eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781628723694 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Arcade |
| Publication date: | 10/21/2011 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 336 |
| File size: | 643 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Crossing into Medicine Country
A Journey in Native American Healing
By David Carson
Skyhorse Publishing
Copyright © 2011 David CarsonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62872-369-4
CHAPTER 1
I FIRST HEARD ABOUT MARY GARDENER in Tony's, an after-hours club on the east side of Oklahoma City. The place was owned by two brothers, Jack and Leaford Potts. Both had graduated from Tuskegee. Leaford had been highly decorated for bravery in Korea and was one of the first black officers to lead white troops in combat in that far-off land. Jack, the more gregarious of the two, would greet new arrivals at the club and always managed some clever exchange with them. I had become good friends with both.
No one needs to be reminded that Oklahoma was Little Dixie and had been since the aftermath of the Civil War. I won't forget so soon. One Indian name for the state was Land of Sleeping Giants with Nightmares, which made a lot of sense to me. Those were days of segregation. When Leaford came home from the military, he was a captain and had a chest full of medals, including a Purple Heart. Yet the only place we were able to celebrate in mixed-race company was at the bus station. We had a little dinner party at the cafeteria there, Jack, Leaford, three women, and myself. True, I felt somewhat disconcerted when we had to use different restrooms. But I had seen many No Indians Allowed signs posted in various parts of the state. I would go into those places now and again and have a beer, though I often wondered how they would treat me if the management got wind of my Indian ancestry.
Chet Baker, the famous jazz trumpet player, came into Tony's one night. He had several 45s out. He was probably visiting his parents over in Choctaw. He had picked up a horn when he was a kid and now was making jazz history. I wondered if he was part Indian: he looked it. Jack asked him to leave and he did — no questions, just turn around and get back through the door. Later, I asked Jack why.
"I don't have anything against him," he said. "He's a great musician. I have his records on the box. But he'll bring the heat if he hangs out here. He uses a lot of drugs — it's obvious. The police will close us down. The man is looking for any excuse. They don't like integrated clubs. I just don't want to make it easy for them, that's all."
Tony's had unquestionably the best jukebox in Oklahoma, with tunes ranging from King Pleasure to Phineus Newborn Jr. Small and intimate, the joint was usually hopping. It had a uniquely soulful atmosphere enhanced by fantail goldfish swimming around in a large plastic bubble installed in the ceiling. The tank was made from a surplus jet airplane canopy. In the mellow light, the goldfish cast soft shadows as they slowly transited the bowl. Below them, there was a horseshoe bar along with several booths. Customers were characters, both black and white. The place served a mean coffee and good barbecue sandwiches and ribs.
Late one night, I was having a cup of laced coffee with Chuck Collins, whom I had met a few days before. We were sitting in an out-of-the-way corner booth. Chuck was a beatnik poet complete with a Vandyke beard. He had done a stint in Hollywood and had lived in New York and read his poetry at the Five Spot on the same bill with Thelonious Monk. For me, this was like an astronaut who had gone to Mars and returned to Oklahoma to tell us earthlings about the scene up there. To put it mildly, I was highly impressed. All in all, Chuck had bombed out, but that didn't matter to me. No doubt, he had returned to Oklahoma looking for a handout, but he was older and experienced, and I was interested in both poetry and prose, his chosen fields. When he'd suggested I read various books on writing, I did, but I couldn't understand their rarefied principles. They were gobbledygook as far as I was concerned, so I asked him to explain.
The most important thing a novice writer like me could learn, Chuck said, was to put a sense of space in a story. "Without spatial proportion, you're dead. If you really want to be a writer, study color, visual proportion, mathematics, and geometry. Those are your keys. Study the Greeks."
"Hey, don't you be talking about that Pluto and Aristotle. You make it sound like you have to be Albert Einstein just to turn a phrase. Writing can't be that complicated."
"Well, it is, believe you me. More than you'll ever know. Just look at me. I landed right back here in Oklahoma, where I started. You go places, but that's the kind of thing that can happen to you if you're a writer." He blinked tiredly, gazing upward at the goldfish. He sighed and then looked me squarely in the face. "Listen, there are cryptic levels to writing most people never catch — and to write you have to both catch and throw. Not only that, but you are in competition with newspapers and movies. The market for literature is going to dry up." He stated this with a voice full of emotion.
"I think I'm in the old Pentecostal writing school," I said.
"Oh? And what's that?"
"You just rare back and let 'er rip. Roll on the floor, speak in tongues, whatever."
"Spoken like a true Okie. That just shows how pedestrian you really are."
"Where'd you grow up?" I asked, trying to shift the conversation in another direction. I could see he was getting annoyed with me. I was being too flippant. Writing was obviously Chuck's passion, but his intensity made me anxious. I thought he might be a bit of an oddball, prone to violence or at least violent outbursts. I was probably projecting my own persona, but I didn't like to see it in others.
"I was raised over in McAlester," he said. "You know that town?"
Chuck went on to describe his upbringing. Polio had struck him when he was in his teens. His legs became partially paralyzed, and he couldn't walk without the aid of braces and crutches. His mom took him secretly to see Mary Gardener.
