A Memorable Feast

My father was an extravagant sort. He’d orchestrate a three day celebration for his birthday. He'd order the slaughtering of pork and a whole cow for such an event, where close and distant family and friends, gathered to gorge until they could eat and drink no more.
I guess I have a bit of that too. Yet, it's never been for me.
Today, I will start to plan for a big feast in my honor.

No detail will be overlooked. There will be a catered meal of Peruvian food.
I'm sorry to tell you that is the best cuisine in the world; Lima has been declared the gastronomic capital of the Americas, for its unique fusion of flavors.
I want there to be music, spirits, and camaraderie.

“Life is to be enjoyed, don't be a fool..it is too short, don't you know?
I repeat, I want you to enjoy the feast...and to simply celebrate that we shared this time together. Don’t take for granted each day and squander it inconsequentially.
Imagine the sand shifting through the hour glass…each second gone is the present dissolving into the past.

Please…please smile and don’t frown. You think you need so much to be happy.
It’s not like that at all. You don’t need stuff…the good stuff is not for sale, and you’re not even aware of it.
I ache too, for you are so lost and mired in your problems, that you’re letting precious moments pass in worry. I only hope that I made a difference even on a minuscule level…knowing me.

With unending love,” it will be read.




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Free Ride

Free Ride



While walking to get a soda under the grilling merciless sun, I saw a border patrol SUV stopped by a red light. I was on my way to the Mexican border of Juarez then, and I contemplated for a second hitching a ride from them. I only needed to tell them I was illegal for them to deport me?

Yet, it’s not so much the cab ride I would have saved that lured me to think this way. It was a morbid curiosity to be inside a vehicle impregnated with so much fear and shattered dreams; these derived from those who perhaps invested their life’s savings to come this far. And the heartbreak to see these dreams evanesce like vapor into thin air.

It would be like playing with fire with the knowledge one is safe from scarring. There was a time when I was afraid of those border patrol cars. Yet, it was only for a short while, when I was nine years old and spent three nights in a cheap Tijuana motel room, my two little brothers and I.

We were waiting for the people to cross us, when on the second night of ambiguity, and worry, one cried and said that he was scared, to which I replied: “It will be alright; you will see. Don’t you cry.” I faked a bravado I was far from feeling at nine yrs old, still unaware of all the potential dangers and pitfalls.

I think it’s important to be able to step in someone else’s shoes, if only for a moment. To jolt one from the complacency one can be trapped in, and surely be thankful for what did not befall one. Perhaps it would be a bit too much to request to sit on the electric chair of a Texas jail and imagine the moment one knows with due certainty one is about to expire. What goes through their mind at such a moment?

Oh, the human well of suffering. Is it palpable on the walls of the Auschwitz gas chambers? Did people embrace naked and terrified, as the life force slowly drifted away? Which was worse? To be trapped in there, or seeing a loved one marched to such fate? How much pain can man bear?


We are both stopped by a red light under the merciless Texas sun. I see the Border Patrol men inside their air conditioned vehicle. Perhaps it’s the only available job they found in this unstable economy? Do they turn off their emotions when performing their duties? When the little American children beg them with tears, not to deport their parents?

The light is green and the moment is passed. I make my way to the border town. I will cross the invisible line created by man, as sharp as a blade that cuts a paper in half.
This divides two distinct lines between race, idioms, and comfort of life. Making one an illegal alien by this abstract line created by brothers.




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Windows of the soul

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I look through the window of my compact mirror, and I do not like what I see. There are dark circles circumventing my eyes, from rationed sleep. As I methodically consume my lunch, there are two books set on the table before me. One is a factory resource book; the other is a book of poems by Silvia Plath. Guess which one was viewed during my lunch hour?

There is really not a lack of drama and intrigue in real life. As I’ve said before, real life often surpasses fiction. Everyone comes to me, as if I manned information central.
I am privy to diverging point of views and assimilate all information. These bits of scattered information, often derive from outside forces.

