The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

The Road leads to many destinations — as I don’t need to tell you. But … it also leads to a few box canyon dead ends, washouts and … well, Final Destinations. I have a pal who drove his camper to Moab, then to Blanding, Utah after a spat with the Moab trailer court slumlord, then on to who knew where when the camper died and was towed to Big Puddle. Big Puddle, a dry hole in the exact middle of nowhere, will be where my buddy dies, trust me. Not saying it’s a bad place, this Last Stop in the desert, but it truly is the end of the road, population pretty near zero.

Today we drove from Saguaro National Park to the town of Dragoon, Arizona to visit an old artist buddy who moved from the South End to the end of the world here. He’s built himself a two story box with one window in a desert that fries lizards in the summer, has two semi-box containers to store his possessions along with a shed or two plus a couple of trailers filled to the rafters. Desert chic. A van, a car, a truck, a couple of lowboy trailer frames, a yard full of construction debris, lawnmowers, all strewn across the property. The neighbors’ places look worse, but not by much. Unlike back home, it’s hard to hide what you hoard in the desert.

On the way out I felt a kind of pity for my friends’ hermit ways, living on social security, far from civilization, both slipping quietly into the landscape of an America more and more digitized, anachronisms as lost to modernity as prospectors up a dry gulch far far from the reach of Rome. Course, now that we’re crossing the Sonora Desert, heading slowly home, it did occur to me that maybe, just maybe, their homes are more similar to the South End that I came to more than 40 years ago than I care to admit. End of the road, end of an island at the end of a continent. We don’t always recognize the Final Destination, I guess, when we arrive.

We’re in the Phoenix Public Library, the mizzus to conduct some historical research in the newspaper microfiche, me apparently to do mine on human behavior. The hombre next to me on the public computer I was allowed 15 minutes max usage took up 5 of those minutes asking if I had bought cocaine in the library parking lot.

‘Not yet,’ I said, trying not to make eye contact or appear too interested. He inquired if I had been asked to buy a yearly park pass. I replied no. He was interested if I had ever been kidnapped. ‘Not to my knowledge,’ I answered while struggling to remember my log-in info.

A library — even a small town biblioteca — is a whacko magnet. Librarians probably should be trained in sociology and hired by social services. Drugs in the bathroom, animals brought inside, sleepers on the couches, derelicts in the hallways, the insane and the hopeless wandering the stacks — all welcome, all tolerated, all of us one big dysfunctional family.

Nevertheless, I’m always thankful to old Andy Carnegie for the invention of ‘free’ public libraries. These rich philanthropists, the 1%, I suppose, felt some small guilt over their cut-throat greed and tried to make amends to their reputations, okay by me. Sort of.

I can see I’m going to be here awhile. Maybe read a magazine. Maybe purchase some cocaine or an Arizona Park season pass. Just hope I’m not kidnapped! If you get this, don’t necessarily consider it a ransom note. Unless it’s comprised of letters cut out from a magazine…..

If you’re wasting time reading this instead of fumigating your house and property for coronavirus, you must be one of the countless many who are reassured that the epidemic coming to a town or neighbor near you is in good hands with the new Pandemic Czar, the veep, the man himself, Mike Pence. Sure, he fought the remedies for needle exchanges to reduce HIV back when he was the Guv of Indiana, but that was more about morality and Biblical teachings than it was hardcore science. Mike, in hindsight, probably wishes he’d read the tea leaves of public opinion a bit earlier, but it was Indiana so c’mon, let’s cut him some slack. Unless you’re old enough to remember when he claimed cigarettes didn’t make smokers sick. Doc Pence, faith based prognoses.

I did notice, however, the Prez didn’t call him the Pandemic Czar, that was me. In fact, he’s not really sure this coronavirus, even if he could remember the name correctly, was the real McCoy. Might get worse, might not, who knows? But … just in case, he brought in the Big Dog, Mike. If things go wrong, if things do get worse, if this cold or whatever it is starts killing people, especially people in this country, well, you can’t blame Donald. No, he put his second in command in charge. The buck will stop there.

Sure the Center for Disease Control stated unequivocably the virus was coming, sooner, later, who knows, but it was definitely coming. The President, thinking like his Medal of Freedom recipient, Rush Limbaugh, that this was just another hoax by the media and the leftists, claimed this was the same as that Russian interference stuff. Pandemic? They don’t think so. Fake news? There you go….

Mike stated today that the risk was really pretty low for this colonvirus or whatever the scientists are calling it. No need for panic, not much to be afraid of. He’s meeting with Congress and they’ll work out the details for a budget. If that doesn’t make you afraid, nothing will until bodies are being tossed in corpse carts for incineration down at the crematoriums for the diseased.

But me, why worry? Pence and his task force have the situation well in hand. You know, if they’re right about Rush and his Chicken Little theory…. Otherwise, you may need more than a hepa mask and two months worth of Costco supplies to see you through.

My neighbors down here on the South End are already talking about closing down the borders to keep this coronavirus where it belongs, up north where folks can afford quality health care. I guess they figure we can barely pay for hepa masks, much less a stay in a quarantine cell for fourteen days, assuming we live that long. Panic is breaking out from Elger Bay to the Head. You’d think the threat was nuclear annihilation judging by the chatter over the fences, time to build the equivalent of fallout shelters.

They’re talking checkpoints, border patrols, beach surveillance, possibly a Wall. Every little cough sends them into hair tearing hysteria. Some of the parents refuse to send their toddlers to school and even the Little Church in the Ravine is considering closing its sanctuary for Sunday services, so much for their faith sparing them the wrath of their God. Little Jimmy suggested we all stop getting newspapers, not to reduce the reporting of new flu breakouts in Stanwoodopolis and beyond, but to prevent the delivery guy from becoming our Typhoid Mary. Two Toke sarcastically asked if the mail should be stopped as well and was surprised when the mob cried Of Course! Janet, the newcomer across the highway from us, timidly asked if Amazon Prime deliveries would be curtailed as well. Trust me, not even Ebola would convince the neighbors to stop same day delivery of the treasures they ordered yesterday. And even if they did, you know Amazon would drop them by drone.

The stock market is crashing, countries are closing their borders, cruise ships are anchored offshore with vacationers held prisoner in their petri dishes, the President put his second in command in charge of the Outbreak, the military is canceling war games with South Korea, hospitals are practicing quarantine drills, a school nearby shuttered its doors when a staff member exhibited flu-like symptoms and the news has dropped its primary election mania to keep us fearful citizens constantly updated with fresh death counts.

These are dire times. Precautions must be taken. Borders need to be secured. This could very well be the final message leaving the Black Hole of the South End. We have to protect ourselves. Good luck to the rest of you.