Vision Quest by Terry Davis Page A

well in hand.
    I feel able to comment on pretension because I pulled some similar shit when I was going through my “I’m-going-to-be-a-doctor” phase. I wrote a monograph on the clitoris and submitted it to the school paper. Thurston Reilly, the editor, figured it for a public service feature and printed it right away. Thurston was expelled from school just seconds after the papers hit the halls, and I joined him a few seconds later. That was the point at which the David Thompson Explorer lost its editorial freedom. Kuch was out of school at the time, too. He had refused a directive from the vice principal to wear more clothes. He was threatening to attack the vice principal’s house, rape his wife, and cut his nuts off and use the scrotum for a medicine bag. They let us back in before Kuch had finished his research on tanning human hide.
    Kuch talked on slowly. I popped another beer. “I’m gonna try to use this whole next season like the Plains Indians used their sweat lodge,” he said. “And when the season’s over, I’m gonna keep a decent diet and try to keep a straight head through the spring races. And when summer comes, I oughta be ready to go somewhere quiet and sit and learn something.”
    â€œWho’ll you get to talk about the vision with?” I asked.
    â€œI’ll get you, if you’re still around. But it doesn’t matter, really. There’s no sense in tryin’ to do it right. Hell, I’m nofuckin’ Indian. There probably aren’t even any Indians left who could do it right. Where’d they go to find a shield maker or a medicine man?” He popped a final beer and rummaged among the bones for a meaty rib.
    â€œWhy wait till next summer?”
    â€œThat’s just the thing,” Kuch replied. “I wanna wait. It’s gotta stay important for a long time. Indian kids waited a long time. If it’s just a fucking Jesus trip, I don’t wanna insult the memory of the American Indian by being part of it.”
    I thought Kuch’s idea was a good one then, cheap drunk that I am. But I think it’s a good idea now, too. And he’s really doing it. He never talks about it, but he’s gotten very reserved and a little mystical, so I assume he’s going strong. He’s very low in his weight class, so I imagine he’s fasting most of the time. That’s one reason I cleaned up on him so bad.
    I don’t know exactly how Kuch plans to work his vision quest. Indian kids would get the advice of some older guy about what to do. The older guy, who had been on his vision quest already, would tell the kid to go to a hill outside the camp, or if there were no hill, to someplace far away. There the kid would fast and talk to the Everywhere Spirit until he saw a vision or until the Everywhere Spirit talked back. Then he’d return to camp and discuss what he’d felt and seen. I don’t think the word “vision” meant strictly that you saw something. Although you might talk with a coyote or ride over the earth on a white buffalo, you might not “see” anything. Itake the word more in a philosophical way. Like the way you see yourself in the world. That’s the idea of it all: to discover who you are and who your people are and how you fit into the circle of birth and growth and death and rebirth. I can see how you could get pretty far inside yourself sitting naked and hungry and alone on some mountain for a couple days and nights. Storm, in that book Seven Arrows , says an Indian kid would come back from his vision quest and explain what he saw to his adviser; then the adviser would interpret the visions and tell the kid how they revealed his true character and the way the course of his life should run. One of the reasons Kuch might be waiting is to give himself time to acquire the wisdom to interpret for himself. That’s probably an okay idea. Indian men would go on a vision quest