A cowboy searches the desert for an old man; a woodcutter loses his prey to another hunter; a political candidate ponders deficits of all sorts. These are the characters who populate this year’s winning fiction entries in SFR’s annual writing contest. Fiction writers were given free rein with their topics, but all were required to incorporate certain words into their stories.
Poets this year had a more specific task: to focus on “Santa Fe at 400,” and write about the city different, be it past, present or future.
Finally, non-fiction writers were asked to consider “crime”—from any angle.
This week, SFR presents all the winners, and the winning entries from the fiction and poetry categories.
Please check this post next week to read all the nonfiction winning entries.
As always, participation in the contest was robust, and we relied heavily on our esteemed judges to pick this year’s winners. Congratulations to all who participated. Keep writing—next year’s contest will be here before you know it.
The Judges
Porochista Khakpour (porochistakhakpour.com) is a faculty member in the Creative Writing and Literature Department at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design. Khakpour was born in Tehran, Iran, and raised in Los Angeles. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Chicago Reader, Paper, Flaunt, Nylon and Bidoun, among many other publications. Her debut novel, Sons and Other Flammable Objects, received acclaim from The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, won the 77th Annual California Book Award in First Fiction and was a Chicago Tribune “Fall’s Best” selection and a New York Times “Editor’s Choice.”
Miriam Sagan is the founder and director of the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College. Sagan has authored more than 20 books, including Pushcart Prize nominee Tanka from the Edge, Map of the Lost, Gossip and Searching for a Mustard Seed. She has held residency grants at Yaddo and MacDowell, and is the recipient of a grant from The Barbara Deming Foundation/Money for Women and a Lannan Foundation Marfa Residency. In addition to working on site-specific poetry installations, Sagan writes and curates the poetry blog miriamswell.wordpress.com.
Robert Wilder (robertwilder.com) is a teacher and writer, whose column “Daddy Needs a Drink” appears the first Wednesday of each month in SFR. Wilder has published essays in Newsweek, Details, Salon, Creative Nonfiction, Working Mother, El Palacio, The Greensboro Review, The Colorado Review, and elsewhere. He has been a commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition, On Point and many other regional and national radio programs. Both of his nonfiction books, Daddy Needs a Drink and Tales from the Teachers’ Lounge, have been optioned for sitcom adaptation. In 2009, Wilder was the only individual to receive the Innovations in Reading Prize by the National Book Foundation
Fiction
1st Jodi Drinkwater is very grateful for winning the Santa Fe Reporter writing contest for the second time. (She won in 2008). Writing about the cowboy for a second time was a great experience, and Jodi plans to continue to explore the cowboy’s adventures. Jodi is a writer and painter in Santa Fe. To see more of her work, visit jodidrinkwater.com. Read her story HERE.
2nd Alex Greenspan was born and raised in New York. He went to college in Albany and is now traveling around America. He moved to Albuquerque about five months ago and, in about five more, he will be moving to New Orleans. It is his goal to forge a career as a writer and has no doubt that this will happen. Read his story HERE.
3rd Thom Harding moved to Santa Fe this August, and is in love with the natural beauty and energy of this amazing place. Born in the UK, Thom lived in Boston during high school, then spent two years in Baltimore followed by two years in Florence, Italy, studying art history and painting. After graduating, Thom travelled and worked in India for a few months before moving out to New Mexico. His best times are spent reading, writing, hiking, working with kids, and making music and art. Thom has been writing for 10 years, and is greatly influenced by Pynchon, García Márquez, Tom Robbins and Kundera. Read his story HERE.
Poetry
1st When Catherine Ferguson was 15, she traveled by car with her grandmother, Ruth Dickinson, from Phoenix to Santa Fe. They ate lunch at The Shed, then located in Burro Alley. Catherine was surprised that the tortillas were blue. She never forgot the beauty of northern New Mexico. In 1972, Catherine’s mother, Susan Ferguson, took an art class at Ghost Ranch. Catherine visited and never left the area. She lives in Galisteo. Inspired by her love of nature and the Southwestern landscape, animals and trees, she paints watercolors, oils and retablos, reinterpreting this traditional New Mexican art form. She writes poems that express her passion for the life lived on this land. Catherine teaches retablo and watercolor painting. She is the author of eight chapbooks. In 2007, she received the New Mexico Book Award in Poetry for The Sound a Raven Makes, a collection with two other poets, Sawnie Morris and Michelle Holland. Read her poem HERE.
2nd Sometimes Lauren Camp is a visual artist and sometimes a poet. For more than six years, she has hosted and produced radio programs on KSFR. Currently, you can hear her sophisticated stew of words and music on Audio Saucepan (Sundays at 5 pm). Her first poetry collection, This Business of Wisdom, was recently published by West End Press. Since she had never written a book before, she’s particularly proud of this one. She leads creative writing workshops in Santa Fe, and exhibits her artwork around the country. Learn more at laurencamp.com. Read her poem HERE.
3rd Emily Pepin’s family moved to Santa Fe with a U-Haul and two poodles when she was 9, at which point she screamed at a stinkbug and fell in love with the mountains. Since then, she has been published by Más New Mexico, the Santa Fe Reporter (where she was an intern in 2008), plain china: Best Undergraduate Writing 2009, The Redlands Review, and the Census anthology. She graduated from the University of Redlands in 2009 with a degree in English and human ecology. Emily leaves for West Africa in March 2011 as a Peace Corps volunteer. You can reach her at emily.pepin@gmail.com. Read her poem HERE.
Non-Fiction
1st Mario Gonzales lives in Santa Fe but works in Las Vegas. He is currently working on a novel about rural Mexico, luck and mystification. He has three children who have yet to legally emancipate themselves. He is grateful for their love.
2nd Richard Jay Goldstein lives and writes in Santa Fe, and has been publishing stories, essays, and poetry in the literary and sci-fi/fantasy/horror press for 20-some years. His wife is Santa Fe percussionist Polly Tapia Ferber. They have two grown-up sons and two really cute granddaughters.
