Short Story from my book - I'd like some feedback or just enjoy it

[Wetzelbill]

This has been published before, but I'm going to retouch it up to include in a book of short stories I am writing. CRUDE LANGUAGE DISCLAIMER

By Bill Wetzel

NACHOS ARE GREEN AND DUCKS APPEAR TO BE BLUE AT TOWN PUMP IN CUT BANK, MONTANA

Land with little hope
Small children scattered
Among unliving, Or as
I call them Walking Dead
Symbols brought about
By manifest destiny, Kept
In shells of land, Once hunted
And roamed upon, A world
Forced unto them, Now one
They never leave, I am a child
Of many, The father, brother, son
Who calls himself Walking Dead

I was soaking wet as I walked into the West End Town Pump on Main Street. I pondered the notion of walking in the casino to have a few beers, but I lost my wallet and didn’t recognize anyone I could bum a dollar from to play nickel machines and get free drinks. It was freezing, but more from the inner chill that comes with being a lost soul on a lonely night than actual evening temperatures. The lights glared at me the way a grandmother glares at the bad little kids down the street, who keep throwing baseballs, footballs and other children’s junk into her garden. Walking into the store I was already getting a headache from the glare of overhead lights, the incandescent glowing ones that move at a different speed than every other light on earth. Adequate illumination. I thought. These people need to learn about adequate illumination.

The kid behind the counter kept staring at me as I walked past the aisles of overpriced Nibs, corn nuts, and Juicy Fruit gum; back to a table near the frozen pizza section and sat down to wait for awhile. I’d wait all night if need be. He had sandy hair, freckles and a tight fitting blue shirt with the generic “Town Pump” logo on the front. I couldn’t decide if he was staring because he knew me or if it was the trail of mud I slopped all over the floor. A couple other customers stared at me indiscreetly, but a few hard looks in their directions let them know I didn’t exactly appreciate that shit. I can play the part of savage Indian if the need arises. I was in a foul mood as I evaluated the situations I always seem to get myself into. ***

“You fucked her didn’t you?” It was early September in that little stage where the weather in Montana goes from miserably hot to bone chillingly cold. Up near the hi-line we don’t really experience much of a fall. No shades of gray, just summer heat to winter chill; another dose of harsh reality from that bitch we call Mother Nature. I was sitting at a bonfire down on Cut Bank Creek, one of the more insignificant tributaries of the Marias River, if you ask me, nursing my fifth Bud Light of the night and trying to ignore the mindless, hopeless, worthless conversations of the people all around me. I had just come from the last rodeo of the year, the United Indian Rodeo Association finals held in the vicinity at an arena near another meaningless trickle of flowing piss called Birch Creek.

I was hanging with a pretty rough crew of cowboys (Who were Indians, if that makes any sense) and we were looking to party all night as usual. Spinky, Filbert, Ripter and Blue Duck; all basically good guys at heart, but not much more than a band of lovable losers. They were my friends and all, so I guess I fell into that same category as well, but still, lovable or not, we were a rough group of rowdy Indians looking for a wild night and probably a bit of trouble along with it.

“You fucked her didn’t you? This time I felt a nudge in my ribs that brought my thoughts back to the party at hand. Spinky was asking me if I screwed some girl. I had no clue who he was talking about though. “Who?” I asked as I looked into the greasy face of my totally inebriated friend. “That Amber bitch. You know, fry bread ass, big tits. You fucked her right?” I told him that I didn’t but he insisted that I did. “No Spink, I didn’t.” I repeated for the second time and, finally, this answer seemed to satisfy him and he didn’t ask again. Of course, I did do her, but I didn’t think it appropriate to talk about my sex life in front of the other twenty people sitting around us at the time. ***

It had started to rain as I walked the five miles back to town from the party. That’s the reason why I was wet and trailing mud when I walked across the convenience store floor. I was sitting at the table watching the sandy haired clerk mop up the mess I had created as I ate a tray of nachos and sipped on a super tanker of Diet Mountain Dew. As I said before, I had no money, but I decided to make myself at home anyway and grab some food while my partner cleaned the place up. At first, he gave me a dirty look and I thought he might call the cops, but I think he thought twice about the situation. At minimum wage it wasn’t worth his time to call in the theft of nachos and a pop when it meant he would get his ass beat by a muddy, pissed off Indian long before the cops even had time to answer the call. The kid was right, too. If he even touched the phone I would have been on his ass like this store was Custer’s Last Stand. Hundreds of years of oppression, small pox and reservation life would have been taken out on his punk ass. Sometimes I wish I were a young Sitting Bull counting coup on every white guy who dared to mess with me. Sitting on my horse, proud, strong and defiant. But I’m no Sitting Bull, I’m just a drunk Indian stealing nachos and waiting for a ride home. Not exactly the most noble cause in Native American lore, but a necessary evil for me at this time. At any rate, I figured Spinky would show up for me sometime tonight.

