Columbia

The place is an armed camp. Gates and guards and barbed wire and lookout towers. Up a narrow windy road with hidden traps and fold-up bridges across several streams. On the way up, bouncing around in the passenger seat while the three thugs squeezed like overgrown children in the back seat.

"Enough for an army of women," I say. “All that Avon.” I'm trying to get a laugh out of him.

"An army," Omar says. He isn't necessarily agreeing with me, more like he's testing out the sound of it.

"Yes," Omar says, "That's almost right, my friend. But the most beautiful and deadly army in the world. Knock you dead without any weapons, yes?"

The thugs in the back snicker goonfully. Like movie goons. Like stereotype goons.

"You will see, my friend," Omar says, "that this army of women, well, perhaps a platoon at most? They are quite good at following orders."

"They have learned," Omar says, "that not cooperating is not conducive, you know?"

We pull up in front of the house, and even as we are jolting to a stop the front screen door bangs open and a young woman, all legs and hair runs down the steps to greet the driver.

"Omar, Omar!" she yells, but I am distracted by the house. The structure. Whatever it is. Had been. Is becoming.

Start with had been. It had been a large white plantation home in the Georgian style, with fluted columns fronting a wide low porch. Two story, with a widow's walk and a low-ceilinged attic. Tall windows had looked out over a gently sloping lawn.

Now, Is becoming. Is now becoming inundated, overtaken, crowded on all sides to the point of exhaustion by rude additions of raw wood, peeling plyboard, canvas lean-tos and sheet metal sheer walls. A log watchtower rises from a back corner of the heap, with a rude ladder up to the platform. Barbed wire is strung along the edges, cruel party streamers. But the barbed wire isn't strung like the US Army or Marines would string barbed wire. The barbed wire is strung like by someone with the attention span of an avocado. Orange extension cords hang out of upper story windows in the central house and into spaces between panels on the cancerous growth on the outside. Underwear hangs on clothes lines between the columns, and someone has started to paint the front of the house a fluorescent green, but has given up or run out of paint. A collection of old cars and trucks, mostly '60s beaters from GM, Ford and Chrysler, stand in various stages of heapdom around the yard. An aluminum Boston Whaler lies belly deep in grass on top of what might be a shattered wooden boat trailer. Someone has started to paint the Boston Whaler the same green. The final, perhaps crowning touch is the school bus that has been partially built into the mass of stuff on the left side of the house. It still looks like it might be able to run, though its windshield is caked with dirt. A black lace bra hangs from the antenna.

While I am staring at the house, trying to climb out of the Bronco and stare at the house at the same time, everyone else is getting out of the Bronco and slamming doors and there are women coming out of the house, so many women.

The first woman, the young one with all the legs and hair, opens the back of the Bronco and starts rustling with the bags. Two other women come down the steps together, their hair is black and curly around their shoulders. Three more women stay up on the porch.

"This is my army," Omar says, "My platoon!"

Omar spreads his arms out and turns, pointing his smile at all the women.

"Who is that?" One woman says. She is standing at the center of stairs. Her hair is thick black, pulled back from her face hair. Her head seems fuzzy from all the short curly pieces that won't stay pulled back. Her skin is brown smooth evenly shaded skin. Her eyes are squinted almost shut eyes, eyebrows pulled down over them almost touching in the center. Her lips are full and generous lips, now pulled tight. She holds her arms crossed in front of her, standing back on one leg, the other leg in front, foot turned out. She wears a white tee shirt, a red embroidered skirt to mid calf, and black ballet slippers.

"This is Maria," Omar says to me, quiet, "She runs the place."

"Maria!" Omar says, loud so she can hear, "This is our guest for a few days."

"Everyone," Omar says, "This is our guest, who is not a drug agent!"

Omar tells everyone my name. Most of the women are more interested in the Avon. Most of the men are more interested in the women. Omar puts his hand on my arm and leans close.

"That one," Omar points to the young one with the legs and hair, "That is DiDi. She is young and impetuous, but great legs, no?"

DiDi's hair is short, brown, curving around her face hair. Her body is a high-waisted body, her legs are long, slender legs. DiDi wears cut off jeans that show her butt cheeks and a string bikini top. When she goes by us, she waves her hand without looking.

"Hola!" DiDi says. She keeps on walking back to the house.

"Those two," Omar says, "They are SimoneandSigrid. SiSi. They are always together. Always!"
Omar digs his elbow into my ribs.

SiSi look alike. SiSi are the pair with the black curly hair around their shoulders. SiSi are joined at the shoulder and hip. SiSi look in their bag, SiSi look at each other. One says something too low for the rest of us to hear. The other laughs. SiSi look in their bag and smile.
SiSi walk past Omar and me. SiSi don't say anything, don't look at me or Omar. SiSi go onto the porch and sit in a porch swing.

"¡Tanya!" Omar says. Tanya looks up from her bag. Tanya is blond, so blond. Tanya's hair is white, cut in long bangs over her eyes and curving softly into her shoulders hair. Tanya's eyes are blue, lined with black eyeliner and green shadow eyes and her lashes are black Avon lashes. Tanya's lips are pouty lips. They pout when she smiles, they pout when she frowns, they pout especially when she pouts.

Tanya's face is blank like white paper. Tanya's eyes look at everything the same.

"Say hello to our guest," Omar says to Tanya.

Tanya smiles a blank smile, through pouty lips.

"Hi!" Tanya says. She looks at me.

"Hello," I say.

"Uh-huh," Tanya says. Tanya stands her weight on one foot and sways her upper body back and forth. Tanya's other foot slides toward the house. Tanya holds her bag in one hand. Tanya'a eyes go from mine to Omar's and back to mine and then down to her Avon bag. Tanya catches her pouty lower lip in her upper teeth.

"Tanya is from Fresno," Omar says, "Is that not so, Tanya?"

"Yeah," Tanya says, "You from the states?"

"Portland," I say, "Oregon."

"Oh yah," Tanya says, "I heard of that."

Tanya nods and smiles her pouty smile. I nod along with Tanya. Omar nods, too, and we all stand there nodding for a minute like bobble head ceramic dogs in a car rear window.

"Cool!" Tanya says. Tanya shifts her weight to the other foot, the one closer to the house.

"Well," Tanya says, "See ya."

"Yeah," I say.

Tanya turns and runs a couple of steps, then slows down and walks the rest of the way to the house. Tanya is wearing cut-off jeans, too, like DiDi, but Tanya's butt is rounder and wider than DiDi's. Tanya's cut-offs are longer, there's actually an inch or so of leg on them. Tanya is wearing highheeled sandals, the kind with the solid rope heels and open toes. They make her legs seem longer, but not as long as DiDi's.

"Hello," a woman says from right next to me. I get a muscle spasm that makes me bump against Omar. Omar moves away.

"Maricosa Angelina!" Omar says, his voice low and rough, like a father teasing a daughter.

"It is very rude of you to sneak up on our guest." Omar says.

"I did not sneak." Maricosa says. "I never sneak."

Maricosa is only as tall as my shoulder. As tall as Omar's shoulder. Seeing Maricosa up close, the other women are large and clumsy. I hadn't noticed how large and clumsy the other women are. Coarse, almost.

"This is Maricosa," Omar says.

"Call me Marsita!" Maricosa says.

"Marsita?" I say. I can't think of anything else to say. Marsita is looking up into my eyes and I can't look away. Can't look at anything but Marsita's eyes.

Marsita's eyes are golden brown deep rich loam of the earth eyes. Treasure of the Sierra Madres eyes. Soft warm fire in clay ovens eyes. Diamonds and emeralds in dark room eyes. Independence day night Chinese New Year fireworks eyes.

Marsita's eyes are tilted up at the corners, like Asian eyes eyes. Marsita's eyelids disappear when they are open. Marsita's face is a round face, her chin a pointy chin. Marsita's hair is straight black parted in the middle hair. Marsita’s nose is a short round nose. Marsita's mouth a small thin mouth that quirks up on one side like there's some kind of humorous thing going on and she's not about to laugh out loud. Marsita wears no make up.

"Make up?" I say. I point at her bag. Marsita shakes her head without looking down.

"I don't wear make up," Marsita says. "Massage oil."

“Scented.” Marsita says.

She lifts one eyebrow at me.

"Coming?" Marsita says.

"¡Amigo!" Omar yells from the porch. "¡Vamanos!"

I look around to where he'd been standing next to me. I don't remember him leaving my side. I look back at Marsita. She is walking toward the house, her back is to me. Her back says follow. I follow.

* * *

Omar introduced me to the three goons in the back of the Bronco on the way up to his hacienda. They are Raoul, Chico and Bambino, Raoul being the oldest one with the mustache who was hassling me, and Chico being the one without the mustache who dumped my clothes on the ground. Bambino never says anything, but he laughs when the others laugh and the rest of the time he just looks tough.

At the hacienda, as the women make their way inside, two more goons come out onto the porch, carrying guns. The first is wearing a black T shirt and black fatigues, black combat boots and a black belt and holster slung low on his hip like a bad guy in the old western movies. He is very fit, by which I mean his arms are as big around as my thighs and his chest is so well defined in his T shirt that it looks like those plastic muscles they put on Batman in his latest movies. This goon wears black wraparound sunglasses and his hair is brush cut to be flat on top hair.

"This is Rocky," Omar says, turning to me as I come up to the porch steps. Omar punches Rocky on the arm and Rocky smiles. Rocky lifts his left hand, fingers hard and straight like he's going to salute but his hand only gets up to shoulder height where the fingers pivot across a precise arc, once. Rocky's smile is a missing a few teeth smile, and Rocky's nose is a flattened and bent nose. Rocky's eyes are hidden behind sunglasses eyes. I wave back.

"Hi," I say.

"And this," Omar is saying, "Is the Terminator!"

Omar slaps the back of a large round man with a stained white muscle shirt over a sunken chest and huge belly. The Terminator's hair, what's left of it, is wispy light brown hair that floats around the big bald spot on top of his head as if trying to decide whether to land there or not. The Terminator's head sits directly on the Terminator's shoulders, and his arms are, like Rocky's, as big around as my thighs but unlike Rocky's, so loose the skin flaps as he puts out his hand to shake. Around the widest part of the Terminator's belly is tied an apron that reaches almost to the ground. Under the apron the Terminator is wearing khaki shorts to his knees and the Terminator's bare feet are wide and black with dirt.

