Master Trickster

Yakataboof got up every day for the last week and noticed the scrawny looking coyote resting on the dirt behind a mesquite bush. He wondered why the coyote had settled into that spot not more than a hundred feet past his swelling. The coyote disappeared from that spot in the early morning and late evening to hunt, Yakataboof surmised. He saw him once lapping water up from one of his fountains and ponds and began leaving the coyote a hot dog by his porch steps. He was not surprised when he sat out on his favorite lounge chair to get a few morning rays and sip his tea that the coyote was resting on the porch too.

Yakataboof greeted him, “You are most welcome, my friend. Perhaps we are in a story together, what do you think?”

The coyote got up and stretched his legs, yawned and licked Yakataboof’s fingers—cleaned them completely from the sticky bun Yakataboof had been eating. Yakataboof laughed and stroked the coyote’s head. This went on for a few weeks and the once scrawny coyote filled out.

Yakataboof noticed this and said, “I see you got your strength back. What’s next? Some impulses are gathering, and we need all our strength to put them into play. Are you in?”

The coyote looked into Yakataboof’s eyes and spoke to him clear as day—as a coyote and man would speak to each other if neither could deny the real possibility of this occurring.

“Yes, I’m in,” spoke the coyote, “there have been a lot of strange occurrences lately, you know, with the appearance and gathering of the Goddesses.”

“Oh, yes, that, they are here. But our story, our work, is diverging. I’m sure it will come back around to them. It always does.”

“What or who is it that we are in play with?” asked the coyote.

Yakataboof took another sip of his tea and looked out into the desert. “We are being led, my impulses are gathering and I’m afraid the news is not good.”

“Oh, no,” the coyote sighed, “not the brokenhearted. Isn’t that the goddesses’ and . . . the angels’ work?”

“Usually, mostly, and sometimes always, but I believe they need our help. You know, we have a certain set of skills that they lack.”

Coyote smiled (yes! coyotes smile), “Oh, that will make it fun! After all, I’m the best in my class and it’s well known in the packs your standing as the Master Trickster.”

“Takes one to know one,” Yakataboof retorted.

Coyote and man were quiet for a while. Yakataboof broke the silence, “I’ve got a few new tricks in my bag—been working on them for a while.”

Coyote laughed (yes! coyotes laugh), “Me too,” he answered.

They both spoke up at the same time, “Yep, when it comes to the brokenhearted, we’ll need every trick we got and more.” Both man and coyote let out a sigh followed by a long, bellowing howl. Coyote got up. He had seen a jackrabbit hiding behind the mesquite bush. He was hungry, time for breakfast. Yakataboof stretched his legs and popped the last bite of a banana into his mouth.

The play had begun! The plan was in motion! Could there be a better buddy story than the play and the plans of two tricksters (both masters in their own right)?

And here enters the brokenhearted . . .

She was old now and had lived the life she had chosen—though most people think their lives happened to them, and if they had really chosen what had occurred, would they have actually chosen it? When Saladee looked back at her life, who she had become and what had happened seemed unreal to her. Was that really my life? she asked herself over and over. She knew she was disappearing from her life—her journey was almost over. She knew it was almost over because she had no nostalgia or sentimentality for her past, for the people she had known and loved. With her aging body barely able to get her through each day, she was also losing her vanity. She had been quite attractive as a younger woman. She was not noticed now, and she was losing her memory as well. So, this is how life kicks you out, she thought. Everything that you achieved, everything that meant much to you now feels outdated and unnecessary. I was such a body, she thought. Counted on it for all the pleasure I could get. It was a good life. She had heard the term karma, and she knew hers was good, for everything that she wanted came easily to her.

I don’t have any complaints, she thought, and yet she didn’t feel any gratitude for what she had been given in her experiences. She felt mostly absent. She did not feel the power one feels when they learn their lessons in life. She got by, and mostly by using her looks to enter and convince others that she had a depth, a depth that she was never willing to enter. I fooled some of the people some of the time, but I was fooled too. She never looked for wisdom. She wouldn’t recognize such a person bearing and living wisdom if they knocked on her door and exclaimed, “Here I am, willing to share my wisdom with you!” That’s why even at this late date, she was a candidate for the Master Trickster and his pal coyote. She was the kind of impossible challenge that would call up their greatest tricks to come into use.

