DIRT BIKES,

DRONES,
OTHER WAYS
AND

TO FLY
Co n r ad Wessel ho eft

Hou ghton Mifflin H a rco u rt

boston  n ew york

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 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Remembering LWW 8
9
“The future was calling.”
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
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25
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27
28S
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 1
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Chapter 1 5
6
7
8
9
Kenya Man explodes out of my phone: 10
11
L.A. . . . L.A. . . . L.A. 12
Gonna get my junk in play 13
At the corner of Sunset and La Brea. 14
15
I jerk out of REM sleep, level nine. Scramble and find my 16
phone wedged under El Guapo’s ass, punch in. 17
“Dude,” I rasp, “be right out.” 18
But instead of Cam or Lobo on the other end, it’s some space 19
cowboy. 20
“Hello, is this Arlo Santiago?” 21
Everything about the voice sounds like a jail door clanging 22
shut. 23
“Am I speaking with Arlo Spencer Santiago?” 24
“Uhhhhhhhmm . . .” 25
El Guapo​ — ​“The Handsome One”​ — ​arches his back and 26
starts to hump me​ — ​his way of saying good morning. I shove 27
him, and he tumbles ass-over-floppy-ears onto the floor. Then he 28S
pops up and grins at me. 29R

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1 He’s always grinning. Humping and grinning. He’s the grin-
2 ningest, humpingest dog in the world. Probably the only stan-
3 dard poodle in all northern New Mexico.
4 “Guess so,” I say.
5 “Good morning, Arlo. I’m Major Keith Anderson, United
6 States Air Force. How are you today?”
7 I glance at the clock​ — ​6:55 a.m. Damn, just what I need, a
8 recruiter calling me at this hour. Messing with my routine.
9 I’ve polished my mornings to perfection. On the one hand, I
10 give myself Maximum Sleep (MS)​ — ​sleep to the very last mil-
11 lisecond. On the other hand, once Kenya Man starts rapping, I’m
12 up, moving fast. In five seconds, I’ve accelerated to Maximum
13 Efficiency (ME). Not to say I’m totally awake; I’m not. But my
14 body knows all the moves, how to cut the corners.
15 On a blackboard, you can write it this way:
16 MS + ME = success . . . with success being getting to school be-
17 fore the 7:29 a.m. bell.
18 I have exactly two minutes and twenty-seven seconds to piss,
19 slap water on my face, get dressed, and eat breakfast.
20 But first I’ve got to deal with this tool.
21 “It’s an honor to speak with a world champion,” the man says.
22 I rub sleep off my face. “Hey, who is this again?”
23 “Nice job yesterday on Drone Pilot,” he says. “You finally beat
24 him.”
25 “Beat who?”
26 “SergeiTashkent, of course.’ ”
27 Now he has my attention.
28S “What are you,” I ask, “the CIA or something?”
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 The jail door laughs. “No, Arlo. Merely the United States Air 1
Force.” 2
“Listen, dude . . . Major . . . whoever you are . . .” I roll out of 3
bed and whip a T-shirt off the floor. “I’m running late for school.” 4
“Sure, I’ll get to the point. We want you to fly with us.” 5
“No thanks. I’m only seventeen. Call me in a year.” 6
El Guapo leaps onto the bed and thrusts his shaggy hips at me. 7
Hump and grin, hump and grin​ — ​only God knows the mind of 8
a high desert poodle. 9
“Arlo, we’ve been following you on the leaderboards for some 10
time,” the man says. “Last night, we watched you knock Sergei 11
out of the number one position on Drone Pilot. Sergei’s a superb 12
UAV pilot, technically the best we’ve ever seen. And you beat him. 13
That was extremely smart flying.” 14
I clamp my hand on El Guapo’s snout. He freezes mid-hump. 15
“Look,” I say, glancing around for my jeans. “I don’t want to 16
join the air force.” 17
“Arlo, I’m not a recruiter.” 18
“Well, who are you, man?” 19
“I’d like to invite you to join us for war games this Saturday at 20
White Sands.” 21
“War games?” 22
I glance at the clock​ — ​6:57 a.m. Damn! 23
“You’ll get to test your skills against real pilots​ — ​some of our 24
very best.” 25
“Hold up! If you mean fly real planes, uh-uh, no way. I have no 26
idea how to fly a plane.” 27
“Not a plane, Arlo, a drone. You definitely know how to fly one 28S
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1 of those. We know that very well. It’s just like your game Drone
2 Pilot. The difference is, we make it real.”
3 “Dude,” I say, “this is way too much information. And I’m late
4 for school.”
5 “Sure, Arlo, I’ll check in later. Start thinking about Saturday.”
6 Click!
7 “Yeah,” I say, tossing my phone. “Peace to you too.”
8 Then it hits me​ — ​it’s Lobo’s Uncle Sal again​ — ​our local joker
9 and genius entrepreneur. Owner of the best coffee shop in town
10 and my sky-diving instructor for the past three years.
11 Uncle Sal has a gift for faking voices. For some reason, I’m one
12 of his favorite targets. Last time, he wanted me to enter a Rocky
13 Mountain oyster eating contest sponsored by the Daughters of
14 the American Revolution.
15 Lobo would’ve told him about my win yesterday. About se-
16 riously kicking SergeiTashkent’s butt, knocking him to number
17 two on the Drone Pilot leaderboard, which I’ve been trying to do
18 all year.
19 I am now the number one drone combat pilot in the world​ — ​
20 the virtual world, that is​ — ​until somebody kicks my butt.
21 In video games, when you reach number one, your butt is out
22 there, cheeks flapping in the wind, for anybody to kick​ — ​Sergei-
23 Tashkent, ToshiOshi, IpanemaGirl, anybody.
24 There are seven billion anybodies in the world.
25 Just the thought of Uncle Sal . . . I start to laugh. In fact, I laugh
26 so hard I trip putting on my jeans. Damn, I’m late.
27 Dad walks in, all frayed, scratching, and barely employed. He
28S taps his watch.
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 “Can I have five bucks for lunch?” 1
He winces, opens his wallet​ — ​puffy with poverty​ — ​and holds 2
out three faded ones. Says his daily mantra: “Spend it wisely.” 3
“Always do,” I say, and snatch the money. 4
“Don’t forget,” he says. “Snack Shack tomorrow night.” 5
Dad runs the concession stand at Rio Loco Field. It’s a huge 6
comedown after running a newspaper, but, hey, it pays a few bills. 7
“Who we playing?” I ask. 8
“Jeopardy,” he says. 9
“Yeah!” I say, and smack a fist into my palm. 10
Jeopardy is one of the high points of the football season. The 11
halftime show is ten times better than the game itself. 12
I dig two unmatched socks from under my bed and sniff them. 13
It’s been five months since I’ve found clean, folded, matching 14
socks in my top drawer. That’s one little difference in not having 15
a mom anymore. 16
There are many​ — ​many!​ — ​little differences. 17
“And I want to get up to Burro Mesa again,” Dad says. 18
“Not me,” I say. “You know where I stand on that, philosophi- 19
cally and spiritually and all.” 20
“Overruled,” Dad says. 21
I jam on my Old Gringos. Stomp ’em in place. Great boots, like 22
great art, get better with time. 23
“She wouldn’t’ve wanted a damn tombstone anyway.” 24
“Not a tombstone, Arlo. A monument. Get your nomenclature 25
right.” 26
Five months ago​ — ​on May fifteenth, at two-fifty in the after- 27
noon​ — ​Mom walked into the EZ Stop on South Main to buy a 28S
bottle of grape Gatorade and never walked out. 29R

