My Mexican Surgery

    

      The lump on my shin had grown and was the source of a little pain when touched above its resting place. I thought,, or hoped it was a bunch resulting from a hit my shin took from a hockey puck years before. Winter in Maine was a time for playing pickup games on a frozen lake,, of course without pads or shin guards. I was however in Mexico now. My wife accompanied me to visit Doctor Mendoza (his nickname is Pato or duck) for a quick consultation. This was my first doctor experience in Latin America. My wife and Pato exchanged familiarities. Tenancingo is a large small town and everybody seems to know one another. We entered his consultation room. The doctor gave the suspect lump couple of quick touches. It was rapidly concluded that excision and biopsy would be best for me. At once I was suspended by the legs as if just born all over again. The term biopsy and the speed of diagnosis gave me pause. I was unsure, probobly a result of the new landscape, skeptical, and a little shocked,,,like a sudden sweat on the brow or that emotion that wells up and heaves your heart into your throat with a near miss while driving,,,,a reflexive offensive move from a jangling of nerve endings.
      I was to come June 5 for the excision, a las ocho (8:00). I went alone that morn and was ushered into an operating room with another youth who had a bunch on his breast also to be excised that day. My wife was to arrive later. We sat on opposite beds in silence, north and south a wall of language separating us both, yet we shared the same concerns. We were very concious of one another within our artificial bubble of inattention.
     I studied the room to break the loud uncomfortable silence. There was a Daliesque crucifixtion, a amateurish painting of a modern Jesus suspended in the sky. They love to suspend Jesus here. On a tupperware type cart laden with medical instruments was a picture of Philadelphia, an old spot of blood stood out on the white wall, and the door was streaked with white lines. The sound of a mother giving birth drifted in from another room, a single groan followed by the sound of a baby crying with the violence of entering the world. I thought to myself how quiet the mother was during this process.
     I wanted to bridge the gulf of silence in the room. I asked my self-concious partner what was his problem.I only understood the word conflict but I nodded with assent in order to preserve the fragile connection of this non dialogue. At least the room now contained something spoken, something human. Even if he talked and I pretended to understand and vice versa, the words would alleviate fears,,, that pestered the room like having honey on your fingers when you are asked to pass a paper napkin. Yet after the brief interchange silence again thickened the air.
     The doctor came in with Lila the nurse who is also the doctor's sister. After a greeting and a peek at my lump the doctor indicated that he would nullify the area with an anesthetic. He inserted the needle then injected, and re-inserted at another angle and another all about the lump. He told me to tell him if I had pain and then began to cut. I couldn't or wouldn't look not willing to witness my own dissection. There was appeal albeit even existential, in this.
     The nurse and the doctor began talking about the World Cup and Mexico's upcoming game with Ecuador. Sometimes their detachment relaxed me because I suspected that what they were seeing could not be so serious or they would not be so matter of fact. Snip, cliiip, criiip, the sound of cutting hard flesh filled the room. Some of the slashes I felt in that dull anesthesized way, and other criips no, but it was the sound that lingered like an unsure aftertaste.
     Finally came the sutures and the instructions and my wife's invitation to the chamber. Because I am white the doctor told her I have need of an antibiotic. The "dark ones" he said have stronger anti-bodies. I felt, for a moment, as if I were on the receiving end of bigotry. However it seemed sensibly true that after a lifetime of consumption through skin and mouth in these less antiseptic surroundings one would have more tolerance, let us say for drinking from a roadside ditch. Really I never trusted all those handcleaners and room sterilizers and antibiotics in food up north that rid the world of the unseen enemies that lie in wait to seep into our fragile bloodstreams and wreak havoc (hacer estragos).  There was a need to place our internal blubbers in Germanic order.
     The lump turned out to be a calcium deposit. It was brought in for me to see from a backroom floating in a jar of clear preservative. It looked like something from the cleaning of fish with miniscule balls and flag like streamers that fell from the core. The operation cost $90.00 U.S.D..
     The doctor had operated on the young boy with a bunch right after me. I was recuperating when they entered with his excision in a bigger jar swimming lazily in fluid. It resembled the gizzard of a turkey only lighter in color.  His was much larger than mine, like a fleshy egg with long spangles.
     One week later, while on a ladder painting a wall, I had an accident. I was trying to move the ladder while at the top by jumping a little. In a flash I found myself on the floor when the ladder slipped. The surgery opened up when my shin hit one of the rungs. 
     I didn't return to the clinic for new stitches. After a few days it had healed over. Perhaps the white guy had earned some new antibodies himself. 