“Yep,” both coyote and Yakataboof agreed. She is one brokenhearted woman.

“She definitely qualifies,” Yakataboof mused.

“Yes,” agreed Coyote, “she is so absent from herself, she can’t even recognize that

her heart is so tight—that it shattered into pieces years ago. She will definitely

need our kind of magic, our adeptness at being so dam tricky.”

Yakataboof laughed and said, “Let’s begin, then.”

Trick Number 1:

Enter from behind

Yakataboof dreamed his way into her busy mind. She never knew what she was thinking—her thoughts had piled up into a dustbin that had never been emptied. Her thoughts were like a hoarder’s house filled with junk no one in their right mind would ever even save or think about ever again. Would he consider throwing any of them out? No, it was an impossible task, and Yakataboof never went near anyone else’s thoughts. Wouldn’t touch them with a 10-foot pole, he thought. His own thoughts (is it possible he didn’t own any?) he never took seriously and at times were a source of amusement to him. He was more like Coyote. They both fed on their instincts, impulses and intuitions. So, what was he doing in Saladee’s mind? He was looking for a moment, perhaps a juncture in her life, where two possibilities appeared. One choice that she hadn’t chosen but had appeared to her sometime in her youth. If he could find such a thread, he could unravel it and their work could really begin.

Coyote’s instincts were on high alert. He appeared to Saladee through a vision she would find desirable. It wasn’t an easy task, and her eyesight was terrible and her attention span short. He would have to work quickly, and he did.

He appeared to her in her room and teased her, “Hey cutie, want to dance?”

She opened her eyes and snorted, “What are you doing here, you old dirty dog?”

Coyote stood up on his hind legs and stretched his body—he was now over 10 feet tall. Saladee squinted her eyes, “Get out, you old dirty dog!” She wondered if she was losing her mind. “I said get out!” she exclaimed.

Coyote stood his ground, “How about that dance, you pretty old thing,” he teased her.

“Dance!” she complained, “I can barely stand!”

Coyote laughed and said, “How about a kiss then?”

Saladee snorted, “I don’t kiss dogs. How did you get into my room?”

I jumped through the open window. I’ve been watching you, lady, you are one hot mama if you ask me.”

“Are you crazy?” Saladee asked.

Coyote laughed, “Yeah, I’m crazy, like you are. We got a lot in common.”

“I assure you, you dirty dog, I don’t have anything in common with you!”

“Oh, maybe you don’t see it, but we are both charmers, we both get by with our charms.”

“Maybe when I was younger, I was a looker as they say. I could work the room.”

“You know, even dirty old dogs like me can work the room, too.”

Saladee laughed, “Pretty conceited, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps,” replied Coyote, “but my charms got me what I wanted. Did yours?”

“I don’t have any complaints. I’ve had a good life, if life amounts to living out your final days talking to a dirty only dog like yourself.”

Coyote laughed, “Sounds like a complaint to me, but meeting this old dirty dog is the luckiest day of your life.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Saladee, “You’re probably a side effect of some medication they gave me.”

Coyote danced around the room. “Can a side effect dance like this?” he asked as he swirled in rapid succession.

“You’re making me dizzy just watching you,” Saladee accused him.

“Can’t you hear the music?” Coyote asked.

“What music?” she asked. And then she heard it. A harp was being played, cymbals were crashing and there was a bass line that kept coming around. She started to tap her feet.

“That’s right, girl. Get off that chair and dance with me.”

Saladee found her way to her feet. She took Coyote’s hand, and he swirled her around the room. He spun her faster and faster and as he danced her, he worked his charms on her and she was a young woman again.

Yakataboof had found the thread he was looking for. “Thanks, Coyote. That was one hell of a dance.”

