Homeland Security Part II

I fear I’ve also scared off Daniel, the night watchman who took Martin’s place.

For some only God knows why reason the people at the end of my row started letting their high-pitched yappy dogs out at five in the morning. I’d been meaning to talk to them about it but the opportunity never arose until the fourth morning.

My daughter was visiting and I was sleeping on the sofa, this time in an oversized tee-shirt that says “trailer park trash: their love was as mobile as their home and as carefree,” when the dogs let loose. I didn’t hesitate. I jumped up, pulled on my flip-flops and went out the door where I met poor Daniel with his flashlight, lit up by the neighbor’s motion detector light. I marched past Daniel to the dog owner’s door.

I knocked. He answered with a “what’s up?” Okay, so it’s like four o’clock in the morning (I know because my neighbors with the Radio Shack alarm aren’t up so it’s got to be before five), so what does he think is up? My voice is calm. I’m not even shaking with anger. I say, “This is the fourth morning your dogs have waked me up.” (wake, woked, awakened, fuck, who knows) He says – and I thought this was priceless – “Wouldn’t you rather be woken by my dogs than robbers?” Uh, no. Besides it’s Daniel they’re barking at; not robbers. Anyway, I couldn’t have scripted this any better. Sitting calmly next to me is my guarda espalda – my bodyguard – Paloma. I point at her and say “I don’t need your dogs, I have Paloma.” With that he says, "Okay, I’ll take care of it."

Back in the trailer Stef says “Mom, did you go out there?” I said yep. Then I burst out laughing as I recounted the perfectness of having Paloma beside me.

Later that day the dog owner’s wife (who also owns the dogs, I might add) says her husband is going to come down and apologize. But he didn’t and he hasn’t. Seems he was on his way to do that but he asked my neighbor with the Radio Shack alarm – my DEAF neighbor – if his dogs woke him and he says no so there went my apology.

Since then others have heard the story and thanked me for saying something. Well no thanks to any of them for backing me up. But that’s okay. Given all those dogs, there’s still room for one more bitch in the neighborhood.

Oh, and Daniel…I haven’t seen him since.

Homeland Security Part I

After a rash of burglaries - shoes, vodka, steaks - the gringos took security into their own hands. They insisted on a nighttime watchman (which worked great the last time we had one because our guard was a speed freak who had no problem staying awake all night), so the park put Martin on night duty. My neighbors attached a three-dollar alarm from Radio Shack to the back of their rig and ran fishing line to the fence. It set off an annoying chirping sound when tripped. The women across the way put up a motion detector light aimed so that any dog walking by would trigger it. Subsequently, the light goes off and on all night. I despise motion detector lights. They belong in the suburbs; not in a trailer park in Mexico.

On this particular night I'd been in bed for maybe fifteen minutes when the Radio Shack alarm went off. I got up to turn on my porch light so the burglar would...well, I'm not sure what but I felt the need to show some presence. I went into the living room and flipped on the inside light by mistake. I'm standing at the window in all my naked glory when I hear "It's me Martin, Martin" and as I reach for the light switch I say "Oh, hi Martin, okay." I flip the inside light off and hit the outside switch.

The alarm's still chirping so I go back to bed. I hear one of the women with the motion detector light outside telling Martin to stick around so the owner of the chirper alarm will know it's Martin and not some burglar. It's taking a while for my neighbor to get up. When he does I hear him yelling at Martin to go away all the while the woman's telling Martin to stay. Then I hear the neighbor telling his wife to shut up because he can't hear what she's saying when really it's not his wife at all but the woman with the motion detector light. The neighbor is deaf (and of course he takes his hearing aids out when in bed) so he's lost in a fog of chirping noises and voices.

I lie in bed and laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Poor Martin. We never see him again - I'm not sure if he was embarrassed by setting off the alarm or by seeing me naked - so when Manny gets out of jail the park owners rehire him and Daniel is put on night shift.

As far as I know, the burglaries have stopped. But the gringo drama continues...

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.

