Double Exposure

2010-10-17T08:19:00.000-07:00

Well, this is goodbye I guess. Today marks the final post in Double Exposure. It's been fun doing this the last ten months. Thanx for the comments and feedback. And please take a moment to check my new blog: The Uncommon Citizen at: www.theuncommoncitizen.blogspot.com. It's something a little different.

Dave

Retrospective

I’ve made many trips to Mexico since leaving in 1960. The first was in 1976. My first wife, Vicky, was a tica (a native of Costa Rica) and we sold our house in Seattle, driving down to Costa Rica with our two young children, Monica, five, and Patrick, one. In our still-youthful idealism we thought we could simply pick up, pack up, settle down in Costa Rica and be welcomed with open arms. We were ready, willing and eager to change the world, but the world demanded things we weren’t prepared to give and within three months we were back in Seattle.

On our way to Costa Rica we spent a couple of weeks driving through Mexico, including a three-day stop in Guadalajara. I was astounded at the changes! Twenty years earlier the only two American concerns had been Woolworth and Sears. Now, American commerce was everywhere. Pizza places, McDonalds, KFC, Holiday Inn, Sheraton. Everywhere I looked there was creeping Americanization, including American-style traffic problems. The city was also far more densely populated. When Mom, Val, Felice and I arrived in 1956 the population was 450,000. Fourteen years later it had more than tripled.

Chapala, the eponymous town on the shore of Lake Chapala, had changed also. The quintessence of a small, quiet Mexican village, Chapala had always been a favorite day trip and it was no different now, in 1976. There were more tourists, Mexican as well as American, enough that a curio market had opened.

More people were living and working here in 1976 and there were more cars, although even now most people made their way on foot or horseback. The streets, except for the cobblestoned main street, remained unpaved. Horse- and mule-drawn carts were common. The lake’s waters still quietly lapped against the stone foundations of open-air restaurants built along the shore and people still danced while waiters in their standard black pants/white shirt attire kept the food and drink coming. The sounds of the mariachi bands playing in the restaurants reached your ears before you could see them.

The lake itself, however, had changed. This is a 1976 photo from our family album:

SNAPSHOT: Green water lilies spread as far as you can see. If this were a video you’d see them gently undulating as they rest on the water. A bus stop sign rises out of the lilies, as do some pieces of play equipment in a children’s park behind it.

As has happened in the past, rains had temporarily raised the water level sufficiently to flood the first two or three lakeside blocks, including a small park and playground. The top halves of a swing set and two slides poked incongruously out of the water.

The restaurants, sitting high enough above the water not to be flooded, were still busy, the mariachi bands still played, people still danced and the black- and-white-clad waiters still kept food and drink coming.

Three decades later (2008), according to friends who have been there, the flooding problem is reversed. Population pressures from new communities and increasing irrigation demands are draining this beautiful lake, Mexico’s largest. The water that had previously lapped against walls and the stone foundations of the lakeside restaurants has receded. Those same restaurants are now a full kilometer from the water, bordered by mud flats in the rainy season and dry, cracked earth the rest of the year. Are they still busy? I don’t know, but certainly the natural beauty that tempted people to eat and drink, to dance and then to linger, has gone. Neither mud flats nor dry, cracked earth charm people.

My second wife, Debby, and I have visited many places in Mexico: Cabo San Lucas, La Paz, Queretaro, Zacatecas, Leon, San Luis Potosi, San Miguel Allende, Acapulco, Zihuatenejo and Puerto Vallarta (usually referred to as PV by resident Americans). While much has changed in the intervening five decades, much has not. Roads, for example. In 1956, highways were poorly marked and poorly maintained. There was no regular signage labeling the highways or the distance to the next town. Fifty years later roads are only marginally better. They’re still poorly marked and maintained and highway signs are still scarce. There are, however, four-lane, divided roads which tend to be in much better repair. One other major improvement is that the highway bridges we encountered fifty years ago, the ones that narrowed to one lane, are now gone; drivers no longer have to flash their lights to claim the right of way. The custom of flashing lights persists, however. If a lane is obstructed or a vehicle is stopped on the roadway (not uncommon situations), approaching drivers will flash their lights for dibs on the right-of-way.

Cobblestone streets are still common, particularly in small towns but also in cities. Downtown PV is mostly cobblestone streets (called empedrado in Spanish, from “piedra,” rock). They’re taken for granted by the locals and noticed by tourists primarily when they endure the physical jouncing and jarring in a taxi and even more on a bus. But when you look at the streets, really look at them, you notice a few things. First of all, the stones are not laid willy-nilly; there’s a method to their placement and each street has two parallel rows of smaller stones, about eight feet apart, the length of the street. I don’t know their purpose and neither did people I asked; maybe they’re just decorative. You look a little closer and you notice the stones are fairly uniform in size and are placed in such a way that they are at a uniform height.

What are the advantages of cobblestone streets? Well, they last forever. In PV many of the streets were cobblestoned two hundred years ago. On those rare occasions when stones have to be replaced, it’s quick and easy. This, of course, makes street maintenance much cheaper. No machinery or truckloads of concrete or macadam are needed. Cobblestones also reduce speeding even while vehicles begin to fall apart from the constant jolting they receive. And, I suppose, from a tourist’s point of view, they make a town look “quaint.”

And drawbacks? Well, you don’t find tens of thousands of similarly sized rocks lying around just anywhere waiting to be gathered. You go to a river bed or a quarry and collect and sort them (a job that must take an inordinately long time), and then, somehow, bring them to town.

Ixtapa, a major tourist destination located a little over a hundred miles up the coast from Acapulco, is an exception to the condition of roads in Mexico. As a matter of fact, it’s an exception to just about everything in Mexico. Connected to Zihuatanejo (where cruise ships put in) by a five-mile perfectly maintained and beautifully landscaped four-lane highway, Ixtapa looks more like a Southern California suburb than a Mexican town. There are three or four strip malls each selling much the same things: T-shirts, curios, jewelry, food, art work, gelato and clothing. These are across the street from a row of imposing, lavishly outfitted, tourist hotels on the beach, all of which block not only access to, but any view of, the ocean. Lawns, medians, parking areas are all planted with grass, flowers and trees and are perfectly manicured. Absent from this sanitary little community are Mexicans themselves. Other than wealthy ones staying at the hotels, there are only three places where you’ll see them in Ixtapa: taxi and bus drivers bringing tourists in or taking tourists back, employees working in the hotels, and individuals selling their wares in the flea market - the ubiquitous flea market that sells Aztec calendars, metal lamps, bobblehead turtles, rings, sombreros, pottery and all the other things that tourists equate with Mexico.

Drivers in Mexico continue to be reckless, at least by American standards. They take chances that make Americans gasp. Passing on curves and hills, tailgating, cutting off other drivers, speeding, using the horn in self-righteous indignation; all this is just as common now as it was when I was a teen. Now technology has thrown in a new danger: cell phones. As ubiquitous in Mexico as they are in the States cell phones are used extensively by people while driving. Our tour driver in Acapulco spent as much time talking on his phone as he did pointing out sights to us. It gets to be pretty hairy when your driver, equipped with only two hands, is steering, talking on the phone and honking, all at once. Or, on another occasion, looking at a number on a cell phone held in one hand while dialing the number on a second phone in his other hand.

Ironically, because everyone drives this way, it may explain why there aren’t more auto accidents in Mexico. Drivers are adept at predicting what other drivers (or perhaps “rivals” is more apt) will do.

And if you’re a pedestrian, be doubly cautious! Pedestrians are viewed as a nuisance by most drivers and, apparently, as legitimate prey by others. You risk life and limb when attempting to cross a street.

Cooking with propane is still common and deliveries of propane gas tanks (in PV and Acapulco anyway) are different from what I remember as a kid, when we made a phone call and hoped and prayed the delivery would be made on schedule. In PV the delivery trucks trundle up and down each and every street, propane tanks rattling and clanging in the back, while the driver leans on the horn. Every ten seconds the horn blasts out over the neighborhood to alert people that yes, the gas truck is here, bring out your empty tanks, get your full ones! Unfortunately for us, our hotel was in that particular neighborhood and on our first day, the truck started its rounds at six in the morning. Three hours later we could still hear it. And the next day he was back! Blessedly, later in the morning, however.

Acapulco has a slightly different way of announcing the arrival of the propane truck. They play a five second recorded snippet of “Call to the Post,” heard at race tracks, followed by a booming voice that yells, “¡EL G-A-A-S-S-S!” As with the Acapulco trucks, this is repeated relentlessly every ten seconds.

There are still people who board buses to earn money, just as there were half a century ago. In Puerto Vallarta a young man with a guitar (and cell phone) boarded a bus I was riding. Just as had happened so many years ago when I took my first solo bus ride to Mercado Juarez in Guadalajara, he walked past the driver without paying and proceeded to serenade the passengers. When he finished, he solicited donations and, once again, everyone gave him something, including me this time. He got off at the next stop, handing over his bus fare to the driver, ready to ho p another bus and sing again for his supper.

Another time on a PV bus, a man carrying a cardboard box got on and proceeded to extol the merits of some brand of juice he was selling. The box held small cartons of the juice and when he finished his spiel, he went from passenger to passenger, trying to make a sale. This time, no takers. He turned, paid the bus driver, and got off.

Manual labor is far more common in Mexico than in the States. Americans wonder at this. For example, in Acapulco, near our hotel, two men, stripped to the waist, shoveled gravel, dirt, chunks of concrete and other construction debris into a truck. It was nine in the morning and their sweat-drenched bodies obviated any need for a thermometer: it was hot! Three hours later they were still at it, and there was still a sizeable pile left. A front-end loader could have done the work in a fraction of the time. Another example: In Queretaro, Debby and I were walking through a large downtown park and we saw four men mowing grass. True, they were using power mowers rather than push reel mowers, but once again, one man on a large riding mower could have done the job efficiently in a fraction of the time.

These, and other examples, highlight two things. First, shoveling the construction debris kept two men employed for several hours and mowing the lawn in the park employed four men for probably the better part of a day. These examples are common all over Mexico and, while certainly not efficient ways of completing a job, they keep people employed. Two men, one man on a front-end loader and one on a large riding mower could have done the respective jobs quickly and efficiently but at the cost of taking legitimate employment from four others. While underemployment is still a problem, it beats unemployment.

Second, people in Mexico are industrious and willing to work hard. Anyone who has visited Mexico (or who has observed migrant workers in our own country) has seen many examples of this. Unfortunately, many visitors, instead of recognizing the industriousness of the people and the need to work, see, instead, a backward country that has progressed but little.

And let’s keep in mind that for these people there are no built-in social safety nets. If something goes wrong they have to depend on their extended family to help out. Fortunately, family ties in Mexico remain strong.

In talking with a man in PV, I learned that hotel workers earn seventy-five pesos (US $7.50) a day, plus tips, lunch and transportation. Construction workers earn two hundred fifty pesos (US $25) for eight hours work, no lunch or transportation provided, and, of course, no tips.

* * *

I still love to go back and visit Mexico. It’s a way of life that I understand and that I’m comfortable with. I walk through neighborhoods well off the beaten tourist paths and talk with people and watch kids play their universal children’s games. Smells alternate between assaulting me and tempting me, depending on where I find myself. Where in the past I would have heard radios playing music, now I hear snatches of telenovelas as I pass open doorways. It’s like coming home. I greet the old man sitting on his doorstep with a cheerful “¡Buenos dias!” and he cordially returns it, along with a smile. “Buenos dias, senoras, como estan?” is my salutation to the two middle-aged women sitting behind the taco stand in the shade of tree. They, too, smile and return the greeting. And so it goes, an exhilarating feeling of transcending cultural boundaries and connecting with people.

On the beach and in many restaurants you’ll find a strolling guitarist waiting to play your favorite song for a couple of bucks. They mask it well, but I’m sure they’re resigned to playing the same few songs over and over for tourists: Cielito Lindo, La Cucaracha, Guadalajara, Besame Mucho. But they’re delighted when I request a couple of songs that were immensely popular fifty years ago, songs they rarely have occasion to play. (During a song I requested once, “Piel Canela,” the B string on his guitar broke. Didn’t faze him a bit – he continued with the five strings left!) Afterwards, we spent some time talking over the “old days” and the great songs of those days. A couple of times they’ve thrown in a bonus song at no extra charge.

Mexicans are delighted and surprised when I speak to them in Spanish, and the surprise comes not so much from my fluency (many Americans are fluent) and not even from my not having an accent. It’s because the way I speak is the way they speak. Inflections, tempo, gestures, idioms, these are all essential parts of a spoken language and they can’t be learned in a classroom – you have to experience them, be immersed in them, pick them up as a natural part of learning a language. I was fortunate to have learned Spanish so quickly and so easily at the age of thirteen. Language research tells us that around that age the capacity for learning a new language diminishes rapidly. Had Mom waited one more year it’s debatable whether I would have become so fluent, although it would not have affected my sister.

Spanish is the national language in twenty-one countries around the world and it’s spoken slightly differently in each one. Vocabulary varies, just as it does between American and British English, but so do many other things. As one example, Spanish in Puerto Rico and Cuba is spoken much faster than in Mexico. Conversely, Mexican Spanish is slower and spoken in almost a sing-song way. Listen carefully and you’ll hear frequent changes of pitch in sentences (glissando in music), particularly at the ends of sentences. Or, for an easier-to-hear example, listen to Mexican songs, both instrumental and vocal. You’ll hear the glissandos clearly.

What you see is not always what you get in Mexico. Let me give you an example. I was walking through a neighborhood in Puerto Vallarta, watching my steps on a cracked and broken sidewalk (elevated, for some reason, almost three feet above the street). On my left was a high wall, white, except for a three foot band of red paint at the bottom running the length of the wall. The wall was pocked in many places, scarred with graffiti and plastered with help wanted announcements, lost pet posters, advertisements. I didn’t give much thought to what might be on the other side of this ugly, deteriorating wall but if I had, I would have been wrong.

I came to an arched wrought iron gate, black and beautifully scrolled. I stopped to look inside and caught my breath. Four terra cotta steps led up to a tranquil interior courtyard splashed with sunlight. A graceful fountain sat in the middle, the gentle play of water enhancing the tranquility. To the left, a set of equipale (two chairs and a small, round table made of pigskin and euctalyptus) reposed in the shade of a jacaranda tree. Behind the fountain, and on either side, were arches supporting a sloping roof covered with Spanish tiles. Doors nestled in the shadows of the passageways leading off to various rooms of the house. Plants and flowers were a cavalcade of colors and the tantalizing smell of gardenias wafted out the arched gate. Scratch the surface of Mexico and be surprised!

As I mentioned, what you see is not always what you get. We were walking along the marina in Cabo San Lucas when a sign caught my eye: PUBLIC SHOWERS. Sure enough, there were two shower stalls a few yards away, completely exposed to public view. In one of them a woman, completely clothed, was showering. She was actually going through the motions of washing her body. In this case I know what we saw – but I have no idea what we got.

AFTERWORD

Mom, Val, Felice and I moved to Mexico in the mid-1950s, and today, over a half-century later, I continue to marvel at what I experienced during those four-and-a-half years. It was such a short time but so important to the rest of my life. Yes, I learned to speak the language like a native and I still speak it with considerable fluency. And I became completely assimilated into the Mexican way of life, a cultural fluency I have also retained. But what I marvel at goes far beyond linguistic fluency and cultural comfort. Mexico was a life-changing experience. When I reflect on the good things that have happened to me over the course of my life, events and opportunities that changed me for the better, my Mexican experience invariably tops the list.

I once made a list of the ways in which I benefited from living in Mexico and it totaled two dozen entries when I stopped. Some are trivial: I’m able to watch soccer (in Spanish), both Mexican first division games and the World Cup and World Cup qualifying matches on Univision, the Spanish language channel.

Other benefits, however, are deeply significant to me. Being bicultural, I discovered, means an innate understanding of the ways and mores of two cultures, an ability to move easily and freely between them, to live comfortably in either one. Understanding and accepting the sometimes major, and occasionally conflicting, differences between the two cultures has helped me to move from bi-culturalism to pan-culturalism, which for me means recognizing that not only do the cultures of Mexico and the United States create no anxiety or conflict in me, but also that, in general, the cultures, groups and countries the world over give no reason for anxiety or conflict. Culture, after all, evolves as a way of maximizing a community’s chances of survival and ensuring its continuity and stability. The good, the enjoyable, the informative and instructive in different cultures, these are so easy to find! Would I feel the same way without having experienced Mexico? I don’t know. Americans, indeed people all over the world, more often than not see many other peoples’ cultural practices (other than the stereotypical “safe” ones such as those pertaining to food, music and dance) as unsettling at best, dangerous at worst. And it is precisely those perceptions that do so much to perpetuate suspicions and divisions, hostilities and hatreds.

Being bicultural has allowed me to develop multiple perspectives, the notion that there is more than just my way or the American or Mexican ways of looking at and understanding people, events and cultures. I have no doubt that because of this I was a much better teacher than I would have been otherwise. I had children from many countries and cultures in my classes over the years and I was able to look at the culture of each child and find the strengths that promote learning. I never tried to force a child into my way of doing things simply because it’s easier or more convenient or because it works for me. I recognized the child’s own culture as a strength.

I have Mexico to thank, also, for my deep love of music. Music has always been an important part of my life, even as a child, and I acquired a passion for rock and roll even before I was a teen. I used to walk past a roller rink on my way home from school and stop and listen to the music that came pouring out to the street: “Rock Around the Clock,” “Earth Angel,” “Speedo,” “Bo Diddely,” “Maybelline” . . . it was music that pumped new life into me, energized me. But Mexico tuned my mind and turned my ears in different directions. I was constantly exposed, of course, to all the different kinds of music Mexico had to offer: the rollicking musica nortena, and ranchera, the quick but delicate and lacy music of Veracruz and Tehuantepec, cha-cha-chas, merengues, jarabes and boleros. I came to know and love the music of so many artists: Agustin Lara, Pedro Infante, Miguel Aceves Mejia, Amalia Mendoza, Libertad Lamarque, Mariachi Vargas, Jorge Negrete and Jose Alfredo Jimenez. I heard it at home on the maid’s radio, on the bus driver’s transistor radio, on the radios in my friends’ houses and in the parks played by strolling musicians. And then I started listening to it on my own. It was no longer just the music of Mexico; it was my music as well.

But that’s not the only music I heard. Most Mexican parties I went to played not only Mexican music on the record player, but also American Big Bands of the thirties and forties. Looking back, I’m surprised at how many Mexican families had large collections of Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, Glen Gray, Woody Herman and others. I listened and learned that rock and roll wasn’t the only energetic dance music. “In the Mood,” “After Hours,” “No Name Jive,” “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” - these and many more were played and I joined in with all the other dancers and came to love that music as well.

Mexico opened my ears to a new way of hearing music and today I have music from all over the world in my collection, traditional as well as contemporary, and I listen to it regularly. And when I listen to the music of India, Lebanon, Spain, Cuba or Greece; when I hear the blues or Black gospel, it connects me with the essence of that culture and touches something vital and deep within me. Music is more than just food for the soul - it’s a window to the heart. Thank you, Mexico.

Being bilingual and bicultural has given me success with many, many opportunities and given me great joy and satisfaction into the bargain. My first wife, Vicky, was from Costa Rica. I taught in a bilingual summer school two years in Eastern Washington because I could speak Spanish. My Masters Degree is in multi-ethnic education with an emphasis on Chicano culture. I received a two-year bilingual education doctoral fellowship at the University of Washington. I’ve been a volunteer interpreter with the Red Cross Language Bank. And, perhaps most importantly, I used my Spanish and cultural knowledge regularly in the classroom and with the parents and families of my Spanish-speaking kids. Many times I have seen Latino students who were embarrassed by or even ashamed of their Spanish (!) come alive and use it regularly after hearing me speak it. At times I would spend several minutes talking to the whole class in Spanish and my Spanish-speakers would all be participating, raising their hands, laughing, responding.

I like to think that I have redirected their attitude and their perceptions from embarrassment to pride.

On a somewhat lighter note, being in Mexico from age thirteen to seventeen led to maybe the best thing that never happened to me: high school. I missed it completely. But what I got in return was far better.

Home & Pilar

2010-10-10T09:19:00.002-07:00

We're coming to the end of my sojourn in Mexico. Next week will be the final post. But, cheer up - I'll be starting another blog soon, either next Sunday or the following Sunday. I'm calling it "The Uncommon Citizen." Stay tuned. Meanwhile, enjoy these posts about finally getting home and some very special thoughts about Pilar.

Dave

Taken at a party I no longer remember. The girl on the left is Chelo, Pilar's sister, seated next to Carlos, her boyfriend. Don't remember the next two. Then Pilar, Alejandro (standing), me and Ramon.

Home!

SNAPSHOT: This is JC and me in the Guadalajara bus station, looking more than a little worse for the wear. We’re standing alongside the big black and red first-class bus that brought us from San Luis Potosi. You can just make out the white lettering: Autotransportes Rodriguez, S.A.

The bus covered the three-hundred-forty-odd kilometers in just over six hours, pulling into Guadalajara’s Central Camionera at 12:45 in the afternoon. I’m sure I must have been exhausted from the stress of the previous twenty-four hours and from lack of sleep, but I was so happy to be finally on the home stretch (literally!) that it didn’t matter. JC and I got off the bus and said our goodbyes, promising to keep in touch. “Everything’s okie-dokie!” he said, winking. It was the last time I was to hear that phrase, in spite of our enthusiastic promises to keep in touch. I collected my suitcase and my ever-more-battered cardboard box and walked over to one of the ticket booths.

The clerk, in a starched white shirt with his name, Rafael, embroidered above the pocket, sat reading a newspaper. “Voy a Santa Anita,” I told him. “When’s the next bus?”

“That green one,” he said indifferently, not even looking up but pointing to a second-class bus behind me exhaling the diesel fumes I was inhaling. “It leaves for Cocula in five minutes.”

I bought my ticket and hurried my luggage over to the bus and wrestled it aboard. My timing was perfect: The driver began grinding the transmission into gear just as I sat down and we were off.

SNAPSHOT: There is no snapshot of my arrival. This page in my album is blank.

An hour later my suitcase, my box and I pushed our way through the crowd of standing passengers and past the impatient driver, getting off on Highway 54, in front of the farm. Before crossing the roadway I stood there, looking around, savoring the familiarity of everything I saw. After a couple of minutes, I walked across the highway, down the unpaved drive to the door of the house and stood in front of the door, home again. And then . . . nothing. I don’t remember anything after that. I don’t recall hugging Mom and Val or greeting Jose and Maria. There is no memory of stepping back into my old bedroom and unpacking and changing into something fresher. Did I sit down with Mom and Valerie and tell them all that had happened to me? Did Mom make me something to eat? Did she tell me about the changes in her life and about the farm? What did Valerie have to say? I don’t know. Returning home after nearly a year and a half, you’d think this would be a very special occasion. You’d think it was something I would remember, that there would be several snapshots in my memory album. But all I draw is a frustrating, inexplicable blank.

Why should my memory be so faulty? I think one reason is my newly-discovered independence. I’d been away from home (and Mom) for sixteen months and survived, even been promoted to Airman Second Class (never mind that the promotion from E-1 to E-2 was automatic unless you screwed up). There was probably a self-imposed psychological distance between me and my family, between me and my memories of how things used to be and my former life. I didn’t need them anymore so they weren’t that important to me. I suspect also that excitement over seeing Pilar again overrode the excitement of being home.

I’m also having a great deal of difficulty piecing together Mom’s situation at this time. My memories are both conflicting and confusing. What follows is my best recollection.

Over my six weeks of leave Mom and I got along well, something I had been worried about. She was drinking less and seemed much more relaxed. She was also much less critical. It helped, of course, that I gave her fewer reasons to be critical. I must have picked up some of that maturity Mom always accused me of lacking.

But much had changed at home. For one thing, Valerie – also home now for a visit - was in a Catholic boarding school in San Antonio and, while it was probably hard on her, it was also better than remaining with Mom.

The break with Antonio was final. Mom learned that he had married another American woman, the woman he had taken as his lover to replace Mom. Never mind that he was already married to Mom in a civil ceremony. The fact that it wasn’t a church-sanctioned marriage and that Antonio was a member of a wealthy and powerful family obviated such niceties as the need for a divorce. The last I knew of Antonio, he had moved to Chicago with his “wife” where he died some time later. Mom told me this. I’m not entirely sure how she kept track of him but my guess is that it was through people she had met through Antonio and with whom she was still in touch.

