Hungry? Grab a Snickers.

During the 6th inning of the Women’s College World Series Championship game in 2005, I drive five-and-a-half blocks to a new pizza place in downtown Flagstaff. It is 6:20 p.m. and I’m driving west directly into pure afternoon sunlight. I notice that there are several people out and about on Phoenix Avenue, which is unusual; I am only able to see their silhouettes in the blinding sun. An extremely mellow (and dare I say perfect) Letters to Cleo song is playing. I slowly cross San Francisco, Leroux and Beaver Streets. In the glaring sunlight, I am unable to see which storefront is the pizza place; they have apparently retired their 7” by 5” plastic banner for a permanent and more refined sign that reads “Old World Pizza.” I make a U-turn in defiance of the sun; as the mellow LTC song ends, I roll into a parking spot near the curb just in front of the door. Perfect timing.

One of those sunlit figures on Phoenix had a mohawk, and I notice that he was walking to the same destination as I when I passed him. He enters first and I set my car alarm, immediately feeling like a Yippie.

Upon walking in, I see that the old Italian owner is talking to Mohawk-Man. They seem to know each other. I suppose Mohawk-Man is a “regular.” I quietly wait until he calls on me to tell him I am there for my house-specialty. The owner notices that I am paying with a five and several ones. He comments that I must be a waitress. I state that I drive a cab. Both men pause to look at me and consider what I have revealed.

I sit next to Mohawk-Man as he crosses one tattooed leg over the other and reads a magazine. The owner then quizzes me on my cab-driving profession; how long have I been driving, do I like it and so on. I am stoned and a little buzzed off Fat Tire and begin talking…a lot. Mohawk-Man agrees with me at some point on some issue and puts his magazine down to utter a few simple words of agreement. I look outside to my left at all of the objects beyond the windows shrouded in a golden afternoon. I hear DaRude’s “Sandstorm” playing from a radio in the kitchen and smile to myself, recalling an early Sunday afternoon several years back when four friends and I crashed through a chain-link fence in downtown Houston in a brand new Ford Mustang while dancing to that particular song.

The owner brings me my pizza and at the last minute smiles, placing a free Snickers candy bar atop the steaming box. It is our free dessert. I am happy.

I walk out the door and into the soft glow of a warm Summer Flagstaff afternoon. (Flagstafternoon?) I turn the key in the ignition and smile as a new LTC song comes on and the aromas of fresh pizza dance around me.

A Party

The setting: a dingy old kitchen with a bunch of hippies – genuine hippies, the real deal: San Francisco in the ‘60s, opium, crystals and later, Dungeons and Dragons. One of them (who always wears cut off denim shorts, tie-dyed shirts and water-shoes) has a snake wrapped around his neck; the snake’s name is Atrocha – she’s beautiful and shiny and looks like she’s been oiled in the light. The stale smells of smoke, patchouli, and body odor linger in the air, tickling your nostrils and clogging your pores. You are attending a birthday party, where 10 or 12 people have convened to discuss the ways in which they are each better than the others. Pomp and Circumstance would fit in with this crowd much more appropriately than any graduation. The birthday boy has turned 53 and comments that no one has touched the box of wine he brought. You notice a box of Bergundy sitting atop the non-functioning dishwasher on which you are leaning. A smart-but-insanely-insecure hippie to your left remarks that no one has touched his champagne either. The tall dark and skinny hippie with the snake exclaims (in an attempt at humor) that no one has touched the heroine either. This comment is followed by silence but eventually yields uncomfortable laughter. After a few quiet seconds, the smart-but-insanely-insecure hippie, who does not care for snake-man, counters with his rebuttal: But has anyone touched the hero?

Hippie Gear

One early Saturday afternoon I found myself in a peculiar setting in the corner room of a rental house with an older hippie woman who had hairy legs and armpits and wore a long skirt, a tank top and no bra. I had met her and her husband at our favorite pub the night before and offered to help them move the following day. In the midst of packing boxes into a U-Haul, she and I later shared a smoke while a big, fluffy black cat played in a pile of shredded paper stuffed into a black trash-bag nearby. Sunlight streamed through the east- and south-facing windows, and healthy green sprigs of a hanging plant danced in the rays of light. I sat on top of a pillow, surrounded by boxes of crystals. We smoked as she talked about chakras and blessing her new house, calling in the “Goddess” to come whenever she wants and make herself comfortable.

