Parties are meant to be fun, but to me they are usually a test in patience and comfort levels. As a rule, I don’t like them. It is awkward, filled with small talk, and you forget the names of the people you met as soon as the conversation is over. Most of all, the food is crap at parties. Now, take all those great qualities and put it outdoors on a roof terrace in downtown Mexico City, surrounded by Mexicans and people who all speak Spanish. The odds are stacked in a big, overwhelming way.
I put a party face on and even spray on some Comme de Garcons cologne and some crazy striped socks to show that I am an active partying kind of guy. My friend may be there, so I go out into the night with a slight bit of excitement.
We are over an hour late, and as far as I can see there is only one more guest already present. Things are quiet. We sit down and say our brief ‘hellos’ and give a hug and a birthday wish. I sit and gab for a few minutes and we get our first round of drinks ordered…of course, tequila. Even before I can finish, I decide it is time to go downstairs and chat with someone.
By the time I return, there party has grown. It is not huge, but an extra table has been added and then I am asked to scoot over so even more chairs can be added to accommodate the revelers. I oblige and scoot to my right, and now find myself sitting next to a stranger with a beard. I smile and he does the same. Tonya leans over and tells me that the group on my right is from Argentina. Ok, good. So they speak Spanish…this means my conversation will go nowhere. Someone starts telling a story to the whole table and I am distracted. The Argentinean starts a conversation with me. His English is pretty good, and I am happy that I can talk to this stranger. He just arrived the day before from a whirlwind trip to London, Milan, Frankfurt, and Madrid. He works for Deutsche Bank and he and his best pal form high school are setting up an office now in Mexico City. For a while our talks are about economics…always perfect for getting any party started. You know this party is gonna be nuts when he leans over and asks his best friend, “What is the name of the Chinese currency?”
It is not all about monies and the European Union though. He is starting a life here now and I have been here almost a year. The talk turns to Mexico and life in the big city. I ask him if he thinks he will like it. Almost before I finish my sentence he is shaking his head side to side and issues a stern “No!” I laugh and coax him on. He goes on about the chaos of life here, he admits there are many similarities to Argentina and here, but this place is just too out of control. “People drive crazy in Buenos Aires, but it is much worse here. They don’t stop at red lights here!” he says somewhat amazed. “I can’t believe they drive the way they do, and will run red lights even in front of the cops…” yes, this is only a small part of the excitement of life in the DF. He leans over and says “it is not only the driving, it is everything. The streets, the buildings, the people…” I laugh and in almost perfect unison we say ‘complete lack of order’. His eyes light up and he is excited now. We both laugh about this point and go off on all sorts of assorted grievances of life here.
He grew up in Buenos Aires and went to school in the States. He lived in London for a few years and then moved to Miami. In the States, he splits his time between Miami and Chicago. I go back to his trip to Mexico, “You mentioned you flew in yesterday, did you use your Spanish passport?” He looks at me like I already know the answer, and then says “Yes” I then ask why? He smiles and admits, “They don’t like Argentineans. If you carry a US or European Union passport, they are more welcoming” Then he goes back to the point of chaos here. He tells of how he got home and realized he’d left his passport at customs, “I went to the airport three different times today to get my passport back…”and he tells a typical story of Mexican efficiency and attitude toward work and dealing with the public. We get some laughs out of all of this for sure. I find it comforting to meet people here who obviously share the same views as I do.
Somehow I get pulled away from our talk. Now I am facing my left side and the party girl is on the couch holding court. Mordo has shown up too. Looking around, it is apparent that the party has grown quite large. People are milling everywhere. There is a large table set up behind us that is soon to have food for all these strangers to go rummage through and handle. Party food; you never know whose hands have touched that little snack you just put in your mouth.
I find the break in conversation gives me a moment to address something which has being bothering me for quite a while now. There is music playing in the background. It is obvious it is an iPod because it is on repeat. The same three songs have been playing for almost an hour now and I am about to loose it. Imagine the horrors of having three Supertramp songs play over and over on and endless loop.
