i saw my first ghost deer yesterday. i think.
bored from waiting for a promised call very long in the coming, i was not that surprised when another friend, one who never thinks of me whenever he has a good time, called me, instead.
he was beat from watching recorded reruns of sex and the city. me, bushed from lazing in my bed the entire sunday morning, waiting for that blasted call. all these on a weekend when the weather was quickly surpassing that of baguio's during summer.
my yes came rather quickly when he asked me if i was in for a ride. where, i asked him. anywhere as long as it was out of the city, we both agreed, sort of.
as soon as he picked me up, i quickly foisted the idea of driving all the way to this abandoned army depot upstate that apparently now has the world's largest population of white deer. native americans call them ghost deer.
i've heard about them, he said. you saw that, too? national geographic channel, right?
so he hit the interstate which, according to his rudimentary star scout map reading skills, would take us there. but some forty five minutes into our ride, he realized that stretch was leading us somewhere else. upstate, yes, but somewhere upstate else.
he threw me the map hoping i could find the right way. the map looked like a hansel and gretel forest of candy colored thin trees to me. great, i could read his mind, another cartograph-illiterate fairy.
in my most cheerful of voices, i egged him to just drive on, maybe some half hour more. who knows, we could get to some signs, signs that even a fourth grader could read and understand. or better yet, we could chance upon a busload of gorgeous, young, athletic men also on their way to that buck camp.
half an hour went by and not a sign. worse, only slow cars driven mostly by geriatric men we saw ambling along the wide interstate.
then as we got more desperate, suddenly we had this road epiphany. along the route, a highway sign announces an outlet mall two miles ahead. he didn’t have to ask me. he quickly veered right and off we exited on the ramp going to that upstate outlet commons.
to the uninitiated, an outlet commons is an inner city dweller's shopper's paradise, a massing of all conceivable name brand outlets in one out of the way sprawling mall, dispensing fifth avenue goods at non-manhattan prices.
in a legend among the chickasaw indians, a young warrior, blue jay, fell in love with the chief's only daughter, bright moon. but as in any other love story worth listening to, the father was not so smitten with his daughter's brash suitor.
so the chief tasked him to scout for the hide of the white deer, a dowry the scheming old man was certain blue jay could never pay.
like most native americans, chickasaws believed that white pelted animals possess magical qualities. the white deerskin is still the favored wedding dress material among them even today.
blue jay went on to his vision, i mean, pelt quest. but three weeks went by without a sighting of the illusive deer. then, one full moonlit night, the white deer drifted within his shooting range.
blue jay then sank his sharpest arrow deep into the young buck's heart. but instead of sinking to its knees, the mystical deer charged towards the brash warrior, the deer's antlers ablaze in fury.
blue jay never returned to his tribe. and in her sadness, bright moon never married, harboring this secret. everytime there was a full moon, bright moon was the only one who could see this white deer, an arrow still embed in its chest, running around their camp, taunting her. and she lived, loveless and vengeful, cursing the deer to finally fall to its death so that blue jay would return.
my friend and i, we sort of lost it at the outlet that his car's trunk was not enough to hold all our purchases. i dread seeing my credit card bill later this month.
we dumped at the backseat some of the stuff we bought. and as we neared the bronx exit towards my place, we hit on this road bump. from the rear view mirror, i checked out our shopping bags. my gleaming new pair of nike hitops was booted out of its box. its white hide flashed in the now falling light like a bride's uncreased gloves.