Albuquerque’s Far Northeast Heights

Whenever I visit my friend B in Albuquerque’s Far Northeast Heights, I am reminded of a passage in The Zozobra Incident where our hero, BJ Vinson, hauls Emilio Prada, the supposed bad-boy in the novel, to the extreme northeast heights area in search of someone who might have stolen the negatives of a group of explicit snapshots that show BJ’s client in several compromising poses. For those of you who have not yet reached a certain age…yes, there was a time when  you obtained photographs by developing and printing a roll of celluloid film impregnated with images you were interested in seeing. Take a look at the following partial scene:

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     I glanced at Emilio sitting silently beside me in the Impala. He was leading us down a meandering road in the remote Far Northeast Heights. Lampposts were infrequent. My headlights were the only bright spot in the deep night. Sandia Peak with its corona of blinking, red-tipped TV antennas and the Cibola National Forest crowded us on the east. The Sandia Indian Reservation blocked the way north.

     This was one of the ritzy sections well outside of the city limits where front yards were left desert-wild, except for cement driveways snaking across the hardpan to anchor the buildings to the roadway. Most of the landscape was vacant, but an occasional rambling house hunkered down beside some dusty road with a name like Black Bear Lane or Calle del Oso. Albuquerqueans were big on bears.

     Although it occurred to me that the good-looking creep might be planning something, it was more likely he was simply lost. It was hard enough finding an address out here in the daytime, much less at midnight.

     “Crap,” he mumbled. “It all looks different.”

     “You leading me around by the nose?”

     “Naw, I swear man. I figured I could find the guy any time I wanted.” His teeth gleamed in the faint moonlight as he smiled weakly. “He give me a hundred-dollar tip. But this don’t look familiar.”

     “Okay, you’re coming home with me for the night. I’m going to lock you in the basement. We’ll try it again tomorrow.”

     “You can’t do that. That’s kidnapping or something.”

     “Maybe so, but that’s the way it is.”

     “Go on down the road. Let’s try some more. I got a woman waiting for me, man.”

     “She’s long gone by now. But we’ll give it another few minutes.”

     As we plowed on through the darkness, the first car we’d seen in an hour of wandering the foothills came roaring up on us from the rear. Its sudden appearance made me nervous, but the massive Caddy Escalade roared by in a cloud of dust as I pulled to the side of the road.

     “That’s him!” Emilio threw a wiry arm toward the windshield. “That’s the dude’s big tank.”

     “You sure?”

     “Yeah. That’s him, I tell you.”

     “Emilio, if you’re lying—”

     “I ain’t. I swear. Follow the Caddy.”

     Half a mile farther down the dusty road, the vehicle turned left at an intersection that was invisible until you were practically through it.

     “That rock. I remember that rock.” Emilio jabbed a finger at a huge boulder on the far side of the roadway. “Yeah, remember that rock.” The excitement in his voice convinced me he was on the up and up—at least for now.

###

B’s locale no longer resembles the neighborhood described above. She lives on a paved street with a signpost clearly identifying it by name. She has neighbors on all sides of her. Indeed, the only similarity that remains is many of the yards are left “desert-wild.” Cacti proliferate.

However, B lives west of Tramway Boulevard (which is mentioned later in the same scene). The fictional address in the book lies east of the four-lane artery. So I meandered to the other side of Tramway when I returned home the other day. There are changes there, as well, but I found a section that is still pretty well represented by those descriptions in Zozobra.

Those of you who can should take a drive through the area sometime soon before that part of Albuquerque’s history is left behind in the dust of progress.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading, and let me hear from you.

Don

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

BEYOND

     The highway, rendered indistinct by rising heat waves, dropped on its undulating descent from the Continental Divide into the Middle Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. Ron Godwin shaded his eyes against the glare of the sun and felt as if he could see forever. And forever was blue. At least the mountains on the eastern horizon took on a robin’s egg wash. The biggest one was likely Sandia Peak, which made the smudge rising from its base his destination—Albuquerque. Where a new job awaited his arrival.

     This part of the world seemed to be pretty much made of rock and sand and sage and cacti and sunflowers. But for some reason he failed to understand, he liked it. Maybe it was the thin air, which smelled fresh despite dust a light wind kicked up. Or perhaps it was the silence. The eerie quiet that rang in his ears while he stood leaning on the open door of his Mazda as if he were the last man left on the planet in a sci-fi doomsday movie. It should have frightened him. Instead, he felt liberated. A man standing where God could see him instead of hiding in a mob. This was the first time he could ever remember being alone…truly alone. It was almost as if he could see into the Beyond. Certainly nothing like LA where people and noise and urban odors clogged the landscape.

     A stream of speeding semis and cars trapped behind them rushed past, shattering the illusion. He got back into his Miata and eased onto Interstate-40 East. He was reaching to turn on the radio when he noticed a figure walking at the side of the highway about a mile ahead of him. He didn’t usually pick up hitchhikers, but this was a new world with new people and new customs. Maybe it would be an Indian who could expose him to a culture he knew nothing about. Or a Mexican up from Chihuahua seeking to reunite with his family.

