Chapter 14: The Start of Something

Adalid and Angeles had come from Las Rosas to make a little extra money, selling ceramics and stained glass to the people in a group who were there at the hacienda that week. They sat outside my room, right below my upstairs window; I had not gone back to Las Rosas the previous night so I could help out in the kitchen to help serve the group that was there. It was a frigid blustery day. The winds had finally shown up, and short showers had decided to choose that day to hang out above the hacienda.
I showered and looked outside my window to see Angeles leave, one leg stepping forward and then the other pulling up along side it. She had to stable her bad leg with one hand, just to pull it even with the other. She wore the same long black wool skirt that she had worn everyday, and would wear everyday, every single day for as long as I have known her. I knew she was walking to the kitchen, where Judith, Leti, Rosalba, Osvelia and Olivia were sure to be. Adalid sat down below me on a white plastic chair, reading a book, seated behind a folding table that held the ceramics and stained glass. There was also a cart, sort of a vendors cart with two wheels, maybe like a large wooden wheelbarrow with an arch over the top and a countertop with a hole for keeping the candy and chips and food they were selling. Since no one had any idea of when the vacationers/campers would be by, someone had to sit there and wait. It could be four hours before they came by, or four minutes. You just never knew. You had a captive audience there, but only captive for short periods during the day and you had to take advantage of those moments.
I walked downstairs and out the door. I smiled and said good morning. I asked if the stained glass was selling well. I had been practicing that sentence upstairs. Adalid smiled and said good morning. She looked at me and said they hadn’t sold anything. She looked into my eyes. She held her stare into my eyes. Which was something I had been told girls don’t do with boys. A memory came back to me, when I had been told that before I went to Mexico, that girls or women wouldn’t look me in the eyes. But I now couldn’t think of a time in the entire past six months that Adalid hadn’t looked at me. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. So I motioned towards the kitchen and left to go eat.
I sat at the table eating Mexican spaghetti and orange chicken, completely lost in my thoughts as to what I was going to say to Adalid when I got back. The five (six with Angeles) kitchen girls buzzed around the kitchen, laughing and splashing water around and doing normal kitchen stuff, as I sat there staring into the wood grain of the table.
I could think of anything to say to her, anything of importance. I suppose that didn’t matter. I thought about hurrying back out there to talk before Angeles came. It seems like when we are alone, we always can find something to say. But when we were with other people, it is all so silly that we both feel strange, like people will laugh at us trying so hard to communicate. When she and I and Kike would hang out, the two of them would chat about whatever because I had a hard time popping into the conversation. When one or the other would ask me to tell a story, I would get through it. But really if we weren’t off by ourselves, I had little to say that either everyone would like, or that could be directed to her but interesting to the other people too.
I came back. I sat down next to her and opened my mouth but she beat me to the punch:
You know, I don’t like your eyes.
Really? …Most people here like my blue eyes.
Nope. I like dark eyes. I like black eyes. No color.
Hmm. I like yours.
I like your legs.
Seriously?
Yes. They are big. They are muscular. No one here has legs like you do. Most men have skinny ugly legs.
I can’t stop smiling… she continues:
I like your eye lashes. They curl up like you make them do that.
But of course I don’t. They are just like that.
Yes, but it looks nice. And I like them even more because it is natural. And I like how your hair curls when you let it grow longer. You should stop shaving your head every four months. And I like your beard. It makes you look manly. I like all your hair. You are a man. You should act a little more like a man. Do you not like your body hair?
No. Not really.
Why not? That’s the way a man should be.
You like guys with lots of hair? (Ok, yes, I just want to hear here say it again.)
Yes. I don’t want a little boy for a novio.

I wish I hadn’t just sat there grinning like an idiot. I wanted to give her a compliment, but I couldn’t think of anything that would match what she just did. I guess it seemed a little forward, but I think it was just the confidence that we had gained speaking so much together, just trying to be ourselves.
Those were the most fantastic four compliments of my life put into one conversation (and the best constructive criticism I have been given). The only other conversation that I have had that got anywhere near this kind of compliment was when my buddy Ethan and I were in Taiwan with our friend Amanda. We went to a little secluded beach that you had to cross a hanging bridge to get to. We went swimming, but when I started to feel burned, I came out and sat on the sand. I went to put my shirt on and Amanda is sitting there and looks up and says “you don’t have to put your shirt on.”
I don’t get a lot of this. I have to go to other countries just to feel good about myself. Which I won’t deny that I like. Maybe you already caught that.
But from now forward, we really started to click. Not as a direct result of the compliments, nor did it change anything, I just remember that as being part of the time where things started to go really well.
This is what I know I like about her: she is very similar to other girlfriends I’ve had, “my type,” but put in a society where that is completely unnormal. For example, she likes to work. She later on will insist that if we ever get married she is going to keep working, because she likes it a lot. She later gets a job working for World Vision, working in a side project of theirs called Fundacion Realidad. It is like a loans office, but they are really low interest loans. Goodwill loans. And since people don’t really have a lot to put down for collateral, they have to form groups of at least 16 people to make sure everyone pays. She promotes the project, goes out into the county to form the groups, teaches them how to save, basic accounting principals (saving is not a valued skill here), and then keeps them how to be accountable. She loves it. Her office covers a range of four counties, so any given day she is off up into some small town and then another somewhere else and so on.
But the point is, is that here, most girls are expected to stay in the home and have kids after they get married. And that’s it. That’s another thing: kids. She doesn’t really want kids although she loves them, she would hate to have one. Which makes her completely normal, as far as girls that I know, but for here, it is quite unique. She not only will not accept that she is going to do all the housework, which of course is fine by me, she finds the men who feel that the women should cook and clean and completely take care of the kids and wash clothes to be completely ridiculous (a good 98% of men here). Which also is good. But again, rare. This is not like a femininity thing, nor a liberal girl, nor rejecting her culture, not anything like that. She is fairly conservative, as far as that goes (we are not talking about politics), it is more about a respect thing.
Which I start to find very attractive.

