The Ghost of Milagro Creek
Page 19
EPILOGUE
Taos, New Mexico
2001
Two-Headed
El Auto rounded a steep curve on Highway 68 out of Taos and slowed down at the top of a red butte where the narrow road dipped down to the Rio Grande. A bracelet of silver milagros dangling from the rear view mirror flashed and sparkled in the sun.
“Unidad número quatro reportando,” Ernesto said into the new police radio.
“Unit five,” said Popolo.
“Come back, boss?”
“You are unidad número cinco, pendejo.”
“Perdón. My bad.”
“What’s your location?”
On the AM radio, Ernesto found his favorite song, “Tire Tu Pañuelo Río.” In Spanish, he sang along softly, “I threw your handkerchief to the river and watched it sink …”
“Deputy, do you read me!” shouted Popolo. “Where are you?”
“Ten-four,” said Ernesto. Then he shut the thing off and set out in search of Mister.
The Ghost of Milagro Creek
On the Writing of The Ghost of Milagro Creek
Questions for Discussion
ON THE WRITING OF THE GHOST OF MILAGRO CREEK
A Note from the Author
Writing is so much trouble, and it pays so poorly, that I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to. It does for me what religion does for some people; it makes me whole again. My work grows out of a sense of loss, a yearning to re-create a world that slipped through my fingers before I could make sense of it. In the year 2000, shortly after my husband, David, and I settled in Taos, New Mexico, with our two-year-old daughter, David was diagnosed with a terminal illness.
“So, I’m toast,” David said when the doctor told him he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and they both cried. David was thirty-seven years old and had two years to live. When his paralysis set in, we moved back to my hometown of Rome, Georgia. That year, just three months before our son was born, he passed away.
Before we left New Mexico, we spent a weekend at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert in Abiquiu. In the silence of this Benedictine monastery, high in the cliffs of the painted desert, I conceived the germ of The Ghost of Milagro Creek. At first, I was simply struck by the fact that the doors had no locks. I began to think about criminals and what a great hideout this would be for someone who was running from the law. Electronic communication was limited; by the time law enforcement vehicles managed to traverse the thirteen mile “driveway” from the road, the bandit could be lost in the miles of surrounding cavernous rock. Around this time, the local papers ran a story about a young Taosenio who had killed his best friend, turned himself in, and then, during a leaf-raking assignment, mysteriously disappeared from the Taos jail. In the news story, the young man, who was reported to be quite personable, committed subsequent murders while on the lam, and I imagined a story about a psychopath.
So, in 2001, I began researching histories of serial killers in hopes of developing the character who would eventually become Mister in The Ghost of Milagro Creek. After many hours of research and countless failed attempts to create a story, I remembered the words of my creative writing teacher Max Steele: “We are only interested in characters who love someone or something.” Psychopaths don’t love; I needed a character with a heart.
In those two years when I was a young mother and my husband was dying, love was inextricably mixed with grief and a longing for the land of northern New Mexico. While he could still walk and talk, David went around with a video camera, recording our days: our three-year-old daughter, Zoë, licking a brownie bowl; our dog, Sadie, sitting behind the wheel of a car; me telling stories. It was as if he were going on a trip and planned to take this movie with him. After he died, I found some footage he had taken on a windy mesa outside of Taos. Behind the camera, he is invisible, and his voice, already slurred from the disease, is often broken off by the sound of the wind. What you see is a breathtaking vista: white clouds sweeping across a deep blue sky, a purple mountain capped in snow, fluttering beech leaves catching the light like new pennies, the ragged red earth. He is saying, from what I can make of his words, that he will never see this again.
• • • • • • • • • • •
In the beginning, I tried to write a very male book; the spare writing style mirrored the uncluttered landscape of New Mexico, and the terse dialogues, even those involving females, only suggested the interior worlds of the characters. In this manuscript, called “Christ in the Desert,” Mister, no longer a serial killer, loved a woman, but something was missing.
Slowly, draft by draft, Abuela began to shake the story out and make more sense of it. Her honesty forced the other characters to face themselves and confront each other. By 2009, at the end of the final rewrite of The Ghost of Milagro Creek, Abuela has empowered young Rocky to take charge of her own life, bringing the feminine energy of the book to the forefront. When Rocky thinks to herself, “The daughter did not commit suicide. She don’t know what she’s gonna do, but the bitch is breathing,” she describes a metamorphosis that mirrors my own transition from wife to widow.
I don’t know if books can be haunted, but I wrote this one with my favorite haunt in mind—a desert-stomping, sax-blowing, bad-boy Catholic from Houma, Louisiana—the late David Marr.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What does the title, The Ghost of Milagro Creek, suggest to you? When do ghosts appear in the novel, literally and figuratively? How do miracles play an important role in people’s lives? Why are some miracles more credible than others?
2. Throughout the novel, different characters narrate events in a variety of mediums. How does each character’s form of expression reveal more about him or her? In what ways does this chorus of voices add to the texture of the story, and how does it relate to the novel’s theme of cultural diversity? Why does Mister lack a narrative voice?
3. At her own funeral, Abuela narrates, “Whatever I was: Spanish or Indian, nurse or nutcase, dead or alive—I would be remembered” (page 8). What do you think she is? Why?
