Rattlesnake & Son

by Jonathan Miller

  “The Rio Grande is supposedly the only river that needs irrigating, according to Will Rogers,” I said, “but lakes need some love too.”

  Marley and I laughed while Denise stayed silent. I had inherited bad jokes from my dad and was happy to pass them down to the next generation. When we hit the outskirts of Las Cruces, it was above 105.

  I recalled the old campaign for Las Vegas—Vegas baby, Vegas!

  “Cruces baby, Cruces,” I said out loud, apropos of nothing. Unfortunately, the exit for US 70 was under construction, and there was an accident at the next two Cruces exits and we couldn’t get over. In New Mexico, they often did highway construction on the weekends, which added to the already stressful atmosphere. We had to get off at the aptly named Exit Zero, Interstate 10, and snake our way back through town to US 70 eastbound. Finally, on the open road again, we headed east on the four lanes toward the Organ Mountains. I could almost hear spooky music coming from these granite organ pipes.

  I brought up the school’s website, which showed a painting of a beautiful campus.

  “Yale of the yucca,” I said, pointing to the pic on the phone.

  “Dartmouth of the desert,” Marley said. “Although it is a prep school, I suppose it would be Devon in the desert.”

  “Devon?” I asked.

  “That was the prep school in A Separate Peace.” Marley said. “I read that last year. The one where the kid falls out of the tree. How about Pencey with palm trees?”

  “Catcher in the Rye,” I said. “But it would be Catcher in the Saber Yuccas for this place.” I was impressed that my son had read those books. There was a bit of Holden Caulfield about him. But if my son had to catch anyone in the rye or even in the yucca he would probably miss.

  “Have you been here before?” I asked.

  “Not even. My mom applied for me while we were still in New York. We were supposed to come for an interview but then I had the little shoplifting incident.”

  “We’re not going to bring that up now,” I said. “Are you scared about going to a boarding school?”

  “No. Mom wants me to buck up, and I know I need the structure.”

  “Is this school hard to get into?” I asked.

  “They just want my mom’s money,” Marley said. “I had to take a test here when I was back in New York. I couldn’t get the computer to save my answers and they still let me in.”

  But didn’t Luna say that her employer had invested some serious cash in the school? I didn’t want to bring that up now.

  After a few miles of shopping centers and subdivisions, we headed further uphill, away from the city. Cruces was still growing in population and was winning its war against the desert. Right where the last subdivision hit the desert we turned off on something called Caldera Parkway, although it was a dirt road. We went deeper and deeper into the desert, and then up into the Organ Mountains until we were in a hidden valley.

  This was the deserty-desert, sand and wild palms.

  “I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Cruces anymore,” I said. “I don’t think we’re over any rainbow.”

  “Speaking of feelings, I’ve got a bad feeling about this place,” Marley said.

  “That’s a line from like every Star Wars film,” I said.

  “Yeah, Star Wars, that’s what I meant,” Marley said. “I don’t feel that the force is with us.”

  Denise stared at the road and frowned. I had been to Cruces hundreds of times, but I had never known there was an academy all the way out here.

  If the Organ Mountains were real organ pipes, they’d be playing scary music right now. It was unclear exactly where we were in this hidden canyon. We passed signs for various roads leading to White Sands Missile Range, the Organ National Monument, and a facility owned by NASA. I didn’t want to know what NASA did out here.

  The road was empty. Were we the only ones coming to this event? We passed a small, abandoned cemetery that had an open, grave-sized hole visible on small rise. A shovel leaned against a blank gravestone. The cemetery could have dated from the old west days.

  A hand-written poster with skull and crossbones said: “Welcome students.”

  “That’s where you end up if you don’t pass freshman algebra,” I said.

  Marley didn’t laugh. Perhaps it was the rumbling of our vehicle, but the shovel fell into the open grave.

  Did Marley just do that? I stayed quiet.

