COMING CLEAN (standard:other, 5640 words)
Author: Austen Brauker	Added: Jun 10 2006	Views/Reads: 3582/2285	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A boy who has severely hurt some classmates in retaliation for raping his girlfriend is cleansed spiritually by taking part in an intense sweat lodge ceremony conducted by his mentor, a wise Odawa veteran who has befriended him.

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brilliant. The grandfathers were almost heated to the necessary orange 
hot glow. Crane took some coals in a shovel and threw cedar on them. A 
crackling sound erupted and took Jale by surprise with the amount of 
energy that was held within the green sprigs. It smoked upward in a 
sweet clean cloud, in which Crane made Jale immerse himself, to wash 
him down, just as if it were water. The old man lifted the back of the 
boy's hair and even made him do the soles of his feet. Crane showed him 
how to cup his hands and move the smoke across his face and belly. Then 
Crane smoked down the altar, the lodge and himself as well. He walked 
the perimeter, circling the area once and then he threw what was left 
in the fire. It flared up with a sparkling ignition. Crane made a fresh 
cedar line from the fire to the navel. "This is our lifeline, our 
umbilical cord as we enter the womb, our path of life, it will keep us 
connected to this world when we have left it to go on our cleansing 
journey, our rebirth." He threw some tobacco in the fire and it was a 
minute before he spoke again. "We will go in, pray, and crawl out as 
newborns, shedding our skins of the bad medicine from this world, of 
the bad stuff we have create for ourselves. This negativity cannot 
coexist when we do these things and it will leave us. The lodge will 
clean your spirit and guide you to a better path. Listen to your heart 
and don't be afraid." Crane brought out a thermos full of tea. He had 
mixed it up earlier while Jale collected cedar. It was a brew of 
special medicinal herbs and mints, specifically designed for the boy's 
benefit. Some of the plants were used for their physical aspects, while 
others held spiritual properties. Crane had prayed until he knew the 
proper ingredients to mix for him. He offered tobacco and asked the 
little green brothers to be with Jale, and to help him, thanking each 
one for sacrificing itself. He dumped the hot, concentrated tea into a 
five-gallon plastic bucket that was already half filled with river 
water. Jale could detect the aroma of the plant medicines wafting 
through the air. It smelled good and made him feel at ease, though he 
was quite nervous, not knowing what to expect. Crane walked to the 
altar and picked up his pipe. A formidable aura radiated around the 
tool. It was made of a red carved stone with a spiraled sumac stem. An 
Eagle feather hung from the beaded leather strap that was tied to the 
wood with a piece of sinew. Crane filled it with tobacco, holding each 
small pinch up to the four directions, down toward the mother Earth and 
then gesturing in an all encompassing motion for the Creator. He turned 
the entire pipe in a clockwise circle between each prayer, like the 
punctuation of a sentence. He left the filled pipe leaning at the altar 
pointing east again. Jale wondered when they would smoke. "We will 
smoke halfway through, after the second door." Crane answered, as if 
sensing Jale's thoughts. "You will bring the Grandfathers in with the 
pitch fork." He motioned to the short handled device with a slight lift 
of both arms. "You must be very careful. Treat them with respect, like 
you were talking to a human elder. Announce their presence at the door 
by saying 'Our Grandfather wishes to enter.' I will greet them with 
words of welcome and a bit of powdered cedar as they come through the 
door." Crane put another piece of wood on the fire. There was a glowing 
Grandfather just beginning to show himself near the edge. "Everything 
in the lodge must move to the left, around the navel. Clockwise is the 
sacred flow of energy in this hemisphere, always move with this flow. 
When we get out at the end, walk once around the lodge in this 
direction, but stop at the western door to shout your warriors cry." He 
sidetracked for a second to clarify this point. "It is not a cry of war 
like you might think, but a cry of appreciation for life, for all that 
the Creator gives us, and to our past-aways waiting for us in the 
west." It was a lot of information but Jale did his best to remember 
everything. The simplicity made up for the sheer volume, so it all 
seemed to naturally fall together without effort, like common sense 
that he had just never thought about. This was the first time he had 
ever seen this side of Crane. Jale thought he was merely an expert 
herbalist and hunter with a lot of stories. He had no idea Crane was 
such a spiritually minded man. Time stopped and started with each 
breath that Jale took, feeding himself just like the fire. Flame and 
air energy filled the rocks. All of the tobacco and prayers that went 
into the fire were awakening within them. The stones were bones, old 
ones from the Earth itself. Every once in a while they could be heard 
moving around and saying invocations of their own. A human joined them. 
