By the way, it is really Hosey, not Josė.When the British volunteers were here, we started a habit of visiting Hosey at his trailer for a few late night beers. I kept up that tradition after the Brits left, and it’s really hard for me to want to leave that trailer once I’m there. Part of that reason is all the cool stuff I’d find lying around his little room, like arrowheads and animal skulls and crossbows. A bigger reason, though, is the stories he tells. I’m not just talking about his memories of fighting in the Civil War in his past life (although those are good, too). What I really love are his stories about the normal, run-of-the-mill daily activities in his life that would be traumatic events for most other people.
For example, he once told me in great detail how he used to castrate sheep back when he was a herder. His partner had to hold the sheep’s legs up to make sure he wouldn’t be kicked, then Hosey had to do the knife work. “Always use a blunt blade,” he said, “cause a sharp one will make ‘em bleed to death.” I’m sparing you many of the details here, but I will add that very fresh rocky mountain oysters were his regular lunchtime snack on that job.
Hosey has been bitten three times by black widow spiders, but only the last two were by accident. His uncle showed immunity to the poisonous bites, and Hosey was curious if that resistance ran in his blood. To check, he caught a black widow and clamped it between his hands until it bit him on the palm. The result was several hours of intense pain and nausea, then he recovered and felt fine. He said he was thrilled to know how he would react to that venom. When he told this story, someone else in the room pointed out that if he wasn’t so lucky he would have ended up with a thousand-dollar ambulance ride to the emergency room. Hosey responded by saying, “That’s why I did it in the hospital parking lot.”
He wants to do the same thing with a rattlesnake, but people keep talking him out of it. Farmers have wiped out most of the rattlesnakes in this canyon over the past few decades, so they’re quite rare here now. When Hosey finds one, he gets excited and tries to catch it. He once caught one in a paint can right before Danny gave him a ride to his mother’s house. He showed it to Danny in the car by holding the open can up to his face and Danny almost drove off the side of the road (Danny verified this). Later that evening, Hosey opened the can to show his mother, but the snake crawled out and slithered straight for the 83-year-old woman. In a panic, Hosey grabbed it with his bare hands and shoved it back in the can. He said he was lucky it didn’t bite him and went on to tell me the proper way to pick up a rattlesnake by hand. He then added that he used to work a construction job in an area where rattlesnakes were plentiful and he got a kick out of grabbing them by their tails and throwing them at his coworkers. Said he loved the looks on their faces when he did that. Once, he accidentally threw one into the open window of a car his friend was driving.
He used to work as a forest fire fighter where burning trees fell and missed him by only a few feet. He also had a few near death experiences working with explosives in a uranium mine. A police officer almost shot Hosey when his drunk friend resisted arrest and stormed away to get a gun. Once, shortly after moving to the canyon, Hosey was about to walk out of his trailer late at night but stopped when he heard a ferocious noise out the door. In the morning, the remains of a deer ripped apart by a mountain lion were lying at his doorstep. He dragged what was left into a nearby cactus, where it still lies today.
Most people end up in therapy after experiences like these. Hosey laughs and cracks open another can of Miller High Life.Aside from drinking beer (he brags that he can knock back a 30-pack in one evening), Hosey prefers to spend his free time hunting for Anasazi artifacts, making dreamcatchers or painting animal skulls. Right now he’s carving both a knife hilt and a handle for a walking stick out of a deer antler he found. People have offered him hundreds of dollars for the pieces he’s made and he’s acquired a reputation for telling them, quite literally, to fuck off. He refuses to take any money for his art or found artifacts, but won’t hesitate to give them away for free to people he meets and likes—even if it’s just a one-time acquaintance in a bar. From the first day I went to visit him, he’s tried to shove artwork, arrowheads and petrified wood into my hands.
Hosey has two cameras he’s never used. They were both gifts from several years ago, but he has no interest in them. A friend offered to give him a laptop, but he has no interest in learning how to use a computer, either. It’s not that he isn’t smart enough—he’s a lot sharper than he lets on, which becomes obvious when you see him rewire a generator—it’s just that they’re unnecessary in his life. He has no need or desire for a home larger than his trailers (one here on the farm and another in his mother’s backyard in town) or for any electric toys or frivolous gadgets. He has three adult children he visits regularly, along with his mother, and he loves it when people come to visit him, and that seems to be all he needs to be happy. On top of it all, he’s direct and sincere and doesn’t play games; people have asked him to behave or watch his tongue at parties and he adamantly refuses, insisting that he will always be himself. Danny’s mother doesn’t invite him to dinner with the Mormons anymore.It’s refreshing to visit him after spending the day around people who constantly rant about politics or complain about how their outdated iPhone sucks or who talk shit about a friend as soon as he leaves the room. Hosey is a great model for recentering your mind and letting go of seemingly huge drama issues that, in the long run, really don’t matter. And he reminds me how important it is to like myself.
Today was Hosey’s 59th birthday. I made a cake. He gave me a dinosaur bone.
I’m going to miss that crazy son of a bitch.
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