CROSSING TO MAZATLAN

Wednesday, July 15, 1998

Mazatlan, Mexico

 

   The crossing of the Bay De Cortez last night and this morning was magnificent!  Dolphin jumping and pacing the boat, flying fish skimming across the water in schools!  And a large manta ray, phosphorescent, in green and blue!

 

      I met a man from La Paz who was traveling to Puebla to take his daughter to visit her Grandmother In Puebla.  Louis told me he has a small monthly magazines in La Paz.  Interesting man!  Bright, lots of energy, he seemed to like me and I liked him.  He told me lots about Mexican politics and he knew Mexican history!  And he was ‘Woman crazy!’ He told me.

 

“Guuls!”  “You like Guuls, Lardy!”  “You come back to La Paz, I meet you to my friend Rosita!  She say to me, ‘I like an American! You meet good American you tell me!’ She be vedy good for you!  Vedy pretty, vedy hot.”  I say: “Quantos Anos?”  He says: “Rosita?”  I say:  “Si!” he is stilled for moment, then he says with vigorous certainty: “Rosita is twenty seven! Vedy pretty! You like!  You just say nice tings to her, she fuck you!”  I say:  “What kind of nice things?”   he says: “I love you!”  “You have most beautiful hair!”  “I tink about you all the time!”   I tell him that the more I like a woman the more difficult it is to lie to her.  “NO!” he says, “You treat a woman good she will not like you!  You have to lie to dem and ignore dem and be cold to dem. “be good to them day will tink something is wrong with you!  But if you lie to them and are cold to them and then you say: ‘Come here Rosita, I fuck you!’ Then she will come to you to make you happy!”

             

Louis was really a very bright and mad fellow I enjoyed talking to him and asked him many questions about Mexico politics. La Paz – he was born in La Paz and lived there all  his life.  He mentioned the girls of Cuba. He said he went to Cuba often. I had the impression his magazine was dependent on Cuban money. I liked him. 

            When it was late and dark he and his daughter went to bed down on the floor in a hallway I wondered off and began my night of wondering the decks of the ship. 

    I tripped over Louis and his daughter about four in the morning asleep.  I stepped over them.

            I could not sleep!  It was too exciting and I felt exotic! The Sea of Cortez!  Louis and I had talked all the way from the departure at 3:00 pm till about 1:00 am (when he found a very sophisticated mother with two beautiful daughters to talk to).  Out of  the Bay de La Plaz, into the Mar De Cortez, the water was so magnificent and clam and wonderfully colored - that deep translucent blue green that the water there has.  I guess I was transported in lots of ways.  This was the sort of thing I travel for!  The romantic kick, the odd, the wonderful and the unusual!  In this case the simple magnificence!  The views of the huge twisted desert mountain island moutains and the quite, white-sand bays and beaches and Louis at my shoulder saying.  “Ah, Laudy, Dat es my favorite beach!”  Pointing to some white strip of a cove beach only just accenting the moment of the mountains entry into the sea!  I take you daer when you come back!  You come back to La Paz?”  I say: “Si! La Paz es magnifico!”  He says: “like no other place in Mexico!  Baja es best!”  “Es gorgioso!” I say. 

There are islands that complete the outer perimeter of the Bay of La Paz and Louis has been on these islands and he had told me of the wild goats and sheep and coyotes and some small thing that is like a rabbit but is not rabit, and the other animals that live on the islands.  He tells me that a meteorite stuck at the very end of one of the largest islands in 1996.  He shows me where it hit, and indeed that part of the island is rubble compared to the rest, like something enormous and important has rolled down its side, and he tells me that the meteorite caused earthquakes in La Paz.  He says that the authorities never told the people of La Paz about the meteorite but told them the island had “settled!”

Louis is much into being an insider in La Paz and may be, I have no way of knowing!  He writes up the PRI candidate for Governor of La Paz Sur in his paper and says that if the man wins he, Louis, will get six more years of a government subsidy for his news paper.  I ask him what if the other party wins and he looks at me and grins and says “Den - I am fucked!” 

