Get Miserable With Me

I think about all the people that tried to get off the reservation. I think about a relative that made it for a few months. Moved with his girlfriend. Both were what we affectionately called “ass-wipers”. As I get older and see their work as a work of compassion, I find myself holding a lot of regret for ever denigrating them that way. It was a good job, good work, and good pay (for the area).

Anyway they get out and find a new affinity for coke and meth. Lady gets pregnant and the guy says “I don’t want to be a dad” and the lady says “I don’t want to be a mom” and they both say “lets do more meth and coke” and then the thing died.

Knew another guy who got out for a brief moment. Ended badly, as they all seem to do. Drank a bottle of mouthwash and started some trouble in his girlfriend’s apartment. Got arrested in the parking lot. Ended up walking home. That’s a three hour drive.

Knew of a girl who walked all the way from the tribal casino near the Nebraska border to the city, that’s a four hour drive. All because home was hell.

One of my closest friends lives a completely opposite life than me. He’s good looking, well-off, and has been living a stable life for a long time. A few notable exceptions here and there — I’m reminded of the time, on one Easter Sunday, where he drove his car through the middle of town so fucking fast that he went airborne in front of the clinic and the church. Rolled the car and miraculously survived.

Outside of the common (and rare for them) mishaps he’s been doing well, and for him, the system works. I’d wager for a lot of people, the system works as it was intended. I know a lot of people out there familiar with my work know that the system, the right-hand-path (as it were) works as it should, even though there should be some major improvements.

They were funneled through a system well enough, and they got into some debt, but in return they found their roots with relatively no issue in the grand scheme of things.

And I tell my little sob stories to outsiders whenever they feel like holding longer conversations. I’m surprised by the sheer level of disconnect that exists between us as far as personal misery goes, even though I shouldn’t be.

Tell them about dad’s stories, and how they always started. “You would’ve loved such and such”. Then comes some small story about the old days and then you find out, every time, that they’ve been dead for a long while.

You would’ve loved your uncle Larry. He was a sheriff. He was a hunter. We used to shoot his AR out in the country. Then one night his ex used his service revolver to blow her brains out. After that he couldn’t stop drinking. I watched him die in Colorado. Watched him die in the hospital. Watched them stuff cotton into his wounds. He was a wine drinker, that’s why I don’t drink wine.

Well, old man, you drink everclear. I don’t think it’s much different.

You would’ve loved my cousin Dave. He was a musician like you boys. He was my best friend. He got into an argument with your cousin. Your cousin told your uncle about it and then Dave got pushed. Cracked his skull open against the stairs and died.

You would’ve loved my best friend Bozo. He got into an argument at a house party over a parking spot. So they cut his stomach open. He died there, holding his guts in his own hands.

I ain’t much different Old Man.

I do what you used to.

I tell sad stories about people who’ve been dead a long time.

And they keep on dying. They never stop dying. And that’s why the last lady left. Said I was too distant. That I disappeared when her old man died. Well what the fuck can I say about that, Old Man? People die out here and they die all the time. And when they die people get miserable and end up dying not long after.

Hell, Pops, one of your pallbearers died a month after we buried you, got turned to pink mush along side the highway.

People die all the time and then they get miserable and die too.

When we buried my old man my brother showed up crying. Showed up stinking like cheap vodka. Showed up and talked through the preacher man’s words. Cried while we buried him. My other cousin wasn’t a pallbearer but he couldn’t stand to see dad go without being there for him. So he jumped into the ground to hammer in the nails.

And you can bet your ass I ain’t ever seen most of them since.

Last time I saw my brother he was sitting outside the community hall after all the mourners left, miserable and drunk.

Yeah, I’m distant. I’m distant because I have to be. And I don’t mourn for those who die that much because the ones who are left behind burn up everything and everyone they come into contact with.

Yeah I don’t mourn. I don’t cry. I don’t say much. I just stand back up and move forward.

Don’t you ever rely on me, because I ain’t nothin to be looked up to.

My grandpa got shot to death while target practicing out at an old windmill. He was there with one of his relatives. Went to go put up more bottles to shoot and the other fella just pulled the trigger. Mowed him down right fuckin’ there.

My uncle was in the military. He was fishing under a bridge when some unkind folks showed up. Had a problem with him and solved it with a shower of bullets. In dad’s retelling the brave warrior walked up to them with a spare tire as a shield. And by the time he made it to them they ran out of bullets and put him down with the stocks of their guns.