Spinky and I kind of had a late night, drunken ritual we always went through. Before we went home, we always came into this store to get nachos and play the racing car game they have. Well, Spinky plays it anyway. Whenever I get drunk, I can’t drive it for shit, so I get pissed off and yell around in front of everybody in the store. One time I got so loud we ended up being kicked out, so I came back in, took a piss in an aisle and stole a bunch of stuff out of the coolers. I would’ve never remembered, but I was caught on security cameras and had woken up hung over the next day with a pack of hot dogs on my pillow next to me and beef jerky wrappers strewn all across my bed covers. My parents knew the storeowners, so I guess that’s why formal charges were never filed and, in the end, I only got kicked out of the store for six months.

I remember being drunk at Spinky’s parent’s house eating nachos the very first night I was allowed back into the store. Bar time had passed and everybody was asleep except us two and we were making a helluva drunken racket. Spink goes about 6’2 and two hundred pounds, plus he walks on his heels, sort of clopping around like a horse, so he can be quite loud sober let alone drunk. Me? Well, I’m just straight out miserably loud and just about the most ignorant fuckhead you ever want to have around when you’re trying to sleep, but for once I was quiet. Sort of, anyway. I guess a nacho less six months had given me a one track mind and I was shoveling food in drunken, cheesy glory when I noticed one of the chips was green. So at three in the morning I decided to yell in a house of sleeping people, “Hey, this fuckin’ nacho chip is green!” Spinky’s older sister was not amused and she yelled back from the nearby couch she was trying to fall asleep on, “When you start seeing green nachos, you know it’s time to take your drunk ass in a bedroom and go pass out.” I thought that to be a pretty logical remark, so I took one last look at the green chip before I ate it and went to find a place to lay out. ***

Blue Duck. I couldn’t believe I came to this party with Blue Duck. Blue Duck was several years older than us and he is one of those guys you always heard about, but never believed the outlandish stories until you were there to witness one yourself. He was a bonafide legend-sort of a reservation Keyser Soze’- the type of guy mothers tell their daughters to stay away from and sons not to grow up to be like. Nobody ever called him by his real name and, in fact, I, like most others, didn’t even know what it was.

The first time I ever got drunk with Blue Duck, he grabbed a twenty-two caliber rifle and started shooting at a car parked out on the edge of the highway. We all laughed because nobody was in it at the time; some young girl just drove it down the rural road, so she could catch the bus and go to school that morning, but it wasn’t so funny a few seconds later when he started shooting holes in the roof of his house. I remember thinking how crazy this guy was as he waved the gun around and scattered half a tribe of Indians running for cover. It was mid-afternoon and already I was too drunk to stand up and run, so I just held my beer up to the gun barrel, which was pointed at my head, and hoped the tin can would take the bullet for me. About this time, I had my first and last out of body experience. I was looking down from the ceiling at a wild-eyed Skin holding a gun up to the head of another insanely intoxicated one, who was pathetically trying to save himself by using a can of cheap beer as a shield. As my out of body experience ended, I remember sitting on the floor thinking I was going to die while drinking a can of Schmidt beer. Schmidt is terrible. The stuff tastes like ass, if one can imagine what ass tastes like. I looked up at the barrel and at my can of Schmidt then thought, “Maybe I do deserve to die for drinking shit like this”. But I didn’t die and the situation managed to diffuse on its own. I’d like to say I wittily talked my way out of a tight spot, but I was too drunk to remember how it ended, let alone to have the presence of mind to do anything rational. Truth is Blue Duck must’ve just been messing with us all a little, kind of an old school warrior putting us young bucks to the test. Right now as I watched Blue Duck sip his beer, staring through everybody with steely eyes and mingling around the party I could only wonder what crazy adventure he was going to try to pull off tonight. ***

I really had to admire how the kid shined the floor up. The tile even sparkled a bit in a cheap, fake jewelry kind of way. You never would have guessed that, not even, an hour ago the place had been sludged with mud. I almost felt bad when I walked up to get another shot of Diet Mountain Dew, muddying up the place nearly as bad as the first time, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to make the kid earn his scant wages tonight. Again, he said nothing, but I could tell he hated me a little by the scorn in his eyes. Not overly bad scorn, more like the kind one feels for a dog who isn’t house trained and shits all over the rug, but his eyes held scorn, nonetheless.