More importantly, Mom had forged another relationship, one that provided her with emotional and, very probably, some financial support. He was a retired Marine Corps major named James Collier. Fifteen years Mom’s senior, he was a crusty but affable man. He stood five feet ten with a full head of light brown hair turning gray. In his Marine years he had undoubtedly been physically fit; now he was merely paunchy.

He lived in a spacious villa in Chapala, about three blocks from the lake, and here’s where it gets hard to sort the memories. I remember spending quite a bit of time at the lake but I have no memory of any time spent at the farm, although I know we still had it. Had Mom moved in with the Major (as everyone called him) pending disposal of Granja La Rosita? Or did she simply spend most of her time at the Major’s, returning occasionally to the farm? And what finally happened to the farm? And to Jose and Maria? These are all things I wish I had answers for, but I don’t. In later years, when I would ask Mom about this period, particularly about Antonio, she would tell me that she didn’t want to talk about it. The priorities of youth are the regrets of old age.

The Major endures for me in three memories.

One day the four of us were at a restaurant in Guadalajara having lunch. The Major ordered a beer and it was served in a very distinctive stein. I liked it and when I told him he responded by saying, “Hell, we’ll just take it, then!” I laughed, thinking he was joking, but no. When lunch was finished and the bill paid, he quickly unbuckled his belt, passed it through the handle of the stein, rebuckled it and stood up. Except for a suspicious bulge, his jacket covered the purloined beer mug. We walked out, one stein richer.

On another occasion, the Major and I were driving around Guadalajara, running errands of some kind. I don’t remember the kind of car he had other than that it was what we would now refer to as a “muscle car.” As we were driving along a wide, sweeping boulevard we were passed by a convertible with two attractive young women in it. The Major honked and when they turned to look he waved and smiled. They waved and smiled back and continued on. A few moments later he floored it. The car shot forward and as we neared the convertible he pulled the cutout lever under the dash, uncovering an opening in the car’s muffler and we roared past the two women, the noise from the muffler overpowering everything else. As we passed, the Major waved again, the women laughing; to me it was all very cool.

SNAPSHOT: The small, light blue sailboat is lying capsized, its sail full of water. The Major and I are clinging to the hull. The nearest shore is a mile away.

The Major had a “505” class sailing boat, so-called because its length was 5.05 meters. There was a regatta scheduled during my leave and the Major entered it, requesting that I crew for him. I, of course, was very excited, even though I’d never been on a sailboat in my life. “It’s easy,” he said, “just do what I tell you.” And it turned out it was pretty easy. Until I geed when I should have hawed and we capsized in the middle of the lake. With all the other boats around us, though, we were in no danger. We got picked up, the boat was righted and we headed for shore, out of the race and wet but safe. No recriminations from the Major, either.

I look back somewhat fondly on the Major, although I never got to know him really well. He was easy to be around and he laughed a lot, two things I’m sure attracted Mom. He gave me a book I still have, The Rhyme of All Flesh, a privately printed first edition (#899 of 1000) of very witty, but very obscene, limericks, each with its own equally witty commentary.

Did he treat her well? I think so. I hope so. But even if he hadn’t, what could Mom have done? I don’t think she had the emotional stamina or the financial wherewithal to make a life for herself alone, either in Mexico or in the States. (I did what I could for her. I had been sending Mom most of my monthly pay for over a year.) I think she felt, if not defeated, at least resigned to her situation. In my memory, she seemed happy and I’ll have to be content with that.

Serenading Pilar

The day after I finally arrived home I drove to Mercado Libertad, the market where Jose and I had bought fireworks for our Fourth of July celebration. This time, though, my errand was much different. I hadn’t seen Pilar yet and she didn’t even know I was in town. I was in the market to hire a mariachi band to serenade her. It was to be a surprise.

SNAPSHOT: The street on the west side of Mercado Libertad. Musical performers hang out here, waiting for gigs: solo acts with guitar or accordion, vocal duos and trios, small groups, children, father-son combos and, of course, mariachis. There were half a dozen mariachi groups, all of them resplendent in their colorful regalia: black bordered with silver; blue bordered with white; red with brown; charro hats to match.

These weren't Mexico's finest; the finest played for rich folks and in clubs, at festivals and special events, in the movies and on television. But they were good. They had to be – their livelihood depended on it.

I parked the car and crossed the street, listening to guitars being tuned, songs practiced. After a bit I approached the leader of Mariachi San Juan, who was also their lead violinist. “Oye, maestro,” I said, “I’m looking to hire some good mariachis. Can you give me a sample of your music?”

“Si, , what would you like to hear?”

“Mi favorita, claro, La Negra.” La Negra is the song of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. It’s a stirring piece of music, powerful and intense. It picks you up and sweeps you along from the slow, opening trumpet notes right to the furious finale. Of all the hundreds of Mariachi songs, this is my favorite.

He turns to his musicians. “¡Vamos, muchachos!” They pick up their instruments, do a quick tuning and launch into the familiar melody with its difficult rhythmic changes. And Mariachi San Juan is good. The trumpets are crisp and bright and the violins refuse to be overpowered. The guitars add a strangely appropriate finesse to the piece and the big bass guitarron lays the foundation. The vocal part is as polished as the rest. I’m still tingling when they finish. I tingle whenever I hear La Negra.

I hired them on the spot, one hundred pesos an hour for the nine of them: three guitars, a guitarron, two trumpets and three violins. Don Carlos, the leader of the group, and I shook hands and they piled themselves and their instruments into their VW bus parked nearby and followed me out to Colonia Chapalita.

We parked a block away from Pilar’s house and assembled. I didn’t need to give them any instructions. They knew what to do, having accompanied many young men over the years serenading their novias.

SNAPSHOT: I’m at the head of the procession making our way up Santa Maria, Pilar’s street. Golden shafts of afternoon sun stream through the trees overhead, blending nicely with the warm browns and tans of the charro suits of Mariachi San Juan. People are coming out of their houses to see what’s going on.

The musicians tuned up and we were off, playing "Las Mananitas," a traditional song that’s often the first one played at special occasions. I was at the head of the procession with the mariachis just behind me, playing as if there was nothing in the world they'd rather be doing at that particular moment - and there probably wasn't.

People from all over the neighborhood began to join the procession, adults, children and even servants coming out of their houses and following us, adding to the excitement and anticipation of the occasion. And they all knew! It's amazing how everybody seemed to know that I was back and “llevandole gallo a la novia,” going to serenade Pilar.

By the time we reached her gate Pilar was already there, as were the rest of her family. She stepped into my arms and we stood there, not moving, savoring this special moment of our lives. We could have stood there like that forever, but there were too many people around, too much going on. She stepped back, smiling and crying at the same time, her eyes shining as much from pure joy as from the tears. I took the watch out of my pocket and slipped it over her hand, wishing all of a sudden that it were a ring instead of a watch.

Her father sent Carlitos to the store for a couple of cases of beer and her mother, along with several neighbor women, went into the house to prepare food. Soon the celebration spilled out into the street, everyone drinking and eating, singing and dancing, the band getting better and better as afternoon slipped into evening and evening into night . . .

For the six weeks I was home I spent as much time as possible with Pilar. I’m looking now at pictures taken of us at a party, I don’t know whose or what the occasion was. One picture is of a group of us sitting and standing around a table: Ramon, Alejandro, Perico, Pilar’s sister Chelo and her boyfriend, Pilar and me. In the other one Pilar and I are dancing, both of us looking at the camera. On the back of the picture she has written, “For you and me only. One more memory for both of us and for me one of the happiest moments you’ve ever given me. I will always be as I am here, next to you, no matter what.”

Somewhere there exists another photo of Pilar, a color photo, taken in Colonia Las Fuentes. There was a small pyramid, modeled after the Pyramid of the Moon, near the entrance to the Colonia. It was maybe twenty feet high and Pilar is standing on the steps, about halfway up. She’s smiling and she’s beautiful. I treasure the memory of that photograph as much as I treasure the memory of serenading her with the mariachis. Pilar is a part of my life I cherish still; I carry her with me. She is embedded in my heart and in my soul, not like a prom corsage that becomes a faint, dry memory pressed between the pages of a book, but as something vital within me. Her voice still dances in my ears and her face gladdens my memory. The feel of her and the fresh smell of her tantalize me over a distance of decades, unreachable in fact but not in essence. Maybe it’s only because this was First Love, True Love, for both of us. Maybe that special feeling generated by First Love is the same for everyone who experiences it, becoming something not just remembered but experienced anew each time the memory returns. I don’t know. I do know that each time the memory does return, it’s a bittersweet experience. That special love I still feel for her overcomes me and I long to be in the photograph, holding her in my arms, dancing, hearing her tell me, “I will always be as I am here, next to you . . . “

I didn’t know it at the time, but my life in Mexico ended with that visit in the late winter of 1962. I never saw Pilar again, nor do I remember corresponding with her, although I’m sure I must have. I look back, puzzled again. How could I not have kept closely in touch with her? I loved her so much, she was so special to me, yet she disappeared from my life as completely as last month’s newspaper. My explanation to myself is that my new life as an Airman Second Class in South Korea, thousands of miles from Pilar (and from everyone and everything else in my former life) distracted me, involved me so totally that all else was forgotten, ignored. But opening a new door in life shouldn’t mean the automatic and permanent closing of an old one. I have only myself to blame.

Into the Wild Blue Yonder & Home On Leave

2010-10-03T09:06:00.000-07:00

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

It’s November, 1960, time for our semi-annual trip to the border. This time, though, it was different: Mom and Valerie would be returning to Mexico, but I wouldn’t. There were many reasons for this. I had dropped out of Cervantes after flunking the third year of secondary, and I wasn’t going to return to the equivalent of ninth grade at the age of seventeen. I refused to deliver milk any longer; it was demeaning and I felt mortified doing it. Worst of all, I couldn’t stand to be around Mom. Life at home had degenerated into a series of daily yelling matches. Hateful words were flung back and forth by two people without the skills or resources to improve their situation. But the most important reason I wouldn’t be returning is that I had something that promised escape and hope: I was going to join the Air Force.

Mom’s life, if anything, was more miserable than mine. Antonio was a bitter memory, she had raised a son who was failing at life and her drinking was out of control. And maybe worst of all, for her there was no out, no escape, no hope.

And Valerie? Once again, I gave no thought to her. I look back and I’m clobbered again and again with the terrible, painful fact that Val probably suffered far more at Mom’s hands than I ever did. I never made myself aware of it at the time and leaving home then, when she was eleven, meant that all Mom’s anger, her drunken rages, the crushing failures of her life were taken out on Valerie. But even if I had been there, what would I have done? Just what I’d always done: nothing. Val was still on her own, with no one to come to her defense.

Being only seventeen, I needed Mom to sign for me, and she did, probably with a great deal of relief. I’d no longer be around creating problems and weighing on her conscience. Even more, Mom must have seen the Air Force as I did, a way out. And she probably saw beyond what I saw, that the Air Force might make something of me.

Why the Air Force? In my mind the Air Force had a certain cachet that the other services lacked. Unlike the Army, the Navy and the Marines, the Air Force, just a little over a decade old, was a newer branch of the military. I also liked the blue uniform and I liked the idea of flying (which I would never do, other than from one assignment to the another). And I had heard or read somewhere that basic training in the Air Force was easier than in the other services. That decided it for me.

But I wondered and worried whether the Air Force would accept me, being only seventeen and a high-school dropout. If they didn’t, I’d have to try the other branches, like it or not. And if they didn’t? I didn’t like to think about it; it was too much like the end of the road. If I couldn’t get into any of the services, what were my options? Return to Mexico? To a life holding no happiness, no hope, no future? Or stay behind in the U.S.? And do what? I was a high school dropout with no job skills and no work experience other than delivering milk and dehorning cows. And I was clearly no good at the latter.

Our trip to the border was virtually silent. The weather was gray, gloomy and heavy, matching our mood. Mom and I had nothing to discuss. She didn’t feel the need to give me any advice and I wouldn’t have paid her any attention in any case.

We headed straight for San Antonio this time, instead of going to Brownsville or McAllen or Laredo, all border cities that we had been to on other trips. Air Force basic training was at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and maybe Mom thought I had to sign up right there. Whatever the reason, we went to San Antonio and got a room at the Blue Bonnet Hotel, in the downtown area. We still had no idea if the Air Force would take me.

SNAPSHOT: A line of guys, all of us between seventeen and twenty-five, is boarding a bus behind a nondescript one-story brick building. The sign in the window of the building says Air Force Recruiting Office; the lettering on the side of the dark blue bus says “Lackland AFB.” I’m one of the last to get on a bus that’s taking me to the rest of my life.

The next morning Mom picked up the phone, called the Air Force recruiting office nearest the hotel and got the answer we’d been hoping for: they would take me, but I would have to pass both a physical and a battery of aptitude tests. My world opened up. I had a future.

In less than a week I was officially in the Air Force. I filled out all their forms, took the tests and passed the physical. (God! How I hated taking off my shirt in front of all those other guys! I was mortally embarrassed by my acne.) I was sworn in on the 22nd of November 1960, standing at attention with several other recruits in a small room in the same recruiting station I had first gone to. When the swearing in was over, we turned, marched out the back door and onto a waiting bus. I was on my way to basic training. On my way to salvation.

Home on Leave

SNAPSHOT: The man in the gray uniform is smiling effusively as he waves JC and me out of the Mexican customs station. You can just see the corner of a fifty-peso bill tucked in his shirt pocket.

It was sixteen months before I returned home to Mexico. During that time I completed basic training, eight months of intensive Chinese language training in Washington, D.C. and four months of tech school at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas. (How big was San Angelo? The Chamber of Commerce listed the Greyhound bus depot under “Sights to See in San Angelo” in its brochure.) My next assignment, my first operational one, was to be Osan Air Force Base, forty miles out of Seoul, South Korea, where I would be listening in on Chinese Communist military aircraft communications. Pilar and I wrote to each other often during this time. We were still very much in love and couldn’t wait to see each other. I had accrued forty-three days of leave by the end of tech school and I was going to spend them primarily with her.

I wanted my homecoming to be a surprise for Pilar. She knew approximately when I’d be arriving but I hadn’t told her the precise date to expect me. It was February, 1962, a month from my nineteenth birthday and she had just turned eighteen. We’d been "going together" (which in Mexico was considerably more serious than “going steady”) since before I left to go in the service. This was to be my great homecoming to Pilar. I’d bought her an expensive watch at the Base Exchange at Goodfellow Air Force Base where I had been stationed, and I wanted a memorable occasion for presenting it to her. I got it.

Getting home, though, proved to be a memorable event in itself. Actually a series of memorable events.

To save money, I decided to hitchhike the two hundred miles from San Angelo to San Antonio, there to meet a long-time friend, JC Herren. He and I had been friends in Guadalajara, hanging out with the American crowd.

JC was over six feet tall with blond hair trimmed in a crew cut. His eyes and his mouth always looked like he was about to smile. He lived in San Antonio and we were going to drive the thousand or so miles from San Antonio to Guadalajara in his old (even then) '51 Chevy. “Don't worry,” he said, “I just had it tuned and the brakes checked. Everything's okie-dokie.” Everything was always okie-dokie with JC. It was his mantra.

We left late one morning and the first one-hundred fifty miles, from San Antonio to the border, were uneventful. Not so at the border.

Unlike most of the other vehicles, we were asked to pull over for inspection. We pulled into a side lane and waited. And waited. Eventually a Mexican border official strolled over, his crisp, gray uniform not yet soiled or spoiled. His name tag proclaimed him to be Eduardo de Alba y Santos.

“Out of the car, caballeros!” he ordered as he approached the car, motioning us over to a couple of benches. We took seats and watched. Having nothing illegal in the car we weren’t particularly worried. Legal things, however, like the portable tape recorder I’d bought, were apparently cause for worry.

“You can’t bring this into the country,” de Alba y Santos said, his tone of voice implying only idiots or smugglers would dream of bringing such a thing into Mexico.

“Why not?” I asked, innocently enough.

“Because it’s against the law,” syllables dropping out of his mouth very slowly, convinced now we weren’t smugglers, just idiots. But, where there’s a bill, there’s a way and a fifty-peso bill convinced him the law in this case just might be wrong.

“Everything’s okie-dokie!” JC smiled. I was to come to hate that phrase.

We cleared customs and faced another one hundred fifty miles to Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo Leon and Mexico’s third largest city. The weather had turned gray and rainy but we were in good spirits and "toolin' along" as we used to put it, on the two-lane highway when we unexpectedly found ourselves wrapped in a very heavy fog. Visibility was so poor I couldn’t even judge how far ahead we could see.

After a bit we came up behind another car going (rather sensibly I thought), considerably slower than JC wanted to go.

“Damn!” he muttered, “we'll never make it at this rate!” He had thoughts of doing the eight hundred miles from the border to home in under fifteen hours and this car ahead of us was clearly not cooperating. JC kept edging closer, trying to peer around the slower car.

“Uh, JC?” My voice was strained and I was beginning to look for things to hold onto. “You're not thinking of passing are you?” I was almost afraid to ask, afraid of putting ideas in his head.

SNAPSHOT: This is the view from inside JC’s car. A pair of headlights stabs at us out of the fog. They’re from a car rushing toward us and we’re occupying his lane. To the right is the car we’re passing.

“Everything's okie-dokie,” he smiled. At the same time, he swung suddenly into the oncoming lane and stomped the accelerator. Had he waited five seconds more he would've seen the approaching headlights, now probing the fog ahead of us, in time to scoot back to safety. Now we were simply involved in a classic game of chicken.

And then it dawned on JC that his headlights weren’t on and that the other car has no idea we’ve preempted his lane. JC again veered abruptly to the left, skillfully negotiating the drop to the hard-packed sand on the far shoulder.

Reacting instinctively, he gunned the engine and as soon as the oncoming car shot by, horn blaring, he made a sudden turn back to the right, to the highway. We hit the shoulder, hard, bounced high, came down in the right lane and proceeded down the road.

For about ten seconds neither of us spoke. Then, from JC, weakly and none too confidently, “Everything's okie-dokie.”

In Monterrey (and after the usual two additional customs checks) we stopped for something to eat. After eating we clambered into the Chevy and encountered our next problem: the starter was dead. For the next two hours JC grumbled and muttered while we hunted down first a starter and then a garage that could install it.

Back on the road again we made pretty good time over the next two hundred miles or so. Then, thirty miles north of Matehuala, the halfway point, the engine sputtered and stalled: we were out of gas. At least one thing on JC's car wasn't "okie-dokie": the gas gauge didn't work. We coasted to a stop on the shoulder. Because I could speak Spanish (JC was one of those many Americans who lived in Mexico but never learned the language), we decided I would be the one to hitchhike into Matehuala for gas.

In just a couple of minutes an old dark green Dodge came along and stopped. A middle-aged man, balding and with a large face and horn-rimmed glasses, stuck his head out the window. I quickly explained that we were out of gas and asked if he’d be willing to give me a lift into Matehuala. The man behind the wheel assented quickly. “¡Si, si, subase!” he said and, thanking him for his generosity I opened the car door to get in.

SNAPSHOT: We’re looking into the interior of the Dodge and counting the heads. One, two, three, four in front on the bench seat, one, two, three, four, five, six in back.

It was only then that I noticed the car was already full. As a matter of fact, it was full and then some, with four adults and six children ranging in age from one to ten. Two of the kids were crying lustily. I might have graciously declined the ride, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. For one thing, hospitality is taken very seriously in Mexico and once extended, even under these conditions, refusal is awkward. For another, there was no way of knowing how long I might have to wait for another ride.

As I opened the driver’s-side back door the six people already in the back seat began to rearrange themselves to accommodate the seventh. Two toddlers were shuffled from one lap to another, a baby transferred from one maternal relative to another and a small seven-year old boy was squeezed even more than he had been.

I wormed my way into the approximately seven or eight inches of space they had made for me and figured the only way to close the car door, with half my butt hanging over the end of the seat, was to slam it. Bad move. I yelped and sprang up as the inside door handle walloped my hipbone. I came down on the thigh of the woman next to me who, in turn, suddenly shifted to her right. The seven-year-old boy next to her must have felt he was sharing the back seat with a python.

After some more child care rearrangements, I now found myself wedged in hip-to-door handle on one side and thigh-to-thigh on the other, with one-and-a-half children temporarily calling my lap home.

It was only fifty kilometers (thirty miles) to Matehuala but, traveling at only fifty kilometers an hour, it took a full sixty minutes to get there. Other vehicles flew past us or leaned on their horns to urge him to go faster. But to no avail.

“Cautious drivers are the safest drivers,” explained the man driving, oblivious to the hazards he himself was creating. I wondered if, packed as it was, the car was even capable of going faster.

On the outskirts of Matehuala the man pulled over into a Pemex gas station (the only kind there is Mexico, a state-run monopoly) and I hopped out. The man refused the money I extended to him. “Just drive slow and be safe, that’s all,” he said to me, sagely, and resumed his slow journey.

I purchased a gas can and some gas and again I was fortunate. I found a truck driver willing to take me back right away. He was a small man, just barely big enough, it seemed to me, to see over the steering wheel of his rig. But he was wiry and muscular and the look on his face was intense in the way a surgeon’s face is intense during a delicate operation. His driving philosophy was just the opposite to that of the first driver. “Speed is what counts!” he snarled.

Oh, Lordy. I thought to myself, What am I in for now?

“When those faint-hearted bastards see me about to run up their fucking tailpipe, they move out of the way fast! And if that isn’t enough,” he went on, reaching for the cord above his head, “I give ‘em this!” He pulled on the cord and his air horn blasted through even the loud rumbling of the engine, the sound physically assaulting my face. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” but his sly smile told me otherwise.

He had several opportunities on the way back to demonstrate his driving philosophy as his eighteen wheeler approached speeds of one-hundred-thirty KPH on the narrow highway, speed limit one-hundred KPH. I kept wondering what would happen if "speed counts" came up behind another "cautious and safe."

We arrived back at the car in just under twenty minutes. The truck driver accepted my thanks but, once again, not the proffered money and he roared off down the road, looking for more "faint-hearted bastards."

With gas in the tank we were once again in high spirits as we started rolling toward Matehuala. So far we’d overcome a border problem, a broken starter, and running out of gas. We were at the halfway point in pretty good shape and figured to be home before dawn, in about ten hours. What else could go wrong? “Everything’s okie-dokie!” came the familiar refrain and this time it didn’t bother me a bit. It should have. inlaid

Within minutes our personal demon of misfortune put in another appearance. Taca-ta-taca-ta-taca-ta-taca. Any unusual sound coming from the engine is unsettling, but this was particularly ominous, Taca-ta-taca-ta-taca-ta-taca. It was very rapid and getting louder, the sound of metal on metal.

It continued getting louder as we rolled into Matehuala. We gassed up and grabbed a bite to eat, both of us hoping the sound would somehow just "go away" while we were in the restaurant.

It didn’t, of course. Instead, it increased in intensity until it was obvious that it was just a question of time until the engine beat itself to death. JC hadn't commented on everything (or even anything) being "okie-dokie" for a long time now.

Finally it happened. The engine in that old '51 Chevy threw a rod and expired. We were ninety kilometers south of Matehuala (which seemed to have become the focal point of the universe for us), it was seven-thirty at night, pitch dark. And we were stranded.

Our fortunes, which had been up and down ever since the trip started, again took a turn for the better. While we were still puzzling over what to do, a first-class bus came rolling out of the darkness, heading north. I desperately flagged it down and, surprise of surprises, it stopped for us! In Mexico, one can flag down second- and third-class inter-city buses virtually anywhere but first-class buses stop only at designated points and we were definitely not at a designated point. But the bus driver must have seen our car with the hood up, sympathized with our situation and stopped to pick us up anyway.

Our good luck continued to hold (although I wished we didn’t have to use it all up countering our bad luck). We made good time back to Matehuala and were able to get a tow truck back out to the car in a minimum of time. By eleven-thirty that night the car had been towed back and entrusted to the care of a mechanic who said it’ll take a week and fifteen hundred pesos ($120 US) to repair.

JC, apparently practicing car repairs . . .

