Arizona day of the donkeys

You know you’re having adventure when you’re not having any fun, we always say. So we knew better than to set out for adventure in the morning, but we did it anyway. 

“You have to go to Oatman and see the burros!” our cousin said. The town of Oatman was an old mine, and when the miners left they abandoned their donkeys. The donkeys survived and took over the ghost town, until years later people figured out they were still up there, going in and out of the saloon like they were tending bar, and shopkeepers set up as people came to visit and feed the wild donkeys. Now it’s a shabby little donkey town with tourist shops and a live gun show at high noon.

There are two ways to get to Oatman; a little stretch of uphill highway from Laughlin, or a tightly winding up-and-down cliffside road with no guardrails on the Kingman side. Guess which side we came from?

When we lived on the reservation, the trip to the grocery store in Chinle was along an unpaved cliffside road, and when the road crumbled in bad weather around blind curves, the wheels of our truck gripped the edge of the precipice in a way that gave us nightmares for the rest of our lives. And there it was. The nightmare is in Oatman, with full vistas of distant purple mountains just beyond your wheels, surprise donkeys around the blind corners and the bones of a hundred dead motorists below. There are signs all along the way warning motorcyclists that the road is not banked and they should try not to fly off the cliff.

“Fuck this,” my mom said, hiding her face.

“Holy shit, if our cousin hates us, she could just say so.”

Luckily, I trained on the cliffs of Maui for 5 years, and I kept the car smoothly on the road, with only a few moments of blind panicky terror that my mother did not detect until I parked safely in front of the saloon and then screamed a little bit.

We consoled ourselves by feeding donkeys, buying way too much leather and silver, eating a pulled pork sandwich at the old hotel, and then we added an hour to our trip home by escaping out the back way to Laughlin. It’s a good thing, too, because if we had to go back the way we came we’d still be up there, painting donkeys and living in Oatman for the rest of our days.

All these people snuck in through the safe side of the mountain, because there was not another soul on the side with murder cliffs 

Some classy shit in the souvenir shops

One of these donkeys is the mayor

My new hat, the best hat

I assume the guy who approved that road is in here

The restaurant in Oatman is decorated in dollar bills, proving outlaws are not doing their job in the Wild West

Getting a handle on the gouache, finally 

Back at the house for dinner, Drunk Wife made a flippant comment about how she wouldn’t need to pay for an urn for grandpa because he’d come in a cardboard box, and my mother very nearly picked her up and launched her like a shot put.

We had to dunk ourselves in my aunt’s hotel pool to extinguish the flames shooting out of my mother’s ears. The stars came out, I swam on the bottom of the pool in the silent yellow underwater light, and it is time to go home.

Arizona Day 8

Did absolutely nothing useful. Banged the table, declared that I needed a real breakfast, and loaded everyone up for a trip to the old Barrel of Crackers. I have never been to a Cracker Barrel, and was prepared to make fun of it, but then they sat me down in front of a pair of antique wooden sock blockers and I was filled with want. Started looking around at all the other old junk affixed to the walls and had the terrible realization that I was their demographic and they had hit the target. I hate that. And I bought a bag full of nostalgic candy to bring home for my kids. Goddamn it.

Drove over to Laughlin and rode the free water shuttle to the casinos. It was 114 degrees and the Colorado river was full of sun-stroked screaming people on jet skis. We cautiously fed dollar bills into the machines, slammed the flashing buttons arbitrarily, and cashed out the minute we made any extra money. I came out $5 ahead, and the sisters made about $20 apiece. My uncle smiled patiently, shook his head, and lost $7 on a milkshake. We win.

The water shuttle is one thrilling minute of high-speed jet ski dodging 

A whole lot of graphics when just a bill feeder and a single button would do the same job 

Early casino slot machine: the Skinner box

Went out to the Dambar Steakhouse with the cousins, and Drunk Wife was on her best wobbly behavior after getting called out at the last family dinner. Chalk one up for public embarrassment. 

Vacation toilet selfie proof of life:

Arizona day 7

Cleaned the junk pile in the dining room, hauled the poop rug outside and scrubbed it until I smelled like a wet dog, and  scanned a few hundred old photos to upload for printing. Almost fell asleep watching the fireworks go off over the downtown.

A snake slithered past my foot while I was hosing the rug off in the afternoon, and I couldn’t remember if the rhyme was red touches black, kill a Jack or red touches black, safe for a Jack, so I looked it up before running away. Either way, I think you’re pretty safe so long as you don’t grab it like a squeak toy. 

