Publications
Published December 2011
Bats: A Love Story
Published in the anthology What’s Nature Got to Do With Me?
from Native West Press
We are waiting.
The Mexican Free-Tailed Bat migrates each year from the caves of New Mexico to the abandoned Orient Mine in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The newest generation has never seen the Orient Mine but they fly anyway, following the wings of others, some great calling they do not question. Every summer evening at the Orient Mine, when the pink ball of sun finally disappears behind mountain silhouettes, the bats awaken and exit the mine in what we’ve been told is a spectacular exodus.
And so we wait, hands stuffed in pockets, whispering with perfected nonchalance. We almost changed our minds, the late Colorado rainstorm almost deterred us from squishing these muddy trails. We’re still at the beginning, of course. This is our first hike, our first trip…mud and darkness and whether the bat spectacle is exaggerated—these are the things that will determine our relationship. Now stationed outside of the large, lonely hole carved in the mountain, we are waiting.
When it is almost too dark to see the first one appears, a lone bat flying erratically toward the receding sun. Then another, traveling by instinct and echo location. One by one the cloud thickens, the bats exit the cave and hurl their screams into the dark, wait for the answers to bounce back and show them the way, a dark waterfall pouring from the mouth of the cave and cascading to the valley floor.
We stand silenced with recognition under the holy cloud of 150,000 suede wings. We, too, know what it means to cry out blindly in great silences. I surrender and my hands crawl under your coat for warmth.
Looking for Dennis Hopper’s Grave
Published in The Santa Fe Literary Review
You’re on the outskirts of Taos, Rio Ranchos, eating at a restaurant called the Trading Post. The walls are adorned with black and white photos of Dennis Hopper, different era Dennis Hoppers from the brunette, Easy Rider days with Yosemite Sam moustache and leather fringed jacket to the aging gray goateed version of his final years. It’s a message you both whisper as you settle into a small table on the patio.
“Yeah, he was old friends with the owner,” the waitress confirms. “The service was here. I think he was buried off Highway 518, up there somewhere.”
Up there somewhere is closer than you’ve come so far, so you welcome the tip. Your boyfriend is the current events expert; it was he who told you about the funeral, attended by the ever grinning Jack Nicolson and a badly aging Val Kilmer-turned-Meatloaf in ranch-style hat and bolo tie. According to the internet, Hopper was buried in a cemetery just outside of Taos in a “humble grave” Native American style, piled up with rocks and artificial flowers and a tiny green plastic marker.
And so began the quest. You’re both looking for some kind of desert medicine that goes beyond Dennis Hopper’s grave, but you’re drawn to wander the tawny dust of New Mexico graves, languish among the white grotto rocks and iron scrolled fences and the simple purple crucifix at the grave of Baby Martinez. There are too many of these baby graves you both agree while a yellow garden windmill spins in eternity over Ofelia Archuleta.
You head down Highway 518 in the direction the waitress pointed, the same dusty roads where Easy Rider was filmed. You google the Jesus Nazarene cemetery and study the picture of his grave for the dozenth time. You marvel that you can be on the internet in the middle of nowhere New Mexico—no such luck back when you were 20, when you were your own easy rider, wandering around the country looking for it, just like Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda did in 1969, purring across sagebrush-studded roads. You spent days then trying to find the burned out remains of the cult compound at Waco and you had to keep stopping and asking all the locals.
Let’s ask at the church, you suggest when the road seems to have gone too far and the late afternoon sky begins to blacken and the wind pick up. You scuffle along the pink dusted walkway to the pink adobe walls of St. Francis church and pull aside some men in big brimmed hats–Excuse me, do you know where the Jesus Nazarene cemetery is? They shake their heads. The one where they buried Dennis Hopper you add, and now everyone starts talking—I think it was there, no there, no there, and you find it odd that no one seems to know since you thought this would be big news in little Taos, but maybe it’s really no big deal and Hopper shopped at the Ace Hardware like everyone else and ordered his steaks medium rare at the Trading Post and was buried in an common grave in any one of those identical looking cemeteries. And you even wonder if you might be starting a trend, a cult quest for Hopper’s grave, considering it’s only been a few months and already his remains are forgotten…how quickly it happens, you realize.
