I remember coming home from Korea for good. It was a strange trip, as were many of the trips I took back then. I traveled a long distance in space in a short distance in time. The world around me changed rapidly and my ability to relate to it and to digest and react to the local environmental stimuli did not change as quickly. Luckily, I had experience and training in dealing with entering new cultures and situations. One might not think that returning to one’s native country would require training in dealing with new cultures, but it does. Expatriates often imagine that their home country stays the same while they are gone, and that everything will be the same when they return. This particular journey home served to punctuate how change is as constant and as consistent as the staccato rhythm of rocking train cars on steel rails.
I left Pusan and flew through Kimpo International Airport in Seoul straight to Los Angeles. I remember the approach to LAX very well. I don’t know why it sticks out in my mind. I had never been to LA by that time; I had flown through San Francisco on my way to Korea. I fully expected LA to look like any of the other big cities I had seen from the air. I had just come from Korea, which was at the time the most densely populated country in the world- even more densely populated than Japan. Everywhere in Korea the people congregated in tightly packed population centers in order to preserve the most arable land possible because arable land to the Koreans was a very important resource in the national defense. I thought I would see outlying farmland or unoccupied forest or mountain and then suburban housing and finally the eruption of skyscrapers and ribbons of highway that encircle big cities. Los Angeles was nothing like that. Los Angeles began far out of the center of the city and continued on forever and ever. The height of the buildings remained fairly low and there were no hills that broke up the endless grid of neighborhoods and businesses. In my mind LA was the reason the term “urban sprawl” was coined. It amazed me that people could live there and not go mad.
After shuffling through the velvet ropes and being herded through customs I was deposited outside on a curb at LAX. I don’t know why I was surprised to see palm trees and to feel the warmth of the Southern California air. It was then that I was introduced to LA’s world-famous smog. I waited for a while and was met by Lynne H, who I had worked with in Korea trying to find investors for American inventions, which is another story entirely. After a brief reunion greeting and introduction to a friend who had accompanied her on the trip to the airport I put my bag in the trunk of her large American car and we were on our way to her place in Indio.
Lynne’s friend was trying to draw stories out of her about her long and interesting career as a private investigator and Lynne was trying to get some stories out about the time when she was the first female matador in the Tijuana bullrings. She had planned for us to spend a long weekend in Tijuana to attend a bullfight. It was her intention to provide me an education in the sport, as we had long discussions in Korea about the value of blood sport in the modern era. We got stuck in traffic in Korea-town, a section of LA that is exclusively Korean like Chinatown is Chinese. The people on the street were all ethnic Korean, Korean was being spoken, and the signs were almost all in Korean, but the buildings were distinctly American and the cars were all American. I had not slept in a day and a half, and I had a few minutes of not knowing if I was in Korea or America. My eye was drawn to the Korean stimuli outside the window, but the temperature was definitely not Korean and I was attempting to feign interest in the conflicting conversations about tracking killers and killing bulls. It was a kind of confusing I had not experienced since mefloquine side effects in the Sahel. Eventually Lynne said that they would not bother me any further because I must be exhausted, and I apologetically agreed. The car started moving again and I dozed, waking up in the driveway of one of the dots on the endless grid I had seen from the sky.
Lynne lived with her husband in a middle class home in Indio. Lynne and her husband were in the process of getting a divorce, but were obviously still very good friends. They had been in the process of divorcing for some months and they were still living together. I found that very strange. I was at first a bit concerned that her husband would be uncomfortable with a single man staying under his roof as a guest of his wife’s- I was not completely comfortable with it. Her husband Dave turned out to be a great guy, though, with whom I hit it off immediately. Perhaps he knew the relationship between Lynne and me. I was a friend of Lynne’s boyfriend in Korea. He had introduced me to some business opportunities that never panned out, but I got to know them quite well while we waited for the business to fail. They were quite a bit older than me, so that made my platonic interaction with Lynn in the U.S. that much more believable.
Lynne and Dave set me up in the extra bedroom and insisted that I rest in order to refresh myself after the long journey. I told them that I wanted to try to stay awake as long as I could in order to normalize my schedule as quickly as possible. They insisted a bit more and then acquiesced. All four of us sat at the kitchen table and discussed the itinerary of the journey Lynne and I would take to Tijuana. We would spend two days touring Southern California from the house in Indio and then drive south to Mexico where we would stay in a nice hotel Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night before returning to Indio Monday morning. I would then be put on a train in Santa Barbara for a three day journey back to Massachusetts.
