[ 16 April, 2022 ]

I spot an old, blue Dodge pickup truck under a blue, sun-scorched neon sign that says Maverick Motel. In the empty lot, a lady in a blue shirt sits under a canopy. My photography heart leaps at the perfect confluence of all that blue.

“Can I maybe take your picture?” I ask her. “Yes, of course,” she replies with a distinct voice in an accent still unfamiliar to me. In the distance, I notice a man stepping out of the motel—also dressed in blue. It turns out to be her husband Nick. He starts talking from afar, and from that point on my toes barely touch the ground. I float in a blue bubble carried by Nick’s sentences. Virtually all of them sound like iconic anecdotes ending with an exclamation point, supported by affirming—or dissenting—sounds from his wife. I learn that the accent is from the former Yugoslavia.

Nick visited America in 1968 as a tourist, and became an American citizen in 1976. “You gotta take chances … All you need in this country is common sense and the will to work!”

After working as a welder in Denver, Colorado, for 18 years, he took the plunge and started a motel in Raton, New Mexico. At first he ran the motel by himself, but then, through a cousin in Canada, he heard about a single Yugoslav lady. Soon after, Zorka and Nick got married, and together they ran the successful Maverick Motel.

“I thought I married a millionaire!” Zorka says, laughing. “I was very close to a million!” Nick says. Back then, he adds, there were a lot of horse races in Raton. “The motel was always fully booked.”

Nowadays, the motel is for sale. Large, corporate motel chains are rapidly taking over the industry, making motel life hard, and sometimes impossible, for the smaller and older motels. On top of that, staff shortages and higher wholesale prices lead to older motels collapsing—sometimes literally. For Nick and Zorka, there is also another reason to quit: their aging bodies need rest.

In the evening, we drink Slivovitz in an un-American living room, surrounded by fake sunflowers and dozens of photos of their children and grandchildren—even the sofa is covered by a large family photo. Nick picks up a tamburica-like instrument and plays a song. His fingers move slower than he hoped, but it still sounds good.