As you leave the church you glance at the informational panel for the Lady of St. Francis of Assisi, the miracle Mary whose image appeared in the frescos behind the altar or something like that. Miracle Marys have been another theme of this trip, starting with “La Conquistadora” in Santa Fe, translated as “Our Lady of Peace”: A four-hundred year old Virgin Mary statue with changeable outfits and dark hair like a Cher wig, her vast wardrobe—from the red velvet fur-lined cape to the black veiled dress to the wolverine skinned moccasins—on display throughout the cathedral sanctuary. Apparently the local custom is to offer an outfit to Mary in exchange for special blessings, beseeching her to intervene to God as only a woman can. Being raised Catholic, you know all about the miracle Marys: Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima, Virgin de Guadalupe, The Black Madonna of Montserrat. Usually the miracle Marys appear when they want you to build a church, and so it was with Mary Conquistadora, Mary of Peace, who arrived in Santa Fe with the determined Spanish settlers 12 years after they had already been run out by the Natives. Or so the legend goes…
“Hey, where’d they bury Hopper?” the bald man asks into the phone (you flagged him down in his truck) . “No, a couple here wants to know.” He hangs up and points the opposite direction: “It’s back that way. Follow the road up and around for awhile until it forks and then there should be a cemetery on your right.”
And so you arrive at the fourth identical cemetery of the day, the now-familiar windmills, grottos and floral wreaths dirtied by the weather. But no Dennis Hopper, only itchy tumbleweeds and abandoned trucks and American flags. Who would want to be buried in a cemetery like this he asks you in the silence. He has a harder time finding the romance in decay than you do.
Tired, you finally head towards the tiny Taos Casino as the day is concluding and the shadows are lengthening. You pass another cemetery and think about not stopping. But what if this is the one? Dammit. That’s exactly how it would happen, after all. You turn the car around.
Half the cemetery is lit with the overexposed light of a New Mexico sun slowly waning, casting long, exaggerated silhouettes of yourself against the backdrop of graves. But you’re tired of this quest, now, so instead you start a photo shoot of the creepy statuettes and sad little cherubs with their sad little cheeks in their hands. You squat and shove the camera between scrolled ironwork to capture a grotto Mary perfectly placed between clumps of red and pink and yellow plastic carnations and suddenly the flash goes off by itself. It reflects the exact moment of receding golden sunset at the exact moment when the metal sunshine waves surrounding grotto Mary light up in a blinding glare…and then the flash turns itself off.
You walk it over to him and pull up the picture: Look what just happened in this picture—the flash went off by itself. It makes it look cool, don’t you think? Like she’s on fire or something.
He pretends to gasp. It’s a miracle, he says. We’ve found it: Our Lady of the Taos Cemetery.
Maybe he’s right you wonder as you leave the cemetery, besides, what the hell were they looking for in that movie, anyway? All that talk of smoking grass and skinny dipping and the Steppenwolf soundtrack, sure, but weren’t they just wandering around, too, looking for the message behind the veil? For the first time you wonder if Dennis Hopper, under his humble pile of rocks, finally found it.
The Wager
Published in Connotation Press, April 2011
She: We’ve never farted in front of each other. We’re going to have to sometime.
He: I’ve wanted to but I’m shy. I’ve been holding back.
She: I’m shy too. Stop holding back and I’ll stop too.
He: I can’t go first! What do other couples do?
She: I guess it just sort of happens and then the ice is broken.
He: You should break the ice.
She: No way!
He: I can’t do it.
She: Well neither can I.
He: If it’s going to happen, tonight is the night.
She: How about the first person to fart in front of the other one gets a full body massage? Will you do it then?
He: No.
She: Come on, it will make it easier. Come on, let’s shake on it.
They shook on it, both feeling the telltale tickle, a bubble of air approaching, the bean-loaded nachos on the table, bracing themselves for the rupturing of their final barrier while stomach cramps ripped through their tensed bodies, knowing it would never, in fact, be easier.
Prodigal
Published in Connotation Press, April 2011
“Which settlement is that?” Amin asked, straining to see from the taxi window.
“Ariel,” the taxi driver said. “It’s one of the biggest.”
“I’ve looked at so many pictures but I’ve never seen one for myself.”
“How long since you were last inPalestine?”
“Since 1967.” Thirty-eight years.
The taxi driver clicked his tongue. “You see how they always build on top of the hills? They shoot at Palestinians working the fields.”
