Writers AM-AZ
Ana Varela lived in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, and Taipei before moving to Corpus Christi, and then to Denver.
My Desert Jay
The valley knew that it would change my life forever. The longer that I spent in it, the more sure I was of where I needed to be. Nothing could be the same after that summer in the desert.
I met Jay in the three days that I spent at the end of spring in the Joshua Tree Desert. I would not leave for good until the come and go of a year of seasons. If I was once a seed I had grown into a mesquite, and I was finally enjoying my shade. Before, I had wandered content, well-nourished from the freedom of decisions that had led me to this event. When I reached the desert, I gave in to a restful time and listened, for once, to the message of a music festival. If “music is the soul of life” then the desert is the body from which energy might manifest as humming, the vibrations as song. I met my Jay in Joshua Tree, and, one day, I flew away with him.
My first winter with Jay was a high-desert January and a world of wonder. I drove the three hours from Los Angeles, as I had done so many times throughout the summer, to reach our paradise in the desert. The last hour of the drive, heading up the mountain after a windmill valley, was hard on the car but easy on the mind. I passed the small but popular Joshua Tree city, catering to the tourists that came from around the world to visit the national park, the businesses boutique with faux-desert facades. Farther up the road Twentynine Palms -- an even smaller bucolic town that most only know if they have heard of the military base. Two different cities, like two very different beasts, feeding on that which keeps them growing. Turning off the main street there, I drove for a quarter of an hour more as the asphalt turned into dirt road. Not too far in the distance, with its red stripe around its side, the 1970’s El Rey camper was my minds favorite sight. I imagined that I could hear Jay's small dog panting as he listened for my tires driving up the property. I was moments from Jay's smile and feeling the weight of the wine glass in my hand.
The sky in winter matched Jay’s eyes -- a crisp and clean bright, blue grey. By morning, I was happy to be in the El Rey, warmed by the closeness of our bodies. If this had been August, the camper would be empty by midday, and we would be somewhere else searching for shade. Winter called for a noontime wandering. When the morning freeze had melted under the sun, we set out from our cozy home. Imitating the flower buds of the cacti around us, we wrapped up in layered bundles, bursting with anticipation for spring. Vast and limitless, ours was the most beautiful backyard in the world. Except for the few trails we had worn around the property, we explored in a new direction every day. There was every shape of twisting branch discovered for each pairless shoe found. When the afternoon warmed enough, we stopped anywhere in a greasewood bush field to drink wine, laugh, and watch as the stars appeared.
The Joshua Tree seemed the greatest teacher, the desert the greatest classroom. For it to survive, the Joshua Tree gave parts of itself to the desert; fruit for the sloth (extinct to humans) and seeds for Yucca Moth larvae to eat. When the flowers bloom in spring, the appreciative moth pollinates other trees. It is a thousand year old dance of coevolution. The philosophy of the Joshua Tree was simple; keep only that which you need to survive and a partner to help you grow- the rest is too heavy to carry.
Jay had a bird’s eye view of the world, and could see farther than I ever could alone. He could see where the wind would blow, dropping pieces of desert trash and treasures in a secret sand bowl. It was a long valley, hidden between a row of small mountains and sand dunes. Burnouts and storms and time had turned parts into pieces and sections to shreds. Collecting our favorite fragments of broken plates, plastics, and metals, Jay and I spent afternoons creating our mosaics. Longing for a body of water, the sound of a crashing wave, or the salt saturated spray of ocean mist, he brought a sea creature to life in the dry desert. With teeth of glass and shotgun shells for scales a devilish angler fish appeared from the sand. Once, a friend, stopping in our desert on a roadtrip across the country, painted a monarch over a wide boulder in our secret mosaic sand bowl. Before him, that boulder had looked like an abandoned Volkswagen bug in the distance. Then, it was as if the butterfly had flown swiftly into the side of the boulder and left her color splattered all over the sand. So vast, in fact, was this mosaic valley, that when we returned to find the massive monarch, with a wingspan twice as large as mine, she seemed to have flown off. Perhaps the Volkswagen had suddenly driven away.
Nothing dies in the desert. A seemingly dry greasewood, when its bare branch snaps, reveals a jade green center, ready to feed the new leaves of spring. If something begins to lose life, it crumbles over the sands' surface and smooths to preservation becoming an important particle of the ever growing land. Everything becomes the desert again.
