LBI #7 Pano.series-Carlsbad, New Mexico/December2008
Been working on the Land Before the Interstate (LBI) series for a long time. Every chance I get to go there I grab. Time machine. No Interstate. No giant concrete suppository running right through your heart. The kinds of places Duvall would crash down in in Tender Mercies.Places where nothing happens but you can hear your own breathing and if you’re in the mood for a little pretension, boy howdy, go right ahead, but you’ll never ever outdo those local Republicans that run the bank and the insurance agency and meet at the Rotary and their women who do good work in the church basement and can lacerate you -and each other- with their tongues like a lash made out of laser wire.
It’s their place in the bank and the big yellow brick churches and the “club,” but the rest of LBI is just people, scratching out their place with whatever is there: oil, agriculture, local store, trucking, school district, whatever. If you think you’re slick you ain’t.
Used to be one ran from these places to get to the “city.” If you have half a brain these days, these are the only places left with any truth. When they talk “development,” they usually mean building a couple of houses on a vacant lot or getting the highway contract. They don’t mean completely screwing up the history of your home and chasing out anyone who can’t keep up with the equity sharks. At least that’s the way it feels for me. When I see anything that’s run down, now, I just say thank you.
A tender mercy for sure.
Carlsbad, Artesia, Hobbs, Loving, Lovington, over there where you can’t just zip through, where’s there’s nothing…LBI.
Mercy.
