Xanadu : Gringo

dancharthos@hotmail.com

by Daniel Thomas

"Diga," the woman said, glaring at this gringo in her motel breezeway. Big backpack hung from shoulders and waist. Only your writer knew what burden bent his heart.

How did I get here?

Running from depression and divorce.

After five years of marriage, Cece left me. For another woman. Went east to Baltimore. Took our son with her.

We sold our condo; I gave her the money. Still in shock, I moved in with my best friend Jeff. Began to waken to pain, until, sick with grief and denial, I look for another world where I can forget.

Gringos always dream of escaping into Mexico. Why? The other? On our very doorstep? Yes. That must be it.

So I make a run for the border, grasping at cliché. Go live in Tijuana, armed with only books, clothes, and a few hundred dollars.

You ain’t really running, boy man. You will keep your job in San Diego. Have your taco and eat it, too. Tomorrow go back to work in Troy, crossing the walls of empire. Like so many others who live on both sides of the line. There once was a giant two-headed horse standing at the gates. Now that artist is famous. You dream of the same.

"Diga," the woman said. Speak. What’s my story? Tonight I move. That’s the plan. First a motel room, then an apartment, in the beaches – las Playas – a most comfortable part of town. Hey – I want to escape, not to suffer! Here there be streetlights, water, electricity, middle-class houses, and the sea.

So you take the evening trolley from San Diego to the border. Grab a late bus across TJ to the beaches. At last arrive by the dark ocean of night, on the threshold of the Latin world. There this guardian figure steps from mythology and orders you to speak – "Diga," the woman said.

Or is she only mistress of motel? My soul. My soul aches. University forbade that word. This your antithesis dialectic.

No matter. Mexico. Mexico. Mexico will lull me to sleep.

Not Dorothy nor the witch’s poppies nor the bluenoses of literature.

"Diga," the woman said, ten seconds ago....

Nod your head. Hope she will return the sign. Gaze in this numina; ask with slight accent: "¿No hay un cuarto en el motel?"

Is there room in the inn at eleven p.m. Thursday night on the beaches of Tijuana? If yes, I will begin my new life in TJ forever; if no, I must go back to San Diego tonight.

"Sí hay. Pasele por favor." Into the office. Fill out the registration form.

Nombre/Apellido Michael Charles Wilson c/o Macdonald

Dirección 3922 Central Avenue

Ciudad/Estado/País San Diego California 92105 Estados Unidos

Et cetera et cetera ad infinitum hoteli.

Direccíon/Address: c/o Macdonald. A little background music.

Six years ago, when Carolyn and I got married, Jeff Macdonald, my best friend since the seventh grade, stood beside me. When our baby was christened, Jeff again stood with us. Then, last November, Carolyn left, and Jeff, meanwhile, had just broken up with his girlfriend. Suggested I live with him for a while. "Yeah, Mikey, we’ll be like – who was it? The odd couple. My mom used to watch reruns of that show, remember?"

We even rented the old Mathau-Lemmon movie one night. It gave us a few laughs. But then in January Jeff got another girlfriend, and she started hinting about moving into his little old house in East San Diego. By then, I’d been thinking – even dreaming – about Tijuana. Finally got the nerve to tell my best friend that I wanted to move south.

"But, Mikey, that’s another culture over there!"

Thought: Well, at least he is politically correct. He didn’t say "down there." Gringo brain was full of university propaganda and sensitive toes. Some of it must have rubbed off on my buddy. Or... is he trying to emphasize how very different it really is? Not less, not lower, but something more, something truly different, other. Mexico. A worthy adversary. A conquest. But I am the one who has already been conquered....

"Mikey, are you still here...? I worry about you sometimes...."

"Yeah..." focus, gringo. "Look, Jeff, you know I speak Spanish. I want to learn more. And I’ve got to do something different. Challenge myself."

"Well..." his eyes glanced toward the second bedroom, then looked back at me, "but do they even have electricity and gas?" But as the words left his mouth, Jeff winced, "Shit, I’m sorry, dude, I know that’s stupid to ask. Of course they do. But hey, you can’t drink the water down there, can you?"

I ignored the "down there" and simply gestured at the cooler in the corner of his tiny kitchen, "You don’t drink San Diego water."

"No. But I could. If I wanted."

"So? Actions speak louder, man. You don’t drink it here. I don’t either."

"Well, yeah, but... what about all those kidnappings and drug assassinations? Didn’t they just kill the chief of police?"

"Yeah, but you think that’s all that happens? One or two murders a week in a city of two million people? Sure, they’ve got problems, and so do we. Serial killers, schoolyard shootings. Besides, I ain’t the kind of person they want to kill."

"No, I guess not." He frowned, "But you seem so... unhappy lately. I know it’s been rough on you, the divorce and all, but... are you sure running away is the right thing to do?"

