This story represents her first published fiction.
The Only Sober Gringo
by Catherine Solange
Early this morning I dragged my nauseated self out of bed, put on my dangly silver earrings from Taxco, drank too many cups of coffee, thanked the hotel manager for his informative pamphlets on birds and got back on the highway. Caffeine’s coursing through my veins. My gun’s in the glove box. My claw-shaped garden digger’s on the passenger seat. On the Richter scale of hangover magnitudes, this one’s a 7.5. I’ve known worse.
I’ve been driving west from Mexico Highway 1 toward Puntas Canoas for an hour and thirty-five minutes and have not seen a single vehicle. My guide book for the “seasoned, well-equipped, adventurer in heavy-duty, high-clearance, four wheel drive vehicles” is the only one to include this unnumbered side route to the Pacific, recommending its unmatched solitude. I did pass a herd of wild burros a while back, but by the time I stopped and found the camera, they were gone. Wild animals in any unmanaged habitat thrill me. Especially non-predators.
I’m beginning to wonder if my self-appointed real estate partner and new friend (maybe boyfriend but it’s too soon to tell) has actually driven out here to this undeveloped region below San Quintin. Ernesto suggested I check it out as a place where we might still be able to afford a few hillsides with ocean views. He says new communities are just starting to spring up along the coast and we should put together a group of investors to build one. It’s easier to picture him reveling in the nightlife of Mexico City than in the emptiness of these desert plains, immense open spaces between mauve hills and dark blue mountains that rise to eight thousand feet.
Ernesto lent me the handgun. It’s funny; my distaste for the warrior persona created problems with my live-in boyfriend back in L.A. When Josh strutted and puffed about his service as a Navy SEAL, I felt compelled to mock or insult him. Now I have no alternative but to rely on my warrior within. She did manage to save the day when I got separated from my hiking group and lost my bearings near the silver mines in the colonial city of Taxco; she’s no stranger. It’s even possible we’re on good terms.
I coax the old SUV up a steep sand hill. A few miles back a dry stream bed appeared alongside this nightmare I’ve been calling the road. The arroyo looks smoother and wider and, if it doesn’t take a sharp turn somewhere, it must end up at the ocean. Unless today’s my day to perish in a flash flood, perhaps I could steer the vehicle over this next big hump then turn right. My life would be immediately easier.
I stop, get out and walk to the rear door. Somewhere in the back of this vehicle is the owner’s manual. The thought of having to find it, then having to study the section about the four-wheel drive option makes me want to collapse on the sand. The instructions will be written in five languages, all questionable, and I’ll stare uncomprehending at a series of indecipherable diagrams with arrows to misspelled words, then die alone in the desert of thirst and fatigue. Because I can’t face the manual, I’ll just stretch out on the warm ground for a short nap.
I deeply resent the professional appraisal I’m receiving from a buzzard flying overhead. Having decided I’m still alive, the bird soars off, disappointed. “Check back later!”
My best alternative is to walk the rest of the way to the beach. I stand, back up a few paces, try for a running start toward the steep hill of sand but end up climbing on all fours.
Before me lies the Pacific. I am overjoyed and whoop as heartily as I can, given this particularly inconvenient hangover. The ocean is less than a mile away. I tumble back down the sand dune, jump into the driver’s seat, shove the gear stick into what I pray is four-wheel drive, attack the mound of sand--and yes! over I go. I plunge down the last bumpy hills.
Puntas Canoas has no market. There are no houses either--only a few shacks on the beach, a busted pier and several small wooden fishing boats. The beach is long and glorious and the waves are breaking just right. I see campsites with umbrella-like tents constructed of palm fronds further down the shore. Goats are tied to a truck. Kids collect shells. A man digs for clams. There are a few swimmers in the water. This is the end of the world.
I need a rest and a swim. A cold soda. I have juice boxes in my snack supply, but I must get my hands on an icy cold bottle. If I were back at the hotel bar, I’d be ordering my second Bloody Maria with lots of celery.
Two and a half hours of Baja desert has called up an acute, unaccustomed craving for conversation. Even a quick Buenos Dias will do, so I run along the surf toward the campers. I can’t help but notice I’m the only blue-eyed blonde on the beach, but it certainly won’t prevent me from being sociable.
A couple seated under a palapa waves me over. The woman offers me a torta, which I gratefully accept. It’s a thick roll stuffed with pork, salty white cheese and a dressing made with cilantro. The whole thing has been flattened and toasted. Their youngest daughter is filling the rolls and an older son is grilling them over a fire in a pit. I sit on the sand to eat with them. Unfortunately, they don’t appear to have any frozen colas.
“Que rico! Delicioso!” I am not merely being polite. It’s a marvel of a sandwich. I exaggerate my friendliest smile and, to make sure I don’t scrutinize, I keep my eyes on the food. Perhaps I should have waited until everyone was served before taking a bite. Do they say prayers before eating? I’m the only one with food in my mouth. I don’t want to be rude, but I am famished.
“Tengo mucho hambre,” I apologize. I successfully avoid the word-for-word translation of “I am hungry”--an error typical of beginners--using the correct verb, tener. I have much hunger.
