Bi-Polar at Castle Tam---A series of Observations

Louis

Flipped cars in Oakland
buy for cheap, sell for bank
surf on the flow of the free-market
Where the best rise to the top like gold flakes on oil---
Retirement Rolex exists in the jungle
---clasp the chalice
Where exchange rates further the profits---
Rubenesque like a Chinese bodhisattva on a hefted four-post
works here, sitting pretty---
while others pass through
---his harem

Fat-ass Capitalist---
roll over his dick must encourage skin-staph
choked pennies out of the poor of Oakland
Corrupt as a Chinese Opium Importer
---quasi-success---
only enough to flaunt around here
Leers over the faded front desk at each little girl who rolls through
---tries to use his quasi-math to calculate his chances ---
“Good enough for a vacation-fuck” --is the best the girls can think
and he flips through them quick like porno playing cards

Father & Son

Close as bffls even at maturity
One’s royal wisdom encouraging softly,
The other accepting with veneration
---they make food together
Respect & mutual love mutually grace
---we’ll show the world together, son
I will make the world proud of our name, papa---

Co-dependant pathetics
son ducking like a beaten whore 
Father sniping and manipulating 
i don’ know sonnnnnn….
Svengali---
---their food tastes like over-salted shit
the son should stab himself free
of this well-worded monster
But can’t---
The father has castrated his progeny’s instincts
---so that daddy sits satisfied
The arbiter of limited provisions


Father of the Clique

70, with the toned-over body of a college sprinter
Goin to church-he joshes somberly as he moves to the weights
Introduces himself with respectful handshakes---
(he’s been here before The Castle was)
Has more chance with the students then the others---
---but declines and instead details his hobbies under a jeweler’s glass;
sits on top of the crew with ankles crossed over thighs---
over-ruling the kiddish workers
---The real OG

You think you’re big here?
The smog of this town has mummified you to pressed dust
small man---
Talk about your life before your escape to the third-world
and cast your eyes downwards---
Body is all you got
after puffing cheeb through your later years
---Blow your blow with the kiddies
and try to look at your God without blinking.

Quepos/Giselle The Fox

The nicest bus I have ever ridden in Costa Rica rolled me through increasingly-dry countryside on my way from concrete and razor-wire San Jose to the small backpacker towns of Quepos and Manuel Antonio. The sleek bus, which had individual leather-ish seats and those air blowers you always see on airplanes, had picked me up at the Tropicana Bus Station at two that afternoon. I was supposed to leave at 5:30 in the morning, but my travel buddy left his tent in the taxi, which he needed, and we went to the wrong bus terminal, because the bus company had switched stations for this route two weeks ago, and it hadn’t really trickled down to travelers yet, but we were confused, because the people we were splitting the cab with from our hostel SWORE TO JESUS that it left from a THIRD station and ect. And we missed the bus. We had also been up the whole night drinking wine and arguing race politics and gender shit with a Mexican guy from Oakland and a Black guy from South Cali, so when we figured out we had missed the bus, I was grateful to catch a cab back to the hostel and fall into bed until check-out at 11.

I left solo. They guy I was supposed to travel with was still sleeping by check-out and was presumably still tent-less, so I told Kaitlyn, one of the managers, to tell him I was gonna be at the hostel we booked.

I google-mapped the bus’s travel time while still in San Jose, but the two-hour estimate didn’t take into consideration that the bus wasn’t express. At every exit on the semi-highway, the bus pulled off and made ambling loops through small towns. Through the four-hour ride, we went from San Jose suburbs to Mountainous Rainforest to rolling hills topped with the fauna of a place with more moderate rainfall---trees that reminded me more of New York’s, as well as a good amount of palm.

There was an increasing amount of English-language billboards on the side of the road, advertising snorkeling, casinos and hotels. The bus drove into Quepos, a town of maybe 15,000, getting off on a strip of bars, restaurants and souvenir shops. I didn’t want to hoof it the 5 kilometers to the hostel, because I’d be screwed if I couldn’t find it in the dark, so instead hopped into a cab and rode to the Vista Serena hostel.

It was much larger then I had expected---the lady checking me in said they had filled all 70 beds that night. It was mostly American kids out of the country for a week to beach it and party. In my 18-bed mixed dorm, I introduced myself to a shorter, pot-bellied American of half-Columbian decent named Ray. He was wearing boarding shorts, a surf shirt, and wrap-around sunglasses.

~

SITTING on the long hostel porch which overlooked the bay, waiting for my order of French Fries, I felt a little ill-at-ease. Everyone seemed to be here with a giant group of their best friends from childhood. I eventually started talking to a Dutch couple traveling the world for a year, all the plane tickets already paid for, and a broad-faced Swiss girl. I dipped out and grabbed a box of Klos Cabernet and drank it with them (well, they were drinking the hostel’s over-priced beers) as night set in. After a bit I got tipsy and started flirting with the Swiss girl in a kind of automatic, tipsy way. I was jonesing for a stoag, so I wandered to the parking lot, where a few people were slowly puffing away around a picnic table.

