Winter Counts(34)
All of these thoughts weighed me down, and I decided to take a break. Right then I saw an old-fashioned neon sign attached to a dilapidated building, blinking red and blue: HANGAR BAR.
Without thinking, I opened the door and walked in. About a dozen people were sitting down or playing pool. Hanging up over the bar was a sculpture of an old-fashioned airplane, constructed out of empty beer cans from the 1960s and ’70s. Schlitz, Olympia, Hamm’s, Falstaff. The bartender walked over and asked me what I’d like.
It had been a long time since I’d had any booze. I remembered the cravings I’d had in the first months after quitting, then the orgy of sugary desserts I’d eaten after the first wave was over. I also thought about the shame I’d felt, back when Marie and I were together, when I’d gotten staggeringly drunk one night, called her a fucking apple, and thrown all of her clothes out of the house. My insult wounded her to the core, as I’d known it would, even in my inebriated state. She’d never felt accepted by the tradish Native crowd, and I’d scorned her for that with my slur, which was ironic, given that I’d always been rejected by those people myself. My words—and my drunkenness—were the last straw for her, and she’d moved out the next day.
Yeah, I’d been a mess, but I’d cleaned up my life, slowly. Now I was facing more problems. I looked over at the people playing pool and talking with each other. They seemed happy.
The bartender waited for me to say something.
“Bud Light and a shot of Old Crow.”
I picked the glass up and swirled it around a bit, a few drops of beer spilling out onto the bar. Then I smelled it. It had been a while since I’d inhaled the yeastiness of a beer, the hops and the wheat, and the aroma flooded my mind, triggering a memory from a few years ago, a memory I’d tried to lose.
The empty cans of Bud Light scattered around the living room. The reek of stale beer. The silence. The awful silence.
14
An elder I knew had called me, begging me to go check on her grandchild Mikey, who lived with her son and his girlfriend out by Parmelee. We’d been in one of our terrible snowstorms, temperatures twenty below zero, and she hadn’t heard from the child’s mother, who wasn’t from South Dakota. Nearly all families in the surrounding towns heated their homes with propane, and sometimes people froze to death if they missed out on a propane delivery. She told me that her son was out looking for work in Sioux Falls, but that the girlfriend was staying in their trailer looking after their little boy, who was only two. I’d seen the girlfriend at the grocery store—she was young, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three, with red hair and a nose ring. The little boy was cute; I remembered his Superman T-shirt and big smile.
I’d fired up my car and slowly driven north, dodging the wind drifts and trying to stay on the road. It took a while to find the trailer in the snow, and there were no street signs or house numbers to go by. The elder had told me that I’d recognize the place by a large painting of Mickey Mouse on the front wall of the trailer. After a while, I spotted it. Whoever had done the painting was no Rembrandt, and it looked more like Bart Simpson than Mickey Mouse, but at least I’d found it. There was a Ford Taurus parked in front, just outside of the fence.
I’d put on my cap, gloves, hoodie, and overcoat to brave the bitter chill. Even though I was only a hundred miles away from my home, it was colder here, and I felt the moisture inside my nose freezing as soon as I got out of my car. I knocked on the door to the trailer, but there was no answer. I waited for a second and banged on the door even louder. It was dangerously cold, and I couldn’t wait outside for more than a minute or two. I gave it one more bang and then tried the door. To my surprise, it was unlocked, and I went in.
It was cold inside, but not freezing. That was a relief. I took a look around the small living room. Empty beer cans, Bud Lights, maybe two dozen strewn around. An empty Smirnoff vodka bottle, one of the big ones. And the stench of stale beer, powerful even in the cold air. No one was around, and I wondered if the girl and her son had gone to stay with neighbors to wait out the storm.
“Hello, anyone here?”
No answer.
I walked over to the bathroom, which was by the small cooking area. No one in there. The door to the bedroom was closed. It wasn’t a real door; it was one of those sliding vinyl accordion units that don’t give you any true privacy. I slid it back, the vinyl protesting in the chill.
There was a small mountain of clothes on the floor, and a Murphy bed by the wall with four or five blankets on top. I was wondering if I should drive out to the neighbors when I saw the blankets move a little. I tried to remember the woman’s name—was it Rose?
“Hey, someone there?” I said, stripping the blankets back.
The mother was under the covers, passed out cold. Her red hair had been dyed green at the tips, and her nose ring was turned up, giving her a comical look. I could smell the alcohol reeking from her, along with some other vile smell. Her skin was even paler than I remembered.
“You okay?”
No response, so I felt her forehead, which was chilly to the touch. She was breathing, but slowly. If she’d drank all the booze in the other room, she must be plastered beyond belief, maybe even suffering from alcohol poisoning. I wondered how I’d get her to the hospital in this storm. I looked around the room for some winter clothes to put on her.