Driving down into the city was like taking a slow elevator down to the bottom of the valley, where activity gradually increased as I neared the center of the city. One song that often played on the radio, and perfectly captured this liminal feeling I had of not knowing the place, the people, or their activities very well, was “Pretty Girl” by NB Ridaz. Being from the neighboring state of Arizona, the NB Ridaz were well-aware of what living in the southwest was about. The laid back pace of the song captured the pace of living in the city; the echo of soft instruments were like the echoes of sound one might hear reflecting off the mountain walls surrounding the wide valley underneath the expansive blue sky above. The song also contained a hardcore element, which reflected Albuquerque’s underlying nature when diplomacy fails and boundaries are breached.

The main places I usually drove to were the Sara Lee bread plant where I worked on Montano Road in the north part of the city, or to pick up a check from Allegiance Staffing since I was still a temp. worker. Our night shift crew was made up of about a dozen workers. Aside from The Wolf, next in line in terms of frequency of communication was with a young man around my age named Greg from El Paso, Texas. He and I often sat at the same table and shared stories in the break room as we ate our meals purchased from the vending machines in the break room.

The most memorable story Greg told me was about one back when he still lived in Texas. He and a couple of friends were out drinking one night. Greg drove his two friends in his jeep as they all decided to get some late night food at a local restaurant. Greg said that he went inside to get the food, leaving his two friends outside in the backseat of the jeep waiting for him to return. When Greg finally came out with the food, he said that both of his friends who must’ve been much more intoxicated than he was, were both passed out, laying on top of each other, and must’ve lost bladder control because they both peed on each other. That was probably my hardest laugh at Sara Lee, though it was a controlled laugh because the break room is a place where people come to relax, not cause a commotion.

Another young man slightly younger than me named Mark was a member of our sanitation crew. The supervisor Larry mentioned possibly getting rid of him because according to him, Mark was a “F*&$ up.” Mark seemed alright to me. He could be funny at times. As my arms started getting bigger from doing so many push-ups, he would sometimes walk past me and say, “Which way to the gym?” while pointing as he flexed his bicep. Other times he would walk past me stiffly like Frankenstein with all his muscles flexed, and sometimes he would break and start laughing while doing it, as I would too. Despite his goofy side, Mark once told me an intruder broke into his house one night, and he shot him in the back as a result. It was another example of how some people in Albuquerque could seem completely nonthreatening, yet were ready in a split with their guns or whatever was necessary to solve a crisis.

Another sanitation worker named Rafael, nicknamed “Raffa,” was also somewhat of a comedian. Since coming to Sara Lee, and having to comply with the company policy of not being permitted to have any facial hair below the upper lip, I decided to shave off all my facial hair, but then started growing back a mustache, which was the first time I ever had just a mustache without a beard. One night, Raffa hollered at me from several meters away.

“You need a shower. You got some dirt right here,” he said as he pointed to the area above his own upper lip.

I pointed to my rear and said, “You need a shower. You got some dirt back here.”

“Don’t worry about it!” he replied and continued on to wherever he was going.

It was all in good fun.

Both early and late in our shift we would overlap with the first and second shift crews that did the production. They would oil up and dough up all of the bread-making machines and equipment and we were of course tasked with cleaning it all up, including off the floor. Sometimes we would chat among the different crews. It was mostly men with only a few female employees, and it was easy to get along with everybody. As I mentioned before, here in Albuquerque, as much as I had seen, nobody seemed to consider themselves above or below anyone else.

There was a man named Rene on the first shift who I would talk to sometimes. He was highly enthusiastic and energetic.

“Jesus is the answer!” he would often shout with a smile on his face.

He also ran and trained boxing, perhaps for the times when Jesus was not the answer.

Aside from The Wolf, perhaps the most interesting character at Sara Lee was the foreman of our sanitation crew. His name was David. He was quite a bit older than me and said that he served as a sergeant in the Korean War. Despite his age, he still possessed a lot of wiry energy, like he slammed about five coffees before coming to work. He shared some of his story with me one night when we were both in the break room. He told me that he had severe PTSD from being in the military, and sometimes the police would find him late at night walking around the streets with a knife while in his pajamas with no recollection of events.

“They took all my guns away,” he said sternly but disappointedly.

He then started talking about sniping the ones who took his guns away, saying they wouldn’t know what hit them. He also said he only needed a foot-long piece of wire to blow their houses up. Very quickly, I became aware why exactly his guns were taken away.

