Back on the highway I had pretty good luck thumbing and eventually arrived in El Paso. I took a cheap room for the night, intending to spend the next evening in Juárez. I had never been outside the States so I had been excited to go, but I had also heard from a fairly reliable source that I should exhibit caution by not missing the last tram back that night, or it would be likely be a long night in a Mexican jail for me. Hobo legend had it that a night in the tank in Mexico will leave you shirtless, penniless, and without shoes…at best. Plenty of these old tall-tale tellers had already found themselves in local bastiles, American and otherwise, so I was inclined to believe their stories and triple checked the trolley schedule before continuing. Risking offense to our southern neighbors, I must tell you dear reader, that in 1931 Juarez was a filthy town. A filthy town with legion ears tuned to the jingle of American coin. Yours truly wasn’t about to be lured into any drunken folly tonight.
I had guessed that every imaginable vice was available south of the border and as I decanted from the trolley I was approached by a young native who I consider to have been the youngest procurer I have ever witnessed. He looked to be about eight years old and gave me a start when he approached me to solicit business with the local ladies. Knowing zero Spanish I shook my head and continued on. I traveled along the main drag, an almost uninterrupted row of saloons, many of which bore American names. Slot machines were everywhere. Even out on the sidewalk one-armed bandits stalked prey with their flashy lures… and I was stupid enough to think that I could possibly leave Juarez with a net gain. It was not to be of course, and after losing about three of my few precious remaining dollars, I came to the conclusion that all of these machines were rigged. So I quit before I was completely broke. I cursed my own stupidity and punished myself by refraining from buying so much as a single cerveza. I suppose the lesson I learned was worth something… but not more than what I had in my own pocket, and I wasn’t going to risk these precious last three bucks, which in 1931 was substantial. All of my worldly wealth.
He is uniquely cold in the worst way and wears long johns October through May. Everybody gets shivery, but he gets it from the inside out at the same time as outside in. He wears fingerless gloves so the world is still knowable. Because he likes to touch. With his fingers, his eyes (down as they are), and his ears. Clipped and jaded, grit in the clefts, crusty, ill. Highway forehead rolls off between the skin of his pate and his fingers, then rolls that into his palms. Small beads darkest salt molting.
He hasn’t had a seizure in weeks now so he’s all cocky. He eats that cereal with the cold milk as heat drains from his base, bite by wet, crunchy, bite. Going nowhere, yet it’s gone. He can feel it coming and if he stops now he’s pretty sure it’ll stop also. But he can’t leave the bowl uneaten. His blood is near ice. He then convulses for several minutes. His teeth chattering and his muscles are absolutely rigid. He somehow gets himself to a blanket and seals himself in against the cool and painful air.
When I got back to my room in El Paso I checked on those last three dollars and stashed them in my belt. A few coins I put in my pocket. My room was paid for but only for that night, which i spent much of nervously calculating my next move. I certainly didn’t want to return home licked. Besides I didn’t think I could stretch my money far enough to make it back. California was at least as close as Chicago and I figured I’d have a better chance in the land of golden opportunity to replenish my finances. And California had seaports and I was still thinking about intercontinental travel. South America was still beckoning.
This print of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, bluing through time, reaching…
the modulation of the exposure makes it breathe
a black and white John Wayne ends up on the wrong end of a Benjamin Tyler Henry patented lever-action rifle, held by a man of color.
Blanks.
Horses dying. Real horses dying.
Blanks. If only….
Hollywood used real Indians in the background, injuns, real Native Americans.
Blanks. If only….
John Wayne doesn’t know it but this red man is abusing him verbally, having quite the time, positioning him in native space, libertine in nature. Ah, and there’s the rub.
John Wayne sitting smug atop a doomed prop horse
After I had sufficiently done the math and decided on my next path, I managed to get enough good sleep to get off on a good early morning start. From now on I’d have one main meal a day along with pancakes (or doughnuts) with coffee in the morning. A breakfast like that would cost a guy fifteen cents at most. I also decided to not squander money on the luxury of sleeping in a bed. It was my thought that I could clean myself up and occasionally sleep in railway stations. My tobacco pouch for a pillow.
