Mexico 1987, Part 10: The Long Way Home

Dec 3
San Diego
This isn't Mexico. This bus is leaving on time, a bus much different than the bus I got off of about 48 hours ago. THAT bus was a Mexican bus. We got on with tickets that assigned us seats 11 and 12, but those seats were taken and the driver, not willing to honor our assignments, offered us 2 different, non-adjacent seats. I said no, we had to sit together. A 36-hour bus ride faced us and neither of us wanted to sleep on any strange Mexican shoulders. The only seats left together were 35 and 36, which I accepted blindly, having just been sent off from Andele's with 2 tequila slammers and not realizing those seats were right in front of the bathroom. It was the first time I hadn't gotten the seats I was assigned; usually they were fussy about keeping you in your proper space. But as long as we were together, I didn't care. Until, of course, we saw the seats. They reclined about an inch, no more, and the window seat was broken and slid forward and back with the jiggling motion of the bus.

Dec 11
North to Tijuana
We pulled out of the P.V. bus station at 8:40 pm., 40 minutes late. In the first few kilometers it became clear that the trip was to be horrific. It was impossible to sleep sitting bolt up right, with your head falling front, or to one side or another, and the stench from the toilet (which broke down shortly after we left the station) was sickening.

That's when Window Wars began. In the window seat in front of us was a father of 6, all sitting beside him and across the aisle. He was in charge of 2 of the bigger children and his wife across the aisle tried to keep the other 4, of varying size, in check. Tamar was at the window, which closed just beside the head of the father, so that he had control of it. As we drove out of town the window was open, but once we were on the highway one of the drivers asked everyone to shut the windows so they could turn on the air conditioning. With the windows closed, the smell of urine thickened around us and Tamar cracked the window again, just to get a small but steady stream of fresh, breathable air. Then, after a while, the father felt the draft and closed the window. Tamar waited a few minutes for him to nod off, then opened it again. This went on all night in about 15 minute intervals.

Four people got off in Mazatlan 8 hours later and I asked one of the bus drivers if we could change seats. There were seats available now, I explained, and since we were originally assigned seats 11 and 12, I thought it only fair that we be moved up now. But the driver was already giving our seats to older, bigger Mexican women and, he kindly explained to me, it wasn't possible to move us. I reminded him that 4 people had gotten off and I tried to impress upon him the inhumane conditions we had been forced into in those seats in the back of the bus. But he was not moving us and said we'd have to wait until Obregon to change seats, sometime the next day. This seemed less than reasonable but we had to accept it, under the circumstances. At least we'd get some sleep tomorrow. We just had to make it through tomorrow. Then we saw on the map that Obregon was nearly 3/4 of the way to Tijuana, a very dim light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

I was sitting by the window now; it was 6am and my turn to play Window Wars. I had my head pressed against the window to breathe in the skinny stream of air from the open crack. I had just begun to fall asleep when Tamar said, in a level yet forceful tone, "Goddamit. Monique, open the window." In my daze I hesitated, but she was adamant. Then I saw why. A pregnant woman, trying to make it quickly to the bathroom, had just thrown up on Tamar's chair. Tamar had just leaned up against the seat in front of her and was considering waking me up to switch when the wretch occurred. It was dripping down the back of her seat and had slightly wetted her shirt and skirt. She had to ride that way for at least another hour before we made a stop and were able to reach our bags.

Tired and angry, I approached the second driver at the next station, while Tamar changed clothes in the bathroom. I tried to calmly explain this new predicament and our more urgent need for new seats. He cleared the bus and sent a man to clean up the mess, and I thought he was going to rearrange us, putting single passengers together to make room for us, making it so no one had to have those miserable seats. But he intended no such thing. I had seen people retrieve their luggage and disembark and I again reiterated the problem, pointing to a very disheartened Tamar, stressing the fact that she had just changed clothes and we were not about to sit back in those dirty seats again. But the driver most graciously pointed out something I had not yet realized: This was not the United States, this was MEXICO!

Oh! Of course, that's why we have to suffer! I tried to smile because tears were roiling up into my throat and I didn't want to give the driver the satisfaction of seeing me cry. We retook seats 35 and 36, covering the pukey seat with a towel, staring blankly out at the Mexican desert rolling by. By noon, the sun got very hot by the window and Tamar moved to an empty window seat on the other side of the aisle. When the mother of 6 - who smacked her kids every time they so much as squirmed - saw that the seat beside me was vacant, she told the most hyperactive son to sit there. He had been playing on the floor and his white shirt and white pants and every other exposed part of his body were nearly black with bus filth. I didn't want him sitting next to me and I glared at him. That deterred him a little, and he grubbed a little more on the bus floor. But eventually, mother's glare won out and he slid onto the seat beside me.

Down the road a ways, immigration officials (we were told) pulled the bus over. We had to take all our baggage off the bus and they wanted to go through all of it. The night before, when they had stopped us, they had just asked to see our passports or identification cards. They took a guy and a woman traveling with him off the bus - who, we guessed, didn't have an ID - and we continued on without them. Now everyone stood out in the desert sun fanning themselves while the officers picked through our bags for guns or contraband.

Back on the bus, the driver decided it was time to try that old air conditioner again. Everyone closed their windows and waited for the rush of air that we so deserved on this first class bus. But it just got hotter, the stench from the bathroom thickening, and I could feel the bile rising in my stomach. Back to Window Wars. I leaned forward so I could inhale the air from the cracked window. The kid in the blackened white clothes was asleep in the seat beside me and, except for the nausea, it was somewhat peaceful.

Pretty soon, people started figuring out that this was Mexico and not the U.S. and that the air conditioner on this first class, air-conditioned bus didn't work and they opened the windows again. Then, of course, we came to another station. The first bus driver, now dubbed "Chuckles" by Tamar, came back to see what seats could be offered to new passengers and became slightly miffed when he saw the dirty boy asleep in the seat where Tamar should have and Tamar in the seat that should occupy someone else. He woke up the boy and put him back in one of the 4 seats (containing the family of 8) and asked Tamar to retake her assigned seat. I said, "What did it matter? That seat was vacant and clean and by a window." And he said, "Bueno, but that's the seats you'll keep." And I said, "Oh no, you said we'd be moved up in Obregon." And he sort of winced and screwed his face up and rolled his eyes and threw his hands upward as he pivoted back up the aisle. Tamar and I grinned at each other across the aisle - this was surely somewhat of a coup.

At about 4 a.m. we hit Obregon. After everyone was off the bus, it disappeared to get cleaned or filled with gas or something, and everyone stocked up on bus station food, which in Mexico is homemade food like tacos or tamales that a woman made in her kitchen and travel books say you shouldn't trust. The bus was gone for quite a while and, when we looked around, we didn't recognize anyone. I wondered aloud if Chuckles had gotten the last laugh and left us there. It wouldn't have surprised either one of us. It would even have been funny. Things were so bad by then, all you could do was laugh. But the bus reappeared and Tamar and I smiled at Chuckles and he finally smiled back. Then he disappeared with the seating assignment. Tamar said to his absent self: "Please don't give us new seats. We love our seats. We're just happy Americans in Mexico."

We boarded the bus and I looked at Chuckles for that long-awaited seat change, our release from hell. He had assigned us 15 and 16 - we were free!! As we took our seats across from the fat Mexican ladies who had taken our originally-assigned seats back in P.V., the closest one smiled and said, "So, you're always a winner." We still had about 15 hours to go and this was Mexico, not the U.S.

I just smiled back.

[Tamar just reminded me that, when we got to the border in Tijuana, we were pulled behind closed doors by men in white, short-sleeved shirts, badges and guns and asked to open our luggage. I had bought some tea for one of my friends back home who had recently developed ulcers - I was assured the tea would cure them, but it did look a lot like the shake of those days - and we had to explain what it was. After they pawed our stuff and sniffed my bag of tea, they eventually let us pass]

Mexico 1987, Part 9: Holiday! Celebrate!

Nov 29
Puerto Vallarta
Oh lord, how do I even start? We're leaving Puerto Vallarta (for the 2nd time) in 6 hours. A guy who's been bothering to play his guitar for us for the past week is here on the beach, trying to woo Tamar, singing - well, making up words to some song and strumming - to her. It's hard to keep from laughing. Oh good, he's gone.

This is a very long story, which starts on November 18 when I got to P.V. at 6:30 in the evening and Tamar was already here. We cleaned up and took off to find a good margarita, which brought us to Carlos O'Brian's. That rowdy place turned out to be our home away from home and provided us with unlimited men, booze, dancing, laughing . . . FUN!

The first guy we met was from Yugoslavia. He offered us stools at his table and said, "Mi casa es su casa," to which Tamar replied, "Mi cerveza es su cerveza!" That night is somewhat of a blur - it is still taking us a while to remember. One guy, Mr. Carmel, kissed my tattoo when I wasn't looking and got a swift reprimand from Tamar on the dos and donts of tattoos. I found a guy just perfect for Karin - tall, blond, mustache, muscular, showing off his chest with his shirt left unbuttoned to his navel. Mr. Chest, from Vancouver. He was a regular.

Somehow Tamar wound up sitting with two Germans who spoke very little English, but we were already a few sheets to the wind and not looking for conversation. I believe my guy was quite handsome - and kissed great! After Carlos O'Brian's kicked everyone out we somehow found our way to a disco - we didn't know the name of it for another 2 days of partying there - and danced until 4am when the place closes. But even after the bars close, the ocean is still open, and while Tamar and her German necked on the sand, my German and I went swimming!