We sat sipping coffee in a restaurant next to the garage, discussing our situation. The only way to get home now was by bus, first to San Luis Potosi, about three hundred kilometers further south, and then to Guadalajara. The next bus out of Matehuala, though, wasn't until five the next morning and the restaurant closed at midnight. We asked about a motel and found out the nearest one was ten kilometers away but that we'd have to walk as the phone was out of order and there was no way to summon a taxi. Walking was out of the question. I had a large suitcase and an even larger, too-awkward-to-carry, coming-apart-at-the-seams cardboard box tied round and round with rope. I had no intention of struggling with all that for ten kilometers down an unlit highway in the middle of the night.

Again, just when things seemed bleakest, our luck turned again. The only other customer in the restaurant had been sitting two or three stools down from us at the counter, eating quietly, giving no indication he was even aware of our presence. After finishing his meal, though, he swung around to face us.

“I’ll take you guys to San Luis Potosi,” he said in heavily accented but good English. “You can help with the driving and buy the gas.”

“Great!” exclaimed JC, clapping his hands. But I beat him to it: “Everything's okie-dokie!”

Primo, as his name turned out to be, was a Colombian national on leave after completing Marine boot training at Parris Island, South Carolina. He was maybe a couple, three years older than us, stocky and solid. He was driving a two-year-old, maroon, four-door Buick.

I wrestled my unwieldy box and suitcase into the trunk alongside JC’s things and climbed into the back seat, JC having already claimed shotgun. Primo kicked the engine to life and we pulled out into the night, a little after midnight.

After all we’d been through, it was sheer bliss to sit in the back of that big old Buick and just relax. I looked out the window at the fierce desert landscape flashing by, visible only in varying shades of relief, and suddenly felt overwhelmed by the intense beauty of the black, black night with its countless stars strewn carelessly across the sky. In a matter of moments I was asleep.

The rest of the trip was a piece of cake. We arrived in San Luis Potosi around six in the morning and thanked Primo profusely. He dropped us off at the Central Camionera where the next first class bus to Guadalajara was due out in forty-five minutes. I’ve no idea what ever happened to the car.

Slings & A Mob

2010-09-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

I was fifteen or sixteen when the incident recounted here occurred. Teens can do some wonderfully stupid things and this was one of them (altho not really so "wonderful" I guess.)

Slings

One day my friend Val was over visiting and Jose brought out a sling to show us, the kind that David used to slay Goliath.

“Vamos, I’ll show you how to use one of these.” We followed him out to a nearby field, wondering just what you can do with what looked like a piece of tangled rope.

Jose stopped and picked up a rock, placing it in the webbing of his sling, hefting it to judge its weight. “You have to use just the right size rock in order to get the best distance.” He squinted off into the distance. “See that old fence post over there?” he asked, pointing to one about seventy-five yards distant. We nodded and Jose started whirling the sling around his head, faster and faster. At just the right moment he released one end and the rock shot into the air in a graceful arc, striking the ground about a yard beyond his target.

“Damn! Too hard.” Another rock and he reloaded the sling and started whirling it again. This time there was no “Damn!” The rock hit the post dead-on.

“Mmmm!” a little grunt of satisfaction from Jose. Val and I, of course, were immensely impressed and we immediately pleaded with Jose to show us how to make and use a sling.

Over the next hour he showed us what kind of rope to use, how to make the webbing, how long the ropes attached to the webbing should be and how to attach them. Our first clumsy efforts resulted in slings that simply fell apart or we made the webbing too big, letting the rock fall through, or the ropes attached to the webbing were too long or too short. Eventually, though, we each had a sling that Jose deemed acceptable, even if only minimally so, and we rushed out to the field, eager to try them out.

Once we were ready, a pile of rocks we’d collected in front of us, we aimed at the same fence post Jose had hit on his second try. Val loaded up first. He whirled the sling around his head just as Jose had done and then let go. His rock flew straight up and we had to jump back to avoid being hit.

“Great shot, Val!” The smirk was evident in my voice.

I bent over to pick out one of my rocks, examining them as if I knew just what kind of rock I was looking for. I didn’t, of course, but that was beside the point. I selected one and loaded it into my sling. “OK! Watch this!” and I wheeled it over my head, letting go at what I was sure was the just the right point. My first attempt didn’t go straight up, but neither did it go straight. As a matter of fact, my sling fell apart and it didn’t go anywhere. Val doubled over, laughing.

“You boys keep trying. I’m going where it’s safe!” and Jose, smiling, turned and left.

And keep trying we did. We made sling after sling, each one holding up a little better than its predecessors. We went out to the fields to practice our marksmanship, each practice session paying off in increased distance and accuracy. The distances we achieved initially ranged from one to maybe twenty yards and we got pretty excited over the twenty-yard throws. We made slings of different sizes and we experimented with different kinds of rope and twine, different ways of knotting the components together. In the fields, we tried different sizes and shapes of rocks and after a couple more weeks of practicing we were probably just about as adept as Jose. Our range was seventy-five to one hundred yards and, we could break bottles at fifty yards, although not necessarily on the first try or on every try.

From the first Jose reminded us regularly about safety. “Don’t spin that thing around until you’ve checked to make sure your partner isn’t too close. And never, ever, hurl rocks when there’s anyone in sight or anything that could be damaged by a rock. You may be good and you may think you know what you’re doing, but accidents happen. Be careful!”

And we were very careful, always making sure no people or animals were around, nothing we could damage. Well, almost always.

A Mob

“Hey, I’ve got a great idea!” I don’t remember if it was my idea or Val’s or why we even decided it was a good idea. “Let’s stand way back from the highway, wait till there’s no traffic, and see who can sling a rock closest to the pavement.” Kind of like pitching pennies. We both thought it was a cool idea and so we marked off a distance that was probably about a hundred yards. Even if we tried we’d be unlikely to hit a bus or any other vehicle from that distance should one come by.

Even though one hundred yards was occasionally within our range, our first throws proved to be woefully short so we began edging closer. Soon we were at a point where our rocks were landing just where we wanted them, a couple of yards short of the highway. That’s when our Good Idea evolved into our Great Idea: Let’s see if we can time our throws so the rock lands just as a bus is passing by! As I said, I don’t know whose idea it was or why we decided to actually do it anymore than I know why I thought it would be great fun to throw firecrackers under the bus in Chapalita. Or why, when I was four, I wanted to find out what would happen if I put my finger under the needle of Mom’s sewing machine and stepped on the pedal. (Blood happens. Blood and pain. And screaming.)

SNAPSHOT: Val and I are literally running for our lives across a recently plowed field. The mob of angry men chasing us leaves no doubt what their intentions are.

We had no real desire or intent, of course, to actually hit a bus, but neither did we give any thought to the possibility that it actually could happen. And it did. One of us (again, my memory conveniently fails me) let loose a mighty heave. We watched as the rock arced gracefully, almost leisurely, towards the highway. Then we heard the sickening THUNK! as it hit a bus broadside, just below one of the windows.

The bus came to an immediate stop and people began piling out. Since we were standing in plain view with the slings in our hands, there was no question in their minds as to where the attack had come from. The driver pointed at us, yelled something and began racing towards us, followed immediately by another half dozen men. No question what was on their mind. I dropped my sling, turned and started running, wondering how Val could already be ahead of me.

Three things worked in our favor. First was fear - we both knew we might be literally running for our lives and we were both desperately hoping that fear could outrun rage. Second, we had a good head start. Third, we had a detailed, map-like knowledge of the area and we both knew that ahead of us was a ravine we’d often ridden through on horseback.

“The ravine, Val, the ravine!”

“I know, I know!”

The chase unfolded in slow motion, due only in part to the soft earth that sucked at our feet, trying to pull us down and hold us back for the mob. My senses were on high alert. I heard the mob’s shouts as if they were only a few feet behind us instead of nearly the length of a football field. My vision opened up to take in untold meaningless details: clods of dirt, a small purple flower. Fear prickled my skin. Predator and prey.

We reached the ravine and, still running full tilt, jumped the six or seven feet down and continued running along the sandy bottom, the angry shouts of the men behind us like hounds nipping at the fox’s heels.

SNAPSHOT: The ravine is overgrown with vegetation, an oasis among all the other dry, sandy ravines. You can’t see us and fortunately neither can the mob.

The ravine we were in criss-crossed several others in its course, a maze we were both familiar with. I knew where Val was headed. There was a smaller intersecting ravine coming up on our right. Its sides and bottom were largely overgrown with scrub brush and tall grass due to a small stream of water running through it. If we could make it that far we could crawl in under cover and we might be safe. It would be difficult to track us and all the vegetation would make it impossible to see us from above. It was our best hope. It was our only hope.

We reached the spot where the ravines cross and we turned down the smaller one, Val still in the lead, making our way another twenty-five yards or so through the vegetation until we heard the shouts of our pursuers. We curled up under some brush, giving silent thanks that it was spring and everything was in full foliage.

Nothing I’ve ever done has been more difficult or terrifying than lying there in the sand, hearing the angry shouts as the men giving chase broke up into smaller groups, fanning out through the ravines. I was completely winded and my lungs cried out for great big gulps of air that I couldn’t give them without giving us away. I lay there, mouth wide open, trying to breathe slow and deep, hoping I was breathing silently, hoping I wasn’t shaking the foliage above me.

We heard the men running back and forth, poking into the brush and exploring the main ravine. Then I heard one of them coming up our ravine, kicking vegetation aside, poking about with a stick, and I had the irrational thought of wishing I were a fawn so I couldn’t be sniffed out. He came within a few yards, close enough for me to see the stick he carried. I closed my eyes and prayed, wondering who would ever find me here when they finished with me.

Then, a shout. “¡Muchachos! ¡Vengan! I think I found their tracks!” The man with the stick turned and I could hear him running towards the voice. At the same time, I felt a warm wetness as my bladder, maybe in sympathetic relief with my mind, relaxed.

Finally, there were no more voices, no more angry shouts, but we stayed put, still hardly breathing, not daring to come out in case they were simply hanging around, trying to outwait us. Finally, since the bus driver did have some kind of a schedule to keep, we decided to risk it, and ever so cautiously and ever so quietly emerged from hiding, relieved to find that they had, indeed, left. Val’s face was white and I’m sure mine was too. I was trembling and feeling weak from the experience. We both realized we had narrowly escaped terrible retribution for our stupid stunt, endangering the lives of the bus passengers. We never told anyone what had happened, nor did we ever sling rocks in that field again, or, for that matter, anywhere in sight of the highway, just in case that same driver should come by and see us. We learned a good lesson the hard way.

Santa Anita & Jose and Maria

2010-09-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

The photos of Jose and Maria, our hired hands who lived on the farm, were taken at the Guadalajara municipal airport, probably in 1961 or '62. I had totally forgotten that we had a little white dog until I saw the photo with Jose holding her. As soon as I saw it, her name, Mitzi, came back to me. Curious how memory works.

Santa Anita

A few months after our move to Granja La Rosita, my friend Val and his family moved into a house in a new colonia about three miles down the road from us. This was a bright spot in my life, a chink in my wall of misery, as I now had a friend living reasonably close. True, I could still go to Chapalita pretty much whenever I wanted by bus or in our car, but it was always a crapshoot: Would anyone be home? Or free? Like us, none of my friends had a phone so even going into Santa Anita to use the one telephone (in the barbershop of all places; how did he ever get a phone?) wouldn’t have done any good. Having my friend Val nearby was great. And, to make it even better, I could saddle up Rocinante, one of our two horses, and ride over to his house.

SNAPSHOT: My friend Val and I are horseback riding in one of the many ravines that criss-cross the fields. This ravine is probably ten feet across and seven or eight feet deep. It twists to the left and my friend Val and I are just disappearing around that bend on horseback.

Val and I went on horseback explorations, me on Rocinante, he on our other horse, Sancho Panza. At least I got something from my Spanish literature class – I knew these were names from Don Quijote.

Other than the town of Santa Anita, with its population of maybe five hundred souls, the area was very sparsely populated. The land around our farm was criss-crossed with ravines and dotted with fields Some fields were cultivated, some used for pasture, some were lying fallow or just plain neglected. In addition, there were large areas that had never been cultivated and apparently belonged to no one. There were no fences. We were free to roam where we wanted, and we did. At times we galloped across the grass- and scrub-covered land, enjoying the exhilaration of running unrestrained. Other times we simply let the horses wander, exploring by chance. We came to know all the ravines between Val’s house and mine. It was a knowledge that may well have saved our lives a few months later. (See next week’s post.)

Stands of trees dotted the landscape and we often headed for one in particular, a few miles from the farm. It was by a small stream that provided water for our horses. There were dangers out here, chiefly coyotes, rattlesnakes and scorpions, but we never gave them much thought. We were young and death was so remote as to be impossible. Even on my most miserable days death never crossed my mind.

SNAPSHOT: The small town of Santa Anita. Whitewashed adobe dwellings butt against the hard-packed dirt street, which runs alongside the plaza in the center of town. You can see all the important buildings that surround the plaza: the mayor’s office, the post office, the police department, the church and the town’s administrative offices. A couple of cars are parked on the street, a man on a bicycle trails two others on horseback. Just as the dust never settles in the snapshot, it never settles in the town, either.

Santa Anita, a hub for farmers and ranchers in the area, was a small, rural town two miles from our farm. Only the municipal buildings and the more well-to-do townspeople had electricity and running water; the majority did not.

Americans were a rarity in Santa Anita, somewhat akin to finding a cat in a phone booth. When Val and I rode into town one afternoon, two gueros, two light-skinned, blue-eyed, American boys riding in on horseback from the fields, we must have been a curious sight. I had been to town several times with Jose or Antonio to buy supplies or talk with the veterinarian but not enough to stop being a curiosity.

We clop-clopped along one of the cobblestone streets on the edge of town, both of us enjoying the attention and feeling very worldly, if not superior.

SNAPSHOT: On our right is a barber shop, and sitting in a straight-back wooden chair is Jose, a sheet covering him from the neck down and a bowl on his head.

We passed the barber shop with the phone and there was Jose, our hired hand, in the chair, getting a haircut. I had heard the term “bowl cut” before and now I understood what it meant. Jose had a white sheet draped around him and a bowl on his head. The barber was simply trimming all the hair that stuck out from under the bowl. Jose smiled and gave us a wave as we went by. We shouted out a greeting to him, waved in return and went on.

We soon came to the plaza and I remembered there was a pool hall on the corner in the next block. Jose had taken me in there once when he was looking for somebody and we had stayed to shoot some pool.

“How about we shoot some pool?” I asked Val, and with his affirmative response we headed down that block.

Like most of the other buildings, this one was of whitewashed adobe without the formality of a sidewalk, its door opening directly to the street. We tied up our horses alongside some others and walked in. The interior was dim, with no windows to let in light. The light bulbs hanging over the bar and each of the three pool tables cast a dingy light that tried to make its way through the cigarette smoke and the dust hanging in the air. The floor was rough-hewn planks and the walls were whitewashed the same as the exterior. There was a framed picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe above the door, a couple of calendars behind the bar to remind us of years gone by and a few cheesecake shots taken from magazines nailed to the wall. A trough extended halfway along the back wall and as we stood there, our eyes adjusting to the light, a man stepped up to the trough, unzipped his pants and relieved himself. Val and I looked at each other, fortunately managing to suppress a giggle. We went over to the bar and ordered a Caballitos, a Mexican soft drink. All three pool tables were in play so we just stood around and watched, drinking our pop, both of us conscious of being the center of polite attention. But being scrutinized closely is not the same as being scrutinized in passing. We finished our pop and left, feeling a little too conspicuous.

Maria and Jose at the Guadalajara airport

Jose and Maria

Jose and Maria were the married couple who worked for us. They were born and raised right there in the area and their whole lives centered on the land. Their children worked their parents’ land and Jose and Maria hired themselves out to bring in extra money. She was older than he, probably fifty or so to his early forties. My mental snapshot of Maria is of a Mother Katzenjammer look-alike. She was stout and taller than the average Mexican woman with her graying hair pulled back tightly in a bun. Her clothes, including the big white apron she always wore around her ample middle, had seen better days but they were always clean and pressed. She was good-natured and smiled a lot but she had her ways. Whether it was tending the truck garden, washing clothes or fixing a meal (or setting off fireworks), she brooked no interference.

SNAPSHOT: That’s Maria out in the grassy field next to our farm. She’s carrying a basket and she’s bent over, looking intently for something.

Like many country people without ready access to doctors or medicines, she was adept at diagnosing and treating minor health problems.

She told me, “I never had any training and I never went to school past fourth grade. But send me someone with a cut or a bruise or an upset stomach or if they’re constipated, I know what to do,” and she smiled knowingly, plucking another handful of feathers from the chicken in her lap. “I can set broken bones, cure fevers and rid people of the evil eye.” Another handful went into the basket at her feet.

“And just how do you know all those things, Maria?” I asked in what I’m sure must have been a condescending tone of voice.

“Well, you have to know about all the plants and trees and roots that grow around here. Many of them are useful in treating people’s problems. But you have to be careful - some are also poisonous! I go out into the fields and bring back the right plant. Then I make a poultice out of it and apply it to a cut or I chop it and boil a tea to be sipped.”

In my smug, adolescent way I thought this was all very quaint but of little real value. Then I got a toothache one day, a terrible one that Mejoral (a Mexican brand of aspirin) didn’t touch. As soon as Maria heard she first scolded me for not telling her immediately. My pain forced me to suspend my skepticism as I watched her march out to the field where our cows grazed. It took her only a few minutes to find the plant she needed and when she returned she motioned me to follow her into their quarters.

SNAPSHOT: The wooden chair I’m sitting on is missing a couple of slats from its back. Behind me is a double bed with an old, threadbare quilt. Dishes are stacked on the plank shelves over the sink and a picture of Lazaro Cardenas, progressive president of Mexico two decades earlier, stares at me. Maria is boiling water on an old Coleman stove.

“Sit down,” she said brusquely. “We’ll have you feeling fine in no time at all. That Mejoral didn’t work, did it? Well, I’m not surprised. You should have come to me right away. I know just what to do.” And she did. She prepared a tea using the plant she had brought back and told me to drink it. Within fifteen minutes the pain had subsided and within half an hour it was gone. Along with it went some of my adolescent confidence that I pretty much knew everything that was important to know, and its corollary, that other people didn’t.

Mom and Maria got along very well. Mom liked Maria’s competence and she respected her knowledge of folk medicine. This, in turn, pleased Maria, who felt comfortable making suggestions to Mom about our health. It must have been Maria who talked to Mom about vitamins, specifically vitamin B-12. Now, I have no idea what vitamin B-12 does or how much a person needs or how Maria came to know of it. Nonetheless, Maria and Mom started a crusade to make sure that everybody on the farm had enough vitamin B-12. So each Monday we were all to receive a B-12 injection. I dreaded it.

First, I didn’t much care for shots at all. Second, this was a particularly painful one. It was a thick yellow liquid, thick like molasses is thick. And it hurt like the dickens going in. To make it worse, this was no quick, in-and-out shot. It took probably half a minute to get it all injected into my buttock, thirty seconds of agony with me groaning loudly the whole time. When it was over, sweat covered my body and I felt drained as well as drenched. And each time it was over, Maria (who administered the shots to everybody) would say, “See, it wasn’t that bad, was it?” Yeah, it was that bad. That bad and a lot worse.

Jose (holding Mitzi), Maria, their neice, Rosa, and Valerie

I liked Jose, her husband, a lot. He was slender, a little over six feet, tall for a Mexican, and had luxuriant black hair that he, like so many Mexican men, combed straight back. His long, narrow face, topped off with a large charro-style hat, made him seem even taller. He had a way of pausing before responding to a question or to a comment that required some reply from him. And then his speech was slow, as if the words would come out only reluctantly. He would sometimes take off his hat and scratch his head while forming his thoughts, eyes slightly squinted, staring off over everybody’s head. To a casual observer Jose may well have seemed slow-witted; however, he was anything but. He was knowledgeable on just about anything having to do with crops, weather, farm animals, soils and prices. Mom and Antonio referred to him as shrewd when it came to negotiating a price for something we wanted to buy or sell.

The Truth About Antonio & Spider Webs

2010-09-12T08:37:00.000-07:00

This first post recounts the last incident of physical abuse I was to suffer at Mom's hands. The second is about discovering something important about myself. Both of them revolve around Mom's increasingly heavy drinking and her dependence on sleeping pills. For obvious reasons, this scared me.

The Truth About Antonio

SNAPSHOT: This is my bedroom on the farm. A double bed, small closet, guitar in the corner, lamp, a desk and chair make up the room. Those are bloodstains on the light blue wall behind the bed. My blood.

It was just a few months after moving to the farm that Mom found out that she wasn’t Antonio’s only lover, and the discovery was devastating. She truly and deeply loved him and relied on him for emotional (as well as financial) support. He had opened the door to a new and exciting life, made her feel special, desirable, loved. She felt that their civil marriage, even though it was not a religious one, was proof of his devotion to her. She saw nothing but happiness ahead.

His betrayal of all this was sudden and brutal and after that discovery her life changed, as well as mine and Valerie’s. For Val, it meant the loss of someone who had become her second father, someone she trusted and looked up to. For me, I thought I now had to be “the man of the house” and it scared me. I didn’t know what that meant or how to be it.

But worst of all was what it did to Mom. Her drinking, which had been heavy but usually under control, now intensified. In addition, she turned to barbiturates to help blur the pain. The drink of choice was vodka and the barbiturate was Noctalyl, a mint-green pill the size of a dime. It was a heavy-duty sleeping pill that could be bought over-the-counter by anybody. Mom sent me regularly to the pharmacy to renew her supply. And they were cheap: twenty pesos ($1.60) a dozen.

Barbiturates had led to my dad’s death and I was scared seeing Mom go down the same path.

Mom’s verbal and emotional abuse of the two of us became harsher and more frequent. One day Mom was furious with me for something I had done or something I hadn’t done - I didn’t know which and it never really mattered. I was sitting on my bed, playing guitar when she burst into my room already in a rage. Immediately she began a torrent of vilification, her rage mounting by the moment. Ever since the tennis racket incident I’d become adept at gauging Mom’s anger. I put my guitar down because I knew what was coming, just as surely as I knew I couldn’t dodge it. I just didn’t know how the attack would be mounted this time.

Without warning, she leaped at me, grabbed my head, twisted it to the left and started smashing it repeatedly into the wall, my forehead taking the brunt of it. For however long it took (Ten seconds? An eternity?) there was nothing in my life outside the blast of pain, the jarred vision and blinding flashes of light that accompanied each thud of my head against the wall. Then it was over. She released my head and stood there and I could feel her hot breath panting in my face. Then she turned and left the room, her rage once again expended.

I sat on my bed for several minutes, dazed, ears ringing, not even

knowing I was bleeding until I looked at the wall and saw the blood stains. Shaking, I got to my feet and went into the bathroom to clean the contusions on my forehead with cool water.

“Don’t you stain any of the washcloths!” came Mom’s voice through the door.

As usual, she never apologized, never mentioned what had happened. My one little bit of revenge was to leave the bloodstains on the wall. I wanted them as a reminder, to me. And to Mom.

Spider Webs

SNAPSHOT: The living room is finished and it looks great with its polished-granite fireplace, new furniture and rugs, and new doors and drapes. The final touch had been the painting of the living room and the pale yellow paint added a warn and cheery touch to the room.

When you’re sixteen, parents don’t always make sense under the best of circumstances. This was incomprehensible. I turned slowly, looking at our newly redone living room. Yesterday it was pristine with its polished granite fireplace, new furniture, rugs, drapes, and newly tiled floor. The freshly painted pale yellow walls had added warmth and cheer to the room. Now, there are sloppy swirls of black paint on the walls and black streaks where the paint has run and there’s black paint all over the floor. A large paint brush sits in a can of black paint. I know who did this: Mom. But why?

As I stared at each wall in turn, I saw what Mom was trying to do: paint cobwebs on them. Her mother, who had died when Mom was nine, had been very artistic, a poet, a painter, and a writer. Mom may have been inspired by this memory, may have visualized lacy, delicate, symmetrical black strands gracefully adorning the walls. But the only brush she could find was a painter’s three-inch brush. And she was drunk. Again.

She had gone on a drinking binge late the day before. Valerie, and I had long since learned to make ourselves scarce when Mom started drinking heavily, which was most of the time now. So when she started her binge, we retreated to our bedrooms. She continued drinking all evening and I could hear her crying at times and at others, singing along with records and music that she and Antonio used to dance to. Sometimes she would sing a song she made up, “Pass Around Girl.” I’m sure Val heard all this also but neither of us ventured out of our rooms all evening, not even for something to eat.

