TALES OF THE SOUTHWEST: SPELLS, LOVE POTIONS, SEEING DEAD PEOPLE AND SUCH

              By Grant McGee

  

                

                 I once got an email from an old friend asking a favor.  Seems she was looking for a way to win back a guy who’d broken up with her.  She was wondering if, in my travels or amongst my friends, I knew anyone who knew how to cast love spells.

                The fact is I have a relative who believes in such things:  Casting spells, being visited by “spirits,” seeing dead people.  I didn’t think I ought to put them in touch with each other.

 “Well,” I wrote back, “I think you should just put it to the Universe.  Go someplace private….just you and speak out loud.  Ask for him back and see what happens.  I wouldn’t mess with spells, you may be altering Karma.”

                I never did want to cast a spell on someone.  Oh, alright, I kicked it around once or twice.  Alright, maybe three times or four.  When all was said and done I thought it wouldn’t be such a good idea.  It seems to me you’d just be asking for trouble.  I’m a firm believer in Karma, also known as “What goes around comes around” or as its written in The Good Book in Galatians, “…for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”

                See it seems as natural to me that if you cast a spell on someone that you’d better watch your back because that energy is liable to come back around and smack you in the ass.

I’ve seen “what goes around comes around” exact a toll on those who didn’t watch their actions in life.  I must confess there have been times I’ve seen karma come around on some folks who were mean to others and I thought, “See?”

Anyway, days later the friend wrote back and said she was going to forego spell casting and let nature take its course. 

I was glad.  Bad Karma is kind of like bicycle grease:  No matter how hard you scrub it’s tough to get off.

-30-

APPALACHIAN TALES: ENCOUNTERS WITH RATS

By Grant McGee

            A friend was talking about his encounter with a giant rat in an alleyway in a big ol’ American city.  He said it was huge, it probably could have had a toy poodle for a snack the way he described it. 

            I first heard of giant rats from my dad.  He worked in hotels in some big cities.  When we lived in New York City I heard him telling my mom about the hotel’s maintenance crew having to board up nooks and crannies deep in the bowels of building to keep out “rats as big as cats.”  These things sounded vicious.  But not as vicious as the rats my buddy Catfish told me about when I was in high school.

            “Those clubs down in the bad part of town,” he said.  “There’s big guys at the door and they have rats on leashes.  They’re as big as bulldogs.”

            I listened with wide-eyed amazement.  Catfish was my best pal, so I believed every word he said.  It turns out Catfish was a teller of tall tales.  Okay, he was a flat-out liar, but he sure could tell a good story.  He told everything with such authority and conviction I had no idea he was fibbing.   As I got older I continued to believe people who talked with strength and conviction.  This might explain many a weird road I’ve gone down in my life, but those are other stories.

            I never had a problem with rats, I mean I knew they could be vicious but I figured a bad rat could be handled with a two-by-four, baseball bat or a decent cat.

            I don’t know why, but some folks are ashamed of having rats on their property.  For instance, once upon a time I worked at a radio station down by a river.  Because it was a radio station people would come by with stray pets for us to announce on our “Lost and Found” program.  One day someone brought in a puppy.  The front office staff fell in love with the thing and let it roam around the building.  As I sat at the control board doing my DJ thing I heard a scratching at the door to our music collection.

            Figuring the puppy had wandered back there through another door I went over to open it anticipating a happy little dog on the other side.  The door swung open and there was a big slick river rat sitting up on its hind legs, its front paws folded, its nose sniffing the air, its beady eyes staring at me.  I could tell it was as much taken aback by me as I was it.  It turned around and ran away through a hole in the wall.  I went out and bought some rat traps and peanut butter.

            I knew that peanut butter was a favorite rat treat from stories I read about the famous rat movie, “Willard.”  In order to get the Hollywood rats to scramble all over the actors they smeared the people with peanut butter then dressed them.  The actors would then act terrified while rats climbed all over them eating peanut butter.  People actually earned grocery money doing this.