     He swallowed his disappointment when the hiker turned out to be a young white guy about his own age. Still, maybe he could learn something about this land he intended to make his new home. The stranger accepted the offer of a ride and settled into the passenger’s seat before extending his hand and offering his name in a clear baritone.

     “Zack Jansing. Nice wheels.”

     Ron offered his thanks, his hand, and his name before throwing the car into gear and pulling back onto the highway. Within half a mile, he was convinced he’d made a good choice. Zack was a talker, a fount of useful information. Twenty miles down the road, Ron knew as much about Albuquerque as any Chamber of Commerce brochure would have revealed. The companionship was good and easy.

     Before long, an overpass loomed ahead of them. Ron blinked when Zack told him to take the exit ramp. Instinctively, his foot hit the brake pedal, slowing the Mazda.

     “Hey, man, I don’t mind hauling you to Albuquerque, but I’m not up for a side trip. I’ve been driving since early this morning."

     “Just do it,” Zack said.

     Something in the other man’s voice caused him to glance over. Zack was holding a small semi-automatic pistol leveled at Ron’s chest. The hitcher’s flat gray eyes told Ron all he needed to know. He tromped on the accelerator. The powerful motor responded, pressing them both against the seats.

     “No way,” Ron shouted. “If you’re gonna shoot me, you’ll have to do it while we’re doing a hundred.”

     “Don’t be an idiot. I just want your money and your wheels. Pull over.”

     “Uh-uh,”

     Zack shoved the pistol into Ron’s ribs, causing him to flinch. The speeding car veered, but he regained control.

     Ron gave the other man’s arm a sharp jab with his elbow. “Get that thing outa my side!”

     That’s when things went wrong. A pop little louder than a cap pistol filled the cabin. Something punched him in the side. He had time to smell cordite and feel the pain in his chest before he lost control of his arms.

     The raspberry-colored Miata meandered left across a lane of traffic, plunged into the median, and bounced into the westbound traffic before losing to the laws of physics, rolling over…and over and over.

###

     Ron sat quietly in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Albuquerque watching people go about their business. They were all strangers, of course. He knew no one here. But there was something different about them. Or maybe it was him. No one paid him any attention. Not one person glanced his way. Not one eye met his. In fact, for a moment, he thought a woman was going to sit on his lap before a man called for her attention.

     He glanced at his watch. Odd. He didn’t have one. His diamond signet ring was gone, as well. He realized he had no personal possessions at all. Something else. The noises people made as they passed seemed oddly hollow. Eerie. Other-worldly.

     His eyes fixed on a clock on the far wall. At 4:52 p.m. on Thursday, June 26, Ron Godwin understood something profound. He was dead. Then why was he here? Alone like this, observing the world he had been born into from the Beyond.

     Suddenly, he heard a deep, commanding voice. “Ah, here you are, Ron. You eluded us there for a moment.”

     Instantly, he was swept up in a blinding white vortex.

###

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading, and let me hear from you.

Don

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

How Do You Spell Trouble? C-o-n-d-o-m

First, an apology. I have been amazingly (for me) faithful to publishing on this blog in a prompt and timely manner. This morning, I failed…for reasons that might make a decent post. So with a shame-faced grin, I ask you to please forgive me and read my short fiction piece that follows:

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THE CONDOM

     Kenny stared through ten-year-old eyes at the flat, round object lying in the dirt while his ten-year-old brain made certain connections. He knew what it was, of course. He’d seen one of Byran’s. Bryan was his older brother. It was a rubber. An unused rubber. The realization sent tingly sensations into his “parts” as he snatched the pack from the dirt. This stand of trees at the edge of the farm was a make-out place for kids old enough to drive cars and to…well, do it. His dad always complained the place needed a traffic cop.

     Had some guy’s girl refused to cooperate after he lost his protection? Kenny imagined a worked-up dude’s frustration at his own carelessness. Oh, well, that fellow’s loss was his gain. The package holding the thing was kinda pretty, like a big, extra thick gold coin glistening in the afternoon sun.

     His chores for the day finished, he’d been headed over to the Morrison farm to meet Thomas. He could hardly wait to see what his best friend would say about his lucky find. Kenny halted mid-stride. Maybe he oughta hike back and hide out in the hayloft to think about things first. He shoved the gold clad rubber deep in his overalls pocket and reversed course.

     After settling down behind a bale of hay in the loft to examine the profile of the helmeted warrior embossed on the pack, he remembered him and Tommy looking up “Condoms” on the Morrison family computer. They’d snickered over claims like extra stimulation, ultra thin, lubricated, spermicide. But the one that had got to them was “Flavored.” Why would somebody want a flavored rubber? Then they went red-faced at graphic drawings demonstrating the proper way to don a “love sleeve.” Tommy’d paid a price for that when his old man discovered where he’d been searching.

