The Furious Five

            by Paul Navarrete

 

Somewhere east of Los Angeles is the town of Twentynine Palms, and somewhere east of Twentynine Palms there is our small, flat bungalow. The little house is sleek in design, modern, weird. It has portholes and bubble windows and is asymmetrical. It is a frosty blue, with Simone’s orange paintings all over it. We have a mail box in which Simone has planted some succulent which pours out the opening. Our house is at the base of a little hill, and we share the hill’s shade with the oldest Joshua tree in the world.

            The house is cooled during the day and heated at night by five space heaters, which have fans too. Simone has glued pictures of planets, spaceships, and aliens onto them.

            “Space heater,” says Simone, her hands forming the live long and prosper sign, her head band pushed over her eyes. It cracks me up every time.

            Simone and I were married last September, and after a honeymoon of National Park visits in Alaska, we moved to the high desert so I could be closer to Joshua Tree National Park, where I am a ranger. Simone usually stays home and makes art, which she sometimes sells but usually keeps.

           

            Tonight is the lunar eclipse. I am sprawled out on a blanket with Simone and Boomer, our Bernese mountain dog. The sun has set, but there is still that dim light of dawn and dusk. The sunset, as usual, was terrific: the desert sky glowed with more colors than ever, oranges, purples, reds, pinks – all combined without mixing, without becoming brown. Several hours have passed now, and the sky is dominated by the moon, which looks like it’s been stabbed, and is slowly being covered in blood. First just a corner of the moon is dark red, so that it seems like a trick of the eye, but gradually the whole moon becomes eclipsed before the shining white light starts to pour out again.   

           

 

We didn’t get home again until after three that night. The house looked perfectly normal, with the shiny walls reflecting the white-again moon. But Boomer must have sniffed something, because he trotted to the front door, stopped, and then ran a lap around the house. He waited for us at the door, and jumped up to put his front paws on my shoulders.

            Somebody was sitting at our kitchen table. He must have been at least six-five standing up. He had a tattoo of praying hands on his neck, which was just visible through his thick stubble. He was wearing a poncho, and eating a sandwich.

            “Who’s that dude?” Simone whispered.

            “I’m Jackie Chan,” he said.

            “No, you’re not.” He definitely wasn’t Jackie Chan.

            “No, I’m not.”

            “What are you eating?”

            He held up his sandwich.

            “B.L.T.”

            Boomer calmly sniffed the man’s ankles. Simone sat down across from him at the table. Since we only have the two chairs, I occupied myself by washing the pan he had used to fry his bacon.

            “I like the space heaters. Those are cool.”

            “Thanks.”

            “You guys are probably wondering what I’m doing in your weird house. I came to see the oldest Joshua tree in the world. That’s it outside, right? But I got hungry, so I came inside and made myself a sandwich. I hope you don’t mind. In fact, do you think I could sleep on that couch tonight?”

            He pointed to our dilapidated couch, which is draped with quilts.

            “I guess so. It folds out.”

            “Thanks, guys, really. I’ll probably be gone before you wake up.”

            And he went to bed.

            “What do you think of him?” I asked Simone when we finally got to bed.

            “Well, clearly he’s a little out there. Who comes to see the tree in the middle of the night? But he seems fine, and he said he’d be gone in the morning. Besides, what do we have for anyone to steal?”

            She had a point. I drifted off to sleep easily enough, and had a dream where I was fighting ninjas with Jackie Chan. Every time he punched someone he shook his hand, winced, and then winked at me. Even in the dream it made me a little bit uncomfortable.

 

            We woke up the next morning to find another frying pan full of bacon grease. Our guest was gone, and it looked like we’d missed him by at least an hour.

            “George,” said Simone, “the space heaters are missing.”

 

            The space heaters, which Simone and I have affectionately nicknamed “The Furious Five”, had lasted through constant blasting during the year or so we’d spent in the Mojave. Three for the kitchen, bathroom, and living room, respectively, and two for our bedroom. Without them we would certainly fry by day and freeze by night. Aside from their practical use, they mean quite a lot to Simone. She was planning to make a great pyramid of space heaters, all covered with extraterrestrial collages, all facing the same direction. At the flip of some master switch, all the heaters would turn on, and blast an other-worldly heat.