3rd Dianne Layden is a semi-retired college professor and writer in Albuquerque. Her field is American studies. She came to New Mexico in 1969 and left the state twice for faculty posts at the University of Houston and University of Redlands in Southern California. She returned in 2001 as an administrator at Santa Fe Community College. Campus violence is one of the subjects of her research. Currently, she teaches part-time at Central New Mexico Community College, where she has assisted with development of campus safety policies. Her research interests now focus on New Mexico history and culture. She is at work on a project on the Rudolfo Anaya—Bless Me, Ultima Landscape Park in Santa Rosa, which she has presented to the New Mexico Historical Society.
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No Angel
By Jodi Drinkwater
In the late afternoon desert sunlight, Abel stumbled between the high sandstone arroyo walls. He looked back over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of something—he wasn’t sure what—a light.
A firefly, thought Abel as he turned and blinked, a firefly in a Mason jar—like the one from his childhood. No, too bright to be a firefly. He shook his head. Ain’t no fireflies in New Mexico, anyhow. He laughed at himself then looked again—an angel? He stopped, mouth open, staring into the broad, bright face of the angel who had come to save him. He waited. The angel blazed like a great orb but was motionless. Abel blinked and waited. When the angel did not move to save Abel, he licked his parched lips and crumpled to the ground, his battered face in the sand, his cowboy hat toppled, his horse long gone.
* * *
In his adobe along the river, the cowboy was chanting his sonorous, rhythmic song when his telephone rang. He instantly recognized the voice on the line, he sighed, and then he frowned.
“Hey, Sid, we lost another one,” said the familiar voice.
“What’d you lose this time, Sonny?”
“It’s not what; it’s who.”
The cowboy frowned.
* * *
When the cowboy knocked on the grand door of the ranch house, he was neither impressed nor happy. The housekeeper answered and, with a condescending air, showed him into the great room. Faces of mounted animals stared down at him from the high, stone walls. The fireplace was massive but not burning. There was a large table with chairs made of leather and other detritus of animals. The cowboy fidgeted with a deer antler turned chair-back while footsteps sounded through the hall.
“Sid, you made it,” a very large man dressed in designer cowboy gear dwarfed the tall, skinny cowboy who stood in his old work clothes—his only clothes. The rancher shook the cowboy’s hand.
“Yup,” the cowboy frowned.
“You want something to eat?”
“Nope. Just need a horse.”
“You gotta gun?”
“Yup. Headin’ out tonight.”
“You got it, Sid,” the big man turned to leave.
The cowboy stopped him, “Good to see the downturn aint touched you.”
“Nope. No deficit ’round here,” the big man shuffled away like a grizzly.
The cowboy sighed.
The sun was setting when the cowboy went out to the horse. He was relieved finally to be alone except for the Mexican groom who was brushing the last of the horse’s tail. The horse was a Percheron, Quarter Horse cross and stood at least seventeen hands tall. He was a grey with feathered fetlocks—a horse big enough to carry Sonny.
“Gracias, amigo,” the cowboy thanked the Mexican.
The groom nodded.
“Como se llama este caballo?”
The Mexican stared indignantly at the cowboy.
“Como se llama el caballo? What’s his name? The horse?”
“The horse’s name is Gabriel, and he is ridden by the master of the house,” the Mexican replied in perfect English.
The cowboy whimpered, “gracias.”
“Sir, you are welcome,” the Mexican turned with disdain and disappeared into the shadows.
The cowboy judged the horse’s tack. The saddle was large enough to fit two cowboys and was made of the finest leather. It was hand-tooled by a top saddle maker in the Southwest. “Shit,” the cowboy spat tobacco. He unhooked the breast collar and gingerly removed the bridle. He unhitched the latigo and dropped the cinch. He carried the saddle and other gear to the tack room—stopped midway through the door and looked around: Damn. Look at all this stuff. He gazed down at fine leather and glittering silver gear. Like a damn museum…shit. He spat on the polished wood floor then remembered himself. He rubbed it in with his boot.
He walked to his truck, picked up his own worn saddle, re-tacked the horse, and replaced Sonny’s full saddle bags that looked peculiar with his gear. He walked back to his truck and picked up his rifle. He placed the rifle in the scabbard and mounted the large horse. A Cadillac, he thought, no, more like a Lexus, I bet. He suddenly and profoundly missed Brisk his little, bay trail horse, confined now, back at the barn without him.
They strode out of the ranch headquarters and ventured into the desert of the Galisteo Basin. Stupid, he thought, to start out cross country at sunset. But he just couldn’t stand the thought of staying one night—one more night of his life—in that place. He looked up at the stars.
The cowboy looked up at the stars, the full moon, then down at the tracks left by the old man’s horse. He followed them slowly knowing the night would be long ahead of him. The wind picked up, and the cowboy pulled his hat down tight. Behind him, clouds were blowing in, and the Rancho Sol y Sombre was swallowed by the impending storm. The cowboy rode through the night, occasionally dismounting his horse, checking tracks, then moving on.
He rode until the storm loomed over him. He found a low piñon and stopped. He pulled his bedroll from the rear of the saddle, along with his yellow slicker. Standing beside the horse, he drank some water and ate half a piece of beef jerky and thought of the porterhouse T-bone he could have had at Sonny’s place. He unbridled Gabriel, and buckled the hobbles on the horse.
With his front legs hobbled, Gabriel wouldn’t go far. And the bell around his neck would help the cowboy find him in the morning. Gabriel munched the wild blue grama. The man took the saddle from Gabriel’s back and laid it on the bedroll for his head. The cowboy stretched out on the blanket and covered himself with the slicker. He wore his boots and pulled the slicker tight over him as the rain pelted down.
Now the tracks will be washed away, he thought. The cowboy’s face was covered with what could be mistaken for tears—tears of the wild blue, he thought. And this was so perfectly sentimental and sad to the tired cowboy that he fell asleep as the storm closed in around him.
