Soaring Above the Rio Grande Gorge…With a Little Action Thrown In

Last week we took a trip up the Rio Grande as BJ flies to Taos in pursuit of an orange Porsche Boxter owned by one of the men the PI is looking for. This week, we’ll pick up things while flying over the magnificent Taos Gorge. We’ll not only glimpse some beautiful country but also catch a little of the action. The following scene begins on Page 31, Chapter 5 of THE BISTI BUSINESS (Martin Brown Publishers).

Please forgive the paragraph formatting on the following passages. For some reason, I can't get them to behave.

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Rio Grande Gorge Bridge

Taos claims a 6,000-year history based on arrowheads, potsherds, and pictographs left by nomadic hunter-gatherers. The town takes its name from the older Taos Pueblo, a massive, multi-storied, pre-history apartment complex of Tiwa-speaking Native Americans. Both the town and the Pueblo are cultural as well as tourist draws. Dozens of Hollywood films, documentaries, and television commercials have been filmed here ever since the 1940s.

Jim had radioed the tower well before touching down at the small municipal airport, and Officer Delfino met the plane, as promised. He turned out to be a police officer with more than a touch of the local blood. Standing five-foot-six in his boots with coarse black hair not quite long enough to wear in the traditional bun but shaggier than most lawmen, he projected a calm competence as we shook hands. It would not be wise to provoke this man. His hatchet face wore an air of serious determination, an impression reinforced by his extraordinarily broad shoulders and deep chest.

“Mr. Vinson, we might have a problem,” he said. “The sheriff’s people couldn’t find the Porsche in El Segundo, but a unit spotted it on the road. There’s a cruiser on its tail right now.”

“Do you know where it is at the moment?”

Not far to the west of us, as a matter of fact.” He motioned with his chin. “Headed for Agua Amargo…or in that direction, anyway.”

“That’ll take them over the gorge, right?”

“They’ll cross over in a few minutes.”

“Well,” I said, “let’s get going, unless you think the Cessna might make a good spotter for the sheriff’s people.”

He eyed the machine with evident interest. “Can’t hurt.”

He raised the Sheriff’s Department on his cruiser’s radio while I prepped Jim. Within minutes, we took off with the Taos policeman occupying the right hand seat while I crammed my carcass into the baggage storage cavity behind the two men. Delfino would have fit much more comfortably in the small space but he knew the territory, and I didn’t. He was of more value as a spotter in the front.

The countryside east of the airport is relatively flat and open, so automobile traffic was clearly visible. Almost immediately, we saw a county car, lights flashing, on the road ahead of us. Leading the sheriff’s cruiser by almost a mile was a blur of color that was undoubtedly Orlando Alfano’s orange Boxter. Both vehicles had already crossed the gorge.

“These guys aren’t fugitives, are they?” Delfino asked. “I thought we were just locating them for a family matter.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“So why’re they running?”

“I don’t know. Have two Anglo guys from California had any trouble around Taos in the last few days?”

“There’s no record of Alfano or Norville in the area, period. I checked every motel in the vicinity after the Albuquerque Police called. If they were here, they didn’t leave any tracks.”

“Then how did Alfano’s car get here?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but there it is right down there. Uh-oh,” Delfino said, “It turned off the road. Hope our guys see it.”

“They’re still back around the curve. They won’t see the maneuver unless the dust gives the Porsche away.”

Delfino asked Jim if he could buzz the cruiser and try to alert them.

“I can do better than that if you know the county frequency.” Jim reached for his radio dial.

Within seconds, Delfino was talking to his compadres. By that time, they had passed the point where the Porsche had left the main road. Before the cruiser could reverse direction, the orange car regained the highway, heading back toward Taos.

“You want me to distract them?” Jim asked.

Delfino shook his head. “No, they don’t realize we’re a spotter. Let’s let this play out.”

“Here they come.” I nodded at the county car now in hot pursuit. “But I doubt they have the muscle to overtake the Porsche.”

“Maybe not, but we can keep them in sight from up here,” Delfino replied.

The occupants of the fleeing car were obviously aware of the posse on their tail. The vehicle hugged the ground as it took off like it had been goosed in the rear by a hot-shot. The erratic way the car raced down the road made me question if an experienced driver was at the wheel.

“We got him now.”

Delfino pointed ahead of us. The Porsche rapidly approached the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge where a second sheriff’s vehicle sat in the middle of the span, blocking the fugitives’ escape. Even from this distance, we saw officers herding tourists off of the walkways and observation platforms of the bridge.

“Christ!” the pilot muttered. “Those guys better slow down.”

Delfino grabbed the radio mike and shouted warnings to the sheriffs’ deputies. Belatedly, the Porsche tried to stop, but it was traveling too fast. Skidding sideways, the car almost went over. Then it left the roadway short of the bridge, careening through a vacant rest area and sideswiping a stone picnic shelter. Now totally out of control, the Porsche crashed through the fenced area at the brink of the gorge. We let out a collective groan as it hurtled out into space.

