blazer, part 2

[mnaz]

(based on a crazy few days back in 2002)

The next morning Rick fixes the tranny leak and fries bacon and eggs. AJ snores on the couch. A hazy morning inside a stucco box . . . Until the big screen comes on. The omnipresent, loud FOX News. The Great Divide, tightly spun. Support the war or you are heathen Leftist scum, no gray area. But you're having fun, so to hell with politics and its horse. The desert gets more interesting each day-- good, clean sporting fun, lots of straight talk, from carburetors to terrorists, and parties and booze. But don't get the wrong idea. Rick is a stand-up guy who is caring for his ailing uncle here in this house. You could learn from him.

Toward noon a wiry guy with white sideburns named Bob shows up. He wears a sleeveless wife-beater tee and a blue LPGA visor. His truck broke down here, and since then he's tended bar in the lounge under his motel, saving up money to get to Jackson Hole, and he's lucky to have the job. Hard to find steady bartending if you're "too old and too male," he explains. His life's goal is to become a pro golf caddy. And then Bill and Larry show up. They look and sound a lot like Buddy Hackett and poli-satirist Mark Russell, and they do shows at a local hotel. And after a beer or two they start in with some whorehouse songs from the thirties, and then some old Tom Lehrer tunes from the fifties.
"Good bye mommy,
I'm off to kill some commies" . . .

And it's a fine, shining day, so how shall we amuse ourselves? Maybe a boat ride? "Nah, too cold, only ninety degrees today," Rick says. No, the desert calls us again. We need the desert. Bill and Larry want no part of it, but Bob wants to go. So once again we stock the Blazer well and roll out out from Rick's back yard into the desert, this time down toward the wash. We pass more people shooting guns.

It's slow-going for awhile, but when the trail opens up Rick gets crazy again . . . "Lezzzzz GO!" He guns the rig hard at a small butte, up a 45-degree slope, up and down around a perfect curve, a sudden genius of physics. Centrifugal force keeps us from tipping, and we have a roll bar anyway. And you begin to pray informally, and AJ laughs. Bob just holds on and grins. And what possessed you to get back on this mad machine?

Rick stops for awhile so we can fix drinks for the trail, as the mighty 401 idles, its throaty rumble barely contained under the big hood, a thousand beasts waiting to be unchained to wreak havoc. Then we stash our drinks and Rick blasts off with crazy abandon. The scrub is a blur and rocks fly. The engine bellows and wants more. You pray, and AJ laughs and Bob grins. To you the desert makes no sense at this great speed, but it's not your rig and you'll have to trust the pilot. For now.

The canyon narrows and Rick slows for a long grind up the wash, and you exhale, and AJ and Bob are discussing women again. With each mile the canyon gets tighter and the wash climbs more steeply. Rick powers over small boulders and sand.
"Where does this trail go?"
"Over that ridge, I think."
"Or through it."
"Are you sure this the right trail?"
"Yeah, this is the one."
"It's getting really narrow."
"We're almost there."

And then we come to the boulder. It's not much, only a three, four foot drop on the far side, though it must have been a hell of a storm to wash the big rock here, and since then it has diverted runoff to a deep scour on the left side not wide enough for the Blazer. So Rick must confront the boulder directly-- crawl right over it. And from this side it looks easy enough. But somehow this rock hangs up the mighty Blazer. Its front wheels dangle and back wheels spin. So we climb out to study the situation, reappraise the mission.

"Shit!"
"It's bigger than it looked."
"No shit Bob, right again."
"Could we jack up the back end?"
"Then all four tires would be in the air."
"So maybe jack up the front instead?"
"But could we jack it high enough?"
"Or maybe just hit reverse?"
"Damn sumbitch rock."

We ponder our plight, and after awhile that big, mean engine seems a good bet. So Rick hits four-wheel drive reverse, and the rear tires spin furiously and inch the rig backwards until the front tires hit rock and begin to scratch and lurch upward. The Blazer heaves in a storm of dust and smoke, and just when we think the old machine might pull it off we hear a loud SNAP! The front axle breaks and the front end drops once again.

"Holy crap . . . "
No one says much. We just start walking up the hill, and at the top AJ gets a weak signal on his phone, and Rick makes some calls. But no one is home, and AJ's phone battery is dying. So we sit for two hours atop a desert hill blessed with vista. No dirt bikes nor airplanes, only haunting silence. Stranded . . . Until Bob the Welder finally answers his phone, and drives out to haul our sorry butts back to town in the back of his old Dodge.

And it's your last day in Havasu. All good, clean fun eventually ends. The next morning you thank Rick for one hell of trip, then pack up and roll. And not long after this, Rick moves to Colorado and you can't find his number; the trail goes cold. So you're left to wonder, what became of the Blazer? How long did it sit there on that fateful rock, miles up that wash canyon? Is it still out there?

Looking back, Rick was right about some things despite his lead foot. Like that little econo-box car-- no kind of proper ruin at all, with its dainty little tires. Someone went too cheap. No, a proper desert ruin is ensconced in cholla and all manner of spiky needles to hold you off. It should be wasted muscle, a streaked '44 business coupe or glazed olive '72 Plymouth Fury, its hood stretched into several star clusters. It should be a blistered hardtop against a pale ridge, ashtray full of sand and eight-track hole to stash smokes, cracked wide track rubber and eight pistons charred and defiant. Vistas to kill.

It might take awhile to clear your head after Havasu, and by now you have doubts about this stretch of desert, but you run down 95 toward the border anyway, since you're in the neighborhood. South to El Camino del Diablo, the "Devil Road." Two hundred lunar miles on the edge of Mexico. Only to find that you need permits to go there, from the wildlife refuge and the bombing range. Not so much "permits" as waivers, free of charge. Just sign below to confirm your foolish poor judgment.

Pioneers used to brave the road in 120 degree heat when Indians had left for high ground, and hundreds perished, never made next water. And though Indians are no longer an issue, many grave perils still abound-- venomous reptiles, sink holes and mine shafts, drug runners and illegal aliens. Yes, aliens among us; imagine that. And if you survive that list of perils you still might catch a bomb for your trouble on the west end. And now it's clear. Must leave the state of Arizona immediately.