And then there is the abyss

Some stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And others are less direct, and seem like they don’t happen in that order. They happen and then seep into your awareness for months, years even. Sometimes a person's ignorance of what is happening as it is happening can protect them. Sometimes God's grace comes from denial.

I moved to Taos after rolling health issues made living in Austin unbearable. After an apparent infection and numerous surgeries, I buried parts of my body in the earth.

And while I have recovered into a decently surfable ‘new normal’, one lingering symptom was a syndrome which caused debilitating hot flashes day and night. I had a decent job in Austin, but I was at that point in year 2.5 of these hot flashes robbing me of any more than 5-10 minutes a night of REM sleep. It was becoming difficult to work, and I hoped that Taos’ dry mountain air and cool would help me.

As it happened, a friend of a family friend, who I had met years before had an opening in one of her casitas in Taos, and it was affordable and I exchanged taking care of her live-stock in exchange for some of the rent. She had been a lobbyist for a government agency in New Mexico, and was engaged in other work when I lived there that took her out of town regularly.

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We were friendly, and as what I assumed was a friendly gesture, she seemed to ‘take me under her wing’ which I appreciated as I was trying to get established. She took me to the Pueblo, she invited me over for dinner, that kind of thing. I did have an early first red flag, that I did not heed. I remember saying I was thankful to God for my luck in finding part-time work, and her smirking and saying, ‘What did God ever do for you?’ I told her that he gave me a wonderful mother, among other things.

Because she had been referred to me by a friend and having met her years back, the outings seemed completely in context, and I forgave her bitterness.

She knew that I had been having difficulty with sleep, and at one of those dinners, she mentioned that there was something that she took for ‘hormonal’ issues that helped her, and that a pharmacist friend would formulate for her. This struck me as funny and completely in character for the region as there are about a gazzilion self-proclaimed alchemists in the Santa Fe/Taos region alone, who are always trying to give you their miracle mushrooms fermented in turmeric paste cure.

I told her I would consider it.

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She was out of town a lot for the following week or two. I was getting to know and love her animals, except for the horse which would try to kick me in the head. She had all these government meetings in Galisteo, sometimes she said she had to go to Stanley - which seemed strange to me, if you know Galisteo or Stanley New Mexico. I mean if you blink for too long while passing them on the highway, you’ll miss ‘em. Rich hippies always have these large spreads in those kinds of places, and I thought maybe one of them was sponsoring the meetings.

When she came back from one those meetings she had me over and was all the rage about this new artist who she had met. A humanitarian who was doing photographic works about refugees. She insisted I check her out, and said that I would love her. Her name was Marina Abramovic. Apparently they had started a little relationship. She kept going ON and ON about how great she looks for being in her 70’s.

I looked her up online, but at the time was unimpressed by her art and so just sort of moved on in my mind, until about a week later when Marina came to visit my landlord and I was very briefly introduced to her and her quiet and visibly cold 'niece' who traveling with her.  I remember thinking she looked so cold she was grayish.  With a dark pink wool coat that was feeble.

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A couple of weeks after that, my landlady invited me over for dinner. She would never let me bring anything to eat, and so instead I brought a bottle of wine. I do not drink. When I got there, she plied me to try this new tequila someone had gifted her. Going on and on about how expensive and delicious it was. I explained that I really don’t like alcohol, and she insisted I try just a thimble. I obliged and had little shot glass. I noted it had a strange pink color, and she told me that it was because of it’s high level of refinement.

As I was taking sips and talking to her, she put the final touches on the enchiladas she had been preparing. She said it ‘was from a kid they slaughtered last weekend so it’s fresh.’ I definitely thought that was a weird thing to say, but I had been taking care of some of her goats and the little ones too, so it, again, all seemed reasonable in context.

We talked about my health and how I was sleeping, and I told her I was still struggling and she said, again, that she could have her pharmacist friend take care of me. I asked her about what it does, and she said it helps with hormones and is why her skin looks so great all the time. I internally rolled my eyes, and asked her what it was called and she said ‘Adrenochrome’. I took the word apart in our conversation, which is the only reason I remembered the name later. I remember thinking that I needed to look up what the Adrenal glad even does, and thought that ‘chrome’ was an interesting name that sounded like the Google browser.

It wasn’t until after I ate (she did not eat and said she had been nibbling during the time she had been cooking) that I started feeling really woozy.

I excused myself to use the bathroom, but continued to feel poorly after getting out. She told me I should sit down on her couch and relax before walking home in the cold on the icy roads. I sat down on her couch, dizzy. I remember she left the room, and came back in what seemed to be fancy silk pajamas. She said she wanted to get more comfortable. I was feeling like hell, and was weirded out by her energy and her change of clothing like she’s Mr. Rogers, but slinky. So after about 5 minutes I told her I really needed to leave.

That I was about to be sick.

The walk home felt endless. Things were spinning. I fell down many many times and at some point just stayed down and was crawling on my knees on the ice. I kept blaming it on my low tolerance for alcohol. When I got home I was in and out of the bathroom for the remainder of the night. I remember being dizzy and tired but also really wired in a way that did not feel normal.

