Going up the Mountain

 

 

Bell Mountain, Victorville, California

These people had been covered by the news, but it was fuzzy back in late 1970s.  This event was in Victorville, California, where a group of interesting people climbed off a bus and boarded cars and trucks.

They carried identical cheap suitcases and rolled up blankets.  They were dazed and confused, but that changed when some man appeared, walking up a rocky path to meet them.

They were thrilled, became animated, and were ready to go. Dancing and rejoicing faded away as vehicles drove along that road from which the leader had come.

The leader was hard to describe, and newspaper photos were gray and hazy. But he led them up the mountain, off into the fading light. 

One day, then two days, and finally three days later, there was silence on the hill. And then, oh boy, they trudged through our town and settled into the Home Depot parking lot.

These were the same eager travelers who had journeyed up the mountain all happy. Wrapped up in their matching blankets, not one of them looked around until a man walked by, giving me a hopeless, almost angry, look. 

“They was s’pposed to come and get us.  We waited, and they didn’t come.”

Apparently, the cult prophet had gathered believers and called them to this holy mountain where they would be when the world ended.  Space Aliens were to pick them up? Take them where?

We never knew.  They were given some donations to buy food and bus tickets. They disappeared to their own homes where they had sold all their worldly goods, giving the money to their revered cult leader.  He needed to fund their journey.

Home Depot was busy that night.

Woman in the White Convertible

mages burned into memory must be strong, visceral, and merge with the senses.  This is one: the woman in the white convertible.

During a blistering summer day in Victorville, California, a white convertible eased up to the gas pump.  Not just any white convertible, this was a 1960s long lean Cadillac convertible, with white leather interior and red trim. 

A lean tanned young man leaned out and swaggered to the gas station interior.  He was Steve McQueen cool, and he knew it. 

The white blonde woman stepped out the passenger side, swinging white leather boots onto the oil stained pavement.  She stretched a long cat stretch.  Every inch of her white leather pants clung to her, white film on lean legs.  The silver studs on the white leather jacket glinted sun, crying out defiantly, “Money!  I got loads of it!”

She shook her long white blonde hair out, combing through it with flame red finger nails and ringed fingers. 

The young man jogged out and kissed her.  “This’ll just take a minute, Baby.  Then we’ll be on our way to ‘Vegas.”

The white blonde woman turned and got back in the car.  For just a moment, just long enough, her face was fully visible. 

An old face, brown with too much sun, and pursed with lines.  Heavy rouge, heavy lipstick, heavy black long eyelashes, heavy makeup--all were creased into the lines of a face that had been to ‘Vegas many times.

The white convertible pulled back onto the I-15.  Her hand caressed the back of his neck.