Chapter 18

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Chapter 18

The effects of the unrelenting sand-choked wind reduce human civilization to a striking degree of similarity, no matter what part of the globe the scouring air performs its slow erosion upon. The cinder block homes of Cornudo were, in effect, the great pyramids of Egypt in miniature, surrendering their stucco to the atmosphere in microscopic bits. The wind did not respect the pharaohs, and does not honor would be monument builders among American Presidents, either. If the mightiest of men builds a wall the still mightier wind will reduce it to sand in due time. In the desert everything is eventually reduced to sand and this new sand, in turn, mounts the breeze to reduce other things to sand.

Even International borders revert back to sand this way. Drawing a line in the sand is a ridiculous proposition, and this is why the Mongol hordes could not be stopped, this is why the Israelites could not be contained as slaves in Egypt, and this is why the present day milk and honey seeking migrants from Syria to Central America cannot be suppressed. The desert scoffs at human geography. It laughs at man’s political maps, then pushes its grains of sand where it will, with no respect for the aesthetic appeal they will produce pinned to some man's wall.

Tony Vargas was being blown along like a grain of sand across the kitty litter box of the Gadsden Purchase. One day he bounced to Mexico, the next back to the USA. He couldn't tell the difference between them. Each dusty desert town was just another set of human Prarie Dog mounds, burrowed ever so fleetingly into the sand.

Back when Tony had a home to fall back on, his numerous friends across the great width but limited breadth of the Purchase - friends that were, in fact, as uncountable as the grains of sand, were always ready to receive him. But now that he was homeless, clunking along in the Love Machine like a traveling Gypsy, he was just a nuisance who should be run out before becoming a permanent fixture.

In Why they asked Tony why he was always dropping in unannounced. In Reforma they told him to get reformed and change his vagabond ways. In Somerton they advised Tony to go somewhere else, man. In Ajo a lady friend pleaded he stop taking those damn garlic pills for his heart, because they fouled his breath when he tried to steal a kiss. In Naco the people remonstrated that he stop acting like the town name. In Douglas nobody had a copper penny for his thoughts.

While Tony was clunking around the map, looking for that elusive welcome, searching for a friendly place to take a load off after his rude treatment by the kid at the motel, from time to time he would hear a loud thunking noise coming from outside. "I blew a goddamm tire," he would think, then pull the Love Machine to the shoulder.

When he got out he would see huge green military choppers, like monster metallic dragonflies, passing close overheard. Their whirring chopper blades, in fact, accounted for the noise, his tires were fine. So Tony would pee on the roadside so as not to waste a stop, then get back in the Love Machine to be on his way.

His way went unappreciated, unloved, and unwanted in the four Arizona counties, plus a slice of New Mexico, that together encompass the Gadsden Purchase. Even the Striggys girls gave him the cold shoulder these days. Women can smell the stink of desperation on you, Tony realized in a philosophical fugue, and desperate he was, really desperate. The Love Machine had turned celibate, had taken priestly vows.

Tony was by no means destitute. He had his railroad retirement sitting mostly unspent in the bank, because he didn't pay rent and suckered the kid into buying almost everything. That was okay, the kid had more money than he could spend in ten lifetimes.

How was the kid doing anyway? Probably really shitty by now without him around - the FF would have moved in to shake Mike down for protection money. The FF was just another gang with an operating territory that included Cornudo. When Tony was living at the motel they stayed away because he was a super chingon railroad thug who could still call upon his thuggery skills when needed, and call in other thugs as necessary. But Mike was at the mercy of those shit heads and even worse, shit heads who were yet to crawl out of the sand. Did that bother him? A little. But who had started it? Mike had chased him away because he was fixated on that two timing squinty bitch who put her hand in between Tony's legs when they were alone in the truck. That was when Tony bought the MAGA hat and started the get rid of Lisa process. But the scorpion in the shower? Shit - he only wished he had thought of that first. That was beautiful.

What about the Little Fucker? Tony felt really bad about leaving Little F alone the way he had. The helicopters meant the noose was going to tighten on the boy, and his protector Mike was an unknown quantity. Mike was not a fighter, that much was for sure, but Tony admired his stubborn streak. Muy terco, like him. The kid had brains too. Hopefully that would be enough.

After a couple of days of clunking around, sleeping in the back of the Love Machine, taking showers at truck stops because he was too cheap to get a motel, Tony crossed from Mexico, where he could find no quarter, back to Arizona again in an endless cycle of border hopping, feeling like he had finally scraped bottom, that not a soul in this world gave a shit. He had heard no word from Linda, had been proffered no apology from the kid, which he would have graciously accepted after making Mike squirm a few extra days. It was in this orphaned state that Tony washed ashore in Gila Bend.

He drove up to the river bank, mostly dry and suffocated by gray green Salt Cedar that had not enough foliage to hide neither bird nor vato, not enough water to save a fish from drowning, but nonetheless impassable to him. All he could do was look across the river wistfully. There was a girl on yonder bank in Buckeye who would take him in in a minute, but she might as well live on the fucking moon. There was no way he could cross that stream, no matter what a pathetic trickle it was.

Can fish really drown? he asked himself. What do you call that, when a fish has no water? Is it possible to drown in air too?

Why couldn't he just cross that fucking river to find love on the other side?

He would die, that's why. He would go into seizures and die. Mom had warned him about that. Was it worth dying just for a piece of tail? Hmm...depends. That would be a helluva way to go, but did he want his obituary to read “Died fucking?”

At that thought, Tony started thinking about Maria.

Meanwhile, over on the Nogales end of the Gadsden Purchase, Dustin Diesel was thinking about Doris. His thoughts were not as wistfully romantic as Tony's were - standing in the rheumatic elbow of the Gila River several leagues away, but instead revolved around about how pissed off Doris was going to be at him for missing her sister's birthday party.