Advantageous Accidents

                   "Advantageous Accidents"

     Our lives are a series of accidents. Each moment we live “presents” us with encounters and choices, and we may consciously or, more often, unconsciously choose between options that are randomly revealed. Each crossroad or encounter, however seemingly insignificant, may possess potential for an alteration that might affect our voyage.  Of course the affect inspires only if it is recognized and then embraced. If overlooked they disolve into our unconsciousness. We sail through a narrow sea of space and time, our voyage depending on random destiny,,, our ability to steer, and our willingness to go ashore and explore the inlets. La Vida Es la Ruleta but our decisions count more than we are willing to admit. Decisions, large and small, determine how it all passes and,,,, if we are paying attention at the moment the wind turns or the fog lifts,, and we wax reflective we may just have an opportunity to experience an "Advantageous Accident".

     When these momentous accidents occur they may caress our senses and perhaps deliver unto us a chorus of angels. We are sometimes brushed by the essences of life, and given the opportunity to comb them so that they shimmer. I was set in motion by an empty seat on an old green school bus.

     My father died in september 1997. He was the parent upon which depended my sanity. His protection was more exemplary than participatory, but that was important to my mental health,, just to know that one of my parents was secure and at the core a decent person. My mother could have made us all even more debiltated images of herself but it was my father's example, as the simpler one, with feet on the ground not a head mired in the clouds of materialism that protected us from a free ticket to the feeb farm. We are all like cocktails in a way, some with nothing but bitters and others containing more delicious subtleties in their flavor. My father lacked intervention but he balanced the scale with other achievements. His passing affected me deeply. 

     After his death depression set in like a wet cold. Day by day I grew distant from my secure routines and ventured beyond the point of an easy recovery. This kind of depression accretes as it settles. It sneaks into life and then, after a bit one finds their orbit disturbed. Simple actions cannot be realized. You sense yourself sinking. Stasis seems out of reach. Have you ever tried to tie a knot in a fishing line when the temperature is below freezing? It is a simple task made nearly impossible with the introduction of cold. Fingers are unable to receive commands. It is like that.

     What does a good middleclass American do when there is an interruption in their string of whimseys?.....go to school! I decided to take a french language immersion in Montreal. The idea to abandon ship and immerse myself in order to be rescued seemed appealing. Language school presented itself as a viable  option better than other courses like "Macroscopic Voyages into Historical Lies # 1". Communication Sweetbreads", or "Latter 20th Century Female Ghanian Fiction". All of those might have extricated my down by agitating  my skeptical organ. Give us this day, our daily portion of lite viands and off we will bounce into the world, with sophmoric grins. Language had a different appeal in its simple truth. All enter as privates 1st class,or less, in the army of chit-chats. All are infants wearing their lingual diapers while trying to change the course of their deeply furrowed mental ways. It was purely positive to think I might moisten distant fields.

     With language immersion, paying attention is of more importance than  with other courses. One is not fed fixed ideas by the idea dispensor in front of the class. One cannot remain passive. One must participate, or be at risk of missing the train at any moment of every second. The goal is simple, that is learn to say what I did after shaving in front of fifteen other lingual babies. The subjects discussed are mundane but the degree of difficulty is high. The older brain is stubborn. 
     Another appeal of bilingualism is purely snobbish. To be bi-lingual was to have a special status. I could return home and impress my neighborhood by carrying about copies of L'Etranger, and occaisionally be called on to help the French tourist lost in my town. It didn’t seem to matter that I was too old and the sediments accrued in my mental ditches would offer great resistance to the flow of a foreign language. I thought I might go back in time and be a child again, yet preserving my adult impish side, jettison my depression for immersion in the vagaries of light expression and chit-chat my way back into the world.

