If All Else Fails (4 page)

The store was all
over shoes. It look like place where all old shoemakers go to die, dropping shoes like elephant
tusks where they fall. It is the shoe-elephant graveyard.

Stonecloud standing
out there like an apology, standing there touching the bottom of his pockets and he sees shoes,
old and new and black and blue. And he thinks of them un-guiltily in three-part harmony. He
couldn't even count all the shoes. He look like eagle eyestrain is having him pop-eyed and he
thinking all time, "They got them. So many. Ten times my fingers and double my toes. Oh lousy of
all! And I stand with toes taking swimming lesson."

So he pretend he
don't recognize himself and he slip quietly through the front door like a dumb-and-deaf act at
the tourist circus. He looks at robot clerk with the smile of unprincipled beauty and tiptoes
around him ever lightly. And Stonecloud he look up at thief catching close-circuit TV camera and
then down at monitor beside robo-clerk and it give him a laugh. The TV monitor on the blitz and
show being on is not being interior of store at all but old-time rerun of I Lust For Lucy. All of
which is all more perfect safe. Then he gets right up next to clerk and does the jack-hammer
staccato shuffle and flap-slosh dance for the robot clerk's ears only. But the robot clerk is the
sleeping beauty only activated by the kiss of a handsome priss on the ac­tivating switch. As soon
as Stonecloud sees he had got no
applause and there be no audience, he was knowing it was safe as breathing. So he squirt
around like a marshmallow in the soup. He look here and he look here and he fussy as old men
needing prunes.

First he latch on
to a black pair fit for a king. He try them on and they fit like royalty on people. He yelps at
tight squeeze, takes shoes off, and dumps them in the garbage can. He keep looking.

Then he find a pair
that are all perfect. He put them on and leave his old pair of holes beside the robot clerk.
Stone­cloud nods friendly like at the clerk who look like activat­ing mechanism of white liberal
freedom fighter. And then like a ghostly gift giver he walks out of the store, like he bought
something. Stonecloud act like it too and keeps going away.

And it hit him
suddenly; it was hell easy. Stonecloud was hit, as he had not known it as hell easy as even
telling a lie in public office. But in three-part harmony, all surrounded, all piled high and so
many, more than ten times his fingers and double his toes, it was hell easy.

Stonecloud spring
down the street bouncing on his new shoes like a basketball. He get feeling like old self again,
and he remembers how all the time all the women used to tongue snap when he come bounce with
credits in one hand and fancy suit all slicked up like a crooked dog tied side­ways. Didn't they
just snap tongue when he rode high in tourist time. Good remembering, his feet unswimming, all
smiling, somewhat bouncing all went to the cleaner's when his stomach kicked him in the back
remembering him he was hungry as a perpetual-motion stomach-pump machine.

Wouldn't he go to
bite something or, hungry as is, some­body? He mad for food and that make him think of mostly
somewhat-drinking-to-stupidness Aztol and his garage with the fruit locker full of obsolescent
oranges and too-long-remembered bananas. Even rotten as is make him water all
over the mouth and tongue hum like piano-tuner attach­ment.
So he bounce twice for extra traction and then he making like an arthritic fire engine and scoot
scoot scoot through the ever-bouncing rain like a winded frog.

Aztol was sitting
in a chair in his garage talking to his dog which he got in trade for the funny boy he won in a
tum­bling game. The dog was asleep as it wasn't much of a dog on account you can't expect no time
to get an undamaged one for a funny boy, and this was nobody's noise of an ex­ception. Most he
was bent up and lean forward when he walk, like he trying to see down the front of some
hyper­ventilating midget lady's dress which there was not many of on hand. Aztol was tongue
flapping like big-time brag stuff about time when the old Tourist Center burn down during party.
Aztol was trying remember if was himself set fire or what. He couldn't remember so
good.

Stonecloud bounce
in like something crawled off break­fast cereal box.

Aztol look up and
think he see a drowned bird and is smelling maybe a long dead one. Aztol roll up his lips like a
soggy cracker.

"What about ten
credits owed me? What? What? What?"

The smile on
Stonecloud's face sail to edge and fall off the world.

