Too Much Tequila, Too Little Sunscreen

I put my feet up on the desk and stared mindlessly through our little front window. I’ve been looking at this same scene damn-near every day for the past 18 months. What ever possessed me to think that I could cope with the boredom of being Deming, New Mexico’s first and only deputy sheriff? This job really fits the sheriff; he’s had years of practice sitting on his ass waiting for something to happen. He spends a lot less time doing nothing now that he has me on board.

Our one makeshift cell is empty and clean, I just finished sweeping the office floor and I don’t see any paperwork that needs doin’. Guess I’ll make my rounds and see how the town got through another night. I try to stop in at most business establishments every morning just to see what’s up and if anything happened last night after I turned in. The saloons and the whorehouses usually have a story or two to tell even if they don’t have a crime to report.

As you can probably tell, I’m new at this sheriffin’ business; I’m actually a gunsmith by trade or at least I was before the war. The war seems so long ago because I’ve tried to forget everything about it. I enlisted in the 1st Pennsylvania Rifles in the winter of ‘61 and fought at Shiloh in April ‘62. I deserted my post outside of Antietam in September of ‘62, stole my captain’s horse and headed West without as much as a look back over my shoulder. I figured the West would be a good place to hide out until that damn war was over and they’d forget about hangin’ me for desertion. I bummed around mostly working as a ranch hand and cowboy until I got here to Deming. The sheriff was looking for a deputy and I was looking for a job. This is a real settle-down kinda town. Maybe it’s about time and this seems like as good a place as any.

I normally have coffee at Millie’s place, Deming’s top bordello. Millie’s a real character and I look forward to our chats about anything and everything. She also has a Mexican girl working for her that I’m kinda sweet on. Juanita is from some dusty town in Sonora and has picked up enough English at Millie’s to almost carry on a conversation. I like Juanita a lot and I see her now and then professionally and she usually joins Millie and me for coffee. This morning it’s just Millie, her black cook and cleaning lady, Sarah and me in the kitchen.

“Millie where’s Juanita this mornin’,” I ask over my third sip of Sarah’s coffee.

“She’s got the monthlies and I’m afraid she won’t be down this mornin’,” Millie says like she’s unsure how to respond.

Millie’s hidin’ somethin’. “Millie, I don’t know much about that sort of thing but I seem to remember Juanita having her monthlies just a week or so ago. What’s wrong, is she down with somethin’?”

“Sam, don’t pry. Juanita got hurt last night and she’s going to be on the mend for a few days. She’ll be as good as new in a week or two.”

“What happened?” I shouted as I sprang from my chair. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do, fight Millie?

“I can’t tell you Sam. There’s nothin’ to report, she just had a little accident.”

All sorts of images raced through my mind as I bounded up the stairs to Juanita’s room. I knocked but she didn’t answer. I knocked again, and then pushed the door open. Juanita was propped up in bed. She was covered in big ugly bruises and make-shift bandages. One eye was patched and her upper lip was split wide open. It looked like she’d need stitches to get her lip back together.

“Sam, don’t come een, I no want joo see me like dis,” she whispered through unmoving lips.

“Juanita, what happened? Who did this to you? I’ll kill the bastard. Juanita, you’ve got to tell me.”

“I can’t Sam; he es un hombre muy importante. He will keel me if I tell joo.”

I sat on the edge of her bed and held her hand as I tried to inventory her injuries. She was embarrassed for me to see her like this. She looked awful. I couldn’t tell if she had lost any teeth or if her bandaged eye was permanently damaged.

“Juanita, you have to tell me who did this to you. I won’t do anything that will get you in any more trouble. I’ll come up with somethin’ to get back at him in my own way. He’ll never know that you told me.”

“Sam, Sam mi amor, eet was Ben Robinson. He was muy drunk and couldn’t get eet up for me and that made him mad, muy enfadado. I tried to get away but he sat on me and beat me with his fists.”

Ben Robinson was one of Deming’s most prominent businessmen and a blow-hard civic leader. That asshole is going to pay for what he did to my Juanita. I don’t know how yet but he’ll pay and pay through the nose.

“Juanita, I’m going to send Doc Ambrose over to take a look at you and to sew up your lip. I want you to stay in bed and don’t talk to anyone about Ben Robinson. Does Millie know it was Ben?”

“Chure, che knows.”

“Tell her not to do anything; I’ll take care of it. Adios, sweetheart.”

After sending the doc over to Juanita’s I was too pissed-off to complete my rounds. I wandered back to the office to think. I’d never liked Ben a hell of a lot before now; now I wanted to castrate him with a broken beer bottle. There’s no way I could run him in. It would be his word against that of a Mexican puta and we all know how that would turn out. Millie won’t testify and jeopardize her fragile business interests. No, I’ve got to come up with some revenge scheme that won’t reflect back on Juanita, Millie or me.

I think I’ve got it. The more I think about it, it’ll work. It means using maybe even abusing a couple of friends of mine but if what I expect to happen happens it will be well worth it. The only ugly part of my plan is that I have to buddy up to ole Ben Robinson so I can dangle some bait he won’t be able to refuse. Ben hangs out in his bar every afternoon before dinner for a couple of drinks with whoever happens to be around. I’ll join this after-work drinking group and swap good ol’ boy stories with the guys until Ben and I become bosom buddies. This could take me a month or so of kowtowing to this pompous ass as he holds court in his bar in his hotel.

Ben was at his usual table when I stopped by a little after four. Walter a rancher and Herman the owner of the general store were well into a bottle of Ben’s finest when I wandered up. They welcomed me and I joined them, but claimed I couldn’t have whiskey because I still had some work to do that evenin’. I had a beer and joined in their conversation about the price of beef and the railroad’s latest promises to the town. This was the usual town chatter that I would normally run and hide from. I bit my lip and sat and talked about these meaningless things as if I actually gave a damn.

Soon I was a regular at Ben’s table and the guys actually asked my opinion on such weighty issues as the price of cattle feed and what we should do to keep Silver City out of our affairs. Breaking free from Grant County and forming our own county seemed like the right thing to do. My championing of this cause elevated me to mover and shaker status with the local politicians and wind-bags. I was clearly one of Ben’s buddies and solid member of the Spruce Street town fathers.

It took nearly three weeks for Juanita to heal up enough to go back to work. She still had a scar across her upper lip and her left eye didn’t look quite right. I spent an evening with her and checked out all of her other parts and assured her that Ben was going to get his payback soon.

One afternoon well into my third beer Ben started bragging about all of his escapades with the local Mexican whores. He seemed to know them all and know them quite well. Fortunately for him he never said a word about Juanita. Maybe he was hiding his recent drunken savagery or maybe he just knew better than to say anything in front of me. It was time to set the bait.

“Ben, you’ve missed the best piece of Mexican tail in town. I can’t believe you’ve never been over to Rosa’s place for a bit of afternoon fun.”

Who’s this Rosa, I don’t know any Rosa and I know every hussy in town.”

“Rosa’s not a hussy; she’s a housewife with a little whorin’ business on the side. That’s what makes her so special, she’s practically an amateur.”

“If she’s so good how come I don’t know about her?” Ben stammered with excitement.

“Well it’s a little complicated. See Rosa is an upstanding married woman that will see a guy now and then in the afternoon while her very jealous husband is at work at the livery stables. You’ve got to go over to her house about one in the afternoon and she’ll let you stay until three if she likes you and the money is right. I think knowin’ that her husband may come home at any time adds to the excitement. Anyway, you haven’t had the best until you’ve been to Rosa’s.”

“Where does she live and what do I have to do?”

“Just show up at her house on Copper Street a little after one with a few bucks and knock on her door. You can’t miss it; it’s the one with the big ristra hanging by the window. She’ll do the rest.”

“Damn, I’m gonna try that.”

He had fallen for the bait now for the second part of my plan.

The following afternoon I staked out Rosa’s knowing full well that Ben would be there, stiff as a new broom. Sure enough, at one fifteen Ben rides up to Rosa’s and goes right in as soon as she opens the door. Ben must have come with a wad of bills to guarantee that she would see him.

Once Ben was inside I raced to the livery stable to find Rosa’s husband, Alfredo.

“¿Hola Alfredo, Cómo está usted?”

“Hola, Señor Sam. How’re joo doin’?”

“I’m OK Alfredo, did you get a new horse, a big white gelding?”

“No señor, why do you ask?”

“I saw one tied up at your house when I rode by a few minutes ago and figured it must be yours.”

I could see the wheels turning as Alfredo thought about all of this. He dropped his pitch fork, ran to the barn, grabbed his gun and took off down the street without saying another word.

My plan was now in play.

I waited fifteen minutes then rode over to Alfredo’s. His front door was wide open and I could hear Rosa wailing as I approached the house. There in their bed was Ben’s big, naked ass sticking up over the blankets. I walked over to Ben to check him out but didn’t need to see anything beyond the bullet wound to the side of his head and the pool of blood he was laying in.

“What happened here?” I asked as if I didn’t know.

Rosa spoke first. “Señor Sam, this big fat gringo came to my house and before I could do anything he drug me over to my bed and raped me. Thank god that Alfredo came home when he did or I’d probably be dead now.”

“Alfredo, what’s your story?”

“I ran home after joo told me there was a strange horse at my house. I opened the door and saw this big gringo on top of my Rosa. I didn’t think; I just shot him as he turned to see who I was. He was still humpin’ Rosa when he died.”

“I believe you and I’m sure the judge will too but I’ll have to take you in. Rosa, do you want me to send the doc over?”

“No Señor Sam, I’m OK, just scared.”

“I’ll send a couple guys over for the body, adios Rosa, come with me Alfredo.”

I locked up Alfredo, got Ben’s remains to the undertaker, notified the sheriff and knowing Ben had no next of kin, I told Ben’s bartender and hotel manager of his demise.

Alfredo’s preliminary hearing came up three weeks later. He was charged with murder. Alfredo and I were the only witnesses. We both told the story that Rosa and he had told me the day of the shooting.

The judge listened intently, thought for a couple of minutes before declaring Alfredo not guilty of murder and that his actions were justifiable. He complemented Alfredo for valiantly defending his wife’s honor and possibly saving her life.

At that brief instant in time there was justice in the world.

©2009 by Bob Rockwell

How does the wind make the desert seem even lonelier? Is it the eerie howling or is it because the desert’s vastness and beauty is hidden by the blowing dust? It’s been blowing constantly for weeks and I’ve had it up to here.

I’m tired of being cooped up inside my truck watching the world blow by. I should quit bitching about the weather and introduce myself. My name is Bob Garcia. I’m a U.S. Border Patrol agent assigned to the Deming, NM Station in the El Paso Sector. Today I’m on routine patrol on the dustiest road in what has to be the loneliest part of the whole US/Mexican border. There are probably lonelier stretches of border in Texas but this is it from here to the west coast. I’ve been with the border patrol just over 18 months and this is my first assignment after the academy. I’m from San Diego, Santee actually, but San Diego sounds better and people know it. I kicked around in a couple dead-end jobs for two years after I got out the Marines before I was accepted with the USBP.

I like everything about my job except the occasional boredom, this damn wind and a bad case of homesickness for my old Marine buddies and my ex, Linda, back in Santee. Linda is history. She’s married now and I’ve got to get over her. But, the loneliness and boredom of my job doesn’t help at all. I have too much time to think about her and feel sorry for myself. Linda, damn her.

