You will find short stories on this site. Most are autobiographical. Some are fiction.

SECOND CLASS BUS TO MEXICO CITY

I found a hotel near the international bridge in El Paso and got a good night’s sleep. In the morning, I walked back over the bridge to Juarez and took a cab to the bus station. It was a short ride. Had I known how near the bus station was to the bridge, I would have walked. The cab’s meter read 48 pesos, the equivalent of $4.00, an exorbitant price for such a short ride, I thought. I had no pesos. The smallest bill I had was ten dollars. I gave it to the cab driver. He put it in his pocket and said nothing. For a long moment, he waited for me to get out, thinking that I did not know how much the fare was in dollars. I reached my hand out for my change. He refused to give it to me. We argued briefly before I realized that it was futile. I grabbed my backpack and slid out of his cab. Glancing back, I saw a wide black streak across the seat where I had dragged my backpack. It wasn’t there when I got into the cab. I got out and slammed the door. He sped off. I looked at my backpack and realized that the bottle of Indian ink I had brought for sketching had opened and left a permanent streak across his rear seat upholstery. I would have felt terrible had he been a decent chap and given me my change. But as it was, I felt that he got what he deserved. I moved quickly to get off the street where he might find me when he saw the streak.

The bus departed at 8:30 AM. It was 7:00. I had time for breakfast. I was standing in front of a small cafe. I entered and sat at the counter. In my clearest Spanish, I told the waiter, “Juavos Revueltos”. I had been practicing with a Spanish language tape and thought that I had a handle on the pronunciation of such common terms. The waiter looked at me like I had been speaking Turkish. With a sarcastic look, he asked me, “Qui”? Again I said “Huevos Revueltos”. He shrugged and turned away. He returned and handed me a bowl of cornflakes with milk. After I had eaten the cornflakes, I was still hungry and asked for “Pan e la mantequilla.” This time, he recognized my butchered Spanish and brought me two rolls and butter. I ate one and put the other in my jacket pocket, thinking I might starve before getting to a restaurant where English was spoken. “ I found that roll in my pocket four days later. It had dried and was reduced to a handful of crumbs.

The bus trip from Jurez to Distrito Federal ( Mexico City) took two days. We made rest stops periodically for meals and toilets. I didn’t try to speak Spanish. Instead, I was able to buy snacks by pointing at the item I desired. Most of the restrooms at these stops were filthy. The toilet in one did not flush. Many people had used it anyway.

Riding on a bus for two days provides an opportunity to chat with other passengers. Among them was an attractive Mexican woman of my age. I introduced myself to her. To my surprise, she spoke English without an accent. She was returning to her home in Mexico City. She was a student at UCLA pursuing a law degree. Also on the bus were three students returning to Mexico City College from their homes in the US. They told me about the college. They described it as being in the mountains outside of crowded Mexico City. It sounded idyllic. While I got their contact information, I had no intention of ever contacting them, as I was going to find a job on a freighter out of Veracruz.

VERACRUZ

The bus from Juarez arrived in Mexico City early in the morning. I had breakfast and boarded a bus to Veracruz. It was Friday. I was anxious to make arrangements to sign on to a ship. When I arrived in Veracruz, I went directly to the port. There I found warehouses and ships, but no people. I looked for offices of shipping companies but only found locked doors. Disheartened, I returned to town to find a hotel for the night. At the hotel, I was told that they were booked full because it was the start of Mardigras weekend. Ah, I realized then why the port had been closed. The hotel clerk told me that I could rent a cot in the courtyard. I agreed, imagining sleeping under trees, perhaps with a bubbling fountain. The clerk led me to the “courtyard”. There were no trees, no fountains, nothing of the garden I had envisioned. Instead, it was a paved space surrounded by a three-story hotel. The paved surface was covered with cots. Rows upon rows of them. There was just enough space between cots to walk. The clerk took me to one in the middle of this sea of cots and said, “This one is yours.” How, I wondered, will I be able to find this one cot when I return from dinner? Other cots had tokens of ownership left on them, so I put my valuables in my pockets and left my backpack on my cot. No one will want to steal this, I thought as I left it with the India ink stain in sight. I went back out to the street to find a restaurant.

It was early evening when I finished my dinner. The night was warm. I had time to kill before facing the night on a cot in a sea of snoring revelers. I decided to go for a walk. The streets were filled with people in a festive mood. Caught up in the carnival crowd, I was swept along until we passed through traffic barricades and blended into the mass of people filling the zocalo. The central plaza of Veracruz is a park occupying a city block. It had meandering paths among a few trees and shrubs. There was an ornate fountain in the center. Like any other city block, the zocalo was surrounded by streets. Opposite the park, these streets were lined by buildings. Most of them were one or two-story shops and restaurants. There were two exceptions: a three-story hotel and the imposing Catholic Church. The hotel sat back from the street on an elevated platform which was surrounded by outdoor seating and potted plants. It was accessed from the street by a broad staircase. On this occasion, the platform served as the stage for a mariachi band. Their playing filled the zocalo with lively music, adding to the festive mood of the carnival festivities.

A dozen young men were milling around in the street in front of the hotel. They seemed anxious, as if they were anticipating some event. Then I noticed a black sedan approaching that street, moving slowly through past the traffic barricades. All other vehicles were blocked from entering the streets surrounding the zocalo so this one was and accepted exception. It was honking its horn as it proceed through the crowd towards the zocalo. The people stood back to let it pass. Everyone seemed to know what was going on. I had no clue. The crowd’s attention was now focused on this sedan. It stopped in the middle of the intersection of the street that ran in front of the hotel. The door of the sedan swung open, and a very tall, muscular woman stepped out. This transvestite was dressed in elaborately colorful women’s clothing. She had an exaggerated bosom. She wore a wig and a large, flowery bonnet. She immediately began walking down the center of the street past the hotel. The young men ran at her as if they were rats and she the cheese. As they grabbed onto this powerful woman, she tossed them aside and kept moving. The young men could not stop her forward progress. The crowd cheered and yelled at this traditional battle between men and a woman being enacted before them. Someone told me that the object was for her to walk the one city block to the Catholic Church at the other end of the Zocalo. While it seemed violent, it was not. There was no hitting or anger in this ritual. Instead, there was light-hearted shouting and laughter among the young men as they attempted to stop the giant woman. When she was about halfway to her objective, the young men became organized and mobbed the great dame all at once. She could no longer toss them aside. Instead, the scene changed, becoming a mass of humanity pushing in all directions, with one tall human in a flowered hat in the center slowly, inexorably, moving to the church at the end of the Zocalo. As this event dissipated, another began to take place.

Young women, dressed in holiday clothing, began circling the Zocalo in the street. They moved in a clockwise direction. More young women joined until the Zocalo was encircled with a ring of pretty girls in brightly colored dresses. Young men formed a second ring outside of the girls. The men’s line rotated in the opposite direction. There was much banter among the men as they passed the more demure women. This looked like it would go on for a long time. It was late. I was exhausted from a long day following a two day bus ride. I worked my way through the crowd and walked back to my cot in the hotel “courtyard”.

As I drifted off to sleep, amid the many hushed conversations in Spanish, I considered my options. The port would not open until the Mardigras celebrations had ended. As I lay on that cot, surrounded by a sea of cots within that hotel “courtyard,” I thought about classes starting back at U of O. I began to miss the academic life. I found myself thinking about the loving way the students on the bus had described Mexico City College. The prospect of working on a ship did not seem so desirable now. In the morning, I took the bus back to Mexico City. I phoned one of the students whom I had met on the bus. We agreed to meet at the college the following day.