Monk's Castle
Part One
by Jack Lennox1
"Go to your room ...and take those pants down."
"What!?"
"You heard me, young lady."
"No way! ... Why?"
"Because I said so."
"You're kidding, right?"
"Does it sound like I'm kidding?"
"Well, you must be kidding, because I'm way too old for this."
"Yes, too old ...and when you start acting like it, I won't have to put you over my knee."
"What a joke. Take a trip to the twenty-first century."
"We're taking a trip all right...to the woodshed."
"No way...I'm not going."
"Oh, you're going. That decision has been made."
"This is totally ridiculous. You can't do this."
"You think I can't? I think instead of that nice little paddle, I'm going to get the hairbrush. How ridiculous does THAT sound?"
"No, wait... Let's just stop and talk about this."
"We can talk about a hairbrush spanking. You won't be able to sit on that bottom for a week."
"Uncle Monk, NOOOooo!"
"Go to your room and wait for me ...or I'm getting the hairbrush."
"This can't be happening. Does HE have to be here?"
"I think Donny knows what a spanking is. You have more important things to think about right now."
"Look, I won't do it again."
"You bet you won't. I told you what would happen if I caught you smoking again. Now, I'm going to count down from ten; when I'm done you'd better be in your room, ready, and waiting for me ...TEN..."
"This sucks!"
"NINE... Watch that mouth, young lady."
"Okay, let me rephrase that... this REALLY sucks!"
"EIGHT... Make sure those pants are really off in there. I want that bottom bare."
"HMmmpf"
"SEVEN... I've put up with your attitude long enough."
"I'll change. Give me one more chance."
"SIX... Changing will save your butt in the future. Today you have a good paddle-spanking coming."
"No. I don't like the paddle!"
"FIVE... Are you ready in there yet?"
"No ...I mean, yes. Can't you just do it over my pants?"
"FOUR... Should I get the hairbrush? I'll let you decide. Either way, it's NOT going to be over your pants."
"Okay. Okay. Not the hairbrush!"
"THREEE... Are you ready?"
"Yes.... I'm sorry!"
"Believe me; you're going to be a LOT sorrier."
I scooped out a large spoonful of Honey Nut Cheerios thinking, how can you still eat at a time like this? She was about to get spanked for Christ's sake. A real spanking... I mean, sure, I'd spanked a few girls ...for fun. I'd certainly never been around something like this. In the thick of it, I was really just trying to be as invisible as possible.
Over my own chewing, I heard clattering and scraping and turned to see ol' Monk fishin' around in a drawer over by the sink. When his object was located, he held it up triumphantly and with a rather satisfied look on his middle-aged mug. Yep, it was a paddle, all right: one of those little toys that come with that easily removable ball attached. He glanced at me with conspiracy in his eyes and told me to sit tight; he had some business to attend to. Somehow, I managed to gulp down a swig of microbrew to wash the cereal down. What can I say? Breakfast is still the most important meal of the day.
I can tell you the place was feeling even more cramped than usual. With three people sharing space in a gnomish two-bedroom mobile home, privacy is a flimsy commodity. The small table I was sitting at took up half the kitchen-slash-dining room. Monk turned and disappeared into Traci's room just a few feet down a short hall leading to the "master bedroom" he and I shared ...it's not what you think ...he's a big, hunky stud for his age, but I like girls. I used to have Traci's room, until Monk met her over at the Flamingo. He deals blackjack across the river ...actually across the state line. In these United States, gambling's legal in Nevada, but not in the great state of Arizona where Monk pays his property taxes.
I was thinking he probably should have closed her door when the fireworks started. Riding the background drone of the stressed-out air conditioner, that's kinda what it sounded like...like crisp pops you'd hear on the Fourth of July, but instead of people oohing and ahhing at all the pretty colors, the accompaniment was a lot of squealing from one rather sorry young lady. Sitting frozen, spoon in hand, the look on my face must have been something special. I couldn't help but try to imagine what it looked like in there - even thought maybe I needed to use the bathroom down the hall. But I didn't feel quite right about that. My position in the little drama was probably no accident, but one shouldn't be too presumptuous. I have to admit, though, the idea of Traci Mitchell getting her pert little 20-year-old backside heated to roasting was an appetizing one.