I’m trying to get Linda off my mind when my radio chirps, “Agent Garcia, there’s some activity in your zone about two clicks west and a half a click or so north of your current location. Check it out.”

“Roger control, I’m on it.” I step on the gas eager for some action. There’s nothing like racing through the desert to get your mind off old could-have-beens.

Bouncing around at fifty miles an hour over bumpy, rutted desert trails in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle is actually fun. I’m dodging yuccas and boulders like a week-end yahoo. I screech to a halt close to where the activity was reported.

“Control, this is Garcia, I’m at the designated location.”

“Take a look around. Our sensors picked up what looks like four illegals on foot right where you’re standing about ten minutes ago. They’re off the screen now but they’ve got to be there somewhere. Let me know what you find. Over.”

“Roger control, I’ll keep you posted.”

This is going to be fun, a game of hide and seek in this sand storm. Maybe calling this a sand storm is a bit of an exaggeration. Whatever, I’m out of my truck and in pursuit. Pursuit of what? Four illegals probably even more fed up with this wind than me. It’s not blowing hard enough to cover their ten-minute-old footprints. Four people will leave an easy path to follow. Yeah, but where are they?

I got ‘em. They’re headed down this arroyo to my left. I hope I don’t lose the footprints on the rocks at the bottom of this wash. I see ‘em; there they go … up the wash past that mesquite. I jog along in their footprints, pass the mesquite and come to a bend with a small cliff that shields the wind. Damn, it feels good to be out of the wind, even if only for a couple minutes. Who’s that? Someone, someone small is crouching under an overhang in the cliff wall.

“¿Quién va allí?” I yell in my schoolbook Spanish.

She raises her head and I see she is a young woman, a very pretty young woman. She stares at me like I’m some kind of boogieman for a moment then she smiles and says, “Buenas tardes, Señor Migra.” Migra is slang for inmigración, and is always said with a sneer when referring to the U.S. Border Patrol.

She is so unexpectedly beautiful that I can’t think of what to say next, let alone in Spanish. While I fumble for words she speaks in heavily accented English.

“Señor Migra, would Ingles be better for joo?” I speak leetle bit Ingles.”

Her cute accent brings me back to reality. “My name’s Bob er … Roberto. Let me help you up.”

“Si, Roberto. Joo are muy educado for la migra.” She firmly grasps my extended hand and rises.

She is tall, five seven or eight and strikingly beautiful in her dusty jeans, western shirt and hiking boots. As she lifts her cowboy hat to wipe her brow I see more of her pretty face and notice her long black hair tied loosely and hanging down her back. She looks like a fashion model posing for a western-wear ad. Wow!

“What are you doing out here in all this wind?”

“I was hiking with mi hermano y sus amigos but they ran when they hear joo coming. Joo can catch them if joo run muy rapido.

“Do you have any ID?”

“No Roberto. I’m just a poor leetle Mexican lost in the desert. Will joo help me, por favor.”

“I’ll have to take you to the station for processing.”

“Please señor, I can’t go back to Mexico. I will be killed if they catch me on the other side of the border. I will do anything to stay here, anything, Señor Migra.”

“Who’s going to kill you?”

“My old boyfriend is un hombre muy malo and he has really bad people working for him. They all carry guns and they’re looking for me. They want to take me back to my old boyfriend. If I don’t go with them, they will kill me. Please, Señor Roberto, I can not go back.”

“I have to take you in. You’ll be processed and returned to Mexico.”

“Why senor, can’t we keep my being here our secret? I will be very nice to joo, very nice. Por favor.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” It’s then that I see her backpack and canteen behind her against the cliff. “Grab your stuff. My truck is just over that rise.”

She walks beside me as we lean into the wind. The wind is too loud to have much of a conversation so we just look at each other and smile. She climbs into the passenger seat in my truck and I don’t object. She should be in the back in the holding tank. Does this mean I’ve made my decision?

“I’ll tell you what. You can go home with me; it’ll give us time to sort this all out. I don’t want to send you back to Mexico if you’ll be in danger, then again I don’t want to lose my job either. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Gracias, gracias joo won’t regret it.”

“I’ll drop you off somewhere out of the way, check in my truck at four and then come back for you in my car. You’ll have to hang out for … let’s see … a little over two hours. Will that be OK?”

“Si, I’ll do anything but go back to Mexico.”

I know an abandoned farm house that will keep her out of the wind if she can stand the spiders and the snakes. We drive to the farmhouse and I shove aside the broken front door. What is left of the front room is too windy with its boarded up windows. We climb over trash and junk to what must have been a dining room. Its one window is on the leeward side so this looks like the place. I kick away some trash and clear a spot for her to sit against the wall. “Here’s my canteen and a candy bar, it’s all I have with me. Will you be OK for a couple of hours?”

“Si señor, I’ll be fine, joo don’t forget to come back for me.”

“I’ll be back a little after five. Do you have a watch?”

“Si”, she says as she grabs me around the neck and kisses me passionately. I kiss her back wondering what the hell I’m doing. If I’m gonna get fired, this is the way to go.

“Thank joo, Roberto; I see joo at 5 o’clock, adios.”

I realize that I’ve been so taken with her beauty and her story that I don’t even know her name. “I don’t know your name.”

“Maria, Maria Flores.”

“Nice to meet you Maria, adios, I’ll see you at five.”

“Control, this is Garcia. I chased four illegals for about a half mile north. I couldn’t catch them. They had too much of a head start and I couldn’t get my truck through the arroyo. You should see them on you monitor now.”

“Roger Garcia, we’ve got what looks like three illegals heading due north. We’ll intercept them at Anapra Road. You can come on in; it’s getting on near four.”

“Roger, control.” I’d done it. I didn’t tell them about Maria.

It took me to almost four thirty to retell the story of chasing the four illegals, turn in my truck, and end my shift. I dashed home to change and headed back out without catching my breath. What was I hurrying for? She’d been squatting in a desolate canyon before I found her. The old farm house will seem like a Holiday Inn to her after that. I’m not running for her, I’m running because I can’t wait to see her again. She really got to me.

“Hola Maria.”

“Hola Roberto, joo look bueno without joor Migra clothes.”

“Thanks, you had enough of this place? Ready to go?”

“Si, I’m ready. My new amigo, this leetle leezard, will miss me and the chocolate joo left for us. Adios, leetle leezard.”

It’s a quiet drive back to Deming. Neither of us knows quite what to say when Maria asks, “Roberto, joo are un guapo hombre mexicano. Where joo from?”

“I’m from California. My grandparents were from Mexico but my mom and dad tried to raise me as an American. That is why my Spanish is so bad. Do you mind that we speak English?”

“No, no mi Chicano amigo, if joo can stand my leetle bit Ingles.”
We pull up to my tiny apartment and pause in the driveway. I don’t know what to say so we sit for what seems like hours when Maria says, “Are we going in or are we going to sit here in the car.”

I jump out and open the door for Maria. She drops her backpack and our two canteens on the floor just inside the door and says, “Not bad for a soltero. How joo say soltero in Ingles?”

“Bachelor.”

“Bien, joo are a bach … bachleer aren’t joo.”

“Yes, I’m a soltero. I’m not married; in fact I don’t even have a girlfriend at the moment.”

“Maybe joo have a new girlfriend and joo don’t know it yet.” See says as she grabs me and kisses me again.

We fall to the couch.

I can’t remember when I’ve been happier. Maria has been with me for … let’s see now … sixteen days, but who’s counting. It’s amazing how some unforeseen event like finding Maria in the desert can change your whole life overnight.

Work even seems like fun again, or is it just because I can’t wait to get home every night. Last night we had dinner at Campo’s with a Border Patrol buddy and his wife. Maria was the center of attention. She tells everyone she’s an old girlfriend from Guadalajara and that we met a couple of years ago in San Diego. That seems to work; she is so sweet and sincere that no one suspects she is an illegal that I hauled in during a sandstorm.

Maria wore my tee shirts until we had a chance to go shopping for clothes in Las Cruces. Maria loved the mall, especially the boutiques for the younger set. She acts and dresses like an upscale teenager and not like the poor little Mexican girl she claims to be. I wonder what the real story on her is and if her badass old boyfriend is really looking for her. I guess Deming is as good a place to hide as anywhere.

I don’t know what she does during the day. She keeps the house neat and she prepares good but simple Mexican dinners. Her enchiladas and red sauce may be even better than my mom’s but I’d never tell anyone that. She made friends quickly with Josephina, the old lady from next door. Josephina is probably eighty and loves to sit on the shady porch of hers, drink beer and gossip the day away. She and Maria can spend the whole day jabbering in a Spanish that’s too fast for me to follow. I’m glad she has a friend even if it’s the neighborhood gossip. What they talk about all day is anybody’s guess.

We’re living like a married couple or maybe honeymooners might be a better description. I’ve never known a woman like Maria before and I’m madly in love. I’ve got to get a commitment from her. I’m not going to let her get away. She’s too beautiful and sophisticated to be living with me in a run-down apartment in Deming, New Mexico and spending her days with someone four times her age. She seems happy enough but what is she going to do?

“Hola novia how was your day?”

“I had a good day. Josephina and I walked to the leetle panadería down the road and bought some galletas. How joo say galleta in Ingles … coookie, I think? Josephina and I had café y coookies this afternoon. I’ve got some for joo, for after dinner.”

We had tacos for dinner and her coookies for desert. I poured us a glass of brandy and we curled up on the sofa to watch TV. Maria watches Spanish language TV during the day but she seems to enjoy CSI, Cold Case, and other popular TV shows with me at night. Her favorite, by far, is Dancing With The Stars.

I’ve got a full day tomorrow and have to get to bed. Maria will spend all night watching TV if I don’t drag her off to bed. Going to bed with her is truly the highlight of my already good day, by far.

Today was pretty quiet. We put a lot of miles on our trucks only to come in empty handed. Oh well, our job is to protect the border and that’s what I did all day, protect. I hurry home. “Hola, I’m home.”

No answer. I look everywhere for Maria. She’s probably over at Josephina’s.

“Hola Josefina. ¿Donde esta Maria?”

She tells me in Spanish that she hasn’t seen her since around lunch time.

I go home and open a beer. Maybe she walked to the store and will be back soon. After the sun sets and my third beer I begin to worry. Where can she be? She has always been here or at Josephina’s when I get home from work. Should I wait longer, drive around looking for her, call the police, or what? I check with Josephina again and learn what I already know. Driving up and down the streets near home is just as fruitless. It’s eleven o’clock and no Maria. I return home not knowing what to do.

I look in the closet. All of the clothes I bought for her are hung neatly on the rack. Wait, her backpack that she always kept at the back of the closet isn’t here, neither are the jeans and western shirt she had on when I found her. Her hiking boots are gone too. She hasn’t worn them since I bought her some sandals her first day here.

If she’s gone, and it looks like it, she left with only the stuff she came with. I can’t believe she’d leave. We were so happy.

The days drag on. No word from Maria, she just disappeared. I wait for a phone call that’s not coming. I pace, I pout, I drink, I’m lost without her. How can I find her, I’m not sure of her real name and I only know what she told me about herself which isn’t much. She never mentioned any friends or relatives here in the US and she seemed adamant about not going back to Mexico.