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1 Siouxsie, waiting in the car, heard the shots and saw the holdup
2 guy run.
3 Siouxsie’s thirst for grape Gatorade​ — ​and Mom’s swinging
4 through that door to buy a bottle​ — ​changed day to night.
5 No sunset, twilight, or dusk in between.
6 Just​ — ​whomp!​ — ​night.
7 Dad and I have a standing disagreement over whether to build
8 a “monument” to Mom on Burro Mesa. He’s already sketched it
9 out, bought the sand. Ordered a chunk of Bandelier stone “yay
10 high by yay wide.” Written the epitaph, or inscription, or what-
11 ever you call it, a hundred times.
12 It gets longer and longer.
13 Then shorter and shorter.
14 He’s never satisfied.
15 Dad was a journalist for eighteen years, but he can’t seem to
16 write that damn epitaph. It’s beyond all his powers of creation.
17 How can he ever expect to finish a novel if he can’t write a frickin’
18 epitaph?
19 Me? I believe the sky is Mom’s monument, and the grass and
20 wind her epitaph. Burro Mesa is perfect the way it is, untouched
21 by manmade shit. To the north, you can see deep into Colorado,
22 all the way to Pike’s Peak. Look south, and you can see halfway
23 to Mexico. Up there, it’s all space, space, space. Green, blue, and
24 forever. The air just shines.
25 Last summer, we spread Mom’s ashes along the rim rocks,
26 mixed them in with the lilies, Indian paintbrush, and shooting
27 stars. I ride up there sometimes with El Guapo. Watch him run
28S amok and hump the herd while I sit and ponder. A monument
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would desecrate everything​ — ​like building a McDonald’s at the 1
bottom of the Grand Canyon. 2
Kenya Man raps out of my phone. 3
4
L.A . . . L.A. . . . L.A. 5
6
Me, I live in C.A . . . C.A. . . . C.A.​ — ​Clay Allison, New Mex- 7
ico, located just south of Butt Crack, Nowhere, at the intersection 8
of mesa dust and tractor rust. 9
This time it’s Cam. “Dude! What the​ —?” 10
“Be out in a minute,” I say. “Kick it for me.” 11
I grab a sausage off the stove, bite it, toss the rest to El Guapo, 12
and shoulder my backpack. 13
“Mornin’, Texas Slim.” 14
Siouxsie​ — ​my twelve-year-old sister​ — ​sits at the kitchen table. 15
Her hearing aids look like tiny fortune cookies beside her cereal 16
bowl. 17
“Put those in your ears,” I say. 18
She doesn’t move. Maybe she doesn’t hear me. Maybe she does. 19
I’m never exactly sure. 20
I raise my voice. “And don’t forget to feed the mares. Remem- 21
ber, one and a half quarts of oats, not two. Always feed Big Z first. 22
She’s the alpha.” 23
Siouxsie rolls her eyes. “Have faith, Texas Slim. I won’t forget.” 24
“Yeah, right,” I say. “You can’t hear a damn word I’m saying.” 25
“You said feed ’em five and a half gallons.” 26
“ONE AND A HALF QUARTS!” 27
She stirs me away with her spoon. 28S
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1 “And do NOT bring any of those barn kittens into the house
2 again,” I say. “Guapo’ll catch fleas.”
3 She clamps her hands over her ears. “Can’t hear a damn word
4 you’re sayin’, Texas Slim.”
5 Siouxsie’s got Mom’s go-your-own-way gene and nickel-hard
6 stubbornness. Plus, she’s got another gene​ — ​some trait that’s
7 popped up in Chromosome 4.
8 At first, the doctors didn’t know what to call it. They hemmed
9 and hawed, scratched and twitched, then gave it a name: Hun-
10 tington’s disease. Basically, HD creeps like a glacier, neuro-de-
11 generatively crushing a few cells at a time. Siouxsie’s main symp-
12 toms, so far, are stiffness, some loss of coordination, and some
13 hearing loss.
14 Dad doesn’t open the medical bills anymore. Just stuffs them
15 in the drawer beneath the microwave.
16 I grab my helmet and bang outside.
17 Cam and Lobo are out by the barn. Cam’s revving my bike​ — ​
18 my green Yamaha 250 four-stroke. Super-strong frame, which
19 I’ve tricked out with heavy-duty shocks.
20 I bought my Yam 250 in Santa Fe using my chunk of the life
21 insurance money. It’s a little banged up and scarred, but a great
22 bike. Mega-fast acceleration. Profound off-road and scramble ca-
23 pability. Able to handle all my abuse. Never wiped out or spilled
24 any tools.
25 Not yet, anyway.
26 I mount up, pull on my helmet. Adjust my shades. Grind the
27 throttle. Listen like a doctor to the thump-thump-thump of the
28S engine. Dirt bikes congest the way people do​ — ​they wake up
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coughing and hacking. Grinding acts like a decongestant, but the 1
best decongestant is the open road. 2
Two of the mares​ — ​Queen Zenobia and Blue Dancer​ — ​stare 3
at me from the corral. When I rev again, they flatten their ears. 4
They disapprove of my grinding Yamaha, and they disapprove of 5
Lobo and Cam. 6
Cam throws a leg over his Kawasaki KLX. 7
Lobo, decked out in his “Ride Naked” T-shirt, is saddled on 8
his Bandit 350. 9