When Louis and his daughter go to bed down I wonder up to the foremost top deck where I can best see the forward course of the ship.  This is the biggest ship I have ever been on – bigger by far then the one I crossed the English Channel on!  There are four decks and the very tallest and most forward one is where I go to watch our progress toward Mazatlán! The night is dark and I can see little save the great whirling of white water the ship creates, in a scalloped pattern, across the surface of the water and becomes the ships wake as it passes behind.  All of this dynamic and curling and churning away from the bow – the only thing to be seen on the water in the night.  And of course I do that which I do and I fall in love with a moment and say that I will return! I will let Louis show me his coves and beaches and climb the mountains of these islands of his (I suspect) imagination. Maybe I will even meet Maria.

Two boys, in their twenties, tall and slim and lovely as swans come to the deck looking for a place to be together.  They settle on the bench behind me.  One sits and the other lays out and puts his head on his friends lap - and the sitting boy strokes his friends face  and hair – they were beautiful. It rains a little and the boys leave (I don’t see them again).  When the rain is done – it is now maybe 2:00 am.  I decide I will not even try to sleep but will wonder the ship for the rest of the night and learn it.  I go down a deck and another  until I recognize the “selon” where all the  people - save those in “Tourist” who have cabins - are seated and asleep in rows and rows of seats.   Then I go back up and wonder to the back of the ship on a deck overlooking a work area.  The Work Deck below me is sorted out with reals of rope and other nautical equipment that I don’t recognize!  I go to the back as far as I can out of the light and lean on the railing.  It seems I am alone save for a hugely fat man on the edge of the passenger deck below me who has brought blankets and pillows and is laid out on a bench in front of the work deck like a great mess of flesh taking it’s needed sleep!

I lean on the railing and look back at the wake of the ship!  Only that in the darkness – I drift away for a long tired revere. 

“What time is it.” I hear.

I look to see if this could be addressed to me!  On the railing to my right I see a tall figure in white pants and a brown head under a leather cap and he is looking at me.  I look at my watch but cannot see the time.  I hold my arm out to him to read it for himself if he can.  He moves toward me and reads the time out loud. 

He does not look at me and so I am able to look at him while he reads the time and when he leans on the railing and looks out to sea.  He is tall and thin, his neck is long and the curve of his back and hips suggests a boy, shy and not able to say more now that he has asked the time.  I look at his long elegant body.  See how his legs merge into his long torso and how his slim shoulders provide efficiently for his long neck and then to his head which is smaller in the bottom, the jaw, but blossoms widely up into the cranium.   He has great large eyes and seems to be a young man of mind more than appetite!       

“Es dificial a dormir” I say

He does not answer but it is not out of any sense of calmness or certainty but rather because he does not know what to say.  He does not look at me or react in any way.  I have the strong sense that he has started something but has not an idea what do with it now.

“Usted a Mazatlán?”  I ask.

He looks at me straight in the face for the first time and with no reserve, like a boy who is addressed by an elder.  He quickly agrees he is going to Mazatlán.  He grins and I can see the large white Mexican teeth and his unusually large eyes and the whites seem strikingly white and the brown seems black in the dark against the sea. 

We strike up a conversation in this method, Me speaking in Spanish when I can, resorting to English out of frustration, his being fluent at moments in English and helpless at others, resorting to rapid Spanish that I don’t understand.  He grins at me, worm but  reserved grins, and gives me shy smiles and he asks me questions.  Am I alone?  Am I married?  Do I have children? Where am I going? How long will I be in Mazatlán?  These are questions that I recognize.  They are the questions of someone who is trying to see who you are and if your life may mean anything to themselves – if only for a day or a few hours.  But I am aware as well that he does not really know why he is asking these questions and would be shocked if he knew what he had already reveled to me.  He does not look at me very often but looks out to sea as he talks.  I find that if I don’t look at him but look out to sea as well, he will turn his head and watch me as I answer his questions.  Then I discover that if I let him look at the side of my face without disturbing him by looking at him, I can, when I want to see how he is reacting or what his mood is as he speaks, turn suddenly toward him when he is looking at me and his eyes will hold mine.  I discover further that these few moment of full eye contact get longer and more meaningful as we continue to talk. 

