New Mexico #8: Fantasy

It's been awhile since I've written about the trip to New Mexico. It wasn't that I didn't want to come here and write. It's just that life has been…complicated…

But you know all about that, don’t you? All our lives are complicated in this curious age—this age in which we live on the run, this job to that, that place to this, and, in the end, we find that (somehow) we are like Alice's Queen. Moving very fast. Yet not moving at all.

So…


*

Last time, I talked about my growing sense of unease as we walked through Santa Fe. I was having memories of people and situations I'd found in that town but which were not particular pleasant.

Also, I was experiencing a certain sense of unreality, as though I were not really there at all, or else the city wasn't.

Actually, on reflection, I realized I had good reason for that. Parts of Santa Fe aren't real. They are as illusionary as the Matrix, and twice as tenacious.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Much of the city—almost all of the city!—is perfectly real. You don't have to walk far from the Square before you come to the real, living Santa Fe. A few meters, and you discover houses and condos, offices and schools, places where people live and work, and send their children to be educated. Admittedly, there are fewer such places than there used to be (with each passing year it becomes more expensive to live in Santa Fe. Property values soar and residents flee to the cheaper suburbs, or even to Albuquerque), but they exist all the same.

But, the Square, and the few blocks around it…they belong to visitors and those who sell to them. And, come let's face facts, that leads to a touch of the fantastic. We do not travel to distant places, nor pay inflated prices, for the joy of dealing with the same discomforts we meet at home. Unless we are an "adventure tourist" (and more about that in a moment), we charge up the Visa cards and suffer through the lines at airport security so that we may escape our lives. For our money, we want to be someplace where the sidewalks are clean, the meals come without our cooking them, the beds are made by magic…well, by maids, but it feels that way…and the help behind the counter is always smiling. In fact, it would be better if the help wasn't human at all. A large cartoon mouse in top hat and tails, his face frozen forever in an idiot's grin, would be best of all.

We pay, in other words, to inhabit an alternative reality, and at those prices, we damn well better get it.

Oh, and the Adventure Tourist? He, or she, inhabits the most unreal reality of all. She, or he, goes off into the wilderness on a pre-packaged thrill ride, dismissing as cowards those who might propose caution, and, then returns home with tails of a life changing experience…of terrors met…of confidence gained.

Except…

If the bungee cord should ever actually break, the bear actually elect to feast, the Iranian border guards really decide to fire…

They are so terribly, terribly offended.

*

And, understand, there is nothing wrong with this. There is nothing wrong with the falseness of tourist bubbles, in spite of the commandments of academics who tell us we should hate Disneyland (and by extension, fairy tales). People who say such things are those whose lives are sufficiently removed from daily struggle, tedium, and Quiet Desperation that they cannot understand the need for relief. They sit in their offices at Universities, grinding out turgid prose and unreadable books, failing always to understand that their comfortable, tenured lives are as fantastic and faintly ridiculous as a college kid in a Goofy suit, working his way through summer vacation.

But, that said, such places…like the Square at Santa Fe…will always have a whiff of the artificial, of unreality, of emptiness. At their best, they are like a thrill ride or an Imax movie. You buy your ticket, you lose yourself for a time, and then you walk away, relieved and exhilarated—but never believing that you have dealt with reality.

Or, at their worst, at their very worst, they leave you with the kind of vague disquiet you have sometimes in fever dreams, when you know you're dreaming, and that all you see is manufactured by Id and Unconscious, yet you do not choose to wake.


*


But…anyway.

We were going from the La Fonda, the hotel where we'd rejoined my parents, to a new restaurant my parents had discovered. My parents hunt restaurants the way that Teddy Roosevelt hunted lions and tigers and bears (oh my). They seek them out, somehow, noticing tracks in the hard soil, testing the air for the scent, and pursue.

And, amazingly, 99 times out of a 100, their discoveries are good. They always have at least three new trophies when we come to visit, the chefs' hats on mounted the wall, the leftovers stuffed and on display over the mantle.

That day, my parents were taking us to a new sandwich place they'd found. My father described it as half restaurant, half art gallery, and he led us out of the Square and up a side street. Soon, we found ourselves outside a smallish establishment with white adobe walls and blue wood trim. It could have been Greek, mysteriously transplanted by UFOs from Aegean shores. We entered. Inside the walls were decorated with various paintings from local artists. Some were good. Some were repellant. But, they were from Santa Fe. Therefore, by definition, they must be wonderful.

Under the paintings were the tables and the chairs. Men and women, and a few children, sat and talked and ate. A tall blond man materialized and asked what we wanted. My father said a table and give the total population of our party. A mere four. The tall man said it shouldn't be long. We stood in the little space before the cash register and waited while other customers came and went.

Martha and my mother fell into some conversation, I don't know about what. My father and I talked about … I believe we talked about physics. He is a physicist. A retired one but still active in the field. We were talking fusion power, and whether it were possible for the country to develop it, and if so at what cost.

