GALLUP, NEW MEXICO
Charles Bloom had been in Gallup many times. The first time he was 10, and his father decided the family needed to see real Indians. Born in Portales, NM, Charles had grown up in that small cattle-farming community that also had a university, which was why the Blooms had ended up in such an isolated place, Charles’ father being a college professor.
Charles had always liked his hometown but never felt he quite belonged. If you didn’t talk cattle and wheat prices, you were an outsider. College professors’ kids didn’t really count as natives. They almost always left Portales and never made it back home, a generational commitment gone by. Portales was a great place to grow up and left him with happy memories, but Santa Fe was his home. Its active art scene and busy social schedule upgraded small northern New Mexico town into a metropolitan environment. He always knew after college at the University of Arizona he would settle back into the Land of Enchantment.
For Charles Bloom’s father, an anthropologist, visiting New Mexico’s Native haunts with real Indians was a must and Gallup was at the top of the list.
Charles could still remember his first visit to Gallup, expecting to have wild Indians surround the family station wagon and start hollering. What he found instead was poverty, alcoholism, and uninterested Indians—and yet at the same time, a raw honesty.
As Charles’ old Mercedes pulled into Gallup now with its row of pickup trucks, all with local radio station stickers on their bumpers, the feelings of his first trip flowed back. The town seemed unchanged. The routing of I-40 around the heart of the old Route 66 had killed off many of the hotels and local restaurants and brought in the Taco Bells and McDonalds, but the flavor of the town remained intact. Luckily Lotaburger, a New Mexico favorite for locals, was still in town. He pulled into its inviting red and white sign.
Pawn stores, Indian arts and crafts, and of course lots of bars. Alcoholism in Gallup is a well-known problem. Books of dead and drunk Navajos showing the heartache of addiction can be found in any bookstore. Even one of Bloom’s own artists—a Navajo named Ernie Begay—had often portrayed the sorrow of booze inflicted on his people. For Charles, Gallup and alcoholism seemed to be intertwined, yet something about the town also spoke to him of authenticity.
Yellowhorse had given him his perspective of the city and how it shaped his own artistic being. These interpretations had changed and enlightened Bloom, and had made the way he saw the town more mythical. For instance, Yellowhorse saw the fighting drunks as demons that affect all society. He believed the Diné were lucky to have most of their demons captured in one place so it could remind those on the right path to follow the old ways and not be pulled into the white man’s nightmare drug, alcohol.
Reflecting back on Willard’s observations made his death even more baffling. “Old ways. How could Willard say that to me, then go to New York City to make money and kill himself just for the sake of art?” Still thinking about the mystery of what had happened, Bloom decided this trip would be his own awakening into the Native world. He would spend time with Willard’s family if they would talk to him. He would become the link between Navajoland and New York City.
Bloom remembered meeting Willard’s younger sister on a few occasions. Rachael Yellowhorse. He hadn’t seen her but once since her brother’s death, when Charles went to her graduation from IAIA, the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. IAIA was known for its great alumni including T.C. Cannon, Fritz Scholder, and Willard Yellowhorse. Charles had watched Rachael’s progress. Like Willard, she was gifted. Her medium was sculpture, a type of art Bloom’s sorely needed, but she was not interested in representation from any Santa Fe gallery.
Charles could still remember 10 years ago, congratulating her after the graduation ceremony and inviting her to see his gallery. He would love to represent her as he had Willard. He vividly recalled Rachael’s face and how her generous burgundy lips quivered and quickly said, “No thanks.” Her dark brown eyes had filled with tears at the thought of her deceased brother’s dealer’s brazen attempt to entice another Yellowhorse into his lair. This was how Charles interpreted Rachael’s obvious gut reaction to reject him.
Now remembering her strong facial attributes, her deep passionate eyes with their long lashes set against the most perfect high cheekbones, brought back strong feelings for the girl he barely had known.
The smell of his double-meat-and-cheese green chile Lotaburger made him salivate. Charles hadn’t splurged on meat in over three months and the thought of biting into one of his favorite fattening foods was just what the doctor ordered for mild starvation. Blake’s Lotaburger had always been a Bloom tradition—an original New Mexico chain opening its first hamburger stands in Albuquerque in 1952. Charles’ dad’s greatest gift to his kids was taking them to one of Blake Chanslor’s Lotaburger stands. You could get a great homemade hamburger for 35 cents. It stated the fact right on each Blake sign. Charles’ dad would tell his kids in his professorial way, “The Lotaburger is for the everyday man who works hard and deserves a good, cheap meal every once in awhile. Nothing wrong with quality food at a good price.”
For Charles, no burger, even a Lotaburger, had been cheap in quite a while. As he bit into the first juicy chunk of Angus beef, the green chile flavor lighting up his deprived taste buds, Charles remembered his dad. He decided it was time once again to see Rachael Yellowhorse—to take action like a real man would.
“I am going to find Rachael Yellowhorse and get some questions answered. She won’t like me showing up, but I’ve got nothing but time. I bet at 30 she’s turned into quite a beauty if she hasn’t gone to seed and had too many kids,” he thought. “Yep, going to track her down. I could even consider it a business expense. She might show with me yet. I still need a talented sculptor. I better keep this receipt. My first expense of the trip; in fact, for the entire year.” Now talking out loud to the grease-soaked receipt as if it were his best friend, Charles inscribed the words: Rachael Yellowhorse artist invitation, day one.
The Gallup Motel Six amazingly was still only $26 dollars, clean, and fairly safe by Gallup standards. It was near the end of the long Old Route 66 strip, one of the few remaining motels on the strip that was safe from drug dealers. A couple of run-down motels with big boot signs that permanently said “free coffee” were still standing and seemed to have life inside, their neon signs long ago having dissolved into an alphabet soup of letters with no recognizable words intact. No longer inviting, the once expensive neon boot signs now seemed more like warning signs not to come close or you might get your ass kicked or killed. The Motel Six was two blocks from the actual Boot Motel with its faded yellow outdoor pool furniture. Bloom’s new housing had all the qualities he was looking for: cheap, a safe distance from danger, and a place to call home as he undertook his odyssey into the Yellowhorse family secrets.