Category Archives: Writing

Little Altars Out the Passenger Window

There’s a lonely stretch of road on the south side of San Antonio between the old Spanish Missions of San Juan and Espada. It’s a mile-long straight shot running parallel to the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. Many people in town are familiar with this region, as the southern reach of the road crosses the notorious “Ghost Tracks,” a railroad crossing purportedly haunted by the children who died when their school bus was struck by a train. The problem is, no one seems to be able to track down any newspaper report of this event. I ride this road maybe three times a week on my bicycle, and from my experience, if there are ghosts haunting this area, most likely it would be from the carcasses of the family pets dumped out here. It’s no doubt easier than digging a hole. Every few days I encounter a new box or trash bag surrounded by a cloud of flies and stench. There are also live pets abandoned here–I see them eyeing me hopefully as they cringe at the fence-lines of the surrounding farms. There are also three roadside altars along the road: markers where some drunken or dozing driver lost control of his car and perished unseen and alone.

I had wrangled a photography show at an Alamo Street gallery for Día de los Muertos, which was just a week away. The plan was to shoot a dozen of the more interesting roadside altars around town, but I hadn’t yet done a single photo.

I decided to begin with one of the alters about half a mile from the “Ghost Tracks,” as it was the only one of the three on that road which showed any signs of upkeep. It was early afternoon when I pulled off the road in my truck. There was still a chill in the air and the trees clustered across the road from me were still dripping from the heavy rains that morning. I grabbed my tripod and camera and walked up to the large live oak tree. There were four tall votive candles at the base of the tree each with about an inch of rain water in the glass holders. Further up the tree trunk a heavy iron grill that looked like it belonged to a backyard barbecue had been hung with huge nails driven into the tree. Attached to the bars of the grill were all manner of sentimental objects: a little weathered and sodden teddy bear, white silk flowers, plastic beaded necklaces, some cards with pictures of saints, a tiny gift shop acoustic guitar, and a rosary with pink beads and a silver-painted crucifix.

The clouds, which had been running low and fast on my drive out, were breaking up and the sun began throwing some pleasing shadows. I set up the shot with the grill in the foreground–I was zoomed in as tight as my lens would allow, so that the train, when it finally made its appearance, would be massive and imposing in the background. A slow shutter would leave it’s motion smeared like a river surging by.

Now it was just a matter of waiting. I was toying with the idea of reframing the shot to include a crude carving on the tree which read “Yolanda 4 Ever,” but I wasn’t sure if it was part of the altar. At the sound of a car approaching, I turned around. It was an old green El Camino. I watched as it slowed and rolled to a stop in the grass between me and my truck. Conjunto music with a heavy bass line and a strident accordion came from the open windows. A young woman sat in the driver’s seat watching me from behind sunglasses. Beside her sat an old man in a baseball cap reading a newspaper. The twisted front bumper was held fast with a large link chain and bailing wire.

The music stopped abruptly and the woman cut off the engine, which dieseled onerously with a low throaty cough before finally dying. That’s when I heard the long, wavering train whistle. I looked back toward the tree, and the train track beyond. I could see the bright headlight from the train–it had just turned that little bend near the cemetery across from Mission San Juan. It was coming in fairly fast, and I tried to ignore the woman as she climbed out of the car and began walking toward me. I needed to get this shot, because who knew when another train would come along. I could see, from my peripheral vision, that she had come to a stop about fifteen feet from me. She took off her glasses and crossed her arms.

The train was about to enter the frame–the rumbling of steel wheels along iron rails and the whistle screaming all came crashing into me like physical thing. That’s when I squeezed off a shot. I took another three exposures with slightly different settings and placements. Then I put on the lens cap, like a diner placing his napkin on the table, to indicate he was done with his meal. I turned to the woman with what I hoped was a pleasant and cordial smile.

As we stood there, facing one another with the train lumbering by, she pointed with her folded sunglasses at the tree.

“You’re not messing with that, are you?” she shouted over the noise. I didn’t make out the words at first.

“What? Oh, no,” I said slowly and loudly. “I’m just taking pictures.”

She furrowed her brows. At that point the final train car sped past, snatching with it all the thunder and high-pitched metallic squealing.

