Soda Lake, Montana wonder land/ draft one /part one

Soda Lake, Montana wonder land/ draft one/ part one

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


You can't go to Soda Lake anymore because it is on the Indian reservation and the Indians, excuse me Native Americans around here have gotten empowered from the gambling casinos they own and their lending businesses. My Father who is a banker admired our local Native American tribe as lenders, he reluctantly admitted; who else can loan out money at 80% interest by Television and get away with it without the State Attorney General shutting you down. Gambling is a very lucrative business for our Indian tribes, even at our cheesy Native American casino here in Montana; it isn't Vegas but Vegas is a long way from here and everyone likes to gamble they say. Our Indian tribe locally is very rich now and they like to throw their weight around and have about twenty five armed security personnel who keep visitors away from Soda Lake part of their sacred lands.

Soda Lake back when I was a boy was an exotic place to ride our bikes out to. You couldn't sink in the carbonated water because of the salts and minerals and the red  bubbling water was a mild hallucinogenic to drink. Before I got so obesely fat a dozen of us boys from Bartole would ride our bikes up there and do the Spa thing. After a long float I was always  kind of hung over and sick from drinking the red water which took a toll on your system because of the high mineral count. Now the Indians tribal leaders from the casino have their security vans monitor Soda Lake to keep away Hippies and New Age types who want a drink from the Lake that Timothy Leary mentioned in one of his books as a good place to get high back about a hundred years ago. Tribal security here carry rifles and those Indians will shoot and bury a body so they don't have to fool around with death certificates or drag your corpse down to the coroners office.

As I said I am very fat, six foot-seven four hundred pounds and since I was fifteen I had trouble moving around. While everyone else was playing sports and dating in high school I decided to work and save money since I was too fat to run anymore and no girls would look at me because of how I looked. I fitted a large ugly white station wagon with ten seats and would work as a taxi service driving tourists out to see the Indian reservation or to see the Mountains that were in the Cowboy and Indian movies. I called my station wagon taxi the beast because it had a very powerful engine and was like me ugly and gross to look at.

I met Michelle Towers the singer strictly because I had the Beast and she and three of her friends needed a ride out to Soda Lake. You might not remember Michelle Towers but she was a famous singer in the 1980's and looked like a blond Madonna or Debra Harry and had a quirky personally and was very popular for a while. She also was very beautiful and vivacious. She came to our high school before she was famous to finish her senior year because she had gotten pregnant and had a baby girl about three years ago. Then before she was famous she was just the pretty worldly girl from California finishing high school diploma at our hick town of Bartole, Montana.

One day at school Michelle Towers came up to me and ask me to drive her and three of her female friends out to Soda Lake to skinny dip. I fell in love on that trip to Soda Lake not with the now famous singer or any of her friends but with Michelle's two year old daughter Lisette who I baby sat and entertained there in my station wagon while the girls splashed around in Soda Lake back on a cold Spring day in 1983 before Indian security from the Casino arrested us all including the baby girl and took us to Sheriff Walters office in downtown Bartole.

Meeting Michelle Towers and her daughter Lisette back in April of 1983 changed my life and that's what I am going to write my Next magazine article about " Soda Lake, Montana wonder land".
end part one