The Algerian

He downed four cold Dixies in the bar on Canal Street during his lunch break as the sun pounded the pavement outside.

It was sticky summertime.

Fortified, he rode the black BSA back to the office and bid the boss goodbye. Four years at the desk were quite enough.

But he still had to eat. You can´t dodge that.

Yellow Cab hired him for the early shift, leaving him work-free by mid-afternoon. He always walked the heat-cracked sidewalk to a close-by tavern from his shotgun duplex on Verret Street.

It was Algiers Point, a ferry ride across the murky Mississippi.

Every afternoon he sat in that bar inhaling cold Pearls and quail eggs, blowing the taxicab tips. The air-conditioning was terrific.

The duplex was dusty, stuffy and sparsely furnished. A table and two chairs adorned the kitchen. A fridge chilled cold cuts and gin. The ceiling was old pressed tin, and the windows were very tall.

There were two rockers on the front porch for air and a mattress on the bedroom floor. That completed the Louisiana decór.

A wanderer girlfriend visited now and then. She was startlingly beautiful and sat cross-legged on the floor in the darkness combing her long, blonde hair as Leonard Cohen sang Suzanne.

(He ran into her again a couple years later at a news stand. She was Easyrider magazine´s cover girl. A photo spread inside showed her half naked dancing atop the bar in a tavern somewhere in the Gila Desert of southwestern Arizona.)

Two months later a call came from the Caribbean. A better job. And soon after, the BSA swayed in the hold of a Sealand freighter churning toward San Juan in the Antilles.

And he was flying high, skirting the Bermuda Triangle and sipping a cuba libre the silky stewardess had sold him.

A first step into America Latina.

(Leonard Cohen sings Suzanne.)

Flight of the black moth

La pollila negra flits into the terraza and vanishes into the roof tiles. The hour is late and dark.

The ignorant eye first thinks: small bat. The hour is right but the flitting is wrong, far too gentle and lovely.

It´s a black moth.

We have a relative on the Plaza Grande, a woman fearful and sad, though potentially attractive. She fears many things, and is the only person we´ve known who´s afraid of butterflies and moths. Is there a name for this? May we paste a psychiatric label on her?

It´s the dust of their wings that gives her the willies. Isn´t that captured pollen, or are butterflies naturally dusty? Like some snazzy tropical women.

Nonetheless, seeing a big, black moth briefly in the darkness as sinister clouds approach does stir a certain unease.

Land of the long knives

We woke this morning feeling macho, so we set out to buy a sharp machete.

What is more Mexican than a machete? Tequila perhaps, mariachis and slanty-eyed, brown-skinned women with long black hair.

Mexico has gun control, but nobody considers machete control.

Around the Plaza Grande of Patzcuaro lives an old fool, a vagrant lost in dreams who wears rags and sleeps on the sidewalk under his sombrero. Once, he voiced a grinning monologue to yours truly who was sitting at a sidewalk table with a hot cafecito.

The old fool always totes a big machete wrapped in newsprint.

One can buy a new machete in any hardware store, cheap and oiled, ready for slashing maguey to make tequila. Ready for anything, which is the problem.

We find them scary, but now we have our own. We can be scary too. Remember that if you´re going to give us any lip.

The first cut is the deepest.

-- Cat Stevens.

One messy life

We´re retired, they say. But it doesn´t feel that way.

Retirement implies there was a career, a focus on work that lasted for decades. The decades we did.

The focus we lacked, utterly.

Retirement in this case was simply arriving at a corner where change was conceivable and, luckily, it happened at age 55, which ain´t bad, brother.

The 55 watershed was significant because it separated that ole messy lifestyle from today´s sun-kissed Ranchito.

Let´s look at the so-called career: It was newspapering, and we simply fell into it. Never took a journalism course. Never took but one English course in the university that was not required.

Before that, there was a messy stint in the military. Following the discharge, we fell into a fling with a cute lass in Spanish class, which ended in matrimony. Roe versus Wade came later.

There was toil as a telephone installer, then an insurance salesman in a New Orleans department store. Didn´t suit, as one might imagine. But a married boy with a baby needs a job.

A cabbie by night, we completed college.

Dad pulled strings and we ended up at the newspaper in New Orleans. No experience, no training, no nuttin´.

Just a father with friends.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

The newspapering continued for almost 30 years, primarily in the nasty heat of New Orleans and Houston with two brief (totaling 16 months) spells in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Editing work, inside at a desk, preferably late at night away from the honchos who expected ambition. Ha!

It was a flat-line career fueled by inertia, good looks, inborn talent, and a low-grade but constant affection for alcohol.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

The first marriage strung out for five years till the Call of the Wild overcame us. We hit the road, Jack.

About five more years passed during which we worked in the Caribbean on those two occasions, sweating even more, which made the Cuba libres taste lovelier.

Just a black-bearded Jimmy Buffet.

Back in New Orleans, we met another cutie who wanted to move in.

And she did. Blackbeard didn´t think it would last long.

He had lived with others. But this one stuck it out for seven years.

Like high-end flypaper from Tiffany & Co.

Finally we married for corporate medical coverage, not your best motive for matrimony. It lasted another ten years due to, again, inertia and martinis. More messy life.

Finally, her eyes opened, and Blackbeard was tossed out on the street, not so young anymore, not so resilient.

It hurt. Did it ever. Boy, did it ever. Utter shock.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

And that´s when the messy life began to dry up and take form. After half a century. Shock therapy.

One year further on, March 30, 1996, to be exact, we decided to come totally clean. That evening we were sitting solo in a taco joint on a sharp edge of Houston, Texas. The sun had set. We glanced about us, and marveled at the clarity of sober light.

But the clarity also put into focus the messy life of past and present. This was very, very painful.

It was time for Felipe´s Fabulous Florida Vacation.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

A year later, we sat on a hillside near Tallahassee where we spent a week with a psychologist who stirred us a brew of psilocybin, and we drank two nights, first Monday, then Wednesday, a day of rest, like God´s Sunday, in between.

It was a first for us. In subsequent reading, we´ve learned there are various ways to approach these inexplicable events.

Too many do it for entertainment, but it´s best to do it like the primitives have done it for centuries in all corners of this messy world.

We catapulted past a curtain of Indian drumbeats and into the bodies of sensuous women and wild, savage animals. We walked down the hillside and saw the Earth breathe, literally.

We saw ice crystals and blood, and we cried.

We died and spotted that famous light in the tunnel though we did not make it up to the bulb. Not our time, not just yet.

We woke that Wednesday night an altered man at 52. The messiness was swept up and tossed away.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Two former wives will attest to our stony distance and untouchability. But on returning from the Florida vacation, nerve ends ablaze, we fell into the arms of a friend whose life was also a mess . . . but on the other side of the spectrum.

She knew too much emotion, not too little. It was our baptism of fire into another way of being, the lessons learned in Florida exploded into the real world. Hand in hand, the two of us sank beneath the waves and almost drowned.

But again we did not die. It was on-the-job training, a shocking scream of Latina skin, glistening eyes and words of love spoken in the candlelight, something never felt before.

It flamed out after three months. But it was enough for then.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Three years later, we "retired," packed two suitcases and hopped a jet alone to Guadalajara. Ironically, we now live an awake and steady life in the very messy world of Mexico.

With Lady Zapata who bakes us cookies.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Dedicated to the two former wives and one daughter who deserved better. The first former wife found better and married him decades ago. The lovely daughter found better in her second husband and stepfather.

The second former wife, as far as we know, still awaits better, and we pray she finds it.

Song by Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins.

(Note: Entheogenic artwork by Alex Grey.)

Wind of the night train

Almost a full moon, so we set out afoot down Zapata in the darkness, about 9 p.m.

Hand in hand, we turn left at the first corner.

Passing the Abarrotes Gonzales, we come to the track just as the train arrives.

Walking near, we feel its warm wind. It is dark, and we see the last car swaying uncertainly in the dim distance as it manages a corner, barely.

There is no flashing light nor descending barricade. Only us two.

After the train thrills subside, we cross the tracks. The street is dark and quiet. The roof dogs are dozing. It is Monday night, the quietest of the week in our rinky-dink town.

On the left, abutting the rail line, is a house under construction, quite elegant for our barrio. It is dark, so we sneak in for a tour. Yours truly totes a tiny flashlight, always.

Surprisingly, we find a big living room with vaulted ceilings and a rock fireplace that rivals our own at the Ranchito.

Heading back toward Zapata, we hang a left. The street lights are new but dim.

Another block brings us to the Plaza. We circle the new clay-tile sidewalk. It is big, beautiful, silent and still this evening. Nobody but us. There are autumn leaves.

On the southeast corner of the Portales is an ancient room where we hear the music of perpetual practice. It´s a band of trumpets and drums. Probably a tuba, too.

The recently renovated, wrought-iron kiosk is lit and lovely. We stop at the ancient church and peer up at the bell tower.

No bats, but the moon to the left paints a postcard scene.

As we pass the Plaza´s corner, retracing our steps, a couple of women suddenly move into the street and curse loudly at one another. One calls the other a pinche cara de culo! Oh, my.

This expression is quite dreadful.

No matter. We continue homeward, La Guapa Señora pausing momentarily to pinch a little vine that is falling over an old rock wall toward the street.

Ladrona de plantas. A plant thief in the shadows.

