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 of the outdoor bars around the portales with a bunch of sailors or maybe Paco… Yeh – there it was. She’d been out there selling flowers from table to table. She really seemed like just a child at the time. Amazing, I thought, as I recollected the charming little flower-vender girl of less than a year ago. So that’s how it went, I thought… The kids of the night, the doll-like little chiclette vendors… From chiclettes, to flower girl to whore – and then, in time just another fat old hag peddling stale pussy to drunk stevadores… Man, life was a cruel puppet master.
Suddenly I felt very old for my own short twenty years of life… I silently thanked the fates for having been born a male – not that I really thought I’d like to see thirty anyway, but man, those old ladies down in the alley, that was just too fucked up to even think about…
As we drank up she moved closer and began to talk. I hung on her words, riveted, fascinated awestruck. At first she just started to ramble, stream of consciousness… The sound and rythm of her voice was as melodic and hypnotic as the merry chatter of my dear little tropical blackbirds. Her words rolled across her tongue as smooth and effortless and graceful as the rolling sway of the salsa/rumba music dancing in the night air.
Copyright Jonathan Shaw 1974, 2009.
Beautiful!