Page 1
The sun came out over Sandia Crest and the
horizon had a thin blue line like the outline of the sun’s corona,
illuminating a barely visible cap of snow at the peak of the mountains
overlooking the dry and flat plain where Albuquerque slumbered. I had three
blocks to walk to work and though it was brisk, I was warm after a few
minutes’ walk. Few cars roamed the streets. The streetlights had just
turned off. It was quiet, and I walked in no hurry.
There were not too many
people staying at the hotel. Groups would come and stay for different
conferences or other events, and one group had just left. But the Grill was a
popular local place in addition to it being the hotel’s restaurant.
Between the regulars and the conference groups, there was good traffic and it
kept the wages at a good rate.
I liked winter in New Mexico. I had seen
snow a couple of times in pictures when I was growing up and I had imagined
feeling the cold and wetness. When I first went north and came to Albuquerque,
I saw snow and then I stayed. It wasn’t heavy nor came often. The winters
were mild, but it was enough for me. It was a different country.
I had
always wanted to see snow and it was a wish that came from when I was a young
boy with my father in Mexico. We fished sometimes near our village in the
central highlands between Durango and Tampico in the few blue streams that cut
through the country, and he told me many stories when we were together, some of
giant mountains with wind and snow blowing. I knew he meant further north. He
told me how harsh it was, but I could only think of the cold as refreshing on
the hot blistering days of Mexican summers.
He came to the United States
often and so left us just as often, but when he was home we fished together and
he told me about the mountains and the snow. I eventually went to the north. I
did not want to find big fortune nor leave for any of the reasons my father
had, but I left eventually as he did.
My English was getting better after
these years and I spoke less and less Spanish those days at the grill near I-40
and Rio Grande. I didn’t mind washing dishes or tending bar. I liked to
listen and see the different people that came and went at the hotel and ate
food at the grill. I listened. I learned to listen when I was very young. The
men from the government came often to us so I learned to listen for the
footsteps at night, but then I learned to hear other things too, in the fields
where I worked, to the bean plants and distant oceans I had never seen. I
listened to the sounds of my mother crying. I didn’t know why she cried,
but I knew why people cried. I knew why so I thought that those reasons were
her reasons also.