Desert Tales
Tuesday February 27th, 2001 @ 8:50 PM
Filed under: Everything, Tales Told Well
The Van hurtled through the darkness, the headlights searching far ahead in a vain attempt to unveil the landscape. No moon cast its pale glow on the horizon; sagebrush soldiers stood their lonely watch in the cold. The glow of my wristwatch placed a green halo around my reflection in the windshield as I checked the time. I nudged the accelerator. I had an appointment to keep. An appointment with things ethereal–a rendezvous with glory. Not often in this life do we experience the exhilaration of real glory. I write not of personal triumph, nor accolade, nor vanity, but of volatile grandeur.
It was past midnight in the raw wilderness of southeast Utah–and the boys slept. Sleep on the road is akin to gas in a dentist chair. We are awake yet asleep, conscious but dreaming, and time passes in distortion with missing chunks for which one cannot account. No cars came against me. No sound entered the cab but the roll of eight pistons whose vibrations massaged my right knee through the console.
On such a night, things don’t appear–they loom. It is a stygian world of shadows, specters, and spells. I found myself in and out of great canyons and arroyos with no noticeable difference in how I perceived the great pall. Once I passed so close to a cliff without seeing or sensing its presence that its revelation came when the pure white shape of a mountain goat limned into my peripheral vision several feet in the air as though floating.
I projected myself mentally to a vantagepoint a thousand feet over the van and watched the tiny lights barely seeming to move in the gargantuan desert. Once I turned the lights out and the effect was so immediate and that I was relatively blind seeing only a few faint stars as though I’d been lifted into outer space.
I have learned that the mind must be kept busy at such a time. Yet if the thoughts are too vivid and encompassing, sleep can move in and out so subtlety I cannot tell where imagination and dream separate. God bless the man who thought up ridges along the edge of highways to snatch the drifter from his fate.
My thoughts became retrospective to the year previous. Many nights such as this had passed with one or the other of us at the wheel. It was a year of extremes. My mind became a kaleidoscope of memories: great gigs and bad, a changing of the guard at bass guitar, a hundred thousand miles of American geography, new music, new fans, new opportunities, a new wife–and even death. Some had listened to us for the last time. The town of Moab came and went and the night became empty again. I thought back to summer.
August. The sun boiled in the sky and refused to move along its course. The ground was flat, hard, and brown. We drove east in the bus losing ourselves in the great prairie that fell out of the mountains far to the west and continued through the Dakotas. We had contracted for a biker rally in a small Western town. Whenever we are virgin to an area, we anticipate the gig and usually with optimism. I imagined an Old West Dodge City, quaint yet rugged, and romantically preserved.
We drove right through the first time without even detecting its presence. The town had only one building of any note and several decaying shanties and a garage or two. The building was a bar not unlike something you might envision in a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western. Bleak and austere was this setting, post-apocalyptic perhaps. We saw no life at first as we peered from the door and stepped out into the heat. Then a train passed on the other side of the highway blowing its horn long and hard.
A woman came running out of the bar toward the train and pulled up her blouse, whereupon she shook her breasts to the delight of the engineer. He honked some more. It was then that I knew this would be one of those strange days. We looked at each other and formed a small skirmish line. It was a Twilight Zone moment.
A dog appearing very much like a deterioration of Toto came sauntering out to greet us. He was a dirty dog. No, a filthy dog, and lethargic. He tried to yap and bark but they only came out as grunts. He wanted to jump up on us, but decided instead to sit and scratch awhile, drag his rump along in the dirt, then role over in the vain hope that one of us would scratch his mangy stomach. A couple of yokels emerged with grins sporting the remains of a shared bag of Beechnut. They took turned scratching the dog on our behalf and explained to us his name and status: “This here is Turd, we elected him the mayor of the town.
I know what you are thinking dear reader, that I’m lying like a schoolboy with his hand up Sally’s dress. If you so doubt, ask Jason, or Chuck, or Roland and look deep into their eyes and try to find even the hint of a fib. By God Almighty, the name of the mayor of this town was Turd.
We were lead to our stage, which was a gravel road baking in the sun. We were to play from four to eight. No shade, no breeze, no dance floor, no seats, no scenery–just gravel. Very hot gravel. We set up.
That’s when the flies emerged. Not a pesky little fellow here and there that we had to slap away, but Satan’s fly army. Thousands of them. Sticky ones. Icky ones, black ones and green. Tricky ones, sicky ones, big ones and mean. Horse flies that bit us and blind ones that hit us, and ones of mutation that sat there and hissed. Some that were flying and many that crawled and there in the midst of them, Blinddog sat pissed.
Why were these flies so awful I wondered. They climbed on each other and formed buzzing globs. We recoiled in the kind of horror one experiences with the great scavengers. These flies were like that: miniature buzzards seeking and signaling death. It was then that the mosquitoes joined the party.