*****
You might think that I picked an odd start for this story ...can't say as I could blame you for it. If the picture suggests to you that my living arrangements were a mobile base of slippery equilibrium, or that as a 35-year-old bachelor, my life had ranged a tad remote off the beaten track, then at least it's no less the first strokes of an accurate portrait. As it is, I didn't choose the day as a beginning.
I stepped out into the Arizona heat dragging the door shut behind me ...didn't dare let any cool air out ...or the 110-degree sauna in. The air-conditioner was not an idol to be trifled with. Normally, the American Southwest is a dusty spot on this globe, but on the banks of a major river, some days you can get a lot more moisture in the air than, say, Flagstaff or Phoenix. Add a little humidity to a summer day in the Mojave, and a white man can share the exalted experience of a Navajo sweat lodge. For July, one-ten is not exactly a cold spell, but it can get into the one-twenties, so as the day clamped its heavy fist around me, I gave a nod to whoever was god of the sun.
My old Firebird sat baking under a wayward mesquite tree across the gravel pit of what served as both driveway and side yard. The temperamental car gleamed in the late morning light, an opulent shade of gold that brings to mind an aging movie queen still hanging desperately to her glory days. Exposed to the heartless blue sky, I crunched over to it with a brisk step, then cursed loudly as I burned my fingers on the outer door-latch. Reaching in through the driver's-side window, I opened the door from the inside ...I'd only performed that little comedy about a dozen times. From hot to hotter, I slipped myself into the oven and started the car up quickly to get her air running.
With T-shirt already damp, I backed out through the open gate and rolled out onto the battered pavement of Marina Road. I was still thinking about Traci. The brat had just gotten deep--pan--fried ...their little scene quite an impressive performance. By leaving I was avoiding what I thought might be an awkward face-to-face, at least for me, but I really had no great desire to go out that morning. Monday was an off day -- I play guitar in the house band over at the Gold River -- but they cut the checks mid-month. I had the kind of cash flow that recommends an aggressive collection policy on receivables. Squinting through the steering wheel, I was happy to see I had almost an eighth of a tank to get me there. I shifted her into drive and stepped on the gas, the growl of the engine the only sound to break the silence of a death-still neighborhood cowed by the sun.
The car headed towards the main drag on streets too familiar to impress the conscious mind, but I sensed the oppressive lack of activity. Here in the Mojave Valley, there are days where it seems the only thing moving is the air, shimmering in blanketing waves over bleached out old neighborhoods, row after row of drab little cracker-box houses squatting in sullen inertia ...nobody sitting on a porch or out washing a car ...no kids riding their bikes or screaming their enthusiasm for some street-ball game ...too hot even to sit at a corner hawking lemonade to the dehydrated. Unless you were going to be on the river itself, the day was a time to seek shelter from nature's big furnace. I knew better, but until a rusty pick-up truck crossed my line of sight a block ahead, I was thinking everybody had finally had enough, just packed up and left silently in the night.
With the vents finally relinquishing some blessedly cool air, I turned right onto the main highway heading north and, checking the dash, made a quick mental note of all gauges including oil and water. The queen will not be taken for granted.
My thoughts turned back to what I'd witnessed that morning. I was old enough to be Traci's biological father, but that didn't diminish the excitement I felt about her getting spanked on her bare bottom. I don't care how moth-eaten a heterosexual man gets, a healthy 20-year-old girl with a body like that is going to be attractive to the primitive brain. She's an uninhibited girl and not above flirting to get attention, and it had been a long time since I'd had a steady girlfriend. I guess the higher functions are where values are placed on things and priorities recognized. Traci and I had negotiated a nice friendship, and that was as far as it was going.