Chapter 13: Tuesday, February 8th, 2003: Sick

So I have been sick here four times now. Which is four more than I would care for. But the thing that cracks me up about being sick here is that no one is afraid to ask you what is wrong. And they want details. I have been at the house of a family, not feeling too well, and we are all sitting around chatting, and they ask me if I want something to eat. I say I don’t because I’m not feeling great and someone (like every time) asks “what is wrong? A cold?” And you are like “no, no.” So they continue: “Diarrhea?” And you are (shrugging your shoulders) just like “yep. Diarrhea.” Or whatever your symptom is.
Now the thing is I never really have taken much medicine before, but natural remedies I find to be acceptable. For instance I find Echinacea to be a delightful deterrent for the common cold. And it is nice because they have many natural remedies here. The problem is that people here diagnose my illnesses is such crazy ways that I can’t believe their remedies are actually going to help. For instance, I am currently sick as I write this, diagnosed with “suffering from the cold.” No, no, not “a cold,” Frio. Cold. Now, I am not a doctor, but I certainly believe my churning stomachache and inability to keep food inside me is probably the result of consuming bad food or water over the past few days, and not “because your insides are too cold” (if any nurse or doctor knows something I don’t, please let me know differently). Some of the things I have been told to do/eat include: eat toast with rice, drink some sort of thick, unexplainable liquid, wash myself with raw eggs (I am not joking) and lastly, drink this tea that will simply make me instantly vomit. Which is kind of a joke because it’s what Leti here suggests, with this excited look, for whatever you have. But at this point in time it’s not that bad of an idea.
To add to this, when Miriam (another American I met) was here in December, she was at a Bible study, put on by one of the mothers of some of the workers in the hacienda, and was complaining about her back hurting. The older woman, along with some of the younger women at the Bible study said that Miriam “had too much air in her back” and their remedy was to take a candle, set it on her back, light it, and put a cup over it. When the candle went out it created a vacuum with her skin, and they moved the cup around her back, “removing the air.” Once again, I cannot professionally vouch to whether that is an accurate prognosis nor cure, but my logic says that that something isn’t quite right.
Regardless, right now I prefer to lie in bed and wait it out. Right now, it’s like this:
I wake up sick. It feels like I have a boulder in my stomach. Like everything I ate the night before clumped together in my stomach and formed to solid rock. The pain feels like my intestines are getting squashed below the stone. I have this taste in my mouth like after you eat stale cheerios dry but before you realize they are stale. I would love to throw it all up, just to empty my stomach. Or take something to just flush it out, which seems like a good idea. But then I think that with some crazy medicine or mineral or herb, is there any chance I could actually get worse? It’s probably a bad idea to take something. Probably just going to make everything worse. I think back to what I ate. It was probably the mole (“mol-eh”), or the sheep. I mean, mutton. It’s mutton what we have, but that word does not give it justice. It’s not lamb either. I mean, mutton is an old drunk Irishman sitting over a slab of mutton in some pub with a stein of Guinness. Lamb is the guy off of the New Yorker sitting in a French restaurant staring down his nose at the lady across from him over his lamb steak. This is more like really soft, um, meat, cooked just right. “Barbacoa” – Barbecue – as if anything else would be fit to barbecue after you’ve had this. The wedding food. The celebration food. The big “15th birthday for girls” food. Sunday dinner food. But I think maybe sometimes it could use a little more barbacoaing. Cooked underground wrapped in huge leaves of the maguey. Imagine like a really soft beef cooked in a ton of oil, hot and greasy and really soft and delicious off the bone, right out of the hole in the ground.
The taste in my mouth tells me it might be the tortillas that made me sick, like people have suggested before. But I can’t figure out how corn, cooked well or poorly, could make me sick. Can vegetables make you sick? Anyway, I don’t want to throw up. I hate throwing up. I’d love to every time I’m sick so I could feel better. But once I start to vomit, I want to die.
I really should just shove my finger down my throat and get it over with. But I can’t corral enough courage. I just lay there and suffer, my lower organs getting squished and causing my intense pain.

Chapter 12: Basketball at the Hac, and other places

We started to play a lot of hoops at the stone floor court in the hacienda. The girls and I would come down from Las Rosas and we would get the guys from the hacienda, maybe 12 or 13 of us total, a good three times a week. It was great. I had a lot of fun playing with Adalid, both on the same side of the ball and opposite teams. I started to learn the meaning of “home court advantage” as they already knew the nuances of the court, the bad places to dribble, the weak backboards you could easily chuck the ball at and the soft rims giving only short rebounds. Playing on the semi flat stone surface didn’t help my game much either.
Rogelio started to invite friends. I was a little sketched out at first, but they were all pretty nice guys, and we got to know each other well. The girls would usually bow out just to watch, as the new guys would come and demand that we bet on the game. “Just for a Coke” they said. That now put meaning into the game, and I turned on the jets. I don’t remember if I even lost, but I know I never helped buy Coke so either I never lost or my team covered it for me. But I am pretty sure it is the former. Being a meter and 89 centimeters tall doesn’t hurt either among an opposing team that is an average of a meter 58.
I learned a fun trick too. One of the rims was bent on one side, so if I just lined up on that side, called for the ball, it almost always fell. As long as you got it over the first lip, the backside of the rim was sure to ease the ball into the net. Almost foolproof.
They started inviting me to play with them on the weekends. I really had not a lot to do, unless I was going to hang out with Adalid, so I went with them as much as I could.
I specifically remember three times. We played a lot but three specific games come to mind the most. The first was the very first game they invited me to. We played in a four team tournament in a court alongside the highway just outside of town. There were two speed bumps on the highway to keep cars from flying through the pueblo, the first set heading out of San Felipe towards the hacienda. It was the first game where I poured all I had into it. The first two games were fun (the two in which we won the tourney) except that I was getting extremely tired. Rogelio and his friends who I played with are mostly in their late thirties, and wanted me to stay on the floor. Even though I had been here for a while, I hadn’t really ever ran consistently or anything, and wasn’t really in shape. And being up in the mountains just killed me. I begged to come out but they said I was better playing half the floor, not getting back on defense at all, than any of them were. The third game of the day was a killer though, as the “coach” from one of the teams demanded we put all the best players from the other teams together to play against our team. Which we did, and my ego kept me in the game. But the “coach” had the idea to stop me by putting two guys on me and absolutely hammering me every time I touched the ball. If this had been at the intramural building during my previous year at college I would have been obligated to beat them down. But I was pretty new to town still, I didn’t know any of them, and really didn’t want problems. I mostly just took it and threw elbows at opportune times. Which took some of them out of the game, trying to keep up on defense, but since it were one team comprised up of three, they just put more substitutes in one after the other. We didn’t win that one just because I came out after a quarter from sheer exhaustion.
