"First Glance" (2021) by Lee Davenport
by Charles Haddox
I ran into Lily Morton and Nieves Olague at “Red” Callahan's funeral. They were standing in front of the cathedral, at the bottom of the stairs. None of us particularly liked Red, but he was a neighbor, and no one in El Paso will pass up a funeral. The obsession with paying one’s last respects to an unfamiliar cousin or remote acquaintance started as a way to get out of work, but now it’s a thing. An El Paso thing. If you hear about a memorial service or a burial or whatever, you feel compelled to go, even if you never really knew or liked the deceased.
Poor Red Callahan was a neighbor, but hardly a friend. And I never understood his nickname. He didn’t have red hair. Callahan? He barely spoke a word of English. Red was born in Mexico, so maybe he was the great-great-grandson of one of the San Patricios or something. A lot of people in El Paso whose families were originally from Mexico have German surnames, but Callahan? Lily told me that Red died in an automobile-train collision, which I knew. But what I didn’t know was that the train didn’t run into his vehicle. He ran into the train. And he’d just gotten out of jail for drunk driving a week before.
“Guajolote que se sale del corral, termina en mole,” Nieves said.
“You should have given the eulogy,” I said to her.
Nieves smiled guiltily. Red and Nieves’s partner used to fight all the time about his dogs. Nieves was sick of playing peacemaker—and having to feed Red’s dogs when he was in jail for public intoxication or DWI. Hence, the dig about Red being like the turkey who left his pen only to end up covered in sauce. His dogs would occasionally get out of his backyard and terrorize the whole neighborhood.
“How’s Jessica?” I asked Nieves.
“She’s in Jalapa visiting her family. Her mom’s turning sixty.”
“Man. You should have gone.”
“Uh huh. When that money tree I planted finally sprouts, I will.”
“And who’s watching your mom?” I asked Lily.
“My sister. Hey, did I tell you that Mom dreamt about my father last night?”
Lily’s dad died a year and a half ago.
“How was he?”
“Not too bad. He told her he’d left behind a fifty-dollar gift certificate for Superior Auto Parts that was still good and that he’d hidden it under a pile of underwear in his top drawer. He wanted me to have it ‘cause I need new wiper blades. And sure enough, that’s where we found it. I think his brother gave it to him for his last birthday.”
Lily lived with her mom just down the street from me. Next door to Nieves, who lived with her girlfriend. Lily was divorced. I moved into the neighborhood after it was all over, so I never met her ex. According to Nieves, “Morton” was not a real fun guy.
“We all used to call him ‘the moper’—back in the day,” Nieves told me once. “Lily should never have married an Anglo.”
“Hey, my mom married an Anglo,” I said.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”
I’d known Nieves off and on since we worked together at Big N Buns ten years ago. We finally ended up neighbors. I remember telling her once how this teacher I had in elementary school used to ring a bell to call us in from recess. Whenever she rang it, somebody would inevitably yell “nieve,” and we would all laugh. Nieves just smiled politely, leading me to suspect that she was too young to remember the ice cream bikes with bells.
“Let’s have lunch at the R&R. I’ll treat,” Lily said.
The food at the R&R is pretty good, but the portions are small. I usually order a side—guacamole or queso fundido—but since Lily was paying, I didn’t want to push it. We sat near the fountain, under the plastic macaws.
“When do you have to get back to work?” I asked Nieves.
“It’s a funeral day. Why would I go back to work? How ’bout you?”
“I don’t have an uncle for a boss. And Danny’s worthless without me. I’ve got to get back after we finish eating. And hey, Nieves. Why didn’t you order mole? You know, in honor of Red.”
“I’m vegetarian. All the mole dishes have meat.” Nieves said. “But I’m sorry for the crack about the turkey ending up in mole. Poor Red. He was a jerk—but let me tell you a story about his first run in with the law. Lily, I think you know a little of this saga, so feel free to add your two cents to the pot.”
