Roark has swerved onto the old road from Tucson to Phoenix, the one none of us out-of-towners even knew existed. For as long as we’ve been stuck in this desert, the only thoroughfare connecting these two outposts was Interstate 10, the belt of asphalt that rolls through farmland and mesas and nowhere towns called Red Rock and Eloy and Sacaton and gets you to the brighter lights of the sprawl in about two hours, or one hundred eighteen miles. “The old road probably takes an extra hour,” he tells us, “but it’s worth it to do something different every now and then.”
We’re OK with different. Mike is riding shotgun and he’s on an eighth of mushrooms. He’s silent, staring out the window as the cactus zoom past, giggling at the sky from time to time. Marty’s next to me in the back. We’re passing a joint back and forth, waiting for the perfect moment to fuck with Mike. The four of us are headed to the park that boasts the tallest fountain in the world, a big, fake geyser that erupts every hour in a big, fake city where we can drink cans of beer all day long before tagging along with Roark and his high school friends to a party in a place they call Paradise Valley.
Roark’s car is a white T-bird with blinking blue neon lights underneath the doors and a Surfer Bob hanging ten on the dashboard. His white, furry steering wheel cover looks like a sheepdog that needs a bath. Behind us, by the rear window, sit four of Roark’s baseball caps, lined up so other cars can see that he’s a fan of the Phoenix Suns, the University of Arizona, U2 and the Chicago Cubs.
George Michael is playing on the radio and nobody’s saying a word about it because nobody wants to admit that he likes it. Marty and I have our plan. Roark rolls down the window to cash a pipe and I grab all four of the ballcaps and stick them on the floor by Marty’s feet. Marty slaps me on the leg, swallows his grin, and screams, “Roark, all your hats just flew out the window!”
Roark pumps the brakes, spins onto the dusty shoulder and guns the car to eighty going the other way. A hitchhiker with a Jesus beard and a vacant stare appears to our right. “Hey,” Roark says, pointing to the wanderer and slowing down again. “Maybe he’s seen the hats!” Marty and I can’t hold our laughter anymore, so I pick up the caps and throw them into the front. Roark nods and turns into the other shoulder, turning around again. Mike doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, but we know we’ll talk about this gag for years.
I’m not paying attention as we roll into the town of Florence, but Roark changes the music to N.W.A., rolls down the tinted windows and blasts the bass as if we’re cruising Crenshaw on a Friday night. I look out the window. In the distance I see barbed wire stretching for blocks. Men in orange suits are out in a field beyond the shining rings of jagged steel. They’re walking, filing into their cliques. Some are playing basketball closer to the big building, and the ones closest to the fence are looking at Roark’s pimpmobile, tracking every inch of its loud crawl.
“This is the Arizona State Prison,” Roark says, as if it means nothing to him. “This is where they do all the executions in the state. There are some bad motherfuckers here. And they’re right over there.” He points, and I wonder what the inmates would do to that finger if they got a hold of it.
I duck down to take another hit off the joint, not wanting to rub it in in front of our new audience. Feeling the fresh high mixed with the electric surge of adrenaline, I imagine arranging with the state of Arizona to be incarcerated for a year. They’ll conjure up a good story for me, something to give me instant cred in the yard, like I caught my girlfriend in bed with the Herbalife salesman, ran to the shed, grabbed the samurai sword my parents had brought back from Japan, and sliced their heads and arms off with it, storing all the parts in the basement freezer, until a month later, while I was fishing in the Keys, when the power went out in my house and the neighbors picked up on the stench. The feds grabbed me in Islamorada and hauled my unrepentant, defiant ass back here to Florence, where I wait for the gas chamber.
It’ll be the book of the century, the one nobody ever had the balls to write. I’ll take my meticulous notes only late at night, when I know my death row brothers won’t suspect a thing. I’ll probably have to start smoking. I might need to get a tattoo or two. And who knows what will happen to me? Who knows how my life will be altered by the experience? Who knows how famous I’ll become as a result of this enormous risk? I figure it’s not the best idea to tell the other guys about this bold undertaking right now. They won’t understand. They’ll just think I’m being weird.
“Let’s get closer,” Roark says, and he makes a U-turn to head back in the other direction on Diversion Dam Road so we’re right up against the fence. Now the inmates are flocking to get a look at us, and I want to roll the window up but Roark has it locked.
One fat bald white guy looks asleep on his feet, but he’s squeezing the rungs of the fence with outstretched arms. Roark turns up the bass even louder. A tall, skinny black dude grabs the fence and shakes it hard. I can hear the rattle, even above Eazy-E. I count the rest of them. There are eighteen more, and they’re doing nothing but staring at us staring at them.
Roark pulls away, coasting through a green light that will take us back to the old highway, through Queen Creek and up to our weekend of fun. I spin around to take one more look, and only one prisoner remains. It’s the fat bald white guy. He’s flipping us off.
***
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