Ohitika Woman

by Mary Brave Bird

  The weather had suddenly changed, as it often does in the mountains. We were left standing on the road without jackets, freezing. Whatever money we had set out with was long spent—for beer mostly. I had only enough left for a phone call to get some friend to wire us some mazaska, but the only phone I could find was broken. We were shivering and our teeth were going like castanets. The ground was covered with frost. At 7:00 A.M. the jail door opened as they let out another wino, a Cheyenne who owned a car without a heater. He took us to his place in Lodge Grass, Montana. At least it had a stove and some wood to get us deiced. The walls of his cabin were covered with Playboy triple-spreads. He treated us to some pan-fried bread and luncheon meat. He invited us to have some Montana gin, that is to suck up Lysol through a slice of bread, but we had just enough sense left to decline. The Montana gin soon had him lying on the floor, open-mouthed, his eyes bulging, but, thank God, still breathing. We stumbled around in the wilderness but finally got a ride with some Crows. We were now in Crow country. Our new friends took us to their home in the Big Horn Mountains. They gave us a hot meal, hot coffee, and coke, which got us sober. They also gave us all the money they had on them, nine bucks—Crows, our former arch-enemies! It got us to Landers, Wyoming, and from there we walked ten miles to the kid’s uncle, who was half Shoshone and half Sioux.

  After it turned out that the kid wasn’t particularly good at breaking horses, and instead almost broke his back, we decided it was time to go home. I was still without wheels. I found a used-car lot where they had a clunker with a five-hundred-dollar price tag. It was a mess but the motor was still in halfway usable shape. I phoned Richard, who was by then back in Santa Fe, for help. He wired the money. The car lasted exactly one day before the kid totaled it. Richard called all this a “remarkable odyssey, a real anabasis,” whatever that meant. As I said before, he has a patient heart.

  When you are drunk, you get into fights. You tie one on, and then you look for your enemies. If there are no enemies, you fight with friends. You get into free-for-alls, even if that’s the last thing you want. I went partying in Valentine, Nebraska, forty miles south of the res, with two friends, George and Ron. I was drinking Everclear, grain alcohol, 150 proof, and was lila itomni, real drank. George called me into the back room and said: “I don’t really feel like going back to the res.” I said: “Me neither. At least not for a while. I’ll party a little bit more and go back later.” I was admiring a cute little baby and when the mother, who was also far gone on Everclear, showed up she thought that I wanted to steal her baby. I told her I had enough babies of my own. It just turned into a big old-fashioned bar fight. Her whole family got into it, and George and Ronny, too. There were more of them and they got the better of us. That woman went berserk. She went outside, got hold of a hammer or rock, and was smashing up the windows of our car. Before she could finish the job, we just jumped in and took off. It was about 1:00 A.M. and freezing. We got out of Valentine and as far as the cemetery when the car broke down. We were all booze-blind and beat up. A trucker stopped and took us all back to Mission. I should have called my sister Barb and Jim, her husband, but I didn’t think of it. I was beat up so bad that I went into shock. I could hardly talk. My face was so black and swollen even my best friends could not recognize me. They took me to the hospital. The police came, took pictures of my face, and wrote down my statement. After that I hyperventilated. I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was dying. That went on for some two hours until a nurse came and gave me a shot. When they let me out, Jim had one look at me and was ready to load his shotgun to do some damage. He only calmed down after somebody told him that the people who had beaten me up, the whole family, were medically insane and suffering from delusions. That was the first and definitely the last time I drank Everclear.

  I got into a fight at Irish’s bar with a close friend of mine named Tina. We were both pretty drunk and I said: “Those are my beers.” We started shoving each other, and she pushed me over the table. I fell and hit my head right on the corner, which gave me a big shiner. We hugged and made up at once. She is one of my best friends, but when you are soused you don’t know who you are and who everybody else is. That is why friends, even brothers, sometimes kill and maim each other in a red haze of drunkenness.

