Quiet Desperation

Part One: AL AZAR

by R.M. Dolin

Copyright 2013

The Mass of Men Lead Lives of Quiet Desperation Henry David Thoreau

CHAPTER 1: The Madness of Memories

Jake is awake and dressed ahead of Emelia's alarm. How can he possibly sleep? How can anyone with so much unsettledness stirring? But everyone does. At their peril people sleep in the placid security of dreams as if that's enough to keep the harshness of life and the absoluteness of night at bay.

And therein lies the rub, Jake reminds himself with recursively redundant regularity.

Routines, like five o'clock alarms, matter to Jake. They're reassuring. Knowing what happens next. Where to be. What to be doing. It steadies his mind and minimizes anxiety. He's not opposed to change. Chaos is even welcome so long as a path through it is navigated. In the careful calculus of life, men like Jake recognize when something must be done, it's not knowing what that something is that's so disconcerting. This is why he patiently sits on the edge of his bed, a silhouette on darkness, waiting to be released.

Jake needs his first thoughts each day to be of Emelia. Yes he's awake and fully dressed for his morning ride, but still he waits. Only after Emelia's alarm reassures him in necessary terms that his life is blessed can he leave.

Years ago Emelia downloaded a song from Casablanca to use as an alarm tone. Not 'As Time Goes By' as people always assume, but the French National Anthem from the scene in Rick's Café the night Laszlo rallies his fellow expatriates to openly defy their German oppressors. For Emelia, Laszlo is the most heroic man in cinema. She often reminds Jake that true heroes fight for causes regardless of consequence. Of all the charming things Jake loves about his wife, he admires the way she draws inspiration from a movie and uses it as a foundational philosophy.

Each night Emelia sets her phone on the nightstand and promptly sleeps through the alarm the following morning requiring Jake to crawl over her to shut it off.

Oh mon amour, She answers in a sultry voice rich with French overtones whenever he complains. It is this side of heaven to awaken with your naked body touching mine.

How does any man offer a reasonable retort to that? Jake repeatedly whispers to the lonely echo of his memories.

#

Something's not right, Jake grouses in agitated breath as crisp high desert air draws deep into his over exercised lungs. Reluctantly he vectors his gray vintage bike off the paved road to begin the undulating climb up his dusty driveway. And I ain't making that freaking mistake again.

Before the rear derailleur's down-shifted to a climbing gear he's lost to the many manic thoughts simultaneously racing through his mind. Repeatedly he attempts to put mathematical context around his yet to be defined uneasiness. One thing painfully clear to this one-time nuclear weapons engineer is that the answer lies in numbers. Patterns in numbers provide an unseen window to interconnected worlds. The seemingly simple way unrelated aspects of life elegantly link in what appears to be random ways is nothing short of intoxicating. At least for someone who's always been enamored with numerology.

As the long pull up the driveway draws him deeper into his thoughts Jake considers how May 5th is connected to his ill-fated feeling. With parallel connectivity he considers the causal link between the bright April day thirty-one years ago when he first met Emelia and the distressingly dark morning three years ago when his life suddenly without warning went to shit.

If I can just decode the connections, he castigates himself while coasting to a stop in front of his courtyard vainly hoping that vocalizing the problem makes it easier to solve. Then I'll understand how she kept things from me. Jake hops off his bike and leans it against the tan stucco wall. This is going to screw with me all freaking day.

Not dismissing an unexplained sense something is awry even when no causal pattern is apparent, is the brutal lesson from three years ago, which is why Jake arrives at the Al Azar an hour before poker officially starts.

I'm telling you Mandy, something's not right, Jake reiterates.

Armando glides a freshly made cocktail across the bar's ancient oak. The whiskey glass casually slides along its journey passing over layer stacked upon layer of rich gloss stained black from years of spilt anguish and sorrow. Are you saying it's because it's May 5th, or because it's Cinco de Mayo?

Don't dismiss numbers, Jake warns. That's all I'm saying.

What's it been, Cabron, three years? Armando frets with a bar towel reluctant to open the Pandora's Box Jake's poking at. You act all weird about some sense but we both know what's going on. Sometimes my friend, there are no explanations.