Ray was there with his girlfriend or wife or whatever, whose name was Giselle. Giselle was a fucking fox. She was half-Japanese, half-Brazilian, and had gorgeous skin the color of unfiltered honey. Her petite frame was taught with smooth muscle and she smiled sweetly and a little rambunctiously while talking in a cute Portuguese accent, gesturing by throwing her hands around and fluttering her fingers. Giselle was doing something on Ray’s computer as she smoked. Ray leaned in while whipping off his glasses to examine an item on the screen, and I saw he was actually older then his clothing and girl-thing suggested. Maybe…45?

42, I later learned. He kept bringing it up. It was a little odd, simply because Giselle was kinda young even for me (not that I wouldn’t bang her through a wall with little provocation…just one of those thing you have to initially fake-deny yourself). She barely looked 20.

I continued to drink the Cab with the group around the picnic table. There was laughter all around. Ray’s laugh had a sad, barking cut to it, especially after stories such as:

“I usedta have money, I remember when I was TWENTY-EIGHT, had a million dollars in a bank, companies that were makin 5 million a year. Then the recession came and I was workin at...uh…sellin houses. Y’know, sometimes, in real estate (Ray had a thick Oklahoma accent), you think you gotawl these like, sales, set up, just like, for months in the future? It was like that, and I was gonna sell those houses, then leave and travel down here. But y’know, sometimes (hands exaggeratedly thrown up in exasperation, the cut of a laugh), sometimes, y’know, sometimes, shit...doesn’t work out! But I left anyway. Gonna try this music thing, just playin my music at bars and restaurants around here, jus, y’know, getting by, travelin.”

Ray, two Appalachian dudes and the a local rafting instructor later smoked a joint on the porch. I lit it after the rafting instructor said it was definitely OK. It definitely was---the security guard, an older Tico with a nightstick, pulled stools down for us so we could more comfortably blaze.

It became apparent throughout the night that Ray had self-esteem issues. He scattered his stories with the narration of  “…Damnit, Ray!”---as in “…and after my Dutch girlfriend left me, I was like …‘Damnit, Ray!’ you messed THAT opportunity up for good,” and, “…after the government took all this land I had, I was like…’Damnit Ray!’ looks like you’re just gonna hafta try something new again!”

Not that Ray wasn’t a cool guy, but I suspected he wasn’t cool enough for his relationship with Giselle to be uber-solid. He touched her in that boyfriend way, though---affectionate without being sexual, small casual contacts at a consistent rate. Plus the age thing was a little weird. Not that it was a separate, major issue, really---for instance, there was a guy probably a couple years older then Ray at the hostel, a super-fit surfer with silvering hair that lived off of investments and bummed around the world, looking for tasty waves---that guy was cool. It was more Ray’s desperate laugh combined with his high-strung, bulging eyes, his large-lipped mouth, which was always flapping wetly, always explaining, his almost stooped, tired posture…that COMBINED with the age thing made me innocently ask Giselle how long she had been with Ray.

“Oh, Ray?” She glanced back at him and the others at the table “…we just met in San Jose a couple of days ago, and he invited me to come watch him play at this hostel.”

I didn’t see Giselle for the rest of the evening after that…she was chillin elsewhere. Ray was talking again:

“…and y’know, I jus came from a dark parta my life…and y’know, I’m still so tense! It’s gonna…there’s jus this BALL of tenseness in me…it’s gonna take jus MONTHS for it to unravel, especially now that I’ve ran out of my medicine.”

I must’ve cocked an eyebrow when I looked up. Ray picked up the remains of my 1/8 and shrugged while tensely half-grinning…y’know….

I mean, kinda…

“Well, I mean, I could roll another joint if someone has papers.”

Ray immediately dug into his pockets and starting throwing things on the table.

“Well, I got these papers, and this one-hitter, and this nice little grinder here.”

As I started to reach for my bag, I felt a sudden, subtle rush of illness. That Clos drinks quick.

“Actually, I’m feeling a little nauseous, so I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Yeah, Ima-bout tah hit the sack too,” said the remaining Appalachian, sliding off his stool.

Ray was the only one left.

“Ok, I’ll…yeah, we’ll smoke tomorrow, and I’ll-ah…I’ll see ya tomorrow.” We did an awkward combination dap-shake, and Ray grasped my hand.

~

Still on the sleep-cycle of an agriculturalist, I had been waking up at 6:30ish since leaving the farm. This is actually pretty nice unless you had been up till the wee hours the night before, drinking cheap Chilean wine and smoking joints of Mexican brick-weed. I woke desiccated and cotton-headed. After chugging some water, I headed to the hostel’s porch to drink coffee and eat toast. I sat with the Dutch couple, who were set to fly to New Zealand, the next leg of their world-trip, that afternoon. I saw Ray and Giselle at the toaster together.

An hour later, I headed back to the dorm and bumped into the two of them again. Giselle was wearing a bikini top. The curving dip between her lower lat muscles was sublime.

“What’re y’all doin today?” I inquired.

Ray turned to me with a smile. “Well, beachin it, I guess. Gonna do some boogie boarding.”

