They heard a door slam downstairs and a woman’s brassy voice calling, Hey, who’s here? She was starting up the narrow wooden stairs just as the two men appeared. Oh, she said, looking up at them.
It was his client. She wore a tiered calico skirt with a silver concha belt around her waist. If you looked close, you could see fantastical creatures stitched into the soft, worn leather of her boots. An old Indian had made them for her. Her blouse was stained under the arms, and her curls, unnaturally red, were piled on top of her head. Her name was Jane Riordan. The dead boy was her nephew.
When she heard, she’d come from New Mexico alone in a battered pick-up, a .38 on the seat next to her, the fringe on her jacket whipped in the air from the open window. She learned everything at once. Annie’s son was dead. Her husband had disappeared.
Joe was a cowboy. He used to sit at the end of the table like a slab of granite—when he was gone, you could see what had been in back of him. Jane kept the thought to herself: he must have ridden out into the desert and just kept going. He must be halfway across Sonora by now. He’d never spoken more than a few words to her, but she’d seen how he got when he felt crowded. And now, she decided, the desert had reclaimed him. He was just a thing the sun glinted on, out there among the jackrabbits and the cholla.
Jane was holding the family together now. She was upholding the memory of it, would be more accurate. Annie was a paper doll lying on the rough, straw-filled mattress, staring at the wall. Sometimes words slipped from between her dry lips. She was remembering—she was living in the world before Will died. Jane didn’t know if it would help to find out what had happened, but it was, just now, the only hope she had.
She sat on the front steps of the cabin and rolled a cigarette in the sun. The detective and that uncomfortable little man had gone—Sloan following as if keeping a safe distance. Sloan had a haunted look that made her trust him. He hadn’t said much. Just enough to let her know he was doing what she’d hired him for. That was plenty.
She heard the sound a horse makes when it’s being reined in, that irregular rhythm of hoofbeats, taut breath. She bent to light her cigarette, striking a flint across a stone at her feet. When she looked up, a young woman was leaping off a dusty Appaloosa. She spoke to the horse then stood there with her shoulders thrown back. Her light hair was shorn under her wide-brimmed hat. Her face was open, young, but lined around the eyes. Jane thought she knew who she was—Katie, the daughter of a rancher a few miles to the north. A bit of a loner, they said. One of Will’s only friends.
Coffee? Jane offered after a minute had passed. Cigarette?
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Flecha Caída
...This was what Oscar had to work with, and so far it wasn’t much. He stood for a moment, taking in the sadness of the place. And, truth be told, listening. If the boy wanted to tell him something, if the killer was going to let something slip, he would be ready to hear it, though it might come in low whispers like a breeze rattling the sage leaves, an inadvertent burst like a shout in a dream. The silence of the overheated room was broken by a trapped fly bouncing against the streaky windowpane, the occasional whoop of a duded-up tenderfoot.
He looked over at Elmer. The man was sweating, mopping his forehead with a red bandanna he’d drawn from his hip pocket, his dark hair stringy and thinning across the pinkness of his scalp. What do you think happened? Oscar asked. Uh, the man stuttered. Only thing I can think is, it was some—one of these Mexicans. The Indians are all drunks, on a Saturday night, one of them takes out a knife after they’ve all piled out of a bar at closing time—but the Mexicans, you look in their eyes you see all kinds of calculated meanness, yes sir. A white man can’t understand why they do what they do. Oscar turned away, thinking Elmer didn’t look so white himself—Italian, maybe. So the management wanted to pass this off on a handy scapegoat. He wouldn’t be getting much help from them—that they knew of, anyway.
They heard a door slam downstairs and a woman’s brassy voice calling, Hey, who’s here? She was starting up the narrow wooden stairs just as the two men appeared. Oh—it’s you, she said, looking up at them.
It was his client. She wore a tiered calico skirt with a silver concha belt around her waist. If you looked close, you could see fantastical creatures stitched into the soft, worn leather of her boots. An old Indian had made them for her. Her blouse was stained under the arms, and her curls, unnaturally red, were piled on top of her head. Her name was Jane Riordan. The dead boy was her nephew.