It's not about that Jake fires back. Some serious shit's coming. I feel it.

Allergy medication, Armando deduces. Mixing with bourbon. The madness of May devilishly dancing on the coattails of the Santa Anna's.

May finds the Northern New Mexico Mountains on both sides of the upper Rio Grande valley alive with newness. Grass came up strong this year carpeting the forest floor with a rich green strengthened further by deep cloudless skies. Grass in May is not normal but fires last fall rekindled growth this spring. High mountain flowers also bloomed early in defiance of the still frigid nights. Giant ponderosa stand tall like primordial pillars protecting the last remaining lands untouched by modernization. Elder piñon provide the Jemez Mountains on the valley's west side their mysterious magic while giving the Sangre de Cristo's on the valley's opposite side an enchanting mysticism that's drawn transcendentalist from diverse cultures for centuries. But as grand and stately as these custodial evergreens are it's their unruly cousin, the juniper, causing the madness contained in a Northern New Mexico May.

Warm days yield to callously cold nights stirring the juniper's dichotomous nature. A twisted tormented evergreen whose stringy bark and sparse foliage permits it to thrive in the harsh desert. The danger with Juniper lays in the way it lures you close with its intoxicating aroma only to bite you once near with its overpowering allergens. When allied with the mighty Santa Anna winds blowing with seasonal voracity, juniper pollen cakes the valley in a cloud of nasal suffering no one escapes.

I had the same unsettledness then and ignored it. Jake mumbles.

It's the juniper, Cabron. Armando knows from the countless times they've recycled this conversation that Jake will compulsively obsess until completely lost. Cinco de Mayo is just another day, que no? Perhaps I should stop serving you. A liquored-up man with such an active imagination only leads to me getting in trouble.

Way to make it all about you.

Allergy season in the high desert grinds people down with a slow relentless pursuit until the body surrenders all resistance. Until you feel something desperate needs to be done. Until the entire valley is foreshadowed in a collective sense something ominous is afoot. This is why May finds Northern New Mexicans on edge. Even Armando's on edge, he just hides it better than most and effectively keeps himself from finding out.

Anyone paying even modest attention understands this is a season when status quo can't be sustained. Most agree whatever comes next rides the crescendo wave of the Santa Anna's – swirling pollen laden dust in a devil's vortex leaving no doubt that the innocent purity of late season snow is being subsumed by something more sinister.

It's more than that, Jake flatly adds. He sips his cocktail and nods approvingly at his Mixologists. Black bottle bourbon?

If you're going to talk nonsense, Cabron, what else can it be?

There's nothing wrong with being lost in the past, Jake states. A man has a right to live where he feels most alive. He stares solemnly at his hand swirling the cocktail glass along the bar in recursive patterns of spiral condensation. But here's the deal, these past few years I've come to respect how nature warns us. When you slow down and empty your soul, she reveals her secrets.

As if hypnotized Jake's conscious and subconscious cross over each other as the spiral condensation rings metaphorically dive inward taking him to darker depths. Something's not right. That much I know.

Eee Cabron, Armando sings. The Santa Anna's are to blame for sure. Every time the damn pollen settles, the wind whips it back up just to piss me off.

Allergy season lingers longer on the Sangre de Cristo side of the valley. It's a contributing factor for why folks in Santa Fe are more laid back than those in the central valley village of Española or the high tech alpine town of Los Alamos. Imagine an entire city entranced in varying regiments of anti-allergy treatment. Like zombies on the move, Santa Feans get through their days and nights in a perpetual state of sedation. Some seek homeopathic solutions. Others are convinced Jake's gin made from local juniper is the remedy. For most, it's a constant cocktail of whatever over-the-counter and prescription drugs make getting through the day bearable.

You could always move, Jake says sarcastically.

After five hundred years, Cabron, my blood's adobe red. But you, with your Ph.D. and Lab experience, you don't have to define this as paradise.

I didn't come for the allergies, that much is certain. Jake continues chasing the cascading spirals quasi-convinced if he gets to the end, answers to all his questions will be revealed. Like everyone in LA, I came to work at the Lab. Keep in mind it was a pretty prestigious gig back in the day. I was just a pup filled with potential, passionate about doing my part to keep the nation secure.