Only those who have been through it, children who have watched a parent do this to themselves, can understand what it’s like. I experienced fierce, conflicting emotions, and Valerie must have, also. For years we had been targets of Mom’s harsh and unrelenting criticisms, her verbal and emotional abuse, the occasional physical abuse. But in spite of this, I still loved her. Somewhere inside of me I recognized that she was struggling against all the pain in her life: the loss of Antonio; her perceived failure as a parent; her isolation; the recent loss of Felice; and a future that was bleak and discouraging.

Loathing was also present. I couldn’t stand what Mom had become. In my harsh, all-knowing, unforgiving teenage certainty, I hated her for being weak. Why didn’t she just put Antonio behind her and get on with her life? Why did she have to drink so heavily? And take so many pills? And stay in bed until eleven, twelve, one o’clock in the afternoon? Why couldn’t she just be like other kids’ moms?

I felt embarrassed whenever Mom, drunk, tried to talk to me about these things, or anything for that matter. I felt embarrassed when she yelled or cried or I heard things crashing. I felt embarrassed when she started singing or when I would find her dancing clumsily as I tried to make my way to the kitchen without being seen.

Fear was always present, fear of what Mom might do to herself, either intentionally or because of the drinking. Could you die from drinking too much? What if she decided to drive somewhere when she was drunk? What if she just decided to end it all and take all her sleeping pills at once, the sleeping pills she regularly asked me to purchase for her? As I look back, though, I think suicide was closed to Mom. Dad had already put us through that five years before and she couldn’t subject Valerie and me to that again. Could she? What would happen to us if she did? How would we get back to the States? Who would take us in? And now I wonder if the fact that that door was closed to her simply added to her misery; the pain in her life was unbearable and increasing daily but there was no way out.

There was also the uncertainty of what would happen to me. I was sixteen, on the verge of adulthood, but I was also a school drop-out with insufficient education and no skills, social or otherwise. I was locked in daily battles with Mom, battles that took a terrible toll on both of us.

Out of this particular binge, though, from the terrible black paint mess on the walls, came a revelation and hope, something that did much to begin changing the way I thought about myself.

* * *

I don’t know what Valerie did that evening. I stayed in my room and eventually read myself to sleep. When I got up the next morning it was clear just how drunk Mom had become. Sometime during the night she got the idea that these spider webs were just what was needed, the finishing touch to the living room. Anywhere there was enough space on a wall, Mom had painted a web. On one large area she painted two floor-to-ceiling webs. Other webs were scaled down to fit the available space. She was intent on her task and oblivious to the black streaks running down the walls from the overloaded brush, oblivious to the paint dripping on the floor, oblivious to the mess she was creating.

While I stood in the front room the next morning, turning slowly, taking it all in and trying to understand how anyone could be so drunk, I heard Valerie come out of her room and turned to see her reaction. It mirrored mine. She turned completely around, staring incomprehensively at the disaster.

“What are you going to do, David?” Her voice was barely audible.

“We have to get the living room repainted. And we have to do it before she gets up.” I didn’t want a confrontation with Mom over something that obviously needed to be done. And I think maybe I was trying to spare her the embarrassment of seeing the botched mess she had made while drunk.

Two things worked in our favor. First, I knew Mom wouldn’t be up any time soon, probably not before mid-afternoon at the earliest. Second, the painter had said he would return this morning to be paid. We’d prevail on him to help us.

He arrived a little later, stepped into the living room and silently surveyed the scene, doing just as Val and I had done: turning slowly, taking it all in, trying to understand how anyone could be so drunk. He said nothing but his face wore a look of pained bewilderment that was eloquent in its silence.

“I need some help,” I told him, rather pointlessly.

“I can see that,” was his laconic reply. “Let’s get started.”

It took several hours to restore the living room walls. The painter gave Valerie a paint scraper and told her to start scraping the black paint off the floor. Then he and I sanded away as much of the black paint on the walls as we could. After we had vacuumed and cleaned the walls, I wanted to start painting, right away.

“Don’t you want to prime first?”

“No, there’s no time. We have to get this all done before my Mom gets up. If it doesn’t cover completely, I’ll put on another coat tomorrow.” I was surprising myself with an unknown ability to take charge, make decisions, act responsibly.

Four hours later we finally finished, cleaned up, and inspected our work. My sister had worked hard at her task and the floors were free of any traces of black paint. The painter left, saying he’d return tomorrow for his money. The living room looked pretty good.

SNAPSHOT: Mom stands in the doorway of her bedroom, holding to the door jamb. Her eyes are puffy, bloodshot. An old gray scarf covers her hair and her wrinkled lavender bathrobe is tied at the waist with the belt from her green robe. There were still yesterday’s Frownies in the space between her eyebrows, little adhesive triangles that were supposed to prevent wrinkles, something she’d used for years. She is expressionless, apathetic.

Eventually, the moment I’d been dreading arrived. Mom woke up and came out to the living room. My first hope was that she wouldn’t remember what she had done, that if she was drunk enough to do it, then maybe she had been too drunk to remember doing it. And if she did remember, I was braced for the worst, prepared once again to be her verbal, maybe physical, punching bag. But all she did was stand and look around her, much as the painter had done, and with much the same look on her face.

“Did you see what I painted?”

“Yes, I did, Mom.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“No, Mom, there was paint all over everything and it dripped down the walls. It didn’t look good. “

“Did you repaint it?”

“Well, the painter and Val and I did. He came back to be paid and I asked him to stay and help me repaint. He’ll be back tomorrow for his money.”

There was disappointment reflected in her face. I know she felt that her artistic efforts were just the touch the room needed. She had emulated her mother.

I was relieved when she didn’t say anything more.

There are events in our lives where our self image comes into a much sharper focus than ever before. There’s a new clarity in how we see, understand, and appreciate ourselves. For me, the spider web episode was one such event. Like a light being turned on, one that should already have been burning brightly but wasn’t, I realized that what I had done was an act of responsibility, undertaken on my own. All the accusations Mom had hurled at me over the years, accusations that sapped my spirit while they poisoned my psyche, were proved false. Mom was wrong; she had been wrong all along. I drank deeply of this new revelation, savoring a new image of a strong, worthwhile me.

Dehorning Cows & Misery

2010-09-05T08:01:00.000-07:00

Dehorning Cows

SNAPSHOT: There’s a look of real pride on my face in this one, working with the men. I’m holding tightly to a rope I’ve slipped over the back legs of one of our cows. Another man has secured the front legs and two others are holding its head still. Jose is going to do the cutting.

I learned to milk cows on the farm (and squirt the cats in the process) and to saddle and ride a horse. I learned that chasing chickens could be fun and that goats are stubborn, strong and nimble. I found this out one day trying to take four goats from one pen to another, all at once, on ropes. In a matter of seconds, one had run around me twice and the three others were pulling me in as many directions. No amount of pulling or tugging on my part had any effect and It took a few minutes of embarrassed shouting for help before Maria came and untangled me, barely repressing her chuckles.

I also learned about dehorning cows. And what the sight of blood, lots of blood, does to me.

This wasn’t my first experience with a bloody animal. That happened when I was four and we were living in Hollywood. One afternoon I was out playing, along with some older boys, when I discovered a bird in the gutter, a dead bird, although in retrospect I couldn't have known that for sure. Its eyes were open, its feathers were intact and its pudgy little body didn’t appear injured. Nor had ants or the neighborhood cats gotten to it yet. But it was important for me to believe that it was dead because while I was staring at the bird, wondering if I should pick it up and maybe take it home or bury it, one of the older boys came over and placed his foot on it. I watched with a combination of fascination and horror as he slowly stepped on it until it burst and there’s blood flowing in the gutter and I can’t see the eyes anymore and the feathers are all bloody and the fat little body that a moment ago had seemed so normal, so ready to fly off, is now just a mangle. Such a lot of blood from such a small creature. I ran home, crying.

Such a lot of blood from a cow, too. It started innocently enough. Jose, hat in hand, was talking with Antonio. “Si, , manana les vamos a quitar los cuernos a las vacas.”

“Jose,” I asked, “Why do you have to take the horns off the cows?”

“To keep them from hurting each other,” was his laconic reply. Docile as they seem, I guess cows can get pretty ornery with each other and so the horns had to come off. The procedure is simple: The cows are led to a spot just outside the stable, ropes are thrown around them and they’re pulled off their feet. A couple of men wrap up the feet with more rope and keep the cow pinned down while Jose takes a saw and cuts off the horns.

“Doesn’t that hurt the cow?” I ask.

“Not at all. It’s just like cutting your fingernails.” He said he was going to bring in a couple of men from Santa Anita to help him and did I want to help, also?

My face lit up. “You bet!” I was becoming reasonably good at handling a horse, I was learning to rope, and now I was going to add to my cowboy resume by helping to round up our “herd” (two cows) rope ‘em, bring ‘em down and cut off the horns. Yee-haa!!

Late the next morning two men on horseback showed up at the farm and Jose told me to get ready. No need. I’d been ready since eight. The two men took their ropes from their saddles and turned the horses loose in the pasture.

Everything started out just fine. Jose led one of the cows from the stable to where we were waiting. One of the men wrapped a rope around the cow’s rear feet and yanked on it. The cow thudded down on its side and began lowing.

He handed me the rope. “Here. Just keep pulling on this, keep it tight. Don’t let the cow get to its feet.”

Now, it didn’t occur to me to ask why, if this procedure doesn’t hurt the cow, its feet have to be hogtied. I had simply taken Jose at his word that this was a painless procedure. So we were set: two men restraining the cow with ropes, one holding its head in place. Jose is ready to start.

He knelt down beside the cow’s head, grabbed a horn, decided where to make the cut and started. For a few seconds all went well as Jose cut through the horn. Then, three things happened in quick succession. First, long, pulsing streams of blood started to spurt out from where the horn, now falling to one side, had been. Second, the animal started lowing at a volume I never knew cows were capable of while at the same time thrashing about wildly. Third, I fainted. I could feel it coming. I tried not to. I fought against it. But the blood drained from my head in the same measure that it was spurting from the cow. I felt enormously light-headed and thousands and thousands of little white spots danced before my eyes. Then I collapsed to the ground, right there in front of the men. When I came to a short time later I was in Jose and Maria’s little house, lying on their bed with Maria bending over me, dabbing my brow with cool water. Outside I could hear the men laughing.

Even with my cowboy image seriously tarnished, I probably should have gone right back out and given it another try, but I had no heart for it. Plus, I didn’t want to take the chance of fainting dead away a second time in front of the men. So I waited inside, not wanting to be seen until they were finished with the second cow. When they had all left I went back into the house.

Sometime later I confronted Jose. “You said it wouldn’t hurt the cow,” I reproached him. “You said it was like cutting fingernails. What happened?”

“Ever cut your nails too close to the quick?” he asked me and then walked off.

Misery

Felice, our now ten-year-old cat, was hit and killed one morning by a car on the highway alongside our farm. Her death hit all of us hard. Felice was a part of our family. She had endured everything we’d endured: the long drive from LA to Guadalajara, our dog breeding activities, the moves from house to house and then to the farm, where she became the dominant cat among our several farm cats. And now she was gone. I think the loss hurt Mom the most. Felice was always there to comfort her, always there as a confidant, loving and non-judgmental. Her death simply added one more brick to a wall of misery being erected by, and for, all three of us.

My own wall of misery seemed to be constantly under construction, growing higher, longer, more solid, day-by-day. For one thing, living fifteen miles out of town, I was isolated from all my friends. I had to take a bus to school every morning as well. Not the bus, but a bus. From day-to-day I never knew which bus I’d be taking. Some buses ran on some days, others on other days with no apparent rhyme or reason. I could never plan ahead for what bus would pass at what time on which day. For example, on one morning the bus from Cuautla might come by at 6:30. So the next morning I’d be out there by 6:15, but no bus. As a matter of fact, the Cuautla bus doesn’t come by again all week at that time. So I figure it’s a weekly run, but no, it’s not that either. I don’t catch it again until nine days later at 7:00. It was that way with all the buses: they just seemed to run whenever they felt like it. I had to be on a bus by 7:00 at the latest to make it to school on time. And that meant walking out to the highway no later than 6:15, and even then there was no guarantee that a bus would come by in time. Many a morning I sent up a silent supplication, Please, God, let the bus come now! When one finally came, I boarded, paid my one-peso fare and tried to do my homework and all the assigned reading in the thirty minutes it took to get to Colonia Chapalita, where I got off and waited for a city bus to take me to my stop at Vallarta and Costa Rica.

Another brick of misery was my continuing struggle with acne: it was out of control and getting worse, month by month. And of course Mom continued to blame me for it with her usual litany of accusations: You’re not clean! You don’t bathe enough! You eat too much candy! You eat too many greasy foods! Later, of course, many, many years later, I would realize that that was all nonsense. But not now: my pimples were my fault.

The final brick: I failed the third year of secondary (the equivalent of ninth grade) at Colegio Cervantes. For four years I’d been a middle-of-the-pack student, sometimes rising closer to the top, sometimes dropping a bit, but never in danger of failing. But no longer. I neglected my homework and the assigned readings, except for what I could get done on the bus. I didn’t study. I hated memorizing the conjugations of regular and irregular verbs in my Spanish grammar class. Spanish literature bored me, and I had no interest in the Mexican Revolution. Either one of them. I spent all my time in don Tommy’s (as we called him) organic chemistry class drawing hydroplanes and geometrical designs on my notebook. (I’ve no idea why hydroplanes; it’s not like Guadalajara

was the hydroplane capital of the world.) When he wouldn’t let me do my drawings, I simply sat at my desk and daydreamed.

I gave no though to the future, not to next year, not even to tomorrow. I lived day-to-day, trying to hold my crumbling life together by ignoring all the problems crushing me under their weight: I couldn’t do anything about them so why dwell on them?

The situation boiled over when I gave Mom my final report card. She knew I had been doing poorly in school but I don’t think she realized just how poorly: I flunked. I didn’t realize it, either, but the difference was that I didn’t care.

“Don’t think you’re going back to school in the fall!” Mom railed. “I’m not going to keep paying tuition if all you’re going to do is sit on your big fat butt and fail. Enough of that! You’re going to start earning your keep, young man!”

I knew what the phrase “Earning my keep” meant but I’d no idea what Mom had in mind. I found out soon enough.

We now had a small herd of ten milk cows. Maria had been milking them and Jose, who had learned to drive from Mom, made daily deliveries along a small milk route we had established in Colonia Chapalita. I don’t know how we found these customers but I suspect Jose had done some door-to-door soliciting to get a few people to sign up and then word spread. To earn my keep, I was going to take over the milk route from Jose: I would be delivering milk seven days a week.

I dreaded doing this. I dreaded the possibility that some of my Mexican or American friends would see me. In the fall, when they were in school, this wouldn’t be a problem but over the summer it was entirely possible. To minimize the possibility, I’d drive very slowly, watching carefully for any sign that kids I know were around. If they were, I detoured and waited till they were gone. This at times resulted in deliveries that took twice as long as they should have. Mom wasn’t happy about this and it just added more fuel to the criticism fire.

Now, I struggled every day with something I could not detour around, could not avoid: the demoralizing reality that I had flunked out of school and become a milkman in Mexico.

Granja la Rosita & The 4th of July

2010-08-29T07:31:00.000-07:00

Initially, the move to this little farm worked out okay; things went well for us. Even though I was pretty much isolated from all my friends in Chapalita, Mexican and American, there was much to explore around La Rosita. ('Granja,' by the way, means 'farm'.)

Granja la Rosita

Our new farmhouse in Mexico was structurally sound but needed a complete overhaul inside. Like the purchase of the farm itself, the cost of gutting and remodeling had to have been borne by Antonio; this was nothing that Mom could have afforded.

The house was almost complete but some work was still in progress as we moved in. Workmen were installing the water tank and pump on the roof (flat, as are most of the roofs in Mexico, for that very reason). The front room was a mess with the walls not yet painted and blocks of oiled and polished granite in random stacks on the floor, waiting to be installed around the fireplace. (Why a fireplace? I ask myself now; I can’t imagine ever needing to use it.) Two bedrooms, Mom’s and Val’s, opened of f the living room. There was a master bath in Mom’s room with not only the usual bathroom equipment but also the first bidet I’d ever seen. Mom explained to me what it was used for and I silently determined that at the first opportunity, sometime when Mom wasn’t around, I’d try it out for myself to see how it worked. I did, and it took two towels and ten minutes to dry myself, the bidet, the sink, floor, shower door, and walls. Plus, I had to change clothes.

The kitchen and bathroom, too, were located just off the living room. My bedroom was reached by going through the bathroom. It also had an outside door so I could come and go without disturbing anyone and without being noticed. What teen wouldn’t like that?

Some fifty yards behind the house were quarters for our hired hand, Jose, and his wife, Maria. Their quarters were small and, while not exactly crude, neither were they built for comfort. I never questioned the disparity between our comparatively wealthy lifestyle and their much, much lower standard of living – that’s just the way it was.

Adjacent to Jose and Maria’s quarters was the stable where we kept our two horses and two cows. We had a truck garden behind the house where Maria raised corn and vegetables of various kinds. Alongside the house was a well. It wasn’t the quaint, picturesque well you see in storybooks with a little peaked roof over a low brick wall and a rustic windlass with rope and bucket. It was just a hole in the ground covered by pieces of plywood.

One day a duckling fell into the well through a crack between the boards. Mom and Val were distraught, pleading with me to go down and get it. “Hurry, David, hurry! Save it!” So, for the second time in my life I got to descend a deep, dark well with an electric pump at the bottom. Hand-over-hand (actually, hand-under-hand) I went down the steel rungs built into the crumbling brick sides of the well. Once down there, it wasn’t too hard to grab the duckling (after all, where was it going to go?), tuck it in my shirt and make my way back up. After that, I made sure every day that the well was covered. Well-covered, you might say.

An odd feature of our farm was a swimming pool. Or maybe it was a holding tank for irrigation water; who knows? It was no more than four feet deep, fairly small, surrounded by weeds and half full of dirty brown water. We drained it one day, cleaned it, filled it and began enjoying it as a swimming pool. One of our farm cats, Tonch (so called because that’s how Mexicans call to their cats, tonch, tonch, tonch) also enjoyed it. He’d bat at the water from the side of the pool and never seemed to mind when one of us would pick him up, take him to the middle of the pool and let him go. He simply swam back calmly to the side, climbed out and started to wash himself. After a while he took to going in on his own and swimming around. He didn’t like to be splashed, though.

Tonch had another habit that puzzled us. Why did he keep showing up regularly smeared with grease? His little secret came out when I changed the oil in the car one day and found him curled up, sleeping in the engine compartment. After that, we learned to open the hood to look for him or at least bang on it and scare him out. One trip, though, I forgot. I got in the car, started the engine and took off down the highway. I glanced in the rearview mirror and I saw a little gray fluffball rolling down the road. He’d been in his usual place and was dislodged, falling to the pavement. I stopped, ready to turn around and retrieve a dead cat, but he somehow escaped not only being run over but any injury at all. But he did stop sleeping in the engine compartment.

Alfalfa was a good cash crop for us. It was easy to grow and harvest and we raised three crops a year. There were many ranchers in the area who bought it for their livestock. Behind the alfalfa field was a neglected orchard. I don’t know what trees grew there and I don’t think we ever paid much attention to that part of the farm. I think the plan was to cultivate the orchard and bring it back into production after we had established markets for our alfalfa and animals.

The Fourth of July

The Fourth of July was approaching and this year Mom wanted to celebrate it. When we lived in Sherman Oaks we celebrated it every year with all our neighbors on Stern Avenue, but we’d never celebrated it in Mexico.

Food and fireworks were de rigueur, of course. Mom, Maria and Val would prepare the food, Jose and I would get the fireworks and set them off. One morning Jose got in the car and we began the half-hour trip to Mercado Libertad, the huge open-air market where you can buy just about anything, legal or otherwise.

When we got to the market Jose directed me where to park and led the way in. We walked through the leather goods section (purses, wallets, belts, decorations) with its distinctively masculine smell; the guitar section (I wondered how so many people could make a living selling the same thing in the same place); and the fortune-telling section with its row of small bird cages, each resting on a table or chair or stool, each holding a small bird, usually a canary. The proprietors, clearly bored, sat or stood nearby, reading, gossiping, nodding off. I was curious.

SNAPSHOT: A small wooden box, an inch high and six inches long, sits on a table covered with a red, blue and yellow serape. The box holds maybe a hundred small, neatly folded pieces of paper. A canary stands above the box, holding one of the folded papers in its beak.

“Wait, Jose, I want to see how this works. ¿Cuanto es?” I asked, turning to the middle-aged woman at the table where we stopped.

“Un peso,” she replied.

I gave her the one-peso note which she tucked into her blouse, adjusting her bra as she did so. She took the canary from its cage and placed it on the counter in front of a box with the small, neatly folded pieces of paper sitting side-by-side. The bird hopped a couple of hops this way, a couple that way, stopped, cocked its head and picked one out. It hopped over to the woman who took it and handed it to me. “Your fortune.”

I opened it and read: ¡No encontraras el amor; el amor te encontrara a ti!, meaning you won’t find love; love will find you. As we left I wondered how many bills her bra could hold.

After the birds came the scribes, men sitting behind typewriters who for $2.50 pesos a page will type any kind of letter for you. They must be privy to many, many secrets. Just beyond the scribes were the cohetes, the fireworks.

We checked out the handful of booths selling them. Jose argued with various stall keepers, determining prices, trying to assess how much bargaining leeway there might be. I trotted along behind him, silently oohing and aahing at each stand. After about ten minutes he decided which stall offered best value for the money and we spent 300 pesos ($24 US) on fireworks, enough that it took three trips to get them all back to the car.

I don’t remember everything we walked away with, but I do remember the dozen skyrockets. They were wicked looking, almost a foot long and attached to the end of a wooden dowel that was itself about three feet in length. I was particularly excited about them. The man who sold them to us promised not only a great visual display, but thunderous explosions we wouldn’t soon forget. And he was right, although not necessarily for the right reasons.

We piled everything in the backseat of the car and headed back to the farm, where we stored the fireworks in the stable. We wouldn’t have a fireworks show as impressive as the Virgin’s at the church in Chapalita, but it would be a good one, nonetheless.

Mom and Maria started cooking early in the afternoon of the Fourth. Our menu, like our celebration, was quintessential American: fried chicken (two of our chickens beheaded and plucked clean by Maria the day before), corn on the cob (our corn) and mashed potatoes, followed by apple pie and ice cream.

Jose and Maria and their ten-year old niece, Rosa, joined Mom, Valerie and me for the dinner and fireworks. The dinner was excellent, and the fireworks display, with many oohs and aahs, came off without a hitch. Most of it, anyway. The dozen or so skyrockets we’d saved for last didn’t go off quite so smoothly. We recognized that they were powerful and potentially dangerous, and we handled them accordingly. Each skyrocket needed to be held lightly in a vertical position. Then the fuse was lit and the person holding the skyrocket had to let go at just the right moment. Let go too soon or too late and there are problems. We had problems.

First, I tried holding a skyrocket while Jose lit it. I let go too soon and it fell to the ground where it promptly took off like the buscapies we lit and dropped at the Virgen of Zapopan’s celebration. Only this was several magnitudes of order larger and it swooshed into the corn patch twenty-five feet away. After a few seconds came the promised explosion accompanied by corn stalks hurtling into the air. Jose frowned and said he’d hold the next one and I was to light it. He didn’t have any better luck, also releasing it too soon with the difference that this time it fell to the ground and headed for a storage shed by the stable. And again, after a few of seconds, we heard the thundering explosion, shattering a window and panicking our horses. Jose spent the next fifteen minutes calming them down.

The third one was worse yet. Again, Jose let go too soon and the rocket fell over. But this time it just lay there, wedged against a rock, the fuse rapidly growing shorter.

“RUN!!” he yelled to our already retreating backs. We just made it to the corner of the house when it exploded, sending a shower of dirt in all directions.

When we reassembled, Maria turned to Jose and me, hands on her hips (always a bad sign), feet planted wide and she gave us an ultimatum: Either we let her set off the remaining rockets or the evening is over. Discretion being the better part of valor, we acceded and she very competently set off the nine remaining skyrockets. They were very impressive, if not as exciting as the three that Jose and I did.