“Me llamo Camille.” (I call myself Camille.)
They call themselves Jorge and Juanita. Their family name is Garcia.
It’s rare that my fluency in Spanish surpasses others’ in English. I gradually lose my self-consciousness. Free to make mistakes, of course I make fewer. Forming sentences with words from a new language and actually being understood, I feel competent and happy. I let myself imitate their cadence. Sounding more and more authentic, I compliment la senora on her outstanding, bright green mayonnaise.
The man tells me there are no actual towns nearby, only an abandoned port for shipping onyx, where he worked years ago. He gestures toward the dark blue mountains. Up there is a rancho with cattle, pigs and goats, where he works now. It’s part of the ejido, therefore, communally owned. As are the beach, the fishing pier and the boats. Proudly, he points down the shore to the commune’s system for distilling ocean water into drinking water. I see what appear to be gasoline drums rigged up to make a still.
They have no gas station, market or post office. Ernesto is mistaken. There are no new houses being built and no Americans living here. The idea of new houses for gringos amuses the couple so much they laugh out loud, as if to say, that could never happen here.
I hope they’re right.
An American lived here last year, Jorge says. Here on the beach. He and his wife met the man personally. According to the gringo’s license plates, he’d come from Arizona. That used to be his truck. Now a shell, it’s been harvested for every last part, including the Arizona plates. The American had silver hair, although he was not old. He arrived dressed in a suit.
It’s called a tuxedo, says his wife.
A tuxedo, Jorge concedes. The man must have been important in government or commerce to be wearing such clothes. The locals hadn’t been able to agree on the best explanation for his attire, but they shared the opinion that he was running away from something very bad. Muy malo.
“Tuxedos are usually for weddings,” I offer. “Maybe he left his bride at the altar on their wedding day. Or, she left him. That’s the most likely. That she didn’t show up at the ceremony. Or, she came to the church, then couldn’t say her vows and she ran away at the last minute.”
I can tell from the looks of utter bafflement on their faces that my suggestion is incomprehensible. If I’d told them the lady was offered millions of dollars and life everlasting but turned the deal down, it would be easier for them to accept. They can’t imagine any man or woman falling into doubt about marriage and family. For them, it’s the sacred path to human fulfillment. They could be right. But I doubt it.
When the man from Arizona arrived in Puntas Canoas, the bed of his truck held twenty-five cases of scotch, they tell me. Nothing more. He gave away his tuxedo, sat on his beach recliner in his underwear and drank. Sometimes a fisherman would sit with him, but the gringo never confided his troubles. Or his name. Locals called him El Rojo.
Alluding, I suppose, to his sunburn. I touch my face. “Tenia la cara quemada?” He had the face burned?
“La nariz roja.” Jorge points to his nose.
Ah, the red nose. The advanced alcoholic’s snout. A few nights ago, I thought I noticed tiny broken blood vessels spreading upward from my right nostril.
For a while, Red dug clams to feed himself and in the afternoons he swam to cool off. Later, through his long decline, the people of Puntas Canoas brought him food and drinking water. The day they discovered him dead in his chair, two bottles of scotch remained in the back of the truck under twenty-five empty boxes.
“Maybe a diagnosis of terminal disease sent him running, not romantic rejection,” I wonder aloud. “Maybe he’d just been hit with financial disgrace and public humiliation.” But neither explanation would require a tuxedo.
Jorge and Juanita shake their heads and shrug. El Rojo is the unsolved mystery of Puntas Canoas. Now he lies buried in his boxer shorts in the scrubby bushes behind the shell of his former truck. They lead me to a cross housed in a brightly painted wooden memorial box decorated with seashells, plastic flowers and two full bottles of Johnny Walker Blue Label.
I feel I should add something to the legend. “Did you know that this beverage costs two hundred and sixty-nine dollars a bottle?”
They turn to each other in horrified disbelief. “Doscientos dolares!”
“I swear to you, it’s true.”
I must take a closer look. I haven’t enjoyed hearing their narrative. It stole the verve from my inner warrior. Their man from Arizona is an ugly hint of what might happen to me. I’d feel more confident if I could remember the last time I went a whole day without a Margarita. Could it get so bad that I’d drink myself to a lonesome death someday on a beach at the remote edge of civilization? End of tale.
Naturally, I want to break open one of the two sealed bottles, take a swig and compose a moving toast to failure. The bottle has that nice hum, that bouncy sensation in my hand. Two hundred dollar scotch. But Juanita stands next to me looking down at the memorial box, making the sign of the cross. It would be a defilement. I put the bottle back where it belongs.
I leave you the crust of my sandwich at the base of your grave as an offering, El Rojo. I’m sorry your journey to Puntas Canoas didn’t have a happy ending. I’m sorry I’ll never know your whole story. I’m sorry I drove all the way out here for this nasty peep at my worst case scenario.
Juanita and Jorge return to their spot under the palapa and sit close together. He puts his arm around her as she puts hers around him.