            Anyway, the peanut butter worked.  As the days went by I announced the daily rat tally, the number of big river rodents we’d caught in the basement of the radio station.  “Here it is, folks, day five of our Rat War down here by the river and we’ve nailed four of the suckers.”

            The following Monday the boss came in the front door of the station like he usually did but instead of going to his office he burst through the radio studio door.

            “Are you going on the air telling people how many rats you’ve killed in our basement?” he asked.  His neck muscles were bulging.  This was a sure sign he was angry.

            “Well sure, boss,” I said.  “There’s two more in the traps this morning, that makes half-a-dozen.”

            “Don’t tell people about all the rats we have in the building,” he rolled his eyes upward.  “I was the laughingstock at church yesterday.  Rats and mice were all we talked about in Bible study.”

            I was about to tell him I didn’t see what the big deal was but then I remembered I did like getting a paycheck from a steady job.

            Rats moved into my groovy mobile home on the side of mountain.

            I knew this because I found rat poop under my sink.

            “This won’t do,” I thought as I went out and got a rat trap.  I didn’t mind trying to catch mice and letting them loose somewhere else but rats were a whole different thing.

            I got my trap, slathered on some peanut butter and set the thing under my sink.  I then proceeded to go sit in my easy chair and watch some TV.

            SNAP!

            I turned off the TV and listened.

            All quiet.

            I got up and went and looked under the sink.

            One dead rat in the trap.

            I picked up trap with rat and took it outside to the garbage.  As I dropped the rat in the bin I said out loud, “Sorry, you’re just in the wrong place and you had to go.”

            There was still peanut butter on the trap so I re-set it and went back to watching TV.

            About 15 minutes had passed and….

            SNAP!

            “Hisssss…hisssss…hisssss…”

            The noise from under the sink was loud.  I turned off the TV.

            “Hisssss…hisssss…hisssss…”

            I slowly got up, unable to wrap my head around what the hell I might have caught under the sink that was making such a racket.

            “Hisssss…hisssss…hisssss…”

            I opened the cabinet door.

            There was another rat about as big as the last one, but somehow the trap tripped on the rodent’s hindquarters.  There it was with the trap stuck to its back, crawling around under the sink using its two front feet.

            “Well,” I said to the rat.  “What am I gonna do about THIS?”

            “Hisssss…hisssss…hisssss…”

            I couldn’t reach down and pick it up, the rat might whip around and bite me.

            I sat for a few more moments.

            “Hisssss…hisssss…hisssss…”

            I got up and got my barbecue tongs.  I went outside and got a bucket.  I took the barbecue tongs, grabbed the trap with rat and dropped it in the bucket.

            I looked at the rat.

            “I’m real sorry, but just like your pal you’re in the wrong place.”

            “Hisssss…”

            I wished I had a pistol or something to quickly dispatch the wounded rodent.

            Then one of those imaginary lightbulbs went on over my head.

            I didn’t have a pistol but I bet ol’ Johnny living next door had one.

            I grabbed my bucket with my rat and headed over to Johnny’s mobile home.

            I knocked on his door.

            “Hey McGee,” he said, “What’s going on?”

            “I’se wondering if I could borrow your pistol and use a bullet, I’ll pay you for it.”

            Johnny scrunched up his face.

            “I need to kill this rat,” I held the bucket up for him to see.

            “Hisssss…”

            “DAMN,” Johnny whipped his head back.  He almost fell over.  He eased forward and looked again.

            “Just drop a damn rock on it,” he said.

            “Naw,” I said.  “That’s too personal.”

            Johnny looked me in the eye for a few moments.

            “Too personal?  Are you high?”

            “No man,” I said.  “I just figure a bullet is quick.”

            Johnny turned around, went inside his home and came back a few moments later holding his pistol.

            “Here,” he said.  “Waste of a perfectly good bullet.”

            “How much I owe ya?” I asked.

            “Nothing,” he said.  “I got plenty.”

            “I’ll be right back.”

