King of the Arroyo
Gary had been all around this big old country, from the boggy swamps of Louisiana to the dry desert plains of Colorado, from the ivy-covered colleges of New England to the starlit streets of Southern California. He’d thumbed rides on open interstates and worked at ranches and factories to pay for his next ride to another place, another adventure, another unknown town. He thought this would be true for the rest of his life: riding the rails, never letting the dust settle under his feet. But one day while riding the steep hillsides and canyons of the San Gabriel mountains, a place where Vásquez the bandit hid out from the law and where the sons of abolitionist John Brown lived their last days, he caught a ride on a rickety old tugboat. It stood empty at the edge of the river, paint chipped and bow bent, but inviting all the same. He clung to its plastic corners as it slide down the ravines and whizzed through the trees, a magical ride through old oaks, feral figs, sycamores, and madrone. It washed up on a shore bounded by rocks and hillsides, a place that hadn’t seen real rain for several years, a place as dry and desiccated as any the West could contain.
Leaving the boat behind, he walked down the path of a long-dry river, which left in its wake brush and trees, mustard flowers and foxtails, sage and scrub. He collected the fallen branches and driftwood and began to build a home, leaning tall sticks against a cottonwood tree until he had a nice living space with a pole in the middle to keep it up and a door that could, if he wanted, be closed to keep the critters out. And there were critters. He was glad to see them furtive and busy, watchful as he built a home and explored his new community. He saw rabbits and coyotes, ground squirrels and chipmunks that tucked under bushes and out of site. Lizards soaked up the sun then darted from his approaching shadow. A bobcat wandered past once; he watched it slowly walk along a path, then sit and look at a hillside covered in rabbit holes.
The day he found the water he had been walking north, back into the mountains, to see if anyone had sailed in behind him, if other lonely travelers blew in on the breeze. He hoped to find company or someone to share the road until they found civilization again. He found nothing but silence and a gentle wind blowing through the tops of the trees. As he walked, the trees grew more densely crowded, and he felt the soil beneath his feet give way like it does in spring when the snow melts and water seeps into the ground. Then there was the unmistakable burble of a brook, and in front of him he saw a small pool, not big enough to swim in, but enough to cool off and fill a small cup he had found. He even sat down in it, felt it wet his legs and bottom, and splashed himself with joy. He heard laughter escape his lips for this first time in months. He put his hand over his mouth to hold it in but then realizing he was alone, let himself chortle and howl until exhaustion overcame him.
One of those first mornings he came upon an old red crate, the kind he remembered from towns and cities he visited, in the big stores selling cold drinks. It must have washed up in the current the last time that old river flowed. The plastic had hardened and cracked, but it was still useful. He kicked off the dirt then wiped it down and brought it to his stick house, where he propped it in front of the door. A fine place for a table or bench, he thought. He sat there in the evenings after that, perched on the crate, watching the sun turn orange as it set behind the mountains, the sky growing bright pink before fading to dark blue. He watched the swallows dive in midair as they chased unseen insects. He sat there on the bench, a bench like no other he’d had in all his days traveling the country, or so it seemed to him in that moment. He lovingly patted it. He reached his hand to scratch his beard, a light nascent fuzz that pricked against his fingertips. What must he look like now with his hair all wild and dirt embedded in the cracks of his face? Would anyone recognize him as human? Was he human still? He began to wonder as his mind drifted down the lines of his future, out past the setting sun and into the tomorrows that would look so very much like today. He fell asleep that night with a throbbing in his ears, a pulsating sound like the waves of the ocean, wave after wave crashing down on him.
There was a time when that’s all he wanted, to be alone, on his own with no one and nothing to disrupt his thoughts. Those were the days when time dripped by, with few changes to mark its passing. Day after day, always the same, a never-ending cycle of routine and habit. Weekdays he worked to manufactured deadlines that loomed over him. He remembered the rush and panic, the flurry of meetings and conversations, the endless line of people who wanted to talk about nothing at all, just talking for the sake of talking. Then the weekend would come, a time to rest and recover. But then there was his wife, who wanted to have dinner with friends, playing board games as the wine bottle emptied glass by glass. Or the cleaning and repairs that needed to be done to keep the house habitable. And then he would find himself, Monday morning, making the coffee yet again, another week beginning, the cycle set back to the beginning. A Monday like any other Monday in a week like every other week, all of it leading to nothing. He would dream then, standing in his kitchen, holding back his tie while he ground coffee beans, of escaping the boredom and exhaustion, this constant flurry of activity that accomplished nothing at all. He dreamed of fleeing into the night, of finding adventures out in the world. And so one morning he packed a bag, told his wife he would be back in a few weeks, that he needed to see the world, to have a break before this life wore him down. He remembered her brown eyes, how they looked at him with sharp anger, in surprise and frustration. How could he do this? How dare he? What would she tell people? Don’t worry, he told her. I’ll be back soon.