“It’s for a photography show.” I added: “At an art gallery.”

“Oh,” she said, with an understanding dip of her head, as if art explained everything. “It’s just that if my mother saw anyone messing with this, she’d be sick. This is for my sister, Yoli.”

She walked to the tree and fussed with the silk flowers by reshaping the petals with the wire inside the fabric.

“You should come back out with your camera next week. Me, my mother, and my nieces, we’ll redo it. We freshen it up every few months.” She was wearing an orange t-shirt, faded jeans, and flip-flop sandals. Her hair was held back with what looked like a strip torn off a dish towel. She looked like she was about twenty.

“She was in a car accident?” I asked.

“What?” She turned around and was looking down at my camera.

“Your sister.”

“Oh.” She slipped her sunglasses into the front pocket of her jeans. “It was up there,” she said, pointing to the rise of the train tracks. “She was walking along the tracks with her boyfriend. They were drunk. Someone said they saw them pushing each other when the train was coming up. You know, pretending. Kids do stupid stuff. Sergio, her boyfriend, well his parents sent him to live with his grandparents in Laredo. It was an accident, everyone knows that, but, you know, the kids at school and everything.”

She bent down to empty the water from the candle holders and stood up with a sigh. “Come on back next week, it’ll be pretty.” She smiled at me and nodded and walked back to her car.

“Hey,” I said. “When did this happen?”

She turned. “On her birthday,” she said. “On Yoli’s birthday.” And I watched her get in the truck with the old man and drive off.

Little Altars Out the Passenger Window

[A 1,200 word short story I wrote this afternoon (Monday, Oct. 26, 2009) between 12:30 and 3:30. A first draft, to be sure. I’ll call it my 2009 Halloween story, though it’s not so scary as it is sad.]

Little Altars Out the Passenger Window
by Erik Bosse

There’s a lonely stretch of road on the south side of San Antonio between the old Spanish Missions of San Juan and Espada. It’s a mile-long straight shot running parallel to the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. Many people in town are familiar with this region, as the southern reach of the road crosses the notorious “Ghost Tracks,” a railroad crossing purportedly haunted by the children who died when their school bus was struck by a train. The problem is, no one seems to be able to track down any newspaper report of this event. I ride this road maybe three times a week on my bicycle, and from my experience, if there are ghosts haunting this area, most likely it would be from the carcasses of the family pets dumped out here. It’s no doubt easier than digging a hole. Every few days I encounter a new box or trash bag surrounded by a cloud of flies and stench. There are also live pets abandoned here–I see them eyeing me hopefully as they cringe at the fence-lines of the surrounding farms. There are also three roadside altars along the road: markers where some drunken or dozing driver lost control of his car and perished unseen and alone.

I had wrangled a photography show at an Alamo Street gallery for Día de los Muertos, which was just a week away. The plan was to shoot a dozen of the more interesting roadside altars around town, but I hadn’t yet done a single photo.

I decided to begin with one of the alters about half a mile from the “Ghost Tracks,” as it was the only one of the three on that road which showed any signs of upkeep. It was early afternoon when I pulled off the road in my truck. There was still a chill in the air and the trees clustered across the road from me were still dripping from the heavy rains that morning. I grabbed my tripod and camera and walked up to the large live oak tree. There were four tall votive candles at the base of the tree each with about an inch of rain water in the glass holders. Further up the tree trunk a heavy iron grill that looked like it belonged to a backyard barbeque had been hung with huge nails driven into the tree. Attached to the bars of the grill were all manner of sentimental objects: a little weathered and sodden teddy bear, white silk flowers, plastic beaded necklaces, some cards with pictures of saints, a tiny gift shop acoustic guitar, and a rosary with pink beads and a silver-painted crucifix.

The clouds, which had been running low and fast on my drive out, were breaking up and the sun began throwing some pleasing shadows. I set up the shot with the grill in the foreground–I was zoomed in as tight as my lens would allow, so that the train, when it finally made its appearance, would be massive and imposing in the background. A slow shutter would leave it’s motion smeared like a river surging by.

