The students brought woodworking tools from the 3-D studio. Under the direction of Hal Olley, they removed the office door, removed the hinges, chiseled new mortices on the hall edge of the doorframe, and reinstalled the door so that it opened out into the hall instead of into the office.
Even though the office door no longer hit the desk, the file cabinet doors to each side of the door did. So the cabinets had to be lifted over the desk in order to be placed against the side walls of the office.
This saga was reported to me by Tristan who seemed to enjoy being a sidewalk superintendent.
I stopped by Bakke’s office at the end of the day and found her wedged so tightly behind the desk that having her head and arms in stocks would not have made her less mobile.
But she was smiling. “Hockley came by to see the desk. Even tried to talk me out of it. Thanks for giving it to me.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
“Also,” she said, “I got your email. I still think it was a mistake to break up my stacked courses, but I will accept your offer of the midsemester and summer school courses.”
“Thanks. I’m sure you’ll do a good job with those courses.”
Chapter 19
Susannah stormed into Dos Hermanas and said, “You set me up!”
I just stared at her.
“Admit it,” she said.
“Admit what?”
“That you set me up.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She sat down and signaled to Angie. “I shouldn’t even have a margarita with you. I can’t believe you did that.”
“Here’s an idea. Talk to me in Basque. I wouldn’t understand any of it, but at least I’d know why.”
“Are you going to deny that you set me up to meet Freddie?”
“Yes. I deny it.”
“So it’s just coincidence that his class is directly before mine and in the same room? You did that on purpose because you knew he and I would cross paths.”
What I immediately thought was Oops. What I said was, “Actually, you are responsible for that. Remember I offered you both sections? If you’d taken them, Freddie wouldn’t be teaching.”
Angie brought our drinks, and we both took big sips.
Susannah calmed down a bit but still wanted to put some of the blame on me. She said, “Couldn’t you at least have put his section or mine somewhere else?”
“There were no rooms available. I had to put both sections in my office.”
“I thought that room looked familiar. What happened to the desk?
“I gave it to Bakke.”
She frowned. “Why?”
I explained that Bakke had all three sections of ART 2000 as “stacked classes” and that most students who needed the course couldn’t register for it because there were no options regarding time. When I told Freddie I was going to change the times and take two of the sections away from her, he suggested I try to mollify Bakke.
“You thought giving her an oversized desk would placate her?”
“I did and it did.”
“I know she’s weird, but not so weird that a desk would make up for losing two courses.”
“It’s not the desk. It’s the fact that I did something for her.”
“I don’t get it. She doesn’t even like you.”
“True. As part of my accounting major, I had to take a management course. One thing we studied was the Hawthorn Effect.”
“What? Bakke had a scarlet A on her pinafore?”
“Funny. But the effect wasn’t named after Nathaniel. It was called that because a sociologist named Mayo ran an experiment in a Western Electric factory in the Chicago suburb of Hawthorne.”
“Let me guess,” she said, smiling. “They didn’t want to call it the ‘Mayo Effect’ because that was reserved for the lunch experiment.”
“Right. The lighting in the work area for one group of workers was made brighter while another group’s lighting remained unchanged. The productivity of the workers with the brighter lighting increased.”
“Mayo had to run an experiment to prove that?”
“Sounds like common sense, right. But then later, the workers’ productivity increased when the lights were made dimmer, back to what they had been to begin with. So Mayo’s conclusion was that what improved morale and therefore productivity was not what was done but was instead the fact that something was done. The theory being that any change in the workplace shows that management cares about the workers.”
“So if you’d given her a filing cabinet instead of a desk, that would have made her just as happy?”
“Exactly. Maybe even happier, although that’s not part of the Hawthorne Effect.”
“Why would the filing cabinet have been better?”
“The desk is so big that she has to sort of crawl over one edge of it to get into her office.”
“Your making this all up to get me off the subject of you setting me up to run into Freddie.”
“No. I’d love to talk about it. How was the reunion?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay. How was your first class as a teacher?”
“Terrible. I had worked out in my mind exactly what I was going to say to them. But running into Freddie upset me so much that I forget everything I’d planned to say. I stammered and stuttered and finally just passed out the syllabuses I’d prepared and told them to read them before the next class.”
“The plural is syllabi,” I noted.
“So do both of us a favor and fire me,” she said and teared up.
I felt terrible. “No. I should fire the department head. When Tristan was entering the schedule changes for me, I told him to list Blass for Section 2 and Inchaustigui for Section 3, and he said, ‘Matchmaking?’ That should have been enough for me to think to alert you, but it wasn’t because I just sometimes miss the obvious. I’m sorry, Suze.”
She dabbed her eyes with a napkin she’d used to wipe a bit of salsa from her lips. “Damn. I got some chile juice in my eyes. Well, at least I have an excuse for crying. When I saw Freddie in the hall of the art building, I burst out in tears for no reason.”
I shook my head. “There was a reason. You just haven’t yet figured out what it was.”