In the morning as the smell of sage drifted up from the dew-soaked scrub, he knew what he had to do. He would build a village so when others arrived, they would have a place to stay. He walked up and down the valley, collecting all the sticks and branches he could find. He scared a rattlesnake sunning itself at the edge of a tree; it shook its tail and slithered away, its rattle echoing in the air as it fled. He startled a nest of ants under a log. A great black wave of them surged from a hole in the cinder cone they had built in sand and dirt, scattering in all directions. He pulled a few branches trapped in a bush, thinking they might make a good roof. The next day red welts appeared where he’d touch the leaves. He scratched at the itch, a maddening head-numbing itch, the kind you can’t stop yourself from scratching, until his skin burned and blood seeped from the welts. Within a couple of weeks, he had built five homes, all with their own tree and privacy, all as cozy as his own, though perhaps not as big. He watched them, waiting for them to fill with people. He brushed away the sand that blew against the walls, keeping the space clean and ready for new inhabitants.
He began to realize there was hidden treasure under the mundane landscape, in the layers of horizontal dirt marked with rocks, near the roots of trees, on the sides of mountains. All he had to do was dig for them. He dug and found an old silver spoon near the grove of trees where coyotes collected at dusk to watch for rabbits. He dug and found a candy wrapper, wrinkled and pockmarked with tiny holes but still shiny when it hit the sun. He dug and found a piece of concrete with rusted rebar encased in it, the very rusted tip of it sticking out and pointing in midair. He dug and found a plastic colander, once a bright yellow but now dulled like the color of dusk and kerosene flames. He laughed and held it up to get a closer look. He brushed it with his sleeve, then used a stick to poke the encrusted dirt through the holes. When at last it glinted in the sun, he put it on his head like the golden crown of a long-dead king. He bowed to no one at all, then strode with a straight back down the trail, pointing at hidden servants who did his bidding. He looked at the trees and laughed, the crown sliding to the back of his head. He jumped in the air and danced in the open riverbed, kicking his legs to one side then the other. “I am the King of the Arroyo!” he shouted. He danced and twirled until he was tired, then sat on an embankment looking at the dirt below, where his feet had left marks in the sand. He put the crown on his knee, stroked it, then put it back on his head so all the animals watching would know he was the king of this land.
The next morning he walked back to the trickle of water, followed it inland into the canyons, dark between walls that blocked the sun. He brushed away the gnats that flitted around his face and splashed water over his hands and neck to cool off.
He yodeled into the canyon walls, a yowling howl that echoed through the emptiness and bounced back at him. A bird flew out of a tree above. He made note of a fig tree growing wild by the stream, decided he would visit again later when it had fruit. He yodeled up to the sky, hoping another human might hear him, then collapsed to the ground, leaning against a thick-trunked tree. He watched the whisper of clouds float across the blue sky, then turned his head to look at a sycamore tree that was losing its leaves. A few red and green star-shaped leaves still clung to its branches. The last stars of a dying universe, he thought.
Back on his feet he kicked at the sand and saw a flash of blue, a strange and unnatural color, not like the rest of the brown and gray landscape all around, rising from the sand like a half-buried corpse reaching to the sky. He carefully dug it out with his hands, like an archaeologist finding the treasures of a long-forgotten civilization. A blue plastic bucket with a yellow handle emerged, the kind a child might bring to the beach to fill with sand. He pictured a girl visiting this place when the river flowed, catching tadpoles with her father, running in and out of the water, in and out. Later she would remember these moments, just her and her dad, eating sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil while the little tadpoles swam inside the bucket. After the river dried, she would talk about it fondly, those days of long ago. Gary took the bucket home with him.
That night he dreamed of the little girl, her curly black hair jumping as she ran alongside her father, holding his hand as they made their way down the trail. Then he was the father, watching his daughter run ahead with her little blue pale in hand, showing it to every stranger she passed. He woke up with wet cheeks. He wiped his eyes, scratched his beard, and sat still until the dream’s hold loosened, then he got up and decided to go hunting for squirrels or rabbits or anything he could find for that night’s dinner. He dreamed of a warm fire and cooked meat, real food of any kind. He had walked these trails so many times, he could almost name the rocks under foot, could predict the slope of the hill and the line where the mountains met the sky. He knew this place inside and out, could walk it with a blindfold on. He couldn’t tell if this made him proud or sad. He sighed. He pictured all those roads his feet had walked over the past few years, all the sites his eyes had seen, and wondered if his days of exploring were gone. It would just be him and these rocks now and forever. He saw the holes the ground squirrels made, the rabbit burrows, the clumps of drought-resistant plants. He wandered west, feeling the heat rising from the ground. To his right he thought something moved, but when he turned his head, nothing was there, just rocks and sand and hills. He moved closer. A face peered at him, hand-drawn on a boulder, two eyes and a mouth made in black paint, with a squiggly line for hair at the top. Was someone out here then? Playing games with him?
