ALTARS AND SHRINES
Martin Higgins
, Much of the desert is populated by ghosts. Not the horror movie bunk; animated sheets of semi-transparent people, risen from the dead, wearing slightly less transparent clothing. To believe that the departed return to roam creation is to believe that jackets, pants, and gowns are also adept at resurrection.
Imagine being haunted by a wrathful pair of XXL jodhpurs or a levitating brassiere.
The hulks left behind where the spirits scattered them about, mislaid by fate, sinking into the ground, each piece paying tribute to what was once a functioning reality. But gone are the sun-baked people, the dusty mines, hardscrabble farms, roadside way stations, the stucco bodegas and garageless filling stations that only a few decades ago were bustling with the great-grandparents of those who are no were to be found. Ghosts.
So, I’m an erstwhile, alien, anthropologist surveying what remains of Earthly relics, hoping to determine who eked out an onerous life there; what did they did and why did they disappeared. The solutions to these riddles – some easy to work out, others latent in tottering shanty shacks that may have housed stoop-shouldered miners, doleful truck farmers, parched mommas, dog-tired daddies, sunburned kids, meager communities of tumbledown ranches and caved-in warehouses, disintegrating farm machinery and marooned vehicles. Here are my digs, my unexamined excavations, bloodhound scent trails, hidden histories, myths and parables. Only in this extreme immersion can I be assured that the meaning will be revealed; optimally blotting out my obsession with self-pity.
There’s not much salvageable here, other than heat-furrowed wood and oxidized scrap iron. Every metal object – road signs, automobiles, railcars, mobile home frames – lie abandoned in the wind-driven, shrouding sand, cinnamon-crusted and riddled with bullet holes. They occupy this unbounded, outlaw firing range, this uncontrolled shooting gallery, where lifeless targets embodying the dimming memory of long-gone lives, scarce vestiges of the past, are destroyed by thoughtless thugs, meandering gunners.
Meanderthals.
And we, troubled visitors, cannot ignore the persistent allusions to death; skeletal fences, half-buried wheels, petrified trees, or a spray of fresh flowers laid carefully atop a century-old headstone. I imagine octogenarian children hobbling to their parent’s gravesite, surviving on recollections that were old before I was born. I wondered if local inhabitants knew who had driven the junk-hulk sedans when they shined and purred down new highways, decades before they became engineless, door-less, and surrounded by fragrant creosote bushes and pancake prickly-pear cactuses. Were they optimistic? Did they reject the temperate clime of the fruited valley, the chill of the mountains, the pounding whisper of the sea shore waves? Why did they stay... or did they simply lose their way, blinded by the sun and sandstorms?
And, how does a driver choose where to let the car choose its final resting place when it grows old, or does an untimely motor-death randomly determine a fated parking spot? This arid land surely exerts some dominion over a vehicle’s untimely demise, leaving the driver to decide when to walk away, following a road toward the horizon.
On that horizon, heat diffraction shimmer make distant objects – cars, trains, people –undulate above the horizon, looking as though they were trembling, succumbing to the intense heat as they hover above the rippling, apparition lagoons, unwittingly complicit in a potentially-fatal deception. On that black-topped highway, an endless caravan of people and goods moves through heat, headed into the boiler for a while, or out for a lifetime. I marvel that the desert can be called home.
N sets down the book she brought to fill the occasional moments we resort to silence. It’s a review copy she needs to browse through.
“Food?”
“Sure. Café or Car-afé? Stop or eat on the way? I’m sure Apple Valley has a Michelin-starred greasy spoon. Sound interesting? We’re about an hour from the Roy Rogers museum and Taxidermy Trigger.”
“The stuffed horse? I could eat one.”
I love this jesting.
N checks in with me. “Alright Jicama? Snack now, museum, then eat, right?
“Of course.” I say.