[That's all I wrote about our stay. Madonna's "Holiday" and the Doors' "Roadhouse Blues," on rotation at Carlos O'Brian's, are songs that will forever remind me of those heady, carefree days on my first trip to P.V. We partied until dawn, slept 'til noon, then languished on the beach drinking fruity cocktails until sunset. We imbibed countless margaritas and queso fundido, and  made dozens of friends - both tourists and locals. In the market, where I thought bartering was expected, Tamar taught me that quibbling over a few dollars when our lives are so rich is not admirable. Thanks, gf, for that valuable lesson.]

Rolo, our favorite waiter under the
palapas on Playa de los Muertos

Tamar.
Both these photos are marked by
a flood that ruined all but a
few photos from that trip.

Mexico 1987, Part 8: Coffee & Cigarettes

Nov 15
Guadalajara
Spent most of the day daydreaming, the rest of it with Raoul Roquet and his friend Antonio de la Plata, a once-great Spanish tenor. We had lunch at his house; Aidee is sick with a bad flu. My daydreams were - are still - romantic ones. Reading an article in Harper's about detective stories, I recall what Roberto says about his smoking filterless cigarettes: "I smoke Lucky Strikes. Marlowe, Tom Waits and I smoke Lucky Strikes." Scorpios are so naturally poetic, so in tune and intertwined with romance, life as romance, as poetry, it is no wonder that I am so feverishly attracted to them, more than any other sign. Leo's are fiery, true, and the other water signs are romantic, but none can match wit and emotion with such intensity as a Scorpio. Ay, lassie, there are sharks in these waters. Those shark bite bruises on my thigh and shoulder serve as candid reminders.

That last night in Merida, when we celebrated our birthdays and our farewell under a full moon, I, in black, with sharp black eyeliner and all my witch jewelry; he, looking so handsome, freshly shaven but still you could see the dark shadow on that soft face. I gave him my big amethyst because he admired it so and we talked about other realities, that sometimes he thinks he's a bit crazy. His sharp criticisms of U.S. imperialism and his fervent devotion to the revolution, to communism, made me feel ashamed and a little stupid, naive. We ate salad and drank a bottle of wine and two daiquiris, then sat in the park, still talking, still necking. We could become brother and sister, if we lived in the same place, so easy it was for us to communicate, to relate and empathize. I'm not sure that we could survive long as lovers - his fullness of self would soon suffocate me. He is engaged, but the girl doesn't want to marry yet. I picture her with big, dark eyes and thick black hair to her waist. She is prettier than me, obviously. It's the hair. One day I'm going to buy a wig. Roberto gave me a list of suggested readings, even offering to send me the one he was sure I wouldn't be able to find. Communist writers, of course.

Werner was standing at a table full of people outside the bar on the lawn of the Hotel Maria Cristina when I walked up. I had called when I arrived at the bus depot, early, and woke him up, so he knew I was back in Mexico City. Unfortunately for me, his ex-wife and daughter were also expected later and the people at the table were mostly colleagues, partners from Germany, and he had no time to spend with me. He kissed me cordially, the polite German, on each cheek as greeting and delivered the sad news, but I could see in his eyes that he was a little sorry, too, for the bad timing. I sat inside the bar with a margarita, thankful that I had planned to only spend one night and therefore would not be waiting around, hoping to see  him. When he learned I was only there for the day he said, "I'll make time." But I know it was just wishful, lustful thinking. He said he'd finally received my letter - it took about 2 weeks - and in this throaty, grunting voice he said, only loud enough for me to hear, "Very sexual. I almost got a hard on." Which, of course, was my intention. He bought me 2 more margaritas and insisted I call him when I got back to my hotel room and give him the phone number so he could call if he was able to get away. I knew that wouldn't happen, what with his friends and family being there, demanding his presence, and I said so. "I don't want to want you," I said. "No, please, " he rasped. "I want to see you. It's beautiful making love to you." And with a kiss and a grin I was off into the street to find a taxi.

Imagine, after 3 margaritas and nothing to eat, I decided to get out and walk. I ate a steak in a semi-fancy restaurant and then set off in the direction I was told my hotel was in when it started to rain. But RAIN!! I stood in the doorway with a few other people, in the dark wetness, and asked which direction Allende street was in. Per usual, I was given 3 different directions. Finally an older man came along and escorted me to my doorstep, but not before offering to get us a hotel room for the night in which we could stay together. I declined.

I harbored only a faint glimmer of hope that Werner would call in the morning but didn't wait around, I had errands to run, shopping to do. I had so fantasized a sweaty reunion, but that will have to wait. Werner is not very affectionate. In fact, except for the kisses on the cheek and kiss on my bare (tanned!) shoulder, he didn't touch me again until a little kiss goodbye. With him, it seems, kissing is for making love. And one would have to be very comfortable with sitting alone or with finding others to talk to (although when I did that their attentions made him angry) because one would never be the center of attention, except during those raging moments of union - hours really, with him - and after that, his attention is lost on something else: the T.V. or a shower or his room service. After we made love I couldn't get too close. We lied with our legs intertwined, watching T.V. (the Twins game, actually, the World Series winning game) because, he cautioned, he'd get horny again. "Be careful or you may be very sorry." And he wasn't kidding!! Imagine, after 2 hours of fucking he'd still have energy and lust for another round, when my legs were cramped and I could no longer move my hands from the numbness. But we did it again! For 3 days it went on like this and I needed each night to recuperate from total fatigue and frazzle. I felt, at the end of 3 days, like I was on speed or at the butt of a 3-day acid trip, so much energy had been released, passed between us, and taken in. I felt like the end of a frayed wire, spitting and sparking with electricity. I wonder how a Mexican woman (his ex-wife) could handle that lack of affection? I couldn't, if I were in love with him.

I'll have someone like Roberto, who is always touching in one way or another: holding hands, a kiss on the neck or shoulder when you're both sitting quietly reading, not really paying attention to each other. Even at night when we slept, if he'd half awaken or if I moved and awakened him, he'd caress or kiss me. It made it a little hard to sleep at times but I felt wanted  - and what GREAT FEELING! Unfortunately, the love-making always left me wanting more, which is exactly the opposite of sex with Werner. It's as if they were each half of the whole man I want. Werner is rather successful, dressed with style and taste but not stiffness, lives in Mexico City half the year or more and Germany the rest. He speaks 4 languages (that I'm aware of) fluently, has a great thirst for bars and booze and the society of it all, and makes love with a vengeance. Ah, but he's not very attractive, too much a man's man and, although quite a gentleman, it's probably more out of chauvanism than out of true appreciation. Roberto, on the other hand, is attentive (but tends to focus back on himself too often), in support of women's liberation - so much so that his appreciation  for equality has left him dry of that old-fashioned charm called chivalry - and actually enjoyed spending time talking with me, hugging and kissing, or just reading quietly together. He was a good friend and companion, handsome and considerate, well-read, articulate, bi-lingual and shared many of my interests. And he's a Scorpio who loves to travel and meet new people. But his love-making, although it has passion, lacks the real zest I enjoy.

After more than a month of feeling self-conscious about my shoes, but refusing to toil up and down the streets in 3-inch heels like every other Mexican chick 12 years and older (I swear they are born in them), I broke down and bought not one but two pairs of "knock me down and fuck me" pumps, the kind with a closed toe and ankle straps. One pair in blue and one white. I'm wearing the white ones now and they're killing me, but I feel more like one of "them." My Spanish gets worse by the day so I need something to make me feel less alien. Guadalajara is shoe heaven - a shoe store at least every other doorway, some streets have nothing BUT - and I'm here for 5 days! There's something about a new pair of shoes, even if they are cruel shoes. Mexican women don't shave their legs; Brazilian women do, isn't that interesting?

The Roquets are playing in a club here and I would like to go see them but I can't find an escort. I need and escort, see, because they are playing in a whorehouse. Without an escort I would be assumed to be "at work."

I have a pretty cool hotel room in this place I'm staying at. It's an old building with ceilings that vault about twice as high as necessary. You first walk up a curved, marble staircase to the second floor, where there's an indoor patio with ferns and song birds in cages. My room is at the far side, across the large tiled floor. It's bigger than my place in Minneapolis (which isn't saying much) but with furniture: a big bed with great big mushy down pillows, an armoir, a dressing table and mirror, a huge bathroom and small terrace with huge wooden doors with shutters. I even have a small table and chairs and pictures that aren't Jesus holding his heart in his hand or the virgin smiling deftly down upon me, and a little vase with fake flowers in it.  Quite cozy - and hot water! All for 8,000 pesos a night, which doesn't include breakfast - no place here does like they did in Brazil, which is somewhat disappointing.

But, I found a place with REAL COFFEE, Cafe Madrid, just 2 blocks away: an espresso machine, steamed milk and all. Most places serve hot water and the big, family-sized jar of Nescafe or hot milk and the family-sized jar of Nescafe. This just about drove the Italian to tears. But the toast is the same flat white American variety as most other places, so tomorrow I'm having what looked like scones . . . I hope the taxi driver I invited doesn't show up so I can read my magazines in peace.