Jim banked over the canyon to watch the automobile take flight. It free-fell a couple hundred feet before striking the side of the gorge, tearing out a sizeable chunk of the wall. From our perspective, it looked as if the car dropped in slow motion, tumbling over and over before smashing into the bottom of the gorge. There was no dramatic explosion, merely an awful finality as the machine appeared to disintegrate like a toy automobile smashed beneath a child’s heel.

Delfino and the pilot crossed themselves and muttered a “Hail Mary,” bringing home the awful, tragic reality of the last few moments. This was no movie stunt. Someone had just died.

###

I really get caught up in these word paintings of some of our natural wonders. Hope you don’t get tired of me fawning over the Great State of New Mexico.

Next week: The Muse hasn’t spoken.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

Back to THE BISTI BUSINESS Again

Rio Grande at Albuquerque
During Balloon Fielst

This week let’s get back to THE BISTI BUSINESS (Brown Martin Publishers). The last time we took a look at the book, our Investigator, BJ Vinson, was looking for two young graduate students touring the state in an orange Porsche Boxter. Let’s pick up the action on Page on Page 30 in Chapter 5. I picked this scene because it gives us a glimpse of the amazing changes that take place in the Rio Grande between Albuquerque and Taos, and what better way to see it than from the air. The Jim who is speaking to BJ is the pilot of the chartered Cessna.

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We encountered turbulence as the little plane lifted off from the Double Eagle Airport on the west side of town and headed straight up the Rio Grande. The browns and reds and grays of the desert terrain turned a monotonous dun as we gained altitude, broken only by darker wrinkles of dry washes known as arroyos, the double black ribbons of Interstate-25, and the dull sheen of the river—itself somewhat brown. The Rio is classified as a “dirty river,” meaning it carries high concentrations of silt on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. The green-shrouded slopes of the Jemez Mountains to the west provided a splash of color, as did the Sangre de Cristos to the north.

With a maximum range of 470 nautical miles plus a thirty-minute reserve fuel supply, the Cessna would not need to set down before reaching our destination. Taos is a 132-mile trip by car, and at a cruising speed of 129 mph, we would arrive in something under an hour.

“Quite a view, huh?” Jim asked. “I never get tired of it.”

Feeling a kinship with a soaring eagle, I took in the panorama. “Is that weather off to the west going to cause us any heartburn?” Bright bolts of lightning strobed the black sky on the distant horizon.

“I checked before we lifted off. It’s moving north-northeast, so I doubt we’ll be bothered.”

“Feel free to put down somewhere if we are.” I glanced down at the river again. “It’s really amazing how the Rio Grande changes character. Around Albuquerque, it roams around in a broad channel made for a bigger river.”

“You can blame that on the dams,” Jim observed. “When the Rio Grande was declared a wild Bosque are paying the price. They’re both slowly dying.” The Bosque was a two hundred-mile swath of cottonwood forest lining both banks of the Rio.

Rio Grande Near Taos

and scenic river, it flooded regularly. Then they put in all the dams. The way I look at it, they put an end to the flooding all right, but the river and the

Above Santa Fe, the water flowing beneath the plane picked up energy, shimmering in the sunlight as it rushed over rocks on its fall from the high country. The farther north we traveled; the wilder the river became. Soon it was white-water rafting country. A few miles below Taos, the true might and determination of the river become apparent as it raced down long boulder gardens to spill out of the black volcanic canyons of the Taos Box. From above, the river appeared to sink, but in reality, the terrain rose on its climb north toward Colorado.

Over the eons, gravity and friction and the sheer power of water molecules had carved a deep crevasse through the hard basalt of the Taos Plateau. The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge spanned that spectacular canyon ten miles west-northwest of Taos. We circled over the awesome, 500-foot cantilevered steel and concrete marvel of modern engineering as we lined up for a landing at the town’s small strip.

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I hope you enjoyed the tour. If you haven’t caught on yet…I love my adopted state. New Mexico is truly The Land of Enchantment.

Next week: Soaring over the Rio Grande Gorge

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

On the Loss of a Treasured and Gifted Friend: A Quick and Unexpected Post this Week

Digby Henry

We have all faced it before. And as we grow older, the more familiar and unwelcome the experience will be. The loss of a friend or relative or life partner. Please indulge me this week as I grieve the loss of a friend and pay homage to his memory.

Digby Henry was neither a companion of my childhood nor a long-time personal or professional acquaintance. I met him only four years ago when I joined the Bear Canyon Writing Class. My first reaction to him was…he’s a foreigner. My second was…he’s got his name roundabout. Shouldn’t he be Henry Digby? Yes to the first; no to the second. Digby still retained the charming Irish brogue he brought from the Mother Country years ago, although he was a proud naturalized citizen of the United States. But according to him, there was no mistake on his birth certificate. His family name was Henry.