I hope you don’t mind if I lean my tired, slightly throbbing head against your wooden box, El Rojo. What happened to your warrior self? He got used up, exhausted from doing battle year after year. That’s the worst tragedy of all in your sad, sad story. You managed to make it all the way out here to the end of the world in your big old truck. Then, you gave up. Warrior, defeated. I write this, your epitaph, in the sand. I cry for you. Even though you bought yourself the best booze money could buy. I’ve never tasted two hundred dollar scotch, but maybe I can live without it.
Listen, Red. Scotch isn’t a big favorite. Tequila isn’t something I generally drink straight from the bottle, no matter how expensive. I’d need a blender, lemons and limes, kosher salt and a steady supply of ice to kill myself. A super-sized cooler for the ice. Without an electric plug for the blender, I’d probably have to buy a special attachment for the dashboard. It might be more convenient just to sober up and stay that way. Drinking myself to an early exit has held its secret appeal. I admit this only to you. I know death promises rescue, but why didn’t you give the waves and the sand and the sky and the people a chance? Puntas Canoas is turning me into a stranger, even to myself. A welcome stranger.
I rejoin Jorge and Juanita and the three of us sit in silence, watching their kids play in the waves. The couple wears the same mended, faded clothing the children wear. Their faces are dark and lined. They may be the children’s grandparents, rather than parents, but, with my new no-stare policy, I can’t tell for certain.
One of the girls, whose clothes are dripping wet from swimming in her blouse and long pants, hands me a glass of Sidral apple soda, and I say, “Muchas gracias.” It’s warm, of course. I drink it anyway.
Ernesto generally knows what he’s talking about, but he’ll be lucky if his imagined community forms here in the twenty-second century. Or the twenty-third. Perhaps our great-great-grandchildren will ride horses and swim and surf here with descendents of the Garcias.
It pleases me to be the only outsider here on the day this family has traveled down from the rancho to picnic on their communally owned pristine, empty beach. No typhoid here. The children probably won’t attend school, but they’re laughing, healthy-looking and well-fed. They’re enjoying their lives at the end of the world. I’ll stay here with them. For awhile.
They’re clamoring for me to swim. Not wanting to run back to the SUV for my swimsuit, I jump right in--with eight-year-old Anna--in my skirt and blouse and we play catch with a chunk of sea lettuce. Three of the older kids join me on a raft anchored well beyond the breakers and we use it as a diving platform. One by one, I teach them to arch their bodies and keep their feet together as they spring off the raft. With practice, the children can dive in formation at one second intervals.
The sun is hot. The water is clear. I lose myself in the best body surfing waves I’ve caught since I was eight.
* * *
Hours have gone
by since I arrived at Puntas Canoas. I keep telling myself
to get up and leave, but I can’t. Sea creatures must stay,
must allow the elements to heal them. I’m prone on the
white sand while the heat of the sun smoothes the muscles
of my back and shoulders. Salt water dries on my skin and
makes my hair crunchy. I smell like the sea. It reclaims
me, restores me, cell by cell, mineral by mineral. This is
my extravagant spa treatment. I turn over. To tan my
perfect nose.
I’ll beg Ernesto never to recommend this place to his band
of partying gringos. They must not find Puntas Canoas.
Whether or not I can commit to it as a place to live
forever, I want it to look exactly the same whenever I
return. This beach must stay the way it is. Without the
whining of jet skis the Garcia family could never afford.
Without ugly black smears left on the sand by
three-wheelers they’ll never ride. It will not be like
beaches to the north, where, instead of diving and playing,
children hawk cheap bracelets and chewing gum nobody wants
to buy. Nothing like Rosarito or Enseñada, loud year-round
with drunk tourists. A respectful, appreciative guest, I’ll
be the only gringo allowed. Locals will remember who I am
and they’ll always welcome me. “She comes sober and leaves
sober.” That’s what they’ll say.
I am unprepared to set up camp and, of course, there is no
lodging. Perhaps this was mentioned in the guidebook. I’m
glad there’s no hotel, but it means I must get back to
Highway 1 before nightfall. If there’s one thing every Baja
guidebook agrees upon it’s the extreme stupidity of driving
on Highway 1 after dark. Everyone you talk to advises
against it: never get caught in the high beams of a big rig
driver on crank speeding down a two-lane road with no
shoulders.
Jorge and Juanita and their grandchildren send me off with
oranges and homemade caramel candies cut in squares, like
fudge. Eleven-year-old Herman walks with me to the SUV,
unselfconsciously holding my hand.
“Would you take these to your family?” From my snack
supply, I hand him a jar of peanut butter and one of
raspberry jam. When he turns to wave, I run after him with
a bag of gummy worms and a pack of juice boxes.
I face a long, agonizing ride--hours of jolting and
bashing--but if I think about it, I’ll get discouraged. The
caramel candies are orgasmic. They alone were worth the
grueling drive to Puntas Canoas, where I am thankful to
have spent a day.
Opening the vehicle door, I notice the garden claw I was
ready to use as a self-defense weapon and remember the
handgun in my glove compartment. I laugh at the power and
significance I bestowed on such outlandish objects from an
alien, violent world. How extraneous they seem now. I take
my emergency bottle of Tres Presidentes out of its thermal
cooler bag and pour it into the sand.
Copyright 2008 by Catherine Solange