“Probably. He looked like a different person. Not physically—I already knew from the glimpse I got of him here on Saturday evening that his hair had gone white and he was thinner. But there was another sort of change … I don’t know what to call it.”
“His countenance,” I suggested.
She nodded.
I said, “When Charles told me the facial recognition software popped up pictures of me as similar to Gurney Guy, I wondered why I didn’t notice that he looked like me. The answer is that looking like someone is not just about having the same hair color or nose shape. It’s about countenance—how your personality shows on your face. Dead people don’t have countenance. What you noticed about Freddie is that he’s changed inside.”
“That’s what you’ve been trying to tell me. But I didn’t want to hear it.” She was silent for a minute then asked, “How do you read his new countenance?”
“I’m not good at this, remember? I’m the guy who didn’t think to warn you. I can memorize a page of a dictionary in a minute, but I don’t always pick up on social stuff.”
“You’re better at it than you think. Look at how you knew some of the guys I dated were wrong for me, and I only discovered it later. Ice, for example. And Chris.”
“Neither of those took much social insight. In Ice’s case, the name gave it away, and Chris made a pass at me rather than you,” I said and she laughed. Then she became serious and asked me again about the new Freddie.
“The old Freddie was glib. Now he’s thoughtful, slower to comment. He’s no
longer the life of the party. He’s long term instead. He’s promoting others instead of himself.”
“How do changes like that happen?”
“My guess is it has to do with responsibility. He always used painting as a way to promote himself and his career. But when he started teaching the inmates and saw how it was changing them, that became more important than his own work. I guess a cynical view might be that he couldn’t promote himself while he was in jail, so being in prison was part of it. But the way he talked about teaching them, and the way the corrections officials praised his work and how much it changed some of the other prisoners, I have to think that’s the foundation of the new Freddie.”
“You ever experience that in anyone else?”
“No. But there’s a similar case in the book I’m reading. Edith Warner and Tilano became godparents to a young couple who were married in the little house at Otowi, and Church describes it this way:
To Tilano this meant far more than a perfunctory legal act. It meant that he had in the most true and serious sense become godfather to young Peter and Earle Miller; that Edith was now their godmother. Their duty toward them both was that of spiritual guidance. Among most Indian people there is a custom that a child is initiated into manhood by a ceremonial father or mother. He is “reborn” out of the closely protected circle of his parental family into the responsible life of the tribe to which he belongs. He is made aware, by a vividly enacted symbolic drama, of the reciprocal powers of life and death, and of his own function as man in the rhythmic pattern of existence.
“Peter and Earle? A gay couple got married way back then?”
“The woman was named Peter. Don’t ask me why.”
“This is tough, Hubie. If Freddie is a changed man and a good one, I should be interested in him. But if he’s really a different man, then he’s not the guy I used to date and thought I loved. He’s just a stranger. And older than me—remember that conversation about age we had when we first met?”
I nodded.
“And while I wouldn’t say he’s ugly, an old stranger with white hair and a crooked nose is not exactly a heartthrob. God, I sound so shallow.”
“It’s not shallow to care about someone’s looks unless that’s all you care about. I flirted with you that first time in this bar because you’re a knockout. But if we had dated and I discovered you were shallow or mean or something, I wouldn’t have hung on to you just to have a trophy girlfriend.”
“’Trophy girlfriend’—I like the sound of that. But you have one now.”
”Yes I do.”
“What about Freddie?”
“There are many things you two have in common.”
“Such as?”
“Art and murder mysteries.”
“I don’t remember him reading murder mysteries.”
“Even better than reading them, he was in one!”
“Groan. I can’t believe you said that. How am I supposed to introduce him, ‘Here’s my boyfriend who went to prison for murder’?”
“Manslaughter.”
“Splitting hairs.”
“I’ll bet murder mysteries don’t think of it as splitting hairs.”
“How would you know? You don’t read them.”
“Right. And sometimes I think I’m the only person in New Mexico who doesn’t. When I mentioned to Charles your suggestion that Gurney Guy might have been stabbed with an icicle, he asked me if I’d been reading Simon Brett.”
“That’s great. Even an FBI agent reads them.”
“All that proves is he knows about them.”
“How would he know about them if he didn’t read them?”
“Easy. Check out this list.” I closed my eyes and pictured a bookshelf at Bookworks, one of Albuquerque’s independent bookstores located conveniently next door to a Flying Star cafe. “Sandi Ault, Joseph Badal, Amy Bennett, Steve Brewer, Marie Romero Cash, Alice Duncan, J.L. Greger, Steven Havill, Darynda Jones, Robert Kidera, Robert Kresge, Michael McGarrity, Pari Noskin Taichert, Judith Van Gieson, and Patrica Smith Wood.”
I opened my eyes and said, “All mystery writers right here in New Mexico. Sometimes I think I’m not only the only person in the state who doesn’t read them—I’m also the only person who doesn’t write them.”
“Then how do you know all the names of … oh, your ‘encyclopedia’ mind. And you see them at bookstores when you’re looking for the weird stuff you read like New Mexico history.”