After the first couple that Maria successfully launched, Jose leaned toward me and said, sotto voce, “Those first ones must have been defective.”

On the Train, On the Farm, In the Store

2010-08-22T07:57:00.000-07:00

For a few years, starting when I was eight or nine, I spent summers with my grandparents in California's San Joaquin Valley. I always looked forward to these trips: the unaccompanied train ride from LA to Stockton, the opportunity to roam my grandfather's and my uncle's orchards and vineyards, experiencing a totally new way of life. This post, which starts with our move to a farm outside Guadalajara, is a reminiscence of those early years.

My Grandparents’ Farm

In April, 1959, just after my sixteenth birthday, we moved once more, this time to a farm we had purchased some fifteen miles out of town. Two hectares in size (about four acres), it sat alongside Highway 54, one of the two principal highways into Guadalajara, and about a mile from Santa Anita, a small farming town. As with all our other moves, I have no memory of why we moved nor of the move itself. I know it must have had something to with Antonio because Mom, alone, never would have considered it, nor would she have been able to afford it or known how to go about completing the sale. I can’t even fathom why she did it. Maybe it was that, having been a farm girl herself, she romanticized the image of once again being among chickens, pigs, goats, cows, horses, rabbits and cats, all of which we had. Whatever the reason, the door to Santa Maria 87 in Colonia Chapalita simply closes and the door to Granja “La Rosita” opens and there we are, the three of us. And Felice.

Mom grew up with farming. An only child, she had lived with her father and stepmother in California’s San Joaquin Valley, an area with town names appropriated (misappropriated, some might say) from Spanish: Ripon, Escalon, Modesto, Manteca. (Manteca? Why would anyone name a town Lard?) Her father’s and uncle’s orchards and vineyards covered hundreds of acres. Starting at age seven I spent several summers with NeeNee and Pappy, as I, like Mom before me, called my grandparents, and so had some little farm life experience of my own. Those summer sojourns were idyllic.

SNAPSHOT: This is seven-year-old me on the train, kneeling on the soft, red plush seat, nose pressed to the window, looking for Mom and Dad so I can wave a final good-bye. Half a dozen new comic books are on the seat next to me. I have five dollars in my pocket and the expression on my face says it all: Life is good!

They began with the train trip from Los Angeles. Mom always had everything packed ahead of time as we had to be at the depot early in the morning. I invariably woke up tired and cranky because the excitement of the pending adventure always kept me awake the night before, just as if it were Christmas Eve.

We got into the car for what seemed to me an endless drive to the station. When we finally arrived, the sight of the orange and red Union Pacific depot excited me. Another eternity passed while Dad parked the car, took my suitcase from the trunk and we made our way to the train platform. The Red Caps, their carts piled high with luggage, and the people who, like me, were impatiently waiting for the train, excited me all over again. I felt pity for those who had come all the way to this point merely to see others off and now had to turn around and go back to their humdrum lives and ways. Not me! I was getting on the train and heading off!

I heard the train before I saw it, the sound of its horn (whistles having passed into nostalgia with the steam locomotive) coming from around a bend. I stood at the edge of the platform, straining to be the first to see it, and when it finally came into view, its existence passing from mere promise to concrete certainty, I was excited yet again. I was filled with awe as the mighty tandem engines unhurriedly clanged and hissed their way past the platform, smelling of hot oil and faraway places. Even before it had fully stopped there was a flurry of activity. The conductor emerged from the train car in front of us, checked his watch, and swung down to the platform. The Red Caps began inching their baggage wagons closer to the tracks, poised and ready to begin wrestling loads of suitcases, trunks, bundles and hatboxes off the train and other, equally cumbersome loads onto it.

Then, another flurry of activity. Passengers suddenly emerging from each end of the car, stepping on the portable step placed there, the conductor taking the arms of the women as they stepped down, men in suits stepping down unassisted, confidently striding off. Knots of impatient passengers jostling, waiting to board. Final good-byes, hugs and kisses and here and there a few tears. The platform speaker blaring out details important only for the next few seconds and unintelligible in any case. Names shouted out by spouses, friends, relatives.

Finally, my time comes. The conductor has already been informed about me, who I am, where I’m going and would he please watch out for me?

“Of course,” the conductor says, taking and folding the money Dad gives him, slipping it into the pocket of his black conductor's jacket. “I'll take good care of him and make sure he gets there safely.”

* * * * *

There is no arrival scene in my memory, no getting off the train, finding Nee-Nee and Pappy, no memory even of which town it was. I simply recall sitting in the back seat of their car in my short pants, my thighs sticking to the yellowing plastic seat cover and peeling away every time the car turned.

I watched the dancing waves of heat rising from the roadway ahead, distorting it, making it appear to twist and move. We’re in orchard and vineyard country now and all the roads in the area are lined with one or the other. Rare was the house that snuggled up to the road itself. But even with the sameness of the landscape, I always knew when to make the turn into the dirt drive that led to Nee-Nee and Pappy's house. I simply looked for their big Quonset-hut mailbox standing expectantly by the side of the road with a large red RFD painted on its side. Their explanation that “RFD” stood for rural free delivery cleared up nothing for me.

We turned and traveled a short distance down the drive. One of my grandfather's groves of walnut trees lined the drive on the left, their dust-covered leaves evidence of many car trips as well as the lack of rain over the past several weeks. The drive paralleled an irrigation ditch on the right, and when it curved left, so did we, pulling into the carport, stopping and getting out.

Behind the house and on the other side of the irrigation ditch were still more large walnut and almond groves. These, as well as some nearby vineyards, all belonged to my grandfather.

One morning my grandfather got me up early to come out and see how the orchards are irrigated. I enjoyed spending time in the orchards. I liked the symmetry and order, trees planted in neat rows, evenly spaced. Sometimes I imagined them a battalion of leafy soldiers in disciplined formation. Or a hall of mirrors maze, all the trees looking alike, a turn down one row being no different from a turn down any other.

SNAPSHOT: The trees in the orchard are perfectly camouflaged by the darkness of early dawn. Shadowy figures move purposefully around the trees.

There were already several men from neighboring farms and orchards out there with shovels. The sound of rushing, churning water told me the irrigation ditch was running full; the men had opened sluice gates to redirect some of the water into the orchard. Men shoveled earth into little dams to further divert the water down a particular row; when that row was irrigated, the dam was shoveled aside and another one made for the next row of trees. They worked quickly and competently, their cigarettes dotting the semi-darkness with their glowing orange tips. Few words were exchanged between the men and it wasn’t long before they finished. Then they got into their trucks and headed off to the next orchard to do it all over again.

I loved the irrigation ditch! It was the focal point of all my stays. Sometimes there was no water in the ditch, save for a few muddy puddles along the bottom, maybe harboring a clutch of tadpoles. Sometimes there was a shallow flow of water, two or three feet deep meandering along as if it knew there was no irrigation going on, no need to hurry. At other times it was full, almost to overflowing, and the water powered its way through the ditch. The sluice gates were wide open at these times and I liked to watch the water compress and shoot through, coming out with even greater force on the other side.

Drownings in these ditches were not unheard of and Nee-Nee warned me daily about the dangers. But I had too much respect for the force of the water and was never tempted to do anything foolish. I didn’t like the color of the water, anyway. It was muddy, the color of coffee and milk, from all the dirt and sediment carried along by the current. Although I didn’t know it at the time, it also carried the runoff of all the DDT used to kill mosquito larvae and other pests.

There were dragonflies around the ditch, lots of them, big ones with their iridescent green or purple-blue bodies and multiple translucent wings that allowed them to hover and dart, hover and dart. Frogs also were abundant and relatively easy to catch, although I left the larger ones alone – I didn’t know if big frogs had teeth or not. I could spend hours searching for polliwogs and then day-by-day watch them go through their magical transformation. I wondered why the bigger they got the fewer there were.

There were dozens, scores, of butterflies: swallowtails, coppers, skippers, monarchs. On occasion I played silent witness to the deadly interplay between patient frog and oblivious butterfly. Those days I felt particularly lucky.

There were ants, too, big red ones and smaller black ones. The black ants were never a problem except for when they got into Nee-Nee’s kitchen, and particularly when they got into the sugar, which their scouts always seemed to find. The red ones you really had to watch out for. They were aggressive and it took only one bite to teach me their painful lesson, although that never kept me from taking a stick and stirring up their nest whenever I found one.

I hated the June bugs! They were harmless but big and they buzzed loudly and got tangled in my hair and clothes, their Velcro-like feet scratching when they landed on my neck or hand or arm. Nor were they particularly graceful in the air, giving the appearance of never having mastered the art of flying. Their flight paths were erratic, often flying into things, bouncing back and then lumbering off in some other random direction, only to bump into something else.

SNAPSHOT: My cousin Sandy and I are sitting on a blanket under a grape arbor reading. I’m reading my favorite comic book, Little Lulu. Sandy is reading a Nancy Drew mystery. The remains of a picnic are scattered around us. The scene is tinted a pale green thanks to the sunlight filtering through the large grape leaves.

There was a vineyard directly behind the house. It was extensive, covering many acres. I liked to pretend it was a maze as I wandered through it, taking a right turn here, a left turn there. Sometimes when my cousin Sandy, a couple of years my senior, came over Nee-Nee would make us a lunch with a Thermos of lemonade. We’d grab a bunch of comics and books and a blanket and head out into the vineyard, looking for just the right grape arbor, one that would shelter us. Finding one tall enough wasn’t difficult. What we were looking for, though, was one that also spread out wide enough to allow us to crawl inside and under. We thought of it as a hideout and we didn’t like to use the same one twice, forcing us to walk farther and longer each time until we found just the right one. Then we pushed aside the tendrils and crawled in, appreciating immediately the coolness of the shade inside. We spread out the blanket, unpacked the food and prepared to spend the next hour reading, oblivious to everything except our own little world.

One afternoon in the garage I found an old Civil War cavalry sword and scabbard that I wielded skillfully and with authority in many imaginary battles, all of which I won. (All but one, anyway - Nee-Nee was none too pleased when I successfully beat back the attack of a single grape arbor on the edge of the vineyard nearest the house, severing bunches of ripening grapes in the process. She won that battle.)

Two girls lived next door, one of them my age or just a little older, her sister a couple of years younger. I don’t think they lived there very long because I don’t remember playing with them very much. When we did play, the older girl (I’ve long since forgotten her name) liked to wrestle and roughhouse. I was chasing her across a cleared field one evening at dusk and I tackled her, bringing her down. I sat astride her and turned her over and as I did she opened up her blouse, showing me her little breasts, smiling, teasing. I had no idea what to do so I got up and ran into the house.

* * * * *

I can imagine this photo because the story has been part of our family history for as long as I can remember.

SNAPSHOT: That’s John Steinbeck. He’s leaning back, away from his desk, in the tiny upstairs apartment in the windmill on Uncle Walter’s farm. He’s writing The Grapes of Wrath.

Another treat was visiting Aunt Frances and Uncle Walter nearby. They had farm cats which often meant there were kittens to find and play with. Out back, behind their farmhouse, was a replica Dutch windmill that I enjoyed playing in. It wasn't very big, maybe half the size of a real Dutch windmill, and it had a small apartment at the top, reached by a spiral staircase. John Steinbeck wrote part of The Grapes of Wrath while renting that room.

There were other things I enjoyed about being at my aunt and uncle's. For one thing, there were numerous large trees around the house and outbuildings, so it was always shady and cool. For another, Uncle Walter had a lot of farm equipment I could play on. There were a couple of tractors, a large wooden wagon with a buckboard seat, an old junker car, a plow. I loved roaming through the orchards, picking and eating almonds, walnuts and apricots, although I usually ignored the walnuts: too hard to open, too much work.

The real treat, though, was during the apricot harvest. At the height of the season there were hundreds of crates of apricots temporarily stored in the barn, awaiting transport to shippers. To go in there in the late part of an afternoon was a transformative, almost mystical, experience. I ignored the cats and kittens, the orchards and farm equipment, captured instead by the moment before me. There was the heavy smell, rich and sweet, of thousands upon thousands of ripening apricots, a smell that took over the barn, wrapped itself around me and connected deep within me. The smell was heightened by the warmth of the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows and the cracks between the boards in the barn wall, sunshine that was itself the color of the ripest of the golden apricots. There was a texture to the sunshine, a warm heaviness that invited quiet contemplation, an invitation re-extended by the dust motes drifting and looping lazily in the shafts of sunlight. Everything else in the barn was draped in shadows, playing minor supporting roles to the moment, the shadowiness adding dimension and contrast.

Inevitably, though, something would break the spell. A distant voice, unaware of the magic and uncaring, summoned: David! We're leaving, come in right now! Or: David, it's time for dinner, come in and wash up! Right now! I promised myself that I would recapture the moment, that I would come back right after dinner or on the very next visit and experience it again, but it never worked out that way. After dinner there were no shafts of warming sunlight, no wondrous smell, no dust motes. It was just a barn with apricots in it. Or on the next visit the apricots would be gone, leaving the barn feeling empty, abandoned. There was a lesson there and I learned it. Moments of such quiet beauty and joy are unpredictable and fleeting; you can’t anticipate them and you can’t hold on to them. You have to be content with knowing that there will be other such moments, but only if you look for them.

The Store

SNAPSHOT: My grandparents own this combination grocery store/gas station on the two-lane blacktop highway between Modesto and Escalon. The gas station has a couple of bright red pumps, the very old kind, standing maybe eight feet tall, cylindrical, with a glass chamber on top and quantities marked off in regular intervals down the side: 1/4 gallon, 1/2 gallon, 3/4 gallon, 1 gallon, and so on. Gas is pumped into the glass chamber and then gravity-fed through a hose into a car's gas tank.

The store sold groceries, seed, feed and other things needed by the growers and their families, and it held many rich and different smells for me. I liked to wander around picking up the distinctive smells depending on where I was in the store: the woody smell of sawdust in the butcher section, or the sweet smell of ripe peaches, apricots and grapes in the produce section, intensified by the heat the store absorbed all day. The smells of sweat, alfalfa, and tobacco mingled with other smells people brought with them from whatever they had just been doing: fixing the tractor in the barn, baking a pie in the kitchen, shoveling manure.

But I liked the back of the store best. There were a couple of table shuffleboard games there. They stood waist high to a man and consisted of a highly polished wooden alley, maybe twelve feet by two, and several heavy metal discs the size of hockey pucks. Scoring was the same as for regular shuffleboard. Periodically during a game players scattered a small handful of corn meal on the wood, for the same reason soft-shoe dancers do. I enjoyed watching the men play, their faces intent as they attempted to place each of their discs in just the right place. Eyes squinting, a player sized up the positions of discs already played, mentally calculated angles and determined a strategy. Sometimes there was an audience and when there was, it was a noisy game. Men wagered on the outcome, cheered, jeered, collected and paid off, swearing in either case. More often, though, it was just a couple of men playing quietly with two or three of us watching.

SNAPSHOT: A tall, gaunt man towers over me, angry, a bony finger in my face. I notice that he hasn’t shaved and that his overall straps are held together with safety pins. I look properly abashed.

Best of all, though, was when the back of the store was deserted and I got to play with the game myself. I’d make stacks or formations with the discs at one end of the table then run around to the other end and slide the last disc as hard as I could along the alley in order to watch it collide with the others, scattering them in all directions, making all the appropriate sound effects. Or if there was another boy we’d stand at opposite ends of the table and on the count of three we’d each send a disc flying down the alley, trying to make them collide, a game of shuffleboard chicken. We could cheerfully occupy ourselves like that for a long time but almost always our play was quickly brought to a halt by some adult yelling at us to get away from there, what did we think that was, a goddam toy? Actually, that's just what we thought.

Pilar

2010-08-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

Everyone has a "first love," not puppy love, not infatuation, not sexual attraction, but the first taste of a deeper kind of love and devotion. Such it was with Pilar and me. She'll always have a special place in my heart.

Pilar

Pilar in her front yard

Memories are not always reliable, not only in the sense that what we remember may not be accurate, but also because there are often blanks, dead spots, where there should be images and emotions. Such is the case with the three times we moved in Mexico: I remember nothing of any of them. I draw another blank with meeting Pilar. I don’t remember when or under what circumstances I met her. As with our moves, where I’m suddenly in a new house, Pilar just appears in my memories. I wish I could remember. She meant so much to me at the time and even now, half a century later, the memory of her occupies a special place in my heart.

Pilar was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen and I fell in love with her. Her long black hair contrasted with her unusually light complexion, which in turn set off her dark, shining eyes. Her voice danced lightly, merrily in my ears and she had a way of looking at me and smiling that made me melt inside. It was First Love for both of us, the first serious feeling either of us had developed for anybody beyond school crushes. This wasn’t puppy love, it wasn’t like “going steady” with the American girlfriend I’d had and, unlike my physical infatuation with Anita, this was something meaningful, something new and different, something much deeper than I’d ever experienced before. It was beautiful.

Our two families lived five blocks apart on the same street, Santa Maria. She had a very attractive older sister, Chelo, a younger teenaged brother, Carlitos, and a couple of even younger siblings. Her mother (why don’t I remember her name?) was a large, cheerful woman, always smiling, always glad to see me. Her father, don Carlos, was quite handsome with a full head of dark hair. He was usually not around on my visits but always treated me kindly when he was there. I spent a lot of time at their house and I began to learn what serious courtship was like in Mexican culture.

Pilar and me, Parque Agua Azul

Here was to be the clearest evidence of the difference in boy-girl relations in Mexican versus American culture. It had been hinted at with Georgina, when we’d been in Mexico only a short time and I still spoke no Spanish, and I’d seen a little of it when visiting with las Elodias. Now, however, the cultural norms and expectations of courtship in Mexico became crystal clear. And this was to be courtship, not “going steady” or dating – unheard of in Mexico, at least not as we know it in the U.S. Here’s how it worked with Pilar and me:

I walk up to Pilar’s house and knock on the door. She opens it, smiles and invites me in. Before I can say anything, her mother has called out, “Quien es?” A quick kiss and a hug before she says, “Es David, Mama”.

SNAPSHOT: The living room of Pilar’s house. Entering, the gray velvet couch is on the left, a framed woodland print above it on the light blue wall. A small table with ornately carved legs stands against the wall opposite the door. It holds family photos and a few mementos: a little wooden boat with ACAPULCO painted on the bow; a figurine of the Mexican national symbol: an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its talons; a vase with flowers, an old framed baptismal certificate. More family photos are on the wall above the table. The floor is tiled with a blue and white area rug between the couch and the two matching easy chairs opposite, a table with a lamp between them. There is a refrigerator in the dining L between the living room and the kitchen.

Her mother comes out of the kitchen, smiling and drying her hands on her apron. “Bienvenido, David, sientate, sientate,” and I take the indicated seat on the couch. She offers me coffee and empanadas or some other little snack and then calls for one of her other children. Pilar sits at the other end of the couch and we cast quick glances at each other.

“¡Carlitos!” she might call, or “¡Chelo!”, depending on who’s home. No matter what Carlitos or Chelo are doing, one of them has to come downstairs and sit with us. If for some reason they can’t, or if they aren’t home, then the little ones are summoned. If nobody is available to serve as chaperone then Mama herself sits with us, putting aside whatever she has been doing, and waits until somebody comes home. So, we sit around and talk about things. Innocuous things. Everyday things. Polite conversation.

Chelo, father, Valerie, Pilar

SNAPSHOT: Chelo, our chaperone on this occasion has left the room and Pilar is kneeling on the couch next to me, her arms around my neck, my arms around her waist.

Pilar and I are patient, however, because we know that eventually whoever is chaperoning us will have to leave the room, even if briefly, for some reason. Then, for a minute or two, longer if we’re lucky, we’re alone and in each other’s arms, trading kisses and little exclamations of love. Then we hear the toilet flush or footsteps on the stairs and we each retreat back to our own corner of the couch, a little flushed, perhaps, but sitting apart again. We always hope Chelo will be the one to come down and sit with us. She’s two or three years older than Pilar and knows what it’s like to want time alone with your boyfriend. Her absences from the room are more frequent and more prolonged, kind of a returning-the-favor for all the times Pilar has done that for her.

This was so different from what I had seen and experienced for myself among American teens – and I liked it! This was formal, stately, ritualized courtship. It was not only allowed to develop slowly, it was a requirement. And because our moments alone were so rare they were all the more precious.

I invited Pilar to the movies one day. She said she’d ask permiso and when she came back she had kind of a good-news/bad-news look on her face. Yes, she says, they’d all like to go. All six of them. But on the plus side, I knew I wouldn’t be expected to pay for them all. Well, I thought to myself, sitting next to her, in the dark, I can at least discreetly hold her hand. But, of course, no such luck. When we took our seats in the theater, her father went down the row first, followed by Pilar, the rest of the family and then me. I wound up sitting next to Carlitos. No fun holding hands with him.

When I think back to these heavily chaperoned visits and outings, I now realize there was more at stake than just protecting the honor and reputation of the family, more than just maintaining tradition; it was also a test of the novio’s seriousness and intent. Does the boy love the girl enough to endure the weeks or months of chaperoned courtship? Or is the attraction for the novio purely physical? If so, he’s not likely to waste his time. For me, it was never a waste of time.

After a few months of courtship it was accepted that Pilar and I are novios, not yet engaged but heading in that direction. Her family had come to know and like me. And, more importantly, to trust me. After this, it was easier for the two of us to find time alone. Mama no longer felt obligated to call for a chaperone on my visits, although she pointedly made regular trips into the living room to “look for her sewing” or “dust los muebles,” even though the maid had just dusted the furniture in the morning. On Sundays, we walked to mass by ourselves and then to the glorieta to stroll hand-in-hand, oblivious to the sights, sounds and smells, to everything but each other.

There was to be more, much more, of Pilar in my life.

don Bernardo, Revolutionary

2010-08-08T08:26:00.000-07:00

The house photos below were taken in December, 2009, on my first trip back "home" in many, many years. The house is substantially unaltered from when we lived there. The episode that follows, with don Bernardo, our gardener, remains one of my warmest memories of the years I spent in Mexco.

Dave

don Bernardo, Revolutionary

SNAPSHOT: This is the third house we lived in. It’s shaded along one side by tall trees and has a tiny but neatly tended front yard separated from the street by a low concrete wall. Except for the wooden front door, the entire length of the front wall of the house is glass, floor to ceiling. It’s very new and very modern with lots of granite, tile and wrought iron.

SNAPSHOT: Mexico has been called a land of contrasts. Here’s an example. Next door to our very nice, very modern house is a family living in a crude adobe dwelling, tucked right up against the wall of our house. There are chickens in the yard, a pig and a couple of goats. Their plot of land is enclosed by barbed wire strung between tree limbs cut to size and stuck in the ground, the same kind of fencing common throughout Mexico’s countryside.

We moved again in 1958. It’s curious that I don’t remember doing any actual moving. I don’t remember packing, unpacking, loading or unloading a truck. I just remember being in a new house. This one was at Santa Maria 87, still in Colonia Chapalita. Our rent was $56 a month. Irene and Socorro came with us.

Cooking was done with propane and periodically two large propane tanks were delivered and hooked up and two empty tanks taken away. Deliveries were often iffy propositions.

It was critical to know just when to call. If we called too soon and they came when they said they would, they took back tanks with considerable propane still in them, propane we’d paid for. On the other hand, if we scheduled a pick-up and delivery with only a little propane left in the tanks, we ran the risk (too often realized!) of them not showing up as scheduled. Then we invariably ran out of gas, requiring repeated trips by me or Irene to Farmacia de las Rosas several blocks away and the site of the nearest public phone, for more phone calls and demands that they come out immediately. It used to drive Mom crazy.

SNAPSHOT: A large picture window runs the full length of the living room wall, looking out on the backyard. The neatly trimmed lawn is bordered with well-tended plants and flowers. There’s a banana tree in each corner and a bougainvillea frames the garden exit to the carport.

We had a gardener, don Bernardo, who took excellent care of our yard. The lawn was always neatly mowed and edged, flower beds weeded, the banana trees pruned (and they produced every year), and the bougainvillea was healthy -- beautifully healthy!