"What did she do?"
"She used a drum. She drummed to my legs, and she did a couple of other things. She used a rattle and did hot hand massage."
"That's it? You mean bang bang on a drum? And she rubbed you. That's what she did?"
"She blew cigarette smoke on me. And she gave me some herbs that helped a lot."
"C'mon?"
"No, I'm telling you. She did things with her mind that shifted me. I don't know how she did it. All I know is that I was able to walk. I got rid of my crutches because of her. I limp pretty bad, but at least I'm not totally crippled. I can get around."
I made up my mind that I wanted to meet Mary Gardener if I ever got half a chance, and I wrote her name down in a little pocket notebook. When I was about seven years old, I too had been suddenly paralyzed. I was taken by ambulance from the southern part of the state to St. Anthony's Hospital and placed in a small, glass-enclosed room. Many doctors wearing white face masks visited me. None of them knew what was wrong with me, but they told my mother that I would be paralyzed for life. And I lay there day after day, unable to move.
The one thing I liked about my predicament was the great deal of interest people showered on me. I was a pet to the doctors and nurses. They all smiled at me. I knew it was because they felt sorry, but I didn't care. I must have craved attention. Many visitors brought me presents. My brother, Rex, gave me a chameleon that he had gotten at a carnival in Ardmore. The tiny creature was able to run about on a thread leash that a nurse pinned to my pillow. I spent a lot of time in communion with it. Its skin would change color, and I realized this was a kind of language — that this was the chameleon's way of saying, Howdy, big guy, or, You're welcome to look at me, but don't even dream of touching.
My mother, who I called Mama Opal, visited me now and again when she could. She had to drive about a hundred miles in order to see me. Once she came with an old Indian man from down around Carter County. His first name was Oliver, but I don't remember his last name. He was a bit wary in the hospital setting, and first made sure no one was watching us.
He laughed at the chameleon. With a thick accent, he asked, "Where did you get that?"
"My brother gave it to me."
He looked me over and made some hand signs over my body. He blew on me. He said some Indian words and put a little beaded bundle the size of a quarter under my pillow.
When he was done, he said, "Opal, your boy has spider sickness. We're going to do a pray for him, and he's going to be all right. I just told that chameleon to eat the spider causing all the trouble."
"I hope you're right, Oliver," Mama Opal said. "I hate to see him this way. I haven't known what to do."
"I know this spirit. It's a bad one. It comes on like a black widow bite. You just have to give it some time."
Sure enough, just as Oliver predicted, about two weeks later I wanted to get out of bed and did. I was walking to the nurse's station when I fell down, causing a commotion.
A nurse came running up. "You can't walk! You should be in bed! What's the matter with you? What are you doing?"
I knew that my chameleon had eaten the spider spirit, just like Oliver said. But I couldn't tell them that. The doctors remained puzzled. I was an even bigger celebrity for awhile, and everybody came to see the boy who had mysteriously recovered. Pretty soon the novelty wore off, though. I was held for observation for two more weeks, then released.
After saying good night and leaving Tony's that early morning, I went home to dream about a huge spider. Her name was Henrietta, and she was as large as a horse. I called my mom and told her about my dream. She said it was a major good luck sign to dream about such a large spider. She told me to be especially careful not to kill one.
CHAPTER 2OKLAHOMA IN THE EARLY SIXTIES was a strange place. I had joined a group of about fifteen people who met informally every week and were unofficially known in the community as the "UFO nuts." I was the youngest person to attend. We discussed such topics as poltergeists, Ouija boards, hypnosis, spirits, Nostradamus, astrology, life after death, mind over matter, Zen Buddhism, UFOs, yoga, extrasensory perception, the work of J. B. Rhine at Duke University in parapsychology, LSD-25, as it was called in those prehippie days, as well as various books like the works of Swedenborg and Blavatsky. Often the meetings would degenerate into torrents of absurdity. Was it possible, for instance, to walk through a wall or to walk on water? Such questions today seem hackneyed and a waste of time. Back then they were of enormous philosophical importance to me. I was looking for answers.
Most of the participants, but certainly not all, would have been considered eccentric. It would be normal to assume that as a group they were genial by nature, but that wasn't the case. Some were mean as a coachwhip. Often heated arguments would rage. I wondered now and again if the meeting wouldn't erupt in a fistfight. Some hothead would demand apologies, and when none was forthcoming would walk out — quit and good riddance. So it was a kind of combative group in the end.
One man there greatly interested me. His name was Johnson Bob. He was an Indian. I later learned that he had gone to Central State and graduated with a degree in biology. He had spent a year or two in medical school but for some reason became disillusioned with medicine and dropped out. Like me, he never said much — not that he was aloof. He seemed to have gained a serenity none of the rest of us had achieved. He spoke in a different manner, not challenging or argumentative. Yet, upon reflection, it was his words that often stirred the pot and caused havoc. After observing him carefully, I became convinced that he was the hidden root of the periodic vicious arguments that would break out. And I was also more and more certain he did this on purpose.
"I'd like to talk to you," I said, one night when the meeting was dispersing. "Do you think you could manage it?"
