The greatest carnivore in history looms on the side of the road somewhere between Phoenix, Los Angeles and the desert sprawl in between. In his period of dominancy during the Cretaceous period, the Tyrannosaurus Rex was the master of all things destruction. He was fear itself. Now, his livelihood is the cherry atop a slice of Americana and religious conventions. The Tyrant King himself, condemned to a life plaster, rebar, metal wiring and an exterior support system so tourists can waltz through his interior while their children destroy the nearby restroom.
For those of us who live in the Los Angeles basin, we have seen this roadside attraction at some point in our lives. Before we have found ourselves in the midst of the sprawling meadows of air-powered windmills, we drive by the Cabazon Dinosaurs. A roadside attraction that has attracted film crews, Japanese tourist, teenagers stoned on dope and me when I was taking care of a little girl who wanted to see dinosaurs. It was closer than the Natural History museum on a Friday afternoon and I could snag a banana-date shake afterwards. Unfortunately I missed the roadside market and found myself peering from the inner jaws of a stucco monster.
I visited the antiquated structures of the booming 1960’s recently. In the vein of Pee Wee Herman and Jenny Lewis circa The Wizard, I wandered underneath the belly of a dinosaur shaped museum. While the initial kitsch factor made me giddy, the interior of the gift shop came as a surprise. Much to my pleasure, the gift shop was loud with Creationist propaganda. I had to suppress a laugh after the unibrowed employee shot me a disconcerted look as my girlfriend’s daughter asked me why we couldn’t touch the dinosaur models. It might have been because they were holy icons, the little one thought they would become real and the woman; I really can’t grasp what she believed on the matter. Nonetheless, no touching was done.
I never would have expected something so hackneyed to take a sharp turn for the bizarre. Posters of stegosaurus where coupled with a fresh verse from the book of Leviticus. A superimposed likeness of Jesus was atop a fiercely colored flying reptile in a scene that looked like a child’s coloring book mated with the New International Version. Nearly every square inch of the interior that was not plagued with plush dolls and motorized plastic figurines was saturated with Biblical adages that apparently prove the dinosaurs were made of a Christian God and not through evolution.
Normally, I would snicker at these declarations of faith for being so affected and so obvious. My liberal-agnostic-leaning sentiments would lean to remarks about Moses fighting off megafauna with his olive tree staff during his stay in the wilderness. I would have even taken a picture on my phone and sent it to other sardonic friends to mock the irony of these egregious claims. But this was not so, instead I watched in horror as flocks of bright eyed children swarmed around the toys that were strategically placed underneath these posters. The Creationists who ran the exhibits were not only wrapped in the bosom of religious zealotry, they were coy. They followed the old proverb of “get ‘em while they’re young”.
My horror came not for me, all of 23 and sour toward religious institutions but for my tiny companion. Accompanying me was a four year old; who, while clever to slightly shocking measures, was still four years old. As she stood under a rousing poster playing with a foam dinosaur age I realized how keen these Creationists actually were. Take a quizzical young lady like her; add toys and propaganda and you can sink a hook of interest. The Creationists, much like the carnivorous dinosaurs gracing the “walk-back-through-time” exhibit took full advantage of youth. While they challenged or at least sparked curiosity in adults, they could snag a child with their overwhelming bombardment on the senses.
As I stood there with the little one, listening to her chat in a singsong like trance I thought back to my own childhood. I grew up in with private school education. Even more so, the faith based learning that was spouted upon my classmates and I in our early stages of critical education. I recall engaging with an academic agenda similar to the thunderous posters tacked throughout the museum gift shop. While I was taught through pointed science books with Biblical affirmation to back these posters harkened the education I received. But I can’t say I fully beat this style of learning, since I will always remember what I learned regardless if I believe it or not.