Jicama was her playful nickname for me. It evolved from Higgins to Higgs, to Higg to Higgmuh then, after I made her a salad containing jicama, I became Jicama. I used various mutations of N’s last name, a taxonomic animal name, that lent itself to multiple comedic prefixes and suffixes. Our friendship went from last names to silly aliases as we grew more affectionate. It was as close to indulging in a lover’s patois as we allowed ourselves to risk. That’s the way getting to know someone goes, right? We start with well-structured, respectful conversation and, as the formality dissipates, we moved to a less-guarded vernacular peppered with shared shortcuts, codes, inferences and arcane references. Verbal foreplay it is.
When I described our destination as the Roy Rogers Museum, N patiently let me go into disproportionate detail. The clothes, guns, vehicles, musical instruments, saddles and tack,
“It’s weird that Rogers had his horse stuffed. Isn’t it weird?”
I screwed up my face in mimed agreement.
“Yeah. He stuffed his dog, Bullet the Wonderdog, too.”
“He called his dog Bullet?” She said, reproachfully.
“Yes, and he was truly Wonderdog! Understood complex English constructions, could add small sums and, as a mere pup, always went on the paper. Imagine that! Roy was an avid fan of taxidermy. Death be not proud. He packed his brainy horse, Trigger, and his faithful dog of wonders, the early-housebroken Bullet with kapok!”
“Really?” She said, her tone indicating she was rapidly losing interest, “How very interesting... I’m all a-tremble with anticipation.”
I needed to entertain her – engage her, excite her. I waited to answer until my silence corralled her meandering attention.
“Yup. He also stuffed his wife, Dale Evans.”
That perked her up. “Bullshit!”
“Oh, yes! And, if he had showered first, she fucking LOVED it!”
N froze – wide-eyed and emotionless. That was how she laughed.
“We’ll stop at the first snack shop we see, Okay?”
“Don’t you try stuffing me, Jicama.” She snapped.
“Me? I am a man of honor! Only turkeys… and cabbage.”
N fought back a faint hint of a coy smile, exuding sexuality, trying to be detached and stoic, which thrilled me. I wanted to stop driving, turn off the engine and turn my full attention on her, study her face, feel her eyes on me, and watch her breathe. I knew what I needed do to reach her heart and stoke her fervor.
It was an old lesson I had learned as a teenager.
In my junior year in high school, I had many female friends but remained an inexperienced virgin. Oh God, they loved me, sending me into wild fantasies of kissing, leading to petting, leading to what I could only sketchily imagine. But, at most, I brought out their sisterly feelings and often felt miserable when I heard them proclaim you’re the greatest, or I wish all the boys were like you! My feeble advances were always met a wave-off like I wouldn’t want to spoil the incredible friendship we have! What the hell was I supposed to do? I was sure being witty and full of fun was the key to earning the attention and affection of the opposite sex, the sex I so dearly craved. But in the parlance of aluminum siding salesmen; I couldn’t close the deal.
That summer, while trying to improve my calculus grade in summer school, I met an amiable French exchange student, Baptiste Laporte. Bap handed me the winning ticket.
“Martin, it is in the eyes. It is all in the eyes. Do you care to know?”
“Well… YEAH!”
I sat with him in the lunchroom and took in his advice as I would a cold, wet, storm-lost kitten. At first, I had as much of an idea what to do with his guidance as I did the mewling foundling. Baptiste stared at me intently.
“I am showing you now. Look at me. Do not stop looking at me as I speak, do not even blink.”
After my self-consciousness abated, I was captivated by his advice and I have never forgotten his words.
“A woman must know you are talking to her, not looking about at shiny cars, or baseball players, or whatever is around your feet or, worst of all, another woman passing by. You see? So hold her eyes with your eyes. She will look to see who you are, and you will be speaking to her soul. Speak your heart. If she senses you are not being honest, she will push you away. If she sees honesty, she will respond with honesty. That is opening the door.”
He pointed to his eyes, “Windows of the soul.” Then to his mouth “The mouth is the door. To be graced to touch a woman’s body, you must first touch her mind. Let her see who you truly are. Let her choose you. Her eyes will tell you more than her lips. If she finds you desirable, her first kiss will tell you everything else you need to know.”
