Chapter 2

Table of Contents

Chapter 2

          The merchants of the census-designated place of Cornudo, Arizona, not numerous or prosperous enough to call themselves a chamber of commerce, once met informally and decided that if their place was ever to become more than a place, but a full-fledged town, they needed to carefully control the message. 

     For this reason they put together a Facebook page in which every photo of their settlement was captured during a rainstorm. This took some doing.  Nobody had bothered to take a rainstorm  smart phone picture since the advent of smart phones, simply because there was nothing goof to take a picture of, dry or wet.  So some of the members went home and rummaged through faded family albums and forgotten shoeboxes in mice infested corners of cobwebby garages, until an acceptable half dozen or so pictures were found of Cornudo being battered by rain like the Pacific Northwest.

     This is why if you google Cornudo, Arizona, it looks as soggy as Seattle, as drizzly as London.  There is not a single photo extant depicting the dreary dryness that is daily life there.

     The merchants of Cornudo did this because they thought that the commerce of their designated place was suffering from its reputation as a dry desert shithole. 

     The problem with the online photographs, however, is that they just made Cornudo look like a damp desert shithole.   There was nothing water could do to improve Cornudo's appearance, short of flooding it off the map, so business continued as mediocre as ever. 

     As they cruised down Cornudo's main street in Mike’s F-150, the view facing Michael Gasden and Tony Vargas was the same one that a couple dozen fat finger computer visitors had accidentally found, minus the rain. 

     “Nice truck, kid," said Tony as he reared back with the seat controls, as if permanently settling in. “Did you buy it new?"  

     "Um-hm.”  Mike was eyeing the unauthorized fondling of his seat controls with paternal territoriality.

     “Wow, you must have made some scratch, or you got a rich Daddy."

      “My Dad is broke," said Michael, a bit peeved that he was constantly being put through this line of questioning.  Nobody expected a young person to have any money, and the next comment from the passenger's side would imply that this must be ill-gotten gain.

     Tony winked. "You didn’t steal it, right?  Not that it's any of my business."

     Michael sighed.   People had warned him unwanted pests were going to crawl in from the desert, and they were right. 

     "I had a software company," Mike said wearily. "I sold it."

     Tony snuggled down a little more in the seat, like a bird preparing to dump an egg in its nest.  

“Wow.  Did you have your own factory and everything?"

     Mike tried not to roll his eyes, but they still did a little half revolution in their sockets.  "We made computer programs. We had an office, not a factory."

     “Your own goddamm office, that's sweet. Did you have cute little sex-retaries running around getting frisky with the boss?"

     This time Mike did roll his eyes, full circle.  "No secretaries."

     "Too bad."

      They pulled up into the dirt parking lot of the Cornudo Cafe.  The café was announced by a sign containing a poorly rendered rattlesnake, or perhaps it was a centipede.  Nobody could remember what the artist was thinking when he painted it, or even who the artist was.  The sign made Mike’s stomach squirm.

     "You're going to love this, kid,” said Tony.  “This is better than your Momma's home cooking."

      As they entered the café there was another, lower sign with a floral decoration that had been intended to be bright and cheerful, but for lack of artistic ability turned out wilted.  The faded flower announced the Rosebud Lounge, a bar around the back that was open all day and most of the night, just like the diner.

     “They start drinking early here,” Tony told him.

     The Cornudo Cafe was packed on a midweek morning, a fact that somewhat reassured Michael’s stomach, unsettled  by the venemous diner sign.

     "Morning boys," said a blonde waitress wearing a Henry's Hard Soda T-shirt and slightly faded jeans, of the purposely ripped variety.  

     “Don’t this job pay enough to buy new pants?” said Tony, sticking a stubby finger in one of the tears. The waitress slapped his hand down, then held up a cheek for Tony to kiss, which he did not hesitate to do. Michael thought the waitress had hypnotizing blue eyes, their sparkle having resisted the harsh weathering of the desert.

     “This is Linda Lloyd," Tony said to Mike.      Le dicen Linda porque es muy linda.