  After another hundred yards of hilly wasteland, a faded wooden sign announced the turn-off for Caldera Academy, Campus Lane. Denise missed it and had to do a U-turn on the narrow road. So much for her being psychic. Of course, the road wasn’t paved.

  “I wish my mom could have come,” Marley said. He gurgled down more water, spilling a few drops near his crotch.

  “She’ll be here to drop you off for the school year,” I said, optimistically. “This is just an orientation. You get to leave today.”

  “I hope so.” Marley said. “Is that it?”

  We all frowned when we saw the mission bell tower and the rest of the faded brown campus hidden in the brown landscape. This was the end of our jornada del muerto. The video had lied. The grass and trees hadn’t bloomed yet, and I was doubtful they ever would. This wasn’t Andover, this was the Alamo. More Afghanistan than Albuquerque Academy.

  The fountain that had glimmered in the sunset in the video was dry, bone dry, and an old sign read: welcome to caldera christian military institute. go conquistadores! Hmmm. I didn’t see my son as Christian, much less military, and I didn’t want him stuck in any caldera with the conquistadores.

  I played the campus promotional video again on my phone. How could I have missed it? Through careful editing, the creators had superimposed buildings from all over the world into this tiny valley. The fountain was probably from Rome, or at least from some casino with a Roman theme. I couldn’t tell if they took the stadium from UTEP or ASU, as this campus barely had three bleachers to go with the dirt soccer field.

  At least I hoped the arts instructor was real and not an actress.

  The campus was empty. Perhaps this was the final destination on our jornada del muerto.

  An armed man in a brown uniform stood at the front the gate. With his large handlebar mustache, he looked more like a cowboy than a conquistador.

  “You’re late,” he said.

  “Doesn’t it all start at ten?” Marley said.

  “Orientation starts at ten,’ the man said. “Chapel service was at nine.”

  Marley’s bad feeling had been spot-on. Orientation hadn’t even begun, and my son was already disoriented.

  “You guys got IDs?” the guard asked.

  For a moment, I hoped he’d turn us away.

  Denise showed the man some paperwork and he waved us through.

  Marley gulped another bottle of Sheep Springs water as we passed through the gigantic adobe retaining wall. While the campus was empty, the parking lot was full. Everyone was already here for chapel. We felt the heat coming from the tar on the parking lot, and I thought that many of the cars must be leaking fluids. It was now 109.

  “I better take another bottle of water, just in case,” he said. “I’ve had enough coke.”

  After we parked in the last space, in the dirt in the front lot, a young woman who could be Denise’s twin hurried to our car. I thought Denise was an odd duck, but this young woman made Denise look quaint.

  The punk rock girl had piercings over the right side of her face, while the other side was clear. Her black hair was dyed lavender, but only on the left side. Even more unsettling, she wore a ripped Harvard Law School t-shirt held together by safety pins. And yet, for some reason, she reminded me of Luna.

  Before I could say anything, the young woman surprised me by giving me a tight hug. This punk rock girl clearly knew me, but how? Had I represented her on a shoplifting charg
e? A fight with her girlfriend? Loss prevention at Walmart would stop and frisk her on reasonable suspicion due to her skull earrings alone.

  “Dan! Don’t you remember me?” she asked.

  Chapter 7

  Hogwarts from Hell

  The young woman was short, even in black studded boots. Looking down I could only see her right side, the one with studs. “Your face is familiar. Well, half of it.”

  She laughed. “Dan, I used to be your daughter. Well, step-daughter.”

  When she released me, it took another second to recognize a twenty-something Dew Cruz, Luna’s daughter with the late Sam Marlow. I had never adopted her, and Luna had let her live alone with Denise in the apartment next door through much of high school. She always called me Dan, as opposed to Dad.

  I had only thought of her as my daughter when she and Denise won the mock trial tournament. Once Luna left me and Dew turned eighteen, we didn’t stay in touch. Sam Marlow was my third cousin, so she did have a little of my blood running below all the aluminum on her face.