I wonder if the little one, like myself will recall that someone somewhere told her Jesus of Nazareth walked with the dinosaurs. I wonder if the appeal to youth will take hold of her as she might look up once or twice the posters and recall that a bearded man is embracing a reptilian creature that was long dead before he came to prominence with claims miracles and slight of hand tricks. That of course is just me being cynical, but regardless of how I felt I still remember being taught that. With that in mind I whisked my young companion away from the toys and thought I would try my luck at the robotic dinosaur walk through.
After paying 17 dollars for our way into the exhibit, we looked upon a robotic dinosaur mouth opening and closing in succession. The mechanical movement of the jaws of some creature that was claimed to devour men like me in single bites was not the least scary. Even my tiny companion wasn’t impressed. Having put the fear of exposure to ridiculous religious notions out of my head, I moved us to the next exhibit. There we watched the shaking head of a triceratops, my personal favorite as a child. This dinosaurs neighbor, an armor clad statue of a knight with a lance, seemed to heighten the urgent sense of lunacy that dripped from the walls of the fine desert museum.
Now I can see how Creationism is backed. I can picture why and how people believe such things, but the collage of robotic dinosaurs and an Arthurian knight was the topper. I imagine the look she had on her face was similar to mine. Shock. While hers was more the “how does this work?” look mine was the “what the fuck?” look. Without discussion we kept moving, putting such a peculiar notion behind us. And when she said, “I’m scared of this place,” I wanted to admit that I was too. But I had to muster up my skills as a caretaker and move us to the garden walkthrough that brought us back even further back in time. I decided that if I was visibly shook by this place then maybe the fear of God and his Jurassic pals would be tangible to her.
In the desert garden we walked amongst the fiercest creatures of their day. I pictured that this was what the disciples did according to the Creationist beliefs. I might be wearing a goatskin tunic and she would be in something adorable and fitting to the era, perhaps a silk garb. She would be on my shoulders and we would stroll through olive groves while plesiosaurus and therizinosaurus watch us with doleful, passive eyes. We might hear of the latest miracle by the daring Jesus then the girlfriend and I would join friends for wine recently converted from water. Yet, in reality it was very hot and the statues were fading from the sun beaten years they had spent out in the trail.
At the end of the garden we made it to the terrible lizard himself. She wanted to see up stairs, all three flights of them and we made it to the inner jaws. On the way up we passed more posters expressing belief. I noticed that these had become more aggressive than the ones in the museum shop. As though these announcements presented a challenge to the brave who made it this far into their compound. My particular favorite read: EVOLUTION, WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE! The little one had not noticed and I could breathe easier.
When we sat in the jaws of Tyrant King and looked at the sprawling desert past the blacktopped parking lot I wondered what she would take from this. I was nostalgic of American gaudiness, but would she get feel anything when she passed this attraction in her adult years? I hoped that our visit to the dinosaurs would trigger a flood of tacky statues, poor animatronics and fun. Not Creationism. For me it complimented the thought that a strange concept like Creationism would dwell away from a major city, but not far from a casino. Out in America’s deserts people could practice worship freely and if they felt it necessary, house their beliefs in giant hollow dinosaur monuments.
As we walked through the parking lot, the sun was setting. A desert wind had picked up. The mini was roosting on my shoulders with handfuls of my hair and pomade for good measure. I asked her if she had fun and she answered yes. But she questioned why we hadn’t seen any bones, real bones. She wondered if they were under the ground, the same one I was walking above. I answered probably because I hoped they were. I hoped that dinosaurs would be as mysterious to an adult as they would a four year old. I hoped that their bones were deep down in the earth’s crust, away from the side of the Interstate 10 freeway, away from religion.
I caught the jaws of Tyrannosaurus Rex in my rearview mirror as we entered the onramp. He was smiling about something, maybe it was the fact that I had spent the day wandering in his innards or maybe it was the fact that I would miss my exit for a banana-date shake. He might have been laughing at how ridiculous the whole thing was. It might turn out that Creationists were right. It’s prospective. But I don’t really know and neither do the Creationists. But like childhood memories and values of faith, these possibilities will be rooted up in time.
