Galisteo Blue by Ella Van Dyk
From Ella:
This piece was written in response to a trip I took to New Mexico to visit my Grandfather after not seeing him for many years. It is a story about familial relationships changing with age, loss, and the eerie and awe-inducing beauty of rural New Mexico. In this story, I found myself reflecting on how I found fragments of myself in New Mexico, (because I lived there as a child) and also how foreign it is to me now that I'm older. That feeling of distant familiarity both with a physical place and with family members can be both unsettling and comforting, and I wanted to create this short story to reflect on that.
Galisteo Blue
Now we are far enough from the Sunport that the silhouettes of jagged mountains make
us begin to feel our human smallness, and elevation’s familiar fingers press on my fragile
eardrums. It’s peculiar how my body can sense the expanse of the land even in darkness. This old
home feels so familiar to my body, but my mind barely recognizes it. Maybe you are beside me,
or maybe I’ll wake up to find you were part of my recurring vibrant dreams. You exude the same
boisterous energy I remember from childhood. This exuberance has aged you in a way that
slightly shocks me. I notice that your nose seems more bulbous, probably because the fat of your
cheeks has shrunken to reveal defined cheekbones. I can see the miniature craters on its surface,
illuminated by the headlights of the occasional oncoming vehicle. Your face has its own kind of
landscape that wanes out of sight each time the light leaves it. Two flamingos sit frozen in an
eternal almost-kiss on your dashboard. Their heads bobble back and forth precariously and I
can’t tell if it's romantic tension, or unadulterated anger that festers between them. I personify the
plastic fowl because it's impossible for us to make eye contact while you drive around sharp
bends and because I'm almost sure you don’t know who I am anymore. Their argument comforts
me amongst my own anxiety. You tell me you have to keep your eyes on the road, even though I
can tell you wish you could talk to me. I can tell you are hungry for human connection. The
windshield is permanently cloudy. Which I think really means you should get a new windshield.
You say it has been a while since you have driven at night, that you stopped doing that years ago.
I guess you’d have no reason to drive through rolling hills in midnight darkness. I think it might
make you feel more alone. I just assume you feel alone now. The silence of the desert seeps
through the crack in the window like a sleeping potion. You wince as you shift in the raggedy
seat cushion, and my eyelids begin to fall as I sit in mine. Adrenaline begs them to stay open.We
come to a flat expanse, you roll the windows up and say:
“So why don’t you, let me tell you how he died, the whole story.”
That wasn’t a question. I’m not sure I'm prepared to hear this story yet. My mom says in
whispers that he is a narcissist and doesn’t let other people’s emotions affect his behavior.
He begins without my response for confirmation, I wonder if he can hear the way he used to or if
it is just entitlement. “We were smoking in the blue chairs, you know, the blue chairs in the front
yard. (Of which I barely remember) We were enjoying our first cup of the day (Piñon coffee).
One of my favorite parts of the day. He would always wear his same cream-colored robe with
bare feet and drag me out of bed. About a half an hour later as we sat admiring our view from the
house, he put his hand over his heart and told me something was really wrong, he could tell. And
I could tell he was serious. He had to be evacuated for an emergency bypass surgery that night.
They flew him to Seattle on a helicopter.”
He’s moving his hands carelessly and slapping them down on the wheel when he talks. The
sound feels like a punch to the meat of my brain, and I find myself feeling a deep, uncalled for
sense of irritation. I check my phone and its brightness stings me. It is two forty three in the
morning. I hadn’t seen Will since I was 11. I finally close my eyes, lay my head back on the
headrest, and picture his body in the hospital bed. Lanky, with a beer belly, stringy gray hair with
a shiny bald head poking through, a perfect sphere of caramel sunlight. He usually wore a small
cap that sat right on top of the shiny bald spot. I only remember him joyfully, and recall his
outrageousness and charisma. I struggle to conjure up a sickly image of him. A dying image of
him.
…
Grandpa never listened to the radio. It was no different that early afternoon as he hurtled up the
mountain’s serpentine paths with the front end car teetering precariously towards the sky. Sweat
droplets sprouted from his forehead, not because he was criminal, but because the grief was
bleeding through his skin and from his eyes too as tears slid gracefully through the valleys in his
cheeks.
Will lay flat on his back under a tarp, resting (eternally) in the trunk of the blue pickup. His wish
was to sleep forever next to a mountain stream and to let the earth consume his skin until he was
part of it again. The roots of a tree, feeding the leaves and drinking in the sunlight again.
Finally, Grandpa arrived, wheels burrowed in the mud, forging tire prints in the untouched earth.
He heaved Will from the trunk using the strength he had left,with the muscles which seemed to
disintegrate with each passing day. They made their way through the lush May grasses.
…
I’m in your home now, cluttered with Will’s belongings. He hoarded, but also created beautiful
things. His dolls, each a unique masterpiece, line the shelves on the walls and sit perched on
wooden beams above me. Half-naked dolls, dolls with small heads and beady eyes, and
human-sized mannequins made entirely of compact styrofoam. Templates of people waiting to
be created, people that never would be. The room is lit only by a stout desk lamp layered with
the desert’s dust. In that moment I shiver, even in August heat, because I feel Will is watching
me through his doll’s eyes. He’s wishing me a lovely trip in the country. That’s when I started
feeling Galisteo Blue.
