I Should Have Died! #4, The Scorpion Pit

This story happens much later, in my late twenties. My friends (I'll call them A and B) and I were camping in the Superstition Mountains, just outside Tortilla Flat, Arizona, in a small diamond-shaped cave. The cave was up a wash in a narrow valley, above the road.

We called it the bat cave because, well, it had bats in it. Out of courtesy to the bats, the fire pit was located outside the cave in the wash. The cave itself had space for 3-4 people, but there were only a couple of comfortable spots. The floor was pitched and craggy, and although there were numerous chimneys in the center of the cave, the edges were cramped.

My friends had been camping there first, and were on an "extended stay". When I first came to the cave, it was dark by the time I got there, so I took the spot in the middle of the cave that they recommended to me.

B warned me before I went to sleep, "It's called the batcave for a reason. The bats will poop on you in the middle of the night. But don't worry, they're desert bats. It's totally dry, it just feels like little pebbles." So, when I went to bed a pulled a fold of the tarp up over my face. Sure enough, I heard rustling and squeaking above me, followed by a little pitter-patter of bat guano sprinkling down and bouncing off the tarp. I eventually got to sleep, despite this occasional distraction.

The next day, I woke up sore, as the slanted floor had slid me down and wedged me into an uncomfortable corner. My face was also slightly swollen from an allergic reaction to the guano. Dragging myself out of the cave entrance, I noticed a subsidiary tunnel I hadn't noticed the night before. It was just the size of a narrow crawl space. "Hey guys, why can't I sleep in there? The floor is all gravel, that's probably really comfortable. And I like sleeping in enclosed spaces."

They laughed. "That's the scorpion pit," said A. "When that old desert rat told us about the cave, he said never to go in there, that it was full of scorpions."

"Whatever," I said. "I don't see any and it looks really comfortable. I want to get a good night's sleep." So that night, after a strenuous, exhausting day of hiking, swimming, and rock climbing, I slept in the scorpion pit. I was a little creeped out by the thought of poisonous arthropods crawling all over me, so I wrapped my sleeping bag in my tarp, pulled a flap over my face, and cocooned for the night. The sub-cave was narrow around me in the darkness, and I felt swaddled and warm. The floor was level, and I could stretch out straight. Luxury!

I snuggled down into the gravel, feeling it conform to my back and spine; organic memory foam with shiatsu! The blue plastic tarp made crinkling noises as I shifted. I started to drift off, and I wasn't sure if I could hear the faintest scrabbling noises, like tiny claws all over the tarp, all over me. I tried to stay completely still. Was it me? the noises seemed to stop, then start again. The wind slipped in the cave mouth, moving the tarp again, making more scratchy noises. Was it scorpions? I strained to listen, to stay completely still... Of course, I fell asleep just like that.

When the warm sun awoke me, I forgot all of last night's horrors and sprung up to greet the day. From that night on, whenever we stayed in the batcave, I slept in the "scorpion pit". My friends thought I was crazy, but I shrugged it off. A few weeks later, we were able to move to a better cave as an occupancy came up, and I had only thought of the scorpion pit with faint nostalgia; it was truly the most comfortable place I have ever slept.

Epilogue: That was over a decade ago. I'd lost touch with those friends for a while, but recently reconnected with A. We ran into each other at the Middle East Cafe, and were catching up, straining our voices to be heard over the band. "Tim, I went back to the caves, do you remember the scorpion pit?"

"How could I ever forget?"

"I brought a black light out there, Tim. I shone it in the scorpion pit. Do you know what I saw?" I nodded grimly. The scrabbling noises teased at the edge of my hearing in the noisy bar, chills from a dozen years ago scrabbled up my spine, over my shoulders. "Scorpions. Dozens of scorpions. It was teeming with them. All over the floor, the walls. The ceiling. You've fucking crazy for sleeping in there." He laughed.

I gave a strained smile. "I know. I knew. I didn't care. I knew they wouldn't sting me." Was it bravado to say so? Was it foolishness to sleep in the scorpion pit, knowing they probably were there? How was I so sure they wouldn't sting? Was it perversity, daring death in a scene from a horror film? It's hard to say, now. This was not my only brush with death in the desert; but, to live out there is to live with the possibility. Everything out there in the desert is either sharp or poisonous; or both.

Cave wash courtesy Charles Buckley, Scorpion Wikimedia Commons.

I Should Have Died! #1: Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!

I drank gasoline when I was three.

First, I must absolve my mother and all other adults nearby of any responsibility. I moved very quickly from the time I was small, and had the ability to disappear instantaneously. In fact, when I was an infant I could crawl as fast as other children could run. This got me into a lot of trouble, as my reach has often exceeded my grasp, and my inquisitive intelligence has continually outstripped my wisdom and previous experience.

We were at my grandparent's house on a bright summer day. They lived on a quiet street in a small town in New Hampshire, and we were staying with them, in the first home I have ever known. My mother was in the kitchen, and I wandered out the front door to play in the yard, a safe place in a safe, sleepy town.

