BORDER LOG

Tuesday, January 5th

A Homeless Man With a Story


Counting on a Pot of Gold

Brian McNeece


“Can you spare a dollar?”

I looked past my plate of carnitas. I was sitting outside of El Campeon a block from the famous mission of San Juan Capistrano. The voice came from an earnest face wearing a trimmed beard, a soiled ball cap, and the ubiquitous heavy coat of a person living on the streets.

“No, but you can have a taco,” I replied. I plopped some meat into a tortilla and pushed a plate and a cup of salsa across the table. Then I smelled the smoke. “But you can’t sit here if you’re smoking,” I added quickly.

“All right,” he said agreeably as he dropped the cig on the ground and stepped on it.

In less than a minute, I had gone from being lost in a reverie to dining with a vagrant. He ate daintily.

“It’s the new year,” he said. “And my birthday’s comin’ up.”

“Happy birthday,” I said.

“Next week I get $2.5 million.”

I must have worn the classical skeptical look, so he immediately began his narrative. “I was hit in a crosswalk. We sued the lady for $7 million, settled for five. My hospital bill was $664,962.46.” He recited the number very slowly, consulting the clouds. He seemed especially proud of hearing himself say the number right down to the penny. “The lawyer gets a third, so I’m down to $2.5 million.”

All right, I can play. “What are you going to do with the money?” I asked.

He sighed. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.” He seemed truly perplexed.

Now that we were friends, I thought it appropriate to advise the biggest cash-rich person I had ever met. “Listen,” I told him quietly. “Don’t be like those athletes who blow their signing bonuses. Don’t live large. Buy a small car.”

“I can’t drive,” he said. “I lost my license. I’ll just buy a limo.” He smiled, a little crookedly.

“You’re loaded, aren’t you?” I said.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been drinking. Smoked some weed too. Do you want some?”

“No thanks. You from around here?”

“I’m homeless, man,” he said with plenty of self-pity. “I got a spot across the street. I don’t leave trash.”

“What about a shelter?”

He didn’t answer. I noticed that after two bites, he’d stopped eating.

“Too many rules?” I asked.

He looked away. “Yeah, one rule. They don’t allow drinking, and I like to drink.”

“You drink every day?”

He nodded.

“All day?”

He nodded again.

“Have you been through the 12-step program?”

“Yeah, I’ve done that. Had to, to avoid jail time.”

“Don’t you feel like crap in the morning?”

He shook his head. “Not if I have a cold one next to me. Then I’m golden. When the man shows up at the liquor store with his key, I’m right behind him. I love to drink.”

He lit up another cigarette. The wind lifted the smoke away from me, so I didn’t object.

“She has three houses,” he said.

“Who?”

“The lady I’m suing. My lawyer, she says I could get all of them. ‘We can take everything,’ said my lawyer. ‘Even the kids.’” He chuckled. “I just want one of them houses. Thirty-eight hundred square feet, with a pool.”

The sensible advisor in me couldn’t resist jumping in again. “Do you realize the maintenance costs on a house like that? You ought to sell that house and buy a small one. You want that money to last you twenty years.”

He shook his head again. “I’m not going to live twenty more years. I drink too much. I smoke too much dope and cigarettes. Nah, I’m not gonna live that long.” He grimaced and coughed. “I’m a f#*&-up. I know it. I’m 48 years old, and I don’t have a lot of years left.”

“I’m 58,” I said, “And I was in the hospital this morning.” I showed him the plastic ID bracelet on my wrist. “I’ve got cancer, but I’m plan to live a long long time.” (Actually I HAD cancer, but I powered up the story to get his attention.)

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” he said sadly, puffing on his cigarette. “I wish you well, bro.” He was on the verge of an attack of self-pity, but he shook it off. “Next week, I’ll be a millionaire, and I’m going to have a great time.

I stood up. “You leaving?” he said, like a man accustomed to unhappy partings.

“Yep.” I cleaned up my trash and his, and reached for my wallet. “Here’s a dollar. Next time I see you, I want a hundred back.”

He clasped a grimy hand on my shoulder and gave me a look of deep nostalgia. “Thank you, brother.”

A dollar for a story like that? Worth every penny.



bmcneece@adelphia.net">bmcneece@adelphia.net">brian on 01.05.10 @ 12:41 PM PST [link]


Thursday, December 10th

My Commencement Speech Inside the Prison


To the Inmates At Centinela State Prison--Jewel of the Desert
Brian McNeece

Good morning and congratulations. Congratulations on completing your GED. Felicito a todos por sus logro de haber cumplido el GED. Les felicito sinceramente. You now have the equivalent of a high school diploma, but I would suggest that it is much more than that. Only 60% of high school graduates can pass the GED test. Last night I was looking online at what is tested, and I answered a few questions. You know what? They weren’t that easy, so my hat’s off to you. You may have been told that only 37% of high school dropouts can get steady work. You’re no longer part of that group, so congratulations.

I don’t know anything about you or your particular situations for being here or your motives for completing an important step in school. But I do know a lot about education and learning. As was mentioned in the introduction, I have three college degrees, and actually I would probably have more if I lived near a university and didn’t have the financial burden of three children.

I enjoy learning very much. In fact, you might say that I’m an avid apostle in the Church of Learning. When finals come around, and my students are bowed over their desks writing their best, I see them as if the classroom was a church, and the final exam was a sacred moment. Their effort to gather their intellectual resources and make sense of some body of knowledge is the very act that raises them up a notch, that grows them in ability to think and communicate with themselves and the rest of the world.

I believe in God, and I believe in prayer, but praying to God is an act of humility and surrender of a different kind. Going to school or embarking on a project of learning to me is a practical prayer. If you have cancer, you certainly should pray to God, but you’ll be directly effective in your own healing if you learn about cancer and the drugs used to treat it. Learning is mankind doing what God gave us to do—think and learn to manage our lives and our worlds. To me, learning is sacred.

Why do we have this ceremony today? That in itself is worth commentary. For society doesn’t congratulate you through a formal ceremony for a lot of things that are worth doing. Get to work on time every day for a year? Your boss doesn’t give you a certificate. Take out the trash at home conscientiously for several months? Nobody says anything. Nobody honors you for good dental hygiene or keeping your quarters neat and tidy. Yet finish your GED and everybody cheers you on. Way to go. Attaboy!

Why is that? Because you have set a goal and achieved it, and society loves that process. You have learned something, and in that you have grown. You are more than you were. You have pulled yourself up away from randomness to order. You have made a decision to engage your ability to pay attention and pursued it. In other words, you have made a step forward and upward in the thing we called civilization. In that, everyone benefits, not just you.

Because that’s what civilization is: the sum total of all the people’s knowledge and cooperation as it is built up over centuries and centuries of learning.

And when I say centuries and centuries, I don’t mean that in an abstract or collective way–I mean you, sitting there in your seats. You may think that who you are is complete in that chair. You may think that you are as quick and agile as a panther, you can stop and start on a dime. You can move at a moment’s notice. In fact, you’re more like a giant oil tanker plying the ocean. For who you are has an inertia and a momentum than not only goes back to your childhood but to your parents and their parents and so on.