  On closer inspection, I saw her growing resemblance to Luna—if Luna had ignored personal grooming. I remember one of my last meals with Dew and Luna. Dew had confronted a waitress at a pizza joint who had this same look of half the face pierced. I distinctly remembered that waitress’s name—Suri—as it was also the name of Dew’s cat.

  And now Dew had copied Suri’s look all these years later. Hopefully she would grow out of it. The world sure didn’t need another Suri.

  “How did you get here?” Marley asked.

  “I hitched a ride,” she said. “One of the janitors drove me up.”

  Marley looked at his older half-sister with awe, piercings and all. He clearly envied her freedom, and her courage to be exactly who she wanted to be. Dew took his bottle of water from him and chugged it down. He grabbed one more bottle from the car.

  “Why are you here?” Marley said.

  “Team Marley! Luna couldn’t be here, brother dearest, so she wanted me to check up on you.” Dew called her mother Luna, and only called her mom, “when she deserved it,” as she often pointed out.

  “And why are you dressed like that?” Marley asked.

  “So everyone will be looking at me, not you,” she replied.

  Her plan seemed to be working, as she walked a few paces ahead of us. All eyes were on her, not us. “Slow down,” I said.

  “I didn’t know you were coming, Dan. When did you decide to be part of the family?”

  Should I tell her about the shoplifting charge? No, attorney-client/father-son privileged. “Since Luna told me that this was my last week to spend time with my son. I had no idea that he had moved back here.”

  “Well I’m glad you’re back in the picture.” Dew put her hand on her brother’s shoulder. “He needs all the help he can get. Now take this seriously, Marley. Don’t fail out of school like I did.”

  “You failed out of Harvard Law?” I asked.

  “Failed for now, but I can go back if I get my grades up somewhere else,” she said. “Hopefully. I’m in computer school at Enema Zoo, New Mexico State, so I can learn how to program and replace lawyers someday.”

  “I sure hope not,” I said. “Your mom is a lawyer; your biological dad was a lawyer, and I still practice a bit.”

  “I like computers. I don’t want to be a lawyer,” Marley said. “Then you have to deal with criminals. They scare me.”

  I didn’t remind him that he was a criminal.

  “So why are you here, Dew?” I asked. “Really?”

  “Luna didn’t tell me you were coming, so I came here for moral support. My baby brother is all grown up now and I wanted to see him before he went off to the war. Remind him that he has a family who loves him.”

  “It’s not that bad is it?” Marley asked. “I mean it’s not really like me going off to war.”

  “I have faith in you,” Dew said. She gave her brother a hug. His mood lifted, now that his sister was here. I was also glad to be with all four of them, I didn’t feel so outnumbered on this foreign soil. We had a semblance of a family—I suppose that made me the head as Luna was not there.

  We walked over a dirt yard to the main campus. This school apparently didn’t teach or practice irrigation. The adobe walls and tiled roofs on the barracks-like structures made the campus feel like a boot camp for the Spanish inquisition, especially with all the big wooden crosses.

  “Is this still a military school?” I asked.

  “Not anymore,” Dew said. “Too many kids were dying during hell week.”

  “Hell week?” Marley asked.

  “I don’t know if it goes all week,” Dew said. “Hell weekend. Some people don’t last that long.”

  “She’s kidding,” I told Marley.

  “I’m just a little jumpy,” he said. As if on cue, the mission bell rang, and the chapel doors opened. Mission bell? I was thinking to myself this could be heaven or this could be hell. A mass of students, parents and the rest of the Caldera Academy community emptied out onto the dirt quad. All of them wore a shade of purple.

  We retreated to the middle of the quad to a purple kiosk, the only sign of color around. A poster showed a boy pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Marley hurried over, intrigued.

  Freshman Showcase was on September 22. show your talent, the poster declared. Marley stared at it, fascinated.

