Winslow Blues

by Pa Rock
Road Warrior

It happened this morning.

I was standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, and I was such a fine sight to see. I had just stepped out of Senor Jose's Muy Grande Casa de Imports and Trading Post and was decked out in souvenirs for my trip "back east."

Atop my cabeza sat one of those elegant tourist sombreros with the little yarn balls dangling around the rim. It was all of three feet wide, and a couple of mongrel dogs had sidled up next to me to take advantage of the shade. I was also wearing a brightly striped woolen serape that was big enough to live in. The look was topped off with a stuffed armadillo under one arm and a bottle of Jose Cuervo under the other.

I was just about to step off the curb and cross the street when an old broad, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowed down to take a look at me. The driver, a bottle blonde with a face that looked like a bad patch of the Sonoran Desert, started waving me over.

"Hey, Taco!" She yelled a voice that was raspy enough to shake the needles off of a saguaro, "Get your brown buns over here!"

"Si, Senora," I said in my best tourist Spanish as I stepped up to the woman in the truck.

"Stuff the monkey talk. This here's America and we speak American!"

"Yes, ma'am," I said, appropriately chastened.

"Ive got a job for you. Hope on the back."

"A job? What kind of job?" It never hurts to inquire.

"Running a mop down at the visitor's center. You people understand mops, don't ya?"

"But all of the visitor's centers are closed because the state is broke."

"Naw" she laughed. "We ain't broke. That was just a ruse to get rid of them overpaid union thugs! We opened all of the centers back up this morning."

"Er, uh, how much does it pay?"

"Two hundred bucks a week - not too shabby for eighty hours! Now get on!"

"Sorry, senora, er...ma'am, but I'll have to pass."

"Pass! Pass! Why you ungrateful..." And with that she picked up her cell phone and hit one number. "Put Sheriff Joe on the line. I've got an uppity beaner here in Winslow that needs a one-way ride to the border! I don't care if its not his county - and Joe won't care either!"

And with that, Blondie shot me a look that would burn bacon as she hit the accelerator and fish-tailed out into traffic. I guess she thought that the cops wouldn't mess with !an official state vehicle!

And I went in search of my burro. It was time to get the hell out of Winslow!