Chapter 25

Table of Contents

On the modern day map of the Gadsden Purchase, there are a lot of nameless blank spots, expansive swaths that entire states could fit into. These have no label, though they are certainly cohesive units because they have been assigned a color. Not so much a color, really, as a stain. On Google maps, for instance, there is a brown stairstep-shaped stain running almost from Yuma to the Tohono O'odham Nation. Rhode Island could fit in there with Connecticut and have room to wiggle its toes.

Google, perhaps, does not think the stain is important enough to dignify with a title, but if that is true why even bother to stain it? A popular theory, of course, is that the government is doing something insidious and conspiratorial in the stain, like building toxic weapons or storing alien aircraft. This is the most widely accepted version, an idea adhered to by pretty much everyone, except the inhabitants of the Gadsden Purchase. These people, more than any other on Earth, completely understand why some places don't have names, and really shouldn't. But they will kindly take your money if you are stopping over to look for some non-existent alien aircraft facility.

Tony Vargas, meandering his way about the Gadsden Purchase, knowing where he had to go but not wanting to do anything hasty, drove across the stain on secret back roads, not worried at all that an alien air force would hit him with a stray smart bomb or he would run into some forgotten biological warfare canister. In this way he made his way through the town of Why, which lived up to its name, then onto the reservation. Shortly thereafter he got into a fight and got arrested.

When Tony worked for the railroad, he had a coworker named Tucker who liked to brag about being arrested in seven countries. Besides Mexico, Tony Vargas had never left the country, but he had been arrested down there, plus 7 Arizona counties. In his thinking he had Tucker beat. Come to think of it, he had also been the guest of the Tohono O'odham Nation’s lockup on more than one occasion, so that made nine arrests. Fuck Tucker.

Tony woke up in a jail cell, appropriately in a place called Sells, where there was always a cell waiting to accommodate people like him. A scrawling on the wall reading Trump ‘16 - Bite me Beeners was the first thing he saw. The first thing he smelled was puke wafting over from the toilet, which could have been his own. Hopefully his own, when he thought about it. The first thing he heard was the heavy stomp of shoe leather, which could only be law enforcement. The door clanked open, sounding like the angel rolling away the stone. Just like the recipient of celestial largesse in that other story, Tony felt like it could take him three days to get his ass moving. This was the first time he had slept in a bed in weeks and he didn’t want to get up.

"Get up Tony," the deep growl voice of Tohono O'odham undersheriff Jay Johnson coaxed him. Tony rolled over but made no effort to rise.

"Fucking arrest me," he said.

Jay Johnson was a big, dark, square-jawed man, which was not surprising, but other than that he was dressed like any white cop would be - olive green pants, khaki shirt and all the appropriate patches on his uniform. His apparel struck Tony as highly amusing.

"Where's your goddamn war bonnet, chief?" Tony asked, trying to prod the undersheriff into some police brutality, so he could stay in the cell.

Undersheriff Johnson was not amused. "Don't try to goad me into locking you up for another night. One night is all you get. You're a drain on the tribal economy. I told you last time you don't have to get drunk to spend a night in the lockup. Just drive up and I'll let you stay one night. One night."

"Hey I didn't pick that fight. Fucking Cochise in the bar threw the first punch. I just defended myself."

Jay Johnson tapped his heavy foot. "In the first place, Cochise was an Apache. Making that mistake is a scalping offense in this country. You're lucky you still got that little patch of hair on your head."

Tony tapped the top of his head protectively. Maybe these goddam Indians had scalped him in his sleep. "Shame on you about the scalping. That's hate speech."

"Whatever Mr. bleeding heart. You were too drunk to remember, but I believe the fight started when you called air quotes Cochise a Papago pussy, or something like that."

"Hey I was just stating a fact that a lot of people have a problem with. Nobody can pronounce that name you guys picked for yourselves just suddenly out of the blue. Papago rolls off the tongue. It’s a nice name, a friendly name. Why did you have to change it."

"What about the ‘pussy’ part, and the other thing, you know how Papago means little beaners?"

It's true, isn't it?"

"Why you gotta say shit like that, Tony?"

"I'm old. I can't control my farts and I can't control my words."

The under-sheriff rolled his eyes and puckered his face, as if Tony's farts and words had essentially the same effect on the atmosphere of the room. "Tony, get out of my jail. I don’t want to use police brutality on you. You ain't worth it."

"Pussy."

Tony had no choice but to move on. Jay Johnson escorted him to the border of the Nation to make sure he left and didn't sneak back in. The huge country that had swallowed the Tohono O'odham like an amoeba wasn't the only one that had a problem with border crossers.

Tony moved on reluctantly to Amado, knowing he had to face reality sooner or later. Well, at least the name is good, he thought. He needed to be loved. Even dogs need love. Tony was no dog, but he felt pretty damn close.

She was working at the old steakhouse across the street from the giant longhorn skull with a 45 foot wingspan, point to point. Tony didn't like to look at the skull, which glared at him hungrily, as if cattle were carnivores. Once you had seen something like this skull hundreds of times, it should have blended into the background, but it still made him nervous.

The longhorn skull and adjoining building, which looked like a lump of cattle manure, had a "For Rent” sign posted. Since its construction the strange building had been the home of one defunct business after another. Nonetheless, the people of Amado revered their skull, and prayed that its owner would not tear it down, even though it was financial dead weight. The skull was the totem saving their town from utter ruin or worse yet, complete obscurity.

Tony walked through the door of the restaurant across from the skull with his hat literally in his hand. It was only in the presence of the goddess occupying this temple that he assumed such an attitude of meekness. He also stowed away his wisecracking bluster. If he hoped to supplicate the goddess, he had to be on good behavior.

A wistful smile flashed across Maria's face when she saw him, but it was the smile of someone looking far into the distance. She turned it off quickly when she realized the reality didn't match the ideal. Then something like painful confusion was spilled there, but she wiped this off, like swiping the bar towel in her hand across it.

"Quit standing there stupid like it’s your first dance. You look like crap. I'll get you some coffee."

The restaurant was stalled in the pre-lunch doldrums, practically empty save for a gray-haired man in the corner who never looked up from his paper, a retired type who took a self-imposed exile from his nagging wife the same time every day. Tony had Maria practically to himself and she looked stunning. In spite of her near six decades, her breasts were still ample and firm, straining the weave of her black Desert Diamond Casino shirt. Her hips were ample, yet maintained the enticing form of an upside down heart. Only her hair and skin had lost their glow, as if the twin extinguishing agents of worry and disappointment had suppressed the fire once burning there. All the same, she remained a very desirable woman.

"What are you doing here Tony?" She set down his coffee and accompanying accoutrements.

"I heard Bill died."

"He died two years ago. You're just now getting around to extending your condolences?"

Tony lowered his head and fidgeted with the stirring spoon. "Maria you know I have always loved you, and I was thinking that maybe we could..."

Maria laughed and nearly dropped the coffee pot. "What happened? Did you run out of Striggy's girls?"

"Maria I'm serious this time. I know I've done a lot of bad things but I'm ready to settle down and do right by you."

Maria turned toward the window, perhaps to avoid Tony’s seducing puppy-dog supplication look. Her wide but lusterless eyes swept in the past, present, and future. Then her vision fixed at the sticker emblazoned on Tony's back window. "Love Machine? So how long ago did you have this great revelation about undying love? When they let you out of jail this morning? You haven't changed. You'll never change."

News traveled fast in the Gadsden Purchase. The waitresses in the handful of eateries scattered across the vast wasteland were its wire service. "No really, Maria, I really mean it. I get drunk and fight because I don't know how to live without you. I've been wandering around for weeks trying to get the courage to come in, say I'm sorry, and see if we could start fresh."

If Maria was listening to Tony's appeal she gave no sign. She kept looking out the window, but her thoughts were non cohesive grains of sand that would not add to the dunes of this changeless desert. Once she had loved this man with an unconditional passion. They made love like crazed desert jinn in the back of railroad cars and atop rocky pinnacles. But he had betrayed her time and again and it had taken 20 years to break free of his spell. Like a recovered addict, she knew she couldn't fall into his trap again, even if he was the only true love of her life.

Tony took the absence of a reply as an opening. "Maria I've been thinking. Here's what I have in mind. Remember when I told you I was going to set you up in your own wedding store, so you could sell those little chingaderas you're so good at making? Well, I've been saving. I've been finally saving."

"You've been saving because you freeload on people.”

Tony’s face went a a shade of pink that couldn’t entirely be explained by his hangover. "Hear me out. I'm going to buy that building across the street and you can put your own wedding store in right there. Then you can leave this dump for good."

Maria turned away from the window and lifted her coffee pot like she intended to smash Tony over the head with it. It wouldn't be the first time - there had been that incident in Bisbee back in '04 that had resulted in stitches. Tony winced thinking about that but he was ready to take it. A beating would have meant her love was back. God he loved a fiery woman.

Maria's knuckles went red as she slowly lowered the pot back into place.

"Are you crazy cabron? In the first place, don't try to bribe me into marrying you. There's not enough money in the world. You had your chance and you fucking blew it. Secondly, why would I put a wedding store there? Who's going to drive to the middle of nowhere to plan a wedding? Third place - what kind of wedding store has big horns on the top? Cuernos, idiota. You have infidelity staring at you before you even go through the door. Only you would be comfortable in a place like that. She put two fingers up to her head like the barrel of a gun. "Puras pinche pendejadas."

Maria poured more coffee for the gentleman in the corner before she was tempted to dump it on Tony's balls. Tony stirred cream into his own brew like it was the after dinner drink of his last meal, with all appeals exhausted. He had always thought Maria would be waiting for him. He had always assumed she would be his ace in the hole when things got rough and he was scraping bottom. He could see now that you couldn't survive on the currency of bullshit forever. People grew up and they wised up. It was over.

"Maria walked back over to Tony's table. "Why don't you go back to that little Maricon in Cornudo? You had free rent there but you fucked it up, like you fuck everything up."

"He's not a maricon," Tony said defensively. It was the only thing she had said so far that wasn’t true. "He's a good kid. A little pussy whipped, but a good kid."

"Your definition of pussy whipped meaning he is loyal to his lady." Maria stared deep into Tony’s face with angry eyes, double checking for any possibility of redemption. This was her last chance too. It was Tony or nobody.

"Finish your coffee and get out. Don't come back, for both of our sakes."

She turned her back and walked into the kitchen.

Tony was not the brooding type. Normally he easily shook off defeat and got on to the next stage of the game. But he couldn't help feeling the sadness of finality as he looked in the rearview mirror and saw the tips of the longhorn disappear from the glass.

It was time to cross the river, he thought. It was time to cross the river and take his chances on the other side. He had used up all his credit in the Gadsden Purchase, alienating everybody that had loved, or at least tolerated him. He could either cross the river North, the Gila, or cross the river South, the Sonoyta. Which one would it be? Where did he want to put an end to this?

He sighed, thinking about the way things might have been. Maria was a fine woman, not only beautiful but smart, loyal and strong. She had crossed the border with a baby in arms, and Tony had loved but neglected that child like any biological Baby Daddy would neglect his own. Tony had a knack for turning his back on little helpless ones that put their faith in him. This made him think of the little fucker. Shit. He was doing it again.

With a particular destination in mind Tony pulled off on the Elephant Head Road toward the National Forest. He needed to clear his own head before deciding which way to go. People didn't think he was a very deep person, everyone's impression of Tony Vargas was that he told dirty jokes and got drunk, sometimes in that order, sometimes in reverse. But in reality Tony was a deep thinker who liked to go into the woods and meditate. Of course, he liked to have a bottle of Tequila on hand while he was meditating. So Tony steered for his favorite meditation spot, after stopping at a little roadside liquor store first, of course.

Years ago, when Eddy had been pastor of a church in Wellton, Tony had gone camping and hunting out here with him. That night, after a couple of beers, that fucker had tried to go broke-back on him. Tony had had to knock his ass in the dirt, and things had been uncomfortable between the two since. The queers could do what they wanted to each other, but Tony's asshole was still a virgin and he liked it that way. It made his butt pucker a little, driving past the sight of that experience.

Tony steered onto a dirt road, then partway up a hill saw a line of jeeps and four-wheel drive trucks blocking his path ahead.

"Oh no, not that faggit again," Tony said.

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Image courtesy of John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), via Wikimedia Commons