“No, it aint, something priests say,” Charlie replied, having been exposed to Roman Catholicism when in the army.
“Weird sh&*%t,” Jake commented. “Who’d write something like that?”
“I don’t know,” was all Charlie could say. “But it’s not just garbage.”
“Looks like it, all bent and torn like that,” Jake said, still not convinced. “Who’d want to wear it?”
“Maybe the sign is telling us something.”
“You’re nuts, signs don’t speak.”
“Maybe, we are all signs.”
“What do you mean?”
“We all have something to say and each of us needs at least one person in this world to listen to us. That’s what the sign is saying to us.”
“If we don’t?”
“Then we’re not human,” Charlie replied.
“That’s why we have each other, we’re buds. No one listens to us except each other.”
“Yeah. Even if we are bent and torn, look like crap, we still have something to say.”
“Yeah,” Jake replied, “yeah, bro. I get it.” With that comprehension, Jake thought back to happier times listening to his grandmother. He was just a kid. He wasn’t angry all the time like he was now. People listened to him, like his grandmother, and he listened to her. His parents were drunk, on drugs, most of the time. Neglectful. Child Welfare would come in and take him away, put him into foster care or, more exactly, institutional care that didn’t foster anything but anger.
Now on this sunny day in May sitting beside his friend, he returned to those happier times, a memory intermingled with drumming. His people were drummers, and his father, when he was sober, was an excellent drummer. Could have been a professional musician, some people said when he was growing up.
He remembered that long ago summer night when he was very little and his father was drumming under the moonlight with his mother by his side. The music, the stars, the love between them, relatively healthy, it all swirled together to create a picture that remained still in his mind. Stillness, everything present, everything there. Abundance. No scarcity, no competition for scarce commodities. You just had to learn to ask the great Manitou and you’d get what you need
The sign – he looked once more at it. Yes, it was speaking to him as his father’s drum spoke to him long ago, spoke to him through the rhythms. Everything was dancing to his father’s that night. His mother was dancing in front of her husband and her child. Everything was alive with the music; everything was dancing.
But even as a child, he knew that there were dark things in the world. Things that could creep up and jump on you, then eat you up. Wendigo, his grandmother had told him.
“Hey bro, you okay?” Charlie asked, interrupting his friend’s thought.
“Yeah, just thinking of my folks. Dad was a great drummer when sober. He could even make the trees and the stars dance when he was drumming.”
“Good thoughts. Sorry I…..hm interrupted.”
“That’s ok, dark thoughts, they’re coming too.”
“What sort of dark thoughts?”
