The Columbus Diaries-2: The Ghosts and Pancho Villa

It is early Wednesday afternoon as I write this - and I can't believe what I've just done: I've walked out to my car with a plastic bottle of canola oil, a can of WD-40 (with its own built-in spray nozzle), and a partial roll of cheap paper towels.

I then did what I had to do to my beloved 2000 Plymouth Neon. Were it alive, it might have said to me ... Don, why are you walking toward me with those items in your hands and arms ... and that determined look in your eyes?

Of course, my car isn't alive - even I know that. Still: I don't know everything.

And I'm getting ahead of myself here. To properly tell you this really peculiar tale, I need to backtrack to two mornings ago - after I'd eaten lunch with friends at the Columbus, New Mexico seniors' center.

* * * * *

MONDAY

I walk up to the Columbus Post Office entrance this day, and a small lizard runs in front of me only three steps before I open the door. Then he or she is gone.

My final unemployment check has arrived from the State of Florida - yay, sort of (it's only for $45) - and so I walk back to my car where I conveniently find my luncheon companions, Ralph and Wallace, heading in on foot into the post office themselves this midday. They both walked to the post office, while I drove - with my air conditioner on. In these parts, that makes me a gringo wimp, twice over.

We all ate another spectacular pre-noon meal only 15 minutes earlier - tacos with guacamole and sour cream and real-deal Mexican salsa with mega-peppers and cilantro, along with a baked potato - and so now we are preparing to activate our respective planned afternoons: them, driving to and from Deming; me, writing this second entry in The Columbus Diaries, entitled, "Rising From the Mesquites."

By the end of this day, however, that title (and its content - all about my adapting to my new environs, toils, and neighbors here in southern New Mexico) would be discarded.

* * * * *

Deming is the small city 35 miles due north of Columbus, and the only one in our immediate area. The 70-mile round-trip costs me $10 for gas now, thanks to the nation's ever-spiking gasoline costs, well over $3/gallon in this region. I figure the drive will cost Wallace a few bucks more than that in his aged truck.

Summer hasn't hit us fully yet, so it's still pleasantly breezy out. The cold 60-mph gusts of a month ago are now entirely a memory, thanks to changing seasons.

Wallace has already agreed to deposit $1 for me in my Deming bank so my AOL monthly automatic debit doesn't bounce (my account is 40 cents shy of funding the charge - a not-so-abnormal kind of financial circumstance for Columbus residents, most of whom don't work, in part because there are no jobs here). So now I show him and Ralph my unemployment check. Wallace hands me back my deposit slip and my buck, and with my car door open (and cool air wafting out), I crumble up the old deposit slip and re-write a new one - and then hand that, and the signed check, over to Wallace, thanking him again for depositing it for me.

"If it saves you the ten dollars to make the round-trip drive into Deming, that's money worth saving these days," Wallace says.

I'm starting out on a new life from scratch here in Columbus. I know it, and so does everyone else whose heard of my emergency escape from Tallahassee in late March.

I still don't have an income, yet (not for lack of trying to land one) - but rent's now paid up through June 17, thanks to an earlier large unemployment check, and my willingness to work 40 hours/month on my landlords' property, mostly digging up weeds on their two acres in order to make up for a portion of the rent I've not yet been able to afford.

I'm not as lost or lonely as I expected to be here, even though I remain unsettled.

* * * * *

My landlords are Jim and Susan, who met while both were living in Hawaii prior to moving to Columbus 12 years ago. Jim writes weekly articles for Deming's newspaper, builds websites and a self-designed truck, among an array of other remarkable and successful tasks, while Susan is a desert garden expert and a yoga instructor in their home (which Jim built, in part using straw) that stands next to mine (also built by Jim, using straw - my ceiling, in particular, is all-but completely lined with it... It is).

When I have questions about this or that, I usually approach either Jim or Susan. And goodness knows, there's lots of stuff in this strange land to warrant seeking answers about - particularly when one is a native South Floridian.

Here's but one example - and so you know, not only weren't Jim or Susan able to answer this question, but neither were the Columbus Police ... one of whom stepped outside to my car about a month ago and took a picture of my passenger side rear window to capture this image for posterity (and/or to have something to laugh about with his co-cops).

This is all before something unanticipated and notably odd takes place tomorrow morning, Tuesday - and is responsible for my switching Columbus Diary entries.

* * * * *

Clear, dusty hand prints.

In "The Columbus Diaries-1," I mentioned that I'd apparently had my new car title and registration, and my U.S. passport, stolen out of my car's glove compartment two weeks after my arrival here. That was the opinion of the Columbus police officer, anyway, who took down my reported loss information, and filled out a report on it. He even warned me afterwards that my New Mexico license plate might be next to go. The thieves, he reasoned, would want the plate to go with the stolen registration, and silver Neons are relatively commonplace around here.