     I arrived in Montreal on friday a full three days before courses were to begin to familiarize myself with the town. The next day, saturday the university had arranged a "get acquainted" tour of Quebec city in french. I inscribed and was thrown into a busload of adult advanced or intermediate speakers from all over the world. I was the infant, not mewling, but just trying to breathe in this rarefied air. In spite of my isolation the day went well. After a tour of Quebec center in French,  we were turned loose and I barnacled myself to a man from Uganda who spoke both English and French. It seemed like cheating, speaking English with him for the rest of the day but after the bus ride with the experts, I enjoyed the feeling of comfort. We poked about town however I was already familiar with the city. Since I lived so close in Maine I had visted Quebec many times. Joseph, the man from Uganda, seemed very polite and cautious, but as the day progressed he loosened up and began to recount stories about Uganda during the reign of Idi Amin.There was one story about a skinny young boy in his village. He rarely spoke. He just smiled. He was an eccentric person for he did everything backwards. He walked backwards. He counted backwards,,,, If he wanted to climb a coco palm he would go up backwards smiling. He would swim backwards across the river. In Native American culture there exists a sacred clown that does everything backwards.These rare honored people are called Heyoka. They are living mirrors that reflect society's faults. Their life in the opposite direction teaches us that there is a path before us that travels in an unexpected direction towards a clearer view and that we have the ability to "see" those around us as cherished beings.  Heyoka are valued members of society even if their behavior is difficult to understand but their empathy is sacred and constant, revealed in their backwards approach to life. Joseph told me one day Idi Amin's army entered his village and  executed many people including mirror man.      Joseph and I were the last to reach the bus. I let him enter first, so I was compelled to take the last available seat next to a short attractive lady with thick glasses and close cropped hair spritzed gray at the temples. She looked very practical. She, Pilar,  was a teacher of french at the university level in Toluca, Mexico. Pilar could speak no english and I no spanish and very little French. What could I do with the next two hours but try and communicate or roll on in uncomfortable silence,,, yet aided by her "teacher determination" we stretched out nothing into a little more than nothing,,,probobly the secret to a satisfied life in most parts of the world.  When the bus arrived at the dorm Pilar and I made a promise to meet the next day, Sunday, at St. Joeseph's cathedral, at the 11:00 service in which little boys sing gregorian chant. I needed a friend at this stage in my lingual childhood and I thought she might provide me some company, but we were from different worlds, she fluent and I barely trickling. Pilar never showed up for the mass, but a few days later I sought out her dormitory room and brought her a piece of my artwork. She responded with a "tequila kit". One bottle of Sauza,,,salt,,,lemons. I still have the bottle.  

     I didn't see Pilar too much after that. I went to kindergarden and she went to grad school yet I was able to manage a promise from her that after the course ended we would correspond in french. There are always these bonds formed in language groups that of course are made of paper mache´ and deteriorate after the first or second storm back in the house yet I was a blood hound for correspondents those days I passed in Montreal. I thought this to be a viable manner for extending the lingual "sting" achieved by course taking. Sadly Pilar was not faithful to the promise of correspondence. I am sure in a way I was an irritation , for receiving a letter implies an obligation, and between commuting, work, and the other scimitars in life, who has time for extracurricular obligations, yet this "Advantageous Accident" was just beginning.

     Back in Mexico Pilar was distributing french pen pals to her students one day. A student of hers, La Señorita I will call her, happened to be absent. She was an older student and had family obligations. A couple of days later and a pen pal short she arrived. For la Señorita, Mother Hubbard, the cupboard was unfortunately bare of correspondents. Pilar however had a solutiuon that would benefit both her and her student. She could kill two birds with one swipe of her machete. La Señorita could receive a pen pal and Pilar could sweep her kitchen clean of a pesty cucaracha,, me,,, and all this without any need of penence. Give to La Señorita the desperate gringo and,,, voila,,, her world would contain one less nagging presence.