            So I walked up the mountainside to a grassy spot, set the bucket down then tipped it over for the rat to leave.

            The rat came out of the bucket dragging the trap.

            I bent over and looked at the rat.

            “I’m real sorry about this,” I said.  “I’d a-liked to have seen you sent on to the next level with a quick snap, but that didn’t happen.”

            It seemed to stare at me for a moment then it stuck its face in a thatch of grass and didn’t move.

            Maybe it knew what was next.

            I pulled the trigger.

            Years later The Lady of the House brought home two white rats.  We called them Thelma and Louise.  She made a giant cage for them and they lived for two years at our bicycle shop.

            They were two sweet rats.

            I wished I could have kept them at home.  They could curl up with me in my recliner and watch TV.

            But there were cats at the house, they probably would’ve liked to play “Bat the Rat” with Thelma and Louise.

            Besides, I don’t think rats can be litter box trained.

                                                            -30-

TALES OF THE SOUTHWEST: THE LESBIANS RE-TAKE THE MOUNTAIN

It was after work, I was coming out of the Bisbee post office with my mail.  I paused at the community bulletin board to see what was going on.

Not every town has a community bulletin board but Bisbee does.   It’s a town of hippies, trustafarians, government employees, copper mine retirees and just all-around folks in southeastern Arizona about a rifle shot from the Mexican border.

I liked to stop and read what folks have posted.

“MASTER MECHANIC WILL WORK ON YOUR FOREIGN OR DOMESTIC CAR AT LOW RATES” read one posting with the bottom cut into tags with the guys name and phone number on each tag, so someone could pull one off if they’re interested.  Then someone had scrawled on his notice….”How can you be a master?  Masters ask no money for their work,” a reference to something Buddhist or Zen or something from the same school of thought that brought us “When the student is ready the Master will appear.”

“BORDER COLLIE PUPPIES, $100 EACH,” read another.

“BENEFIT FOR BREE, THIS FRIDAY,” and it listed the date.  “BRING DONATIONS FOR THE AUCTION.”

“Are you going?” there was a voice beside me.  I turned to see Billie, the town dance teacher standing beside me.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re looking right at it, the benefit for Bree.”

“I don’t know who Bree is, and I’m a working stiff.”

“Doesn’t matter, “ she said.  “You could donate some money.”

“What,” I asked, “Does she have a disease?”

“She’s the town masseuse,” said Billie.  “About three times a week she drives over to the Huachuca Mountains and goes for hikes by herself.”

The Huachuca Mountains are off to the west of Bisbee.  They’re a north-south mountain range that, for the most part, ends at the Mexican border.

“So she goes for her hike last week,” Billie continued, “And when she comes back to her van there’s two Mexicans standing there, one’s holding a pistol and making a motion with his other hand saying, ‘Llaves, llaves.’”

“Wanted her keys,” I said.

“Yeah.  So she doesn’t know any Spanish so she’s trying to tell these dudes that the van and the massage table on the inside are the way she supports her family but the dude keeps waving the pistol around and saying ‘Llaves, llaves,’ so she hands over her keys.

“Then the other dude comes over and starts tying her up and she’s freaking out not knowing what they’re going to do to her and he ties up her legs and her arms behind her back, picks her up and THROWS HER DOWN THE MOUNTAIN.”

“Damn,” I said.

“And she rolls and flips and tumbles and shit down the mountain and she finally stops just in time to hear her van engine and it’s fading away.”

“Damn,” I said again.

“So she’s cut up and hurting and she starts fiddling with the rope around her hands and gets loose and then unties her legs and she climbs back up the mountain and walks down the fire trail to the ranger station and gets help.   But her van is long gone and she’s got some cracked ribs and shit.”

“Wow,” I said.

“I’m giving three sets of tap dance lessons to the auction,” said Billie.

“Of course you are,” I said.  I knew Billie, we talked a lot. 

“Can’t your radio station donate something?”

