“WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING,
ANYTHING MEANS EVERYTHING, AND
ANYTHING IS APPRECIATED.”
SO READ THE SENTENCE on the hand-scrawled scrap of cardboard the man at the end of the exit ramp was holding.
It was a sentence that could have been crafted only by someone who understood all too well the base realities of life on the road.
For some, such a life was a choice—a grand adventure they might someday recall while reflecting on what an adventurous life they once had lived. But for the man holding the sign at the bottom of the first exit into Santa Rosa, there was nothing adventurous about it.
Instead, the sentence reflected his current life in cold present tense—a plea of sorts to anyone who might read his words as he puzzled over how and why he had sunken to such a despondent state.
For the past three years, ever since the coal company he’d worked for back home in Buchanan County had gone belly up, he had lived on the streets, on the road, on the edge, and in various scattered enclaves with other similarly situated people as himself. But having been a hunter since childhood, he was much better prepared for such a life than most others in comparable circumstances might be.
His father had been a hunter as well—not for sport, but of necessity. For there were always mouths to feed and bills to pay and coal to buy or pick up along the train tracks, and the hunting was an invaluable adjunct to the family’s living.
From his earliest years he had learned from his older sister to gather, and from his mother how to cook, and ever since he’d been on the road he had been able to access and utilize a broader range of food sources than most others in his situation might ever have considered.
CARL LEAR was on the road as well.
This was his third morning since leaving Buchanan County for the ranch in northern New Mexico on his annual Christmas hunt for late season elk. It was a brutally cold morning, but his big SUV felt warm and cozy.
Since leaving the motel in Amarillo at sunrise, he’d seen two roadrunners, three coyotes, one jackrabbit, and a small herd of pronghorns. And now he was eagerly anticipating stopping in Santa Rosa for lunch with Mrs. Lomperis and her family and having some of her classic pozole.
Pozole (poh-zóh-leh) is a Mexican dish—a soup or stew of sorts, made with pork and hominy and red or green chili. Red chili is traditional, but Carl Lear had always preferred green.
He’d done this every December for years—stopping in Santa Rosa to see his friends on his way west for elk. His SUV carried a Virginia license plate, and the logo on its tailgate read “BUCHANAN MOTORS” in shiny 3-D faux-chrome letters. It was packed full from front passenger’s seat to rear tailgate with his wools and hunting boots, his duffle, his bespoke .280 bolt action rifle built around that classic Belgian Mauser action he’d gotten from Jim, the handloaded ammo he’d spent so long working up with the 160-grain Nosler Partition bullets, his laptop, backpack, watercolors and camera equipment—all nestled around the big empty coffin cooler that, on his return run back east to Virginia, would hopefully be filled with frozen elk meat.
He’d called Mrs. Lomperis a few days before leaving Buchanan County to say he was on his way, then called again last night to let her know he was in Amarillo and would be seeing them the next morning. She’d assured him his pozole would be ready.
He had spotted the man with the sign at the bottom of the ramp as he’d exited Interstate 40, and would hardly have taken any notice at all had it not been for that single, handcrafted sentence. He bore into Santa Rosa along old Route 66 and pulled in at the little adobe house by the Pecos River where Mrs. Lomperis and her husband greeted him warmly.
“CAN’T GET ANYTHING this good back home, or in Memphis or Montreal, or even in London or Buenos Aires,” he thought as he sat there with them and ate.
He had been hungry even before he’d left Amarillo that morning, resolutely allowing his appetite to grow and mature in anticipation of stopping here. There was meaning in Mrs. Lomperis’ pozole, and in the heritage and love and tradition that went into its making. But as he ate with his friends, he couldn’t help thinking about the stranger back at the bottom of the exit and wondering how he’d come to be there—what random fates had defined his path, and how, except for a few chance occurrences in his own life, it could easily have been himself standing and holding that doleful sign:
“WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING,
ANYTHING MEANS EVERYTHING, AND
ANYTHING IS APPRECIATED.”
Carl Lear knew good writing when he read it—purposeful, naked writing that came from someone’s soul; someone who knew the truth of what they wrote. And this was good writing.
Carl was a good writer on his own, and now he found himself subconsciously dissecting the sentence—its structure and depth, its situational transparency, and how the word “ANYTHING” was so strategically positioned and then reprised, and the fact that the sentence was presented in second person so as to more effectively draw the reader into the marrow of its message—all in one single, concise, well-conceived and well-sculpted certainty written by that tousled stranger at the bottom of the exit.
THE STRANGER’S NAME WAS DAVID, and he was hungry as well.