Las Chuparosas

 My computer faces the window next to the door. Every once in a while a hummingbird hovers there, looking in at me. That little ruby-throated hummer makes me smile. What is he thinking? I know he's not in search of food because I filled the feeder yesteday. Is he as curious about me as I am about him and his buddies?

We have two types of hummers here right now, the rubies and tiny green ones that are much smaller than their ruby-throated cousins. The green chuparosas normally hang out at my neighbor's feeder which is empty right now so they've come to mine. They're gentle, less argumentative and territorial. Six of them sit and feed quietly next to one another. Not so with the ruby throats who fight, battle, lunge.

Yesterday the feeder was nearly empty and as I reached for it the green hummingbirds remained perched and sipping. I brought the feeder closer and closer to my face. They stayed, eyeing me but not removing their straws from their sippy cup. Finally I had to shake them loose so I could refill the feeder.

This morning I woke cranky, worried, dejected, possibly rejected. But then the ruby throated visited outside my window. As I watched the dance of the hummingbirds my mood lightened. According to Native American lore, hummingbirds bring joy and love. They're just what I needed.

Back to More of Them

Whaaaa! The Canadian guys are gone. They sure livened up happy hour. I see a period of depression and readjustment in my immediate future. But here's a website of their artistic endeavors and a blog about their journeys through Mexico. They're on their way to Oaxaca. Go meet Robert and William.

http://www.armurestudios.ca/

Guardian Books of the Year

One of my literary crushes selects a book written by one of my literary crushes as one of his favorite books of last year. Roddy Doyle picks Willy Vlautin's Lean on Pete. It's brilliant!!!

Roddy Doyle

Amy Bloom's collection Where the God of Love Hangs Out (Granta) is brilliant. The stories are shocking and lovely. Willy Vlautin's Lean on Pete (Faber) is only brilliant; I hated finishing it. Joseph O'Connor's Ghost Light (Harvill Secker) is absolutely brilliant – a beautifully written love story and, somehow, a chunk of Irish social and political history. There's a section in the middle of Emma Donoghue's Room (Picador) that reminded me of reading Catch 22 when I was 15 – the same excitement, the same "I've never read anything like this before". The whole book is absolutely f**kin' brilliant.

I wrote a review of Lean on Pete on my secret website. I'll see if I can attach it here.

Damn you, Willy, for making a grown woman cry. I mean, really, I'm used to your gritty down-on-your luck stories and songs but you've never made me cry. There I was, reading this book as I watched pelicans dive for fish and I've got tears running down my cheeks. I hoped no one would see me. Especially a Mexican or a Seri Indian because I'd have a hard time explaining those tears in Mexican.

I hated myself for rushing through this book. It was like sitting down and eating a whole box of Cheez-its when it's your last box or really wishing you would've made that bottle of Tangueray last a little longer. I didn't want the book to end but I was anxious to see how it ended. Please have a happy ending, I begged as I raced through the pages.

I was in Portland last year and I was planning on seeing you at Music Millenium because your band Richmond Fontaine had just released a new album. I had already seen Pete Dexter at Wordstock and so I couldn't believe my luck that within a matter of days I would meet two of my favorite writers. But you got sick and had to cancel the Music M show.

A friend of mine knows you, knows your girlfriend so maybe I'll get to meet you one of these days. In the meantime, I'll need some time to recuperate from Lean on Pete. Too bad I drank all my gin.

Us and Them

Finally! There are more Us’es than Thems.

We realized our growing number when we held our own happy hour Friday night. How many were at the original gathering site over by the sea wall? We figured only a few. So last night we decided to give the group happy hour another shot. We added to our numbers when I heard there were two gay guys in the trailer park. “Go invite the gay guys to happy hour,” I told my friend and she ran right over to their little camper. “I do love my queens,” she always says.

Big circle of people. Food in the middle. Dogs on the periphery. One small section of the arc held Them. The majority of the circle was comprised of Us. Which meant real conversations were held. This is in sharp contrast to the usual happy hour gathering wherein the men tell the same stories over and over, guffawing over their lame humor, while the rest of us feign interest. Not so this night. Canadians. A Brit. People who’d traveled the world. No one was bragging or showing off. People were sharing stories; not holding court.