I teach linguistics, which means that I’m a student of languages. The more I know about language, the more astonished I am that humans can use it so effortlessly. By the time you’re four years old, you’ve mastered the entire grammar of at least one language, and often more than one. If you had to study English for your GED, you’ll know how confusing it is. You know the language perfectly; English classes force you to be able to talk about what you know—like what’s a noun a verb a subject a predicate and so on.

My point is that the language you learn is thousands of years of layers old, yet you learn it effortlessly. In the same way, you learn all the things it is to be human. In your family, you learn to like and dislike certain foods, you have a voice accent, you have gestures that mark you as your parents’ sons, you have a style that your family gave to you.

So that’s why when you stare off into your future, you may see open waters or rocky shoals, but changing your course ain’t easy. You have a lot of inertia behind you. And the older we get, the more we realize that. We’ve got all the momentum of our past behind us, and our habits bad and good to weigh us down or propel us forward.

Getting your GED has made a correction in your direction for that oil tanker. Just like your parents and their parents set the stage for you; what you do now does that for those who come after you. By getting your GED you’ve put your boat slightly in a better course. Your kids will see that; your loved ones see that; everyone around you will see that. Your job now is to keep that energy going to adjust the direction. Only 37% of high school dropouts have steady work; you have now officially rolled yourself out of that group by getting a GED. With a few more corrections you’ll be in another, more successful group of learners.

I can tell you a little of my own story. In the intro you learned that I have three college degrees. Three of my grandparents were laborers, one in a factory and the other two in the fields. But my grandmother had been to college, so when she got married to my grandfather, they decided that all five of their kids would go to college. So when I came along, it was a given. I didn’t know it until much later, but it was as if my daddy had raised me up on a tall ladder. I thought that was the normal view. Where most people had to start climbing from the ground, I was almost to the top already. My dad paid for college and that went okay, but when I got out I started slipping, because I didn’t know what I had. Before too long I had no money, no job, and some bad habits.

You see, my oil tanker had slowed almost to a crawl and it started to drift. I didn’t realize that I had to make my own course at that point. Luckily for me, I started making some small corrections. It took me fourteen years to get my masters degree, but I did it. And then, once my ship was set on course, I got another masters degree in just two more years and three summers—going to school part time.

My mother in law didn’t start going to college until she was 36; by the time she was done, she had a doctorate and was vice-president of the school where I work. (Luckily she’s retired now.)

So what’s next for you? I hope to challenge you to continue, if not in school in any other project. Keep making corrections.

I know there are obstacles ahead of you, deep and difficult chasms to cross and tough terrain to navigate through. I know. Some men are naturally born to be warriors. Maybe that’s one of the reasons you are here. Inside you is the drive to be the alpha dog, to demand and get respect, to push to get what you want when you want it. It comes with the genetics that once again is part of our past going way back. But the ways of the hunter warrior don’t work too well in modern times.

Who are the alpha dogs today? Well, Bill Gates of Microsoft and Warren Buffet are among the wealthiest men in the world, yet to meet them you might think they were Episcopalian ministers. Barack Obama is now the most powerful man on earth, but he never raises his voice. Sure. Soft guys all of them. But brainy, educated, and restrained. So one of the challenges you face is to learn to tame yourself, to learn self-control and discipline. Become a disciple to channeling your energy into learning and thought instead of feeling and action.

Another barrier to achievement is the simpler problem of forgetting. If I could only remember why I’m doing what I’m doing, I would have written ten books by now. But I’m a victim of my own tendency to distraction, and much of my time is just for my own amusement. It doesn’t take me anywhere. Someone wise and famous once pointed out to me that the only thing we have the least chance of controlling is the contents of our own thoughts. And even then, it’s pretty tough.

We constantly forget what we’re supposed to be doing. And so all of us need reminders of our goals and our dreams and our purposes. One way I try to monitor the way I spend my time and the content of my mind is to ask myself—what did I do today that moved me forward in life? Was I proud to have watched the whole Chargers game. Well, actually I was prouder of having mowed my lawn or planted my garden or hugged my wife. Was I proud of getting frustrated with my students because they come to class unprepared. Well, I was prouder when I kept my good humor and saw that they were paying attention.

Paying attention—that’s work. And once again, that’s why we’re honoring you today. Making the decision of where you’re going to move that power of yours, your attention, to a higher purpose, that’s big. That’s good, that’s great.

So watch out for the warrior in you and the distracted part of you. Challenge yourself now with another project. Start up with community college and get an Associates degree. One step at a time. If school is not for you, pick something else. Write it down, put it on your wall, tell a friend, tell your loved ones what you want to accomplish. Create a group of allies to help you remember your purpose.

You’ve made a correction in the direction in the giant oil tanker that is you. One notch in the compass at a time, and keep that mojo working.

bmcneece@adelphia.net">bmcneece@adelphia.net">brian on 12.10.09 @ 11:23 PM PST [link]


Cal-Trans Hear My Gripe


All I want is a smooth, smooth road
Brian McNeece


A couple of years ago, Caltrans resurfaced a section of I-8 between Highway 111 and Westside Road. Since I often drive that stretch, I watched the project in all its stages. I was very surprised that it was being resurfaced at all, since the freeway was in very good condition. Then when the new coating turned out to be much rougher and grittier than the surface it was replacing, I and many others figured that a smooth, final coat was going to be applied. Then the lane lines were painted, and we all realized that we were wrong.

Besides being rough, the new surface is very loud. When you hit that section of road, you need to turn the radio way up and shout at your traveling companions to be heard. That resurfacing was a quick fix of something that wasn’t broken. Be forewarned; there’s more to come.

Aside from being a motorist, I am also an avid cyclist with the Imperial Valley Velo Club. We often pedal past the farm area in the southwest corner of Imperial County to get to Highway 98, where west of the Brawley Main canal, it is the best road for cycling in all of Imperial County--the promised land for cycling. The surface is smooth, the shoulder is wide, and the terrain undulates uphill across ruggedly beautiful vistas near the border.

We’re accustomed to riding out to a cross on a hill that we call the “The Oasis” because of a few palm and other trees at its base. There we bask in the glory of the Yuha wash and the mountains to the east, and we give thanks for Highway 98. As you know, Imperial County roads are more mindful of some Central American banana republic than the USA. They’re full of fissures, ridges, potholes, and gouges from farm implements. Some are so weathered and crumbling as to suggest that a civilization has abandoned them.

So Highway 98 was a godsend to give thanks for. I emphasize WAS. Several weeks ago, we were astonished to see that 21 miles of our smooth, wide, undulating road is now also covered with that same coarse surface as that section of I-8 with many loose rocks. From the cyclist point of view, the vote is in: they’ve ruined it.

Since then, I’ve spoken to our local superintendent of Caltrans, Mr. Pascual Aceves, who explained to me that the coating is known as chip seal, a durable and relatively inexpensive way to coat a road. “We have to protect that road bed,” he said. “We have to protect our investment.”

