Although I walked every block of Sunset Heights and Downtown hundreds, if not thousands, of times, as well as Skyline Drive and even parts of the Five Points neighborhood, I'd never been to the El Paso Municipal Rose Gardens until this trip. It was like I was tourist in a foreign city. I always wonder why so many people love to travel to other cities, and when they do, they go to museums, theaters, and municipal parks and gardens, but when they live in the city themselves, their life is confined to the freeways, the shopping centers, a few favorite restaurants, and home. They put up with all the bad that comes with city living (the traffic, smog, and congestion) without reaping the benefits. The grand parks, zoos, museums and aquariums seem to be for visitors, outside the holidays, or when company comes. The cities that I resided in, I owned. The Dallas Museum of Art was mine, as was White Rock Lake and the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. I claimed them. If I was going to put up with Central Expressway, LBJ, and I-30, by gosh I was getting something in return. The same was true with El Paso. I knew the border like few others. Yet, somehow, I'd missed this jewel of a garden.
Even though we hit the garden off-bloom, with only a sprinkling of color here and there, it was still wonderful. What we missed in blooms, we gained in light. It was late afternoon, and the light sculpted the Italian cypresses magnificently, throwing beams of shadow across the tight, formal layout of the garden. The air was warm and sweet with the faint smell of scattered blossoms.
I didn't expect much, as grand parks is one thing El Paso is lacking, despite the city's abundant culture and history. Most of the parks are little squares of grass trying to hold on under the intense heat, and unlike Phoenix, the city isn't willing to squander ballfields of water and risk the survival of future generations in an attempt to turn the desert into Kentucky. Yet, they also haven't invested the money to return their outdated parks into natural spaces set aside for native species. Therefore, most of the parks are dirt patches with sprigs of yellow grass clinging-on for dear life.
Yet, walking down those long, stone walkways of the rose garden, in the late afternoon light, shadows thrown from the the very architectural cypress trees, I felt like I was is in Italy. I felt a low melancholy sweep over me as I realized this space could have been mine too. How many wonderful afternoons did I miss sitting among the fragrant scents and bright colors, distractedly reading a book, my eyes now and then drawn to butterflies and hummingbirds, my ears pulled into conversations of people from other places? I could have owned this place the way I owned the Plaza.
I never want to live in a city again, but if by chance life forces me to, I will make that city my own, whether it be Provo, Utah or New York City. Wherever you live, don't let the tourists know your city better than you do. Life is short. Experience more than the line at the checkout counter. Hit those clubs. Hear that music. Taste that food. See that art. Know the city that is yours for-the-taking better than the tourists do. You pay the taxes, you breath the air, you spend mind-numbing hours waiting for red lights to turn green. Get something out of the deal.
Poet and publisher Bobby Byrd stands in front of one of the many great works of art at Cinco Puntos Press
"Bobby is like a second father to me". That would be a true statement if I didn't already have two dads, but I do. I guess that puts him at number three. Maybe. I'm not so sure. Writing isn't simply a vocation; it is a way of being. It is impossible to separate who I have become as a person from who I have become as a writer. They are one. Bobby played an essential part in my growth as a writer; he also played an essential part in my growth as a person. Through mentoring, he became part of me. That's how it works in the arts. My brother had a painting instructor who did the same for him. Bobby himself had a mentor, the poet Paul Blackburn. There is no way to overstate the importance of a mentor on a young writer. It's about more than just learning the craft. It's about learning to allow words to fill some need, complete some fragmented part in oneself, not all at once, but in bits and pieces. It's about openness. And the process doesn't end. Or usually doesn't. If it does, the good writing stops. That's because the best writing doesn't come from putting down well what is already known to the writer; it comes from the writer touching the unknown. The magic is in the awe of discovery, a startling arrival at the answer to some need, known or unknown.
Need is complex. It doesn't arise out of a vacuum. Or perhaps it does, but not one giant void. That is more often the source of terror, which halts creativity, rather than fueling it. Instead need forms from little absences here and there, that ooze together to form larger voids. A mentor doesn't replace the emptiness; a mentor shows the mentee how to use it, and in the process, complete it little by little. If I needed Bobby as a third father, it wasn't because my father and step father failed. Quite the opposite. It's because they gave me enough to know I needed something more.