Crane spoke with a simple intensity, which made Jale realize the 
seriousness of what they were doing. This was not a game or a novelty. 
Something powerful was going to happen. "Its time." Said Crane after a 
long silence. They stripped down and wrapped themselves at the waist 
with towels. Crane lit a braid of sweet grass and took it in with him. 
The coal gave off a beautiful trail of soothing smoke. It curled around 
the unfurled locks that Jale had never seen down before, long and grey. 
Crane said his name and clan at the door before he entered and then 
went to the left, all the way around the lodge, until he sat just to 
the right of the door as you entered. "You will sit across from me, in 
the west." He instructed to Jale, as the boy slowly rummaged through 
the coals. The wall of heat blasted at him like a furnace while he 
reached in for the rocks and burnt hair on his forearms. He got one 
centered and wielded it with reverence. "Our Grandfather wishes to 
enter!" said Jale with one of the glowing stones carefully balanced on 
the pitch fork tines. "Boozhu Mishomis!" greeted Crane and guided it to 
the center of the lodge, where he used a deer antler to help settle it 
gently into the hole. There was a loud crackling and a surprised sound 
from Crane as if a visitor had just come from a long way without 
warning. He issued this greeting each time, getting happier sounding as 
they kept coming. Jale handed in seven Grandfathers and then followed 
them in with his name. Crane closed the door-flap. The world outside 
was gone. It was immediately dark, except for the tinkling glow of the 
rocks. Jale could still see once his eyes adjusted. Crane used a bundle 
of sage as a dipper, almost like a sponge to administer the water. The 
sprigs were tied together at their bases with twine, which acted as a 
handle. Jale heard him adjusting the five-gallon bucket, the handle 
made a slight metal sound, bumping on the plastic, and then he heard 
the rippling of water. The darkness came on for real. Crane began to 
pray and all at once, a rushing warmth of steam swarmed from the navel 
to broil them spiritually. All of the elements erupted in a chorus. It 
was an amazing sound, the instant sputter of leaping medicine. The 
Grandfathers turned instantly black wherever a droplet of water landed. 
The high-pitched singing from the cooling stones filled the air, 
overpowering Crane's voice. The words were forceful, rhythmic and 
immediately hypnotic. Crane went fast, changing his pitch with the 
speed. He kept talking in Indian, doing his invitation prayers to the 
spirits in the four directions. Jale heard the sound of a rattle and 
Crane's voice burst into a powerful, loud honor song. The seam of 
worlds was ripping. Jale felt himself melt into the heat. He could see 
nothing now but a spiral of hollow infinity that was the same whether 
his eyes were open or closed. The rhythm of Crane's voice became the 
sound track for a swirling of beautiful colors. The singularity in 
front of him exploded and reconstituted with a timeless expansion and 
retraction, reaching further into the void with each pulsing beat. 
Wings were flapping black. Jale was a wisp of thought. He felt his body 
slipping away and felt as light as air. Crane stopped singing and 
suddenly spoke in English. He sounded mad at first but then Jale 
realized he was speaking from a different position in his being. It 
needed to be actively assembled with the force of his personal 
volition. The intensity of his voice made the sentences tread the thin 
surface of dimensional membranes. Jale didn't know how he knew that, 
but it was an intuition that he felt to be unquestionably true, though 
he couldn't explain it if he tried. "At one time our people would have 
a sweat lodge outside the camp to greet warriors returning from battle. 
They were cleansed of the spirit sickness caused from warfare, before 
they returned to their families. They washed the negative energy from 
their bodies and kept it from returning with them to their loved ones. 
When we make war, we have to act as warriors, sometimes we are called 
to kill. The same man who must kill for his people must also be a 
father to his children and a lover to his wife. He must become a 
different person for war, it must be a facet of his being used only in 
certain times, and then the persona must be shed to return as the 
regular man known by his family and the community." An agreement rang 
from the stones. "You have taken on this kind of a sickness by 
declaring war on those boys. Death and suffering are magnets. They draw 
their kind to be with them. You have been polarized. The act is done, 
for good or bad, but you must be cleansed of its negative power, so it 
will not slowly devour you for the rest of your life." He added more 
medicine to the Grandfathers. The heat was almost unbearable and then 
his words boomed with sudden force. "Now you must pray, Jale, ask for 
forgiveness and humble yourself before the creator. I offer this 
medicine for my brother Jale!" Crane was calling out at the top of his 
lungs. He wet the sage and put more steam to the air. "Let him speak 
his heart and hear his words! Help this little brother on his path!" 
