Sacred to the People of Chief John Ross

Finished the Shitty Kitty shift and saw rainbow lights over Rossville, so I walked over to the John Ross House and saw the old codger cursing a goose of truly resplendent avian indifference for shitting on his porch.

 

The rainbow lights were kind of lost in the golden hour sunset, so I abandoned that aspect of the evening and asked the ghost of John Ross if he wanted to watch another episode of Rick and Morty. As one does, y'know, of a Tuesday.

 

"That's the one with the Meeseeks and the portal gun, right? What a groovy show!"

 

I stopped worrying away at my cell phone and just kind of stared at him. I remembered that the last people who could see and talk with him were a gaggle of hippies in the early 70s and I think you might have realized, dear reader, that some shit's changed since then, not least of which is the slang.

 

"People don't really say 'groovy' anymore, John. Stuff tends to just be 'cool' now."

 

"Well that sucks," he replied. "The word 'groovy' is sacred to my people."

 

I whipped around to look at him again. There was a strong breeze but his white hair stayed in place atop his head, his face beaming a shit-eating grin at me.

 

It felt like a weird, but important, conversation was going to happen, so I put my phone in my pocket. 

 

"John, I think--"

 

"Interdimensional portal guns are also sacred to my people," the ghost of Chief John Ross continued. 

 

"Let's start the show!"

 

My eyes shut involuntarily and I started counting to ten. I've been trying to do this when I get angry or confused, but I can rarely make it to ten. I got to four this time and my facehole opened and words fell out, unbidden by (and definitely unreviewed by) the Quality Assurance Department of my brainmeats:

 

"Dude. You can't say stuff like that, man, you're going to get me in trouble with the Cherokee people."

 

"What, all seven of us y'all left alive and shuffled off to the desert? I think you can take it," he immediately replied. He's quick for a ghost who's not had a friend in a handful of decades. "Besides, they're out in Oklahoma. Bastards buried me there, too. You ever been to Oklahoma? Like, on purpose?"

 

"I'm just saying, I don't think it's... like..... I don't know, it just feels... disrespectful?" I stumbled. How do I tell a 235-year-old Cherokee chief he's being disrespectful to his own people without being disrespectful myself?

 

I just gave up after a few seconds. Sometimes my life is just too weird. I started the episode and lit a cigarette.

 

Halfway through the episode, John asked me to pause it.

 

"Did you know," he said, looking wistfully at the sky, "that Kirkland brand Meeseeks are sacred to m--"

 

"Goddammit John--"

 

He laughed the maniacal cackle of someone whose work has finally (if briefly) paid off after desperately trying to carve a sliver of joy out a lonely existence as he powerlessly watches geese shit all over his minimally-enriched eternal enclosure. I'm sure it would be booming if anyone else could hear it.

 

"I'm just fuckin' with you!" A beaming dirty grandpa.

 

I sighed, duly defeated by a ghost's affinity for embarrassing the hell out of white people. I can't blame him, of course. There's gotta be a measure of therapy in it for anyone we've subjugated, even if John hisownself owned slaves and named one of them "Stick" for being tall, brown, and skinny.

 

Shaking my head, I resumed the video.

 

"Fuckin' with you is sacred to--"

 

"I'm going home, John."

 

"Stomp a goose or ten on your way out!"