As we continue along El Camino Del Diablo, I read about the six miserable stages of dying of Hyperthermia. Dying of heat. It starts with Heat Stress. You know this stage from swollen fingers and minor rashes and sunburn. We’ve all had these headaches. Next is Heat Fatigue. Your crotch is wet. The thin parts of your skin begin to burn. Your eyelids and cheeks, your neck and the part of your hair where your scalp is most exposed. I’m feeling thankful for an unruly mane at this point. Your tongue starts to hurt. Your breathing feels more difficult. Your own mouth starts to taste bad to you. And then comes Heat Syncope. You have a fever. Despite the heat, your skin feels cold. You pale. Now your tongue would struggle to say the word “tongue.” Your heart is moving too fast for its own good. Dizziness descends, then whirls. Heat Cramps make you feel like you are having contractions. All of your muscles hurt you. Clumsiness takes control of your limbs and you start stumbling. Your throat won’t let you swallow. Your abdomen makes even the strongest men go into painful approximations of labour. Heat Exhaustion makes you vomit if you have enough fluid left in you to do so. You are cold. If you are lucky, here is when you would die of cardiac arrest. But if you continue living, your brain starts rotting. You experience tunnel vision and sounds no longer make sense. But you are still capable of dreaming of pools and salvation. Or maybe you begin thinking of your dead relatives, how you will greet them. This is when you decide to drink your own piss. Until even your own piss becomes poisonous to you. And finally Heat Stroke. Your blood no longer streams. It is too low to function. Your heart cannot pump hard enough. Your sweat is gone. You literally have an internal meltdown. Blood vessels burst your eyeballs. Your eyelids are gone. You cannot close your eyes to your fate. Your skin feels like sandpaper to you. Take off your clothes. Dig a hole. Drown yourself in the sand as the last of your muscles break down and rot and fall like chunks of meat into your other organs and clog your entire system. Your kidneys, bladder, heart shut down. Everything shuts down. And then your brain makes it final brilliant sparks and you die one of the worst imaginable deaths.
I often say things like “This heat is fucking killing me,” and out here it could literally be true. We blast the air conditioning as I look out at the deserts full of bones and solar panels and giant windmills that seem stuck still. No movement. I am struck by impossible sadness. I am reading about sad deaths. While I have the luxury to barrel down these roads with bottled water and sunglasses and private climate control. We detour into the chile capital of New Mexico and my spirits are resurrected from their dustbowl by cock-topped vans and “Sparky’s” bbq and Mexican Jumping Beans. We luck into a run in with the gents from Suuns. Handsome devils in high moods. They don’t know it but I’m thanking them for good-naturedly laughing at my best available jokes. After Irma’s café soft tacos and guacamole, the landscape changes, as if the sky can no longer handle the heat either. First it is swept in sandstorms. We are nervous of the Apocalypse as the entire horizon becomes impenetrable. We watch a sky-sized storm of wind and sand and thrashing dust move from left to right across the windshield and as we pass through its hurling eye, we all hold onto our seats. Smaller tornadoes follow, twisters in the distance, then thunderous storms full of lighting, then brief hard rain and harder wind. By the time we’ve reached Hotel Congress/Congress Club in Tucson, I feel pretty lucky that I don’t have to face these desert conditions on a daily basis. Its realities are harsh, though beautiful. Its no wonder that your skin literally gets thicker here; you’ve got to be tough just to brave the day. Like a sweet breath of warm fresh air, Talk Demonic are chatting in the lobby and they rise peppily from their seats to meet and greet us. Hi guys. It’s nice to finally meet you. The coffee here is delicious. Can’t wait for tonight. I have the capacity to return a “Me too” or “Awesome” to every comment but I hope they know I’ll come around. Not always graced with the skills of good speech, I’m always nervous about these first impression. I stutter. I always wish I could slip you a note that reads, “I think you’re pretty” instead. So if you happen to read this: “I think you’re really pretty.”
At this legendary hotel where Dillinger was caught in a fire which eventually led to his capture, Talk Demonic, Suuns and Handsome Furs perform a sort of modern vaudeville for the Tucsonian legions. It is an equal mix of song and dance and certainly our opening acts are sexy enough for the burlesque segment and strange enough stage banter amounts to our comedy routine. Dillinger, we’re sorry that you were betrayed by the Lady in Red but we promise the hoopla and boozery and sleaziness of your early 20th century lives on here.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”

p.s. Mr Russian Lit prof, I need that list of recommended authors.