And about the time I looked up and saw a woman come into the restaurant. She was, perhaps, in her late 30s or early 40s. Very stylish. Attractive. Well dressed. Large sunglasses. Short skirt. Peasant blouse. Large leather purse. She reeked, in other words, of money.

What sort of money? Who can say? Vice president of marketing on vacation money. Or real estate entrepreneur in New Mexico money. Or corporate lawyer between cases money. Or even, yes, affluent suburban wife from Connecticut money (no. Really. A few still exist. Even in this day of dual incomes and fast-track careers).

But, in any case, money. And she came into the restaurant, glanced at us, swept past, and went to the counter where the tall man stood guard. She spoke to him. I couldn't hear what she said over the sound of the crowd, nor what he replied, but there was some tension in the air. His hands came up as if to communicate something, or defend himself from a blow. Hers remained by her side, hands tight around the strap of her leather purse. Then, somehow, something was resolved. I half-heard, half read the woman's lips well enough to detect "then take-out." The man's face softened in relief. He hurried away toward the kitchen.

She paused for a moment by the counter, then drifted back to where the rest of us stood waiting for our tables. She looked at me. She looked at my father.

Always friendly, always open, he smiled and said, "Hello."

She frowned. She mumbled "'Lo." He was not important. He was old and probably senile and didn't know to speak only when spoken to. She glanced away. She stood, still in her sunglasses in the restaurant's shadowy interior, and looked out into the street.

My father eyed her. He began to smile more broadly. I knew what was coming. It wasn't going to be pretty. But, I thought, she'd brought it on herself.

*

"So," he said to her, smiling, eyes twinkling, as merry as Santa Claus on the day before noel, "isn't it a lovely day?"

She looked at him, half in surprise, half in distaste. Had he really spoken to her? Had this strange, miserable creature actually addressed her?

"I mean," he continued, still cheery, "the light, and everything. But not too hot."

She looked him up and down. I knew what she saw. He is a small man, now (how did that happen? I remember him being so tall). His hair is white, long, and wild, seeking new discoveries around his ears, his forehead, the back of his neck, uncontrolled and vastly energetic, if somewhat thinner than it once was. And he has a beard now. Also white. Pointed. Not quite a goatee, but not quite anything else either. In one light it makes him look a little like Colonel Sanders. Ah, but in another, like Mephistopheles.

Her cosmetic tinted lenses flicked up to his face. You could see her logic as clearly as if her head were made of glass. "If I say nothing," she thought, "will he go away?"

But he didn't. I knew that light in his eyes. The eyes so cheery. So merry. So mild. So…inexplicably bright and hard.

"Well," he continued, "where are you from? We're from Albuquerque. My son and his wife"—indicating me—"they came all the way from Boston."

Even through her sunglasses, you could see the discomfort. "I…ah…I'm from California."

"Really? Where-abouts? North or south?"

The cosmetic lenses panned down, like a camera trying for a Dutch Angle. I knew what she was seeing then, too. His clothing. He affects satiny sports jackets, unzipped to reveal the white t-shirt. His pants? Inevitably jeans or khakis, just a size or two off, just a decade or so out of fashion. Athletic shoes, beaten soft from long use.

"Um…south. Las Angeles."

"Ah," beaming like a street light on a winter night, "we have relatives in Las Angeles. Maybe you know them…" He named one of my uncles.

The woman took a step back, a slight tremor shaking her body.

"No, wait," he continued. "Johnny's been dead for about two years ago now. I keep forgetting that. And, besides, he moved to Reno in '79. Have you ever been to Reno?"

Even through her sunglasses, you could see the panic in her eyes.

"Well, doesn't matter. You're from L.A.? We used to drive there…when he was little" —he indicated me. "That was a lot of fun." He turned to me again. "Remember that time we went in 1968? We where in that green van." He looked at her again, explaining. "No insulation in it. You ever try to drive across Arizona in the middle of summer without air conditioning? Yes siree! It was soooo hot…"

Her back was now literally against the wall. She held her purse tightly in front of her, like a shield. You could see her fingers digging into the leather.

"And we got to the border with California. They stopped us at the state line. Do they still do that? They used to check your car to make certain you didn't have fruits or vegetables that might bring in plant diseases. Anyway, I can always remember, the guard looking into our van, me in my t-shirt, my wife in shorts, and him"—me—"not looking much better."

She swallowed. Her teeth were clinched.

"And we hadn't had a bath for a while. I mean, we were camping, so how could we?"

Little drops of sweat were forming on her forehead.

"And the guard looked into the van and said, 'Oh, my God.' We must have looked awfu—…"

The tall blond man appeared with a take-out bag. The woman dashed past my father with her credit card already out. A moment after that, she was running toward the door.

"Have a nice day," my father said, as she went. "Great talking to you."

The door closed behind her with a bang.

My father smiled once more.

*

And lunch was quite good actually. We ate with a healthy appetite.

Then, we went to a couple more galleries. And, after that, it was time to head for the train, and home.

What we did not know was what would be waiting for us at the station.

But that's for next time.

*

Onward and upward.


















Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker