Category: Creative Writing

(Author’s note: This is the fiftieth anniversary of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. If you have never read it, do so. He pioneered something called Gonzo Journalism which mixes the illusory and the real, stone cold sober insight and drug-fueled raving. And it’s pretty funny, ‘tho profane. Here is my homage to the genre. Again, it’s all creative writing and fiction!)

We were somewhere south of the airport, driving up a steep grade in the pass over the Sierra San Juan Cosala, when the brownies started to take effect. These were no run-of-the-mill, Pillsbury brownies. No, my amigo Juan Rey used only Ghiardelli starter, and added a special mix of fifty-seven herbs and spices which would drive the working dogs at George H. W. Bush International airport into a frenzy. There were no dogs here on the carretera, except for the bloated ones at the side of the road, but I felt giddy at the thought of spilling out a container of special brownies on the floor of Customs in Houston and watching the dogs drag the CBP agents across the room.

“What’s so funny?” my companion shouted over the roar of Led Zeppelin from the car stereo.

I didn’t answer; I didn’t even realize I was laughing. I was too focused on dropping into second gear and hitting the gas, aiming the rented Tsuru in between a pick-up truck with an abuela in the bed and a family of three puttering next to them on a motorbike. I expertly split the difference on a hairpin turn and broke into the clear . . . of yet another uphill turn.

A Tsuru was never meant to be driven like this. Actually, a Tsuru was never technically meant to be driven. It was a car at its best up on concrete blocks in the barrio, where you got in and shared una fria with some locals as the sun went down. A Tsuru was essentially a Nissan Sentry with all of its safety and comfort features removed, then sold at cost in an aspiring market like Mexico where a growing middle class was newly experiencing the joy of the open road . . . with predictable results.

Tsuru crash test results

When I picked up the Tsuru at the airport rental counter, I just ignored the small print stating the rental company was not responsible for the costs associated with removing human remains from the vehicle interior in the event of an accident. A good garden hose would do the trick. I realized my companion was still waiting on an answer about that sinister laugh.

“The dogs! You should have seen them with the brownies. . .” I finally replied, but my companion was having none of it.

“Look out for the cows!” he screamed. What cows? Where does he see cows? In the middle of a freakin’ highway, in the middle of the freakin’ night? Damn brownies! I cut to the outside of the curve and saw a bovine head flash past my side-view mirror. This was no time to linger, so I stepped on the gas, alert for the giant iguanas I knew would soon follow. When we made it to Ajijic, I was going to find out exactly what were the fifty-seven herbs and spices in those brownies. For now, I took a long swig from my vampiro, and kept watching for the iguanas.

—————————-Morning—————————

I awoke the next morning and looked down at the blood-red stain on my guayabera. Great. I was in town less than one full day and now somebody had expertly lifted my kidneys. Or maybe my appendix; could they tell the difference? Just another tourist used for medical practice. I pulled open the shirt but saw no scars. The empty vampiro bag I had clutched all the way from the airport fell to my side.

Why was I even here, in the middle-of-nowhere Mexico? I had a gig to cover a water skiing competition on Lake Chapala. At first I thought it was some set-up by the cartels: lure innocent gringos down with an imaginary sporting event, then harvest their organs. But it seemed legit, as it was the tenth annual competition, and so far no reports of missing organs. But water-skiing, on Lake Chapala? Even the locals only pretend to go into the lake (up to their knees, wearing plastic trash bags on their feet) and nobody, ever, takes out a speed boat. There are things out there, under the water. Things you don’t want to run into. Things like grandstands, and barbed wire, and electric cables. See, the Mexicans reclaim the shore when the lake wanes, and build all kinds of things. When the lake refills, they run off, leaving an Atlantis of strange artifacts just under the waterline.

I bought a bottle of tequila, a mango, and a six of Tecate and sat down on the malecon to watch the show. Perhaps there would be a traumatic amputation or a sudden explosion when electric current met marine gas-oil. Serves them right, coming down here and not even offering a kidney. Dammit, you have two, and that guy begging at the corner in front of the WalMart probably needs at least one. But there was nothing savage to see here. Just speed boats, and people water-skiing. I grabbed the tequila and headed up Colon to get some comida.

My companion was in the bar and motioned me to join him. Next to him sat a square-jawed, Marine-looking character. He said his name was William, but I was sure it’s Bill, or Billy, or Mac or Buddy.

