SoC 3:1

Empty Dream Catchers

 

A s Avery drove onto the Leech Lake Indian Reservation lands, she never noticed the Palace Casino sign lying on the ground pointing right; she turned left toward Moccasin Flats and danger. Her arm ached from driving hours with the brace on. How stupid it was she fell on ice but she threatened to sue that hotel and they gave her a free stay at the casino. The winds picked up as lightning flashed across the darkening sky and the radio announced a severe thunderstorm warning for the Cass Lake area.

She drove through the town lost and worried as the wind blew debris across the street. Suddenly, she heard a loud snap and a piece of plywood tumbled into the front of the car. She tried to swerve. Her wounded arm caused her to struggle with the steering wheel and the car skidded off the road as she slammed the brakes on. The car crashed into a line of trashcans, not stopping until it hit a wall thus setting off the air bag, which pinned her into the seat.

She couldn’t and gasped, on the wall next to the car were the words, “Moccasin Flats—hell on earth." Then darkness overcame her.

She opened her eyes and noticed night had arrived. The pain in her arm became intense as she moved it. She pushed the air bag away from her face and tried to squirm out of the car but the door wouldn’t open. She leaned against it with all her weight and shoved. It creaked open and she fell into the street grimacing as she landed on her arm. The smell of garbage and sewage permeated the air. She stood up and saw crumbling, dilapidated houses. Piles of wood littered the street. Graffiti covered most of the buildings. A baby cried and a dog barked, as someone yelled something she couldn’t understand followed by a loud bang. The quiet became eerie after that. Until from too far away to help, a siren wailed.
She remembered her phone. Trying to scramble through the car with one good arm was impossible. The dome light failed to come on and the dim street light didn’t help. Her bags, laptop, papers and three suitcases of clothes lay scattered throughout the inside of the car.

Lights flickered on in a row house across the street. Should she ask for help? Fear filled her, as laughter came from down the street as a gang of boys entered the street. Avery staggered away from the car and tried to hide behind a pile of wood.

“Look at that fancy car,” someone said.

The sound of breaking glass filled the street as they surrounded the car. They all pulled her things out of the car, her suitcases hit the ground with a thud as clothes scattered everywhere. One boy held up a pair of her panties and stuffed them into his pocket.

Another yelled, “Cool,” as he found the laptop and another held up her phone. A tear slowly trickled down Avery’s cheek and fell into the brown water running under her.
\

She said a silent prayer, “God; please don’t let them see me.”

Her brace caught on a nail when she leaned against the wood. She pulled it loose and the wood shifted. At first it wobbled then the whole stack swayed and finally crumpled with a thud and a cloud of dust enveloped her. Everything on the street became quiet. When the dust cleared, she felt naked as she stood there in the open. The boys all turned in unison. She now knew what a deer felt like as a pack of wolves eyed it.

After a minute of total silence, the apparent leader said with eerie calmness, “Get her, but I’m first.”

The group of boys yelled out as they slowly approached her. Another unanswered prayer Avery thought, as she turned and ran. Rain started to fall as she heard their footsteps getting closer. She tried to yell as she ran but nothing came out. Occasionally, she saw a face in a lighted window but as she got closer, the lights went out. A drunken man staggered out of a house and fell down, she managed to avoid him but the gang stumbled into him. She saw one light stay on ahead of her and aimed for it. It became her only hope. She couldn’t go much farther. She ran up to the door and pounded on it then collapsed against it. The door opened and a teen girl caught her as she fell in.

Avery looked up and said, “Help me.”

The girl held her and then slowly sat her down. Then she yelled at the approaching boys, “Stop.”

“Give her to us, Dana,” one said between gasping breaths.

“Yea, we just want to have fun,” another said.