She went on, “Red and his mom moved here from Mexico when he was ten. I don’t know what ever happened to his dad. His mom was the one who told me this story when she came by to visit Red a few years back. Red never really learned English as a kid and apparently didn’t do well in his studies, so it’s no surprise that he dropped out during high school. After that, he got mixed up with some pretty wild kids from the Devil’s Triangle in Northeast and started getting into trouble. First it was little things: tagging, getting drunk on Mickey’s, shoplifting. But in the end, he got mixed up with some guys who’d done hard time for burglary. Yeah, real loquillos.”
“I think Red’s mom kicked him out, too, at some point,” Lily added. “She just couldn’t handle him anymore. I guess they made up later, but back then she was barely scraping by working as a maid at a motel. She couldn’t afford to be bailing him out all the time—literally and figuratively.”
“Yeah,” Nieves said. “I’m sure it was tough for her. But it was tough for Red, too. He came here, ten-years-old, a stranger in a strange land, and there weren’t a lot of people looking out for him.”
Our server brought us chips and salsa and took our orders. I asked Nieves, “So what happened when Red got mixed up with those guys from Northeast?”
“They broke into a few hardware stores and stole tools and things they could sell to vendors at swap meets and stuff like that, but there was no real money in it. Red got the idea to burglarize Reardon’s TV and Appliance that used to be on Dyer and steal a bunch of brand-new TV sets. This was back in the eighties, so TVs weighed a lot more than they do now. One of ’em borrowed a van from some tío or other and they broke into the back of Reardon’s warehouse. Just as they were filling up the van with some high-end sets, the cops pulled up, lights flashing, and those vatos decided to make a getaway with the back door of their ride still open. But there was no way they were beating out the cops at that point. The van was a broken-down hunk of junk, and it was filled with at least a dozen TVs and three big, strong guys.”
Lily chimed in. “Somebody, probably Red, got the idea to start throwing the TVs—still in the box—at the cop car.”
“Holy shit,” I said.
“Yeah,” Nieves shook her head. “It was a shit storm. Smashed TVs all over the road. And one through the cops’ front windshield. Their patrol car ended up crashing into a wall, and both cops had minor injuries—whether from the TV or the wall, I don’t know. Of course, Red and his friends got caught a couple of miles down the road by pretty much the entire Northeast substation. The ironic thing is that Red nearly got away. He jumped out of the car even after they were surrounded and ran into the playground of a middle school. Unfortunately for him, he got tangled up in a volleyball net and ended up sprawled out on the ground like a fly in a spider’s web.”
“That’s how he got his nickname,” Lily interjected. “After the big bust, people started calling him by a Spanish word for net, red, and eventually folks ended up pronouncing it like the English word.”
Nieves continued, “When the cops extracted him from that net, Red knew it was over. And it wasn’t just burglary anymore. Assault on a police officer—two, in fact—destruction of property—city and private—evading arrest, you name it. Even though he was a teenager, they sent him up for ten years. Poor Red. He worked in construction after he made parole, worked super hard, but never really got his act together. ’Cause he was only a kid when they sent him up, and he wasn’t all there when they let him out. You know what he was like. The guy got married a couple of times, but neither of ’em lasted, and, in the end, it was just Red and his half-wild dogs. Oh, and the bottle. There was plenty of that.”
“Hey, what ever happened to Red’s dogs?” I asked.
“I called Animal Services,” Nieves said. “They’re at the shelter. Though I have no idea who’ll want to adopt them. You know, they say that after his arrest, Red couldn’t stand the sight of a television. I mean, he really despised ’em. A couple of times he knocked on our door and asked me to close the curtains of our living room because he could see the TV through the window. He hated ’em that much.”
“When I saw the accident that killed Red on Channel 4 and heard it was him, I have to admit I felt a little guilty watching it,” Lily said. “The whole time it was on, I kept waiting for his ghost to kick in my mom’s door and attack the screen like a rabid wolf. Whatever Red had done in his life, he didn’t deserve that final insult. ‘Mauricio Callahan, fifty-three, collided with a train on the 1500 block of Magoffin,’ with that obnoxious reporter who used to be on Channel 9 saying it. And yeah, Red’s real name was Mauricio. Mauricio! It’s so staged.”
“What is?” I asked.
“Life.”
