New Mexico

By Calen Romig

My father used to live in a tiny town in New Mexico, a few miles from the border between it and Arizona. On my visits with him—that’s what my mom called them, “visits”—from the summer I was three, through the next six years, he would always be waiting for us outside the closest airport with a big smile and dozens of kisses for me, and a stiff hug for my mother. Then he would ask her how she was, she would berate him about bedtimes and strict diets, and we would be free. My dad would toss me over his shoulder, tickling me as I shrieked with laughter, and the two of us would pile into his truck and drive several hours to what I called my home. 

I loved the plains, the heat, and the lizards that I called my friends. The seemingly random mountains and hills that popped up out of nowhere fascinated me, and I would pester my father with questions as we passed the scraggly shrubs and billboards, and he answered each and every one of them good-naturedly. He may not have known the real answers to some of them, so wild and confusing they were, but with a straight face, he would tell me that the clouds were shaped like that because they were the smoke left behind from the dragons dancing in the sky the night before, or that crickets would sing to call the sun to come and play. Even if it was nonsense, I believed every word that he said. 

To me, he was my best friend. 

 My mother, without me as her burden, would sweep away to go spend the two months in Bali or Paris or some other strange-sounding city with her boyfriend Dan. Dan was alright, but he would yell at me if I dropped a plate or scratched a baseboard, and he never let me try his rare cologne collection, which was weird anyway and must have cost him thousands of dollars. 

My dad never yelled at me, and whenever it rained, I would tromp around in his big work boots out in the mud behind his little house, and we would play cowboys and princesses and whatever else I wanted until it got too dark to see. 

That was one of my favorite parts. 

That rain. 

It felt different there. 

If I begged him hard enough, he would take me to Joe’s for a big burger and a grape soda, of which I was, of course, forbidden to have. 

On Sunday mornings after church, we would go to the Cactus Cafe—it thrived off of tourists—and get maple swirl donuts, the kind that only sweet old Laura and Buddy could make. 

I remember the green and white checkered tiles of the floor of the cafe, and the smell of cinnamon on Laura as she hugged me and told me how big I was getting. 

I loved that church with the creaking pews and tilted stage for the big black piano to sing its soft hymns just as much as I loved those checkered tiles. 

Dad was a mechanic at the only body shop in a hundred-mile radius, and cars that broke down on road trips would come in all the time. His buddies at the garage would let him stay with me as much as possible, unless an accident happened or they needed him for something big. Then I would be sat down on a rickety rocking chair on our porch, where the neighbors could see I was safe, handed a sleeve of Oreos and a coloring book, and told to stay put. But life was often sleepy, and we would mostly spend our afternoons out in the dried-up river valleys, or tucked up inside away from the wind, listening to music and cooking terrible pasta. 

There was a big front window in our house, perpetually dusty, but always cheerful with the potted plants and hollow palm fronds decorating it. A huge red leather couch sat against the opposite wall, and we would take hours off of our lives just sitting on the couch, watching the street outside. If any car that we hadn’t seen around before drove past, we would fly up and run to meet it at the rest stop at the end of town. The exit ramp off the freeway twisted and turned but eventually narrowed into our Main Street and led right past our front door. Very few people went into or out of the town without us knowing about it. 

It was always exciting to meet the tourists and travelers passing through my little world, connecting them in my brain to a much larger one where other people had their own dreams and problems to deal with. 

The rusty lemons barely holding together, or the SUVs crammed with families would skitter to a stop next to the park with its picnic tables and bathrooms and a little playground, and everyone would tumble out. They pulled out coolers and dogs and tried to get the kids tired out by urging them to see which one could run the fastest. We saw hippies with their guitars, grandmas with their grandchildren, couples on road-trips, motorcycle gangs, and everything else. They were all different shapes and sizes, too. There were fat ones and thin ones, tall ones and short ones. Almost all of them looked completely different from my dad and the other people of the town. There was hardly ever anyone that was round and tan and bright-eyed like them, and absolutely no one who looked like me.

There were all sorts of cars that we saw, too, ranging from antiques on their last legs to a limousine that pulled in that one time a fancy Lady of Something had to throw up on her way to Phoenix. 