"The Terminator is our cook!" Omar says.

"A great cook." Rocky says.

"The best." The Terminator says.

"Nice to meet you." I say.

"Come on inside," Omar says, "Take a load off."

I follow Omar inside. Inside the entrance hall is dark. Dark like a cave, almost. Dark like you can't really see the ceiling because it's way up there all gloomy and you expect bats to be flying around. Dark like all the windows have been boarded up and only a little light comes in from the doors that open up into the entrance hall.

There is a huge curving staircase in the entrance hall that goes up into the gloom. The floor of the entrance hall is marble, I think, under the dirt. There are lumps that look like bushes piled up along one wall. A huge fountain with a statue of a cherub up on one toe, other leg pointed back, head twisted up to look at the sky and a plate in one hand. It looks like a plate. The plate is spilling water into the round pool at the base of the fountain. The cherub is also peeing into the fountain.

We go into what must have been a library, floor to ceiling shelves all around the room; bookcases, and one of those ladders that runs on a rail on each wall so you can reach the top shelves, if you wanted to. If there was anything up there you really wanted to reach. Opposite the door we go in are three sets of big French door type windows, six foot tall, spaced evenly, they let in a lot of the afternoon light, even through the milky haze on them. Can't really see outside through the haze.

There are a few books, left on the shelves, but mostly other stuff. This is what I see on the shelves; guns, ammo, sacks of food, coconuts, Stereo equipment of every shape and size, a large collection of records, tapes and CD's. three televisions, a microwave oven, baskets, bags, bones, skulls, skeets, computers, printers, speakers, electric piano keyboards, guitars, clocks, toy dinosaurs, remote control cars, dart boards, baseballs, bowling balls, soccer balls, tennis balls, ping pong balls, crystal balls, mirrored balls, popcorn balls, three large parrots who have obviously lived here for years and a monkey. That's what I see when I first go in, but I'm sure there's other stuff, too.

In the center of the room are four large sofas surrounding a glass-topped table. On the table stands a scale and a box of plastic zip-lock bags and several piles of white crystally powder, which of course I have no idea is cocaine. Maria and SiSi sit on one of the couches, DiDi and Tanya sit on the couch to the right of them and Marsita sits opposite Maria and SiSi. All the women, except for Marsita, are pulling out all their Avon stuff and showing it off to each other. Omar and Raoul sit down next to Marsita, opposite Maria and SiSi, Omar in the middle. Omar waves his hand that I should sit on the final couch, all by myself. Marsita between me and him. Rocky standing behind me. I feel his presence back there like I'm a jackrabbit on a highway, and Rocky's a big vulture, waiting for that semi to come along.

Omar sits forward on the couch and picks up a gold plated razor blade that is sitting by a pile of coke. He starts to set up some lines.

"Rocky," Omar says, "I thought you were going to run the tests and bag this up?"

Omar uses the blade to separate a small pile of coke from the larger pile closest to him. I estimate it to be about a half an ounce. 16 grams.

Rocky started to answer in Spanish.

"Please, Rocky," Omar says before the man can finish, "We have a guest, where are your manners? In englais, por favor."

"¿Habla español?" Omar says to me.

"Muy poco," I say.

"Ah!," Omar says, "We will speak English then, it is good practice for us."

Omar didn't sound like he needed any practice, but Rocky went along with him.

"Doc had questions." Rocky says, "Y then the farmers brought in samples of their crop this ah, como se dice temporada."

"Season, Rocky," Omar says, "This growing season."

"Season," Rocky says, only he says it like Say Son.

Omar has separated the smaller pile by now into four even smaller piles and is spreading the smaller piles out into lines. The razor blade goes tap tap and squeak on the glass, tap tap and squeak and a little flourish of the hand. Omar cutting the lines of coke reminds me of those Japanese cooks who juggle the knives while they're cooking your shrimp and slicing your teriyaki beef. Under Omar's hand, the lines form long and even, two and two, a pair for me and a pair for you.

"The crop samples," Omar says, looking at me. "What luck! You can help me decide!"

"Decide?" I say.

I'm looking at those lines. Those lines of coke. Those lines are a quarter of an inch thick. Those lines are a quarter of an inch tall. Those lines are six inches long. And I know, I just know this coke ain't coke like that half gram in the little triangular bag cut from a no-pleat baggie and sealed with a Bic lighter that you got on the streets of Miami back in 1979. This ain't Coke that's been cut six times and there's so much Minoxydol that you have to go poop within five minutes of tooting your little tiny toothpick line. This coke is straight out of the lab and pure as driven snow, so to speak. As they say. My jaw starts working just looking at it.

So.

"Decide?" I say.

"Yeah," Omar says, "Choose which to ship where."

"Which what?" I say.

"Marijuana," Omar says. "Which marijuana to ship where."

Omar pulls a hundred dollar bill from his wallet and rolls it up. He sticks one end of the bill in his nose, holds the other nostril shut with two fingers of his other hand, and leans down to inhale a line. He switches hands and nostrils and sucks up the other line. He holds the bill out to me, and raises his eyebrows, still holding one nostril shut with the other hand.

I take the tubular money from Omar. Test out the clarity of my nasal passages by holding each nostril closed in turn and pulling in a bunch of air. Turn my head away from the piles of coke and exhale as much as I can. Stick the hundred bucks up my nose, lean forward and suck maybe a thousand street dollars worth of cocaine into my right nostril. That's like a quarter of one of these lines Omar has on the table here. Switch nostrils and do the same for the other side.
My head expands to encompass most of the room. The top of my head transmutating through the roof. I can feel the hot sun and light breeze ruffle my hair up there. My head is instantly clearer than I ever remember it being, both thoughtwise and sinuswise, and I begin chewing an imaginary cud. This is an unfortunate side effect. This always happens. Coke makes me work my jaw around, like I'm tryin' to chew something, but there's nothing to chew on. Back when I roomed with a drug dealer, he would use this phenomenon to judge the quality of the coke he bought.

The quality of this coke, this particular coke, is much better than anything I remember. I touch a damp finger to the glass tabletop, collecting crumbs to wipe on my gums, and I can taste the coke through my fingers. That's how good it is. I touch it with my fingers and taste it in my mouth.
Marlboro time. I feel much more animated than I have in a long while. Omar is already setting up another pair of lines for himself. Raoul laughs a short laugh at me. Raoul leans back and snaps his fingers in the direction of DiDi and Tanya. DiDi looks up, but she looks mad, her lips all up in the middle and her eyebrows down. DiDi's eyes go from Raoul to me to Maria to Omar and then back to Raoul. DiDi's got one leg crossed over the other and that upper leg, that foot on that upper legs flippin' back and forth real fast.

"Go get us tequila!" Raoul says.

"None for me, thanks!" I say, "Hey, Omar, this is some place you got here! Whoever did your decorating?"

"Did it myself, man," Omar says, "You like the parrots?"

"Don't they shit on everything?" I say.

"Yeah," he says, "but it adds to the..ah.. ambiance!"

* * *

Omar leads me and Rocky and Raoul out to the dark cave entrance hall. Omar looks at the lumps that are bushes and laughs a little.

"Are they tagged?" Omar says.

"¿Que?" Rocky says.

"Los etiquetos," Omar says, "Tags?"

"Ah Si, I mean, yes!" Rocky says.

"Grab those," Omar says. Omar waves a hand at four bushes.

"Don't get 'em mixed up," Omar says.

The plants still have their root systems complete with dirt attached. There are six of them. We drag them into the library. Omar takes his over to one of the French doors. I follow him. Omar opens the French door and the sunlight comes in to light up the plants. The smell is like that old weed pile my mom used to have out back, about halfway through the summer, with a new pile of weeds on it from yesterday.

Omar looks at the plant he is holding.

Rocky says "That is from..."

"Don't tell me!" Omar says, "I already know. Alvarado, correct?"

Rocky looks at the tag and nods.

"The strong trunk," Omar says, "The vermilion color, the firm leaves." Omar takes in a huge sniff. "That aroma, do you see?"

Omar holds the plant to my face. There is a bud just ready to burst there, the tiny dark green leaves twisting around the flower as if to protect it. I take a sniff. I'm amazed that I can still smell anything after that coke.

"The nose is quite earthy," Omar is saying, "A little acidic." Omar pushes the leaves up around his face.

"Piquant, I'd say, Charles," Omar says, "What do you think?"

Omar is speaking like a stuffy English twit. I look around to see who Charles is. But Omar means me.

"Oh, I say," I say, "Quite ripe."

"Notice the way these leaves ball up in your fingers when you rub them." Omar says. Omar holds up a ball of leaves about the size of a marble. Omar's fingers are stained green.

"See the residue?" Omar says, "Alvarado always takes forever to dry. We have to stash it away for a month before shipment."

Omar's using his own voice again.

"Hmm," I say.

"Now this," Omar grabs another bush. "This must be from Guzman, No?"

Omar looks at the tag.

"Guzman, of course, see the faded color," Omar says, "the narrow leaves, the weak stalk?

Guzman's plantation is at high altitude."

"But still," English Omar says, "It's an impetuous little vintage with a crisp tongue and a delightful afterbite!"

Omar pulls a handful of leaves and a bud from the Guzman plant and puts them in a toaster oven on a shelf next to an Eddie Murphy doll and a chocolate Easter bunny with no ears. Omar sets the timer and goes for the next plant.

"Soon Li," Regular Omar says, "See how fat the leaves are? Soon Li has a spread down by the river."

Omar looks at the tag.

"No, I am wrong," Omar says, "but not by much. It's Garcia, but he too is down by the river. Too much jungle, not enough sun, but he grows a lot of it and he sells it cheap, so we can pass on the savings to you! We'll send it to Miami, I've got a volume dealer there."

"Notice," English Omar says, "The full body, the spicy aroma with a hint of, what do you say..."

"Manure?" I say.

"Clove," Regular Omar says, "Garcia grows clove, also."

