CITY OF DUST

The Shaffer Hotel: Mountainair, New Mexico

2012-01-28T18:20:00.009-07:00

There’s nothing quite like a night in an old hotel. Last year we stopped by the St. James Hotel up in Cimarron and now we’ll check out the Shaffer Hotel in Mountainair. Mountainair, about 90 minutes south of Albuquerque, was named for the fresh breezes that blow off the surrounding mountains and down through the town. Mountainair is also the self-proclaimed “Pinto Bean Capital of the World.” This second claim to fame tells you something about what most people in Mountainair do for a living.

Established in 1903, Mountainair soon attracted the attention of Clem “Pop” Shaffer, a blacksmith who arrived in 1908 to work his trade and sell useful items like caskets and coffins. Mr. Shaffer built a hotel out of wood which promptly burned down. So, in 1923, he built another hotel, this one out of cast concrete and various bits of iron that he collected from wherever he could. This hotel would not burn down.

But the fact that the Shaffer Hotel is made of concrete is almost entirely obscured by its ornamentation, a mesmerizing mixture of Native American symbolism, fantastic creatures, and menacing characters of unknown origin. While loosely considered “Pueblo Deco,” Pop Shaffer’s vision is almost too singular and idiosyncratic to fit the term. While not exactly comforting, the hotel’s artwork, which includes painting, sculpture, and numerous things made out of rocks, all created by Pop himself, is pretty incredible. And, yes, it is jarring to see what appear to be swastikas scattered about. However, this is not the Nazi swastika, but a Navajo symbol, sometimes called "whirling logs," that represents healing and can face either left or right. Four large whirling logs that originally lined the top of the hotel have been covered over.

Pop Shaffer’s hotel did well for him and he added a Ford showroom and garage in the back of the place, alongside the coffin workshop. A restaurant was opened next door, the ceiling lavishly carved and colored. Each day, like clockwork, Pop’s second wife, Lena, went shopping for food and provisions. This gave Pop a little time for extracurricular activities, but one day Lena returned unexpectedly to find her husband climbing the stairs to the rooms of the hotel with another woman in tow. Lena produced her pistol as the mistress drew hers. However, as was common in those days of unpredictable side arms, both shots went very wide of their marks. Lena’s bullet hit the ceiling behind the staircase. The mistress’s lodged in the molding of the ceiling opposite the staircase. One has to wonder what Pop Shaffer thought of this incident. I have found no record of how this domestic crisis was resolved, but it did not end in divorce.

There are those that say Pop Shaffer still resides in his hotel. A man who hung himself in Room 16 is also said to haunt guests. I was told that the previous Halloween a father had requested that he and his daughters be given the most haunted room in the hotel. The man was put in 16 and his daughters got the adjoining room of the suite. In the middle of the night the man went to use the bathroom and felt a chill then turned to see the outline of a body on the bed. He attempted to go to his daughters but was unable to unlock the door to their room. They awoke and were likewise unable to open the door from their side. Early the next morning the woman that runs the front desk came in to find the man and his daughters sitting downstairs. The girls were crying. The man said they weren’t staying another night and the hotel could keep their money as far as he was concerned. The desk woman said she made the refund anyway. I couldn’t convince MLE to stay in 16 so we took an adjacent room where I slept quite well but she did not, feeling a little rattled by the general atmosphere.

While we weren’t haunted by ghosts, the night we stayed at the Shaffer one of the women that worked at the hotel was being stalked by an ex-boyfriend who threatened to shoot everyone inside. He drove by a couple times and the police were called. At one point, while eating in the restaurant, we were asked to step away from the front window. For a few minutes we drank our tea by the cash register, waiting to see which way things would go. But, in the end, there was no gunfire at the Shaffer that night, surely how Pop would prefer it.

Not far from the Shaffer Hotel is Pop’s old residence, Rancho Bonito. Guarded by an alarming wooden creature and comprised of two fairly small buildings that are perhaps even more colorful and fanciful than the Shaffer, it’s very much worth a look. Both the hotel and Rancho Bonito are on the National Register of Historic Places. The Shaffer is for sale or lease if you want to own or operate a piece of history. Accommodations range from “cowboy” rooms with no bath to spacious suites. I’m sure all ghosts will be included at no additional charge.

Information for this post mostly came from the Shaffer Hotel's own WEBSITE. A bit more came from a personal tour of the place and the rest from lived experience.

Whiskey and the Devil: Taiban, New Mexico

2012-01-10T22:10:00.005-07:00

Let’s start the New Year by departing Yeso and traveling Highway 60 east, past Fort Sumner, final resting place of Billy the Kid (we’ll return to Fort Sumner…eventually), to the unincorporated town of Taiban, New Mexico. Taiban is known for its old Presbyterian Church, a lonely, gutted house of worship visited by photographers and the traveling faithful. The church, once part of a neighborhood which included homes, businesses, and the two-story Taiban High School, now sits by itself out on the prairie. Not a single business remains in Taiban. But it was not always this way.

Like Yeso, Taiban was named for a nearby creek. The source of Taiban Creek was Taiban Spring, originally known as Brazil Spring after a Portugese immigrant, Manuel Brazil, who arrived in 1871, the first recorded settler in the area. The meaning of the word “Taiban” is obscure, although it’s thought it might be a Navajo or Comanche word for “horsetail,” a reference either to a local plant or to three small tributaries that flowed into the creek. It’s said that Billy the Kid watered his horse at Taiban Spring.

Also like Yeso, Taiban owed its existence to the railroad. Taiban was founded in 1906, when the Belen Cut-off was laid across the eastern plains of New Mexico, re-directing rail traffic from the mountainous north. A school was built and contracts were drawn for the construction of fifty homes. By 1907, there was a bank and a hotel. In 1908, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad began actively encouraging settlement of the region. Over 1,300 trains passed through the plains bringing homesteaders from across the country. But the vast majority of emigrants did not settle in Taiban and, in 1909, the town’s population peaked at 400 residents. These were mostly farmers and sheepherders, already veterans of conflict with both the landscape and established ranching interests.

In the fall of 1908, construction began on the First Presbyterian Church of Taiban. It was completed on December 22, 1908 at a cost of $250, less than $100 of which could be covered by the congregation, necessitating loans from the ladies of the Baptist church, as well as the Taiban savings Bank. The first sermon, given by Reverend John R. Gass, was sparsely attended due to cold weather.

Shortly after Taiban was founded a heated controversy erupted over the construction of The Pink Pony Saloon and Dancehall, which, in addition to selling alcohol, was to hold cockfights and house a snake den in its basement. Opened amidst great consternation, the Pink Pony became the only one of 40 businesses operating in Taiban in 1908 to survive into the latter part of the 1930’s.

A settler, Vane Outias, describes his experience arriving in Taiban: "There we were. Piling down off the steps of the jerk-water train at Taiban, New Mexico; Pa, Ma, and the kids. After counting the suitcases, the packages, and the bundles, Ma called the roll. All were present. The bunch of us with Ma herding started for the hotel. We had come out here to file on some land: make a living farming; and when we had proved-up, sell out and go back east (rich).

"On the way to the hotel I made observations for my own particular benefit, namely, there were two places in town which would have thrown Carrie Nation into a frenzy if she had been one of our party, Watch me hurry, as I had come from a dry state. Just as soon as I could find an excuse I was admitted to the bar of the first emporium. I meant to say; when I found an excuse that the Missus would accept.”

Thus alcohol and religion squared off, vying for the soul of Taiban, whose heart was being broken by the farming of an inhospitable and increasingly barren land. Some years the church won out and Taiban was dry. Other year’s, those laws were overturned and Taiban was once again wet. Into the 1930’s, as the Depression and drought deepened, families left the area. Following Prohibition, it was largely liquor that kept Taiban from blowing away entirely. For nearly all of the town’s existence the Taiban Presbyterian Church had played a vital role in the spiritual life of the community, serving Methodists and Baptists, as well, but, with congregations dwindling, the last service was held in 1936.

After WWII, only seven businesses operated in Taiban, which now had a population of 50. The bars were most successful and customers from dry counties in west Texas and Oklahoma came out for a drink. The town even had an airfield, Taiban International Airport, and the wealthy would fly in to purchase liquor. People as far away as western Oklahoma knew Taiban’s reputation as the “bootlegging capital” of eastern New Mexico and west Texas.

But alcohol isn’t enough to save a town that has lost all hope of real prosperity. Passenger and express train service had ceased in Taiban in 1933, the same year telegraph service was discontinued. New highways and decades of difficult-to-impossible dry farming drove nearly all the residents of Taiban elsewhere until, by 1960, only one business remained; a bar. And now there are none.

While the battle between God and alcohol played out for many years in Taiban, walking the town site now it appears there was no clear winner. The bars are all gone and turned to dust. The little church stands vacant and exposed, the bell tower removed in 1960, the baby grand piano sold, the doors and windows destroyed by vandals. So, let’s call it a draw…for now. Visitors are starting to leave prayers in the alcove of the church, behind where the old walnut pulpit used to be, so perhaps it will have a new life yet. In the meantime, if you want to see such a fight for yourself, this same battle continues to be played out in towns all across America. Maybe your town is one of them.

Information for this post came from Highway 60 & the Belen Cutoff, by Dixie Boyle. The great quote from Vane Outias was found at THIS De Baca County website. Oddly, although almost no internet sources recount Taiban’s history, one that does offers an incredibly detailed account. Compiled in an attempt to get the Taiban Presbyterian Church on the state Register of Cultural Properties, THIS was my major source for this post. I don’t believe the effort to get the church listed was successful. For once, Philip Varney gave me nothin’.

I'd be thrilled if anyone could confirm that there's a Blind Willie McTell record in the window of the trading post pictured above. It's on the opposite side of the picture from the Ross Perot shirts. It would have to be a later period photo, sometime around the "LAST SESSIONS" recording. Anyone?

Life (and Death) by Railroad: Yeso, New Mexico

2011-12-20T16:55:00.002-07:00

Most of the ghost towns I visit have been written about by Philip Varney in his New Mexico's Best Ghost Towns: A Practical Guide. The problem is that this guide was first published in 1981 and thus many of his photographs and descriptions date from the late 1970's. When I go to check out one of these towns I usually find MUCH LESS than he did. Well, what do I expect? We're talking at least an additional three decades of exposure to elements both natural and manmade. One exception to this rule might be Chloride, currently pop. 11, which, after nearly disappearing totally, has been resurrected as a charming slice of history wwaaayy out in southwestern New Mexico. At some point I'll do a post on Chloride. On the other end of the spectrum is Yeso, a ghost town which actually looks pretty similar to how it must have when Varney stopped by. Although Yeso is not entirely a ghost town; a few people do live there and a functioning post office sits right across the street from the abandoned one.

Yeso sprang up along Yeso Creek, but the water was not fit for consumption. Yeso translates as "gypsum" or "chalk" in Spanish and you can't really drink a glass of dissolved gypsum without running into problems. But Yeso also had readily accessible groundwater which could be pumped for livestock and locomotive engines traveling the brand new Belen Cutoff. The cutoff re-routed trains through east-central New Mexico, away from the steep grades toward Colorado. One of the first frame train depots was built in Yeso, which was officially established in 1906, a year before completion of the Belen Cutoff.

The town did alright for awhile. A post office was constructed in 1909 and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (ATSF) railroad kept things going despite a lingering regional drought. Yeso quickly became a gathering place for the ranchers and handful of farmers in the area. Things got rough after WWII, when diesel locomotives were introduced and trains no longer had to stop in town to take on water. That was also about the time it finally became clear that the land around Yeso was really not very good for farming and might not be suited for much beyond grazing sheep. It had been an awfully dry few decades, too.

By the mid-1960’s, the school, which was built by the Works Progress Administration in 1940, closed as the last steam locomotives were retired. The old frame train depot now became one of the last of its kind to fold, shutting its doors for good in 1968. Most everyone packed up and moved to Fort Sumner, 22 miles to the east. Apparently four families opted to stay in Yeso and I have to wonder if their descendents occupy the few well-maintained homes abutting U.S. 60. Incidentally, Billy the Kid was killed in Fort Sumner and I'll eventually do a post on that infamous town, as well.

While much remains of Yeso, including the still-decaying remains of several houses--an entire abandoned neighborhood, more or less--and the Frontier "Musem" (once known as the Hotel Mesa, pictured at left), as well as the shell of the Super Service Drive In garage, there have been some casualties. What Varney describes as a possible gas station/garage/motel/residence complex on the east end of town has largely collapsed. This is unfortunate as he mentions that in the sidewalk in front of this structure was the date of construction, June 8, 1929, set in the cement in bottle caps. As far as I can tell, this bit of concrete is now buried under the collapsed walls of the large rock building. Too bad. Several other structures are also showing their years, so, if you’re going to visit, I still wouldn’t recommend waiting very long.

Finally (and oddly), the spelling of Yeso was changed to a misspelling--Yesso--between 1912 and 1913. Anyone know why?

Info for this post came from Philip Varney (of course) and this little write-up on Ghosttowns.com. I also grabbed one fact from Dixie Boyle’s cool book on U.S. Highway 60.

Happy holidays! There’s plenty of ground to cover in 2012.

This Old, Dead House

2011-11-22T20:34:00.002-07:00

Last month the Alibi, Albuquerque's free weekly paper, did a story on the Werner-Gilchrist house, the oldest structure east of Yale Boulevard. They showed a vintage photograph alongside a contemporary one and it was clear the house was badly deteriorated. So, I made a visit as soon as I got a chance and was dismayed to find the place in even worse shape than it had been in the Alibi photo, which turned out to be a year old. I'd hoped to get inside but the house was boarded up tight. Apparently it had often been wide open, but when I got there thick plywood covered every entrance. All I could do was walk around the outside and take in some of the remaining architectural features. The back shed was accessible but uninteresting and a homeless person had recently taken up residence. After awhile I laid a hand on the 103-year-old house to pay my last respects and then headed home. On Monday, following a whim, I decided to stop by once again and saw that there would now be no problem getting inside. The house was already dark due to the boarded-up windows and the sun was setting, so I didn't have much time, but I tried to get a few decent shots. By the time you read this, the Werner-Gilchrist house will be no more, living on in a few photos and, of course, that episode of Breaking Bad in which it appeared as a drug den. So, here's its story.

The tale of the Werner-Gilchrist house begins with Colonel D.K.B. Sellers. Apparently a bit of a character, he was not actually a colonel. In the very early 1900's, it was Colonel Sellers that petitioned to give Railroad Avenue, which he believed to be a poor name for a street that extended beyond the rail line, a new name, Central, as he began to sell commercial lots in Albuquerque. Quickly successful in his name-change bid, the Colonel continued developing, moving into what is now the University Heights Addition, a square-shaped collection of streets just south of the University of New Mexico campus. In Nob Hill, he would go on to build a rather nice log cabin and a gravity-based water tank that is now a house. In 1912, the Colonel was even elected Mayor of Albuquerque, but, a few years earlier, in lieu of financial compensation, Colonel Sellers had paid his secretary, Laura Werner, by giving her half of an undeveloped block on what is now Cornell Drive.

Ms. Werner and Ralph Gilchrist, her son-in-law, built the house in 1908 on the corner of what is now Cornell and Silver. Based on a layout used for officer's homes in Territorial forts following the Civil War, the design, known as "hipped box," incorporated a wood-framed hip roof with dormer windows on each side. The load-bearing walls were made of 16" thick adobe bricks and the foundation was stacked stone. The doors, window frames, and trim were all wood and a wide entrance hall ran the full length of the first floor. The second floor was a single large room. At the time, this style of construction was in favor among the upper classes. I was impressed to see that every room aside from the kitchen had a fireplace.

Ms. Werner's reclusive daughter, Nora, occupied the house until she died in 1981, having lived into her nineties. The house had been vacant since about that time. In 1982, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, but, as we've seen, that designation does not necessarily confer any real protection. In 2006, in response to a blocked attempt at demolition the year before, the house was officially named an Albuquerque landmark, a title which also could not save it.

Much as with the recently demolished Aztec Motel (it's been a tough year for historic buildings in ABQ), no one ever said they wanted the Werner-Gilchrist house torn down. There was an effort to preserve and restore the house which spanned 30 years, but continued neglect caused extensive damage and the current owner of the property was eventually cited for housing code violations. That owner, Jim Trump, executive director of Build New Mexico, stated that he had initially hoped to restore the home. But times are tough and money is tight and the house was too far gone. Thus, the Werner-Gilchrist house is no more.

Meanwhile, across town, Albuquerque is finally getting a Chipotle Grill.

I grabbed the information for this post from the aforementioned Alibi article and the house’s short Wikipedia entry. The photo of the house just after construction in 1908 comes courtesy of the City of Albuquerque, although they don’t know it.

I've got a ton of stuff lined-up for the future, from Billy the Kid's (controversial) grave to the haunted Shaffer Hotel and beyond. There’s plenty to keep busy for awhile.

Ghost Trains: The Lost Railyard of ABQ, NM

2011-11-14T17:16:00.003-07:00

The Albuquerque Railyard, which I did a LONG POST on in early 2010, is one of my favorite places in the country to visit and photograph. Recently, here in town, an ENTIRE EXHIBIT was dedicated to this industrial wonderland and, in that spirit, I decided to put together a short ABQ Railyard photo book. You can flip through it virtually below. Like all these vanity books, it's kinda spendy, but if you decide you want one let me know and maybe I can scrounge up a discounted rate.

The next post will be on the historic Werner-Gilchrist House, built in 1908, which is probably not long for this world.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

2011-11-04T19:40:00.001-06:00

I hear people singing. I think it’s coming from the church near his place. I went to see him today, to tell him something. Say it face-to-face. But as I walked up the gravel drive toward his house he stepped off the porch and drew back the hammer on his gun. That’s why I’m here. Because I know what he’s going to do. Sometimes a thing happens and there is no one to tell how it really happened besides you. And you can’t convince anyone that it happened like it did. That it isn’t your fault. That’s just life, I guess. I can hear the singing more clearly. It makes me less afraid of what’s going to happen now.

Photo of "The Swallow" taken in Albuquerque, NM. Photo of "Turquoise Trail Market" taken in Cedar Crest, NM.

The End of the Aztec Motel, Part 2

2011-10-22T12:59:00.006-06:00

Let’s go back to the recently-deceased Aztec Motel for part two in a two-part series on the place. In my LAST POST, I laid out the physical history of what, until this past summer, was one of Albuquerque’s most historic motels along old Route 66, its early 1930’s construction actually pre-dating the designation of that famous cross-country highway by a few years. If all the Aztec Motel had going for it was its architectural history, it would still be more than worthy of attention. But the Aztec was easily the most unique motel in Albuquerque and this post will shine what might be one last light on its more unusual aspects.

The source of much of the Aztec’s latter-day fame was the hard-to-miss fact that it was decorated from top to bottom, back to front with found objects. Sometimes these objects were actual art, like framed pictures and ornamental sculptures, and sometimes the art was created out of tires or bottles or whatever came to hand. By the time I first saw the Aztec in late 2009, some of this art was already gone. In the photo below, taken just before demolition, most of the objects have been removed. The Aztec’s last owner said that a few people asked for individual pieces when the end was nigh, but most of the art was very damaged and just thrown away. I wish I’d taken my one opportunity to crawl in a back window and rescue the large painting of a Spanish woman that hung just above where the front desk used to be. Alas. To see the Aztec in its prime, have a look part way down the page HERE.

Anyway, the decorating of the Aztec can be traced back to one woman, Phyllis Evans, a retired professor of social work at Michigan State University. In “History Takes a Lick,” an article by Leslie Linthicum on the demise of the Aztec Motel which was published in the Albuquerque Journal, Evans is quoted in a 1999 interview as saying that she never planned to live in a motel and only came to the Aztec by “some miracle.” She moved into the motel in 1994 and almost immediately started decorating.

From the ABQ Journal piece: “Several days into Evans’ stay, she found an empty whiskey bottle outside her door in the morning and stuck a flower in it. The whiskey bottles kept showing up. And Evans kept filling them with plastic flowers and setting them around the motel. Street people started dropping off bottles, flowers and other objects they had found on the street — broken plates, statues, a hobby horse, a Buddha — and Evans continued to build on her outdoor artwork.”

Here's further description from a Daily Lobo article written by Marcella Ortega in late 2006: “Evans covered the building with multicolored Mexican tiles, perforated metal crosses and plates, Mexican and American Indian paintings and wood-carved musical instruments. There are tables with candles outside each unit, too.”

Evans moved out of the motel just after its most recent owner, the Nob Hill Development Corp., bought the property in 2006. She went to Hawaii but stayed in touch, sending desserts to the partners in the development corporation while, outside the motel, her influence lived on.

Jae Whitehorse, who had been living at the motel for three months when interviewed for the Daily Lobo piece, mentioned that he was particularly fond of a mannequin in a 1920's flapper costume and brown fur shawl.

"She's gorgeous, only she's missing one hand," he said, and, describing the motel, added, "It's not all prim and proper. It sort of has a wildness look to it. I don't like things all prim, proper and preppy. The place is funky and quirky and accepting of the weird, which I am, and I fit right in. I love it here." Whitehorse said that the motel's residents and staff were like a family.

On my first visit to the Aztec Motel, my attention was immediately drawn from the decorations on the motel itself to the decorating that had recently been undertaken in the back parking lot. This was not the work of Phyllis Evans, but of someone with a somewhat darker, yet no-less individual, vision. First, two ornately decorated pigeons, one blue and one red, were laid out on mirrors atop a wooden cable spool. Next, a few feet to the west, numerous stuffed animals were tied to a tree at the base of which a doll laid face-down. Against the tree trunk was propped a pair of dress shoes. And high up in the branches, above the other toys, swung a lone stuffed gorilla. The overall effect was incredible. This was like no place I had ever visited. I looked at the old motel rooms and noticed lights on outside one or two. Had someone squatting in the motel created this?

I returned several times over the following weeks and months. The pigeons began to decay and eventually disappeared. They were replaced by hand-written notes, one of which said, “Practice random acts of public humiliation.” The stuffed toys began to loose their stuffing, with the gorilla bleeding badly out of a large hole in its side. Once I found a collection of CD’s stacked in a corner of the concrete fence. They were not in cases, but were carefully tucked away beside some beer bottles. The music wasn’t what I would have expected, but was better, more obscure, and included the likes of Captain Beefheart, which seemed perfect. In the end, all that remained were some last weather-beaten stuffed animals tied to the tree. The demolition team took down not just those ragged creatures, but the entire tree as well. I wonder what their thoughts were as they considered the last hours of the Aztec Motel.

The End of the Aztec Motel, Part I

2011-10-06T19:49:00.008-06:00

The Aztec Motel, which was until recently located along old Route 66, just east of Nob Hill, deserves two posts. This first will be a synopsis of the physical history of the motel. In the next, I’ll try to say a few words about what made the Aztec (and its back parking lot) one of the strangest and most interesting places I’ve ever photographed. That will be more of a metaphysical history, I guess, with the photographs saying more than words ever could. So, without further ado, the late, great Aztec Motel…

Back in the heyday of Route 66 nearly 100 motels lined the stretch through Albuquerque, also known as Central Ave., running from just west of downtown nearly to the Sandia Mountains. The vast majority of those motels are now gone, the occasional vintage sign left standing as a kind of grave marker. Before it was demolished, the Aztec Motel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places, spotlighted in the National Park Service’s Route 66 travel itinerary, and considered to be among the five most historically important motels left standing on Central Ave. But, as we know, the economics of decay trumps history nearly every the time.

The Aztec Motel was actually the first motel built on East Central Ave. There seems to be some disagreement as to whether it was built in 1931, 1932, or 1933, but it certainly pre-dated Route 66, which was not designated until 1937. Built in a style known as “Southwest Vernacular” and originally called the Aztec Auto Court, the motel had 13 units and three carports. The carports were walled-in sometime in the 1950’s and turned into four additional rooms. This is also when the original neon sign was replaced with the one that can still be seen beside the now-empty lot.

Like so many old motels, the construction of the interstate (I-40, in this case) pulled the rug out from under the Aztec and it declined for many years until it was frequented mostly by drug users, prostitutes, and the down-and-out. Looking at this area now, adjacent as it is to trendy Nob Hill, it’s hard to believe things were ever that seedy. In any case, in 1991, Mohamed Natha bought the motel and worked to bring it back from the brink. In an effort to cut down on visits by hookers and their clients, as well as drug addicts and petty criminals, Natha began to rent only to long-term residents. A short time later the Aztec began to be extravagantly decorated with found items (of which I’ll say more next time) and underwent a kind of renaissance. The long-term residents were chiefly artists, free spirits, and assorted characters-about-town whose personalities became reflected in the motel itself as a genuine community developed.

Thus the Aztec Motel soldiered on for some years, becoming the longest continuously-operated motel in New Mexico. Then, in 2006, a development company bought the motel with the stated aim of renovating it. What they found was that more was being spent on maintenance than was coming in as revenue and structural problems brought the cost of fully rehabilitating the property to a million dollars. And with that, the decision to demolish the Aztec Motel was made. It finally came down in June of this year, somewhere around its 80th birthday.

Having only been in Albuquerque two years at this point, I don’t recall ever seeing the Aztec Motel actually open. In fact, a lot of the found art had already been removed by the time I got to the place. On my first visit it did appear that people were still living in some of the units. There were a couple lights on and it seemed that a few of the rooms were being maintained in an interesting kind of way (see photo at top of post), but I assumed these folks were squatters. I regret that I ended up taking only a few photos of the Aztec itself that day as my attention was almost immediately drawn to the back parking lot, which we’ll get to next time. Until then, keep on keeping on.

I got some of the information for this post from the National Park Service, KRQE News, and a cool little website on roadside architecture.

Albuquerque Railyard Exhibit - Opening September 15, 2011

2011-09-10T14:21:00.006-06:00

My favorite place to visit and photograph in all of Albuquerque is the old railyard complex just south of downtown. I did a VERY LONG POST on the history of the place, with plenty of photos, in early 2010. Since then it's become VERY difficult to get a close look at the railyard due to movie shoots and drastically increased security once the city became liable for the property. But lots of people love the railyard and this Thursday, September 15, 2011, a mostly-photographic exhibit dedicated to raising public awareness of this stunning (and imperiled) collection of industrial architecture will open at the Kimo Theatre Gallery, 423 Central Ave. NW. Most--if not all--of the photographers will be present (yes, including me) and the show is free, so come on down Thursday between 6 and 8 PM if you can. All the works will be for sale, as well. The show runs through mid-November, so there's plenty of time to stop by if you can't make the opening. Hope to see you there!

Lots more information on the exhibit, including photos, recollections, and history can be found at the ALBUQUERQUE RAIL YARDS website. In addition to the above-mentioned City of Dust POST, a couple more of my rail yard photos can be found HERE and about, uh, 80 more HERE.

The great photo used for the postcard above was taken by local urban explorer KILLBOX. The photo below is yet another by yours truly.

Goodbye, Silver Moon Lodge

2011-09-05T21:03:00.002-06:00

Two venerable old motels in Albuquerque bit the dust this summer. Both were along Route 66 and had long histories serving weary travelers in the city. The Aztec Motel, which was built in the early 1930’s and located near Nob Hill, was one of the quirkiest (and downright strangest) places I’ve ever visited. Its demise has elicited some response around town, including a memorial art show that wrapped up last week. I’ll do a post on the Aztec soon. But I’m going to start with a motel on the other side of town that went down without much of a whimper, the Silver Moon Lodge.

The Silver Moon Lodge, built in 1953, was at 918 Central Ave. SW., not too far from Old Town. The Silver Moon and the Central Park Deli, which was also located on the premises, closed for good on October 15, 2007 after a 54-year run. Then, in the absence of a development plan, the entire complex sat vacant until July of this year. Originally, the place was known as the Desert Skies Motor Hotel. After that, it became the Desert Inn Motor Hotel. Here’s a cool POSTCARD from that era. By the 1980’s, a third name change found the hotel billed as the Grand Western Motor Inn. Clyde and Goldie Taylor, who ran the Desert Inn in Santa Fe, owned the business around this time. Here’s one POSTCARD from that period. And here’s ANOTHER. I don’t know when the official name switch to the Silver Moon Lodge occurred, but the hotel appears to have sometimes been referred to as the Grand Western Motor Lodge up until it closed.

Peak Hospitality eventually acquired the Silver Moon and, when asked in 2007 if it might be renovated rather than torn down, stated, “We spent $1 million renovating it when we bought it seven years ago. The plumbing and water systems were starting to go. The numbers didn’t work out (on a renovation).”

You know, I understand that economic concerns trump all other considerations when it comes to business. It’s a shame to lose a piece of history, but it’s hard to compete with the Best Western’s and Super 8’s. Of course, once a motel starts to decline, it’s hard to get it back on track. I’ll finish this post with a review from Yelp, posted about nine months before the Silver Moon’s doors were locked:

“You can't expect very much from cheap motels, but this place was pretty bad (and not super inexpensive). Everything in our room seemed like it was broken -- the bathroom lights, locks, closet hanger rod, toilet, and curtain rod. On top of that, our towels and all the chairs in the room had mysterious stains on it. The only reason why this place gets two stars instead of one is because the staff was so nice and responded quickly when we phoned about broken lights and busted locks. They also provide free shuttling to and from the airport.”

If anyone has other recollections of the Silver Moon to share, please send them in. I’d love to hear ‘em.

Information for this post came from Route 66 News, a great site done by a motel enthusiast from the Netherlands, and, of course YELP. The postcards were found on 66 Postcards and Card Cow.

City of Dust at The Printmakers' Studio

2011-08-29T19:37:00.005-06:00

I've got a new post just about ready to go, but right now I'm off to South Dakota for the Labor Day weekend. I hope to get some good photos out there on the lone prairie. It's been a solid decade since I've been to South Dakota. In the meantime, for those of you in the Albuquerque area, The Printmakers' Studio is opening a show this First Friday, September 2, featuring work by local photographers. There will be great food, great folks, and great art. I managed to sneak in a couple shots, too. So, even though I can't attend the opening, I'd highly encourage anyone that is interested to stop by. The show will run through the month of September, so if you can't make it down on Friday you'll still have some time to get a look.

(UPDATE: This show has been extended through October.)

The Printmakers' Studio is located at 423-425 San Mateo Blvd NE, ABQ, NM. The open house will run from 5PM-8PM.

The photo above was taken off Central Ave., not far from The Printmakers' Studio and just down the block from the subject of an upcoming post.

Colfax, New Mexico

2011-08-20T11:53:00.009-06:00

My stated intention awhile back was to produce new posts on a more regular basis but, as seems to always be the case, other things have gotten in the way. This time it was a move which has taken up most of my time over the last month. This was a move just down the street, not halfway across the country as has kinda been my modus operandi to this point. Nevertheless, everything had to be boxed-up, loaded-up, and then dumped into empty rooms to be unpacked. The unpacking is still to come, but I wanted to get something new posted before I lost any more time. With that in mind, we’ll take a short trip to Dawson's neighbor in northeastern New Mexico, Colfax, which, as of a few months ago, is just a ghost of a ghost town.

Originally known as Vermejo Junction, Colfax was established in 1869 and took its name from Schuyler Colfax, Jr., the 17th Vice President of the United States. Colfax served under President Ulysses S. Grant. It’s anybody’s guess as to why the town was named after Schuyler, but what is known is that, unlike other mid-nineteenth century towns in New Mexico, Colfax was promoted not for its mineral resources, but as an ideal place for agriculture. It was largely the St. Louis, Rocky Mountain, and Pacific Railroad, which ran nearby, doing the promoting. Two thousand 25' x 140' lots were laid out and sold for $140 a pop, with discounts for anyone buying more than one. Given the importance of the railroad in those days, there was every reason to expect that people would come to Colfax. But, in the end, not many did. Some would-be residents were even cheated by crooks who did not actually own the plots they sold.

By 1908 Colfax had a post office but it closed in 1921. A school, hotel, mercantile store, and even a gas station survived into the Great Depression. The school, which also functioned as a church, remained open until 1939. But most people coming into the area simply opted to go up the road a couple miles to Dawson to work in the mines or they set up shop in Cimarron. Thus, Colfax seems to have never really gotten off the ground.

The two-story Colfax Hotel (originally known as the Dickman Hotel) was the major structure in the town, but it eventually went out-of-business and has been gone many, many years. Philip Varney’s guide to New Mexico’s ghost towns contains photos of both the old school and a panorama of what remained of the town about 30 years ago. In the panorama a passenger coach railroad car can be seen, along with some other intriguing structures. I really wanted to have a look at the railcar, in particular. There are great photos of it (and Colfax in general) taken in early 2009 at Rocky Mountain Profiles. And an old car shot through with bullet holes? There was every reason to be excited. But, in the end, it turned out there was almost nothing of Colfax left to be seen except for char marks on the ground where something had stood just weeks, if not days, prior to our visit.

