Non-Fiction
The Great Salt Lake, the Mecca of the
west. The sun is melting my flesh. All the strays are smartly staying in the
shade. Only stupid humans are outside on a day like this.
Ben,
a friend of mine is standing beside me holding a sign with simple meaning and
instruction, “West.” Ben is a man of the earth, honestly poor and spiritually
rich. His few possessions, gifts from God and his smile are a blessing to all
he meets.
After
being dropped of at the west bound on-ramp facing California we wait, and wait,
and wait.
The
practice of hitch-hiking is really a practice in patience. Spending hours or
even days in one location creates many problems between travelers. Today we had
only been waiting three hours when the tension became apparent. “Let’s try the
truck stop” Ben suggests. I note the negativity in his voice that I have never heard
before.
“Yeah,
I’m ready for a change”
Under
the hot sun we race to the blessed shade of the truck stop overhang. The gas
station is like any other Mega truck stop. Everything comes in “MEGA SIZE!!” It makes me wonder about the well being of truckers and
travelers alike, being enticed into the double Taquito deal with a Big Gulp.
Memories of long car rides come to mind, sitting next to a greenish sibling
with a mess on the floor that almost made it out the window, not fond memories.
At
the station we each take turns going to the bathroom while the other watches
the bags. I carry 35 pounds of clothes, books, and a sleeping bag on my back.
Ben like any good monk carries a Bible and a blanket in a backpack that was
forced onto him as a gift when his previous bungee chord failed to hold his
sleeping bag together.
In
the bathroom I wash my face, I look like the homeless people that sponge bathe
themselves in the library bathrooms at home. I can see that I am not far off. I
brush my teeth and go out to relieve Ben.
Asking
for a car ride at a gas stop is a lot like trying to pull a “Hey, Mister” in
high school. Not having a proper I.D. with 21 written on it, we would have to
stand in the parking lot of the liquor store and try to guess which “legal
adult” would be the least shocked and or hopefully not call the police. This
is the situation that occurs when
asking strangers at a gas station for a ride; we hope not to get hassled.
I
ask one nice looking woman (as well as you can judge from watching them for 10
seconds). Without responding she looks me in the eye only looking me over in my
dirty cutoffs and excessive amount of bags. Her expression is as if I had no
pants on or if I was violating that small dog of hers. She goes inside. I am
hurt. Each time I am turned down, it stings a little unreasonably. For such a
simple request it always hurts to be turned down even though it seems to make
sense. We do smell fairly corpse-like.
Ben
returns. He looks happy and refreshed. How simple a joy it is to just clean
yourself a little bit when before you were so dirty. He takes over thumbing and
I take a turn reading a book I have brought, Between a Rock and A Hard Place. This is the story of Aaron
Ralston, a Colorado resident who cuts his own arm off after a hiking accident
in Utah. Being stuck in Utah ourselves I consider briefly if cutting my own arm
off would get us a ride out of here. I am not in the best mood after standing
in the sun and pollution for so long.
I
see Ben talking to a man in a station wagon. The conversation seems to be going
well. They are both smiling an laughing. I approach them and the man turns to
me and says, “I need gas; then we will go. You can load your bags into the
back.” My spirits immediately rise. I look at Ben and his smile is obvious.
“Praise
the Lord!” says Ben.
“Amen
to that”
Driving
through nowhere specific, Utah, I see nothing looks familiar other than the
cookie cutter houses similar to those back in Denver. We arrive at a house. The
outside shutters are sagging and the paint has long since lost its vibrant
appearance. That moment the house immediately starts barking. As we go inside
with our driver, Arturo shows us around the main portion of his home. The
source of the barking is a Blue Pit Bull named Sandy. Arturo explains that the
dog was adopted after he found it wandering the neighborhood without tags. The
original plan was to wait for the owners, but no one ever came to claim Sandy.
Past the entryway we enter the living room where we meet Craig, a teenage boy
and housemate maybe 16 or 17. Craig is friendly and greets us.
Arturo
tell us his plans to get a job for himself as well as Craig at their local
McDonalds. He says they have an “Insider.” I wonder if he is referring to the
clown himself or if he is really a thief, and McDonalds is his next paycheck.