* * *
At the exact moment the cowboy fell asleep beneath his slicker, Abel was awakened by the pattering of rain on his back. The old man turned over in the sand, opened his mouth, and drank in the rain. He was relieved at last to have water and started to come to his senses. He didn’t know how long he had been there and looked around for his horse, a paint named Michelangelo. Michelangelo was gone. Abel held his tongue to the rain. As he drank, the old man heard a low rumble, something I should recognize, he thought. The water teemed over Abel just as he remembered: flash flood.
Abel scrambled to the side of the arroyo and clung to the roots of a juniper. The water heaved down over him, and his legs were pulled into the flood.
“Hold on,” he instinctively told himself, then the old man couldn’t remember quite why.
* * *
Before dawn, the cowboy was up and wet. He shook out his hair and replaced his hat. He ate a handful of coffee followed by a shot of water.
“Cowboy can’t even have his coffee nowadays,” but he was in a hurry and settled for the grounds the Mexican had packed for him. He chewed the second half of the beef jerky and listened for Gabriel’s bell. The horse was behind a cluster of piñon trees, and the cowboy easily gathered, un-hobbled, and tacked the horse.
The cowboy chanted as he rode and scanned the horizon. The sun was rising, and since now the tracks were obscured, he watched for horse dung, scuffed rocks, and trampled grass. He looked over the landscape for signs of man or horse. Besides what little the trail might offer, he only had his gut to follow. But his gut he trusted most of all of these. In this, the cowboy was confident: He would find Abel, then he shuddered at the thought—better or worse.
The cowboy roused when he saw the oil derrick in the distance. Abel had been sent to check the derrick for an oil spill or leak. When the cowboy arrived at the derrick there was no sign of malfunction—and no sign of Abel.
* * *
The orphaned calf had been separated from the herd for some time now. The herd of Angus cattle had moved over the ridge, and the calf bellowed for his mother who had died a day earlier. Now the calf wandered into Abel’s arroyo several miles up from where Abel had clung to the juniper. The mountain lion, which crouched on the arroyo bank in the brush, watched the sad calf as he bellowed. The calf stirred a deep longing in the mountain lion, one as old as time, and the lion would play his part. The lion rose from the brush and crept along the edge of the arroyo bank. The calf found a depression in the sand filled with water and began to drink. He missed his mother. The lion crouched nearby, suddenly thinking the calf a marvelous plaything. At once, the lion leapt and slashed through the arroyo toward the lonely calf.
* * *
At midday the cowboy stopped the horse at a cattle trough and let him drink. He dug through the saddle-bags until he found a stack of handmade tortillas wrapped in newspaper. He sat on a rock and un-wrapped the tortillas. They had been grilled in butter, and though they were cold now, they were exactly what the cowboy wanted as he looked out at the sky filled with swollen clouds: better than any T-bone, he thought as he took a bite.
He looked down at the newspaper’s headline: Paving Gate: New Mexico’s Asphalt Conspiracy. The cowboy chuckled to himself and wished Abel were here to read this: only place in New Mexico’s got good blacktop, and it’s a scam. Again, the cowboy looked around at the basin, relieved to be in a place far away from cars and roads and conspiracies.
“You’re anachronistic,” Abel had once told him.
“What are you talking about old man?” the cowboy had laughed. “Anachronistic,” he repeated. “That’s what my daughter calls me. It means you’re in the wrong time—you’re obsolete.”
The cowboy had sneered at Abel but knew it was the truth. For a moment, now, the cowboy imagined that this basin was the whole, entire world: No cars. Only horses—and land—endless expanses of land.
“Come to your senses, you fool cowboy. This is the world now, and anachronistic or not, you are part of it,” he reprimanded himself.
The cowboy finished his tortillas and water, and climbed back onto Gabriel. Now he must search this vast country for Abel, the old man who had once pegged him and was right now proving it to the both of them.
* * *
The cowboy found the calf near the mouth of the arroyo. The lion had eaten most of the calf’s hind-quarters and left the rest, half-buried, for later. The cowboy cut a large chunk of flesh from the calf’s shoulder and wrapped it in the newspaper he had wanted to show Abel—if he were alive to read it—when he found him. The cowboy stuffed the beef deep into the saddlebags below the canteen to keep it cool.
Back on the horse, for a moment the cowboy thought it might be nice not to find Abel, to instead climb Piedra Tortuga and survey the immense Galisteo, to forget the world where he never belonged.
“Fool,” he scolded himself, just before he glanced down the arroyo to see a heap in the sand that looked suspiciously like Abel.
Jodi Drinkwater is very grateful for winning the Santa Fe Reporter writing contest for the second time. (She won in 2008). Writing about the cowboy for a second time was a great experience, and Jodi plans to continue to explore the cowboy's adventures. Jodi is a writer and painter in Santa Fe. To see more of her work, visit jodidrinkwater.com.
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The Woodcutter
By Alex Greenspan
The crack of metal on wood slices through the morning silence. A bearded old man lifts his axe from his cutting board stump as the log falls in two. His thick, worn out jeans protect him from the flying splinters as sweat drips down, soaking into his white cotton shirt. He casually wipes a bead off his brow. Breathing deeply, he sets a new log.
The Woodcutter is walking, logs in hand, towards his cabin home. Standing between the two are nothing but stumps; former trees now forming only an expanding circle, slowly growing, counting the years. The ground is treacherous, even dangerous, suffering a quiet paving gate fate. The pile in his arms blocks his eyes, but he has no need for them. He walks around one tree stump, over a small hole, and around another stump; he's made this trip countless times, but today is different…today, he slips.
The Woodcutter is falling, crashing to the earth, the logs fly out of his hands as he grabs at the air. He lands on his face, the logs land on the ground. Slowly, he crawls to his feet, logs scattered in front of him. He turns to examine where he slipped, a wet spot. He kneels down and touches it. Standing back up he brings it to his face…urine.