He looked over at Elmer. The man was sweating, mopping his forehead with a red bandanna he’d drawn from his hip pocket, his dark hair stringy and thinning across the pinkness of his scalp. What do you think happened? Oscar asked. Uh, the man stuttered. Only thing I can think is, it was some—one of these Mexicans. The Indians are all drunks, on a Saturday night, one of them takes out a knife after they’ve all piled out of a bar at closing time—but the Mexicans, you look in their eyes you see all kinds of calculated meanness, yes sir. A white man can’t understand why they do what they do. Oscar turned away, thinking Elmer didn’t look so white himself—Italian, maybe. So the management wanted to pass this off on a handy scapegoat. He wouldn’t be getting much help from them—that they knew of, anyway.
They heard a door slam downstairs and a woman’s brassy voice calling, Hey, who’s here? She was starting up the narrow wooden stairs just as the two men appeared. Oh—it’s you, she said, looking up at them.
It was his client. She wore a tiered calico skirt with a silver concha belt around her waist. If you looked close, you could see fantastical creatures stitched into the soft, worn leather of her boots. An old Indian had made them for her. Her blouse was stained under the arms, and her curls, unnaturally red, were piled on top of her head. Her name was Jane Riordan. The dead boy was her nephew.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Flecha Caída
Oscar slumped in an armchair in a corner of the room. He watched the men looking awkward but eager in their stiff jeans, the women affecting bandannas around their necks and pert western hats on their way out to pose against the rails of the corral, he supposed—a few kids running around outside in leather chaps, just bought at the outfitters in town. It was swell. People came here from back east because they were sick. To pretend they were Gary Cooper, Dale Evans, maybe even Cochise or Geronimo—he didn’t know or care. He was here to do a job.
It had taken him precisely 203 hours to travel to this outpost in the American desert. Women boarding the bus, crying “Arroz y gallina!,” men with cases of patent medicines, even clowns doing their hackneyed routine for spare change. Jalisco, Nayarit, Sinaloa, Sonora. Leaving the ocean behind, the air grew so dry that he choked on it.
And maybe he was sick. He felt dull in the heat that descended from heaven and rose again with a great bounce. He’d let himself think he’d grow old on the coast of Jalisco. Might as well admit he’d imagined himself in Maria’s soft arms, fleshier now that they had the boy and the girl—it was a pathetic dream. He shoved it roughly aside.
His partner, Jones, had cabled him at the hotel where he’d holed up in Puerto Vallarta—BOY DEAD AT RANCH STOP CAN YOU TAKE CASE STOP And what else was there. Perhaps one death would erase another.
Mostly he wished he were anywhere but in the corner of this low-ceilinged, wood-beamed, white-plastered room with the leather chairs that were supposed to say something like “gaucho” when you sat in them. When you sat in them, you were waiting for something.
The manager of the Flecha Caída came up, rubbing his palms. The man was short, an eastern type, like a marshmallow. Could be he came out west himself to take a cure, found a demand for his bookkeeping skills, maybe not much to go back to in Des Moines or Scranton or wherever it was he came from. Oscar straightened up. The man’s eyes were sliding around the room. When he finally looked at Oscar it was only for a second, literally one second, and then they slipped south again, veered over to the entrance to the dining room, then went out the window. Oscar filed it away. The guy probably knew something.
He was bursting with nerves as he led Oscar up a worn path, prickly pear and teddy bear cholla and sage stretching toward the Catalinas. There in a clearing, hummingbirds buzzing around the saguaro, was a little cabin. Mr. Elmer knocked on the door like a man used to knocking on doors behind which something was going on that whoever was doing it didn’t want him knowing about. There was no answer. He pulled the correct key from his pocket and opened it. There was a narrow stairway just to the right. Mr. Elmer looked at those stairs like he was looking at a snake with an open mouth. He gestured to Oscar, go on up. Didn’t want to be seen from behind, maybe.
Oscar eased into a room under the eaves. That’s where it happened, and nobody knew why. A few 45s illuminated by a single bare bulb, a program from a high school play wedged between the floorboards, a paperback western in the closet behind two single mattresses, and a boy, not even sixteen years old, hanging from a frayed lariat.
