Another Prickly Pear Patch, Another Sunset

Tried to drive to Mount Lemmon with Kevin and Heather again. After a thick and filling hot dinner wtiht the best home made cornbread known to earth. Winding drive thru streets of tucson, oh godbless you tucson, with your sprawling wasted streets. Turn Right no Left no, damnit, head for the mountains, we've lived here how long? We pulled into a small parking space, and climbed up a rocky hill, Kevin leaving the way with a mighty monkey yell, mandolin twanging slung over shoulder like a gun that shoots off atonal rhythmic beats with every step when it hits against his shoulder blades. Twang Twang. OO-OO-HE-HEE-AAHH-AHHHH!!!! he calls, and hops over a barbed wire fence, effortlessly, thanks to a dead saguaro cactus slumped over it, weighing it down like an old drunk. Heather at his tail, in multicolored skirt and bright eyes, dredlocks pulled back happily, artfully jumps. Maggie too, with a big smooth leap hops and disappears behind large smooth rocks, leaving me alone in the dust and prickly pears, wondering if I too should attempt such a hike. After a few minutes of contemplating, and understanding that it was the fence or no sunset, I too climb. With a tip of an imaginary hat I thanked the cactus for providing me with a way over, and stumbled clumsily up the rocky path , following nothing but laughter and soft twangs to a clearing where god had placed a rock facing westward, like a couch, just for us. And there sat Heather and Kevin and Maggie, all looking down at me innocently, a little startled, as if to say "where were ya? Almost missed the sunset." and Kevin handed me the mandolin and they made room for me and we stared at the setting sun. I played old fiddle tunes sadly and looked off into the glowing horizon, a sunset I haven't seen for over a full year, shadows of mountains and far far below the city of tucson, green and sparkling and sprawling like the sea it probably once was, now reduced to desert and stripmalls and sidewalk and sad beautiful Mexican waitresses who remind me of Romani Gypsies- the ones that tell you their name is Maria, even though you both know it isn't.