My House Guest From The Reservation

Wow, I had to delete hateful and angry comments about my French house guest (not to mention a few angry emails). Both were ad hominems -- for letting a stranger have a place to sleep?! Allow me to one-up my prior post then and we'll see if we can't really stir some feathers.

When I was 20, I lived in Albuquerque where I was attending the University of New Mexico. I lived at the time in a barrio-type neighborhood in a studio apartment next to the airport. I think I paid $350 a month for the place -- which wasn't cheap, my first place in a total horrid place was $270 a month.

One of my next door neighbors was a guy who'd just gotten out of prison (for what, I don't know) who lived with his girlfriend. As a funny aside, one time I gave them a ride somewhere and offered them each a piece of gum from a brand new big package of chewing gum. When I dropped them off, I reached for a piece of gum -- and found the pack empty! That explained why the guy suddenly had become unintelligible in the backseat as we drove along.

Anyway, one of my other neighbors was a family of Navajos who were trying to make a go of things outside of their reservation. One night my girlfriend at the time and I came back very late on a freezing cold night in ABQ (that dry desert cold in the winter can bite, though it's nothing like NYC's winters). Sitting on a bench in the apartment complex was this Indian woman wrapped in a blanket.

She stirred as we walked by, and opened her eyes. I greeted her with a nod, and she smiled back. "What are you doing out here?" I asked. "I thought I was supposed to meet my cousins tonight, but they're not here and it's freezing."

I asked her if she'd like to come into my place for some hot tea. She said sure. While we were in my place, I offered my gf if she'd want me to take her home. She said nah. So I had a La-Z boy recliner that I'd bought at a flea market and that lady slept in that chair that night, while my gf and I slept on the mattress that I had on the floor.

She left the next morning as my gf (who played volleyball for UNM) and I (who played hoops for UNM) left for an early morning of weights. She was very gracious and thankful of course, although I think she did feel quite uncomfortable when she saw the life-sized naked woman half covering herself in a shawl that my friend had painted on the wall.

I never saw her again. And, apparently, yes, get this angry people -- I lived to tell about it and it wasn't some scam!