Greg stood with his hands on his hips and his head tilted to the right, waiting for a response. Luke and I stood silent. This seemed to be the best option, and a second longer of silence would have communicated distrust and fear. We glanced warily at each other and then simultaneously agreed to follow.
Five minutes later, we drove through a small town hidden between the desert hills. The inactivity and lack of color were eerie. Dilapidated houses sat on small lots surrounded by chain-link fences. The few parked cars I saw looked similar to Greg’s.
Greg slowed down, made a U-turn in the street, and parked along the curb. Luke stopped and rolled down the window, looking to him for instruction.
“Park right there.” Greg pointed to the driveway across the street.
Luke pulled in through the gate and parked, leaving 10 yards between the front of the Jeep and the trailer in the driveway. There was a house with a porch on the left. The piece of plywood sitting on the porch steps bridged the gap between the steps and the trailer door. The small yard was overgrown with weeds and scattered with empty garden pots, big desert rocks, a rusty bike, a golf club and empty spray-paint cans next to a multicolored piece of plywood.
Luke and I waited for Greg to walk past the Jeep before getting out. Greg abruptly stopped, turned around and put his hands on his hips. He glanced down at his feet and looked up at us with a serious expression.
“Look guys, I’m willing to help you, but we don’t exactly live by the law around here. So anything you see here stays here.”
“Yeah, sure,” Luke and I agreed.
Greg turned and continued walking. “My buddy lets us put our trailer home here in his driveway,” he said. “Come meet my girlfriend.” He walked up the ramp and into the trailer.
I walked behind Luke with my head tilted down, making sure to not kick his heels as we shuffled inside. The first thing I saw in front of me was a curtain. The space between the curtain and the wall revealed a small toilet. I turned left and took three steps down the narrow hallway and into a larger amount of space.
“Karen, this is Luke and Joe. They have some car trouble.”
Karen sat Indian-style on the bed in front of us, smoking a joint. “Bummer guys…want some?” Karen asked. She flipped the joint around and held it out toward us.
“No thanks,” Luke responded. I just shook my head. I didn’t say anything because in a weird way, I wanted some. I didn’t necessarily want to smoke with her; I just wanted to be high again. For a split second, I pictured myself grabbing the joint from her hand and taking a seat. I shook my head and rolled my eyes after the thought.
“Me and Luke are gonna go into town to Wal-Mart to get some parts,” Greg said. “We’ll be about an hour, an hour and a half. Take care of Joe…get him a soda or something. Joe, you want a soda?”
“No thanks, I’m good,” I replied.
Greg squeezed between Luke and me to walk out of the trailer. Luke followed him. I poked Luke as I walked behind him. He turned his head and saw me staring at him with raised eyebrows. He raised his eyebrows back and shrugged his shoulders. In the yard, I stopped by the porch and watched them walk across the street to Greg’s car.
“Have a seat on the porch, Joe. We’ll be back soon,” Greg yelled. Before Luke opened the passenger door, he looked at me. “See ya, Joe,” he said, giving me a look that told me to watch my back and be careful.
After the car disappeared from sight, I turned and noticed a bench on the porch. I went to the Jeep, put on my straw cowboy hat, and walked up the steps. I couldn’t help but notice the neon-colored swirls spray-painted all over the bench. I picked it up and moved it a tiny bit forward. Sitting down, I propped my feet up on the banister and started to observe everything around me.
The porch’s forest green paint was cracked and chipped. The rotted siding on the house was gray and faded. On the window sill behind me sat a spray-paint can, an empty Coke bottle from the ’50’s, a tin can with flowers in it, and two dirty, oddly-shaped glass bottles. Tiny, colorful rocks that looked like granite were placed in between each of these. Beside the bench sat a couple of larger rocks with geodes showing. To my right was the front door.
Thirty minutes passed, and four people stopped by. Each walked up to the front door, ignored me and yelled into the trailer at Karen. “Is he up yet? Are the girls up?” Every time Karen answered, “No, not yet, come back in a little while. They’re here…they’ll be up.”
My suspicion grew as I counted the people coming and going. I could only assume that the “he” they referred to was the local marijuana distributor. I wondered what else I didn’t know about this secluded town.
“Heeey!!” someone yelled.
I looked down the street and noticed a man standing there looking at me. I got up and walked to the front of the yard and faced him from a distance. He began to walk towards me.
“Where’s Greg?” he shouted.
“He went to town, to the store.” I pointed behind me.
“I’m Johnny,” he said as he came within feet of me.
“Joe. Nice to meet you,” I replied.
Johnny was six feet tall and had a shaved head. He had a hoop earring in each ear. His Mexican heritage was obvious from his dark hair and skin and his accent. He wore a black t-shirt and black pants and appeared to be in his late 30’s.
Without waiting for further introduction, I explained Luke’s and my situation.
“Yeah,” he said. “Greg called me and told me to come down. We work on bikes together.”
We went back up to the porch and sat on the bench. As I looked over at him, I noticed tears tattooed near the corner of each of his eyes. I remembered hearing that for every person a gangster kills, they put a tattoo in this spot by his eye. As I thought about it, I wasn’t sure if my memory served me right. Maybe the tear symbolized a friend or family member who had been murdered. Either way, he fascinated me. After a series of questions, I learned that Johnny had been released from prison 14 months ago, after serving two years. His demeanor communicated a mental distance from reality, yet he was polite and comfortable as he sat and talked with me.