1. Joe
My stepdad was too good of a father for "step" to be included anywhere in his title; he was always just "Dad" to me. He gave me my love of working in the yard and my eventual sense of ease with myself. That last one took a while, but I eventually got there, using his example as a path forward. He had this innate recognition that we are here to enjoy ourselves. I had a perfect role model of how-to-be despite my struggles with shyness. He never preached that. I'm not sure he was even aware he encompassed that quality himself. Later in life, he talked an awful lot about the financial success of his biological children. From words alone, it could seem he idolized wealth, but he was just a proud father. Actions speak louder than words. He got up each day and enjoyed life effortlessly.
Winter 1981. It's a cold, blue Friday afternoon after a Thursday when blistering white came ripping through. It's about 4:30 and the sun is at a good slant, firing up the sandstone and concrete-block facades of the homes around town. Right now the sun angles in on our living room window with such intensity that a bird doesn't see it and knocks her little brains out against the glass. Sassy, our cat, jumps up on the couch to look out the window. She is meowing, wild with excitement. I give the bird a few moments to come to. When she doesn't, I let Sassy out to dispose of her.
As I am opening up the door to let the cat out, Dad drives up in our old, beat-up Mercury. Wilbur, our pig, hears him from the side-yard and comes ripping around through the snow, wildly oinking. He is still small, but smart as can be. He's snorting and pounding his snout against Dad's legs.
"Well hello, Wilbur, you being a good pig? You want to go up in the mountains and see your mommy? Okay, now go on, get! You're getting mud all over my good clothes. Steve, go in and ask your mother if she wants to go to the canyon. With the snow and all, tonight's a good night to burn tree limbs."
I go in and ask Mom. She has been making chili for dinner, but we can cart it up there and heat it on the cabin stove. We are packing food in a cardboard box, happy, happy, happy! Dad comes out from the bedroom in his winter overalls and asks the two little dogs, "Do you want to go to the mountains? Want to go in the car? Yes, yes, yes, you do!" They yelp and wiggle, and they are happy, happy, happy!
Dad could have been a very rich man, and he was for a short time, a couple of times in his life, but each time the money slipped out of his hands, he accepted it rather easily and moved on to what really mattered to him--which always was the same thing. He loved pruning trees, raking leaves, building fires, and making trails on our land. He passed the land on to my brother, sister and me, as his children already have ranches. Yet, his greatest gift was waking up each morning with a natural smile. He'd wake up singing, and he wasn't much of a singer, but his off-key tune was full of joy and acceptance.
Winter 1977. My sister Kim is sleeping on the couch. She got in late last night (actually early this morning) and had a fight with Mom. Dad said nothing. Instead, he's up early this morning, singing. Kim rolls over, hides her head in the pillow. He dances around the living room. I think he's singing "It's So Easy" by Linda Rondstadt, but whenever he sings, it's hard to tell the song source. He goes high, and then deep down low, completely spontaneously, with no regard for the original song, and so a tune is a very hard thing to recognize flowing from his mouth. Even with his singing, Kim has not yet risen, so he comes by and tickles her feet. She kicks at him and groans. Mom's way to handle her strong-willed teenage daughter was to rant and rave. Dad's way of handling her is to amp up his natural morning joy a little. No judgement. No lecture. Just a simple strategy to make the morning hangover a little too real to be relived comfortably on a regular basis. Deterrent without judgement.
2. Larry
My biological father, although more complex, was pretty amazing also. He gave me the woods of northern California, my love of the road, and eventually, through a challenge, my relationship with God. I knew he loved me deeply, which has always meant a great deal to me. Christmases were big because he couldn't be there. Maybe it would have spoiled other children, but somehow we always knew the gifts were telling us what he couldn't say personally. He was making sure he was part of our lives even in his absence. During the summers, he shared that same love through his almost weekly camping trips, as well as one annual two-week vacation.
