The Associated Poet

A dazed and incoherent Baxter Black, Head Cowboy of the Coyote Cowboy Company was found wandering in the desert just east of his home in Cochise County, Arizona.

The Border Patrol officers who spotted him from their helicopter radioed for ground reinforcements.  With flashlights and government issue English-Spanish dictionaries in hand they approached the confused Black. The officers carried the dazed Black to their van and gave him bottled water.  They offered him some guacamole but he drew back in fear!  They then sedated him with mescal, which reduced his anxiety, and he told them his unearthly story.

He had been on a buying trip to the Mexican city of Naco.  He purchased some generic Prilosec, bolillos, extract of vanilla, and a piñata in the shape of a large blue duck.  Afterwards he strolled into a cantina, dragging his piñata on a leash made of baler twine.  Several suspicious-looking gentleman at the bar asked if they could pet it.  Black recalled that he joined this group.  Within an hour he had Lorenzo, the duck, doing tricks.  According to Black, soon he had Lorenzo sitting and staying, begging for Margaritas and fetching playing cards.  His greatest trick was one particularly spectacular helicopter imitation involving a ceiling fan and bean dip.  Somewhere during the evening Black remembers his cohorts strapping a backpack on Lorenzo’s back.  They all donned camouflage clothing consisting of a large sombrero and poncho made from a large plastic trash bag.

Editor’s note:  This next part of Black’s recollection of events could not be verified by the newsletter’s forensic team.

“We were standing in this arroyo,” explained Black, “several plastic-bagged travelers, me and Lorenzo, when a strange beam of light illuminated our party and shined down on my head.  It came from above, unless, of course I was laying down which would make it a horizontal beam.

“Regardless, three ambassadors appeared in the light, beckoning us toward them.  They morphed in front of me assuming the embodiment of Diana Ross and the Supremes, Then Curly, Moe and Larry then into Bush-Cheney and Rumsfeld!

“We all levitated into a space ship that resembled a 1969 32’ singlewide New Moon house trailer.  It was decorated like the dashboard of a low rider’s ’49 Mercury.  Diana, Moe and Dick were singing ‘Take Me Back To Tulsa,’ Hilary was serving homemade cookies and Condoleezza was bussing tables.  Lorenzo, the canine piñata, circles the room carrying his backpack full of guacamole dip and Chile con queso.  Revelers were breaking off pieces of my tortilla cape to dip with.

“The next thing I remember,” he said, “is waking up flat on my back in the bottom of an arroyo.  The light beam had disappeared and several armed officials in the familiar green uniform of both the Border Patrol and the Italian Army were telling me, ‘Stick ‘em up!’”

Lorenzo defended me by lunging at one of the officers who emptied his gun at him, but miraculously missed, even after reloading!

“I was taken into custody, photographed and booked on charges of smuggling guacamole across the border, but I protested claiming that I was the victim of illegal aliens smuggling me into the United States!  The guacamole was a decoy; I myself was the contraband!  ‘Why,’ asked my public defender, ‘would anyone want to smuggle him into the US of A?  He does nothing but agitate cowboys and torture cows!’

The prosecutor replied, ‘I agree, I suspect the aliens were really being paid to get him out of Mexico for abusing piñatas, imitating a cowboy and speaking bad Spanish!’”

Editor’s note:  Baxter was cleared of all charges but was admonished by the judge to try and keep his stories more realistic.  People are beginning to wonder if all the Miracle Whip and jalapeños he eats has hallucinogenic properties.