The Pot Thief Who Studied the Woman at Otowi Crossing

by J. Michael Orenduff

  “That makes even less sense.”

  “Exactly. Which is why I decided to go there and see if I can find out anything about why he was there and what he did. There’s a good little university there—Western New Mexico University. But it’s not the sort of place to attract researchers like my father. He had been to Silver City many times because there was a Veterans Hospital at Fort Bayard just a few miles from town.”

  “Was he in bad health?”

  “He turned 18 in 1944, at which time he enlisted in the Navy and served in the Pacific. He came back with tuberculosis and received treatment at Fort Bayard.”

  “Maybe that’s all it was in 1969—a hospital stay.”

  “No. He was cured long before I was born. The hospital was eventually closed, but I don’t know exactly when. What I do know is that he came to know the area well, and he liked it.”

  Sharice asked why I was laughing.

  “I was just remembering one of dad’s favorite stories about Patsy Miller, a nurse at the hospital. He took treatment there and then did yearly check-ups until the late fifties. Dad used to tell us he could hear the clack of her shoes as she walked down the hall to give the patients their shots while they joked, ‘Roll over! Target practice time!’ So he didn’t go there in 1969 for health reasons. And if he was doing research, he would have had a sabbatical or at least received his pay and possibly some stipend.”

  “How can you find out anything after fifty years, especially since there was no official reason for his visit? If he just rented a hotel room and took an extended vacation, no one’s going to remember him after fifty years.”

  “I have an informant.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Sin Po.”

  “Must be related to Faye Po.”

  Faye Po is a lady of Chinese ancestry and one of my best customers. I told Sharice that Sin Po was Faye Po’s brother.

  “Is he old enough to remember anything about your father?”

  I nodded. “Faye Po is 96. Sin is 97. He was around my age when my father was there.”

  “What was a Chinaman doing in Silver City?”

  I laughed. “They had a Chinatown. Not as big as the one in San Francisco in terms of numbers, but probably about the same in terms of percentages. Many of the gold rush towns had Chinese residents.”

  “They were miners?”

  “Some were. But most of them started as domestic workers—maids, stable hands, gardeners, etc. They saved their money and then opened restaurants, grocery stores, laundries, and such.”

  “Which one did Sin Po open?”

  “A restaurant. It’s closed now, but it operated for many years. My father loved Chinese food, so I’m betting he ate there.”

  “And you think Sin Po will remember him after all these years.”

  “You met Faye Po. Remember her talking about her childhood in China? If her brother’s memory is half as good as hers, he’ll remember.”

  Other than by airplane, helicopter or rocket, there is no direct route from Albuquerque to Silver City. You have to skirt the Gila Wilderness on the east or west side. I chose the east. Even though it’s mostly freeway, the last segment is a beautiful ride across the mountains from Truth or Consequences to Silver City.

  Sin Po lived in a turn-of-the-century cottage four blocks from the Palace Hotel where we had a reservation. We checked in, rested from the drive, freshened up and rang his doorbell a little after 3:00 pm.

  I told him who I was and introduced Sharice.

  “You look like your picture,” he said to her.

  “Where did you see her picture?” I asked.

  “Facebook. Dr. Batres has business page with pictures of staff. Please come inside. Is very cold on porch.”

  Sin Po had a pleasant countenance and very few wrinkles for a man of his age, mainly laugh lines by his eyes and a few shallow furrows across his brow. His eyes were like the stars on a clear desert night—big and bright.

  The walls of the small living room were covered with family photos, including many of Faye Po at different ages.

  I handed him two packages and said, “The Lai-See [lucky money] envelope is from your sister. The box is from me.”

  He thanked me, put the lisee envelope in his pocket, opened the box and thanked me for the Al Azar cherry wine produced by the Don Quixote Distillery in Los Alamos. His sister had told me he enjoys a small glass of it after his evening meal.

  “Faye told me you are curious about your father’s stay here many years ago.”

  “Yes. It was from December of 1968 until June of 1969. He and my mother liked Chinese food, so I imagine they must have dined in your restaurant.”

  “He was a college professor?”

  “Yes.”

  “How tall was he?”

  “Taller than me,” I said and we all laughed. “He was about five or six inches taller than I am.”

  “Did he teach history?” he asked.

  Yes!, I thought. He does remember him. “Yes, he taught mainly history of the southwest.”

  “Your mother was quite striking because she was so tall and thin.”

  “Yes, she was always thin but not in an unhealthy way. Of course she wouldn’t have been thin when they were here because she was pregnant.”

  “Oh. Then perhaps the couple I remember were not your parents. The woman was definitely not with child. That I am sure of.”

  “Do you remember their names?” I asked hopefully.

  He shook his head. “I remember them because they came often and he was a professor of history. But I do not know if I ever knew their family name or first names.”

  “Does the name Schuze sound familiar?”

  “No. Was it a nickname perhaps?”

  “No. It’s spelled S-c-h-u-z-e. Not like footwear.”

  “Ah.”

