermilk. He started it all, at least for me."
I was lost, even with the information available on the astral plane, which is quicker than a T1 connection. Loudermilk? . . .
Churchill took a deep breath, and sighed it out slowly --"might as well tell," he muttered at the end of it-- then began nodding his head and tapping his right foot, his fingers beginning a rhythm. I closed my eyes and tried to follow his vibe . . . Yes, this seemed familiar. What was he trying to tell me? "They took . . ." What was it? "They took . . ."
It was a tune he was humming: Dum de dum dum deedily dumm dumm . . .
Oh, man. I had it:
They took the whole Cherokee Nation,
Put us on this reservation.
Took away our ways of life,
The tomahawk and the bow and knife.
I opened my eyes and my jaw dropped: Ward Churchill was looking me in the face, his rugged features running miserably with tears. I had to bite my lip.
"Whhh . . ." I managed to urgh, stifling laughter.
Suddenly he lunged toward me, big desperate hands raised beseechingly. "Come on, man, think about it! Elmwood, Illinois --white bread city-- and here came Paul Revere and the Raiders --didn't they have great outfits? and style? Huh? They had an identity!-- and that song, written by Loudermilk . . . that was my inspiration, don't you see? I must have listened to it a thousand times!" And he burst into croaking song, banging his big hands on his knobby knees:
They took the whole Cherokee Nation
Put us on this reservation
Took away our ways of life
The tomahawk and the bow and knife
Took away our native tongue
And taught their English to our young
And all the beads we made by hand
Are nowadays made in Japan
Cherokee people, Cherokee tribe
So proud to live, so proud to die
They took the whole Indian Nation
Locked us on this reservation
Though I wear a shirt and tie
I'm still part red man deep inside
Cherokee people, Cherokee tribe
So proud to live, so proud to die
But maybe someday when they've learned
Cherokee Nation will return
Will return...
Will return...
Will return...
Will return..."
He trailed off, then perked up again. "I was heading for a suit and tie, then, too, don't you remember? You're my age, didn't you want to . . . be something?"
"You mean, someone other than myself?"
"Hell, yeah!"
I shrugged. "So, you . . . what, reinvented yourself?"
He looked around. Despite the singing, nobody was paying much attention to us. Then he looked me in the eye. "Yeah. I became a Cherokee. I had my handle. The rest" --waving his hand-- "has just been refinement. It was that song, man. The pride in it."
I sat back, running the lyrics through my mind again.
Churchill was repeating in a whisper, "The pride . . . the pride . . ."
And I was wrong about nobody paying attention, because a man had approached down the aisle and stopped next to Churchill's seat. I looked over. Churchill started. "Jesus!"
The man said, "A pride you have no right to."
The man was clearly a North American Indian; his bronze face glowed with health. He was dressed in a double-breasted grey silk suit with wide lapels. His tie matched the turban on his head, a swirl of red, yellow and orange. He held a long, thin curved black pipe in his right hand.
But the most striking part of his costume was on his chest: hanging from a chain around his neck was a silver filigree breastplate which covered his lapels and reached to his waist. It was composed entirely of rows of strange symbols cast in silver and linked together. It glittered in the starlight.
"Who . . ." Churchill whispered.
"Guess," I said. The Indian looked over at me and smiled, lifting the pipe. I inclined my head: "Sogwali," I said.
Churchill looked over at me. "I don't want to guess. This guy seems familiar. . ."
"Guess," I repeated. "George Guess. That's what the white people called him; also Sequoyah, the clubfoot. He invented the Cherokee alphabet and syllabary you see there on his chest. He was also a silversmith. His Cherokee name is Sogwali." I turned to the handsome Indian. "Honored to make your acquaintance."
Sogwali nodded, then looked at Churchill. "I'm not surprised you don't recognize me. You've got your head stuck in imaginary CIA documents and conspiracy theories. Maybe you've spent too many years trying to prove America's evil all over the world, and you neglected an important life lesson in your . . . adopted past, so to speak.
"Me.
"You bray about pride. Well, I was too proud to stay illiterate, and I invented a new thing, a way to move forward in the world. Were the Cherokee doomed to stay in the past, when any fool can see that the world only spins forward? That silly song says, 'They took away our native tongue / And taught their English to our young.' No. I made sure they didn't take away our --not your-- native tongue." He patted the breastplate.
"Oh, I know you're an inventor, too. Besides your past, you invented a sneaky smallpox massacre with infected blankets, for example. . . " He took a long puff on his pipe. "I could go on, but Sarah needs to talk to you about another one of your inventions."
