The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein

by J. Michael Orenduff

  I wore chinos and a hyphenated shirt – light-blue, button-down, and long-sleeved. The sky was cerulean blue, lit indirectly by the sun which had not yet cleared the Sandias. The Bronco filled with the scent of alfalfa.

  I turned west on an unnamed dirt road alongside an irrigation canal lined with cottonwoods and followed it to the modest adobe that Emilio and Consuela Sanchez call home.

  It’s like home to me as well. Consuela was my nanny, arriving at the tender age of sixteen when I was born. My mother was a wonderful woman who never quite felt at home in what she regarded as the rather untamed wilderness to which her husband had brought her shortly after their marriage. But she used to say you have to “bloom where you’re planted,” and she set about improving Albuquerque by organizing garden clubs, civic beautification drives, and ladies auxiliaries. What the ladies were auxiliary to I never knew.

  She taught me by word and deed the meaning of decorum and propriety. Despite her sober upbringing and somewhat rigid values, she was a warm and affectionate person, but it was Consuela who attended to the small things in the life of a child that contribute mightily to the man he becomes.

  She was an older sister and a second mother. She taught me Spanish the old-fashioned way, by talking to me in that tongue from the day I came home from the hospital. My mother taught her how to make leg of lamb with mint sauce and boeuf-en-croute, but at lunch, Consuela fed me caldillo, chile con carne, carne adovada, posole, and sopapillas. For vegetables we had frijoles, calabazitas, arroz con chile verde, flan de maiz mezclado, and verdolagas that she gathered wild. Her cooking molded my palate. I’m as likely today to go to a French, Italian, or Japanese restaurant as I am to take up skateboarding.

  We left my parents’ home the same year, she to get married, me to enroll as a freshman at the University.

  Emilio changed Consuela’s name from Saenz to Sanchez. A year later they had Ninfa who turned out to be an only child like me, and when she married and moved to California, it broke her mother’s heart. Consuela has lived since with two hopes, that Ninfa will give them a grandchild and that she will come back to live in New Mexico.

  Emilio came to the United States in 1953, twelve years old but concealing his youth in order to enter the Bracero Program.

  “I walked all day from San Diego de Alcalá to Chihuahua,” he had told me years ago. “I was surprised when I arrived, amigo. There were more people at the Trocadero than in my village.”

  “What was the Trocadero?”

  “I don’t know from where comes this word, but it was a building near the railroad station. There I stood in line with the others to see the Americans who would choose those to become Braceros.”

  He was sitting that day, as he always does, with his back perfectly straight, his shoulders squared, his head held high. Working for fifty years with a short-handled hoe gave him sinewy muscles and leathery skin, but it never broke his spirit nor bowed his head.

  “How did they choose?”

  “First you have…How do you say entrevista?”

  “Interview.”

  “Yes. First, you have interview with one of the gringos.” He looked at me and smiled. “If he likes what you tell him, he send you to a second American. He takes your hand and rubs it to see if you have worked. I feel embarrassed by this gringo holding my hand, but everyone must do the same, so I do it. They like what I say and they like my hands because I work hard in my village, so I get a paper. The third gringo say for me to make my equi on the card, but I tell him I know how to write, and I write my name very carefully on the card. I am very proud to have this card.”

  “What happened after you got the card? How did you get to the U.S.?”

  “The next day, we ride in a cattle train to Ciudad Juarez. There we wait in a park for two days until the migras sign our papers. Then we walk across the bridge to El Paso. I remember, Huberto, when I show my card to the American on the El Paso side. He smile at me and move his arm to tell me keep walking. I think in my head that America let me come in, and it was the happiest day of my life.”

  He paused for a moment. “The Americans in the Trocadero never smile. But I always remember that guard on the bridge. After passing the bridge, they put us in the back of farm trucks and take us to a large building in a small village in New Mexico called Hatch. There they spray white powder on us to kill lice. I know I have no lice, but I say nothing. I just close my mouth and eyes and hold my nose because the spray is strong. They give us chile con carne to eat, and we sleep on the ground.”