There’s something amiss in this policy, something backward. It’s like putting a rough blanket on a fine leather sofa or a plastic liner on a rug. You’re protecting it, sure, but you’re reducing its quality in many other respects.

It’s ironic that the word of the day is Green: to wean ourselves from foreign oil, we need high mileage cars. Yet the rougher chip seal surface will surely lower mileage. We need to clean the air; chip seal will produce more debris and dust in the traffic corridor. Tires won’t last as long, and I’ve already mentioned the offensively high noise level.

Caltrans told me that the section of I-8 between Ocotillo and Westside Road will soon receive a chip seal coating. That’s bad news, since the current road surface is smooth and quiet.

There’s a quixotic sidebar to this story. On this morning’s bike ride, I came across a lone man walking on Highway 98 about 5 miles west of Mt. Signal. At first I thought he might be an illegal alien. I stopped to speak to him and learned that he was a New Englander on a personal quest to ride his skateboard across the United States. He had started in Rhode Island in March and was just 100 miles from his destination. His first question for me: “What’s with this road?” The chip seal had kept him from riding his skateboard down the highway as he had been doing across most of the United States.

I asked Caltrans if they would put chip seal on a freeway in San Diego. “No,” Mr. Aceves answered without hesitation. “Too loud, and too much debris. Here in the Valley we can sweep the shoulders as the gravel loosens.”

The roadways in California and across the nation used to be something we were most proud of. The interstate system was the pride of the world. Not anymore. I hope individuals, local businesses, and the chambers of commerce might protest to Caltrans and ask for a final, smooth coat on top of the chip seal.

We and all the truckers and travelers passing our way deserve the same high quality road surfaces as any place else.

bmcneece@adelphia.net">bmcneece@adelphia.net">brian on 12.10.09 @ 11:08 PM PST [link]


Tuesday, August 11th

Still Free to Break the Rules in Baja


Irrepressible Utopian Lawlessness in Popotla, B.C.

Brian McNeece

My friend Randy threaded his Jeep through a line of parked cars along a narrow, rutted dirt road toward the small fishing village of Popotla just south of the wall of the Foxploration studios in Baja California. It’s a ritual he’s been following all summer to supply his evening meal with fish so fresh that it slept in the ocean--this morning. Like the village of Puerto Nuevo two generations ago, Popotla has sprung up casually from a group of spindly, dilapidated tiendas on the cliff above the water and a quarter mile cove of sandy beach.

Every morning a dozen pangas bring in whatever the sea offers to sell right out of the boat or off wooden tables on the beach. Today, there’s all manner of rockfish, some 20 pound yellowtail tuna, sea urchin, sea bass, crabs, clams, oysters, and lobsters out of season. All along the beach, other vendors are at the ready to clean and fillet your fish--even fry it if you like. There are oysters to be shucked and prepared with onion, tomato, salsa, and fresh lime, 10 pesos each or a dollar, whatever you got in your pocket. Pick your fish; whatever it is, you’ll pay about 35 pesos a kilo or around a $1.22 a pound. A dollar goes a long way here.

By 10:00 a.m. this Sunday, the beach is nearly full of cars, and they’re still streaming in. This is perhaps the main draw. Vans and pickups abound with kayaks, umbrellas, bicycles, motorcycles strapped to the roof or filling the rear ends. Visitors are very sanguine; this morning I see a nearly new Mercedes sedan plowing through the soft sand passageway that funnels the cars onto the sandy stretch. Every other kind of car finds its way to spend the day a few yards from the surging sea.

This is the beauty of Mexico. In the US, once an activity is found to be the least bit risky or of potential annoyance to someone else, it’s banned. Apparently not here. Just about anything goes. Part of the Mexican character is to be more than tolerant of a wide variety of happenings. If there’s a guy changing his tire on the narrow entryway and partially blocking the route in, everyone else just blithely waits his turn. Just because a two-lane road has become a one-lane road, don’t worry, be happy. Traffic clots up at the entrance to the beach. No sweat; we’ll work it out.

The vendors seem to form a happy cooperative. When one guy needs to weigh a fish to charge his customer, he carries it by the tail over to the neighboring stand and plops it on the scale.

What else is for sale at Popotla? A crowd anywhere means business opportunities. The popsicle man rings his bell and pushes his cart over mounds of drying kelp. Get a mango on a stick with half a lime impaled atop it. Don’t like the glare on the beach? The sunglass man has a beautiful array of glasses in his fold up display case. Or get a hat from the tiny hat lady wearing her wares about 10 high on her head. With her free arms, she’ll sell you necklaces, bracelets, or wind chimes made from shells. A youth not out of his teens rolls a wheelbarrow type mechanism displaying a series of cubicles filled with Mexican candies of every color.

The place seems to be infused with a casual sensuality, a place where everyone can let their hair, and other body parts, down. Most of the women wear very light, flimsy blouses that don’t leave much to the imagination while still being properly opaque. The fishermen are mostly men, while the little colorful puestos selling oysters and clams are run by women. There’s a languid side to the busy-ness of the vendors and the visitors to the beach, and lots of smiles.

I take a quick jog down the beach. Dome tents are tucked up against the 15-foot bluff for protection against the sea breeze. Pop shades and even carports create an instant zone of influence. Music blasts from cars. Umbrellas, tables, and backyard grills create an instant beach side city. Kids play soccer, ride bicycles. Dog frolic in the waves while just past the smoothly breaking faces, another trio scamper in the cove on Jetskis. It seems that whatever you want to do, you can do it in Popotla.

This is what I thought till I chanced to actually read the large sign that guards the entrance to the cove. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but just about everything I’d just rejoiced at seeing was in fact banned by the authorities. In both English and Spanish, beachgoers were forbidden from driving on the beach (the stated fine was $36-1800 dollars--ten to 500 times the minimum daily wage). Perhaps one hundred cars had defied that order. Also banned: glass containers, dogs, bicycles, beach fires, fireworks—you name it—it was banned. Might as well have been in Mission Beach, where the boardwalk is adorned by bulleted lists of No, No, and No. (At the bottom some frustrated Mission Beach visitor had added, “No Fun!”)

Luckily for me and the several hundred revelers this Saturday, this being Mexico, no one is paying attention to the rules. Randy drives his jeep out onto the beach and pulls in about fifty yards into the maelstrom for a quick and easy approach to “Mariscos Mary's”—a seafood stand with five-foot Mary at the helm. Randy is a regular there. As we pull in, two of her young male workers look through the window, “Oh, a new guy!” they exclaim (in English). We make a beeline for Mary’s stand, where she efficiently is opening oysters and clams for a line of eager customers.

Mary can shuck an oyster effortlessly. Since I have impaled myself a couple of times with an oyster knife, and Randy has never wanted to risk his dentist hands to open one, we watch Mary carefully to learn her secrets. First she takes a large kitchen knife, and with the butt edge breaks off a little of the oyster across from its hinge point. Then she inserts a small paring knife into the slit she has made and slides the knife to the side. The oyster opens right up. Randy has an “aha!” moment. “She cut the abductor muscle!” he says. No strength needed with this method, and no risk of stabbing the palm of your hand. She’s a master, and now we know how to become one too.

