by Jim Harrison
When Magdalena arrived I had just ordered another beer so she had one herself. She went through a panoply of moods in the first minute, trying to select one to suit her devious purposes. I asked about her faux mother and her eyes moistened. She put an arm around me and cooed in my ear as if I were a film star, rubbing a hand up a thigh toward my groin. Over her shoulder I could see the college boys regarding me with envy, and in truth Magdalena made their girlfriends look like clones of Barbie dolls. The boys were not in the position to afford her, and neither was I.
All this preening and affection was directed to her announcement that I would have to drive the pickup back to Nogales by myself; her mother needed her that afternoon. I was to get her house key from the man at the gas station when I dropped off the truck. She would meet me early in the evening for dinner and “a night of love.”
“For free?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Free, but you still owe me five hundred bucks.” She gave my member a friendly tweak.
*
Outside the cantina I was amused to see that the back of the pickup was loaded with a dozen or so large statues of the Virgin, garishly painted — the kind you see in the Midwest, enshrined in porcelain bathtubs stood on their ends on the lawns of the devout. They are usually surrounded by small flower gardens and people of my ilk usually make fun of them which now seemed mean-minded.
Magdalena kissed me goodbye and as I drove off I beeped playfully at a college boy who was vomiting his freight of beer off the steps of the back door of the cantina. He lifted his hand in a wan salute. Soon enough he’ll be bound, along with his friends, to the dreadful bourgeois treadmill, mere bungfodder for the dissolute economy.
It was past mid-afternoon and I had driven two thirds of the way back to Nogales, enjoying the scenery I had missed during my snooze, when my skin began to prickle and my stomach churn. It was not the fabled bowel ailment turista but the dawning of reality that had been obscured by the two beers and the upcoming putative night of love. It was almost as if the voice of Chandler himself were whispering from the grave, “Are those statues of the Virgin full of sour air or something else?” I was immediately awash with sweat. It was damnably possible that I was a sodden patsy in a criminal conspiracy, plugging down the road toward the border check with a load of heavy Virgins.
Within a mile or so I found a tiny dirt road leading off the highway and along a brushy, dry creek bed. I swerved on the shoulder to avoid a litter of broken glass and beer cans, a half-burned mattress. My heart was thumping audibly by the time I drove a quarter of a mile or so, pulling around behind a dense thicket so that I was well hidden from the highway. I got out and calmed myself into lucidity by studying the flora, which were quite different from the ranch’s at this lower altitude. From my study of the guidebooks I recognized cholla, prickly pear, and ocotillo, the latter being one of the most strangely shaped of all life forms. The thicket was mostly palo verde, greasewood, and a larger shrub I didn’t recognize. I took out my Swiss army knife to cut off a small branch for later identification, then the ticking of the engine heat brought me back to my senses. The Virgins looked silly en masse and deserved to be seen alone, however clumsily they were made and painted. I tried to bore into one well below her bottom with the leather punch and had no success until I drove it in with a rock, knocking a quarter-sized hole. The dark green marijuana was packed in there as tightly as baled alfalfa. From the prison sentences announced in the newspaper, the pickup load was more than enough to use up the rest of my life.
For unclear reasons it was simple enough to figure out what to do. I took the same rock and the leather punch and flattened a tire with a mighty hiss, then walked away from the whole mess. I stood beside the highway for only a few minutes before a car with an Arizona license plate came to a halt and began to back up toward me, no doubt because of my reputable appearance. The car contained four very hung over and sunburned college boys who didn’t welcome me into their vehicle until they determined I could contribute gas money. I gladly offered my last twenty dollars, other than the sock load which had continued to itch throughout the day. The boys were students at the University of Arizona and had just had a Mexican beach vacation they pronounced as “awesome,” a doubtful word for anything they might have experienced.
I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I had the boys drop me off a block past the gas station where the Jeep sat innocently in the late afternoon light. I needed to collect myself and construct a plan, though it seemed easy enough to make a calm approach, then sprint to the vehicle with the keys, which is just what I did. Sad to say, Magdalena’s big thug came bouncing out of the station by the time I got the Jeep started and ground the gears into reverse. We had an inane conversation, the rationality of which was colored by my unalloyed fear. Where was the truck? I said I had had a flat tire. He said he would get a spare tire and drive me back to the truck so I could bring it back here. I said that would make me late for an important dinner engagement but I’d be glad to draw him a map, which I did, on a notepad on the seat that I normally reserved for my nature sightings. He kept insisting, of course, that I be the one to retrieve the truck, and I kept refusing. There was no point trying to speed off when I could be caught by a bicyclist. Finally I delivered a punch line by saying that if he didn’t stop yammering and let me go I was going to discuss the matter with my friend Roderigo of the Border Patrol. He slumped a bit then, accepted the map, and shook his fist. I said if he couldn’t be more polite I would go ahead and speak to Roderigo, and he said that wasn’t necessary, he’d send someone else to fetch the truck. It was impossible for him to determine how much I knew and he stood there thinking his grave thoughts as I drove off into the twilight.
*
On the way home I stopped at a pull-off near Sonoita Creek where Deirdre had told me that a rare bird named the elegant trogon had often been seen. It was apparent to me that in my dream project certain birds had earned the right to retain the names they already had. Not many, but a few. The trogon was a fine name, and so was whimbrel and Hudsonian godwit.
I sat on a boulder next to the stream until just before dark, letting the dulcet and purling sound soothe me. Bob had told me that in India the peasants will tie a madman to a tree next to a river and the water would draw off his madness. He had neglected to tell me how long the process took. If I was still mad as a hatter, the condition had become far less irksome and I was no longer a danger to myself. One might never know perfect sanity, but then again it might resemble the elongated harp solo I had imagined with Miriam. If only Bob were here so I could recount the day’s adventure, the tension of which had passed downstream with the creek’s flow.
*
At the foot of Verdugo’s driveway the Jeep ran out of gas, an event that J.M. was said to enjoy but didn’t seem all that much fun to me. There was the consolation that I hadn’t had my walk that day and the two-hour stroll up the drive-way would ensure a good night’s sleep. It was the warmest night of the year and I had a momentary thought about rattlesnakes, but that seemed insignificant compared to Magdalena and her compadre. I doubted if the fabled Birdman of Alcatraz had seen all that many species through his barred window.
There was a small piece of moon to light my way, and my walking meditation was full of pleasant thoughts about my limits. A horse could walk, trot, lope, canter, gallop, and run. As children we had scooted around with our cap guns, slapping our own asses as if we were both horse and rider. Of course a horse couldn’t read and I was very good at that. Counting was a matter that could be pretty much ignored. Far off along the creek bed I thought I heard a whippoorwill, sometimes called a goatsucker, from the nightjar family (Caprimulgidae). The future was acceptable rather than promising. It was certainly my choice.
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