Digby was clearly a poet. Not just because he wrote poetry, but because he had the soul of a poet (even though he wrote prose equally as well). His wit could be sharp and pointed or enigmatic and gentle. He wrote as he spoke, softly and in all shades of the rainbow, heavily laced with humor. Plainspoken at times, yet making you probe for his meaning at others. He loved to experiment with words, with grammar, with sentence structures. I know he was a poet because I had to struggle to understand his writing. I’m so pedestrian that if I comprehend a poem on the first reading, it must not be poetry.

Part of the shock of his loss was its sudden nature. Connie, his wife, said that he was in pain on Monday, but they could determine no cause (and they were both health care professionals). It continued to increase to the point where she took him to the emergency room at Presbyterian Hospital at eleven that night. The doctors diagnosed him with MRSA, the “flesh eating” bacteria (although the exact culprit has not yet been identified), and by one-thirty Tuesday, he had passed. Twenty-four hours…and he was gone.

Gone. Missed. Mourned. Honored. God bless, Digby Henry. I know the Good Lord will appreciate the endless hours of laughter you’ll give Him. That may be why He took you so quickly.

 
If I know Digby, at this point his eyes would twinkle and he would say, "Lighten up. Celebrate me, not mourn me." And so we shall. Even so, deepest sympathy to Connie and the rest of Digby's family.

Next week: I never know what it will be…until it happens.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

We Meet Jazz Penrod Again

In the post of July 11, I introduced you to the delightful teenager Jazz Penrod in THE BISTI BUSINESS (Martin Brown Publishers). Today, as I rummaged around for something to write about, I came upon a passage that sort of showcases his sassy, aggressive side while demonstrating he has a serious nature, too. After all, he’s doing his best to help BJ solve a murder. This begins on Page 128 of BISTI.

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CHAPTER 17

Jazz Penrod phoned early the next morning asking for a meet. When I picked him up on the sidewalk in front of his mom’s house, he was dressed in denim cut-offs so tight he’d had to split the seam up the outside of the thigh in order to sit down. A thin T-shirt with straps—what my mom had called an undershirt—exposed his broad, red-brown shoulders and sheathed his torso like original skin. He wore open sandals, more like shower clogs than shoes, without socks. He grinned and shoved a black-billed cap with a red Captain Morgan logo back on his head.

“Mr. Vinson,” he said.

I popped the lock, and he flowed into the passenger’s seat like liquid mercury. “Morning, Jazz. What can I do for you?”

“Maybe it’s what I can do for you,” he countered, and then laughed aloud at my quick frown. “No, not that. I picked up a rumor. Thought you’d want to know.”

“Fine. How about some breakfast?”

“Okay by me.”

After we gave our order to a waiter in a nearby café, Jazz threw a long arm over the back of the chair next to him. As a trained investigator, I believe I notice things others do not, but I would have erroneously described him as skinny. Not so. He was slender, yes, but buffed with defined muscles—corded muscles. That thin shirt stretching over his torso clearly outlined a six-pack.

“Okay, now tell me about that rumor.”

“My brother—you know, Henry Secatero—he called me last night. He was over at the Chapter House to meet this girl. I’d told him about those missing guys and one turning up dead, so when he heard there’d been outsiders on the rez where they didn’t have any business, he thought of Lando and Dana.”

“Did he get any details?”

“Well, there’s a car, somebody said. Supposed to have been parked out on the rim of Black Hole Canyon. Been there a few days.”

“Where is Black Hole Canyon?”

“Sort of a rugged area not too far off the highway. It’s not really a canyon, just a big-assed arroyo. But Henry said the car’s not in it, just pulled up under an overhang where it’s kinda out of sight.”

My coffee and French toast and Jazz’s bacon and eggs and hash browns with a side of ham arrived. He stopped talking and dug in, eating rapidly while I munched and mulled over what he had told me. I was tempted to dismiss the incident; there was nothing to directly tie this to Lando, but I was looking for a car, and Henry had found one. It was worth checking out.

Jazz put down his knife and fork after his last bite of ham and drained his glass of orange juice. “You wanna go take a look?”

“Jazz, you’re not out to put your mark on me, are you?” I felt like a fool; there were more attractive fish in the ocean than me, but every look, every gesture seemed to be bait—chum for the sharks.

“I wouldn’t mind,” he admitted, “but I heard you when you said you were taken. Look, I liked Dana and respected Lando. If I can help them out, I’d like to do it.”

“Fair enough. If you’re finished, let’s go.”

“Let’s rumble, but first I gotta go home and change. I’d burn up out there in the sun dressed like this.”

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So there he is, Jasper (Jazz) Penrod, aggressively showing off his natural assets, flirting, yet quite practical when he’s about to go out into the brilliant high desert sun to make what will be a vital breakthrough on the case. Go, Jazz!

 

Next week: Yep, one day we’ll get to the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness?

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

Sundogs, Moondogs, Mock Suns, and Sun Halos; the 22 Degree Phenomena

A discussion in my Bear Canyon Writing Class last Monday diverted my intent to write about something in THE BISTI BUSINESS (Martin Brown Publishers) highlighting points of interest in New Mexico.