The Argentine Firecracker

Bouncing down stressed-out streets on a mountainside rimming Morelia, we are visiting relatives.

A new construction is spotted, a poor place but with a porch soaring high, offering a spectacular vista of the valley of Morelia.

It brings back memories of Calle Norzagaray in Old San Juan.

A stretch of buildings there also offers, from the highest perches, stunning views of the ocean, the old Spanish forts, the slum of La Perla, and at night cruise ships, lit like candles, sailing out into wavy dark seas.

Yours truly lived there in a penthouse apartment with the Argentine Firecracker: Silvina Susana Sarmiento of Buenos Aires.

She was 20 years old, and he was 30. She came to Puerto Rico on a tourist visa and let it lapse, choosing to work in a smoky bar.

She was young, beautiful, intelligent and very rebellious. In other words, perfect for yours truly at that time.

But it only lasted six months.

Fading memories bring back breezy tropical nights out on the patio, swaying in a hammock. The Firecracker handed ice-cubed cuba libres through a stained-glass window to waiting hands.

We listened to Vinicius de Moraes or Atahualpa Yupanqui on the record player as the night waves pounded La Perla far below.

But rebellious youth, booze and confusion buried us. Yours truly flew off to Florida, leaving her there. Not long after, she had a child with a Puerto Rican waiter.

Then she was deported back to Buenos Aires, babe in arms.

Your Ranchito is waiting

Sitting on the Jesus Patio, croissantito and cafecito in hand, we´re admiring the dawning day.

The sky is blue and cool. The light reflecting gently off the pumpkin wall is calming.

Yours truly watches the great-tailed grackles that proliferate here.

And English sparrows. Especially the sparrows.

Though small, they are courageous. Hoping to score croissantito crumbs, these wild birdies hop fearlessly under the webbed chair of yours truly.

It is a lesson for us all. We receive lots of feedback about these websites from all over the world.

A common thread: Man, I wish I could do that! Quit working, move to Mexico, sway in a hammock with Graham Greene. Perhaps a margarita now and then.

You can. You just don't . . . because fear is holding you back.

If not Mexico, then your own form of Mexico, doing what you would prefer . . . somewhere else. Perhaps with somebody else, too. The sad part.

Yours truly once shared that fear. And then one day something snapped. We hope something snaps in you, and you snatch that croissantito crumb. Your own Ranchito is waiting somewhere.

Running with Speed Loco

Let´s take a run downtown, shall we? Just four pesos.

Public transportation passes the Ranchito frequently. It comes in the form of vans, Toyota, VW or Nissan.

Mexican drivers name these vehicles.

Marijuana Smoker, Insane Driver, Speed Kills. And one of our favorites: Speed Loco.

All of these names, boldly emblazoned on the windshield, inspire confidence in the passengers. You bet.

Speed Loco makes it to the Plaza Grande in Pátzcuaro in about 60 seconds. It´s three miles from here.

We blast away from the corner, outside the little abarrotes store, with our facial skin pressed back against the bone. We appear to be snarling. Werewolves in transit.

Grab something as we hit the highway from Zapata Street. We angle in precariously at the foot of a hill on a blind corner. Everybody goes full tilt.

Look, there! A glimpse of green as the Pemex station flashes by. The driver has the radio blasting Ranchero. One of Pátzcuaro´s favorite restaurants is there at the station. Gas station grub.

Quick, there on your left is the new residence that´s been under construction about a year, lots of rock, palm trees, quite impressive really. The owner´s fighting dogs and cocks are all caged around the house, which isn´t quite completed.

No matter. He´s moved in, and his beasts are ready to brawl.

Get your wagers ready.

The driver´s slammed into third now, and Lago de Pátzcuaro passes in the distance -- a liquid blur. If we were moving slower, we´d notice the smell of pollution, maybe some dead fish. Better from afar -- and at this velocity.

Round the traffic circle, just missing some slow-witted schoolchildren and a few cars. Our driver looks beatific.

Up Avenida las Americas now, a simple two-lane drag in spite of the elegant misnomer. We´re passing, there on your right, where yours truly lived for over two years, renting.

We pass the Ramírez funeral home. Caskets on display, but nobody dead today.

Then Mr. Gray´s Chopper Bar. Nobody dead there either.

After a hard right and a curb bounce at Siete Esquinas, the "seven corner" intersection that only has five corners, we arrive at the Plaza Chica, a block from our destination, the Plaza Grande.

Decelerating from Mach Something, our faces resume their normal skin tones. Our teeth and gums disappear. We exhale.

Let´s stumble off here, and walk the final block, providing time to recover from the ride. The trembling will vanish in moments.

Moments for Mahiya

One awakens at 5:33 and notices something magical.

Silence. Strange in Mexico.

Lie here some moments and revel in it. Like an ashram in Mumbai.

No trains, no dogs, no chickens, no burros, no Catholic church bells from down on the Plaza, nada.

It is a little early for roosters, but trucks are persistent. The highway from Pátzcuaro to Morelia skirts our barrio, curving up and around a hill not far behind the Ranchito.

The truck brakes often make a scandal in the night as they maneuver the bend. Luckily, the road is far enough back not to present a real problem. But you can hear it. But not right now.

And there is the occasional romantic rumble of the night train.

Think of it as a rich aural environment. Usually.

But now, a odd calm covers our land, and most are asleep,
missing it.

A few are in nightmares. If someone nudges them, they will awaken into this silent dream of ours. And their hearts will settle.

And in an instant, it rains, a muted downpour. No thunder, no lightning, just a susurrant waterfall, bringing sleep again.

Calming the dead

La Guapa Señora is gone to the gym, leaving yours truly here pondering the power of water.

A decade back a woman named Julie tossed your cyberhost out on a Texas street.

Many would have thought he deserved it, including himself.

During the months of madness that followed he bought a fountain, praying the sound of water might soften the incredible pain.

Many years later, that fountain sits in the Ranchito´s living room, smuggled south in an old suitcase, slipping silently through Customs with nary a ripple.

Now it serves a different purpose, sitting on glass over photos of La Guapa Señora´s departed relatives, dripping serenity.

There you can see brothers Carlos and Gérman, innocents shot dead in unrelated incidents. And here is Mamí, who died too young at age 31 during childbirth.

Papí too, a strict family physician who at 61 was caught by surprise when his heart surrendered.

Foolin´ the folks

Time to ´fess up.

Every now and then folks email here, all excited, with questions about moving to Mexico. We have inspired them with these pretty websites.

Yours truly emails them back, but it´s rarely what they want to hear, and they get irritated . . . and stomp off.

Here are the only good reasons to move to this troubled land:

1. Real estate and rentals are cheaper in almost all cases. If you move to San Miguel or Ajijic, however, this often does not apply.
2. Utilities are much lower in almost all cases.
3. Property taxes are much lower in almost all cases.
4. The health-care system is far superior to what exists in the United States. Surprised? Dunno about Canada.
5. This only applies to single men in the marriage market: Mexican wives are a dream come true. Well, in most cases.

Aside from those five points, and the fifth only applies to a fraction of you, life is far more convenient, easy and tranquil farther north, on the other side of the border. No foolin´.

Shooting the Virgin

He was angry. He was drunk. And he had a six-shooter.

His girlfriend was in the calaboose for some misdeed, and he had asked La Virgen de la Salud, who resides in the basilica here, to intervene.

Alas, La Virgen, who stands on a high altar behind glass in Pátzcuaro´s holiest of places, paid him no mind.

So, he got loaded (just like the pistol), lurched into the church,
up to the altar, and opened fire, emptying the gun.

This was in 1962, and the gunman was La Guapa Señora´s uncle, or half-uncle, she says. Don´t tell anybody.

Uncle was captured on the spot and hauled off to the calaboose. Now, it´s hard to describe the love we have hereabouts for this particular virgin. There were yells for a lynching!

Another uncle, a rich and influential one, managed to have our maldito removed from the jail in a wheelbarrow hidden under rebozos. He was taken to a rehab center outside Guadalajara.

Later he moved to the rich uncle´s ranch near Uruapan where he stayed the rest of his days, working in an avocado orchard.

Due to his snoot-full, his six shots at La Virgen had all missed her. But he had managed to shatter the glass case.

The fact that La Virgen was unharmed was regarded as a miracle, and a large sign to the left of the church door lists that, among others, as an indication of her celestial protection. The sign is there today. It says:

20 de diciembre 1962. Después de un atentado
la V. imagen quedó ílesa.

El Morro sunrise

The fellow dismounted the black British BSA on Calle Del Cristo in Old San Juan.

The hour was dark, and there was a bloody rip in his foot. Kickstarting a motorcycle barefoot, especially when the rubber pad is missing, is always a stupid idea. Only a drunk would do it.

He crossed the street of blue cobblestones, made of old ballast from Spanish galleons, and entered the bar El Batey for a cuba libre.

Davy Jones, the beefy blond owner, said hi while Jimmy Buffet sang Margaritaville from the jukebox.

The fellow took a barstool next to the deep window, the one where Luis Muñoz occasionally entered when on a bender. Luis Muñoz was the middle-aged and troubled son of Puerto Rican patriot-hero Luis Muñoz Marín, a fact that haunted him always.

Luis Muñóz and the fellow were coworkers on The San Juan Star.

Now and then, after work, Luis Muñoz invited the fellow home for post-midnight supper of sausage quiche prepared by his girlfriend Ana, a petite ballerina of renown.