  Marley wasn’t the only person at the kiosk. “What’s your talent?” an aspiring bully asked. The bully had a crew cut, and while he was Marley’s height, he looked like he wrestled at one-hundred-fifty pounds of muscle. His purple shirt had MORRISSEY in Olde Latin, but Morrissey’s face was a skull under that pompadour, like something out of a Day of the Dead celebration.

  Did this fourteen-year old already have a Semper Fi tattoo?

  “I don’t know yet,” Marley replied. His New York accent had thickened, and his voice had gone up a few octaves.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Marley, but they call me Cruiser.”

  There was an awkward moment. I read all the possibilities for the bully’s cruelty stemming from the name Cruiser. Marley still had water stains on his crotch and his shoes were untied once again.

  Should I step in? I hesitated. I didn’t want to be the Helicopter Dad. It wasn’t like the bully was riding on a jet ski.

  “Where you from, Cruiser?” the bully asked, emphasizing the name as if he was Beavis or Butthead from my youth.

  “Truth or Consequences.” In Marley’s New York accent, the words didn’t sound right.

  The bully now had an embarrassment of riches to work with. He decided to start with the obvious, the accent. “You sure don’t sound like you’re from T or C.”

  Marley sensed that he was making the wrong impression, but doubled down. “My mom runs the spaceport!”

  Wrong answer. The bully might have a low IQ, but he was an encyclopedia when coming up with insults. “Are you from outer space? Maybe you’re a Martian.”

  “Maybe I am.” Marley was on the edge of tears.

  Dew and Denise suddenly materialized next to Marley. They stood up for their brother. “Team Marley,” Dew said.

  The bully must have some measure of chivalry, he wasn’t going to hit a girl, especially one with metal studs over half her face.

  Time to reinforce the family. I approached them. “Team Marley, we’ve got to get inside.”

  “You let your family fight your battles?” The bully snickered, but he was the one who retreated to his friends. None of them wore seersucker blazers with red bow ties. They were in shorts and purple t-shirts, an outfit far more appropriate for the desert heat, even for an orientation.

  Marley instinctively tucked in his shirt as if afraid that the boys were going to give him a wedgie.

  I even tucked my own shirt in. Better safe than sorry.<
br />
  “This is like Hogwarts from Hell,” Dew said.

  I looked around. “I don’t see anything magical about this place,” I said. “I don’t see any Harry Potter and I don’t see any Hermione.”

  The administration building, Old Main, was neither old nor main. Even the bell tower looked like it was about to fall over in the sand. Old Main sat at the far edge of campus against a wall to the side of the two barracks and was partially obscured by a three-story classroom building. This building sported the campus’s one piece of vegetation, a single, scraggly palm tree underneath a classroom window. The palm tree had various and sundry items, including several bras, nestled within the fronds. The fact that no one cleaned up the trash in the palm tree was not a good sign.

  From the looks of it, Old Main must have once been a Spanish mission, but more like a mission impossible as it had failed to convert anyone. It held offices, and a chapel that doubled as an auditorium. Suddenly, a whistle blew, sounding like it came from a beached submarine about to abandon ship.

  “Orientation will start in one minute in the auditorium,” a voice said from the speakers.

  We had missed chapel, I didn’t want us to miss orientation. As we entered the auditorium, I felt more and more uneasy about Caldera. If Marley was out of place, so was I. I was by far the oldest dad here, and the only one not in a purple “Caldera Dad” t-shirt. Many wore hats for the nearby White Sands Missile Range where both scientists and servicemen blew shit up for a living. In my shorts and a polo, I should be taking my son to Wimbledon not White Sands.

  Since I hadn’t seen my son in years, I had forgotten how to be a father. Not that I ever knew. Did I walk behind him, or in front of him to protect him from evil?

  Marley kept looking around, still wiggling. His precognitive powers weren’t working here, he was clearly trying to find something.

  Kids noticed Marley’s seersucker suit and pointed while they giggled. What was I supposed to do? His wiggling meant something, but what?

  All the other dads looked at me with disdain, as if Marley’s wiggle was my fault.