We were reading a piece that mentioned a Sun Dog (also spelled Sundog). That was when I learned my wise old grandfather had mislead me about these critters way…way…back when I was a child. All these years, a Sun Dog to me has been a bright ring around the sun, sometime with some color to it, but sometimes not. Someone else described it as a rainbow ring around a very watery appearing sun. But most of the class considered a Sun Dog to occur when two suns appeared side-by-side (one being the actual sun; the other, the dog). I was challenged by the class to look up the phenomenon. So I did.

It seems that all three versions have some elements of truth.

A Sun Halo

First, my grandfather’s version. The Huffington Post Science section posted a piece on the most common event of this nature called a 22Á^o halo…or, more commonly the 22 Degree halo. Ergo, a SUN HALO. Citing the US Department of the Interior, they term this a type of Sun Dog.

 

Next, the watery appearing or shimmery sun with a ring around it.

A Mock Sun

Page 119 of the Fourth Edition of the DESCRIPTIONARY, A Thematic Dictionary, describes a MOCK SUN as “a false image of the sun, often watery in appearance formed by the refraction or bending of light by hexagonal crystals of ice in the air. Also known as a sun dog.”

 

 

 

 

Sun Dog over South Dakota

Finally, what appears to be the more commonly held understanding of a SUN DOG, a double (but it can be a triple) image of the sun appearing at approximately 22 degrees of separation on either side of the sun (or on both sides in the case of a triple) when the proper kind of ice crystals are present and aligned properly to refract the light.

 

 

 

Sun Dogs are technically called parhelia (meaning “with the sun). The plural for the event is parhelion. Note the following diagram:

 

Diagram of a Sun Dog

 These parhelion form at the lowest solar altitudes, but as the sun climbs in the sky, the sun dogs slowly move away from the 22 degree separation, although the remain on a parallel with the sun. At a 45 degree altitude, the sun dogs are fainter. They vanish altogether above 61 degree solar altitude. Over two millennia ago, the Greeks believed haloes and sun dogs foretold rain. Today scientists believe this is often a valid prediction because of the presence of ice crystals that form the cirrus clouds, which often precede a warm front.

Sun Dogs can be seen anywhere in the world at any time of the year, but they are most common in fall, winter, and early spring when there are the proper climactic conditions with “diamond dust,” as a certain kind of ice crystal is called, is in the air. The same conditions can produce MOON DOGS (paraselenae), but these are less commonly observed as they most often occur when the majority of us are sleeping

Sun Dogs in History:

Aristotle noted that “two mock suns rose with the sun and followed it all through the day until sunset.”

The Greek didactic poet, Aratus (ca 315-240 BC) mentions parhelia as a part of his catalogue of Weather Signs, claiming they can indicate rain or warn of approaching storms.

The Roman philosopher Cicero referred to sun dogs and similar events in his Republic (54-51 BC).

Seneca, the Roman Stoic, speaks of them in the first book of his Naturales Quaestiones.

Sun dogs are said to have had an effect on England’s War of the Roses. Three such suns appeared before the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross in Herefordshire, England in 1461. The future King Edward IV supposedly convinced his frightened troops that this represented the Holy Trinity. Edward’s troops won a decisive victory. The depiction of this event appears in William’s Shakespeare’s King Henry VI.

A set of powerful parhelia in Rome in the summer of 1624 caused René Descartes to interrupt his metaphysical studies and led to his work of natural philosophy called The World.

American nature-essayist Hal Borland’s Sundial of the Seasons had this to say about them: “Sun dogs and moon dogs are beautiful accents to a winter day or night as the rainbow is to a showery summer day.”

There it is: more than you ever wanted to know about Sun Dogs…and a partial vindication of my grandfather.

Next week: Will we ever get to the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness?

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

The Lone Ranger Gets a Head Trip

A couple of weeks back, Joycelyn (better known as "J"), a friend and longtime critique partner, suggested we go see THE LONE RANGER. Spurred by the fact that another friend, Don DeNoon, had worked a couple of days as an extra on the set, I disregarded the negative press on the movie and agreed to go.

There are things to dislike about the film if you expect cultural accuracies or a respectful treatment of the Lone Ranger saga. This is not your father’s “Hi-ho-Silver, Away” masked hero. To say the script turns the legend on its head is to give the cliché short-shrift.

One of my objections to the film from trailers and advertising was the ridiculous bird Tonto wears atop his head. It is clearly a ceremonial headgear, not something for daily wear. Yet, I soon forgot such a petty peeve when the dead crow turned into a clever and hilarious foil for Tonto…excuse me, Johnny Depp. And that’s a significant lapse. Because during the movie, Depp disappears into Tonto. After the movie, things revert to normal, and we talk about the actor, not the role.

If you go, and I recommend that you do, don’t expect anything except to be entertained, and you’ll get your money’s worth. The movie is funny, exciting, fast-paced, and terribly ridiculous…but by the end you don’t care about that last little detail. It has two outstanding stars: Johnny Depp and beautiful New Mexico…well, and Monument Valley in another unnamed state.

