D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
March 2010
Going to Palomas
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Sundays, the cantina women come in together at the very last moment before the mass. They stand huddled at the back of the church, their heads covered modestly with mantillas and scarves. They look hesitant, afraid and ashamed. They have broken the spine of the world and they know it. Just before mass ends they tiptoe from the church — yes, I still swear their faces almost a little happier — before anyone else does.
Am I the only one who turns to watch them go?
"Father Elias," I ask, "was there an exact moment when you knew you wanted to become a priest?"
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"It was during a mass, an afternoon in July at the Church of the Divine Savior. In my village in Puebla, when I was 15. I heard it, very quietly, the voice of God calling me."
"You mean it isn't one moment your branches are green and the next you're blasted by lightning?"
"No, it was quiet. An inquietude. It was the voice of God calling to His child, and His child responding. I kept it secret for eight years."
"How can the voice of God be a quiet one?"
"It's something that can't be explained."
"It was your secret?"
Elias laughs. "I only told my friend Luis, and he told me he, too, wanted to become a priest. We ran away to the seminary together to talk to the fathers there."
"They took you in?"
"No, when they found out we'd come in secret, without telling our families, they chased us off."
Wander the streets without going into houses, churches or cafes. Just be a stranger. You're so tired of this sorrow named Palomas.
Hide from the Church. Will they find you here at the carnival? What is the opposite of a Church? Is it this carnival?
"Palomitas," little doves. Say "palomitas," the word for popcorn in Spanish. Say "a thousand little doves in one striped bag" in any language real fast three times.
Won't you buy popcorn from the solemn little boy who stands beside the popcorn machine?
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Why worry where will you sleep tonight in Palomas?
Crawl inside your camera. Go to sleep.
Eight o'clock, dark, I go to pick up C — and he directs me to his mother's house. I'm always lost in Palomas. We cross what C — jokingly calls "our Golden Gate Bridge" and there's the dirt yard and the unplastered adobe.
L — is at the door in the same bright colors, looking as harsh and as untrustworthy as ever. I haven't said hello and I want to say goodbye.
L — introduces me to her new husband. The carnival's in town. Her new husband is a carnival man, 20 years younger than she is. From the neck down, I can see why she married him.
She's excited. She shows me the marriage certificate.
But he looks seedy, and I worry.
She doesn't believe I'm not making money from my photographs of Palomas. It's in her eyes: I must be lying, or an idiot.
Surely they've hatched a plot to kill me for the American driver's license I hide in my shoe. Really all I have of value besides my Olympus.
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They don't kill me.
I almost wish they would because by 10 o'clock I have such a headache from L — 's loud mouth that I cross back into Columbus to sleep in Pancho Villa State Park. But when I get there I decide I don't want to spend the $6, which buys two meals in Palomas.
So I drive to the Holy Family Church instead and park in the empty parking lot.
Once I attended the evening mass here. The only people in the church were the old priest and an old woman wearing a silver headscarf. When I came in, a few minutes late, the priest, brightening, turned on an extra row of lights for me.
I see the old priest's little yellow Rabbit parked outside the rectory, and imagine him inside, comfortable and unhappy.
I imagine myself — knocking at his door, inviting myself to dinner and then yes, a brandy, too, please — and his anger at being disturbed.
So I roll the seat of my old Volvo back until it presses against the backseat, and settle down for the night.
I wake up again and again, dreaming day has dawned. But there's only darkness and the streetlights that substitute for stars.
I try to stay warm. I pull my socks higher and the hems of my pants lower. I take off my jacket and wear it like a blanket and pull my arms inside my black polyester shirt.
Every few hours I turn on the car, let the heater run a few minutes until I'm warm, then turn it off. Go back to sleep.
I hear a noise near the car. Could it be the drug runners that haunt the border?
I don't look out the window. I'll fight when I have to, but for now I'd rather not know if there are evil men out there.
I wait for their violence to explode like a black and gold dawn, but it doesn't.
In the morning, when there's no mistaking the blue sky, I open the Volvo door. A little white and gold Chihuahua comes tenderly out from under the car, wagging his tail. Goes sidling away from my laughter to back across the street where he came from.
Thank You, God, for the safety of the Holy Family Parking Lot.
Now I can afford another day in Palomas.
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One way to help the people of Palomas is to donate to Esperanza Lozoya, La Luz de la Esperanza (Light of Hope) Outreach, an interdenominational organization that provides health care and sustenance to those in need. Send donations to: Esperanza Lozoya, PO Box 38, Columbus, NM 88029, or call 543-5604, or contact Victoria Tester for dry good donations, 536-9726.
Victoria Tester is an award-winning poet and playwright, the author
of Miracles of Sainted Earth (University of New Mexico Press).