It was a fine fall afternoon for a walk around the neighborhood with my friend Kelly, visiting from San Jose. I'd previously regaled her with tales of the Old Crow Book Club and she highly anticipated meeting members and getting a Tarot reading from Mark.
Mark was sitting on his sidewalk. A few feet away reclined a young dude wearing sunglasses and vaping weed. He was relatively new to the area and I recognized him by his grocery cart full of driftwood hauled out of local creeks he pushed everywhere for mysterious reasons.
Both men were drinking cans of fancy German lagers. Mark said they were donated by a beverage truck driver because the stock had “accidentally” fallen off the truck—yet again. Mark threw up air quotes when he said accidentally.
I noticed a hardback book near Mark and asked about it. Mark launched into an excited review of Following the Guidon: the Experiences of General Custer's Wife With the U. S. 7th Cavalry, by Elizabeth B. Custer. He'd discovered it the bookstore's free table. It was a memoir written by General Custard's wife some years after the Sioux slaughtered him and his command at The Battle of the Little Big Horn.
It was an extremely rare book I was familiar with and wanted to read. How had I missed this gem at the free table?
Mark loved the book. Elizabeth could write! I said I wanted to read the memoir after he finished. He agreed. We then expressed our eternal gratitude to the Sioux for ending Custer's vainglorious and racist existence. Had they not, Custer might have ended up as President and America might well be worse off than it is now, if that was possible.
I introduced Kelly to Mark. They struck up a conversation about her visiting Portland and Mark was a little sauced. I could tell a Tarot reading wasn't in the cards and whispered as much to Kelly. She nodded. We'd try another day.
A day later Mark was rolling a cigarette, malt liquoring and carrying on two conversations, one with a local man out walking his dog, the other with weed driftwood man. Kelly again accompanied me and was still eager for a reading. She was going to pay for part of the service with a two-dollar bill, easily the greatest unit of paper currency in American history despite depicting a slave-holding wino President on one side.
I noticed Mark was eating cookies shaped like peanuts out of sardine tin. What were those confections called? I vaguely recalled seeing them a half century ago.
Kelly produced the two-dollar bill and told Mark she wanted a reading. Mark was more than amenable and exclaimed how much he loved two-dollar bills. He then said they were specifically created by the US Mint so strippers could receive a better and more convenient tip!
I told Mark that was a preposterous story. Then I remarked it was plausible because surely strippers had a powerful lobby in DC and all the goods on horny octogenarian Senators.
We all laughed.
Kelly's reading commenced but I didn't catch any of it because bedlam ruled the sidewalk.
After the reading, we walked away, and Kelly recounted Mark's findings. At one point she asked me if I'd noticed the Nutter Butters in the sardine tin.
I cried out, “NUTTER BUTTERS!”
After the Little Big Horn, Libby Custer spent the rest of her life working to establish her late husband's legacy and legend. She lived until 1933....
Nutter Butter!! So good!!