Where the Red State Grows

CARLSBAD, NM, Nov. 12, 2016—Yesterday we stopped in at the Walmart in Roswell to pick up some flowers to put on Dad's grave. For a town with a military school and the former home of an Air Force base, the lack of flowers at the local Superstore on Veteran's Day was astounding. The best we could come up with was an autumnal-colored arrangement, which, as it turned out, ended up being the perfect complement to my father's headstone.

"Oh, those are pretty!" the cashier exclaimed.

"Thanks. I'm putting them on my father's grave."

The cashier winced and completed the transaction in silence; nothing puts a damper on a conversation like death, which I always find somewhat curious. Despite the numerous proclamations that America is a "Christian Nation"—and believers love to announce that Jesus suffered and died for our sins so we won't have to—the idea of dying, and then waking up and walking hand in hand with your departed loved ones along the golden streets that crisscross the Kingdom of Heaven, bathed in the pure light of unconditional love, without pain, suffering, or sorrow, is somehow terrifying to the vast majority of Americans. I don't get it. But I digress.

A Land of Secrets

A new idiom: As incongruous as Roswell Thai food.

The customer ahead of us had been a large-bellied man from Texas who filled out his dungarees and plus-sized, button-down, casual-Friday work shirt with style and perfection. His belly extended beyond the brim of his well-worn 10-gallon hat, and was stuffed with that marvelous kind of hard fat that doesn't sag or bulge unevenly. His midriff was a taut waxing gibbous moon of Lone-Star-State masculinity, and his demeanor was as sharp as the impeccably pressed creases on his Wranglers. He was purchasing a 12 pack of some type of cheap light beer packaged in a pale-blue pyramid that matched his shirt.

Once the cashier announced the total, the man peeled 10 crisp 100-dollar bills out of his fancy billfold and told the woman behind the register to place the remainder of the balance on a Walmart gift card. The man slipped the card into his breast pocket and scooped up the 12 pack. As he sauntered toward the exit, he puffed out his ruddy cheeks and softly whistled a strange, baleful melody that somehow mysteriously drowned out the Country Hip Hop that had been playing over the store's PA system. The haunting melody continued to drift through my skull even as the man crossed the parking lot and climbed up into the cab of a monstrous white pickup truck.

Later, in our own truck, Caroline and I wondered who the gift card was intended for? The man's wife? A mistress? A son or daughter at the Military Institute? The landscape down here in Southeastern New Mexico is wide open, but people do seem to have their share of secrets.

One of the nice ones we discovered was a nondescript little restaurant called Taste of Thai, located off the main drag. The walls were adorned with images of the Buddha and Congressman Steve Pearce, the irony of which made me laugh out loud. But the serious hostess wasn't laughing when she seated us, nor did she laugh when I exclaimed that my pineapple curry entree ranked up as among the best Thai food I had ever eaten. She didn't even crack a smile at the extra-generous tip we gave her. The seriousness of Roswell's service sector was alarming, which is perhaps why John Denver and his family fled the community a long time ago. Nevertheless, the community continues to thrive, thanks in part to a rumored crash of a flying saucer 69 years ago. We didn't stop at the UFO Museum on Main Street in our haste to reach my father's grave before sunset, but we did mark it on our To-Do list for another time.

Feeding the Beast

Americans work round the clock to feed The Beast

After placing the flowers on my father's grave, we steered our truck due west, out through the endless scrub toward the deepening orange glow on the horizon. We anticipated a good showing of stars and a pitch-black night sky out here in the middle of nowhere, but as the horizon dimmed we realized we were horribly mistaken. A thousand points of bright unnatural light sprung up in all directions across the desert—the telltale signs of industrial operations designed to squeeze every mole of petrochemical from New Mexico's Oil Patch.

The roads were pitted and wavy from the pressure of hundreds of thousands of heavy trucks. As we made our way into Carlsbad, a continuing promenade of tankers made their way toward locations to deposit their loads or headed back out into the oilfields to collect new ones. Along certain stretches of road, the air was saturated with so much methane that our eyes burned. It was here we realized that America has built an economy with an appetite for energy so voracious that we literally work 'round the clock in unsustainable futility to feed the beast. Shaken by what we were seeing, we muttered empty promises to ride the bus or our bikes more often once we got back home.

A plate of Mi Casita.

When we finally arrived at our hotel, Jonathan the night clerk recommended a locally owned restaurant a short drive away. Here in meat country, we figured a Mexican restaurant would be about the only place where we could find a vegetarian meal, and Mi Casita did not disappoint. Even though we showed up 15 minutes before closing, the waitress told us we were welcome to stay. The delicious red chile was worth writing about, while the "green" sauce was more of a yellowish gravy reminiscent of college-cafeteria days, though tasty nonetheless. Our amiable waitress's forearms were covered with tattoos, so I figured the large tip we gave her would help fund another one. In fact, we enjoyed our meal and hospitality so much that we tipped the entire kitchen staff as well—which will probably be a boon to Carlsbad's local tattoo artist.

Diamonds are a girl's best friend?

After a good night's sleep back at the hotel, we hoped to linger a little over a cup of coffee before heading out, but the dying cockroach on the floor of our hotel room spooked Caroline to the point that we packed up and left. As we checked out, I couldn't help but notice the matching constellations of five purple-brown dots on each of the hotel clerk's arms—inglorious fingerprints from a severe manhandling. She noticed me eyeing the marks and dismissed me without making further eye contact. Later, on our way to breakfast we saw a banner outside of a jewelry store that had been running a special: Buy a diamond for her and get a hunting rifle for yourself. Bling-bling! Bang-bang! I reckoned that down in these parts, nothing soothes a black eye or a split lip faster than a half-carat apology, and nothing stokes the need for a new hunting rifle more than a disobedient wife. But again, I digress.

People in southeastern New Mexico didn't seem to be mourning the election of Donald Trump like many of my friends were up north. Part of the reason we had fled our home during this weekend was to escape the hysteria and mourning that was manifesting itself in the wake of the Trump victory. Later in the day, outside of Loving, we saw a sign proclaiming that "Hillary will Never Be Our President!" These people made good on their word by voting two-to-one or more in favor of her opponent.

If the Democrats are looking for case studies describing who those mysterious rural Americans were who came out in favor of of Donald Trump, they need only visit the folks in Chaves, Eddy, or Lea county. If they want to understand why these people voted as they did, they need only talk to the plain-clothed Oil Baron who invests in WalMart gift cards to ensure his own domestic tranquility, or the tattooed waitress who benefits from the Trickle-Down economies of the oil-and-gas-, potash-mining-, and defense (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) industries. Despite the cockroaches that occasionally upend themselves on the hotel carpet, most of the folks down here are proud, honest, hardworking people—not the "Basket of Deplorables" characterized by the HRC campaign—who are clinging to an idea that America can be great once again. And given the choice between whistling that haunting old melody or walking those golden boulevards alongside The Son of Man, can anyone really blame them?

See you on down the road.