He felt a rage surge up within him. He picked up some rocks and threw them at the hills, at the mirror image on the rock, and as far as he could, watching them arc in the air to land in some unseen place. He screamed into the sky, felt the rage bursting from his lips like a dragon breathing flames. He blazed back along the trail, anger pushing him forward toward the village he had made in the hearth of trees. He ripped the logs from the first empty structure he saw. He smashed them into the ground, stomped them underfoot, and used a long stick to beat down the rest of the structures. When he couldn’t lift his arms anymore, he went back to his home to get away from the sun and the birds. He lay down in the cool shade and fell asleep.
When he woke up later, with the fog of an afternoon nap filling his brain, he sat up and rubbed his eyes. He was alone. Always alone.
He had seen so much of this country and its people since he’d set out on his own. The first night he’d left his wife, he was terrified to sleep outside in an unknown place, wondering if he would be robbed or beaten up. But then his sense of adventure kicked in, and he began to seek excitement. He’d felt the thrill of trying to stow away on a train, the trepidation of trusting a stranger who would pick up a hitchhiker in the middle of the country. He saw the corn palace in South Dakota, visited the petrified forest of Arizona, sat on a beach watching the Gulf of Mexico lap the shore where old people sunbathed on a warm winter morning. After a few months the adventures lost their thrill and became mundane. He began to crave stability. He missed his wife with her painting and laughter, the way her lips twitched when she was mad. He missed his bed, the dresser, his coffeemaker. He dreamed of all the things he would do when he got back. He would go to the movie theater and eat popcorn soaked in butter while the deafening thunder of the film filled his ears. He would ride his bicycle on a paved trail, let go of the handlebars, and feel the wind against his face and chest. He wanted to go to a crowded festival in a big city and get swallowed up by the crowds, get pushed and jostled, smell the breath of drunks around him. Most of all he wanted to see his wife again, hold her in his arms, and feel like he was home.
The temperature dropped as the sun set over the hill, pulling him out of his thoughts. He picked a sliver out of his palm, blackened and red by that day’s outburst. He saluted to the last rays of the sun and watched a rabbit hop into the brush, lucky to live another day. He couldn’t think clearly in all this dry heat, the dry heave of a dying Earth. He remembered that one time, passing through Minnesota, he’d come upon a garden not far from the train station, the one with paths on the ground lined with flowers, a labyrinth built to soothe the soul. He had no seeds to sow here, but rocks? He had rocks. Maybe meditation would help him find his way out.
He made the big circle first, a wide sweeping oval between two willow trees. He swept inward, tightening the circle and spiraling like a snail’s shell in toward the center. Like a dancer he floated on one leg as he finished the maze. He felt better already, just seeing it there in the vast empty arroyo. It soothed him to bring that memory of freedom on the road when anything was possible, when all he had to do to feel better was move on to the next town, the next unknown discovery. As he walked the circle slowly, he could feel the cool grass of that Minnesota morning as it brushed against his ankle. He smelled the flowers surrounding him at every turn, like a lover’s embrace. He moved to the center and then out again, stepping out of the circle to feel an utter sense of peace fall upon him as he stared at his spiral creation.
Within a few days his feet had worn a path into the spiral. After he went wandering, looking for anything edible, he would return and slip into the labyrinth, his comforting friend, and deepen the path with his footsteps. Cumulus clouds formed over the mountains to the north. He dreamed of a cool rain so he could wash his skin and slake his endless thirst. He watched them drift upward like pillars of cottony smoke and then dot the sky as if they were created on an assembly line, one after the other floating out from behind the mountains. One settled over the sun so its rays beamed out in white light toward the earth. Gary looked down and when he looked up again, the cloud was shaped like a heart, with the bright sun beating behind it. He was not meant to be alone, he knew that.
He began to see them everywhere he went then: heart-shaped rocks, hearts in the leaves, hearts marked in the dirt. Everywhere there were hearts. Where had they come from?
He began to collect the rocks: red rocks, white ones, yellow ones with leopard spots. He piled them up at his house, then put them in his bucket and carried them to the stream so he could wash them, lovingly scrubbing away the sand and dirt stuck in their crevices. From the place where his boat had crashed, he began to set them down, in a clear trail, all the way down the arroyo, around the clump of trees where the coyotes slept, and into the little village of stick houses he had made, destroyed, and rebuilt. He knew if he laid this breadcrumb trail, the people would find him. They would follow it and take him out of this place that had trapped him. They would draw him out, bring him back to the world, and he would tell his story. Oh, how he would regale them with this adventure of the riverbed, how this old hobo found himself lost in the desert wilderness, had become king of the arroyo for a bit before making it back into the world. All he needed now was for someone to find him. And they would. Any day now.
Daria E. Topousis is a creative nonfiction and fiction writer whose work explores the intersection of culture, history, and the moments that change us.
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