Page 6 of The Magic of Ordinary Days
At first it baffled me. The man was thirty years old.
But then I thought of some of the young men I’d known in high school.
In the sad hierarchy that ranked persons primarily by looks, I remembered several groups of young men who were both unattractive and terribly shy, who never went out on dates and never got invited to parties.
Many of them never got accustomed to contact with girls, and judging by his reactions to me, Ray must have been just like them.
In comparison, my social life, although nothing to brag about, had at least given me the opportunity to befriend a few men.
In high school and even in college, my girlfriends and I weren’t the most popular, but we had our occasional dates and didn’t grow up uncomfortable with the opposite sex, either.
When we went to the cinema or the ice-skating rink, often a few of the studious guys or a brother or two of one of the girls came along.
Those timid young men in high school had long since graduated and gone into the service.
Rumor held that in the Army, innocence was quickly lost. However, Ray apparently had worked away into adulthood, stuck out here on this farm.
He was as lost as one of those pimple-faced and innocent boys on a first date back in high school, more self-conscious and jittery than I’d imagined a grown man could be.
I wondered if I should move back next to the window, but then, how would he take that? I didn’t know what to do, so I ended up staying penciled in the seat next to Ray. But as we drove through some curves, I made certain I didn’t accidentally fall over and brush up against him.
He showed me the bean fields, the onions fields, and finally the “head gates” that brought water from the canals onto his land and down feeder ditches to the crops. “We get our water from the Fort Lyon, the longest canal in Colorado. A hundred and thirteen miles long.”
“Ah,” I said.
We never left Singleton land. We never saw another soul, either. On the way back, Ray started telling me the names of weeds growing along the roadway. Rabbit brush, apparently, had just finished blooming.
Over the next few days, I saw Ray early in the morning before dawn and late in the evening just before sunset, when he arrived back at the house, sweaty and hungry.
For dinner, I experimented with baking the beef, pork, and chicken I found in the icebox, fresh meat Ray had swapped with other farmers in the area, and for side dishes I heated cans of vegetables.
Eating out of cans was considered most luxurious in those days, but the only fresh vegetables Ray brought in were some of the last tomatoes, so I had little choice.
Usually I started my preparations way too early, then I had to let the meal sit and wait on the table until Ray returned.
After he tromped in, he headed for the shower first, then sat and silently prayed for long minutes while the food continued to turn older.
During the day, I cleaned the house and swept off the porch.
I ironed all the clothes in my closet and refolded my lingerie in the drawers.
Outside, the animals snorted and brayed to remind me I wasn’t totally alone, but Ray stopped coming back and checking on me midday.
The only reading material I had was the La Junta Tribune, which came a day late, delivered by the rural mail carriers on the star route.
We had no telephone, and no one came to call.
In the evenings, Ray and I ate dinner together at the table.
After eating, Ray always took an hour or so to work on farm business.
He spread out receipts and ledger books on the table, pondered over them, and scratched down notes with a pencil.
After he finished, he shoved everything back into one manila folder, marked simply “1944,” and crammed it inside a kitchen drawer.
Afterward, he usually opened his Bible and read a few pages, then we listened to radio programs or worked on making conversation.
After four long days of this, I told him over dinner, “We could stand to stock up on groceries.”
He glanced up between bites of bread. “Sure thing. I’ll drive you into town tomorrow.”
“I can drive a car.”
He rumpled the napkin to his face and said, “Sure enough?” But his eyes told me he was uncertain. “Sometimes the clutch on that truck tends to stick.”
“I’ll learn how to handle it.” I wanted to pat his hand or his back in the same manner one assures a child, but most certainly he would’ve crumbled into ash if I’d touched him. “If it would make you feel better, I’ll drive with you along first, so you can see for yourself.”
He still looked as if he had just chewed cactus. “Tomorrow, then,” he said.
The next morning, I drove with him in the truck, the “beet box,” as Ray called it, west toward La Junta, where I got my first glimpse of Japanese interns toiling in the fields along the way, their dark hair like ripe blackberries among the greenery.