Don Bernardo spent half a Saturday every week gardening for us. He was in his sixties, of average height and slender, weighing no more than 150 pounds. His skin was dark and leathery from years spent outdoors. He always dressed the same: huaraches, navy blue work pants and a white shirt. His dark eyes were sandwiched between three days of beard and the brim of his straw hat. The only time the hat came off was when he was talking with Mom. He would stand there with his hat in his hands, listening patiently as Mom explained in her terrible Spanish what she wanted done. His deference was an act of courtesy only: he was a proud and independent man who never felt himself subordinate or inferior to anyone.

If don Bernardo disagreed with Mom's suggestions about the garden he would very politely tell her so and try to talk her out of them. This always resulted in a highly animated but very slow argument, as each one in turn had to speak slowly and carefully, with many gestures and frequent repetitions. Miscommunications and misunderstandings further confused the discussion.

Don Bernardo usually won these exchanges. Or if he didn't, he did things his way anyway and then apologized profusely for "misunderstanding". Actually, I think they argued more for the fun of it than anything. Mom enjoyed the challenge of trying to argue in Spanish and I think don Bernardo enjoyed taking a hand in helping her learn the language.

Once he took me on a day-long trek through some fairly rugged terrain a couple of hours outside Guadalajara. He had fought in the Mexican revolution of 1910 and the outdoor survival skills he had learned from that experience and from his many years working in el campo, the countryside, were still with him.

From the moment he asked me if I wanted to go I was excited about the trip. For one thing, I liked the image of me hiking and hacking my way across the landscape, mounting rocky tors and otherwise testing what I thought of as my incipient manhood. Even more, I liked don Bernardo, a lot. He was never at a loss for some interesting story to tell about fighting in the Revolution or things that had happened to him over the years as he worked all over Mexico.

He told me to be ready early the following Saturday, around six o'clock in the morning. Being a teenager, I wasn't even aware there was such a time as six o'clock in the morning. Nonetheless, I was up and waiting when he arrived. He had a little cloth sack looped over his belt that held all the food he would need for the day. Other than a thermos of cold water I don't remember what I carried for lunch or what I carried it in. It was probably something far less practical than a small cloth sack looped over my belt.

We got in the Ford and I headed us down the highway to Los Arcos and past the fountain with the enormous statue of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, invention, the arts and martial prowess. (Talk about multi-tasking!) Then onto the highway that took us west out of town and into the foothills. The state of Jalisco is famous for its tequila and as we passed mile after mile of the cultivated blue agave cactus, used in its making, don Bernardo recounted the story of a battle he was in.

“Si, hombre, there were seven of us, including Pancho Villa himself. This was back in 1910, we were en el norte, near the border with the gringos, in a town occupied by the Federales.” There was a slight smile of remembered satisfaction as I glanced over at him while driving.

“What was the name of the town? Do you remember?” I don’t know if I was challenging his account or genuinely wanted to know.

“Do I remember? ¡Claro que si! You think my memory’s no good?” He went on, although he still didn’t mention the name of the town.

“Villa needed money and one of our spies told us there was a train due later that day with a cargo of gold coins to pay the Federales. About fifteen kilometros out of town we rolled a boulder onto the tracks and positioned ourselves in a ravine nearby and waited.” There was a long pause.

“And then what happened, don Bernardo?”

“We heard the whistle of el tren and prepared ourselves. We checked our rifles and revolvers. And with the bandoleros wrapped around our chest we each had plenty of ammunition. As soon as the engineer saw the boulder he applied the brakes and the train began sliding and screeching on the track. This was our signal and we rode up and out of the ravine, rifles firing in the air.”

Another pause as the blue agave continued to flash by.

“What our spy didn’t tell us was that there was a compania de federales on the train and even before it stopped they were out and firing at us. We could have turned and run but that wasn’t Pancho Villa’s way. ‘¡Oigan, muchachos!’ he yelled, “let’s get the troops and the gold! ¡Vamonos!’ And just like that Villa kneeled down, took aim and knocked off the first soldier he saw. ¡Que hombre, ese Pancho Villa! He wasn’t even sweating! The rest of us followed his example and in five minutes we’d killed or run off all the federales.”

“How many were there, don Bernardo?”

“You expect me to remember everything?” forgetting his earlier assertion about his memory. “We were outnumbered and outgunned and we still managed to get the gold. ¡Que hombre, ese Pancho Villa!” he repeated.

We rode in silence for some time and then he directed me to pull off the highway onto a dirt track worn smooth by carts, horses, mules and people. We bounced along for another five minutes until he said, “Here, we’ll leave the car here and start out.” I pulled into a little clearing, turned off the engine, grabbed my lunch and thermos and locked the car.

SNAPSHOT: Don Bernardo and I are standing on a rocky hilltop miles away from the city, from the road, from everything. The sun hangs in the cloudless blue sky. I’m looking down at my thermos of water, dashed against the rocks below. Don Bernardo is smiling.

It was a cool but sunny and pleasant morning as we started out, promising a warm afternoon. My spirits were high. Just two men roughing it in the rugged hills miles from Guadalajara. Don Bernardo led the way along a path and through terrain he obviously knew well. Almost immediately we started a gradual ascent up into the foothills.

As we ascended, picking our way among the rocks and scrub brush, don Bernardo began pointing out the different edible roots and plants that grew there and even some edible insects. “I’ve survived more than once on just those kinds of things. This is valuable knowledge.” I nodded my agreement, but to myself I was thinking, “Yeah, like I’m going to put those in my mouth!”

We continued our slow ascent with the sun climbing higher and the day getting hotter. For me, it was becoming an arduous uphill trek with no end in sight. I didn’t think roughing it would be this rough. The scenery held nothing of interest to me: dirt, scrub brush, small boulders, once in a while an agave cactus. And the path kept going up. I was sweating profusely and my legs were rubber, but don Bernardo just chugged on, oblivious to the steepness of our climb. I began to notice that as we went higher, the path became fainter until finally there was no path. At least, none that I could make out. Don Bernardo kept up his steady pace, skirting, sometimes clambering over, increasingly large boulders, pushing his way through the brush.

I’d already finished half my water, in spite of don Bernardo insisting I ration it, and I was still thirsty. And then I noticed, for the first time, he didn’t have any water. I wondered if he expected me to share mine . . .

SNAPSHOT: A study in contrasts. My expression is one of dismay and desperation as I peer down the slope to the rocks, and my Thermos, below. Don Bernardo has a big grin on his face.

Too thirsty to forego water any longer I stopped to take a drink. I unscrewed the cap, took out the stopper . . . and dropped the thermos. I watched in horror as it tumbled down the hillside, heard the silvery sound of the glass liner shattering into thousands of tiny microfine glass fragments. So here we were, miles from the car with no water on a hot day. Don Bernardo grinned at me. “No te preocupes. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine without the water.” I think he was secretly pleased. It was an opportunity for me to learn firsthand about survival.

I watched curiously as he closely examined the ground around him, looking for something. After a couple of minutes he bent over and picked up some pebbles. He popped a couple in his mouth and handed two to me. “Here, put these in your mouth and just keep moving them around. They'll keep the saliva coming and prevent your mouth from drying out.”

Skeptically, and hesitantly, I did and we resumed our hike. After a short time I was pleasantly surprised to find that the pebbles did just what he had promised. A little thing like no water wasn't going to deter don Bernardo.

The path only don Bernardo could see led us to the top of a hill. I looked out for miles in all directions. There were hills everywhere I looked. The pebbles had taken my mind off my thirst and for the first time I began to enjoy the scenery. Don Bernardo pointed out places he had been, places, again, only he could see. “There’s a river over there,” gesturing off to the right, “with a beautiful little waterfall. I came across it when I was a young man and got lost while hunting. I followed the river for two days and eventually came to a little village. The people there gave me food and I spent a couple of days recovering my strength.” He similarly pointed out other locales, recounting a different tale for each one. I listened in fascination, forgetting my thirst, forgetting about being hot and tired.

Soon he turned and beckoned me to follow him down the other side of the hill. He picked his way surely and confidently. I had no idea where we were nor in which direction the car lay. We’d not seen another human being the whole day and if anything happened to don Bernardo. . . I imagined someone out walking these hills years later and coming across a pile of bones. My bones. Picked clean by coyotes or wolves or mountain lions or vultures or . . . I quickly picked up my pace and walked a little closer to don Bernardo.

After another hour of walking and listening to him tell me about his travels and adventures I was once again unbearably thirsty. “The pebbles don’t work anymore, don Bernardo, and I’m thirsty.”

He stopped and again examined the ground and the vegetation. Finding what he was looking for he motioned me to follow him as he walked over to a low-growing bush. Kneeling down, he grabbed it and deftly pulled it up. The root, instead of being long and skinny, was a bulb about the size of a chicken egg. With his knife he cut the bulb away from the plant, peeled it and cut it in half. “Here,” he said, handing me half, “put this in your mouth and chew it. Don't swallow the pulp, just the liquid.”

So, famous last words notwithstanding, I was, indeed, putting “one of those” things in my mouth. I began to chew. Once again, I was pleasantly surprised. It was full of cool water with a not unpleasant taste. I chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed some more and then spat out the pulp, as I saw don Bernardo do. Meanwhile, he had pulled up a couple of more plants, cut off the bulbs and put them in his pocket.

“Can I have some more, don Bernardo? I'm still thirsty.” But he refused me any more for the moment.

“These plants are here to help us survive, not to quench our thirst every time we feel dry. Be patient. Learn to live with a little discomfort.” And we went on.

For another hour or so we walked the hills, don Bernardo pointing out different edible plants and animal tracks I never would have seen on my own, recounting how he had acquired these skills. Then he spotted a small grove of tunas, prickly pears.

“¡Que suerte! We're fortunate to come across these! They'll provide us with food and something to drink.” There were some two dozen cacti growing in the grove, most taller than me. Many of them had spiny green nodules about the size and shape of a hand grenade. He was delighted.

“You’ll like these, they’re a real treat.” I couldn’t believe he was pointing at the green, spiny nodules. They might as well have been hand grenades for all the damage they looked like they could do.

I watched don Bernardo as he walked among the tunas, sizing them up, deciding which ones to eat. I simply looked at them in puzzlement. Each one grew atop a round, thin cactus leaf. How could you eat or drink anything like that? But I shouldn’t have doubted. Using his knife, and without touching the plant, don Bernardo sliced a few tunas off their stems, letting them fall to the ground. Then he carefully placed his boot on one of them and gently rolled it back and forth on the ground, breaking off all the spines. After picking it up he partially peeled it with his knife, exposing the fruit inside, and offered it to me. It was a deep purple and fleshy. After the pebbles and the root I was learning to trust him so I took it and bit into it. Aside from the fact that it was full of small seeds it was very good, sweet and full of juice. He told me to prepare the next one and I did, and it was easy.

“Let’s eat here,” don Bernardo says, so we prepared a few more prickly pears and sat down to enjoy our midday meal.

The rest of the day passed in a like manner. When I was feeling thirsty, I popped a couple of pebbles in my mouth until I could locate the plant with the root. Don Bernardo, who could probably go the whole day without water, told me he’d no longer point out the plant, I'd have to find it myself. After several unsuccessful attempts I found one, prepared it and drank its liquid, fixing the size, color and leaf shape of the plant in my mind. But he wouldn't let me take more than he thought I needed. Nature had been too good to him over the years for him to take advantage of it.

SNAPSHOT: The sun hangs a hands width above the horizon as we stop at a pond near our car. The water was a brackish green and I could clearly see frogs, water bugs, small fish and other things I couldn’t identify.

By five in the afternoon we’d made our way back to the car. About a hundred yards from where we had left it was a pond with frogs, water bugs, polliwogs and other things I couldn’t identify.

“Here's where we tank up on some real water!” don Bernardo enthused. He got down on his knees, put his face in the water and started drinking. I didn’t hesitate. The pebbles, roots and prickly pears had done a good job of allaying, but not quenching, my thirst and I figured if he can, I can. I’m sure it was the most enjoyable drink of water I've ever had.

2010-08-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

Until her later years, Mom was very accepting of people, regardless of color, culture, or, as this first post makes clear, sexual orientation. The second two posts, about the Chapalita drive-in, recount stories that have happened countless times at US drive-ins. Except maybe for the .45 pistol part.

Mom Is Propositioned

I think back to Mom’s question and I still wonder, as I wondered then. I don't remember being shocked or embarrassed, even though at fifteen, it was certainly easy enough to be either. Or both. We were sitting on the second floor balcony of our house late one afternoon. Mom was drinking coffee and I was enjoying toast and hot chocolate, my usual after-school snack that Irene prepared for me. Mom began talking about Helen, a woman she'd met about a year before. They had become friends, exchanged visits and sometimes went shopping. Helen was an outgoing, pleasant woman, relaxed and friendly. I always felt at ease around her. She was a little older than Mom who was thirty-eight.

In the course of our conversation Mom casually mentioned that Helen had propositioned her.

“What does that mean?” I’d never heard the term.

Mom continued in a casual vein. “She wants to make love to me. What do you think?”

I didn't know what I thought. I had no preconceptions about whether something like this would be right or wrong, good or bad. I could barely imagine heterosexual sex, let alone sex between two women. I was also remembering my response to Mom’s question on our border trip. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

I don't remember what my response was but I'm sure it reflected as much nonchalance as I could muster at fifteen. It probably ran something along the lines of, “Gosh, Mom, I don't know. What do you think?”

The conversation ended abruptly. “I don't think I want to,” she said and got up and went downstairs. I remember feeling vaguely relieved without knowing just why.

I think back and wonder: Why would Mom confide something like that in me? And why would she want my opinion? What perspective could I bring to her decision? Innocence? Objectivity? Morality? I'm sure she wasn't looking for approval or disapproval, permission or proscription. Did other kids' mothers bring up these kinds of things? Did they conduct opinion polls among family members to make decisions about their sexual activities? Were there family councils with each member having a vote? Was Mom bound by the results? “The motion to allow Mom a lesbian experience carries, three to two.”

It seemed possible to me.

Auto-Cine Chapalita

SNAPSHOT: A crude ladder is propped against the whitewashed wall, the moonlight glinting off the shards of glass cemented along the top. Behind us, acres and acres of cornfields. I’m at the top of the ladder, crouched at a spot where we had cleared the shards, ready to jump down on the other side. Perico has already jumped, Ramon and Alejo are behind me.

In Spanish it was called Auto-Cine Chapalita. Americans called it simply the drive-in. It was the only one in Guadalajara, maybe the only one in the whole country - I don’t know. I saw many movies there over the years: with Mom and Val, with my Mexican friends, with my American friends. The only two I can recall, however, are “Magnificent Obsession” and the 1959 “Dracula,” starring Richard Cushing. Curious juxtaposition.

The drive-in was owned by a retired American cop named Joe Freed, father of Lisa and Toni Freed, as I’ve said, the two most beautiful girls in the American crowd. It was centrally located in Chapalita, just off the large glorieta people went to on Sundays after church.

Like Al March, father of my friend Greg, Joe Freed was a big man, over six feet tall and weighing two-hundred pounds or more. He wore glasses, giving him - in my mind, anyway - a slightly intellectual look which I found hard to reconcile with my image of him as a cop.

He was friendly and easy to get along with. Mom and Valerie and I went to the drive-in one night and as we left, Mom forgot to remove the speaker from her window and tore it right off the post. She returned it personally the next afternoon and Mr. Freed told her not to worry about it. “It happens more often than you might think,” he said, “and most folks don’t even bring the speaker back.”

The drive-in was surrounded by a high wall, maybe eight feet tall, and it was topped with the shards of broken glass that are routinely cemented in place on walls in Mexico to deter burglars and trespassers.

One day as Perico, Alejo, Ramon and I were walking aimlessly around the Colonia kicking rocks and whistling at the occasional girl we saw, Perico said “Hey, cuates, I think I know how to get us in to the movies at the drive-in for free.” We were all ears.

“First, we have to get a ladder tall enough to reach the top of the wall.

Then we’ll clear off the glass at the top. After that, we can use the ladder to get in whenever we want. And no one’ll see us because of all the milpa behind the drive-in.” It didn’t occur to us that all those corn stalks would be harvested at some point, leaving us visible and vulnerable.

It sounded like the perfect plan to us. And Perico was right, the acres of cornfields behind the drive-in meant that we could carry out the plan unobserved. We were ecstatic. Never again would we have to pay the eight pesos (sixty-four cents U.S.) to get in! But where would we get a ladder?

“Leave it to me. I know just where to get one.” We generally left everything to Perico. “You know the house under construction next to Mela’s house on Avenida Guadalupe?” We nodded. “Well there’s a bunch of ladders there. Let’s meet there early Sunday morning and we’ll grab one and take it to the drive-in before anyone is around.”

“But that’s stealing,” I objected.

“It’s a fucking ladder, man, not a diamond ring. They make ‘em from scrap lumber. We take one, they make one, that’s all. Takes ‘em ten minutes.”

“How early is early?” was my next objection, stated as a question. “I’m not even up until around ten.”

“Oh, sure, that’s just fine, David. And while we’re on our way to the drive-in carrying the ladder we stole, passing all the people on their way to church we can just say, ‘¡Buenos dias, Sra. Orozco! The ladder? Oh, we stole it from down the street so we can sneak into the drive-in over the back wall.”

So it was decided. We’d meet at the house under construction at eight o’clock Sunday morning, filch the ladder and carry out our plan before anyone was around.

SNAPSHOT: A gray, deserted morning and four boys with studied, casual looks are carrying an eight-foot ladder alongside the wall of the drive-in.

And it worked. By eight-thirty we were behind the drive-in with our ladder propped against the wall. Perico had brought a hammer from home to pulverize the glass shards. We looked at him expectantly.

“What, I have to do everything?” he snorted. “Not a chance. I planned this, I brought the hammer, now you do something.”

Now we looked at each other expectantly. “Who’s going to do the glass?” Ramon asked. He looked at me and I looked at Alejo. Alejo looked at Ramon.

Even though there was probably no one around in the drive-in, none of us wanted to risk being seen. If someone did see us, whoever was on the ladder would be the most likely to get caught.

“OK, ninos,” Perico said, affecting a tone like he was, indeed, talking to little boys. “Put your fists in and we’ll do tin-marin.”

The three of us formed a little circle with our fists in the center and Perico begin the Spanish equivalent of eeny-meeny-miney-mo, hitting each of our fists in turn: “Tin marin, dedo pingue, cucara macara, titere fue.” On fue, Perico struck his brother’s fist and Alejo was out. Now it was me or Ramon. Once again, “Tin marin, dedo pingue, cucara macara, titere fue.” This time Ramon was out and I was the chosen one.

Perico looked at me. “OK, David, it’s you. Ramon, you head to the far corner of the wall and keep a lookout. Alejandro, go back the way we came and keep a lookout there.”

As Ramon and Alejandro trotted off in their assigned directions I looked at the ladder. It did, indeed, look like a “ten-minute” piece of equipment. Mismatched pieces of scrap wood had been hastily hammered together and as I stepped on the first rung, the ladder groaned. But, no backing down now, not from the ladder and not from the plan. Loose rung by loose rung and step-by-tentative-step I was almost at the top when Perico called up to me.

“¡Oye, David! You gonna knock out the glass with your hands?”

Damn! The hammer! Damn the hammer, I thought. “Throw it up to me, man.” I didn’t want to go down and up the ladder again.

“OK, and if it goes over the wall, you go and get it.”

I made my way back down, got the hammer, went back up and peeked over the wall. No one was stirring in the drive-in. Hammering off the glass was a simple affair, took me maybe three or four minutes to clear a four foot section along the wall. Once down again, we put the ladder on the ground and covered it loosely with dirt and weeds. Perico hailed Ramon to come back, we turned and picked up Alejandro and made our way to the glorieta. We sat there for a while, smug with our cleverness.

Anita

SNAPSHOT: The same four boys with the same studied, casual looks are making their way through the darkness and across the soft dirt to the last row of speaker posts.

Mr. Freed must have been aware of the many times we sneaked in to the drive-in. He may even have known about the ladder and that the soft dirt and fifty feet of darkness before reaching the first row of speakers (the last row in the drive-in) would make it difficult to detect us. On occasion, just to keep us on our toes, Mr. Freed demanded to see our tickets and when we couldn't produce them he told us to leave, which we always did without protest. For one thing, we thought of our regular illicit entries as a kind of game and we recognized that sometimes he won. For another, Mr. Freed, as I mentioned, was a big man. None of us wanted to force the issue. I also think his theater must have been doing reasonably well or he wouldn't have tolerated the loss of ticket revenue. And, of course, we spent money on hot dogs, popcorn and sodas, even on those times when we had jumped the wall. Since that’s where theaters make their money anyway, it probably wasn't a total loss for him.

There was a man who worked at the drive-in, a kind of jack-of-all-trades: maintenance, repairs, projectionist, filling in at the ticket booth or concession stand, doing anything else that was needed. He lived with his wife and daughter in small quarters behind the screen. His daughter, Anita, was fifteen, she was beautiful and she was built like a brick shithouse, one of the witty phrases we American boys used to talk about girls with great bodies. Even better, Anita liked me.

I went to the drive-in as often as I could get the money and the car. I pulled into the same space each time so Anita would know where to find me and then I waited. When it was dark enough and her duties at the concession stand were over she would come and get in the car.

We spent many sessions passionately making out, steaming up the windows, occasionally wrestling in the back seat. (Me: "Si! Si! Si!" Her: "No! No! No!" No, no, no always beat out si, si, si.) Anita was scared to death that a) someone would tell her father where she was and what she was doing or, worse, b) he’d find her in the car with me. Girls and young women were never, but never, allowed alone in the company of boys or young men. It just wasn’t done, not if a girl wanted to retain her reputation and the family avoid being embarrassed and the subject of much gossip. There was always a chaperone, be it a parent, a grandparent or a sibling, older or younger. And this custom was in force across all social classes. There was no question Anita's father would beat her and probably do worse to me if he were to discover us. This was brought home to me forcefully one afternoon.

It had been quite a while since I’d been to the drive-in because Mom kept denying me use of the car, probably due to my grades or my continued smoking or other misdemeanors. I could jump the wall, of course but, for obvious reasons, Anita wouldn't sit with me on the concessions patio. She wouldn't sit and make out with me, anyway, and that's what I was interested in. I had to go in the car.

One summer afternoon I decided to walk over to the drive-in and see if I could find her there. Maybe she'd be getting things ready in the concession stand and we could at least talk.

SNAPSHOT: It’s a bright summer afternoon and that’s me in the distance. I’m walking past row after row of speaker posts, a flotilla of mini-masts rising up in strict formation from the crests of the blacktop billows. The deserted ticket booth is there on the left

I walked directly over to the concession stand. Anita wasn't there but Mr. Freed was.

“Hi, Mr. Freed, have you seen Anita?”

He looked at me. “I think she's at home, Dave. Why don't you go on over and see?”

“Where's her Dad?” I asked, feeling both nervous and hopeful.

“Oh, I don't think he's around right now. Go on over. You'll find her there.” And he went on with his preparations.

Buoyed up by this apparent good news my pace quickened as I walked the hundred yards or so to the deserted children's play area, skirted the screen, turned right, went up the steps of the little house and knocked on the door. Her father opened it.

“Did you want to see Anita?” he asked pleasantly enough, and before I could say a word he went on, in the same pleasant tone of voice. “Just a minute.”

I didn't have long to wait even that long. In a matter of seconds he was back and even if the look on his face couldn't kill, the big old .45 he was holding in his hand would have served the purpose just fine. “You see this?” He waved the pistol at me, his quiet voice gripping me like ice. “You see this?” he repeated. “It's my friend and my protector. It protects me and my wife and my daughter. If I ever catch you around here again, or anywhere near Anita I'll blow your fucking head off! Do we understand each other?”

We did. Gulping a couple of times, I turned and walked away, feeling so lightheaded I thought I was going to pitch face-forward into the dirt. I continued in a daze down the car exit lane. About halfway I heard Mr. Freed call out, “Hey, Dave!” he grinned, “How'd it go? Did you get to see Anita?” All I could manage was a feeble wave.

I never saw Anita again. And now, all these years later: I wonder. Did her father suspect that we’d been seeing each other? Was there collusion between Mr. Freed and her father? Joe must have known that her father was home when he sent me there. Could he have used the walkie-talkie I knew they both had to alert Anita’s father? And then there was Ed’s “gotcha” grin on the way out . . .

Barra de Navidad & Chased By a Bus

2010-07-25T07:58:00.000-07:00

Barra de Navidad

SNAPSHOT: Jane Hastings sits on the edge of our couch, tense. A tear courses down one cheek. Mom, sitting in a chair opposite, looks very concerned. The expression on my face is one of ill-concealed excitement.

