"This is harder than I thought," says Annie.
"Yeah, modeling is hard work, isn't it? Could you wing your scapula just a bit more?" I say.
Annie brings her shoulder blades back just a little more. The afternoon sun casts a deep shadow in the hollow between her left shoulder blade and her spine. Annie's back looks very strong and very sexy right now. I doesn't hurt that she's nude from the waist up.
Annie and I are standing in the western foothills of the Baboquivari Mountains, a good two hour drive from Tucson. These are not like the foothills of the Catalinas that slowly rise from the flats of the Rillito River up toward my apartment. Toehills may be a better description for this land, for after miles and miles of driving on the great flatness that is the Baboquivari Valley, these mountains rise sharply to over 7,000 feet from the valley floor of4,500 feet. The prominent feature of this range is Baboquivari Peak, a domed shaped mountain peaking at 7,743 feet.
I'Itoi, the Tohono O'Odham God, lives near the summit in a cave, and he has a history, it is said by the T.O.s, of coming down off the mountain to teach the native people lessons when they have been bad. I have, in the past, hiked up the trail leading to the base of Baboquivari Peak, through the Mesquite, and the Palo Verde, getting as high at the Live Oak and Pinyon trees. But that was as high as I went. Not to the top. You'd need ropes. Ropes aside, I haven't gone to the top. I don't think it's a good idea to disturb a grouchy God, especially since I know I haven't been good all the time. Sort of like Santa, but I don't know if we get any presents for being good from I'Itoi. Best case scenario is getting a little talking to from a deity. Worst case scenario is some serious smighting. Neither sounds like that much fun to me.
But today, we aren't going to the peak or even hiking the trail, but are staying close to the valley floor. What prompted Annie and I to go deep into the desert was her getting a spiral Henna tattoo on the back of her neck while she was recently vacationing with old friends down on the west coast of Mexico. It's March in the desert, with its cold mornings and hot afternoons, and it's hot right now.
Annie. Annie. We've known each other about seven years now. An on again off again relationship. Translation: we tend to be lovers about six months out of the year and friends the other six. Around my birthday in November we fall into bed with each other, and soon after her birthday in February we fall back out. Miracles upon miracles we are still lovers this March. This pattern has gone on for years. Why, you may ask, don't we just stay together. The problem isn't the great sex or the deep affection or the constant love we have for each other. It's that neither of us are 'in love' with each other and it drives each other crazy after a while. Yes, I know I'm speaking for Annie here, when I should be only speaking for myself, but believe me, we have talked about it a lot, and I think I know Annie's mind on this. In some ways in spite of our outward differences (to name but a few, I smoke, she doesn't, she's quiet, I don't shut up, etc.), it may be our central core similarities that keep us apart. Both Annie and I are basically loner artists, cherishing our own alone time, as much if not more, than any time we spend with each other. I love being with her but after 24 hours with her, and anyone for that matter, I need to get away to my hole or dig one nearby. I've often joked about not being good boyfriend material with Annie and other women I've dated, but they just think I'm being cute and self effacing. I've been married and I've lived with women, but I still prefer living by myself, being able to shoot images, or play music or go to the studio anytime I like. Annie too likes living alone, making her fiber art and sewing her quilts when she is so moved, but I also know she yearns for that soul mate connection, and I'm afraid she will never find it in me. Sometimes I wonder if my soul mate isn't the desert and the night sky and not a woman. Not trying to be too 'woo woo' here but it feels like that sometime.
So after a few months of being lovers, I feel inadequate about what I can and can't give Annie, and either I break it off or she does. Yet we stay friends, close friends. As I said, we do love each other and depend on our friendship and support. As Annie has often said, "I can't imagine you not being in my life". I feel that way too.
But right now, we aren't thinking too much about that. We're lovers and friends and I'm shooting Annie's naked back, next to a group of protruding conglomerate rock megaliths that are rising out of the flat valley floor.
"I'm getting tired," Annie says. "I didn't realize standing still could be so hard. I'm feeling a little woozy."
"You be OK for just a few more shots?" I ask.
"Sure," she says.
"Almost done. You look great," I say.
The wind is blowing her bleached white hair East, then West. She does look great. I feel a little stirring in my jeans. Later, Stu. Take the pictures. Take the pictures.
After a few more exposures, I'm done. Annie puts on her shirt which greatly disappoints my growing woodiness. We kiss and I pull her close, feeling her strong yet small body against mine. We stop after a bit, perhaps thinking this may not be right place. There is an ornery God just above us. We slowly break our embrace and walk back to her car.
