Veracruz, Mexico. 1974. She didn’t ask me anything about me. None of the usual shit, where did I come from, where was I going. Why, what, where, when, who, all that shit. She didn’t care, I liked that. Maybe it was because I was just another trick. I just liked that she talked freely and […]
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Veracuz, Mexico. 1974. A vague recollection suddenly crystalized and then was gone. Like a postage stamp image flash in a vast photo album of memories and fragmented particles of hazy images. It must’ve been months ago, seemed like years now. Back when I was relatively newly arrived in the port. I remembered sitting at one […]
read moreVeracruz, Mexico. 1974. She snatched up the C-note like a baby alligator taking its prey in one quick hungry bite. She motioned for me to wait. I waited. I was her slave and maybe she knew it… or not, but a hundred pesos was a hundred pesos… She turned and walked a few steps down […]
read moreVeracruz, Mexico. 1974. She seemed to be thinking it over now. “Don’t worry about the money, nena” I repeated. “I got enough to cover the night. It’ll be worth it to ya… Vamos?” Her eyes rolled back like a cash register for the briefest tenth of a second… Like a cartoon character, rolling up twin […]
read moreVeracruz, Mexico. 1974. I walked across the street and straight up to where she stood. Seeing me approaching, her older colleagues moved off with a hen-like mixture of respect and resentment. Professional cool with an edge of the Evil Eye… “La onda es veinte pesos, Guero, que tal?” She said with that same mischevious smirk. […]
read moreVeracruz, Mexico. 1974. As the days wore on, I felt that even the giant roaches that patrolled the dark corridors of the hotel like kindred spirits, hiding furtive and sinister in dark corners, had abandoned me. One time I woke up sweaty and hungover to bring a bag of dirty clothes that had sat festering […]
read moreVeracruz, Mexico. 1974. I’d been alone for so long now, drifting from town to town through endless, lawless, aimless days and nights that all blurred together under a common cloud of solitude. But my eyes and all my senses had always remained open and my happy encounters with other people – however brief and superficial […]
read moreJonathan Shaw is finishing up his rewrite of Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes and is suiting up for a cross-country motorcycle trip of Brazil. Over the next few weeks we will be featuring some travel-related blogs. This one was found in an old journal from 1978 and takes place in Suriname. Enjoy! RUNNING AWAY by […]
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