We would sit under candlelight at the long table, the three of us. Two were drinking, but the ballet dancer would be half asleep.

The thick-walled building was ancient, and we would dine to the tunes of tiny Puerto Rican frogs called coquíes, hidden in damp vegetation of the open patio where late-night rain often fell.

Luis Muñoz was an artist, and one soused night he gave our fellow a large print of two nude lovers sitting on the famed step-street next to the Hotel Convento right there in Old San Juan.

Three framings and 35 years beyond, it hangs in the stairwell of the Ranchito, sunlit in daytime via the glass bricks just above.

A few cuba libres later, the fellow lurched from El Batey and limped to the BSA across the blue cobblestones. He made it home as morning sunlight began to frame the fortress of El Morro.

Later that day the bloody foot throbbed like nobody´s business.

Dark life

Tropical trees enjoy night shadows in their Ranchito niche.

December has been a bit daft so far with dense morning fogs, but it seems a bit less chilly than normal for this time of year.

But, it´s early yet.

Can you spot the big hive of mystery bugs?

Doomed romance

She crossed the threshold of the motel in Cowboy Country, in his arms.

Lovely and slightly looney, with long black hair, she often said she was too young for him. But not that night.

The rear of the motel room sported a large glass door with a view to the mesquite grove where the ghost of Jesse James, or the Younger Boys, sailed silently. Maybe.

You never know in those parts.

They had supper at a Yuppie restaurant in the small town nearby. It was on a hillside that sloped down to a river´s edge. Really no more than a clear creek in the tall green trees of April.

Enjoying blackened catfish and green salads, they spoke little, touched fingers, and listened to the tinkling of silverware and wine glasses from other tables where more normal couples sat.

Later, back in the mesquite grove, they watched Bette Midler play Janis Joplin on TV and, after that, she danced shyly in shadows to music from the little stereo they had tossed into the pickup.

He laid on the bed with his arms behind his head, smiling.

The next morning, the mesquite trees shone under sunlight, and they drove back to the Big City. It ended shortly after, leaving him distraught but with a passion for lovely Latinas that would drive him far south one day.

To greener pastures and hot tortillas.

Bullet wounds

Small and beautiful, she had three bullet scars in her back, parting shots from her former husband.

A few years later, she encountered a tall blackbeard on St. Patrick´s night in an Irish Channel saloon.

On Magazine Street, just a few blocks from the famous river curve.

Their celebration continued through several more dives, and that evening ended at his home near Bayou St. John where both passed out stone drunk.

She had a part-time job, descending into black holes. She was a chimneysweep, the only one he ever knew. And the most lovely.

Squeezing into those sooty spots served a therapeutic purpose, one imagines. It seemed too obvious to ignore.

But the bullets had damaged her soul. She vanished.

He kept her photo for decades, smiling at the camera with a pencil in her hand, touching her lips. She was a writer most of all.

That snapshot sailed away like most of his possessions before he boarded the jet to Guadalajara.

Papito´s pistola

Mama took a shine to her own uncle, and they ran off together.

She left her four kids with her aunt who raised them.

Or as best she could in 1930s Mexico. The Revolution was winding down, but times were still quite hard. The kids' dad was in parts unknown.

There were two boys and two girls. One boy became a doctor. The other lad made a mint in real estate and other businesses. These became forceful men. Hard lives do that.

The girls never married, though one had a love child.

Supported in large part by their rich elder brother, the sisters called him Papito, their substitute Papa.

And one day Baby Sister fell in love. This did not sit well with Papito, especially in light of the other sister´s love child.

Quietly, Baby Sister and her beau made an appointment with a judge to get married here in Pátzcuaro. Papito got wind of it.

The wedding couple arrived at the courthouse.

So did Papito. With his pistola.

Get out of town, and don´t come back, the boyfriend was told.
Go home, Baby Sister was instructed. Both did as ordered.

Baby Sister lived on the Plaza Grande the rest of her life, never marrying nor having another boyfriend. She died in her 60s.

Two nieces found stacks of impassioned love letters from the boyfriend, mouldering in the attic.

The baseball run

We were raking dead peach leaves from the struggling lawn this morning when a twin-prop flew high overhead.

Way high. One imagines the ravens and buzzards looking above them wondering how is that possible. They lack fuel and desire.

Some years back, yours truly lived atop a grimy five-story walk-up, a tiny penthouse it was, in Old San Juan. Twin-prop planes were common then and there, soaring about the isles.

Having become a pilot in New Orleans, we often thought of finding a job flying baseballs out of Haiti. Sounded great with gin.

But later that same year, way back, we stood amid palms with hundreds of sad Puerto Ricans on a white-sand beach east of San Juan looking out at the waves just offshore where Roberto Clemente´s plane, on a mercy mission, had dived into the sea.

Maybe baseball missions from Haiti would have ended badly too.

Or maybe not. We'll never know.

The transfusion

The scarlet Oriental carpet where he lay was soft, and he closed his eyes in order to see.

Blood began to flow, pouring down from above, from an unseen place. A rejuvenating cascade, fresh and cerise.

A voice spoke, not an audible one but a felt voice, quite clear: Time to grow up, it said.

He began to laugh. And laugh. And laugh. Drenched in blood.

Someone told him later of the laughter because he did not hear it. He only felt the feeling. It was sensational.

Things changed after that, after the transfusion a decade back on a summer hillside of pine trees descending to a mirror lake where a lone fisherman enjoyed the Florida afternoon in a rowboat.

On the floating, shapeless oceans,
I did all my best to smile
till your singing eyes and fingers
drew me loving into your eyes.

And you sang, "Sail to me. Sail to me.
Let me enfold you." *

* Song to the Siren by the Cocteau Twins.

The Christmas card

The Fancy House was a hair up San Justo Street from the Malamute Bar.

The fellow often headed to the House after work, about midnight or so.

He went for two reasons: Amateur anthropology and cuba libres.

The Fancy House was a social study, fascinating in part due to downing cuba libres till the walls started dancing before his eyes. A tango at times. Often a waltz.

Most of the working girls came from the Dominican Republic across the Mona Passage. But some came from South America, flown up by Latino gangsters with a contract to fulfill.

The young lovelies learned to ignore him sitting solo at the bar facing the twinkling lights framing the broad mirror, with cuba libres and the waltzing walls, dancing before his eyes.

All the lovelies save one.

South American, she had milk-white skin with freckles and long black hair. She was bright and liked to talk, a rebellious and adventurous lass, hardly out of her teens, there on a lark.

The kind of girl to give nightmares to a wholesome mama.

One December night she walked to his bar stool and handed him an envelope. Inside was his only Christmas card that year.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. It touched him.

The walls ceased swinging . . .

. . . and started singing Silent Night.

Pruning of the rose

Lying in cold sweat and heart racing, the fellow opened his eyes. It was Sunday, early.

The Valium had worn off.

He got up, showered and dressed. The pants were clean. Perhaps the shirt was white. One forgets. It´s been a long time.

Leaving the chill, high-rise condo where he lived alone in another land, he hobbled two blocks to the Methodist Church. He was no Methodist, but it did not matter.

He liked the sound of the sermon, posted outside:
Pruning of the rose.

The pastor spoke of rose bushes and the call to prune. Cut back severely, he said, and when springtime comes, you´ll see the flowers, red and happy. It also applies to people, he added.

The fellow already knew that. He was pruned. Cut bad.

Years later, he packed two bags and headed south toward the sunshine, dreaming of mariachi songs and romance.

And one morning, a cock crowed on a backstreet in Mexico.
The fellow awoke, sighed, and flexed his petals.

It was springtime.

And at his side stirred a dark tropical orchid.

Swimming with the fishes

Timar was brutally drawn into a nightmare. This was the first time he´d been out at night in Libreville. Everything was unrecognizable under the moon.

-- From Tropic Moon by Georges Simenon.

***

Similarly, our fellow found himself in downtown Port-au-Prince. It was about 10 p.m. on the old city´s main street, which was broad but without lights. Only the moonbeams of Haiti.

Hundreds of people lay in the sidewalk shadows, lined up like corpses but not dead, simply asleep or nearly so. All was quiet and poor. They were homeless in the capital of the black dictatorship.

Twelve hours earlier he had taxied to the dock, passing by a shoe-less soldier carrying an antique carbine and wearing a ratty uniform. Guarding God knows what.

Our fellow stepped onto a small boat full of whites in swim suits. They chugged toward the coral reefs off the coast. Then, with snorkles and masks, they swam with the beautiful fishes.

But he swam alone. All alone with the fancy fishes.

A decade later in a smaller boat, a skiff really, he headed toward the coral reefs off Isla del Espíritu Santo in the Sea of Cortéz.

Just him, a woman and the kid steering the skiff from La Paz.

Again, with snorkle and mask, he swam with the beautiful fishes. And the woman who was later to leave him. To her regret.

After a few hours he stood alone on a high desert hill, naked but for the swim suit. The woman was down on the beach, and the boy was watching the boat bob on the blue waves.

The desert island next to the sea was pure white sand and cactus. The sky was clear. The breeze was perfect. He stood on that hill, knowing it was the most wonderful place he had ever been.

The sands of Santurce

The fellow sat at the large round table in the dining room. There was the Remington portable and a cuba libre.

He was writing a woman named Lane whom he had left in New Orleans.