Work is boring again but somehow different. I no longer think about Linda instead I look for Maria behind every bush and down every canyon. I know she’s not out here but I look for her anyway. I’ve be assigned to the check point on the Columbus highway. I check each car for her and I have to fight the urge to ask everyone who passes if they’ve seen her.

After work on Wednesday I open my mail, drink a beer and stare at my bills. My phone bill looks ordinary enough until I spot a long distance call to an area code 213 number. That’s Los Angeles. I didn’t call anyone in LA. Maybe Maria did? Is this a clue?

I write down the mysterious phone number and wait for a chance to ring it out with my friend, José a DEA agent who works our sector. He has access to all of that federal database stuff. José takes down the number reluctantly and promises to get back to me.

A week later I see José at the station and he slips me this note: Carla Hernandez,
26462 Cerritos Ave., E. Los Angeles, CA.

This is my only link to Maria, this and that lonely, dusty canyon where we met. I’ve got to go to LA and meet Carla or whoever lives at this address. I think I can get a week off if I get my request in pronto and my commander approves it.

Los Angeles is a huge and unusual place even to a Californian and East LA is foreign even to a Chicano from San Diego. I find the house on Cerritos easy enough and it looks like all of the other run-down, cracker box houses on the street. I park and walk up to the door nervous with anticipation. A teenage Chicano with his pants down to his knees comes to the door after my repeated knocking.

“Buenos tardes” I say with my brightest smile.

“What do you want?”

“I’m sorry to bother you but I’m looking for a friend, Maria. She said she would be staying with you for a while.”

“There ain’t no Maria here.”

“She’s about twenty six, tall and very attractive. You’d remember her if you ever saw her.”

“Don’t know nobody like that.”

“Is your mother here or anyone else that might know Maria?”

“Homes, you look like a pig to me. Why you asking all of these questions for?”

“I’m just trying to find my girlfriend, that’s all.”

“Then go someplace else, Homes. She ain’t here,” he says as he slams the door.

So much for the direct approach, I’ll go to plan B.

My plan B is parking up the street slumping down in my car and watching the house. I find a spot where my rear New Mexico plate won’t show from the house and begin my stake out. Well into my fourth hour and with a numb butt I see a car pull up in front of the house. A tall young man jumps out from the driver’s side and helps Maria out of the other door. It’s her, I’ve found her! Now what?

Before I can decide what to do Maria and that guy come out and get back into the car. They head down Cerritos and I follow at a safe distance.

They pull up to an Italian restaurant and go in. I wait a few minutes and follow them in. Maria is sitting at a table against the side wall with her back to the door. I ask for a table in front so Maria can’t see me without turning completely around. I watch and wait.

Mid way through my spaghetti the guy with Maria gets up and goes to the men’s room. I jump up and run to her table.

“Roberto, what are you doing here?”

“I came for you, Maria.”

“Get out of here. Get out fast. They will kill you.”

“I can’t leave you.”

“Go! I’ll come to you soon. I love you. Now go!”

I turn and walk back to my table. It takes me a while to realize that Maria didn’t have the cute “leetle” accent that she had in New Mexico. Unable to eat I pay my check and leave. I drive back to my motel in a daze. She said she loves me. I can’t believe she actually said that. I’ll drive back to Deming tomorrow and wait for her. What else can I do? She was pretty adamant about me getting out of here.

The drive home seems to take forever. I can’t stop thinking about Maria. What was she doing in LA? How come she speaks flawless English now? It must be big-time illegal if she was afraid I would be killed. It must be drugs. What else could it be? Mexicans smuggle either drugs or people into the US and she wasn’t leading a gang of wetbacks when I found her.

Is she a smuggler, a mule? She was only carrying a small backpack that couldn’t weigh more than twenty pounds. What’s she up to?

I’m back at work on patrol again. Time seems to drag. I’m worse now than when I was heartbroken over Linda. Maria, Maria. I had a beer with Josephina the other evening and all we talked about was Maria. Josefina misses her too. What did Maria say in that brief conversation? “I’ll come to you soon.” I think that was what she said. I wonder what she meant by soon?
Weeks pass and no word from Maria. I’m ready to give up hope but I can’t. I feel so helpless, I can’t do anything but wait. Where is she?
Nearly three months after our brief meeting in LA I see a story in the local paper. Three More Drug War Deaths in Palomas the headlines read. Two men and a woman were gunned down in a Palomas street about three blocks from the US/Mexico border. This just seemed like more of the same, one drug cartel killing off members of a rival cartel until I ran into José, my DEA buddy, at the station one evening. José asked me if I remembered that phone number he had chased down for me months earlier. I told him that I had checked out the house in East LA but never met Carla Hernandez. He said that that phone number had come up again. That same phone number was written in a note found on one of the drug dealers slain in Palomas last week. My suspicions were confirmed, Maria and the house in LA were tied together in a drug smuggling scheme. José said he’d get back to me with more info when he learned more from the Mexican authorities.

I never thought any more about the coincidence of the phone numbers until I ran into José again. José said he had a bit more information and he showed me a Mexican police report with a mug shot of the female victim of the recent killings.

It was Maria.

©2009 by Bob Rockwell

On a windy day in October 2006, I drove to Pony Hills about ten miles north of Deming at the far end of Starvation Draw. I don’t usually hike alone but I wanted to get some air and be alone for a while. I hadn’t been to Pony Hills with its ancient Mimbres petroglyphs in a long time. It’s not much of a hike but it got me outdoors doing something I enjoy, admiring the rock art of these long forgotten people, the Mimbres, who scratched their eternal markings into these rocks sometime between 900 and 1150 AD.

Anthropologists believe that the Mimbres were starved out of this valley by an extended drought, essentially ending their existence as a distinct people. They left here around 1400 AD and after totally assimilating into other nearby tribes are considered extinct as a unique people today.

The Mimbres didn’t leave behind passed-down, oral history as many southwest tribes. Instead, they left us the ruins of 200 or so villages, many graves of their ancestors, magnificently beautiful pottery, and possibly the first Jornada style petroglyphs ever created. The Mimbres used petroglyphic rock art to define and confirm their sacred landscapes and to communicate over generations their sense of place and belonging. This land hasn’t changed much in the 900 years since the Mimbres etched their last art on the rock I was using for a chair. I tried, but I wasn’t able to sense the feelings or to understand the meanings of the artistic images they’ve left behind. There must be a long lost oral narration that accompanies these wonderful pictures.

I wandered down a make-shift trail to the next petroglyph site over a near rise. As I rounded a bend in the trail I saw a dark-skinned woman, kneeling in front of a large rock covered with primitive markings. Not wanting to startle her in her meditation I shouted, “Good morning,” with enough volume to be heard as I approached her. She turned and faced me. She was a thin, beautiful teenage girl . . . beautiful in an exotic, mysterious way.

She was dressed in a primitive costume of a draped blanket, made from I don’t know what, held together with a fringed sash and simple, unadorned sandals. She didn’t wear jewelry or makeup and her hair was long, straight and combed back in the way we think 19th century Indian women should look. Wow, did I walk onto a movie set?

When she looked up, we made eye contact. “And good morning to you too, sir,” she said in perfect, unaccented English.

I was flustered and didn’t know what to say to this unusual creature so I mumbled something about the weather and the wind. She smiled and I saw her imperfect teeth, the teeth of our grandparent’s generation. I regained my composure and asked, “Did you find something interesting?”

“Yes, very much so,” she said as she turned to face the rock. She was staring at an abstract symbol about three inches square that looked like a fishhook in a circle with a couple of wiggly lines running horizontally through it.

“What do you find interesting about this unusual marking?” I asked as I pointed to the symbol.

“Are you sure you want to hear it?”

“I’ve got all day and I’d love to hear your story. By the way, I’m Bob, Bob Rockwell.” I said as I extended my hand. She held my hand in a holding hands kind of way as she introduced herself.

“I’m Hateya of the Water-Flows-Together people,” she said proudly.

She leaned against the rock while I squatted, then sat in the sand a few feet from her. She seemed reserved, not really nervous or shy, but probably less reserved than any other young woman might be meeting a strange, older man alone in the desert.

“I come here often to pray to my ancestors and to seek their guidance when I’m at a loss as to what I should do.”

“Why here? What’s special about this place?”

“See this carving here. It was etched by my great-great-grandmother a very long time ago, as a good-luck charm and the symbol of my family. My mother, who’s spirit has passed on to the other world, taught me to pray to my ancestors by coming to this rock, the rock with our sacred family marking.”

“I thought that all of the petroglyphs in this area were dated roughly in the same period, the time of the Mimbres people about a thousand years ago.”

“I don’t know any Mimbres people but I know the people who carved on this and all of the other rocks near here. These pictures were etched by my people, the Water-Flows-Together people.”

I decided not to argue and listen to her story. Nothing she had said so far made any sense. Her great-great-grandmother would have lived less than a hundred years ago. She was obviously a Native American but from where? I’d never heard of the Water-Flows-Together people and there weren’t any Indian reservations or pueblos within a hundred miles of here.

“This etching is the sign my ancestors have passed down from mother to daughter. We paint this symbol on every bowl we make and carve it on the timbers of our lodges to honor our ancestors. This rock carving is our original family marking and the permanent record of my family.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was too confused to talk. What was going on here? She seemed so sincere. Could she have been making all of this up?

“My mother taught me that this is where I pray to my ancestors. They have all been to this place and it is here that we gather in spiritual reunion. If you will excuse me, I’ll finish my prayer and then we can talk some more.”

She turned and faced the rock, dropped to her knees and began to sing in an alien tongue I assumed to be a Native American dialect, while she slowly rocked back and forth in time with her song. I couldn’t identify the language or a single word of her prayers. After a few minutes she rose and turned to me.

I spoke first. “If it’s not too personal, may I ask what you are praying for?”

“I pray for guidance. Times are difficult, I can’t feed my family and I don’t know what to do. We haven’t had any rain in a long, long time and my corn and beans have not grown this season. My husband spends all of his time hunting with very little success. My daughter cries with hunger and we will surely starve this winter.”

“What did your ancestors tell you to do?”

“To ask you for guidance; you are a traveled man who has seen many places and have the wisdom of many winters.”

What was I to say? Was this girl playing a part in a play that only she could see? I couldn’t believe this conversation was happening but I decided to play along and see where it would lead.

“I’m not qualified to give you any advice but I can tell you the little bit I know about what happened here many years ago. The people living in this valley had to move their families in order to survive. This land could not feed the people who lived here. Everyone eventually abandoned their homes and villages.”

“Where did they go?”

“They joined other villages and pueblos taking up new lives with those people. Some went over the mountains in that direction.” I pointed east. “And others went that way to a very large pueblo,” I said pointing south.

“What should I do?”

“I would ask the people of your village to come with you and your family. If many want to come, I would lead them in that direction.” I said, pointing east towards the Rio Grande River. “There you will find the water to start a new village and a new life. If no one wants to come with you and you must travel alone, I would walk many days in that direction.” I said as I pointed south towards Mexico. “The people there will welcome you and you can start a new life without having to build a new village.” I remembered that some Mimbres are thought to have migrated to the huge pueblo at Casas Grande in the state of Chihuahua. An established city seemed like a better choice for this young woman and her family.

“I will do as you suggest. Thank you for listening to me and helping me decide what to do. I must go now.”

“Please take this little bit of food,” I said, offering her my tuna salad sandwich wrapped in a plastic sandwich bag and an apple.

