Hole by Ray Norsworthy

HOLE

Ray Norsworthy

Midnight, and a heavy snow falls in what the Shoshone call the spirit country. The snow is deep. So is the silence. Wrapped in tattered buffalo robes, two gaunt, white-haired men, once strong, proud warriors, sit cross-legged around a meager campfire in a small clearing surrounded by dense woods. Their names, translated to the white man's tongue, are Bone Keeper and Bows To The Wind. It is the winter of 1874.

A medicine pipe is passed back and forth, its ribbon of smoke rising to marry the plume from the fire. The pipe is handled with the reverence of sacred ritual, though their gnarled, trembling hands are a sign of another kind of ritual, one that all creatures observe when the time comes. In the light of the fire, the old men's faces resemble the crags of red granite that jut out from the snow-covered mountains on the other side of the river. Their eyes are fixed on the fire, showing no interest in their surroundings, or in the present.

While they are smoking, a sudden ominous whirring fills the air as if a thousand wild geese are descending. As the whirring fades, the earth begins to tremble. The trembling grows more violent. A whirling mist of snow engulfs them. The old men look at one another. "Hi-ee-ni-na-na," sings Bows To The Wind to combat his fear, although his voice cannot be heard above the tumult. There is a whoosh and then a roar like a great wind outside a cave.

"Am I disappearing?" Bone Keeper calls out. Bows To The Wind does not answer. The campfire's flames leap in the air. Bone Keeper wonders if he will be consumed. In more awe than fear, he wonders if the white-eyes are making some kind of magic. Everything around him blurs as he loses his thoughts.

Within the same few seconds, Bows To The Wind asks himself: Is my flesh being lifted from my bones and turned into dust? He hears Bone Keeper say something, but he cannot answer. Dizzy, he begins to mutter his death chant. His words falter as glimpses from his past flash through his mind like lightning across the mountains.

When their senses return, like a flock of birds to a field of corn, Bows To The Wind and Bone Keeper are still sitting in front of their fire. Bows To The Wind still holds the lit pipe in his hand. What they do not know is the god of this story (an incorrigible troublemaker) has transported them and their immediate surroundings (via a wormhole in his omnipotent mind) a hundred and eleven years into the future and set them down (very gently) on the corner of Fifty-Seventh Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.

Their two tipis sit side by side in the taxi lane of W. Fifty Seventh. In front of the CBS building their two emaciated dogs scrap over a piece of hide. The Indians become aware of the strange change in their surroundings, but they accept it since they can do nothing about it.

Oblivious to this phenomenon, but not to the near-zero weather, a hearty few of Manahata's modern tribe march by on the sidewalks. A group of German tourists pass by singing in German; one of the teenagers is imitating a cat. They've just seen Cats at the Winter Garden Theater, and now they're looking for their hotel, which is in the opposite direction. A couple from Des Moines hurries by searching desperately for a restroom; the woman is pregnant and needs to relieve her bladder. Street people wander by with darting eyes. Those who pass by the scene, see, but do not comprehend, nor do they feel a compulsion to investigate—not even the Irish cop whose brisk stride maintains its course up Sixth Avenue.

In the sky above, the clouds have opened up, allowing the full moon to appear above the tall pines, and higher up even the skyscrapers looming overhead. Stars wink between the buildings and through the tree's snow-laden branches. The frigid air is empty and still, but the tranquility of the wilderness has been broken by the clamor of the city. Because the old men are hard of hearing, and past caring, they ignore it.

The two Indians are not alone when they are transported. The troublemaker god has created a short, ragged bundle of a man, a whiskey peddler, who is circling their camp, followed by a pack of hungry wolves. The peddler is hungry too—on the verge of starvation. His suffering—the hunger spasms, total exhaustion, fever, and toothache—has convinced him the strange occurrence is only temporary delirium. He is overjoyed to see the fire.

Apparently the Indians are not aware of his presence until he stumbles snowshoed into the circle of firelight. Bows To The Wind, the older of the bent back warriors, glances up at him, and yawns a nearly toothless yawn to show his unconcern. Bone Keeper grunts. He is sad to see the appearance of such a pathetic creature, with his red, greasy hair sticking out from his fur cap, snot frozen on his wispy mustache, grime-bearded, and worst of all, a sneer curled above rotten teeth, his attempt at a smile. When the visitor slips out of his snowshoes and flops down on his backside before the fire, his deep-set eyes glint like a ferret.