     Now, as he lay in the hay examining the thing, Kenny considered trying it on. But it was too neat to break open. He’d hang onto it, and the next time the gang did a coin toss to decide something or the other, he’d flick the pack into the air with his thumb and catch it in his outstretched palm. He tried the maneuver and called tails. Oops, there wasn’t a tail. That majestic-looking warrior adorned both sides. Great, a two-headed coin. Nah, that wouldn’t work. They’d catch on too fast.

     Involved in clearing up that point he missed the last toss, and the pack bounced on the bale and disappeared over the edge into some loose hay. While he was scrambling around trying to find it, something crunched beneath his boot.

     The thing didn’t look so pretty now. It was squashed flat. The gleaming yellow surface, now crumpled and smudged, had lost its luster…and attraction. He peeled away the top and looked at the rolled-up condom. Wasn’t anything pretty about it. Gray and kinda loathsome, really. He held it up to the light to inspect for damage. Looked okay. Since it was out, he might as well try it on. He was disappointed…and kind of bothered…when the blessed thing fell right off.

     Kenny’s mind flew in less erotic directions. Some of the older boys at school last year had filled rubbers with water and dropped them on students from the roof of the building. Thinking of nothing better to do with the ugly, penis-shaped thing, he scrambled down the ladder and peeked out into the yard. No one in sight. He slipped around the corner of the barn and shoved the condom beneath the spout of the hand pump they sometimes used to fill jerry-cans with water to take to the fields.

     He started pumping and pumping…and pumping. The blessed thing grew enormous, stretching and stretching without bursting. He overfilled it and had to let a little water escape in order to tie the ends. Once that was done, he held the big balloon in his hand while his mind proceeded to the goal it had been pursuing all along. In a few minutes, Bryan would be coming to the barn to pitch fodder for the animals. The temptation was too great. It took some doing to get the heavy, sloshing rubber—now in the shape of an elongated balloon—up the ladder without popping it, but Kenny managed.

     Once in the loft, he waited at the big double hay doors, easing them open when he heard the pump at the side of the barn. His brother was getting a drink before coming inside the barn. Kenny grinned. He’d closed the door down below, so Bryan would pause right beneath him for just a second. And a second was all he needed.

     Positioned now, he hardly dared breathe as he waited. Then there was movement. A brown hat cleared the corner of the barn. One…two…three…go!

     A fraction of a second after he released the bloated rubber, he recalled something about Bryan going into town this afternoon to check out a job at the hardware store.

     Plop. Splash.

     “What the hell! KENNY!” his father roared

###

Well, there it is. Sorry for missing my deadline. Thanks for reading.

Don

Next week: I’m concentrating on not being late again, not the subject matter.

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

A Snapshot of Beautiful New Mexico

When I started looking around for something in THE BISTI BUSINESS to talk about today, I came across the following scenes early in the book. BJ has been hired to locate the son of Napa Valley wine mogul and his traveling companion. Given that the two young men are gay and the father’s attitude is definitely homophobic, BJ wonders if the two haven’t disappeared on purpose. Nonetheless, he sets about doing what he’s been hired to do. In the following passage from the book, he contacts his old partner at the Albuquerque Police Department with the intent of picking his brains. I chose this because it gives you a flavor of downtown Albuquerque and some of the state’s other interesting points.

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Gene Enriquez, my old partner at APD, had recently made Lieutenant, and he sometimes chaffed at the rein the promotion put on his field work. When I called, he indulged in some bellyaching about being swamped but agreed to meet for a cup of coffee at Eulalia’s in the La Posada on Second and Copper, a short walk for each of us.

The central core of my building opened onto an atrium soaring through all five levels. As the elevator doors parted on the ground floor, my eyes automatically swept the waxed tiles. A year ago, a man had died on those hard clay squares when he went over the railing after attacking me on the landing outside of my office on the third floor. Sometimes I still saw smears of blood on the floor, but it was an illusion. The blue-black terracotta was scrubbed spotless and polished to a high shine.

I exited the building and headed east on Copper, pausing to say hello to the “Sidewalk Society,” nine life-sized bronzes by the Santa Fe based sculptor, Glenna Goodacre, that were grouped on the corner sidewalk outside the Hyatt Regency. After greeting the cast figures almost daily for the past few years, I had reached a few conclusions about them. The young woman with a briefcase was said to be an up-and-coming CEO, but I’m convinced she was a 1950s lawyer. The construction worker and his foreman, who sported a battered, old-style broad-brimmed hat, represented the thirties or forties. It had taken me some time to tumble to the fact the statues reflected different time periods in Albuquerque’s more recent history.

Gene yelled for me to wait for him as he strode briskly across Civic Plaza. “You always talk to statues?” He was a little breathless after running to beat the light change at the intersection. A stocky Hispanic with regular, pleasant features that seem vaguely Polynesian, Gene always appeared slightly frazzled; a consequence of dealing with the Albuquerque Police Department, a wife, and five kids on a daily basis.

I accepted both his hand and his ribbing. “Every time. Get some of my best answers from them.”

“I keep expecting one of the rookies to arrest the kid.” He motioned to the bronze of a teenager with a skateboard.