“Mauricio Callahan,” Nieves said, raising her glass, “despite it all, we’ll miss you. So now I’m going to ask our server to refill my soda, and I’m really going to enjoy this meal, because hey, it’s Red’s funeral day, and I don’t have to get back to work.”
Poor Red Callahan was a neighbor, but hardly a friend. And I never understood his nickname. He didn’t have red hair. Callahan? He barely spoke a word of English. Red was born in Mexico, so maybe he was the great-great-grandson of one of the San Patricios or something. A lot of people in El Paso whose families were originally from Mexico have German surnames, but Callahan? Lily told me that Red died in an automobile-train collision, which I knew. But what I didn’t know was that the train didn’t run into his vehicle. He ran into the train. And he’d just gotten out of jail for drunk driving a week before.
“Guajolote que se sale del corral, termina en mole,” Nieves said.
“You should have given the eulogy,” I said to her.
Nieves smiled guiltily. Red and Nieves’s partner used to fight all the time about his dogs. Nieves was sick of playing peacemaker—and having to feed Red’s dogs when he was in jail for public intoxication or DWI. Hence, the dig about Red being like the turkey who left his pen only to end up covered in sauce. His dogs would occasionally get out of his backyard and terrorize the whole neighborhood.
“How’s Jessica?” I asked Nieves.
“She’s in Jalapa visiting her family. Her mom’s turning sixty.”
“Man. You should have gone.”
“Uh huh. When that money tree I planted finally sprouts, I will.”
“And who’s watching your mom?” I asked Lily.
“My sister. Hey, did I tell you that Mom dreamt about my father last night?”
Lily’s dad died a year and a half ago.
“How was he?”
“Not too bad. He told her he’d left behind a fifty-dollar gift certificate for Superior Auto Parts that was still good and that he’d hidden it under a pile of underwear in his top drawer. He wanted me to have it ‘cause I need new wiper blades. And sure enough, that’s where we found it. I think his brother gave it to him for his last birthday.”
Lily lived with her mom just down the street from me. Next door to Nieves, who lived with her girlfriend. Lily was divorced. I moved into the neighborhood after it was all over, so I never met her ex. According to Nieves, “Morton” was not a real fun guy.
“We all used to call him ‘the moper’—back in the day,” Nieves told me once. “Lily should never have married an Anglo.”
“Hey, my mom married an Anglo,” I said.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”
I’d known Nieves off and on since we worked together at Big N Buns ten years ago. We finally ended up neighbors. I remember telling her once how this teacher I had in elementary school used to ring a bell to call us in from recess. Whenever she rang it, somebody would inevitably yell “nieve,” and we would all laugh. Nieves just smiled politely, leading me to suspect that she was too young to remember the ice cream bikes with bells.
“Let’s have lunch at the R&R. I’ll treat,” Lily said.
The food at the R&R is pretty good, but the portions are small. I usually order a side—guacamole or queso fundido—but since Lily was paying, I didn’t want to push it. We sat near the fountain, under the plastic macaws.
“When do you have to get back to work?” I asked Nieves.
“It’s a funeral day. Why would I go back to work? How ’bout you?”
“I don’t have an uncle for a boss. And Danny’s worthless without me. I’ve got to get back after we finish eating. And hey, Nieves. Why didn’t you order mole? You know, in honor of Red.”
“I’m vegetarian. All the mole dishes have meat.” Nieves said. “But I’m sorry for the crack about the turkey ending up in mole. Poor Red. He was a jerk—but let me tell you a story about his first run in with the law. Lily, I think you know a little of this saga, so feel free to add your two cents to the pot.”
She went on, “Red and his mom moved here from Mexico when he was ten. I don’t know what ever happened to his dad. His mom was the one who told me this story when she came by to visit Red a few years back. Red never really learned English as a kid and apparently didn’t do well in his studies, so it’s no surprise that he dropped out during high school. After that, he got mixed up with some pretty wild kids from the Devil’s Triangle in Northeast and started getting into trouble. First it was little things: tagging, getting drunk on Mickey’s, shoplifting. But in the end, he got mixed up with some guys who’d done hard time for burglary. Yeah, real loquillos.”
