Colorado Jackson

Colorado Jackson
by
Raman Jalota

    The bearded old man lay the dirty sack on the floor, dusted his hat and threw it on the bar. He slapped his hands together and then ran his fingers through his hair, flapping it around. He slammed his feet on the floor trying to shake the dust from his clothes. The handkerchief around his neck was matted with sweat and dust but still had a tinge of the original red color left in it. A small cloud of dust hung around him like his trademark. He looked full of energy and good cheer, "Hey Mac give me a cold beer, right this minute. It's getting hot out there like a witch's tits."
    Jackson was sitting at the bar. He wasn't very clean but didn't look as dirty as the old man. His black hat was sitting on the barstool next to him. He ran a finger over his lips and mustache. He couldn't help but smile, “Hey pops, haven't you got it wrong? It's supposed to be cold like a witch's tits."
    "You step out there and tell me if you think it's cold, son and I'll give you a million bucks. Must be over a hundred-and-twenty damn degrees. And if you are working those mines out there, it's almost double that."
    "What you mining pops?"
    "What do you think? You think maybe this fool is mining gold? There ain't no speck of gold left out there since the big melt down during my great great grandpa's days. I am mining for food ... potatoes, carrots, rattlers, prairie dogs, whatever lives under this damn land."
    "If you tell me about the big melt down ... I'll buy you a beer, pops."
    He stared at Jackson suspiciously. Katrina walked out with a large square glass of frothing beer and set it down on the bar.
    "Put it on my tap, honey." Jackson said and lifted his hat from the stool, offering it to the old man. The old miner sat down next to Jackson.
    "Well, who the hell are you and why you interested in some old man's tales?"
    He ran his finger over his mustache, “I am a writer, I been traveling around trying to get some good stories to turn into a great book. Maybe your story would give me an idea. You must have heard of my novels and stories. I am Jackson. Jackson the writer."
    "Ain't that something? You wanna buy me a beer for my story, Jackson. Huh can't say I ever heard of the name, a writer huh ... well buy me a couple of beers and I'll maybe tell you what happened to the great state of Colorado, just four-hundred years ago, just like my great grandpa's grandpa told him."
    "Colorado? What the hell is that?"
    "Yes, I'll tell you about Colorado for a couple of beers. Katrina, bring me another beer." He yelled at the dusty brown curtain behind which Katrina had disappeared after setting down his beer.
The old man picked up the beer with both his hands and lifted it to his lips, drinking thirstily. He looked at the dirty, dusty old bar and felt at home. He ran both his hands over his beard smoothing it. He picked up the beer again and drank slowly, tasting the bitterness go down his throat. He finished the beer, spitting out the sludge from the bottom of the glass. The clay floor was covered with beer sludge. It probably hadn't been swept in months.
"This shit tastes like mud." He wiped his lips on his shirtsleeve and sat relaxed and happy.
Jackson pushed the wooden plate stacked with dried fish and fried potatoes towards the old man. "All the beer you want is on me. But the story better be damned good. O.K. pops?"
    The old man picked a small fish and bit off a little piece, "Good and spicy", he said and ate it hungrily. Jackson pulled out a piece of dried brown banana leaf and offered it to him. The old man looked at him gratefully, rolled the leaf and using the lantern that sat on the bar, he lit it at one end, he puffed at it to get it going and inhaled deeply, the warm banana smoke filled his lungs and he smoked contentedly.
    "I got more smokes, if you are ready to tell me the story pops."
    "Well Jackson, my name is Peterman. When I was .. oh about twelve years old, my grandpa told me about the great state of Colorado just as he had heard it from his grandpa and so on down the line. Yes, Jackson, you probably have no idea what this earth used to be like ... there were four continents and hundreds of countries and this here land used to be called 'The United States of America'. You ever heard of that?"
    Jackson smiled. Yes, this would be a great story, this man had strange ideas, continents, countries ... this should be worth it. "No, I never heard anything like that. Why would they need to call land by these strange names?" he said loudly.
    "Listen Mac; you don't mind me calling you Mac do you?"
    Jackson shook his head, rolled a banana leaf and lit it. He puffed at it and passed it on to the old man.
"People were, what we would now-a-days call uncivilized; they named parts of land and by doing that they divided a piece of land they had named from another piece of land which either they had named or someone else had named. Then they would create fraudulent wealth and kingdoms and would force people to pay them for just being allowed to live on the land."
    "No way! That's hard to believe." Jackson wondered if the old man was already drunk. As every one knew; land, rivers, sea and the sky belonged to one and all. No one could force another to pay for using them.
    Katrina brought two more beers and set them at the bar in front of the two men. They both drank deeply, cherishing the coolness of the beer.
    "Why would people pay them, Peterman? Why not just refuse?"
    "That's cause they weren't civilized then. Now-a-days no one will pay you a nickel if you tried to force some strange rights on them, but back then they didn't know any better."
    "So, what was this thing, Colorado, that you talked about?"
    "Colorado was a piece of land that was this land right here, right where we are. It was a few hundred miles wide and a few hundred miles long. Quite big, and it was full of mountains ..."
    "Old man, you must be drunk. There are no mountains for two thousand miles around here. Where did you come up with such a lie?"
    "Listen to me and it will make sense. But you got to listen first, Mac. This here land was part of this here bigger piece of land called 'The United States of America'. There were twenty pieces of land each called a state that was part of this country. It was a very big land, one of the biggest on earth. There were lots of people, millions; and they had animals that they used for other than food."
    "How do you mean?"
"They had them for friends, they called them 'pets' and even gave them names as if they were children and fed them special foods."
    "This sounds interesting pops, go on." Jackson knew he was onto a good story. Not a true story, of course, but a good science fiction or perhaps a horror story depending on how this thing turns out.
    "Anyhow, this land called Colorado had many mountains and next to it was the great land of Oregon. This Oregon was eight times as big as Colorado and stretched from the top of Colorado to the bottom, all the way to the sea. And the sea was as pretty as you please. Not this ugly yellow and green color that we have now, but a cool blue color. This land of Oregon was very lush and full of lakes and trees and very rich and powerful. Anyhow Oregon decided to separate from the bigger land of United States of America."