  While I was in Santa Fe to do taping for this book I got some money from my publisher and used half of it to buy a fancy-looking secondhand car. Then I set out for Rosebud, about eight hundred miles away. Richard was very dubious about my driving alone. But I can be stubborn and insisted there was nothing to it. He said: “For God’s sake, don’t drink while you are on the road. Don’t drink at all. Drive straight home to the res.” I promised. I should have listened, but I stopped at Pine Ridge to see an old girlfriend who had been at the Knee with me. Liquor is a criminal offense on the Ridge, so I should have been careful. I was just going to stay over one night and then drive on to Rosebud. I was almost home. But when we ran out of booze we went to a bootlegger who sold us two pints of Canadian Lord Calvert whiskey. I said: “Let’s go to the dam at White Clay and watch the sunrise.” So we parked up there and got into the Lord Calvert. But after someone reported that I had almost run into somebody, two tribal police guys showed up. They told me to get out of the car. I had been sitting on a dime bag of weed without knowing it. I don’t even know to this day how it got there. I was in a jam. Trouble always finds me. Or I find it. Drug possession being a federal offense, the FBI came down from Rapid City. They searched me and found the sixteen hundred dollars I had left from the publisher, money I hoped would last me three months. “Aha,” they said, “drug money.” They were convinced that if an Indian woman had that much cash on her, it had to be drugs. It was all my own doing. Nobody had put me in that situation. I had put myself there. The FBIs asked me whether I wanted to talk and I said no, an automatic answer ever since my old AIM days. They put me in the can and kept me there over the weekend. I had not even seen my kids yet. I was arraigned on Monday and they let me out on self bond. The judge was a woman and real nice to me, I think because of Lakota Woman, which was already out. Of course, they had me on DWI—driving while intoxicated—a mandatory thirty days. Then they charged me with possession of pej. I never went back to court because I did not want to serve the thirty days. I had a hell of a time getting my car back, which was full of presents for the kids. My money had in the meantime gone from Rapid City to Pierre, the state capital. Richard and the publisher had to make innumerable phone calls and send documents that proved that this was honorably earned money. I had to drive ninety miles to Pierre to get it back. For the first time in my life the FBI treated me with a modicum of respect. It was almost as if I had been white. They told me: “You have a book out, and it’s good to see somebody from the reservation making something of herself.” But they also threatened me: “Don’t kid yourself. This won’t be swept under the rug.”

  I climbed into my yellow, fancy-looking car, which already had started crapping out on me, and went home to my mom’s, where I dropped off all my stuff. After spending a week in jail I wanted to go to the club and kick back. Most of all, I wanted to be alone with myself. I told Mom: “I have to go to Mission to get something I really need.” Then I went to the club. I ended up by buying a case of beer and getting a room in the Antelope Motel. As it snowed outside I sat there, all alone, drinking myself into oblivion—out of disappointment and because of being bone weary of the gypsy life, forever staying in other people’s places. I wanted a home where I could raise my kids. I wanted to put down roots. I had a good cry and felt sorry for myself, particularly after the case was gone.

  I don’t even remember how often I landed in jail in connection with my drinking. Once you get caught up in the scene it is hard to get away from it. There was a point when I just wanted to turn myself in for treatment, because I was aware that it was hurting my kids to see me partying. Whenever things got too bad I’d jump in the car and cruise around drinking. Three years ago I spent New Year’s Day in jail. I
had been partying, drinking Martini and Rossi, using beer as chasers. Out of the blue, I don’t know what drove me, the devil I guess, I said: “I want to go to Parmelee, I want to go to my hometown.” On my way to Parmelee I saw a car by the side of the road, broken down or out of gas, and some unhappy guys standing next to it. So I stopped and took them into town. One of them, a young man called Blue Horse, was an old acquaintance of mine. We got to talking and I said: “Hey, you want to go onto Norris and get a twelver?” And he thought that was a great idea. We got the twelver and got back to Parmelee, where I parked the car to open the case and celebrate. That was very stupid, because I parked very close to where a police car had placed itself strategically to watch out for itomni New Year’s revelers. Right away there was the cop charging me with reckless driving. He said: “Your car was seen running into Alonzo Smith’s yard, doing considerable damage.” I assured him that it wasn’t me, that it had to be another car that looked like mine, which was the gospel truth, but I got the heat from that anyway. They took me to jail, and here I was in the drunk tank again, and it was packed. I said: “Happy New Year to all!”

