The Pot Thief Who Studied D. H. Lawrence Read online

  My first thought on seeing her wedged behind the wheel was that the real reason she didn’t come in was it would take the jaws-of-life to get her out of the car. It looked like she had gained another stone since I saw her.

  “I’m going to Bernalillo,” she said. “You want to follow along as you head north?”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I have to swing by and pick up Susannah.”

  “You didn’t tell me Susannah was going,” she said in a tone that made me uneasy.

  “It was a last minute decision.”

  “I hope you and your girlfriend have a great time. Don’t bother to call me when you get back.”

  I was stunned. “Susannah and I are just friends. You are my girlfriend.”

  “Right,” she said sarcastically. “You won’t even make love to me.”

  “But I told you why—”

  “Forget it. The real reason why I don’t want to see you anymore is you stole my dog.” Then she spattered me with gravel as she spun the wheels on her departure.

  On the way to pick up Susannah, I tried to figure out whether I should tell her about Dolly’s dramatic visit.

  When she placed her things in the back of the Bronco next to mine, she laughed and said, “A pillow and sheets?”

  “Well,” I replied, “who knows what sort of bedding they have up there? I can’t sleep if my pillow isn’t just right.”

  “Are you bringing your blankie, too?”

  I was, as a matter of fact.

  We kept up the banter all the way to the Cochiti Pueblo with its casino sitting incongruously in the desert like a garish string of costume jewelry around the neck of the Virgin Mary. As we started up the escarpment towards Santa Fe, the air turned even colder, and Susannah turned the heater up to full blast.

  Just south of Santa Fe, we began to see snowflakes. When we got north of town, the few flakes turned into flurries, and by the time we reached Taos, the snow was falling so heavily that I had to slow down to about thirty miles an hour because of limited visibility. We crept through Taos which looked almost deserted and drove north to the Millicent Rogers Museum which looked totally deserted.

  And was, the only sign of recent human presence being a sign on the door saying the event scheduled for that evening had been cancelled because of the inclement weather. I offered to take Susannah back to Ellie’s house, but she said she didn’t know where Ellie lived, so we went to the La Fonda Hotel on the Plaza and borrowed their phone book to look up Ellie’s address.

  A stooped old clerk wearing a coat made from a Navaho blanket slapped the book on the counter. Just as she opened it, Susannah remembered that Ellie lived with her mother who had remarried, and she didn’t know her stepfather’s last name. Susannah, that is. I assume Ellie knew it, although given how ditzy she is, I wouldn’t have bet on it.

  Susannah also didn’t have Ellie’s phone number. They had agreed to meet at the Museum, so Susannah didn’t think to bring the number with her. She thought the number had 459 in it and maybe started with a 2, and she punched in several numbers at a payphone next to the counter, but that turned out to be as useful as you would expect.

  “So now what?” I asked.

  “I guess I’ll just have to get a room here until Sunday, and you can pick me up on your way back to Albuquerque.”

  The room clerk retrieved his phone book and said, “We don’t have any rooms.”

  “There are other places,” said Susannah.

  “All full,” said the clerk. “We’ve had a string of travelers in here all day because of the storm. I called all the other places for them after we filled up. There ain’t a room left anywhere.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I couldn’t let you waste time and money staying here all weekend. I’ll just drive you back to Albuquerque.”

  “No you won’t,” said the clerk with what sounded to me like a good deal of impertinence.

  “Why not?”

  “Because the Highway Patrol closed the road south of town fifteen minutes ago. I heard it on the radio.”

  The clerk was full of information I didn’t want to hear, and even though I was sure he was right, I didn’t want to continue our discussion in his presence. So I took Susannah by the arm and led her over to a couch at the opposite end of the lobby where we sat down to decide what to do.

  Which, after a good deal of discussion, was to go on to the Ranch. It was the only place where I knew I would have a room, and I figured they might have an extra one for Susannah as well. If not, she could stay in my room, and I’d sleep on the floor. The sheets and pillow I brought would come in handy.

  The only problem would be getting there. If they had closed the road going south back towards Santa Fe and Albuquerque, they would certainly have closed the one going north where the storm was even worse. And they had. A patrol car with flashing lights was parked just north of the Rogers Museum. I made a right before I got that far, drove towards the big mountain, then turned left on a small dirt road. I got out and locked the front hubs then shifted into four wheel drive and plowed slowly down the road for about five miles, which took fifteen minutes because I could only go twenty miles an hour. Then I turned left and was soon back on the main road where the going was a little easier, but it still took us two hours to reach the turnoff to the Ranch. Then the going really got fun.

  Presumably, there was a road, but it had long since disappeared under the snow. We had a general idea of where it was – somewhere between the tops of the scrub pines we could see to the right and the left. What else lay between those trees we could only guess. Ditches? Culverts? Boulders?

