Meanderings One.

The promise of warmth drove me toward Los Angeles. I had never been there, and the hatred bred within my Colorado heart to abhor that city needed to be confirmed, or denied. Looking out across that wind-swept desert, stretching out between Grand Junction and the Sierras, filled me with excitement.

What drivel.

The cars made their goings down the highway I lived off of. The slamming of car doors, opening and closing, kept me awake in my drowsy sleep of imperfection - too hot, too cold, somewhere in the middle, but anxious. 

The cars are our protective bubbles. They replaced the horse, whose majesty evolved alongside our own. But now, we had evolved our own mechanical slaves that run on ancient sunlight and come with climate control.  Driving through the Reservation, looking into the expanse of a black and cloudy night, and so little infrastructure, wondering what the car has brought the American Indian - is it the same power as the horse?

I wondered if the Indian selling shoddy jewelry at the gas station was truly in need of a tank of gas. After we drove off into that dry and frigid night, my fingers cracking from the lack of moisture, shame overwhelmed me. I should have given something. But, lacking job and taking this trip on credit and with the hope my new degree would bring a career, we were, ourselves, in the beans-and-rice times.  Yet, here I sat, comfortable in my car-bubble, free from fear of the frigid cold, and that Indian was peddling jewelry for gas. 

I hate myself. 

I hate my culture. My race.

My Programming.

I can’t get his face out of my mind, my fear of him, my shame of where he is, of where I am, because of all those before me have taken. Have, ‘won.’

I could have helped. I should have helped. But years seeing those around me fall to addictions have programmed me to believe most asking for money are asking for fuel, not to feed their protective bubble cars, but to feed their damage with substances that make them forget. I cannot give through channels of peddling and cardboard signs, with that money possibly feeding someone’s need of bottle or powder.

How Imperial.

We drove on, after I tainted their water with my Imperial urine, to defeat the storm that came upon him that night. And I couldn’t spare a tank of gas.