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    Tucumcari
    Tucumcari
    Tucumcari
    Ebook118 pages1 hour

    Tucumcari

    By Megan Collins and Geoff Peterson

    ()

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    About this ebook

    All things far away are worthy of meditation, say
    the authors of Tucumcari, a travel journal tracing
    the crazy routes backwards from hometowns to
    westward visions of an alternate life. Presented
    in essay, poems and four unabashed interviews,
    Tucumcari probes historys intersections of
    public & private demons, as well as decisions
    made in a familys past that alter the course of
    our lives.

    Tucumcari takes us from where we areto what
    made us who we areto who we might have beento
    who we might yet beand back again.
    --Cee Williams, author of 12 Poems
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateJul 19, 2012
    ISBN9781477253588
    Tucumcari
    Author

    Megan Collins

    Megan Collins is the author of Cross My Heart, Thicker Than Water, The Family Plot, Behind the Red Door, and The Winter Sister. She taught creative writing for many years at both the high school and college level and is the managing editor of 3Elements Literary Review. She lives in Connecticut, where she obsesses over dogs, miniatures, and cake.

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      Book preview

      Tucumcari - Megan Collins

      © 2012 by Geoff Peterson & Megan Collins. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      Published by AuthorHouse 07/16/2012

      ISBN: 978-1-4772-4437-1 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4772-5358-8 (eBook)

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      This book is printed on acid-free paper.

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      cover art: Pueblo Woman (acrylic) 1950 by Carol Williams

      back cover photo: Odeon by Megan Collins, 2011

      author photos: Monica Igras, 2010

      Contents

      Tucumcari Is Calling Me

      Motel Notes 1-20

      The Interviews

      #1: Negotiating The Past

      #2: … That California Trip.

      Motel Notes: 21-26

      #3: According To Mom

      #4: So Why Are You Here?

      Postscript

      Blurbs, Etc.

      Tucumcari, home of ghost motels, where two wandering souls seek answers to the riddle of history and the illusion of place in an adobe movie theatre before heading east to start over… Authors Geoff Peterson & Megan Collins have crafted an innovative gem.

      —Chuck Joy, poet, Fun Poetry

      Collins & Peterson invite us on a glittering journey through change, the inability to change, and the realization that change is constant. As their voices braid together we are reminded how we entwine and overlap with those we love in order to become whole, and how important it is to value this, follow this, wherever it leads.

      —Dawn Shimp, poet

      There are things about it I find disturbing, but I can’t explain why. I would recommend Tucumcari to someone traveling alone, who’s lonely perhaps, and in need of a meal but doesn’t know it.

      —Lash LaRue, range rider

      Delving into the past to understand ourselves is a journey not all of us choose to take. Geoff Peterson & Megan Collins embark on such a journey in Tucumcari and the result is fascinating. Deftly written and with amazing honesty, the two examine the past while looking toward the future in a way that often touches the heart and occasionally the funny bone.

      —Kristine Schwartzman, writer

      Acknowledgments

      Special thanks to editors Sharon Niederman & Miriam Sagan for our quoting from Ana Castillo’s poem The Road to Zacapo from New Mexico Poetry Renaissance. Red Crane Books, Santa Fe. 1994

      to New Directions for the quote taken from And Death Shall Have No Dominion from The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas. New York: 2010

      and to Penguin Books for our quoting of Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost, New York, 2005.

      abrazos grandes to Brad & Kris Schwartzman for suggesting we get out of town; to Ramon Martinez, owner/proprietor of the Odeon Theatre, Tucumcari; Chris the kid at Pie Town’s café who quit his job and left everything; Michelle & Mark Henry for opening their home to us in Las Cruces; Jane & Ryan Anderson of Tucson, who put us up on a poker night; The Mesquite Group in Nevada; and to Tom & Carol Burke of Green River WY, who always treat us like we know what we’re doing; and to Vanessa Anspaugh for handing off the Solnit book.

      . . . to the memory of Jack Anderson (1893-1960) and Hazel Williams (1900-1984)

      What he joins… is a long line of men through the ages who are trying to find out just where they belong.

      —Andre Dubus III, New York Times, June 7, 2012

      8 of 10 Americans will have once spent a night in Tucumcari.

      –Tucumcari, NM Chamber of Commerce

      A Few Words Going In…

      The Japanese have a way of loosely gathering reminiscences, diary entries, random notes, letters, essays, etc., in forms that are spectacularly shape-shifting, free of having to be centered on single themes, but rather on one event or series of events. This explains its success in the hands of masters of the travel journal.

      In Tucumcari Megan and I attempt to explore our recent journeys together in the Southwest in search of a new home. The passages consist of essay, interviews and travel notes jotted quickly and edited upon our return to the East.

      Our choice of the interview as a means to tell a long story in a short space came about when my aging father gave me a tape of his obituary that he had recorded for transcription in the event of his death. Megan and I found that by taping our concerns about relocating, we could access the underlying causes of our romance with the road, as well as our intimations of mortality.

      What the project seems most concerned with then is place and its relation to identity. By unraveling strands of our personal stories, we began to uncover overlapping myths of growing up as children of the last mid-century. In editing the tapes we were struck not only by the ponderous weight of collected family history, but by the tendency to fictionalize the past in order to restore its power. We hope our journey touches upon stories in your own memory-hoard.

      Geoff P.

      TUCUMCARI IS

      CALLING ME

      by Megan Collins

      Tucumcari is calling me. It’s calling me tonight, the night my mother died.

      The journey began with my mother’s passing away, January 2011. I felt a need to return to her early years in the desert Southwest. Mom lived in Phoenix as a young woman in her twenties. She lived with her parents and worked in the insurance business. An independent working woman, she didn’t marry until she was 29, quite progressive for those days. Thirty years ago, Mom yearned to see Arizona again, so she, my dad, my sister and I drove west with the Divine Love district convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Phoenix as our destination. We stayed overnight in Tucumcari on the way there and back. Tucumcari, in turn, became a power spot for me.

      Last month Mr. G and I took the trip, sticking to Route 66 as much as possible, just as I did with the family minus my brothers in 1980. In Tucumcari we looked for the two motels that I stayed in then. The Lasso was a real pit as I remember. Years later I would write about it in a poem set in Cleveland. I still recall the signs in wood frames screwed to the walls asking not to steal the television.

      The shower in the Lasso was worrisome. It was so stained and dirty that I was certain I’d be slimier after taking a shower than I already was from the day’s ride through Texas with the sun boring through the window and the stream of air conditioning blocked by my dad’s head. I still chose to step in the tub and take my chances.

      On the return trip we had stayed at a place called The Rafter S. It was surprisingly nice, set up as two rooms separated by a wall with a wood trimmed open doorway. There were no wood framed signs. My sister and I stayed on one side while our parents occupied the other. This suite offered a kind of privacy and was clean, truly sweet.

      Mr. G and I found the spot where The Lasso once stood. The neon sign remained but the building was gone. There was no sign of The Rafter S. It’s odd

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