Caliente: I couldn’t leave if I wanted to

By John Katsilometes

Friday, July 10, 2009 | 12:22 a.m.

They said I should fly to Boise, and I am. I’m flying now, in the Mazda 6 KatMobile that has made the Vegas-to-Boise nonstop a half-dozen times, all of them while dodging, outrunning or plowing through holiday-season snowstorms. It’s the first summer trip, on the occasion of the 90th birthday of my grandfather, the eminent Johnny Sanna. I’m excited just to drive. I love driving, I really do, and instead of knifing up Interstate 15, a better-traveled but certainly less adventurous stretch of asphalt, I’m tearing through U.S. 93. This is the route through Alamo, Caliente, Ely, ultimately Wells, where later I will check into the Bellagio of Wells, Motel 6.

I’m a solo pilot on this trip, but not quite. I have company. The Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense” is thumping through the cockpit, and I’m singing with David Byrne. I believe I sound like him because there is no one to tell me otherwise.

The speed limit is 75 in some spots, 70 in others, David and I are rockin’ the ’80s:

“Can’t sleep, bed’s on fire! Don’t touch me, I’m a real live wiiiiire!”

I’ve got miles to go before I sleep, about 270 to Wells. Not a problem. The music is limitless. The KatMobile is purring, as she had an oil change yesterday. The tires went through a spin-balance, too. About all I need to be concerned with is making clean passes of my fellow motorists -- and I’ve made a dozen already -- and deciding what to cue up next, the Scorpions’ “World Wide Live” or “Rush in Rio.” I’ve not dialed up my Beatles collection lately, either. Musically, it is an embarrassment of riches.

Wait. Where’s the punch? From the car, I mean. We’re losing steam, quick. My RPMs are falling faster than John Ensign's poll numbers. The car is slowing, and there’s nothing I can do: Eighty. Seventy-five. Seventy! What-the? Gas! Pump the pedal! Nothing. Houston, we have a problem.

Now, I wonder, where am I, exactly? I know this: I’m in an area of no cell service. My BlackBerry and personal cell have the “No Service” message locked in, and it’s been like this for miles. But certainly, I’m not going to be crippled on the side of the road here, am I? Everything has been going so well, so far.

“I can’t seem to face up to the facts. I’m tense and nervous and I ... can’t relax.”

No, it’s obvious now. I am breaking down, as is my car. Lights I’ve never seen before are bursting from the dash -- including a little yellow one shaped ominously like an engine. This is to tell me the engine is failing, which I’d already gleaned from its suddenly non-running condition.

I mute Byrne and the band, and the car is groaning, coasting to a halt. I am alone, totally, on the side of the road somewhere between Alamo and Caliente, nowhere near Ely. I’d just been envisioning a stop at the Jailhouse motel-casino, where I might enjoy a late lunch. Now I’m wondering if I’ll be hailing a trucker to make it to the next town. I walk out to ponder my options. That takes six seconds. I can hail, pace or return to the KatMobile. I try to fire up the car again -- success! It has enough life to get me a few miles, where, off in the distance, is a big house. Two, actually. There are very large trucks on this huge property.

I creep up the long roadway, noticing the house has to be decades old, as it has been constructed largely of railroad ties. I breathe deeply at the door, attempting to take on a disposition that will make me appear as anything but a psycho killer. I’ve got a notepad out, and my insurance information, because after six years with this company. I am finally calling roadside service. I straighten my shoulders and press the doorbell. I look inside and “Judge Joe Brown” is on, and I’m reminded of the scene in “Rain Man” where Tom Cruise pulls up to the house on the side of the road to allow Raymond to watch Wapner so he won’t flip out.

I ring and ring. I see her in there, the woman I’ll call Anne. But there is a very formidable dog between Anne and the door. This dog is a mixed breed, it seems, part pit bull and part Velociraptor. Great. I suddenly remember how I brushed out my cat Bonnie before I left Vegas. But Anne leads the dog away and opens the door. She’s wearing a flowered housecoat and seems a bit confused at this clearly flummoxed visitor. But Anne is in no big hurry to get back to Judge Brown, muting the noise from the TV and patiently following me through my clumsy but heartfelt explanation of how I got to her doorstep. She grins when I say I’m heading to Boise for Grandpa’s 90th because she has lived a long life herself. Then she says, “Maybe you should have flown.” This isn’t the first time a traveler has wound up in Anne’s kitchen, as the house is somewhat close but still a fair distance from Caliente. “Usually, they run out of gas,” she says, and I wish that were the case with me. But my tank is half-full. Or maybe half-empty, given my seeping pessimism.