Vision in shards, and the vacancy sign glows. The world loses pieces of itself. I’m simply not of this world. I’m not even a headache. My truth is what blurs my outline.
What is an old man to do after decades of being absolutely sure of himself?
That smug cockiness turns into a nervous chuckle when he tells everyone that he’s doing great. But he had fallen that last summer. For all he was worth.
It mustn’t feel great to fall off your horse. Even worse if while you were down, someone nicked the saddle and greased the steed.
He is deflated and feeling small. His voice is thin paper and has lost the bravura which has been until now his mask of arrogance. Now that arrogance is propped up by a weathered mythological truth, which itself is propped up by a loose pile of hopeful nonsense, doubling down, doubling down, doubling. Down. Down.
Brando refuses the Oscar and an otherwise well intentioned woman identifying as Sioux, pink with red stripes, kicks Hollywood in the balls and became that day a pariah on his behalf. John Wayne had to be held back by a team of bodyguards who had been paid to hold him back. A speech balloon inflates out of John Wayne’s mouth and accuses Brando of beating up this poor young woman in drag. If only it was okay to hit a girl, John thought, show her, because it’s Brando’s fault.
reel Cowboys like George W and John Wayne
in method, stylized whimper
For $15 a day he empties the trash and cleans the toilets of a used car lot. He drives to the job in a car that he can’t get insured, at 88, but is buying with the daily $15 sweat equity he receives, from the very same lot. His friend, the owner of the lot, feels good about giving him a job. Warm. Of course it’s crossed his mind that he may never even have to actually hand over the deed if it’s not paid off by check-out time. (Deep down time. (Deep down high-grav time.))
(And there’s the rub. (One doesn’t feel in the subverse.) One only thinks the unknowable because they are no space, only location.) Best to sleep, or blink off…as the saying goes. Blink off into deep time. Crawling back through, one becomes multiple, as the verse recognizes you, (pinched), draws you out as if it had always been intended. A composite. A legion of (transparencies very slightly (hued) (then multiplied) until nearly opaque). Very nearly.)
pinkish and modulated, blue as blood, brownish black and red over all.
The old man had had a falling out with his friend the lot owner….over an insult….classicist, or possibly racial/cultural in nature, some misunderstanding involving money I’m sure. Neither had forgotten about it even though it happened years ago, but now it’s good to see them make up. TOM (the old man) never liked to work for anybody else. Never. And he had gifted that proudful stance to his children, who in turn rode their own cars to the rodeo uninsured, and ate quickly so as not to risk losing kibble to the competition.
One morning while having my hotcakes and coffee I talked with another vagrant who advised me to under no circumstances hitchhike further west. Traffic was to be much lighter and the expanse of desert would be my undoing, arid and merciless. But if I must journey westward by all means ride the freights.
This was a bit of a shock because I had never truly considered hopping trains. I certainly didn’t know how and if I were to be honest, I was definitely resistant to the idea of becoming a true hobo. A tramp…a bum. But somehow I thought this guy was telling the truth so I eventually came around and took him on his word. Once I had crossed that mental threshold I was all in.
(He stepped off the landing module into the low-grav flaked sand of Gaston, wee bits of glass that flow like water but look like kitty litter. Gray like dinner. His gloved hand pressed onto the shuttle railing, he enjoyed pushing a foot down through the loose grav dust bin of this world. From here it felt like he could almost lift the module itself, but all things being equal, an equal amount of resistance forces his feet into the soft ground past the meniscus created by the shuttle’s pontoons. He weighs so much less here and it gives him a feeling of queezy narcotic floatation. He was a rigid thing floating and bobbing above sense.
His stomach was all acid and empty save the coffee paste festering in his gut. He now wished he had sucked down a tube of cheese, but he just wasn’t hungry when he woke from deep time. His stomach floated in his body barely suspended between the interstitial muck and it’s neighboring organs. His body rocked back and forth, swaying to the music of cosmic catch-up. A warm blanket of velvet frequency, the parts of music that slide off easily.)
