Sunday, May 26, 2013

Where Ideas Come From


In my nearly 18 years as a newspaper journalist, no one had ever asked me where I got my ideas on stories. Most are obvious, of course, what with crime and council meetings and the like. You covered an event, now it's in the paper – there's no curiosity of where that came about. Even the feature stories that were a little weird or out of the ordinary had their seeds in something else.
So I've been taken aback lately when I've talked to folks who have read my books and stories and I get these questions: “How much of you is in these?” “Who are the characters based on?” “Where do you get your ideas?”
I've read enough to know that many authors find these questions silly, because the answer is so obvious. But I've always sort of believed that the writers who complain about such things had never really been asked these questions – that it was a giant myth perpetuated by literary types to make them seem superior than the rest of us. I knew the answers to those questions – I'd spent my whole life being entertained by my imagination. When I talked to writers, I was most interested in the mechanics of writing. I wanted to learn such things as character development and pacing and plotting and such things about how to do it.
So, I was a bit surprised when I started getting those “silly” questions. My friend Steve Brewer, author of numerous comic mystery novels explained it very well to me why these questions are asked – for many readers it is a way to start a conversation with a writer. Plus, they really are interested in “The Creative Process.” My befuddlement comes from the fact that I don't have a book contract and have never sold a short story to a publication. Granted, I've not tried that hard and years ago when I dipped my toe into the literary waters, I found a bunch of sharks. Mostly, I just want to write and technology has made it relatively easy and cheap to share it with anyone who wants to take a look.
I suppose I don't mind the questions because it requires me to think about what I've done from a different angle. I'm afraid my answers to initial questions may have left some wondering if I actually did write what I was claiming to have written.
My internal voice, which is heavily edited before the words tumble out of my mouth, usually wants to answer the question, “Where do you get your ideas?” with another question, “How do you make them stop?” I don't say that, though, because – to my mind – it seems to sound a little arrogant; like I'm telling someone who was kind enough to not only buy my book, but take the time to read it and think about it that I'm far superior to them.
The truth is, though, that it really is hard to make the ideas stop. I've got notebooks and scraps of paper all over the house full of ideas. On my writing schedule, I've got three novels outlined, a half-dozen short stories to write and one book of columns to edit. The ideas come from everywhere, the key is to always carry a notebook and to always remain open to all the possibilities.
The idea for “Blind Man's Bluff” came about because I was newly married and I couldn't imagine a life without my wife. The key word there is “imagine,” but the loss of a loved one is certainly a universal theme. You can't get to a certain age without someone close to you dying. There was nothing horribly original in my thinking, and there is nothing in this book that probably hasn't been covered for centuries in literature. As a matter of fact, everything written is derivative of something else. What makes literature special is in the telling of the tale.
And what makes a good story? The usual things – antagonist, protagonist, rising action, climax, pacing, and a half-dozen other writerly things. Those are the mechanics I talked about earlier, and most readers don't much notice those things unless it's really good or really bad. These are the tools you use to build a story and you have to spend time learning to use those tools. Although, some writers easily learn to use those literary wrenches and screwdrivers, the rest of us must work at it. (You are kidding yourself if you think good writing is easy to do.)
So where do my characters come from? Are they based on people I know? The quick answer is yes and no. Here's an example of that, a description of Duncan from “Blind Man's Bluff”:
Rand puzzled over his benefactors as they sat staring at him. The girl was pretty, black hair and white skin set off by dark lips. The boy must have been about 20 or a little older, pale and skinny. His hair was perfect, short and just the right amount of mousse to keep any wandering hairs from breaking loose and ruining the effort put into styling it every morning. Rand knew the driver’s type from the marketing firm where he used to work. These young kids with their perfect hair and clothes would come in thinking they should be running the company. When they found out they had to work their way up over time with sweat, they usually quit and went to the next job to do the same thing. They would spend their time writing e-mail to their friends complaining no one understood their genius or gave them a chance on any big project. Every once in awhile one would break through with a good idea and get a lot of attention. But they never knew what to do with the attention and always started ordering the twenty-year guys around.”
Duncan is not one person that I know, but he's got the qualities of many of the frat-guy college students who would populate classes I was taking in college. Like many people my age, I didn't go to college right out of high school. When I finally got around to it at nearly 30 years of age, I found these young kids like Janice and Duncan there. I didn't hate them, but I had long outgrown their youthful dramatics. However, one relevant thing about Duncan is that he is this young guy and he has an ulcer. That was taken from someone I knew who was completely unlike Duncan.
Janice, I'm somewhat sad to say, is essentially an archetype without much depth to her. That's her role in all of this, and sometimes when I read through the work I feel guilty for that. But by the same token this isn't her story.
I've had people ask me if Rand is me. Again, the answer is yes and no. He has many of my qualities, but he takes a path I don't think I would have ever taken. When I started on this, he probably was more like me, but as I went through the process, he began to become his own person.
In my new book, “Time in the World,” there is one major character who is based whole cloth on someone I knew. In the book, J.C. Cummings is the owner of an antique store that never seems to be open. The narrator describes him as such:
Jaspar Cummings was not a tall man and he looked to be about 70 years old. His shoulders were hunched as if his body was well on that march in reverting back to a fetus. Around his neck was a pair of thick eyeglasses that was kept from being misplaced by a black leather lanyard. He wore a maroon cardigan and had his trousers were pulled up to about the middle of his chest. In essence, he was an old man and not long for this earth. My concern was how sharp his mind was. My own grandmother went crazy at about 70 and I knew from experience that older folks didn’t always care to understand the younger generations. It was the first of several times that I underestimated Jaspar Cummings.
As the reader gets to know J.C. they learn he is a somewhat disillusioned idealist, smokes his own hand-rolled cigarettes and has a dry sense of humor. In short, he is my old friend Fred Maio, who died in 1995. He's there for a reason though, and I'll share why.
I met Fred when I was doing community theater in Albuquerque in 1988. I was fresh out of the Air Force and theater gave me an opportunity to be creative and to meet girls. I met Fred when he asked me to run his sound board on a production of “Play it Again, Sam” and, although 25 years older than me, we became friends. Fred had been a staff writer for “Happy Days” and “Laverne and Shirley” as well as working on several other sitcoms in the 1970s. When he had gone out to Hollywood in 1960s, Fred was in a comedy team with Barry Levinson and Craig T. Nelson.
But Hollywood chewed up Fred and spit him out, leaving him angry and addicted to alcohol. He had returned to Albuquerque, where he had grown up, and worked at directing stage plays and getting bit parts in movies and TV shows that filmed in New Mexico. If you have ever seen the movie “City Slickers” with Billy Crystal, Fred played the Spanish doctor at the beginning of the movie that's sewing up Billy Crystal's butt.
Fred in "City Slickers
Fred also had a regular part in the short-lived TV series “Earth 2” and was a featured actor in River Phoenix's last movie, “Silent Tongue,” which also happened to be Fred's last movie.
Fred would encourage me as a writer, but his one piece of advice was to “stay away from Hollywood.” From time to time, though, he would joke with me that one day I would make it big and forget all the people who had helped me out. Then he would make me promise that when I wrote something to make sure there was a part for him to play so he could get work. I've kept that promise. In “Blind Man's Bluff” Fred could have played Rand's father-in-law and in “Time in the World” I gave him a starring role.
So no and yes. Characters, for the most part, are made up within the deep recesses of my imagination. Sometimes, though, they come from real people.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Coming real soon!

If you had a device that could take you back and forth in time, what would you do with it?
For Jaspar Cummings, the answer was to open an antique store specializing in acquiring hard-to-find items.
The thing about having a time traveling device, though, is that other people might want it.
Coming in June on all formats is "Time in the World," the latest book by Rory McClannahan. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.

