title: Hotline Healers : An Almost Browne Novel author: Vizenor, Gerald Robert. publisher: Wesleyan University Press isbn10 | asin: 0819553042 print isbn13: 9780819553041 ebook isbn13: 9780585370569 language: English Tricksters--Fiction, Indians of North subject America--Fiction, Serialized fiction, Picaresque literature. publication date: 1997 lcc: PS3572.I9H6 1997eb ddc: 813/.54 Tricksters--Fiction, Indians of North America--Fiction, Serialized fiction, subject: Picaresque literature. Page iii Hotline Healers An Almost Browne Novel Gerald Vizenor Page iv Wesleyan University Press University Press of New England, Hanover, NH 03755 © 1997 by Gerald Vizenor All fights reserved Printed in the United States of America 5 4 3 2 1 CIP data appear at the end of the book Acknowledgments A shorter version of "Headwaters Curiosa" was first published as "Monte Cassino Curiosa: Heart Dancers at the Headwaters" in Caliban, number 14, 1995, edited by LAWRENCE SMITH. A shorter version of "Hotline Healers'' was first published as "Hotline Healers: Virtual Animals on Panda Radio" in Caliban, number 15, 1996. "Naanabozho Express" was first published in a different form as "Oshkiwiinag: Heartlines on the Trickster Express" in the journal Religion and Literature, spring 1994, and in Blue Dawn, Red Earth, edited by CLIFFORD TRAFZER, Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1996. Page v In Memory of John Clement Beaulieu Page vii Contents The Browne Barony 1 1 3 Teaser of Chance 2 9 Heirs of Patronia 3 30 Healer Dealer 4 49 Fifth Deal 5 78 Transethnic Commencements 6 100 Glossolalia Hermits 7 107 Hotline Healers 8 124 Body Counts 9 141 Naanabozho Express 10 151 Crystal Trickster 11 159 Headwaters Curiosa Page 1 The Browne Barony Almost Browne is a rather ordinary person in many ways. Ordinary in the native sense of natural reason. His stories are an eternal rush of creation, the trusty tease of chance, and a tricky solace. Almost wears four ordinary wrist watches, and the hands are set at arcane hours. His clothes are borrowed, bright, loose, and wrinkled, from neck to ankle. He never wears hats, socks, or undershorts, and his outsized shoes are tied with copper wire. "We live forever in stories, not manners," he teased a newspaper reporter last year. "So, tease the chance of conception, tease your mother, tease the privy councils of the great spirit, and always tease your own history." Yes, my cousin is outrageous, notorious, wanton, a natural bother, and he is a mighty hotline healer in his stories. Almost has a sure hand, heart, and eye of survivance. He has never been a separatist or a coach of victimry. The traces of his native ancestors are always tricky, but never tragic. Almost is my closest cousin, and he was almost born on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. That chance of birth is the source of his ordinary nickname. He was raised by our grandmother on the barony, a natural meadow of native ceremonies and tricky stories. Some readers may find our barony hard to believe at first, but once there, one shout over a panic hole, and the outside world is never the same story. Almost reasons that we are almost never the same even in our own Page 2 stories. What we hear, what my cousin almost always talks about, is chance, the unnameable creation of natives. "We are healers on a native hotline, almost unnameable," he told students at a commencement ceremony. We have always been unnameable. Our native presence is unnameable in the histories of the nation. Almost is unnameable, and some of his best stories were told on the first reservation railroad, the Naanabozho Express. The Baron of Patronia, Luster Browne, and Novena Mae Ironmoccasin, raised ten children at the barony on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. The nicknames of their children are Shadow Box, Mikwan, Blue Heron, Rain, Bones, Aristotle, Galileo, and Swarm. Mae and Rose, twin daughters, died in an influenza epidemic. Shadow Box Browne married Wink Martin, his second cousin. The nicknames of their nine children are China, Tune, Tulip, Garlic, Ginseng, Mime, Slyboots, Eternal Flame, and Father Mother. Ginseng married Li Yan, from the People's Republic of China, and the nickname of their daughter is Liberty. Eternal Flame renounced the convent, and the nickname of her son is Almost. Father Mother was an ordained priest. He renounced the order and married the novelist Sharon Mary Greene. Their son is the unnamed narrator of the stories in this novel. Ashigan Browne and Luster are brothers. Luster remained on the reservation and became the Baron of Patronia. Ashigan was removed from the reservation by federal agents and lives on an island near the international border. Gesture, the nickname of his son, is an acudenturist and the owner of the Naanabozho Express. Griever de Hocus is a distant relative. China Browne is the public information director at his Wanisin Elephant Casino in Macao. Gracioso Browne is another distant relative. Cozie Browne was an abandoned child, raised as a cousin at the barony. Pure Gumption, Admire, Chicken Lips, Casino Rose, Agate Eyes, Ritzy, Cranberry, Hawk, Curly, High Rise, and Poster Girl, are the nicknames of the active mongrels in the stories. Ritzy, for instance, was the first mongrel to drive an automobile. Later he was an instructor at the Animosh Driving School.