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Just shut up and and stand there and do nothing was exactly what Bigfoot had told me to do – but I had to do something.
So to start with I ran for the big pink Winnebago. I opened the door, jumped in and then I slammed the door behind me.
“Hey!” the Prophet shouted. “Easy on the paint job.”
Only I wasn’t all that worried about his paint job.
“Bigfoot is in trouble,” I said. “So is Coyote.”
That didn’t seem to impress the Prophet one little bit.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But you must be mistaking me for somebody who might actually give a hydro-electric beaver dam.”
“They are your friends, aren’t they?” I asked. “I heard you say that very thing, right out loud, not too long ago.”
“Maybe you ought to get your ears cleaned out.” The Prophet replied. “I think you might have misheard something somewhere along the way.”
I guess that he was still upset over what Bigfoot had said to him – but I wasn’t going to give up on trying to convince him to think differently.
“THEY’RE YOUR FRIENDS!” I shouted.
“WHO FREAKING CARES?” The Prophet shouted back.
He blared that last sentence at the top of his Magic Winnebago lungs – which were awfully freaking loud. In fact, he blared that last sentence so very freaking loudly that I am pretty sure that his blaring had left big fat purple bruises in the back of my eardrums.
“Friends don’t hurt each other’s feelings,” the Prophet went on. “Friends don’t leave friends out of the action. And friends don’t call other friends WINNIE!”
I couldn’t believe what he was telling me.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “Bigfoot is practically your brother and Coyote – well, he is almost like a sister to you, now isn’t he?”
The Prophet thought about that.
“I had a brother once,” he said. “His name was Tecumseh. Maybe you’ve heard about him. He had a whole lot to do with Canada winning the War of 1812.”
I knew that The Prophet had something to tell me. I knew it was something that he felt he had to get out of his system before he could get around to even thinking about helping Bigfoot and the Coyote. I even knew that I had to keep my mouth shut just long enough for him to tell me his story and then we could maybe get on with it.
But that didn’t mean that I had to like it.
“He sounds like a really good guy,” I said, trying to kid him along into agreeing with me. “Your brother, I mean. Tecumseh.”
A part of me wished that it was Tecumseh who was here to help us right now – rather than his brother, The Prophet.
“Tecumseh was a REALLY good guy,” The Prophet said. “Everyone said so. That was the whole problem. Nobody really ever seemed to notice me. It was always Tecumseh this and Tecumseh that. He was always the handsome one and he was the brave one and he was the one that everyone listened to.”
Are you freaking kidding me?
I had heard just as much of this story as I could put up with.
“ARE YOU FREAKING STUPID OR SOMETHING?” I shouted. “BIGFOOT IS GETTING EATEN BY A GIANT PURPLE DOG AND YOU ARE SITTING IN HERE HOLDING YOURSELF A GIANT PURPLE PRIVATE PITY PARTY?”
“You don’t understand,” The Prophet began to explain. “That isn’t how it was.”
Only I wasn’t going to put up with one minute more of his cry baby explaining.
There was a time for a talking and a time for just doing SOMETHING!
“OH BOO-HOO, BOO-HOO, BOO-HOO-DE-DOO-HOO,” I went on, just as loud and sarcastic as I could get. “POOR ME. NOBODY LOVES ME. POOR, POOR LITTLE OLD ME. EVERYBODY LOVES TECUMSEH. NOBODY LOVES ME.”
“Yeah? Is that so?” The Prophet asked right back at me. “I guess you wouldn’t know a thing about holding regular private pity parties – would you mister-my-Dad-has-died-and-I-don’t-know-what-to-do-about-it?”
At which point The Prophet opened all of his doors – even the refrigerator door.
“You can get out and walk home anytime that you like,” The Prophet told me. “If you’re going to shout at me like you’ve been doing.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
He wasn’t budging.
Coyote and Bigfoot were being swallowed by a giant blue amoeba death-dog – and this reincarnated Shawnee holy man was stuck on a few hurt feelings.
I had to do something.
But what?
