by Kurt Caswell
“Renee,” I said. “This is really excellent. It’s very, very good.”
“Really?” she said, beaming. “Oh, good. I worked real hard on it.”
“I know. I saw you,” I said. “Let me show you one more way to make it even better.” Those words came too quickly. I wanted to take them back. Even as I considered how I had asked for too much from my class, I was now asking for more. I risked dashing Renee’s confidence by sending her back to work on something already so good.
“All right,” she said. “What?”
“No, no,” I said. “This is already very good. Let’s just keep it like it is.”
“But you said I can make it better,” she said.
“You can,” I said.
“Then show me,” she said.
“Really? You want me to show you?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” I said. “Here is your main point, right?” and I read her thesis back to her: “In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo’s feelings about God change.”
“That’s right,” she said. “They do, right? Romeo’s feelings change?”
“Yes, right. So can you locate a place in the play where you know this is true?”
“Yes. We just talked about it, anyway.”
“So show me.”
Renee leafed through the pages and showed me the place where Romeo curses the heavens in act 5 by saying: “then I defy you stars!”
“So,” I said. “Where does that go in your paper? You can use that as proof of what you say in your paper.”
“Oh, okay,” she said. “It goes here, in the last paragraph because Romeo is mad at God now.”
“Right,” I said. “And what about the other paragraphs?”
“Oh, okay,” she said again. “Now I have to find some proof for every paragraph?”
“Yes,” I said. “But that’s a lot of work, isn’t it?”
“But I can do it. I’ll do it.”
“Let’s do it in our next class,” I said.
“No,” she said. “I’ll do it at home tonight.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted her to bother with it at home. “Are you sure? We’ll have time next class.”
“Yes, I’m sure. I’ll do it at home tonight.”
“Okay,” I said. “Then let me show you how to record where you found the lines in the play.” I wrote down a sample quotation for Renee, and wrote the act, scene, and line numbers in parentheses, MLA style, but I didn’t give her that term. For now, she needed only to know how to do it.
Renee took a copy of the play home. The next time our class met, she brought me her finished paper, written in very precise, beautiful handwriting, with the drafts of her work attached to the back.
“This is excellent, Renee. Really fine work,” I told her.
“No, wait. It’s not done yet,” she said. “I have to type it, right?”
“Right.”
And she did that too.
What impressed me most about Renee was that she spent the year reaching out for something beyond her, something that she could not yet see. She was headed somewhere, and that somewhere was a place she chose to go. I admired her will and energy and vision, and her courage too. I think she inspired other students with her forwardlooking hope, the kind of hope that prompted her to tell me one day, “I’m going to do something good for the Navajos.”
Of course Renee earned the highest mark on her paper, and that meant something to her. The part that surprised me was that it meant something to me. I had not expected to be so happy about Renee’s good work. I carried those feelings around for days. That, I surmised, was the heart of teaching. Perhaps I’d be a teacher after all.
TWELVE
GOODBYE, BORREGO
I woke that May morning to birdsong in the cottonwoods, a little bluebird I spotted haunting about my trailer. It went zing-zang from branch to fence to branch, and then off and away into the rock and cactus. It was spring. The mornings were still cool, and the sun heated the ground and the day. A breeze moved across me through the open window, and I felt content, alone and not yet lonely, happy and a little sad. I felt good about my future. I was sitting at my desk feeling good when I heard a knock at the door.
Kuma charged and barked and whined until I called, “Come in,” still seated in my chair. He ran to me, and back to the door, making a ruckus I wished I could train out of him. “The door’s open,” I said, not wanting to get up but knowing I needed to, because no one would enter to challenge the dog. I got up, held Kuma back, and answered the door.
“Gay,” I said. “Good morning.” She surprised me standing there, and then again it also felt natural, like I had been expecting her.
She stood there as before, the basket in the crook of her arm, her long black hair shining in the sun. She looked down at the dog, then at me, wondering, maybe, if I meant to let him go. He would not stop barking and squirming against my grip.