As the Them numbers dwindled, the Us’es could be our intellectual elitist selves. It was freeing and such a joy to not have every comment turned into a Fox soundbite. Snow in Atlanta? So much for global warming. Gulf oil spill? You bleeding heart liberals only care about the environment and not the poor fishermen. President Obama? Someone should shoot that N_____. (Yes, someone actually said that.) One guy is fixated on dirty jokes, minorities and women always his target.

I was pretty impressed that one of Them stuck around after the others had left. He even tried to get a fire going in the pit but the wood was too green. Finally it was too cold to stay out so we gathered up our chairs and our empty glasses and headed back to our “wobbly boxes.” For the first time since being in this gringo community I felt like a part of the group. Not the lone bleeding heart liberal in a circle of teabaggers.

Luis Alberto Urrea

When I was younger, a teenager, I had movie star posters on my wall until my squirrel, Garfunkel, tore them down for her nest. Now if I had walls I’d tack up book jacket photos of my author crushes - Pete Dexter, Tim Winton, Colum McCann, Ian Rankin, Larry Brown, Nick Hornby, Charles Bowden, Willy Vlautin – to name a few. And Luis Alberto Urrea.

As my newest author crush, Luis should be grateful I’m too poor to leave Mexico thus saving him from a crazy stalker lady. With every book I read, my crush deepens. I’m liable to be thrown over the edge when book two of Hummingbird’s Daughter is published next year.

My first Urrea book was Devil’s Highway, the story of a disastrous immigrant crossing in the Sonoran Desert. I’d bought the book at 23^rd Avenue Books in Portland for my southwest road trip. I was having lunch at a café in Sonoita, Arizona, when I started Devil’s Highway. It is a terrific primer on the struggles immigrants – and Border Patrol – face in the Arizona desert. I was struck by Luis’ ability to write a remarkable story without glorifying or demonizing either side.

I’ve since owned and loaned three copies of Devil’s Highway including my hard cover edition. I guess some books are meant to travel. My copies have most certainly traversed the Sonoran Desert - and the border - many times.

Into the North and The Hummingbird’s Daughter followed. Then In Search of Snow and Nobody’s Son. I own Hummingbird’s Daughter in both English and Spanish (Hija de la Chuparosa). I had fantasies of sitting with my friend Edgar as he read the English version and I the Spanish. Never happened. Both books are above our abilities, even Edgar’s who speaks nearly perfect English.

Luis is my “friend” on Facebook. I love that he posts nearly every day. He also has a website I visit often. For now I am limited to cyber stalking.

When I have a house with walls his jacket photo will be there along with Willy, Pete, Colum et al. When I have a house with walls maybe he’ll come visit after a reading in Tucson. I can have him to dinner with Pete Dexter (who has a house in southern Arizona) along with Charles Bowden ‘cause he lives in Arizona too. Maybe Willy will stop by after a gig in Tucson with his band Richmond Fontaine.

You're never too old to dream. And you're never too old to have crushes.

A Load of Crap or Tales from the Shitter

Jose, the tattooist, fixed my toilet. He is multi-talented, inking skin one moment, removing toilets the next, in between building a picket fence. He speaks English. He is invaluable.

During my three-month absence this summer the seals (flange, plumber's wax, whatever) dried out and so the toilet leaked. Some ugly rusty looking substance oozed from the base. I feared it was a dead mouse but hoped it was just the toilet parts rusting away. I couldn't bear to look so I hired Jose to do the dirty work. Then I went to visit with Edgar.

When I returned the job was nearly complete. Jose had so throughly scrubbed all parts of the toilet that it was gleaming white. (I think its true color is cream. Oh well.) Jose said, "I am so happy with this job that I will give you a year's guarantee." Great because he re-seated it at a slight angle and now the linen closet door doesn't have room to open. A minor problem.

But Charlotte's was a major problem.

When Jose poured her concrete patio (see how diverse his skills!) he noticed a foul smell from under her trailer and saw a sewage leak. The day after my job he went to tackle hers.

RV LESSON: The black tank.