Rumors*

We were sitting at the seawall watching the sun drop over Isla Tiburon in the Sea of Cortez. A mini happy hour gathering, just the two of us.

"I hear the police found your stuff."
"Nope."
"Nope? It's not true that the police found some guys at an abandoned shack barbecuing your steaks and drinking your vodka?"
"Nope. All day people have been stopping me on the beach saying hey, I hear you got your stuff back. By the way they took all my vodka - all 22 liters."
"Twenty-two liters!"
"Yep."
"Okay, so I also heard all you had to do was go to the police station in Calle Doce and sign some papers and you'd get your grill back and whatever was left of the steaks and vodka."
"Nope. Not true. None of it. Nada."
"Well shit, how could a rumor be so detailed?"
"The only thing I can think is someone overhead us at breakfast joking about that scenario - the cops smelling those grilling steaks - and someone took it as gospel and ran with it."
"And given that most of these old farts can't hear too good..."
"You got it."
"So where'd the part about going to Calle Doce come from?"
He just shrugged.

For days I dug but could not come up with the root of the rumor. I finally chalked it up to just another day among snowbirds with too much time on their hands and not enough battery power in their ears.

*rumors is the subject for the February 1st deadline of the readers write section in The Sun magazine

full body press

Chapo stops by. We do not speak the other's language although we make an attempt. He tells me that Manuel (his son in prison) needs shoes. I see a pair of tennis shoes strapped to the back of Chapo's bicycle. Chapo says Francisco gives him the evil eye when he comes into the park. Those two things I understand but that's about it.

The purpose of today's visit is obviously not to chat; it's for a hug. Chapo is drenched in cologne - Axe which all the men here wear. When we hug, he holds me a little too long, a little too tight so that my breasts are pressed to his chest. I don't mind. He's got a nice chest. And for the first time in my life I'm able to hug a man breast to chest.

After our two-sentence conversation we sit in silence for a few minutes. Then Chapo says adios, jumps on his bike and rides off.