I ain’t one to talk when people go. Grandma protected me as best she could for as long she could. Worked everyday, well into her 70’s. Worked because her sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren didn’t much care for responsibility. And the day she died I left. Ran to a small town an hour away. A small miserable town with no real economy. Just a now-run-down motel that cost seven hundred a month.

The funeral homes were closed so our SUV became a hearse. That thing carried two more bodies within a few months. My uncle quit caring about his diabetes after she left. Died not long after. My other uncle didn’t want to live without Grandma around so he drank a jug of vodka and sent his vehicle down the highway at a hundred plus miles an hour, got ejected, died on impact, all while his vehicle burned in a field. Died a few hours before the diabetic one died. I got two phone calls that night.

A month later the only good uncle I ever had died of a stroke, and during the funeral procession a drunk driver drove against traffic and killed his niece.

I don’t talk much and I don’t talk to people. When I talk to people they don’t understand and I don’t blame them. Why should they, better yet, how the fuck could they?

So I disappeared and started painting and that’s all I did for years. Couldn’t stand to see other people, couldn’t stand being myself, couldn’t stand being near anyone or anything so I just painted and painted and painted. And one day I found I had more money than I usually do. I had a lot more money than I usually do. I had spent a good half a year out in some rancher town alongside the interstate and found myself wanting to escape again.

I didn’t want my family to find my bloated and blue body with a noose around it’s neck so I headed out west without any plans of what I’d do next.

Stayed in hotels.

Heard Mexicans talking in their Native tongue through the walls. Moved to a different one. Was told by the manager not to answer the door after 2am because the drunks were leaving the casino. And she was right. Every goddamn night, knocking all goddamn night.

And when that wasn’t bothering me the neighbors would. The room next door always had a new family staying in it. A whole ass family in a single room. People drunk and arguing until 6am.

I got away from home but I didn’t really leave.

One day that just ended. I sold as many paintings as I possibly could but still couldn’t afford shit.

So I left.

Paid a stranger forty bucks for a space in an empty lot. Bad wifi and an extension cable. Stayed in our family hearse and froze ass in the snow. Froze ass with a case of MRSA in my foot. Paid for every goddamn shower out of pocket.

I liked it better than the rez-hotel.

Liked it because it was on the nice side of town. Living in my family’s SUV felt better than anything else had in a long, long, time.

I found peace.

The drunks weren’t around.

The streets died down after ten.

We were elevated, higher up in the hills, higher up in property value, I found a taste of peace that most have always known, and I knew I never wanted to go back.

I applied everywhere I could but nothing ever panned out. Then one day I found a cabin, twenty miles outside of the city. A cabin with no plumbing that I could call home, a place out of the snow. A place to lay down and rest. A place to paint that wasn’t as cramped as that hearse. I had a home for a brief period of time.

I didn’t mind having to walk to the shower room some two blocks away, didn’t mind showering in a public shower, didn’t mind shitting in a public bathroom.

In my brief stint in that backyard I learned to be okay with shitting in gas stations, in art galleries, in laundromats. As far as I was concerned that chlorine smelling bathroom out in the middle of nowhere was an upgrade, as were the showers that never warmed up. The showers I never had to pay for.

Then the summer came and along with it, the tourists. And with the tourists came a price hike that I could never in a million years afford. A week used to cost 250 and now it cost 300 a night. My lease was over and I was in a bind.

I called on a friend. Called on a friend’s brother. He was there when I first tried to move to the city some seven years before. Back when I was still a drunk. I never thought we’d spend every day together for a good three months but that’s where it ended.

I found great comfort around him and his family, around my cousins and my uncle and aunt. I found myself in a strange place, around a family that knew how to care for one another, knew how to pay their bills, knew how to make good decisions, knew how to keep things together. I cried when they celebrated my birthday with me, when they made a day out of it when they didn’t have to.

I cried like a little bitch because I never felt that type of care, especially from people I didn’t know as well as family I grew up with.

I caught a good wind that carried me further down the river.

I was a rez mutt that assumed everyone would kick it’s ribs when they got close.

I’m still that same scared piece of shit.

Still that same mangy dog and all I want to do is heal my skin.

I’m tired of the little bugs burning up my arms and back.

They were good people and carried their weight. Being an artist couldn’t compare to the life of a tradesman. Couldn’t scratch what they could make by living an honest life. Couldn’t get me where I wanted to be.

So I got a job for the first time in a long time.