We entered the La Posada by the north entrance and stepped into another world. The interior was done in Spanish Territorial with aged wood copings, corbels highlighted in scarlet and turquoise, and heavily carved lintels. Nichos, small shelves in the white plastered walls, held carved wooden Santos and ornate Mexican tinwork. This hotel had once been part of the Hilton chain—Conrad’s first in New Mexico, as a matter of fact—but had been recently sold, yet again, and was scheduled for a makeover in the near future.

Gene and I selected a heavy oak table stained ebony by the passage of time, and claimed a pair of sturdy straight-backed chairs padded in green and gold. We spent a few minutes bringing one another up to date on our lives.

After making a brunch of the restaurant’s éclairs and a wedge of superb lemon meringue pie dribbled with chocolate, Gene was through chitchatting. “Okay, so what do you want?”

“What makes you think I want something? Can’t I call a pal without having an ulterior motive?”

“No.”

I pretended to think for a moment. “Okay then, I’ve got a client looking for his missing son and the kid’s traveling companion.” In less than two minutes, I’d briefed him on the situation.

“So they’re like that, huh?” He wiggled his hand back and forth, a gesture that was supposed to convey something. Gene knew me too well to be sensitive about my sexual orientation.

“You mean are they gay? Yeah, I’d say so.”

“And you want to get in their hotel room.”

“Seems a logical place to start since one of their fathers hired me to represent the family.”

“These two, they’re emancipated, right? Adults.”

“Both are twenty-one, according to Alfano.”

“Hmm. Alfano gonna file a missing person’s report?”

“He will if you think it’ll help.”

“Naw. We’ve got enough to do without looking for a couple of kids who’ve run off to play hanky-panky. But if they strayed across the border into Arizona, they might be cooling their heels in some county sheriff’s jail as we speak. They take that shit seriously over there.”

“Possible, but not likely. They could be in real trouble, Gene. Alfano keeps a tight rein on his boy, and the fact he’s looking for him is troubling.”

“Maybe the colt got out of the family pasture and is feeling his oats. But okay, have the old man file a report, and I’ll see if I can get us inside the hotel room. Unofficially.”

I picked up the tab to see what kind of damage Gene had done to my pocketbook. Anthony P. Alfano’s pocketbook, actually.

Gene caught me peeking at the check. “Come on, you can afford it.”

“Maybe so, but it’s not my expense; it’s my client’s, and I don’t know how picky he is.”

Gene Enriquez is a good detective and a smooth-talker, at least smooth enough to get us access to the room occupied by—or held in the names of—Orlando Alfano and Dana Norville. There was little to see. The pair had taken their traveling bags with them, leaving behind nothing personal except for two bundles of clothing destined for the laundry, the only sign they intended to return. One set of duds was expensive Abercrombie and Fitch, the other bundle was GAP. It wasn’t hard to figure which clothes belonged to what dude.

The breast pocket of one shirt held a carefully folded Chamber of Commerce brochure extolling the virtues of El Moro’s Inscription Rock and the Ice Caves near Grants. A rumpled pair of trousers—the expensive ones—gave up a not-so-neatly folded tourist road map of the state.

The bell captain remembered the two men asking his advice about the Enchanted Circle in the Taos area. They had specifically asked about white water rafting along the Taos Box.

The clerk in the gift shop remembered the pair because, she blushingly admitted, they were both so handsome. Shortly after checking in, they had picked up several pamphlets from her, expressing interest in the Turquoise Trail, a sixty-two mile National Scenic Byway up Route 14 to Santa Fe studded with quaint, historic villages. Orlando and Dana had been especially curious about Valles Caldera, the seventeen-mile wide crater of an extinct volcano south of Los Alamos, the Atomic City. Unfortunately, they also asked about Lincoln County and Carlsbad Caverns to the south and east, as well as Mesa Verde and the Bisti Badlands in the northwest corner of the state.

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How’s that for a swift glimpse of our little piece of paradise. Thanks for reading. Please let me hear from you.

Don

Next week: We’re back to “who knows” again.

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

Sometimes Life Just Gets in the Way

Once again, I’d planned to do something on The Bisti Business this week but ended up letting life get in the way of my plans. That seems to happen more and more often of late. In the first place, my new computer continues to act up. The screen occasionally burps … meaning that it will suddenly jump up a couple of inches and then fall right back where it was. That should technically qualify as a burp, right? Or perhaps a hiccup. It doesn’t do any damage or cause me to lose material, but as I get older (which is happening at an increasingly rapid pace), I become more paranoid. So I tend to view this as something analogous to a volcano. These little “interruptions” are likely precursors to a building “eruption.” So I’ll be taking the machine to the fellows who helped me obtain it in the first place to see if my fears are well founded.

However, that is not exactly what sent me off the track this week. It was something much more personal. I tend to wear plaid, Wal-Mart trousers around that house that my friend E calls “pajama bottoms.” They aren’t (and I won’t shock her by showing her the actual garment), but I like them because they are comfortable and easy to slip into. Even so, I’ve allowed her interpretation of the trousers to intimidate me to the point where I only wear them in private.

