“You see all these cars and trucks?”
says the bus driver. “Every single view is a book you have to read. Pass a
vehicle, it’s like turning a page.”
There are also yellow signs showing
running figures in black. “That’s because all the illegals come through here. The
Mexican border’s not far, but it’s hard going — terrible heat, no water. They
put water out for them, but the cops are already there, waiting. It’s like
those lakes where hunters wait for deer to come drink. I met one man, he
crossed over with a bicycle, three days pushing that thing over rocks and
through sand, but at least he could lug cans of water and a sack of food with
him, so he survived. But you know what? Some people over in L.A. are complaining
because they say those signs with black silhouettes aren’t politically correct.”
He shakes his head. “Some folks got nothing better to do in life.
He’s the one who recommends I leave the
bus at Dateland. “Pretty original place. You’ll enjoy yourself. Just take the
dirt road north.”
Caught by his enthusiasm, I don’t ask
normal questions such as, “is there anywhere to stay in the area?” or “when
does the next bus come through?” I simply disembark.
As far as the eye can see there’s
nothing but one small restaurant and a gas station-cum-travel center.
I enter the latter — a place filled with souvenir schnick-schnack,
but no informative literature, and no literature of any kind. The woman working
there is surprised to see someone minus car, but who isn’t an illegal.
“The bus driver told me this was an
interesting place.”
“Oh.” She looks confused.
“What is there to see?”
“I dunno. Guess you can walk around,
take a look at the date palms behind the station.”
“How about a motel where I can stay?”
“Nothing like that around here.”
“No boarding house, no hostel,
nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. I have a
sleeping bag.”
“No tent?”
“No tent.”
“Get’s really cold out here at night.
And, you better make sure you can be seen in the dark by people arriving in
trailers.”
No way. The last thing I want, aside
from being squashed in my sleep, is to be found out here alone in the middle of
no place.
“Do you live in the area?”
“Sure do. Twenty miles away.” She stops
for a minute before adding, “I always keep coming back.”
Which sounds as though she’s tried,
possibly with desperation, to get away.
“The desert is beautiful,” I say. But, I’ve
only confused her again.
I cross over a patch of dust to the
restaurant because I haven’t eaten since early this morning.
“Kitchen’s closed,” says the waitress
when I enter. “We closed at 2:45. It’s now 5:30.”
“Don’t tell me that.”
“Well, I just did.” She smirks with sadistic
satisfaction.
“Okay, then. Where can I get something
to eat?”
“There’s a dairy around eighteen miles
down the road and a diner twenty miles in the other direction.”
“Nothing else?”
“Microwave food in the gas station.”
Sounds too grim for me. “The bus driver
mentioned a whole community not far away. Somewhere to the north.”
She harrumphed. “It’s a pretty big
walk.”
“How big?”
“Hours.”
“What’s out there?”
“Dunno really. Maybe a sort of tavern.”
“A town?”
“Never been out there.”
“Ah.” I chew over the information for a
few minutes, then optimism — and curiosity — both desert me. Outside, the sun
is disappearing with the speed of lead in a lake. “When does the next bus come
through?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. Four-thirty in the
afternoon.”
Outside, I wander around, then find a
little hollow under the palms. I curl into it, pull all my clothes out of my
knapsack, and cover myself with them. They’ll serve as a blanket. Then I lie
there, think of hungry cougars, wolves, giant killer ants, and zombies, all
waiting for a victim; of armed, two-legged cranks who roam through the night, teeth
grinding, saliva dripping. I hear strange noises, see shadows move. How can I
possibly sleep?
When I next open my eyes, it’s early
morning. Amazing! Evil has passed me by. I head north, taking the dirt road
over the perfectly empty desert landscape … a very lonely dirt road. Still, I
keep walking: whatever’s going to get me, will get me coming, or going in a
place like this. Where could I hide? Still, bleak as it is, there are
wildflowers everywhere, and they are utterly beautiful.
The community that does, finally, hove
into view is one of far-flung shacks, and shabby trailers. But the tavern is
open. It’s a huge place with mismatched tables and chairs, a low ceiling, and a
long bar that winds its way around the room, curving, straightening, indenting,
curving again. Photos of laughing people cover every inch of wall not taken up
by bar signs: “Jesus loves you, everyone else thinks you’re an asshole”; “If
assholes could fly, this place would be an airport”; “I may be a cruel and
heartless bitch, but I’m good at it.”
Behind
the bar are two ageless wild women, who can cuss better than any male I’ve ever
heard, and there is even the expected Old Timer with long white beard and
drooping white mustache seated at the counter.
“Make yourself at home,” says he.
“Everyone’s welcome. We were all from someplace else in the beginning.”