Late afternoon shadows are thrown across a long, narrow red, cinder-paved highway edged on both sides by forests of tall ponderosa pine. John Denver on the stereo sings--
Life in the city can make you crazy The sounds of the sand and the sea (I'm of the sea) Life in a high-rise can make you hungry For things you can't even see
Fly away, fly away (fly away) (Denver)
Dad's sucking on a mint, as always, and as soon as it's gone, he asks, "Can you hand me another one?" I reach in the bag. I pull out a Brach's blue mint and grab a couple of caramels for myself. He unwraps the mint smoothly with one hand while steering with the other and pops it in his mouth. He doesn't say much. He never does, and he doesn't need to. The ticking of shadow and light rolling across hood of the truck, up the window, and across our faces, making us squint over and over again says enough. It's hypnotic. Sandy (my stepmom) and Bobby (my half-brother) are in the camper behind the cab. Bobby knocks on the sliding-glass window behind the seat. He wants more Brach's too. He's playing cards with Mom as he's bored. I'm never bored on the road though. Neither is Lloyd, nor Kim. Dad is at peace here on these long highways cut through deep, tall forests that seem to go on forever, and so are we.
Genetically, Dad gave me his explosive temper (which sometimes even erupted amongst his beloved trees), his shyness and his tender heart, as well as his critical nature. Dad was pretty sure most of what humanity was up to (both individually and collectively) was not good, and I have to admit I agree with him on that, but he also cared deeply about those around him. He loved fiercely, but acceptance of himself or others was much harder. It is in my nature to parent like him, and I have had to work very hard to not do so. Both love and acceptance are necessary for us to grow, but having strong examples of both, I can tell you this: out of the two, acceptance is the most important gift a parent can give a child.
Winter 1986. Lloyd and I sit on the brown sofa of the split-level home in Salt Lake terrified. Icicles, slightly visible behind the lacy living room curtains, hang before a deep purple evening sky. Dad sits in the gold flowered beige chair in front of the window, a lamp on the end table beside him. We have no clue what to say. We never do. Unlike in our younger years, the quiet no longer sits comfortably between Dad and us. It is filled with unspoken disappointment on his part and unspoken apprehension on ours. He's never hit any of us. I've never even been spanked. Yet, there we sit, guarding our words carefully, deciding which ones to suck back down and which ones to carefully let out. The pressure is so intense that every time we come to Utah, Lloyd gets physically ill upon our return to Texas, absolutely exhausted by the trial he's been through. Dad always asks Lloyd how things are coming with his art. Lloyd always tells about whatever show his work has recently been in. Dad always asks, "Have you sold anything?" Lloyd tries to explain it's not about the money. Dad gives him advice on how to make it about the money. I sit there quietly feeling Lloyd's pain but hoping the focus stays on him, least Dad turn his assistance towards me. I'm more volatile, and unlike Lloyd, I have no accomplishments whatsoever to share. Still, I know how to use words as weapons. So does Lloyd, but he's more disciplined. I fear Dad, but mostly I fear myself. If I let go, there may never be a way to get back what we had on those two-lane roads in northern California. I don't want that to happen because I know that as much as I love Dad, my love for him pales in comparison to the love he has for us, his children. I don't want to hurt him. I am counting the minutes before I'm safely in bed with the knowledge that this time I didn't strike back with the same judgment he lays on us. My judgment wouldn't be through slow probing questions. It wouldn't be wrapped-up as verbal care packages. Nope. I'd hand over a word bomb. Here you go Dad. Have that.
As Dad aged, he softened. I think he knew all along he was doing more harm than good. I think he tried constantly to change, but change is difficult. To be fair, he moved the mark of effective parenting considerably forward. His father was an alcoholic. Unlike us, he was physically beaten as a child. He had a lot more to forgive his father for than we did. And we knew it wasn't that he hated us. Quite the opposite. He loved us so much that he couldn't accept us for who we were. We'd say and do things he thought were far below our potential. He took our failings on himself as his own: If I'd not left them, everything would be different. It was really quite unfair. He always had to correct our mistakes because of his one big mistake.And believe me, compared to those of a normal teenagers, our mistakes were quite small. No drugs. No screaming at our parents or throwing things. No slamming doors. No cigarettes. Kim drank for a very short time in junior high, but I don't think he even knew about it. We were good kids; he just needed to over-parent because of his choice to leave his family.