So, what happened? Did someone set the old buildings of Colfax on fire? That’s a likely guess. Most of Colfax's structures were just feet from U.S. 64 and being only 13 miles from Cimarron did leave the place open to mischief. In a way, it's surprising the wooden buildings lasted as long as they did. I tried to recreate Varney’s panorama and, while he was a bit upslope from me, you can still match up the blackened ground with the structures in his photo. Did the railcar burn? What about the assorted outbuildings? The caption of Varney's shot says, "Colfax townsite, looking from schoolyard." I sure didn't see any school. The stone wall at the top of this post is really the only thing left. If only we’d gotten to Colfax just a few weeks earlier in its quiet 142-year history we might’ve caught its last gasp before it finally sank below the roiling waters of time for good.

Almost no information on Colfax exists that isn't taken from Philip Varney’s book, although Rocky Mountain Profile's write-up contained a few tidbits, in addition to the excellent photos. I scanned Varney's panorama and posted it here to depict Colfax's almost complete disappearance. Thanks, Mr. Varney, wherever you may be.

Recently a couple historic motels along old Route 66 in Albuquerque were sadly torn down. Posts documenting the last days of these majestic buildings will be coming soon.

"Got My Walkin' Boots On..."

2011-07-28T18:32:00.002-06:00

Last year I wrote a POST on Willis Earl Beal, the most talented singer/songwriter I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing music with. Willis had to leave Albuquerque before our little 3-piece band was able to record any material or even play a show, but this week the Chicago Reader published a piece on Willis and his music and I think it’s well worth having a look at it. Just check out this quote: “If all goes well, sometime this Thursday evening he'll perform at the Jackson el stop, either on the Red Line, on the Blue Line, or in the tunnel between them.” There may even be one or two quotes from yours truly. CLICK HERE for the story.

Of course, reading about Willis is interesting, but it’s his music that really speaks volumes. The article mentions a 200-copy "Willis Earl Beal Special Collection" box set + 17-song CD that will be available through FOUND MAGAZINE and, since I don’t know the track listing myself (all Willis told me was “don’t worry, all your favorite stuff is on there”), I’m hesitant to post more music here in case it’s on the disc. So, what I’m going to do is post the lyrics to a song we worked-up and that, as far as I know, Willis has never recorded. Just imagine some Steve Cropper guitar, Booker T. Jones on organ, maybe the Memphis Horns adding a little brass, all over a sweet soul voice. Alright, maybe OUR musical accompaniment wasn’t that good, but Willis deserves that kind of treatment. Seriously.

Same Ol’ Tears

Got my walking boots on, destination in mind;
Said I’m goin’ back east, while I follow the signs;
Hooked into a woman, ‘cause she treats me well;
I come a-runnin’ when she rings the bell.

Hangin’ onto her dress, and I can’t release;
Tryin’ to go to sleep, but I can’t get no peace;
Well, I’m a-gazin’ at the moon while I pedal the bike;
I got a caffeine high but I don’t feel right.

Well, everybody knows somethin’ I don’t know;
That old idiot wind, everywhere it blows;
I feel a change comin’ on, coursin’ through my veins;
Won’t be long ‘til I’m gone and they all know my name.

I shed the same ol’ tears;
I shed the same ol’ tears;
‘Til my eyes don’t cry no more.

Two o’clock in the morning, up the hill I rode;
To shack up on the sly in my woman’s abode;
She goes back to bed but I’m still awake;
I’ve got this feeling of dread that I just can’t shake.

My brain is floating in a tank, being poked with a stick;
All this travelin’ back and forth, y’know, it’s makin’ me sick;
I hope the light don’t come, I hope the sun don’t rise;
I hope the shadow of death will leave and cover the skies.

But if it don’t then I’ll wander ‘til I walk with a cane;
Then I’ll go right insane, ‘cause I will never be tamed.

Shed the same ol’ tears;
I shed the same ol’ tears;
I shed the same ol’ tears;
I shed the same ol’ tears;
‘Til my eyes don’t cry no more;
‘Til my eyes don’t cry no more.

The photograph at the top is of the Aztec Motel, which was built in 1931. That's the Silver Moon Lodge in the middle shot; it was built in the 1950's. Both these motels were along old Route 66 in Albuquerque and now both, like Willis Earl Beal himself (bottom), can't be found in Albuquerque anymore.

The Way Home

2011-07-23T20:27:00.002-06:00

My thoughts are getting slow and strange. I can feel my heart pounding in my ears. It’s the heat. You can't fight it. I’ve put my trust in this old truck for more than 20 years and now, like everything else I’ve ever trusted, it’s finally let me down. No one drives these old dirt roads anymore but I’ve always thought it was pretty here on the backside of the mountains. Desolate. I do love this desert but I guess it’s never cared too much about me. High up in the sun-bleached sky I can see a plane. Southwest Airlines. I can tell by the markings. I wonder who’s on that plane. Where are they going? It doesn’t matter. They’re not going where I’m going.

The shot at the top is facing west over central New Mexico after a failed attempt to crest Ladrone Peak. County Road 12, which runs just west of the Ladrone's between Bernardo and Magdalena, would make an appropriate setting for the trouble described above. The bottom photo was taken near the Ojito Wilderness. I might do posts on both these places some day as they're wild and remote even if not exactly abandoned. In the meantime, if anyone knows a good route up Ladrone Peak please let me know. A western approach didn't work and I'm curious as to whether anyone has tried a more southerly route, which appears somewhat promising. I do know there is SOME way up. This is rugged territory.

Way Down in the Mines

2011-07-18T19:42:00.006-06:00

It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew;
Where the dangers are double and the pleasures are few;
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines;
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines.

Dark as a Dungeon, Merle Travis, 1946.

Many towns across the United States have lived and died on mining. In New Mexico, the landscape is pocked with abandoned mine shafts and it seems that countless towns and the lives that were lived in them have come and gone with the minerals. Most of us might be able to think of one or two mining disasters. Twenty-nine people were killed in West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch Mine less than 2 years ago, for example. But not many people have heard of Dawson, New Mexico, of which so little remains that it can barely be called a ghost town now. The disappearance of Dawson, both in the collective memory and literally, is unfortunate because what happened there in the early part of last century was of some importance.

In 1867, J.B. Dawson decided to purchase about 1,000 acres of land northeast of Cimarron for $3,700. In one of those rare errors that actually put the mistaken party ahead it turned out that Mr. Dawson had really purchased 20,000+ acres with a large coal seam to boot. When Mr. Dawson finally sold his property to the Dawson Fuel Company in 1901, it went for $400,000. The Dawson Fuel Company started mining coal in earnest, but sold out in 1906 to the Phelps Dodge Corporation, who built a town with everything a person of the day could want: a bowling alley, schools, theaters, a hospital, an opera house, and a golf course. At its peak, about 9,000 people called Dawson home and men came from all around the world to work in the ten surrounding mines.

Then, on October 22, 1913, an explosion in Stag Canon Mine No. 2 sent fire spitting 100 feet out of the mouth of the mine. A dynamite charge had been mistakenly set, in breach of safety protocol, and ignited airborne coal dust. A massive rescue effort was undertaken with crews arriving from as far as El Paso, Texas, but only 23 miners survived. The final death toll numbered 263, making the Stag Canon Mine No. 2 disaster the 2nd worst in U.S. history. Two rescue workers were also killed in their efforts. Special white crosses were erected in the Dawson cemetery to mark the graves of those that lost their lives.

But when mining is all a town knows, it’s not long before the work resumes. And, in a mine shaft, with a return to work comes a return of risk. So it was that on February 8, 1923 a train jumped the track and hit timbers which were supporting Stag Canon Mine No. 1. The impact once again ignited coal dust and 122 more miners were suddenly dead. Many of those killed were sons whose fathers had died in the Mine No. 2 disaster less than 10 years prior. Now many of Dawson’s women had lost both their husbands and their sons to the mines. More white crosses were erected in the cemetery.

Yet the mines operated until 1950, when a 25-year coal contract with the Southern Pacific Railroad ended and extracting the remaining coal was not profitable. In April of that year, residents were suddenly given 30 days to leave their homes and Dawson was then quickly dismantled and sold. Most of Dawson is now lost to the ages, although the big Phelps Dodge Corporation safe reportedly resides in a museum in Bisbee, AZ. When Philip Varney visited over 30 years ago, he walked down the old dirt road to talk with the then-owners of Dawson and have a look at the very few remaining homes and structures, which included a gas station and some coke ovens (since demolished). In that time things have changed a bit and I was not about to climb the gate, heavily posted with “No Trespassing” signs, and possibly try my luck with a ranch hand. But the cemetery, which was once just outside of town, is open to the public and is now the only visible remnant of Dawson. Family members still gather at the cemetery to reminisce and remember their loved ones. A number of the graves are well-kept with recently-placed flowers. But other graves are broken and forgotten. There are row upon row of names. Polish, Czech, Italian; many written in the native tongue. One lonely grave is of Marck Zamponi, a member of the “Wagoner 9 Engrs.” The stone simply says “Minnesota” (my home state) and there is an accompanying date of death: June 11, 1927. Did this man leave his family up north behind? Did they even know he was dead, let alone buried below a hill in a sooty coal town in northern New Mexico? After all these years, his story, like so many others, is forgotten and will never be told again.

As usual, I’ve relied heavily on Philip Varney’s New Mexico ghost town guide for this post. The wikipedia entry for Dawson is also quite good.

We'll Shoot the Lights Out For You

2011-06-26T10:36:00.002-06:00

I’ve been trying to get back to the St. James Hotel in Cimarron, New Mexico for over five years now. In the fall of 2005 I was driving from Oklahoma to Taos via U.S. 64 and, on a whim, stopped for a few minutes at the old hotel. I immediately knew I wanted to spend some time there, but the road was calling and soon I had to get going. I bid the place adieu and vowed to return. Back then, I didn’t know that the St. James is considered one of the most haunted hotels in the United States. All I knew was what I’d just read in an article tacked to a wall; that the hotel was built in 1872, that 26 people had been killed in the saloon alone, and that everyone from Jesse James and Buffalo Bill to Clay Allison and Zane Grey had spent the night. As it turns out, not all of those claims are necessarily true, but there’s still more than enough verifiable history in the St. James Hotel to satisfy me.

When I posted about the ghost town of ELIZABETHTOWN, New Mexico awhile back, I mentioned Henri Lambert. Lambert, a Frenchman, had moved from Washington, D.C. to Elizabethtown in 1864 to try his luck at mining. Eventually he gave up on gold, however, and returned to his previous occupation as a chef. It’s been said that Lambert was Abraham Lincoln’s personal chef, but there is no hard evidence of this. On the other hand, it probably is true that, while living in Elizabethtown, Lambert was presented with a severed head. More on that grim tale can be found HERE. Lambert left Elizabethtown in 1871, moved to Cimarron (Spanish for “feral,” but also meaning “wild” or “fugitive”) and, in 1872, opened a saloon, which became known as Lambert’s Place. Not surprisingly, the saloon did a brisk business and, by 1880, Lambert had made additions, including hotel rooms and a restaurant. Lambert’s Place became the Lambert Inn and, eventually, was re-named the St. James Hotel.

Cimarron was indeed a wild place and the names of most of the people killed in or around the hotel between 1872 and 1884 are known, as are the names of the killers. Henri Lambert himself shot two people and, in the mid 1870’s, it was apparently not uncommon to be asked, "Who was killed at Lambert's last night?" But it is worth considering that the notorious Texas gunfighter, rancher, and outlaw Clay Allison is credited with killing 11 people at the St. James Hotel, which means that, without Mr. Allison, the place would’ve been much less violent. Still, numerous bullet holes remain in the saloon’s tin ceiling to bear witness to the rough times.

If you believe what’s been written, you’d think that many (if not most!) of the major figures of the Wild West stayed at the St. James Hotel. Here it’s often difficult to separate fact from fiction, but I’ll try my best and, if anyone can further verify or deny these claims, please do so. First, it’s said that Jesse James stayed at the hotel, but that’s probably not true as there is no evidence that Jesse James ever came through northern New Mexico. Annie Oakley, also reported to have spent time at the St. James, never visited New Mexico at all. The story is that Annie Oakley was passing through with Buffalo Bill Cody while they worked on putting together a Wild West Show, and thus there’s reason to suspect that Buffalo Bill never stayed at the hotel either. On the other hand, Buffalo Bill was said to be a personal friend of the Lambert’s, so the jury might still be out on that one. Legend has it that the Earp brothers and their wives spent three nights at the St James on their way to Tombstone and, you know, that just might be true. Clay Allison most certainly stayed many times, leaving the bodies behind to prove it. Bob Ford, the man who shot Jesse James? That’s likely; he’s credited with shooting a man named Bob Curren in 1882, the same year he shot Jesse. But I wouldn’t doubt that he actually came through later, on his move to Las Vegas, NM in 1884. In the early 20th century, Zane Grey definitely spent time at the hotel, writing some of Fighting Caravans in room 22. Other figures like Black Jack Ketchum and Doc Holliday? Your guess is as good as mine.

It’s useful to know who really stayed at the St. James Hotel so that, in the event of a haunting, you can better guess whose ghost you’re dealing with. Jesse James? Not likely. Henri’s wife, Mary Lambert? Quite possibly, especially if you’re in room 17 and there’s an overpowering odor of rose perfume. Perhaps the most interesting spectral figure at the St. James is Thomas James (T.J.) Wright. T.J. Wright was reportedly killed upstairs in the card room, following an evening of gambling. One story has Lambert himself shooting Wright in the back as Wright walked away after Lambert had gambled (and lost) his entire hotel to T.J. I doubt that’s accurate, but, whatever the case, Wright was dead at the age of 22. Now, Wright’s violent spirit is said to occupy his old room, number 18. So many guests have reported being tormented by Wright’s ghost, some being physically hurt, that room 18 is now padlocked and guests are not allowed in. Our bartender said that he sometimes goes up to the room and has a glass of whiskey, leaving one behind for Mr. Wright.

We spent the night in the Mary Lambert room, but I didn’t notice any essence of rose. Right across the hall was room 18, and my girlfriend reported hearing creaking floorboards from that direction that kept her up some of the night. She was pretty spooked, actually. Myself? I slept very well, thank you. In the morning I peaked through a crack in the door to get a look at room 18. I could see some torn wallpaper with holes showing through the plaster and plenty of dust. Whatever is going on, that room hasn’t been used for awhile.

Finally, to wrap up this epic post, the St. James hit hard times when the railroad cut off traffic along the adjacent Santa Fe Trail and the mines began to close. The hotel was bought and sold many times and, by 1985, had fallen into disrepair. But, in 1985, the St. James Hotel was fully restored and now, with a modern wing (those hoping to be haunted shouldn’t stay in this section) and a large restaurant and bar, the place is once again the liveliest thing going in Cimarron. I’ll get back again sometime, I swear.

Wanna stay at the St. James Hotel? Go HERE. But note that they don’t take reservations on-line; you gotta call ‘em. Information from this post came from wherever I could dig it up; pamphlets, fliers, wikipedia, etc. But NOT Philip Varney’s ghost town guide. We’ll get back to that next time.

Ghosts from the Mother Road: Santo Domingo Trading Post

2011-06-07T19:49:00.001-06:00

Just north of Albuquerque, a short distance west of I-25 and right off Historic Route 66, sits the old Santo Domingo Indian Trading Post, apparently waiting for its fate to finally be decided. Built by the Seligman Family in 1925, the trading post supplied authentic jewelry made by artists from the Santo Domingo (now Kewa) Pueblo to travelers on Route 66, as well as providing gas and Nehi orange soda. Being on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe line meant that the Southwest Chief, running between Chicago and Los Angeles, also stopped there, as did John F. Kennedy on at least one occasion.

Considered to be of historic significance (“architecture/engineering, event”) and built in a vaguely Mission/Spanish Revival style, the trading post is #97001592 on the National Register of Historical Places. It was added to the New Mexico Register of Cultural Properties in 1997 and, when added to the national register on January 9, 1998, the current function of the building was listed as “commerce/trade.” Now, 13 years later (and 10 years after the building was gutted by fire), its current function is less obvious. However, in July 2010, the trading post received a one million dollar federal restoration grant from the Economic Development Administration to re-open and offer arts and crafts made by residents of the Kewa Pueblo. But clearly that money hasn’t been spent yet. Given the current economic climate, who knows what will happen to the trading post.

I have to say that I really love this building. For some time before I managed a visit I eyed it longingly from the Rail Runner, which stops just across the street, on trips to and from Santa Fe. A black and white photo of the façade hangs in my office, one of the very few photos which I’ve taken that are actually displayed in my home. I hope it gets rehabilitated someday soon and isn’t left to just collapse into the dust, as seems highly likely. Alas.

Next time...more ghosts.

Information for this post came from Only In New Mexico, a blog by former Mayor of Albuquerque Jim Baca, and Route 66 News. The National Register of Historical Places listing can be found HERE. Thanks to Killbox for tracking down the historical register listing.

All photos taken around or inside the trading post and adjacent buildings.

City of Dust Interview at The American Classic

2011-06-01T18:53:00.006-06:00

An interview I did a few days ago with Alex over at The American Classic can now be found HERE. I'm flattered that Alex wanted to do an interview and honored that he gave me so much space. Take a trip through his very cool site(s) and learn how to look better and feel good about it.

Photo taken at an abandoned gas station in Springer, New Mexico.

Coyote, New Mexico

2011-05-28T16:55:00.008-06:00

At this point, there’s not much anyone can say about the ghost town of Coyote, New Mexico, and there's even less to see. Like HAGAN, its neighbor just to the southeast, it’s located on land owned by the Diamond Tail Ranch. However, nearly a century after being abandoned, the town has been reduced to just a few piles of adobe behind a fence that it wouldn’t be real wise to try to climb over. But, Coyote is a bona fide ghost town, and so I’ll include it here.

Coyote is about three miles from HAGAN and its fate was very much tied to that town, which had been founded about two years earlier, in 1902. Workers from the Sloan Mine first established Coyote and then waited for the railroad to come through and connect the town with Hagan and other points of commerce. But, as I mentioned in the previous post, two efforts to get tracks to Hagan failed before a third was finally successful in 1924. The tracks eventually came within a half mile of Coyote but by then it didn’t matter because Coyote was already dead and gone. Now all that remains are a few foundations.

The only real historical source I found for Coyote was Philip Varney’s ghost town guide. Even Varney couldn't provide much information about Coyote and, whatever might have unfolded there during the town's brief existence, it seems it will never be known by the likes of us.

The next few posts will be similar to this one: short and sweet. There might be a bit of prose, too. But I’ve got quite a backlog of old New Mexican treasures and I’m accumulating more rapidly. The next post will be about one particular building along old Route 66. Stay tuned.

The top photo shows the remains of Coyote, but the truck was photographed literally in the middle of nowhere, Chihuahuan Desert, Socorro County, New Mexico. I dare you to try and find it.

Hagan, New Mexico

2011-05-13T17:37:00.012-06:00

East of I-25, beyond the San Felipe Casino north of Albuquerque and down a dirt county road heading towards Madrid, lay the ruins of Hagan, New Mexico. Established in 1902, Hagan was yet another New Mexican town brought to life by coal, taking its name from mining investor William Hagan. Coal deposits had been discovered along the Una de Gato (Cat’s Claw) Arroyo and, by 1905, about 60 miners were living in Hagan, adjacent to the base of operations.

Hagan had to wait a long time for the railroad, the life’s blood of any mining town. Hauling coal by wagon was so expensive that the mines were shut down by 1910. After a line was finally run to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe in 1924, following a couple failed attempts, the town’s population grew to about 500. Soon Hagan had running water, electricity, and toilets and some large structures were built, including Hagan Mercantile (shown above), then the largest adobe building in New Mexico. Cattle ranching and brick-making also became important ways of making a living in Hagan. However, the railroad had been running less than six years when the coal seam started to thin out around 1930. The town died quickly. A few folks stuck around until the very early 1940's, but the post office was already gone by 1931.

Not much remains of Hagan. There are a couple crumbling buildings, a few foundations, and a slowly capsizing railroad way station (pictured above). However, Hagan’s location is very picturesque and its apparent (if not actual) remoteness makes for some excellent atmosphere. But if you visit, don’t go beyond the overlook beside the road. The Hagan property is owned by the sprawling Diamond Tail Ranch and posted as private. As none of our party was able to read the day of our trip, we crossed the arroyo and walked right into what was once the old town. But we got to spend only a few moments taking photos before a representative of NEW MEXICO JEEP TOURS arrived and asked us to leave. He was cordial enough (and, of course, he didn’t need to be) but made it clear that there was no way we were setting foot in Hagan without booking a jeep tour. The jeep tours look very interesting, actually, so perhaps NM Jeep Tours would like to provide me with a promotional discount. I’d certainly like to see a bit more of Hagan and check out the nearby petroglyphs, too.

Hagan has almost completely sunk beneath the sands of time. There is very little information available on the town’s history and much of what is out there is repetitious or, in some cases, probably wrong. So, my synopsis is based on my trusty copy of New Mexico's Best Ghost Towns: A Practical Guide by Philip Varney (1981, Northland Press) and an excellent post (including better photos than I was able to get) by the TORRANCE COUNTY ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

The next City of Dust post will be on Hagan’s ghost town neighbor, Coyote. Also, a stay at the St. James Hotel in Cimarron, New Mexico has been booked. In addition to being one of America’s most haunted hotels, the St. James is rich with history and bullet holes. A post on it will be forthcoming.

Elizabethtown, New Mexico

2011-04-14T20:12:00.003-06:00

From what I can tell, people who read City of Dust are pretty much split between those who enjoy the historical content and those who prefer the fiction/prose. I like to mix them up myself, but for the next few posts we’ll be firmly in the former category, visiting a few ghost towns around New Mexico. Last post we stopped by Pinos Altos (not REALLY a ghost town) and this time we’ll head in the opposite direction and go to Elizabethtown, which is just north of Eagle Nest, on the "Loop of Enchantment," not too far from the Colorado border. If you aren’t a history buff, you can always just look at the photos. Those are the remains of a ’46 Mercury in the photo above, if you’re wondering.

Elizabethtown is fairly well-known, as far as ghost towns go, and there is even a museum on-site. However, there isn’t much left of the place. Like most ghost towns in New Mexico, Elizabethtown came into existence because of shiny rocks. In 1866, Captain John William Moore helped a wounded Indian get medical attention at Fort Union, near Las Vegas, New Mexico. Later, the Indian returned to Fort Union to trade and ran into Captain Moore whose previous kindness the Indian now repaid with a few decorative stones which Mr. Moore immediately realized bore copper. Moore asked to be taken to the source of the rocks, which turned out to be high on 12, 441 foot Mt. Baldy, just across the Moreno Valley from Wheeler Peak which, at over 13,161 feet, is the highest point in New Mexico. Even better than copper, it turned out that the mountains and valleys were rich with gold. And thus another western gold boom began. That's Mt. Baldy in the distance in the shot below.

Elizabethtown, named after Captain Moore’s young daughter, was incorporated quickly, becoming the first officially incorporated town in New Mexico, and a post office opened before 1866 was out. By the time Elizabethtown celebrated its first birthday, the population had ballooned to 3,000. Or 5,000. Or maybe 7,000. No one really seems to know for sure, but a lot of people showed up in a short period. Just before 1870, E-town, as miner’s referred to it, boasted over 100 buildings, including a couple hotels, seven saloons (some 200 feet long), three dance halls, and a drugstore.

You don’t have to dig too deep into a town’s past to find something unsavory, and Elizabethtown is no exception. In late 1870, the Ute wife of Charles Kennedy, who lived on the road between E-town and Taos, entered a saloon bleeding and crying. She told those gathered around that her husband had been killing travelers. Depending on whom you believe, he may have killed up to fourteen people and might even have killed two of his own children after they got on his nerves. Whatever the case, the last of his kids truly did raise the old man’s ire when Kennedy lured a traveler into his home only to have the man ask if there were any Indians in the area. Kennedy’s son is said to have replied, “Can’t you smell the one papa put under the floor?”, a retort which displeased the boy’s father so much that he shot the traveler immediately and then bashed his son’s head against the fireplace. After that he threw the bodies in the cellar, locked his wife up, and started drinking. Eventually he drank so much that his wife was able to escape up the chimney.

As seems to have happened fairly often in the Wild West, a mob quickly formed and went and found Kennedy drunk at his home, along with some bones, a human skull, and another eye-witness. The mob was led by the notorious (and dangerous) Clay Allison and Kennedy was summarily taken back to Elizabethtown and dragged through the streets with a noose around his neck for a very long time.

It has been said that Allison removed Kennedy’s head and gave it to Henri Lambert, owner of the Lambert Inn (later the St. James Hotel) in Cimarron, now considered one of the most haunted hotels in the U.S. Lambert apparently was told to hang the head outside his establishment as a warning and it eventually mummified on the corral fence before finally disappearing. The St. James Hotel is on the short list of future City of Dust destinations. But as much as I like stories about the St. James Hotel, Lambert was actually living in E-town when Kennedy was killed, not Cimarron, and so, if the story is at all true, the head would’ve surely been placed outside Lambert’s Elizabethtown saloon, not taken to Cimarron.

The building in the photo above is considered to be Froelick's Store, which survived a fire and, while slightly modified, is essentially the only original building left standing in E-town. Below is the final resting place of a Froelick.

Aside from the Kennedy affair, E-town was a notoriously rough place. When one defendant was asked to be tried in a different city because he figured he couldn’t get a fair trial in Elizabethtown, some citizens just took the man from the sheriff themselves and hung him, pinning a note to his coat that read, “So much for change of venue.”

By 1875, Elizabethtown was basically abandoned, but the ATCHISON TOPEKA AND SANTA FE RAILROAD (and the newfound ability to both transport ore long distances and commence dredging operations) brought the town back to life. E-town became a musical hotspot, with people traveling from all around to hear fiddle playing on a Saturday night. In 1903, Remsberg’s store went up in flames and a large part of the town went with it. Dredging ended in 1905 and E-town’s massive dredger, named “Eleanor” was left to sink deeper into Moreno Creek with each passing year. It’s still in the creek, but entirely buried now. Then it was a long, slow fade until 1917 or so, by which time hardly anyone was left in E-town. The post office hung on until 1931.

As I said, there’s not a whole lot to see nowadays. The above photo shows the remains of what was a two-story building which some say was the Mutz Hotel. However, Ofelia Barber, who was married in the building in 1872, stated that it was not the Mutz, but another facility, supposedly with rooms to rent on the first floor and a dance hall on the second. However, judging from other photos, even this ruin is a shadow of what it was 7 or 8 years ago. The Elizabethtown Cemetery, however, seems to still be quite active and not surprisingly. Who wouldn’t want their final resting place to be on a hill overlooking the Moreno Valley, with Mt. Baldy to the east and Wheeler Peak to the west? Mrs. Barber left not only her husband there but two daughters as well when she moved from E-town in 1936, one of its last remaining residents.

Once again New Mexico’s Best Ghost Towns: A Practical Guide by Philip Varney (1981, Northland Press) provided not just information but inspiration, as well. LEGENDS OF AMERICA has a pretty in-depth piece on Elizabethtown and some great historic photos, as well. I tried my best to separate fact from fiction based on the accounts I read, but things get hazy down through the ages. If anyone has anything to add, please do.

Next time we’ll go to Hagan. Or what’s left of it.

High Pines, New Mexico

2011-03-25T22:41:00.005-06:00

About seven miles north of Silver City, New Mexico, on Hwy 15, at the gateway to the massive Gila Wilderness Area (the brainchild of Aldo Leopold, created in 1924 as the first designated wilderness in the world), is the small mountain town of Pinos Altos (“High Pines”). Sometimes called a “ghost town,” it’s really not, although it owes its existence to an activity common to many true ghost towns: mining. In the case of Pinos Altos, gold was the metal that brought the town to life.

In 1860, Thomas Birch, who’d been looking for gold for years with no success, got a drink of water from a creek and happened to see the very thing to which he’d-until then-fruitlessly devoted his life. The town that sprang up around this initial find, Birchville, bore Birch’s name and sat atop the Continental Divide at just over 7,000 feet. Later in the year a man named Captain Thomas Marston established the Pacific Mine after discovering gold-bearing quartz in the area. Thomas sold the mine to his brother, Virgil, and a short time later Captain Thomas and three other miners were killed by a group of 400 Apache warriors led by Mangas Colorados (Red Sleeves) and Chief Cochise, Mangas Colorados’ son-in-law. (Seven years later Virgil Marston would meet a similar fate.) Mangas Colorados lured other Birchville miners to their deaths by having Indian maidens brush out their hair and perform a bit of strip tease at the top of a hill. When the miners clamored up the hill to get a better look, the Apaches ambushed them, killing more than forty. It should be noted that some time earlier Mangas Colorados had been “invited” to the town, only to be tied to a tree and lashed with bullwhips. Thus, as was Chiricahua Apache custom, vengeance upon the miners was uppermost on Mangas Colorados’ mind for some time. The photo above is of the Gold Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, dedicated in May, 1898.

During the Civil War, Birchville’s population plummeted, mostly as there were few able-bodied men left to protect against the Apaches, and Mexican miners renamed the town Pino Alto, which later became Pinos Altos. Interestingly, Birchville was under Confederate occupation from early 1861 until shortly after the Union prevailed at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, which occurred just outside Santa Fe in the spring of 1862. Virtually all of the tall Ponderosa pines from which the town got its name were eventually cut down by the mining boom years of the late 19th century.

After the Civil War, Fort Bayard was built to protect miners from continued Apache attacks. The town of Pinos Altos received a post office in 1866 and became fully legitimate, featuring a saloon, general store and dueling ground (now the site of Saint Alexis Catholic Church). But Apache attacks continued to plague the area until 1874, when a deal was struck whereby, as long as a cross remained standing on an adjacent mountain, there would be no fighting. Both sides held to the deal and the cross was upgraded a total of three times, just to be on the safe side. The above photograph is of the Pinos Altos Opera House, which was built in 1969 from original material salvaged from various buildings.

Mining booms came and went in southwestern New Mexico, but the region around Pinos Altos also contained silver, copper, lead, and zinc, so the town continued to prosper. It wasn’t until the 1920’s that mining began to wind down for good, at which point over eight million dollars worth of minerals had been removed from the surrounding mountains.

Today, Pinos Altos is home to a few hundred friendly souls and is a pleasant place to spend some time, soaking up all that Wild West history. If you go, be sure to stop by the Pinos Altos Post Office and Ice Cream Parlor for some delicious homemade desserts and good conversation. The post office/parlor sits on the site of the Norton Store, built around 1890, which was itself built on the site of the Occidental Hotel, a two-storied log structure that is long gone into the mists of time, like so much else.

The above photo is from the Pinos Altos cemetery, near Saint Alexis Catholic Church. The cemetery was dedicated on July 17, 1888. Baby Effie lived from January 11, 1888 to September 21, 1888.

The information for this post was compiled from New Mexico’s Best Ghost Towns: A Practical Guide by Philip Varney (1981, Northland Press) and Pinos Altos: Then and Now, by Robert O. Wilson. Many thanks to both those (unwitting) sources.

The Printmakers' Studio Print Show

2011-03-02T20:04:00.003-07:00

The Printmakers' Studio will be featuring some Albuquerque photographers for the next 6 weeks and I've got two prints in the show. The opening will be this Friday, March 4, 2011, in conjunction with Albuquerque's First Friday events. Most of the photographer's will be present and there will be art on the walls and free food on the tables. What could be better? There will be another event at the gallery the following First Friday, April 1, 2011, with photographer's present at that, too. So, if you're near Albuquerque and free this Friday, why not come on down? The gallery is open during business hours, as well.

This photo of a horse skeleton, taken on Albuquerque's West Mesa, is one of the photos I'll be showing. It looks different (better?) in a fancy frame. The other shot, also taken on the West Mesa, has already been posted on City of Dust. Can you guess which one it is? Yeah, didn't think so.

The Printmakers' Studio is located at 423-425 San Mateo Blvd NE, ABQ, NM. The openings will run from 5PM-9PM.

CITIES OF DUST: American Decay Photo Book

2011-02-05T17:20:00.009-07:00

Recently I put together a book of selected photos from the last eight years, essentially the entire length of my photographic "career," which has seen me go from disposable cameras to, uh, toy cameras. Anyway, it turned out to be an arduous process, but I'm pretty happy with the results. These are what I would call "decay" photos; shots of abandoned houses, old prisons, destroyed motels, and desolate textile mills, amongst other alluring places, taken throughout the United States. I tried to include a variety of themes and geographic locations from amongst the relatively small pile of photos that I consider to be "good." "Good" meaning something I'm pretty much at a loss to articulate, which is why I had to take the photo in the first place, I guess. If you want to have a look you can flip through the book RIGHT HERE.

I'm not trying to sell this book, although you CAN buy a copy directly from the link above. The book is fairly expensive and I wouldn't make any money off it anyway. However, if you DO want a hard copy and don't have money to burn, I'd be happy to help you get a copy as cheaply as possible. Picaboo often has on-line coupons to reduce production costs and shipping. So, check for those. Also, they sometimes offer discounts for purchasing multiple copies. If several people want a copy, I could order them all and then send them out to folks at the discounted price. Thus it might pay to contact me before ordering. I can be reached at the e-mail address on my profile page. But, really, if you only check out the book on-line that's fine with me.