Remember the old road? Armando exploits an opportunity to change topics. He grabs a can of Coors Light from the beer cooler below the bar and cracks it open. Two freaking hours just to get home.

The distance between Los Alamos and Española is not measured in miles or time. It's beers; as in 'made it home in three beers and had to cruise until the rest were gone'. Before the by-pass at the base of Totavi Hill, the Los Alamos to Española commute could easily extend beyond a six pack. It's hard to believe with today's mores, but open container laws were not enforced when Jake arrived in Los Alamos and the busiest place at five O'clock was Philomino's drive-up liquor store. Over the years drive-up liquor stores became extinct under the pressure of political correctness. Concurrently, ever toughening open container laws pretended to increase the consequence of drinking and driving. Predictably though, neither socially engineered solution's done much to reduce the practice.

The race home was insane, Cabron. People drinking, passing on the shoulder, driving up on each other's ass. The Española 500 is not for the faint of heart.

That's why I lived in LA, Jake says unapologetically. He surrenders to the realization his condensation rings have no end. I don't know how the hell you put up with that crap every damn day.

We had nothing else to do, Armando quips. Get home quickly, you drink alone. Long commute, you drink with friends. Now we scurrying through life never taking time to talk or hang out. That long commute was good, Cabron.

When you get past the whole drinking and driving thing you mean.

Well there is that. Armando grins mischievously.

I never meant to live my life here you know, Jake resets. It was supposed to just be a summer detour.

I started as a high school intern, Armando reminisces. I was a sophomore when Maria got pregnant. We married of course so I needed a job. No one pays the natives like a National Lab.

You never went to university?

What's a Northern New Mexico hommie like me going to do at college?

Never worked anywhere else?

When my people first arrived five-hundred years ago, they could have settled in Mexico or Arizona, hell even Colorado. But they picked here. Why I probably don't know but who am I to question the wisdom of my elders? Besides, in the real world they'd expect me to actually work, how then could I enjoy my life?

Even once I stayed, it was only supposed to be short term. Jake continues on his track. But the Decision Theory group had interesting projects so I stayed and did a couple Nevada test shots. Jake sips his bourbon allowing a lifetime of memories to flow along his mind's well trenched trails. That was interesting, he adds as an afterthought. Then I worked on Reagan's Star Wars; that was pretty cool. I was for sure leaving after King George killed the Lab with his nuclear test ban treaty but was still on board when Clinton turned us into a bizarro industry think tank so his cronies could access national secrets.

That was the beginning of the end for sure, Cabron.

Once the Mind's Eye project ended there wasn't anything left for me.

That was some bat-shit kind of crazy you guys were into. Armando wipes away the condensation rings on his bar believing that will erase Jake's journey. He admires his friend for what the Mind's Eye project created but is equally disgusted by how their technology has since been exploited.

Mea Culpa, Jake mumbles with an acceptance worn from repetition. He picks up his bourbon lamenting why he's not like levitated ice when drowning in sadness. I wanted to leave after Mind's Eye but Emelia had her Chemistry gig and LA's a great place to raise kids.

Jake pauses to reflect on the consequence of his decision. I was done though. Utterly empty. I spent my lingering years just wandered around the Lab looking for something interesting. Mostly getting in trouble. Management doesn't like you persistently pointing out that their busywork has no technical value.

Look at us now, Cabron. Fat pensions. Few expenses. Living large. Wasn't it worth it?

Not when you adjust for frustration. Toward the end I did meaningful work maybe two months per year. The rest of the time I goofed off, got in trouble and wasted my talent on ridiculous crap to appease Washington bureaucrats.

Life's too short to waste away doing nothing, Armando echoes in a way that suggests he doesn't really mean it.

That's what I said the day I turned in my badge. I couldn't take the nothingness of nothing and had to get out.

Then you and Emelia started the distillery, que no?

It was her idea. Jake takes his time flowing over one of his favorite memories. With her chemistry background and being from France starting a winery was a fait accompli. Distilling was also her idea. No interesting engineering in running a winery, but distilling! Jake adds with excitement. Every day's sprinkled with sunshine.