She stared at the plastic bag as if she were afraid to touch it. I removed the sandwich from the bag and handed it and the apple to her.

“Thank you,” she said. “Goodbye.”

She turned and walked down the trail I had just come up and went over the rise without looking back.

I jumped up and sprinted after her. I told myself that I wanted to wave goodbye but what I really wanted, was to see where she was going. When I got to the top of the rise I couldn’t see her anywhere. She was gone … disappeared. There was no use hunting for her; there’s nowhere to hide in this open stretch of desert. Dumbfounded by her disappearance, I walked back to her prayer rock and stared at her family symbol. What had just gone on here? Was I hallucinating? Was she? Or, did I just have a conversation with a thousand-year-old ghost?

I’ve been back to that rock many times hoping to see Hateya again. I photographed her family petroglyph and spent months trying to find it replicated on other rocks, in a book, or on Mimbres pottery. As best I can tell this one instance of her family symbol is the only one that has survived.

I don’t understand what happened at Pony Hills a little over two years ago. Before this, I haven’t told anyone about my conversation with Hateya. There’s no physical evidence that I met or talked with anyone. I don’t know who this young woman was or what our little encounter was all about. I’ve chalked the experience up to one of those things you just can’t explain.

That was the end of my story until an amateur archeologist friend of mine invited me to go down to Casas Grande in Mexico with him to tour the pueblo ruins and museum. He’d been doing research on the interaction and commerce between the Paquime of Casas Grande and the Mimbres people. He believed that the huge pueblo at Casas Grande was the major trading and commerce center in this part of the world back in Mimbres times. We know the Mimbres traveled, traded, and hosted travelers from as far away as central Mexico.

We toured the ruins with a guide who impressed us with his knowledge of all things Paquime. You could almost feel the ancient people’s eyes on you as we climbed and crawled through the recently excavated remnants of this once great city.

The adjacent museum was equally impressive. It had bilingual signage and artifacts from most the prehistoric peoples of the southwest U.S. along with the tribes of northern Mexico. They painted a very good picture of this part of the world when the Paquime ruled and the pueblo at Casas Grande was the center of their universe.

In a display case featuring local pottery I spotted a painted bowl labeled, Paquime, circa 1200 AD. The bowl was a black-on-white Mimbres style bowl adorned simply with a single apple and Hateya’s family symbol.

She had made the trip.

©2009 by Bob Rockwell

It’s hot, my tee shirt is wringing wet, my left arm throbs, my pajama bottoms are wadded up in my crotch, my mouth is painfully dry and I have to take a leak. The clock glows an eerie green 2:06 AM. Damn it all, I’d better get to the bathroom. Is this what getting old is all about — tossing, turning, aching, and peeing?

I turn on the lamp on my side of the bed and put on my glasses. Maybe if I read for a bit I can fall back to sleep. This rarely works but I don’t know what else to do, it’s too damn early to get up. Get up and do what? This book isn’t half bad, it’s not a page-turner but it’s a notch above my usual who-done-it. I think Marla did it by the way. Why do we itch when we’re trying to read? Is it some allergic reaction to bed linen or is it something psychological? Anyway, I scratch, read, read, scratch. The clock blinks 2:43. Maybe Marla didn’t do it after all. That new guy, Alex is a scumbag. He probably did it.

I turn off my light at 3:04 and feel like I might be able to sleep a little while longer. My mental images are winding down. I’m now not so sure about Alex.

“Bobby, Bobby.” Someone is calling me by my boyhood name or am I dreaming? I hear a woman say “Bobby” again and I open my eyes and prop myself up on my pillow.

My mother is sitting on the edge of my bed. Is it really my mom? Mom is a young twenty-something and beautiful; not the older woman I buried over twenty years ago. I wrestle with my bedding trying to get to her. She moves back a little and is just out of my reach.

“Bobby, your dad and I have been watching over you. We’re both worried about you and he asked me to come to you tonight to warn you of a coming danger.”

“Mom, oh mom, can it really be you?”

“I’ve only got a few minutes to tell you to be careful when you’re in Denver next week. Watch out for an old Marine with a grudge. Bye, for now, my dear.”

“Mom, mom … mom,” I mumbled to an empty room. What had just gone on here? Was I dreaming or did I just have a chat with my long deceased mother? I lay back down in the dark room, my mind racing.

I jump out of bed, turn on the lights and race around the room hoping to find some sign of my mom’s visit. No such luck, my bedroom is just as it should be. I sit and try to calm down and think this out. Let’s see, what do I remember? My mom or a much younger version of her was sitting at the foot of my bed. She wore a 40s-like print dress and her hair was in ringlets like she wore as a young woman. I don’t remember her that young but she looked to me like she does in my old photos of her. No one could look as she did but her. It had to be her. Was she real? Was she a ghost or was she a character in my dream?

What did she say? She warned me to be careful in Denver, something about an old Marine with a grudge. Who’s this Marine? Marines don’t normally hold grudges; they get it all out of their system at the time by throwing a shit-fit or killing somebody.

This had to be a dream. Mom wouldn’t come back from wherever just to give me this cryptic message. My real mom would have told me right up front what to look out for.

The day begins and I can’t seem to get going. I’m obsessed with the image of my mother. Not her warning particularly, just her, seeing her, talking to her. I don’t know how to tell my wife, Linda. Tell her what, about my dream or my encounter with a ghost? She actually believes in that sort of stuff and would freak if I could ever get her to believe me. She’d probably blame it on the martinis we had last night and tell me to lay off the booze for a while and see if my mom comes back.

We have a long day’s drive to Denver, a little over ten hours. The hours pass as uneventful as they did in our last seven trips. I keep thinking of my mom, her visit and her warning. What could be so important that mom would come back from wherever and warn me and who is this Marine I’m supposed to look out for?

We get to Linda’s dad’s house in Thornton, a north Denver suburb, about dinner time. I don’t mention my mom’s warning to anyone or my new obsession with an “old Marine with a grudge.”

The next morning we get up early and head to National Jewish Hospital. Linda has been receiving treatment here for a mysterious lung ailment. The waiting room with its rumpled magazines and comfortable couches seems as familiar to me as an old shoe. Linda is called for her first appointment and I settle in with a nine-month-old copy of National Geographic. I’m half way though an article on the death of the Amazon rain forest when I hear a male voice shout, “Bob … Bob … Bob Rockwell.”

Who could be paging me? I’m not a patient here. Maybe it has something to do with Linda? Maybe she needs me? I put down my magazine and yell, “Yo” to the waiting male nurse. He’s about my age and too scruffy to be anybody important. He introduces himself. “I’m Paul Gasnor and I’ll escort you back to the examining room.” I follow him wondering what’s up.

He shows me into a typical doctor’s exam room with a paper covered examination table, two uncomfortable plastic chairs and the usual sink and cabinet. I grab one of the chairs for a minute or so before Paul returns with a syringe and some other stuff on a little tray. I wonder what the hell’s going on; does he intend that shot for me? He says, “I’ll just give you this to relax you a bit. The doctor will be right in.”

“You must be confused; I’m not a patient here. I don’t have an appointment with anyone.”

“Let me give you this relaxant and then we’ll talk. I’ve waited nearly 50 years for this moment.”

“Bullshit, you’re not giving me anything,” I say as I jump out of my chair ready to fend off the syringe.

Paul makes a grab for my upper arm and I see this as an opportunity to end whatever’s going on here. I raise my left arm and I swing my elbow with all my might directly into his chin. My unexpected punch sends Paul to the floor. His tray and its contents hit the tile with a loud metallic crash. He has this demonic glare in his eyes as he tries to get to his feet. I kick him squarely in the jaw. He goes down again, this time for the count.

Is he the old Marine mom warned me about? He must be. He said he’d been waiting nearly 50 years for this moment. Who in the hell is he and what did I do so long ago to evoke this kind of hatred? I feel compelled to pick up the syringe, raise his shirt sleeve and inject the solution meant for me into Paul’s left bicep. I wipe the syringe with Paul’s shirttail and place it in his right hand, wipe down the arm of the chair with my handkerchief, prop Paul up against the wall and sneak out of the room.

I go back to the waiting room too nervous and excited to read. I expect to hear an emergency call, alarm or something. Nothing happens out of the ordinary. Linda finishes her last appointment and we head back to her sister’s house for dinner.

I listen to the evening news and pore over the next morning’s Denver Post. Nothing, no news about an injured technician or nurse found in an examining room at National Jewish. How come no news? Maybe Paul came to and returned to work without his absence being noticed. Maybe someone found him and called the police. Maybe he’s dead and there’s a murder investigation underway. Maybe, maybe, maybe … my mind races with possibilities.

Two more uneventful days pass, Linda taking tests and seeing doctors while I exercise my backside in the waiting room. I’m too nervous to read so I sit and people watch waiting for the tap on the shoulder that I know is coming. Nothing happens.

On the third day after my scuffle with Paul I see his obituary in the Post. It doesn’t say anything about his cause of death, only that he had died two days earlier, was an ex-Marine, a long-term employee of the hospital and is survived by his wife, Mary Ann. I read and reread the obit trying to put my puzzle together. Had I killed him? Who was he and why did he hold a grudge against me for all of this time?

All I know for sure is that Paul was my age and an ex-Marine who seemed to know me and talked about waiting 50 years to inject me with a needle. Oh yeah, he had a wife. Maybe she can tell me something. I find their number easily and call.

“Hello.”

“Mrs. Gasnor?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to express my condolences for your loss. I’m Jeff Fischer, an old Marine buddy of Paul’s from Twenynine Palms. I read about his death in the paper.”

“Thank you, but Paul never mentioned any old Marine buddies. In fact he hated everything about the Marine Corps and Twentynine Palms. Where did you say you’re from?”

“I’m from here in Denver. Were they able to determine the cause of death?” The sweat ran down my back as I waited for her response.

“Something about a drug interaction. The hospital isn’t saying much, only that he died at work from an adverse reaction to a drug.”

“Do you think the hospital could be hiding something?”

“If they are it would be because they are embarrassed that Paul had access to drugs like that.”

“Did he ever talk about his tour of duty at Twentynine Palms?”

“Not much, only that he was thrown in the brig there and was later transported to the brig at Camp Pendleton by a Marine that he couldn’t stand and he hates to this day.”

“I don’t know anything about any of that. Thank you for talking to me and again please accept my condolences. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye Mister … what did you say your name was?”

“Jeff Fischer,” I repeated the name I dreamt up a few minutes ago.

The puzzle is now complete. I was temporarily assigned as a chaser (the Marine word for a prison guard) at the detention barracks in Twentynine Palms. The base wasn’t big enough to warrant a real brig so we held prisoners until their sentencing and then escorted them to Camp Pendleton by bus to do their time. I remember we had a prisoner who was sentenced on a Friday to Pendleton in a jeep with a driver on Saturday morning because he was too big a risk for our make-shift little brig. He was a tough guy and I took precautions in our four-hour trip over the mountains.