The white man's appetite has no fear. He has not eaten since the heavy snow. Now he is forced to scrounge food from these old Snake Injuns who look like they are starving. At least he speaks a few words of their lingo. His Snake woman from Fort Laramie had come in handy for something besides spreading her fat legs. To his great disappointment, there is no food except one small piece of foul-smelling pemmican. He accepts the offering, with ill-disguised contempt in his voice. He tells them his name is Jean.

His introduction is interrupted by a fit of violent coughing escaping from one of the tipis in the street. Bows To The Wind whispers something unintelligible to Bone Keeper, who nods. He then looks at Jean with a stare so penetrating that he feels compelled to speak.

"Dees country ees merde...eh, sheet, n'est-ce pas?" Getting no reaction, he uses signs and a few words of Shoshone to get his message across.

"We are part of the country we are in," Bone Keeper says slowly, but in flawless missionary-taught English. Then he adds in Shoshone: "You speak squaw words. Are you a squaw?"

"Oh ho, you speak de Engleesh, eh? C'est bon!" Jean is stunned, but he tries not to show it. "I 'eard a seein' t’ings when you be starvin'. I 'eard a ‘oly men dat starve demselve on purpose. What I be seein' ain't so ‘oly...I be hearin' strange noisez too!"

While Jean talks the subway rumbles below like stampeding buffalo. Bows To The Wind lets his thoughts circle high above the white man's words, like an eagle soaring on a crest of hot air. As he stares past the fire, he has a vision: He sees a huge yellow beast with spinning black feet running past them faster than a deer, and inside the belly of this beast, he sees a white maiden, pale as the winter sun, tall-haired, wearing pelts of fur. "Ai-ee," he mutters, under his breath. It is a frightening apparition.

What he has seen is real: a debutante in a taxi on her way home from the Beaux-Art's ball. The girl, being rather homely, with a nose like a ski run, eyes that almost cross, poufed hair, and layers of garish makeup, has been humiliated by Deedee, the most popular girl on the upper west side, who said she was so ugly she should cover her face like those Arab women—and what about some breast reduction surgery for those gauche Dolly Parton tits?

If that wasn't humiliating enough, there was the problem with her escort, a boy from Atlanta. She didn't mind that he was uglier than she—he had a face that made her look away, Dixieland-but it was obvious that he didn't have any money, only ambition, and having ambition, her father once told her, is like knowing the truth—the only way it does you any good is if you know what to do with it.

Her name is Sylvia. Sylvia blinks in amazement when she sees the Indians and tipis on the street corner surrounded by pines. The nonchalant taxi driver grudgingly slows down as he swerves between the trees almost blocking Fifty-Seventh street. Sylvia asks him what is going on, but he only shrugs his shoulders. He says something in his Syrian tongue, but she does not understand. What he said is, "I do not understand what you are saying, but I think you are very beautiful with your magnificent nose and bountiful breasts." When the taxi is past the camp, Sylvia decides the whole scene must have been fabricated; an elaborate promotion by some company, probably something to do with the holidays, since Thanksgiving has just passed and Christmas is in the air. She wonders where they found such an authentic-looking set and actors. A tear rolls down her cheek. Then another. She feels the makeup globbing up. Why did I have to be born, she asks herself. Why does God have to be so cruel?

She has no idea how cruel a god can be.

An old woman, stooped-backed, opens the flap of one of the tipis and looks around as a honking Trans-Am full of hooting Italian homeboys nearly sideswipes the tipi. The booming vibrations from their stereo causes pillows of snow to break loose and fall from the pine branches. A fine mist of snowflakes lifts up like a cloud, into the bristling air. The old woman leaves the tipi and walks toward the fire, picks up the last piece of gathered wood and lays it on the flames. She looks at Bone Keeper, her husband, and at Bows To The Wind, whose wife was her best friend. The firelight flickers in her sad face. She does not look at Jean, who is mystified as to why there be no fire in either of the tipis, only this pitiful fire in the open. He looks around for more wood, but doesn't see any. The fire will burn out before day.

Bone Keeper speaks to Following Woman in a soft voice. He raises his right hand and gestures as if he is drawing shapes in the air. His right eye has a tic. It looks as if he is winking at her repeatedly. She says something in return, and then takes tiny steps on her way back to the tipi.

