September 10, 2001 (final version)

[mnaz]

September 10, 2001 was a day of vision, the day you jammed what you could fit into the truck and rolled south to a new life-- a true story, no part of it fiction. You had quit your job, and would move to the desert. Heed the call. That first night you crash at Steve's place in the foothills, and cable TV wakes you in the morning-- something bad. Maybe a highway crash or forest fire . . . And then you hear shouts of disbelief in the next room, and sink under the blanket. You can't put a decent sentence together that day.

The next day you take the big canoe out on the lake with Steve, and speech returns. A thread of coherent thought. You never heard the sky so quiet . . . Two days later, "God Bless America" is frozen on the traffic readerboards along the interstate. You can't drive out of this one. The radio screams of more attacks, and gas is up to six dollars a gallon. You should turn back, but you notice the mountains again. Near Saint George, Utah you greet the first Joshua tree, but thirty minutes later, global doom blasts from a TV thrust over a McDonald's dining room. Plastic flags sprout from cars, and "God bless America" is everywhere, as God is also praised for our defeat. Scenes beyond words repeat on every screen-- a tower torn open by a jet, collapsed into unthinkable hell. Indelible images you'll never be done with.

In Saint George you'll stay with Michael, father of an old friend. Saint George is an odd place-- an old Mormon cotton town on the Virgin River near Arizona, anchored by a spired white tabernacle and sprawled out around a dazzling maze of red bluffs, on which Brigham Young's decreed street grid vainly attempts its logic. Wide empty sweeps in the west break apart as they hit a red rock puzzle, and free roamers run up on steep cliffs and a strict religious ethic of control and order-- a white steeple every third stop sign, a school every ten blocks, and a tiny kid in a tiny helmet on a tiny bike every block. Lock onto the order and you're fine, but if your gaze strays to nearby psychedelic red rock you risk heresy.

Michael and his wife Faith welcome you, as their tract house door sucks shut. Your room has cable, so you dive into re-runs-- anywhere but now. A painting hangs near the TV-- Jesus in a ghost robe, thirty feet tall, with arms outstretched to greet two folks to the fold. "You honored my commandments," the caption says . . . The next day we go to a church picnic, and Michael describes how heaven looks while you finish your baked beans. At times he looks to the sky, and seems anxious to see this place that he describes in rich detail, and you can't blame him, only observe. The faithful sing "My Redeemer Lives," as horrific images replay in your mind . . . The next day you drive to Las Vegas to get a mailbox, but Vegas is abandoned, so you push on to the stark amber hills, where your defenses break down. Under the Vegas glow you lose it . . . But you go on, into a peculiar roundscape. The far side curves up a great, preposterous ramp to the top of the next range, lit by a last twinge of deep red. You see no one, but hear a muffled war jet rumble out of Nellis.

Two days later you're back in Michael's living room, and he extols God's plan. The control of it. And cable can't go more than thirty minutes without showing ghastly images of twisted ruin. So far, Michael seems detached . . . "They dealt us a terrible blow, no question, but we were so far off course. I really can't get too upset about this. I think we'll come out better" . . . But you can't race so far ahead. Can't qualify the events. Call them what they are: utter failure . . . Religion set its dog teeth into us again, yet to call this a God war profanes faith. But a profound ugliness repeats through history, despite incredible design, and no doubt false prophets will be along. Symbols lay in ruins on every screen from here to the end. Terrifying, apocalyptic images.

There is solace in the red bluffs where the trail meets Hurricane Cliffs and meanders into the remote Arizona Strip-- a rough trail, where a drifter could vanish for days on a good horse, but you can't muster the spirit-- something is missing. So why did you come? . . . Not sure. Except Saint George is the heart of the desert on a map. The Mojave, the Great Basin and red canyons, all around the corner. It was either here or Vegas, ninety minutes south, and why live there? . . . So you get the local paper. But most of the ads require "LDS standards." Latter Day Saints are quite diligent about sainthood, yet there's an undercurrent to the place, some dust and disorder in pockets, so you make a few calls . . . A guy named Otis has a room for rent in a three bedroom house, so you follow his directions and end up beside a lumber yard and boat repair shop in front of an old tin trailer with a crude box addition jutting to one side, where a skittery chocolate chihuaha chirps code red in the driveway.

By and by Otis appears, in a ripped tee shirt and jeans, permeated by grease. He is sixty or so, with a combative squint-- a desert prophet you decide, mostly because you need him to be one. He introduces himself, shakes your hand and promptly crawls under his truck, an awful rig stitched together from a battered '65 Ford cab and a bullet-ridden '77 Dodge bed. He is replacing the transfer case and asks you to fetch some tools. "This thing will go anywhere," he says as you ponder the odds of spent metal evading meltdown . . . But the rig is more than capable. Otis drives deep into far-off guru mountains to collect firewood to sell. And he is a junk man. His yard is jammed with aluminum siding, window frames, transmissions, tarps, hubcaps, outboard motors and boxes, and upside-down carpet is spread out to keep down the weeds. Whatever it takes.