“Just a moment,” I said. I pushed Kuma back, asked him to prove his great worth, to sit and stay just inside the door. Then I stepped outside, closing him in. “That’s better,” I said. Standing now on my little back step with Gay, “How are you?” I asked. Of course she was about to ask the question she came to ask. I felt happy and warm because I knew the question and I planned to say yes this time.
“I’m fine,” she said. Then she paused, uncertain about how to bring our greeting around to the pies she had for sale.
“What’s in the basket?” I asked.
“Apple pies,” she said, smiling. “You wanna buy an apple pie? Only apple this time,” she said. “I made them myself.”
“Yes,” I said. “I do. How much?”
I thought that might surprise her, but it didn’t. I didn’t find surprise in her face at all. Instead, she smiled easily, expectantly. It made sense to me then that she would not have come if she thought or knew I would reject her again. Something had changed between us, between Gay and me, because something had changed between me and all my students at Borrego. Something had changed between me and Borrego itself. She knew this somehow, and she knew I would say yes, that I would buy one pie. Maybe two.
“I’ll take two,” I said.
“One dollar for each,” she said.
She opened the folded cloth over the basket. The freshness of the apple pie came fast to my nose. “Let me find you the best one,” she said.
“Just a moment,” I said and went inside for my wallet. I had three dollars in there. It was all the cash I had. I gave it to her. She handed me the pies.
“This is too much,” she said.
“Take it as a tip,” I said.
She nodded and smiled. “I hope you like them,” she said. “I made them myself over at my grandma’s. See you at school.”
“Right. See you on Monday,” I said.
She turned and walked back to the car waiting on the campus drive. Someone waved from the driver’s seat. Gay got in, waved to me, and they drove away.
I went inside. I set the pies on the kitchen table. Kuma ran his nose along the edge, inspecting them. Perhaps if Gay came often now with pies, he would learn to like her, or to like anyone who knocked, but we had only a couple of weeks of school left. I made black coffee, another cup. I didn’t need it, but it went well with the pies. I let the door swing open and the morning rushed in as Kuma ran out to reconnoiter, to learn with his nose what had happened on the porch. He inspected the place Gay had stood, maybe linking the pies on the table with the lingering scent on the porch, then down along the path she had walked until she disappeared into the car, and all that remained for Kuma was exhaust from the engine. Then he went to the fence under the cottonwoods to work the fence line for whatever had gone on there in the night, for whatever beasts had passed or lingered there in the dark. I sat down at the kitchen table, the hot coffee in my hand, the pies still warm and fresh and good. The day unfolded before me across the New Mexican spring like a bright dream. What would I do with it? What would I do with the day before me?
Where might I go? What might I see? I sat inside this moment filled with promise: I had it all just then, the dog roaming free, the coffee, the pies, the good feelings, the door opening into the future, the questions.
The Santa Fe Flea Market, some market freaks will tell you, is the greatest show on earth. The greatest show in New Mexico, anyway. Vendors come from far off and nearby, from the pueblos and reservations, from every corner of the Four Corners, from Mexico, Bali, Turkey, Guatemala, India, Peru. Mary and I planned to go one Saturday in April. It was about time we made another journey together, perhaps the last time we would make such a journey together, as the school year was nearing its end, and we both had plans for moving on. We were not so much interested in the market, though Mary thought she would buy a Navajo rug; it was an excuse, a destination that gave us cause to venture forth, because our true joy when we got together was roaming the desert and mountain country and the countless reservation roads.
We loaded the dogs into the back of Mary’s little red Toyota pickup and departed Borrego at dawn, following the back roads to far towns, out through the wide flats that rose into mesas around us, the shrubs and juniper and pinyon pine shortened and fuzzy against the dry and wild horizon, where the sun was rising. The ground sparkled as its rays glanced off scattered gypsum and broken glass from the myriad empty liquor and beer bottles cast out of passing cars. Sharp bayonets of yucca and twisted cactus marched up into the hills with coyote song. Headed east, we were on the hunt for a turn to take us out to highway 197, the road that would take us to Cuba. We drove and drove, watching the country pass, until something about the light and the time said we had gone too far, for far too long.
