New Mexico #9: Sadness

New Mexico #9: Sadness


So, once again, I turn to New Mexico.

This one isn't going to be so funny, either.

It will start out light-hearted…or, at least, merely melancholy. But, then, gradually, it will slide away into the dark.

This is just to warn you.

*


You will recall that I'm writing a series about my trip to New Mexico last summer. Last time we had just gone to lunch at a restaurant at Santa Fe. My father had, with his sly humor, vast intelligence, and endless reserve of low-level sadism had just terrified a snotty, self-important woman of the sort described in song and fable as a Rich Bitch. A pleasant time was had by all. Except for the Bitch. But, then, she asked for what she got. And deserved worse.

Anyway, we ate. The sandwiches were good. We finished and then Martha and I spent some time on our own looking for a graduation present for my son—he was, you'll recall, just about to get his degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.

So, Martha and I shopped. We didn't find anything we thought he'd really like. In the end, we got him a genuinely beautiful copper wall hanging form artist who lives in Albuquerque. I think he liked it. But who can tell? You give the gift and hope. It is a wise child that knows its mother. There is no parent quite wise enough to understand the child.

Anyway, so browsed a few more shops and, next we knew, it was time to catch the train. We met up with my parents and took the little van to the station.

Again, everything was magical. The station was wondrously clean. The conductors were young and cheerful. The cars were comfortable and new. We boarded and, shortly after, we were on our way.

At first, the magic continued as we went on our way. The sun was only then beginning its slow slant toward the horizon, and we'd have full daylight all the way to Albuquerque. Yet, still, everything…the mountains, the towns, the Pueblos, the adobe buildings we passed…began to take on that rose-honey color you see, sometimes, in the late afternoons of summer.

There was a crowd in the car, but, at first, people were quiet…as though no one dared to break the peace of the moment, or look away from the windows, for fear of missing something. The mountains and hills went past us, faintly glowing in the light, then we were in the Pueblos again, their streets peaceful and empty, the beautiful dome-shaped ovens beside the homes…

And then…

HE started talking.


*

You may remember way back, several New Mexico episodes ago, I mentioned that on our return from Santa Fe, we encountered a young lawyer on the train who began to lecture a pair of perfect strangers on the train about the bread ovens…and then wouldn't shut up.

Well, it was right then that the chap put in his appearance. We were not far out of Santa Fe when all of a sudden, we heard him address the party in the seat next to him. "Those are ovens," he said, cheerfully. "They bake bread in them."

His voice had a collegiate sound to it…the kind of voice you hear in a sports bar, or a bus and he's on the cell phone… loud, maddeningly chipper, and as inescapable as gamma rays at Chernobyl. He was the kind of guy to whom you'd love to respond in an appropriate way, but he's too big to hit and you don't have a chainsaw.

Somehow, he'd decided that the two women and one man next to him were tourists who desperately needed his wisdom. "It's great. You ought to try it while you're here. They call it fry bread and…"

The people tried to get a word in edgewise, "Well, that is, we—"

"But it's very rich. They cook it with butter or lard so you can't eat too much of it. And…"

"Well, we know, because—"

"And sometimes you can't get it in Albuquerque. But I think they sell it in Old Town. You really have to visit Old Town. It's…

"Because we—"

"It's a great spot if you're just starting out in New Mexico. Or if you…"

"WE KNOW! WE LIVE HERE!"

"Really?" And then, without missing a beat or displaying a trace of embarrassment, he changed the subject and was off on yet another lecture, this one on how convenient it was for him to commute from his home to Santa Fe…thanks to the train.

The three miserable souls beside him sank slowly in their seats, knowing the grim fate that awaited them.

*

He talked non-stop all the way to the station. I don't remember most of what he said…thank goodness…but pieces did stick in my memory. There was the long discourse on how boring the train ride really was, "I mean, all you have to look at is the scenery." But, he assured his victims, he could usually check email with his iPhone, so that made it a little better. So he could "get work done," instead of just "stare at rocks."

But, he continued, the train was a great way to commute. He got up at five in the morning, was at the train by six, and be in the office by seven. And then he'd catch the train home and be back by no later than nine. "It's great!"

He was on the way home early tonight because his daughter was having her birthday and he wanted to be there for it. She was, I gathered, six or seven. Usually he got home after she'd gone to bed, but today he was going to make an exception. "We're having a pony," he explained, "and a clown."

From there he was off on to the topic of child-rearing…on which, it seemed, he was a great authority. He'd seen some video on the subject, and read a book, and it was going to make everything just ducky for him while raising his daughter—the same one, that is, who was asleep when he left the house, and then was back in bed when he got home.

The theme of the book was that all human interactions are, in fact, based on commercial relations—business, in other words. So, "she doesn't get an allowance," he said proudly. "She gets commissions."

This, he explained, made all the difference. How so, it wasn't clear to me, but he assured his listeners that it did. And, besides, it would teach her to exist in a world in which nothing happens until someone sells something. Even better, "it eliminates all the tears." The girl would keep track of her commissions, and when they went to the toy store or where ever, she could buy only what she had enough commissions to purchase.

I listened. I wondered, Should I Warn Him? Should I, the father of a 25-year-old man (who knows the score) tell him what was coming? What will happen in ten years, when that girl would be sixteen, full of hormones, chasing boys, always on the phone, and telling her father exactly where he could stick his commissions?