I had never been in Southern California before. After I got out of the Peace Corps I took a trip to Northern California and Colorado with Noah, an old friend from home, but we never got further south than Davis. This was my first chance to soak up the atmosphere of what I had seen on TV and movie screens all my life. While Lynne and “Mrs. Dr. Carter” caught up in the living room I stood outside with Dave grilling steak and drinking a Corona. We talked about the potential for flash floods the same days that there was the potential for flash fires. He told me about treasure hunting with his metal detector and genuinely piqued my interest in it. We talked about differences in the culture of the West Coast and the East Coast. He told me about the nuanced differences between what he called “coastal Southern Californians and desert Southern Californians”. Over the next two days I had the opportunity to carry on different iterations of the same conversation with Dave. As Lynne was preparing me for my Mexican bullfighting education Dave was carrying on my education in Southern California culture. I enjoyed and appreciated his input and I endeavored to observe his lessons in action as I moved through the Southern California days.
Rancho Mirage, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, and Indio were all stops on my whirlwind tour of Southern California. I ate in some of the restaurants that the stars ate in. I attended a rally for South American immigration. I started my one day Spanish language course by shopping on the roadside and ordering at Carl’s Jr., a fast food place we don’t have on the East Coast. I tried to assimilate as much of the total experience as I could. One day we were driving on the highway through the southern part of the city, which as I said, is huge. Lynne’s old American car started to make a thump-thump-thumping noise and I hung my head out the window to see what it might be. One of her retreads had come off, unpeeled from the core of the tire, and was certain to pop, leaving only a tire husk on the side of the highway. I told her what it was and pointed to a gas station at the next exit. I insisted that we stop there so I could throw the spare tire on or get the tire changed. She slowed down as much as she could, but refused to stop. I did not at all understand why she wouldn’t stop. I again let her know, as we passed the exit, that the tire wouldn’t make it very far.
“What does the exit sign say?” she asked.
“Crenshaw Boulevard,” I replied.
“Uh-huh,” she said, by way of explanation. I didn’t get it.
“I don’t get it,” I said. She then explained that white people didn’t stop at Crenshaw Boulevard. Not for a flat tire, not for a raging fire under your hood, not if gremlins swarmed over your vehicle and pulled it apart bolt by bolt. It was not until after I returned to the East Coast that I learned that Crenshaw Boulevard was famous for its gang activity.
I had in the past wondered why one area could be “good” while an adjacent area could be “bad”. The attributes of the land and the resource endowments were the same, what made the difference between a good place and a bad place? I first thought of this regarding Campello, my neighborhood in Brockton, as opposed to West Bridgewater, which is a nice little town on the other side of a political boundary- an imaginary line. I still don’t have an answer, but in Southern California it was much easier to make the distinction. A bad area was brown and a good area was green. This is because the wealthier people can afford water to support their landscape. Indio was mostly brown, but Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage were green. They also had mostly gated communities, in which the people who were keeping the land green were brown. The difference between good and bad areas divided by an imaginary line was about to be completely driven home by the differences across the line that separated San Diego from Tijuana.
The day that we left for Mexico we woke up early and had to lay in provisions for the drive. According to Lynne, no one should go into the desert without extra water, adjustable size belts, and at least one spare tire. She said that people died when their cars gave out in the desert, because of the elements on the U.S. side and because of the elements and the bandits on the Mexican side. I said I found that difficult to believe in the modern era, but she assured me that her tenure as a CHP had proven it. When we were properly provisioned we lit out for the border. I asked if she wanted me to drive for a while, and she said that since I had not driven in so long that it would not be a good idea for me to get behind the wheel on that particular stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway. It was not long into the trip that I realized that she probably was right, but I still wished I was behind the wheel so I could hit the brake at my discretion. She still drove like a CHP, and going over the mountains there were sheer drops of what seemed like thousands of feet. I was in the passenger side so I could easily see the guardrail less than an inch from the door and beyond it the smiling face of St. Peter following his index finger down the list searching the “F”s. When I wasn’t completely terrified I was in awe of the stark beauty of the mountainous desert. There were some similarities to the Sahel that I could see, and in retrospect I can picture some similarities to the edge of the Saudi desert. I knew then as I sat in the passenger seat that there was a magnificent experience to be had out there in the desert, but that I couldn’t ever get an appreciation for it from the seat of a Lincoln.
Thankfully, we stopped at a roadside restaurant and I was able to gather my wits. It was an old working ranch that had been turned into a sort of an attraction. There was ground water there, so originally it was a Pima Indian settlement. The settlement then became the site of a Spanish Catholic mission, and the mission church had been turned into a museum. We went through the museum and it was there that I learned that the Pima had made bread from ground acorns from the many oak trees that grew in the area. My nephew John has some Pima blood, so I took note of all that I could. It was interesting. I had the opportunity to get a buffalo burger in the restaurant. I had never tried buffalo meat, so I got one. I found that it was leaner than beef but less flavorful. If I had to live off the land on the plains I could easily get used to buffalo. The burger was enormous, but I ate the whole thing so I could say that I didn’t waste any part of the buffalo.
