Bunnell David Hugh - Good Friday on the rez: a Pine Ridge odyssey

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Hoka hey!

Dedicated to Vernell White Thunder

and the Oglala Lakota Nation

We had buffalo for food, and their hides for clothing and our tipis. We preferred hunting to a life of idleness on the reservations, where we were driven against our will. We preferred our own way of living. We were no expense to the government then. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone.

CRAZY HORSE, I HAVE SPOKEN

I can still feel my wet bare feet

slippin on the hot summer concrete

coming home from your old swimming pool

Alliance, you are the Sandhills sandwich town

with country-fried-chicken hospitality

so proud to be white-skinned

churchgoing and somewhat dim

Bible school, Boy Scouts, and bigotry

the mighty Lakota Sioux falling-down drunk

in your gutters

unending arrests, subsequent suicides

four dead in the time it takes a life to begin

AND I WONT LET YOU FORGET

Jo No Leaf

Chillo Whirlwind

Arthur Gene Black Horse

Irene Blackfeather

not even Clarence Pumpkin Seed

the 250 times you locked him up

before they found him frozen stiff

in Whiteclay

so picture Chillo, at eighteen hes kicking

the wastebasket hes standing on

picture his bath-towel necktie

picture Genes thin leather belt

and Jos wine-stained sweatshirt

picture them dangling

in your jail cells

after they cut the bodies down

picture poor Irene coughing her lungs out

your chief cop who thought

she was just inebriated

and your doctor whose sleep

was more important than her life

then picture

the agony of nails pounded through the hands

of Jesus Christ

David Hugh Bunnell
Published in the Alliance Times-Herald
October 15, 1971

Memory is like riding a trail at night with a lighted torch. The torch casts its light only so far, and beyond that is the darkness.

OLD LAKOTA SAYING

What luxury to wake up naked, a crisp morning breeze coming through the open window, my legs curled together to keep myself warm, clean sheets, cheap but adequate pillows on a king-size bed in a motel room alone, peacefully listening to the chirp-chirp, chirp-chirp-chirp of a western meadowlark, the buzz of a single-prop plane high overhead, the deep crunch of train cars coupling in the nearby railroad yard. I have much to look forward to today. Good Friday. Today I take my little yellow Volkswagen rental on a 280-mile round-trip from my hometown, Alliance, Nebraska, to the poorest community in America, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, to hang out with my blood brother Vernell White Thunder, whom Ive talked hours to but havent seen in a long time; I just want to sit in his living room, drink copious amounts of Susies cowboy coffee, and relive the many profound and sometimes funny moments weve had over many years in many placesKyle and Wanblee on the rez; me trying to teach him to spell, him trying to teach me how to ride horse bareback; our silly idea about drinking Navajo girls under the bar in downtown Albuquerque; our Indian horse ranch in Boulder, Colorado, which we named Tiyospaya; the little matter of the Buffalo Ranch; and the unresolved dispute over which of us danced with Jane Fonda. But first I must go for a swim.

Now residing in California, with my parents long gone and very few friends in the area, I dont visit often. My Lebanese former in-laws still live here, and I love seeing them, but not staying in Alliance, which might well be the most boring town in America; people drive five miles an hour down the middle of main street, park on the wrong side of the road, smoke inside the stores. I try hard to stay healthy at the only motel with a swimming pool, but this is hardly a Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons. Perhaps it is a cut above the other motels here because it has an indoor swimming pool, but the pool is not long enough for lap swimming, and you can hardly get your heart pumping by splashing around. The best news is that they have a hot tub. I slip out of bed directly into my suit, grab the room key, head out, and amble down the hallway, only to discover a hand-scrawled sign on the door to the pool: CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE . So I march to the front desk to inquire how long the pool will be closed.

The twentysomething clerk, a local girl with orange-and-blue hair and numerous piercings, says, All weekend.

This is clearly wrong. I am on the verge of demanding a refund and moving across the road to the American Inn, which, by the way, is half the price. But before I start shouting, the older, mellow me emerges; obviously, this poor girl is powerlessshe knows nothing about the pool, why it is closed, or why it will take all weekend to clean the scum off the surface.

I say, Okay; thanks.

I skulk back to my room next to the noisy soft drink vending machine to work out with the latex stretch bands I fortuitously stashed in my carry-on bag yesterday before taking an Uber to the Oakland Airport. Exercise is my elixir, my antidote to premature aging.

During the 1950s and 60s, before America was thoroughly homogenized, when I still liked it here, Alliance had no Holiday Inn Express, Motel 6, McDonalds, Kmart, Pizza Hut, 7-Eleven, or Dunkin Donuts. Hard to imagine, but we had two proper hotels: the downtown Drake Hotel and the Alliance Hotel across from the train station, both locally owned with real lobbies, bellhops, public dining rooms, full bars, and banquet halls. When my parents could afford it, I loved eating in these hotelschicken-fried steak on mashed potatoes smothered with onion gravy was my go-to favorite. Alliance also had two drugstores with classic 50s-style lunch counters, soda fountains, and jukeboxes. My mom worked at a shoe store called HowardsHoward and his wife were family friendsand my dad was the editor of the local paper. My best friend Naces dad worked at the Maytag appliance store, one of the few national businesses. There were three ice cream stands, one of which stayed open all year round even when the temperature dipped below zero, and two family hamburger places, the better of which was Rexs Hamburgers, where they sold fifteen-cent miniature burgers fried in three inches of grease on a smoky-hot griddle, served in little square dinner rollsjuicy and delicious; my brother and I could eat dozens. The grocery stores were all family owned; no chains until a Safeway opened up in 1962. Hardware stores, auto shops, a lumberyard, the farm implement company, an honest-to-Jesus smoke-filled pool hall with eight-ball and snooker tables, a drive-in movie theater where you could eat popcorn and lose your virginity while watching Jerry Lewis in The Bellboy , and a downtown movie theater that sponsored Saturday morning kiddie shows where during intermission Pepe the Clown (local sign painter Leonard Glarum) would drive his toy clown car out on the stage, make silly jokes, and hand out dorky prizes. Strategically located next to the movie theater was a candy store, and not far away were an all-night bakery and a doughnut shop.