Beaches of Southern Colorado

JuanBoy Rides Again

Entering the ‘hood

There was a party going on. The custom Harley with the skinny spoked front wheel leaned on its side stand close by the fence. There were dudes on the porch talking loud and fast. The shiny black van parked opposite had set up a squeeze on the bumpy dirt road forcing him closer to the bike than he liked but he went slow and made it. Just then a silver ‘80s GMC pickup in need of a paint job nosed into the road from the driveway, hesitated, then pulled out plainly blocking the way. He’d expected the driver to pull back while he passed but crawled on when the other then swung wide to go around him. As they crept slowly past each other the silver truck scrunched to a stop and the window rolled down six inches. “Hey,” shouted the driver over the top, “you wanna fuck up your credit?” (He was not so inclined.) “You don’t wanna fuck up your credit, keep away from that bike over there!”

IT HAD BEEN A GRAY AND WINDY DAY, colder than he liked. The wind alone was strong enough to keep him off the trails that might have led him to a better place. As he tidied up around the stove while the kettle heated, he glanced outside at the bare branches of a neighbor’s elm tree whipping in the gusts. Just then a shaft of sunlight turned them golden and he wondered if he’d seen a spirit. The memory of his late wife gone three years came flooding back. “Oh Kathy!” he called out loud, accepting but bewildered. Why was he still there, he thought, wiping grease spots from a rented stovetop all alone and growing old? How could such things be, and what was he supposed to do besides keep going?

The very next day was warm and sunny. In the mood to have an outing, he finally returned to the posh consignment store just off the Plaza where he’d taken her best winter clothes last fall. Amazingly they’d sold the lot and handed him a check for $151. On the way out he walked past the lone men’s clothing rack and discovered a cool black leather jacket for just $30 more. He tried it on. Perfection. The saleslady had him model it in front of her and gushed. The check was “free money” since it’d been a surprise. He needed style the same as food and loving so he gave it back for credit and drove home with the angels in a ball of light. She bought me damn Ralph Lauren, he realized. It’s like a jacket from God.

RV in the sunshine carefully chocked

And it came to pass that Juan decided he would go to Walmart. He very rarely did and hated it so much he ordered all his underwear, shampoo, and Pilot G-2 #10 pens online now. The mailbox was so much closer anyway and Amazon remembered what he’d ordered last time. But he wanted to buy new dumbbells since the 15-pounders he’d been using incorrectly all these years were too damn heavy now. Every time he lifted both of them together something in his body broke and then he wasted hours googling terminal conditions with matching twinges that always came to naught. The Chinese fifteens had come from this same Walmart and he hoped to buy a pair of tens. Suppressing the urge to call and ask if they had any—think about it—he drove straight there where he was greeted by a giant moldering RV with missing tires taking up six spaces in the parking lot. The squalor was so magnificent he wondered if he’d blundered into an artist’s installation or a “Breaking Bad” revival though the venue made no sense and there were no balloons or Frito pies.

Indubitably

Inside the store it didn’t look much different. We’re all living in a burned out meth lab now, he thought, though maybe it was only Taos or the mood. The Chinese dumbbells were exactly where they’d been before, in the middle of an aisle of exercise equipment no one ever visited. Either the Walmart white noise was lower in the lonely vortex or his ears were shutting down. The weights he wanted came dipped in red neoprene that had faded to neglected pink. Oh no, not that. The shelves were dusty and disordered but he found a pair of darker tens and laid them in his cart. At half an hour before noon, there was only a single checker at the registers while an anxious young man in a store vest with his cell phone in his hand herded anyone he could into the self check-out corral and hoped he wouldn’t have to help them. Juan did everything the big screen told him to and made it home alive. Hands on the wheel and don’t make jokes, he realized later. More folks, less freedom. Nature called.

Rio Grande north of Taos, Lama Fire burn scar on Flag Mountain

Symbol of all the things he could and couldn’t do, the wilderness beckoned with a pull he’d always known. From his earliest days on Earth, young Juan had sought connection with the Mystery of nature. Crouching over tadpoles in a shrinking puddle with a jar to scoop them up and marvel, building a platform high in a tree back in the woods where no one went, murdering poor West Texas lizards with his pellet gun... In Taos County all he had to do was drive in virtually any direction to find himself surrounded by a dozen ways to die. This taught respect and kept the Mystery alive.

The road to Ute Mountain Wilderness was unmarked in any way and all he had was memory. As frustrating as this was, it served a higher purpose. Crawling along the rutted double-track with a lady and a dog, he guessed correctly when he had to. Here and there the phone still worked. He gazed down at the river longing to walk along the narrow strip of sand to see what he might find, but without foreknowledge of the best way down he might as well have jumped and bled out from a compound fracture. Another time, perhaps, with stronger legs and backup, or else a drone at water level to hunt for gold and footprints. Just to be there was a gift: outrageous, screaming, glorious. All the archetypes of youth lit up within him as he breathed the cold clean air.

Within sight of where he thought they had to turn to climb up to a certain wooded canyon, he came across a washout. The road dipped down so steeply, it was easy to imagine hanging up the back end as his rear wheels clawed the air. Someone had laid stones across the bottom of the hole along the ruts to gain a little height. The rocks were undisturbed, however, leading him to wonder if they’d tried or changed their minds. He gave it one go anyway and spun out before he’d even reached the bottom. Thank God for four-wheel-drive, he thought, and managed to back out. High on derring-do, he maneuvered for another try as his companion shared a dreadful intuition. For once he didn’t argue and turned gratefully around.

If you look closely, you can see the “necklace.”

As they were leaving, Juan’s companion spied The Skull. He’d been concentrating on the rocks and ruts and missed it 40 yards to the southwest but stopped and backed up right away. The thing was white and perfect, the largest bovine skull he’d ever seen, mostly already cleaned by insects, scavengers, and life at over 7,000 feet so naturally he identified. The base of the skull was firmly attached to the neck vertebrae by tough dry cords of meat and ligaments he sawed through with his buck knife—the final act of conquest that made it his—and he loaded it in triumph in the pickup bed.

When he got home he placed the prize a few steps from the front door underneath a bush. There were several giant anthills nearby but he hadn’t chosen one to do the “detailing.” The way to handle this, he knew, was place the artifact atop the hill, cover it with a sturdy box or plastic bin, weight that down to thwart the scavengers, and forget about it until summer. So apparently did a bear, coyote, puma, or a big ole dog because the next morning it was gone… There must have been some smelly bits that wafted on the breeze, he sadly reasoned.

This being New Mexico, however, maybe it just went home.

EPILOGUE AND AUTHOR BONUS

Not merely a literary device to set the tone, there are beaches in southern Colorado. The image below was shot at the Sanchez Stabilization Park a few miles north of the New Mexico/Colorado line on Colorado Highway 159 shortly after leaving the secret road to Ute Mountain Wilderness. While I can’t vouch for all the details at the referenced web page— I believe the Sanchez Reservoir State Wildlife Area is in a different spot—if you go to the “stabilization park” you will see a pit toilet restroom we found completely covered with you-don’t-want-to-know. (DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR!) In the meantime take in this view: you’re looking at the magnificent Blanca massif just north of Fort Garland, CO. These mountains are over 14,000 feet and visible for many miles. I once read a book with tales of a secret UFO base inside Mount Blanca (far right in the sun). Vibe-wise, I could see it. - JHF

El Beach