My initial reaction to the missing papers then was that I'd simply misplaced them, even though I'd conducted an all-night search before going in to report their loss - but he pretty well convinced me that if I'd left them in my car someplace (which later proved to be so), theft was the most likely cause for their disappearance.

Yet, I thought - how brazen of someone to open my driver's side door (the only one I ever leave unlocked around here - it can't be unlocked from the outside), and guess that I'd have left key personal papers inside, all the while stretching across to my glove compartment, smack in "downtown" Columbus yet (which is made up of 2-1/2 blocks) ... in broad daylight, the only time I ever go downtown. On all other occasions my car is always locked, and always parked in an obscure or protected setting.

Still, shortly after moving in to my first temporary setting here out in the desert north of Columbus, I began to notice single, full-palm handprints made of dust (!) planted on the windows of my car, usually on one of the two in the back. Based on what the policeman later told me, then, I figured my car was being "marked" by the same desperadoes who'd overtly stolen my title, registration and passport.

This "marking" occurred countless occasions both shortly before I discovered the papers lost, and immediately (and for two weeks or so) afterwards. Several folks insisted the local kids were just peeking inside my car (as kids do), but I said, no, these were open-palms dust prints, not cupped ones as would appear if blocking the sun while one peeks in. As well: one of the strange qualities of life in the high plains is that cars aren't usually all that dusty (why, I have no idea) - and on one peculiar occasion a clear dust palm print showed up within an hour of my having had the car washed! Ergo, the palm prints were not only likely applied somehow when no one was looking - not that easy to pull off around here, truly - but the hands planting them on my car had to have dust on them prior to applying their prints. And who wouldn't notice someone reaching down in the dirt outside, and then walking over and plopping dust (and their open palm) on a rear window of my car?

Further, these open palms, always with all five fingers spread apart, are often so clear, one is (passingly) tempted to ask to have them fingerprinted. But after my second visit to the police (when the photo of the palm print was taken), I opted to pass on showing the authorities any more of them. They really weren't intrigued.

* * * * *

No one had an answer, until this couple from Colorado, a couple of metaphysical book writers, showed up at neighboring Pancho Villa State Park in their RV - an apt location, given the observation she made (while admitting she read auras, as well). The two showed up at a seniors' lunch several weeks back, and sat across from Ralph, Wallace and me. The wife, Glenda, then made this casually passing remark, as if it were an act of assistance intended for those who, unlike her, can't "see" all that goes on around us day in and day out like she can.

I'm among the local blind. I admit it. I'm still waiting to see my first UFO.

"There are a lot of ghosts running around this town," she proffered. "You wouldn't believe it. They're all over the place. And they're still lost and upset about getting killed by Pancho Villa and his raiders in 1916. They don't realize they're dead yet."

* * * * *

So you know: tiny Columbus' primary claim to fame is a relatively well-known - and certainly well-documented - historical event:

Well before dawn on March 9, 1916, Mexican General Francisco "Pancho" Villa led 500 to 600 "Villistas" revolutionaries across the U.S. border into then sleepy (literally) and peaceful Columbus, passing a slumbering U.S. Army camp on the way to the town three miles to the north of the Mexican border. Concerned more with pillaging than killing, buildings were set ablaze - but 18 Americans, mostly civilians, were killed. Seventy to 75 Villistas were also killed after U.S. soldiers were awakened by the ruckus, and then fired, among other weapons, a machine gun at the Villistas while they returned to Mexico. No definitive reason was ever given for General Villa's motives for ordering the raid.

As an aside, many may remember director Bruce Bereford's 2003 made-for-HBO film, "And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself," featuring Antonio Banderas as Villa, a facts-based story about how, two years earlier (in 1914), the generalissimo permitted U.S. crews to film him and his troops conducting live battles against Mexican Huerta forces. A 1914 silent film, "The Life of General Villa," resulted, but was lost in its entirety over the years.

In any case, in the face of no better explanation, I tell Jim that I suspect the clear, dusty open palm prints are "the work of ghosts." Jim marginally reacts, at best.

He and Susan aren't surprised by life's anomalies in the high plains any longer.

P.S. -- About two weeks later after reporting them lost, I found my registration, title and passport ... right where I'd left them, "so I wouldn't lose them (!):" in my seldom-used front seat compartment separating the driver and passenger seats.

* * * * *

TUESDAY

It's late morning, and I stop by the Columbus Library prior to having lunch again with Wallace and Ralph.

