3 men and a mule: Salt River to the Diamond Shamrock Truck Stop

I was down at “Smokin’ Steve’s Lunch and Grease Emporium” into the third bite of my Trans-Fat and Nicotine omelet today when my Motorola Razor started vibrating around my vest pocket. If I wasn’t expecting to hear from Dad I would never have stopped chewing, but because I was anxious about his whereabouts I reached into my vest pocket and flipped open the phone and read the first of several text messages that would string my lunch hour out another two.

First thing dad asked was what sort of time behind bars he, Don Pablo and Orville could expect for absconding with Phone Home. I assured him that as of yesterday possession of a burro does not require mandatory sentencing under the guidelines, besides, as far as I knew there was no warrant for his arrest, and I even checked “America’s Most Wanted” website just to make certain John Walsh hadn’t slapped their photos up on the internet.

Once that was settled Dad began text messaging details of their overland journey. He wrote that they had done some “surface mining and reclamation” while traveling, but only got an old belt buckle he had to return. I’ll have to explain . . . . You see Orville installed six metal detectors on the bottom of his wagon several years ago. On sunny days the metal detectors are powered by solar panels on top of the wagon, and on cloudy days the metal detectors are powered by small rotary generators attached to each wagon wheel. As he drives along the metal detectors scan the ground for valuables and send high pitched chirps and squeals into the headphones that Orville wears to monitor the action. Mostly his metal detectors just locate bent nails, beer cans and random auto parts, but occasionally they’ll turn up a lost piece of jewelry or a coin, especially if he goes “surface mining” around a rest-stop. Orville also installed an electric magnet under the wagon that will pick up ferrous metal objects littering the ground. He says he’s going to donate all proceeds from the scrap metal he finds on this trip to the Home for Lost and Abandoned Air Travelers, a cause he has recently become sympathetic towards.

While “surface mining” Orville stares at the ground looking for whatever it is that a geologist or prospector looks for as they roll along in the wagon. While Orville is staring at the ground my father sits next to him and stares off at the distance. Dad studies the light as it falls across the mountains, the clouds moving across the sky, and all the landscape’s features as they recede into the grayness of distance. That’s what artists do; they stare at things and make mental note of the shades and tones, and they save their visual observations for later expressions of what they have seen. Who knows what my dad will see on this trip, who knows what he will paint. Maybe dad will paint a nude man hugging a cactus up on Rabbit-Ears pass on a star-filled night in an embrace of unrequited love giving new meaning to the word "vegetarian" and his likeness will wind up hanging in some Californian’s home just to the side of their flat-screen TV. Anyway, as Orville was staring at the ground, and my dad was staring at the distance, Don Pablo was riding along in the back of the wagon with Guzelda, legs dangling over the side, staring at nothing in particular as they pulled into a Diamond Shamrock truck stop at dusk when my father spotted a silver belt buckle warbling in the air towards him.

The belt buckle was still attached to a belt, which was still attached to a pair of pants which, moments before, had been attached to a man who was leaning against a pick-up truck he was filling when suddenly the truck took off and hooked the man’s pants in the gas flap hinge and tore them right off his legs sending them flying into the air. The pants landed on the ground beside the wagon in a cloud of dust and gravel kicked up by the truck as it sped past. It was driven by a woman with large hair. My dad thought he recognized the woman driving that truck, but he wasn’t 100% certain, but I am fairly certain, that it is a good thing that the light was slipping away and that Don Pablo was in the back of the wagon staring at nothing in particular.

Dad wrote that the fellow just stood there slack-jawed in his boots and boxers wearing a gas-station shirt that had a small name tag with “Melvin” stamped into it. Dad didn’t know whether Melvin’s boots had leather toe-boxes or not, but the way I figure it, unless they were steel toed, it wouldn’t have mattered one way or the other.

As they did not want to have to stick around and give statements to the Sheriff, or be forced to testify at a possible trial as to what they saw, and because there ain’t a witness protection program known to date that could possibly protect them, the three of them chipped in to cover the cost of the fleeing truck’s gas. That’s what prudent men do, and these three would not have lived as long as they have if they weren’t known for being prudent

yours in ernest, Emmett

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