“Top of the mornin’,” he says over the throbbing engines. 10
“Hey, I just talked to your Uncle Sal,” I say. “He wants me to 11
join the air force. The dude is crazy.” 12
Lobo nods. “All us Focazios are batshit.” 13
The screen door slaps. “Good morning, Homo sapiens!” 14
Siouxsie shouts from the porch. 15
She wraps an arm around the post. Without her hearing aids, 16
she probably can’t hear us talking, but she can definitely hear us 17
revving​ — ​even the dead can hear us revving. 18
Lobo lifts his voice. “Hey, how’s the prettiest girl in all Orphan 19
County today?” 20
“Hey, Lobo,” Siouxsie says. “Ride careful​ — ​and take care of 21
Texas Slim.” 22
“Oh, yeah, we always do,” Lobo says. “Don’t we, Texas Slim?” 23
El Guapo barks, and we’re gone. 24
25
26
27
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1
2
3
4
5
6 Chapter 2
7
8
9
10 We are three bikes spinning dust.
11 My favorite time of day.
12 A time of grinding engines and drone silence.
13 Dew, dust, and desert grit.
14 Grease smoke and sage.
15 Pure testosterone perfume.
16 Now I’m really waking up, New Mexico–style. The northern
17 plain stretches purple to Eagle Tail Mesa, then all the way to
18 Raton Pass and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains​ — ​the Blood of
19 Christ, always dying for our sins.
20 New Mexico paints this for you​ — ​the Land of Enchantment is
21 more enchanting in the morning. The colors washed, torn, and
22 bled, the slow-burning fuse of a sky. The thousand dusty shad-
23 ows. I was born here, in Clay Allison, New Mexico, a scabby dog
24 of a town that sleeps on the high plateau, snug up against Colo-
25 rado’s mountainous ass.
26 Cam, Lobo, and I cut across the back acres. Slip down into an
27 arroyo and shoot up​ — ​sailing over the toppled fence​ — ​onto Lew
28S Lopez’s property. We pass Lew’s squatting doublewide, his rusted
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pickup, weed-shrouded tractor, and unpruned pomegranate or- 1
chard. 2
I glance to make sure the light’s on in his kitchen​ — ​it is. 3
Lew’s somewhere in his nineties. A World War II vet​ — ​Iwo Jima 4
wounded and decorated. He’s half Mexican, half Navajo, half 5
Irish, half everything, which means he’s all New Mexican. And 6
he’s all alone since Inez died a few years ago. A gnarled, shriveled 7
man in red suspenders, turquoise bolo, thick glasses, and a vet- 8
eran’s cap. 9
“Arlo,” he tells me whenever I see him, “you boys sound like a 10
swarm of bees a-comin’. Slow down or you’ll break your necks.” 11
We swerve onto Lew’s access road and slow at the intersec- 12
tion of gravel and highway. Wait, as always, for Lobo to catch up. 13
Then we open the throttles. The engines scream as we buck and 14
rocket up the blacktop. 15
This morning, the highway is perfect and dry. At Gobblers 16
Knob, the grade eases downhill. There’s a semi ahead. Cam pulls 17
alongside me and gives me the finger​ — ​his way of challenging 18
me. I give him a thumbs up. 19
We close in on the semi at about eighty miles per hour. Then 20
we crank it. I glance at the speedometer. The needle jumps to 21
ninety, which is as far as the speedometer goes on my bike. But 22
speedometers are paper walls. You can break through them easily. 23
You just have to know the road, the texture of the air that touches 24
it, and how to ride the grade. A thousand little factors come into 25
play, but you can’t analyze them. Analyzing weakens you. Too 26
much thinking weakens you. The secret is to feel, sense, and re- 27
act. Simultaneously. To trust your instincts. 28S
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1 The highway bends like a hunter’s bow and starts to dip. For
2 a stretch, we’re blind to oncoming traffic. I make my move​ — ​my
3 leap around the semi. It’s an extremely stupid and dangerous
4 move​ — ​for anybody else. Today it feels exactly right.
5 Wouldn’t you know, here comes another semi rushing at me.
6 An alarm explodes in my head. Cam fades back.
7 I jam off the alarm. Shove everything out of my mind​ — ​fear,
8 worries, Dad, Siouxsie​ — ​and enter the Drone Zone.
9 Now I’m Leif Ericson standing at the prow of my Viking ship.
10 I’m Neil Armstrong bouncing on the moon.
11 In the Drone Zone, speed and adrenaline morph into . . .
12 Peace.
13 And eternity.
14 The space between the trucks at the passing point is tight. I
15 duck my head, hunch my shoulders. The oncoming semi blasts
16 its horn.
17 Blasts!
18 Blasts!
19 BLASTS!
20 The driver looms large in the window, drops his jaw, rises in
21 his seat until he’s almost standing. I can practically see the beads
22 of sweat on his forehead.
23 Now I’m at the center of the Zone. Everything’s a blur. Every-
24 thing is clear.
25
26 Yea, though I fly through the valley of the shadow . . .
27
28S I shoot like an arrow straight down the line, between flash-
29R ing silver sidings. Taste the warm, diesel-ly air rushing up