[I ran into Werner a few years later on a flight to Frankfurt. Roberto and I corresponded and met in Italy twice between 1988 and 1991. We are now Facebook friends]

Mexico 1987, Part 7: B's the Bus, the Bouncing Bus

Nov 8
Tulum
These jungle birds, with their wild noises and space cries - Star Wars in the morning - make for some pretty crazy dreams. Roberto got off at Valladolid 2 days ago, and I continued on to Tulum, Quintana Roo, to witness for myself the amazing BLOOOOness of the Caribbean and visit my first ruin. Not a stirring sight, until you climb up on the largest pyramid and look out over the sea. EXQUISITE! One has to double-take again and again to believe let alone describe it. Most of the tourists get off the bus at the ruins, then get back on when they're finished looking, probably heading back to Cancun. The rest, a sparse few, stay behind in the one small hotel we're in, or the cabanas on the beach, where I had intended to hang my hammock. There were 2 French girls on the bus with me, and since it was dark, we decided to take the last room - clean sheets and HOT WATER! - and avoid the mosquitoes and the cold morning ocean breezes. The feeling while on the beach is non-belief. You're sure you're going to wake up and find yourself back in some blizzard, scraping ice off your car. Lori says it snowed already.

The Frenchies turn out to be good companions - Natalie and Francoise - and are as enchanted with the paradisiacal (is that a word?) totally dream-like beach, so unbelievably post-card pure and virginal. The sand is nearly as white as paper, and the WATER! Transparent aqua marine to turquoise to azure, clear and clean to the white sand depths. One more day of heaven, then back ON THE BUS.

The buses are old, with windows that don't shut (or open!) all the way and at night the drafts are COLD!! The city buses are plastered with religious pictures, stickers on the window, the crucifix hanging in the front windshield next to the driver. The bus to Celestun had quite an impressive crucifix and I'm sure I felt safer. And there we were, the whole bus LOAD of people, pulling into a gas station to filler up! In the market you can buy and repair just about everything - there was actually a sign hanging in one of the stalls "reparacione de los santos!"  - reparation of saints! For surely they must get broken from unfulfilled wishes. Roberto says in Italy saints who don't grant requests are broken and thrown out.

Nov 11
Palenque
Back on the bus, in the dark, a pretty fancy bus, too, decked out like a sleezy night club. Red fur around the rear-view mirror, sort of looks like a toilet seat with the lid up. But what's really special are the holes cut out  in the shape of a cross in the black backing of the destination sign at the front of the bus!! Ooooo looks really neat when they turn out the inside lights, like Christmas!!

I'm leaving Palenque, Chiapas, in the pouring rain, weather nobody understands for this time of year. The ruins were FABULOUS, in a clearing in the middle of the jungle, with long skinny paths through the vines to who knows where? My legs were almost cramped from climbing so many steps. One should definitely see the ruins when one is young and in good shape . . . I'm already planning the itinerary for the next trip to Mexico. One can stay here a year and barely scratch the surface. Tomorrow, after 16 hours on this disco bus, I'll be in Mexico City again. There I want to see the museum of anthropology, which will be enough museum for this trip. I wish I'd read more history and paid attention in Anthropology 101. I have a lazy mind.

Roberto regretted his decision to go our separate ways and tried to catch up with me. I learned this in a letter I received from him about a month later, which contained this photo and a Lorca love poem that I only just disposed of in one of my purging fits.

Mexico 1987, Part 6: The Italian Job

Nov 1
Celestun
A bus ride from Vera Cruz to Campeche, through the night. There's cracks in the window frames like crazy and I freeze my butt off and can't sleep a wink, so that when we reach Campeche at around 8 or 9 a.m. I am too tired to deal with it. I retrieve my bag that has been deposited in baggage claim and back ON THE BUS. "On the bus," the analogy for life - you're either on the bus or off the bus. Sleep a little, very little. It's much warmer now. It doesn't take much time to get to Merida. What I really want is a cozy beach, not a city where people would stop to chat with the gringa on a street corner out of curiosity. There's a guy on the bus who's been watching me. He's not Mexican, I'm sure of that, maybe Brazilian or some dark European. Come to think of it, no Brazilians I know look like him! At the information counter at the bus terminal in Merida, he's looking for a cheap hotel, too. In Merida, the streets are numbered, not named. All of them. Why do I find this so confusing? There's a hotel with a price that appeals to both of us, Hotel San Jose, so we trudge off in the streets together, packs on our backs making us so obviously un-Mexican. I am so aware of looking like a stranger. I guess it has been an asset so far, but at the same time I feel self-conscious, maybe it's my need for acceptance. Check in at the hotel - pretty damn cheap, 7,000 pesos. We agree to meet back at the restaurant for lunch after a shower. He is Italian (I won't write his name since he's now lying beside me in the sand) and speaks very good Spanish but no English. Oh well, I speak pretty good Spanish but no Italian. We'll make out somehow  . . . and indeed we did.

After lunch, which included 2 beers a piece, we set out walking to check out the surroundings and after 10 minutes or so ended up in a bar. Far out! We already have something in common, we are both alcoholics! Turns out he's a Nov 17 Scorpio - another plus. AND, I found out last night, the same year. 1959!! Cool city. But these are just pluses. After we left the bar, 6 beers a piece later, we headed off in the city to find another bar, arms around each other, drunk, kissing on street corners. This is the most carinoso man I have ever met! I have been asking for him for years! Bloody YEARS! He fulfilled one of my greatest romantic fantasies, which is to sit on a park bench on a warm summer night under the palms, town's people strolling about, to sit and neck in public on a park bench, like young lovers, unashamed, like they do in these countries where the blood is hotter than chili. Everything about him is affection: his smiles, his kisses on the neck, inside the elbow, his caresses, his tender nibbles on the shoulder, his not-so-tender bites on my thigh! (a good-sized bruise that'll last about a month!)

Nov 3
So there's Roberto, in the hammock, reading "The Conquest of Mexico" by Cortez, in Italian, smoking a cigarette, constantly smoking, and actually LOOKS like he should be smoking. We have a day, maybe two, left together, before we each continue our personal trips. Today we took a boat to see the flamingos. Celestun is one of the few places on earth where there is a flock of flamingos, and a flocking lot of them at that! You have to go down this long lagoon to see them, jungle on either side. From far off you see this pink line stretching across the lagoon and you know what it is but you don't BELIEVE it. They are the silliest looking birds, especially when they take off, with those spindly legs. Quite a sight, and it really made me laugh. This trip has been thus far more than I had hoped for. I'm hoping it doesn't end here, that the high continues! Travel is such a delicious, sensuous drug and I am so enjoying this wonderous high!

Roberto shooting flamingos 

Mexico 1987, Part 5: Object of Interest

Oct 29
Vera Cruz

Besame,

Besame mucho

Como si fuera esta noche

La ultima vez

The song gets fairly romantic - and no wonder, Latins are sex crazed and repressed. Mexicans seem almost too friendly, friendlier than Brazilians but I hope I'm not generalizing. I sent a letter off to Werner, my sex-crazed fantasy:

This heat intensifies one's dreams, makes them touchable. At the beach, I put my feet in the water and it is soft and swells around my legs, as the sea breathes in and out and the warm fingers of the wind caress my face and neck, my body: we are making love. The crash of the waves and crash of your body on top of me, bones against bones, thrusting and swelling inside of me. Even the cool rush of tide cannot quell the fever that burns on the sand. Of many men, few have taken me to the edge of ecstasy and held me there for so long. I must feel you inside me again or this fever will make me crazy.

I'm sitting in the 3 o'clock sun - an American "loca" because it's pretty hot, yet here I sit. I'm getting on a bus tonight, bound for Campeche, where I'm told I might find some nice beaches to langour upon. It's been a fun 3 days in Vera Cruz. After I got off the train last Monday I walked up to the zocalo, where there's a beautiful plaza filled with shade trees and a fountain in the middle, and encircling it are cafes and people, many people gathering here night and day, from all around Mexico, from around the world. A port city, this is, my favorite kind. In the plaza the sounds of birds crooning and music - mariachis and marimbas - and people talking and laughing and the splattering of the fountain dance in the cool shade. The bands are always competing for airspace, for money - no sooner does one stop then another begins, sometimes 2 or 3 bands at once, each a different song, and voices and guitars and xylophones, drums, bells, trumpets resound off each other and up, out, over the square. This is the zocalo, called by the same name in cities throughout the country, the center of town.

I have yet to sit alone, you can't go out if you want to be left alone. That first night I got my drink and sat on a bench to watch the spectacle. I sat next to two chubby, unattractive women, thinking this way I could be left alone. Soon, they got up and left and two men sat beside me. They struck up a conversation, which is common around here, and we got to charlando (chatting). Jaime and Soltero. Soon we were in the bar drinking, laughing, singing, dancing. The next afternoon I sat alone to have lunch and fill out my postcards and was joined at my table by two Cubanos and a Czech. One of the Cubanos wanted to know if I was Cubana. I said no. Mexicana? No, Americana. Oh, he has family in Miami and wouldn't it be nice if I could meet them sometime? The Czech also wrote out his postcards and then had each of us sign them. Eventually they wandered off.