Yet, in my younger years, I was unfair to him also. He was critical, but not abusive. He seldom yelled. And though we never could live up to his expectations, we knew he loved us deeply. That's what created all the silence in his living room when we visited. If we hadn't felt his love, it would have been easy to fight back. Love stifled our natural resistance.
Over time, he did change. After he moved to the Oregon coast to be among his beloved trees near the sea, the questions became softer, less frequent. He talked instead of the church books he read, not to convert us, but because that was his interest. Mainly, he spent time acting as a tour guide to the lakes, woods, sands, rocks and churning sea near by, sharing his love once again with fewer words and less criticism.
Winter 2011. Rain beats heavily on the skylight as I follow Dad through the utility room of his modular home near the Oregon coast. He opens the back door and cool, moist air meets us. Rain thunders on the aluminum porch covering and drops over the edge in sheets. I follow Dad into the garage. He has something to tell me in private. I fear that after several years of having a good relationship, he's going to lecture me once again on something he feels I've done wrong. Instead, there in his garage, rain thundering down on the roof of a small modular home in a small development along a big bend in a river near the churning, wind-swept sea, my dad tells me that he's dying. Love that I never knew I had for him bubbles up in torrents from the cellular level. He explains his disease--how long he's had it and how much time he has left--but I can't really take it in. This can't be happening. Then he says, "I don't fear death, you know. I know there is an afterlife, that we continue. I'd like you to have that same knowledge". He asks me about my feelings towards the church. I tell him that I go regularly, that it's a good thing, but that I don't believe. He asks if I would put some time and effort into finding out for myself, one way or the other, for sure. As all the judgement is gone, I promise him that I will. The rain, though very much still alive, seems to have silenced. The only thing present is all the love we could never put into words.
3. Bobby
Although having two fathers, puts Bobby Byrd at number three, words don't capture how much he means to me. I'd entered a poem in a poetry contest and he was the judge. He liked it, awarded it first place, and asked me if I wanted to work for Cinco Puntos Press. He gained an employee, and I adopted a father. He didn't necessarily adopt me; he had his family. I'm the one who had the need. Lloyd and I were born artists in a world absolutely unconnected to the arts. My mother, a gifted, self-taught pianist, always played by ear, and I grew up in a house filled with music. Yet, she wasn't schooled in the arts. She was born to be a concert pianist but was never given that opportunity. Her words were the notes soaring out of the piano. We never sat around the dinner table and talked about books, music, or art. I'm not sure exactly what we talked about. My step-dad told great stories. We listened to his stories. Life was about our small town, the garden out back, and our property up by the canyon. But I needed a home where people sat around and talked about music, poetry and painting. I'd listen to Elton John, hear Bernie Taupin's lyrics, and think there had to be so much more out there:
Tune me into the wild side of life I'm an innocent young child sharp as a knife Take me to the garrets where the artists have died Show me the courtrooms where the judges have lied
Let me drink deeply from the water and wine Light colored candles in dark dreary mines Look in the mirror and stare at myself And wonder if that's really me on the shelf. (Elton John and Bernie Taupin)
Bobby and Lee were able to provide for me what my family could not: a model of how to live life normally and fully as an artist. The University of Texas at El Paso taught me how to write; Bobby provided an example of a sustainable pathway forward in the arts. So many of the writers I knew (only through their words on the page) lived miserable lives. From the books, it seemed to write well one had to drink oneself into oblivion, and then at the end of your truncated career, place an exclamation mark after your best work by taking your own life. Yet, here were Bobby and Lee, clearly writers, clearly happy, clearly sane, and obviously lovingly-kind to each other. Despite the biographies of the writers in the anthologies, the Byrd's demonstrated that in order to create, one did not have to drink obsessively, snort cocaine, or have affairs. Yelling, screaming and insanity did not have to be a biproduct of the arts. Instead, one could go out to the back shed (converted into a writing studio) and write for a couple hours and then come in, do dishes, steam vegetables, and sit down and have dinner as a family.
