The Chilly Bone Express

Arizona has been a state of encounters more than it has been one of scenery. It’s a beautiful state in numerous ways, but the sights are often trumped by encounters with the people within its borders. People carry an intense demeanor, regardless of which direction they choose to focus their intensity. Some have been overly helpful or interested, others have been a little more strange than comfort allows, some have stories which don’t seem entirely possible, while others seem focused on one opinion and leave little room for anything else to exist during our encounter. Interactions with others seem to be focused solely on the individual, rather than an area or activity. Whether good or bad, not a single day in Arizona has past without a memorable encounter with a specific individual. Nights seem to be spent holding a up a guard from a person or group, while our lunches are often spent holding conversation with somebody for hours on end.

Following our Thanksgiving extravaganza, we spend a night camped out in a community park within Ward 4 of Tucson.  In my opinion, sectioning off city regions into wards already gives me an uneasy feeling normally associated with hospitals and prisons. Topping this feeling, we pedal through the community to find every window and door covered in bars and wire mesh. Some of the mesh seems to be dented in, as if kicked by an unhappy neighbor, leaving rust to occupy the areas exposed by chipped paint. The park is fairly large, leaving us room to place a buffer between the fortified homes and ourselves. I spot a perfect opportunity to hang my hammock within a singular tree, which is something I’ve had my eyes peeled for throughout the entire trip. It takes a few more minutes to set up, yet proves to be worth it after experiencing the view and tactical advantage it will offer if zombies should attack. We finish our dinner and excessive portions of lemon Bundt cake just as people of the night begin to emerge. From across the park, an excessively bright spotlight illuminates our entire area, focusing the center beam directly upon us. It switches on and off occasionally, only illuminating for a couple of seconds at a time and always from a different location within the park. We begin to lose a bit of our patience and begin to spotlight them back. Seeming to be a group of teenagers causing mischief, Wes attempts to approach them with his light in hand. As he draws near, they turn off their torch and scatter into the surrounding bushes. Throughout the night, the light makes a couple more appearances, but only from a distant corner of the park.

A man on a bicycle uses the park’s service road at roughly midnight. His chain creaks with each rotation as his legs seem to pedal out of sync with each other. About fifty yards away, he slows as he notices Wes’ hammock hanging near the ground. He rides to the edge of the park and yells something I’m unable to distinguish, in which Wes replies with an inquiry into what the man is doing.

“Get over here! I wanna talk to you!” the man yells in response.

This alone is enough to keep us on edge for the remainder of the night. Throughout the night, we hear the man going through a large pile of glass bottles, only a hundred yards away. I feel fairly safe in my perch, but Wes is exposed in an open area of the park. I didn’t stick with our plan of being close together for safety and this is the night it seems to be the most necessary. After hours of occasionally peaking out our hammocks to scan the area shapes and figures of the night, we fall asleep into fairly deep states of sleep. I dream of unique hammock locations, but most are cut down, literally, by an unknown man with a machete. The direct Arizona sun wakes us up in the same blinding fashion it will for the coming days. Topping the uneasy feeling of the night, a scrappy soccer ball made of foam has been placed underneath the feet of Wes’ hammock. Unless somebody has an incredibly kick, they must have been within feet of him only hours before. We accept it as a creepy gift and take turns juggling it all morning.

Marana is a town with very little significance amongst the current times. Only a few square miles in area, it offers one park, a mediocre pizza parlor and thousands of homes sandwiched together in roughly nine cookie cutter variations. Its sole purpose is providing homes for those who wish to work in Tucson, yet live outside the city. It offers little more at the moment, but hopes to provide a successful stage for future strip malls, movie theaters and even a waterpark. Its claim to fame was between 1942-’45, when the Marana Airfield was the largest pilot-training facility in the world. During those years, 10,000 flyers were trained to aid in the final years of the Second World War. While some history remnants of the airfield remain, I’ll always remember the town being tied to a conversation with a hot dog vendor.

The groundskeeper of the Marana community park allows us to sleep towards the back of the park after making it very clear that we never talked to him. Before leaving late the next afternoon, we spend the day writing post cards, relaxing in the park and snacking on Clif bars. With only a couple hours of daylight remaining, we begin to pedal towards a taco stand we saw last night. Advertised on a sign with big red letters, the stand seems to be a beacon for those traveling through an otherwise desolate area. Approaching the stand, we have hopes and expectations of grubbing on heaping plates of tacos. Unfortunately, Saturdays are actually hot dog days at this specific stand. We’re open to experiencing a remote hot dog stand in Arizona any day of the week though. Beginning with the mild pepper, which accompanies the hot dog, we start talking to the man operating the vendor. He’s grown up in Marana and seen the rapid housing development in the past decade. “Ten years ago, you could see the base of that mountain,” he says, pointing towards a mass of homes shadowed by mountains. He explains how numerous homes were completed every day during the housing boom. “People couldn’t funnel in fast enough,” he adds. Everything has now slowed down, with many framed homes showing excessive exposure to the elements. The impact is very real to him and it shows on his explanatory face.

With this, his rant begins without any subtle transition. He places the source of all current issues in the hands of the current war and the inability of our bipartisan political system to be effective. It’s the same argument one can find after spending five minutes on the Internet. In this situation, he’s trying to show us that his view is different, because he’s able to link the two using simple numbers. In reality, his points, opinions and the topics being discussed are not the interesting aspect of this encounter. The man could be spouting off to me about the various wheel sizes on vendor carts and I wouldn’t have been more or less interested. What interests me most is his desire to show and prove he has an opinion. He’s fully thought out every aspect of this conversation, covered it from every angle and developed more of a speech rather than a discussion. Our conversation is about him, regardless of how he’s chosen to deliver it, the topic at hand or our input. He has the stage and he plans to use his driving speech to keep it that way. Occasionally, a vehicles pulls up to the stand and chats with him for a bit. We notice he has a sailor’s mouth when speaking Spanish, but only uses clean formal English when speaking with us. “Darn” and “inadequate” certainly aren’t used in his chats with people who stop by to chat with him. Wes and I listen to his ideas as we devour the delicious hot dogs placed in front of us. Getting up to leave, we take the man’s speech with a small grain of salt, but realize it’s another perfect example of the encounters we’ve had in Arizona.