We continued on until we could see the ocean, and it too was a rewardingly beautiful sight. The highway ran alongside San Diego for a long while, and to my eye, from the front seat of a car, San Diego looked like a very nice city. If we weren’t trying to check in before nightfall we would have stopped to see Chicano park. Close to the border we saw those highway signs that seem so surreal, the ones with silhouettes of nuclear families in running poses. The signs that make motorists aware that families of illegals may be sprinting across the highway. I couldn’t believe they were real- I still can’t. As we approached the border traffic became stop and go, and we inched toward Mexico.
The border between Mexico and the United States was not at all how I had imagined it. I took a long look at it from afar as we approached and I realized that our southern border is much more porous than I, and I expect many other New Englanders, ever imagined. There were streams of cars on either side of glorified tollbooths and chain link fence. There were stairs leading over the fence funneling foot traffic to the customs checks. It reminded me of the border with Canada, which I had seen several times, but the Mexican border was much browner, hotter, and more sinister. For us blue eyed Caucasians with American passports I thought crossing would be much easier than it would be for Mexican-looking people. I was wrong. Crossing from the United States to Mexico was easy for anyone at all. The U.S. was not trying to keep anyone in and Mexico was not trying to keep anyone out. From the U.S. side of the border the crossing was the inconvenient wait of a traffic jam. On the Mexican side it was an open air bazaar not terribly unlike some of the busier markets I had perused in Africa. In fact, the surroundings and the weather made me think of Bolgatanga. The big difference was that in Africa I could communicate. In TJ I was just another gringo who no hablo Espanol.
We drove through the outskirts of the city and in toward the center, to the hotel near the bullring. There was the first and only time thus far that I have experienced the third world in America. Clearly the people were poverty stricken and clearly they were battling for subsistence on the edge of a bustling city. I saw shacks thrown together out of whatever material was available with naked and barefoot children darting in and out of outdoor cooking fires. In my mind I was reliving visits to squalid villages, but this time there were big American cars parked here and there, and some of the building material was obviously the sheet metal of defunct appliances. In Africa the destitution is set against the background of forested nature, and one does not get the feeling that the people are destitute as much as one gets the feeling that they are only lacking cargo. The people there laugh and smile and fight and drink and love, but they do all those things without the trappings of manufactured stuff all around them. In Tijuana the destitution was clearly juxtaposed against a well developed city, and though I do not know how it affected the occupants of those shanties it saddened me that much more. The sociologist Max Weber wrote that one cannot miss what one has never known, and postulated that those in close proximity to great wealth will feel poverty stricken, even if they can subsist handily. As we drove out of the shanties and into the manicured, palm-lined streets I guessed that he might be right.
We arrived at a hotel whose name now escapes me but was clearly one of the better hotels in the city. It was located close to the bullring and the streets around it were well kept and clean, and so were the people on those streets. The hotel was set up like an old Roman villa, with a large swimming pool in the center and two tiers of large rooms around it in a horseshoe shape. The front of the hotel took up the last side of the pool with the reception area facing the street and a restaurant half in and half out of the covered building, so patrons could either eat in the building or poolside. Upstairs over the restaurant was the nightclub, and there was a swim-up bar inside the pool. We each paid about thirty dollars per night for our large poolside rooms. Each room had twin beds, bathroom and shower, and free HBO. It was a great bargain, and I’d go back in a heartbeat if I had the chance.
We checked in at the hotel and then went out to get something to eat and to meet some of the people to whom Lynne wanted to introduce me. It turned out that the hotel was where the important people in the bullfighting world came to stay during the Tijuana season. The shops and restaurants around the area were the places where one could expect to rub elbows with the bullfighting elite. Lynne really was the first female matador in Tijuana, regardless of how much I wanted to disbelieve her. When we strolled out into the heat of the dusty late afternoon we were met by one after another of well groomed, well heeled, slick middle aged aficionados who stopped Lynne to greet her and schedule some of her time for later conversation. We met critics who wrote for the newspapers in Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Madrid. We met ranchers who were famous for producing the finest bulls in the Americas; the ranchers were celebrities in their own rights. We met picadors and rodeo clowns. We met judges. We met every kind of bullfighting dignitary there is, and they all knew Lynne. I was beginning to think that there was no bullshit in the stories I had heard as we sat by the Pacific with Korean beers eating crunching, wriggling, live things from the sea. At those times in Korea I had the local vocabulary and I knew the powerful people. In this instance, in Tijuana, I was very definitely in Lynne’s world.
Lynne suggested the place to go and when we got there she surreptitiously tipped the maitre d’ to get us seated ahead of the line. She ordered in Spanish and it was there that I was introduced to real Mexican food. I had eaten faux Mexican food at Mexican places in Massachusetts, and it was always good, but I knew in my heart of hearts that it was not authentic. The authentic Mexican food was far more nutritious and delicious than I had had before. The patron spices his or her own food with peppers in Mexico, so the food can be spiced to taste. The Mexican beer was good too. I tried a Tecate because it was so much cheaper than Corona or Dos Equis, and found that I liked it better than Corona but not as well as Dos Equis. Mariachis wandered among the tables serenading people for small donations. I was unused to the local currency and did not know what was considered acceptable as a tip or payment, so I deferred to Lynne’s suggestions of how liberal to be with the pesos. We finished a good meal and made our way back to the hotel to turn in for the night in order to be well refreshed for the full day the next day.
