P.N.ZOYTLOW

Zoytlow, in an observational aspect,  was driving East across the deserts of southern Arizona and New Mexico on Interstate 10 when a fabulous opportunity presented itself. The road had been labeled the Pearl Harbor Memorial Highway. He had occasionally noted the number of memorials established in communities concerning the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Everywhere Zoytlow had encountered those magnetized ribbons attached to the rear end of cars which variously asked that the troops be supported, that America be blessed, or that all must heed that  “these colors do not run.”  These were motorists pledged never to forget 9/11.  And there were the personalized veteran’s plates that provided information about  the owner of the vehicle:  Purple Heart, Gulf War Veteran, POW-Vietnam, or simply World War II Vet.  The open road was also the way of patriotism.

Columbus, New Mexico is a very small town thirty miles south of the big Interstate  and just above the border with Mexico. Here, on March 16, 1916, Francisco “Pancho” Villa chose to attack the United States of America for reasons related more to Mexican internal politics than the need to vent a spleen or two to the North.  He hoped to embarrass his political enemies by causing the U.S. to retaliate. It worked, sort of. U.S. troops crossed into Mexico and even used airplanes to try and find him, but they failed.  Villa’s raid became one of only handful of actual violations of Fortress America by combatant “outsiders.” This puts him in the same company as the British who burned the White House in 1812, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on the “day of infamy” in 1941 and, of course, Osama Bin-Ladin’s horrific masterwork in 2001. Imagine, a little town in New Mexico having a place on the charm bracelet of national trauma?  How had they dealt with it and had they exploited it?  What sights, sounds, and souvenirs awaited the tourist who took that half hour south to reach the scene of this earlier outrage?  It’s said that during the raid one of Villa’s men had shot at the town clock and it had stopped at 4:10 AM.  Was the clock still there and could you buy a t-shirt with the clock on it? How about an ashtray with Villa’s raffish face?  Maybe CDs with songs of the Mexican Revolution and U.S. Army songs of the era? Would there be Pancho-burritos or burgers in honor of General Pershing? Surely little Columbus must be milking the event in a big way. Would Zoytlow’s strictly enforced time limit of 75 minutes for this research be enough to take it all in?

New Mexico State Highway 11, straight and flat for all of the thirty miles to Columbus, failed to have even one sign advertising what must be the town’s singular attraction: its glorious victimhood. Instead Zoytlow was given to ponder one of those Adopt-a-Highway signs which announced that the next mile or so would be cleansed by “ Elizabethans, Arabians, and Belgians.”  Whatever that really meant, the literal possibilities were thickly entertaining just thinking about how those diverse groups (horse people?) would agree to groom the same stretch of highway.  Then came Son-Shine Baptist Church at the crossroads communtiy named Sunshine.  Interesting, but not too interesting.  Finally, a sign that announced that Pancho Villa State Park was so many miles ahead.

Columbus has about 1700 inhabitants, most of them poor and of Mexican descent. From the corner of Broadway and Highway 11 you can see the Mexican border three miles to the south. A glowering black water tank dominated the town and got darker and larger as the sun hung lower in the sky. It was 5:00 PM, a very stupid time to come to town and investigate anything. The historical museum in the old train station was closed, the streets were empty, and a huge silence crushed the landscape. It was as if all sound and all life had been neutralized. Unnerving, of course. There were no obvious places of business except for the (closed) antique shop in the old jail. On the north side of the village stood a Fina gasoline station which, though dimly lit, seemed to be open, but who knew?  Driving along the few streets yielded nothing  on Villa except for the (closed) Pancho Villa Cafe, a windowless affair with a gnome-like caricature of the terrorist above the door.

The sixty-acre Pancho Villa  State Park was once Camp Furlong, the object of the Villista raid in 1916. The park contains a few old buildings of the era, but as these were closed there no reporting their contents though they are said to contain examples of automobiles of the time employed by Pershing’s soldiers, with poor results, to chase  Mexican raiders.  Villa arrived at Camp Furlong at 2:30 A.M. and then turned on the town as an afterthought on the way back to the border. He shot out the windows of most buildings, terrorized the citizens, and then torched the place. Eighteen Columbians were killed though the Army dispatched over fifty of the five hundred Villistas. But none of this was apparent today in Columbus. No memorial statuary, no fountains, not even a plaque to commemorate who had stood here and who had died there.

Only a graduate student charged with providing something of substance in a research paper or thesis can know the unease which Zoytlow was feeling after nearly an hour of feckless driving and walking hither and yon wondering how Columbus remembered and then capitalized on its history. Desperate and with so little time left, Zoytlow headed for the Fina station to interview any available citizen of Columbus, New Mexico

There were two of them, a young man behind the counter and another, older man, hidden on a stool, reading a newspaper. Three impressions of the place came to the inquiring visitor: (1) the store was devoid of any souvenirs related to the High Point of Columbus History, not even a postcard, (2) the two men present did not appear willing to make small talk, much less engage in historical discourse,  and (3) the place was filled with the a rich tenor sound from a radio station from the south, perhaps in Chihuahua,  singing in a most sentimental and heartfelt style. Time to ask questions, but not too many and the interview as such proceeded quickly and in the mixed-language common to the borderlands .

“Buenos tardes, me llamo Zoytlow. About the Villa raid, do you know what happened to the town clock and might it be in the historical museum? El reloj del pueblo?”

“No se….don’t know.”

“Cuando esta abierto el Museo?”

“Todos los dias hasta las cinco de la tarde, but, maybe only afternoon Sunday.”

“ Y quien canta? Jorge Negrete is singing?”

“No, senor, ..singer, he is Pedro Infante!”

What a fool to have come asking questions in a town where they listened with reverence to the great Pedro Infante. Anyone who mistook him for Jorge Negrete was a a gringo imbecile.  But, Mexicans are usually extraordinarily courteous and the visitor was allowed to leave the Fina station and Columbus with dignity intact.

Zoytlow, an observer, drove north, away from a curious little bordertown with a sinister black water tower, too modest to capitalize on its history.