About a mile up the road the scene changed as an area of indifferent looking strip malls gave way to the gray-green muscle of the river -- water headed south about a hundred yards to my left, the car making its way upstream like a small gold salmon. In its way the river's a subtle beast, only the scattered glint of sunlight on the barely crumbled surface indicating a mass movement. As oft the case, being that close to a river gave me a bit of a thrill, as if I could feel the blood coursing in sympathy through my veins - imagining the power of all that water flowing so easily, but with such tight determination. The Colorado always peaks my imagination in another way, as well: Knowing how far that water has come and the glorious trip it has made induces a sense of connectedness to things.
To understand our small town here in the Mojave Valley, you must know the river. To know something about me, Donny James, journeyman guitarist, you could start with a trip on the Colorado. As I drove north toward the bridge that would take me across into Nevada, in my head I traveled a thousand miles upriver to its source.
I was 12-years-old when I first saw the lake. We'd climbed to a summit high up in the Rocky Mountains, and below us stretched a vast silvered mirror palisaded by stands of lush green timber. A magical place. They call it Grand Lake, which always seemed appropriate to me. Even at that young age I recognized something special there -- a history, a mystery, a source of something essential. The experience affected me in a way that's hard to describe. I think, as a boy, the lake and surroundings provided me with a kind of vista for the romance told in the adventure books I loved, embodying the noble spirit of the brave Indian warrior, the rugged mountain man, the indomitable explorer, and the hardy settler. A vision of the lake has haunted me ever since, a wraith summoned in moments of contemplation.
The area is certainly rich in history, a paradise that has been an expectant traveler's destination for thousands of years. Ancient peoples hunted mammoth in the rugged glacial valleys there, the predecessors of many Indian tribes who called the area home before the white man came. It is also home to much treachery and misfortune characteristic of the Wild West. As legend has it, the lake is "bad medicine". To protect their women and children during a fierce battle long ago with another tribe, the Ute Indians put them on a raft, which sank drowning all aboard. They say that when the lake freezes over in winter, one can still hear their cries beneath the ice. Today the lake is very good medicine, as the melting of snow in summer provides water that has a profound impact on the entire American Southwest, including here in a valley a thousand miles downstream.
The water I needed to cross that morning begins its long journey flowing west for hundreds of miles down the Rockies, through countless twists and turns mostly visible from Interstate-70 to Denver -- sometimes so close it seems you might fall in, other times in the distance as a small glistening ribbon in the sun. Each summer Monk and I would hike, climb, and camp along sections of the river, sharing nature with the eagles, deer, bighorns, and ducks. Those are my memories of childhood until the age of 16, and they were good ones. I know the river well. In the Rockies, its character changes dramatically depending on the lay of the land: through lush mountain valleys as a passive stream where once we angled hip-deep in pocket-water, to the narrow canyons that towered over us as we careened wildly down treacherous "Class V" rapids. Here in the valley it's a meeker, less scenic geology, but the river still affords many similar recreational activities.
Where the river leaves the Rockies behind, the pastoral meets the austere, as orchards and vineyards will soon give way to the desert. It passes Grand Junction, the town where Monk lived and worked after returning from Nam, and our summer base camp. Here the Gunnison river joins the Colorado adding more water from the mountains, one of many such connections, as the Colorado drains about a quarter of a million square miles of the North American continent. The water is about to cross the Colorado state border and head southwest into Utah where the scenery shifts to patches of shale and slickrock, haunting views of rusty orange to brilliant red. I remember one summer informing Monk that I was going to be a paleontologist. In subsequent years I was a budding archaeologist, and then again just as sure my destiny was as a geologist. Just the dreams of zealous youth, but in any case, the land was some kind of 'ologist's dream, dotted with towering sandstone monoliths and deep, sheer-walled canyons layered with pre-cambrian black rock and the bones of dinosaurs.
The high desert of Utah provides a unique ecosystem of rock - as in rock, rock, and more rock - canyons, mesas, and deep river gorges carved out by wind and water in a million eccentric forms, where both plants and animals have had to make many adaptations to survive extremes of hot and cold and the parched landscape. The area is a product of eons of geologic activity, most recently about 60 million years ago when the shifting of continents lifted the Colorado Plateau thousands of feet allowing water to cut deep trenches through the soft sandstone on its way south towards what is now the state of Arizona. Ol' Monk and I have prospected a few of these intricate networks of Canyonlands, following in the dusty footsteps of the many more famous explorers before us. It's a bit off the beaten track -- lonely country, the water of the Colorado serving man only in the desert mecca of Moab, where Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch hung-out in the 1800s, and where many a horse opera was filmed a century later.
