The Dry Spell by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 7
December 10, 2007; bitter cold, frozen hands, gray skies, gusting north winds, tanks for the memories, orange hardhats, nature producing metal grinding sounds and exhaust.
Daisy and I take our usual daily trip, only this time of year I lead her a little more than usual. Her coat makes her seemingly impervious to the cold, but my five layers have less an effect. When she encounters something smelly, approximately every ten feet, she stops to investigate. I give her a gentle tug on the collar and say; “Let’s keep moving a little bit.”
She complies a few times, but on the next try I am stopped cold by an immovable object. I look back and see her sitting on her haunches, with a look on her face that says; “Don’t you dare pull me.” When I stop, she slowly proceeds to the next smelly spot and the game starts over. I should say that I’m really not sure what it is that gets her interest, as I can’t pick up the scent, but I think it’s rabbit activity.
No longer having any sensation in my gloved fingers we enter un-gated Romero Road and spend the next ten minutes dodging loud trucks and construction vehicles which have an urgent important need for the same path. The gate at the other end is wide open to accommodate the people whose name includes
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the word “conservation”, as well as local “Bill’s Landscaping Service.”
We survive the half mile walk, stop and wait and enter the Bosque, aware that we are witnessing another “improvement project.” At the river Daisy goes north, quickly covering the obstacle strewn ground. She wants to cross the drain field and get to the pretty, private spot replete with potential snacks.
But, when we get to the field we find that pink orange strips of plastic have been tied across the barrier trees, indicating that we will have no access today as trucks and other destruction equipment have filled the area, a few actually in motion. I have to hold her back and we hear and see more rumbling down the levee path above us. They no doubt want to give the impression that they are improving the contour of the field, but something more nefarious is going on. We backtrack through the broken woods and continue our hike on the uneven land we have covered so often.
I stop her temporarily near the great cottonwood and get a good look at its skeleton, having now shed all its summer foliage. What is he thinking in his freezing state? Probably, he would say; “Who the **** stole my clothes? It’s difficult to come up with anything new when you’re frozen out.” Being able to see its entirety in its uncomfortable current state affords little pleasure and no further insight during the brief frigid
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visit. The biting northern wind is strongest at the river’s edge and it carries the sound of the metal destructors. I am able to steer her more inland, now somewhat protected from the arctic blast by the trees and the weak sun decides to peek out, blessing us with another small help. We amble around for another half hour and start back home.
We see a few people we are accustomed to seeing at the Bosque on the ditch paths and I ask each of them if they know what is going on in the drain field environs. I should know better by now than to ask so stupid a question. In each case I get an answer somewhere between “I don't know and I don’t care”
and “Some garbage with the drain field”, in any case displaying a cool nonchalant attitude, perhaps a personae adopted over the years designed to make light, or even show pride, in their lack of knowledge about current events. Wasn’t that formerly a high school subject? Maybe that’s what caused the aversion.
Understandable.
Daisy and I have the same experience for a few days, but when we get to the drain field on Sunday, there are only a few parked trucks and no one “working”, so we cross over, noting the small amount of sand that has been pushed from one spot to another and enter our favorite natural wooded domain.
Horrors. We find that there are more destruction vehicles parked in there and they have been clearing out all the live
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wood they can reach without being seen. Plastic ribbons tied to still standing trees indicate that the improvements are not yet complete. We try to find our hidden passage through the pines and can’t because the once shaded area is now in full sun with all the top coverings bulldozed or chain sawed, fed to the chipper and carted out by Bill’s Landscape Service, who now, no doubt, has obtained a free lifetime supply of wood chips. Daisy stops and looks up at me as if to say; “What the ****?”