Instead of my yellow Nissan truck, we are driving Annie's Honda CRX today. White with only two seats and a hatchback, it is quite the little go cart and even though we have driven to this spot on about 15 miles of dirt road, it's a well maintain road, and not hard on the Honda at all. We get in her car, and head down the flat dirt track, back to the black top that lead to Sells, Arizona and home.
Annie breaks out a soda for each of us, and we are just talking about this and that. Nothing deep. After only a couple miles, we are completely out of the foothills of the Baboquivaris and are driving on flat straight road, with nothing but creosote bushes on either side. The sun is about 2 hours from setting. Annie's laughing at my perpetual attempts at wittiness like she always does, when up ahead, about a half mile or so, we see a couple walking on the road. That's not necessarily strange seeing people walking along the road, on the Tohono O'Odham Rez, but here, it is. No one lives out here. No one. Only hikers, campers and T.O. religious pilgrims come down this long lonely dead-end dirt track.
I slow down a bit and as I get closer, the couple turns and looks at us. We notice then that they aren't a couple but a threesome. Man, woman and child. We drive by them slowly and then stop a couple hundred yards down the road, and I realize two things in a second.
One: that these are illegals crossing the desert; and Two: we can't leave them here. Here is at least twenty miles from anywhere and anywhere is only the small town of Sells to the north.
I look at Annie.
"What do you think?" I say.
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"We can't leave them here," I say.
"No," she says.
The family of three isn't running to our car. They don't know what we are going to do, I reckon. They're just slowly walking in our direction, down the road.
"Shit," I say, "We're in your car." The only space for passengers in under the hatchback and it is a very small space.
"But we can't leave them here," I say again.
Annie says, "No, we can't."
I throw the CRX into reverse and back up toward the family.
They are beautiful. Unbelievably beautiful. He, dark, young, thin of hip. Kind eyes. Her, small but strong, a sweet face. Beautiful skin. And the baby. A baby, only weeks old. Quiet and calm and sleeping in her arms. It's like a tableau of Mary, Jesus and Joseph leaving Bethlehem. They are that radiant, that beautiful.
Annie and I speak no Spanish and Mary and Joseph speak no English, but we communicate that we are willing to drive them, yet they must squeeze into the small area in the back. I shrug apologetically. They smile. Mary hands Jesus to Joseph as she lays down in the back. Joseph gently hands Jesus back to her. The baby is awake but doesn't cry, just looks up with bright eyes. I look at Joseph and he nods and lays down beside his family in the back of the Honda.
"Careful," I say, as I gently close the hatchback shut. It latches. The baby still doesn't cry.
I get in the driver's seat and turn and look at them.
"OK?" I say.
"Si" say Joseph.
I look over at Annie and she mirrors the look in my eye. Slightly fearful but greatly excited to be helping this family. Mary, Joseph and Jesus in a CRX.
I stick it in first and off we go, all five of us in Annie's little white Honda.
None of us speak. It's tense in the car, not out of fear of each other but of fear of the Border Patrol. I'm thinking, 'I need to run the gauntlet if I can. I need to get them to Tucson. I don't know with who, but I need to get them out of this desert.' 'Goddamn Coyotes,' I think, 'I bet they just took their money and abandoned them out here. Christ, It's at least 50 miles to the border. How long have they been walking?' Then I think about the BP. 'If I get pulled over by the Border Patrol and I get arrested,then that's just too goddamn bad. I could give a flying fuck. I am getting these folk to Tucson if I can. Fuck the Border Patrol,' I think.
We have thousands of illegal aliens of many nationalities entering the United States across the Arizona-Mexico border. Many white descendants of immigrants hate these illegals. Many see them as taking jobs away from Americans, when in reality, Illegals are doing many jobs that no American, white, black or brown, want to do anymore, be it washing dishes in a restaurant in Texas, working housekeeping in our resorts in Arizona, and processing chickens in North Carolina. The best analogy I can think of is imagine that Canada was a country where anyone who crossed its border and worked hard, could make a million dollars in less than a year. That what it's like for Illegals here. Many come from Mexico where there is no middle class, only rich and poor. They can make enough money here to not only live on in the States, but send money back home to Grandma. America is truly the land of milk and honey to them.
Miles have past on the dirt road and we still drive silently. I light a smoke and crack my window so to let the smoke out. There is a baby in the car. I look at Annie and she seems OK. She appears to be in her own thoughts as well.