As you can see, I've got a pretty good map of the river in my head. Where it finally reaches the border of southern Utah, the water is backed up almost 200 miles in Lake Powell. The lake was created when the colossal Glen Canyon Dam was built, the water taking 14 years to fill the basin behind it. The controversial project did much to change the ecology of the area, and buried underwater a land ripe for archeological treasures including remnants of the fabled Anasazi, an ancient desert people who turned away from the nomadism of a hunting-and-gathering life to settle in small towns called pueblos. The dam and I were born together in 1965, my father working on the construction crew by day and my mother by night.
I was born in Page, Arizona, in what I like to call a "Dam Town" ...or damned town, depending on my disposition at the time. There are more than 20 dams regulating the Colorado, including the one here in the Mojave Valley. The stories of the towns are similar. A suitable spot is chosen for a dam on some remote section of the river. Because it takes a lot of people to build such a structure, a cluster of makeshift homes emerges near the site to accommodate the workers. When the dam is complete, a lake forms behind it drawing folks eager to exploit the recreational opportunities who, in turn, provide a growing town with hungry tourists, some of whom become residents able to cater to yet more tourists.
When my father started work as a very young man seizing a courageous opportunity, Page wasn't quite the boomtown yet. They hadn't even built a bridge over the river, and it took an all-day drive of 250 rugged miles just to get to the other side. It hadn't grown much by the time he and his buddy Monk joined the army and shipped off to Viet Nam, leaving my mother and her infant son to survive alone in the barren landscape of creosote and greasewood. Today, Page is a shabby little eyesore perched on a magnificent lake -- trailer parks and prefabs like stubborn squatters on hallowed ground, unworthy and ungrateful of and for the awesome view of endless water, mountain, and sky -- now a haven to noisy speedboats and jet skis, their exhaust fouling the once virgin wilderness. My residence in Page lasted until I was a little over two-years-old, my mother choosing to move west to Las Vegas in '67 after Monk came back from the war alone.
So I never knew my father. Monk and my mom were obliged to go in different directions, she to the gaudy allure of Las Vegas, he to the simple mountain life, but he remained in our lives as friend and "uncle". Getting back on the river south of Lake Powell, the water then slices through northern Arizona where it has created one of the most spectacular natural formations in the world. The power of erosion. The Grand Canyon runs for over 200 miles, the water dropping almost a half mile in elevation through treacherous rapids not braved before John Wesley Powell and his daring expedition navigated the river in 1869. The rim of the canyon is a mile above the river in spots, and as much as 20 miles wide between the upper cliffs, affording views that produce the perspective of looking down on mountains. It is an otherworldly landscape of stunning shapes and colors revealing almost two billion years of geology.
Once through the Grand Canyon, the westward flowing river is again backed up for another 100-plus miles in Lake Mead, formed behind the great Hoover Dam. This was the first dam built in the 1930s to tame the wild Colorado which, unregulated, was more a bane than a benefit to the region downstream. In the dry months of the year, it shrank to a trickle depriving inhabitants of precious water. In the spring it became a threatening torrent, a potential disaster for those who relied on the river for their livelihood. The Hoover Dam was the "machine in the desert", the technology that transformed the brutal land of the American Southwest into a garden of sorts. Today, not only does the dam, and its sister dams further south, prevent flooding of the river and provide regulated water for farming, through aqueducts and transmission lines it supplies water and power for millions of people in cities as widespread as Los Angeles, San Diego, and Phoenix. Most of those city-dwellers are unaware of how their lives are dependent on a distant river in the desert. Hoover Dam is situated in one of the most inhospitable climates in the United States. When construction started just east of Las Vegas, Nevada in 1931, the area was a desolate stop on the Union Pacific railroad line, home to the nation's castoffs - bootleggers and prostitutes, the forerunners for coming generations. Workers on the dam moved from Vegas to a spot near the site named Ragtown, where many died of heat prostration that summer. There's a "Dam Town" there now called Boulder City.