The photos accompanying this post are from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railyard in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico. I did a whole post on this magnificent (and vacant) complex awhile back. If you like, you can read it HERE. Two railyard photos are featured prominently as a center spread in the book.

The Hunter

2011-01-20T18:52:00.004-07:00

It’s been a hard, cold winter so far. Unrelenting. The snow keeps falling, sometimes just a few flakes throughout the day. But other times it’ll snow for 24, 36 hours at a stretch, an inch every couple hours. The city has already run out of money for plowing the roads. They didn’t budget for this kind of winter. Well, no one plans properly for disaster.

Last night I fell into bed with a girl I met at the bar. She was drunk and I was bored so I figured, “What the hell?” But someone must’ve called my wife because when I got home a little after 1 am Lucy was sitting in her chair waiting for me.

“Where you been?” she asked.

“Out,” I replied, trying not to lie.

“Doing what?”

“Drinking a couple beers.”

She looked at me hard, then stood up, walked across the room to where I was taking off my boots and spit in my face. I wiped the saliva off my cheek and rubbed it on my jeans. We just stared at each other for a moment.

“I know you’ve been screwing Jimmy,” I said, finally. “I’ve known it for awhile.”

Jimmy and I worked at the garage together. I’d seen him and Lucy talking lots of times when Lucy’d come by to pick me up after work. And I saw how she flashed her eyes at him and how he grinned back at her. Eventually, Carl, our manager, took me aside and told me what I already knew. He said he’d fire Jimmy, but I told him to let it go. By then it’d been going on about three months.

A look passed over Lucy’s face that I can’t really put a name to. Then she called me a coward. I started to walk away but she grabbed my shoulder and held me back.

“You pathetic son-of-a-bitch,” she hissed. “Some guy is fucking your wife and you won’t do anything about it. You’re disgusting.”

She took a step closer and dropped her hands to her side. “Hit me,” she said. “Let’s see if you’ve got any man in you at all.” After a moment she twisted up her mouth. “You’re so goddamned weak.”

I started back toward the bedroom. I grabbed my green canvas duffel off the chair on my way down the hall. Lucy followed me.

“What if I told you how he fucked me, huh? Would that piss you off? What if I said he was better than you ever were? If you knew what I let him do to me…”

She said some other things as I put my clothes in the bag, but I wasn’t listening. The next thing I knew she screamed something and hit me in the side of the head. I put a hand to my temple and walked fast to the front door. As I was putting my boots back on she threw a picture at me. It was the one of us on vacation in Hawaii a couple years ago. The picture hit the door jamb and the glass went all over the dirty carpet. I could still hear Lucy screaming as I got in my truck. A few minutes later I was down the road a fair bit.

I decided I’d go to the cabin. I’ve never been able to afford a house, let alone a cabin in the north woods, but my dad’s family had it since way back and it got passed down to me when he died. It’s not the only thing I inherited from him, but it’s certainly been the most useful. The sun was coming up by the time I turned off the state highway. I put the truck in 4-wheel drive and hoped the roads wouldn’t get too bad. I don’t think a plow had been through in some days, but the snow was compacted by plenty of traffic. I don’t know what most guys are doing out here in the dead of winter, but it’s not deserted, that’s for sure. Maybe they’re doing the same thing as me.

There was no way I could drive up to the cabin, so I pulled off the road and walked the quarter mile down what was the driveway as near as I could guess. It was a hard walk and the duffel didn’t help. Sometimes I sank up to my thighs in the snow. I was sweating when I unlocked the door. I got the wood-burning stove going to warm the place up, lay down on the bed and fell asleep with my boots still on.

It was mid-afternoon when I woke up. I got a beer from the mini-fridge and just sat there, trying not to think of anything at all. Eventually I realized I was going to need some food. I had some cans in the cupboard and I could always drive back down the road to the convenience store, but I decided to go out and try to find a deer. I’d seen plenty of tracks on my way in. So, I got my rifle out of the safe in the bathroom closet, put on a few layers of clothes and went out.

It was cold. A few flakes drifted through the air, but it was too cold to really snow. I kept moving and the effort of getting through the snow soon warmed me up. I came into a stand of pine trees bowed by the weight of the snow and saw a deer about 20 yards away. He was stone still, sensing danger but not yet sure of its nature or direction. I lowered my gun, got the deer in the sight and was just pulling the trigger when a pine bough snapped. The deer started as I fired. It took two steps and went down. A moment later it was back up. I could see that I’d hit it just behind the neck and it was bleeding badly, but it stayed upright. It began to move off, slowly at first, and then it took a couple tentative leaps. I walked through the trees to where the deer had been. There was plenty of blood and I figured it wouldn’t be hard to track. I doubted the deer would live long.

I followed the bloody snow for over an hour, longer than I thought I would, although I guess I didn’t cover much distance because the snow made it such slow going. The forest had become denser and I had to duck under branches now and then. The sun was already starting to dip toward the western horizon. I was getting cold and was far enough from the cabin to be unsure if I could get the deer back before nightfall.

I was about to turn back when I entered a small clearing and there, on the other side, maybe 15 yards away, was the deer. It stared at me and lowered its head. Then it bellowed and charged a few feet before stopping. It was a buck, an eight-pointer, well-fed and strong. Again it bellowed and then stomped a foreleg heavily. I lowered my rifle as the deer charged to within about 30 feet. It backed up a bit and I could see blood running from its nose. It reared up on its hind legs and then slammed its front hooves into the snow. I took aim and the deer charged again. I realized that the deer wanted to kill me. This wasn’t a grizzly or a mountain lion that wanted me for its dinner. The deer couldn’t use my body for anything at all. It wasn’t defending a mate or its offspring. I don't think it was even defending itself. It just wanted me dead. All at once I was struck by the power of the moment. Nothing in the world had ever wanted me dead before. Lucy might wish me gone in the abstract, but she would never actually do the deed. This deer, however, could not act against its instinct.

The deer came and this time it did not stop but reared up right in front of me. It stood taller than I did. I could’ve gotten a clean shot off, but I hesitated and didn't pull the trigger. Instead, I turned slightly to the left and the deer’s hooves caught me in the ribs on my right side. I fell to the snow and the hooves came down again, this time across my back. I heard a crack that seemed to come from inside my head and I saw the deer stagger and fall and then everything went black.

When I woke it was getting dark. I could move my arms but not my legs. I couldn’t feel my legs at all. I wasn’t in any real pain, but I knew I was not getting out of these woods on my own. A few feet away lay the deer. I could see a trickle of blood running from its mouth into the snow. Using all my strength I pulled myself to the animal, telling myself that the warmth from its body would be good, but, really, I think I just wanted to be close to it. As I drew near it heaved and its black eye seemed to come alive. It made a strange noise, an exhalation that seemed part fear and part resignation. I put my hand on its bloody neck and it did not move.

Slowly, I pulled my entire body closer until I was nestled along the deer’s belly, my head resting on its shoulder. I could feel its heat, though it was nearly dead now and would not retain that warmth for long. For my part, I knew I was going to freeze to death before morning but I suddenly felt that this was the most right—-maybe the only right—-thing that had ever happened to me. We live unnatural lives. We die unnaturally, too. We remain plugged into machines long after we’ve ceased to be of use. We even eat ourselves to death. But for most of human history you got taken out by an animal or fell down a ravine or simply couldn’t make the journey to the wintering grounds again. Now, me, here, in these woods, with this deer, the snow drifting out of the trees on the slight evening breeze, this is good. I only hope I can stay conscious long enough to watch the full moon rise over the pines, the snow sparkling, the reflected yellow light making it nearly as bright as day, the silence of these woods and this animal beneath me slowly becoming my own.

The Housecleaner

2010-12-05T17:01:00.002-07:00

It was almost 10 years that I worked for the county, up until I couldn’t really take it anymore. For all that time I cleaned-out houses that were going to auction after their owners had died without leaving a living relative or specifying a beneficiary. Sometimes I’d show up pretty much right as the medical examiner was loading the body into the ambulance. Other times it took quite awhile to comb through the deceased’s past and determine if they were, for our purposes, at least, alone in this world. Some people talk about immortality as something to be desired but, from what I’ve seen, outliving (or, perhaps, living long enough to alienate) every one of your friends and family is a fate a far sight worse than death.

You might think that I’d have come across some pretty cool things over the years and, in fact, I was explicitly barred from taking anything for myself from any of the homes I worked. On one occasion, in amongst a stack of worthless albums by the Ray Coniff Singers and Bing Crosby, I found a Blind Lemon Jefferson 78 rpm record. “Bad Luck Blues” on one side and “Broke and Hungry” on the other. I slid the record into the duffel that held my lunch even though I don’t have the equipment to play it. Another time I found a water-stained photo of Marilyn Monroe signed, “To Petey, Love Always, MM.” I’ve tried to compare the writing against other examples I’ve found on the internet and can’t be sure but it might be authentic. Really, though, most of what was in these houses, the vast, vast majority, was of no use to anyone. Old photo albums, paperbacks, clothes, trinkets of every sort and description; things that mattered only to the decedent. Most of this gets put in black plastic bags and taken to the landfill. Even the Goodwill didn’t want it from us. Furniture that is in nice shape, electronic equipment, appliances, and things of some obvious value are shipped to a warehouse and auctioned off four times a year. You might not think that in a city of this size enough people shuffle off this mortal coil entirely without heir to warrant such an operation. In fact, I was part of a twelve-person team and we struggled not to run a backlog.

Of course, the first rule of the job is not to get involved. Don’t read the personal correspondence. Don’t try to put meaning to the faces in the pictures. And don’t try to reconstruct the last days or years of the deceased. Remain detached. Keep filling the black plastic bags. It’s hard. I think most people expect that death will be a passageway from a life well-lived to something even better. Surrounded by our family and friends there will be anxiety and tears, to be sure, but also the warmth given off by a lifetime of memories and the knowledge that, in a very real way, our life continues in those that come after us. Perhaps it is like that for some. But the evidence I’ve seen would indicate that the end of life can also be a long slide into oblivion, the weight of regret hanging heavy as dreams go unfulfilled or collapse in on themselves entirely. When the mind finally can’t cope I guess madness sets in. I often found it something to consider as I tried to not get involved.

A good number of the homes I went into were what you might call “garbage houses,” the former occupants having hoarded mountains of worthless material items against a yawning spiritual and emotional void. Old newspapers. Cereal boxes. Children’s toys (despite there apparently having been no children around lately). Bits of yarn. Anything that might be of some use in a future that would never arrive. When it got real bad we had to call in a HAZMAT team. My own father lived in a house somewhat like this. As a boy I recall a mix of anticipation and revulsion as I dug around in drawers looking for interesting artifacts or stalked around piles of old magazines that had begun to disintegrate in backed-up sewage. The lights in the basement didn’t work and I had to use a flashlight to make my way over the cracked concrete floor, occasionally scaring up the ragged old black cat my dad kept, while holding my shirt over my mouth and nose, afraid of catching some type of disease. Even the garage was piled high with junk, some of which--strange medallions, old coins, car parts--I found truly fascinating. But, in the end, my wariness always won out and I was careful to keep some distance from both my father and his house, sensing, however obliquely, that what was reflected, each in the other, could do me harm. When my father died a few years later there was no clean-up or estate auction. Instead, the city bulldozed his house and everything in it to the ground and carted the wreckage off to the dump. I went by twice afterward; once to see the flattened house and again to see the newly vacant lot. To this day I think that this is really the right and proper way to deal with such homes. Thus, I suppose, I do believe it would be better if jobs such as mine didn’t exist.

Or, I should say, jobs such as mine used to be. I’d like to relate that one day some dramatic realization hit me in some filthy home whose tainted atmosphere suddenly struck me deeply with a dire message. That would be interesting. But, I think, it was more a process of attrition, each “case,” wearing me down a bit more until all I saw was the utter futility and grinding isolation of lives that came to an end surrounded by useless bits of paper and plastic and not much else. We can’t always choose our fate but I’ve seen a lot of what happens when life is simply left to follow its own slow, sad course. Someone had better be at the wheel at all times. What I saw were lives and deaths empty of action or meaning. Finally, I couldn’t stomach the waste. I just had to turn away and find something better to do with my time.

All the above photos were taken Spring 2010 inside three abandoned homes standing right next to each other in downtown Augusta, Georgia, USA.

The Sound of Young America

2010-10-09T15:57:00.006-06:00

I first heard of Willis Earl Beal through Found Magazine. Gracing the COVER OF ISSUE #7 was a flier Willis had made in an attempt to meet a “nice pretty girl” and inside was an interview with Willis himself. At the end of the interview was a note telling readers that if they wanted to see some of Willis’s artwork or hear some of his music they should e-mail Found Magazine. I was intrigued by the interview and, as Willis and I lived in the same town, I wanted to see what this guy was up to. So, I e-mailed Found and they told me they hadn’t actually received anything from Willis yet. Could I track him down, collect some of his work, and send it on to them? Well, sure, I could do that. After all, Willis wasn’t hard to reach; his phone number was on the cover of Found Magazine.

While walking home from work one day I gave Willis a call and told him that Found Magazine wanted me to send some of his artwork on to them. He said he had some CD’s with him right then and that we could meet at a nearby Wendy’s, where he was applying for a job. So, I turned around and headed over to the restaurant. I didn’t know if we’d have much to talk about. All I knew about Willis was what I’d read in Found: that he liked nighttime, oatmeal and heavily favored the music of Norah Jones. As it turned out, he also liked Werner Herzog, Bob Dylan and William Burroughs. Alright, then.

I took the CD’s home, not sure what to expect, and put one in the player. The first track I heard was “Blue Escape.”

BLUE ESCAPE

Once Willis began singing, my first thought was, “I want to be in a band with this guy!” The music came across like a bedroom mix of Sam Cooke, Bob Dylan, the Dirt Bombs and Cat Power. So, I called him back and said I could play some drums, my girlfriend could play guitar, and he could obviously sing and write songs. Did he want to be in a band? Willis was up for trying something, but it took awhile for us to find a place to practice. Our first session was on a cold winter’s afternoon in an open barn, the snow-capped mountains of central New Mexico in the distance. It sounded good. In a short time we had a few tunes worked-out, including some from his home-recorded CD’s. One that Willis never seemed too keen on but that we pretty much insisted on playing was called “Monotony.”

MONOTONY

Over the next few weeks we managed to practice once a week or so. We got a set together, booked a show, and got a lead on some recording time. The weekend before the gig we were set to rehearse but Willis didn’t show up on time. This was unusual. An hour later he called saying he was on the way to the airport and was flying back home to Chicago. He and his girlfriend had broken up the night before and he couldn’t stand being in New Mexico another day. He'd told his landlady to just throw all his stuff out. And that was that.

Who knows what might or might not have come of Willis’s songs? But we understood that he had to leave. And many of the songs he was writing seemed to be about his relationship; it would have been hard for him to keep singing them. It’s too bad we didn’t record anything though. My girlfriend and I spent a whole Saturday in thrift stores trying (and failing) to find a simple boom box. Even a practice tape would’ve been nice. Here’s one we eventually worked-up called “White Noize.”

WHITE NOIZE

Anyway, Willis is back in Chicago—hopefully writing some new songs—and I figured I’d post a couple of his tunes here on City of Dust. All three of these were from his original home recordings, mostly played on instruments he kept pawning. If anyone wants to hear more songs—and there’s a lot more—get in touch and maybe we can find a way to get them out to folks. Willis can sort of be found at WILLISEARLBEAL.COM. But the best way to contact him is still to just give him a call.

WOCA medium-format photos are from Albuquerque's West Mesa, the old SANTA FE PENITENTIARY, and the ALBUQUERQUE RAILYARDS, respectively.

Nobody Knows About the Palace Theater

2010-08-09T19:44:00.002-06:00

In addition to James Brown’s old neighborhood, my recent trip back to Augusta, Georgia yielded another forgotten treasure: the Palace Theater, later known as the Red Star Restaurant and/or Café. I’d passed this old building countless times on my wanderings up and down deserted James Brown Boulevard, but always assumed it had once been a church or something. And, I guess, in a way, it was.

The Palace Theater originally opened in 1920 as a vaudeville theater typical of the era except, perhaps, for the fact that it catered to an African-American audience. As such, it is the only theater of its type still standing in Augusta. And, when I say “standing,” that used to imply “just barely.” Recently the entire front façade of the building collapsed into the street. I’m a little surprised that the façade has now been rebuilt exactly as it looked for decades and decades since the place appeared basically abandoned for years. Is something finally going to be done with the old theater? Is its face lift merely because of the new Federal Justice Center across the street? Is the theater still as historic if it has an entirely new façade? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, I’m just glad they didn’t tear it down.

Anyway, the Palace Theater eventually became the Red Star Restaurant. The building may also have housed the Palace Restaurant and the Red Star Café, but I am uncertain as to whether these are real names or just transpositions of the various monikers. The Red Star Restaurant also functioned as a hotel for African-American performers who were in town. Some friends of mine in Augusta referenced an article stating that not only had Ray Charles stayed at the Red Star Restaurant on an early tour, but that he’d played there, as well. Unfortunately, the original article could not be found and, beyond that, there is almost no information to be found on the history of the Palace Theater/Red Star Restaurant, hence the name of this post.

The ONLY PAGE I could find on-line turned out to have some interesting historical information, including a few old ads and posters. As I have only one photo of the building in my archive (had I known its history I certainly would’ve taken more!) I have taken the liberty of presenting these same ads here. I have attempted to contact the owner of this page to no avail but if you happen to read this, Augusta Amusements, thanks for the info and please get in touch. Hopefully you don’t mind my wholesale ranacking of much of your page.

So, I’d like to wrap this post up by asking anyone that has any memories of the Palace Theater/Red Star Restaurant to please submit your recollections via the comment form or e-mail (see my profile for address). I’d love to know who performed, stayed or ate in this building, once a lonely relict amongst lonely relicts on James Brown Boulevard and now a lonely relict across from a massive government complex.

The Wickedest Town in the West

2010-07-12T22:51:00.007-06:00

Cleopatra Hill sits at about 5,000 feet above sea level in north-central Arizona. It was here that in 1883 a New York investor, Eugene Murray Jerome, purchased mineral rights from a small group of prospectors and began to finance a mining operation. A short time later, in early 1889, the town of Jerome, encompassing less than one square mile on the side of the steep hill and with a population of eight, was incorporated. The town’s namesake, Mr. Jerome, would never set foot in it.

Jerome really came into its own around the turn of the 20th Century, when the New York Sun dubbed it the “wickedest town in the West.” Of course, this meant that the place was rife with that holy trinity of the Wild West: Gunfights, gambling and working girls. Nora “Butter” Brown opened the first bordello in Jerome but by the mid-1880’s was already retired and in San Diego. In 1905 she was shot by her husband, an opium addict. Her protégé, Jennie Bauters, didn’t fare much better, leaving Jerome in 1903 only to be shot two years later (the same year as her former boss, incidentally) by her hard-gambling boyfriend in Acme (now Goldroad), Arizona. The boyfriend, Clement C. Leigh, then turned the gun on himself and laid down to die beside Jennie. Only, he didn’t actually die until he was taken behind a stockade and hung for murder. The photo below is of one of the buildings in Jerome where prostitutes lived and worked.

The population of Jerome reached 15,000 by the 1920’s with the mines operating 24 hours a day. However, the Great Depression hit the town hard and, in 1930, the mines closed. The history of Jerome during these dark years is lost to the ages. However, in 1935, a man named Phelp Dodge bought up the mining rights around Jerome and began open pit mining, using up to 250,000 pounds of TNT to blow chunks out of the hill, rocking the entire city. One blast sent an entire block sliding downgrade. The vast majority of that block was dismantled, but the jail remains standing to this day. Sort of. Known as the “sliding jail” it now sits tucked away beneath a parking lot, hundreds of feet below its original location. The photo at the top of this post is from inside the jail. The shot below is from just outside.

By the mid-20th Century, nearly 1 billion dollars’ worth of gold, silver, and copper had been hauled out of Cleopatra Hill and the immediate vicinity. But, by then, Jerome had become a true ghost town. Below is a shot of the Connor Hotel, which burned down twice before this brick building was finally built in 1898. Once the classiest hotel in town, by 1931 the place was shuttered. It re-opened in the 1960’s as a flophouse. It shut down again in the 1980’s due to building code violations but has since re-opened as something somewhat above a flophouse.

Today, the population of Jerome hovers around 350, making it the least-populated city in the state of Arizona. Its most famous resident is probably Maynard James Keenan, the singer for Tool, who also co-owns the Caduceus Winery, which has a retail store in town. There’s also a boutique for Keenan’s other band, Puscifer, up a street or two. (Up truly meaning "above" in vertical Jerome.) Even if it’s no longer the “wickedest town in the West” (hello my former home of Oakland, CA!), Jerome still has some ghosts floating around.

The JEROME TIMES has the most extensive history of Jerome to be found on-line. Wanna stay at the Connor Hotel? Go HERE. Thirsty? Try HERE.

Next post is going to be a surprise to everyone, including me.

The House of James Brown

2010-06-07T16:58:00.006-06:00

Back in April of 2005, when City of Dust posts were almost exclusively about the Central Savannah River Area, I wrote something regarding the neighborhood James Brown grew up in, a place once known as “The Terry,” a contraction of “Negro Territory.” I described this area, adjacent to downtown on the west and roughly bounded on the north by Walton Way and Laney Walker Boulevard to the south, as containing Augusta’s poorest and most dangerous streets. I also wrote about how, based on what I’d been told, I had decided not to go exploring those streets, which also meant I did not go looking for the childhood home of James Brown.

Shortly after publishing that post, someone by the name of Tawanda left a comment chastising me for believing what I’d been told. She said that the neighborhood was safe and, while people might be curious to know why I was walking around with a camera, no harm would come to me. Re-reading the original post, ACCESS DENIED, I have to say I'm embarrassed by what I wrote and Tawanda was absolutely right; I’d missed an opportunity to see more of Augusta and, what’s more, visit a neighborhood of great historical interest. I was foolish to be intimidated by what I’d heard. Happily, after a weekend visit to Augusta last week, I can now report that the area around James Brown’s childhood home is not a warzone. Further, to see the lot, and perhaps the actual house, where JB grew up was a real treat. So, without further ado, City of Dust returns to Augusta, Georgia:

James Brown, Jr. was born in a one-room shack in Barnwell, South Carolina in either 1928 or 1933, although May 3, 1933 seems to be the most accepted date. His parents separated when he was four (some sources say two) and he didn't see his mother again for over two decades. When he was around six, he and his father moved to Augusta and James went to live with his Aunt Honey, who ran a brothel. There, James was reportedly beaten by johns, as well as his father. To pay his way, young James shined shoes and was also sent out to procure customers for his aunt. It is actually unclear from the information I found whether James' father ever lived in the brothel or if he resided elsewhere. In any case, James would have been staying at the address 944 Twiggs St. by the early-to-mid 1930's.

If you do a Google image search for “James Brown’s childhood home” the first photo of a structure you get is one from City of Dust that I can definitely tell you is not the place. However, in 2002, the UK’s Guardian newspaper published a long feature on James Brown by Philip Gourevith entitled THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME. In it, Mr. Gourevitch is taken on a tour of James Brown’s old stomping grounds by JB himself. They drive around in James’ limo while the Godfather of Soul points out spots of interest, including his boyhood home (that's the lot, at least, in the photo above). I could summarize some of the article, but I think it’ll be more interesting to just plagiarize a few paragraphs:

Here was 944 Twiggs Street, the former brothel where he (i.e., James Brown) lived with his Aunt Honey, the madam - now abandoned and bristling with weeds. Here, by these train tracks, he buck-danced for soldiers passing through town at the start of the second world war; they'd throw him coins, which he took home to Aunt Honey: "Men made 30 cents an hour, 20 cents a hour, 15 cents a hour. I brought her back five dollars to pay the rent for a month." Here was the narrow canal where he once took refuge from the law: "Police were running me, and I saw 'em coming, and I made a few turns, jumped in the water, and breathed through a cane. I saw it in a movie." He mimicked the police, "Where'd he go? Where he at? Where he at? I know I saw him. I swear I saw that boy, Gawd damn." Then he recalled telling himself: "'Now listen up, it's either jail, either reform school, or you stay in the water.' So I stayed in the water." And here was an oil company that he used to rob when he was nine: "That was wrong but was survival."

This is the best available information I’ve ever come across regarding the exact location of the brothel where James Brown grew up. Clearly, the place was not most recently a residence but a business of some kind (see above photo). Was the original home—perhaps a shotgun shack—converted for business use or was it torn down and replaced? Who knows? I do know that the building I photographed pre-dates the article, so, as James didn’t say otherwise, I might assume, with some reservation, that this is where JB grew up. The remnants of the railroad tracks can still be seen nearby and, indeed, the canal runs right beside the house. It's fascinating to think that James hid from the police in that same canal all those years ago. Below is a photo of the Southern Milling Company complex, which recently caught fire. This is the view that young James would have seen from the front of his house, although not quite so singed.

Here’s some more from the article:

As we turned off Twiggs Street on to a narrow and particularly abject strip, called Hopkins Street, Mr. Brown's mood turned sombre. The facade of a brick house on the corner was spray-painted with the words "Fuck the world," and farther along the real estate grew more dismal: Tottering clapboard bungalows, half of them burned out, and the rest, he said, "probably crack houses now. You come from that, you use crack." In this setting, the limo looked like a spaceship, but none of the street's ragtag residents expressed any surprise. They waved from sidewalks and porches, and although they couldn't see through the rain-streaked one-way glass, they called out: "Hello, Mr. Brown" and "God bless, Mr. Brown."

The vehicle could belong to nobody else: Every Thanksgiving, he comes through passing out turkeys, and at Christmas he brings toys. Now, he said, "They want me to help build this place back - What can I do? Get on my knees and pray, and ask, 'Mr. President, come - Mr. Bush, come in here and clean it out and put decent homes in here'?"

He told his driver to stop outside a broken-down shack, where an emaciated woman and two young men sat on a porch surrounded by household debris. One of the young men stepped forward in the rain, and Mr. Brown lowered his window and held out a $50 bill. The man bowed and withdrew. "Wait a minute," Mr. Brown called after him. "Y'all split that. Give that lady some, too." When he rolled his window up, he told me: "I'm not doin' this because you here. I wasn't gonna do it today. I didn't want you to see me handin' no money out there. I wasn't gonna do it. That's the honest-to-God truth." He sounded embarrassed. "You look at this, it kinda take your breath," he said.

At the end of the block, we reached JAMES BROWN BOULEVARD, and he said, "Out here on these same streets, you may see my daughter, and she has no business out here. She don't have to be there. I give her a home, she got a new Mercedes, and her Mercedes just sitting there. I can't give it to her, 'cause I can't - 'cause she shrug off everything I do."

Now, the picture painted by the article also makes the neighborhood sound dire. And I certainly saw a number of abandoned homes and businesses, some burnt down. But I never saw a single person that appeared menacing. Granted, the rain was pouring down the afternoon I was there, too, but mostly I saw a place where people were doing their best to get by, some in the face of admittedly long odds. There has also been considerable development along James Brown Blvd since James Brown or I last saw Augusta. The effects of this development on the larger neighborhood remain to be seen, but that a face-lift is occurring is undeniable.

Again, I thank Tawanda for setting me straight and giving me the impetus to find James Brown’s childhood home. If anyone has more information on 944 Twiggs or James Brown’s early residences, please drop me a line. Tawanda, if you happen to read this, please get in touch. I wasn’t able to contact you on this trip, but I may be back in Augusta sometime down the road and would love to take you up on your kind offer of a full tour. Also, many thanks to Mr. Hughes for accompanying me on this outing and providing some historical insight of his own. His website archiving the available information on Henry Shultz and the lost city of HAMBURG SOUTH CAROLINA (site of the HAMBURG RIOT) is well worth spending some time with. The accompanying photo is of the James Brown monument on Broad Street in Augusta. The shot below is another look inside 944 Twiggs St.

I think next time we’ll visit the mountainside Wild West gold-mining town of Jerome, Arizona and have a look at its famous, if hidden, “sliding” jail. Jerome is also the home of Maynard Keenan, the singer of Tool. Huh.

Pie Town, New Mexico

2010-05-01T21:28:00.012-06:00

In the pinon-juniper woodland west of Socorro, New Mexico, just east of the Arizona line, is a very small town known for its pie. In fact, it’s been known for its pie ever since a man named Clyde Norman first began baking dried apple pies at a lonely, dusty crossroads atop the Continental Divide back in the 1920’s. Those pies became so famous that, in 1927, the little burg that sprang up around the crossroads became officially known as Pie Town, New Mexico. This despite the wishes of government authorities who thought the name a bit too unconventional.

Initially, US Highway 60, the “Coast-to-Coast Highway,” was poised to become the major east-west route through the southwestern United States. Expectations for the future of Pie Town, which sits at a lofty 7,772’ above sea level, ran high. But Route 66 was put through Albuquerque, about 160 miles to the northeast, marooning Pie Town and leaving the vast region which surrounds it relatively un-traveled. Nevertheless, Pie Town, which remains unincorporated, persisted.

Pie Town really became a town during the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s, when farmers left barren land to the east and attempted to re-start their lives in the rolling hills around Pie Town. At its peak there were perhaps 250 families living in Pie Town and working together, acting as more of a co-operative than a town, everyone banding together to make a living off a land that threatened to be difficult in the best of times. And, as is true in many places and lives, it was often not the best of times. One resident, Faro Caudill, who became sick while living in Pie Town and later decided to add adultery to his list of problems, scrawled a farewell on the gate of his house as he left in 1942: “Farewell, old homestead. I bid you adieu. I may go to hell but I’ll never come back to you.”

But his ex-wife, Doris, whose memories of her time in Pie Town must have been mixed at best, years later recalled the place, and particularly bath time, with some fondness: “We would take a bath on Saturday night. We had a number three bathtub. I’d get the water all hot and then I’d bathe Josie and then I’d take a bath and then Faro would take a bath. . . . You kind of wore the water out.” A rustic lifestyle, to be sure.

Pie Town, including Faro and Doris Caudill and their daughter, Josie, was well-documented by Russell Lee, who shot 620 photographs in the area for the Farm Security Administration in 1940. These photos, both color and black and white, depict a rural community still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression. Yet there appears to be contentment and community despite the poverty. But things got even tougher in the 1950’s when the climate of the area began to shift, becoming even drier, and the farming went from pretty good, even if sometimes challenging, to impossible. Many of Pie Town’s residents were forced to pack up and head elsewhere. But the pies remained. Below is a photo taken by Russell Lee in October 1940 and entitled "Faro and Doris Caudill, homesteaders, Pie Town, New Mexico."

Pie Town as seen from Highway 60 is perhaps a mile or two long. On the northern side of the highway is the Pie-O-Neer. Just slightly to the west, on the southern side of the road, is the Daily Pie Café. On our stop in Pie Town, we went to the place we came to first: the Pie-O-Neer. The blueberry pie was excellent, as one would expect, and, naturally, there was a countless variety of pies to choose from. But they sell out quick and I was a little disappointed the pecan-oat was gone by the time we arrived. What was somewhat unexpected was how good the rest of the food was. The green chile soup was delicious and even a simple sandwich was well above ordinary. Heck, the tea was pretty nice, too. Also unexpected was finding out that the guy at the table next to ours had attended high school in the same building I’d taken swimming lessons at as a kid, just a few minutes from my childhood home back in Minnesota. The owners of the Pie-O-Neer told us these sorts of encounters happened there all the time. A result, they suspected, of getting people off the interstate and moving at a speed more conducive to engaging with your fellow travelers. Such a shift in priorities is one of their stated goals.

So, why would a person stay in Pie Town, choosing to live in what would appear to be relative isolation? In 2005, Mike Rawl, husband of the Daily Pie Café’s pie chef, told Smithsonian Magazine: “I’ve thought about it a lot. I think the very same impulses that brought the homesteaders out here brought us out. My family, they had the Dust Bowl. Here you’ve got to come out and buy a tax license and deal with insurance and government regulations. But it’s the same thing. It’s about freedom, the freedom to leave one place and try to make it in another. For them their farms got buried in sand. They had to leave. Back in Maryland it never really seemed like it was for us. And I don’t mean for us, exactly. You’re helping people out. This place becomes part of the town. I’ve had people running out of gas in the middle of the night. I’ve got a tank out back here. You’re a part of something. That’s what I mean to say. It’s very hard. You have to fight it. But the life here is worth the fight.”

So, that’s it, really. Freedom and community. And pie. Lots of delicious pie. I’ll be going back soon.

Pie Town’s annual Pie Festival occurs the second Saturday of September. Also of interest is the nearby DanCyn' Windmill Museum, the only windmill museum I believe I've ever seen.