The second most memorable game is one that we went way up into the mountains to play. We were Rogelio, me, his friend Elias, a couple other buddies I didn’t really know, and one other kid name Matu. Matu was pretty fast, if not that great of a shot, and was pretty smart. We played against a team that had exactly two players worth anything, who were both pretty good (as in they both can dunk which is rare for here). To make a long story short, we beat them playing a triangle and two defense, I playing man to man defense on the larger of the two, and Matu going up against the shorter. The other three played a triangle zone. We shut them down, and since the two better players tried to avoid passing the ball to their teammates as much as possible, they couldn’t do anything and we won. They were so sure they were going to win (also with a “coach” who does nothing), it made me even happier to beat them.
The third game is just a pick up game we played up in Portes Gil, where most of them live. It was really the first game I played where I could run full speed and play the whole game, after a good few months of living here. It was just funny because they knocked me to the ground and I totally scraped my arm. I had a bleeding hole like the size of a half-dollar. I went to the store to get something to clean it up with, because it was bleeding decently. The old lady gave me some home remedy that I splashed on there and wiped off. It worked pretty good, but I still had toilet paper held to the spot. “Get back in here!” they kept yelling at me. Which was funny to me because in these days of not letting kids play if they are bleeding, I am used to the idea that bleeding equals you simply don’t play. That is how it has been since… since I can remember. If you are bleeding you are treated like you are playing with leprosy. But they forced me back into the game, even though I bled on three different guys’ shirts, but we did win in overtime. The wife of one of my buddies volunteered to wash our shirts. Which was nice of her. Since I don’t know how to get blood out of a shirt anyway. Turns out all you need is a little stiff bristle brush. Who knew?

Chapter 11: The Dog

Adalid arrives one Saturday morning, maybe the next weekend after getting home. We chat in my room while Kike takes a shower. Meanwhile, about two miles down the road, between the fourth and third set of speed bumps, counting from San Felipe to the turn off to Las Rosas, a couple of mangy dogs have been up since the first light, wandering around looking how they will spend the day, avoiding as many people as possible.
Kike comes back into the room and shakes his wet head. He holds out his hands and drops his head back, the universal sign for feeling good. He turns his wheelchair to pick up a shirt out of the stove cupboard, his scar on his back like a pegboard with dots of scar tissue alternating sides, back and forth. I have this urge to poke what looks like screws. I touch Adalid’s leg instead, pulling it towards mine as I sit next to her.
I am not sweating as we leave, but I know I will be before we get to the road. I choose to not wear a hat, just pulling the hood of my zippered sweatshirt, left unzippered, up over my head. It’s not really that warm, but it will be soon with the sun cooking me inside my sweatshirt. Hey, being warm is better than burnt.
This is still part of the year when the corn has not yet grown. When my time here began, the corn was tall, so tall people were afraid to walk home at night. They said thieves could easily hide and attack them as they walked home. I didn’t change my routine at all, and never had any problems. But I certainly carried two big rocks at all times. But right now, the corn is all gone and it is just sunny and nice. I know that soon the winds will start and walking away or back to Las Rosas will mean avoiding getting my teeth filled with dirt and dust. So for now, I just enjoy the nice view the absence of the cornstalks provides, and the nice cool breeze that drifts across the fields.
I support Kike’s chair as he leans back on two wheels, heading down the hill, navigating the large rocks on the steep part. He is the motor, the breaks, and the steering wheel; I am just the training wheels. We get a standard wave from the father and grandmother of the family that lives below Las Rosas, as she murmurs something in Mazahua. The little daughter smiles her adorable smile and turns away, shy. “Cjimi” we murmur back, the assumed response to whatever she said.
Adalid asks if she can push his chair as we get off the semi paved part and onto the unpaved. The day seems to be so pleasant, almost moving in slow motion, as we have nothing to do, no timeline, just out to have fun. Dealing with the hassle of the wheelchair off and on the bus or taxi seems to be less of a problem today when there is no rush. We can take all the time we need. Adalid always giggles when she pushes his chair. He makes sudden moves and turns and she gives little screams and says “Kike!” the first syllable punctuated and the second falling, when anything goes slightly wrong. The weekend always has some family out in the field, plowing. It almost looks like fun: there is usually a couple meals, people chatting and laughing, bulls or horses pulling a flat board that someone stands on and surfs across the tilled ground. Or they have a plow, which looks like much less fun. They are usually talking to the animals, softly in Mazahua.
Out there somewhere between the third and fourth sets of speed bumps, the small pack of feral dogs are rolling in the dirt, just off the highway. They bark at the cars speeding past, nip at each other, and gnaw on anything that’s not a rock. They sniff at everything, licking up anything that is or was made of organic material. One limps, having been hit by a car. This does not stop him from running out in front of cars; it just makes him a little slower. He has been limping for at least a year probably, the bone well healed but refusing to test it. Some oxen graze nearby, but they pay no attention. Oxen, unlike cars, don’t swerve or slow down for dogs. They just give swift kicks and throw their heads. They are no fun to play with. One dog doesn’t chase cars, but due to bad water and mal nutrition as a pup, has very unrefined instincts and poor response time. His situation is not unique. This can be due to inbreeding, pollution, malnutrition, physical mistreatment, or just plain bad luck.
