It’s 2019.
This year marks 30 years since I arrived in New Mexico.
I landed in Albuquerque with everything I owned crammed in a 1970’s station wagon and $900 in my pocket. I had decided to move to the Duke City after much thought and falling for public relations stuff that painted Albuquerque as a big city where everyone worked and lived in harmony.
I read up on Albuquerque including crime statistics. New Mexico’s largest city had a crime rate similar to New Orleans. I thought that since people flocked to The Big Easy every year for Mardi Gras then the crime rate may not be as bad as the statistics showed. “So how bad can it be in Albuquerque?” I thought.
In life I have learned when I utter the fateful words, “How bad can it be” I find out, whether it’s breakfast, lunch or a place to live. Its kind of like comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s joke, “What’s a redneck’s last words? ‘Hey, watch this.’”
I quickly settled in to a cheap apartment off Central Avenue…an old motel where the rooms had been converted to studio apartments…then got right to work finding work. I went to a shop that offered a place to get my mail along with a voicemail service.
Remember, this was 30 years ago, before cell phones were all over the place.
Then it was time to get cleaned up for the job hunt. I went to a nearby barber shop to get cleaned up for a job interview. It was your average barber shop in an average strip mall somewhere in the vicinity of Louisiana and Montgomery in the Duke City’s Northeast Heights.
So there I was sitting the barber chair with the barber apron on. I was looking through the shop’s plate glass window at the Sandia Mountains when I noticed a young man with his back to the glass. I watched as he raised his hands up above his head. He had a brown bag in one hand and a pistol in the other.
I was trying to make some sense of what I was seeing when I looked out into the parking lot and saw several Albuquerque police cruisers with policemen standing in a familiar pose like on TV shows. You know, the one where they’re hunkered over and holding their pistols with both hands, each cop aiming at the suspect.
But this was real, not TV, and the suspect was on the other side of that pane of glass right in front of me.
“Guys,” I said with a raised voice, “I think something’s going on outside.”
The barber and the customers looked up. It took them a few moments to take it all in too.
Then came the megaphone voice.
“PEOPLE IN THE BARBER SHOP, MOVE TO A BACK ROOM.”
“I think we all better get in the back room,” said the barber. He lead the way and ushered us all into what was basically a large closet…me still wearing my haircut apron.
A few minutes later a booming voice echoed in the barber shop. “Albuquerque police,” the voice echoed, “It’s okay, everyone can come out now.” We eased out of the closet to find a cop standing in the shop.
“What happened?” asked the barber.
Mr. Policeman told us how a customer walking into the bank across the parking lot saw this kid getting out of his car and reaching under the seat for a pistol. This was back in the late 80’s when the Duke City was seeing an average of two bank robberies a week. So the customer called the cops.
But the kid wasn’t after the bank, nope, the kid had bigger fish to fry other than the bank: The pizza joint next door to the barber shop. When the kid popped out of the pizza joint, pistol and bag of cash in hand, the cops were out in the parking lot waiting for him.
“Welcome to Albuquerque,” I thought to myself.
This year marks 30 years since I arrived in New Mexico.
I landed in Albuquerque with everything I owned crammed in a 1970’s station wagon and $900 in my pocket. I had decided to move to the Duke City after much thought and falling for public relations stuff that painted Albuquerque as a big city where everyone worked and lived in harmony.
I read up on Albuquerque including crime statistics. New Mexico’s largest city had a crime rate similar to New Orleans. I thought that since people flocked to The Big Easy every year for Mardi Gras then the crime rate may not be as bad as the statistics showed. “So how bad can it be in Albuquerque?” I thought.
In life I have learned when I utter the fateful words, “How bad can it be” I find out, whether it’s breakfast, lunch or a place to live. Its kind of like comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s joke, “What’s a redneck’s last words? ‘Hey, watch this.’”
I quickly settled in to a cheap apartment off Central Avenue…an old motel where the rooms had been converted to studio apartments…then got right to work finding work. I went to a shop that offered a place to get my mail along with a voicemail service.
Remember, this was 30 years ago, before cell phones were all over the place.
Then it was time to get cleaned up for the job hunt. I went to a nearby barber shop to get cleaned up for a job interview. It was your average barber shop in an average strip mall somewhere in the vicinity of Louisiana and Montgomery in the Duke City’s Northeast Heights.
So there I was sitting the barber chair with the barber apron on. I was looking through the shop’s plate glass window at the Sandia Mountains when I noticed a young man with his back to the glass. I watched as he raised his hands up above his head. He had a brown bag in one hand and a pistol in the other.
I was trying to make some sense of what I was seeing when I looked out into the parking lot and saw several Albuquerque police cruisers with policemen standing in a familiar pose like on TV shows. You know, the one where they’re hunkered over and holding their pistols with both hands, each cop aiming at the suspect.
But this was real, not TV, and the suspect was on the other side of that pane of glass right in front of me.
“Guys,” I said with a raised voice, “I think something’s going on outside.”
The barber and the customers looked up. It took them a few moments to take it all in too.
Then came the megaphone voice.
“PEOPLE IN THE BARBER SHOP, MOVE TO A BACK ROOM.”
“I think we all better get in the back room,” said the barber. He lead the way and ushered us all into what was basically a large closet…me still wearing my haircut apron.
A few minutes later a booming voice echoed in the barber shop. “Albuquerque police,” the voice echoed, “It’s okay, everyone can come out now.” We eased out of the closet to find a cop standing in the shop.
“What happened?” asked the barber.
Mr. Policeman told us how a customer walking into the bank across the parking lot saw this kid getting out of his car and reaching under the seat for a pistol. This was back in the late 80’s when the Duke City was seeing an average of two bank robberies a week. So the customer called the cops.
But the kid wasn’t after the bank, nope, the kid had bigger fish to fry other than the bank: The pizza joint next door to the barber shop. When the kid popped out of the pizza joint, pistol and bag of cash in hand, the cops were out in the parking lot waiting for him.
“Welcome to Albuquerque,” I thought to myself.
-30-
Did that set the tone for your life there?
ReplyDeleteI had a police encounter of a similar (but less dangerous) nature right after I had moved into a house outside a mountain town in Colorado. Fortunately, that didn't portend bad things to come.
Thanks for stopping by, Kent!
ReplyDelete