A bell rings. It is the toaster oven. Omar opens the door and pulls out a little aluminum tray with the leaves and bud from the Guzman plant. He holds the tray in both hands in front of his face and moves his head back and forth, nose going side to side over the dried vegetable matter. He looks like the Galloping Gourmet.

"Mmm, my goodness!" Omar says, "done to a turn!"

I remember the rest of the line. The rest of that big line of coke over there. It's been almost ten minutes. It's time for another toot.

Cabo San Lucas

This is why I didn't go home for my sister's funeral. I was in love. I was in Mexico.

This is the hotel we had in Cabo San Lucas. The hotel Merri's friend Cass found for us. The street was dirt. There were sidewalks, but they were a different height in front of every building. In front of the hotel, there was no sidewalk at all. I guess that's because the hotel wasn't really there anyway. Not right there at the street, lined up with the other buildings. The hotel was really down an alley about twenty five feet, and around behind all the other buildings on the block.

To the left of the alley, out there on the street with its own sidewalk, was a restaurant. To the right was another building and I think it had a crafts store or maybe a Laundromat inside. The craft store, or maybe Laundromat had its own sidewalk, too. Between these two buildings and their sidewalks was the alley. Maybe ten feet wide. Along the right side of the alley was a plywood bar and then there were four or five round white plastic picnic tables at the mouth of the alley, where the sidewalk would be if there was one and there were three more of the same kind of white plastic picnic tables in a line down the alley next to the bar. Those round white plastic picnic tables with plastic tops that have patterns molded into them and tubular metal legs and a hole in the middle for a white and green umbrella with little fringe around the edges and white plastic chairs that were molded to look like those fancy cast iron lawn chairs. Those kind of cast iron lawn chairs that look like lace with all the curly queues and curvy legs like lions feet. So these were plastic reproductions of cast iron representations of fancy lace and animal's feet chairs. Those kind of tables and umbrellas and chairs that you saw in the Montgomery Ward catalog for $24.95.

Just at the mouth of the alley there was a white case like from a delicatessen, with a glass front that slanted back so you could see into the shelves inside only there wasn't anything on the shelves. The alley was paved with cement paver stones with dirt in between. And because of those plastic chairs and tables and umbrellas and the plywood bar in the alley there really wasn't a lot of room for walking.

The bar was made of plywood with Rubbermaid self-stick shelf lining paper on top. The kind with blue and white ducks. There was a sort of slanted roof over the bar and a bunch of wine glasses and margarita glasses hung upside down from their stems up there. Behind the bar were three plywood shelves in front of a mirror, and there were some bottles of a local alcohol beverage on the bar with bits of cloth tied over the corks. There were about two dozen bottles of different kinds of liquor on the shelves. Scotch and whiskey and tequila and Kahlua.

The bar took up about four of the ten feet and then there were the round white plastic picnic tables and the umbrellas and chairs so we had to walk kind of zigzag between the tables and the bar. There was a Panasonic boom box behind the bar, playing Mariachi music.

Once we got past the tables and the bar and the Mariachi music, down at the end of the alley, where the two buildings on either side of the alley ended, that's where our hotel was.
There was a pretty big open area behind the restaurant. It was a courtyard surrounded on two sides by the hotel and on a third side by the back of the restaurant and on the fourth side by the back of the buildings on the side street. In the courtyard was a dry fountain, they were still building it, but you could tell it was going to be a kind of traditional Mexican fountain and pool, round pool with a kind of ornamental pile of shapes that could be fruit or maybe cherubs or perhaps round little animals like armadillos and leaves and flowers all cast out of cement with a little upright spray of water. The courtyard was partly paved with the same kind of concrete pavers and dirt in between that was in the alley and there were piles of paving stone and sand, like they were gonna get started any second now, but the sand had grass growing out of it and the weeds were pretty high in the part of the courtyard that hadn't been paved yet.

The check-in desk was facing the alley, from behind the check-in desk you could look down the alley past the plywood bar and past the round white plastic tables and chairs and umbrellas and past the deli case with nothing in it to the street. There was a plywood roof over the plywood check-in desk and behind the desk, watching us come all the way down the alley past the deli case and the plywood bar and the round white plastic tables and chairs and umbrellas and mariachi music were these three guys.

The guy on the left, his hair was dark curly hair. His eyes were dark and deep and closed like Plexiglas portholes eyes. His tee shirt said Party Animal on it and had a picture of a pit bull. The guy in the middle's hair was straight black hair and his eyes were open like arms reaching out to hug but not sure if it's appropriate eyes. Glad to see you but scared to talk to you eyes. The guy on the right was shorter and rounder than the other two and his hair was sand colored curly hair and his eyes were hazel laughing at the world eyes and his lips were full almost pouty lips that smiled up on one side.

That was Omar, that third guy. But we didn't know that then.

"Buenas tardes," The guy in the middle said.

"Buenas tardes," I said.

"Hello," Darlene said.

"Hi," Omar said, only we didn't know it was Omar, then.

The guy in the middle was looking at me like he was hoping I could speak Spanish.

"¿Habla Englais?" I said.

"Si, I mean, Yes." the guy in the middle said.

"Sure he does," the guy who turned out to be Omar said.

The guy in the middle was smiling pretty wide, but the edges were a little unsteady.

"We have a reservation," I said, "Reservacion?"

The guy on the left picked up the phone and dialed some numbers. He turned to look out over the unfinished courtyard, talking low and fast Spanish into the phone.

The guy on the right, Omar, but we didn't know it yet, moved over to lean against the bar and watch. He was still smiling, kind of up on one side. He lit a cigarette.

The guy in the middle was sweating, now. I was tired, just wanted to drop the bags and get some food. Just wanted to drop the bags in the room and stretch out on the bed for a few minutes and then go get some food at that Senor Sushi place we saw back around the corner. Didn't want to think about Spanish. Tried to think in Spanish, but there was this thick pink insulation thing around that part of my brain and I couldn't see through it. I looked at the guy in the middle and tried to show him how sorry I was that my Spanish wasn't working by looking at him that way with my eyes, but maybe it didn't come across that way.

I told him my name.

"And this is Darlene," I said.

"Roberto," the guy in the middle said, pointing at his chest with one finger and holding out his other hand to shake. We shook.

"Domi," Roberto said. Roberto pointed at the guy to the left. Domi was still on the phone. Domi's eyes flew all around the place while he talked. I nodded at Domi when his eyes landed on mine. He nodded and his eyes flew away again.

"Omar," Roberto said. Roberto pointed at the guy on the right, who we now knew was Omar. Omar waved one hand and crossed his arms, still smiling up on one side.

"¿Que pasa?" Omar said.

"Nada mucho." I said, before I remembered that I didn't know if that was proper Spanish or just something I'd made up.

Roberto had found my name in his book. Roberto showed it to me and smiled and nodded. Domi reached under the counter and pulled out a form, a paper for me to fill out with name and address and phone number. Domi was still on the phone, still talking, so he just nudged Roberto and pointed at me and then at the form.

Roberto smiled and turned the form so I could read it. He slid the form across the counter at me.
Maybe it was because I was tired. Brain dead. I looked at the form and it was all in Spanish and I had no idea what to do with it. Darlene reached over and took the form. Roberto gave her a pen and she started filling it out. Darlene put our names down in block letters and our address in cursive. Omar leaned over to look at the form while Darlene filled it out. He pointed at the state.

"California," Omar said.

"Yeah," Darlene said, "I mean, Si!"

"I lived in California," Omar said, "In La Jolla."

"Really?" Darlene said, "When was that?"

"Oh, about two three years ago," Omar said. "With my cousin."

Omar spoke English pretty good. Even with a strong accent he was easy to understand.

"Did you like it?" Darlene said.

"Yeah," Omar said, "but I couldn't find a job. Had to come back."

"That's too bad," Darlene said, "But it's nice here."

"It's getting better," Omar said. "More jobs, now."

I was staring at the second button down on Roberto's shirt. It was a white plastic button, just like a billion other buttons in the world, but my eyes were pointed at that button, even though I was really focused on something much farther away. I realized I was staring at that button when Roberto cleared his throat and brushed his hand over the front of his shirt, as if brushing off dust. I blinked a few times, then focused on Roberto's eyes.

"Where's our room?" I said. It probably came out kind of rude.

"Um," I said, "Donde la...como se dice; room?"

"Los Cuartos," Roberto said, "Vente Dos. Por Aqui. This way."

Roberto held out a key with a green plastic tag that had the number 22 stamped on it in silver. He pointed toward the courtyard with his other hand and started to walk that way. I picked up the bags and followed him. I looked back for Darlene and she was still talking to Omar.

"Dar?" I said, loud so she could hear. She laughed at something Omar said and then turned to look at me.

"We're in twenty two," I said, "I'm gonna drop the bags and then I'll come back and we can go get something to eat."

"Okay" Darlene said. She turned back to Omar.

I followed Roberto up the outside stairs to the second floor balcony. There were four rooms on the second floor.

From the second floor balcony you could see over the roof of the other wing, the one story wing. On the roof of the one story wing was a wheelbarrow and a pile of sand and some cinder blocks.
Roberto took the key back and opened the door to twenty two. It was a small room with a bath, the whole thing maybe twelve feet by twelve feet. Furnished like just about every cheap motel I've ever seen in the states, down to the dull landscape print on the wall over the bed and the shiny green quilt bed spread. The screen window was very large, and the screen was ripped. I looked in the bathroom while I was digging around in my pocket for a tip. All I had was US bills. The shower head came out of the wall of the bathroom and there was no curtain or door or even a raised sill around the shower. The whole floor was tiled and there was a drain in the center. There were towels on a small table by the bed. I gave Roberto a dollar, I guess he thought that was okay.

"Hot water?" I said.

"Si." Roberto said. He nodded and left.

I was thinking about a shower. A shower would probably feel really good, I was feeling kind of dry.

Darlene came in the room while I was thinking about the shower. She looked around, at the bed, at the print on the wall, at the lamps, at the busted screen.

"Oh, that's not good." Darlene said.

"What?" I said. I was thinking about a shower and some food.

"The screen," Darlene said. "I don't like it being open like that."

