Today I took a drive out into desert waste surrounding some developments between Cave Creek and Phoenix. It’s a nice finger of bleak, heat blasted plain surrounded on all sides by the slow erections of urban humanity. I have been meaning to get to it for some time; it is currently about 50 miles square and covered in low scrub trees and unusually deep jagged crevasse extending for miles in every direction. A good deal of time was spent rolling back and forth across imaginary switch-backs looking for good crossing points across these gullies. Alive with the whirring chirp of cicadas the desert this day also afforded a light breeze that served to move a wave of searing heat this way and that across the flatlands. This produced a fine shimmering mirage effect not unlike the aurora borealis, if the aurora borealis were shipped somehow intact to hell, where it would be something like the monochromatic, 115 million degree curtain of death that I experienced. After some spell back and forth along animal paths and lightly worn roads to nowhere I encountered a bright spot a few yards off the trail I was on and braked. Exiting the Jeep I walked out there to encounter a desiccated art-piece of some kind, broken and shattered into a mound of brightly painted sticks, tires, bricks, shotgun shells, Natural Lite Ice cans a bright yellow candlestick and varietal tiles. All of these things appeared to once have been attached via spray foam insulation and the powers of gravity. A touch more exploration revealed a blue tire with a shredded tow cable attached implying someone had willfully destroyed whatever it was with the aid of a vehicle. I looked about for a torn up bumper, or perhaps a whole vehicle with a shredded transmission or blown motor half swallowed by the desert sands, and couple of bleached skulls or something nearby . . . I have a special place, a dark place full of spiky things, in my heart for random art destroyers. My anger was short lived though; the sun just burned it right out of me, wetting my appetite with curiosity and a no doubt ill-advised sense of adventure. Continuing my journey, slowly now, with a sharp eye on the desert, I spotted another bright splash of color amidst the tans, powdery yellows, brown and dusted greens that made up the rest of the landscape. It was a good hundred yards off, directly across several of the earlier mentioned crevasse and so it took some time and a bit of inspired 4x4ing to find a route over to it. Along the way I encountered a ceramic duck intentionally set into the desert floor and a ceramic squirrel set up right. I imagined some savage desert denizen in a loincloth with a great beard and a body coated in dust. I imagined him slowly peeking over the edge of the crevasse as a foolish squirrel got close enough to berate his ceramic squirrel counterpart for being deaf and dumb. I imagined the savage’s hungry triumph as the squirrel found sudden death from his arrow fashioned of creosote bush and saguaro thorn. I imagined him creeping out over the lip of the gully like a dusty bearded version of that ghost chick in ‘The Ring’. Perhaps he would eat only the squirrel’s soul . . . perhaps the ceramic squirrel had once been a real squirrel, but it had been turned, reduced to a ceramic shadow of its living form, its history replaced with a ‘made in China stamp’ and its poor innocent soul swallowed by a desert medusa in a loin cloth. That would suck. At long last I braked within 20 feet of the structure, and low and behold, a structure similar to the one I first encountered, but still fully assembled. It bore some semblance to a stick-man, a bit to a shrine, and retained just enough of the desert debris our southern neighbors leave in our deserts to avoid dump fees to retain its mundane identity as desert rubbish. Still, it held a just enchantment over the creative side and a sliver of pious reverence to whatever god or goddess it forever revered. Close by, a great wooden beam, perhaps a ceiling beam from one of those rustic styled ceilings had been laid to bridge a gully easily nine feet deep. On the other side of the beam a bottle of water and some kind of Mexican sports drink (I am kicking myself for not remembering the name) sat in the shade of a tree. They had been there some time, for the labels were bleached and barely legible. It was interesting to note which colors on the label had nearly vanished in the heat and which struggled to hold their tenuous grasp on validation and meaning in our world. I says to myself, leave me out here long enough, and I bet that Blue (with some help from dehydration and the afore mentioned 115 million degree heat) will convince me to drink whatever that is and let the Blue retire a bright if tattered testament to the power of American marketing. I was sorely tempted to drink the water via some instinctual desire to connect. I went so far as to examine it closely, without disturbing it, to see if the seal was intact, it was. Here I must digress; as a dedicated adventurer and explorer of all things mundane and/or extraordinary, I have made it my way to never disturb or alter any of the wide myriad of places, things and experiences I have been so fortunate to be privy too. I possess a keen sense that I may not experience, or worse, might lose my ability to appreciate, this world and its beauties in the future if I do. Too, there is some element of practicality in the art of trespass. In addition to this trip into the realm of the savage-squirrel-soul-stealing desert denizen I also enjoy building hacking, caving, and generally sneaking about seeking for Eldorado. I have found that if it is apparent one was where they oughtn’t be, steps may well be taken to assure that one isn’t in the future. These steps could be direct to ones person (ie. A startled security man smacking you upside the head with a nightstick, a federal investigation into your ‘activities’, concealed land-mines or claymores, or worst of all, a lock or an electric fence. This idea applies bi-laterally to the physical world and also to that uncomfortable metaphysical world of inexplicable entities and drifting deities out there. Don’t advertise where you haven’t got a guest pass, and never dis the other-world. Golden rules to live by. As I crouched motionless close by the tree, listening and watching for a while, (always a good practice, as it makes one less available to scrutiny and can reveal a great many things about ones environment they would otherwise have missed) I heard a light rustling in the brush in the gully and was filled with gratitude and pleasure to see a mother bobcat curled up with her three young teenage bobcats in the shade. Earlier I had been tempted to try the bridge, if I had I would have put my scent up wind of her. As it was I got to watch them stretch, tumble about a little, take a lazy pot shot at a lizard with a quick-draw paw and then return to sleep off the hot part of the afternoon. After a time I bade them good hunting silently and rose to return to the vehicle. As I did, the mother cocked an ear and looked up at me casually before going back to sleep. I guess I wasn’t the only one patiently listing and watching. A fine afternoon, thereafter I left the bobcats, savage-squirrel-soul-stealing desert denizen, and the aurora borealis from hell to their own devices and returned home in a happy heat daze. I drank a good gallon of cold water, and went out to watch ‘The Wolverine’, great movie. Better than ‘The Ring’.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 01:32:20 +0000
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