By this time a lot of people were coming and going; mostly young, pimple-faced white kids, with backwards baseball caps wearing Tommy Hilfiger clothes, driving cars and trucks my parents couldn’t have afforded themselves, let alone bought for a teenage son or daughter. I knew some of these kids, a few nodded or said “hello”, but I saw nobody I would’ve asked for a ride. Then Walking Eagle showed up, with his shiny, new, white, Dodge pickup truck filling up with premium petro at one of the pumps. Within seconds after walking in he noticed me at the table and came over.

“How ya doin’?” he asked. Walking Eagle was a white kid who always tried to hang out with us Indians. His real name was Brian and he claimed to be one-sixteenth Cherokee, but every white guy who says he’s an Indian claims to be Cherokee. It’s like that’s the only tribe they ever heard of or something. Nobody ever took him serious, so one day a whole bunch of us decided to take him out and give him an Indian name. We went down to the river, lit this big ol’ fire and started talking about the “Great Spirit” and a bunch of bullshit like that. Then instead of a peace pipe, we just got him drunk and gave him a couple hits off of Filbert’s big water bong. We just made shit up on the fly after that and, at one point, he was running around naked in a grass field whooping and hollering, “I am Walking Eagle”. I laughed so hard all night, I nearly pissed my pants and was sore for three days afterward. The funny thing is he never realized we named him Walking Eagle because an eagle will only walk when he’s too full of shit to fly.

“Do you need a ride?”

I don’t know what it is, but sometimes when I’m pissed at the whites, the world or just anything I always think subliminal thoughts before I answer out loud. “Do you need a ride?” Walking Eagle asked again. I need the land back that you stole from my people, dickhead. “No, I’m cool. Just waiting for Spinky to show up.” “Are you sure?” Yeah I’m sure, fucker! In fact, throw in some buffalo, too! Oh wait, you killed them all, asshole! “Yeah, he should be pulling in here any minute.” With that Walking Eagle said goodbye and started making his way to the front of the store to pay for his gas at the register. Just before he went out the door he hit me with the kicker. “Get ahold of me before you go back out to Seattle.” Ladies and gentleman Elvis has just left the reservation. ***

I had been biding my time all night, waiting until the beer kicked in and I was feeling good. There was this white girl at the bonfire, blonde hair, blue eyes, kinda short and kinda cute. I had seen her around from time to time and always wanted to drop the hammer on her, but the opportunity had never been presented. Anyway, I made eye contact a few times, then when I felt the time was right, I made my way over and sat down next to the fire with her. Things were going well, I felt my inner pimpness shining through, when I decided to go for broke and bust out the big guns on her. I was going to say the three little words a guy needs to say to guarantee he will get laid every time. I paused to stare into her eyes as I prepared to utter these three magic words. She was a little, terrified, fluffy, bunny rabbit and I was the big, bad bear about to go in for the kill.

“Want some whiskey?” I asked. “Of course” she smiled. “Let’s go down by the river and get away from these guys,” I suggested with a nod and she quickly agreed.
I am the Zen master of love gods.
Then a fight broke out and ruined it all. ***

When was I going back to Seattle? Probably never, but I sometimes say that I am, this all depends on who asks me. If relatives or white people ask, well, then I’m getting ready to leave as soon as possible. I say I’m working and saving money to go and they presume this is the case. Well, I don’t work and I certainly don’t save money. All I do is drink and I’m quite good at it, too.

