COLD LO MEIN AT THE BLUE SWALLOW

Life on the road

Even in the Delta there’s a gas station or a Dollar General every ten minutes, a jacked-up F150 roaring past like church bells clanging on the half hour. But New Mexico is vast, and has even less folks than my home in Mississippi, so if you spot a place to gas up, you better stop. There might not be another one for hundred miles.

By the Pecos River in San Miguel County, Polaroid SX-70 (all photos 2024)

I had a bed reserved in Tucumcari, but was in no hurry and figured I might not be back this way again. The pancakes I’d eaten in Santa Fe were six hours behind me and Las Vegas seemed like a lovely place to stop, a busy downtown full of antique stores and barber shops and a couple of record stores arranged around a big wooded plaza. I hesitated at the entrance of one of the music stores, not because I don’t like looking at records, but because I was several hundred miles and two plane trips from home. I had once managed to successfully smuggle a Krokus record back from NYC that I had picked up in Asbury Park. I am not a big Krokus fan or anything, but right before we had walked past Debbie Harry on the boardwalk. That seemed like an auspicious sign from the universe and imbued the Krokus record with a type of bygone NYC glamour that I wanted to preserve, even if it didn’t make a lick of sense, like how you can enchant a humble iron dagger in Skyrim with a restoration spell.

But I digress. Las Vegas was plenty good enough for Doc Holliday and Rowdy Kate, who lived here for a few years, and was certainly good enough for a meal. To work up an appetite I walked into a wonderully organized antique store where a tiny gray kitten named Natasha darted in between my feet. Her twin, Boris, was in hiding. I bought the badge from a 1940s Chevrolet which I imagined had been put in a ditch by a gang of happy and retired ranchhands at a Cowboys’ Reunion.

Prize in hand, I went to the Plaza Hotel for lunch, and had one of the best meals I’ve just about ever had at its Prairie Hill Cafe, a mix of tofu and mushrooms and greens doused in balsamic and herbs on a chewy, delicious bread.

Las Vegas, New Mexico, Polaroid 600

Afterwards I’m full and happy and driving into Tucumcari from the quiet side — north, on a two-lane through the wilderness — not the flashy old Route 66 that cuts West. So I see its downtown first, not the gleaming bones of fallen dinosaurs along the great road.

When I do come upon the Blue Sparrow, I think— like when I first saw a painting by Edward Hopper in real life—of how beautiful it was, absolutely gorgeous, but then immediately, also how small it was, like holding some pirate’s purloined jewel in the palm of your hand.

Tucumcari, Polaroid 600

The Blue Swallow is also alive in a way some of these grand old beasts aren’t. It’s not just the vibrant, warm glow of the neon, which suffuses the whole of the place—although that’s part of it for sure.

I think it’s the people. It’s Friday night, and the motel is positively buzzing with activity. There are lots of folks sitting outside their rooms, just visiting, listening to the fifties-era pop that’s piped to hidden speakers and reading books and laughing. I sit and talk to R— while “Mr. Sandman” blares. A traveler from West Texas, he’s about my dad’s age, normally with his brothers in tow for this trip, but solo this year. He asks about the cameras, reveals he has a newly-issued Polaroid in his truck. We talk for a half hour.

In the interim, I pretend I’m in a lost Hollywood noir, certainly influenced by the paperback brick I’ve been hauling around the whole trip, a compendium of Dashiell Hammett’s stories about the Continental Op. With the massive key to Room 12 nestled in my pocket, I pick up an order of lo mein and settle in for the night with an episode of Elementary, my comfort re-watch I started pre-election and after Bama lost to G—forsaken Vanderbilt.

$109 on a Friday night, book your dang flights now, Polaroid 600

The noodles ain’t good but there’s a lot of them, and in any event I’m exhausted from the day’s travel. My mind is all mixed up with the peaceful emptiness of the road, Joni Mitchell lyrics, cowboys, desperadoes, femme fatales, fedora-clad detectives. I can hear Elvis through the curtains and wonder when the music turns off (around 9, you aging crybaby). I watch videos on my phone while digging into a bucket of snacks picked up along the way — some kind of rosemary-dusted mixed nuts, a giant green bottle filled with overly sweet ginger ale, then arrange the Chevrolet’s dull chrome logo by a silver cup with an ornate badge featuring the head of a horse and reads Santa Fe Horse Show 1962.

The fortune that came with the cookie in the paper bag with the lo mein told me A great pleasure in life is doing what others say you can’t. I can’t help but laugh and translate this as Don’t let the haters get you down. I suppose I do not have any haters and give thanks for this. For the first time since I got off the plane I feel lost and free, unmoored and vulnerable, and ladies and gentlemen and other good folks, that’s when you can make some pictures: when you’re unstable, at risk, and full of life and thrilled to have blood pulsing in your neck as you feel the crunch of gravel beneath your battered Converse and:

This is a real place, blue and red and yellow and green and enduring, Polaroid SX-70

If you can make it to Tucumcari, you can feel this way too, cheaper than gas and a fancy lunch in New Orleans. I can think of no finer destination and am already dreaming of a return trip, of two nights in the Plaza, a couple at the Blue Swallow, hours on the abandoned roads of New Mexico.

I have more to say on the matter, but the sun is out in Jackson, I picked up a copy of Sketches of Spain yesterday for $16, and a box of film arrived this week. Also Substack isn’t working in my browser for some reason, some I’m typing this on my phone, so UNTIL NEXT WE MEET, I remain, your faithful correspondent from the Road.

“COLD LO MEIN AT THE BLUE SWALLOW” is a chapter of GORJUS, a dispatch devoted to art and life in the South, held fast with instant film.

If you liked what you saw and read, if you maybe felt a twang in your belly while you looked it over, then this is for you, and I reckon we would be friends. Consider sending this letter to a pal who is like us. I’m gorjusjxn on Instagram, and you can see an archive of Polaroids at McCartyPolaroids.