Jesus Walks

The reason we were going to Santa Fe was to meet up with my parents at our family friends’ house for Easter. Prior to the stop, the only thing we knew about it was that we would be completing a “Jesus Walk” on what we were told was Good Friday. The family includes Curtis, a 5-year-old boy trapped in the body of a middle-aged highly successful surgeon; Cathy, his wonderful wife; and Erin their extremely bright daughter. I had grown up with them as neighbors for the majority of my life and consider them to be somewhat of a second family. Naturally, I was nervous to bring Corey into their home and vouch for him as a friend and worthwhile human being.

We got into Santa Fe late that evening feeling pretty terrible from our Brazilian feast earlier that night. When we entered the gate we were greeted by a large pack of dogs and my mother. After a quick tour my mom sent us to bed with a jumbo bottle of what she described as “very bad” wine. We were staying in what my mom referred to as “the Casita”. The Casita had two large bedrooms and a bathroom, and judging by the closet full of Jnco gear had recently been inhabited by a hip time traveling middle school student from 1998. We spent the rest of the evening choking down horrible wine and enjoying a charming documentary of Stone Phillips interviewing Jeffrey Dahmer and his father. The interview consisted of Dahmer describing his murders and cannibalistic rituals in detail. Even more disturbing than that was how insanely creepy his dad was. To be honest I am not entirely sure his father didn’t kill and eat those people. Even if he didn’t kill and eat those particular people he has certainly killed and eaten someone in his life. Although the interview was interesting I wouldn’t recommend watching it before you go to sleep. Actually, on second thought, I wouldn’t recommend watching it at all.

The next morning we slept in late. Once we finally woke up we headed into the kitchen where my mom and Kathy had breakfast waiting. Breakfast consisted of an enormous bowl of Kathy’s famous chili filled with sour cream and cheddar cheese: breakfast of the transient champion. After breakfast Erin came in and asked if anyone wanted to help feed the baby goats. We immediately jumped at the opportunity to complete a life long dream. Once we were inside Goat pen we were given our baby bottles and the race was on. I was slow to find a goat and was stuck with the underdeveloped runt of the herd. The race was over pretty quick except for my goat, which evidently enjoyed savoring his milk like a fine wine. I ended up finishing the end of my bottle myself to get the embarrassment over with*. We spent the rest of the day uploading tunes to our ipods, eating chili, and slamming beers. At some point Corey had his first interaction with Curtis, who would turn out to be his arch nemesis for the weekend. Curtis introduced himself, instantly dubbed Corey the Brown Turd due to his brown shirt and hat combo, and then quickly exited the room, leaving Corey very confused and slightly infuriated.

Later that night, after a fabulous steak dinner, we all headed out to downtown Santa Fe to play pool and pound beers, as always, no chicks allowed. For some reason though, Erin decided to throw caution to the wind and come along. Once at the bar we ordered a round of beers (on the old guys) and grabbed a pool table. At the table I put together a make shift classroom while Corey crudely constructed a couple textbooks out of a pile of napkins in preparation to take my dad and Curtis to school. After the first few games we were barely winning due to Curtis’ tendency to blatantly cheat. At this point our all day chili-a-thon caught up with us and soon proved to be the deciding factor as it is somewhat difficult to play pool when you are dry heaving in a cloud of shit smoke. Seven consecutive losses and many brewdogs later, the confidence of the old dudes team was at an all time high and for some reason they began to put money on the line. Curtis also decided to up the ante in the hi-jinks department with the elementary school practical joke of putting chalk on his finger and then rubbing it on our faces. Surprisingly this was still funny the 357th time. Over the next hour we successfully ran up an expensive bar tab and won around $4,000 in a rapid series of pool wins (If the old dudes are reading this we could really use that money right now). By midnight the old guys decided to head home and get some sleep before the big Jesus walk the next morning. Corey also went home with them, breaking the number one rule of roadtripping: never let Jesus get in the way of partying. It wasn’t a complete waste though, he was treated to a personal talk from one of the world’s foremost motivational speakers on reaching your goals (as long as your goals include going to law school, studying law or attending a school of law). In the end he received some sound advice and a pretty awkward threat of what would happen to him if I somehow didn’t end up in law school. I, on the other hand, stayed out and had the time of my life in downtown Santa Fe. I don’t really remember anything from the night but I do know that I drank quite a bit and at around five in the morning I got a call from my mom telling me that I was a horrible son for not coming home, so yeah, it must have been fucking sweet.