It had taken him precisely 203 hours to travel to this outpost in the American desert. Women boarding the bus, crying “Arroz y gallina!,” men with cases of patent medicines, even clowns doing their hackneyed routine for spare change. Jalisco, Nayarit, Sinaloa, Sonora. Leaving the ocean behind, the air grew so dry that he choked on it.
And maybe he was sick. He felt dull in the heat that descended from heaven and rose again with a great bounce. He’d let himself think he’d grow old on the coast of Jalisco. Might as well admit he’d imagined himself in Maria’s soft arms, fleshier now that they had the boy and the girl—it was a pathetic dream. He shoved it roughly aside.
His partner, Jones, had cabled him at the hotel where he’d holed up in Puerto Vallarta—BOY DEAD AT RANCH STOP CAN YOU TAKE CASE STOP And what else was there. Perhaps one death would erase another.
Mostly he wished he were anywhere but in the corner of this low-ceilinged, wood-beamed, white-plastered room with the leather chairs that were supposed to say something like “gaucho” when you sat in them. When you sat in them, you were waiting for something.
The manager of the Flecha Caída came up, rubbing his palms. The man was short, an eastern type, like a marshmallow. Could be he came out west himself to take a cure, found a demand for his bookkeeping skills, maybe not much to go back to in Des Moines or Scranton or wherever it was he came from. Oscar straightened up. The man’s eyes were sliding around the room. When he finally looked at Oscar it was only for a second, literally one second, and then they slipped south again, veered over to the entrance to the dining room, then went out the window. Oscar filed it away. The guy probably knew something.
He was bursting with nerves as he led Oscar up a worn path, prickly pear and teddy bear cholla and sage stretching toward the Catalinas. There in a clearing, hummingbirds buzzing around the saguaro, was a little cabin. Mr. Elmer knocked on the door like a man used to knocking on doors behind which something was going on that whoever was doing it didn’t want him knowing about. There was no answer. He pulled the correct key from his pocket and opened it. There was a narrow stairway just to the right. Mr. Elmer looked at those stairs like he was looking at a snake with an open mouth. He gestured to Oscar, go on up. Didn’t want to be seen from behind, maybe.
Oscar eased into a room under the eaves. That’s where it happened, and nobody knew why. A few 45s illuminated by a single bare bulb, a program from a high school play wedged between the floorboards, a paperback western in the closet behind two single mattresses, and a boy, not even sixteen years old, hanging from a frayed lariat.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
"Mars"
Today we visited a building in Tucson where U of A scientists are orchestrating the latest space hoax--a spaceship on Mars, suuuuuure. We thought it would be educational for Tallulah to see how these kind of games are played with the American public. It was also the last day the place was open to the public before they shipped their demo model off to the Smithsonian. During an animated video (why couldn’t they show us the real video????) we caught glimpses of several tells.
Notice the green rope clearly visible in our un-doctored photo. Case closed.
Here’s the take home: if we can pretend to put a man on the moon and a robot on Mars, surely we can build a real car that gets 300mpg.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
One adult free. See the zoo on the midway. A line undulating out of the darkness, toward those bright lights that say—over here—no, over here—camel rides and elephants, popcorn, feed the goats, dare to let that albino python writhe across your shoulders. Women spinning among a hundred hula hoops; muscled, spangled men upside down--where did they come from, why are they here, above the cheering crowd and the dust of the battered big top? One by one they slip down the velvet rope, push aside the rough silver cloth that hides the exit—on to Gilbert, Yuma, Bakersfield.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Flecha Caída
Oscar slumped in an armchair in a corner of the room. He watched the men looking awkward but eager in their stiff jeans, the women affecting bandannas around their necks and pert western hats on their way out to pose against the rails of the corral, he supposed—a few kids running around outside in leather chaps, just bought at the outfitters in town. It was swell. People came here from back east because they were sick. To pretend they were Gary Cooper, Dale Evans, maybe even Cochise or Geronimo—he didn’t know or care. He was here to do a job.