As we hit the small uphill about 30 meters in front of the entrance to the main highway, I give Kike a running start and we hit the rocky stretch rattling. We start left landing in a flat part, swerve right popping over the small bump that shows where the water runs across the road during the rainy season, and onto a softer part of the road near where the corn field starts. He flips his chair backwards and I pull him up onto the pavement of the highway, checking both ways. Cars are easy to fairly easy to see coming down and around the hacienda, but coming the other way immediately make their way around the bend coming into view. You can hear them before you see them. But sometimes they come quite quickly. You always have to stay on the very edge, ready to get off the pavement. Kike lets go of his wheels, heading downhill towards the one lane bridge. He yells “I’m the king of pavement!” as he flies ahead of us. I start sprinting to catch him, looking back to see Adalid smiling. I am completely wasting my time trying to catch him, so I stop and turn around. I wait for her to catch up, and I take her hand and look at her eyes. “What’s your dream?” I ask. “To be here with you” she says. “What’s yours?” “To be here with you. And Kike.” I smile and she smiles. “I don’t like it when you aren’t here, because when I have to talk to you only by phone, I can’t explain things with my hands, or see what your face wants to tell me, or pinch you if you laugh at me.”
Of course that wasn’t ever really my dream until that exact moment. I guess maybe I should have clarified that it wasn’t exactly my dream, I would have liked for it to be. How could I have dreamed that? Not even in sleeping dreams can your mind invent things that you can’t imagine. And you hardly would ever think of things that you actually sleep-dream. I don’t even pretend in real life, but in my dreams I have played six times for the Sonics. With-out-question best dream. Usually I am on the bench, and the Sonics are getting drilled. I am usually watching nervously, tapping my foot or something. Nate McMillan looks down at me and throws his hand up which is the sign that he is angry at someone so I go in so that he can yell at whoever it is. I come and make like play after play on the defensive end, and dish the ball to Ray Allen who drains three after three. That was pretty much the script for three of them. One of them I am just on the bench, happy to be there. One I came in and just drill a three and then woke up. The most recent one, the Dream Sonics are still coached by Nate, even though in real life they aren’t any more, but he gets me in the game early on. I can’t remember who I am guarding, but I block his shot or strip him of the ball like ten consecutive trips down the floor. Maybe it’s Dwayne Wade. And I start getting some courage, and begin to talk a little trash which I know is dangerous because he could light me up at any moment. The dream game goes pretty fast, and I get taken out before half time and then wake up in the middle of a TV timeout. Man I hate those TV timeouts.
We catch up to Kike. The road right before the bridge heads up to Portes Hill. It is a large entrance, wide enough so that one truck could be waiting to go right, one could be next to it waiting to go left, and one could be entering from either direction as well. We stand right in the middle, so that if four trucks happened to show up leaving and entering, they would pass us on either side, two and two. This allows us to catch taxis coming from any direction. One arrives shortly, coming from the direction we came from.
Getting in a taxi is relatively easy from the wheelchair. Kike pushes it up to the door, and I hold it as he puts his head against the window, puts a hand on the door and another on the seat. He prefers the back, but takes any seat on the outside. If people are already inside, they usually have to rearrange themselves so that he can hop in. He launches himself into the car, usually leaving a decent amount of hair gel on the window. I grab the chair, pull off his backpack and hand it to him, pull the seat cover off, and pull up on the seat which allows the chair to collapse making it easy enough to throw in any trunk. If the trunk already has stuff, we usually pop the wheels off, making it even more compact. I usually get dirty, shirt pants and hands, but it is nothing compared to how dirty he gets just using it, so I learn not to mind or complain. If I do complain, he shows me his filthy hands and lines along the sides of his pants where the wheels rub. We can both pack into the front seat of any Ford Acura or other bucket seated car (standard Mexican “collective” taxis won’t leave unless there are at least three people in back, and at least two crunched into the front seat next to him). But Adalid is with us so we just all sit in the back.
Kike is chatting with the driver as we pull onto the highway, towards the hacienda and Dolores, the home of the fourth set of speed bumps. Another taxi quickly catches up behind us, and another pulls out in front as we get over the first of three speed bumps that makes up the fourth set. The taxi in front is an old beater – maybe a Chevy or an old Buick. A boat at best. Those were outlawed the second year I was down here. Or maybe they just went out of fashion. They are usually stick shift, but the stick is on the steering wheel like an automatic would be. They can fit four in back, four in the front, and I have seen two in the trunk before. Twice before. They also usually sway down the road. Making broad turns and heaving around corners. And the large front windows are absolutely always cracked.
We get over the third bump and we are off to the races with the other two taxis. There is a left corner, and then a little hill where you can see up to the left a quarter mile if cars are coming or not. But you can’t see around that corner so you go to count to like four before passing to make sure no hidden car is down in that gulley, the blind spot. We pull out to pass the car anyway, and speed past it. Sure enough, there is a car in the gulley but coming fairly slow, so we have plenty of time.
At that moment, the dog with slow wits decided it would be good to cross the road. It just felt that at that moment it needed to get across. And with our car moving quite smoothly, it watched us intently, hypnotizing, as it hustled across our lane. Its slow instincts caused it not to hear or see the other car coming in the other lane, which heaved right trying to avoid it, but wasn’t going to end up in the ditch to save the poor thing. As the dog watched us coming at him, the gramma car coming towards us smacked it in the head, making contact with its front right fender directly into the skull of the slow creature. The dog was lifted off the ground, and spun with such force that even though its body spun back into the side of the car that hit it, it hit the ground and spun twice more on the concrete. Adalid gave a screech and grabbed my arm. Kike and I both pulled our heads back grimacing. No internal parts came out (of the dog or the car), thankfully, but it was an unquestionably fatal hit.
“Do you think it’s ok?” Adalid asked, in a way that suggested not naivety but compassion. Kike and I smiled almost mockingly, nodding our heads.
And then forgot all about it.

Chapter 10: Acapulco

Shortly thereafter, Felipe asked if I wanted to take Adalid to Acapulco. Felipe had planned a whole trip out where we would drunkenly drive for six hours from the hacienda, over the mountains, down to the Pacific Ocean along the part of Mexico where the coast stops going more southern and starts going in more, west to east. It would take us a lot of patience, a lot of car games, a couple battery jumps, and two six packs for Felipe. It was Kike and his girl Adelaida, Felipe and his girl Isabel, and me and my girl. In the old brown van.
