The Dry Spell by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 2
Anecdotal Evidence – 2
August 4, 2009. Black top, suburban development in varying shades of brown, well packed dirt paths, barking dogs, half clouded blue sky not threatening rain, hot southern wind, fast, fast, cottonwoods in full bloom and lavender refuge.
Daisy and I exit the garage for our daily walk, not knowing what today’s adventure will be. Three doors away I see Ben on all fours with a tarp, hand pulling the weeds from his outstanding lawn of about two-thirds of an acre with no bushes or trees.
It seems to be Ben’s passion as Daisy and I often see him in his prone position. He must be especially annoyed today seeing us out another morning starting our three to four hour walks while he has to “work.” He calls out; “How much time do you spend with that dog?” with a vocal intonation of disapproval.
“About as much time as you spend kissing that stupid lawn.”
I get no response and another pleasant day in Corrales has officially started.
We successfully work our way about a mile through the development, with me only having to growl at two loose dogs barking and threatening nefarious notions at my angel. That’s not a bad day. I didn’t even have to get hoarse. Temporary safety. We enter a small wooded area, populated by elms and
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apple trees. It’s about five acres and probably was left as nature would have it by the builder of the twelve nearby houses when the market died. Despite the trees being tiny, densely packed and growing on flat terrain, no local refers to this area as a Bosque.
We negotiate the winding path we have made over the past few years and now have to watch out for serious danger --
densely packed cars, some tiny and pickup trucks.
We dart our way across busy Corrales Road and are now on Academy Road, home of the Seventh Day Adventist church, school, bookstore, warehouse, various other rented retail properties and soon to come affordable senior citizen condos for “nice”
religious people. Their tax-free status enables them to run a mini-conglomerate, while filling the “rural” roads with traffic and making regular use of the police department, probably in response to “problems” experienced with their many local detractors.
Daisy thinks that every person and car came out to play with her, so she tries to approach every vehicle on the road, with increased gusto if they slow down. We again successfully negotiate the obstacle course and I can finally relax somewhat when we turn onto the ditch path which begins shortly after the school ends. When we make the right turn we say hello to the sign that we have seen daily for years; “Property of MRGCD. No
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trespassing. No cars.” Not to worry as we were correctly told on our first trip here, the Middle Rio Grande Conservation District doesn’t really mean it. They are one of five governmental entities which have some jurisdiction over the five mile
“Corrales Bosque.” I’ve always wondered if it wouldn’t be more efficient to assign each of them their own mile. At the very least it would enable users to pinpoint responsibility, but perhaps that is precisely what is not wanted. The “finger pointing” act will be discussed later when we encounter the first Bosque “closing” in our experience, when I had some company in displaying some finger pointing of my own, utilizing the longest one, hoping to maximize visibility. Though the intended meaning is different in my East Coast home of 45 years, I have been advised that in the Southwest it means “hello” in Eskimo.
The path is easy to traverse today as we’ve learned to take the unmaintained side, only seeing one car on the left, using it as a shortcut to the Seventh Day Adventist enterprise. The usual band of residents, living in the bordering houses, just happen to come out to the ditch path to retrieve their morning papers as we pass. I’m again crestfallen as the “friendly”
group neglects saying an ebullient “Morning” and merely stare.
This part of town is populated by the still mobile members of the founding Gawk family, who feel as though they have eminent
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domain over the public ditch path. Daisy is unfazed after years of experience and doesn’t expect the walking dead to be capable of playing with anything other than themselves. She pays attention to the ground, watching for thorny growths and no doubt hoping that the wire fenced barking dogs don’t find an escape hole.
Elation. We get back to Corrales Road, cross it and enter Romero Road. The gate is open and only one sign exists informing us that the fire risk is “extreme” today. I wondered where there was no fire risk in a hot desert, especially one dotted with ancient dead tree limbs. Experience has shown me that when the MRGCD is compelled to lower the conflagration possibility, they clear out live wood and won’t touch the dry.
