A traveler stands on Route 15.
All around Bobby BeBadd the Sonoran desert
The hot asphalt
Under his feet.
The sun parching his Gringo skin

Skag soothing his Gringo soul
But Bobby wants more
Water
Shade
More Culiacan heroin
And Mazatlan.
A coastal city.
He just liked the name.
Mazatlan.
Nahuatal for abundant deer.

If Bobby BeBadd was a child he might have been lost,
but there was being no lost here.
Route 15 only went north or south.
Skitting the Pacific
With Mazatlan to south.

Black glassed cars speed by
Buses roll by.
Faces stare out the open windows.
Children wave bye bye.
In the desert only fools stood in the sun
The sun rose higher.
Toasting Bobby’s flesh brown.

The color under the Rio Grande.
It was winter in New England.
Winter in California too.
Here it was hot.
A season unknown to gringos
Where Bobby BeBadd is was where he is.

Two college girls stop for him.
Arizona Plates
Bobby gets in back of the Caprice.
Tina and Lena are going to San Blas for the surf.
The AC felt good.
Out of the sun felt better.
Bobby BeBadd was only going to Mazatlan.
Only three hours away.
America more distant
With every passing every second.
Freer every mile.

Tina and Lena drop him on the Avenue de Mar.
They say Adios.
Bobby stands on the boardwalk
The Pacific stretching to the forever horizon
The smell of diesel on the salt air.
He crosses the Avenue de Mar
Enters a cafe serving food and beer.
Bobby sits
A young one-armed waitress asks what he wants.
“Un Cerveza y un camera.”
The cafe is also a hotel.
She smiles.
Her name is Maria.
After a first sip of Coruna.
Bobby is home.
Nowhere he has been before.
Someplace in none of his dreams.
Away from the desert.
Away from the USA.
Away from Wintah.
Mazatlan
Mexico.
Viva la Revolution