"We'll shut the window." I said.

"Then it'll be hot." Darlene said.

"Uh huh." I said. "I want to take a shower."

"Go ahead," Darlene said, "No, wait a minute. I want to see if we can get a different room."

"Why?" I said. I sat down on the bed. The bed squeaked in about fifty different places.

"The screen," Darlene said, "We can't stay here if the screen is ripped."

"Okay," I said. I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. Just for a second.

* * *

"No, see?" Darlene's voice said. "It's ripped. Someone could just...walk in and, I don't know, take stuff."

Darlene's voice at first came from the palm tree on the beach I was lying on until I woke up in the room. Woke up in the dim light of this hotel room in Mexico.

There was a low voice talking to Darlene, but I couldn't hear any words, just a mumble of sound.
"Well, what about tomorrow?" Darlene's voice said. "Look, I'm not trying to be difficult here, but I won't feel, like, safe in this room with the window open and the screen ripped."

The mumbling voice went on a little, sounding soothing. I started to drift off to sleep.

"Okay," Darlene said, "But just tonight. Tomorrow I want a new room."

The door opened and I tried to sit up. It seemed like my muscles had lost the will to move.

"Thank you," Darlene said. "I appreciate it."

Darlene shut the door. I turned my head sideways and I could see her standing with her hands on her hips, looking at the window.

"Well, Bunny," Darlene said. "I don't like this."

"The screen?" I said. The word 'the' got stuck in my throat and didn't want to come out until I forced it and then it was only the last part of 'the' that came out, that made a noise you could hear.

"We'll have to shut the window." Darlene said.

"Want me to do it?" I said. I tried rolling sideways to get up. Tried rolling out from under those form fitting invisible lead weights that fall on you sometimes when you take an afternoon nap. I stretched out a hand.

"Help me up." I said.

"Help you up?" Darlene said. "Why, did you suddenly lose all your bones?"

I started to say something back to her but my mouth, once it got the idea of opening it went ahead and opened up all the way and even a little past all the way and my ears stopped up and my neck creaked and my jaw was really interested in trying life without the skin of my face for a moment there. When my facial muscles began to come back under conscious control I tried to finish what I had started to say, but I didn't remember what it was by then.

I said, "Rah rah rah roosh."

"Murmy murmy murmy?" Darlene said. She reached out and took my hand in both of her hands. She braced her feet and tried to pull me up. I went limp and she just pulled me a little sideways on the bed.

"Neener neener," I said.

"Is that so?" Darlene said. She stepped to the other side and tried pulling my arm across my body. I slid down to kneel on the floor, still leaning back over the bed.

"Absolutely." I said. Darlene stopped pulling for a second, trying to reset her feet, so I pulled hard and she was off balance so she came over on top of me pretty easy. Darlene landed kind of high, her breasts on my face and I stuck my tongue into the space between them. Tasted Darlene salty sweat.

"Eek." Darlene said, just like that.

"Oh, my." Darlene said, very quiet, "Help me someone, I'm being ravished."

"You're ravishing." I said, but it was kind of muffled by Dar's breasts so it came out more like "Mnough Fvavshin."

Darlene slid down to sit on my lap, but since I was on my knees, she just slid down the rest of the way to the floor. She was sitting in her sun dress on the floor with her legs out to either side and the wide cotton skirt pushed up past her knees and her arms out holding my hands trying to hold her up and her face red and round and pretty teeth showing in her smile, big smile making her cheeks all round up under her eyes and her eyes all shining and hazel and right then, right at that moment in the hotel in Mexico. Right at that particular time she was the most beautiful and wonderful and understanding and giving and talented and everything else good there was woman in the world and I loved her so much my heart was breaking. Could feel my heart pumping up so big it was cracking and splitting and blood was gushing out everywhere, but it was good blood. Not hurtful blood. Not like the blood was leaving my body all hollow and light headed.

"I love you," I said.

"Oh, bunny." Darlene said.

Dale Evans and the Holy Jeep

The Mercedes is stuck again. The sound of the rear wheels spinning in the mud is familiar to me now. The feeling of the steering wheel, the vibration coming through the gas pedal. I’ve come to recognize these signs after getting stuck a half dozen times in the last three days. I am even getting better at avoiding stuckdom, or stuckhood, or whatever it is you call the state of being stuck, but now I am stuck again, and I turn off the engine and get out, stepping into the soft grass on the side of the road.

Look under the Mercedes. Still room between the differential and the central hump of the road. That is good. That means I stopped spinning the wheels before they dug themselves too far in. That means it will probably only take a couple of people pushing on the car, lifting the rear bumper, to get those rear wheels up out of the holes.

Straighten up and look around, fish a pack of cigarettes out of my shirt pocket. The road runs along the side of a mountain. On the driver's side, the mountain humps up and away from me, can't see its top. On the passenger side, the ground falls away to a riverbed, then rises steep again on the other side. A small creek runs down the mountain and across the road, right where I’m stuck.

Climb up on the trunk of the Mercedes and lean back against the rear window. It won't be long.
It isn't long. I toss the cigarette butt over the side of the road and I hear voices coming around the bend of the mountain behind me, from the direction the Mercedes is heading. I jump down off the car and go around.

"¡Hola!" I say, raising my hand to wave.

The three men stop in the road and stared at me and my car. They are dressed alike in loose white linen trousers and tunics, barefoot. Each carries a farm tool; two hoes and a shovel.

"Mi carro," I say, "es astacado."

They nod and smile. They looked old, wrinkled, baked in the sun, but they are probably my age. One is rounder, smiling, the other two are thin, sad-faced. The round one nods at me to get in my car. I get in and start the engine. Push in the clutch and put it into gear. In the rear view mirror, I see the three men bending to grab hold of the back bumper. The round one in the middle. He nods again and I let the clutch out, giving it a little gas. The rear wheels come up out of the mudholes and bump onto dry dirt.

I stop to lean out the window and wave and say gracias, but the three men have already shouldered their tools and are walking away, as if I had never been there.

That's just how it’s been, every time I get stuck in a Colombian pothole.

* * *

In a small town outside Medellin, I stop for lunch. A soaking rain has just ended, and steam is rising from every flat surface in the sun. Slow bright clouds returning to the blue sky. I sit at a table near the square, eating the local version of a blue plate special; beans and rice and a sort of thick stew containing some kind of unidentified meat. The food is bland and filling and satisfies my hunger. The tortillas have a special flavor, though, and are very fresh. I watch a round-faced woman in an embroidered blouse making them, slapping the dough back and forth in her hands. Laying them out on a flat sheet of iron propped on stones over a stick fire.

I am just soaking up the last of the stew with the last of a tortilla when I hear it coming. Squeaking squalling rattling chugging like an old steam engine that has crashed into a wagon carrying pots and pans and pigs and peacocks and is bringing the whole pile into town to show everyone. What comes around the corner fits that sound almost exactly, only instead of the steam engine, the wagon, the pots and the pans and the pigs and the peacocks it is a jeep that has crashed into a paint store and then a glue factory and finally a religious artifacts store. It sways to a stop by the central fountain and the dust train that it has been pulling crashes into it and causes a pileup.

The wheels are painted like a daisy would look if every petal is a different color and the dark center part is a chrome moon hubcap. The fenders have tinsel streamers, the kind where thousands of short golden tinsel is attached to string like a metallic boa. The tinsel streamers are glued all along the edges of the fenders and they shake and bounce light like a million tiny flash bulbs. The Virgin Mary is on the hood. Really it is a whole bunch of Virgin Marys all over the hood but the main one, right in the center of the front of the hood is about a foot tall and painted with gold paint. Most of the other Virgin Marys are maybe two or three or four inches tall and are white, but the middle Virgin Mary is gold and has a gold foil picture of Christ on the Cross hung around her neck. The doors have gold plastic crosses glued all over them. Some of the crosses are just crosses but some of the crosses are Christ on the Cross crosses and those have glitter on them. Each of the front fenders has a plastic electric candle stick with an orange flame candle bulb instead of turn signals and the bulbs blink in unison on and off and on and off.
A tall, thin woman wearing a long fringed western dress and cowgirl boots steps out of the jeep, a brocaded cowboy hat hangs on her back by a cord around her neck. She looks like Dale Evans only with some extra weight and braided blond hair. Dale Evans walks to the back of her jeep and lets out a call that sounds like I'd heard once on a National Geographic special about Africa. Shrieks sound all over the village, and women and girls come running from all directions to surround Dale Evans and the Holy Jeep. The woman who made my tortillas gets herself up from the ground. It looks like the woman who made my tortillas is floating over to the jeep, her dress is so long I can't see her feet. Dale Evans is handing out white paper bags, checking yellow tags and people’s names and taking money in return. The woman who made my tortillas comes back with her nose in her Avon bag. The woman who made my tortillas goes inside.

A late model Ford Bronco, high on huge mudder tires, rolls into the square. Women and kids and pigs and chickens get out of the way shouting and laughing and squealing and squawking. The Bronco pulls up to the Holy Jeep and four young men jump out. Three of them have closed tough faces and guns. Security Guards, I say to myself. The fourth man, the driver is smaller, with a quick smile.

The driver walks over to Dale Evans, his head high and his neck stiff. His chest out before him and his hands hooked into his belt. His friends look over the square, their hands hold guns, maybe Uzis kind of loosely, like the guns are just accessories.

Two of the guards spot me at the same time and they look at each other. The one with the mustache nods to the other, and the second one comes in my direction. I stand up and check the path to the door of the restaurant. Maybe I can duck inside if things get tight.

"What are you looking at?" The guard without the mustache says in Spanish. His piggy little eyes dangerous below thick eyebrows.

"Nothing, my friend," I say, "Just the view, the cowgirl."

"What are you doing here?" the guard says.

"Having lunch," I say, "on my way South, just passing through."

One of the other guards is inspecting my car. He opens the back door and pulls out my luggage. Dumping my clothes in the muddy roadway. My guard looks over that way.

"Is that your car?" the guard says.

"Yes, " I say, "it is not very good. It is a little sick."

He looks at me, one eyebrow up, laughs a short laugh, like a bark.

"¡Manolito!" a voice says.

