Albuquerque: Local Establishment
By Paul Stinson

These were proud men.  Enterprising men.  Men who knew what it meant to lose something.  They took off their hats when they entered, and they nodded sheepishly when they left.  They wore bright, sharply creased blue jeans and bolo ties made of bone and turquoise.  Their wide leathery faces and sad eyes rarely changed expression because they seldom argued or even disagreed.  That summer in Albuquerque I walked scores of these men out of my office at the bank, through the gleaming lobby, and sent them back into the afternoon heat, wondering if they’d understood a word I’d said.  “You see Mr. Gutierrez, the loan officers prefer some kind of formal credit history or business plan before committing any money to your…”  Take your pick.  Landscaping business, taqueria, or repair shop were always safe bets.  

It was just a temporary assignment, just for two months.  A broaden-your-experience project working in community development lending.  The bank made all the arrangements.  I lived in the basement apartment of a small adobe bungalow a few blocks off Central Avenue, the old Route 66.  Coming from the City, I had no car; so I walked and rode the bus.  And I tried to take everything in. 

My first weekend in town I caught the bus on Central.  It rumbled its way through dusty, striving downtown Albuquerque and then Old Town, crossed the Rio Grande, low and muddy, and then, when the buildings were behind you and you could see the rock of Petroglyph National Monument rising up straight ahead, looped around and headed back east.  I ended up the last person on the bus; and as we retraced our route and came to the river again, the driver looked at me in his rearview and asked in broken English where I was getting off.  I told him I was just riding, and he said okay, okay and kept driving. A few minutes later I saw the place up ahead on Central.

I wondered how I’d missed it earlier.  The painted cinder block building itself was nothing to behold.  It had no visible windows and an oversized parking lot scattered with cars.  But rising above the building was its shining badge: a giant neon sign, the word Jack’s in script atop the lone playing card of its winking namesake, resplendent in hearts.
            
“Jack’s?” I said as we approached.  “A bar?”   
            
“Yes, a bar,” the bus driver said.

“It’s a good place?” I said.

“Yes, it’s good.”  He paused.  He squinted out the window toward the other side of the street.  “Is there long time,” he said.  “Long time.” 

The late afternoon New Mexico sun shone full through the dirty bus windows.  I wanted to ask the driver more, but I said nothing.  I studied Jack’s as we passed and rode on for a while in silence.  The Sandias jutted from the horizon.  People were starting to come out along Central, and music wafted from a few restaurants.  We continued east; and only when I realized we had long overshot my apartment, did I signal to the driver, thank him, and step off the bus. 

* * *

My favorite thing to do that summer was to walk from my apartment up the street away from Central to a squat residential neighborhood flush with piñon.  Especially after a rain, everything smelled wonderful.  There was one quiet strip of a few small stores; and if you climbed on top of the dumpster, you could then hop onto the roof of the stores.  There you could look unobstructed over the entire city, the downtown lying before you. And beyond that, nothing, only Petroglyph and the endless New Mexican desert.  I would sit on the roof at sunset and watch the sun inch into the western land, at first turning everything fantastic pinks and purples and then, burnt out itself, bathing the terrain in the ashen light of dusk.  The first few times I couldn’t help but think of old westerns, a grizzled and glorious Eastwood or John Wayne riding off.  I’d never seen this sort of place but on the movie screen.  After a while though, a nagging shame accompanied these thoughts, as though I were somehow cheating; and so when I sat watching the twilight meld of earth and sky, I came to empty my mind, just like that land, and think squarely of nothing at all.

* * *

The summer passed, and I got used to the dry heat.  I picked up a bit of Spanish.  I ate chiles.  In Albuquerque, there were chiles in everything.  “Red or green?” waitresses would say.  Just like the brochures.  On my last Saturday in town, I suppose for old times’ sake, I rode the bus to Old Town.  I peeked in the shops and considered buying a chile pepper wreath or a New Mexico flag, but neither seemed right.  I sat on a bench in the square and watched tourists get on and off their buses.  I walked to the river and made my way down the bank.  Around dusk I caught the bus heading back east toward my apartment. 

A few women wearing the same sky blue uniform sat at the front of the bus laughing and speaking in low Spanish.  I sat at the back and watched the streets pass.  Then, as we climbed Central Avenue, I saw the sign up ahead and— I don’t know how to describe it exactly— I just got a feeling.  I was excited or expecting something to happen, maybe.  Anyway, as we approached Jack’s, I signaled the driver that I wanted off at the next stop.  I couldn’t tell if he was the same driver as the one from my first bus ride.  When I met his glance he showed no sign of recognition. 
            
It felt even hotter then, with the sun almost down, than it had earlier in Old Town.  I stood on the sidewalk for a while looking at Jack’s on the next block.  Three men were talking and smoking at the door.  The one at the center of the conversation wore sunglasses and sat rocking on a stool.  He seemed to talk most, but I noticed he never looked at the other two.  The other two took slugs from beer bottles and laughed at everything the man on the stool said.  The expectation shifted inside me.  But I figured what the hell?  I’d taken it easy all summer.  I could have a few drinks to celebrate my last weekend in town. 
            
Hot air from the Sandias blew down Central as I started toward the bar.  To the west, Petroglyph sat knowingly amid remnants of daylight.  The man on the stool watched me approach as the other two finished laughing.  When I reached the door he rocked forward and landed the legs of the stool square on the ground.
            
“I.D.” 
            
I said nothing and handed him my driver’s license.  He kept his sunglasses on as he studied it.  I glanced quickly over the other two.  One took his baseball cap off and put it on again.  He craned his neck to look at something down the side street.  The other stared off in the distance toward the shadows of Petroglyph.  After a moment, the one on the stool gave me back my license with a curt “Thanks.”  I stepped through them into the bar.   
            
Jack’s was a decent place.  I guess it was what I expected.  Old neon beer signs hung on the walls and over the bar.  A dark-skinned boy who looked all of eighteen stood flipping through albums at the jukebox.  A girl sat at a table and watched him, smiling.  A fat man in overalls and a baseball cap sat with a man and a woman at a small table in the opposite corner.  A few Mexicans sat at the bar joking in Spanish with the bartender.  I walked past them to a barstool at the end.  When I sat down, the bartender broke off his conversation and came my way. 
            
“What’ll it be?” he said to me.       

             

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