worry, i’m not going to get fat
—we’ll see
—i’m never gonna get fat
*
I park Stella’s car in front of the still-open McDonald’s on the US side. I have no business driving in Mexico. I cross the border into the Third World on foot. The Tijuana cab drivers chat in front of their cars, eat sunflower seeds, and look at the passersby just like cab drivers anywhere in the world.
“Hola,” I say.
“Hola,” says the one at the front of the line. I get in.
Where am I going? Avenida Revolución?
Avenida Revolución sounds good.
We take off. The radio is playing Mexican rap with accordion. A gilded Jesus glued to a plastic crucifix and a pine tree air-freshener swing from the rearview mirror.
The cab stops before the end of the song. I pay and get out. I inhale deeply.
The intersection of Avenida Revolución and Paseo de los Héroes blasts from the speakers of every nightclub, penetrates the air with the smells of the street grills, stares at me with the hungry eyes of every vendor of everything that’s ever been for sale, and wants my money with every beggar’s hand.
A mariachi family plays sloppily tuned guitars and sings their heads off. No one pays any attention to them.
Under a street lamp, a scrawny dog stretches a piece of gum off the pavement.
From the roof of a nightclub called Spiderman, a guy dressed as Spiderman swings from one side of the street to the other on a rope over the heads of the crowd. On the sidewalk across from me is a donkey painted with black and white stripes like a zebra. The zebra is hitched to a cart as colorful as a Christmas tree. $5 photo, Viva Mexico.
People, people, people . . . that’s why I’m here. People, people, people, people, people, people. The energy of Tijuana pulsates through every aorta, thrives in every germ south of the border. This very energy sucked me out of our empty house on the canyon, away from go-to-work-in-the-morning suburbia.
I go into the first bar I see. The bartender, thank God, speaks English. I ask if he can make a vodka martini.
“Sí, señor.”
“You got olives?”
“Sí, señor.”
“Can you make a dirty martini?”
“Sí, señor.”
“Now, the señor here wants a dirty martini with three olives.”
“Sí, señor.”
Three martinis later, Señor finally looks around. It hits me that if I had done so earlier, I surely would have left. What kind of a place is this? Dirty, dark, and it stinks something awful. A TV set on a wooden crate in the corner plays a never-ending soccer game. A few customers in cowboy hats watch the crate and drink beer from green bottles. During every commercial break, though, the hats turn to look at me. I pay and get out.
Outside, Tijuana enfolds me in its sweaty, open bosom. Noisy merchants pull me left and right, trying to lure me into their stuffy little shops.
I dive into another bar. This time I look at the crowd carefully. A TV set on a wooden crate in the corner plays the same soccer game. Men in cowboy hats are drinking beer and watching the game. The commercials begin, the hats turn toward me. I stay. On my way out, the stairs seem funnier.
The night now is hot and throbbing. I need panocha now. Panocha. A fat tattooed neck pulls me up fluorescent stairs. A whorehouse? No. A nightclub. The speakers slam Latin-Electro. The lights change with every beat, the girls under them, too. It’s full of girls. A waitress shoves her huge tits under my drunken head. What do I want to drink?
“Martini,” I yell.
She brings me a margarita. I’ll drink margaritas, then.
The dance floor is packed. The crowd consists of American military men, Mexican pimps, bleached-blond hookers, drug dealers, and losers like me. While normal people north of the border rest before the workday, Tijuana is wide awake.
An hour later I realize that the margarita was a mistake. I get dizzy from the lights, bodies, mirrors, boobs, sweat, glasses, tables, chairs. In the bathroom a geezer with a bowtie and pencil mustache hands out toilet paper for pesos. I dig out crumpled bills, drop them in his bowl, stagger to the sink, and splash water on my face. In the spattered mirror, a gray man frowns at me. I frown back. His wife left him. Boo-fucking-hoo. If I were her, I’d leave you, too.
Outside the john, Tits greets me with a new margarita. I didn’t order a new margarita.
“Sí,” says Tits.
“No,” I say.
“Sí, sí.”
“No sí sí,” I say.
“Sí, sí, sí, señor!” Tits insists.
“I did not order a margarita!”
Tits is angry. She whirls around and heads over to the bouncer. I pull out money and chase her. Mexicans understand English when they want to. I pay before she makes a scene. I down the watery margarita and shove the glass in my pocket—a little payback, fucking extortionists. They treat me like a regular gringo. I might be boracho, but I wasn’t born yesterday. And, no, I am no gringo. The whole world spins fiercely before my eyes; I am going to die here. I stagger down the stairs, grabbing the railing with all my might, and end up next to the tattooed neck. I attempt to hug the bouncer as I stammer panocha. I’ve got to have a panocha before I die.
“I want panocha!”
“Panocha, sí, sí.” The fat neck grins and makes that gesture that all of us idiots make. “Fucky, fucky, huh, señor?”
“Fucky, fucky, yes.”
“Fucky, fucky?”
“Yes, find me a panocha before I perish! I need panocha.”
He points to a man on the other side of the street. I can’t quite make him out. I set off in that direction, but the sidewalk has something else in mind—it suddenly ends. I trip and hop on the pavement, barely keeping my balance. Out of nowhere, a little hunchback midget in a white sombrero appears and pulls me aside. “Donkey show, donkey show, donkey show.” I have no idea what’s going on. To my right against a wall, a sailor kisses a whore while tugging on her g-string. She smirks at me over his shoulder.
To my left, leaning on a crumbling wall, a man with no legs stretches out a plastic cup—he wants dolla.
A scruffy five-year-old girl sucking snot from her upper lip stretches out a plastic cup—she wants dolla.
An Indian with a baby on her breast reaches out a plastic cup, she wants dolla.
A one-eyed grandma holds a plastic cup, she wants dolla, too.
Dolla-dolla-dolla-dolla,
