Bing-bong!
Then we flew into heavy fog and the plane made funny noises. The noises were fairly solid. I almost thought that we had landed in San Diego and were moving along the runway when a stewardess told us that we were going to land shortly, so we were still in the air.
Hmmmmmmmm ...
Bing-bong!
Hot Water
FROM San Francisco our speed had been amazing. We had gathered hundreds of miles effortlessly, as if guided by lyrical poetry. Suddenly we broke out into the clear to find that we had been over the ocean. I saw white waves below breaking against the shore and there was San Diego. I saw a thing that looked like a melting park and my ears were popping and we were going down.
The airplane stopped and there were many warships anchored across from the airport and they were in a low gray mist that was the color of their bodies.
"You can stop being green now," Vida said.
"Thank you," I said. "I'm new at the tree game. Perhaps it's not my calling."
We got off the airplane with Vida causing her customary confusion among the male passengers and resentment among the female passengers.
Two sailors looked as if their eyes had been jammed with pinball machines and we went on into the terminal. It was small and old-fashioned.
And I had to go to the toilet.
The difference between the San Francisco International Airport and the San Diego International Airport is the men's toilet.
In the San Francisco International Airport the hot water stays on by itself when you wash your hands, but in the San Diego International Airport, it doesn't. You have to hold the spigot all the time you want hot water.
While I was making hot water observations, Vida had five passes made at her. She brushed them off like flies.
I felt like having a drink, a very unusual thing for me, but the bar was small, dark and filled with sailors. I didn't like the looks of the bartender. It didn't look like a good bar.
There was more confusion and distraction among the men in the terminal. One man actually fell down. I don't know how he did it, but he did it. He was lying there on the floor staring up at Vida just as I decided not to have a drink in the bar but a cup of coffee in the cafe instead.
"I think you've affected his inner ear," I said.
"Poor man," Vida said.
Flying Backwards
THE basic theme of the San Diego airport cafe was small and casual with a great many young people and boxes full of wax flowers.
The cafe was also filled with a lot of airplane folks: stewardesses and pilots and people talking about airplanes and flight.
Vida had her effect on them while I ordered two cups of coffee from a waitress in a white uniform. She was not young or pretty and she was not quite awake either.
The cafe windows were covered with heavy green curtains that held the light out and you couldn't see anything outside, not even a wing.
"Well, here we are," I said.
"That's for certain," Vida said.
"How do you feel?" I said.
"I wish it were over," Vida said.
"Yeah."
There were two men sitting next to us talking about airplanes and the wind and the number eighty kept coming up again and again. They were talking about miles per hour.
"Eighty," one of them said.
I lost track of what they were saying because I was thinking about the abortion in Tijuana and then I heard one of them say, "At eighty you'd actually be flying the plane backwards."
Downtown
IT was an overcast nothing day in San Diego. We took a Yellow Cab downtown. The driver was drinking coffee. We got in and he took a long good look at Vida while he finished with his coffee.
"Where to?" he said, more to Vida than to me.
"The Green Hotel," I said. "It's—"
"I know where it's at," he said to Vida.
He drove us onto a freeway.
"Do you think the sun will come out?" I said, not knowing what else to say. Of course I didn't have to say anything, but he was really staring at Vida in his rear-view mirror.
"It will pop out around twelve or so, but I like it this way," he said to Vida.
So I took a good look at his face in the mirror. He looked as if he had been beaten to death with a wine bottle, but by doing it with the contents of the bottle.
"Here we are," he said to Vida, finally pulling up in front of the Green Hotel.
The fare was one dollar and ten cents, so I gave him a twenty-cent tip. This made him very unhappy. He was staring at the money in his hand as we walked away from the cab and into the Green Hotel.
He didn't even say good-bye to Vida.
The Green Hotel
THE Green Hotel was a four-story red brick hotel across the street from a parking lot and next to a bookstore. I couldn't help but look at the books in the window. They were different from the books that we had in the library.
The desk clerk looked up as we came into the hotel. The hotel had a big green plant in the window with enormous leaves.
"Hello, there!" he said. He was very friendly with a lot of false teeth in his mouth.
"Hello," I said.
Vida smiled.
That really pleased him because he became twice as friendly, which was hard to do.
"Foster sent us," I said.
"Oh, Foster!" he said. "Yes. Yes. Foster. He called and said you were coming and here you are! Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Foster. Wonderful person! Foster, yes."
He was really smiling up a storm now. Maybe he was the father of an airline stewardess.
"I have a lovely room with a bath and view," he said. "It's just like home. You'll adore it," he said to Vida. "It's not like a hotel room."
For some reason he did not like the idea of Vida staying in a hotel room, though he ran a hotel, and that was only the beginning.
"Yeah, it's a beautiful room," he said. "Very lovely. It'll help you enjoy your stay in San Diego. How long will you be here? Foster didn't say much over the telephone. He just said you were coming and here you are!"
"Just a day or so," I said.
"Business or pleasure?" he said.
"We're visiting her sister," I said.