The two of us would watch these visitors from afar, and make up stories about their lives, and then mosey on over to them, and strike up a conversation. Dad would talk to the adults about where they were going or coming from, or their cars, and many times they decided that they needed to come by the auto shop to have their engines looked at. My dad made almost half of our mortgage this way. 

I would stare at the strangers, wondering how long they would be there. 

No one ever stayed long, though. 

Occasionally, I talked to one of the kids who passed through, a kid my own age, but they were rather dull, and no one fascinated me as I wanted them to. 

Then the travelers would pack up their bags and kids and dogs and screech back out, far away to somewhere else.

Dad would shrug, sigh, and then lead us home, gossiping with me about the strangers.

In this way, my dad and I entertained ourselves tremendously. 

Then one day, when I was about seven, I met Arlo. Arlo and his mom and dad and pet goldfish Nina had come all the way from Idaho to be with Arlo’s aunt, who was all alone since her husband had died. 

Arlo had a hard face, even in childhood, but inside he was as sweet as jam. On the day that I first saw him, he was wearing a red t-shirt with a dinosaur on it, and trying to help a worm cross the asphalt that was smoking from the lawn sprinklers in the park. I grinned, grabbed his hand, and dragged him over to the swings.

I told him about my mom and Dan, and my school, and in return, he told me that his parents were broke, and about his old friends. He told me so much about this one kid named Harry that I got jealous. I was so scared of this “Harry” taking away a potential playmate that I pushed Arlo off the swings. He cried, and I immediately felt sorry. I helped him up, offered him my best drawing of a rattlesnake as remediation, and we were fast friends from then on. 

I taught him how to slice open a cactus to gather the softness inside for healing burns, how to arrange broken glass on the side of the highway into pictures, how to catch pocket mice, and how to jump-rope. I showed him my favorite groves of Honey Mesquite along the creek, the best alleys to collect old tires, and the shallow end of the abandoned cattle pond that we used for swimming. He was a dutiful student, hilarious, and I loved him very deeply, just as any child loves their first real friend. 

Arlo made that time with my dad even more special. 

The winter that Arlo and I were both eight years old, we found a striped kitten in a thin cardboard box behind the McNelsons’ house. The McNelsons didn’t know anything about it, and my dad was allergic to cats, but for Arlo, it was love at first sight. He pleaded for two whole days before his parents let him keep it, and from then on, it hardly ever left his side. It was my dad's idea to name it after something important, so that the “little bugger” —as my dad put it—would have something to aspire to. The kitten was soon dubbed Cochito, short for Bizcochito, Arlo’s favorite cookie. 

Arlo’s parents were thrilled for him to find a friend, and hardly batted an eye when we came home scratched and dirty. His mom made the best black-bean soup that I had ever tasted, and his dad helped us tie bird feathers to lengths of string for Cochito. My dad let us make forts in the brambles by the shed, watch the ancient black-and-white television while sprawled on the rug, and ruin the kitchen with our homemade science experiments. 

My time there was spent in beautiful bliss with the cat and my two friends. Sometimes Arlo tagged along on father-daughter activities, or Arlo and I would spend afternoons wreaking havoc while my dad worked, but mostly it was just me and my dad. We would play, read, sing, and explore together for delightful summer months. I adored both of them, and they adored me. 

The time would eventually come when I would have to leave, teary-eyed, pockets heavy with the new rocks and sun-bleached animal bones from our adventures. Arlo couldn’t even look at me for the risk of bursting into tears.

My father never showed any sign that he was sad at my parting. 

He was being strong for both of us. 

But I knew that he saw my genuine sorrow at leaving him. He would try to make it better by making silly faces and slipping packets of Skittles into my bag for me to find on the plane ride back. Back to school, back to Dan’s mean old gray parrot, back to salads, back to reality. 

It was okay, though, because I knew I would be there again soon, there with my dad. 

Until I couldn’t. 

He died just after my twelfth birthday, in the last days of the hottest July on record. 

He had heart cancer. No one knew, not even him. 

Or maybe he did know, but kept it to himself, in his quiet way. Maybe he thought that he could beat it, all by himself. 

Being brave for both of us. 

That sounds like him. 

I still visit Arlo and his family—and of course Cochito—as much as I can, and we teach our kids about the cattle pond and the lizards, and the Honey Mesquite trees. 

But I’ll always miss being there with my dad, in the tall yellow grasses, in the rain, in New Mexico. 

By Calen Romig