Winter Counts(19)

“How’s Nathan doing?” she said.

“All right. He’s still weak, but it looks like he’ll be okay. I dropped him off at Audrey’s place. He didn’t want to go, said he could stay by himself. I told him, no way.”

“You made the right decision,” she said. “Too soon for him to be alone. Not to mention, be good for him to spend some time with an elder.”

I pushed down a twinge of worry. “He’ll keep out of trouble there. I think.”

“So, I’ve been praying on this, and I had an idea,” she said. “Maybe he could help out at the center. You know, volunteer, spend some time with the elders or the kids at day care. The community, right? Stay away from the gangs and drugs.”

“Not a bad idea,” I said. “Problem is getting him motivated. You got any ideas on that, let me know.”

“Well, best way to get kids motivated is to teach them about their culture.”

Not this again. “He needs to focus on his school stuff,” I said. “He graduates from high school, he can go on to college if he wants. Get a real job, a career. But he’s got to do the work.”

“You’re being a little hard on him, don’t you think? You weren’t exactly a model student.”

This was true. I knew when it was time to shut up, so I asked her to put on some music. She hit a few buttons, and the gloomy sound of some punk band filled the car, something I didn’t recognize.

“Who’s this?” I asked.

“Siouxsie and the Banshees. Their third album. Still the best.”

It was a little slow for me, but I’d heard worse. Even though Marie was long past her Goth phase, she’d retained the music of her high school years, to my dismay. When we were together, she’d made me listen to a variety of strange bands and singers—Joy Division, Bauhaus, PJ Harvey, among others. I didn’t mind the stuff with strong guitars, but the electronic bands left me cold. When the song ended, I asked if she could put on something with more of a beat. She hit another button, and a twangy country tune started playing.

“When’d you start listening to this?” I asked. “Doesn’t sound like your usual stuff.”

“Lucinda Williams? I don’t know, a few years ago, heard it on the radio. You like it?”

“Not too bad. Got any metal in there?”

A smile and shake of the head.

“Maybe we can trade off songs, you know, alternate music during the ride?” I asked.

“We’ll see.”

I settled in for a long drive.

TWENTY SONGS LATER, we passed through the desolation of Whiteclay, Nebraska, just over the state line from South Dakota and the Pine Ridge reservation. Pine Ridge was dry, so a handful of liquor stores had popped up in Whiteclay decades ago. The town—population twelve—existed solely to support the beer barns that sold booze to the citizens of Pine Ridge right across the border. Of course every visiting newspaper reporter and TV camera crew had to take shots of the Indians passed out in town by the stores. The bums with the dirty clothes and the vomit smeared across their faces. Poverty porn. The camera crews never ventured one hundred miles east, where liquor was sold openly on the Rosebud rez. Sure, we had alcoholics—I’d been one of them for a while—but there was far less sensationalism to be filmed or written about on our rez. Instead, every TV anchorperson like Diane Sawyer had to focus on Pine Ridge and the supposedly sad Indians there. There was plenty of sadness on our rez as well, but why not cover the good things that were happening at Rosebud and Pine Ridge? All the rez artists and musicians, the skateboard parks, the new businesses, and the groups revitalizing Lakota language and culture?

I watched the desolate Nebraska landscape pass by, and soon I dozed while Marie drove. After a while, I woke up and looked around.

“Where are we?”

“Just outside Alliance. Still Nebraska. You need to stop?”

It had been a long time since I’d eaten or taken a bathroom break. “Yeah, if there’s a gas station I could go for some beef jerky.”

She turned the music off abruptly. “You ever seen this? I forgot about it till now.”

“What?”

“Look over there.”

The sign by the parking lot declared CARHENGE and below that, in smaller letters, ENTRANCE. We pulled into the empty parking lot.

“What’s all this?” I said, getting out of the car.

“Look behind you.”

I blinked a few times. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. About twenty old cars were buried in the ground, front bumper down, standing straight up like monoliths. They were arranged in a large circle, and I realized that they were obviously some sort of bizarre homage to Stonehenge. Not only were the cars buried on their edges, the artist had placed some autos on top of the others as a kind of cap or connector, just like at the real Stonehenge monument. There were a few cars buried on their sides in the center of the circle, serving as the focus of the installation.

“Crazy, huh?” Marie said, looking up at the vehicles, which were all painted a uniform gray. Graffiti scarred some of the cars’ bodies. I saw ARCHY SUCKS, I LOVE MEHITABEL, DADDY LONGLEGZ, and in the corner, WANAGI TACAKU. We walked around the circle.

“I’ll say. Who did this?”

“I don’t know. Some guy with too much time on his hands. I read a little about him last time I was here.”