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 from the swirling underbellies. Feel the calm that lives in pure 1
speed. 2
It’s over in an instant. I whip out ahead, the semis screaming 3
at me from both directions, and bomb up the highway. Go more 4
than two miles on sheer adrenaline. I’m truly blazed on speed. At 5
the shortcut, I veer off the highway. 6
As I grind down and brake to a stop, all the alarms I turned off 7
jump back on and ring like crazy. My heart is pounding. 8
Cam pulls up. Lifts off his helmet. Glares at me. He looks like 9
an Old West Apache with his bandanna rolled across his fore- 10
head, and his long hair flowing. He spits. Wipes an arm across his 11
mouth. 12
“Very uncool, dude!” he says. “Even for you. A new low. Don’t 13
ever do that again. Not if you want to ride with me.” 14
Lobo pulls up. “Hombre! You scared the shiz out of me. Seri- 15
ously, what was that! You just about died.” 16
Fact is, I’m feeling more alive than ever. The hair on my arms 17
springs for joy. But I hide it. Make humble. “Sorry, dudes,” I say. 18
“I went temporarily insane.” 19
Cam aims a finger between my eyes. “Insanity will kill you,” 20
he says, pulling the trigger. 21
I don’t say what they can’t understand. I don’t tell them that I 22
had to do it. 23
I wasn’t at risk; everybody else was. Maybe I regret putting 24
those drivers in a tight place, for a second or two, but that’s all. As 25
for me, I was in the Drone Zone. 26
Flying fat. 27
Invincible. 28S
Cam might’ve made it, with luck, but not Lobo. He would’ve 29R