A ceiling fan blew down, and the smell of the sea and sand just outside entered the wide Spanish windows.

It was Puerto Rico on the beach in Santurce.

Working nights at the San Juan Star left the days of perpetual summer free. He lived in a guesthouse fronting the sea, the beach being just a stroll across the parallel street.

The beach there was nothing to brag about, not like lovely Luquillo up the coast with its powder sands, palms and crystalline waters. But it was the beach he had, closer to town.

The landlord was an old New Yorker with a yearning for young boys who rode their bikes slowly outside in the soft afternoons. He beckoned them to his boudoir an hour or two every day, different boys, and they left with a few more bucks than before.

Another boarder was a girl from Santiago, there without papers. She was short and beautiful with big green eyes. She spoke no English, but there was no need. Not really.

With the shape of a porn star, which she wasn´t, and a rack that looked fake, but it wasn´t, she would don the slightest of bikinis, and cross the street to the beach, bringing traffic to a halt as Puerto Rican boys squeezed their steering wheels and howled.

A sportswriter owned the house next door where he lived with his dusky girlfriend from La Republica Dominicana. He once asked: "Do you think this will be a problem back in Alabama?"

He married her anyway.

His boarder was a Ranger captain stationed at Fort Buchanan, a huge handsome hulk with a red Pontiac GTO, just back from Vietnam where he slept in the jungle with a Bowie blade.

One night a Puerto Rican ne'er-do-well from a nearby housing project crept through a window and entered the Ranger´s room while he slept.

Within a screaming second the captain was cocked with his Bowie, and the shocked intruder ran straight through a latched screen door, leaving his outline like Wilie Coyote.

The fellow met a woman named Mary from Brooklyn. She was blonde and attractive, living alone with her cat Montserrat in an upstairs duplex on Mango Street, a secretary at the San Juan Star.

Across from her apartment was a small greasy spoon where they ate chicken and rice and listened to Johnny Nash from Houston sing "I Can See Clearly Now" on the Rockola.

Back outside the guesthouse on the sidewalk bordering the beach was an old man with a white cart who sold snow cones, which were always great in the heat.

(Note: Johnny Nash still seeing clearly.)

The value of shoes

The road to Speightstown -- for that was where we were bound -- followed the coast.

-- Aldous Huxley
Beyond the Mexique Bay, 1933.

That book, dubbed "extremely stimulating" by the Sunday Times, stimulated a memory molecule.

Huxley was writing about Barbados, but this event happened in the Dominican Republic 40 years later, a rental-car ride along the coast out of Santo Domingo. There were palm trees.

The night was late. He was inebriated, and a young chocolate girl slipped from the shadows into his unlocked car downtown as he stepped unsteadily from a side-street cantina.

Engaging a hooker never, ever interested him. Where´s the romance? The charm? The heart?

But this time he almost slipped. The girl said she knew a good spot out on the highway. She was cute. He was plastered.

Half an hour later, they pulled up outside an old, palm-swept, wood-slatted hotel buffeted by beach breezes at 3 a.m. The scene was not clear. The imbibing had gone way too far.

They ascended a broad, Colonial-era stairwell, something out of Gone with The Wind. She was ahead. Some fellow was just behind. Whoops. Where did he come from?

But then the stranger vanished.

Nervous now, he entered the room behind the girl, who sat on the bed, removing her shoes.

Left something downstairs, he claimed, spinning toward the stairwell. Seconds later, before he could crank the car, the dark, young sprite sailed out the door, running. She jumped in.

"You are leaving!"

"Sí," he said as he tossed it into reverse.

"But, my shoes!" wailed the now-barefoot girl. "Go get them," he said. "You´ll leave me!" she replied, accurately. This hysterical exchange repeated as the car bounced onto the sandy, asphalt highway, aimed east. "My shoes! My shoes!"

Thirty wailing minutes later, they pulled into a Santo Domingo plaza. She spotted two police cars on the corner, stuck her head out the window, and hollered. Uh-oh.

Our car touched the curb. ¿Qué pasa? inquired the cops.
She explained about her shoes and this Gringo she had grabbed on the street.

A caravan of one rental and two cop cars headed out the beach highway. Palms swayed. The air smelled of salt and sweat.

The girl bounded into the hotel and snatched her shoes from the floor. Give the cops a tip, she said. He obliged, but grudgingly.

They departed, leaving the contented constables behind.
"Where do you live?" he asked. She pointed the way. "How old are you?" he inquired. "Sixteen," she said, lying.

Or perhaps not.

The distant pink of a tantalizing Caribbean sunrise shone as they braked outside a rundown home on a squalid back street.
"Come on in," she said, getting back to business.

But he drove on, his head feeling like a cracked coconut.

Morning naranja

We awoke this morning in an orange bowl, inverted.

Blame the sun and fog. One, the sun, is rising. The other, the fog, is smothering the Sierra.

Together, they make not sun, not fog, not sunrise, but an orange bowl over our sleepy heads.

We are in the deep rain of mid-August. It began two months back, as usual, and it´s been raining about every day ever since.

This creates a slippery, untidy world, as you must imagine. Grass, flowers and weeds grow aggressively, snaking everywhere.

It´s a battle with plant life. We need mortars and B-52s.

And when we come home nights, heading down the Romance Sidewalk, it´s a popcorn stroll as we step on snails.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

The black rock of the Great Wall of Zapata and the Romance Sidewalk are sozzled soot. The fruit trees are pleased.

The peaches drop deep into grass and hide. An inattentive homeowner later finds them rotten, a gooey banquet for giddy bees, disgusting to pick up.

Moss grows on the floor tile of the upstairs terraza, a maritime touch. Shut your eyes in the hammock, and you´re swinging between masts sailing toward Japan with the Sea-Wolf.

* * * *

What´s that sound? Cannon?

Plants of indeterminate name are expanding. Territory is limited, and there is ugliness. Datura against sweet alyssum. Weeds against the world. Birds of Paradise slip into Hell. Lilies scream.

Vines attack clay tiles they count as oppressors.

Palm assaults grass, and vice versa. Nopal and maguey carry inbuilt armament. The alyssum feel too sweet, so they enlist mercenaries from Morelia. Everyone collides.

Plants are jammed together. Somebody flings a grenade.

Sap is spilled.

Red Cross aloe vera aid the wounded.

Rain causes this. Pure water. In excess.

* * * *

This near-constant wetness engulfs Zapata Street. A rain forest must be like this year-round, which would lead to unsavory thoughts.

Our deterrence to dementia is the summer cool. It´s heat that ferments violence, and we lack that with our chill summers.

Our wool sweaters save us from insanity.

Or perhaps not . . .

(A young Elton John sings Rotten Peaches.)

The taxi ride

He was a capitalist Gentile from New Orleans, and she was a communist Jew from New York.

They stepped from their office around midnight and into the waiting taxi. The windows were wide open.

Soft Caribbean air caressed their faces as the cabbie sped down the broad and dark Avenida J.F. Kennedy.

She was married, but he stroked her hand anyway. Her husband, a communist Latino activist of local renown, did not know, and no one was going to tell him.

They got out at the capitalist´s place on Calle San Sebastian. She and her husband lived just a few blocks farther, but hubby believed her at work still. No one was going to say otherwise.

After a few Cuba libres, her backside was stroked. Then they got up, dressed and walked toward her nearby home facing the sea. Amid the sound of waves, they kissed and said hasta mañana.

Filling the political gap in the Old Town with a twist of limón.

Night in Paris

Coming from Calais, they stepped off the night train at the Gare du Nord.

He spoke no French, but she did. Well, if you can call that French.

They had no reservations for this, their first shot at Paris, but they did have a tour book. That´ll help, no?

Emerging from the Metro to a dark street an hour later, they huffed with luggage to a hotel recommended by the tour book.

No vacancy! Nor at the second and third hotel.

Finally, a receptionist said: There is a hotel near here, but . . .

"It´s not very nice."

The dark room was large and interesting, something from way before the war. A four-paw bathtub stood atop a stage against the far wall. A cloth curtain could be pulled around it for the shy.

Exhibitionists could just fling it wide open. Stand and pose.

The toilet was down the hall . . .

. . . and down the stairwell on a landing between floors.

Exhausted, they hit the sack. It was quite late.

Sounds soon slipped through the old wallpaper.

Voice One: Aaaaaaaaa!

Voice Two: Shhhhhhh!

Pause.

Voice One: Aaaaaaaaa!

Voice Two: Shhhhhhh!

Neither voice was female. Yes, it was man-love.

This went on and on and . . . on.

Fatigue finally overwhelmed the howls next door, and the weary travelers slept.

Before noon, a nice hotel was found nearby. They strolled about. They sat at Les Deux Magots with warm brie and red wine, wondering if it had been Henry Miller´s spot. Likely not.

And a few days later, they took the night sleeper to Barcelona where they rambled the Ramblas and marveled in an open-air market at the mingled smells of raw meat and cut flowers.

The boxed life

Strolling a street in Morelia yesterday, we spotted a beggar on Avenida Madero.

Not a rare thing, but this man was first spotted seven years ago, and he´s been there ever since. And before, surely.

He sports a big sombrero, and sits on a wheeled platform just an inch or so off the sidewalk. His long legs are directly ahead of him, at a 90-degree angle. They are wrapped together in cloth, sticking out like a knifeblade.

He wears a stiletto moustache. And he does not smile.

