Aliens and the Kid

Today was a really long, hot day. My 8th day in a row of riding. I put 375 miles on the GS today and I’m more than a little tired. I’m riding to Cloudcroft tomorrow where I’ll set up my tent and rest in the cool air before riding down into southern Texas.

I left Ruidoso and headed to Roswell. Today would be my day to see the aliens and to explore the lore and myth of Billy the Kid. It was a beautiful morning with little to no wind. Just the kind of weather a flying saucer would no doubt prefer when landing in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico.

Roswell….was not what I expected. If you watch any Sci-Fi show it will have you believe Roswell is just some little sleepy place of a few hundred people who have all, at one time or another, been abducted by aliens, laid out on an examining table and had their innards probed by some little green man. In reality it is a town of twenty or so thousand folks with a whole lot of normal living going on although even the normal businesses like hotels, restaurants and barbers are not above putting the little green man image on their billboards to help move sales along. McDonald’s has made their Roswell Playland in the shape of a flying saucer. Forgive me, I did not eat there.

I parked the GS on a side street having already cruised the main boulevard and determined where the aliens were be found. There is a little section of main street that is “Alien Center.” It reminds me of old Times Square in New York before it was cleaned up. There are numerous museums and institutes for the discovery and analysis of aliens and similar drivel. I went straight for the mother lode and hit the oldest Roswell U.F.O. Museum. It was the tallest, had the shiniest exterior (Aliens like shiny, right?) and most importantly, did not have any nut-jobs standing outside jabbering about what it must be like to REALLY meet an alien.

In I go to the UFO and scope out the con. It works like this – if you want to go beyond the velvet rope and behold room after room of alien narrative written and produced by people who have never laid eyes on one then give the man your ten dollars and off you go. Or, if you are one of the unpersuaded who just wants a bumper sticker then belly up to the control counter where your chest will be affixed with a UFO sticker that grants you admission only to the gift shop. I got such a sticker.

There is a special place in hell reserved for parents who let their kids run wild in stores. Little three foot tall monsters were running and screaming all over the gift shop. Could these be aliens at last? No, but almost. They were from Indiana.  Their mother cared not one whit they were tearing the place apart. I made quick work of my bumper sticker quest and made my exit. I took a few minutes and walked down the street but honestly, I couldn’t work up enough spit to even take a picture of the place. It’s just a fraud and with so much that is truly beautiful and majestic in New Mexico why would you waste another minute looking at six foot tall plastic green men? Which I did not. I got on my bike and weaved my way through some incredibly heavy traffic and made for Fort Sumner, the place of Billy the Kid’s death and his purported last resting place.

The ride there lacked the fun of the high country twisties . It was more of a utilitarian, let’s get over there and visit the Kid.  Fort Sumner is now a sleepy, little town, the fort itself long gone with all that remains being a few foundational stones and a nice little picnic area. The Kid however is a multi-million dollar enterprise. There are stores about the Kid, multiple museums, even multiple graves. Everyone wants a piece of the Kid.

I did my research ahead of time and knew which of the museums was the recommended. It was the last and closest to the old fort and it’s really not much. Any of the little museums in Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge will put the Kid’s museums to shame. Cheap trinkets from China, a few t-shirt racks and bumper stickers and that’s about it. Except for the grave which you can see in the accompanying photo. The Kid’s grave. The final resting place of William Bonney or whoever he was. Some twenty-one year old who let himself get used by powerful men in a war to enhance their wealth. Some of you who are reading this fought in one of those wars yourself a lifetime ago.

I’m an Old West buff. I know every street, alley, and board in Tombstone. I’ve visited Ed Schefflin’s grave and crawled in the abandoned mine works of Tombstone and Bisbee. I know way too much about Wyatt Earp and his crew and the men he really did kill. I have also spent way too much time reading about the Kid. Both men are famous but there is a very important difference – the legend of Wyatt Earp can be proven. The Kid? Well, no one is even sure if he is in the ground. Pat Garrett was his good friend and Garrett would have the world believe he killed his friend in the dark and buried him quickly and his employers should have taken his word for it. That’s not how it worked in those days. Many a dead outlaw was dug up and photographed, even he was a might ripe, just so the good citizens would know he was dead and they could sleep better at night. Not so for the kid. Everyone, including the provisional governor, Lew Wallace (later to write Ben Hur) was fine to take Garret at his word.

   So did I visit the Kid’s grave? In my view of things, no. The Kid never died there. Garret and his buddies helped the Kid ride off to Old Mexico where he lived out his life in anonymity and left the great state of New Mexico and Hollywood to get rich off the myth they made out of his name.

I started to leave the museum when I saw a woman running around a house off in the distance some three or four hundred yards away. There was screaming. There was a small group of tourists looking that way. There was the museum clerk talking to the deputy sheriff instead of taking my dollar fifty for a bumper sticker. The deputy burns rubber toward the running woman. A flip-flop wearing young man of a tourist brought me up to speed. Seems she and a man were having a domestic altercation and she was screaming her head off for help while he was abusing her. The cashier called the law and now everyone was watching. Or trying to, the distance being too great for them to see. Everyone was really worried about the welfare of the women. The deputy was a woman. If only the tourists could see.

I went over to my tank bag and retrieved my 10 power monocular which I carry on trips. I walked backed to the group and started following the deputy’s progress. She was doing fine and had matters well in hand. Flip-flop looks at my monocular and says “Gee. You’re making me look bad. Here you are on that bike and you’re better prepared than we are.” There were in one of those deluxe Jeep Wranglers pulling a trailer. Flip-flops continued, ” We should be ready to help the deputy.”

“Son,”, I said to myself, “Me being from Eastern Kentucky, you have no idea how ready I really am.” But I kept quiet. The deputy got it squared away and I did not have to use my concealed carry license. I was on my way.

I got back to Alamogordo and was the most tired I’ve been on this trip. I could tell my reflexes were not as sharp so I headed for a hotel. There were two men sitting outside keeping the Camel cigarette company in business. Both looked me up and down.

“How do you wear all that damn gear in this weather?”  asked one of them.

“You get used to it.” I replied

Which put me to thinking. Motorcycle riders are aliens to a lot of folks. We ride funny machines that intimidate people. We wear gear that makes us look like we walk on the moon.  We ride solely for the joy of the ride.
Much of what is said about us as bikers is not true. We are not thugs. We don’t run drugs. We don’t belong to gangs that engage in organized crime. We have jobs. Many of us have multiple college degrees. (I’m at three and holding.) We have families. So, we’re a lot like Billy the Kid. We are one thing while people see what they want to see and make us out to be something entirely different.
My time in New Mexico is just about finished and then, like the Kid, I’ll be moving on. First, I’m going to set up my tent and ride the high country one last time.

Ride safe and bless you all,
Brian