Crane was silent and Jale knew it was his time. He could feel the world 
shining at him like a spotlight in an empty auditorium. The unfilled 
seats made him feel so alone that he started to fade away, then he 
caught himself and stared up at a pinpoint of brightness that was 
floating above his head. It began to spin and sparkle, pulling air 
across the vocal cords in neck until he felt it take auditory shape. 
Jale began to speak, his throat was filled with sobs and he began a 
deep, ugly cry. The acid in his stomach wanted to burn him to ash from 
the inside. Thoughts churned and flashed like the rabid teeth of 
attacking animals. They all looked at him with his own eyes. He was 
barely able to catch his breath. The sight of his human self was 
nauseating. He spilled his world, remembering everything he had ever 
done wrong throughout his entire life. It was awful. Things he thought 
were long forgotten came back in full regalia, more powerful than ever, 
as if they had been biding their time, working out and eating emotional 
steroids. He went on speaking, listening to his own words like they 
were coming from someone else. A little boy was crying. He sat across 
from his own body and watched the blackness release from his 
mid-section. The boy was scared, but knew it was for his own good. It 
pooled in his belly and then flowed out his back like molasses. The 
streak of black was like a gigantic flower stem. Light shot in from his 
left and right, then from the ceiling and floor. A ball of golden 
pollen flashed through the eastern door and hit him in the abdomen, 
combining with the others and pulling the blackness right through his 
body and away to the west, out from the base of his spine. It made a 
wraithlike bellow and then was sucked out the back of the lodge in a 
huge gust of wind. The white petals of light disappeared as it all 
vanished in a sizzle of sparks. Crane opened the door flap and Jale was 
back in his body. The cold air coming in from outside brought him right 
back. Bolts of electricity were streaking across the sky. He could see 
the fire flickering as the steam cloud rushed out of the open door. 
Someone was out there laughing. They were talking about an embarrassing 
moment that he had when he was a kid, but in a kind way that made him 
feel okay about it. The voices were familiar. He thought he saw the 
legs of people standing around the fire and then he recognized his own 
boots. Crane closed the door again. Everything went black. Crane dosed 
the medicine liberally, shouting out "ahhaao" as the heat regained. It 
seemed even hotter than before. Jale heard the sound of the rattle. It 
was joined by dozens of rattles from all around. Jale reached out his 
hand. He couldn't tell where it was. His physical being was eluding 
him, lost in its merger with the wet heat. It became painful at points. 
The Grandfathers sizzled in a boiling bowl of herbal water. Jale 
couldn't tell if his eyes were open or closed when he saw a movement in 
front of him. The image sharpened acutely and Jale watched a scene 
unfold, like a movie. He knew he was on the Aral road by Otter creek. 
Seagulls flew overhead. It was where the hanging tree was located. The 
very branch of notoriety had only recently fallen, in a wind storm a 
few years back. Jale had read the story on a plaque at the Benzie 
County Sheriff's Office when he returned the K-9 dog after a routine 
check up from Shelly's clinic. They had strung up an Indian worker 
instead of his boss, the man they were really after, for not paying 
taxes. The Indian had helped the tax evader escape to South Manitou and 
upon his return was hung at the legendary tree on his benefactor's 
behalf. The Indian, however, was a lost victim of circumstance, and his 
death was necessarily forgotten, save for the gnarled tree. They named 
a local road in honor of the heroic Sheriff. A brown boy ran by him so 
fast that the wind turned the leaves on the nearby trees as if they 
were limp from expecting rain. He was panting. The footsteps sounded 
like crushed cornstalks. Jale watched the scene play out in the front 
of his awareness. Someone else was there too, chuckling from the belly. 
He heard the violent shouts as the men chased the boy down and threw 
him to the ground. He heard the log hand profess his innocence, and 
then watched his innocent neck break while the men cheered on his 
shaking legs. Jale saw himself among the vigilantes, screaming along 
with the crowd. The dead chicken dance rippled up and down the dead 
boy's body with a cruel trick of nerves. Jale felt like a fish in the 
concussion blast of an underwater dynamite charge, floating silver side 
up toward a funny little dome. The sweat lodge door opened and Crane 
yelled out into the night. The canvas sounded like bat's wings. "Take 
this away from us! Cleanse us and take this negativity away!" He waved 
it out. There were black leaves floating away in the night like burnt 
glossy magazine pages freeing themselves from the glue and staples of 
the spine. The steam escaped in a sucking breath of rolling plumes. 
Jale stared out at the fire, which had dwindled, but still had flames. 
