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Getting Lost With Chic And Jade
I was recently squatting in the Moab desert behind a juniper as hundreds of feet away Chic laughed at me, out loud, clearly unaware that a few hours hence I would be attempting to rescue him and Jade from death by dehydration, them huddled and confused and lost within site of the highway, hoping but uncertain that Bernadette and I would coast efficiently on mountain bikes downhill along the highway into the town eight miles away and bring back the SUV, Gatorade, and Krispy Kreme donuts.

You get Chic laughing hard and you can kill him with it and all in good fun I thought I might like to do just that. If you are in a restaurant and someone gets up to use the restroom 30 feet away from you, you are not so aware or hyper-conscious of what is going on in there, but in the vast Utah desert surrounded by sandstone skyscrapers and crisp blue sky, a person a hundred yards away behind a juniper is something you are very aware of. The thing about being in a restaurant is you don't usually ask your fellow diners for toilet paper before excusing yourself. In the desert no one had brought any. I took the paper towel wrapping from the sandwich I had just been offered, said--my toilet paper has avocado goo on it--and walked carefully over the less than pristine bio-crust to take care of my business. The desert floor provided for excellent digging and I--as is my custom--left no trace (but for my obvious boot prints to and fro), and spent a little time creating a picture of natural desert nothingness, with twigs and dead vegetation and the swirly movement of my hand. I even found some wild rosemary near me and freshened up with it upon conclusion.

Chic was giggling when I got back because he didn't want me near him with the obviousness of my business so fresh in his mind. I predictably got up close to him and made him squirm and beg for distance. I was going in for the kill. I had a long sleeve t-shirt underneath my long sleeve button down and one of those under-sleeves I had used as backup to the avocado-soggy sandwich wrap. Chic, I prodded, while he cried out, no man, no, leave me alone, please. I said, come on man, look at me, just look at me, but he was recoiling and laughing, almost crying. When however he first chanced to look my way I caught him off guard with a provocative toying of my outer sleeve and he was so curious that he watched on as I inched the sleeve up little by little until I finally got to the ragged edges of my bit off and ripped under sleeve. When his mind clicked on the implication of the missing half-sleeve, he let out a burst--a hyper-ventilated cackle, and I then backed away from him, for I did not relish the idea of burying his expired ha-ha-self in that soft desert soil.

Chic provided small cigars brought by him from Miami and we lit up and followed Jade and Bernadette, coasting and peddling and puffing down the rocky mountain path, on rented mountain bikes, until we came to a steep hill, and then we got off the bikes and pushed them until we reached a plateau from which we could coast again.

Later we came to the unanimous decision that we were lost in the desert, and although it turns out we were not, exactly, lost, we were without water, and ten miles from town, and a couple of miles from the path we were supposed to be on. Jade's back tire was not holding air that well and this increased her work-load considerably. It was only a joke about wanting to kill Chic earlier and we all of us reached a point where there was no humor left but only a mild panic and a sort of distrust between characters like in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, only without the treasure. We back-tracked to the highway.

After Bernadette and I coasted all but the last of the eight miles into town we dropped off our bikes but not before almost stopping at Denny's for a mid-afternoon Grand Slam breakfast. That last mile was the hardest, which I bet is a theme I see repeated in life. I agreed to drive out alone so we could fit Chic and Jade and their two bikes in the rented Ford Freestyle SUV. Bernadette and I had already freshened ourselves up with Gatorade and Krispy-Kremes first thing returning to town but I was still a little cranky from the discomfort of that last mile. When Bernadette suggested I drop her at the nearest bar I barked out that I would do no such thing, for how would it look to our desperate friends, surely near their death on the fringes of Arches National Park, Utah, if to their shivering, huddled, dehydrated selves, and probably in need of emergency medical attention, that I announced that sure we can get you straight to the hospital, but first we have to pick up Bernadette at the bar.

As it turned out I could not find Chic and Jade. Had we really made it that clear where I should meet them? No, the more I thought about it, I don't think we had made it sufficiently clear. Chic and Jade were Bernadette's friends. I had only known them for three days at this point. Where are they? Bernadette would ask and I would have to admit, simply, that I could not find them. Would that really be my fault? I was hating this part of the vacation--the killing of the friends of my new girlfriend. I told you I wasn't a social butterfly, I would tell Bernadette. She might well argue that not being socially adept and killing someone's friends were two distinct categories. Not in a passive-aggressive way I would probably concede that point.

As I drove up and down the highway I just smirked at the little squeaking voices reminding me that--losers quit and quitters lose, and thought again about getting me one of those Grand Slam breakfasts, for a late lunch. Still, it wasn't much out of my way to try that one last driveway, and that is where I found Chic and Jade, alive, and to my estimation, a bit too happy and perky, and not even remotely near death, except in that same way that all of us are, every minute of our lives. We loaded up the bikes and drove on back to the bike rental place. Bernadette, not to be kept from whatever the hell she wants, had created her own bar, and was under the covered porch of the bike place, sipping a local micro brew and puffing the American Spirit.
- jimlouis 11-09-2006 10:27 pm [link]
First Lady Invasion
It's the oldest trick in the book but this wasn't the caretaker's first rodeo; it was Wednesday, all day long.

The first lady and 25 of her closest girlfriends came to town yesterday and with secret service agents and drivers effectively doubled the population of the little village 70 miles west of DC.

They ate at that restaurant across the street from the one at which the caretaker eats but not on Wednesday did he eat there because all day long he guarded the castle in his care against the marauding losers from the Washington Hill, lest they, the losers in search of new digs, uproot him from his own little hill. Even at his most inactive the caretaker is diligent, performing duties that may not have even existed the previous day. While others fawned and took pictures of the posing first lady a few blocks away, the caretaker hunkered down, letting no one pass his way, except the cleaning lady coming for pay, some Hispanic workers, a neighborhood cat, a dozen bush-eating deers, and two mice (who unfortunately committed suicide by peanut butter, so clearly unaware were they that the caretaker was back from vacation).
- jimlouis 11-09-2006 6:58 pm [link]