sunday

It's 99 degrees Fahrenheit in Gilbert, AZ at 6:10 PM Mountain Standard Time. The grass is turning to yellow dust in the backyard and locusts have suddenly appeared. Birds chase them, but they seem to get away. Speedy like. They're not like South Dakota grasshoppers. You can't catch these guys. I've been trying. I have a Mason jar set aside. Holes through the lid. South Dakota grasshoppers always seemed to launch forward - up and out. These local fellows bugger off to the left and right, wings aflutter, no algorithmic flight pattern. Mean and uncatchable.

I sat down to ponder the variables and a few minutes before I came back inside I was sitting in a hard plastic lawn chair in the backyard smoking a Camel Light. I leaned over and the chair gave up several inches. Weakened by the heat, I suppose. I don't know. But, as I lurched to the right, I thought to myself, like a true Arizonian, "I should probably irrigate tonight." I don't even pee inside anymore unless necessary or I have guests. I figure the bushes need all the water they can get so I service them when I can.

As I came through the patio door into the cooled living room with big screen plasma, a locust flew in before me, flew up to the ceiling fan and dive bombed me, alighting on my shoulder. Like the dove and Castro in Havana in '59. Then, brother locust flew straight back out through the door before I could close it.
I looked at my shoulder where my friend had landed and there was a small stain. Brown. Like tobacco.

I hope it doesn't wash out.