The wind blows incessantly whipping a worn United States flag in a wild psychedelic flip-flapping dance. I sit on a bench eating cheap gas station pizza listening to the weathered taut cord the flag is attached to ring ring ring against the rusted metal pole in irregular intervals - a lovely song. The sun is hidden behind a synthetic chem trail blanket, the hard work of sociopathic pilots zig zagging back and forth beneath the firmament. I’m heading south, to red rocked Indian country, to take pictures and be alone with my thoughts.
My cousin, Angel, is dead at 46 years old. He is the first
among the old gang to clock out… and in a spectacular fashion too. Mounds of
cocaine and booze and fine stripper ass and a deteriorating mind and an empty bank account and an abused heart
created a straight shot to a satin lined coffin in a low-budget funeral parlor where
he is surrounded by his family and friends who cared about him, and a group of strangers
who didn’t, but loved to partake in the substances he provided them. I found
myself in neither of these groups. I stand beside his coffin, my daughter’s
hand in mine, looking at his face again after a 15-year span of not seeing his
face. Sitting next to me his mother weeps and his father stoically fights back emotion.
My only thought is to fix Angel’s hair, it wasn’t prepared the way he’d like it
to be and I reach out with my hand and straighten the stiff fibers and attempt
to style it in the fashion he always insisted on keeping it. My daughter gently
asks me if I am ok, and I nod and tell her I’m fine.
I munch on my pizza and gaze out at the vast barren emptiness
of the southern landscape as I sit underneath a tree, in a little area
designated to resemble a small park with a picnic table and a small child
outdoor playset. A tiny artificial oasis where travelers can stretch their legs
as they consume their goyslop gas station chips and cookies, allow their kids
to play and their dogs to relieve themselves, before tiredly climbing back into
their van or SUV and making the abysmal 1 hour drive to the next nearest gas
station. I’m not in any particular hurry to continue, so I simply sit here
prolonging the moment. My intention with this trip was not to arrive at my
destination, but rather to be alone in stillness conversing with the unseen specters of my past. And so I slowly traverse the
countryside taking photographs and recording irrelevant thoughts into my
notebook and engaging in small talk when prompted with single-serving sometimes strange characters I encounter
along the way. I needed the journey to process the loss
of my friend.
It was Angel who taught me to ride motorcycles and to be confident, and it was
Angel who taught me to savor every living moment of my youth – the thrill of
chasing women out of my league and those who weren’t, the thrill of drunkenly fighting
strangers under streetlamps over perceived slights. He taught me the nuances of
good street tacos and tequilas as well as the importance of loyalty to family
and friends, a quality I lacked growing up but later developed.
I think about all of these things among other unrelated thoughts that drift by me like clouds passing by a lonesome hilltop. In silence, I sit alone, as around me travelers continue on to wherever it is they're headed.