“Both of you are just headin down in a little bit?”
,
“Yeah, well, I’m gonna go down to the beach in Manuel Antonio, and I think Giselle here is headed to the beach closer to here for the day. Waves aren’t as big though.”

Giselle nodded, her back still turned.

Ray continued to smile, his body twisted to face me. “What are YOU up to today?”

“Well, I definitely wanted to hit up the beaches…you said there was one closer than Manuel Antonio?”

“Yeah, the one without the waves…you wanna come along?”

“Uh, to…which beach?”

Giselle then walked off without really saying goodbye, so I headed into Manuel Antonio for the morning with Ray. As the two of us walked to the bus stop, I saw Giselle getting into a Jeep out of the corner of my eye. The silver-haired surfer dude closed her door before hopping into the driver’s seat.

~

“Really sad that Giselle didn’t come along, I mean, we just met a couple days ago in San Jose and I invited her here to see me play at the hostel, and I thought we were hitting it off, but I guess she jus wanted to do something else today, y’know, and said I should jus go and do my own thing.”

“Huh.”

Ray and I were floating on rented Boogie Boards about 30 meters off the fine-sand public beach adjacent to the pay-beach and national park the town had been named after. There weren’t really any waves. Ray was wearing the age-concealing wrap-arounds again.

“Some cuties at the hostel, though, definitely a few cuties…”

“Ray, that’s an extreme understatement. All the women at the hostel are flaming hot.”

“Yeah, definitely a few cuties…”

A good wave rolled up, and we rode it to shore.

A group of svelte white girls with Tica asses spread their towel out about 6-7 meters in front of us. Ray commented on their hotness; I said I agreed. After a few minutes of idle chatter, Ray moved his stuff a little towards the water.

“I’m jus gonna set our stuff down here a little, jus so we can see it when we’re in the water, right next to those girls…”

He blatantly yet non-threateningly checked the group out as he set our stuff down tellingly close to their towel. I went to get a beer and Ray went back in to board. He was still in the water when I arrived back. I wanted to talk to the girls, and was definitely at least passively given an opening; I caught them looking my way several times. I’m kind of a pussy though, so I never did.

Neither did Ray. At least I wasn’t the one setting up our shit five feet away from their towel in a semi-deserted beach. After an  hour-and-a-half in the sun, I realized I was kind of hungover, and my eyes were hurting in the glare due to their extraordinarily light & gorgeous color, and was getting kinda sick of Ray and his whining and pathetic self-justifications, so I headed back to the hostel to nap. Ray stayed in Quepos to look for gigs or some shit.

I woke an hour later in a shitty mood. The beer I drank at the beach had combined with the residual effects of last night’s wine, and I felt tired and bleary. I didn’t really wanna go back to the beach, so I elected to walk the four or so kilometers to Capos in the opposite direction. The winding, two-lane road didn’t have any side walks, almost as though the town wanted  you to take the cabs and tour buses and Quepos-Manuel Antonio shuttles, all of which whizzed by in great abundance. I passed other hostels, upper-class hotels and a strip club with English advertisements that looked like a fucking villa.

I arrived in Quepos a little less than an hour later and had to deal with the first truly dark mood of the trip. It started pouring as soon as I arrived, and continued for hours, quickly soaking me through to the extent that I was embarrassed to enter businesses, even though I was starving and needed to eat. I eventually bought some shitty bread and a meat pastry at an over-priced bakery, then sat staring out at the rain, hating on shit.

Ray was such a fucking downer. In my foul mood, the mountain in my head said:

       That’s you in 14 (God, only 14?) years, Roger. You to a tee. The obsession with women that      want nothing to do with you, the low self-esteem, hanging out with younger people who still have their shit together better than you…Ray is just an exaggeration of you, an extrapolation, and what does time do but lead things to their more extreme end-point? Pay attention, Roger, because in less then a decade and a half, you’re Ray. Why the fuck would you be hanging out with such a mood-killer if you didn’t empathize with him anyway?

Soaked enough to not care about the toned-down rainfall, I morosely crept across the short, one-lane bridge to the non-touristy, run-down part of Quepos, where people looked at me like I must be lost. I passed through a semi-sketchy barrio where some sort of Tico house party was going on. A dark-skinned guy in his twenties asked me through gestures if he could bum a stoag. His friend yelled for the guy to get one for him too. I bummed the guy a couple, and he tried to talk to me, but No Entiendo. I uncomfortably said Adios and released myself, then realized the street was dead-end, and had to immediately walk past the party again---ultimate gringo -style.

I felt like shit by the time I returned, avoiding others to the extent that I casually crossed the street whenever I saw people approaching. I felt like going straight back to bed (it was barely dark).

       “Give up on the day, Ray…oops…I mean Roger…Fall into darkness…

(maybe things will be brighter tomorrow?)

       …don’t make me laugh, Roger. You’ve been saying that shit for 28 goddamn years.”

I often whine to friends when in dark moods, but without anyone to talk to within a thousand miles other than the downer Ray, I had no outlet. I packed a cigarette with the Mexican Brick and found a spot away from the bustle of the hostel, then had a philosophical smoke, feeling better as I whined my sins to the stars.