Stories I Tell, Part 2


For some reason, we all tend to have an obsession with celebrities, and of course just about everyone is a celebrity these days. I've lost track of who is supposed to be famous and who isn't.
Standing in line at the grocery store the other day, I realized that I must be old when I didn't recognize any of the celebrities on the covers of the gossip magazines. Then again, it could be that I don't that much anymore. That doesn't mean that, like almost everyone else, there isn't at least some little thrill to seeing a celebrity. My last celebrity encounter was with Forest Whitaker, who was take a break on the smokers bench at the Albuquerque Journal last year while filming some movie. He was just sitting there checking his phone. I said hello, he said hi back and that was it.
That's usually the extent of celebrity encounters I've had – an exchange of pleasantries. I smiled at Susan Anton in a bar in Las Vegas once, and it was in Vegas when Tony Bennett gave me a wave. A couple months ago, Denise Crosby patted my son on the head at the Albuquerque ComicCon and said he was cute dressed as Link. I shook hands with Sam Shepard not long after I waved at a hungover Richard Harris and once told Diane Keaton to sit down. Muhammed Ali once shook his fist in my face and Sugar Ray Leonard's bodyguards pushed me out of the way.
But the celebrity encounter that I remember best was with Paul Newman. Yes, Butch Cassidy himself, I had a brief encounter with him and I hope he remembered it because he shouldn't have crossed me. (No, I didn't stalk him.)
If you didn't know, Paul Newman liked racing cars. He got into racing during training for the film “Winning” in 1969 and actually raced Datsuns with the Bob Sharp Racing Team. It was with his racing team that Newman showed up at the 1984 Caesar's Palace Grand Prix in 1984. The race itself was only run for four years in the north parking lot of Caesars Palace, which is now Treasure Island.
I was stationed in the Air Force at Nellis Air Force Base in North Las Vegas, which meant I didn't lack for people coming out to visit me. My father called me and said he got tickets for the race, the final of the CART series for the season. He got pretty good seats, actually, just right on the first turn. I was pretty excited, really, because I'd never seen an Indy Car race.
The track for the 1984 Caesars Palace Grand Prix
The day was nice and before the main race started, there were a couple other races. Including a Can-Am race in which Paul Newman was scheduled to compete. Dad and I were walking around the track, checking out the souvenir stands and looking at the pretty girls. OK, so there wasn't many pretty girls – not big race fans, I guess.
We were making our way back to our seats when from out of an infield gate comes Paul Newman riding an odd little bicycle. In my hand I had a program and in my pocket a pen. At home, I had a grandmother who loved Paul Newman. Let's be real here – lots of women loved Paul Newman.
So what do think?” I asked Dad. “You think he'll sign a program?”
Dad shrugged his shoulders and said give it a try.
I caught Paul Newman before he could pedal away. And yes, his eyes were really blue.
Excuse me, Mr. Newman,” I said. “I'm sorry to bother you, but my grandmother is a huge fan of yours and I was wondering if I could get your autograph for her?”
Paul Newman giving the stink eye.
I'm not sure what kind of day he was having. He could have had a hard time sleeping the night before, or maybe his breakfast wasn't sitting well. He could have been nervous about his upcoming race. But it has always been my feeling that celebrities – no matter who they are – owe their fans a least a tad bit of courtesy. I understand that Steve Martin doesn't care to sign autographs and instead will hand out a business card and say thank you.
You see, a celebrity is a celebrity because people put down a couple bucks every now and then to see their movies, read their books or listen to their music. Sure, they can say they really only got into the business to act, or write, or sing, or whatever. The truth is that they like the attention those things bring and it's because of ordinary people.
So I didn't expect the answer from Paul Newman that I got:
I don't give fucking autographs,” he said, and then he peddled away on his little bicycle.
I'm sorry, Mr. Newman, I didn't get that memo. He could have easily said, no without being rude. Instead, he went that extra mile to make me feel smaller than I already did. What he didn't expect was to incur my wrath.
I hope you crash!” I yelled to his back. Don't misunderstand, I didn't want to get hurt; I just wanted him to suffer humiliation doing something he enjoyed. Dad was as shocked as I was and we made our way to our seats. Within an hour or so, the Can-Am race was about the begin.
The cars came out and took a couple laps to get lined up and warm up the tires. As I said before, we were near the first turn, so when the green flag was dropped, that's when the racers accelerated up to racing.
The green flag dropped, the drivers floored their accelerators and zoomed by. On that first lap, Paul Newman zipped past and headed into the first turn. Maybe he was bumped or maybe he just messed up, but the result was that his red, white and blue Nissan ended up flipping over and ending up in the dirt. Paul Newman was fine, but I can't help but think his ego was a little bruised.
My father, on the other hand, claims he was spooked.
Remind me to never make you mad,” he said. He still talks about how I made Paul Newman crash on that day.
Honestly, though, that wasn't enough for me. I determined from that day forward that Paul Newman would never get a dime of my money. This was before the salad dressing, so the only thing I had to avoid at the time was his movies. I understand he got an Oscar for a movie he made with Tom Cruise – I never saw it. And when the salad dressing hit the shelves, I refused to buy it – even though profits went to charity. When Paul Newman movies came on television, I changed the channel.
As you can see, my boycott made a huge impact on his career. For more than 20 years, I was out of the Paul Newman business. But then I saw one of his later movies, “Nobody's Business” on television and didn't change the channel. I still didn't pay money for his work, I justified to myself.
It wasn't until he died that I tried his salad dressing. It actually wasn't that bad, and I do like the thin crust frozen pizza that carries his likeness. But even then, I don't buy it because it's Paul Newman, but because it's a good product that benefits good causes.

I guess at this point, nearly 30 years after this incident, I should just let it go. Paul Newman is considered an American icon who people still adore. To me, though, he will always be a jerk on a little bicycle. I understand that the trappings of fame aren't always pleasant and that when you are a celebrity there will always people who want a piece of you.
That still doesn't give you the right to be rude.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Family Stories, Mothers Day edition


It's Mother's Day today, and after you all have given your mothers a brand new Kindle, rememeber that my book, “Blind Man's Bluff,” is specially priced for this special occasion. Plus, it's a good read for Mom.
Now that the pitch is out of the way, we can get to story. The subject today is, of course, Mother's Day. I debated telling you all about my Mom, but that would just be too depressing. She died nearly 16 years ago and not a day goes by that I don't think about her. We'll just leave it at that for now, and think about happier things; and hopefully a little more humorous. This is, after all, an edition of Family Stories. So I'll tell you two stories about when my two sons were born. They are stories that are told often around the house, especially around Mother's Day.
Robin and I had been married about two years when we decided “what the heck, lets go off the birth control and see what happens.” Well, what happened was Robin got pregnant, and we were given a due date in the middle of August 1997.
It was a typical pregnancy, I suppose, with the usual scares and the usual hormonal fluctuations. We went to doctor appointments and birth classes. We saw the ultrasound showing a “bat and ball” and we knew when he was born his name would be Connor Michael. During the last trimester, Robin was in constant discomfort and had taken to sleeping on a foam mattress on the floor. She was ready when the due date came. She was ready a week after the due date. She was ready when annother week past the due date came and passed. After the third week, the obstetrician made the call – this birth was going to have to be induced.
So on September 4, a Thursday, we had an appointment at 9 a.m. to go have a child. I remember as if it was yesterday when we were leaving the house that morning. The bags were packed with everything we needed, and before we opened the door to leave, Robin looked at me. It struck us that when we next came back through that door, we would be a family instead of just a couple. We got a little weepy – we're both a little sappy that way.
What followed was a long, boring day with an exciting 15 minutes near the end.
The first thing the docs asked Robin before setting up the I.V. was whether she wanted an epidural block. “I think I'll wait and see how bad it gets before deciding,” Robin said.
I'm not sure if the medical staff laughed at us or not; knowing what I know now the answer should have been, “Yes, please.” The inducing drugs were administered and … we waited. Then more was given and … we watched television. Suddenly, the show started. Contractions coming faster and faster. I became fascinated with the equipment that was monitoring the contractions. I'm not sure what the numbers on it meant, but they would start to increase and then the contraction would come.
Robin was in a lot of pain and determined, that yes, it was time for an epidural. Unfortunately, it was too late for the procedure, she was dilated too far, or something like that. The only thing that could be done was to add Demerol to her I.V., which pretty much accomplished making her a little loopy.
For about three hours we went through this pattern: every three minutes or so, the number would spike and Robin would writhe in agony while squeezing my hand with bone crushing strength. Once the pain subsided, she would fall asleep and me and the nurse would watch music videos on VH-1. Finally, it was time for the earnest pushing but my poor wife wasn't really up to it – she was already exhausted.
Robin. Sweetie. We need you to push now,” the midwife would say. “Can you push?”
I guess,” she'd answer in a stoned haze.
Two hours this went on and things weren't moving along like they were supposed to – Connor, true to his nature, was being a bit stubborn. So a doctor came in and consulted and the decision was made to pull the boy out. To do this, a suction cup about the size of the dice shaker in a game of Yatzee and equipped with a handled was fastened to the top of Connor's head. Once the suction was applied, Robin would push and the doctor would pull.
Apparently, this procedure had not been done at the hospital in some time, because our small room was soon crowded with “observers” wearing scrubs, lab coats and other various medical attire. The doctor attached the suction cup and waited for the next contraction. Robin pushed and he pulled and the suction cup lost its grip on Connor's head. The doctor went flying back and was caught by several nurses before he fell. If it hadn't been so serious in there, I would have laughed, because even the next day it was pretty funny.
Another attempt was made and this time beautiful baby boy was welcomed into the world. The medical staff did the right thing, they handed Connor to me and made me stand over him at the machine that I affectionately call the “fry warmer.” It was a large machine with heat lamps that babies are placed under just after birth. It kept making a beeping noise like the fryers at McDonalds when a batch of fries are done.
The reason it was a good idea to keep me over there was because everyone else was working on Robin. I'll try not to be too graphic, but the problem was that something large came out of her and there was a lot of tearing. There was a lot of screaming and a lot of blood and in the immortal words of Forrest Gump, that's all I'm going to say about that. But everything worked out and everything was fine, although I will admit that it wasn't pleasant to see Robin that pale.