     At first La Señorita was skeptical of this opportunity for a letter hungary gringo is no substitute for the real Luis Vuitton, in the form of a frenchman equipped the inviolable papers of culture , a real card carrying french pedant. However she relented, because a pen pal was a course requirement. A few days after receiving her charge, I received a large envelope with a letter of introduction. The first thing I noticed was the oversized feminine "e's" in her handwriting. The letter briefly explained her course requirement and included a telephone number in California where she could be reached. At that moment she was visiting an aunt in Sonoma. It was a fateful phonecall for we began a correspondence that lasted almost 6 years, that began as a french lesson between people of different cultures and grew in affection the last year,  when I was carried off to Mexico on the crest of a wave of love and potential. 
     In the fourth year of our photoless correspondence, La Señorita  told me she was going to visit Montreal. She asked if we could meet. We arranged the meeting in front of Le Place des Artes, a plaza of theaters and fountains near the entrance to "Underground Montreal". I arrived first and waited amidst the jets of water and lolling people. Then this short lady with a bag and sunglasses appeared. She asked if I was Pierre. I had taken the french name Pierre for our correspondence. My first impression of her was her confidence, as if she could handle almost any situation. We hugged self conciously, because we were physical strangers but quickly we began talking,,,,,a conversation that lasted until two in the morning. What a seed was planted that evening! I took her to a restaurant, Les Deux Olives and as we sat there just getting reaquainted, there came a moment in that light combed gold by the dim incandescent ambience of so many restaurants, that she appeared softly radiant. 
     After I returned to my home she sent me a poem that her great grandfather had written to her great grandmother when they were courting. It was an elegantly written permission to be more passionate with words. It was after this that our correspondence changed its temperature. I knew we had exchanged something more than our presences that evening in Montreal. This was October, and by April I was in Mexico.  

El Bautismo y Los Gallos The Baptism and The Cockfight

                                                

                                            El Bautismo y Los Gallos


     Little Marco, a Mexicano with eskimo eyes was baptised that day at La Trinidad, an uninspired church in a barrio of the same name. My wife was a Padrina so she had pledged to buy the adorned baptismal candle, conch, and the white basket in which to place all these items. The morning before the baptism was spent buying gifts of diapers and baby shoes. It was already late when we encountered Abuelita, walking in her manner briskly down Moctezuma towards the church. We gave her a lift in my van that the family nicknamed "La Cajita de Zapatas". The mass was near ending when we entered and peculiarly we took a pew near the middle. I say peculiarly because my wife usually marches to the front and Abuelita likes the rear so she can leave before the "peace handshake". Following the mass came the sprinkling of holy water and a new group of fresh souls was incorporated into the church.
     The entrance of La Trinidad was decorated with an enormous arch of colorful dried flowers, some of which looked a little crestfallen after last night's rain. The flower patterns radiated upwards like feathery waves of chocolate floating on a bed of cream in a fancy dessert. A floral pastel para Dios.The same two dogs I always see at La Trinidad,, who I call Thomas and Paul, because they are so physically different, watched half-interestedly from the rectory roof. There are many roof top dogs in Mexico (perros del tercer piso) who hang over the edge barking safely at passersby. I imagine the roof covered in dung heaps like an obstacle course. Roof dogs seem to possess longer legs then their street counterparts who roam helter-skelter about the streets in town with rummaging eyes raiding garbage in search of something meat-like but settling for discarded tortillas or gelatinas stuck with napkins, or god knows what for dogs are no conoisseurs. They know where to look though.
     Inside the church Abuelita immediately spotted the low cut dress of Lupita, mother of Marco, the boy to be baptized, which stirred her deep seated prejudices for morenas who came from the fringes and all those that dwell a few yards beneath her class. I looked up at the ceiling trying to lose myself in the characteristics of the construction. After all La Trinidad was a neighborhood project, built by the donations and work of the people of one of the poorer barrios in Tenancingo. Their funds and taste were limited yet their effort translated into a focal point for the community.  

