"What's that?"

"It's like bloodbrothers, but it don't hurt. O.K., everybody take your thumb and spit on it like this." Stony pressed his thumb to his lips and made a blow-dart sound. All six of them followed suit. "O.K. Now hold up your thumbs." Stony pressed his wet thumb against theirs.

"Naka-Maga-Walla." He solemnly passed from one recipient to the next. "Naka-Maga-Walla." When they had all received communion, Stony stepped back. "We are now all spit brothers, safe from any danger. The Indian ghost is on our side. Whenever you're in trouble just hold up your thumb an' say, 'Naka-Maga-Walla!' and the ghost Indian will help you out. An' in case he's busy an' can't make it, since you're all spit brothers, you gotta help each other out, so any time you hear anybody say, 'Naka-Maga-Walla,' you come runnin', O.K.?"

They nodded seriously.

"And the next time you see any a your friends or any a the nurses or the doctors you make 'em spit brothers a yours 'cause the more spit brothers you got, the better off you are. So just spit on your thumb, hold it up to theirs an' say—"

"Naka-Maga-Walla!" they finished, more or less in unison.

Stony looked at his watch. "Jeez, it's four-thirty, I gotta go, kiddos, see you tomorrow." As Stony left the day room, two nurses coming in to take the kids back to their rooms for dinner were assaulted by thumbs and Indian chants. Stony watched as the two confused and amused nurses were initiated in a solemn ceremony, expanding the Naka-Maga-Walla spit brotherhood to nine.

Stony whistled as he soft-shoed into the locker room. Weekend coming up. He and Annette were going to Bear Mountain tomorrow and could have a nice time if she'd just shut her yap about his family. He got a half ounce of Ciba-Ciba from Chili Mac, and they was going to do some communing with nature. "Ah said le's hear it for da com-mu-nin' wit' nature!" Stony clapped his hands and did a James Brown slide over to his locker in the deserted room. Three aisles over, out of Stony's sight, sat a totally stoned orderly grooving on his combination lock which he couldn't remember the combination to. "Naka-Maga-Walla!" Stony cackled. "De Coco da Indian!" He slipped out of his whites. "Cove-dwellin' Indian!" The orderly gave up on his lock and decided to blow some more hash. He took out a corncob pipe from his shirt pocket and sluggishly tried to scrape out the ash with his finger. "Ah said watch out for da cave-dwellin' Indian!" The orderly rapped the pipe on the long bench to clear out some crud. The slow, hollow tapping echoed through the locker room. Stony was in the middle of lacing his boots when the sound froze him in mid-crouch.

"Mothafuck!" The orderly weaved on the bench like a cobra coming out of a basket as he caught the blur of Stony running half-dressed and wild-eyed through the exit. He squinted at his chunk of hash and nodded. " 'S' good shit."