All I ever wanted to be was a bull rider, although, injuries and lack of physical condition prevent me from even doing that anymore. I love the adrenaline, the thrill of being on a ton of savage beast who wants nothing more than to throw and maim you. My mother, however, had other ideas. She told me any fool could jump on a bull, wake up forty years old, beaten, broken up, without a pot to piss in or even somebody who cares enough to get you one. I was to go to college-be a scholar and quit this cowboy nonsense or go join the circus because that’s where bull riding belongs according to her. I was smart. I was special. I was different. Yadda, Yadda, Yadda. Finally, more to shut her up than anything else, I moved to Seattle to attend college the fall after I had graduated high school.
Seattle is considered a small, laid back city, but to a Montana hick straight off the Blackfeet Indian reservation, Seattle might as well have been Mars. I had gotten along well and school wasn’t too bad, but I never totally adjusted. I lived in downtown Seattle, my neighborhood was the kind that allowed me to look out my window into the urine scented alley at night to see crack whores giving out blowjobs for cash and/or drugs. I had thought these homeless drug-addled people to be harmless for the most part, until one night my friend and I were robbed on the street by a friendly crack head who just wanted to look at the video camera we had and not steal it, which of course he did by simply grabbing it and running away. He turned a street corner and disappeared down an alley before either one of us had any time to recover from the shock and react. If you can’t trust a crack head nowadays who can you trust? What’s the world coming to? After we failed to run him down, we filed a police report that was just a formality. The camera was gone and, not long afterward, so was I. Running back home to the rez just like everybody always expected me to do.

What most people don’t understand is life on an Indian reservation is about as bad as some Third World Countries. They are hells riddled with, alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment, inept governments and prevalent hopelessness. Indian reservations are socio-economic nightmares, an unfortunate happenstance that is not likely to change in the foreseeable future.

When a way of life is so difficult, often times, the only thing you can count on are your friends and family. They are a type of comfort zone, a way of perseverance in a culture with little means to rise up and change. Indians have extended families in which we can walk into dozens of houses to eat, sleep or hang out for no particular reason at all. Everybody calls each other “cousin “, whether or not they are by blood or bond. Either way we all treat each other like immediate family. That’s just the unwritten code of Native American philosophy and, likely, is the biggest part of a reservations allure. For many, this is why they find it so hard to leave home and stay away for good. All the while I was in Seattle, I had been missing these very elements of my previous home. My friends, my family-fry bread cooked by an Indian woman, smothered in large slabs of commodity butter; real fry bread, not the kind made “white man style” with sugar, cinnamon or some other nonsense. In short, I was lonesome for all the things I felt made me an Indian. I didn’t want to be called an apple (red on the outside, white on the inside) or a “white boy” behind my back because I left the reservation and lived in Seattle. (Which happens to be a city named after the famous Indian environmental negotiator Chief Sealth from the Suquamish tribe, of all ironies) I wanted to be back home, be “one of the boys” again, getting robbed was just an excuse to take the easy way out. I never perceived I’d go back, never leave and begin to drink myself into oblivion, like several generations of Indians who came before my lifetime. I was quickly evolving into the stereotypical American Indian male who I thought I’d never be. ***

Blue Duck. It always had to be Blue Duck. One minute I was sitting on the river bank, getting my mack on with a cute, white chick and then the next minute she was running to her car and I was catching a random punch in the jaw, because my crazy friend started beating some poor bastard’s head in for God only knows why. All I know is, Blue Duck felt like the night needed some excitement so he picked a fight with some Hutterite kid. The Hoot was half retarded or something and could barely even talk coherently so one of his buddies took offense to the situation, stepped in to fight and from there the battle was on. Everybody squared off, Indians versus Hutterites. No holds barred.

Now Hoots are pretty much like Amish people. They came over from Germany and have no televisions, phones or electricity. All they know is hard work, church and dandelion wine. They all have the last names Hofer, Wipf and Kleinsasser, so they are all brothers, sisters, cousins, mothers, fathers or even a combination or two. Some of the young, cantankerous ones sneak off the colony on weekends to party with us locals. One thing I understand is over one hundred years of hard work and inbreeding can churn out some pretty damn salty Hoots and half the colony was looking to fight once Blue Duck instigated them a little.

The whole ensuing brawl only lasted a few minutes and I spent my time wrestling around with the smallest Hutterite I could find, in the aftermath of initially getting my bell rung at the start of the melee’. I was holding him down, trying to catch my breath when my peripheral vision caught flashing blue and red lights coming over a nearby hill. Damn cops. The police breaking up a party was nothing new, because they all had prior knowledge of the few decent party spots in the area. I guess the pigs just waited until they observed the first few cars filled with intoxicated partiers leaving the area and decided to move in to break the bash up, but I wasn’t planning on sticking around. I released my hold on the miniscule Hoot, ran towards the river, forded the murky waters, crawled up the bank on the other side and headed cross-country towards town.

