GARGOZO MANUSCRIPT

Munson and I could hear Palmer yelling but couldn’t see him even though he was sitting no more than ten feet in front of us.  We had walked off the plane, through the corridor and out into gate area where our eyes met up with the intense mile-high  Albuquerque sunlight.  We could hear Palmer bellowing and calling us “retards” for everyone to hear, while we stood there motionless trying to adjust to the new surroundings.  Embarrassing public displays were commonplace with Palmer and this was no exception.  Once we regained our equilibrium we stepped forward to where Palmer was seated and he handed each of us a Waterford crystal goblet which he then filled with blush zinfandel from a jar he had brought with him.  This was a small out-of-the-way airport in the 1980s and it was evidently acceptable for someone to make their way to a boarding area carrying a clear glass jar full of a liquid that looked very similar to gasoline. Thus began probably the last...

We were on our way back from Cochiti with Palmer driving one of his vintage Cadillac convertibles.  He had settled on acquiring used Cadillacs and Corvettes as an investment strategy and now had about a dozen.  He scanned the local papers every weekend looking for old cars.  He bought the property next door primarily for the large back yard where he had installed a lengthy car port for his collection. Palmer had found several one-owner, low-mileage Cadillacs put up for sale by widows who had long since given up driving.  The cars often had been sitting idle in a garage for years and the elderly owners were usually unaware of the car’s value.  If it was a convertible it was an added bonus since Cadillac had stopped making them in 1976.  The Cadillacs were quite a sight - massive compared to the cars of today with a vast expanse of all-leather interior and ludicrous tail fins.                    ...

As we drove past Cochiti Lake I turned to Palmer and said, “If I didn’t know better I’d say those were bodies down there on the beach.” Palmer kept his eyes on the road and said, “Those are bodies, paleface.” I took another look and despite it being a half hour before sunrise and us traveling at 60 mph, Palmer was right, there were a half-dozen people spread-eagled on the western shore of the lake. Palmer continued, “The results of a Friday night with too much firewater.” We were driving through the sacred ancestral lands of the Cochiti Pueblo on our way to an early tee time at one of New Mexico ’s tribal golf courses.  It was the late 1980s, more than a decade before Indian Casinos became commonplace in the state.  The Robert Trent Jones designed course at Cochiti was one of the first pueblo-owned golf courses in the southwest.  It was set into the red and orange hues of the Jemez Mountains amid creeks and ponds.  It had quickly gained attention as c...

I met Palmer at Occidental in the 1960s before he became a gastroenterologist, before he was banned from practicing medicine in three states, and before his uncivilized behavior was eventually diagnosed as bipolar.  Palmer came to college from New Mexico where he had grown up in Deming, a town whose population was then around 5,000.  Palmer was always going on about “the land of enchantment” and while his enthusiasm for New Mexico was well deserved it may also have been an effort to compensate for his home town.  Deming is best known for two events – the annual duck races, and a run in that sixty-three-year-old David Eckert had with the local police that made legal history.  Two Deming police officers pulled Eckert over for a routine traffic stop and claimed that he appeared to have “clenched buttocks.”  Suspecting that Eckert was hiding either drugs, weapons or a secret decoder ring; the officers managed to obtain a search warrant from a local judge base...

A 3.5 mile bike ride from Munson’s place can get you to Colma, a Bay Area city with 1.5 million underground residents.  When property values began to rise in the early 1900s, the City of San Francisco passed a series of ordinances that first prohibited any future cemetery from being built within the city limits, and later forced the eviction of all but two existing cemeteries.  When there’s money to be made, never underestimate the ability of your democratically elected officials to find a way.  The project wasn’t completed until 1942 when finally every corpse, headstone, coffin, grave marker, crypt and vault had been uprooted, shipped to Colma and re-interred.  Usually while visiting Munson I’m up early and looking for something to do until 11:30 a.m. when Munson will climb out of bed to begin preparations for the first race at Santa Anita.  One good option is a fifteen minute walk down to the BART station at   Balboa   Park   and trav...

It's difficult to know what's going to happen when I stop by Jean and John's place.  I never know what other characters may show up or what new treasures have been retrieved from an estate sale or the neighbor's trash bin.  I expect they will be up to their usual verbal shenanigans where they suck me into a completely asinine conversation until I catch on and yell at them to knock it off. One night while I was over, they were having fun trying to bait me when John decided it was time to bring out some things he had recently unearthed at an estate sale in Beverly Hills.  John has spent years going through what other people want to unload and he knows what to look for and how to find it.  Often the reason for an estate sale is that the home owner has passed away.  In such an instance it is not unusual for the sale to be overseen by one of the former owner's children who has little knowledge of the items left behind; particularly those that are old and rare. Whe...