Tuba City - Francois Bereaud
Dreams are delicate and made of gossamer. They hang lightly on breezes and suspend as if from nothing. The slightest wind can tear them apart.
Eddy Harris, Mississippi Solo
There are places in this world which reach out and grab your soul, flow through your blood, and, try as you might to distance yourself, never allow you to leave. Many I have only imagined: the rough coast of Ireland or the plains of the Serengeti immediately come to mind, but I have been to Tuba City, Arizona. I am unable to understand its hold, whether it be vast and barren landscapes, stinging sand blowing across red rocks, or the people, Navajo and Hopi, both friendly and standoffish at once, but I feel its pull and find myself dismissing other possible adventures to return to Tuba.
Patterns in Tuba are predictable. Regardless of the length of stay, I purchase an old pick-up truck, visit Clifford, run every morning, and write. Activities matter little. I have friends whom I choose to see or not. They appear happy to see me but without the pressure I feel in other communities. I have stayed in Tuba for a month seeing no one on one occasion and lived with a family on another. I know enough of the culture to be trusted and have the sense to stay out of family business. Family is paramount in both the Navajo and Hopi cultures. Everyone is related in some way. “He’s my uncle in a Hopi way” is a common description. This fact sets Clifford apart more than any other. He claims no family in Tuba nor is claimed by anyone. It may be that this lack of connection that makes him tolerate my visits, but I like to flatter myself and pretend it’s the conversation.
I first met Clifford on a run beyond Pasture Canyon, a remarkably fertile oasis in the midst of arid desert. He was lying face down in a crevice, a large man of indeterminate age with a shock of white hair. Upon ascertaining that he was alive, I immediately suggested a call for help which he rebuffed. “Those bastards in town would have a party out here to see me rot. My ankle gave out on me. Help me up and go on.” I followed his orders but was allowed to walk him home, a ramshackle hogan, improbably situated at the crossroads of three dirt paths.
Opinions of Clifford in town confirmed his statement. “That cantankerous son of a bitch, he’s no better than the drunks outside of Basha’s,” a friend told me was the general consensus. There were various theories of how he got that way however. Many seemed to believe he was scarred in the war. Some thought him to be one of the original code talkers; this line had him killing dozens of Japanese in hand-to-hand combat. Others were sure he landed at Normandy and was one of the liberators of Buchenwald. Others thought he never had been near the war, but was simply an old drunk, made mean to the core by gallons of bad booze.
I never saw Clifford drink nor saw any vestiges of the war in his living quarters so my opinion was never formed. I simply began to drop in on him. Usually with a jug of water, thereby saving him a trip out of the canyon. That gallon of water lasted him at least three days even in the hottest of weather. When I first dropped in, he did not seem surprised and simply asked me to repeat my name. Upon hearing it he nodded and proceeded to deconstruct Madame Bovary.
Clifford had a greater understanding of French literature than I could imagine possible for anyone to possess, and given my French heritage, believed that I should share his enthusiasm and expertise. Each of my visits consisted of another “explication de texte”. Flaubert, Zola, Balzac, and Hugo were all fair game and I had read none of them since my undergraduate days. In between visits to Tuba, I read French literature fiendishly, often missing writing deadlines in my quest to catch up. It was no use. Clifford was light years ahead of me in every respect. I often wanted to ask from where this passion, but the question was not one to ask. My main contributions to these chats were descriptions of some of the settings I was able to fill in from my childhood travel memories. If Clifford had been to France, he never let on and appeared genuinely interested in any small details I could recollect.
My relationship with Clifford was so improbable that I spoke little of it to my friends. It likely appeared that I was playing the guilt-ridden white man visiting the older Indian in search of wisdom and redemption. In truth I would have taken some of either, or at least some insight into Clifford’s background, but could never steer the conversation away from French literature.