  And only two weeks after that incident I, along with my friend Tina, got thrown in again for “public consumption,” that is, for drinking beer out in the open, on the street. So that was another “sleeper.” They put you in for your own protection and release you after twelve hours. I was sick of myself after that.

  Even after my big wreck in March 1991 I was not at once ready to quit. Mom doted on me and did everything she could. I was still in pretty bad shape, but I was also restless and mad because I wasn’t able to move around. Mom’s place was so crowded that it made me itchy. I felt imprisoned so I got a place of my own. But after I was taken off medication I started to drink beer to ease the pain. I started drinking steadily. Mom got tired of me and said: “You’re still in shock. You need to go back to church, you need to see a psychiatrist, you need to go back to the hospital. You don’t have a wreck like that and walk away from it and go back doing what you were doing before.” But for a good month the drinking helped me fight the pain. Then I didn’t need it anymore because there was less pain.

  Then one Sunday I went to Debbie’s “night club” with some friends of mine. I grew up with Debbie and it was in front of her house that I had my bad car accident. We were sitting around having a few rounds when Debbie came over to our table. She said that if I wanted anything it would be on the house. So I went for it, having double shots of Jack on the rocks, and got pretty loaded. The friends I was with wanted to leave. I said: “I’ll just have one more round, I’ll find my way back.” So they took off, leaving me still downing double shots. Debbie told a friend of hers to take me back to town. He took me back in his van, but he didn’t know where I lived, and I was in no condition to show him. He took me to his home in downtown Mission. I was completely gone and only wanted to sober up a bit. He said I could either come into his place or lie there in the van. I told him: “I’ll just lie outside for a while.” After about fifteen minutes I got up. I did not want to run into any cops, so I just walked around the side streets, but the police found and stopped me anyhow. They said: “Where are you going?” I told them: “I’m just going home. I live right over there. I’m almost home.” “Get in,” they said. I knew they were taking me to jail for a sleeper.

  Again, Mom knew about it from her scanner. And she was upset. I almost got used to that, being in jail. They won’t let you make a phone call for twelve hours. If you’re intoxicated they’ll put you in the drunk tank. While in there I’d meet people I knew. At least if you’re in with other people it’s better, you can talk, and it helps pass the time. You can sing together, sing the AIM song or forty-niners. There’s not many fights in there; we’ll talk and joke—"I wonder what we’ll be eating.” And we know what we’ll be eating—a little bit of oatmeal with cold, bitter coffee. That’ll be your breakfast. The food is terrible. But one time we got thrown in the jail at Kyle, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, for a liquor violation, and they fed us good! But the Rosebud jail is bad. The drunk tank is just a toilet, a floor, a sink, and a camera so they can keep tabs on you. No beds. A cold tile floor. When someone flushes the toilet it’s so loud it echoes, and the whole building shakes as in an earthquake. You’ll hear keys jingling outside, followed by voices: “Jailer, what time is it?” “What time do we go to court?” “Can I make a phone call?” But you don’t get to do anything. You can rant and rave but it doesn’t do you any good. Then they put you in a cell, with usually four beds. You have to carry in your own mattress, and they have sticky, itchy, old wool blankets, but by then you’re grateful to have them, after being in the “chill tank.” They are pretty cold-blooded in the Rosebud jail. It has a sign over the entrance reading HEARTBREAK HOTEL, and they aren’t kidding.

  Of all the different groups and races that make up the so-called melting pot, we Native Americans have the highest suicide rate. And that again is linked to despair, which, in turn, leads to drinking. One could even say that driving while intoxicated is a form of Indian suicide, because so many die from it, or are maimed for life. One suicide, committed two years ago by a close friend of mine, still haunts my sleep. His name was Pewee Leader Charge. He was a kind and gentle man, immensely talented, a fine artist and gifted poet. He was in Vietnam and received a terrible wound that left him with a bad limp. He had been a member of AIM and was at Wounded Knee during the siege. He was also an incurable alcoholic. For a time he was married to one of the most beautiful full-blood women I ever met, a Navajo whom he had met while in college. They had a child, a lovely girl named Anpo-Wichahpi, meaning Morning Star. His wife’s mother ran an antialcoholism center at Fort Defiance, in Arizona, and she was always after Pewee to make a solemn oath in the presence of others, promising to quit drinking. And always he refused, saying that he was not ready and did not want to make promises he could not keep. His wife finally left him when she saw that she would never be able to stop his drinking. So he came back to South Dakota.