(It’s red touches black, safe for Jack, red touches yellow, kill a fellow. This one was just a red and black groundsnake.)

Two more days.

Arizona Day 6

First thing in the morning, we got in the truck to search Kingman’s yard and estate sales for shelving to organize the drunk wife’s wall-high cardboard box pile. 

We failed.

Kingman estate sale 

Instead, my mother found leather and silver gauntlets for motorcycle riding, and I paid a dollar for a mini growler with the Kingman Kwik Stop logo on it. My aunt had us stop at the Kwik Stop to fill it with one of the 300 beers on tap while we cashed in our lotto tickets for more tickets. 

“I think I am losing the battle against vice,” I said, looking at my loot. My mother took this as her opportunity to try to get me to buy a $400 gun at the swap meet. I absolutely do not need a $400 painting prop I can shoot myself with, but we hung around for a bit in the shade, drinking Gatorade and chatting with the gun guys about their homemade bullets. 

“Made all of those myself. I make silver ones, too. Good for werewolves, vampires, and zombies.”

“Zombies? Would silver make a difference to a zombie? Seems like a shame to use silver when a crowbar would do the job.”

“I’m not gonna ask. Can’t hurt.”

All the vices 

Good thing this was empty, because I would have had three holes in me just by the time she was done messing with it 

Shiny things 

Went to dinner with the Mormon cousins in their house on the nice side of the tracks, where the homes have yards of designer gravel instead of dirt. We ate tacos, swapped stories, I played with the 5 and 2 year olds, and folks were on the point of getting into the pool when Drunk Wife started sobering up and whining to go home. My mother got pissed off, words were exchanged, and I spent the rest of the evening doing peacekeeping in a chair next to the pool while she stewed in the water like an angry wonton. 

Yep, ready to go home.

Arizona Day 5

Some asshole spilled fish juice in the rental car, and spent the day trying to sniff out the stinky spot and clean it instead of taking nice pictures.

Went to Walmart and found a pamphlet that said “TRUST ME!” next to the toilet. Not sure which cult they wanted me to join, because I at least have enough sense not to pick up literature out of public toilets, but I love that somebody thought a sneaky crooked finger would be a good way to entice people to their doomsday ideology.

Not today, Walmart 

Spent some time painting the toothless decapitated deer that watched us eat dinner at the Hualapai lodge.

4th of July fireworks are everywhere, and it looks like sparklers are not illegal in the Wild West. I thought about stuffing a few packs of $2 sparklers into the suitcase for the kids, then decided that $2 was a good price to pay to not go to jail for smuggling fireworks. 

Today: cashing in my scratch ticket for what will surely be the winning card this time.

Temptation and vice everywhere over here.

Arizona day 4

Grandpa needed a day of down time, so we got out of their hair. Hit the wagon wheel trail for breakfast burritos and a hike before the sun was hot enough to ignite our hats.

Help

Walked around downtown at lunch, looking around in the little shops and spending an embarrassing amount of money on yarn.

The Rickety Cricket is a local brewery that used the wood from great-grandma’s demolished barn to build the second floor. We ordered a flight of ales and porters, and I tried a prickly pear beer that was very delicious.

All that dark wood is from the family barn. It lives!

“You have to go see Gran in the window,” everyone told us. This is word salad. Gran is dead. I wondered if they had put a window in her coffin. “No, it’s at the old hotel. There’s a mannequin operating a switchboard, and that was her job, so they named it after her.” Well, okay.

The old hotel is next to the train tracks. My uncle kept the truck running while I ran up and took a couple quick pictures. Out of nowhere, a leathery-faced man with stiff legs came lurching toward me, and my uncle jumped out to intercept him while I ran back to the truck. Quest ACHIEVED.

Uncle in reflection, rounding the truck to save me from being murdered by a walking beef stick

I’m going to be thinking about Gran trapped as a mannequin in an abandoned hotel for the rest of my life

Uncle assembled the barbecue and I made the mistake of listening to my mom when she suggested we might grill some fish. Fish does not grow in the desert, I thought, but I like making people happy through cooking, so I bought the freshest piece of salmon at the mega grocery, brought it back to marinate, and immediately filled the camper with the stench of rank fishy fish. The smell stained my hands. And my pants. And the fridge. Then I went and dropped it into the fire anyway. Disagreeable desert salmon. Good thing there were hamburgers.

Still messing up the sketchbook.

Arizona day 3

Grandpa’s drunk wife is having a hard time figuring out if she should feel appreciative that we’re all here setting up in-home hospice care and meal delivery, or feel insulted that we don’t think she can care for grandpa because she’s a nonfunctional alcoholic. 

