Except now I'm thirty.
How should I wrap this blog up? I was thinking stream-o-consciousness, but then I realized I may not be able to spell "consciousness", so scratch that. What has even happened since last time? Do I know? My memory seems to be going with old age. Hmmmm, let's focus on my boy Negrito for a bit. I had a very emotional morning with him before I flew out. It was basically way too much Beggin (with turkey and tocino!) and petting/scratching. I think he knew I was going, his eyes had a different look to them. Actually, I think that was from sticking his entire head into the sand going after crabs, emerging with a dome covered in dirt. Que padre. He did walk pressed against my leg the last couple days before I left, he probably sensed it was bail-out time. I've had a couple ex girlfriends do the same thing right before I said "hasta luego!"
Negrito was going to live with Jose up the way. This plan went straight in the toilet after the VW incident (more on that later). I'm worried about my dog, right? Right. As luck would have it, when Ricardo's wife came to see the house right before we closed, she fell in love with Negrito - LOVED him. In fact, when she called from the states to discuss wiring over 300,000 dollars with her husband, the first thing she asked was "did you talk to Adam about Negrito?". It may have been the second thing, but that's good enough for me. They are going to keep him, feed him, get him all his shots, etc etc etc. This is good on all counts, as my life has been threatened at least once by my friends in the states, if I were to leave Negrito in bad/no hands.
I saw Mexico D.F. today from above. You see the air first, however, and you taste it. The air pollution is unreal, and my understanding is that they battle this in one way by restricting the days you can drive based on your license plate or something similar. I've got an idea...how about emissions control on the actual cars? The city is enormous, and as we dropped down lower to land, the haze pushed back and I could see the sprawl much more clearly. I can't describe the density of the homes or seeming endlessness of the blocks stretching out in all directions. It looked like a movie set for some 2056-the-world-is-over-populated-and-Arnold-will-save-us flick. I'm pretty sure there are more than 10 million people in this town, and a crazy Canadian I met in Mexico said there are more people there than the entire country of Canada. He also thinks there are satanic black cubes on the poles of Saturn. Who knows, maybe he's right.
I thought I was going to have to beat someone up in Mexico. I've never done that before. I know I was more mad then I've been in a LONG time. Jose! My friend. My amigo of many months. The man that assured me he'd pay me back for the car. This guy turned out to be a really bad fellow, compadres. After a month and a half of chasing him around, with not a peso to show for it, I decided to make peace with losing the money and give the car to that couple I mentioned before. Jose agreed to meet me at my house at 5pm to either give me the money (from ANOTHER guy he said wanted to buy it...) or go with me to Telchac to sign over the car. Perhaps it was my Spanish, maybe I misunderstood what he had said - turns out he actually said to go to my house at 5pm, but he'd be drunk in Chixchulub until 830 or so. Treats! I waited for him to come home, and he was furious that I was actually going to take back the car from him. We didn't argue at his house, though. That fun was later. He insisted on bringing his wife with him (I think he knew I would make him walk the 18 KM home) and proceeded to drive all over the road with me following in the truck. I think we maxed out at 35 mph, and that was the fastest I'd ever seen that VW go. We arrived at the hotel where my friends work/live, and Jose decided to hop on the belligerent express for a joyride. He yelled, saying he wouldn't sign anything, that I was a bad person, yada yada yada. I couldn't believe it. Who did this guy think he was? I could feel my blood boiling as I apologized to my poor friends for the trouble. We were standing out on the front porch of this place, and Jose actually got in my face. Well, it was more like my collarbone, but you know what I mean. I told him if he was 20 years younger, I'd be tossing him off that porch in front of his wife. Lucky for both of us, I'm not a violent person, but I was very upset. My friend and I were then able to talk him into leaving the car, title, and keys at the hotel, and coming back in the morning to sign. I don't know why he agreed to this, but I was glad to be wasting more gas to drag him up there again. The next morning, he spent the ride over telling me why it was my fault he couldn't pay, and how I was a bad person for doing this. Basically, he thought he was going to get a free car, and how could I be so cruel to ruin that plan? I used all the Spanish I know to tear into him, and when I was done, he didn't say a word until we got to the hotel. He promptly signed, and then it was silence all the way back to our neighborhood in the truck. I lost $550 and a friend, but I think it was a good amount to learn this lesson on. If I had just said "no" to the loan, we'd all be sharing a beer and ceviche to see me off. Instead, muchos sentimientos malos.
It's going to be odd living in San Diego again. A 9 to 5 job seems so foreign at this point, but it won't take me long to fall back into the groove. I'll miss the goofballs down there, my dog and his fleas, singing with face inches from the tile wall in the bathroom at all hours of the night, sharpening my machete, the sound of the waves and the swing of my hammock, the calories, Diego's underwear drying in the sun, all the bad words I couldn't help but learn, that sic-em-on-a-chicken song that Remko played over and over every time a cruise ship from the southern states was in, speaking spanish like it was my job, the roar of that exhaust as my truck sucked up the gas, and habaneros...I love me some habaneros. As I said my goodbyes today, I was asked over and over "Cuando regresas?", or something similar - when are you coming back? I doubt I will actually go back, but you never know. I've got plenty of memories to tide me over.
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