by John Nichols
“It would be dangerous,” Eloy said quietly. “You’re too young to risk such dangers.”
“I have to risk them one way or another,” Joe said melodramatically. “I’ve got nothing to lose. Plus I figure if I wasn’t killed last night, I’ll probably live to be ninety.”
“Then tomorrow we rob the bank?”
“Tomorrow?” Joe blanched. “That’s too soon. First you have to case the joint. Then you make a plan. Suppose it’s a timed vault? You have to coordinate everything. How were you planning to do it?”
“Walk in, point my gun at a teller, and demand the dinero. I’m not a complicated man.”
“That’s no good. You have to smoke out possible stumbling blocks and make contingency plans. Study the bank, assess the tellers. What are the guards’ habits? How do we neutralize bank patrons once we announce it’s a holdup? Finally, we have to make sure we can get all the money we need in a single heist so we don’t have to return for more.”
“In the old days around here, people just walked into the bank, made a threat, and filled a burlap sack with greenbacks.”
“That was the old days. Today is a whole new ball game. We might want to steal certain securities instead of cash. Or maybe stock options or certificates of deposit. Should we rob the place in broad daylight, or blast our way into the night-deposit vault early Sunday morning after all the bars have dumped in their weekend receipts?”
Eloy said, “I’m tired of all these modern complexities.”
Joe admitted, “Me too.”
“What will you do with your drugs if we rob a bank?”
“I’ll try to unload that first. I think the bank should be our backup scam.”
“When should we plan the robbery?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to think.…”
“Think fast,” Eloy said somberly. “It’s already Monday.”
“Don’t worry, I got the fastest brain in the West.”
But already he could see the headlines:
OLD MAN AND SPASTIC SIDEKICK BUNGLE BANK JOB! GETAWAY CAR HAS FLAT TIRE! INEPT PAIR NABBED WITH $17.00 TAKE!
* * *
ELOY SAID, “It’s hot out here. Why don’t you come inside for a minute? I can offer you a beer.”
The old-fashioned cluttered darkness smelled musty and cool—and of apples and autumn. It enveloped Joe in a reverence he associated with classic daguerreotypes. Standing quietly in the main room, he glanced around while Eloy went in back to fetch their drinks. Everything in the neat hodgepodge glowed with a wonderful warmth. Colorful weathered statues of various saints occupied several nichos carved into the thick mud walls: Joe recognized only San Ysidro, the farmer’s patron, with his plow cart and a silver fish on a thin thread in one hand. The walls were largely obscured behind photographs, some in black dime-store frames, others contained by crude hand-tooled tin frames that had a primitive beauty. Joe pinpointed a young Eloy in cowboy hat and chaps beside a skitterish horse. A fiftieth-wedding-anniversary picture had been taken most recently. In others, family members and friends posed self-consciously with wives, husbands, offspring, 4-H animals, school classes. One little girl, at least thirty years ago, seemed unbearably precious in a Communion outfit. Another rascally barefoot kid, missing teeth, wearing bib overalls, grinned obnoxiously beside a huge, beribboned county-fair pumpkin.
An intricate colcha embroidery lay over a puffy, rainbow-colored patchwork quilt on the bulky double bed. Two candles in brass holders were silhouetted behind gauzy white curtains on a window ledge. A kerosene lamp with a smoky chimney stood on the simple hand-hewn table where a lowcut cardboard tray held a dozen three-inch-high tomato plants. On one wall a crinkled rattlesnake belt, a thickly oiled leather bridle, and red chile and chico ristras hung beside shelves that contained old canning jars filled with dried fruits—apples, apricots, pears. A pistol in a handcrafted leather gun-belt dangled from a wooden peg. In two ceramic crocks on the floor under the table, wine—probably plum in one, chokecherry in the other—was fermenting. The odor palpitated within the autumn atmosphere of the tranquil, vestigial room.
Eloy returned, loosening the cap on one beer; the other was tucked beneath his arm.
“It’s not icy,” he apologized. “Three years ago I had them cut off the electricity. It surprised me how much better I felt at once in the kerosene glow and candlelight.”
“I like your house a lot.”
