For the first few hours of my stay in the provincial town, I just wasted away dawdling and gawking lackadaisically at passersby in El Parque Guadiana (Guadiana Park). It is considered an urban forest that provides environmental services to the city such as the carbon cycle, temperature control, and psychological benefits to those whom visit the park. I was so tired from the long bus ride that the only psychological benefit I was after was repose. Parque Guadiana helped me achieve that quietude and serenity I needed after all of the excitement in Mazatlan and Culiacan. Also, it is the habitat for many fauna species, especially the avian-fauna species that are found within the park. Being an old bird-watcher myself, I found the sight of beautiful song-birds flying about fancy-free quite relaxing.
El Parque Guadiana also offers kiddy-friendly infrastructure where children can find reasons to aggravate their parents outside of their homes (and much to my annoyance), plus a specialized trail for runners and walkers, and there were plenty of muscular forms jogging up and down the path-way. The landscaping is traditional and graced with elegant Spanish-style fountains. It also has an Olympic pool, which I avoided at all costs, and a town hall which was hosting at the time a dance for senior citizens, which I also avoided at all costs. It also has a small train that goes around the Lago de los Patos, “lake of the ducks”, and, until recently, a recreational bicycle path (it was being remodeled when I got there) in a wooded section which provides shaded fresh air to cyclists. Despite my languor and the relaxing aspects of the park, it was still 97F in the shade. When I found that out I almost yelped from sheer heat-induced frustration. It was 10 degrees hotter out in the open.
Sunset gave way to the purple shades of evening, but even the darkness could not contend with the idling heat. That night was one of the most miserably hot that I can remember. On top of that, I had one of those Late-Summer colds. Yes, at first I thought I’d caught that damned Porcine flu, but it was soon clear that I did not have all of the symptoms. I think it was just a chest cold. I felt congested and I had a nagging cough ~ probably going in and out of the air-conditioned hostel out into the swarthily hot atmosphere caused my anguish. That, along with everything else, needless to say, kept me awake all night long ... Crap!
The next day, I have to admit, I had a great day considering how hot it was. Thence I experienced something fascinating. To begin with, I arose from bed around 7:30 AM after hardly sleeping at all the previous night. Like I do every morning, I prepared myself and headed for the nearest cafe’ for some much needed coffee, and in Durango there is some great coffee to be had. So, instead of seeking adventure or cultural distractions, I just sat down in the hostel lobby to watch some television while I sipped the coffee. Ordinarily at this hour I would also be lighting up a cigar (or sucking on a chocolate candy in order to control the rotten smoking habit). But, because I’d gone four months (I was going freaking nuts) without a smoke, it didn’t look like I’d be lighting up any time soon. This day, for some unexplainable reason, I planned to go, of all things, Bowling. I mean, I hadn’t gone bowling since, what? The early 1980’s? Apparently it was a great deal: only 5 pesos per game and 5 pesos for the shoe rental on Sunday mornings. Not bad, I thought, and well worth losing some loose change.
It was now around 9:00 A.M. and bowling was still a few hours away, so I decided to go for a walk around the lake at Guadiana Park, which was actually across the street the from auberge des jeunesse I was staying at. It was a pleasant enough walk, though the ducks gave me cause to hold my breath as a consequence of the toxic fumes emanating from their deposits. Even so, Ciudad Durango is beautiful, complete with pathways, bridges and other “smelly” twisting waterways. Apparently the city uses reclaimed water for their “little” parks and recreation projects. Well, to make a long story even longer, I received word from the concierge that the bowling alley was now open for business. Hence, I rode a bicycle-taxi to the establishment. Remember, 25 plus years have transpired since I had gone to a bowling alley. When I first walked in and heard that sound of the heavy balls knocking over the pins, it was quite refreshing.