I so wanted that simplicity.
When we met, I told N Laura and I were becoming more and more distant. It was a foregone conclusion at that point that we would separate.
She said, “Are you okay with it?” but she knew by the way I stared off I was disconcerted. She gave me a blank look and spoke slowly and distinctly
“Your wife?” she asked.
I just nodded swallowed in my saliva tasted bitter and I didn’t know what to say, how to start. I had several things running through my mind that I didn’t want to talk about, but what N consistently offered me was a chance to unburden myself of the heavy emotions that stole my presence.
“Divorce?”
“Laura and I were raised Catholic, we don’t believe in divorce. We cheat.”
“Convenient.” she said.
So this is how it came to be. N hand-grenaded me, exploded the fear lurking in my mind, sent pieces of thoughts and ideas in every direction only to coalesce back into a single focused point that included all of the feelings from all of the thoughts; conceptual shock-therapy. Christ, I loved her.
That gave us each enough to think about so we let the road noises fill our ears for a few moments. Then she exhaled.
“I’m thirsty.”
“Yeah. The coolers empty. Need ice too. I’ll stop.
We drove along commenting on the hills around us or occasional bird, or passing motorist.
What perverse pleasure there is in illicit sex – lust without the burden of love. I was beginning to understand how I could be in love with a woman without needing to love her or have her truly love me. I may have never embraced this realization if I hadn’t realized I continued to love my wife but no longer was in love with her. At first, this brought on enormous psychological torment; feeling a profound loss fused with the jittery excitement of an unimaginable, divergent future. I was freed from my secure, but disappointingly predictable, path ahead. But my children were behind a looming wall of separateness. This, was the most harrowing anguish.
Up ahead, a roadside store sign read Fatima’s Bodega and Liquor.”
“Fatima?” I asked.
N squinted. “Sure. Next stop, fifty miles, right?”
I slowed and turned into its unpaved lot, sending up a cloud of dust. Painted milkcans marked the border of the store's lot and we entered. N headed for the freezer and I grabbed a couple of beers and some bagged nuts, beef jerky, and a bag of ice. The old man behind the counter mumbled to an older woman in a black mourning gown, lace mantilla over her head, chain-dangling crucifix at her breast. His conversation held his attention as I stood there.
“Jicama.” N said from the rear of the store, loud enough for me to hear.
The man and woman heard her and stopped talking and looked at me. I pointed to my chest and went to see what N wanted. She held a box of popsicles, and pointed at a doorway to a dimly-lit rear room where the flicker of candles made the shadows dance across the walls.
I caught N’s eye and nodded toward the room.
“Shrine. Come on…”
We stepped into a meticulously decorated sanctuary, an altar surrounded by statues, framed images of Jesus and Saints, plastic flowers, votive lights, incense burners, , and photos of young and old people. At its center, a tall plaster Mary, crowned with a halo nimbus of gold, hands extended in compassion, standing atop a half-dome of the Earth. At her feet, Angelitos, beaded rosaries, cloth scapulars, a silver chalice filled with long cactus thorns, painted papier-mâché skulls, a husk of dry brown bread, miniscule bottles, rings and keys, all arranged on a dusty Falsa blanket. The walls were covered with photos, posters, embroidery, and black velvet paintings: the Last Supper, Aztec warriors, and oddly, El Santo, the Mexican wrestler.
“Woof!” I said, looking for N’s reaction. She cocked her head to the side and her eyes went wide.
We took it all in, being respectful, knowing the old folks out front were still silent, surely awaiting our return to the counter. The photos were eerie, all looking as if they had just learned something tragic just as the shutter snapped. Aged couples, a gray-haired man holding an outsized bible, a smiling boy in white, a soldier in a carefully-posed portrait were closest to the statue. Their frames were adorned with palm leaves and holy cards, smaller photos of men and women, and feathers. The sheer intensity of the display gave us pause and we looked at each other, somewhat overcome. I lead the way back to the counter.