That night I was standing in the plaza waiting for Jaime and Soltero - we were going dancing - watching the marine band practicing for carnaval (samba dancers and drums practice each night for about and hour outside my hotel), when a man with a heine haircut came up and said "no es rockenroll" and I said "thank goodness." He was from Kansas City - Iowa, really, I found out later - and he told me about the culture here, what hotels the prostitutes hang out at, which bars stay open all night serving food, who the local characters are. He's been living here a few months a year for 6 years? How long did he say? Then I spotted my friends and they took me out to dance the salsa in an old club. We were there 'til after midnight, then back to the plaza, then to another place to have a bite to eat. I got in at 3:30 am.

Last night I was too beat to go out so I stayed in. But as I was walking toward the hotel in the late afternoon, I was stopped by 3 teenagers. They spotted me as an estanjera and wanted to know where I was from. I've figured out that it's the shoes. The flat shoes are a dead give-away. But 4-inch heels in this heat? Forget it! These boys wanted to exchange postcards, they collect them from tourists around the world. So we exchanged addresses. It started to rain so we moved inside the hotel lobby. They fired questions at me right and left about the usual - where was I from, did I come here alone, wasn't I afraid, was I married (I've taken to telling people I'm engaged, it seems to ward off any misguided attention) - and told me in between about themselves while they chided each other. They went from travel to sex to religion - one believing in god, Jesus, the virgin and all the saints, one who just believed in god, and one who didn't believe in anything - until I had to tell them I was tired and wanted to turn in. That was not well-taken, but oh well.

It gets tiring after a while. A guy just came up and asked in English with a Mexican accent, what was I doing? And I said, what does it look like I'm doing? And he said, writing something, but what? And I said, I'm just writing. As he sat down he said, I don't want to bother you, I'm just interested, and I said, I'm enjoying myself right now, thank you. And thank god he got the hint! I was annoyed and I know he meant no harm, he was truly interested. As I have said, Latins are not shy, they have little sense of personal space or privacy, but I've nearly had it for today. After a while you get to feel like just some article of interest, something to gawk at. I'm just tired today. This heat makes me sleepy.

Mexico 1987, Part 4: Dirty Old Train

Oct 26
Off in the the distance are 2 pyramids of Teotihuacan. We're headed east out of Mexico City on a dirty old train, moving slow. There's a dirty little bushy kitten falling asleep on the floor under the seat in front of me. It wouldn't eat my saltines. I never met a cat who didn't like saltines. It's just beginning to warm up from the chill of morning. I had to get out of bed at 6am with a fully sprawled, fully naked man beside me, in the deepest stages of sleep, no kisses would wake him. Now I will dream of him; I'll be hungry for months . . .

The universe has sent me lots of help, friends, so far. Clearly I am moving in the right direction. I need to refigure my budget. Even w/people having paid for various meals, I've been spendthrifty. Now the kitten is in the middle of the aisle, curled up, eyes drooping, head dropping into sleep, with people walking down the aisle stepping over it, it doesn't move, must've found a warm spot.

Now La Palma. Now Irolo. We stop at each one, it'll be hours before arriving the 250 or so kilometers to Vera Cruz. There's a young boy singing a campesino song at the top of his lungs. Werner was so cute when he came home last night, very drunk, someone had taken his shirt, a beautiful light and dark coral red vertical striped silk shirt, and he was wearing their cheap white cotton shirt with blue stripes. It probably wasn't a cheap shirt. He hangs with some affluent people. I think I'm gonna undo my bags and send a few articles back, loosen and lighten my load, then I can BUY more CLOTHES HERE!!

This train ride turned out to be fabulous, scenery-wise, and I'm no longer enervated by it, even though these fucking stops seem to keep us forever from our destination. I feel like I've been on speed for days, or acid. Hallucinogenic sex. It's getting hotter and more humid, the climate that causes one to dream mad dreams. We went through some high misty mountains that rose green around us, out of nowhere. Now we're in the jungle, having left the dry flats. The composer in me is already writing a letter to Werner and the images get hotter the farther I get. It's gonna make a fever rise in him that he won't be able to put out until he cools the fire inside me. There are few men that I fully enjoy sex with, without inhibition, timidity, mistrust, when the shell is broken and there stands a person, not proud - no ego, just the soul and body. This man, his flesh, his bones on top of me, thrusting inside of me, his hot breathed moans from deep inside, has pushed me to some ecstatic hallucinogenic planet where the mind and the body truly lose themselves in each other.

Mexico 1987, Part 3: You Can Leave Your Boots On

Oct 24, going on 6 a.m.

Well, isn't this interesting? I've not so recently woken up to one of those sleepless nights from all the excitement. I had a similar experience my first night on the NE coast of Brazil. Tonight is just a tad different circumstance, however.

I spent the day SHOPPING in the ritzy Zona Rosa - I only bought one black rayon mini skirt and one pair of way cool silver earrings of the stone faces. Anyway, my left knee has been giving me pain after work or walking a lot, so I got some "bar" clothes on and went to sit in the BAR and relax and find someone to talk to (or maybe subconsciously, to fuck), and have a couple margaritas. He was sitting on the only bar stool at the bar and offered it to me after the second margarita. The first thing he said to me was what was my tattoo. Turns out he's German, from Munich, and has been living at this hotel for about 11 years off and on, and he's in the export biz. Nice fellow, sort of handsome in a sort of German way, tallish (for me), slender, nice ass in cotton pants and cowboy boots, a particular weakness of mine. Eventually the bar is full of regulars, friends all of them, and I have gone off maggies and onto less face-reddening vodka tonics. After about 4(?) hours, I figure I should get something to eat, not having anything in my estomick since breakfast huevos rancheros. So Werner, a VERY German name, orders me a pepper steak to be sent to my room. He wasn't going to eat but would keep me company and watch the news. (Excuse me a moment - the tequila is not agreeing with me and I must get to the toilet!) . . .

(I'm back - those maggies sure gave me the shits!) He stretched out on my bed and turned on the TV as I ate and tried to get hold of my dad. I was feeling pretty randy by now and needed no further invitation, so I pushed aside the zen remains of my dinner and crawled across the bed and kissed him, straddling that oh so tempting pelvic triangle. And OH! MY MY MY!!! I had a suspicion that he would be good, "TASTY," after the other, younger German that slipped through my hands at the bar in Amsterdam. HE wound up chewing on a Dutch girl's ear on the dance floor, while I sat, trying not to be rude to the Norwegian, drooling out the side of my face! Maybe it's just a stereotype, but thank god it held true!!

NASTY MAN ooh la la!! We must've fucked for 2 or more hours, until my body was numb and I had lost all sense of dignity; he teased me and teased me and then LEFT to take a SHOWER in HIS ROOM!! And I should mention here that he NEVER took off his BOOTS!!! He said he'd call and come back later; I fell asleep but woke up with a premature hangover.

I should've guessed at the start that he'd have a woman here: I heard them arguing in the courtyard, mostly HIM calling her an ASSHOLE for getting upset about it. I just stood in the darkened window hoping this didn't mean he was sleeping with her tonight. What a bitch I am!

Tempest Tossed

I love you, Strawberry Daiquiri.

That's the text message I sent Thursday morning. You'd think I was texting a current lover. But no - this one I'm trying to get over.

The tempest of emotions can be suffocating. One minute I'm smiling, remembering the music, the laughter, the  dancing - fun we threw ourselves into with abandon. When I was with him, the stresses of my life - my impotent job search, the tedious daily grind, the moments of terror about the future - fell away. People were magnetized to us. He said that people didn't get us but they loved us; we made friends wherever we went. The time we spent together was an oasis. It was magical.

Then I remember the bad times. We had some of the worst fights and went through drama I didn't know was possible for me anymore.

With him, my basest nature came to the surface. Jealousy, suspicion, insecurity, neediness - emotions I haven't felt in decades. He also brought out my purest nature: unconditional love. I love his ability to live in the moment, his love-the-one-you're-with attitude, his restlessness, his resistance of the status quo, his sense of fairness, his bright colors, his blues. Whatever he thinks, he says. He is on the verge of becoming a man whose words and actions align with his values of honesty and integrity. He's not there yet - he can be judgmental, mean and self-serving. He is prone to making excuses and justify lies, white or otherwise. He was a handful, but I let him be him. Yet these characteristics often broke my heart, when those moments were not spent together and that person he was loving was not me.

I'm warmed by the memory of our last conversation, in which he copped to all the bullshit: the selfishness, the unresponsiveness, the lack of responsibility for this relationship he co-created, the admission (or excuse) that he doesn't have his shit together enough to participate in the kind of relationship I want. That conversation validated my faith and love for him as a human with great self-awareness and the vulnerability to express it. It also confirmed that I have to let him go.

At dawn, when I sent the text, I felt right to have ended the affair. I am in love with him and he, although he loves me like crazy, is not so in love as to place me above other concerns.

Three hours later I'm sick with longing to see him one more time, to have him lift me up to meet his lips, wrap my legs around his waist and bury my nose in his neck. I could cry right now from wanting him so much.

Mexico 1987, Part 2: Train I Ride

Oct 20

Zacatecas, MEX
So, here we all are, train wrecked, chatting with each other as people do in these situations, when they're stranded together. We left Juarez yesterday evening; I was put in a Pullman car with two young women traveling together, one older woman with a little baby boy who never uttered a sound, only smiles, and one woman alone, and right away the women started gabbing. I couldn't understand everything, just a word here or there, and one of the women, the older one traveling alone, spoke a little English, so I felt included, not that I particularly cared one way or the other - I had thought I was getting a private car. We rattled and snaked through the night; I didn't sleep too well because the temp dropped considerably and I didn't have enough clothes on. This morning they were up and talking by 8:00 at least, so I didn't stay in bed as long as I wanted. We had a fairly long stop around 9:00, and I met a Danish boy - 21 years old, antsy and cynical - with clear blue eyes and a taught body. We got to talking, waiting for the train to leave. His name is Loren, I think.

