The Road from Ruin California

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The Road from Ruin: California

by

Jaye Beldo

Slaloming  the Malibu through cavalcades of tumbleweed and dust mixed with the flower petals of Almond trees, I jettisoned myself further away from Barstow. 5 was even bleaker.  The northward travail punctuated with signs that read: Congress Created This Dust Bowl with Pelosi’s, Costas’s and Boxer’s names crossed out. NAFTA uber alles. Thought of all the produce I had eaten in my life that was grown in this region. No more.

A bit of rain and fifty degrees gave me relief from the desert harshness I had escaped but the gas station I had stopped at seemed but an odd oasis of sorts. Not meant to be there although the 4.70 per gal. prices said otherwise.  I leave and a giant tumbleweed careens into my grill, shatters and vaporizes before the north wind sweeps it away instantly.

Road fatigue didn’t set in until I passed through Bakersfield and managed to bail out on a much welcomed side road, working my way through some verdant, mountainous terrain. A tenuous sense of peace pervaded, like being on the cusp of something unique, if not extraordinary.  Yet this too was co-opted territory. By what I couldn’t tell.

Met my host in a small town at a Safeway, after passing by a lake rendered idyllic by twilight. I followed her through the dark and serpentine roads for well over an hour until we reached a depressed town on the edge of an Indian reservation. Definite meth stronghold here I felt.The dark didn’t really add anything to the gloom, but I was glad when we reached the gate of her property and made it to the top of Spirit Mountain. Greeted by a 140 lb. German Shepherd and a sophisticated Doberman who was a bit demure at first, it was nice to get out of the car.

A pleasant alpine expanse greeted me the next morning, home to Black Bears and Mountain Lions. The terrain seemed content somehow, assuaged by clouds and fog. A bit of climactic respite, although the feeling of something looming prevailed.

Too many high eyes in these parts for a teetotaler such as myself. Stoned is more than just a way of life, rather a blight that makes people content with their own mediocrity. In a trailer, I was forced to listen to this doped up woman patronize a carpenter 30 plus years older than her. She claimed she could see his glowing soul through his skin but I could see otherwise-her cosmically sourced, ulterior motives were quite transparent to me.  I got up and left without excusing myself and apparently that offended her from what I heard the next day. Nothing that the acupuncture she was trying to get certified in couldn't cure. The scene left me wishing for some needles stuck in my own meridians -primarily in hopes that they would  alleviate the lingering disgust I had-for the carpenter-who was more than mesmerized by her uplift rap. 

Time to sign off folks. My green tea is getting cold here in this coffee shop. I’ve got to tough it out at least until the fall.  Funny what having no money forces a person to do-just never thought it would be like this-the desperation that is. 

TBC

(C)2012-Jaye Beldo

The Road from Ruin: Part XVI

The Road from Ruin: Part XVI

by

Jaye Beldo

North wind today, shearing through the clipped Palms and causing the plastic bottles to spin out of the recycling bin and bounce around on the patio. A Raven has trouble keeping course, hovering tentatively above the street, trying hard not to veer toward the lake. I look through a dirty window and can see the single story house where five people were murdered a couple of years ago. It is less than a block away from where I’m staying.  Somehow, the place still has curb appeal.Current owners, whoever they may be, show off a jet ski on a trailer on the gravel lawn out front. Taking up residence in killing fields left by others seems not to be a concern to them.

The sun bleaches the façade now, rendering the property into a peculiarly remote kind of monument and any looming sense is now sufficiently subdued by the shadow accents. A Google search on my I-Phone leaves me callow. Why nothing clicks about Brian Diez, the man who shot up a birthday party one August night before abducting two children and killing himself at another location in Lake Havasu, I know not. I stare at his mug shot. Spin it around on my phone. Still nothing clicks. There’s no in depth coverage in the news reports either, just the usual “They were such nice people.” neighbor talk and not much more. 

I’ll never remember the names of the dead, selective amnesia being the best of all remedies to cope with such a collateral inconvenience. I’d e-mail a flower to the gunman’s grave if I could. Can’t blame it on a hardened heart though, just a mere inability to fully adjust to the carnival.  I’m forced to ride a Tilt-A-Whirl through some collective psychopathic mind the best I can, all the while praying not to get thrown off into the snake pit where the likes of Sherriff Joe Arpaio awaits, blasting his pistol in celebration of its grand opening, welcoming carnage, domestic and otherwise, like some Jackal with hives, hoping his mayhem operation gets nationally franchised along the way and the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to boot.

They never said why Diez snapped but the case is all closed up now and I shouldn’t fret about it any longer. I’ve wasted an entire afternoon doing so. I’m sure the realtor that sold the house here on Opossum street is thankful too, blood money being nothing to brag about these days.