Now comes the best part. There weren’t many people there, I’d say about half the lanes were filled so it gave me a chance to pick my lane; I picked the one on the far right end, lane 38. The lane next to me was empty, but the lane immediately following, lane 36, was being used by this one particular family. It was a typical Durango family of six: mom and dad, both about my age give or take a couple of years, and their four children. The first thing I noticed was how much fun they were having. They were laughing at everything and enjoying every second together. I mean, they were bowling like shit; gutter balls left right, and if the ball made it all the way to the pins, maybe one or two pins would topple. Did this matter? Absolutely not ~ they were having fun! Among the four kids was a little girl. Now, I’m not the most politically correct person in the world, I call it as I see it. She was handicapped and in a wheelchair. When it came time for this little girl’s turn to bowl, her two sisters and one brother wheeled her over to the front of the lane. The little girl had her pink bowling ball already on her lap. The other three kids helped by bringing the ball down to the front of the wheelchair. They proceeded then to push the little girl’s wheelchair and the ball. The ball never made it past two meters before it went right into the gutter. The children burst into laughter as did their parents. It was probably one of the most tragically beautiful moments that I have ever actually witnessed. And again, it wasn’t so much what I saw but what they tangibly expressed: love, patience, understanding and compassion, not to mention pure joy and happiness. I was touched by the occasion, and for once I could put the ever-sustaining cynicism aside to experience a genuine “human” moment with them.
The truth of how stupid and petty the rest of us can become sometimes was reflected by these scenes of innocent joy.
I subsequently played two games. I did quite well on the first, not so well on the second. I had to stop after that ~ I was getting tennis elbow from bowling, so to speak. From there I went and had a hearty breakfast at the “Pancho Villa” Restaurant/Cafe’; I had biscuits and gravy with two eggs over easy, hash-browns and bacon, my favorite. After breakfast, I rode back to the auberge. I played a little poker online, watched a soccer (futbol) game and delighted as the Chivas, the Mexican team, got the shit kicked out of them by the Boca Juniors, the Argentine team!
As soon as it got unbearably hot I went down for a swim in the hostel pool ~ I was not about to risk the Guadiana park (cess) pool.
And that, my friends, concluded my great day!
By the way, the swine flu epidemic was now making it’s way around South America, specifically in Argentina. They reported up to over 80 deaths so far as a consequence of the intrusion of the virus. The blame was sure to fall on Mexico, but it had made its way around the world and now it was the Gauchos’s turn to deal with it. Meanwhile, the Cabras, the Mexican soccer team, had its worries trying to prevent their star goalie from catching it because his “soul-mate”-lover was from Argentina, and it would be a shame if he’d lost his “soul mate” while being married to ANOTHER WOMAN!
Speaking of “another woman,” the state team had recently weathered a scandal that involved one of their prize players who had been shot in the head. Well, he was shot in the head by his lover who then committed suicide. Why? Because the “crazy bitch” (as the victim’s team-mates described her) suspected he had been cheating on her. Wait! Cheating on her? I don’t get it, wasn’t he MARRIED? Oh, yes he was, and the “crazy bitch” thought HE was cheating on HER? A cheater shoots a cheater for cheating ... nice!
Just think, if he hadn’t cheated, he might still be alive.
Choices ... we all have choices.
In response to this ending note on cheating/killing, a sports journalist gave his viewers this quote to think about:
“Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong?
He took the words right out of my mouth. We are of a
mind, for those who have a piece of mind to give, or a mind to share, but pay no mind to the mindless. It reminds them that they are not of a mind to mind their own business.
uhhhm ... yeah!
... whatever.
Upon reflection, I need not exculpate myself with respect to the swine flu deaths. I had my own problems with Dengue Fever lurking about, and the early-Autumn mosquitoes around that region, just like my fellow Mexicans, chiquitos pero malditos hijos de la chingada (small but evil sons-of-bitches), are mean as sin. Specifically, they go straight for your lower leg, and bite one so viciously they leave not just itchy bumps, but blood-filled pustules that explode at a touch, and one ends up scratching till the upper epidermis peels off. It is painful as shit. Upon reflection, few would be sorry to hear that I was under the weather and going through nicotine withdrawal. As for my poignant bowlers’ anecdote, the local communists would say it was, “a perfect example of petty, bourgeois self-indulgence.”