We stood and talked for a while outside, at the back of the train after it took off, then I went to study the Berlitz Spanish phrase book he loaned me and promptly fell asleep. I woke up to a guy selling soft drinks, beer and water, and I bought a water. A little later, I went to stand between our car - the last car - and the penultimate one. Standing outside like that is kinda like being on the back of a motor cycle, except you can't see where you're going. And if you stick your face out the side you risk dust in your eyes or sewage splashing your face from people flushing their toilets on the tracks. I counted the cars - 10 with the engine - as the mounds of bushes and cactus with dark red bulbs slid by. I was thinking about letter writing, which is near impossible while the train is moving, and about my mother, and thinking I might go get Loren to walk up to the engine car or see if we could get that far, when I was smashed against the back of the next to last car, the side of my head hitting first, then my entire body. Before I had time to recover, or even realize what was happening, I was slapped against the car again. The noise from the whole thing was enormous - a collision for sure. The wind was nearly knocked out of me and my head was pounding and ringing like a freshly struck bell.

Griselda, the other lone woman - by now my new buddy after breakfast together practicing our respective weak languages together -was standing on the platform on the other side and she, too, got whacked pretty good. We looked at each other in complete shock and confusion. The first question in one's mind is, that didn't just happen to us, did it? She kinda reminds me of my Tia, so I guess I have a special fondness for her. So, we all got out to look. Our train had had a head-on collision with another, longer train and derailed its engine. Our train remained on the track with barely a scratch, but the other one was on its side, with pieces of it strewn beside it.

Loren and I got a few pictures, that was around 6pm, and it's now past 10:30 and we're waiting for another train from Mexico City, sent special to come and rescue us. Griselda and Loren and I went into town and had dinner and watched a couple soap operas that were on the T.V. and peed in their relatively clean toilet. Even with knowledge of the fact, one is still shocked and repulsed by the first look at those gargantuan cockroaches!

Here is an excerpt from a letter to Sweeney's:

The Blue Wonder is holding up, though aging rapidly. It started slowing down by 5 mph every day after Kansas City and I thought it was because, the farther I went, the closer we were to parting company, and the Blue Wonder hates goodbyes. But after the oil change in Phoenix, it perked right up and sped back to an easy 80 mph. The police have managed to ignore us mostly, I guess, because of the illusion of decrepidness we create. One cop did stop me in Kansas, though. I was doin' 75 before he turned his lights on me. Just a routine vehicle inspection, he said, and I ought to have my exhaust checked. He also advised me to wear my seat belt while in Kansas . . .  so the wildish west is just the way it looks on TV: land, lots 'o land, $699.95 per acre, large white clouds, a shrub or tumbleweed here or there, and hundreds of big billboards advertising some roadside attraction for 40 miles! Bowlin's Teepee! Indian Jewelry! Chili Dogs and Milkshakes! Authentic Indian Design! Belgian Rugs! Velvet Mexican Paintings Made in the U.S.! 

I don't know how I resisted, but I rolled right past Bowlin's Teepee and Bowlin's Continental Divide and even Bowlin's Running Indian! It has been a fun and eventful trip thus far, and I am pleased to find that I'm not such bad company after all. I miss you all very much. The Twin's game last night almost made me cry from homesickness, so I didn't watch the whole thing . . . m73.

I sold the Blue Wonder in El Paso for $125 to a nice man named Tony of Jet Autos. I thought it would be a sad moment, but didn't even look back. I hope the Blue Spirit doesn't come back to haunt me.

[What I didn't include was that Tony not only bought the car, he let me sleep on his couch and he and his wife drove me to the train station the next morning] 

Oct 21
Just so you know what happened (I have to tell the story quickly because the train is starting to pull out and then I won't be able to write from all that juggling!). A train was sent. It arrived at about a quarter to 3:00 and we were back moving by 4am. I dreamed that Dudley Moore was staying at our place (restaurant? hotel?) and I was going to ask him to dinner. A couple of big dogs of ours started figuring out how to walk through closed doors, but needed to learn to take less of themselves with them because I had to open the last of three doors for them.

I'm in the Hotel La Marina, downtown Mexico City, with the built-in radio on. My feet are filthy from walking around the train. I spoke with my Tia's friends here. They are quite nice and I'm having lunch with them tomorrow. That pack of mine is pretty heavy and there's nothing but clothes in it! I hope I didn't make an unwise choice and buy a pack that's too heavy to start with. Too late to worry about that now, I guess.

Mexico 1987, Part 1: Mexico or Bust

[In the fall of 1987, I hit the road in St. Paul, driving to El Paso in my rusty, turquoise Honda Accord that farted black smoke when I started it each morning. Nobody thought the car would make it, but I had faith. From there I would board a train for Mexico City. I was 27. These are entries from my journal.]

Oct 9
Kansas city, MO.
I left Omaha this morning, after having spent 2 fun-filled days with Chris and DD. It's great havin' friends with guest rooms and even guest bathrooms! It's the trade-off for not traveling, tho! You live in comfort and work hard and stay in one place, or you travel and live in shit holes. But I'm gonna have both, eventually. I got invited by Pam Am to go train to be a flight attendant. I leave around Jan 4 for Miami, training through Feb 11. Then they decide on a base city - London, LA, SF, Wash D.C., New York or Miami. Yipeee!!

Now I'm watching Magnum in my own room in an antique bed w/ my own bathroom! Life is ruff. Tomorrow I have a very long drive ahead of me. I'd like to get as far as Amarillo, but I might only make it to OKC. I've got to get to Albuquerque by Sunday morning, so I can see the final race, which I'm hoping is a mass ascension (per usual). Please let me arrive on time!

Oct 10
Conway, Texas
Just barely made it in here - wouldn't your know it, just a AAA motel and cheap cafe and gas stations don't open 'till morning. Shit. I was all set to find some great place w/a huge hardwood dance floor and some shit kickin' music! Guess it's just me and the t.v., though. The shit's gonna have to wait.

I got some sort of leak in a gas line to the carburetor and stopped along the way in Okla.to have it looked at. The guy was real nice and neighborly - he fixed it and about 45 min or so later it was ready to go. I asked how much and he said what did I think was fair. I said I didn't know anything about fixing cars and he'd have to name a price. He was still hedging when he got a customer outside at the gas pump. I could see right then, as he closed the garage door behind me, with me inside, what it was he thought was a fair price. So I took my 5 bucks into the office where the customer was and I said did he think that was fair. He looked at it rather disappointed, asking me if I didn't think it was too much. I said no, and he said if I wasn't in such a hurry we could've figured something else out! I gave him a sidelong glance and got into my car. Next thing I knew there was another cowboy-looking guy along the road hitchhiking. I'd already seen him a couple times before, getting in or out of other cars, so I figured he was safe.

Oct 11
I arrived in ABQ around 12:30 after forcing myself out of bed w/a scotch hangover at 8:00am to make it to the balloon races. The descent into ABQ is incredibly suspenseful. I kept thinking that, any moment, just over the next ridge, Albuquerque would be spread out in the valley below me. But I kept winding around and down until I thought I was gonna burst! I searched the sky for balloons but none appeared. It took a time to find the field once I got down into the city, but as I drove up the last few chase trucks, with their flags flapping, were driving off.! The races were over! I started crying - all that anticipation and excitement had built up so big inside me - and drove off to find a phone. I wanted to cry to someone, but Terri wan't home, the bitch.

As I headed back toward the freeway I saw a van with some bunches of red chili peppers selling on a corner. I pulled over and dried my eyes and walked up to the people. They read my Cucaracha sweatshirt and one of the women said she'd lived in St. Paul for 6 1/2 years! They were warm and friendly to me, and I bought 2 bunches, one for Greg and Merlin and one for my mom. The biggest one is about 3 feet long! They are so beautiful, I hope when I get settled in a house I can send for some, since they gave me their card.

I felt pretty cheered up after that and I set off on the southward interstate, figuring I'd get halfway to Phoenix and then stay somewhere for the night before finishing the trip in the morning. I took a state highway, a thin, crooked, red line on the map, and it took me through the mountains and the plains of St. Augustine. It's sort of alpine up here. I'm stopped now at Springerville, at the Saphire Restaurant. It seems I can't find anything but bad American food!

Last night, after I set down my pencil, a man walked into the cafe, looking for gas. Both of the gas stations in town were closed and he wanted to find the owner. I said I was in the same predicament. He sat down and started chatting with me. His name was Willy and he had a motel in Amarillo and he wasn't about to spend the night in Conway! He had white hair and a face like Robert Culp and a yellow sweater and I thought he was an old queen by his mannerisms. We chatted a little more while one of the locals called the gas station owner that might still be found in town. Willy told me if we could get some gas he'd give me a room in HIS motel. I said that was great 'cause I really wanted to go dancing. He asked if I like country-western and I said "You bet." (my how-to-talk-Minnesotan lessons are paying off)(except that, after Oklahoma, I've developed a bit of a twang). Willy said he knew of a great place called the Caravan where the people could really dance that stuff. The station owner was not be had, so Willy called one of his employees and asked him to fill up a gas can and get his butt over there. We waited in his car getting acquainted for 2 hours and nobody showed! I had to pee so he drove me around to the side of the cafe so I could pee behind the building (It was a biting cold windy night and he didn't want me to have to walk too far).  As I was at it, he spotted someone in the gas station, so when I got back in the car we raced off down the road to plead for gas.We got both our tanks filled and he paid for both!Willy said "follow me!" So off we went at a trot to get to the bar in time for some drinks and dancing.

