I Walk the Line - Part Three
Avon + Scientology = ?!?!?!
Read Part 1, then Part 2....
I handed my camera to 11 as he jumped in the car. I stuck my hands inside my jeans and flapped my elbows in greeting.
"Hey there! Nice day, isn't it? Don't you just love Corazon Canyon?" I watched 11 remove the lens cap of the camera out of the corner of my eye, watched him focus on 8, snap pictures of outstretched tongue and crossed eyes.
"Excuse, me," the woman repeated. "Why are you here? Why are you taking photographs of that formation?" She pointed one well-manicured index finger toward the mystery mesa. The sun reflected off her careful mauve polish, and I noticed she wore a diver's water-resistant watch.
"To tell you the truth, I'm looking for the Scientologists. I'm selling Avon and I figured they might enjoy having a local rep supply them with makeup and skin care items. It's thirty miles to town and the only stores in town are Walgreens and Wal-Mart. Avon has better products than you can get in town, so I thought I might pick up a few new customers. Do you know about the secret archive compound? It was on CNN and everything." I kicked my right cowboy boot against the other and grainy red dust sprayed against a hubcap.
"Is this the formation?" The woman's hair moved as one unit, and I tried not to stare.
"Yes, it sure is. I have the satellite maps and this is it. No doubt about it. The mesa is distinctive, and it sits at the base of this canyon. The airstrip should be directly behind that hill and the UFO landing pads in that direction." I pointed toward the east, and my face grew red in embarrassment as I realized my fingernails weren't painted. Grit and Frito salt and the slight red stain of cherries dotted my uneven cuticles. Some Avon Lady I am, I thought. Crap.
"I'm researching this location for a news expose. Don't you think these people are crazy?" She leaned into her vehicle and pulled out a fancy camera with a telescoping lens, a tripod, a stenographer's pad with illegible notation in angled script. "The article is going to focus on the ways they keep people from leaving the church. I'm just here to get some photographs. You should stay clear of them if you're smart. You think you're selling Avon, but if you sell it to them I guarantee it'll be your soul next. Look at Katie Holmes."
I laughed as she drove the feet of the camera stand into the arid soil, thought about Tom Cruise's fiance, thought about the ways I caved into the lifestyle demands of men in my past.
"We all link with things we believe brings up closer to the source, don't you think? Sometimes we pay a heavy price, though, until we discover we already hold the truth in our hearts." I scratched the small of my back, saw 8 lean out of his window, open his mouth.
"Hey, Mom! Are you talking to a thetan?" The backseat exploded into giggles, and I rolled my eyes. Reporter Lady didn't care. She attached her equipment to the tripod and held a light meter in her left hand.
"I don't know what you're getting at, but the Scientologist's source is spelled C-A-S-H."
I placed an Avon brochure on her hood, waved goodbye, left her to measure and capture the bounce of the sun's rays, and pointed my car West, with the plan of circling the compound until I found a point of entry. We passed a metal road sign, bent over from a glancing blow from some pickup truck or the momentum of the eleven bullets that pierced it into a piece of silent cowboy art. The canyon was far behind us now, and only an occasional juniper and piñon broke the sun. The land spread in lumps, rises and dips in the sand, some places covered in mold-colored lichen, some places layered in gold and black sand underneath the constant wave of dry grass.
This desert doesn't care about Scientology, I thought. It felt like it was waiting for something, maybe a meteor to crash out of the skies or a bulldozer to drive through, turn it into something smart and complex current.
The road stretched out in front of us. It seemed to roll on forever, past one rock formation looking like all the others, then another, then a slice of sandstone, then an ancient juniper. We passed a coyote. She stood at the edge of the road as if waiting to cross. I could see rough skin under her coat, a crisscross of scars and wayward tufts of fur. She looked like she knew something interesting about us, and I turned my head to keep her in vision. We watched each other until she disappeared, a tiny dot like her fleas on the horizon. The sun framed her body, low in the sky, orange and swollen.
I turned past the West end of Trujillo, onto a dirt road that swirled into a spate of ghost structures next to a heavy modern metal gate. Ah, the Scientologist's gate. I pulled up close, let the engine idle. I couldn't get the image of the coyote out of my mind.
I am like that mangy coyote. I roam, I am restless. I carry the bite of fleas and the hope of a next meal.
The boys jumped out of the car, ran to the empty buildings, and I grabbed my Avon and approached the fence. It didn't answer my silent request for a sentinel. It lay locked and angry, so I did what any good Avon Lady would do. I hung the brochures from the handle and patted it for good luck. I waited for the boys to expend their energy, then we shoved off for home. One mile later, as the sun grew tired and close to the ground, 11 yelped.
"Oh my gosh! Mom! I think the lens cap fell out of the car at the ghost town where the gate was!"
I swung back to the gate, parked the car, found the cap resting in the red dust. But something else caught my eye, made my blood run a bit cold with anticipation and wonder. My brochures no longer graced the fence.
To Be Continued....
2:53:06 PM 
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