Dana put her hands on her hips. “You won’t touch her. I called the police, so you had better get out of here.” Dana looked at one of the boys, “Darryl, aren’t you on probation and Ronald, I might fight you myself, or tell your grandfather.” A silence followed, the only sound she heard came from the rain dripping off the crumbling roof. Steam rose from the street as the rain fell on the hot street making the boys appear like ghosts as clouds of steam enveloped them.

Finally, one said, “Let’s go.” They turned and left heading back to the car to divide her belongings.

Avery calmed down and her heartbeat steadied. She looked up and said, “Thank you.” Taking some deep breaths she added, “Their going to steal my things.”

“Better they mess with your things then with you,” Dana said.

Avery stood weakly and looked into her big brown eyes. She remembered the boys called her Dana. “Okay, Dana.” Dana helped her into a tiny room where an old woman slept on a chair, snoring loudly.

“Ignore my grandmother. She drank too much.”
Dana helped Avery sit into a chair and used a washcloth to wash Avery’s face. Dana said, “I didn’t call the police, I just told them that.” She left the room and Avery heard her on the phone.

The house consisted of a few small rooms and crooked steps up to bedrooms. The living room was the size of her bathroom. A table in the kitchen was composed of milk crates and plywood. Holes dotted the walls. A cracked window let in hot air and rain. A rattling fan was the only air-conditioning. Avery lifted her feet as she saw a string of cockroaches slowly crawl under her chair.

Dana returned, “I called a cop I know, he’ll be over when he’s on duty in the morning. I don’t trust all the cops but this one is a friend. You can sleep in my room tonight.” Avery suspected why she didn’t want to call the police, either fearing retaliation from the gang or trouble from the police.

“I can’t take your bed.” Avery said.

“It’s okay. I’ll sleep in my father's room, he’s not here.”

She hugged Dana again. “Thank you.”

Dana smiled. “Good night, try to sleep. I’ll watch out for us,” she patted her side. A long knife shimmered as she lifted her shirt up a little.

Sleep came slowly, she tossed and turned as pain, and soreness covered her whole body. Her sleeping pills were lost along with everything else. When sleep came to her it was filled with nightmares of gangs and cockroaches.

A loud knock woke her up and she heard Dana talking to a man. She hoped it wasn=t one of the boys from last night. Dusty sunlight filtered through the torn curtains brightening the room. She avoided a small dusty mirror that begged her to look into it; terrified of what she would see.

An old photograph on a shelf showed a man and a woman in traditional Indian clothes. They were holding a baby, perhaps Dana. Behind them, there was a storybook cabin next to a picturesque lake. It was a beautiful scene. Avery wondered what happened to them. How did they end up here?

She looked up and noticed that hanging above the bed was a small object. It was composed of string and shaped like a web with a hole in the center and some white feathers trailing off it. She knew right away that it was a dream catcher. They’re supposed to let nightmares pass and catch all the dreams. There must be many empty dream catchers around here, Avery thought.

A man’s voice spoke loudly, “You should have called 911, Dana.”

Avery walked down the steps. The police officer stopped talking and watched her.

Dana said. “This is Avery.”

“Hello Avery, I'm Officer Jesse Butler with the Leech Lake Tribal Police,”

She told him about everything that happened and told him three times that Dana saved her life.

“I drove by your car. It’s not good. You had better call the rental agency.”

“I guess all my belongings are gone.”

“I’ll take you there then we'll have it towed.”

Dana stayed there to watch her grandmother instead of the other way around.

She hugged Dana again and then stepped outside into the morning sun. She saw more despair in the daylight then she did in the darkness.

“Welcome to Tract 33,” Jesse said. “Some people call it Moccasin Flats. It's just about the worse place you could have picked to be stranded.”

The smell of filth filled her nostrils and her stomach flip-flopped. She wondered if they had public sewage. Smoked pummeled into the sky from a fire nobody bothered about. Empty bottles littered the street. Toddlers strolled down the street, unsupervised. She got in Jesse’s patrol car and they drove to her rental car. They passed people walking down the street, some in traditional Indian clothes and all had a blank, straight ahead stare.