Cesar has come out for the party tonight, and it is always nice to see him. I have no idea how much wine he has downed, but he is happily joining in this conversation and that. He has started on the topic of the difference between generations, and how maybe the current stock is a bit better than the ‘x’ generation. The array of topics varies wildly as the next thing he is on about is ‘liberty’ in Mexico. He laughs and admits that he is from here, so of course he loves Mexico City. “The thing about Mexico is…” he stops for a moment to gather his thoughts, “… there is such freedom here that you don’t have anywhere else, not even in America” We all look a bit confused at this profound statement, then he starts to laugh, and continue on, “You see…it is all about money. You can do anything with money here. You pay the cops, you pay this guy, you want that, you pay that guy. If you have money, you can buy all the freedom you want...” Cesar is a good natured guy and always good for a laugh and some good hard-core leftist dogma. No matter what, you can always count on some wild tale coming from him.
“I even hitchhike from the cops!” he says proudly. “You don’t do that in the States do you? In the last month, I have already hitched a ride home with different cops three or four times!” This brazen fact gets a good round of laughter from everyone within earshot. He tells how when he goes late night grocery shopping there are no cabs around, but cops are crawling through the area. “I walk out with my bags of groceries and went to a cop and said, “Hey man, there are no cabs and no way for me to get home. Give me a lift; I’ll pay you 100 pesos. And they do it!” he says laughing. “Of course, after I got into the back of the patrol car and I see the scratch marks on the seats and dried blood in there, I ask the cops ‘Hey. You guys are going to let me out at my house, right?’ They laugh and say that the price home just went up, now it is 200 pesos.” He reaffirms that all this is true and that he was a little bit scared. Someone had definitely been having some ‘issues’ with the amount of scratch marks all over the back seat and the blood. He says it was a heavy and unsettling environment. “The cops laugh and start driving somewhere else. They turn to me and say ‘Maybe we should just take you downtown…’ They tell me some pretty heavy jokes, but then they end up driving me to my house and open the door for me. That’s it! I am home. I grab my groceries and get out of the back of the cop car…it is unbelievable!” Yes, it is quite amazing to think you can hitch a ride in the back of Mexican cop cars with your groceries in tow, albeit for a price.
Mordo is making some quip. He says something about his hairy chest and something some girls told him. I reach over and touch the sprigs coming out of his unbuttoned shirt. “Yes, they told me I was their little bear” he says. I laugh and instruct Mordo of the usage of the word ‘bear’. I tell him in certain company, he should be careful. He seems a bit perplexed. I tell him if he goes around saying he is a ‘little bear’ around gays, he might be surprised at the reception. He laughs, and tells me he is thankful to learn about the term and what being a ‘bear’ means in certain circles. He looks at me as if I have to match his macho-ness. I pull down the top of my shirt and tell him to take a peek. He glances, and reaches over. “What?” he says, acting as if I am exposing some glistening, bare teen chest. I then raise my shirt all the way up, fully exposing my belly in all its glory. He laughs and reaches over and pats me, “Yes! You have hair on your chest…it is like an Alice Cooper belly!” he says laughing. I like this term, it makes me laugh too. It also gets Cesar chuckling, “What is an Alice Cooper belly?” Cesar implies. Mordo explains that it is when you are skinny but have a little bit in your belly area. I look at Mordo rubbing my gut, “That…that is rock and roll, that is what that is!” Mordo agrees wholeheartedly, “Yes, yes, exactly. That is rock and roll. That is an Alice Cooper belly”
Mordo makes some comment about music. He gets Cesar’s attention and declares that us three will go downtown to some cantina, get nuts and talk uninhibited about music and politics. “No women! Just us. We will get totally drunk, and just sit among men and talk music and whatever, without worrying about girls around. It will be great!” he is definitely jazzed about this. Cesar makes some slanderous comment back about Mordo being a Jew, “Perfect! A Jew, a Gentile and a Catholic. That’ll make for a fun night of conversation” I say. Cesar agrees and holds his hand up for a ‘high five’. He then adds, “I don’t know about going out. You know I don’t like to go out in public. We can go sit on my roof and argue on top of my house maybe that is better”.
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