Then up ahead, I see where the dirt t-bones into the paved road. We'll just take a right here, drive North the ten miles to Sells, and then head East to Tucson. I pull up to the stop sign and look right then left. To the south I can see a car about a half a mile away, driving toward us and I have a very bad feeling. I throw the CRX into reverse and back up a hundred yards from the intersection and wait.
Less than a minute later, a Border Patrol Ford Expedition flies by on the paved road. I turn to Joseph, and I can see by his expression that he saw the truck too. Our eyes met. He knows. I know. I hate it. I look at Annie. She knows too. We all know that there is probably a checkpoint up ahead, and if we try and run the gauntlet, we'll get caught.
I get out of the car, and pop the hatchback, and help Joseph out. He takes Jesus from Mary, and then Mary climbs out of the Honda.
"I'm so sorry. So sorry. Border Patrol. I'm so sorry," I say over and over.
Joseph smiles and understands it seems. So does Mary. Jesus just looks at us with those beautiful brown eyes.
"Hold on," I say. "Wait here."
But Annie is already ahead of me. She is going through her red cooler bag, pulling out sodas and Balance bars, and all the food we have. We don't have much water to give them, but they appear to have half a half gallon of water left.
"Here," I say. "This is for you."
"For you", Annie says. "For you," handing Mary the food and drink.
We give them about six Balance bars, all of four of our sodas, some cheese, some grapes, everything we have to eat. It still doesn't feel like enough. I pull out my wallet and give them some cash too.
"I'm so sorry," I say again.
"Phoenix?" Joseph asks.
I point toward the north and say, "Phoenix."
"How far?" he asks.
"Far, very far. A hundred miles."
"One hundred?"
"Si, One hundred miles. Very far." I say.
I can see his wheels turning.
"Tucson, that way," pointing toward the northeast, past the Baboquevari Range. "Not so far. 50 miles or so."
"OK," he says, still thinking about what he'll do.
"Thank you, thank you very much," he says in his rough English.
"Thank you," Mary says, too.
"We are so sorry but we'll get caught. Border Patrol," I say, a very sad look on my face.
"Thank you," they say again.
"Is that all our food, Annie?" I say.
"That's it," she says.
"Ok, we're going. Good luck. Phoenix. Tucson." Pointing toward the distant cities.
"Gracias, gracias," they say again.
And Annie and I get back in her Honda and slowly drive to the intersection. I stop for the stop sign and look both ways. Nothing. I turn around and I see the family put our food in the plastic bags there are carrying. And they walk toward a small closed up building, perhaps looking for a water spiket to refill their bottles.
I feel terrible. Just awful. Leaving these wonderful people to the desert and to the Border Patrol.
"I hope they make it," I say to Annie.
"Me too." Giving my hand a squeeze as it rests on the gear shift knob.
I put it into gear and turn toward Sells.
"God damn, I hate leaving them, Annie, but we'll get caught and they'll get arrested and shipped back home. At least now they have a chance," I say.
"I hate it too. They are so beautiful, aren't they," she says.
"Absolutely beautiful. God, I hope they're OK. I hate this." I say.
We had only traveled about two miles when we come across the Border Patrol. Two large Expeditions parked on either side of the paved road. Watchful. Not a checkpoint, but they look hard at us as we drive by. If Mary, Jesus and Joseph had been in the car, they would have easily spotted them through the large glass of the hatchback. Annie and I know it was right to drop them off back there. We still hated it though. And are worried for them.
As we drive back to Tucson and chat, I feel so inadequate that I couldn't have done more. So angry at the Border Patrol that forces me to abandon a family in the desert. So afraid for the three of them. Past Sells, Arizona, we see a number of Illegals captured by the Border Patrol. A large white van with grates over the windows house the captured men and women. Three or Four government vehicles are around the van. Fuckers.
Annie and I arrived home in Tucson and we were changed. We have always been pro-immigration in the past, but now it has a human face on it. Three beautiful human faces.
Monday, the next day, I drive out after my day job to look for Mary, Joseph and Jesus. I go back to the intersection where we had left them. No sign. The sun is going down. I keep an eye to the desert away from the road as I drove back to Sells. No family. No sign. I knew they were probably deep in the desert or captured by the Border Patrol, but just on the outside chance, I had to come out and look for them. The Sun is yellow orange and almost down. No family. No anybody.
"Please God, take care of them. Please," I say out loud to myself.
"Please."
I wipe a tear from my right eye and drive home.