It would have taken hours for it to burn down that much. Jale made sure 
it was heavily fueled before he went inside. They must have been in the 
lodge for a long time. Crane crawled from the door and grabbed the 
pitchfork. Jale watched him guide the Grandfathers in and then sit them 
gently upon the others in the navel. Crane finished by re-stoking the 
fire and grabbing his pipe. He handed it in to Jale with a lit braid of 
sweetgrass and told him to smoke it. Jale finished the tobacco and 
handed the pipe back out, after turning it clockwise the way Crane had 
done. Crane sat the pipe on the altar and walked around the fire. He 
crawled in, past Jale, and back to his position by the door. The third 
round began. Jale felt the ground start to vibrate underneath his legs. 
The flap closed but instead of darkness, the new glowing Grandfathers 
lit the dome above his head with sunset colors. The light got stronger. 
Crane put none of the medicine on them yet, instead singing a soft song 
under his breath. The light became white and soon everything was 
brightly illuminated. Jale had to squint because it was starting to 
hurt. The rows of bent saplings that framed the canvas covering of skin 
began to pulse with life. The whole lodge seemed to get bigger and 
smaller in gyrating spasms. It reminded him of a ride at the fair, the 
tundra tornado. An outdated dynamo hummed in digital sympathy with the 
slight smell of flux and copper. Tesla was playing an acoustic guitar. 
A wiggle of golden light broke the disconnected thoughts and congealed 
something in the corner of his eye. Jale looked across the pile of 
Grandfathers, something was moving over there. It was like the center 
of an egg or a balled up husk. He tried to focus but the sweat blinded 
his eyes. Some kind of entity, a creature of some sort was in the 
southern portion of the lodge. He could hear it breathing. It was as 
big as he was. The animal was familiar but he still couldn't place it. 
He could see Crane next to the white plastic bucket and he was looking 
in the same direction. Between them a shape took form and turned its 
head. The blazing green eyes froze Jale as soon as the recognition took 
place. He was transfixed by the hypnotic binding stare of a large 
cougar. Its gold coat glowed with light and was the reason for the 
sudden brightness. The fur radiated a pleasant hue over them. They were 
pelted by it. Crane reached in the bucket again with the bundle of sage 
and doused the orange orbs in the center. Steam sang upward in pain and 
love. A darkness swept them with the barely bearable wave of heat. 
Muscles bolted. Wind blew past Jale's ears as he was propelled with 
great speed along the imaginary boundary between Earth and Sky. The 
cougar was running across a battlefield and Jale was carried along with 
it at full speed. Shells were exploding as it zigzagged between the 
blasts. There was a small shape hunched over next to a trench that full 
of maimed soldiers. It was a woman in a blue buck dress, an old Indian 
lady. A short monster was creeping up behind her, ready to make its 
attack. Jale felt an inertial shift. The running cougar slammed into 
the evil dwarf at full speed and disappeared into the gorge of bodies 
with it. Jale was falling too. The woman turned around and he almost 
saw her face before it went bright with brilliant shafts of red and 
white sun. Crane opened the door. The firelight swarmed in like an 
oceanic sculpture of bees. The visions broke apart and filed out with 
the steamed colony of prayers. The buzzing was still fresh in his ears. 
Jale could see Crane again through the fog. He was lost in thoughts of 
honey and comfortable pockets of hexagonal wax. Jale recognized him 
again. His long hair hung free from braids and was touching the ground. 
Jale had never seen its true length. It was always tied back in his 
clothing. "Okay?" was all Crane said, before he brought in the last of 
the grandfathers and shut the door again. "I think so." Jale finally 
mustered, when the flap closed. Crane laughed and Jale felt at ease 
again. The cool air brought him a bit closer to his body, though it 
vibrated and felt like a fake suit. He had never sweated so much in his 
life. The rivulets cascaded from his withered frame. He understood what 
was meant by spiritual suffering and knew in his heart that it was a 
healing thing, and good for him. This was exactly what he needed. 