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1 freaked out. If you ride too cautiously, or your nerves get in the
2 way, or you think too much, you’re dead.
3 Cam, on the other hand, is willing to ride the edge, but he
4 lacks the reflexes. Split-second timing is not good enough. A sec-
5 ond before split-second is what you need. It’s the speed of a fly
6 versus the speed of a bee.
7 “Aighhht!” Lobo says. “Let’s ride.”
8 We grind throttle. Shred sand.
9 The shortcut takes us up and over Little Piñon Mesa. It’s
10 scarred with a thousand bike grooves​ — ​the whoriest-looking
11 mesa in all northeast New Mexico. That’s why every dirt rider
12 comes here. Because it’s all humps, jumps, gullies, falloffs, and
13 loose sand.
14 Plus two little wooden crosses.
15 On Little Piñon, we earn our air miles. I take flight on my
16 favorite jump, Davy, named in memory of Lobo’s older brother,
17 Army Specialist David Focazio, who shot himself after getting
18 back from Afghanistan.
19 Even Lobo catches some decent air.
20 We land in the school parking lot at 7:27 a.m., a whole two
21 minutes before the bell. We’re sitting at our homeroom desks,
22 studiously, at 7:29 a.m.
23 Just as the bell rings, a new girl walks in.
24 Everything twitches and stops, including the clock.
25
26
27
28S
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 1
2
3
4
Chapter 3 5
6
7
8
9
“Hold up, Lee,” Mr. Martinez says. “I want to introduce 10
you.” 11
The new girl is torqued lanky like a runway model, but she 12
hides under a loose T-shirt, untucked flannel, and slightly baggy 13
“guy” jeans​ — ​a sure sign that she’s not from Orphan County. But 14
it works. It definitely works. 15
She steps beside Mr. Martinez and thrusts back her shoulders. 16
Her eyes spark. 17
“Class,” Mr. Martinez says, “this is Lee Fields. She comes to us 18
from Seattle, Washington. All the way from the Great Northwest 19
to the Great Southwest. Class, what do we know about Seattle?” 20
“Rain,” Michelle Pappas says. 21
“Bill Gates,” Vonz Trujillo says. 22
“Sasquatch country,” Lobo says. 23
“Right,” Mr. Martinez says. “Though the jury is still out on the 24
Sasquatches.” He turns to the new girl. “Lee, we here in Clay Al- 25
lison don’t get much rain, and sometimes we get too much sun​ —” 26
“We got adobe brains,” Vonz blurts out. 27
Mr. Martinez frowns. He’s been teaching eleventh-grade his- 28S
tory and language arts for thirty-nine years. He taught Dad. Five 29R

