news from cortez

I’m in New Mexico, having left Old Mexico the beginning of July to housesit for a friend in way-southern Arizona and to experience the things I miss most about Estados Unidos: extra sharp cheddar cheese, Italian food, coffee houses and saloons. The latter being the most important if I’m to be honest.

Given that there are so few full-time gringos left in that little RV park in that little village on the Sea of Cortez this late in the summer, it’s surprising all that’s gone on in the past month.

First off peter, dick or willie (I’m not sure which moniker I’d given him) developed a blazing red raised rash that started on his forearm and then moved to the rest of his body. Neither the Mexican dermatologist nor the clinic doctor could get rid of it so he and his loony-tunes wife packed up their motor coach and headed north. I haven’t heard the outcome nor the diagnosis. I do know that the rash isn’t contagious because when I saw it in its infancy, I touched it and said, “ewww, what happened here?” before quickly removing my hand and saying “ewww, I touched it.”

With peter, dick or willie gone, the Skipper no longer had a fishing buddy so he invited the ex-trucker lady to go on a fishing trip. To make a long story short, as she was struggling to land a dorado, the dorado swam under the boat, tangled up all the other fishing lines, then snapped free taking off with about 100’ of line and $200 worth of lures, and the ex-trucker flew backwards and somehow impaled her butt on the filet knife. Blood spewed forth. The Skipper had her drop her drawers. None of the gauze from the first aid kit was big enough to stem the tide of blood so he grabbed the cleanest fish rag he could find and told her to sit on that while he drove hellbent back to shore. At the clinic she received seven stitches, whimpering the whole time. That evening the Skipper relished happy hour with his only companion, Jack Daniels on the rocks.

The one remaining fulltime couple (not the ones with the kidnapped Native American boys) got a call that their son had committed suicide. They, too, made a hasty retreat for the U.S., the man all the while holding his hand over his chest in dramatic fashion because he has a bad heart and that made his son’s suicide all about him. Last I heard they were “cleaning up the mess” and while doing so the man pulled his shoulder out of whack or something and so now his son’s suicide is even more about him.

The saddest and worst story of the bunch, however, involves my adopted son, Armando or Mando as we call him. (He’s my adopted son because I have the hots for his dad but that’s another story.) Mando’s job at the RV park means he works seven days a week and makes about $70/week. Jobs are hard to come by and his is one of the better ones. A gringo gave Mando a trailer which he moved to a squatter’s lot in the newest of the barrios, one without electricity so extension cords run from house to house searching for the source house. He was so proud of having his own space and he took such good care of his home, planting bougainvillea, building a palapa, even paying a neighbor boy 50 pesos a week to be his security guard. Mando kept the place nice but then he started drinking and the front window of the trailer got busted, trash piled up (there’s no trash service in the barrio), and the plants died (no running water either). I said I would no longer be his mother if he kept drinking so he said he would stop. “She is my soul” he said to a young friend. But one Sunday Mando started drinking and that became his habit, to drink on Sundays. Then he bought a car – a nice Ford Taurus. We all wondered how long that would last. Well, not long.

The story is that last week Mando was driving drunk at night and he drove over the town drunk who was lying half in the street. Mando decapitated him. Justice is quick in Mexico. Because the town drunk was partly at fault, Mando received a light-ish sentence, a year in prison. His father – mi amor - has to sell everything Mando owns to pay restitution to the drunk’s wife.

My understanding is that Mexican prisoners rely heavily on their families for basics like toiletries and food. I know that when I return to Mexico I will go see Mando in prison, loaded down with provisions donated by the gringos. Mando will have lost everything, maybe even his job (although the owners have been known to take felons back). He will have to start over. Maybe he’ll have to move to Agua Prieta to be with his real mom. But gringos can be kind and generous and just maybe Mando will get another home and hopefully this time he won’t fuck it up.