Now it was just a matter of waiting. I was toying with the idea of reframing the shot to include a crude carving on the tree which read “Yolanda 4 Ever,” but I wasn’t sure if it was part of the altar. At the sound of a car approaching, I turned around. It was an old green El Camino. I watched as it slowed and rolled to a stop in the grass between me and my truck. Conjunto music with a heavy base line and a strident accordion came from the open windows. A young woman sat in the driver’s seat watching me from behind sunglasses. Beside her sat an old man in a baseball cap reading a newspaper. The twisted front bumper was held fast with a large link chain and bailing wire.

The music stopped abruptly and the woman cut off the engine, which dieseled onerously with a low throaty cough before finally dying. That’s when I heard the long, wavering train whistle. I looked back toward the tree, and the train track beyond. I could see the bright headlight from the train–it had just turned that little bend near the cemetery across from Mission San Juan. It was coming in fairly fast, and I tried to ignore the woman as she climbed out of the car and began walking toward me. I needed to get this shot, because who knew when another train would come along. I could see, from my peripheral vision, that she had come to a stop about fifteen feet from me. She took off her glasses and crossed her arms.

The train was about to enter the frame–the rumbling of steel wheels along iron rails and the whistle screaming all came crashing into me like physical thing. That’s when I squeezed off a shot. I took another three exposures with slightly different settings and placements. Then I put on the lens cap, like a diner placing his napkin on the table, to indicate he was done with his meal. I turned to the woman with what I hoped was a pleasant and cordial smile.

As we stood there, facing one another with the train lumbering by, she pointed with her folded sunglasses at the tree.

“You’re not messing with that, are you?” she shouted over the noise. I didn’t make out the words at first.

“What? Oh, no,” I said slowly and loudly. “I’m just taking pictures.”

She furrowed her brows. At that point the final train car sped past, snatching with it all the thunder and high-pitched metallic squealing.

“It’s for a photography show.” I added. “At an art gallery.”

“Oh,” she said, with an understanding dip of her head, as if art explained everything. “It’s just that if my mother saw anyone messing with this, she’d be sick. This is for my sister, Yoli.”

She walked to the tree and fussed with the silk flowers by reshaping the petals with the wire inside the fabric.

“You should come back out with your camera next week. Me, my mother, and my nieces, we’ll redo it. We freshen it up every few months.” She was wearing an orange t-shirt, faded jeans, and flip-flop sandals. Her hair was held back with what looked like a strip torn off a dish towel. She looked like she was about twenty.

“She was in a car accident?” I asked.

“What?” She turned around and was looking down at my camera.

“Your sister.”

“Oh.” She slipped her sunglasses into the front pocket of her jeans. “It was up there,” she said, pointing to the rise of the train tracks. “She was walking along the tracks with her boyfriend. They were drunk. Someone said they saw them pushing each other when the train was coming up. You know, pretending. Kids do stupid stuff. Sergio, her boyfriend, well his parents sent him to live with his grandparents in Laredo. It was an accident, everyone knows that, but, you know, the kids at school and everything.”

She bent down to empty the water from the candle holders and stood up with a sigh. “Come on back next week, it’ll be pretty.” She smiled at me and nodded and walked back to her car.

“Hey,” I said. “When did this happen?”

She turned. “On her birthday,” she said. “On Yoli’s birthday.” And I watched her get in the truck with the old man and drive off.

cc.primary.srr

Chihuahuas in the Igloo

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(It’s Thursday already, and I’m just now posting this blog from the weekend. I tell you, this job I have at the moment sure is sucking time away from my frivolous pursuits.)

I continue to find myself in that vague world of “the check it in the mail.” The absurdity of it all is that this should be coming from some financially irresponsible deadbeat such as myself. Funny, but it’s coming from other people. Checks promised to me.

Such as just last Saturday when I was hired to video the Family Day at the Blue Star Arts Complex. Well, I can’t grouse too much. They quickly paid most of the artists and presenters on the spot. And I do believe I was a last minute after-thought. So, I guess I can wait a few days.

