The Sundowner Tavern, Arizona 1993

He didn't notice her when she came in.  He was deep in conversation, reclining at a back corner booth in the dusty little bar that all the crew and cast had started to frequent as filming progressed and they began to form friendships of varying strength.  The presence of one more dark haired, dusky skinned person wearing the desert's gritty dust was hardly remarkable, especially in this part of Arizona. 

The bar was full of people exactly like her, at least at first glance.  Some were Hispanic.  Some were Indian.  Some were just locals burned leathery brown by the sun.  He had a hard time telling them apart.  He read Maori faces a lot better than he did Apache or Diné.  Unless there was some overt visual clue, he was pretty useless at it, actually.  From time to time the thought made him smile into his beer.  It was another one of those things even his mountains of research hadn't really made much of a dent in.  Which only made him more determined to do better the next time.

He was harder on himself than he should have been.  He wasn't a local-- hell, he wasn't even an American-- though he probably knew more about the history of this particular area than most of the residents did.  He knew about the first arrival of white men to the area in the early 1500's; a Spanish military expedition searching for slaves.  He knew over the next three hundred years the Spanish repeatedly attacked the Yaqui people.  They fought hard, but it was the Yaqui who ultimately preferred peace, even inviting the Jesuits to live among them.  A fact he'd used to weave his character's detailed history.  The gun slinging preacher.  He was a man who loved exactly those sorts of contrasts.

But for as much as he was a man of words, both spoken and printed, he was also a man of action.  He knew the knowledge that lay in books was only half the equation.  The other half lay in experiencing it for himself in the real world; as much as he possibly could, anyway.  There were days he longed for a time machine to step back into the past so he could see the world and the people as they'd been then-- maybe have a drink and a chat with them.  He shook his head.  When it came to stuff like that, he was so utterly hopeless.    

Sometimes he wondered if he wasn't a closet voyeur, like a boy who lived with his nose pressed against the dirty glass of some nameless window, trying to read and understand everything that lay on the other side--  All the while, storing up bits and pieces of what he'd seen and heard, like another boy might have collected marbles or bottle caps.  He kept his box of shiny treasures in his head, and used them to enrich his life and to shape his performances.  It was an odd way of attacking his particular job, but it worked for him.       

Here, that leap from books to life had meant visiting some of the local historical sights.  The most memorable for him had been the San Xavier del bac mission just southwest of Tucson.  It was an impressive place, somehow both serene and fantastically lavish.  Outside, its creamy walls made it seem some ghostly statuesque structure rising from the warm rose brown Sonoran desert.  Inside, the ornate gilt, intricate carvings and historic paintings made it seem even more impressive-- and out of place.  A monument to European architecture plunked down in the middle of this natural, windswept place.  It was called the White Dove of the Desert.  The romance of the name appealed to him. 

It was an odd quirk of his.  His rugged rough-and-ready exterior, direct and oftentimes crude way of speaking, and quicksilver temper masked a very tender romantic heart.  In his private moments, he was often given to writing songs or poetry, usually about love-- and his desperate want of it.  For all his grand plans and passionate desire, he wasn't very lucky at love.  At least that's what he often told himself.  It was harder for him to admit it was usually his fault that things didn't work out.

He just wasn't ready to settle down yet.  He thought he should be.  He wanted to be.  He was nearly thirty.  He often dreamed of a wife and children... and yet the fire inside him burned too hotly to ignore.  How was that for an ugly truth?  His career was more important to him than his relationships, at least at that point in his life. 

It was a difficult time for him.  He knew when he was in a relationship that he was happier, more even keeled and less prone to the impetuous acts of stupidity that often got him into trouble.... however, the next logical step in his career was to begin to work in America, making films with American directors who were backed by obscene amounts of American money.  Back home, he was a big fish in a small pond, but he knew the only way to get the experience and the roles he wanted was to take the plunge and become the small fish in a big pond.    

That choice had cost him his current relationship.  It made him feel very unsettled; like his anchor had been sheered away and he was drifting aimlessly, albeit in the pond of his own choosing.  It had been the most difficult decision he'd ever made.  A year ago he'd been in a relationship, deeply in love with a beautiful girl, dreaming of marriage and babies.  Now he was still in love... and still dreaming of marriage and babies.  The only thing missing was the girl.  Well, that and the desire to piss away this chance.  His career had momentum now-- and he knew he had to capitalize on that and strike while the iron was hot.  Otherwise, the fickle industry would roll on without him, and for the rest of his life he'd regret not taking this chance while it was his to take.  Whatever the cost.

