Kelly leaves the easy chair next to the door for his guest. From here, the TV is to the left, and the couch where Kelley and his wife sit to the right. It’s a small slotwise living room. Opposite the easy chair, a coffee table in between all, is a love seat, where the guest women sit. Behind that is a doorway and interior window into the kitchen. There be liquor, some brought by this hood rat, others by many holiday guests. Cooper, a small pug faced dog, is prince in these parts, declaring ownership of the guest, lapwise.

The game is a slaughter, the Dallas Cowboys clobbering Kelley’s wife’s team, a girl from eastern Pennsylvania, named Lori who favors The Eagles. The women are back in the den away from the men and rough stories best forgotten. The phone rings.

Kelley picks up:

“Hey, Clint. Okay, have James over here watchin’ the game.”

Pause, as a quisical ‘what the heck’ look comes over Kelley’s face, “How the hell should I know. Figure it out, Clint. Look, I have company—talk to you later.”

Kelley sighs, “Good ole Clint. Lives in a camper so packed full of shit can’t turn around in. The man can fix anything given the time—that is if you can put up with his shit, all the crazy stuff he goes on about, like the government being after him…” shakes head looking down to his beer…

A jolly light of memory sparkles like tinsel in Kelley’s eyes, his teeth marking a small even crease in his big, ruddy face over his short white beard, “Here comes another story—sure I told it to you five times before.”

The conversation burglar grins like sin, hefts his beer, and awaits the story. These are usually repeated and with a remarkable consistency. Lately, since our discussion about this book, the hobo historian has been asking the occasional odd question.

“So, I get a phone call.”

Sigh, of looming dysfunction…

“Its Clint. He’s gone up above Aberdeen in Washington, way up on the peninsula on the Pacific side, in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. He’s agreed to fix the back end of this truck for these Indians. You see, Indians don’t fix shit. Hell, I lived next door to them when I was young. Indian money comes in [1], they buy a Cadillac. Something goes up on that car, it stays parked and they get another. I’ve seen one family with ten Cadillacs parked in two rows in the same driveway—twenty Cadillacs in good order ‘cept for the one part that goes up. And, if you’re not changing your oil, well, the same part goes up on each car and there you have a bunch of cars that can’t even be cannibalized to keep one goin’ because they all have the same problem!

“So, anybody knows Clint knows he can fix anything given the time—a mechanical genius. These Indians have him up their on the Chenault Rez workin’ on the back of this truck. He’s doing as-you-go diagnostics and is kind of scatter brained—which is the other thing, Indians might be good people, but patience is not something they’re known for. He changes his mind, or forgot, about what part he needed, not a big part, but you have to drive sixty miles on a dirt and gravel road to get to the supply place… so there you go, Clint’s got these Indians pissed off and they keep ‘im en ain’t driven him back.

“These particular Indians are a branch of the Gypsy Jokers MC. Gypsy Jokers are not as bad as the Angels or the Outlaws, and sure not as bad as the Mongols. But, in these parts, they are about as bad as you get. Now, I had dealings with them, drank at their club house, was good friends with [Big Dog 2]. I call him up, get the okay to go get Clint, and I’m on my way. Had my nine under the driver’s seat. My .45 is in a nice leather clam shell shoulder holster, real comfortable custom made. I had a permit. But even with a nice rig like that it is difficult to make sure it’s always concealed—a real pain in the ass. Someone catches a glimpse and its your ass and they call on you. I just didn’t carry regular. But I was not goin’ up to these fuggin’ Indians unarmed while they are holdin’ Clint.

I drive up right to the edge of the Rez to this bar, not confident at all. I’m a big boy, but its a whole club house full of these fuggers. So I walk in and there are at least ten of these Indians with the Gypsy Joker rockers on. One of them looks at me and says, ‘You got some balls comin’ in here!’”

“I simply said, ‘[Big Dog] sent me. You can call him.’

“Well then I was all good. We drank together and Clint became almost an afterthought. Finally, at two o’clock in the morning, these Indians are drivin’ me up this dirt and gravel road in the rain. Well, with me there, that put wings to Clint’s ingenuity and the truck got done right quick. Meanwhile, these Indians treated me right.

“The reservation is all around this big ole lake. They have a fishery for steelheads. They take me to the holding pond and let me pick one out to take home, biggest steelhead you’d ever see, never caught one that big in the wild. Then they asked me if I wanted to go take an elk.

“Oh, it was fall. If it was winter, his ass would have stayed up there.”

[laughter]

“How they hunt elk—they’re Indians so they don’t need a tag on their land—is they get in a canoe and go sit in the river and when the elk cross they hit ‘em with a shotgun. I’m a little bit more of a sportsman than that. The steelhead was one thing, but blastin’ an elk on such terms didn’t sit right. They will blast one, take the elders their portion—old folks never starve among Indian kind. Well, they gave me some frozen cuts of elk to bring back—oh, yeah, I almost forgot Clint. They gave me him too!”

[laughter]

“Clint has had my back a few times. But them’s other stories. Let’s go have us a shot, brother.”

So the two of us creaked and grunted to our unsteady feet, one hobbling, the other limping to the kitchen for some pain relief.

Next story: A Stripper & Wannabe Bikers

…

Notes

-1. The various and many tribes in the Pacific Northwest have casinos, logging rights, fishery rights, etc. The profits from these enterprises go into a tribal fund, with payments dispersed to tribal members as tribal shareholders of a sort. I know one man who is a member of two tribes, one through the maternal side and the other paternal, and gets paid by both tribes. A lot of this money goes right back to the tribes through their casinos.

-2. Forgot the name, don’t want to know the name, but he was named as if he were the big dog in a runt pack.