The best thing was the convenience of it all. I packed my equipment into my trusty thrift store laptop shoulder bag and walked two blocks to the San Antonio River, hopped across the cement blocks of the low water crossing, climbed up the levy of the right bank, and there I was. One o’clock until four. I got a bit of a sunburn. I don’t know how many people they were expecting, but it seemed a great success. At the most crowded, I would guess there were about three hundred people.

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There were booths scattered across the parking-lot with various activities. Silk-screening with the Stone Metal Press. There was a woman letting kids make “fossils” out of shells and starfish and et cetera pressed into sand and then covered in plaster. Beaded jewelry. Clay sculpture. Papel picado. An environmental booth where, among other diversions, you could put on a pair of rubber gloves and dig in a fish tank of mud for a worm and some other critter, and then place it under a microscope.

One of the guys at this booth was walking around with a mug of mate. I only knew what it was because of the iconic metal straw. I’ve been curious about this drink for awhile, but I have never gotten around to tracking it down. When I asked him about it, he explained that the dried mate could be found fairly easily in San Antonio. He said that his mother in Paraguay sent him the stainless steel straw (they have a bulbous sieve at the far end to filter the mate, which is coarsely cut like tea). He offered me a taste. Very refreshing in a minty and grassy sort of way.

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Over by the river, Deborah was setting up chalk and colored sand for kids to make a mandala on a circular part of the bike trail that passes through Blue Star.

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Saturday night I headed over to Russ’ place. He was firing up the barbecue. Pete and Lisa were there. He’d tried unsuccessfully to track down Andy and Dar (but I’m thinking they might have made a get-away to the coast). It was the perfect night to sit in the backyard eating too much food. If only those hyperactive chihuahuas next door had been locked up in a soundproof box (now that I think about it, that Igloo cooler that Cooper was sitting on would have been just the right size).

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Sunday I decided to put in an appearance at the Overtime Theater. SALSA (San Antonio Lonely Screenwriters’ Association) were gathering for their monthly public reading. First Sunday. For some reason, they were also slated to screen Operation Hitman, the film I did for IFMASA. Mary Harder had been given the script for IFMASA to use, and she initially wanted to direct it herself, but for some reason she offered it to me. The writer is the talented Richard Dane Scott. Who, no surprise, is a SALSA member. So I had a chance to talk a bit with Richard. I hadn’t seen him since the 2007 Austin Film Festival. Also, Gabi Walker and her mom Alicia were there. Gabi was the costar of Hitman. I told her I’m trying my best to write a script for her before she becomes too famous for me to afford. Here we have a photo op moment with Alicia and Gabi.

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And here we have a poor photo of the reading. I believe that’s the back of Nikki Young’s head, producer of Operation Hitman.

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Gabi had to leave before the film screened (it being a school night). It was for the best, actually, because technical problems popped up, and the DVD refused to play.

No great loss for me. I’ve already seen it. But because of the vagaries of this dreadful technological blunder called the DVD (especially the hardware and software used to create homemade DVDs), every venue which wants to offer these sorts of screenings need to work out all the tech bugs in their system and, please, do at least a preview dry run of all material to be screened (not all DVDs and DVD players are created the same).

I can’t slight the Overtime. They are not a film venue. The reading went off very smoothly. It was a feature script titled The Devil’s Right Hand, by Terri Spaugh. A western. The actors did a superb job. They’d familiarized themselves with the roles well enough, so it was more of a performance than a simple table read. There were about a dozen actors on stage, most who I’d never seen before. All very talented. John Poole, who runs the Overtime, acted as the narrator. This meant he read the action lines. And I have to say, the level of writing was very impressive. Damn good action lines (and I’m not being facetious — this is really where you hold the reader’s attention, and if you’ve written a spec script you had better hold the reader’s attention). But the dialogue was another story. Many of us have this problem with dialogue in screenplays. Too damn chatty. Films work much better with information conveyed by actors expressions and various visual cues (unless you’re Whit Stillman or Wes Anderson). This stuff isn’t for the stage. Ultimately it’s not a huge problem, really, as a canny director will strip out about 50 percent of the dialogue and make the piece stronger (unless this particular director wrote the script, and thus has no objectivity).

I hope these SALSA readings continue. It’s a one-stop shopping opportunity to sample local playwright / screenwriters as well as actors.