All pictures taken in Pie Town, NM. The most interesting source of information was the article on Pie Town that appeared in Smithsonian Magazine in February 2005. It can be found on-line HERE. Also of interest is a PIE TOWN PAGE associated with the Daily Pie Café, which includes links to the cafe's blog and the Smithsonian Magazine article. It's well worth having a look at Russell Lee's photos of Pie Town, which can be found by searching the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS collection. If you do a little searching you might come across the marriage certificate of Faro and Doris Caudill, photographed on the wall of their home prior to Mr. Caudill's indiscretions. Finally, there is an entire book about the Caudills, particularly Doris, titled, "Pie Town Woman," by Joan Myers, a New Mexico author.

(Note to the folks at the Pie-O-Neer: Sorry we forgot the travel info at our table. We really did appreciate it. We just got wrapped up talking to our neighbor from Minnesota and didn’t realize it’d been left behind until Arizona!)

The Heat of Dreams

2010-04-11T16:29:00.002-06:00

I’ve known Frank Turner for a long time now. Long enough, at least, to get to know some of his ways and habits. For example, I know that Frank wakes up every morning at 4AM and spends the next two hours sitting at his kitchen table with a cup of coffee. Not reading the paper, not watching TV, not doing anything at all. Just sitting there, his elbows on his knees, staring into his cup, a naked bulb in a lamp in the living room casting a thin light over his hunched figure.

I started going over to Frank’s some mornings when I couldn’t sleep. I’d let myself in through the unlatched screen door and Frank would look up at me for a moment as I walked to the kitchen through the breezeway. He wouldn’t say a word. He’d just stand up, take another mug off the shelf, fill it with hot coffee off the stove, and set it down in front of the chair adjacent to his. Neither of us are much for talking, so we didn’t discuss our lives or pasts or plans. We’d just sit there and drink the coffee, sometimes looking out the window at the hills in the distance, watching the contours appear out of the darkness, waiting for that thin band of gold at the horizon that heralded the coming day. When it was time for my shift to start, I’d tell Frank good-bye, thank him for the coffee, and walk out to my truck.

A couple times, early on, I asked him why he woke up so early just to sit at his kitchen table. He’d tell me, “I take a little time to get fit for the day.” Or, “I just need to think on some things.” So, always the same meaning, even if the explanation was slightly different. I didn’t ask him too often, though, and after a short while I didn’t ask him at all. For Frank’s part, he never asked me anything, not even the first time I showed up on his porch at 4:30AM, bleary-eyed and sweating, even though it was early-February and the wind was whipping across the prairie, the cold stinging my cheeks. He only pulled out a chair at the table, made a vague motion with his hand, and set a cup in front of me.

I went over to his place maybe a month ago, about 5AM, after a bad night, and as soon as I opened the screen door, unlatched like it always was, it was like I could sense something had changed. The light in the living room was on and Frank’s cup of coffee was on the table, but he wasn’t there. I called his name softly, then louder, so as not to surprise him with my being there. But there was no answer. I walked around the house and looked in the rooms, but he wasn’t in any of them. Finally, I went into the kitchen and put my palm against his mug. It was warm. The coffee on the stove was still simmering. I walked out to the garage and saw that his truck wasn’t there. The tracks in the gravel driveway were fresh. Then I went back inside, turned off the stove, closed the windows, locked the doors, and got back in my own truck and drove away.

Since then I’ve been back a few times. The coffee in the mug now has a thick oily sheen on the surface, but, other than that, nothing has changed. I’ll keep going back every now and then, but I don’t expect I’ll find him. He must have finally made up his mind about something, I guess.

The photos were taken in Dunnigan Hills, California, USA in fall 2008 with a plastic WOCA camera and medium-format 120 film. The NEXT post will be on Pietown, New Mexico.

Bucket of Blood Street, USA

2010-04-01T22:34:00.011-06:00

The sun was slowly setting over the Petrified Forest, giant slabs of ancient wood and mountains of white bentonite alternately catching fire and fading into shadow. Driving north on Highway 77, the miles ticked past in streams of rusty barbed wire and broken cars. Millions of glass shards, jagged jewels marking decades of speeding drunks tossing liquid dreams out car windows, glittered from the shoulder of the road and twinkled in the dry yellow grass. Just south of a set of railroad tracks the highway became Navajo Blvd. before intersecting Bucket of Blood St. We stopped the car in the shadow of several tall green dinosaurs. Across the street in one direction was an abandoned tack shop built in the 1920’s. In another direction stood a boarded up wreck of a building made entirely of polished petrified wood. Holbrook (or T’iisyaakin in Navajo), Arizona was suddenly looking like a damned interesting place to spend the night.

In 1881 (or possibly 1882, there appears to be some dispute), Holbrook, named after the first chief engineer of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, was born and immediately became a place to practice the holy trinity of Wild West pursuits: gambling, prostitution and gun fighting. It soon became known as a town “too tough for women or churches.” There was virtually no law in Holbrook and the violence ranged from Apache and Navajo raids on settlers to the Pleasant Valley War, which pitted a family of sheep ranchers against a family of cattle ranchers and lasted ten years, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake.

In 1886, the population of Holbrook was about 250 and 26 people died violent deaths, making a citizen's likelihood of being murdered that year something over 1 in 10. Some of the outlaw cowboys in Holbrook were members of the Aztec Cattle Company and worked for the Hashknife Outfit. These cowboys were involved in the Pleasant Valley War, stole cattle, and shot their guns quite a bit. They were known as the “thievinist, fightinist bunch of cowboys in the west." The main saloon in Holbrook was, of course, the site of much violence, and had the bucolic name Perkins' Cottage Saloon. There are two stories as to why the saloon changed its name that year. The first has some of the boys of the Hashknife Outfit accused of stealing cattle while having a drink. A brutal shoot-out is said to have ensued, leaving numerous patrons dead. The second story, told by Albert F. Potter, captain of the Hashknife's round-up, depicts two Mexican cowboys being shot during a card game by a gambler and a Hashknife Outfit cowboy. The gambler and cowboy quickly rode away on "borrowed" horses. Whichever story is true, it was written that after the incident “buckets of blood” covered the floor of the saloon. Thus the owners decided to change the name of their establishment to better match its disposition. This photo is clearly not of the Bucket of Blood, but it is on the same street.

Over 120 years after its construction, the Bucket of Blood Saloon still stands. You would think that its longevity would ensure that most residents of Holbrook would know its location. Clearly, it’s got to be somewhere on Bucket of Blood St. Yet some locals directed us to the wrong place, telling us that this building made of petrified wood was once the Bucket of Blood Saloon. While a fascinating building in its own right, and probably also a saloon at one time, this was never the Bucket of Blood. The Bucket of Blood is not far away though and I found it somewhat by accident. Not realizing I’d been standing in front of the place until later, the photo below mostly depicts the Bucket of Blood’s neighbor. The Bucket of Blood itself is just to the left, the far-right bit of its lintel just creeping into the frame. I hope to return soon and explore further, now that I’d know what infamy I was looking at.

The year after the shoot-out at the Bucket of Blood Saloon, on September 4, 1887, Commodore Perry Owens, the sheriff of Holbrook, dubbed "Saint George with a six-shooter," made it known that law and order had finally come to the territory. While serving a warrant on notorious rustler Andy Cooper at the home of the Blevins Gang, the outlaw tried to close the door on the sheriff. Owens fired through the door with his shotgun, hitting Cooper in the stomach. John Blevins returned fire but shot Cooper's horse instead and was himself shot in the arm. Another man, Mose Roberts, jumped out a window and was killed by Owens. Finally, Samuel Houston Blevins, Cooper's 15-year-old brother, came out the door and ran at the sheriff pointing his dying brother's pistol. Owens shot and the boy died in his mother's arms. In less than a minute the gunfight was over and the back of Holbrook's cattle rustlers had been broken. Owens, now a legend, remained sheriff until 1896, nearly another ten years. The Blevins House still stands.

In 1895, Navajo County was created by the territorial legislature and Holbrook was designated the county seat. The county courthouse was built in 1898 and used as such for 78 years. There were many trials but only one man, George Smiley, convicted of murder, was ever executed. His hanging became notorious for an unusual reason. In the late 1800’s, Arizona law required that every sheriff in Arizona, as well as certain public officials, received an invitation to each execution scheduled to occur in the state. Commodore Perry Owens' successor, Sheriff Frank Wattron, could find no official format or template for such an invitation so he designed his own, complete with flowery language and a gilt-border. It read:

“You are hereby cordially invited to attend the hanging of one George Smiley, murderer. His soul will be swung into eternity on December 8, 1899, at 3 o’clock p.m., sharp.

Latest improved methods in the art of scientific strangulation will be employed and everything possible will be done to make the surroundings cheerful and the execution a success.

F.J. Wattron, Sheriff of Navajo County.”

It sounded like quite an enjoyable afternoon, but President McKinley believed an execution demanded a certain amount of gravity and, when word of the invitation reached him, he contacted the Governor of Arizona to issue a stay of execution for 30 days and gave Sheriff Wattron a personal reprimand.

So, the sheriff set about writing another invitation. This time it read:

“Revised Statutes of Arizona, Penal Code, Title X, Section 1849, Page 807, makes it obligatory on sheriff to issue invitations to executions, form (unfortunately) not prescribed.

Holbrook, Arizona

Jan. 7, 1900.

With feelings of profound sorrow and regret, I hereby invite you to attend and witness the private, decent and humane execution of a human being; name, George Smiley, crime, murder.

The said George Smiley will be executed on Jan. 8, 1900, at 2 o’clock p.m.

You are expected to deport yourself in a respectful manner, and any ‘flippant’ or ‘unseemly’ language or conduct on your part will not be allowed. Conduct, on anyone’s part, bordering on ribaldry and tending to mar the solemnity of the occasion will not be tolerated.

F.J. Wattron, Sheriff of Navajo County.

I would suggest that a committee, consisting of Governor Murphy, Editors Dunbar, Randolph and Hull, wait on our next legislature and have a form of invitation to executions embodied in our laws."

To ensure the thinly-veiled sarcasm of this second invitation did not result in another letter from President McKinley, Sheriff Wattron sent the invitation out one day before the execution date. George Smiley swung before news of the second invitation ever reached Washington, D.C. and he now haunts the courthouse, perhaps waiting for another message from McKinley, one that will never come. The photo above and the one below are both from the jail in the old Navajo County Courthouse. The night of Wednesday, April 30, 1975 was not a good one in Holbrook.

After reliving the brutality of American history, why not stay in a Wigwam for the night? Wigwam Motel #6 (there were once seven Wigwam Motels throughout the country; three survive) is on Hopi Dr., in central Holbrook. It was built in 1950 and is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Of course, a wigwam is a domed-structure and the “rooms” at the Wigwam Motel are more properly teepees. But why split hairs? There’s a vintage jalopy parked in front of each teepee and when the sun sets it’s not hard to imagine you’re in the real thing.

One last quick fact about Holbrook: On July 19, 1912, a 400 lbs. meteorite exploded over the town. It’s estimated that more than 16,000 stones fell out of the sky, some weighing almost 15 lbs. I guess danger takes a variety of forms in Holbrook.

There’s not too much on the web about Holbrook, but the sites I found most useful were one on the BUCKET OF BLOOD SALOON and another on the NAVAJO COUNTY COURTHOUSE. I also got some information from the Northeastern Arizona Daytrip Guide.

If you want to visit Holbrook and stay at the Wigwam Motel, their website is HERE.

The next post shouldn’t take long to get up—not months, at least. It’s going to be on the much less sordid but perhaps more tasty burg of Pietown, New Mexico.

Train I Ride

2010-01-20T20:29:00.010-07:00

The Albuquerque Rail Yards are a massive complex sprawling over 27.3 acres and sitting (mostly) idle off 2nd St. in the old Barelas neighborhood. Established by the Atlantic and Pacific (A & P) railroad in 1880 after Albuquerque was designated as the division point between the A & P and Santa Fe Railways, the chief function of the complex was to maintain and repair locomotives. However, most of the shops and offices were constructed between 1914 and 1924, by which time the Santa Fe Railway, following bankruptcy in 1883, had re-emerged as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, absorbed the A & P, and gained ownership of the yards. By 1919, one-quarter of Albuquerque’s work force was employed at the rail yards and most of the city’s commerce owed its existence to the railroad. At present, there are 14 buildings, mostly clustered in the northern part of the yards; to the south is an operational turntable, built in 1915, which was used to rotate trains as they entered or exited.

(Photo above is facing southeast from the roof of the machine shop toward the turntable. Photo below was taken in the blacksmith shop.)

Of the buildings constructed between 1914 and 1915, only the 35-stall roundhouse and a storehouse stand, while buildings for freight car repairs and a powerhouse have been demolished. However, one of the unique things about the Albuquerque Rail Yards is its state of preservation; virtually every building built from 1916 onward remains, including flue (1920), boiler (1923), blacksmith (1917), and machine (1921) shops, an assembly hall (1922), a firehouse (1920), and a car garage (pre-1931), among others. The rail yard’s buildings were at the forefront of industrial technology and the 165,000 sq. ft./3.8 acre machine shop has been considered comparable to the 1922 Ford Motor Company Glass Plant, which scholar Grant Hildebrand considered to be "the single factory which carried industrial architecture forward more than any other." For example, the machine shop’s two-story traveling cranes, one of which could hoist 250 tons, were incorporated into the structure of the building itself. Further, all rail lines, whether inside or outside buildings, ran north-south while a transfer table (pre-1919) for moving locomotives between buildings ran east-west, as did the overhead cranes. Thus the rail yard was sturdy and highly-efficient, with the massive locomotives moved easily from one area to another.

(Photo above is of the machine shop, taken from the northwest of the building, with cranes at the far end.)

Albuquerque’s early designation as a division point was important because it ensured that the most significant railroad activity in the region would be centered in the city, with the next-nearest division points located in Las Vegas (north), Gallup (west), and San Marcial (south). In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, a locomotive generally left for a one-way trip of only 100-150 miles in the morning, underwent some basic repairs upon arrival, and then returned later in the day to its home shop for further maintenance. Fire tubes, flues, smoke boxes, and boilers all had to be cleaned daily and ash residue left behind by incompletely burnt coal had to be continually removed.

(Photo above is of the boiler shop as seen from the transfer table, which sits between the boiler and machine shops.)

While early locomotives only managed 40,000 miles between major repair-work, 20th Century engines routinely did 400,000 miles, which put them in the shop for a complete overhaul every year or year-and-a-half. Shops such as those at the Albuquerque Rail Yard completely dismantled locomotives, painstakingly cleaning each part of the engine, lathing wheels, manufacturing replacement equipment, patching and mending and then testing and inspecting the entire engine before sending it back out. A well-cared-for engine might last 15 years and, at its peak, the rail yards tore down and re-built about 40 a month.

(Photo above was taken on the second floor of the machine shop. Note the wooden "bricks," which reduced damage to dropped tools and prevented sparks, which could cause troublesome explosions. Photo below is of the flue shop, aka the "green room".)

Following a steady decline through the Depression, the rail yards experienced a record-high employment of 1500 workers during WWII, when the switch from steam to diesel engines was temporarily halted. Once construction of diesel engines resumed, the rail yards were still used for repairs but, by the mid-1950’s, the massive complex was mostly utilized for maintaining rail lines. The rail yards were largely a storage facility by the time they were completely shut down in the 1990’s. In November 2007, the City of Albuquerque purchased the site with an aim towards restoration. Since that time some TV shows and movies have been shot in the facility, including Crash and Terminator 4, which I’ve heard is responsible for covering the windows in the fake grime which is still visible.

(Photo above was taken from out on the 250-ton overhead crane in the machine shop.)

One goal of restoration is to create a space for the WHEELS Museum, which would act as a repository for much of the rail yard’s history. Of course, the rail yards are too big for one museum, so some sort of mixed-use residential/commercial area is being envisioned, including restaurants, shops and a concert hall. WHEELS fundraisers are being held and meetings with the city continue. At a Rail Yards Advisory Board Meeting early last year, the President of the future WHEELS Museum said the yards contain some of “most important historic buildings in the state of New Mexico.” Here’s to hoping the process of rehabilitation gets underway quickly, before those holes in the roof get any bigger.

(Photo above is of the boiler shop with overhead crane at the far end.)

Information on the Albuquerque Rail Yard turned out to be pretty hard to find. By far, the best sources were the Wheels Transportation Museum, which has some great content on their WEBSITE, including the BEST OVERVIEW of the rail yard’s buildings I could locate.

The other good source was the City of Albuquerque itself, which has some information on the REDEVELOPMENT PLAN, including a bit of history.

If you want to get serious about your research, the quote comparing the machine shop to the 1922 Ford Motor Company Glass Plant was from: Grant Hildebrand, Designing for Industry; the Architecture of Albert Ahn, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1974), pg. 111.

Next post will be on…I have no damn idea, actually.

Slideluck Potshow, Santa Fe, NM Pt. II

2009-12-19T20:40:00.003-07:00

The Slideluck Potshow event in Santa Fe earlier this month was excellent. Good food, great photographs, and a full-house on a cold, snowy, Wednesday night. City of Dust's slideshow contribution can now be viewed on-line RIGHT HERE. Look for "Cities of Dust: American Decay" near the top of the right-hand column. A very big thanks to Slideluck Potshow and Center for putting this event together. I was honored to be a part of it.

The above photo is another from the old Albuquerque rail yard. A photo-laden post on that place is on the way.

Slideluck Potshow, Santa Fe, NM

2009-12-07T17:10:00.001-07:00

I'm very pleased that a couple dozen of my photos will be included in the Santa Fe edition of Slideluck Potshow, presented this Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at the New Mexico History Center. It should be a very cool time with lots of great photography, food, folks and other surprises. The address is: 113 Lincoln Avenue, Santa Fe, NM and the whole thing runs from 6:30pm to 9pm. All the info can be found right HERE. Hope to see you there.

The above photo is from a recent trip to the old Albuquerque rail yard. A longer post on that lovely old complex is in the works.

A Man a Woman Walked By

2009-12-05T16:16:00.002-07:00

We passed each other by a broken fountain in a cement courtyard with no one else around, the weather turning gray and cold. At the same moment, we both glanced up from the ground. Neither of us smiled but there was something that caught and held. I kept on for several steps and then felt I had to turn around. You had already stopped and were looking back at me. Unnerved, I continued across the courtyard and into a shop. Through the window I could see that you had sat down on a nearby bench and were looking toward the store. I had come to the shop to look for a record entitled “A Man a Woman Walked By.” Really. I can’t make this kind of thing up. They had a copy at a good price. I suspected that a mistake was being made and went back outside without making the purchase, but you had disappeared.

What was lost? Perhaps a beautiful affair is now gone forever, something precious never to be recovered. Or perhaps you would have stabbed me in your car later that night, dumped my body near the river and the next day been back at that broken fountain looking for some other man, some guy that didn’t make you want to kill him, if such a person actually existed. It’s also possible that, after a period of passion and tumult, I would have told you about another girl, someone I loved more than you, if I’d even grown to really care about you at all. You can never be too sure about strangers these days and everything we knew about each other was in that brief moment when our eyes met. Was that enough? Was it everything? Or was it nothing? Because, you know, men and women pass each other every second of the day and it’s possible that we were only both just slightly out of our minds.

At least, I figure I must be slightly out of my mind because now you’re another person I never knew that I’m going to miss for the rest of my life, even if you would have killed me.

Photos are of a little lost schoolhouse somewhere on Highway 60 in central New Mexico.

Penitentiary Blues

2009-11-28T16:17:00.015-07:00

Fifteen miles south of Santa Fe stands the old New Mexico State Penitentiary which opened in 1956 and closed in 1998. Virtually every other piece of historical information regarding the prison pales into insignificance in the face of a riot which began at approximately 2 am on February 2, 1980. That riot is considered to be the most violent prison uprising in U.S. history if not the deadliest (that dubious honor likely goes to the 1971 riot at Attica in New York). Information on the prison’s architecture and overall history apart from the riot is nearly non-existent, buried under the mountain of horror unleashed that day in February. So, here is the story of the New Mexico State Penitentiary riot, told for the umpteenth time, though hopefully more comprehensively than what you’ll find on Wikipedia and with some recent photos. (Photo above is of the pen's gas chamber, which was used only once, in 1960, to execute a man that killed a hitchhiker. New Mexico repealed the death penalty earlier this year.)

In the early 1970’s, the New Mexico State Penitentiary operated under a system whereby certain inmates were selected to help run prison programs. These prisoners could approve or reject other prisoner’s requests to join programs and, as these programs were popular with the prisoners, it was in everyone’s best interest to assure their continuance. Thus, the selected inmates, in cooperation with their fellow prisoners, made sure that order was maintained and no one jeopardized their good thing. However, by the late 1970’s, the New Mexican correctional system was in disarray. The chain of command among prison officials was weak and confusing and oversight of regulations lax. Around this time prisoner-led programs ended and a new policy was implemented, one whereby prisoners were routinely turned against other prisoners and coercion was used to obtain information and overall compliance. Divide and conquer became the guiding objective. (Accompanying photo shows cell graffiti. Regulations forbidding graffiti were relaxed just before the penitentiary closed.)

Further, the New Mexico State Penitentiary contained high-security cells, New Mexico’s death row and its attendant gas chamber, as well as the protective custody unit, in which those inmates considered at risk of assault if allowed in the general population were housed. This included prisoners who had given evidence against their fellow inmates. Moreover, when built in 1956, the prison was designed to contain 800 men. By 1980 more than 1100 prisoners lived together in close quarters. A renovation of a cellblock at the time saw some of the most dangerous criminals moved from a high-security area to more dormitory-like arrangements. This overcrowding and mixing of New Mexico’s most violent, notorious, disturbed and vulnerable criminals in one facility was more fuel to be tossed on what was already becoming a dangerous powder keg. (Accompanying photo is of a death row cell. Photo below is of a meeting table beside death row.)

Finally, those guarding the inmates at the penitentiary had grown demoralized and careless. In any given year, 80% of the prison staff quit. The high-turnover rate meant that guards were frequently unfamiliar with the operation of the prison and the building itself. Nor would the guards always know the history of those incarcerated in the prison. At the time of the riot, many guards let prisoners do as they pleased in their cells, as long as it didn’t turn into something the guards had to deal with personally. Thus many prisoners were routinely victims of physical and sexual assault and drug use was rampant. In addition to drugs, some prisoners made their own alcohol, a strange fact which ended up being the flame which finally lit the fuse.

While on their rounds during the early morning of February 2, two guards came upon a couple of prisoners in a dormitory that were drunk on alcohol they’d made with fermented fruit. The intoxicated inmates attacked and overcame the guards and, as the guards had failed to follow procedure, leaving the cell block doors they had just come through open, the prisoners quickly made their way to the prison’s control center, where they flipped switches unlocking most of the penitentiary. Once free, hundreds of inmates fanned throughout the prison, taking fourteen guards and one medical technician hostage. While things were about to get much, much worse, some inmates were already fighting the tide and three guards were given safe hiding places by sympathetic prisoners. Meanwhile, anything that could be used as a weapon was procured and made into one, and the hospital was raided for its drug supply. Even glue was sought out and huffed. (Accompanying photo and photo below are pretty self-explanatory.)

It was about this time that some inmates, possibly less than a dozen, set out for the protective custody unit. Once there, suspected informers were taken from their cells and set on fire or had their limbs cut off one-by-one, each successive wound cauterized to prolong the suffering. One prisoner was propped in front of a window and, in full view of the National Guard, now gathered beyond the 12-foot fence outside, was killed with a blowtorch. While keys to the outside doors of several wings of the prison were available, the decision was made not to enter and, instead, to attempt to negotiate with the prisoners. Meanwhile, the carnage inside escalated.

During the negotiations it became clear that, in fact, no one was in charge of the riot and, therefore, no one was in a position to stop it. Those convicts being negotiated with made claims of overcrowding, bad food and harassment while others, weary of the violence, began to leave the prison and line up along the outside fence, seeking refuge. Other prisoners tried to protect certain of their fellow inmates and lost their lives because of it. Still others worked to release the guards. Such was the disarray and lack of leadership that prisoners could release hostages while their fellow inmates made demands intended to be met before these very same hostages would be released. (Accompanying photo is from Cell Block 4, where prisoners in protective custody were housed. The slender white marks on the floor in the foreground were caused by hatchets used to dismember inmates.)

By the bitter end, only three hostages remained and two very violent prisoners, Michael Colby and William Jack Stephens, demanded and were granted transfer to a federal facility for their release. Colby and Stephens were told to get their belongings from their cells, the three hostages were released, and the State Police and the National Guard entered the prison and re-took it without opposition from the approximately 100 inmates still inside.

Those entering the prison found true horror: bodies had been put in ovens in the kitchen, limbs were scattered on the ground, one corpse had no head, another was hanging from the ceiling with the word “RAT” cut into its chest, yet another had a metal bar shoved in one ear and out the other. The bodies of two inmates were never found and were presumed entirely incinerated. All told, the 36-hour nightmare left at least 33 inmates dead and nine seriously injured. One guard was in serious condition--some guards were badly beaten and sodomized--and the New Mexican Corrections Department had been brought to its knees. (Accompanying photo is from Cell Block 4. The dark stain on the floor marks where a body was burned.)

(Above photo shows an old bed frame in the infirmary.)

The major causes of the riot are out-lined above, all of them preventable. Lawsuits had already been filed regarding the overcrowding, the lack of a command structure within the NM prison system was well-known (basic security inspections at the penitentiary went undone for years as no one knew who should be conducting them) and the use of drugs amongst inmates was no secret. Thus the riot itself should have come as no surprise. What is surprising, of course, is the level of violence. Obviously, housing the protective custody unit, which included “snitches,” in the main facility was a grievous mistake and one subsequently corrected. But, beyond that, and in overpowering opposition to those inmates, possibly the vast majority, who did not participate or even risked and lost their lives to reduce the violence, something unspeakably wicked was at work over those 36 hours. James Weston, the Chief Medical Examiner at the time, was quoted as saying, "Virtually every one of the bodies had overkill, which is to say that there was more than mob hysteria. There was rage." That much seems abundantly clear, but the prison psychologist, Dr. Marc Orner, made a much more telling statement when he said, "None of us really understands what happened in there. The depth of the violence is incomprehensible to me as a human being and as a psychologist. It is as if all the aggression a human being can have was savagely unleashed. We just can't understand why they did this to each other." (Accompanying photo shows a few rays of sunlight.)

The American justice system seems a shadowy and powerful animal and the forces it wields are largely beyond our understanding. We know very little about how to alter the human spirit to the good; there are myriad ways to corrupt that same spirit and plunge it into darkness. Can prisons consistently do the former rather than the latter? To what degree does the criminal justice system create monsters that can murder without mercy? Or, to what degree do those monsters arrive fully-formed, merely waiting? The questions are serious, the answers remain unclear. (Photo below is of the check-in desk of the infirmary. The infirmary was raided for drugs during the riot.)

Post-script:

Interestingly enough, apart from the obvious changes to the prison system in the years following the riot, changes in the prison population itself have reduced the likelihood of such riots. Prison gangs have consolidated their power and, where numerous small gangs used to fight for position and influence, now only a couple well-established gangs maintain a fragile peace. Finally, in the mid-1980’s, drug smuggling within the New Mexico State Penitentiary (and, I would imagine, prisons throughout the country), became more sophisticated and materially lucrative. Drugs are now a significant incentive, both to the users and distributors within the prison, and no one wants to rock the boat if it means they might not get their fix. Thus crime controls the criminal.

There have been books published on the riot, such as the Devil's Butcher Shop by Roger Morris and the Hate Factory by Georgelle Hirliman, yet much of what you find on the internet is somewhat basic and very similar. One of the most instructive websites I found included this INTERVIEW with an initial investigator of the event. Also, Time Magazine’s original COVERAGE, published just after the riot, was quite interesting.

(Above photo is from the second floor of the prison. This may have been a cafeteria.)

Chong Kneas, Floating Village

2009-10-10T19:25:00.008-06:00

Tonlẽ Sap is the largest lake in Southeast Asia, fed by or, depending on the season, feeding the mighty Mekong River. The water level fluctuates from a depth of about 10 m in the wet season to 2 m in the dry and the lake nourishes a huge chunk of the region, providing a livelihood to thousands-upon-thousands. In an effort to lure visitors and their money away from Angkor Wat for awhile, the Cambodian government promotes trips to Tonlẽ Sap, particularly to visit the floating villages. These floating villages are just what the name implies, complete with schools, stores and churches. The tours are described as relaxing boat rides through a unique and picturesque waterscape. But when traveling it is often the height of naivety to expect all to be as it’s portrayed. And therein lays the fun.

After a sweltering day-and-a-half visiting the mind-blowing Angkor Wat complex, my friend and I decided to visit Tonlẽ Sap and Chong Kneas, the closest of all the floating villages to Siem Reap. We asked our friendly and reliable tuk-tuk driver (#2205) if he could take us to the lake and he assured us this was no problem. Soon we were rattling through dense traffic and endless road construction. Several times we had to get out and walk while the driver took the tuk-tuk off-road for brief stretches to get around obstacles. I inhaled more dust than I had over the previous 36 hours, which is really saying something. I dearly regretted not buying a cheap mask at the pharmacy as many people, locals and visitors alike, do. My throat was going to be sore for days.

Following a quick stop at the tuk-tuk driver’s house so he could drop off some fruit for his family, we were out of Siem Reap and into…something very different. Poverty on a large scale is always disarming, and the shacks and shanties on the road to the lake were the first indication that economics might be about to intrude on our scenic boat tour. We got to the boat launch about 4 pm and bought a ticket for a “government” boat (private boats are apparently available, but it’s not clear how to get them) with an extra “sunset” fee (i.e., a charge for staying on the water long enough to watch the sun go down). Thus began a very strange journey.

The entire floating village moves with the seasonal change in water level and, as the water was still quite low in the early spring, Chong Kneas was about as far out in the lake as it ever gets. Consequently, we had a long trip to the village, past all manner of boats, most patched up 10,000 times over with material of every description. Along the narrow channel leading into the lake dilapidated houseboats were moored everywhere possible and occasionally someone would be swimming in the filthy water. Had I dove in for a quick dip my immune system would’ve thrown up its hands in defeat and called it a day. Everything was totally fascinating and exotic and disturbing, as only 3rd world poverty can be. Immediately our gregarious guide started talking about how poor the people of Chong Kneas were and how they needed money for many things. I sensed a pitch coming on.

The village itself was an incredible array of dozens of ramshackle floating structures broken into Vietnamese, Muslim, and Cambodian sections. It looked more like a floating ghetto, perhaps, but it was difficult to gauge how comfortable the people were in their situation.During our trip we interacted with very few residents and no one seemed to pay us any mind as our boat went along. We passed a pig in a floating pen and a Catholic church. Then, without warning, we pulled up at a market, disembarked and were shown school supplies. It was suggested that for $20.00 we could buy a package of books and some pencils for the kids at school. Outside was a mean monkey on a chain that lunged at my friend when he tried to take a photo. Earlier, I'd had no such trouble. The guide warned us to back away from the monkey. So, what the hell can you do? We handed over $20.00 and our guide put the books and pencils into a bag. We got back into our boat just as a French family in an identical boat was docking.

We sailed right over to the school where the kids were just getting out of class and into their own boats to go home. Inside we were introduced to the teacher and got our picture taken giving him the books and the pencils. Similar pictures of previous tourists lined the walls. We were told we could take photographs of some of the children. I asked one girl if she wanted her picture taken and she laughed and shook her head. I left her alone.

Our guide then told us that the teacher could use some money to buy supplies for the classroom and extra food for the kids. I gave $10.00 to the teacher, who struck me as looking a little sheepish about the whole thing. On the way out I saw the French family getting out of their boat with a bag of notebooks and pencils.

Next we headed through the village and boarded a restaurant boat complete with an on-board crocodile farm and some voracious fish in a wooden tank. We decided to pass on the dinner. After a tour of the boat and a little biology/geography lesson, we were sold a can of soda and then sat down at a table with a well-spoken and very effeminate fellow, a self-proclaimed ladyboy, who told us he loved Pelẽ, Brazilian football and WWF Smackdown. He and our guide seemed to be friends, although our guide went out of his way to appear annoyed with him.

After awhile we climbed up some stairs and checked out the view from the top of the boat. The floating village was spread out before us, the sun slowly sinking into Tonlẽ Sap. We decided to head out early in order to get some photos from the water before the sun set completely. There was a slight delay as we helped out a boat with a dead battery. The family in the boat was clearly unhappy with the way their trip had been going. They were making no bones about it. It was hard to have much sympathy for them.

We sailed out past people fishing and washing from the porches of their houseboats in the muddy-brown water. There were a few bonfires burning off on the shore. As we made our way back through the channel our guide said the Cambodian government had plans to make the entire area a world-class shipping port, essentially eliminating all that we saw around us. Lord knows how this would work. For one thing, they’d have to do considerable work to stabilize and dredge the lake as its area swings wildly from 3,000 to 10,000 sq. km and it can be very shallow, depending on the season and rainfall. Yet there was evidence of construction on the banks nearby.