This morning, after rising earlier than usual and cleaning up, I donned a pair of these casual pants and went about my usual routine. I noticed that something wasn’t quite right, but didn’t actually realize what it was until I tried to slip my cell phone into a pocket. I had the blessed things on backward. Now think about that for a moment, folks. I walked around for half an hour with my pants turned bass-ackward without knowing it. That bears repeating: Without knowing it. This should tell you more than you want to know about the state of my aging and shifting physique. I’m not even sure you can call it a physique any longer.

Now I have friends who will say, “Aha, a wake-up call. Start watching your diet and (wait for it now) … exercise.”

There are others who will take the attitude of “so what. So long as you’re not obscene, who cares?”

I have no idea of how obscene I appeared as I felt absolutely no compunction to go check it out in the mirror. I just removed them, turned them around, and donned them the proper way. Something that took all of fifteen seconds thanks to the stretchy elastic waistband.

What is obscene, at least in my dictionary, is the word “exercise.” A shiver runs up my back every time I hear the word. (By the way, does that qualify as a form of exercise?). I’m a reasonably proficient writer, and I don’t think the word appears in any of my sixty short stories and seven published novels except to “exercise caution” or “exercise patience,” both rather non-physical applications of the word.

My friend J wrote a post to her Farther to Go blog the other day extolling the benefits of her physical exer… uh, physical exertion program. Toward the end, she said something that caught my eye. She found that sometimes sitting and imagining going through a particular routine actually helped in the physical performance of that routine. Sort of a One-Two approach.

Well, as of today, I’ve progressed to Stage One.

Check with me next month to see how much that’s helped.

Thanks for reading. Please let me hear from you.

Don

Next week: I’ll really, really try to get to THE BISTI BUSINESS.

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

Enough is Enough…and Sometimes Too Much

I’d planned to do something on The Bisti Business this week, but my new computer (did I mention I got a new one last week?) occupied too much time to organize and get rid of a glitch to get any writing done. So I succumbed to a need to write something fresh, which means we’ll have a bit of flash fiction for this post. However, I want to make it absolutely clear that what follows is in no way autobiographical.

###

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH…AND SOMETIMES TOO MUCH

     “Harry, get your fanny in gear! I told you to take out the garbage five minutes ago.”

     He flinched at the sound of his wife’ voice coming from the kitchen. He swiped ineffectually at the cigarette ash collected in a neat little pile on his undershirt. Sometimes Hilda couldn’t stand the idea he might actually sit still for a moment. At least, that’s the way it seemed to him.

     “Are you smoking in the house again? I smell cigarette smoke.”

He took a quick drag and then pinched out one butt while he heaved the other one from his chair and lumbered into the kitchen.

     His wife stood at the sink in a faded pink housecoat that looked like an out-sized Vienna sausage hugging her paunch. The tightly coiled hair curlers on her head reminded him this was Wednesday…prayer meeting night. Well, he wasn’t going. He’d put his foot down this time.

     She paused in the act of washing the supper dishes to glance at him through thick spectacles that made her eyes too big for the rest of her face. “You reek of tobacco. Get your chores done and go take a bath. But don’t use all the hot water. I still have to clean up before we go to church.”

     “Not going.” He hefted the sour garbage bag and started outside, imagining he could taste the liver and onion scraps through the plastic.

     “What was that? You’re not going? Of course, you are. It’s Wednesday night. Wednesday nights we go to prayer meetings. Have for twenty-five years.”

     “Been smoking in the house for twenty-five years, too. But can’t do that anymore.”

     He skedaddled out the back door before she had a chance to react. Harry snatched a minute to enjoy the warmth of the dying sun on his face and savor a whiff of his pink-petaled roses before going back inside to march straight into the bathroom for a tepid bath. God help him of he used too much hot water.

     At church later that evening, the preacher uttered the same words he had last Wednesday and the previous Wednesday and all the Wednesdays before that. Harry was in the row directly behind Hilda because there wasn’t room in the front pew where she sat with her friend, Goldina Frussman. Arthur Frussman occupied the pew beside him, but Harry didn’t much care for the man. From the other’s expression, the feeling was mutual.

     Harry studied the back of his wife’s head and discovered a few things he already knew but hadn’t given much thought to recently. Her shoulders were fat. Which made her neck fat. Which made… He almost snickered as he wondered what her head looked like underneath the meticulously blued hair. The mole behind her left ear had grown. Looked like a big wrinkled bug that climbed up there to die. He resisted the urge to flick the thing.

     He wanted to go straight home, but Hilda and Goldie decided to discuss Reverend Hospers’ sage comments at Burt’s Diner on the corner of Roosevelt and Third. Halfway through the second cup, Harry made as if to get up and go outside for a smoke, but Hilda firmly quashed that idea. No telling how long the coffee klatch would have gone on if Arthur hadn’t decided he’d had enough. Harry blinked when Goldie rushed to accommodate her husband.