The homeboys have come from the neighborhood of Astoria, Queens, cruising Forty-Second Street, faggot bashing for sport. They are drunk, exhilarated, enraged crusaders, with blood smeared knuckles and spattered clothes. The boys don't mind the blood. There is something primal about it. Since they are football players, blood is a part of their lives. None of them would admit it, but even the taste of blood excites them. It does not occur to them the blood could be infected with the AIDS virus.

This was the game plan: See an effeminately dressed man cruising for Johns, jump out of the car and beat him senseless. Get back in the car and turn up the Snoop Dog full blast. Down some more Jack Daniel's. What they do not realize is that one of their victims is not a hustler—he is a well-known fashion assistant to Donnatella Versace. The man, who does volunteer work in an AIDS crisis center, has written down their license number. He is already being interviewed by the police. The police will see to it that the Astoria homeboys miss the conference championship football game, the most important event of their lives thus far.

The driver of the car is the starting quarterback and neighborhood hero. He is not like the others but he is afraid to say anything. Deep down he is ashamed, but his fear of being outcast is greater than his sense of shame. Not only will he not get to play in the championship game, but his fear of being outcast will be tragically realized when he tests positive for AIDS from having sucked one of his victim's blood from his injured knuckles.

Bone Keeper speaks: "I think this place is two places."

"I think we are already dead and don't know it," says Bows To The Wind in his own tongue. He knows only a few words of English.

"I ain't afraid a' deat'. I look it in ze eye a tousand times," sneers Jean.

The fire crackles, and then hisses with burning sap. Jean kicks the log and the hissing stops. Bows To The Wind (whose head is bowed, not out of respect, but because he cannot stand the way Jean looks), lays the medicine pipe at his feet and looks up. In the dark, brooding eyes of the old man, Jean sees a tiny reflection of himself. He looks away. He clears his parched throat and sighs. The pemmican tastes like rancid rat meat. Shivering, he draws himself closer to the fire.

Bows To The Wind is thinking about what Bone Keeper had said to him the day the tribe left them behind. He said he did not believe in life after death. ("It is for the heart to believe, not the head.") Unpersuaded by Bone Keeper, he has been trying to imagine what it is like to enter the land of the dead. He wonders if it is just like the land of the living, only peopled by the dead. He wonders if he will be young again. He wonders what happens to babies that have died. Will they be babies forever? That would be ridiculous, he thinks.

A black woman wearing a clear plastic raincoat with only a pair of filthy sweatpants underneath, and stumbling along in even filthier Bugs Bunny house shoes, walks up to Jean and asks for money. She is the first person who has acknowledged seeing them. In a ritual of warning, Jean waves his knife in front of his eyes until his eyes cross. The woman sways as if under a spell. Her breasts quiver and shake under the raincoat as her bloated belly rises and falls. Jean starts to sing, a nervous reaction, but his voice breaks and he begins to cough. The woman finally shakes her head and staggers off, saying, "They muthafucka's crazy."

Jean is afraid his desperation is showing. It is all he can do to keep from bawling like an infant. He hates this place where he is a stranger even to himself. He hates the Injuns who snuck up on him in the night of the first big snow, and stole his dozen cases of watered-down whiskey, his month's supply of food, and even his horses, leaving him only a team of stupid mules to pull a nearly empty wagon. And now he is lost! The map the storekeeper at Fort Laramie drew him was worthless. Of course, the man was drunk on Jean's private stock of whiskey. Next time I get ze map first 'fore I make ze bargain, Jean thinks.

Eef only I were back in Sain' Louie. Back where he belongs—with whiskey, whores, and cards. It seems as if he is trapped in a bad dream. The thought makes him burn with defiance.

He pulls an old bone whistle from his pocket and blows a few shrill blasts. The piercing blasts shatter the air of politeness. The two scrapping dogs raise their heads and howl. The old Indians grimace. Jean feels justified. Politeness is a sign of weakness, he believes. To prevail, a man has to be bold, do the unexpected. Like the time at a whorehouse in St. Louis when he put on a whore's red curly wig, some lipstick and face powder, then slipped into her high heels, one of her lacy camisoles, and threw a feather boa around his neck, before sashaying downstairs to a congregation of hoots and hollers. He waved and winked, and cursed and spat filthy words in French. He danced on top of the rinkytink piano and sang bawdy French songs in a falsetto voice. The parlor full of gentlemen and whores urged him on with great laughter and abandon. They bought him thin whiskey and his fat whore for the night and by morning he had picked enough gentlemen's pockets to buy his grubstake for the coming year. And he felt like Jesus himself would have approved because someone had told him the Bible says rich men cannot enter heaven and he was only doing his part to help them qualify for the Pearly Gates.