“As your doctor, I advise you to order the chilaquiles with the two-for-one Bloody Mary” my companion intoned. Billy interjected, “I didn’t know you were a doctor. . .” but I cut him off.

“He’s not. It’s a Goddamn border promotion. He’s a podiatrist, but don’t let him anywhere near your feet, as he has outstanding malpractice cases in ten states.” “Wh-wh-what?” Billy stammered, but I laid it on thicker and heavier, “you should have seen it. He actually attached a sixth toe on a man’s foot and tried to charge him extra for it!” My companion was just staring down at his migas while Billy sat with his square jaw now hanging open.

After I ordered the chilaquiles and Bloody Mary duo, Billy tried to break the uncomfortable silence: “So you’re here to cover the water skiing competition?” I glared at my companion, but he put both palms up and mouthed “not me.” Of course not. Pueblito or small town, it’s all the same: everybody knows everybody else’s business. There was no way I was going to cover that crap, even if it involved somebody being severed in half. I needed another reason to be here. I glanced suspiciously to both sides, then whispered, “William, you look like a former Marine, can you keep a secret?” “Semper Fi!” he growled.

“That water-skiing competition is just a cover.” He looked at me, puzzled but obviously interested. “I’m down here for the company.” I paused for effect, and he stared, unblinking, like a near-sighted lizard. “The agency. Do I need to spell it out? CI-A!” I spat out the acronym “see-ah” the way the locals do, for added authenticity, and I could see the hook was set.

“I always thought that water-skiing thing was crazy,” he replied. I continued, “Just crazy enough. My companion and I are recon for the beaches here. As a Marine, I assume you know the strategic importance of beaches?” He was nodding his head yes, but his eyes said no. “Beaches?” he whispered, “but for what?” “Good God, man, for the invasion!” I muttered. He was clearly struggling with the concept, but desperately wanted to buy-in, “but it’s a lake, how do they get here?” I slammed the empty Bloody Mary glass down on the table for emphasis, “where have you been? Don’t you know about Space Force? The Space Marines? What do you think we have them for?”

“Oh, yeah, them. And they’ll have the element of surprise” he added, now fully on board. I should have stopped there, but my third and fourth Bloody Marys arrived, so I chugged one down and then took it to the limit, one more time: “We did have surprise, but now we come to find out there’s a rat. Somebody down here has been talking, and when we find the rat-bastard, well, we’ll take both his kidneys!” Billy’s eyes were wide as saucers, “What do you mean?”

“William,” I paused and leaned closer, “you don’t think the Mexicans left all that crap out in the lake for shits-n-grins, do you? Barbed wire, electrical lines, hell there’s probably a slew of mines and hedgehogs down there, too. They are waiting for us!” “No shit? That makes soooooo much more sense!” he nodded. I needed to make good my escape, so I looked around, then waited for the mesera to walk past: “We have to find the rat. If you hear any gringo down here talking smack about ‘Merica, call me at this number.” I wrote the digits down on the napkin and handed it over. “If I sound confused, I’m just pretending not to know you because it’s an open line. Just keep calling me and giving me any names you have. Can you do that for me, Marine?”

“Yes, sir!” he replied, and I threw down a two hundred peso note on the table and made my way out. What the CBP desk at George H. W. Bush International airport was going to do with this information was not my problem.

———————Afternoon————————

Now that the lake skiing gig was dead in the water, I needed an alternative subject for an article to justify my advance. I was sitting in the plaza, el centro del centro, smoking a fine Cuban cigar. Here I was, deep in the heart of the expat dream, and it was time to figure it all out. This place was right out of some spaghetti western knock-off of a 1950’s horror flick.: small Mexican fishing village suddenly invaded by a ragtag army of aging hippy-zombies followed by soul-less real estate speculators, working side-by-side in some bizarre Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact to destroy paradise. How the Canadians fit in to the plot, who knows, but I swear I’ll run my Tsuru over the next pair of socks-and sandal-ed feet I see!

I saw my companion discretely making his way into the plaza, headed straight for me. Or at least he was trying to be discrete, as only a six-foot four-inch Irishman weighing well-nigh twenty stone can be. He had on cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, aviator sun glasses and a mop of bright red hair. Which went well with the permanent rash-red color of his skin; the tropics are not kind to sons of Erin who choose to ignore sunscreen.