I don’t remember doing anything that would warrant his kind of hatred. Oh, there might have been one thing. When we stopped for lunch I marched the prisoner into the roadside diner and stood him at parade rest with his nose to the wall while the driver and I ate. The civilians in the restaurant must have thought we were a strange lot, my prisoner in handcuffs, the driver in utilities and me in my tropicals wearing a loaded 45. The driver and I ate while our prisoner made sure that the diner’s wall was secure. He gave me some lip about not being allowed to eat so I jabbed him in the kidneys, maybe a little too hard, with my night stick. He crashed to the floor whining obscenities. Our little Marine drama really amused the civilian diners. I got him back on his feet and shoved his face, maybe a bit too hard, into the wall and went back to my lunch.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. I checked him into the brig, got my paperwork signed and headed out to look up a high school buddy, a swabbie corpsman (Navy medic) going to school at Pendleton to work with the Marines.

I don’t remember anything about Paul’s stay in our detention barracks. I must have had contact with him but nothing comes to mind. Could our little scene in the diner be the source of his hatred? Did I embarrass him that much? Maybe I injured him permanently with my jab to his kidneys. Maybe he’s been pissing blood and thinking of me for all of these years.

Anyway, I just killed this guy and I don’t know why.

Our drive back to Deming was a normal trip for us. We listened to a book on tape so we didn’t talk much to each other. My mind raced with the events of the past few days and I didn’t hear a word of the book. Had I really killed someone? Would I be charged with murder? I kept thinking that I could argue it was self defense, and it was, but could I prove it. It’s amazing but I didn’t feel any remorse about killing Paul, if I did indeed kill him, I did it with his own weapon. He was just an asshole who tried to kill or do some serious harm to me. I can still see him sprawled on the floor emanating pure evil in what must have been his last conscious moment before I put his lights out. As it turned out, out for good.

Once home we settle in to our usual retirement lifestyle but I’m tense, really tense. Much more tense than normal. Not because I might have killed some asshole but because the authorities could knock on my door at any minute. There’s no statue of limitations for murder. I’ve got to live with this fear for the rest of my life. I can’t live like this knowing that I could be charged with murder at any time.

The days pass slowly; I toss and turn even more at night. My mind races with possibilities. Could the hospital have covered up his death for some reason? People die all the time in hospitals and they routinely sign death certificates. Maybe Paul had some history with drugs and they were embarrassed that he had access to theirs. This has to be it. Wouldn’t they do an autopsy and find a big bump on his chin in addition to his drug induced death? Maybe they rationalized his fall caused his bruises? These questions and millions more race through my mind. I can’t sleep, I can barely function.

Now I know why criminals confess. The mental torment of waiting for the ax to fall is unbearable.

A couple weeks later I’m was tossing, turning, sweating and scratching in the wee hours of the morning when I am awakened or I think I am by a now familiar voice calling “Bobby, Bobby.”

I rise to see my mother much as she was months earlier. “Mom, oh mom,” I mumble.

“You’ve had a tough time with your experience in Denver, haven’t you?” Mom says this with the same compassionate voice I recognize from my childhood. “You should stop fretting; I was with you the whole time. I watched the hospital prepare their paper work and I looked in on the autopsy. Yuck, autopsies are really awful; I’ll never do that again. Their conclusions were that Paul Gasnor died from a self-induced drug overdose. Now go back to sleep. Sleep well my son.”

©2009 by Bob Rockwell

I’ve given up ranting. You people just don’t listen. And, if you do it doesn’t do any damn good. My new strategy is to champion some Amendments to our Constitution. Given our current indecisive congress, I have a better chance of getting a two-thirds vote of both houses and ratification by three-fourths of the states than I have of changing your behavior. Here are the first Amendments I intend to sponsor as soon as I find the time.

AMENDMENT XXVIII – Right to an Uninterrupted Dinner

Section 1.
No person shall be disturbed during dinner by those annoying telemarketing assholes. If such marketers want to sell you something they must first send you a letter requesting a mutually agreed upon time and date to conduct said telephone conversation.

Section 2.
No telemarketer may employ high-pressure or deceptive sales tactics when conducting telemarketing calls. The marketer herein known as the caller will immediately terminate the conversation and cease his sales spiel upon hearing the phrase “I don’t think so” once.

AMENDMENT XXIX – Right to Get There

Section 1.
All travelers, be they traveling by commercial plane, rail, or bus, have the right to a seat that is suitable in size to their stature, leg room proportionate to the length of their legs, food, if served, that is either edible or digestible, preferably both, a toilet that flushes or performs some similar function and conditioned air suitable for breathing by a human being for the very first time.

Section 2.
All mid-travel services are to be provided by respectful attendants be they either attractive young women or faggy looking guys with limp wrists. No old ladies or macho types are allowed to perform these functions. Furthermore, all service providers must have an ass diameter less that the width of the center aisle between the passenger seats. No turn-the-ass-sideways-to-get-down-the-aisle fatsos will be allowed.

AMENDMENT XXX – Right to Grow Old and Die

Section 1.
The right to live and die healthy is an inalienable right of all Americans. Therefore, all citizens will receive health care and medical treatment regardless of their income, social status, ethnicity, sexual preference, pre-existing medical conditions or bra size. Henceforth, all health care services will be provided in Canada through an agreement between our two governments. This interim measure will enable the U.S. congress to continue their efforts to further stimulate and enrich our very important and economically critical insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

Section 2.
Drugs prices will be set in the U.S. by Mexico’s Minister of Health. He has shown that he can negotiate far better prices with the pharmaceutical firms than anyone in the U.S. If Mexico’s MoH is unavailable or declines to help we will try India or New Zealand.

AMENDMENT XXXI – Right to Drive on the Interstates

Section 1.
The right to your own personal space on our Interstate Highways is a right of all Americans. The U.S. Interstate Highway system was financed with federal monies to provide safe and fast thoroughfares throughout the U.S. and not as freight lanes for huge semis driven by drugged out and fatigued truck drivers.

Section 2.
The inter-most lane on all Interstate Highways will be designated for automobile traffic only. Semis and RVs are not allowed in this lane for any reason especially when attempting to pass each other at a speed of one mile an hour faster than the vehicle being passed.

AMENDMENT XXXII – Right to Enjoy the Countryside

Section 1.
It is the right of every American to enjoy the great outdoors, both the developed and natural terrain, without having to view other people’s garbage and those ubiquitous plastic bags attached to every upright surface. Every citizen will be issued one set of fast food containers, a soda can and one beer bottle. These are irreplaceable devices and must be refilled throughout the life of each citizen. If said citizen loses or disposes of his or her soda can he or she will be SOL (shit out of luck). So there!

Section 2.
Littering will be redefined as a capital crime and be regarded as a class 26 felony wedged into our list of crimes somewhere just below murder and a notch or two above treason.

AMENDMENT XXXIII – Right to Not Feel 2nd Class

Section 1.
No American shall ever be made to feel inferior to any other person, be they American or of some other lesser nationality. The areas of unlawful bragging and condemnation are income, net worth, social standing, appearance, fitness, breast size, percent of body fat, firmness of buttocks, schools attended, etc. The one exception to this anti-snobbery amendment is that all active duty and honorably discharged U.S. Marines my feel superior to all other members, both past and present, of all armed forces personnel throughout the world especially swabbies, doggies and flyboys.

Section 2.
Snobs, self absorbed assholes and all other pretentious pricks will be branded with a permanent capital P (for Prick) on their foreheads and will be treated henceforth as lepers by the general population.

AMENDMENT XXIV – Right to Understand the Help Desk

Section 1.
It is the unalienable right of every American placing a call to the help desk of an American Corporation and upon specifying that their mother tongue is English to converse with said help desk person in English without having to ask the help desk person to repeat themselves endlessly and never really understanding their response.

Section 2.
All help desk and customer service personnel of American Corporations will successfully complete an English as a Second Language (ESL) program of their choice or attend Mrs. Grundy’s forth grade class in Muncie, Indiana for at least two semesters.

©2010 by Bob Rockwell

The Chez Robert is known for its classical French cuisine and intimate dining. I called and made a mid-afternoon appointment with the manager to see what he might do to equal the wonderful dinner our new trading partners had recently hosted in Tokyo.

Robert Cheval is far more than the manager; he’s the owner and the Robert of Chez Robert, arguably Boston’s best French restaurant. He poured me a glass of an excellent white wine while we sat in the empty dining room and talked about the coming celebratory dinner. After I described our recent dinner in Japan, he told me about his very private wine cellar and the dinner he would prepare for us there.

The dinner was fantastic and my Japanese guests couldn’t have been more impressed. As we were wrapping up with one more cognac, Mr. Cheval asked if he could speak with me privately. He led me to a dusty cellar room off to our left.

“Mr. Rockwell, I hope your guests enjoyed our little bit of France here in Boston.”

“The dinner was perfect in every way. You and your staff made quite an impression on some really hard to impress people.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rockwell. Now I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Sure, whatever it is.”

“I’d like you to be my guest at a special dinner this coming Thursday evening.”

“Gladly, I’d jump at the chance to come back here anytime.”

“Thank you, but there is a small, as you would say, catch. You have to name your three dinner guests. They can be anyone, anyone at all, living or dead.”

“You mean like a fantasy experience where I get to dine with actors playing the roles of characters I’d like to meet?”

“Something like that. Who would you like to invite?”

My mind raced. Who to invite? After a few seconds of thought I jokingly blurted the first three names that came to mind, “Jesus Christ, Marilyn Monroe, and Jackie Robinson.”

“A very fine choice, monsieur. I’m sure you’ll have a most enjoyable evening. I’ll see you at eight on Thursday. Now, you should return to your guests and thank you for coming tonight. Au revoir, Monsieur Rockwell.”

Work was hectic as we began to deal with the details of our new partnership. I didn’t have time to think much about my dinner date coming up on Thursday. It had to be the ultimate fantasy experience but how could they find and rehearse three actors in a mere seven days? Robert must know what he’s doing but it seemed like an impossible task. Okay, Jesus might be a regular dinner guest and Jackie has probably been invited a time or two but where would they find a Marilyn on such short notice?

I arrive ten minutes early. Robert escorts me to the cellar and serves me a glass of lovely red Bordeaux that I didn’t catch the name of. I’m alone in the cellar savoring my wine when Robert enters with this hippy looking fellow wearing a robe and sandals.

“Mr. Rockwell, may I present Jesus of Nazareth.”

“How do you do, I’m Bob Rockwell,” I say as I extend my hand. The Jesus guy hesitates for a moment then grabs my hand in an unusually warm, firm handshake. He is clearly dressed the part but he’s not someone I’d pick to play Jesus. He’s short, five foot-six or seven, olive skinned with dark hair, and a disheveled beard. The sort of straggly beard you see on homeless people, not the beard you’d find on the statues in my church. It’s then I notice his dark haunting eyes, eyes that seem to glow as if illuminated by some internal light source.

“I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Rockwell.”

Robert hands Jesus a glass of red wine and leaves the room.

“Merci Monsieur Cheval,” Jesus says in impeccable French to the empty doorway.

Jesus takes a sip of his wine and his face lights up. “This is really wonderful. I’m impressed with what you’ve done with wine since I was here last. This is so much better than what we had in my day.”

I can imagine a struggling actor being blown away by a taste of a forty-dollar-a-bottle wine but not Jesus Christ, the King of Kings.

Mr. Cheval appears in the doorway followed by an exact copy of a young, voluptuous Marilyn Monroe. “Ms. Monroe, may I present Bob Rockwell of Massachusetts and Jesus of Nazareth. Gentlemen, this is Ms. Marilyn Monroe of Hollywood, California,” he says as he turns and leaves the room.