On the sand in front of Mary’s stand sit three tables with plastic chairs and umbrellas. The tables are topped with baskets full of saltine crackers, tostada crisps, salt, pepper, napkins, and a whole array of bottled salsas. At the table next to us, a couple is settling down to some serious partying. A thin woman in a loose tank top is pouring tequila into a paper cup filled with Squirt.

I ask the waiter, Chuy, why the name “Mary’s’ and not “Maria’s.” “’Mary’ sounds better than Maria,” he tells me in English, as he replenishes our basket of crackers. We leave it at that.

New entertainment has begun next door. A guy in a Ford Ranchero circa 1969, is trying to back off the soft sand, but his wheels keep digging in, and the trench they’re digging prevent him from moving laterally enough to clear the parked cars on both sides. He’s getting plenty of advice from the waiters, fishermen, and tourists who are watching. About the same time that Randy and I look at each other, someone yells, “Get the guy in the Jeep to pull him out!” in Spanish. In a flash, we’re out of our chairs and into rescue mode. Randy has a nylon tow strap wrapped around a high-lift jack on his front bumper. Before I can get to it, another Popotla fellow traveler has begun unwinding it. One of his compas (buddies) has taken a pin out of Randy’s bumper, and together they immediately connect the two vehicles. I post myself behind to keep errant toddlers out of the way, and in a jiffy the Ranchero is freed up.

All the while, cars have been streaming in. The candy man, the hat lady, dogs, bicyclists, motorcyclists, are passing in front of and behind our rescue project. Now a musical combo, complete with charro outfits, enters the scene. They stop at the table of the tequila-sipping couple and fire up accordion, violins, guitar and a couple of trumpets. Everything happens in Popotla.

Since we’re in rescue mode, our team also extricates a weary looking matron in a late model sedan that heavily dug into the sand. We then set to our business of buying dinner. Randy, an old hand, sits on the tailgate of a pickup with the clam vendor and his gunny sacks full of two varieties of large clams. They look like old friends enjoying the hubbub. I elbow my way through a crowd alongside a beached panga. The bottom of the open fiberglass boat is full of foot-long fish, some silver, some darkly striped. Patrons are picking their own fish and attempting to get the attention of three fishermen who are sharing one handheld, spring loaded scale.

What kind of fish is that? I ask one of the fishermen. “Mojarra,” he answers. “It’s seabass,” says one of the many bilingual folks next to me. Actually, I thought lenguado was seabass. “How about that one?” I ask pointing to one of the few striped fish. “Mojarra,” says the fisherman. “They’re all mojarra,” he continues. That’s helpful. How much? 35 pesos a kilo. Everything is 35 pesos a kilo. I grab three fish. Somebody hands me a plastic shopping bag. I dump them in and try to get the guy’s attention. He hooks my bag to a very weathered brass scale and asks me what it says. The letters are tiny and the whole thing is so corroded that I have to grab the scale and turn it in the daylight to make out the numbers. Finally I see the numbers—it’s in pounds, and my fish weigh about four of them. “Ah,” I say, “I guess it’s two kilos.” Turns out the fisherman can’t see his own scale and has to rely on the testimony of his customers to tell him how much to charge. “Seventy pesos,” he states, then throws one more small fish into my bag to seal the deal. “Sale,” says I. “Done.”

Our buying done, we get in line in 8” deep sea water sloshing around our tires, but something’s wrong. Nothing’s moving. I get out of the Jeep and go to investigate. The funnel point of the entrance to the beach is blocked by a Cherokee trying to back one of the pangas up the steep slope next to the entranceway, finished for the day. Finally, the panga is put away and the Cherokee pulls out. But we now have a new problem. The cars trying to get in and the cars trying to get out are beak to beak, with no room to move.

I wander uphill along the line of stuck motorists. Oh there’s something different. A Ford Explorer carries a carload of happy revelers, but wait, that’s odd. The driver and the passenger are both very large-boned in the face. Unlike most of the women on the beach, these two wear nice makeup and have their hair up. Elegant earrings dangle, the baubles show off the lovely brown skin of their perfect complexion and bare shoulders. But that’s strange; something just a little too large and rough gives them away; they are both rather good-looking men. In the spirit of Popotla, I smile.

Moving further back into the clot of cars, I see the problem: folks trying to get in have taken the entire middle lane, so no one can get by to get out. I start telling motorists to move over. If everyone cooperates, the wide two lane road (with cars parked on both sides, aimed in both directions) can be a perfectly serviceable four-lane road. The security people seem befuddled; it’s not until I move down the line of cars trying to get recalcitrant motorists to move over that they follow suit.

I return to the top of the cove, where a hawker waves a menu at me and invites me into the corner restaurant. A short swarthy man in his late twenties or early 30s, Pedro assures me that the chef in his restaurant is special. “You’ll find dishes here that you won’t get anywhere else,” he tells me in good English. “Look at the house special.” Cars are coming in now, and he interrupts himself to invite them to turn his way and come inside. Others are doing the same. “They don’t know what to do,” he says with disdain. "They’re too pushy. I just tell them what we have. Once they come inside, they’ll be back.”
“How did you learn English?” is my obligatory question.

“I used to live in LA, had some trouble, came here. Now, I’m not leaving. I love it here. There’s good money to make here. People are doing well in Popotla.”

We’re on the way out with our clams and five fish, full of oysters and the unbridled entrepreneurial energy that is Popotla.

bmcneece@adelphia.net">bmcneece@adelphia.net">brian on 08.11.09 @ 06:25 PM PST [link]


Sunday, August 2nd

Bicycling High


I Found a New Drug
Brian McNeece

I was in a criterium race once in San Juan Capistrano that really opened my eyes to the extreme efforts of bike racing. Each lap included four right turns around a couple of long blocks on an incline. I was (and still am) fairly novice in racing, and because I was old (52), I was having a hard time figuring out what category to enter. I chose the 40+ Cat 4 race for the simple reason that Cat 5s (raw rookies) are out of control and I had already been ground up by the 45+ riders. I thought the Cat 4 40+ group might be a little less voracious. Wrong.

The race started at the bottom of the course, went slightly downhill into the first turn, then gently uphill for a quarter of a mile, then kicked up again after turn two. Turn three was the top of the course. The pace was furious right from the start. Looking back, given my lack of racing experience and only two years of riding a bicycle in “training” mode, I’m surprised I did as well as I did. I stayed with the pack for the first few laps. Then I slowly began to become untethered from the bunch--but not without a fight.

I attacked like a madman on the downhill and then scratched and clawed on the more gradual part of the uphill. But by the time I got to turn three, the pressure behind my eyes was setting off alarms and my lungs were begging me to give them a break. By the end of the race I was about half a lap behind, which was far enough that when I crossed the finish line, nobody gave me a look. I think I even raised my hand at the judges as I passed them. But the next race was already being staged, so I was officially invisible.