"Bro, don’t you see – I’ve got to do something different. Make some kind of new place for myself. My writing has gone to hell with this shit Carolyn threw at me. And my heart tells me this is it, the change I need. Right there, next door, another world."

"Yeah. I guess." He shook his head. Reached for the cribbage board. "You gonna keep your job at least?"

"Sure. It’s only a forty minute trolley ride from the border to downtown."

"Hmm. Speaking of work, how are the little old ladies treating you? You ain’t talked much about them, except for the cookies you bring home." His fingers opened the little slot in back of the board, drew out the red and green pegs.

I smiled. Love this game. Wondered if they play it in Mexico. "Oh, work’s all right, I guess. Except those church ladies are always asking me about Carolyn and Orion. Just when I’ve managed to forget for a few blessed minutes, along comes another. They mean well, but it hurts."

"They don’t know why she left, do they?"

"To live with another woman? No. I still haven’t told anyone that’s why we broke up. Except Pastor Deborah, and she’s very discreet."

"Mmm. Well, if you gotta go, you gotta go. But when you get a place, you damn well better ask me over to see it."

"Of course I will! I’m thinking about staying in a motel at the beach, then renting an apartment by the ocean. You can come down and check it out."

"Sounds like a plan." Handed me the deck of cards. "You want to deal first?"

"Thanks. And Jeff?"

"Yo?"

"If this doesn’t work out, can I come back and sleep on your couch for a while?" I began to shuffle the cards.

"Dude, you can have your room back!"

"No, no, you should give that to Carla."

"But...?"

"Yeah, I know, she’ll be sleeping with you, but give her the room for her stuff. Cut?"

"Suppose you’re right. Separate closets, at least."

"Uh-huh. And all her makeup and shit. Trust me, you’ll both be happier if she has her own space, and you keep yours."

"Right. So deal already."

Feeling strangely disjointed, looking at himyself in third-person like you were someone else, Michael will unload his backpack that first night in Motel Noaypedo. White noise of ocean flows in the window, washing his brain, untying connections with waves of sound. Five shirts, two pair of pants, several underwear, socks. Pens and paper. Several precious books, including his Bibles – one in English, one in Spanish; then the Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and a Petite Larousse Español; next a copy of Shakespeare’s works his grandmother gave him before she died two years ago; then, his favorite work in Spanish – the Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España by the old conqueror-soldier Bernal Díaz del Castillo; and, most poignant and painful, the works of Emily Dickenson that Carolyn gave him for Christmas 1998, before she had met... Elaine.

Open the poems. Read again how she signed both her and their son’s names. For Daddy from Carolyn and Orion.

Sit down on the bed, heart cracking, eyes blurring with tears. Fall back across the standard motel bedspread, clutching the book to his chest with one hand, grasping at his hair with the other. And he weeps. Struggling to be silent, lungs heave at the pain. She said maybe, she said maybe I can come see them in the summer, she said....

After a while the gringo forced himself to undress and crawl between the sheets. Thank God I am tired. Maybe I can actually sleep. The empty place ached. A whisper came to him: Well, at least you are doing something different now. It’ll be a long commute to work tomorrow, but if you can do it, live in another world, it may help you recover.

Slept. Dreamt of waves and feared I would drown. Dug my hands in the sand, struggling to write my name, anything, before the tide returned, and erased every mark, every footstep, every sign I could leave behind, every touch of the sea against my body, every moment and breath and desire I’ve ever known....

Friday morning the sounds of waves awaken the gringo. Ocean whispers in his ears, and he thinks – the sea, the siren sea has broken my sailoring dreams and stirred me from sleep. Damn purple prose.

Sat up in the motel bed. Wondered at waking in a new world. I’ll never be the same again. I am like Odysseus with ears opened. This caress of noise creates my new day.

Shh, shhh... sshhh, the surf said, warning him to be quiet, and listen.

Eventually he will rise from the siren’s enchantment. Shower, go off to work in San Diego. At the church, everyone asks a million questions about his first night. "The motel is very pleasant, right by the sea," he says, "and tomorrow I will look for an apartment."

Return for another night of dreaming waves, to sleep in that endless wash of thought where your brain rhythms merge with the breaking sea. But first, visit a convenience store down the street, then stop in the office to chat with your Valkerie. Learn that her name is Nora.

On Saturday, his first day off, the new gringo will walk the Playas sidewalks, checking out se renta signs. Visit one with landlord present. Then call the others from motel room phone. Two-fifty, two-seventy-five for one-bedroom or studio. Six hundred for a luxury two-bedroom penthouse. None of them seem right. Intuition tells him wait, not yet, no. At sunset, walking on the beach, he will hear the waves pause, almost fall silent, as if hesitant to break onto the shore. But when he looks, they still come in, just smaller and not so fast. The gringo scratches his head. Must be a lack of storms far out at sea. Decide to go to the office. Ask Nora’s advice about apartments.