     He almost choked on his gorge as Hilda extolled the virtue of Arthur Frussman on their three-block walk home. So firm, so decisive. Prerequisites for such a successful haberdasher, she claimed. Harry halfway hoped they’d be mugged on that long, tree-shrouded block just before they turned down their own street. He’d happily give up his wallet, his watch…anything to put a scare into his wife. But, of course, they arrived home unmolested.

     He was abed a good half hour before he was sleepy because she decided it was time. He tried to protest, but she insisted he simply wanted to sneak another cigarette. That was true, although he protested the idea.

     She nodded off  before he did, which was usual. He lay on his pillow, eyes wide open, awaiting the inevitable. Within five minutes, it began as a soft mewling sound. Then it took on a distinctive growl. Within minutes, it grew into a loud, raucous, full-throated snore that soon turned into a snorting gasp as she came awake. Hilda turned over and slapped his shoulder.

     “Harry, your snoring woke me from a sound sleep.”

     “But I haven’t been asl—”

     “Don’t argue. Go get another pillow and elevate your head. I don’t want to be awakened again.”

     Stifling a sigh, he crawled out of bed and went for the thick throw pillow on the sofa in the den. The couch looked inviting. But as he considered the idea of bedding down out here, she called out.

     “Harry, come back to bed. You know I can’t sleep with you prowling the house. Get the pillow and come to bed.”

     Harry hefted the pillow and pressed it to his nose. It cut off the air sufficiently, but she was bigger than he was. As he prepared to return to bed and accept one more humiliation, his eyes fell on a pair of scissors jutting out of his wife’s sewing basket. He carefully extracted the long-bladed shears and looked from the pillow to the scissors. After a moment, he straightened his spine, dropped the pillow, and marched resolutely into the bedroom with the shears grasped firmly in his right hand.

###

Well, what do you think? Did Harry finally get his fill and use the scissors, or did he just throw a scare into Hilda? Or maybe he returned  to the bedroom only to revert to form.

Have you ever met someone like Harry? Can you identify a Hilda you’ve known? I hope not.

Thanks for reading. Please let me hear from you.

Don

Next week: I’ll try to get to THE BISTI BUSINESS.

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

Suspicion Can Mess With Your Head!

Establishing new relationships—especially ones that have the potential to become significant—can be difficult under the best of circumstances. When the one who tugs at your heartstrings might possibly be mixed up in a blackmail scheme you’re struggling to unravel, the task becomes infinitely more difficult. That is the position BJ Vinson, the confidential investigator in THE ZOZOBRA INCIDENT, finds himself at the beginning of Chapter 11.

BJ has spent a celibate year recovering from both the gunshot wound which forced his retirement from the Albuquerque Police Department and a wrenching breakup with his life partner. When he meets Paul Barton, his interest is stirred again. He is falling for the handsome young man fast when APD Det. Eugene Enriquez, points out Paul closely resembles Emilio Prada, the chief suspect. BJ struggles with his personal desires versus his professionalism. As you can see from the following excerpt of the book, professionalism seems to be winning.

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     Early the next morning, I polished off the bagel, cream cheese, and lox Paul had prepared and watched him push his plate back from the edge of the table. He glanced up and smiled when he caught my eye.

     “I’ve been wondering how you dealt with being gay in the Marine Corps? That’s supposed to be the ultimate man machine.”

     I laughed. “It’s like anything else. It’s got a little bit of everything in it. But to answer your question, mostly I did without. There was one guy, another lieutenant, who helped me come to grips with a few things.”

     “Like what?”

     Fifteen minutes later, I realized Paul had been conducting an interview. He got me started talking about what interested him, and prompted me with a “who, what, when, and why” whenever I flagged. That was the first time I realized a journalist did much the same thing I do every day of the week. And Paul was very good at it.

     After he left, I dawdled at the dinette with a second cup of coffee while my restless mind seesawed between Paul’s departure and Del’s stubborn problem. Worse, I couldn’t avoid thinking about the possible connection between them. There are times my brain seems hard-wired toward the suspicious. The connections my devious head made were both inevitable and odious but they wouldn’t go away.

     James Addleston, Steve Sturgis, Paul Barton, Emilio Prada, and Del Dahlman. One way or the other, they all tied together as the two lawyers battled it out over a coveted partnership position potentially worth millions. Of course, it could all be happenstance, but one thing preyed on my mind more than anything else. This new scholarship of Paul’s to one of the most prestigious journalism schools in the country came in the last semester of his undergraduate career. Was Sturgis the Medill alumnus sponsoring Paul at Northwestern? The professor was a client of Emilio’s. Did Paul and Emilio know one another? It was possible, of course. Both of them frequented the C&W Palace on East Central, and two such extremely attractive guys might well have gotten together, especially with a mutual friend to introduce them—someone like Sturgis, for instance.

     I set my cup down so hard the coffee dregs sloshed onto the table. Ignoring the mess, I mentally recoiled from my thought processes. Paul fit the description of the man who rented the post office boxes as readily as Emilio.

