by
Jaye B.
Made another call to the dog rescue lady to alert her to a stray in the shade behind me, collapsed from heat exhaustion. While I waited for her to arrive, I cooked up some sausage hoping the smell would attract the pooch but the wind was not cooperating one bit. When KW appeared and recognized the dog, she told me that she had been trying to catch it for over a month. The minute the pooch saw the truck though, it took off into the 100° plus furnace blast of heat in the desert. KW tried to round it off before it could, but the black haired dog escaped and I watched the rescuer drive approximately 1 mile to a stop sign and hang a left. Through some binocs, I could see the dog bobbing up and down in the sagebrush and her desperately throwing food its way out the truck window, to no canine avail.
During prayer for the pooch, I recalled the dream I had of a pitbull owned by a Texas preacher who was giving a somber sermon and I watched the pitbull die and meld with a cut out side of the hill the preacher was standing on. Could see prophecy preacher’s turquoise bolo tie and knew something was suspect about him. The dead pit bull below silver signaled to me via its skeleton that I was in grave danger in the preacher’s presence and I could feel a dread in the atmosphere, one that formed grave orientation day sigils of which I’m following now as I write this.
Another pick up came to my campsite, breaking me out of my magnetic revery, driven by a woman who had been helping with the search. She informed me that the dog escaped. Last seen heading for poof dirt territory in the northwest where the meanest and nastiest of the poor in this town reside.
The poof dirt is from an old Indian curse, I gathered a few years ago seeing how many peoples’s spirits are broken here. Retirees unknowingly buy houses where it is, only to have the foundations of their dream homes settle askance. Hard to flip something when that happens and the dirt shafted owners end up crying the poof blues with something unsellable/unlivable on their hands.
The curse can be seen etched in the chalk white lime flats that spread out over the valleys in the Kingston range to the south. The mineral curse can be seen in the rawhide sunburn of tatted skin and cat house brand neon pink rouge. The pipeline curse can be seen the most in meth cracked eyes. (I heard that meth actually produces brain cells if smoked in extreme heat and that’s why they do it here.) I caught wind of how the curse operates via news of a 16 yr old girl who early spread her wings and flew into the poof dirt compound, only to return back home pregnant. ( “Sex is the recreation of the poor.” I believe it was Queen Elizabeth who said this during tea time.) The curse was embodied in a hyperdermic trivium which I plucked out of the sand. Figured wildcrafted fentanyl was in the syringes, so I handed the loaded jabs to a homeless guy I call the Greek Philosopher who was passing by and he readily took them and split.
To the west, the direction the dog ran, I looked at the 178, 10-15 miles away leading to Ca. in 120° heat now and it spelled absolute death and constriction. Yet the Angel of Death was next to me and reassured me that it was the way to go.
So without asking, I followed the angel, but it looped around and stood in front of my car. It was blocking me like the dog was being blocked. So I ran, out into the desert. The heat was nothing and my bare feet felt cold as I ran through the poof dirt, following the paw prints.
Then the angel informed me that everything was dead and to stay in the only patch of shade available, i.e., the angel’s.
Then I paw print made it to my mama, toothless, topless in her RV, waiting for her son. She would take me to the nuclear test sites when I was little and did poof dirt rituals there while swaddling me at ground zero. Said her daddy worked there at one of them and was living off his settlement until it was all taken by a preacher from Texas who sold him some bogus divinity bonds. She told me that it was a nuclear parthenogenesis that brought me into this world and I believed her through the poof. I covered her up with a towel and lit a cigarette for her. I put some rouge on her desert weathered cheeks, made her a high ball and tried to get the t.v. to work. She thought I was the Messiah so I went along with it, convinced it was so.
Back at camp, with the Death drive rescue aborted, I watched something peculiar taking place in the abused women section of the park: a kyphotic border collie spinning widdershins, nose always skyward, then collapsing after running into a fence. Over and over, while its plump owner watched from a patch of shade.
“It has two noses.” A camp neighbor informed me later. “It should be put down, but Cheryl won’t do it.”
I agreed and we watched the dog spin some more.
©2024-Jaye B.
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Jaye B. is a writer, musician and artist. His art criticism has appeared in Art Paper, New North Artscape, Art Muscle, Northfield Magazine and elsewhere. His articles have also appeared in City Pages, Twin Cities Reader, Mysteries Magazine, Fahrenheit San Diego, High Plains Reader, New Dawn and Rain Taxi. He has appeared on BBC Radio, WGN Chicago, WLW Cincinnati and elsewhere in the mediasphere to discuss his work. Please help support Reset News @ Paypal, Cash App , Ko-fi or contact the author for other options @ jayeb444@protonmail.com
©2024-Jaye B.
You make being homeless living in the desert with tweekers sound like a Hollywood A movie.
I can think of a few Hollywood “ stars” who would be great in the roles your describing .
(Pee Wee Herman made millions in his movie about a lost bike, so dumb)
This episode of your life is much more interesting. Angelina Jolie would be a good fit, she’s really skinny like a meth head and has big tits. Bono could be you, your both the same age and stuff and Cocky. Jack Nicholson is a mess, so he would fit in anywhere . Francis McDormand - the dog catcher. Oh what fun it would be. You’ve got lots of great stories to tell.
You know I have been praying for the dog. Try to get a photo of him.