Is the most spendid and sizable American bird searching for a new home, scouring the globe in quest of a place where it can be private and free? That is one theory. Naturally, legends have sprung up around the travels of the whooper. In Burma, a woman claims to have had sexual intercourse with one of the cranes. Shades of Leda and the Canadian Honker.
Perhaps the whooping cranes carry a message, bearing it far and wide. A message from the wild to the wild-no-more. Is such a thing possible?
All's possible. And all's well. And since all's well that ends well, are we to conclude that this is the end?
Yeah, almost. Except to pass along the news that the cranes have just crossed the border into Tibet. Whooping.
Part
VII
Flapping your arms can be flying.
—Robert K. Hall
121.
TIME HAS PASSED.
Months. Seven to eight months, by the size of Sissy's belly.
It is midnight at the clockworks. A June midnight, warm enough for sleeping on the cave's upper level. Sissy and Delores are dreaming, and oddly enough, for they have grown apart in recent weeks, they share a similar dream.
Delores has told Sissy that she wants to go away. She won't go until after the baby has come, until Sissy is able and well; she loves Sissy, after all, but she doesn't feel complete with her. It is of completeness that Delores now dreams—of the two opposites of One that, in balance, enable It to both exist and live. A woman without her opposite, or a man without his, can exist but cannot live. Existence may be beautiful, but never whole. Beneath Delores's pillow is the card, the jack of hearts.
The swell of Sissy's belly forces her to sleep on her back, the ideal position to attract the dream. Sissy, too, dreams of the opposite that can complete her, that she can complete. Having a way with birds, Sissy knows that the spirit cannot soar with only one wing. From the Chink, she has learned how a thing's opposite holds it together. In Sissy's dream is a man who does not deny himself, as Julian did, but who is himself to the full limit of himself, as she has been.
The two women are restless. Delores tosses and squirms like a postcard with an illegible address. Sissy mews like a kitten with vodka in its milk dish. Their lids flutter but do not open.
In the cave, a third person is sleeping. Since birth is completion as well as beginning, perhaps that person, too, dreams of being complete. It wakes and gives Sissy a good jolt. Not with its foot but with its . . . In embryonic life, digits are formed as radiating ridges on the lateral surfaces of the hand and foot segments. Since these ridges grow more rapidly than the bodies of their segments, they soon project beyond the margin as definitive fingers and toes. Sissy has known for quite a while that the baby has her characteristics. It will come into the world half-Japanese, one-thirty-second Siwash and all thumbs. So be it. The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on. The moving thumb beckons, and having bect, moves us with it.
The fetus hitchhikes Sissy's cervix. Her lumbar region. Her bladder. Even that does not wake her. What finally causes her to abandon her dream is not a gesture but a noise.
A strange noise, loud though far away. Possible sources of the noise are considered by the generals in her brain. It was a rumbling noise. Could it have been a long-awaited earthquake, breaking off the edges of the continent and propelling the Clock People into the Eternity of Joy? Could it have been the first nuclear firecracker of the war that is in the back of everyone's mind: the international situation
is
desperate. Sissy considers waking Delores and moving to the lower level of the cave.
She hears the noise again. It sounds closer this time, and the rumble less apocalyptic. It is, in fact, followed by a higher, more organic sound. Are the whooping cranes coming back? she wonders. Or is some cowgirl caught in another cowboy jam?
The noise is closer . . .
Maybe it's the clockworks. Beating out an entirely new rhythm, measuring unexpected developments in the continuum—such as a fit of laughter on the part of the collective unconsciousness, or sudden cosmic vibrations that defy the more sophisticated measuring devices of science because they are tender and obscene.
The noise is closer yet . . .
Sissy sits up in her bedroll. Delores is awake now, also.
And out on the Siwash Trail, following by flashlight a map hand-drawn in minute detail by the only person who could have drawn it (Chink!), comes stumbling, crashing, falling, cursing and sniggering, Dr. Robbins, your author.
Having gathered all of the material for this book, Dr. Robbins waits not even for light of day, but plunges, mustache first, into dangerous Dakota darkness to reach Siwash Cave. For what purpose?
Does Dr. Robbins actually believe he will mate with Sissy, that it is his seed that will next ignite her egg, he who will be called daddy by the prophesied brood of big-thumbed babes? Does he believe that he will share the pagan stewardship of Siwash Ridge—and that he is the agent of Sissy Hankshaw's special destiny?
Dr. Robbins won't say what he believes. Except:
I believe in everything; nothing is sacred/I believe in nothing; everything is sacred.
Ha ha ho ho and hee hee.
SPECIAL BONUS PARABLE
IN A PLACE
out of doors, near forests and meadows, stands a jar of vinegar—the emblem of life.
Confucius approaches the jar, dips his finger in and tastes the brew. “Sour,” he says. “Nonetheless, I can see where it could be very useful in preparing certain foods.”
Buddha comes to the vinegar jar, dips in a finger and has a taste. “Bitter,” is his comment. “It can cause suffering to the palate, and since suffering is to be avoided, the stuff should be disposed of at once.”
The next to stick a finger in the vinegar is Jesus Christ. “Yuk,” says Jesus. “It's both bitter and sour. It's not fit to drink. In order that no one else will have to drink it, I will drink it all myself.”
But now two people approach the jar, together, naked, hand in hand. The man has a beard and woolly legs like a goat. His long tongue is slightly swollen from some poetry he's been reciting. The woman wears a cowgirl hat, a necklace of feathers, a rosy complexion. Her tummy and tits bear the stretch marks of motherhood; she carries a basket of mushrooms and herbs. First the man and then the woman sticks a thumb into the vinegar. She licks his thumb and he hers. Initially they make a face, but almost immediately they break into wide grins. “It's
sweet
,” they chime.
“Swee-eet!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TOM ROBBINS has been called “a vital natural resource” by The Portland Oregonian, “one of the wildest and most entertaining novelists in the world” by the Financial Times of London, and “the most dangerous writer in the world today” by Fernanda Pivano of Italy's Corriere della Sera. A Southerner by birth, Robbins has lived in and around Seattle since 1962.
BOOKS BY TOM ROBBINS
Another Roadside Attraction
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Still Life with Woodpecker
Jitterbug Perfume
Skinny Legs and All
Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates
Villa Incognito
EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
A portion of this book appeared in American Review
Houghton Mifflin edition published April 1976
Serialized in HIGH TIMES June 1976
Bantam edition / April 1977
Bantam Trade edition / May 1990
Bantam trade paperback reissue / May 2003
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1976 by Tom Robbins
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 90-80238
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-553-89789-0
v3.0