Not normal mosquitoes, I surmised, that sneak in and land lightly, take their wee bit of blood and leave. No, these were insects with attitude. They chose to suck blood right between our eyes and I knew if they had fingers, they’d flip us off while they sucked. They wouldn’t quit either. They sucked until the weight caused them to fall off. Then they couldn’t fly. They’d just fall on the ground and waddle away. I know I’m lionizing the little bastards, but Chuck was so beleaguered with flies and mosquitoes that he seemed to lose it for a moment, his eyes went maniacal and his mouth was nothing but a snarl. That is when the stench arrived.
Not the normal, what one might call an odor, but the kind of pervasive and putrid stink that causes retching among those of weak stomach, house pets, and forest sprites. It occurred to us that the septic system from the building extended behind our position in the gravel and that it probably hadn’t been pumped in–well, maybe ever. Turd liked to roll in the weeds that grew above it. It was, I suspected, the breeding ground for the flies. At least we figured, things couldn’t get much worse. That is when they called us to chow.
A huge white rabbit bounded across the road in Utah and woke me from my trance. I chuckled out loud as I pictured the scene. I wondered if the insects had been as bad as my memory served them up. When I thought of the food, I decided my imagination hadn’t the capacity to outdo reality. The spread took place on a large table pulled out into the gravel. It contained a huge pot of Chili and plates of hamburgers and potato salad. There was some roast beef and many odds and ends. A close up view of the hamburgers gave the appearance of motion. Flies! The little orgies of flies that liked to cluster were clumped in the Chili and others in the potato salad. If you shooed or scraped flies off something, it just made room for the next squadron to land.
I pulled an old weather-beaten couch out into the gravel road. It had the obligatory spring sticking out and Turd immediately figured the seat was for him. After all, he was the mayor. I got a stick to poke Turd off the couch. He grabbed it and engaged me in tug of war. I gave up and just sat there on Jason’s amplifier brushing away flies and looking forlornly up at God as though He was actually going to send an angel into this place to rescue us. I could picture angels scattering out of God’s sight like so many darting hummingbirds to avoid this particular call to duty.
The biker rally consisted of some half a dozen bikes and a kid on a moped. They tried to compete with each other in a small corral, but most were too drunk to even ride in a straight line. The games lasted only minutes, then everyone lined up to see the band. The sun hadn’t seemed to move. There it was–up there turning the sky into bleached opacity. An audience of twenty stood behind the couch with one collective blank stare. We played a song. The stare didn’t change. I looked at my watch. Like the sun, it refused to move. It was then that I remembered we had a contract for two days. I looked at the Chuck, he had taken on the appearance of a war orphan.
Somewhere in the following eternity we agreed to let a biker sing a song with us for a hundred dollars. He sang. We should have charged more. His girlfriend wrote us a check. A drunken couple humped each other awkwardly on the couch. The spring was a problem. Turd was puking up the glut of hamburgers people had fed him because of the flies. He then proceeded to eat his vomit.
Despite the heat, we wore hats and long sleeves and neckerchiefs and gloves to fight off sunburn. I still burned. My nose looked like that of an Irishman on St. Patrick’s day. I hurt. I was hungry. Sweat ran done my entire body into my socks. When I tried to drink water, flies would crawl on my lips like I was an Ethiopian urchin. A lady did some kind of tribal dance behind the group, which didn’t correspond rhythmically to our music. The stench continued over us and through us and on us. Chuck’s drums were closest to the source of it and he seemed to be wilting: his unblinking eyes like bowls of oatmeal with a cherry in the middle of each.
I mumbled to Jason, “If someone drives by who knows us and sees us here in this godforsaken gravel, they are going to think Blinddog Smokin’ has fallen on hard times.”
“We have.” He muttered. All our communication had become either a mutter, or a mumble.
Somewhere in the following evening, as I was stood singing to about four people, none of whom were awake any longer, the female owner of the bar came out and announced a wet T-shirt contest. Perhaps things were looking up, we thought, until we saw the entries. Now what induces middle-aged women who have suckled small tribes of children to unveil their breasts to leering drunks while doing John Travolta disco, is beyond my comprehension. None of the girls, old or young, kept their T-shirts on, despite the fervency of our prayers. We sat forlornly on our equipment with our hands over our eyes like four “see no evil” Monkeys.
Inside, the toilet was out of order. I went around to the back of the building. Another guy was there with the same idea. He was peeing on a fluttering fly cluster and said it reminded him of the dodging balls that Yoda used in Luke Skywalker’s laser sword training. I guess I don’t have to explain that analogy any further do I? As I watched him train for a moment, I decided there was only a small disturbance in the Force.
It seemed like years passed before our final song the second night. We had hardly eaten, were covered with Mosquito bites and were sunburned and drained. Drunken people had been in our face so long, belching up the fermentation in their stomachs, that the stench of the septic system smelled better in comparison. We got our check and loaded up with sudden renewed energy. We didn’t stay one second longer than we had to.
