| My dad stopped at an Indian
reservation during one of my childhood vacations. I don't remember
where we were or where we were going. It looked like anywhere
else: farmland, old cars, lead skies.
He walked into one store and returned with six cartons of cigarettes, threw them over mom's shoulder into the backseat. He told me not to touch them. I asked what they were; I wasn't too old yet and thought cigarettes only came in tiny, plastic wrapped bite sizes. "Penance," he said. |