Mexico Two

Mexico Two

 

That cabin of the Steinbeck’s became almost a haven for me for a while. There were no phones, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury (well, they did have a series of cisterns for running water).  When I needed to escape the grind of Phoenix, it was a refuge, a place to go and think, a place to go and remember, which is why I suppose I am writing this .

Once, when I lived in Oklahoma, where the fucking wind really did come sweeping down the plains, I remembered the time spent down in the Sea of Cortez.  Remember that girl I mentioned earlier? Yeah well, I woke up next to her one day, but she didn’t really seem to care to remember me much, and no, nothing had happened.

I call myself a slut. Hey, I like having sex, sorry if that bothers you.  Anywho, other than a bit of necking, nothing really transpired, and even that was pretty lame, as we had been enjoying Herr Steinbeck’s libations to quite the 9^th degree. Boy, that Mexican mescal will come back to bite you in the ass…literally.  I really didn’t get much action in Mexico. Maybe because I cared too much for these people to just let them only interact with me for a short while. I am not kidding when I say that I loved, and still love, each and every damned one of them.  They are the best of the best, and my life is so much richer because of them, So, here I was surrounded by a bunch of people that I really didn’t know, and guess what? I felt completely at home instantly.

We danced until the sun came up, or slept until it went down on that hot concrete, and we were content.  Yeah, we had our moments. Someone put cinnamon on N’s face one day and the poor girl had red eyes for the rest of the week, and I helped place an entire tube of toothpaste on John while he was dozing in the afternoon heat. (Sorry Papa J )

The flies flew about as we drank our drinks, the chess pieces moved as Jorge steadily ate through everyone’s defenses except for Jimbo’s. I never could stay awake long enough to watch the two of them finish a game. Jorge’s loquacity is only met by his intelligence, and the two seem to meet at a whirlpool that would make Hedley Lamarr (that’s Hedley) blush…listening to him and Jimbo yap is the equivalent of pure sleeping potion. It’s all in monotone, with the occasional “hehehehehe” from Jim, and the rest of the rhetoric is housed by the spirit of cigar smoke and the clink of glasses.

I know it sounds boring. I loved every minute.

Most of us kept on coming back to the Casa every year, or even more often, as we grew older. There was a certain quietness that floated about there, it made you feel like you were doing  o.k., and the universe really wasn’t out to really get you.

I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds nice.

Of course, you sort of had to be quiet in the summer, as there was no air conditioning at all. Shit, there was no electricity!  A blow dryer was something that was done by consensual adults on the back porch, typically after an early morning fiasco at JJ’s Bar and Cantina. (if you are ever down there, apologize to them for knowing me)  A fan was something imported from China that you had to wave about or made out of a used Sport’s Illustrated mag from underneath the table.  Hell, a cup of cold water could get you a kiss from the girls in the house.  I always ended up making the coffee.  I’m not stupid.

I think the only skill that I did perfect, and I still will put my mitts up against anyone’s on the planet, is that of shucking shrimp. I can de-shell a shrimp faster than anyone I know, and yes, that includes the vein.  I couldn’t afford the bloody things, so in trade, I would skin those little bastards in blinding speed. Spanky came close to me in how many per minute, but with a  bit of Steinbeck Go Juice, I became a master of the shrimp scalping!

On a side note:  Spanky, who I have not seen in a number of years, and do miss horribly, made the best toasted cheese sandwiches I have ever tasted. Mayonnaise. Yep. He puts it on prior to placing the pieces of bread in the skillet, with just a little bit of oil to brown the bread, then toasts them to perfection. He can actually do this even after suffering a head injury, as he did while trying to get to a “naval war” game too fast while we were in Ensenada, Mexico. The stairs were obviously not meant for someone that is 6’2”, and boy, did he clip the hell out of his forehead!  We have a photo of him cooking with a big bloody rag on his head for proof.

Bandage and all, he continued to make sandwiches for all of us, and there were a lot of us, all night long, as we watched yet another game of something (I don’t remember) go terribly awry.

When I play “liar’s dice”, I play to lose.