Las Cruces Breakdown
I never did stop worrying about that transmission...
I had gotten across the fold in the atlas, through Louisiana and most of the way through Texas in just three days after leaving New York. I had done 800 miles the day before, driving on US 90 in south Texas, land of the turkey vulture and the Border Patrol, who drag old tires behind their trucks to smooth out the dirt so they can see tracks and footprints. They sit in hunting blinds to track people coming in from the south.
It was April of 2016. I had woken up in Fort Stockton, Texas and was heading towards Las Cruces, New Mexico in my Ford E-350 van, which had carried me for 100,000 miles over the past 5 years. I had built this van into a little 4x4 stealth camper and it had been trustworthy for all that time until the year before, when I had broken down in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and had to hang out for 5 days, waiting for parts, so they could repair the flex plate and torque converter on the transmission. I figured I was okay after that, but in the back of my head lingered a hint of mechanical mortality. After that, I never did stop worrying about that transmission.
I went through Pecos, Texas, searching for photos, and came up into New Mexico on US 285. I took one of the lesser highways west and was finally slowing down and enjoying the Western lands. God, but it was glorious to be out west again. It’s what I dream of when I’m back east. I stopped and shot a billboard that had said “TRUST IN GOD,” but was now painted over. Did they stop paying the bill? Did that particular church go out of business? I was pondering the possible stories behind that sign and enjoying the drive.
Not far past that, I stopped to shoot another blank billboard and was thinking that maybe I was onto a new theme - painted-over messages. I drove up a little mound of dirt to get the shot, then went into reverse when I suddenly felt the transmission slip. Oh please God, no. Please don’t do this to my transmission. I did some more testing and realized I was on thin ice.
I pointed the van towards El Paso, over a massive hill, and was grateful to get a signal on my phone. I had had no signal for most of the day. I found a transmission shop that was open in Las Cruces and limped along, tranny slipping then sliding the whole way. I didn’t stop. When I got there, it was a strange crew, presided over by an ancient guy who said he had been in the transmission business for over 55 years. He told me that he also owned an RV park and lived in the town of Vado. One of his guys, “my top rebuilder,” he said, went for a ride and confirmed that I was fucked. I was fucked in more ways than one. It was late on a Friday, but I knew the drill after that week in Rocky Mount. I found an Enterprise car rental, put most of my stuff in the car, and checked into a local motel. I decided to make the best of it. There are FAR worse places to be stuck than Las Cruces.
I settled in, got my camera bag out, then took the car out to drive around. Las Cruces has some great food, a great used bookstore, and it’s well-situated. The next morning, I went by the transmission shop, but it was just the owner and another old guy. They could not get my 9000 pound van on the lift to get the transmission down until “the young guys” came in on Monday. The younger of the two old guys got on a creeper under the van and tried to loosen some bolts. “Another northeastern vehicle,” he said grimly as he looked at the corrosion. He held a lit candle under each bolt to heat it up before he loosened it with his wrench. Those two talked shit while I looked on in silence. I was trying to be cheerful and ingratiate myself with them. “See if you can bring us some donuts on Monday,” the old guy said, and I took this as my sign to leave. “Try Bosa Donuts.” I got into the rental car and headed out towards Alamogordo, past the town of Organ and the ruins of the old Organ Mountain Lodge.
It was the first cross country trip since my dog Elko had died, earlier that year, and I was pretty lonely. For the next week, I fell into a routine of heading into El Paso every day to shoot. El Paso is not that far from Las Cruces and it’s a great town for photos. I found the H&H Car Wash and Cafe, where the owner - I learned later - was a legendary crank. He yelled at me when I asked him about the bathroom, but he and I made up after that and he ended up giving me an H&H cap. The little coffee shop attached to it made exquisite breakfast tacos and huevos rancheros. Every time I went by, he seemed to be yelling at somebody from his lawn chair by the entrance to the car wash. I think it’s what kept him going. He reminded me of Hunter Thompson if Hunter Thompson had owned a car wash and lunch counter.
I loved El Paso and could not stop thinking about the movie “Touch of Evil” and the whole border town mythos, but that was me romanticizing the West again - and it’s an easy thing to do when you’re from the East. The land is magic and feels exotic to someone from the greener parts of the country. Of course, I feel the same strangeness about the deep south, but not in the same way. The light, the air, and the sky out west always touch me in ways that are difficult to articulate without sounding facile. I claw for words.