I'm not sure if it was while the doctor was fixing up Robin or soon afterward, but somewhere around that time, the woman who delivered dinner showed up with a nice plate of spaghetti. I'm not lying, that's what it was. Connor had arrived at about the same time as dinner. Things settled down a bit, family members got to hold the new child, including my mother.
Another child had made his way into the world, and seeing what Robin went through was the most amazing thing I've ever witnessed. I swore I wouldn't make her go through that again.

Part 2, Beckett Henry
If Connor was reluctant, Beck was the opposite. I'm not quite sure how the decision to have another child came about, but Robin blames me. I'm willing to take the fall for it, but again, Robin did most of the heavy lifting on this one. If that sounds vague, it shouldn't. He was planned and he was born almost exactly four years after Connor.
The pregnancy with Beck had its own challenges, foremost being that we moved about six months into it. I've never made hay about Robin sitting out most of the work with our move – I'd seen what childbirth looked like and was well aware not to make waves. Instead of a foam mattress, Robin insisted on getting a fouton on which to sleep. If there was a similarity, it was that the last trimester was again during the summer and fall. One thing she had decided from the moment she learned she was pregnant was that she was not going to deliver this baby without an epidural.
Beck was due in the middle of October and Robin swore that she would not carry that child longer than his due date. I'm not sure if we hit that date, and if he was late, it was only by a day or two. By this time, we were in the new house which was 40 miles away from the hospital. I wasn't worried, the first kid had to be pulled out, the second one wouldn't be born on the freeway. Right?
Well, he wasn't. But it was awful damn close.
It was a Tuesday and Robin had decided it was time, come hell or high water. She'd made a run to the drug store earlier and got a bottle of castor oil, having read that it was good for speeding things up. Why she decided to take it at nine in the evening, I'll never know; but by 10, she was having contractions. We made a phone call to the on-call nurse at the hospital who told Robin to take a bath and wait until the contractions came closer together. By 11:30, I was thinking it was getting close, but Robin called the nurse again who told us not to panic, just wait a little longer. We waited a bit, but the contractions kept getting faster and faster. Finally, I made the call, time to get going. It was about 12:35 in the morning when we got on the road. I'd called relatives, roused Connor from his slumber and got everything in the truck.
I generally try not to speed when I'm on the freeway, tbut the urgency in which Robin was squeezing my hand indicated that I best not dawdle. I'm surprised no cop stopped us, I was going in excess of 90 mph and when I exited the freeway, Robin gave me carte blache to run red lights. (That was totally cool, she'd always been on me about that. A guilty pleasure, I must admit to.)
The whole time, Robin was doing her deep, quick breathes and at one point we heard from the back seat Connor letting us know how he felt, “Will you cut that out, it's making me crazy.”
We made it to the hospital at 1 a.m., just at the in-laws had pulled in. I quickly shouted out directions to my father-in-law to watch Connor and hold Robin's hand while I ran in and got a help from the delivery room staff. The door to the delivery wing was locked to keep crazy people from wandering off with babies and it took a long time from someone to respond to my ringing on the buzzer.
Yes,” a guy finally came on.
I need a wheelchair and a little help,” I said, panic rising in my voice. “My wife's about to have a baby out here in the parking lot.
Hang on,” the voice said with no sense of urgency. The door buzzed unlocked but no one came out. I went in and made my plea to the person behind the desk. Still, no urgency. My father-in-law had got her out of the truck and had made it to the door, which I opened. The staff was still noncholant, as if we were interupting their important sleep time. Things sped up, though, when they got Robing in a bed in a room and noticed that Beck was ready and the time was then.

Seven minutes after arriving at the hospital, Beckett Henry made his way into the world. I was there for that one as well; and again, Robin did not get her epidural. In fact, she didn't get any pain killers until it was over. The birth had been completely unaided and quick.
When I went to the waiting room to tell everyone that he had been born, there was general surprise. In fact, Robin's sister and brother-in-law had not even made it to the hospital in time. Once again, my sweet wife had done the most incredible thing – she baked a human. The next day, I made an appointment to get myself fixed so that she wouldn't get pregnant again – at least not by me. It was my early Mother's Day present to her.
I've witnessed two births and it's something all men should be required to see up close. Childbirth is not easy, but being a mother is not easy either. Every day, I see Robin being a mother and I admire her even more. There is a connection between a mother and her child, and there is good reason all Moms should have a day of their own.




Sunday, May 5, 2013

Get it while it's free!

My first book, "Blind Man's Bluff," will be available for free for two days starting midnight tonight. That's right, FREE. Meaning it won't cost you anything to read great literature. Okay, maybe not great literature, but it's a pretty decent story.
My only request is that if you take advantage of this special offer to please give me a review.


