I wake to a drumbeat, manic chanting. Open my eyes only to shut them again because it’s too bright. And hot. I’m lying alone naked on the ground in what appears to be some sort of Native American sweat lodge.
The walls and concaved ceilings are made from the hides of animals, but the late afternoon desert sun pours through the hides like blood. I’m spitting and shaking, tasting my body rising up through the heat.
The hide opens and an Indian approaches.
“You’re going through natural detox,” he says, “you’ll be fine in a few weeks.”
I try to stay strong but all I want is a hit of heroine. The Indian is wearing a headdress full of feathers and except for being barefoot he’s covered with an animal skin. He walks out into the midday sun. My hippie sister has kidnapped me. I’m living amongst the goddamn Indians in an Arizona sweat lodge.
Playing connect the dots with the track marks on my arm, I gather enough evidence and strength to rise to my feet. Trembling, I collapse back onto the warm dirt. Next thing I know there’s a yellow illumination in the air and I can see the giant moon gleaming like an interminable beacon through the open animal flap.
Crawling across the cool dirt, sand and pebbles, I encounter a half dozen scorpions feeding on the severed head of a strange animal. One of them is poking its stinger and claws out through the eyeball.
Rattlesnakes are dancing in the distance to the rattle of an Indian’s homemade tambourine. Dancing Indians and instruments, old men smoking painted wooden pipes around a fire blazing below the head of a pig.
“Eat my son,” they tell me.
The young ones help me to my feet, leading me to a log beside the fire. I can taste the chemicals in their lungs, but they won’t let me hold their pipes. The beat of the drum becomes frantic and dancing makes the ground shake and the rattlesnakes strike venison. The moon becomes overcast by the clouds and a blue breeze blows over the fire.
“The food is good, the fast is finished,” the chief says, bringing me a plate of pig and chicken to feast on. The chief covers me with a blanket of fur.
The roasting porker has a melting orange in his mouth and a calm-eyed smile. The music rages in symphony with the lightening striking the White Mountains, miles and miles away. My eardrums are hurting, my bladder is bursting, I’m thirsty and I can’t eat my pig because my arm is shaking. My ass is vibrating against the bark on the log and the chief is smoking and then freedom, nothing but thunder.
I wonder where my sister is. Figure she must be punch drunk naked inside one of the other sweat lodges.
“You’ve come here to get better. We found you lying in the desert with a poisonous plant. You thought it was peyote. You idiot. You were foaming at the mouth.”
“Where’s my sister?” I ask.
“Where is your spirit son?” the chief asks.
The rattlesnakes are being led toward the fire by a drunk with a stick. “That’s Stormy Fires,” Chief tells me. Chief says, “He had a problem with drugs once he left the reservation. We made him better.”
“He still drinks,” I say, “and the snakes.”
“Yes, but the alcohol connects him with the rattlers and the desert. He brings us good fortune and the snakes follow him to prosperity. He brings prosperity to us. The casino thrives when he dances with snakes.”
An owl is sitting on top of a saguaro, staring at me with orange eyes poking through a humongous tilted head. The moon breaks free from the clouds and just as the full moon frees itself from its blanket the Indians stick their pipes in the fire and as the moon becomes larger and brighter the men hold the elements in their lungs for the longest time, blocking out the moon for a minute before making it blurry.
I eat like a pig and drink cold water from a well. My flesh is burning and my body aches. Scorpions crawl toward the fire and the rattlesnakes taunt them for a spot within the log where we sit. Enchanted, I feel free and dance around the fire.
Orange flickers in my eyes as I dive inside the flames and wonder why they’re watching me, shaking their heads, just sitting there. Pig fat drips like raindrops into my eyes. I snort the juices up my nose and it tastes so good and the fire feels like home.
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©2010 Matthew Dexter
Matthew Dexter lives and writes in Mexico. He will also probably die in Mexico. This lunatic has been known to eat tacos and drink beer in Cabo San Lucas. He belongs in an insane asylum.
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