Like the guy who was recently threatened with his life, unless he paid a very steep amount he owed. And of the sacrifice someone made on his behalf, in order to save his life.
I am at a crossroad between choosing a solid friendship, over alignment with powerful forces. If I were to drop the dead weight, I’d have it a lot easier they say. In truth, I am not sure as how to proceed, as this creates a conflict deep within me.

I do not like who I see in the compact mirror; who is this stranger before me? Where is the sweet girl who dwells within? I hope that she is back soon, because I cannot write without her. My mind is too focused on the dollar bill. I think that I will dance around the flame, and be beholden to no one. Prudence is an undervalued virtue, and one should be dual in nature. That is an innate faculty of the female nature.

Los Angeles can make one hard and brittle in order to survive.




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To the point

I could not leave town without paying my respects inside the Cathedral. Afterwards, I bought an ice cream bar and sat on the plaza to observe the people idling the time. I sat under the shade of a tree and struck up a conversation with a very nice man.

After touching on several subjects, I inquired about the street adjacent to the plaza, where the ladies of the night converge to incite the lust of those passing by.

-¨Oh that place? There are even 70 and 80 year old women working that street.¨

My mouth gaped open on its own accord. -¨Have you ever paid one of those women for…you know? ¨

-¨Oh, not the grandmothers, although she always asks me if I want to go inside the rooms. But, yes, I have paid some of the girls.¨

-¨So, what are the rooms like? Do they have air conditioning? It’s so hot here. I can imagine how it gets when it’s 120 Fahrenheit!”

-¨There is only one bed, no air conditioning, nor bathroom. Some girls use a bucket to wash up, and then on to the next client. But you know those elder women, are actually cleaner, because they are not as active as a young woman. Therefore, she is likely to be cleaner than one who is more solicited. When it gets very hot, it’s just heat, generating more heat – It’s like a steam room.¨ He laughed.

-¨Do they use condoms? ¨

He shrugged his shoulders and said, -¨ It all depends on the price. They might ask for $300 pesos for withholding protection, and some will likely agree to it.¨

-¨As a woman, I cringe at the thought of living in purgatory to make a miserable wage.¨

-¨I am a small business owner. Sometimes I come here to hire people, and one young girl asked me if I was giving stuff away. I told her that I was offering a way to make money from home. She said to me that she was here to sell sex, and whoever wanted to could follow her.

See those men there? Some of them are in their 70´s or even 80´s and they keep young girls. They give them some money and they spend the day together.¨

-¨Hmm…can they still get it up at 80?¨ Inquiring minds want to know.

-¨Not likely.¨

-¨So, then…what´s involved?¨ I asked to pass the time.

-¨Just oral. They get to play a little, and the girls go away happy with some money.
Do you have a telephone number? Can I call you sometime? Maybe we can meet next time you come back.¨

Not likely to ever come back here I thought.

-¨Sure, maybe when I come back we can do the route of all the cantinas and dance halls. That should be at the very least interesting.¨ I said this as I took his business card and bid him goodbye.










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Have you seen her?

A typical Monday spent riding on the back of a fiscal custom’s agent vehicle; I made small talk so as not to fall into an awkward silence.

-¨So, how come there are still young women missing here in Juarez and no one is caught as of yet? I mean, considering the advances in forensic science, surely something should come up from the retrieved DNA.¨ I asked him to brake the pregnant silence.

-¨There’s not that type of technology here yet.¨

Bull shit

-¨What about the drug cartel war with the military, is there still a lot of that going on here? ¨

-¨There are sporadic casualties, but I don’t deal with that. I am a federal customs agent.¨

The drive from the Mexican custom’s gate, to the import offices took was quite a distance it seemed. For a moment, a pang of apprehension sounded an alarm, as we drove into wooded area. This dispersed when I could see the American flag adjacent to the entrance of a compound with the emblems of the Mexican customs facility.