"Oh, that sounds nice. She has a small place, huh?"
"I snore," I said.
"Oh," the desk clerk said.
I signed Mr. and Mrs. Smith of San Francisco on the hotel register. Vida watched me as I signed our new instant married name. She was smiling. My! how beautiful she looked.
"I'll show you to your room," the desk clerk said. "It's a beautiful room. You'll be happy in it. The walls are thick, too. You'll be at home."
"Good to hear," I said. "My affliction has caused me a lot of embarrassment in the past."
"Really a loud snorer?" he said.
"Yes," I said. "Like a sawmill."
"If you'll please wait a minute," he said. "I'll ring my brother and have him come down and watch the desk while I'm taking you upstairs to the room."
He pushed a silent buzzer that summoned his brother down the elevator a few moments later.
"Some nice people here. Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Friends of Foster," the desk clerk said. "I'm going to give them Mother's room."
The brother clerk gave Vida a solid once-over as he went behind the desk to take over the wheel from his brother who stepped out and he stepped in.
They were both middle-aged.
"That's good," the brother desk clerk said, satisfied. "They'll love Mother's room."
"Your mother lives here?" I said, now a little confused.
"No, she's dead," the desk clerk said. "But it was her room before she died. This hotel has been in the family for over fifty years. Mother's room is just the way it was when she died. God bless her. We haven't touched a thing. We only rent it out to nice people like yourselves."
We got into an ancient dinosaur elevator that took us up to the fourth floor and Mother's room. It was a nice room in a dead mother kind of way.
"Beautiful, is
n't it?" the desk clerk said.
"Very comfortable," I said.
"Lovely," Vida said.
"You'll enjoy San Diego even more with this room," he said.
He pulled up the window shade to show us an excellent view of the parking lot, which was fairly exciting if you'd never seen a parking lot before.
"I'm sure we will," I said.
"If there's anything you want, just let me know and we'll take care of it: a call in the morning, anything, just let us know. We're here to make your stay in San Diego enjoyable, even if you can't stay at your sister's because you snore."
"Thank you," I said.
He left and we were alone in the room.
"What's the snoring thing you told him about?" Vida said, sitting down on the bed.
She was smiling.
"I don't know," I said. "It just seemed like the proper thing to do."
"You are a caution," Vida said. Then she freshened herself up a little, washed the air travel off and we were ready to go visit Dr. Garcia in Tijuana.
"Well, I guess we'd better go," I said.
"I'm ready," Vida said.
The ghost of the dead mother watched us as we left. She was sitting on the bed knitting a ghost thing.
The Bus to Tijuana
I DON'T like San Diego. We walked the few blocks to the Greyhound bus depot. There were baskets of flowers hanging from the light posts.
There was almost a small town flavor to San Diego that morning except for the up-all-night tired sailors or just-starting-out sailors walking along the streets.
The Greyhound bus depot was jammed with people and games of amusement and vending machines and there were more Mexicans in the bus depot than on the streets of San Diego. It was almost as if the bus depot were the Mexican part of town.
Vida's body, perfect face and long lightning hair performed their customary deeds among the men in the bus depot, causing a thing that was just short of panic.
"Well," I said.
Vida replied with a silence.
The bus to Tijuana left every fifteen minutes and cost sixty cents. There were a lot of Mexican men in the line wearing straw and cowboy hats in sprawled laziness to Tijuana.
A jukebox was playing square pop tunes from the time that I had gone into the library. It was strange to hear those old songs again.
There was a young couple waiting for the bus in front of us. They were very conservative in dress and manner and seemed to be awfully nervous and bothered and trying hard to hold on to their composure.
There was a man standing in the line, holding a racing form under his arm. He was old with dandruff on the lapels and shoulders of his coat and on his racing form.
I had never been to Tijuana before but I had been to a couple of other border towns: Nogales and Juarez. I didn't look forward to Tijuana.
Border towns are not very pleasant places. They bring out the worst in both countries, and everything that is American stands out like a neon sore in border towns.
I noticed the middle-aged people, growing old, that you always see in crowded bus depots but never in empty ones. They exist only in numbers and seem to live in crowded bus depots. They all looked as if they were enjoying the old records on the jukebox.
One Mexican man was carrying a whole mess of stuff in a Hunt's tomato sauce box and in a plastic bread wrapper. They seemed to be his possessions and he was going home with them to Tijuana.
Slides
AS we drove the short distance to Tijuana it was not a very pleasant trip. I looked out the window to see that there was no wing on the bus, no coffee stain out there. I missed it.
San Diego grew very poor and then we were on a freeway. The country down that way is pretty nothing and not worth describing.
Vida and I were holding hands. Our hands were together in our hands as our real fate moved closer to us. Vida's stomach was flat and perfect and it was going to remain that way.
Vida looked out the window at what is not worth describing, but even more so and done in cold cement freeway language. She didn't say anything.
The young conservative couple sat like frozen beans in their seats in front of us. They were really having a bad time of it. I pretty much guessed why they were going to Tijuana.