Later that night I was as surprised to see Lynne in the hotel bar as she was to see me. She had assumed that I was still experiencing jetlag, which I was, and that I wouldn’t want to be out after dark, which I did. Lynne was ensconced at a table with some of the bullfighting dignitaries that we had seen on our walk earlier. There were introductions all around again and I got to use my new Spanish phrase, “mucho gusto” until it came as naturally as the Korean it was edging out of my head. I made polite conversation with everyone and was able to communicate so well through clearly spoken English and Spanish and through patient translators that I was warmly received by the who’s who of the bullfighting world. I was invited to tour the bullring the next day and to attend the viewing of the bulls, which is an honor not afforded to any “nuevo aficionado”. I graciously accepted and must admit that I felt quite a bit like Ernest Hemingway.
Lynne asked me to accompany her to the bar to carry drinks even though there was a waiter shuffling drinks to and from the bar. I went. She took the opportunity to apprise me that one of the older gentlemen, a critic from an interior newspaper, was projecting his attentions on her rather forcefully, and that she had told him that we were there as a couple in order to distance him. I had to bite back a laugh because the old codger was well into his seventies to the eye, and Lynne was as much older than me as he was of her. I somberly agreed to bear this in mind as the night progressed and could barely keep from writing a situation comedy on the premise. Sometimes life is funnier than fiction. I have told a couple of people this story as a funny anecdote and they seem to think that this was Lynne’s way of intimating that we should spend the remainder of the weekend as more than traveling companions, and seeing the story in print the telling of it does lead one to believe that. However, I never got the feeling that that was her intention and I was usually rather attuned to such insinuations. I think to properly appreciate it you had to have seen the old critic. Thinking about it still makes me smile. Ha!
Not long after returning with the drinks Lynne took her leave while I was still at the table, making it difficult for the old codger to follow. It was cannily done. I assumed that the folks would take their leave as the night grew long, but apparently no one was going to make the first move. Eventually midnight rolled around and they were all still in attendance. I had drained enough Tecate bottles to render the language chasm a moot issue and was having a good time learning about Mexico, bullfighting, and the individual’s lives. I found out that the slick, handsome, young men on the dance floor who comported themselves like astronauts were actually matadors. The toreros had a fast and loose reputation and were living up to it on this particular night. The dance floor filled up with pretty young girls who acted as satellites dancing around the mainly stationary matadors. The poor slick matadors were terribly outnumbered, but were holding their own famously. As my beery eye lingered on one or the other young girl too long they called me out to the dance floor in English and Spanish, gesturing with their hands and their eyes. I remembered my acquiescence to Lynne’s charade ruefully- the old goat was still at the table! I finished the last beer I had and also took my leave, bested by the gray haired Mexican teenagers. I was later to learn that in Mexico it is not uncommon for people to start their night at ten and only go to bed when the sun comes up.
The sun came through the window’s louver and detonated my head far too early the next morning. I had slept until almost 11:00, but that was OK, because everyone else had too. I rolled out of bed and showered and brushed my teeth. I sat in the hotel’s restaurant and drank some very good strong coffee and had authentic huevos rancheros. My tongue found it excellent, but my stomach thought it a bit heavy. I finished it and took a swim in the pool while waiting for Lynne to come out of her room. I swum up and ordered a Bloody Mary as hair of the dog that bit me. It was all very decadent, but refreshingly so. I was wishing for a Korean mok yok tang and some hae zhang kuk to chase the hangover away. I sat watching the aching and weary Mexicans and gringos emerging from their rooms and felt a twinge of homesickness for the comfort and familiarity of Pusan. I was still dreaming in Korea. The heat and the music reminded me that I was no longer there.
Lynne came in from the street side of the pool. She went to bed so early the night before that she woke up bright and early and went out souvenir shopping. She told me that we would tour the bullring early that afternoon, so I should make my preparations. I let myself float around lazily for a little while longer and then got out and got ready to go. The tour of the bullring was one of the best takes I can remember.
I can remember quite clearly the ride to the bullring on that Saturday afternoon. Lynne didn’t want to drive if she didn’t have to, and I got to experience my first Tijuana taxi ride. The brine of the experience was not the speed of the vehicle or the meandering through the tangle of streets, but rather it was the haggling with the driver over the price of the ride prior to getting into the taxi and then haggling over the price again when we arrived at the destination. There was a meter, but the driver insisted that it did not work. Lynne’s Spanish was impeccable, but the driver pretended not to understand either English or her Spanish. I was tempted to begin haggling in Korean or Ashanti, but I knew that would not get us a better price. Throughout the ride I hung on for dear life and kept my eyes glued on the cityscape zooming by. Lynne commented that I was like a typical first time gringo turista with my neck swiveling around to take it all in. She may not have known, but I was more interested in how many Americans I could see than in the local hawkers or the urban poverty. It crossed my mind that the lure of life in the charming slow lane might attract quite a few American expatriates, and I wondered if there were a significant amount of Americans who made their homes in Mexico or if the Mexican lifestyle exerted cultural force on Southern California or Texas and slowed the pace of life in the abutting areas of those states.