In his more melancholy moments, he wondered if she'd wait for him.  Maybe date a little, have her fun.... but never give away her whole heart.  Or her hand in marriage.  He was selfish enough to hope she wouldn't-- and male enough to be maddened to a fevered pitch at the thought of another man making love to her.  Fucked up, that's what it was.  He was such a bastard.  He wasn't ready to have her forever-- and in the meantime, he didn't want anyone else to have her either. 

It didn't really make any sense.  He wanted her to be happy.  He wanted to be happy.  He wanted to be successful.  The idea of the woman he harbored such tender feelings for being with someone else infuriated him, but hurt him too.  It was all just so confusing.  He certainly had no intention of remaining celibate.  In fact, he'd already been with a handful of other women since he crossed the pond.  Some prize he was, he thought with a grimace.  Despite the animated conversation at the table, he found himself sinking into a morose mood as he wondered again about the future. 

Would she wait for him?  What if this movie was a success?  What if it led to others?  What if he worked off and on in America for a year? Or five years?  Or, God willing, ten if he really hit the jackpot?  Somehow, he didn't think he'd be that lucky.  Oh, maybe with his career-- He was sure enough in his own skill to know that if he continued to pour all of himself into every role that he'd eventually become a marquee name in America, just as he was back home.  It was the natural byproduct of the kind of performance that came of his particular brand of dedication to the job.  He just wasn't so sure he'd be as lucky at love, too. 

Shoving away from the table, he mumbled, "gotta piss," and lurched away in the direction of the restrooms.  Nobody at the table was really surprised.  By now, they were used to his strange moods.  Tomorrow he'd be back, laughing and clapping everyone on the back, offering the cast and crew strangely flavored sweets from back home while telling a dirty joke and making eyes at some pretty girl on the set between takes. 

At the bar, the young dark haired woman bought another drink and let her eyes wander over the room.  It was exactly the same as it had been the last time Irene Talksabout had been there-- meaning there was still a mangy 'jackalope' mounted over the bar.  The jukebox still didn't have any songs newer than about 1980, and the felt on the pool table in the back still needed to be replaced... but the beer was cold and a good number of the dirty cars out front were sporting peeling, faded 'red road' bumper stickers. 

The only thing that was different was the influx of unfamiliar faces that had taken over a few of the regulars' usual tables.  They were easy to pick out.  This wasn't exactly a trendy bar.  Most of the people who came here did so because they'd never really gone anywhere else.  It was hardly a tourist trap.  In fact, most people passing through avoided the place entirely and that was fine with the regulars, half of whom were related through various extended kinship connections. 

Irene smiled into her glass.  She was about two thousand miles away from the Reserve in Canada where she grew up, but she always stopped at the Sundowner when she passed through.  Her older sister had married an Apache man and settled in this area years ago.  So in a strange sort of way, she too was included in the large network of those who were considered loosely as 'family'.   

Looking around, Irene guessed the strangers were the movie people her niece had mentioned the last time they spoke on the phone.  She was excited because she'd been chosen as an extra because she had that 'Indian' look.  The idea of a Metis girl in a Western film amused Irene.  They weren't Yaqui or Apache.  They were Cree.  So much for modern filmmakers who insisted on 'reality'.  Or maybe that was their reality?  An Indian is an Indian as long as they have black hair and red skin, right? 

The influx of newcomers sure stuck out, though.  In a sea of black hair, brown eyes, deeply tanned skin and worn serviceable clothes faded by the sun, they seemed like strange colorful islands.  Bleached blond hair, pale faces turned a deep pink from the hot sun... peeling noses, designer clothes... the kind that looked like they had been bought out of a catalogue advertising 'genuine western wear' to affluent customers who'd probably never even met a real cowboy or Indian in their entire lives.  Irene snorted.  Most of the people she knew shopped at Wal-Mart or had a grandmother who made clothes for them; ribbon shirts and jackets made from Pendleton wool blankets. 

All of which was a world away from $300 oilskin slickers, fringed jackets, dangly feather earrings and gaudy turquoise jewelry that dripped from the fingers and ears and necks of several of the young, pink cheeked women.  Wanna-bees, Irene thought with distaste.  She'd known more than her share over the years.  In her experience, they came in two varieties; the first was mostly dippy white women who were in love with some romantic idea of the Noble Savage.  They liked the taboo of taking an Indian lover or imagined sex with them to be some kind of passionate spiritual experience.  Irene knew better.  She'd had as many bad red lovers as she'd had white ones.  The second 'wanna-be' variety were mostly women, that for whatever reason, identified with the tragic 'plight' of the Indian people; perhaps because of some abuse they'd suffered at the hands of a righteous male patriarch.  Irene had a theory about that-- had even written a paper on it while she was working on her Master's thesis. 