    "Separate?" Jackson asked incredulously, “How can you separate two pieces of land that are together?"
    "You got to listen carefully. We are talking four hundred years ago. Things were really screwed up then. This land of the United States was full of people, four hundred million people. All living in houses built of wood and bricks and glass ... real pretty and cool in the summer and warm during winter ... the land would get very hot for months and then very cold for months."
    "That's hard to believe. I am thirty years old, and it's always a hundred degrees during the day and eighty or more during nighttime. I can't believe this winter and summer stuff. Not here, maybe up north, hundreds of miles up; but not here."
    "Well Mac, that's the truth. As true as a young girl's soft pink breasts. These people had machines that did everything. And yet people worked and worked ... not on land planting crops or mining, but inside buildings and inside machines. And they flew machines in the sky and beyond the sky. There were some great things that they did. And they made machines that would kill people, not just knives and swords like we do. But uncivilized, machines that killed people hundreds of feet away and things called bombs. These bombs, they could kill people for miles and miles and destroy everything in sight. These bombs had so much energy it would melt people and buildings and yes even mountains."
    "So, what did Oregon do, pops?"
    "Well Oregon was owned by one person, a woman named Samantha. She was so rich she had two names ... did I tell you that? The rich people had two names and sometimes-even three. They formed a chain with the names of their pa's and grandpa's and so on. They were too good to be just known as one person. They added other names and pretended to be something other than what they really were."
"Well this woman ... Samantha, ... Samantha Gates, had bought land and sold it to others and had got her pa's and grandpa's wealth that she used to build and buy, till she owned all of Oregon. This Samantha lusted after a rich man by the name of Carson. Carson was a slave owner. That's how he made his money."
    "I have heard of slaves and slave owners. Centuries ago some people owned other people and made them work for them. That part of your story is true."
    "Well this is little different. Carson owned teams of slaves. And he didn't make them work, he made them play. He made them play games against other teams that he also owned. And as the slaves played, he made money by charging everyone that wanted to watch them. This way, he could just continue to make his wealth grow by buying more slaves and creating more teams. He also owned pictures, moving pictures, what they called 'Univision'. He was wealthy as a stinking skunk."
    "Carson and Samantha finally met. They were the richest people in the land and had to meet. It was fate. They both lusted after each other madly, passionately, worse than rabbits. But they didn't want each other's bodies or minds; they wanted each other's money. They teased each other and courted each other and finally they went and got married."
    He drank some more beer and picked up the brown sack at his feet. He waved it at the bartender, “Give it to Katrina for cooking. I got two rattlers and a few lizards in there. If she throws in some beans and peppers, it would make some fine cooking for tonight. All I want is a bowl and maybe a piece of bread with it. Would you throw in a small bottle of gutjuice for me?"
    The bartender nodded and took the sack in to Katrina. He came back with two more beers and another plate with a few pieces of fish and potatoes. "Supper should be ready in two three hours" he said and sat down at the bar as interested in the old man's story as Jackson was.
    Jackson and Peterson ate the salty fish and drank more beer as the sun slowly sank. The horizon turned yellow for a moment, then dark and finally a half moon came out lighting the ghostly land with strange shapes and shadows.
    "So what's this thing they did? The thing you called married?
    "Them people in the old days used to be what they called 'magnanimous'. They would only have sex with one person and lived with that person till they didn't like each other no more and found a different person."
    "You mean pops, they had sex with just one other, like some of these birds?"
    "Yeah. That's right. They were stupid about sex, just like them birds."
    Jackson shook his head in disbelief. "What a primitive culture! What happened to them two, pops?"
    "Well, things went according to her plans, she got pregnant and bore him a son. Soon after that she wanted a divineforce."
    "What the hell is that?"
    "That was the means to take a man's wealth away from him by using things called rights and laws and such. A woman could use divineforce to make a man poor. That's how strange things were in those times."
    "Anyhow, Carson was willing to give her a zillion dollars but he wanted the boy for hisself. He wanted to raise him and give him all his wealth when he died. Samantha wouldn't stand for that. She hated Carson, but loved the little boy. They had named him Cheene for a land in the east that had ten billion peoples. Real crowded and real dangerous. For some reason my great grandpa thought the land was red and he was confused as to if the people were red or if the land was red. He was also not sure if this here Colorado was red too or not."
    "Well this here land has always been yellow like the sand and the rattlers, it couldn't have been this here land, pops."
    The old man nodded, agreeing with Jackson. Katrina came out with more beers and a large bowl of stew and bread and four wooden spoons. She put the food on the big bench in the middle of the bar. The bartender walked out to the door and started pumping the water in the trough outside. All of them washed their faces and hands; came back and sat down to eat. The bartender ate first, followed by Katrina and then the two customers.
    "Would you guys like to sleep here tonight?" asked Katrina eyeing Jackson lustily.
    "I got to go to my tent and set baits for animals. I hope to catch one of these coyotes one of these nights. That would be some real fine meat, “ the old man smacked his lips at the thought of coyote meat and dipped a piece of bread in the stew with his hands and dug up some beans and rattlesnake with it and ate the meal, relishing it with beer.
    "This here is fine cooking. If I was young, I would get married to you like them people in the old days, Katrina." He patted her head affectionately.
    Katrina ate silently. Tonight was good. They had four paying customers and then old man Peterson brought the rattlers and lizards. This was high living. She smiled at the possibility of Jackson sleeping over. Oh, what delicacies life held. This was really a great night.
    "This rattler tastes good, don't it? Have you ever eaten chicken? I ate chicken once, tasted just like rattler meat to me."
    Jackson didn't believe the old man; “You never had chicken. That's so expensive and so hard to find. Only very rich folks can afford that. Have you ever even seen chicken, old man?"
    "Of course, it looks just like a small dog, except it got two skinny legs, a pointy mouth and feathers. It got less meat than a dog. I would rather eat rattlers than chicken any day."