The guy who lives in the first house is not visible, but we know he’s around because we can smell his cigarette smoke. His wife lives in the second house and he’s been denied access for more than a decade. I’ve never seen her and she may possibly be existing as a mummy in the Bates Hotel, or she’s merely embarrassed. Nicky is perpetually drunk, at times angry and tough, at other times crying over the mess he’s made of his life. The one thing consistent is his mouth moving. He hasn’t shaved in years, his long, unkempt gray beard somewhat reminiscent of a hobo Santa Claus. He once told me that kids like him and enjoy the toys splattered over his yard; broken
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pieces of plastic he finds discarded at the Bosque. I took special note of the three foot orange plastic female doll, sans one arm and one leg, with an open circular mouth with a diameter of approximately two inches. Before I told him to “get lost”, he told me at different times of his being an important Mafia man, a super-skilled baseball pitcher, a cab driver, an old hippie who believes in peace, love and non-violence, a street fighter and a member of a European royal family. I tolerated him a few months until he had one of his crying jags, during which he put his arms around my shoulders, sobbing into my chest, resurrecting my misanthropic feelings. Nicky is the first candidate discussed in this paper who frequents the Bosque and is either currently, in the past, or who should be under intensive psychiatric care. No wonder I feel more at home here than any other part of Corrales.
Daisy has already been in the ditch water two or three times, but she pulls me to her favorite spot on the Romero ditch and almost pulls me in. After she’s satisfied, she looks up at me surprised that I haven’t joined her. She dawdles to give me another chance, eventually shrugging as if to say, “You don't know what you’re missing,” and works her way back up.
We near the road’s end and see one car in the parking area, its owner near it, holding two leashed dogs in one hand and binoculars to her eyes in the other. It’s Nora. Nora is as
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crazy, original, educated, well read, complicated and as pretty as they come. She always has something interesting and unexpected to say, so being in a relatively good mood, not yet having been attacked by any mad dogs or people; I decide to beat her to the punch. One of my pet peeves here is that it’s something between a crime and a major faux pas to say anything even remotely critical of Corrales. I like the place, but am not yet approaching the perfection end of the spectrum. In her youth Nora lived all over the United States and a few other countries, being in thirteen different schools to get through her first twelve years of schooling. But, she has lived in Corrales about thirty years. As free spoken as she is, I’d like to hear her take on the ideal village, so I start today’s conversation by saying; “Nora, why have you stayed in Corrales so long?”
She says; “I think I just got tired of moving.” She got me again. She made a perfectly reasonable answer without violating the local taboo. She hands me her binoculars and tells me to look at a bird in a tree about 100 feet away. I can’t find him.
After looking for about 30 seconds, I pick up a flying bird and follow it. I say; “Got him.”
She says; “No, not that one. He’s still in the tree.”
I look again for another 15 seconds to no avail and hand the binoculars back to her, saying; “I’ve always had good vision, 20-10 as a kid, but, there’s some kind of weird
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imperfection I discovered early on playing sports. I see things in one place, when actually they are a few feet away. Like when I pitched, my target wasn’t the plate. I actually was aiming at a right handed batter to hit the plate.
She looked at me curiously and then doubled over laughing uncontrollably. I was surprised and proud at the same time. I usually could never make girls laugh. I said; “What?”
She continued doubled over and waved her binocular hand at me, saying; “I... can’t... explain... it,” still laughing.
I laughed too, not knowing at what, but no doubt something silly about me. This has been a regular occurrence. When she was through watching the bird I never saw, we went around the closed gate and walked to the river. It had risen some from the previous day and consequently resembled coffee with some milk.
We went south and soon came upon the remains of the once great cottonwood. Three or four large branches and parts of the trunk lay on the ground in the now sunny area. No other trees were growing in a 210 foot radius. She said; “Do you remember when it was alive?” pointing at the wood still on land at the edge of the river.
“Yeah. It doesn’t seem that long ago. I think it was the biggest one around. The last time I remember seeing it alive, two young girls were sitting on two of the lowest branches looking about and at the river.”
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Nora was precise, saying; “It went over September 12, 2008.
I’ll never forget it because that’s my birthday. At the time I was always walking this route and it seemed fine the previous day. It was a warm day and I was looking forward to getting into its shade. The sun kept coming relentlessly and I knew something was wrong.”
