Thou Shalt Not

The weather moved in from the south, dark, loud, and swift. Lightning ripped across the leading edge of the front and a dark mist fell in large sections along the pale-purple hills in the distance. If I were a younger man, I might have run for cover, but weather like this was for shouting and screaming and throwing your hat and runnin naked across the scorched desert plain.

I undressed as soon as I felt the serious rain and stood in the thundering deluge. A cake-batter of mud was forming at my feet and I pressed down hard with my legs as if to plant myself in the wind and then stared straight up into the turbulence and screamed, “You want to take me now you sonufabitch?”

The rain fell hard for five minutes. God was playing with me, pulling my puppet strings, teasing me, showing off. I knew I was safe. He didn’t want me. Not yet. If he did, he could have fried my sorry white ass like he did all the others before my eyes. This was Hue all over again, on the banks of the Perfume River, where I stood in the middle of a fire fight, one-click off the Citadel, shit dropping everywhere; Top was screaming to my left with no legs, and men, no boys, were dying all around, ripped apart, splattering blood on my cams. Cries of Medic and I’m hit, I’m hit, and I stood there, knowing I was invincible, and that no dink was gonna touch me.

An explosion of light struck the ground, maybe half-a-click away. The creosote lit-up around me. I stood like a statue, immovable, hurling insults and spitting thick wads of phlegm, as the storm slowly moved away, indifferent and unconcerned about a crazy old Colonel. My shirt had hung-up on a large mound of creosote and my pants and hat had disappeared. “Ridiculous!” I thought to myself.

In an instant, the air was back to a convection oven, the humidity rising and pasting the already drenched shirt to my back. “I’ll have a hard time explaining this to Bernie,” I thought. She was a bit more grounded, she’d of at least held her clothes, but we’d of still danced! We always made a point of waltzing in the rain, ten years earlier we did a lot more than just waltz! Not now, not even with Viagra. Something in the plumbing department shut down. Bernie called it a communication breakdown between my brain and little Sarge, but I was pretty sure command central had nothing to do with it. I tried reasoning with him, and when that didn’t work, I yanked him until I was out of breath, but he just rested. He was on medical furlough and wasn’t going back into the bush. Been there done that; he just looked up at me, content and tired. I was too far from home to return for pants so I hopped back into the jeep and continued west towards Shoshone where Bernie would be waiting. I hoped she had a towel.

Shoshone, California is an old Indian Oasis that sits on the eastern edge of California in the middle of one of the harshest deserts on the planet. It’s considered a gateway to Death Valley which is fifty miles to the north. There are two, paint-flaking, 50’s-style motels, a cafe, a post office, and a Chevron station. Bernie and I liked the café because it had an old-fashioned juke box and small dance floor. Sometimes we were the only people in the room. We’d dance to swing and Jimmy Hendrix and Gram Parsons.

I pulled into the parking lot of the Crowbar Café around 8:00 p.m. where there were two cars; neither were Bernie’s. I thought it strange, because she hadn’t called me. She was also a retired Colonel, and things like punctuation and good communication were a given. She stressed out if she was five minutes late, and would have normally called. I also realized my cell phone was in my pants blowing around in the Mojave Desert. I was in a quandary. Did I knock on the back door and see if Jimmy had a towel, or just wait in the jeep for Bernie. I waited. After 30 minutes, I went to the back door to ask Jimmy, who was the bartender, cook, and waiter, for a towel. I pounded on the door; no answer. I could hear The Rolling Stones blasting away, and I figured Jimmy was schmoozing the customers. I continued knocking, but all I heard was Sympathy for the Devil. I decided to take a piss. While I was making figure eights on the wall, two girls perhaps 7 and 9 in Girl Scout uniforms came walking around the corner. They were from the motel next door. When they saw me, they screamed and ran back towards the motel. I walked briskly back to the jeep, but in no time, a buff looking young man with tattoos and a couple of earrings came running to the front of the café where he saw me sitting in the jeep. He ran to the driver’s side and screamed, “Get out of the car you sick pervert!”

“Sir, this is just a misunderstanding, I’m waiting for my girlfriend and lost my pants in a storm. I was waiting for the owner to get me a towel.”

“Out of the car you sick sonufabitch.”

“Look, just go inside and get Jimmy, he knows me and I assure you, he’ll vouch for me.”