  “The next morning the farmers come and choose which of us they want. I am surprised, Huberto, because some of them are Mexican, and I think in my head that America must surely be heaven where someone from Mexico may own a farm. I do not know that these men who look like me and speak Spanish are not from Mexico. I was a young and foolish boy, and I think I will work hard and save my money, and I will buy a farm in Hatch and marry an American woman.”

  “And you did all those things,” I pointed out in admiration.

  “Yes, Consuela is American, and so I am also as her husband. And we both work hard and buy together this small piece of land and build this house with our hands. But it is not a farm.”

  “You grow everything you need.”

  “Tienes razón. Consuela has the green thumb.”

  “And you are here instead of Hatch, and perhaps that is also good.”

  “Yes, because we are close to you and our other friends.”

  He sat for a moment in reverie. “The first man I work for in Hatch is not a Mexican. He is a gringo. I never know his name; we call him only Patron. I pick chiles for one dollar for each one hundred pounds. I make almost twenty dollars the first week, and I think I will become rich. But the picking is not the only work. I must also do the irrigation at night, and for this I do not receive money. I ask the other Braceros if I must say something to the Patron, and they tell me to say nothing, for if I make a complaint, I will be sent back to Mexico, and perhaps they will be sent back as well. So I work both day and night six days each week.”

  “On Saturday after work, we can go to the store. The other Braceros buy cigarettes, but I save my money. On Sunday we go to mass, and some Sundays we do not work after mass. We play baseball and make barbacoa. The Patron is a very cold man, but he pay me each week, and when I return to Mexico, I have almost five hundred American dollars, more than my father make in his life.”

  I thought about that story as I saw Emilio come around from the back of the house, a wide grin on his face. He removed his sweat-stained hat and gave me a strong abrazo.

  “Welcome, amigo. I hope you have brought a large hunger, for there is much to eat.”

  “I could smell your barbacoa all the way from Albuquerque. It’s pork today.”

  He laughed and his dark eyes smiled. “Consuela always say you have the best nose. But let us not stand here alone and thirsty. Come, come.”

  We circled to the back where a dozen of his neighbors had gathered, and he introduced me to two I didn’t know, a nephew and niece of the Calderón family who own the land on which Emilio and Consuela’s house sits.

  At least according to the records in the Bernalillo County Courthouse. In fact, Emilio and Consuela bought the small plot many years ago, but county ordinances prohibit subdividing land in this area, so no legal transfer can take place. It doesn’t matter. In this small community, agreements among neighbors are more binding than papers in a courthouse.

  Jesús Calderón stood over a fifty-five gallon steel barrel that had been cut in half long ways and made into a barilla with welded-on legs, twenty pounds of charcoal under the grate, and fifty pounds of meat on top. The smoke made my empty stomach churn with anticipation,

  Jesús gave me an abrazo as I stepped close to admire his handiwork. Manny Chapa put one hand on my shoulder and slipped me a cold can of Tecate with the other. I offered up a small prayer of thanks for being born in New Mexico.

  9

  I arrived home a
round four, bloated with beer and barbacoa.

  My plan for a late afternoon siesta was foiled by the arrival of Miss Gladys Claiborne on my doorstep. Gladys, whose name has been prefixed throughout her life by ‘Miss’ even during the forty years of her marriage, owns and operates the eponymous Miss Gladys’ Gift Shop two doors down from me.

  She is well-known in Old Town for her hand-sewn line of tea cozies, placemats, aprons, handkerchiefs, and dish towels, most bearing the image of either San Felipe de Neri Catholic Church or the colorful Gazebo in the center of the Plaza.

  She is also well-known for her casseroles, each of which is an intriguing and often startling mixture of things that are themselves ready-to-eat foods such as canned tuna, Campbell’s soup, and crushed crackers. Other lighter versions rely on Jell-O, miniature marshmallows, canned fruit, and cream cheese.