The next morning I woke up after a couple hours of sleep with the worst hangover I’ve had since that summer I went on tour playing keytar for Andrew W.K.’s “Party ‘Til You Die of Partying Tour.” My misery was only compounded by the fact that everyone else was chipper with the spirit of Jesus and Erin, the only other person with a hangover, somehow got out of the walk. To make it even worse, I missed the first wave of walkers (my mom and Kathy) and was forced to walk eight miles with nothing to listen to but my dad and Corey’s rehearsed presentation about law school. Curtis had recently bought a fancy new camcorder and Corey was commissioned to record around thirty minutes of brilliant footage of our insightful banter, but, unfortunately, we have been unable to obtain the dvd so for now you’ll have to make due with your imagination.

Prior to the walk my mom had hyped the fact that people give away free burritos all along the road. We were disappointed to discover that in reality there was only one place that gave away burritos and they were filled with scrambled eggs and peppers (Catholics don’t eat meat on Good Friday). Despite my hangover and the lack of free Mexican food, the overall experience of the walk was very positive. It was crazy to see thousands of people making the long pilgrimage (we only did a small portion of the full walk) for something they truly had faith in. Some walkers carried large burdensome crosses on their backs, some carried small not-so-burdensome novelty crosses in their hands, but everyone appeared to be walking with conviction. The atmosphere was so inspirational that at several points it moved my dad to pick up the pace into his version of running. If we ever get our hands on that footage you are in for a real treat. At the end of the walk we arrived at the goal, a historically relevant church. The line to get into this church was at least a two hour wait though, and that coupled with the fact that Jesus is our least favorite fictional character caused us to just head straight to the restaurant. In order to avoid us walking home Curtis had been graciously waiting with the car at a Mexican restaurant all morning…and by waiting I, of course, mean drinking heavily. Once we got to the restaurant we joined him for a couple rounds and then ate some wonderful Mexican food before driving back home. I spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping but Corey was a little more productive with his time. While checking his email he discovered that his blind internet search for psychedelic churches had finally paid off in the form of a response from the Peyote Way Church. The Peyote Way Church is located in Southern Arizona and has some strange affiliation with Mormonism. As a member of the church you are entitled to two legal peyote-guided spiritual quests in the dessert every year. Though it was unfeasible to do anything with the church on this trip, it was a “wise” investment for our “futures.”

Later that night we played a game of that no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em that we had seen on the moving picture box. Before the game Curtis pulled out a large pile of crumpled bills from his pockets and placed them into what we assumed was the winner’s pot. The game went fairly quickly with the imposters being pushed out early, leaving only Corey, the hotheaded rookie, and my mom, the wily veteran, going head-to-head. In the end Corey somehow came out on top (my mom suspects cheating) finally validating the hundreds of hours he has spent playing free online poker throughout his life. His victory was short-lived though, as Curtis quickly gathered up his pile of money and went to bed. Apparently he could not bear to see any good come to the Brown Turd. We were exhausted from our long day of walking so Corey decided not to protest it and we called it a night.

The next morning my dad woke us up fairly early with an exciting proposal of breakfast at the greasy spoon restaurant across town. After a mediocre breakfast we headed over to the hardware store. We were a little confused why we needed to go to the hardware store since they had already made several stops there in the past two days, but we soon found out that it was just a clever cover for hanging out at the sports bar/casino next door. We spent the majority of the day drinking the bar special of Miller Chills** and trying our hand at the gentleman’s pastime of betting on the dog races. After a rough start we were able to recover our losses and even began making some money with key picks on such dogs as The Ogmonster, Whiskey Pete and Chili Sanchez. Our streak didn’t last long though and we learned a valuable lesson of never putting all your winnings on Grandfunk Railroad to win anything. Not only did the G-Funk fail to place, he was the only dog that failed to even finish the race.