By the time we returned to shore it was pitch dark. Our guide mentioned that he needed money for school and was very disappointed when I said I didn’t have much left. I scrounged up $5 for him and $2 for the driver. I considered telling the guide he should’ve pitched less for everyone else if he wanted something for himself. How much of this was a scam I have no idea. Other tours are advertised, but they seem pretty cheesy and are mostly billed as “dinner tours.” Maybe the schoolteachers and the boat guides are in cahoots and splitting the proceeds. Maybe the government is taking the money and using it for its own purposes. Or--who knows?--maybe it’s legit. But it’s hard to imagine there’s not some skimming somewhere. All told, this was probably a $50.00 ride by the time it was over.

In reality, the village is spectacular and unusual, even if disconcerting. And I was happy that I had a look at Chong Kneas, despite the lingering feeling of being ripped-off. But I thought back to the previous day in Angkor Wat, when a young boy tried to sell me a bootleg guide to the temples. At first he said the book was one dollar. “One dollar?” I asked. I could afford that. “No, three dollars,” he said. I hesitated. “Five dollars,” he continued. This was a very unusual business tactic. “What happened to one dollar?” I asked. “It can’t be less than five,” he replied. He was probably working under the instructions of whoever supplied the books. “I can’t afford five dollars,” I said. “I don’t have any money.” This was technically true as I was traveling my way deeper into debt with every step, but the kid was having none of it. His eyes hardened and he glared up at me. “You are from America. You have come to Cambodia. You have money. I will wait until you are ready to leave the temple and then you will buy the book.” I laughed but he did not. So I walked around for awhile and on my way out, sure enough, there was the kid with his book. I handed him the $5 and he grumbled his thanks and walked off. In travel, as in life, sometimes you have to let yourself be ripped-off a little. It’s only fair.

Ghost in the Mirror

2009-09-02T20:18:00.019-06:00

I had a dream about you and ghosts. The ghosts were fierce and dangerous and I needed you to help me fight them. In the dream, time was compressed and day turned into night and back into day over and over.While the sun was up I couldn’t find you, I could only hope that when darkness fell you would return to me again, as you had each night before. I knew that some evening I would search for you, wandering across the shadowed hills and valleys, and you would no longer be there. I did not know if we could defeat the ghosts before you left for good but I knew I would never be able to do it on my own. With daylight you would disappear again and I would miss you terribly, but at night I didn’t think I could live without you. The ghosts would begin to swing through the purple sky, suddenly everywhere and nowhere, too, my fear of them sometimes paling beside my desire to be with you. You were better at banishing these specters than me, more skillful, and I would listen to your instructions at the end of each day as the sun set on the bleak horizon. For some reason I did not understand you would then insist that we split up and hunt the shades alone, but I could not seem to fight properly on my own. I was unable to see what you had to show me, did not recognize what you saw so clearly.

I woke up feeling ill-at-ease and strange, my thoughts of you entirely irrational. I barely even knew you and, anyway, I don’t believe you can expect someone else to fight your demons for you. But still, you know, maybe sometimes the battle is actually won together. I guess that’s just one more thing we’ll never know for sure.

All photos taken at Mare Island, Vallejo, California, USA.

P.S. Let's hear it for AUGUSTA! If you can't take the heat...

The State of the City

2009-07-31T21:30:00.007-06:00

I was re-reading some old posts the other day, something I don’t do very often, and was struck by how often over the last 5 years I was leaving someplace, looking for somewhere else to go or just plain trapped. I like that I’ve lived many different places and seen so many things, but I did find something about those posts alarming. So many cities, jobs, people… It can do strange things to a person. Hard travelin’ and ramblin’, the sort of thing Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams sang about, has nothing to do with Caribbean cruises and weekends on the beach at Club Med. When Robert Johnson moaned, “I’ve got to keep movin’, I’ve got to keep movin’” at the start of “Hellhound on My Trail,” he was following the classic blues format. That is, the first line states a problem. The second line reiterates that problem. And the need for constant movement is a problem. Yet I find movement soothing like very little else. I rarely care where I’m going or when I’ll get there. Robert Johnson apparently felt the same way, waking up in the middle of the night to hop passing freights with no regard for direction or destination. He was dead by age 27. Someone once told me that the difference between travel and a vacation is obvious. If it’s really hard, smile, you’re traveling.

All this is a roundabout, long-winded way of saying I’m headed to Albuquerque and hope to stay awhile. It doesn’t take much perusing of this site to see that I have a special fondness for the desert Southwest. Also, one of my big regrets is that I didn’t start City of Dust until after I’d left Augusta, GA. I have received so many comments and wonderful invitations from people in the Central Savannah River Area that I have had no way of accepting. I still get them. Everything from trips to abandoned mills in Horse Creek Valley to guided tours through the neighborhood James Brown grew up in, complete with a stop at the brothel he lived in with his aunt. I really want to do a similar exploration of the dusty corners of New Mexico, Arizona, and elsewhere, but post it in real-time. All-in-all, I’d like to post more and maybe if I sit still for once I can do that. More photos, more obscure history, more abandonment, and, of course, a few creative writing exercises here and there.

In the meantime, it’s Nebraska tomorrow followed by a couple days in New Mexico. Then a trip to LA and a jaunt to the eastern Sierras. After that, a few days in the Bay Area and a drive back down to Albuquerque. I have no idea how many tens of thousands of miles I’ve logged in the last year. I’ve gone from point A to point B by planes, trains, ferries, bamboo rafts, horse-drawn buggies and an elephant. But, as a friend of mine used to say, “I think I’ll take it on up to the house now.” And, as Townes van Zandt said, “New Mexico ain’t bad, lord, the people there they treat you fine…”

All photos taken in Chaska, Minnesota, USA.

Scene at Grass Lake

2009-06-25T13:46:00.006-06:00

We were walking around Grass Lake, a walk we’d done many times before, but never quite like this. We hadn’t seen each other in over a month. It hadn’t really been that long since we’d seen each other every minute of every day for days on end. But then something happened and I was glad for the distance now. I thought she probably was too, but you can never be sure.

It was nearly dark and very warm. The air was thick with humidity and every now and then we walked through a cloud of bugs. Heat lightning flashed off on the horizon. She looked as beautiful as always, her blonde hair pulled back, a few wisps hanging down her neck. But her eyes rarely met mine and when they did I didn’t like what I saw; this had nothing to do with me. She was in trouble and as we went she told me of her problems. They were many and they were serious.

I recalled how once I sat in her kitchen scowling, wallowing in a black mood. When she asked for an explanation, I said, “You can pull away from the abyss, but some of the abyss will always come back with you.” After she was done laughing, she kissed me and took my hand. “C’mon, I’ll buy you dinner.” It was a great dinner. Hell, it turned into a great night. She always knew which buttons to push to make everything suddenly alright. But I’d never found those buttons in her and I wasn’t about to stumble across them now.

“Life’s a gift,” I told her. I wasn’t smiling. This was no joke.

“Yeah, well, my gift arrived broken.”

We looked at each other and in that instant I felt something so powerful and so sad it made me ache. I wanted her again, suddenly, and more than ever. I wanted it to be like it had been, even if only briefly. As we were now, I couldn’t help her. There was a time when I would’ve argued that it was perfectly natural for ex-lovers to remain friends. The years have proved me entirely wrong. There is a place that two people can get to together, often beautiful, sometimes terrible, and when it becomes impossible to go there any longer all that remains is empty, un-crossable distance. I didn’t want to lose this girl entirely, for this thing to happen again, but I could see its inevitability. I couldn't find a way to touch her without using my hands.

In the twilight we watched a large snapping turtle crawl along the bank of the lake. When I was young I used to see these big snappers all the time. They looked so dignified and serious. Prehistoric. But I don’t see them much anymore. I suppose most have been run over or poisoned out of their lakes. Perhaps many have simply died of old age. Their young are the size of quarters when they crawl out of their eggs, with hardly a chance of living as long as their parents. I felt afraid for that turtle, slow and alone, the last of its kind, like I felt afraid for the girl beside me. Then I began to feel afraid for myself, and that’s a pointless, pathetic place to be, the end of the line. Now I just wanted to go home. Alone.

It wasn’t long before we were back at the cars. The stars were out, the moon rising when we said our good-byes, a slight hesitation before a quick hug. As has happened so often, we went our separate ways into the darkness, no longer of any use to one another, barely of any use to ourselves. Forever apart.

The top photo is from Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia. The 2nd and 4th shots are from Chiang Mai, Thailand. Photograph #3 was taken at Angkor Wat, Cambodia. I'll try to do a post on Cambodia soon, I think.

Trouble in Mind

2009-06-07T22:02:00.006-06:00

I’ve been listening to a lot of Janis Joplin lately because of a dead woman. She died in late middle-age and I never met her. One day she went into her basement, put some towels on the concrete floor under the laundry tub, just beside the washer, and lay down. She opened her veins as close to the main drain as possible to minimize the mess and died there, amidst the old boxes and musty clothes.

The woman was the aunt of a friend of mine and we were driving to her house to get boxes and packing material. Apparently she’d been a pack-rat and who wants to spend money on boxes and foam peanuts if you can get them for free?

“Yeah,” my friend said, “the house was being foreclosed on. She could’ve tried a few other things to deal with the mortgage but I guess she didn’t know it. Or didn't care. The bank doesn’t want the place anyway. I had to go over and clean up the mess after they took her away.”

“Blood’s a bad smell, isn’t it?” I said.

“Yeah, like rusted metal or something. I’ll never forget it.”

We pulled into the driveway of a small house in a neighborhood that looked like it had been built sometime in the 1950’s. Inside debris was strewn here and there, the detritus of a lifetime. A rhinestone rodeo shirt was draped over a chair, a box of old Christmas ornaments sat in the corner. A few things had price tags.

“The people from the bank had a sale and this is what’s left. Take anything you want ‘cause it’ll all be gone soon. The boxes are downstairs.”

I took a look around. I didn’t want a damn thing.

In the basement was a mountain of packing material, boxes of all shapes and sizes. “Priority Mail.” “Macy’s.” “EBAY.com.” I kicked my way through and caught an address label. Now I knew her name.

It took half an hour to dig through the pile, pulling out what I could use and tossing everything else aside. Every square of linoleum on the floor had come loose and they slid here and there every time I turned around. It was dirty and some of the boxes were covered in a film of mildew. It seemed like a hard way to save a few bucks on bubble wrap. It seemed an even poorer place to die.

“Hey, here’s some records,” my friend called from the other room. “You can have them if you want.”

I went next door and flipped through the stack. Moody Blues Symphony, Gino Vannelli, The Jazz Singer. Useless. On the floor was an oddball. Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits on cassette. I stuck it in my shirt pocket. I’m driving a car that only has a tape deck and my cassettes are in a storage closet in Oakland. I can only take so much NPR and Janis was going to be a welcome addition.

My friend was over by the washing machine, a clean patch of concrete in front of him. “Check this out,” he said. I walked over and he pointed to the the corroded drain cover. “Some of that isn’t rust. I cleaned as best I could, but it’s impossible to get everything. They had to get a plumber in to clear the drain.” I bent down for a look. I could still smell the acrid tang.

I grabbed my boxes and foam and went back upstairs. Near a stack of discarded ceramic figurines was a John Lee Hooker CD wrapped in a Xeroxed Amazon.com print-out. Probably a freebie tossed in with an order. I put it in one of my boxes while my friend stuffed everything he could into the pick-up. Hell, I figured he’d earned it.

“Let the bank clean everything up,” he said, putting the key back in the box. “Fuck them.”

We drove away from the woman’s home, her life and death. The whole thing felt shabby, undignified.

Later, in the car, I put Janis in the deck. “Down on Me” came cranking out of the speakers and sounded great, better than I remembered, Janis’s voice a force of nature. She groaned and screamed and moaned while Big Brother and the Holding Company played the hell out of the song behind her. It beat another edition of Car Talk.

That night I put on the John Lee Hooker CD. “Tupelo” crept out of the speakers. Primal. John Lee’s voice maybe not of this world. Great music. Life-changing music. Life-SAVING music. And it made me think, “Maybe if this lady had just put aside the Funny Girl soundtrack and her Kenny Loggins records and dug out Janis and John Lee she would’ve been able to tough it out awhile longer. “Footloose” can’t help anyone at 3AM when you’ve been staring at the floor since midnight, but I challenge any person to listen to a Townes Van Zandt song and then turn around and pack it in. I might have razor in hand, gun in mouth or car idling in the garage and if I heard “If I Needed You” I’d lay down arms and at least wait to see what the next day held. I might not like it, but I’d have no choice.

So, you can say what you want about art, minimize the value of a song—sure, hearing Janis couldn’t save Janis, but that’s a whole different thing. When it comes down to it, choose your soundtrack wisely ‘cause bad taste might not kill you, but it sure won’t keep you alive either.

Photos are of the 16th St. Station, Oakland, California, USA.

Welcome to Sarajevo

2009-05-27T13:09:00.009-06:00

The train from Zagreb passes through a landscape that seems unlike anyplace else I’ve visited in Western Europe. I don’t recognize the names of towns to come: Velika Gorica, Banja Luka, Maglaj, Visoko. Shortly after leaving the station most signs are in Cyrillic only. The door to the train compartment is thrown open by a man in uniform. We’ve reached the border with Bosnia-Herzegovina. I feel strangely intimidated during an exchange which requires no speaking on my part. After a moment he hands me back my passport. “Hvala.” Thank you.

Beyond the train, old women work dry fields, sowing seed by hand. Thin, leathery men rake and hoe beside them. A goat or two meanders around a yard. A river runs alongside the tracks and the rocks and branches are hung with thousands—perhaps millions—of plastic bags, representing all the colors of the rainbow. However, I notice that most are blue or yellow. Bags way up in the brush along the bank show the high water mark. Sometimes there are signs warning of landmines and buildings pocked with the scars of artillery fire.

The attendant from passport control has been looking closely at the identification of the man on the other side of the compartment. The attendant turns and asks me something but I don’t understand. He sees this and laughs. “You are okay,” he says, pleasantly. The man across the compartment smiles and winks at me as he is handed back his ID card. “Do viđenja.” Good-bye.

Bosnia-Herzegovina is a land marked by war and Sarajevo, its capital city, reflects this history. Near the city center is the bridge where Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophia, were assassinated. Shortly afterwards Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, starting WWI. Not far away is a second bridge where two young women, Suada Dilberović and
Olga Sučić, became the first Bosnian civilian casualties in Sarajevo of a much more recent war.

It is hard to imagine that less than a decade after hosting the 1984 Winter Olympics Sarajevo had become a bloody warzone, the cities dead nearly reaching 10,000 by the start of 1996. Today the Olympic buildings remain, though some have had to be rebuilt. The Olympic Village can be seen under the snow-capped peaks of the Dinaric Alps beyond and the Olympic flame is now re-lit each year to commemorate the games. Yet across the street is a cemetery with row after row of graves, each bearing a similar date: 1992, 1993, 1994... Above the markers, now made of stone to replace the flimsy old plywood memorials, sits a lion; it, too, partially repaired in the last few years.

Yet the city of Sarajevo is vibrant, feeling to me as much like Western Europe as my first glimpse of the surrounding landscape did not. Tourists have returned to Baščaršija, the Old Town, where ancient mosques and minarets flank cafes and souvenir stores. Cobbled streets lead to dessert shops and internet clubs. The baroque Cathedral Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos, one of the largest Orthodox churches in the Balkans, stands majestically, waiting for the faithful, as it has for nearly 150 years.

On the other end of town are the headwaters of Vrelo Bosne, several gushing mountain springs that provide drinking water for all of Sarajevo. I fill my water bottle and drink the impossibly clear water all day. A ridge rises above the spring, where once ran the “Road to Salvation,” so-named because, if one could just cross the hills alive, on the other side was free Bosnia. Now a horse-drawn carriage transports us back and forth along a tree-lined avenue and vendors line the small streams that join to become the mighty river that gave Bosnia its name.

The “yellow Holiday Inn” still stands, formerly the last refuge of foreign journalists reporting on the unfolding carnage in Sarajevo. Alongside is the infamous “Sniper Alley,” an open street that made easy targets out of anyone trying to travel it, even at a dead run. But the thoroughfares now bustle with cars and people, cell phones in hands, attend to the day’s business.

High above the city sits the Vraca WWII Partisan Memorial, formerly an ideal vantage point for soldiers firing into the city, and utterly destroyed by the war’s end. No effort has yet been made to repair this place, the building stripped of anything of worth and strewn with garbage. But one can’t help feeling that this is the Sarajevo of yesterday, when the future was at best uncertain, at worst something to be feared.

On the train back to Zagreb a young Muslim boy hears me speak and enters my compartment. He says he speaks some English and tells me he would like my address and phone number so that when he visits America he can look me up. He enters the information in his mobile while telling me that wants to travel and “live a life like Indiana Jones.” There are many other things he tells me; his English is actually quite good. He loves animals, especially dolphins. His father’s best friend from the war drinks too much and lives in Texas. There is a hotel by his home where I could stay if I don’t have reservations elsewhere. (I do.) He has already visited Switzerland, Canada and South America. Much of what he says is surprising to me, though, in the way of kids, it must seem perfectly natural to him. As the train pulls into the station and we say good-bye I can only hope that his life will not be marked by the kind of war his father has known, that he will get the chance to live the life he desires. And, if by chance he arrives at my door several years hence, it will be a life that I will be very anxious to hear about it.

So Much for Travel Updates

2009-02-13T19:51:00.005-07:00

Alright, so I'm doing an utterly terrible job of writing about my travels. It's just too hard to sit down in front of a computer and write about stuff when there's more stuff to actually *DO*. So far, I've been through Fiji, New Zealand and a chunk of Australia. Thailand, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Spain are yet to come. For now, if you want to see some photos, click on the FLICKR badge down there on the right.

I will get back to posting here someday. Really. In the meantime, here's a groggy koala to keep you company. They get pretty sleepy eating nothing but eucalyptus leaves, which have little nutritional value. This is pretty much the state of City of Dust right now.

See the World!

2008-11-24T13:49:00.005-07:00

I know I've done a terrible job of posting lately and I haven't even gotten around to Part III of this desert saga I've been working on, but things have been a little out of hand. How out of hand? Well, tonight I'm off to Fiji and from there...well, let's just say that if you live in New Zealand, Australia, Bangkok, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia, and, perhaps, large portions of Spain and want to meet up to take photographs or eat food or have advice to offer, please get in touch! I don't know that I'll make it to ALL those places, nor do I know exactly how long I'll be gone, but I'll go until I can't go no more. I'm going to TRY to turn this into a travelblog if I can, so stay tuned. In the meantime, here's an abandoned pool and church at Fort Ord near Moneterey, California. Oh, and I'm serious, if you have a mind to, drop me a line at jmhouse at cityofdust dot com! More soon...

The Last Morning Pt. II

2008-08-25T21:16:00.005-06:00

I turned away from the risen sun now hanging blood red before me and thought of a time--it now hardly seemed to have been my life--when I was waiting at a train station. A different desert. A different country. She arrived late that night and we nearly ran from the platform to the hotel, her bag banging against my thigh as I clutched it tight. I didn’t feel it then, but my leg stayed black and blue for a week. When we stepped out of the hotel and into a blue-grey dawn three days later it was only to get bread and another bottle of wine. Six months later we were married. I loved her so much that sometimes, watching her come toward me down a crowded city sidewalk, I felt like I’d been stabbed in the stomach. Almost unendurably painful and beautiful beyond words.

Five years later things were different. I’d say that I somehow loved her even more but something had risen up between us. Secrets will do that. Lies. Deception. Anger and tears. Finally, silence, worst of all weapons. We had been apart for three months and I was waiting for her in another city, another country. The train pulled away from the platform and she had not been on it. I tried to reach her by phone but there was no answer. Another train arrived and departed. And another. I doubted her and in all this that is the one thing for which I cannot forgive myself. I found a rundown hotel and stayed drunk in my room for three days, in honor of a time long ago. When I emerged, wrecked, into a bright summer afternoon I could hardly catch my breath. Everything was gone. I believed she had betrayed me, finally, but what I did not know was that I'd betrayed her. If only I’d been able to trust in her love for me, a love that I know now could never have been extinguished, no matter to what wretched depths I succumbed. If only I’d believed that she still loved me I would not be here in this endless desert waiting to die. I would be with her.

Photos are of the 16th St. Station, West Oakland, CA.

The Last Morning

2008-06-30T16:13:00.003-06:00

As night gave way to the first light of dawn, Tony pointed his .45 at the horizon and emptied the cartridge. But the sun kept rising, day crawling ever closer, unstoppable.

“Fuck you,” he muttered, ejecting the clip. None of us wanted this day to arrive. Not Tony, not Ruiz, not Jimmy, and not me. About 30 feet from us lay Michael in the spot where he’d bled to death sometime in the night, the only one that wasn’t going to see this day and the only one of us that might’ve wanted to.

They say that everything happens for a reason but that seems like nothing more than a mundane truism to me. Of course everything happens for a reason. Someone drinks 13 cans of Budweiser then drives their car into oncoming traffic. Or someone gets mad and shoots somebody else’s son or daughter. Action and reaction. Cause and effect. But that’s not what they’re talking about, I suppose. They’re talking about a “higher purpose.” Some kind of grand design. Sure, whatever. I don’t know about any of that. I don’t know about anything anymore and I’ve spent most of the night doing nothing but proving that to myself again and again.

I look over at Tony now, sitting in the sand, his legs pulled up to his chest, his forehead on his knees. There are hours yet to go. I watch that sun climb ever higher into the cloudless sky and think, “Yeah, he’s right. Fuck this day. And fuck all the days to come after it.”

The Salton Sea

2008-04-22T21:15:00.009-06:00

It’s like going to sleep not caring if you wake up. Here’s to one more endless night in a motel at the end of the world with nothing but a pile of ashes for a bed. The salt stings your eyes; the listless sun will handle the rest of you. A bloated bird, one-hundred thousand dead Tilapia, the endless stench. It’s in your sweat. There were dreams, once, at least for a little while. But you better be careful what you invest in. Keep your assets liquid so you can get out if—make that when—you have to. Don’t get too deep into anything or anyone out here.

I guess none of this matters now. You watch the day rise out of the scalding water and fall down the mountains, keeping company with the dead and the mad, pretending you’re different, not like them. Sure, you’re just a spectator, not a participant. Then why don’t you leave? Nope, this is it, the end of the line. You'd almost forgotten about Chinatown, Jake, but it caught up to you out here in the desert. It had to. So, welcome to where everything finally stops. Greetings from the Salton Sea.

The Last Night

2008-02-14T21:10:00.004-07:00

This is the last night you’ll ever drive these dirt roads. The sun sets behind you and the mountains are cooling, darkening to a deeper blue. The blinding heat of the day fades to a whisper as clouds of dust rise up behind you, where you’ve been now lost in the distance. A shallow mountain river thick with boulders runs beside the road and you wonder how many times you have been in that water. Sometimes you swam alone, the river and the birds the only sound beyond your breath. Other times you slept on the warm rocks, your bodies touching, less alone than you ever imagined possible. But as with this last day of this last summer, you know there is nothing you can truly hold onto and the more you have tried the more quickly you have lost what you’ve had.

You loved this place, the mountains stacked one on another and rising to the east, clear streams and cold rains, sleeping under moonlit skies, the long pines blowing overhead. But you hated that through it all you still felt lost. So close to perfect and so utterly wrong.

You pull the car off the road and step onto the grass. Beside the river you see a cloud of midges hovering above a still pool. You can smell the sweat that has dried to your skin and you reach your arms into the cool river to cleanse yourself, ancient hemlocks darkening the valley. There are no words for what you feel, at least none you can recall, so you look at the sky and the water and the hills and wait for it all to pass. You know you’ll never be back, but that is not your thought. Instead you ask the forest to tell you what it is that you fear you have missed, that you are always missing, that will never come again. The trees are quiet as darkness falls.

The gravel crackles under the wheels as an owl crosses the road ahead, noiselessly, lit only by the headlights. Of so many nights, this one is the last.

From Oakland, CA.

Answering Machine II

2007-12-17T19:23:00.000-07:00

ANSWERING MACHINE, Pt. II - I call your answering machine just to hear your voice. Sometimes I call nine or ten times a day. Most of the time I can’t force myself to hang up before the beep so I know you see the number of calls. 10, 11, 12. You’ll come home and push play and there won’t be anything. There are times when I leave you a message after I’ve hung up. I go on and on. Maybe I should feel embarrassed at myself or humiliated, but I’m so far beyond that now. Have you ever loved someone so much you…what? Cried? Stayed in bed all day? Told yourself you’d never be with anyone else again? Have you ever loved someone so much that all you longed for became nothing? Nothing might feel right, but you can’t make it happen, no matter how hard you will it.

I find that I hate myself just as much as I love you, so I call your answering machine. If you pick up I wait a moment and then hang up. You know it’s me, but you don’t ever call me and tell me to stop. You just erase the messages and it makes me love you more. I want you to do something to make me hate you. I want to hate you and I want you to do something to make me hate you. I want to hate you. I want you to hurt me the way I hurt myself each time I hear the beep and hang up. All day, every day, all of the time.

DEAD SEASONS
In the autumn, it was as if
I’d learned a new language.
One spoken not with words
Or gestures
Or a look.
But with nothing
Except desire and delusion.

In the winter, at last
I had perfected a new language.
But I found that not a person
I knew
Or met
Or me
Could understand what I said.

In the spring, alas
I tried to re-learn their language.
But found that every single word
Was wrong
Or misunderstood
Or just something that could not help anyone anymore.

What the hell? More first-person narrative drama and then a fucking prose poem? I feel like I'm getting close to some kind of saturation point here, so hopefully I'll have a nice short story or something to post soon. But I kinda wanted to do the "Answering Machine" thing to death and then I threw in a bit more about communication (or the lack thereof) to beat the horse more completely. Yeah, a theme. Anyway, thanks to everyone that has sent in nice comments lately. It means a lot, really. Really. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. I'll be back soon. And this is nice: My Heart is an Idiot.

Answering Machine

2007-11-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess you can't accuse me of overdoing it with posts these days. But it's quality not quantity, right? Or something like that. Here are two odes to the days before cell phones, when people had to use these things called answering machines. They kinda sucked, didn't they? One of these bits I wrote, one I only wish I did. The photos are from Erwin, Tennessee, where they once hung an elephant for murder. Only they botched the first attempt and had to try a second time. Hey, it ain't easy to build a gallows for a pachyderm.

ANSWERING MACHINE - I hadn’t spoken to her in two years; hadn’t seen her in more than that. But I found an old answering machine tape in a box of junk and put it in the player. I knew it was a bad idea, that I should just toss it in the trash with the outdated magazines and credit card receipts, but instead I pushed “PLAY” and sat on the floor to listen. It was toward the end of things and there were dozens of calls. Her dad. My mother. Calls where the concern was palpable underneath the usual greetings. Those who didn’t know left invitations for us both to come by. The others were already splitting into her friends and mine, some addressing her, some me. Some seemed unsure who to address. Toward the very end were calls from the landlord asking about moving dates and forwarding addresses. The last call was from me. I said only her name and then the tape ran out. I got up off the floor, took the tape out of the player and weighed it in my hand for a few moments. Then I broke it in half against the corner of the dining room table. A spool rolled across the floor, a tiny streamer of tape unfurling on the carpeting. It won’t matter. Some messages can never be erased.

ANSWERING MACHINE-The Replacements

Try and breathe some life into a letter; I’m losing hope, we’ll never be together; My courage is at its peak, do you know what I mean?; How do say you're O.K. to an answering machine?; How do you say good night to an answering machine?

Big town’s got its losers, small town’s got its vices; I’ve got a handful of friends, one needs a match and one needs some ice; Call away on the phone, another time zone; How do you say I miss you to an answering machine?; How do say good night to an answering machine?

”If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial again. If you need help, please dial your operator.”

I get enough of that.

Try to free a slave of ignorance; Try and teach a whore about romance.

How do you say I miss you to an answering machine?; How do you say good night to an answering machine?; How do you say I'm lonely to an answering machine?; The message is very plain; Oh, I hate your answering machine; I hate your answering machine;
I hate your answering machine.

Knox County, Summer 2007

2007-09-05T17:33:00.000-06:00

Yeah, posts are few and far between. Not much I can do about that except stop making promises and further alienate the three people that used to pay attention. Sorry. Anyway, rather than a tale from the Cumberland Plateau here's a true story from Cumberland Avenue, the city, Knoxville, Tennessee, not too long ago.

ANOTHER NIGHT IN A BAR

I won her love in a pool game. It was the only way I was going to get it, although I wasn't really sure what I’d do with it once I had it. I was still happy to make the bet though, against $5 and a couple bottles of beer.

“I guess your love isn’t worth much,” I laughed, setting up the nine.

“That’s a terrible thing to say to a girl,” she replied, frowning as the ball rolled into the side pocket.

I kissed her and it was good, charged like it could sometimes be. The bar was cool and dark, a smoky cave away from the Tennessee heat. The jukebox played an old Johnny Thunders tune, “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory.” I liked this place. I liked her. I was more than in the mood for trouble, but maybe not quite like the kind we’d both just found.

I lined up the eleven for the corner pocket as she lit a cigarette and leaned against me. She bit my ear, trying to distract me, to make me miss. I felt her breath against my cheek and the ball hit the pocket dead-on.

“There’s just no way I’m going to lose this game,” I grinned. I picked up her beer and had a long drink. I don’t even like beer. I missed the fifteen.

She took her cue and knelt down beside the table, looking to bank the three into a side pocket. I never understood why she did this—kneeling to put the table at eye level, sometimes using her stick to gauge an angle—but it seemed to work a lot of the time. Only this time it didn’t and the three bounced harmlessly to the center of the table.

I walked over and held her to me. It felt right, my arm around her waist and her hand pressed against my chest. I let her go and sunk the fifteen. I had two balls left on the table; she had four.

“I don’t really want to play for my love anymore,” she said, looking over the balls that remained.

“Too bad,” I replied. “You should have thought of that earlier.”

“I did. And it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“It usually does.” I sunk the eleven. We just looked at each other.

The twelve was easy and the eight was lined up nicely along the rail for the corner pocket. She looked genuinely concerned and I felt suddenly uneasy. For a moment I considered missing, scratching, blowing the game, but I caught her brown eyes for an instant then followed the curve of her neck to her shoulder and on down to her hips. Nope, I decided, I wanted it. Then I sunk the eight. She shook her head and grabbed her pack of cigarettes off the table. I had another pull of the beer I didn’t like.

“So, I’ve got your love,” I said, finally.

She lit her cigarette. “Not yet you don’t." She blew a cloud of smoke over her head. "And I want a chance to get it back. I’ll put up another round and dinner against it for the next game.”

But I wouldn’t put it up. We made a lot of bets after that, but somehow there was always one thing I wouldn’t wager, just in case I needed it one day. After all, you can never be sure about something like that and I’d won it fair and square. Love rarely comes so easily.

"This place is hell to me, With the Devil in my bed, And the Devil in this bottle, And the Devil in my head, I'll meet you in Heaven again, If you wear that dress again, (I'll have one more drink, my friend), Where my heart is kept on ice, And prayers burst into flames, PRAYERS ON FIRE," Nick Cave 1981

Sequatchie County, May 2007

2007-07-31T17:40:00.000-06:00

We step out of the dusty S-10 at the end of an old logging road in Sequatchie County, Tennessee. The surrounding landscape is blasted, just piles of dirt and debris, shorn of trees or shelter from the relentless sun, but we’re used to this. A vulture wheels overhead as we check the GPS. “This is as good as we can do,” Jason says. “But we’re about 2 kilometers northeast of where we really want to be.” I take out my compass and look across the clearcut to a patch of trees, trees that quickly disappear below the horizon. A steep descent. Cliffs. Bluffs. Rocks. We’re used to this, too. Yet just because you’re used to something doesn’t mean you like it. We start off northwestward.

While walking through the coves and gulfs of the Cumberland Plateau you want to stay alert. There’s loose boulders and dead trees that can fall over in a stout gust. Copperheads and timber rattlesnakes might coil near every handhold. Stick your foot between the wrong two rocks and you’ve just snapped your ankle with no easy way back up the slope. But it can be hard to concentrate on the terrain when the hours and the heat stretch out before you and all your body does is walk while all your mind does is consider things as they should be. Or as they could be. Or mostly as they never are. Ghosts. Ghosts are dead things, of the past. Often terrible. But there are other ghosts. Worse ones. Ghosts of the present. The living dead. The shape of things to come falling apart. Then there are ghosts of the future, the worst kind. Dreams that will never come true. Just keep walking.

Jason and I get beyond the clearcut to the treeline and look across the valley. Typical. The valley is so steep and covered in laurel and bramble we can’t even see what’s below us. The opposite slope actually rises above where we’re standing. Typical. We pick a route that appears reasonable, yet might end abruptly in a bluff and a sheer drop to the rocky creek below us. It wouldn’t be the first time we’d be forced to crawl back up a hill and look for an alternative way down. But eventually the bramble and laurel yields to a landscape of 50-100 pound boulders that appear to have been literally thrown across every slope. A rockslide waiting to happen. Jason and I keep a good distance apart so that we don’t inadvertently bury each other. The going is not easy, but we reach our first transects and begin walking south to nowhere in particular.

