“So I don’t know where he’s at…I don’t ask and he don’t come around here so I’m fine with it…he won’t live long is he’s doing what he was then…he did give me a beautiful girl…and I do love him…just not my man…”
I told her my story about the dude on crack. She concurred. I told her that her story was one of the bravest I had ever heard…especially for a woman, to leave with a child…make her way…I suppose it happens daily on the face of this vast planet given the levels of woe, stupidity, and cruel men doings…but her story was the first I had heard direct, and with a grace and acceptance I found positively inspiring…I mean she didn’t hate this man for his obvious wrongs…just took it as a meting of life in bitter doses that would not be permanent…she could smile, laugh, and be sad about it all in one single emotion…remarkable, yes, to be compassionate before selfish…in this sad, non-interior world of vain green jade, “I want to be relevant and interior…”
Yes indeed, relevant…As moved as I was, my dirty heart kept on beating to that sultry tune selfishness, while my pecker lured me into my next adventure…
It was a Saturday afternoon when I was down at the Tres Amigos with my Mom…we had come in from our second dive of the day and were drinking cokes when Jon and David showed up ready for something, and that something smelled an awful lot like trouble…stoned to gills, giggling like teen-heads, something up their sleeves, tho’ they had none shirts…the ponied up to the bar beside me, one per side and simultaneously put in my ear something like the following: “Hey man, you want to go to Corozal with us tonight? We’ll go to Chetumal and get girls and party!” (Jon’s niece was getting married that night) “We’ll go one hour in the plane…we already bought you a ticket so what do you say?” Jon had an older brother rumored to be wild…swift and crazy, he had lived on the island a few years back and wooed many a white girl…my mom’s friend phrogee (yes, pronounced frog-ee) had tried to make him a few years back, even at almost 40 years his senior…she had told my mom, “I don’t care how many year apart, as long as their 18”…pax vobiscum I say…ouch. I mulled their proposition—how could I pass up such a chance for unknown revelry? A beer would go down smoothly now, so why wouldn’t twenty more later that night? I also wanted to make the experience of a prostitute, and I thought Mexico would be as likely a place for that to happen as any…strip clubs meant fuck clubs and the coco meant the bull with not a bother on him…”Yes, I’ll go you pinche cathrons, what time do we leave?”
“One hour” they said in unison, “so meet us here and we’ll head to the airport in 40 minutes…” My mom just laughed and said “hey, sounds good…Chetumal isn’t so bad…it’s Mexico with discos and lots of cars…”
“Done” I said to Jon and slid off my stool. I paced it home along the beach and once there slipped into my best guayavara shirt and trusted bluejeans. I was going to get the whore in me wet, take the two red-eyed sisters of lust and desire and fuck myself into a black corner of the night I had never before seen…
- Michael Price
