NOVEMBER 1974
Dear Doris,
I’ve been here in Chetumal ever since my last letter, going on two weeks now, walking along the dock, sleeping in a hammock and reading ‘The Idiot’ which I finally finished this morning, laying in the park, eating shrimp cocktails by the sea wall and playing soccer every day after school lets out with the kids near my guest house. Better friends I never had, though they don’t know a word of English, except “fuck you mother” and to that I reply with a similar phrase in Spanish and we all laugh to bust our guts. I’ll be leaving here tomorrow morning to check out Central America, and if I can’t get on a ship there to Brazil, I’ll head back this way and hitch around the Yucatan Peninsula and north along the Gulf coast to the port of Veracruz to try my luck shipping out from there, since that’s where all the truck drivers say It’ll be most likely for me to find work on a ship to South America. Anyway, I’m almost looking forward to that trip and there’s bound to be some beautiful beaches and little fishing villages along the Gulf coast, just as there were on the Pacific. You can try to drop me a card to lista de correos, Veracruz, Veracruz, Mexico, as I plan to stay there eventually until I get a ship, but don’t send it till after the 7th, as I understand they only hold mail for a week. Please get in touch with Paul and tell him I said hello. You can let him read this letter too. I hope he’s keeping his nose clean, though I don’t wanna be worried about it if he’s not, cuz I’m too far away in body, mind and spirit to do anything about it. Give my love to Grandma and whomever’s still alive of my old friends, and read them some of this if you feel like it, as I’ve lost everybody’s adress.
Your son loves you. J.
Beautiful composition in that photo & the last sentence grabs… a man’s love for his mother, in spite of; breaks the heart with the purity of it. Innocence!