I thought about it.

No. He'd never believe me.

In the words of the poet, there are some things that cannot be explained to virgins in either words or pictures.

*

Now, we begin our journey away from the light…


*

As I look at the material above, I realize I've been trying to be funny in this posting. At least a little. But, it hasn't felt quite right. It seemed forced.

Partly, of course, it was because of the lawyer—tall and blond, successful, every bit what this culture says a successful man should be. Or, woman, for that matter.

And, yet, in the end, he was sort of tragic. How little he understood of the world! How little it touched him. That great and magnificent world, with its mountains and desert, stretching off to infinity, and which he could have seen if only he'd looked.

And his child! I was joking—sort of—when I talked about what would happen when she was sixteen. But, it was perfectly true. Indeed, I understated the case. What will she think of this man, in ten years or twenty, when she looks back on him? The father who only appeared with a pony and a clown?

And what of him? What will he feel in forty years? When he is old? And he suddenly discovers that, by God, life is not like a corporation? That you cannot hold stock in it? Nor get a promotion by being in the office at seven? That, in the end, he who dies with the most toys, is still dead?

*

Ah, but there's the rub. We are taught this. We are taught to sacrifice all …everything in our lives!...if we "want to get ahead." It is unmanly to do otherwise. It is un-feminist to do otherwise ("you wouldn't say that if she were a man"). It is virtuous to be in the office at seven (or even six-thirty) and stay there deep into the night, your flesh growing pasty and pale under the fluorescents. Or minty green in the light of spread sheets and the powerpoints.


*


How much braver, stronger, wiser is the man or woman who defers their pleasures, their accomplishments, yes, even their fondest dreams. Who, once having the child, understands that this…the infant!...is their future, their destiny, their career. Who knows that the promotions will not come, the move to "the coast" and the corner office will be denied, because that is the nature of the bargain we have with life.

We are offered children, we are given the option of parenthood, and if we accept, then, well, the price is high. It is not happy. It is not easy. But it is the price.

The alternative is to be a stranger to your own children, and to court their justifiable hatred.

*

Let us then admit the greatness of the Small: the husbands, the wives, the stayers at homes, the worker-bees, the million-millions of men and women who are held in such thorough contempt by Hollywood and Manhattan and New England college towns.

And without whom the world would end in misery and dust.


*

Now… we move to the next part of my story. Less happy still.

*

The young professional wasn't the only reason for my sadness that day.

As we moved closer to my boyhood home, to Albuquerque, the delicate magic of the country, and the plastic wonder of the theme park known as Santa Fe, began to evaporate. The empty lots, the abandoned buildings, the dirty building, the long walls of concrete with the vast burden of gang graffiti and spray-painted obscenities…the features of a real city in this post-industrial age began to appear.

Then, we were back in the station at downtown Albuquerque. The declining light, which had seemed gentle and kind in the desert, was now merely dim. It played whitely over the concrete and the brick of the empty city, deserted on a Sunday evening.

Only the street people—and the police—were there.


*

We pulled into the station. We gathered up our jackets and purchases. The lawyer…thank heavens!...was gone.

We headed for the door. I led the way, for some reason. I don't remember why. Martha was behind me. My mother and father were behind her.

I came to the door of the train. There was a sort of bridge that led from the train to the platform. I crossed it, looking down just long enough to see that between the platform and train there was a deep gap. I could see a gravel surface below, the tracks, and the huge wheels of the train.

Martha joined me. Not thinking, we started ahead.

There was a woman's scream behind us.

My father had fallen.

*

I whirled and ran back. He was half on the bridge, one leg was over the side, down into the gap. A woman passenger and a conductor were holding on to him, desperately tight. The conductor pulled him up…finally…and I got to him.

He stood unsteadily in front of me. My mother was at his side, shaking.


*

He was embarrassed. He wouldn't stay. "Just lost my balance there." He led the way out of the crowd, thanking the woman and the conductor, and hurrying away from the scene.

*

How much pain he must have felt— the leg over the edge, the body on the bridge, straining to not to fall, the muscles contacting and tight.

He would not sit. He would not rest.

*

My father…

*

And that wasn't enough, was it? Not enough for fate and time. Not enough for a symbol. The universe wasn't finished with us.

*

We walked toward the station lobby. To get there, we had to take one route…the pathway that led from the station landing to the lobby building.

And as we turned the corner, we realized that there was a crowd of police and EMTs at the end of the path. In the street, we could see the blinking lights of emergency vehicles.

And they were kneeling and working on something on the ground.


*

We came closer. We had no choice. There was nowhere else to go.


*

It was one of the street people. He was on the ground. On the concrete. They were around him. The EMTS and the police. They circled him.

His flesh was dead white.


*

We went past him. We had no choice. There was nothing else to do.


*

We made our way past the police cars and the ambulance and the EMT truck. We made our way to the car where it was parked in the garage.

I drove us home.


*

We got to their house. We had dinner. It was my father's famous spaghetti. He's a very good cook. He served it cheerfully.

And, then, cheerfully, he asked us if we'd like dessert. Cheerfully, he brought out ice cream and cookies.

*

Then…

*

Then, the next morning, he cheerfully took me aside.

And cheerfully told me where all the family records were.

In case I should ever need them.

*

I didn't weep until later, in the guest room, with the door closed.

So no one would see or hear me.

*

Until next time.
























Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker