Even Cowgirls Get The Blues Page #17

HE puts a kettle of stew over the fire, and begins to roast

yams.

THE CHINK'S FACE as the fire dances off it.

A CAN OF CHUNG KING water chestnuts is opened.

CUT TO:
Sissy and the Chink eating supper on a rough wooden

bench.

AND AS THEY FINISH, the Chink goes into a cave and returns

with a tiny peppermint-stripped plastic transistor radio. He

switches it on and the silence is broken by "The Happy Hour

Polka."

Still clutching the radio in one hand, the Chink hops into

the wheel of firelight and begins to dance.

Sissy walks around the fire watching the old geezer heel and

toe, skip and hop. He flings his bones; he flings his beard.

CHINK:

Yip! Yip! Ha ha ho ho and hee hee.

Arms swimming, feet firecrackering, he dances and dances.

When the song ends, the Chink puts the radio down as the

news comes on.

CHINK:

Personally, I prefer Stevie Wonder,

but what the hell. Those cowgirls

are always bitching because the only

radio station in the area plays

nothing but polkas, but I say you

can dance to anything if you really

feel like dancing.

The Chink dances a little to the news, and then lifts Sissy

by her shoulders and guides her onto his pock-marked dance

floor.

SISSY:

But I don't know how to polka.

CHINK:

Neither do I... ha ha ho ho hee hee.

The radio strikes up the "Lawrence Welk is a Hero of the

Republic Polka," and the Chink and Sissy dance arm in arm,

their shadows reel against the curves of the depression in

the mountain.

Night birds fly past with fluttering feathers. A bat flies

out of the cave.

The Chink escorts Sissy to a dark side of the depression and

sits her down upon a pile of soft stuff: dried wheatgrass,

faded Indian blankets and old down pillows without cases.

SISSY:

(thinking)

So this is how Jelly spends her visits

to the Chink.

A twanging noise sounds from the bowels of the nearby cave.

SISSY:

What was that?

CHINK:

Clockworks.

SISSY:

Clockworks?

The Chink pauses to decide whether he should talk any further,

then proceeds.

CHINK:

The Clockworks is one reason that I

am here on Siwash Ridge. I accepted

the invitation to be initiated as a

shaman by an aged Siwash chief who

was the principle outside confederate

of the Clock People.

SISSY:

Siwash, huh?

CHINK:

He was a degenerated warlock who

could turn urine into beer, and the

honor that he extended me gave me

rights of occupancy in this sacred

cave on this far-away Siwash Ridge.

I came to the Dakota hills to

construct a clockworks of my own.

Sissy cradles her head in her arms, but is startled by a

louder noise from the clockworks. The Chink is startled too.

Bonk! sounds the cave, and then it chimes poing!

The Chink smiles at the noise coming from his clockworks.

CHINK:

But unlike the clockworks of the

Clock People, my ticks more accurately

echo the ticks of the universe....

(he listens)

......ha ha ho ho and hee hee.

SISSY:

The Clock People?

INT. CAVE NIGHT

The Chink leads Sissy into the cave where we see his

clockworks. It is made of garbage can lids and old saucepans

and lard tins and car fenders all wired together with baling

wire. A bat flies into it making a bong noise and the

contraption moves a little.

CHINK:

During the Second World War I busted

out of Tule Lake detention camp; as

a Japanese-American, I had been put

there and watched over. I found refuge

with the Clock People, who discovered

me in a snow bank, near dead, I had

been climbing across the Sierra Nevada

mountains.

SISSY:

Then if you are Japanese, then why

are you called the Chink?

CHINK:

The Clock People mistook me for

Chinese. And the name stuck. In the

same way that all Indian tribes came

to be labeled "Indians" through the

ignorance of an Italian sailor with

a taste for oranges, it is only

fitting that "Indians" misnamed me.

The Clock People, however, are not a

tribe, rather they are a gathering

of Indians from various tribes. They

have lived together since 1906.

INT. THE GREAT BURROW

A gathering of the Clock People. A woman is giving birth

near the Giant timekeeping hourglass.

CHINK:

The pivotal function of the Clock

People is the keeping and observing

of the clockworks. It is a real thing,

and is kept at the center, at the

soul, of the Great Burrow. Insofar

as it is possible, all Clock People

deaths and births occur in the

presence of the clockworks. Aside

from birthing or dying, the reason

for the daily visits to the clockworks

is to check the time.

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