Alright, so that's a pretty melodramatic way to return, eh? Before everyone starts sending me bottles of Xanax, let me just say that I was TRYING to be melodramatic. Something about walking around out in the woods this summer didn't feel quite right and it was hard to convey the sense of burn-out. On the other hand, no one pulled a gun on us, no one almost died, not much of interest happened at all, for better or worse. With that in mind, I'll try to pick up the remaining threads of last year's harrowing mess in subsequent posts that hopefully won't take 6 months to put up.

Interestingly, I can end this post the same way I ended my last one, over 180 days ago: "By the way, anyone wanna give me a job?"

P.S. These photos are from the flat land of far-western Tennessee, not anywhere near the Plateau, geographically or spiritually.

Hamilton County, September 2006 (Part IV)

2007-03-14T18:44:00.000-06:00

It’s hard to remain focused on blogging when one is busy making a mess out of one’s life. Or maybe I’m just letting it become a mess. Sometimes the mess is quite glorious and other times kinda scary. In any case, despite my best stated intentions, postings will be sporadic and probably weird for awhile. With that in mind, I’m going to switch to some real-time entries from the Cumberland Plateau. This first one took place at the same Hamilton County location as the previous entry, but a couple months later. It’s dated September 5, 2006, to be exact:

“The most bizarre and, in some ways, harrowing field day of the season. About 3:30 PM we were finishing surveying a vegetation plot and preparing to move onto the next when I distinctly heard a voice. At first it did not sink in as those things which are utterly improbable may not immediately pierce our perception. A second later I realized that I did hear a voice (or voices) and that such a thing could not be good. I began to consider the potential ramifications of this just as the voice became a scream. My initial reaction was that someone was being murdered. Carl and I looked at each other as these things flashed through my mind: Was there anything we could use as a weapon? (Soil corer.) Should I try my phone? (How would I describe our location/situation?) Could this person be armed? (We certainly did not have a gun.) If there was a murder in progress we both felt we would have no option except to get involved. But no sooner had we begun to discuss what to do next when the voice began to repeat a phrase. The phrase, however, did not sound like any language I’ve ever heard. Over and over the strange "words" were yelled in a tone of what could’ve been anger or fear but was so chilling as to be nothing less than genuine emotional disturbance. Not knowing whether to pack up our gear and get out or go and see what was going on we did nothing. The screaming lasted for several minutes and then began to fade. Whoever it was was leaving. The incantation died away.

We decided it would be futile/useless/dangerous to continue working, so we hid our equipment and started back slowly down the bluff. I had the soil corer in my hand and Carl had a hammer and rock. Not the best weapons for a fight if the other side has a firearm. As we started, Carl said, “If I have to kill someone with this hammer, I’m quitting.” After that we didn’t speak but crept carefully along as fog rolled in. We saw no evidence of anyone except for details that I had already noticed earlier in the day: Someone had been using the path up the second set of bluffs and there was a new path beside the waterfall. Someone had been going up regularly.

On the way in we came across an abandoned camp on the trail. There were pillows strewn in the dirt, a hat, a cooler, and a chair thrown down the hill. On the way out we looked much closer. Who had been here? These items had to have been brought in from the parking lot, but why, then, were they left behind? The fire pit had been cold for at least a couple of days.

I called our contact in the field and left a message telling him what we had heard. Perhaps he will call and tell us not to go back. There could be drugs. There could be insanity. We wouldn’t fight him to return.

Then, this evening, while watching TV, I felt something on my arm. I turned in time to see that a spider was on my shirt. I got up slowly, but removed my shirt as carefully as I could. The spider looked like a brown recluse. We’ve taken pictures and will try to verify. I don’t even know what to say about that or this day altogether. Ridiculous.”

The first photo is out the back of our check-in station home. Not a bad view, eh? The second shot is a mysterious tire garden in the middle of nowhere. No idea how they got trucks back here, although we found some rusted hulks next to what was probably an old still. The final shot is…the spider.

By the way, anyone wanna give me a job?

Hamilton County, May 2006 (Part III)

2007-02-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

After losing one crew member to Lyme disease, the two of us are moving farther north through Hamilton County, to our third location. But we’re continually optimistic, believing that each location will be somehow easier, offering better access, less rugged terrain or fewer wild dogs. After all, how can things get worse? At some point we’ll stop bothering to ask. However, at our previous location we’d actually encountered one of the plants we were searching for, mountain skullcap, albeit mostly in an area of tattered bramble beside a clearcut adjacent to a rutted logging road, pretty far from its described habitat of undisturbed mid- to –late successional forests. Still, we did find a couple plants actually lurking in the woods.

Right of the bat we find ourselves unsure of how to even approach the new location. A small dirt pull-off to the east puts us at least a mile from our first transect and the south and west are too rugged and remote to even consider. So, we drive north, into the small neighborhoods tucked high on the edge of Walden’s Ridge, hoping that some dead end street somewhere will turn out to be a logging road. As we turn off the main road a few people working outside immediately stop what they’re doing and watch us pass. We wave to a man and his son. Neither wave back. At the end of the most promising street is a 6-foot fence, gated and locked, with a sign that says, “No Tresspassing! Turn Around Now!” So, we turn around, the logging right-of-way either long gone or not worth fighting to find. Standing in a yard are five old men, each watching us suspiciously as we get the truck headed back toward the main road. We wave and all five wave back in unison, the same suspicious frown remaining on every face. Sometimes being in a government vehicle is a liability, even one with a Dale Earnhardt sticker in the rear window.

We drive back down the steep and winding road to the pull-off we stopped at earlier. Checking the distance on our GPS machines we mutter some oaths, stare forlornly out the window, then shrug and start walking. As it happens, we soon find ourselves walking on a bonafide nature trail, well-used and even signed. We continue on as the distance on the GPS unit keeps dropping. A few mountain skullcap are even growing alongside the trail. For once, things look promising. But it’s not long before we realize that there’s a problem. While the distance to our first transect keeps dropping, the bluff to our right keeps rising. And rising. It’s a serious bluff, too, entirely unclimbable to anyone without rappelling experience.

After awhile we check our GPS map and see that, indeed, we’re standing about 70 feet below where we want to be. Thinking that maybe the bluff will start to descend at some point, we keep walking. But the bluff does the opposite of descend. We walk the entire length of our location, unable to get to a single transect, some of which are only 30 feet away from us in horizontal distance, but over 100 feet away in vertical distance. The expedition has now taken hours and we’re soaked with sweat. We turn around and start back as the afternoon slips away. We figure this is one place that’s not getting surveyed.

We’re about halfway back when I notice a waterfall. I go to have a look, mostly out of curiosity, and realize that just to the side of the waterfall, in an area hidden behind a rock outcropping, are some natural stone steps and, at the top, some trees to hold onto to help us the rest of the way up. It’s steep and falling would kill you—or at least make you wish it had—but it is a way up.

It’s too late in the day to bother, so we decide to come back the next day and give it a shot. In fact, climbing up the waterfall does work, however, at the top of the ascent, we find ourselves staring dumbly at the base of a second bluff. Our transects are actually up on the top of this second bluff. We get lucky and quickly find the only way up the second bluff, following a rocky creek bed that tumbles down from out of the trees above. We are now, at points, over 100 feet above the trail, working in an area with only one way up and the same way down. In an emergency there will simply be no way to get out quickly or get anyone in. We’ll spend many days wondering if we’d have been better off never having found the way up.

The top shot is a toad's-eye view of our attempt to find a way up the bluff. The second shot shows what frustration can do to a man. The third photo is of the above-mentioned waterfall, although it's getting a little dry. That last photograph is from the base of the second bluff, so we still had some clibming to do. Just don't look down.

Hamilton County, May 2006 (Part II)

2007-02-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

We’d been staying in a Ramada Inn off I-24. The help was surly and they fought loudly with each other in the hallway. All we wanted was air-conditioning, thick curtains and cable TV, a reprieve from the relentless heat and sun. But now we lose even that as, after exactly one month, our travel budget can no longer cover a hotel or meal per diems. As we move from the Chattanooga area farther north, Allison, Jason and I track down the cheapest hotel in Dayton, TN while I try to find us somewhere to stay for free. Jason drinks a Bud Light he found in the mini-fridge while he and I watch Deadliest Catch for the last time and tell ourselves that it could be worse: we could be hunting for crab in the Bering Sea in the middle of winter.

Our new (and very temporary home) does not offer a continental breakfast and we’ve taken to eating at gas stations, the Huddle House and now the Donut Palace. It is not healthy. Allison is rarely very hungry and I realize that she can’t go on feeling this bad for much longer. On Thursday I set up a meeting with the manager of a wildlife refuge in the area and he shows us the deer check-in station and the garage. We go with the check-in station. But we won’t move in until the following week when we’ll have groceries and air mattresses. We put in a day’s work and go home.

The next day is Friday, my day off, but, as usual, I go into the lab. When I get in Allison is preparing to go out and complete some amphibian surveys for an academic project, but she is clearly very ill. She tells me that she has developed a rash on the back of her leg but won’t let me see it. Finally, I insist and in a moment know she has Lyme disease and has had it for nearly three weeks now. Worse, on the advice of a doctor, she has been taking steroids, which will have just served to accelerate the disease. I tell her to get in the truck because we’re going to the ER and she agrees without too much of a fight. The nurse at the desk asks if Lyme disease is serious enough to warrant a trip to the ER. We tell her that the condition has been misdiagnosed and has now gone untreated for far longer than is safe. After we mention the neurological implications of untreated Lyme disease, which include confusion, speech impairment, loss of motor control and death, she admits Allison. A couple hours later I return to find that the new doctor didn’t really know what to do either, but had at least prescribed strong antibiotics. This will be the start of quite an ordeal for Allison and the end of her summer of walking, crawling and climbing through the woods of east Tennessee. Jason and I are suddenly down to a crew of two, at least temporarily. “Temporarily” will soon turn out to be most of the summer.

The top photo is from outside our room in Dayton, TN. The middle shot is the deer check-in station that became our home for four months. The last photo was taken behind our hotel in the still o' the night.

Happy Birthday to Me

2007-01-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

Aw, hell. I keep promising tales of blood, violence and near-death experiences--and they're all true--but I can't seem to get the time to sit down and bang 'em out. They're coming, I swear. In the meantime, here's a story from Friday night, Knoxville, TN. It's almost true. The photos are also from Knoxville. They're totally true. More soon. More soon.

THE STRIP: Another night in a bar. One of many. Not the last. Not nearly. She’s drunk, lost. Not as young as she wants to be, never as pretty as she’d hoped. How long now? Hours? Years? A whole life. Lonely. Someone thinks she’s funny, approaches her on a dare. Through the alcoholic mist she understands what’s happening but desire is on its knees. “Please,” it begs. He takes a picture of the two of them with his camera phone and smiles to his friends.

“Are you happy?” she whispers in his ear.

The smile fades, he turns to the bar. “What?”

“Do you like who you’re with?” she says, slurring slightly, hair falling in her eyes.

He almost laughs, then stops. “I’m married,” he replies.

She laughs. “That’s not what I asked.”

She puts a cigarette between her lips and lights it, blows a cloud of smoke above her head. She looks at him until he begins to turn away. She shakes her head. “Your teeth are so white.” He turns back to her. “Like bone,” she continues. “I cut myself once. It was just that color. Clean.”

For a moment they look at each other. There is no one else. She puts a hand on his as it rests on the bar. Her hand is warm and damp. Music pumps from speakers in the ceiling, dull and relentless. “God, I would love to go home with you,” she says.

His friends cannot hear the conversation, but out of the corner of his eye he can see them laughing. One of them, someone he barely knows, raises a mock toast. He ignores his friends and turns to the woman.

“What are you drinking?” he asks her.

“Jack and Coke.”

He motions to the bartender and orders a drink for the woman. He puts his money on the bar. The woman nods but does not say thank you.

“I have to go,” he says.

“I know you do, honey.”

She takes another drag on her cigarette and sways a little on her stool as she watches him walk away. In the mirror behind the bar she sees the laughter and back slaps. But he does not laugh. Not even a smile. Once she sees him look at her, just a glance, and then turn away. “It’s something,” she murmurs. For tonight, it’s enough.

RIP James Brown.

(Another) Intermission

2006-12-14T09:01:00.000-07:00

Despite having many more tales from the Cumberland Plateau I have clearly not been posting much lately. Sometimes life can get in the way of blogging, which is good. Remember life? Back before everyone sat in front of glowing screens with buttons in their ears or talked on little plastic phones all day? No, I didn't think so. Anyway, while I like writing I don't particularly like computers and, now being one of those people that spends eight hours each day fighting with one, I'm not getting much up here. But I will! I promise! I think! I even have some things I wrote in real-time, as the disasters were occurring. However, at the moment I'm bound to be off to the UK for a few weeks to return in the New Year. The accompanying photo of the Louisville and Nashville building was taken one warm and quiet fall evening here in Knoxville. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be in Knoxville and I seem to be painting myself into (another) corner (again). But I would love to actually get around to doing a little bit on this town. So, we'll see. Otherwise, have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and I'll be back in 2007. John.

Hamilton County, May 2006 (Part I)

2006-11-28T18:36:00.000-07:00

It is the end of May when somehow, miraculously, we finish surveying Aetna Mountain. For the last week we have had a four-person crew, but Carl is due to leave on a two-month trip to Chile in a couple days, so we will drop back to three people. Allison, who has been feeling worse and worse as the days have gone on, has finally gone to see a doctor and has been told that she’s suffering from a severe allergy to something she’s encountered in the forest. The doctor prescribes steroids and tells her she can come back to work. It doesn’t occur to me right off the bat that the doctor has no idea what he’s talking about, but it will soon enough.

Carl is still with us as we do our initial recon of our first Hamilton County site. After Aetna Mountain we figure things have to get easier. We will figure something like this after completing each county and we’ll be wrong every time. Just finding the site is a piece of work. The roads we need are either not on our Tennessee Gazetteer or named something different on the maps than the actual street signage would indicate. Our forestry maps, on the other hand, show logging roads that may no longer exist or may be so treacherous as to be impassable. Of course, there’s no way to determine if a logging road is impassable other than driving down the thing and hoping you’ll notice your impending doom before it’s too late to turn back. But at this point we’re just trying to wind our way through a labyrinthine set of neighborhood roads that turn back and forth in every direction, now seemingly leading us to our destination, now leading us away. We make wrong turns and follow roads to their abrupt ends. We use our GPS machines and compasses to try to stay on course, but these tools are most helpful when we can travel as-the-crow-flies, something we can’t even come close to doing at the moment. People stop what they’re doing and watch us pass, wondering why someone they don’t know is driving down their street. At times like this we’d be hard put to answer them in a way that didn’t sound crazy. At one point we go under a bridge that would seem to lead to our destination, but there is no obvious way up to the bridge. It sits wholly unused above us, apparently coming out of nowhere and almost certainly leading there as well.

Finally, we emerge from a series of roads that have taken us everywhere but straight ahead. We pass a ramshackle barn and a shed filled with old car parts. Ahead of us is the mysterious bridge, a bridge that, while constructed of poured concrete like any highway overpass, appears to serve no function but to drop us onto a deeply rutted dirt road. Then immediately the scene begins to look like home. To the east the landscape drops away and trees stretch out into the distance. A now-familiar queasiness wells up in the belly as the terrain that has to be walked is assessed. This area is more remote than Aetna Mountain, a lost forest tract that we might never be found in, no matter how many helicopters and search dogs were brought out. Some of the transects we need to walk are short; others are over a mile long. There isn’t a cloud in the sky and the day is only beginning to hint at the heat to come later in the summer. Carl laughs and shakes his head, making no secret of the fact that he’s looking forward to getting out of this job and getting to Chile, where it’s surely much safer. We pass a strange house sitting silent at the bottom of a hill. The home looks fairly nice and is surprisingly large but there has clearly been no activity anywhere near it for some time. Along the road sits a dust-covered van and it is anyone’s guess as to why someone chose to build out here. The owner of the house may have driven his van up months ago and promptly died--stroke, heart attack, murder--and no one would ever know. We’re not about to look into it.

We’ve spent so much time trying to find our location that there isn’t much time to survey, so we choose some of the shorter transects and get a taste of what we’re in for; steep hills banked by hemlock and pine beetle kills ringed by blackberry bramble. As what he thinks will be his last act as a forest surveyor, Carl jogs a couple transects to polish off a remote corner. We don’t know yet that we’ll be down to a two-person crew in a matter of days and Carl will eventually find himself back in the woods. We finish up and head back to Knoxville, finally calling it a week, but quickly find that one of the roads we came in on has been torn up over the last couple hours and our path is now blocked by a bulldozer and several dump trucks. We wait some time for the crew to acknowledge us and then wait a little longer for the dozer to grade us a path out. It seems that for the duration of the summer no road will ever be certain.

The first photo is a shot of Kelly's Inn, our home in Dayton, TN until we depleted our travel budget and had to start sleeping on air mattresses at a wildlife refuge. The second shot is a rare appearance of your hapless host and, while taken in Hamilton County, it's not the site described above. I could've saved it for a more appropriate post, but I was kinda in the mood to post it. Note the GPS machine in my left hand--the coordinate we needed to find was above me, on top of all that rock. Fun! We'll get to that later. The last shot is of Young Rd., the torn up street I mentioned. Since I had a couple minutes right then I figured I'd snap a shot.

Marion County, May 2006 (Part VIII)

2006-11-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

Carl and I come to the edge of a thicket of raspberry brambles. It’s been rough going for the last couple hundred meters and we are covered in small cuts from the thorns of the bushes. The sweat makes the wounds sting. Our pants have been torn. It’s seems like a mistake in navigation was made at some point but we can’t figure out exactly where. As the brambles finally give way we find ourselves standing on the edge of a large hunting camp. Ahead of us is a green school bus up on blocks, the windows spray-painted black. A huge stars ‘n’ bars hangs across the front of the bus. Sometimes you come upon places that just feel unsettling and unsafe and you want to get away as quickly as possible by the closest means at hand. “I don’t really want to go through this,” says Carl, looking from one end of the camp to the other. This coming from an avid hunter who has struck up jovial conversations with every sportsman we’ve come across. He calls it the “brotherhood of hunters” but apparently doesn’t feel too fraternal with whoever has set up this imposing camp. I look out at the array of shacks and decrepit cars. I see a well with a memorial to a dead man chiseled into the front of it. A barbeque pit. Ropes hanging from trees. Burnt logs. I don’t want to go through it either. I look behind us at three hundred meters of dry raspberry thicket and dead pine trees. “We can’t go back the way we came,” I say. We wait. A tattered plastic tarp flaps in the slight breeze. What looks to be an old flag pole stands in the middle of the clearing. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around.

We gingerly step out of the bushes and start across the camp. The shacks stand in lines along a dirt road that we quickly cross. Beer cans crushed on the ground. I want to stop and take a picture but something feels wrong and instead I start walking faster. As we reach the far side a jeep turns onto the dirt road and I trot the last twenty feet to the woods. Carl is behind me and a few seconds later we’re both well into the trees. As far as we know, the man in the jeep did not see us. Months will pass before in casual conversation I mention this odd camp to a colleague of mine familiar with the area. “Oh,” he replies. “You want to stay away from there. They don’t like anyone near them and aren’t afraid to prove it. They aren’t even supposed to be up there but no one can get them down.” Yet another disaster amongst a seemingly endless string has been narrowly averted this day.

Not photos of the camp, the top being a cave in the Sequatchie Valley and the second a strange marker in the Hinds Valley Baptist Church and Cemetery, 1800-1946. Apparently Tennessee died sometime over that 150-year period and was buried with a cheap headstone.

Marion County, May 2006 (Part VII)

2006-11-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

It’s Jason’s second day on the job. We’re working lower on Aetna Mountain, skirting a neighborhood known as the “Devil’s Poket” (sic) in Whiteside, TN. The neighborhood is comprised of nothing more than one dead end street located nearly at the bottom of the mountain, merely a small notch of land cut out of the surrounding timber holdings. There are about eight houses on the street. One is a trailer that has been burnt to the ground, only its steel support beams remaining intact, rusting out of the melted debris. A second house looks habitable from the street except that “No Trespassing! Private Property!” is spray-painted across the front in big, black letters. From behind it can be seen that the roof of the house has caved in, the backyard littered with shingles and splintered 2”x 4”’s. The home nearest the outlet of the street is flying a massive stars ‘n’ bars on a pole in the front yard. Railroad tracks run just beyond and when a train stops, as will happen soon enough, there is no way in or out of the neighborhood.

For sometime we have been hearing gunshots. We’ve assumed that someone is hunting birds or getting in a little target practice. Jason and I split off from Carl and the shots become louder now as we come up just behind the neighborhood. Carl has continued on through the woods, but the coordinate were tracking seems to put us somewhere smack dab in the middle of the Devil’s Poket. Rather than stumble through backyards, we opt to cut down onto the road. For a few minutes the shooting ceases.

We enter the neighborhood and pass a woman and child. They appear to be doing some yard work but as we get closer it’s hard to tell if the property they’re tending is abandoned or not. We wave hello and the woman waves back, then quickly crosses the street with the child and enters another home. Now our GPS unit indicates that our point is actually in the backyard of the house at the end of the block. We have no intention of going into anyone’s yard, but figure we can get close enough from somewhere on the street. Of course, we look ridiculous with all our gear. Soaking with sweat and filthy, holding a GPS unit in one hand and a compass in the other, I spot two people watching us from the top of a driveway near the end of the street. For a moment I consider whether to go up to them and explain what we are doing, but something just doesn’t feel right and so we decide to keep moving through the neighborhood, picking up our pace a bit. Suddenly there’s a crack and a bullet cuts through the trees about 20 feet away. A few more shots are fired before we can take cover behind a row of twenty or so strange brick ovens that have been filled with trash. It’s possible these ovens are the remnants of a coke operation decades previous or maybe they were built when Aetna Mountain was being heavily mined for coal. Whatever the case, they are now protecting us from the residents of Devil’s Poket.

The shots keep coming and I radio Carl, still using the handles we’ve developed in reference to our cheap radio brand, Cobra. “Cobra Two, Cobra One has come under fire and has sought shelter. Please hold your position.” Carl comes back quickly: “I’m on the ground. I hit the dirt as soon as I heard that first round.” It sounds like he’s started laughing. “I’ll lie here until you’re clear.”

We follow the ovens down to the railroad tracks. They can’t hit us at this angle, but we can still hear the gunfire. We skirt the tracks, hop a dirty, trash-filled creek, and head deeper into the woods, finally lining ourselves up with the proper transect. The shots sound further away and finally stop altogether. I radio Carl and tell him we’re safe and he continues on his way. As we walk on Jason and I discuss what’s just happened. “They probably weren’t trying to hit us,” he says. “Just scare us a little. Besides,” he continues, “It sounded like a .22. At that distance it just would’ve stung a little.” I knew right then that I’d hired the right person for the job. And we’d have to come back the next day.

That top shot isn't actually from Aetna Mountain, but was taken at the head of a driveway near Cagle Mountain in Sequatchie County. The second shot is also from Sequatchie County, but the third is out the back porch of the check-in station at the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge, Birchwood, TN.

Marion County, May 2006 (Part VI)

2006-10-23T19:01:00.000-06:00

We’ve added another member to the crew, Jason, and his first day is a tough one. The haul up the first mountain is long and steep. Then we go back down. Then we start back up again. I walk a bit ahead and as the day progresses my lead increases. Jason is a smoker, but assures me that within a week he’ll be “battle hardened”; little do we know that it won’t take him nearly that long. As we start our final ascent of the day Jason stops and gasps, “I’ve gotta take a fiver.” I’m about 40 feet in front (and 20 feet above) him, so I sit on a nearby rock and wait. I’m not concerned. I figure he’ll do okay--at least as well as anyone else could be expected to do.

After a few minutes we start up again. When we reach the top of the mountain Jason looks a little peaked. I almost feel a pang of worry, but it quickly passes. The concern I feel for Allison, on the other hand, is steadily growing. She has developed a rash on the back of her leg and has been having trouble sleeping. She’s also been having headaches and experiencing joint pain. I’ve told her that she needs to get checked for Lyme disease as soon as we get back to Knoxville. She's replied, with all the confidence she can muster, that she knows she doesn’t have Lyme disease and will be fine. I ask her to go anyway. In the meantime, we’ve given her the easiest transects, usually the ones closest to the vehicle. On this day, therefore, she’s finished long before us and has been sleeping in the bed of the truck for the last couple hours.

As Jason stumbles wearily up the dirt road I see Carl on a deer stand—more like a deer platform—that someone has built way up in a high-tension tower. He waves and it looks like he’s having fun, so I stop and once he comes down I go up. At the top the platform (a piece of wood simply laid across a corner angle) is small and the footing precarious. It’s a very long way down. I wonder for a moment what hunter would be crazy enough to sit up here with a gun waiting for a deer to pass by below. Then I quickly realize there’s plenty of ‘em. Hell, now I’m up here too.

Alright, there's a little photo trickery here. The first and third shots are from Hamilton County, not Marion. That middle photo is from inside a coal mine in Sequatchie County. Did you know you can die from going in old coal mines? The culprit is known as "black damp." We'll get to that later.

Marion County, May 2006 (Part V)

2006-10-17T18:56:00.000-06:00

“We’re drillin’”, the man says, and a jet of muddy tobacco juice spews from his crooked mouth and lands at his feet. The statement is wrong on any number of levels. We’ve pulled beside a well-punching rig and four or five tough-looking customers are standing around. Their pick-up trucks are in the road and one of the larger ones is completely blocking our path. The men are smoking, talking, staring at the ground, but certainly not drillin'. Frankly, we don’t care what they do, as long as they let us by. But, so far, “We’re drillin’” is all anybody will say to us. So we wait in the idling truck and look at each other, wondering how this will play out.

As it happens, it plays out rather prosaically when, after a couple minutes of nothing much, an older man finally breaks away from the group and moves the truck from the road. We wave slightly as we pass and I watch in the rearview mirror as the men re-group. Carl resumes navigating.

Not many days afterward we meet Ricky, one of the drilling team, as he’s driving up a dirt road that we’re using to start that morning’s surveys. He gives us his cell phone number in case we need help—this has become a running theme—and tells us that at the very top of Aetna Mountain lives a family with two teenaged daughters. “They have no electricity,” he says. “How they get their water is anyone’s guess.” On top of the mountain is a long way from anywhere; there certainly aren’t any neighbors to get in the way. For the rest of our time in this place we will hope for a glimpse of what quickly becomes known as the “unknown family.” We believe that we see the mother and father on two occasions going slowly up the mountain in their red S-10. They do not seem happy to see us on either encounter. But it is the daughters we really want to run across, mountain nymphs tripping through dewy meadows in luminescent nightgowns. Perhaps chasing a fawn through the woods as they dance and sing, wildflowers wound into their flowing tresses. Certainly these Southern sirens would lead well-drillers and forest surveyors alike to their ultimate doom. Well, it does get tedious walking through the woods everyday and the mind tends to wander.

I wonder what the unknown family does in the winter when the roads get icy and there’s no way down the mountain for days at a time. Ricky shakes his head mournfully. “I just hope those girls survive,” he says. “I just hope they can make it through.”

Well, so much for one post a week. I won't make promises like that again since I know I can't keep 'em. I guess I'll just post when I can. I am an irresponsible blogger.

Marion County, May 2006 (Part IV)

2006-10-02T17:28:00.000-06:00

“We can’t go forward! We can’t go down! We can’t go up! We can only go back!” My radio call to Carl captures our predicament fairly succinctly. Above us is a series of vertical bluffs. In front of us is a waterfall. Below us is a steep drop to a rocky creek. Allison is annoyed, but can hardly argue with my assessment. Carl just laughs and wishes us luck; he’s already on top of his own set of bluffs. Defeated, we begin the long ascent up the valley, back the way we came.

Later we go to Lookout Mountain for dinner at the Lookout Mountain Café. Afterwards we go to Point Park, but since we can’t scrape together the $6 entrance fee between the three of us, we have to turn around. A representative of the National Park Service has been watching us from his truck, lest we jump the gate. As we pass his vehicle he asks us what we’re doing in the area, a presumptuous question. At first he doesn’t believe us when we tell him we’re walking Aetna Mountain. He laughs and asks if we’re using the trails. We tell him, “No, we just go in and start walking.” He laughs again and asks us how far down we go. “All the way to the bottom,” we reply, “to the creek beds.” He stops and raises his eyebrows, suddenly serious. “Really?” he says. “Let me give you my card.”

Donald “Cavewolf” Connor moved to Chattanooga for the caves. He tells us he does 300 foot drops in caves, sometimes spending nine hours in the descent. He also dives, though he will not enter totally submerged caverns. He asks us if we’ve seen any caves, but we have not. He says we might come across a “blower,” a cave that funnels air from the ridge down to the valley floor. Air velocity can reach 30 mph and he says we can’t miss one of these things if it’s close. “You’ll feel the wind.” The Chattanooga area apparently has the highest density of caves in the US and Cavewolf would love to know about any we stumble across. Also, it turns out that he’s a member of Chattanooga Cave Search and Rescue and offers us his services if we get stuck. It’s reassuring and not reassuring at all.

Cavewolf tells us some other things, including his belief that the listing of mountain skullcap as a federally threatened species is an abuse of the Endangered Species Act. He says that a guy he knows got it listed just to see how easily it could be done. “That plant is everywhere!” Cavewolf spits and we laugh. We haven’t seen a single Scutellaria montana and all we do is look for the thing. We’ve only come as close as its brother, Scutellaria pseudoserrata. Soon, however, we will see evidence that Cavewolf may have been correct.

Over the next couple of weeks we find a few small cave openings, but we don’t tell Cavewolf. Technically, we shouldn’t encourage others to trespass on the property. In any case, we never do find a “blower.” But we never have to call Chattanooga Cave Search and Rescue either.

That's a view over Chattanooga at the top and a shot of the inclined railway that can take you there. At the bottom is the real mountain skullcap.

Marion County, May 2006 (Part III)

2006-09-24T18:46:00.000-06:00

We’ve misjudged our distances. Badly. Now it’s 7:30 PM and we’ve been out so long the high-tech rechargeable batteries in our GPS machines are dying. Allison starts to feel weak and has to sit down on a rock. She doesn’t think she can continue without food and neither of us has anything left to eat. Worse, we’re at least an hour from the truck. I radio Carl: “Do you have any food?” There’s a pause, the situation being analyzed and understood. “I have some crackers.” “Can you get those to us?” Another pause. A little longer. “Yeah, I think so. Where are you?” I laugh grimly as I tell him.

Ten minutes later Carl has tossed down some crackers which I’ve given to Allison. He’s standing about forty feet above me and has already had to jump some wide chasms to get to us. We walk back and forth along the huge bluff, him above and me below. There is simply no easy way down. We scout out little ledges, possible hand or foot holds. When we’ve come up with the best line we can find, Carl starts to climb down. I quickly realize that he probably should’ve tossed me his backpack before starting. Now I can only hope it doesn’t get snagged on a limb. He has to drop the last seven feet or so, but everything goes well.

After Allison eats the crackers we start the one kilometer walk. One thousand meters goes pretty quick on pavement, but in this terrain we just hope to get out before dark. We know we’re near the truck sometime later when we pass what we thought earlier might have been a meth lab, a beat-up shack with two hoses leading from the rear up into the creek. On the way in we heard someone rummaging around out front, but this time we do not. We’re thankful as encountering drug activity would be a bit of a problem. Nothing is worse than having someone know that you know something they don’t want you to know, especially when that something could put them in prison. We don’t find a meth-maker, but we don’t find my sunglasses either; I’d lost them that morning and thought we might run across them on the way back. Over the weekend I’ll buy a new pair and promptly run them over at 7:30 AM on Monday, a $50.00 error.

Marion County, May 2006 (Part II)

2006-09-17T17:52:00.000-06:00

Untold tangles of catbriar, forests of poison ivy, and dozens of wood ticks conspire to convince Allison to wear long pants and boots. But it won’t be long before she’s moved to upgrade her gear yet again. As we set off over Aetna Mountain I’m showing Allison how to use the GPS unit, navigate the terrain, and look for endangered plant species, all at the same time. We come to a particularly steep area that leads to a creek bottom and I start to head down feet first, using my hands to steady myself. I am just about to move my hand to a spot slightly below me when I catch a glimpse of something that sends me scooting back up the bank yelling “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” In the exact spot where I was going to put my hand a copperhead lays nestled in the leaves. The snake’s coppery markings blend in perfectly with the fallen leaves and I'm lucky I didn’t miss seeing it. It’s doubly lucky because the snake wasn’t going to miss me. Usually docile and shy, this particular copperhead was reared up and ready to defend itself. After getting out of harm’s way I open up my backpack, grab the camera, and snap a few photos. All the while the snake maintains its aggressive posture. I watch the snake a while longer and make a mental note to buy snakebite kits for everybody. (The kits would be largely for psychological rather than practical reasons. Has anyone ever actually been saved by a store bought snakebite kit? The instructions state that the venom extractor must be applied to the bite within one minute. Good luck.) We slowly make our way down to the bottom of the ravine, giving the snake a wide berth and watching our handholds, not knowing that the fun has just begun.

