Scorpions, tarantulas and beer – they go together better than you may think

I had my first beer the summer I turned 15. I had my second beer 57 seconds later. My third beer I didn’t have until I was in my late 20s and even then I wasn’t sure I liked it.

But that first beer was wonderful.

It was late August and I was living in Phoenix. My mother had decided a few months earlier that we should move there for the clean, dry air. The Arizona Tourism Council brochures neglected to mention the dust storms that blow through that godforsaken city every few weeks, turning the air into the breathable equivalent of a kitty litter box.

It was sweltering that summer. My Michigan physiology was not adapting well and I spent most days trying to find shady spots near the apartment complex’s swimming pool.

I had made one friend, Morgan, an Apache that had been adopted off the reservation by a white family. I thought he was cool because he looked like a character out of a John Wayne movie, he thought I was cool because I thought he was cool.

We spent most of that summer hanging together; with Morgan teaching me about life lived on the edge of the desert. We caught lizards, climbed trees, built forts, and did the stuff boys did before the advent of Play Station III.

So I was a little surprised by Morgan’s reaction when I told him I was going into the desert to find insects for a science class project.

“You’ll get lost out there,” he said, “or stung by a scorpion.”

“It’s right across the road,” I said, pointing to the miles of empty saguaro-studded sand only four lanes of blacktop away. Snow-capped mountains loomed in the distance. If I walked toward them I was going away from home. If I walked away from them I was headed back. I figured.

Morgan was worried for my safety, but he didn’t offer to serve as my faithful Indian guide. Fifteen-year-old boys have a strong survival instinct and, unlike me, Morgan wasn’t an idiot.

Butterfly net in one hand and canteen in the other, I crossed the road and stumped boldly into the trackless wasteland.

Seven hours later, my canteen long empty, I stumbled onto a dirt road, the first sign of civilization I had seen since wandering too far west of the four-lane blacktop.

My throat was an arid tube with a dry sweat sock stuffed in it. My sunburn had gone from bright pink to an alarming shade of red. I had been seeing honest-to-goodness mirages for hours, shimmers on the desert floor that looked for all the world like cool ponds. They remained elusively out of reach.

I sat by the side of the road for a good hour, falling slowly in and out of consciousness, before the battered pickup truck rumbled to a halt beside me. Through the cloud of dust it kicked up I saw an old fellow – what down there they call “desert rats” – stick his head out the window.

“Need a lift, son?” he said.

I did. More than that, I needed a drink. All the desert rat had was beer, a warm six-pack nestled on his front seat.

I drank one beer, opened the passenger door and was sick by the side of the road. I drank another and kept it down.

Morgan was waiting for me back at the house, sipping a cold Coke and talking with my sister. He gazed placidly as I stumbled from the pickup and dragged myself inside for a shower and sleep.

The next time Morgan gave me advice about the desert, I listened.

Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.