     “Flattery won't improve your credit here," said Linda.  She had just the slightest hint of a charming small town drawl common in these older towns south of the Gila where cotton was still king and trailer parks stretched to the horizon.  “Welcome to town, tootsie pop.  You spelled your sign wrong.  Supposed to be G-A-D-S-D-E-N."

     "Leave him alone Linda," Tony growled.  "The kid knows exactly what he's doing.  He happens to be an entrepreneur."

     “Being the big fat tick you are," said Linda, “he’s not in town five minutes and you’re already sucking him dry.”

     “I just make friends easy, unlike some people.  That’s his last name up there on that sign.”

     Linda laughed and almost dropped her coffee pot.  "Are you kidding me?  Is that really your name up there, buttercup?”

     Mike nodded and blushed as Linda stroked his arm lightly.  Despite pushing five decades, she still knew how to excite the hormones of the opposite gender with just the slightest touch. "Honeybear,  you're going to fit in good around here.  Say, you're handsome.  I have a daughter about your age."

     Tony nudged Mike along toward a table.  "Come on Linda, he just got here.  Don't get him mixed up in your trailer trash family baggage."

     “Look who's talking!" She snapped back.

     The Cornudo Cafe was a study in the word utilitarian.  Outside of a few uninspiring cowboy themed pictures hanging between its broad windows, no attempts had been made to conform to a scheme of interior décor. There was nothing so cosmopolitan as a booth on the premises, just a few randomly scattered cheap patio tables which may have been there since the advent of plastic. Opposite of most diners, there was no window into the kitchen.  The cook, a burly bearded man named Max who had been birthed in the kitchen and never left, didn't like to be gawked at.  Maybe he was spitting in folks food back there, maybe his culinary methods would not pass health department muster, but no one was complaining.  So far as anybody knew, nobody had fallen seriously ill eating food prepared at the Cornudo Cafe.  The joint was once accused of food poisoning, but the outbreak turned out to be from the Cracker Barrel in El Paso.  

      The Cornudo Cafe was Interstate 8's best kept secret.  The truckers knew about it, which was why the parking lot was about half a football field.  Passing motorists mostly shunned it, dissuaded by the venomous beast on the sign or just the general look of the place, which might as well have said botulism in blinking lights above.  It’s dilapidated nuclear test ground look gave the vibe that it served as a way station for a host of experimental diseases that might have escaped from secret government facilities that dotted the desert, or crawled over from Mexico.  The locals didn't care that their little restaurant created negative perceptions for passing drivers.  It made it easier to get a table. 

     You could get just about any kind of cuisine you wanted to at the Cornudo Cafe and if it wasn't on the menu Max was willing to give it a try.  He cooked Mexican food, hamburgers, and Chinese with equal aplomb.  People would come from as far as Yuma for pizza carry-out.  As far as anybody knew, Max never left the building.  Since 1977, there had never been a documented sighting of him outside.  There were rumors he was chained to the stove but they could not be confirmed because nobody was allowed in the kitchen.  For the most part, locals approved of Max being held prisoner because they loved his cooking any time of the day.  In it's treatment of Max, the Cornudo Cafe was violating a host of labor laws, even in Arizona, where there are very few ways to abuse an employee that you can't get away with. 

     Mike and Tony took a table.  "She seems nice," Mike said, hissing the 'c' sound like a snake.  Mike regularly hissed his 's' and 'c' sounds.  It was a California androgynous thing.

      "Who Linda?  Oh yeah, she's great.  You ever got a problem, come down here and talk to her.  Don't talk to me, I'll just make you feel worse."

     They enjoyed a delicious breakfast of eggs, hash browns, toast, and sausage that actually had flavor.  "The meat comes from Mexico," Tony told him.  "They got real pigs with flavor down there.  Instead of pumping them with steroids they let them roll in the mud and eat their own shit.  That’s why it tastes so good.”

     Mike looked up from his plate but there was no hint in Tony’s gleaming, mischievous eye that he was joking.  What the hell best fucking sausage I ever had.

