The Walk

     

     One night last April I left the hotel walking at 7:45 PM. It was getting dark. The western sky in front of me was just tinted with wavy golden strands. It's a 4 mile walk to the house de mi suegra. The first part is mostly sidewalk. This area is still rural on the fringes of the road. I pass a smattering of stores, some open, all lit up on the inside, their tired attendants peering out from the bluish flourescence into the warm night air. Some closed, their heavy metal graffitied curtains pulled shut. There were scattered groups of young people standing about talking. 
     I passed other walkers, some ambling and some with determined gaits. Here along the military base (as if Mexicans are going to attack anyone else except other Mexicans), the highway is lined with large australian eucalyptus trees. This stretch, about a kilometer, is without street lights. It is bitching dark at this point, darker than a crow's armpit, the reason I bring my little led flashlight. I walk on a dirt path astride the road from this point to San Jose Cuartel where the streetlights and sidewalk begin again. 
     Many people have been killed on this section,, a few murders years ago,  but mostly car accidents. A few months back a well off young woman from Malinalco crashed into a large eucalyptus tree at three in the early dawn. She must have been traveling at an incredible speed and couldn't negotiate the curve where there is an unfortunately placed speed bump which launched her vehicle like a rocket. Her car hit the eucalyptus 4 feet off the ground. She was found completely naked. An aquaintance of mine, a guitarrist singer was returning very late from a gig and as far as anyone can tell he fell asleep on that same curve and hit a tree astride the one that stopped the lady from Malinalco. 
     Probobly if one were to do a study it would show that more cyclists die here than anyone else. There is no shoulder except the uneven path upon which I was walking, so they ride on the ragged edge of the too narrow road, dangerous enough during the day as I know well for my own cycling, but treacherous in the night. Often in the long moments when there are no cars passing I hear the zizzzz jingle of a bicycle's chains, and then a rider flashes past, practically invisible, pumping viciously,trying to put this section behind them as fast as possible. 
     When I had practically reached San Jose, I felt a a large soft wet drop hit my thumb. At this dry time of year my first impression was that someone had spit towards me from a car. I took a mental note to wash that thumb when I arrived home. A few seconds later I felt the sensation of another drop upon my head. This ain't spit I thought still not believing it could be rain. By this time in the dry season one has forgotten that rain is part of the play. Although I could not feel the next wave of drops as I passed below a tree, I could see their  impressions on the street now becoming polka dotted. Their marks evanesced quicly on the hot tarmac as new ones appeared. The smell of wetted asphalt and soil immediately met my nostrils.
     It kept up a light steady pace until I reached the town square of Tenancingo. I went to visit the lady under the Quien Sabe Tree who sells camotes. I wanted to buy a few for whomever might be in the house that evening. She placed a leaf of her dull red paper upon her lap and reached into her cloth covered basket to extract some good ones. She squeezed and pinched and accumulated a respectable little pile. Va a llegar la llubia, no? she said. At that moment the rain accelerated its free fall not yet to touch us under the protection of the Quien Sabe Tree. What a wonderful carefree sensation I had at that moment not concerned if I was wetted. The black stone covered Zocalo shined, freshly varnished with gentle rain.