That was discouraging, demoralizing, downright humiliating. Some time after the race, I got an email with a link to race photos so I could buy a photo of myself. Despite my feelings of inadequacy, I was still interested enough to take a look. For some perverted reason, the photographer had placed himself at the top of the course to capture the expressions of the rider at the peak of their effort. In other words, all the photos showed human beings in the throes of excruciating agony. Brows were not furrowed, they were twisted. Teeth were not clenched, they were lock-jaw tight. And the eyes, that’s where pain really shows. The eyes were not looking at anything, they were staring at nothing. They were simply open and aimed at a spot on the road a few feet in front of the rider. The eyes saw nothing but show terror, a total physical rebellion against a condition that the body can’t compute. This is what I saw when I looked at photos of all those guys who were way in front of me.

In the end, I was happy to learn that I wasn’t in any of the photos, so I was spared the additional shame of being in pain and way behind. But at the same time, I felt the satisfaction of knowing how much those riders had to suffer to stay ahead of me.

Thinking about races, one always returns to the question of why. What’s the attraction of that kind of pain? The constant intensity of these short races squeezes the element of strategy down to almost nil. Only the few guys with superior conditioning and talent aren’t working at their limit. The rest of us are keeping the gas totally floored for most of the race. And that means pain. We’re middle-aged guys; a lot of our contemporaries are done with exercise. Done. And if we do, it’s a jog or a swim, not a pell-mell revving up of the heart rate into the red zone.

Now that I’ve been riding and racing for several more years, I’ve been able to answer that question, at least for myself. Of course, there’s the basic challenge of comparing oneself to others, and the challenge of achieving a goal and stretching one’s limits. In some ways, one might call those factors some sort of neurosis signaling a lack of enjoyment in oneself. Plus, athletics is actually a crude measure of excellence compared to other pursuits like music and art. Getting good at riding a bike is no more complicated than being willing to crank the pedals around and around 40-80 thousand times a week, sometimes as hard as you can, but mostly at a moderate pace.

The main attraction, maybe, in the end, is something even more primitive. It’s just the endorphins. It’s just us humans in search of a better high. Racing to the limit like that pumps the heart, pumps the blood, pumps the brain to secrete that good stuff that makes it all worthwhile. But the blind terror of racing seems to be balanced by the unconscious sense of well-being afterward. The zombie in pain during the race is followed up by the zombie feeling good afterward. He’s so tired that he can’t quite focus on why he feels good, and that’s why he signs up again for the next race, in a puzzled search for the origin of the good feelings mixed with the memories of extreme effort.

In other words, I’ve decided that racing isn’t the way to maximize the loveliness of turning pedals.

Every Friday we have a group that rides 46 miles across the farmland and up an undulating road into the desert. Every training ride has its rhythms that every group develops, moments of chatting and moments of pace line reverie and moments of competitive sprints up a hill or to a sign or across a line on the pavement.

Last Friday, the 31st of July we started at 5:45 a.m. as usual. The sun had not yet hit the horizon, yet the thermometer in the desert of southeast California marked 85 degrees, the usual low for this time of year. Just three of us showed at the meeting place, as Matt was working one of his usual weeklong shifts as a pilot for Fed Ex. Ray had escaped to Lake Tahoe for the summer. Gary was in Michigan visiting his daughter. The other three or four semi-regular riders had their own reasons for finding something else to do at 5:45 am, probably sleeping. This time of year, enthusiasm for cycling in the desert drops off a cliff. We’re the diehard sunrise group; there’s also a small group the rides after work, hitting the pavement at 5:30 p.m. at the summit of the day’s heat. They’re insane. Illegal aliens are dying of heat stroke in the desert while some Imperial Valley cyclists head out in full regalia under a 110 degree sun. Totally nuts.

But even these maniacs are getting the endorphins that training rides more effectively deliver to a thirsty brain. On our ride, we modulate our effort between probably 65-85% of maximum. Each person takes his pull and decides how fast and how long to work at the front. Every transition is smooth; nobody has to jump to stay on a wheel. If you want to go 30 seconds or two minutes at the front, take your pleasure. Smooth smooth smooth. Normally, we sprint to the 23 mile turnaround point. At least I do. Many times I sprint and no one follows me, probably from the same motive that I’m proposing here: nothing to excess leads to a better outcome. Normally I sprint, but today I just hold the pace across the 400 meter marker, across the 200 meter marker, and across the finish line that is spray painted on the pavement. We roll to a stop another couple hundred meters down the road. We all find our spots to pee and then gather to comment on the subdued effort. Subdued and somehow a little sacred.

It’s more or less the same routine going home. The return trip undulates trending downhill but against a slight headwind. We start slow and then build up. The chatting once again dies away, and we pedal in silence for the next half an hour. Silence is golden. Do we think? We do. But we also pay attention to our position to the wheel in front of us and the position of the wheel behind us and the direction of the wind and the condition of the road below and ahead and the possibility of a shit-for-brains driver killing us in a moment of neglect at the wheel. And we daydream. And we pump endorphins.

Last week Fred got dehydrated. We slowed way down to help him get home. Unaware that he wasn’t drinking enough water, Fred felt leg cramps that started as just rumors, then graduated to hints, gave birth in murmurs, and finally shouted out—no more pedaling. Five miles from home, his legs froze up from hip to toe, and he had to attempt an excruciating dismount. Todd demanded that Fred drink down all remaining water. Orlando and I paced Matt back to his house for water, a banana, salt, and a large dose of rest to get him home and back on the road to recovery. This Friday, Fred came equipped with a back full of water to supplement a water bottle on the bike. All went well, and we maintained a respectable 19 miles an hour average.

Three guys working as a team, mostly in silence for 2½ hours on the road, means a full day of a brain bathing in a gentle stream of natural high brought by the body’s own opium called endorphins. Fred was back in good form, shouting his usual "Oh Yeah!" as he attacked us up the slope coming out of Pinto Wash. Todd joked, “When I get home, I’m going to work out at the gym, you know pump some iron. Of course, that’s after I dig a few post holes. Later I’ll take the family to the pool.”

In my early days of cycling (circa six years ago), after a hard 33-mile group ride, I would spend half the day on the couch, totally spent. Todd was joking, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did exactly what he mentioned. He’s a strong man partial to personal challenges. The body can do much more than we think it can. All of us diehard desert cyclists now have a nice base of conditioning to pump that healthy goodness after a session of cooperative riding.

Along those lines, after the Race Across America, one of the first comments to come out of the Type 1 Diabetes Team member’s mouth was, “I can’t believe my body could do what it just did” which was break the speed record in crossing the United States on a bicycle. His team rode the 3000+ plus route in five days nine hours and three minutes, averaging 23.38 miles per hour. I’ve had that feeling numerous times, though my achievements much more modest. Still, when I can barely get out of car because of stiffness, and when the aches and pains of ordinary living make me feel like an old old man, covering 46 miles at 19 miles an hour makes me feel young and powerful. And unlike being in race mode, I can savor the moments in memory of how it all came about.

