medals issued by many presidents including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant.
Odysseus explained that his father, Jefferson Young, had read a translation of The Odyssey by Homer and favored the Greek name in the epic poem to the Latin Ulysses. Odysseus said his father revised familiar classical myths. He created his own versions and adventure stories to serve the moment around a campfire, and in the marvelous union of native storiers at trading posts.
Jefferson, as his son the trader explained that night on the screen porch at the hospital, taught him how to chant and sing on the road, to create memorable stories, and to privately praise the tricky arts of the native tease and irony. Natives trusted him as a trader because he was a singer and a creative storier.
Odysseus, for instance, could chant sections of The Odyssey and of The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. Teachers at the government school had read out loud selections of the same two books, but not with the same dramatic mastery as the great renditions of the trader.
Jefferson was the saint of irony among natives and traders, but not among federal agents. Odysseus praised his father for his humor, courage, and generosity in the company of natives, and then chanted a few poetic lines about the sense of place and family from The Odyssey.
So, as welcome as the great show of life again in a father is to his children, when he has lain sick, a mighty trader, suffering strong pains, and wasting long away, and the hateful spirit of the dead has brushed his shoulder, but then, and it is welcome, the gods set him free of his sickness, and a welcome was heard in the desert and forest now for my father.
Odysseus was an enchanter and a teaser among natives and traders, and we were captivated that night by a master storier. The doctor lighted a narrow cigar. The nurses were teary, not so much by the descriptive mastery of scenes but because of the emotive sway and natural pace of the chant. Later, he told us that he had revised a few lines in the heroic poem, and created the reference to the “mighty trader,” the mention of “shoulder,” and the view of his father in the desert. His stories were created for the moment, for the trail, for the wagon, for the porch, and always with some local rumors, personal notices, and situations.
Aloysius painted a blue raven with enormous wings.
The stars were brighter that night of the new moon, and every star shimmered in the leaves of early summer. The nurses and patients waited on the porch to hear more stories, the dramatic sway of memory and descriptive scenes of literature.
Odysseus reached over his head with one hand to touch the stars, and to tease the shimmer of light. His hand cast a shadow across the porch. Then he turned to the nurses, smiled, and recited poignant war scenes from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane.
When the youth awoke it seemed to him that he had been asleep for a thousand years, and he felt sure that he opened his eyes upon an unexpected world. Gray mists were slowly shifting before the first efforts of the sunrays. An impending splendor could be seen in the eastern sky. An icy dew had chilled his face, and immediately upon arousing he curled farther down into his blanket. He stared for a while at the leaves overhead, moving in a heraldic wind of the day.
So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed. He came from hot plowshares to prospects of clover tranquilly….
The American Civil War endured in memories, the sublime scenes forever wanted in a chant or chorus of honor, and the slightest trace of death, or gesture of gruesome disability, torments the soldiers, the sole survivors of disunion, national duty, and the lonesome families, without grace, cover, or ordinary dignity. The bloody bodies of so many young men have never withered in memory, and were summoned to stories over the years as the clover of tranquility.
Dead soldiers were the clover of tranquility.
Aloysius painted scenes of abstract blue ravens in natural motion, the traces of visual memory, and especially the mighty stories and recitations of the trader. The Civil War stories were unbearable scenes, stories of misery and heartbreak at the time, and yet the poignant recitation by the trader that night inspired me to create stories of soldiers. My perception and recollection of those stories that so enchanted me on the porch of the hospital that summer night were written several years later. My stories were mostly silent at the time, waiting at night for a clever origin, and almost ready to be created as scenes of memory.
Odysseus was conscientious about his ancestors, and included them in most of his stories. Captain Charles Young, for instance, a graduate of the Military Academy at West Point, was a direct relative. The trader recounted that night on the porch the service of Captain Young in the Ninth Cavalry Regiment and later the acting Military Superintendent of Sequoia and General Grant National Park. He paused and raised the peace medal as a gesture of respect when he mentioned the name of President Ulysses S. Grant. The world of generals and presidents always seemed more congenial when the trader told personal stories about his relatives. The nurses were pleased, only the doctor turned away.
Odysseus was entrusted with a middle name in honor of a career soldier, Sergeant William Walker of the Third South Carolina Volunteers. The trader recounted that night how the eminent soldier had rightly incited others to resist duty and renounce the military over the lower wages paid to freedmen. The soldiers had been promised equal treatment when they enlisted in the Civil War.
Sergeant Walker was convicted of mutiny at a court-martial and was unjustly executed by a military firing squad on February 29, 1864. Odysseus was born on the very same day, a great legacy of coincidence and a cruel injustice. The United States Congress voted four months later to provide equal pay for black soldiers. There were two great epochs of memory on the day of his birth—the execution of Sergeant William Walker and the executive promotion of General Ulysses S. Grant.
Odysseus raised his peace medal once more and recited the glorious words of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Abolition of Slavery. The trader declared that the amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865, less than two years after the tragic execution of Sergeant William Walker.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
The nurses and patients shouted out their devotion to abolition and then saluted the trader who was disabled by a shoulder sling and an ice pack. The trader was always a memorable storier, but that night on the porch he was at his very best, a glorious raconteur. The spiritual strength of his entire body seemed to arise in his sonorous voice, as a whisper, chant, and the mighty shouts of justice.
Jefferson declared that he would forever remember the soldier and so named his second-born son in honor of Sergeant Walker. The black soldier was executed only because he protested the injustice of slavery and the inequity of military pay. He should have been honored not executed. So, that night on the porch of the reservation hospital the soldier was honored by name, remembrance, and stories.
Odysseus was born at home, one of seven children, in South Carolina. He was a direct descendant of freedmen, exceptional soldiers, traders, and storiers. Madison, his favorite uncle, served as a Buffalo Soldier in the Tenth Cavalry Regiment, and he fought in the Apache Wars. The Young freedmen, soldiers and traders, were strong, dark, ambitious, and winsome. Jefferson and Odysseus were secure on the trail and honored by natives because of their songs, stories, and their trade integrity.
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Aloysius painted more than seven original scenes that night of blue ravens