The settlement engulfed the hill, all stone and barbed wire. The buildings were uniform; solar panels and cable dishes like sentries placed every 25 feet. The driver turned off the slick, newly poured asphalt highway and onto a rough concrete road, scattered with dirt and broken boulders. The car bounced and jostled, awakening a cloud of dust.
“Why did you get off the main road?” Amin asked.
“This car has Palestinian license plates, and there is a checkpoint coming up.”
“Oh.”
“The drive will take much longer this way, I am sorry.”
“No, no, I understand,” he said. They passed herds of sheep the color of boulders, tended by Palestinians wearing long, flowing cloths on their heads. Amin remembered the golden dirt, the ancient stones and puffs of green desert bushes from his childhood. The scene was the same as it had been in 1967. It was probably the same as it had been in 1867, or 1567. The same as it had been for thousands of years.
Soon the taxi was following worn tire paths between beautifully gnarled olive trees with dainty, teardrop leaves; Amin remembered how a grove of olive trees gives a particular kind of shade, an ancient, mottled shade. He remembered sleeping in an olive grove that first night, alongside hundreds of other Palestinians, on the day his mother urged them to hurry to the road.
“Hurry to the road,” she had said, packing some food. “Follow the others.”
“Why aren’t we taking our things?”
“We don’t have time for that now.” She put her hand on his head. “Don’t worry, habibi, we’ll be back soon.”
A steady stream of Palestinians refugees were rushing for Lebanon, Jordan, Syria—anywhere. People walked, ran, rode bicycles. Babies were carried by adults, younger children by older children. Trucks and cars were slowed by the crowds, people trying to jump into the back. Other families sat on blankets on the side of the road, watching the exodus. For days the people of Tulkarim had heard the announcements of war and, still haunted by the images from 1948, didn’t want to be around for the next slaughter. Of course, they never suspected that they would not be allowed to return.
Amin would always remember the smell of the dirt as he laid his head between the roots of an olive tree later that night, his mother and the older children keeping watch. It would be his last impression ofPalestine. In Lebanon there would only be the billowing tents of the refugee camps and the endless drone of the radio, his mother waiting for word that they could go home.
Amin rolled the window against the dust coming unsettled behind the car.
“Are you hungry?” the taxi driver asked Amin. “We can stop inNablusand my wife can make us lunch.”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t want to put her out,” Amin said quickly. “Besides, I want to get to Tulkarim as quickly as possible. I’ve been waiting for thirty-eight years.”
“Yes, yes, but it will take four, five hours to get there. You will be hungry.”
“Five hours? For 100 kilometers?”
“Oh yes, you can make it in just an hour if you take an Israeli taxi and stay on the settler roads. But on these roads it takes five, sometimes even six hours if there has been a lot of rain.”
“And you drive this every day?”
“Every day that I can. There is little work in theWest Banknow, of course.”
“You drive four hours for just one fare?”
“Yes, when I can. Some days there is not even one fare. I used to be an engineer, but now they don’t give me the permits to work inJerusalem.”
Amin thought of the Allenby Bridge, where he’d crossed the border into the West Bank from Jordan. One of the soldiers had separated him and interrogated him for three hours, asking him the same series of questions over and over in different orders: Who are you going to visit? What is your business here? What organizations are you a part of?
“So you come to lunch?” the taxi driver insisted. “It would be my pleasure to have you as a guest.”
“Of course,” Amin acquiesced, knowing it was useless to refuse. “My first Palestinian meal.”
“I will let my wife know that we will be there soon, Insha’ Allah,” he said, digging out his phone. “My name is Omar.” He held his hand over the seat. “Welcome back to Palestine.” He lit a cigarette. “We are almost at the checkpoint. Let me talk to the soldiers.”
“There is a checkpoint into Nablus?”
“There is a checkpoint at every city.”
The taxi pulled up alongside a barrier of stacked rolls of razor wire. A long line of Palestinians waited, though the line didn’t appear to be moving. Some wore keffiahs. Some were squatting on the ground. There were women, too, heads covered. Children hung silently from their hands and legs. There was no shade, no cover from the desert sun. Israeli soldiers in green uniforms with shiny M-16s faced the front of the line, wearing brimmed hats and sunglasses.
Amin looked at Omar as he crushed out his cigarette. For the first time he noticed that Omar’s gray hair did not seem to match his smooth, unlined face.