Interstate, Second Version




Interstate
By Rory McClannahan

Pap knew about weather. His whole life he kept a weather log wherever he was living. Most of it logged the weather patterns of the Estancia Valley, because my father hadn’t really lived anywhere else. He was born in New Jersey and came to the valley in between the world wars. He grew up in a city and left as soon as he could, traveling around the country in a vaudeville troupe. Once he found the place where he wanted to die he decided he would stay there. That place turned out to be the valley. I never understood his affinity for the area. As far as I was concerned, I couldn’t leave soon enough. Summertime was hot and dry, winters could be long and cold. All seasons were punctuated by the wind.
“I can breath here,” Pap told me once when I asked. He offered no further explanation. He never went back East again, except just after V-E Day to buy an old Indian motorcycle with a sidecar at a military auction. He rode the bike back to our front doorstep at Wicked Pete’s Trading Post on Route 66, one hundred and fifty-two miles west of the Texas border. I didn’t know Pap then – I wasn’t born until he was in his fifties. But I heard every story he ever told from behind the counter of Wicked Pete’s, which Pap claimed he bought for a dime during the Depression. At the time, Wicked Pete’s was mostly a shack by the side of the flat top. Pap took the shack and made it into what people would now call a tourist trap. Back then, it was a roadside attraction. Pap’s stories changed over the years as he improved the way he told them. He always said the tourists who stopped in to buy gasoline and souvenirs expected to be entertained. Pap practiced his stories out on me, usually during the afternoon doldrums at the store. It was the time of the day when the chores were done and the customers were scarce.
“Kit,” Pap would start pulling out a pen knife to clean his fingernails, “did I ever tell you about the time when Al Capone stopped here?” Even if I had heard the story, I would always say no. I loved to listen to his tales, and although I’d heard most of them many times, I was always unsure if they would end the same way. Everyone loved Pap’s stories, especially the tourists.
Besides tourists, Wicked Pete’s also attracted almost every farmer in the area. Maam made the best coffee in the world and the farmers would come in first thing in the morning to fill their Thermos jugs. Sometimes, especially in the fall, she would make apple turnovers from the horrible green apples that grew on our tree next to Pap’s weather shed. We would sell the turnovers for a nickel apiece. I wasn’t allowed to eat any unless I spent my own nickel for one.
The summer when I was 10 years old, Eisenhower was on his way out and the country was wondering if Kennedy would be able to beat Nixon. The talk around our little town in the middle of New Mexico, though, centered on two things -- the weather and the freeway. Pap knew about both better than most folks in town. They were his obsessions.
Ever since he was a child, Pap had kept track of the weather. The spark of his obsession with the weather started with a 1914 issue of Popular Science. There was an article showing how to build a barometer. Pap, who was a boy at the time, was hooked on the weather. When he bought Wicked Pete’s in 1934, the first thing he built was a shed to house his weather equipment that he ordered out of magazine or built himself. The shed was small, but built to withstand the wind. Inside, one wall was covered with large dials that recorded the temperature, wind speed and barometric pressure. The dials were connected to equipment and probes that poked up through the roof of the shed. To me, it kind of looked like Frankenstein’s laboratory with official looking dials connected to old farm tools that Pap used when he needed to rig a part. On another wall of the shed was a bookshelf that held the log books he kept. Pap used to keep feed for a buffalo in the shed, which was next to its pen. The buff had long died before I was born and Maam wouldn’t allow another one on the property.
Each year, Pap would make a proclamation on when the summer rains would begin, and he was rarely wrong. He and Maam would make a big deal of it every year, kind of a celebration to end winter and have everyone over. Every March he would have a barbecue – it was the social event of the spring in our little corner of the world. If you were invited, you showed up – mostly because Maam made the best barbecue. In March of the year I was 10, he announced that the summer rains would start on July 8. Three months seemed like a long time to wait for rain that year. During the winter and spring there had hardly been any snow or rain. People in the valley said the word drought as if it were dirty, and I guess it was. Pap knew everything about the weather, including when it would rain. As far as I knew, his predictions were never wrong. This gift of weather prognostication earned him the respect of every farmer and rancher in the valley, and that isn’t easy to do.
Because there wasn’t much water falling from the sky that year, the farmers had to pump more water than usual from the ground. Pumping cost money and in a year where one crop could make or break you, the drought had a lot of the farmers on edge. It had Pap on edge, too. Many of those farmers had tabs. Some were big tabs.
Pap’s other obsession was the freeway.
Everyone knew the freeway was coming, but that didn’t make the appearance of the road crews any less of a surprise. Most people in our little town had never seen earth movers the size that were hauled through town on equally huge trailers. Like all the farmers in the valley, the roads crews also would get their Thermos jugs filled with coffee at Wicked Pete’s. Pap cussed like crazy about the guys who would come into the shop and run off his regular customers, but he treated each as nice as his best friends and jacked up his prices 13 percent. Pap hated the freeway because he knew it was going to ruin him. His connections weren’t good enough and when the surveyors had come through the year before, the exit for town was planned on McQueen property. The McQueens did not hesitate to capitalize on their “good fortune.” They were already busy building a brand new Holiday Inn right where the exit was going to be. Next to that, they had plans for a truck stop that was going to be open 24 hours a day.
That spring, Pap spent his days on top of the weather shed in back by the old buffalo pen watching the road machines through a surveyor’s glass. More than two miles away, the crews were clearing the land and building a road bed. Each morning, Pap would climb on top to the shed and not come down until supper time. When the bell dinged for a customer, Pap would yell to me.
“Kit. Customer,” he would say over his shoulder, not even looking to see who it was. I pumped gas, checked the oil and washed the windshield. I usually asked if they wanted me to check belts and the radiator. During some point, I was supposed to push our deluxe car wash, but I rarely convinced anyone to buy one. I hated washing cars most of all. I also made sure to invite the family to take a look inside at our “extravagant selection of Indian artifacts.” Usually Pap would take over from there, acting like what he thought a carload of Easterners would think a Westerner acted like. He told stories about the area, the Indians who had camped nearby, the stagecoach and the Santa Fe Trail. During his performances, Pap would eventually talk the family into buying more than just gasoline and a quart of oil. Indian headdresses and rubber tomahawks made in Taiwan were usually bought for the kids, and the mothers usually got a cheap turquoise bauble. Pap was good at what he did and could sell a Bible to the devil.
But that spring, me and Maam tried our best to fill Pap’s shoes while he kept vigil over the interstate. After a customer left, Pap would call me over and I would be expected to give a report of everything, but especially about the freeway. Pap wanted to know how it was coming, and the best information came from the folks who were driving it. Long-haul truckers knew the most, but Pap said he would never trust a man who drove trucks for a living.
“Pap,” I told him once, “the guy said he drove from Okie City to Santa Rosa in four hours on the new road. He said he loved it because you can’t get stuck behind slower traffic. He said it’s real safe, too. He didn’t see any wrecks.” As an afterthought, I added something that must have broke Pap’s heart.
“I can’t hardly wait ‘til it comes through here,” I said.
“Why’s that?”
“I’ll be able to get on that road and drive all the way to California,” I said. “And when I get there, I’ll be able to turn around and drive all the way to New York.”
“You can do that now.”
“I know, but it would be neat to drive on the new road and not have to stop in every dinky town.”
Pap shook his head sadly and sighed.
“I’d hope you stop here every now and again and see Maam. She’d be disappointed if you didn’t at least stop to say hello.”
“I’d take you guys with me,” I said.
He slung one of his lanky arms around my shoulder and pulled me close. I could smell his sweet scent of Aqua Velva mixed with sweat. Although it was hot, Pap had a good set-up on the tin roof of the weather shed. He rigged up a chair and umbrella set up and a cooler full of water in canning jars. He wore green aviator’s glasses and wide-brimmed hat. The trees he had planted years before assured that he was always sitting in the shade. I looked in the cooler for a Pepsi.
“You know what that highway means, don’t you, Kit?” I shrugged. I wasn’t sure -- something about military convoys I ventured, repeating something I had overheard somewhere. I hadn’t thought much about it, I was caught up in the excitement of the whole thing.