.....

    Peterson walked off to his tent with the bottle of gutjuice. He felt great. "A good meal, free beer and a bottle for the night. What else could a man want? Oh yes! A woman. Damn that young Jackson. He was gonna sleep with Katrina tonight. If only I was young!"
   The bartender knew what his daughter wanted; “I am going to look for some coyotes too. You two take care."
    He walked off into the darkness. Katrina abandoned the pretense of bringing cots out for the night. She brought out a rough blanket and spread it a few feet from the back of the bar that was also her home.
    "Come on Jackson, I been waiting a long time for a man like you."
    She took off her clothes and sat naked in the moonlight, her dark skin magical and inviting. Jackson had been looking forward to this possibility. The ease with which it happened, made it more exciting than he could have imagined. He undid his clothes and kneeling on the blanket started worshiping Katrina's body with his kisses and caresses. She reached over and grabbed him by his hair, brought his mouth to hers and kissed him deeply, tasting the smell of bananas in his mouth. He cupped her breasts and kissed them. She pushed him down and mounted him. He looked up at her strong but beautiful face, moving rhythmically, framed by the horizon on all sides and the moon just beyond her head competing for his attention. It was heaven on earth for Jackson that night.
    Later as they lay in each other's arms waiting for the heat to wear off. He asked, “Do you think that old man Peterson is telling a true story?"
    She chuckled, “I have heard that story a few times. He does have a bunch of them. Many a times, he finds someone to buy his beers for his stories. He's a good storyteller."
    "Yeah, but do you think, the things he talks about could be true. People so far ahead of us in some ways, yet so far behind in others?"
    "Well, people change. People build and people destroy. Who knows what all happened in the past four, five hundred years? And what will happen in the next four, five hundred years? How long you gonna stick around here Jackson?"
    "Oh, maybe a week or two. Why?"
    "Do you wanna come over every night, for as long as you are here, maybe?"
    Jackson kissed her on the lips as he got aroused again, “You know I will, Katrina. Let's do it this here different way that I learned."

