Pony Rides

My short story, PONY RIDES, came to me all at once. The story wrote itself. The drive on Interstate 10 across New Mexico has always seemed magical to me; a place tethered to an earlier time of roadside diners, old motels, and miles of golden grassland fenced by wire and wooden sticks driven into the ground. I could miss driving it for years, and then I'd hit that highway again and darned if it didn't always seem the same---an old friend. I write about the same roads in DARK HORSE.

I even drew a picture of the café. The café exists only in my imagination, but I know it has thousands of cousins. At the time I drew the picture, the café was called Hi-WAY café. In a later version of the story I changed it to Pinion Café. I think I've revised this story a few times since it appeared in Tucson Weekly years ago. PONY RIDES was my first short story, and I was overjoyed when it placed in the Tucson Weekly Words & Images contest--behind some damn fine, prestigious writers who went on to have serious careers. PONY RIDES also got me into the U. of A. Creative Writing MFA program, although I didn't stay.
Nothing in life is certain, but I do expect to make that drive from Tucson to Deming to Las Cruces to Alamogordo to Ruidoso again. That piece of road will be forever in my heart.
--- J. Carson Black