“That freeway is being built by the government to make our lives easier. Cars and trucks are going to replace trains as the best way to move things across the country. That road is the future and it will make it so people don’t have to stop here for gasoline. The country is speeding up, Kit, it’s been like that since the war ended. A smart person would try and get an exit on his property. It takes money to make money, though.
They been planning this thing for five years. Up and down that whole road, and others like it, clear across the country, people been making money, and not fairly. I’m afraid your Pap doesn’t have the connections to get them to stop here.”
“The McQueens do?” Everyone who grew up in the valley knew the McQueens. Shoot, I had two of them in school with me. Cooper McQueen was a bully, but his little sister Bea was always nice to me. I had heard about some people who resented the McQueens, but I didn’t understand why until I was talking with Pap on the roof of the shed.
“The McQueens were lucky enough to homestead the in the valley first. The Armijos were second. They bought up the land close to Route 66 when it was being planned. By the time I got here, we only got this piece here, and it’s five miles out of town. But we done good with it. The freeway will make this place obsolete, no one will ever stop here again. They’ll all pull off at the exit down by the new motor lodge and truck stop. They won’t have any reason to come down here.”
“Isn’t there any way to talk them into putting an exit here?”
Pap looked at me sideways and grinned, and I knew he was about to let me in on a secret.
“You be ready to go after Maam goes to bed. If you don’t fall asleep, I’ll take you with me. But you have to promise me that never tell anyone about what you see.”
“Never?”
“Only after I’m long dead and even then, I don’t think you better.”
I promised on my mother’s grave and he reminded me that was a serious promise and Maam had better never find out.
My mother’s real name was Rachel, but everyone called her Maam. She was the kind of woman who commanded respect. Pap was 10 years older than her and it was her that told him they were going to marry. She always said that if she’d left up to him, he’d still be a bachelor. I’m sure at one time my mother was a girl, but it didn’t last long. She took care of her three bothers after her dad died in a farming accident and her mom went crazy and just disappeared. Maam was nobody’s fool, and while I suspect she knew most of what I was up to, she only made an issue of the things that were important. Sneaking out at night – even if it was with Pap – would have been one of the things that would get both of us in trouble. It was a risk I was willing to take, though.
That night, I made sure to leave my bedroom window open just a crack and snuck out when I saw the lights go out under the crack in my bedroom door. I met Pap by the shed and he already had his motorcycle pulled out. We were going to ride the motorcycle! My whole life I wanted to ride on the two-wheeled behemoth, but Maam would never allow Pap to take me. Pap tossed me a leather helmet and put his fingers to his lips to shushed me before I could scream with excitement.
We pushed the bike down 66 for a mile in silence. The only noise was the soft thuds of my sneakers and Pap’s work boots on the pavement. There was a slight breeze and I was glad I had brought a jacket. It was spring, but it could still get cold at night. The night was clear and a crescent moon steadily crept up the eastern horizon. I could barely contain my excitement, which was making me sort of skip as my father pushed the motorcycle along. The bike had always been presence in my life, but I never got to ride on it. Pap had taken off the sidecar because he said it made the bike handle different. I used to watch Pap carefully every time he took the bike out to wash it or change the oil. When he got on it, to make one of his frequent forays onto the backroads of the valley, I always longed to go with him. Oddly enough, it wasn’t Maam that withheld permission, it was Pap. Pap would let me do most anything I wanted, but the motorcycle was off limits. It was what kept him sane, he claimed, and we all left it at that.
After we had walked far enough from Wicked Pete’s where the engine of the bike couldn’t be heard, Pap straddled it and kicked it to life.
Get on back and hold on,” he said. “When we go into a corner, lean into it.”
We were off and gained speed quickly.
If anyone ever asked me to define happiness I would say it is holding onto your Pap on the back of an Army issue Indian motorcycle while it cruised down Highway 66 in the dead of the night.
Soon Pap screamed at me to hold on tight and we left the paved road and headed north on a farm road. We rode for miles and I can remember I nearly fell off twice. Pap would ride on one dirt road with rows small corn stalks on both sides, then turn suddenly on another and ride for what seemed forever. I was expecting the sun to pop up, and was kind of wishing for it so I would have an idea where I was. We rode for what seemed hours like that and eventually the farmland dropped away. The thrill of being on the bike eventually wore off and I began to feel like I wanted to get off and stretch my legs.
Then we stopped. When I looked up I could see every star in the universe. It was the first time I had really noticed the stars and the wide band of the Milky Way. I had a tendency to always be looking down, not up. Pap startled me when he tooted the rubber horn on the handlebars. In the distance, an air horn tooted back, and Pap fired up the bike again and rode in the direction of the sound. After a few minutes we came upon a road grader hidden off the road by some juniper bushes. The cabin was softly lit by a kerosene lantern and sitting in the seat was Slim O’Rourke. When we got close, Slim jumped out of the cabin.
“Well hello there, Kit Carson,” he said when he saw me get off the bike. I liked Slim, and I especially liked it when he called me Kit Carson. Slim was older than Pap and long past the physique that earned him his nickname. He was a tall, thin man with an enormous gut and a host of ailments that focused on a bad back he said was caused by fighting the Kaiser in France. I was fascinated by his fabulous handlebar moustache that held its shape perfectly no matter when I saw him. Since as long as I could remember, Slim had always offered me a bite off his tobacco plug whenever we met.
“Hello, Mr. O’Rourke,” I said.
“You can call me Slim, Kit. You know that.”
“Maam got mad last time I called you that and I had a lecture for an hour about respecting adults.” Slim looked around cautiously as if Maam might jump out from behind a cedar. She cast her spell far and wide.
“Well, you should do what your ma tells you, I guess.” He pulled his plug out of a front shirt pocket and offered some to Pap, who took a bite and rolled it into his mouth and handed the wad back to Slim. He held it out to me. I looked to Pap, who shrugged his shoulders.
“If your mother finds out, I don’t know nothing.” He made a show of moving the tobacco around in his mouth and turning to spit. He wiped his mouth cooly on his shirt sleeve. “Keep in mind that it’ll make you sick.”
The desire to take a big bite was immense, but the pressure of getting sick and getting caught by Maam forced me to beg off.
“So where we at as far as our little project, Slim?” Pap asked.
“I think we’re almost done. I remembered to bring the maps tonight.”
Slim hustled back to the grader in a stuttering walk favoring his left knee and pulled out a roll of papers. He spread them out on the ground in front of the grader’s headlights and all three of us hunched over the map, each holding a corner so it wouldn’t roll back up.
“You ever seen an arroyo after a thunderstorm, Kit?” Pap asked me. I nodded -- me and my best friend Jimmie Street hunted for toads after a rain in the ditch close to the house.
“Well, then you know that when the rains come -- especially the quick ones, the arroyos around here fill up so fast that it can wash away a truck before you know what’s happened. It don’t even have to be raining here for them to fill up. It rains in the mountains and the water collects into little stream beds, they connect into larger ones and by the time in hits the valley floor, you’ve got troubles. Now arroyos have been around here since before people were and its kind of like a road map. There’s big ones and there is little ones. What we’re trying to do is make a little one into a huge one.”
He pointed at the map showing me where all the arroyos were and where they started and where they joined with others. And he showed me how him and Slim had been putting a little dirt here, a ditch there and reworking the arroyos 20 miles from home. He explained that when the rain came, a whole bunch of water was going to end up flooding one spot. He pointed at the map and I looked close. In tiny blue print it said, “Lands of McQueen.” I looked at my dad, puzzled. He shrugged.
Pap may have had land, and a newer model car, but that didn’t make him rich. His land was bought with scrimps and scraps saved over the years. Half of it was financed through the bank, which was owned by one of the McQueens. There were seven major land holders in the valley, and Pap’s 300 acres were nothing compared to the miles of land the McQueen’s held. Before anyone had ever thought of building the interstate, Pap was betting that the town would grow up around Route 66, and he was right. But he bought on the wrong side of town. Land speculation could make or break a man and it worked simply: a rich land owner would subdivide his land and sell the first couple of lots real cheap. The deal would include electricity and sewage hook ups if they bought there. Once a few people were attracted, the price of the property went up. It worked great if you had the land and the means to get electricity to your land. Pap couldn’t afford the up front cost to put in power lines. The co-op might do it, if one of the McQueen’s had an interest. But the McQueen’s, who always had a family member on the co-op board, rarely had an interest in helping anyone but themselves. Everyone knew that and accepted it.