Now Jean laughs, remembering, his open mouth full of gaps and blackened teeth. The little act of bravado has made him giddy. Wonder if they know what I'm thinking, he asks himself. No, not smart enough. Not as smart as he. It takes a smart man to prevail in this country.

"Where are your people?" he asks.

"Hunting."

"God almighty, dey must be stupeed! N'est ce pas? Twenty below. Best to seet tight—keep de eennards warm. Where are your 'orses?"

The two Indians do not answer. One question too many from a white man.

Dese Injuns need to be taught a lesso', thinks Jean.

Bone Keeper spits in the fire. "White man, are you more alive or more dead?"

"'ard to tell, I recko'." He snickers.

"White man, are you a bad man?" Bone Keeper asks.

Jean affects a hurt look. "Bad accordin' to the beechez and sonzabeechez, n'est pas? Nah, I tink I a good 'nough man. I tink I a plenty good 'nough man."

"Are you in my dream or am I in yours?"

Jean stares at him. His eyes narrow. "I don'’ know what you be rattlin' 'bout. Go ask de wolves dat 'ave been followin' me fer two days. Dey out dere waiting for dere nex' meal. You savagez are too simple-mind, eh?. Me, I civiliz'. I doan worry 'bout nuttin'. I let deh somedin worry 'bout me." He spits in the fire and watches as his bloody spittle bubbles on a log. He shrugs his stiff shoulders. "I learn eet doan matter. All dat matter eez..." He has to stop, a little flustered. He can't think of what it is that matters. Suddenly, a look of triumph comes over his stupefied statement. "What matter eez, who get what, eh? Dat what matter." For emphasis he pokes the air with his crooked finger.

Jean sees the two old Indians exchange looks of derision. He shrugs. "I speak only ze trut'."

Bone Keeper slowly raises his head. How many times has he heard the white-eyes speak those words. He twists around just enough that he can point behind him. "You see the black dog and the white dog?" They whine when he points. "They were too weak to even bark at you when you approached. Yet as weak as they are, they still fight over a no-good piece of buffalo hide. Do you know which dog is strongest?"

"Deh black one, I recko'?"

"No. The one we feed the most. That is what matters to the dogs, white man."

Jean lets what the old man say sink in, and then he retorts: "I 'ad a beech could whip eedar one. She gave me deh clap!" He guffawed.

The two old Indians are still sitting by the dying fire when Jean leaves. No one says goodbye. After trekking a short distance, his exhaustion makes him light-headed. His eyes can barely see where to put his feet. He imagines the sky is filled with glittering lights. He pauses in the lee of what he thinks is a rock wall. It is Trump Tower. His head feels like it is being squeezed by a giant hand. He hates thinking. He thinks it is unnatural. It addles his brain. He is a man of action. All he knows for sure is that he does not want to go back to his empty wagon and butchered mules with the ache still in his guts and teeth, the roaring still in his head. He has the sudden irresistible urge to show these smug savages who they're dealing with. The more he thinks about what the old Indian said about the black dog and the white dog, the madder he gets, until pretty soon he has to hold his ears and hit his head against the rock wall until the roaring dies down.

While he rests under the shiny facade, he hears them, the wolves coming to get him, figuring he is too weak to defend himself. But it isn't wolves this time. Five or six members of a street gang swagger by the doorway and jape, saying, "Yo, look a dis bad-smellin’, Davy Crockett-on-crack-lookin' mutha'fucka." They laugh and spit on him, then move on.

Dese devil minstrel must 'ave come from Saint Louie, he thinks.

Jean returns to the Indians' camp when he thinks they are asleep, stopping his snowshoe shuffle near a cluster of aspens at the corner of Fifty-Eighth. Although the moon is no longer in sight he is baffled by the eerie multi-colored luminous bombardment emanating from mid-town Manhattan and thinks it must be the source for the Northern Lights. The dogs come out to meet him, sniffing him and licking the salivating, leathery rims of their mouths as if he might be something edible. He lunges at the white one, in a futile attempt to tackle it. The dog dodges him easily and Jean sprawls in the snow. While he struggles to his feet both dogs disappear into the trees, nipping at each other’s backs.