“So do I. It fits like a shell. But sometimes I worry, because the past is over—qué no? When the bitterness takes over my body, I want to throw the saints in a garbage can, tear the pictures off my walls, and reinstall electricity. Sometimes the sorrow squeezes my heart, causing a pain not even a hundred Alka-Seltzers could cure. Then I want to order myself to grow up. ‘Get modern, Eloy. Shed your outdated skin. Learn to survive in a new age. Accept a different magic.’ I should buy a suit and take a jet ride to New York City—I’ve never been in a plane. That way, I think I might live longer. But when push comes to shove, I can’t change. So this valley, now, is killing me. Every day, since Teresita ran away and died, Chamisaville is a knife in my stomach, causing a terrible pain with each nasty little jerk.”
What could he say? Joe toed the edge of a rag rug, eyes avoiding Eloy. The floor was spotless: despite busy surroundings and the plethora of old mementos, everything was clean.
“Look here.” Eloy sat on the edge of his bed. “This is a tape recorder.” He lifted it off the night table: a wire stretching from the instrument disappeared under his pillow: he removed a mike-shaped speaker.
“The state library loans these out to old people in their education programs. You can learn while you sleep. I have tapes on mathematics, American history, psychology, sociology. I can’t listen while I’m awake—they befuddle me. But over the years they have reached me a little while I’m dreaming.”
With a chagrined chuckle, he replaced the recorder on the night stand. Joe noticed that whatever Eloy touched—even his beer bottle—he handled with respect.
“Well, I’m just an old fuddy-duddy, I guess.” Eloy took a short tug. “And I guess you can’t teach an old perro new tricks.”
Silence. To get them on a less uncomfortable track, Joe called Eloy’s attention to a faded color photograph of a small adobe house whose outside walls were decorated with pretty murals within which cows grazed, magpies floated, and the Virgin of Guadalupe sparkled sweetly.
“That house is beautiful. Who does it belong to?”
“Years ago—way back at the start of the Great Depression when the hot springs were first discovered and the tourist industry began to transform this valley, many local people were intoxicated with the promise and adventure offered by progress, American-style. And when they first received real cash from working in the recreation and development industry, it was a fad among some folks to have muralists decorate their houses. At one time we had dozens of such dwellings, and many were very lovely. But about fifteen years ago they began to disappear. The original owners sold out, and the new patrons were embarrassed by the childlike and religious pictures defacing their homes. So they painted or plastered them over, and pretty soon most of the murals were gone. My son Emilio was an amateur photographer: he took that photo of Filiberto Tafoya’s residence, the last surviving painted house in the valley. Which they knocked down last year to make way for a Sonic Burger.”
Eloy sighed and giggled apologetically. “Excuse me, I’m beginning to sound like an incarnation of La Sebastiana.”
“What’s that?”
“Death.”
Joe said, “This must once have been a very attractive valley.”
“It still is, in a way. But before, it was our home. For better or worse, it belonged to the people who lived here. I’m not saying we were great saints or especially compassionate people. We got drunk, and poisoned the air with malicious mitotes and perpetuated our share of ugly movidas and thoughtless chingazos. But what we had that was very valuable was a sense of identity and community. We we
re a part of this home that had a continuity of almost four hundred years—much longer for the Indians at the Pueblo, of course. We were caretakers of the land, like our abuelos and our bisabuelos before them. The land and the people belonged to each other. The mountains and vegas lived in our hearts instead of our pocketbooks. Then they discovered the hot springs and the development began. At first we were excited to have hard cash in the valley. It promised so many good times and fabulous adventures ahead. We all embarked on a magic journey together into the American dream. Radios, automobiles, an airport, motels and art galleries and swimming pools.…”
Pausing, Eloy wiped a dash of foam off his upper lip.
“Nobody realized at first they would take it away from us. Nobody understood concepts like ‘free enterprise,’ and ‘competition,’ and ‘looking out for number one.’ Our survival on the land had always depended on mutual aid. My well-being and your well-being were interwoven. We couldn’t get along without each other. But then…”
Eloy shook his head. And Joe sat at the table, waiting.