The first kind were pretty harmless.  Typically it just took a bit of reality to send them running back to the safety of suburbia and their romance novels where 'Chief White Eagle's' reckless son 'Proud Thunder' steals a white settler's woman and they live happily ever after in a tipi somewhere-- or some such drivel.  The other variety was worse.  More intrusive and more offensive.  Almost as if they believed reading books about Indian history and smudging before they prayed and talking about tobacco and power birds and calling God "Grandfather" was enough to somehow make them Indian.  A ridiculous thought.  It could no more make them red than wearing a certain style of clothes and talking a specific way while standing on a street corner in Harlem would make her black.   

These people tended to have a very selective, rosy-colored vision.  They were enthralled by Indian culture and spirituality and turned a blind eye to the cancers that afflicted most Native populations; rampant alcoholism, poverty and an epidemic of teenage pregnancy.  And however much they claimed to know-- or denounce their own background because in their heart they 'felt Indian', they never seemed to get the irony of that.  Ancestry and history is everything to Native people.  They simply cannot understand the mind of a person who would willingly ignore their own past and denounce their own faith to embrace foreign beliefs.  They find that confusing on a number of levels.  It made them wonder what was so lacking that a person would turn away from their own people.  It also made them feel sorry that some people had such fragile, expendable ties to the truly important things in life.   

Unfortunately, there are unscrupulous people of many colors, and a lot of Indians had made a killing leading prayer groups and running sweats.  These so called 'gurus' usually billed themselves as medicine men-- and were the other side of the coin, offering 'real Indian experiences', usually to the wanna-bees.  It reminded Irene of the catalogues that sold that fake western wear.  Both were equally absurd. 

The word on the moccasin telegraph was that the 'Indian advisor' that the film's production company had consulted with was just such a man.  Irene hoped the scuttlebutt was wrong.  But even tricksters had to make a living, she supposed with a grin, pushing herself away from the bar.  She needed to stretch her legs.  She'd been sitting behind the wheel for hours and the long expanse of empty weathered deck out back seemed especially inviting.

He didn't notice her at first when he came out on the deck either.  He was frowning at his cell phone's display.  Two missed calls but no voicemail.  Fuck.  His melancholy got worse as that lonely feeling of drifting intensified.  Stabbing his phone into his pocket, he stalked over to the edge of the weather-beaten railing and lit up, blowing out aggressively.  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  He could feel the heat of the setting sun on his face and hear the distant hum of cars from the highway over the wind.  Under his feet, the sandy grit caught in the grooves of the deck's old gray wood sounded rough and scratchy as he shifted his weight.   

The soft sound of a feminine sigh had his brows drawing together as it triggered an unwelcome flood of memories and a deep wave of longing-- but the sight that met his eyes when he turned around made him smile in amusement.  In a sheltered niche, a pair of young teenagers were kissing passionately.  The boy was wearing an apron.  Dishwasher, maybe?  The girl was sitting on his lap.  His hands were under the hem of her shirt.  The sight brought a whole slew of far more pleasant memories of his own wild youth.  He too had sweet-talked a considerable number of impressionable young girls into having a pash in the most inappropriate places. 

A pleasant orangey warmth crept slowly through his chest; partly from the beer, partly from the memories.  There had been that hot little session in a photo booth.  He still had the strip of pictures.  Loads of times in the shadowy nooks of various clubs.  Just off the beaten path in the public park near his parents' pub.  School.  The back seat of a friend's car.  Even once in his grandmother's pantry while she was having a lie down.  What a wholly misspent youth!  And he was thoroughly glad for every moment of it.             

The warm glow faded when the boy noticed the direction of his gaze and jumped to his feet, chest puffed up with the indignant outrage so characteristic of boys that age.  "Fuck off, wasichu!"  He kissed the girl defiantly one last time before she scuttled away to a dusty truck and tore out of the parking lot.  The boy watched her go and then made a rude gesture at the man before he loped back to the restaurant next door.   

On the other end of the deck, Irene smiled.  It was a common courtesy to 'not see' couples stealing an intimate moment together, especially for people who traditionally lived in extended family groups.  When privacy wasn't possible, as is the case when many people of all ages share a single dwelling, it can be extended by courtesy instead; giggles and sighs under a blanket are simply ignored.  Little children who take too close an interest are scolded by their aunties or grandmothers and teenagers often roll their eyes while young lovers may share knowing glances.  But for the most part, Indians are a very easy people.  While there is a time and place for all things, sexuality and passion are not things only to be shared behind locked doors... being as private rooms and doors are, relatively speaking, a rather new concept to people who've lived communally for centuries.

