CHRISTMAS PUEBLO
By
James Strauss
Garrigan found himself inside the confines of the Santa Fe County jail, on some vague trumped-up barroom brawl charge. He was in the ‘drunk tank,’ which is what the cells they use for new prisoner intake are called there. No bars, no windows, just concrete and steel. No way to see out of the ten-by-twelve box and no ability to hear. Thankfully, he was alone for the first few hours, as he had to come to terms with being inside an American penal institution for the first time. He’d already been in a few abroad, so he wasn’t exactly a ‘new fish’). It was Christmas Eve. He’d been drunk earlier but the heartless Santa Fe ‘Gestapo’ had shown no mercy, despite the impending holiday. The way Garrigan saw it, he was a gringo, and they were anything but. The cops would probably agree but what matter did it make. The tank didn’t remain empty for too long. The riffraff of evening Santa Fe, New Mexico, began to flow in, dredged from a pristine city that prides itself on not having any homeless people. No, they don’t, as all of the potentials get combed off the streets and into a heartless modern version of the Bastille, conveniently located five miles South of even the outer edges of the city.
The ‘tank’ became so crowded that the entry of one more body meant that there was just no floor space left. Then they jammed the door open and forced a huge American Indian through. The heavy steel slab clanged shut with a deathly finality. The Indian stood there for a few seconds, and then stared at the man propped against the bare concrete wall next to Garrigan. The man moved, finally settling atop the rim of the stainless-steel john located in the corner. The Indian took his place. They were inches apart. The Indian’s head turned, and his coal black eyes glared icily. Garrigan realized instantly that this was not an Indian like the one who’d helped Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. No, this was an Indian from hell, more like that one who’d killed the girl in the Last of the Mohicans.
Garrigan met his eyes and showed no fear but did look away. He was an old hand at the predation game. You do not show fear to a predator. That’s what the predator is looking and waiting for because it identifies you as prey. No, you meet predation by impassive, emotionless, and still presentation. The predator then takes you for a predator, as well, and there’s no point in attacking another predator unless territory is an issue, or survival. The risk of injury is high. Predators are deathly afraid of injury, as then they become the prey, they loathe but have to have.
There was no trouble from the Indian, as the hours passed, nor from any of the usual suspects. Just prisoners inconveniencing the poor guy whose only spot was on top of the john. He had to move so the drunks could be sick, and worse. Some corrections guy must have known a modicum of mercy that night, or, more likely, there were just too many prisoners for the place to hold, because they came for Garrigan. The guards called his name and told him he was being ‘rolled out,’ which is prison slang for being released. He went with enthusiasm, but somehow kicked the foot of the snoozing Indian as he departed. “Excuse me’ white-eyes!” the Indian hissed, already into a sitting position as he began to rise to his feet. Garrigan held together against the pure ferocity of the man’s expression and the paralyzing stare of his hawk-like eyes.
“My apologies, I was careless,” he responded, flatly. Then he fluidly moved to join the corrections officer at the door. The Indian’s eyes followed him out the door and remained embedded in his mind as he went through the many steps of processing out. Finally, the guards took him to the big door of intake, opened the steel slab with a key about the size of a cola can, and shoved him through.
“Merry Christmas,” the guard said with a laugh, slamming the door.
Garrigan’s relief was immense until he looked around. The sodium yellow of the parking lot lamps allowed the driving snow to appear as if he was standing adjacent to Niagara Falls. And it was cold. He wore an old Sheepskin Company coat, so he knew he wasn’t likely to freeze, the torso of his body anyway. But there was no way he was going to make it the many miles to the edge of town, much less a few more miles to anywhere he could get a ride. He turned to see if there was a pay phone on any of the walls to call a cab, but there was only the pitiless ice-encrusted concrete.
For an instant he felt relief, turning back as the steel door opened again. He felt a brief gust of the warm air, but that was extinguished in an instant, as the big Indian from his cell inside was pushed out. The door slammed shut once more. The Indian stepped to his side and looked down into Garrigan’s eyes with no expression on his face. He was almost a foot taller than Garrigan, who tried to look impassive once more. Garrigan had no weapon. Despite many years of hand-to-hand combat training, he knew he was no match for the man.
“You have no person waiting?” the Indian unexpectedly asked. “In mountains and snow, you have no person?”
“No person,” Garrigan replied uncomfortably to the Indian’s strange flat-sounding English. “Santa Fe,” he said, pointing toward the direction snow was cascading out from. He felt like a frightened idiot.