"Oh the horse!" he
curse. "You knowing I good for it when all time of season come!"

Aztol drop eyes
like a plum bob and down looking he see new shoes, and eyes light up like free pinball game. It
makes him hot. He roll a nasty thought in his head. "Twenty-five credit brick on the hooves!" He
roar like a hydroelectric plant. "Twenty-five credit and got no money for old guy Aztol! Who who
you?"

Stonecloud look
hungry at fruit locker and see a picture of a fruit locker standing in its place. He groan as he
realize art
imitate life but get screwed
in here and now. Name being pretty to look at but doing nothing to stomach, he sigh and flap arms
like wings of gilded rooster, mating with lesser angel.

Says he, mouth
unwatering, "I flew them from captivity."

"You steal! Not
pay! Steal?" Aztol look stomach kicked.

"Broke. Had to.
Wave my knees in the trees if I lie. Broke," said Stonecloud, dropping his arms in a bowling ball
throwing motion.

"Can you not wait
for tourist?" asked Aztol.

"Plant me drowned
from bottom up if waited six weeks. Old shoes holes with laces. Had to. Had to." Stonecloud
shrugged, dripping rain for emphasis.

"You a disgrace
being Indian," grunted Aztol. "Boost shoes like common thief."

"Well all same, I
had to-"

"You disgrace," cut
in Aztol. "Going go to jail a disgrace for measly shoes look like overenlarged rabbit pellets
with grooves anyway. I ashamed to call you Indian. Gonna steal, boost truck of whiskey! What you
want known as, champion bird's-nest ransacker?"

Stonecloud roll
back head and laugh kiff-fiff as it hits him like first false pregnancy of spring. Always a good
joke.

Aztol scratch his
unwoven chin hair, eye Stonecloud try to grind giggle to halt.

"You know you could
have moneys if wanted. From tour­ist," say Aztol, eye winking at himself in moderation. Aztol
smirked, effect knowing of this statement, smirked more even as he be self-freshening.

Stonecloud leap
forward like liberated bosom bounce, news catching to face and sticking there like memory of
snout kick from unprincipled mule. He all sudden more eyes and ears than sixteen dancing monkeys
in the house of mirrors.

"What? What?" he
shout, making frantic slot-machine motions with his chin.

Aztol smug, smiled
like uncorked leper cutting loose from his first fallen finger. He look bored of whole thing. He
knuckle crack as an infuriation and pronounced delay of game.

"What? What?"
Jumping up like flopped fish and enunci­ating like a yodeling moose echo, goes Stonecloud.
"What?" Aztol yawn and look like maybe he curl up and sleep. He stop act when Stonecloud look
like he going to go for jugular like smell of fish rising to ceiling. This all too solid
inevitable, and Aztol take a tuck in his intentions, having met the expe­rience they be aimed
for, finding as always, room for im­provement, as loving one's neighbor was same sandwich, but
pickle difference being on when husband get home. Aztol know how much market can take. He ease
off gracefully like senility in shock absorbers.

"Tourist coming
today," quick says Aztol in self-deference. "Didn't you be knowing this?"

Stonecloud bounce
shoes twice, only once touching ground. "Oh the horse!" he curse and he go like two truck-drivers
driving the same truck.

"I think shoes
stink!" yells Aztol, but Stonecloud is mov­ing at twice the speed of leaf rustle in empty
swimming pool and is too far gone to hear.

Stonecloud pounds
up to Tourist Center, gasping like carelessly calibrated alligator in vacuum. Sure as goats have
the smell of style that asks for distance, a ship was down. He run like possession, perhaps
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, the demon that got him. He runs on both legs and leaps through the
big doors like imitation of last sardine getting into can. He sees the green ones scattered all
around, most occupied, and he hears screams of guns and bark of the dying. He snatch gun from
wall brackets with lend-lease
frenzy,
check if loaded, and race away to get tourist for all gone.

He found her
standing in one of the tourist sun room. She look proper horrify when she see him come bounce
with gun. She even scream like soprano-air-raid siren. It is goose-bump delicious, he know. She
sink her scream to buzz-saw roar, very small horsepowers.