The man whispered something to the woman. She nodded without saying anything. I thought she was going to start crying. She bit her lower lip.
I looked down from the bus into cars and saw things in the back seats. I tried hard not to look at the people but instead to look at the things in the back seats. I saw a paper bag, three coat hangers, some flowers, a sweater, a coat, an orange, a paper bag, a box, a dog.
"We're on a conveyer belt," Vida said.
"It's easier this way," I said. "It will be all right. Don't worry."
"I know it will be all right," she said. "But I wish we were there. Those people in front of us are worse than the idea of the abortion."
The man started to whisper something to the woman, who continued staring straight ahead, and Vida turned and looked out the window at the nothing leading to Tijuana.
The Man from Guadalajara
THE border was a mass of cars coming and going in excitement and confusion to pass under an heroic arch into Mexico. There was a sign that said something like: WELCOME TO TIJUANA THE MOST VISITED CITY IN THE WORLD.
I had a little trouble with that one.
We just walked across the border into Mexico. The Americans didn't even say good-bye and we were suddenly in a different way of doing things.
First there were Mexican guards wearing those .45 caliber automatic pistols that Mexicans love, checking the cars going into Mexico.
Then there were other men who looked like detectives standing along the pedestrian path to Mexico. They didn't say a word to us, but they stopped two people behind us, a young man and woman, and asked them what nationality they were and they said Italian.
"We're Italians."
I guess Vida and I looked like Americans.
The arch, besides being heroic, was beautiful and modern and had a nice garden with many fine river rocks in the garden, but we were more interested in getting a taxi and went to a place where there were many taxis.
I noticed that famous sweet acrid dust that covers Northern Mexico. It was like meeting a strange old friend again.
"TAXI!"
"TAXI!"
"TAXI!"
The drivers were yelling and motioning a new supply of gringos toward them.
"TAXI!"
"TAXI!"
"TAXI!"
The taxis were typically Mexican and the drivers were shoving them like pieces of meat. I don't like people to try and use the hard sell on me. I'm not made for it.
The conservative young couple came along, looking very frightened, and got into a taxi and disappeared toward Tijuana that lay flat before us and then sloped up into some hazy yellow poor-looking hills with a great many houses on them.
The air was beginning electric with the hustle for the Yankee dollar and its biblical message. The taxi drivers seemed to be endless like flies trying to get you into their meat for Tijuana and its joys.
"Hey, beau-ti-ful girl and BE-atle! Get in!" a driver yelled at us.
"Beatle?" I said to Vida. "Is my hair that long?"
"It is a little long," Vida said, smiling.
"Hey, BE-atle and hey, beauty!" another driver yelled.
There was a constant buzzing of TAXI! TAXI! TAXI! Suddenly everything had become speeded up for us in Mexico. We were now in a different country, a country that just wanted to see our money.
"TAXI!"
"TAXI!"
(Wolf whistle.)
"BE-atle!"
"TAXI!"
"HEY! THERE!"
"TAXI!"
"TIJUANA!"
"SHE'S GOOD-LOOKING!"
"TAXI!"
(Wolf whistle.)
"TAXI!"
"TAXI!"
"SENORITA! SENORITA! SENORITA!"
"HEY,
BEATLE! TAXI!"
And then a Mexican man walked quietly up to us. He seemed a little embarrassed. He was wearing a business suit and was about forty years old.
"I have a car," he said. "Would you like a ride downtown? It's right over there."
It was a ten-year-old Buick, dusty, but well kept up and seemed to want us to get into it.
"Thank you," I said. "That would be very nice."
The man looked all right, just wanting to be helpful, so it seemed. He didn't look as if he were selling anything.
"It's right over here," he repeated, to show that the car was something that he took pride in owning.
"Thank you," I said.
We walked over to his car. He opened the door for us and then went around and got in himself.
"It's noisy here," he said, as we started driving the mile or less to Tijuana. "Too much noise."
"It is a little noisy," I said.
After we left the border he kind of relaxed and turned toward us and said, "Did you come across for the afternoon?"
"Yes, we thought we'd take a look at Tijuana while we're visiting her sister in San Diego," I said.
"It's something to look at all right," he said. He didn't look too happy when he said that.
"Do you live here?" I said.
"I was born in Guadalajara," he said. "That's a beautiful city. That's my home. Have you ever been there? It's beautiful."
"Yes," I said. "I was there five or six years ago. It is a lovely city."
I looked out the window to see a small carnival lying abandoned by the road. The carnival was flat and stagnant like a mud puddle.
"Have you ever been to Mexico before, Señora?" he said, fatherly.
"No," Vida said. "This is my first visit."
"Don't judge Mexico by this," he said. "Mexico is different from Tijuana. I've been working here for a year and in a few months I'll go back home to Guadalajara, and I'm going to stay there this time. I was a fool to leave."
"What do you do?" I said.
"I work for the government," he said. "I'm taking a survey among the Mexican people who come and go across the border into your country."
"Are you finding out anything interesting?" Vida said.
Revenge of the Lawn, the Abortion, So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away Page 19