I didn't realize it until quite recently, but when I moved to El Paso, I was experiencing something akin to PTSD. I'd been bullied pretty heavily in junior high and high school. I had a few good friends, and so I did okay then. But, I started to fall apart in college. I had one year I basically didn't talk to anyone except Phil, my best friend and roommate. I worked. People there tried to be nice to me. I remember one girl going out of her way to invite me to go out clubbing with her and her friends. I knew she was asking me out. She was very pretty, and I liked her, but I just couldn't do it. Had she come right out and said, "Hey, I'm asking you out," I would have said yes. But because of all of the teasing I received in high school, I just couldn't make myself believe she was interested in spending time with me. What if I'm misunderstanding her? What if she's just letting me know what she and her friends are doing Friday night and that I might enjoy it? That isn't the same as saying, "Would you like to come along?" I don't remember what I said to her in return, if anything, but I know I didn't do the normal thing, and say, "That sounds fun," so that she could actually invite me out. After she quit the job, I pretty much spent the rest of the time working there in silence. I went to my classes in silence also. I was living as a monk on a crowded college campus. My only verbal outlet was my writing and conversations with Phil.
I moved to El Paso as a means to intentionally get away from myself, to learn how to not-be-shy, if that was even possible. It worked for a short while, and then somehow the shyness that overwhelmed me in Dallas discovered the route to El Paso and showed up at my doorstep. I didn't have any choice but to let him in; he was after-all, kin. Shutting down had become second nature, and I was terrified to let my silence go, no matter how miserable it made me. I caved in, and grudgingly let myself in, like a relative who constantly puts you down. "Oh, Hi" (forced grin) "Good to see you. Come on in."
I'm sitting at the Byrd's dining room table. It's the day the maid comes, and she's out in the office. So, here I am, working on Bobby's laptop. He's in the kitchen, cutting up asparagus. He talks of Memphis, his mother, the nanny he so loved. He talks of the Memphis sound--jazz, blues, country, and early rock and roll, and the heartache he caused his mother during his late nights out. He talks about how when he goes back to Memphis, he starts out in El Paso as a grown man, and gets younger and younger with each passing mile, so that by the time he reaches his mother's house, he's once again that teenager with all the same insecurities and rebelliousness he ever had.
I want to say, I know the feeling, but I don't. Instead I yawn. Bobby goes on, talking about Harvey Goldner, his partner in crime, and the one who introduced him to jazz, blues and poetry. I yawn some more. This goes on for a couple of hours. Bobby is telling me his life story and I'm yawning all the way through it.
Finally Bobby says, "You sure do yawn a lot." I want to tell him, "Sorry." I want to tell him that it has nothing to do with his stories. I want to tell him I just do that when I'm nervous. I want to tell him I'm not nervous because of him. Well, I am, but not because of anything he's doing. I'm constantly in fear. The only time I'm comfortable is when I'm in my own company, or with George. In Dallas, I had my brother and my friends. But mainly this is just who I am--absolutely terrified to be in the company of people. I do well as a stranger in a crowd. I love Juarez. There I can't speak the language; there I can be verbally invisible.
However, I do notice something. When Bobby said, "You sure do yawn a lot," it didn't sting. I'm still nervous, but not hurt. I sense that there is no judgment in it. It's like he's pointing out a detail in the landscape. "Look at the light on that yucca over there." He might be annoyed that I'm yawning through his stories, but if he is, it doesn't affect me negatively.
I don't remember what I said, if anything, that day. I do remember that I needed to hear Bobby talk about Memphis, music, politics, poetry and art. I needed to hear the back screen door slam on warm summer days, to lift up the door in the floor in the living room, and go down into the cool partial basement where the stacks of extra books for Cinco Puntos Press were kept, to put data into the computer out in the shed--the door open, bees buzzing around the flowers along the fence--and then have Bobby come in and say, "Damn, it's a beautiful day; isn't it glorious?"
I remember once, after Cinco Press moved to the office downtown, a space we were sharing as I was trying to get a copying service started, Bobby came in and said, "Isn't it a glorious day? Do you ever just walk around downtown and enjoy the day?" I did that often after work and every weekend, on both sides of the border, but I didn't say anything. So, he said, "You should just go; these orders will wait until tomorrow. Get out and enjoy the city."
What I really should have done was walk around handing out fliers for my business, but that involved talking to people, so I took his suggestion, grabbed the book I was reading, and headed out to find a warm bench in the sun on a fine spring day. I remember it because it is the only time in my life I've been told to to leave work so that I could fully enjoy the moment.