We arrived at the bullring and Lynne paid with dollars while I fumbled with dollars, pesos, and Korean won. I told her I’d pay on the way back and asked if there were anywhere I could change Korean money. By way of answer she only laughed.
We were met by some of the crowd from the previous night. The facility was closed to the public and our tour would be a unique, uninhibited experience. The critics were very nice to me and walked me around the facility. There were people in various stages of preparation and as we approached each was happy to be interrupted in his work and describe what it was he was doing. Many of the hands working directly with the horses and the bulls appeared very gruff. They were hard working men who were short in their answers and obsequious to no one. Although I could not understand their speech I knew their responses were terse and utilitarian. They had a large metal tub in the stable filled with ice and cans of Tecate, which they held and disposed of nonchalantly. They didn’t care at all that they were working or that people were watching. They reminded me of construction workers in New England, and though we couldn’t really talk, I liked them anyway.
We met picadors and matadors walking the ring in teams. I didn’t realize that the picadors and matadors colluded so closely in formulating their strategies to conquer the bulls. The actual bull fighters were deferent to the critics, and it was clear that they were interested in influencing their press at any opportunity. I could tell that they were trying to advance their careers just like so many businessmen at cocktail parties, trying to leave powerful people with positive impressions about them. I thought that they may have overdone it a bit, in light of the fact that the world would be able to see how skilled they were or were not at their craft the very next day in the center of the ring.
All the while we were meeting and talking the critic from Los Angeles was progressing my education about the sport as a whole and about the constituent parts as we encountered them. I think she most appreciated my lack of understanding of the sport and could sense how interested I really was. I would be doing the sport a terrible wrong if I attempted to paraphrase the lessons of that day, so I will not. I was not so surprised to learn that there were matadors who were more European than Indian, even though they were all Mestizos. The whiter matadors played to their whiter, more affluent crowds who could afford seats in the shaded area of the arena, the “sombra”, while the darker matadors played to their proletariat supporters in the sun-struck, or “sol” part of the arena. The critic made me promise to take note of the placement of the bulls the next day as the two matadors worked their charges. I said I would, and I did, and she was right.
I was brought to meet the rancher who provided the bulls. I had sat next to him the night before and we had some exchanges that began as probing questions and probable answers intimated through gestures and long shot vocabulary. Toward the end of my night I had begun to substitute some high school French for Spanish, thinking it might be understood. Surprisingly, some of it was. On more than one occasion during our exchanges we were quite obviously following separate lines of inquiry and response, and building on our erroneous one-sided conversations. For example, he would say something that I would interpret to be a question about life in Korea, and I would do my best to be understood in my response. He would gesticulate and lean in to be heard over the music and then nod knowingly, and I would assume he had built on my response or asked a follow-up question. When eventually, incontrovertibly, we knew that we were on different wavelengths we broke down into the kind of laughter that is self perpetuating; the kind of laughter that precludes all propriety and is so conspicuous as to draw stares from adjacent tables. Because we were unable to communicate verbally we connected on a level more rudimentary than cerebral, and we had a good time. I learned from the Los Angeles critic that he was fabulously wealthy (he was very well turned out) and that he paid for our night of revelry.
He was happy to see me and we laughed at our shared gestures indicating aching heads in the morning. I gave him Korean cigarettes; he gave me a Cuban cigar. He took care to explain about the bloodlines of the bulls he raised and how they stretched across the globe. The critic translated quite clearly and took care to verify that I understood. By the time our brief conversation was over I had a much deeper appreciation of the importance of the breeding and ranching of the bulls to the sport itself. The ranchers were as important to the sport as the matadors. I also had an invitation to the ranch, where apparently I could stay as long as I wanted in perfect comfort. As I asked the critic to translate my inability to accept his hospitality she intimated that this was perhaps an opportunity I should not pass up. I promised to think about it and reply by Sunday night.
The critic took her leave to rub elbows with movers and shakers, as the tour was at its end, and I thanked her profusely. I shook hands with the toreros and bad them be careful in their conflicts the next day. I wandered into the holding pens again to internalize the fear I had of these massive animals. Casually I pulled a Tecate out of the tub and cracked it. The hands gave me a cursory glance and left me to my own devices.
As it stood I didn’t have to pay for the taxi back to the hotel. We caught a ride with some of the out of town bullfighting dignitaries. Lynne and I agreed to relax for a while and reconvene for a late lunch or early dinner and some sightseeing and souvenir shopping. I went back to my room to bathe and relax. I then went to the front desk and changed some dollars for pesos, only to find out later that I never needed to. I drank some tea and took a quick siesta and woke to a knock on my door.