The first time I crashed a motorcycle I fell into the soft embrace of the desert. The deep trail behind me snaked its way more sharply the closer to where I lay. Jay hadn’t seen me yet. I didn’t want him to think that I was hurt. I unburied myself from the sand and, despite the pain in my shin, walked over to the other side of the little red Honda to pull it up. By the time Jay had noticed, I was loading onto the bike again. I only fell once more that day as we were leaving the mosaic valley, burying my front tire into the side of one of the dunes. Again the snickering snake led to exactly the point where I was splayed across the sand.
Summer had gone months before but the grab of its rays still burned like yesterday in our memories. Each blazing day of that season, when the rocks and the trees and the mountains began to see their shadows, we set off on another ride. The buzzing motorbikes echoed through the canyons we explored. The world hummed to the tune of our adventures. Eager for curious visitors and luring us in with their shade, we rode up to the mouth of the hungry caves. Abandoned mines that had no notion of time. It would be weeks before the next desert riders would find them again. Leaving behind the cold and burning superheated summer surface world to the lizards, we walked into the earth and entered the cool, endless darkness. Deep blue turquoise streaks lined the inside of the otherwise rough earth; perfect lines of oxidized copper led us deeper and deeper inside.
Like Plato's allegory of the cave, I wondered if my high-desert stories made sense to many city dwellers or the strictly social media savants. Would they see the value in the voids or the expanses of the desert? How might I convey the worth in the woe of an abandoned mine? After allowing our internal temperatures to drop, and our inner thoughts to cool and calm, we wander back to see how the sand of the summer had changed. Time is measured by the sun, and it waits for no one.
We were never lost following the cooing and whispering hints of the wind, then the allure of the light. Emerging from the mine, we were enveloped in a warm embrace by the two; the sky and the sun welcomed us again. Unlike a city, where the alleys at night should be avoided, this world would not punish me for walking into the darkness.
Regardless of the season, each morning my eyes were opened by the gentle kiss of sunrise, calling for me to come outside to face the rising Ra. These 2,700 feet above sea level are pure -- similar to starving the muscles for oxygen, so does the elevation strengthen the soul. There is little room for the toxic smog of my mind that I bring with me from the city each drive and soon it is all taken away by the very same wind the urges me forward. I must have followed that very wind to that Spring festival that took me away with Jay forever. Each day in the desert since then, we did as the animals did and looked to find shade at noon otherwise, we would be bake in that retro and aluminum camper. We had to move or risk withering away as I once did on the third day that I had met my Jay.
I was falling in love with a blue Jay, and distracted I forgot to drink water, to eat, or to sleep under the stars. So, I unknowingly was fading away until I finally fainted. Catching me, as if I were a seed, Jay took me under his wing and placed me in the shade of my desert realty; there is no room for toxicity, remember the lessons of the Joshua Tree; only take what you need, and he chose to take me, the rest was too heavy to carry.
While in that daze of those days, I remembered the day Jay firmly dodged the first time I reached for his chin. In a tent booth full of precious gems and crystals, he was the most captivating -- the most valuable thing. Resonating over the entire Joshua Tree valley, the festival music enveloping the tent seemed muffled and low to the mocking Jay’s song. Would he believe that we would spend so many sunrises together in this very desert? Or riding home each sunset before the darkness could envelop the two of us on our motorbikes? One day, although it was sudden, we would fly away. We were unlike the valley’s ephemeral blooms, destined instead to flower forever. Nothing was the same after that summer in the desert and, after a year of seasons, we flew away together, my desert Jay and I.
Shelter for Her
Pacing back in forth in the lobby of a women's shelter
she paused at the paperwork, looked at the baby and felt that no one could help her.
She lifted her daughter, flipped up her hoodie and walked back into the blur.
Pacing back and forth in the lobby of a women's shelter
she paused at the paperwork, paused at the baby and noticed the same day on the calendar.
She lifted that baby, and she put her back down and tried to remember where they were.
Pacing back and forth where they said that they can help her
she paused at the thermostat, thought about smoking crack
and wondered where she could get hers.
She flipped up her hoodie, flipped it back down-
She couldn't feel the right temperature.
Pacing back and forth, wondering about her worth
She looked past the paperwork, stared at the floor
and saw her crawling daughter.
She lifted that baby, walked back into the blur and felt that no one could help her.
SWEETIE, YOU ARE
You are talkative, aren't you?
Oh! Expressive too!