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1 years later he taught Mom. He’s taught one NASA astronaut, two
2 governors of New Mexico, three psychopathic killers, and ten
3 thousand truckers, wranglers, keno girls, fry cooks, and motel
4 desk assistants. We can mess with him only so much.
5 “Lee,” he says, steepling his fingers, “forgive us our occasional
6 lapses and minor trespasses. We more than compensate with our
7 pieties and niceties.”
8 Lee smiles. “I forgive you.”
9 Some of us laugh. Some of us snicker. Pure oxygen fizzes into
10 my brain.
11 What stops the clock is her hair. It plunges like Niagara Falls, a
12 cascade of red-gold. Clay Allison is a poor town. There’s a played-
13 out, hope-burned shabbiness here. A long-past-its-prime-ness.
14 But we’re used to it. And when you’re used to it, you don’t notice
15 the shabbiness anymore​ — ​until somebody new shows up. A new
16 person is like a mirror of reality, somebody who opens your eyes
17 and shames you at the same time.
18 Just looking at Lee Fields makes me wish I were from anyplace
19 else. In my mind, I’m already telling her where I’m from.
20 “L.A.,” I say. “I’m just here for the semester. Then it’s back to
21 L.A.”
22 I can’t take my eyes off her hair.
23 Homeroom consists of twelve girls and eleven boys. The clos-
24 est to honest-to-god gold hair is Latoya Solaño’s drugstore lemon
25 with candy-pink highlights and original black roots. We’re about
26 one-third Hispanic, one-third Caucasian, and one-third hyphen-
27 ated. Lots of Catholic, too.
28S Me, I’m authentic, pure-grade New Mexican salsa-Hispanic
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(through Dad); Caucasian (through Mom); lapsed Catholic 1
(through Dad); daredevil (through Mom). 2
Add onions, tomatoes, and a teaspoon of salt. 3
Plus a few drops of Navajo (through Dad) for extra zest. 4
Blend and puree. 5
When I look in the mirror, I see it all​ — ​curly black hair, blue 6
outcast eyes, guilty-white eyeballs. 7
Lee’s hair is brushed and proper​ — ​except for one glaring 8
fact, of which she seems completely oblivious: the ends curl like 9
wicked fingers and tickle her ass. I glance over at Cam and Lobo. 10
They’re staring too. Already, like me, they’re wishing they were 11
those wicked fingers. 12
Lobo catches my eye. Bangs his head against an imaginary 13
light pole. Swack! 14
“Alfalfa, dude,” he whispers. 15
Peach, plum, alfalfa​ — ​the three degrees of kiss-worthiness. 16
Peach​ — ​peck softly; plum​ — ​taste the polished insides of her 17
mouth; alfalfa​ — ​probe deep as an alfalfa stalk is long. 18
“Lee is staying with her aunt, Lupita-Fields, up in Chicorica 19
Canyon,” Mr. Martinez tells us. 20
Lupita-Fields! She was Mom’s oldest friend. Back in their high 21
school days, they rode the canyon together. On horses, not dirt 22
bikes. Chicorica Canyon is prime dirt-bike country, full of ar- 23
royo washes, mazes, and old mining towns. It was prime ranch 24
country too, until the Town of Clay Allison dammed Chicorica 25
Creek and built a pipeline. 26
I ponder the name Lee. New Mexico is a land of Tanyas, Don- 27
nas, and Jamie Lynns. Lee is often part of a name​ — ​like Brenda 28S
29R

