There is plenty of fun to be had, but he went on at length about how central Tepoztlan is. He told of how when boredom struck, he would go to Cuernavaca to see some friends and eat at “a pretty nice restaurant. This place is semi-fun, but not really” he confides. At other times he would drive to Mexico City, and also further out south into the mountains. “I love the quite life in the country, where you drive down the small roads and you have to stop because there are 30 cows in front of you” he laughs and makes like he his honking his horn. “I like it. One time I was driving and had to stop because all of these cows were walking across the road. I was in my Porsche. I got tired of waiting and starting to honk the horn. This one bull would not move. I got angry and really started yelling at him. He turned and smashed my car with his horns” he raises his eyebrows while nodding his head, “Perhaps it was because my car was red” and then he puts his hands up against his head and makes like he has horns.” When I got to where I was going, I got out to look at my car. There were two holes in it where the bull hit my car” and laughs at the incident and shakes his head, ‘I swear to you. Two holes, one from each horn smashed into my car. I could not believe it!” The longer the tales went on and the more Scotch he downed, his accent became heavier and words slurred.
“What do you want?” he would ask. “Do you want to make money? Open business? You don’t make money in these places” he said sternly while shaking his head. “The rich people from Mexico City go straight from their door at home, straight to their door in these towns. They do not go out. You do not make money” I did get an earful from Roberto regarding these two towns. A few times he called Tonya over and would repeat himself, and repeat the same question again, “What do you want? You want to make money?”
Berto wanted to smoke. Tonya was flagging me to come stand with her by the window. It was warm in this apartment. It is on the eighth floor, and typical of Mexican homes, there is no A/C. The coolest spot is in front of the window. Both Berto and I get up and refill. Me? I get a glass of soda water and a small refill of tequila. Berto fills up on Scotch and we both go to Tonya. Berto is well sauced by now, and he reaches out for Tonya and gives her a big hug. He kisses her and tells her how much he has missed her. Alphonso and Mordo are part of the window gang too. They all start reminiscing about something and Berto turns to me and apologizes, ‘I’m sorry, I am going to speak to her now in Spanish” I acknowledge with a nod and tell him to speak his own language. They all laugh and slap one another, smoke and drink. I am enjoying the sight and the cool breeze coming in. I hear a name ‘Jose-Luis’ and they all laugh and make ‘whooooo’ noises. They are telling of their crazy disco days and how certain people liked their ‘snow’. Mordo pipes in and says, “Whenever anyone started anything in the old days, it was Jose-Luis. He was crazy. He was always the guy to turn you on to whatever was new”, Alphonso stands beside him nodding. He recalls his first trip to Europe, where Jose-Luis met him at the train station in Madrid with tickets to a concert that night and a huge block of hash. Alphonso says, “Here in Mexico you smoke grass, in Europe you smoke hash. Neither of us knew how much to smoke. I didn’t even know you were supposed to smoke it!” he admits. “Anyway, we smoked half of this huge block. That was a mistake. We were so out of it, we forgot where we were” and he laughs about the adventure, shaking his head in disbelief. He holds his finger up and instructs, “You know, with hash you should only smoke about this much…but we did about this much” and points to half of his finger. “He is crazy” Alphonso says.
I have no idea who Jose-Luis is. They sure do. They continue to laugh about certain episodes and they are all red-faced from their laughing. Berto leans to me and says, “You know, Jose-Luis was Tonya’s boyfriend…and he was very, very jealous. He was trouble” I have just learned something new. Berto nudges me and switches to English. He is recounting a party at which they were all at. They all nodded in agreement to the particular incident. Berto looks at me and the n points out the window, “I could not believe it..” he says as he tells of this party. For whatever reason, Jose-Luis was mad about something. He excused himself and went outside to throw a fit. “We were upstairs, looking at him from the window” Berto says. “He was so mad; he walked over to my car. I don’t think he realized it was mine. He started kicking it, the side of the car. He then kicked off the side mirrors. He even jumped on the top and started screaming and jumping up and down. We were shocked. And then, when he finished jumping on the top of my car, and he had broken the mirrors, he then peed on it!” he looks at me at hits me in the arm. “Can you believe it? He makes pee pee on my car while I see him do it from above! He is crazy!” Alphonso and Mordo recall the incident with the same hilarity. For some reason, Tonya is not laughing so much. Hmm, I wonder why. Maybe she wasn’t present.
Alphonso quietly slips away and changes the music. He has put on old disco tunes. Supposedly, the Mexicans took the whole disco scene quite serious. This gang in front of me was notorious about driving to Acapulco to a famed disco “the best in the country” and getting wrapped up in their synchronized disco moves. As the disco pumps, they all set their glasses down and start doing their moves. They smile, laugh and dance together. A few random yells and whoops are heard. Bodies move across the living room to display a hip swing or a thrust, and then back across the room to the other group of revelers in the kitchen. Arms kept going up at their favorite points of the song.
The brief dance moment calls for a new round of smokes and refills. As we are still standing at the window Berto looks at Tonya and me and confesses, “Hey. I was in Houston a week or so ago” We both ask why. He asks Tonya if she remembers another mutual friend, Charlie. She says, “Charlie…yeah, I remember Charlie. Where is he now?” Supposedly this Charlie is in Arizona, and has made a load in gold. Charlie and Berto went to Houston to buy a generator for Berto’s place in the Yucatan. It turns out that Berto wanted to come to the States to do the paperwork for the generator and see to it himself that it would be shipped ok into Mexico. This meant that the pair had to go to Juarez. Everyone knows that Juarez is not a place to be for any amount of time. Strangely enough, Charlie didn’t seem too bothered by it but Berto did. He says that Charlie acted like it was no big deal, and just another city. They stayed in a good hotel and ate at a nice restaurant, but Berto was frightened to have to spend time in Juarez. Charlie was driving a yellow Maserati.