"Well, sure. When?"
"How about now? Let's go have a beer."
We met at a bar off of 13th on Kelly, not far from University Hospital. It smelled of dank beer and was poorly lighted. It was a fairly quiet little place frequented by resident medical students, nurses, hospital personnel, and a few doctors. Normally, I liked my bars to be a bit more boisterous. Oddly, though, I didn't feel out of place.
We both ordered a beer. Johnson looked unblinkingly and directly into my eyes. His mouth was suspended between a frown and a smile that could go either way. The expression made me feel a little nervous.
"Well?" he said.
"I just wanted to ask you a few questions."
"Please, go ahead." Finally, he grinned. "Shoot."
"I was wondering why you attend those meetings," I said evenly.
He chuckled. "Maybe I'm like a coyote," he said. "The coyote sees everyone going to church. He says to himself, 'I will be a religious coyote. I will fool the Great One and I will go to church too.' So coyote joins the party. Those meetings are a substitute for religious experience, don't you see that? Those folks could just as easily be leaderless communists or nazis. They have a yearning, a need. They're seeking the authoritative voice. They are seeking identity. Holiness is with the coyote always. I realize that. I just want to prove it to myself. It's easy to nudge those know-it-alls into a bone-picking battle. If we handed out knives beforehand, there'd be a lot of carnage. Most religious people will have a good go at each other's throat. You asked me and I've answered you, so it's my turn. Why do you listen to all that horse puckey?"
Johnson did have the appearance of a coyote suddenly. "I had the feeling that you were playing with everyone," I said.
"Maybe I was," he said. "Now you should answer my question."
"Well, I think I go there to learn something. I don't know. I'm seeking, I guess."
"Now look," Johnson said. "About all you are ever going to learn at those meetings is how to act smug and pompous. They really are a bunch of imbeciles, fakers, and bigots. I wouldn't bother to tell you this, but you're really sucking it up. Don't be so serious. If you're that thirsty, I believe I have something better to offer you."
"What's that?"
"Have you ever heard of peyote?"
"Yes, but I've never taken any."
"There's a little group who meet out at my place, and we all take peyote, this medicine. We sing and celebrate. Want to come and try it out?"
CHAPTER 3A LARGE MOON WAS UP as I drove to the meeting. I was full of anticipation. KOCY was playing the Platters. The night was at hand when I pulled up in the gravel driveway of Johnson Bob's country house and cut the engine. There were several cars parked randomly off to the side. The house and other buildings were nestled in a clearing, but all around was a tangle of high trees, bushes, and vines. I was met by Johnson's wife, who came out to my car. She was a thin, pretty woman in her late twenties, pleasant but rather reserved. Later I found out she was a nurse at one of the local hospitals. Her name was Julie Bob.
She led me down a flagstone path around the main house to a barn in back that had been converted into a kind of meeting place. Julie Bob tapped on the door, and a few moments later Johnson opened it. He greeted me warmly. "We were just getting going," he said. "Come on in and meet everybody."
The mood was quiet and reverential, I thought, as I met the various people. Everyone was unmistakably Indian except for me and Julie Bob. Altogether, there were nine of us — five women and four men. Flat cushions lined the walls, and everyone sat back down. I took a seat on one of the cushions. I didn't realize it, but I had sat next to Mary Gardener. I thought of her only as some new Mary who had come into my consciousness.
Because of the high, arched ceiling, the former barn had a churchlike feeling. The air was spiced with aromatic sage and other incense. The room was long and bare of furniture. Christian pictures hung on the walls. The polished brick floors gleamed. I had never been in a room so spartan. At the far end was an altar with a large poster of Jesus at Gethsemane hanging above it. Guttering candles cast a warm light and infused the picture with life. A burning red lightbulb lit the rest of the room, giving it an eerie tinge.
I kept looking at Mary Gardener out of the corner of my eye. She was striking. I could sense a great power surrounding her. I felt drawn into it, and after awhile I began to think of her as a confidante. I didn't really know any of the people involved in this meeting. We drummed and rattled and sang a few songs. They were all simple Christian songs such as you might hear on a Bible Belt radio station. I wasn't a churchgoing person, and I began feeling slightly uncomfortable. I wondered if I shouldn't just quietly leave.
I leaned over to Mary and asked why there were so many cheap Christian pictures in the room.
"If it offends you, don't think about it," she answered in a low voice. "Christ points the direction in these peyote meetings. Read your Bible — it's full of hidden meanings and words of power. Consider only the inside shadow of the book. Maybe I'll explain to you what that means sometime. Christianity is distorted. You see, the inside shadow is what is real. Let your sweepers clear your path. Christ taught about the shadow land, a within place of great power and beauty. If you look at the world shadow, of course the Bible will be confusing. The Bible has cast a very long and very distorted outside shadow. It's good that you are here. Let the medicine teach you — the grandfather peyote. He's the wise one here and offers help to all who come to meet with him."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Crossing into Medicine Country by David Carson. Copyright © 2011 David Carson. Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments,Prologue: Looking for My Teacher,
Crossing into Medicine Country,
Appendix,
Related Subjects
Customer Reviews
Explore More Items