  Since the death of her husband, she has no one to feed these concoctions to, and I seem to have drawn the short straw. You already know how my tastes run in food, so you will understand my desire to tactfully avoid her cooking.

  Especially when I’ve just eaten several pounds of pork and drunk a quart or two of beer.

  But to my surprise and relief, she came not to feed but to introduce.

  His name was T. Morgan Fister, a distinguished looking clean-shaven gentleman with silver hair, light blue eyes, and a strong chin.

  Mr. Fister wore brown linen slacks over a pair of woven leather loafers. His maize cotton shirt had a spread collar, monogrammed on the left with the letters TFM. I thought the monogramist had made a mistake until I realized that the middle letter was slightly larger, indicating, I suppose, Mr. Fister’s family name having pride of place in the little pantheon of letters on his collar. Monogrammed clothes are an affectation. I disliked Fister immediately.

  Over the expensive shirt, he wore a herringbone jacket with a leather patch, not on the elbow, but on the right shoulder where the stock of a shotgun would be braced while the man in the jacket blasted doves out of the air for sport. I suppose those are called hunting jackets.

  He had an easy smile and a firm grip, and he seemed genuinely happy to meet me. He said nothing about himself, being a true gentleman, but made me instead the center of attention, asking me questions as if I were the most interesting chap he had met since his last bird-killing sortie with Prince Charles. No, he wasn’t English. He just seemed like the sort who would hunt with Charles. I’ll say this for Fister, at least his ears were of normal proportion.

  When I redirected my gaze from T. Morgan to Miss Gladys, she was looking up at her new friend, enthralled. Oh my God, I thought – she’s in love.

  “You’ll never guess where Morgan is from,” she said after introducing him, and she gave me a look that indicated I should try nonetheless.

  He also fell silent, obviously not wanting to spoil her fun. They both looked at me in anticipation.

  “Winchester,” I said, a wild guess that stemmed from my thinking about the guns. And damned if I didn’t get it right! There’s evidently a town in Virginia by that name.

  “Heavens to Betsy,” declared Miss Gladys, “However did you know that?”

  T. Morgan tried to maintain his calm demeanor as a look of apprehension spread across his face.

  “Have we met?” he asked cautiously.

  “Of course,” I said, “just a few seconds ago.”

  He gave a brief nervous laugh. “But have we met before? You do look familiar.”

  I try never to be a bad person, but mischief is in my nature, and now that he was off balance, I intended to press my advantage and see where it led.

  “What brings you from Winchester to Albuquerque?” I asked, not answering his question.

  “I have an interest in Native American artifacts.”

  “And he’s also here to tend to his aging mother,” Gladys volunteered.

  I turned to him. “Where in Albuquerque does she live?”

  “Oh,” he said, “she’s back in Virginia. I’ll bring her out as soon as I’ve located suitable quarters for her. By train, of course. She dislikes air travel.”

  “Goodness,” said Gladys, “I was under the impression she was already here.”

  “No doubt my fault,” he said without hesitation. “I’m so anxious to see her here that I speak as if it’s a fait accompli.”

  Gladys giggled. It was disgusting. Then she said, “Morgan’s speech is just peppered with those cute French phrases. I do think it sounds so high class, don’t you agree, Hubert?”

  “Using French is quite de rigueur these days,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said uncertainly.

  “One might almost say it’s derrière,” I added.

  “Precisely,” said Morgan.

  “I must tell you, Morgan, that Mr. Schuze is the most talked about man in Old Town,” said Gladys. “He keeps the most irregular hours at his shop, and he has been arrested several times, all of which turned out to be mistakes by the police.”

  At this news, Fister broke into a contented smile that seemed to say he had met a fellow traveler, a scoundrel like himself, someone who would keep his secret safe for fear of having his own misdeeds uncovered.

  But whereas I only appear to be a scoundrel, I was convinced that T. Morgan Fister was the real thing.