Depp is hilarious, ridiculous, and thought-provoking…sometimes all at the same time. He is a gifted actor, and that fact becomes apparent in this film. He, alone, is worth the price of admission.

But New Mexico! Well, it deserves an Oscar just for being there.

The crew built the town of Colby and laid five miles of functional railroad tracks on the Rio Puerco west of Albuquerque near historic Route 66. A lot of the action scenes take place there.

The rugged terrain of the privately owned Saddleback and San Cristobal Ranches near Lamy is showcased. Lamy (named for an early bishop of the See of Santa Fe) is a small town established in 1869 to serve as a railroad stop for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (now the Burlington line).

The steep canyons and the magnificent Palisades along Highway 64 between Cimarron and Eagle Nest in the northeastern part of the state see action in the film, and represent us well.

Some of the red-rock country of the Jemez Mountains along the center of the state lend color. We get glimpses of the Gilman Tunnels (two holes cut through living rock) five miles west of Jemez Pueblo. My favorite place on earth, Valles Calderas (See blog of Nov 29, 2011), appears in the movie, as does the 1,500-foot monolith, Shiprock Monument (Blog of Apr 11, 2013). We get a glimpse of the beautiful mountain vistas of Pajarito Ski Area near Los Alamos and the Angel Fire country.

I’m sure I missed some other notable places, but I hope this is enough to encourage you to go drink in the beauty of our great state…and at the same time be entertained by Disney’s and Johnny Depp’s head trip of the Lone Ranger.

By the way, Don’s significant contribution to the movie ended up on the cutting room floor.

 

Next week: We’re still working our way toward Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

 

Not Really New Mexico…But It Could Be!

This week, I’d like to visit a place in New Mexico that doesn’t exist…but could. My blog post of Jan 17, 2013 details BJ’s trip out of Albuquerque on I-25 past the Rio Puerco, the old Laguna Pueblo, Mt. Taylor (Tsoodzil or Turquoise Mountain to the Navajo), and beyond Grants to the big truck stop called Chesty Westey’s. It describes his lunch at Tia Maria’s Café, but now let’s take a look at the big bar out behind. The following is from the book THE BISTI BUSINESS  (Martin Brown Publishers, LLC):

 

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While waiting for Alfano or his attorney to come up with the satellite positioning information for the Porsche, I had decided to follow the only decent lead I had. Four names had been scribbled on the back of that wrinkled and tattered state tourist map in Orlando’s laundry. The first three were gay bars and hangouts in Albuquerque. The fourth was simply “Chesty’s!!!” The three exclamation points lent that single word importance.

There was no place more likely to capture the imagination of two young gay adventurers than Chesty Westey’s Truck Stop on the Continental Divide just off I-40 in western New Mexico. I had experienced the same titillating curiosity about the place in my salad days. Immediately upon hitting the legal age, I had headed due west with pounding heart and high expectations. Frankly, when I arrived, the place scared the living hell out of me. I had heard about Eagle Bars, and while Chesty’s wasn’t labeled as such, it was nonetheless an out-and-out Bear place filled with bikers and truckers. Now, fourteen years later, I experienced the same trepidation at tackling the place, especially to ask a lot of awkward questions.

###

Begin to get a feel for the place? After parking, BJ enters Tia Maria’s, the truck stop’s café, for a mouthwatering meal and a short conversation with a truck driver named Tree Trunk before venturing over the arroyo to the gay bar to look up Sweetie, the manager of the joint, and ask about the two missing men.

###

I left the car where it was and walked across the footbridge spanning a broad, deep gully to a big, ramshackle adobe with a ten-foot neon sign on the roof modestly proclaiming it The Continental Divide Bar. It staggered the imagination to find a real leather and Levi joint out here in the hinterlands of New Spain, but here was Chesty Westey’s notorious sin palace—if you can call a half-acre mud building a palace. They said the Continental gets plenty of uniforms from the Air Force community in Albuquerque and Army boots from Ft. Huachuca over in Arizona, but it was predominately a trucker and the biker joint.

The south parking lot was full of animals, presidents, exotic metals, Swiss auto racers, and American industrialists: Cobras, Mustangs, Lincolns, Mercurys, Chevrolets, and Fords. Towering over them all were the big rigs like Tree Trunk’s long-nosed aardvark. The north lot was given over to two-wheeled chrome hogs, hog-wagons, and choppers. There was no orange Porsche Boxter in either lot.

The atmosphere hit me in the face like a pillow of wet feathers the moment I walked through the door. The air was heavy: smoke-heavy, fart-heavy, beer-heavy, sweat-heavy, with the musk of men on the make permeating everything. After buying a beer, I hauled it around on a tour of the place. The main bar was immense, meandering out of sight in two different directions, one leading to a big patio, the other to a smaller, quieter bar and thence to the back rooms.