The night was fairly mild, but once a person gets down in those cutbanks and valleys, not to mention the rain that came down a little later on, the temperature tends to get ball sack freezing cold, even in mid-summer. I once had a couple of friends go cross-country themselves after a party had been busted, a bit further up the river than the one I had just left, and both of them ended up getting hypothermia. One guy almost drowned in the river and the other kept stopping to piss on his hands just to keep warm. I can’t say that a good, warm shower of piss didn’t cross my mind a few times while I was hiking along, but by the time I reached Cut Bank I was feeling more sorry for myself than cold or anything else. The trip had taken about four hours to walk nearly five miles, but I finally made my destination with the hope that Spinky or one of the other boys would be along soon to give me a ride. ***

The nachos weren’t actually green that I had eaten that night. I had been correct in a way, though. The next morning when I woke up, hung over and dehydrated, I looked up on the nightstand where I had left the leftover nachos and a glass of water on and amid the gooey mess of sticky cheese I spotted a couple of blue corn chips mixed in with the regular ones. Spinky, his sister and I all had a good laugh when I showed them my discovery later on that morning. The sad thing is, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I was drunk enough to have imagined my chips were green, purple, orange or any other conceivable color in the spectrum. At this point in my life, I seem to be consumed by friends, alcohol and the magnetic call of reservation life. Maybe I should go back to Seattle, to college and another, more promising, life. A life where I can be somebody, but also where I am unfamiliar and, somewhat out of place. Then again, I can stay here for the rest of my life being those very same things as well. The bull rider. The college boy. The smart one. I am all of these, but none of them at the same time.

For all I know, Spinky is in jail with another DUI looming over his head, or maybe he’s dead- another casualty of the many drunk driving accidents which occur all too often on reservation roads-maybe, just maybe he’ll pull up to the Town Pump store and pick me up at any minute now. Whatever the case, none of the scenarios I’ve speculated on would particularly surprise me any. I’m just going to sit here waiting, eating and hoping I don’t look too much like a green nacho, an apple, a smart Indian, a drunken Indian, or some other classification others might try to put me into. I have this fear of how I appear in the eyes of others. This fear of who I was, who I am, who I will be and what I could be. Change of any kind, especially positive, is a rare and often unwelcome occurrence in the culture that I’m mired in now. For the time being, I’ll presume the color of my nachos will always stay the same, but I pray to wake up one day and find myself to be wrong. ***

[petgoat]

1. Bill, that was an interesting read.

I liked the "three little words" being "want some whiskey?" and the
wise-ass observations like the "meaningless trickle of flowing piss"
playing against the stereotype of the earth-worshiping Indian.

I think you've got about eight different stories in it though. It's a
picture of a guy's life and some stories in the past but since nothing
changes for the protagonist you don't get an "ah-hah". Expanded into
a novel it might give you one, or certainly elements of it might make
some good short stories.

Right in the first line you paint the picture of a guy who has to
"ponder" going to the casino for beers, and at the end the guy's still
only perplexed. The paralyzed intellectual is a pretty common and not
real interesting character in fiction. This guy could transcend that
paralysis by challenging fate--going back to college, or struggling to
make a good life on the rez, or maybe involving himself in somebody
else's problems--for good or ill.

You've got some interesting material here, and you're a talented
writer and I hope you'll keep at it.

[Wetzelbill]

2. yeah a lot of it is character development

It's just one short story, in this you never know who he is, he's anonmymous could be a lot of people etc. I have written more with him. Nothing concrete, but this character does branch out a bit. I made him lost. Wanted him to be so at this point in his life. I know, I am planning on going back and cleaning up some of the sentence structure, etc. I've always wanted to write a related story, showing him in later life. I think I got a lot of this character -besides myself- from one book, "Winter In The Blood" by James Welch, and a short story, "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight In Heaven" by Sherman Alexie. Both have Indian characters, lost and ambigous, maybe not as cynical and bitter as this young guy is. He's only about 23 or so. I was a lot like that, I never started college until I was 24. Quite lost and bitter. As a lot of reservation kids are, except in the character's case -and mine - a person is more miserable because they know they are lost and are maybe have the gifts to get themselves straight, but just won't. For whatever reason.

But definitely, I plan to have him transcend this in some way. Not in this story of course, but a related one. For now, he's much more ambiguous. I do have to clear him up at some point though. For the readers etc. I do wince at his misogyny. It's always bothered me. But, I know people -pretty much all of my friends - who are like that if not worse. So I've never changed it, nor will I. It is one thing that I've never gotten over in reading it.

Thanks for reading this and your comments too. I appreciate it.