“It’s nothing personal, son. I just can’t let myself sit by and be ruined.” It finally dawned on me. The interstate would keep people from stopping at Wicked Pete’s and eventually the bank would have to step in and take Pap’s land back.
“Bullcrap it ain’t personal.” Slim stood up and spit to one side. “That son of a biscuit screwed us all over. He made it so my land was split in two. I can’t run a farm like that. Your old man got it all figured out, Kit. All we got to do is wait for the rains.”
Pap stood up and looked away into the darkness.
“It’s more complicated than that, Slim. It’s a race, and they’re winning.”
“What do you mean?” both me and Slim asked.
“They’re going faster because they didn’t have the bad weather during winter. If they get that road bed done before the rains, this little scheme is going to flood both of us, when it does. I think.”
“How do you know this?” Slim was spitting again and a little more than worried.
“I’ve been watching them. The way they’re going, they’ll have the road bed in real close to when the rains start. They build the road in twenty-mile sections. Once one crew gets done, they move ahead to the next section. I’ve seen their construction schedule; they’re way ahead. The road bed will work as a dike and spread the water out over here and here,” Pap said pointing to areas on the map. “It’s going to be close. I won’t lie to you. If you want to back out, now’s the time.”
Slim ran his fingers across his moustache, spit and took his hat off. He spit again.
“Goddangit, Pap. We’re ruined whether we do this in time or not. Can’t be anymore ruined than ruined. Let’s get this done.” He slammed his hat back on his head and walked over to the grader and started it up.
We spent the rest of the night moving dirt and digging ditches. Before the sun came up, Pap and I got back on the motorcycle and rode back home. I was dog tired when I got back in my bed in time for Maam to come in and wake me.
The rest of the day, a I kept an eye on Pap on the roof and realized for the first time he was probably sleeping most of the day up there in his chair. The only thing that roused him was the ding of the customer bell. For my part, I was tired and Maam was suspicious. I was 10, which meant I would normally would be bouncing off the walls. That’s why boys are always getting into trouble if there isn’t enough chores to be done, and Maam never kept me idle. That day, though, I was practically falling asleep every time I sat down.
“Are you feeling okay?” Maam asked when I forgot to put a gas cap back on a car. I tried to act like everything was fine, but I don’t think she was fooled. She went out and talked to Pap, and that’s the last I heard of it. That night, although I wanted to go with Pap, I couldn’t keep my eyes open long enough to sneak out.
We all went on through the month of May pretending nothing was happening. Sometimes Pap would take me with him, but most nights I laid awake wishing I had gone with him and Slim. During the day, Pap would nap on the roof of the shed and watch the workmen through his glass. My father had his obsessions and I was beginning to have mine, namely, watching my father.
Halfway through June, Pap climbed down off the shed in the middle of the day. He was grinning, but he was talking to himself as he walked into the office Maam used to do the books. All he said was, “Puzzling.”
He told me later on, out at where we were doing the dirt work that it looked like the work on the road was slowing down. Each day, he said, it seemed like something went wrong for the workmen. But they were still moving at a pretty good speed. That night though, was the last of the clandestine dirt work. Pap announced we were done, and now it was time to watch and wait for the rains. It was two of the longest weeks of my life, waiting and watching them build the road.
After the first week, the road equipment and workmen stopped working altogether. Pap had been watching them closely all that day through his glass. He even called me up to the roof to have a look and asked me what I thought. There were men scratching their heads and motioning for the men to go away while they looked at the equipment. They had the hoods up all day long, but not one machine fired up that day.
The next day, a man showed up at the store demanding to talk to Pap. This stranger was mad at my father before he even talked to Pap.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the man screamed when I brought Pap. Pap immediately told me to go around back. I’d seen my father charm people before, but I’d never seen him fight anyone. I wasn’t sure which it was going to be. My Pap was an easygoing man, but even I knew he must have had his limits. I quickly went around the back of the store and set up a wooden ladder to get on the roof. I wasn’t about to miss what was about to happen.
In a loud and irritated voice, the man accused my father of sabotage. None of the road equipment was working and he said he was sure Pap had something to do with it. Pap denied any knowledge of what was going on. The man said everyone knew Pap spent his days spying on them. Everyone also knew Pap had tried hard to get an exit off the interstate. Who else could it be? Kids, Pap told him. They were always getting into things. Pap said he wasn’t doing anything, except watching. He’d always been interested in engineering, he told the man, and was thinking about pointing me in that vocation. That’s when I knew Pap was selling the man on Pap’s innocence. It didn’t take long until he had won the man over. By the time he left, he was apologizing to Pap and promised he would drop off some literature on his college alma mater, in case Pap wanted to send me there.
He shook Pap’s hand, got in his car and drove off. I watched as he pulled a u-turn and waved at Pap as he passed by, Maam was apparently watching, too. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I turned and saw her also looking after the car. I thought I was going to be in big trouble.
But she just sighed and turned back toward the ladder. She smiled slightly, but it was an expression more of worry than happiness.
“Just remember, Christopher,” she said. “Your father was blessed with the charm God had meant to set aside for us.” She climbed down the ladder and didn’t say anything else to me about the incident. I sat thinking. At first I was mad at her suggestion I didn’t have my father’s charm, but it was true. Sometimes it was tough being his kid. If my Pap had stayed back East and stuck it out as a vaudeville performer, he would be rich and famous now. I’ll never understand why he chose to stay in the valley. Maybe it was because most people spend their whole lives looking for happiness, and I guess Pap found it early in life. He was just doing what he could to hang on to it. I guess that’s the way Maam felt about Pap. I don’t know, but I learned a little about her that day.
I climbed down the ladder and went in search of Pap. Maam told me he had gone to Slim’s farm. He didn’t get back until long after we had been sent to bed. My curiosity was killing me, and over the weeks, Pap rarely talked to me. If he knew who was causing trouble for the work crew, he wasn’t saying.
We all waited. Each day, the sun came up and scorched the earth. The days passed and there was no sign that it would ever rain. And the earth movers were getting closer and closer. June ended. July 1 -- no rain. July 2 -- no rain. The farmers were making fun of Pap’s prediction. July 3 -- no rain, not even a cloud.
On the Fourth of July, we went to the carnival and saw the fireworks. The wind blew hard, but no rain. July 6, Pap stayed in bed all day saying he was sick. The workers were starting to move earth on the McQueen land and laying out stakes for the freeway exit. It still didn’t rain. July 7 came and went. No rain.
On July 8, I woke up and there were clouds. It stayed cloudy all day, but nothing fell from the sky. In the evening, the clouds broke and we watched a beautiful sun begin to set over the Sandias. Slim came over and Maam fixed him dinner. We all sat in silence, slowly taking bite after bite. Then we heard it, away from the north. It was a giant rumbling sound like God turning over in the middle of the night. Slim was heading to the door before the thunder died away. We were all behind him and he let out a giant “Wahoo!”
Away to the north, we watched as lightning flashed beyond the horizon. Maam tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the south. Another giant storm was lightning up the sky there, too.
Maam rarely smiled, but when she did, it was magical. Looking up, I noticed Maam was grinning from ear to ear. She even hugged me and then fell into Pap’s arms. Slim was out in the yard trying to splash in puddles that hadn’t yet formed and screaming like a maniac.
“You did it, then, didn’t you? You did something to their graders?” Maam asked. I was sure Pap had done something to the road equipment. Apparently, Maam thought the same. Pap shrugged and pointed at Slim, who was skipping up to the porch.
“Nope, it was that old sad sack who claims he is too crippled to do anything.”
“I ain’t too old and crippled to pee in the gas tanks.” Slim took off his sweat-stained hat and wiped his brow. From out of his pocket he pulled out his tobacco. He offered it to me, without looking at Maam, I took it from him and bit off a small chunk and tried to roll it around like I had seen Pap do. I finally got it in my cheek.
“Kit, it looks like after you and me were done sneaking out at night, Slim took up the cause. It seems our co-conspirator was partaking in a little espionage,” Pap said throwing his arm around my shoulder.
The black clouds were now overhead. It didn’t sprinkle, it wasn’t misting. It was a deluge that would have scared Noah.
Pap and Maam ran out into the rain. Slim was busy watching the rain and taking another bite off his plug before running out and splashing in the real puddles.
Me, I stood for a minute and spit out the wad of tobacco into my hand and threw it away while no one was looking. I was getting sick.