Omar stopped the car and a soldier approached, pointing an M-16. “He is a US citizen,” Omar said, “I am taking him to his hotel.”
The soldier held out his hand: “Passport.” One blue passport was passed from the backseat, to the driver, to the soldier’s waiting hand. He opened it, nodded. Then opened it again. Didn’t nod. Removed his sunglasses and squinted through the dusty window, looked again at the offending passport, then again through the window. He opened the driver’s door and gestured; Omar stepped out. The soldier leaned across the empty seat and took a better look at Amin in the back.
“You are Palestinian?” he asked in Israeli-accented English.
“I am a US citizen,” Amin said, trying to keep his voice steady. He had heard all the stories of checkpoint abuses, all the stories of intimidation. Again he thought of the Allenby Bridge. He stomach soured as the soldier scrutinized his passport.
“You step out of the car,” the soldier said. Two other soldiers guarded Amin while the original soldier disappeared into a small windowed building.
Omar whispered to Amin: “They will not keep us long, I hope. Not like them.” He nodded his chin at the line of Palestinians, forever waiting.
The two Israeli soldiers left to guard them were chatting in Hebrew. They were barely older than teenagers, Amin thought. Peach fuzz and M-16’s.
After twenty minutes or so, Omar’s ID card and the US passport was returned and they were reassembled in the taxi and waved through the checkpoint.
“Usually it takes me at least one hour to get through that checkpoint,” Omar said, driving past the razor wire.
The city of Nablus spread before them like ancient sandcastles on sunbleached hills. Uneven cobblestones roads, stacked squares of stone, the only decorations on the buildings were the polka-dotted bulletholes and the colorful martyr posters taped over and over and over every available surface. The ghosts of Palestine.
Omar said pointed to charred black rings along the side of a large building. “That is the university. They have not held classes for many weeks. All ofNabluswas under curfew until just two days ago. We do not know when they will put the curfew on us again. It could be tomorrow.”
Streetlights were shot; windows were smashed out of parked cars. Phone booths were flattened like soda cans.
“The last invasion was just three weeks ago,” Omar said. “There is no point in trying to repair because you never know when they are going to come and destroy it again. It is a hard life,” he said as he parked next to a crumbling building and they both got out. “It must seem much worse to you after all these years, no?”
Amin slowly shook his head. “I read the Arab newspapers every day on the Internet, so none of it comes as a shock. But to see it for myself…I can’t tell you what it feels to be here. Even the dirt.” He scooped up a handful of dirt and held it to his nose. It was the smell of Palestine: frankincense and lemon blossoms and raw almonds and cardamom and mint.
“I’ve been missing this smell my whole life.”
“Maybe you should put some in a bottle,” Omar suggested. “It might be all ofPalestinewe’ll have left in the end.”
They passed two small children drawing on the sidewalk with chalk. “What a nice drawing, what is it?” Amin asked the Palestinian girl kneeling on the crumbly sidewalk with a nub of chalk in her hand.
“A soldier,” she answers.
“What does he have in his hands?”
“He has two M-16s.”
“And what is that?” Amin pointed to the unfinished part of the drawing.
“That is me. I’m going to become a martyr and kill all the soldiers.”
Her brother was just killed last week, Omar whispered as he led Amin away.
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The Demon Horse of DIA
Published in TitMouse Magazine, Volume II
Dear Mrs. XXXX
Something quite disturbing happened today when I went into the studio to work on my latest project. In the studio are two large windows shaded by a juniper tree, and as soon as I entered the room a bird started smashing itself against the glass. At first I thought it had just misjudged, thinking there no glass between us. I could see its rosy underbelly as it whacked again and again and again against the window, two claws silently scratching and treading air. But it didn’t cease. Each time it returned to the piney branch to gain more momentum the song became angrier and more insistent. I searched for a predator in the tree but I saw nothing.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The whole time this was going on, which was close to an hour, I was working on my latest sculpture, Mustang. I’ve completed the steel frame and am now covering it with fiberglass. I’m going to give it a bright blue patina, because blue reminds me of the Chilean skies and of your eyes, my dear. I’ve given him red light emitting diodes; the neon reminds me of Father’s store. Come to think of it, the whole time the bird was fighting the window, the horse watched with those red glowing eyes. Never did I expect them to be so intense.