"Here." Crane said and offered him a shell filled with the medicine 
from the bucket. "Just take a bit. It will make you sick if you cool 
off too fast." Jale took a sip from the abalone shell. He couldn't help 
himself and nearly drained it all. The medicine tasted so good. He felt 
it course through his body. His head throbbed a bit before he quit 
swallowing. "Whoah." said Crane "Not too much." "Did you s..." "Yes. I 
saw him." Crane cut Jale off and shut the door. The ground was warm 
now. Jale was covered with pieces of green cedar. He was salted with 
mud and sweat. He cleared his throat and coughed up a huge chunk of 
brown and clear marbled phlegm. "Just spit it out behind you, out of 
the way. You need to get it out." Jale spat the chunk onto the floor, 
off to the side. He coughed again which made him fart. It was juicy 
from his wet cheeks. He felt terrible, like he'd desecrated the 
ceremony. "It's alright. Just get it out." Jale thought he almost heard 
Crane holding back a laugh. "It has to come out sometime." He was, but 
it was all part of the cleansing, out with the bad and on with the 
good. Crane began to pray once more, offering up the medicine for the 
final round of suffering. He sang again and brought the lodge to full 
heat. It was worse than any time before, searing Jale's lips as he 
inhaled. His skin was falling from his body. Blistering clouds 
invisibly enveloped him in the darkness. Wave upon wave of medicine was 
offered and still Crane remained silent. Jale wanted to crawl through 
the side of the canvas, but instead, breathed through his nearly mud 
soaked towel. Crane spoke again in Indian, and then switched in the 
middle to a different language. It took a few lines for him to figure 
out what it was and then Jale realized it was in German. Crane spoke 
the language efficiently, so well that Jale was able to understand its 
meaning as if he'd spoken it his entire life. He heard the German words 
but understood them as if they were English. The German went on and on 
until Jale began to see a series of pictures accompanying the tongue. 
The meaning was obvious. It was a prayer for a lost love. Jale saw the 
image of a woman by the side of a dark brown river. There was a small 
village of cottages extending along the distant hillsides. Stone pavers 
made walkways through a beautiful garden to where the woman turned 
toward him and smiled, reaching out a delicate hand. She was 
magnificently dressed in fine clothes, glowing the same gold as the 
cougar. Silk cloth flowed from her as if they trailed behind in water. 
A handsome man escorted her by the arm. His hair was hominy and his 
eyes were frozen blue lakes. The two figures approached the sloping 
bank leading to the imaginary separation of the water and shoreline. 
Jale saw a young Indian man in the water and he realized that there was 
no separations between the people either, only subjective boundaries 
that allowed us the illusion of individuality. Everything they were 
thinking was already part of his own thoughts. He knew them all as 
clearly as he knew himself. The scene started moving in fast motion 
until it became a blur. Everything became unity until all places and 
all things were touched at once. There was a big Pow-wow going on 
somewhere, a gathering of many nations. Jale heard the sound of drums 
and wanted to get up and join them in the dance. Then he realized it 
was his own heartbeat and that the dance was happening within. People 
of all kinds moved around the circle. As above, so below. As without, 
so within. It all made profound sense and then he was lost in utter 
confusion. Jale was sitting outside the lodge staring at the fire when 
he returned to his normal limited awareness. Crane sat across from him, 
splashing him with water from the medicine bucket. The sage wand 
splashed him two or three more times with hot herb water, that to him 
felt cool, before he fully realized his surroundings. His arms and legs 
were like boiled rubber, more like flippers. He had no feelings of toes 
or fingers. "There you are!" Crane said reassuringly, but then it 
faded. Jale heard huge crashing sounds of branches breaking all around 
him. He was alone again. Oaks and maples were uprooted like weeds. 
Something huge and terrible was ravaging the tree line and then it all 
stopped. There was an opening leading into the woods like a small black 
cave. Jale shook, horrified. Some kind of demon waited there in the 
dark hole, some evil golem. It was the thing the cougar had attacked in 
his vision. He could smell it. It charged from its place and came at 
him. Its face was horrible and fear consumed the boy from the base of 
his neck and shook at him like the teeth of a feeding animal. Something 
else was trying to fight against it. Another wave of paralysis gripped 
him and then the image of the monster started to fade. Color returned 
before anything else and then simple shapes. He saw Crane speaking but 
heard no voice. He splashed the medicine on Jale's face. Then came the 
deafening return of sound. The forest around Jale erupted with a 
hurricane of ferocity and growled in one last offense. It was the demon 
again. The homunculus ran toward him from the mental shadows and 
jumped. The creature was upon him when he heard someone yelling. Jale 
heard Crane's voice, and felt his way toward his own body like it was 
foreign literature. The process took forever. His joints were filled 
with festered glue. "JALE!" Crane dumped what remained in the water 
bucket over the new man's head. The boy was gone. Jale had transformed. 
The chrysalis of the open lodge door was all that remained as evidence 
of what he had once been, but there was no time for that, the enemy was 
still in violent motion, airborne with fury. The homunculus was inches 
from his throat when a giant sea green moth whispered in Jale's ear, 
giving him a new name that was for the two of them alone. This new 
identity confused the pouncing monster. The dreaming body escaped 
certain death and the creature was left with nothing but a thin foil 
wrapper. Jale jolted back to the world before the homunculus landed its 
strike, narrowly avoiding the sharp yellow fangs. Crane drenched him 
with a fresh bucket of cold water from the river. 


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