Who goes to Arizona in the middle of July? Seriously? What the hell was I thinking? I guess I can be excused, I’d never been there after all. It sounded like a whole lot of fun at the time. When we discussed the concept things seemed calm enough: it was (what I used to think) hot outside, and we were chilling on the side patio with some cheap beer and ice in it. Most of us were icing injuries from a recent trip to a handrail down the street, except for Casey, the Arizonian, who squeaked gleefully while playing Grand Theft Auto inside. “There’s skate parks everywhere man, and there all perfect!” regaled Freddy, the frenchman who had taken semi-permanent residence in our house that year. “Plus James and Gretchen will totally let us stay with them, it’s perfect!”’ Something about the word ‘perfect’ though…the way he kept saying it over and over again seemed… unsettling. The concept of driving hundreds of miles into the desert and demanding strangers to give shelter to strangers did not seem to mesh. But Freddy would not allow his faith in Americans to be daunted. “Look,” he reasoned between bites of pasta, “I’ve met them before, and I asked them if we could stay. It’s totally cool!”. It’s not that I didn’t trust Freddy or this couple. Actually, no, it was exactly that.
The main reason an Arizona road trip had been brought up concerned our mutual friend, Casey. He had drifted out to San Diego (somehow) to skate; he was staying at the Santee house and eventually migrated to our abode in San Marcos. He and Freddy got to talking about Arizona, and how Casey needed a ride back sometime soon to see his family again. Being that I was the only roommate at the time that had reliable transportation (that did not contain a breathalyzer in order to start it), the proposal that I drive out to Arizona with them for a few days was made. I had a strange feeling about the trip from the very beginning, considering the fact that the desert is the place most people avoid during a heat wave. In the end, it was Casey and Freddy’s awed descriptions of the endless concrete skateparks that dotted the landscape that won me over. From the way they were talking, you would think God himself had reached down and etched these fluid structures into the landscape.
After a slow start, we got up on a gorgeous day (a Thursday, I believe) and were on the road by noon. A short skip and a jump down the I-15, and then the road was a straight shot east to Phoenix on the 8 freeway. It was somewhere around Alpine when the familiar traffic and ocean breezes of San Diego disappeared, and was replaced by a four-lane road and ever-increasing heat. The landscape changed around quite considerably for that first hour. We saw Indian casinos tucked into the pockets of scrubby mountains and endless expanses of tri-bladed windmills, twirling slowly like alien trees biding their time in the noontime stillness. We made our way through the small road that had been carved through the mountain that seemed to be made from billions upon billions of small rocks. Upon entering the Imperial Valley, we passed the dunes and I realized I had seen those dunes more often in movies than in real life. Then as we passed Brawley…BAM. Nothing but flat dirt and dead bushes for hours.
Throughout the entire journey, my passengers remained eerily quiet and occupied themselves. I think Freddy was reading Into the Wild; I don’t remember what Casey was doing. I do know as soon as we got to Yuma he purchased a large amount of sunflower seeds, the ones with that ‘70s-type floral design on the side. Sometime after we passed Yuma (which was essentially the halfway point) Casey pointed out a strange church in surrounded by nothing. Just a stand alone church on a hill, surrounded by housing at its base. “It’s a cult, ya know” he began. “They’re gathering all the knowledge on planet Earth to present to aliens when they come here”. Quite a tall order, I thought to myself. How would could the have all the knowledge? What about the knowledge humanity gains seconds after the aliens land? And after that? And that? If the desert allows for anything to permeate your thoughts, introspection is at the top of the list.Our first stop after Yuma was in the dive town of Gila Bend. This place embodies the stereotypical, dilapidated desert town to a T. There were buildings, but no signs of life inside or outside of them. Every now and then, you’d see a strange spaceman-themed hotel from the fifties that hadn’t been cleaned in just as long. The biggest thing to happen in this place in fifty years was the creation of date shakes. I pumped gas in the midst of this weirdness as Freddy and Casey bragged to the sales clerk about my cars fuel efficiency. It was here that the heat really began to hit me hard. I had forgotten how hard it was to breathe in hundred-degree plus weather. Freddy seemed to be sweating, but did not show any signs of real discomfort. That smug frog, I thought. He was part reptile, I knew it, or amphibian, maybe. Cold-blooded for sure. I had a good mind to drive him back to the alien cult church and leave him to be autopsied.
Drawing closer to Phoenix felt like a journey to the center of the sun. Along the way there was evidence of a number of operations that had sprung up overnight and failed in their first year, unable to maintain business inside of this active volcano of a state. An abandoned dog track that looked like the fucking fortress of solitude stood empty a few miles from the road. It was a gleaming metal monstrosity surrounded with garbage and broken chain link fence, like an spaceship that had crash-landed and no one cared enough to investigate it. Suddenly on the horizon civilization appeared; apparently the humans that survived here long enough were able to build their own self-sustaining society in this inhospitable land. It was like Planet of the Apes, but with people. Planet of the People.
“Planet of the People? That’s stupid” cracked a voice behind me. It was Casey; he had just woken up and was already complaining. Wait…how did he know what I was just thinking? Is he a reptile too? Or was I just saying it out loud? I don’t remember saying it out loud. But honestly, I was too sweaty and sore to care. I needed to get out of this moving oven, to anywhere, it didn’t matter. Thankfully, I picked the worst Subway in Phoenix to pull over at, complete with a C rating and broken air conditioner. I didn’t eat anything after seeing the 350 lb sandwich person sweating through her gloves to separate the slimy processed meat. So I sat baking in the plastic booth, looking out into this city of the sun and wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into. “I forgot my skates” Casey mentioned, nonchalantly sipping a coke. Great.
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