TheBanyanTree: more Stories again

[Tobie Shapiro]

September 26, 20000000000000000000000000006


Deer Ewe,

	I'm beginning to feel like I should stop.  I need some 
feedback.  Someone tell me if this is getting old, or if it's still 
being enjoyed.

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Oh, Estelle

	Dweller and I went to Mexico City on our honeymoon.  This was 
way back in 1969.  The little men had just landed on the little moon, 
and the world was abuzz with space travel.  We, however, stayed on 
earth and took a plane to Mexico City.  We had arranged to stay in a 
nice hotel, had reservations and confirmation numbers.  We planned 
the whole thing through a reputable travel agent.  We got a cab from 
the airport, and were delivered to our fine establishment.  It was 
billed as a place that upper class Mexicans would stay.  Oh good.  No 
tourists, we!

	But something very wrong happened when we showed up.  The 
clerk at the front desk looked at us with a blank expression and 
said, "I don't see a reservation."  We were crestfallen, and also 
befuddled.  We showed him the printed confirmation.  There.  Right 
there on paper.  "Sorry," he told us, "Not in the book."

	It took me at least a couple decades to figure out that that 
was when we were supposed to hand him some extra money to make our 
reservation appear in his book.  But, instead, we turned around, and, 
dispirited, dragged our luggage back to the curb.  We hailed another 
taxi, and told our sad story to the driver.  He had a good idea where 
we should stay, and said he'd take us there.  Very clean.  Very nice. 
Maybe a little expensive.  Fine fine.  Just take us there.

	So we stayed in hotel number two.  There was a little 
altercation with the room having two single beds, but they found us 
one with a double after we begged them and added that it was our 
honeymoon.  This was our home base.  It was pleasant, well decorated, 
and the hotel restaurant made a delightful fresh vegetable soup that 
I can still taste, with the raw egg cracked into it right before 
taking it off the stove.

	We amused ourselves walking around the streets in downtown 
Mexico City.  I had been warned to dress conservatively.  Mini skirts 
were all you could buy in the States, and I had to find older 
clothing.  But, damn, clueless, I wore my colourful tights, and this 
attracted much unwanted stares.  In fact, this being the old days 
when I was buxom and zoftig, I attracted a lot of male attention. 
Dweller didn't mind.  He'd just smile at the men staring at me, and 
pull me a little closer.  Sometimes the men staring would be passing 
a church.  Every time they passed a church, they kneeled and 
genuflected.  So, sometimes, there would be a man crossing himself in 
front of a church while oggling a young bride, his tongue hanging out 
of his mouth.

	We took side trips.  One side trip was to Tasco, the silver 
capitol of Mexico.  We were scheduled to stay there one night, and 
then return to our home base.  We decided this would be our one 
touristy jaunt.  We'd booked what we thought were two seats on a tour 
bus, but what showed up at the hotel was a private limousine.  We 
piled in the back seat, and looked out the window during the ride to 
Tasco.  Did I mention it was the silver capitol?  Now we felt like 
very ugly Americans, but there was nothing we could do about it. 
Well, I suppose we could have taken public buses, but we weren't up 
to that.  So maybe we were ugly Americans.  The driver of the 
limousine was also our designated guide.  He spoke English very well, 
but had a clause that he kept repeating:  "Now you will be about to 
be able to ......."  "Now you will be about to be able to see local 
children selling Armadillos by the side of the road."  "Now you will 
be about to be able to arrive in Tasco."  "Now you will be about to 
be able to go to your room and you will be about to be able to meet 
me in the lunch room in two hours."

	So Dweller and I took ourselves upstairs and down the 
colonnade to our new room.  The hotel was a vast Spanish resort.  In 
fact, everything in Tasco from the street signs to a hot dog stand, 
to a vast Spanish resort had to meet with strict requirements and 
specifications.  It all had to conform to the architecture and style 
of a Mexican village in the 1800s.  It gave the town an allure and 
affixed it with a fantasy rather than a reality.  We were frozen in 
time, before airplanes, before television, before antibiotics.  Our 
hotel looked like something from a Hollywood set where Elizabeth 
Taylor would be strolling the outdoor hallways with their rows of 
grand arches, the rain pelting the ceramic tile roof, the lightning 
illuminating the tin masks hanging on the walls.

	Our room was another little fantasy, a quarry tile floor, 
white bed linens on a wrought iron bed, an elaborate tin angel above 
on the wall, an ornate mirror; the bathroom fixtures were old 
fashioned porcelain.  Every few minutes one of us flushed the toilet. 
We each thought the other had forgotten to flush after a particularly 
florid event.  But when I turned on the tap in the sink, the truth 
came out.  The water was brown, opaque brown.  And let's just not 
think about it.  It would be agua purificado for the squeamy ugly 
American gringos.

	We had two hours before we would be about to be able to meet 
our guide in the comida. So, we decided to try out the bed.  We got 
in and started fussing around with skin and hair, when we were 
interrupted loudly by a booming thick New York accent next door out 
in the hallway.  The speech came from a middle aged man that I 
imagined was wearing an Hawaiin shirt stretched over an ample belly, 
and bermuda shorts with his bare knees and shins spilling out below 
the pant lines.  Maybe he had a camera or two slung around his neck. 
But it was what he said and how he said it that has kept his speech 
in my permanent memory.  This will stay in my craw long after I 
forget my social security number.  Remember the thick New York accent.

	"Oh, Estelle!  Ya know, I'm so emotional about leavin' owa 
little room!  Why if owa little room could only speak!  Think what it 
would say, preparin' for a new inhabidant!"

	When we'd heard these words, we stopped all the foreplay, got 
dressed immediately and went for a walk.

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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net