The Jesus guy is obviously more at ease with Marilyn than I am. I’m wondering where they found such a beautiful girl to play this part. The Vegas shows have never had a Marilyn-look-alike as beautiful and as authentic looking as this girl. She’s spilling out of the skin-tight, sequined gown that she wore to JFK’s birthday party.

Jesus hugs Marilyn and says, “We are so glad you could join us this evening Ms. Monroe. Here take my wine, I’ll get another.”

“Thanks Sweetie” she says with a sexy wink, “but I’d prefer something with a bit more kick. Do you think I could get a bourbon?”

Did I just hear what I think I heard? Marilyn called Jesus, Sweetie. So much for being the King of the Jews.

I didn’t get a chance to hug our Marilyn-look-alike before Mr. Cheval walks in followed by number 42, Jackie Robinson wearing his 50s-era Brooklyn Dodger uniform.

“Ms. Monroe and gentlemen, may I present Mr. Jackie Robinson of Brooklyn, New York. Mr. Robinson, these are your dinner guests for tonight, Ms. Monroe, Mr. Rockwell and Jesus Christ.”

This Jackie-look-alike is as good a clone or better than the Marilyn player. So far Mr. Cheval has outdone himself except possibly for the little hippie he has playing Jesus.

After shaking hands with Jackie we all take our seats around an exquisitely set table.

Marilyn wiggles in her chair as she seductively sucks on the ice cubes from her bourbon and water. She is all body language and with her body she screams sexuality. Jesus and I enjoy watching Marilyn squirm and the very fine wine, while Jackie sips his beer. There is a stillness in the room as if no one knows where to begin. Finally, I thank them for coming and remembering my manners I ask Jesus if he would lead us in a prayer.

“Dear Father I thank you for the opportunity to share in this feast and to enjoy the fellowship of these wonderful people. I personally want thank you for letting me set foot on earth again and partake of this delightful wine. By the way, how did you come up with wine this good without me knowing about it? Amen.”

I thought Jesus’ comment on the wine was cute. I wonder if the real Jesus was as big a wine freak as this guy seems to be. Jackie hasn’t said anything other than hello and request a beer so I ask, “Jackie, how are the Dodgers going to do this year?”

Jackie smiles and says, “Better than their current record of 34 and 16 would indicate. They’ve got better pitching than we’ve seen so far this season. Joe Torres knows what he’s doing and you’re going to see a lot more hitting out of Hudson and Loney.”

“Don’t you wish you could pick up a bat and give them a hand?” I ask.

“I used to, but I got over that. It took me some time to realize that I was very fortunate to have played in the big leagues and to have enjoyed the success that I did. I’m happy now just watching the kids play today.”

“What do you think of the hero status that you’ve obtained? We honor you with a Jackie Robinson day; a day where everyone wears your number, 42. You’re on the list of black American heroes, right up there with Martin Luther King and W.E.B. Dubois.”

“Now you’re embarrassing me. I’m just a minor hero and not in the same league with Dr. King,” Jackie says with a broad grin. “I’m just an athlete who was playing ball at the right place and the right time. If it wasn’t me it could have been any number of other guys.”

Jesus raises his wine glass as if he’s making a toast and says, “You’re too modest, Mr. Robinson. Your personal sacrifices and the pain and humiliation you suffered were extreme. You are truly a man of extraordinary character. I’m honored to share this table with you. But, what’s up with that beer when you could be drinking this really great wine? To Jackie!”

We all raise our respective drinks when Marilyn whispers through a cloud of cigarette smoke, “And you’re damn good looking for a colored fellow.”

No one knows what to say after Marilyn’s comment so I ask her, “Marilyn, I understand the pressure and media scrutiny in Hollywood can be almost unbearable. How do you cope?”

Marilyn takes a gulp of her drink and seems at a loss to answer when she murmurs, “I’m not sure I coped all that well. My marriages were disasters, my acting career was stuck in neutral and I was getting tired of being an aging blonde sex symbol. How would you like to be only known and appreciated for your tits and ass?”

Jesus answers her, “Ms. Monroe, you are blessed with large wonderful breasts and a truly magnificent posterior. Why should these exceptional assets be the source of your unhappiness?”

“I don’t know, all I know is that I’m either depressed or drunk or both.”

Jesus answers with, “Ms. Monroe, tell us about Marilyn or Norma Jean the real person, not Marilyn the movie star and sex symbol.”

“There’s nothing to tell. I work in grade B movies, I wiggle my ass and guys all want to get in my pants, end of story.”

Jesus responds, “The cure for your depression will have to come from within you. It is not something I can make go away. Now, if you had leprosy that would be a different story.”

Marilyn orders another drink from the waiter serving our entrees. I take the pause in conversation to ask Jesus, “Your last supper is much celebrated in the church today. Can you tell us about it?”

“First of all, it wasn’t nearly as grand as Leonardo’s lovely fresco and we actually sat on both sides of the table. We drank a lot of wine that evening, reminisced about our times together, and reasserted our love for each other. I saw this as my last chance to reinforce my teachings and ensure that each disciple would continue the work we had begun. My hangover the next day was the least of my problems.”

“We celebrate communion today to honor you and your wishes at this your last supper.”

“I am enormously honored to have this ritual performed as an act of remembrance of me but I didn’t say those words about the wine and the bread. My disciples chose to have the communion ritual represent our last dinner together and use those simple everyday things as reminders of me and our work.”

“Did I hear you right? You never gave the speech about the wine representing your blood and the bread your flesh?”

“Mr. Rockwell, you either take things too literally or you haven’t had enough wine. The mass you celebrate today, including communion, is a ritual, a devout ritual passed down through the ages to serve as a reminder of me and my teachings and to help focus your thinking. Rituals are really good for this. Don’t take them literally, take them for the thoughts and emotions they evoke.”

“Jesus, Christianity has come a long way in the last 2000 years. Are you happy with what’s going on in your name today?”

“No, not at all. Some of the stuff today really gets my halo out of whack. I’ve gotten over all of the bloodshed and oppression that was done in my name but your money-grubbing TV and radio evangelists are worse than the inquisitors of old Spain. These scam artists with their gilded sets and gaudy mega-churches exemplify everything I dislike, no loathe, about my religion today. If the money lenders of my day thought I was peeved, wait until I get to your radio and TV studios. Why do you put up with them or an even better question, why do you support them?”

Jesus’ outburst left us speechless. Robert, sensing the moment, appeared from a side door. “Ms. Monroe and gentlemen I hate to interrupt but it’s near closing time. I hope you had an enjoyable dinner? May I propose a final toast?”

“Please do,” I respond.

“Here’s to the Son of God, the most celebrated actress of her time, the great second baseman who integrated major league baseball, and the businessman who had the wisdom to assemble this interesting group. May you all go in peace and happiness.”

“Hear, hear!”

Everyone took one last drink, Marilyn from her fifth bourbon, Jackie from his third beer, and Jesus and me from our umpteenth glass of wine.

We all hugged, shook hands and followed Robert to the stairs. Robert kissed an unsteady Marilyn goodbye and sent her on her way. He hugged Jesus and opened the door for him while Jackie and I said goodbye one more time. Jackie followed Jesus, and Robert turned to me.

“Thank you for sharing your fantasy evening with me. Au revoir, Monsieur Rockwell.”

My mind raced as I drove home. What had just gone on? These actors, if that was what they were, were fantastic. Even the hippie Jesus grew on me. How had Robert pulled this off? I can’t remember when I’ve been more impressed with a dinner group or an entire evening for that matter. No answers came. Had I just had the ultimate fantasy experience?

Friday morning I sat listless in my office staring at the wall. I couldn’t stop thinking about last night’s dinner and the three amazing characters I dined with: Jackie the humble and impressive gentleman, Marilyn the sexy depressed bimbo and best of all, Jesus the wise and warm little wino.

I waited for a respectable hour to call Robert and thank him again for last night. Someone answered the Chez Robert’s phone at 11:30. I asked to speak to Robert.

“There is no Robert here, monsieur.”

“I’m looking for Robert Cheval, the owner and manager.”

“You are mistaken, monsieur. I don’t know a Robert Cheval and I own this restaurant.”

“No, you must be mistaken; I was there with Mr. Cheval last night in your wine cellar dining room.”

“Monsieur, we have no wine cellar dining room nor have I ever heard of Robert Cheval. Au revoir, monsieur.”

Jack Nicholson doesn’t own a cell phone. Why should we care what Jack does or doesn’t own. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big-time movie fan but I don’t really care much for so called “movie stars”. I like the characters they play but I find them egotistical, uninteresting and intellectually shallow. In spite of my prejudice I’d jump at the chance to go to a Laker game with Jack, play chess with Bogey or go sailing with John Houston and the Duke. Anyway, here’s some stuff about these Hollywood icons that you might not know.

Marlon Brando (1924-2004) was roommates with Wally Cox during their theatrical training in New York City and they remained close friends until Wally’s death at 48 in 1973. Marlon talked Wally’s widow out of Wally’s ashes and hid them in a closet at his home. He frequently talked to Wally’s ashes until his own death in 2004. After he died Marlon’s son Miko scattered Marlon’s and Wally Cox’s ashes together in a private ceremony in Death Valley, California.

Betty Grable (1916-1973) suffered from demophobia, the fear of crowds and she was plagued by sleep-walking.

Steve McQueen (1930-1980) was invited for dinner at Roman Polanski/Sharon Tate’s home by a mutual friend on August 8, 1969, the night Sharon was murdered by the Charles Manson followers, but something came up and he cancelled his date at the last minute. After Sharon Tate’s murder Steve learned that his name was on the top of Manson’s celebrity death list and he may have been the target that fateful evening. He carried a concealed weapon until his death.

Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) was overly concerned about her complexion and feared blemishes so much that she washed her face up to 15 times a day.

Peter Lorre (1904-1964) attended the funeral of Bela Lugosi with his friend Vincent Price. When they saw Lugosi dressed in his famous Dracula cape Peter said, “Do you think we should drive a stake through his heart just in case?”

Bing Crosby (1903-1977) had his large ears pinned (taped or glued) back during his first 17 films. They finally unpinned them partway through She Loves Me Not in 1934.

Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957) was an outstanding chess player. He played chess by mail with GIs during WWII and he took on all challengers at home winning almost every game. He eventually turned chess pro and beat 40 or more opponents a day.

Mitzi Gaynor (1931- ) had a 35 ½” C bust, a 23” waist and 37’’ hips in 1953.

John Wayne (1907-1979) was caught pissing in Ward Bond’s flask by John Ford as they sailed along the Baja peninsula on John’s yacht, Araner.

Rita Hayworth (1918-1987) was born Margarita Carmen Cansino and legends say that the Margarita cocktail was named for her when she was dancing under her real name in a Tijuana, Mexico nightclub.

Lana Turner (1921-1995) was once forced to evacuate her apartment building during a fire. With only minutes to collect her valuables, Lana grabbed her lipstick, her eyebrow pencil and her hairdryer.

Bob Hope (1903-2003) was a professional boxer for a short time fighting under the name Packy East.

Robert Mitchum (1917-1997) served briefly in the Army as a medic at the tail end of WWII. He was a “pecker checker” at an induction center, checking recruits’ genitals for venereal diseases.

