RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,287
(Big Foot)
Yeah, so I was sitting in a
bar this one day - same day
as that old story I told here
once, about Rarleighbourne
Fischbein, Negotiator For
Extra-Terrestrials' and one
more of those crazy types
comes in and starts talking.
The aroma, in the air there,
was of cooked meat (poorly
vented) and stale beer. I
liked it better than the cheap
perfumes you often smell,
but, mostly at least they
held out better promise.
He's this Indian guy, native
American, not South Asian, and
I'd seen him around enough.
It wasn't that often, in NYC
that an American Indian was
out and about. This guy, huge,
was called Big Foot. I'd seen
him around, here and there.
Size fifteen and a half shoe,
he said. I wasn't even really
sure if they made shoes that
big, but I guess they did. Still,
I wanted, right off, to ask him,
when he told me his name, if
that was one of those Indian
names given at birth, like when
whatever your father sees first
becomes your name: White
Cloud, Sitting Buffalo, Flying
Eagle, and all that. But - really -
'Big Foot,' at birth? 'Hoka-hey
ko la' was all he ever said to me,
and I only later learned that it
meant 'Today is a good day to
die,' in his Lakota tongue.
-
Over the years I've met a few
outrageously wealthy people.
I've ridden motorcycles with
Malcolm Forbes, who was
way up there in the richness
department. I've met a few
artists, and some rock stars
too, who, by hook or by crook,
had amassed large sums. In the
case of the artists and their work
and reputations and lectures and
books and such, I figured it to be
valid. The 'music' stars, on the
other hand, were all a bunch of
crap. Yet, for the most part, they
were as much like you or me as
could be. Rich people aren't that
big a deal. It's easy to think of
wealth as a barrier that protects
the wealthy from the normal
occurrences of life - things
ranging from headaches being
cranky to worries and problems.
Actually, though, all it ever seems
to do is take the ordinary and
mundane problems of everyday
and notch them up into another
realm, but having to do with being
a more-expensive and annoying
realm. You think having a 75
foot yacht and a Lear-Jet is an
easy task? When someone like
Bob Dylan sings a goofy lyric
like 'Don't fall apart on me
tonight, I don't think that I
could handle it...' it ends up
not being so surprising after
all.
-
The few times I did see Big
Foot, it was usually while he
was, silently and by himself,
striding heavily along St. Marks
or Second Ave; I guess those
were his area marks. I never did
know much about him but always
wondered. by how stand-out he
looked, even in those days, what
interest his story must have had.
To myself and others. I read
later somewhere that there was
a 'surprisingly large' number of
Native Americans living within
NYC, though he was really the
only one I ever saw.
-
When I worked at one of my
pit-jobs along that avenue, I
worked with a large, fearsome
Mexican guy much in the same
physical frame as Big Foot. His
personal claim to fame - which
of course kept me in abject fear
and terror of him, was to being
'on the lam' from Colorado, where
he had (supposedly) pushed his
wife out of a speeding car while
rounding a deadly curve and
precipice on some Colorado
roadway. I assumed he somehow
'knew' she was dead and it had
been a fatal push. All the rest,
better left unsaid. The entire
story made little sense.
-
The difference between the rich
and the not-so (the poor) is,
firstly, the quality of their stories.
Perhaps? A 'Reginald Falkenberg III'
wouldn't exactly be the sort of chap
who would fit into any of these
stories. His tale would be deeper,
and would be held within the more
serious confines of the University
Club along Fifth Ave. rather than
in the combined hell-hole and
sewer of the Tan-Belly Tavern
here, and with the likes of Big
Foot, and me, slapping backs.
Back in those days, that was a
private confab of below-the-radar
people out doing what they did
best. It was a low-level, secret,
group of passing strangers, each
spreading more of their own
bizarre tales - the sort of tales
that only filter DOWN, never up
to any higher or societal realms.
-
Actually, I can think of two: There
was a killer-criminal taken up in the
80's by Norman Mailer. The name
was Jack Henry Abbott, as I recall,
and he was a released inmate with a
story to tell, and Mailer bit. All sorts
of accolades than began, by the
usual 'Society' sorts, and Mailer kept
writing about him and in his favor...
and then the guy, in some kitchen
restaurant job, kills a co-worker and
the entire story fell downward once
again. And the other one was Gary
Gilmore; same drivel, and he was
executed and the story again just
dwindled downward back to where
it belonged. A movie came out of
that one, as I recall.
-
I did a little more snooping, after
that bar-room meeting with
'Big Foot' - since he never much
answered any questions I'd ever
posed. It just got more and
more bizarre (but that was what
my life was like). His real name,
it turned out, was (get this),
'Merrith Stops At Pretty Places'
and he was (then) a 43-year old
Crow Indian from the Wyola
Reservation in Montana. With
a given name like that, I can
only imagine what the rest of
his life must have really been.
-
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