Saladee (through Coyote’s influence) danced and reversed time, or did she fall through a hole in her mind that Yakataboof had created? It was a double effort by those two master tricksters, and it was a stretch of their master magician abilities. Saladee danced her way right into her 21st year on a fateful day when her boyfriend proposed to her. She knew he would. She had dressed for the occasion. Her makeup was impeccable, the slit in her dress inviting, and there was no mistaking that her breasts were revealed like two big pieces of fruit served on a platter. Who could resist? Certainly not her boyfriend Tom. She was truly fuckable, the prettiest woman in the room. He indeed was a lucky man. She knew how to make him feel that way. He wanted her and so did every man in the room. Tom was the one who had the assets—good looking (but not too good looking—the attention had to go to her), well endowed, both in the sexual area and the bank account.

That fateful day also brought another man into the room of her life. She had seen him reading a book at the coffee shop while she ordered her espresso. She could feel the eyes of all the men in the shop eyeing her. How she lived for those moments. She pretended to ignore them all, but her second attention was saying, “Don’t you all want to fuck me?” She looked to the man reading the book. Why wasn’t he looking at me? she asked herself. She studied him while she was pretending to sip her too hot coffee. This man is really handsome, she thought. She noticed he was not wearing a wedding ring. His hair was brown and curly and a little bit too long for her tastes. He looked up from his book and stared into the room, obviously deeply in thought. She coughed a bit to get his attention, and it worked. He looked at her and she gave him one of her beckoning half smiles. He did not smile back. He stared her down and she felt him to be rude, and in her discomfort turned away.

“You dropped your napkin,” he spoke to her.

She looked down and felt like challenging him and said, “Why don’t you pick it up for me,” and flashed a smile.

“Only if you sit down with me for a while.”

It was hard for her to follow if he was flirting with her. He did not smile, instead pointed to the chair that was opposite him. “Here is your napkin,” he handed it to her.

She sat down. “What are you reading?” she asked him.

He put the book down and said, “Why don’t we read each other? Tell me what you see. Who am I?”

She knew this game. He was definitely flirting with her. She smiled and laughed, “I see a man who knows he is good looking. What do you see?”

“I see a woman who knows how to work the pretty, but knows very little, almost nothing, about who she is.”

Saladee flushed and her temper was rising. She did not want him to see her anger, that he had the power to provoke her, “And how would you know that ?” she asked him.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean? You are a bit too arrogant, aren’t you?”

“No, ask any man in this room. Everyone is pretending, aren’t they, to be more than they are—including you?”

She snorted a brief laugh, “Aren’t you pretending too?” she asked him.

“Oh, very much so, I’m pretending to be attracted to you. And you are pretending to indulge me for my attention, all the while thinking you are too good for me and every man in this room. How many men have you faked being attracted to so you can inflate your sense of worth—that you have this power over men?”

“It works, doesn’t it?” Saladee retorted in her most haughty manner.

“Perhaps for a moment or so the delusion seems real, and your ego is stroked, but is this really a power? Does it make you more and more powerful?” asked the man.

“What is it? What are you getting at?”

“Wouldn’t you like the real knowledge of real power, past these childish games of stroking your ego?”

Saladee got up, “I don’t know what you’re getting at. I am happy and if you must know, my boyfriend is proposing to me this very night.”

The man laughed, “It’s not too late then,” he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his card. He handed it to her, and she reluctantly accepted it and read it: “Yakaboobis—A Free Man.” She turned the card over and as she did this the words, “I can show you how to become a Free Woman” appeared. She took the card and stuffed it into her purse, grabbed her coffee and left the coffee shop.

That night, Tom did propose to her. He got down on bended knee and when he slipped the 2-carat ring on her finger, she said yes. She tried not to study the ring to see if she really liked it. It wasn’t the one she had in mind, but Tom did have good taste—the ring was elegant, and the diamond glowed.

After they had sex, he squeezed her hand and said, “You made me the happiest man in the room. I am going to marry the prettiest woman in the room, in any room.”

She squeezed his hand back and said, “And I am marrying the most handsome man.” She knew how to play the game, how to stroke his ego.