The Story Behind the Story
Last month the New York Times published my story about a 2,700 mile bike race, climate change, floods and fires. But that was only half the story. I had worked on this story for over three years and along the way, I met three baby black bears and two grizzlies outside Banff; witnessed a war between magpies, squirrels, chipmunks and ravens; slept fitfully in sketchy hotels with windows that didn’t lock and signs warning guests to not let moose inside the building — which begs the question, what does happens if you feed a moose a muffin from the continental breakfast?; I stopped for gas in the ominously named town Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, was followed by border patrol agents at night whose spotlights lit up the empty desert darkness like wild boar hunters prowling for sport; and ended up in a hospital 300 miles from the nearest city a few days before the finish line. Fortunately I didn’t need the emergency surgery that the ER doctor suspected when he examined me. But the side effects of an infection / fever + antibiotics also didn’t help me write very coherently.
Let me start at the end, because I almost didn’t make it there after the desert hospital in the middle of nowhere.
The lead rider, Sofiane Sehili, passed through the town where I was recovering in the afternoon. Monsoon rains had passed on and off all week, and the roof of my AirBnB adobe casita began to leak again as I tried to rest, recovering from the infection that hospitalized me. I had been so careful not to catch COVID along the way, especially because I didn’t want to potentially infect any of the cyclists when I interviewed them. No one in Montana wore a mask, no one in Idaho wore a mask, no one in Wyoming wore a mask, two people in Colorado wore masks. A man in a cowboy hat at a truck stop in Montana asked me why I was wearing a mask. He looked horrified and confused when I told him that there’s evidence that COVID causes erectile dysfunction, among other things. Another man asked me if I was a witch. I wasn’t sure how to respond, but the following day a black cat in Missoula jumped out of a lilac bush and followed me to the river. So maybe he was on to something. A few days later, that river flooded, and I thought of all the homeless camps along its banks. I remembered the guitar I spotted, leaning against a cottonwood tree, next to a man in a sleeping bag. I wondered if he and his guitar were ok, or if it had floated away in the flood, on its way to where I was frantically arranging scratched teflon pots and pans at my AirBnB in the drenched desert.
Fortunately after my CT scan, the ER doctor determined that I didn’t need an emergency hysterectomy and I didn’t have an ectopic pregnancy, as he had suspected when I was first admitted. It was just my reproductive organs trying to kill me. Roe v. Wade was overturned the same week, and I felt overwhelmed by all the other possible outcomes if I had been in one of the neighboring states. I waited almost three hours in Wal-Mart where I waited for my antibiotic prescription and had to pay for out of pocket because in America, even if you have “good insurance” the healthcare system still doesn’t work. While I waited, I bought art supplies out of boredom, gave money to a sunburned homeless man begging outside the tire shop, and eavesdropped on local town gossip in the juice aisle.
When I saw Sehili pass through, I figured I had enough time to wait. I calculated that he’d probably arrive at the US-Mexico border finish line, Antelope Wells, NM around 3am at the earliest. He was far ahead of the other riders.
“Antelope Wells?” my friends laughed when I told them that’s where I was headed next, to the finish line. “Isn’t that where Saul Goodman and Walter White went in Breaking Bad?” The scene of Bob Odenkirk’s character, Saul Goodman, wrapped in a glinting silver space blanket, dragging millions of dollars in two duffel bags through the Chihuahuan Desert flashed in my mind. “Yeah,” I told them. “That’s the one.” And I was about to head to Antelope Wells in the middle of the night. Alone. I wasn’t afraid of a fictional story about a grifting lawyer and a high school chemistry teacher turned meth producer. I was, however, scared of border patrol agents, hitting a deer, a cow, or a chupacabra.
At sunset a flock of bats flitted across the pink sky. I recalled last year, when a male editor told me that women can’t do gonzo journalism. I wanted to call him up to tell him I was literally in bat country, reporting a story for the New York Times, and there was no way I was stopping here.
Around 10pm I woke from a nap and checked to see where Sehili was. I hadn’t anticipated how fast he would sail over the flat landscape of southern New Mexico. He was three hours early! And I was late.
I threw everything in the car, cleaned the AirBnB a little, and took out the trash. As I carried the last of my belongings to the car, my AirBnB host, who happened to be a journalist who covers cartels and government corruption in Chihuahua invited me out to have drinks and listen to music with some of her friends. I had seen some of her friends yesterday, all silver-haired women from Silver City, gathered in a circle in a garden of blossoming yucca and cholla. They looked like a coven of artist witches I longed to join. I apologized that I had to leave immediately to make sure I got an interview at the finish line. “The story’s moving faster than I anticipated, literally,” I told her. She shooed me off and wished me luck, understanding the urgency to leave better than any other AirBnB host might have.
Note: As much as I abhor what AirBnB has done to the housing market and priced-out local renters, I appreciated the beautiful randomness of staying with an intrepid journalist who covers government corruption and Bob Dylan.
I stopped for gas on the edge of town. The receipt printer was broken so I had to run inside for a copy of my receipt. I shoved it in the console with the other receipts. I would have to deal with my expense report later. I had started out very organized, but after thousands of miles, averaging four hours of sleep a night on top of an infection, my filing system was now a fistfulled mountain of thermal paper slips that gave me anxiety whenever I looked at it.
I turned onto a dark highway, keeping my brights on when I could to look out for javelina, antelope, and the like. I passed through the creepiest town I have ever seen, where police lights flashed on every block, and the people walking through its dark streets looked like huddled hitchhiking ghosts. I did not pick any of them up. I might have in my 20s, but this time I was racing towards a deadline.
Getting on the freeway, aggressive trucks flew past. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what looked like a tall woman in a white t-shirt waving for help. I dialed 911 while keeping my eyes on the road. Miles later, I realized that I had probably called an ambulance for a yucca cactus in distress by the roadside. Maybe that’s all the chupacabra is. A yucca at night with your car’s headlights hitting its outstretched arms just right.
I turned onto the desert road that would lead me the rest of the way to the border, to Antelope Wells. Snakes writhed across the pavement and I slammed on the brakes every few miles for a frightened jackrabbit bounding across the road. There were storm clouds and lightning on the horizon, but it remained dry for now. I called my husband when my signal dropped and I couldn’t see where Sehili was. A white ghost bike illuminated the darkness, a stoic reminder of how dangerous this road was for cyclists. The reception was not very good, but my husband told me that Sehili was only 12 miles from the finish line. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck!” I cursed. I’m not going to make it. I’d come all this way only to miss the interview I needed to finish my story. My husband tried to comfort me as the phone reception crackled. “You - enough - ok.” He was trying to tell me that I had enough to finish the story without the interview. And maybe he was right, but I wasn’t in a headspace to be reasonable. “Can you stay on the phone with me while I pull over? I need to pee and there are snakes and javelina all around.” I recognized how silly it was for me to be scared of snakes and boars while driving a car, when all the endurance cyclists were on bikes, but I had seen enough snakes and scorpions that week to be cautious.
In Wyoming I had accidentally peed in a snake hole. I was careful not to make that same mistake twice. I hopped back in the car and sped toward the border, hoping that I would still catch Sehili before he left. Because tracking him after he reached the customs station would be impossible. There is nothing in Antelope Wells, especially at midnight.
A spotlight clicked on a few miles later. Its brightness lit up the desert sagebrush and startled me into nearly crashing. I slowed, thinking it was hunters. Close, it was the border patrol. A border patrol truck followed me for a few miles. When I crossed another invisible checkpoint, a second spotlight shone on me, as bright as a football field. And then a third.
In the distance, I saw the lights of the border crossing, surrounded by chainlink fences. It’s a very small office so they’re only open during business hours.
I breathed a sigh of relief, the tension melting from my shoulders when I spotted a film crew in the darkness. I parked in the a dirt lot to the right where several other cars had gathered. A small crowd of about a dozen people surrounded Sehili, interviewing him. I was so relieved that I hadn’t missed him. A key light illuminated Sehili as he held his bike overhead. I couldn’t imagine how tired he was, and how he mustered the strength to lift the frame.
A man shook my hand and introduced himself as Sehili’s manager. We exchanged cards and I waited my turn to interview the champion cyclist. As he finished an interview with the German film crew, I overheard Sehili whisper in French that he was so tired and lamented having to think in English for these interviews. When it was my turn to interview him last, I apologized in French, telling him that my Spanish is better than my French, and was it ok to do one more interview in English? He laughed and he graciously answered my questions about climate change and cycling through floods, snow and fire.
The group invited me back to the Hachita bike ranch. They generously offered to let me sleep in a room surrounded by bike frames. I had hoped to interview everyone, but I had to work on my draft and make it to my next checkpoint before dark.
I’ll admit, it’s been hard, adjusting to the end of the story I worked on for over three years. Like writer’s postpartum. It was exhausting, exciting, and there was no way for me to anticipate the adventure I was in for. And I’d happily do it all again.
As always, I’m working on new projects. A couple pieces are about prisons. Another is about climate change and exploitative corporate mining on Tohono Oʼodham lands; an investigative article about immigration, the US-Mexico border wall, and 300-500 feral hogs; a story about the secret lives of shellfish in the Salish Sea; and a report about systemic child abuse in isolated agricultural communities that implicates the powerful rural gentry. I’m also working on a few fun articles about restaurants to visit on Vancouver Island. I look forward to sharing these stories with you when they’re published!
I should also mention that I’m working on a few new cohorts for writing groups, and I have some openings for consultations for new one-on-one coaching clients. Let me know if you’re interested by filling out this form. I’m also teaching a food writing at Hugo House in October if you’d like to register.