Too
Emotional, maybe
Overwhelming lately.
Out of nowhere, really
you are
Overreacting or just
Out of your mind
or out of control And
Suddenly, Involuntarily, and Perpetually
out of line.
you are SO
out of it and in over your head
and losing your shit.
Now calm down. Go back to bed.
You were just dreaming.
Okay, sweetie?
EL MUNDO INHALO (The World Inhaled)
EL MUNDO INHALO (The World Inhaled)
Alguna vez te paraste a los pies de un árbol alto? Miras hacia arriba y pareciera que las últimas hojas tocaran el cielo. Dentro de su tronco hay un rio corriendo desde la tierra hasta llenar las nubes. Como vos, toma lo que le da su mundo y crea algo nuevo; frutas, aire, sombra, ideas, energía, apoyo. Alguna vez sentiste la tierra, recorriendo por tu ser, y de tus pies hacia tu cabeza, surgieron palabras frescas y deliciosas, las cuales el mundo inhalo.
THE WORLD INHALED (El Mundo Inhalo)
Have you ever once, stood at the feet of a tall tree? You look up and it is as if the tallest leaves could touch the sky. Within its trunk there is a river running from the earth to fill the clouds. Like you, it drinks what the world gives it and creates something new; fruit, air, shade, ideas, energy, support. Have you ever once felt the earth, flowing through your entire being, and from your head to your feet, fresh, delicious words appeared, those which the world inhaled.
Since 1981, Annie Huckabee has worked as an adjunct instructor in English at Del Mar College. She also supervises first-year teachers as they complete their certification journey.
Random
“Cucumber martini, Titos, and one Turks Head, please.”
It’s the usual drink order here at the Shelf Life Swim Up Bar in the Caribbean, where I’ve worked as a bartender for the past twenty years. Varieties of vodka are endless today, and everything having to do with hops and yeast is now crafted sport, but most calls are what they’ve always been—some kind of draft, a shot of hard liquor.
And that’s how it is when you live and work at these island getaways; everything especially prescribed and made to order. Stereotyping here, but most bartenders catering to the holiday tripper know what drink the divorcee is going to begin with: wine always; bubbly champagne for the first year anniversary couple; beer, shot, beer, shot, beer, shot, shot, shot…yeah, the predictable bachelor party.
Working for most of my adult life in the tourist industry, my complaints seem pretty petty. Steel drums dominate anything coming out of the bar speakers most of the time, but once a month, I design the playlist. I like to go with themes —John’s “Hard Day’s Night,” Billy’s “Tonight,” Alicia’s “I Love the Night Life,” Cory’s “I Wear My Sunglasses at Night,” Justin’s “Nights in White Satin,” and so on. Nightengale herself Ella always ends the set with Cole’s classic “Night and Day.” It’s a perk for sure.
The spa therapists are allowed to accept gratuity, but they’re good folks, and I don’t want to take anything away from them. I mean, after all, they actually touch their clients. I try to make contact in a more cerebral way.
Customers wade, float, or sit on the half dozen seats surrounding a counter I keep sparkling and spacious with plenty of elbow room for those just stopping in for a refill, a slice of lime, or to offer social commentary.
As proud of my work as I am, I’ve given two weeks' notice. It’s time to head off to some landlocked locale, my beloved bottle opener in my back pocket. Endings always make me philosophical. I realize what keeps cynicism at bay is the unexpected, the random. In the middle of the sameness and the routine, my favorite times behind this bar have been those chance, unforgettable human connections.
***
She ordered a gin and tonic for the urn seated to her left.
“Whiskey neat for me,” she added. “We’ve always loved the Caribbean. It’s where we stop every now and then while we’re on our RLS journey.”
“I didn’t realize people took Restless Leg Syndrome trips.”
The laugh exploded as she gave a furious wave.
“No, no —it’s Robert Louis Stevenson.” Her eyes lit up. “We first met at the Stevenson cottage in Saranac, New York. I was a soon-to-be out-of-work caterer; they were a Stevenson aficionado. I joined them visiting every place Louis had ever lived — Scotland, Belgium, France, some ramshackle hovel in Nevada. At least I found a decent casino nearby.”
“A writer’s trip, that’s cool. At least you aren’t on one of those True Crime adventures. Do you remember the woman Aillen who murdered six or seven men in the 80s in the South? Before I came here, I barbacked at the place where, years before, Aillen had made her last call before the FBI arrested her. Even years later, fans came in wanting to know the exact stool she sat on and what she ordered.”
