Chronicles - Bob Dylan [82]
“You looking for a hot spot to fish?”
“No, just riding through.”
“You could be doing worse,” he says — pauses, “I used to do some of that,” and he nodded in the direction of the blue cop bike. “Look around if you want to. Got some pretty nice stuff in here.”
There were posters displayed, one of Bruce Lee, another of Chairman Mao. Behind the counter taped to the mirror was a wide, framed photograph showing the Great Wall of China. On the other brick wall was a jumbo sized American flag.
The radio was on from beyond a wall and the sound was coming through in static. The Beatles were singing, “Do You Want to Know a Secret.” They were so easy to accept, so solid. I remembered when they first came out. They offered intimacy and companionship like no other group. Their songs would create an empire. It seemed like a long time ago. “Do You Want to Know a Secret.” A perfect ’50s sappy love ballad and nobody but them could do it. Somehow there was nothing wussy about it. The Beatles blasted away. Sun Pie put down his tools. Behind the man, there were double screen doors that swung open to the bayou. Sun Pie repaired boats in a trussed-up backyard, a yard full of crowbars, broken chains and moss covered logs. My wife walked in and Sun Pie looked towards the door, then back at me.
“You a praying man?” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Good, gonna have to be when the Chinese take over.”
He said it without looking at me. He had an odd way of talking, made me feel like I wasn’t in his place at all, like he had just strolled into my place. “You know, the Chinese were here at the beginning. They were the Indians. You know, the red man. The Comanche, the Sioux, the Arapaho, the Cheyenne — all them people — they were all Chinese. Came over here about the time when Christ was healing the sick. All the squaws and chiefs came from China — walked across from Asia, came down through Alaska and discovered this place. They became Indians a lot later.”
I’d heard that story somewhere once, that the Bering Sea was actually a land mass at one time so that anybody could walk over it from Asia or Russia, so it’s possible that what Sun Pie was saying was true.
“Chinese, huh?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Trouble was that they split up into parties and tribes and started wearing feathers and forgot they were Chinese. They started wars with each other for no reason, one tribe against another. You could make enemies out of anybody. Even the best of friends. That’s the nature of the downfall of the Indians. That’s why when the white man came from Europe to conquer them they fell so easily. They were ripe like peaches and ready to fall.”
I was curious about what Pie was saying and I sat down in one of the rickety chairs. “They’re coming back, these Chinese, millions of them. It’s been preordained, and they won’t have to use force. They’ll just walk in and take up where they left off.”
Sun Pie carefully selected a chisel, began scraping on the back post of the chair. There were lions’ heads on the leg rails and intricate swirling designs in the black wood. He was working close in. The Dale and Grace song “I’m Leaving It Up to You” was playing on the radio. I thought I had seen a face like Sun Pie’s before but couldn’t remember just where. He had an unusual