You make the best bourbon and gin, that's for sure. And your wines, Cabron, muy bueno. It's a shame though you don't make Mula.

Jake takes a long sip of bourbon knowing better than to take the bait. After a pause he pushes himself against his hardest memory. The five years we worked together were hands down my best. There was such a sense of newness. Each expansion, miscalculation and mistake an enjoyable adventure. After years of having the life sucked out of me at the Lab I finally found something to reignite my passions. Which is why, Jake strains to control the lump in his throat, what happens next is so hard.

The boys and me thought for sure you'd go back to North Dakota.

South Dakota, Jake fires back with regional indignation.

Whatever, Armando dismissively smirks.

I thought about going home, but here's the deal; after thirty-five years in the high mountain desert I'd become a New Mexican.

I scoff at your thirty-five years, Armando laughs. Talk to me when you're here twenty generations.

Jake smiles devoid of emotion. Staying just gave me more peace than leaving.

I for one am glad you stayed. The Al Azar wouldn't be the same without your uplifting presence. And it goes without saying the ANA wouldn't even exist.

Decisions do define us don't they, Jake states with finality. He slams his empty cocktail glass on the bar emphasizing his point.

#

If you ask Jake and Armando to list things they most enjoy, each would independently put playing poker every Thursday night at the Al Azar in their top five. What's odd though is today's Saturday and in all the calculus of Jake's anxiety riddled analysis about ominous undertows; it never occurs to him that a compounding factor is Armando moving poker on account of Cinco de Mayo.

What's even more confounding is that poker's really just a cover for the ANA. It's odd indeed that a person of Jake's mathematical prowess who's so enamored with numerology and how the past provides a pretext for the present doesn't see so many catalysts for change aligning. Perhaps though, it can be explained away by the extent to which his mind is lost to the madness of memories.

CHAPTER 2: Al Azar

The Al Azar used to be hard to find as it's down a seldom traveled cottonwood-lined service road a mile off the highway that connects Española with Santa Fe. Thanks to smart phones and GPS that's no longer the case. The bar is situated along the private property side of the Nambe River. The opposite bank is Pueblo land. Calling the Nambe a river is high desert sarcasm since it's dry most of the year. The private property side lies in a narrow flat part of Nambe valley. A large hill rises up on the Pueblo side. At the top of the hill the Pojoaque Pueblo recently opened the Wind River Casino. Unlike their other gaming properties, the Wind River is an upscale resort hotel and casino targeting affluent residents of Los Alamos, bored Santa Fe trust funders and deep pocket tourist who can afford to vacation in Santa Fe and Taos.

Unfortunately, Armando is fond of saying, money's not like shit, it doesn't flow downhill.

Locals welcomed the high paying jobs casinos provide. Finally, many said, a Northern New Mexico industry that doesn't involve building nuclear weapons.

Over time most came to lament how the casinos changed everything. First came the mobile homes. Then came the people who live in mobile homes. The influx of easy money changed even life-long valley residents. Now there's crime, drugs, even prostitution. Folks have to lock their doors and be mindful not to leave things in their yards or cars. If you poll old timers they'll readily concede building bombs is a better business. At least it brings a better class of people to the valley. For the most part locals don't mind eccentric Los Alamos Ph.Ds. What offends them is that after seventy years the intellectuals on the hill haven't assimilated into Northern New Mexico culture.

I should put a sign up, Armando constantly threatens. No mobile homers. No gamers. No trust funders. No tourist. . . Labies welcome with adult supervision.

Al Azar in old Spanish means chance, as in game of chance rather than chance encounter. Of course as Armando always caveats, it is perhaps a double entendre, Cabron.

As the Al Azar's only bartender, Armando, opens when he gets around to it and closes whenever something more interesting suggests his attention. This aligns his bar with most valley businesses. The Al Azar used be his Dad's and his Dad's Dad before that. Local lore maintains Armando's grandfather was part of the legendary Quintana Brothers illegal liquor enterprise that started during Prohibition and operated openly into the nineteen-fifties. If the stories are true, the Al Azar is the remaining remnant of those lawless days. Armando refuses to ever answer in a clear way about the true history of his bar or his family's involvement with the Quintana Brothers.