He was right. The Caravan was exactly what I had in mind. It was just like watching a movie! With the dancers promenading, each to their own steps, around in a circle on the dance floor. Willy and I became good friends in the short evening. It was just my luck that he wasn't a good dancer, but I wasn't really so impressed with any of the other guys, so I didn't mind. He's 54 - I guessed 50, so that made him happy - and living with a 29-year-old for 6 years. We talked about trust and honesty in relationships. He said I was pretty smart for my years. It's a nice compliment. I love to hear it, but I tend to just think people who say that are just not too smart; I sure don't know much.

Now, in this restaurant, all the single guys are looking around at the single girls to see if they're gonna have to really sleep alone tonight or not. The cowboy who ate with his hat on is leaving. I'm afraid to have eye contact with anyone. I'm too tired to talk. I just want to turn on the t.v. and fall asleep. I hope there's something good on.

Oct 12
Phoenix, AZ
This was in a letter I sent to Greg here in Phoenix last Sept 7:

Moving tends to hyper-sensitize me, make me more serious about life quests, progressions, transformations. I question my physical realness. Am I living on a crack between two worlds? Parallel worlds?

It's so good to be here with him, in his environment, his world. It's the first time since we were lovers in Olympia, when he lived in a chicken coop. That was a special domicile, and so is this.Coming into Phoenix on the highway was miserable. It bares a shocking and frightening resemblance to LA, the valley in particular. I brought he and Merlin the huge bunch of red peppers. They love them and they look beautiful hanging in their kitchen. And I gave Greg one of the owl feathers I redeemed from the dead owl on the highway yesterday. I took two, one for myself and one to give to a friend who wanted it. They told me that they had wanted to get a feather from a bird along the highway this weekend, but the driver wouldn't stop. I guess it's because the feather from me was coming. There are 2 or 3 little feathers attached to one of the big ones that I'm going to make into earrings.

Lilles, France 1987

[Journal entry, May 13, 1987. I met my father in France for a three-week trip to visit family and tour wine country. I flew from St. Paul into Amsterdam, then took a train to Lilles, a town about 30 minutes drive from my father's childhood home in Henin-Beaumont, where my grandmother "Mamie Yvonne" and my aunt "Tante Evelyne" lived. The conversations recounted here  actually were in French]

The Lotto Cafe. I came all this way and ate as my first meal a toasted ham and cheese on white bread. This day has been one of those nightmares I have.

I'm in another place, unknown, foreign. I try to call my family but I don't have the right currency. I drag my baggage along the street to find a bank. The first one won't exchange anything less than two thousand francs, but in my exhausted stupor I think my $20 t-cheque is too much. So I wheel my gear across the street and up a block. It takes a while before the teller gets off the phone with his brother, but I get my $50 cheque cashed (I've decided I don't want to go through this again soon) and ask for enough change to call Henin. He slides it all under the window and says, "You were born there, but there's no trace of an accent." "Thank you," I say, grateful he's just given me the strength to go on.

Back on the street. I've really got to maneuver this pile of baggage on the little geurney-type contraption  along these un-level streets and sidewalks. One too-bumpy stretch of cobble stone and the whole things tips over. So I walk slowly. There's a telephone across the street and I avoid getting shoveled up by a really loud tractor getting there. Put in the coins. I've no idea how much it will cost but I figure I'll just keep dropping it in if it asks me to. A woman answers. "Is this the Dubos house?" The phone goes dead. At the end of the cord I see it's a little mangled. I try again, holding the cord still, but same thing happens.

When I arrived at the airport in Amsterdam and tried to use the pay phone, the call wouldn't go through. And the airport personnel were barely helpful enough to get me to the right platform to catch my train for Lille. I didn’t get a wink of sleep on the train, of course, not just because the Dutch were gargling conversation all around me, but because there’s no announcement at any of the stops and I had to look for the sign with the name of the station at each stop. Nobody bothered to tell me that Antwerp, where I was to make my connection, was huge and at the end of a line.

So I’m just a little frustrated, but keep cool and pull myself and my bags further up the street to find another phone. Two blocks later and still no phone. A guy comes up and asks me if I know where the museum of Lille is. I laugh him off and continue up the boulevard. There’s a phone, but it’s occupied so I park my stuff and dig in my purse for more change. An old guy comes up on a bicycle and mentions how tied up the phones are. Then he makes a remark about how equipped I am, nodding at my bundles. The girl in the booth seems to be calling everyone she knows, but finally gives up the telephone. I chink in my coins and dial the number and the same woman as before answers.

Is this the Dubos house? “Non,” she says. “It’s not?” I read the number to her and she still says no.

“Is this Henin-Beaumont?”  “Oui.” “I’m trying to reach the Dubos house. This is number I have.” She doesn’t know any Dubos' and so I apologize and hang up.

Great. I don’t even know where I am, except standing on the corner with some old guy on a bike, tired and hungry and convincing myself that this is not the time to cry. I ask the old guy, who’s invited himself into my dilemma, if there isn’t a number to call for information. Yes, but he doesn’t know it. He suggests I look at the post office, which is further down the boulevard, he says. Wonderful. I get back in the phone booth and dial the number, altering it slightly, figuring I’ll get someone else in the same town. I do, a gruff man who shouts into the phone so I can’t understand him and I keep having to say, “Comment?” I ask him if he has a phone book that would give me the number of my family’s house. He says they don’t have the book and hangs up. Well, at least I know there is such a thing. The guy on the bike has left and I find that standing there on the corner staring off into the distance isn’t getting me anywhere. There’s a café on the next corner so I head for that.

A guy, who I later learned was Corsican, grabs the door for me when he sees me coming and yells, “Help! Au secour!” as I hoist my heap through the door. I ask him if there’s a number to call for information. He says, “certainly there is.” It’s 12 and all I need to do is call and ask for the name I’m trying to find. “Yep, that’s what I figured," I said, while he escorted me over to the phone. But when I pushed the 2 it wouldn’t connect. We dropped the coins in again and again, thinking the machine just wasn’t accepting enough money. It was a very bizarre plastic payphone with digital read-outs of money. The boss came over and tinkered with it. He couldn’t get it to work either. He emptied the coins from it, thinking maybe it too full, but that didn’t work either.

We’ve got the gang in on it now, standing around the little phone closet, offering suggestions as to why it doesn’t work. Finally, the owner pulls his own phone out from the cupboard, plugs it in, and offers me the use of it. At last, a normal phone. I get ahold of the operator after five minutes of muzak and ask for the number. She gives me the same number I already have. I say, “that can’t be, I’ve tried this number and it’s the wrong number.” She’s having a conversation with someone else in her office and foolishly I think it’s to solve my problem. Then she says to me, “Did you get your number? Okay, goodbye.”

I stand there with my hand on the phone after I’ve hung up and think, “What am I doing here?” The owner, a real sharp looking guy with grey hair and mustache, takes his phone back, rolls the cord around it and stashes it in the cupboard again. I’m sort of desperate now. I’m going to call the woman with the number I have and ask her to help. Hell, I’ve called her three times already, we’re practically friends. Back to the plastic payphone. I reach her (the phone must just not work for information), explain my problem, and ask does she have a phone book and could she please look up the number for my family’s house? Yes, she can, to get me off her back, she’s probably thinking. She’s got the book, she’s leafing through the pages . . . and click! The phone goes dead!

The digital read-out says “off.” I go back to the bar and bother the tender for more change, redial the number and apologize. She says she’s found the number and reads it, the same number, except the last number is different! “Ah,” I say, so that’s the mistake. I thank her very much, hang up, and call my grandmother’s house. A familiar voice answers – it’s my grandmother! She asks how I am and then puts my dad on the phone. I’m watching the money tick away as my father tries to figure out where I’m at. Then he gives me my aunt’s phone number at work in a nearby town. When I give her the name of the café, she doesn’t believe me, insisting that Lotto is a game, not the name of cafe. After going back and forth with her about this, I have the bar owner confirm my location. Now that she's convinced, she says to stay put and someone will come and get me.

A few hours later I’m sitting by the window with four old guys in mismatched suits and clashing ties (now I know why my dad has such bad taste in clothes), drinking beer and bullshitting, when my cousin finds me, and I have to tell the story all over again.

In the doorway of my grandma's house

Breaking Bad

"I don't give a damn about my bad reputation

I've never been afraid of any deviation"

I'm kind of a rebel.

I've always resented "the system" that expects one to live within the lines of social norm and I've intentionally worked against it throughout my life. When I was flying for Pan American, I thought it was unfair that married folks got to have their spouses fly free, while single folks' friends had to pay, so I got married just to share my flight benefits with a friend. I moved to Brazil because it seemed so foreign, I hitch-hiked and traveled alone and I've had sex on the first date, despite admonishments that none of those men would ever love me (many did, including my husband).