“Not this night. Indian weather,” the man said before starting out into the storm.
“Indian weather?” Garrigan asked, perplexed.
“White man came. Take everything. Left only this kind of weather. Indian weather. You have name?”
“Mike,” Garrigan yelled, looking toward the man’s disappearing form, pausing momentarily to wonder if the Indian intended his answer to be some sort of joke.
“I’m coming,” he yelled, cupping his mouth with one cold hand, and then whispering to himself, “let my death be quick,” before rushing to catch up. He followed the Indian into the night. There was no trail, no moonlight, or any other way to establish bearings, so he simply kept as closely behind the huge man. They moved downhill, through what Garrigan knew to be the La Bajada Canyon, finally trudging under an overpass that held up the four lanes of Interstate forty.
A yellow glow in the distance became the pueblo. The Indian wormed his way between the densely packed mud buildings. Haloed yellow lights glared, giving assurance that the snow had not abated in its attack. They came around a corner to a wooden door. The upper floor of the adobe structure jutted out above, so they stood and beat the snow from clothing and boots as best they could.
The door opened without anybody knocking. An old woman stuck her head out, and then motioned them both inside. He stepped into a different world. The room was filled with Indians of all ages. They were all sitting at the many tables, seemingly strewn about without order. The big Indian motioned Garrigan to an empty seat between two young boys. He said nothing. They said nothing.
Mike sat more in fear and trepidation than because he was willingly following rational directions. The two boys reached for bowls and started scooping stuff onto his plate. Tortillas and refried beans. He didn’t even know Indians ate seemingly Mexican food until then. There were also corn things, with lots of hot sauce. The food didn’t really taste like the Mexican he’d had through so much of his life. It was better. There was a different, but wonderful, edge to it. The food was unbelievable in terms of quantity and quality.
Everyone began eating, as if following some invisible signal. They didn’t look at him, so he started eating as well. He ate the whole plate. The small boys on each side of him refilled it without comment. When Mike finished the second plate, they refilled it again. He looked over at an old woman, whom the big Indian had seated himself next to. He saw her smile very briefly after checking out his third fast-disappearing helping. The big Indian looked down at her and smiled for the first time. Suddenly, Mike understood the looks. The old woman liked the fact that he loved her food, and the big Indian appreciated her joy.
“I’m Raincloud,” he said, gesturing around at all the people sitting around all of the tables. Everyone turned to smile at Mike, as if on cue. “Welcome to Santa Domingo and my family. White people don’t come here often except to take pictures along the road.” Raincloud stopped talking but kept his hand extended out toward Mike.
“Mike…Mike Garrigan,” he stuttered out. “Thank you. This is wonderful.” He immediately noted that Raincloud’s accent was gone. He stared at the man; one eyebrow raised in unspoken question.
“Indian humor,” Raincloud smiled back. “Graduated from Berkeley. Master of Fine Arts out there, but I’m the tribe’s Shaman in here.”
Mike was stunned, relief flooding out from him. “I thought…” he began but Raincloud cut him off.
“That you’d be used for target practice or something later?” Everyone started laughing, with the little boys making believe they were shooting him with little bows and arrows.
“Well, we were in jail,” Mike said. “I drank too much. What got you in there?”
A silence fell over the entire room.
“They said I was disturbing the peace,” Raincloud responded. They said I couldn’t get along with white folks with my attitude. So, they threw me out in the cold with a white guy. How am I doing?”
“Pretty good,” Mike responded, hoping it was the right response. “I mean in the opinion of only one white guy.” The room relaxed and everyone began to eat, drink and talk. After the food was cleared Mike moved to the adobe fireplace with Raincloud.
“Stay the night. I’ll drive you back to Santa Fe tomorrow. The kids are getting your room ready. Check to make sure they haven’t short-sheeted you. They think they’re terribly funny and they’ve never had a white man to practice on before. You might consider staying the day though because here the day after Christmas is more important than the day itself. Christmas is the Catholic celebration. Tomorrow is our own.”
“You have two distinct sets of beliefs?” Mike asked, very surprised.
“Yeah, doesn’t everyone?”
Mike sat before the fire in silence, listening to the kids singing Christmas carols and wondering how he could feel so warmly comfortable in a culture that should have alienated him entirely. He had his own culture. The Indians had their culture. Two sets of culture. Two belief systems. He felt, more deeply than he could ever have imagined, only hours before, like he was home.