My cat, Cleopatra, watched the goings on from a respectful, and dare I even say, apprehensive distance. Between the dive-bombings of the bird and the Appaloosa forever reared up on its hind legs, veins popping, wild mane flying—it all was perhaps intimidating to a little creature such as herself. When finally the smacking of the bird’s body against window ceased, the silence unnerved me even more.
Dear Mrs. XXXX
I got disappointing news today—the city of Denver has changed their mind and now wants to install the horse inside the airport terminal. They are threatening to sue me for the deposit if I do not agree, but I will countersue until it is installed outside as originally agreed—a powerful animal hailing life and the purple mountains of Colorado.
Today, I went to take a break from my work. I adore this time of year, when the leaves flutter to the ground like butterscotch confetti, all souls day in the air. What was once alive is now dying in rapture all around us. I’m reminded of that trip we took to Oaxaca during the Days of the Dead, the cemeteries filled with candles and marigolds and the sounds of tubas.
The horse was watching me through the window as I sat on the steps, endlessly reared up, mane flying. Soon a mangy, yellowish whitish cat with a moth-eaten tail was walking toward us purposefully, almost hypnotically. I shooed and hissed, but it didn’t even flinch—its ears didn’t even flatten. Steadily it approached, eyes locked. I stood and waved my arms, and even that did not break its rhythm. When it was just five feet away and still approaching, I removed my boot and threw it as hard as I could at the bloody thing—it hissed and turned around, but only begrudgingly.
Dear Mrs. XXXXX
What an avalanche of letters you are receiving from me—I apologize. It’s this horse—it makes me anxious. Today I was boiling water for tea and as I readied the cup and the teabag and was about to pour the water I swear the horse startled me and caused me to scald my hand. I have a fairly nasty burn for which I have applied ointment and bandages, but I have not been able to work for several days. I fear I will miss more deadlines.
Dear Mrs. XXXX
Would you find me crazy if I said this horse might actually have some sort of malice against me? Last night as I was working on it, I heard what sounded like a catfight in the yard. Thinking it was that ferule yellow cat again, I went outside boot in hand, expecting to chase it away. But when I got out there I saw a large red fox with Cleopatra in his mouth. The way she was hanging limply told me that the fight was over already. The fox looked right at me, then folded himself into a sewer opening with her limp body hanging from his muzzle.
All night long I listened for mews. I finally fell into a hesitant sleep where I dreamt of a blue fox growing larger and larger, then rearing up on its hind legs, towering over me with glowing red eyes. When I woke my horse’s eyes were glowing in my direction. But for the first time it didn’t feel like Father’s store at all. I threw a sheet over it.
Dear Mrs. XXXX
I wonder if you would like to come for a short visit? I fear I’m spending too much time with this beastly thing and perhaps I’ve gone a little mad. Your good, strong head will be like a splash of cold water to bring me to my senses, I’m sure. I’d be happy to buy you a train ticket and pick you up at the station as soon as you can possibly get away.
Just between you and me, I can’t say with enough enthusiasm how excited I am by the possibility of getting this thing out of my studio. Tomorrow we take down and re-assemble the whole thing and prepare it for delivery. This morning my goldfish was floating upside down in her bowl, eyes filmed over like tiny cataracts.
I’m going to sleep in a hotel tonight.
Dear Mrs. XXXX
I am leaving the hotel now for the job site. I’ve had horrible premonitions, nightmares of blood and fire. If anything happens to me, you know the truth. This is the last time you have to see it, I keep telling myself. Yet my hands are shaking so much I can hardly sign this letter—
Luis Jimenez
The New Mexico Times, Saturday, June 14, 2006
Local artist dies in freak accident
Local artist, Luis Jimenez, 65, was killed yesterday while attempting to hoist a section of his latest sculpture. According to witnesses the torso swung out of control and fell on Jimenez, crushing his leg and severing the leg artery. He was rushed to the hospital and died several hours later.
Jimenez is famous for creating larger-than-life works of art that combine Chicano and Mesoamerican imagery and themes with western historical archetypes. The sculpture he was working on at the time of his death, Mustang, is a 32-foot high 9,000-lb horse that has been commissioned by the city of Denver. Jimenez’s family plans to finish and deliver the sculpture in his honor, where it will take up residence in front of Denver’s International Airport.