Interstate, First Version

I wrote a story called "Interstate" about 10 years ago. The second version of the story won an award in the annual Southwest Writers contest. I ran across the first version of the story and thought it wasn't too bad, either. The difference between the two versions is that I got rid of the little sister. I'm not really sure why I did this.
Here's the first version and I'll post the second version in another post. --R




Interstate
By Rory McClannahan

Pap knew about weather. His whole life he kept a weather log wherever he was living. Most of it logged the weather patterns of the valley, because Pap hadn’t lived anywhere else. He said once he found the place where he wanted to die, he decided he would stay there. He was born in New Jersey and came to the valley in between the world wars. He grew up in a city and left as soon as he could. On his travels as a juggler and straight man in a vaudeville troupe he happened along our valley on the high plains of New Mexico.
“I can breath here,” he said and stayed. He never went back east again, except to buy an old Army motorcycle after the second war.
My father was born on January 13, 1900. He would never tell people how old he was but tell them he was a Centaurian baby. Eventually, he began to tell the story that he was actually the first baby born in the New Year in 1900 in the whole valley. Like most of what my father said, it was only a half truth. He had his birthday right, but he wasn’t born anywhere near the valley, which only had a few hundred people at the time. My father was good at stories and no one ever really believed all of them. He was an entertainer, he told me once, and that came with the responsibility to entertain.
I never really understood that, because as long as I had lived, Pap was owner and proprietor of Wicked Pete’s Trading Post along Route 66. I grew up in a small house around back of the store where we sold Texaco gasoline and oil. Travelers could come inside for a soda pop and to look over the authentic Indian merchandise available for the first time to the public. Most of the stuff came from China, but Pap could talk folks into believing they were buying an “authentic Indian artifact.” Before I was born, the trading post had an animal pen in the back with a real life buffalo that Pap would charge 10 cents to look at. He died before I was born and Maam wouldn’t let him get another.
Pap was 54 years old when I was born and Maam was 43. My parents had wanted nothing more than to have children, and they tried for years, but it never happened. So they gave up and 10 years later, I showed up. Maam declared it a miracle and, being that I was the product of this miracle, I was doted on. That lasted a mere three years and 24 days later when the true royalty of the family arrived -- my sister Ruthie. My days as the golden child were over, but it was okay. It’s difficult to be jealous of my sister -- she really was as wonderful, and bright and funny as everyone said she was. It’s just hard to be the awkward older brother.
Wicked Pete’s was located about five miles east of town. Pap started the station before he met Maam figuring, correctly, that lots of folks traveling on the Mother Road would want to stop for gasoline. My father was considered by most in town to be crazy, and he did nothing to discourage that reputation. The rumor around town was that Pap had had another wife and that she mysteriously disappeared. Maam would always tell us not to listen to stories from people who didn’t know anything.
Most people thought Pap was crazy because he rode the motorcycle everywhere he went. Not only did he ride to town to pick up the mail every day, but he would ride for hours exploring the valley. He took a rifle with him and shot rabbits for dinner. He knew every farmer in a fifty mile radius, and knew everything about what was going on in the valley. While on his rides, he would always stop and talk to the farmers. Each Tuesday night he played poker with four of them. On Friday nights Maam and Pap would drive to Albuquerque for bowling.
When I came along in 1951, Pap was already firmly established as the town eccentric, but everyone knew that if you told something to Pap, that was where it stayed. He used what he knew to his own advantage and by the time Ruthie came along, he owned more than 300 acres along the highway. He was a visionary and knew that roads brought people to businesses. He saw that after Eisenhower started the interstate system, towns would be changed. He was gambling on the interstate being near his property, with a nice exit to get off and buy gasoline.
“I’m betting on the future,” he used to tell me, but he wasn’t the only one.
Pap may have had land, and a newer model car, but that didn’t make him rich. The land was bought with scrimps and scraps saved over the years. There were seven major land holders in the valley, and Pap’s 300 acres were nothing compared to the miles of land the McQueen’s held. Pap was betting that the town would grow up around the Route 66. Pap was right, but he owned the land on the wrong side of town. A rich land owner would sell the first couple of lots real cheap and offer electricity and sewage hook ups if they bought there. Pap couldn’t afford to put in power lines. The co-op might do it, if one of the McQueen’s had an interest.
The summer when I was 10 years old, the talk around town focused on three things -- the weather, the crops and the freeway. Pap knew about all three better than most folks in town. He proclaimed, with the help of his 40 years of keeping track of the weather, that the rains would start on July 8. He made these pronouncements every year, and no one ever believed him, even when he was right. In years when the winter and spring were dry, the summer rains would be unrelenting. And the winter and spring that year had been drier than usual. While winters were usually spent digging out of the snow and mud, that year was spent trying to avoid the dirt swirling around everything. The valley was always brown, but that year, not even the weeds would grow. The ground was as hard as concrete and a drop of water would quickly evaporate. The farmers liked it because the alfalfa they grew was being bought up by the the ranchers. Irrigation farming worked well in the valley.
Everyone knew the freeway was coming, but that didn’t make the appearance of the road crews any easier to take. Pap cussed like crazy about the crews who would come into the shop, but he treated each as nice as you could believe and jacked up his prices 13 percent. Pap hated the freeway, because he knew it was going to ruin him. His connections weren’t good enough and when the surveyors were coming through the year before, the exit for town was planned on McQueen property. The McQueens were already busy building a brand new Holiday Inn right where the exit was going to be. Next to that, they had plans for a truck stop that was going to be open 24 hours a day.
That spring, Pap spent his days on top of the shed in back by the old buffalo pen watching the road crews through a surveyor’s glass. Not a half mile away, the crews clearing the land and building a road bed. When the bell dinged for a customer, Pap would yell to us.
“Kit, Ruthie. Customer.” He would call out, not even looking over his shoulder to see who it was. I pumped gas and Ruthie would check the oil and wash the windshield. It was a harder job, but Ruthie got it because it involved more contact with the customer. She had a way of talking to people. She always got them to buy more than they came for. She took after Pap who could sell a Bible to the devil. Many a time there was when Ruthie would pulled in $10 from one customer. Watching her in action was a thing of beauty.
She would start a conversation with the person driving, usually a man. She would tell him that “a fellow was in the other day with the same sort of car.” The other fellow had had problems with the engine and was burning a lot of oil because of the desert heat. She’d ask her mark whether they had any problems, dropping hints that there wouldn’t be anyone to fix their car. Next thing you know, she was loading cans of oil into the trunk. When Pap was running the store, the fellow would come in and be hit with an authentic Old West story. My favorite was about how Geronimo himself camped nearby. Pap would point to the arrowheads in the case and claimed they belonged to the Apache leader’s men. But that spring, it was Maam either Maam or me in the store, and we just weren’t very good at telling stories.
After a customer left, Pap would call us over and we would be expected to give a report of everything, but especially about the freeway. Pap wanted to know how it was coming, and the best information came from the folks who were driving it. Long-haul truckers knew the most, but Pap said he would never trust a man who drove trucks for a living.
“Pap,” Ruthie told him once, “the guy said he drove from Okie City to Santa Rosa in two hours on the new road. He said he loved it because you can’t get stuck behind slower traffic. He said it’s real safe, too. He didn’t see any wrecks.” As an afterthought, Ruthie added something that must have broke Pap’s heart.
“I can’t hardly wait til it comes through here,” she said.
Pap shook his head sadly and sighed.
“I reckon one day that road will take you away from here,” he said ruffling her hair.
“I think that would be wonderful, Pap. Do you think it will happen?”
“I’d be surprised if it didn’t.” He hugged her close and told her to go sweep up the store and check if he needed to order more motor oil. She giggled and told him he better because she intended to sell the rest by the end of the day. She climbed down the ladder leaning against the shed and went running to the store. Pap motioned me to join him on the roof.
Although it was hot, Pap had a good set-up. He rigged up a chair and umbrella set up and a cooler full of water in canning jars. I sat next to him and looked in the cooler for a Pepsi.
“You know what that highway means, don’t you, Kit?” I shrugged. I kind of had a notion, but I was also caught up in the excitement of the whole thing.
“That freeway is being built by the government to make our lives easier, and it will take us out of here after it destroys our lives.”
“Can’t we make them come by here with it?” I asked.
“It isn’t that easy, Kit. They been planning this thing for five years. Up and down that whole road, people been making money, and not fairly. I’m afraid your Pap doesn’t have the connections to get them to stop here.”
“The McQueens do?” Everyone who grew up in the valley knew the McQueens. Shoot, I had two of them in school with me. Cooper McQueen was a bully but his little sister Bea was always nice to me. I had heard that some people who resented the McQueens, but I didn’t understand why until I was talking with Pap on the roof of the shed.
“The McQueens were lucky enough to be here first. The Armijos were second. They bought up the land close to the road. By the time I got here, we only got this piece here. But we done good with it. The freeway will make this place obsolete, no one will ever stop here again. They’ll all pull off at the exit down by the new motor lodge and truck stop. They won’t have any reason to come down here.”
“Isn’t there any way to talk them into putting an exit here?”
Pap looked at me sideways and grinned, and I knew he was about to let me in on a secret.
“You be ready to go after your Maam goes to bed. If you don’t fall asleep, I’ll take you with me. But you have to promise me that never tell anyone about what you see.”
“Never?”
“Only after I’m long dead and even then, I don’t think you better.”
I promised on my mother’s grave and he reminded me that was a serious promise and Maam had better never find out.
My mother’s real name was Rachel, but everyone called her Maam. She was the kind of woman who commanded respect. Pap was 10 years older than her and it was her that told him they were going to marry. She always said that if she’d left up to him, he’d still be a bachelor. I’m sure at one time my mother was a girl, but it didn’t last long. She took care of her three bothers after her dad died in a farming accident and her mom went crazy and just disappeared. She was nobody’s fool, and while I suspect she knew most of what me and Ruthie were up to, she only made an issue of the things that were important. While Pap would more or less let us run wild after our work was done, Maam didn’t believe in idle hands. We loved Maam, but we did all we could to avoid her. Everyone thought she was mean, and I guess she really was. I don’t know if she was bitter about the life she had -- she never talked about her childhood or of any youthful indiscretions. Pap used to tell me stories about when he traveled the country with the vaudeville troupe, but only when Maam wasn’t around. She wouldn’t approve, she especially hated the vaudeville stories. It was hard for me to love my mother because what little she had in her worn out soul was given to Ruthie.
