In the middle of the night I tossed my
belongings into my suitcase and before dawn, dashed out into the still, silent
Mexican night before I had a chance to change my mind. I quickly marched
through sleeping barrios with the loud clack-clacking of the cases wheels
causing the occasional dog to bark. I wasn’t worried about attracting roaming
thieves or the chance of encountering a trigger happy drunk cartel, I kept my
eye out for the police patrols. As a fact, I reached the border without incident
and was amazed that the customs kiosks were void of anyone. I was certain it
would be clogged with early morning commuters even at five in the morning. The
officer scanned my passport and asked weary eyed what was in the suitcase. I
nonchalantly shrugged and mumbled, “Stuff.” He simply waved me through.
I sat in a Burger King on the corner of
Paisano and El Paso Street munching on a greasy sausage and egg sandwich
contemplating what the fuck was I going to do. The rational thing was to return
to my apartment, unpack, and pay rent the following day. But, I had grown weary
of Juárez. That old bitch had not been kind the year I resided there and my gut
instinct told me it was time to lay tracks. Under the steady glare of the lone
old pervert who shared the lobby with me, I made the decision to head to Santa
Fe, New Mexico. I had pondered the location for quite some time as my final
destination for my ‘retirement’. I have grown weary of the life I lead and
secretly desired a tranquil existence to simply write and live out my remaining
years in relative peace. If that makes any sense. I was originally going to
return to Tijuana, but I have changed (as I am certain Tijuana) so much over
the last few years. I seriously do not think I could take living there again,
mentally and physically. No more adventures.
On that note, I made my way to the
Greyhound station and booked a bus to New Mexico. Luckily there was a coach
leaving at 9:25 that morning. As I stood at the boarding gate chatting with an overweight
and feminine ex-correctional officer heading to Albuquerque, my mind raced with
the loathsome memories and letdowns of the past year. All my friends of this
town and south of the border – any whom I cared to associate with – had left to
better locales…Austin, San Francisco, Paris, Mexico City. The only ones
remaining were the ignorant fucks who lacked any drive for betterment. They remained,
bitter and self-loathing in their lot. I certainly did not want to become like
that and I found myself slowly doing so.
The bus ride was uneventful and
pleasant. I sat listening to be-bop jazz as vast southwest prairies dotted with
sage brush and the occasional biscuit colored butte drifted past my view. Small
towns of rusting cars and squat adobe buildings lined with barbed wire fences,
great orchards of grapes, walnuts, chilies, garbage…we headed up into Northern
New Mexico. An old Native American, stooped and weathered wearing a large
brimmed black hat slowly watches the bus roar by. He spits tobacco onto the yellow,
gravelly terrain.
We come to the teeming metropolis of Albuquerque
where I debark and dash out to take a train toward my final destination. I find
out with dismay that the next arriving coach was in four hours, so as many others
around me, I shuffled about the vast station, chain smoking and silent,
listening down to myself. On a steel bench, I pass some time chatting with a
bitter old fuck from Australia, but he bored me quick with his bleating negative
balderdash and I simply meandered away.
Eventually, the Rail Runner train
arrived and I sat in a comfortable seat. North, up through Indian villages and
reservations and rotting farms of rolling hills and crumbling mesas, I arrived
at the station in Santa Fe in late afternoon an hour before the sun set casting
the southwestern town in fiery amber. I wandered and took a room at a nearby
hotel. Excited and someone racing with maddening anxieties, I went downtown and
ate a delicious steak dinner at the Plaza Café. Afterwards, as I stood on the
corner in the chilled evening, I was accosted a huge drunken Indian mooching
for smokes. This blue jeaned titan gives me a bear hug when I hand over two
requested cigarettes. Lifting me off my feet, he yells, “Welcome to Santa Fe!”
and then staggers off into the night to fight off phantoms of cowboys long dead.
A ver…
Indeed, I am here. And to acquire the
things that I need, it will mean I will be forced to go underground. They have
a shelter here where I will reside as I apply and wait for housing to kick in.
Well, that’s the plan, anyway as vague and by the seat of the pants as it may
be. But, at this moment, this is where I make my stand…this is where I will
make my final home.
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