When I appeared at the Hogan, Clifford always had the appearance of a man waiting for death. He sat on an old log outside the door often with a closed book at his feet. The hogan itself was filthy and smelled like rotten meat. I was never able to ascertain what Clifford ate, if anything, and no conversation was wasted on ordinary social graces. At times I saw Clifford daily, at other points I would let a week pass between visits. These visits had gone on over a period of three years and eight trips to Tuba before the cancer summer.
I imagined the cancer cells that consumed my mother’s body to be like a marching army of ants. They plodded impossibly slowly but methodically through her body, laying waste to any tissue in their path. For my part, I could only watch, dutifully helpless. The summer oozed with the usual Eastern dosage of rank heat and humidity, and I urged my mother to escape with me to the drier air of Tuba, but dying at home was paramount to her. My feet ached at the pavement’s touch and my blood boiled in the August swelter. Time stopped while death lingered, merely toying with us.
She finally died on September 17 and I found myself in flight for Tuba three days later. I spent four nights running under moonlit skies and the days sleeping in a recently abandoned trailer on the northern edge of town. I wallowed in my own funk and thought little of anyone and less of French literature.
Two weeks later, I decided to see Clifford. He was not sitting outside the hogan for once and I momentarily panicked until I heard, “Don’t just stand there, come in dammit.” I entered to find him sitting in the one armchair, his arms folded across his prodigious belly. I sat down on the iron folding chair and felt a sense of dread as I wondered which 19 th century marvel we’d begin to discuss. Instead, he just stared.
“You’ve been hurt,” he said after a silence of five minutes. “A deep one at that.” More silence. “There are a few things you must know,” he said, “Healings from my people.”
It was an opening I could not pass up. “The Navajo?”
He laughed. “I’m not from here. Didn’t you wonder why no one claims me as their uncle? Ever heard of Copper Canyon?”
I shook my head and he continued:
“Mexico. Makes the Grand Canyon look like a creek. Home of my people, the Tarahumara. Victims of a small-scale Holocaust at the hands of people looking like you. Pain, we know.”
My puzzled look gave him pause.
“You will find us only in a rare book or history account; sometimes it seems even to ourselves that we cease to exist. I was weak and fled and I cannot return. I shall die in Tuba without a trace of home.” He paused, leaving me to wonder if I’d just heard emotion in his voice for the first time. “But I am responsible for my burden, let us concentrate on yours. Your pain can only be reduced by more pain, give me your hand.”
I held out my hand dutifully and watched him dig into his shirt pocket and produce a small round object. He placed the object in my hand and closed my fingers around it before I could catch even a glimpse of it. I winced at the searing pain in my palm.
“It will hurt, but to have any effect it must remain there for some time. Let the pain flow through you, in time you will accept it.”
I sat with my hand on fire. Clifford closed his eyes and appeared to fall asleep. The pain was unlike any I had felt before, yet I gripped the object tightly. I remember little until much later when Clifford jerked toward me and opened my hand. The object was a rock about the size of a quail’s egg. Its color was copper unlike any I had seen before in the natural world.
“This rock carries the pain of my people. It is all I have left of my home. Take it and use it to control your pain.”
The pain was gone. “Why me?”
“You are my friend. Now go, you are tired. When you return, let’s discuss Baudelaire, I’ve lately wondered if you know anything about poetry.”
Postscript
I read all I could find about the Tarahumara and found their story to be as tragic as any recorded. Clifford did die in Tuba but not before we discussed poetry and even French politics. He never brought up his home again but did inquire about my roots on one occasion.
After his death, I did not return to Tuba for several years, and even tried the Irish coastal village of Carrick, but after allowing me to indulge my folly for a time, Tuba called me back. The copper rock often stays untouched for months but never leaves my consciousness. I run through canyons and dream of being old.
Originally published by CityWorks Journal 2011
Francois Bereaud is a husband, dad, full time math professor, mentor in the San Diego Congolese refugee community, mountain biker, and mediocre hockey player. His stories and essays have been published online and in print. His work has earned Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations. The Counter Pharma-Terrorist & The Rebound Queen is his published chapbook and the realization of a dream. You can find links to his writing at francoisbereaud.com. He tweets stuff @FBereaud.
