The Desert

Lisa put down her book and herbal tea and rolled her eyes when she heard the car door slam. With a deep breath and a fake smile, she opened her front door. Still smiling intently, she took in the warmth of the sun, the gentle, but haunting, coo of the mourning doves, the paddles of the prickly pear, and, of course, Jeremy.

His hair was carefully spiked and his salesman smile stretched across his face always ready for his next pitch, which, in this case, was selling himself to her. She could tell he’d visited the Summit Hut in preparation for the hike she had planned. He wore new zip-away hiking pants, which still had the plastic strip indicating they were size XL. He wore a short-sleeved collared shirt with the sleeves rolled just far enough to expose his ridiculous Celtic cross tattoo. He claimed to be half Irish and never resisted an opportunity to tell anyone. He was already sporting his Camelbak and a pair of Oakleys were perched on his spiked hair like a bird upon its nest. Flip-flop Teva sandals rounded out his hiking regalia.

She leaned against her doorframe taking in the show as he ambled up her walk. As usual, he was the first to speak.

“Hey, sexy thang! Let’s get out and see all them Saguaros.” She’d been dating him for three weeks and had found out the weekend before over a happy hour glass of wine at the B-Line that he had never been hiking before. He had also never been into Saguaro National Park. Both facts she considered intolerable and with such incompatible lifestyles she knew yet another break-up was inevitable, but she had decided to stick it out at least long enough to leave him with an appreciation of Tucson’s natural beauty.

“Morning, Jeremy. Looks like you’re feeling better.” He had shown up last night at midnight after a birthday party for one of his former fraternity brothers pounding on her door, drunk and disoriented, the front passenger-side wheel of his Ford Escape on the curb. He’d come in, put his hands on her shoulders, slurred some line like, “You’re the best, baby girl,” and then darted for the bathroom, but not without first passing his hand over both her breasts. She turned the TV on loud to drown out the sounds of his vomiting. He reemerged after about ten minutes without his pants, his shirt unbuttoned. “Hey, babe, I found your Listerine, so I’m minty-fresh and ready for some lovin’.”

Disgustedly, she helped him back into his pants and drove him home in his car, which he had demanded, probably in a last-ditch effort to get lucky, where she called a cab to take her back home.

Now, here he was, seemingly hangover-free and inexplicably free of remorse for any of the overindulgence of last night. She figured he at least owed her twenty bucks for the cab fare, but decided to save that point for later. She really did want him to have a good day outdoors.

“Yeah, it was a bit of a rough night for me, I don’t even remember getting home!” he said, almost proudly.

“I do,” she retorted. He completely missed or intentionally ignored the two words and continued with his natural audacity.

“Anyway, girl, I was thinking I just got my car washed and I’m kinda worried about the chrome on my custom rims getting scratched so I think you should drive.”

“Fine, but remember the rule. My car, my music,” on a recent drive to Phoenix she had put in the soundtrack to the movie Once. She loved the beautiful vocal blend of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. She couldn’t entirely explain why, but each time she heard the album she felt a strange combination of empowerment and gripping sadness and she thought Jeremy could stand to expose some of his self-oppressed emotions. After two songs he’d told her it was boring, indie-radio crap and played a bunch pop-rap hip-hop albums he had burned specifically for the trip. He had told her the music, “Puts me into a boning mood.” She suffered though the entire hour and a half drive listening to men who felt that the words bitch and ho and whore were completely synonymous with the word woman. It disgusted her and placed her about as far as possible from being in a “boning mood”.

“That’s fine, girl, I’ll give your indie-crap another chance.” She grabbed Once and, out of pure spitefulness, cleared every other CD out of her Civic.

Saguaro National Park East and the Douglas Spring Trail were roughly an hour from the Feldman’s neighborhood home she’d lived in since college. She wasn’t looking forward to the drive. There were much closer hikes, but she liked that one a lot. She loved that the trail had no specific destination and the joy of being on the trail was simply for hiking itself.

In the car, Jeremy never stopped talking. He talked about his management position and about future business ideas he was planning. He talked about furnishing his apartment and how he was the only single guy he knew that had completely matching dining ware. He talked about how Phoenix was so much more exciting than Tucson and how, even at age 32, he could hit Mill Ave and nail just about any co-ed he laid eyes on there. Then he started going on and on about how he had to get back home by 5:00 so he wouldn’t miss the Cardinals’ game. It was an important match-up, apparently. When he started droning on about his fantasy football team, she turned the music up, which Jeremy responded to by speaking louder. Not even Glen Hansard could save her.

