Red chile soaked into seared tortilla: a shifting bed for stewed beans, melted cheese, and scrambled eggs. Across the table, my friend sprinkled fresh jalapeños over her nachos and nodded—confirming my suspicion.
“This is such a small town.”
I’d recently submitted my resignation from my toxic job, the impetus for which was so rich with drama that, in resultant stress-induced insomnia, I crafted a comic strip from it. And barely two days later, I’d been given a week’s notice to vacate my RV park. Suspiciously coincidental, the timing made me recall my friend’s statement—her implication intoning bell-like.
And people talk.
Crumpled notice in-hand, I re-read the short paragraph and stared into the setting sun—fractured light dancing across Bertie: immovable, broken-down.
And just how am I going to fix this?
***
The next day, before I could sit completely, the property manager shoved the freshly printed page across the cluttered desk—the paper’s warmed edges catching on the splintered tabletop.
“I wouldn’t want to put you in an awkward situation.”
I nearly laughed out loud at their hypocrisy.
Thanks to a friend, I’d been able to leverage renter law, and indicated that the original notice they’d furnished was illegal; the revised notice resting in front of me gifted me a full month to determine my next steps. It was the closest I’d get to an apology. And there would be no further negotiation.
Even still, I’d never been given a reason for the forced removal. As curious as I was livid, I pressed for an answer.
Their hands shook, not from a nervous palsy, but rather broiling anger—the depths of which ran bizarrely shallow. As they launched into an empty rationale, they clutched their coffee mug with such force that I expected it to shatter with each emphatic enunciation—their lips curling carefully around patent mistruths as each burned into my brain.
Minutes later, they nodded once more: my cue to leave. I rose, flustered and upset. Hours afterward, I’d recognize the motives for what they were: a collection of anti-environmental views peppered with violations of freedom of speech and probable anti-queer discrimination. But in that moment, exhausted and fatigued, I slipped the revised notice into my pocket, and pulled open the warped, turquoise-painted door.
Their hollow “God bless” followed me out.
As I approached Bertie and eyed my homemade directional sign to the ad hoc recycling center alongside Bertie’s backside, I laughed at the delicious irony of being displaced due to upsetting the status quo by having an environmental conscience—my driving motive for transitioning into tiny living.
The departure from my job hadn’t been wholly different—a crucible in which I was forced to choose between either honoring my ethics or perpetuating white supremacist praxis. My decision was clear; with my back sore from repeated stabs, I leaned fully into the ensuing uncertainty—wearing with pride the label former complicit coworkers had applied to me: disruptor.
Over the following weeks, through a series of conversations, my boyfriend J and I determined how our respective new chapters—scoped fully outside the state, our eyes fixed on the southeast—would intersect. We both recognized that New Mexico was not our place, and there was comfort in acknowledging it.
We’d move beyond the high desert—gleaning from it the richness of experiential lessons, each of which would help propel us forward.
***
Weeks later, snowplows arrived in the layered parking lot—skimming packed lenses methodically, the trucks’ wheels performing mechanical ballet.
Thick flakes slowly descended from laden grey clouds as I scanned my laptop’s screen—my southerly route paved in fat blue lines to Alabama. Powdery blocks cleaved away from the coffee shop’s eaves and exploded across the icy sidewalk. A car’s spinning wheels reminded me that I’d left Bertie’s snow chains in my car, stored with J in Albuquerque. But I quickly reminded myself that I wouldn’t know how to fasten them anyhow; they were more of a security blanket—one I hoped I wouldn’t miss.
Sighing, I took a deep pull from my coffee, imagining the journey over the next four days—my mind juggling multiple variables as my bank account emptied.
More snow fell from the roof, mounding into frigid piles.
The Land of Enchantment had morphed into the Land of Entrapment. I narrowed my eyes, answering an unasked question.
But you can’t have me.
***
Just as snow began to fall again, I pushed aside the blanket draped inside Bertie’s door, and dusted off my hair. JoJo wriggled around in one of her nests, rolling over for reassuring rubs. I nuzzled her nose with my chilled cheek.
“Bear with me, little bean. We’ve got a tiring journey ahead.”
A ladder rested precariously atop my infrequently used bicycle, which balanced haphazardly across three lidded garbage cans packed with wrapped inventory for my future vintage shop. The air, heavy with the smell of rubber muck boots, warmed slowly from the faithful tower heater.
Out from my laden grocery bag, I wrangled a large wedge of cornbread—JoJo angling for any errant crumb as I inhaled the buttered bread, leaving no trace on the wrinkled plastic wrap. I stared out the window.
Within 24 hours, I’d unmoor my home and leave New Mexico. Whereas some RVers enjoyed driving days, I never did—my mind consumed by the chassis’ incessant clattering from offending potholes, as the hours expanded with the asphalt snaking toward the horizon.
JoJo licked my hand, and I smiled down at her before looking back outside. Eyes darting from snow-covered junipers to the muddy arroyo beyond, I murmured again.
You can’t have me. You never did.