Irene's eyes left the belligerently departing teen and traveled up the long thick legs of the man who'd inadvertently chased the young lovers off.  He looked.... amused.  He also looked vaguely familiar.  It took a few moments to place him.  It came back to her in a rush.  A few months ago, the Multicultural Center at her university had put on a film festival devoted to ethnicity and racism.  He wasn't bald or tattooed anymore, but his extraordinary eyes were the same.  So, she guessed that would make him one of the actors in the film they were shooting in these parts.  She wondered if he was the star.   

He didn't look it in his old jeans and faded flannel shirt.  When he finally noticed her and shook his head with a wry grin, Irene couldn't help but smile.

He gave a short bark of laughter.  "First time for me playing this half of that equation."  He gestured to the retreating back of the scowling teen and scratched his head with an amused little shrug.  She wondered if that meant he was surprised to find himself cast as the disapproving adult or if he was more accustomed to playing the part of the annoyed lover.  He was handsome in a rugged, weathered sort of way and it was easy for her to imagine him sharing a blanket with a pretty girl. 

Irene looked away, uncertain she wanted to engage him in conversation.  She had enough on her plate already.  Surely by now even her most distant family knew what she'd done--abandoned her studies just weeks before she was to complete her Master's degree.  She was only one of three people in her entire family who'd even graduated college, and was the only one of them to go on to seek a higher degree.  She'd set her sights on a doctorate but a sudden crisis of spirit had somehow infused her lingering doubts about her chosen academic path with a violent surge of confusion.  On a whim, she'd given away most of what she owned, packed the rest in a 5 X 8 storage unit and hit the road.  The last thing she wanted at the moment in her life was more chaos, and something told her that engaging a man like him would be... somehow.... messy.

But as is often the case with men who had a presence as strong as his, he made the choice for her and moved down the deck with a slow confident stride.  He couldn't really say what drew him.  The girl wasn't his type at all.  He liked them petite with fair hair and light eyes.  Though she was willowy and almost ethereally slender, she was nearly as tall as he was.  Her thick, glossy black hair hung down her back and her eyes were warm and dark.  Her features had the distinctive stamp of her People, the shape of her eyes and nose, her wide mouth and full lips.  She idly wondered if she looked as foreign to him as he did to her.

He found it interesting that she wasn't looking back towards the city's skyline.  She was looking the other way, to where the highway disappeared into the arid desert landscape, stained a vivid vermilion by the setting sun.  Her hair was blowing in the wind.  For a moment it seemed like he was looking at a picture that could have been taken a hundred years ago-- and then she turned and he couldn't help but laugh at her faded t-shirt.  Snoopy as the Red Baron was flying a smoking doghouse that was riddled with holes.  Last of a dying breed?  He loved the irreverence.  And the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra.  She had nice nipples.

"Want a smoke?"  He offered her the pack, still not at all sure why he was bothering.  He found her earthiness attractive in a primal sort of way but he wasn't trying to pick her up.  Besides, he'd left a sure bet behind at the bar.  This was something else entirely.  She looked him up and down before hesitantly accepting a cigarette.  She almost looked sorry she had when he bent in to light it for her.  He wondered if she was one of those ethnic types who hated white men of any variety.  Like it was his fucking fault that people who looked like him had done bad things to people who looked like her?  There wasn't much more that pissed him off than being accused of something he didn't do.  And he was in a moody enough frame of mind to unload on her if she did. 

She smiled at him though, just for a moment before she inhaled and blew out a stream of wispy smoke.  Her face said she hadn't smoked in a long time.  And that she missed it.  He felt his irritation at her imagined accusation melt away.   

"What's your name, love?"  He wasn't looking at her.  He was watching a storm that was beginning to roll towards the city in the distance.  The vivid pink of the lightning was surreal.  He'd never seen anything like it before.

"Irene Talksabout."  She waited the few beats of silence that always followed her answer when speaking to someone who didn't have a face or a name like hers.

He wondered what some ancestor of hers had done that had made everybody 'talk about' him so much that the name had stuck.  He thought about asking but figured she'd probably say something like 'Killed a whole bunch of white men'.  He'd have been wrong.  Actually, Irene was descended from a line of gossipy women who had a tendency to live a very long time (Her grandmother was 97.  Her great-grandmother had lived to 103.)  And they had memories to match. 