I kept thinking, “THANK GOD I’m not in Ohio or Indiana or Tennessee.” NOT that there is anything wrong with those places, but they are not New Mexico or West Texas. Maybe I just read too many books as a kid and had an extra vivid imagination. Either way, I was happy to be where I was, even if I was anxious over the state of the van. I had to trust in something greater than myself or I would have been a complete wreck. I trusted in that 22 year-old kid who was the ace transmission rebuilder. And then I shot photos in El Paso, in White Sands, and in Las Cruces.
I found an ice cream custard shop that served green chile pepper sundaes. I ate New Mexican food every day like it was my last meal. I shot photos. I harassed the guys in the transmission shop and brought them donuts. It was a calculated mixed message. I banged around El Paso, getting lost with my camera, and I think I healed a bit from the loss of Elko. As I discovered on previous trips, anything worth doing with someone is worth doing alone. I was on the lookout for stray dogs the whole time, but that bit of cosmic magic would not happen for another 18 months.
As with my breakdown in Rocky Mount, I realized I could actually live in a place like Las Cruces. I had always just blown through these towns and cities, never stopping too long, just enough to shoot photos, grab a bite, bed down, sleep in the van in some casino parking lot, find a hot spring, or visit a friend. After almost 6 forced days here, the place had come into focus and I liked it. I was not ready to put down stakes - and I’m still not, apparently — but I could see the possibility of doing so. So that was a good thing. My mind expanded just a bit.
I lost a little bit of trust in that machine, although I would hold onto the van for another 7 or 8 years until I sold it. And I still miss it. But I had miles to go - on that trip and afterwards - and when I got the van back, I vowed to lighten it up a bit and keep driving. I sold the awning to a guy in Jersey. I threw out some of the stuff I had been hauling around. And I did my best to keep it in good running condition. Breakdowns are a part of life. They are, in fact, an integral part of life.
There would be another breakdown on this trip, just a day or two later. The steering column fell apart near Phoenix, on the day that Prince died, but that was ahead of me. For now, I would leave Las Cruces, both relieved and sad, happy to be back on the road, but with a little piece of my heart in Las Cruces. The town had sheltered and taken care of me. Seven years earlier, I had stayed in a cheap motel there on Christmas Eve of 2009, on my way to get the van in Portland, Oregon. I had used it as a way station since then, and I have gone back many times. There’s always something to see in Las Cruces, and these trips are generally about looking for things to see. That’s an odd construction - “look to see” - and I’m pretty certain I read it in a letter that someone - was it Walker Evans or somebody else - wrote in support of Robert Frank’s grant application that took him on the trip that became “The Americans.”
Home can be many things and home on the road is something else altogether. Shelter, solace, comfort, and care. It’s always far better to leave a place, wanting to stay, than to never want to come back. We are lucky to find safe places while traveling. The road can often be hostile, and this is part of what makes it interesting, part of the allure, but to find a place that grows in your heart is more rare. We talk incessantly, here at Casa Santo, chez nous and all that, about places to live, and have tried to quantify what makes a place feel right, what would make a place worth settling in. With two people and two different sets of needs and desires, of phobias and scars, that equation becomes more difficult, but it’s very possible. That’s one reason why New York City is so easy, in some ways. There’s a wrench for every nut.
Still, this town is not for everyone and it may not even be for us in the long run. How did I get here from talking about breakdowns? Maybe breakdowns and being stranded in other places are like reading a book. They take us somewhere else. Maybe I’m too busy making lemonade from the lemons life has thrown at me. Then again, I like lemonade.
Paul Vlachos is a writer, photographer and filmmaker. He was born in New York City, where he currently lives. He is the author of “The Space Age Now,” released in 2020, “Breaking Gravity” in 2021, and 2023’s “Exit Culture.”
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oh I want the breakfast tacos and huevos rancheros! loved this, Paul.
Thank you, Paul, for this love letter to Las Cruzes. Never been there, but Tucson was on our horizon for a time. Going there to check out houses, etc., showed me how raw a town could be. Too many western towns are dressing up to gleam in the sunlight of progress, erasing their pasts, even if those pasta are just a few decades old. Californication obviously hasn't reached some places in the interior West.Your photos show a place that's raw and real, dusty and yet alive as the afternoon wind. The stories of your travels intrique me and this one most of all, probably because you paused your nomadic life long enough to fall in love.