The inside of his place is plastic wood grain of a shade found nowhere in nature, and near the front door he sawed the wall open to the box addition. Everything is comfortably worn, and there are heaps of boxes, plates, drinking glasses, fishing gear and gadgets. His paintings of Indian sun symbols lay on the floor, and you warm up to this combative prophet who paints the sun, who foretells how heaven will look from your windshield. We walk outside again, and you notice a terse message painted on the trailer in red with a big brush, aimed at his neighbors-- questioning their Christianity . . . and your brain short-circuits. The shock of religion's latest death wish wells up again. A momentary lapse.

"I'm weary of religion," you let slip.
"Everyone needs to find God in their own way."
"You're right . . . Does anyone else live here?"
"No, just me and little Sweetheart dog for now."
"And I can't have alcohol around, due to the probation."

It was a trinity, or trilogy since you left Michael's place. On the first day you met a man who said Protestant faith is lost. On the second day, a man who said Mormon faith is lost. And on the third day a man who said the first two men are lost . . . And Sunday comes again, so you set off toward the Hurricane Cliffs. This time you'll get deeper into the desert. You packed the cooler and gassed the truck, but something isn't right. So you pull into Zion's Bank lot to mull your options and sip forbidden caffeine . . . And it hits you, how big Zion is. Not only the promised star realms but a now empire to get a jump on that future glory. It must be near, advertised everywhere. You could hit the highway again, but which exit? . . . And reggae blasts from the truck, a dubbed-out bass throb rebel, but it too riffs on Zion. If we could get there from here.

You go back and make a few more calls. You need a place to land . . . A guy named Ted has a room with a view, so you climb a red talus slope to a makeshift mansion teetering at the top of sixty steps. You can see Washington Dome, but the room is against the cliff on the other side. Ted rents out ten rooms to drifters like you . . . And you drift back to Michael's place. He tells how years ago in a motel room he dropped to his knees in anguish and called to God, and was changed by a powerful presence. And he says you should do the same on your next road. "You must physically kneel" . . . And he says you were an intelligence awaiting life in a physical body, and you may have helped design the desert-- an irresistable idea, though desert seems more unknown than familiar on return.

Michael hammers on. He says it will all fall into place if you're baptized by one who has authority . . . And thus you roll south a little sooner than planned. At the Nevada line you find a road into orange badlands-- a plateau surrounded by fiery disorder, where two Joshua trees stand watch, the only ones in sight, doomed to glorious solitude. The Virgin Mountains are a wall of rock in the east, tempered by muted purple solar fury that shows mercy . . . At dusk you go down from orange fire and check in at the Oasis Casino. The readerboard flashes "America, our prayers are with you," alternating with "check out our new slots."

Every last screen is set to FOX or CNN, and those damned tickers. You were fooled once when the screen woke to bare mountains in splendor, until the camera pulled back to a line of troops hiking up a trail to kill enemies in caves. Stock prices soon scrolled; they went up and down with the war. And barking heads speak in bluster like semiautomatic fire in a liquor store hit. Their lips are hummingbird wings and their foreheads turn red, and you hang on their every word of redemption. Is there an exit strategy from the Screen? From a fully digitized earth? Have you been out to earth lately and kicked up dust over wires that transmit every reason why you needn't bother?

[Steve Plonk]

Mnaz, this prose is a gripping piece of work. It was especially interesting
that you stayed with some LDS folks. Seems like that they come in all shapes,
creeds, & sizes, but their church seems very strict. The restrictions on drinking
coffee seem especially odd...Were you ever a Mormon? Just saying...
9/11 changed us all in subtle ways. For instance, I no longer feel safe in tall buildings. I used to not give it a thought...

There is a joke going around the net that if Romney is nominated, he'll make all
his staff wear "Mormon underwear"...

[mnaz]

thanks steve. an early chapter in my (re-written) book, combined from two earlier chapters. and a true story. michael, faith, steve, otis and ted were/are real folks. as were the barking heads on cable tv ...

very hard chapter to write, and finish. for a lot of reasons.

i'm not mormon, but i sure got the indoctrination at "michael's" place. his constant pressure literally ran me out of the place before i had planned . . .

thanks again.

[Steve Plonk]

Yeah, I know where you're coming from...We have an LDS church about three miles from here, & when they come knocking, they are harder to dissuade than Jehovah's Witnesses.