Karen heard Johnny and me talking and came out of the trailer to join us. She sat on the steps, pulled out another joint, and asked if he wanted to smoke. He nodded.
“Johnny, you need to drive me up to the mountains,” Karen said. “I need to go back.” She looked out toward the horizon at the mountains she was referring to.
For 30 minutes, Karen talked about her mountain experiences. While on top of the mountain one day, God had written to her with clouds in the sky that she was the X that marked the spot where a meteorite the size of Arizona would hit the earth. She didn’t know why she was the X. All she knew was that she had to return to the mountain for further instructions. The FBI, CIA, U.S. military and local police were keeping tabs on her, because they knew that wherever she went, the meteorite would hit. She used to think she was the Messiah, but had disproved that on her own and now only claimed to be a messenger of God.
While she spoke, her eyes blinked quickly and the top of her head twitched to the left. She moved her arms around unnecessarily and changed her sitting position multiple times. She smoked the joint like there was a race to finish.
Except for a periodical “uh-huh,” Johnny remained silent. I could tell by his body language and lack of reaction that he had heard most of it before.
While listening, I inwardly prayed. If You want me to speak to her, give me the words, Lord. I don’t know what to say. I wanted so badly to interject something spiritual. I searched for the right words, but nothing formed into a coherent remark, and I was left speechless.
In the middle of Karen’s monologue, a car pulled up to the house. A thin Mexican girl got out and walked toward us. Her hair was braided, and she dressed minimally. She looked sloppy and unclean, and her teeth looked like they wanted to run away from each other. I knew right away that she was on some variant of meth. She walked up, stretching her arms and legs out in random directions and looking like a malfunctioning robot. Her mouth was wide open, and she kept moving her jaw back and forth as if she needed to stretch the joint out. She walked up to the porch and stuck her face through the wooden rods like a prisoner in a jail cell.
“Is he here?” she asked Karen.
“Yeah, go on up. Do you want to hit this roach?”
“No, I don’t smoke anymore,” the girl answered as she walked into the house. Five minutes later, she came out with her fist balled up. She walked down the steps, but turned around and pranced up to the banister again.
“I guess I’ll take one or two hits before I leave,” she said. She stuck her hand out to grab the joint, took a couple quick hits, and passed it back. She walked off in the same weird, stretchy fashion as she had walked up, got into her car, and drove away.
I now knew that “he” definitely sold something other than marijuana, most likely methamphetamines.
Karen probably would have kept talking, but luckily her Mexican masseuse showed up with his portable massage table, and they disappeared into the mysterious house. Luke and Greg returned just minutes after they shut the front door.
Luke walked up to me with a plastic grocery bag in each hand. “I got us some sandwich stuff. You hungry, Joe?”
“Yeah, really hungry,” I replied.
Greg, Johnny, Luke and I went into the trailer where the mayonnaise, mustard and drinks were. After we ate, Johnny and Greg started working on the Jeep. While Luke and I sat on the porch, Luke told me about the conversations he had had with Greg in the car.
Fifteen years ago, Greg had been released from prison after serving four years for smuggling marijuana into the U.S from Mexico. He was currently second-in-command in the Arian Brotherhood, a white supremacy group. Johnny was a lieutenant in the Mexican Mafia, and this town was the hub for the Mexican Mafia in Arizona.
Greg had told Luke about his spiritually-confused girlfriend after hearing that Luke had studied theology at a Christian college for the past four years. He said he believed the Bible and knew that it could help her, but didn’t know enough about it to share with her. He asked Luke to talk with Karen before we left.
“So, I’m going in there to talk to her,” Luke said.
“You are? Really? You’re in for a treat,” I said.
Karen was done with her massage and was sitting on the bed rolling a joint when Luke and I walked in.
“So Karen, Greg told me you’re confused about some stuff,” Luke began. “What are you confused about?” I stood silently, waiting to hear if her stories would match. She didn’t hesitate and started to tell all. Again, she spoke for a solid half-hour. Her stories were identical. I cringed as I listened, knowing that Satan had a firm grasp on her and that demons lurked in the shadows of her assertions. It was hard to be in the same room with her.
Luke didn’t waste any time after she finished talking. He laid out the gospel as clearly as possible and told her she had two choices.
Whoa! I thought. I had never heard the gospel given so succinctly and accurately; a young child could have understood it. Luke had spit it out easily. I was proud of him for being so bold.
Karen thanked him for the “advice,” and we left to check on the progress of the Jeep. “Ok, we put clean hoses on here so the water can get to the engine,” Greg said. “I didn’t have one long enough, but Johnny rigged one up that will do until you get about 25 miles down the road, to Carney. There’s a Napa Auto Store there. Stop and get yourself a new one to replace it. These should last…I don’t know how long though.”
“Thanks, guys. I really appreciate your help,” Luke said as he shook their hands.
“Did you talk to her?” Greg asked Luke.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Thanks. I’m glad I found you. That’s good.”
“See you, Greg,” Luke said, half-saluting as he opened the driver door.
By this time, I had been at the house for five hours. It was 3 p.m. We got in the Jeep and drove away, glad to be moving on.
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