The old man had come around the counter and stood next to the ice cooler. He took our items from us, set them on the counter, and walked back around to the cash register.
CONTINUED
copyright (c) 2018
Martin Higgins
all rights reserved
Imagine being haunted by a wrathful pair of XXL jodhpurs or a levitating brassiere.
The hulks left behind where the spirits scattered them about, mislaid by fate, sinking into the ground, each piece paying tribute to what was once a functioning reality. But gone are the sun-baked people, the dusty mines, hardscrabble farms, roadside way stations, the stucco bodegas and garageless filling stations that only a few decades ago were bustling with the great-grandparents of those who are no were to be found. Ghosts.
So, I’m an erstwhile, alien, anthropologist surveying what remains of Earthly relics, hoping to determine who eked out an onerous life there; what did they did and why did they disappeared. The solutions to these riddles – some easy to work out, others latent in tottering shanty shacks that may have housed stoop-shouldered miners, doleful truck farmers, parched mommas, dog-tired daddies, sunburned kids, meager communities of tumbledown ranches and caved-in warehouses, disintegrating farm machinery and marooned vehicles. Here are my digs, my unexamined excavations, bloodhound scent trails, hidden histories, myths and parables. Only in this extreme immersion can I be assured that the meaning will be revealed; optimally blotting out my obsession with self-pity.
There’s not much salvageable here, other than heat-furrowed wood and oxidized scrap iron. Every metal object – road signs, automobiles, railcars, mobile home frames – lie abandoned in the wind-driven, shrouding sand, cinnamon-crusted and riddled with bullet holes. They occupy this unbounded, outlaw firing range, this uncontrolled shooting gallery, where lifeless targets embodying the dimming memory of long-gone lives, scarce vestiges of the past, are destroyed by thoughtless thugs, meandering gunners.
Meanderthals.
And we, troubled visitors, cannot ignore the persistent allusions to death; skeletal fences, half-buried wheels, petrified trees, or a spray of fresh flowers laid carefully atop a century-old headstone. I imagine octogenarian children hobbling to their parent’s gravesite, surviving on recollections that were old before I was born. I wondered if local inhabitants knew who had driven the junk-hulk sedans when they shined and purred down new highways, decades before they became engineless, door-less, and surrounded by fragrant creosote bushes and pancake prickly-pear cactuses. Were they optimistic? Did they reject the temperate clime of the fruited valley, the chill of the mountains, the pounding whisper of the sea shore waves? Why did they stay... or did they simply lose their way, blinded by the sun and sandstorms?
And, how does a driver choose where to let the car choose its final resting place when it grows old, or does an untimely motor-death randomly determine a fated parking spot? This arid land surely exerts some dominion over a vehicle’s untimely demise, leaving the driver to decide when to walk away, following a road toward the horizon.
On that horizon, heat diffraction shimmer make distant objects – cars, trains, people –undulate above the horizon, looking as though they were trembling, succumbing to the intense heat as they hover above the rippling, apparition lagoons, unwittingly complicit in a potentially-fatal deception. On that black-topped highway, an endless caravan of people and goods moves through heat, headed into the boiler for a while, or out for a lifetime. I marvel that the desert can be called home.
N sets down the book she brought to fill the occasional moments we resort to silence. It’s a review copy she needs to browse through.
“Food?”
“Sure. Café or Car-afé? Stop or eat on the way? I’m sure Apple Valley has a Michelin-starred greasy spoon. Sound interesting? We’re about an hour from the Roy Rogers museum and Taxidermy Trigger.”
“The stuffed horse? I could eat one.”
I love this jesting.
N checks in with me. “Alright Jicama? Snack now, museum, then eat, right?
“Of course.” I say.
Jicama was her playful nickname for me. It evolved from Higgins to Higgs, to Higg to Higgmuh then, after I made her a salad containing jicama, I became Jicama. I used various mutations of N’s last name, a taxonomic animal name, that lent itself to multiple comedic prefixes and suffixes. Our friendship went from last names to silly aliases as we grew more affectionate. It was as close to indulging in a lover’s patois as we allowed ourselves to risk. That’s the way getting to know someone goes, right? We start with well-structured, respectful conversation and, as the formality dissipates, we moved to a less-guarded vernacular peppered with shared shortcuts, codes, inferences and arcane references. Verbal foreplay it is.