Jesse stopped the car suddenly, as a little girl in torn clothes wearing bright feathers in her pony tails walked straight ahead almost unaware of their presence.

He got out of the car, “Shayna, How are you doing?”

“Okay,” she said.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to the store for my mom,” Shayna said.

Jesse gave her some money. “Buy some candy for yourself.”

Shayna smiled, as she twirled her ponytails. “Thank you,” she said.

Jesse said, “Goodbye, I’ll check on you later.”

“Cute girl,” Avery said.

“Yes, she is but the sad thing is she has to take care of her mother who is often sick or drunk. The poor girl definitely has some kind of traumatic stress syndrome, as the so-called experts would call it. Her family has had three funerals in the past year.”

Avery stared straight ahead, as they drove to her car. When they reached it, Avery gasped, seeing the car and the area. “I never knew this place existed or how bad it is.”

“Nobody does.” Jesse said as he stopped the car.
Every window on her car was broken. The door creaked as he pulled it open. She peered in as tears filled her eyes.

“I’m sorry, I could ask people if they saw anything but I know they won't say anything because they're too scared.”

Avery thought, Dana knew who did it but she wouldn’t make her tell on them.

“It's just a rental car but I did have a lot of things inside.” Avery said.

Jesse nodded as he called for a tow truck. “I know you lost many things that must have been important to you.”

Looking around, she said, “Not that important.”

Jesse looked at her. “Avery, do you need a doctor?”

“No, thank you, but I do have a reservation at the Palace Casino Hotel.” Now she only had the clothes on her back.

“I’ll take you to the station and then drive you.”
At the station, she noticed pictures on a wall behind Jesse. A picture of a little girl caught her eye. The girl wore a pink dress with pink bows in her hair and a toothless smile that highlighted a dark face with big brown eyes.

“Who is this little girl?” Avery pointed at the picture. “Why is her picture on the wall?”

“That’s Renee. She died in an arson fire. She was only seven years old. The pictures are of murder victims. We put the pictures there so we will never forget them although it would be impossible to forget little Renee.” Jesse stopped writing. “Unfortunately, her teen brother was friends with the wrong people. They set fire to their house while they slept. Renee never got out nor did her parents and her brother is still missing. People are too scared to talk, so we have no witnesses. Therefore, there are no arrests.”

Avery was stunned. Faces covered the wall from the floor to the ceiling. “It’s so sad.” That’s all she could say. Avery thought of Dana. She risked her life to help me. She shook and felt chills.

“Are you sure, you don’t want to see a doctor?”
This time she didn’t refuse. Jesse drove her to the medical center. The doctor there prescribed pills for her nerves.
She used the doctor’s phone to call her friend Laurie. “Hello Laurie. I’m still in Minnesota.”

“Avery, how’s your vacation going?”

“I got hurt and lost in a bad place but an angel named Dana saved me.”

Laurie laughed, “You’re joking. Guess what, I saw Peggy with John Benson and . . .”

Avery didn't hear a word, “I’m losing you, bye.”

She didn't want to listen to gossip, how unimportant that seemed to her now. She tried not to feel guilty, thinking of owning three houses but she couldn=t suppress the quilt of her past apathy.

Jesse drove her west on route 2, the direction she should have gone last night. They arrived at the Palace Casino, owned by the Chippewa Indians. Jesse told her that few Indians worked here.

She also doubted that many benefited from it. She checked in and found her room.

Jesse said, “Avery, do you want me to come and check on you later?”

Avery feeling alone in a strange place said, “I would like that.” She showered and changed into clothes the police gave her. She looked up and noticed that no dream catchers hung above this bed.

Jesse took her to dinner. She sensed he liked her but hoped he wasn’t just feeling sorry for her.

She told him, “Jesse, I came to Minnesota to meet someone I met online. He