Did I not tell you she’s my girl? I suppose the last bit made no sense. OK. This is what happened: against all advice (American advice), instincts, and intention, I decided I like Adalid enough to ask her to be my girlfriend. At least I think it did. Here is pretty much how the conversation went (sitting in the central garden in San Felipe, avoiding the birds who are crapping on us from above:
You know everyone talks in the hacienda. Gossip. You know?
She nods.
You know they say maybe I like someone. A different person. You know?
She nods.
But I no like her. I likes you.
She smiles.
You want to be a girlfriend? Uhhh, mine girlfriend?
Let me think about it.
Umm. OK. You have to think?
Just let me think about it, ok? I’ll tell you tomorrow.
That is how it went. I am awesome. We had hung out quite a bit at Las Rosas before I asked her to go see the movie with me. The movie was like a real date, and it felt like that. She knew what it was. We started going into town together, I accompanying her since she had to go that way anyway to get home. I got to meet her younger two siblings when they came one weekend to cook us lunch. They were pretty quiet but it was fun anyway. And they made a great meal. She looked at me with this smile that I couldn’t get away from. I couldn’t think straight when she looked at my eyes. She helped me get acquainted with the town and showed me new fun places.
Once we were in this little park, actually an amphitheater, behind the municipal theater, just chatting when some drunk guy started yelling at me. He pointed at me and started saying something of which I had no idea. It was kind of funny, but I didn’t want him to do anything crazy or hurt Adalid or anything. I had the idea that I might have to try to look macho here, so I stood up and got ready to take this mother down. I new he would go down with one punch, and it would be in self defense so what was I worried about? But Adalid grabbed my arm and pulled me out of there. Let’s just go. What are you going to do with a knocked out drunk guy anyway? A good question, plus I figured there would be inevitable problems with police, so we got out of there.
But most memories are good. She was working at Las Rosas, working away at the stained glass butterflies or whatever, when I decided to take a walk, or head into town or something. I poked my head in the door and said I would be back in a bit. I walked out and heard the other girls hurriedly tell Adalid to walk me out. She is a little shy, so it was good to have a little help. I remember she had all these little braids that came down to her lower back. She had just done it the night before. It was quite sexy. She touched my hand as I walked out of the outer gate, to head down to the road. I smiled and took two steps. I turned back. Smiled again sheepishly, looking mostly at her hair. I stepped towards her and I guess since she didn’t step back or out of my way, I kissed her. It was the most wonderful kiss of my life. I didn’t know if it was a good call or what, but I did it.
How did she get permission to go with me to Acapulco for a week? I assume her mom didn’t know there would be boys there. And since we were a Christian group anyway, there would have been no reason to believe anything was less than kosher. And certainly not suspecting of Felipe, a “recovering” alcoholic.
Actually this happens all the time. People trusting Felipe. I can’t see how they don’t notice he is constantly drunk. And how they don’t notice his constant drunkscapades, out and about town with plastic six pack rings littering the floor of his car. He loves to show up in his huge boat of a Buick and invite you out for tacos. You get in the car at like 5 or 6 in the afternoon, sometimes with Kike, and he tells you you are going to get tacos and it’s going to be a great time. As soon as you are on the road, he mentions he needs to go by his house, which is the opposite direction. So you go to his house where he does whatever he needs to do. Then you get back in and head back in the direction you came from. You stop and the first tienda in sight but out of sight of the hacienda and he buys a six pack of beer. He gives you one which you don’t really want, but certainly don’t want him to down the whole six pack himself, so you take one for the team. I should mention he usually starts this trip drunk, but it’s sometimes hard to tell. He shows you pictures of his ex-wife and two kids who live in Mexico City. He talks about the things he is going to do for them, or plans for visiting them. Whatever the situation of the beer is (finished or not) you stop in 10 minutes and pick up another six pack. As he finishes each one, he rolls down the window and throws out the cans. He explains that women will be attacking each other in the morning to recycle that can. You know he is officially drunk when he does one of two things: he starts not seeing the speed bumps or else he asks you for money. He ALWAYS does both, but it’s always funny to see which one comes first. You tell him you don’t have any, and anyways he invited you for tacos, not the other way around. He says he has some job coming up and will have the money to pay you back with in a week or two. You change the subject. He starts talking about women, usually someone you are friends with and he starts saying lude things that you don’t want to know. You finally get to the town with tacos where he says he needs to go see a friend. It’s usually about someone buying his car. He doesn’t let you come in, and it seems incredibly suspicious. He usually urinates in public before getting back in the car where you are really wishing you had never come. Occasionally you actually end up getting tacos, but usually you just get some chips and head back. He wants to go back to his house and hang out and make dinner, but you are so tired of it all, you just want to go home. He of course doesn’t want to drive up to Las Rosas because it would be bad for his car (saying that after having hit all 32 speed bumps at full speed) and you grudgingly get out and walk the 20 minutes up the dark road home.
THIS was the week long version of that. It started off great and ended terribly. Adalid, along with Kike and Ade had never seen the ocean before, so that was incredibly romantic as we arrive at night, and go down and sit on the sand, listening to the stroke of the waves and the lights surrounding the bay. The “cabin” we were staying was that of some uncle of Felipe's, which sat directly behind the monstrous “Copicabana” hotel. It would have had a wonderful view of the ocean except for that large detail, but did give us excellent access to the waterfront. A 30 second walk around the hotel sat us out on the beach, and just a 10 minute walk from the beach front clubs and restaurants.
The first night was the best. We sat out on the beach, her sitting between my legs leaning back against my chest, looking up at the clear sky. We talked about everything that I could come up with words for. I taught her some constellations, in English of course. She taught me “pelican” (which there were and we could see fly by in the moonlight, and “sand” and “bay” and other basic words I should have known.
“Have you ever been here before?”
“No. This is the first time. And the first time I have ever seen the ocean.” We sit there in silence.
“What?”
“This is the first time I have ever seen the sea. I have never been to the coast before.”
