A Hitchhiker's Guide to Polygamy

This is one of the ways that I conceived this project:

At the beginning of July, my plig van was broken.

By "plig van", I mean my 15 passenger, beat-up, old Dodge van that is the only vehicle big enough for my enormous family of two wives and eleven kids.  It had been parked for a few weeks, waiting for me to come up with enough funds to fix it.  In the meantime, we were all using my second wife Temple's Ford Taurus to get back and forth - the car upon which I had put a cow print on the hood while navigating our five miles of dirt road one night.

The way this usually worked - I would stay home with my first wife Martha on our ranch as much as possible while Temple got up early and took her car to work.  Then she would come home late.  If I needed the car, I would get a ride into town to Temple's place of work and pick up her car.  After my business was over, I would try to have her car back to her on time to go home, and somebody (like my mom) would pick me up and take me home.  It was a frustrating arrangement, but it worked in a pinch.

I have to say at this point that Temple is a very hard worker.  And at the moment I write, she is the only one working, supporting all of the family.  I have had a rough couple of years - with my health.  For the past two years, I have had a diabetic ulcer on the bottom of my foot - a gaping hole on the ball of my right foot.  The doctors had tried everything to get me to heal - three surgeries, along with several complications - DVTs (blood clots in places you don't want them), bone infections, the possibility of amputation, allergic reactions to antibiotics, crutches, IVs at home, nurses coming to my house, and deep, dark depression.  It was not a good time for me.

In June, they had finally taken the wound vac off.  The wound vac is this - you put a piece of sponge into your wound, and then you seal it all up with sticky plastic.  There is a tube coming out of the plastic that feeds into a little machine that you wear over your shoulder with a strap.  This machine sucks and sucks at your wound, creating a vacuum that provides an environment where your wound can heal.

They had pulled the wound vac off of my foot, and what was left was a tender scar on the bottom of my foot.  It was not all the way better.  But it was closed for the first time in two years.  I was ecstatic.  I had to wear special shoe that took the weight off of the ball of my foot and put it on my heel.  It was basically like wearing one clown shoe.

But I was walking!!

Walking has always been how I cleared my head.  Walking was how I gathered my thoughts.  I used to walk for miles and miles every day.  And I hadn't walked for two years.

So I picked up the car from Temple in the morning.  She made it very clear that she needed her car in the afternoon and wanted to make sure that I would have it back on time.  I went into town and ran errands.  Then I called my mother to see if she could pick me up.  No luck - she was gone.  No one else was around, either.

On the way home, I stopped by Maverick and bought Temple a big Mountain Dew (her addiction) in a 42 oz. cup, and a Coke Zero for myself.  Then I drove back to her place of work.  She came out to meet me, and I delivered her drink to her.  She asked me if I had a ride.  I lied to her and said that I did.

I didn't even know what I was doing.  It was four miles of highway to the turn-off to my house, and it was another five miles of dirt road until my house.  I got a wild hair.  This was something I hadn't done in years.  It was exciting and dangerous.

Carrying my Coke Zero, I walked out to the highway and started walking.  I stuck out my thumb.  The first car passed.  Nothing.  They didn't slow down.  The second car passed.  It was a pretty girl.  She waved at me.  But she didn't stop.  The third car was a battered Datsun.  It stopped for me.

I ran over to the car and got in.  There was trash everywhere.  The man inside was of indeterminate age - leathery tan skin, scraggly hair, bad teeth.  He looked like he was on meth.  But he stopped to give me a ride.  He told me he was on his way to Show Low - 35 miles away - for a court case.  DUI.  He hoped that he won.  That was the extent of the conversation we made.  He drove me the county road and dropped me off with an apology that he couldn't take me in all the way.

The dirt road stretched out in front of me.  It was a hot, July day, and I was sweating.  The Coke Zero was already going warm, and there wasn't much left.  I started walking.  I didn't realize how remote we live until you walk and realize that there are no cars passing at all.

Luckily, I had my bluetooth headphones and was jamming to my favorite music - the Pixies, Silversun Pickups, etc.  My feet crunched on the cinders in rhythm to the music.

It was a hot day, but far to the South, over the gentle peaks of Arizona's White Mountains, thunderheads were starting to explode over the crest of the hills.  This was the start of the summer monsoon season, and I wondered if I could make it home before any rain would come.

I started to think about my whole situation.  It had been nine months since I had even held a job.  For a while, Temple - who worked hard to provide for the family - had to drive home every day on her lunch breaks to change my IVs.  I couldn't help around the house.  I couldn't contribute.  I had to just lay there on the couch every day and watch TV until TV held no interest, or read a book until I realized that the entire day had slid by and I hadn't even read three pages.

What the fuck had happened to me??

Was this going to be the rest of my life?  I served no purpose in our family any more.  I didn't feel like I was needed by anyone.  I had always worked, always provided, always protected while my wives built a home.  Now they did everything, and I did nothing.

Not to mention the asshole that I had become.  It wasn't until later that I learned that vancomycin - the drug they had me on - can cause mood swings.  And, boy, did they swing.  My foot was better, but, during the healing process, I had managed to push away anybody that meant anything to me.

As I walked, I stopped the music, and the tears started.  I cried and I cried until the tears stopped.

And then I prayed.  I talked to God as I walked and poured my heart out about everything that I had gone through.

My foot was still tender and starting to hurt.  So I stopped and sat down for a few minutes.  An ant bit me on my ass.  So I kept walking.

I kept walking until I was so tired that I stopped thinking.

At one point, I sat down to rest my foot again, and an SUV passed by.  I was sitting at the side of the road, and so I stood up and brushed myself off.  An old man and woman stopped and asked if I was okay.  I smiled and explained that I was just walking, that I had just had surgery on my foot, and was just resting my foot.  I held up my clown shoe in demonstration.  They looked at me like I was strange and drove off.

About four miles in, I gave up.  My foot was throbbing, and I called my brother who came and picked me up and took me home.  I was hot and sweaty and took a shower before my wife got home.  She was a little angry with me when she found out I had hitchhiked/ walked home.  Not only was hitchhiking dangerous, what about my foot?

However, I was exhilarated by the experience.  After not being able to walk after two years...  It put some thoughts into my head...