All this is why I’m not so discouraged and feel no anxiety about being less than pack-fill when I from time to time enter a race. As Tony Darr says, “Rule number one in cycling is have fun. Rule number two says see rule number one.” And look forward to those pleasant rides and a feeling of well-being that lasts and lasts.

bmcneece@adelphia.net">bmcneece@adelphia.net">brian on 08.02.09 @ 06:06 PM PST [link]


Wednesday, May 6th

The Legacy of Coach Russell "Dutch" Bischke


Thank you, Mr. Bischke by Brian McNeece


It’s 1965 at Wilson Junior High School. I’m in Language Arts class watching the clock. The moment the bell rings, I scoop up my books (no backpacks in those days) and pick my way through the crowd like a running back. Outside the building, I merge with other guys running toward the gym. Some of them are already taking off their shirts.

In the locker room, I spin my combination, flip open the locker door, grab my clothes and change into them at maximum speed. Others are ahead of me in this quick-change act because they wore their gym clothes under their regular clothes. We scramble toward the field.

There’s Mr. Bischcke, my PE teacher, standing by the gate with a clipboard in his hand. “Good morning, Coach,” I yell out. He waves. I head along the edge of the fence in a counterclockwise direction, putting on my t-shirt as I run. A few other kids are already way up ahead of me and another line behind me as I settle into a comfortable, soothing rhythm. Everyday we junior high rebels are running, running, running, for Mr. Bischke.

By the time the bell rings for class to start, I’ve already finished 2/3 of a lap. When I pass Coach Bischke, he makes a mark on his clipboard. I have about ten more minutes to get some laps before he blows his whistle. After that, our class will gather for inspection and then some regular sports like softball, tennis, basketball or an oddball game that Mr. Bischke will teach us.

On Friday, we will all do as many pull-ups and dips as possible. Mr. Bischke will be there with his clipboard keeping track of everybody’s performance. Then when all the students are gone, he’ll get a ladder and update a big chart on the wall above the lockers.

I revisited these memories of junior high school recently when I read about a ceremony honoring this man: Russell “Dutch” Bischke. That night I had a chance to shake his hand as the El Centro Elementary School District dedicated the gym floor to him. A fine brass plaque on the gym wall and lettering in the gym floor will remind folks for years to come that Mr. Bischke left his mark.

Junior high was a tough time for me as it is for many. Besides the usual insecurities of adolescence, I also was very intimidated by the giant leap from a neighborhood school to one that included all corners of our small metropolis. A day at Wilson included many layers of things to worry about. The opposite sex was full of mystery, promise, and excitement. Racial and crosscultural tensions added to the swirling questions that kids of that age have about their own identity. Where do I fit in?

Amid this vortex, Mr. Bischke’s PE class was always a safe haven. Sure, those first few times when you had to actually take off your clothes in front of other guys and take a shower in an open room—that was a shock. But soon it was just normal life.

There was something quietly magical about Mr. Bischke, the way he could motivate kids almost without saying anything. After class we would study the chart on the wall and marvel at what some kids had accomplished. I remember that Mario Avila had a jillion laps, and must have run the equivalent of a trip to San Diego and back by the end of the semester. I remember that some kid named Mike (can’t remember his last name) could do 31 pull-ups and 31 dips. Wow! He was almost Olympian in my estimation.

Coach Bischke wasn’t a Cal Jones type who exuded charisma and power and who could exhort an athlete into a peak competitive experience. Through a 41–year career, Mr. Bischke’s great gift was to calmly be there, organizing the event, taking down data, always alert and attentive, never angry or frustrated, in my memories.

There were a few times in junior high school when I was afraid to go to school. Would I be confronted by a clutch of threatening classmates as I rounded a corner? But in Mr. Bischke’s class, I could run away from all that, sweating, heart pumping, full of effort and private ambition to add to my stats.

I don’t really know Mr. Russell “Dutch” Bischke very well, but I always enjoy saying hello to him in these twilight years of his life. I’m a teacher too, but not once has a student arrived in my classroom running in nervous anticipation. You made a difference in thousands of young folks’ lives, Mr. Bischke, and without a doubt in mine. Thank you for all that you did.


bmcneece@adelphia.net">bmcneece@adelphia.net">brian on 05.06.09 @ 12:02 AM PST [link]


Tuesday, May 5th

Henry Knox--Poster Boy for the Great Recession


Heroes Rise and Heroes Fall by Brian McNeece

Fort Knox is the safest place in the safest country to keep your money, right? Hmmm? Now that your 401k has become a 201k, maybe not. The namesake of Fort Knox happens to be Henry Knox, this nation’s first Secretary of War. The tale of Henry Knox’s rise and fall seems especially timely, as Imperial County has been deemed by several major newspapers as the capital of the Great Recession. His ebullient resourcefulness during the revolutionary war degenerated into a tragic tale of ambition contaminated by greed. Sound familiar?

Before the revolutionary war, young Henry Knox owned a bookstore. He had no military training but liked to read books. In November of 1775, 25-year old Knox took an idea to General George Washington, whose army of rebels had laid siege to Boston, where the British were holed up. But without artillery, Washington couldn’t attack.

What Knox proposed seemed impossible. He suggested leading a team of men 300 miles north to recover 58 mortars and cannons from the abandoned Fort Ticonderoga and bring them back via river and land. He counted on heavy snows and iced-over rivers on which sleds might be pulled. Without the artillery, the Continental army was powerless to move.

Washington despaired. His men were cold, sick, underfed, and unpaid. Desperate times beget innovative responses: Washington approved Knox’s plan.

Knox had never led men before, but Washington commissioned him as a colonel. Heading north, Knox assembled a team of soldiers and local artisans to load the 60 tons of armament onto barges on Lake Champlain. For the next two months they battled blizzards, thaws, rocky terrain, and four treacherous river crossings.

One of the larger cannons dropped through the ice, creating a 14-foot hole. Instead of abandoning the cannon, Knox convinced his crew to raise it from the bottom of the river. When a boat sank, they raised it too. At one point, his entire crew was about to abandon the expedition because it was too dangerous to sled the cannons down forested slopes. Three hours of Knox’s persuasive enthusiasm got them back on the job.

Knox didn’t lose a single cannon. His delivery of the artillery turned the tide in the siege of Boston, as the British suffered a humiliating defeat and retreat, and gave the colonial forces renewed confidence that the British were not invincible.

During the 13 years of the revolutionary war, Knox repeatedly distinguished himself as a bold, creative, able leader. Today, 56 identical plaques mark his 300-mile journey over rough terrain, one for each day.

After the war, Knox was our first Secretary of War. Indeed, Henry Knox had a brilliant career as a revolutionary and administrator in the early days of our nation.

Knox was still on the rise when he retired to Thomaston, Maine. He turned to an astonishing collection of businesses, including barrel works, saw- and gristmills, wharves, fisheries, shipbuilding, brick making, orchards, lime quarries, grain fields, cattle farming, and real estate speculation.