Bette Davis (1908-1989) was married to four gentiles. Her friend Joan Blondell who was married to Mike Todd, a Jew, always referred to Bette’s husbands as the “four skins”.

Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) owned an extensive collection of toy electric trains. He set up a track that followed the path of his career starting with a replica of the Hoboken train station.

Woody Allen (1935- ) has a variety of neuroses including: arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, entomophobia, the fear of insects, heliophobia, the fear of sunshine, cynophobia, the fear of dogs, altophobia, the fear of heights, demophobia, the fear of crowds, carcinophobia, the fear of cancer, thanatophobia the fear of death, misophobia, the fear of germs and one they don’t even have a name for yet, the fear of hotel bathrooms.

Sammy Davis Jr. (1925-1990) had a “contract” put out on him because of his affair with Kim Novak. The villain threatened to put out his other eye if he continued seeing Kim. Frank Sinatra intervened and saved Sammy from harm but Sammy was so scared that he broke up with Kim and married a black showgirl.

Orson Wells (1915-1985) once ate 18 hot dogs in one visit to a hot dog stand in Los Angeles. He became obese in his 40s and weighed over 350 pounds in his later life.

Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) was with Spencer Tracy the night he died. After Tracy got out of bed to get a glass of milk she heard glass shatter and a loud thud. Racing to the kitchen she found Tracy dead on the floor from a massive heart attack. She didn’t attend his funeral out of respect for his family.

Gary Cooper (1901-1961) had a huge appetite. He referred to his Hollywood breakfast of a dozen eggs, two of loaves of bread, a side of bacon and a pile of pork chops as his starvation diet. He’d follow that with a cherry pie and a quart of milk for lunch.

Dean Martin (1917-1995) had a fear of elevators and a love of comic books, which he read his entire life.

Cary Grant (1904-1986) shared a house with Randolph Scott. There were so many rumors about their relationship that the studio heads threatened not to employ them unless they moved apart. Interestingly, Scott often referred to himself as Grant’s wife.

Dan Aykroyd (1952- ) was born with heterochromia; his right eye is blue and his left eye is brown.

Clark Gable (1901-1960) had a daughter, Judy with Loretta Young. He only met her once and not until she was a teenager. Loretta, afraid that her pregnancy would damage both of their careers, gave birth to their daughter in Europe and returned home saying that Judy was adopted.

Bill Murray (1950- ) was bitten twice by the groundhog on the set of Groundhog Day.

George C. Scott (1927- ) had a tumultuous relationship with Ava Gardner. They both drank heavily and Scott’s temper often got the best of him. He was abusive and would beat Ava. He once beat her so badly that he broke her shoulder forcing her to complete her film in a body brace.

Paul Newman (1925-2008) was one of the celebrities on Richard Nixon’s famous “Enemies List”.

Judy Garland (1922-1969) lay in a temporary crypt for over a year after her funeral because no one would pay the expense of moving her to a permanent resting place. Upon learning that Judy’s last husband didn’t have the money, Judy’s daughter Liza raised the funds to have her mom properly buried.

Clint Eastwood (1930- ) weighed 11 lbs 6 oz at birth.

Marlene Dietrich (1901- 1992) sucked lemons between takes to keep her mouth muscles tight and demanded that her hair stylist sprinkle a half ounce of real gold dust into her wigs to add glitter.

There you have it. Eat your heart out, Rona Barrett.

©2010 by Bob Rockwell

Prompt: One week after attending the funeral of a close friend, you receive a postcard in the mail with the words, “I’m not dead. Meet me tonight at Guido’s Pizzeria. Tell no one.”

Bill wasn’t my best friend but we’ve been pals since the third grade. We reconnected when we both returned home after his hitch in the army and my four years at State College. I got married and didn’t hang with the guys all that much after that except for a get together at Guido’s once or twice a year.

We’d tell the same old stories over and over, Bill’s catch on the thirty yard line and his touchdown that won the game over rival Central High, Bill’s sexual escapades with that bombshell Martha and we’d all drool over the love of our young lives, Betty. She was the hottest babe in school with these huge tits, Marilyn Monroe figure and a boyfriend the size of a truck. Those were the days.

Martha got pregnant and married Bill the summer after high school. Everyone knew that their marriage wouldn’t last very long and it didn’t. Bill joined the army and left Martha with their new daughter.

Bill died last week. It was not clear to us from what, but he died from a medical condition that nobody knew he had. We all went to Guido’s after the funeral for a couple of beers and a tearful retelling of Bill’s famous catch. Damn, I’ll miss him.

The following Saturday I found a goofy tourist post card in my box. It was addressed to me and had the following note scrawled in sloppy handwriting: “I’m not dead. Meet me tonight at Guido’s Pizzeria. Tell no one.”

The postcard didn’t say when, just tonight, so I went early and sat alone at our usual table spilling wine with my shaky hands and wiping the tears from my eyes. After about an hour and a half this cute teenage babe strolls in, comes directly to my table and sits down on my left. I didn’t know what to say, I just stared at her wondering what’s going on. She lights a cigarette and says through a cloud of smoke, “Thanks for coming. I knew my postcard would work.”

I stammered without putting together a whole sentence when she spoke again. “I wanted to meet you here and talk, now that Bill is gone. You see, my mom, Martha was pregnant with me when you left for college. She knew you wouldn’t come back so she told Bill that I was his and he married her. Now that he’s gone I want to get to know my real dad.”

©2010 by Bob Rockwell

The name trivia is a bit of trivia itself, as it should be. Way back when all roads led to Rome, the Romans would leave news bits at the junctions in the roads, at the tri (triple) and via (ways), places where three ways met. This piece of interesting but useless information along with the following are some of the many things cluttering up my few remaining tequila soaked brain cells.

Creosote Bushes
I live in the Chihuahuan Desert along with a bush that I find fascinating (tells you a lot about my life), the creosote bush. These guys are amazing for a couple of reasons. First, they naturally space themselves in the desert so that a field of creosote resembles a man-made orchard. Each bush does this by hogging all of the water within many feet of their stalks. Nothing else can grow near a creosote bush including another creosote because the older plant’s roots will suck up all of the available water. Secondly, these bushes and their clones are the oldest living things on earth. They reproduce by cloning themselves into new bushes. One creosote plant, named “King Clone”, in California has been carbon dated to be 11,700 years old. The oldest redwood tree is a mere 2,200 years old. Aren’t you glad that you know this now?

The Wombat
These cuddly looking Australian marsupials wouldn’t be noteworthy if it were not for a couple of really unique and cool characteristics. They have a rump so tough and a tail so short that when a dingo chases them down a hole the dingo can’t bite into their hardened rear ends. You’ve heard the term “hard-ass” before and now you know where it must have come from. They also have a rear opening pouch so that the baby wombat doesn’t get a pouch full of dirt when mom is digging holes, which is how she spends most of her time. But the thing I like most about these big guinea-pig-looking creatures is that they are the only mammal that I know of that crosses a river by walking across on the river bottom. You would have thought that they would have learned to swim a long time ago, but no; they just wade, if that’s the right word, across on the bottom.

Natalie Wood
With all of the Hollywood pretty girls I don’t know why she interests me so much. Maybe it’s because Natalie was my fantasy sweetheart when I went through puberty in the 1950s. But that’s another story. What makes Natalie unique to me is she was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko to Russian parents who could barely speak English and yet she became a child actress at four, successfully transitioned from child star into a teen star and later into an Academy Award winning adult actress. At 25 she was the youngest actress to be nominated for 3 Academy Awards. But it was her role as Judy in Rebel Without a Cause, when she was only sixteen, that forever endeared her to me. Did you know she was only five feet tall and that Elvis wanted to marry her, but his mother didn’t like Natalie? And, as everybody knows she was drunk and drowned in the water off Catalina when she was only 43. What Christopher Walken was doing on the boat with Natalie’s husband, Robert Wagner while she was drowning remains a secret to this day? The pallbearers at her funeral were Rock Hudson, Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier, Elia Kazan, Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Fred Astaire. Wow!

Shiraz Grapes
If you’re like me you enjoy a glass or two of Shiraz or as the French say, Syrah. This wonderfully full-bodied soft red wine with its hints of juicy cherry and black pepper goes really well with red meat of all kinds, especially steaks. When I worked in our local winery’s tasting room (one that makes a wonderful Syrah by the way) I told anyone that would listen how the Shiraz grapes came to France from Shiraz, Iran and were later exported to Australia where they flourished. Later the European vines suffered from some sort of disease and the French had to import vines back from Australia. That’s why we think of Shiraz as being primarily an Australian wine. Anyway, that’s all bunk and I’d like to correct that story right here and now. DNA typing has shown that Shiraz/Syrah grapes come from the Rhone region of France, as they should. The confusion all stems from the name, Shiraz and there are all sorts of legends as to how this grape became named after a city in Iran. But nobody knows the answer. Can you live with that? Syrah vines were taken to Australia in the early 19th century and soon became the most important variety Down Under. Today Shiraz/Syrah wines are made in France, Australia, South Africa, United States, Argentina and Chile. Stick that in your ear Iran.

Washboard Roads
Any of you who have ever lived in the country or spent any amount of time there know all about the washboard effect of gravel and dirt roads. It seems like any unpaved road develops this wash boarding no matter how often it’s graded. Why is that, you ask? If you don’t know, don’t feel bad, nobody else seems to know either. The predominate theory is that the up and down motion of our vehicle’s suspension systems create the washboards as the speed of the vehicle crosses some slow but critical point. Others have argued that suspension systems play no part in wash boarding and have demonstrated this by using suspension-less vehicles. So where does that leave us? I’ve got this theory about the moon’s gravitational pull on the grains of sand in the road that …. How about one of you figuring this out?

Obscure Acronyms
Everyone knows that Scuba is the acronym for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus but did you know that Radar is an acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging and Sonar is very similar as SOund Navigation And Ranging. Laser is one of our cooler acronyms and is a much easier way of saying Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. And, we’ve all had a CAT scan but did you know that you’ve had a Computerized Axial Tomography scan. But my absolute favorite is Posh which requires a little story. When the English used to travel across the equator to India by sailing vessel first class passage was a cabin on the port side to India and a cabin on the starboard side on the return voyage. This soon became abbreviated to Port Out, Starboard Home or POSH. Interestingly enough my online Merriam-Webster dictionary lists posh’s origin as unknown but defines it as 1 – elegant, fashionable and 2 – British: typical of or intended for the upper classes. Maybe we finally know something that Webster doesn’t?

Flatulence
It amazes me how little we know about flatulence. Most people only know that some foods seem to produce more gas than others. My dear mother-in-law actually believed that mashing her beans released their gas. She must have thought that beans were tiny gas balloons to be deflated before we ate them. Who am I to contradict my mother-in-law but I’ve since learned that our intestinal gas comes from three sources. The smallest contributor is air, the air that we ingest when we eat. Next comes the fermentation by yeast residing in our systems but the biggest generator of gas by far is the secondary digestive process by microorganisms living naturally in our colons. Beans for instance travel through our stomach and small intestine pretty much untouched. But when beans hit our colons the bacteria that hang out there vigorously devour it producing lots of flatus (gas). Okay, got it? The next time you fart remember it wasn’t you; it was those hungry little parasitic microorganisms living in you that produced that gas, not you. Why we put up with them is beyond me.