Beggars are not unusual in Mexico. The Man With No Legs was described here a year or so ago. Now, he makes his living at a speedbump outside the Hotel Don Vasco as you enter Pátzcuaro. He fingers his rosary and reads religious tracts.

But nothing can surpass the Head in the Box spotted in Querétaro.

On a crowded sidewalk, your cyberhost almost passed without seeing. There was a box, not that large, wooden slats for easy air, directly in the middle of our path. One only remembers the head that was looking straight upward into our eyes. There was a can attached to the box for contributions. Peso alms.

There was a personal connection that lasted a second, a flash.
Two men. One in a box and the other strolling by with a lovely Latina. Speaking of stilettos. Where is Justice?

Unwilling to pause for a closer view, we just kept walking, trying to grasp what had been seen so briefly, so painfully. A box, a living head. Of course, an upper torso is necessary, but it must have been small, quite small. Lungs, a heart, to breathe and feel.

The memory is only of a head, gazing upward from the box, making its beggar living down there on the sidewalk, trapped.

La Guapa Señora, lost in thought, did not see, so the box was never, ever mentioned. Nightmares arrive easily enough without sending an engraved invitation to a loved one.

Ghost of Christmas past

We enjoyed goat stew for lunch today. And tortillas, salsa and Coke. In a restaurant near the train station.

Your cyberhost never ate goat stew before moving to Mexico. Beef is preferred.

A couple of Christmases back, lots of Mexican relatives fell upon the Ranchito for a festive dinner. And conviviality.

Stupidly, we let the Eggman choose the late-night fare.

As a blood-red sun set over the Pumpkin Wall, and a chill darkness descended, his Mercedes pulled through the Big Red Gate. In the trunk was a galvanized tub, oval, and full of what looked like sludge.

Voilá, the pièce de résistance.

A full sheep long simmered in an unknown liquid. The broth was dark. And there were vegetables floating. But not many.

This bleak tub was set upon the kitchen floor. The liquid swayed,
and there was no seeing below the surface. We all dove in, spearing floating meat onto warm tortillas. The kin sipped tequila, too.

Not bad, so your cyberhost went back for seconds. As he kneeled
on the floor, fork in hand, up from the deep floated the sheep´s head staring with dead eyes to its waiting tortilla.

Yours truly went right to bed, killed the light, and prayed for Santa.

Dancing the Hassapiko

Virginia Hope Powell has died at the age of 90. We called her Dee.

She was sharp as the proverbial tack almost to the end, her little gray cells fed by political obsessions. She was an FDR-style liberal Democrat to her core.

But parenthood for her ranked ahead of politics. Her score there was mixed, a score shared by most everyone, so we can´t really complain.

Family rumor has it that she almost married the mortician in Sylvester, the small town in rural southwest Georgia near which she sprouted way back in World War One.

Her life likely would have been more tranquil with the undertaker. Instead she married a brilliant, handsome man whom she met at the University of Georgia, inserting herself into a decades-long drama of booze, stress, confusion and poetry.

She was an only child, and her daddy was a cotton farmer. Her mama was a housewife with a college degree. Rare back then.

She spent 95 percent of her life in Georgia because the handsome man loathed travel. The other five percent was just over the state line in Florida, an insignificant jaunt.

She long dreamed of visiting the Greek Isles but never did.

Her primary accomplishment was two children, both of whom resemble their father far more than their mother, a recipe for more booze, stress, confusion and poetry.

Due perhaps to having virtually no religious beliefs, she was hesitant to die. Her handsome man was hesitant too, but that did not save him from the heart attack in 1991. He was 75.

She could have gone to the Greek Isles then, but after almost seven decades in Georgia, she simply didn´t know how.

Alas, she lived too long. In the final years her small family splintered, spiraling into rancor. It would´ve been better if she hadn´t seen that. She would have died in peace perhaps.

One by one, we three quit drinking: The handsome man, the daughter, the son. Dee didn´t have to stop because she had never started. But our late-blooming sobriety came too late.

We three re-entered sober life like battered space shuttles covered with heat tiles bought from the lowest bidder on a back street in Bogotá. Our spaceships spun out into sharp shards.

* * *

Pray that Dee begins her next life far away from Georgia, perhaps in Antipaxi, Corfu or Samothrace, the salty breezes from the Ionian or Aegean seas caressing her soft childish cheeks.

And later may she marry a plain and kind man who sells calamari on the coast, dances the Hassapiko and strums the Bouzouki.

And may he be quite allergic to ouzo and all strong spirits.

We will not drown

It´s time to water the plants, indoors.

Though we are awash in rain outside, that does nothing for indoor plants. So, here goes.

Light Indian incense; nag champa smells delicious. Pamper the plants.

Slip Norah Jones into the stereo.

Now get the watering can, and make the rounds. It does not rain indoors. It has never rained inside the Ranchito in the four years we have been married.

But, it will someday, sadly. The sky will fall, again.

It seems to rain on all marriages now and then. Sometimes it is a deluge, washing everything and everybody out the door.

Kids, dog, furniture, the ex-lovers, everything splashes out into the gutter.

But not here, not yet. One must remain optimistic, eh?

As Norah sings in the sweet Indian air, the plants receive their rain. And they do not drown. Al contrario. A liquid touch enchants them.

Lines in your face don´t bother me.
Down in my chair when you dance over me.

-- Norah Jones.

Mansion on the hillside

The fellow stepped from the green pickup onto pine needles that spread down the long hillside to the lake´s edge.

The trees were many and towered high.

A mansion sat between truck and lake.

It was his first visit to the cleric, a tall, handsome man.

The following night, as the sun dimmed through the pines, the cleric crushed fungus and mixed it with juice.

The fellow downed it.

Dancing with Love was the stated intention, but it didn´t happen that way. He had imagined that a beautiful woman would appear, and they would dance. Perhaps a waltz, saving his soul.

But surprises happen, and he saw nothing. There were no visions that night in the pines, there in the mansion, sitting on a white sofa above a red Persian carpet.

He did dance with love, however, but it was pure sensation,
one he had yet to feel in all his life.

Fifty chill years cracked and dissolved, melting and running off his head, over his shoulders, dripping from his fingertips, sliding down his legs. To that carpet. And the skin changed.

There is no describing it.

One night, a decade later, a burro brayed on a back street in Mexico. This same fellow opened his eyes and smiled.

Perhaps the burro smiled, too.

It was too dark to tell.

Toro! Toro! Toro!

The Old Man awoke beside the Beautiful Woman as a blood-red sun rose over the Cerro de Chiquihuite.

It was bullfight day.

They breakfasted on bread from Bisquets Obregón. There was raw honey and black cafecitos, just like back at the Ranchito.

A few hours later, the Silver Meriva barreled south down Insurgentes, past the naked protesters who never give up, past the Paseo de la Reforma where jet planes crash.

Past the World Trade Center, and right on the Eje 5 Sur.

There it loomed: Plaza Mexico, the biggest bullring in the world. It´s a massive hole, not obvious from inside or out, where it still towers into the sky. Most seats are below street level.

The Plaza holds 48,000 bullfighting fans and passing dilettantes, but it´s rarely more than 25 percent full these days. Interest in bullfights is waning. Hemingway´s days are gone.

Sundays from November through March at precisely 4 p.m. a bull comes charging through the gate. And he´s really pissed off.

Fighting bulls are not simply big and angry bulls. They are a breed apart. Their wives, the cows, look like dykes and have tiny udders. This may add to the moodiness of their menfolk.

The Old Man and the Beautiful Woman sat on cement seats pretty close to the ring, but not too close. They purchased cushions from a street vendor, ten pesos a pop. There are back rests.

Vendors strolled about offering hot dogs and hot cappuccinos. Cappuccinos?! And beer, of course.

A bullfight consists of three matadors fighting six bulls, two to a man. The matadors on that day were:

1. Uriel "El Zapata" Moreno.
2. Leopoldo Casasola.
3. Guillermo Martinez.

The Old Man and the Beautiful Woman had been standing in the scattered crowd outside the ring when Casasola arrived in the passenger seat of a new, cream-colored Lincoln Navigator.

The matador game pays good.

He was young and handsome in his Suit of Lights, flashing a killer smile, so handsome the Beautiful Woman seemed to consider a swan dive through the Lincoln´s window into his lap.

But she did not, perhaps because Casasola is young enough to be her son. Perhaps because her Old Man isn´t chopped liver but Southern paté, tasty on cornbread. She stayed true.

As expected, the first bull thundered through the gate at 4 p.m., right on time like a fascist train.

The goal is to tire the bull, break his spirit and kill him.

First, one or more picadores decked out like Sancho Panza on heavily padded and blindfolded horses taunt the bull till he charges. It doesn´t take much. He´s on edge.

The picador stabs the bull in his hump with a short-pointed lance. Sometimes the bull knocks the horse off his feet. Score one for the bull, but his victories come hard.

Next, the bull gets stuck with pairs of banderillas, which are delivered by the matador or one of his helpers.

These are pointed sticks that are far shorter than the picador´s lance, and they are delivered as the matador or assistant and the bull run directly at each other. Fun to see that.

By this time, the bull has run around the ring a lot. He is overweight. He has been stabbed in the back by the picador. He has banderillas hanging from his hump. He is bloodied.

He is tired, and nothing is going right for him. He is having serious doubts about himself. His ego is deflated. It´s a bad day.

