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I’m in a Digital Potlatch mood tonight, so here’s another Horse Fly column. This one revisits a familiar theme and is based on actual events, with a little literary embellishment. Please click on through to read the whole thing, it’s even funny. Funnier still if you have any acquaintance with Taos, and I notice this piece touches on a Texas theme again. What do you suppose that means?
Jesus Water-Skis in Waco
The news broke over Juan del Llano’s old adobe like a thunderclap: there in the paper was a letter from a Texan who’d decided not to buy a house in Taos!
It was as if the president had finally been arrested, a mariachi trumpeter had let loose in his ear, and plastic bags no longer waved like flags from rabbit brush beside the road. Could it really be true, he wondered? He stumbled out of doors with one sock dangling half-pulled on, his ancient bathrobe dangerously askew, to peer across the valley and see if the Visitor Center was still there.
The sound of bawling cows drifted up from below the acequia. Juan teetered unsteadily, craning his neck to see through the cottonwoods. A magpie chattered at him from a tall dead aspen. Catching a flash of sunlight from traffic heading up the mountain toward Peñasco, he wondered if the shorter Cañon route to Angel Fire was jammed with fleeing SUVs. A morning zephyr blew an icy chill around his nether regions, so he dropped his gaze to belt the ragged robe around his waist. The scene was all too normal, anyway: no telltale column of smoke rising from Paseo Sur, no distant tinkle of breaking glass.
Making his way back to where he’d bounded from the crapper, he picked the paper up and looked again: yes, there it was in black and white. The editor was mad with power though, and might have made the whole thing up. Juan noted how the author urged marketing the town to people in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas … An obvious giveaway, he decided, his normal cynicism creeping back.
After all, he’d seen the church tour buses disgorging bewildered High Plains septuagenarians in matching dark blue windbreakers and knew well the land they’d left to test their faith (and visit the casino, he usually figured). His imagination, always an unruly companion, pulled him now into a Taos pasty-white and quiet, where obedient citizens shuffled from simple galleries of Bible scenes to bad cafes for grilled cheese sandwiches and frozen pie.
Juan recalled the crazy thrill of passing the last grain elevator in all the prairie whistle-stops he’d ever driven through, and suddenly a Taos bypass made more sense. But an involuntary shudder snapped him back into the present: good God, that couldn’t be the point, which meant the letter might be real! Not bothering to dress, he sped downtown to his favorite bookstore to consult the oracle:
“Get out of here, you’ll scare the customers!” the oracle yelled, rolling his eyes.
“You’re right, I’m sorry. But did you see this? Some guy from Texas says his kids are better off in Angel Fire than in Taos because … ” and Juan began to read: “‘the town has become so eclectic that it is way out there on the fringe of American society.’”
Struck dumb for once, the oracle slowly turned to lock eyes with the bathrobed lunatic and paused three beats:
“IT’S WORKING!!!” they both whooped all at once, and danced a spontaneous jig that sent the card racks flying, until a silver Hummer with Dallas tags and skis on top went rumbling by outside and blotted out the sun.
“There goes another one!” Juan shouted.
“It’s WORKING!” yelped the oracle, and both collapsed in maniacal giggles, as embarrassed passers-by pretended not to notice.
A few weeks later he had company — from Texas, as it happened: his sister from Austin and two of his oldest friends, the husband now retired and living with his wife on a lake near Tyler. A Hindu blues singer followed eccentric rhythms from Mali on the radio as Juan fried buffalo burgers on the stove.
“This isn’t America, you know,” he boasted.
“Not YET!” his old friend laughed, while his wife turned to Juan with a desperate look.
“CAN WE COME?” she pleaded.
“Hell yes!” he answered, “only just don’t wait too long … ”
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