  I spend a lot of time in remote places searching for pots, and I’m a cautious sort of fellow, so I keep warm clothes, extra batteries, water, a candle, matches, and other essential supplies in the back of the Bronco. I put on most of the clothing, including hightop insulated boots and heavy gloves. I took out a long thin piece of rebar I use for probing in the dirt and used it to poke into the snow to locate the edge of the road. Then I walked the three miles to the Conference Center with Susannah driving slowly behind me. When we were about five hundred yards from the Conference Center, I saw ruts in the deep snow headed off at an angle to the right and was confused. I poked around with the rebar and determined that we should continue straight ahead, and we did so, with me silently cursing the delay when we were almost there. I trudged on like Nanook of the North and finally arrived seven hours after leaving Albuquerque at a place you can normally drive to in three hours.

  I was tired, cold, hungry, and thirsty.

  19

  The warm yellow glow from the windows in the Conference Center and the smoke from its chimney conveyed a warm and well-deserved welcome.

  The two men who met us at the door conveyed anything but.

  The first was Chauncey Benthrop, a name he pronounced as if we should know it. He added that he was a Full Professor of Literature at the University of New Mexico, placing heavy emphasis on the word “full.”

  Benthrop was a couple of inches taller than me but thinner, with a drawn face and a long pinched nose with nostrils that looked like coin slots. His brown hair was in a ponytail and his pointed chin was only slightly obscured by a wispy Fu Man Chu. He had long yellow teeth that showed when he said, “Who might you be?”

  He was wearing brown corduroy slacks and a darker brown cable sweater. His hand held a glass of brown liquid, Scotch if the color was any indication. I didn’t like his clothes, his beard, his looks, or his officious manner. I don’t like Scotch either, but I didn’t hold that against him. What I disliked most of all was being kept out in the snow.

  “I might be Dashiell Hammett,” I said, forcing my way past him. Susannah slid in behind me.

  The second man was Charles Winant, a rotund man with a prominent belly and a head like a gourd with two cold blue eyes under black shiny hair combed straight back. He wore dark slacks and a heavy red turtleneck sweater. I asked him if he was also on the program like Full Pr
ofessor Benthrop, and he said he was not.

  “Oh,” I said, “then you must be a donor to the University.”

  “Certainly not!” he replied emphatically. “The University is a den of iniquity. They promote gambling with so-called ‘casino nights’ in their dorms. Students should be taught that God rewards hard work, not games of chance. Benthrop here works there but he sees the truth – our civilization is crumbling. I tell you, Hammett, Armageddon is near.”

  “My name isn’t Hammett. It’s Hubert Schuze. I’m doing a presentation tomorrow on Indian pottery.”

  “I distinctly heard you tell Benthrop your name is Hammett.”

  “I didn’t say my name is Hammett. He asked who I might be, and I said I might be Hammett.”

  “Only a philistine could misunderstand me,” Benthrop huffed.

  “Do you specialize in the literature of the ancient Middle East?” I asked. When he didn’t get it, I felt smug. I know it was sophomoric, but Benthrop deserved it. I said nothing more. I was supposed to entertain these dignitaries, not argue with them. I decided to suffer these two fools, though I can’t say I did so gladly.

  Winant was holding what looked to be a printed program, and he looked up from it to say, “There is no mention here of your wife accompanying you.”

  “This is Susannah Inchaustigui,” I said. “She is not my wife.”

  “Then who is she?” he demanded. “I certainly hope you haven’t introduced a harlot into our midst.”

  Susannah’s big eyes narrowed as she opened her mouth, but I shot her a glance, and she said nothing. I was trying to frame a suitable response when we were rescued by a tall blonde lady with a pixie haircut and a wide mouth.

  “Pay no attention to these two old grouches,” she said and gave Winant a friendly poke in the tummy. He drew back as if her finger were a rapier.

  We had entered a foyer with a bench and a coat rack. Through an arched opening we could see people milling about in the large main room with vinyl floor tiles and high ceilings. The appeal of high ceilings was offset by the fact they were finished with acoustic tile.

  On the front wall was a large fireplace made of smooth round rocks, and in it burned a pile of split piñon logs. The walls were the earth brown of traditional New Mexico stucco but they were obviously made of gypsum board. I suppose it’s difficult to give a large public space a sense of style, but this one seemed even more institutional than most modern attempts to capture the pueblo style. Still, it was warm and bright, and we were happy to be there.

  “I’m Betty Shanile,” our rescuer said, “and you two need food and drink.”

  She led us to a table laden with both. There were bottles of all the most popular beverages except champagne, alas. There were glasses and a bucket of ice. Susannah selected white wine. I filled a squat tumbler with ice and poured myself a generous portion of Old Granddad, just the fellow I needed to warm my insides.

  I judged Betty to be in her mid-fifties. I first believed her cheeks to be naturally rosy and her lips naturally red, but nobody is born with blue skin above their eyes, so I concluded it was expertly applied make-up. She had a natural smile, casual clothes that looked expensive, and a wedding ring set with a diamond the size of a grape. She leaned over to whisper to me and her perfume was intoxicating.

  “Who is the young lady?”

  “Her name is Susannah Inchaustigui. She was supposed to attend an event at the Millicent Rogers Museum, but it was cancelled because of the snow. She had nowhere to stay, so I brought her here.”

  “Aren’t you the gentleman. And do you work at the University like Full Professor Chauncey Benthrop?”

