Anthologies of Awesome

The bus and passengers and short, ugly driver faded off into the hanging dust of the dry wash ahead, grinding toward the town of Morrison. John Pine stood up straight with his shoulders rolling back and pushing forward instinctually to set the straps of the dusty bag. He turned away from the highway and faced down Coyote Canyon Drive. A long and sinuous path cut throw stands of willow and cottonwood and russian olive. His boots erupted in small clouds of dust as he walked on to the South, following the road on its twisting descent into the wash. The sides of the road, where no trees or grass stood yellow and dead, was covered in piles of illegally dumped detritus from the development of the larger town down the road. Tires and chainlink fence and set askew skeletons of old sidewalks mounded themselves into grassless knolls. A torn down barbed wire fence cycloned a half mile along the side of the road where the posts had been knocked down.

John continued on down a steep graded hill to find at the bottom of the wash a creek piled with the same trash as the road, a small store beaten and worn, with two aged gas pumps sitting outside. The large block letters in a color of dried blood advertised this as the Coyote Canyon Store. Across the road was a small cheap potmetal coyote with a bandana draped around its howling neck. The paint had long since fallen by the chips into the bine weed and ironweed growing up around him. John walked around the slow bend to see a sign strung up over a driveway behind the iron coyote advertising rooms and HBO. A squallid stretch of trailers and tract motel rooms grew from the weeds and surounded a long since dry swimming pool. John walked into the store through a door showing its war wounds with jimmying theives and sledgehammer blows to its plexiglass. An extruded iron shield was set over the splintered glass to prevent any further breaking in. Behind a low and dingy deli counter a brown skinned gaunt man watched a black and white TV. When the leather strap of jingle bells slammed back against the door frame behind John, he looked up at him.

“We ain’t got no gas.”

I don’t need it.

“We haven’t had any for years.”

That’s fine.

“We used to, but ain’t nobody in this place got a car anymore, and the bridge got tore out, so we’re a dead end now. So you can’t get gas here.”

I don’t need any.

A beaten canteen materialized from behind John’s back. His brown and dry hands unscrewed the lid.

Sir, do you have a place I can fill this?

“We got bottles of water to sell. We don’t offer no free water, except for the hose out back for radiators, but cars don’t come through here. We ain’t even got any gas anymore.”

The hose is out back?

“You want hose water?”

I ain’t got the cash to spend on bottles of water.

“Come here.”

The brown gaunt man waved him over to the empty display case of the deli counter. Dollar bags of chips and candy bars crowded the man at his station. A row of produce sat growing brown in the heat of the store. The canteen was taken into the man’s dessicated hand and placed under a port of the cheap soda fountain marked with tape as water. The cool clear water flowed out of the nozzle and rung inside the plastic canteen. The water came up to the top and flowed over a little. The brown gaunt man handed the canteen to John. “You don’t tell nobody about that.”

I ain’t.

“Going over to the Park?” he jutted his chin at the iron coyote and weeds across the street.

I am.

“Yeah, figured. Only place takes in you guys. Well, your vouchers from the Center work here too, case you ever need any food or smokes or anything. But you can’t use it for gas. We haven’t had it since the bridge was tore out.”

Good to know, sir.

The sun rains down cadmium white on the Earth and leaves black shadows under all the trees and weeds in the dazzling bright gray dirt as John walks out of the store. The door slams behind as he makes his way to the Coyote Canyon Acres trailer park and motel.