He needs a therapist. But not even Dr. Phil can save him.

Instead, the heavily panting bull faces a man decked out like a Christmas tree in a leather bar, holding a big red cape and sword. It´s killing time.

Ideally, one quick sword thrust over the bull´s lowered head brings him down rapidly. That only happened with one of the six bulls that day. The others went down slowly and messily.

And that´s the norm.

Casasola was the best of the three matadors and the only one tossed by a bull. Twice! Luckily, he dodged the horns both times, only injuring his dignity.

The dead bulls are dragged out by a horse team and sold to a butcher. Waste not. Bloody sand is swept up.

The Old Man and the Beautiful Woman rode the Silver Meriva to Titanic Hamburgers on the dark, night median of Margarita Masa de Júarez. Perhaps they ate one of last week´s bulls.

With lettuce, onion, tomato and mustard.

And a side of fries with blood-red ketchup.

(Note: This post comes from our Mexico City website.)

The bullring

This shot was taken about halfway up the stands, far above where we were sitting. It gives an idea of the bullring´s immensity. Everything you see is well below street level.

La pantera negra

It rained last night, clearing the air and delighting the Ranchito´s residents.

Stepping outside this morning, we passed through the front door.

It is a massive, carved-wood portal designed by yours truly.

There is a jungle scene, with a big black cat, on both sides.

A black panther.

Late in the last century, yours truly spent a week in a beautiful home on a hillside amid trees. There was a lake view and no near neighbors.

It was Panhandle Florida, and your cyberhost was the guest of a psychologist, a shaman. There was need.

One night, as yours truly lay alone in the dark bedroom, he became a black panther. It was not a dream, decidedly not.

The darkness was so profound that nothing could be seen with the eyes, but it still could be seen . . . and felt. To the bone.

There was moonlight outside.

His black tail whipped across the white sheets. There was a feeling of power and fearlessness. His whiskers quivered.

And the nostrils.

Then it changed in an instant. He became a woman, and soft. Never before had he understood women. Then he did.

And he slept, altered.

Some things . . . will chill you to the bone.

-- George Jones,
country music crooner

Last train to Holyhead

Swaying in the hammock softly with Rosamunde Pilcher, a delightful woman.

Though wet June is weeks away, there are rain clouds.

But the hammock is safe under the red roof tile.

Pilcher´s book Under Gemini is set in Scotland, your cyberhost´s ancestral home.

Look here on this page: The rain had turned to a soft blowing mist which was beginning to smell of the sea.

If it rains here now, it will smell not of sea, but of mountains. You will hear soft sighs of parched plants, see the settling of dust.

Under Gemini was published in the mid-1970s, and at that same time yours truly was alighting alone from a train at the Inverness station, just up from Edinburgh.

Stepping off another car at the same moment was a California woman on the very eve of her 40th birthday, also alone.

She was a professor of anthropology, very attractive, headed slowly, with backpack, toward a conference in faraway India.

We ended up in the same guesthouse, dining together after passing through a few dark pubs.

We found each other engaging, and spent the next five days as constant, carefree companions, becoming one.

After Inverness, our train headed west to the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides.

And later, there was the big smokestack boat that carried us south through the Sound of Isleat to a railhead at Mallaig.

We held hands on deck and smiled as our ship steamed through watery mountain passes. It was cold October, and we were the only tourists.

At Mallaig, we caught another train, continuing on through Fort William, Glasgow and finally, leaving Scotland, to Chester, England.

It was a five-day romance with no time for pains, sorrows or regrets. Until those final moments.

Yours truly had to return to London. She continued on to Holyhead on the windy Welsh coast, a roundabout route to India.

We kissed and waved goodbye as the old train chugged from the antique station in medieval Chester. Her window was open, and she leaned out, like in those old-time movies.

You remember.

We never mentioned our last names and, even now, her first name, like her face, has faded. But not the memory of those final moments. Definitely not that.

The sweetness spiraled into sadness.

There is thunder here now. Let´s head inside the house.

Caress of chocolate

Generally, sleeping poses no problem, but on occasion one lies awake with unexplicable anxiety. Why is that?

There is no logical explanation for one with no recognizable problems, so the answer must lie elsewhere.

Must be past lives. Was he axed in his sleep by a Mongol barbarian under a yak-hide tent on a hill in what now is called Kazakhstan?

Or did a vengeful Victorian hag of a spouse slip a stiletto through the sheet shortly before dawn in a London flat as he snored in an alcohol fog?

Perhaps both.

These things lurk in our molecules, our fibers, and follow us through eternity, the good and the bad. They never go away, ever.

No matter. Chocolate will save you.

Your Ranchito residents both keep a couple of chocolate mints on the bedside tables. Pop one in your mouth, and a touch of tranquility steps from the gloom, then slumber. It is magic.

Ranchito nights are always cool. Instead of breathing through the nose, which offers no unaccustomed pleasure, open your mouth and inhale.

The air is cold and good, like a small piece of glass, unbroken.

Yours truly prefers the chocolate first, and the crystal air as chaser. Then he dreams till the roosters crow at dawn.

Birds of all feathers

The migratory winds of March are blowing birds onto the Ranchito.

We´re on the Jesus Patio at midday reading about war with one eye, and watching everything else with the other.

Sitting here with feet up on the umbrella table, sun toasting the toes, we face the Ranchito casa, which is painted Seacoast Red.

Between table and property wall there is a small peach tree, a big bush really, blooming pink and white. With the circling wall, painted pumpkin, it´s a colorful package indeed.

Peach branches double as birdy benches. During most of the year, this not being the tropics, we are content with house sparrows, doves and great-tailed grackles. Hummers too, a nice touch.

Plus buzzards, hawks and ravens on the high currents.

A flashy regular is the vermilion flycatcher named Panfilo. There he is now, a touch of blood sitting atop the stone Olmec head by the Alamo Wall, scanning for crunchy bugs, his French fries.

But here today, we have an avian event: Orioles, warblers, finches, flycatchers, a long list of feathers of color.

The birdbath is just there, a few feet away, and our visitors drink more than they bathe. It´s their water fountain.

Though all are birds, they are different races. Probably different religions too. Buddhist bluebirds. Christian chickadees. Muslim mockingbirds.

All sit on the clay pot´s rim, sipping in silence.

Nary a ruffled feather.

The dark spot

A calm descends on our barrio. It is Ash Wednesday.

Yours truly isn´t Catholic, but he has been surrounded by Catholics most of his days. His former wife was the oldest of ten. Catholics, of course.

They are breeders.

He lived for 18 years in New Orleans, and one can scarcely find a more Catholic city in the United States. And now, Mexico.

La Guapa Señora says she isn´t Catholic, and you can believe her, but one notes small things. Little habits stick to her.

Pátzcuaro is filled today with folks baring their religion on their foreheads. Marks of ash that come in many forms.

Some appear to have been stenciled on by anal priests. Very precise crosses. Others are less neat, gently slipshod, and some are just smudges, dirty.

Troubling ones resemble catastrophic cases of melanoma.

Your Ranchito residents have absolutely nothing on their foreheads. And they confess to no one but each other.

Butterfly on a black Sunday

Swaying gently in the hammock, a glance upward focuses on a butterfly, quite high.

From the flitting motion, it might be a bat. From the hour, it could only be a butterfly.

One knows butterflies can fly high. It´s how they migrate, but this one is sailing solo today, going where only the Goddess knows.

A bad direction for our friend is way over there: A field is being burned, a common occurance this time of year. But this blaze is early and very big. Not knowing local custom, one might think an airliner had gone down. But there had been no sound.

The butterfly sails off to the right, not feeling suicidal today.

And your cyberhost´s best literary intentions go unrealized. The novel remains closed on his chest as he drifts off, yet again, into dreamland, rocking in the cool breeze of late afternoon.

On waking, the wind is blowing little tornados of thick black soot in the terraza. Later, downstairs, it is worse. A gentle black snowfall has settled over the Ranchito, a taint of Transylvania.

It is not the soot you imagine. It´s as if ravens had called a convention of their kin: blackbirds, grackles and jackdaws.

And in the aftermath, cocktail glasses cast aside, there was nothing left but malanised feathers spread across the stone-dead grass of winter.

Our garden of good and evil

Sitting on the Plaza Grande watching the moon behind clouds, yours truly harbors evil thoughts while caressing a cup of chocolate caliente.

It is not dark, yet day has departed. We are in that in-between time. The plaza is beautiful, a good light.

Dim and romantic with people strolling here and there, as always on a soothing Saturday evening.

There is nothing to complain about, really, but we´re considering contrasts of black, white and gray.

Some days back, we witnessed a kidnapping on this same spot. There had been no moonlight, just the glare of late afternoon. There were no happy people, especially after the first gunshot.

Particularly unhappy was the hapless victim who was dragged out of a restaurant and thrown into the trunk of a car. He did not go gently, which likely saved him. Time was killed.

But not him. Not that day.

He later leaped from the car while it was speeding down a highway, suffering scrapes and bruises, but he was free. One maldito, out of a gang of five, was captured.

So, sitting here this evening, things have changed. Not quiet so picturesque and charming, our little Mexican town.

In a few more hours, it will strike midnight in this garden of good and evil.

************
Note: A tip of the sombrero to John Berendt whose garden phrase was heisted with nary a hint of remorse.

The grip of passion

Out in the garden today, trimming plants, particularly the passion flowers.