  “What about Martha or Lawton?”

  “No. Sorry. I knew more customers by their faces than by their names. Do you have pictures?”

  I shook my head. The only photos of my parents that were in their house after they died were from a Polaroid camera. As you probably remember, they made instant photos. But after many years, those instant photos were faded beyond recognition.

  Another failure of high tech, I thought to myself. The drawings on the cliff dwellings north of town are a thousand years old, and you can tell exactly what they are.

  We took Mr. Po to dinner. Sharice said it was a nice place and the food was terrific. I don’t recall either. The only thing I recall was Mr. Po telling us that his father was so cheap that he would get to work in the morning by depressing the clutch of his 1948 Packard and coasting downhill to save gasoline.

  Back at the hotel, she asked why I was so distracted at the restaurant.

  “I was thinking about two scenarios. The first is that the couple he remembered were not my parents. The second one, and the one I think must be the case, is that they were my parents, and they adopted me. That’s why my mother was not pregnant. They came here to adopt a child because they didn’t want anyone in Albuquerque to know it was not their biological child.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they thought I might feel bad about being adopted. Lots of people used to adopt children and never tell the kids they were adopted. So my parents wanted to make sure no one in Albuquerque knew. Because if anyone did, he or she might accidentally let it slip.”

  “Why would they come to Silver City to adopt a child? Is there an orphanage here or something?”

  “There’s no orphanage so far as I know. I think they came here because my father knew a lot of people here from his visits during the fifties. They were mostly health care workers. They probably knew he had no children, and he may have mentioned that he would like to. If a pregnant woman told her doctor she wanted to give up the child after it was born, the
close-knit health worker community here would have known about it. I’m thinking one of them contacted my father. Then my parents told everyone they were expecting a child and were taking a leave without pay to concentrate on the pregnancy. Since their friends would likely have known they’d been wanting a child for a long time, taking time off to concentrate on the pregnancy would not have seemed odd.”

  Sharice said, “I think the first scenario is just as likely. The man Sin told us about could have been a professor here at Western New Mexico University. He taught here for a year, got a better job and moved on. After all, history is a common subject. Every university has a bunch of history profs. It’s not like your dad taught particle physics or Korean literature.”

  “True. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. Because the other thing I was working through in my mind while you were devouring the Cantonese tamale was that the adoption theory is the only plausible explanation of my being a close relative of Floss Man. He had the same biological as I did.”

  “And it doesn’t bother you to learn you may have been adopted?”

  “It’s a big surprise, but not a negative one. It’s a lot better than finding out one of my parents had an affair that led to an illegitimate child. And the upbringing I had would not have been any different had I been their biological child.”

  “That makes sense, but still … I mean … it doesn’t bother you at all?”

  “Actually,” I joked, “I find being adopted a great relief. It explains Floss Man. It explains why I’m shorter than both my parents. And it will save me a lot of time when I go to a new doctor of some sort and they ask me to fill out one of those forms where they ask you if anyone in your family has ever suffered from heart disease, diabetes, tuberculosis, or leprosy.”

  She laughed and said she thought leprosy was not listed on those forms. Then she said, “But what if you aren’t adopted?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Call it a hypothesis. I choose it because it fits the facts I have. I can’t prove it now. Maybe I never can. In that sense it’s like Fermat’s last theorem”

  “Who is Fermat and what is his last theorem?”

  “Fermat was a French mathematician who put forth the theorem that says the Pythagorean Theorem has no whole number solutions for any exponent larger than 2.”

  She frowned and asked for an explanation.

  “Almost everyone in the world has learned the Pythagorean Theorem, most of them against their wishes. It says that in any right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, or c2 = a2 + b2. If you put a higher exponent like 3, the equation would be a3 + b3 = c3. And no matter what whole numbers you assign to A, B, and C, the equation never works. So that’s Fermat’s Theorem. Stated generally, it says that for the equation ax + bx = cx, there are no whole number solutions if X is greater than 2.”

  “I vaguely remember this stuff from high school. But why bring it up now?”

  “Because Fermat wrote in the margin of a book that he had proved it. And he said there was not enough room in the margin to write down the proof. But after over 300 years, no one could figure out a proof. So they eventually decided that either he was playing a joke on posterity or had simply made a mistake. But regardless of that, all mathematicians believe the theorem is true. So I believe I am adopted even though I can’t yet prove it.”

  “Do you want to prove it? Do you want to be sure?”

  “It would be nice. But not necessary. And how would I prove it? Put an ad in the Silver City newspaper, ‘Seeking local woman who gave up baby for adoption in 1969’?”

  “Maybe you just go the records office here and ask if they have a record of your birth.”

  I thought about Sharice’s suggestion most of the night. At first I was inclined to just forget it. Treat it like Fermat’s theorem and move on. Then I began to inch towards thinking, what harm can it do? Drop by the records office, ask about birth records, and maybe find out for sure if I’m adopted.

