Teenage Wasteland III

Teenage wasteland, continued...

It was hard to believe anyone could live in that barren, moonlike landscape. As darkness fell and the canopy of stars illuminated the heavens, Arthur pulled out his harmonica and began his dirge. We reached a turnoff onto a dirt road. We left the main highway and entered the dirt road that would lead us to the mountains.  The prophet gunned the big engine of the Chevy and we bumped up and down.



The road was edged with the spiky green cactus known as maguey, used by local farmers to make their bootleg mescal drink. Now, in the dark, the cactus looked like shards of obsidian, black volcanic glass. The moon rose red, over the hills of Caborca in the distance. I could make out the lights of a distance ranch house. We crawled over the dirt road and the lights grew closer.
It was a one-story brick house. There was a car-port with a palm roof over an ancient pickup truck. A man appeared in the doorway, backlit with the halo of a kerosene lantern. We had arrived.

Nacho the Prophet turned off the engine. He got out, grabbed his guitar case out of the back seat and walked around and opened the trunk. Arturo and I got out. He was carrying his knapsack with a bedroll, an old Mexican blanket. The man in the doorway didn't move, as if he were deciding whether he should  shoot us or say hello. A grisly black dog appeared, snarling and barking. He looked mean.

As the Prophet locked his guitar in the trunk, the Brujo said something calming to the dog, who wandered back off into the desert looking for a lost bone. Arthur and Nacho and the Brujo embraced like long-lost friends and said a few words in Spanish.

I stood quietly, watching. The Brujo paid no attention to me. He was short and brown, wore a t-shirt bluejeans, and heavy sandals, with rubber soles made from truck tires. Finally the trio turned.  They had finished exchanging pleasantries. The Brujo looked at me and smiled a broad smile. He was missing his two front teeth. He said something in Spanish and they all laughed.

"Wait here," said the Prophet. They went into the house to talk for a while. I stood around looking at the night sky.  A hot wind blew dust. It was dead quiet. The moon was higher now. I could see that the flat land around the house led to some mountains in the distance. An irrigation ditch ran to a little cornfield.  I could smell tortillas and the pungent odor of chilies. A few minutes later they came out of the house, Arturo, Nacho, and the Brujo. The Brujo was carrying a big glass jar. They stopped for a moment and put the glass jar and some other things in a small canvas knapsack. The Prophet carried another knapsack.

"Come on, kid," said Arturo, grabbing my arm. We walked around the corner of the little house, towards the hills. The men were serious now. After a minute, the flat land around the house became a trail through chickweed and stumpy cactus. A group of coyotes howled, yip yip yip, in the distance and the dog started barking like crazy near the house. We kept walking towards the black shadow of  the volcanic mountain that cut off the light from the stars. I wiped the sweat from my forehead with an old red bandana that Tasha Vandenburg had given me as a going away present.

We reached an area with rock outcroppings not far from the base of a hilly section leading to the mountain. "We're getting close," said the Prophet."That mountain there is called, 'El Cerro de la Virgen,' the Virgin's Mountain. But this place here is on the other side of the mountain. It is considered to be the 'ombligo' the belly-button of the universe. It is a good place to do what we need to do."

The Brujo and Arturo set down their knapsacks by some rocks. I sat down on a rock. The Prophet offered me some water from his canteen. I took off my shoes. My feet burned. The earthy was sandy and cool. The Brujo and Arturo found some dry mesquite wood and gathered it up. Pretty soon they had a fire going. Now the desert had lost its heat. The wind blew cold.

We sat in a circle around the fire. The Brujo took the glass jar from his knapsack. It shined in the moonlight. He said some prayers over it in a language I couldn't understand. I'm sure it wasn't Spanish. He pulled a big piece of dried cactus out of the jar and handed it to Arturo.

Sometimes he called himself Arthur and sometimes it was Arturo. Now he was Arturo. I asked him later where he was from and said, "Everywhere, nowhere. I am from a country called happiness in the land of peace." He moved back and forth across the Mexican border. I think he was from an old tribe that once inhabited this area but had moved on. He was perfectly at home here. He took the cactus from the Brujo's hand and held it up to the moonlight. He smiled. Removing the big knife from his side-bag he divided the cactus, cutting it into small pieces on a rock.

"We leave it in the moonlight now," said the Prophet. He reached into the pocket of the old green army jacket he wore and pulled out a small plastic bag. From another pocket he produced cigarrette papers. Resting the bag on a rock, he sat crosslegged and quickly rolled some cigarettes with the herbs in the bag. "Now, we smoke," he said.

He lit the cigarette and, putting it to his lips, inhaled deeply. He coughed a bit and took another drag. He passed it to the Brujo, and the medicine man also took a deep drag. The coyotes yipped again. They sounded closer. As Arturo toked off the joint, the Prophet rolled another one. Arturo passed the cigarette to me.

"Go ahead, son," said the prophet. "You're a man now."