But, what do the commies know, huh? Personally, I think I should sell my story to the producers of maudlin soap-operas based on sentimentality of the sort that fit perfectly around love, patience, understanding and compassion, not to mention pure joy and happiness. And, it certainly reminded me of how stupid and petty the rest of us can become, sometimes.
The friends I’d written to about the experience suggested that perhaps I was stoned from the cigar nicotine-rush when I witnessed the family scene. They thought I had just lost a great deal hence I must have been so mentally traumatized that I suppressed it. If one should start “wigging out” when one is playing alone or with friends (so they responded), I should just set the ball down gently, walk away and quickly seek therapy after getting intimate with alcoholic spirits. It would help me lighten up and forget the past, so they assured me. Speaking of lightening up, they further suggested I use the lightest ball I can find next time since it was my first game in many years.
So much for comprehension between friends!
The moment had come to console away my troubles with a Burger-King Spicy Mexican Burger.
And now, what was the latest news on Fulgencio San Roman?
PANTYHOSE WEARING TERRORISTS
AND OTHER WEIRDOS
As I considered my next move and whether to prolong my stay in Durango, some rumblings were heard in the distance, about 3 or more kilometers away. Then, BOOM, CRASH and BOOM again, followed by a mini-mushroom cloud of black smoke. What the Hell was going on over there? Later I learned that Mexican authorities had arrested a woman who was guarding the illegal arsenal they had just destroyed in a hail of fire and mayhem. This time around the police had been prepared and weren’t about to screw it up. Hence, as army reinforcements set a trap around the sectioned perimeter, the Federales clamped down on the evil-doers before they had a chance to cry “Uncle.” The army friendlies announced thereafter the capture of an alleged big-time narco-cartel lieutenant. The contested arsenal had belonged to a crime syndicate tied to the ruthless Beltran-Leyva drug cartel, according to the boastful Federales. This stash of arms included ammunition, the first anti-aircraft gun seized in Mexico, a grenade and part of a grenade launcher.
The Mexican drug cartels, fighting a vicious crackdown by soldiers and the Federales, have increasingly acquired higher-powered weapons, even American-grade arms such as grenades and automatic guns (though they still preferred the Russian-made AK-47 machine guns). All this has left police, particularly state and municipal forces, grossly under-prepared to face off the fire-power before them, and many officers have called it quits following attacks.
The chief of the Federales said the confiscated .50-caliber, anti-aircraft machine gun could fire 800 rounds per minute and was capable of penetrating armor from more than 5,000 feet (1,500 meters). The Durango Police on a routine patrol that weekend found the gun fitted atop an SUV at a villa in the northern part of the state.
The responsible authorities released few details of the arrested suspects. Nevertheless, the arrested female suspect, Cihuatontli Carrillo, a full blooded Nahua (descendants of the Aztecs), apparently was not related to the Beltran-Leyva clan, but had cooperated with them for several years. The Security Ministry had traced many guns seized at scenes of drug violence in Mexico to U.S. commercial sources ~ a fact which surprised no one. Determining the source of military-grade weapons such as grenades and fully automatic machine guns, however, was a far more touchy subject, and one which they did not want to deal with even under the best of circumstances.
An American official had been interviewed about the subject, and he claimed the grenades had been smuggled in, for the most part, through Central America and went straight into the hands of narco-terrorists despite all of the apologies afforded to the Mexican Government by the officials of said smuggler countries. Some of the weapons were probably leftovers from the Central American civil wars. To me, it seemed like the ghosts of pirates-past were lurking about making sure that nobody could forget about their storied ways.
In any case, the desperate assailants had fired on government aircraft as they performed an anti-drug raid in Mexico in recent months, but supposedly never with the caliber of weapon found that weekend.