During the daytime, when I wasn’t at work, sometimes I would watch television. My favorite show to watch was the Spanish version of Family Feud called “Que Dice la Gente?” with Mexican TV personality, public speaker, and activist Marco Antonio. He truly did have a very charismatic personality, and not only did I find the show entertaining, but it was also a chance to practice my Spanish language comprehension.

“Vamos a jugar (Let’s play)!” he would famously say multiple times each episode.

Aside from that show, the most memorable thing on TV was the announcement of who was shot in the news each day, as grisly as it was. Other times I needed to get out into nature by myself for a quiet walk away from the noise of the city. My favorite place to walk was at the base of the Sandia Mountains. I had a connection to those mountains, because in ‘97, seven years earlier, my father and I stopped in Albuquerque to visit my friend Cameron on our way to Thousand Oaks, California to visit a relative. Cameron had only been in Albuquerque for about a year at that time after moving with his mother and two aunts from Wisconsin. I don’t recall whose idea it was, but the idea came up to take the tram to the top of the Sandia Mountains. When we reached the top of the mountain, we saw a friend of my father’s preparing to take the next tram down the mountain. Equally ironic is that I met him for the first time only several months earlier when he came to East High School to take photos of a production I was in.

“I didn’t expect to run into you on top of a mountain in Albuquerque!” my father said in the brief moment we had to shout across to him just before he began his descent. I remembered having such a great and relaxed experience on top of the mountain range; talking to my father and old friend while watching hang gliders out in the distance gliding over the Rio Grande Valley. Remembering that day while walking the trails made me feel nostalgic to the point where I wanted to revisit that time on the mountain.

It was mid-November, but not extremely cold. I thought that a t-shirt and thin hoodie that I sometimes wore to work would be enough. I didn’t know where the tram station was, but I figured it wouldn’t be too challenging to hike up to the top, find the tram station, and take a tram back down. I only anticipated being gone for a few hours, so I didn’t pack any food or water and just decided to go for it.

I parked in a neighborhood as close to the base of the mountains as I could get, then proceeded on foot, through the paths made of dirt and sand surrounded by desert plant life including small cactus plants. There weren’t many animals around, but once I saw a donkey kicking up a fuss on its way down the mountain, and I heard several coyotes further up in the mountains, perhaps stalking their prey, which I hoped wasn’t me. Climbing up the steps took a little longer than I anticipated. The higher I got, the colder it got, and I started seeing snow on the path with human tracks in it. It made me wonder how long the snow had been there and how long ago anyone hiked this high as there were no other signs of anyone around. It was slightly surprising to me that I hadn’t run into anyone at all.

When I reached the top of the Sandia Mountains, to add a sense of plight, there was snow everywhere as far as I could see, both falling and already accumulated on the ground, and it came as high as my knees, making the path virtually nonexistent. Even worse was the fact that I couldn’t see the tram station anywhere! I was very unprepared for this trip as I didn’t expect such cold temperatures, or the snow, and didn’t dress appropriately. Since I didn’t bring any food or water, thinking it would be an easy trip, I began to suffer from thirst, hunger, and steadily decreasing energy due to multiple causes, including psychological deterioration. Each step through the knee-high snow became more difficult than the previous one, not knowing which way to proceed to find the tram station or get off this mountain.

I trudged my way through the snow to the edge of the bluff and looked down on Albuquerque with a bird’s eye view for the first time. It was a beautiful view, seeing the city stretch across the valley with mountains far off in the distance, but I was alone up here on the mountain top with only a limited amount of sand in the sandglass that was quickly running out, representing the time I had left to get off this mountain. It wasn’t long before the cold, snow, lack of food and water, being alone, and not knowing where to go broke me down mentally to the point where I was ready to give up. I realized I made a mistake by coming here like this, but not just any mistake. It appeared to be a mortal error which I would not return from.

After acknowledging to myself that I had nothing left with which to keep going, looking down at the city below knowing there were thousands of people within sight, none of which could help me, not even if I shouted my loudest, I decided to mark what I thought would be my final resting place. I lied down in the deep snow, thinking that freezing to death after falling asleep wouldn’t be the worst way to go. I lived a decent life. I saw many places, and met many people. There was nothing to regret.

“Someone will find my body eventually” I thought to myself.

As I made peace in my mind about my own life’s end, I closed my eyes, thousands of feet in the air with a mind as blank as the white snow around me, as the snow that was falling from the sky just above me began to cover me.