With 15 hours to spend as we pleased, Lauren and I got in the theater company car and drove through the desert of Tucson. Around Old Tucson, the roads got lumpy and jumpy, causing Lauren to wee like a girl. We stopped at the side of the road and took a stroll, spooking tiny
lizards around the prickly pears and those giant saguaros you only see in cartoons.
At the Tucson Desert Museum we saw listless snakes bummed out about being behind glass, gila monsters, flashy minerals, a shy mountain lion, a mangy, emotionally castrated wolf, a subterranean owl, a prairie dog, and seven slumbering javalinas. Like those pudgy, hairy hogs, we went without any cowboy or golf hats, and the desert heat had made us lethargic and leathery.
We refueled at Mi Nidito, a Tucson institution since 1952. I ordered the nopalitos con chile, a heaving portion of chopped prickly pear cactus slathered in a red saucy sauce. It was decent and came with a fresh flour tortilla that folded out like a steaming hot road map. The best things on the plate were actually the beans and rice, smooth and seasoned, heightening the obligatory side dishes to star status. It all went down with a couple of Dos Equises.
The walls were decorated with coconuts dressed as shrunken heads, neon Miller Lite signs, and a wall of fame that glorified George W. Bush & Dick Cheney, various starlets of Tejano, and James Earl Ray. The menu also featured a Sirhan Sirhan-chilada, but I heard it was just tasteless.
Lauren's call for her first show, Second City Does Arizona or Close But No Saguaro, was 3pm. I fell into a two-beer coma until 4pm, when I got up to walk around the sleepy heat of Tucson.
I got lost.
Being lost pissed me off.
I saw the sands of time diminishing from my tiny vacation.
A thing called The Buffet caught my eye. It was a bar. I walked in.
When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I made out a ratty 6-foot pool table, some dated, graffiti-smeared banners for Miller Lite in plastic bottles, and several greasy, long-haired regulars staring at me, the new TV.
I was still a bit groggy from the nap and baked from the wayward travels, but when you walk into a bar like that you have to order a drink. The bartender was a tall woman, plain you might say.
"How are you today?"
It sounded like she meant it.
I told her I was good, and asked her how she was.
She shook her head and made a fishy face. I laughed a little bit too loud.
The tap choices were Coors and Blue Moon.
I opted for the former, and her eyebrows seemed surprised.
The coaster said:
BUFFET BAR
& CROCK POT
TUCSON'S OLDERST BAR - 1934
The tall glass was $2.
It looked like it would be a day of drinking constant beer.
The regulars were mostly watching the old TV now with mile long stares. They resembled Daniel Clowes characters, with unkempt stringy hair and large uneducated eyes, sipping personal pitchers. An elderly woman with a big platinum bouffant and a cheerful spirit tidied up. She wore large black sunglasses in the already dark bar, but you could see her eyes were youthful. I drank my beer and pretended to watch TV, and then stepped back out into the long sunset, no longer lost.
4th Avenue is the main drag in Tucson, dotted with bars, hippie crap, bike shops, and a foam and fabric place for the upholstery on your vintage ride. A bluegrass band played live blues, a street car rang its bell, and a couple of young parents pushed a stroller into a tattoo parlour. I picked up some guayaberra shirts at a quality thrift shop.
Between shows Lauren met me at The Hotel Congress, where John Dillinger was captured and the Blues Explosion recorded Controversial Negro. We enjoyed a light dinner of ceviche and tortilla soup at the bar, where I of course had another beer. Meanwhile two elderly and very drunk hippies talked about Frank Zappa, Howlin' Wolf, Pet Sounds, and confused Devo with Men Without Hats. Eventually the drunker one accidentally knocked some glassware onto the bar floor, where it shattered. He didn't even know he had done it.
I attended the second performance of The Second City Arizona show. I laughed a bunch and drank a beer. It's a good show. I'm glad Lauren got to have a hand in its creation. The crowd loved it, too, and knew more of the local references than I did. Well done, again, Second City.
Afterward we hung out at the lounge attached to the theater. Cody bought me a beer. Raised on a ranch in New Mexico where he travelled with a rodeo, Cody also travelled on the cruise ship with Lauren and I two years ago. It was good to see him in his climate of origin.
I suggested we get a Sonoran hot dog, so eight of us flocked to BK, a late night spot that specializes in this Tucson curiosity as well as carne. The hot dog wrapped in mesquite-smoked bacon and topped with tomatoes, onions, cotijo cheese, tomatillo salsa, mayonnaise, and pinto beans lives up to its fucking hype. And the carne tacos, which kicked equal amounts of taste ass, could be dressed with an assortment of vibrant salsas. Lauren pointed out a chlorophyll-colored salsa made from cilantro. You didn't even need cheese. BK fucking rules.
Alas, the evening had to come to a close at some point.
I set the alarm for 4:30am and held on to my girl tight.
Tomorrow we would have to say goodbye until June.
But not tonight.
Verdict: Win
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