After getting a soda at the local grocery, I walked back to the hostel. Three times during the ten minute-walk, guys offered my tourist ass drugs, first starting with Marihuana (I already had some, I responded) then going onto Cocaine (I declined).

I was just planning to smoke a night-cap and go to sleep (it was 11-ish at this point), but I passed the smoker’s table on my way to my puff-spot, and saw Ray telling a story to the two Appalachians from the night before, gesculating wildly. I felt social for the first time that day, and the Appalachian dudes were pretty solid, so I headed over.

Ray immediately looked up and smiled.

“Hey, hey man. Got some…a little repayment for last night.” He gesturing to a small bag of bud.

“Yeah,” one of the Appalachians piped in. “Shit’s kind. Best stuff I’ve seen down here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ray responded, flattered. “Jus got it in a couple hours ago.”

“Where’d you get it?” I pulled up a plastic chair.

“Oh, y’know, I have my sources here. Set it up as soon as I got into town.”

Ray was in an even darker mood than last night, and the much-younger Appalachians kept softly supporting and reassuring him with their backcountry accents. The only reason I felt they were putting themselves through the situation was because they were nice people and were afraid that would Ray suddenly leap up and sprint off a cliff.

It also became obvious through the conversation that Ray was a compulsive liar. He told a couple completely illogical whoppers---that he had owned five corporations “before WorldCom and Enron” (you don’t own five corporations; it’s doesn’t make any business sense. You own ONE corporations and soak up others into the original one. Plus I don’t know what Enron and Worldcom’s failures would have to do with whatever Ray’s five corporations did, something he always avoided explaining); and the three accompanists on his shitty-looking EP “were all nominated for Grammy’s this year, all for other stuff they did, technical stuff, and, y’know the Grammy’s already happened this year, and I didn’t hear how they went, so they might be Grammy WINNERS now, for all I know" (I know oodles of semi-professional and professional musicians, and, just…just…no). From these Whoppers (the Appalachians were either too naïve to pick up on them, or too nice to react) I was able to read his liar’s tick, and that shit was EVERYWHERE. I doubt he said a single thing about his past that wasn‘t complete bullshit. I doubt the guy had even fucked during his lifetime, much less ran business that made him “bout a million, a million a year“ throughout his late twenties and thirties.

His lies revealed the truth.

All of a sudden, Giselle walked up with the silver-haired surfer. She pulled up a chair and lit a Marb. Throughout the next hour or so, she asked me for sips of wine several times (“of course, of course, no problem”) and I tried to non-confrontationally bring up my theory about why landlords and tenets never get along (animalistic territorial overlap) to the property-renting surfer, but he took offense anyway and started talking down to me. Ray was chatting with a semi-responsive Giselle in the background, and the surfer dude occasionally glanced away from our conversation and back at them in a territorial way of his own.

Giselle was going back to Sao Paulo the day after next. The surfer-dude made a final comment about why my theory was stupid, then started walking to his Sport Ute, gesturing Giselle the Fox along. Ray said his final goodbye, talking some shit about looking her up if he “ever made it out to Brazil,” and Giselle said some shit about “you DEFINITELY should,” and Ray hugged her for way to long. He sat back at the table afterwards (the Appalachian boys had gone to bed), and, as surfer-dude was whipping his Sport Ute away to leave, Ray suddenly clapped his hands down on his pockets.

“Oh…oh shit.”

He ran up to the car, which barely stopped, and handed Giselle a lighter she had forgotten. He hugged her again, this time through the car’s window.

It was two in the morning by now, and I was ready to leave. Ray offered me a packed bat of his bud, which I passed back after a hit (he waved it away, saying, “no, no, man, just like, finish it up, finish it yourself”). I pulled at the piece as Ray rummaged through his pack. He remarked about how it was a good day.

“Was it?”  I almost felt like crushing Ray for no reason; he was just that pathetic.

“Yeah, YESS it was. Gotta gig. I was jus walkin around after you left the beach, goin up to places to see if they needed someone to play, and I got to this one place. Waiter was just…just a dick. Told me the owner was out of the country, but I was just like ‘Damnit, Ray!…,’ ya gotta do something, money’s runnin out. So I, I jus sat my ass down in front of the place and startin playin my songs…and who comes up but the owner, and he’s like, ‘come back here for a minute.’  And he lets me play.”

“Cool. How often ya gonna play there?”

“Uh, well, probably every day, probably. First night was good enough, got a nice meal and sold FIVE albums.”

Definitely a couple ticks in there.

Atlas Shrugged somehow came up, which I said I had never fully read, but wanted to.

“Oh yeah, you should, solid book, solid.”

I mentioned that I really ought’ve read it by now, seeing as it’s political philosophy was such a precipitator of the Libertarian Movement in the US.

Ray snorted at this without looking me in the eye.

“What?” I inquired.

“No man, that’s not right.”

“Why not?”

“Atlas Shurgged was NOT Liberal.”

“Naw, Libertarian, dude.”