[petgoat]

4. Bill, thanks for your reply and I'm really glad you took my comments

well. I meant them as constructive but it was late and I was pretty
well oiled when I wrote them and feared when I woke up this morning
that you might take them wrong.

Since you mention Alexie, I did wonder why you put College in Seattle.
Seems like Alexie and Michael Dorris (Yellow Raft) kind of own that
space like Louise Erdrich owns Minneapolis so I wonder why college
couldn't be Albuquerque or LA or Eugene or Durango or what have you.

I'm intrigued by Blue Duck and Spinky and your narrator and Walking
Eagle and the women and I'd like to hear more about them--either in
stories that present them more completely or a novel that fleshes out
what you've outlined here.

The misogyny is obviously your character's and not yours, so I didn't
find it objectionable. Jim Loney showed some of that spirit too.
Some people have good reasons to hold those kind of feelings, though
usually they outgrow them in time.

And as to being lost but not having the will to get straight, you can
wallow in that for the rest of your life if you want. Or while you're
waiting for the will, you can read and write and learn and find some
people you enjoy and appreciate the beauty of the sunrise and maybe
train for a marathon.

I spent a lot of time lost too, a lot of time feeling guilty for the
crime of being white and smart. Finally I settled on an idea from
Albert Ellis, "Human unhappiness is caused by irrational ideas", and
I sought to banish irrationality from my life. The idea that things
ought to be any different than they are is irrational. The idea that
I ought to be smarter or better looking or more successful is
irrational. If you're dissatisfied with the the way things are go
ahead and change them but there's no point in letting stuff make you
unhappy. It's liberating. Which is not to say that you accept you
limitations. You seek to transcend them--but you don't let them
depress you. And it's not to say you accept injustice. You accept
that it makes you angry and you resolve to fight against it but you
don't let it get you down.


I hope you'll keep watching the world and learning and writing.

[Wetzelbill]

5. oh I'm used to being critiqued, I'm a serious writer so .....

you just need to take criticism as something that isn't personal. Unless, of course, somebody does attack you personally. Other than that, if a writer truly wants to get better they need to develop a thick skin, toughen up and take a critique in a constructive manner. So, I had no problem with anything you had to say, I was glad you were candid.

I mentioned Seattle because I went to college and lived there for two years. I've never been to Eugene, Durango, Albuquerque or any of the other places you mentioned. I write almost exclusively about Glacier County, Montana, Tucson, Arizona and Seattle, Washington. Those are basically the only places I have ever lived and am intimately familiar with. I was living in Seattle at the time I wrote that too.

Blue Duck is a real person. I have a friend we call that, and he pretty much is like that too. The gun incident really happened. I watched him shoot a parked car, step inside, blow a hole in the roof and then he pointed it at me. A lot of that story is real. Spinky is a combo of one of my brothers and several friends. I got the name because it just popped in my head one night as I was waking up in my Seattle apartment. I knew then I had to use it for something, lol. The rest of the names are my real friends too. Walking Eagle is based on a kid I know a little. He's not as bad as the character in the story, but he sorta is like that.

I should say that Jim Welch was a childhood friend of my father, and a friend of mine too. I wrote a tribute to Red Ink Magazine for him after his death. A great writer and man.

I used to be lost, I wouldn't say I so much am now, however, I just don't know where I'll end up. I'll do ok, but my future is so ambiguous, I could end up going in a lot of directions. Right now I'm going to move back home, finish my degree and run for office. I'll see where all of that take me.

Thanks for your comments. I enjoyed them very much.

[petgoat]

9. James Welch is a Great Inspiration;

after I read Fools Crow I read everything he ever wrote. Have you read
"Rabbit Boss"? It's difficult (particularly at the start) but
excellent.

I didn't mean to come off as all avuncular, but having lost a lot of
years to despair, I can't help trying to save young folks from wasting
time. Find out why the kids are killing themselves and do something
about it--that would be a holy task. On the other hand, anything a
bright guy like you would want to do would be worthwhile.

[Mutley]

3. Wow, Bill, this is great!

You paint a great picture of life on reservations. I also like the "three magic words" being "want some whiskey?" :rofl:

I anxiously await more! :D

[Wetzelbill]

6. thank you Mutley

I pretty much have said it all to you on our thread. Nothing to add right now but thanks. :)

[Mutley]

7. I like to spread my awesome wisdom around as much as possible.

:D

:P

[petgoat]

8. Yeah me too. n/t :>)