I was home for lunch one Wednesday afternoon in late spring when Jane Hastings came to our house, visibly agitated. Jane and Vernell Hastings were an American couple my Mom knew casually. I knew their daughter, Amanda, from the American School and parties we had both attended. Jane, a chain smoker, was a stocky woman of Mom’s age with dark hair. Normally upbeat and cheerful, Mom and I were both surprised to see her so upset.

“Come in, Jane,” Mom said, “come in and have a seat.” She led the woman to a chair opposite the couch where Mom I took our seats. We waited for her to compose herself.

Jane knocked a cigarette into her nicotine-stained fingers from the pack she was clutching, lit it and leaned back. A stream of blue smoke from her nostrils became a haze around her head. She began her story.

“I don’t know if you know this, but last year Vernell and I invested a lot of money, most of our savings, in the construction of a resort motel in Barra de Navidad. We believe it’ll be the next Puerto Vallarta.” Barra was located on the Pacific coast some two-hundred kilometers south of Puerto Vallarta, even then a popular destination.

“Anyway, Mexican law prohibits foreigners from owning land within fifty kilometers of the coast so we took on a Mexican partner who could legally buy and own the property. We went to a lawyer, drew up the necessary papers, and went ahead with the project. We thought the legal papers would protect us. Boy were we stupid!” Jane stood up and walked to the picture window that looked out over our backyard and lit another cigarette from the butt of the one she’d been smoking.

“How about a drink, June?” Mom offered.

“I’d love one. Gin and tonic, please.”

Mom went to the wet bar and clinked some ice cubes into a glass. She returned, handed Jane the drink and looked at her expectantly.

“Boy, were we stupid!” she repeated, shaking her head, “Stupid and naïve.” Her face darkened with anger. “That son of a bitch, that goddam son of a bitch! He’s kicking us out of the motel and taking it over.”

“But you’ve got legal papers . . .” Mom began.

“Screw a bunch of papers! That property is in his name one hundred per cent. We went back to the lawyer and he said there’s nothing we can do. He’s a son of a bitch, too! They’re probably working together to screw us.” Another cigarette, ice rattling as she quickly finished off her drink. “Screw ‘em all! Here’s why I’m here, Jeanne. Vernell left for Barra yesterday. I had to stay behind to make arrangements for Amanda and now I’m ready to go. Problem is, I’m too worked up to drive. I need someone to drive me to Barra and I was hoping you or David could do it.”

I knew what was going through Mom’s mind. The drive we’d made from Los Angeles to Guadalajara, plus our regular border trips every six months, was more than enough driving for a lifetime; I knew she wouldn’t want to make this trip. Nor would she want to leave me and Val alone for several days, even with Irene and Socorro in the house. And, most of all, I don’t think she wanted to be caught up in Jane and Vernell’s troubles.

Reluctantly, Mom said I could go and I was elated! (Not that I hid it well, I’m sure.) I’d be driving Jane’s pick-up to the ocean, spending four unsupervised days there and I’d be missing several days of school. This was an unbelievable stroke of good luck! Did I sympathize with June? Yeah, a little, but not enough to quell my excitement.

“Thank you, Jeanne, I can’t tell you how much Vernell and I appreciate this. How soon can you be ready, David?”

Ten minutes later my suitcase and my guitar were in the back of Jane’s truck, I was behind the wheel and we were ready to take off.

“Shouldn’t you take some school books, David?” Mom said. “Don’t you have homework you could do?” I ran back up to my room, silently cursing. She can make me take them, I thought to myself, but she can’t make me use them!

Mexican highways in the mid-fifties had none of the safety features we take for granted today, not even those of U.S. highways of the same period. They were laid down using cheap materials by workers with little knowledge or experience. Most highways were two narrow lanes with maybe-visible center-striping. The striping paint they used wore off quickly and it was a long time between stripings. Nor were there any painted lines along the shoulders, the asphalt sometimes trailing off unevenly into the dust, sometimes dropping unexpectedly two or three inches. Curves were either poorly banked or not banked at all. Potholes were common and there was always the possibility of a washed-out bridge.

Dangerous as the highways were, though, many Mexican drivers, and their poorly maintained cars, were even worse. We’d already had lots of experience with drivers passing on curves, on hills and on the shoulder. Speeding, tailgating, honking - all were common.

Then there was the problem with livestock. Unfenced pastures were common and you never knew going around a bend if you’d be in the midst of a flock of sheep or staring down two or three cows in the middle of the road.

Whatever highway gods may exist watched over us as we covered the one-hundred seventy-five kilometers to Barra without incident. I remember the sheer joy of the adventure, the road winding through the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains from Jalisco south to the state of Colima and then west to Barra. For me, sitting behind the wheel and sitting on top of the world were one and the same. Even Jane’s glum, silent mood couldn’t dispel my euphoria.

The sun was beginning to set when we pulled up in front of the motel.

It had yet to be landscaped and there were mounds of dirt and piles of discarded building materials heaped off to the side of the road. Workers were throwing debris into a large truck. Guests were expected at the end of the month.

There was one guest there already, however, Al March, a friend of the Hastings, and fear swelled up like a balloon in my stomach when I saw him, the father of my best friend, Greg. He was a big man, six-foot two or three, two-hundred twenty pounds or so. He had a rectangular face, an aggressive jaw and ruddy features. Sparse hair was combed straight back and his eyes and mouth were both unsmiling.

But it wasn’t only, or even mainly, his appearance that scared me; Greg had told me about the kinds of abuse he suffered at home, including being tied to his bed and beaten with the buckle end of a belt. Nor was I reassured by the big hunting knife Al carried everywhere strapped to his waist. I made it a point to stay out of his way.

I helped Jane unload her things and then grabbed mine. We walked through the lobby to the registration desk. Jane went behind the counter, rummaged through a drawer and handed me the key to a room. “You’re probably hungry, David. Go on into the kitchen and see what you can find to eat.” Their erstwhile partner was not there yet. She, Al and Vernell were going into the dining room to make their plans for when he did arrive. I found the makings of a good sandwich in the kitchen, took some pop, cigarettes, a deck of cards, a couple of Playboy magazines and headed for my room.

SNAPSHOT: A full moon hovers over a soft, quiet night on the beach, spreading silver light. The water is softly rippled, almost still. Slack tide. An eerie light blankets the small bay of Barra de Navidad.

About eight o’clock I went for a swim. I slipped on my trunks, grabbed a towel and made my way down the soft, sandy path to the beach, illuminated by a full moon hanging in the sky. There were soft night sounds coming from the tropical vegetation that framed the bay and when I got to the water I was stunned by something I’d never seen before. A beautiful soft, blue-green luminescence shimmered across the warm water, an effect captured and multiplied by the moonlight sparkling off the gently rippling surface. I stood there, taking in the unexpected beauty, unwilling to go in the water, unwilling to disrupt the magic of the moment. Eventually, though, pleasure edged beauty aside and I plunged in, the myriad blue-green droplets exploding into the air, blue-green rivulets streaming from my body each time I emerged.

For half an hour I delighted in the beauty of the neon water, swimming and splashing. When I returned to the sand I again stood there, watching tranquility return to the surface. I turned and left, feeling that nature had shared something special with me.

SNAPSHOT: I’m in a small, dimly lit storage room at the motel. I’m holding a Kotex pad in one hand, looking at it closely. The other hand holds the open Kotex box.

The next day, Friday, passed sin novedad, uneventfully, with the exception that I got my first look at Kotex. It came about because Jane’s pickup was almost out of gas. There were five gallons in an uncovered can in the storage shed but something would be needed to filter the gasoline as it was being poured into the pickup's tank. It was Al's idea to use the Kotex and I was dispatched to bring some, along with the gasoline. In spite of Mom’s comprehensive and detailed talks about sex some years before, I was not certain just what Kotex was used for and I was hoping that its appearance and shape would give me a clue.

I took the key Vernell gave me and found the small storage shed behind the kitchen. Inside, I found a stack of boxes labeled “Kotex”, took one down and opened it. I took out one of the white pads and examined it, turning it over, rolling it up, folding it, even smelling it. Not a clue. All I knew about Kotex was that it could be used to filter gasoline.

SNAPSHOT: Now I’m at the bottom of a forty-foot deep well, standing waist deep in water. Above me, way above me, is a faint beam of light from Vernell’s flashlight.

The next morning I stripped down to hop into the shower, only to find there was no water. I quickly threw on my bathing suit and went looking for someone to tell. Jane was in the kitchen, the first place I checked.

“Vernell and Al are at the well, working on it, “ she said, in response to my question. How about some breakfast?”

I should have said yes, but I wanted to see what the problem was with the water so I politely declined and went out to join the two men. They were looking down into the well that supplied fresh water to the motel.

“Yeah,” Vernell was saying, not looking up at my arrival. “I figure the intake is clogged. Someone’s going to have to do down there and unclog it.” There was that ominous word again, “someone”. The last time I had heard it sent me swimming up a jungle river at night. Now, breakfast sounded very appealing and I wished I hadn’t been so quick to turn it down. I also regretted having put on my bathing suit. I just knew what was going to happen.

Vernel continued staring down the well. “It’s kind of narrow, isn’t it? And even smaller at the bottom, where the pump is. al, you sure as hell can’t do it.”

That left two of us, Vernell and me. Vernell was not very big, not much taller than me and probably not even as heavy. He was slender and he could easily go down and unclog the intake. Hell, it’s his motel! But I knew who was going to go forty feet down into the dark, stand in the water, grope around for the intake on the electric pump and unclog it: I was.

Vernell assured me all the power had been turned off and there was no danger. “We’ll shine a light down there for you, too,” he said, helpfully. I didn’t feel reassured.

I lowered myself over the edge of the well and started descending the rebar rungs down the inside, hoping they would hold up better than the Jericho walls I suddenly remembered from when we had lived on Juan Bernardino.

About halfway down the flashlight beam still penetrated the darkness. I looked down but the light wasn’t powerful enough to show me the bottom. “Everything OK?” Vernell yelled down.

I looked up and saw the dark shape of his head leaning over the well, silhouetted by the sun. “Yeah, just fine,” I sent back. Didn’t feel “fine”, though.

“OK, I’ll keep the light on.” Good. At least that’ll keep him there.

After a few more minutes of cautious descent I was just above the water. I didn’t want to go any farther but I couldn’t go back up without first unclogging the pump and I couldn’t stay where I was. “On the horns of a dilemma” flashed through my mind, followed by “Twixt the devil and the deep blue sea”, followed by a memory of the time I stuck a hairpin in an electric outlet when I was six and got one hell of a painful jolt. I definitely needed to stop thinking.

I was about to touch a toe to the water when I started thinking again. I couldn’t help it. It occurred to me that I was holding on to iron rebar while testing the water surrounding an electric pump.

“You got her unclogged yet, Dave?” Vernell hollered down to me, his voice bouncing and echoing down the walls of the well like a handful of marbles rolling downstairs.

“Not yet.” I imagined my voice sounding like someone talking from the bottom of a well. Or the grave. I felt like adding, “But I’m still alive!”

Nothing left to do but do it – and so I did. I lowered myself into the water, which came up to my armpits, and started fumbling around for the pump. No luck. I was going to have to squat down, completely submerged, grope blindly in the water for the intake valve, take off the filter, unclog it and then put it back on. Deep breath, submerge, grope, probe, poke and prod. Nothing. Up for air. Deep breath. Submerge, grope, probe, poke and prod. This time, by guess and by gosh, I found it, the filter over the intake. It pulled off easily and I stood up. I cleaned out some sediment that had accumulated as well as a little vegetation, submerged once more and I was relieved when the filter slipped on as easily as it slipped off. I stood up, breathed a sigh of relief and started the four story climb back to the world.

When I reached the top and clambered out, dripping wet, Vernell and Al, backs turned to the well, were discussing the fishing trip they’d taken yesterday. I stood there, ignored, by the two men. Finally Vernell turned around. “Attaboy!” he said. Lassie would have gotten more.

I don’t know that I ever told Mom about this. I don’t think I did. I’m sure she would not have been happy.

SNAPSHOT: The dining room of the motel is freshly painted in warm yellows and light greens. New chairs and tables sit expectantly on the soft gold carpet. Jane is facing a bald, pudgy man, repeatedly jabbing a butcher knife at his belly.

It was early afternoon and I'd just finished a snack in the dining room and was heading for my room to get my guitar and go to the beach. Walking through the lobby, I stumbled on the showdown between Jane and their erstwhile partner, the man they’d been waiting for. Jane, in a fury, stood in front of him, forcing him into a clumsy backward gait by jabbing viciously at his stomach with the blade of a butcher knife as long as her forearm. Sweat rolled off his fleshy face and he was back-pedaling so fast he was in danger of falling over backwards, which would have been a huge mistake. Jane meant business and he knew it. A couple of Jane’s slashes actually brushed his stomach and the only thing keeping him from serious injury was the rolls of fat he carried around. “You buy us out, you son of a bitch or I’ll cut off your balls!” The iambic rhythm of her threat was not what I was concentrating on, even if I had known what that was.

And the threat was not an idle one. There was no question in my mind that she was angry enough to stab him if he didn't agree to return their money, on the spot. I stood there, rooted. A small part of my mind wondered what it would be like to have my balls cut off. A larger part was grateful it wasn’t me.

The commotion attracted Al’s attention and all of a sudden there he was, striding across the dining room, pushing chairs out of his way and covering ground quickly as he sized up the situation. Without hesitation, he stepped between the two, smoothly stripping Jane of the knife. Then, almost effortlessly, still carrying that big old knife, he half escorted, half dragged the man to the door and threw him out. “Get out.” Al didn’t need to raise his voice, no exclamation point needed. And no second invitation, either.

Jane started crying and left the room. Al went to find Vernell. I stood there in admiration of Al’s actions. He’d known just what to do and he did it. If he hadn’t arrived on the scene I might have been testifying at Jane’s trial for assault. Or murder.

The next day was Sunday and I had to drive Jane back to Guadalajara.

Jane had promised Mom I’d be back in time for school on Monday. I never learned the outcome of the motel dispute. I was simply glad for the experience, glad to be the center of attention recounting my adventure to my friends.

Several months later the Hastings left the country. Before they did, they brought a large trunk to our house. In it were dozens of cartons of cigarettes, various and sundry toiletries and other things that they had planned to sell or use at their ill-fated motel. The best part for me, though, were the many, many World War II copies of Stars and Stripes, the US Army’s newspaper. Vernell had been in the Army and kept all the issues. I spent months reading them, particularly enjoying Bill Malden’s “Willie and Joe” cartoons. Wish I still had them.

Chased By a Bus

SNAPSHOT: This is del Parque, the quiet, tree-lined street where Perico, Alejo and Ramon live. The blue and white Colonia Chapalita bus does not normally go down this street but today is an exception. It’s chasing me.

It was a warm spring day. Ramon and I had taken the bus to school in the morning and we were riding together back home for lunch, seated in the back, talking. A few blocks before our stop Ramon pulled a couple of firecrackers out of his pocket, leaned over and whispered to me, “When we get off, let’s light the firecrackers, throw them under the bus and run,” and he handed me one of them. “If we start running immediately,” he continued, “there’s no way the driver can follow us; we’ll lose him right away.”

I eagerly took one of the firecrackers and clutched it in my hand, smirking. This was going to be fun!

As our stop drew nearer we started snickering at the fun just ahead and the story we’d have to tell our friends later.

We pulled the stop cord and with other passengers made our way to the exit at the front of the bus. Stepping to the ground we casually walked toward the back of the bus, surreptitiously lighting our firecrackers. We threw them under the bus and I took off as fast as I could, hearing the two almost simultaneous explosions behind me. I laughed and turned to look at Ramon, but I was alone: he was nowhere in sight. What was in sight, though, was the bus with all its passengers rumbling down the street toward me and picking up speed. The bus driver had backed up impossibly fast and made a wild left onto Calle 12 de Diciembre. He was out for blood!

SNAPSHOT: The afternoon sun splashes over the low whitewashed wall and the young woman standing behind it watering her garden. The blue and white bus charges up the tree-lined street.

Adrenaline and fear lent me speed as I dashed down the street, cut across a vacant lot and turned left onto Ramon's street, del Parque, putting me briefly out of the bus driver’s sight. I had no plan and no time to make one. But, as luck would have it, Perico's older sister, Berta, was out watering the garden in front of her house, next to Ramon’s. I ran over, vaulted the three foot wall and threw myself face down in the dirt, forcing myself up against the wall as hard as I could, hoping that the bus driver hadn't seen me. In a matter of seconds I heard the bus rumbling down the street and with a squeal of brakes it stopped in front of Perico’s house. The bus driver threw open the door. “Have you seen some little cabron running down the street?” he demanded to know of Berta. “The one who almost blew up me, my bus and all my passengers?”

Bless her soul, and in spite of the fact that she probably believed the driver, Berta coolly told him she saw me running down the street toward the park and she waved her hand in the general direction of the glorieta. He cursed, closed the door and with another curse and a clash of gears was off again. In a few seconds Berta gave me the all clear.

Just about then Ramon came walking nonchalantly up to the house, calm as could be. I got up and dusted myself off. “Where the hell were you?” I demanded. “I thought we were doing this together!”

“I didn't need to run,” he explained. “Once you started running I just joined the other passengers who got off the bus and let the bus driver chase you. By the way, how did you get so dirty?”

Will Martins & Acapulco

2010-07-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

The first entry this week speaks for itself and needs no introduction or setup from me. It's an event that remains indelibly etched in my memory. The second, about the week I spent in Acapulco, is also memorable but for entirely different reasons. For one thing, Mom didn't go with us which allowed me more freedom. For another, like so much of Mexico, I experienced it more as a Mexican than as a tourist. For example, few, if any, tourists knew about the village where we ate and the subsequent river trip. (BTW, ignore the two horizontal lines at the end of this week's post. I've no idea how they got there and I've never been able to eliminate them from my original Word ms.)

Dave

Will Martins

“Will’s got a gun and he’s gonna kill somebody!” When I think of Will Martins, this is the first picture that invariably comes to mind: Will drunk, staggering down the hallway of his house, rifle clutched in his hands, eyes bloodshot but not masking his rage. It’s not my only image of Will but it’s always the first.

SNAPSHOT: Will is tall and slender, his straw-colored hair swept up in a pompadour in front and a perfect DA in back. He has pale blue eyes and long, graceful lashes that the girls love.

Will, an only child, was one of my American friends. He was charismatic, damned good looking and if he wasn’t already an alcoholic at age fifteen, he was only one step removed.

His dad’s death from a heart attack started his downward spiral. His mom, in her 50s and alone now, was trying to raise a teenage boy in a foreign country far from home. The few times I saw her she looked tired and dispirited, the corners of her mouth in a perpetual downturn, her eyes empty. Retiring to her room every night after dinner with her bottle, she too drank heavily, leaving Will to his own devices. Will must have felt alone, abandoned even, after his father’s death and his mother’s nightly disappearing act. Fortunately, the day-to-day routines of running a house, grocery shopping, cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning, were all taken care of by their maid.

Will stayed sober during the week and got himself to school regularly but weekends were his undoing. All the American kids knew that Friday night, Saturday night, sometimes both, were open house at Will’s and by eight o’clock the party was well underway. Everybody BYOB’ed. No invitation was necessary, no supervision was wanted. Or in sight – his mom was in her bedroom, either passed out or well on her way.

Will’s heavy drinking was one of the ingredients leading to this particular night’s series of disasters. The other was Toni Freed. We boys considered Toni to be the second most beautiful girl in the American crowd. Only her older sister, Lisa, was considered more so.

It was common in the fifties for a boy to give a girl a ring to wear on a chain around her neck to indicate that she was “going steady” with someone.

Will and Toni were going steady and they spent as much time together as possible. Neither of them dated anyone else or even danced with anyone else at parties. It was always Will and Toni.

So it was a terrible blow to Will when she gave him back his ring. He’d lost his dad and, for all practical purposes, his mom. And now Toni. The blow was made worse when she showed up this particular Saturday night with Evan, her new boyfriend, and his ring around her neck.

Will took it hard, drinking even more heavily than usual, scowling and muttering things under his breath. We ignored him. We were all having too good a time to concern ourselves with Toni’s breakup with Will.

As the evening wore on, Will became quieter and quieter until, around eleven, the booze caught up with him and he passed out on the couch. “C’mon, Dave,” Mike, one of the other boys said to me. “Let’s get this sucker off the couch and into his room.” Mike grabbed him around the shoulders, I took the legs and we struggled down the hallway to Will’s bedroom. Will was limp, a dead weight. We plopped him face down on the bed and started to leave but Mike stopped. “Wait. We better turn him on his back so he doesn’t suffocate or something.” We went back and rolled Will over, one limp arm dropping over the edge of the bed, the other pinned under his body. We turned out the light, left the room and forgot about him. Mistake number one.

SNAPSHOT: I’m walking down the wide, tiled hallway that leads to the garden at the back of the house. Ahead of me is Will, shuffling unsteadily, and also headed toward the garden. He’s carrying a rifle.

It was after midnight when I decided to go out back and get some fresh air. I started to walk down the hall towards the French doors leading to the back garden where Toni and Evan were when I saw Will ahead of me, clutching a rifle. He turned when I called his name, his face twisted in a drunken rage. I ran up to him and grabbed the arm. “Will, what the hell are you doing?” I yelled.

“Get the fuck out of my way!” he snarled, “I’m gonna kill ‘em! I’m gonna kill ‘em!” He pushed me aside and resumed his unsteady advance toward the garden. My mind racing, I stood there, stunned, trying to decide what to do. Finally, I just yelled, “Will has a gun and he’s gonna kill somebody!” and I ran after him, never stopping to think that I could be in danger.

SNAPSHOT: A midnight tableau. Will is standing with the rifle to his shoulder, sighting down the barrel at the couple in front of him. Toni and Evan, just a few feet from the muzzle, are frozen in fear. I’m behind Will and the rest of the party crowd is behind me. Nobody moves, not in the snapshot, not at the time.

Will stepped out into the pale moonlight and took in what was happening. Toni sat on Evan’s lap and they were deep in each other’s mouths. Evan’s hands were all over her body, and Toni was moaning and writhing. For a few seconds Will watched and then, with a very deliberate motion for being so drunk, he brought the rifle to his shoulder, turned it on them and pulled the trigger.

The sound of the hammer clicking on the rifle’s empty chamber filled the garden and rang in my ears. By now everyone had poured into the garden in response to my shout and froze at the sight. Will stood there, rifle still to his shoulder, a bewildered look on his face. For a brief eternity nobody moved, nobody spoke.

Evan was the first to react. He stood up, placed himself between the gun and Toni and walked towards Will, who still hadn’t moved. He stood in front of Will and looked him up and down and then, in a blur, he knocked the rifle aside with one hand and caught Will squarely on the side of his head with the other. Will toppled over, unconscious.

The crowd dissolved and Toni rushed to Evan, sobbing. Mike and I looked at each other. “Here we go again,” he said. “Ready?”

“Here we go again,” I echoed, and we grabbed hold of Will and dragged

him once again to his room. We dumped him back in bed, took the rifle and once again forgot about him. Mistake number two. The party went on as if nothing had happened.

SNAPSHOT: The big, pink Oldsmobile, with its hood up, half a block down the street, is racing toward us. Will is driving. Four of us seek safety behind a stout palm tree on the wide median.

By two in the morning most of the kids had gone home, leaving only half a dozen of us. We were sitting around in Will's living room, talking, smoking and dancing when Kathy glanced out the window and saw Will walking uncertainly down the driveway towards his mom's car, a brand new '59 Oldsmobile. The biggest mass-production cars ever made were in 1958-59, and this was one of them. It was pink with white accents and lots of chrome, inside and out. It was gaudy and seductive and if it had been human it would have been a stripper.

We had no idea what Will planned to do but we weren’t about to let him do it, whatever it was. Mike, Frankie, Darrell and I ran out of the house and down the driveway, trying to get to Will before he got to the car. We almost made it. Just as we caught up with him, he jumped inside and locked the doors. While Will tried to start the car, Mike popped the hood, thinking to pull the distributor cap or do something else to immobilize the car. Unfortunately, only half his plan worked: he got the hood up. But before he could do anything more, the engine roared to life. Will jammed it into reverse and floored it, roaring backwards out of the driveway and into the street. Slamming on the brakes, he dropped it into drive and floored it again, laying rubber for a block.