     With dragging footsteps, I went to my bedroom and took a snapshot of Paul from a frame on my nightstand, glancing at it fondly. It was one of several I had taken last week. Dressed in black jeans and a red form-fitting pullover shirt, he stood in front of the fireplace in the den with a broad smile on his face. His black hair was slightly long and unruly, like a kid’s. I reluctantly slipped the photo into my pocket along with the one of Emilio and Estelle.

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Life is tough sometimes. Thanks for reading. Please let me hear from you.

Don

Next week: Maybe a little more from THE BISTI BUSINESS.

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

DON’T TELL ME …

When my wife died, she was occasionally taking care of three or four dogs for friends of ours, and I continue to sit one of those critters, a white and black Papillion named Gizmo. I happen to think Gizzy is one of the most intelligent animals around, but I love him and cannot be considered an objective observer.

However, the following is something that actually happened with two very likeable dogs I’d never met before I took care of them for a few days. Since I had no prior attachment to the dogs, I can represent myself as an absolutely unbiased observer. I got a big bang out of what happened and hope you enjoy reading about it.

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Dogs don’t think; they don’t reason. Everyone knows that. Their actions are dictated by a pack instinct and by rote training, right? At least, that’s the cachet. My education came a few year ago when I was cajoled into dog sitting for two families who were going on a joint vacation. The dogs were strangers to me and had only a passing acquaintance with one another.

Ursa was a loveable chocolate miniature Poodle whose primary mission in life was to sit on someone’s lap…anyone’s lap…for as long as possible. Sparkie, a West Highland Terrier, was far too independent for that sort of thing. If I plopped down on the couch, he might sit beside me, but that was the extent of his bonding.

About five days into the dog-sitting caper, I was watching television with You-Know-Who sprawled across my legs. During a commercial, I glanced at Sparkie lying under the dining room table and noticed him observing us carefully. A few minutes later, Ursa hopped down and went to the kitchen to get something to eat. The Westie immediately came over and climbed into my lap. When Ursa returned to reclaim her seat, she was clearly annoyed at the new situation. First, she leveled “the stare.” That didn’t work, so she did a little pacing, a little sitting, and periodically gave what I can only describe as a moan. A few minutes later, she tried out a yip.

When Sparkie ignored all of her tactics, the Poodle suddenly ran to the front hallway and began barking furiously, something both dogs did when anyone walked near the house. Sparkie came off my lap like he’d been goosed and raced to the door, adding his manly bark to her feminine voice.

As soon as he reached the front door, Ursa trotted back and jumped into my lap. When the Westie finally figured out no one was outside, he came back into the den. Now it was his turn to stop and stare. He’d been snookered. Ursa, the little dickens, had planned and executed her plot to regain the lap she considered her private property. I laughed myself to sleep that night.

The next evening, events played out more or less as they had the day before. As soon as Ursa went to get a drink of water, Sparkie scurried over and wanted up. The Poodle wasn’t so patient this time. Within a couple of minutes, she headed for the front door, barking as if she were fighting off crazed intruders. Sparkie came halfway out of my lap, froze for a moment, and then settled back down.

I’ll swear Ursa looked absolutely shocked when she returned to find Sparkie still taking his ease on my lap.

Don’t tell me dogs can’t think.

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Hope you enjoyed my little tale (no pun intended). Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Don

Next week: I’m getting a new computer tomorrow, and I’m sure that will provide a few oopsies to tell you about.

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

PANIC TIME!

My computer crashed last week. Talk about panic time! I couldn’t check my emails. Okay, calm down. Just sign into my blog, instead. Oops. Can’t do that, either. Edit my novel. Nope. So I sat frozen in front of a useless keyboard while the realization sank in. I was helpless. Emasculated. Rendered less than human by the failure of a piece of electronics.

A tragedy! Or is it? Perhaps it's a wake-up call. Get a life, Don! Wean yourself away from the computer. Go take a walk down in the Bosque. Skip a few stones in the Rio Grande. Check out the wildlife. Count the birds. Breathe some fresh air.

Air. Oh, yeah! There's plenty of that. The wind is blowing. It’s springtime in New Mexico, so the wind is really blowing. “Lean into it” blowing. And a cold snap has set in. Better start my new life some other way.

Go to a movie. Haven’t been to one in a while. Great. Wait. Nothing I want to see at the $2.00 theater, and nothing I’ll pay $8.00 for at the other houses.

Okay, read. I haven’t kept up with my reading properly. I pull out a James Lee Burke novel. He’s one of my favorites, so that’ll distract me for sure. But Dave Robicheaux and Creole Belle just couldn’t compete with my sense of loss. I’m off the internet, man! Disconnected from the Big World!

Oh, sure. I get news on the TV. But I can’t interact with it. What if some movie producer has sent an email desperately begging me to sell him the rights to The Zozobra Incident or The Bisti Business? What if a reader has attempted to get in touch through my blog, and I’m falling down on my promise to answer each and every contact? What if … what if … what if ….

Reality sets in. I'm a twentieth-century man caught in the twenty-first century. So I start my new life by running out and buying a new computer. Talk about pathetic!