“I reckon we could announce it a few times, but the GM isn’t going to let me give anything away.  I’ll come Friday night and donate some money.”

I showed up at The Benefit for Bree, attended mostly by women.  I saw Bree, saw cuts on her face and hands.

I walked up and shook her hand.

“You don’t know me but I wish you peace and healing,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said smiling.

The money was going to be used to get Bree another van and another massage table.  I put a 20 dollar bill in a big ol’ gallon glass mayonnaise jar that had a bunch of other large bills in it.

I hung around for a bit.  There were folks reciting poetry in an open mic, a guitar player or two and then Mel took to the stage.  Mel had organized the event.  Mel had a real estate office in town.  Mel also was president of the local Gay and Lesbian Alliance Society.

“Now,” said Mel, holding her arms in the air, her armpits resplendent in copious amounts of armpit hair, “I want to invite all the women in the audience to join us this Wednesday night when we caravan back to Bree’s favorite hiking place and re-take the mountain for her.”

A collective cheer went up from the crowd.

I wondered what Mel meant by re-take the mountain.  I looked around and decided there wasn’t anyone I could ask.  Billie was there but she was in the corner talking to a bunch of other women so I didn’t think to interrupt her.

“Meet here at 630 Wednesday,” said Mel.  She stepped down from the stage, someone else took her place and the auction began.

Days passed and I didn’t give much if any thought to Bree or the auction or how it did until I bumped into Billie again at the post office.

“Hey,” I said, “So how much did Bree’s benefit raise?”

“Oh, it was pretty neat, enough for a new massage table and a down payment on a good used van,” she said.

“So, out of pure human curiosity,” I said, “How did she get the mountain taken back for her?”

Billie stood and looked me in the eyes for a moment.

“Oh!” she said, like she remembered what I was talking about.  “Yeah, I went to that.”

“The re-taking of the mountain.”

“Yeah.  Haven’t you ever heard of that?  You’re such a white guy.  Whenever people have something bad happen to them at some place they really like they get some friends together and go back and have a celebration at the place and…you know…take it back.  It’s better than Bree never going back to the Huachucas or every time she might go back all that she’d  remember is those guys tying her up and stealing her van.”

“Oh,” I said.  “I never thought of such a thing.”

“You’re so middle class, McGee.”

“Gee, thanks, Billie.”

“So we caravanned up to where Bree said she liked to hike, there was about 30 of us in 5 cars and so we get up there and Mel and her pals built a ring of rocks and then inside the ring of rocks they made another ring for a fire pit.  So they start this fire, and it’s dark and so everyone takes off their clothes…”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Not me,” said Billie, “I’m kinda shy, I just watched.  So here are all these naked women, really mostly lesbians from the Alliance, and they start dancing in a circle and singing lesbian songs.”

“What are lesbian songs?” I asked.

“I didn’t recognize any of them so I just call them lesbian songs, I think one of them WAS a Melissa Etheridge song.  Anyway, so they’re singing and raising their arms and moving in a circle and this goes on for, I don’t know, 15 minutes or so?  Then Mel says, ‘It’s time to consecrate Bree’s mountains for her again, everyone follow me.’  So Mel backs up, squats over a rock and pees on it.”

“She…pees…on…a…rock,” I said slowly.

“Yeah,” said Billie, “So just like that all the other women start peeing on rocks in the big circle.  Then once they were done we all hugged Bree and everyone put their clothes back on, put out the fire and came home.”

Billie told the tale as if this was something folks did every day.

I looked at her for a few moments.

“Well,” I said, “How about that!”

“It didn’t shock your middle-class, white boy sensibilities, did it?”

“Nooo,” I said.  “Just interesting, that’s all.”

It would be months before I would run into Billie again at the post office.  In that encounter she would tell me about joining basically the same group of women at a ranch pond for a skinny dip and a bottle holding contest…one of those things a bunch of naked women do when they get together…seeing who can hold the largest bottle tucked under their boobs.

But that’s another story.

                                                                -30-