“Back at the gas station, no one mentioned
there was a place like this out here.”
“Tourist traps, those places. We don’t
have nothing to do with them.”
“They don’t know nothing about us,”
adds a man in a straw hat. “But this is one great community, and this tavern is
the center of everything. Me? I’m from Oregon. Was in heavy construction up
there. One day my car broke down on the main road. I ended up here, took a look
around, and liked what I saw. Got a job in a hardware store, and stayed. No red
lights, no traffic signs, no traffic, no noise. Not even Oregon is as empty as
this.”
“City folks always in a hurry,” says
Old Timer. “Here, no one’s like that. See that bookshelf over there? We all do
a lot of reading. Just take a book, bring another one back. That’s how things
work.”
“That list with dates and names up
there on the post?” adds another man who has come over to examine me. “Those
are the birthdays of everyone who lives here. We celebrate every single one of
them with a barbecue. We sure get up to some wild things.”
“Everyone talks to everyone,” says Old
Timer. “There’s a lot of solidarity.”
“Especially when the monsoon comes in
August — that’s what we call it here. Winds go up to a hundred miles an hour,
and rains flood everything out. Suddenly it’s 120 degrees with no electricity,
so no air conditioning, and no water pump. What do we do? We take our sleeping
bags to the school where there’s a generator, and we sleep there, every single
one of us. The Red Cross brings in water and ice.”
“When it’s 120 degrees, the ground gets
up to 200. If you don’t find a bush to lie under, you get cooked alive. Found
seventeen dead illegals out there, not long ago. Most of them just kids of
around fourteen. They’re told to head for the cell phone antennas — one’s 35
miles away from the border, the other, 80 — but if you head for the wrong one,
you die.”
“Just imagine,” says straw hat. “People
are out there right now, trying to get here. Coyotes tell them to wait in one
spot, they’ll bring water. But since they’ve already been paid, they just leave
them to die.”
“Plenty
of farms in this area — grape farms, date farms — and all the workers are
illegals. They work seven days a week, twelve to fifteen hours a day for low
wages. That’s half what Americans get, so no one hires us anymore, and sometimes
the foremen take a cut from their wages, too. They’re just exploited.
“Hell, no,” booms one man in the far
corner. “You can’t call it exploitation ‘cause they’re illegal and don’t have
no rights.”
Everyone ignores him.
“Do any ever come in here?”
“A few, but they have their own bar
down the road.”
“Who cares if they do? They’re people,
too.”
“Now, if they was Ay-rabs coming in
here, that’d be different.”
“When I see them arriving, I give them
food and water. Put them on a bus to Phoenix. I got connections there,” says a younger
woman who has been quiet up until now. She looks me over. “You thinking of
staying? This is a great place. I was a single mother living back east, but I
came out here, met my future husband. Not too many married people out here, far
more men than women, but there’s no harassment. Here in the bar, I’m just
treated like one of the boys.”
“How do you make a living?”
“I gather seeds.”
“Seeds?”
“For replanted burnt-out areas where
weeds have taken over, killed all the natural vegetation. Or areas destroyed by
real estate brokers who think they’ll subdivide, then belly flop. Why do they burn
and destroy everything first? Who knows?”
“Some people come out, think they’ll
grow grass, plant apple, and pear trees. Everything dies, of course. There are
wells, but the water’s either too salty, or poisonous. Used to be a river, too,
but it was dammed up for golf courses in Phoenix — they created seventeen new
ones in ten years. A complete disaster. These days, if you want to fish, you
have to go as far as the Colorado River. Sure, there are some canals around,
but who wants to sit on a cement canal?”
Suddenly, a band strikes up the
national anthem on the overhead television. Almost all rise to their feet,
stand to attention. A few salute.
“Had a brother in a POW camp in Europe
back in WWII,” says Old Timer. “He survived. Tell me, has the place changed a
lot since then?”
Okay, the mentality might drive me
crazy after a while, and the heat is certainly obnoxious. Aside from those
blooming wildflowers — and they’re only temporary — it doesn’t look like much
out here. I’ve lived in more pleasing climates and in far lovelier settings, but
this is the place I’ve been looking for, the one I want to live in.
“Is there anything to rent out this
way?”
“No problem,” says one of the women
behind the bar. “Don’t worry about rent. Plenty of empty places. You can take
your pick.”
“You coming back, then?”
“For sure. Next year.”
“We’ll be waiting for you.”
“And, you send us a postcard when you
get home.”
“I promise.”
I set out, taking the dirt road back
toward the highway and arrive just in time to catch the bus heading east.
I haven’t made it back. Not yet.
and on my story podcast at
https://soundcloud.com/j-arlene-culiner