Lynne took me to a part of the city that had open air cafes with overhead misting tubes like there were in Palm Springs. She said that this part of town was where we would find the most developed amenities. I told her that it was very nice, but that I wanted to see something a bit less cosmopolitan, that I wanted to take in a bit of the local color. She understood and asked what, particularly, I had in mind. I asked her to take me to a place she used to frequent when she was living there fighting bulls. She laughed and said that all of those places were gone, thankfully, and that she outgrew them for her own safety. We went to a place I’ll never forget, though I’ll never remember where it is. We took a cab to somewhere close to but not in the barrios we drove through the day before. We got out, walked for a while, and abruptly ducked into a shabby building’s basement. Along the sidewalk outside I was sure there were eyes on us that we could not see. I had just gotten one of those strong feelings, like I had when the British soldier had his sniper rifle’s crosshairs on my neck, but I never found the source of my unease. We walked into the small, dim basement eatery and Lynne sat directly at a high table on the side, and I sat opposite her. The place looked like it was a storage room that had been converted into a business. Lynne ordered a local specialty for both of us and it was somehow, magically, exactly what the doctor ordered. I’m under the impression still that it was some kind of pulled pork on a bed of rice, but it reversed all of the gastrointestinal issues I could tell were mounting. There were no other gringos in the place. There were probably six or seven guys and they were all drunk. They were not happily sharing a drink with some friends on a fanciful afternoon; they were about the business of drinking heavily. They had bottles of tequila sitting on their tables and they drank, shuddered, and poured again. There was no question that they were drinking to numb out the heat, smoke, and stench of the world outside the door that was their lives. I had been in many such drinking parlors in Africa, but none of them had food this good. I was just waiting for one of the drinkers’ anger at the world to be turned toward us in the form of shouting, mumbled insults, or loud insistence that we buy booze for the locals. I had steeled myself for a conflict that never came. I was unused to being one of such a prevalent minority. Gringos stood out here, but I guess were common enough to be window dressing.
Leaving the eatery, we headed toward an outdoor market where tourists normally shopped for trinkets. It was pretty busy but the sellers weren’t as aggressive as I thought they would be. Many of them waited for the buyers to approach them. I was told by Lynne and “Mrs. Dr. Carter” back in Indio that the popular things to buy for souvenirs were vanilla, tequila, and hand woven blankets. I bargained a bit and bought a couple of things. I didn’t stick to my prices like I would have in Africa or would later in Hong Kong because my heart wasn’t truly in it. I was bargaining for tourist trinkets because I felt I should, not because I really wanted to or needed anything.
We again returned to the hotel to repose until the evening’s activities were to begin. By this time I knew that the night would start late and would go late, so I half dozed and watched a movie. I got the distinct idea that it was not problematic for Mexicans to have several late nights in a row. In Korea there could be a holiday or festival or even just a Saturday night that allowed people to get out and blow off steam, but you wouldn’t see the same people out the very next night doing the same thing. This was to be my brush with the Latin lifestyle, and I was just a bit rueful that it would be spent with a group of people out of my age group.
We all got together at the hotel bar and decided that we would go out to where the matadors said they were going to be for the night. They went to Senor Frog’s, which I was to learn was a modern franchise bar that was famous for its outrageous youthful benders. The critics said that there were matadors from around the circuit who were in town to watch the bullfight tomorrow, to check out the competition, and they were all going to Senor Frog’s. We decided we would go along as well.
We took a taxi there and when we got to the parking lot I knew this would not be a low key night with elders. The place was packed with young people and there was a pervasive nervous energy that ran through the line of people queued up to get inside like electricity. I thought the older people might be put off or feel out of place, but they were as embroiled in the atmosphere as any of the youths. My earlier rue about the company was misplaced. When we got to the front of the line I realized there was a metal detector at the door, and there were security guards frisking the patrons before allowing them entry. This gave me pause and made me wonder a bit. The critic from Los Angeles voiced her concern about the relative safety of the place if there were such stringent security measures, and the rancher, I think, shouted her down, cajoling her for her lack of adventurous spirit. Lynne’s translation proved me right, and we all went inside.
When we got inside the rancher insisted that some of the workers put tables together to accommodate our party, which was large. While they were at that I went to the bar to get drinks for ladies with whom I was standing. One wanted a mixed drink and one wanted wine. I wondered how I would order these drinks, trying to remember the drabs of Spanish that I had picked up over the last couple of days. I looked around for the bar. The place was exactly like so many modern bars all around the world. It had an open floor plan with high ceilings with ceiling fans and subdued décor. The bar was long and made of hardwood, and was conspicuously stocked with every kind of liquor known to man. There were two bartenders and people were stacked up three deep waiting to be served. I waited patiently and when I got to the front I started to stammer out my order in weak, faltering Spanish. The bartender motioned for my to move my head closer so we could hear each other over the music.