Either way Arturo exclaims his readiness, and we all head for his station wagon
and the long ride to Nevada.
I
end up riding shotgun. This is unfortunate only in the game of hitch-hiking
where the person in front gets the job of entertaining the driver. A lot of the time people that pick you
up hitch-hiking are extreme talkers and need someone to listen while they
drive. The person sitting in the front seat has the joy of not sleeping, but
trying to stay interested in whatever the driver is talking about. Fortunately
for me this is not the case with Arturo.
He
begins talking almost immediately. At first he talks about his life in Salt
Lake, moving here from El Salvador and other light hearted things. On this note
I begin to feel tired, the landscape is flat and endless making me drowsy.
He
goes on, “I am going to see my brother in Wendover across the Utah border…” I
begin to wonder if he will be talking the whole way to Wendover. “Gotta make my
runs to the local ladies house.” My ears immediately perk up.
“You
are going to a whore house? What is that like?”
He
goes on to tell me the stresses of having to drive all the way to Nevada for a
good lay. I myself have never experienced a whore house, or even seen one now
that I am thinking about it.
“It’s
the only place in the states I would swear by!”
I
begin to think that Arturo is something of a pimp, an expert John or maybe
both. He goes on and the conversation wanes and moves into his career in the
Marines. I think it must be an amazing sense of pride or duty that would
influence someone born outside the U.S. to fight for the Marines. And, of
course, Arturo is very willing to tell me his most gruesome stories. All the
while Ben sleeps soundly across the back seat.
While
in the Marines Arturo traveled to Africa. He reminisces about a time a comrade
and he were driving a truck to a school.
Along
the way to the school they were stopped at a road-block. A man with an
automatic weapon starts to ask the driver a lot of questions concerning the cargo.
The man asks the driver to step out of he car. At this point the man at the
checkpoint stabs the driver with a knife. Arturo gets out of the vehicle and
gets the man in control and ties him to the truck. With a set of pliers Arturo
pulls out the molars of the man while holding him down kicking and screaming.
I
begin to just nod stupidly saying “Oh gosh” and “I couldn’t imagine.” Why would he do something like this to
another human being? Automatically my mind assumes the worst. He is sadist and
wants to take Ben and I to the desert and burn us alive after pulling out all
our teeth and hair.
He says, “I still got those teeth right
here in my medicine bag.” The bag is swinging from the mirror like dice.
“Open it up. Give them a look”
I open the bag. It is beaded and looks
like he bought it at a cheesy tourist shop. Sure enough inside are two massive
molars. They are huge and discolored. The teeth look like they ate nothing but
hostess cakes and raw beef their entire working existence. Again I do not know
what to say and let him do the talking.
“I carry this around so I never forget, I
call it my Wisdom”
What to say to the guy that has mutilated
people? I start to feel extremely aware of his movements. His arms wave when he
talks. There is one visible knife that I know of sitting between us in the
console. The knife is a small Swiss Army, but none the less I take note of
it. I do not hear any of what he
is talking about. I don’t see any cars immediately around. If Ben and I were
killed and had our teeth pulled from our skulls how long until anyone noticed?
I hear him mention something about
burying children. I am ready to get out of the car. But Arturo is still seemingly friendly as ever. But wouldn’t
that be how a serial killer would act? Is he luring me or am I over-reacting? I
try and think of a way of getting Ben awake and ready for a quick ditch out of
the car.
The town is in sight! The first exit for
Wendover is visible and without thinking, I ask him to take it.
“Oh yeah, this is perfect. Right here
will be ok”
“Thanks for the ride” says Ben half
asleep.
“Gonna head on down to the house if you
boys wanna join me?”
“No, thanks, Bye”
Ben
slowly wakes up and begins to talk to me.
“That guy was definitely drunk” he says
“Just be glad you were asleep.”
We then walked across town, Ben not
knowing the danger and me thankful for both of our lives as well as the people
we meet. I cannot help on the way to look for Arturo’s station wagon outside of
The Wendover Red Light Lounge.
“What did you all talk about when I was
asleep?”