My grandmother raised flowers in a large, rectangular brick planter in front of the picture window that looked out onto the street, and I noticed that the rich earth was dry from the strong sunlight. I wanted to help, so I tried to turn on the spigot by the front door so I could water the planter with the hose. It was too hard for my tiny hands to turn. I noticed that the garage was open, so I went over to look inside. On the floor of the garage, among my grandfather's yard tools I found a large (to me) red rectangular metal can with a handle on top and a long, curving spout.

I shook the container, and discovered it was nearly full of what I assumed to be water. I must add here that I have suffered from hay fever from childhood, and was usually stuffed up all spring and summer, into the fall. I couldn't smell anything at all, even something so strong as the fuel in the can.

I tottered over to the planter, and carefully poured a small amount of water on the base of each plant, just like my grandmother had shown me to do, so each flower got a good drink. After I completed this task, the can was still at least half full. At that time they had a pool in the side yard. Unbeknownst to my mother and grandparents, I had already figured out the safety latch on the gate that closed off the deck surrounding the above-ground peanut shaped pool.

In summertime, the sun would make the boards of the deck very hot, so we would splash water on the deck to cool it down and keep the boards from eventually cracking. Having successfully negotiated the gate, I started watering the deck, carefully pouring liquid on each board.

Once this was done, I found myself very thirsty-and probably quite high from fumes-so I walked down the steps to the yard, latched the gate behind me, and tilted up the can to take a drink, my mouth latched on the metal spout.

This is the clearest memory of my life, the feel of the cool liquid against my lips, the anticipation of my thirst being quenched, the concentration and balance it took to raise the heavy can high enough to bring the liquid down my throat. My head was tilted almost straight up before the fluid started flowing, and it came in a torrent.

I drank deeply, so deeply. Then the pain came, in my mouth and down my throat it burned, in my belly it burned. I wrestled the weight of the can down, leaned forward, and screamed. it felt like fire as as I shrieked in agony, and I thought for a moment that flames flowed from my mouth and nose as the gasoline and fumes burned my tender mucous membranes on the way out.

I ran to my mother, in through the back porch, to the kitchen, sniveling and screaming, the can still clutched in my little fist. "It burns, it burns," I wept.

It had only been a few minutes I was out of her sight. She looked at me aghast, my face and torso stained with the spill, the can still tightly grasped in my hand, the miasma of fumes emanating from me like a dark aura; "What did you do? Did you drink that?"

"Yes!" I howled.

"How much did you drink?"

"I went gulp, gulp, gulp. I'm gonna die," I wept.

"I'm not going to let you die," she declared in a fierce, firm voice. In seconds she had poison control on the phone. I understand that my aunt and grandmother were on the scene, but all I remember was my mother. She wasn't going to let me die. No matter how much it hurt, no matter how sick and toxified I felt, she told me she wasn't going to let me die, and I believed her.

The nurse at poison control instructed her to give me milk and vegetable oil to protect my stomach, and to neutralize the gasoline until the ambulance could get me to the hospital and a stomach pump. She instructed my mother in no uncertain terms that I was not to vomit under any circumstances, lest there be permanent damage. I didn't want to drink anything else, but she got the mix down me.

By the time the ambulance arrived, the paid had faded, and she had cleaned me up and soothed my tears. We were sitting on the front steps, and every once in a while I would let out a tremendous belch that smelled like milk and gasoline.

* * * * *

Epilogue:

Over the years this story had become an amusing anecdote to me, just another story to tell. Yet, it caused deeper trauma than I realized. I could not drink anything without tasting it first. I couldn't take a shot of liquor, a sip of juice, anything, without holding in my mouth for a second to verify what it was. I thought nothing of this habit.

When my traveling partner and I camped for an extended period of time in the Arizona Desert, he noticed that I was not drinking enough water. It was summer, and my low intake could be life threatening. Annoyed, he finally said "Tim, I don't know why you don't get it." He lifted a gallon jug of water to illustrate. "You have to go, 'gulp, gulp, gulp!" I reeled back in shock, sat down, and nearly wept. No, I wanted to scream. I can't. I can't go gulp, gulp, gulp. Of course, once I'd made the connection I was able to work through it.

I learned many things in the desert, and this was not the least of them.

Stay tuned for I Should Have Died #2: The Birds

I Should Have Died! Introduction/Teaser

For the next post, and scattered posts to follow, I will highlight some of my more bizarre experiences. As my close friends know, I have often found myself in strange, unlikely, hilariously funny, often extremely dangerous circumstances. One of my best friends have repeatedly requested that I document these odd little anecdotes. I have been speaking with another friend who is a visual artist, and hope to turn these little stories into a graphic novel or web comic. For now, I'd like to just start getting them down.

The most dramatic story is my earliest full-narrative memory, of when I drank gasoline at the age of 3. I'm sure family members may be able to offer editorial comment on my surely faulty memories, and I offer the disclaimer that I will almost definitely omit, alter, or create details in this series of mini-memoirs. However, I assure you all that any over-illustration is purely inadvertent, and a result of subconscious processes, not a willful choice to prevaricate or make the story "more interesting" a la "A Million Little Pieces".

So, stay tuned for my next post, I Should Have Died #1, "Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!"