4. Chief plays various roles in the novel: he is a pig farmer, a shaman, a romancer, a father-figure, and a madman. What essential elements of his character remain unchanged throughout these transitions? How is his identity influenced by the perceptions of others? In what ways does the characterization of Chief represent the portrayal of Native Americans?
5. What is the significance of the bridge that crosses Milagro Creek? Why do Mister and Tomás meet here to perform the double suicide? Do you think that Mister pulled the trigger too soon, or that Tomás chose not to shoot? What was at stake for each man?
6. Although most writers don’t consciously use symbols, they often appear in literature. Consider some classic symbols in The Ghost of Milagro Creek: eggs, water, fire, and birds. Locate scenes containing these symbols and explore their significance. What are the implications of the staurolite crystal that Cisco Cisneros introduces to his science class in the prologue?
7. The character Raquel O’Brien undergoes dramatic changes in the novel, from her first appearance as the highstrung teenager “Santa-Girl” to a pregnant young woman seeking refuge in a monastery. Why do you think she originally chose Tomás Mondragón over Mister Romero? What kind of relationship do you think she will have with Mister? How does her writing reflect her growth as an individual?
8. Consider the epigraph, “The dead are silent, but the rocks can speak,” and the petroglyphs that divide the sections of the novel. How do these rock drawings “speak” for the chapters they represent? In a sense, the characters of the novel are reading the stories of their ancestors drawn in the rock around them. How do you think the ancient inhabitants of New Mexico would read this contemporary story?
9. Manny Pettit, the Catholic priest from Wisconsin who is depicted with humor early on in the novel, gradually becomes an ominous presence. At what point do you sense the severity of his shortcomings? Compare his views to those of
other religious leaders in the barrio and at the monastery.
10. The pilgrimage to Chimayó is an actual event that takes place in New Mexico every year on Good Friday. In The Ghost of Milagro Creek, Mister Romero disguises himself as a religious walker in this pilgrimage in order to escape from jail. How is the walk a metaphor for the larger journey he is taking? What is the significance of the obstacles he must face? What part does his escape with Rocky in the Hoochie Mobile—with Ernesto in pursuit—play in his journey? What do you think will happen next?
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people helped me write this book. I’d like to give credit to my parents, Roger and Mary Ruth Sumner, who told me stories and taught me to finish what I start, and to my children, Zoë and Rider Marr, who share their amazing imaginations with me and make room for novel writing in our busy schedule. As always, I am grateful to David Marr, who died of ALS in 2001; The Ghost of Milagro Creek is imbued with his spirit.
I am blessed with good friends who teach me what I need to know, especially my brothers and sisters at 3rd Street and the talented and loyal band of Friday writers: Ray Atkins, Faith Shearin, and Adrienne Su. They continue my education in the humble spirit of my favorite college professors, Ruel Tyson and the late Max Steele.
Marsha Atkin’s kitchen table is probably the best place in the world to discuss a novel in progress, and I suspect that this has something to do with Marsha; I am grateful to her for listening to The Ghost of Milagro Creek, year after year. Pam Redden went over hundreds of pages with her red pen, always remembering to include smiley faces when appropriate. Anne Lewison cheered every time I announced that I had finished my novel.
I am especially grateful to Bill Rice, who read an early draft and said it was good, and to Uli Gratzl and Glenn McAllister for unearthing the title. Uli laid the fictional gardens in The Ghost of Milagro Creek, and Ray supplied the used cars. Frances Draper patiently translated English-to-Spanish phrases by e-mail, and Jagaur Chenko, my other translator, demonstrated that a man can perch at the top of a pine tree with a machete in one hand and a cell phone in the other. Our Spanish lessons ranged from the commonplace to the divine, and in the end, he transmuted a culture. My friend Garon Bodor, who is both a southerner and a Taosenio, showed me how a girl from a tough family might love a horse and grow into a woman of stature. Officer Nathan Wollstein suggested the Glocks.
I am grateful to the people at the home site of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, especially Brian Vigil, who led me on an interesting excursion in my search for a character’s name and deepened my respect for the Jicarilla. It was Leroy Tecube, the Jicarilla Apache author of Year in Nam: A Native American Soldier’s Story, who answered my random phone call and offered me the name of his friend Cow Horn. The Monastery of Christ in the Desert in Abiquiu, New Mexico, inspired several scenes in this novel, and I give the monks my heartfelt thanks for allowing me to be their guest.
A writer cannot write without a room of her own, and for this I thank the New Horizons Spi
ritual Center. I am also grateful to Richard Vengroff, Bill Rice, and Rhonda Nemeth at the Kennesaw State University for facilitating my research.
On the business end of the book, my agent, Georges Borchardt, his family, and Barbara Galletly have handled the launching of The Ghost of Milagro Creek with humor and aplomb. Tammy DiBlasi has worked tirelessly and without pay on the Web site for The Ghost of Milagro Creek. All of the people at Algonquin Books, including the indefatigable and clearheaded copy editor, Jude Grant, have helped me turn a vision into a book, but I owe my greatest thanks to the editor-at-large, Shannon Ravenel, a woman of exquisite grace and strength. Working with her is a magical experience.
Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
WORKMAN PUBLISHING
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2010 by Melanie Sumner.
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
EISBN: 978-1-616-20013-8