The Horrific Pricking

SPOILER ALERT: I’m a cactus freak.

Having searched, I have learned that there are no support groups for cactophiles. There is no AA for cactus addicts. Modern internet dictionaries don’t even recognize the word, ‘cactophile.’ We are a lost, forgotten minority that society ignores. There is no help for us.

From kindergarten to third grade I lived in the extreme desert of Southern New Mexico. I went on many hikes through the desert. Every time I saw a cactus I was turned on.

I spent my high school years living in far, far West Texas and I spent way, way too much time out in the desert (often in mind-altered states). Once, while tripping I hugged a cactus…

… and I wasn’t pricked!

I have also spent numerous adult years living in the desert. I have a deep fondness for the desert. Sure, rattlesnakes will set my heart a-pounding but that is not exactly a joyous feeling. But when I see a cactus — especially a cactus in bloom — I get down on my knees and commune with that cactus.

If I were a plant I would want to be a cactus — or maybe a tree with thorns like the mesquite tree (a short, scraggly tree of the American Southwest). I like the idea of growing upward toward the sun impervious to outward threats thanks to my thorns. What on earth does that say about me?

I have never found a psychotherapist who can answer that question. Of course, I have never looked for one nor spoken to one. I just don’t want to know what they would say.

I just love the defiant attitude of a cactus. They live in harsh climates under harsh conditions and they don’t seem to let anything get them down. Everyone and everything has respect for cacti. Maybe it’s that respect that I admire. Maybe it’s the bravado, the intense security, the cloaking of beauty in fear, the “fuck you” attitude.

When I was a little kid forcefully being indoctrinated into Roman Catholicism I rebelled but I always loved those pictures of Jesus wearing that crown made from a crown of thorns cacti. I used to grow crown of thorn cacti back when I lived up in the mountains and, let me tell you, they can prick like no other cacti. My cat used to brush her hair by rubbing up against those cacti. That always amazed me because she never got pricked. Even Jesus wouldn’t brush his hair with a cactus. (Every few weeks I had to gingerly pull all the cat hair off the cacti to keep the dear plants from suffocating.)

If I were a cactus I might want to be a saguaro cactus. While most animals leave cacti alone, owls will make nests in the upper branches of saguaro cacti. Man, how exciting that would be to have birds living in my upper branches!

(Are there any psychotherapists who can explain that?)

Since I was a young kid I have always loved cacti and since becoming an adult I have always had cacti growing in my home. I used to have enormous amounts of cacti living with me but now in my later years, I only have four cacti in my current apartment. It’s not really enough but it keeps me from undergoing serious cactus withdrawal. I’ve been through that and it’s not pretty.

But I’m going on and on about cacti. I have a cactus story to tell and it’s about time I get to it…..

It happened back in The Year That I Ruled the World in the mid-1980s that I talked about in other stories. I was living in Midland, Freaking, Texas. Across the street from the apartment complex that I lived minimally in was a large vacant lot. I’m guessing this lot was about 3 or 4 acres of pristine West Texas desert. (Pristine except for the accumulated trash from passing littering motorists.)

I used to go out into this little patch of wilderness to meditate. Near the back of this wild area was a little clearing surrounded by short mesquite trees. There was a flat rock right in the middle of the clearing that was perfect for sitting on and communing with nature. It was far enough away from the highway to minimize traffic noise and no one ever seemed to go out there so it was very private.

On the walk out to this little private nature sanctuary, I always passed a certain cholla cactus. Cholla (pronounced, choy-ah — top photo) cacti are one of my very favorite cacti. Their size is utterly dependent on the altitude in which they live. Low altitude cholla cacti will get up to five feet tall. Mountain cholla will only be a foot to maybe eighteen inches tall.

That cholla cactus that I always passed, and greeted, on my way to my nature sanctuary was about four feet tall. It was an adult but not yet an elder.

Cholla cacti have finger-like branches with long inch-plus long thorns. The thorns are barbed so if you get pricked the thorns don’t want to come out. Falling into a cholla cactus is like having a thousand fish hooks embedded in your skin. If you ever want to hear a grown man cry…..

Well, one day I left my apartment headed to my desert nature sanctuary to meditate and, as I crossed the four-lane highway, I noticed something new. There was a big sign just off the highway that read, “Future home of the North Midland Mini-mall.”

I stopped in my tracks. I was dumbfounded. This beautiful, near-pristine piece of wild desert land was about to be bulldozed in order to build yet another goddam mini-mall! There was no way I could meditate after realizing that!

But I walked out towards my meditation spot thinking that I might not have that spot for much longer. But I never made it to my spot. I stopped at the cholla cactus that I always passed and always mentally greeted and blessed when I passed it. I stood there looking at it with great sorrow in my heart. That beautiful being was about to be bulldozed!

I quickly decided that I had to save that cactus!

All my life my homes have been filled to excess with houseplants. In my apartment today my houseplants are on the verge of kicking me out. They are taking over. I simply cannot live without houseplants.

But back during The Year I Ruled the World in Midland, Freaking, Texas I was living a minimalist experiment. I had no furniture, no electricity, no conveniences and I had ZERO houseplants.

But I had a balcony. Cholla cacti are NOT houseplants! No window sill can contain them. They need full sun all day long and that is exactly what my balcony offered.

So I went to Wal-Mart and bought the biggest and most expensive clay pot they had to offer. I went back to Wal-Mart to get a big bag of cactus potting soil. (Walking, I couldn’t carry both of them home at the same time.)

I then borrowed a shovel and went out to the almost pristine desert across the street to dig up the cholla cactus.

What the hell was I thinking? I dug up the cactus but quickly realized that the only way I could carry it was upside down by its roots. Cacti hold a lot of water and it turned out that this dear cholla cactus must have weighed fifty or sixty pounds or more! And I couldn’t simply carry it by its roots. I had to hold it out as far away from me as I could while carrying it so that I wasn’t profusely pricked.

Imagine carrying a full-grown animal weighing 80 pounds by your hands with your arms fully outstretched in front of you. But that’s what I did. I carried that upside down cactus across the four-lane highway to my apartment complex and up the flight of stairs to my apartment and then out to my balcony.

I planted that cholla cactus in that big pot and I watered it then I went back across the street to get the shovel. Back home, I stripped naked for a shower and looked in the bathroom mirror. I must have had 300 prick marks on the front of my body. Curiously, the only place I wasn’t pricked was on my prick.

Thank God for that!

The whole ordeal took me a little over two hours. In retrospect, I never would have done it had I known what a freaking ordeal it turned out to be. But in time I was so very glad that I did it — especially after the construction began on the mini-mall. I now saw that lovely cholla cactus every single day through the glass doors leading out to my balcony. I watered it, I talked to it, I blessed it, and I loved it.

In the almost year that it lived on my balcony it was very happy. It got all the sun it needed, it got rain and wind just like it got while living in the almost pristine land across the street. A few times I saw birds land on it. Where it used to live was now asphalt and I felt good that I gave it a second chance at life and it was still living. I was filled with joy every single day that I saw it sitting out there on my balcony. In that almost year it grew about a foot taller.

When my soul-mate showed up at my door and I invited her in she was visually alarmed by the minimalist way in which I was living. When I showed her and introduced her to the cholla cactus living on my balcony she took a step backward, much like a child would step back from an alligator at the zoo.

I, of course, reassured her. I told her the story of how I rescued the cactus from the lot across the street. She seemed to take a step back from me.

But with time she grew secure with the cactus. She even joined me in greeting and talking to the cactus (although I’m not sure how sincere she was). She slowly and cautiously accepted my ‘cactophilia.’ Of course, she was particularly cautious and reticent that one time we made love on the balcony.

When my newlywed bride and I moved away from Midland, Freaking, Texas it took me all of 35 minutes to clean the apartment. When I looked the apartment over I realized that there was no freaking way that I was going to try to move the cactus from my balcony. I had moved it once and I was not going to move it again. I prayed that the new tenant would be a ‘cactophile’ and rejoice at the five-foot-tall cactus living on their new balcony. I prayed that the cactus would enjoy a few more years where it was so happy.

It was right before we moved that the cholla cactus bloomed. It came out with dozens of beautiful purple flowers. It was like the cactus was thanking me and saying goodbye.

While my lover slept I went out onto the balcony and said my good-byes to the cactus. I told it how much I loved it. I blessed it and told it that I hoped it would continue to have a happy life. A tear actually squirted out of my eye.

And then I simply couldn’t help myself. I hugged the cactus…

… and I wasn’t pricked.

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