It had taken him precisely 203 hours to travel to this outpost in the American desert. Women boarding the bus, crying “Arroz y gallina!,” men with cases of patent medicines, even clowns doing their hackneyed routine for spare change. Jalisco, Nayarit, Sinaloa, Sonora. Leaving the ocean behind, the air grew so dry he choked on it.
And maybe he was sick. He felt dull in the heat that descended from heaven and rose again with a great bounce. He’d let himself think he’d grow old on the coast of Jalisco. Might as well admit he’d imagined himself in Maria’s soft arms, fleshier now that they had the boy and the girl—it was a pathetic dream. He shoved it roughly aside.
His partner, Jones, had cabled him at the hotel where he’d holed up in Puerto Vallarta—BOY DEAD AT RANCH STOP CAN YOU TAKE CASE STOP And what else was there. Perhaps one death would erase another.
It had taken him precisely 203 hours to travel to this outpost in the American desert. Women boarding the bus, crying “Arroz y gallina!,” men with cases of patent medicines, even clowns doing their hackneyed routine for spare change. Jalisco, Nayarit, Sinaloa, Sonora. Leaving the ocean behind, the air grew so dry he choked on it.
And maybe he was sick. He felt dull in the heat that descended from heaven and rose again with a great bounce. He’d let himself think he’d grow old on the coast of Jalisco. Might as well admit he’d imagined himself in Maria’s soft arms, fleshier now that they had the boy and the girl—it was a pathetic dream. He shoved it roughly aside.
His partner, Jones, had cabled him at the hotel where he’d holed up in Puerto Vallarta—BOY DEAD AT RANCH STOP CAN YOU TAKE CASE STOP And what else was there. Perhaps one death would erase another.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
AZ OD
Our Arizona odyssey--it began with some confusion. Adam's mom, Donna, and sister Chloe were coming to visit. It's hot here. Donna doesn't sweat. We live in a two-room apartment. Tucson is kinda dead in the summer. Our baby hates the car. Gas prices. We got some food and started driving.
Oracle Road used to be the main route to Phoenix. One day--October 12, 1940--the dashing silent movie star Tom Mix died along this road. His heyday was over. No one talks about why he was bound for Phoenix. I think of him getting into his car, bored and restless, headed for a bar he knew. Maybe play some cards.
In the official version of his death, he gets hit in the head with a suitcase flying out of the back seat of his 1937 Cord 812 Phaeton. Local legend, in the form of our real estate agent Alex, has it that "his spirit left his body," as it says on the memorial marker, while receiving a blow job from a Tucson prostitute. You can have a picnic near the site, out in the middle of a scorched stretch of desert.
In Scottsdale we stopped at the Sugar Bowl for root beer floats and a thing called a Golden Nugget that tasted just like orange sherbet, since orange sherbet was its main ingredient. Shouldn't something called a Golden Nugget be more exciting than that, even though all by itself sherbet suggests to me time travel--travel, to be precise, back to the late 1970s, when my sister and I used to watch "The Brady Bunch," before we became part of a couple of "blended" families ourselves, before all those child actors developed drug problems? It was even hotter in Scottsdale than it was in Tucson.
We sped through traffic and road construction and whatever else lay in our path on our way to Arcosanti, a living experiment north of Phoenix begun by architect Paolo Soleri. He wanted to design a place where ecology and high-concept architecture merged to provide an antidote to the thing Phoenix is, or should be, most known for: sprawl. We stayed in guest cubicles overlooking a peaceful mesa, a group of tiny houses among the trees where a white peacock stalked across garden plots. We vied for vegan brownies with 21st century hippies in the dining hall. Night brought loud opera and interpretive shadow dancing.
Arcosanti supports itself by selling bells made from ceramic and cast bronze. Kind of a jolie-laide thing.
After a night at a motel in Williams, we saw the Grand Canyon for the first time. Actually, that's not true. I've seen it so many times in pictures, it's become impossible to take in the "real" thing. Someone else has theorized this phenomenon, it's not an original thought, but that doesn't make it any easier to get out of my head. I'm standing here, listening to a bunch of European languages, and I just can't see the Grand Canyon, not really. All I can do is fear it.
People do fall in--apparently about six a year. Adam was not one of them.