About half an hour later we come to a dry creek bed that runs down slope. I climb down a short incline and onto the rocks and make my way across. Suddenly I hear Allison gasp behind me. Then she screams, “Oh my God! Oh my God!” I turn around and see that she’s backed up against the bank, which is too steep to easily climb back up. I’m about to ask what’s wrong when she points to the rock ledge not two feet away from her. Then I hear the rattle. It’s a timber rattlesnake, perhaps numerous, though rarely seen, and this one wants just as little to do with us as we do with it, only Allison has come very close to stepping on it, an indignity the snake would not have suffered politely. I direct Allison toward a safe path across the creek, keeping one eye on the snake, which has now backed itself up tight under the ledge. Once Allison is across I, of course, get out the camera and take some photos. While a person can walk the woods of Tennessee their whole lives and never see a timber rattlesnake, I’ll see another within the month. Allison has snake boots the following week. Heck, I got some myself.

Marion County, May 2006

2006-09-04T15:36:00.000-06:00

In May the work commences in earnest and we have added a third member, Allison, to our crew. We follow I-75 south toward Chattanooga and once beyond that city we dip into Georgia, change time zones, and come back up into Tennessee again very near our destination: Aetna Mountain. At one time the site of a major coal mining operation, Aetna Mountain sits above Nickajack Lake which is formed by an impoundment of the Tennessee River. The interior of the mountain is steep and dangerous, although some of the danger is provided by the residents themselves, as we shall soon see. A meeting earlier in the day produced immediate concern from a forest supervisor familiar with the area. “Are you going here?” he asked, pointing to our map. We replied that we were. “Then please call me each evening when you leave the forest so I know you got out safely. I can’t get to you quickly, but I can at least get to you eventually.” We assume he’s mostly concerned about the terrain, although one member of our crew has already been advised to carry a gun.

Once we reach the mountain we have to decide how to access our survey area. It’s apparent that a piece of private property provides the easiest entrance to our first parcel so we decide to drive down a rutted, gravel road, hoping to find the property owner and hoping that he’ll be friendly. A car begins to descend a steep dirt driveway and when it reaches the bottom we pull off the narrow road to let it pass. Carl, the only native Tennessean amongst us, gets out of the truck to see if these folks own the property or know who does. It turns out that, while they’re not the property owners, they can take us to the man who is, Smitty Brown, a fellow who usually works a roadside produce stand off the highway. In a display of helpfulness and generosity that we will later find throughout Walden’s Ridge and the Cumberland Plateau, the man and his wife tell us that if we follow them they’ll lead us to Smitty’s stand. So we turn around and follow them back to the highway.

The first stand we come to is empty, but we’re told that Smitty has a second stand across the bridge, so we continue on. The second stand is also empty. Our guide apologizes and explains that Smitty must be elsewhere. He suggests we just go on up the steep driveway to Smitty’s place and talk to the residents of the first place we come to; they live on Smitty’s land and can give us permission just as well as Mr. Brown. If Smitty shows up, they’ll be able to tell him why there’s a big state truck in his drive.

We go back to Smitty’s driveway and look up. It really is steep, and rutted too, loose gravel pooling in the deep ruts. Cut-offs and switchbacks have been made here and there but it’s difficult to tell which sections would be best to use. From the bottom, it almost looks too dangerous to drive. Allison gets out of the truck and says she’s not driving up—she’d rather walk. Still, we know people live up there, so it must be possible to get a vehicle to the top. Carl decides he’s going to go for it and drops the truck into 4WD. I get out of the truck to make the hike with Allison, each of us hoping that the Ford F-150 won’t roll down the hill on top of us. We watch the truck crawl up the incline and cross our fingers that Carl chooses the right path up.

It takes us longer to walk, but soon we’re all at the top of Smitty’s driveway, taking in an impressive view of Nickajack Lake, crisscrossed by bridges, the interstate skirting the perimeter. The walk was hot and strenuous and now that the proper route has been established we’ll be taking the truck up each day, assuming we get permission to access the property. We knock on the door of a trailer and a woman answers, clearly surprised to see us. It’s hard to imagine there are many visitors that make it up here unannounced. Once Carl explains our business we’re told that it’s absolutely no problem to park on the property—they’ll tell Smitty what’s up if he returns. Clarence, the man of the house, comes to the door and in the course of our conversation reveals that he has congestive heart failure. This would not seem to be the place to live if one has congestive heart failure. Just getting the mail could kill you. Still, the view from the top of that driveway is something a person could get used to. It might be tough to leave behind. After getting brought up to date on what’s happening at Talladega, we thank the couple for their help and they wish us luck.

We go back to the truck and get our gear together. I notice that Allison is wearing shorts and sandals. “Aren’t you going to at least put on some boots?” I ask, pointing to the thick poison ivy just beyond the truck. “Nah. I’m not allergic and don’t like wearing boots.” By the following week she’ll be wearing the sturdiest pair of snake boots she can find.

I might not get another segment up next weekend as I'll be back in the Midwest. However, I'll be here again in two weeks. I think. Thanks for reading!

Rhea County, April 2006 (Part II)

2006-08-27T15:48:00.000-06:00

As we come up the ridge the fog thickens. Our headlights burn dimly through the milky-white morning and visibility is down to something less than 500 feet. Out of the soup, on the side of the road, a shack takes form then quickly recedes again, like some strange specter. Walden’s Ridge, when the fog is thick, seems to be made of cloud. Or perhaps it is part of the clouds, the massive waves of mist breaking free of the forest and rising up through the trees, rejoining the sky.

But by the time we reach our survey site the fog is burning off and the barren clearcut has come into view. We put on our packs, set our GPS coordinates, and start the walk down the valley toward the creek. Once at the bottom we will start back up again. This will be repeated, up and down, back and forth, until we are out of time or stamina or both.

The work is hard and dangerous, though not as dangerous here as it will become elsewhere. There are sheer bluffs to be scaled and then descended again. The terrain is steep and rocky at best, impassable at worst. Yet the forest, a second or third-growth mix of oak, maple, poplar, and hemlock remains majestic, punctuated by rocky falls and cliffs.

We stop for lunch in a running creek and eat perched on boulders that must have tumbled down into the valley thousands upon thousands of years ago. As we eat I spot an eastern box turtle perched on a ledge of rock, both of its feet hanging over the edge, as if unsure how to proceed. I take my camera out of my pack and begin to photograph the animal, the state reptile of Tennessee. I am pleased that it is holding its unusual pose and soon my partner comes up to take some pictures as well. We discuss angles and compare shots, both laughing at the strange posture of the old turtle. Finally, something occurs to me and I gently prod the turtle with my boot. It does not move. I pick the turtle up and it doesn't withdraw its head nor clamp its shell down tight, as would be normal. It merely blinks at me, slowly and sadly; it is dying.

We return to our lunch, the photos no longer as enchanting. When we are about to move on I leave a bit of apple for the turtle. It moves its head slightly, but that is all. Soon it will be dead. But we have other things to worry about.

Rhea County, April 2006

2006-08-19T18:15:00.000-06:00

As we drive west from Highway 27 I look up at the ridge high above and immediately begin to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. We cross the railroad tracks and drop down into the flats, black-green with the dense vegetation. The brown, ropy, kudzu vines twisting up and over anything in their path have not yet leafed-yet. Once they do, even more of this already secretive and shadowy land will be obscured.

Off the narrow roads, nestled in the foliage, are homes. Some of the homes are ramshackle, wooden affairs with chipped and peeling paint. Many residences are trailers, some of which seem to be unlivable. The yards are often nothing more than dirt, the grass worn away, with all manner of animals, children, and appliances strewn about. Some are nearly totally obscured by cars, beaten hulks sitting wheel-less on cinder blocks, the various components removed and laid nearby, as if they might somehow be useful once again. In many yards there are fires, and thin wisps of gray smoke waft through the trees as litter and debris smolders. Later I am told that Rhea County is one of the poorest counties in Tennessee. Despite this apparent poverty, most residences have a late model car or truck parked nearby, a sign of the primacy of movement in the modern age, a necessity requiring any cost or privation.

Everywhere there are churches of all denominations and creeds; Evangelical, Pentecostal, Methodist, and, naturally, Baptist. The church buildings are of all shapes, sizes, and conditions, and the sheer number of them makes it difficult to believe there are enough people to support them all. Yet each must have their congregants and outside these places of worship, as well as hung in front of homes and nailed to various trees, there are signs: “Prepare to meet thy God,” Know Jesus, know peace; no Jesus, no peace,” and often simply, “Repent!”

We pass through and begin to climb Walden’s Ridge, the road a steep switchback. Once on top you can see clear across the Tennessee Valley, the river snaking into the distance, the mountains of North Carolina on the horizon. The roads we travel are used by no one save the people who live near them. On top of the ridge are farms, horse lots, and immaculately rendered homes that resemble old-fashioned log cabins. We follow a dirt road alongside a farm, cows watching us from the field adjacent, and pass through a gate. Beyond the gate is a huge clearcut, the ground littered with shattered timber. Small clumps of scrawny, dead snags dot the landscape. It looks as if a bomb has been detonated on this place.

We park the truck at the end of an old logging road and head toward a pocket of live trees, the terrain too steep and rocky for the logging equipment to have accessed. These are the areas we will be walking and from here on out each will seem steeper and rockier than the one previous. It will not be for the last time that I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into.

A Bloody Battle

2006-06-18T20:04:00.000-06:00

Someone wrote me recently asking if I could do a few posts on some of the mountain towns of the South. Since I’m currently living at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains and spend most days roaming around the Cumberland Plateau, it shouldn’t be a problem to get to a few of those places soon. I was also asked if I could do a bit more on Civil War sites, and that I can do right away. So, without further ado, we’ll visit the Chickamauga Battlefield, just outside of Chattanooga, across the Georgia line, where one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War was fought.

In the summer of 1863, competition between the Union and Confederacy for control of Chattanooga was getting fierce. Union Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans moved his nearly 70,000 men, known as the Army of the Cumberland, from Murfreesboro, TN to square off against Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee. Originally positioned to defend the road to Chattanooga, Bragg’s 43,000 men were eventually forced into the city itself by Rosecrans’ forces. In late August, Bragg had to retreat again, this time to LaFayette, GA, 26 miles south of Chattanooga. With the addition of badly-needed reinforcements from Mississippi, East Tennessee, and Virginia, Bragg had 66,000 men when, on September 18, 1863, he tried to get between Union forces and Chattanooga by moving troops along the east bank of West Chickamauga Creek, a gambit which proved unsuccessful. Above is a photo of perhaps the largest of the countless monuments erected on the battlefield, many created by the states from which the soldiers came.

A day later, on September 19, 1863, just after dawn, Union infantry engaged Confederate cavalry at nearby Jay’s Mill. Fighting spread amongst what was now well-over 120,000 troops, and the engagement soon covered four miles, the combat often hand-to-hand. At one point, a group of Confederate soldiers became stranded in a ravine near what is known as Viniard Field, and Union Col. John Wilder later wrote, “It seemed a pity to kill men so. They fell in heaps, and I had it in my heart to order the firing to cease, to end the awful sight.”

Eventually, Bragg began to drive the Federal army back and, on September 20, Rosecrans received a report that Union Brig. Gen. John Brannan’s division was out of position, putting the Federal line in jeopardy. This information was incorrect, but Union Brig. Gen. Thomas Wood moved his forces to fill the supposed gap in the line, thereby creating a real gap. Coincidentally, Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet’s troops had just started to move toward the area now suddenly left vacant by Wood’s men. Thus, Longstreet’s men broke through the line and began to drive back Federal divisions, including Maj. Gen. Jefferson C. Davis’s.

With a hole in their line and Longstreet’s troops moving forward, the Union fell into retreat. Union Gen. George Thomas held the last position at Snodgrass Hill for a time and was thereafter known as the “Rock of Chickamauga.” He also commandeered the Snodgrass family cabin and turned it into a field hospital. But as darkness fell, Thomas and the other Union soldiers withdrew in defeat to Chattanooga. Over the course of two days the Battle of Chickamauga had resulted in 18,000 Confederate soldiers killed, wounded, or missing out of a total of 66,000 troops; Union casualties were 16,000 out of 58,000. The battle would stand as one of the deadliest of the war. Below is a photo of the site on which the Snodgrass cabin stood; the cabin itself is not original.

After the battle, Confederates pursued Union forces out of Chickamauga and took Missionary Ridge, Lookout Mountain, and the Chattanooga Valley, effectively barricading Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland inside the city. With no way to get supplies in or out, it looked bleak for Federal troops. However, Washington D.C. soon sent 20,000 reinforcements under the command of Maj. Gen. William Sherman and an additional 16,000 men under the command of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker to aid the Army of the Cumberland. Thomas then replaced Rosecrans, and Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant took overall command. The first move was to open a supply line from Bridgeport, AL to get food to the stranded troops. Known as the “Cracker Line,” the primary foodstuff delivered to the hungry soldiers was hardtack crackers.

On November 23, 1863, Thomas went on the attack and drove Confederate troops from Orchard Knob. A day later heavy fog conspired to drive the Confederates from the seemingly well-positioned Lookout Mountain. With Bragg’s forces now concentrated on Missionary Ridge, Sherman’s troops moved toward the right flank and Hooker’s toward the left. Hooker was delayed and Sherman’s attack was fought back, so Thomas was ordered to move from his position at Orchard Knob, in the middle of the field, toward the base of Missionary Ridge. Thomas’s men not only marched to the ridge, but, without orders to do so, climbed it and took the position, driving Confederate forces back into Georgia. With the Confederate Army unable to return to the area, Chattanooga would now become the staging ground for Sherman’s march to Atlanta and onward to the sea.

A couple things: First, the sheer number of men that were at Chickamauga is astounding. There are memorials to divisions from all over the country erected on the battle site. Even though Chattanooga was an important stronghold, it’s hard to understand why all these forces were amassed at Chickamauga Creek, on flat terrain, and at the same time. I guess it must’ve seemed like as good a place to fight it out as any. Also, if you’ve ever seen the lofty bluffs of Lookout Mountain, you’ve gotta wonder how the Confederate soldiers were driven off it. Even with a little fog it seems virtually impossible for the Confederate army to have believed that Union troops were scaling the bluffs. Plus, there was plenty of good mountain behind the Confederates, so the Union couldn’t have starved them off even if they’d wanted to. Add to that the faulty intelligence delivered to Rosecrans and there would seem to have been more than a few key errors on both sides. I suppose everyone could’ve used some walky-talkies. Thanks to the National Park Service for providing info for this post. See ya next time!

Checkin' In

2006-05-19T17:01:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been awhile. I felt like getting some new shots up, so here ya go. I'm now in Knoxville and things are pretty insane. So far, I've scaled tall bluffs, explored an old coal mine, been shot at (I think it was meant as "fun"; some fun!), and nearly put my hand on a copperhead. I've got photos of most of these adventures (Yes, I actually thought about taking my camera out to photograph the people shooting at me, but decided to just get moving. I DID take a photo of the copperhead.) and I'll try to get them up soon. In the meantime, here's my life from March to April: A dead dashboard at the auto salvage in Savage, MN; a winter reprise at Westwood Hills Nature Center, St. Louis Park, MN; and, finally, Maggie Valley, North Carolina.

Stay tuned for much more from eastern Tennessee and beyond. For a preview, check my FLICKR site, which is linked on the right. I'm using a crummy digital camera for work and so the quality on the newer shots is a little lacking, but you'll get the, uh, picture.

Gone Fishin'

2006-04-08T22:22:00.000-06:00

Well, this week I'm moving to Knoxville, Tennessee, so City of Dust is going to go on a little hiatus. I'll try to post again once things have settled down a bit, but I can't say for sure when that will be. The good news is that Knoxville, besides being the hometown of my favorite author, Cormac McCarthy, and the setting for one of the most famous murder ballads of the 20th Century, is nestled along the Tennessee River, at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains, not far from Smoky Mountain National Park, and just across the border from Asheville, North Carolina. In short, my camera is giddy with anticipation and, hopefully, posts will return to the original City of Dust format. That is, photographs and forgotten tales from the crumbling, kudzu-shrouded backroads of the American South; I'm just moving one state higher up. If you want to whet your appetite for the South, check out Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, the trailer for which can be seen here.

In the meantime, hell, there's an entire novel on this site, and it begins here. Further, over 300 years of history from the Central Savannah River Area of Georgia/South Carolina commences here. There's also a bunch of fictional oddities and lots of desert. I could use a break--and I bet you could too.

During my absence, City of Dust will be presided over by the bloodthirsty tabby pictured above. His name is McCarthy and, while he didn't write Blood Meridian, I'm sure he's capable of equally impressive feats of violence. Just because he's declawed and neutered doesn't mean he's not dangerous. He will forward any comments left here directly to me. And, if anybody has anything to say about Knoxville (or lives in Knoxville), please drop me a line--I'd love to hear whatever you have to say.

See ya in awhile.

J.

A Loss for Words Pts. 33, 34, and Last

2006-04-03T22:21:00.000-06:00

(CONTINUED) Thirty-Three

We drove around Tucson for awhile because there was nothing else to do. Again we discussed going to the police, but if that had seemed like a bad idea in Santa Fe, it felt like signing Jimmy’s death certificate now. Of course, I would have been unable to go to the police anyway. We stopped and got some fast food and ate a little of it. Then, at some point, we found ourselves on I-19 headed south. Within a couple of miles downtown Tucson gave way to ramshackle, weather beaten homes sitting on plots of barren yellow dirt, with all manner of rusted cars, desperate animals, and stricken children out front. From the highway we could see even more forlorn shacks in the distance, walls and roofs of wood or metal seemingly thrown up without thought to safety or permanence. A few miles farther and even these crude shelters thinned-out, giving the impression that neighborhoods did not exist in this place, but rather each family existed on their own island of dust, consumed by their individual troubles and difficulties, afraid that soon even the little they had would also be gone, consumed by the relentless desert.

A gust of wind blew yellow dust high into the cloudless sky and a sign on the highway marked an exit for Vallejo Dr. There was nothing around that wasn’t abandoned or destroyed, no gas stations or restaurants, just a forgotten road disappearing somewhere out into the Sonoran Desert. We were early, so I pulled the car off to the shoulder and got out. There was no one to be seen in any direction. I opened up the trunk, took the shotguns out of their cases, and laid them in the back seat. Then I got back into the car and took the 9 mm out of the holster on my shoulder. I held it in my hand.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“For what?” Julie replied. “We don’t have a plan. Are we just going to offer them the money and hope they take it?”

She didn’t sound hysterical or angry; she sounded like someone that had simply considered the situation and found the odds greatly against her. She was right.

I put the gun on my lap. “We’ll do whatever we need to do to get your brother back safely. But we won’t know what that is until we meet these people.”

“I think it’s a trap.”

I looked around at the glittering desert that ran out in every direction. Some distance back traffic whistled up and down I-19, the sun flashing sickeningly off the aluminum semi-trailers. In front of us was nothing that I could see. “Do you have another idea?”

Julie turned to me and her face crinkled, as if she was going to start crying. She shook her head. I leaned over and kissed her. “We’ll be alright; all three of us.” She nodded like she didn’t believe me. I told her to unzip her windbreaker and get the .38 out of the holster. She did and I took the gun from her. It was loaded and the safety was off. I gave it back to her. “Fuck it,” I said, taking in that vast emptiness one last time. “Out here, if you think you need to shoot, just shoot.” It was 2:50 PM.

I fired up the Jag and we began driving slowly down Vallejo. I was watching for anyone that might be waiting for us, but nothing moved. Eventually the pavement ended and the road became dirt. About a mile off we could see a structure in front of us; an old house, sitting behind the remains of a wooden fence. As we got closer I could see that it was two stories high and made of brick that had been painted white. There were two windows above a rotted patio on the front, but they’d been boarded up. On the first floor there were no windows, but two doors. There were some rusted cars in the yard, but no vegetation. A few small outbuildings were scattered nearby and I wondered if there was anyone in them, their rifle sights trained on us. I narrowed my eyes against the glare, but I saw nothing in the yard, just the shimmering of the sun. As I pulled the Jag up I noticed the beige Land Rover parked alongside the house. It was the only vehicle visible.

I turned off the Jag and listened. Nothing. Not any sound at all. I reached into the back seat and grabbed the sack of cash and some ammo clips. Then I leaned over and put the gun in the back of my waistband. “You wait here,” I told Julie. She gripped the .38 more tightly and that pleased me. “If you hear any shots from inside, just drive out of here. Start the car and go. If anyone approaches you, shoot them.” She didn’t say anything. “Do you understand?” She looked toward the house and then back at me; she nodded. “Good. Now I’m going to go get your brother.”

I stepped out of the car and sank to my ankles in sand. I was almost to the front porch when a shot slammed into the front door of the house from my left side. For a moment I wondered if it was a warning shot, but a second shot came at me from a different direction and I dropped to the ground. I yelled for Julie to get the hell out, but didn’t hear the car start. I pulled the gun out of my waistband, let go of the sack, and began crawling through the sand for the house. I was at the front step when I saw movement behind the shell of an old car off to my left. I squeezed the gun in my right hand and waited. I could hear my heartbeat slamming in my ears and then everything seemed to slow down as, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man begin to rise from behind the car. In one movement I pulled myself up to a squat, leveled the gun, and fired. I heard a return shot as I dropped back to the ground but I could not tell where my bullet went. I glanced back toward the car; no movement. My ears were ringing and I could smell the cordite. I quickly climbed onto the patio and looked toward the Jag. I couldn’t see anyone in it. I hoped that Julie had ducked down below the window to avoid the gunfire, but I couldn’t be sure. Just then another shot rang out from the right side of the house. It ricocheted off a brick near my head. I crouched down and tried one door and then the other. They were both locked. I crawled over to the left side of the house and raised myself up slightly, just enough to peer over the short brick wall that enclosed the porch. Nothing. I dropped back down, waited a moment, then raised myself up again. Still nothing. I raised myself one more time, a little higher. Nothing. I leaped over the side of the porch and pressed myself against the side of the house. Then I saw the man behind the car lying in the dust. He wasn’t moving. I looked one more time toward the Jag, but I still didn’t see Julie--or anyone else. I hoped the other shooter--and anyone else--would come after me.

Slowly I crept along the side of the house and at the back I saw a ramshackle set of wooden steps leading to the second story. I stepped around the corner and was almost to the stairs when a shot hit the railing, splintering the desiccated wood. I dropped into the sand again and tried to locate the shooter. There were two outbuildings on that side and I was pretty sure the shot had come from one of them, but I didn’t know which. I was pinned down, so I fired at the building on the left. I waited a moment but my shot was not returned. Then I fired at the building on the right and a split-second later a bullet whizzed a couple feet over my head. I unloaded the rest of my clip into the building and, as I was jamming a new clip into the gun, I saw the man run out from behind the building toward the front of the house. I shot three times in quick succession and he fell just a step before the house would’ve blocked my bead on him. Then I stood and picked my way quickly and carefully up the steps.

At the top of the stairs was a door and I eased it open then waited a moment before entering. Inside was a small entry room strewn with old newspapers, rotted clothes, and garbage. Dirt was two inches thick on the floor. Another door opened out of the little room. I opened it gently with my foot and stepped quickly back from the doorway but a voice from the other side said, “Come in.” I glanced around the jamb and saw a much larger room. On the far end was a small platform, perhaps a foot high, and Jimmy and a man were on top of it. Jimmy was seated, his arms and legs tied to the chair, and he was gagged and blindfolded. The man had a gun pressed to Jimmy’s temple. “You might as well come in,” he said. “Because, if you don’t, in a few seconds you’ll hear a shot and then all of this will have been for nothing.” I began to step into the doorway, leading with the gun, but the man said, “No, no, no, not like that. Put your hands up.” I hesitated, but the man drew the trigger back slightly on his own gun and Jimmy shivered, so I raised my hands over my head, hooking my index finger through the trigger guard of the gun, letting it hang free. I stepped into the dark, dusty room and got a good look at the man, who had long, greasy black hair and was wearing shorts and a tank top. He smiled as I came toward him and I knew then that he was no big-time dealer but a common street thug. He was undoubtedly working for someone else; I just hoped they wouldn’t show up. “You must’ve killed those guys, huh?” The guy laughed as I came closer. “I guess you’re pretty tough. The boss ain’t gonna like that. I’m not lookin’ forward to explainin’ it to him.” I was about ten feet away from Jimmy and could see his chest heaving. His clothes were spattered with blood and his face and arms were bruised. He’d been beaten up, but I couldn’t tell how badly. His right hand was tied tightly to the chair so I couldn’t see where his finger had been cut off.

“Where’s the money?” the man asked.

“It’s in the front yard,” I said.

He looked at me strangely. “The front yard?”

“I needed to have my hands free.”

He smiled again. “Of course. Is it all there?”

I looked around the empty room. There was nowhere to hide, no easy escape. “As much as we could get,” I said.

His smile quickly became a frown. “Where’s the girl?”

“In the car.”

Now he smiled broadly and it told me a lot about him, more than I would’ve liked to have known. “Ah, that’s good. Joey--that’s the guy who was tailing you--I guess you just killed him--Joey said the kid’s sister’s a looker.” He tousled Jimmy’s hair with his free hand. “I guess it runs in the family. Anyway, we had some plans for you guys. We sure as hell did.” He looked casually around the room and I noticed a bag and a pile of rope at his feet. Then he turned back to me and laughed. “But now it’s just me with the plans.” Suddenly he kicked Jimmy’s chair hard and the kid went head over heels off the platform. I tried to aim my gun, but it was too late. A bullet hit me in the left side and the shot I got off was so high it probably went through the roof. I reflexively dropped the 9 mm, put my hand to the wound, and fell to the ground. It hurt more than I could believe. I’d heard that sometimes there was numbness or a dulling of sensation, but I was not so lucky. Blood ran through my fingers, sticky and warm. I thought of Anne, shot in the stomach just like me, and wondered if she’d been in as much pain as I was in. It hadn’t seemed that she’d suffered, but maybe she’d just been unable to communicate what she’d felt. The thought was unendurable.

I heard footsteps approaching me from the platform, dull thuds against the old wooden floorboards. I heard the man kick the 9 mm away and when I looked up I saw him standing over me, the gun pointed at my face. He laughed. “Now you’re all going to die, but I’ll just get you out of the way first.” He looked around the room once again and said, “I don’t know where the girl went, but I bet I can find her. Personally, I wouldn’t have brought her out here for this. But the three of us will make a night of it now.” He drew the hammer back on the gun. “I just wanted you to know that before you died.” I closed my eyes. For a brief moment I thought of Anne and wondered if I’d see her. But then I thought of what might lay ahead for Julie and Jimmy and what my role had been and I felt something that there are simply no words for. If I couldn’t stop what was going to happen, if this was the place I’d brought Julie to, then I wanted this man to kill me. Seconds passed and nothing happened. Suddenly everything seemed strangely still and quiet so I opened my eyes and saw that the man had his hands up and a funny expression on his face. I could see that Julie was standing behind him and, though I couldn’t see much of her, I noticed that she wasn’t wearing shoes. I knew immediately that she had the .38 pressed to the back of the man’s head. The man tried to laugh. “Well, ha ha, let’s just take it easy now. I only wanted to scare…” But before he could finish his sentence there was a crack that echoed loudly through the big empty room. The man dropped to the floor and a fine mist fell across my face. Blood and brain matter; I could taste it on my lips. Julie just stood there, holding the gun in front of her. Her clothes were spattered with gore. She didn’t look at me and she didn’t look at the man she’d just killed. She didn’t even look at her brother. She just stared straight ahead, as if no one else was there. As if nothing had happened. I tried to say something, but a bolt of pain flashed through my side and I just groaned. Julie slowly lowered the gun and looked at me. I pointed to Jimmy, still tied to the chair, now sideways on the floor, struggling uselessly to free himself. Julie ran to him and it seemed to take her a long time to get the ropes off. I heard her cry out and I assumed she’d just seen his hand with the pinky finger hacked-off. A few seconds later she and Jimmy were by my side. Jimmy looked bad, but it seemed like he could get around. I, on the other hand, was in somewhat worse shape.

“My God,” said Julie, kneeling beside me, her hands already bloody. “We need to get a doctor.”

I shook my head. “Just get me out of here,” I gasped. “Let’s go for Mexico.”

Julie touched my side and the pain was excruciating. “You can’t get across the border.”

I managed to sit up. “Let’s worry about that when we get there.” I took a deep breath and saw stars. “We need to leave now before anyone else shows up.”

“He’s right,” Jimmy said. “Those guys were just hired for the job.”

“You mean there’s someone else?” Julie asked.

Jimmy picked the 9 mm up off the floor and then told his sister to take my left arm. But he didn’t answer the question.

They got me to my feet and we started for the door. Neither of them was strong enough to support my weight, so I worked to keep myself upright by favoring my right side. We stopped at the top of the steps and Julie got her shoes and put them back on. “Can you drive a stick?” I asked her. She nodded and then we started down the rickety staircase, slowly, fighting for balance. It seemed to take an eternity to descend one story. After that, it was easier to get through the yard to the car; the pain was lessening, but I was beginning to feel weak and woozy. Julie opened the back door for me, but I told her I was going to ride up front. “There’s something I have to tell you,” I said. “And I have to do it now.” Jimmy helped me into the passenger seat and when I sat down it felt like a hot poker had pierced my side. I struggled for breath. Julie asked me if I was okay and I nodded. I told Jimmy to grab the bag of cash off the lawn and then he got in the back seat, the shotguns across his lap. Julie came around the driver’s side. The keys were still in the ignition and she turned the motor on, backed around, and headed toward the interstate.

Thirty-Four

We could just see I-19 up ahead, the cars like cast iron toys, when I told Julie to pull over. There was no one else on Vallejo Dr, which was probably not unusual. Off the road was an old weather-beaten shack. I gave Jimmy the 9 mm and told him to get the .50 caliber out of my bag. The guns were a liability now and we had to get rid of them. If we found ourselves in a situation where we needed to start shooting, there’d be no hope for us anyhow. Julie gave her brother the .38 Special and then I told him to take all the guns and the shotgun bags to the shack and see if there was any place inside where he could hide them. He got out of the car and limped to the shack; at the house I hadn’t noticed that his leg was injured. He seemed to be having trouble holding the guns, probably because of his hand, which I’d forgotten about, but in a few moments he was back.

“There was some corrugated metal in there,” he said. “I put them under that.”

“Good enough,” I replied. Then I told him to put the sack of cash in the trunk; we couldn’t afford to leave that.

We were about 45 miles from the Mexican border, but none of us would get through looking like we did. We stopped at a motel in Green Valley and Julie put on a different coat and wiped her face and then went and got a room. I’d bled a lot and felt dizzy. I wanted to sleep, but knew I had to fight it. Taking off my shoulder holster hurt badly and the pain woke me up a little. Jimmy’s right hand looked terrible and, as Julie peeled back the filthy wrapping, he gagged. She took him to the bathroom and cleaned him up as best she could. I heard him cry out a few times. When he came back into the room he was pale and shivering, a frightened kid standing in his underwear. My clothes were too big for him, but he put on a shirt of mine and his own pants, though they were a little bloody. His right hand was swollen and yellow-green. His eyes were blackened and he had a number of small cuts on his face. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to get out of the car. He laid down on the bed and closed his eyes while Julie wrapped a sock around his hand. Then Julie helped me to the bathroom. I carefully stripped off my bloody clothes, making sure not to look at the bullet hole yet, while Julie filled the tub with lukewarm water, repeatedly testing the temperature with her hand. If the water was too warm, I might start bleeding badly again; if it was too cold, I might go into shock. I stood there naked for a few moments, but finally I looked at the wound. It didn’t look as bad as I’d thought; just a blood-crusted hole below my stomach, the flesh around it jagged and purple-yellow. A thin stream of red still ran from the center of the wound. I touched the area gently and sucked in my breath. The pain came in waves. The bullet was lodged inside me. Julie turned when she heard me exhale and opened her mouth but didn’t make a sound.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Never seen a naked man before?” I tried to smile but the pain made it come out all wrong.

“You need a doctor,” she said.

“I know,” I replied, as she helped me into the tub. “But we have to get to Mexico.”

“Why?” she asked, wiping the flecks of blood off my face.

“Because it’s the only place where we’ll all be safe.”

I don’t think Julie knew what I was talking about, but after another minute the water in the tub began turning red and the hole in my side was flowing again. Julie helped me up and then dried me off with a towel. She put a sock over the wound and held it in place with my belt. Then she helped me get dressed. I was pale, but on first glance no one would know that I’d just been critically wounded in a gunfight with three drug dealers that were now lying dead in the desert.

Julie ran a washcloth over her face and arms and changed clothes. I could still see specks of blood in her hair, but there was no time for her to wash it. I knew I needed a doctor soon. She put the room key on the table and we went out to the car.