There wasn’t a stranger around, blind or sighted, who couldn’t find the right bathroom in the Continental. A big curved brass penis mounted on the door identified the men’s side, and an embossed plaque in the shape of labia marked the women’s. Apparently everyone used the phallus as a door handle; it was worn thin, making the engorged head appear outlandishly huge.

The joint undulated like a den of writhing serpents. The clack of billiard balls and thunk of darts and an outclassed, inadequate, old-fashioned juke box laid down the beat; the talking, laughing, drinking, cussing, spitting customers and blousy waitresses, almost all of them with bolt-ons, as these people likely called boob-jobs, provided a wonderful, discordant rhythm.

Deciding it was time to make my pitch, I claimed a spot at a tiny table opposite a mountainous black man in bib overalls boasting the long, graying beard of an Old Testament patriarch. Tree Trunk had said Sweetie was his handle, but it should have been Sweaty. This guy would have perspired in an icehouse.

“What’s new, Sweet?” I went for the personal touch and lost my fist in the grip of a gigantic coal black paw.

“This ain’t your kinda joint,” he said in a high-pitched voice as effeminate as any swish-queen I’ve ever encountered.

“How do you know?”

His big rheumy eyes gave me the once-over. “Honey, you got a waistline, that’s how I know. Look around at these bozos. Ain’t a one of them even remembers where theirs is at.” He paused and read me with shrewd eyes. “’Sides, I been around long enough to know these things.” He leaned forward, bringing the odor of sweat with him. “You might like to play, but these ain’t your playmates.”

“You’re probably right. But I’m looking for two who are. Okay if I show you a couple of photos?”

He leaned back; making his reinforced chair creak. “You could be fuzz, but the aura ain’t quite right. You believe in auras?”

“Oh, yeah. Auras…energy…whatever you want to call them.”

“Yours is yellow. Goes to green sometimes, but mostly yellow. I’d say that makes you an okay dude except I keep getting a flash of tin. You a cop?”

“Used to be. I’m private now. And I’m not looking to jam up these two guys. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve got a right to live their own lives.”

“Amen to that, brother. All right, show me the pictures.” The giant’s eyes lit up when I handed them over. “Oh, them sweethearts.”

###

And just like that, BJ has his first lead…one that ultimately takes him all over Northern New Mexico.

Next week: We’re working our way toward Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness. Maybe we’ll get there next week…if something doesn’t interfere.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

 

My How Time Flies When You’re Having Foolishness

I’ve been promising to get back to the basic intent of this blog, which is to showcase some of the beautiful places in the great State of New Mexico. Today, I wandered back through prior posts and realized the last time I’d done that was on April 25 when we took a look at “Hogans, Homes, and Ceremonial Lodges.” After that, I got caught up in my own foibles and foolishness. Rather egotistical, I’ll admit, but fun at times, as well.

So today, let’s go back to THE BISTI BUSINESS and see what we can discover of interest. We’ve already taken a look at Taos and Farmington and the Navajo Reservation. Rather than a place this time, let’s look at one of the more interesting characters in the book. An eighteen-year-old half-Navajo, half-Anglo kid who also is unabashedly gay and pretty hep.

Jazz Penrod isn’t swishy or obvious about it beyond the fact he’s as beautiful as any woman in town and a tad more graceful than most guys. Men—and women—have been going gaga over him since he hit puberty. Let’s let Melissa, the clerk at The Trail’s End on Main, describe him for us. Our intrepid PI, B. J. Vinson, has tracked the two men he’s searching for to this motel. The “Cruz” mentioned at the beginning of the exchange is a connection from Taos BJ’s trying to run down. The conversation begins on Page 55 of the book:

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         Melissa frowned. “I don’t know any Cruz. This was a local kid. Jazz Penrod.”
        “You know anything about him?”
        “I know him,” she said without any inflection in her voice. “Trouble. Has been since he was thirteen.”
        “What kind of trouble?”
        “Maybe you better go ask somebody else. I don’t like gossiping.”
        “Okay, lend me your phone and I’ll call Sergeant Dix Lee at the FPD and have her come ask the questions.”
        “All right, Jasper Penrod is a mixed blood kid who’s lived here all his life. Here and on the Big Rez.” She tossed her head in a westerly direction. “He’s about the biggest competition the girls in this town have. He’s as pretty as any of them—heck, prettier—and he likes the same thing they do, except he’s more aggressive about it.”
        “He’s gay?”
        “Most definitely.”
        “You mean dresses up in women’s clothes?”
        “Not Jazz. He dresses like a man and acts like a man, but he puts the moves on a man just like a woman. Been more than one guy in trouble for fooling around with Jazz when he was underage.”
        “How old is he now?”
        “About eighteen.  He’s a good kid, really. By that, I mean, he doesn’t get anyone in trouble on purpose. But he wants what he wants, and isn’t shy about it.”
        “A kid could get in trouble for that—especially around here, I understand.”
        “Yeah, a lot of the fellas don’t like gay people. And Jazz doesn’t make any bones about being that way. But he does it different. Not faggy or flighty or anything like that. And he’s just so…so pretty.”
        “A pretty face sometimes causes bad trouble.”
        “You’re right about that. But his daddy’s one mean Indian, and he’s got a whole clan to back him up—including Jazz’s brother. Half-brother, I guess. So the word went out, and nobody in his right mind tackles Jazz. His mom’s brother stands up for him, too. He’s white.”