I ask him if he has a girl friend and he says yes he does, her name is ‘Betty’.  'Betty' I almost say out loud, but I don’t?   How long? I ask.  Six months.  He says that she is very much in love with him – he does not say that he is very much in love with her.  I ask him if he will marry Betty, he shrugs lightly as though it is not an important question.    He asks me if I want to ask him any questions: “Usted tiene un pragunta por me?”  When ever he can’t think of something to say he says this.  I look at him and I ask him if he wants to have babies.  His answer is again a shrugged one.  He wants to know if I have a girlfriend.  I tell him that I was married for many years and that I had a long relationship with a woman after that but that I haven't had a girlfriend for a few years now.  “Porque?”  he says.  “Porque yo tengo un boyfriend” I say.   I look over at him and his eyes hold mine but reveal nothing, he is quite still, careful not to react.  After a while he looks away and I wonder if, after all, I have said to much and frightened him.  After a long silence he asks “Que es el nombre”.   “El nombre?” I say.  “Su ‘boyfriend’”.  “Es Kelvin”  I say.  “No Mexicano?” he says.  “No en La Paz?”  “No.”  I say, “Kelvin es Americano, es Puerto Rican”  “Que color?” he asks.  I don’t have a word for brown!  The boy says: “Es blanko?  Es Negro?”  “No” I say.  He uses the Spanish word for brown and points to his own forarm and says with some satisfaction: “like me!”  “Si!” I say, “exactamente mismo usted.”  “you like!” he says.  I catch his eyes and say slowly in English, “Yes, I like! very much.”   

A man comes out on deck to smoke and stands nearby.  The boy looks at his own watch this time.  It is nearing 4:00am.  The boy looks at the smoking man and goes quiet.  When the man finishes his cigarette he does not leave but continues to stand nearby.  I wonder myself if the man is interested in our conversation – or if he can hear it at all since we are back further on the boat then he is and the breeze is blowing clearly toward us not him- the wind will carry our words away.  The boy keeps glancing at the man.  After a while I suggest that we walk and lead the way to the forward deck where I had seen the two boys earlier.   The deck is empty now.

The boy is tired, as am I.  We both lean over with our arms on the top railing which is quite high and with our heads on our arms and our faces toward each other – in this position it is almost necessary to stand up to break eye contact.  “Un pregunta por me?” he says.  “Si” I say, “Usted y Betty – Sexo?”  “Sexo?” he says.  “Si, sexo!”  He says, “me y Betty? Si!” then he stands up and moves back from the railing by an arms length.  I do not move but remain with my head on my arms looking up at him.  He seems to be thinking about something that has broken the mood.  Then he says “No” but does not seem to be addressing me.  “No?” I say.  “No!” he repeats.  “No que?” I say.  “No sexo”. He says.  “No sexo con Betty?” I say this softly so that he will not think I am laughing at his little fib.  “Comprendo.” I say.  He looks down at me sternly.  I repeat: “Comprendo. Es bueno”  After a moment he grinns the sweetest grin I have seen on his face and leans back down into the railing looking at me.  “Curioso?” I say. “Curioso?”, he answers.  “Si” I say.  He is pretending he does not understand, then gives it up.  “Curioso, Si.”  He takes this very seriously and looks at me so that I will know that he does.  “Curioso por sexo con hombre?” I say directly into his eyes.  He does not look away but nods quickly – he has given away the secret away now, he knows he can’t take it back or play with it further.   “Me gusto usted.” I say to him.  “gustame?” he says looking at me.  “Si.” “Me gusto sexo con usted.”  “Si.” He says, “sexo. Si, es bueno.”                    

But of course it is out of the question since we are on a ship and neither of us has a state room.  I tell him that we can find a hotel in Mazatlán.   He says he has no money for a hotel and I say that I have to have a hotel anyway.  He looks out to sea in the direction the ship is heading, as though visualizing and tells me he must catch his bus to his hometown, which is not Mazatlán, as I was assuming, at eleven o'clock" he says.  I say when will you be back in Mazatlán.  He says, that he may be able to come back in to Mazatlán tomorrow.  We agree that we will meet at the famous statue of the fisherman out on La Playa at 10:00.  He says that he does not know if he will be able to come and I say it does not matter, I will be there, if he is not I will understand.

This morning I was at the famous statue of the fisherman and  of course he was not.  I was relieved actually, that he did not show up, and not at all surprised.