  When she said that, I knew I was going to like her. We both laughed at the way she included his title. I told her I didn’t work at the University.

  “Where do you work, Hubie? You don’t mind if I call you Hubie, do you?”

  I told her I didn’t mind, although I did just a little because I’m not all that good at getting to know people, and I guess maybe I like the reassurance of a little formality with people I’ve known for all of five minutes. I told her I wasn’t employed anywhere, and she asked me what I did to make a living. I told her that now and then I sell a pot, which is a pretty accurate description of my business.

  “Where do you get the pots?”

  Given that some of my inventory is acquired illegally, I’m always cautious about how I answer that question when it is posed by someone I don’t know well, so I gave an evasive response. “Oh,” I said, “some of them I’ve had for years. In fact, I sometimes hate to sell them. I guess I’m attached to them, but—”

  She gave me a little squeeze and said, “Isn’t that touching?”

  Then she picked up two empty wine bottles and clanked them together, and when everyone turned at the sound, she said, “Everyone, this is Hubert Schuze, but he likes to be called Hubie.”

  I cringed.

  She continued. “He’s going through a bit of a rough patch economically...well, he’s actually not working at the moment, and he has to sell pots that have been in his family for years just to make ends meet, but he’s the perfect gentleman. This young lady is Susannah, and he met her tonight at the Rogers Museum where she was stranded, so he brought her here.”

  Susannah was looking at me as if I had lost my mind. I started to say something to the dozen or so people in the room, but they all started lining up to introduce themselves. Susannah chides me about reading books that have neither interesting fictional stories nor practical information. My usual two defenses are that learning is its own reward and that you can’t know in advance what information might turn out to be useful. Sandwiched between books by and about Lawrence, I had been reading Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer. It contained the fascinating story of Simonides of Ceos, a 5th century B.C. poet who was to be the speaker at a banquet in Thessalia. Just before the event was to begin, he was summoned outside by a messenger. While he was receiving the message, the building collapsed, and everyone inside was killed. Because they were crushed under heavy marble, there was no way to identify the corpses. Family members couldn’t figure out who they should bury. Then Simonides realized he knew exactly where everyone was seated. Foer called this event ‘The Beginning of Memory’.

  Simonides’ method is known today as the memory palace technique, a mnemonic device for remembering sequences based on spatial relationships. Simonides remembered who was seated to his left, who was seated at the table across from him, the location of the tall attractive woman, who was on her right, etc. Of course it’s one thing to remember spatial relationships you have actually seen but quite another to remember ones that you invent. Yet it is the invented ones that are the key to the memory palace technique. You can memorize a sequence of unrelated things – a list of names, for example – by creating a ‘mental walk’, placing the items from the list on a familiar path.

  Suppose I had to memorize the menu at La Placita and the items were cheese enchiladas, beef enchiladas, chicken enchiladas, tacos and beans. I imagine myself walking through my house after I wake up. The first place I go is the bathroom. I imagine a big triangular slab of cheese on the floor serving as a doorstop. Then I move to the toilet but there is a big cow sitting on it. I turn to the sink to brush my teeth and there is a chicken nesting in the lavatory. I go to the kitchen to make coffee and the coffee filter is bent into the shape of a taco. Of course the coffee beans turn out to be pintos.

  Memorizing cheese enchiladas, beef enchiladas, chicken enchiladas, tacos and beans is not that difficult. But I would probably forget the order within a few hours. But the memory walk I just described could be recalled days or even months later. I know this because it’s the sequence I used to test the technique, and now I can’t forget it even though I want to. Every time I go to the bathroom, I see that damn cow on my toilet.

  I decided to use the technique to memorize the names of the people at the Ranch.

  The fir
st person in the impromptu receiving line was a tall dark man with large limpid eyes and a full head of hair combed into a pompadour.

  “Srinivasa Patel,” he said with a broad smile and a thick accent as he shook my hand vigorously.

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said. “About my pot selling—”

  “The less said the better, right? At least you have something to sell. I believe you have a saying in America, ‘He doesn’t have a pot to...’ well, I shouldn’t say the rest.”

  “What do you do, Mr. Patel?”

  “Please call me Srini. I work for the University of New Mexico.”

  “In fund-raising?”

  He laughed. “Oh, no. I know nothing of that.”

  “Are you on the faculty?”

  “Technically, yes. But I’m currently on leave. I actually teach—”

  I didn’t find out what he taught because a tall man with silver hair and a golden tan pried my hand away from Srini and introduced himself as Robert Saunders.

  “The pots I sell—” I started.

  “Are your own,” he finished for me, although that was not what I was going to say. “I was a judge for many years before I retired. I can assure you that selling pot is illegal.” He slapped me on the back. “But selling pots isn’t.”

  While he was laughing at his little joke, I started to question his comment on the legality of selling pots. “Well, there is a law called the Archaeological Resources Protection Act.”

  He shook his head. “Totally unenforceable unless they catch you in the act. If possession of an artifact were a crime, half the people in New Mexico would be in prison. I finally had to tell prosecutors not to clutter my docket with those cases because I was going to summarily dismiss all of them.”