  “So,” he said with a note of triumph in his voice, “What is the mysterious business you engage in when your shop is closed and no one knows your whereabouts?”

  I looked at them both in turn with a grave expression. “Do not breathe a word of this. What I do in my other life is undercover investigations for the police.”

  I watched all the blood drain from Fister’s face.

  10

  Stuffed shirts from Benjamin Franklin to William James have preached the importance of habit and routine to the well-led life. Early to bed, early to rise. Plan ahead. Show up on time. Make lists. Keep a calendar. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

  Steven Covey has written eight books on habits. Not how to get rid of them, how to cultivate them. And those books are best sellers. It’s a sad commentary on America’s literacy that a book urging you to adopt the habits of ‘successful’ people – meaning those who wear dark suits and red ties, lack a sense of humor, invent things like hedge funds, and send their kids to Harvard – is a best seller.

  Habits are hogwash. A million years of evolution prepared us to be flexible, to live life in the order it comes. No anthropologist has ever found evidence that cavemen had ulcers. They ate when they were hungry, slept when they were tired. They probably didn’t think about it much, but they knew a truth we’ve forgotten. Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

  Routine dulls the intellect and crushes creativity. Some things, of course, require planning. But most of them – invasions, political campaigns, cruises, football matches – are better left undone in the first place.

  All of which is to say that it was out of character for me to be awake and on the road at 5:30 on a Monday morning. I drove to Titanium Trail, went around to the back of Unit 183, and peered into the garage. I figured there was little chance of anyone spotting me at that hour of the morning. I don’t know why we refer to such hours as ‘barbaric’. Civilized men are much more likely to be awake at five in the morning than are barbarians.

  The Cadillac was in the garage. I drove around to the front and parked on the shoulder about fifty yards from unit 183. I adjusted my rear-view mirror so I could see the front door just in case anyone came out that way, but what I was really watching for was the Cadillac.

  I was on a stakeout.

  O.K., I admit I had done a little planning. I had a thermos of coffee and a book about Einstein that Martin had urged me to read. When I donned my reading glasses, the print was crisp and clear. The same could not be said of the subject matter.

  The coffee and the book fought each other, the book trying to put me to sleep and the coffee trying to keep me awake. After a while, the book seem
ed to be winning. I stopped reading. I stared into the mirror. Nothing happened. After another while, I looked into the passenger-side mirror and saw a van parked on the opposite side of the street. I didn’t remember seeing it when I had first turned onto Titanium Trail. I hadn’t noticed it arrive. Perhaps it came up while I was staring into my rear view mirror. But there it was, a white van with ‘United Plumbing’ in big black letters.

  I stayed until around ten. A quick scan of the van as I drove by on my way home revealed the driver and passenger seats to be unoccupied. There may have been someone in the back of the van – there were no windows back there – but I assumed it more likely held pipes, fittings, and tools.

  I was back the next day at eleven in the morning, figuring that if I showed up at a variety of times, I might catch someone leaving or coming back. The United Plumbing van was where it had been the day before. I drove around to the back, found the Cadillac in the garage, drove around in front, put the glasses on, read page five of the book on Einstein. When that hour was up, I ate three tacos filled with caramelized jalapeños and some of the barbecued pork Emilio had sent home with me on Saturday. I drank a Tecate I’d brought along in a small cooler filled with ice. I wanted more, but I didn’t want a DUI on my record. I knew one beer wouldn’t put me over the limit.

  Even though it was only one beer, it eventually worked its way through my bloodstream and kidneys and then into my bladder. I made it until just after two before going home.

  I was back at midnight, driving slowly down the service road with my lights off. I stopped, peeked into the garage, saw the Cadillac by the light of the moon. I was beginning to think I understood why the phone was no longer in service.

  The next day, Wednesday, I showed up at three in the afternoon and stayed until after six. The Caddy was in the garage. I wanted to go in and try to start it up. I suspected it was inoperable, just being stored there.