“Just tell me what the hell you want!” he shouted in my ear. I guess they got a lot of Americans there. I gave him my order, chuckling to myself, and when I told him I wanted beer he asked me if I wanted a big one or a small one. To me that was an unnecessary question, and I quickly said that I wanted a big one. What I did not realize was that a small beer was a bucket of ice with four pony Coronas stuck in the ice and a big beer was a bucket of ice with seven pony Coronas stuck in the ice. I paid and tipped the bartender and struggled back through the crowd to the table. I had to explain my misunderstanding and asked anyone if they cared for a little beer. There were no takers.
Because the tables were pushed together the outside table almost touched the dance floor. There was only one unoccupied seat and it was at the very end. I sat there and put the bucket of beer on the table. I was taking in the atmosphere and watching the people as they drank and danced and bounced around. Everyone was fashionable and everyone was well aware that they were seeing and being seen. The scene was both avant-garde and high society at the same time. I tried in vain to carry on a conversation above the oppressively loud music but soon settled in to enjoy the unique experience for what it was.
I had only gotten halfway through my first beer when the fight broke out. Apparently one of the out of town bullfighters was dancing with the girlfriend of a local bullfighter, which is offensive enough in and of itself, but he had also taken liberties considered to be inappropriate with the girl. I was to learn that this was the immediate cause for a long standing rivalry to manifest itself as a violent incident. There were associated parties aware of the situation all around the bar, and when the two principal antagonists began throwing punches, they all did. Just like in a movie the entire place erupted as if on cue. Half of the crowd went down in tangles of appendages like in real fights, but a fair few remained on their feet swinging fists and hurling glasses. I was not in a mood to get involved in a fight of any sort in Tijuana because I had heard that Mexican jails were not hospitable places to be, and none of my next of kin knew that I was in North America, never mind that I was in Tijuana. I sat rigidly at the end of the table trying to stay alert in case some projectile or other should encroach on one of the ladies with whom I was sitting. Although I was just sitting down I had adrenaline coursing through my veins and I was more awake than I had been in a long time. Across the dance floor two guys were locked in combat. The one with his back to me leaned over a table to grab some utensil to use as a weapon of opportunity and his counterpart rushed him and grabbed him under the arms while continuing the charge. The one with his back to me had to backpedal in order to keep from losing his footing, and the charger raced with him all the way across the dance floor. I kept my eye on these two until I realized that they would arrive at our table in a second. Thinking quickly I grabbed the beers off of the landing zone and placed them on the floor by my side. No sooner was the beer safe from harm than two angry, sweating, cursing Mexican youths landed on our table. For a second the scene was laughably grotesque. These two guys were struggling in a battle of physical strength, I was holding a half full beer above them, and on the other side a middle aged Mexican woman was loudly berating them both, as if they were her children. The one contacting the table rolled off and took the assailant with him to continue their struggle on the floor. Out of nowhere police and security guards appeared and swept everyone on the floor out toward the door in a practiced maneuver. Because I replaced the bucket to its original spot, was evidently unflustered, and continued drinking the beer, I was left alone as were the rest of the patrons at our tables. The entire incident took no more than six or seven minutes tops.
The clientele with whom I had arrived decided that it would not be wise to stay, and we took our leave of the place and the brooding crowd of sanguine youths in the parking lot. One of the doormen advised me not to take the bucket, but encouraged me to secret the remaining bottles around my person for carriage back to the hotel. When I did, I realized just how cold beers left in a bucket of ice can get. When we got back to the hotel everyone said their goodnights, but I had the same hum in my ears that I had after boxing matches at college, so I took my tiny beers poolside and went for a swim while admiring the stars. As I toweled off and was putting myself to bed I thought of what a strange sequence of events filled up the day and I thought about the bullfight I was to see the next day. That night I dreamt of the time I was swept off the streets by the Korean military and in my dream the Korean language filled my ears. In reality it was an argument between two of the domestic workers at the hotel that woke me up, jolting me into a world of loud, angry Spanish. I took a leak and wondered how much weirder it could get.