“You see, all of a sudden the survival rules changed. Overnight. Everything, including the souls of the plebe, were up for sale. Most of us couldn’t adapt fast enough, and were rubbed out in the hurricane. The new rules made no sense. Traditional loyalties meant nothing. A people accustomed to counting on each other were suddenly pitted against each other. Most of us never had a chance. And now, finally, I guess it’s over. The character of my home is different. Nobody has—what’s the word?—intimate, I think. Nobody has an intimate stake in the land. People come and go, buying and selling. For three hundred years, an adobe house probably stayed within the same family—but in the last decade it may have had five or six different owners. Life here has become a … commodity? Yes. People, alfalfa fields, even the mountains, it seems, change hands overnight. The newcomers have few true loyalties to Chamisa Valley traditions. A selfish and self-indulgent God rules the present; and the future is entirely out of focus.”
Eloy stopped, swirled the last drops of beer in his bottle, then swigged them noisily.
“Excuse me for giving a lecture. I’m only a retired farmer—qué no? I am different from many of my extinct compadres because I understood the process. I studied it for years and fought it as the means to survival. And now I have the distinction of being the last old geezer to fall. Me and my horse, Geronimo.”
Laughing in a deprecating manner, Eloy stood up and gestured with the empty bottle. “We used to save glass bottles—they were precious. We refilled them time and again for years. Now they throw them in fields to maim horses, or smash them on roads to puncture tires.…”
Joe said, “Listen, I better get going. I promised Heidi and the kids…”
“You’re right to run, Joe Miniver. I even bore myself when I fall into this mood. But thanks for the loan of your ears.…”
* * *
DEPARTING THE NINETEENTH century, Joe slalomed approximately three hundred yards through the joggers before being hit broadside by the future. At a beep to his rear, he swerved onto the shoulder. A diesel Mercedes parked beside his bicycle, and, leaning over to open the passengerside window, Skipper Nuzum, in all his leather and turquoise splendor, hailed him in a patronizing, authoritative accent that gave an order while asking a question:
“Hey there, Joe—got a minute?”
A chill blast of air-conditioned luxury, coupled with jarring rock from the tape deck, pelted Joe’s face: his stomach churned. Here it came, round sixteen in the Eternity Junction sweepstakes!
“Sure,” he replied jovially. “I’m just a wayfaring troubador, out on a relaxing cruise—shoot.”
“I hope nobody has to go that far.” Skipper shouted to be heard over the jarring music he could have quelled with a mere flick. His grin was reminiscent of those old Cobey Dallas eyes. Wide and healthy and lacking any connection to the real thing.
But who was Joe to quibble over labial semantics?
“I’ve been meaning to speak to you in private, partner. You’re a hard man to pin down.”
“I figure it’s better to be a moving, rather than a stationary, target,” Joe joked, wondering who had invented this particular repartee.
“That’s not funny, man. You don’t seem to realize the nature of the position in which you are.”
In which I are? Joe tried, and failed, to meet Skipper’s large, sad eyes. He must have garnered millions, back in L.A., disarming the opposition with those morose intimations of internal weakness and poetry. His shaggy moustache completed the look of an ascetic, sincere, fuddled, almost cuddly, almost bear of a man. But then the smile hit—bright, flashy, somehow totally intransitive, and his face matured, exuding a bold and almost frightening confidence. He must have parlayed it into the incredibly ample perks of a true California gunslinger, intimidating by always keeping others off-balance. All the moves, in Skipper’s lexicon, were his to make first, and control absolutely.
“I’ve been hearing all sorts of strange tales on the grapevine,” he barked, one of those space-age geeks, apparently, who felt more comfortable, and domineering, yelling at his foes through the blare of a radio, the babble of a loud tube. A syndrome not unlike that of folks who must sleep with the lights on? Joe wondered.
“Such as…?” he said aloud.
“I understand that you and a friend from Palermo broke into the bus station last night and ran off with a little item worth a bundle that belongs to Ray Verboten.”
Calmly, though his heart thundered, Joe said, “Number one—I have no friends from Palermo, Skipper. Number two—we didn’t ‘break into’ the bus station last night. Number three—it doesn’t belong to Ray Verboten, it belongs to me.”