He aim gun and
hesitate as always. The thrill of kill was in the shrill. He wait for full-lung expansion and
full eyepop and complete first parachute jump, no I-take-it-back syn­drome after you already too
far down to walk back up. She is ready. He is ready.

He look at her
close. She short, maybe twenty hands high, green scale on body, sharp pointed fingers that made
good drink stirring rods, if proper dry. She got vents each side of face for breathing and air
conditioning, factory air. Other accessories, sharp bony ridge down center of narrow face, and
best, white-sidewall clenched knuckles. She regard him with two lidless headlight of
horror.

He aim, thinking of
food, new clothes, all them women gonna snap tongue at him, and Philadelphia. He always have it
in for Philadelphia. The gun screamed its own lan­guage, the bullet hit her big culture shock in
chest, and she fell over backwards like stacked deck. She still screaming, getting all out of it
she can.

The tourist alarm
rang. Stonecloud sit down to wait. The fix it or forget it machine roll in, and scoop up body,
also give floor wash and wax job and count cracks in ceiling. It keep busy. Help take mind off
tourists. They all pain in processor. Machine start processing, adding short pithy mes­sage on
cellular-level sponsor by CITIZENS FOR DECENT LITERATURE.

It take time, and
Stonecloud, he impatient as lamppost-leaning girl in forty day and forty night of rain. So he
have plenty time to think. He think first he going to make bigtime cash deposit to restaurant
first, so time he hungry all he do is walk in, sit down, and eat like stupidness. He all for
stupidness; go easy on the eggs and no Philadelphia. He al­ways have it in for
Philadelphia.

Then next he going
to head to toe, clothes to eyepop women and make all go tongue snap. And he thinking how he is
going to buy and sell everyone and then he feel like dance and that when he notice remembering
his shoes. He look down at feet. He not dance.

Stonecloud sitting
there in marble-shooter position num­ber seven, and then there is this tapping on his shoulder
like touch of gay sparrow. Stonecloud look up and see white-man tourist with brown socks and
checkered pants.

"Isn't this
something! Isn't this just something!" says thq tourist, says this white-man tourist bumping
cameras off his chest.

"Isn't?" ask
Stonecloud.

"Me and the Mrs.
drove up from Philadelphia to see some of these aliens. I tell you this, this is really
something!"

"Well, suck an old
dog," say Stonecloud, "is nothing to covet outhouses over!"

The tourist guy is
bouncing around, snapping snapshots, yelling off somewhere for someone named Gladys and snap snap
snap, pictures of sky and knees and Stonecloud and ground and mostly shots of alien female in
clutches of fix it or forget it machine.

"Don't you just
think it is incredible, I mean, they come all the way here, I mean, all the way to Earth, pay to
come here, pay to get shot. I mean, what a bunch of alien freaks! I mean, ain't it incredible!
Isn't that truly unbelievable?"

Stonecloud pinch up
his face in gesture of disgust and fa­cial snarl of overfamiliarity, and he say nothing like
vacuum cleaner doing his tongue.

"She's gonna come
out of the machine soon!" squeals the
tourist excitedly. "Oh Jesus! I'm out of film. What a God­damn time to run out of ...
Gladys! Gladys!"

"Christopher
Columbus was absolute nut tourist tool Goddamn crazy man! He not know horses about camera or good
guns, but he have crotch disease go like last souvenirs before the desert," say Stonecloud. "Wish
to groundhog we could have . . ."

The white tourist
go run off yelling for Gladys and film, and Stonecloud relieved to see him go as would be to wake
up in morning and find he not in Philadelphia. Stonecloud all time thinking how tourist season is
get too big to ride sidesaddle as now tourists are coming to see tourists being tourists. Pretty
soon be shooting himself as tourist, think Stonecloud.

Fix it or forget it
machine is taking one forever. Just as Stonecloud getting ready to bite down on impatience so
hard he give gums flesh wounds, along come white woman; must be Gladys 'cause she got film
cartridges in one hand and is dressed up looking like sack of concrete and liquid laundry
detergent container. She rumpled like milk sitting too long on radiator.