We got back on the interstate and Julie had the Jag over 80 mph in a few minutes. I told her to keep it to 75 and when she asked why I didn’t answer. I thought I saw her hand shaking on the steering wheel, but it was getting hard to stay focused on anything. I knew that if I died she had to understand that what she’d done was okay. She could live with it, as I’d tried to do. We were 35 miles from Nogales when I began to tell her what had happened after I’d left her in the plaza on the day I went back to San Francisco. I told her about my ex-wife and our baby and how maybe we were going to work things out. Then I told her how my entire life had died in my very arms and how I’d brutally murdered the man responsible. I said that I’d fled to Santa Fe out of fear and guilt and shame, but that I was not sorry about that now; I was sorry about other things. I had to stop occasionally when I lost my train of thought; everything was beginning to feel unreal. Behind me I heard Jimmy mutter, “Fuuuck.” I wiped my eyes and Julie began to cry softly, but whether her tears were for me or herself I didn’t know.

“You’ll learn to wake up each day knowing you’ve killed another person,” I said, starting to slur my words. “And you can still find joy and love and beauty in that day even though you’re a different person now, even though you’re different from most people now. You know something that it would be better that you not know, but there is strength in that.”

I truly believed there was no reason for Julie to feel guilty. But I didn’t believe that absolution was so clear for myself. I had now killed three people, but it was what had happened to Anne and our baby--and what could’ve happened to Julie and Jimmy--for which I was not sure I could ever forgive myself. I was suddenly confused about so many things and I tried to go on, to explain, but Julie stopped me. “We’re at the border,” she said quietly. I hadn’t even noticed.

We sat in a long line of cars and I could see a light pink stain on my shirt; the blood had soaked through the sock. Every now and then the noise of the traffic on either side of me would disappear for a moment and then reappear. I thought about why that was happening and then realized I was blacking out for short periods. Julie looked over at me and I knew she was frightened, but not for herself. It occurred to me that she might just tell the border guard we needed a doctor and that would be that. But then I faded out again and when I came to Julie had taken my wallet out and was holding my license.

“Tom, Tom! He’s coming. Take this.”

I saw that the guard was at the car in front of us, looking in the window. He motioned for them to pull over for inspection. I wondered if that meant they inspected every car or if this was random and our chances of being searched were now reduced. It was hard for me to follow the thought any farther. The guard came up to Julie’s window and she smiled and said hello and handed him her license. He asked her if we were staying in the border area and she told him we were. Then he asked her the purpose of our visit and she told him we were going shopping. He laughed at that and then asked for Jimmy’s identification. Jimmy handed his license up with his left hand, trying to keep his mangled right hand out of the guard’s view. The guard seemed to spend a long time looking at the license. Then he looked back at Jimmy.

“What happened to you?”

“I was hit by a car while biking.”

The guard looked at Jimmy’s license awhile longer.

“Are you two married?” the guard asked, pointing from Jimmy to Julie.

Jimmy managed to laugh. “Naw, she’s my sister.” It sounded perfectly natural.

The guard laughed too, but it did not seem genuine. Then he looked at me and any trace of a smile fell from his face. It was hard to keep my eyes open. I handed him my license, but I don’t think he’d asked for it yet. He looked at it for awhile, glancing up at me a few times. I’d actually forgotten that I was a fugitive. He was just about to say something when there was yelling from the next bay over, where the car that had been in front of us was being searched. Some dogs had started barking and it sounded like an argument had begun.

“We got something!” someone shouted.

The guard at our car turned to look at what was going on. Several more guards were running to the scene. The guard handed my license to Julie and said, “You folks have a nice time in Mexico.” But he wasn’t even looking at us anymore; he’d already stepped away from the car and started over to help his colleagues.

“That’s funny,” I said, as Julie slowly pulled away from the border station and out of the United States. “Who would smuggle drugs INTO Mexico?”

And that’s the last thing I remember.

Last

When I woke up Julie was holding my hand. I was in a small hospital room. There was a funny taste in my mouth.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“Mexico,” Julie said. “I had to use some of Mary’s money to bribe some doctors, but they said you’ll be okay. They got the bullet out, but you lost a lot of blood.”

I tried to sit up, but it hurt too much. “Good work,” I said, easing back onto the pillow. I asked for a glass of water and while Julie poured from a pitcher by the bed I thought of something I’d written the day before Anne had been killed: “…lives stained by blood are forever intertwined.” I smiled at Julie and she smiled back, a little sadly, it seemed. She looked tired and much older than that day I’d seen her at the Mission. I thought she was beautiful. We talked for a bit and she told me that Jimmy would be okay; it was just the tip of his little finger. I said that I figured she’d saved my life at least a couple times over. She replied that she thought we were about even, but I knew that wasn’t right. I noticed that she’d brought my bag in and I asked if she could hand me my cell phone. She dug around and found it. I only listened to the last message, from Ruben:

“Tom, the cops know you didn’t do it. I’d say you only did what had to be done. I don’t know where you are, but they’re still after you for killing that guy and taking off, so you better stay gone. By the way, I went to the Albuquerque airport to get my truck back, and as I was backing out of the parking spot the front wheel fell off.” He laughed and when he spoke again his voice sounded far-off and sad: “Hey, man, I hope to hear from you some day. I don’t know when or how, but try to get in touch. Take care.” The message ended and I replayed it for Julie.

“He sounds like a good friend,” she said.

“Yeah, I hope you get to meet him sometime.”

I was in the hospital for three days and on the fourth I was discharged. It was hard to walk and I still couldn’t take a deep breath without considerable pain. Julie and I went outside and Jimmy came across the street to meet us, still limping a little. He had a clean, white bandage wrapped around his right hand and the cuts and bruises on his face were lightening. He and Julie must’ve gone shopping because he was dressed in bright new clothes that were distinctly Mexican. He thanked me and began to apologize but I told him to forget it, that nobody owed anybody anything. Of course, it was I that owed them everything. I asked what we were going to do next and Jimmy said that they’d bought three tickets to Los Mochis that morning. No one had asked me if I’d wanted to go; they didn’t have to. The bus station wasn’t far and we waited on a bench outside, our bags at our feet. Jimmy held the cash, now in a small suitcase and totaling just less than $22,000, on his lap. Julie told me that after I’d come out of surgery she’d driven around looking for somewhere to park the Jag. She’d left the keys inside and the windows open. I hated to see that car go, but I knew she’d done the right thing; it would be stripped or smashed or lit on fire by now, gone without a trace. I dropped my cell phone in the garbage can next to the bench.

When it was time to board the bus Jimmy went ahead of us. I could see sorrow and happiness and more in Julie’s face as she took my hand and helped me up the stairs. We hadn’t really talked about what had happened back there in the desert and we would have to, for her sake, but not yet. She was sitting next to me, still holding my hand, when the bus pulled away. She told me that she was going to write Mary soon to let her know we were okay. She felt bad about the money. I looked over at Jimmy in the seat across the aisle; he was resting his head against the window, his eyes closed, the suitcase of bills wedged tightly between him and the side of the bus. I figured we’d have to keep moving from here on out. But it didn’t feel like running. I squeezed Julie’s hand. My story was getting better. THE END

The top shot was taken somewhere near Mammoth, AZ, just before 77 meets the harrowing Highway 60. The remaining three photos are from Mission San Xavier del Bac, just outside of Tucson, AZ.

A Loss for Words Pts. 31 & 32

2006-04-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

(CONTINUED) Thirty-One

The restaurant was called Rosarita’s and it was very dark inside. There were strings of tiny bulbs—probably Christmas lights—around the windows and along the top of the ceiling. It was a big place, with dark red carpet and red tables. Deep booths lined the walls, but it was late and there weren’t many customers. The hostess got up slowly from the chair she’d been sitting in and showed us to a booth. Our waitress brought us two glasses of water and menus. It was hard to know what to order.

“Are you alright?” I asked Julie.

She leaned forward and rubbed her eyes; they were still red. “I don’t know. I feel weird. None of this seems real. Maybe I’m just tired.”

I nodded. I felt the same way. Only I was starting to get used to the feeling. It occurred to me that I might feel like this for the rest of my life. “But I do like the desert,” I said, “Even at the worst of times; maybe especially at the worst of times.” I asked Julie if she’d ever lived anywhere else.

“I’ve never even thought about it,” she replied. “Maybe because I couldn’t imagine leaving Jimmy. Or maybe I just never had a reason to go anywhere else.” She hesitated a moment, then went on: “All my friends are in Santa Fe. I like working at the gallery. Even after all this time I think it’s a beautiful city.”

“It is,” I agreed.

The waitress came back. I asked for huevos rancheros and hash browns. Julie ordered a plate of nachos, the “Grande Plato.”

I didn’t know whether I should say what I had to say right then, but I figured it might be the last bit of calm for awhile, so I told her, “We can’t go back there, you know. Even if it goes better than we have any right to expect.”

“I know,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about that. I left a lot behind.”

I tell her that maybe Mary can pack up her apartment, that there might be a chance we can retrieve some of her belongings. I don’t know if that is true, but I hope that it might be. Then I ask her if there’s anywhere she can think of that would be safe to go. Maybe some place where she knows someone that could help us, someone like Mary.

She thought for awhile and then shook her head. “I can’t ask anyone to get involved. Mary can take care of herself. But what would I say to somebody else? How could I tell them?”

She was right and I was happy and I didn’t want to think about why.

“Do you know anyone?” she asked.

I thought of Ruben and shook my head. “I’m afraid I’ve burned a few bridges lately.”

Julie ran her finger down the condensation on her glass of water and said, “I haven’t even told my mother.”

The waitress brought our food and I started to feel better after the first bite. The portion was huge, but I quickly made my way through it. Then I started to help Julie work on the nachos; it really was a grande plato.

“I think we should go to Mexico,” I finally said.

Julie stopped eating. “Mexico? How will we get across the border? I don’t have a birth certificate or passport and neither will Jimmy.”

“If we go across at Sonora and act as if we’re going to stay within the border zone we might be able to get through with just our driver’s licenses. Or maybe we could leave the Jag on the U.S. side and walk across. I don’t know. We’ll have to see when we get there, but I think we should try.”

Julie ate another nacho and then said, “Okay.” Just “okay,” resigned, like there was no other option.

But for the first time in a long time I began to feel a spark of optimism. I thought that if we could make it through the next day then there might be a way out—completely out—for all of us. Yet I knew that the “if” was very big. And then, after that, we’d still need some luck at the border.

We finished our meal and I paid the bill with the last few dollars I had. I felt a little anxious to be out of money but then remembered that there were thousands and thousands of dollars back at the motel; it hadn’t occurred to me until then that petty cash was the one thing I didn’t have to worry about. When we returned to our room it was after midnight and as I closed the door Julie took my hand in hers. It was dark and I pulled her toward me and we kissed and then we kissed again and I ran my fingers through her hair and down her back. I took off the suit coat that had belonged to Mary’s dead husband, unbuckled the shoulder holster, and put the gun on the dresser. Julie unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it off me. After awhile we laid down on the bed and I took off her jeans and blouse and we kissed some more and then we stopped. I looked at her and she traced her fingers along my lips and I touched her cheek. “It’s too much,” she said. “I don’t want to feel this. Not until I know I’ll be able to feel it again.” I nodded and reached one hand down to pull the covers over us. She kissed me one more time and turned away, keeping my other hand tightly in hers and held to her chest. I pulled her close to me and, though I could not be sure, I thought that before long she was asleep.

Thirty-Two

I laid in bed for awhile listening to the cars and trucks on the interstate, trying hard not to think of what the next day held in store. I could faintly smell Julie’s shampoo and I remember that it reminded me of coconut and strawberries. It struck me that the combination seemed unusual and that’s the last thing I recall before thankfully--mercifully--falling asleep. When I woke I couldn’t tell what time it was. I could see light around the window, but the thick curtains made it impossible to tell if it was 6 AM or noon. We’d left the air conditioner on and the room seemed cold. Julie was still in my arms but I knew she was awake because she was squeezing my hand harder than she would have if she’d been asleep. I looked at the clock: 8:54 AM. I was glad for the decent night’s rest.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Scared,” she said, turning over to face me.

“Yeah, me too.”

We kissed and held each other.

“I want to thank you,” she said, her hand against my cheek. “You didn’t have to do this.” She looked sad and frightened and beautiful.

“You don’t have to thank me. Not now or ever. I should thank you.” She looked at me and I knew she didn’t understand. I wondered if I should tell her about what had happened back in San Francisco, but I immediately thought better of it. We already had enough to deal with on this morning. “When this is over you’ll know all about me,” I said, then pulled her to me again.

We kissed for awhile longer, running our hands over each other’s shoulders and stomachs and arms. In her touch I could tell that she was determined to do whatever had to be done that day. She’d found that reserve of strength that each of us must locate if we’re to get through the most dangerous times in life, those times that will destroy us if we aren’t strong enough for them. She would do whatever was necessary to save her brother or die trying.

Finally, I got out of bed and got some clean clothes and went to take a shower. When I came out of the bathroom Julie was standing in the middle of the room. She had taken the .38 out of its holster and was holding it in her hand, the barrel pointed to the floor. “I don’t know if I can use this,” she said. “I’ve never shot a gun in my life.” I went around behind her and raised her arms. I told her to grip the gun with both hands and hold it steady in front of her. Then I stepped away. “There won’t be much kickback with that gun, but there’ll be some. It’ll be loud, so don’t let that scare you. Just hold it as straight and level as you can.”

“Do you think I’ll have to use it?” she asked.

“I hope not,” I said. “We’ll have all kinds of trouble if it comes to shooting. Hopefully you won’t even have to take it out of the holster.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

I started putting my shoulder holster back on. “I’m not really sure. Maybe we can just give them what we’ve got and that’ll be the end of it. After all, this is all the money we could get.”

“What about the things at the gallery?”

I took the 9 mm out of the holster and checked the action. “I don’t believe they gave us time to sell many paintings. Besides, they’re not yours.”

Julie went to the bathroom and I sat back down on the bed and waited. I felt like I had a clear purpose and, at that moment in my life, it counted for something. But I worried that I wouldn’t be able to protect Julie. Her safety was my main concern and I was going to make sure that as long as I was up and breathing nothing would happen to her during whatever was to come.

It was 10 o’clock when Julie and I walked back over to Rosarita’s. I doubted she had an appetite and I didn’t either, but I wanted us to have something to eat. I asked her to put the .38 Special on before leaving the motel, but she insisted we wait until we got back. We had eggs and pancakes and coffee and Julie told me a story about how her brother had gotten himself stuck in a concrete drainage pipe when he was six. The fire department was called out to free him but after an hour of trying Jimmy was still in the pipe. It was determined that they’d have to crack the pipe but they didn’t want the ground to collapse and crush him. So, they’d brought in a backhoe and very carefully dug the soil off the top off the pipe. They’d had to work slowly and as the hours passed the whole neighborhood came out to watch. Some people brought food and water which they pushed in to Jimmy by using metal extension poles of the kind used to clean leaves out of gutters. When it got dark the firemen set up giant arc lights to work by. Finally, the pipe was exposed and a jackhammer was used to crack the concrete. Afterward, pale and cold, Jimmy had said that the jackhammer had made the pipe vibrate so much that his bones ached and he felt like his skin was humming. It had taken thirteen hours to free Jimmy and that night Julie had cried herself to sleep with relief, vowing never to let anything bad happen to her brother again. At the time she couldn’t have known how difficult a promise that would be to keep.

We paid our bill with some cash I’d taken out of the bag and went back to the motel. It was 11 o’clock and we decided to go over to the payphone. I helped Julie put the holster on and she trembled a little as I pulled the buckle snug. Then she put a windbreaker on over the gun and we put the money and our bags in the car. I went to return the key and then we drove over to 9th Street and parked across from the Empire Laundry. The payphone we’d been told to go to was at the corner and we’d be able to hear it ring from the car. We sat and watched the traffic on the street, not saying much to each other. I kept my eyes open for the Land Rover or anybody else that might look suspicious, but didn’t see anybody. At 11:58 the phone rang and, although we’d never discussed it, I got out of the car and ran across the street. I got to the phone on the third ring.

“Hello,” I said.

“Who is this?” asked the voice on the other end flatly.

“Tom Gould. I’ve come from Santa Fe to pick someone up.”

There was a moment of silence. “Yes, I was told that Jimmy’s sister hadn’t come alone. Why did you work so hard to lose my man?”

“I have some problems of my own,” I said. “Being followed makes me nervous.”

“I see,” replied the man. “What kind of problems do you have?”

“I’d rather not say. It doesn’t concern Jimmy or his sister. It’s my own problem.”

Another moment of silence and then the man raised his voice: “I don’t have time to fuck around here. If you want that kid back you better let me speak to his sister.”

I leaned into the phone and lowered my voice. “Listen, I don’t give a damn about the kid. Whether he lives or dies doesn’t mean a fucking thing to me. He’s going to wind up dead someday soon anyway. I only care about making sure nothing happens to his sister. That’s why I’m here. So, you deal with me. I read the note you sent and it said nothing about her coming alone.”

I held my breath for a few seconds and then the man laughed. “Fine, have it your way. I’ll tell you where to drop off the money and at that time you’ll be told where to find Jimmy.”

“No,” I said. “We’ll meet you in a public place, somewhere downtown.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the man replied. “Maybe you should speak to Jimmy.”

I heard some rustling on the other end and then Jimmy came on, his voice high and ragged. “Julie!” he yelled. “Don’t…” There was a loud thump and then I heard garbled shouting and more thumps. The man came back on the line: “I guess he doesn’t want to talk to you. It sounds like he’d like to speak with his sister.”

“I told you I don’t care if you kill him,” I said. “It’s only because his sister does that I’m trying to keep him alive. But you have to give us something I can work with.”

A few more moments of silence passed. “Okay, there’s an abandoned house at the end of Vallejo Drive, out beyond the Yaqui Indian Reservation. It’s south of town, off I-19. We’ll be inside with Jimmy and we can do the exchange there.”

“Fine. What time?”

“3 o’clock. And if you bring guns we’ll kill Jimmy, his sister, and you.”

Then the phone went dead.

Julie watched me walk across the street. “Is Jimmy okay?” she asked, as I got in the car.

“Yeah, I talked to him,” I said.

She was visibly relieved. “What do we have to do?”

“We’re going to meet them at an old house south of town, near the Indian reservation. He said to be there at 3 o’clock.”

She bit her lip. “I don’t like it.”

I started the car. “No, me either.” (CONTINUED)

The top shot was taken on Route 66, Flagstaff, AZ. The middle photo is the view across Sedona, AZ. The last photograph is 9th St., Tucson, AZ. We'll wrap this up next time.

A Loss for Words Pts. 29 & 30

2006-03-28T20:12:00.000-07:00

(CONTINUED) Twenty-Nine

I fell asleep for a few hours just before dawn and when I awoke the sun was well up but the house was quiet. I lay in bed and listened for awhile, but heard nothing, so I got up and put on some clothes and went downstairs. When I entered the kitchen I was surprised to see both Mary and Julie sitting silently at the table drinking coffee. I could feel the tension in the room. No one said anything as I went to the coffee pot and poured myself a cup. Then there was nothing to do but join them at the table. I pulled out a chair and as soon as I sat down I realized why no one was speaking; there were no words worth saying, nothing that could be easily expressed that would befit our situation. Silence was the only appropriate choice and so I drank my coffee and kept my own council and some of my thoughts were no doubt similar to those of the two women sitting next to me and some necessarily different; none were like any I had known until recently, even though I had written stories full of violence and pain, love and uncertainty, difficult decisions and death. But now that I finally knew the difference between literature and flesh-and-blood life I doubted whether many of the characters I’d created could’ve survived in the real world for very long. I began to wonder how much of myself was of my own creation and figured that the less that was down to me the better were my own odds of survival.

We each finished our coffee and then Mary finally said that we better get going and we all went out to the garage and Julie and I got in the Jag. Mary waited until I’d backed into the driveway and then she closed the garage door and got into the passenger seat. “Let’s go to First National Trust,” she said. “It’s down by the convention center.”

It was a busy Monday morning in downtown Santa Fe. Groups of pedestrians were gathered at the crosswalks and it took us longer than usual to get the few blocks from Canyon Road to W. Marcy Ave. I kept watching for anyone that might be following us, but there were a lot of cars on the road and it was difficult to keep track of them. We drove around the block a few times looking for an empty meter, then gave up and pulled into the municipal lot. I waited in the car while Mary and Julie went inside. I looked around and watched the cars and people and nothing seemed suspicious and everything seemed suspicious. I was driving a car with the wrong plates on it and shotguns in the trunk. I was a fugitive from justice and on my way to Tucson to try to rescue a drug addict from drug dealers. Sitting there in that parking lot, I started to feel nervous.

After a few minutes, Mary and Julie came out of the bank holding a canvas bag. They got back into the car and Mary told me to go to the Bank of America near the interstate exit. Again I watched my mirrors, keeping to the speed limit or slightly below. I didn’t notice anything. I waited in the car while they went into the bank. Ten minutes later they came back out with a bag.

We repeated this routine at five more banks. Nobody had an account at the last two—Mary and Julie just went inside and stood in the lobby—but we figured if we were being tailed it would appear like we were rounding up every last penny available. Including the gallery money, we had $31,094.00. Then we went to Julie’s apartment so she could pick up some clothes. I was afraid someone might have been to her place over the last two days--they might even still be there--so I went with Julie and Mary stayed in the car. But Julie said her apartment was just as she’d left it and if anyone had been in they hadn’t left the slightest trace. She checked her messages, but other than a couple calls from friends wanting to get a drink or dinner there was nothing. She quickly packed an overnight bag and we went back to the car. As we were heading back to Canyon Road I turned off Alameda and noticed a beige Land Rover slow behind me. In my rearview mirror I could see the driver, a man in his mid-thirties with two day’s worth of stubble, look at the Jag. He was wearing sunglasses, so I couldn’t follow his eyes, but it seemed like he had noticed something. However, he didn’t make the turn, but sped up again and continued straight ahead. We might’ve attracted his attention for several reasons and nothing good could come from most of them. I glanced at Julie and Mary but they were absorbed in their own thoughts and didn’t seem aware of much else.

We got back to Mary’s and I pulled the Jag into the garage. No one had eaten anything yet and Mary said she’d make us all brunch. I would just as soon have gotten on the road, but we needed something in our stomachs. Mary made us blueberry pancakes and put out a bowl of fruit. Julie only picked at her food but I told her she should eat and so she finished what was on her plate. Afterwards I packed a small bag, put the .50 caliber on top of my clothes, and strapped the 9 mm over my shoulder. Then I put on one of Dane’s suit coats that Mary had given me; Dane had been bigger than I and there was no visible bulge from the holster. The .38 was still in the living room where Julie had left it and I picked it up and put it in my bag with the .50 caliber. Then all three of us stood by the garage door for a couple minutes.

“We weren’t being followed, were we?” Julie finally asked. “Maybe we should just go to the police.”

I thought of that Land Rover but didn’t mention it. Instead, I said, “I think it might be risky.”

Mary nodded and Julie seemed about to cry again. “Then what are we going to do?” she asked.

“You’ll know what to do when you get there,” Mary replied. She seemed to mean it.

Mary and Julie embraced and then I thanked Mary and gave her a hug and she wished us luck and told us to call when we could, though she wouldn’t expect to hear from us until everything was over. Then she opened the garage door and Julie and I got in the Jag and drove back out into the cloudless blue noon and down Canyon Road. That payphone in Tucson was 600 miles away.

Thirty

We merged onto I-25 south out of Santa Fe and continued down to Albuquerque on the busiest stretch of road in the state of New Mexico. But it was the middle of the day and traffic was light. Julie looked out the window at the desert passing by--the dry gullies, blown-out trailer homes, and sprawling gas stations--but as we got closer to Albuquerque even the remnants of the desert gave way to strip malls and car dealerships. We made good time through the northern part of the city and picked up I-40 west. Soon Albuquerque was behind us and the desert reared up again as the buildings fell away. The sky loomed turquoise overhead, the sun flashed off semi trailers stacked fifteen and twenty deep in the next lane. We had yet to speak a word.

We’d been on the road for over two hours when I stopped in Sky City to get gas and something to drink. As I pulled off the highway, I noticed a beige Land Rover in the rearview mirror, but it continued west on the interstate. I could not be certain, but I thought it might be the same one I saw in Santa Fe. I began to suspect we were being followed. We wound down the frontage road, the suddenly bumper-to-bumper traffic creeping along. On the left was a massive gas station, the pumps and concrete apron spread out like an airport runway, a couple dozen semis parked along the far side. On the right was a casino, and a constant stream of RV’s and pick-up’s pulled in and out of the parking lot, which was separated from the road with orange pylons and presided over by an Indian directing vehicles with a pink flag. We had to wait in line to get to the pumps and I asked Julie if she wanted anything. She said that she’d come inside and I figured that was a good sign.

Finally, we got to a pump and I told Julie that I’d lost my credit card and she’d have to pay for the gas. In a way it was true; I’d cut my card up into little pieces back in Santa Fe. Somebody would’ve been watching for those numbers, I’d felt sure of that. Now I was almost out of cash. She gave me her card and went into the station. A couple minutes later I went in to buy a soda and two ice cream sandwiches. I didn’t see Julie inside and figured she was in the restroom. There was a copy of USA Today at the newspaper stand and I thought about picking it up, but didn’t. There was nothing I needed to know. I went back out to the car and waited for Julie. I’d finished my ice cream sandwich and was starting to get a little nervous when Julie finally came through the door of the station with a USA Today in her hand. She tossed the paper in the back seat before getting into the car. She had also purchased a bottle of water, but nothing else. I handed her the other ice cream sandwich, which was starting to melt a little. I was surprised when she took it and said, “Thank you”; I hadn’t really expected that she’d want it.

“I’ve always loved ice cream,” I said, as I pulled out of the gas station and turned back toward the interstate.

“Me too,” she replied. “There’s a place in Santa Fe that makes their own and they’ve got flavors I’ve never seen anywhere else, like sour apple and grape bubblegum.”

And so began an hour-long conversation on ice cream. We talked about our favorite flavors, the best ice cream shops we’d ever been to, and our cone preferences. We discussed consistency and sweetness, texture and cream content. When the conversation lagged we racked our brains to come up with details, no matter how trivial, to keep us talking and keep time moving. We were just west of Gallup when we dropped down a slight rise and I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the beige Land Rover at the top of the hill several cars back. Julie was telling me about some handmade ice cream she’d once had at a festival in Colorado when I interrupted her: “I think we’re being followed,” I said. She looked at me but didn’t turn around. “There’s a Land Rover a few cars back. I saw it in Santa Fe this morning and it passed us back at Sky City. Now it’s behind us again.”

“Are you sure it’s the same one?”

“No. But I don’t like the idea that someone might be tailing us. Who knows what they have in mind?”

A few minutes later we crossed the New Mexico state line. On the other side of the road was the spot where Ruben’s truck had broken down. A sign ahead indicated the turn-off for south U.S. Highway 191. I eased up the exit ramp and the Land Rover dropped back. As I crossed over the bridge that spanned the interstate I saw that the Rover had also exited and was following at a distance behind us. On the other side of the interstate 191 dropped away in front of us, straight as an arrow and nearly flat as a pancake. I didn’t see a single car in the twenty-five or thirty miles that was visible up ahead. “See that?” I said, pointing at the ribbon of empty highway in front of us. “That’s good. We can’t afford to get pulled-over.” I knew Julie was frightened, but she didn’t ask what I was going to do.

I waited until we were about five miles from the interstate then downshifted and pushed the accelerator to the floor. I could feel the Jag grab the road and in an instant Julie and I were pressed back in our seats. Behind us the Land Rover also began to gain speed. We were in the Painted Cliffs and the landscape was desolate, barren scrub desert on either side as far as the eye could see. Ahead of us, rangeland spread out to the south, broken only by rotten fences and battered windmills. In less than a minute we were doing over 120 mph and the Land Rover was falling behind. Julie gripped the dashboard in front of her and looked straight ahead. We blew past an empty concrete block tavern with Witch Well, AZ painted on the side in huge red letters. There wasn’t another building around that wasn’t in utter ruin, destroyed by the very land on which it was built. I could still see the Land Rover in the mirror and so I know he could see us. Then the road began to rise and fall a little and after a series of dips I could no longer see anything behind us. We could have picked up Highway 61 at St. John’s, but I decided to continue south, to the resort community of Eagar. There we could choose from any number of back roads and, even if the driver of the Rover didn’t decide to exit at 61, there was little chance he’d catch us. But I kept the pedal down all the way to St. John’s and then hit it again until we were into the mountains outside of Eagar.

It was not warm inside the car, but by the time we were clear of Eagar my shirt was wet and my eyes stung. The gun in its holster felt heavy against my side. Julie turned to look behind us and, since she didn’t say anything, I figured she didn’t see whoever had been back there. We started to climb higher into the mountains and the scenery was epic. Pine forests dropped away below us at every turn, revealing endless vistas of rock and tree and sun and sky. However, the road would no longer permit us to outrun even the slowest vehicle and I could only hope with everything in me that we wouldn’t have another run-in with the Land Rover.

Julie looked out her window, toward the slowly sinking sun in the west, and said, “They’re going to know about us now. That guy—whoever he was—is going to tell them what just happened.”

“I know,” I said. “But I don’t think we had much of a choice. We don’t know what that guy planned to do. Maybe run us off the road. Or follow us to our motel. Maybe he would’ve just shot us and taken the money as soon as he had a chance.”

Julie was quiet for a moment then said, “But if that’s the case, then we don’t stand a chance against these people. Jimmy might already be dead.”

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “We’ve still got the money.”

Julie turned from the window and looked at me. “No, we don’t. We have some money.”

She was right. Maybe we didn’t stand a chance.

We followed 191 as it wound its way through the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. We were not making good time and I began to expect the Land Rover around every turn, but as we neared Clifton we were still alone. I took a little detour at Clifton and picked up Highway 75 heading back toward the New Mexico border. It was early evening and I told Julie I didn’t want to get to I-10 before dark, when we’d have some cover from our pursuer, who might be scouring the highway for us at that very moment. Yet I was pretty sure I really only wanted to prolong our time in the Peloncillo Mountains, the saguaros creeping up every boulder-strewn mountainside, the tops of the peaks tinged with purple as darkness advanced, before we had to head toward Tucson. In the mountains it seemed impossible to believe that we could ever be in any danger greater than that nature had conjured all on her own, a landscape apparently hostile to every form of life, though it really was not. Out here some things did survive, and this gave me hope that Julie and Jimmy and I could too. Finally, the sky went blue-black and the sun sank behind the cactus-flecked mountains.

It was pitch dark when we doubled-back west on U.S. 70. At Safford we got gas, then dropped straight south on 191 and hit the interstate. Unless the Land Rover had pulled up right next to us, it seemed impossible that he could’ve identified us at night. I kept the Jag at 80 mph and, while I’d like to have gone faster, I didn’t dare risk it. It took us a little over an hour to get to Tucson and by then my adrenaline was gone and I was bleary-eyed and exhausted. We’d been on the road for over 11 hours.

We stopped at a motel just west of town, off the interstate. I guessed we were about fifteen minutes from the payphone. The motel sat at the end of a frontage road and it was ringed by a high fence topped with barbed wire. The bottom of the fence was covered with plastic bags and newspapers and anything else that could catch the desert wind. The parking lot was cut-off from all traffic but that destined for the motel. Julie and I walked into the lobby.

“How long have you guys been on the road?” asked the Mexican girl behind the front desk.

“That obvious?” I replied.

She smiled.

“Something over eleven hours,” I said, as Julie signed the credit card receipt. “At least I think so. I kinda lost track.”

She smiled again and handed Julie the room key and I went outside and pulled the car up in front of our door. There were pick-up trucks on either side of us and a number more scattered throughout the lot. Some of the plates were Mexican and I imagined that many of the people staying there were contractors, migrant workers, illegal aliens, anyone that needed to keep moving if they were going to survive. Like us.

We went into the room and I put the sack of money on a shelf in the closet and then tried to shut the closet door but it was off its rail and just hung from the ceiling so I let it go. I’d decided to leave the shotguns in the car. Julie put our other bags on the floor and then we each sat on a bed and while I wished I could just go to sleep I couldn’t tell whether I was dizzy from fatigue or hunger or fear or some combination. In any case, I didn’t feel well. Down the frontage road, within walking distance, was a restaurant. “I need to eat,” I told Julie. “And you should eat too.” She nodded and we got up and stepped outside. I locked the door and as we started walking my legs felt weak, like rubber. I realized my hands were shaking. I looked to see if Julie had noticed but she’d begun to cry. I put my arm around her and pulled her off to the side of the road. She began to cry harder. I held her. I began to shake harder. I wondered if this would be my last night alive. Suddenly car headlights hit us, huge and blinding. I pulled Julie close to me, believing it would be the Land Rover, but then a male voice yelled, “Get a room!” and there was laughter as the car went on and darkness settled back upon us. Julie looked at me and said, “But we’ve got a room.” She seemed so earnest that I laughed and she sniffed and smiled. I took her hand in mine and we continued on to the restaurant. (CONTINUED)

All photos were taken in the Painted Desert & Petrified Forest, Arizona, USA. And then there were two more posts.