I think Maam knew Pap was sneaking out at night, and I think she knew why. But me going with him would have put an end to the whole affair. So that night, I made sure to leave my bedroom window open just a crack and snuck out when I saw the lights go out under the crack in my bedroom door. I met Pap by the shed and he already had his motorcycle pulled out. We were going to ride the motorcycle! My whole life I wanted to ride on the two-wheeled behemoth, but Maam would never allow Pap to take me. Pap tossed me a leather helmet and put his fingers to his lips to shushed me before I could scream with excitement.
We pushed the bike down 66 for a mile before Pap straddled it and kicked it to life. If anyone ever asked me to define happiness I would say it is holding onto your Pap on the back of an Army issue Indian motorcycle while it cruised down Highway 66 in the the light of a full moon.
Soon Pap screamed at me to hold on tight and we left the paved road and headed north on a farm road. We rode for miles and I can remember I nearly fell off twice. Pap would ride on one dirt road, then turn suddenly on another and ride for what seemed forever. I was expecting the sun to pop up, and was kind of wishing for it so I would have an idea where I was. We rode for hours like that, and the thrill of being on the bike eventually wore off and I began to feel like I wanted to get off and stretch my legs.
Then we stopped. When I looked up I could see every star in the universe. Pap startled me when he tooted the rubber horn on the handlebars. In the distance, an air horn tooted back, and Pap fired up the bike again and rode in the direction of the sound. After a few minutes we came upon a road grader hidden off the road by some juniper bushes. The cabin was softly lit by a kerosene lantern and sitting in the seat was Slim O’Rourke. When we got close, Slim jumped out of the cabin.
“Well hello there, Kit Carson,” he said when he saw me get off the bike. I liked Slim, and I especially liked it when he called me Kit Carson. Slim was older than Pap and long past the physique that earned him his nickname. I was fascinated by his fabulous handlebar moustache that held its shape perfectly no matter when I saw him. Since as long as I could remember, Slim had always offered me a bite off his tobacco plug whenever we met.
“Hello, Mr. O’Rourke,” I said.
“You can call me Slim, Kit. You know that.”
“Maam got mad last time I called you that and I had a lecture for an hour about respecting adults.” Slim looked around cautiously as if Maam might jump out from behind a juniper. She cast her spell far and wide.
“Well, you should do what your ma tells you, I guess.” He pulled his plug out of a front shirt pocket and offered some to Pap, who took a bite and rolled it into his mouth. He held it out to me. I looked to Pap, who shrugged his shoulders.
“If your mother finds out, I don’t know nothing. But keep in mind that it’ll make you sick.” The desire to take a big bite was immense, but the pressure of getting sick and getting caught by Maam forced me to beg off.
“So where we at as far as our little project, Slim?” Pap asked.
“I think we’re almost done. I remembered to bring the maps tonight.”
Slim hustled back to the grader and pulled out the a roll of papers. He spread them out on the ground and all three of us hunched over the map.
“You ever seen an arroyo after a thunderstorm, Kit?” Pap asked me. I nodded -- me and Ruthie hunted for toads after a rain in the ditch close to the house.
“Well, when the rains come -- especially the quick ones, the arroyos around here fill up so fast that it can wash away half the land before you know what’s happened. Now arroyos have been around here since before people were and its kind of like a road map. There’s big ones and there is little ones. What we’re trying to do is make a little one into a huge one.”
He pointed at the map showing me where all the arroyos were and where they started and where they joined with others. And he showed me how him and Slim had been putting a little dirt here, a ditch there and reworking the arroyos 20 miles from home. He explained that when the rain came, a whole bunch of water was going to end up flooding one spot. He pointed at it and I looked close. In tiny blue print it said, “Lands of McQueen.” I looked to my dad with a puzzled look on my face. He shrugged.
“It’s nothing personal, son. I just can’t let myself sit by and be ruined.”
“Bullcrap it ain’t personal.” Slim stood up and spit to one side. “That son of a biscuit screwed us all over. He made it so my land was split in two. I can’t run a ranch like that. Your old man got it all figured out, Kit. All we got to do is wait for the rains.”
Pap stood up and looked away into the darkness.
“It’s more complicated than that, Slim. It’s a race, and they’re winning.”
“What do you mean?” both me and Slim asked.
“They’re going faster because they didn’t have the weather during winter. If they get that road bed done before the rains, this little scheme is going to flood both of us, when it does. I think.”
“How do you know this?” Slim was spitting again and a little more than worried.
“I’ve been watching them. The way they’re going, they’ll have the road bed in real close to when the rains start. The bed will work as a dike and spread the water out over here and here,” Pap said pointing to areas on the map. “It’s going to be close. I won’t lie to you. If you want to back out, now’s the time.”
Slim ran his fingers across his moustache, spit and took his hat off. He spit again.
“Goddangit, Pap. We’re ruined whether we do this in time or not. Can’t be anymore ruined than ruined. Let’s get this done.” He slammed his hat back on his head and walked over to the grader and started it up.
We spent the rest of the night moving dirt and digging ditches. Before the sun came up, Pap and I got back on the motorcycle and rode back home. I got back in my bed in time for Maam to come in and wake me.
The rest of the day, a I kept an eye on Pap on the roof and realized for the first time he was probably sleeping most of the day up there in his chair. The only thing that woke him was the ding of the customer bell. For my part, I was tired and Ruthie was suspicious. We didn’t share a room -- Maam didn’t like the idea of a boy on the threshold of adolescence in the same room with her Ruthie . But Ruthie was a sneak. She was smart enough to keep a lot of what she knew to herself. She was bugging me all day, and she wasn’t going to let his one drop.
“Where’d you go last night, Kit? Did you go with Pap? What did you guys do? Did you go drinking with Pap?” All day it went on, and I was getting weary of telling her to buzz off.
“Okay,” I finally told her as we were cleaning out the store room. Maam was out front, trying to talk a man into another soda pop. She was also weary of us that day.
“Pap took my on the motorcycle last night, but I promised on Maam’s grave that I couldn’t tell anyone.” Ruthie begged and begged, and like most people, I could not resist her and I told the whole story. I had to answer the questions her seven year old mind couldn’t quite grasp. But she understood that if the freeway was built the way it was now planned, Maam and Pap would have to move, and her with them. I told her how the road crews were moving too fast. Then my sister told me she would slow them down. I just laughed at her.
We all went on through May pretending nothing was happening, but I think all of us knew what was going on -- Maam knew I was going with Pap and Ruthie would always ask what happened on the nights I would disappear with Pap. Sometimes Pap would take me with him, most time I laid awake wishing I had gone with him and Slim. During the day, Pap would sleep on the roof of the shed and watch the workmen through his glass. Ruthie continued to sell motor oil. The workmen would come in each morning and buy soda pop and coffee.
Halfway through June, Pap climbed down off the shed in the middle of the day. He was grinning, but he was talking to himself as he walked into the office Maam used to do the books. All he said was, “Puzzling.”
He told me later on, out at where we were doing the dirt work that it looked like the work was slowing down. Each day, it seemed like something went wrong for the workmen. But they were still moving at a pretty good speed. That night though, was the last of the clandestine dirt work. Pap announced we were done, and now it was time to watch and wait for the rains. It was two of the longest weeks of my life, waiting and watching them build the road.
After the first week, the road equipment and workmen stopped working. Pap watched them all day through his glass. He even called me up to the roof to have a look and asked me what I thought. There were men scratching their heads and motioning for the men to go away while they looked at the equipment. They had the hoods up all day long, but not one machine fired up that day.
The next day, a man showed up at the store demanding to talk to Pap. This stranger was mad at my father before he even talked to Pap.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the man screamed when I brought Pap. Pap immediately told me to go around back, but Ruthie got to stay. I’d seen my father and my sister charm people before, but never together. I kinda felt sorry for the man as I climbed on the roof and watched from above.
The man accused my father of sabotage. None of the road equipment was working and he said he was sure Pap had something to do with it. Pap had Ruthie bring out a can of oil and Pap opened it into a pan and both men looked at it closely. By the time he left, he was apologizing to Pap and he had picked up Ruthie and promising to bring her some ice cream next time he came by. He drove off and as I watched him, that’s when I noticed Maam on the roof behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I turned and saw her also looking after the car. I knew I was going to be in big trouble.
But she just sighed and turned back to the ladder she had set up against the back of the building.
“Just remember, Christopher,” she said. “Your father and sister took away any charm we were supposed to get.” She climbed down the ladder and didn’t say anything else to me about the incident. I sat thinking. At first I was mad at her suggestion I didn’t have my father’s charm, but it was true. It didn’t make me love him or Ruthie any less. I guess that’s the way Maam felt, too. I don’t know that I began to love my mother at that moment, but at least I knew we had a common problem.
I climbed down the ladder and went in search of Pap. Ruthie told me he went to Slim’s farm. He didn’t get back until long after we had been sent to bed. My curiosity was killing me, but Ruthie kept secrets better than I ever did, and over the weeks, Pap rarely talked to me.
We all waited. Each day, the sun came up and scorched the earth. The days passed and there was no sign that it would ever rain. And the earth movers were getting closer and closer. June ended. July 1 -- no rain. July 2 -- no rain. The framers were making fun of Pap’s prediction. July 3 -- no rain, not even a cloud.
On the Fourth of July, we went to the carnival and saw the fireworks. The wind blew hard, but no rain. July 6, Pap stayed in bed all day saying he was sick. The workers were starting to move earth on the McQueen land and laying out stakes for the freeway exit. It still didn’t rain. July 7 came and went. No rain.
On July 8, I woke up and there were clouds. It was cloudy all day, but nothing fell from the sky. In the evening, the clouds broke and we watched a beautiful sun setting over the Sandias. Slim came over and Maam fixed him dinner. We all sat in silence, slowly taking a bite after bite. Then we heard it, away from the north. It was a giant rumbling sound like God turning over in the middle of the night. Slim was heading to the door before the thunder died away. We were all behind him and he let out a giant “Wahoo!”
Away to the north, we watched as lighting flashed beyond the horizon. Maam tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the south. Another giant storm was lightning up the sky there, too.
Maam rarely smiled, but when she did, it was magical. Looking up, I noticed Maam was grinning from ear to ear. She even hugged me and then fell into Pap’s arms. Ruthie was out in the yard trying to splash in puddles that hadn’t yet formed.
“You did it, then, didn’t you?” Maam asked. I was sure he had done something to the road equipment. Apparently, Maam thought the same. Pap shrugged and pointed at Ruthie.
“Nope, it was that daughter of yours. She stopped them from working, she got it done.”
“What?” I asked. What about all the work I did, I thought. Didn’t I do more than Ruthie?
“Cement in motor oil will keep an engine from starting. Slows them down, too.” It was now raining fairly hard and Ruthie was trying to catch raindrops on her tongue.
“Kit, it looks like you and me weren’t the only ones sneaking out at night. It seems your little sister was sneaking over the equipment at night and cutting belts, draining oil, flattening tires. Then she would sell the parts to those guys the next day. The project manager figured out what was happening, but somehow, she talked him out of thinking it was her, or me.”
Pap and Maam ran out into the rain and picked up Ruthie. Slim was busy watching the rain and taking a bite off his plug.
Me, I stood for a minute and looked at my sister. Everyone liked her better, and despite myself, I did, too.