He approached and handed me a margarita, saying, “As your lawyer, I suggest you hydrate with this before you go mad in the noon-day sun.” It was true: I was half-mad with thirst. And he was a lawyer, a pretty good one at that. Faced with the unrelenting stream of malpractice claims, he had finished law school and defended himself, ably motioning and delaying until he could either exhaust the plaintiffs or flee to another part of the country. I admired his courtroom demeanor, even if I would still never let him touch my feet.

“What in the hell is going on here?” I wailed. “Does Mexico even know it’s being invaded? Do they not care? Don’t they see what the gringos did to California, not to mention Tejas! Arizona is like some sinister re-creation of The Villages without the redeeming quality of an occasional hurricane.” I paused to lick some salt off the rim of the plastic margarita glass. “Where did you get this anyway?” I asked, waving the drink at my companion. “There was man with a little stand selling them on the street. I told him to put yours in a glass, because you hate sucking your drinks through a straw in a plastic bag.” “Did you see what he put in it? Was there any alcohol? Who knows what else is in there? Stem cells? Human growth hormone? What were you thinking?”

My companion just smiled and shrugged. “You’re too wound up. You need to take in the local vibe. This is Mexico. Don’t get hostile, don’t ask too many questions, just sit back and enjoy what it is.” “What it is, is a cocktail from hell,” I retorted. I refilled the glass with tequila from my litro and resumed: “Mexico lives by the Pirate code, everything is ‘more of a guideline than a rule.’ But they don’t know what they don’t know, as Rummy once said. They have this little piece of paradise, and they haven’t figured out what is happening to it.” “Maybe they do know,” my companion said, “but they are ok with it.”

I glanced around the plaza. The tie-dyed shirts, the man buns with crazy, gray, wire-hairs sticking out? Didn’t fool me for a second. They were just the first wave, harmless enough looking, to put the locals at ease. Gringos locos. Next there’d be the aging Jane Fonda wanna-bees, dressed in 80’s chic (torn sweatshirts and leggings, of course). And the fresh-faced retirees, from Middletown, USA, buying up the hillsides and crowding the markets, marveling at the prices while giving a loud “Bone-ASS DEE-ass” to the frightened locals.

I don’t know what they were all up to, but the sun felt good on my shoulders, and the man-with-the-margarita stand came by and refilled mine before the ice could melt. I would get to the bottom of it, the glass and the invasion. But it was gonna’ take some time.

With full apologies to Jack London. If you haven’t already, or don’t remember, you can read the original here. It’s short, and sad, and a classic. Mine is shorter, not sad, and neo-classico.

Day dawned warm and sunny as the man stood reviewing his balcony. It was the usual: always warm and sunny, almost monotonously so. The man liked to joke about the sameness of the weather. It was after all all of twenty-five degrees outside . . . Celsius. The joke ran cold with friends up north, but never failed to elicit a smile on the man and his dog. Or at least he thought his dog was smiling. It could have been his canine sense of humor, or it might have been the bacon which the man regularly fumbled off the table at breakfast. Either way, the dog was definitely smiling.

In a land where the weather never changes, and rarely threatens, the man knew the importance of routine. You arise with the dawn, because the blackout curtains always leave a small crack which the sun penetrates and demands your attention. Or the dog does. You eat breakfast which is always huevos mexicanos, bacon, avocado and tomato, which will tide over a hearty man until a real meal in the afternoon. Not that life is so strenuous it needs fuel; no, it just tastes good. You rest in the afternoon, not because you need sleep, but because it’s hot, and wise not to tempt nature’s fury in the tropical noontime.

The seasons change little, so the man clung to small reminders of times past in order to mark their passing. One was building a fire in the hearth for Christmas. Not that he needed a fire; he didn’t need heating, or air conditioning, or even a blanket at night most of the year. But winter–and the man smiled when he said it, noting he used the term loosely–required something to mark its arrival, and the man chose a fire.

The man knew how to start a fire. He had lit small brush fires as a child, burning his fingers on the matchbook before hastily stamping them out in panic. He had started charcoal grill fires, usually after a heavy dose of lighter fluid and the ensuing rush of ignition. He even lit gas grills, and mostly remembered to open the top BEFORE hitting the starter. He was a man.

But the man’s problem was he was not mechanically inclined. He could tell you the theory of a thing’s design, or describe the components of a chemical process like combustion, but he did not intuit the “how” as someone so-inclined does. And now he faced a challenge: a gas fireplace. Not that that was totally new. He had faced one before, and it nearly defeated him. In the end, he eschewed the fake logs, added a large dog iron full of kindling and fresh firewood, then ignited the gas nozzle directly with a quick-n-flame: dangerous but effective.