“I think Red’s mom kicked him out, too, at some point,” Lily added. “She just couldn’t handle him anymore. I guess they made up later, but back then she was barely scraping by working as a maid at a motel. She couldn’t afford to be bailing him out all the time—literally and figuratively.”
“Yeah,” Nieves said. “I’m sure it was tough for her. But it was tough for Red, too. He came here, ten-years-old, a stranger in a strange land, and there weren’t a lot of people looking out for him.”
Our server brought us chips and salsa and took our orders. I asked Nieves, “So what happened when Red got mixed up with those guys from Northeast?”
“They broke into a few hardware stores and stole tools and things they could sell to vendors at swap meets and stuff like that, but there was no real money in it. Red got the idea to burglarize Reardon’s TV and Appliance that used to be on Dyer and steal a bunch of brand-new TV sets. This was back in the eighties, so TVs weighed a lot more than they do now. One of ’em borrowed a van from some tío or other and they broke into the back of Reardon’s warehouse. Just as they were filling up the van with some high-end sets, the cops pulled up, lights flashing, and those vatos decided to make a getaway with the back door of their ride still open. But there was no way they were beating out the cops at that point. The van was a broken-down hunk of junk, and it was filled with at least a dozen TVs and three big, strong guys.”
Lily chimed in. “Somebody, probably Red, got the idea to start throwing the TVs—still in the box—at the cop car.”
“Holy shit,” I said.
“Yeah,” Nieves shook her head. “It was a shit storm. Smashed TVs all over the road. And one through the cops’ front windshield. Their patrol car ended up crashing into a wall, and both cops had minor injuries—whether from the TV or the wall, I don’t know. Of course, Red and his friends got caught a couple of miles down the road by pretty much the entire Northeast substation. The ironic thing is that Red nearly got away. He jumped out of the car even after they were surrounded and ran into the playground of a middle school. Unfortunately for him, he got tangled up in a volleyball net and ended up sprawled out on the ground like a fly in a spider’s web.”
“That’s how he got his nickname,” Lily interjected. “After the big bust, people started calling him by a Spanish word for net, red, and eventually folks ended up pronouncing it like the English word.”
Nieves continued, “When the cops extracted him from that net, Red knew it was over. And it wasn’t just burglary anymore. Assault on a police officer—two, in fact—destruction of property—city and private—evading arrest, you name it. Even though he was a teenager, they sent him up for ten years. Poor Red. He worked in construction after he made parole, worked super hard, but never really got his act together. ’Cause he was only a kid when they sent him up, and he wasn’t all there when they let him out. You know what he was like. The guy got married a couple of times, but neither of ’em lasted, and, in the end, it was just Red and his half-wild dogs. Oh, and the bottle. There was plenty of that.”
“Hey, what ever happened to Red’s dogs?” I asked.
“I called Animal Services,” Nieves said. “They’re at the shelter. Though I have no idea who’ll want to adopt them. You know, they say that after his arrest, Red couldn’t stand the sight of a television. I mean, he really despised ’em. A couple of times he knocked on our door and asked me to close the curtains of our living room because he could see the TV through the window. He hated ’em that much.”
“When I saw the accident that killed Red on Channel 4 and heard it was him, I have to admit I felt a little guilty watching it,” Lily said. “The whole time it was on, I kept waiting for his ghost to kick in my mom’s door and attack the screen like a rabid wolf. Whatever Red had done in his life, he didn’t deserve that final insult. ‘Mauricio Callahan, fifty-three, collided with a train on the 1500 block of Magoffin,’ with that obnoxious reporter who used to be on Channel 9 saying it. And yeah, Red’s real name was Mauricio. Mauricio! It’s so staged.”
“What is?” I asked.
“Life.”
“Mauricio Callahan,” Nieves said, raising her glass, “despite it all, we’ll miss you. So now I’m going to ask our server to refill my soda, and I’m really going to enjoy this meal, because hey, it’s Red’s funeral day, and I don’t have to get back to work.”
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Charles (he/him) lives in El Paso, Texas on the US-Mexico border and has family roots in both countries. His work has appeared in several journals including Chicago Quarterly Review, Verdad, Folio, and Stonecoast Review. charleshaddox.wordpress.com
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