When Roberto Diego had left and they were alone
again, Angela suggested that they get out and explore
the town a little. Craig thought that was a waste of
time, seeing as how they had to get back on the road
early in the morning, as well as the fact that this
was just some sleepy little tourist town,
interchangeable with all the other towns along the
border. "No," he said, "I don’t think there’s
anything wrong with staying right here and getting
wasted. Besides, it’s dangerous out there. There’s
all manner of Mexican police patroling the streets and
whatnot."
Angela looked into Craig’s eyes and thought she saw
the glimmer of a little boy, hungry and alone. Not
hungry for food, but she thought she’d give it a shot
anyway. "Hey the hotel man said there was a pretty
good restaurant just down the road. Rosie’s Cantina
was I think what he called it. Let’s see how we feel
once we’ve got some homemade-style enchiladas in us,
hmmmm? Who knows, maybe we can even get to know each
other a little better." She took Craig by the hand
and led him out of the hotel.
Though night had fallen it was still relatively
early, and there were actually a lot of people on the
street. It seemed that the Desert Chihuahua was far
enough from the border side of town that the number of
tourists in the crowd was rather minimal, though they
could still see a few tall out-of-place looking people
in white t-shirts with various beer logos who
obviously had not been born on that side of the river.
They walked in the direction Roberto had indicated
and after a few minutes found a lively place with a
broken down "Rosie’s" sign hanging out front.
Maybe it was her imagination, but Angela sensed a
slight lull in the roar of the crowded place as she
and Craig entered the room and a few heads turned to
look their way. The two of them found a small,
beer-stained table near the back and waited for
someone to bring them some kind of menu from which
they could order. A short, plump smiling senorita was
soon standing in front of them with the list of
available delicacies. Only half of one of the pages
of the rather oversized menu was actually devoted to
food, the rest of the pages being taken up with lists
of various beers and tequilas from which they could
partake. They ended up ordering a large order of
"goat fajitas" (as Craig had translated it) to share,
and a pitcher of margaritas. As they waited for the
food, Angela surveyed the scene around them.
The main part of the cantina was a large open room,
reminiscent of an old west saloon, although all the
signs here were in spanish. It was also rather dark,
lit only by strands of multicolored Christmas lights
that hung strategically around the room, many of them
anchored to the longhorn skulls that lined the walls
of the place. Other than that, it seemed that every
inch of available wall space had some kind of
advertisement, sign or poster for alcohol. It was
quite a collection, actually, with several items that
appeared to be many decades old.
The overwhelming gender in the place seemed to be
male, although there were a few women scattered about
here and there. While she and Craig were sitting
there a small mariachi band set up on the little stage
in the far corner of the room and started playing
mexican dance hits of the thirties. The few men in
Rosie’s who were accompanied by women got up at this
point and started to salsa dance with their dates in
the rather limited space in front of the stage. Some
of the men were at least twice as big and twice as old
as the apparently barely-legal girls they danced with (which seemed a bit
sketchy to Angela), but soon she could also make out a
few older couples dancing cheek to cheek and as if
they had had a great deal of practice over the course
of their lives.
"Hey, do you know how to Lambada?" she asked Craig,
who seemed to be finally getting into the mood of the
place, tapping his glass as he watched the swirl of
energetic musicians and dancers on the other side. He
laughed and said no, maybe they could practice tonight
in private before showing off at whatever hot spot
they happened to be at the next night.
Angela started to see why Tina had discounted this
guy. Despite his cool, flashy exterior, this guy had
all the personality of a wet sock. She had imagined
from his looks and his stories that he was some kind
of social animal who could take charge of a situation
and easily fall into the role of the Life of the
Party. But Mexico seemed to have taken all the fire
out of him. Or maybe it wasn’t Mexico.
She leaned over the table and looked him straight in
the eye. "Craig," she said, "all the way to Mexico
you told me your whole life story as if it was an
entertaining joke you had told a hundred times, maybe
a thousand times. But I still don’t feel like I know
anything about you. And to be honest, I really don’t
know if its worth the effort to get too close to you.
Is this thing going to go anywhere, and do either of
us really want it to? I haven’t told you a thing
about myself, and to tell you the truth, you haven’t
seemed all that interested. The only thing that seems
to interest you is my wavering and drastically
uncertain desire to sleep with you. Tell me now, do
you see me as a person or as some kind of conquest for
your history book? Do we really have anything in
common at all, or it this going to be some kind of
ephemeral physical thing that we’re going to forget
or worse, wish we could forget?"