I found comfort in hard work. Found comfort in a muggy warehouse. Found comfort in sore knees and sore feet. I moved every day for five hours straight. I lost sixty pounds without changing a god damn thing. I carried heavy things and got stronger.

Found myself asleep by 5pm. Found my body waking up at 1am on the dot. Found comfort in shitty checks because those shitty checks came in on time every week.

Found myself around strange people, one of maybe two or three brown people, and damn sure the only one with a Native last name.

Found their conversations strange. Heard about them and their place in life. Heard about the long term workers making sixty an hour. Heard about them buying real estate, about them traveling to different countries. Heard a lot about people I could never understand or stand next to comfortably.

I have my criticisms about where I came from and how things are handled and I can’t seem to shake the imagery of the Death-mother. I don’t think it’s an oedipal fascination, I think it’s more of a disdain for the way things are. How unprepared we are for the real world.

I was “one of the good ones”. I was sober for a good five years and I still couldn’t find my place in the real world.

No jobs back home, no credit. No credit, no housing. No credit no utilities. No credit no loans.

No jobs back home, no safety net. No jobs back home, no one to turn to for help.

No collateral, no cash.

I was lucky to be an artist. When I really needed help I could ask the 50 thousand plus strangers that followed my work, ask them for the smallest bit of money they could spare.

I think about the wealthy Natives who have had help their entire lives. About the wealthy Natives that gladly wear a costume for federal grants. Think about the wealthy Natives without anything new to say. Think about how bitter it makes me. Think about how hard I have to work just to stay in a city, let alone travel the world. Think about them making money just to talk. Think about them getting into galleries while I shit out piece after piece after piece, in the hopes that I can pay rent and gas and food.

I think about how fucked up the reservation is. I think about all those people that tried to leave and had to go back. Think about the uncertainty that always hangs over my head. They didn’t prepare us for the real world.

The Death-Mother said, give me blood and you can stay. Give me blood and you can have a home. Give me blood and you won’t hurt. Give me more brown people to send through hell so we can stay alive. Give me your life and you will live.

I said I don’t want to be here anymore.

The Death-Mother pointed at the door and told me to leave, told me I’d come back before long.

The place that we came from is it’s own form of hell and there’s not much we can do about it.

How do you untangle a situation that self replicates with every emptied jug of booze?

Poverty creates hell.

Booze and meth stand in as a real sacrament, one that changes reality in ways that the Christians could only dream of.

Addiction creates abuse and trauma that echoes down throughout the years and generations.

The inward voice of the spirit, the creator of dreams and visions speaks to those that wish to hear. The dreams and visions show up only when we’re deep enough in hell. The creator of dreams and visions scares the ego and puts it in it’s place. The traces of the spiritual experience call us towards a better life, but no one hears It.

If we can’t untangle all of it what can we do?

I’m one of the good ones, one of the responsible ones and I don’t think this city thing will last for long.

Not without credit, not without rental history.

Where in the hell do I go from here?

What can be done for those like me?

If I can’t do it, how in the hell does someone without my introspective tendencies, without my call to creativity, without my shame and guilt… how do they escape?

I think we should invest in real estate. I think we need honest and strong people to care for those properties. That can be responsible and level headed enough to help our people build up our rental histories.

This credit nonsense is something else that needs to be addressed if we’re ever going to live a better life.

So, how do we fix that in a place without employment?

I value, very much, the realm of inward experiences, but the widespread use of dream interpretation and psychedelic use is far from feasible in a modern world.

I value the studying of dreams and the work of depth psychology, that sort of dogma is out of reach for most people.

I value, and have been taken care of, by the creation of art, most people will not have a call to create, or the ability to monetize it.

The tribe has it’s issues. The tribe only lets you live in a small handful of towns and cities if you want to keep your healthcare. And the real cities can’t be moved to without credit and rental history.

If we can’t fully untangle the complex web of “intergenerational trauma”, of addiction, of personal misery, if we can’t bring back the voice of the Sacred in modern times, can we at least help the next generation escape these shitty places?

Or is the call to tradition more important than the salvation of the wounded masses?

Have the Lakota forgotten who they used to be? How they constantly answered the challenges facing them, how they transformed themselves each time it happened? Have they forgotten how the others saw us? Isolated and primitive by primitive standards, as a people that ceremonially wept at anyone who could help them?

Have they forgotten how strong they became in time?

How they stood back up, over and over and over.

Why is it that we trap each other in these dead end communities, and which generation will it be that leads us from ruin?

It sure as hell wasn’t mine, and I feel the next is also fucked.