BY ALAN CROWE
This is a novel excerpt. Copyright is held by the author.
I
“Maurice. C’mon, honey, you’ll be late for school.”
Maurice’s mom was the quintessential dichotomy of motherhood. On one hand she was the doting mother, who never seemed to sleep. She worked days cleaning houses for half of the affluent white families in Douglas, Arizona. She was fortunate that having an Anglo housekeeper was quite a status symbol, as most families chose one of the less expensive but socially inert ladies who cross the border each morning, and return each evening to their middle-class homes in Agua Prieta.
Maurice’s mom would have been up for hours when she finally rustled him out of bed around 6:30. Breakfast would be cooked or cooking. Maurice’s school uniform would be hanging on the handle of his closet, ready for him to assemble himself for another day in the parochial school that provided the finest education available in Douglas.
Private school drained every penny earned by his mother from her night jobs working at two dive bars downtown. She preferred hustling every shift she could at the Hitching Post, across from the historic Gadsden Hotel. Of course, none of the patrons of the hotel would frequent the Hitching Post, but at least the location downtown brought in a more affluent clientele.
Consequently, Maurice’s mom would come home in the early morning each night while he slumbered. Somehow, the one white button-down shirt and red school-boy tie they owned would be laundered, pressed, and waiting each morning. Maurice never saw his mother sleep. At the time, this didn’t seem unusual. He assumed all mothers never slept.
On the other hand, his mother was a carousing lush. Weekend days would never see her without a glass of cheap merlot in her hand, or within an arm’s reach. Though the amount of alcohol she consumed was astounding, Maurice only saw his mother intoxicated one time.
Maurice’s mom offset the cost of her addiction by passing it along to the steady stream of men who spent weekends at their home pretending to be the father Maurice had never met. Most would last only a weekend or two. Those who showed promise, or who had yet to find a better situation, would prolong the inevitable for weeks or months. But the outcome remained the same. The parting of ways was always cordial, neither party wishing to create any continuing animosity in the confined social circles of a small town.
As a consequence, Maurice spent most of his weekend hours getting high with friends and listening to stories from the participants of the flourishing drug trade prevalent in all southern border towns.
But Maurice stayed on the periphery. He still had dreams of making something of himself, and in fact, was on schedule to graduate a year early. He hoped to work his way through Cochise Community College and pick up a scholarship to one of the Arizona universities. He could foresee turning twenty with his diploma in-hand, ready to make his way in the world.
With graduation two weeks away, Maurice found somewhere to spend the long Memorial weekend to avoid being around his mother and her current sponsor. A quick note to his mom, and he had three full days before he’d be required to check back in.
On his return that Monday evening, he discovered his life had changed. Gone were his mother’s family keepsakes, what remained were bare shelves and walls devoid of portraits. A glance in his mother’s bedroom door revealed drawers lying open, a closet now only half full. Perplexity and realization strike in quick succession. Questions and angry statements flood his mind.
Despondent, Maurice walked towards the kitchen and discovered a short note written with shaky hand sitting on the dining room table. In it was the insufficient explanation of his mother’s departure. She had nothing more to give, she had to seize the opportunity to make something from what was left of her life. He, she said, was smarter and stronger than she could ever hope to be, and she knew he would be all he dreamed of being. She loved him and hoped he would still love her.
The following morning, Maurice responded in kind.
II
Deming, New Mexico is the prototypical town you pass through on your way to somewhere else, not the place for a prolonged stopover. There are no unique or interesting sights to see. What it did have was an enormous truck stop, providing not only fuel for truckers, but also restaurants, convenience markets, even a small movie theater, all geared towards the droves of over-the-road freight haulers that lined its mammoth parking lots. And after four and a half hours there, Maurice had as much of it as he could stand.
Most of the hours had been spent in retrospective contemplation. Maurice replayed over and over again the weeks and days leading up to his mother’s departure. Had she offered clues that he would not or could not recognize? Had it been a spur-of-the-moment decision on her part, much like his had been on Tuesday? Now, it appeared he would never know the answers. He had no clue what direction she had chosen, and she in turn would never know his. Maurice was dolefully disturbed by his mixed feelings of regret and good riddance.
Now, Maurice regretted even more intensely the void left by his non-existent father. He couldn’t help wondering if life would have been more worthwhile if his father had existed. Maurice had something else gnawing at him as well. He couldn’t shake the thought that he was following the same path as his father and mother. Running away to the perception of a more rewarding life. Avoiding difficult challenges and expectations.
Maurice had come to the conclusion that he wasn’t running away, he was running to. To a life that was now his own. To the opportunity for a good paying job in the oilfields of Texas, making considerably more money than anything possible in small town Arizona. Texas, he knew, was a potentially lucrative bonanza… and a thousand miles away.
He had begun his odyssey with the forty-seven dollars he had stashed away in an old boot back home. When he reached Deming, he had exactly twenty-one dollars and sixteen cents remaining. Three days of travel, nine dollars per day, a quarter of the way to Houston. The math did not add up. As it was, he hadn’t eaten since late the night before, and his stomach was roaring its displeasure. It would soon be nightfall, so it was imperative he grab a quick burger and begin walking the long rows of trucks towards the exit, hoping to hitch a ride with one heading his direction. With his cardboard sign reading “Houston”, he would make himself conspicuous to each truck pulling onto the frontage road. With luck, he could be across the Texas line by morning.
III
Maurice’s fortunes began to look up after catching a ride from Deming to Corpus Christi. Along the way, Melvin the independent truck driver traded eleven hours of redemptive exhortation for the ride, some food, and a call to his brother-in-law, the director of the local YMCA. For three months Maurice traded janitorial work for room and board.
With the arrival of the migrant bands for harvest season, Maurice transitioned to more profitable work, and began rooming with another field hand in an inexpensive but clean motel outside Brownsville that catered to orchard workers.
Thirteen days into his new career, a small circle of friends came by to celebrate Maurice’s eighteenth birthday. As evening turned to early morning, Maurice sat on a back staircase with his roommate and an acquaintance, smoking a joint and listening to an enthusiastic pitch for said roommate to drive a vehicle across the border for an easy $2500. His roommate declined. But, after pondering the exhorted expertise of this acquaintance in hiding a few measly ounces of cocaine inside the tires of the otherwise fully compliant work truck, and heeding the assertion that no border agent would suspect someone that looked like they attended a Mormon middle school, Maurice agreed.
The following morning they headed for Matamoros. That evening Maurice was booked into the Cameron County jail.
***
Alan Crowe has been an underground miner, journeyman carpenter, high school teacher, certified paralegal and now a freelance writer from southern Arizona. His writings have been published in Cowboy Poetry Press Anthology Unbridled, High Country News’ Writers on the Range, Post Road Literary Magazine, The Writing Disorder Literary Journal, Rokslide Sporting Journal and local Tucson print media. Covering a wide range of topics from the outdoors, history, to the arts and sciences, the University of Arizona grad draws from a wide variety of experiences he has collected in a half century exploring the back roads of Arizona and the American west.
