you can't blame me

we made the promised trip to playa bagdad, in search of vacationer-free waters and bootleg raw oysters. my parents have long grown tired of saying "are you sure it's safe?" i still discussed the recent dead german and fifteen gravely wounded cyclists with them, saying that i'm wise to this city and don't look for trouble.

we made it to the beach without incident, waded in the sea and drank our paper-bagged tecates. 100m down we found a shack with a tanned, grinning woman and her three children and a large pile of oysters. i negotiated a meal of braised bonito, arroz, frijoles refritos, tortillas and a dozen oysters préalablement. we ate with good appetite and listened to an old lady who shooed away the dogs and started to tell us of her life and times. she was either the other client or a relation of the young woman. instead of getting married when she was young, she got a college degree and got a job at a government office in veracruz. she bore two sons, now fully grown, and raised them singly. she now lives between veracruz, puebla (her homeland) and matamoros, and has a boyfriend one of whose children lives in queens. she believes that her life course is something much more reasonable than that of the campesinos poblanos, who have one child for every letter of the alphabet, for every key on the piano, and give them pulque to drink instead of milk or water. we got invited to the kindergarten graduation celebration the following saturday and i left a large tip.

waiting in line to cross the bridge, we got a $0.30 windshield washing and were petitioned by a gringo who had spent all his money on beer and didn't have enough to cross back. when he said "SORRY! DO YOU SPEEEEAK ENGLISH?" i couldn't resist the urge to address him in french. our american customs agent was unsure of himself and took a long time to decide what question he would ask next. i treated him with condescension because i don't like having my movements monitored in my own hometown. my mom said that she knew the guard, and the first time she saw him on duty, she asked him whether he wasn't the same nice boy who bagged groceries at her usual grocery store.

not enough time for traveling these days.