“I will scalp a bitch. That’s my bloodline…” she said. The presence of a protective angel with a side of creeping death. Here, we’ll simply call her 11. Not that there was some sort of grand meaning to it all—finding meaning was like Where’s Waldo?—but the Gypsy off Decatur had told us we were both 11s, and that together we were 22 and unfuckwittable. We were making our own meaning and ignored the Gypsy’s consternation as we departed. I didn’t need external justification, because the week prior I’d danced for 11.

Before we’d lit outta Talibama, I’d given 11 a key to my Nana’s house, and she’d crept in at 3 a.m. We’d overslept and my mama was non-plussed that I was sleeping with an Indian chick, even though I’m part Cherokee. Florrie had slapped me in the face—HARD—and said, “Get the fuck out.” I complied, stole her car, then headed for South Dakota with 11 riding shotgun.

Any illusions that our visit to her family in South Dakota was meaningless were bitch-slapped outta me when I was standing belly-to-belly with her daddy, the Chief, staring straight thru me over sips of coffee blacker than Pazuzu’s soul, and he’d asked, “Are you sure this is what you want?” and I’d responded, “Anything for 11.”

“Okay,” he said, side-eyeing 11’s brothers, “We start tomorrow. Buckle up.”

I ain’t gonna be accused of cultural appropriation and get my ass kicked by 11’s daddy. He vouched for me. He sponsored me. You ain’t getting the tea. So I’ll tell you what the ritual wasn’t:

No wellness retreat with yuppies puking and shitting in buckets on ayahuasca with a fucking babysitter in case the trip got too intense.

No gore fetish with underground people thinking they’re badasses hanging from hooks. No bravado. No jeering. Just you under the hot sun realizing God ain’t doling out mercy that day. Only pain as currency for community. No revelatory Western delusions of grandeur that meaning was contrived bullshit and opting to be a hermit poet per Heidegger, a cock-sucking, snitch Nazi supporter—the best we could do for 20th Century philosophers…

No fucking “me” after I survived this shit. There’s no ego death without blood and pain and suffering. Watching Lost Highway on PE mushrooms ain’t cutting it, brau.

I danced for 11’s protection. I danced for her healing. I danced for her future. I danced for our bond. I danced for my ancestors watching. I danced for something bigger than myself. I danced for redemption. I danced for meaning. I danced for honor. I danced for the right to stand beside her. I didn’t dance for me.

We drove straight thru the nite to NOLA listening to The Jesus and Mary Chain. 11 started cramping-up around Wichita and we stopped for gas and Midol. I was a hot mess, still wearing a blood-soaked Ramones tee-shirt. The clerk was an older Bible-thumping white lady and felt obligated to save my soul. Bless her heart. I was 17 and had heard this shit my entire life and only now understood—spirituality is violent; spirituality costs blood; spirituality changes you; spirituality demands sacrifice; spirituality was an atavisitic insurgency, not a mega church in a parking lot.

Now, we were in NOLA for some real fuckery and hi-jinks and shenanigans, and I was leery of running into my ex in the Quarter. 11 was spiraling. Bad. About all the shit she’d suffered under her step-daddy in Talibama, and something had to give.

We were down in a bar in the 9th Ward and my ex had run-up on us. 11 didn’t scalp her. It actually went down to where they were chatty, other than my ex throwing a glass of red wine in my face. Alcohol equals veracity, and my ex sniffed out 11’s trauma like a bloodhound and was raving about a ketamine clinic over in Metairie. Sounded like as good of an idea as any. And after 11’d gotten black-out drunk I schlepped her back to our motel with the plan to go get an infusion in the a.m.

You can dress this shit up any way you like, but it was just cold florescence and glossy brochures with walls smelling of Lysol and resignation. I didn’t wanna be there, but the seed had been planted by my ex, and here I was delivering up 11 to these doctors and their medical solutions for spiritual wounds.

11 didn’t respond well to the treatment and went comatose. After about two weeks in the ICU, the doc declared to me, like it was a weather report, that 11 was FUBAR and then there was talk of “compassionate release,” in other words killing her, and it was down to me or a family member to decide on co-signing her death warrant, and we’d need a witness. I wasn’t about to call up her daddy and tell him I’d played a part in killing his daughter, so I got my ex to witness the papers, and they pulled the cord. Compassionately.