Just a few months before in the state of Sonora, a helicopter on a federal drug-eradication operation crashed while trying to escape ground fire, and a second helicopter was damaged by shrapnel.
Mexico was supposed to be upgrading its northern and southern border checkpoints by the time I crossed the border, installing gizmos that will weigh and photograph each car and truck coming into the country in a drive to track down and seize more illicit arms and other contraband. But, both sides had been promising to do more to stop gun trafficking from the United States to Mexico since Lord knows when. The latest pledges included the dispatching of nearly 500 more DEA agents to the border, along with X-ray machines and narco-sniffing canines.
Also occurring on that weekend was the capture of Miguel Angel Ibarias, the ill-famed lieutenant for the Beltran-Leyva drug cartel, in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa by the Mexican army not one hour after I’d left the state for Durango! General Luis Arturo Granados said soldiers caught Ibarias and two other suspects with four rifles and 2.6 pounds (1.2 kilograms) of opium on Friday. Ibarias allegedly ran the cartel’s drug planting, harvesting and trafficking operations on the coast not far from Topolobampo. To add “luster” to his notoriety, he was implicated in a number of kidnappings and killings in several states, including attacks as part of a gangland-style turf war with a suspected Guerrero cartel rival that left 27 people dead between them the previous year. Of course, I knew a lot of this before coming to Mexico, but I had to take my chances, and now the walls of danger were closing in around me, or so it seemed. Later I’d read that Ibarias’ wife, sister-in-law and two sons had been killed in retaliation. And to think, my own relatives, albeit distant, were somehow involved in all this terror!
Mexico’s drug-related civil war has claimed more than 10,650 lives since President Felipe Calderon’ launched his army-led offensive against trafficking cartels back in December 2006.
By the beginning of September of 2009, the government had sent thousands more troops to the northern border to quell escalating violence, including around Reynosa; Poor Fulgencio! I wonder how he was holding up during all of those violent attacks.
It didn’t soothe anyone’s temper when government spokes-people boasted that drug-related homicides fell by one-quarter across the country in the first three months of the year, compared to the same period in 2008. It certainly didn’t comfort me knowing that one of my nephews could be next, and no one bothered to prevent it.
Late the next Tuesday, some local Federales came snooping around the auberge and warned that trainees would be coming to participate in an exercise on how to detect drugs and other smuggled goods, and the guests thereof had been chosen for the humiliating inconvenience. I just prayed that the Federales wouldn’t go around demanding to see our identification documents, otherwise I’d definit
ely find myself in deep shit this time around!
The rest of my stay in Ciudad Durango went without incidents until I received news from Cousin Nena: “Bozo” (her spouse Jos) had succumbed to the pig flu, and was buried the antecedent weekend. Worse still, she was found to be carrying the virus. This was truly a bit of disheartening news. Cousin Nena sincerely fostered hopes that upon his recovery they could construct a new life together. With so much to live for, that she should be going through this phase at this time, it was all too much to countenance. Considering all the times that people get sick due to contact with the unwashed rabble, I am sure Nena was left in confusion more than in sorrow. Maybe so much contact with people was wearing her thin, thus she was a carrier now. Being a carrier, notwithstanding, is not the same as being infected, thus hope would be the last to die.
Later that night it started to rain heavily, and we had to brace for a rough Autumnal storm season because the temperatures had gone up again (average 95 degrees at 2AM, can you believe it?). Winds coming in from the Pacific and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec were clashing, and causing some pretty freaky thunder-lightning storms as I melted along with my hopes and aspirations. And yet, except for an unwillingness to touch my journalistic manuscript and this funk I was going through, I felt like things just might get better.
... Sadly though, Fulgencio was not getting better. He often wrote that one’s own flesh is naturally traitorous to the soul lurking within. Thus, despite all he’d survived throughout the decades, his body would soon be committing the ultimate act of treason.
A Wetback in Reverse Page 32