When I described our destination as the Roy Rogers Museum, N patiently let me go into disproportionate detail. The clothes, guns, vehicles, musical instruments, saddles and tack,
“It’s weird that Rogers had his horse stuffed. Isn’t it weird?”
I screwed up my face in mimed agreement.
“Yeah. He stuffed his dog, Bullet the Wonderdog, too.”
“He called his dog Bullet?” She said, reproachfully.
“Yes, and he was truly Wonderdog! Understood complex English constructions, could add small sums and, as a mere pup, always went on the paper. Imagine that! Roy was an avid fan of taxidermy. Death be not proud. He packed his brainy horse, Trigger, and his faithful dog of wonders, the early-housebroken Bullet with kapok!”
“Really?” She said, her tone indicating she was rapidly losing interest, “How very interesting... I’m all a-tremble with anticipation.”
I needed to entertain her – engage her, excite her. I waited to answer until my silence corralled her meandering attention.
“Yup. He also stuffed his wife, Dale Evans.”
That perked her up. “Bullshit!”
“Oh, yes! And, if he had showered first, she fucking LOVED it!”
N froze – wide-eyed and emotionless. That was how she laughed.
“We’ll stop at the first snack shop we see, Okay?”
“Don’t you try stuffing me, Jicama.” She snapped.
“Me? I am a man of honor! Only turkeys… and cabbage.”
N fought back a faint hint of a coy smile, exuding sexuality, trying to be detached and stoic, which thrilled me. I wanted to stop driving, turn off the engine and turn my full attention on her, study her face, feel her eyes on me, and watch her breathe. I knew what I needed do to reach her heart and stoke her fervor.
It was an old lesson I had learned as a teenager.
In my junior year in high school, I had many female friends but remained an inexperienced virgin. Oh God, they loved me, sending me into wild fantasies of kissing, leading to petting, leading to what I could only sketchily imagine. But, at most, I brought out their sisterly feelings and often felt miserable when I heard them proclaim you’re the greatest, or I wish all the boys were like you! My feeble advances were always met a wave-off like I wouldn’t want to spoil the incredible friendship we have! What the hell was I supposed to do? I was sure being witty and full of fun was the key to earning the attention and affection of the opposite sex, the sex I so dearly craved. But in the parlance of aluminum siding salesmen; I couldn’t close the deal.
That summer, while trying to improve my calculus grade in summer school, I met an amiable French exchange student, Baptiste Laporte. Bap handed me the winning ticket.
“Martin, it is in the eyes. It is all in the eyes. Do you care to know?”
“Well… YEAH!”
I sat with him in the lunchroom and took in his advice as I would a cold, wet, storm-lost kitten. At first, I had as much of an idea what to do with his guidance as I did the mewling foundling. Baptiste stared at me intently.
“I am showing you now. Look at me. Do not stop looking at me as I speak, do not even blink.”
After my self-consciousness abated, I was captivated by his advice and I have never forgotten his words.
“A woman must know you are talking to her, not looking about at shiny cars, or baseball players, or whatever is around your feet or, worst of all, another woman passing by. You see? So hold her eyes with your eyes. She will look to see who you are, and you will be speaking to her soul. Speak your heart. If she senses you are not being honest, she will push you away. If she sees honesty, she will respond with honesty. That is opening the door.”
He pointed to his eyes, “Windows of the soul.” Then to his mouth “The mouth is the door. To be graced to touch a woman’s body, you must first touch her mind. Let her see who you truly are. Let her choose you. Her eyes will tell you more than her lips. If she finds you desirable, her first kiss will tell you everything else you need to know.”
I so wanted that simplicity.
When we met, I told N Laura and I were becoming more and more distant. It was a foregone conclusion at that point that we would separate.