Our Ranchito has two vines, creeping up the pumpkin wall.

Do you know the passion flower? Elegant and graceful, with a precise beauty in its very delicate presentation.

In our lives, passion can be beautiful. But sometimes it is just pain, like a heavy ax, sharp and bloody. With strips of meat dangling, red.

Accompanying the yardwork is Mick Jagger who is wailing over the pumpkin wall from the neighbor´s stereo: You make a grown man cryyyy! You make a grown man cryyyy!

Swaying to the Stones, we ponder the similarities between the passion vine and people passion.

The plant loves water. We love that dampness, too. A good moisture can soothe and cleanse your soiled soul.

The plant has little arms that clutch the wall and embrace dead leaves that prefer to fall. The vine doesn´t want to . . . just let go.

Desiccated leaves, dead relationships. What´s the difference?

This fetching vine grabs passionately at anything within reach. Sometimes we do the same.

If the passion plant is not cared for, it gets ugly. So do you.

The plant bears fruit, round things that turn purple when ripe. Yes, purple passion. Good for making jelly, one hears. We all need our marmalade, especially mornings with croissantito and cafecito.

The Ranchito´s passion vines are suffering now due to winter chill. Both plants and people need warmth and comfort.

Heed this lesson: If you are confused, and it hurts, go to the garden for understanding and clarity. You are not alone.

The plants will understand you. Mick Jagger too.

A moist morning

Lying at dawn between soft, blood-red sheets made of wood fiber, your cyberhost was thinking of bread and death when he heard a happy sound.

Rain.

The sound of rainfall, while an everyday occurance in June or July, simply does not happen here in January.

No matter. Gentle murmuring was heard, perhaps, from outside the window. That would have been dry datura and grass, a disgruntled maguey or two, parched pansies here and there.

Gleeful whispers.

Alas, it did not last long, a few short, damp moments, nothing to get particularly excited about. But it did change the feel of the morning. Anything new, if not bad, is good.

And now, upstairs, looking through the window toward the mountains, we do not see the usual scream of January sunrise, but a dreary June-like morning.

A car in the far distance on a mountain road, headlights on, and four egrets in formation flapping east.

It´s always east for them in the morning. West in the afternoons. Who knows why? They keep to their schedule, not confused by a January morning that looks like June or July.

(Weather bulletin: An hour later, a more persistent rain returned. The plants, so happy, ripped their dry roots from the dirt, held hands, and did a dance of delight on the Romance Sidewalk.)

A wheelchair life

There is a man with no legs who sits in a wheelchair in the middle of a busy roadway in Pátzcuaro.

Were you to give him legs, a good scrubbing and a suit, he would look like a businessman. He has a trim moustache, so he still cares.

Normally, he does not look sad. Were you in his place, you would be sad indeed.

He wears a huge, old sombrero, crusty with dirt. The man himself is crusty, which is to be expected because he not only lacks legs, he sleeps on the sidewalks of Pátzcuaro.

He has no home. Just the ramshackle chair.

The middle of the street is his office. He has a long plastic container that he holds out for money from motorists. Yours truly is pretty generous with the fellow and considers him a friend.

An amigo who never comes home for dinner, however.

His expression, at times, borders on beatific. He spends many moments reading a grubby and worn religious book. We imagine he loves God and thinks his suffering is for a good reason.

Sometimes, late at night, we see him wheeling along a dark street alone. Other times, he pushes himself all the way to the Plaza Grande, lowers himself to the sidewalk and sleeps on a tattered blanket.

To his face, we call him Señor. And he seems to appreciate that. Sometimes respect is worth more than ten pesos. But it´s good to include the coin. You can´t eat respect, can you?

Riding the memory train

Here comes the train. It´s 6:45 a.m., cold, and the Ranchito residents are warm under the goose-down cover.

We recall other cold January mornings at age 18 just after joining the U.S. military.

Recently stationed outside Rantoul, the young lout laid in his cot, listening to dawn whistles as distant trains passed across the desolate plains of central Illinois.

Our local train rumbles much closer, much louder, but the effect is the same. You want to go somewhere, anywhere. Train sounds do that.

He was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a hippie. No matter. He had a wandering soul, and that´s what counts, no?

While some dream of worldly successes, money, cars, houses, others simply dream of going somewhere, anywhere. It was always that way.

But now he does not feel like going anywhere.

Perhaps because it cannot get much stranger than this: A rundown barrio, a sultry-skinned spouse, talking a foreign tongue, burros on the dusty street, rarely a jet plane in the clear, blue sky.

Instead, bats in the dark night.

And the recurring theme of the train. Here comes another one right now. Not only to hear, but to see. Through the second-story window. It´s a true pleasure, an apt ending, an inevitable conclusion.

The Rachmaninoff cowboy

We lost a good guy this week. Al Kinnison died here in Pátzcuaro in his rambling Colonial mansion on Calle Navarrete. He was 79.

Al was a crusty fellow, a Libertarian, a keen intellect, and, most of all, an Arizona cowboy.

He believed in guns, self-reliance and freedom.

He and his second wife, Jean, moved to Pátzcuaro about seven years ago. Jean died last year of a heart attack. Al had cancer.

A former mining engineer and naval officer who spoke English, Spanish and a little Japanese, Al did not care for government, which was one reason he moved to Mexico.

He was against the Iraq war, but before you label him a liberal, know that he was also against government doing much of anything at all. Al just did not want to be messed with.

Ultra polite, Al always stood for a lady. He did it even if you were not a lady. Opened their doors. He accepted no crude talk around them either. No, sir. Especially if Jean was within earshot.

He often spoke of his desire to move to Guatemala. Government interference is increasing in Mexico, and it would be less in Guatemala, he believed. Guatemala was his final dream.

His preferred mode of moving to Guatemala would have been on horseback. A Winchester would have been bouncing off the horse´s haunches. A Colt .45 bouncing off his own hip.

Al was like that. Don´t be fooled by that prissy beret in the photo. Al usually sported a cowboy hat.

But that was just one side. Al was a Rachmaninoff man . . . and romantic, though he would not have admitted it readily. He and Jean were often seen walking hand-in-hand through the Plaza Grande. So Al was a fighter and a lover.

He enjoyed listening to Rachmaninoff quietly in his final weeks.

Al Kinnison was a classic example of the Gringo oddballs one sometimes finds in Mexico. Al was a great oddball, a rare one, a wonderful guy, and will be sorely missed.

Pass the tortillas, por favor

Yours truly became a Mexican citizen today.

We feel more macho. We plan to grow the moustache longer, either upward with two cocky swirls, or downward and bushy.

Though married, your new hombre is planning on lassoing a girlfriend or two or three. It´s the Mexican way.

Well, maybe not. We´re not all that frisky.

We´ll buy a guitar and croon in the plaza with our pals.

We´ll purchase a big truck, drive fast, always in a rush. We´ll change lanes with a carefree abandon, eyes closed.

The stereo will be full blast.

We´ll sip mezcal, chewing the bottle worms.

Cutting back on chicken and veggies, we´ll chew more cheese, bifstek and chiles, perhaps gaining a paunch and a cocky walk.

We´ll need cowboy boots, a huge sombrero and charro pants, jingling spurs, a pack of cheroots in the slit of our vaquero pocket.

There will be Brylcreem in our hair, the slick, sexy look.

Change is good, and we´re swaggering into the future. It feels really fine, mis amigos, so watch out!

(Note: This does not replace U.S. citizenship, of course. Many folks have dual citizenship.)

Bus, boats and cumbia

We returned the other day from Atlanta, a ten-day trip of shopping and Gringo grub.

The jaunt home lasted 13 hours and included six different vehicles.

One of which was a bus, the ETN line. Those of you who have not been in Mexico have no notion of how plush Mexican bus travel can be.

We´re talking here of the lujo lines, some of which are marvels of comfort and spaciousness. Volvos or Mercedes-Benzes.

Yours truly was sprawled there in the dark with a headphone, listening to Rigo Tovar sing Cumbia. Tropical music.

La señora sat quietly in the next seat, dozing blissfully.

The bus assisted Tovar´s tropical tunes. In swaying gently on the autopista between Mexico City and Morelia, we imagined a boat, perhaps in the Caribbean between San Juan and St. Croix.

The darkness (nobody had a light on) obscured the fact there were no waves lapping the luggage bin below.

But, wait! There, through the window, in the far distance is a string of moving lights. Could it be another ship?

The Carpathia to a futile rescue or the Edmund Fitzgerald resurfacing after all these years?

No, it´s a train steaming in the opposite direction, a sweet sight. Dim mountains and a little moonlight backdrop the scene.

We´ll be back at the Ranchito soon. We´re very tired.

Andalusia and strawberry Malta

A reader writes that it´s nice to visit here to distract from damp, dark English afternoons when the tea turns cold under its cozy.

This person, a woman we are guessing, also dreams of Andalusia, there in southern Spain.

Yes, she is imagining her Ranchito, be it Mexican or Spanish.

Go to Spain, my dear.

We occasionally gets email from folks we´ve given the impression that Mexico is, well, Andalusia, una tierra magica.

But it is not. The magic rests solely in the soul of yours truly. And here within the Ranchito´s pumpkin walls.

Outside the gate, there is our rundown barrio and farther on, Mexico. It is a troubled land, we are saddened to report.

