Infrastructure fractures

Cruis­ing west on Cen­tral, past Coors, is never going to be the same again. I’ve watched it change, pas­sive eyes scan­ning the long, brown flats chock full of weeds green or brown as the sea­sons changed, from 5th grade through…well…now. Granted, I’m the pas­sen­ger less often, and par­al­lel to that there is less dirt, cov­ered over by con­crete foun­da­tions and tidy, American-dream-achieved homes. Just as many weeds though, they just grow closer together.

Regard­less, it used to be a hel­luva ride. First from 98th, where we turned east out of West­gate to head to church on 57th street every Sun­day (every Sun­day– every one), to later on when 86th was cut out of the dunes and later paved. They even­tu­ally put some side­walks, too. The long-awaited side­walks were the indi­ca­tion of civ­i­liza­tion. For almost a whole decade we lived, seem­ingly stranded, sep­a­rated from the city and its ameni­ties by an ever-swirling spring wind storm, with­out much more than the infor­mal con­crete curb to mark the place where peo­ple should drive, ver­sus the place where peo­ple should tromp through the sand in the awk­ward way sand makes one do so; it has the same sense of humor as snow piled up in substance-less drifts. 

West­gate was for a long time before we ever arrived a neigh­bor­hood tucked out of the way, a micro-system that I par­tic­i­pated in as a ten year-old child and middle-schooler. My imme­di­ate, prac­ti­cal world view finally expanded while I attended West Mesa and ran around the greater north­west part of town. Coach Gee would lit­er­ally makes us run around all over the west side; from the ditch banks of the South Val­ley to the bike paths of Unser, in front of the pet­ro­glyphs, near St. Pious and Fly­ing J on 98th. Cross-country was my own per­sonal tour of the place where I lived, a place with which I suf­fered a con­flicted, slightly angry rela­tion­ship. Still, those places are for­ever embed­ded in my mind and in my emo­tional landscape.

As is Cen­tral; wide and dark, fast and dirty. It was an inevitable road in my life, the only way out of West­gate long before Unser, Blake, Tower and Bridge net­worked and expanded. 98th and Cen­tral, to Cen­tral and Unser, Cen­tral and Coors. To free­dom, new expe­ri­ences and the vast land­scape of a brand new coun­try, lan­guage and adven­ture. Sun­light enter­tained day­dreams and the deep­en­ing shad­ows cush­ioned dark fears as asphalt, white lines and adolescent-tall tum­ble­weeds rushed in place past us.

The ride from Cen­tral and Coors to Cen­tral and 98th was the per­fect stretch of road to lull one to sleep with a mind full of final, tired thoughts. After Wednes­day night church meet­ings, after long days of extra-curricular-related activ­i­ties, on the way home from friends’ houses or shop­ping expe­di­tions. The wide road curved up 9 Mile Hill in the dis­tance, vehi­cles of all sorts motor­ing their way steadily into the set­ting sun.

Ver­i­zon rose out of the desert sands behind Albertson’s and gave us a traf­fic light. The fash­ion spread like 21st cen­tury eco-mindfulness. Now, between Unser and 98th, there will be two more work­ing sem­a­phores. One is at as-of-yet uncar­ved inter­sec­tion, where the desert imme­di­ately south of Cen­tral is still curbed and unde­vel­oped. The other is at 86th and Cen­tral, the inter­sec­tion which became, unex­pect­edly, a rivulet of life & traf­fic, with the dol­lar store and the gas sta­tions rep­re­sent­ing the cul­mi­na­tion of human need for the dusty beings that live on the dunes, tucked away and oppos­ing the Sandias.

I’m not say­ing that there shouldn’t be traf­fic lights. First of all, BCFD Divi­sion Com­man­der Boris would, almost imper­cep­ti­bly and only momen­tar­ily, raise an eye­brow in dis­ap­proval of my fast and loose take on pub­lic safety. Hor­rific events play in my head, past human costs for the priv­i­lege of dri­ving fast in a metal death trap under the influ­ence of chem­i­cal inhibitors, cut­ting across the as-of-yet unlit roads of Albu­querque in the dark like a furtive noc­tur­nal rodent. 

When I was in 7th grade I cov­ered the Gor­don House deba­cle for the Tru­man Mid­dle School news­pa­per, crap­pily imi­tat­ing the AP style in my first attempt at jour­nal­ism. My young mind gained its first rudi­men­tary under­stand­ing of drunk dri­ving and how it affects life in the wild west. The traf­fic lights are good, nay, nec­es­sary. It makes sense to inter­rupt the con­stant flow of machin­ery at high speeds. It’s good we can’t ramp it up to 65mph by the time we hit 98th from the healthy 45mph we were doing down Unser. The ride now takes a bit more delib­er­a­tion down that stretch as a frown­ing red sig­nal mod­er­ates the urge to push on the gas pedal, just a lit­tle further.

Yet I can’t feel but a bit of nos­tal­gia as I stare down Cen­tral for the nth time in my life, the engine faith­fully fir­ing as I man­age the lane change to the inside lane, visu­al­iz­ing the lean­ing turn onto 86th in t minus 5 min­utes after I turn off Unser. I no longer see an open road of poten­tial, as gen­er­a­tions before me saw it in the shim­mer­ing sun­set light that cast the mun­dane real­ity of every­day liv­ing in a con­tin­u­ous golden dream light of romance and adventure. 

Route 66 is just that more civ­i­lized now as it courses through the lit­tle big out­post town of Albu­querque, New Mex­ico. We must be so proud to be so grown up.