D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
September 2009
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This story grabbed us from the start with its strikingly original concept, then held us with its vivid depiction of a miner's lot in 1930s Grant County. Author Albert A. Henderson is another first-time winner in our writing contest; we hope he'll be "told" more tales to share with our readers in the future. |
NM 21-977
The old license plate had seen plenty during its ride
on a '29 Ford truck.
By Albert A. Henderson
In March of 1984 I purchased a New Mexico license plate at a flea market. The plate was intended for a truck and the year it was pressed was 1934. The 50-year plate was placed in my office (during my years in the service), and during lulls in the busy day I often stared at it and wondered what stories it had to tell. It had a number "NM 21-977" stamped into it, a large Zia and the number 34 outlined in the middle of the Zia. My son A.J. now has the old thing in his room, and the other day when I was in his room the plate said something. The conversation was short and one-sided; it talked I listened. I had been waiting many years for this and I came away with this story.
NM 21-977 was first placed on a 1929 black Ford pickup belonging to a young Mexicano by the name of Victorio Hernandez. Now, it's been said that the Ford company only used the color black to save money and speed up the assembly line. Besides, Victorio liked the color; he said black was a damn good color for a man's truck. The truck had a tight V engine, and the shiny chrome hubcaps mounted on the spoked wheels had a smart V and a superimposed 8 stamped in the center of the hub. The vehicle was clean and it was evident the previous owner had taken good care of it.
Victorio was a strong, virile and energetic man who married early and by the age of 25 had four kids. He and Stella were blessed with three handsome, strapping and happy boys plus a beautiful daughter. It was a proud day when he went to the DMV and purchased the sage-green and gray license plate for his five-year-old Ford truck. When the clerk handed him the plate, he rubbed it against his left forearm and felt the raised numbers 21-977.
The day he brought the truck home, Stella, his wife, was thrilled; they carefully seated the four kids into the bed of the pickup and went for a ride along the Mimbres Valley. They stopped at a small country store in San Juan to buy a pound of generic cased bologna, a loaf of Meads fine bread, a bag of corn chips, a hunk of longhorn cheese and a variety of sodas. The next stop was at the Catholic Church in San Juan to give thanks to God and the Virgin for giving them the money and opportunity to purchase such a fine machine. After the prayer of thanks, Victor went to the cantina for a six-pack of beer to celebrate the purchase.
The family found a large cottonwood tree and there under its branches they ate their feast and drank the sweet golden brew and fruit-flavored sodas. They admired the truck while speaking of the wonderful places it would take them, and how Victor could now drive to work instead of depending on compadres for rides. They spoke of going to Santa Rosa, a town in northern New Mexico, to see the part of the family the children had never met. They talked of going to Deming and Hatch to buy fresh green chile in the fall. They even planned to pass on the truck to Victorio Jr. at the age of 16. Finally they talked of being able to assist the local padre with transportation from one mining community to another mining community, for they felt it important to share the good fortune with a man of the cloth, un hombre de Dios.
Victor worked at the mine in Fierro and resided in the mining village of Santa Rita. NM 21-977 said he saw Victor toil in the copper mine each day, and each day Victor worked the dangerous underground shafts. He worked shift work and when the jefe allowed it, he worked on his scheduled day off to make ends meet. The "pinche" graveyard shift was hell because the body did not understand the convoluted logic of working nights and sleeping days.
The plate told me the mine was not a place for the weak, but a place for strong men, who, as each day passed, left a little of their strength there, along with their spirit. The plate told me he saw the mine rob the youth from many a man, or instantly make widows of young beautiful ladies. He went on to say the men prayed each day to the Kneeling Nun for safety, and after each shift they'd face toward the natural shrine as if to say thanks for life and limb.
NM 21-977 revealed that Victor suffered many injustices during this time. Having the name Hernandez, he was not going to be a foreman. He was given the most dangerous work and thought of as muscle rather than brain. Victor was a number on a piece of brass and a brute laborer to be used by the German emigrant who had more status than Victor because the German was blond, blue-eyed and spoke better English. He said Victor worked hard, with pride, to give his family a better life than he had.
The 1934 license plate told me that Victor drank hard as did most miners. He said on pay days they'd stop at the bar and buy beer, then meet con amigos (with friends) under the shade of a juniper tree. There they would drink until the wee hours of the morning. They would cruse the "cabron" bosses, laugh about the rookies, "los nuevous," whom they played harmless tricks upon, and they would reminisce or cry for friends and family lost to the jaws of the earth or the "maldito mina.." They would talk about the company's baseball team and brag about how "chignon" they felt after beating a good Silver City team, featuring a fine catcher by the name of Ornelas.
After drinking, Victor would go home with rotten fermented breath, demand a warm meal, a warm reception and a warm satisfying amorous bed. Once his needs were met, he fell into a deep sleep in the numbness of alcohol.
When daybreak came Victor awoke in a raw state, dehydrated and filled with remorse. He gave Stella what was left of the paycheck, and she was expected to buy provisions from the company store, pay rent for the company house, and pay a payment on the truck bought from the German boss. When all was said and done, the company took back more then it gave.
"It was no wonder Victor drank. Hell, he needed it just to stay halfway sane," said NM 21-977.
The rusty plate said he would tell me more someday, but right now it was just too painful to go on. He ended the story by saying Victorio died in the early 1960s with a bad back, asthma, and a broken spirit. He told me that the 1929 Ford finally gave out by throwing a piston, and was placed on blocks in hopes of getting repaired someday.
Old NM 21-977 was taken off the disabled pickup, thrown in a pile of tin cans that was sold to a company out of Tucson. On the way to Tucson in the year 1948, 21-977 flew out of the haul truck onto the banks of the Lordsburg highway. He told me that someday he might tell me more, explain to me how he got to Silver City.
Now, I eagerly await the next visit. But I hope he tells me a happier story, and I hope he talks about the Ornelas boy, the talented catcher for the Silver City baseball team. You see, I think I may know him or of him.