At that instant a young female, perhaps 25 came out of the café. She was wearing an apron and holding a hand gun.

“What’s the problem,” she asked.

“This sick fuck was out back playing with himself in front of my two girls,” he screamed.

“That’s not true; I was taking a leak when his two girls walked around the corner. I wasn’t playing with myself. Look, just get….”

“Why didn’t you come inside? We’ve got a restroom you know,” she interrupted.

“I would have, but I lost my pants.”

“You lost your pants?”

“Yea in that monsoon that passed through,” I said, realizing how stupid it must have sounded.

“Screw it!” screamed the young man as he opened the door and yanked me out of the car.

“Sick twisted asshole!”

My butt scraped the pavement as I landed from his throw. He started kicking me in the side and spitting on me.

“I’m calling the cops!” the waitress screamed, as she ran inside.

“Get Jimmy!” I pleaded.

“They fired him last week!”

The man continued to kick me. Soon, another man from the Girl Scout convention came running over.

“What’s going on!” he screamed.

“Pee Wee Herman’s grandfather here was out back playing “wax the dolphin” in front of my two girls.

“Geeze, somebody call the cops! Can’t freakin go anywhere these days!”

“The lady inside is!”

“Look, this is all a misunderstanding I’m a retired Colonel with the 101st Airborne….”

“Shut up!”

“The cops are on the way,” the waitress yelled, returning from the café.

Now there was a small crowd forming around the jeep.

“Get the kids away from here; this guy’s a pervert!” another man screamed.

“Somebody put a towel on this asshole before I puke,” yelled the father who had been kicking me.

Minutes later, another man came running from the motel with a bed sheet. He threw the wad in my face. I tried to stand, but one of the dads kicked me again, “you ain’t going nowhere buddy,” he said, and then pushed me back down.

Ten minutes later, I heard the sound of sirens of a police car in the distance. Soon, a car marked “Nye County Sherriff” roared into the parking lot with lights blazing. A spotlight was pointed at us.

Gary “Gus” Edwards, Sergeant with the Pahrump Valley Police Department approached from the car with a hand on his holster.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

“This pervert was jacking-off in front of my girls.”

Gus recognized me and was trying hard not to laugh.

“Is that so?”

“Yea, I want him arrested!” the father demanded.

“Oh we’ll put him away alright. He’s a retired Colonel with the 101’st Airborne Division and a part-time volunteer with our police force in Pahrump. Ain’t that right Rake?” he said, looking at me.

“Gus, I lost my pants in the monsoon that blew through the valley earlier and I came here to meet Bernie. She was supposed to be here an hour ago and I figured she’d have a towel or something. I went around back to get Jimmy and was taking a leak when this man’s daughters surprised me.”

“Okay gang, we got it from here. Sir, I’ll take your statement after I put him in the car. Now I want everyone to get back to whatever you were doing,” he said.

When I stood up, one of the fathers caught me with a quick jab that landed on the left side of my nose which started bleeding like a faucet.

“Take that asshole!” he said, full of fury, dancing like a prize-fighter.

“Hey, if you don’t disburse right now, I’m hauling you in with him, now leave!”

The men left, taking turns to flip me off and patting each other on the back as they walked away.

Once inside the car, Gus turned back to look at me.

“You alright Rake? He break your nose?”

“I’m okay, geeze what a clusterfuck, I was in Chicago Meadow seriously acting stupid in that storm that blew through when the wind blew my goddamn pants away. I was supposed to meet Bernie for dinner at eight, and all hell broke loose.”

“I know why she’s not here. They found parts of a hooker named Dallas who worked at Chelsea’s, tied-up and strangled out at Ash Meadows.”

“Parts?”

“Yea, pretty sick stuff, her legs and arms were cut off and the officer on the scene found evidence of sexual torture. Did you know her?”

“Yea, Bernie and I knew her well, she started at Chelsea’s a couple of years ago. Sweet kid, young mother and all that.”

“Bernie’s probably already there, it went out on an APB several hours ago. Bernie didn’t try calling you?” he asked.

“She probably did, my phone is wherever my pants are.”

“We were actually on our way out when we got this call. You mind tagging along? It’ll look better if they see us hauling you away.”

“Why not, this night couldn’t get any weirder.”

I was wrong.