I thanked the agent for the ride, declined to the bureaucratic paper work involved, and crossed back into US territory. After rearranging to meet those people I was to meet a mile into El Paso, later in the day, I made my way back into the fabled city of Juarez.

I talked to some people who said that there were still girls missing from 17 to 22 yrs of age from the downtown district. The couple I spoke with said that a lot of people figured that the local police were involved. Several mothers had denounced this as they recognized those men pursuing their daughters. ¨But you know how it is, the police here are very abusive. They probably kidnap these girls and pass them around each other.¨

I chose to walk circumventing the Cathedral on the main plaza. I looked with laser like intent at the faces of the men all around me. I asked the silent question is it you? Or you? Or you? Are you one of the men who not only kidnapped and raped someone’s daughter, but also mutilated and tortured her? I asked this as I saw a plethora of missing people’s leaflets, plastered on walls and telephone booths.

I came upon a closed street where I saw groups of women congregating on plastic chairs near the entrance of run down buildings. It took me but a moment to realize these were hardened women, and they traded what means they had at their disposal since birth.

I sauntered to a group of women. It seemed the recession have hit hard this sector, for she had allowed grey to highlight the top portion of her hair. The unmerciful sun and perennial heat of this border town had ravaged whatever remnants of beauty she might have been blessed with.

Not as to belittle them, I refrained from asking how much they charged, but spoke in general terms about the missing women. After we spoke for a length of time, I bid them goodbye. I stopped a young man on my way and asked him how much did the ladies of the night charge.

-¨For companionship or sex? ¨ Huh? Just give me a price.¨ I asked.

-¨From 50 to 100.¨ I opened my eyes wide ¨Pesos?¨ I wondered if the lesser price was for a senior citizen discount, as upon observation, I could see several couples holding hands in this passage of purchased love. Several men were elderly, and the women seemed to be getting there at the pace of life they were keeping. For only $5 dollars they’d blow a man?

I’d had enough of this piss town where life and dignity had no value whatsoever.
It was almost nine o’clock and strange things seem to happen close to midnight.
I made my way to a main avenue to catch a cab. I was a block away on an almost deserted street without any streetlights, when I saw from the opposite side of the street a cholo coming towards me.

The street was dark, one old man sat atop a car, and this shirtless tattooed gangster walked with the air of owning this street. He was sauntering as if studying his prey on the same side of me. I had seen him before when I studied the men near the plaza. His fanthomless eyes told me that he seemed to have lost his soul a while ago.

Instinctively I knew that if I showed any trace of fear and moved aside, he’d be able to smell it, and then I’d be in trouble. The only apprehension was for my wallet and US passport, those inside my jean pocket. This being a border town, it could easily be sold for a steep profit, and then I’d be royally screwed trying to cross to El Paso.

As we were coming ever closer, we locked eyes. I put on a stern face, while I grasped the holster of my purple back pack. This might tell him that I held something valuable in it.
This is the same purple back pack which has accompanied me to so many places, and once someone told me in jest that it made me look like ¨Dora the Explorer.¨







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Folie

Someone once told me that he had always looked in from the outside, into restaurants which he could not afford. With hunger roaring in his belly, and wistfulness on the forefront.

What could I say to that since eating in those places is highly overrated, and most of the food there has been previously frozen? I could understand in theory what he meant, but not really osmose what he had felt.

That is until a few nights ago. I was waiting for someone outside an apartment complex, when I was privy to a very intimate moment between two. It was simply a couple moving into the first floor of that building. The living room was vacant except for a few carton boxes, and they were laughing about some silly joke.

Sometimes one is not aware of what is lacking until it is presented before you. I felt a pang of envy, and a bit of sadness too.
Summer is upon us, yet that makes no difference in southern California. It is always sunny, smoggy, and crowded too.

Some move in together, and some drift apart due to irreconcilable differences. When exactly, due good intentions turn to shit between two people crazy in love?

Therein lies the answer...they're warped in a cloud of enraptured folie.




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