     The café door chime sounded.  Tony looked back then Tony got nervous and leaned in closer to Mike.

     “Hey kid, just go along with everything I say, okay?  You don’t want anything to do with these guys who just walked in.  Don’t look up, don't call attention to yourself.  Just trust me.  For once in your life, trust me."

     Michael thought it odd that he was being called out on a lifetime of distrust when they had met less than an hour ago. He heard some chattering and empty giggling behind him as some new arrival flirted with Linda, then a beaming bullshitter's smile lit up Tony's face.

     A tall, husky man in a huge cowboy hat and wardrobe inappropriate khaki shorts towered over their table.  He had on an olive green hunting vest with several patches embroidered onto it.  The largest of these had the double blue letters FF  set against a white and red striped background. 

     “Well, look what the cat dragged in," said the big man in the cowboy hat.  His huge sombrero had assorted pins of various military units stuck into it, but unknown to Mike, he had never served in any of them. Tony and the tall man exchanged a ghetto handshake, which looks stupid when white people do it but does not stop them.  “If it ain’t Tony Vargas, the man who chokes on his own jokes.”

     "Morning Eddy" said Tony. "Didn't your Momma teach you you're supposed to take off your hat inside?"

      The big man, known around here as Catalina Eddy, though he had never set foot on the island, jumped back a little in surprise then removed his imposing lid. "Goodness me where are my manners?"

     “That fucking hat doesn’t let your brain breathe, cabron," Tony said, and they both laughed.

     When the insincere laughter had died down between these two dudes who obviously hated each other, Eddy turned to Mike and extended a hand.  “To whom do I owe the pleasure?” he said.

      Tony shot Mike a covert look of warning.  “This is my nephew Mike, from California.”

      Eric's ample gut jiggled with humour. “I find that almost impossible to believe.  First of all, he doesn’t look beaner enough to be your nephew.  Secondly, It begs credulity that someone would drive out to this goddamn desert just to visit you.”

     Tony laughed in rapid fire stacatto.  It was clear that both these men were hiding their mutual loathing behind a mask of mirth.  “Well you know people are marrying whoever over there in California.  You got all kinds of half beaners And half gooks running around, not knowing which end is up.  He came out here to find himself.”

      Eddy gave a smile that had menace and charm in equal proportions.  “Are you going to help him find his identity on the strip club circuit, like you did?”

     “Come on, Eddy,” Tony laughed, “only the fat strippers work this early.  We're heading over to Tucson to see the Sonoran zoo, then later we’re going to hit the bars.”

     “Always a man of impeccable taste,” Eddy said.  “No good zoos in California?”

     “The kid wants to see a desert zoo,” he said.  “He thinks he likes the desert.”

     Eddy and Tony both exploded in laughter, simultaneously, and this time it sounded real.  “Well, I hope you get that out of his system quick,” Eddy said, and slapped Mike playfully on the shoulder.  “Hope to see you around, young man.  You seem like a nice kid, and if you want to stay that way don’t visit your Uncle here too often.”

     Eddy walked over to a table with a small group of similarly patched associates, all of whom having an unwashed, disheveled look, as if they had slept beneath cacti.  Tony and Michael finished their meal, then Tony began patting his pockets.  “Oh shit, I forgot my wallet back in the room,” he said.  “Let me go see if Linda will let it slide until next time.  I got good credit around here.”

     “Don’t worry,” said Michael.  “I got it.”

     Linda was shaking her head, watching the scene from behind the register.  Poor kid, she thought.  They’re going to eat him alive, out here.

     After Tony and Mike had left the restaurant, Eddy pointed out the window to the Gasden Motel sign in the distance.  “I might be mistaken, he said to his rough associates, “but I think they spelled the sign wrong.”
   

Next >>   

Image of:  Rattlesnakes sign, Route 66, near McLean, Texas by Carol M. Highsmith

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rattlesnakes_sign,_Route_66,_near_McLean,_Texas_LCCN2010630154.tif