Veracruz, 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 the alley. I watched as she talked awhile with one of the old hags. Her mom, the pimp. She handed over the money, gesturing in my direction with that animated series of motions that I’d spotted from afar.
The mother eyed me like a cow and nodded her head at Lupe and that was that. Deal done. She strutted back in my direction, head high and nodding merrily with an almost haughty swaggering stride.
She came up and took me by the arm and led me out of the alley. Now I had my prize and we were on our way. Where to? I wondered… but not for long.
As if by mutual unspoken natural propulsion, we wound up sitting at a table in one of the crowded outdoor cantinas by “Los Portales”, the place where I’d spent a good deal of time drinking with Paco or in the company of foreign sailors from the port. It was almost midnight. The place was going full pace by now, marimba bands playing, crowds strolling as the good times rolled. Suddenly the night was all lit up like a crazy drunken carnival again and life was good. The fiery little Indian girl beside me was heating up the night expertly with her own weird little hoodoo spell.
There was a cool breeze off the gulf riding in over the choppy waves beyond the port wall just across the way. All the usual characters were in attendance and sitting there at the open aired bars. Lupe was sitting by my side, life seemed okay. Yeh, life was good. All the feelings of desperate alienation and loneliness dispersed like a fog under the sun-the burning fire of crazy life emanating from this crazy little Lupe.
She hailed the waiter with a sharp whistle and called down two beers with a practiced working girl’s authority. She was in her element there. The waiter obviously knew her. A few other local characters acknowledged her too. She was no stranger to this place where I’d also spent so much time lately. Why hadn’t I ever noticed her here before, I wondered.
Then it hit me. I had seen her before!
Copyright Jonathan Shaw 1974, 2009
Jeezus, this is Good!
the suspense is killing me.