She said, “Are you okay with it?” but she knew by the way I stared off I was disconcerted. She gave me a blank look and spoke slowly and distinctly
“Your wife?” she asked.
I just nodded swallowed in my saliva tasted bitter and I didn’t know what to say, how to start. I had several things running through my mind that I didn’t want to talk about, but what N consistently offered me was a chance to unburden myself of the heavy emotions that stole my presence.
“Divorce?”
“Laura and I were raised Catholic, we don’t believe in divorce. We cheat.”
“Convenient.” she said.
So this is how it came to be. N hand-grenaded me, exploded the fear lurking in my mind, sent pieces of thoughts and ideas in every direction only to coalesce back into a single focused point that included all of the feelings from all of the thoughts; conceptual shock-therapy. Christ, I loved her.
That gave us each enough to think about so we let the road noises fill our ears for a few moments. Then she exhaled.
“I’m thirsty.”
“Yeah. The coolers empty. Need ice too. I’ll stop.
We drove along commenting on the hills around us or occasional bird, or passing motorist.
What perverse pleasure there is in illicit sex – lust without the burden of love. I was beginning to understand how I could be in love with a woman without needing to love her or have her truly love me. I may have never embraced this realization if I hadn’t realized I continued to love my wife but no longer was in love with her. At first, this brought on enormous psychological torment; feeling a profound loss fused with the jittery excitement of an unimaginable, divergent future. I was freed from my secure, but disappointingly predictable, path ahead. But my children were behind a looming wall of separateness. This, was the most harrowing anguish.
Up ahead, a roadside store sign read Fatima’s Bodega and Liquor.”
“Fatima?” I asked.
N squinted. “Sure. Next stop, fifty miles, right?”
I slowed and turned into its unpaved lot, sending up a cloud of dust. Painted milkcans marked the border of the store's lot and we entered. N headed for the freezer and I grabbed a couple of beers and some bagged nuts, beef jerky, and a bag of ice. The old man behind the counter mumbled to an older woman in a black mourning gown, lace mantilla over her head, chain-dangling crucifix at her breast. His conversation held his attention as I stood there.
“Jicama.” N said from the rear of the store, loud enough for me to hear.
The man and woman heard her and stopped talking and looked at me. I pointed to my chest and went to see what N wanted. She held a box of popsicles, and pointed at a doorway to a dimly-lit rear room where the flicker of candles made the shadows dance across the walls.
I caught N’s eye and nodded toward the room.
“Shrine. Come on…”
We stepped into a meticulously decorated sanctuary, an altar surrounded by statues, framed images of Jesus and Saints, plastic flowers, votive lights, incense burners, , and photos of young and old people. At its center, a tall plaster Mary, crowned with a halo nimbus of gold, hands extended in compassion, standing atop a half-dome of the Earth. At her feet, Angelitos, beaded rosaries, cloth scapulars, a silver chalice filled with long cactus thorns, painted papier-mâché skulls, a husk of dry brown bread, miniscule bottles, rings and keys, all arranged on a dusty Falsa blanket. The walls were covered with photos, posters, embroidery, and black velvet paintings: the Last Supper, Aztec warriors, and oddly, El Santo, the Mexican wrestler.
“Woof!” I said, looking for N’s reaction. She cocked her head to the side and her eyes went wide.
We took it all in, being respectful, knowing the old folks out front were still silent, surely awaiting our return to the counter. The photos were eerie, all looking as if they had just learned something tragic just as the shutter snapped. Aged couples, a gray-haired man holding an outsized bible, a smiling boy in white, a soldier in a carefully-posed portrait were closest to the statue. Their frames were adorned with palm leaves and holy cards, smaller photos of men and women, and feathers. The sheer intensity of the display gave us pause and we looked at each other, somewhat overcome. I lead the way back to the counter.
The old man had come around the counter and stood next to the ice cooler. He took our items from us, set them on the counter, and walked back around to the cash register.
CONTINUED
copyright (c) 2018
Martin Higgins
all rights reserved