"Aren't you the Sheriff? What good is wearing that big heavy badge if you can't do whatever you want?"

The badge weighed on Dustin like never before. It made his left man-boob sag distressingly. "You know that's not true, Doris. I'm a public servant. That means I have to sacrifice certain things from time to time."

"Why don't you ever sacrifice your drinking parties with your buddies? It’s only when I have something coming up, something you’ve known about for a year because it happens once a year on the same day, that you suddenly feel the call of duty. The rest of the year you're having one of the deputies shuttle you back and forth between benders."

How Doris found out about his occasional drinking outings was one of the confounding mysteries of women. Dustin covered his tracks thoroughly, even intimidating witnesses on occasion. Still, Doris could outperform any detective on his force, sniffing out a trail of debauchery like a bloodhound. Dustin often said that forensic science was wasted on men. A woman could take one look at a room and know exactly what had gone on there, without needing carpet fiber, blood splatter, or DNA analysis.

"I'm sorry honey but my hands are tied. This is something really big."

"Well you better get a big name lawyer, because there's going to be a messy, expensive diivorce after this."

Doris had been threatening divorce practically from the day Dustin said I do over 40 years ago. Of course, she had never followed through, but the warning still managed to throw Dustin into a funk.

The “something big” Dustin told Doris about didn't seem so big in comparison. It was a word that started with a capital B, all right, but that word was Bullshit. The Feds had Dustin's sheriffs sifting through the innumerable thorn-choked ravines, gullies, and arroyos surrounding Nogales, without telling them what they were looking for. "If it looks human-generated bag it," a particularly robotic, sunglassed G-man named Agent Smith instructed them.

When Dustin's officers toted back Heftys filled with paper cups, cigarette butts, beer cans and used condoms, Smith looked peeved. "I didn't tell you to bring back trash!" he raged.

“You said anything human generated," Dustin reminded him. "All of these items are made by people, including the contents of the prophylactics in those bags.”

"Do any of you hucksters have any brains,” he said, passing his reptilian tongue across his lips. "I mean something good! Don't waste my time on this shit!” He went to listen to the radio in his G-man sedan, pissed and worried at coming away empty handed again.

Armed with this vague directive, the Sheriffs Deputies of Santa Cruz County were driven off into the brush with a heightened sense of purposelessness. As he tilted his Smokey Bear cap up, which had slipped down over his eyes once more because it was a loaner a size too big, one such Deputy, named Prescott, complained. "Hey, I went out there last time.” He gave Sheriff Diesel an injured look.

Dustin Diesel pulled his badge away from his sweaty and beleaguered man boob, affording it some relief, as it was hanging even heavier than it had that morning. "Listen Prescott," he scolded the impertinent rookie. "Someday your punk ass will get some seniority, and you'll get to stand here and supervise. In the meantime I'm the Sheriff, so get back out there before I replace you with another Arizona city. I'm sure Deputy Williams or Deputy Kingman won't complain about crawling through the brush. Step up your game and tone down your mouth."

Deputies Prescott and Wickenburg, quite ironically named for obscure Arizona municipalities no one would ever get right on Final Jeopardy, moved grudgingly down a slot canyon. In the past, Dustin Diesel mused as he watched them sulk away, he would have gladly taken his turn at the grunt work, but the truth was he wasn't feeling too good lately. Just yesterday, while on a drunken hunting jag with the boys, he had missed a shot at a quail for the first time ever. He didn't know what the hell was happening, but his legendary aim was off. His eyesight had suddenly gone a little fuzzy. Luckily, no one had seen him miss, but he was going to have to give up hunting now. if word got around to the bad guys he had missed a shot there was no way he could maintain law and order around here. Every hunkered down hoodlum within fifty miles of the border would come crawling for him from out of the cactus.

Deputies Prescott and Wickenburg cursed and kicked rocks as they labored their way down the rugged ravine. "The boss seems cranky today," Prescott complained.

“Don’t take it personally. He's going through a midlife crisis."

“Midlife?"

“Yeah, midlife crisis, that's what they call it." Wickenburg sounded annoyed.

"Why do they call it midlife crisis? That old fart is more toward the end of his life, if you ask me.”

“That's just what they call it, asshole. Pay attention. Maybe we can find this thing and go home early.”

Prescott got pouty for a while, until he looked up from the rough terrain, not compatible with his spit shined dress shoes, and spotted something halfway up a Mesquite that seemed to merit attention.

“What's that red fuzz up in that bush, Wichita?" he said, pointing upward.

“Wrong state, idiot. I’m Wickenburg."

“Oh," said Prescott, not sounding particularly enlightened by the geography lesson. “Can’t you see that hairy shit in the tree?”

Wiickenburg scrutinized the distant clump. "Some kind of animal fur, I'll bet. There's a lot of wild jackasses out here in the desert. Sometimes they get horny and rub up against a bush. They leave hair everywhere."

“I don’’t know," mused Prescott, "I’ve never seen a red jackass. Maybe we ought to check it out.”

"Hey, dickweed," said Wickenburg. "I got a lot more years on the force than you. Besides that, I'm not touching that fuzz. It could be a biohazard."

Prescott peered at the mysterious, unkempt fur ball in the bush. It didn't look so much like burro hair to him but then again, what did he know? Best to leave it to the experienced experts, like Deputy Wickenburg here. Besides, he wasn’t much in the mood for fingering donkey pubes.

“Anyway,” said Prescott, “That asshole Smith said no trash. That looks like trash if I ever saw it.”

Wickenburg nodded agreement, then they kept moving on up the ravine.

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Image by $1LENCE D00600D, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons