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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desertphile" data-source="post: 349" data-attributes="member: 73">1/3WHY THE DESERT CHOSE ME“I feel I stand in a desert with my hands outstretched, and you are raining down upon me.” -- Patricia HighsmithI was thirteen years old when my mother’s new spouse hauled me and my family away to Indian Springs Auxiliary Air Force Base in Nevada to be daily beaten, humiliated, demeaned, defiled, brutalized, and sexually molested by strange men. Nobody had to tell me why most of the women in town wore more bruises than clean clothing, and had terrified, wounded eyes. Subservient, low-hierarchy males abuse anyone and everyone they consider lower than they are. The worse offenders either went to the one and only bar in the center of town every night to drink, or to the Mormon Church every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights to be praised by their community for being ideal husbands and fathers. If you ever visit Indian Springs, Nevada, be sure to pack something to kill yourself with.The town of Indian Springs had only one positive trait: walk in any direction for 30 minutes or so, and one will be completely alone in the desert. After another 30 minutes one leaves the trash behind, and the noise of the highway, and the automobile stink. The desert is pure and clean and uncluttered, out there in the creosote and rabbit brush. If one is lucky, there’s nobody else around for miles--- and that is more precious than gold.I spent my free time exploring the desert around Indian Springs with my brother, looking for old mines, seeking out sources of water, and enjoying the lack of people. The only fond memories I have of my youth are of being in the desert, far from monstrous, brutish, odious humanity.Life in Indian Springs in year 1974 was just as suicide-inducing as it is now, and my brother and I found that any adventure was worth pursuing. Running naked across the field during a football match (”streaking”) was popular at the time, and all us kids who had nothing to hide did it. We also had the yearly Air Show, when the Indian Springs Thunderbirds performed low-altitude stunts up to the day they all followed their leader into the ground at 400 miles per hour with hardly a flinch at all: an event hailed as “a beautiful act of obedience to leadership” by the Air Force captain who told me about the heroic and manly slaughter.One evening, the day before an air show, the lone woman at Cactus Springs asked my brother and me to shoot a raccoon that had been harassing her hens: the pay would be $5, which was a huge sum at the time. Her daughter attended the same school we did, and even with the girl’s “duck when you kiss her” over-bite she was still prettier than most Indian Springs girls, so of course my brother and I agreed. Late that night we walked west four miles, his Sears & Roebuck bolt-action .22 caliber rim-fire over his shoulder, and lay down to sleep in ambush a few dozen yards from the woman’s hen house. The raccoon showed up at early dawn, and my brother sent a bullet through the raccoon’s left eye. We packed the dead raccoon in a pillow case and trudged back to Indian Springs.Back in town, the cafe on the highway was open for breakfast. The cafe was quickly filling with tourists from Las Vegas there to attend the air show, but my sibling and I got a table near the door. The pillow case with the raccoon was shoved under the table; we asked for pancakes; my brother took apart the rifle and started to clean it on the dining table like any civilized savage would. A fat, ancient, bald tourist sitting at the table nearest us loudly objected, apparently yelling at the cook, “There’s a child with a gun in here!” He sounded outraged, not alarmed.My brother’s eyes locked with mine. A “silent understanding” passed between us, then my brother slowly pivoted the chair he was sitting in until he was facing the irate man. I drew in a breath slowly, held it a bit, and exhaled: I felt a tiny stab of pity for the tourist, as I know how much like a force of nature my brother can be when he turns into Cletus The Hillbilly. When my brother turns the full might of his wit against a victim, it is often spectacular and always frightening.“Why, sheeer there iz!” my brother said. “How elzz could ah shoo’ this ‘er varm-mit?” My brother used one booted foot to shove the pillow case with the dead raccoon in it out from under the table.Slowly, making no sudden moves, I started to reassemble the rifle because I might need it soon.“Iz a’ gunna make ah hat owtah ‘em,” my brother said, reaching down and opening the pillow case. He rummaged around and pulled the dead raccoon out of the sack by the tail and one leg.The tourist turned purple, and there was a great disturbance among his eating companions.“Ack! Eark! Ork!” strangled the tourist, turning the most amazing shade of violet. He managed to find enough breath to yell, “You can’t bring that thing in here!”“Why not? They dun let yerself in ‘er, ain’t they?” my brother said. My brother set the dead raccoon down at his feet, reached for the pillow case, and said “Wud hew like tuh see muh dead rat’ler? He gots nine rat’ls on ‘iz tail.” My brother put one arm into the empty pillow case, and everyone who was not his brother flinched in horror and dread.The annoying tourist leaped to his feet and wailed, “We’re leaving!” The people with him stood up also and as a herd they stomped out the door. My brother put the raccoon back in the sack just as the waitress came out of the kitchen with the food the tourists had ordered.“Where’d the people go?” she asked.“Went looking for a diner that doesn’t serve raccoon, I overheard,” I told her. She looked puzzled.</blockquote>

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