“What was it?” she asked.
“Beer. Her last meal before lethal injection? Barbeque chips. Ironically, the name of the bar is the Last Resort. Stevenson, Treasure Island?”
“Right — Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, A Child’s Garden of Verses, Kidnapped.”
She glanced over at her companion.
“Can I freshen?” I asked.
“They’re fine. I’ve always been the drinker of the two of us. Anyway, we are winding up our bohemian travels headed to our last stop, Stevenson’s tomb on top of Mount Vaea in Samoa. When he suddenly died, the Samoans, who knew him as Tusitala the storyteller, carried his coffin up Mount Vaea’s for burial. For over 140 years, devout Stevensonians have made the trek to the summit to pay their respects. The beautifully dangerous steep path to his grave is called the Road of Loving Hearts.”
She lowered her glass and stared past my left shoulder. Even for me, a practiced preserver of silence, the pause proved almost uncomfortable.
“By the way, we admire your expert multi-tasking, listening, pouring,” and here she breaks into a very pleasant alto, “coooom--mis-er-ating—Green Day lyric, right?”
“Blink-182, but on the same musical map. Anyway, the Turks Caicos novices got nothing on me—I’ll have you know I’m the fastest shot slinger this side of the Caribbean.”
A nod. A grin.
“Let us leave you with a gift, dear barkeep, Stevenson’s epitaph that he wrote himself.” She recited it.
“Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”
They didn’t stay any longer. The waters seemed to part when she stood, urn cradled and secured.
***
Cacophonous splashes break my reverie as I look up to see most of the outdoor staff swimming up to the bar, even the head of maintenance is doing a mean free style.
“Our best bartender, our life coach, our confidante, our man of the hour. You may be gone from here, but let us assure you that a little slice of you will always remain behind that bar, my friend. From all of us, we present you with a special tribute that will hang in this hallowed place of honor.”
The owner draws back to reveal my name imprinted in big, bold capital letters on a three ft. by three ft. metal plaque. It’s in the shape of a bar key, appropriately enough. I can’t help but give a cheer when it’s hung between the Macallan and the Hennessey instead of over the frozen daiquiri machine. You can’t wipe the smile off my face.
A sudden atmospheric drop in pressure cuts short the ‘ray’ in “Hip, Hip, Hooray.”
And then no one can breathe.
***
Remote chance, that’s what scientists prophesied about Ceres breaking free from its orbit.
In fact, far-thinking scientists had long championed the idea of setting up life on the ever-stable Ceres, the dwarf planet rich in carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. But, as it turned out, Ceres couldn’t wait for the world to get its act together, and on a warm early December day, hurdled all of its septillion-pound mass into a stunned earth.
Survivors in their privately owned $79,000 underground bunkers had waited for the catastrophic, and their patience certainly paid off. Two generations flourished in the underground communities. When the time seemed right, the committed survivalists decided to stay put in their womb-like existence, while those who itched for new discoveries chose to leave.
Feeling in their souls that they had been granted a second opportunity, the ones who exited the interior vowed to get everything right this time. Intolerance had doomed humankind in the first place, so warping the world that differences were never valued. When exploration began, all pledged that they would respect cultural subtleties and would honor all that they did not understand.
Incredible views punctuated the four-mile trek up the mountainous trail on the newly found island gem in the West Indies. When the exploration team reached the island’s summit, careful excavation began. Four feet down, the team found a thirty-inch-deep ditch, and then to the thrill of their adventurous hearts, half a dozen molded seats appeared facing a definitive center. Hypotheticals commenced. Could it be a defensive moat? A bath of healing waters purging sins and offering rebirth in the presence of six devout disciples who observed the spiritual transformation? Discovering the first shards of colored glass in the center only added to the wonderment. Had stained glass protected a holy shrine? Did these originate from bottles holding consecrated oils? They understood that their work had been blessed when a sun ray played upon the fragmented mosaic.
Brushing off the last remnants covering the script on the newly discovered three ft. by three ft. metal plaque, the excited group rushed the artifact to the dig director. He paused to read silently, mouthing the letters carefully so as to not fate the sacred name into a lifetime of mispronunciation.
Facing the faithful, the misty-eyed leader lifted the prized relic and made the announcement in a voice worthy of triumphal proclamation.
“Their god has a name. Let us hail the great and the mighty——HARRY.”
