Driving West

Buffalo Creek

SEE THE WILD BUFFALO! I’ll follow the signs. Roll into a parched gravel lot. Two paint-peeled pumps. Three rib thin buffalo in a pen. Hand scrawled sign says pay before you pump. Walk towards a screen door, dust devils swirling at my side.  It’s okay! An old man shouts, no prepay! The pump grinds on and I go inside. He sits behind a sheet metal desk, black binoculars around his neck. I check out all the cars and decide he says. You’re good.  Smiles. Tobacco yellow teeth. A Ford F-!50, two dogs, and a white man must be keys to the kingdom here.  We watch a silver Audi pull in. Caramel skin and a sonorous river of black hair spill from the door. Heat shimmers in blurred waves around her. Hands on hips, ass wrapped tight in in white leggings.  She reads the sign and looks carefully towards the door. She gotta pay first he says.

Rest stop

In S.D. the rest stops are all marked with skeleton sticks of imagined tepees. We burned all the real ones. I have been a migratory bird for fifty years. Back and forth to Minnesota where my father, 90 now, still can’t say I love you. Never did push his grandkid on a swing.  I stopped here 25 years ago when my son was five. Rolling with the Lion King.  He stood in front of the car, where a Monarch butterfly was pressed dead on the grill, its orange wings still perfect. It’s the circle of life he said. Hakuna Matata baby. For the rest of your days.

Scenic

Dropping through the Badlands for decades. A desert bighorn ram stood perched on a ridge. Tan on red sandstone.  Setting sun lit striations in the uplifted rocks. Only one bar/restaurant in Scenic. 20 or so motorcycles and some trucks in the lot. We sat down, single dad raising two kids.  Better order simple here, burgers, cokes, fries. Yes okay grilled cheese is fine.  At the bar, framed by a red Budweiser sign, she sat looking at our out-of-place little clan.  Black leather vest and pants.  White shirt.  Tats and silver earrings.  She was the most beautiful, strongest, bravest, saddest, and loneliest woman in the world.

Wounded Knee

A place to too poor to even have a proper monument.  Just an old yurt with pictures inside. All the chiefs.  A mass grave. Ghosts of the hundreds that died. I bought a carved antler tip key ring from an old man. Thick gray braids and a turquoise bolo tie. Climbed the hill where the slaughter began. A dry creek bed snaked below. Old trucks, a tent kitchen, Indian flatbread. Sat in a circle with some strangers and passed a peace pipe around.

Driving West

For children, time is a heavy chain. Just wait just wait just wait until you are older. Now I am older. Farm towns. Withered, dying. No more winking waitresses or bustling harvest sounds. Main street stores have plywood eyes. Only the sound of rats’ feet and pigeon wings inside. Two dark bars. Men in John Deere caps drink early. Gimme Jack and Coke. Gimme Johnny Walker Black, beer back. Survivors.  Nothing runs like a Deere. One gas station. I drive west. Still wondering if you love me. Time chases me into a lake full of memories. I’ll swim there till I drown.