It’s the boss, the leader, the man they are protecting. A part of me watches him take eight big white paper bags from Dale Evans and put them into the back of his Bronco. Another part of me is sweating and another part of me wants to melt into the dust until they go away.

The leader walks over neck still stiff, chest still out, smile on lips but not in eyes. He wears a white shirt under a black vest, jeans and snakeskin cowboy boots. He pulls a small cigar from his shirt pocket and sticks it between his teeth, lips curled back.

He is a short man, my height. His hair is long slicked back hair and his mustache a tiny mustache. His lips are thin lips and his eyes are black hard eyes like stone. His eyebrows are thick short eyebrows, and they walk all over his forehead when he talks.

"What have you found here, eh, Manolito?" the leader says. "A little rabbit from the north? A little rooster?"

"He is CIA." Manolito says.

"No, hey, wait a minute, that's wrong," I say in English, "I'm just a tourist, not CIA. Turista!"

"Just a tourist?" the leader says in English, smile not touching his eyes, "No, my friend, whatever you are, you are not simply a tourist."

"Well," I say, "I'm not a drug agent."

Which is entirely the wrong thing to say.

Manolito and his boss look at each other, stiffening up. Manolito clutches his Uzi a little tighter and swings the barrel toward my stomach. I feel my muscles there get tight, like they are scrambling all over each other to get out of the way.

"Where is your passport?" the leader says, in Spanish again. He sounds like a policeman. I fumble my wallet out of my pocket. The wallet holds my drivers license, some phone numbers and twenty American dollars which can be construed as a bribe, or not. I hope in this case it will suffice.

The small man looks at my license photo, then at me. He goes over my license like he is an immigration officer. He looks through my wallet. Gives it all back to me. I put it away without checking to see if the money is still there.

“Well, my friend,” the leader says, “I think you have some explaining to do, no?”

“Explaining?” I say.

“Si,” the leader says, “that is correct, explaining. Like what the hell are you doing in my town?”

I look at him. Look at Manolito and the Uzi. Look at Dale Evans and the Holy Jeep, but she’s packing up and leaving his town.

“Well,” I say, “It’s kind of a long story.”

“We’ve got time,” the leader said. He sits down and waves his hand across the table. “Sit, please,” he said.

I sit. Manolito goes around behind me. I feel a very Uzi-like hardness on the back of my neck. I try not to move. I tell him my story.

I tell the real story, because even though the real story makes no sense to most people, at least it is the honest to God truth and the way my stomach is feeling, I don't think I can lie. The leader watches my face the whole time. When I am done, he sits there a moment, still watching my face.

"Ah," he says, "A kind of vision quest! Yes. I understand. But surely you realize that you can never make it all the way."

"I want to try, anyway." I say.

"My friend, I admire you." he says, "How many of us can say that we have followed our dream? How many of us can follow in the footsteps of the man of La Mancha?”

He puts one hand on his chest and the other out to the side.

“To follow that dream, to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far!"
He sings.

The Uzi barrel is quivering in the back of my neck. The leader has rather a fine voice and not a bad sense of pitch.

"My friend,” he says, “I am Omar José Martí Domingues dela Ballesteros, at your service!"

Omar sticks out his hand and we shake. His hand is firm and dry within mine, solid palm against palm. I find I am smiling.

Omar smiles back at me and waves Manolito away.

“Bring us Cervesa,” Omar says to Manolito. He waves at the other guards, his hand sweeping away crumbs in the air. The other guards sit at surrounding tables and watch the rest of the town. Manolito brings back Negro Modello. Two bottles. Puts them on the table in between me and Omar. Omar holds his bottle up to toast.

"To impossible dreams!" he says.

"Unreachable Stars." I say. I lift my beer.

We clink bottles and drink. My mouth is so dry, I can't stop. I drink the whole bottle.

Ballesteros smiles at me as I put my bottle down.

"Mi amigo nuevo y loco," Omar says, "You must accept my hospitality, and be my guest at my humble hacienda."

Giant Steps

This is why I didn't go home for my sister's funeral.
I was in love.

Darlene was talking about going to Minnesota to see old friends.

"In January?" I said, "You'll freeze your ass off."

"It's not so bad," Darlene said, "I lived there for a while, remember?"

"Yeah," I said, "But you hate the cold."

"So?" Darlene said.

"Why don't we go to Mexico?" I said, just like that.



We were at a company party. Some kind of company party held after work in the parking lot outside the factory. All of us sitting on palates and crates and a couple of picnic tables outside the factory building that Darlene worked in. All of us eating chips and chopped cold vegetables and sour cream dip and drinking beer from a keg they brought in for the party. Darlene and I both were on our second beers.

I'd been back at work for a week, but I hadn't gone near the cardboard crusher. Was looking for a different job in the company.

I'd never been to Mexico.

"You think we should go to Mexico?" Darlene said. Darlene took a sip from her beer. When she put the cup down, she had foam on her upper lip.

"Uh," I said. "Sure, why not? You have foam on your lip."

"Thanks," Darlene said. She licked the foam off, underside of her tongue looking pink and unfinished.

"Have you been to Mexico?" Darlene said.

"No," I said, "Have you?"

"No," Darlene said, but it kind of stuttered out because her mouth was all twisted up smiling and she ducked her head down and put the heel of her hand up to her mouth, so it came out a kind of laughing No-o-o-o.

"What are you laughing at?" I said. I drank some of my beer.

"You," Darlene said.

"Why" I said, "What's so funny."

"Your face," Darlene said, "You're all red. You didn't even think before you asked me to go to Mexico, did you?"

"Well," I said. But I couldn't think of what to say then. Took another sip of beer.

"Well, no." Darlene said, "You didn't. And now you've asked me, and what if I say 'Yes, let's go to Mexico?’"

"Then we'll go." I said.

"What are you guys up to?" Merri said. Merri sat down next to Darlene at the picnic table with a paper plate full of chips and chopped cold vegetables and sour cream dip in one hand and a full plastic cup of beer in the other.

Sitting down next to Darlene was a big production for Merri. Merri was a big woman with short legs. Merri wore tight jeans all the time and she had to lift one leg up like a giant step over the bench that was attached to the picnic table and then straddle the bench while she got her balance back and then she had to lift the other leg up giant step over the bench, leaning with one elbow on the table. The elbow on the table was on the same arm as the hand holding the plate and Merri was squeezing that plate so hard with her thumb that it dented down there, the plate did, and the sour cream dip was running onto Merri's thumb. I guess Merri didn't think to put down the paper plate and the beer first, so there was a kind of exciting time there when we weren't sure just how much beer or chips or chopped cold vegetables or sour cream dip was going to stay on the plate and in the cup or if some of each were going to switch places or vacate entirely. In the end though, Merri got her plate and her cup down on the table and her butt down on the bench without any major relocations. When Merri finished sitting down she let out a big relieved sigh and I could smell some serious beer on her breath.

Darlene had been leaning way over to the side. She sat back up straight when Merri finished sitting down, and Darlene readjusted her butt on the bench, a little more toward the end. Darlene took a sip from her beer.

"Want some chips?" Merri said.

"No, thanks." I said.

"Thanks," Darlene said. Darlene picked up a big rippled potato chip and scooped up a bunch of sour cream dip. She put it in her mouth and licked her fingers while she chewed.

"How's your leg?" Merri said.

"Fine," I said, "Still sore sometimes. The bruise is almost gone."

"What do you call a gal with one leg shorter than the other?" Darlene said.

I knew the answer, but I didn't say anything.

"What?" Merri said.

"Ilene." Darlene said, "Get it?"

Merri laughed a little and put a piece of broccoli in her mouth. Merri looked at me and winked with the eye Darlene couldn't see.

"What do you call a Chinese girl with one leg shorter than the other?"

"What," Merri said, not looking at Darlene. Merri looking at me winking with the eye Dar couldn't see.

"Irene" Darlene said. Darlene slapped her leg. "I just thought that was so funny."

"Still looking for another position?" Merri said.

"Yeah," I said. "But it's slow going."

"We've tried missionary," Darlene said, "And doggie."

"Richard doesn't want to give you up," Merri said, "I don't blame him, I wouldn't either. You're good."

"I'll say he's good," Darlene said.

"Yeah, but," I said. "I can't do that shit anymore. I gotta find a drafting job."

"You do drafting?" Merri said.

"He does everything," Darlene said.

"Yeah, for eight years." I said. I wished Darlene would just be quiet for a minute.

"Are you going to get some more beer?" I said to Darlene. She looked in her cup. It was almost empty.

"Could you get me some, too?" I said, "Please?"

"Sure, bunny." Darlene took my cup and got up, leaning on the table while she took the giant steps over the bench. Merri and I watched her walk over to the keg, walking like Darlene does with that sort of side to side shoulder motion just a little like a windup walking duck.

"How are you guys doing?" Merri said. She turned back to look at me.

"Fine," I said, "I think we're going to Mexico."

"You think?" Merri said. "Where in Mexico?"

"We're still talking about it," I said, "I don't know where, I've never been there."

"Try Cabo," Merri said, "They've got a new water treatment plant, and a new airport."

"Where is it?" I said.

"At the tip of Baja," Merri said. "It's cool, you'll like it. Not too touristy like Puerto Vallerta is now."

Darlene came back with the beers right in the middle of Merri saying that. Darlene had filled up the plastic cups to the brim with beer and was walking really slow, taking baby steps, holding the cups out in front of her and leaning forward and keeping her eyes on the cups. Darlene's fingers were wet and dripping and the foam on the tops of the cups was jiggling like foam does, looking higher than the rim in one spot and lower in another and then switching high and low spots and you think it's just gonna jump right out of the cup, but it doesn't. Darlene put the cups down on the table and flicked her wrists out behind her to shake the beer off. Then she wiped her hands on the back of her jeans. Standing there holding her teeth clenched and her lips stretched back and her eyes wide, shoulders stiff and swaying just a little, arms behind her, shaking fingers.
"I did it!" Darlene said in that voice she can do that's kind of like a little quiet scream. I can't do that voice, but Darlene does it really good.

I picked up my beer and it spilled a little on the table. Puddles of beer rolling on the dry wood and running down in the cracks of the picnic table.