Those days come back often when I least expect them. I lost a brother in-law a couple years back, the only other writer and Democrat in Marci's family. He committed suicide. We never said much to each other, but we understood one another well. We were mutual admires of one another's craft. When I tried to write a tribute to him, I was immediately taken back to El Paso:
Poem for Michael Flynn
I don’t know what to say, other than I can hear your laugh. I'm not sure how this fits yet, but I'll tell a story and hope meaning comes around eventually. I used to despise the anthology Top 500 Poems edited by William Harmon because he called every third poem “robust”. It sounded like he was describing a can of Dennison Stew or Hormel Chili instead of poems that are to English what the sequoia is to trees, what Mahatma Gandhi is to men, what Mother Teresa is to women, what Blue Bell is to ice cream.
I would sit in a Chinese buffet across from 109 N Oregon in El Paso, Texas, a tall, old sleek blond brick building with an elegant brass elevator and a smoke shop on the ground floor that smelled of sweet pipe tobacco. It was watched over lovingly by a short man with a thick beard.
Other than his height, his beard, his big, brown eyes, he wasn’t anything like you.
He hated everything but tobacco: Mexicans, gays, lesbians, liberals, Republicans, corporations, Asians, tortillas, chocolate, Juarez, tequila, America. But he liked rum, Cuban cigars and rum.
If you asked him discreetly, for the right price he could get you some Cubans. Not the people. Cubans he despised. But the cigars, oh now that—
Anyway, I would sit across the street and fume while slurping noodles over that damn William Harmon and his over use of “robust”. I’d write volumes in the margins about how idiotic William Harmon is, and the thing is, I think you are one of the few who would understand. The irony is, when I think of your laugh, the only word I can find that describes the rich deep brown coffee colored biting joy in your voice is “robust”.
Had a wrinkle in the universe made us contemporaries and found us wandering the streets of El Paso or the calles of Mexico, I’m sure we would have found each other and fumed together over words and politics, compadres in contempt of mediocrity.
That was long ago before I metamorphosed into a Mormon.
I am not sorry for my transformation. It has only brought me joy. But I am sorry I let God get in the way of us being as close as we could have been, as we should have been.
That is my fault, not His, and certainly not yours.
You may or may not have believed in God. Still you knew God should be a window, not a wall, religion an opening, not a closing.
I’m sorry Man. We all are still learning. If I am ever back in El Paso, a city I know you would love, I will bring along that damn anthology by William Harmon and slurp Chinese noodles again and fume over the word “robust” and how it is the only word I can find to describe your laugh, deep and strong as black coffee.
Somehow I know that is enough.
Peace be my brother.
The river that divides earth and heaven is as thin as the silver sliver of the Rio Grande.
See you on the other side of the border of life if Trump doesn’t erect a damn wall there also.
After I wrote the poem, I wondered why the suicide of my brother in-law took me back to El Paso. Over time, I realized it was because of Bobby. Michael reminded me a lot of my younger self. I was bit jealous of him, because at least for a while, he wrote for a living. The pay was dismal, but he was earning money and respect for his writing, which was very fine indeed. I eventually realized I imagined him into a place he might have received the help he needed. Perhaps Bobby could have reached him the way he reached me. I don't know what I would have done without Bobby and Lee. I needed more than El Paso could provide me at that time. I needed to come home and make peace with who I am, a small town boy from Mormon America. But Bobby and Lee provided me shelter from the storm whirling around inside me at the time, safety from PTSD I didn't even know I was experiencing. I'm not sure what Michael's storm was. He wasn't at all shy. But whatever his storm was, I wished he'd found a way through it. El Paso was my safety; I imagined it could be his.
Thank you Bobby for helping me make it through the storm. Thank you for your poems. Most of all, thank you for providing a model for living the mundane marvelously--a way to sit comfortably in reality, whether the world be blooming butterflies and good vibes or torching all that is substantial and praise-worthy with lies and bigotry.
You put the life into living.
References
Denver, John. "Fly Away." Windsong.
1975.
John, Elton and Bernie Taupin. "This Song Has
No Title." Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. 1973.