The next day we woke up and had breakfast together and went to the bullring. The atmosphere was one of festivity. There were people selling programs and there were hawkers of all sorts outside the arena. We went inside and took our seats on the “sombra” side. The people with whom we had been interacting up until that point were sequestered away in special press boxes and judges stands. Lynne told me that sitting in among the people was the best way to experience a bullfight. She explained the entire event as it unfolded, and the electricity of the event was undeniable. According to Lynne, and later all of the others, there could be no better bullfight to attend as one’s first. It was rife with drama, courage, honor, and violence. The first matador was the European looking Mexican who worked his bull masterfully and dispatched him with workmanlike efficiency. His muleta work was a study in form and finesse. The shouts of “ole!” that welled up from the crowd were well deserved and heartfelt. We had the best view of his work because he brought the bull to our side, as the critic said he would. The judges awarded him both ears and the tail, showing he had earned the prize of their respect. The second matador was the dark mestizo who waved off the picadors so his bull would not be too wounded to be spirited. He brought the bull to the “sol” side of the arena, and took bold chances with him. His bull seemed angrier than the one before him and one could feel the malicious rage as he flailed his murderous horns harmlessly through the empty cape, until he finally located the matador and gored him horribly, throwing him over his horns and through the air. The first matador was called to draw the bull away as assistants dragged the wounded matador outside the ring. The first matador had gotten the bull’s attention and then had jumped over the boards as he approached. The bull found himself to be the only one in the ring for a short while, and his rage played out alongside his confusion. Lynne explained that in the event that a matador is gored the other matador on the day must finish his bull. She further explained that once the bull has figured out to go for the person instead of the cape, they are infinitely more dangerous. She said that this was the case with almost all bulls who were allowed to live to sire the great lines that were sent to Europe. This was obviously no consolation to the first matador who knew the danger he was in as he reentered the ring. He was visibly shaken and fearful. He had not taken the same chances as the first matador and his bull had been less dangerous from the outset. He approached the bull and allowed one or two wide passes, then he retired as far away from the bull as he could get. The audience, including me, was rapt. In my mind this had gone from a guy fighting a bull to a bull fighting a guy, and the bull had the upper hoof, so to speak. Then the wounded matador limped back into the ring, using his sword as a crutch, determined to finish the bull or let the bull finish him. The lighter skinned matador was visibly relieved and hopped the boards without being asked. The crowd who had been happy to oblige the stand in matador with “ole!” broke into a chant of “Torero! Torero!” stomping the aisles of the arena in cadence and making the entire structure shake. I knew this man had come to kill this animal, but his courage was undeniable. The bull seemed to recognize his assailant and attacked him at once. The matador allowed a few close passes, going down on one knee and leaning an arm on the ground for support, but always keeping the bull’s blood pumping out of its body. Then, when the matador could no longer muster the strength to work the cape he had to deliver the coup de grace, and there was only one way to do it. He lured the bull into a full charge straight at him, at the last moment throwing the cape to the ground and fully exposing his body. When the bull lowered his head to gore the matador, the matador placed his hand between the bull’s eyes and leapt over his horns to plunge the sword down between his shoulder blades and through the heart. The noble bull instantly fell in a heap, and the matador collapsed.
The crowd had gone absolutely wild and the arena was in complete pandemonium. Medics had run to the field to take the matador away and were assailed by a hail of flowers that piled up on top of him on the stretcher as he was removed. A judge came to the center of the ring after conferring with his compatriots and held up the ears, feet, and tail, indicating that the matador had earned them all, because the matador could not receive them. Lynne told me that no one would leave the grounds until they learned the fate of the matador, so I flagged down the beer guy and bought a Tecate. We stayed on site until it was announced over the loudspeaker that the matador would be able to make a full recovery in time.
The critics had all run for interviews and to make sure their articles would make the press times for their publications. The ranchers were aggressively marketing the bull’s progeny to principal parties from around South America and Europe. Lynne and I went out for dinner to discuss the afternoon, and after dinner she went in search of an old friend who she said she absolutely had to see before we left the following morning. I went back to the hotel to rest. I turned on the air conditioner and watched a movie, but eventually grew restless and went back to the hotel bar. A lively crowd had gathered again and the bullfight was the topic of conversation. I was again beckoned by a local nymph I had seen there previously. Her name was Matilda, which I thought an odd name for a Mexican girl.
The next morning we were able to prepare, take our leave, and depart at our leisure. We had a much longer wait at the border and were subject to questioning and a cursory search of the vehicle prior to being allowed to cross back to the U.S. side. It was a relaxing ride back to Indio. Lynne did not risk life and limb on the highway this time. I had the same distinct and comforting feeling that I used to get on rides home from the beach in the back of the family station wagon as a child. We got back to the house in Indio and unwound with some languid pleasant conversation about the trip. We called it an early night in preparation for an early day.
The next morning we got up early and Dave drove us to Santa Barbara. I said my goodbyes and thanked them for a wonderful re-introduction to American life. We promised to keep in touch, which we didn’t. I got on the Southwest Chief which would take me through Albuquerque and Flagstaff and then follow the Mississippi up to Chicago. I purposely took a three day train journey so I could remain anonymous and acclimate myself back to American life. I sat in the viewing car and watched the desert roll by until it became a flooded plain in Missouri that looked like an inland sea. By the time I got to Chicago to get on the Lakeshore Limited I had resigned myself to putting on a tie and crawling into an office for a regular nine-to-five job that would drive me crazy. Of course it would only be a few short weeks later that I would be moving into my house in Hawaii and catching my first few waves off the leeward coast of Oahu.