When we respond to email correspondents with the bitter truth, it irritates them.

A friend of a friend soon will retire and move to Malta, islands in the Mediterranean, not that far from Italy.

Doesn´t that sound delicious?

Andalusia could be a French dessert: Tarte fine aux Andalusia. And Malta. You prefer strawberry or chocolate? Perhaps a vacuous vanilla. But, these are fine destinations, surely.

But we wonder if they really are.

La tristeza del otoño

The leaves are falling on the Plaza Grande in Patzcuaro, so autumn has arrived again.

Sitting alone at La Surtidora, we watch a raggedy man sweeping the plaza with a massive palm frond.

Passing on the sidewalk is a 15-foot clown, a man on stilts with a sad face, his own, juggling for pesos.

There are lots of tourists today, families, children, and most appear happy. How not?

However, autumn to many is a mood piece, and the mood is not a chipper one. Sadness instead.

The carefree days of summer are over. The chill of winter looms. Autumn, being the bridge, oppresses the heart for many.

Sadness is no stranger to Mexico.

Much of what passes as local color, jugglers and fire-eaters at intersections, clowns, folks dancing in Indian attire, old ladies sitting on the sidewalk selling, actually are needy people doing what they can to put tortillas on the table.

Tourists come and go, loving the local color, rarely seeing the sadness, la tristeza del otoño.

The falling leaves drift by the window,

The autumn leaves of red and gold.

I see your lips, the summer kisses,

The sun-burned hands I used to hold.

-- Johnny Mercer.

The skin trade

It´s a lovely night. Let´s draw the curtains, douse the lights and fire up the candles.

And open the massage table.

For music, there´s Lisa Gerrard singing The Host of Seraphim.

Yours truly, back in 1999, in an attempt to remove the diaper from his inner child, attended a massage school in Houston for six months. He is a certified massage therapist.

An aside, in confidence, to you fellows: Women really like this.

And even better, La Guapa Señora is a quick study. She learned fast and well from yours truly, so we now swap strokes.

There is no money in our game. We keep it to ourselves. But we wonder if there won´t be a call for our magic hands once the Hotelito de Mal Reputito opens next door.

Perhaps a fortune awaits.

A good place for gin

The Grand Hotel Oloffson, the oldest hotel in Port-au-Prince.

An old haunt in Haiti

Out here in the hammock, swaying with Graham Greene.

Greene, at left, and yours truly have been friends for decades. Even past his death in 1991, we have kept in touch.

His books are more meaningful now that your cyberhost is jobless, a do-nothing swinging in a hammock in Mexico.

Often Greene´s characters are layabouts, aimless folks in Third World dumps. Drunks, spies, military men, corrupt cops, people up to no good, sad folks, lost and useless.

Swinging here in the Mexican breeze, memories of Haiti float back. Have you been in Haiti? Not likely, if you value your hide.

Greene´s novel The Comedians is set in Port-au-Prince, primarily in the Grand Hotel Oloffson. It was Haiti´s first hotel, dating way back.

The bar is famous for the literary and theatrical greats who have lounged there. Greene´s characters in The Comedians hunkered down there during a particularly violent slice of Haiti´s tumultuous past.

The Duvalier dictatorships, you may recall. Papa Doc and, later, Baby Doc. Silly names for very bad people.

Yours truly has lounged in that bar too, back in the ´70s, guzzling gin with an old French friend who was born in St. Amant, a little town far south of Paris.

The space is small. The bar L-shaped. There are two slot machines over in the corner. Ceiling fans, of course, á la Casablanca.

One door leads out to the veranda with tropical plants aplenty just past the rail. Another passage leads down a small hall to the boss´s office, which is open to all.

A great, elegant desk is visible from your bar stool. We´ll drink to that.

That was long, long ago. Greene stirs up good memories, out here in the hammock. Hand me another highball, s'il vous plait.

Just lovin' it!

Flocks of Gringos are moving to Mexico, and many want to share the joy of their great new life with folks back home.

They write blogs! Here is a typical example.

First, background: John and Jane sold their BMW dealership in California and moved to San Miguel de Allende in 2007.

Fifi came too. They drove down in the M6 convertible.

They bought a small home near the Jardín for only $3.5 million (dollars, not pesos). Since they sold their Marin County home for $10 million, they were astounded by cheap Mexican prices.

A maid was quickly found, and her name is Juanita. She´s 15.

Here is a photo of Juanita.

Jane writes the blog.

John prays to God his nutty mother-in-law won´t visit. Her name is Mabel, and she hails from Paris, Texas, and she´s quite fond of sour mash and snuff.

The blog is named Living in Mexico and Loving It to Death, which is a very typical name for Mexico blogs written by Gringos. Okay, let´s go directly to Jane´s latest blog entry.

* * *

"John and I are so happy that mother arrived last night!! She will be here for a month!! She has never been to San Miguel, but we know she will love it as much as we do!!

The people are so friendly!! We love the culture!!

The first thing we did was go out for tacos last night!! John and I eat lots of tacos!! And we love them!! All Mexican food is soooo fresh and healthy!! And the people are so friendly!!

Our three plates of tacos only cost $45 (dollars, not pesos)!! José and María who own the taco stand are always smiling at us!! They love to see us coming!! They are super friendly!!

Then after our supper of tacos, mom and I sat in the Jardín for a while. Mom was thrilled at the Havana cigar she bought!!

John and I love watching the Mexican families walking in the Jardín, hand in hand with their six children, always smiling because their lives are so authentic and real.

But John had to hurry back to the house to give Juanita instructions on polishing the silver we bought last year during our visit to Taxco!!

John has taken a real fatherly shine to Juanita and tries to help her at every opportunity!! Juanita is very friendly!!

Here is a photo of mama. Since dad went over that Malibu cliff in '98, mama has really come into her own!!

She´s a firecracker!!

She loves the San Miguel clothes I bought for her!! She looks so auténtico!! Yes, I have been studying Spanish!!

We will drive to Querétaro tomorrow to show mom that beautiful nearby city full of friendly Mexicans.

And we´ll eat pollo con mole!!

John says he will stay home because Juanita says she needs help changing the sheets.

Everytime we go to Querétaro, somebody crashes into us!! It´s a good thing we traded in the convertible for the Hummer because whoever hits us gets the stick´s short end!! Ha, Ha!!

People drive crazy in Mexico. We know it´s a cultural thing, so we can´t say anything bad about it. It´s not better or worse.

It´s just different!!

And, of course, everybody drives crazy in the United States. Whenever we see something crazy in Mexico, it makes us feel better to say it´s crazy in the United States too!!

In September our daughter Tiffany and son-in-law Brad will visit again!! They will bring our grandbaby Angel with them!!

She is a real angel, just the most precious little hunk of hugs and love you have ever laid your eyes on.

Here´s a photo of Angel!!

She´s recovered from the last visit.

You´ll remember that Juanita gave her a spin in the Maytag while we weren´t looking, trying to get the freckles off.

Angel´s bruises weren´t too bad, and we did not blame Juanita. Oh, no!! It was just a cultural difference, and you can´t blame her for that.

It´s not worse or better. It´s just different!!

And the same thing goes on in the United States!!

Tiffany says the three of them will stay just two nights next time. Whenever we tried to enjoy the Jardín in the evening with them during the last visit, Brad would vanish. Just like that!!

Juanita told us the following week that Brad was very helpful hanging the wash on the line during those very evenings."

The bat and the cat

La Guapa Señora took off for the gym, leaving el señor sitting on the terraza, watching the fading light of 8:30 p.m.

The grass is damp from rain. Roof dogs bark in the distance, as usual. Chickens quiet for now.

Cup of green tea in hand, yours truly is in the wicker rocking chair, simply looking. Why not?

Zoom! A little bat zips from right to left inside the tile-roofed terraza, then outside, increasing suspicions that he may live down on the end there in the tile somewhere.

It could happen. In older, less-loved, residences, rats live in the roof tile. There is space.

Occasionally, we have found what appeared to be mouse droppings there in the very corner. What´s a bat but a little winged mousie?

He seemed to appear just now from that corner, but he could have angled in from outside, jamming a hard-right rudder. A fighter pilot in pursuit of mosquito.

Aha! Here comes the kitty from next door. She´s half grown and, even though we are surrounded by a high brick wall, she gets in.

La gatita is a mixed blessing. She harasses our birds and lizards. That´s bad. But, she discourages rats. That´s good.

We haven´t seen a rat here since the Ranchito was completed. But before, we saw plenty in the then-vacant lot. And, even now, in the far corner of the property, there are suspicious holes.

We sit quiet and still. La gatita is sashaying up the Romance Sidewalk in this direction. She thinks she is alone. She is carefree, unaware. Characteristics of youth.

She knows, however, that she is unwelcome here. Birds and lizards win out over rats.

She jumps up on the rock ledge of the terraza, very near, still clueless to her company, lurking in the shadows, yours truly.

We hiss a mean-spirited maldicion! In Spanish, so she knows the seriousness of her situation.

She turns tail, literally, and runs to the far end of the yard, skulking behind a leftover wood beam, lying on the ground.

No more trouble from her end.

Whoa! In comes the bat again, from the same side he had exited. Instead of heading to his suspected home, he does indeed bank sharply 90 degrees and goes out the other side of the terraza. A deft, marvelous maneuver.

It´s just a tour of duty, not a homecoming.