Ray looked confused for a moment, then sharply dropped his eyes down to his hands. I doubt he had even read the back-cover synopsis of the 1000-page plus manifesto. This was just too much.

“Ray, Ayn Rand was an anti-egalitarian free-market capitalist. She therefore has heavily influenced the Paleo-Con/Libertarian movement for decades.  I campaigned for Ron Paul in 2008. I know what I’m fucking talking about.”

..and I walked off.

~

The next morning, I was in a fine mood. I was to head back through San Jose to hiking in the Oriso valley. The shitty two days behind me, I thought of what might as well be the traveler’s creed, a combination of one of my favorite-ever tatoos and a Jay-Z lyric:

This Too Shall Pass/On To The Next One

…and hoofed it to the bus station.

San Pedro -Hardcore Travelers-

I feel I’m more well-traveled than the average American. At 11, my parents spirited me through Western Europe for half a summer---my pious father took us mostly to Cathedrals, which I probably could’ve appreciated more if I wasn’t still years away from puberty (I remember my 5-year old brother whining about how much his feet hurt a lot). I spent a couple weeks in Britain at 18. At 23, I raged through Central Europe with my dear buddy CollBall, using the Eurorail system to hit up 8 countries in 29 days. I bummed around the rainy-season grayness of the Pacific North-West for three weeks at 24, but ended up terminally drunk and sleeping in front of a church. I don’t talk about that trip much.

I’ve been to the Deep South multiple times, to Denver for the 2008 DNC, to DC for multiple Iraqi War Protests in my late teens, to Frisco to visit my sister, to Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, Arizona, Miami, Montreal, Seattle.

But to the hardcore muthafuckas I was drinking with last night, I ain’t been to shit.

When I asked a bright-eyed Wisconsin native and current Columbian permaculturalist (he reminds me a lot of Japhy from Dharma Bums) how long he had been on the road, he causally responded: “Oh…since 2009, I guess…I’ve been home since then, but after about 8 days, I get itchy.”

I told him I was 2 ½ weeks of not having a permanent address for a year.

“Yeah, the first year is more about learning who you are. After that, you learn what the world is like.”
                                                                                                                                                                       
He was engaged to a girl he had met in Columbia, and was Costa Rica for three weeks to get permaculture certification. “Don’t stay in one place too long. You start getting friends, and accumulating stuff, and then you get tied down.”

A 34-year old half-Mexican who had made bank flipping cars around Oakland told me about his craziest experience in Thailand, which, as many crazy travel stories do, started at a bar.

“…so my friend was doin shots all night, and is just like, fuckin…gone, but we wanna stay at the bar, so we kinda stuff him in a cab and pay the driver to take him back to the hotel. But we don’t see him when we get back. Then I getta phone call the next morning, and it’s him, and was just like, “’Dude, I got kidnapped.’” The raconteur burst out laughing. “He was passing out in the cab, and when he woke up, he was in the mountains. The cabbie had picked up a couple friends and drove him there, and they tried to extort him. They wanted like…it woulda been like 150 dollars. He only had 30 on him, and they were like, negotiating for an hour on the top of this fuckin deserted mountain. My friend finally told them they could come by his hotel the next day and get the rest. My friend was huge though, and was in Thailand to train for Moi Thai. The little Thai dudes never came back.”

 Mid-way through the story-swap session, which was all-male up to this point, a pretty, fine-featured British girl arrived at the hostel for the night. After arranging her dorm bed, she came down to the patio, bummed a Lucky Strike rojo, and started bullshitting about snowboarding vs. surfing, bar-tubing in Laos, and drug-villages in Thailand, liberally detonating F-bombs with her refined upper-middle class English accent. She reminded of Harrison Ford’s love interest in the first Indy Jones movie. I wanted to drool.

The best story of the night (though I guess I would never would want to experience it myself), came from Maron, a younger, flat-countenanced British Columbia native. He was traveling through Central America with a fellow Canadian a year back, and had landed in Guatemala City. “It’s a beautiful city though, even if it’s kinda dangerous. I mean, it wasn’t like we were bus drivers, so we really weren’t fucked with.”

Why bus drivers?

His friend was on a city bus one day when the it pulled up to a stop. Two commuters got on, paid, and shuffled to open seats. A third person mounted the bus’s steps, pulled out a gun, and shot the driver through the head.

His friend assumed the gunman was going to rob everyone on the bus, maybe hijack the vehicle. He was surprised when the other riders stood up, and, keeping their eyes to the ground, shuffled out the back door like it was a fire drill. The gunman trotted off.

He got the story later. Evidently, the local buses were controlled by the city’s gangs. Just like the gangs, the bus routes were territory-based. The driver was executed because a rival gang member caught him earning fares on an already-claimed route.

This story was confirmed a few weeks later, when Maron’s friend was walking along and saw a city bus screech up alongside another omnibus. The driver of the first bus pulled out a gun and shot the other driver to death through the window, then screeched off.
           
“I’d definitely go back…wouldn’t wanna go to Tegucigalpa, though. That place is untravelable.

Wrote that one down.

I tired to offer a couple stories of my own, but I had only been out of the states for 2 ½ weeks, and both of my stories of note (cutting myself with a machete and being mugged in Puriscal), basically occurred because I was being a newb.