“What? Really? I mean, how… what?” I can’t process that, living within five minutes of the ocean view practically my whole life. Back as Las Rosas, I actually start to expect to see the ocean over the rolling hills. In San Agustin we have the huge hill to our back, and hills out to our right, left and in front. It is pretty much up and down all along the roads no matter which way your are going. It’s the strangest feeling, to expect to see water and have it not be there. Especially cresting a peak of a hill or mountain, that I am going to see the water just over the next ridge. Every time up or down, I keep looking for the ocean like its going to appear the next time we have a good view. Every time I go hiking or driving at home, I know that most of the time the purpose is to get a sweet view of the ocean and islands. Every peak I cross just leads me to more peaks. “How have you never seen the water before?”
“Only in the movies. It is so much more beautiful than in the movies. I have never seen snow either.”
“Seriously?” I suddenly get a huge feeling of pride, like I have done something incredible by living in a place that is 5 minutes from the water and 45 from snow year round.
“Yes.”
“You’ll see snow someday.” I regret saying it, sounding like a promise to bring her to my home, which I know would be difficult. I don’t want her to think I am saying anything I am not, not hinting anything or saying anything subtle.
“I imagine that it must be the softest thing there is. Like the feeling of the softest cotton floating down and landing on you. It hailed really hard one time at my house, and I took a picture. It looked like snow. We threw hailballs at each other. It hurt.” I can’t see her face but I know she is smiling. I laugh at her story. I put my arms around her shoulders, resting my head on one of them.
The next day we paid to ride on the “banana boat” which is a big long inner tube that is pulled behind a boat. It was only at this moment that I realized (was told) that Felipe and I were actually the only ones who knew how to swim, and actually the others were terrified of this ride. This must have been like sky diving for them! We just held on and rode until Felipe plunged the nose of the banana into the water, dumping us all. I came up laughing only to have Adalid panicking and grabbing onto me, despite the life jackets doing a fine job by themselves. She grasped onto me, and I saw the Kike and Isabel were doing the same to Felipe. Adelaida was the only one with enough sense to grab onto the boat itself. How funny.
I later took Adalid Seadooing, which was just as funny, her gripping my waist like the wind would rip her off if she didn’t hold as tight as possible, giving little shrieks every time I turned at all.
Besides that, we played in the waves, sat inside eating lunch to try to avoid the sun somewhat, sat on the beach under a big sun umbrella, and otherwise just hung out.
The second night there I decided I was going to take the four of us out to dinner. Felipe wanted to show off his girlfriend, who was popping out (literally, every so often) of her small bikini top all over the place. The rest of us went for a walk down the strip. I found the nicest restaurant I could, and I invited them all in. Alongside the fancy dressed up crowd inside, we were rushed away to a small side room of the place. The waiter came over to our table and scoffed at us. It was obvious even to me that we were country folk inside a city folk eatery. We were not welcome here. We would be served and led out as soon as they had our money.
But I was not there to be looked down at, so I asked if there was another waiter that could help us. The large man looked at me, tilted his nose up pushing his head forward, brushed his hands on his apron. He set the menus on a pile on the table and left. I wasn't sure if I had asked the question correctly, but he appeared offended, so I figured it had done the trick regardless.
And actually a really nice younger guy came and waited on us. My three friends didn't have a clue what to order. The hardly knew what anything on the menu was. Steaks, fish, ribs, and pasta, was not foreign to them, but “fettuccine,” “medium rare,” “full rack,” and “served in a light garlic sauce” certainly was. The waiter patiently explained everything to them, as they giggled and finally decided on a couple things that we would all share. We got dessert to share – some cheesecake, and some spumoni ice cream. They laughed and loved everything. It was great. We all tried a little of everyone else's choice, and enjoyed it all. I enjoyed every second. They hoarded the free mints that were brought us with the check, making sure only our waiter saw. Not that it really mattered. I left a twenty dollar tip, which I am sure is more than anyone else left that night.
The next day we drove to another part of the coast, away from Acapulco bay. It was a beach near some cliffs where the waves crashed way out and rolled way up onto the sand. It was out of a movie, or a Corona ad. The grass huts with wooden chairs that let you slouch, the water actually washing up to your feet and past your chair, only a half inch deep no matter how far behind you it kept going. Waiters made sure your coke was always full, pelicans swooped down to dive bomb fish swimming too close to the surface, and life was good. Life was great. There was hardly even anyone around. Maybe I could see 20 people within sight range. Some little children and their parents. Some teenagers with boogie boards. To our right were the cliffs, to our left the beach went down out onto a sand bar a good mile or two, where six or seven huge hotels sat down at the end. But no one was in them today. I sat there, letting the warm salt water wash my feet, bathed in a soft light coming off the water, a cold coke in my hand, my girl reading a book in the chair next to me. How could I screw this one up?
I grabbed Adalid's hand and pulled her out into the water. Even a dozen yards out, the water was only a foot deep. The waves were crashing maybe forty yards out, and it was still only above waist deep, maybe a little deeper, at that point. We ran, falling over in the sand, into the feet of water. I held her against me, as the water would come up quickly and spin us around. I pulled her out deeper. She complained and said she didn't want to go out any farther. I kept pulling her out, telling her not to be scared. She looked nervous but I told her to trust me. As we got out to where the waves were breaking, it felt a little deeper than I had anticipated. In fact, when the wave crashed it definitely went over your head. A wave came down on us just as she was looking at me, giving her a huge face full of water. She went under, coming up giving one of those sounds that come from the back of your throat that sound like a violent thrust of your gag reflex. I picked her up in my arms. Another broke on us, which pulled us under again, but this time the undertow pulled us out farther than the break line. The next swell came and crashed after us. I looked back at the beach only to see us much much farther towards the cliffs, and rocks, than we started. Actually I could watch us moving left to right with a rip tide that was moving very swiftly. Here is where she panics. She grabs onto my neck, and tries to use me to push herself up out of the water, like someone climbing a tree to get away from a bear. I tell her to calm down. I keep saying “tranquilo.” I just keep saying that. I can't think of any other word, or anything else I can do. We are moving out to sea, and towards the dangerous rocks to the side. I can keep us up, but I can't swim.