Pedaling through the midpoint of our Arizona route, we find ourselves within the Sonoran Desert. Aside from the Grand Canyon, this is probably the most commonly depicted area of Arizona. One lonesome highway transects an area of vast openness. Surrounding hills seem grand and towering, yet fall behind us easily due to gradual grades. Saguaro cacti are the most notable flora of the area and seem to have taken control of the terrain. With many reaching over thirty feet tall, they seem spaced out over the landscape within equal distances of each other. There doesn't seem to be any patches without the cacti, yet rarely are two seen growing right next to each other. It looks as if people have ventured in to thin out and space the cacti, but it’s all Mother Nature’s doing. Some grow for over 150 years and have numerous arms reaching out from their center structure, yet others never grow arms and are called spears. The arms allow them to take on anthropomorphic forms. One looks as if it’s running towards something, while the next looks like it’s cowering away from the chase. Another looks to be holding its arms out in a hugging embrace, showing love for the area around it. Their spines look intimidating and piercing, yet they’re quite friendly when not pushed on directly. I run my hand up and down the spines of one, allowing them to gently tick between my fingers. Birds land on the arms, most avoiding the temptation to peck at the cacti, and perch atop the tall lookouts without a problem. Sunsets allow the saguaros to become darkened silhouettes, which create an ominous yet welcoming scene. The Sonoran Desert is also the only place in North America known to be the home of jaguars and we keep a watchful eye for them the whole time. Wes’ states it would be the highlight of his trip to see a jaguar and ends up spending an entire evening researching the presence of jaguars in this region. Turns out only three have been spotted in the last twenty years, but we still hold hope throughout our ride through the desert.

“Mind watching my guitar while I go use the restroom?” asks a scruffy looking man carrying a distinct odor. The odor isn’t anywhere near unpleasant, but is definitely distinct enough to be picked out amongst a crowd. There’s a musty presence, mixed with the smoky linger of a campfire. He’s wearing jeans, a khaki pullover and a matching suede hat, with a red bandana tied around his neck. Curly hair flows out the bottom of his hat a couple inches, accompanied by a mustache that seems to be shaved every other time he shaves his beard. Soft and welcoming eyes add to his friendly demeanor. His guitar case is paired with a green canvas army backpack, which seems to complete his traveling attire. As he returns from the restroom he smiles, sits down at a nearby table and strikes up a conversation. He reaches out his hand to introduce himself and I see a letter tattooed upon each finger, but his aged skin has made the letters illegible. “Captain Dingo,” he says, “pleasure to see some fellow travelers out on the road this time of year.” I glance out the window to be blinded by the warm Arizona sun, but realize it’s still the end of November.

Captain Dingo, 63, is a hobo. The real kind of hobo who finds happiness in what he does. He begins the conversation by making sure we know what defines a hobo. He does so by clearing up the misbelief that a hobo, tramp and bum are one in the same. Hobos travel to work, moving around the country or world in search of the next experience. Tramps also hold the desire for travel, but do not combine it with work. Bums have no interest in travel or work; hovering dismally in one area until their days reach an end. Returning from the Vietnam War decades ago, he started a successful taxicab company with his wife in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, within years everything came to a sudden halt, altering the remainder of his life. In 1975, his wife was killed in an automobile accident. Picking up the pieces throughout the following decade, he was sued for all he was worth when one of his drivers killed two people in a traffic accident. Since 1987, he’s been wayfaring from coast to coast, moving from one veteran’s hospital to the next, playing his guitar for the people he believes need it most. Captain Dingo is based out of Phoenix, Arizona, where he was raised and now lives during the winter months. Through the months of April and November, he throws his pack on and moves from rail to rail, until he reaches a chosen destination. Sometimes these destinations involve hobo gatherings, while other times they’re simply a location at the end of the week’s road.

We step outside for a moment as he pulls out his guitar, sits on his army backpack, places his harmonica holder around his neck and gives a tip of his hat to a couple getting out of their car. The woman ignores his gesture as her husband looks slightly past the disheveled man, trying not to make his curiosity apparent. He prefaces the first song by letting us know it’s about his father and brother who both joined the navy years ago. His brother never came back, while his father never let his life steer away from the navy. “Men of Wind and Water” is about men of the service, specifically the navy, who are carved out of something different than other men and live by the movement of water and wind. He stares at my camera while he sings, as if he’s gazing right into my eye, through the lens. “Dumpster Diving Song” is a joyful song accompanied by smiling and a rocking of his torso. He says it reminds him of the sense of community the hobo world shares. Lastly, he plays “Chilly Bone Express” under a softer tone as he looks up at the sky and then back down at his feet repeatedly. The Chilly Bone Express is considered to be the last train a hobo takes as he, or she, is carried off into the afterlife. Reflecting on a life of travel and the experiences gained, the hobo reflects back on whether or not it was all worth it. “Unfortunately, none of those who have passed on were able to carry on that crucial bit of advice before getting on the train. I guess we’ll simply have to keep riding until we know for sure,” he says with a wink and a smile.

I couldn't find the full video, but this one includes a good portion of the “Dumpster Diving Song.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfn0fm6tuEY