Don

Next week: I’ll try to stop whining.

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

Who Shot Shorty: Finale

The story so far: Shorty Colson, owner of the Cartwheel Ranch was killed by a double-barreled blast of buckshot at his kitchen door one stormy night. As the crew tries to figure out who could have done it, new and surprising facts about the Cartwheel and its denizens begin to surface. Last week’s segment ended with Bushy Bushmiller turning the tables on Pencil and questioning why the old man had put up with his shenanigans over the years. Part 3 of the story begins below.

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WHO SHOT SHORTY (Continued)

     My ears flamed. I lurched to my feet. The old cowboy shuffled backwards. “Shorty Colson never laid a hand on me, and if he had, I’d have knocked him clear into next year. Shorty wasn’t—that way!”

     “Then how do ya account fer the kid there?” Bushy smirked and threw a thumb over his shoulder. Five pairs of eyes turned to focus on Pedro, who sat staring at the ground.

     I shook my head. “There’s a better way of going about this than tearing one another apart. Shorty took both barrels to the chest. A double blast from a twelve gauge has a hell of a recoil. Whoever did it oughta have a bruise.”

     “It might not be one of us, Pencil,” Tex pointed out. “And if it is, you sure you wanna know?”

     “Maybe not, but I sure as shooting want everybody to know it wasn’t me.” I stripped off my shirt.

     “Well, I ain’t got nothing to hide,” Tex declared. There wasn’t a mark on him either.

     After Red John followed suit, Bushy exposed his scrawny chest. No bruises on either one of them. As a man, we swung around to confront Lubell.

     “Now wait a minute! I’m a lady. You expect me to bare it all to you bozos?”

     Tex grinned. “Ain’t nothing we never seen before.”

     “You ain’t seen these particular ones,” she snapped. Nonetheless, she unbuttoned the man’s shirt stretched tight across her torso and pulled it down around her shoulders. “Satisfied, you perverts?”

     The arbor fell quiet as we turned to Pedro. Lubell stepped over and put an arm around the slender frame. “You leave her alone!”

     After a stunned silence, four masculine voices thundered, “Her?”

     Pedro peeked up from under Lubell’s protective arm. “You knew about me?”

     “Course I knew, honey. You tried to be almighty careful living with me in the bedroom back of the chow hall, but you slipped up a time or two. Besides, why else would Shorty put you up with the only other woman on the spread?”

     The girl pointed at Tex. “I afraid he figure it out. He a woman’s man.”

     Lubell sniffed. “If you mean a woman-chasing man, you’re right. But he ain’t no more sensitive than any other male around here. Why don’t you tell us what all this is about?”

     I stepped in. “Do you have a bruise, Pedro … uh, ma’am?”

     “Consuelo,” she said. “My name, Consuelo. Yes, bruise on mi espalda…my shoulder.” She began to shake. “Dios help me! I…I kill my papa.” She collapsed against Lubell and sobbed.

     As she told her story, the tears dried up and a streak of steel emerged. Her mother was a Mexican Shorty got sweet on after his wife passed. Worried about his son’s reaction to a new woman with a baby, he sent her home to Juarez. To the old man’s credit, he acknowledged paternity of their child—at least he sent money regularly.

     After her mother died, Consuelo made her way north to the ranch, arriving in the middle of the fall gathering when all of us, except for Shorty, were chasing cattle out of the bush and hazing the animals down to the loading pens.

     According to Consuelo, Shorty swore her to secrecy, dressed her up like a boy, and passed her off as a new hand until he figured out how to tell Junior he had a half-Mexican sister. When Consuelo overheard him talking about selling the ranch, she decided to press him to acknowledge her as his daughter.

     “I pick a bad time,” the girl said in her soft accent. “Like Lubell say, he drinking bad. But I go anyway. It was mistake. He drunk. Look at me with wild, crazy eyes. He grab me. I get away, but he catch me at the door. He…he say he don’t believe I his hija. Call my mama a bad name and say she swindle him.” The girl broke out crying. “He try to rape me!”

     Another thunderbolt out of a clear, blue sky. “Oh, Lord!” Lubell spoke for all of us.

     “The dirty old somabitch,” Bushy added. “Musta been drunk outa his skull.”

     “So … so,” Consuelo continued between sobs, “I grab big gun he keep in corner of kitchen and try to back out door. I think he stop then, but he grab the cañón … the barrel. Gun go off. I think you all hear and come running. I think whole world hear the big boom, but nobody come. I get up out of the mud and go clean up in my room. Then I cry me to sleep.”

     I straightened my spine. “Well, that solves the mystery of who shot Shorty. Somebody better go call the sheriff.”

     “The sheriff?” Everybody looked at me as if I were loco.

     “Or,” I backtracked, “we can let him do his own sleuthing.” Then with an eye to the future, I mused out loud. “Wonder if Junior will lease the spread to us?”

THE END

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Well, that’s it. Hope you enjoyed the story. Let me know if the serial thing works. Please let me hear from you.

Don

Next week: We’re back to “who knows” again.

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