New Mexico #5: The Alvarado

Okay, so, this time, I’m finally going to get to the next installment of the tale of my recent trip to New Mexico.

It will involve The Alvarado. Beautiful and gracious.

And gone.


*

I am a little melancholy in this one. So be prepared. But it does end on an up note.

Anyway, when I left off last time, in New Mexico #4, we were heading downtown. My parents wanted to take us on the “Rail Runner.” This is the new, relatively high-speed train that goes from Albuquerque, where they live (and where I grew up) and Santa Fe, which is the capital of the state and perhaps its most famous city. Santa Fe is the romantic city, where movie stars go.

Oh, some other New Mexican communities likewise have their claims to fame. Taos is where D.H. Lawrence and a host of artists and poets went to be very, very trendy and counter-cultural together in the 1920s. Meanwhile, Truth or Consequences (yes, that is its name), may be the only town in America named after a quiz show. Los Alamos is linked forever (if not quite fairly) with the Bomb. Gallup is both loved and hated for its relationship with Native Americans. Roswell has its Aliens, as imaginary as Mickey Mouse and, in their way, as much a part of pop culture.

And Albuquerque? My hometown? Largest city in the state?

Well, it’s where Bugs Bunny inevitably failed to make that left turn on the way to California.


*

My father drove us through the streets of downtown Albuquerque. Last time I talked about that a bit. How the city’s heart is nearly empty on weekends. At least before noon. Oh, you have a few souls here and there. A few business-folk going to their offices for a spot of extra work on Saturday. A few churchgoers on their way to Mass. The very, very, very few…vanishingly few … people who actually live there.

And, of course, the street people. And a few criminals. They are present. They can be found.

We parked in a large garage, took the elevator to the ground, and then walked to the train station. It is new and clean and very much out of place in the city.

I remember it from years ago. As a boy, my parents would take me east to visit my grandparents on the El Capitan or The Superchief—travelers’ trains, comfortable, elegant, exciting. Some of the last such in America. I have never forgiven the auto, the plane, and larger American culture for allowing them to die.

The station, too, is vastly changed from what it was. When I was very young, it was a magnificent place. It was, to be precise, The Alvarado. Say that word in a whisper, as though you were invoking magic. For, in fact, you are. It was glorious. A complex of buildings and shops, all in the Mission Revival style (look it up). It was a hotel, a station, a place of transport yet, also, a destination famed for its luxury. People came expressly to stay there because it was an attraction in itself.

It was lovely and elegant and …and…it is all gone now.

In 1970, Those Who Knew Best demolished it. They ripped it to pieces and carted it away as trash.

When I heard, I wept. At the age of 13, and far too old for that sort of thing, I wept.

*

Oh, God! Those Who Know Best…

May they rot in hell.

*

Today, the “Alvarado Transportation Center” is a much smaller place, more utilitarian, more in the spirit of the bus station and the commuter rail stop. It isn’t bad, really. In fact, it is much better than what was there just a few years ago.

You see, when they tore down the old Alvarado, nothing much took its place for quite some time. It was nothing but an unpaved parking lot for decades. The dust would rise from it at rush hour and settle over the streets of downtown.

I’m not sure what it was that motivated the vandals in three-piece suits who murdered the Alvarado. But, if it was their intent to profit from their actions then they gained nothing. No new and expensive office buildings took the place of the station. No business renaissance revived the area. It just sat and withered, or else attempted to give itself back to the desert from whence it came.

Or, maybe, that was the point all along. Maybe those who moved with such unseemly haste to destroy the Alvarado (sending in the bulldozers before the building’s defenders could organize or even know the crime was coming) had no intention of constructing something new. Maybe it was all simply a message. Maybe it was the way that Post-Industrial America explained itself, said Behold, the day of the train is over. The day of comfort is over. The day of your being a “passenger” is over. From hence forward, you are live freight, at best.

Get used to it.


*

Anyway…

We made our way to the new station. It required we move through the first real crowd since we’d gotten downtown. The homeless and street people of the area use the station as a refuge. Through their numbers we made our way.

My father bought us tickets. I looked around the place, intrigued by the renewal of the area. We used the restrooms and bought a cup of coffee. Then, my father said we really ought to be heading out.

We followed him outside and up a set of stairs. Then, we were on a concrete platform beside the tracks. A small but respectable group of fellow travelers were with us. We all enjoyed the sun and the felt the air.

I had memories. I remembered coming there with them when I was oh…so painfully young. I remembered waiting in the lobby. I remembered going with them to the gift shops, the restaurants…all of it. I remembered walking with my father to the newsstand. He showed me the first issue of _ Playboy _ I’d ever seen. I remember right then and right there, realizing that I was —in spite of what the coaches said during PE— very heterosexual. And that, by Heaven! my childhood was drawing towards its close.

*

I saw a sign next the stairway that led back down to the station. I can’t remember exactly what it said, but it was something along the lines of, “Okay, you’re in Albuquerque…what now?” Below that was a list of things to do in the city.

I had a vision of tourists . . . perhaps Europeans …who had come to Santa Fe and then thought, What the Heck? Let’s see Albuquerque as well.

So, one Saturday, they take the train and find themselves…

Here. In the midst of concrete and steel. And echoes. And the nearest attraction is a half hour’s taxi ride away. If you can find the taxi in the first place.

*

And, then, the perfect symbol. No director of melodrama could have planned it better. No prophet could have provided a better sign of things to come...

Of would wait for us upon our return to Albuquerque after our time in Santa Fe.


*

There were pigeons in the place. They flew in circles around us, taking rest for a moment on the roofs of the buildings, then dashing to the concrete platform to see if we’d dropped anything worth eating.

A woman beside me said, “Look! His leg!”

I looked where she pointed. One of the birds had landed beside us. He limped, dragging one leg uselessly behind him.

“He’s got a thread around it.”

She was right. There was a length of something around his leg—thread, or fish line, or something plastic, I couldn’t tell for certain. All I could see was that it cut deep into his flesh.

“Can we get it off him?” she asked.

I lied. “I don’t know.” I knew we couldn’t. I knew he’d fly the minute we got near. I knew that he was dying. The leg would wither and become infected. He’d perish. It was only a matter of time.

We heard the train in the distance. It was coming toward us.

I took off my coat and held it up. I hoped I could throw it over him, like a net. Then, if I could hold him still, maybe I could get the line off him.

The woman took the other side. We circled him. He eyed us uncertainly. I prepared to throw the coat.

The train pulled into the station.

The bird was gone in a flutter of wings. We watched it fly away towards its inevitable destruction.


*

Now, forget that small tragedy. Forget the bird and his fate.

For a moment…that is.

We will, however, return to it later.

But that’s for later.


*

The train pulled into the station. It was bright and new, as shiny and wonderful as a toy. Except, of course, that it was real, and so all the more magical for that.

Young people in conductor’s uniforms appeared and greeted us. We trooped inside and found seats upstairs on the second story of the train. Great windows opened up and we could see out and everywhere. The sun seemed already brighter.

I felt my spirits rising.

And, a moment later, we were on our way.


*

Until next time…






Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker