BOULDER, CO -
“Perdón,” I said, stepping aside to allow the strange woman to pass. But when she blocked my way, I blinked at her. Around us, crowds of people scattered in all directions beneath the Giralda minaret looming high above. My head began to spin and I felt disoriented. I needed to sit down.
BAKERSFIELD, CA-
It’s time for a breakdown.
The magic realism had already started. Sugar skull ghosts and sparks of firework lightning bolts. It was September 10, 2001, Las Vegas. I just had a summer of dreams: airplanes, white tunics, exploding casinos. I left my girlfriend that day. I was going to hitchhike to California across the Mojave Desert the next morning, September 11th. Somehow, as the story will say, I got to California. Over the next several months I scribbled “Thick White Crust.” I could barely stay ahead of it as it chased me. I ran down flights of stairs into a university to let it out and then ran back out into the daylight, enveloped once again in drowning literary moments. The story is magic realism non-fiction. It’s a bite of a sugar skull. It’s the moment fireworks burst. It’s whatever you need it to be as you dream while asleep or awake.
Oh Yes!: N.L. plugs TNB on GPod Radio! Talkity Talk Talk
W H I T E F L I E S A N D W I D O W S Early in the morning, a cloud of silverleaf whiteflies surrounded me in a gust of confetti. (more…)
BAKERSFIELD, CA-
It’s time for a breakdown.
The magic realism had already started. Sugar skull ghosts and sparks of firework lightning bolts. It was September 10, 2001, Las Vegas. I just had a summer of dreams: airplanes, white tunics, exploding casinos. I left my girlfriend that day. I was going to hitchhike to California across the Mojave Desert the next morning, September 11th. Somehow, as the story will say, I got to California. Over the next several months I scribbled “Thick White Crust.” I could barely stay ahead of it as it chased me. I ran down flights of stairs into a university to let it out and then ran back out into the daylight, enveloped once again in drowning literary moments. The story is magic realism non-fiction. It’s a bite of a sugar skull. It’s the moment fireworks burst. It’s whatever you need it to be as you dream while asleep or awake.
Listen: N.L. plugs TNB on GPod Radio! Nick Belardes - Magic Realism, Bugs and 9/11
T H E G A T H E R I N G I spent my first few days back in Bakersfield in aloneness riding around on city buses.
(more…)
BAKERSFIELD, CA-
It’s time for a breakdown.
The magic realism had already started. Sugar skull ghosts and sparks of firework lightning bolts. It was September 10, 2001, Las Vegas. I just had a summer of dreams: airplanes, white tunics, exploding casinos. I left my girlfriend that day. I was going to hitchhike to California across the Mojave Desert the next morning, September 11th. Somehow, as the story will say, I got to California. Over the next several months I scribbled “Thick White Crust.” I could barely stay ahead of it as it chased me. I ran down flights of stairs into a university to let it out and then ran back out into the daylight, enveloped once again in drowning literary moments. The story is magic realism non-fiction. It’s a bite of a sugar skull. It’s the moment fireworks burst. It’s whatever you need it to be as you dream while asleep or awake.
Update: Listen to GSpot Interview: Nick Belardes - Magic Realism, Bugs and 9/11
D I A d e L O S R A S C A C I E L O S Just after the attacks occurred I was sitting with my ex-girlfriend in a Las Vegas bar watching four television channels unfold the horror of destruction. (more…)
BAKERSFIELD, CA-
It’s time for a breakdown.
The magic realism had already started. Sugar skull ghosts and sparks of firework lightning bolts. It was September 10, 2001, Las Vegas. I just had a summer of dreams: airplanes, white tunics, exploding casinos. I left my girlfriend that day. I was going to hitchhike to California across the Mojave Desert the next morning, September 11th. Somehow, as the story will say, I got to California. Over the next several months I scribbled “Thick White Crust.” I could barely stay ahead of it as it chased me. I ran down flights of stairs into a university to let it out and then ran back out into the daylight, enveloped once again in drowning literary moments. The story is magic realism non-fiction. It’s a bite of a sugar skull. It’s the moment fireworks burst. It’s whatever you need it to be as you dream while asleep or awake.
Update: Listen to GSpot Interview: Nick Belardes - Magic Realism, Bugs and 9/11
N O N - M I G R A N T S “Now Wasco is full of Mexicans, not Chicanos,” said Bonifacio.
Wasco is a nearby Central Valley town surrounded by agriculture, including miles of roses. There’s a prison, railroad, mom and pop drive-thrus and homes where migrants have settled, including Bonifacio’s family. They keep another house in Mexico. Once or twice a year a certain Mexican ghost town comes alive with people venturing to their old homes. It’s a way a culture never forgets itself. (more…)
BAKERSFIELD, CA-
It’s time for a breakdown.
The magic realism had already started. Sugar skull ghosts and sparks of firework lightning bolts. It was September 10, 2001, Las Vegas. I just had a summer of dreams: airplanes, white tunics, exploding casinos. I left my girlfriend that day. I was going to hitchhike to California across the Mojave Desert the next morning, September 11th. Somehow, as the story will say, I got to California. Over the next several months I scribbled “Thick White Crust.” I could barely stay ahead of it as it chased me. I ran down flights of stairs into a university to let it out and then ran back out into the daylight, enveloped once again in drowning literary moments. The story is magic realism non-fiction. It’s a bite of a sugar skull. It’s the moment fireworks burst. It’s whatever you need it to be as you dream while asleep or awake.
Update: Listen to GSpot Interview: Nick Belardes - Magic Realism, Bugs and 9/11
G R E A T G R A N D M O T H E R ‘ S B U L L E T The escape to California took weeks.
Renaldo had difficulty hiding that he was one of Poncho Villa’s soldiers and was constantly questioned as they traveled toward northern Mexico. Handsome, Renaldo had a broad nose and full lips. He wore a great sombrero high on his head and had a full mustache to match. His eyes were of a deep red-brown like cherry wood. He wasn’t tall, but looked it as he sat straight on his horse.
WEIRTON, WV-
Recently, Nick Belardes wrote, very beautifully, about his experience of 9/11 on the west coast in his post “Thick White Crust” . He then asked about other writers’ 9/11 stories. Mine comes from right inside District of Columbia borders.
Just after 6 a.m. on 9/11, I woke up with a blinding headache in an apartment complex on MacArthur Boulevard, about a mile outside Georgetown. When I sat up, I had no peripheral vision, and even the meager light from the windows hurt my eyes. Objects in my bedroom were outlined in white. I was sick to my stomach. I got these headaches about twice a month, but they never hit me before I woke up. I called in to work, popped my migraine pills, and went back to bed. I didn’t wake up until just before 9 a.m. Feeling somewhat less wretched, I turned the television on.
At first, it was difficult to understand exactly what was happening. I tuned in just before the second plane hit, but when it did, I did not leave the sofa. My phone rang intermittently. I spoke with my family, and then it was entirely silent, apart from the television. There were reports, later found to be erroneous, that car bombs had gone off near the National Archives.
BAKERSFIELD, CA-
It’s time for a breakdown.
The magic realism had already started. Sugar skull ghosts and sparks of firework lightning bolts. It was September 10, 2001, Las Vegas. I just had a summer of dreams: airplanes, white tunics, exploding casinos. I left my girlfriend that day. I was going to hitchhike to California across the Mojave Desert the next morning, September 11th. Somehow, as the story will say, I got to California. Over the next several months I scribbled “Thick White Crust.” I could barely stay ahead of it as it chased me. I ran down flights of stairs into a university to let it out and then ran back out into the daylight, enveloped once again in drowning literary moments. The story is magic realism non-fiction. It’s a bite of a sugar skull. It’s the moment fireworks burst. It’s whatever you need it to be as you dream while asleep or awake.
Update: Listen to GSpot Interview: Nick Belardes - Magic Realism, Bugs and 9/11
L E G A C Y There is a story in my family that tells of the rape of a young girl faraway in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. It takes place in the early 20th Century. It might have been 1917. The year isn’t important as the shadow remains heavy across my family’s history. (more…)
BAKERSFIELD, CA-
It’s time for a breakdown.
The magic realism had already started. Sugar skull ghosts and sparks of firework lightning bolts. It was September 10, 2001, Las Vegas. I just had a summer of dreams: airplanes, white tunics, exploding casinos. I left my girlfriend that day. I was going to hitchhike to California across the Mojave Desert the next morning, September 11th. Somehow, as the story will say, I got to California. Over the next several months I scribbled “Thick White Crust.” I could barely stay ahead of it as it chased me. I ran down flights of stairs into a university to let it out and then ran back out into the daylight, enveloped once again in drowning literary moments. The story is magic realism non-fiction. It’s a bite of a sugar skull. It’s the moment fireworks burst. It’s whatever you need it to be as you dream while asleep or awake.
Update: Listen to GSpot Interview: Nick Belardes - Magic Realism, Bugs and 9/11
S E P T E M B E R The next morning was September 11th.
I had given up on the idea of hitchhiking and now wanted to take a Greyhound bus from the Plaza Hotel in downtown Las Vegas across the Mojave Desert to Bakersfield. (more…)
BAKERSFIELD, CA-
It’s time for a breakdown.
The magic realism had already started. Sugar skull ghosts and sparks of firework lightning bolts. It was September 10, 2001, Las Vegas. I just had a summer of dreams: airplanes, white tunics, exploding casinos. I left my girlfriend that day. I was going to hitchhike to California across the Mojave Desert the next morning, September 11th. Somehow, as the story will say, I got to California. Over the next several months I scribbled “Thick White Crust.” I could barely stay ahead of it as it chased me. I ran down flights of stairs into a university to let it out and then ran back out into the daylight, enveloped once again in drowning literary moments. The story is magic realism non-fiction. It’s a bite of a sugar skull. It’s the moment fireworks burst. It’s whatever you need it to be as you dream while asleep or awake.
Update: Listen to GSpot Interview: Nick Belardes - Magic Realism, Bugs and 9/11
B O N I F A C I O The weather was a little windy and the sun was beating its fists onto the desert floor. It was the day before dia de los rascacielos, the name I later heard a man on a bus give for the attacks on the World Trade Center. (more…)
BAKERSFIELD, CA-
It’s time for a breakdown.
The magic realism had already started. Sugar skull ghosts and sparks of firework lightning bolts. It was September 10, 2001, Las Vegas. I just had a summer of dreams: airplanes, white tunics, exploding casinos. I left my girlfriend that day. I was going to hitchhike to California across the Mojave Desert the next morning, September 11th. Somehow, as the story will say, I got to California. Over the next several months I scribbled “Thick White Crust.” I could barely stay ahead of it as it chased me. I ran down flights of stairs into a university to let it out and then ran back out into the daylight, enveloped once again in drowning literary moments. The story is magic realism non-fiction. It’s a bite of a sugar skull. It’s the moment fireworks burst. It’s whatever you need it to be as you dream while asleep or awake.
Update: Listen to GSpot Interview: Nick Belardes - Magic Realism, Bugs and 9/11
H A U N T “There will be strong memories, my brother,” smiled Bonifacio.
He held his arm around me and hovered there in the room like an archangel. Still dressed as he was while waiting tables at the local bistro, his white waiter’s uniform had big round buttons that dotted a double-breasted waistcoat. (more…)
