life is neongrün

"Want something to eat, Nerburn?"
"What do you have?" I asked.
"Fry bread."
Icould see the golden balls leaning against each other like puckered doughnuts on a piece of newspaper next to the stove.
"Absolutely," I said. The doughy lard pastry had to be one of the wolrd's least healthy foods, but it was a staple of most Indian diets, and it tasted wonderful.
She handed me a piece of fresh fry bread wrapped in a napkin, then two more to pass to Jumbo. The grease leached through and covered my fingers.
"Better look inside, Nerburn," Grover said fro his seat across the room. "Reservation fortune cookie. Might have a food stampof inside it."
The others roared with laugther. It was inside humor and far from politically correct. But iwas a sign that I was no longer an outsider. They were willing to make fun of themselves in my present and their barbs were directed at each otehr, not at me. I pulled open the fry bread and gave a shrug.
"Just not a lucky guy," Grover said.


I was doing my best to wash the shampoo out of the cuts on my arm to stop the burning.
"You can use my knife if you want, Nerburn," Grover said. "Just tie off, take a shot of whiskey, and get rid of that arm. Just like the old days."
"Well, I don't have any whiskey," I said. "And thiis one of my two favorite arms. I think i'm going to save it."
"Suit yourself."


Dan: "Let's go around back, find a better place to sit. It's better than going back in that motel room. A guy should always try to have a sky over his head. Besides, it increases my odds."
The reference eluded me. "For what?" I asked.
He jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow. "That I won't die looking up at a lightbulb."


I shook my head with amazement. We had driven for a day and a half and where within a few miles of a place that had haunted his dreams for almost eighty years, and now we had to stop for lunch.
"Find a place with French fries," he said. "I like French fires. You can count them."
"Well, I guess that's important."
"It is. I like to eat twenty-eight."
[....]
"You got French fries?" Dan asked.
"Yes, sir," the man answered.
"I'd like twenty-eight," Dan said.
"Twenty-eight it is," the man said, as if it were an evereyday request.
[...]
Finally, with his food in the proper order, he picked up one of the French fires, broke it in half, and rubbed the two pieces together.
"Giving thanks?" I said.
He looked at me like I was the dumbest person in the world.
"No. Getting the salt off. Doctor said it ain't good for me."
"You could have just asked the guy to hold the salt."
He had stuffed the first one in his mouth and was gumming it around. "Who ever heard of French fries without salt?"

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