I get into a spirited chat with a library volunteer over this and that, and when I step outside to my car - to drive a half-block over to the seniors center, with my air conditioner on - I notice something that stops me in my tracks: another fresh palm print, very clear, dusty and thick, planted on my closed drivers' side window - itself a first.

All previous palm prints had appeared on my rear passenger windows.

It had been at least two weeks since I'd noticed any prints on my car. And the timing of witnessing this new one struck me as being too pat (no pun intended), and certainly way too coincidental.

Wallace and Ralph swear up and down they know nothing about the new print, nor do they have any idea who might have planted it there. In fact, they seem eager to see what one of these things looks like when, after lunch, I take them outside to my Neon to show them the print, first hand.

Ralph pretty well dismisses the hand print as having been put there by someone for some unknown reason(s). Wallace is slightly less convinced: he admits he's never heard of anyone else in Columbus with such window prints, and he's lived in the village for five years. Further, he, too, is struck by the thickness and clarity.
Neither of them buy into my ghosts' theory. They know I'm half-kidding about it.

Before I head north of town to do a laundry, however, I go out of my way to have two more Columbus acquaintances I run into check out the print. Outside of the post office, Walt walks over and is pretty sure the print is mine (it isn't - I don't open or close the door by placing my hands on the driver's-side window, ever), and that it's probably static electricity, or something.

Charlie, meanwhile, who I pull out of the library, is mostly just amused. He has no answer for my diverting little mystery, either.

I then plant a full palm print of my own on the car, near the other one, to see if something shows up. Nothing results that day, nor on the next (Wednesday).

* * * * *

WEDNESDAY (TODAY)

I'm having lunch again this late morning with Wallace and Ralph, and when I bring up the subject of the palm prints once more, they both listen - albeit a lot less enthusiastically than the day before. Ralph, in fact, seems a little annoyed with me at this stage because I'm continuing to remain so worked up over this.

Traces of yesterday's print remain on my window even after I wiped it off, I notice - a curiosity that might prove noteworthy, I suspect (see underlined copy, below). Meanwhile, there is no sign of the one I'd left there.

I tell Ralph I'm not worked up. I'm having fun - that, and I'm writing about it.

"Someone is putting their hand print on your window, that's all," he shrugs.

"Why, Ralph?" I ask him. "What's this person's motivation?"

"To get you upset," he counters.

"But I'm not upset," I say. "I'm simply looking for a compelling explanation - and I haven't heard one yet."

Wallace intercedes, and suggests I perform an experiment when I return to my apartment: put cooking oil on my palm, and try placing that on a window, and see what results. Ralph concurs, only he recommends I use WD-40. It's good for your skin, as well, he adds.

Now you have a strong sense what I did to my car at the beginning of this essay.

* * * * *

In a moment or two, I'm going to go back out to the Neon and view my two sets of open palm prints - two made with canola oil (one thick and drippy, and the other after I wiped my hand off with a paper towel), and two made with WD-40 - which I sprayed on my other hand (one just as thick and drippy - the other after wiping the silicone-based metal parts cleaner/loosener off with a towel, too).

But before I check out those results, I want to throw in something to consider that I found after running a search at the library today. It's a report by a Janet Kennish in September, 2002, about purported "ghostly" hand prints appearing in a window at a U.K. pub called The Royal Stag:

"The Royal Stag has provided the locals with good fun and pulled in the tourists to see the ghost hand on one of the bar windows overlooking the churchyard. At various times it has been claimed an outline of a palm print and fingers of a tiny hand appears on the window, despite attempts to clean it off, and claims that the glass has been replaced several times." (Underline mine.)

Now, for today's experiment results on my poor, innocent and trusty Neon.

* * * * *

* * * * *

...Well: Isn't that a disappointment.

And what a mess, too!

Forget about a hand covered in either vegetable oil or WD-40 being responsible: after three hours of sitting out in the open desert, no dust stuck to either of the car's rear windows, as the result of sticky, unclear, and highly-runny palm prints drenched in either gooey application, thick or slight. I'm actually surprised by that.

(So you know, too: don't put oil or WD-40 on your windows, regardless. Only window cleaner will take either of the applications off

So - I try one last (and dead-final) experiment: I stick my open hand in the dirt, and plant my full palm on my passenger-side window ... and that, at least, is promising: it exhibits much of the clarity of the dust print found early Tuesday, only it's just not nearly as thick (nor the least bit as photographable, either).

Thus, I've come to a conclusion: those clear prints were made by dusty open hands, placed palms-down, fingers spread, on my Neon's windows.

That's a lock.

What's not so clear is whether the bearer(s) of those dusty hand prints were, you know...

Alive.

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