Timothy Cratchit, Esq.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
1,225 steps,
more when unforgiving winter swept through,
the crutch digging deep
until the thankful contact
of a few dry cobblestone patches
offered relief.
Summer meant better traction
but it was worth
hobbling down that London city street,
looking into the cold sparseness
of that darkened counting-house
Virtuous or evil,
I knew something remarkable happened here.
The day that changed everything—
not the life changing surgery,
not the raise the old man got that spurred
the veiled neighborhood resentment, the lifted eyebrow,
the unspoken why not us?
No, the prize turkey delivered on that day of rebirth
made it so easy to wish everyone
much cheer, God’s blessings, and to mean it.
This is what power and money look like, I thought.
This is what silences the sighing of the needy.
After a time of inevitable deaths,
the nephew didn’t want it, no head for business so he said.
I proved a match,
good at numbers and much, much better at philanthropy.
Removing the sign proved an exorcism of sorts.
The almost indecipherable S
now encased in some primordial mold
came down with a deadening thud.
The freshly painted one speaks of life—
Timothy Cratchit, Esq.
I am here alone as is my preference.
No complaints,
just the old familiar twinge in the hip every now and again.
The fire is roaring.
Judy/Siduri
(an excerpt from Such Character)
Many years after my sister's death, I came across her creative writing journal from the senior class of 1953, Spring Fever. What a find. I love all the pieces in this book, but especially her critical review of Mickey Spillane's Kiss Me Deadly. Judy argues a strong case that no one builds a scene quite like Spillane. The teacher comments that she needs to study her punctuation and compound sentence structure. Really, Ms. Creative Writing Instructor.
At the age of 38 Judy traded in her role as stay-at-home mother for a short stint as a cocktail waitress/bartender. Not server, waitperson, or wait staff, no in the 1970s women serving drinks in bars were cocktail waitresses. With her shoulder-length raven black flipped hair, pink halter top, white terry cloth hot pants, tanned tights and white knee-high boots, she commanded any tavern she entered. I have to add that the woman could wield a mean eyeliner pencil.
A good waitress, she proved an even better bartender. I believe that her prowess as a bartender stemmed from her incredible listening ability. Only two members of my family never interrupted the person speaking: Judy and my dad. Patience personified, they observed and waited for their turn to speak. And she possessed an essential trait of every successful bartender—a boisterous, honest laugh.
I like to think of Gilgamesh's Siduri as my Judy, the sage-like ale woman who listens intently, dispenses needed wisdom, and embraces the mantra: Live Life.
Siduri
~the alewife from the Epic of Gilgamesh
Stop me if you’ve heard this one…
Gilgamesh, Hemingway, and a lost soul walk into a bar.
Eyes downcast
mumbled mesopotamian moans
not the hero everyone expects,
the unchecked king laments
‘It comes as a bitter truth
that immortality is a sham.
Base offenses fill
my mortality ledger -
pillaging, plundering,
defiling the brides of countrymen,
failing to cherish a selfless brother in arms,
I’ve only one question –
what merciless gods have brought me to this place?’
Not searching for a clean, well-lighted place,
begrizzled, besotted, bedeviled Ernest bellows
‘Shut your goddamned whining.
You want to know why you’re here, buddy -
You drink first to preserve
a place
a woman
an idea
but at the end
you drink to erase
a place
a woman
and the irony of all ironies,
they shock the ideas right out of you.’
Like a Kilimanjaro echo, Papa’s words
reverberate
and then quickly disappear…
The lost soul says, “I’ll take whatever you have on tap.”
Follow MAYSPUBLISHING
Azrael Montoya grew up in Corpus Christi. As a child, he was a Power Rangers and Spiderman fan.
Love You
It was hard to find you.
I really had to try.
You drove me to work and I was
thankful. Your smile was beautiful and
luminous like daisies in the field.
Your laugh was like a beautiful wet shark.
I said all
the time, I
love you.
I love you.
I really did.
Touching your body all time was smooth as a record. We kissed for long periods of time and it was greatly appreciated. It will go down in history.
I love you.
I love you.
I needed you.
You put on your blue uniform to go fight in the war for the spiritual world. You always followed the prescriptions in your zenned up journal.
Our focus on love was like an Act of Congress.
It was powerful and atomic.
Its very essence sure of itself.
Then the other better man came with his gun in the air to get your attention.
And finally you left me in my house with clutter to be back no more.