Now he would need to engage with the real thing: a fully enclosed, completely installed gas fireplace. There could be no compromise here, and maybe only a second chance to succeed. It was early afternoon, shortly before his routine siesta, so he had little time. He had instructions; Good Lord, did he have instructions. There were instructions for installation, for warranty, for safety, for lighting or extinguishing the fire, for cleaning. He even had three (three!) sets of hand-written notes from the original owner, scribbled and identical and now faded to illegibility.

He had only one or two tries, less he miss his siesta. He was already growing tired, anticipating a good nap on a hammock in the shade, but near the sun. Yet he persisted. He removed the grill cover and discovered the controls. They were all there, just as the many instructions foretold, but never exactly where they foretold. There was a knob, clearly meant to be turned. A spigot which should control the gas flow just before the igniter. Another knob with “pilot” on it, and a button which had to be the ignition system. But there was also a rocker switch on the wall, and a master handle to control gas flow to the entire system.

His mathematical brain told him 5! (factorial) meant 120 possible combinations for these five knobs/switches. He had no time to start trying them in order, which was the rational thing to do. He made some simple assumptions–always dangerous when one’s siesta is at stake, but still necessary. He reasoned that the fireplace was off, and had been for some time, so he assumed every switch was in the negative. He started to switch them, slowly, to the positive. The dog, which had been following the action closely to this point, backed away, tale between his legs. The man wondered: did the dog smell gas leaking or sense an explosion in the making? It was too late for such introspection: he knew that if gas was flowing, he needed to ignite it now, or risk something much worse than a blown grill lid. The man pushed the igniter, and the dog left the room.

Nothing happened. The igniter snapped, but no gas, no flame. He stopped. Now he remembered the gas tech who years ago told him “if you ever try and fail to start a gas system, you should always, (–and here the grizzled old gasbag paused and repeated for effect–) ALWAYS turn everything off and wait for any gas to dissipate.” Yet it was siesta time, and he realized his assumptions about what-was-on and what-was-off were incorrect: so how to ensure they were “off?”

The man paused. The dog was nowhere to be seen. Maybe the gas had dissipated already. The man lit a match and mover it toward the ignition system, slowly, and nothing happened. It was a rash move, like tasting milk in the fridge to see if it had gone bad, but it worked. As in, nothing exploded. The man decided to press ahead, buoyed by this small success. He was heedless of the small significance of the explosion-that-didn’t-happen, and instead decided to use it as the basis for renewed confidence.

He knew what to do now. He tried each knob or dial in turn, lit match in hand, to determine if any were contributing gas to the igniter. The first knob started a tiny circulating fan, which fascinated the man. Who needs a circulating fan on a fireplace in a place where no fire is needed for warmth? But he had no time to linger on the thought. Probably a Canadian design, he mused before moving on. One switch produced only the slightest, tell-tale smell of gas, so he eliminated that variable. Obviously, the knob-so-named needed to be set to “pilot.” Which left only the wall switch.

He flipped its position and tried the igniter. Nothing. He knew the gas might be flowing, so he tried it again, quickly, realizing time (and his luck) was running out. Still nothing.

At this point he should have backed away, ventilated the area, and reviewed the instructions. But he was tired, so tired. He had been awake for hours, and the hammock sat there, swaying in the wind. Yet the fireplace was between him and his goal, and he was a man. It would light. The man flipped the rocker switch, whispered a small prayer (for success? for safety? we’ll never know) and pushed the ignition button. Still nothing happened. He was just short of delirious now, and resigned to his fate: he pushed it again, and again, willing the spark which would breathe life into the device.

Suddenly, there was a small “whooshing” sound, not the giant bang of a gas grill, but clearly and unmistakably the sound of ignition. There between the fake kindling and ceramic logs was a little blue flame. It spread around the edges of the fireplace, real (if gas-fed) and sustained. The man was pleased. The dog returned, since the fireplace provided a chance to warm one side in the tropical sun while the other toasted near natural gas. The dog had no idea how dangerous it had all been, but then again, the dog had instinctively left the area. The man felt only a sense of peaceful calm. He was already in the hammock, leaving the gas fire to tend itself. He had lit the fire. “Who needs snow?” he thought.

Merry Christmas!