 

###

And that is our introduction to Jasper Penrod—any question about why he prefers Jazz?—a lively, curious, and intelligent young man who introduces us to his equally sexy but fiercely heterosexual Navajo half-brother, Henry Secatero. But does BJ make a mistake when he enlists Jazz’s help in locating his client’s missing son? Jazz so enthusiastically throws himself into the role of a junior PI he could be courting danger. And even a street-wise kid may be no match for a brutal murderer.
So does he help or hinder BJ in his quest? You’ll have to read the book to find out…but I will say you might see more of Jazz Penrod in a future novel in the series.

Next week: Maybe some more about THE BISTI BUSINESS, but that depends on how much Stupid I get mixed up in between then and now.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

Fears Have A Way of Catching Up With You

A few Saturdays ago, I realized my day had gone exceedingly well. I had slept seven hours the previous night (something I am seldom able to do). After breakfast, I got down to work on a final edit on a novel and made good progress. My back was behaving to the point that I took a walk without realizing I was walking…and that’s the best kind because it means it’s not painful or uncomfortable. I had even completed the post for my blog to be published later that week. A major accomplishment for me.

Once I realized all of this, the other side of my nature kicked in, and I desperately hoped the telephone wouldn’t ring. Why? Perfectly obvious. Things couldn’t get much better, so a ringing phone could only bring bad news. Well, the dreaded call did not come, and I finished the day on a high note. My groundless fears didn't come to pass…although I did not sleep as well that night.

Then Tuesday rolled around. Not a good day. Not much sleep the night before. Nonetheless, I got organized and headed out to Sam’s Club for gas and some bacon before the day heated up. (Hundred degree plus days.) I elected to gas up the car before going inside the store. While the hose was feeding $3.34.9 gas into my tank, I grabbed the squeegee and some paper towels to wash my windows…which needed a cleaning badly (See post of June 13 on Haboobs and Verga Bombs). And by the way, why doesn’t anyone have the guts to call gas $3.35 and be done with it? Who’s going to drive to another station for a one-tenth-of-one-cent price differential? A penny, maybe.

Anyway, I got the windows done except for the rear window on the driver’s side. By that time, the squeegee needed to be cleaned and replenished with water. I looked at the hose hanging out of my tank, and I looked at my car. Walking around it would be the safest course (remember, I’m neither agile nor steady since my back operation). But the container holding the water was barely beyond my reach…why walk all the way around the vehicle when what I needed was right there virtually within my grasp.

You guessed it…I took the bold approach. Caught my foot in the hose and went over hard. I crawled around on my hands and knees (scraped all to hell and gone, of course) but couldn’t get to my feet. The attendant tried to help, but all he did was flip me over on my butt. Another customer rushed over, and together they got me upright. Results: I lost a lot more than the time it would have cost to take the prudent course, have earned myself at least one more session with my VA physical therapist, ended up on pain pills, and am walking with a cane again.

Well, that wasn’t the end of me proving to myself and the world that for a fellow supposedly of at least normal intelligence, I can be pretty blessed dumb. In that bit about Haboobs and Verga Bombs, I told you my 1974 Montgomery Ward washing machine died a premature death. I ended up purchasing a new machine, an Amana (about which I know nothing) that is very basic. Pour in the detergent, let it do its thing, and then take the clothes out.

 

The dealer delivered it on the Friday the 14^th. I did my first wash the next day. I intended to stand there and watch the process unfold, but the phone rang and demanded an answer. I left the machine clicking and hissing and filling with water. By the time I finished talking on the phone, the machine was finished. Fast! Great, uses less electricity that way. Plus, the clothes didn’t take much time in the drier because they’d spun so dry in the washing machine.

The next week, I washed again, still intending to watch the parade of little colored buttons detailing the stages of the wash . While the machine filled, I returned to the computer to get a short job done. Lo and behold, before I was finished what I was doing, it had finished what it was doing.

The following Sunday, I washed again, and this time I stood in front of the machine for the entire process…which took about one minute. The green light indicated it filled. And then the blessed machine skipped over things like “Wash” and “Rinse” and went to “Final Spin.” Suspicions confirmed. In minutes, I was speaking to the salesman who’d sold me this dud. He promised a technician (read repairman) would be out on Wednesday.

Before I left for my ill-fated visit to Sam’s for gas, I got a call saying the technician would be available about noon today—Tuesday, if that was convenient. Sure. Earlier was better. Not necessarily, if you’re going to perform acrobatics with a gasoline hose. Even so, I was bleeding and hurting and home by the time the man arrived.

