I dye my hair. I’ve done so since my 30s going back to when I started turning white, a family thing. Hair is long so it takes a while. The roots are bitches. Whatever the labor it’s better than looking like bleached road kill. For me, Death of a Salesman all over again.
My flight from El Paso to France begins tomorrow, Sunday. Two transfers to make reality flip. Friday, yesterday, I went to buy the dye product I use and trust from Walgreens.
First thing back in France I’m off on a business trip to Bologna. For that I want to look my salesman’s best, younger and cooler than I am. Dyeing is a subtle dusting of the same color as my eyebrows. In a friendly light that takes off a good few unfriendly years.
Drugstore offers about 50 choices but at last I find the right box. All the boxes look the same so one needs to look sharp. Back at the house I apply it as usual.
Taking off the towel I gave the first audible gasp of my life. There in the bathroom mirror to my shock and awe instead of a light walnut brown my white hair has transubstantiated into a shocking jet black. It is a glossy midnight black. Hair blacker than an evil alley in Juarez.
In panic I shampoo three times. Rubbing it hard, harder still, till my scalp turns a blister red. It burns too, a head on fire. Most likely hotter than hell fire.
Seems to be getting blacker if that’s possible. Frankly the color against my Celtic skin turns me into a washed up Italian gigolo or worse an aging catamite.
I have to do something. Saw no alternative other than shaving my head even through I’ve never done it before and have no one here to help.
It’s gone as horribly wrong as the dyeing. I’ve ended up with a skull of hairy ridges, blotches of black stubble mixing with patches of the now raw scalp, also a couple of bloody scrapes.
A few month’s back I’d read in ‘The Times’ about teenagers rampaging down the aisles of hair dye and wantonly mixing up the bottles and boxes. Why did I laugh then? It must have been a warning from God which since I don’t believe in one I’d ignored. Samson Agonistes.
Then in frightened despair I simply gave up. Took three aspirins. Guzzled a six pack of Tecate beer I had in the fridge and passed out with the TV on to a rerun of “Baywatch.”
Today, to hide my head I wear a white knit ski hat found in my younger son’s bedroom. It has a bright red ‘Coors’ label on the forehead and is crowned by a scarlet pompom. But at least I can go outside to fetch the mail.
I should explain that I’ve been in a wheelchair on and off for years. But I’ve been better this summer of 2004 using the chair only for going out on more demanding errands, like for wheeling down the aisle to find hair dye at Walgreens. Otherwise I’m in leg braces.
My braces are black fashion accessories on my hairless legs. They’re made of some kind of nylon indestructible fabric probably invented by NASA. They are cinched tight above and below the knee by Velcro straps with pliable metal strips running on both sides of the leg from lower thigh down to mid calf.
I’ve worn them every day from waking to beddy bye for so many years that they’ve blended into me, become my own flesh.
By braces and by wheelchair I’ve been putting family onto planes for a few days . My oldest son back to New York where he works. Then in another day I saw my wife and younger son off home to France. My French wife relieved to return to civilization. My teenager to start Lycee in Toulouse.
For such the wheelchair rides in back on its side. Along with the wagon it slides about sending the top wheel spinning, my wheel of fortune. It’s an always losing roulette.
Our El Paso house is a hacienda figment in a suburban development, in the city’s Upper Valley neighborhood not far from the Rio Grande and easy walking distance out of Texas into either New Mexico or old Mexico.
House looks adobe, but isn’t. Has an interior courtyard, flat roof, rows of clerestory windows above a sunken living room. Has three sets of double glass doors, five skylights, three full baths, 3 bedrooms, a study for me and a towering flagstone fireplace. Swamp cooler thrown in.
Has a couple of palm trees and half a dozen oleanders, otherwise a ruthless xeriscaping. Has a living room view of the Franklin Mountains.
I think the place is a scherezade, a one-off by a seriously repressed architect.
When not in residence we let the house out furnished. It’s full of furniture from our apartment in New York, none of it quite right but good enough. It’s tarted up with lots of Japanese prints, paperback murder mysteries of the 1930s, and CDs such as Ornette Coleman and the operas of Henry Purcell, which people never take away.
Free of charge, from the house you hear up close the freight trains going by at night, 100 cars moving slow through El Paso. Burlington Northern Santa Fe trundling grain from Kansas into Mexico. The engines give that lorn long wailing that people of the west hold dear.
In all this is one of my all-time most loved homes.
We’ve put an impressive monthly rent on the place that more than covers the mortgage. When we leave that also means getting it back into a commiserate state.
Switching the house to rental mode calls for boxing up, hiding away and most of all throwing out the accumulated detritus of our residence. All must be discretely bagged. None of it can be left for the El Paso sanitation department.
In El Paso there are strict rules on putting trash out, even for how many inches the bin must stand from the curb. More than a bin full and you have to take it to the land fill, along with your water bill as proof of residency. The Fill is about an hour away. There’s always a long line of cars. The staff are assholes.
Amazing how much shit an affluent family can amass in one summer. For me it’s a lot of fucking hassle. Especially in leg braces. But it’s my number one to-do of today.
I’m dressed for the labor of cleanup. Or not. I’d rather not look but know without doing so that in fact I’m virtually naked. Actually naked except for something smaller than that loin cloth Tarzan wears.
It’s nothing more than a small boxer style swimsuit that I’ve had for maybe 30 years, rotten and getting tight in the wrong places. The liner of these trunks is long gone, torn out to make a pair of ventilated short shorts. Forbidden to wear this even in the house unless I’ve been heavily drinking, or for working around the house on 100’ days, like this one when even the swamp cooler is flummoxed.
Otherwise I’m wearing no more than an old pair of L.L.Bean ‘Wicked Good’ –as the company calls them– slip ons, the kind where a fuzzy lining spills out from the top. The pale fleece against the blonde leather, below the pallor of my shins and ankles, gives me an albino beastie aspect.
Even in my eyes I’ve become an ignominious figure, shattered fool in Christ, a smelly desert prophet to be shunned, arrested, sacrificed for sure.
The counter culture part of me, a leftover from university days, is pleased by the overall effect of my haphazard attire—showing me as I am, a victim of circumstance and a rebel.
Brave thoughts but I don’t really expect to be seen by anyone, except by the girl in the Whataburger drive thru window. For that I’m bringing along a towel to cover my lap when stretching out to take my order. Shorts are too short I’ve discovered.
By now station wagon’s full with a dozen stretch –to- bursting plastic bags, jumbo size, along with a few boxes of magazines, including some porn the older boy bought. There’s only enough room left for me and a horde of flies that will soon sleep when the desert cools.
It’s a 1984 Buick Century Station Wagon Woodie. That’s 20 years old. It’s pristine. I bought it on EBay for $200. I needed the wagon for carrying around the wheelchair. Buick comes from Florida, a snowbird car, one for old folks who’d drive it from Saratoga to Sarasota and back each year. Buick has less than 30,000 miles on it.
Buick’s already leaking oil on my driveway, also smelling of burgers and fries. With my wife absent I live on Whataburgers, a double with bacon and cheese, mayo, pickles and onions. Two of them real greasy, dripping fat monsters of desire on buns gone soggy. And a large order of fries, large chocolate malt. I glutton on this with abandon.
Tonight’s repast is important because it’s my last pig out for sometime. My flight home starts tomorrow, 15 hour trip with me in my wheelchair carted about helpless and insentient. After that no Whataburger for 9 months, not a one on the horizon for 5,000 miles.
11:30 pm, I back the laden wagon out of the driveway. House is less than 10 minutes from Whataburger. Whataburger closes at midnight so it’s tight but I’ll be OK.
I’m heading for the ¡Hola! Shopping Center. The ¡Hola! is across the tracks, good location for it. It straggles directly along the Camino Real which here is not a scenic byway.
¡Hola! is a sorry place. The greeting card exuberance of the name, in a sunburst on its sign, is for a single row of one story shops, perhaps 10 of them. You know things are bad when a shopping center is anchored by a Dollar General.
Load of bags jostles as I drive. Constant reminder from my upbringing that this theft of garbage space is wrong. It’s a sin. I’ve decided to dump the lot of it first. Lighten my conscience. Then load up on the fast food in penance.
Also, while it’s unethical in Topeka doing this is strictly illegal in El Paso. Especially so when you think about the critical mass of offal and refuse I’m hauling to leave for someone else, an innocent bystander, to struggle with on their own. Get caught and the fine is about the cost of the station wagon.
But first I must find a suitable dumping ground. There are three free standing establishments in the vast and empty ¡Hola! parking lot.
Whataburger and the dinky kiosk for Water Supreme with a lit windmill on top. It’s a self service dispenser of drinking water in bulk. This is indeed a desert town of the dust choked needy, the thirsty without mains. The third building is a bar.
For me the bar defines ‘ill repute’, no windows, unlit, a blockhouse with a straggling of Mexican tiles in salute to El Paso. Kind of place that makes an average middle class American run away.
This bar is the spot. Must be. No one goes in or comes out, not a soul lounging about to catch me. It has a row of dumpsters in the shadows, none spilling over–yet.
I park the Buick close to them and leave it running in case I must make a quick getaway. Door opens and I take the full stench of the dumpsters. Whatever is in them cooked in the desert sun all day.
Wagon front door closes behind me. I hear that firm General Motors door-closing from the back-when when they used real steel. I’m standing shakily on asphalt, will my legs hold up?
They can go out, even in braces. Then I’m left clinging to anything nearby or else I go down to grovel on the ground.
I stalk in the braces around the wagon. Cane taps out my measured steps. Already my damn legs start to quake.
My only sound is this fucking cane. Nothing more existential than the hearing of a cane tapping alone off into a foul and midnight place. Fleece lined ‘Wicked Good’ go sucking on gum and the bar’s rancid bilge.
Without a thought for it I try the tailgate door. Nothing gives? What gives? How can there be a nothing. Can’t be! I try again with force. Nope. Now I’m jerking the tailgate handle angrily. I try each of the four doors in turn. Nada. Twenty year old engine runs warm beside me. Soft tremble of a vibrating bed.
With my nose against the window on the driver’s side there’s enough dashboard light for me to make out my cell phone. It’s turned on, lying on the front seat beside my wallet and the towel. After a couple of minutes of ‘why me’ lamentation, with a few more desperate attempts at opening the door, I face the truth. Somehow the automatic lock was on.
I can’t stand here staring stupidly at the station wagon. My legs tell me to find a place for my ass fast. They’re turning soft while I think. Soon they’ll start running down onto the asphalt where I’ll be too soon enough.
No alternative but going into this bar for help. My only hope is for there to be at least one real Christian inside, even born again would do just as long as they’ve read their Bible. I’ve got to find an in-the-flesh English speaking Good Samaritan. Most likely the one they had has been murdered.
To get to the front door I’m threading through a dozen or so bikes. I see they’re mainly Harleys with an odd Triumph. This is none other than a genuine bikers bar.
It’s called The Long Horns. Of course it is.
Inside The Long Horns I drop fast to a seat on the end bar stool near to the front door as possible, in case I need to scream for help or try to escape. I’m doing my best to be invisible. Hard to do so with bare chest and legs, ‘Coors’ hat on my head, and braces.
Don’t have much of a body, hairless as a Chihuahua. My exterior is mushroom belly pale. Too Scottish to go out in the sun unless I want to do an auto de fey.
I cross my legs to hide their nakedness. Not so easy in braces. Come too close to falling off this stool in an indecent exposure. I’m having to be self conscious about where my dick is. Without the lining it feels apt to squeeze out of these trunks like toothpaste.
Budweiser clock says it’s midnight! Oh no, Whataburger just closed. So long to all that for nine months. No more sweet grease on my cheeks. Stomach gives a booming sorrowing gurgle.
Bartender won’t come. I’ve been sitting on this slippery red plastic for five minutes. Unease mounts.
“I stuck that lovin’ .44 beneath my head. Got up next mornin’ and I grabbed that gun. Took a shot of cocaine and away I run. Made a good run, but I run too slow. They overtook me down in Juarez, Mexico.”
You feel the buzz of the crowd’s appreciation for the juke box. They like Johnny Cash singing “Cocaine Blues.” Also he’s singing about home. About 15 minutes of El Paso blocks from where I’m sitting the town ends and Juarez begins.
If the fat guy tending bar in chaps ever comes he’ll likely look at me and refuse service. There’s a sign in here, ‘No Shirt No Service.’ Guess they think it impossible for a patron to be in my category ‘no clothes, no body hair, no Spanish.
Elbow’s stuck to the surface of the bar. Smacks when I free it. Elbow flecked in peanut husks. From an Unhappy Hour.
Again I’m crooking my free arm up at the elbow to wave a couple of fingers wanly for service. Even though I don’t have a cent on me, money being locked up tight inside the Buick.
I begin to suspect that this bartender is ignoring me. If I were him I would. But I’m so urgently in need of emotional rescue. My Anglo face shines under a martyr’s halo. Here it stands forth blanched like an almond and frosting over in the air conditioning.
Everyone here is very hairy. Everyone is swarthy. Everywhere muscle arms engorge, protruding from leather vests and covered with a carpet bombing of tattoos. Heavy thighs bulge like zeppelins in Levis. Not a word of English to be heard.
All are in leather with gang emblems indecipherable in the murk. Faces are hidden in hair, hiding beneath mustaches and pirate beards. It’s the Stones’ concert at Altamont.
Men and women, so many incredible fantastical big butts. They’d be the envy of Jennifer Lopez. Reminds that El Paso is the 3rd most obese city in the States.
Fizzles and sparkles emanate from the crowd. They come from the ear, eyebrow, nose and lip jewelry everyone wears.
In agitation I move on the bar stool. My cane clatters to the floor. I’m down trying to retrieve it. My dick plops out of the swimming trunks.
“What can I do you for?” It’s the bartender at last. He shoots me one mean evil-eye once-over, the cane, my Coors hat, my short shorts.
“I need some help,” I’m saying to the bartender tightening my grip on my crotch.
“You bet you do,” says he.
El Paso has 800,000 in its city limits. 85% Hispanic. 5 % American Indian. Bartender is a mix. It’s the largest Spanish speaking city in the US. Spanish is in fact the rule although most also speak some English.
Used hub cap capital of the world, the city isn’t actually poor although the Barrio neighborhood at its center is so. The rich Anglos, cotton and cattle wealth, live in mansions in the Country Club district or up on the mountain side above Central.
Here in a newer subdivision of McMansions those watching us from their haciendas above are mostly the ‘peseta millionaires’ the rich of Juarez who come to build second homes up there so that their kids can attend El Paso schools.
I’m cold in The Long Horns, close to frost bite. It’s the fucking air conditioning blasting out like El Paso people like.
“No money, I’ve got none,” Meaning I can’t even order a beer.
“Yeah I see you don’t got no pockets,” a most observing bartender. “And watch yourself? Flash your little la polla again, someone’s gonna cut it off.”
Like the others in here he’s in leather mode with chains, boots too, belt thick like a barber’s strop. I wonder if the outfit comes in a gift set. Maybe from Milwaukee along with the Harley?
“Lot’s of people got no money. So what hombre.” He about spits ‘hombre’ into my Anglo face. “Get your broken down ass out of here, pronto. Comprend.”
“My cars out there running. It’s locked. Please, I don’t have the keys.” Trying not to whine.
“Can guess that much,” he says. Looks like he’s ready to bust a gut. “OK, since you got a cane guess I gotta see what I can do.”
Bartender’s in close confabulation with a couple of the bikers. They leave. After a minute they’re back again giggling. I know at what.
More talk. Now Jose is laughing too, at me.
“They say it so. You did leave a running, locked Buick Century wagon out by my dumpsters. They say it full of trash, garbola, worthless shit, even kiddy porn. You were trying to steal shit space in my dumpsters, weren’t ya. Shame on you. What kind of American are you?
“OK amigo, you go with these two gentlemen they gonna set you right.”
We three are standing by the wagon. One says, “Hola mun, you wanna sell this? It’d make a great low rider.” The other has a tool in hand of some kind. He moves to hide it. I think he slides it down between the car window and door. He’s on tiptoe doing a hike up in his jeans.
Soft click and all the door locks go up. He leans inside, turns engine off. Looks pleased with himself. I’m guessing they have a gone-in 60-seconds business.
Unbidden the two start hauling the boxes and bags to the dumpsters. Another couple of minutes wagon is empty. I’m reduced to sitting in back watching them, turned sidewise on the edge of the seat. Guess my slip ons are sinking away into this La Brea Tar Pit.
One of the men says, ”I can smell in there you like a double Whataburger with bacon and cheese, mayo, pickles and onions.” He has it down pat. The other saying he do too.
One holds up the wheelchair pretending to be ready to throw it on the refuse. A bit of a joke.
So I’ve made it back with them into the bar where Mexican love songs are playing. I’ve tried giving the fellas all my thanks. Also what money I retrieved from the car. They gruff it off to vanish in the sparkling of a silver nose ring.
My throat goes tight.
They’ve left me propped up like a stiff on this stool. No matter, love and beauty are come to surround me. Bartender motions to get the fuck out.