"Oh," she will smile, "we have a vacancy in a building we manage down the street." The phone rings. "With your permission," she says in typical Mexican courtesy. Turns to take it. Mutters a few words, listens, answers with crisp, formal Spanish, "Yes, of course, I’ll call them right now."

Michael savors the sound of that last word – ahorita – like the aftertaste of a tart wine. In the silence he can hear a distant radio. Nora glances at him, looks back at the teléfono, punches two numbers, and waits.

"Bueno. This is the office speaking." She talks very loud; easy to understand. Now the radio seems to come from the phone. "Could you please turn down your music? You are disturbing our other guests. Yes. Thank you. No, it’s nothing. What? No, we don’t give refunds. Not after you’ve already checked in. No. No, not even half. Ni la mitad. Thank you. Yes. Well, tomorrow then."

She will put the phone down abruptly, growling something about whores ("putas..."). Then turn back to the gringo. "So, would you like to see the departamento?"

Outside, under twilight sky, Nora stands in her breezeway. Calls a motel housekeeper to her side, orders her – Take these keys and show the apartment to the señor. Michael follows, exchanging a few words with the maid about the weather (chilly), the neighborhood (very good), and the beach (beautiful, no?). Yes.

After walking two blocks on Avenida Pacifica, they will turn down an outdoor staircase toward the sea. A handful of apartments falls down the steps, like a gap toothed smile broken by empty lots. Suddenly Michael sees the building towering before him. In disbelief the vision bites, his heart flutters, and he struggles not to gasp out loud. Halfway down the outdoor steps, between two empty slots, the skinny building stands, waiting, silent. The same one. The same one....

Oblivious to your stunned silence, the maid unlocks the front gate, then the door to second floor flat. Ushers you in. Little need to inspect inside. You want it. You want it now. It was pre-ordained in your dreams – this impossible tower by the beach.

However, back at the office, Nora must first deliver a long, intense lecture about what is a deposit, what is rent, and what will be the light bill. Then, Michael, you must sign a three-page, small print contract lease for six months tenancy. "No, I can’t give you a copy right now," she frowns, "we don’t have a xerox machine. But," now she half smiles, "I’ll make one and give it to you as soon as I can."

She never will. Gringo Michael glances down at the small pile of business cards on the front desk. Sees her name printed there, with title: Nora Virgil Gutierrez Puente, gerente (manager). Look up. Notice a help wanted sign posted in the window. Read it backwards. Night receptionist needed. Begin to understand. The strict manners about renting, the fearful glances from motel employees, the phone call to that room. Your cihuateteo, your valkerie, is a sangron – Son Of a Bitch.

The next day, Sunday the 12^th, el gringo Michael Wilson skipped going to church. Instead, moved his small collection of clothing and writing. Visited a huge supermarket several blocks from the beach. Dropped over five hundred pesos on food, kitchen equipment and bathroom supplies. Lugged it all home in seven heavy bags whose plastic handholds cut into his finger joints. Put everything into the tiny cupboards and small refrigerator. Sat down at his cheap table and began to feel at home. Finally, picked up a pen.

"Well," he wrote on a clean sheet, under the date, "I am really living here. I have rented an apartment. Now, welcome to the next level :-) heh. Now I must find friends, or go mad. Yeah, Jeff’ll come down, but he won’t be here every day, and he’s got Carla to worry about now. I must find friends here – friends like like Freddi at the convenience store down the avenue. And maybe... Nora? Mmm. Maybe. Yes I need people, not only for my sanity, but to learn more Spanish. If I’m going to get anything from living here, I need to talk with the people and learn their language. Mexican Spanish and Tijuana slang, not the Castillian they taught me in school. Not the literary cult I learned at the university, where Carolyn and I met...."

Forced himself away from thinking about her and the boy. Wrote for another hour, describing the motel, the beach, his new apartment, his valkerie Nora. Will we ever dance across the Aztec sky with the flaming sun of warriors who made that last, great sacrifice, like my father, and gave their lives for...? No. It couldn’t be. The damn war killed him, took him away from me. I’m dreaming again. Vietnam. Laos. Damn that war! Try to explain why God would let it happen, why I should never know my own father? I know, I know: free will, we did it to ourselves. But then would I let my own son slip away from me... no. No. Something else. Think of something else....

Stop. Look out the window, gazing between two buildings toward the noisy ocean. One or two neighbors come and go. How long before I know them? *Sigh*. Reach across the table for your copy of the True History of the Conquest of New Spain. Reading the old conquistador’s words, this gringo can’t keep from translating. I am Bernal in another life, conquering Mexico, except... except I am the one who has been conquered.

{Bernal Díaz del Castillo; Chapter I, Paragraph 1, Sentence 3.}