David Kindopp ~ writing about adventures and living in Mexico
EXCERPTS FROM BOOKS
From, Mañana Doesn’t Mean Tomorrow
“Amigo . . . yuu haff muchos problemas. Sí, es verdad, muchos problemas. Muy malo, verry bad fhor yuu, señor . . . ” I bleakly, silently, stared at him. He had more to say. “I theenk, señor, that yuu maybee wheel gho to jail.”
"You couldn’t see the beach from my table, but you could smell it. Once in a while you could feel it and sometimes even taste the nearly liquid salt air as it gently floated across the water, languidly drifting through sporadically illuminated streets, gathering and mixing evening aromas of shrimp grilling in outdoor restaurants, perfumed women, and spilled tequila."
"After carefully applying several layers of Mazatán Oil on every inch of her available skin, I waded back from the swim-up bar, sloshing along with an Alfonso Especial in one hand and the piña colada requested by a slippery, glistening woman in the other."
"It was her last night in Mexico. Strange and unpredictable emotions often confiscate a person on their last night in a beach town in Mexico. Odds of getting in trouble are reduced to one night. Odds of returning to Mazatlán, to be able to get into trouble, loom menacingly, and settle heavily on your heart. You assess why you came, what you came from, and what you’re going back to. You make decisions—secret, subtle decisions."
"Snapped to the safety line I crawled forward, clutching the rigging, and managed to wrestle the big jib down the forestay and tie it in a bundle in the bow pulpit. Ocean spray covered the entire boat, and the starboard deck was awash, buried in water to the pilothouse cabin windows. Clawing my way back to the cockpit, I glanced into Kathleen’s terrified face and took the wheel from trembling hands."
"Days and nights were filled with the peaceful pursuits of anything we chose, which often was nothing at all. We drifted through sand, sun, beaches, and breezes into sunsets, dinners, and each new sunrise announcing more of the same."
"I was prepared to spend the balance of my life savings, tonight, here at the bar."
"......—the ladies who remarked one late morning recently that they were pretty sure they had had dinner the night before, because in the morning when they awoke they found food under their fingernails".
"My mouth went sour with the acrid taste of fear. My stomach turned in on itself. I was glad I was not standing. I had heard all the stories about Mexican jails."
From, Tales from Mañanaville
Oh my fucking Lord. Vehicles of every south-of-the-border configuration thunder along on every side, surrounding me. Engines roar and howl and wail. Dust and exhaust fumes roil over me and my car. I am not remotely prepared for this! I scream to myself as my life and a huge yellow Pacifico beer delivery truck, flash before my eyes - blotting out the rest of the world in sweeping wide-screen Technicolor.
I’m driving again in Mazatlán.
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“Want another beer David? It’s hotter than hell out here without any breeze blowing.”
She pulled two cold bottles from the ice chest, handed me one, smiled and slowly rolled the other bottle along the inside of each thigh from knee to the hem of her short shorts.
“Refreshing,” she chuckled..
The first mate glanced her way then quickly averted his stare.
Engines were loud, the exhaust thick. Verbal conversation was challenging.
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It was mid-afternoon, the sun was obliquely glinting off the water and I led the former Carnival Queen onto the wet sand……
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A veteran gringo musician with tired eyes wearing a blue Aloha shirt sets up in a corner with his music machine that plays old 70s and 80s standards from the U.S. He plays a Flugelhorn as an accompaniment. I think I hear Henry Mancini music, the Pink Panther – da-dum-de-dum. I think I hear some Burt Bacharach – “What do you get when you fall in love, you get enough germs to catch pneumonia.” I think I’m slipping into a coma.
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“Who are those guys back there”?
“Oh, they are killers,” he said almost casually.
“Killers? What do you mean killers?” I asked, incredulously.
“They work for one of the cartels. They kill people they are ordered to kill. Mostly people in other cartels, or people who double-cross them.”
“Doesn’t that make you nervous?” I wondered.
“Not really. They don’t care about people like us.”
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Greigo pointed the powerful spotlight off into the night toward the front of the boat, dead ahead. What I saw scared the hell out of me.
Waves. Huge waves. Angry howling, sinister waves. Twelve feet high with three-foot wind driven white foam crests frothing and flying toward us in a lashing fury as if they wanted to drive us from their deadly kingdom. The boat rose up on an oncoming wave, balanced there for a three second eternity, then dropped precipitously pointing down into the trough with no time to ride up the other side and bring up the bow. The next wave was on us too soon. The bow shoveled through the top of the oncoming wave, was forced to a momentary standstill against the sheer weight of the water, violently shuddered, then crashed forward causing an avalanche of water to cascade over the front third of the boat with foaming spray soaking everyone in the cockpit.
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Greigo and I looked at each other and locked eyes. We both stared at Emilio. We could all see it in each other’s eyes–the knowing, the realization that we were in very real danger. The knowing that we could sink. The knowing that we could die.
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The odor of brine in the brackish lagoon mixed with faint odors of primitive cooking and rustic bathrooms floated up, comingled and wafted into the humid, sunny day. So far, all the ingredients for a gringo tourist adventure. If none of our senses are assaulted, or at least awakened, it’s a wasted trip.
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