That poor guy worked for almost an hour. I glanced in on him once, and he had pieces off that Amana I didn’t even know would come off. He performed every test, recalibrated the internal timing mechanism, and then told me he couldn’t find anything wrong.

We decided to wash a few pieces of clothing…after all, I had plenty that had gotten dripping wet with Arm & Hammer-laden water and then spun dry with the chemicals from the detergent still in it.

So I showed the technician exactly how I poured in detergent, dropped in the clothing, and started the machine. First off, he told me I was putting in ten times the amount of detergent that was needed and about three times the stain remover. Great, neither is cheap, and they’ll last a lot longer now.

Then I went through the process of setting the water level with hot/cold (explain that one to me, please) water, and then used the last indicator to turn to a light load. Old faithful started filling with water, skipped right over to “Final Spin” and spun.

“See,” I said. I’m sure my disdain for a technician who couldn’t tech competently was fairly obvious.

“I do see,” he said. “I see it did exactly what you told it to.”

Then with the exaggerated patience of one dealing with an idiot, he pointed out I’d used the wrong end of the indicator to select what I wanted. I’d put the blunt end to “Light.” The tapered end, which is what I should have been using, pointed directly at “Drain/Spin.”

He was better at concealing his feelings about a consumer who couldn’t consume competently, but I’m pretty sure I was the butt of several jokes down at Baillio’s…maybe still am.

Next week: Depends on how much "Stupid" I have to report between then and now.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

 

Cry Justice for Peter

I was rummaging around in a box of old things the other day and found two sheets of paper stuck between the pages one of my college yearbooks. I do not remember the name of the author of the words typed on the paper—I had several gay friends back in those days. Nor do I know if the events described were factual or apocryphal. But the essay so dramatically contrasts the general attitudes of the fifties about gays with the prevailing attitudes of today that I decided to publish them as my post this week. Not only does the piece highlight a remarkable change in attitude toward gays, it also serves as a warning that in some places what is described could still occur. So please read the following with that in mind.

###

CRY JUSTICE FOR PETER!

By Anonymous

“Wicked!” sneer the narrow-minded Righteous.

“Queers!” hiss the smug, thin-lipped Virtuous.

“Nay!” my heart cries.  “Tis love as deep and abiding, as sweet and strong as any that enrich your lives.”

Pitying their ignorance, I draw close my friend and lover and move to pass them by.  But it is not to be.

On this day, Noble Society and Bigoted Religion extract a toll for flaunting their archaic injunctions.  And just as with women stepping beyond accepted boundaries, and Black slaves chafing against heavy chains, and First Nations fighting stubbornly for their ancestral homelands, we learn the cost is exorbitant.

Cretins tear away my beloved.  Two odiferous toughs pin my arms.  A florid man of dark, heavy jowls pummels bloody my lover.

Oh, how proud I am as Peter shakes them off and stands tall and manly to face his tormentors.  A foolish mistake, of course, but one born of intrepid pride.  Four barbarians beat him unmercifully until the growing unease of passive onlookers give them pause.

Smaller, weaker, and frankly not so valorous, I cannot fight my way free of those who hold me helpless.  Denied the consideration of even one disdainful blow, I am shoved atop my fallen hero as they depart, laughing crudely at the life-lesson taught the fags.

Sobbing myself into paralysis, I watch helplessly as a precious, sensitive life ebbs away on the hot, mean sidewalks of that accursed city.

And who will give me justice for the horror of this cruel bereavement?  Not the black-uniformed storm trooper who laughs there is one less sissy to plague the world; not the dog-collared clergy of the stately cathedral towering mutely above us across the street; and certainly not a shocked and aroused citizenry wrathfully demanding equity.

For the first time, I truly understand that dreadful credo of the old West:  “The only good Indian is a dead Indian!”  An epithet applicable to those without a roseate hue—such as me and my love.

But beware!  I am yet here, energized by my rage and emboldened by my crushing loss, I live to plot retribution on the hide-bound, sanctimonious fools who dare impose their morality--even to the destruction of one superior to them all in every way that counts.  And do not look down long, blue noses and proclaim “Love it or leave it” to me.  For I am legion in your midst, claiming equal ownership of this, my fatherland.

Yes, I am here to stay.  And in my own time, in my own way, I will raise my voice and Cry Justice for Peter!

###

Perhaps the time has come for that voice and that cry. For the life of me, I cannot see how the value of a human being can be discounted simply because he or she is “different.”

This past Tuesday, a protestant church in Rio Rancho, New Mexico informed the scout troop they had been sponsoring it was no longer welcome because the Boy Scouts of America now accepts gays in its membership. How ironic that this action drives home the two points I want to make with this post. The action of these good Christians was sufficiently odious to be aired on prime-time news, reflecting the change in attitude of the general public. Yet their bigotry was pointed enough to give warning danger still lurks for gays.

Are we not all God's children?

Next week: Perhaps the Shadow knows, but if he does, he hasn’t told me.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.