He wore two pairs of pants, one overtop the other, high top shoes, a plaid hunter’s shirt over a thin grey hoodie, and had neither hat nor glove. His pack and blanket roll rested on the ground beside him, and the tattered cardboard sign he held said all it needed to say.
And so far, no one had cared.
He’d once had a wife. Her name was Marley, and they had been best friends and sweethearts since third grade back in Buchanan County. As soon as he graduated high school he’d taken a job at the mine and they were married. It was a good job, and for a few years they’d been happy and talked of starting a family.
But it turned out that Marley couldn’t have children, and after she died he had tried to make it on his own.
But eventually the coal country died as well and he moved east to Spencer, then bummed around Roanoke and Radford and Christiansburg for a while. But nothing took, and he finally gave up and decided to head west to New Mexico.
David had been to New Mexico before—first as a child on a visit to his father’s older sister in Farmington.
Aunt Mary had taken a liking to him the moment they met. She had cooked for him and let him ride her horses, and Uncle Buck had hauled him east into the mountains and introduced him to aspen and oak brush, juniper and fir and ponderosa pine, then mule deer and buffalo and elk, and had promised that someday they would hunt here together.
Carl had taken Marley back there for their honeymoon so she could meet Aunt Mary. By then Uncle Buck was gone, but with Marley at his side he had taken an elk of his own with Uncle Buck’s old 30.06, and it had fed them for well over a year once they’d gotten it home to Buchanan County.
They’d found northern New Mexico to be a magical, spiritual place and had returned there twice more. On their last trip, he’d made some friends over near Tierra Amarilla who owned a ranch and offered him a job, and when he and Marley got back home to Virginia they’d talked about perhaps moving there.
But after Marley died he’d bummed around southwestern Virginia for a couple of years as he gradually descended into life on the streets and then life on the road, until he finally decided to head west once more—just how, he wasn’t sure.
And now he’d made it as far as eastern New Mexico and had spent the night up under the bridge at the first exit into Santa Rosa. He had climbed back down to the bottom of the ramp a few minutes before Carl Lear pulled off the interstate for some of Mrs. Lomperis’ pozole.
LIKE DAVID, Carl Lear had also been born a miner’s son and was a good man.
Carl’s father had been a good man as well, having quit school after the 11th grade to work in the mine. But he had quickly recognized the difference between having and not having a decent education, and he’d worked his tail off day and night and day to see that his only begotten son had one.
Carl had understood and honored his father’s efforts, and he eventually earned his degree and made a successful career for himself in corporate communications.
Also like his father, Carl was a hunter of the first degree, and for the past several years he’d been heading west into northern New Mexico for winter elk after the main season had pretty well wrapped up at the ranch. But he’d never really been a true trophy hunter—instead electing to focus on the core experience and the hunting ethic his father had instilled in him as a child.
A tender young cow or a raghorn bull usually suited him just fine.
But last year he had taken a monster bull elk when it came charging from the oaks. He’d been working what he initially thought to be a small group of cows and yearlings high on the ridge above Copper Canyon when he spotted two rowdy young raghorns. When he hit them with a stuttering bugle meant to simulate another young bull, a massive herd bull had come charging down the ridge and nearly run him over before he’d managed to slip 160 grains of perfectly partitioned copper and lead in low between ribs number three and four. It was a big 6 x 7 and scored 347 points on the Boone and Crockett scale.
It was the only elk he’d ever had mounted, and on this trip he was determined to try for one much smaller and more tender.
But for now he was focused entirely on Mrs. Lomperis’ pozole.
And so he polished off his second helping and thanked her profusely, then asked if he might perhaps have a container to take with him, and a few tortillas.
CARL LEAR LEFT the little adobe house by the Pecos and stopped to fill his gas tank before getting back on the road. But instead of continuing west, he circled back to the east to that original off-ramp where he’d seen the man with the cardboard sign.
He was still there.
Pulling in next to him and stepping out of his vehicle, Carl shook his hand and passed him a coat, a pair of gloves, his wool stocking cap, a handful of twenties, and that still-hot container of Mrs. Lomperis’ pozole.
He knew it wasn’t enough.
He asked the man his name and gave him his own, and they stood and talked together for quite some time—two well-seasoned hunters on their own individual odysseys, each seeking the sustenance they prayed they would find.
It was only when Carl was pulling away that David noticed the Virginia license plate—and then the shiny 3-D faux-chrome logo on the back of Carl’s SUV.
“HEY!!” he called, waving vigorously. “I’m from Buchanan County!!!”
But Carl never heard him. ____________________________________________________________
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© MICHAEL ALTIZER