Of course I give a damn about my reputation, and I'm frequently hurt by others' judgments of me and my choices. But it doesn't affect my decisions. So when a boy 25 years my junior took a shine to me, after the initial shock of it, I thought, "What the hell?" and rolled with it. I knew from day one that it was crazy, that it would end in heartache, but I went all in. I let myself love him.

We got all kinds of reactions, none of them original. I was called a "cougar" by some friends, which I resent as sexist. People take for granted a younger woman with an older man but disdain the reverse. My girlfriends mostly accepted it as a lark and warned me not to take it too seriously. His male friends couldn't understand the attraction and he found himself having to defend our relationship again and again. It weighed on him, I know, because he brought it up weekly. And in the end, it was our demise, as expected.

And it hurts like hell. As expected. So why did I do it?

The context is important. I left an 18-year marriage to my closest friend - not to mention my beloved pets - and moved alone into a tiny studio six months before I met the boy. My job has become tedious and dissatisfying. I've been job searching, trying to make a career change for a year and half with very few nibbles. I've been picking up side jobs, like house cleaning, to make some extra money, because my current salary is barely enough to cover my expenses. I have a student loan hanging over my head that's gonna double in a few months. Although I have many great friends and get out dancing and carousing more often than ever before, I'm in a precarious, transitional period of my life without any assurances that it will work out alright.

I wanted something completely different from my last relationship. I wanted a break from my life. I was on the couch for 18 years; I needed to play and dance and try new stuff. I chanted him up, and there he was. I thought the Universe was throwing me a bone. I thought I was getting a do-over.

Never mind that there were so many red flags that should have made me run like hell. I tried, too, but I let him convince me he loved me and stuck it out for another go-round. Twice. I spent so much time feeling sad that he didn't act like a man in love, or anxious that he didn't or wouldn't call, that I lost 10 pounds in the three months we were together (we don't need to discuss the additional worry lines and bags under my eyes). I knew that, any day, he would reject me.

And in the end, he did.

I get it. The age difference was insurmountable. I just wish he had been braver and given me the courtesy of a conversation before declaring he would no longer be making love to me. Instead, he waited all night, dropped that piece of dreaded news like a turd on my pillow and promptly fell asleep, leaving me alone with the stench of it, gagging and feeling like a fool.

So why the fuck did I do it, knowing my heart would be shredded? 

I'm a relationship person. I long for connections with people and have dedicated my life to forging them. Even knowing that someone isn't a suitable mate, I will seek the experience and the connection with them anyway. Nobody can tell me who I can and can't love, damn it, I make my own rules! And there were ego and hormones involved. It feels good to be in love! It became a habit, thinking about him, being with him - even the anxiety is like a drug I'm still trying to kick.

I can't say I regret any of it, though. I'd do it all again. In fact, I just got a 3-month subscription to match.com. 

Astrology Reading, 1983

[From my journal dated December 28, 1983. I was 24, living in San Francisco.]

I had my horoscope done a few weeks ago by a guy with hair down to his waist and matching beard. His name is Raymond and I can't wait to see him again. We talked for an hour about me, mostly stuff I know but needed clarifying. He said in the next two years I'll learn to accept my power and success AND money, and that my creative energies will be much stronger.

Up until spring '84, I'll be working through old energies, pics of who I was and what others see me as, getting my own values straight, and becoming who I am now, as opposed to who I was, i.e. student, writer, subservient daughter. Also, he said my relationships are "Hollywood romantic" now, but its helping me to trust my instincts. I see that it won't work to my ultimate fulfillment but go on for the experience. It will pass, though, he said, and I'll learn to recognize true love from romantic pleasure/pain. He said I have a very strong  Saturn, which makes me a tenacious person - the child wants things now; the adult hangs on too long. I have to realize completion without resolution. My childlike emotionalism will hang on my whole life. The struggle between my child and my serious person will become more of a compromise. Life will get easier. "Not easy but easier." He said I like weird and strange people, that I have close friends as opposed to acquaintances, and if there's anything I or anyone else says I can't do, I'll do it, because I can't stand limitations.

Me and Zooey in SF, a year later

Molly's Room

[From my journal, dated June 4, 1980. I was 20, Molly was 21. This was Molly's room in the house she shared with her dad, whom we called "King" (short for "King of All Fathers"). The house, which backed up to the arboretum in Seattle, was called "Baird's Home for Wayward Girls" because there were always a few of us flopping or living there]

I'm sitting on a double unmade bed in the middle of Molly's room; my back is pressed against the western wall, one of the four walls in Molly's geometrically square room. Balancing on my left little toe is a black push-button desk phone (which rings consistently by 9:00am every morning) swaddled in Molly's orange quilt like a shivering kitten. Besides myself and the phone, the bed is adorned with a stuffed blue worm named Hug'em, Molly's white overalls, a lavender sweater and her night shirt. On either side of the bed, like mismatched gargoyles marking the pathway to a crumbling castle, are night tables, one white wicker, the other a box tiled with mirrors.

Moving clockwise around the room, on the mirrored table have been left and forgotten: a stuffed miniature octopus with the expression a boy might have when peeping up a girl's dress for the first time, an invitation to a baby shower that happened 2 months ago, 3 baby-poop green candles - two of which have dripped like diarrhea down a side of the table, 2 tubes of Ortho-Gynol contraceptive jelly, 5 pennies, 3 bobby pins, a Longacres occupational permit, a box marked "My Offering" filled with envelopes, supposedly for her offerings, a yellow tray on which sits an adobe tea pot, a jar of honey, a honey jar lid, an ash tray overflowing with butts and one crisp joint (not yet smoked), a package of Wrigley spearmint gum wrappers  sans gum, a used snot rag, a spoon, a glass mug half empty of tea (last night there were also three other mugs, two in which microscopic cultures were growing. Molly said, "let 'em grow, maybe they'll get up and walk away." They must have done just that because they're gone).

Strewn about the floor are damp towels (possibly from last month), a lavender belt, 2 back issues of Cosmopolitan, a box of Kleenex, a marked-up Longacres racing program, a book by John Irving called "The Water Method Man," a Bell System Yellow Pages directory so big it should have carrying handles, a Longacres visor, a sea-green angora sweater, a picture of Molly and several other race track aficionados in the winner's circle, an acting paper she wrote last August, a six-inch bottle of Nivea skin oil, a pair of scrunched up nylons, a pair of coolie shoes, an electric blanket control device, an empty box of Chlor-Trimeton allergy tablets, a used band-aid and a hanger from the cleaners. That's to the direct left of the bed.

Against the north wall is a television stand upon which reside: a broken television, stationery, old magazines, an empty bottle of Valpolicella, a book about rhinoceroses, a small-scale replica of an Asian elephant, an empty honey jar and, on the wall, hangs a bizarre pseudo-primitive burlap hanging with pictures of deformed birds and lizards and a poster of the inside group portrait of Heart's "Dog and Butterfly" L.P. Between the T.V. stand and the north-eastern corner, but not against the wall, is a black chest which serves as a combination T.V. and clock-radio stand. The T.V (this one works) serves as a combination butter-knife and brown felt dress hat stand. Behind them, on the floor, is a never-been-used-but-often-fondled Yamaha CR-820 receiver, which in turn serves as a resting place for a brown paper bag with an old brass tea kettle in it.

In the N.E. corner leans an antique-ish love seat with tassels dangling from its bottom. On this chair is lounging a life-size Raggedy Anne doll and draped over her are a magenta skirt, a blue-print sundress, a pair of purple corduroy baggy pants with bleach stains, a Ziplock bag holding 2 cotton balls and 4 q-tips, a wool scarf and a comb. Above Raggedy Anne's head on the wall hangs a W.S.U. cushion used at football games to keep one's buns from numbing.

Now, moving to the center of the room, facing east, we find the area of densest mass. Taking up the better part of the eastern wall is a window which, in abnormal circumstances, lets in the sunrise and greenery that surrounds the house en masse, but it's always covered by a tan sheet which hangs in a rectangle over most of the window. On the window sill rests a photograph of a pair of time-battered sneakers, a bunch of cord, books whose titles range from "The Forest People" to "Rubyfruit Jungle," and a red paper bag containing paper. Tacked to the right upper corner of the window frame is a program guide for the Harvard Exit Theater. Near the window but not quite against it is a lime sherbet green desk with brass handles, and on that desk is: a pile of bills, a bottle of Elmer's rubber cement, sunglasses, a see-through plastic belt, a doo-dah pin [the Longacres ditty at the time, think "Camptown Races"], a French grammar workbook, "Fool's Die," by Mario Puzo, a folded-up coat, hat or towel rack, a curling iron, an ash tray sprinkled with ashes and 2 half-smoked cigarettes, a shoe, a notebook, a psychedelic paper stage for "Sleeping Beauty," a pencil with a broken lead, a social security card, a box of spark plugs, a match book from Hector's, a huge greeting card from Molly's sister to her mother for last year's birthday, a chaotic checkbook, a flat desk calendar and a flier telling about a brown bag lecture series in ethnic studies. I dare not venture inside the desk.