"Why'd you fill it up so much." I said.

"Um," Darlene said, "I don't know. I guess I just didn't want to make so many trips. What about Puerto Vallerta?"

"I was just saying that it's really a tourist trap, now," Merri said. "And that you should go to Cabo."

"So," Darlene said, "Does this mean we're going?"

Darlene leaned on the table with her palms and took giant steps over the bench.

"I guess," I said, "Why not?"

"Cool," Darlene said. "When?"

Darlene was holding the plastic cup with both hands where it sat on the table. Darlene put her mouth down to the plastic cup and sucked some beer out of it without lifting the cup off the table. I took a sip of mine.

"Well, I don't know," I said, "Is it hard to arrange?"

"I've got a friend," Merri said, "She can put it all together, plane and a hotel. You want an expensive motel?"

I looked at Darlene. Darlene looked at me back in my eyes. Darlene lifted her shoulders up around her ears, popped her eyes out and scrunched her mouth up. That was Darlene shrugging. Doing that with her shoulders made her neck bunch up under her chin in two folds.

"Do we need an expensive motel?" I said.

"All we're gonna do is sleep there," Darlene said. "Well, maybe that's not all we're gonna do there."

"As long as it's not grungy," I said.

"I'll get you her number," Merri said. "Tell her I sent you, she'll give you a good deal."

"Wouldn’t want grungy," Darlene said.

Panama

Frank is surprised when I show up the next morning. Or when he shows up, I should say. I get there at seven and he doesn’t show up until almost nine.

The idea of digging around inside that old pinball machine and getting it running again starts pumping around in my brain about five am and eventually gets my blood moving, too. I get out of bed and hop in the shower. I let the lukewarm water wash over me. In Panama, I never turn on the hot water for a shower; the cold is never very cold and the air so warm, I need cooling down.

I buy some bananas from a sleepy vendor near the hotel. Frank's parking lot is deserted when I get there, except for a few empty beer bottles and a broken bar glass. Pick these up and put them in a paper bag from the trunk. Dig around in the trunk looking for the tools I’m going to need. Screwdrivers, wire cutters, volt-ohm-meter, soldering iron and solder. A couple of small open-end wrenches. 3/8 inch and 1/4 inch wrenches will handle most of the nuts. Find a spark-plug and points cleaning tool. That will work to clean the switch contacts. Humming "La Cucaracha" and when I realize that is what I am humming I stop. But the tune keeps running through my head anyway.

I collect all the tools into the top tray from the tool box and set the tray on the hood of the Mercedes. Frank has still not shown up.

"Well, it's only 7:30," I say to the Mercedes. Voice sounds small in the quiet of the morning. I climb up on the trunk to smoke a cigarette and take in the morning scenery.

Panama, on the Isthmus of Panama, which connects Central and South America, bordered by Costa Rica (E), the Caribbean Sea (N), Colombia,(W) and the Pacific Ocean (S)
This is what my encyclopedia says, but if you look at the map, you can clearly see that Costa Rica is West of Panama and Colombia is East.

Panama is like the thin connecting string between two blobs of bread dough you're trying to separate. Say you've got this big loaf of bread dough which you've let rise for the second time in the dark, humid place you have for bread dough to rise in. You've pulled the dough out of its rising place and punched it down and now you have to separate it into two blobs so you can form your loaves. You don't have a knife because your nosy neighbor Anita has borrowed it for the umpteenth time and so you have to sort of pull the stuff apart. The dough is really glutinous and that means it tends to stretch rather than tear, so you pull and pull and pull and finally it's stretched down to one point where you can see that if you just grab the string at the thin point there you can rip it apart.

But what's this? You're somehow shrinking. Shrinking down to the table top while the bread is getting larger and larger. You see that the bread is really hills, no, mountains! on either side of the thin part, and that really the thin part is just some lower hills. The horizon now bumps and slants down to the low hills in the center from both east and west, resulting in a wide, lazy vee. Now bake the bread just like that to a dark brown color in the center with tan edges, a sort of negative bread, and then turn all the flour around the bread on the board into crystal blue and fluid water. Then cover the bread hills and mountains with glossy green vegetation that seems to grow too thick to be real. That's Panama. You try to cut the bread apart at the thin place, but all you can manage is a shallow slash which goes from edge to edge, but not all the way through. There is something hidden in the bread that fends off your knife, which Anita has finally returned. That's the canal. That slash that goes from edge to edge, but not from top to bottom.
It looks soft and comfortable there, in Panama, but there is a hidden inflexible iron core that can be felt throughout the place. In the people. In the buildings. In the jungle.



Tropical birds are calling in the jungle across the road. The sun comes up over the roadhouse and lights the face of the jungle; it looks very solid. A small Indian boy wearing a Grateful Dead tee shirt and shorts comes out of the solid mass of green and looks at me. Probably wondering what I am doing here. The boy lifts two bony shoulders inside his tee shirt and turns in the direction of town.

Finally about nine o'clock I hear the doors unlatch and open behind me. I slide off the car and look that way. Frank looks sleepy, his eyes squinting at me, blinking. He waves me in with a hand the size of Raleigh, South Carolina and I grab my toolbox tray and follow him into the bar. The early morning twilight has taken refuge inside.

The air is thick; feels like I’m breathing all of last night’s sweat and smoke and beer, all of it going into my lungs and out my mouth. Open up the shutters by the pinball machine, letting in a bunch of indirect light. Drag a few tables closer to the machine. Frank is ducking up and down behind the bar, moving things around back there. I find the switch at the back of the machine and flip it on.

"Hey!" Frank says, loud behind the bar. I look up. He tosses a bunch of keys from behind the bar. Put my hand up and the keys bounce off my palm before I can close my fingers. Reach out real fast with the other hand but those keys smack down hard on those other fingers and then they hit the floor. I've never been a good catch. Frank’s over there laughing at me, his shoulders going up and down and his head shaking. Grab the keys off the floor. The ring holds about thirty keys of all types, but only four or five of those stubby barrel kind they use for pinball cashboxes. Try one, no good, try another, no good, try another and that one works. Swing open the little metal door.

The coin mechanism is jammed with two quarters. Pry the quarters out and drop them in the coin box. Coin boxes sit on the bottom or floor of the machine, held in place by two little metal corner brackets, just an open top metal box. I tug the coin box loose and carry it over to the bar, looks like about ten or twelve dollars in quarters, US money, and a couple of local pesos. Pesos won't operate this machine, but I guess the rejecter mechanism isn't working too well, either. Put the box on the bar and Frank turns around and hands me a cup of coffee.

“Thanks,” I say. “Smells great.”

Coffee in Central America is usually instant and almost always foul tasting, but I've gotten used to it.

“Costa Rican,” Frank says, “Roast and grind it myself.”

“Really?” I say. I take a sip. This coffee is really good coffee, hot and black, the way I like it, fresh and solid tasting. It’s like you’ve got something solid in your mouth. A solid thing that tastes all coffee and roasting and bean and the guy who picked it and the guy who roasted it and the guy who ground it and the guy who put it in the pot, all of them are in there, all the things they added and it tells your tongue and mouth a story that makes you feel good. It’s not just hot water that tastes like coffee had something to do with it some time or other. I stand and let the steam and coffee smell drift up over my face and into my nose. Feel the hot coming through the thick mug into my fingers. Feel the coffee steam getting into my nose and all the caves of my sinuses. Feel the good strong caffeine getting into my blood and brain.

“Great stuff,” I say. “Really excellent.”

“You’re welcome,” Frank says. He’s smiling at me over his mug. I guess his coffee makes him feel good, too.

* * *

Old pinball games are kind of easy to work on, if you understand the principles. Nowadays they have all these fancy computer controlled pinball games with a ton of electronics inside. You need a replacement computer board, or a degree in computer technology, when one of those goes wonky. The old ones are all relays and coils, coils and relays. Leaf switches and coils and relays. Banks of relays. Fifty or sixty relays sometimes, all filling the interior of the machine. A relay is heavy. A bunch of relays are very heavy. That heaviness gives the machine a certain feel. When you nudge them or shake them, I mean. There's a sort of inertia to the old relay machine that isn't there anymore, in the new ones. Nowadays they have so many ramps and levels and things, so many sampled digital sounds and electronic plungers and high tech stuff. It's just not the same.

That kid with the Grateful Dead shirt is at the machine when I turn around. He’s bent over and looking inside the coin door. Practically got his head inside.

“Hey” I say, “Cuidado!”

That means Look Out! Learned that from Velanova’s men.

The kid jumps back a little and looks at me. His hair is thick straight brown bowl cut around his ears hair. His eyes are wet black stone in milk eyes. His face is a round with pointy chin face. His body is a skinny somewhere between eight and eleven body. Right now he’s forcing a big smile into that face showing white teeth, but his eyes look like ready to run eyes.

“It’s okay,” I say, “Bueno, muchacho.”

He starts talking. Really fast. His eyes keep going to the pinball machine and he points over at it. Grabs one hand in the other and then uses both to point at it. Frank’s voice comes loud past me in fast Spanish and the kid is answering him fast and I can’t follow either of them but the kid looks like when I was a kid. Like when it was summertime and you were out on the side lawn playing with the hose. You and James and Rob and Tommy and Bobbie and Ann Hunton from next door who was a girl but could beat all of the guys in arm wrestling or running from this telephone pole to that one, so she was okay. You were all wearing shorts and tee shirts and playing water tag. It was like a million degrees out and your mom finally let you use the hose as long as you stayed on the side of the house and didn’t spray through the windows like last time. So you’re all playing water tag which is that whoever’s It gets the hose and has to spray everyone and if you get sprayed then you have to stand still and count to twenty five but if you can sneak up and tag the person that’s It without getting frozen then you get to be It and it starts all over. But you can’t go past the corner of the house on that side or the hedge at the edge of Ann Hunton’s yard on that side or the crabapple tree in the back or the orange berry tree in the front and you can’t count too fast and you have to count out loud so when three or four of you are frozen you are all counting out loud and with everyone counting it’s easy to lose count and in this game you want to be It because then you get the hose so you have to try not to get hit by the water and when Ann Hunton’s tee shirt gets all wet you can see where she is starting to get boobs and so whoever is It always tries to get her first so she’ll have to stand still with her wet shirt. But she is really quick and most times running behind someone else. When Ann Hunton gets to be It she always puts the nozzle on a real hard stream and aims it at the guy’s butts and crotches. So you’re all running around and counting and spraying and ducking and then Rob yells “Ice Cream Man!” and everyone stops to listen and it’s the Good Humor truck, you can tell by the bells, the other truck has different bells, and you drop the hose and everyone runs to their houses yelling “Mom! Mom! Can I have money for the ice cream truck PLEASE! Fifty cents? A quarter? Please, oh please please please?! Everybody else is. He’s gonna go by, Mom!” All five kids bouncing all wet on their front porches waving their arms around and yelling through the screen door because you can’t go in when you’re wet except for Ann Hunton, her screen door slams once and then while the rest of you are yelling for your moms to Hurry! Ann comes running through the screen door slam! all wet still and yelling and waving over her head and the Good Humor truck stops right out there in front of your house. That’s what this kid looked like talking to Frank. Like one of us trying to get money from our mom for the ice cream truck.