Craig didn’t answer immediately, but seemed to be
intently listening to everything she was saying. He
had straightened up in his chair and leaned a little
bit closer to her, his right index finger playing with the rim of his
margarita. As he took another drink, she continued.
"I don’t know if Tina told you all about me or not,
but there really isn’t much to tell, not much that
would interest you, anyway. The main thing is that
generally, and I’m talking about ninety-nine percent of
the time, I really don’t enjoy being around other
people. In fact, truth be known, I despise other
living beings on a regular basis. For a large part of
my life my only friend in the world was this silly old
cat who probably couldn’t even tell me apart from any
other person he sat on.
"Somehow you and Tina have brought out another side of me
that I'm not used to, that I really had no idea
existed before this year. With you I feel like I’m a
real person, actually a member of the human race,
participating actively in the human experience. But I
must admit the glow is waning, and the effect you two
have on me seems to be wearing off. I don’t know if
you’ve talked to Tina recently, or if you’re still
sleeping with her, but she and I don’t really spend
time together anymore.
"Sometime after the first year of college began I
ran into Tina on campus. We had both gone to the same
high school, but we hadn’t really known each other
very well in high school and we didn’t have any idea
that we were going to the same college. I looked a
little bit different in high school, in fact I’m not
sure you would have been that attracted to me if you
had known me a couple of years ago, and like I said, I
didn’t have any friends. I mean none at all. Except
Marvin, the cat, like I said earlier.
"In high school I remember Tina always being very
popular, but I had also overheard that she had a bad
reputation as well and there were a few rumors
circulating around about her being a little too much
of a party-er, and the fact that it seemed she had
slept with the entire Lacrosse team, among other
things. So in fact though she was popular and in all
the right cliques, there were still a lot of people in
the school saying a lot of mean things about her, most
of which were not true. Except for the thing about
the Lacrosse team, she personally verified the
veracity of that one for me." Craig laughed despite
himself, but quickly regained his composure and
continued to listen fervently, apparently enthralled
by everything Angela was saying.
"So though I didn’t ever talk to her in high school,"
Angela went on, "I still had this kind of mix of pity
and admiration for the girl. When we later met on the
Trinity campus in February, we both recognized each
other. Oh yeah, though we had never met in high
school she knew who I was too. I went to a relatively
small high school, only about two thousand students,
and everyone knew who I was because of the way I
looked. It was not a pretty sight, let’s just leave
it at that. But when I saw Tina at Trinity she smiled
with recognition and immediately asked me how I was
and we went and had a drink and really hit it off. I
don’t know, I think she was at a rather low point in
her life, she wasn’t quite prepared for college so she
wasn’t doing that well academically, though she is
actually a very intelligent woman."
"Somehow these circumstances, and her kindness and
seeming total acceptance of me led me to actually
trust her, though I had not really trusted another
human being before that. But like I said I didn’t
have a lot of human contact growing up and Tina was
regrettably the first person I had met who actually
seemed to care about me. And I was already nineteen
years old! Pretty pathetic, huh?"
"So what’s happened between you guys?," interjected
Craig. "What broke up the friendship? To tell you the
truth, I haven’t talked to her too much lately
either." He looked down at his hands and then back up
into Angela’s eyes. "I guess I’ve been a little busy
with other things."
"Well that’s just it," said Angela. "It was you. I
guess after you met me -- and I’m not saying that this
has anything to do with it, that’s something you’re
going to have to clear up -- after you met me you
didn’t seem as interested in Tina anymore. So
especially with the fact that you invited me to go to
Mexico with you, I don’t know, I guess that hurt her
to an extent. So after that she just kept bringing up
the fact that you had asked me to go to Mexico and I
had agreed and we had only just met.
"I don’t know, I think even though she probably
thought she was my friend, and I know I thought she
was my friend, either she had a very low opinion of me
or a very high opinion of you. And the latter didn’t
really seem to be an option because -- and I probably
shouldn’t tell you this, but I think all the alcohol
of the day is finally getting to me, well, actually,
I’m sure of it because I’ve never talked so much in my
life and, oh god, you’re probably actually bored quite
stiff but you really have this great ‘I’m listening’
look, which you have probably honed to a fine art, but
it is quite effective, just so you know. Anyway,
where was I, oh yeah, I probably shouldn’t be telling
you this but she never really said anything nice about
you at all. And don’t tell me that she was just
trying to keep you all to herself because she didn’t
even have to introduce us in the first place."