“I think we’re lost,” I said.
“Well, yes, but no, we’re not lost,” Mary said. “We’re right here. We just don’t know how to get to Cuba.”
“Right,” I said looking over the map. “What’s that road there?”
“Just another dirt road,” Mary said, as we passed it by.
“And that one? Maybe that one?” I said.
“Why that one?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s go up it. We got all day, don’t we? Maybe all night.”
Mary turned the wheel hard and off we went, a tornado of dust spinning out behind us. We came to a crest in the road over which we could not see, and it narrowed into a cattle guard. We bumped along and up, and as we reached the top, a big truck going fast stopped suddenly just short of us, a big Chevy, and we stopped too. Three children rode in the back of the truck, two boys and one girl, and an old woman dressed in black and turquoise rode up front with the driver. Her face was creased and folded by the sun, and she looked stern and stereotypically wise. We could see now a complex of hogans and old cars and a long blue trailer, the roof covered with tires to keep it from rattling in the wind.
“Helloooo,” the driver said.
“Hello,” we both said too.
“We’re sorry for driving into your place,” Mary said, aware that we were trespassing now. “We didn’t know there was a house back here. We’re a little lost.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “It’s my place. You can go back there if you want to. I don’ care. If you go back of the house,” he said, “go way back in there, and go down into the canyon. It’s real nice back there. You’ll like it back in there. I don’t even know if we’ll be back tonight, so take your time.” And then he revved up his truck and sped off, vanishing into the morning.
“Jeez,” Mary said. “That was funny. I thought we’d get directions, anyways.”
“Yeah, for reals,” I said. “I thought so too.”
On a map the roads are clear and go right where you want them to, but out on the ground the landscape is scarred with unmarked spur roads coming from all directions and leading nowhere. We noticed that somehow the sun had gotten onto the wrong side of us, but there was nothing to do about it now but follow the road out to wherever it went and hope we didn’t run out of gas. Mary drove and I read the map, which told us nothing, since we didn’t know where we were to begin with, but it was comforting to have a map spread out this way as we bumped along, even as it seemed to say: look at all this open country—you could die out here. We saw a little house in the distance and so turned up the driveway. Three tired dogs came loping out and barking, and then an old woman appeared in the doorway and walked halfway out to the truck.
“Excuse us, please,” Mary called out. “Where are we? We’re trying to get to Cuba.”
With the weight of some ancient misery, the woman scowled and closed down her eyes at us. “This isn’t Cuba!” she scolded. “This is Heart-butt!”
“You mean Heart Butte?” Mary said, a little hopefully.
The old Navajo scowled again. “Heart Butt!”
“How do we get over to Cuba?” Mary asked.
“It’s over there,” she said, pointing again with her lips. “Way over there.” Then she turned and walked back inside.
“Thank you,” Mary said, a little too late, and we drove away laughing.
From Heart Butte, we found the pavement to Whitehorse, and from there, finally, our road to Cuba. The day was getting longer than we meant it to, and so we hurried on across the desert. I had begun to think about the end, that Mary was leaving her school in Ganado. I knew that I would see her again, that we would keep in touch the way good friends do, but this was perhaps our last journey together in Navajoland.
“So,” I said, as we made tracks across the land, “Boulder?”
“Yeah,” Mary said. “Boulder.”
“So why Boulder?” I asked.
“You ever been to Boulder?” Mary said. “It’s pretty nice there. Plus I have this weird dream about living in Boulder and reading the New York Times on Sundays at a nice cafe. And you know I met this guy, don’t you? He’s going to Boulder. So we’ll be going together.”
“Yeah, I know. But you’ve not said much about him. That guy with cartoons painted on his car, right?”