.....

    Jackson waited for Peterson eagerly. The old man appeared two hours before sundown like clockwork. He didn't have his sack today but he still carried the dust on him like every day. His face lit up as he saw Jackson.
    "My friend, J..Jackson, right?" He shook his hand and sat down next to him.
    "A beer for Peterson, Katrina. I am buying again tonight."
    Katrina brought a beer for him.
    "I don't have nothing today. You got anything for supper? Where's your pa?"
    "Well, I was gonna make some beans and rice and throw in some fish maybe. Would that work for you Jackson?" She squeezed his shoulder affectionately.
    "Sure, anything's good. Especially after a few beers and a good story. So what happened to them Carson and Samantha, Peterson?"
    "Where was I? Oh yeah, they both wanted the kid. Cheene was his name. Anyhow, with all his wealth and everything Carson won his son in divineforce. They let him keep the son instead of Samantha. That made her real mad. But she could still see Cheene every ninth and tenth day, and such. And the first time that she had him, she disappeared with her son. She managed to bring him into Oregon and hired armies to protect them from Carson and his men."
    "Carson was furious. He tried the laws and things but couldn't get his son back. He tried to hire men to go steal his son back, but they got caught and killed. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get his son back. That broke his heart. Can I have another beer?"
    He waited for the beer to arrive and smoked part of a banana leaf leftover from the day before. The second beer tasted good. Jackson shared another smoke with Peterson, he felt like part of a family.
"If it was up to me, I'll only drink the second beer. It always tastes better than the first and better than the third or fourth. Too bad you can only have one second beer a day! Anyhow, Samantha started a move to separate the land called Oregon from the United States of America. When Carson heard about that, he knew there was no way he was ever going to see his son again. Carson had all the money in the world but no love. He could buy women for money, but he had felt a deep and unique love for his son and from his son. That he couldn't buy. He felt helpless and in one of his sad moods he decided that if he couldn't have his son, no one else would either."
    "Now, he was hundreds of miles away from Oregon. So he had to get one of them powerful bombs that would destroy things for miles. They called those bombs 'Clear bombs.' I reckon cause they cleared everything."
    "And you know that was real easy for him to get it. It cost about a zillion dollars but he had many zillions more. And what did he care anyhow. So, now that he had his 'Clear bomb' he needed to drop it over Oregon. He got hisself a special flying machine. They had these machines in them days. He needed one that flew without anyone in it. They were called 'missiles' cause they went for miles and miles I guess."
"So he put the bomb in the missile and set it for Oregon. Except something went horribly wrong with the missile and it went only a few miles and dropped the bomb right over Carson's own Colorado. It was something else. The whole earth shook for miles and miles. Night turned into day and the mountains went up into the sky and came down flat. The rivers dried up and the earth became blue with heat. It glowed at night and everything burnt up and died. This here land of Colorado was melted and flattened by that one mister Carson."

.....

    Lying naked under the moonlit sky, Jackson asked Katrina, “Do you believe any of it? That this here land was full of mountains, and those people had zillions of dollars and owned all this land and killed everybody and everything? Could any of that be true?"
    Katrina took Jackson's hand and placed it over her heart. She was taken up by the memory of that story, the wealth of those people, the two names the wealthy people had. She dwelt in the fantasy of another life for a long time, “I don't know if any of that story is true or not. But I like many parts of that story. I also love you Jackson. And I want you to know, true or not, if I ever have a son, I would name him Colorado Jackson."

The End    3978 words

Copyright © 2004 Raman Jalota. All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

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