The Castle Danger Story (Part 3)

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I offered him back my name and thanked him for the offer to sit in his little hide-away, although he did not seem especially impressed by either one of these actions.  Some time passed, awkward to me at first as I continued to resist itching at my eyes, although Vann seemed perfectly at ease.  I guess it was his world I was inhabiting after all so I probably deserved to feel out of place. The wind whistled and blew for about another ninety minutes and then the gentle desert calm returned although the air still had a grainy texture. I figured it was a good time to get moving on however a hand on my elbow stopped me as I was about to stand up.

“Ya want something to drink?”

I considered that offer for a few seconds, envisioning the proffering of a bottle of Thunderbird if I said yes, however my throat was scratchy and my tongue felt like sandpaper.

“Sure…please.”  And I was rewarded with the Thunderbird, as warm and as edgy as I remembered it to always have been. I coughed down a couple of swallows and handed it back. “Thanks.  You must come this way often, I mean, you had that whole eye of the storm thing figured out.”

Vann waved one of his bony, tanned fingers back and forth above his head. “This stretch, I’ve been walking up and down it for about a year now.  Chandler to Oro Valley and back again.  Ya can’t get too far into those big cities or they really start to hassle ya.”

I had no frame of reference for that.  “How did you….I mean, do you like this…thing you do?  Drifting around?”

He drummed his fingers against his chest which was covered by a ratted out t-shirt, although I think it was one of those deliberately distressed items, new but looking old.  It had some faded lettering that seemed to reference car parts.

“I did when I started, then I hated it, loved it, hated it…ha!  Who knows, I guess I’m used to it.  I actually spent a year once in Alaska.”

“As a… I mean, homeless?”

Vann seemed amused by my hesitation, his green eyes sparkling again.  “As a hobo, bum, no good vagrant?  Yes I did.”

Alaska interested me so I sat back down again and somewhere over the next three hours and a second bottle of T-bird I discovered that Vann may have been one of the most interesting people I had ever met.  His thoughts were not always logical, he had a poor view of things in society he did not know much about and his opinion of himself raged between pride and despair.  He had stories though, and true ones as far as I could tell.  It was late though, very late considering I had only stopped for a quick stretch and to shake the weariness of the road.  I stood to go however Vann reached into his pack and pulled out two candlesticks.  Unexpected to be sure.

“Here man, come and check these out.”  He placed them carefully on the cement and then, even more to my amazement, produced two candles from within his jacket.

“Ahh, what are you doing with candles?  Seems a bit weird for a traveling hobo to keep those around.”

He lit the candles with a classic Zippo, nicely polished from what I could tell. “I keep them because of the story.”

“These things have a story?”  They looked like thrift store pick-ups to me.

“They do, come on, just listen to it, it’s the last one.” Somehow I felt an obligation to hear him out.  That and the Thunderbird had rendered me mostly useless for driving anyway.  Where did I think I was going to go? So, as the flames flickered and cast a muted glow against the worn out supports of that water tower Vann told me the story of Castle Danger.

The candlesticks that Vann fished from his backpack

The candlesticks that Vann fished from his backpack

to be continued…

The Castle Danger Story (Part 2)

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I stood there for a few minutes looking back at him and he held my gaze which , quite frankly, was more than I expected.  Neither of us talked and that seemed somehow appropriate.  The wind kicked up a little bit from the west, stirring up some of that fine top layer of sand that sits around in the desert just waiting to be lifted up into a dust cyclone.  The guy in the Army jacket sniffed and rubbed his nose, then gave me a last look and turned, walking over toward the water tower.   I felt incredibly awkward, like I owed something more to the moment.  As the dust stirred around my feet I glanced over at my truck and thought what I guess would be the ‘usual thing’…namely that I did not want anything to do with homeless people.  Not that I knew for certain that this stranger met that criteria, but it was what I assumed based on my own preconceptions.  Going with my initial thought I took about twenty steps back in the direction of my truck, thoughts nagging at me the entire time.  Enough was finally enough, and I realized I had to do something different, so I veered my course back toward the water tower.  As I did I looked over and realized he was looking right at me again.  Now I really had no choice.

It only took me a few minutes to reach the tower however by then the wind was really blowing and the sand, caught up in the air, was cutting unpleasantly against my skin. I looked past the tower and saw a tidy little dust cyclone that was dancing around, caught for the moment in the same place.

small dust cyclone near Red Rock, AZ

small dust cyclone near Red Rock, AZ

So, I arrived at the tower, stepping onto the concrete pad and extending an enthusiastic “Hello!” in the man’s direction.  I sounded more pleasant than I felt, a fact not helped much by the lack of reply I received.  So now I was stuck occupying a weathered concrete pad underneath a defunct water tower with someone I did not know and who apparently was not going to be much of a conversationalist.  I considered that a challenge.

“How ya doing?”

More silence, although he did shift around a bit from where he was sitting.

“Lots of dust coming this way.”  Sometimes I love to state the obvious.  I let that gem hang in the air and returned to looking out toward the west.  I promptly received two eyes full of sand and ducked my head down, turning away from the wind and rubbing to get it out.

“Here…sit down here.”  He had spoken, apparently out of pity for me, and was indicating a spot near where he had his back propped up against one of the tower’s support legs. I eyeballed my truck again but decided that the wind and dust were blowing hard enough to make that journey seem like much less than a lot of fun.  As I sat down, the wind ceased completely and the dust disappeared.  This was apparently the perfect place to sit.  After blinking my eyes repeatedly, and just as often resisting the urge to gouge at them with my dusty fingers, I managed to clear up my vision.  I looked over at the man who spoke his name while holding out his hand.

“Vann…with two n’s,” and his eyes twinkled when he said it, as though it were some incredibly funny joke that I should understand.  Which, as you know, I did not.  The man had a name with two n’s when he only needed one.

to be continued…

The Castle Danger Story (Part 1)

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The Water Tower at Red Rock

The Water Tower at Red Rock

The Old (or new?) Dads Root Beer bottle

The Old (or new?) Dads Root Beer bottle

I had pulled my truck over on the side of a road that runs along I-10 in Arizona.  Not sure of the name of that road but it would not be hard to find again.  So, this all started in Red Rock, which is a place I would have picked anyway given the chance.  In fact, if this had started in some place with a ‘plain-Jane’ name I might have just written that it started in Red Rock anyway.  You would never know anyway as you were not there.  By luck or fortune it really did start in Red Rock, so from there I guess the next thing to explain is how I ever went from a pit stop to a rather cold night huddled up under the water tower with a worn-down hobo with two ‘n’s’ on a name that only needs one.

It certainly was not my intention. I had been driving for seven hours and just needed a break to stretch.  That part of Arizona, just a little bit north of Tucson, has some really great scenery.  Picacho Peak looms in the sky and the scrappy foothills around it abound with cacti, the cool kind that you think about when you imagine a cactus.  Tall and prickly with cool arms and an occasionally disfigured top.  You would think I would have taken a picture of that, but well, I did not.  I was fascinated by this damn water tower which seems to scream “old western town”, and carries just enough rustic decay to appeal to me.  I seem to enjoy these broken parts of America.  They talk about the dream and the demise while still seeming noble and proud.  So, I always have to take pictures.  Lots and lots of pictures.  After taking my fill of these around the tower itself I wandered off down the train tracks that run alongside and started poking around the fringes of the railway grade.

The usual detritus was found, although that is a minor misuse of that word as I am referring more to the scraps and refuse of our modern lives instead of decayed organic matter.  Somehow and someway a Dad’s root beer bottle that seemed to be from a long time ago had managed to find its way to rest beside a scrubby desert bush.  It looked old anyway, but these days who knows…maybe it was just one of those vintage re-creations that allow the rest of us to feel like we are experiencing the ‘olden-days’.  While I was looking at it I heard a noise off in the scrub to the east and looked up, mostly expecting nothing or a road-runner.  Instead I saw a man, taller than me and very tan with washed-out brown hair, several days growth of a dark beard and a glint in his green eyes that seemed to register me as a prize.  I thought the day was warm, but this man had on an old regulation Army issue coat, a pair of woolen gloves with the fingertips cut off and a very blue pair of blue jeans.  Your typical homeless guy I guess, but incredibly interesting close-up.

to be continued…