Wild Cherries

by Dale Herd

Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

“‘It was the Stratford Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. I was working bailing rags at The Salvation Army. Leon wasn't working. He knocked on my door and introduced himself. He said he was married but it was over. His wife was also Indian but was all fucked-up. That didn't matter, he said, because the important thing was that it didn't matter to him. They had married in the Indian way. Her father took her to a mountain top and left her. Leon was across the valley on the mountain opposite. They faced each other. For seven days and nights they fasted and chanted. If the union was not to be, the vision of that would come to one or the other. They could see each other's mountain. No bad visions came. At the end of the time they came down to the valley, everyone in the tribe gathered, and they married. It lasted a year. She was living with a biker now, a white guy. He'd gone over to that house and told her to choose. She said I can't. Leon told her okay, I'll leave, I won't harm him, I won't harm you. He said he'd wanted to cry but that was the worst thing. Killing a man was bad, killing a woman was bad, but the worst was crying. Maintaining your own dignity was the most important thing you had to do. Fuck all the rest of it, let the world go up in smoke, that wasn't important. I asked if he thought he would ever see her again. He said he didn't know, but not while things were the way they were. And he laughed.

I asked why the laughter. He said because it doesn't matter, I'm not fucked-up, things in this valley are fucked-up, no one knows what they want, their heads are not clear. I asked what he wanted. Nothing, he said, a cigarette, you got a spare? that's why I knocked. We both laughed at that. I said I could get him a job at the Army. He said no, he didn't want that, he'd get something on his own.

Two weeks later Barnum & Baily & Ringling Bros. Circus came to the Salt Palace. I was off work and walking up the street and saw him unloading something off one of their trucks. We talked for a minute. He'd hired on as a roustabout, and would take advantage of it as a good way of getting over the mountains and out of here.’”