It was now Craig’s turn to say something. Angela sat
back in her chair and fastened her lips tight around
her margarita, motioning with her hands for him to
speak. While she had been talking the waitress had brought
a huge tray (she looked like Atlas, carrying that
tray) of fajitas for the two of them, with all the
amenities. After downing her current glass, she
refilled it and then started to plan her attack on the
food. Meanwhile, on the other side of the table,
Craig still hadn’t said anything yet. Finally, after
a pregnant pause that seemed to last forever, he
started to talk. He had in the interval decided that
if he was to have any chance at all with this woman he
should just say whatever came into his mind and in
that way, he hoped and prayed, he would allay all of
her fears and she would see that he was wonderful and
she had nothing to worry about.
"The thing is that I really like Tina," he started,
and instantly wished he had begun with a different
opening. "I really like Tina, and we had a lot of fun
together, but I don’t know, it was always kind of
apparent from the start that she wasn’t too serious
about me. I mean, hell, we met at a bar and ended up
jumping into bed together the same night! Not that
there’s anything wrong with that and don’t get me
wrong I’m sure that many fine romances begin that way,
but usually a start like that pretty much handicaps
the rest of the relationship. But we were sexually
compatible, I guess is the term, and so we kept going
out, but I always got the impression that she looked
down on me to an extent. Like she was superior to me!
Maybe that’s how she felt about you, I don’t know.
But it always seemed like in her mind she was doing me
a big favor by going out with me. Though I have no
doubt that she was thoroughly enjoying it at the same
time. Okay, well maybe I have a little bit of doubt
but it’s really hard to know for sure with women. I
mean, we’ve all seen ‘When Harry Met Sally’, right?’"
They both laughed, and he continued. "So anyway I
guess it was a mix of the two things you said. Maybe
she didn’t think too much of you, about either one of
us for that matter, because like I said I think she
has this superiority complex or something. And maybe
she wanted to be in control of the situation at the
same time. Even though she didn’t really have any
respect for me (and man, she could be a mean bitch
sometimes!), she still wanted to be in control of the
situation. Maybe she hadn’t found anything better yet
and was quite happy to pass the time with me even
though she knew pretty much from the start that it
would be a temporary arrangement, her and me. Hell,
she was talking about introducing me to you and we
hadn’t even put our clothes back on yet. So that
wasn’t a very good sign. But maybe she underestimated
you and me both. And maybe it wasn’t until I invited
you to come here with me that she realized that maybe
she wasn’t at the top of the totem pole, and that
maybe the world didn’t revolve around her. Maybe,
just maybe -- and this was probably a very new idea to
her, though she should have learned it long ago -- it
was only then that she realized that we didn’t need
her any more, that we could have fun without her. And
hell, maybe she’s just never been to Mexico and she’s
always wanted to be invited by someone, anyone! You
got to admit this is a crazy trip, you and me coming
all the way here without, like you said, even knowing
each other.
"But I don’t know, I guess I’m a simple person but I
think that there’s more to life than just all these
words floating around. I mean I like to believe that
the main thing is living, and that all the words we
say are just paraphrasing reality or distracting us
from reality, but there’s actually no reality in the
words themselves. They are a completely artificial
construct. I mean I could sit here and talk all day
long, I guess you became aware of that on the drive
down here." He laughed, and took the opportunity of
his own pause to grab a quick bite of his fajita taco before continuing.
"Why waste all our time creating sentences and
talking about things, when we could be directly
experiencing the things themselves? Part of my
problem, I guess, is that you never know with words,
what’s true and what’s not. People can say anything,
and often do, and there is just no way of knowing if
they are telling the truth or not. I grew up in a
moderately well-off household and I’ve seen how the
upper class live. I’ve been to my dad’s corporate
office and I’ve seen the kind of lies they spin there
just to get the job done. People will say anything to
get what they want. Anything at all. And it’s not
just the rich and powerful who are pulling the wool
over the eyes of the helpless masses. Everyone lies,
from the top to the bottom. Everyone has something
they desire so much that they are willing to sacrifice
the truth to get it.
"So I guess you can’t say that I’m an intellectual.
Hell, I haven’t read a book of my own free will since
probably the third grade. Well, I take that back. I
did read the Harry Potter books, I mean who hasn’t?
It’s kind of become an initiation into the human race,
that series. I can’t wait to see what happens in his
fourth year, that book’s probably going to be massive!
