I’m sure I’ve mentioned here before my 5 -year stint living on an indian reservation where the little lass was ultimately born. Well, this story made me laugh my ass off…..if anything, it neatly sums up what it’s like to live on a reservation and the type of people you may encounter. Don’t get me wrong, I grew to love the rez and later on the people that live there because they are truly giving people that taught me a lot about myself and I obviously have fond memories of living there because duh, my daughter etc….and we are both part native (her more than me so those are her peeps yo lol)
When I lived out there I worked with a ton of women who’s husbands worked in the oil fields when I worked for the phone company there and so I learned about that lifestyle pretty fast through them and their life stories. One of ex #1’s best friends who died of a meth overdose a couple of years ago was an oil field rat. I fought him being our friend because of his “reputation” but he ended up being one of my best friends as well over the years. He was a very “simple” yet caring guy that would do anything for the people he loved. In fact, he gave us a $400 grill once that he stole from Walmart lol. He just drove up to the store one day in his huge red duely truck, picked up the best grill they had on display outside of the store (it was July so they had them outside on display with the swing sets etc..) and brought it over. He wanted to thank us for including him in our “family.” He used to come over all the time after that and I grew to really like having him around because he used to help me do stuff around the house that ex#1 didn’t have time for.
For instance, my cat Mitzi died when I lived out there. My family adopted Mitzi when I was in the THIRD GRADE! So ya, this cat and me…we had history. So my cat died and ex#1 had to work (again.) She actually died in my arms and afterwards I put her in a shoebox so we could bury her but my ex was too busy to dig the grave……it ended up that Wylie came over that day and took care of it for me…I recall him calling ex #1 on his phone and saying “seriously, you don’t have time to bury your wife’s cat?” LOL he spent hours digging a hole in our backyard b/c it was Winter and the ground was frozen to bury Mitzi for me. Looking back now I see that he probably had a HUGE crush on me but at the time I just needed a friend and he was there. I counted on him actually and he was good to me.
Granted, a lot of his “reputation” was well deserved…he was a fucking meth-head, womanizing manwhore who dropped out of high school and sold skank weed dimebags to teenagers to support his much larger habits. Looking back now I am able to look past that and remember the nice things he did. I recall us having dinner once and him telling ex #1 “man, you don’t treat your wife very nice, if I had a wife like her I would never treat her that way…shit, I’d leave your fuckhead ass…” and I did end up leaving not long after that actually lol. I kind of regret never saying goodbye to him because I didn’t…I just left and a few years later ex#1 told me he was going to his funeral. He left behind an 8-year old daughter that lived with his ex in Wyoming. I believe he was 31?
I have always regretted that I never got to thank him for standing up for me, making me laugh and being my friend in what was a very lonely environment for me…under all that roughness was a really kind soul that just couldn’t overcome his own sadness and succumbed to drinking and drugs until it killed him like so many others do on the rez. (R.I.P. Wylie!)
Anyway, this story though…TOTALLY dead on and hilarious as hell. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. BC is a great writer. I’ve been too lazy to write with the holidaze and all but I am going to try harder this year to make this place more fun and interactive. I swear!
p.s. I do believe in Skinwalkers btw and no I’m not a meth head lol