I want to have stories like these one day.

Gonna.

Red Beans and Starfruit

Red Beans and Starfruit

IN the states, my diet was pretty abhorrent. I didn’t know how to cook (starin to learn down here…STARTin) but wasn’t well-off enough to afford to eat out three times a day. Therefore, my sporadic meals usually consisted of standing in front of my open refrigerator for five minutes whist stuffing various processed carbs and liquids down my throat. Afterwards, the inevitable heartburn, belching (sorry Omar) & exhaustion.

The meals at my farm are quite different. I eat at regular times (6:30, 12:30 & 6:30 in the PM) and the food is organic in a way that puts the health-food nuts of New Paltz to shame. The meals are simple and unspiced. At every meal there are heaping mounds of rice and beans, as well as some sort of vegetable soup. The other dishes usually consist of potatoes, Yucca, cabbage, green bananas, eggs and corn. They aren’t like, DELICIOUS or anything, but I’ve recently realized that the quality of the eating experience should be judged on the entire digestive process, not just the first few seconds of mastication. Although I stuff myself at every meal, I never experience the dreaded Itis, instead actually feeling more energetic afterwards (y‘know, like you‘re supposed to). In the two weeks since I started eating like this, I have not once experienced heartburn or gassyness.

There was a second part of the meal that I had avoided until today. We were never served fruit, but there were always heavy baskets of starfruit, guava and papaya, as well as green lemons and green oranges (both oranges and lemons are green when ripe in Costa Rica) available for snacking in the kitchen.

IN the states, I mostly stayed away from fruit. To avoid dying, I would drink fruit juices on a daily basis, because they tasted better to me. Y’know, cause of the extra sugar. I continued my fruit-avoidance while in Costa Rica until about six hours ago when I took the dive and sliced the rind off a green orange with a pocket knife, then took a chomp.

It was like God had ejaculated in my mouth. And I was gay and into that sort of stuff. Well, that’s making a gender assumption. OK. It was like Gia had squirted into my mouth after I had gone down on her all night, which, as a farmer, is essentially what had actually happened.

For the rest of the work day (I was turning sliced timber into boards, but that’s another post), I was on a fruit  binge. Sliced sunny star fruit, subtle, complex papaya, bananos sliced straight down from a jungle tree just off the farm’s property. I even ate a green lemon. Yes, fruit in Costa Rica is so heavenly that you can straight-up EAT LEMONS. GODDAMN.

Time for another starfruit.

Puriscal

I arrived in Puriscal after a three-and-a half hour ride down from the mountain village of Mastacal. I rode in a yellow American School Bus (Blue Bird Incorporated, the logo above the driver read) that would have failed inspection decades ago if ever subjected to strict American regulations. The windows were jammed. Neither door closed. The brakes squealed wrathfully down to each valley, and the acceleration strained like a shackled wildebeest up each hill. The road itself was a serpentine dirt track that would have given a BMXer a run for his money, and yet the jalopy somehow made it. I slept fitfully next to an older Costa Rican lady, only aware that we had gotten a flat at some point by blearily glancing out the window to see half the bus gathered around a deflated tire, smoking and pointing.

A couple hours into the ride, my knees began to ache with the yen for movement, and the glorious glade-green mountains that slowly crawled by only increased my desire to pull the stop-line and walk the rest of the way.

The 210-minute ride only took us about 30 miles (do the math), but finally we screeched and skidded to a halt in the main square of Puriscal. The square centered around a public park with walking paths radiating outwards from a concrete pavilion where youths were always trying out their latest breakdance moves. Behind the square, as undeniable and monolithic as the mountains that surrounded the town existed El Temple, a giant smasshedup cathedral surrounded by a 15-foot tall barbwire fence. I don’t know when the El Temple was built, but in it’s current form, there were giant, crooked holes in the greyed façade, and the windows had all been stoned-out: it was beautiful, especially when the sunlight hit the monolith full-on and the pureblue sky contrasted the blown-through destruction of this human institution.

El Temple  was by far the tallest building in the town, which seemed to be the size of a large American town. Everything else was two stories: Fried Chicken shacks, Bakeries, MotorBike stores, Fish Markets, Sausageries, stores that seemed to sell whatever sundries that they could get that particular week. There were people walking around everywhere; I was by far the only white one.

My mission for the day was to take care of a machete wound. I had gotten it my first full day at the farm in Mastacal, when, in an attempt to immediately dive into the rustic, dirty life of a work-trade farmer (WWOOFer), had over-enthusiastically tried to hack open a coconut. I had gotten the tough fruit partially open and was bringing the heavy blade down for what was to be the final cut when I realized that my steadying hand was too close to the blade’s trajectory. Too late. The machete sliced far deeper through the coconut then I had expected, and continued on through my arm. I removed the blade to a spurt of blood and remarked:

“Oh, shit. THAT doesn’t look good.”

However, my response to the bloody mess was too subdued to attracted attention, so I continued, a little louder with:

“Uh…I think I need, like, medical attention?”

