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Steve Frederick
The web site
touting Puerto Calavera promised sunshine, beaches, several centuries of
New World history. But the first thing Morrow noticed was the police.
They slouched against the walls in Customs and leered at tourist women,
loitered in the streets, filled the beds of unmarked pickups, their
weapons always on display. Only their khaki shirts, bearing
gold-embroidered patches, marked them as cops. Otherwise, they had the
look of a guerrilla army—some pony-tailed, some shaved bald, some
wearing headbands or tattoos, some wrapped in bandoleras heavy with
brass cartridges.
In the airport concourse, one peered over a Customs agent’s shoulder,
lifting women’s underwear from open suitcases. Several held back the
taxi drivers and money changers who yammered outside the airport gates.
After collecting his baggage, Morrow waded into the throng and found a
cabbie who spoke English. “Take me to an old hotel,” he shouted. “A
quiet place, far from the casinos.” He threw his pack and duffel into
the back seat, then climbed in beside them. He unzipped a cargo pocket
and thumbed through a brochure. “There,” he said, pointing on a map.
“Somewhere near the Mission.”
The driver picked his way through the traffic until he reached a
colonial-era barrio with cobbled streets, pulled up in front of the
Playa del Mar Vines snaked up its stuccoed walls, sprouting crimson
blooms. Lizards sunned themselves on its tiled roof. The owner, Don
Francisco Perez, brisk and formal in a starched shirt and bow tie, sent
his sons to shuttle Morrow’s bags. Francisco’s wife, Eva, inquired
about his flight, invited him to join the family for dinner that
evening. After Morrow worked his way through a brief but good-natured
conversation in his schoolboy Spanish, Francisco’s uniformed daughter,
Alejandra, led him to his room.
He unpacked, took in the view from the deck. Even with a light breeze
rolling in from the bay, he found the seaward side of the hotel
uncomfortably warm. He changed into a T-shirt and thin cotton pants and
descended the broad mahogany stairway, settled into a wicker chair in
the shaded entry facing the street. Alejandra, though barely a
teen-ager, appeared and took his order for a cold cerveza. He savored
the beer and unwound, studied his brochures, planned visits to two
museums and the ruins of a Spanish fort.
As he sat reading, three barefoot boys ran from an alley kicking at a
ball, their laughter filling the street, sweat gleaming in the gaunt
furrows of their backs. He winced at the collisions of their dark, bony
shins. The ball shot past the porch rail and bounced off the wall behind
him.
The boys, suddenly quiet, stood and watched him, their faces lacking
expression. He rose and retrieved the rubber head of a doll, its tufted
scalp nearly hairless, pursed lips worn smooth and pink. He looked into
its painted pupils, smiled and gave it a kick. The three grinned back
and gave chase, resuming their game.
Francisco banged on a window screen, yelled a few sharp words that
Morrow couldn’t understand. The players ignored him. But within
minutes, a Jeep bearing three policemen rounded the corner. "Vaya!"
Morrow
yelled. “Go! Go!” The boys fled down the alley. Francisco emerged
from the door and exchanged a few words with the cops, who turned their
grim stares on Morrow. He smiled and shrugged, turning up his palms as
if to say, “What can we do?”
The next morning, he arose early and jogged on the beach, finishing at
the water’s edge in front of the hotel. Wallowing in the luxury of the
warm surf, he laid in the shallows, let the shore break wash over him.
After he showered, Alejandra brought a breakfast of tortillas and
scrambled eggs to his deck; later, he decided to walk to a nearby
open-air market. Along the way he passed a police station, an unpainted
cinder-block hut with barred windows. The guard out front paid him
little attention, flashing shiny teeth and a Chinese assault rifle as he
flirted with a pair of teen-age girls.
At the market, Morrow browsed among blankets scattered with handmade
wares and cheap trinkets—sandals, necklaces, painted wooden boxes. An
embroidered cotton pullover appeared to be his size, but he lost
interest quickly as insistent peddlers clustered around, waving shawls
and blankets and shouting their shifting prices. He held up his hands,
repeating, "No, gracias. No, gracias." On his way out of the plaza,
a soccer ball displayed in a booth caught his eye. He spun it on his
fingertip, bought it on a whim.
The next few days brought more guests to the hotel. Morrow plied a
German couple for news from the rest of the world, found himself ignored
by a pair of thick-hipped Latinas. He tried to spend part of each
afternoon on the shaded porch, the ball concealed under the table,
waiting for the boys to return. They didn’t, and on the day he was
scheduled to check out, he offered the ball to Francisco’s sons. The
father stepped in and thanked him, but forbade them to accept it.
“My guests, they don’t care for the noise,” Francisco explained.
“Maybe you give it to the policemen. Tell them from me.”
Morrow tucked the ball under his arm as he entered the cab for the trip
to the airport. When the cab passed the police station, Morrow told the
driver to stop. He took the ball with him, pounded on the metal door.
Getting no answer, he walked around the building. Out back, behind a
rotting couch and a truck with no wheels, a cluster of crows scuttled on
the edge of a dumpster, squawking at his approach. A thin, greasy smoke
rose from its depths. He recoiled as the thick stench of decay hit his
nostrils.
A young uniformed gunman burst from the back door, yelling, "Alto!
Alto!” and pointing a shotgun in Morrow’s face. A girl with bare
shoulders peered from a window. The policeman moved between Morrow and
the dumpster. Morrow raised his hands and let the ball bounce in the
dust, then tipped his head toward it, said quietly, "Para ustedes,”
and tried a smile.
The officer lowered the weapon and grinned, tapped the ball with his
foot to get it bouncing, kept it in the air with a few deft kicks. He
caught it in his palm and smiled again, cradling it in the crook of his
arm. "Gracias," he said.
Morrow felt his breath return, heaved a sigh. He nodded and waved and
started walking toward the cab. As he looked back for a moment he nearly
stumbled, an object like a battered orange scooting from between his
feet.
He looked down and saw the rubber head of a doll, its long-lashed
eyelids shut, head bare, tiny holes in straight rows piercing its scalp.
Copyright
© 2002 Steve Frederick
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