“I probably last saw it around the same time, because I remember that the girls who were sitting on its branches were wearing shorts.”
“I wonder what happened. It was the end of a very dry summer, but its roots fed right out of the river.”
“I don’t remember it being so dry.”
“It was very dry in Corrales. Often there’s a downpour in Albuquerque and nothing here. So, I keep my own measuring cup outside. While the ‘official’ records say Albuquerque has been getting its normal 8 to 10 inches per year, my cups say that between June, 2008 and today we’ve only gotten two inches.”
“Interesting, but as you said, it should have been feeding directly from the river.”
She shrugged and again started walking. “I miss the grand one. He must have been 150 feet tall and 100 feet wide. On hot days I could stay in the shade, get a great view and the dogs had plenty of room to romp in its protection. In a sense, he
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paved a new way. Too bad he didn’t hang around for the last two feet.”
“I really miss him, too. Sometimes I ask the remaining logs what happened, but I haven’t gotten an answer.”
She looked at me as if I were poking some type of fun at her. I wasn’t and didn’t want her to think that, so I added;
“No, I’m not joking. Often when I’m alone out here with Daisy I talk to many of the bushes and trees.”
“Do they talk back?”
“No yet...... Not in words anyway.”
She gave me another strange look, so I added; “For instance, I’ve communicated with that Apache Plume, over there.
I say something and a wind comes out of nowhere and it nods yes or no back.”
“I know a really good psychiatrist in town.”
“I don’t need a psychiatrist.”
She gave me that look again, but this time I remained quiet. She was compelled to add; “Even I go to him.”
I had two thoughts. First, here’s another psychiatric case who frequents the Corrales Bosque and second; “Even I”? That’s borderline insulting. I decided not to pursue either line of thought, but rather I attempted to push the direction of the conversation into a more generalistic area. I said; “Sometime when I was in my twenties there was a bestselling book titled
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‘ Fuck it: Everything You Need To Know About Psychiatry.’ I agreed with that book.”
Somewhat annoyed, she said; “Well, what did it say?”
I hoped for that question and smartly answered; “I didn’t read it. The title said fuck it was all I needed to know and I already knew that from the cover.”
She didn’t know what to say and just gave up, giving me one of her “Oooh, you.” looks. In a way I think she grudgingly respected my thoughts, though she didn’t fully agree with them.
From prior conversations she knew that I don’t believe in
“expert” opinions, though she tends to. She took a different tactic, focusing on when I said that “often I was alone out here with Daisy.” She said; “This is 2009. Any notion you have of privacy is archaic with Google Earth and everyone carrying cell phones capable of photography and motion pictures. You have to assume that anything you do will be on public display.”
I couldn’t disagree, but added; “An exhibitionist and voyeuristic paradise. Only after we leave here, the voyeurs sit all day watching seemingly idiotic people on their computer screens, while eating fast food, getting fat and diabetic. I guess their early deaths will make the people who worry about Social Security’s soundness happy, anyway. A Republican victory.”
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I think that we both had our fill of the conversation and we proceeded quietly. She led the way down the narrow path and I kept my eye on Daisy and Nora’s ass. I recalled the first time I had seen her in 2004 or 2005. She was walking up on a levee path and I was down in the woods, getting a good view of a wide hipped girl wearing blue jeans that couldn’t possibly be any tighter, confidently swinging her arms. I thought to myself; “Look at that little rich girl. I’ll bet she’s accustomed to getting just everything she wants.” I still don't know if I was right.
We eventually reversed direction and walked back to Romero Road’s parking area. On the way she gushed and put an arm to her chest, saying; “Did you see that?”
“No.”
“It’s a red tanager.”
I gleaned that this must be quite an event, but not knowing birds at all, had no idea of the proportion.
She said; “It’s the first one I’ve seen all year.”
I got a glimpse of the bright red winged beauty flying away and said; “Are they usually alone?”
Her eyes looked as if they were somewhere else and she said; “A lot of times.”
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She got into her car and we parted. When I got Daisy back home I just had to hear Patti Smith sing “Gone Pie” and “Summer Cannibals”.
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