Among a pile of books I spied a worn paperback called “The Tales of Neveryon,” the cover of which depicted a tall, dark and handsome male, scantily clad and wielding his “dagger” to save a young mistress. It was a book I knew I would never read.

Other fat cats with names like Rufus and Gandolf lazily sauntered through the nearly empty halls of the house they were about to vacate. I felt high and a little odd as this woman began to show me the costumes she has created for various festivals celebrating science fiction, fantasy and the Renaissance. The costumes, I daresay, were lovely, made of flowing fabrics that must feel like Heaven when wrapped around the female form. She has made skirts, petticoats, tunics, bustiers, headdresses and staffs covered with velvet, crystals, metallic fabrics and silks. She was very excited to show each piece to me and I was happy to see each new installment.

She became increasingly excited as she went to a closet in the back room and brought down a large box, roughly 24”x18”x8”. She opened the lid to a top layer of egg-crate foam, which she gingerly lifted to reveal an ornate black and silver headdress; its width spanned the entire box. It was marvelous – a black mask with dangly silver beads, a quartz crystal in the center of the forehead, black feathers and gemstones. She was so proud, so delicate with it, and proceeded to hold it to her face and dance a little from side to side. It was a strange moment, yet I soaked in every silent detail.

She then tucked the headdress away, back in the box, kissed her finger and touched it in a last goodbye, muttering “Bye baby.” She replaced the green egg-crate foam and closed the box and placed it into the closet.

Though I could identify with few, if any, of these things that brought her such joy, I felt connected to her willingness to be herself so boldly and wholeheartedly.

On a cold and rainy winter morning I walk to the post office in downtown Flagstaff. It’s only about a four-block walk from “the Brothel,” which we’ve amiably coined our 123-year-old apartment house located just shy of the “right” side of the tracks. Milky clouds hang low in the gray sky, masking the Peaks just north of town. Streets and sidewalks glisten as though freshly painted with a clear polish; raindrops descend from the awnings of shops and restaurants still asleep. As usual, shady characters loiter near the mission and outside of the hostels. I walk alone on the sidewalk, stepping around puddles and patches of sludgy ice.

Damp cigarette butts and orange peels litter the tracks, which smell of grease and metal. I step over the slick tracks, this “I-Spy” wonderland full of bloated and rusty objects.

Downtown is awakening: shopkeepers step out for last cigarettes before unmasking OPEN signs; it’s difficult to discern between the plumes of smoke and frosty condensation expelled from their mouths. None of them makes eye contact with me; I am invisible to them in the last precious moments before the workday begins. I clutch my letters and stare at the sidewalk, inhaling deep breaths of fresh, damp air, and admire the beautiful decay hidden in the gutters and alleyways.

The post office is unusually still and quiet for a Saturday morning. I admire the vintage post boxes and wonder how many tired, grubby hands have worked their combinations over the years. I collect the usual bills, a package, a catalogue and a bona fide letter from a college friend in anticipation for my walk back through the chilly, wet comfort of this little mountain town I’ve come to call home.

Neo-hippies emerge from beater cars splattered with political bumper stickers; two bleary-eyed Native Americans stumble across Route 66 and San Francisco Street. Both are wearing black athletic pants and faded black hoodies, bloodshot eyes staring through me as we pass on the polished walkway. Two others go separate ways further down the street, one shouting obscenities to no one as the other panhandles a large white man in a blaze orange ski jacket.

A train charges past, its horn loud and abrasive yet comforting. A rush of air washes over my face, my cold cheeks. My thighs burn from the frigid air and exercise as I patiently wait for the train to pass. My senses are alive and I feel refreshed. I grasp my armful of mail, carefully tracing a finger over the brown paper package in anticipation of its surprises.