If you want to start your Saturday night party of right, first you must have an argument. This is the best way to get yourselves in the mood and to get primed for your big night out. It is also the best way to get your primed for the other stumbling blocks sure to come.
I was in the shower. I had not eaten lunch, and as I showered I was thinking ahead to the nice pasta I was expecting. I had even bought a new bottle of wine purposely to match the dinner tonight. Tonya comes in, “Ok! Change of plans! Ricardo is in town and Kumar called and there is a get together at Alphonso’s tonight” Great, but there are certain times of the day when I could care less about Osama being killed, a party, or even if there is tsunami on the way. The big question at these times is: what is there to eat, I am hungry. So, I turn to Tonya and plainly say, “Ok, what are we eating? Is there food there?” This was not the proper thing for a dirty hungry guy to say. So this sets Tonya off and I am obviously oblivious to the party. My dreams of relaxing and enjoying this nice pasta with meat sauce and special wine is now going down the drain just like the daily Mexican grime off my body.
Tonya comes back up a few minutes later, “I will make some rice and re-warm those meatballs…” That’s it? I sacrifice a nice time in for left-over meatballs and rice to be scoffed all in a rush. I grimace and probably groan and moan and comply, “Whatever. Let’s just not rush. This doesn’t have to be a big deal” Tonya disappears.
By the time I get downstairs the air is stagnant with angst. Tonya is preparing the pasta anyway. “Do we have anything to take to Alphonso’s?” I ask, trying my best to be in a party mood. “Take the wine we just bought for tonight…” Now, this is insult to injury. I try my best to keep calm, and just carry getting ready. I go back upstairs and iron a shirt.
We sit down in seemingly calm moods and start to eat. The dish is great. I have been looking forward to this pasta and meat dish for ages. As much as I am enjoying it, I am just dreaming of nice it would have been with salad and wine and taking your time. However; none of that. We have an appointment and will show up happy and ready to get our Saturday night party on. As we finish up, Tonya gets up to go get dressed. “Just leave the dishes, you can do them later” she says as she goes on up stairs. I clear the table and start rinsing dishes and putting food away and I realize it is just as easy to wash them now. I open the fridge and grab a plastic container to see what it is. The lid is not the proper lid and next thing I know, the chicken broth is now all over the floor and the pieces of chicken are glistening on the tile floor. I am cussing like no one’s business and the dogs are standing in a group, their eyes fixed intently on the chicken that just dropped form the sky. Right now, at this very moment, I am so ready to start my party (as you can imagine). Tonya comes down to see what all the commotion is about. She is thrilled too, because mopping is always a party-primer.
Not too much is said as we finish our last minute grooming. The mandatory, ‘Does this look alright?” was about the extent of it. A cab is called and we are soon on the way. Tonya is excited, because some of the people who will be at Alphonso’s she has not seen in 30 years. It is all the old gang in town at the same time. The male side of the gang are heavy, heavy drinkers, so I am reminded that these guys don’t fool around. At Alphonso’s, we arrive just as the first bottle of Scotch is opened. Each guy who shows up afterwards, brings another bottle. Obviously, they like Scotch and they are not joking around. Personally, I am a bit let down. There is not a lot of choice for a guy who doesn’t want Scotch. There are three bags of potato chips on the counter, a can of peanuts and the bottle of wine which was supposed to accompany my dinner.
I know none of these people. I stand there smiling, getting into the standard ‘I am the outsider who doesn’t know anyone and doesn’t speak your language’ mode. I look around Alphonso’s apartment. He works for the airlines. He’s gay and his apartment is somewhat minimal. There are some splendid black and white photos above his desk of old planes. In the corner there is part of a propeller serving as a piece of sculpture. Everything is perfectly placed and dimly lit. The stereo is playing OMD’s greatest hits, to which I commend Alphonso. He smiles. It doesn’t last long though. For some reason, as soon as Kumar has started downing Scotch, OMD is deemed to sissy for this party. He goes to the stereo and puts on Creedence Clearwater Revival. I breathe deep and tell myself it is gonna be alright. As each new guest arrives, a loud cheer goes up and an accompanying round of handshakes, hugs and kisses. I am still standing in between the kitchen and living room, and end up talking to a guy who came with a girl I am not too fond of. Somehow, we end up talking about his upcoming vacation to Romania. He is thrilled to know I have been there and we talk for quite a while about Eastern European adventures.
I seek out Tonya who is sitting on the couch next to Roberto. I have heard about this guy. There is a story which circulates back at home about how he was out drinking tequila until 4 in the morning, then drove some scared visitors around while never once looking at the freeway. He was drunk, personable and spent his time behind the wheel with his arm on the seat, looking into the backseat and chatting to his new guests. That was about 15 years ago. Now he sits smiling, cigarettes and lighter waiting patiently on the coffee table. His hair is almost white and he is wearing a bright turquoise terry-cloth shirt. I sit down next to Tonya and him. He smiles and Tonya introduces us. He scoots towards me when Tonya stands up, “Ah, ok. You are Tonya’s boyfriend…” he says as he gets set into place. We would sit here quite a while. This would be my main source of party-talk. I had no idea what stories were about to be unwound;
Roberto had been in San Miguel the previous day; his friend threw a huge party. 400 people packed into his pal’s hacienda for a full spread, “The best barbeque” he says. Rich Mexicans like to show off he confirms. Obviously his pal practices showing of his wealth…there were 4 helicopters on the hacienda grounds…as well as a private bull ring and swimming pools. This is an old friend of his so he felt he should attend the blow-out. It was great. He said that after the party he had to return to Mexico City. He was supposed to bring some booty back, 300 bottles of Dom Perignon. There was supposed to be 3 cars driving them back, one being Roberto. The other two drivers passed and decided to fly by helicopter. All the cases were piled into Roberto’s car. He has a big smile on his face and his eyes are slightly glassy. He says it was 3am and time to go home. What should have been a three hour trip was cut in half. “There was no one on the highway…” he boasts about the speed in which he returned back to the city. He acts out the drive home, like he is hunched over the steering wheel, and makes a wavy motion back and forth; with his hand and his eyes grow bright white, “I was so scared. All those bottles in my car were making it sway back and forth all over the road. It was frightening…” he continues laughing and hyping it all up. He says he stopped only once, at a gas station full of whores. Fat ones. “Hey” they called to him, “Que paso…” he rolls his eyes. He tells of how they are wearing shorts and heels, and their fat bellies are hanging out. He makes the shapes of their floundering bodies with his hands and shakes his head.