The answer is: yes.

(She’s the daughter of his dead best friend, they teamed up after my grandma and her dad died, about 30 years ago. We care about her in an annoyed way.)

This time we had a family of quail along with the rabbit outside the camper. A puma went by, but she strolled into the beige brush with her beige fur before I could flatten myself to the window with my phone.

Spot the quail and the cottontail

Won $3 on a $3 scratch lotto ticket. Feeling pretty damn smug about that.

In the afternoon, I took my mom thrift shopping, which in Kingman means picking a path through piles of paint cans and confederate flags (“We have WWII German flags! See owner!”) and peering into dusty glass cases full of marbles and switchblades. Mom wouldn’t let me get a suitcase full of knives and gun-shaped lighters, because she doesn’t know how to shop for kid souvenirs, I guess.

The furniture goes outside, where it is safe from water damage

I am used to being comfortably invisible, as a middle-aged middle-sized haole, but suddenly there are big men with big beards who are looking at me like a pork chop. Sorry, boys, I am a piece of old salt fish in a pork chop suit. Run for it.

Arizona day 2

Been trying to figure out how to steal my grandpa’s dog. His name is “Dog”. He will probably fit under my shirt through airport security.

 

Our job today was to get grandpa telling stories. Because I have no shame about snooping through everything with my librarian raccoon hands, I got into the junk piles under the tables and found all the old photo albums to go through with him.

Hey, it’s me

My mom 

Grandma and grandpa making fun of very serious artists 

Great grandpa Casey, who never grew old and died smoking hot

Grandpa covering for me by making the same noise for the camera  

The story he told was about the kid in the navy who stood ahead of him alphabetically every time they had to form a line. On the day of their first weekly physical, they lined up bare ass naked in rows while nurses roamed up and down the lines between them. The first needle was the blood draw with the big slurping needle, and the second was the little measles prick. Everybody got through the blood draw okay, but when they went down the rows with the vaccinations, Anderson got his prick on the arm and suddenly went down like a big naked log, WHAM, and just laid there taking up half the floor. Barez turned around slowly with his eyes as round as saucers, “I don’t want what he got!” Every Thursday night, before Friday’s weekly physical and needle jab, that kid tried to get everyone to hop the fence and run away with him, and the rest of them would tell him it would be alright - sure, they were going to use the square needles, but it would only hurt for an hour or two.

Haven’t ruined the sketchbook yet.

Arizona day 1

The view from the camper this morning. 

Find the cottontail rabbit.

Tiny plane took a hard landing on a short runway in Las Vegas. The pilot let out a long exhalation on the overhead and everyone laughed. There was a big animated sign visible from the strip that said “HYDRATION!” Fancy.

Expected to walk out into a blast of heat and melt, but it felt like home. Smelled like home. Picked up a car and drove across Nevada, the only car on an endless road in an hours-long sunset while my mother chatted about the bird life and took pictures out the window, and I felt so happy.

My uncle is a long-haul trucker and drove out from Indiana to meet us at grandpa’s house with his recreational camper. We stayed up late and slept in bunks, boiled water for coffee on the gas stove, and watched the buzzards worry the cottontail rabbits from the window seat. 

Reconsidering my position on dirt farming. Sorry, kids.

I'll be in the back room, call me when it's over

The rescued murder chicks were finally big enough to re-home, and the very next morning I heard a noise that made me throw my oatmeal bowl aside and run out onto the porch. One of the girls walked by with five freshly baked chicks. She settled into the old coop with the babies and won’t budge. I need a bigger farm.

We don’t even have a rooster

Bought a new sketchbook to travel with. Every time you hold a new sketchbook or journal, you think, This is the one. This will be the book my descendants find in an attic trunk a hundred years after my death; a meaningful documentation of a life, without eraser gouges and torn out pages and phrases like "dick owl" scribbled in the margins without context.

I'm scared to write in it. I did glue a badge that says "Anti-Anti-Braffet-Alliance-Alliance" inside the cover, though.

After a week of super stupid confrontations with people who really want to spend their free time fighting with librarians about wearing a mask for 10 minutes, a trip to the scorching desert is looking like a nice relaxing vacation. “It’s called HIPAA! I challenge you to look it up!” Lady, I have a master’s degree in looking shit up, and HIPAA doesn’t mean a fucking thing to mask policy enforcement. Want me to go grab a stack of good books for your kids and bring them out to your car? “No, I want my country back! The managers at Walmart understand, once I educate them!” Ffs. Take the free mask and go find a book about better hobbies you could have.

I’m out of here.