I drove past this store in Gallup, NM, nearly every day for a year and never bought a chicken. I was not happy enough to eat chicken in Gallup. But I did not go to Gallup to be happy or eat chicken. I went to Gallup for the money, which I suppose puts me in the questionable company of Wal-Mart, McDonald's, car dealers, loan sharks, rug dealers, pawnbrokers, railroads, coal companies and most other white people who have shown up in Gallup over the years. It is not the kind of place people go to find happiness, unless they are Navajos who come to town and drink the cheapest alcohol they can find. Navajos call winos "glahnee." Many Navajo glahnee have developed a taste for a very cheap sweet wine called Garden Deluxe. Other Navajos have developed a taste for the chemicals in a can of even cheaper hairspray (Aqua Net, etc.). They call it "Ocean" or "Ocean water." They mix the chemicals with water in a gallon plastic jug. Ocean is popular because it is easier to shoplift hairspray than real alcoholic beverages if an Indian is broke; minors can buy hairspray (no ID needed); it can be bought (dirt cheap), even on Sunday. Alcoholic beverages are not for sale in Gallup on Sundays; however, a thirsty Navajo with a little cash can head over to Wal-Mart and buy all of the hairspray he wants (Wal-Mart is right at home in Gallup, seining pennies from the poor and thirsty and hauling them away to Arkansas). Someone said, "The one good thing about 'Ocean' drinkers is they boost the self-esteem of the ordinary drunks by giving them someone to look down on." I am neither a Navajo nor a drunk but found my own place in Gallup's hierarchy of misery and thirst. Because I could afford my bottle of whiskey and my little house to drink it in and read books from the Gallup public library while I was drinking it, I suppose in a world of Ocean drinkers I was a prince of tides. I spent my miserable days in Gallup working at a job with no future. I spent my miserable nights sipping my whiskey and reading my books about other places and missing my wife. My thirst for whiskey, books, my wife and other places grew more unquenchable with the months. Sometimes, because I dreaded work and I dreaded what was not work, I prowled the gaps between daylight and dark. I never knew quite what I was seeking, but I kept a camera with me in case I found something. On this day the setting sun broke through rainclouds as I passed this sign on the way to my house. It was enough. I photographed the light where I found it. It is the only way to live in Gallup.