One of my fellow WWOOFers screamed at me to put pressure on the wound. I clamped my other hand on the cut, and opaque redness oozed between my fingers and dripped down the other arm. A second fellow WWOOFer, who happened to be in her third year of a pre-med major, clamped a towel on it. The bleeding stopped after about 20 minutes.

But now I had a deep incision on my wrist, deep enough to have cut through veins, tendons and the like, but had miraculously missed them all. Still, the wound was open, and I wasn’t about to get some sort of hell-sent Centroamerican infection two days into my journey. Marcos, the village elder who owned and operated the farm, had called up a clinic in Puriscal and assured me that they could stitch me up for the lowlow cost of 50 dollars. He had even drawn a map; the clinic was on a street adjacent to the central square.

I took my time getting to the clinic---the return bus to Mastacal didn’t leave until three that afternoon. I wandered around, bought two pieces of fried chicken (surprisingly similar to our American version of the bird) that came with a corn tortilla, sat in the park, read a little. By 10:30, I figured I should go to the clinic to leave time for complications. There were to be many.

First of all, I don’t speak or understand Spanish. It was hard enough to get the fried chicken; getting medical care seemed like it would be worlds harder. I arrived at the clinic and HabloEnglais’d the young, professional-looking man sitting at the desk. He did not. Only one person working at the clinic did, who was able to inform me that they were unable to treat me because I wasn’t a Costa Rican national. I didn’t have the cultural or language know-how to debate this, so took the women’s suggestion of hailing a cab and going to the local hospital. I knew this was going to be far more expensive (I had only brought 60 dollars) and far more complicated (yep). However, the Taxi Driver was a true saint. Not only did he not overcharge me, he walked into the hospital and informed them that some klutz had accidentally hacked his arm open with a machete and didn’t speak a lick of Spanish.
                                                                                                             
The clinic had looked like some sort of field hospital set up by GIs in Vietnam; the hospital was a far more modern affair It also seemed to be staffed exclusively by flaming-hot Costa Rican doctresses. Again, no one spoke English. They set me up with a particularly hot doctress that knew a phrase or two, who haltingly inquired if I had travelers insurance.

“No.”

“Do you have…identification?”

“No.” Shit. I had left my passport at the farm in case I was mugged by a Central American gang or something, not thinking that I would end up at a hospital.

“Do you have…your…passport number?”

“Non…I mean, no.”

Damn useless French. Shoulda taken Esspagna.

…and, just as I was prepared to be booted out into the hot Costa Rican sun, something strange happened.

They treated me. Applied antiseptic, stitches, gave me antibiotics and acetemetiphen.

And didn’t charge me a cent.

Guess Michael Moore was right on that one.


~


I hopped a bus back to town (also a BlueBird) and still had four hours to kill before the bus back to Mastatal arrived. I seated myself on a plot of grass in the central park and pulled out Dharma Bums, the Kerouac I had been reading since I picked up a faded copy at the farm. Perfect reading for a traveler. I had laid down, blocking the noontide sun with the pages when, suddenly, a shadow fell over me.

“Hola”

“Hola”

The kid was probably no more than 17, a skinny runt of a character that for some reason spoke better English than the hot doctress from the hospital. He asked me if I wanted to smoke.

I did. However, if a decade of drug experience had taught me anything, it was that you shouldn’t buy drugs off the street. Nearly 100 percent of the time, you would be ripped off, or worse. I told the runt no thanks.

We chatted for a couple minutes, then I went back to reading, though I was distracted by certain thought patterns.

You’re traaaveeling, you should be open to new experiences. You’re probably gonna get ripped off a little, but it would only be for a couple dollars. What’s the worse that could happen anyway? Huh? Don’t be a pussy. You got street smarts.

Still, I held my ground, kept reading the Kerouac. I glanced back at the group the runt had come from at one point and met one of the kid’s eyes. I couldn’t tell if he had been looking at me or if he had just glanced back when he saw my head turn in his direction. Several people in the group starting straying away, until it was only the runt and one other kid, a baby-faced child with curly locks that looked like some kind of street cherub and musta not been more than 16. When the two of them passed me on their way out of the park, the runt inquired again if I wanted pot. Marihuana. I said yes.

I gave them 2 mil for the pot, a little less than four dollars, and we went into a shop to grab papers. We continued to walk away from the main square, the buildings along the sides of the road becoming more residential.

“We got-to walk a little out of the town? So no cops will find us.”

Costa Rica has stricter pot laws than New York State. Apparently, if a foreigner is caught with marijuana, they are immediately thrown in jail, then deported to their native land where they have to face criminal charges. They are then not allowed back to Costa Rica for 10 years.

Walking along, the runt and I haltingly tried to communicate.

“You should practice your Spanish.” He kept insisting. “Use your SPANISH.”

After a 10 minute walk, we came upon a soccer field. There was only one other person there, an older guy the street cherub knew. The older guy was setting up for a field goal kick, and the cherub raced to defend the netless goal. The older guy kicked a perfect shot, arcing the ball up above the cross bar, then dropping it down below the bar just in time to score.

