My father used to have an expression: half the lies I tell
aren’t true. I think of that as I make my way through the markets here. I hate
to haggle. If you’ve ever seen The Life of Brian, you know what I’m talking
about. “Aren’t goin’ to haggle?”
is one of Vince’s (and, it appears, the sellers’) favorite sayings.
Everything I buy is rock bottom price, best price, cheaper than K-Mart and
better than Walmart. Practically free. No commission. Until Vince enters the
fray, that is, and suddenly they smile.
The former price was not so rock bottom
nor practically free. So we have a system. I choose items, he comes in behind
me and haggles. I am particularly vulnerable to sellers who have children at
their feet. Those I usually like to bargain upward. Like, isn’t that price a
little low? Will you have enough commission to feed your kids?
So I have to walk away while Vince does the deed, because I
feel very guilty. By the way they grin at him yet negotiate with huge sighs and
much gesturing, they admire him. Obviously half the lies they told about the
price weren’t true.
The waiter at the Italian restaurant across the street tells
us he’s out of this dish and that because of all the people he’s served during
the day. Yet whenever we walk out to catch a bus or visit our favorite
breakfast spot, the seats at his place are empty. Just a little half lie. After
all, he didn’t say what day.
Even our manager family gives a bit of the Mexican shuffle
when we ask for things. Our Internet connection troubles have been blamed on “all
of Manzanillo”. Yet there appears to be service everywhere else around us. The
likely culprit is their own hardware. We also have boiler problems. They look
at us sympathetically, as though they’d never heard this complaint before.
Let’s see how long it takes to fix it.
There is one beach seller we always look for every year.
Until Friday, we hadn’t seen him and we were a bit worried. John says he can go
home happy now because he has at last seen Jesus. Seriously, though, Jésus is a
good looking Mexican of indeterminate age (literally, since the houses in his
hometown somewhere in Guerrera burned down with all his records inside), who
sells us necklaces and earrings and talks our heads off. When he speaks slowly,
we can understand most of what he says, but then he often forgets himself as
his tale picks up speed and so does his speech pattern. Then he notices our
confusion and says out loud, como se dice, how can I say this in simpler terms?
John always gives him a beer and he stands under the umbrella out of the brutal
sun for a time, telling us about his family. He’s a grandfather, has a
28-year-old, among other children. Maybe he started when he was 14, who knows?
The rain is pretty relentless, especially during the night.
It sounds as though someone is taking a shower right outside our balcony. Once
we wake up at 2:30 a.m. to see the wind whipping and the rain in sheets.
Luckily we had closed our windows and balcony door.
During the rainy day time
we do our shopping for food and other necessities, play dice, watch the waves
roll in and out. The swallows do a square dance on the street side of our unit.
We watch them chirping, swarming, diving and dipping in the cloudy sunset. When
the weather clears for a bit, we sit on the balcony and watch the birds and the
sky. We see a new species (which turns out not to be so new, simply forgotten
from another year): he’s all black except the bottom of the tail and belly,
which is a bright yellow. He’s a yellow-winged cacique, which Vince already has
circled in his bird book. Grackles gather in the palm above our pool and talk,
twee, trill, whistles, high and low, a little giggle here and there.
We go out
for hamburgesa y papas fritas y cervesa at Bricio’s and watch some futbal with
Alex and his wife. Poor Alex has bet on the wrong team!
When we come back, one of the swallows has taken a room in
our unit: the one outside just above the light fixture in our hallway.
The next
morning, he’s on the floor, panting, his little head tucked under his chest.
His back feathers are an exquisite blue, which we hadn’t noticed before. His
orange belly is hidden as he breathes in gasps. He must have hit a wall trying
to exit quickly. We leave him alone for a while, then gently move him to the
ledge and some fresh air, so no one will step on him. We don’t have much hope.
But I am reminded of a poem I wrote about a very similar situation, a long time
ago.
bird
against the window
lies bent in the leaves
we sit and watch
the sun warm on our fingers
entwined on the table
it will be all right he tells me
but I don’t believe
his eyes catch mine and hold them
his love surges inside me
his faith warms me
I feel myself let go
reach out to trust him
the bird fluffs his wings
flies away in the sun
And he does. I am going down the steps when I see him. His
little orange and blue body revived, he spreads his wings and heads for the
other swallows lining the wires around our unit. I take it as a good omen.
The sky clears later, so we head for the Miramar market.
Suddenly it’s hot again and humid. We shop, then have lunch gazing out at the
gorgeous flat beach of Santiago Bay with its folding frolicking waves.
On our
return (in an air conditioned cab!), we gather back on our own beach, wet sand
baking in the welcome sun under our feet. Sunday kids are playing in the water
and throwing sand at each other on the beach. Their dogs roll and scuffle under
our chairs, leave a deposit by the steps. Schools of silver fish have arrived.
They are boiling the water again, but this time we can hear them, the ocean is
so calm. They sound like water babbling over stones in a stream as they skim
along the surface, over and under one another, as though they are racing away
from something bigger underneath. And maybe they are.
From above, the birds gather. Pelicans skim the surface, or
land in the middle of the broil of fish, fluttering back up with a flash of
silver in their beaks. The magnificent frigates and cormorants are kamikazes as
they go beak-first into the sea, disappear for a moment, and come straight back
up with lunch.
We are enjoying our Mexican TV when the sand rumbles under
our feet. As though a giant serpent is burrowing its way underground, like that
old Kevin Bacon movie. The earth has moved. Later, we settle to watch the
spectacular sunset on our balconies, and it moves again. The balcony shakes as
though someone massively strong is running through the hallway. Earthquake. The
kind of sigh from the ground that my son and daughter-in-law feel all the time
in LA. For me and Vince, it’s a new sensation to know that you are not really
in control. Mother Nature is. And it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.
We have no idea why, but our Skype and our Internet won’t
connect later on, even though the signal looks strong. We are horribly
disappointed, as we were supposed to see Dave, Rebecca, Sydney and Evan.
On top
of that, I look at my quarterly statements from my publisher. As a result of
both disappointments, I go to bed in a huge snit, deciding never to write nor
leave my house ever ever again. So there. Probably another lie that’s not true.
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