The Woodcutter is hunting, rifle in hand he peers for his prey, an empty brown leather bag slung over his shoulder. A broken twig, hoof prints in dirt; he twists and turns through the trees as he follows them. A sound! A deer not fifty yards away. With a steady hand and slower breath he fires one shot. Kneeling at the side of the fallen, he lays one hand on its chest and closes his eyes for a brief moment.
The Woodcutter is pulling, his full brown leather bag squeezes shut as the string snaps tight. He slings it over his shoulder before turning around, calmly heading home. He enters his cabin without the use of a key and walks to the back where he opens a door. He enters and comes back empty handed. On a small table lies a straight razor. He picks it up and leaves the cabin. Outside, on the front porch, he sits in a single chair, in front of a small table and looks into a tiny mirror, hanging from a string. He flicks open the razor with a twitch of his wrist and begins. He barely needs it, but this is his routine. The mirror gently rocks back and forth in the breeze. It doesn't bother him though, he smiles as his reflection switches glances tween him and sunset. Finished, he walks back inside to his bed. He crawls beneath the covers, slowly drifting to sleep whilst listening to the sounds of the world as it churns around him.
The Woodcutter is stirring, awoken by the sun as it crawls across his face. He gets dressed and goes outside in order to inspect his small collection of logs. He smells the air, clean and crisp, winter is coming, he will need more. He strolls through the field of stumps to where his axe rests, wedged into his most recent cutting board. He picks it up and looks to the nearest tree. He swings and the axe sticks well. His head jerks up, alarmed by a wolf's howl as it pierces through the silence like a bullet. He looks around but sees nothing but the trees surrounding him like a towering cage of brown and gold. He peers from side to side, knuckles turning red as he pulls the axe tight to his chest, ready for battle. Standing, breathing, thinking. Slowly, he raises the axe, peeking around once more before finally striking the tree. He keeps the blade in the bark as he stares to the sky, rubbing his palms together in thought.
The Woodcutter is sitting, inside of his house he solemnly eats a steak. A breeze catches the mirror and it sways, casting light through the window and striking him in the face. He doesn't hide, but instead, closes his eyes, listening to the world as he chews. The gust ends and the noise ceases; his eyes open, jump to the window, and scan his surroundings. Everything is still and nothing moves. The wind kicks back up and the noise returns. Once again his eyes close as he slowly contemplates over his dinner, deep in thought, and little concerned.
The Woodcutter is resting, in his bed his eyes are on the ceiling. His breathing is smooth as he begins to drift away. His eyes close as he exhales. Relaxed, he inhales through his nose, but stops dead. Something in the air, something that shouldn't be. His nostrils flair as he draws breath again for a second opinion. Vindicated, he gets out of bed and walks to the closet to grab his rifle. He checks to make sure it's loaded when suddenly, scratches are heard coming through the wall. He aims his rifle at the source but stops to think. He lowers it, it won't make it through the logs. Slowly, step by step, he begins moving towards the front door. Step by step. Suddenly the noise dissipates, leaving him in the silence and the dark. The only sound to be heard is his own rhythmic breathing. At the other end of the cabin, a loud sniffing commences. Spinning around he aims his rifle at the wall; but again, he lowers it, same mistake. He continues towards the front door, moving backwards, not taking his eyes off the source of the disturbance. He gets to the door and opens it. Once in the darkness, he can barely see as he looks around. Cautiously, he closes his eyes and holds his breath, silencing himself to help hear for danger. Silently, he counts to five. Opening his eyes, his night vision has improved. Working his way around his home, he makes it to the corner, then, swiftly, he turns it and aims to where he knows the animal to be. Nothing. Lowering his rifle, he licks his lips in thought.
The Woodcutter is drinking, the morning light passes through his water like a prism, his rifle leaning against the wall behind him. He finishes his glass and slings his rifle over his shoulder, where it stays, beside his empty brown leather bag. Heading into the woods, he parts brush out of the way. Among the trees he walks, strolling, until a deer comes into view. Slowly he takes his rifle from its perch and aims true. He fires one shot and the deer falls. As he slings his rifle back over his shoulder, a large gray wolf jumps out from the brush and tears into the deer. It rips large bites from its flesh, then quickly as it came, vanishes into the trees, leaving nothing but a trail of blood in its wake.
The Woodcutter is confounded, staring at the atrocity below. He aims his rifle at where the wolf disappeared and starts heading towards the body. He gets all the way there and no wolf appears. Peeking into the brush, he sees the wolf's trail vanish in the distance. He bends down to look at the deer; its stomach has been ripped open, the contents leaking into the meat, spreading across the flesh like an oil spill. It has been rendered uneatable. With his jaw tightening he grumbles to himself.
The Woodcutter is scowling, the last amount left from his previous kill was not satisfactory. In bed his stomach growls, unable to settle. Tossing and turning he stays awake against his will. Eventually, it becomes overwhelming; he gets up and walks across the room to his closet. He removes his rifle, loads it, sets it down on the table and goes back to bed.
The Woodcutter is waking, his stomach roaring with anger. He throws on his clothes and grabs his rifle. He doesn't make breakfast, he has nothing to eat. He doesn't cut wood, he has nothing to cook. Once outside, he quickly heads into the woods, scanning the ground for signs of life. After a brief time, he comes across tracks, deer again. He grins and follows them. The prints go to the left, then the right, up a hill and down the other side, but he does not. For from the top of the hill, he can plainly see the corpse of the long dead deer, partly eaten lying coldly in the dirt. He scours the area and finds the prints of the beast. He checks his rifle and follows them. They lead back up the hill and on through the trees. He moves carefully, always looking to see what lies ahead. Suddenly he stops, recognition. He pushes brush out of his way, revealing his home, front door covered in scratches. He takes his hand and touches every mark with his fingertips, feeling them, absorbing them. He turns around, sighing as he sits in his chair, rifle resting on his lap. He scratches his head and takes a breath.