“Who drives a yellow Maserati in Juarez?” Berto asks looking us all in the eyes. “Charlie is just driving around like he is in L.A. or something. He has the windows down and smoking a cigar” he mimics Charlie and then starts shaking to show how he was feeling. He sinks down as if he is actually trying to hide behind a car door, as he shakes his ashes fall to floor, “Charlie. Roll the windows up man!” He says Charlie just looks at him and laughs, “They have machine guns. What good will rolling up your window do? A rolled up window will not stop a machine gun” Charlie said laughing. “He told me not to worry. Narcos only kill Narcos. They will not mess with Gringos. If they get Gringos involved, it becomes too messy and complicated. Yes. He tells me this while he drives around Juarez in his Maserati!” He cannot believe how ridiculous the situation was, and neither could we. Without a doubt, this got a good round of laughs from all of us in our group.
“Come on Tonya, do you remember this?” says Alphonso, as he grabs her and pulls her out to the middle of the floor to dance. They smile and dance. The drink and disco is definitely allowing Alphonso to ‘let his hair down’…not that he has enough to let down. His ‘brighter’ side is definitely shining now the disco is on. Tonya and Alphonso stand in his study and talk of the old dances and who was hot and who was not. Alphonso’s mother is from New York City. They have an apartment there, and he declares he is a city boy. He recounts his time in New York during the late 70’s and early 80’s, going to some of the more famous disco havens. Tonya keeps asking me if I know this song, or that one. She is baffled that my disco knowledge is rather paltry. “In 1978 I was listening to the Cars and you guys were listening to this. That is where I missed out” I said. Alphonso immediately chimes in, “I listened to The Cars too! I like The Cars!” Yes, I actually do remember hearing some Cars playing at some point tonight. We move on to the kitchen to see what is up and get something to drink. The kitchen people are well plastered by now. The bags of chips emptied and so are a number of bottles. For me, my tipple of choice has been soda water. It is too warm for me to be boozing it up party style. Juanita sees I am perplexed when I scour the counter and there is no more water. “What is wrong Tim? What do you want?” she asks. She opens the fridge, claiming there is water in there. “How about a cold beer?” she asks. I oblige.
Alphonso reaches over me and grabs a handful of gourmet wine flavored chips, “I love these chips!” I agree. They are quite yummy.
Party people are starting to leave. It is almost 2, and those with families are making their way home. I tell Tonya we should leave soon. Alphonso has had enough of gay times, and puts on the Ramones. As he tells people goodbye, he yells out to me, “I love this song!” and he is singing “The KKK Took My Baby Away”. He saunters back to the kitchen, bobbing his head and eating more potato chips. Berto has found me again in the kitchen. He is pretty far gone. He starts in on me again, “Hey. What do you want?” he laughs and then buddies up next to me. He says he doesn’t want to tell me what to do; he is only trying to help. “You should try both of those places. Rent a home there and see what you think. It is like marrying a woman. You have to date her first before you ask for marriage” he says laughing. Someone calls him out on the marriage statement and he gets quiet. Earlier in the night, before the wild stories, Roberto had told Tonya and me that he has a 9 month old daughter and he loves her madly. He had quietly gotten married and had a kid. Now, he breaks the news to those left at the party and they all cheer. He grapples for his phone and pulls up some pictures of his wife and baby. As the revelers look at his phone, he smiles and keeps saying, “Aren’t they beautiful. I love my wife and I love my daughter”. He is obviously touched by just the sight of them.
He had handed business cards to Tonya and me earlier too. He has a hotel in the Yucatan. He now insists that we come visit and see the place where he lives now. He gives Tonya hugs and kisses and keeps saying how he missed her. He looks at me and says how much he likes Tonya but reassures me that their 30 some odd year friendship has been only that, ‘friends’. I smile. “Tim. You must come to my home. This is the most beautiful beach in the world. I promise you, when you see the water, you will pass out” and he makes like he is falling over. He’s serious, and says that many tourists, especially Germans, when seeing the clarity of the water and the beach, they have fainted. Tonya and the others confirm that this particular area is beautiful. “You stay at my hotel, and I will not charge you. I even lend you my jungle home…” he says.
What started out as a rough night has actually panned out ok. Standing in the shower facing the prospect of left-over meatballs I had no idea of the people I would meet and the stories I would hear. It was worth it. I did notice though, no one had touched the wine. All the bottles of Scotch were emptied. It was time to go. It was now a little after 2:30 and Tonya asked Alphonso to call us a cab. We make a slow circle around the kitchen and say our farewells. Alphonso says he will walk us out. “You are going down with us?” I ask. “Oh no, I am only taking you to the door” he says. I tell Alphonso another thanks for the evening. It was fun. He stands at the door and confesses, “Those that are still here…I am gonna have a hard time getting rid of. It will probably go on all night” I reply back, “I hope you have stuff for breakfast” to which Alphonso simply rolls his eyes and huffs.
No comments:
Post a Comment