So I came around from another direction and I decided to hit him with an unexpected heartfelt apology – even if I didn’t really feel much sorry for him at the time.
“All right,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
I’m sorry doesn’t always cut it – but sometimes a simple heart-felt apology will go a long way towards settling any particular dispute.
The Prophet wobbled his doors a little and let his engine run a little softer, like he was thinking about what I was saying.
“So what happened to him?” I asked. “Your brother, I mean.”
The engine came to a full stop.
I sat there and I waited.
There wasn’t anything else that I could do.
“He died,” The Prophet finally said. “At a battle outside of a little place called Moraviantown. Even then he was a big man. He had to make a big deal out of EVERYTHING he did. He even shook the hand of each one of the British soldiers before he marched into a swamp. He was shot in the chest, defending that swamp. What a lousy reason to die – over a stinking lousy piece of swampland.”
I saw a few more sad streaks of windshield fluid running down the front of his windshield. The big old Winnebago shook a little – rocking on his suspension and I guess that was his way of sobbing.
I heard a bird singing overhead.
I let that bird sing on a little while The Prophet just sat there and sobbed and stewed in his own juices.
“All this time,” The Prophet went on. “I just wish I could have a chance to tell him I am truly sorry for what happened. I wish that I could have a chance to help him do EXACTLY what he was trying to do.”
Finally I knew just what I had to say.
“You told me that you’re my friend, now didn’t you?” I asked, trying very hard not to shout. “I didn’t mishear that, now did I?”
The Prophet ground his gears just a little in a show of frustration.
“What?” I asked. “Don’t you have any answer for me?”
That brought on a little more gear-grinding.
He spun his wheels a little bit in the mud.
Then underneath all of that gear-grinding and wheel spinning I heard five tiny words, barely beeped out.
“Yes,” The Prophet said. “You ARE my friend.”
“Well - friends don’t ever let their friends down,” I said, trying very hard not to raise my voice. There was a time for getting mad and there was a time for getting your own way done. “I asked you for help. You told me no. You told me to get out and walk.”
I didn’t even bother mentioning that I was a HECK of a long way away from my home.
“They are my friends,” I said. “And you are my friend. And you need to help me help my friends, my friend.”
I think I might have sprained my tongue on those last three or four sentences but it seemed to do the trick.
For a moment The Prophet just sat there saying nothing.
I sat there saying nothing right along with him.
I didn’t even dare breathe.
For all either of us knew Bigfoot and Coyote had already been swallowed by that giant purple death dog.
And then all at once The Prophet slammed ALL of his doors at once – including the fridge door – which shocked me right back into breathing – not to mention almost catching my finger in mid-slam – where I had been quietly reaching for a can of grape soda.
“Well?” I asked.
“Get in and drive,” The Prophet said. “My friends are in trouble.”
“You want me to drive?”
“Somebody has to drive,” The Prophet said. “It is the way that the magic works.”
I nervously sat behind the steering wheel.
“Squeeze that steering wheel just a little,” The Prophet told me. “And then lean in just as far as you are able to.”
I squeezed the wheel. I felt it squeeze back just a little. It felt as if the wheel were made out of some magic sort of super-sticky fly paper. I felt it pull me in, just a little – like The Prophet was trying to swallow me whole.
For just a half of an instant I was scared that The Prophet was still angry and that he would swallow me and then all three of us – me, Bigfoot and Coyote – would be stuck out here in the backwoods of nowhere-at-all-in-particular. Maybe years later some archeologist would stumble in here and somehow dig up my remains half-buried in the steering wheel of a giant pink magic Winnebago travel home – and then he’d write a paper on how my Batman backpack somehow caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.
“Don’t be afraid,” The Prophet told me. “Just push in a little bit with your imagination and then let her rip.”
So I pushed.
I felt that steering wheel pull me in like it was made out of sped-up quicksand. I felt the spirit of that great mystical pink Winnebago wash over me and then all at once I was grinning through the steel and chrome bumper and squinting out of the big machine’s headlights.
And then the Prophet let it rip.