  He tried many things, but always alcohol messed up everything. He was thrown in jail, again and again. Sometimes his own mother called the cops on him. You couldn’t blame her altogether. She could not handle it anymore. She just got tired of bailing him out, time after time, and paying his fines.

  I had great love and respect for Pewee because he was very much involved in the ancient beliefs of our people. I grew up with him and it was he who took me to my first sun dance and showed me its beauty and meaning. The summer he returned to South Dakota he wanted to pierce at Joe Eagle Elk’s sun dance, but his mother told him not to do this because he was not worthy, because he drank too much. And that hurt. It might have been the last straw. He got drunk and wound up in jail—for the last time, as it turned out. His mother would not bail him out. She had long ago given up on him. And it was true, he was hopelessly tied to the bottle, and all his intellect and talents could not help him. Two veterans from Nam, Bill and Jack Menard, tried to get him out of jail. They went to the tribal judge and asked him to release Pewee because he was still suffering from his old wound as well as damage from Agent Orange and Vietnam stress syndrome. The judge refused to let him go.

  I was sitting under the arbor after the sun dance, at Crow Dog’s Paradise, when Pewee’s youngest brother, Bobby, came up to me with tears in his eyes, telling me that Pewee had hanged himself in jail. They have TV cameras in the cell and the jailer is supposed to watch them all the time, but nobody was watching when Pewee died. There was a rumor that the jailer was making it with one of the girls who take the calls. There are always rumors. I was stunned. I felt a cold hand squeezing my chest. Then the tears came. Pewee was me, was all of us.

  Bobby showed me Pewee’s suicide note, addressed to his sister, Rita. He said that he was just tired of it all, tired of being always a scapegoat, tired of the life he was leading. He wrote that he loved his family very much, but that they all could go to hell. He asked that Crow Dog should bury him in the traditional
way, not in a coffin, but in a star blanket after being put for a while on an old-style funeral scaffold. He wanted to be with the old people who had died a hundred years ago. He did not want a Christian burial. Neither did he want his body to be transported in a car. He wanted to be driven in a wagon drawn by horses. He named who his pallbearers should be, the ones who would carry him in his blanket. He wanted only Vietnam and Wounded Knee veterans to bury him. He wanted to be laid out in a tipi, and they used one of Jerry Roy’s for that. Being a good artist, he made drawings of what his funeral should be like. At his grave he wanted a buffalo skull, his sun dance outfit, his pipe, and all his sacred things. I felt so bad when I went to his wake. All the traditional people came, the whole town of Parmelee. My mother came and was overwhelmed by the beauty of his old-style going to another world. Everybody prayed—in Lakota and English, in a Christian, or peyote, or Sioux religion way. When they buried him in Grandmother’s bosom, an eagle circled overhead. People said that it was Tunkashila taking Pewee to the spirit world. After that I had a kind of breakdown. I said to myself, over and over again, why did he have to go like that? I got a case of beer and just drank.

  But by his death, Pewee made me a great gift. His suicide was one of the main reasons I finally quit drinking for good. I knew I was depressed but that drinking only made it worse. I thought: “Pewee is gone, but what about myself? Alcohol almost took me to the other side, where Pewee is now.” I wanted to commit suicide myself. Mom said to me: “Don’t even think about this. You have a family. You think you’re alone. You are not alone. We are all praying for you, worrying about you. You have a life to live. Choose life over death. You have been away from us too long. You’d better go to church, or to your peyote church, or to a doctor, or to Uncle Fool Bull, who is a medicine man. You have to straighten up and get well.” So one morning I got up, smiled at myself in the mirror, and poured the last bottle of Jack down the drain.