As we pulled out of the parking lot, the train lady ran out and flashed her tits at us, and bounced them gaily. We had a long way to go home, but somehow it seemed like victory. Nothing could be worse than what we’d been through. When we got home, the checks bounced faster than the lady’s boobs: the check for playing and the check for the sit-in biker. We had done it for free.
The dense black of the eastern horizon in Utah allowed a dim glow to emerge on the seam between earth and sky. I had to hurry. My date with glory was nearing. Roland had quoted his father as saying one of life’s unique treasures was experiencing sunrise in Monument Valley. The minute Roland uttered those words I knew the route we would take to California. I remembered this fantastic landscape from old John Wayne movies, so as a kid I thought the entire Old West looked like Monument Valley.
Slowly the gray glow took on color. From pink to orange to red until it rimmed a butte in the color of blood. And it spread. It etched its existence along the far tabletop mountains while the Western sky remained black and ominous. My headlights still beamed into the dark while the boys slept unaware of the dawn.
Chuck awoke in the shotgun seat and was greeted with the first ray that broke out of the glow and shot straight up to the low strata of serrated clouds, which I could barely make out stretching across the sky like tendrils of smoke. The ray broke at a right angle upon the clouds and slowly reached across the sky and lightly tinted a path in pink until it reached a ridge of cliffs to the far west, down which it slowly lowered and illuminated resplendently against the raven dusk of the western horizon.
We reached a raw and wonderful section of earth called the Valley of the Gods. It contains sandstone sculptures in myriad shapes from curious pillars to great and peculiar towers. Nature’s artwork is crammed into the landscape leaving little room for animals or vegetation. I passed by as great beams from the east began to creep into the labyrinth giving scarlet loveliness to the shapes, which now cast long shadows into the dark maze.
The sun picked one particular butte behind which it brewed its morning mysteries. Let it be gorgeous, I prayed. The butte boiled in brilliant red before the curved rim of the sun crowned it royally and spilled its crimson power over the ridge and down into the arroyos which seemed to appear suddenly all about me. Morning mist lay in the bottoms, which lit up in maroon and pink pastels and served as a prism to paint the arroyo walls.
I found myself in a wondrous land. No one lived here. It was wild and broken and wrenched by mighty forces. Whatever my gaze lit upon was strange and unique. I couldn’t take it all in as fast as the sunrise began to paint it. Still dark in the West, the ribbons of clouds were now emblazoned in ever-changing color.
At a certain point, a sunrise is angled to use the entire atmosphere as a form of distorted magnification. The sun seems enormous as it crests the horizon and colors explode into the canyons and past the hills. With a providential arranging of clouds, and with the unrefined landscape, such splendor can be created, and when it happens it is magnificent.
The palette of the sun was replete with yellow and gold, pink and purple, orange and ochre. Glittering arrows shot skyward, breaking through the clouds to dance in the turquoise sky. The black in the west stubbornly lingered, but was shrinking into the horizon. Beams from the east were unveiling the western mountains, bathing their snowy slopes in gleaming pink. As I had promised, I honked the horn to awaken my passengers. No one awoke.
I first saw Monument Valley as the sun lifted its dazzling bulk over its chosen butte and splashed the entire world with gold. The monuments being ruddy lend themselves to such emblazoning. They are much larger natural sculptures than those in the Valley of the Gods and spread out majestically like marvelous cathedrals.
I beheld it all with deep pleasure and resented even my very breath as a detractor. I stopped the van along a small cliff and got out. It was perfectly quiet. Chuck stood at the edge and said nothing. At such a time, words are intrusions. I rousted Jason and he came tumbling out looking like an unmade bed, rubbing his eyes. He grunted a couple of times and went back into the recesses of the van. Roland never did emerge. The whole thing was his idea, but sleep can put upon a human being the stranglehold of an incubus. The sky was rapidly changing to just another bleak and cold winter day as I drove on through the great valley, but I pictured John Wayne and wagon trains and Indians lined up atop the mesas. It was wonderful.
Our musician’s life burgeons with opportunity. We can direct our paths to allow for the precious serendipities that escape the mundane and the inane. We can let our souls bask in the warm Mississippi River nights of Fall when the last of the fireflies do their dance of death and the crickets hurry to and fro escaping their coming winter fate. We can ride the mountain passes on a frozen midnight as the moon guides our way through the frigid mist. We can be in the stands with the rich retired folk of Scottsdale when the “boys of summer” throw the first pitch in Spring training. We can be in that rare juke joint when the doppelganger arises and chills our spine with the unreachable melody that exists that once and nevermore.
It is a life of extremes, like this story is a tale of extremes. One must treasure the good, the bad, and the ugly as all work together to form character. Such observation can make one rich, not in money perhaps, but in constitution. Flies and sunbeams, stink and glory, betrayal and epiphany–an eclectic pattern wisdom weaves. Without it, life’s fabric lacks its luster.
Posted by Carl