“Exactly.”
“But you have read some murder mystery authors.”
“Nope.”
“Yep. You’ve read Rudolfo Anaya.”
“Of course. He almost singlehandedly launched contemporary Hispanic fiction with the publication of Bless Me, Ultima. But he doesn’t write murder mysteries.”
“Yes he does. He wrote a series of murder mysteries featuring Sonny Baca, a private investigator. And you’ve also read Tony Hillerman.”
I laughed. “The only things I ever read by Hillerman were his syllabus and some exam questions he wrote. I took a journalism course from him when I was an undergraduate, but that was before he started writing mysteries. And before you ask, I’ve also read some things by his daughter, Anne. She’s a journalist. Most people have read something she wrote, but the only book I read by her was the one she did with her husband, Don Strel, Tony Hillerman’s Landscapes: Southwest Guide & Map.”
“You used the maps to hunt down pots?”
“I’ll plead the 5th on that.”
Susannah said, “Here are some New Mexico murder mystery writers you missed: Amanda Allen, Pamela Christie, Sarah Lovett, Mary Oerter-Kirschner, Jonathan Miller, Ann Myers, Aileen Schumacher, Connie Shelton, Susan Slater, Aimée & David Thurlo, and Robert Westbrook.”
“And I thought I had a good memory. I guess there aren’t enough real jobs in New Mexico, so people have to resort to writing books.”
“This from a guy who reads several books a week?”
Chapter 20
“Look,” Sharice said, “antelope!”
We were in Torrance County driving along County Road A099 which I’d reached by taking the old Route 66 east through Tijeras Canyon and then connecting with A099 near Moriarity.
I’ll do almost anything to avoid Interstate 40.
“This would be a great place for self-driving cars,” Sharice said. “You could be looking at the antelopes instead of staring at the road.”
“I know men are not supposed to be good at multi-tasking, but I can drive and see antelope at the same time.”
She laughed and said, “But think how relaxing it would be just to stare at the scenery and not have to drive.”
“Sitting in a car being driven by a computer would not be relaxing; it would be terrifying. I’d be poised to grab the steering wheel in case the car started veering off the road.”
She shook her head. “Self-driving cars are less likely to run off the road than ones being driven by humans. They’re fitted with lots of cameras that see the edge of the road, the lane markers, curves, and things like that. Since the computer never gets distracted or tired, it’s more reliable than humans.”
“Until some prankster repaints a stretch of lane markers so that they that veer into oncoming traffic.”
“The computers are probably programmed to recognize when a lane marker is abnormal. Software can be pretty smart, Hubie.”
“Right. Like the facial recognition software that compared me to Floss Man.”
“Makes my point. You and he are related, and the software picked up on that before you did. And I know you like looking at the wide-open New Mexico vistas.”
“Self-driving cars are the worst invention since the clap-on clap-off lamp. People who want to stare out at the scenery instead of driving don’t need self-driving cars. They need a bus ticket. But I have to admit this
road would be a good place to test self-driving cars because when they run off the road, there’s nothing to hit.”
“True. Yet the bareness is part of the appeal.”
“Edith Warner had that same view. She said, ‘No wooded, verdant country could make me feel as this one does. Its very nudity makes it intimate. There are only shadows to cover its bareness. I think I could not bear again great masses of growing things. It would stifle me as buildings do’.”
“You quoting from memory?”
“Paraphrasing. But I think it’s close.”
“Does the condo stifle you?”
“No. The expansive view of the mountains is great, and the place is so open and minimalist. Except for your closet.”
“I’ve added only one new dress since you moved in.”
“How did you stuff it in there?”
“It’s not that crowded.”
“I suppose you’re right. There’s still enough space to slip in a slip if you push hard.”
“Nobody wears slips anymore. Why are we getting back on the freeway?”
“Because this is the last interchange. This road ends in the middle of nowhere.”
“I thought we’d already passed the middle of nowhere.”
“I stand corrected. This road ends at the end of nowhere. We have to take I-40 from here to Tucumcari.”
“Tucumcari is a funny word, like nincompoop or smithereens. Does it mean something?”
“Tristan told me it’s from a Comanche word, Tukamukaru, which means to lie in wait to ambush someone.”
“Why would a town choose a name like that?”
“Maybe they saw it as a step up from the original name, Six-Shooter Siding.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. It started as a rowdy railroad town full of saloons and dance-hall girls.”
“What’s it like now?”
“Well, let’s just say that Edith Warner would probably like it. It’s barren and most of the buildings that might stifle her are empty.”
“It’s almost a ghost town?”
“No. There’s maybe five thousand people there. But you might say it’s a ghost of its previous self. It boomed when Route 66 was constructed. Route 66 was Main Street; it passed right through the middle of town. Motels, cafes and curio shops prospered. But when Interstate 40 was built, it bypassed the town. Millions of people drive by Tucumcari every year. But the only ones who stop are the Mother Roaders.”
The Pot Thief Who Studied the Woman at Otowi Crossing Page 11
