Bouse lost its way after WWII. General Patton trained his tank armies out here in the desert, and that was the whiz-bang time, you betcha. The ghosts are everywhere--rusted tanks and trucks, tracks wandering into the distance, monuments silently watching traffic speed by without stopping, and empty buildings with forlorn "For Sale" and "For Lease" signs pretending that someday an entrepeneur will come up with an idea no one else has thought of. When the war ended, the town blew along with its own momentum, like a car whose engine had died, until it...stopped. And the car sits.
There's no reason to stop here. The highway has no signal or stop sign, just 55 MPH right on by; bike riders wobble in the draft of the trucks as they blow through. The houses and nondescript businesses are on both sides of the highway, scattering up about three blocks or so, but there's no trouble crossing. Plenty of time to meander over to go to the post office. Don't worry too much about looking both ways. Tonight I walked up a connecting road to the saloon to watch the Steelers game--37 minutes to, 37 minutes fro. The moon was down, but there was enough starlight to walk down the center of the road. I got an eerie feeling of walking in place. The horizon wasn't changing, the stars didn't move, and the double yellow line was faint enough to have no detail. I imagined myself walking on a sphere that moved beneath me; I myself was not going anywhere.
Good thing I carried a flashlight, though, because a car passed by.
There used to be a second saloon, but someone torched it a few months ago. No one knows why.
Maybe it's just a microcosm of America now, but there's no productivity in Bouse. Nothing is made, or built, or grown here. No cattle, no mining, no construction. There are some service business, like the cafe, grocery store, and saloon, but money doesn't originate here. It either comes from the government, private pensions, or snowbirds. The whole town--this whole part of the state--gasps through the summer heat, waiting for the snowbirds like the Serengeti waiting for lifegiving rain.
Bouse is a place you pass through or over. I counted 14 airplanes in the night sky just by looking up once, and I'm pretty sure I missed a few in the gazillion stars.
And yet--in Bouse, everyone has something to do. I'm not talking about work, I'm talking about what they do because they want to do it. Don and Phyllis have a trained miniature Brahma bull (Rowdy) and a trained miniature donkey (Bandit) that they take all over the state to do shows for schools, hospitals, Vet organizations, and anyone else who needs a smile. They travel in a beat up van with a plexiglass divider between the people in the front and the animals in the back. Rowdy and Bandit like going in the van and ride with their heads out the windows, like dogs. Don intends to get an old limousine so he can put the divider up and down. He likes the looks on people's faces when they see his ride. With the animals in back and Don chewing and spitting in the front, it will be...interesting.
Don and Phyllis dropped what they were doing when I stopped by because they just had to show me what their friend Dick does for entertainment. Dick built a whole western town, sort of half scale, just for fun. He has a school, a jail, a livery stable, a saloon, a mercantile store, and a whole bunch of other period buildings. Even a train, built of 55 gallon drums, fire extinguishers, and other admirably suited pieces. Most buildings are false fronts, constructed and painted very realistically, but some go deeper. The jail has a couple of painted plywood prisoners. The saloon has a real bar inside. Don and Phyllis and other friends stop by for drinks and parties. BYOB.
This is Dick's yard, behind his house--a couple miles up a dirt road. He does all the work himself, even has a mine shaft off behind the town. Looks real. I don't think it matters much to him how many people stop by.
Lots of people four wheel through the desert, and judging from the astronomical amount of broken glass about, lots of people shoot as well. The Community Center is busy all the time. Monday and Friday are Square Dance Nights, Tuesday is Game Night, Thursday is Bingo Night, and so on. People put out the energy to keep their friends and neighbors involved. There's always a crowd at the small library; free internet access. The Volunteer Fire Department keeps everyone in touch and on their toes.
Summer is a bitch here. The weather now is about 70-75 during the day but in summer it gets to 125 regularly. "Cools down to a hundred or so at night, though." All the water you want, piped to your home for $20/month. Nothing grows in this soil and this climate except cactus; cactus and weathered wood are the standard decorations around the mobile homes that predominate.
Everybody waves when they pass by.
The cafe owner is Greek, from somewhere high up on Mt. Olympus. "I'm a Greek Hillbilly!" His name is Nick but he told me to call him Tex. He's a lot like Hanna Anki--outgoing, boisterous, in your face--but more accent and not quite as witty. He was in the French Foreign Legion smuggling guns into Africa, got involved in the Yom Kippur War in Israel in '73, and somehow (he's evasive here) ended up in the U.S. "I would die for this country! Greatest country in the world! You Americans don't appreciate what you have!" He speaks Greek, English, Italian, Hebrew, and one other language. Spanish? Russian? I forget.
Nick closes the cafe from April through October. Too hot; no RVs.
I'll be here another week. I'm going to do the solar installation, starting on Wednesday.
Next: SOLAR!
This is great, Dad! I love your writing style. I also love how you're interested in the life of even the most nondescript-looking town. I can't wait to see you for Christmas.
ReplyDeleteMuch love,
Owen