“More ********,” I tell her in anger, not masking my sadness and disgust. She decides to leave the once beautiful area and I look at the dead wood that was on the ground before the project started still undisturbed, keeping company with the squashed and sliced raccoons, rabbits, skunks and chipmunks lying next to them. No doubt that when this improvement project becomes common knowledge, it’s purpose will have something to do with fire prevention. I suppose dead wood laying on the ground for decades isn’t flammable, however, not being an “expert” with credentials on the subject, I would need an education from some local consultant or fire department official before being allowed to make so brash a statement. Has there ever been a fire in the area? No. But I suppose the way to enhance that record would be to eliminate all the living material and leave the dead, what seem to be a typical approach endemic to Zombie-Land in general.
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As we walked back home we encountered the then usual friendly, interesting people and told them what we had seen.
Again the blasé reaction was encountered, with a slight deference to the possibility of us making a mountain out of a molehill over a minor path clearing or a look suggesting that I was some kind of nut.
The people either have no memory or are beyond embarrassment as when the warm weather finally arrived in May they each informed me that they were shocked at what happened to the Bosque, told me what was done and its location and asked me if I knew anything about the atrocity.
I really don’t remember what replies I made, as I had long before written off any talk as being futile and boring. I normally minimize talk with people who don’t listen or are too thick to understand. My prerogative. They can return the favor with no hard feelings expressed.
The bottom line to me is that it is obvious that the powers that be here can do anything they want and don’t even have to bother concocting a good cover story and I really don’t care. I was forced to leave rural New Jersey, an area replete with eighteenth and nineteenth century homes, five acre zoning and a governing authority that wanted to require any new building to be “in keeping” as far as the law allowed, because I once chose to be married. I didn’t really reasonably expect to elevate my
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standard of living and with each year that passes, it’s another year too late to try to fix anything and I’m one closer to Nirvana. It seems to me the only winners in the forest clearing improvement project were Bill’s Landscape Service and the Gawk family, who can now view more land and try to put a damper on anything interesting going on.
I realize that I really don’t have that much to complain about. I’m 62 years old and was fortunate to live the bulk of my life elsewhere. I sympathize with the teenagers here and wouldn’t want to change places with them, willing to forgo the chance of being young again. I tend to think that teenagers sometimes rightfully require privacy and I wonder where they find any in this friendly fishbowl. No wonder rap music continues to be cutting edge after thirty years of monotony.
The white kids from areas like this love it, because for three minutes they can pretend that they’re bad ass and black, living somewhere the Gawk family has not yet infected.
Postscript to the Bosque destruction story. When the irate citizens voiced their outrage to the powers that be they were rewarded by Bill spreading some of his free wood chips on the defoliated land. The people reversed field again and now express their approval of the project, as they can now walk there as easily as they can in their backyards.
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July 4, 1968; The customary scalding New Mexico summer was mild this year, with mid-day temperatures below 92 degrees.
Frequent small showers further tempered the hot air and enabled the growing of many colorful flowering plants never previously seen; reds, purples, yellows, oranges and whites. Not being trimmed, they grew straight up to four feet, blowing gently in the warm breezes.
At 11 AM, a 1962, two door, deep purple Thunderbird convertible, the top open, rolled slowly down quiet Corrales Road, passing the open lots and old houses in varying states of disrepair, none severe. Today feels like it is going to break the season’s trend and heat up significantly, as an unobstructed sun rained down waves visible above the asphalt. The few small white cumulous clouds held up by the uniform light blue sky, didn’t dare threaten anything, fearful that someone in costume would shoot them down with a bazooka.
The open convertible made a right onto Romero Road blocked from a view of the ditch water by the tall multi-colored plants at the edges. Not blocking its path was the absence of gates and instructional signs at both ends, but the rolling purple wagon didn’t seem to require any advice and it parked headfirst in a small alcove at the end of the road by itself.
The engine shut down, doors opened and closed and the two teenagers hit the firm ground. She was tiny with long straight
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black hair, parted in the middle, down to her puffy butt, held somewhat in place by a flowing blue bandana with white curving designs for decoration. He was 8 or 9 inches taller, had shoulder length light brown hair parted a bit to the left side over his eye, with bangs very susceptible to any wind, as nothing held it in place.