Ray gestured that way and said, “They’re from Camp Amache.”
“But isn’t that a long way east of here?”
“The government brings them in, puts them up, so they can work where needed.”
“Will they come to your farm?”
“You mean our farm?”
A second later, I nodded.
“Sure enough.”
We passed through La Junta and drove the paved road south-west all the way to Trinidad.
Ray said it had a feed store with the best prices, and therefore justified the farther traveling.
But as I was driving, I realized he had chosen the route purposefully.
Maybe he wanted to drive all that distance so I could see some variety in terrain, or maybe he wanted me to get a long drive under my belt, or maybe he wanted to observe my driving skills on less-traveled roads.
I didn’t know or ask why. At any rate, I enjoyed taking the same route that had once been part of the Santa Fe Trail, the path that had brought pioneers, trappers, and traders into the former hunting grounds of roaming bands of Arapaho and Cheyenne.
Now the road passed quickly through farmlands that changed to range lands, then through virgin prairie land still not tilled or grazed.
By the time we reached Trinidad, I was used to the stiff clutch and loose steering of Ray’s truck. I even backed it into a spot between two others along the former trail, now Main Street.
The town of Trinidad struck me as a conundrum of differences: adobe buildings next to brick Victorians, coal miners among sheep and cattle ranchers, citizens of Mexican descent among Anglos.
Cobblestones covered the hilly streets of old downtown not far from the smoothly paved blacktop highway.
Without a military base nearby, the town was distinctive for extremes of ages, too.
Children ran in and out of the shadows cast by store-fronts, whereas a prevalence of older men and women seemed to thrive inside the shadows, becoming a denser part of the darkness themselves.
“I’ve read about Trinidad,” I told Ray and handed him back the keys to the ignition. “This is one of the oldest towns in the state.”
Ray headed for the feed store while I headed for the library. I hadn’t opened my book on Egypt yet; somehow I couldn’t do it here. But I was desperate for something to read.
As I walked the downtown area, I noticed the lack of attention I received.
People passing me on the street looked beyond me, as if one sideways glimpse had already told them I didn’t belong.
During the war, we were taught that anyone could be a spy, even a nice-appearing or pleasant person.
Posters everywhere featured Uncle Sam holding a finger to his lips.
“Shhh.” Don’t give away secrets. “Loose lips sink ships.” The message was on the radio, in the newspapers, and in movies.
But as I walked on, I doubted that distrust was the reason I was being ignored in this place.
In the city, passersby on the street didn’t notice each other, either, but it had to do more with preoccupation and hurriedness.
Here, I got the impression that newcomers or visitors simply didn’t matter.
I sped up. By the time I reached the library, I was salivating like Pavlov’s dog.
Inside the door, I paused for a minute, breathing it in.
I loved everything about the library, even the smell of dust on the bookshelves.
I loved fingering through tight card catalogs, perusing the rows of endless subject matter, lifting books so word-heavy they felt as though they might break my arm.
In the local history section, I read up on Trinidad.
First a favorite camping spot for nomadic tribes and later mountain men, the town became a stopping point for Conestoga wagons heading south over Raton Pass on the trail to Santa Fe.
When I ran out of reading time, I signed up for a library card and checked out the most detailed local history book I could find, a basic cookbook, and The Sun Also Rises.
I had read some of Hemingway’s later books, but had always intended to read this early one that had made him famous. Now would be my chance.
On the way back, Ray drove. I tried enjoying the silence. Before me, the domed sky was even larger than the sage lands below it. As we passed under the shade of high clouds, I turned to face Ray across the seat. “Do you know much about the history of this land we’re driving through?”
He shrugged and kept his eyes focused on the empty road ahead. “Can’t say that I do.”
“I found it in this book.” I spread my fingers over the wrinkled leather cover. “It was once part of a huge land grant belonging to Mexican citizens.”
He shook his head. “Didn’t know that.”