           

I was sitting at the information desk of Joshua Tree National Park’s northernmost visitor’s center when he came in. His golden hair was tied back into a ponytail, and his cargo pants were zipped off so that they became cargo shorts. He wore white tube socks, hiking boots, and a sweaty t-shirt whose sleeves had been cut off. The t-shirt had iron-on lettering which read “It’s Never Dull in Duluth”.

            “My name’s Rick, and I’m looking for a Gila monster.”

            “Well, you’re more likely to find one east of here, especially in Arizona. They don’t come to Joshua Tree much.”

            “Did you know that their saliva can treat type two diabetes?”

            He pronounced it “diabeetis”. I would have said “diabeetees”.

            “I did know that,” I said.

            “Well, my mom’s got the diabetes, and she doesn’t like needles, so I better get some Gila spit.”

            “So you’re hunting a Gila monster?”

            “Unless I can get it to spit into a bucket.”

            I wasn’t in the mood to tell Rick of course he couldn’t hunt a Gila monster in a national park. Besides, this was just about the most interesting conversation I’d had at the visitor’s center; the few questions I got were usually about directions to the Grand Canyon.

            “It won’t be easy to catch one, Rick. There aren’t many, even in Arizona.”

            “I’m a tracker. A bounty hunter. I’ll be just fine.”

            “You’re a bounty hunter?”

            “Yeah. Got anything that needs to be hunted down?”

            “How about a tall man with a tattoo on his neck and five stolen space heaters?”

 

            I came home to find Simone soaking in a tub of cold water, cutting and folding paper to make snowflakes. She told me that thinking of snowflakes helped cool her down. She told me she wouldn’t last another week in the high desert without the space heaters.

            “I’ve been in an oven all day, George, and as soon as the sun goes down, it’s going to become an igloo.”

            “I found someone who can track down the space heaters.”

            “I hope it’s not Boomer.”

            “No, it’s not. It’s not Boomer. It’s Rick Mongoose.”

           

After all the gold was gone from our Mojave sky, the house became an igloo, just as Simone had predicted. We gathered every blanket in the house: tattered quilts, worn fleece, the comforter we received as a wedding present, and a couple of tablecloths; we got in bed with Boomer, and tried to get some sleep. Simone joked that nobody needs a space heater when they have a Bernese mountain dog between them, but we both recognized that we were stuck in a poorly insulated house in the middle of the fiercest of climates, and unless Rick Mongoose had some magic up his sleeve, we’d soon be done for.

 

 There he stood, facing the kitchen counter, upon which the toaster lay on its side. He wore a catcher’s mitt and mask, and his hand was outstretched, waiting to catch. And then there was a click and a flash and he was taking toast out of the mitt. Rick fucking Mongoose.

“How did you make it do that?”

“Do what?” Crumbs fell to his sandaled feet.

“Shoot out like that.”

“I turned it sideways.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t usually shoot straight up, you know, when the toaster’s upright.”

“You know. Gravity.”

“O.K.”

“Rick Mongoose?” Simone came in, yawning, her huge Misfits t-shirt flaring out around her knees.

She took some ice out of the freezer, wrapped it a dish towel, and tied it around her head. Little beads of sweat and water rolled down her checks, down her neck, and then disappeared from sight.

“Do you guys want one?”

I let Simone tie my ice-thing on. What would I do without her?

“So, are you guys coming?” asked Rick, already out the door, Boomer on his heels.

We followed Rick outside. There was a Gila monster draped across the back of his hatchback. It was a big one, about three feet long, held in place with bungee cords. It lay on its back, so that its small head dangled over the ground. A long arrow was stuck straight into the beast’s heart, its feather unruffled by the stillness of the desert. Rick got in the car, and the rest of us followed: Simone and Boomer in the back, Rick and me up front.

“Where are we going?” I asked him.

“Well, he can’t have gotten far, with no car and five space heaters. So let’s just drive west and see what happens.”