If you need know, Cabron, Armando responds sarcastically when questioned, you already do.

Armando's the same age as Jake. At five foot nine and two-hundred and twelve pounds, he's shorter and noticeably heavier. While Jake cycles regularly, Armando leads a more sedate life sustaining himself on a diet of domestic beer and traditional Northern New Mexico cuisine; a staple rich in lard. His thick silver hair has a playful waviness that ironically helps him look young and full of life.

The boys will be here soon, Armando offers while mixing Jake a fresh cocktail.

I have to say, Jake teases. "I thought you were nuts moving poker. But judging from the crowds or lack there-of, it was the right call.

My secret was spending all week promoting the concert at the Wind River. Let the crazies go there I say.

Once a week Jake, Armando and the rest of the Americans for a New America (ANA) play poker at the Al Azar. The ANA is officially a poker group comprised of retired Laboratory workers. Unofficially it's a bunch of old men who get together to gossip and complain. Jon coined their name based on his observation that they don't so much gamble as they do psychoanalyze everything wrong with local, national and world affairs. If you live in America you already know how screwed up federal government is.

The Feds have nothing on our patron system of corruption, Armando readily points out whenever there's a political scandal. It's our fault I suppose. We intentionally elect stupid people so we feel better about ourselves.

The poker group started twenty years ago by Jake, Preston, Dominic, Jon, Theo and Dwayne as a way to decompress from the intensity of the Mind's Eye project. The Soviet Union had just collapsed and the nuclear test ban treaty was a year from ratification. Politically and socially the world was immersed in an unprecedented state of chaos. The Internet age was mushrooming and with it, unintended transformations cascaded through countries and cultures in ways no one foresaw. Government, nervously paranoid about all this swirling chaos, struggled to figure out how it could be controlled. Their manic anxiety manifested in the creation of the Mind's Eye project and its extreme pressure to produce results.

The Mind's Eye charter was as politically simple as it was technically complex. Politically the goal was creation of a capability that allowed government to survey rouge nations and clandestine groups to measure their willingness to wage war and the extent to which they could be successful. The technical goals were far more immense. First, how does one establish a capability to continuously survey an entire nation using rapidly evolving Internet and cellular technology without being detected? And if that even could be done, how does one store the massive amounts of copious data that's generated in a way that can be readily retrieved? Then how does one go about mining the data for random bits of disparate information that can be logically strung together to discern a credible threat?

Jake was the Mind's Eye project lead. While still early career he had already distinguished himself as possessing that rare combination of being technically gifted and creatively unbridled. The thing about technologists, especially gifted intellectuals, is they make their contributions early. By thirty, most engineers, mathematicians and physicists have peaked. If they haven't made a contribution to their field by then, they probably won't.

Jake first recruited Preston and Dwayne to the Mind's Eye project because his team's initial tasking was to develop an ability to discern if a rogue entity was developing nuclear capabilities. For that he needed a chemist and a metallurgist. Once those technical foundations were established, the team created a capability to assess whether or not a rogue entity was plotting to attack. For that Jake needed programmers good at neural networks and data structures so he recruited Dominic, Jon and Theo.

After a year of intense effort the team surpassed all expectations by establishing a revolutionary capability based on Internet and cell phone monitoring that could continuously gather massive amounts of meta-data across an entire nation and mine the data for threads of logically connected knowledge. During development, the team was repeatedly assured their capability would only be used for nuclear security – to keep the nation one step ahead of terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction. It was only years later that Jake and his team realized their technology had become the backbone of NSA, CIA, FBI, DIA, DHS and other three letter agencies' bastardized internal and external surveillance programs.

Jake vividly remembers how proud his team was for the foundational contributions they made in the fields of information acquisition and data mining. They were equally proud of the role they played in keeping the nation safe; especially after it spiraled into paranoid schizophrenia in the aftermath of nine-eleven. Unfortunately though, over time he and his team came to realize their work opened a Pandora's Box of governmental hubris that could never be closed. They started playing poker as a pretext for discussing what went wrong and for working through the anger and shame wrought by what they clearly understood would go down in history as a technical aberration as egregious as many believe the Manhattan Project itself to have been.