He noticed she didn't ask him his name.  He wondered if it was because she already knew it or because she didn't care.  He stuck out his hand.  "I reckon that would make me 'wasichu'."  His tongue tripped over the strange word the boy had called him and he suddenly hoped he hadn't just said something ghastly in his effort to be clever.  Open mouth.  Insert foot.  Oh well.  It wouldn't be the first time.

"Is that what the boy called you?"  He noticed she didn't confirm or deny that she'd heard the rude taunt.  Interesting.  But she did grasp his outstretched hand and shake it firmly.  She had long slender fingers. 

"Yes." 

Irene's laughter bubbled out.  "I've got an auntie who named her dog that."

"Yeah?"  He took a drag.  "What's it mean?"

It was a Sioux word, but most people who walked the red road knew what it meant.  Irene grinned.  "Loosely translated... it means 'white man', white man."  He supposed that the more pointed, literal translation was slightly more derogatory.  Her eyes danced with amusement when he laughed.  Not many white people got Indian humor.

"Fair dinkum.  I've got a dog named Geronimo."  His deadpan delivery was perfect and broke her up completely.

Irene found herself liking him despite her earlier reserve.  He smoked good cigarettes too.  

"You didn't ask my name," he said into the comfortable silence that had sprung up after their laughter faded.

She shrugged.  "Names have power."  Irene wasn't at all sure she wanted that sort of power over him.  She knew it probably sounded a little hokey, but it was the truth-- and she often fell back into that deep cultural well when she felt uncomfortable.  It helped widen the gulf between 'her' and 'them' and at that moment, Irene felt like she could use a little distance before she did something rash.  She wasn't sure she was up for juggling another ball just now.  She had too many in the air already.  And every time the wind blew, she seemed to hear Trickster's voice on it whispering: Messy.... messy.... messy...

Of course, he didn't give her a choice there either.  He told her his name and then he grinned and told her his dog's real name for good measure.  Almost like he was daring her to somehow use the power he'd just given her.  She never could resist a good game of chance.  Wagering was in her blood. 

Throwing all caution into the wind, she looked over, sizing him up.  "You dance?"

It was not a come-on.  "Yes.  Absolutely.  S'in my blood, mate... along with a few other interesting things."  She smiled at his emphatic, passionate response.         

"Like Corona?" she teased.

He shook his head.  "Like Maori."  He looked her up and down.  "And your people aren't the only ones to be able to claim warrior blood."  He had a few screaming Scots in his family tree who'd dispel that myth quickly enough. 

She liked that he wasn't afraid to talk about race.  And he was proud of his heritage which endeared him to her even more.  "You wanna come dance?" 

Her nonlinear thinking was difficult to follow.  He liked it.  It made him think.  "What?  Here?"  It wasn't the sad old jukebox that gave him pause.  He could dance to damn near anything.  Nor was it the girl he'd been chatting up inside.  It was the tone in which Irene had asked the question.  Like he should weigh his answer before he gave it.

"No."  She waved her hand toward the ribbon of highway that disappeared into the desert.  "Out there."  It had been too long since she last danced and there was a pow-wow tonight.  Her eyes twinkled and the tip of her bummed cigarette burned a deep cherry red while she waited for his answer.       

He weighed his options.  On one hand, he hadn't the slightest clue what awaited him out there.  On the other, the only thing the Sundowner Tavern had going for it was what he knew would be a mediocre fuck with the blonde he'd met at the bar.  He could wallow in melancholy and attempt to numb himself with alcohol and an obscene amount of meaningless sex-- or he could have a bit of an adventure with a girl who would probably shoot him down if he even thought about making a move.  And to be honest, he wasn't sure he wanted to.  He wasn't exactly sure if the attraction he felt towards Irene was sexual in nature or just an extension of his natural curiosity about new experiences.

Still, the funny cartoon on her t-shirt made an amusing vision dance through his head.  Irene shooting him down.  He'd suddenly replaced Snoopy.  It was himself he saw, wearing flying goggles and a scarf while riding a shot up red doghouse straight into the ground.  He swallowed a giggle at the absurdity of that image.   

So.  Choices.  Orgasm, melancholy and a potential hangover on one side.  Unknown adventure, dancing and the potential of a spectacular crash on the other.

It really wasn't much of a choice when it came right down to it.  There was little satisfaction in chasing a sure thing.  It was the thrill of the unknown and winning against long odds that really got his heart pounding.  He always rooted for the underdog. 

He believed in engaging in life rather than observing it.  He liked to get involved, to get it all over him.  And if that meant putting on the goggles and riding a doghouse into the great unknown-- then so be it.