We continued walking to the far side of a field and sat on a log. The runt tore the baggie open with his teeth and started breaking up the nug onto the paper, taking his time and chatting with the street cherub. He was smiling.

 He looked to the far side of the field where we had entered and his smile disappeared. There, five guys in their thirties were staring across the pitch at us. Runt and Street Cherub began talking in low tones, glancing nervously at the group of men every few seconds, who had began to approach us. I wished I knew what they were saying.

When the men reached us, runt was staring down at his weed-work as though trying to ignore their presence. The main guy, a giant in an orange wife beater, started talking loudly to the runt, leaning down over his squat form. After a minute or so of talk, he turned to me and stuck out his hand.

“Yo soy Roger.” Damnit. Shouldn’t have said ‘Yo.’ Unnecessary except for emphasis. The giant told me his name, then continued talking to the runt, his booming voice taking on a more aggressive tone. He started thrusting his finger in the boy’s face. He then thrust his finger in my face while still addressing the runt, his voice rising in menace. He turned to me and said something in Spanish.

“What?” I turned to the runt, who was staring down into his hands. “What is he saying?”

“He says you have to give him dinero.”

“Wait, what?” I was taught and nervous, not thinking straight. “I have to buy him dinner? Why?”

“Dinnerro.” The kid repeated.

“What?” I made the international gesture for eating with my hands. “Why do I have to buy him dinner?”

“He wants money.” The runt didn’t meet my eyes.

“Diinnnnerrrro.” Now all the men were leaning over me, leering, making the international gesture for money.

 "Diiinnnnneerrrrrooo.” I stared back for a moment, nervous and confounded.

“Fuck that.” I rose and slid around the line of scowling faces, then started walking away as calmly as I could. I knew they were going to jump me. I perked my ears up for signs of movement, and when one came, I twisted around as one of the men ran up and grabbed me around the neck. I threw him with my shoulder and he spun halfway around in midair, landing on his feet facing me. He was holding something in his hand. I glanced down at it as quickly as I could: he was holding a shiv.

Then the other men were on me. They plunged their hands deep into my pockets, groping me. I started shoving them away. One got into my left pocket and came up with my new Droid. I didn’t want to lose it, so I illogically pulled out my money, thinking that if I gave up the money they would give me back the phone, as if this was a negotiation and not a mugging.

“GIVE ME BACK MY FUCKING PHONE AND I’LL GIVE YOU THE MONEY.”

“Diiinnnnnero. Dinnnnnerrrro.”  They all clawed at my clenched fist.

“GIVE ME MY FUCKING PHONE.” One of them wrenched my backpack off.

It was over. I released my hand and then men ripped the money away. One of the smaller ones tore everything out of my backpack. I looked up to see the street cherub staring at me wide-eyed from a safe distance. I used the international gesture for ‘fuck you’ while trying to convey how much I wanted to end him through my eyes. He fled.

The men had gotten everything they wanted. One of them handed back the hoodie from the backpack, which I snatched back, scowling. The men scattered. The older guy who kicked the perfect field goal was visible loping over the cusp of the field. Only me and the runt were left.

As I was cursing this stupid fucking country and all the spics that inhabited it, I glanced at my left arm to find it again spurting blood. During the struggle, one of the men had hooked a finger in the sutures and reopened the machete would. Blood poured down my arm.

The runt seemed to be trying to apologize, but I didn’t want to hear any of it. My left arm was covered with blood, and it had dripped all over one of the only sets of clothing I had for the next six months of travel. The men had gotten 50 dollars, my droid, a flashlight and two packs of cigarettes.

“We should still smoke. Still have the marihuana.”

“Fuck you.”

The runt kept following me as I stumbled back to town, trying to find a bottle to smash over his head. After about five minutes, I turned down a side street and shoved him in the other direction.

“Pleeease. Just GO. Leave me alone.”

He did.

?

I don’t even remember the layover in Ft. Lauderdale. I genuinely don’t. All the information I have from this event is pre-memory: letters and figures on a sheet of paper---my ticket---that said I was to be in Ft. Lauderdale for an hour and 10 minutes. Post memory: the ticket still exists,  I am now in Costa Rica. The mitigating event must have occurred.

Did it though? Not only do I have no memory of this event, I know no one who was alongside to collaborate the realness of it.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it fall, does it still make a noise?

Actual memory: the plane curving through the air at God-speeds, tipping a wing to San Jose in greeting, the pilot announcing the weather in measured & stylized tones. The landing: no bounce, the Spanish- and English-speaking passengers clapping (idiots. For what? Not crashing?) as the engines reversed with a manic swell and the plane, now an unwieldy land creature, taxied back into its womb until its next forgetting in the sky.

Maybe the plane knew?

Maybe the plane (not in the lack-of-marks on the wings, not in the blackbox) saw the alien craft twist into our dimension from the last one, saw it connect me directly, not through switches and cables, but through beams of colors and the vibration of visions.

I knew at the time, knew the babyblue beam was the best one (knew which was best for once) and followed it with my new friends’ help to the stasis of silence, where I spent an entire lifetime.

Maybe I landed a new person.