But in general I don’t see any point in reading
books. I mean, here are some guys saying whatever
they want, in order to make a cheap buck, just like
everyone else. Except somehow writers have been put
on this high pedestal for some reason, like they have
been entrusted with documenting the human condition or
something, when in reality they’re only trying to make
a quick buck, and at some point they’ve realized that
the easiest way for them to make a quick buck, for
whatever reason, is by writing. Maybe they’re good at
writing things that sound believable, but let me tell
you, I don’t believe any of it. I’m talking about the
fiction and nonfiction. For me it’s all just words on
paper and all the people sitting at home eating it up
like it was candy are just saps. That’s all there is
to it. I guess that probably puts me into the
minority of people, but I’d rather be a minority than
a sap. I’d rather feel like I’m actually experiencing
life instead of just reading someone else’s
sensationalized account of it. No offense, of course,
if you happen to like books. I guess I should have
asked you that before I went on my rant."
"No offense taken," said Angela. "I prefer to think that maybe there is more of a happy
medium between life and art, and I guess I prefer to
think of there being a better relationship between art
and money as well, but I can see that as being a
little bit idealistic. I don’t know, you’ve given me
a lot to think about. I don’t think I agree with much
of what you just said, but I can see quite clearly now
that there is much more to you than meets the eye.
It’s a shame you have such a negative attitude towards
writing because I think it would be very interesting
for you to write some of your thoughts down and let
more people in on the secret. It’s funny, actually,
that here we are in Mexico of all places, the two of
us all alone and together. And you hate books and I
hate people! How did this happen?"
"When world’s collide," said Craig, as if he was
giving the evening a title. "Like the cute animal
poster of the kitten and the puppy says: the more
different we are, the more we have to share. Maybe
we’ll both learn something from the experience."
They finished their meal in relative silence, but
there was a feeling in the air now that had not
existed before. By being honest with each other it
was almost as if they had created a tangible thing
that they shared, an understanding that wrapped around
them and pulled them closer together. Suddenly there
was an excitement that had not existed
previously, and it grew in intensity as they went into
the night. They could both feel it, and admittedly it
could not be considered love, it was more of a mutual
physical sensation. It was definitely real, however,
whether or not it was to be later described (rather
poorly) in a book that would never be published.
They entered their hotel room, only to find Roberto
Diego lying on their bed, watching TV and eating from
a bag of Doritos. "Oh, sorry, he said, I didn’t think
you would be back so soon." He jumped out of the bed
and quickly brushed any remaining Dorito crumbs onto
the floor. "Have a good evening, and please let me
know if you need anything. I’ll be downstairs at the
front desk." He showed himself out without delay but
still he seemed sad to go, as if envisioning the
uncomfortable stool that was waiting for him below.
"Hey," said Craig to Angela, once the door had closed
and they were again alone. "You don’t imagine this is
actually his room, and he’s just being nice to us
letting us have the nicest room in the place?"
She said, "Well, in that case he’s not doing a very
good job of giving it up, is he? I don’t think we
should worry too much about poor Roberto. I think
he’ll manage."
With that she put her arms around Craig’s neck and
stood very close to him. She was ready to see what
real was, to try to feel what she had only read about
before. Almost immediately they kissed, a long kiss
that fell into another and then another and then they
fell into the bed even as they kissed. He understood
that she had never done this before and they took
their time, laughing and learning about each other
together. They made love all night and then finally
fell asleep with the breaking of the dawn.
They awoke to the sound of the key in the door. "No,
Roberto!," they shouted in unison as the door opened
and then immediately closed again. Craig looked at
Angela and smiled. "Roberto," he called to the closed
door, "I think we’ll be keeping this room for a few
more days yet."
Then he kissed her until she was fully awake and they
made love in the light of day with all of their senses
unencumbered by alcohol or exhaustion or uncertainty.
They ended up spending a week in that little hotel
room just on the other side of the border before
mutually agreeing that it was time to go back home.
On the way home they didn’t say anything at all
almost the entire way. Angela felt a happiness and a
sadness at the same time, because the future was
speeding towards her and she was not ready for it.
Her heart was like a balloon inflated to the point of
filling her throat, and she knew that there was nothing
to be said for what she and Craig had experienced
together except that it was over, and it could not be repeated.
She never saw Craig, or Tina, again after that.
Chapter 35
Chapter 34 was first written November 30, 2001
It was last edited December 30, 2001
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