Mojave 733-9969
by
John Gibson
All rights reserved
Copyright 2014 by John Gibson
‘Jesus Christ! Can you not even read a fucking map!’he exclaimed reaching over and snatching the Rand McNally California Road Atlas out of her hands.
Stephanie Tyler made no reply, she simply turned her head away and stared fixedly out of the side window. There was nothing to see but scrubby brown desert, it stretched away to the distant horizon where the jagged saw-tooth mountains of the Mescal Range delineated the boundary between land and sky. She was starting to regret having agreed to this trip. It had been her husband’s idea of course, another of his little hare-brained schemes. Though in fairness, it had sounded like it might be fun.
They’d set off from their home in Modesto that morning. George had been in high spirits, singing along with the likes of Charlie Daniels and Billy Ray Cyrus as they’d cruised along the Golden State Highway with the radio tuned to KKGO (‘Go Country 105’).
It had all been pleasant enough at first, fun even. They’d stopped for lunch at a nice little Italian place in Bakersfield before pushing on to Mojave National Park. It had even been tolerable when they’d turned off the highway onto the twin-lane black-top of the Cima Road. But for the last ten miles they’d been bumping along an unpaved dusty single-lane track.
She’d banged her head on the ceiling countless times as they lurched along the pot-holed and rutted lane. The constant joggling motion of the car was making her feel sick and the air-conditioning was failing to keep pace with the ninety-degree heat outside. And now, to top it all, they were lost. Tempers were beginning to fray.
George tossed the map back onto her lap and then rammed the gear-shift into reverse. She was thrown around like a rag-doll, the seat belt dug painfully into her shoulder and hips, as the Land Cruiser bounced backwards along the furrowed track. After about twenty yards he stood on the brakes and they skidded to a halt.
‘There!’ he shouted, pointing at sign by the side of the road, ‘Are you fucking blind?’
It was a single wooden board, about two-foot square, weathered and splintered at he edges. It was nailed to a post by the side of the road and it bore the legend ‘VALLEY VIEW RANCH ROAD’ in faded and peeling letters. Next to it, running off to the right at an angle, was another track, even narrower and more pot-holed than the one they were on.
‘You told me I was looking for a road!’ she replied sulkily.
George didn’t reply, he simply yanked the car into first and they lurched off along the new track.
They bounced along the new road in silence for a while.
‘Why don’t I just leave him?’ she asked herself, and not for the first time. She turned her head to look at him. He was fifty-two years old and weighed about three-hundred pounds. His not insubstantial beer-belly spilled out over the waist-band of his faded blue Levi’s. He wore a black tee-shirt sporting the legend God Bless America, the stars and stripes stretched tight across his paunch, and a UCLA baseball cap to hide his ever-growing bald spot. ‘UCLA,’ she thought, ‘that’s a laugh!’ The closest he’d ever got to further education had been a twelve-week night-school course on car workshop, and he’d dropped out of that half-way through.
She hated him! Oh sure, there were times when they tolerated each other,times when they were civil to each other, there were even times when he was nice to her. But not very often. Usually he was bad-tempered, loud-mouthed, arrogant, domineering and abusive. Sometimes physically abusive.
Oh yes, she hated him alright. Hated his fat, beer swilling, gun toting, republican voting, red-neck ass! And she hated his taste in music too. KKGO fuck yourself!’she thought! She reached over and turned off the radio, cutting off Tammy Wynette in mid warble.
‘What the fuck d’ you do that for!’ he demanded angrily, snapping his head around to stare at her in disbelief.
‘It’s giving me a headache,’ she replied plaintively.
He made no reply, he simply reached over and switched it back on. Then he wound up the volume.
She turned away from him and watched the desert joggle past the window as Tammy once more enjoined her to stand by her man.
