March 4, 2013 2:02 PM
by JHF
in
Personal
Debris in the Rio Grande shallows at Pilar
This is not a good day. I feel like I just murdered my brother. How? By sending him $100. Just enough to buy a cheap pistol and do himself in, or worse, hurt somebody else.
He’s a methamphetamine addict, almost 62 years old. His Social Security payments start in about three months, if he makes it that long. Last night he emailed me that he had $0 in his checking account. He owns his own home, a run-down single-wide that used to belong to our mother. I transferred it to him in the process of settling our mother’s estate. He’s on food stamps, and his monthly expenses are less than $500, even lower if he cut out the Dish TV and a few other things. Last August I gave him $17,500, his equal share of the last inheritance distribution I will likely make as trustee. Do the math: with 10 months to get through until steady income from Social Security—he has no job or income whatsoever—that was plenty to get by on. He lasted seven months.
It’s been like this all of his life. According to him—which may not be accurate—he had “a couple thousand” as of 60 days ago. For him to be dead broke now means he’s been tweaking and paying for sex right up until the end. He probably has no money for gasoline. They’ll cut off his utilities any minute. He never held anything back to prepare for this moment. Instead, I get the email about him “going under.” A plea for help, and I can’t give it. Oh, I have the money—not much, but some—but my wife and I are living close to the edge ourselves. Until I write more books, we need that for emergencies, rental deposits, moving expenses, whatever. My other two siblings are better off than I am, but not by much (although they do have homes), and decades of trouble with this one have taken their toll. They can’t save him, either. He’ll have to do it himself.
So I sent him $100. He needs a couple thousand, at least, but that would only help him if he stayed straight. As I wrote the check, I came apart at the seams. It was like I was killing him. I know that’s not true, but that’s how it felt. I feel like I let our parents down and failed as a big brother. That’s not true either, but this is family here.
You pay a price, no matter what.
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Tags:
family,
love
March 2, 2013 11:52 PM
by JHF
in
Personal
{ }
Talpa in the sunset from the Llano rim (today)
So there I was, directed to a boating site. That’s right. But for small boats—mostly wooden ones—boatbuilding, and boating adventures. I used to eat this stuff up, so I clicked around. Soon I was looking at dozens of photos from a guy in Upper Michigan who’d spent last summer sailing this beautiful small craft to places I never knew existed. The boat had just enough room for cooking and sleeping. There were islands of smooth red stone with blue water in between, sandy beaches, and tall green trees; quiet coves where only shallow-draft vessels could go. Had me by the gut there for a long, hard moment, ese. Happens every time.
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Tags:
healing,
small boats,
writing life
March 1, 2013 9:06 PM
by JHF
in
Taos
{ }
Beloved topography, that’s something else (hiking trail south of Taos)
I heard a bunch of folks get called that today—over 60 of them, actually—”recognized and beloved artists of Taos.” These are all people right here in town donating one 6 x 8 inch art work each for a fundraiser. Each piece costs $125, which I am assured is “less than the cost of dinner for two.” The cute part is, you don’t know who made it, because the signature’s on the back. This makes it something of a game. (No, wait, come back!) You and your friends knock back a few glasses of wine, buy a few paintings, and see who gets the one by the actual Rich Artist and who gets the one by the guy in the tree.
Sure, I get how someone could be a “beloved artist of Taos.” It must be cool, being beloved and all, having your picture in a book beside the dusty oak-and-leather chairs in front of the fireplace. Still, and what the hell is wrong with me, I know, but if someone called me a “beloved” artist of any damn place, I’d need to pull serious prank or possibly arson. “Pablo Picasso, beloved artist of Paris…” See? NO ONE WOULD BE SAFE.
So I won’t be going, and neither will you. We’re tough bastards out here, they won’t let me down. Things could get ugly, though, after the shrimp.
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Tags:
artists,
local color,
old Taos
March 1, 2013 5:50 AM
by JHF
in
Mystery
{ }
Interlude
Freaking Llano, freaking Taos. Hernia scar won’t shut up, either. Don’t poke me like that in the night, don’t make me scared to breathe. Dead mother’s taxes, freezing ass cold. Bloody hell and gone, been there, done that. Sick of bad habits and struggling, too. Stuck like this bastard with all of his junk. Why am I living, what can I give?
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4:00 a.m.,
el Norte,
sacred,
winter
February 27, 2013 3:47 PM
by JHF
in
Taos
{ }
The guy who sold us our car might have lived here. He got fired and disappeared.
This place is level and had utilities. (See the electric pole?) Once a residence, for sure. In Arizona, it occurs to me, this would simply be a “pull-off,” and they’d run a shiny new one in. Here it’s much more likely someone’s legacy or headache. Look, they even left their truck. The property is fenced, too. And hardly any sagebrush in the yard!
No views, either, plus the wrong kind of adventure. Taos like the realtors hope you never see.
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Tags:
deprivation,
Llano Quemado,
real Taos
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