My brother elbowed me.
“That’s not the Native American way of saying ‘peace.’ It’s Indians from India who say that,” I corrected her timidly.
Serena shot me a look.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s the energy the word carries that counts. You should know that.”
“Amen,” concluded my father.
The high sun emanated a metallic light that cast a wild luminescence on the tall grass around us. The wind blew through the holes in my Salvation Army thermal underwear. We were all too vulnerable under the huge South Dakota sky. It felt like it would swallow us whole, inter us into its sacred land with the lost tribes.
We planted Serena’s cyclamen bulbs close to the mass grave. We all knew they would never turn into flowers. A graceful hawk circled in the sky. On our way out we noticed a large FOR SALE sign on the back side of the cemetery’s fence. The eighty acres of the Wounded Knee Historic Landmark were being offered for more than a million dollars by the owner of the land. What was left of the Sioux tribe could not afford the price.
—
From the parking lot, the Prairie Wind Casino and Hotel looked more like a warehouse than a hotel. A long, horizontal cement structure extended from both sides of a faux-tepee sculpture that served as an iconic entrance gate. On each side of the building, rusty billboards depicted multicolored horses galloping into the wind.
“Feel the Wind and Feel the Win!” an advertisement said.
My mother was drawn to the idea that the place was owned and run by the Sioux. Choosing to stay there was a way to pay them back. While my parents checked in, through the revolving doors I caught a glimpse of a lonely Native American Elvis impersonator getting hammered at the bar, preparing for his evening performance. We were all aware we had ended up in a desperate place in the middle of nowhere, but we also knew that saying anything would precipitate Serena’s final breakdown and ruin the rest of our vacation. We made a silent pact not to mention drunk Elvis or the senile gamblers who sat like zombies in front of the slot machines next door.
Thanksgiving lunch was served at the casino buffet. We could eat all we wanted for $13.99. My mother’s quasi-religious views about Indians and their tribes, about the purity we had to give back to the once-virgin land, disappeared into a plate of turkey nuggets and canned cranberry sauce. Over our heads TV screens looped diamond-studded gambling catchphrases: “Cold Days, Hot Cash!”
A giant turkey with dollar bills coming out of its tail fan winked: “Free Thanksgiving bingo. We’ll give you something to be thankful for!”
I forced myself to eat and smile and prayed that my mother’s furrowed brows would smooth out over her eyes, that her lip would stop trembling and time would go by fast.
—
The five of us stayed in the casino’s Black Elk Imperial Suite so we could all fit. The kitchenette was decorated with a framed portrait of the very white Charles Fey of San Francisco, the man who invented the first slot machine. “A big THANK YOU Mr. Fey!” read a golden plaque beneath him. We visited a hot tub in a glass house in the casino’s internal courtyard. The water was lukewarm and brownish, but hot tubs were exciting for my family. Any kind of pool or water container that fit people was. If it had the ability to produce bubbles, generate heat, and massage body parts with jets, it made an entire journey worthwhile.
We bathed in silence. Nobody else was in the glass house.
My grandmother, in a golden one-piece bathing suit, exhaled through the vapors. Her hair turned turquoise under the neon lights. She was trying to get the sore parts of her lower back directly in front of the tub’s jet. I imitated her and sat in front of the gushing water, pretending I also suffered from incurable ailments.
“Watch out for hemorrhoids! They can creep up on you if you let the jets in your anus” she warned me.
I didn’t know what hemorrhoids were but I knew I didn’t want anything in my anus that was problematic for my grandmother’s. I floated under the neon lights. The windows got fogged up. We were bathing in a hospital room and I knew then, with complete lucidity, I did not want to be there.
6
Dear Mary, please forgive me and please make sure my parents forgive me. It is time for me to leave. I cannot stay in this country with them. I must find a solution. I know you were a teenager when you had Jesus so you must know what it feels like to be handed a situation that is unmanageable. You might think giving birth to the son of God is more traumatic than living in Van Nuys, but I think that’s because when you were alive you never visited the San Fernando Valley. It’s easier to be a virgin who gives birth than to be an Italian who lives on Victory and Sepulveda. Amen.
Ettore and Serena came back that night elated from playing blackjack—the free drinks in the game room yielded the desired effect. When they fell asleep I packed a bag with peanuts, tonic water, two small bottles of vodka, a banana from the minibar, and ran away from the Prairie Wind Casino and Hotel. A bunch of local kids were partying at the hot-tub glass house, skinny-dipping and drinking whiskey from bottles. A good sign from Mother Mary. I walked straight into the glass house and picked out the man I thought might save me: Alo. He vaguely resembled Ethan Hawke. If I worked with my imagination, I could pretend he was a celebrity. I didn’t know how to approach him because he was naked and pale, so I went back outside, opened my bag, and downed my minibar vodkas for courage. I waited a few minutes until I was sure my good judgment was impaired. In my mind it was imperative that I make a wrong choice that night. Any wrong choice. It was the only way to break free.
I observed the vaporous glass house from outside and admired the flashing breasts and butts simmering in the tub. As soon as Alo left the group to get cigarettes, I took a breath and made my move. I asked him for a smoke and drunkenly introduced myself to him, trying not to look below his waistline. I told him I was Italian and traveling around the United States alone, looking to have fun.
“Do you have any weed or hash or Jack Daniel’s?” I asked plainly.
Alo exhaled his Marlboro Red and looked at me with focused, excited eyes.
“Are you for real? Where have you been all my life?”
I laughed lasciviously.
He said smoking pot was a sacred thing and it was important to do it in the solitude of nature. He saluted his drunk naked friends and loaded me into a pickup truck. We drove toward the hills.