They drove on East Speedway past Harrison and Houghton, past Tanque Verde and Freeman and finally made the trailhead. It was a perfect Sunday for this and there were many cars in the parking lot. Jeremy got out of the car, stretched and yawned. As he stretched he made sure she would see his stomach muscles flex.

“You’re going to want better shoes than those flip-flops, your feet will get torn up.” She had somehow overlooked his miscalculated footwear until this moment. He, of course, had no other options, but swore he’d be fine and they set out to the rhythm of rubber slapping the skin of his heel with every step.

When Lisa registered their hike, Jeremy insisted his name be left off because, “It’s just the government tracking its free citizens.”

Her gait was graceful and smooth and effortless and she liked to hike quickly while taking in the sounds of the desert. Jeremy, behind her, continued his conversations about investments and his real estate license and his sandals slapped his feet and she couldn’t stand it. Jeremy would be Jeremy anywhere and she had been foolish to think otherwise. They went down a small hill into a wash and climbed out the other side. When Jeremy, for the second time, began telling her about how he’d nabbed the kicker David Akers for his fantasy football team she took off. She decided to stay just far enough in front of him that he would see her on long straightaways, but she would be clearly out of earshot.

She took in all the sounds of the trail. The wind playing musical notes on the Saguaro needles, the tapping of Gila woodpeckers, her gentle footsteps upon the shale stones that make up the trail. The trail climbed along the side of a canyon, switchbacking through the beautiful Saguaro forest. Looking forward, the imposing fir-crowned Rincon Mountains rose before her, behind her she saw glimpses of Tucson corralled in every direction by mountain ranges: the Santa Catalinas to the north, the Santa Ritas to the south, the Tucson Mountains to the west.

She finally rose above the Saguaro forest and into grassland spotted with scrub oaks and alligator junipers and mesquites. She listened to the cicadas and the sound of the breeze and her footsteps, which sounded softer now as the crunch of the rocks was replaced with the padded sound made by dirt and a fine layer of southwestern dust.

She had seen many animals on this trail in the past. Javelinas were common as were lizards and birds, of course, were everywhere. She’d once been sitting quietly and a Gila monster crawled slowly over a rock and stared at her briefly before continuing on its daily errands. As she rounded a bend, a tarantula ran out of the grass several feet in front of her and cruised down the trail. She didn’t like spiders in her home, but here, it seemed so natural. The spider was sharing its home with her and she appreciated that. The trail was so quiet she could actually hear the patter of its tiny feet as it maneuvered the trail before abruptly turning left and dashing back into the grass. She continued in a Zen-like trance enjoying every moment of being outside and feeling a true sense of freedom.

A shrill scream from behind her broke the spell. When the screaming continued she decided to investigate. She raced in the direction of the screams and could see Jeremy, quite a distance away, jumping and running like a maniac. He held a large stick and was smacking it against the ground haphazardly. She sprinted forward, her pony tail making brush strokes against her upper back. When she reached Jeremy, he was bent over and breathing hard, his left hand cupping his knee while his right hand extended, middle finger up, gesturing to a small black spot in the middle of the trail.

“Take that, bitch,” he said toward the spot before wheeling around and noticing her for the first time. “This son of a bitch came out of nowhere and attacked, I gave it what it deserved,” he explained.

Lisa leaned in and saw the spider, dead and flattened. Without saying a word she picked up the stick and carefully scraped the body off the trail, depositing it gingerly amongst the swaying brown grass. She felt rage burning behind her eyes as she looked at Jeremy. She could have killed him for taking her desert Zen away. Shaking her head she turned and headed back toward the car as fast as she could go. She could hear Jeremy yelling something at her back, but she didn’t care.

She reached the parking lot, climbed in her car and left. Glen and Marketa were belting out their harmonies and she took in the haunting sounds and she looked at the magical purple glow of the Santa Catalinas and she thought about Jeremy alone on the trail and that he’d probably miss at least part of his precious football game and as she passed Freeman and Tanque Verde and Houghton and Harrison a real smile, a smile of empowerment and freedom and happiness and independence, spread across her face and nothing, not even the surrounding mountain ranges, could contain it.