That might be a good analogy.

The kid’s stopped talking and he’s got his arms wrapped around each other in front of him like a pretzel and his eyebrows are still up and his mouth stretched showing his teeth clenched.

“He wants to help you,” Frank says, “I told him to get lost, but he’s really jonesin’.”

“Think he’ll be okay?” I say, “I don’t mind as long as he’s not a pain in the ass.”

Frank says something in Spanish. The kid pops up in the air and then smacks both hands over his mouth. He nods, his head going up and down so fast his hair is shaking all over.

“Como se llama?” I say.

“Benito!” the kid says. He says a bunch of other stuff after that, real fast. I hear gracias a couple of times. I hold up my hand.

“Benito!” I say, “Mas despacio, por favor.”

He opens his mouth up and takes in a big breath. I put my hand up again.

“Benito,” I say, “Tu no hablas, eh? Me dije, tu asistenta, si?”

He puts both hands over his mouth and nods. I can see his smile right through his hands. I point to a stool over by the bar and flip my finger up and over to a spot next to the pinball machine. Benito runs over there and gets the stool.

I reach inside the coin mechanism opening and release the catch that holds the chrome piece that holds the glass in place. Put the chrome piece on the floor. Benito puts the stool where I had pointed and is standing there next to it. I point to one of the tables.

“Que es?” I say. Benito looks at the table and then at me.

“Como se dice...” I say, pointing at the table.

“Mesa!” Benito says.

“La Mesa,” I say, “Aqui.”

I point to a place near the stool. Benito goes and drags the table closer.

I slide the glass out carefully and lay it on a different table, not the one Benito just dragged over, one further away. The glass is cloudy with smoke and dried spilled beer, it's edges that green sort of color you can only see in the edges of thick glass. Look around for the tool box I brought in. It’s over by the bar. Benito is leaning over the edge of the machine, reaching his hand toward the thumper bumpers.

“Benito!” I say, loud. “No touch! Como se dice touch?” I put my finger out and touch his shoulder.

“Tacto?” Benito says.

“No tacto,” I say.

“Este,” I say. I point over to the tool box by the bar. I wave my hand like come here.

“Trajiste?” Benito says.

“Si,” I say, “Trajiste el tool box.”

Benito is laughing at me. One hand over his mouth, he walks over to el tool box walking leaned over and uneven from laughing.

“La caja de herramientas.” Benito says.

“La caja de hermentas.” I say.

“Herr-a-mi-en-tas!” Benito says. He’s walking back holding the tool box in both hands in front of him, his shoulders hiked up by his ears and his arms out so straight they’re bent a little
backward at the elbows. His voice is clear and sharp and bright in the darkness of the bar.

“Herramientas,” I say, “Gracias.”

“De nada,” Benito says. His voice is sounding a little strained. Take the tool box from him and put it on the table he dragged over. Point to the stool.

“Tu,” I say, “Sit.”

“Sentarse,” Benito says.

“Sentarse,” I say, “Gracias.”

Benito climbs up on the stool and puts his hands on the edge of the machine. I point to his hands.

“Aqui?” I say, “es bueno, Okay”

I point to the play surface of the pinball machine.

“Aqui.” I say, “No es bueno, Not okay, okay?”

“Okay,” Benito says.

I flip a little lever on the coin mechanism. That rings up a credit on the credit counter. So far so good. I push the red button on the left front of the machine and the credit counter goes back to zero and a ball clunks into the plunger alley. I pull the plunger and try the machine out.

The ball rolls slow around the board, sort of like it just woke up after a long sleep and okay, is going through the motions but its heart isn't really in it, wait 'til I've had my coffee.

“Flipper,” I say. I point to the flipper.

“Fleeper,” Benito says.

The right flipper is so weak the ball pushes it down. The left is okay, snapping the ball up and across the playboard with zing.

“Bueno Fleeper,” Benito says.

Let the ball fall into the drain. Some points ring up on the back glass and then the ball clunks back into the plunger alley. Reach around the table pushing all the targets. Three of the targets aren't working. Four of the main OXO lights are burned out. OXO was made by Williams, back in the late ‘60’s. It’s based on Tic Tac Toe. They had a four player version that came out later, but this is the original two player game.

Every time I hit a target or a switch that is no good, Benito says “Malo.” Every time I find one that works, Benito says, “Bueno.”

I check the Thumper Bumpers. Those round things in the middle that bounce the ball from all sides. You push the little ring at the bottom and the big ring at the top comes down. It’s supposed to come down hard, to pop that ball away. The first one I check is fine. The second one, well it comes down but it’s like it has arthritis or something, really slow.

“Thumper Bumper,” I say.

“Thuberbuber,” Benito says. “Enferma.”

I take the ball out of the plunger alley and hand it to Benito. His eyes get all big and he holds the ball in both hands, turning it around like maybe it’s different on one side or something. Reach my hand inside the coin box and push up on the bottom of the playboard, grab it with the other hand when it clears the outside box and push it up. It goes up like a car hood, and there's a metal rod that holds the board up. Benito is looking up at all the relays and solenoids and wiring like he’s seeing god. He rolls the pinball from one hand to the other and back.

I point to the leaf switch behind the right flipper button. Benito leans his head into the machine to see.

“Leaf switch.” I say.

“Liefswish.” Benito says.

Point to the leaf switch that contacts when the ball goes down the drain.

“Leaf switch.” I say.

“Liefswish.” Benito says.

Point to other leaf switches in the machine and Benito gets it. He starts pointing to leaf switches and saying “Liefswish.” He does it so fast I can hardly tell whether he’s really pointing at the right things. But I’m pretty sure he is.

”Most of the problems on old pinball games like this are fixed by cleaning and adjusting.” I say. I say it in English. Benito nods. Maybe he understands.

“Leaf switches control everything.” I say. Leaf switches are just two spring steel strips with copper contacts riveted into the ends. “When the contacts come together, electricity flows and stuff happens.”

Benito nods and drops the pinball. He’s off the stool picking it up and back on the stool so fast I hardly see him do it.

“Sometimes the contacts get dirty and the electricity won't flow.” I say.

I show Benito how you can take the switches entirely apart and add or remove shims, clean the contacts with sandpaper, bend the strips closer or apart, resolder the wires, whatever, and make ‘em work like new.

I point to the coil that operates the right flipper. There’s a black burnt looking spot near where one of the wires is soldered on.

“Coil.” I say.

“Coil,” Benito says.

“Es Malo.” I say. “Mira.”

I point to the black spot on the coil.

“Quemado!” Benito says.

“That mean burnt?” I say.

“Si,” Benito says. He puts his fingers up and wiggles them like fire.

“Hsssss!” he says.

Plug in my soldering iron and lean it in the little wire stand on a table so it doesn’t burn anything. Get the solder sucker out and put it nearby.

“A coil is just an electromagnet with a sliding metal rod inside.” I say in English. Maybe he understands.

“When the current turns on,” Point to the two wires that are soldered to the coil. “Electromagnet pulls the rod,” I push the rod with my finger, “and that pushes the flipper.” show him the flipper moving back and forth when I push the rod.

“Coil” I say, and point to the coil.

“Coil” Benito says. “Malo.”

I start unscrewing the screws that hold the flipper coil in place.

“Sometimes,” I say in English, “The rods can get rusty, or sticky with spilled beer.” I point to the rod. “Or, the levers that connect the rod to the flippers can get out of whack.” Point to the levers.
“Pero, no este es.” I say, pointing to the levers. “Y no este es” pointing to the rod.”

“In this case,” I say in English. “Es definamente el coil.”

The coil is just hanging by the wires soldered to it. I pick up the soldering iron and touch it to one of the solder joints. Smoke comes up, that means the iron is hot. Grab the solder sucker in my other hand and cock it by pushing the yellow knob against my leg. Hold the soldering iron against the joint until the solder changes color, quick put the tip of the solder sucker against the liquid joint and push the trigger. Solder sucker jumps in my hand as the spring pulls the plunger out, plunger sucks the liquid solder off the wire and coil. Cock the solder sucker against my leg again and do the same to the other one.

The coil falls into the bottom of the pinball machine.

“Bravo!” Benito says. “Que es?”

He’s pointing at the solder sucker.

“Solder sucker,” I say. I cock it against my leg and hand it to him. Look around inside the machine for a coil that might be available. One that’s not so important as the flipper. Hear the sound of the solder sucker going off, a kind of dry sliding spring sound that has a clicking beginning to it. Not two separate sounds like click and shh, but one sound like clisshk! Only quicker than you can say.

“Mira!” I say, “Este es no muy importante.”

Look at Benito to see if he’s looking where I’m pointing. He’s got both hands around the barrel of the solder sucker and the yellow knob part down on the stool between his legs and he’s practically lifting himself up off the stool trying to push it down. But he’s also looking where I’m pointing.

“Aqui,” I say. Put my hand out.

While I’m switching the coil, I keep up a running commentary in English and occasional Spanish. Pointing at stuff and giving things to Benito to hold. He watches everything like the next time the pinball machine breaks down, he’s going to fix it. Maybe he will.