The Woodcutter is grunting, the large wooden chest threatens to teach him of gravity as he walks out of his closet. He sets it down in the middle of the room and pulls out an assortment of ropes, chains, wires and other tools and hunting equipment. He pushes most to the side and picks up from underneath them the longest chain he can find. He walks back outside, chain scraping on the ground. He attaches it to the roof, in the corner, then down to the banister and back up to the roof. Little by little, he concocts a net, separating his porch from the world, leaving only the entrance open. He goes back inside where he grabs the wire, and begins braiding it together to form a sizable square panel. He puts small loops at two corners and a piece of wire hanging over the edge of the other two. He lays it down and grabs two ropes and makes a quick slipknot at the end of each. He pulls the hanging wire though the loop of rope, bends them backwards and ties them off. He then runs each length of rope up and through the two loops and picks up his contraption. He walks to the entrance, where he hangs it from the roof so that it reaches the floor to his exact specifications. Back inside, he grabs one last length of rope before heading out again. His home, once beautifully painted by the color of weathered wood, now a fortress, designed to keep the world at bay.
The Woodcutter is sleeping, rifle by his side. Suddenly, the sounds of the wolf are heard. He wakes up, startled at first, but his memory seeps back, returning to him. He silently creeps out of bed, rifle in hand. Ear to the door, he hears the wolf stepping around. Above the door-frame, a length of rope is tied through a roughly carved hole in the wall. He yanks it loose and it slides out. The wire fence crashes to the porch, weighted down by a log. The wolf immediately starts growling. Furious, it begins to gnaw on the wires trying to escape; but with every bite, the wires bend and flex into sharp points, cutting its mouth. It stops and howls in pain. Looking through the window, rifle in hand, he aims, exhales and fires one shot. The wolf screams and falls to the side. He throws the door open and steps outside, the wolf lying at his feet, struggling to breath. Looking down, he takes aim at the wolf's head, cocks his rifle and says, "I don't understand why you were here, but I'm sorry it came to this." With that, he fires one last shot.
Alex Greenspan was born and raised in New York. He went to college in Albany and is now traveling around America. He moved to Albuquerque about five months ago and, in about five more, he will be moving to New Orleans. It is his goal to forge a career as a writer and has no doubt that this will happen.
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Stimulus
By Thom Harding
There was snow in the creases of the chipped urban-cold pavement, turning rot gray as the fur-white, honest welcoming white of the winter clasp, picked up the mites of detritus and dirt and absorbed it without wonder or doubt. The small rises of filth snow seemed like the decaying fruits of the city orchard, kicked into the gutters, discarded as soon as it was no longer glossy and fine while the people of the city went hungry with no work and no blankets and no paperwork to validate the event of their disappearance.
The candidate walked along the sidewalk, elevated by the infinitely large inch of paving that kept the slush in the crannies of the street and off the minted shine of leather laggard loafers. Eyes ahead, thoughts behind, feet patiently and tirelessly breaking the present that he stood in to stretch into the future and the past over and over again. The budget had been faxed over to him that morning, the long tongue of paper protruding from the machine in its own mocking manner. It seemed that the incumbent esteemed Minister of State had spent mountains of cash, literal K2's of capital before taxes had been collected, and the payers had acted upon their latent, previously quiescent, distrust of the System (the one that could run pipes from here to over there but couldn't exactly say what was in them, who they were for or how they were to benefit anyone) and decided not to pay them at all. As an applicant for the Minister of Finances, the candidate was personally invested in the state of the fiscal structure and its motion. He knew that like any structure, it must be allowed to move as little as possible, to remain stable and anchored during inactive times only to be given the power of malleability and flex when disaster became imminent. Like foundations of skyscrapers that deny their movement until the ground asks them to give a little tolerance and take a little stress. The rigid pillars stand erect during the calm, and twitch with the tremors of action.
The word erect stirred an uncomfortable self-awareness in the candidate, a mirror-view of his matte life that he masterfully ignored most of the time. His wife hadn't said anything directly to him, she had been involved in the game-politic too long for that, but the feathered breath of a sigh that escaped her collagen-tough lips as they settled down to sleep bred a paranoid dubiety in him. It didn't haunt him, that would be too spectral and invisible for his type of manner, but the thought nagged at him and grew inside like some comfortable parasite. Settled, lamp on the table by the armchair, windows drawn and cocoa steaming. It had only been recently that he had noticed any difference, but there was some finalizing shadow of old age that loomed up over the subject. He remembered the time when he and his wife slept together every day, closely and seeking each other each moment. That was a long time ago, for sure. But they continued to love each other, and became comfortable and less insecure and more subtle in their expression for one another, the sex decreased but never to a level that the minister deemed below average. There was safety in average, and the thought of being below the common line was more unappealing than the false pushes and heartless grasps in the unlit tchotchke-studded master bedroom. Like with the money, and with contacts, there was a stable line to aim for. The mean. Below that was lacking, too small and insignificant to quite reach what was expected. The deficit. That word and 'erect' resonated together like bees crashing about between cymbals. The dangerous clamor that warned of personal becoming business, work becoming his extension of domestic marital inhibitions that not haunted, but spooked him, at home.
When he arrived at the office, volunteers and campaign managers and well-wishers and critics formed a knit group around him, pushing for his statement on the expense report that had so rudely blown, raspberry-like, into his room earlier that morning. The talk of accounts being too low for the interest they were supposed to be accumulating, the embarrassment of operating the city at such a loss, spending so much more than assets and income could speak for. Everything was too small. The uncomfortable thought squeezed its way through cerebral fabric into the 'on' part of his brain, and his spousal and economic worries became entwined in embarrassed, shameful ambition. But, glowing, through the feeling was the desire to fix the situation, to prove himself and succeed.
The candidate dispersed the choking crowd that had surrounded him upon entrance with confident, driven words and walked to the back of the building, where his own study remained in solitude, Cerberus secretary keeping guard outside with intercom and fake excuses. He began draping himself in the ideas and responsible actions needed to bring his position into the light of opportunity. Calculations executed, speeches written, blame placed. The deficit swimming in the System of the state like so many plagued rats was no more than the recession before the tidal wave. With him as Minister of Finance, the debt would be transferred into massive progression unlike any the state had seen. With his careful management, the fiscal balance would regain equanimity, and more likely even increase during his administration. As papers were signed and advertisements scripted, the candidate felt blood rushing to the place of which it had been so wary the night before. His wife flashed across his mind, bent and given and satisfied, bringing a corner smile to his lips as the pen in his hand dotted a sentence. There was a rise below the desk as he signed the new policy into existence. The economy would once again stand to attention, and so would he.
As the weeks continued to spill out of the calendar, his flaccid nightmare continued, wife still sighing in acceptance, embarrassment brewing behind his eyelids. The candidate felt small and powerless, and his confidence shrank proportionally. The papers and documents he had signed were acted upon, experts were putting their content into motion, stealing words from the page and fitting them with motors and all-terrain tires. But as the ideas were implemented, more questions arose about the wisdom behind the decisions made, doubts were born out of loop-holes, squeezed between the labial parentheses into the realm of action. Ordinarily, not something to faze the candidate. He had been in the game for years now, and this was only the kickback from the first drafts, the shocked pullback from a current that allowed policy to grow and become the most efficient, and heartless it could be. But with each new paper that passed across his dark-varnish desk, the candidate grew less and less sure of his decisions, and rapidly began to feel that attempting to rebuild the lacking financial resources was as hopeless as denying the cruel onward march of impotence. The stacked tower of documents grew by his side as his mind wrapped itself in cocooning turmoil and self-pity. Policies that needed his signature to be included in his campaign promises remained soulless and unverified. The debt increased daily, as more lenders called in the borrowings that had never been replaced by the taxes demanded. And the candidate did nothing. Unemployment and prices rose and began to simmer, a cutting irony as his oak bed remained cold and dry. The increasing deficit remained as rigid as his sex was not, and the candidate gave up hope. He returned to the campaign headquarters day after day, but no longer cared whether the banks could function or the ports trade. The candidate won the election and was appointed to his post, due more to the conservative tea-rambling idiocies spewing from his opposition than to his own efforts. He accepted the job amongst much fanfare from his advisors and supporters, but could not shake the impuissant feeling from his softening bones.
Three months passed, and the economy continued to fail. The state was in a legitimized depression. Jobless forgotten roamed the streets, soup kitchens were established by church philanthropists to feed children after the school day. Women marked the corners at night, while their infants waited another night for nourishment. The banks had failed, and un-monitored usury stepped in, inflated and insulting. And the Minister of Finance continued to bow his head, eyes caught at his crotch. Obsession bred apathy, and he resolved to continue doing nothing.
The smoky snow melted into the gutters, liquefied winter chill dripping into the pumping heart below the city. Small shoots began crowning through fissures in the pavement, and buds squeezed impudently from their parent limbs, made-up faces hidden before the prom. The sun held high for longer each day, and the night sky lost the metal sheen of the colder months. But as the earth woke up and stretched, twisting spine and rubbing eyes, the people of the state hunkered down into a demoralized crush. Stores closed and factories died, windows blinking out and chimney breath becoming strained and weak, in the arms of their owners.
One evening the minister and his wife sat in bed, reading side by side to ignore the deflated elephant in the room. Simultaneously they lent over and flicked their bed-lamps off. Rolling in towards each other for a somnolent peck, the Minister of Finance' wife's hand leapt forward and closed tightly around him. Surprised, the Minister forgot his shame and momentarily lost the lethargy that had destroyed his hopes. Without daring to look down, he reached his own hand to where his wife's fingers were making contact with an estranged environment, relearning the topography and spirit of its climate. The curse was broken, and the bed began speaking in its forgotten language, awkwardly at first after so many months of mute dispassion, then with increasing fluency. The mattress was then shouting at the room around it, once again crude and juvenile. And it was shouting about sex.
The next morning the Minister swung into his office, jauntily and proud. There was a glow around him, particularly around his waist, that radiated hope and assurance. He attacked the documents perched on his desk, dashing signatures against the bottoms of pages, crossing out and re-writing statements, fixing the broken plumbing of the System. In a month progress had been made, minor but marking a shift in the fortune of the masses. The sex of the minister regained its youthful enthusiasm, no longer standing lackluster in the corner of the dancehall, hunched and cold like the lines of poor that remained laced around the fringes of churches and community centers. The Finance offices rang with enthusiasm once more, as the minister's wife's voice rang like the shrill cry of democracy in between sheets.
Thom Harding moved to Santa Fe this August, and is in love with the natural beauty and energy of this amazing place. Born in the UK, Thom lived in Boston during high school, then spent two years in Baltimore followed by two years in Florence, Italy, studying art history and painting. After graduating, Thom travelled and worked in India for a few months before moving out to New Mexico. His best times are spent reading, writing, hiking, working with kids, and making music and art. Thom has been writing for 10 years, and is greatly influenced by Pynchon, García Márquez, Tom Robbins and Kundera.
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Postcards from the Mother City
By Catherine Ferguson
My mother and I walk together through the plaza—
On the bandstand, cheerleaders in yellow and blue balance
on each other’s shoulders shouting class slogans.
Mariachi music sways our hips, mingles with smoke through which we glimpse
a stagecoach lumbering through the plaza at the end of Old Santa Fe Trail,
tourists waving through the open carriage windows.
We dance to drums with a man half zebra and half donkey, our legs
strong enough to withstand the change in season, lured by pre-autumn
scent of chile roasting, grilled meat, garlic and onion from the fajitas cart.
In the courtyard of the Palace of the Governors, my mother waits with the settlers
in the shade.
She has ordered a one-leaf iron stem from the mountain man who pounds metal.
Clouds of smoke pour from his forge, blinding us. A man carving the wheels
of a death cart, rotating circles of pine as he chips away slivers of wood,
begins to cough.
The blacksmith’s pretty wife, twirling her red skirt and white ruffled blouse,
offers beaded pouches and moccasins.
Another mountain man shows off animal pelts, their glassy eyes accusing me.
Memory of a blacksmith who darkened my midlife becomes a dream of swaths
of green grass.
My mother and I buy frozen ice cream at the 5 and Dime while we wait,
find space on a plaza bench next to an old man talking to another old man.
Wandering young travelers gather in groups, a boy with dreads plays the guitar
to a mangy dog.
My mother becomes my Grandmother, in love with a plaza in Spain.
I have walked these streets. Still I walk, stare in store windows at turquoise
velvet skirts, bear-claw necklaces, prayer feathers wrapped in yellow
holders stitched with inlaid designs of eagles and pine branches.
We wonder if the pounded leaf is finished.
My mother waits at a table in the shade while I study a book about retablos,
reinventing myself for the millionth time as a lover of this high desert,
with its history of adobe and raindrops soaking into this dry hard ground
that was once a cornfield.
Metal stem in hand, we walk to our car on paving stones ancient as our stories.
When Catherine Ferguson was 15, she traveled by car with her grandmother, Ruth Dickinson, from Phoenix to Santa Fe. They ate lunch at The Shed, then located in Burro Alley. Catherine was surprised that the tortillas were blue. She never forgot the beauty of northern New Mexico. In 1972, Catherine's mother, Susan Ferguson, took an art class at Ghost Ranch. Catherine visited and never left the area. She lives in Galisteo. Inspired by her love of nature and the Southwestern landscape, animals and trees, she paints watercolors, oils and retablos, reinterpreting this traditional New Mexican art form. She writes poems that express her passion for the life lived on this land. Catherine teaches retablo and watercolor painting. She is the author of eight chapbooks. In 2007, she received the New Mexico Book Award in Poetry for The Sound a Raven Makes, a collection with two other poets, Sawnie Morris and Michelle Holland.
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In a Place with Two Dawns
By Lauren Camp
At the tortíllería on Siler, the rhythmic slap of flapping
corn draws me to the hijos and hungry men. I can
almost taste the seared sting of chile and carne.
The day pushes me out with a hot batch of hunger
in a twist-tied plastic bag moist with desire.
Driving north on Cerrillos,
I push past the maw of each lowrider two-sided with
color. Stirred by the vibrato of bass through the pavement,
I cruise between trucks tugging the road with tall wheels.
Parking, I walk through a network of heaped-up,
burnt red, sun-battered pots huddled together, sidling
shoulders in a stockpile of jagged heat in Jackalope’s side yard.
The sun waves and smiles from its vast kingdom,
singing hip-hop country love songs to the desert
from its high seat in the open-framed, organza-blue sky.
In the car again, I slide past the white kingdom of the El Rey Motel.
Flowers stumble from boxes. I pass the tattoo shop
erupting with gold-leafed goblins on cinderblock walls;
pass the Indian School living in an immortal
footprint of dust. The sun bellies out,
fat and sweet as the voluptuous flesh of an August plum.
rippling over the window of the herb shop, the book shop.
Steel horses at the School for the Deaf
gallop silently toward the shoreless shadow of the Sangres.
At St. Francis, I play dominoes with sun spots
on the Railrunner crossing, until the bird and its engine
fly by in a flutter of windows and whirring wings.
Past Paseo, I drive to the river where
the musk of day floats out in all directions.
When I sense the sun becoming the color of heartbreak,
I drive on to the mountain, past the dust-bitten buildings.
The sun plays its harp and the moon unmasks
with a slight chill, nuzzling the sky with infinite care.
Sometimes Lauren Camp is a visual artist and sometimes a poet. For more than six years, she has hosted and produced radio programs on KSFR. Currently, you can hear her sophisticated stew of words and music on Audio Saucepan (Sundays at 5 pm). Her first poetry collection, This Business of Wisdom, was recently published by West End Press. Since she had never written a book before, she's particularly proud of this one. She leads creative writing workshops in Santa Fe, and exhibits her artwork around the country. Learn more at laurencamp.com.
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Fé Incantation for Ciudad Santa
By Emily Pepin
Manzano Jemez Sangre de Cristo Sandia
blanket of stars, bowl of blue sky
wind whisper— infinity—
every monsoon afternoon.
I love you mi jito mi amor holy city,
Compact body of adobe, brown earth your skin.
La Llorona weeping your riverbed flesh,
All dried up. Children
smoke weed in broken-bottle arroyos
the gloomy Old man burns away
Your demise, his flame can’t catch
Upper Canyon farolitos as they
Bridge the gap
between your second-home rich
and your la raza poor.
Que bonita mi jita I love you mi amor
Aspen bark of your being, quake in bright light
Marbled blue of your shadows,
inky streak of your clouds. Dirt roads turn to
asphalt slick with tequila, green leaves fall yellow
as you shout que viva, bells ringing for mass.
On the portal, the Spirit is selling
Cool opals and Pies
eaten from bags. Atop the
cross of the martyred, you stand in the future,
Reach to the Past with
Curved fingers of winding streets,
breath of baking dust, kiss
of champagne sunset.
My beauty, my lovely, Hatch green on tongues
You the forever, the ancient, the deep-burning Sage.
Turquoise corazón, thick roots
From which we
Beat and bleed and grow and reach—
Sweet city, our city, holy city, our faith.
Emily Pepin’s family moved to Santa Fe with a U-Haul and two poodles when she was 9, at which point she screamed at a stinkbug and fell in love with the mountains. Since then, she has been published by Más New Mexico, the Santa Fe Reporter (where she was an intern in 2008), plain china: Best Undergraduate Writing 2009, The Redlands Review, and the Census anthology. She graduated from the University of Redlands in 2009 with a degree in English and human ecology. Emily leaves for West Africa in March 2011 as a Peace Corps volunteer. You can reach her at emily.pepin@gmail.com.
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Eyes on the Law
SFR's nonfiction writing contest winners contemplate crime in its myriad forms
Choosing a topic for the 2010 nonfiction category of SFR's writing contest was a no-brainer. Whether the rash of burglaries that swept Santa Fe over the last year, chronic DWI or sadly ubiquitous government graft, crime of all types greets us on a near-daily basis.
The top three winners of this year's nonfiction category explore the topic with a myriad of approaches.
First place winner Mario Gonzales' piece, "Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin," is a moody poetic in which a first-person narrator juxtaposes hard moral choices against a violent backdrop.
In "The Wizard of Weed," Richard Jay Goldstein brings levity to this country's uneasy relationship with illegal drugs, building a compelling—if hilarious—argument in favor of the legalization of marijuana.
Finally, Dianne Layden offers a detailed and chilling examination of campus violence with her essay, "STAY CALM! Campus Violence and Classroom Climate."
Submissions to this category for 2010 were robust, and other worthy submissions touched on violence against women, home burglaries, family court, crimes against the environment, and musings on the pervasive lawlessness in nearly all aspects of America's culture.
This week’s edition closes out this year’s contest. We thank again all entrants and this year’s judges for contributing their time and talent. Keep writing—next year’s contest will be here before you know it. —Julia Goldberg
Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin
By Mario Gonzales
I’m inside, it’s cold or hot, January or July, a J month, that much I’m sure of. Not that it matters. I know outside Mexico happens. The currency in my pocket tells me as much. The grit collecting in my throat and the head spin of caustic elements in the air clue me in as well.
Too much time, and then really, not time enough. But still some to kick around and hope that death will be bloodless.
Too many drinks spent inside me. That was a mistake. My neighbors make the same mistake. They argue about money and betrayal. They carry on with children crying beside them. At night, they fall into each other’s arms asking for a bit of forgiveness. They make love while I go sleepless. Through thin walls I hear their bodies turn and spasm, going weak with the aftermath of luminous sensation. Their pain and suffering dies back until morning when it rises again with the sun. I know this because it’s morning and their children have begun to cry.
I also know what I’ve come here to do will not get done. I will not find her. She will not be in the city I left her in. She will not be wearing the flowered dress I gave her the day before I crept out of town. She will not have a baby in her arms. She will have gone and had the baby with someone else.
Just as well. I would have made a vile dad. I would have summoned anger. I would have summoned sadness. I would have wounded when I should have held. Problem is I can’t tell the difference between the two—love and pain. The boy would grow confused and lonely and heartbroken in all this. I reason the only thing he would have hated more than me was himself.
Most days stagger toward 3 am. With most days there is money to squander, companions to make and discard. Never a shortage of cronies when loose change is flung around like filth. Without fail they appear at the cantinas, with such devotion you’d think they were responding to a Mohammedan call to prayers. The barflies will trouble themselves there till well past nightfall. Ultimately funds are exhausted or the rabble nears blackout. Bleary eyes grope for an exit, fading once more to shadow.
I go home. I sit here and watch the dark-starving birds of the oncoming day rise with the morning air.
I know it will not be bloodless. I know bullets will fly. I was told I’m fucked. As if I didn’t know, didn’t feel that already. Don’t steal says the church. Sound advice. Omitted, however, were the vital specifics, such as don’t steal from brutal Mexican men with drug connections, unlimited artillery and no moral qualms about using them. It’s a matter of greed, I guess, and who has enough snarl in their flesh to defend theirs with guns and fire.
That’s what I’m thinking as I take the first hit.
I’m on to other things. The evil shit. The crooked shit. The shit that further breaks those already broken. It’s the stuff that won’t let you go, because, let’s face it man, you don’t want it to. Ever.
This is what it’s like to have your thoughts burn, set ablaze by a rough slur of chemicals assembled in some asshole’s toilet. Can’t you just smell the drain cleaners, the acids and bases, the cough syrup, the not-too-clean cakes of cheap soap, the ammonia and bleach, the pure piss and shit of it all?
Let’s get down to it. Before I start stripping scabs from bare flesh and grinding my teeth past enamel; before bad men with good aim finalize mayhem; before these manic bouts with paranoia overwhelm. Which will it be? The DEA, the CIA, the Zetas, paramilitary masquerading as cops or cops moonlighting as paramilitary, the Sinaloa or Sonora Cartel, the Colombians or Cubans?
Well, yes, it matters little now to discuss who owns and who owes. It’s already been measured, scaled, counted and cut. It’s been reckoned—Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin.
This is what it’s like, waiting in a border town with a creepy little feeling crawling up the back of your bones. There are frontiers to find, a new beginning to manufacture. Except the country across the way, and the next one after that, and so on, are even more drug stained than the one you’re currently immobilized in.
This is crime, against oneself, against others. You see, it’s got a tough and weighted feel. It feels slack and tight at the same time. It’s got a slick sheen and an angry gloss. It rants and rambles, you must understand, even in the absence of a drug-nurtured paranoia.
Don’t get me wrong. In these gauzy mornings, in their ravage and shamble, in the last of these numbered days, I feel true. Crime, the most human of our modern failings, separates us from the lesser elements of life, allowing us to feel things as they are and not as we wish them to be.
Mario Gonzales lives in Santa Fe but works in Las Vegas. He is currently working on a novel about rural Mexico, luck and mystification. He has three children who have yet to legally emancipate themselves. He is grateful for their love.
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The Wizard of Weed
By Richard Jay Goldstein
Believe it or not, there was a time when illegal drug use was common in this country. It was a long time ago, but—my goodness—what wouldn’t we smoke, eat, drink, shoot, or adsorb, to get high, see God, take leave of our senses, and otherwise flaunt the law? We were alway