Unfortunately, the lofty principles he had risked so much for seemed to have been abandoned. Our Declaration of Independence called for democracy and equality, but Knox proved intent upon turning himself into a feudal lord. Though of humble origins himself, his wife’s family had been wealthy English Loyalists who were able to hang onto about 180,000 acres of their land even after the Revolution.

But that wasn’t enough for Henry Knox. Through serpentine maneuverings, he assembled a million acre estate and nearly succeeded in acquiring four million acres more. His attempts to subdivide the land and sell it to the settlers already in place triggered an armed insurrection and repeated attacks on his surveying crews.

Knox was a voluptuary; like his wife a 300 pounder who enjoyed the good life and couldn’t get enough of it. But he spread his sizeable girth and appetite for achievement so thin over his many business ventures that they all failed. In the meantime, Knox and his wife built a 13,000 square foot house on a hill overlooking their land. Designed and built for appearance and not with careful attention to engineering, the house began to crumble after only thirty years.

Although the war-hero General Knox represented his area in the Massachusetts General Court (Maine then being part of Massachusetts), he eventually became so unpopular that he lost the seat to a local blacksmith.

Knox died in 1806 when he swallowed a chicken bone that punctured his intestine. He left his heirs nothing but the crumbling mansion and a mountain of debt.

The landscape has changed in the 233 years since Henry Knox led a magnificent mission to retrieve cannon, rose to become the most prominent man in the state of Maine, and then fell to ignominy through avarice, pride, and gluttony. His story resonates today and reaffirms Aristotle’s simple lesson our whole country has reawakened to: “Nothing to excess.”

bmcneece@adelphia.net">bmcneece@adelphia.net">brian on 05.05.09 @ 11:44 PM PST [link]


Friday, March 20th

In a Mexicali Mood


Love by the Glass

Brian McNeece

Just as Alex expected, the Refranes Bar was nearly empty. It was only three o’clock Friday afternoon. But that didn’t diminish his excitement. He had the whole evening ahead of him with his Nancy, and he was nearly giddy as he passed from the harsh sunny world of a Mexicali January through the swinging door into the dim red glow of the bar. She was there behind the bar, dropping coins into the register, her black hair cascading over the silky green blouse. Tight black leather pants captured her young plump buttocks like the skin on a ripe mango. He smiled and sat on the stool across from her.

Alex couldn’t remember when love and marriage, love and marriage like he vaguely imagined it one day long, long ago, had completely evaporated and was gone. After he and Elida got married, a couple of years passed. Two then three kids. They bought a tract house on the edge of town. The house filled up with stuff. Shoes and shirts and pants spilling out of the closet. Socks and underwear and papers off the top of the dresser. Cups and wrappers and knick-knacks on the end tables. Towels and blankets and more clothes on the arms of the armchairs, and finally boxes and jars and dishes on all the kitchen counters and the kitchen table. When the kitchen table filled up, they reached steady state. Nothing changed. Why the stuff didn’t go away, Alex couldn’t quite figure out. It had never been like that before he got married and left his mother’s house. He and his wife barely had enough room for each other in their house, not to mention the kids. Just to get enough room, they slept in separate beds.

“Hello baby,” he called to Nancy. She turned and nodded. He breathed in her fragrance. Her mouth moved as she counted silently. She raised her chin and turned back to her task. No hurry. Feeling safe inside the five-foot swath of the smell of Nancy, Alex looked around the bar. It wasn’t much to talk about, but it was clean and airy and open. The walls were bare block painted dark red. Alex loved the dark red light and the soft green tablecloths and the jukebox alone against the wall in the back on the dance floor. He didn’t mind the smell of spilled beer; it was no different than any other bar.

The music was off, and the place seemed too empty, too bare. He walked over and deposited some pesos in the jukebox. A pounding beat filled the room with sonic bubbles, musical pillows. He felt better now. A beer sat on the bar. Before eight o’clock, the beers were only one dollar. Nancy leaned over the bar to him and shared her fresh breath and left her soft, warm, delicate hand in his for a deliciously long time. “Buy me a drink?” she said. She put her forehead against his and let her hair form a tent over the space between them. She drew back. Her eyes shone bright and clear. She was so young, so beautiful. He nodded.

Fridays Alex didn’t work at his usual job at the hospital as a transporter. He was free to create a one-day a week life in Mexicali to balance the static clutter of his life in Calexico. His Calexico life was a haze of trips to and from school with his kids, a nearly daily marijuana smoke, an occasional ten minutes of sexual release with his wife, and some hours a day transporting documents and people from place to place at the El Centro Regional Medical Center.

He watched Nancy in the mirror as she mixed the drink. She was so young so fresh, someone you would want to meet over the papayas down at Vons. So fresh. She looked up and smiled. She was the only other person in the bar, and for an instant he felt he saw into her, through a clean, uncluttered space, she alone, content for a moment just to be there, in that place, with him. In another instant came a look of sadness, only to be replaced by her working smile.

In Mexicali, he owned three houses and one small apartment building. But for Nancy’s sake, it was many, many more units to manage, and for Nancy’s sake, he lived in Tijuana, where he was second in command at a construction company.

She rested her elbows on the bar and slumped so her head was below his. Even her eyebrows looked young and perfect, like a photo for a makeup ad. “I got the papers signed,” Alex volunteered.

“What papers?” she said. She ran her tongue along the corner of her mouth.

“Remember, I told you, my cousin Jaime, the architect, he’s going to build some apartments for me. That’s why I came today, for the papers.” He took her hand in his. She took a long swallow of her drink and wiped her mouth with her hand.

“Oh yeah. Good.”

Nancy used to be a model, and married young, at sixteen. Now she had three children and a husband serving eight years in prison for car theft. That’s what she told Alex. She hadn’t had sex for one year. That’s what she told Alex. But she didn’t go with men, she said.

Alex liked Nancy. The rhythm of their conversation was relaxed, even across the many silences when there was nothing to say and the music held them up with boulders and embankments of sound, and the light ball bathed them like a warm flurry of friendly stars. But she drank so fast. Alex was content to sip and chat and put the peanuts into his mouth then her mouth one by one. “Another drink?” she asked. Alex nodded again.

He had barely taken another sip of his beer when she returned to her slumped position on the bar with her second drink, her eyes bright, her smile ready. She reminded him of a little girl in grade school long ago, a girl with a magic wand in a play, a silvery crown, a princess, she was. As she drank from her glass, he noticed how perfect her fingers were, long and thinner than the rest of her, with perfect red nails.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” He knew the routine. Now began her many trips to the bathroom. When she left the room, he looked around, and seeing only the other bar girl setting glasses at the end of the bar, he quickly tipped his beer into Nancy’s glass.

Her drinks were $3.50 each. One dollar and twenty cents of that went to Nancy. Otherwise, she made about $10 per day. Just about any little job in Mexicali was $10 a day, about double the minimum wage. Alex always added a little beer to her glass when she emptied her bladder. If he was going to have to pay her for her conversation, she would have to get drunk. He was ready for a long night

The harsh bright light of day stabbed into his eyes from the mirror as three men entered through the swinging door. When Nancy came back, they huddled close to talk to her. The other bargirl was drinking with an old man in the corner of the bar, laughing and touching his face. Nancy served the new customers beers and lingered at the bar with them, smiling and glowing with the attention.