The flipper works good with the new coil in there. I look around for Frank. He is washing glasses behind the bar, setting wet ones out upside down on a towel in front of him on the bar.

"Frank" I say.

Frank looks up. I walk over there, bouncing the burnt out coil in my hand.

"This coil is burnt out." I say. "Do you have any way to get another one?"

Frank looks at the coil in my hand. His shoulders come up along with his lower lip in the middle and his head tilts to one side, eyes on the coil.

"There's a guy I know back home," he says. It doesn't sound like he thinks the guy he knows back home could help him much.

"What about where you got the machine?" I say.

"Came with the bar," he says. Eyes up looking at me through lids half down. Face all wide like the Mississippi Delta.

"Well," I say. "Who serviced it last? Maybe they could help."

Frank looks up over my head and frowns a little. His eyelids go together and make a crease there.

"Came up from Panama City," he says.

"Is he in the phone book?" I say.

Frank looks at me, his eyes steady, one side of his mouth sort of up a little.

"You really need to do this, huh?" Frank says.

I can feel my face getting warm. Chest takes in a big breath without me thinking about it. Can't think of anything to say.

"Phone book's over there." Frank says. He waves his big hand at one end of the bar and leans down over the sink full of soapy glasses.

I stand there bouncing the coil in my hand. Don’t want to make a phone call. Turn back to the machine. Benito is reaching his finger up inside so careful and intent I can’t help myself.

“BANG!” I shout. Right behind him.

* * *

The rest of it is just like that. Me telling Benito what I’m doing in broken Spanish and mostly English. This is what I say to him.

“Relays are just a bunch of leaf switches activated by coils when other leaf switches send power to them.” I say, “Then the relays send electric signals to other coils or relays that make the score counters turn or the scoring lights change. The relays keep track of the score and make the lights go blink and stuff.”

I tell him about the scoring wheels and open up the backglass so he can see all the relays back there.

I clean and adjust and fiddle with things. Fiddling seems to fix more and more as a pinball machine gets older. Some earlier repairman had the foresight to drop a bunch of extra light bulbs in the bottom of the machine, and so I am able to replace most of the important ones.
When I am through adjusting and cleaning and testing by hand, I put the board back down. I let him play a while with the glass off the machine. But he can't keep his fingers off the playing field, and when the newly recharged thumper-bumper cracks his knuckle hard enough to split the skin I make him stop. Benito hardly looks at his finger, except to suck the blood off. I liked to do that when I was a kid. Suck my blood from cuts, I mean.

I clean the board and then wipe down the glass with some Windex with Spanish on the label. Slide the glass back in and put the chrome strip in place. I set the latch, ringing up four credits before locking the cashbox.

"Test it out, give it a shakedown." I say.

“Shaydone,” Benito says.

I leave him playing.


"Thanks," says Frank. He’s wiping glasses with a towel and putting them on a shelf under the bar. He nods toward the OXO machine. It’s ringing and blinking while Benito slaps the flipper buttons and bounces up and down on his bare toes.

"They call it the 'la Machina O-Ho',” Frank says, “the Panamanians do."

"I'm not surprised." I say.

"What're you doin' here," Frank says, "if you don't mind my asking."

He’s wiping the last glass with a towel, just wiping and wiping, a long time after it should be dry, and his eyes are kinda narrow, head back a little, looking at me over his nose, like he can see me better that way.

"Just passing through," I say, "Wanted to stop for a few days."

“Uh-huh,” Frank says. He stops looking at me like that and puts the last glass under the bar.

"Headin' anywhere in particular?" he says, like he doesn't really care. Maybe he has the 'Fellow Americans Abroad' syndrome, and misses talking with people from home. He wipes down the bar with the towels that the glasses were on, wadding them up into a big wet blob and circling the blob down the bar. Tosses the blob somewhere under the bar. Turns to rearrange the bottles on the back bar. I’m thinking about how to answer him. Curious about him, too. Maybe if I tell him something about me, he’ll answer some of my questions.

"South, generally," I say. Trying to find some way to explain my quest. My Hejira. My Wanderlust. I tell him about leaving the nagging wife and the spoiled brat kid. I explain about the dead end job for the super-critical boss, the never-ending bills, the lack of control I'd had over my life.

Half of it is lies, but hell, it might be true. In theory it is valid.

I tell him about driving to Antarctica.

"Or as close as possible," I say. Right now I don’t feel so confident about it. Right now I’m trying not to sound too crazy.

While I speak he nods and makes those noises people make to show they are listening when they can't be looking at you. When I finish, he goes on nodding and 'hmm'ing for a while, as if the words are slow in getting down to that end of the bar. He moves back to where I’m sitting and reaches under the bar. He slaps a big paperback book onto the bar in front of me. A cloud of dust rises from it.

"Got a road map?" he says

"Uh, yeah," I say, "out in the..."

"Go get it." he says.

I am moving toward the door before thinking about how I feel jumping to people's orders. Don't let it stop me, but I think about it.

The sun blinds me, thick and yellow and wet like melted butter. Snag my Rand McNally Central and South American Road Atlas out of the door pocket and go back inside quick. At three in the afternoon, the sun is the enemy.

Frank is flipping through his own atlas. It’s a dog-eared thing with hand written notes and penciled-in routes. He looks at the date on my map and grunts so loud the dust rises up from his map again. He’s comparing Columbia. Apparently my map shows several routes which he has drawn in on his. While he concentrates, I find myself staring at a tattoo I hadn't noticed before on his arm, it’s almost invisible against his dark skin.

"You were in 'Nam?" I say.

His eyes come up to look right into mine. His eyes say I came back from ‘Nam and I was the enemy. Joined the army and left my home for ‘Nam a hero and came back the enemy. Everywhere I went, people looked at me like I was scum. We didn’t get nothin’ when we came home, worse than nothing, we got kicked in the balls. Couldn’t get jobs. Couldn’t find girlfriends. Wives left us and our kid brothers and sisters threw rocks and stones at us and called us pigs. Didn’t get a fucking parade. Didn’t get nothing. That’s why I’m here.

That’s what Frank’s eyes say.

"Seoul," I lie, "MASH unit, Pfc Orderly. '74."

He nods and relaxes, his eyes blinking slowly, like they’re on stand-down.

"1st Division Tactical.” he says, “Plain of Jars, '68. Tet Offensive."

I let respect and understanding show on my face. It's not that hard to do; just don't say too much.

In this scenario, I am the rookie kid who had caught the tail-end of the war, when it was winding down. He's been in the thick of it, the heaviest fighting, the most hellish of missions. I give him that respect because he deserves it and it gives him ease.

It helps him not to have to defend himself here, as well as in 'Nam and then at home, after.
Truth was, I'd missed the draft in '71 by numbers, (my birthday chosen 348th) and in '72 by an even wider margin. I'd gone to a dinky state school in New York which I had quit after one year to go to Art School, which I quit after 3 months to go to work full time at McDonald's so I could become a rock and roll star. In '73 they stopped drafting people.

I'd protested against the war, and in the seventies, I was one of those guys who hated soldiers. Somewhere along the line that had changed. Don't remember when that happened.

* * *

That night the crowd at Frank's is pretty much the same as the night before. All men. Loud, rowdy, macho men. When Frank comes to ask if I want another beer, I ask him if there is a place where more women hung out. He looks at me like he’s not sure what I mean, and not sure he wants to know.

"Not a bordello," I say, "just a bar or a cafe or something where the clientele is more... mixed."
He shakes his head.

"Not 'round here.” he says, “The women stay at home at night and the men go out. If you want to meet women who aren't prostitutes, you have to meet them during the day. They're very traditional around here."

"Oh," I say.

Shit, I’m thinking. Have no desire to go to a whore house. I put the thought out of my head and go back to watching the locals.

Later, after the crowd thins down. Frank wipes the bar in front of me. He wipes it over and over, lower lip stuck out, studying the bar surface. Like he’s trying to figure out what he could put there instead.

"You're a okay guy..." he says. He puts his thumbnail down to scrape at some microscopic snag on the bar.

I don’t know what to say to that so I sip my beer. He is frowning his eyes at the snag.

"Look," Frank says, "when I close up, why don't you come home with me for dinner? My wife waits up and cooks some tapas to help me wind down."

When Frank said that, he started out the sentence really slow, lots of space between the words. But the last part of it, he said that last part really fast. Jamming all the words together to get them out before they could forget where they were going.

"That's mighty nice of you, Frank," I say, "but I wouldn't want to intrude..."

I do want to go. I really want to go.

"No trouble at all," he says, all smiling and gracious. Eyes looking relieved that he got all the words out okay.

"I'll call Paola,” Frank says, “She'll be glad for the company."

Waiting until the crowd is gone is hard. After Frank hustles the last drunken man out, I help him straighten up, more to make it go faster than for any other reason. We head out on the narrow path behind the bar into the jungle. My heart is beating fast and my breath is coming short. Tell myself to calm down. Myself isn't listening.

* * *

At one point I am sitting by her, and she touches my leg under the table, where Frank can't see. Frank's daughter does. Frank has a daughter. Frank and Paola's daughter is dark and soft like living unsweetened chocolate, in the late night, couple of beers light. Isn't just a light touch, when Frank and Paola's daughter Francesca touches my leg. Not just a brush that I might think is accidental. Francesca's hand lingers, resting on my thigh and squeezing just the slightest bit, before sliding away.

Francesca's eyes never meet mine for more than an instant. Not while we are at the table.

Early in the morning, just before dawn, when the sky is changing outside the window from deep velvet blue to a pinkish cerise, she slips into the narrow bed. Francesca does, waking me up. Francesca is naked and her hands push my shorts down to my knees. Francesca's hands find my sleep-hardened penis.

"What about your Dad?" I say. I don't want him to be mad at me. He might kill me. I don't want her to stop, either.

"He sleeps heavy," Francesca says, "and late."

Francesca climbing on top of me and taking me inside her, lower lip caught in her teeth, half smile on her face.

"And I'm quiet," she says, leans forward to rest her breasts on my chest, her lips on my lips, her tongue darting like a snake's, her hips rolling like a woman who loves to fuck.