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1 Lee or Sammi Lee​ — ​but usually not a name by itself. To my ear,
2 Lee sounds unfinished and masculine. She needs more dip for her
3 chip. Hmm. Rocky Lee, Wynona Lee​ — ​those would work.
4 I lean back to see if she’s wearing Northwest hiking boots. Uh-
5 uh, she’s wearing pink athletic shoes. Pumas. City-girl spotless.
6 New Mexico will dust her up, that’s for sure.
7 Mr. Martinez points to the class motto framed above the door:
8 character is forever.
9 It’s one of dozens of quotes posted on the walls​ — ​the sacred
10 words of Aristotle, Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller, Nelson Man-
11 dela, Dr. Seuss, Pink Floyd, Anonymous. On and on.
12 He calls them his “wall sages.”
13 “Character Is Forever”​ — ​his own contribution​ — ​hangs above
14 the door so we can ponder it every time we leave the room.
15 “Lee, I ask all my students to embrace this principle,” Mr.
16 Martinez says. “Not merely for the academic year but for a life-
17 time. I’d like you to embrace it as well, because​ —”
18 “Oh, I totally embrace it,” Lee shoots back.
19 “Well, then . . . ahem!” Mr. Martinez scowls at the rest of us.
20 “Most of your classmates think James Bond got it right​ — ​dia-
21 monds are forever.”
22 “James Bond can go jump off a mesa,” Lee Fields says.
23 Mr. Martinez beams. “Class, we have a visionary in our midst.
24 Do you have any questions for Lee?”
25 Michelle Pappas flaps a hand. “Why are you here?” she asks in
26 a pissy tone.
27 “Michelle!” Mr. Martinez snaps. “Rewind. Respect.”
28S Michelle pastes on a smile. “Why are you here?” she asks again.
29R “My dad’s stationed overseas,” Lee says.