“OK. I gotta think.” I've got it. If she can grab my leg, and keep her head above the waves, I can possibly get us back. We are in a lot of trouble, but I think I spot an area I can get us to. But she has to grab onto my leg. I try to explain it but no words come out. OK. Gotta to understand.
“Touch my... no, I mean, take here.” This makes no sense. A hand grabs me and another one grabs her and puts her hands on a boogie board. Three kids who I hadn't seen are there and take her back in, as I swim my own sad butt back into shore.
Talk about being an idiot. All time biggest “showing off backfires” moves. One for the record books. “Idiot foreigner drowns girlfriend.” Awesome. I come in, where she is back on her wooden chair. I can't look at her. I sit down in mine and slouch more than usual. I don't say anything. I feel like throwing up. I want to run away. I want to beg for forgiveness. I want to cry and her to tell me its ok and I'm not a terrible boyfriend and I want to tell her I won't ever do anything that dumb again, even if I know I will (I'm a guy). I sit there for three or four minutes it painful silence. I feel something against my hand. It's hers.
“Let's go for a walk.” We do. We walk down the deserted beach down towards the large hotels in the distance. A couple on horses go trotting by. I try to beg for forgiveness but can't come up with the word. Apparently the groveling gets the point across and she tells me to shut up (I am just babbling) and why am I even worried. It was just a stupid mistake. An accident. We walk and talk, holding hands and chasing seagulls (or the Acapulcan “annoying, squawking bird” equivalent) and sand crabs that can flat out run. Much faster than me. And we collect shells. We find a sand dollar. I translate it to “a dollar of sand” which of course makes no sense regardless, much less if she has never seen one before and looks nothing like a dollar nor sand. No starfish but I sure would like to show her one. Oh well. We kiss there in the surf. It would be so much more romantic if I hadn't almost killed her a half hour ago.
I wake up sunburned the next day, and promptly get food poisoning that night, laying in bed for the remaining two days. We are supposed to go home but the van doesn't work and we have to stay another day. Adalid takes wonderful care of me, staying with me although there is much more interesting stuff to be doing. But I am just throwing up and wanting to be on the beach. Finally we pile into the van, which has no windows except for the two front ones, and of those two one doesn't work. It must be 95, with no AC, no air, seated on the only seat at the far back of a bumpy van, horribly sick. We drive home in misery.
But I suppose we only spent 20 bucks each to get there. For whatever reason, the hacienda gave us 50 for gas (I think this was a long standing promise that was finally being delivered) and we each pitched in 20 and somehow that paid for five days worth of food and one bottle of tequila the Felipe practically polished of by himself. I bought the one meal for the four of us, and actually also bought the meal that got me sick. So I probably dropped a little more than the others, but it was a solid deal. Two and half days sick did not overshadow two days of two and a half days of Heaven.

Chapter 9: Smoothness

After that, I knew that Adalid would put up with my bad Spanish. Perfect. So I asked her if she wanted to go see a movie. I had noticed that the second Harry Potter movie was playing at the theater in nearby Atlacomulco (although a few months later than when it came out in the states, I believe). I ask Norberto if I can use the van. I am extremely hesitant to ask favors, as every time someone does me a favor I end up blowing it in some way. He is nice enough to say yes, but he warns that one of the tires is low and in really bad shape. I take the warning and the keys and sprint up the hill to the van. I pop it in gear and head up to Las Rosas where Adalid is working. I really don’t want to make a big deal about it, so I figure I’ll just tell her they want to talk to her at the hacienda. That way the other girls won’t give her a hard time about anything. In fact, I know that at the hacienda Norberto and Israel, as well as most people there love the gossip about the fact that I am taking Adalid to a movie so much that they won’t have a problem with her leaving work a few minutes early. I don’t know if they love it so much because they want their nice Mexican girls to get married to American guys, or if they are just suckers for romance. But I have a suspicion they like gossip. That seems to be the trend – people just like stuff to happen so they can talk about it. People love tragedy and comedy and fights and affairs and soap operas because it’s a great conversation piece.
So we are in the car, heading for Atlaco. Affecting factors include: I have been there a couple times but am generally unfamiliar with the road itself, this is the second time behind a wheel in Mexico, the first not in Mexico City. Oh, and I have a cute girl with me. I have no idea what time the movies start, nor end, nor an idea how I am getting her home. I cut one guy off, driving a little faster than should be, getting a feel for driving aggressively and probably yes trying to show off a little. I get to San Felipe where I take the correct turn onto the highway and take the highway all the way past San Miguel and into Atlacomulco. Adalid is quiet but smiling and mentions some things about her brother being in Mexico City studying. I nod trying to follow it all. Not having anything to add, we continue in silence. I ask what movies she likes, and she says probably “Life is Beautiful” or “Forrest Gump.” Taking the huge circling road to the right, we arrive in maybe 20 minutes, leaning into the parking lot of the mini mall and get out. I am careful to lock the doors and remember the keys and lights off.
Inside she suggests buying some candy before we go in. We goof around finding absurd items here and there. I try to explain things I find funny, such as “Cossack” brand premixed vodka drinks, and the terrible English on the back of a chocolate made in Cuba. I mention that the English is probably like what my Spanish sounds like but in written form. She thinks it’s funny how I don’t take myself too serious. I think a lot of people she knows probably take themselves too seriously. But I know nothing.
We walk over to where the movie is playing, which we see is going to start in 5 minutes. Sweet. She sees a poster of Bad Boys II and swoons over Will Smith even though I assure her the movie will be crap. I tell her I actually met Will Smith and she grabs my arm as if I had just told her I won the lottery. I tell her am joking and she punches me.
“Do you come here a lot?”
“I used to when I had friends with cars. Not anymore.”
“What have you seen here?”
…Is what I would like to be asking her. Instead:
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?” Spanish 1 questions.
“Four. One older brother who is going to school at the University of Mexico City, one older sister who is studying to be a teacher at the college in San Felipe. I also have a younger brother who is at the high school and a younger sister who is in the middle school.”
“When did you graduate high school?”
“Two years ago.”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“Huh.”