‘Why don’t I leave him’ she asked herself again. She could do it, she had money now, she was a woman of independent means. Her father had died just over three years ago and, since her mother had predeceased him and she was an only child, she’d been the sole beneficiary of his will. The town house in Boston had sold quickly and the money had gone straight into her private bank account, her account mind you, not the joint. George had had big plans for her new found wealth, there’d been talk of expensive holidays and new cars, even a speedboat, but she’d told him no. The money was staying in her account ‘for a rainy day’. He hadn’t liked that, hadn’t liked it one little bit. He’d been furious, livid in fact. He’d fumed and ranted, he’d threatened and cajoled but ultimately there’d been nothing much he could do about it. It had been one of the few times in their thirty-two-year marriage that she’d stood up to him, and in the end she’d won the day. She now had nearly a quarter of a million dollars in her savings account.
That was it then, her mind was made up, she really didn’t know why she hadn’t done it before now. She supposed that there’d always been some reason, some excuse anyway. At first she’d told herself that she loved him. Then, when that wouldn’t wash anymore, she’d told herself that he loved her, that he’d be devastated if she left. Finally she’d told herself that they had to stay together for the sake of Jason, their son. But Jason was twenty-six-years-old now, he owned his own internet company out in Seattle, and she knew that he’d welcome her with open arms. He’d left home at eighteen specifically to get away from his father.
So here it was, the decision was made, she’d tell him now. He could drop her in Barstow, she’d rent a car and drive up to Vegas. She could spend a few days relaxing by the pool at the Bellagio or at Caesar’s Palace, then she’d fly up to Seattle to see her son. Maybe the two of them could go to Europe together, she’d always wanted to see it.
‘George,’ she said,swivelling around in her seat to face him, ‘I want a divo-’
‘There it is!’ he exclaimed excitedly, cutting her off mid-sentence. He’d taken one hand from the wheel and was using it to point at something up ahead.
She followed his gaze, struggling to focus through the dusty wind-shield of the violently jouncing car. At first she saw nothing but after a few seconds she spotted it. About a mile ahead of them, running perpendicularly to the road and stretching off into the distance on each side of it, stood a line of wooden telegraph poles. This was the cause of George’s sudden fervour. It was what they’d trekked all the way out here for.
‘Oh well,’ she thought. Suddenly it no longer seemed the right time. She’d tell him on the way back, when they got to Barstow. Probably.
The Mojave Desert Phone Booth. That was what he’d dragged her all the way out here to see. It was a phenomenon, an internet sensation. The story went something like this: A couple of years before some guy had been looking at aerial photos of the dessert on Google, like you do, when he’d noticed something. A small square structure in the middle of nowhere. On further investigation it turned out to be a phone booth. Apparently it had been put there back in 1948 at the request of the owner of the nearby Cima Cinder Mine and it had stood there ever since. The guy was intrigued so he drove out there to take a look. And sure enough there it was, a fully functioning telephone booth in the middle of the Mojave desert. So he goes back home and writes a story about it which gets published online and in some of the more tawdry journals. The next thing you know the whole thing goes viral. People start calling the booth, people from all over the world, and other
people, saddo’s she would have called them, started dragging their sorry asses all the way out there just to answer those calls.
Except now of course she was the saddo. George had learned about it on the internet and she had to admit it, her curiosity had been piqued when he’d told her about it. Last weekend he’d suddenly announced his intention to come out here and take a look, and she’d told him she wanted in. She’d thought that it sounded like it could be fun, an adventure even, and Christ alone knew there was little enough of that in her life.
They’d come up on a T-junction now. The line of telegraph poles they’d seen earlier ran along the side of another narrow dirt road, no less rutted and bumpy than the one they were on. About two-hundred-yards along it on the right-hand side stood the phone booth.
It stood on a square concrete plinth in a clearing by the side of the road and there was something it about it that she didn’t like, something about it that seemed wrong. For a start it seemed too new, too shiny. Its brushed-steel exterior gleamed in the bright desert sunlight and the blue and white Pacific Bell logo over the door looked like it was brand new. ‘Had this thing really been here for over sixty years?’ she wondered.
George pulled off the road and parked up along side the