I know what you’re thinkin. Where’s Beau Montana? you ask yourself.
Well I’ll tell ya.
I was where the cactus thrive. Where the horses roam free. Where the Earth exposes her billion year old history. For generations, it was the land of the Hopi and Navajo. Yet when the white devil came, it was home to outlaw and lawmen alike. Only the specter of a Colt .45 brought justice to this godless country. The Tohono O’odham people of the Sonoran Desert and their term for “small spring” is ali sonak. Hundreds of years and many translations later, the barren realm of the high and low desert was named Arizona.
And I saw it. I saw it with my own two eyes.
It was in the oasis of Phoenix when I first caught a glimpse. At Sky Harbor to be precise. Roughly three million people call this sprawling metropolis home and I had a gas bubble the size of Milwaukee running through my intestines. I exited the terminal. The only quiet spot in a 50 mile radius was a section of the Phoenix Airport Museum. I walked in and cut it loose. The fart was adequate enough to continue my journey yet the cramp persisted. Then I stepped into the Arizona inferno and hailed an Uber.
It was high noon. I peeked down the road through the illusionary sea of heat and I saw him. He rode like the devil in a white Toyota Prius. Shades drawn. Right arm rested around the empty passenger’s seat. Then the vehicle slowed to a complete stop. He rolled down the window and whistled.
“Are you Beau?” he asked me.
“I am.”
The Driver popped the trunk and I lowered my duffel bag into it. I climbed into the empty and spotless backseat. The windows were tinted like a barrier between us and the wicked conditions of the desert. The Driver lowered his shades and turned his head toward me. “Where to, partner?”
“Econo Lodge,” I tell him.
He spits on the floorboards. “Que Dios te acompañe,” he says.
Miles later down the heathened and unruly lanes of I-10, the Driver glanced at me through the rear view mirror. Though his eyes were covered, I could feel his torrential judgement pouring down upon me. I drop a half dozen peanut butter M&Ms into my mouth and glare back.
“Where are you from, stranger?” he asked.
“What business is that of yours, friendo?”
Small beads of sweat appear on his forehead. He grasps the wheel even tighter. “If you can’t accept friendly conversation, I don’t know what to tell ya,” he said.
The boiling of my intestines resurface. I place another M&M in my mouth and pull out a lucky Chuck E Cheese coin. I finish the pack of M&Ms and throw the wrapper onto the pristinly clean backseats. I sit back and stare at him. “What’s the most you’ve ever lost on a coin toss?” I ask him.
He clears his throat. “Well, I lost a pog collection in college. Then when I was 43, I had to jack off my best friend because…”
I cut him off by flipping the coin. “Call it,” I tell him.
“But I need to know what I’m calling it for.”
“Everything,” I say. “Everything this car stands for. Your whole life has been building to this moment and you just didn’t know it. Now the coin is here. So call it.”
He swallows hard. “Alright then. Heads.”
I slowly lifted my hand to reveal the coin rested on my knee. To the Driver’s chagrin, it was tails. There was total silence. For the duration of our journey, I glared at him from the backseat with my cold, dead eyes.
He pulled up under the Econo Lodge awning and I opened the back door. The trunk opened and I grabbed my duffel bag. Before I shut the door, I saw him still clutching the steering wheel and refusing to make eye contact. “Normally I’d give you a tip,” I said to him. “But I got no cash. The only tip I got is to take Beano before air travel.”
I put my asscheeks back into the vehicle and unloaded a wretched stench from the depth of my bowels and then closed the door shut.
TO BE CONTINUED…
(We’ll see if we get a part II 🤷♂️)