“I see.” Skipper barely blinked. “Now here’s my proposition, Joe—and listen carefully, I’m a busy man, I don’t want to repeat it. I happen to know there’s no way you can legally wrest that land from Eloy Irribabble. Scott Harrison has a more legitimate claim, the First State People’s Jug could foreclose tomorrow, I could snap my fingers if I wanted, buy up all the promissories by five o’clock this evening, and own it fair and square. But I’m a reasonable man, and I take it you are also. No need for anybody’s feathers to be unduly ruffled. I mean, hey, I talked to Nikita Smatterling earlier, and he was fit to be tied. All his life he worked hard to find the right place for a permanent Hanuman shrine, and now look how bollixed the supposedly straightforward negotiations have become. To make matters worse, I understand Joseph Bonatelli might even launch a power play, either through his bank or on his own—God forbid—out of spite because you imported that little item on the bus without his okay.”
Hail Mary! Joe thought: at least somebody was cautious enough to employ a euphemism for the cocaine!
“So it makes no sense, Joe. Why do you want the wrath of potentates hanging over your head? It’s a one-way path to perdition when you embark upon the black-market packaging and distribution of things such as that item you possess. Suddenly, nobody likes you, everybody grows especially defensive, and very greedy. It’ll be one of the great races of the year to see who nails you first—the long arm of Eddie Semmelweis, the blunt club of Ray’s enforcers, or the icy inimicable cruelty of the Tarantula’s wrath. I’m scared for you, Joe—honest. All of us who like you are terrified. The puddle into which you’ve jumped is bottomless.”
Into which I’ve jumped? Icy inimicable cruelty? Wouldn’t Heidi love to sink her choppers into this turkey!
Astonished by his own wiseapple aplomb under fire, Joe said, “You just offered a proposition?”
“Right. So listen carefully, Joe. I don’t wish to repeat myself—”
“Could you turn down that fucking music?”
“Huh?—oh, sure.” Skipper twiddled a knob; wailing Fenders and dyspeptic Moogs gurgled into a slightly lower register. “Now as I understand it, you and your wife Heidi are heading for divorce. That means even if you somehow effectuate a miracle and swing a deal for Eloy whatshisname’s property—”
/>
“Irribarren,” Joe interrupted coolly, amazed to hear himself on the attack. “Eloy Irribarren.”
“Sure. Whatever. So let’s take the most inadvertent hypothetical miracle that could occur. You somehow live long enough to parlay your radical ineptness into possession of that property—then what happens? In the divorce settlement, Heidi gets at least half … or maybe the whole thing. These judges in Chamisa County, Joe, they go to the highest bidder. And if you think I’m a big roller, you should realize that Mr. Bonatelli and his associates could sprinkle me with salt and eat me for breakfast. Are you paying attention, Joe?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then you have to admit the odds are stacked heavily against your favor. Of course, I should further mention that already every narc in town has you under his microscope, and the second you make a move to score bread for even one gram of that item they’ll foreclose on your freedom like a pack of jackals annihilating a wounded antelope.”
“Sounds bad,” Joe said, beginning to feel woozy.
“‘Bad’ is hardly the word I’d employ. You happen to be a very little person about to swim into a very big fishnet.”
“I still don’t understand the proposition.”
“Okay. Let’s see if I can elucidate. You’re a nice man, a fairly honest and straightforward person who just happened to stumble into a monumental mismatch. But I for one like you. And especially I hate to see anyone get hurt. No need for that, correct? We’re all neighbors in this valley. And with a little effort we should be able to coexist peacefully. So my proposition is as follows. What did that item put you out? I’ll meet that sum in cash and throw in your overhead costs as a favor because I hate to see anybody lose on the deal. In return, you deliver to me the item, and I’ll place it where it belongs.”
“That’s it?”
“You don’t look convinced.”
“Frankly, I’m not.”
“Consider the alternatives.”
Joe said, “Suppose I go to the state’s attorney general, informing him of your plan to eliminate Cobey Dallas from contention for Eloy’s land by collaborating with Roger Petrie in his embezzlement from your own business ventures? Then suppose I could dig up evidence that Roger was also double-crossing you by selling the water rights to land he doesn’t own (which have nevertheless been deeded to him by Cobey in return for his collusion in bilking you) to Scott Harrison, who’s busily trying to cover his own bets just in case he can’t grab the land for legal fees involved in defending it from folks like you and the Tarantula’s First State Jug and the Our Lady of the Sorrows Hospital Mafia?”