We all wanted to see Sedona. Chloe told us about the vortexes--vortices--whatever. We went to a Goodwill located in a strip mall beneath a majestic red rock formation. Someone tried to get me to visit a time share at a golf resort. We circumambulated the Amitabha Stupa, offering up prayers for the good of all beings, thereby benefiting ourselves, but I reminded myself that, despite the current strange state of my life, benefiting myself was not the point. Actually, it was pretty uplifting. At the vortex, some life coach was telling a woman she shouldn't feel guilty about how she'd raised her daughter. But we all know how ridiculous that is.
At the cliff dwelling erroneously called Montezuma's Castle, we listened to a pre-recorded voice inviting us to imagine ourselves back in 1300 or so, when the hillside was a warren of human activity. It still was--complete with cheesy voice-over, paved paths, sweaty tourists, and squirrels carrying bubonic plague.
At Taliesin West, we understood why they call Frank Lloyd Wright a genius. "Take care of the luxuries, and let the necessities take care of themselves." Enough said.
Thank you, Donna and Chloe!
Oracle Road used to be the main route to Phoenix. One day--October 12, 1940--the dashing silent movie star Tom Mix died along this road. His heyday was over. No one talks about why he was bound for Phoenix. I think of him getting into his car, bored and restless, headed for a bar he knew. Maybe play some cards.
In the official version of his death, he gets hit in the head with a suitcase flying out of the back seat of his 1937 Cord 812 Phaeton. Local legend, in the form of our real estate agent Alex, has it that "his spirit left his body," as it says on the memorial marker, while receiving a blow job from a Tucson prostitute. You can have a picnic near the site, out in the middle of a scorched stretch of desert.
In Scottsdale we stopped at the Sugar Bowl for root beer floats and a thing called a Golden Nugget that tasted just like orange sherbet, since orange sherbet was its main ingredient. Shouldn't something called a Golden Nugget be more exciting than that, even though all by itself sherbet suggests to me time travel--travel, to be precise, back to the late 1970s, when my sister and I used to watch "The Brady Bunch," before we became part of a couple of "blended" families ourselves, before all those child actors developed drug problems? It was even hotter in Scottsdale than it was in Tucson.
Thank you, Donna and Chloe!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Independence Day at the Convention Center
Friday, June 27, 2008
Road trip
eyes on the road
Seth, "our personal coffee roaster" (oldbisbeeroasters.com), a cup of espresso in each hand and kind of wobbly, off to do some yoga. I guess there's no reason he should have recognized us.
overburden
it takes a real man
monumental
What we saw of Fort Huachuca was this. We tried to drive in, accidentally--asked for IDs we turned around--and against my protests skirted the outpost of Buffalo Soldiers, the campaign against Geronimo, as we drove through a landscape of westerns. The historical marker said nothing of loss.
Tallulah with her Grand-Frizz
Seth, "our personal coffee roaster" (oldbisbeeroasters.com), a cup of espresso in each hand and kind of wobbly, off to do some yoga. I guess there's no reason he should have recognized us.
Tallulah with her Grand-Frizz
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Bound for Tucson, Arizona
Securing the blue tarp over the foredeck
Garbage jettisoned
The scream of jet engines
Up the stairs
I would wave to imaginary journalists
In LA—the flight’s been cancelled
Waiting for the bus to Motel 6
A family, frizzy-haired mom, florid-faced dad in a Hawaiian shirt
The daughter’s wearing black, oversized sunglasses with ironed hair, her brother all in white, his sunglasses are white, a skinny black tie over his white shirt, derailed on their way from Des Moines or Kansas City, shuttled to a cheap motel—finally, puffs dad, and they follow him, carried off into the night—how did this happen?
I walk toward the ice machine on the ninth floor
Muffled shouting on the phone
The next day we share a cab, the guy fits the eight bags and the cat and some other guy’s stuff
Stoic soldiers in camouflage
I’m sure I saw a TV star—a coy glance and a little wave in the international terminal
Where I went looking for food
And I feel larger, in relief
We look at real estate with our new friend Alex, fellow aficionado of vintage appliances.
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