Cold and windy. Hands desiccated. Desolate sidewalks and yards. A few lonely dogs, some bark furiously. Behold the Rio Grande—big and muddy, one of the great rivers of North America. A row of dilapidated houses stand, all abandoned, and then numerous boarded-up shops, a car lot, still in business, and a laundromat. A chain-link fence encloses the outline of a torn-down house. A sign marks a gas station that no longer exists. Almost no pedestrians, just a few vagrants, or drifters, shambling figures going nowhere. Gray clouds form a canopy, blotting out the blue of morning. An apartment building looks abandoned, but a burning bulb is visible through an upper-story window. A long, fresh-looking mural in brilliant colors—sky blue, rust red, and muddy yellow—covers a brick wall, the boundary of an empty park. The mural features razor wire and withering corn stalks. It tells a history of the region—public education for a non-existent public. 1846: US invades Mexico. At the wall’s edge, the lesson begins with the settlement of the Pueblos.
Across the bridge: a Sonic drive-in, empty. A gas station and an auto-parts store. A man stands in front of the McDonald’s having a loud argument, holding a phone to his ear with one hand, gesturing like a thug with the other. The Sandia Mountains dominate the eastern horizon. Here is the old Royal Road, once traveled by ox carts, formerly the longest road in the Americas, connecting this remote, arid region to Mexico City. The road is marked by a faded, cracked sign, with a patina of smeared purple ink. Dogs fight behind a fence. Someone has posted a warning in a window: “This house is protected by the good lord and a gun.”
New Mexico, 2019