Unable to reconcile their guilt, Jake and his team continued to meet and deliberate the implications of their work until it became an institutionalized part of who they are. Ten years ago Armando joined. He and Jake had become friends when they worked together at the plutonium manufacturing facility. Dario joined two years ago, also on Jake's recommendation.

Like thousands of loosely formed groups of old men across the country the ANA debate, dissect, de-construct, and dismember national and local events never short of knowing which politicians to blame and what they'd do to fix problems once and for all. What makes the ANA unique is the level of insight they bring to both problems and solutions. It's as simultaneously impressive as it is worrisome to people who sit in super-secret government centers carefully watching what people like them are up to.

If the Watchers ever get wind of the ANA, warning sirens will sound throughout Washington and reverberate around the world. This is why Thursday night poker at the Al Azar is cloaked in secrecy. Something that is exceedingly comfortable for all its members.

I hope Dario makes it, Armando states while getting a second beer. It's good to have a brother to balance out you brainiacs.

He said he was coming. Jake smiles sardonically. Which can only mean one thing.

In unison, Jake and Armando jovially state the obvious, He's been banned again.

The boys of the ANA are all good natured and enthusiastically enjoy teasing each other. Their constant bantering follows the passive aggressive format ingrained in Northern New Mexico culture. When topics become heated and emotions run high, they don't take it personal no matter how explosive or over the top things get. These guys are highly skilled at argument and persuasion. After all, for their entire careers that's what they did, defend ideas and challenge others to provide persuasive counter positions.

He'll never learn, Jake demurs.

What can I say, Cabron, we Hispanics are a passionate people.

Being banned tonight has to suck. All the amateurs are out.

Lambs at the slaughter, Cabron.

You have to marvel at how Madison Avenue so successfully fabricated a holiday entirely devoted to drinking, Jake comments.

After what they did with Christmas, it's the logical next step.

In Mexico, Cinco de Mayo is no big deal. In America however, the alcohol industry has successful created a holiday akin to Saint Patrick's Day with the added advantage of being totally devoid of a religious pretext while retaining compelling reasons to consume massive amounts of alcohol.

I hate dealing with drunks, Armando complains. Especially tourist who come out on amateur night. They have no respect for people or place.

It's not like me and the boys got anything going on. Except, Dario, that is.

Did he ever say what happened? Armando asks.

He punched a guy from Ohio, who Dario says was a brother. After losing half his chips on a poorly played hand, the brother insults Dario's Mom. Dario asked him to take it back. When he doesn't, Dario reaches over the table and decks him.

It may be okay back east to insult another man's Mom, but in Northern New Mexico, Cabron, any man would have done the same.

Apparently, Jake confirms. As validation of his righteousness he only got a one week suspension.

Usually that earns him four to six, Armando shrugs. He's half way through a year-long suspension at the Tesuque Pueblo casino for breaking the jaw of that trust-funder who arrogantly accused him of cheating.

Dario may have anger management issues, Jake concedes. But he never cheats.

True dat, Armando confirms. His grandson Benito taught him his new favorite expression at his nephew's birthday party last weekend at the Standing Rock Casino bowling alley.

Tonight's slow, even by usual Cinco de Mayo at Al Azar standards. Maybe the cold font dropping down from Colorado pushing the La Nina weather south has something to do with it. Probably though, it's the retro rock concert at the Wind River, which always draws a huge crowd. Just as the ANA members simultaneously arrive promptly at seven, two Mexicans wander in and grab the first two bar stools near the front door. While Armando saunters down the bar to help his unexpected patrons, Preston grabs beers for the boys that they keep in a display case behind the bar. Their private stock is noticeably out of place as the only craft beer in the joint.

Customers, Jon bemoans. He slides out a seat at the poker table as the rest of his cohorts take their places. No ANA tonight.

Just as good, Dominic contends.

I don't know, Theo challenges as he grabs a deck of cards and starts to shuffle. One might say it's a sign something ominous is afoot.

That's what I've been saying all day, Jake enthusiastically interjects.

It's Cinco de Mayo, Dwayne grouses with authority as he clears this throat. You have to expect wacky-ass stuff.

While the boys make