Toward Indian country

On Monday, I am going out to Gallup, New Mexico, the quirkiest place in the nation. Gallup is called the Indian capitol. It is from where most of the pretty Native wares are created; turquoise jewelry and Navajo rugs-pretty Zuni fetishes. Trading posts show saddles and rifles, rings and bracelets. Along old route 66,Hopi and Navajo children walking barefoot selling necklaces at the tables where the tourists dine. It's not an altogether happy town, but pipes in old rock and roll from the taverns. Gallup has homegrown young men walking with canes, the entire streets littered with unemployed and diabetic eye wear. There is the smell of whiskey everywhere-and the hand is always outstretched cause someone guesses you have more than them. Last time out, a man with one good eye asked me for some money. He said he hated to be this way cause he was a proud vet. He told me his name and where I could find him in the registry of names. This was just near Coal street, and later we walked by the library and he showed me the mural on a building of the original codetalkers. He pointed to one face and smiled. It wasn't him, but he said it was, and I shook his hand anyway. He told me to take care. There was caution in his tone as suddenly a gust of Gallup wind hooted down the rickety speed bumped streets. The temperature changes sometimes forty degrees daily in the high desert, in the land of coyotes and drunken dreams. So, Monday I am going to Gallup to try to understand what captivates me to this anachronized place. A place I don't understand, but which talks to me..in the codes of yesteryear.