We were feeling pretty down about our big loss but decided to throw our last remaining dollar into the slot machines near the entrance. I lost my share instantly but Corey hit the jackpot, winning around forty dollars in quarters. He decided not to cash it in and left the casino with his oversized cup of quarters, head held high. We drove back to the house after making one last stop at the liquor store to replenish the beer and wine supply.

Upon our return we set up shop on the back porch and got to drinking canoe beers with the old dudes***. What was left of the afternoon was spent drinking to a classic rock soundtrack provided by Corey’s media machine and discussing how they don’t make tunes like they used to.

The women chose to take a night off from cooking so we all went out to eat at a Spanish restaurant. Dinner was delicious and we took full advantage of Curtis’ tendency to order multiple bottles of expensive wine. Once the alcohol kicked in and the live band started up my dad and Curtis whisked their wives onto the dance floor and kicked off what would prove to be an epic night of dancing. While I had previously experienced the spectacle of my dad on a dance floor many times in my life and was familiar with his vast repertoire of classic moves, Curtis blew me away with his sprinkler to shoulder shrug back to sprinkler combo that he employed religiously throughout the night. As the rest of the table was destroying the dance floor, Corey and I set to destroying an entire bottle of eighty-dollar wine. After a few songs they returned to the table leaving just an old man in a beret strutting his stuff solo on the dance floor. The entire restaurant watched on enthusiastically as this dinosaur displayed an array of “dance moves” that had remained unaltered since his days as the creepy old guy hand jiving at a Duke Ellington concert. As the song ended he finished up the routine with a textbook arm worm to answering the Hand Telephone and the crowd erupted with cheers. It was nice to see a man clearly past his prime getting recognition for his only life talent, but when no one moved toward the dance floor and he began his next routine I knew it was time to step up and put him in his place. I confidently walked up next to him and as my adrenaline surged I noticed a look of deep fear in his eyes. I knew I had to make my presence felt early so I opened up with my lawn maintenance trifecta of mower, weed whacker, hedge clipper (not in that order). He was obviously shaken up as he retaliated with his tired out 50’s Beatnik hand dance, which had been seen on multiple occasions that night. I had him right where I wanted but felt bad about landing a knockout punch so early so I decided to take the crowd on a simple little shopping trip. He obviously sensed the weakness of my move and gained the confidence needed to throw out a mood-shifting shuffling robot with more skill than I had expected. At this point it was clearly time to put the old dog down and I unleashed a flurry of highly difficult, unthinkable moves that can only be described as the Drunken Croatian Tornado. I then added an unnecessary dance in your face celebration and as I reached for my victory handshake I was met with a cold stare and a physical threat. From there things kind of escalated as my drunken temper and his pathetic sense of desperation got the best of us and before I knew it he was being restrained by a bouncer and harshly scolded by my mother. I felt slightly sorry for him as he moped back to his seat at the bar never to return to the dance floor that night. I soon forgot about him, however, and basked in the glory of being Santa Fe’s newest King of Gimmick Dancing. Although nothing could compare to the dance-off some other highlights of the night included celebratory dancing with old ladies, Corey’s attempt at revenge on Curtis by seducing his wife on the dance floor and my dad trying to convince us he was having a good time despite his blunder of volunteering for DD.

The next two days were very boring and spent mainly inside due to an unrelenting rainstorm. Basically we ate some fantastic meals and reloaded the car with an insane amount of food (most notably five pounds of unwanted frozen venison sausage).

On the morning of our fifth day in Santa Fe we packed up the car in the rain and said our heartfelt goodbyes. We were somewhat glad to be leaving the strangely foreign fancy meals and warm beds, getting back to the only road we’ve ever known, like grifters born to walk alone****.

*I did not actually finish the goat’s bottle of milk.

**Miller Chills are a disgusting mixture of equal parts Miller Light and Mike’s Hard Lemonade. It is not advised to drink this product unless you are of Hispanic descent.

***A term my dad uses very heavily for beers that are “fucking near water!”

****You guys like Whitesnake? Guys?

-Spencer