Lungs aching, and gasping for breath, Jean falls back against a dead pine and sinks to the ground. When he can breathe again, he removes his snowshoes. A feeling of disgust wraps itself around his consciousness like a rotten carcass. He picks up a handful of snow and wipes his face with it. Then he picks up another handful and takes a bite. As it melts in his mouth, he tastes the nauseating pungency of animal piss. "Pih-h-h!" He spits and spits until his mouth is dry, but he can't get rid of the taste. Finally, he tastes blood. His infected gums bleed easily. The taste of blood is welcome. Even his own blood.

When he is able to get to his feet he trudges into the camp. The old Indians do not hear as he crunches through the shadows, following his earlier trail of footsteps in the snow. As he passes the remains of the fire, a still-glowing ember bursts into tiny stars, startling him. He freezes in his steps and listens for the rustling of movement within the tipis. Nothing stirs. He moves on, shivering from a chilling sweat, coming to a halt in front of the first tipi. It is Bows To The Wind's tipi. He crawls inside and his hand brushes against a leg. He lunges forward and thrusts his knife again and again into the old warrior’s chest. After several thrusts deep into the forgiving flesh and no resistance, Jean puts his hand over the old man's face and feels his lashes beating against the skin of his hand. But there is no struggle. Only a sigh of departing air on his palm.

He wipes the blood from his skinning knife and crawls to Bone Keeper's tipi. Before he can reach his throat, the old Indian cries out in a singsong chant as if he has been expecting him. Jean stabs his knife deep and waits until his victim ceases to shudder. He feels for the old woman and his bloody hand finds the contours of her face. A soft pelt covers it. Rabbit, he thinks. Underneath, her skin is like ice. No breath passes between her lips. She is already dead. "Merci boucoup," he whispers. He takes the rabbit pelt and stuffs it in his coat.

While he searches Bone Keeper, his hand rakes across a rawhide bag held tightly in his hand. Jean hastens to ply it from his grip. He feels inside it with his numb fingers. It is a bag of bones; small delicate bones of different shapes and sizes. As he turns to the moonlight pouring through the open flap, he sees they have been carved into intricate human and animal figurines. He steps outside the tipi and tosses them into the air. He sees them catch a twinkle of moonlight and hang suspended, like giant snowflakes. Then they disappear and he wonders if he imagined them.

At that moment, the debutante is removing her makeup. Reaching for a jar of cleansing cream, she accidentally knocks her older sister's old razor off the shelf. She picks it up by the smooth handle. She sees herself plucking out the blade, sliding her plump naked body down into a bathtub of clear water, and then gracefully slicing into her wrists. Her parents—dressed in their formal wear—would find her, throw themselves down and hug her limp body, begging her forgiveness, smearing her blood on their beautiful clothes. It shocks her to realize how much she enjoys this fantasy. She laughs, and then the laughter dies in her throat. She thinks she has drunk too much champagne. Get real, she scolds herself. Life is for the living. But wouldn’t it serve them right, she thinks. After all, I didn't ask to be born. I would love to see the looks on their faces. All of their faces.

She takes out the blade and nicks her wrist. A bead of bright red blood appears on her pale wrist, and grows under her gaze. She extends her tongue and touches the tip to the beautiful red jewel. The taste makes her salivate. She becomes nauseated, not at the taste of her blood, but at her overpowering impulse. "Oh my God," she says out loud. Oh my God.

The quarterback is making a salami sandwich in the kitchen of his home in Queens. Even from here, he can hear a rapping boombox in the street. What's a nigger doin' in this neighborhood? he asks himself. That' s a good way to get a baseball bat upside the head. There's blacks, he thinks, and then there are niggers. Just like there are gays and then there are faggots. There are two kinds of everything, he thinks. What is it that makes the difference?

It's whether I know 'em or not, he decides.

In his mind he sees the bloody faces of the men he has helped assault. Filled with disgust and guilt, he replaces those images by visualizing himself passing and running for touchdowns in the championship game.

"I'm going to be a fuckin' hero," he says out loud. "We're going to win the fuckin' championship."