I would later find out that this Roberto is quite a character. These tall tales I was hearing were not things of fantasy. As the party progressed and different passing conversation came about and others eavesdropping in, they all had verification of the crazy life Roberto leads and shared their own hair raising tales of fun with ‘Berto.
The whole story of driving at 3am with a car swaying all over the highway filled with 300 bottles of champagne had nothing to do with braggadocio. I had opened the gateway for this by asking him why he was in San Miguel. So many people have recommended that town to us that I was just trying to get another person’s view. It turns out that Roberto used to live there, and he was happy to give his view.
“It…is…horrible” he says as he hunches over like he is piled high with grief “Twenty years ago it was a beautiful place, but now it has grown and has become too developed. The traffic on the weekends is worse than Mexico City.” He stops for a sip or two of his Scotch and follows with a few puffs of his smoke. “It is a nice place, but it is a weekend town. All the people from the surrounding cities go there to party on the weekend. They shoot off fireworks 24 hours a day, a constant party. From Monday to Thursday, it is quiet. There is nothing to do, but when late Thursday comes around, it all changes.” He confides that if I want to be around Gringos, it is the place to be. “It is filled with old people…you know, retirees. Old people are everywhere, it is depressing” he rolls his eyes and laughs again, “It is like going to Palm Beach or Miami. You know how Florida is just old people, that is how it is” Berto continues to tell that it is very dusty there, “no green”, and that it is windy. He also says it gets very hot there in the summer. “For me, it is just not nice. I know. I lived there a year, but I had to move, I just did not like it”
I did not have to ask for advice on where to go, as he was going to tell me now. “You should live in Tepoztlan” he says plainly. I like Tepoztlan. Everyone likes Tepoztlan, it is beautiful there. Roberto relishes in his time in Tepoztlan, “I was single then you know” and he stops for a moment to reflect, while a smile stays on his face. He looks back at me and says, “It was great” Berto lived in Tepoztlan for 7 years, and that was his previous residence before his new home in the Yucatan.
Berto describes his home in Tepoztlan. It was huge. Amazingly, it had three wells inside the house. A few times during his story others would sit down and get involved. They all loved Berto’s house in Tepoztlan. Several party goers made mention of the crazy parties in this huge place. It has a tennis court, a soccer field, a basketball court, and a few swimming pools. All the talk about hectares and square meters got me confused, but I know it was massive. The views were magnificent. Berto says his bedroom alone was over 1,000 sq. feet. It was a sprawling mansion. “I loved it so much” he says. “I had the best views. I opened up the shutters on the bedroom and it looked straight on to the pyramid in Tepoztlan. The mountain was so beautiful” He stops and leans in towards me while lowering his voice, “Hey. That was when I was single you know. I had girls all the time. You can imagine when I show them the room and open up the windows and when they saw that view…wow! They got naked all the time, in an instant!” he says as he leans back laughing and raising his hands. He says that he rarely went to the center of town, maybe 20 times the whole time he lived there. “It was too nice. I didn’t need to go to town…anyway, it is only Indians who go to the center of town” he says frowning with disapproval. His parties were lavish and huge. One party goer reminds him of how the local paper would write about parties ‘to be’ at Berto’s, just to get revelers wound up and set it off at his place. “Oh, it was too much. It was crazy I tell you”.
As he was telling me all of this, I was wondering ‘How does he afford it? What does he do? How did he find this place?’ It wasn’t long into the whole fairytale before Berto himself thought he should clarify this point; maybe I had a strange look on my face. He says plainly, “It was a narco trafficker’s house” Ahhh, so it is crystal clear. I understood everything perfectly now and knew that this was not made up. When you live in a Mexican drug lord’s house, you can imagine how over the top it must be. I was a bit concerned though; how does one party and live like a king in a wanted man’s house. Did he ever deal with the drug lord or any of his heavies? Surely, if there is one landlord you do not be late with rent to, it would be a drug czar. “Oh no, it was not like that” he reassures me, “He was dead. He had already been killed. The house had sat vacant for quite a while. His widow leased the house to me. She wanted $8,000 a month. I told her she was crazy…I would give her $3,000. She said no. I gave her my card and told her to call if she changed her mind” he then leans forward and thumps me, “Three hours later the phone rang” and he makes like he is picking up an imaginary phone. He starts laughing, “Ok, you want the house, it is yours…but you have to pay a year in advance” and he laughs and makes like he is signing a check. “It was great” he says again while shaking his head.
To be continued...
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