With the desk goes a wrought-iron chair acting as a clothes hanger for a grey dry-clean-only skirt, a pair of black velvet pants, a turquoise silk Gloria Vanderbilt sweater and a sheepskin jacket. Between the bed and the desk, on the floor, are random, undefined piled of clothes, some clean, some dirty (Molly says she knows which are which), more towels, a package of hosery, a pair of sandals, the lids of two big cooking pots - both yellow, saddle shoes, stationary embossed with "kisses 'n hugs," a plastic, empty, yellow shopping bag, a racing form, an open suitcase left with only a pair of purple pants from a recent trip to California, a brown plastic garbage bag overflowing with garbage, more shoes, panties, bobby socks, a black Danskin, a matchbook from Hector's, a book on medieval cookery entitled, "Fabulous Feasts," a box filled with cooking utensils brought back from Pullman in the summer of '79 and an empty Bon Marche bag.

On the right of the desk is a wooden chair with a wicker back and a fraying wicker bottom, providing a deep hole, like a toilet, for one to sit in - that is, if you'd dare to. On the chair is: a back issue of Cosmopolitan almost sliding through the bottom and antler's growing from the back of the chair. In the southeastern corner of Molly's room is a closed suitcase, a hamper bag full of unwanted clothes and a script for "Play it Again Sam."

On the south wall, near the corner, is a poster of the album cover from "The Stranger," by Billy Joel. Beneath that is a wooden chest of drawers where numerous articles have been discarded: a shoe box containing old cards and receipts, a puny tube of Colgate, an empty bottle of Chanel Cristalle spray fragrance, lipstick, a dime and a nickel, a used Kleenex, an invitation to some extravaganza in California from Molly's grandma, an empty 8oz. can of Tab (with cigarette butts in the bottom, no doubt), an unused container of Johnson's baby oil, a much-used container of Johnson's baby powder, a tube of cuticle remover, a bottle of Sweeta concentrated sweetener, a box containing a broken string of pearls, an earring, some tacks, junk mail, jewelry, a tampon (fortunately unused), a can of Off insect repellent, a bottle of Aramis spray cologne, a wooden dresser drawer knob, hair clips and 3 bottles of finger nail polish.

To the right of the dresser, just before the door, is a plastic milk crate filled with sweaters of assorted colors. Past the door and between the closet door on the southern wall on the floor (you're not gonna believe this), among the scattered clothes (some of them mine), are 2 open suitcases half unpacked with clothes from Molly's week-long drunk in Pullman 3 weeks ago, another towel (orange), an empty paper Nordstrom's bag, a make-up bag upon which is written in seeming children's crayon "molly molly molly (etc)," a pair of leather driving gloves, another Longacres racing form, heels, flannel blue and red and white vertical-striped p.j.s, a pillow tossed probably in the middle of a restless night, a rolled-up bag with a psychedelic patchwork print keeping manicure set and precious keepsake rings and necklaces, more shoes, an unopened package of purple thread, a sexy support bra, a pair of knit-looking nylons and a scrumpled dry cleaners bag.

To the immediate right of me, on the lacy wicker nightstand is: a Sucrets box, a broken pencil, a safety pin, a Cars and a Steven Stills and a John Klemmer tape collecting dust there since January. Part of the west wall consists of a door, on my right, which blocks the exit to the roof of the carport. And completing the end of this unkempt square, to the left of the bed and above the mirrored night stand is a window - both door and window always discouraging daylight with their stuck-up, turned up Venetian blinds.

The walls that I have up to now been exploiting for directional purposes are remarkably, purely white. From the spotless ceiling, above the top corner of the open door, dangles a Shell no-pest strip that is beyond its days of zapping pests but blends in nicely with the atmosphere of the room. Molly's room reeks of that "lived in" quality I love so much.

Of course, the portrait of Molly's room wouldn't be complete without Molly. Oh, and here she is, breathing dreams and stardust à côté de moi, and I think I'll join her (why, are you coming apart?)

(Camera fades back with a wide-angle shot of the room as author puts book and pencil next to a pineapple-print blouse on the floor and turns out the light).

Vestiges & Keepsakes

It's the wee hours on a clear, crisp night, about 17 degrees. The sky is black enough - even in Uptown - to see Orion and his neighbors tonight. I just got back from dancing at a club I hadn't been to before, the Paraiso Lounge. The band was the one that plays at Famous Dave's on Tuesdays, and I recognized a few regulars in the crowd.

I've been dancing a lot since I moved out, sometimes several times a week but about once a week on average. Busted some major moves on Monday night, New Year's Eve, to some great 70s soul - Earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder, Boz Scaggs, Michael Jackson, Tower of Power - you get the drift. So fun because I was with a couple friends who could keep up. The sleeper was Larry, dirty dancer extraordinaire. Who knew?

Tonight's Friday, and although I was tired from a long week of partying, I hate to waste a weekend night. I stopped at Flo and Bonnie's, who were not ready to retire the holidays and hosting a few folks for
after-sunset cocktails, then came home for a quick nap before freshening up, pulling on a a black velvet jacket and black and pink lace leggings and boots and heading down Lake to the club. Latin dancing requires a little machismo to deflect the rejections. I don't think it's polite to turn down an offer to dance, even if you suspect the person asking isn't a good dancer. But Hispanic men have no qualms about begging off when you ask them to dance. They no wanna salsa with no gringa who probably can't move her hips to the ritmo. It takes a second to shake it off - I'm not made of steel - and try another option.

Tonight I stood and watched while I sipped my drink through the first several songs, noting all the voluptuous big booties already writhing on the floor. Lots of the girls dress is tight, short dresses, exposing as much skin as is legal. They are mostly Latina, gorgeous, curvaceous, mounds of cleavage shimmying beneath the leering eyes of their partners. It's a little intimidating. I dressed like that when I was their age, but I don't believe in reducing myself to a mere object of desire anymore. I do sexy, I just can't do naked, not for any man, unless he's that naked, too.

A man with a thick mustache asked me to dance. He looked like Edward Almos, wearing a dark fedora, red guayabera, white pants and shoes. His salsa was slow and not very creative, but it was a good warm-up, built up my confidence to take a turn around the room and pick out other partners.

I took some great turns with several decent dancers through a couple sets, then asked Senor Almos to dance again. - a slight miscalculation. I had forgotten he was a slow dancer, and this time he just pressed me against himself and swayed back and forth. It's not unusual to dance close, do a little grinding. But this time, there it was, a big limp dick hanging down the left side of his leg, rubbing against my right leg. I backed off as much as I could while remaining in his embrace. When the dance was done he didn't even look at me as I walked off in disgust.

That need to remain polite in the face of such crudeness is a vestige of my girlhood. I am usually my bravest protector, but sometimes I choose not to fight the battle. It's what I did for much of my early sexual years, just go with the flow, love the one you're with and all that. It probably got me into a little hot water at times, but through so many experiences, things never got really dangerous. Even during the years I was hitchhiking, I'd get picked up mostly by men and, although there was always a special request (which was never granted), things never got scary, I was always able to charm my way out of it. I've also never it let it offend me when someone makes unwanted or relentless sexual advances. I usually consider it a compliment.

But these days I'm much more direct with my intentions, letting the guy know in no uncertain terms my level of interest. I'm no angel, as Greg Allman once sang, I'm no stranger to the dark. But I'm trying to be honest, even though I don't always attain perfection.

The Long Reach

I found this quote at the beginning of one of my journals from 1979, attributed to George Duke.

“Life is one long reach for self and relationship.”

I chose love and relationships as guides along my life path when I was 20; I have been faithful to that reach these 33 years. I’ve formed every genre of relationship with all manner of folk: BFFs; friends I occasionally have sex with; friends I never want to have sex with but with whom I am just as honest (maybe more so). Some strangers I've had sex with knowing we will never be friends; some lovers I know, once the romance has passed, will be touchstones throughout my life. Most of the people I meet I will never see again, but we share small truths  - at a party, next to each other at the bar, in line for the restroom – as if it matters.

Not a few of these are soul mates, whether we cross paths many times or only once. We attract each other to learn something, to see ourselves reflected in each other, to be reminded of an insight that has been doused and needs a spark to reignite. Some I can love and release, drifting happily into their orbit now and again. With others, I'm powerless against the gravitational pull of their company, acceptance, affection.

Lying in bed with my pets curled next to me on either side, it occurs to me that their personality types make good analogies for me and my newest relationship - or my Accidental Divine Spark, as I prefer to call him.

He’s the cat. One minute he’s sweet and soft, rubbing up against me, purring in my ear, kissing me, nudging my chin. The next he’s biting me a bit too rough, pushing me away with his back feet while he’s grabbing for me with his front claws. Then he’s elusive, ignoring me, my existence forgotten. When he catches sight of me again, he’ll saunter over for a scratch on the belly, meowing, “Oh yeah. I remember you. You’re that girl I like who treats me so nice." When I call him to me, he'll flick his tail and sprawl out on the floor, just out of reach, eyeing me with detachment. Shrug him off, and here he comes, installing himself across my chest and nuzzling so close I get hair in my mouth.

I’m the dog. The dog never wants to leave my side. If I suggest we go out for a walk, he will lazily roll over, indicating he’d rather just lie there in the warm sphere of my attention. He will gladly gaze lovingly into my eyes for hours, or lie in the crook of my arm in an altered state of euphoria, occasionally stealing a kiss if I turn my head his way. The dog is greedy and selfish with my affection, nudging my hand to keep me stroking him and chasing away his brother (the cat) if he dares come near. He is incapable of deceit, unable to conceal his joy at our reunion after any time apart. When I try to shoo the dog out the door to do his business, he looks forlornly over his shoulder at me several times before resigning himself to his obligations. When I call, he’s back in my arms in a heartbeat.