She does thing where she straightens her skirt and pulls it down as if it’s riding too high. She has a jean skirt that goes just up to her kneecaps when she sits. We are on an ugly metal bench painted white. She has black boots that have a heel and close with a zipper up the side. They are only a few inches above her ankle, maybe to right about where her calf muscle starts. I don’t really like them actually but I don’t actually care. She has a jacket on over a sweater. It’s not like I’m looking, but I am pretty sure she doesn’t have a shirt on under the sweater. This strikes me as odd, although I am not sure why. I guess she wants to look skinny and so isn’t overdoing it with shirt, sweater and jacket. She looks straight ahead, smiling, but rarely at me. It doesn’t bother me in the least. In fact, I rather like the conservatism. It makes me believe that maybe she likes me for me and I can put away ideas of her being a gold digger or just trying to get a visa for the US or whatever. I wouldn’t think that of her, but it seems like a lot of girls down here are willing to go that road.
She undoes her pony tail, and then looks around like someone might be watching and puts it back up tighter, more comfortable. Maybe it’s reading into it too much, but it feels as if in little things like that she is opening up to me a little, letting me into her world. I know I cannot force my way in, I cannot talk my way in, I cannot slide in or caress my way in or impress my way in. I can just by myself because if I’m not she’ll see through me. I hope she likes who I am.
“Did you tell your mom you are going to a movie with an American boy?”
“Oh, no. No. No.” She shudders her shoulders and smiles guiltily. She tries out a fake conversation. “’Mama, I am going out with a boy to the movies…’ no no no.”
She is delicate. Firm, straight, smart, not weak, but delicate. If she does let me into her life, I will have to be careful. This seems to be a product of her family life, culture, and personality. My guess is that her conservatism comes from her family, which takes its cues from old traditions. It’s an educated guess, and I can’t imagine it’s not a true statement. Which is difficult, because when I look at the culture which includes social norms (not staying out too late and end up looking like a prostitute, not taking a taxi home by herself after dark, being polite to elders, etc), family relationships and ties (respect to all family members no matter how distant, absolute respect of parents’ wishes, etc), and general expectations (if you drink alcohol you are only drinking to get drunk, playing cards and pool are serious no-no’s, etc) it is sometimes easy to carelessly brush it off, assume that other people will conform to you. “Who cares what they think? I am going to do what I want and they can say whatever they want. They can just break out of that tradition silliness.” And these are just the things I have picked up so far. I am in her culture, and if she allows me to walk across the threshold, which I am not so sure she is going to, and at least not in the immediate future, she is going to look to me for support, answers, and guidance.
“Your eyes are nice.”
“Thanks.” Now its my turn to be nervous. She steals glances at me now and then.
“How come your eye brows are blonde but your hair is brown.”
“Grr. I don’t know.” Playfully.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you didn’t like it.”
“No, it’s just a lot of people make fun of me.” I want to insult her back just for fun, but I am not sure she might not take it the wrong way. Answering the previous question, “The same reason I have lots of hair on my body. God just made me that way.”
We go in the theater where the last movie is actually still playing, just finishing, on one of the two screens. We sit down and watch the last thirty seconds of some romantic comedy I never actually got the name of, the credits roll, and Harry Potter instantly starts. No previews, no ads, no intermission, just straight into it. And as the first words are uttered, I come to a terrible realization: the whole movie is going to be in Spanish. I have watched a couple movies that we rented at the hacienda, and they were always English with Spanish subtitles. On TV the movies are usually dubbed, but I just assumed it would in English. I think back to Taiwan where they explained that all kids movies were dubbed because how were kids going to read the subtitles when many couldn’t read at all? I hunker down and get ready for a rough two hours. The movie proceeds to make absolutely no sense whatsoever, and it finally ends after an exhaustive stretch of utter silliness. I am completely exhausted from translating for two straight hours coming at me like a freight train, a freight train that is just hitting me over and over and over again. She turns and asks if I liked it. I have nothing to say. I can’t even come up with an excuse except “I didn’t understand anything.” She says she didn’t understand anything either, which makes me feel better that maybe part of it was the plot and not just the lack of grasping the dialogue.
We get back in the van, everything in place, and it fires up ok. We see the time and she is nervous that she might not have a taxi home. So I go a little faster than I would like to. I get back on the highway heading out of Atlacomulco and try to get her to talk so she won’t worry about being late. As we reach the half way point into the village of San Miguel, I hit a huge pothole that I couldn’t see in the dark, going like 60 KPM. There is a loud bang and the van immediately pulls right. There is a large drainage ditch to our right but my arms lock onto the wheel and pull it up, trying to keep us alive. We dip forward and back as I hit the brakes, causing us to veer right again. I let it go right, finally, and we come to a stop in front of someone’s yard. I stop and breathe.
“Are you ok?” I ask. I have no idea what I am going to do now. I have never been to San Miguel before. I don’t know anyone. I can’t call anyone, I have never picked up a taxi or bus right off the road, and am generally terrified. She says she is fine, so we get out. I am jumpy. I don’t know what to do. I want to be a man and take care of everything, but I have to sit and let her get help. I have let her make the decision because I frankly have no ideas left. We wait as cars go past. A bus pulls up but waves us off and speeds past. We begin the walk towards the main intersection in town, figuring the chances of someone stopping would be better. I feel terrible. I am breaking all sorts of social rules already; I can’t help out, and I feel responsible. Finally a taxi stops and we get in. I breathe a huge sigh of relief (this all, taxis and buses and getting around, will become commonplace and simple later on. But the first time always seems the craziest) as we get moving back to San Felipe. In San Fe, I ask her what to do and she walks me over and gets me in a taxi heading towards the hacienda.
“Thanks, I can take it from here” I assure her, trying to rescue any sense of manliness I have left.
The taxi takes me right back to the hacienda where I go tell them what happened. They laugh and laugh and in the morning go get the van. It arrives in the early afternoon, to the delight of everyone except me. Felipe especially can’t let it go.
“How fast were you going? The tire looks like Cookie Monster took a huge bite out of it! Ha ha ha!” Ha ha ha.