Special to The Tribune
SANTA FE, New Mexico - The word in the streets here is not about drunken mayors or abusive husbands. Not even close. Here, no doubt, some wayward cowboy is likely guzzling a beer over at Tiny's Lounge, readying his lies for the little woman doing her best with her adobe life. Yeah, there are hardluck stories everywhere these days. It's almost Summer and again the town agonizes over its up & down water supply. Some woman was in the paper the other day with her soft-moaning tale of errant prairie dogs hassling her squirrels. Another called the night editor of The Santa Fe New Mexican to say she'd found a ragged copy of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel she thought someone would want returned.
Elsewhere in town, it was just another nice early weekday, winds sloping down from the Sangre De Cristo Mountains and the people over at 10,000 Waves Japanese Spa busy readying their lovely, lovely joint. I enjoy going there. For 50 bucks, you get a private hot tub and two towels. A requisite: nudity.
You stay there an hour, jumping from the cold-water tub to the hot one while angling meaningful body parts at one another and pretty soon the little lady says she's working up an appetite. I eat better after sex. It's just who I am. New Mexico venerates me in many ways. I am somewhat known around here, especially over at The Coyote Cafe, where I always reserve a table in the rooftop dining area, there alongside the open-air bar.
Darlene's still living here. She and some other woman own a real estate outfit catering to big-pocket Easterners. She smiles whenever a few years roll by and, one day, I'm back in town. Her dog - Zuleika - forgets about me, but the barking stops at midnight. Darlene keeps my document files in her computer, even a few unfinished stories from the early 1990s. We're close, or as close as the road allows. She's from Canada, although that's so far back in her past she claims New Mexico as her homeland. We used to spend long Saturdays and Sundays together, over at Nambe Falls, where we threw rocks into the creeks between fish kisses, and up in Taos, where we hung out at some plaza hotel bar until closing. Along the way, she liked to stop at Embudo Station on the banks of the passing Rio Grande, where we sat at a patio table in the place's only eatery. Chili pie, baby, is what I'd say to the waitress. Then came Darlene's line: "You like her, don't you?"
"I do," I'd say, and that would serve as the agreed-upon demarcation line in our relationship.
I'd marry Darlene, but it's too late for that. We enjoy each other, crazy-love flashbacks especially...
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4 comments:
Living on The Border, We have so many Cast outs from Both societies. Most of the People are descendants of uneducated, lower social and economic status people, coming from Rural farms / ejidos from Northern Tamaulipas, or bordering Mexican dusty towns.
Coming to the U.S.A. is like beign in PARADISE, evrything belongs to the Dominant Anglo - Saxon - Caucasian Society. They are just happy and Glad to Eat Fatty Stuff and have a Job With a White Boss, whom intimidates Them and Brainwashes Them , giving All Chicanos / Mexican - Americans an Inferiority Complex for Speaking Spanish. That way; Controling them and Making Them to Denied Their Roots.
Third Eye, you have full-grasp of the sickening local culture. The imagery that plays away from here is of a people lugging 12-pack beer cases out of a Walmart after work and of a battered woman screaming for her life as she takes blows to the chest, legs and face. We have no problem in saying the Rio Grande Valley is a 60-mile-long cantina, a cheap joint where the worst of genetic deficiencies manifest themselves as if Human... - Editor
The Valley is a horrible place to live, but so is the North East and even the Souther states like Florida which has nothing but white trailer park trash, people are just as nasty, dirty, beer drinking, fat food eating, I mean, the valluy sucks, but please Mr. Editor, so do other souther states.
ANON: We always say that the RGV ought to be a paradise. Its region is unique, but its leaders are neve rup to the job of building communities that would attract tourism. The Valley gets visitors from Mexico, but rarely from the other sectors of the USA - except on Spring Break, and those are just kids here for a few days... - Editor
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