Will didn’t let the fact that the hood was up and he couldn't see deter him. He gunned the car up Avenida de las Rosas for about five blocks, made a screeching U-turn around the median strip and came gunning back towards us. He must have been doing sixty and we were all wondering how in the hell he could drive when he couldn’t even see. As he roared our way we all jumped behind one of the big palms that grow on the wide strip dividing the roadways and watched him careen by. As he did, we could see what he was doing. He was able to drive only by scrunching w-a-a-a-y down in his seat and peering through the small gap between the upraised hood and the windshield.

We were transfixed watching him, half in fear for our safety and half in grudging admiration. Meanwhile, with the smell of burning rubber hanging in the air, Will continued to roar up one side of Avenida de las Rosas and down the other, up one side again, and back down the other. And we could do nothing but peer out from behind the palm trees each time he went by, waving frantically, yelling at him to stop, pull over, go home.

Finally, on one of his U-turns, the engine stalled. While Will tried to restart it, Mike ran over and this time was successful in pulling out a handful of spark plug wires, disabling the engine. Will, however, refused to get out of the car and, as it was still locked, there was nothing we could do. On the other hand, there was nothing Will could do, either so we simply left him there and returned to his house. But the party mood was over and nobody felt like sticking around. Mike put the wires he’d pulled on a table, we tidied up a little, turned out the lights, closed the door and went home. The next day I went by Will’s house and there was the car, back in the driveway.

As a post-script to all this, that shiny, brand new Oldsmobile wound up totaled. But it wasn't Will who did it, at least not directly. He had loaned his mother’s car to a couple of friends, they got drunk and wound up in a serious auto accident and in jail. The car wound up on display in downtown Guadalajara as a potent visual reminder of the dangers of drunk driving

Easter Week in Acapulco, 1959

Because raising Dobies was one of Antonio’s passions, it quickly became a big part of our lives as well. We bred them and showed them at dog shows around the country: Guanjuato, Queretaro, Leon, and other cities. That’s how we came to meet Eduardo and Ysabel Marin at a dog show in Mexico City where they were showing their German Shepherd. Originally from Spain, for many years they had made their home in the Mexican capital. Eduardo was a window contractor. He had just finished installing all the glass in a large apartment complex overlooking Acapulco Bay. As a bonus for his work he had the use of two apartments during Semana Santa, so he invited me and another family, close friends of theirs, to spend Easter Week with them. My album is full of snapshots.

SNAPSHOT: Eduardo and Ysabel stand on the large terrace of our second floor apartment, arms around each other, the sun setting behind them. He’s small and wiry, with a sharp face and eyes that miss nothing. She’s as tall as he is, her round face matching her round body. Her dark hair hangs down over her left shoulder in a thick braid. They look happy.

SNAPSHOT: Nena and Poupee, two very pretty French sisters, fourteen and fifteen are sitting on the patio of their first-floor apartment, just below ours. They’re a study in contrasts, Nena tall, blond, pale; Poupee petite, black hair. They’re looking up at me, giggling. I’m looking down at them, wanting.

SNAPSHOT: Eduardo, on our terrace and holding a highball (he’s been drinking all afternoon), is demonstrating a zapateado, intricate dance footwork, to flamenco music. Ysabel, Nena, Poupee and I all watch.

SNAPSHOT: Ysabel, Nena, Poupee and I are looking down at Eduardo, flat on his back, on the French girls’ patio. Eduardo has a look of astonishment on his face. I don’t know if the look is because he’s fallen from our balcony or because he finds he’s not seriously hurt. Shards of his highball glass are scattered beside him.

SNAPSHOT: We’re in Eduardo’s car in a very narrow alley in downtown Acapulco. A large woman, hands on her hips, glares at him. He has just quietly come up behind her and leaned on the horn. He thought it a fine joke but she has the last laugh. Eduardo is forced to back out of the alley.

SNAPSHOT: The three of us again, along with some friends of Eduardo and Ysabel, sit on our balcony. A short distance away a diver, back arched, arms extended, is silhouetted against the sun, suspended in the sky. One of Mexico’s famous cliff divers.

SNAPSHOT: I’m on the second floor’s outside corridor, walking past the apartment next to ours. The bathroom window is open and as I pass and look in I’m disgusted at what I see: a man shaving under his arms.

SNAPSHOT: Puesta del Sol Beach. Eduardo, Ysabel and I are sitting on the sand under a pilopa, a small pavilion with a thatched roof, watching the powerful twenty-foot waves pound the beach.

* * * * *

I loved Puesta del Sol (Sunset) Beach, a popular site for Mexican families. It was not a beach much frequented by tourists, possibly because they didn’t know of it. There were a couple of dozen pilopas on the beach, nearly always occupied, and the usual assortment of vendors with their pushcarts.

I love to experience the raw power of nature and the waves at Puesta del Sol do the trick for me. I watch each one as it builds and lifts itself, marveling that water, so apparently insubstantial, can do this, can support who knows how many tens of thousands of tons of itself, move forward and crash with a noise that renders conversation temporarily out of the question. There are a few people who venture into the water but never very far. I’m lulled, mesmerized, by the beauty and the power of the spectacle and I simply sit on the sand, watching waves, one after another, approach, climb, crest and come thundering down.

SNAPSHOT: Puesta del Sol Beach. I’ve shinnied up one of the pilopa’s supporting poles. Eduardo and Ysabel, soaked to the waist, are on a small rise some thirty feet away. The last of a spectacular thirty-foot wave recedes back to the water.

This goes on for many minutes. Then, almost too late to react, a wave that dwarfs the others towers above us. For a short time it appears motionless, suspended in time and space. Then chaos. The monster wave breaks fifty feet in front of us and a surge of water races up the sloping sand and envelops the pilopas. Beach chairs, beach balls, beer bottles, soccer balls, sunglasses, towels, even a small dog, everything that a moment ago had a designated place in the universe, is picked up by the torrent of water and pushed back twenty, thirty, forty feet beyond the pilopas.

As the water recedes, everyone begins searching for their things, everyone also casting a wary eye on the “normal” twenty footers pounding the beach. The little dog is found, wet but unharmed, and returned to his owner. People continue retrieving whatever they can find. No one is injured, although some of the children are crying. Slowly things return to normal and I resume watching the waves, hoping for another monster.

* * * * *

It’s the next day and plans are being made. “It’s a small fishing village, Eduardo. It’s on a slow-moving river a few kilometers from the ocean.” Rigoberto’s voice rises in both pitch and volume and he leans ever closer to Eduardo as he becomes more animated, his finger like a woodpecker, jabbing, jabbing. “There’s this little place there that serves una comida fantastica! And after we eat,” he goes on, “we rent a launch and take a leisurely trip downriver to the ocean. And the meal is only seven pesos! Seven pesos, Eduardo! You get soup, rice, beans, meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, tortillas, everything! Of course, you do have to pay extra for beer.”

We were three days into our Semana Santa vacation when Rigoberto, a close friend of Eduardo and Ysabel, made his suggestion.

Eduardo was persuaded and that afternoon we found ourselves outdoors at a long wooden table, seated on rough benches under a pilopa and enjoying several courses of simple but tasty food.

After eating, I looked around. Rigoberto’s one-word description of the village – small - was fitting. We had turned off the highway and traveled a couple of kilometers down a rutted dirt road until we came to a cluster of maybe a half dozen adobe houses, a couple of them whitewashed. “Si, , a man had said in reply to Eduardo’s question, “we do serve una comida fantastica here.”

It was late afternoon when Ysabel, the last person to finish, pushed away from the table. She and I walked down to the river while Rigoberto and Eduardo arranged to rent a launch. Particulars taken care of, the four of us arranged ourselves in the launch and began the leisurely downriver trip that Rigoberto had talked about. The river’s mood matched our own: tranquil, content, unhurried. Thick tropical vegetation grew right up to the banks on both sides, obscuring everything else from view. Trees overhung the river, sunlight dappling the water where it shone through the overhanging canopy. Brightly colored birds took wing as we approached, their exotic calls fascinating me as much as their gaudy plumage.

The crash of waves greeted us as we came around the last bend of the river. We saw a small crowd of people gathered around four or five fishermen standing in the surf and hauling furiously on a rope. We beached the launch and hurried over to watch as they pulled ashore a good-sized shark. They had hooked it while out in their boat and towed it back to shore. We stood there in silent fascination, fishermen and tourists alike, as the big fish flopped and jerked convulsively.

It took a while for the shark to die and shadows were stretching long when we decided to return. We climbed back into the launch, settled ourselves again and watched while Eduardo pulled on the starter rope. Nothing. He pulled again. And again. “Here, let a man do it!” smirked Rigoberto. He rewound the rope and pulled, hard. Nothing. Three more tries. Nothing.

“I guess there are no men in the launch, eh, Rigo?” Now it was Eduardo’s turn to smirk.

“Maybe there’s no gas,” I suggested. No one had checked how much fuel we had before leaving the village. Eduardo unscrewed the gas cap, peeked in and announced that, sure enough, the tank was empty. We were stranded.

“Well, someone has to go back to the village and bring us some gas,” said Eduardo. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me.

“Si, someone will,” agreed Rigoberto.

“Someone” of course, was me. So, in T-shirt, shorts and bare feet I set off along the riverside path leading back to the village, four kilometers distant.

I set off on the path, jogging along under the trees, the cool, soft sand scrunching under my feet. The sun, setting behind me, threw my shadow before me and I could just barely make out the path. To my right thick tropical vegetation shut off my view. To my left was the river, dark water moving silently to the sea.

Night anywhere has its own peculiar sights, sounds, and sensations. Where the night is familiar, we take them for granted, paying them little mind. Here, however, the night was unfamiliar and there were new, unsettling sounds: river sounds, insect sounds and scurrying-out-of-the-way sounds as I padded softly along the path in my bare feet, trying to reassure myself that they were all perfectly normal and harmless.

For some time I alternated jogging and walking, becoming more confident as I got closer to the village. The night sounds stopped bothering me and I began to relax.

I never saw the cockleburr patch. I was trotting along wondering how much farther I had to go when I hit it, managing to stop myself after a couple of very painful strides. My curses and yelps of pain immediately silenced all the sounds around me and their sudden absence made me newly anxious, as anxious as their presence had made me earlier.

Now, you don’t want to spend a lot of time standing barefoot in a cockleburr patch. I picked up one foot, pulled out as many burrs as I could and leaped back out. I spent several minutes gingerly removing the rest of them and massaging my feet, Next up: how to get past the cockleburr patch. With my bare feet I tested the ground to my right, away from the river, but the patch disappeared into the darkness farther than I was willing to go. To my left it ended only at the river's edge. All my earlier anxieties now paled by comparison. The only way back was to swim upstream in the dark.

SNAPSHOT: The night is suddenly ominous as I make my way down the slightly sloping bank and into the river. There’s blackness all around me, including the inky liquid blackness I’m descending into.

I forced myself to slip quietly (very quietly) into the water, hoping that the things my feet were touching were simply rocks, roots and plants and not the crocodiles, piranhas and electric eels I imagined were lurking there, just waiting for some hapless American kid.

The warm river water flowed around my knees, my thighs, my waist as I eased into the slow-moving current, nerves and muscles taut, ready to catapult me into action at the first hint of danger. For several uneventful minutes I swam, keeping close to the river bank. When none of my fears materialized I relaxed and enjoyed the novelty of the situation, thinking of it now as an adventure. I wished I had a knife so I could hold it between my teeth.

I began looking for a spot to leave the river and return to the path. After several more minutes I found one, pulled myself out and resumed jogging, radar-ready for more cockleburs. Twice more I encountered them, left the path, returned to the river and swam upstream.

Arriving back at the village I was confronted by the angry owner of the launch who demanded to know where his boat was and what did we mean by staying out so long? Didn’t I know he had a family to go home to and on and on. When he came up for air I told him what I needed and, still muttering, he reluctantly gave me some gas and another launch, admonishing me with an angry “¡Andale! ¡Vete!” I respectfully thanked him and started the return trip down the river.

Twenty minutes later I was back at the beach. We refueled our first launch and as the three adults climbed into it they had only one question. “What took you so long?”

Deathly Sick & Fight!

2010-07-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

Deathly Sick

SNAPSHOT: Mom stands in the open doorway to our house, a look of fear on her face. I’m collapsed on the porch.

This was one of the two times I became violently, almost fatally, ill in Mexico, both times from eating or drinking something I’d purchased from a street vendor. Valerie, being much younger, had little money or opportunity for buying street foods and so she never got really sick. Neither did Mom. She didn’t have nearly as much contact with everyday Mexican life as I did and her food and drink were always sanitized. We had, for example, pasteurized bottled water delivered once a week in five-gallon bottles which we placed in the garafon, the swinging metal framework we had first encountered in the California Courts. If we didn’t get our scheduled delivery Mom would have Irene boil big pots of water which would be poured into an empty garafon bottle. Our food at home was equally safe. It was prepared by Irene from food she or we had purchased (and inspected) at the public market.

In contrast, I never hesitated to buy food and drink from street vendors and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. Mom was always warning me about the dangers but I never took them seriously. After all, none of my Mexican friends ever became ill and for two years I’d experienced no problems. What was there to worry about? Besides, I enjoyed the items I bought. Fruits, vegetables, agua fresca, tacos, hot dogs, candy, nuts, ice cream, I did it all. Of course, being a teenager just about anything edible was good. What proved to be my big mistake on this particular occasion was a paleta I’d bought after dinner one evening from the ice cream vendor.

My first inkling that something was wrong came late the next morning at school. I began to sweat profusely, my head pounding and my ears ringing. When the noon dismissal bell finally rang I made my way none too steadily to my bike. School was only three miles from home but they were uphill miles, a very slight grade but uphill nonetheless. It felt like Pike’s Peak. Every turn of the pedals was agony. My legs were rubbery, my head continued to pound and sweat poured into my eyes.

I made it home, letting the bike drop in the front yard and staggering to our door, falling against it. Mom opened the door, took a look at me and the blood drained from her face. “My God, David, what’s the matter?”

“I’m sick, Mom,” was all I could manage, just before collapsing on the porch.

She sent Irene to get the doctor we occasionally used and who lived several blocks away. Somehow Mom got me upstairs, undressed and into bed. By this time I was delirious.

The doctor arrived and did all his doctor things. When he left he gave Mom several small glass ampoules with some kind of oral antibiotic in them.

“He’s to break open the ampoule and swallow the contents. Have him take them regularly until they’re gone,” he told her. “He’s not to miss even one!”

They were the most God-awful thing I’ve ever tasted in my life. They were so bad I almost preferred being sick. But they did the trick and I recovered. Mom told me later that the doctor had said my fever was so high I was close to dying. Any delay probably would have been fatal.

Fight!

SNAPSHOT: There are several of us gathered in the glorieta and, in spite of the deepening twilight, you can still make out Richard lying on the ground, bleeding. I stand over him, fists clenched.

SNAPSHOT: Same scene, same time, only now I’m the one on the ground, pinned by another boy who’s in a rage.

I have two sets of friends: my Mexican friends from Colegio Cervantes and the neighborhood, and my American friends from my short time at the American School. They lived in different worlds, these two groups, and no one in either group had any desire to associate with anyone from the other group. The American kids lived insular, parochial lives, like the boy in the bubble, only this was a whole community in a bubble, determined not to be contaminated. They needn’t have worried: the Mexicans were hardly even aware of their existence. I was the only one making the trip between worlds, between cultures.

There was another American boy, my age, named Richard. His parents owned a restaurant in Chapalita and, like me, he attended a Mexican school, Instituto de Ciencias, a Jesuit institution and an archrival to Cervantes for the reputation as the best school and the best futbol team in the city. Unlike me, however, he appeared to have no American friends. He never hung out with any of the American crowd and I never saw him at any of the American parties. As a result, I knew him only casually.

SNAPSHOT: A small outdoor café. It sits on the corner of one of the blocks I pass every day on my way to school. Richard and three friends are sitting at one of the four tables watching me go by. The sneers on their faces, which we can see in the snapshot, reflect the jeers in their voices, which we can’t hear.

Every day, on my way to and from school I passed a small outdoor café. Richard and his friends were often there. For some reason there was bad blood between us. Maybe it was because we attended rival schools or maybe because we were both trying to impress our Mexican friends. In any case, we often exchanged words in Spanish as I walked or biked by the café where he and his friends hung out. The exchanges were not friendly and grew more heated and bellicose over time. Elvis Presley finally drove me to challenge Richard to a fight.

One Sunday afternoon Perico and I had gone to the movies to see Elvis in Jailhouse Rock. I loved listening to Elvis, dancing to his music and watching his movies. He embodied a raw, good-guy toughness that I wanted to emulate. I watched the movie’s fight scenes intently, identifying myself with the virtuous, underdog Elvis. All of a sudden I felt like a virtuous underdog in the situation with Richard and decided to do something about it. I’d beat the shit out of him, just like I was watching Elvis do to his tormentors.

The next day, walking to the bus after school, I passed the café and there was Richard. “Mira,” he smirked to his friends, “ahi va el gringuito.” Look, there goes the little gringo.

I didn’t hesitate. I assumed my Elvis identity and challenged him to fight or shut up.

He was obviously surprised but picked up the gauntlet. “We’ll fight.”

One of his friends jumped to his feet and pointed at me, grinning maliciously. “¡Vas a ver, cabron!” , “You’ll get yours, asshole!”

We cooled our machismo long enough to set the details: the coming Saturday evening at the glorieta in Chapalita, seven o’clock.

As I walked away I began to experience mixed feelings about what I’d just done. The challenge to a fight wasn’t the problem. The taunts and the verbal exchanges had gone on long enough. Besides, I had Elvis on my side didn’t I? (I wonder if Richard also believed he had Elvis on his side.) No, what I regretted was agreeing to fight next Saturday evening and this was only Monday afternoon. I had six long days to think about it.

Realizing I’d been in only three fights in my life, none amounting to much, I began to have doubts. I kicked at a rock on the sidewalk and watched it bounce off a wall into the gutter. I wished the rock were Richard. The walk to the bus took a long time.

Of course I had to tell Perico and Alejo and Ramon about the fight. Perico was ecstatic and immediately assumed responsibility for being my trainer. “Those hijos de puta at Ciencias are all morons,” he proclaimed, “and you’re going to prove it. Here’s what you have to do. Wear blue jeans, a long-sleeve shirt and tennis shoes. Keep your pockets empty. As soon as you’re toe-to-toe with him, haul off and slug him in the stomach, hard, then hit him in the face. Put him away fast, with two punches. Don’t give the asshole a chance!” That didn’t sound very sporting to me but then I had no real fighting experience and Perico did. Or claimed he did. (“Yeah, I’ve been in lots of fights. Just do what I say.”) I did.

Every day the four of us biked or bussed to school together and every day I was reminded by Perico of Saturday evening’s strategy. And every day it was Perico who brought it up. In the morning: “Remember, blue jeans, a long-sleeve shirt, tennis shoes.” At lunch: “Remember, nothing in your pockets.” I really puzzled over that one. I wanted to ask why but at the same time I didn’t want to talk about the fight any more than I had to. After school: “Remember, hit first, hit twice, hit hard.” To make matters worse, we had to pass the café every day and Richard and his friends were usually there, smirking, taunting, reminding me of what was to come. Perico didn’t help matters any with his own verbal jabs and the shadow boxing he did as we passed by, looking at Richard.

Saturday slowly (so slowly!) drew nearer and my apprehension grew as my confidence waned. I was tired of Perico’s relentless enthusiasm for the upcoming fight. I was tired of his constant exhortation to “Hit him first, hit him hard, hit him twice.” Truth is, I was beginning to regret the challenge. I really didn’t like to fight and now I wasn’t sure I could even acquit myself respectably come Saturday evening, let alone beat Richard. The vision of the fight that played so frequently in my mind (whether I wanted it to or not) was no longer a heroic one. I was no longer Elvis conquering Richard, walking away triumphantly (and unscarred) from the fight. That vision was replaced with a more sobering one: me on the ground in pain, bleeding, pride punctured by humiliation. Richard, the Lion-Hearted, walking away triumphantly. And unscarred. Elvis was quickly fading.

The week unhurriedly gave up Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and grudgingly delivered Saturday. Now I didn’t want Saturday; what I wanted was Sunday, Sunday morning. Unfortunately, Saturday evening still stood between me and Sunday morning.

Saturday morning. I dress just the way Perico has directed and go downstairs. Unaware of the fight, Mom can’t understand why I’m so irritable all day, although she doesn’t puzzle over it much, chalking it up to adolescent moodiness. I’m at loose ends all day. I don’t want to go out and have to hear Perico’s three-fold advice one more time. I don’t feel like being with anybody, I don’t feel like doing anything. The only thing I can think about is Sunday morning. I spend most of the day up in my bedroom, lying on my unmade bed reading or dwelling compulsively on the fight. I speak no more than a few desultory words to anybody.

At dinner I eat a tortilla, take a few spoonfuls of Irene’s wonderful sopa de elote (corn soup), and then announce that I’m going over to Perico’s house.

“David,” Mom begins, annoyance and concern both touching her voice. But I’m already up and moving to the door. I don’t look back as it closes behind me.

It’s 6:30 when I get to Perico’s house and whistle the familiar seven notes. Within a couple of minutes, my three friends are out and we head for the glorieta, or, as Perico has taken to calling it, the arena. His attitude toward this whole thing really pisses me off. He’s not going to fight, he didn’t have to spend the whole week (and another whole week on Saturday) in anxious anticipation, he doesn’t have to face the possibility of having the shit beat out of him. Perico’s response is always the same: “You worry too much. Just hit first, hit hard, hit twice, it’ll be over before you know it.”

We arrive at the glorieta and find it deserted except for Richard and his friends, who are already there. It’s too late for the little kids and too early for the older crowd. Just as I have three friends with me, he has three friends with him. We agree on some ground rules: no fighting dirty (it never occurs to me that a sucker punch could be considered fighting dirty; Perico never mentioned that); it’s just me and Richard, nobody else is to interfere; no knives, no feet; fists only.

Richard and I square off and I’m only vaguely aware of the other six boys. My attention is focused on Richard, his raised fists making slow rotations, his confident smile draining what little confidence I still had.

I don’t remember actually hitting him. I know I followed Perico’s instructions: I hit first, I hit hard and I hit twice. I remember Richard lying on the ground bleeding from the nose. I remember staring at my fist, wondering why it hurt so much. I just can’t remember the actual blows. Nor do I remember exactly how I wound up on the ground with one of Richard’s friends on top of me, pinning down my arms with his legs, screaming at me that I was a fucking coward, that I had agreed not to fight dirty and that he was going to beat the shit out of me.

Perico and Ramon rushed in, pulled him from on top of me and Alejo helped me to my feet. And that was it; the fight was over. There was no follow-up, no face-off between them and us. It was just over. Richard’s friends helped him to his feet. One of them glared at me, snarling, “This ain’t over cabron!” and flipped me off as they left.

We returned to Perico’s house, Perico dancing around and air-boxing the whole way, throwing jabs and hooks at an imaginary opponent. “You did it!” he says, “it was perfect! You did just what I told you and you won! Did you see that fucker lying there on the ground?” My jubilation didn’t come close to matching his. Yeah, I’d taken out Richard but in a way that left me feeling sick. My “victory” such as it was, was tarnished. And add to that the still-fresh and mortifying image of Richard’s friend sitting on my chest, pinning me down and I had little reason to celebrate. Ramon and Alejo were quiet also, probably with the same thoughts that were troubling me. Only Perico was satisfied with the outcome.

In the days following there were reminders of what happened. First, I decided to change my route to school, going several blocks out of my way to avoid passing the little café. And it turned out that I broke the knuckle of the little finger on my right hand when I “hit him hard, hit him twice.” It was swollen and hurt like the dickens. I tried hard to keep Mom from noticing. Another reminder came a couple of weeks later when Mom casually mentioned having talked with Richard’s parent. She waited to see my response. “Oh?” I said, in my best off-hand voice.

“Yes,” Mom went on. “They mentioned something about you and Richard being in a fight and that he came home all bloodied. Is that why your hand was all swollen?”

Not knowing how safe the waters were, I tried to change the direction and intent of the questioning. “Look,” I said, holding up my hand, “it’s fine.”

She looked at me funny. “OK.” Some things are better left unknown.