“Coyote ReMixed” Exerpt two

chapter: Editors Try To Explain

At a table in the small library branch at the El-Con Mall in Tuscon, Bundacena Brattleboro was lecturing Helen Pinkorth and Leslie Tureen about mythical tricksters. All three were trying to find the right tone for a book introduction for the Calliope Press edition of Coyote ReMixed . “Indigenous people are concerned with deception, all kinds, but especially with the constant lies of the trickster” Bundacena said in her soft Spanish accent.  Leslie Tureen put down his scalding coffee and answered, “You can’t just say that without naming the trickster and setting the circumstances. Do you mean Crow or Mountain Lion?” “No, Coyote, the most pernicious and harmful. He’s the – ” Bundacena was cut off. “I think, started Helen, shuffling her papers and waving her hand dramatically, “that we need to begin with the deliberate deceptions practiced, not the unseen face underneath, but -”  “Stop! You’re both clueless academic hacks, trying to disguise your lost ramblings with big words and inappropriate concepts, like semantic deconstruction. I want to see a simple summary of what -”  “We need to begin with the Campa people, for whom all demons are thin, drab, and have a false appearance, like a leaf, and then -”  “Get confused and lost before retreating into an awkward silence. Yeah, yeah, this is what I mean”, Leslie sighed. “This book is about Coyote, not Legba or the Lady of the Lake. No background is -”  “You arrogant Lush. How dare you dismiss us from your high male bastion”. Bundacena curdled the milk in his coffee with her acidic rejoinder. “We are the ones who bring perspective to this childish menage of twaddle”.  “You bring in word-counts only. And your friend Helen Keller here is blind to the subtle -”  CRASH! Helen brought a 1300-page dictionary down onLeslie’s head. When Bundacena saw that, she wrestled Leslie to the floor, pinning his arms by his side. “You bastard (punch), you rude (slap) little dingo (poke). You had to pull us down (hit) to your level (punch), didn’t you (slap)? Helen dropped the book on Leslie’s crotch. When he jack-knifed up, Bundacena punched him on the nose and he fell back down, “BLUUH AOOUUUH”  “Hey, let me see that dictionary for a minute. I wonder if we should use the word “immoral” for Coyote, instead of “amoral”?  “Depends on the context. What would the sentence be?”  The two editors were able to pound out a decent introduction in 25 minutes. This is it. ” As the Traditional Trickster of Native Lore, Coyote gets tricked more than he tricks. These stories, set in the present of an industrial urban machine, show how much more precious Coyote is, as he tries to navigate the clutter of tools and gods, fools and aliens, and jewels and cars”  “Stop there, that’s good enough. We’re out of space, so we’ll just have to use that -”  Helen shrugged.