When my mother and I moved to Vegas, it was no longer just a tent town sprouting saloons and boarding houses, but the fabulous playland mecca known and revered today. The casino-lined Glitter Gulch was a town that couldn't say, "No", as in no cover, no minimum, no waiting period for marriage, no state income tax, no speed limit, and no restrictions on the major vices. Mom liked that just fine, and it was only years later that I realized why I was sent to spend so much time with "Uncle Monk". Vegas in the '60s, if you looked beneath the glitter, was a world of dark bars and sleazy lounge acts, decadence and dirty money. I loved my mother; she always tried to do the best for me. Unfortunately, there were too many tawdry opportunities for a single woman to make ends meet in Sin City.
At 15, I began to develop a more cynical view of the world. I picked up a guitar. It was my ticket to a life of hard knocks, but gave me my identity. I was no longer the starry-eyed boy of adventure, packing off into the wilderness to discover nature's wonder and beauty. I was in a rock band looking for fame and fortune, settling on fugitive girls and enough drugs to maintain a large measure for optimism. I wouldn't see Monk again for many years. I was 21, and my group had just finished playing our first major gig at the Whiskey on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, when I found out my mother had been murdered in a hotel room off the Strip in Vegas. Things pretty-much went downhill for me from there.
If you follow the river south about a hundred miles from Hoover Dam, you come to another valley in the sand, where the states of Arizona, Nevada, and California meet in a neat little triangle. Here I've traded in my dreams of fame and fortune for a fighting chance at survival. Yes, it's another dam town, with Lake Mojave providing fishing, boating, water skiing, swimming, beach-bumming, and other attractions for outdoor types who don't mind a little extra sunshine. The stifling heat is limited mostly to the summer months, and the small town beckons as an oasis where hard-luck ramblers of the world can try to forget the past with a minimum of questions asked ...and for those who still dare to dream, a weighted chance to find their pot of gold.
Checking gas, water, and oil, I scanned the dashboard for the umpteenth time. I wasn't what you'd call an optimist, but it looked good that I might get to where I was going that morning. Across the river my destination was visible, the row of hotel-casinos rising out of the desert like some magical kingdom too strange to be a mirage. The odd collection of towers is lined up in a colorful parade along the west shore of the river, about a dozen of them clamoring for attention. I'm not sure why exactly, but the sight always brings to mind a lavish wedding party posed out of time and place. If it were night, they would have completely dominated this little remote corner of the world, a gaudy ceremony of brightly flashing lights obliterating the stars. But in the light of day, the casinos are but jealous bridesmaids, and it is the sun that reigns over all as the radiant bride.
The Gold River is at the south end of the strip, and I could make out the name crowing in a neon bluster. I had a good feeling about being able to put some serious cash in ol' Monk's hands. It was almost six months since he'd given me a place to stay until I could get my shit together. My professional skills could pretty much be counted on six strings, and I'd been scraping by on odd jobs here and there. Perhaps you've gathered that the big success hadn't come. I've got some chops, but I'm no headliner. I finally ran into some luck when, the previous month, a group passing through on the hotel circuit lost their guitarist. His bad; my good. He didn't die or anything; just broke his arm. Before they moved on, I'd made some good connections. The hotel pays some decent squab, and as reliable, easy-going, and long drug-free, I'd reached a point where I could manage to hang on to a gig, at least until it got too hungry and flew south for the winter.
So there I was, driving my car, thinking about time, place, and destiny. Maybe it was the scene playing out the window -- the sight of man's ambitious monuments to wishful thinking set against the tamed but still magnificent beast of the river -- or maybe it was some sense of imminent fate -- but I could see myself as playing some small part in the grand scheme of things. As I made my way down that little stretch of the valley, alone in this battered old life, I found myself getting embarrassingly melodramatic about it all. I was just another gambler seeking his fortune in this desert's garden ...and might he find shelter from the howling wilderness, or be laid to rest in a grave mourned only by a pitiless sun.