The Great Leader by Jim Harrison Read Free Book Online Page A

fifty-inch chest frequently found in Chippewa-Finn mixed bloods. Sunderson again heard Mona laugh.
    â€œLook at the big baby sleeping,” she laughed.
    He awoke about six hours later at 3:00 a.m. knowing in his entire body that he must fly the coop, abandon his nest of nearly thirty-five years, at least for the time being. Staying here at this time would mean desuetude, a boneyard existence. He better leave early for Thanksgiving in Arizona. He decided to clarify his head by making notes, which always had a carbonating effect on his brain, or so he thought.
Just noticed Jack Beatty’s overwhelming Age of ­Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865–1900, on the coffee table. This book has been an off and on obsession. We have an oligarchy not a democracy. We are ruled by the moneyed class.
This said, my opinion is not worth a cup of coffee. We are helpless. When asked at lunch Carla said that Dwight was not particularly drawn to money. To him sexuality is the core of existence.
This makes me wonder how he can make a philosophical system out of sexuality.
I have to get out of town as I sense the possibility of a prolonged drinking binge, which could kill me. Almost did after divorce. The doc said I stopped barely short of doing myself in, which many do intentionally with booze.
Beatty’s book can drive me batshit like the NPR morning news. All the issues become dumbfounding. I have to change to the Ishpeming country station and become the white-trash nitwit I occasionally am. Once a peasant, always a peasant.
    The airline answered in a mere twenty-three rings. Yes, there were plenty of seats available in these troubled times. There were a few minutes of economic commiseration with a sleepy man at the other end of the line while Sunderson sipped his syrupy coffee feeling insincere because he had a more than adequate pension and a fair amount of savings. He could never sell the house because his faithful books needed a dwelling. The books were an immediate problem because he intended to travel light with one suitcase and had decided to carry only two. Mona could send more when needed. At the instant of thinking her name tears arose at her abuse by her cousins mixed with an ample dose of guilt at his window peeking. Jesus Christ what a nightmare. Luckily his sleep had been dreamless except for a brief vision of trying to keep up with Diane on the sandy shores of a lake up near Big Bay. With a longer inseam and in better condition she could walk faster than he could. On this occasion she was chasing a male grebe that was buzzing along ahead of them on the water, keeping itself aloft in the manner of a dolphin skidding along the sea’s surface by tail power.
    The book choices were obvious: Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and Richard White’s “ It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own ”: A New History of the American West . The American West was the major lacunae in Sunderson’s knowledge for arcane reasons. As a boy their neighbors three doors down were the Mouton family who had four large sons. The Mouton boys were big, strong bullies and when all the kids in the neighborhood gathered for play at the main game of that period, cowboys and Indians, the Mouton boys were cowboys and everyone else had to be an Indian, hence a pummeled victim, and thus Sunderson carried into adulthood a marked dislike for cowboys and their culture. Of course he knew this distaste was childish and was aware of the West through reading Bernard De Voto but he could not overcome his early prejudices. When he explained himself on this issue Marion as a mixed-blood thought it quite funny as he felt the cowboys were the western proletariat and nearly as woebegone as the Indians.
    He went into the study to fetch the two books and on impulse decided on a last good-bye look next door. It was 4:00 a.m. and to his surprise she was awake and nude on her tummy with her