I just want to read you one brief last hopeful little thing,
and then maybe we can chat if you'd like to, if there's time.
This is from my new book, a nonfiction book of notebooks.
And I got so tired of pain that I wanted to write about joy.
I got so tired of suffering and struggling
that I wanted to write about what made me really happy
because I'd hoped it would make you really happy.
And this is about a concert I saw in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Joe Ely, if you know him, he's a rocker.
But we were in this club, and it's this very other sort
of ghost and small gestures moment
that I like to write about because it meant so much to me.
And I read it, when I first wrote it, to a buddy of mine.
He was actually, he's my adopted brother at Pine Ridge.
He's Oglala and he said, "That's all right."
So I feel good about it.
The marquee said, Joe Ely: Texas Rock Legend.
We cruised in and took a seat at a table in the back.
I had water.
All sorts of fascinating Santa Fe humanoids
were coming in the door.
I was enjoying the sightings.
Lots of big, fat 48-year-old men with long hair,
rock and roll women that men were calling babes,
a smattering of bikers, New Age faux cowboys,
three real cowboys, a barrel-chested man with short,
short arms and legs and Hell's Angels whiskers, a leather vest,
and a cane, waitresses with trays,
and a man with a neck of a stud bull in a t-shirt that said,
God don't make no junk.
[LAUGHTER]
Somebody else I'd seen had a shirt that said, I am bad crazy.
[LAUGHTER]
Among these crowds, came a blind man, or a mostly blind man.
He squinted in the gloom and tipped his head,
and his eyes searched back and forth.
And he seemed to see the lights on the wall
for he focused on them with a kind of wonder on his face.
He had a white cane almost as tall as he was,
and he held it under his chin and poked at the floor
as he maneuvered near our table.
He turned his face up to the lamp above my head and said,
"Oh, boy."
This man had the sweetest face in the world.
Everything about him radiated sweetness.
I know we romanticize blind people, and shame on us.
We create scenarios where people are kind and long
suffering and saintly.
But this man was sweet.
He wore a t-shirt with a drawing of a cat on it
that could only be called kitty.
Over it, an unbuttoned, untucked work shirt, white jeans
he'd zipped up halfway.
And he smiled at the light, put his hand over his brow
as if it were a burning sun above him.
And he squinted his eyes almost closed
as he tried to force a little more light into them.
Presently, a friend came and led him away.
What happened was, two young Indian men came in
and they cased the joint.
One of them was just a beer-loving, Ozzy Osbourne
fan in a t-shirt, a soft belly.
But the other guy was a warrior.
No way around it.
He was fierce, and he knew it.
Possessed of a perfect, narrow waisted body, wide shoulders,
skin-tight new jeans, skin-tight dark blue shirt, volumes
of shiny black hair that hung all the way down to his belt.
He looked just like Wind In His Hair from Dances with Wolves.
He nursed a beer and maintained a vaguely amused look
on his face, and basically, appeared
to be ready to trounce us.
He had a look on his face that said, stand back.
White boys, even the bikers, steered clear of him.
They hurried nervously when they got to him as if he
were planning a minor battle.
And we'd see them--
or see him chuckle, nudge his buddy,
and gesture at the scuttling cowboys with his bottle.
Suddenly, a dapper fellow came in, late for the show.
Dapper isn't even the word for him.
It was James Bond circa 1963.
Overcoat, bowler hat, full suit, vest, tie, razor cut hair.
All he needed were spats.
And as Swinging London Bob bopped happily into the room,
the two warriors turned and froze in their tracks,
staring with obvious astonishment.
They were so amazed, they didn't even say anything funny.
The mod took his seat, and the warriors and I settled back down
to enjoy Joe Ely when the point of this story came along.
[LAUGHTER]
Hey, why hurry?
Out of the shadows came the blind man, being bumped into
and stopping in the half dark, feeling around him
with his cane, squinting up at the lights, which must
have seen a mile way to him.
The handsome warrior, who turned out to be named Dave,
turned and stared at the man.
His face was expressionless as he watched
what was obviously a struggle.
The blind man started toward us again,
trying to get through the chairs and bodies and tables
and waitresses and wandering bikers.
And I watched Dave watch him.
I watched him thinking about what he was watching,
and I saw him decide to respond.
He turned and put his beer on the low wall beside me,
and he walked to the blind man, and grabbed his arm,
and I heard him say, "Are you OK?"
"I'm trying to find somewhere to stand away from the noise,"
the man shouted, smiling at the air,
ten inches above Dave's head.
And Dave put his arm around the man's waist.
He put his arm around the man's waist, tenderly.
He put his arm tight around this man's waist like a lover,
and said, "It's all right.
You're all right."
And he took the man in his arms, and he said,
"Just back up with me."
And he backed him out of the way,
and leaned him safely on the wall.
Then looked at me, and then said to the man,
"Let's move just a little bit to this way so these guys can see.
You're all right.
I've got you."
And he eased the man into place.
Dave the warrior, scourge of the roadhouse,
scaring all the bad boys, showed mercy.
He didn't have pity because he would have just said, "Oh,
how sad."
No, pity is self-indulgence.
It's show business.
Mercy, however, is an active thing.
It's a verb, and he did it.
He reached across the gulf between them
and he took the man in his arms.
All race, all regret, all rage, all gender,
all macho gone just for a moment.
And God stepped into the room.
Make no mistake, the Holy Ghost was there as Joe Ely
rocked with him and Dave's partner sipped beer.
Dave did exactly what I have been
wanting and hoping to achieve in everything I write.
He reminded me that it is all, everything we hope, possible.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.