©2012-Jaye Beldo

The Road from Ruin: Part XV

The Road from Ruin: Part XV

by

Jaye Beldo


During my morning prayers, the glowing orange sneakers caught my attention.  With at least fifty yards of wash rubble between us, she saw me and the dog, rounded a Palo Verde tree and shook her wispy hair as if to toss off something unwanted.  I plucked a shot gun shell stuck in the spines of some Teddy Bear Cholla and clutched it. She looked over her shoulder, then started to climb the ridge to the south.

L.A. pollution wintering in Arizona,  hazed the expanse we shared so unexpectedly, causing me to wonder if she overheard my heaven bound pleas. Pointing my toes in her direction failed to clear up the matter and she turned, looking like she had lost her compass years ago but needing it not, nonetheless.

Mesmerizing a Mountain Lion perched on a ridge in Whipple Creek the previous day with a Morse code Haiku about desert Tobacco and Phainopepla that I had so suavely batted out with my eyelids, I had hoped to do the same with her. I needed some chance to catch up. But she was already beyond range and the aimlessness of her wandering became more apparent, now back dropped by the morning blue of the sky. Marching now, I could see her more clearly. Lithe arms seemed more purposeful and she faced forward with inexplicable determination.

Then she turned towards me, looking liquid, disappearing over the top. I should have shouted the poem, trusting that the desert wind would carry it to her ears. Instead, I emptied out the grocery bag of  range detritus I had been collecting since dawn.  Wanting to compose a ballistic version of an Arcimboldo still life, I panicked, desperately arranging 9mm, .357 and assorted other casings into some tangible pattern. Not enough color to work with though and I erased the crude sketch with a kick. No audience sophisticated enough  in this neck of the desert to appreciate it either, so no loss really.

Hurling a stick over the ridge, the Border Collie ran after it, she too disappearing into some fleeting, terminus summit mirage. I changed tactics and quickly formed the first letter, then the second. It only took me five or so minutes to spell out the name.

"Gabrielle."

I turned to see her, holding the dog and smiling, walking towards me.

"A memorial?"

"No.More of an homage."

"This one looks like it's still caught in the cross hairs though."  She said as I spelled out the rest using some remaining .45s.

"Giffords." She read the shells out loud and put the dog down. "Survived.  Now I understand. Sorry I hesitated. The ne'er do well thing out here you know."

 Our eye contact made my heart turn to crystal. She wasn't sunburned and didn't seem to have Rattle snake venom running through her veins like most of the local honeys here. No garish lipstick either and no tattoos.

Asking her where she was from would have rendered the scene flat, monochrome-something to spray paint an obscene slogan on in the evening hours.

The weave of 4WD ruts cutting through the delicate hills around us began to fade. Beer cans and archipelagos of auto glass shards too. Her presence improved the desert's skin tone drastically. The mountains across the Colorado river and beyond the casinos began to ring. Evasive harmonies arced over the water, dodging the intermittent Glock reports out in Sandy Canyon, but somehow weaving them into a kind of melodic retribution even more refined than my attempts at telegraphic Haiku. The woman's subtlety was rarer than the Nutting's Flycatcher in these here parts.

Gulping, I blinked some more, then worried that she thought I was hitting on her . She held her index finger up to her lips and pointed to something golden. Reeds. A span of them that I had seen the previous day down at the Bill Williams refuge, but now were before us in the shadows of the Crossman foothills.

Then a cavalcade of balding, sunburned, fat, tank topped, bleached handle bar moustached men all filed into the reeds in some kind of somber procession that very well could have occurred on the banks of the Nile river.  Some held up Confederate flags, others NRA posters. Others brandished "Kill Illegals for Christ" banners. The hate baked into their skin seemed to lift as they immersed themselves.

Next came a phalanx of women with cheap,sun bleached, perfumed bouffants, Family Dollar pearl necklaces and rouge. They too entered into the reeds, into the river along with the men. Some held Tea Party flags, others "What would Jesus do?" signs. One of the ladies tried to protest with  Round Up but the sprayer head clogged up on her, thankfully.

"It will take awhile for them to come out." My friend said. "Besides, you'll see them on your next walk out here. Pink Phlox, Fairy Duster, Brittlebush...maybe even some Rattleweed, Panamint Mariposa Lily. Just don't be tempted to water them. They'll have to wait for the rain on their own."

 Embarrassed, I knelt down and gathered up the shell casings and put them back into the Safeway bag. But it was already raining before I finished. A few drops landed on the glowing orange Keds. Kangaroo rats had chewed holes in them and when I put them in the bag too, some nesting material made out of Cottonwood fluff fell out and was blown away, comingling with a dust devil that circled some Mormon Tea before dissipating.

"Now who am I going to thank?"  I said out loud, and threw another stick for the pooch who was already waiting for me on the trail, posed and ready to spring.

I knew then that I wouldn't need to look any longer.

(C)2012-Jaye Beldo