“Son, you must atone for some things in your life. And when you know what these things are, don’t run from them like I did. You shrink until you become a shell of who you really are.” She gave me a sloppy toothless kiss on the cheek and then quickly exited into her overly air-conditioned house. From behind the closed door she whimpered, “And keep playing piano.” It sounded like she was either mid-yawn or trying to muffle the sob. I anchored my hand on the warm white-painted aluminum door. Her lips must have been close because I felt her sounds reverberate through the thin layers of metal that separated us. Her feet shuffled in a half-circle on the linoleum floor. I heard a slump against the door and the sound of clothes sliding downward against the other side. When I heard her begin to weep, I pulled my hand away from the door because I felt as though I had touched something that was off-limits. That sick feeling that I got when I was a little kid when I did something that I knew I wasn’t supposed to do hit my stomach and I wanted to run and hug somebody. But the city is lonely at twilight. I stepped back and the tiny carcasses of june beetles crackled under my sandals. Thousands of broken rainbows played off of their crushed emerald backs, each illuminated by the glare of the porch light. The stucco around her door was aged with layers of spider webs, dust. I walked home slowly and heat rose from the asphalt sponge beneath my feet.
That night I slept in my teenager bed while my adult feet hung off the edge. And when I dozed off in my teenager room, I wish I had my old teenager dreams. When I woke in dreamland, I was across the street from the gas station on the corner Panama and White lane. It was before the Wal-Mart and the Urner’s home appliance store and the AM/PM gas station and the In-N-Out burgers and the freeway. The hot night breeze hustled my face, sand grit coated my teeth. My bare chest was mauled by the small grains, a small dust bowl around my torso. I was tired and hungry and needed to use the restroom. My toes clung to the sand beneath my feet. Each step brought the familiar swishing sound of corduroy pants. I looked down and saw my emerald green pants from childhood: either I had shrunk to fit them, or they grew. In the distance was an old convenience store with massive pillars of neon light that shone upward creating a cathedral of light, a beacon in the night sky. I swished towards its, a small dust path following my footsteps.
Inside the non-chain, locally owned store, the ceiling soared heavenward. Rows of junk food, each thirty to fifty feet high lined the walls. The Dorito bags, Rold golds, Funions, Reese’s peanut butter cups, and overly heated hot dogs all crafted beautiful mosaics and patterns to adorn the walls. Founts of flavored Slurpees churned in the center of the store.
I turned to my left and saw the cashier on the opposite end of the store. The register was elevated above the ground and stairs led up to the platform. Several dozen bic lighters resting on bottles of quick energy pill bottles illuminated the dais. When I approached, the clerks turned around and looked directly into my face. Each were dressed identically: clad in over-used work boots, blackened and glistening from oil, auto mechanic jumpsuits that were black, and a black nun’s headpiece. Their faces reminded me of the countless middle aged moms that I saw in Los Angeles: botoxed and emotionless from too much Paxil or Zoloft. The oil nuns floated from behind the cash register and formed a circle around me. Then, one knelt and crossed herself, wide-eyed. Others mumbled and pointed at my face and hands.
My fingers met a slick substance when I brushed the hair from my forehead. I looked at my hand: it was blackish brown and smelled alkaline. The same substance was on both of my wrists. The nun-clerk who was bowed opened her prostrate eyes and proclaimed, “You have the oil-field stigmata! O, child, how blessed you are! You are anointed with the blood of the earth, the black gold from below, the riches of our valley.” The others murmured in agreement. They stood, then genuflected and bowed prostrate on the floor.
I looked at them, greasy faced and was flooded by a deep sense of claustrophobia. From behind me, at the entrance, steely-blue moonlight shone into the store, casting my shadow upon the oil nuns. I turned to face it and squinted. Outside, a moonlit-blue halo surrounded an oil derrick. I glared back at the nuns, who were still lying on the the ground and then walked out of the store.
I couldn’t take my gaze off of the blue light. The derrick was bigger than the ones I had normally seen and it was chrome. Its legs reflected the stars and its slowly moving head reflected the full moon when at the top of its rotation. I walked across the dusty soil and approached the base of the derrick. In its chrome legs, I saw the stigmata on my forehead, hands, and feet. I felt sick to my stomach and wanted to run. When I looked around, I saw the same thing in every direction: nothing. The mechanical beast continued to pump slowly. When the smell of metal and grease met my nose, I turned and vomited. The pumping slowed and the derrick stopped. The wind stopped. The blue light got brighter.
“You have been marked, small one.” It’s whisper was like the voice from my Speak ‘N Spell. “The city wants you here. I want you here.”
I felt sick to my stomach again. My mind collided with Virginia’s comment over dinner.
The voice came to me again, in metallic, non-human, marked syllables. “I have marked you. I pump to keep you and all of this town’s inhabitants alive.”
Empowered by my desire to leave, I followed my impulse: I did what every child in my city has wanted to do, but couldn’t. I climbed the derrick.
“Little one, you can’t do this.”
“Shut up, derrick.”
“I am holy and cannot be climbed upon.”
I found a good foothold and continued upward.
“This is against the rules.”
I grunted and smiled because I could see over the top of the gas station.
“Stop.”
I began to laugh because I felt like my Speak ‘N’ Spell was trying to berate me. Adrenaline pumped through my hands and fueled my ascent. The derrick began to slowly pump again, and the breeze began to blow. I stood balanced on its legs and waited for its head to bow. The moonlight cascaded from its chrome neck and shone in my face. I leaped onto its head and straddled its neck. Slowly, like dysfunctional father and his small child, I rode on its shoulders. At its peak, I looked down and saw our shadows projected on the cracked earth.
“I don’t want to be marked.”
“You don’t have a choice, child.”
“I am not your child.” I interrupted the talking oil derrick.
It continued without emotion. “You and everyone in this city owe their life to me. I choose.”
I stopped to think. I heard the sound of a beetle walking on the dirt below, its shell crackling with each of its six steps. The barrenness of the desert scape began to convince me that nothing lay beyond the horizon.
“You will stay.” It whispered.
I remembered the smell of the ocean. I tasted the frustration of five o’clock traffic on five lane freeways. I felt the weightlessness when the plane leaves the runway.
“There’s a flaw in your logic: I can move wherever I want. You can’t. You need us to believe in you.”
The metallic voice continued, “You have been covered by my blood.”
I touched the oil on my wrists and rubbed it between my thumb and forefinger. I wondered what decaying animals I pressed in my fingertips.
“This dark blood is beautiful. But it is not yours.”
The light faded and the derrick grinded to a halt with its head near the ground. Its chrome faded into rust and black creosote. I hopped off and walked away from the base. Looking back, I saw just another weathered derrick. I took off my pants, and used my green corduroy to wipe off the oil marks from my forehead, wrists, and feet. Then, dropping my pants on the land, I ran, naked, into the wilderness beneath the moon.