W. C. Fields
How can you not love someone whose real name was William Claude Dukenfield? And, although he reportedly said when asked what he wanted his epitaph to read, “On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia,” he was born in Philadelphia. He only had four years of formal schooling but he had a world of experience on the streets and midways. He ran away from home at eleven and lived in a hole in the ground before he landed his first regular job delivering ice. By the time he was thirteen he was a skilled pool player and juggler earning him his first job as a comedic juggler and soon a gig at Fortescue’s Pier in Atlantic City. At age nineteen he moved to stand-up comedy and a long run with the Ziegfeld Follies. We remember W. C. primarily as a movie actor but did you know he didn’t make his first movie until he was thirty-six. Having a medical syndrome named after him, the W.C. Fields syndrome, characterized by rhinophyma (rosacea of the nose) associated with alcoholism may be his most lasting contribution. And, who can forget such perils of wisdom such as: “Twas a woman drove me to drink. I never had the courtesy to thank her” or “Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore always carry a small snake.” Rest in peace William Dukenfield, wherever you are.

Okay, this was today’s lesson in totally useless information. Our quiz will be on Wednesday.

These are the people I take to bed with me every night. Don’t snicker, I only shack up with them one at time and only for a few days. These are not just passing fancies; I’ve had long-term relationships with each of the people I’m about to blab about. My occasional one-night-stand with other folks is a subject for another day. Also, you’ll probably be quick to point out that there are a lot more men than women in my little exposé. You’ll just have to deal with it … I have. 
 
Spenser

He’s been in and out of my bed for almost thirty years and I don’t even know his first name. He routinely gives out his business cards. I wonder what they say? Just Spenser? As you probably guessed, I’m talking about Robert B. Parker’s wiseass private investigator, Spenser. He’s a bonafide tough-guy with a good sense of right and wrong, a better sense of humor and a heart of gold. Although Spenser is true to his lady friend Dr. Susan Silverman I wish he would bonk that sexy redheaded lawyer, Rita Fiore, just once and share it with us. Shows you what kind of guy I am. Besides being true-blue, he’s a well educated, ex-boxer, gourmet cook and an avid Scotch and soda drinker who spends most of his time with Pearl, his German shorthaired pointer. If I ever need a private investigator or any kind of protection I’d hire Spenser and his shady but equally as tough friend, Hawk, in a heartbeat. I know for a fact that these two guys could hunt down and blow away Osama bin Laden and a whole bunch of Al-Qaeda in a day or two. Okay, maybe three days.

Authors note: A few hours after I wrote this little tribute to Spenser I learned that Robert B. Parker had died from a heart attack sitting at his desk working on his next book. He was 77. We’ll miss you Robert.

Stephanie Plum

For a good time call Trixie at 555-1814 or for an even better time share an evening with Janet Evanovich’s quintessential Jersey-girl, Stephanie Plum. Stephanie works for her cousin as a bond enforcement officer (bounty hunter) out of an office full of wackos: cousin Vinnie, a pervert rumored to have had a romantic relationship with a duck, Lulu a plus-size former ‘ho with a petite-size spandex wardrobe, Connie, the office guard-dog with a hairy upper lip and Mafia ties, and Ranger, Stephanie’s mentor, occasional lover and frequent guardian angel. Stephanie tracks down and attempts to apprehend an ever interesting array of characters in one humorous episode after another usually destroying her car along the way. Her cars have been repossessed, stolen, stripped, wrecked, crushed, blown up, and smashed into little pieces. Between chasing FTAs (Failures to Appear) she hangs out with her hamster Rex, her on again, off again boyfriend, Trenton detective, Joseph Morelli and his dog, Bob, her nutcase parents, and her wonderfully wacky Grandma Mazur. My ménage à quatre with Stephanie, Lulu and Grandma Mazur are some of my most memorable evenings.

Archy McNally

Archy McNally is one of the dead guys that I mourn and miss terribly. Until Lawrence Sanders’ death in 1998 Archibald “Archy” McNally was his bon vivant Palm Beach private investigator. Or as Archy would be quick to point out, he conducted “discreet enquiries” for his father’s prestigious law firm, McNally and Son. Archie was a cross between a wantabe private eye, a neighborhood busybody, and a privileged college boy home for summer break. His clients, or rather his father’s, were all the weird and wacky rich and powerful of this ultra-exclusive community. He still lived with his parents, had an on-and-off relationship with Connie Garcia, the personal secretary of Lady Cynthia Horowitz and hung out at his private club, the Pelican Club, with his doofus childhood buddy, Binky Watrous and his unlikely pal, Sgt. Al Rogoff of the Palm Beach Police Department. Although Archy rubbed elbows with the rich and famous he often sought the advice and help of the couple that ran his dining club, the Pettibones, and the Olsens, the domestics at his parent’s mansion. I wouldn’t hire Archy to conduct a discreet inquiry but I’d jump at the chance to have lunch with him at the Pelican Club.

Jim Chee

While we’re talking about dead guys, you can’t live in the southwest and not be a big fan of Tony Hillerman’s Navajo Tribal Police detective, Jim Chee. Chee along with the “Legendary Lieutenant” Joe Leaphorn introduced me to the exotic world of Navajo culture. Chee was studying to be a traditional Navajo healer while he was chasing bad guys and solving crimes on the vast reservation before his uncle told him that, to be a good shaman he must “believe and not believe.” Chee interpreted that to mean he could not be a good shaman and a cop too. He was devastated. In addition to that frustration he’s had lots of women troubles, he fell in love with a white woman but soon found they would never be compatible; next he fell in love with a half-Navajo, half-white lawyer but she wanted Chee to leave the reservation and finally he married Bernadette Manuelito, a full-blooded Navajo and fellow member of the Tribal Police. Chee realized that the white man will never understand the Navajo but it was the white man’s world that was the source of his livelihood and most of his troubles. On the reservation violence is usually associated with the supernatural. In the white man’s world the motivation for violence is often greed which makes no sense to a Navajo. Rest in peace Jim Chee.
 
Kinsey Millhone

A is for Attractive, B is for Brave, C is for Comical and so forth. Yep, I’m in love with Kinsey Millhone, Sue Grafton’s witty and charming private investigator who is working her way through the alphabet bagging bad guys. She quit college to join the Santa Teresa, California police force but two years of the police department’s bureaucracy was all she could take. She then became an investigator for an insurance company where she learned enough about investigating to go into private practice finding people, solving murders, clearing names and getting into all sorts of scrapes. She’s been married and divorced twice, first to an ex-cop and later to a struggling musician. Kinsey lives in a converted garage behind her landlord Henry, an eighty-something who bakes wonderful pastries and counsels and consoles her regularly. Henry is the only permanent man in her life. She has lots of relationships and affairs that all seem to fizzle out. Maybe it’s because we haven’t met yet.

Jesse Stone

I can’t figure out whether it’s the Jesse Stone of Robert B. Parker’s novels or the Jesse Stone played so wonderfully by Tom Selleck in the made-for-TV movies that I like better. Both equally I guess. Jesse was minor league shortstop who injured his throwing arm and still regrets and misses the baseball career he never got to realize. Strike one. His second strike came when his beautiful wife dumped him for a career in TV and his third strike was being fired from the LAPD because of a drinking problem. His career and his life are at rock bottom as he, the big city cop, deals with the small town issues of dinky, little Paradise, Massachusetts. Jesse brings a strong sense of right and wrong and a no bullshit style to his position as Paradise’s chief of police. As you read or watch Jesse you’ll want to drop your book or pause the TV and see if you can reach out and somehow help this deeply troubled man.

Alex Cross

Unlike the Jesse Stone character I like the Alex Cross I take to bed with me much better than the one played by Morgan Freeman in his two movies. Cross is James Patterson’s African-American detective and psychologist living and working in Washington, D.C. He was with the homicide division of D.C’s Metropolitan Police Department before he became a Senior Agent for the FBI. He lives with his grandmother, Nana Mama and his children, Damon and Janelle, by his deceased wife and Alex Jr. by his ex-girlfriend, Christine. He drives a 1974 Porsche and plays the piano on his back porch to relax. He owns an Abyssinian cat named Rosie, who was left at his door, or so we’re told, by one of the evil villains Alex pursues so well. Alex has a lot more luck tracking down really weirdo serial killers than with his women. His wife Maria was murdered; his next lover was executed; his following squeeze was kidnapped before his next lover and former partner was murdered by a serial killer. Later he met a San Francisco P.D. inspector who looked like she might be around for a while but she parted company just before he began a relationship with a resident at a local hospital. But, you guessed it, she moved back to North Carolina and he’s now involved with a hot young detective on D.C. police force. Wow, Alex is getting more action than Warren Beatty.

Lucas Davenport

Lucas Davenport is John Sandford’s. maverick detective lieutenant with the Minneapolis Police Department in his Prey series. He’s known for his unorthodox and manipulative behavior as a detective and is as close to the Dirty Harry character as you’ll find in bedside reading. He often acts independently and feels more at home with his network of street contacts than with the police brass. He was forced to resign to avoid excessive force charges, partly due to his knowledge of the connection of a senior police officer to that case. He returned as a Deputy Chief running his own intelligence unit and is now an investigator for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, acting as a special troubleshooter for the governor in politically-sensitive cases. Davenport has strong interests in reading, poetry, war gaming and once spent an entire novel compiling his list of the top 100 rock-and-roll songs or all time. He suffers from a number of anxiety disorders, including depression and a chronic fear of flying. My kind of guy.

Easy Rawlins

Ezekiel “Easy” Porterhouse Rawlins is Walter Mosley’s unemployed defense plant worker turned hard-boiled, unlicensed private investigator out of a need to make his  house payments in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. Easy is not a detective with a PhD living in the modern, racially integrated world of Alex Cross. He lives and investigates in the gritty black ghetto of Watts and experiences the racial inequities and social injustices experienced by African-Americans and other persons of color in the greater Los Angeles of the 1960s. If you’re up for a black Philip Marlowe or a Lew Archer of color, you’ll love Easy. He’s a private investigator with no background or training in law enforcement who matches wits with the best of ‘em sorting out corruption and solving crimes. Easy with help of his childhood friend, the murderous and charming Mouse give us an insiders look into the urban black culture of a bygone era.

Harry Bosch

Detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch is Michael Connelly’s veteran homicide detective in the prestigious Robbery Homicide Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Bosch’s mother, a prostitute in Hollywood, was murdered when Bosch was 11 years old and the key reason why he became a homicide detective. He ran away from his foster family to join the Army while he was still in his teens. In Vietnam, Bosch was a “tunnel rat”, a specialized soldier whose job it was to venture into the maze of tunnels used by the Vietcong. After returning from Vietnam he joined the LAPD and quickly rose to the rank of Detective III. Bosch lives in a house on stilts in the Hollywood Hills; a home he financed by being the technical advisor on a TV mini-series. Bosch always finds himself in conflict with authority, whether it’s with his lieutenant, or his especially despicable Deputy Chief of Police or the FBI. His confrontational side is usually attributed to his strong sense of “do the right thing” coupled with his total lack of regard for his career but it is his relentlessness that drives him.

Okay, now you have it. These are the people I’ve been spending my late evenings and early mornings with: five cops, four PIs and a bounty hunter. This must say something about me but I don’t know what. I do know that if you long for an exciting evening … just pick up a book about one of these folks and you’ll never sleep alone again.

©2010 by Bob Rockwell