The Fancy Dancer

hairbrush over there and take a few cracks
    at her hair.”
    I did as he asked. It was the first time in my life I ever brushed a woman’s hair. If only Father Vance could see this.
    The baby was a plump, smiling little thing, very relaxed about what was going on. His diaper was coming off, so I fixed it while Vidal pulled a skirt up over his wife’s legs. Up close, Patti Ann had a rank unwashed female smell that almost made me gag.
    “Who’s the poster?” I said, trying to make conversation.
    “That’s me,” he said. “I had it made up from an old snapshot my dad took. I was about nineteen then. I was a fancy dancer.”
    “What’s a fancy dancer?”
    “Oh, it’s a dance the Indians do. You know—when they have tribal get-togethers, or when they perform at rodeos. There’s the war dance, the fancy dance, the eagle dance . . . That’s about the only Indian kind of thing I ever did. That and playing Hand. Hell, I can’t even ride a horse. I used to fall off my horse sometimes in the parades. But I was a good dancer. It didn’t make me feel like an Indian. But it made me feel free. Real free ...”
    “You don’t dance anymore?”
    “No. But you know, I can still think about it and get that old feeling. Like for instance, sometimes when I dream, I’m fancy dancing in slow motion, and I feel happy as shit. I wake up and the feeling of that dream stays with me all morning, even when I’m under a car at the garage...”
    Vidal finished buttoning Patti Ann’s skirt. He patted her gently on the cheek.
    “Okay, honey, you’re all set now,” he said. ‘You go on out to the kitchen and start cooking those tamales.”
    She put the baby back over her arm, and the beaded bag over the other arm, and shuffled out like a sleepwalker.
    Vidal and I sat there hunkered on the edge of the unmade bed and looked at each other. Vidal tiredly ran one hand over his face and shook his head.
    “There’s times,” he said, “I wish the fancy-dancing is when I wake up.”
    “What’s the trouble with her?” I said.
    “Hell, I don’t know,” he said.
    “Have you taken her to doctors?”
    “I don’t think there’s a doctor alive can do anything for her.”
    “How does she manage? Does she go out of the house?”
    “Not much. I go to the laundromat and the store.” “But don’t you worry about the baby? Isn’t she alone with him all day long? She might drop him on his head or bum him on the stove or something.”
    “I know. Sometimes I’ve thought of putting him up for adoption. I’m not up to raising a kid myself. But you’d be surprised. She’s pretty careful with him.”
    I was amazed. “You’d put your own son up for adoption?”
    Vidal sat there staring at the magazine cutouts on the wall.
    “Father, I’ve told you a few lies,” he said.
    “I know,” I said.
    “Everybody in town thinks she’s my wife. Well, she’s not. And the kid’s not mine either.”
    This jolted me. I hadn’t thought this was one of the lies.
    “Ran into her when I went to Los Angeles to see my sister. She was living down the street with a bunch of other kids. Never did get the story straight, whether she walked away from some institution and got taken advantage of, or whether she dropped a ton of acid and went loco. Anyway, she latched on to me for some reason. Wasn’t going to stay in L.A., got awful homesick, and the Montana prison people were finding me a job. So I brought her up here with me.”
    He was still gazing at the poster.
    “Man, did I have a good time in L.A., though. What a craaazy place that is. I couldn’t believe some of the things they . . . But I’m a small-town guy. And I thought Patti Ann would be a real 'good . . . what the hell do they call it in the spy movies ... a real good cover. She doesn’t know what’s going on, and
    63
    she doesn’t ask questions. So I take real good care of
    her. You understand, Father?”
    “Cover?” I said. "For what?”
    “To keep the rednecks in town off me,” he said.
    “But why?” I said.
    "So they won’t get any funny ideas about me.” “You’ve already got quite a reputation as a wild man.”
    “I’m not talking about that,” said Vidal violently. “Boy, are you thick, Father.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “That’s another lie I told you,” he said. “I didn’t come to see you because I’m a bum. I came to see you because I’m the biggest queer in the state of