     I thought how class prejudice preserves distances.Those that think they possess moral worth because they have achieved economic success make themselves distinct from the lowland rookeries that produce people incompetent in social grace and self control. There could be just be a few grains of truth in Abue's social rancor, I mused. After all the poor seem to place pleasure on a higher plain than sober sacrifice,,,  then I quickly regained my balance. Social merit has nothing to do with class. With more prejudice comes wider brushes able to paint broader swaths of discrimination over the social landscape. And here I was, in the house of God, juggling my own bigotry,,, and there was Jesus, the great humble acceptor, suspended up there over the altar for all to see, his knees bleeding and scraped to the bone. Comforting myths do prevail here and everywhere. The trick is to pick the one that suits you.  

     Abuelita began voicing her concerns in whispers about Lupita’s outfit and about Marco's baptismal dress, (mameluca),  which I later found out to be hand-made by Lupita's mother. The christening outfit was loosely crocheted in a natural color. I thought Marco looked like a perfect little bundle of joy in a macrame string bag complete with a cap perhaps more like a macrame yamulke.      

     I began to stare at Lupita's black dress which plunged down her back, the fall interrupted by horizontal straps that only added to the appeal of the reveal. The dress in front and on the sides emitted sartorial flares. The bodice of the dress allowed a peek at the form of her breasts might take. The loose cut of the sides of the bust revealed how they would lay upon her chest. For Abuelita this was not the proper attire for the house of God, but for a cocktail bar. Perhaps, given Mexico’s strict rule,, that you are what you wear,, and that you had better leave your house in jeans that have an ironing crease and freshly shined shoes,, or you will be taken for a bottom feeder,,, so perhaps Abue’s universe was real.

     I glanced up at Jesus again and found the courage to accept this prejudice in silence because really there is little that can be done about it. No one is going to crack Abue’s carapace and wrench her in another direction. That would be like a butterfly caught in a sudden wind. Just can't fight it so let it take you. Her perception was filtered through a thick baleen of apartheid and that had become her steadfast truth. I preferred, as I often do in church, to stare, not towards a creator, but to the architecture or in the case of The Trinidad, I amused myself trying to turn the reddish veins in the shiny floor to ceiling marble into figures. At once I began to feel as if I had won a battle of courtesies. 

     To be fair to Lupita I wanted to know the reasons she chose that outfit. After all I was in church so I hoped to absolve her of her sins. The real basis for absolution is not a string of Hail Marys but understanding.  Lupita was occupied 99% of the time with little Marco. She came from extreme poverty so her options were reduced by an accident of birth. She was never ushered into the salons where role models put on fashion shows to teach the proper codes for the occaision. Her youth was stolen by pregnancy, her husband, even if he was Abuelita's grandson, was chauvanistic and irresponsible, more like Abue's perception of the lower classes. Perhaps Lupita's presentation was formed by want. She might not have been able to conceive of the proper etiquette for the occaison, yet she knew she would be a focus of attention being the mother, so she decided to shine a little in the moment. Like a light smear of sequins.

     Speaking of taste, and class consciousness, what better way to celebrate the baptism of your son than with a cockfight. After the mass we made our way to Tepetzingo to see Los Gallos. Big Marco is a gallero as is his father. The fight took place at the home of Big Marco's mother, Caro,, who is also Abuelita’s daughter. There would be lots of tequila, tacos, beer, and betting,,,, and the aroma of poultry.

     Cockfights draw the antipathy of all the modern middleclass liberals in the world who seem to froth at the mouth at the very thought of this bloody profane peasant ritual, which for all its brutality thumbs its nose at upper case decorum. The cockfighters have created an edgy world where they control the events in their bubble and in that bubble their taste is set free.  

     Spectators schmooze and drink and ponder bets as the impresarios slowly prepare their birds for battle,, like foreplay. The atmosphere is not festive nor too sombre either but when the match starts there is a silence and apparent lack of emotion that stands out. It is a spectator sport,, a theatre of life and death without the cheers. However this drama is quite serious because the loser dies,,, and sometimes the winner as well. The fascination with the great void is always a theme in this groundling ampitheatre-barn, masked by everpresent sexually charged virility,,, man fighting for the love of a good woman but a beast, substitutes for his sword. Little Marco was a virginal creature and the celebration of his innocent birth was all about a world he had yet to experience.