I make the call to the insurance company, and Anne starts flipping through the Yellow Pages. This is the second day in a row that I have encountered someone who doesn’t own a computer or cell phone. After quite a bit of back-and-forth with the insurance rep -- who is stationed in Georgia and had barely heard of Nevada, let alone this little town -- we locate the one tow service in Caliente. Of course, Anne has been poking at this listing for several minutes as I’ve blindly paced the kitchen with her cordless phone. But we reach a guy I’ll call Craig to come out to rescue me after I pass along Anne’s detailed directions to her address: “I am at Anne’s house.” In Caliente, this is a GPS.

Craig scoops up me and the car after about a 20-minute wait. It is about 5 p.m. by the time he arrives, meaning the mechanics in Caliente are probably finished for the day. “I know one of them has left the shop because he passed me on my way here,” Craig says. “But I think Johnny is still around.” I instinctively reach for my BlackBerry, as Johnny will certainly need to be called, but -- curses! -- no cell service. I glance around the tow truck, and I see no means of communication aside from a ballpoint pen and metal clipboard. More stress. What if this Johnny person is not around when we get there? Then what? Should we not somehow call his garage? What are we doing, just showing up?

By the time I sort out this conundrum, we pull into Haven’s Garage and meet Johnny. “In Caliente, you can get anywhere in two minutes and be totally out of town in five,” Craig says. He introduces me to Johnny, and I explain to what has happened to the car. Craig says it sounds like a faulty fuel filter -- the dreaded triple F -- and Johnny doesn’t disagree. But he has no diagnostic testing device to determine what’s ailing the KatMobile. “It’s all computers now,” Johnny says, and I notice the garage’s parking-lot junkyard is populated exclusively with domestic vehicles two decades old.

Johnny’s a nice man but of no help. “No problem,” Craig says, “We’ll head to Billy at the Ford garage.” We climb back in the tow truck, and on our way we run alongside the railroad tracks and old Union Pacific rail station in the middle of town. “It’s a little railroad town, Caliente,” he says. “You know the story -- there’s hot water here, a hot springs, and the water comes out of the ground 180 degrees. It’s kind of magic, really.” I nod and tell him, “It’s a little like Pocatello, Idaho, where my family is from. It’s a railroad town, too. It has the same vibe, but it’s bigger. What’s the population of Caliente?” Craig thinks for a moment and answers, “About 1,200 if you count the cows. About 1,000 if you don’t. We usually say about 1,000.”

On the short drive, we notice two kids on a quad motorcycle roaring across the gravel next to the tracks. “They’re not supposed to be going that fast, but the kids do that all the time. It’s the big recreation activity here.” It looks like a hell of a lot of fun, as the kids laugh and the bike kicks rocks and dust into its wake.

We stop at the Ford garage and talk to Billy, who seems confident his diagnostic device can work on the car -- but the problem is, he is not a mechanic. He sells auto parts. The mechanic will be back at 8 a.m., so Craig and I drop the KatMobile off in front of the shop as Billy says, “Enjoy your stay!” Craig runs through the options, and all I want is somewhere I can access the Internet. “I have an air card, but it’s AT&T,” I tell him. “You’re out of luck,” he says. “But I think Shady Motel has WiFi.” My hand again goes to the BlackBerry, for no reason.

“You like it here?” I ask Craig? “Love it!” he says. “I never thought I’d live in a town like this, but I really love it.” I ask, “You ever make it to Las Vegas?” He shoots back, “Not if I can help it. I hate that place.” I want to say, “Really? Well, you’ve never had dinner at the Peppermill with Holly Madison,” but wisely reason that I’m not about to get into a tit-for-tat with my lone potential friend in Caliente.

We pull up to the Shady Motel, and I notice that I’d pulled all of my bags out of the KatMobile and placed them on the back of the tow truck -- and left them there. “Whoa!” I say, pointing to the bags, but Craig knew they were there the whole time. “They weren’t going anywhere, don’t worry.” He waits as I check into the Shady, asking only about computer service. I could have been assigned a tent out back, and I wouldn’t have cared.

I hustle back out to Craig, giving him a quick thumb’s up. He helps me with my bags and offers some parting advice. “Gear down, Bud. You’re here now. Enjoy yourself.” He’s right. It’s quality time, Caliente-style, and to be stranded here is not so bad.

Updated at 10 a.m.: The KatMobile is back in my hands. The people here at the Shady Motel and at E-Lee Ford, especially service manager and new City Council member Victor Jones, could not have been more accommodating. I hope to meet them all again when I'm not under such vehicular duress. Boise beckons. Kats out.