He said; “Hit you yet?”
She made a small smile and whispered; “Yeah.”
He smiled back, saying; “Me, too.” His left hand took her right as they walked up the sloping levee with some difficulty balancing as his right hand held a plastic tape player and her left supported a wicker picnic basket topped by a folded yellow blanket. When he looked in her eyes, the small wire rimmed spectacles reflected back a kaleidoscope of wild brush flower colors, which he might be seeing differently through his own round wire rimmed rose colored ones. He attempted to sing, butchering “that grow so incredibly high.”
She looked at him, displaying a small furrow in her brow, shook her head slightly, but made a small laugh, saying nothing.
He again saw that his career would have to entail something other than singing. They triumphantly got to the levee top, pausing a few minutes to enjoy the view of the river and the lightly treed valley. The gentle downhill trip proved much easier, the black fringe on her blushing red bellbottoms,
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sweeping the brown dirt clean, as her black and white flip-flops protected her teeny-weeny bare feet from any large stones.
They quickly came upon a yellow ping-pong sized styrofoam ball and he picked it up. One side was embossed with two words;
“Prevent” and “Wildfires”, which surrounded Smokey the Bear’s serious face and wide eyed stare. The other side contained a triangle which said; “US Department of the Interior” on top, had trees and a much smaller triangular teepee in the middle and
“Bureau of Indian Affairs-Forestry” at the bottom. Despite that this was Corrales’ fire department of the time, he liked it and put it in one of the pockets of his blue, short sleeved “work”
shirt.
Her white peasant blouse rippled in the breeze encountered as they approached the water, as did his button up lavender bells, a pleasant feeling as the day’s heat was becoming hard to bear in the stillness.
They had been side by side, hand in hand through the wide path, but as they turned south along the river, the path became narrow and they hesitated, quickly deciding to maintain their comfortable positions and walk through the tall grass and flowers.
After a few hundred feet, for some reason, all four of their eyes riveted on a six year old, twenty-five foot cottonwood growing at the very edge of the Rio Grande. They
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both admired it and then looked at each other. Each knew that there was something important about it, but didn’t say anything, as their current state of mind made most words silly and unimportant. They stopped and remembered their first meeting at a Quicksilver Messenger Service concert in San Francisco, while the group was doing its extended version of “Who Do You Love?”
That’s probably the best possible explanation of their mutual fascination.
They walked another mile to where she knew a very wide and private section of the Bosque, where she stopped in the wooded part and spread her yellow blanket, he for the first time seeing the luscious edibles now uncovered. They both sat and she spread cheese on some of the crackers, handing them to him, as she kicked off her flip-flops.
He said; “Do you plan on staying around here long?”
She nodded her head and said; “I think so.”
“I’m currently studying Accounting, planning to cash in on it back east. I guess I’ll have to change my plans and get a Masters in Roofing. That’s the only good work available here.”
She smiled and said; “You can’t get a Masters in Roofing.”
“Okay, I’ll get a Masters in Architecture and a PhD in Roofing. I’ll be able to keep my 2-S deferment longer.”
She laughed, touched his arm, pointed at the crackers and cheese and said; “Eat.”
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He simultaneously pushed a button on his tape player and they heard Oliver singing “Jean.”
I felt a hard bump against my chest and heard; “Woof, woof.”
Daisy wants me to wake up and take her outside quickly. I do the best I can and it looks like she just made it. After she’s again settled, I make coffee, as usual, before our walk, only this time while drinking it I listen to Patti Smith sing “Fireflies.” The calendar pages have been turned 518 times as September, 2011 has ridiculously shown its pitiful head and is showing a photograph of a fall wooded scene, with two people in toxicity repellant, yellow, irradiant outfits, sitting on the fallen leaves.
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