Breathing with a rasp, nearly faint, covered with sweat and blood, afraid to celebrate, Jean finishes his butchery and stuffs the chunks in a leather pouch. In his decrepit fashion, he hastens to get away, ignoring the paltry spoils of the Indians' camp. Hefting the bag to his shoulder, he staggers to where he has left his snowshoes.

While he is putting them on, he hears yelling coming from a doorway up the block, unbeknownst to him, an argument over squat infringement of a cardboard box. Worried that whoever it is might be heading for the Indians' camp, Jean shuffles into the shadows of the trees. Snow dusts him from overhanging branches. He knows where he has to go. As far away from his old camp as possible.

He heads north up Fifth Avenue until he comes to a large clearing. An ambulance's siren broaches through the traffic sounds (that has been reverberating in his ears since the onset of his delirium). This new sound spooks him. He has never heard such an eerie wail, not even from a wolf mourning the death of its mate. He wonders if it comes from one of those stampeding beasts he thought he was only imagining he saw. Maybe they were sent after him by the Indians' spirits to torture him and drive him insane.

He curses his legs and begs them to move faster. He crosses the Sheep Meadow in Central Park while talking to himself out loud; trying to convince himself that he is safe. He lets go a high-pitched girlish laugh. It echoes in the still air.

The sound of his own laugh dies out as behind him a deeper, more primal sound takes its place. It is the sound of dogs fighting in a ferocious way, a fight to the death. Jean turns around to face the way he’s come. He cocks his ear to listen as he backs up to the statue of Alice in Wonderland. The snarls and growls of the death struggle are muffled but distinct, as if he were in a tunnel with the Indians’ curs. He knows what the dogs are fighting over. His guts churn as he imagines the scene. The fighting goes on for a while and then he hears one of the dog's yowl and yip in wounded retreat.

He turns around and is startled as he looks up at the statue. "Sacre bleu!" he says, blinking in amazement, and trembling. He places a numb, stiffening hand on Alice's knee to make sure the statue is real. From the mellow radiance of a nearby vapor light he sees his hands are caked with frozen blood. He wipes them in the snow drifted at the statue's feet and then wraps them both in the old squaw's rabbit pelt.

He gives Alice a final look, shakes his head, and then moves on, cursing himself for his cowardice, and his hunger, which is assuming an animal shape of its own, something that could easily devour him before the wolves get their chance. Tears flood his burning eyes. Why was there no food in the Injun's camp but the Indians themselves? Were zey left 'ere to starve? he asks himself. How defenseless these savages were! Why hadn't they eaten those two scrawny dogs? Most Injuns love dog. He would have eaten them if he hadn't been too weak to catch them. Even dogs are smarter than Injuns. The Injuns deserved to die for their stupidity, for their lack of understanding of the way things are. He was just putting them out of their misery. They ought to have thanked him. What fools! God almighty! He raises the pelt to wipe away the tears.

Then he hears the wolves. They are closing in. He thought he lost them. Jean pulls a chunk of flesh from the pouch and hurls it into the shadows. Within seconds there is a rustle of commotion, and then a snapping, snarling confrontation among the wolves. Jean takes off in a forward tilting jog. He knows he has bought himself only a little time. Somehow he must summon enough strength to outdistance the ravenous wolves, and then find a safe, sheltered place to camp. Then, if he is able to build a fire, he could roast some of the flesh and he wouldn't have to think about what it is. It wouldn't be the first time he has eaten Injun. It is like antelope, only tougher and sweeter. After it is all gone he would have to wait until spring when all the snow would melt and the flowers would pop up on the mountainsides and he would join a new band of settlers, maybe from this strange new place, one that is civilized, and they would give him everything he wants because they would know that he exists in his very own world, that he makes his own way, in the way he sees fit, and they would accept that, even if no one else ever had, not even the god who created him.

His thoughts are interrupted by a long, haunting howl in the distance, back in the direction he's come. This time it's not a wolf, but one of the Indian's dogs, its sorrowful song echoing through the modern canyons of mid-town Manhattan. Jean pauses in his tracks. "I won'er wheech one zey feed ze mos' dis time," he says aloud, erupting first into silent laughter and then sobbing as he falls to his knees.

[Inspired by the black dog/white dog parable I heard from Ken Kesey back in 1971.]

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