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 Nothing shy in those eyes. Nothing shaky in those hands. Not 1
like some first-day students. 2
“Like, deployed stationed?” Michelle asks. 3
“Yup,” Lee says. “He’s a Sergeant First Class in Arapaho Com- 4
pany, Second Platoon. Pakistan. This is his fifth combat tour.” 5
We are silent. Five tours is a lot. We all know this. In Clay 6
Allison, people are always shipping out. Lobo’s brother, Davy, 7
shipped out on three tours. 8
Vonz jacks up a hand. “What’s he do out there? You know, his 9
MO and all that.” 10
“Explosive ordnance disposal,” Lee says. 11
“What’s that mean, exactly?” Sharon Blossburg asks. 12
Lee hooks a corn-silk strand behind an ear. “It means he sweeps 13
for roadside bombs and IEDs​ — ​you know, improvised explosive 14
devices​ — ​and deactivates them. But what it really means is, he’s 15
helping all the guys over there, even the locals, stay safe.” 16
“The locals! What’s the point of that?” Sharon asks. 17
Lee bristles. “The point is to stay alive. In one piece. And for 18
our guys to come back home. And get on with their lives. Obvi- 19
ously.” 20
Mr. Martinez clears his throat. “Yes, well . . . Just to add to 21
that, the main mission of our military intervention in that part of 22
the world is to stifle the threat of terror,” he says. “Also to expand 23
the footprint of democracy. But to those with their boots on the 24
ground, like Lee’s father, the mission can be as basic as survive 25
today so you can return home safely tomorrow. And, Lee, that is 26
our sincerest hope for your father.” 27
“Thank you,” Lee says. 28S
“How ’bout your mom?” Leah Castenado asks. 29R

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1 “She’s out in California with her new husband and baby.”
2 My hand shoots up. “Where in Pakistan? I mean, where’s your
3 dad stationed?”
4 “The North-West Frontier.”
5 “Oh, yeah, I know that country.”
6 It just slips out. Everybody stares at me like I’m an idiot. Lee
7 looks at me funny too. I sink into my chair.
8 The fact is, I’ve flown over the North-West Frontier a thou-
9 sand times. When you cross the last river and hurtle out of the
10 valley, the mountains leap up. You’d swear they were the Front
11 Range of the Rockies. Same dog-jaw silhouette. It looks and feels
12 like home.
13 “What’re your interests?” Latoya Solaño asks.
14 “I’m sort of obsessed with the war these days,” Lee says. “The
15 BBC does the best job at covering things, like the day-to-day
16 fighting and the search for terrorists.”
17 “The search for Caracal, you mean,” Vonz mumbles. “He’s the
18 father of all terrorists.”
19 “Yeah, him,” Lee says.
20 Latoya raises her hand. “When my uncle was stationed over
21 there, we “did that too,” she says. “We kept the news on all the
22 time. I used to have a thing for that British reporter guy. I forget
23 his name.”
24 Lee smiles. “Ethan Shackleton.”
25 “Yeah, Ethan, that’s him,” Latoya says. “I could watch him all
26 day. That boy needs motherin’ and lovin’ like nobody else.”
27 “Back in Seattle I had a motorcycle,” Lee says.
28S Lobo snickers. “Like a Vespa?”
29R “Harley,” Lee says.

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 Cam, Lobo, and I twitch respectfully. Harleys are like grand- 1
fathers​ — ​you honor their legacy despite their limitations. 2
“What model?” Cam asks. 3
“SS 350,” Lee says. 4
I picture her on an SS 350 bombing up the road, hair flying. 5
She should be wearing a helmet, but I leave that out. 6
“Hey,” Lobo says. “It’s a good thing you left that guzzie behind. 7
’Cuz hogs break down out here. This ain’t street-scramble coun- 8
try. It’s dirt-ridin’ country. We’re iron butts. And proud of it.” 9
“What shampoo do you use?” Dolores de la Cruz asks. 10
“That’s enough,” Mr. Martinez says. “Let’s give Lee a warm 11
Clay Allison High School welcome.” 12
We all clap, smile, and say “Yeah, welcome​ — ​welcome.” But 13
it’s a honeymoon moment. It won’t last. If she were fat and ugly, it 14
might. 15
But she ain’t. 16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28S
29R

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