  I finally fell asleep around 2:00. I woke up at 7:00 to the sound of a horse clopping down Main Street. I went to the window because I was wondering if it really was a horse, and it was. Complete with a rider wearing blue jeans, boots, chaps, a fleece-lined leather jacket, a beat-up cowboy hat and a smile. He spotted me at the window, touched two fingers to the brim of his hat, and kept riding.

  Silver City is that type of place. A combination of ranchers, farmers, miners, aging hippies, artists, college students, Mexican-Americans, veterans in bad health but good spirits, back-to-earthers, and retirees.

  The place has always been laid back. A flood in 1895 washed away the main street. The town responded by relocating the main street to the other side of the buildings, and making their back doors their front doors. The former main street is now called The Big Ditch and serves as a combination nature preserve and park.

  The records office is on Copper Street near the intersection with Broadway, just a few steps from the Palace. I was greeted by Sharon Maddus, a harried-looking woman with dark circles under her eyes. She apologized for being disorganized, saying she was a single mom with three kids at home she had to get ready for school before coming to work. Then she explained that New Mexico law specifies that birth records become public records 100 years after the date of birth while death records become public records 50 years after the date of death.

  I smiled at her and said, “In that case, I don’t think you can help me. I was interested in my own birth record, but I doubt I’ll be here fifty years from now when it becomes public.”

  She smiled back and said, “So you are fifty? You don’t look it.” She straightened her hair and tried to smile. I think she was flirting with me. Probably needed someone to help with the kids. Being short and older than her wouldn’t disqualify me.

  “Thanks. I’m actually 49, but I’ll hit fifty in a bit over 3 months. I think I was born here, but I’m not certain.”

  “Why are you uncertain of your place of birth?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  She shrugged the sort of shrug that says I don’t need to hear a long story. Then she said, “No one other than you or someone you designate can get your birth record because it isn’t yet public. But you can get it.”

  “I think I may have been adopted.”

  “Ah. Well that makes it more complicated. Because other people are involved such as the birth mother and father, New Mexico adoption records become sealed after the completion of all adoption proceedings. The state does have a program called the Confidential Intermediary Search Program. Adopted adults age 18 or older, adoptive parents of an adoptee under 18, birth parents, or birth siblings may petition the court to hire a confidential intermediary. If the adopted adult or birth parents are deceased or cannot be contacted, the court will decide whether to release the identifying information. Would you like a copy of the form used to petition for a Confidential Intermediary Search?”

  “No. But thanks for the explanation and your help.”

  When I returned to the Palace to check out, Sharice told me Sin Po had dropped by to tell her something he had forgotten. On a couple of visits to his restaurant, the history professor and his wife had been accompanied by a young woman who was pregnant.

  ”That cinches it,” I said.

  On the road to Hatch, I told Sharice about my visit to the records office, and she asked why I had decided not to ask for a Confidential Intermediary Search.

  “Because it’s like poking at a hornets’ nest. Assume I am adopted. Do you think my birth mother—the young pregnant girl Sin Po remembers—wants it known that she had a baby and gave it up for adoption? Maybe she got married a year or two later and never told her husband about the baby. And then out of the blue it becomes public. It just doesn’t seem right.”

  We stopped at Hatch and bought two five-pound bags of green chile. One for me and one for Consuela
and Emilio. Then we made the boring drive north from Hatch to Albuquerque on I-25.

  We stopped briefly to deliver the green chile to Consuela and Emilio. They insisted we stay for a cup of coffee which we did. Then I asked to go to their bathroom.

  Go to the bathroom. It’s a euphemism. What we want is not literally to go to the bathroom. Bathrooms are seldom so interesting that you want to visit them just to take a look to them. What you actually want to do is answer the call of nature. But in this case, I was not being called.

  Chapter 30

  Susannah stared at me over the Dos Hermanas tiled table and said, “I was so mad at you for not having a cell phone. But when I calmed down, I realized it was actually better that you didn’t have one. It would be a lot more fun to give you this news in person.”

  “Great. So give it to me.”

  “I solved the mystery of Gurney Guy.”

  I opened my mouth to say something but she cut me off. “Don’t give me one of your condescending ‘Great! Tell me about it’ replies. This time I gave the info to Whit and he acted on it.”

  “Great! Tell me about it.”

  “Groan. You are terrible, you know that?”

  “Sure. That’s why we’re best friends.”

  She shook her head and continued. “The key was palytoxin.”

  “I’ve heard that word before.”

  “Right. When you spoke it to me.”

  “I spoke it to you?”

  “Yes. When you told me Whit said the lab guys had found it in Gurney Guy’s wound.”

  I nodded.

  She said, “I looked it up on the internet. It’s produced by a zoanthid, a small marine animal related to sea anemones and corals. But not all zoanthids produce it. Only a few living in certain tidal pools make it, and most of them are in Hawaii. A version of it extracted from zoanthids in a tidal pool off Maui is the most potent variety. So while browsing websites having to do with Hawaii, I ran across something called a Hawaiian sling. It’s a very small version of a harpoon. Remember I mentioned that a harpoon may have been the weapon?”