“Yeah, him,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t like being here. I love it, but it’s hard here, ya know?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do know.”
“Three years is enough, don’t you think? Jeez. One year is enough. There’s other stuff I wanna do. Plus, I’ve told you already, I’d like to be closer to a doctor.”
A guy, three years on the rez, and other stuff she wanted to do—these were certainly factors, but more urgently, Mary had developed a painful cyst on one of her ovaries, and she’d been making long, regular trips to Flagstaff to see a doctor. The doctor helped her clear up this problem, but why had it developed in the first place? Mary wondered if it wasn’t loneliness, isolation, a deep need to move on. She came to crave the dynamism of a bigger town, the support and comfort of a community in which she felt completely at home. She wondered if she might find this in a place like Boulder, so she had to try. She had considered other places as well—southern Utah; a new teaching job in Kayenta, Arizona—but it was Boulder that drew her most strongly.
“Yeah. So how am I gonna survive here without you?” I said.
“I thought you were leaving too,” she said.
“I am, maybe, but I gotta get a job first.”
“Oh, yeah, that,” she said. “Those pesky jobs. I don’t have a job in Boulder.”
“Yeah, but you have the cartoon guy.”
“I do have that,” she said. “So would you stay?”
“I don’t know. When I think about spending another year up in that trailer? God. Plus, I just feel so antsy. I gotta move on.”
“That’s what you do. What you’ve been doing.”
“I guess it is.”
From Cuba we rode up into the high country, the cool, beautiful tall pines of the Santa Fe National Forest, passed Deer Lake, Seven Springs, and Fenton Lake. This wasn’t the fastest route to anywhere, but we wanted to see this country and get a look at the 10,000-foot peaks of the Jemez and Bandelier. Who knows when we might come this way a
gain? Maybe not ever. Looking over a map of the greater Southwest, you see such places that call to you, secret hidden places, you imagine, that few people have ever seen. And you want to come to know each of them, all of them—these mesas and peaks, ruins and canyons, rivers and springs—and claim them as your own. But really, you claim nothing—you’re just passing through like a bird of migration.
This seemed to be my story with Borrego too. This was, as Mary said, what I had been doing. But something had happened between there and here, so that the place, Borrego Pass, in all its antagonisms, touched me, took hold of me, and wouldn’t quite let me go. I couldn’t bear to stay on another year, and I couldn’t bear to leave either. This is the truth with all relationships, I think, relationships with places and with people. With your dog, your things, your habits. Maybe with your self too, or aspects of your self, the parts you move on from. All relationships end, and the greatest folly comes in not recognizing this end when it comes. So, then, how do you leave a place? How do you know when to leave? How do you know why? Or is it that the place leaves you, and when you come to recognize this truth, you pack up and take the road ahead into those long miles, waiting? When it’s just you again, you are terribly lonely and lost. Time passes, miles go by, and then you see, again, out ahead of you, an endless possibility—and that, above all things, is what you live for.
The trouble with leaving a place like Borrego is that it comes with a great deal of guilt. People will say that you didn’t stay long enough, that you were afraid, that you might have tried harder, sacrificed more. They will say that you could have “made a difference,” whatever that means, but instead you bailed out, went home, went back out on the road. You chose the easy life. And what’s more, even if other people don’t say these things, you will say them to yourself. Before arriving here, I attached no weight or guilt to moving on. I just moved on. I expected this kind of freedom here too, to move in and out of this world in the high rocks without any kind of bothersome attachment. But the place and its people had gotten into me. I found myself caring more than I ever wanted to. And in caring, I had to face my feelings of failure with these kids. I don’t know that I did fail, but when I reflected on the year, those feelings were the first to come up. What would happen to them, all the kids in my classes? Would they go on with their schooling after Borrego? Would they destroy themselves drinking cologne and huffing gasoline? Would they start a family too young, children raising children, and try to make a go of it in the world? Would they go out into the world, as Renee said she would do, and “do something good for the Navajos”?
