Wisecracking Across America - 55. Chapter 55

Tuesday July 6, 1999

I know why Faulkner drank. And he wasn't even in New Mexico. Further west, indistinguishable southern Arizona didn't get much better. Along the border, it was dust, and heat, and midget cactus. The north half of the state boasted mountains, rivers, and the Grand Canyon. We got Tombstone.

Tombstone without the good bodies---they'd all been moved somewhere else. Or sold, if you can believe that. Tourists, scraping between boulders in the graveyard on nearly-level Boot Hill, and searching for anyone dead and well-known, got Frank and Tom McLaury. Remember their hit series?

Later found out this wasn't even the right Boot Hill---the famous one. That was in Dodge, Kansas. That Wyatt Earp got around.

And speaking of cowboys, real or pretend, a few bright days later---who can remember exactly where when you're steadily squinting?---and marked by a small iron horse on a low stone pillar and some steamed plastic flowers in a boot was the site of Tom Mix's death---right along the roadside.

"Tom who?" Tom asked.

"Tom Mix."

"Who's that?"

"You're supposed to know all the other Toms."

"Why?"

"I know my famous Richards."

"Most of them were dicks."

"Yeah, well..."

So I had to explain Tom Mix---as if I'd ever seen one of his movies. Or could remember seeing one of them. Or could pick him out of a fake rodeo in a fan magazine

"He was a famous cowboy star," I instructed. "The 20's. 30's. He started in silents."

The plaque on his memorial was too sunburned to read, but I later found out he'd driven off the curvy road, speeding into the mesquite a little drunk, while doing a promo tour for RKO Studio. This was some years after he'd retired, but he was only 60.

"Why's his grave here?" Tom quizzed as I took pictures.

"Not his grave. This is probably where he died."

"That's depressing."

So it was, and we'd driven on. As we drove on that day, eager to get to Tom's mom and home cooking, but not so rushed we'd actually break down and take the Interstate. On two-lane Route 80, after Deming but before Tombstone---on the so-called Scenic Route---was Bisbee, a former copper town. And if Molly Brown had lived there, it might have been a cameo in a sinking musical. Now it was a hole.

But you didn't wanna miss the Hanging Gardens. Again, there were no bodies, noted or otherwise---this wasn't where people had been hanged. It was the terraced corpse of strip mines. On they went, looking just as bleak as you'd expect. Gashes, still unfertile after all these years. Though back in town was a neat hotel, built when copper money was a good thing and Victorian details flowed. Plus, there were some artily desolate streets. I kept expecting Mulder and Scully.

While we walked, exercising the dog and nosing for places of quiet interest, Tom bought a painting---copper-toned, what else? It was odd enough to find a gallery---all right, it was mainly a frame shop---and even weirder to find a painting anyone might want. But it turned out there was a small artists' community. Maybe isolation kicks starts creativity, or maybe it's the lure of cheap housing. In any case, the painting was neat---unfocused local buildings---and Tom had it shipped home, rather than risk it being damaged in the truck.

In the nearby mining museum, I bought a top: Tiny. Wooden. Under a buck. I wasn't in Tom's league. The rest of the gift shop stock was quasi-artifacts: Arrowheads. Beads. Chunks of copper ore used as paperweights (I've never understood paperweights). There was also a comic book which reduced Arizona history to an easily-minable form for kids. It reminded me of Colonial Williamsburg. Around the corner, the public library sported a sign: No Weapons or Ammunition Allowed. We were out of there fast.

Within two hours, we'd reached Tucson. It was grey, and that was the good part. If the early evening light hadn't pleasantly diffused the asphalt, it might have looked just like what it was: the second largest city in Arizona.

Still, all day, we'd had the sky. It was amazing, and I kept taking pictures. I didn't even ask Tom to pull over. I just kept shooting through the fairly clean windshield. Not a lot of bugs in the desert. Weeks earlier, almost at the start of our trip, when we were on Vancouver Island, Tom and I had talked with a Canadian artist who'd toured the Southwest right after college.

"I was still a kid," he'd told us. "Riding a Harley. Sleeping under the stars. Not showering for days. It was great fun, and I can't remember most of it. But the thing I'll never forget is those skies."

For one thing, there's so much of them. They just kept going. That's what they say about Montana, but that sky seemed relentlessly blue. Here, it was a kaleidoscope. Growing up in New York, I barely remember the sky: an occasional red sunset over the low-slung grade school across the street. A pink horizon at the beach. In the city, you don't think much about clouds. You're too busy watching your back.

In southern Arizona, they're king. The ground's flat, and, in most places, more textured than topographical. The buildings look almost burnt, and the tiny people, like the animals, seem to huddle in the shade. Clouds offer the only movement.

It had rained earlier. In fact, since morning, we seemed to be tailing storms, nearly flash floods judging from their drain-resistant puddles. The sky was dark, then white---billowing, then streaked. A vengeful God was alternately due, then delayed, and the clouds seemed to mirror his turmoil. I couldn't look away.

"Okay, I'll give you Tucson," I finally told Tom, the first time I'd found something interesting about his hometown. "Was it like this growing up?"

"Oh, yeah," he grinned. "The clouds were always great."

And all I had was the Yankees.

289 miles