Alex was angry. Nancy was his girl. “Hey,” he shouted to her, glancing quickly at the three men. She looked at him and back at the men. She took two steps to talk to him. The full volume of the music made it unnecessary to hide his words. “You need to stay with me,” he said, his anger obvious. She raised her eyebrows. “All right, baby. Just let me get Betty from the back.”

As she passed the eager men, she seemed to put something extra into her walk. Alex scowled and left his stool. He crossed the empty space to a small table with a soft green tablecloth and waited for her. Betty emerged from a side door and attended the men. He saw their disappointment in the mirror, for Betty had a few more years on her and carried a scuffed, well-used look that the dim light and heavy makeup couldn’t hide. Too bad. Nancy was his girl.

She sat next to him in the low leather chairs with her knees hard against his. He put his arm around her and gently squeezed her to him. “Are you jealous?” she said into his ear. The music seemed to pull them together even more here away from the bar, here where Nancy was now his for the night, for as long as he wanted.

“Of course, baby,” he cooed. “You’re my girl.” Suddenly he noticed something. “Where’s your drink?”

“Oh, I finished it. I’ll get another.” She stood. For a moment he looked up at her face past her breasts pushing out her thin green silk blouse. Warmth flowed through him like a soul massage. He felt good. He felt very good.

Alex and Nancy sat against the wall through the afternoon, and the light no longer knifed at them when the door opened and closed. Other men filled the jukebox with pesos, and more bargirls appeared as if some rule demanded a perfect ratio of bargirls to patrons. She drank and he drank and the night wore on. How many drinks had she had–fifteen, twenty, twenty-five? He had no idea. What did they say to each other? Who could remember? He only loved her lightness; from her eyebrows and eyelashes to the way she lifted her fingers as she talked. Her full lips pouted red and tempting, and he kissed them now and again. At first she didn’t return his kisses, but little by little her kisses came back to him–little girl kisses.

She left for the bathroom, and now he didn’t worry about anyone seeing him tip his beer into her glass, for the bar was full with dark shapes bumping into one another in the cracks between the beat of the drum and the rocking steps of the bass and the warm swirling stars spinning galaxies across the red concrete walls.

He watched her cross the dance floor with her hand on her forehead, looking down, being knocked this way and that, unsteady. She was drunk. He rose and gathered her in his arms. She leaned on him for support, and he held her close, pulling her tight against him. She tucked her head under his chin and sighed and hummed into his heart. His Nancy. His little Nancy, who liked him and needed him and cuddled him. “Come with me,” he yelled into her ear. “Let’s go!”

She shook her head. Her hair dangled sloppily on his chest. She looked up to him and asked, “Why are you doing this to me?”

Alex was surprised. What was this? She wasn’t supposed to say anything like this. He shrugged. He put his mouth to her ear. “I want to be with you, I want you next to me. You make me do it.”

“Do you want me?” she asked. “Do YOU want ME?” She dropped her arms to her side and began to sob.

She sat heavily, grunting. He folded himself into his chair, for it was too small for his large frame. He didn’t know what to say, so he just sat. His hand rested on her young back, but he did not move it. Her back no longer felt like the back of a princess grown up, but of a stranger. He wanted to tell her that he liked her this way, he liked her taking his money drink by drink. He liked her being the boss and he being the boss, a fair exchange, his money for her perfumed air, for the five foot perfumed swath around her body, for her leather pants and silk blouse and the heaviness on her chest he felt when he danced with her, for her smile and for her breath. Here, he got something he didn’t get as a married man, some warmth, some presence, some romance. A teasing distance, an interest in a courting dance that he didn’t have to lead or win.

His hand was still on her back. He didn’t want to move it. Did he really want to take her someplace? Did he really want to go with her?

Nancy raised her head and looked at him. Her eyes were old now, drowning, sinking. “All you want to do is put your thing into me, that’s all. All this, all these hours, just for that.” She sat back clumsily in her chair. “That’s all it’s about–your thing.”

He wanted to tell her it wasn’t true. Where were the words? He could put his thing into one of those sneering whores lined up in front of the Hotel del Pacifico. Twenty-five dollars included the fifteen minutes of rent on the room and the condom. Not too much money, but don’t touch above the waist. No, he didn’t need that from Nancy.

She sat up. Her face was wet with the tears of a little girl and vacant like a house after a party. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

Alex took the last peanut from the bowl on the table and chewed it slowly, his moustache moving up and down. He didn’t say anything.

“If you want me, if you like me, why don’t you let me stay in one of those apartments you own? Why don’t you help me, Alex, if you are Alex, if you own apartments?” She rolled her head as if to throw off the suffocating heaviness of her drunkenness.

He thought about having his Nancy always there, ready for him in one of his apartments. Fresh and soft and ripe like an avocado. Then he saw it all. Perfumed leather pants on the floor, high-heeled shoes spilling out of the closet, bras slung over the chair, panties in the corner, bus tickets, shoe boxes, tissue paper on the bureau And three kids in the other room with their underwear, comic books, X-Box controllers, candy wrappers, cups, shoes, pants. He saw it all.

* * *

Three rows of cars stretched for a quarter mile in front of him, humming their contentment. Not a long line. The night wasn’t late, only eleven o’clock. He would cross the border drinking a cup of coffee and cooperate fully with the agent. He wasn’t drunk. Maybe he drank about ten beers, but over eight hours, it was nothing. He was used to it. Some of every beer went into Nancy’ glass, so she shared in his sea of liquid love.

So many people complained about the lines to the border crossing, but Alex enjoyed having his place, knowing step by step he would get to where he was going. What was the hurry? Alex took comfort in the certainty of it, the order, the inexorable progress. He took his foot off the brake and flowed automatically forward with the car in front of him.

A hundred dollars for nearly eight hours with his Nancy. He settled back into his seat and remembered her fragrance, her skin. He felt good. He could do whatever he wanted. He wondered if his Elida was home yet, whether she had gone to her mother’s house after work to pick up their kids, or would his house be empty. It didn’t matter. Elida would be there sometime tonight. And when he woke up in the morning, she would be there, waking the children, fixing the breakfast. Not his breakfast, but she would be there.

Traffic moved quickly. He fumbled for his green card as he rolled up to the inspection booth.

“Going home to the missus?” said the officer. Alex squinted at him. Did he know him? He vaguely reminded Alex of one of his teachers in junior high.

“Yeah.”

“Did you save a little romance for her?” The officer returned him his card.

“Huh? A little romance? Yeah, sure.”

Alex pulled away from the booth and weaved through the concrete barriers. A little romance for Elida? Who the hell was that guy? Elida wasn’t too old, but she was thin, not like a real woman. Anyway, she didn’t like him. A little romance? Hmmm. He felt warm in the afterglow of Nancy. Well, he would see; he would see.



bmcneece@adelphia.net">bmcneece@adelphia.net">brian on 03.20.09 @ 12:48 AM PST [link]



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