The air conditioning felt great. Its refreshing cold blast silenced us all, even Simone and Boomer, who are usually talkative. We followed a dirt road through cacti and Joshua trees, the sun directly overhead, probably melting our Gila monster. Rick drove fast but well, more determined than I expected him to be. There had been no talk of payment, and I wondered if Rick was a bounty hunter at all, or if he had just shot the Gila monster for the fun of it, and needed a new adventure. There was no wariness in his eyes; no sigh of frustration or furrowed brow. Rick didn’t think this was the stupidest fucking thing he’d ever done.

We stopped for lunch at a sandwich stand in Twentynine Palms. Simone wiped mayonnaise off my chin and I told her about the Bighorn Sheep I’d seen at work the other day. Rick fumbled with maps and compasses and darts. Boomer took a nap in the car. After lunch, Rick asked the owner of the sandwich place if he’d seen anybody heaving five space heaters around. He showed the guy a picture he’d drawn of our assailant, which was based on my physical descriptions. Rick wasn’t much of an artist; the eyes were too close together, the nose too broad, the ears too big. I suggested to Simone that she might be able to draw something less primatial, but she didn’t want to offend Rick. I think she was a little bit scared of him.

Just as we left Twentynine Palms to head further west, a siren cried out into the Mojave air. Rick said “Shit! Cops!” and pulled over.

“One thing I don’t love about the desert: nowhere to lose the fuzz,” he told us.

We sat in the car, waiting for the sheriff or deputy or whatever a cop in the desert is called. I wished I was in the back seat with Simone and Boomer, so I’d look less like an accomplice.

“What have we got on the car here?” said the cop.

“A Gila monster,” said Rick.

“What did you kill it with?”

“A huge arrow.”

“Right. And why did you kill it?”

“I needed its saliva to treat my mother’s type two diabetes.”

The policeman had to think about that one.

“Well,” he concluded after a minute or two, “Just be careful where you point those huge arrows.”

“O.K.” said Rick.

“Officer,” I said. “You wouldn’t have happened across a man with five space heaters in tow? With a tattoo on his neck? Of praying hands?”

I noticed Rick’s temple twitching. I could sense his disappointment.

“Actually, I did see a guy pushing a wheelbarrow full of something. Could have been space heaters. He was heading out of town, east, towards the Park.”

Rick’s face fell as the cop walked back towards his motorcycle.

“I guess I’ll just take you guys home, and we’ll pass him on the way,” he said. “I was going to keep going west. Some bounty hunter.”

“Rick, you’ve been great!” said Simone, her voice flooded with earnestness. “You killed that Gila monster. That was amazing! And it’s going to save your mom, right?”

“I sure hope so, Simone,” said Rick. He fought back tears. “I sure hope so.”

 

 

The sun was setting as we drove back home. With the darkness came the cold, and Simone had fallen asleep in the backseat, huddled with Boomer for warmth. Rick and I kept our eyes peeled for the man who went by Jackie. I still hadn’t gotten used to that quiet desert eeriness: after the sun went down, there was only the fan of dim light from the car, the dull drone of the engine, and the occasional coyote call. Even though the man we were hunting had seemed pretty harmless, I was glad to have a man at my side who was the shit with a bow and arrow. Finally our blue bungalow came into view, our mailbox stuffed with green, and of course the world’s oldest Joshua tree. Either the cop had been wrong, or the wheelbarrow was full of not space heaters, or this elusive thief had wandered into the desert, untraceable. All I wanted was to get into bed, heaters or no. I roused Simone and Boomer.

“Home sweet home,” mumbled Simone sleepily.

We got out of the car, and I hurried to the front door with my wife and my dog and my new friend the bounty hunter, all of us freezing in the dry desert air. It felt like the sun had gone out, not just set, and we were trapped in the few seconds of survival before the freeze. If we could just get inside…

“Wait,” said Rick. He put his ear up to the door. He sniffed the doorknob. “There’s somebody in there.”

He pulled a blowgun out of his vest pocket, loaded it, and motioned for us to follow him in.

The door swung open, and we were met with heat: hotter than the sun, an other-worldly heat, smelling of electricity, pouring out of a pyramid of space heaters, our space heaters, the Furious Five, blasting, blasting, warming, blasting.