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The next night I called her about some discrepancies in the utility bill in which I was over paying, and just remember that she seemed hyper aggressive. Really angry. I asked her if I had offended her somehow, and she kept saying that it was about the electricity bill, but it felt like we were having two different conversations. She kept going into rage, and screaming at me over a discrepancy on the bill. I hung up on her when it got to be too much. I was literally trembling in fear (a first for me), turned out all the lights, locked the doors and hid under my desk with the phone turned off. I must have fallen asleep eventually because I woke up under the desk.

I turned the phone on and immediately got a call from my mother, who is prescient, and said she was worried. The pandemic was starting, and I was concerned about her as she is aging, and so I told her I was coming for a week to visit and check in.

After getting off the phone, my landlady was at the door knocking and calling my name. I told her I needed to leave for a week, and she apologized for the night before saying she had too much wine. She had this way of saying the word ‘Wine’ that grossed me out. Like the word ‘moist’.

And so I left, and while I was on the road somewhere in between Albuquerque and Socorro, the news hit my radio that the State of New Mexico was going into ‘lock-down’. Of course, the lock-down ended up being months and months, and I stayed with my mom during that time but would send rent money every month.

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I started thinking back about my landlady. That something felt off in a way that made me anxious. And I so I started going over our conversations. Going over my experiences. It wasn’t until looking into ‘Adrenochrome’ that things started hitting me like a ton of bricks.  Adrenochrome is extracted from children's blood and adrenal glands, but the trick is they have to be terrified when it is taken out, and it inevitably kills them.

I researched deeper into Marina Abramovic, spirit cooking, eating kids, Zorito Ranch in Stanley, New Mexico and the disgusting heinous and repulsive Epstein who owned it. I researched the effects of eating human meat on humans and realized she had probably fed me an actual slaughtered kid, that there was something in the ‘tequila’. That there was a reason she did not let me bring food to share (hint: she hates garlic).

A friend of mine was helping me make sense of it all. It was clear I could not live there even if I was able to return. At some point, I would have to go back into that situation to get my belongings.

When I checked in with another friend during that time who worked at schmancy restaurant in Taos and knows everyone,  I told her I got stuck away from home during lock down. She told me that this was probably a good thing, and that she had overheard someone saying that they were looking for me, and not in a good way.

‘They’, I asked? She did not know.

I did not know who ‘they’ were and I did not want to. I’m not someone who tends to have people looking for me in that way, and it affected my sense of safety.

So I took the advise.

When I was finally able to arrange a weekend and help from a couple wonderful friends, we decided to get it over with. My friends were aware of the situation, and both of them brought their fire arms and let me know that they would deal with my land lady for me.

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Eventually, we were almost completely packed and out of the house. My friends were in the kitchen, and I was speaking with my mother on the phone. I remember hearing it get really loud. My friends were arguing, which in an of itself is a strange thing for these two. I do not think I have heard either of them yelling, and they were yelling.

I could not hear my mom, so I opened the front door to go outside, and looked up to see my landlady standing about 20 feet from my front door, and she seemed half there, and had a look that seemed equally vacant and deranged. It was like she was looking past me. She had her arm outstretched towards the house. After what seemed like an uncomfortable amount of time, she seemed to come into herself and waved me over to me to come to her. I raised my hand and went inside to the sight of my friends crying and holding one another. They were freaked out by the anger. They said it had overwhelmed them. They said it felt like they had been possessed.

My landlady texted me later asking me when I was going to be finished and asking me to come by before I leave. I told her Monday (it was Saturday) but decided to leave sooner, and instead of ‘dropping by’ I sent her a text once I was out of town saying thanks and that I was out early Sunday morning.

She texted me back and told me that I should be careful. I did not respond.

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But I did take the only action I knew at the time.

I liquidated the heavy things, moved into a 17 foot trailer, and lived in the back of some land near the Chiricahua mountains. I was a bit of a hermit there for a year – with occasional side trips for odd jobs and groceries and hiking of course.

I looked into moving back to the Santa Fe area at some point, but had another friend tell me that my landlady had folks looking for me, and that if she were me she would stay put.

And I did.  By the grace of God and odd jobs and kind people, I survived with very little and saw some of the most beautiful sunsets of my life.

A few years have passed since that time, and my level of alert is not longer as piqued. I have moved into a town. I still don’t go out much, but I no longer look behind me when I am walking or driving.

I no long carry a weapon with me in the house or sleep with one under my mattress. I’ve stopped locking the back door to a locked yard when I am home.

I learned to not talk about it much after noticing that no one I confided in believed me and generally thought I was victim to an over-active imagination.

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I was lucky.

I believe that I was protected from her sinister grooming by coincidences that even the most loyal atheist would have a hard time calling coincidence. I believe the well-timed lock-down might have saved my life, literally. Unlike many who come into these darker realms of society, I walked away. I was never physically tortured or murdered. I was never raped. Even when she drugged me, I was able to get away and eventually make it back to my house.

I tell this story because I want people to know that there are levels of this. It creeps in around the edges of your life and it stalks you and it plans. Before you know it things get bad, and you aren’t even sure how it happened, and you feel ashamed that you let things get so bad. That you were so dumb.

We think this kind of evil it some extraordinary thing that only happens to others or in extraordinary circumstances or on the ‘wrong side of town’ or that it doesn’t happen at all. But I am here saying that it happened to me.

The perpetrators are people who seem normal. It’s people who your mom’s friends introduce you to. It’s people who have good jobs and who seem successful.

If you are in a situation like this my advise is to get away. And if you can’t get away, then know that I pray for you every night.