Churchill's brow wrinkled. "Sarah--?" But Sogwali held up a silencing finger. "Just one more thing: why did you have to pick the Cherokee to shame?" He snapped his fingers. "Oh, wait, I know--"
"That song," Churchill groaned. Sogwali shook his head --"that song"-- and drifted, limping, down the aisle, trailing sweet tobacco smoke. In his wake came a single piece of paper, ragged and wilted, wafting and drifting through the air, until it came to rest on the seat between us. I picked it up and read it aloud.
”...there is ambiguity in the record as to whether the total physical annihilation of European Jewry itself was actually a fixed policy objective. What is revealed instead is a rather erratic and contradictory hodgepodge of anti-Jewish policies which, as late as mid-1944, included an apparently genuine offer by the SS to trade a million Jews to the Western allies in exchange for 10,000 trucks to be used in Germany’s war against the Soviets. Contrary to [Yehuda] Bauer’s irrational contention of a ‘cosmic’ and unparalleled total extermination, approximately two-thirds of the global Jewish population survived the Holocaust, as did about a third of the Jews of Europe.” [A Little Matter of Genocide, pp. 34-5]
I was looking up and about to say "One of yours?" but I saw the young woman standing in the aisle where Sogwali had been. So did Churchill, who groaned again --"Man, am I on the wrong plane!"-- when he saw her.
She was a plain, dark-haired young woman wearing a simple pale grey cotton shift. She had her arms crossed over her chest, and she regarded Churchill in a contemplative way.
"Sarah?" I asked, but she just kept staring at Churchill, until he himself said, "Sarah?"
She nodded.
"Sarah who?"
"All of them. They renamed us all Sarah, you see," she said, and unfolded her arms, holding them out and down, palms forward, so we could see the rows and rows of numbers tattooed from wrist to armpit, serial numbers neatly printed one atop the other, both arms, dozens of numbers. "It wasn't erratic," she said in accented English. "It wasn't a hah-hodgepodge," having trouble with the word. "It was very well organized."
As we examined her tattoos, each one began to glow, red as an electric coil, as if each was a brand. The woman leaned back slightly, and escaping souls slipped from each brand like golden handkerchiefs, fluttered around her for a moment like a flock of birds, completely enveloping her in a golden whirl, then flew away with her out through the transparent hull of the astral plane.
Churchill was shaking his head. "I'm on the wrong plane."
"Apparently." I looked at the paper again. "So it would take a hundred Jews for just one truck? Hmm. How many Jews do you think you're worth?"
Churchill glared and made his horseshoe smug-mouth. "Who the hell are you, anyway, to ask me anything?"
"Well, as you said tonight --or is it last night, by now?-- what you put out there is going to blow back at you. Also, as you're fond of saying, First Amendment, freedom of expression --and even dreams, maybe especially astral dreams, cannot escape the truth."
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, as if testing bonds. "This is no good, I'm on the wrong plane, I'm supposed to be with Russell and them. Russell!" he shouted, stretching his turtle neck, looking through the crowd. "Russ--!"
He broke off as he saw the couple holding hands approach. I didn't know their names --I don't know if anybody does-- but billions around the world knew who they were on September 11, 2001. Here they were now, made whole again, and still holding hands. I couldn't help but smile, but they glared down at Ward Churchill.
The woman spoke. "I was just working. I'm nobody's pawn, and I wasn't collateral damage. I was murdered by evil men who hated life and the good and beautiful even more than you do, you heartless man."
Churchill puffed up his chest and glared back. "How do you know who you work for? You ever heard of COINTELPRO? They could have--"
The man interrupted. "You're right, you are on the wrong plane," and he reached out, grabbed Ward Churchill by his lank grey hair, and whipped him out of that plane quick as you please, as if discarding a dirty rag. We could hear him yelling as he fell and fell, his voice growing hoarse and faint as the plane flew on.
"That'll scare the hell out of him, but he'll be all right," said the man. He smiled and quoted the song --"'He will return, will return, will return'-- It's just a dream; not like what happened to us. But he may need to change his bedding when he wakes up." He chuckled.
I held out my hand. "I'd be honored if you'd sit with me. I seem to have two empty seats all of a sudden."
They smiled. "Our pleasure." So we passed a pleasant evening, and we spoke only about beautiful things.
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Continual updates on the Ward Churchill brouhaha can be found at PirateBallerina.com. Hat tip to LGF, as usual.
Posted by Jerome at February 9, 2005 05:40 PM | TrackBack